Insightful, a future fic (Part 3A)

From the exact moment that Bridgette had entered their lives, everything had changed and nothing was going to be the same. Gone were the days where caution could always be thrown to the wind, where it didn't matter what happened when because it getting done was the only important thing; with an infant in the home things had to happen exactly as she dictated and not a moment later, lest she be given the chance to start crying about things. And while she was overall a good baby, she was a baby nonetheless and needed to be treated as such, even if her parents were clueless as to how to actually take care of her.

Perhaps referring to them as “clueless” wasn't the most appropriate, as they had both spent a lot of time with children prior to her arrival, but their experience was with older kids compared to her. It wasn't exactly a fair comparison to make when looking at her in all her tiny, most-likely-sleeping glory, and looking over to Justine, who was over a year old and wasn't absolutely dependent on adults for even the most basic of functions. Although making that comparison wasn't exactly reasonable in the first few weeks of Bridgette’s life, as there was a strict “do not bring Justine or any child around” rule that may or may not have been made after a sleepless night.

Things were most definitely different with her around, and coming to deal with them was a lot of the fun of parenting. For starters, everything that was planned had to be a joint effort, everything needed to be agreed on so that one parent would be with the baby at all times while the other could do what they wanted. On the surface it came off a lot like the agreement they'd had in the months prior, but now it was possible for it to be either adult leaving while the other had to stay home; of course, that didn't mean it was going to be that way. And in that first week of their child’s life they realized that maybe making it fair as to who got to go out when was going to be a lot harder than expected.

This was, naturally, because even though it had been a week, Bridgette had chosen a parent she liked being with more than the other, and it happened that the parent she liked was the one that tended to try to go out just a bit more than the other. “Try” being the key word, as the moment she gathered that she wasn’t with the parent she liked more, she’d start whimpering and coming close to crying (but never actually crying), which was a sound neither of them liked to hear. “This isn’t going to work, we’re never going to get her to understand that we both won’t always be here for her if we stop whatever we’re planning on doing the moment she starts whining,” Amanda grumbled, sounding equal parts upset at the fussing and dead tired. “Either we’re going to have to let her just cry, or you’re—“

“Do yourself a favor and don’t suggest what you’re thinking, there has to be another option without taking it to either of those extremes.” While he didn't seem to be as tired as his wife was, it was clear that the events of the past week in their lives had cost Green a fair amount of sleep as well, and when he spoke to her she rolled her eyes, not seeing things his way. “You know there has to be something, we can't both get stuck here with her and you said yourself that you'd rather it be me goingout right now, why would you try to fight that?”

“Because right now, you going out means me being stuck listening to her whine, and I don't think my heart can take that for very long. I guess you'll just have to wait until she falls asleep again before you can go.” That was how they seemed to be handling things for the moment, waiting until Bridgette was asleep before they did anything as to not bother her by whatever they did. It worked well, for the most part, but it did have the unfortunate consequence of if she woke up and didn't immediately find herself being comforted by the parent she wanted (which was almost always her father), she would cry until she got what she was looking for.

Still, there was no way they could give up going out entirely, not when they didn't want others around their daughter and therefore couldn't ask someone to come help them out. Their workaround was all they had at the moment, and it was going to have to be what they relied on until things settled down. But for when things were to settle down, who really knew, because it was already a bit odd that the baby already had a preference in who she liked being with and there was no telling when that was going to change.

That first week was torture for them both, ultimately, even if it was spent almost entirely with the baby who’d already taken hold of their hearts and wasn’t going to let go for anything. Those times where it was possible to get out for a bit, the only thing that happened was some shopping and, one time, a conversation was struck up with some friends who were out on their own as well. All those curious friends wanted to talk about was Bridgette and how she’d managed to change their lives already, though, and while that was a topic that Green rather enjoyed getting to tell them about, the moment they started offering up time to get their kids to meet her he wanted to get away from them. They were just offering what they had at the moment, and he understood that they meant no harm by it, but he knew that the plan was to keep other kids away from her until she was older, and he wasn’t going to change that on his own.

So when he got home after his rather long walk to keep his head clear from all the stress of having a newborn in the home, he was ready to move past what those friends had suggested, but his dearest wife had other ideas. “You know who came by while you were out?” she asked, while sitting down in the middle of the outrageously large blanket she’d managed to sew in the prior months. Without giving him time to answer, as there were a lot of potential people she could have been referring to, she went ahead and told him anyway. “Chase came by, said that he was thinking about us and wanted to check in and make sure we hadn’t somehow managed to kill her already.”

“Interesting, because there shouldn’t have been any reason for him to think we’d harmed her, I was telling him, and Kody, and everyone else who was there, about her before they said they were heading home.” Pausing for a moment to look around and make sure there weren’t any others who didn’t belong in the house there, he then continued with, “Did you tell him everything was fine and that he didn’t need to worry?”

“Why wouldn’t I have? Do you think I exist only to cause problems?” Amanda laughed, bringing both of her hands up to her cheeks as she looked at him and waited for his response. When he gave in and looked back at her, slightly unamused at what she’d just suggested, her hands dropped once more, going back to what they’d been doing before—one behind her to keep herself propped up, the other resting lightly on Bridgette’s back as the baby lay on the blanket, fast asleep. “Okay, I don’t, but I did get an earful from him about me doing exactly what I’m doing right now. Apparently it’s ‘bad’ to let her sleep like this, but I wasn’t going to fight with her any longer than I had to.”

