Archive of Our Own

He wakes as he often does to a familiar little bundle of warmth by his side, and he’s smiling even before he opens his eyes. Ellie’s taken to snow with aplomb–dragging them out at least once a day for the novelty of playing in it–but she’s less keen on the cold. If they’d thought her a bedbug in warmer weather, it’s nothing compared to Ellie in winter. 

Now they’re lucky if they get even an hour without a 4 year old sneaking into their bed to leech warmth. 

Well, Tess likes to say “they.” Thinking of how often he has his partner’s icicle feet against his calves, he thinks he’s pulling most of the weight on the body heat front in this family. 

Opening his eyes to find Ellie burrowed right against him with Tess curled around her, both snugged as tight as they can get to him, he can’t say that he minds. 

*

Winter has also made their crack of dawn child suddenly much less eager to leave her little bundle of warmth. 

It’s as endearing as it is inconvenient on busy mornings. 

“C’mon, munchkin,” Tess says now, tugging at the blankets Ellie’s cocooned herself up in. 

“Mm-mm,” comes the muffled refusal from inside the nest Ellie’s made around herself. Tess gives him an amused look, even as she checks the clock. She’s on morning patrol with him on afternoon, so push comes to shove he can handle Ellie Wrangling, but they try to eat breakfast as a family whenever possible. 

Not that Ellie seems that keen on family bonding right now. 

“Can’t eat pancakes if you’re in bed,” he says, crossing to the bed and giving a testing tug against the quilt over their down comforter. 

A little hand shoots out to grab it and hold it in place. He grabs the tiny wrist carefully and lowers his head. 

“I’m getting might hungry,” he says, adding a playful growl to his voice. “Might have to start eating fingers.” 

“No!” Ellie shrieks on a giggle even as he makes gobbling noises and presses his lips to her little fingers. “Daddy, no!” 

“Think there’s a second one in there for me,” Tess says with a grin, managing to get Ellie’s other hand free when she reaches to try and push him away. 

“No eating!” Ellie shouts with a broad grin, hair a mess from being bundled and laughter ringing like a bell. 

The playing finally gets Ellie to consent to leaving her little bundle, though she lifts her arms imperiously to be picked up so her feet won’t hit cold hardwood. Tess gives him a teasing look and a raised finger to show what Ellie has him wrapped around. 

He deliberately ignores her as he obediently carries Ellie to her room. 

*

Ellie bundled up in her snow clothes is still endlessly funny. Even just walking to the dining hall, she ends up in flannel pants under snow pants and a thermal shirt under a sweater under a puffer jacket, feet tucked into wool socks and boots, a beanie on her head with a pompom, shark mittens on her hands, and a far too big lambswool scarf wound round and round to cover her throat and face up to her nose. When she’s all gussied up, she nearly waddles like a little penguin, she’s under so many layers, only her eyes peeking out. 

It’s only the scarcity of film that makes him able to resist taking a picture of her every morning. 

“Ooof,” she says today as she slips and falls on her butt, though she’s cushioned enough that he can tell she isn’t hurt, even as she flails like a turtle on her back. “Daddy, help!” She instructs, her scarf flopped over her face and blindfolding her, her arms too cushioned to let her reach her face. 

“I dunno,” he says, barely keeping back a smile, “you wanted to walk all the way to the dining hall like a big girl.” 

“Daddy!” She says again, a command. 

He pokes her with his boot, rocking her, and she giggles despite his lack of obedience. 

“We’ve got a little turtle again?” Tess says, catching up after stopping to chat with their neighbor about switching patrol shifts next week. 

“Seems so,” he says, grinning when another poke to her side gets Ellie’s mittened hand closing over his ankle. 

“Mama, help!” Ellie says, switching allegiance without hesitation. “I’m stuck!” 

“I dunno,” Tess teases. “I’m sure you could figure it out, little turtle.” 

“I’m not a turtle!” Ellie says, giggling and shaking her head until she gets one eye free of her scarf. “I’m a bug!” 

Tess’s face goes so soft it’s an effort not to either kiss her, and she stoops down to pick Ellie up, setting her on her feet. 

Right before she scoops her up to haul her over her shoulder. 

“Got some fresh meat for the dining hall,” Tess calls back to him, grinning as Ellie squeals and struggles as best she can in her snow bundle. 

“Seems a little skinny,” he says, patting Ellie testingly and dodging a shark mitten as she tries to take a blind swipe at him. “Might be too scrawny for breakfast.” 

“‘M not breakfast!” Ellie cries, voice muffled from both her scarf and the hood now flopped down over her head. 

“Think she’ll be better as sausage or bacon?” He asks Tess with a grin. 

Tess gives her a testing heave while Ellie shrills a laugh at the roughhousing, ringing clearly over the snow all around them. 

*

He finds the little girl–scarcely more than a toddler–huddled with her mother’s already-cold body on patrol that day. 

She’s so small he hadn’t even seen her at first, and he about jumped out of his skin when tugging up the edge of the woman’s coat had revealed a little face looking up at him, big eyes looking as startled as he’d felt. He’d caught himself before a reflexive punch, but the near-baby looking at him had still whimpered, pressing as close to her mother as she could get. 

Her mother, already going stiff in death. 

“Hey there, darlin’,” he says softly, lowering himself from a squat to sit on the ground so he won’t look quite so large to such a tiny little thing. “You’re alright.” 

The only response is a whimper as the girl tries to tuck herself tighter against her mother’s body. 

“Joel?” He can hear Tommy call, and the sound of another stranger makes the little girl’s breath go a little faster. Her hair is a mess around her face, and she moves one little hand up to shove at it, trying to keep it out of her eyes and failing pretty completely. 

“Gimme a minute,” he calls back, enough to carry but hopefully not loud enough to terrify the little girl more. He scrambles for some connection here, some way to coax her out without scaring her any more than she already is. A glance at a ratty toy peeking out from under one arm gives him a hint. “I like your bunny,” he tells her, voice soft. 

She keeps looking at him in silence, unblinking. 

“I have a daughter who likes bunnies,” he says, voice still deliberately light, as non-threatening as he can make it. “We have a wild bunny who likes to hop around our yard at our house. His name is Bob. Does your bunny have a name?” 

The little girl doesn’t respond, but he sees the slightest bit of tension loosen in her body. She clearly wants the comfort of an adult, still too little to properly self-soothe and stuck only with a corpse for reassurance for who knows how long. 

“My daughter’s name is Ellie,” he continues. “Can you tell me yours?” 

It’s a few false starts before she actually speaks, and even when she does, he has to strain his hearing to its limits. 

“I-bee,” she says, nearly inaudible. It’s only watching her lips that really lets him pick up on it. 

“Ivy?” He says on a guess at the right pronunciation, and she nods. “That’s a real pretty name. My name’s Joel.” 

She doesn’t offer a comment. 

