(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."

[takecourage]

"You love a mystery, though," says Alex who is, in fact, wearing one of his t-shirts now, along with a faded pair of sweats and a beat up pair of sneakers of her own. "I would have thought you'd be all over that." Sitting on the floor, she levers open the can of paint and pours some into a roller tray before she holds out her hands, wiggling her fingers as she waits for him to help haul her onto her feet.

[more_magic]

"You would use that as a counterargument," he says, feigning aggravation for a moment before he grins. She waggles her fingers at him, and he steps into the room, reaching down to take her hands and pull her to her feet. Once she's standing, he kisses her, one hand letting go of hers to rest against the small of her back. "Fine, I'll take the mystery and the thin sheen of glitter it leaves behind, because I love you."

[takecourage]

"I love you too. And you look fucking cute with a sheen of glitter," she says. "Okay, so I'm thinking grey up to the picture rail, and then white? Neutral so we can hang pictures and shit."

[more_magic]

"Sounds good," he says, idly rubbing at her back as they both consider the wall in front of them, working the pads of his fingers into the tight muscle in the way he knows she loves, especially now. "Easy to switch stuff out as she grows, until it's time to redo another room for a proper bedroom in a few years."

[takecourage]

Alex's eyes drift closed and she leans in against him as he rubs her back. The corner of her mouth twitches into a smile; they've both fallen into referring to the baby as 'she', even though they'd told the sonogram tech that they didn't want to know.

"Sounds good to me," she says.

[more_magic]

He shifts, pressing his thumbs against her spine, tracing the column of bone upwards for a few inches, then down. The peaceful look on her face, her closed eyes and the faint smile on her lips, settles warm in his chest. Once, he would've laughed to think he'd ever see Galaxy Stern at rest--but once, he wouldn't have expected a lot of things that have come to pass, nearly all of them ones he wouldn't exchange for anything different.

"And that one, she'll be old enough to have some say in," he says, and laughs. "God help us."

[takecourage]

"Your days of freedom are numbered, Daniel," says Alex, smirking. She leans back a little so that she can look up at him. "She's going to have you wrapped around her little finger."

[more_magic]

"They are, aren't they?" he says, grinning. When she tips her head back, her eyes dark and something beautiful in the pleased little smirk on her face, he leans in and kisses her again. When he pulls back, his expression is softer, more open. He nods. "She really will."

Already, he wants to give his and Alex's child everything he can. He wants to show her magic, and beauty, and instill in her an appreciation of the world and a respect for effort, some better version of the things his grandfather had tried to cultivate in him. It frightens him, the strength and depth of that desire--but he's ready for it.

[takecourage]

"Right," she says, and lands a solid slap against his ass. "C'mon. We've got to actually paint something or the baby will be here and this room will still look like this." She leans up to press a kiss to his jaw. "I'm not climbing any ladders, though."

[more_magic]

"You are one hundred percent not climbing any ladders, Stern," he says, laughing when she slaps his ass. "Keep your feet on the ground, and hold the ladder steady when I'm up there, and I think we'll get through this without disaster."

Picking up one of the rollers, he bends, running it through the tray until it's saturated. "First, though, let's focus on what we can reach from here."

[takecourage]

"I'll do along the base boards," says Alex, grabbing some paint she's already poured into the try and a brush and then lowering herself down to sit on one corner. "You're going to have to help me up again though."

[more_magic]

"As you command," he says, instinctively moving closer as she starts to sit, hovering a little just in case. Once she's settled, he goes further down the same wall, rolling the paint on in steady, even strokes. It's meditative work, easy to sink into, but part of Darlington's mind keeps picking at the idea he'd already started considering--the one he'd texted Pal about, now that the city was empty and the museum largely deserted.

"What's your theory on the disappearances?" he asks after a few minutes, his voice carefully conversational. "How long do you think it'll take before everyone comes back?"

[takecourage]

"I was texting Kav about this when he messaged to ask if we were okay for food and shit out here," she says. "I figure, it's got to be like most other weird shit, right? A month and then everything will, you know...snap back into place."

[more_magic]

"I'm glad we had only just bought groceries before all of this," Darlington says, though he'd appreciated Kav's offer of help as much as Alex had. They still don't like each other, not as much as he thinks Alex would prefer, but they're both trying. He considers the rest, nodding as he sweeps the roller through the paint in the tray.