“I’m not entirely sure what kind of fight you were having with her, given that she’s a baby, but I’ll take your word for it. Why would he say it’s bad, anyway?” What followed was a quick explanation of exactly what Chase had said when he’d stopped by, something about things he’d heard from midwives he’d worked alongside over the years, and by the time the story was over Green was almost tempted to head back out to go find Chase and ask him more about it. There was clearly some big reason for why this had been shared, it might have been for the best to figure out what it was, but before he could decide whether or not he wanted to do that, he heard the tiniest of sighs come from the floor.

“You better get that sword off your hip and get down here before she wakes up for real and screams because it’s just me here with her again,” Amanda said, gently stroking Bridgette’s back with the hand she still had on it, trying to keep her asleep. Under her palm, she could feel the small and steady breaths the baby was taking, several of them accompanied by more sighs that were nearly unbelievable.

The calmness of the moment wouldn’t last forever, and for right then it was almost adorable to see such a tender scene, a mother’s attempt to keep her child fast asleep, but they knew that it was going to change, and it was going to change quickly. Following along with the demand that had been made, Green took his sword and propped it up by the door, in case something happened and he needed it somewhere nearby, before sitting down next to Amanda, both of them more focused on their child than each other, knowing that she was seconds away from crying and starting a vicious cycle of them having to calm her down.

Except the crying never came, her waking up was peaceful and came with more little sighs that she started giving while looking around, her eyes trying to adjust to being open and awake once more. “Huh, how about that, she didn’t cry like you thought she would,” Green remarked, pushing his wife’s hand away from their daughter’s back so that he could take her place in what she’d been doing. “Either she’s getting over that already, or she could tell we were both here, meaning there was no reason for her to cry. I think we both hope it’s the first option, hm?”

“Given that she wasn’t thrilled to be here with me earlier, I’m sure it’s the second one. Nice try though, you gave it a good shot.” Not bothered that she’d been pushed away, Amanda carefully stood up, making sure that she didn’t disturb how Bridgette was laying even slightly. As she stretched, she said, “I’ve been stuck sitting down there with her basically since right after you left for your little walk. I’m going out and doing something for myself now, you can totally handle her for a bit.”

“You're...what?” Her declaration came as a surprise to Green, but after watching her pace around the room for a moment before disappearing to go grab one of her axes, he accepted that she was going to do whatever she wanted, and that was that. “Okay then, you have fun, but a little bit of discussing what your plans are might be nice before throwing them out in the open.”

She reemerged from their bedroom, dressed like a halfway normal member of society while tying an axe to her back. “Figured you would tell me I couldn't go out if I asked, but, uh, there is nothing stopping me from going out right now except having to actually watch  Bridgette. And if you're here, doing that, that means I don't have to!” Her face was lighting up in excitement, and it was hard to not want to go along with what she was saying.

Except she was saying it to the one person who had to always put up with these decisions, and he wasn't amused by it. “I don't know, it's starting to get late, are you sure going out right now’s the best idea?”

“Not my fault you went out and took up most of the daylight time. You can't keep me locked up in this house forever, I want to go out just as much as you do, maybe even more, but…” Clearing her throat to put on a mocking voice, Amanda gave her best impression of some know-it-all who would say things like she was going to. “Oh, you know, something something mothers need to be present for their children something babies need lots of care and attention something else probably stupid, and done. Leaving now, love you!”

“I really hate when you do that, but okay.” Watching as she walked (or more accurately, nearly ran) out the door, Green shook his head before pulling his focus off what just happened and putting it back on the child still looking around underneath his hand. “Guess it's just the two of us here now,” he said to her, even though she wouldn't understand a word of what he was saying. “Don't worry, we'll have some fun while she's gone. Or, uh, as much fun as we can, I suppose.”

He leaned down closer to Bridgette to see if she was making any noises that he could take as an answer, which ultimately proved to be the wrong choice as she saw the shadow coming over her and started screeching like all infants do. Even though it was her favorite parent, it was still terrifying to her and she was letting him know. “O...kay, I suppose you don't like that, sorry.” He moved back to how he had been before, letting her calm herself down, although the crying did seem to last for a fair amount of time. In fact, it lasted so long that he began to wonder if something else had caused her to get upset, not just him disturbing her. Running through all the options in his head, he found himself hoping that it was just a little spook and nothing more, but there was no telling with someone who was incapable of verbalizing what was wrong with them.

This parenting thing was so much easier when the kid was able to be returned to someone else when they started being difficult. Even though, honestly, was this that difficult at all?

As time went by, things got easier to handle, and it became less of a struggle to do anything on one’s own because Bridgette wasn’t quite as needy as she had been to start. By the time she was a month old, her parents decided it was acceptable for her to interact with other children, even if it would be a lot of poking and prodding on the other kids’ part and a lot of crying on hers, and that led to a string of days where Justine stayed exclusively at their house, not wanting to leave Bridgette’s side just as much as the baby didn’t want to leave her parents’. That was an adventure of an experience, and when they came out of it they were thankful that they had a well-behaved child who loved them so much come to visit, as opposed to a child who wouldn’t have been so respectful to someone that much younger.

