(no subject)

[takecourage]

Nearly at the end of her second trimester, Alex finally concedes that they need to do some preparing for the increasingly imminent arrival. They've picked out a bedroom to turn into the nursery and Alex has spent days staring at various swatches on the wall until she'd finally settled on a dove grey colour for the walls. It's neutral, she figures, more palatable than the pastels that the girl in the DIY store had recommended. Even if she decides that she hates it, there's not a lot she can do about it, with all of the natives in Darrow gone like they were never even there.

"How long does it take you to change into things you don't mind getting paint on, Arlington?" she calls down the hall.

Comments

[more_magic]

Preparing the nursery, even these early stages of painting and minor repairs that aren't that dissimilar from the frenzy of improvements they'd made when Black Elm first arrived last year, still seems both too early and not soon enough. Alex grows rounder by the day, the baby growing steadily, becoming more active, and it seems difficult and easy to believe that in only a few short months, both their lives will change.

No small part of both of them, Darlington knows, hopes that the disappearances that have emptied the city--taking Alex's usual doctor along with them--will reverse itself before that happens. In the interest of preparation, and knowing better than to tell her about the conversation, he'd gotten Palamedes to promise to assist if Alex's due date comes and the city remains as empty as it's been...but God, he hopes it won't have to come to that.

He's texting Pal about a different plan entirely when Alex shouts down the hall, a seed of an idea that's taking a little further root. At the impatient note in her voice, he smiles, hitting send on his message and putting his phone back on the top of their dresser.

"It'd be a lot easier if all my t-shirts didn't suspiciously go missing," he calls back, laughing as he leaves their bedroom and walks towards the nursery. "And reappear again, a few days later, obviously worn and occasionally sprinkled with glitter or smelling faintly like the club." He leans in the nursery doorway, grinning at her, dressed in a pair of worn jeans and a freebie t-shirt he'd gotten from the museum, his most banged-up pair of running shoes on his feet. "It's a goddamn mystery how it keeps happening, Stern."