Archive of Our Own

It’s only ten o’clock in the morning, but already, Hubert’s reminded himself no fewer than five times that he’s fought in a bloody war . 

It’s surprisingly cold comfort, in the face of the chaos before him: the cacophonous hive of industry spilling all over the grounds of Varley. The carpenters from town, hefting beams of fresh-hewn wood in dangerous arcs above their heads. The enormous red-and-white ticking of a tent, wobbling to life above a set of dubiously sturdy supports. The candy-pink manes of mechanical horses being fixed to a merry-go-round–a task which, according to his own meticulous records, ought to have been finished last week . 

In short: pandemonium. Teetering towards all-out calamity, if he’s feeling particularly catastrophic–something his wife has been gently accusing him of more often, it seems. But Hubert knows himself at least well enough to know that pandemonium isn’t something he’s good at. Not, at least, the sort that can’t be corrected by a quick re-tallying-up of a ledger.

At least, he amends–with a surreptitious look up at Rowan, who’s balanced on his shoulders with his tiny fingers fisted deep into his hair–there are some types of pandemonium he doesn’t mind as much. Some, in fact, that he quite enjoys taking in stride.

“Are they done yet?” Rowan whines, tapping his heel against his father’s chest impatiently for good measure. Like Hubert, he’s staring out at the mess that was once the grounds, and, like Hubert, his irritation stems in part from just how long it’s taking. But there’s an edge of excitement there, too–an eagerness in the way that he’s yanking on Hubert’s scalp–that Hubert can’t quite seem to muster. Where his son sees marvelous potential, all he can see is the many, many ways this could all go wrong.

“Not yet,” he tells Rowan, reaching a hand up to steady his son’s back. He’s hoping that the added support will prompt Rowan to ease up on tugging all his hair out, but Rowan seems undeterred, and Hubert’s left mildly impressed by the strength of his toddler’s grip. 

“ When?” demands Cassian, kicking morosely at the terrace wall that separates them from the grounds. When Hubert had suggested they come have a look at things (privately dreading what they might see, even as he made his voice enthusiastic), there’d been a brief, furious scuffle between Cassian and his brother over who got to sit on Papa’s shoulders. Cassian, younger by five minutes, had lost for the umpteenth time in his short life, but still was committed to taking it badly: glowering into the sun and inflicting small injuries onto the terrace. “It’s been not-yet for ever .”

“Not so long as all that.” Though privately, Hubert can’t disagree with him. The twins’ third birthday is only three days away. Bernadetta leaves for  her day trip to Enbarr tomorrow. And despite all of Hubert’s careful planning and organizing–night spent up late working, breaking down the mess before him into graphs and schedules and time slots–it’s looking less and less likely that the birthday carnival he promised his wife will be happening according to plan.

He feels Cassian glancing up at him, with all the indignation of an almost-three-year-old, and forces himself to meet his son’s dubious stare. He’s always thought of the twins as favoring Bernadetta, with their round faces, crooked grins, and matching mops of lilac hair; but right now, looking into his son’s eyes, wine-dark and full of a toddler’s skepticism, he sees himself in Cassian’s face more clearly than he ever has before.

“I know it seems long,” he says, bringing his other hand up to his shoulders to cup Rowan, now squirming with the beginnings of boredom. “But I promise, in just a few days, this will all look magnificent.” 

He feels the weight of Cassian’s gaze sharply, half-wondering if he’s just, for the very first time, lied to his child. Certainly he doesn’t quite believe what he’s saying; but then, just as he’s sure Cassian’s about to call him on it, the boy’s face shifts, taking on a completely different expression.

“It’s my turn on Papa’s shoulders,” he declares. His tone is light and innocent, but his eyes sparkle devilishly; he knows exactly what he’s doing. On Hubert’s shoulders, Rowan–who until just a second ago had been in the early stages of wiggling off of his perch–freezes solid, digging his hands into his father’s hair with renewed vigor.

“It is not!” he squawks, punishingly close to Hubert’s ear. Hubert winces, bending forward slightly to keep Rowan balanced.

“Is too!” Cassian loses all pretense of innocence, galvanized by his brother’s irritation. “You got to be up there already–”

War, Hubert thinks, for the sixth time that morning, as the rhythms of an all-too-familiar toddler argument wash over him once more. War, event planning, and sons. He never imagined how similar they all could be.

In fairness, there’s a lot about Hubert’s life right now that the person he once was–the Hubert of only six years ago, even–could never have imagined. 

Foremost among these things is, of course, Bernadetta–a fact that somehow manages to be both surprising and completely expected. Hubert thinks that a part of him must have known, maybe from the moment he laid eyes on her, that there would be no other person for him. That the gravitational pull exerted by this tiny ball of nervous energy was too strong to resist. What’s surprising is that she felt the same way. That, five years ago, when he showed up on her doorstep (an act that, at the time, had seemed the very pinnacle of lovesick madness, even if he’d been good at concealing it), she’d let him in to so much more than her father’s old, decaying manse.

But the arrival of the twins just two years later–that’s a surprise that even Hubert’s wildest imaginings couldn’t have prepared him for. He knew, from the moment he set foot in Bernadetta’s home, that he wanted to raise children with her there someday. He hadn’t anticipated that someday would come as soon as it had, or that it would bring with it children, plural, in one fell swoop. To this day, one of Bernadetta’s favorite stories to tease him with is the day she came back from the doctor’s, with a glowing bill of health and the news their baby (whom Hubert had already begun talking to like it was a person, very quietly, when he was sure Bernadetta was sleeping) was, in fact, two babies.

“You went a little cross-eyed,” she giggles, every time she tells it. “For a minute, I was afraid you’d keel over, and I’d have to find a way to get you back up!” 

And perhaps, Hubert muses, that’s the biggest surprise of all–not becoming a husband, or a father of twins, but how much he enjoys it. Beyond that initial shock (and the ensuing sleepless nights, endless diapers, dueling cries of colicky babies), slipping into fatherhood has felt, if not completely seamless, than completely right . So much so that, when the twins got a little older, and Bernadetta’s diplomatic duties began to nip at her heels once more, him being the one to stay home with them while she traveled had been a foregone conclusion. And while Bernadetta had fretted about it–more so the idea of leaving him for long spells than any notion of shirking her maternal duty–Hubert knows there isn’t anywhere he’d rather be than here, at home, with his wife and sons.

It amuses him, sometimes, to think of the Hubert who went to war all those years ago. How confounded he’d be by the prospect of being a full-time husband and father. How the happiness he’s found in these roles would have been completely foreign to him, then.

Perhaps this is why he still finds ways to fret about it. Perhaps it was fear of falling short of that happiness–of accidentally fumbling his role, in a way that leads his sons to resent him–that made him agree to the business of the birthday carnival when Bernadetta first brought it up.

For, of course, it had been her idea. One of the reasons Bernadetta always says they work so well together is because Hubert’s the steadiness and she’s the spontaneity. That particular night, a month ago now, she’d returned from her latest trip to visit Marianne with hoarfrost clinging to the hem of her traveling cloak. Hubert had been waiting for her with a hot cup of coffee and hot bricks warming their bed, the very picture of an attentive spouse; and Bernadetta, seconds after falling into that freshly-warmed bed, had looked up at him with eyes half-lidded from weariness, and announced, apropos of nothing, “We ought to do something special for the boys’ birthday next month.” 

Hubert remembers slipping carefully into bed beside her, mindful not to jostle her side of the bed–the way he does on the rare occasions she's fallen asleep in bed before him. At that moment, he simply hadn’t wanted to be too rough, when she was clearly so travel-worn and weary. “Special how?” he’d asked.

“ Special special,” she’d insisted, rolling over onto her side to face him. Hubert had already snuffed all the candles in the room save one, and in its flickering, inconsistent light, the planes of her face were softened down into something ethereal, otherworldly. Not for the first time in their marriage, he’d marveled that she’d chosen him to marry. 

“A party, you mean.” Already, Hubert had felt himself warming to the idea. With their friends scattered all over the world, it’s difficult to bring them all together for any kind of celebration; and while all of them had, at one point or another, met the twins, they’d never all come together for the specific purpose of celebrating them. The idea of having a party with all of them–of Rowan and Cassian seeing, for the first time, just how many people loved them–gripped him with the sudden urge to pull his wife tight into his arms.

He’d settled instead for throwing a lazy arm over her body, letting his fingers trail up and down her back. She hadn’t bothered to change out of her traveling gown, still touched with a hint of cold from the outdoors; and while, ordinarily, he’d have put his foot down at wearing outside clothes to bed, seeing how tired she was, he hadn’t had the heart to complain.

He’d cupped a hand around the back of her neck, cradling her skin and tousling the baby-fine hairs at her nape–she’d been letting her hair grow longer, lately–as he felt her shake her head in a lazy no . “Bigger than a party,” she’d mumbled sleepily. “Something really special.” A pause, then, that had gone on for so long, he’d wondered for a moment if she’d fallen asleep. He was startled when she spoke again: “When my mother was alive, she once threw a whole carnival for my birthday. All the children in the village were invited.”

Inadvertently, Hubert had stilled–the hand that had been stroking her neck freezing for an almost imperceptible moment before resuming its steady, regular motion. It’s a rare thing, still, to hear Bernadetta talk about her childhood–not since they’d exorcized the last of Varley’s demons, making it into a home fit for a new kind of family. Rarer still is it to hear her talk about the happy moments, especially with regards to her mother. It’s a silence so complete that, even after all their years together, Hubert still isn’t sure exactly how old Bernadetta must have been when she died. When, effectively, the only barrier to her father’s cruelty had fallen.