It wasn’t even that Justine liked her, or being with her, but it was more that she was so excited to get to spend time with people she hadn’t seen in a while that she was doing exactly what was asked of her with no fuss. (There might have been a little confusion when her fathers first brought her over and she was introduced to the baby, who promptly started crying when faced with so many new people, but as evidenced by her later behavior, that was moved past in no time flat.) For the days that she was there, when she was almost attached to Bridgette at the hip, she was quick to ask questions about what was going on, about who the baby was and why she was around, all of which either adult present would answer as simply as they could. She was happy to be in their presence once more, and she was going to try her best to understand why they kept this new little thing around.

“Who is?” she asked multiple times, staring straight into Bridgette’s face (most of the time with her fast asleep when she did it), each time getting the same answer as before: that the baby was Bridgette, that she was there to stay, and that they could be friends as soon as she was old enough to do stuff. In response to that, she would lean in and roughly kiss the baby’s face, waking her up if she was indeed asleep, before replying over the sounds of initial fussing, “’kay, thank!” While it was adorable to see and hear, at the same time it was disturbing the baby every time it happened and that wasn’t acceptable.

After that first visit, each subsequent one felt a little shorter and a lot less eventful. As Justine became more comfortable around the baby she stopped choosing to sit right beside her or whichever of her parents was holding her, instead going back to the behaviors she’d partaken in before she’d been disallowed from visiting. The one new thing she did was that she’d pull out the blanket from wherever it was kept when not in use and throw it out onto the ground the best she could, trying to get the most colorful of the patches out so she could look at them. “Man’a, what is?” she would always say as she pointed at a patch, knowing that of either of the adults around, the person she vaguely remembered seeing make the blanket would most likely be the one to know what everything meant on it.

And, depending on what she was doing, Amanda’s answer would come within seconds to minutes. If she was just sitting there, watching Justine bring out the blanket with Bridgette on her lap, she would be able to answer the question right as it was asked, calling back to exact thoughts or memories that were attached to the blanket patch that was being asked about. She would tell Justine stories about the patches, explaining every small detail in them if she picked one that wasn’t just colorful fabric, and if she was able to she would carefully set Bridgette aside so she could get down on her hands and knees on the blanket with Justine, pointing out patches that meant the same.

If she was in the middle of doing something when she was asked, she would step into view of the patch just long enough to see which one it was, before going back to what she was doing, telling the story about the fabric while keeping to her motherly commitments. It didn’t matter to Justine if she was hearing the story from near or afar; as long as she was hearing it and was able to look at the patch and garble out some string of words that showed her understanding, that was what she cared about. It was merely a perk when someone got down on the blanket with her while she was looking at it, not a necessity.

As there were a lot more patches on that blanket than anyone who hadn’t seen its gradual creation knew about, this game took them a long while to get through, before Amanda found herself being asked to tell the same stories multiple times (and Green found himself catching how many times she’d repeated the same story just in his presence). “Are you *sure* you want me to tell you about that one?” she asked, after Justine had pointed to one of the patches where she’d sewn in family names, the girl eagerly nodding in return. “I don’t know, I have a feeling you can probably read what it says by now.”

“It pretty!” Justine replied, throwing both of her hands onto the stitching on the patch. “P’ease, Man’a? It pretty and…” She let her lower lip jut out, starting to wobble as she looked up at Amanda. “P’ease?”

Looking down at the girl, Amanda felt her attempt at pulling at her heartstrings start to succeed and she sighed. “I guess I can tell you about it again, I mean, it’s not like there’s much of a story to that one.” She opened her mouth to start explaining, but closed it right back up as she shifted her eyes towards the child she was holding on her hip, who had her hand in her mouth and was gnawing on it. “Hold on, I have an idea, I’ll tell the story but if, and only if, you’ll hold Bridgette while I do it.”

“Hmm, okay!” Back to being cheerful, Justine adjusted how she was sitting so that she was able to hold something in her lap if it were given to her, and once Amanda determined that it wasn’t a stupid idea to hand a baby off to a little kid, she carefully set Bridgette down exactly where Justine had left space for her, not even a whimper coming from either child. “Hi baby,” she cooed, giving a small wave with her fingers in Bridgette’s face, before looking back to Amanda expectantly. “Story now, p’ease.”

“I hear you, don’t worry,” Amanda said as she sat down on the blanket next to the two girls, able to do so with ease because she wasn’t having to deal with still holding the baby in the process. “Okay, so, that one, like I said already I’m pretty sure you can read it for yourself at this point, but that patch is the one that I—“

She was cut off by the front door opening, something that startled her into giving a shocked and surprised scream, which in turn made Justine scream louder, leading to Bridgette being scared enough to start crying. In the immediate aftermath of the door opening, Amanda had to reach back over and grab her baby so that she would start calming down, the crying (and the reason for it being mostly on Justine’s shoulders) enough to make the older girl start sniffling as well. “Er, what happened here?” Green asked, trying to make sense of what had happened as he’d come home from being out. “Why are both the girls crying?”

“You scared Justine when you opened the door,” Amanda lied, not wanting to put the blame for the situation on herself. “She screamed, which scared Bridgette, and now they’re both crying. Mind helping me out here?”

“Something tells me I don’t want to tell you what we received today over the sound of crying, so sure. Hand her here, you’re better at getting Justine to calm down than I am and you can’t do that while you’re trying to do the same for Bridgette.” He was right, and Amanda knew it, so she let him take Bridgette from her arms before she reached over and grabbed Justine, holding her in her lap in a big hug, while he worked on slowly rocking Bridgette back to a state of calmness. Hearing her get quieter and quieter, until she was barely making noise and her face wasn’t so upset-looking from screaming, was beautiful, but while he was rocking her he wasn’t focused so much on getting her calm as he was thinking about how doing this had changed over time.

