How Green Becomes Wood

"Alright, okay," he said, and then laughed lightly, "I will get you tomorrow." Then, he got into the car and drove, finally, back to the hospital where he rejoined his wife and baby. Daizi was very glad ro have him back, and Ivy was, well, vaguely aware of his presence, but she was calm in his arms.
 
Xander and Alec waited until they saw him driving away to sag down onto the couch together, breathing sighs of relief. They rested back, staring up at the ceiling wordlessly for a few minutes.

"This is exhausting," Alec moaned. "I feel guilty for how tired I am since we are not even doing anything, but this is exhausting."

Xander grunted in agreement. "I think it's just, like, sympathy stress and us working overtime to make absolutely positively certain we don't cause any trouble. We don't even get into that much trouble - anymore - but I think we're both just scared that we will. Somehow. Magically. Except..."

Alec lifted his head. "Except you're thinking about something that might get you into trouble."

Xander shrugged. "Yeah, probably, but it's for a good cause."

"Alright," Alec said, resting his head back. "Let me know if you need an alibi."

"Will do." Xander pushed himself up off the couch. "I need to make a cake."

Alec perked up. "Any trouble that involves cake can't be that bad!" He followed Xander into the kitchen to help out.
 
Dark looked down into Ivy's face, sitting on the hospital bed while Daizi lay back in it, having begrudgingly agreed to not walk around unless it was actually necessary, "I hope she does not grow up to look like my mother," he said, trying desperately to pick out any feature that seemed clearly to belong to one of them. Her skin seemed more similar to his, but her colour hadn't settled into itself yet, and wouldn't for awhile. All he knew for certain was her eyes were like her mother's.

"If she does, she will be the person your mother should have been. Not like how she was. But I don't think she will." Daizi replied, reaching one hand forward to run her fingers down Dark's arm, since it was the most she could reach from her position.

Dark looked away from his daughter and focused on his wife, "How do you know? You do not know what my mother looked like."

"Because that much anger and hate changes a person," She replied softly, "it pinches their face and it seeps out their pours and even if they are models it is in how they walk and how they stand. And she will not have that, so even if she has some of those features in her face, I doubt it will be perceptible."

They were quite then, for awhile, the only sound being a tiny hiccup from their baby. It wasn't how people worked. A vile, vengeful person wasn't so easy to spot. Even though Dark knew this, he still smiled, knowing what Daizi was trying to say. Her own face was crooked and twisted and the loveliest thing he had ever seen (Ivy would have to learn to live with that fact), and he passed their daughter to her before crawling across the bed to lay beside her, and he wrapped her up in his arms and asked, "Are you okay?"

"I don't know," She replied, feeling herself melt into him, "Are you?"

"I do not know."
 
The next morning, the twins sat waiting for Dark to pick them up for their daily visit to the hospital. Alec had a book he hoped Daizi would let him read to her - and Ivy - while Xander had downloaded a new game on his phone, a small metal puzzle, and a small box a little bigger than a clothing box. They sat in the kitchen waiting, figuring Dark might want a nap or to shower or something when he got there, but ready to go instantly if he didn't want to waste any time.
 
Dark came at a little before his expected time, seeming about as tired as he had been, "Hey, sabah al-khayr," good morning, "how was your night? Quieter than ours, I imagine." He touched the salt for the second time since coming home, and then knelt down to give Enkidu the drawn out pets he had started giving now that he spent most of the day at the hospital.
 
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"Loads quieter, more comfortable, and with more sleep," Xander replied.

"Do you want a nap before we go?" Alec asked. "Or, at least to lay down? Studies show that laying down and resting can provide nearly as much actual rest as full sleep. At least, for short times."
 
"I'd like to see the study on that," Dark replied coolly, "but I think if I sit down for a little while, it will be hard for me to feel motivated enough to get back up to drive back to the hosptial, so it is probably better we go now. I would shower here, too, but I don't have time to restyle my hair before your aunt comes, and I don't want to feel like a gremlin."
 
Alec moved to stand in front of Dark. "For motivation, all I have to say is 'Daizi needs you,' and you'd be out the door so fast you might forget to take us with you. For showers, your high-risk pregnancy wife just gave birth to a premie baby and both are in the hospital. If Aunt Ciara doesn't understand a bit of gremlin at a time like that, then I don't think she's worth dressing up for ever. Go take a shower or sit down for a little. We have the time. Even if we're late, we have the time," he coaxed Dark gently.
 
"Yes, but I do not want," he began to say, with a heavy gesture, and then sighed, pushing his hair back, "I want to feel..." He glanced over his shoulder towards the stairs, thinking about how nice it would be to shower in his own home, where the showerhead was actually tall enough for him to shower under without feeling like he was bending in half, and wondering if that feeling was worth not feeling as together as he liked to. Since he knew inside he wouldn't feel totally settled, he liked the idea of at least looking collected, but... "Daizi is only in the hospital because Ivy is, if she were born on time, we would all be comfortably home," Dark murmured, slowly making his way to the stairs to appease his son.
 