He’d chosen his next words very carefully. “Is that what you were thinking, then?” Still stroking her neck, as if his touch could distract from the note of trepidation he could feel fighting to be free of his voice. “A birthday carnival for the boys?”

Even in her half-asleep state, though, he hadn’t fooled her. She’d stirred a little, as if wakefulness were stealing over her, and she was trying very hard to fight it. In a tone only slightly pinched with disappointment, she’d said, “You don’t like the idea?”

A dry stab of guilt had worked its way through Hubert’s chest almost instantly. “No,” he’d said hastily, even though it wasn’t quite true. “Of course not, no. It’s merely–”

But he’d faltered, then. Because his qualms about throwing a birthday party–a birthday carnival , the word alone enormous and imposing–were so much more than merely anything. He’d been thinking of the work that would be required to pull off such an event: work that would have to be completed around the schedules of two very active, demanding toddlers. Of how little he knew about planning parties or entertaining children, sometimes including his own. Of how, if it all turned out horribly, it’d be his worthiness as a husband and father that everyone would judge. His sons’ regard for him would be on the line. They weren’t too young, he’d thought with dismay, to be disappointed in their father.

But mostly, in that moment, he’d been thinking about how tired his wife looked. How busy her schedule was keeping her these days. How she was due in Enbarr just two days before the boys’ birthday, making it nearly impossible for her to help him out with last-minute planning and details. How, if he asked her not to go, she’d move heaven and earth to make sure she was there for him; and how doing so would stretch her ever, impossibly, thinner. 

He couldn’t bring himself to ask that of her, but nor could he bear to dismiss the idea outright. Not when it clearly came from a place so close to her heart–a place that she kept so secret and safe, even he had rarely seen it. Not when she seemed so eager and hopeful.

So what he’d settled on, lamely, was, “Merely that it might be worth waiting till they’re a little older, darling. They’re not yet three years old. However extravagant the party, their brains won’t be formed enough to remember it.” 

He’d known from the sleepy little smile that crawled across her face that he was going to agree to it anyway. 

But still: “You’re no fun,” she’d teased, poking him in the ribs. There’d been  no real strength behind the gesture, though; sleepiness had made her limbs slippery and slack. 

“You didn’t marry me for my sense of humor, darling.” Privately, though, Hubert had been relieved by the change in the conversation’s tone. It had been safer territory–the good-natured ribbing and teasing you settled into in a long and familiar relationship like theirs. Miles away from any kind of paternal guilt he might have been feeling at not jumping at the idea she’d been offering.

“True,” Bernadetta had yawned, punctuating it by turning her back to him, pressing her body into the warm curve of his. Her skin, he was pleased to note, was warm, the chill from outdoors finally chased out; and he eagerly pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her middle. 

Before he could relax any further, however–and quite as if she’d read his mind, and seen all the doubts floating there (something that his wife is becoming unnervingly good at, he thinks)--she adds, “I think you’re wrong, though. Even if they don’t remember the specifics, they’ll remember that someone loved them enough to do all of that for them. I know it.”

Even with sleep fogging up her voice, he’d heard the note of wistfulness in it. The memory clinging to every separate syllable, warm with a fondness she rarely affords to memory.

He’d known, as soon as she’d said it, that he was going to agree to whatever she suggested. His role as a husband and a father had brought him more happiness than he could have ever imagined, yes; but what more fit way to repay some of that happiness than doing something to show his sons just how much he loves them?

The plan–which took shape in fits and starts over the following day, in snatches of conversations between the two of them as they juggled meals, naps, tantrums, and one particularly demanding outing into town with the twins–ended up looking something like this:

The carnival would take place on the grounds at Varley, which, Bernadetta had pointed out, were more than large enough to accommodate an event of that size. Local carpenters could be brought on for the actual construction of the tent; for the actual entertainment inside the carnival, Bernadetta had made an enthusiastic and strategically impossible list of ideas that they’d slowly whittled down together. 

“There has to be a merry-go-round. It’s simply not a carnival if there isn’t one!” she’d called from across the table while parceling food out on both boys’ plates.

“ We ought to have a little mechanical train,” she’d mused, almost as if to herself, midway through reading the boys a bedtime story about trains. Hubert hadn’t even realized she was talking to him and not the storybook until he’d glanced up to see all three of them staring at him pointedly–the boys slack-jawed and slightly accusatory in their footed pajamas, as if their father were willfully interrupting story time.

“Games,” she’d whispered, a sleeping Cassian draped over her shoulder, while Hubert trailed behind carrying Rowan to bed. “Ones where you throw things and win prizes. What do you suppose we should have for prizes?”

And on and on it went, until Hubert had the bare bones of a plan drawn up on butcher paper in his office, and Bernadetta was satisfied that those plans met what she called “the basic criteria for a good carnival!” And he had to admit, although the sheer scope of the thing made him feel slightly cross-eyed if he looked at it too long, the smile that lit up his wife’s face, stretched from ear to ear, made it all seem worthwhile. As did the sight of Rowan and Cassian, sleeping side by side in their little trundle beds, as yet unaware of the surprise that was coming.

Now–several hours later, after wrangling two truculent children down for a nap, and managing to beg off answering the head carpenter’s nonstop questions (as if Hubert were the one with the specialized training!)--Hubert retreats to the safety of his office, cool and quiet and, in all honesty, dustier than he’s ever seen it before. Probably due to the fact that, lately, he’s been spending more time out of it than ever before; but even so, he likes to come back here every chance he can. This is where all of his charts and graphs live: the massive timeline of the project (covered in increasingly frantic-looking red-ink notes, as the deadline draws ever closer), a tall stack of invoices for vendors and workers, and, pinned at the center of his massive corkboard, the original notes he took that night, as Bernadetta happily rambled off all the things she thought they ought to have. Even now, exhausted from wrestling his sons to bed and strung thin by how slowly things seem to be going outside, the sight of it makes him smile. Reminds him, in a way, of how happy and excited they’d both been, at the very start of this whole undertaking.

He absolutely has to get this right.

Hubert uses his foot to draw his chair away from his desk, letting himself fall into with an audible, undignified oof . At the top of his endless to-do list is figuring out the business of the blasted merry-go-round.

It had taken him far longer than he’d allowed for in his schedule just to find someone willing to make the damned thing–not just carving beautiful, child-size horses by hand, but putting the mechanics of it all together, too. Making sure it ran , a task which, as of last week, it ought to have been doing. Instead, his desk is cluttered with notices and reports from the team of carpenters assigned to the task, informing him regretfully that, once again, there’s been a mechanical error, and they’ve had to take the whole thing apart.

“I’ve never seen anyone look so angry at paper before.”

That voice—which Hubert has never ever been able to resist—instantly startles him out of his pensive reverie. There, in the doorway, stands his wife: dressed in one of her loose house gowns, as opposed to the traveling clothes that have become more and more commonplace since the boys turned one. For a second, and due in no small part to his bleary exhaustion, Hubert can do nothing but gawp at her. All that beauty and ferocity, bottled into such a diminutive package; the very sight of her soothes him in a way he hadn’t realized he needed to be soothed.

Evidently, Bernadetta can read it on his face, because she skips lightly up beside him, dropping a kiss into his much-abused curls before flinging her arms around his neck. 

“Thank you for putting the boys down to nap,” she murmurs, close to his ear, as she snuggles her head into the crook of his neck.

“It’s nothing,” Hubert tells her. A lie, of course, and one that they’re both aware of; putting the boys down for a nap every day is nothing compared to some of the conflict they saw in the war. But in the tacit language of parents, it’s a lie they both choose to skim past. “And anyway, you needed the time to pack.” 

Bernadetta hums, a sound that somehow both conveys agreement and dissent. As if she’s just noticed the mess of his hair, she starts running her fingers through it—a gesture that’s so soporific, combined with Hubert’s exhaustion, he fears he might genuinely fall asleep right here at his desk.

“It’s just an overnight trip to Enbarr,” she points out. “Not exactly a long journey, is it?”

It feels long sometimes, is what Hubert wants to tell her. He always misses her when she’s gone, but, in a strange way, he also keenly feels his own insufficiency as a parent. Like it’s evident to everyone around him, especially his sons, that he’s only one half of a whole.

The trip to Enbarr so close to the boys’ birthday is inconvenient but, mercifully, brief; Bernadetta will be back the day before their guests arrive, expediting her trip in favor of riding in from Enbarr with some of their friends so that she can help with the preparations. It’s an inconvenience, Hubert knows—certainly she’d enjoy lingering in the capitol, and riding back to Varley with Ferdinand for company—but Bernadetta hasn’t said a word about it. It’s simply a given that she’ll be there, with him; and the thought of this, and all the other quiet ways his wife has always been there for him, leaves Hubert momentarily paralyzed with emotion.

Which, of course, Bernadetta picks up on immediately. “What are you fretting over?” she asks, peeling the sheaf of paper away from his fingers to better be able to read it. 

“The merry-go-round.” Hubert tries not to grimace around the word. “It still won’t run properly.”

He tips his head up just in time to see a little frown form between Bernadetta’s eyebrows. “Was it always this…er…small?”

The pleasant wash of emotion Hubert’s been feeling is swiftly, bracingly replaced with a shock of cold. “Small?” he echoes, throat suddenly dry. “How do you mean, small?”