Long since past were the days where rocking her back and forth like this was one of the few things that he would do with her because of how small she was, completely incapable of anything except crying and sleeping. Now, as she was calming down, he could see her starting to smile at him, the corners of her tiny mouth perking up, followed by one of her arms raising to try and grab at him, the other hand making its way toward her mouth so she could chew on her fingers. If seeing her when she was a newborn made his heart melt, seeing her like this now did it twice as fast, and she wasn’t going to stop growing and developing anytime soon.

“You mentioned us receiving something?” The question came as a surprise to him, as he hadn’t realized that the room had gone quiet aside from the sounds of everyone breathing, and it took a few seconds for him to gather that he’d gotten lost in thinking about how much his baby had grown in the few months they’d had her around. Instead of a verbal response, he simply nodded towards Amanda, who was watching him and understood how he was so fixated on Bridgette to say anything. “So, are you going to tell me about it, or are you going to just keep thinking about how amazing our child is?”

“Right, there was something. A foreign letter. Nothing too unusual, given that we’re considered to have committed crimes of war and all that, but what’s strange about it is that we’re the only ones to have gotten one.” Since he was still holding Bridgette and honestly didn’t want to let go of her, Green turned slightly so that his side was facing Amanda, giving her the idea to reach towards him. After directing her to where he’d placed the letter, wrapped around the blade of his sword because that way he wouldn’t lose it unless there was danger, she took it and examined it, seeing that it had already been torn open. “We, as in, myself and everyone you’d expect to be involved in this matter, decided we’d open it and see what it’s about.”

“So you had our friends open our mail and didn’t think I’d mind it?” She was carefully reading how it was addressed, how it looked professional and not like something that would be being sent to people like them, who were basically criminals. “This looks like someone was writing to check in on us, but from…why would someone in *Kibou*, of all places, be trying to contact us?”

Without flinching, having a strong assumption as to where her mind had taken her, he replied, “That’s why we looked at it as a group first, to make sure certain people weren’t sending us things. And it’s not anyone like that, don’t worry, nor is it something too concerning. As for why we were chosen, of all people, that’s where I’m unsure of things.”

“Well, what’s it about, maybe I could make some sense of it all!” Not waiting for an answer, as she usually did, Amanda went ahead and pulled the letter out for herself and started reading through it, her eyes going wide as she got through to its ending line rather quickly, all while Green watched her, unsure of how he was supposed to have explained it. He’d even read the thing, discussed it with several people, and still had no idea how to bring up what it suggested for them. She seemed to be just as confused when she was done with it, setting it down and resting her chin on the top of Justine’s head once she’d finished. “I don’t think I get why we were sent that either, honestly. Why does someone there want to send their kid here for a few months?”

“Given that everyone else has been parents for longer than we have, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it has something to do with what you’re doing right now.” He was, of course, referring to the fact that she was sitting on the floor with someone else’s child on her lap, something that not everyone else did. “Even when you said you hated kids you still showed more love for them than a lot of other people, maybe it’s just been noted by others and is now being put to use?”

She twisted her mouth in thought as she considered that possibility, before shrugging. “I guess that makes sense, but at the same time, how would  anyone there know about how I am now? Do you think that…?”

“I’d say there’s very little possibility that she might have something to do with this, but she’s most likely dead at this point, anyway. Don’t get hung up on that.” Shaking his head, Green added, “Either way, whether someone offered you up for this, or if your loving nature was remembered from when we spent time there, someone in Kibou wants to send their kid here, to us, using Kyoko as their middleman, and what are we going to do about it?”

Amanda shrugged again, giving the letter a second glance before turning her attention back to the kids in the room. “Nothing right now, I’m pretty sure I was in the middle of story time before you walked in and disturbed the peace, so I’m going to go back to that if you’d be okay with it.” In her lap, Justine started clapping before climbing off and getting back onto the blanket in the exact position she’d been in to start, looking at the fabric block that she’d asked about. “So? Are you okay with that?”

“If you’re okay with me listening to you, sure.” There were so many other things he could have chosen to do right then, between going back out to train since it seemed she had everything handled at home, or trying to figure out some response to that letter on his own, but it felt right for Green to just stay there, Bridgette in his arms, listening to the explanation of why, exactly, there was a square on the blanket that had messily-stitched names in it. He knew the story word-for-word, he knew why the names were there and he knew the struggle of putting them there and the lament that the square wasn’t actually big enough for all of what it needed, which led to there being a second square for the same purpose, but spending that time there, with his family and someone who honestly had claim to an honorary family member title.

Days like this weren’t going to happen every day, and they needed to be enjoyed when they happened, no matter the circumstances.

The second letter came a couple months later, after the first one had faded into the far back of everyone’s minds. No reply had ever been written, nothing had ever come of it, and they’d just assumed that silence meant that they were going to be looked over for what they’d been asked about. So when that second letter arrived, the address written just as pristinely as the first time around, it took a few minutes of remembering that the first one had ever existed at all to not go into a state of confusion about someone from Kibou writing them.

However, even with the memory of the other letter, it still didn’t quite make sense why they were being contacted in the first place. “She must really want us to watch this kid,” Amanda remarked as she looked at the letter’s envelope while Green was holding it, not quite having opened it yet. “I have no idea why she’d be so insistent about it, though, so maybe this is her telling us that we aren’t needed and that we can go on in our lives without this.”

