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Jacob nudges her awake early on a Sunday morning, long before the bunker is echoing with the sounds of daily life, long before anyone in their right mind should be awake. Rook is still half asleep. Her eyes burn with the strength it takes to keep them open, and her limbs feel heavy and useless.
"What?” she mumbles. Her voice is muffled, scratchy, and before she knows it Jacob is rolling on top of her, propping himself up with one arm and taking the blankets with him. “God, Jacob, what time is it?”
He huffs out a laugh, his breath fanning across her chin. The corners of his eyes crinkle – a new development, Rook has noticed, one that means he’s laughing more, smiling more, maybe more than he ever has.
“Early,” Jacob informs her quietly. He leans down to press his lips to her collarbone. “Thought I would get you up before the two little nightmares we created make their appearance.”
Their children are six and two, and excel at making a scene. Charlotte has a habit of waking up at the crack of dawn to snuggle with her parents, and Delilah doesn’t care what time it is – if she’s awake, she’s out of bed and off somewhere wreaking havoc in the bunker. Jacob is right to have her up this early. They rarely get to spend time alone together.
She’s still sleepy, but Rook reaches up and runs her hands up his sides. He’s warm, like he always is, solid heat and the silky feel of scar tissue under her fingertips. Her fingers slide up, finding purchase on his shoulder blades, and Rook pulls him down close.
“Hi,” she says, quiet and breathy, feeling Jacob’s chest rise and fall with each breath he takes. “I love you.”
“Feeling’s mutual.”
Rook snorts, and Jacob’s mouth finds its way to her neck, then up towards her jaw. The pleasant scratch of his beard against her skin sends a jolt of heat through her, pooling down in the pit of her stomach. His lips leave a trail of open-mouthed kisses against her skin, and when he gets to her mouth, Rook tugs him down by the back of the neck and runs her fingers through his hair.
They kiss lazily, refreshingly, Jacob’s free hand drifting down and under the hem of the shirt she’s wearing. The tips of his fingers trace scars, stretch marks, circle the edge of her navel. It makes her shiver.
The open flat of Jacob’s palm slides upwards, settling at the top of her ribcage, and it happens just as he runs the tips of his fingers along the underside of her breast.
“Daddy!”
Rook finds herself very glad that the Seeds had the foresight to include bedroom doors in their bunker plans. Jacob sighs heavily and drops his head, his forehead resting against hers, and Rook startles herself with the snort of laughter that tumbles out of her. The fingers on her middle wriggle against her skin, and she squirms, ticklish.
“I distinctly remember you asking for this,” Rook muses, giving Jacob her best shit-eating grin. He looks less than impressed. “I believe your exact words were ‘I wouldn’t mind having another one’.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Jacob mutters. He kisses her high up on her cheekbone, then peers over his shoulder toward the bedroom door. “Sorry, don’t know anyone by that name. Think you might have the wrong door.”
There’s a giggle from outside and an almighty crash as the door flies open and smacks against the wall. Jacob flinches at the sound of metal against metal and rolls over onto his back. He turns his head toward Rook and sighs, and a half second later a six year old and a two year old tumble on top of him heavily.
“Okay,” Jacob says, admirably steady even with the air being crushed out of his lungs by the weight on his chest, “one of you has to go before you break my back. C’mon, off.”
He keeps Charlotte and offloads Delilah onto her mother. Rook grins. She doesn’t have a favorite child, but she’ll always be a sucker for her baby girl. Delilah’s the only one, she often jokes, that looks anything like her: curly blonde hair, wide blue eyes, and nothing but smiles.
Rook snuggles Delilah up and kisses her forehead. She giggles and twists around her like a tiny octopus.
“What were you and Mommy doing?
Jacob clears his throat, and Rook is thrilled to see how he plans on explaining this one away. His discomfort, she finds, has always been quite pleasant for her.
“Mm,” Jacob hums. He looks down at Charlotte and pets her head. “We were wondering if you could return a baby to the hospital after six years. Mom thinks you need the receipt.”
Charlotte frowns and rolls off her father, a fit of drama that Rook thinks is suspiciously John in nature. She settles in the middle space between Jacob and Rook, and glares at the ceiling.
“You can’t return me.”
Jacob elbows her gently. “Yeah, well, you don’t have to worry. We got rid of the receipt and it’s too late to take you back now. Your sister, though…”
“No!” Delilah shouts. Charlotte squirms away from the bed and lands unsteadily on the floor in front of it.
“Let’s go, Lilah!” she yells, entirely too loud for this early in the morning. “Come on, before he takes us back!”
Delilah scrambles out of her mother’s arms and her tiny feet hit the floor. She follows Charlotte out of the bedroom and down the hallway, screaming at the top of her lungs. Her voice carries, bounces off the high ceilings, and Rook wonders just how many tired folks she’s going to have to apologize to at breakfast this morning.
When they’re gone, Jacob laughs and rolls back over. Rook raises her eyebrows at him when he leans down close to her.
“I’ve learned,” he says quietly, looking pleased with himself, “that threats are a very effective technique for repelling nosy children.”
“That so?
“So far, so good,” he says, nosing in to kiss her lips.