Mentally, he’s running through a rapid-fire series of calculations, dredging up every memory he has of dealing with the merry-go-round. Bernadetta had said merry-go-round . She’d wanted horses, painted in bright colors. He doesn’t remember her saying anything about how many , but he’s sure he ordered more than three…

When he looks back up at her again, her face is constricted in alarm—as if, once again, she’s read his thoughts. “It’s—it’s not a bad thing!” she reassures, some of her old stutter slipping back into her voice in her haste to reassure him. Ironically, it does the opposite. “It’s just, it says there’s only three horses, and I—I just thought we might need more, with Petra and Dorothea bringing the children, and—”

Internally, Hubert groans. Externally, he must also groan, because suddenly the look on Bernadetta’s face morphs from slightly panicked to mock-stern.

“Now, now,” she says, barely concealing the laughter buried in her words. “Be kind.”

“I happen to be very kind, as well you know,” Hubert replies, pretending to be offended. “Merely concerned , my dear, that I did not account for Petra and Dorothea’s brood.”

And it’s true, even if said brood’s wildness puts his boys’ to shame. But in spite of that, Hubert’s fond of them; and what’s more, Petra and Dorothea are their only friends with children thus far, a gaggle of war orphans they’ve been steadily, cheerfully collecting into their already large, chaotic home. It would be a shame if they didn’t accommodate for the only other children at the party.

Bernadetta’s still looking at him with faint concern, so Hubert clears his throat and says, “Well, I’m sure we can remedy that.” It’s more of something to say than evidence of an actual solution, but the way Bernadetta’s face instantly brightens makes him relax, just a little.

“Would you like to go down there now and see if we can think of something?” she asks, bouncing on her toes a little, in a way that makes it nearly impossible for Hubert to refuse.

So he doesn’t. He rises up out of his chair, pausing midway to kiss her swiftly on the forehead, before offering her his arm.

“Anywhere, darling,” he tells her. “Anywhere with you.”

The cacophony of hammers and saws hasn’t quieted any by the time they make it across the grounds to the bones of the carnival. A flurry of workers hums around the freshly-hewn tent poles, stepping out of their path without once glancing up as Hubert and Bernadetta make their way into the center of all the chaos. It looks, Hubert has to admit, so much less dire from the inside than the chaos he’d observed from their balcony had led him to suspect. All of the game stands they’d ordered built are standing in neat rows, their paint fresh and gleaming. The machine for making candy floss is already humming away, while one of their kitchen girls feeds it experimental handfuls of dyed sugar. In the corner, tucked out of the way of the workers’ traipsing feet, are all the parts for the mechanical train: spidery stacks of miniature railroad tracks piled next to three shiny red cars, waiting to be assembled and put to work. And in the center of it all—

Hubert draws up short when he sees it, in pride of place amidst the whole carnival: their barely-functional merry-go-round, being tinkered over by no fewer than three mechanics. This is pretty much how it’s looked every other time he’s come to check on the work—the brightly painted horses frozen in place, and awful, throaty grinding noise coming from deep within the machine. But that’s not what makes him freeze in his tracks, inadvertently freezing Bernadetta right alongside him.

No, what makes him do a double take is the three additional animals, unpainted, that have suddenly appeared at the base of the merry-go-round. Additional animals , because even in their naked state, they look nothing like their candy-colored compatriots, rearing regally in place along the merry-go-round. These wooden creatures, while saddled and bridled just as a horse would be, are the least dignified-looking things Hubert’s ever seen: a disturbingly bug-eyed frog, a mopey basset hound, and (perhaps most puzzling of all) a shark with a full set of razor-sharp teeth.

Before he’s quite recovered from the shock, Bernadetta’s saying what he’s thinking: “Wh-What–” she splutters, sounding simultaneously horrified and delighted. “What in the world are those?”

One of the mechanics perks up at the sound of her voice, wiping a smear of grease off on her cheek and loping over to where the two of them are standing, frozen. Hubert registers the motion as if from the corner of his eye, still unable to tear his gaze away from the monstrosities standing at the base of the merry-go-round. Part of him honestly does want to laugh, but less at the ridiculousness of it all and more at his consistently abominable luck.

“Found these in the carriage house,” he hears the mechanic telling Bernadetta. “Must’ve gotten lost when we was movin’ things around. Reckon that’s why the merry-go-round ain’t been movin’.”

Hubert finally finds his voice, if only briefly. “That’s why–” he stammers.

The mechanic nods, cheerfully oblivious to his distress. “Machine’s weighted, see,” she explains. “Needs a certain amount of weight to balance it out or the gears just up and stop runnin’. Now that we’ve found these we should be all right.”

“They don’t match the rest of the carousel, though, do they?” Bernadetta says diplomatically.

“No,” the mechanic agrees. “Strange, that. It’s all on the order form, though, see?”

She hands the paper over to Hubert–recognizing, perhaps, his signature at the bottom of the page–and Hubert automatically lowers it down so Bernadetta can peer over and see. He’s all prepared for righteous indignation, knowing with certainty that he didn’t request a carved shark for a merry-go-round, but there, in stark black ink on the page, is the damning evidence: a check mark next to HORSES and a second, fainter check mark next to OTHER.

“I don’t remember requesting this,” is all he manages to say. His voice is faint, sounding very far away from his own ears.

Bernadetta scrutinizes the order form, then glances up at Hubert. The expression on her face is implacable, but without looking away, she says to the mechanic, “And the carousel absolutely can’t run without them?”

The mechanic shrugs. “Needs the weight to balance it,” she says again. “It ain’t been runnin’ right without it.”

Bernadetta nods, as if anything about this answer satisfies her. “Then we’ll have them installed.”

Hubert, at last, breaks out of a bit of his reverie. “Darling–”

“I’m sure you’re all very hard at work,” Bernadetta adds, steamrolling right over whatever Hubert had been about to say. “So my husband and I will take care of painting them up.”

The mechanic shrugs, as if it doesn’t much matter to her one way or the other, and goes loping back to join her team. Bernadetta, unbelievably, beams up at Hubert, clearly already past the mortification of the situation.

“Lighten up, dear,” she teases, wrapping her arms around his midsection and lightly knocking her forehead against his shoulder. “It’s going to be fun! You remember fun , don’t you?”

Hubert thinks that the honest answer at this point in his life is no . Instead, he says, “We can’t possibly put those hideous things on our sons’ birthday merry-go-round.”

“Why not?” Bernadetta raises both eyebrows at him, making her eyes saucer-wide. It’s a particularly endearing little move that he’s never been able to resist. “They’re three years old. They love hideous things. The shark’s particularly perfect, don’t you think?”

“Well, but it isn’t–”

Bernadetta cuts him off by patting his cheek and starting to make her way out of the carnival tent, forcing him to follow if he wants to hear what she has to say next. “It’s already happened,” she says cheerfully. “You can either be annoyed about it or make it look nice for the boys. I know which one I prefer.”

Hubert finds it extremely difficult to argue with that kind of logic.

Which is how, half an hour later, he’s draped in a bulbous white smock and standing in the middle of their overcrowded carriage house, staring into the dead, wooden eye of a shark wearing a saddle, attempting to paint its teeth to gleaming whiteness.

Here’s something about Hubert: of all his many talents, he has never, not once , counted artistic ability very high among them. Bernadetta’s the craftsperson in the relationship–the one who weaves flowers out of yarn and leaves them on his desk for him to find, or makes him boutonnieres out of winter roses to pin to his lapel whenever they’re due to be apart. Even now, she’s serenely painting a stripe of yellow down the back of the magnificently ugly carousel toad, chatting animatedly about how this will make it look as though there’s light gleaming off his back.

Hubert, meanwhile, has somehow managed to spill white paint all over the inside of the shark’s gaping maw, giving it the disconcerting look of a creature whose teeth are melting all over its tongue. He’s mildly, darkly impressed with himself for making an already terrifying thing look even more disturbing.

“I can hear you thinking, you know.”

Hubert shakes himself out of his self-deprecating train of thoughts just in time to see that Bernadetta’s abandoned both her paintbrush and her happy patter about color theory. She’s giving him this frank, teasing look, ridiculous and adorable in her smock, which is so oversized on her it looks like she’s drowning in it. There’s a smear of green paint tracked across her cheekbone, bold and careless, as though she hasn’t yet even noticed it’s there.

Dryly, he replies, “I’m afraid you got the lion’s share of artistic ability in this marriage, darling.”

“Nonsense.” To his horror, she marches right over, bold and undeterred, to inspect his handiwork. A small sound rises up in her throat, not quite escaping over her lips, but Hubert doesn’t miss the flash of merriment in her eyes.

“Mock me if you must,” he sighs, letting his paintbrush droop down on the plate he’s been using to hold all his colors. 

“I would never,” Bernadetta says solemnly. “It’s a very, ah, fascinating interpretation.”

“You’re far too kind, my love.” Wearily, Hubert sets his painting things aside and sits down, right there on the floor in the middle of the carriage house. It’s filthy and undignified and at the moment, he couldn’t care less. He’s hamfisting his way through painting a wooden shark instead of the ten thousand other things he ought to be doing to prepare, and he can’t even manage to do this right.

He supposes he never realized how much artistic ability would factor into being a good father.

He feels rather than sees Bernadetta clamber down onto the ground beside him, her white smock billowing out like the flaps of a tent as she settles in.