*

It’s a long while before he can coax Ivy out from beneath her mother’s coat, and it’s three false starts before she commits to it, scurrying back under twice, spooked by noise outside. 

He has a moment of newfound appreciation for exactly how bold Ellie was when she emerged from the backpack, the antithesis to this frightened little girl who seems likely to flee if a shadow moves too close. 

Looking at the body next to her, though, it’s not as if he can blame her. 

“Alright, baby,” he says as he picks her up, feeling guilty at once for using the pet name, knowing Ellie wouldn’t like it. Still, the little girl shaking like a leaf in his arms could certainly use some sweet words. “I’ve gotcha, honey. You’re alright.” She’s far too light, even little as she is, and he has the memory of how thin Ellie was when they first took her home, back before they’d finally gotten her fed enough to round out. Given how thin her mother looks even under her jacket, he knows Ivy was still obviously given as much of their available food as could be spared. 

It might be what ended up killing the woman in the end, this desperate attempt at sparing her daughter. 

“Alright, honey, you’re okay,” he shushes the girl as she makes a noise and looks back to her mother, clearly reluctant to leave. He pulls a glove off to push her hair back off of her face, and she’s cold to the touch. Immediately, he unzips his jacket without even needing to think about it, tucking her inside to share his warmth and then zipping it back up, leaving only her little head free. 

Like the heat has broken a barrier, she presses against him at once, thin legs going around his waist and tiny hands clutching at his sweater as she presses her head against his chest, nearly disappearing inside of his jacket. He supports her with an arm beneath her, more than enough to keep her in place. 

“Joel?” Tommy calls again, and this time the girl doesn’t flinch, too busy trying to burrow into him. “You alright in there?” 

“Got a kid and a-” He catches himself before he says body. “B-o-d-y,” he says, guessing that Ivy is far too little to be anywhere close to being able to spell. 

Tommy enters and looks around for a moment before spotting the little girl bundled up in his jacket with him, giving her a sympathetic look after looking at her mother still on the ground. He still kneels to check for a pulse, but it only takes him touching the body to know she’s long gone. He rises and approaches, trying to come from the side so the kid will see him. 

“Hey there,” Tommy says softly when Ivy peeks an eye out at him, but Ivy just presses a little closer. “You’re alright, darlin’. I ain’t gonna hurt ya.” He looks up to him then. “Know her name?” 

“Ivy,” he says after waiting for her to introduce herself just ends with silence. He pats at her idly to keep her calm as he and Tommy look around for anything worth taking. In the end, though, it looks like they had little enough. Tommy heaves a battered-looking pack up onto his shoulders, and one of the straps immediately breaks, sending it swinging to the side. It makes a ding noise when it hits the wall, and Ivy unburrows enough to look over sharply, reaching one hand out and making a demanding noise. 

Tommy kneels and opens the bag, digging through the clothes and supplies inside until he pulls out what looks like a music box, a pretty thing wildly out of place in the world now. It looks vintage, white enamel with a pattern of pink roses and vines curling around. Ivy clearly recognizes it, making a fretful noise and kicking her legs a bit as she strains across the impossible distance. At once, Tommy rises and approaches. 

“This yours?” He asks in the same voice he used before, but Ivy doesn’t respond, just snatches the box away and then bundles herself back inside his jacket with him, the music box held with the hand not holding her stuffed rabbit. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Tommy says a little wryly. He digs around in the pack a bit more but doesn’t seem to find anything else worth pulling out at present, finally setting it down and tugging his hat off, slipping it over Ivy’s head. She makes a fussy noise and goes to pull it off, but Joel stops her with a hand over hers. 

“Leave it, alright?” He says in the same voice he uses with Ellie on her bad nights. “It’ll keep your ears warm.” 

She looks at him intensely, and he has no idea what on earth she’s thinking. After a moment, though, she seems to accept the advice and returns to tucking herself away in his jacket, only a stray curl sticking out, nearly the same color as Tess’s hair. 

“Give me a sec to give the rest of the patrol a heads up,” Tommy says, “and then I’ll ride along to get her back to town.” 

He nods and goes to follow, but Ivy pops her head up again right as they get to the door. 

“Mama!” She calls to the body, and he feels his heart break for her. “Mama!” She says again, more desperate, clearly not understanding why she isn’t getting up. She turns to look at him, eyes massive. “Mama hurt?” 

Jesus, how to even begin explaining that her mama’s gone? It had been hard enough trying to explain it to Sarah at 4, back when he’d had his own mom to help him talk it through with her. He doubts this near-baby is old enough to even have a concept of death. 

“Mama’s gonna stay here,” he tells her instead of trying to get into it, and Ivy turns back to her mother, like she’s waiting for her to chime in. He tucks some of her hair away from her face, only remembering after a moment that he has a hair elastic in his pocket, one of the ones he carries around for Tess and Ellie. He pulls Tommy’s hat off her head and tucks it into his pocket for a moment, gathering her messy hair into a little ponytail at the nape of her neck, talking to her while he works. “I’m gonna take you somewhere safe, okay? We’ll get you some food and some medicine if you need it, and then you can take a really long nap with your bunny. That sound alright?” Her hair managed as best as he can get it right now, he tugs the hat back on her head, having to roll it up several times so it won’t cover her whole face. 

“Mama?” She asks, looking between him and her mother in question. 

“Mama’s gonna stay here,” he says again. “But I promise you’re gonna be alright, okay? I’ll be right here with you. Your mama would want you to go get warm.” 

He lets Ivy think it through. He can’t accept a no from her, obviously, but it’ll probably do her good to think she has some degree of control here. After a moment, she nods and then tucks her face back against him. 

“Otay,” she says quietly, burrowing a little deeper under his jacket. 

*

Ivy rides all the way back to Jackson in his jacket, silent and refusing to engage in conversation with either him or Tommy. After a while, he realizes she’s fallen asleep on him, and he feels a pang of sympathy for how long she must have been awake out of terror. He zips his coat just a little higher to make sure she stays warm. She’s lost the palpable chill she’d had when he first picked her up, but he’s all too aware of how bad small children are at keeping warm. 

When they get back to Jackson, trying to hand her off to the nurse who had come out to greet them after they raised the red and white flag meaning medical care needed only gets her screaming and white knuckling his jacket, so he ends up going with her to the clinic, even hopping up onto the patient bed when she refuses to sit on her own. He unzips his jacket enough to let the nurse and Dr. Garcia take a look at her, even though she makes a disgruntled noise and presses closer when he does, regardless of the warmth of the clinic. 

“Hi, honey,” Dr. Garcia says, her smile genuine but unreturned as Ivy glares at her suspiciously. “Well now,” the doctor says, sounding amused, “looks like she might be able to give your little one a run for her money with that kind of evil eye, Joel.” 