“I don’t think it would be that easy to get out of this,” he replied, carefully opening the top of the envelope and pulling the letter out, seeing the end signature showing the letter’s legitimacy from Kyoko before any of its content and hoping for the best with the rest of the letter. “She’s at least formal in how she signs off, she must mean business with this.” As he unfolded it and began reading, he was quickly made to understand just how much business was indeed meant, and before he was even halfway through the letter he was turning it so that Amanda could read it as well. “Like I said, it’s not going to be as easy as ignoring her first message to get us out of this. She’s telling us all about this child now.”

“But we didn’t tell her we wanted to take care of them!” Her voice came off as whiny, which she corrected when she followed that up with, “I mean, if we have to, we have to, but we didn’t ask for this. Please tell me she at least says how old this kid is.”

He was still reading as she asked, but he shook his head after glancing over the rest of the letter for any age-related phrases. “Doesn’t look like it, she just refers to him as ‘the child’ most of the time, except where she says his name and that he’ll be…” His voice trailed off as the last sentences of the letter were glanced over, the information contained in them enough to make him reconsider going along with all of this. “Uh, he’ll be here in a month’s time, give or take a few days. Our silence must not have been taken to mean anything.”

“What do you mean, a month’s time? Let me see that!” Nearly ripping the letter from his hands so she could read it entirely for herself, she was just as taken aback at the conclusion as he had been. “Oh no, we aren’t doing this without some more information! We have to write her right now and tell her that we need her to share more before this happens!”

“I don’t think it would be worth it, by the time she received our response she’d most likely being heading this way with him. We’ll just have to handle it when it happens.” The passive reaction wasn’t exactly the best option to take, but trying to stop something already in motion seemed pointless. “Let’s at least give her a reply letter to let her know our doors are open for this child, and see what comes of it.”

“I mean, do we really have a choice at this point? Let's hope this child isn't too bad, even though we don't know a thing about him aside from his name!” Amanda threw the letter to the ground, spitting her words as she did, and from the other room they could both hear a confused cry as a result of the noise. “Damn it, I didn't mean to wake her up, I'll go take care of her if you'll do the honors of writing that response.”

She was already heading into the bedroom before he had a chance to respond, her escaping the conversation like she always did when she didn't want to do something. “You'll end up asking me to take care of her anyway, why even try to hide that?” he asked, as he picked the letter back up and started composing some response in his head, finding that maybe it was best that the one with the reasonable reactions was the one tasked with responding. At least with him writing it, there was little chance of the response being attacking or rude, demanding answers when none were going to be given. When she came back, he hadn't started writing anything but had a fairly decent idea of what he was going to say, and he was about to run his thoughts by her when she sat Bridgette down in his lap, grinning as she did.

“I figured she would want you over me, so as soon as she was done crying I decided I was going to hand her over. Hope you weren't planning on actually starting that letter right now.” Amanda’s grin faltered when he looked at her, disappointed not only that he had correctly called what she was going to do, but that she had actually done it and thought he wouldn't mind. “Oh, don't look at me like that, you know I hate when you make me feel like I've done something wrong.”

“I was going to tell you how I was going to reply, but obviously you have no intentions of letting me get around to doing that.” Looking down at Bridgette to see her beaming up at him, not even leaning against him for support as she sat in his lap, Green sighed, not wanting to cause any issues with what he was given. “I'll just give it more thought and write it the first chance I get to, I suppose.”

That first chance was later that night, but naturally he’d forgotten about having said he’d write it and moved on without giving it a second thought. It wasn’t until he saw the letter again the next morning that he remembered he really did need to pen a response eventually, but already he had things to do, people to care for, that kind of business. How was he going to prioritize writing a letter over making sure his daughter was happy? He wasn’t, that was that, and if it meant that the letter never got written, that was how it was going to be; but he *couldn’t* let it be like that, not in this situation, and so at a time where he wasn’t the one watching Bridgette he quickly wrote out what he felt was an appropriate response and sent it on its way the following day.

When nothing else was sent to them, it was a guessing game as to if this was going to actually happen or not, especially since it had taken two attempts at contact for anything to be said in return. But exactly as mentioned in what they’d been sent, the child came to their doorstep a month after the second letter’s arrival, brought by the stern and professional looking Kyoko, who seemed to want to deposit the child and move on without another word. But when she came into the house to drop him and his belongings off, she found that only one of the two adults that lived there were around, something explained to her as a “normal occurrence”. “Yeah, if we’d known you were coming around today, I bet he’d have chosen not to go out training right now,” Amanda explained, eyeing the child that Kyoko had with her while trying to keep Bridgette snugly in her own arms. “I mean, he’ll be back soon enough, I’m sure you could just wait around for him if you wanted.”

In response, Kyoko let the child loose from her grasp and tossed what belongings he had to the side, stating that she wasn’t going to wait around, that she would be back later, and that the time she was gone would be a test to make sure the home was a good fit. She was gone without any further explanation, leaving Amanda there to figure out as much as she could about this mystery child while she was alone. When the front door opened a little while later, Green coming inside without a clue what had happened while he was gone, he was greeted not by his wife or his own child, but this little boy who’d been dropped off in his absence, and he was unsure of what was going on, to say the least. “Do you mind explaining whose child you’ve stolen this time?” he loudly asked, crouching down to meet the child face-to-face, looking at him suspiciously. “I don’t think he looks like any kid we’ve had over here before, not even ignoring his hair color. Where’d you get him?”