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” she says. “I’m sure there’s someone we can hire to take care of it, it’s just–oh, it’s just–”

She falters, pursing her lips in frustration. It’s like this with her, sometimes; her feelings tend to be so much bigger than her body, so much bigger than she knows how to put words to. Hubert’s got a retort on his lips already–something about how that’s what he would have preferred from the start–but he knows better than to interrupt his wife when she’s trying to speak from the heart.

Finally, she says, “You just don’t seem to be having that much fun , is all. You’re stressed out about all of it, and I–” Here her voice cracks a little, the sound ricocheting down the middle of Hubert’s heart in an answering faultline. “I just felt so guilty , like I made you do this, and you didn’t actually want to, and–”

“No,” Hubert says firmly, placing both of his hands on her shoulders. He waits until she meets his gaze–hers wavering and unsure–before continuing. “I agreed to this because I wanted to. Because–” He falters. It’s hard, sometimes, still, for him to be this open, this raw and honest , about his feelings. 

But the quiet, patient way Bernadetta’s looking back at him–with that smear of paint on her face and spattered all down the front of that ridiculous smock, her hair pulled sloppily out of her eyes and her eyes, always, so full and bright and shining when she looks at him–reminds him that his feelings are safe. That she will always, always keep them safe for him.

“Because I wanted to make you happy,” he finally admits. “And because I wanted to make the boys happy. You needn’t trouble yourself. It’s more work than I anticipated, yes, but it’s work I chose to do.” 

Bernadetta relaxes, a little, at that–though not, Hubert notes, completely. It’s the uncanny way she knows him, her almost supernatural predisposition for when he’s holding something back. Ordinarily, just seeing that look on her face would be enough to make him confess it all. All the secret fears he ordinarily never lets come to the surface: that this is a test, somehow, of a role he knows he lucked himself into. A challenge, to prove that this job he loves–Bernadetta’s wife, Rowan and Cassian’s father–is also a job he deserves . A challenge that, he’s starting to suspect, he’s not doing especially well with.

But he can’t spill all of that to her right now. Not when she brought him here specifically to force him to have fun . And especially not when these damn carousel monstrosities still need to be painted.

“I love you, you know,” Bernadetta says, softly but with feeling. 

He quirks an eyebrow at her. “I should certainly hope so.”

Bernadetta smacks his arm lightly, but tips her head up anyway to press a kiss against his cheek. Hubert leans in to meet her, forgetting until her cheek brushes his that there’s still a rather large smear of paint on her face.

Bernadetta notices it as soon as she pulls away, though. “Oh!” she cries, face reddening slightly. “I’m sorry, I must’ve…”

But she trails off as soon as she notices the wicked smile unfurling across Hubert’s face. Before she has a chance to say another word, he’s snatched his wet paintbrush back up from his place and dabbed a rough dollop of white paint right on the tip of her nose.

Bernadetta’s stunned for only a second before a wicked grin splits her own face, her eyes narrowing at the challenge. Before Hubert can scramble away, she’s retrieved her own paintbrush and run a long, sticky line of bright green from his ear to his jaw.

It’s all-out war, after that–the two of them scrambling and chasing, wrestling for the upper hand as paint flies freely between them, spattering all that remains of the white of their smocks. Hubert’s physically bigger and stronger than Bernadetta, but his wife is quick and nimble; she easily slips away from his grasping hands and lands a dollop of red right on top of his head. It’s an outrage he repays by seizing her around her waist and holding her, squirming and giggling in protest, while he dollops shark-tooth white in her hair.

Exhaustion calls them a truce before they do: breathless with both laughter and exertion, sprawled across the paint-splattered floor, every inch of them sticky and stained. Bernadetta’s still half in Hubert’s lap, her laughter vibrating against his chest–a feeling that, if he had to give a name to, he thinks he could only properly call home . It prompts him to pull her closer, and kiss the spot just below her ear–the only spot on her whole face that isn’t currently freckled with paint.

“I love you, too,” he tells her, holding her body close to his for a moment before reluctantly letting her go. What he means is I wish you weren’t going . What he means is I’m glad I don’t have to do all this without you . He doesn’t say either of these things out loud, though. He trusts his wife’s keen intuition to simply know , the way she knows every other important thing about him.

Bernadetta giggles in a self-satisfied kind of way. “And I take back what I said. You are fun.” She smacks a final, parting kiss on his cheek before getting to her feet, brushing inadequately at the messy front of her smock. “We’d better finish this up, though. I think we’ve gotten more paint on each other than on any of the carousel animals.”

Reluctantly, Hubert stands, too, and returns to his shark’s gaping, melting maw. It doesn’t make the job of painting any easier, and, in the end, his shark looks as though it was painted in by one of the children (though Bernadetta insists, when he says as much, that he’s simply being dramatic). But the smile on his face–the one he can feel echoed deep in his marrow, and in every single beat of his heart–makes all of it seem like so much less of a bad thing.

Two significant things happen the following morning.

The first is Bernadetta’s departure for Enbarr, just before dawn: an hour when even the boys are sleepy and sullen, suffering her flurry of goodbye kisses and waving halfhearted goodbyes with bleary eyes. Hubert, holding them in both of his arms as he watches her carriage depart, thinks he feels crestfallen enough for all three of them. Even though it’s only a day and a night, the weight of all that’s still left to do somehow feels suffocating, without her. Where last night, it had been so effortless, so easy —even in the face of what, on the surface, ought to have been a dire problem—now feels far too big for the likes of him to face, especially alone .

The second—which seems to drive even further home the point that Bernadetta is this carnival’s lucky charm—is that, shortly after breakfast, one of his hired men comes looking for him with unfortunate news: the game stalls have all been completed, yes, but the shelves they were told to built for prizes are all empty. No prizes anywhere to be found in the ruckus of carnival supplies they’ve been keeping in the carriage house.

“That’s simply not possible,” Hubert says, without thinking, when he hears this. Although almost instantly, he knows it’s incorrect. Clearly, he can no longer trust himself to be infallible on this project—not after accidentally ordering the absolute most hideous merry-go-round creatures known to man. 

The workman shrugs and hands over an invoice, as if he’d been expecting this kind of reaction. Hubert scans it quickly, but he really doesn’t have to. He already knows, in this meticulously itemized list of things needed for a carnival, that prizes won’t be on the list.

“Never mind,” he says briskly, handing the man back his copy of the invoice. “Prizes can be obtained. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” 

“Just get ’em toys,” the man suggests helpfully. “Doesn’t matter what kind.”

“Yes.” Hubert’s distracted, already mentally running calculations of how best to go about this task. He could always send a member of staff to fetch some things in town, but he hasn’t been to the haberdashery in a while and doesn’t know what kind of toys might be appropriate. Then, of course, there’s the matter of what to do with the twins—

The thought stops him short. The twins. The twins who are under his direct supervision today. The twins who, if he needs to take a trip into town, will have to be brought along with him.

Here is something true: Hubert loves his children. He thinks they’re the cleverest, most wonderful little people to ever walk the earth, with their mother a close second; everything they do, even when they’re at their toddler worst, is remarkable to him. He’d do absolutely anything for them–the carnival, he thinks wryly, is evidence of that much at least–and their happiness is the most important thing in the world .

Here is something else true: Hubert would lay down his life for his children. And sometimes, he thinks, he’d honestly prefer that to taking them into town with him.

It wasn’t always this way. Only in recent years–since they’d begun walking, and then running , independently and with confidence–has leaving the grounds of Varley become an ordeal the very thought of which makes his palms start to itch with sweat. Hubert knows, mostly thanks to Bernadetta’s gentle and frequent reminders, that this is just normal behavior for toddlers. That it’s healthy, even, for their social and cognitive development for them to be let loose and explore. And on paper, Hubert agrees. In fact, if all they wanted to do was let loose and explore, he might not worry at all.

But his sons’ idea of letting loose and exploring seems to be running wild and amok all over town, to the point where he’s only ever sure where one of them is at any given time. His sons like to toddle after strangers, put their hands (and their mouths) on all manner of things that they shouldn’t, climb up trees that they then can’t manage to get down from. It’s a miracle if an outing into town doesn’t end in one of them injured and two of them howling–unless it’s both of them injured and howling, with Hubert carrying them both under his arms like heavy pieces of sporting equipment, muttering apologies to everyone as he goes.

And then there’s the part of him–small, but nagging–that wonders if a good father’s children would manage to make it out of town unscathed every time.

But the fact of the matter is that they have no prizes for the children’s games; and so, bright and early on the morning before Bernadetta is due to return, Hubert wrestles them into their matching sailor suits (a favorite of Bernadetta’s; she likes to say if they can’t act sweet, at least the sailor suits make them look sweet) and sits them down at the breakfast table for a pep talk.

“What will we not be doing in town?” he asks, directing his gaze first at Cassian, then Rowan in turn.

“Climbing the big tree,” Cassian dutifully singsongs, a look in his eye that suggests he’s rather unimpressed. In spite of this, some of the tension ebbs out of Hubert’s muscles. He looks pointedly at Rowan.

Rowan is frowning intently, as if he’s working his way through a difficult sum in his head. “But Papa, what about smaller trees?” he finally says, with a three-year-old’s seriousness that Hubert can’t help but to melt at, a little. “If we can’t climb the big tree–”

“Let’s just say no climbing trees at all,” Hubert says hastily. “So we will not be climbing trees, but we will be–?”

He gives Rowan another pointed look. Rowan’s still frowning hard, struggling to make sense of a world in which climbing trees is strictly forbidden, but at his father’s prompting, he brightens a little and happily chirps, “Staying close to Papa!”