“Dunno,” he says, stroking a soothing hand over Ivy’s back when the doctor trying to tug her away from him a bit just means her making a whining noise of protest as she presses closer. “Think Ellie’s gotten pretty good at it by now.” 

Given that Ivy isn’t responding to any questions, the doctor decides to guess her age using her teeth. It’s a power struggle to get Ivy’s mouth open, and he feels secondhand guilt even without participating as she shrills in protest, still losing the struggle, too small and too weak to resist for long. Dr. Garcia takes a quick look around–clearly working as fast as she can–before she lets her go. 

“Good job, sweetheart,” the doctor says to her before she turns to the nurse taking notes as she picks up her stethoscope. “Has her canines but not her second molars, so certainly not older than 3. Probably 2, 2 and a half.” 

Ivy doesn’t offer a comment, just presses her face tight to his chest, clearly displeased at them forcing her mouth open so wide and retreating to the single person who didn’t take part in it. He rests a hand on her back and pats gently to soothe her. Despite Dr. Garcia warming the stethoscope against her palm, Ivy still jumps and whirls on her when it’s pressed to her back, one little hand striking out to hit at her before he grabs it gently, holding it in his own. Her hand is tiny enough that two of his fingers fill her palm, and he rubs a gentle thumb over the baby soft skin across her knuckles, which feel as fragile as a bird’s bones to him. 

“She’s just making sure you’re okay,” he reassures her in a low voice, and Ivy looks to the doctor like she’s making sure he’s telling the truth. “You’re alright, honey.” 

Ivy still looks dubious, but she lets Dr. Garcia pull her ratty shirt up enough to press the stethoscope to her back. Running his hand over it earlier had meant he could feel every knob of her spine, and moving a hand to pat reassuringly at her belly now means he can feel her ribs far too easily beneath his fingers. 

“Can you take a breath for me?” Dr. Garcia asks. “In and out?” 

In clear protest of still doing this when she doesn’t want to, Ivy holds her breath instead in rebellion. Clearly used to this form of resistance, the nurse moves close enough to blow a stream of air into her face, and Ivy, startled, draws in a breath as she jerks back in surprise. She glares at the nurse, who just gives her a small smile and then steps back, poised to keep taking notes. 

The moment Dr. Garcia pulls the stethoscope away, Ivy curls up into a little ball against him once more. 

*

The rest of the exam goes about the same. Pressing gently on Ivy’s stomach doesn’t reveal any problems, but it does nearly get Dr. Garcia bitten until she snatches her hand back. He seems free of suspicion for whatever reason and does his best to keep Ivy calm, but it’s a relief when they’ve done a final blood draw and declared it’s over. 

Then comes the battle of getting her stuffed rabbit away from her to be cleaned while she gets a bath and some fresh clothes. 

“You’ll get it right back,” he tells her as she plays tug-of-war with a nurse over the toy, her other arm still wrapped around the music box she hasn’t let out of her sight. “Ivy, honey, I promise. You’ll get it right back.” 

She looks up to him, very clearly at the end of her patience with today. 

“Mine,” she says insistently, and he nods. 

“We know. Your bunny’s gonna get a bath when you do, and then you’ll get him right back, okay? Bunny just needs a little check-up, too.” 

She looks back to the nurse, eyeing her warily. 

“He just needs to get cleaned up, okay?” He repeats “That’s all. He’ll come right back to you.” 

He’d better, he thinks, or they’re all in for it. 

*

After a negotiation harder than freeing hostages, Ivy consents to her bunny getting washed while she takes a bath. They’ve already cleared her as free from lice, so he’s told she gets to skip the harsher shampoo they’d use otherwise. She still clings onto him and refuses to let go, so he ends up being the one to give her a bath with a nurse there to hand him the shampoo and soap. He stays to one side so she can watch the nurse handling her bunny like a hawk, only looking away when he tips her head back long enough to rinse her hair. The moment he lets go of her chin, she’s back to staring at the woman with an intensity usually absent in such young children. 

When they’re clean, both Ivy and her bunny are blow dried, and then she’s dressed in some thick leggings and a wool dress along with a little puffer jacket with bows down the front. He works her feet into lined boots and does up the buckles while she runs inquiring hands down the front of the jacket, her bunny tucked into the crook of her elbow once more. 

“Mine?” She asks, and he looks up, smiling. 

“Sure are,” he says, and they are, donations from one of the kitchen staff from what he heard a nurse say. 

“Wow,” she says, looking down, and he huffs a laugh at that, which makes her give him a tentative smile in return. 

*

He’s told that they’d ordinarily keep newcomers in the clinic for observation, but Ivy’s far too young to stay alone, and trying to hand her off to someone else meant to fill in as guardian until the council makes a decision about her placement sparks a screaming fit that he thinks nearly breaks the glass in the windows. 

“Could you take her?” Dr. Garcia asks when he’s taken her back and gotten her soothed enough to calm down, rocking her in a side to side bounce. 

He looks to her, surprised at the question. She shrugs. 

“I’m sorry I need to ask, but we have cleared her of any potential diseases,” Dr. Garcia says as Ivy snuffles against him, face still tear-stained. “I know you and Tess aren’t looking for another child, and I still wouldn’t usually risk exposing Ellie, but…” She trails off, indicating that they don’t really have another option here. 

He considers it. He knows already that Ellie won’t love it, but she has adjusted to Ollie pretty well. His nursery is almost always her first stop when she goes to the house across the street, and she’s spent many an hour cooing at her cousin doing tummy time. She won’t want Ivy permanently in the house, but surely she could adjust to the day or two the council needs to sort out where to put her. How badly could it go, really? 

“Sure,” he tells Dr. Garcia. “That should be fine.” 

*

Ellie does not take Ivy’s presence well. 

Her smile at him being home early drops almost comically fast when she registers that he’s carrying Ivy, and she gives him a suspicious look, skidding to a stop in her rocketship socks from where she’d been beelining to him as soon as the door opened. He kneels, trying to turn Ivy enough to meet Ellie with little success. Ivy resists, still clingy, and it’s an effort to turn her even enough to let Ellie see her face. 

“C’mere, baby,” he coaxes Ellie. 

Ellie edges closer like a wary cat. 

“This is Ivy,” he says, giving up on making her turn. “I found her on patrol today, and she needs a place to stay for a bit until she has a house of her own, so she’ll be staying with us.” 

Ellie’s expression at this doesn’t fill him with confidence. He ducks his head, addressing Ivy. 

“Ivy, this is my daughter, Ellie. You wanna say hi?” 

Ivy’s silence is very loud. 

“Ellie, we-” 

But he looks up to find Ellie already climbing the stairs to her room. 