As the boy puffed his cheeks out and got right up into Green’s face to show he wasn’t scared of him, Amanda called back from the other room, “I didn’t steal him, he was dropped off here! That’s Jonah, our new little buddy for the next few months!”

Eyes going wide, Green repeated, “That’s…Jonah? He’s quite a bit younger than I’d have figured him to be, don’t you think? Looks like he can’t be all that much older than Bridgette, there’s no way he could be anywhere close in age to Justine. Did you ask about how old he is or anything like that? Or did you just let him in here without learning anything?”

“She didn’t want to tell me about him, she just said that she’d come back later to make sure we could handle this.” Judging by the sound of her footsteps approaching, she had stopped whatever she’d been doing and had come to see what they were doing, and she was met with the sight of small little Jonah, with his pink hair and hands currently holding bundles of flower-pattered fabric, right up in Green’s face. “Oh my, I think he thinks he’s intimidating you or something, but isn’t he adorable?”

“Adorable, sure, but don’t you think he’ll be a bit much for us to handle?” He reached out to grab the boy, but at the movement Jonah jumped back and ran away, giggling the whole time. At least without him right there, Green was able to stand back up and look at Amanda properly, seeing that she was without a child in her possession. “Er, have you already forgotten about the one we have? How can we take care of two if—“

Amanda laughed, rolling her eyes as she did. “Please, I wouldn’t forget about Bridgette even if I tried to. Would be kinda hard to manage to do that. She’s napping right now, all the excitement of having a new friend around wore her out quick. This boy’s full of energy and had me running around after him the whole time it was just me and him out here, I think he’ll be a blast to watch!”

“Sounds sarcastic, but I’ll take your word for it. Let’s just see how it goes until Kyoko comes back, then we can figure out what we’re going to do from there.” A few moments passed, both of them watching the boy run around still giggling, before Green actually took note of what he was holding and looked to Amanda for answers. “Why, exactly, does he have some of your spare fabric?”

“I may have started thinking about making him a blanket for while he’s here,” she replied with a casual shrug. “He’ll probably see that we, as a family, have one to share, so why can’t he have one as well?”

“Something tells me I shouldn’t allow you to wrap yourself up in that kind of project again, not after last time where you let it get way out of hand.” That led him to look to where the giant blanket normally was sitting, only to find it missing from its spot. “What did you do with it, hm?”

Laughing again, she started for where Jonah was running around, his movements not perfectly balanced, and right as he looked like he was going to fall she scooped him up, holding him upside down while he squealed in excitement. “It’s being used for its proper purpose right now, which is to comfort our child while she sleeps. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to get back to starting a blanket for this little guy, so that he’s got something to comfort him while he’s here.”

They weren’t even positive he was going to be staying with them, and yet she was already diving into a project she wasn’t going to quit until she’d gone overboard with it. The next few hours were spent getting to know the boy, who didn’t have many words he could say but loved shouting what he could. He also loved climbing onto people and getting them to cuddle him while he tried telling them stories, which worked when neither adult was doing anything, but when he attempted it while Amanda was beginning to sew fabric squares together, or when Green was cleaning his sword from that morning’s practice, or when either of them was holding Bridgette, it didn’t work very well at all.

On that third instance, it wasn’t so much because he wasn’t handling himself well around the younger child, but rather because he couldn’t make himself fit with her in anyone’s arms and feel like he was getting what he wanted. She didn’t seem to be bothered by him squishing in with her; in fact, she seemed to become more vocal when he was around, kicking and clapping and screeching up a storm. He couldn’t get both arms of someone around him if she was there, though, and so he’d always wander off to try and get what he was looking for, and she’d quiet back down until he came back.

That night, upon Kyoko’s return to see that he’d settled in quite nicely with the family, she explained his entire backstory and everything she felt they deserved to know about him before they made their final decision on keeping him or not. As she told them things she’d withheld to this point, there was reason to consider sending him away, but something stopped both of them from telling her that they couldn’t do it, that they couldn’t be in charge of the child that belonged to someone who’d wronged them like his mother had. He was just a little kid, half a year older than their own child, there was no way he could be held accountable for what his mother had done.

He deserved the chance to get away from his life for a few months, and their home was where he was going to get that chance. She left them with a vague estimation of when she’d be back to pick him up, reminding them that he wasn’t theirs to keep and to not get too attached because this would not become his permanent home under any circumstances whatsoever, even if they fell deeply in love with him. As she closed the door on them, heading back to her own life alone for a little while, they were left with the fact that they were now in charge of a child that everyone else might honestly hate, and that meant that keeping who his mother was needed to be well-hidden from anyone who happened to see them with him. They might have understood the “don’t blame him for what she did” thing, but there was no guarantee anyone else would.

Most importantly, even though they had to put aside their feelings about his mother to truly appreciate him, their daughter didn’t have to do the same. She didn’t have that emotional baggage to contend with as she played with him, she just saw him as someone who was willing to keep coming back to her and chase her around. She’d just started getting good at crawling around on her own, so she wasn’t nearly as fast as Jonah was on his feet, but they were still good for going around and around the limited space in the house, getting into as much trouble as they could while out of view of any adult.