A rush of affection threatens to overwhelm Hubert, at that. He settles for patting Rowan on the head, knocking his sailor hat askew in the process. “Very good. And if we stay off of trees, and if we stay close to Papa, and if we are very good boys, what’s going to happen?”

At this, Cassian pipes up unprompted, a gleam in his eye that Hubert recognizes all too well. “A bribe!” he shouts with relish. 

“Yes– no ,” Hubert corrects, suddenly horrified. “ Not a–who even taught you that word? Where did you hear such a thing?”

Rowan shrugs deliberately. Hubert doesn’t know what to be more alarmed by–his son’s vocabulary widening without his knowledge, or the fact that he did, indeed, just use the word bribe correctly. 

“We’ll be having sweets ,” he corrects, straining to keep his tone even. “We’ll have ice cream at your mother’s favorite tea shop–”

This piques Rowan’s interest once more. “Is Mama coming home?” he hollers, unnecessarily loudly, while pressing down on the top of Cassian’s head, as if he can physically push his younger, louder brother out of existence long enough to get the words out. Cassian, apparently feeling more generous than usual, just heaves a long-suffering sigh (which sounds, Hubert notices, eerily similar to one that Hubert himself has been making a lot lately) and slaps at Rowan without enthusiasm.

And it breaks Hubert’s heart, just a little, to see them getting old enough to miss her when she’s gone. He knows, of course, that they always do–even when they were small, he could pick up on their cues, their crankiness and confusion when she was gone a few days in a row–but now that they’re old enough to articulate it, it’s a new kind of bittersweet. 

He clears his throat before replying. “Mama will be home tomorrow morning,” he reminds them. “And your party will be the day after that. For this reason, we must be on our very best behavior today, yes? So that tomorrow, you can tell her what good boys you’ve both been while she was gone.”

Rowan bobs his head thoughtfully, in a way that lets Hubert know he hasn’t listened to anything past Mama will be home tomorrow . Cassian looks up at his father, studying him a moment, before solemnly saying, “Papa?”

“Yes?” Hubert replies, instantly wary.

“I’m always a very good boy.”

And so, here they are: making their way down the village’s high street, Hubert suspended between his two sons as they walk in a row, hand in hand. And, to their credit, the boys are on their very best behavior–almost demure as they trot along at Hubert’s sides, so charming in their little sailor suits that more than one person stops to stare and coo. Which is itself extraordinary: the sons of Bernadetta von Varley, and specifically their antics about town, are not exactly unknown to the people of their village.

It’s a fine winter day, with the feel of spring within sight if just out of reach: the sun beams down on them as they make their way into the square, and the air, while cold, has put away its bite for the time being. The trees that line either side of the cobblestones (the same trees that Cassian and Rowan are not, under any circumstances, to climb) scratch dry, papery limbs at a limp blue sky, and Hubert’s reminded, suddenly, of a day like this, more than three years ago. The dregs of winter. The promise of spring. Bernadetta, hugely pregnant, but still walking, stubbornly, beside him, even though he’d begged her to take a carriage. Their own promise of new life, right there with them, as they made their way across the winter-cold cobbles to the same haberdashery Hubert and the boys are approaching now.

It’s remarkable, he thinks, how simultaneously short and long three years can be. How, not that long ago, the pair walking beside him–still so serenely, the promise of ice cream still fresh in their minds–were nothing more than an idea.

It’s a soft moment, amidst all the chaos of the past week. Had it gone on a little bit longer, Hubert thinks he might have come to terms with all the ways in which his sons’ birthday party might not go perfectly.

But predictably, it doesn’t last. Predictably, Hubert finds himself not fifteen minutes later, in the haberdashery, gripped with the cold feeling he might almost call premonition, which usually precedes a toddler-sized disaster.

“Papa, look!”

This from Cassian, who, sure enough, has somehow not only gotten ahold of a stuffed shark bigger than he is, but–in the split second Hubert glanced away to speak with the owner of the haberdashery–managed to heft it off an upper shelf (Hubert suspects Cassian’s brother had some involvement in this) and brandish it in the direction of his father and the owner.

“I’m a shark!” he howls, delighted with himself. The shark’s head bobs precariously, swinging in a dangerous arc towards a stack of delicately balanced toy blocks. Hubert doesn’t think he imagines the involuntary shudder that runs through the owner of the haberdashery.

“You most certainly are not,” he tells his son, trying to keep his tone of voice level, even as he discovers–oh, Goddess –Rowan is nowhere to be found. “And I don’t believe this is what we agreed upon.”

He’s mildly embarrassed by his own turn of phrase as soon as he hears the words leave his mouth. Something about having to scold his children in public turns him into a pontificator–like reasoning with his toddlers is something that might honestly work. He supposes it all goes back to this idea of good fathers, and what they do or don’t do. Still: “Cassian, where is your brother?”

Cassian-the-shark waves a sad woven flipper at him by way of response. “I ate him,” he says matter-of-factly. 

“Cassian–”

The haberdasher looks back and forth between the two of them, the father and the boy-shark,   with a bemused kind of confusion.

“Sir,” he says, in a tone of voice Hubert’s grown all too familiar with since his sons were old enough to take on outings. “Pardon me, but we were discussing an order of toy–”

“Yes, yes, that was before.” Hubert doesn’t mean to snap, but it’s hard to focus on anything else when Rowan’s absence is glaring . His tone comes out sharp enough that Cassian finally lowers the shark from his face, a tremor already starting in his lower lip, as if he’s the one being spoken to harshly. “My son is missing. Rowan!”

Silence. Hubert can feel the beginnings of a truly spectacular headache beginning to bloom behind his eyes. The toy soldiers for game prizes will have to wait. 

“Begging your pardon,” he mutters, shouldering past the gentleman and grabbing Cassian by the scruff of his little sailor shirt, tugging him towards the door.

Outside, the sunlight that had just moments before seemed so bright and pleasant now slices, blindingly, into Hubert’s eyes. He tightens his grip on Cassian’s shirt–his boys have a supernatural knack for when their father might not be paying full attention to them–and pushes doggedly into the street, calling for Rowan. Even to his own ears, his voice is embarrassingly high-pitched, frantic; he’s sure people are stopping to stare at him, but can’t bring himself to care. 

Then, like a bolt of divine inspiration from on high: a tiny, infuriatingly calm little voice, floating down from, oh Goddess , high above. “I’m right here , Papa.”

Hubert takes a second to regain control of his breathing before tipping his head up–into the boughs of the stately old elm tree casting thin, knobby shadows across the cobblestones in the square. Thin, knobby shadows, and, if he’s not mistaken, one shadowy lump the size of a small boy.

Rowan stares back at him evenly, though Hubert’s attention is drawn almost instantly to the way the little boy’s hands are in a death grip around the tree’s trunk. He’s well over both of their heads–so high up, Hubert can’t begin to imagine how he got up there unassisted in the first place–and while he’s clinging to his familiar, toddler stoicism, Hubert’s spent enough time soothing nightmares and knee scrapes to know when one of his children is upset.

“Papa,” Rowan repeats, almost conversationally. He’s never, from the time he was a baby, been fond of large emotional displays. “Can you get me down now, please?”

Hubert’s fairly certain that nothing in all his life has felt as terrible as this: both the quaver in his son’s tone as he makes his request, and the fact that the honest answer to the question is no . 

“I–” he falters, scrambling for a way to sound as though he knows exactly what to do. He realizes he has no idea what a good father ought to do in this situation. As near as he can guess, good fathers don’t lose their sons up in trees in the first place.

His hesitation proves to be a crucial mistake, though: in the split second it takes him to stumble on his words, suddenly, Cassian’s piping up, “ I’ll get him, Papa, it’s easy!” And then, in the time it takes Hubert to realize that Cassian’s no longer within easy reach, Cassian’s already monkeyed himself halfway up the tree to join his brother–a feat of superhuman speed that, in any other moment, Hubert thinks he’d be a bit impressed by.

“Cassian, no ,” he calls out, his tone sounding deflated even to his own ears. Because by the time the words have left his mouth, Cassian’s already joined his brother on one of the uppermost boughs, and Hubert’s still completely at a loss as for how to get either of them back down again.

Cassian blinks down at him, apparently unruffled by the height. “It’s high ,” he observes. Then, suddenly overcome with indignation, he turns on his brother. “ Rowan! Papa said no ice cream if we climb trees!”

Rowan’s expression instantly shifts from tremulous to enraged. “ You climbed too!” he shoots back hotly.

“Cause you couldn’t get down!”

“Nuh- uh!”

“ Boys ,” Hubert interrupts, mustering everything he’s got to make his tone harsh and serious. He hates, hates, hates yelling at his children–prefers for Bernadetta to do most of the discipline, if he’s being honest–but he can see all too clearly where this is going to go. In seconds, they’re going to start hitting each other, and all it’ll take is one unbalanced smack to send both of their tender skulls smashing on the cobblestones.

It does the trick, too: both boys freeze in place, eyes wide as saucers and fixed on their father. And Hubert knows that the window he’s been given to fix this is slim, and so, he blurts out the very first solution he can think of.

“You’re just going to have to jump for it,” he tells them. “I’ll catch you so you don’t fall. But you must do exactly as I say, is that understood?”

Nods all around. Good. Hubert’s got them listening, for once; in the interest of capitalizing on this time before it all falls apart, he says quickly, “One at a time, and on the count of three, all right? Ready?”

