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Erik couldn’t sleep.
It may have been nerves. The sort of anxiety that only a first time parent could understand. Or perhaps he had eaten too much before retiring to bed. Or was it his own restless nature that prevented him from joining the smaller man beside him in dreams? Who could possibly say?
Careful not to jostle the man next to him, Erik shuffled to his feet. He padded as quietly as possible to the room next door, where Lorna slept. Seeing his daughter sleeping peacefully usually calmed Erik’s nervous tension. Despite Charles’ calm rationality and his assurances of ‘We have the monitor right beside the bed; if anything happens, darling, we’ll hear it,’ Erik couldn’t help but worry. He’d troubled and fussed over her from the first night they brought her home. He still worried now, nearly a month later. It would likely always be so, even years down the road.
Lorna was asleep, but restive. Her little legs jerked. She was making soft sounds of distress, too quiet for the baby monitor to pick up, but to which Erik’s ears were impossibly attuned.
“What’s wrong, herzchen?” He bent and, with care he never knew he possessed, lifted his daughter into his arms. She squirmed, starting to wake fully, mouth opening to cry out. “Shh shh. It’s okay, dear heart. Papa’s got you.”
He began to pace the room leisurely, rocking the bundle in his arms. Lorna cried, but they were half-hearted tears. She was as tired as him. Erik felt bad for waking her, but his heart could not abide seeing someone he so loved in any pain. Her cries gradually grew quiet, and Erik was glad, not for the last time, that Charles was a bit of a heavy sleeper.
“There now. That’s better. Best not to wake your Mutter, little one.” He smiled down at her tiny, tear-stained face. Much like her mother, the tears seemed to make her eyes glow with emotion. They were blue eyes. Charles’ eyes. And from the moment he had seen them his heart, for the second time, was utterly ensnared. He might even have wept, there in the hospital, something which he was sure Charles would never let him live down.
Fatigue had started to settle in his bones at last, and he sat down as gingerly as possible in the sturdy rocking chair next to the crib.
“Seems we’re both having difficulties, aren’t we?” Tired blue eyes stared up at him. She may have gotten Charles’ beauty, but her personality (what little she had at present) was all Erik. It had been obvious even in the womb. But with that came the nightmares. The agitated dreams. Of all the things he could’ve passed on to his child, he hated that it was this. But he had an idea. It wasn’t much, but there was something Erik’s mother had done to calm her son after a particularly vivid dream. Erik hoped he could remember it.
“Let me tell you a story, meine kleine. One that your Oma used to tell me when I could not sleep.” He searched desperately for the words. They came fairly easily, dusty with age though they were.
“Little Walter hatte mit seinem Drachen im Garten gespielt. Irgendwie wäre es nie richtig zu montieren, es sei denn, sein Vater war da, um ihm zu helfen ...”
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Charles woke to an empty bed. Not terribly strange, as Erik often had showered and dressed by the time Charles had even stirred. He stretched, lazily, and reached out to the empty space beside him.
It was cold.
The telepath blinked in confusion, brows furrowing. It felt as if Erik had been gone for hours. And that was strange.
Carefully, oh so slowly, he rose out of bed. He was still a bit sore, both from nine months spent carrying an active child within him and from her difficult entrance into the world, and each step set off a small spark of pain in his mind. But it was nothing he couldn’t handle. No need to worry anybody, especially Erik.
When he got to Lorna’s room he stopped. And smiled.
She was sound asleep, tucked into the crook of her Papa’s arms. The elder mutant was also slumbering, normally sharp features slackened and calm. Charles observed, with amused affection, a thin sliver of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. The younger man quickly stored that precious image away in his mind. To look at with love in the dark days he hoped were not ahead. To discreetly show the students made jumpy by Professor Lehnsherr’s ‘terrifying’ nature.
Lorna slept on. Usually she was awake by this time, and feeding. Charles’ milk-heavy breasts ached, but he couldn’t bring himself to intrude on the sight before him. Quietly he turned away, closing the door behind him. He rubbed the small swell of his chest gently and made his way back to his room.
Some things, he reasoned, were worth waiting for.