He was a darling towards her, always making sure she wasn’t too far behind or getting frustrated if he was doing something she couldn’t. If one of them was around, the other simply had to be nearby, no exceptions outside of naptimes. And if it was only one of them in view, it meant that the other had to be around a corner, or most often, hiding under the giant blanket that seemed to get dragged out on an almost hourly basis. (Jonah’s obsession with pulling it out and finding all the patches that had flowers or sparkles rivaled Justine’s interest in hearing stories about it, and it honestly made both Green and Amanda miss the girl, as she hadn’t been over once since Jonah had come to stay with them, but at the same time it solidified the idea that he needed a blanket of his own.)

Of course, there was inevitably going to be an instance of one child being around with the other nowhere to be found, and while they went to great lengths to prevent it from happening, it was only a matter of time. It came one day as Jonah played, by himself, with some of Bridgette’s toys, little dolls that she’d been given all in a row, him counting them off one by one in his own way. Looking up from the sewing she was doing, Amanda smiled at the sight, but quickly realized that she couldn’t see or hear her daughter anywhere. “Jonah, can you tell me where Bridgette is?” she asked, setting her work aside just in case she needed to go looking for her. “You’re playing with her toys but not with her.”

He held up one of the dolls, a cloth one dressed up like a fighter fit for the battlefield, and laughed, dropping the doll face-down on the floor. “That’s not an answer, you have to know where she is, you were with her when I started sewing. You’re going to tell me where she went, aren’t you?” His lips were sealed, especially after he picked up a different doll, this one a princess, and dropped it the same way. “Come on, you have to tell me, that’s what good boys do when someone asks them for something.”

Watching him continue picking up dolls and dropping them made her heart sink, because she hadn’t noticed that it had been only him sitting there until then, and she’d been sewing for at least an hour at that point. While it was unlikely that Bridgette had gotten herself into a bad situation, it was still possible that she was stuck somewhere and couldn’t get out, and for a mother to face that wasn’t very fun at all. “Okay, you have to promise me you’ll behave while I go find her then,” she said as she stood up, making sure to tuck her needle into her fabric so Jonah couldn’t prick himself on it. “If I come back and you’ve been naughty, you’re not going to get your own blanket after all.” He didn’t seem fazed even slightly by the threat, which worried her; what if he had done something to Bridgette? She wasn’t old enough to know how to make good decisions, but at the same time, he wasn’t old enough to make bad ones for her. She must have gone off exploring on her own, simple as that.

But after tearing through the house, looking in every corner and under every piece of furniture that she could have been hiding in, Amanda wasn’t able to find any trace of her, which was only making her worry. How did she manage to lose track of her own child like this? There was no way she’d lost her, not when she’d been so good about making sure she knew where she was at all times, just for her to disappear like this. “What do I do? There’s nowhere else inside here that she could be hiding, and I have no idea how long she’s been gone, so I don’t know if looking outside would be worth it…”

Her eyes moved towards the front door, shut tightly like normal. There was no way it would have been opened without her knowing that it had been, which meant that Jonah couldn’t have opened it to let Bridgette outside, so if she had somehow gotten out, it would have been the last time the door was opened. Which had been at about the same time she’d started sewing, when she had realized that she needed more thread if she was going to make any progress beyond a could squares and basically begged for her husband to go out and get her more. But he would have mentioned if he had taken her with him, to keep her from freaking out and panicking like she currently was, so there was no way he’d have done that.

It seemed like it was the only option though, as she thought more about it, and as calming as it was to know that she most likely had solved the mystery of where Bridgette had disappeared to, it was distressing because until he came back, she had no way to prove it. That was when she heard the familiar giggle (although slightly muffled) of a content child, and her heart quite nearly skipped a few beats at the sound. Spinning on her toes, she frantically looked around to see where the noise was coming from, but all she heard was more giggles, followed by the distinct sound of her child blowing spit bubbles, something she only did when she was absolutely amused. What *had* she managed to get into, if she hadn’t been found in simple hiding places?

Looking up just a bit, as the noises seemed to be at eye-level if not higher, Amanda still couldn’t see anything that would have told her where Bridgette was, which was only making her panic more. She could hear her, but she still had no idea where she was, and that meant that where she was could easily be somewhere dangerous and harmful. “Okay, I get that you’re having fun, but you can have fun by coming back to me,” she said, voice soft and trying to sound less like she was freaking out and more like she really wanted her child back with her. “I don’t like you playing games like this, not when I don’t know where you are.”

Walking over to her side, as many of the dolls as he could carry in his arms, Jonah rammed his shoulder into Amanda’s leg and, after she was looking down at him, grinned at her. “Up?” he asked, dropping the dolls at their feet to raise his arms, beckoning for her to hold him. She hesitated for a second, considering the chance of her needing to make a dive to grab her daughter when she came out of her hiding spot, but decided that there was no way she would need to do that. Once Jonah was in her arms, he wrapped himself around her in a big hug and laughed, covering her face in slobbery child kisses.

The giggling coming from where Bridgette was hiding quieted down, her watching her mother being attacked by another child’s love, and she started to cry, the visual of what was happening enough to break her heart. This, of course, made Amanda more frantic on trying to find her, because the sound of her crying was more distressing than losing track of her ever could have been, and now with Jonah in her arms there wasn’t anything she could do without upsetting him as well. So she was forced to keep looking around, still struggling to find the girl even though she had a very loud noise to work off of.