More nods. Hubert inhales a deep breath in, stabilizing himself against the cobblestones; he angles so that there’s a bit of decorative shrubbery at his back, just in case he loses his footing, and calls out without thinking, “One, two– three!”

In hindsight, he thinks, he really ought to have chosen his words a little better–ought to have anticipated something like this happening, in the split second before it does. Because when he’d said one at a time , he hadn’t gone through the crucial process of actually deciding who would go first. Meaning, as soon as the word three flies loose from his lips, both boys obediently jump at the same time.

For a horrible, suspended moment, he thinks there’s absolutely no way he can catch them both. That someone is going to get hurt, and all because he couldn’t figure out what a good father does in a situation like this one. But then the moment’s swiftly cut off with an impact like a cannonball colliding squarely with his chest, and Hubert’s stomach drops down to the vicinity of his feet as he and the twins go tumbling, all as one, into the bushes.

For a dazed second, Hubert wonders if his soul might have actually left his body this time. It seems to be floating, pleasant and pain-free, somewhere far away from the mass of throbbing, itching discomfort that has become his body. It lasts only a second, though, before he’s shooting upright once more–or trying to, that is. There’s still a dual pressure weighing down his chest, and when he fixes his gaze upon it–when he sees Rowan and Cassian, unharmed save for a few stray twigs and scratches, and, miraculously, giggling with glee–the relief that washes over his entire body is like nothing he’s ever felt before. It’s almost enough to make him forget he was just body-slammed to the hard ground, by way of a prickly bush, by two toddler-sized projectiles.

Both of whom, miraculously, seem absolutely delighted with this turn of events. “Papa’s a trampoline!” Cassian crows with delights, bouncing experimentally on his father’s already-abused torso. Rowan just cackles in reply, shoving at his father’s calves as if he expects them, too, to suddenly be rubbery and yielding.

Hubert–every inch of his body aching, a headache blooming once more behind his eyes–just emits a little groan. It’s all he's capable of doing, at the moment. The boys seem to find this even more hilarious, their laughter taking on a hysterical edge.

“Rowan,” Hubert finally manages to croak out. He means for it to sound stern, disciplinary, but his lungs have recently been used as lifesaving devices and can’t quite manage to get the air out properly. “ What were you doing climbing up trees when I told you not to?”

He feels Rowan’s chubby little fingers press down hard on his knees. He imagines, rather than sees, the nonchalant shrug that accompanies his answer.

“I didn’t climb up the tree, Papa,” Rowan says, unconcerned. “I crawled up it. You didn’t say no crawling . Can we still have ice cream?”

They do, in the end, have ice cream–a weak-willed decision on Hubert’s part, he knows, but his relief that neither of his sons are badly hurt eclipses all rational thought. He thinks he’d buy Cassian that stupid stuffed shark, if he asked for it right now.

(He makes a mental note to go back and buy it anyway, adding it to the ever-accumulating pile of presents for the boys that he and Bernadetta can’t seem to resist buying.)

By the time they’ve had their ice cream and are making their way home, the boys are almost subdued–exhausted, perhaps, by the excitement of the day. Hubert knows he certainly is, but also, that he still has to put them both down for their naps, see that their suppers are made to their exacting specifications, bathe them, soothe Rowan when he discovers that his minor scratches sting when put in bathwater, read them an endless litany of stories, and coax them both to sleep.

And then there’s still that damned carnival to worry about. 

It’s the first thing he sees when they crest the hill that dips down toward the Varley estate–red and white linen flapping in the slight afternoon breeze, the drumbeat of hammers and grind of saws only faint sounds, from so far away. This time tomorrow, they’ll be putting the finishing touches on all of it. This time tomorrow, their friends will all be closing in, their carriages rumbling down the rutted dirt road that, gradually, leads to Enbarr.

He’s relieved beyond words that Bernadetta’s will be the first among them. That, this time tomorrow, she’ll be back by his side, and they can figure out the rest of it together. 

First, though, he has to finish his order at the haberdashery–which he quietly places in the hands of one of their staff, face burning at the very thought of facing the proprietor again. And then–rounding off the major tasks he’d hoped to accomplish before Bernadetta comes home–that blasted mechanical train.

It’s the one idea Bernadetta’s put forth that he’s wanted to veto, but didn’t. In part because of the way Bernadetta’s eyes had lit up when she spoke of it–that excited, almost frenetic gleam that he’s always been particularly powerless against. In part because, if he’s being honest with himself, the idea strikes a certain fondness in him, as well. A toddler-size mechanical train chugging its way around the perimeter of the carnival tent–he knows his boys well enough to know that they’ll go absolutely mad for it. If any single one of these enterprises so far has a hope of earning him the title of father of the year (a title he knows he’s fallen behind on somewhat, after the incident with the boys in the tree), it’s surprising them with this. Almost as good: surprising Bernadetta with having it all done by the time she comes home tomorrow.

Once the boys are in bed, the staff retired for the evening, and the prizes secured from the haberdashery, Hubert grabs hold of the cloth bag that holds the latter and makes his way across the dark, chilly grounds to the silent, towering behemoth of the carnival. This far past dark it’s eerily empty of the constant ruckus of industry that fills it by day; the slap of the wind at its gaping front flap is a sound strangely magnified, and eerie. Hubert shoulders through it anyway, into the sawdust-and-greasepaint smell of its interior, and, for the first time since construction began, observes it in its entirety, completely uninterrupted.

It’s nothing especially big or fancy–nothing, he’s sure, like the grand affairs Bernadetta’s mother would have put on when she was a child. But something loosens in his chest, something he hadn’t even realized was so tight , to see it all come together. Everything freshly painted and neatly squared away in its corner of the tent: ring-toss games and water-pistol games and a dunk tank sloshing full of water that he’d rather not think too hard about. (He’s resigned to the fact that it’ll be him in there, at some point, before the boys’ birthday is over.) Even the ghoulish, bug-eyed frogs and dogs and sharks of the merry-go-round, clashing horrendously with the candy-colored ponies, seems festive in the light of Hubert’s single, flickering lamp. Imbued, in a way, with a hush of anticipation. Waiting for the boys’ laughter, almost, to bring them to life.

He shoves away the whimsical thought as soon as he sees the train tracks: strewn across the sawdusty floor in careless heaps, a stark contrast to the relative orderliness that surrounds them. Whoever had last had a crack at making the train run has simply stacked its three jaunty little cars in a heap on top of the counter where the prizes will need to be stashed. They look so sad there, Hubert thinks. Little better than one of the boys’ toys, tossed without a thought onto the rug when it’s time for bed.

He knows that the workers are trying their best to get everything done on time. Just like he knows that if anything’s not done on time–if they have to forfeit this little train–Bernadetta won’t mind in the least. Neither will Rowan or Cassian. The relative secrecy with which the carnival’s been kept from them, in fact, ensures that they won’t even know what they’re missing.

But Hubert will know. And Hubert will have to miss out on that glow in their eyes–all three the same, the twins’ inherited from their mother–when they see the thing up and running, bobbing its way around this tent full of wonders like a lasso keeping it all contained. Hubert won’t get to experience that absolute happiness , the kind he never could have imagined, before becoming a husband and father, could come from just seeing the look on another person’s face.

And so–despite the dull throb of pain still echoing throughout his body–he sets down his lantern, rolls up his sleeves, and gets to work.

He’s only been asleep for about three hours when the whump of something solid and heavy landing on his chest wakes him up. 

Barely suppressing a groan, Hubert creaks a single eyelid open and sees, sure enough, a shock of uncombed lilac hair and a flurry of toddler limbs. He snaps both eyes shut again, as if that might be enough to make all of this go away for long enough to catch up on his sleep. Instead, he’s greeted with the feeling of warm breath close to his face, and the sound of exaggerated dragon-breathing right by his ear.

“ Papa!” Rowan bellows, so close to Hubert’s eardrum that, despite Hubert anticipating it–this isn’t the first rude awakening he’s received courtesy of his sons–he nearly jumps out of his skin, sheets flying up in the air around Rowan and (at the foot of the bed, watching it all transpire with bemused detachment) Cassian.

“ Boys ,” he croaks weakly, pushing himself into an upright position and willing his heartbeat to slow. “How many times have we discussed not doing that?”

Rowan cheerfully ignores this. “It’s today ,” he says, eyes wide, as if that explains anything at all. When Hubert doesn’t rise to the bait, Rowan adds, “Is Mama back yet?”

Hubert rubs the top of his head, feeling, with dismay, the mess that his hair has turned into overnight. Realizing, too, at Rowan’s pronouncement that it’s today , that it is, indeed, today: the last day to put the finishing touches on all their hard work. Tomorrow, their friends come into town.

In spite of himself–in spite of all the trepidation he’s felt up to this point, and all the trepidation he suspects he ought to still be feeling–he feels the beginning of a smile start to itch across his face. It had taken him more than half the night, and he knows that he’s going to be feeling it today, but, against all odds, the train works . He’s managed to get it up and running. The final part of the equation that they had had to solve is standing upright on its little railway line, mechanisms humming, waiting for two little boys to discover. One thing, amid the chaos, that he’s managed to get completely right .

“ Papa ,” Rowan whines again, with such an exaggerated drawl, it’s as though he’s been kept waiting for several hours and not just a minute or two. 

Hubert remembers himself. “No, Mama is not back yet.” He shoos the boys off of the bed so he can slip out from under the covers, gathering his dressing gown off of where it’s hanging on the bedpost and searching for his slippers on the floor. “She’ll be back sometime later this morning.”

