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Kate bolted upright in bed with a start, her hand resting over her pounding heart at the loud noise ringing around the room. It took a second for her sleep-addled brain to understand that the noise was the first chords of a song.
"What's going on?" Anthony rubbed his face harshly. "What time is it?"
Kate squinted at the clock on her husband's nightstand before she dropped back to bed with a groan. "Half-past five."
"And why the fuck are we listening to..." He stopped speaking for a second before his face contorted in confusion. "Is that bloody Elton John ?!"
"I think so." Kate rolled on the bed, curling herself to Anthony's side, burying her face on his neck.
" Why ?!"
"It wasn't me!" She yawned into his skin, enjoying how Anthony tugged her closer to him.
"Who the fuck was it then?"
"I was sleeping right along with you, love."
"I'm going to kill my siblings." He cussed with his nose pressed to her hair. "It must have been them." Kate nodded in agreement, allowing her eyes to close again, feeling the lull of sleep begin to pull her back as the song started moving to its last chords and a couple of minutes after the house fell into a delicious silence, Kate was already halfway back into the land of dreams.
And then the doorknob rattled.
"Amma! Papa!" A tiny little voice accompanied the attempt to open the door.
"I'm serious, I'll murder them," Anthony muttered menacingly under his breath, staring at the ceiling tiredly before he unwrapped his arm from around his wife to roll out of bed. Kate moved to the other side, picking up the baby monitor from her bedside table, letting out a breath of relief to see Miles sprawled on his stomach, snoring peacefully, completely unbothered.
"Good morning!" Neddy greeted cheerfully the moment Anthony opened the door, a big happy grin on his sweet little lips directed at his father.
"Morning, mate." Neddy giggled when Anthony ruffed his head, bypassing his father to join his mother in the bed, Newton following on his heels.
"Hi, Amma." His set with his legs tugged under him, smiling as his mother as if it was a perfectly reasonable hour of the day instead of dawn.
"It's still sleepy time, baby." Kate tugged at her son with her eyes only half opened, his bright laughter warming her as he fell down to the pillow, being enclosed by her arms.
"It's morning, Amma."
"Barely." She grumbled, running her fingers through her son's lush hair as Anthony joined them back at the bed. "Let's sleep some more, chellam ."
"But the sun..." The three-year-old pouted, his forehead wrinkling with a frown.
"It's still waking up, Ned." Anthony rubbed the little boy's back soothingly.
"I'm not sleepy."
"How about we just... close our eyes?" Kate's eyes had already been closed despite her efforts to keep them open when her husband made the suggestion. "We'll stay with our eyes closed while I count to a hundred."
"But a hundred is a lot !"
"It's not even two minutes, bud." Kate continued running her hands softly over her eldest son's hair with her eyes closed, smiling softly at the thoughtful moment of silence in which the little boy considered his father's proposition.
"You'll count to 100 then?" He asked. “And then I can open them?”
"Yes, it will be super fast." The little boy nodded, making himself comfortable between his parents. "Ready? Alright, eyes closed in three, two, one."
Anthony barely got to fifteen before Edmund's breath evened out, his little body relaxing, and they managed to get another twenty-three extra minutes of sleep before Miles began to grumble over the baby monitor.
"Alright, which one of you fuckers is doing it?" Several confused faces looked up to find Anthony's irritated scowl. In his father's arms, Milo clapping his chubby hands happily contrasted with Anthony's grumpy mood. Ned had let go of Kate's hand the moment his eyes set on Simon with his girls through the garden doors.
"Good to see you too, Ant," Benedict mumbled drily, barely lifting his gaze from the sleeping newborn in his wife's arms to look at his brother.
"Seriously, guys, whoever it is, please stop," Kate complained, dropping to the sofa next to Daphne with an exhausted sigh. "It's not funny."
"What are we supposed to be doing this time?" Eloise asked with a raise of her eyebrow as she reached out to pick an excited Miles from Anthony's arm.
"Someone's got into our Alexa and it's making it blast I'm Still Standing ." Anthony set next to his wife, resting his arm over her shoulders tiredly. "At 5:30 in the morning."
