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“You ready to go home?” Maverick asked Caroline, leading her out to Penny’s car. After all, the Kawasaki wasn’t exactly kid friendly.
“Yeah,” she agreed as Maverick scooped her up into his arms.
“And when you get home, you’ll finally get to meet your new baby brother,” Maverick explained to her. He placed her into her car seat and started to buckle her in.
“Yeah,” she replied, in a quieter tone.
Though her dads had explained the situation to her multiple times over the last few months, it hadn’t really sunk into Caroline’s mind that she was no longer an only child. After much debate, Rooster and Hangman had agreed to have one more child and were blessed to welcome home baby Nicholas Peter Bradshaw-Seresin. Or Nickie as they were calling him.
“You got all of her bags?” Penny called, carrying a tray of food with her.
“I think so. If I forgot anything I’ll just run it over later.”
“Are they back from the hospital yet?” Amelia questioned, carrying another tray of food. Penny had insisted that all new parents wanted to avoid cooking for as long as they could when there was a crying newborn involved, hence all the food.
“They should be. Rooster texted me not too long ago.” Maverick straightened up after he finished putting Caroline into her car seat and pulled out his phone. “Yeah, they got home about twenty minutes ago. Said Nickie’s still asleep.”
“Alright, I think we’re all set,” Penny stated, pulling down the trunk door. “You ready to meet your baby brother, Care?”
“Yeah . . .” Caroline trailed off softly, still unsure.
The three adults piled into the car and Maverick drove the short twenty-minute drive across town to the Bradshaw-Seresin household. Caroline sat calmly in her car seat, a bit of a pout on her lips as Maverick, Penny, and Amelia discussed the new baby. She only stared out the window at the familiar landscape.
“We’re here,” Maverick announced, pulling into the short driveway.
Penny helped Caroline out of her car seat as Maverick and Amelia started to clean out the trunk. As soon as her feet touched the ground, Caroline was trotting up to her home. Jake opened the front door as she ran up the small walkway.
“Daddy!”
“There you are!” Caroline giggled as Jake scooped her into his arms like he always did and pressed a kiss to her cheek. He settled her on his hip as he walked down to greet Maverick and the Benjamins. “Were you a good girl while you stayed with Grandpa Mav and Penny?”
“A very good girl,” Maverick assured Jake as he handed over Caroline’s overnight bag to Jake. “How’s Nickie doing?”
“He just woke up, so Rooster’s trying to soothe him,” Jake explained, nodding towards the house. He smiled at Caroline, who was looking around curiously for Rooster. “You ready to meet your little brother, huh?”
“Where’s Papa?” Caroline whined instead.
“He’s helping your brother. But he’s inside. Come on, let’s go see him,” Jake replied, turning towards the house. “And meet your baby brother.”
Caroline frowned a bit and grabbed the back of Jake’s shirt just a bit harder as he walked. Jake set her bag inside and told them to just leave the food in the kitchen. He then motioned for the extended family to follow him towards the family room, where Rooster was rocking a sniffling newborn bundle of blankets.
“Papa,” Caroline called, causing Rooster to pick up his head.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he returned, but he didn’t move to get up like usual. Instead, Jake walked over to him. Jake shifted his hold on Caroline before sitting down on the couch beside Rooster. He placed Caroline on his thigh, keeping a steadying hand on her hip. “Meet your baby brother, Care.”
Caroline glanced down at the squirming mushy looking lump that was apparently her brother with a bit of indifference and an even bigger frown. The little cry that Nickie let out didn’t soothe her. Instead, she pushed further back into Jake’s lap, glancing up at her parents as if to ask, ‘what have you done?’
“Why don’t you try holding him?” Jake suggested, trying to encourage Caroline to interact with her little brother.
“Hold out your arms, Care.”
Caroline did as she was told, though she didn’t look happy about it. Rooster turned and shifted Nickie into her arms, though his larger and steadier hands stayed to support Nickie’s head and weight. Penny hurried to take a picture of the moment, but Amelia was trying to hold in a laugh at the expression on Caroline’s face. One of complete disgust and annoyance as Nickie started to cry.
Rooster took Nickie back to rock him to sleep while Caroline stood up on the couch, grabbing the back of Jake’s shirt to steady herself. And though Jake tried to corral her to try and interact with her baby brother, Caroline escaped behind him and sat on the other end of the couch, staring distrustfully at the demon baby brother she never asked for.
And instead of pushing it further, the new parents simply turned to their other family members.
The few Dagger Squad members who lived in the area stopped by later to meet the newest addition to the Bradshaw-Seresin household. Caroline greeted her aunts and uncles as she usually did but then the pout resumed when all of their attention was transferred to Nickie, who would still cry no matter what happened.
Sitting on the far couch with her arms crossed and a pout on her lips, Caroline perked up when her uncle and godfather Javy offered her a cookie. An M&M cookie. Her favorite.
“It’s not fun being an older sibling, is it?” he asked knowingly, sitting beside.
“He’s smelly. And loud. And ugly,” Caroline listed off her grievances against her baby brother. As if to emphasize her point, she chomped a sizeable—for a child, anyways—bite from the cookie.
“All babies are.”
“Then babies are gross,” Caroline replied with a sense of finality.
“Yeah, they are. They get a little less gross over time, but little siblings are always gross no matter how old you get,” Coyote explained wisely, leaning back on the couch.
“Do you have siblings, Uncle Javy?” Caroline asked curiously.
“Three,” Coyote stated, causing Caroline to wrinkle her nose.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright, Care Bear. You learn to live with them. Most of the time,” Coyote added as an afterthought. “It just takes some time. But no matter how many siblings you have, that doesn’t change how your parents love you. You know that right, Care?”
“Yeah,” Caroline spoke softly, munching on her cookie.
Later that night, after all of their visitors had left and it was just the four Bradshaw-Seresins, Rooster and Jake both took the opportunity to tuck Caroline into bed. She clutched her favorite stuffed animal Tommy, a chick one that Javy had gotten her as a joke more than anything else, to her chest as they pulled the covers over her.
“Care?” Rooster called, causing her to pick her head up.
“Yeah, Papa?”
“How do you feel about having a little brother?” Rooster asked his daughter as Jake sat on the edge of her bed.
“He’s really loud.”
“Babies can be loud when they cry,” Jake agreed, nodding along. “But he won’t always be crying like that. He’s just really young, Care.”
“Uncle Javy said that younger siblings are always gross,” Caroline parroted, fiddling with Tommy’s wing.
“Well, that’s probably true,” Rooster replied, sharing a look with Jake. “And I know that right now he takes up a lot of our time and he’s really loud—”
“—And smelly.”
“And smelly,” Rooster echoed.
“But,” Jake emphasized before Caroline could start going down a long list of complaints, “that doesn’t change anything about how much we love you and care about you and want to spend time with you, Care.”
“Babies just require a lot of attention because they can’t do anything by themselves,” Rooster added on. “They’re not big and strong like you are, Care.”
“Your brother Nickie just needs more of our help and time because he’s small. You were the same way when you were his age.”
“Okay,” Caroline replied softly, glancing between her dads.
“We love you, Care.”
“Love you too.”
And with a little extra reassurance and some time, Caroline warmed up to her baby brother just fine. Well, most of the time anyways.