“But what are we supposed to do until she gets here?” Rowan mimes fainting, boneless, down the side of the bed, collapsing into a puddle on the carpet. Cassian observes him with faint distaste, like a much older child might a younger one throwing a tantrum. But he, too, looks expectantly at his father, with an almost grown-up looking arch to his eyebrows, tacitly asking, Well?

No mystery as to where he learned that trick.

Hubert’s inclined to blame his lack of coffee intake–a crime on any day, but especially one in which he’s had this little sleep–for what comes out of his mouth next. Lack of coffee, and the prospect of having to get things done while entertaining a pair of toddlers with too little to do, who are already hopped up on the prospect of their birthday. Hubert knows his sons well enough to know that, without constructive ways of entertaining themselves, they’ll make up their own; which is how they end up in the upper boughs of trees that they were already told not to climb.

“I’ll tell you what,” he says, and both twins instantly perk up, trained to the sound of their father’s bargaining voice. “We’ll have breakfast, and you’ll let Papa have a cup of coffee, and then, as a special treat, I’ll take you down to see the inside of the carnival, all right?” With a sudden dash of inspiration, partly motivated by his triumph with the train, he adds, “I’ll even let you test out something really special for yourselves, how does that sound?”

The twins bob their heads in unison, faces shining with eagerness. It’s nice, Hubert thinks. A reminder of why he’s doing all this in the first place, and a promise of much more awe on their faces to come. 

“We’re in agreement, then,” he says, slipping off the bed and into his slippers. He reaches out a hand each for his sons, and, in a rare moment of perfect, quiet obedience, they put their chubby, slightly sticky ( how are they already sticky?) hands into his. “Let’s go have breakfast.”

He can scarcely keep pace with his own three-year-olds as they make their way out of the estate and onto the grounds. As soon as the cool air of outdoors had hit their faces—milder than it’s been in weeks, a promising sign for the party tomorrow—both boys had been off arrows shot from a bow, rocketing over the winter-dry grass before Hubert even had a chance to double-check that everyone had shoes on. Nevertheless, their wild enthusiasm warms him from the inside out, till the already-temperate morning feels positively springlike; and, indeed, there’s a spring in his step as he follows after them, shouting out reminders to wait for Papa before they go inside.

At the entrance to the carnival, the boys bob up and down in place, like the excitement is too large for their little bodies to contain. Even though the air’s not especially cold, their breath fogs up before them in anxious, happy puffs; and Hubert’s only verklempt for a second that he hasn’t saved this moment for tomorrow. Tomorrow, he knows, the carnival will be a different being entirely, full of music, food, and the laughter of their friends. Giving them a sneak preview today won’t dim that kind of shine.

“Now, remember,” Hubert warns, his hand on the flap of the tent to let them in. “You may look , but you may not touch . Paint may still be drying on things. You’ll have plenty of time to play tomorrow.” 

The boys nod in unison like overeager puppies, and Hubert’s heart, which he thought couldn’t get any fuller than it already is, grows three sizes. It’s with a flourish you could almost call theatrical that he parts the curtain, and lets them inside.

“ Woah!” Rowan whispers, his voice echoing strangely in the cavernous space.

Even Cassian, normally so taciturn, looks to be at a loss for words. He tugs on the tails of Hubert’s coat. “Is this for us , Papa?” he asks, sounding dubious. 

“All for you,” Hubert affirms.

And when his normally stoic youngest child’s eyes grow wide at that—when he gapes around the room with a soft, unconscious “ Woah” —Hubert knows, with absolute certainty, that everything it took him to get here was worth it.

Feeling bolder, he instructs, “Come here and have a look at this .”

The boys trot after him, too starstruck for the moment to think of wandering or climbing. When they see the train, waiting for them at the head of the tracks, their eyes practically bug out of their heads.

“A train!” Cassian howls at the top of his lungs. “A real train!”

Hubert indulgently steps aside to let them crawl all over and inspect every inch of it, deciding in the moment that this can be an exception to the don’t-touch rule. The boys clamber into the bucket-shaped seats of the miniature cars, which are perfectly child-size; they find the pullstring that activates a train-whistle sound and yank on it with abandon, hollering incoherently at one another in glee, until Hubert decides that he’s had enough and gently pries it out of their hands.

“We don’t want to break it before your actual birthday,” he says lightly.

Cassian’s crouched beside the train, studying its undercarriage with a critical eye. “Does it really go , Papa?” he asks. 

“It will,” Hubert promises. For once, too, he’s confident in his answer. He’d put the thing through its paces last night, testing and tinkering without any real expertise to back him up, but eventually, he got it to run a smooth loop around the carnival, just as it’s supposed to.

Rowan looks up from where he’s been fiddling with the tools in the driver’s seat, interest piqued. “Can we ride it now?” he begs. 

At this, finally, Hubert hesitates. He’d told himself, when he decided to show the boys the carnival early, that there would be no testing of it. Not, at least, until Bernadetta gets home and can share in it. But seeing the two of them now, giving him those pouty, puppy-dog faces that remind him so much of their mother’s, and which are just as hard to say no to…

“All right,” he hears himself say, without really thinking it through. What harm, he thinks, could it possibly do? 

The boys whoop in unison and clamber into the driver’s seat in a flurry of pushing and shoving. But within a few seconds they’ve settled in together, side by side: Cassian’s hand on the little clutch and Rowan’s poised casually within reach of the whistle pulley. It’s a sight to melt even the coldest of hearts; Hubert gets so lost in admiring it that he nearly forgets to run through the rules, and has to physically plant himself over the train, one leg on either side of the tracks, to keep the boys from flicking the on switch and going full steam ahead.

“Papa—”

“No,” Hubert interrupts, stern. “First you’ve got to listen to a few safety rules. It’s important that you—”

“ Papa .”

“Rowan, please . Now, if you don’t keep your hands and feet—”

“ Papa!”

Hubert finally relents, directing his gaze toward whatever has caught the boys’ attention. He sees immediately that he wasn’t all that quick after all, throwing himself across the train car to stop them from going. They’ve gone—or attempted to. The button that makes the machine stop and go is pressed down hard under Rowan’s tiny thumb, but nothing’s happening.

“No,” Hubert breathes out before he can stop himself.

The twins’ faces instantly fall into identical troubled expressions. “It doesn’t work,” Rowan pipes up unnecessarily.

“It’s supposed to work,” Cassian grouses.

Hubert takes a moment (and a few deep, steadying breaths) to compose himself before he replies. Privately, though, he’s with Cassian, railing at the unfairness of it all. It’s supposed to work. He made sure that it would.

“It’s fine,” he says, attempting to project confidence into his words, even if he’s feeling nothing of it. “Hop off of it for a moment and I’ll have a look at the control panel.”

For once, the boys obey instantly, clambering off the machine in a flurry. They watch carefully—Rowan with wide eyes, Cassian with suspicion—as Hubert, still straddling the train cars, leans over to where they’d been sitting, opens up the control panel under the button, and gives the button an experimental press.

It turns out to be perhaps his worst miscalculation yet.

Perhaps Rowan’s insistent pushing of it triggered some kind of mechanical overload. Perhaps it’s just bad luck. Perhaps—and this, Hubert will think most likely of all, in the self-deprecation of hindsight—he should never have attempted to fix this machine himself in the first place, without having at least one of the mechanics on hand to supervise.

Whatever the reason, as soon as his thumb hits the button, the machine rockets to life—going from a standstill to flying across the tracks at breakneck speed. Hubert, still awkwardly straddling the cars, feels a strange sensation just below his navel, like a giant hand has reached out and yanked him by the scruff of his neck; it’s only a split second later that he realizes the runaway train has taken him with it.

It feels like it goes on for a very long time, yet logically, it could only be a few seconds. The train’s flying like a windup toy that’s been wound too tight, springing loose with Hubert tangled in its cars, trapped on its back as it jerks and dodges its way around the carnival. The room spins about in a dizzying blaze of color and light and sound, what might be either laughter or crying or both; and then there’s a deafening, terrifying bang , and Hubert finds himself thrown face-first into the sawdust, his body feeling strangely like it’s still in motion.

When he manages to pull himself upright again, this is what he sees:

First, the train tracks—scattered across the floor like someone’s thrown them carelessly about. Like they weren’t connected in a neat line only seconds ago, a line that Hubert was so fastidious about making sure was properly aligned last night. There’s a distinctly smoky smell in the air, but no evidence, thankfully, of a fire. The boys, too—wide-eyed with either fear or anticipation, holding on to one another tightly—seem to be far removed from the destruction, and unharmed.

But then, he sees the train, and a tiny piece of that relief crumbles and falls away.

Because their beautiful, shiny little train car—the thing that Bernadetta had been so excited about, that he’d worked so hard to get ready for the boys—is lying on its side with its nose bashed in next to one of the freshly-constructed pillars holding the carnival together. Luckily, there’s no damage to the pillar—in fairness, it’s a very tiny train car—but the train, Hubert already knows, his heart sinking, is unsalvageable. The front car, anyway; the two rear cars don’t look much worse for the wear, but it doesn’t matter; the thing won’t run without the front car, and even if it could be rescued, the little machine has just very definitely proved itself to be unreliable.

Hubert doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Either, he supposes, would be less than ideal, with his children still watching him so carefully, but one or the other is going to happen, like it or not. He’s on the verge of leaning towards a third option (shouting at the top of his lungs, which is definitely not something good fathers do around their children) when all three of them are suddenly startled by the sound of approaching feet, and a hand reaching out to part the tent flap.