*

Ivy conks out soon after he gets her tucked into the guest bed with her music box playing what sounds like a lullaby, and he gathers that she’s probably out for the night, even with it only being early afternoon. Even with the nap she took on the way back to town, she has to be absolutely exhausted. He wants to get food into her, wants to start chipping away at how skinny she is, but they’d gotten milk and some plain chicken into her at the clinic while making sure she’d be able to eat alright, so he supposes those calories will have to be enough for the day. 

With Ivy settled, he goes to look for Ellie and finds her in her closet, the door shut. He frowns and walks over, knocking. 

“You alright, baby?” He asks, and he hears a “hmph.” He sighs. “It’s just for a little bit, baby girl, I promise. Ivy’s mama died, and she needs someone to take care of her for a little bit.” 

“You and mama said no more babies,” she says accusingly, and he can’t help but smile slightly. 

“She’s not a forever baby, Ellie. She’s just here for a little bit. Aunt Maria and the council just have to figure out where she’s gonna go. Me and mama aren’t keeping her.” He hasn’t even spoken to Tess about her, actually, but he’s hoping she’ll be fine with them playing foster home for a day or two. It’s not like he had a lot of options, after all. It was take her home or leave her to scream herself sick when she’s already been traumatized. He wasn’t looking to take on a second child, even temporarily, but he’s not as heartless as he’d liked to pretend he was once upon a time. If someone found Ellie wandering alone in a dangerous situation, he’d like to think they’d take care of her. 

It’s some kind of cosmic parenting paying it forward, keeping Ivy safe and as happy as possible until something permanent can be found for her. 

“You promise?” Ellie asks, cracking her closet open enough for one eye to peer out at him. 

He extends his hand, pinky out. Ellie reaches to link her own, but she hesitates. 

“You promise Ivy’s not your baby?” She asks, like she’s going to catch him in a lie. 

“I promise,” he says, finally linking his pinky with hers. “You’re my only baby.” 

*

Tess is surprised that they suddenly have a second child in the house when he finds her reading in their room, but she doesn’t object, just rises to peek in on Ivy. 

“Poor thing,” she says when she returns. “Looks like she’s been through hell.” 

“Don’t know how long she was next to her mama’s body,” he says. “Probably would have frozen to death out there if we’d been even an hour later.” 

“So heroic,” Tess teases, but there’s a genuine warmth to it. “Riding out and saving babies.” 

“Do I get a reward for being a hero?” He teases back, tilting his head up for a kiss she grants. 

“Well,” she says in a purr, “right now you get the reward of staying here to watch the kids while I go get dinner so we won’t have to wake Ivy up.” 

With that, she sashays away. 

*

When he first feels a tug at the covers that night, he shifts automatically to move back some to give Ellie the space to climb in. 

Then he registers Ellie already curled up by his back. 

He blinks his eyes open, disoriented, and it’s only looking right at her that reminds him there isn’t just one little girl in the house tonight. 

Ivy stares up at him with big, teary eyes, raising plaintive arms as her lip wobbles. He hesitates only a moment before he reaches out to her, settling her down next to him near the edge of the bed. At once, she curls up against him until he’s sandwiched by a 2 year old on one side and a 4 year old on the other. 

He’s wary of this, knowing Ellie likely won’t enjoy finding that Ivy’s gotten into bed with them. Still, it’s late, she’s already asleep, and it’s not like he can send Ivy off to cry herself to sleep in a strange room all alone. 

And with Ivy on one side and Ellie on the other, surely he’ll be enough of a buffer to not upset her too badly at the encroachment. 

Decision made, he settles down, serving as heat source for three people instead of his usual two. 

*

He wakes the next morning to screaming, and he bangs heads with Tess in their mutual flail to get upright. Bent over and cursing, they turn towards the sound, and he kicks off the tangled bedsheets the moment he gets a look at what’s happening: Ellie fighting with Ivy on the floor, Ellie using her size as an advantage for once, but Ivy with a fistful of Ellie’s hair. 

Both of them screaming bloody fucking murder. 

“Hey!” He says, trying to tug them apart, the attempt wrecked when Ellie gets a fistful of Ivy’s hair in return and yanks with all her might, making Ivy shrill louder. He notes several bite marks on Ellie’s arm. 

And then he sees the bite mark right on Ivy’s face, a clear impression of every single tooth on the soft skin of her cheek. He lets go of them to start working at getting their hands free of each other’s hair, but that only gives Ivy the space to sink her teeth hard into Ellie’s other wrist, making her howl with rage and jerk forward, mouth open to bite the other side of Ivy’s face. 

Tess is there, then, and catches her by the forehead, stopping her a few scant centimeters from her teeth making contact. 

“Ellie,” she says, stern in a way she rarely is. “Let go of her right now.” 

“No!” Ellie says, struggling for freedom to bite again. “This is my bed!” 

“This is our bed, Ellie,” Tess says, pushing at her head a little harder. “And you are being very mean right now. Ivy’s allowed in here.” 

Ellie stops at once and looks at Tess, expression betrayed. 

She doesn’t say another word before she’s scrambling up, shoving their door open so hard it bounces off of the wall. 

*

Needing to check Ivy over to make sure Ellie didn’t do any damage that needs a clinic visit means Tess is the one who goes to check on her, and he feels the guilt of it even as he carefully dabs at Ivy’s cheek with a cold washcloth, the skin already showing signs that it’ll bruise later. 

Something he’s sure won’t reflect badly on him as a guardian at all, he thinks dryly. 

“I sorry,” Ivy says when he’s looking over her arms and legs for more bitemarks, and he looks up at the sound of her voice, startled. Her big eyes are filled with tears, and her bottom lip wobbles. “I sorry,” she says again, voice even more shuddery. 

“You’re alright, honey,” he says, and she is. He doesn’t know exactly what happened, but he can make a guess that Ellie woke up with the sun as per usual and didn’t take kindly to an intruder into what she considers her space. 

“I sorry,” Ivy says again, trembling slightly, clearly unsure what in the hell has happened but wanting to try and make amends anyway. 

“You’re alright,” he says again, pulling her into a hug that she goes into easily. 

He looks up at the sound of a soft gasp and finds Ellie in the doorway, looking at him with such naked hurt that it strikes right through him. When he goes to move forward, though, her expression changes to anger. 

“Mama says it’s breakfast,” she nearly spits at him. 

“Ellie-” He starts, but she covers her ears with her hands and flees. 

She doesn’t talk to him all the way to the dining hall. 

*

He sits Ellie and Ivy on opposite sides of him at breakfast on their respective booster seats, Ellie resisting all attempts at making her sit farther away. Angry with him or not, she’s clearly unwilling to cede any more territory to what she’s decided is an enemy. 

They get through approximately five peaceful minutes of breakfast until he reaches over to cut Ivy’s pancake for her. 

This is apparently yet another final straw for Ellie. 

Before he can do anything, she reaches around him, gets a grip on Ivy’s plate, and whips it right towards her face. He’s barely fast enough to grab it before it slams into her nose, and he yanks Ellie’s arm away, not thinking about the hold as he does, heart still beating quickly from how badly a child almost got hurt right in front of him. 