"That would put us at mid-July," he says. "Longer than I think people would like, but...not forever."

[takecourage]

"Yeah, I told him we were pretty well stocked, but I'd get in touch with him if we ran low on anything," says Alex, looking up at him. "I figure we've weathered worse than this here before." Her jaw tightens when she remembers last October. "We can do this."

[more_magic]

"Worse here and at home," he says, catching the turn of her head out of the corner of his eye and looking over at her. The expression on her face sends more than a twinge of guilt through him, as much for October and Rosenfeld and everything they've been through together and apart as for what he and Pal have only just started discussing. "Depending on your view of the Bonesmen and their quarterly divination nights, that is."

The smile he offers her is a little forced around the edges, and he turns his focus back to the wall after a moment.

[takecourage]

Alex rolls her eyes and makes a soft gagging sound, before she goes back to painting. "Fucking Bonesmen," she said. "Give me a Manuscript party any day." She glances up at him and flashes a smirk. "Especially if we're going together."

[more_magic]

"Ha, ha," he says, cutting his eyes at her, unable to keep a smile from quirking at the corner of his mouth when she smirks like that. "Walk through that goddamn fog machine of theirs and see how much you like it, Stern."

He huffs a sigh, knowing he's stalling, avoiding the conversation he needs to have. Knowing, after what they've already been through, what Alex's opinion is going to be. This situation feels different than the ones before, though, less perilous and fraught, less likely to end in some kind of disaster. It's a chance he might never have again, and one he wants to take. He won't forgive himself if he doesn't.

"Pal and I have been talking," he says, keeping up a steady back-and-forth with the roller, letting the paint cover the wall in easy strokes. "With the city effectively abandoned, this could be a chance to find out more about Darrow itself."

[takecourage]

"I did walk through it," she points out, leaning in a little closer to the wall. "They just weren't pissed off with me." She looks up at him, raising both eyebrows. "Right..."

She draws it out into a long syllable, her dark eyes narrowing suspiciously.

[more_magic]

He'd anticipated that shift in tone, Alex's abrupt and immediate suspicion, but he still winces a bit as he hears it in her voice. "I've told you before about the Darrow History exhibit at work," he says, keeping his focus on the wall. "How there's always something that means it's closed, or shut down, or...any number of things. Remodeling the exhibit cases. Burst pipes, electrical problems. Hell, one day I was told someone rented it for a wedding reception."

He can feel the narrow, suspicious gaze of Alex's eyes at the corner of his vision, and he sighs. "No one I know has ever been inside that exhibit hall. Ever. And with everyone gone...it seems like an opportunity to get through those doors."

[takecourage]

"Do you not remember what happened," says Alex, dropping the brush she's holding into the tray with a wet sound. "The last time you fucked around with things that didn't concern you?" Her jaw tightens at the memory of him slipping under the surface of the crucible.

[more_magic]

"I remember, Alex," he says, rolling one last stripe of paint onto the wall before he turns to face her. The look on her face is a reminder too, sharp and painfully well-deserved; he knows what she's thinking of, and for a moment he remembers the stinging cold against the cuts on his side and his throat, eddies of pink swirling as his blood mingled with the milk. "But I acted alone that time. With this, I've asked Pal for help. Camilla too, because where one of them goes, so does the other."

His brows draw together, a frown at the corner of his mouth. "And I think figuring this place out, getting some answers to the mystery for once, concerns us all. We deserve to know what Darrow is, or was, and how it's keeping us here."

[takecourage]

"Okay," says Alex, still cross legged on the floor, her hands unconsciously coming to rest on her bump as she looks up at him. "I get it. We're breaking that promise you made me. Again. Cool. Just so I know what page I'm on."

[more_magic]

"For God's sake, don't play the martyr," he says testily, his jaw tightening as her hands splay over the curve of her belly. Even if it's unconscious, it's a low blow. "I promised I'd tell you beforehand. Which I am. I promised I wouldn't take the Bullet unless there were literally no other options. And I'm not. I won't even bring it as a contingency if you're this bent out of shape about it."

He can feel the lie of the last bit on his tongue as it's said, but he swallows it back down. "I'm going to be fine."