"It's been mentioned," Alec said calmly, smiling as Dark caved and headed upstairs.

"She just wanted to get a head start on life and show us all up," Xander snickered.

"I'll set a timer for you and knock on the door," Alec told him, hoping the idea of the timer would help Dark relax rather than worry about the time.
 
"Yes, she gave us an extra six weeks of a newborn in addition to the normal amount of time we have with a newborn," Dark remarked, but then smiled to himself and added, "but then we also got to have six more weeks with her that most parents do not get. And we knew she would be headstrong..." He faltered for a moment when it occurred to him how it felt like Ivy had more personality in utero, but now that she was here, it felt sort of like she hadn't been fully turned on yet. He loved her, he knew that, and knew he'd learn more about her personality as she grew, but they weren't there yet. He nodded to Alec and thanked him for the timer before going to take his shower.
 
"Sometimes it seems almost like he's not happy to have her here," Xander commented to Alec, confused by Dark's little falter.

Alec shrugged as he started the timer on his phone before setting it on the counter. "I think it's just concern. Or pressure. And he's still petrified of seeing his parents, I think, though I don't know how that's possible. She's a wee baby, and her life will be very different, meaning she'll look different just like how we're different."

"You're the one who says fear is anything but rational," Xander pointed out.

Alec nodded in agreement, and they waited patiently for Dark to be ready. Alec went up to knock on the door and call for Dark when the timer went off before heading back downstairs.
 
Dark took a shower first, to give his hair and beard more time to dry before lying down to try to sleep even a little bit. He made a valiant effort, even meditating a little bit, but there was just too much on his mind. He kept thinking about the baby, and how long they'd be in the hospital for, and how Daizi was coping, and how she was doing and how she would cope when they got home and how now they just had this person for the rest of their lives and what if they did something wrong and what if Daizi developed postpartum depression and what if he developed postpartum depression and could he even develop postpartum depression as the father?

Then he Alec knocked on the door, and he waited a few moments to sound like he had just woken up, and said, "I will be down soon," he said, and then hurried himself to fix his appearance before coming back downstairs, "Are you ready to go?"
 
"Ready and waiting on you," Xander said, picking up his box.

Alec studied Dark for a moment and narrowed his eyes. He hadn't slept a wink, had he? He started to open his mouth to remark on that fact, hesitated, and closed it again. They didn't need him pointing out the obvious. They were grown people. They could do as they pleased. Instead, he just nodded and headed out with Xander, holding his book.
 
Dark glanced at Alec, noticed the look on his face, but said nothing: it wasn't like he hadn't make an attempt to sleep. It just didn't work.

"Yeah, we should head over," He said, checking his watch. They should still make it there before Ciara did. He bent to pet his dog and then headed to the car.
 
"Sloan's taking us to school tomorrow," Xander commented once they were in the car and moving. "It'll be weird."

"It's really nice of her to give us a ride like this," Alec said, staring out the window. "She's quite kind."
 
"Bernice is annoyed I will not be there on Monday," he replied, "but I do not care. I am glad Sloan is giving you a ride though, I would not want you two to take the bus. Right now it would not be too bad, but when it starts getting cold, I would not want you waiting at the bus stop."
 
Both twins glanced at him and then each other, confused. Dark was already concerned about when it would be cold? That was still a month or more away, depending on how hard fall and then winter hit. Would he not be available to drive them even then? Why not? Why wouldn't he drive them? They understood why he wouldn't be teaching, but not even driving them? They turned away to their respective windows without saying anything. There must be angles they weren't thinking of. That must be it. Things would work out eventually.

When they arrived at the hospital, Xander said to Alec, "You go on ahead with the professor. I'll catch up in a second." He and his box angled toward the nurse's station.

Alec nodded and moved forward to walk next to Dark. "Does Ivy know who you are yet, do you think?"
 
"I do not know. I think she knows my voice, but I do not know if she knows me. But I think she knows Daizi, since hers was the first voice she ever heard. But I do not know what knowing her means for Ivy, since I do not think Ivy knows who Ivy is yet, if that makes sense." Dark explained as they walked to the room, "all of those moments will be delayed for her."
 
"I bet Ivy know who she is, more or less, but she doesn't know who she is in this new world. It is a very big, strange, dry world after all," Alec commented thoughtfully. "Hmm. Does that mean her figuring out who she is out here is actually accelerated compared to other babies?"

Xander set the box on the nurse's counter and cleared his throat before addressing the nurses sitting there. "Hey, I know you're busy doing really important stuff, saving lives and stuff, but I was wondering if maybe you'd be willing to do me just one favor? It's quick. There's a little girl, Alice Reed, father is Emmet Reed, and her birthday was recently, but with all the... you know, baby stuff, she never got a cake. Would you be willing to give her this cake for me? Anonymously. Is that cool?" He shifted his weight and tried not to look too awkward, but realized looking awkward might make the nurses more willing to use some of their precious time to help him out. People seemed to like awkward teens for some reason.
 
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