By his child. 

“Ellie!” He snaps, and he’s too occupied with sliding Ivy’s plate back into place to realize quick enough exactly what he’s doing. 

Not until he feels the little arm in his hold start shaking. 

His head snaps towards her at once, but he can see immediately that he took too long to realize, Ellie’s entire little body trembling with fear. At once, he lets her go, but he barely has a chance to inhale to start apologizing before she’s scrambling off of her booster seat, off like a shot faster than either he or Tess can catch her. He starts to rise to go after her and is stopped only by a tiny hand grabbing his sleeve, Ivy’s eyes going wide at the possibility of him leaving. He tries to pull her tiny fingers away, knowing he needs to fix things with Ellie immediately, but attempting to pull her loose sets her off into hysterical crying, making all heads in the vicinity turn to them at once. 

“I’ve got her,” Tess says, standing. “You stay.” 

“But-” He starts, but before he can explain that he wants to be the one to get Ellie, Tess is already gone. 

Another whimpering little sob from Ivy, and he picks her up, bouncing her gently and staring after Tess, stuck in place. 

*

Tommy and Maria join before Tess and Ellie return, and it’s only distracting Ivy with her pancake–her hunger enough to make her forget the attempted attack from Ellie–that lets him step away a bit to talk with them about an idea he had when he saw them. 

“You sure?” Tommy asks, not seeming sure himself. 

“It’s the best option right now,” he says, looking over at a squeal but finding only Ivy delighted with her discovery of syrup in a little cup at the side of her plate, kicking her legs with joy as she dunks another chunk of her pancake in it. He smiles faintly at the sight of such simple joy, unable to help it, before he looks back to Tommy and Maria. “She hates seeing Ivy interact with me, and Ivy won’t go with anyone else. There’s no sense in upsetting her until she’s somewhere permanent, but it’s not fair to make Ellie miserable.” 

“And you don’t think Ellie might take this as you trying to get rid of her?” Maria points out. “Because I could see her seeing it as you bringing home a newer model and getting her out of the way.” 

He’s considered this. 

“I think it’ll be fine as long as it comes from y’all,” he says. “Don’t say anything about Ivy. Just ask if she’d like to come over and stay, maybe say you could use some help with the baby. She’ll like that.” 

“And if she says no?” Tommy asks, lifting an eyebrow. 

He resists the urge to sigh. 

“We’ll just have to cross that bridge if we get to it.” 

*

Ellie doesn’t come back to the dining hall, but Tess returns after Tommy goes to look for them and lets him know that Ellie’s agreed, though she still looks troubled. 

“Everything alright?” He asks when she sits down after taking her breakfast to get heated back up in a microwave. 

“She just seems…off, still,” she says slowly. 

“She wasn’t excited?” He asks, and Tess shrugs.  

“I don’t know. She was so upset still, but she held her arms up to get picked up by Tommy, and she went with him easily enough.” 

It’s not the most promising start to this plan of his even by the most generous estimate. 

*

Tess has only been gone for ten minutes to go on patrol when pounding on his door has him up at once, Ivy on his hip. Until this point they’d been having a quiet morning playing with one of the puzzles Ellie hasn’t touched in weeks. He doesn’t want to risk Ivy playing with Ellie’s toys, doesn’t want to cross that boundary when he knows now without a shadow of a doubt that Ellie would hate it, but he hadn’t wanted to just make Ivy stare at a wall all day. 

“It’s Ellie,” Tommy says when he opens the door, and he feels his heart stop. “She was okay at first, but something just changed all of a sudden, and we couldn’t get her to stop crying. She already made herself throw up twice doing it, she’s been crying so hard, and we just can’t get her calm.” 

He doesn’t need more than that, nearly jumping down the stairs and making his way to the house across the street. 

Inside, he hands Ivy off to Tommy, hoping she’ll accept him as a substitute, but the way she immediately starts crying says she won’t. She reaches desperate little hands for him, legs kicking in a fit, and it’s clear she isn’t going to calm down until he takes her back. 

Still, Ellie needs him far more than Ivy right now. Tommy gives him an attempt at a reassuring smile that doesn’t fill him with much confidence, but he still walks away to check on Ellie. 

“Hey, baby,” he says, entering the bathroom to find her pale and puffy-faced with her head on Maria’s lap. 

She’s still crying. 

He sees a desperate pang of want cross Ellie’s face, but then she turns resolutely and wiggles until she has her face pressed to Maria’s belly, a clear dismissal even as her shoulders still shake as she cries. Maria strokes a hand over Ellie’s hair gently, but it doesn’t seem to calm her. If anything, it just seems to work her up more. 

“Baby-” He starts, reaching out, but touching her shoulder makes her yank it away with an angry little noise. “Ellie, baby, will you please look at me?” 

“Go-go look at goddamn Ivy,” she spits at him. 

“I wanna look at you right now, baby girl. Will you do that?” He keeps his tone gentle and coaxing, usually exactly right to calm her down. 

“Funk off.” 

“Baby-” 

“I’m not your baby,” Ellie snaps, but her voice breaks on the last word, and a shudder runs through her. “Funking Ivy’s your baby.” 

“Ivy is not my baby,” he says, reaching out and being rejected once more. 

“Yes she is!” Ellie cries, turning and glaring at him. “Because Ivy is a good girl and I’m a bad girl and now you love Ivy!” 

It’s a wildly elaborate narrative for her to have constructed in the course of a single morning. 

“Baby,” he says gently, only resisting reaching out from two rejections before. “You are not a bad girl,” he tells her as firmly as he can. “And Ivy is not staying with us. It’s only for a little bit. Some grownups have to figure out where Ivy’s going, and then she’ll be gone, alright?” 

“It’s true,” Maria puts in, and he tries and fails not to feel a little flicker of jealousy himself when Maria’s touch is accepted where his was rejected, his sister-in-law stroking over Ellie’s hair gently. “We had to stop for today because there was an emergency with somebody’s house, but the council will start talking about where Ivy can go tomorrow. She’s little, so we have to consider a bunch of things to make sure she’ll be going to a house that’ll be good for her, but we’ve already started looking. She is not staying at your house forever. She’s only there for a little bit.” 

Ellie looks desperate to believe her, and she turns to him with the same naked want to be reassured. 

“Ivy’s not your baby girl?” She asks, and he shakes his head. 

A third attempt at touching is rejected, though not as forcefully this time. 

“You’re my one and only baby girl,” he tells her. “I promise.” 

She stares at him for a long, long time, and then she finally nods, once. 

“Okay.” 