This is what Green came home to, expecting to see everything exactly as it had been when he’d left, only to find the house flooded with crying and searching. He didn’t bother asking what had happened, he merely set down what he’d gone out to get and, within seconds, pulled open a cupboard door that had gotten itself stuck mostly closed, one that was led up to by several drawers that had previously been opened. The moment that door came open, the crying stopped, Bridgette looking out at her father with her tear-filled eyes but crying no longer. “How did you end up in here?” he asked, not addressing anyone but the girl, who didn’t respond in any way except a few blinks. “Did someone put you here? Or did you manage to climb in by yourself?”

“I had no idea she could do that,” Amanda said, not ready to admit that she’d not looked in that cupboard, which was just about eye-level for her, because she hadn’t considered the idea of Bridgette using the lower drawers to climb. “I figured she had to have been hiding somewhere easier to get into.”

“Hiding, huh? I doubt you were playing a game with her, so let me guess, you lost track of her and everything else while working on that blanket, didn’t you?” He was right, and she knew she was being called out, so all she did was give him a sheepish smile when he turned to look at her, now holding Bridgette in his own arms to keep her safe and calm. “You send me out to get you something and you lose track of the one child here that’s actually ours. How could you do that?”

There wasn’t really any reason for how she could do it, it hadn’t been intentional, but now she felt horrible about it happening at all. “I don’t know, I guess she’s got an adventurous streak in her or something. Honestly I thought she’d gotten out with you when you left until I heard her giggling, so at least she didn’t sneak outside.” Looking towards that cupboard again, one that normally held sewing supplies so that they were out of reach, there was a moment of thankfulness that all of the dangerous objects hadn’t been in there, it only being fabric scraps that weren’t needed; that was quickly overshadowed by her actually looking to see how high up off the ground it was. For a child who wasn’t even walking yet to manage to pull herself up inside of it was impressive, albeit terrifying because it meant that she’d get into more dangerous situations in due time. “I hope she doesn’t get used to finding high places to hide, I don’t know if my heart could take that.”

“Imagine if she managed to fall out of there, because you didn’t notice that she’d climbed up to begin with. You wouldn’t forgive yourself if she had a scratch on her.” He spoke the truth, and his honesty made her feel worse about everything than she already did. From that moment on, she made sure that if she was getting wrapped up in something, such as blanket-making, she was either not alone at home, or any children under her watch were asleep. She couldn’t risk letting something like that happen again, and if it meant pushing back the finish date of the blanket for Jonah, that was how it was going to be.

His time spent with them went on and on, him never leaving the house and never meeting any of the other adults that tended to come by at times. They had all been warned to stay away, just for the summer, and everyone was doing well to heed the warning, but as the summer started winding down and it crept closer and closer to an event that other adults would be appreciated at, the possibility of having everyone meet Jonah after all was getting to an all-time high. “What are we going to do about him if he’s still here for Bridgette’s birthday?” It was a question on both of their minds, as they wanted to do something for their daughter to mark one year of life, but when Amanda vocalized it that day, it became a real issue they had to deal with.

“I suppose we’ll have to let everyone see the fairy child we’ve been taking care of,” Green replied, looking towards the little boy as he lay on the floor, wrapped up in the incomplete version of his own blanket, while Bridgette was similarly wrapped in her own blanket. “It wouldn’t be fair to her if we gave her nothing because he was around.”

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking we’d give her nothing, we’re going to give her all we can! I just didn’t know if we’d have to resort to drastic measures in order to make sure no one saw him, or if we’d let them go ahead and meet him, or something else. I’m not going to let her birthday go by without us doing something for it, no way.” While the issue of what to do about Jonah had been most prominent on her mind, Amanda had done quite a bit of thinking and planning for what they could do for Bridgette, and she was ready to unleash all those potential ideas whenever she was given the chance. That chance, though, needed to come once they knew what they’d do about the boy, so that she knew whether or not he’d be included in the plans.

Once they decided that letting everyone meet him for that specific occasion wasn’t going to bring about the end of the world, that was when she started talking about how they needed to make the celebrations a two-day event, the actual day of her birth being spent just with family and the following day being the one where everyone else got to be involved. In theory, it would work very well and all of their friends (and their kids) could come together for a great time to celebrate a child that no one had ever thought would exist. Invitations were made, plans were set, and everything was falling right into place…

Until the day before her birthday when Kyoko showed up at their doorstep, asking for Jonah back until the following year. Saying goodbye to him was next to impossible without tears, as everyone had grown attached to the boy, and after they packed up all his things, minus his blanket which still wasn’t finished, sending him on his way was a quick mood-dampener. There wasn’t any chance of him getting to stick around for one more day, he wasn’t going to get to be there for any of the birthday fun, and they were upset about it. They’d just have to wait until the next summer to see him again, as hard as that was going to be.

For now, though, they had a birthday to focus on, and a year’s worth of changes to keep in mind, but even with knowing that, it was hard to actually do it—especially after having spent the past few months with two kids around at all times, and now only having one. So when Amanda, off-handedly, made the comment that they needed to do something about that to fill that void left by Jonah going home, Green could only laugh at her suggestion. “We’re not going to do that, not now, not ever,” he said, watching her hang her head sadly as he shot her dream down. “You’re only saying that because you miss him. Now cheer up, we have our actual child to celebrate.”

Something told him that his shutdown was going to be a temporary fix, but he didn’t want to think too much about it. He needed to be thinking about Bridgette right then, as did she, and any kind of dwelling would detract from the gravity of the situation. Their daughter was a year old now, that was one whole year down, and who knew how many more to go, and she needed to be their number one priority for then and for always.

..==> PART 3B