Post by THEO DAMASCA on Oct 19, 2021 22:22:08 GMT
Yesterday / 18th September 2005
He kept them in at night now, the tiny electric devices standing on sentry duty while his fiancée slept. Just the thought of the word had his lips curving as he pressed them against the side of Freyja’s head. ”It’s OK, I’ve got her.” His voice rough with sleep, kept low so didn’t drag her any further out of sleep than the squalling baby would.
Theo tucked the covers close around her, his eyes lingering on the face etched in the silvery moonlight that spilled over the bed. A pause could turn the mewling cries piped in through the baby monitor to all out shrieks at any moment but he bent, pressed his lips to her forehead for just a moment. He could. After all those months trapped on the other side, only watching as she hurtled towards this on her own.
What would he have done with that shield still up? Stood by with his hands wringing and concern carving lines deep into his face as Freyja exhausted herself with night after night of this. Felt the core of him tear open a little more every day that his brother spent here helping out … taking his place. Like a kid with his nose pressed to the window he desperately wanted through, something far more precious than the gleaming red bike or baseball mitt on the other side. Hollowed out by the need for it, knowing that it could be decades of that. God he would’ve done it for her too, grasping on to the thin thread of the woman who still held his heart even if it burned its way into his flesh, slowly carving away all he’d been.
It didn’t matter. He hadn’t had to, the reaper had brought him back, given him all he’d lost. Had guaranteed he could slip from their bed on bare feet to pad down the hallway towards the baby’s room. Inexpertly decorated in that rush to prepare for the baby’s arrival, all that they might have had eight months to handle squashed into those last couple of months when he could get his hands on.
He heard that whimpery cries intensify for a moment as he pushed the door open. Hazel definitely had her mother’s lungs, her face too. It stared up at him now, tears damp on those round pink cheeks, her lower lip quivering faintly as he scooped the baby up from her crib. ”What’s all the fuss about hey?” That same low croon he’d used on her mother sliding out as he settled the baby against his chest. Still warm from sleep, that sweet baby smell rising up from her as her head lolled heavy against his shoulder. It was amazing how seconds after their birth they lodged themselves tightly into your heart, sliding into a space made just for them, filling you in a way you never could planned for.
That pressure behind his eyes, in his sinuses, the tears of joy and relief and love that had flooded in almost daily since he’d rushed across that road building him again. Theo moved slowly, bobbing to a rhythm that only existed in his head, bouncing Hazel lightly as he hummed to her. His hand rubbed her back slowly, palm almost covering the whole thing. ”Mommy’s gonna end up drying both our tears at this rate,” he breathed to her. Still in jiggle the baby gently enough to ease the last hiccupping little sobs mode Theo bounced his way over to the monitor. Still there where he’d left her, blonde hair spilled on the edge of his pillow, the other filled vacuum in his chest swelling just enough to make it ache in a good way.
For a moment more he watched, then Theo thumbed the sound on the monitor off. He swayed back and forth, that awkward dance rhythm carrying him across to the window seat. The stack of pillows mounded up like a nest, propping against his back now as he eased down on it. Long legs drawn up, Hazel laid back against the seam of his thighs.
How the hell did it contain it all? One little organ in his chest, fit to burst as those eyes as pale as her mom’s fixed on his. Theo let a tiny fist close around his finger. That low hum buzzed in his throat, a faint vibration that was a world away from the static that’d plagued him half his life – so new, God, so different. ”You keep this up and we’re gonna get uncle Frank or uncle Kit over here every night. You’d like that huh? Big lugs walking the apartment, bouncing you all night. Hey, maybe we should, at least let mommy and daddy get some sleep.” Between his family and Freyja’s Hazel had the fiercest, most loving family any child could ever want.
The ache built though at the thought. He’d had all of that, his warrior princess, his hero brother, but still he’d lost it for a time, getting it back only by the grace of God and the help given so desperately by the reaper. So close to not having this. That burn started again, leaving Theo sniffing back the tears. ”Nothing’s gonna hurt you, baby, me and your mom and everybody else who loves you are always gonna keep you safe.” Even it took everything they had and more to make sure that the pain that had almost torn them apart didn’t touch their little girl.
Those big bright eyes didn’t take long to start drifting closed again, those tiny fingers gripping fiercely for a moment like she was fighting sleep with everything she had for a moment but as Theo’s whispered promises trailed off Hazel slipped under. His own eyes heavy, his head propped back against those pillows he began to drift himself. Not asleep, he couldn’t with Hazel tucked the way she was but he got close.
Time slipped away with the silky glide of the moon across that diamond dusted black velvet of the night sky above, drifting back in who the hell knew how long after. Stiff, wrapped in that exhaustion like the blanket he’d covered back over Freyja, Theo started awake again. He tilted his head slightly, saw the silhouette in the doorway and felt his lips curving in that smile that struck him whenever he saw her. Those dual parts of his heart warm and radiating that deep glow of satisfaction. ”Hey.” That sleepy rasp of a voice again. ”You were meant to sleep through. I got her…” Theo was already easing over on that bench seat though, one hand settled over the curve of Hazel’s belly, the other already extended to draw her in. Both his girls right there.