*

Even with their talk, Ellie doesn’t get more used to Ivy in the next few days, the council’s decision made long through an unlucky series of burst pipes taking up focus as more important than deciding where to put a toddler who has a safe place to stay for the moment. He takes pains to give Ellie as much attention as he can when Ivy still won’t even let him out of her sight, gentle touches and kisses and sweet words, but he can see she’s still upset, see she still isn’t convinced they’re not replacing her. Even working around Ivy’s naps and earlier bedtime and Tess stepping in to try and make up for his lack, Ellie is getting much less direct attention than she’s gotten used to. They’ve come a long way with her, but at the end of the day, she’s a very small child from an abusive environment who’s never had a secure attachment before. She’s adjusted to Ollie because she can clearly understand that Ollie has his own home and isn’t taking hers. 

Ivy, though, is clearly still considered a threat, even if Ellie’s too scared of losing her place with them by being a “bad girl” to keep openly picking fights. 

It certainly doesn’t stop her from trying to start shit she thinks they won’t notice, though. 

Tess catches her trying to put a frog in Ivy’s oatmeal, and he catches her pinching Ivy when she thinks they’re not looking. Ivy’s bunny has to be retrieved from the trash several times, and Tess once catches Ellie trying to stuff it into the firewood in the backyard. She shuts Ivy in the hall closet more than once, and they don’t dare to leave her near the stairs with her unsupervised. She’s not a malicious kid, not murderous by nature, but she’s too young to understand the full scope of how badly she could hurt Ivy in trying to get her out of the house. They start letting Ivy sleep on a little cot in their room so Ellie won’t have unsupervised access to her at night, and that just makes it worse with how often Ivy climbs in with them instead, even trying to keep Ivy on one side of him and Ellie on the other side of Tess. 

Ivy–reasonably–has had enough of being a punching bag for no reason, and she fights back in her own way, yanking Ellie’s hair and biting if she gets too close, even drawing blood when they start a fight across the room before he gets to them. Them throwing rocks at each other in the front yard in the two seconds he’d gone back inside to get his keys leaves Ivy with a bloody scratch on her unbitten cheek and Ellie with a bruise on her collarbone. 

And the fact that Ivy can’t really talk yet doesn’t save her from verbal altercations. 

“Stinky,” he hears Ellie hiss to Ivy after the toddler dared to touch her babyrrito blanket on the couch where they’d settled to watch a movie on either side of him. “Stinky bad girl.” 

In Ellie-ese, it’s about the worst insult she could possibly come up with. 

“Ellie,” he says, gentle enough not to be a scold but firm enough to be a warning. She shoots him a hurt look. 

And then Ivy decides to play parrot. 

“Ba’ girl!” Ivy says, trying and failing to lean around him enough to yank one of Ellie’s pigtails. 

He barely catches Ellie by her overalls when she lunges. 

“I’M NOT!” She shrieks, 0 to 100 in two words flat. “I’M NOT A BAD GIRL!”

He tries to pick Ellie up to take her out of the room to soothe her, but Ivy makes a distressed noise and toddles along right after him like a little duckling, and he has to hitch Ellie up higher as she tries to kick Ivy’s head from where she’s pressed to his leg. He makes a frustrated noise–not at either one of the girls, not really, just at the situation in general–and Ellie misreads it, bursting into tears, rage forgotten in an instant behind fear. 

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” she repeats like a mantra, little arms going near choking-tight around his throat. “I’m sorry, daddy, I’m sorry. I’m not a bad girl. I’m sorry-” 

“Shh, I know, baby, you’re not a bad girl,” he says, rocking her and begging Ivy in his head to stay calm, even as she lifts her hands plaintively and gives a fretful little hop that suggests waterworks will be on the way from her soon, too, if she’s not heeded. She’s feeding off of Ellie’s energy and getting worked up as a result, and he’s relieved when he hears the front door open when Tess returns from getting lunch. The girls are too ready to throw down with each other to be trusted in a public place, so Tess has been bringing food back for them, and he’s glad to have the backup now. 

Even if it makes him feel like shit, knowing it’s going to mean handing Ellie over instead of comforting her himself. 

In a sign of how hellish their past few days have been, Tess doesn’t even seem surprised when he greets her at the door holding a sobbing 4 year old and trailing a teary 2 year old from his pants leg. She just sets down the basket of food she’d brought back and moves closer, arms outstretched. 

“C’mere, bug,” she says softly, gently transferring Ellie’s hold to her. Ellie resists, still sobbing so desolately it feels like a punch to the gut, but she finally goes to her mama, clinging to her like a koala and crying with such force it makes her cough and choke. 

At his feet, Ivy makes a first warning little noise that says she’s about five seconds away from a crying jag of her own. 

He makes sure he’s out of Ellie’s sight before he picks her up. 

*

It takes a good hour for Tess to get Ellie calm, and every single minute just makes him feel worse. He gets Ivy’s lunch together just for something to do, and he takes her to the furthest point away in the house in the cowardly wish for a break from listening to how badly he’s hurting Ellie in trying to help Ivy. 

She can still hear her crying. 

Even as he supervises Ivy, cutting up her noodles and meatballs the same way he still does for Ellie so they won’t be choking hazards, he knows today has to be the day a decision gets made. It’s not Ivy’s fault she’s imprinted on him, not Ivy’s fault she doesn’t want to be around other people. 

But he also can’t keep doing this to Ellie. 

*

He’s surprised to answer a knock at the door that evening to find Celia on the other side, Tess beside her after she’d left earlier to push the council to finally make a decision about Ivy. 

“Hi,” he says, stepping back and almost stepping on Ivy in the process, she’s so close, one arm wrapped around his leg. “You need help with something?” 

“It sounds like you might need help with something,” Celia says with a smile, dropping to one knee when she’s inside and addressing Ivy. “Hi there,” she says, voice kind. “I hear your name is Ivy. I’m Celia.” 

Ivy presses a little closer, looking up to him in question. 

“Go on,” he encourages her. “She’s nice.” 

Shyly, Ivy extends one little hand to rest in Celia’s, pulling it back immediately when she’s done shaking it. 

“The council decided Celia would be a good fit,” Tess says, and he looks to her, surprised. Celia makes a soft, amused noise. 

“Well, that facial expression doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,” she says a little wryly, and he looks to her. 

“No, sorry,” he says at once. “I just wasn’t expecting it.” Though even as he says it, he doesn’t know why. He’d assumed the council would put her with a two parent situation, but now that she’s said it, he can see how Celia would be a good fit. She’s kind, good with kids, from a big family Before, and works a job that lets her stay inside the fence if she’s needed. She’s still relatively new to the community, but she’s already made a place for herself, and he’s never heard a bad word spoken against her. 

This could work, he thinks with an uncharacteristic spark of hope. 

*

Ellie creeps down from her room when she hears Celia’s voice in the living room, but his attempt at kissing her head as she passes is swerved. 

Knowing he deserves it, he doesn’t comment. 