“Oh—oh my ,” says the voice of the one person Hubert has wanted more than anyone else in the world. “What’s happened in here?”

“Do you think you’re ready to talk about it?”

It’s several hours later—after the wreckage of the train has been removed, the twins (who’d giggled uncontrollably at the whole thing, once they realized their father was unhurt) put to bed, and Hubert’s minor scrapes and abrasions cleaned and bandaged. They’re sitting on the darkened terrace, looking out at the dark and somehow menacing bulk of the carnival tent. Hubert’s nursing a steaming cup of coffee, a blanket thrown crookedly around his shoulders from when Bernadetta came out to join him; and while his wife’s presence beside him, silent and supportive and, till now, undemanding, is a comfort, he doesn’t know what to say to her.

As soon as she’s asked a question of him, however, the silence is no longer soothing; it’s taut with expectation, growing more uncomfortable and obvious by the second. 

“You don’t have to, of course,” Bernadetta adds, once it’s gone on for just a beat too long. “I just want you to know I’m here to listen if you want.” 

Not for the first time, Hubert reflects on how lucky he is to have married her. How horribly, glaringly obvious it is, especially after today, that he doesn’t deserve her, but how grateful he is for her nevertheless. He takes another sip of his coffee, this time to brace himself to give her an answer. It’s the least he can do, he thinks, in the face of all her patient, generous love.

“I’m sorry, my darling,” he says at last. The words leave his mouth so quietly, he’s afraid, for a second, that he’ll have to repeat them; but Bernadetta doesn’t ask him to do that. Like always, she meets him halfway, tipping her head closer to his so she can better hear him. “I feel that I’ve rather let you down, in some ways.” 

He’d known, with a deep, sinking dread, that this conversation was coming. While no one had been hurt in the toy train crash—not even the carnival itself had suffered much damage—and while Bernadetta had been more amused than anything, and the boys delighted by the loud noise and the spectacle of it all, he knows that they must be disappointed. Remembering the way the twins’ faces had lit up when he placed them, side by side, in the conductor’s seat of the train car, makes him feel physically ill. After all of that, they won’t even get to ride around in it.

He’s prepared to say as much—to find a way to fumble all of that into some kind of apology—when Bernadetta surprises him by speaking first.

“I actually was going to say I was sorry to you ,” she says lightly.

This gets his attention, startling him so badly that he carefully puts his cup of coffee down on the terrace at his feet before replying. “What in the world do you have to be sorry for?”

Bernadetta shrugs, not meeting his gaze. Her face is pointed towards the carnival—the soft, faraway sound of its tent flaps rustling in the faint, cold breeze—and the expression Hubert can see there is inscrutable. 

“This all was my idea,” she says at last. Hubert thinks he detects a soft quaver in her voice, and his heart instantly grows tight in his chest; but before he can interrupt, Bernadetta continues. “I’m the one who said we should do it, and I—I’m afraid I left you with most of the work.”

“No, darling.” Hubert reaches for her hand, holding it in a tight grip until she turns her head to face him. “You helped whenever you could. You did so much. You do so much.” He pauses, desperate to find the right words to fit to everything that he’s feeling. Everything he’s ever felt, seeing her like this: the wife and the mother of his children, who loves them all so fiercely, and does so much besides. 

What ends up spilling out of him, all in a rush, “I couldn’t do this without you. Any of this. Everything that you do, and taking care of the boys, when I can’t manage to be a good father most days–”

He doesn’t realize that he’s rambling until he sees her eyes go suddenly wide, practically bugging out of her head. He amends: “Sorry, I know, I’m quite inarticulate right now, but—”

“Is that what this is about?” she interrupts.

Hubert’s confused. “Is—”

But Bernadetta interrupts him again. “You don’t think you’re a good father?” she asks, incredulous.

And there’s something about the way she says it—the complete, horrified shock in her tone, as if the idea is so ludicrous as to be offensive—that starts to thaw out something in Hubert’s chest that he hadn’t even realized was frozen. Still, doggedly, he continues: “I simply want to do right by them. Always. And often, it seems, I fall short of that.” He tries to make his tone purposely light and artless, as if he’s observing something that’s merely an annoying inconvenience. But even to his own ears, he sounds unconvincing; and before he’s even finished speaking, Bernadetta’s emphatically shaking her head.

“You listen to me,” she says. She’s scrambling out of her chair, climbing into his lap, pinning him in place with the slight weight of her small body. Even so, Hubert knows he couldn’t move right now if he tried. Especially when she takes his face in both her hands, forcing him to look her in the eye as well as listen. 

“You are the most wonderful father in the world ,” she says, voice trembling with emotion. “And I of all people should know what a good father isn’t .”

He’s loathe to interrupt her—more loathe to say anything that might make that tremor in her voice grow worse—but the words are spilling out of him before he can help it, loosed by the weight of his wife on top of him, the insistence of her words. “But the carnival—”

“Messing up doesn’t make you a bad father.” Bernadetta gives him a little shake, as if she can physically force the words to stick in his head. “Things aren’t going to be perfect every time. For weeks now I’ve watched you run yourself ragged, trying to make everything perfect for them. That is what a good father does. Just because it wasn’t— mmpf!”

Hubert kisses her. He kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her, until some of the frenetic tension goes loose from her limbs; until her lips curve up in a tentative smile against his, and his own fear of doing something undignified in front of her is somewhat allayed. There’s still a very suspicious burning behind his eyes, but he chooses, for the moment, to ignore it. Chooses instead to focus on the wonderful, remarkable woman in his arms.

Because the things she just said were somehow the things that Hubert’s been most longing to hear—things that even he didn’t know he needed until they were there, hanging in the frosty air between them, like a suspended, visible breath. 

“I love you,” he tells her as soon as they break apart. Simple words—words he tells her every single day, in moments much less profound than this one—but also, right now, the most important words in the world.

Bernadetta smiles and taps him on the nose, not climbing off his lap. “I love you, too,” she says seriously. Then: “Does this mean we’re ready for tomorrow?”

And for once, Hubert doesn’t hesitate to run his mental calculation. He doesn’t think of all the things that could have, and still might, go wrong. Doesn’t even think—all right, not for more than a second —of the crumpled train that the boys won’t get to ride tomorrow, or hideous merry-go-round creatures, or near-death experiences in trees.

Instead, he kisses his wife once more and simply says, “We’re ready.”

In the end, the boys’ birthday goes something like this:

In the morning, Bernadetta wrangles them into their new birthday clothes (more sailor suits—Hubert’s starting to think his wife has a bit of an addiction) while Hubert waits at the gates of Varley to greet their friends. They trickle in slowly all morning: Petra and a hugely pregnant Dorothea, trailed by a gaggle of children; Lady Edelgard and Byleth, bringing armfuls of winter flowers they’ve grown at their cottage in the countryside; Alois from his house in town, carrying presents that look as though they weigh twice as much as the boys do. And Hubert’s never thought of Varley as quiet , exactly, especially not since the twins were born, but as familiar, beaming faces arrive at the door and the house begins to fill with noise and chatter, he thinks that he might quite prefer it this way. Some of their friends they haven’t seen in so long that the boys are shy, trying to hide behind one another in the effort to duck out of sight. Others make them leap up with excitement, till Hubert’s lost both of them to the band of children running wild underfoot.

He doesn’t worry this time, though. He knows they’ll be all right.

Bernadetta comes downstairs in one of her nicest dresses—the kind she rarely has occasion to wear, these days—and momentarily makes him forget how to breathe, before urging their guests all back outside to witness the main event. She somehow manages to pluck the twins up out of the crowd, hanging Cassian off to Hubert before marching the whole party out the terrace and onto the ground.

It’s a bright, mild morning, exactly as Hubert had hoped for. The sun is shining brightly in the sky, and the air smells like it does when the world is thinking of turning toward springtime; but no one lingers outside very long. For inside the tent, there’s the faint sound of music, and popcorn popping, and the mechanical squeaking of what might just be a merry-go-round that works. A far different music, Hubert thinks, than what he’d grown accustomed to these past weeks, watching with dismay as the carpenters dismantled his grounds.

After that, the day is a whole, bright, messy blur, of which Hubert will only clearly remember snatches. Cassian shouting with delight at the sight of the merry-go-round shark, and shouting again when he unwraps his gift of the stuffed shark he’d played with two days ago. Alois patiently showing Rowan how to play the ring-toss game, while Rowan offered no attempts of his own and instead just repeated, “ Again , Grandfather.” Both boys pretending to race Dorothea and Petra’s eldest daughter on the merry-go-round, all three of them laughing themselves hoarse, even though the animals they rode in the “race” were fixed in place. 

The way that, true to Bernadetta’s word, it didn’t matter that things aren't perfect. Their friends are all around them. Their sons are three years old today. Perfect , he’s starting to think, has a way of showing up on its own. In the way you work hard for the things you love. In the people that you love. In the things you’ve always longed for but never expected to actually come true.

At one point, Bernadetta sidles up beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist and pressing up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. She looks happy, relaxed—miles from the way she does after a long journey—and this, too, is a kind of perfect. “Look at it,” she says, gazing around them at the lights and the color and the noise. “Look at what we made .”

“Yes,” Hubert agrees, looking only at his sons, their laughter ringing high above the music of the merry-go-round. “Look at what we made.”