“Well hi there, you,” Celia says, opening her arms for a hug Ellie accepts before she lifts her arms to sit on Celia’s lap, resting back against her like a recliner. “And how are you doing, missy?” 

“I’m doing sad,” she says, giving a dirty look to Ivy, who sees her do it and sticks her tongue out. Ellie returns the gesture. 

“Well,” Celia says, rubbing a gentle hand along her back, “I think I might be able to help with that.” 

Ellie looks up to her, expression full of muted hope. Celia smiles at her and then looks to Ivy. 

It’s as good an opener to a hard conversation as any. 

He looks down to Ivy and tries not to notice the way it makes Ellie’s expression look hurt. 

“You’re gonna go live with Celia,” he tells Ivy, trying to sound excited. His impulse is to follow it up with a “What do you think about that?” but that would be cruel, knowing that even if she says no, he can’t let her stay. 

Ivy frowns, looking to Celia and then back to him. 

“No,” she says at once. “I stay.” 

He looks up at movement in his peripheral vision and finds Celia gently setting Ellie aside, Ellie making an exasperated noise at what must seem like everyone favoring Ivy. Celia pauses and rests a gentle hand on her head, and Tess slides over on the couch to pick her up, cradling her a baby, which seems to soothe her to some degree, though she still throws a resentful look Ivy’s way. Moving towards them, Celia kneels to be on level with Ivy, even as the toddler squeezes tight to his side. 

“I had a little sister who was your age,” Celia says with a smile that’s a little tinged with sadness. “I miss her a lot. Do you think you could come stay with me for a little bit so I wouldn’t be so sad?” 

Ivy looks to him for an answer, big eyes confused and wary. 

“Celia’s something called a veterinarian,” he tells her as enthusiastically as he can. “She takes care of all of the animals here, including the bunnies. I bet she’d let you meet some if you go with her.” The fact that they’re meat rabbits doesn’t need to be said. 

Ivy squeezes her bunny a little tighter. 

“Lotsa bunnies?” She asks tentatively. 

*

Even with promises of rabbits and a room of her own and toys, Ivy’s nerve falters when it’s time for her to go. Ellie’s maintained a wary sort of silence while they’ve packed up Ivy’s limited belongings–her mother’s backpack still in a storage locker waiting on her permanent placement–but she trails them now like a shadow, watching everything like she’s waiting for it all to be a trick. Now she rests on Tess’s hip while he and Celia try to peel a crying Ivy off of his leg, the toddler begging not to go in a way that goes right to his heart. 

Still, this has to happen. It’s a choice between Ivy and Ellie, and there’s only one real choice he can make. 

“You’ll be alright,” he tries to soothe Ivy, even as she tries to bite Celia for pulling at one of her hands. 

When he sees Ellie approach after wiggling to be set down, he groans internally. That’s the last thing they need, her picking a fight now at the finish line when Ivy is already-

He blinks in surprise when Ellie wraps her arms around Ivy, and for the briefest second, he thinks she’s trying to choke her out. 

Then he realizes she’s hugging her. 

“It’s okay,” Ellie says, rubbing Ivy’s back. “It’ll be okay, baby girl.” 

Ivy comes to a surprised halt, though she sniffles still, hands still fisted in his pant leg, wary at her adversary suddenly acting nice. Ellie pulls back from the hug after a moment and taps Ivy’s head in a way that looks rather like the way she would pet a dog, but Ivy just blinks at her, lashes spiky with tears. 

“Ms. Celia’s nice,” Ellie says, still patting her. “She knows how to make cookies.” 

“Coogies?” Ivy repeats, and Ellie nods. 

“They’re stuff with stuff in ‘em and they’re really good and they cook in an oven and Ms. Celia knows how to make ‘em.” She’s very obviously quite impressed with this. “You can’t have my daddy, and you make me mad, but you can say hi sometimes.” From Ellie, this is a wildly generous offer. “But you have to go to Ms. Celia’s house. Then you’ll be her goddamn baby.” 

“Goddum baby,” Ivy parrots, and he’s not the only adult who cringes. He appreciates the effort of whatever little peptalk Ellie is giving here, but he’d rather she didn’t share that specific phrase with Ivy. 

“God-da-” Ellie starts slowly and deliberately, trying to correct her pronunciation. 

“Ellie,” Tess says, making a knock it off gesture. Ellie pulls a face, but she lets it go, turning back to Ivy. 

“It’s better just to be one baby,” Ellie informs her with the air of an expert. “I’m daddy’s baby. You can be Ms. Celia’s baby. I can tell her about babytime, too. You’ll like babytime.” She turns to Celia. “You have to wrap her up in a blanket and squish her a little and tell her ‘It’ll be okay, baby girl,’ and also sit in a rocky chair. That’s how you do it right.” 

Celia appears amused by this, but she hides it quickly, nodding seriously. Ellie nods back. 

“Wan stay,” Ivy says, bouncing on her toes fitfully. 

“This is my house,” Ellie says, but she sounds sympathetic. “I didn’t have a house in Boston, and then I found mama and daddy, and now this is my house.” 

“Mama?” Ivy repeats, and he crosses his fingers against something new to cry about. 

“You can have a mama and a mommy,” Ellie says knowledgeably. “‘Cause my mommy’s in heaven, so now I have a mama.” 

Ivy gives another look to him, and Ellie moves to be in the way. 

“It’s scary in a new place,” she says, patting Ivy’s head again. “But you’ll be okay. And if somebody funks with you, you can bite ‘em. That makes ‘em stop. And if they’re too big, you can tell me, and then I can bite ‘em, too.” 

He makes a mental note to review the conflict resolution they’ve been working on with her. 

*

There are still tears as Ivy leaves, but it’s nothing compared to her sobbing earlier. 

Ellie even walks out with them, patting Ivy’s dangling ankle. 

*

It’s two weeks before he sees Ivy again, and even then it’s only by accident, catching sight of her briefly as she trails after Celia in the barn. He’s been careful to avoid her so he won’t fuck up her settling in, and he also doesn’t want to push Ellie any further by appearing as if he’s looking for her. She’s settled a good deal without an interloper in her house, but she’s clingy, still, especially with him. She hasn’t regressed to sucking her thumb again, but she barely lets him out of her sight, even sitting outside of the bathroom door to wait for him. He doesn’t comment, doesn’t risk upsetting whatever equilibrium she’s regaining. His guilt over hurting her so badly is too acute to scold her for turning into a little limpet. 

They go back to a temporary increase of two babyrrito sessions a day, and Ellie seems a bit more settled each time she’s had a reminder that she’s the only baby in the house. Having been wound so tight for the few days they had Ivy here, she spends a good deal of babyrrito time sleeping, still emotionally drained. He doesn’t try to wake her, just holds her until she wakes up again. Today, though, she seems to have something on her mind, and he waits her out as she gathers whatever she wants to say. 

“Do you love Ivy?” 

It’s not what he expected, though perhaps he should have. 

“No,” he says honestly. He’d been sympathetic, and the girl had needed him, but he hadn’t known her long enough to love her. 

Ellie seems pleased by this. 

“Do you love me?” 

This is an easy question. 

“More than anything in the whole wide world, baby,” he says, leaning forward to kiss her head. She closes her eyes, leaning into it, and when he goes to pull back, she tilts her head to him for another, which he grants. 

“Does Sarah love me?” 

This is even more unexpected than asking about Ivy, and he’s thrown for a moment, which seems to make Ellie think she needs to explain. 

“Ivy makes me mad,” she says, sounding uncertain. “Because you’re my daddy, but Ivy wants you to be her daddy. And you’re Sarah’s daddy, but now you’re my daddy.” 

Ah. 

He has no real way of knowing, honestly. Sarah had just started babysitting right before she’d died and seemed good at it, but it’s not as if he was really engaging in chances to give her a little sibling. He was always careful when he had sex, always used a condom and handed over money for plan B without argument on the two occasions it broke. He’d been content with his single perfect girl, and even though he’d always loved kids, he hadn’t had plans on making more, not beyond idle musings of missing when Sarah was little.

Foolish as it is, though, he’s thought before that Sarah would love Ellie. He can almost see them, Ellie as Sarah’s little sidekick, trailing her like a duckling, looking up to her sissy. There would have been friction, he knows, in Sarah learning how to share him, but Sarah had grown up knowing she was loved and important. He likes to think she would have had the room in her heart to accept Ellie as part of their family. 

“Sarah would have loved being your sissy,” he tells her. “She would have loved you a lot.” 

“Promise?” Ellie asks, and he smiles, leaning forward to kiss her head again. 

“On my life.” 

*

They see Ivy a month later in the dining hall after talking to Celia to plan it out. Until this point, they’ve been following a schedule to avoid each other, but they’ll run into each other eventually. 

Better to have any rough patches out of the way now. 

He smiles at his first sight of Ivy tied to Celia’s back in a sling, leaning over her shoulder and giggling, rubbing noses with Celia with open affection, Celia smiling back so widely he thinks it must be hurting her face. 

Thinking of how Ellie makes him feel, he can relate. 

He picks Ellie up, having to hold her a little tighter to make up for her bundling. He moves to unzip her jacket to give her a little more mobility, and she wiggles out of it, handing it to Tess for safekeeping. She pulls her shark mittens off and tucks them into his jacket pocket with proprietary ease, following them up with her hat. Once she’s offloaded the remainder of her winter gear onto him, she looks around with interest, likely to find one of the kitchen staff who always sneaks her an extra treat. 

He feels her freeze just slightly when she sees Ivy. 

He pretends he hasn’t noticed her yet, just grabs a tray. 

“You wanna carry your own, or you wanna have mama make it?” He asks her, and she looks away from Ivy for a moment before looking back and then returning to look at him. 

“Mama,” she says, looping her arms around his neck in a clear signal that she doesn’t want to get set down. 

They go through the whole line with her like that, barely providing any input into what she wants on her tray when she’s usually a little micromanager about it. He’s prepared to sit on the opposite side of the dining hall from Celia and Ivy when they’re through. Ellie doesn’t seem certain about Ivy yet, and if silent tolerance is all they get from her, it’s better than what they had before. 

To his surprise, though, Ellie pops her head up and turns to him. 

“Can we sit with Ivy and Ms. Celia?” 

He and Tess exchange a quick look, surprised and a little suspicious. 

“You sure, bug?” Tess asks, and Ellie nods, looking like she’s squaring up for a fight. 

It’s not the most encouraging sign, but they walk over to the table Celia and Ivy are at. Ivy’s coloring in a coloring book when they get there, but Celia looks up from observing her art work and smiles a welcome, though he sees she’s a little nervous as well. Ivy looks up when she senses Celia no longer looking right at her. He holds his breath, praying this doesn’t become a scene, praying this doesn’t turn into her begging for what he can’t give her, praying she-

“Hi!” Ivy chirps brightly. 

And then she goes back to her coloring. 

He feels Ellie go immensely more slack in his hold, and she wiggles to get set down. Feeling a little stunned, he goes to put her booster seat down where she’ll be able to sit between him and Tess, but she instead drags it over to the end of the table across from Ivy. Ivy looks up, seeming a little wary, but all Ellie does is look at her page in her coloring book. 

“I like your picture,” she says, looking to Tess in brief confusion when she still doesn’t have a tray in front of her. Tess breaks out of the same frozen surprise he’s been stuck in, putting her food down in front of her. “Thank you, mama,” Ellie says politely before she turns back to Ivy. “That should be blue,” Ellie says, pointing to a section of Ivy’s picture with one hand and stuffing a square of grilled ham and cheese into her mouth with the other. He expects Ivy to balk at what was until very recently an enemy telling her what to do. 

Instead, Ivy picks up a crayon at random and holds it out for Ellie’s inspection. 

“Bue?” She asks, and Ellie shakes her head, reaching to grab the right one and hand it over. 

“That’s blue.” 

Ellie looks to both of them still standing and tilts her head like they’re the ones acting bizarre here. Hurriedly, they both put their own trays down, wary about breaking up whatever fragile peace is happening right now. Satisfied, Ellie turns back to observing Ivy’s coloring. 

*

“Ivy’s not stinky,” Ellie tells them on the walk home that night, jumping from footprint to footprint in his wake so she won’t have to shove through the snow on her own. He and Tess exchange an amused look at her matter-of-fact tone, as if she’s making a point in an argument with them. 

“That so?” He calls back to her, and she nods. 

“Uh-huh. She’s stinky and bad in our house, but she’s nice when she’s Ms. Celia’s goddamn baby.” 

As peace treaties go, he’ll take it. 

*

He wakes the next morning smiling before he even opens his eyes, a small ball of warmth curled up next to him and a heavier line of warmth across his chest, Ellie pressed close to him and Tess pressed close to her, an arm thrown over them both. He shifts slightly, and Ellie makes a sleepy noise of complaint, snuggling just a bit closer. He blinks his eyes open and looks at both of them, chest feeling warm in a way that has nothing to do with their house’s heating system. 

And everything to do with how much he loves the two people cuddled close to him in bed. 

“Good morning,” he says quietly, trying to rouse Ellie by rubbing her back. 

Ellie, though, just makes a grumbling noise and presses closer, turning her face in against his chest. She exhales heavily and then stills, dropping off to sleep again. He carefully moves an arm to cradle her, luxuriating in the comfort of her warm little body against him, safe and content and asleep. 

He checks the clock and decides he can work on waking her and Tess up in a bit. 

For now, there’s plenty of time just to lay here and hold his baby. 

His only goddamn baby.