It had been easy to convince Edmund to go back to sleep that first morning. Unfortunately, the following day, they were woken not only by the loud music but also by poor Miles' startled cry, who had not been happy to be rudely woken up. As a result, they had spent the entire Friday with a cranky, clingy toddler. He had kicked up a tremendous fuss when Anthony and Kate left for work; he had fought valiantly to go down for his nap and as the night dragged on, the annoyed, tired mood had spread to every single member of the Sharma-Bridgerton household. Kate had almost cried when she heard the chords early on Saturday.
A couple of beats of silence rang around the room, a mix of surprise and amusement clear on the rest of Anthony's siblings. Colin was biting his lip, clearly trying to keep from bursting into laughter and Eloise stared at them with a humourous raise of her eyebrow.
"It wasn't me!" Greg was the first to break the silence, his tone defensive.
"Are you serious?" Sophie looked up to Kate who sighed, letting her head fall to her husband's shoulder.
"For the past three days." She confirmed.
"I'm sorry." Frannie rubbed her face, swallowing her giggles. "It's not funny, I swear, it's just..."
"It would be if it hadn't woken up the boys."
" Oh ." The parents in the room all looked sympathetic towards the tired couple.
"I didn't even know you could do that," Daph mumbled.
"I'd never wake up at 5 just to mess with you." Colin opened his arm, beckoning Milo to waddle towards him. "I like a prank but I'm not that mean."
"You don't have to, you could program it to do it at a certain time."
"And how would you know that, Hyacinth?"
"Because I'm not a noob , Benedict." Hy scoffed with a roll of her eyes. "All you've gotta do is create a routine. Let me see."
"Hy-Hy is so helpful today," Eloise commented, narrowing her eyes at her sister. "It's suspicious."
"Smells like guilt to me." Colin agreed with a sly grin.
"That's Greg, who hasn't taken a shower in three days."
" Frannie !"
"Oh my God, Greg!"
"Gross, dude."
"Ant, there isn't any routine saved here.” Hyacinth offered Anthony’s phone back to him. "If someone's doing this, they're actually waking up at dawn to put on the song, which honestly is pretty bold."
"You could change your Amazon password," Ben suggested, picking Miles up from Colin's arm and settling the little boy on his knee. "It logs out of all accounts when you do it."
" Hey !"
"Please, don't!"
"Oh, come on !"
Anthony raised an eyebrow in questioning at the groans and complaints coming from all his little siblings.
"You know I use your Kindle Unlimited." Eloise shrugged unashamed.
"And the new season of Good Omens just came out!"
"I've started The Boys last week."
"Please don't kick us out. I swear I didn't do it." Hyacinth blinked pleadingly at Anthony, followed by a chorus of promises of good behaviour and pleas of innocence.
"If none of you have done anything, then how the fuck is Elton John blasting around my house at first light?!"
That night was a difficult one at the Sharma-Bridgerton household. Naps had been overlooked during the afternoon filled with excited cousins and doting grannies, aunts and uncles. Ned had been uncooperative at bath time, still unhappy about the fact he had not been allowed to have a sleepover with his cousin at Violet's. Miles had become clingy and refused to sleep if not being held and would cry if settled down in his bassinet, which meant Edmund, who did not enjoy feeling left out, wanted to be held as well.
What followed were two hours of utter chaos. Neither of the children wanted neither Kate nor Anthony out of their sight and would kick up a storm if they lost visual of one parent. Poor Newton hovered nervously between the two crying little boys, looking stressed and unsure about whom to snuggle with. Twice, it seemed one of them would finally fall asleep, only to be startled into alertness when the other made a distressed sound.
By the time the boys had lost the battle to their own exhaustion, Anthony and Kate were on the brink of passing out themselves. Miles clung to Kate's chest in his sleep, his little fist clutched to the fabric of Kate's sleep shirt as if his life depended on it, grumbling and groaning at any attempts to have it removed. Ned had fallen asleep on his belly on the living room sofa, one hand wrapped around Newton's soft fur and the other around his father's trousers.
Kate finally moved from her position in the living room armchair after fifteen minutes went by since Anthony left the room with Ned and Newton on his heels, saying he'd try to settle their eldest son in his own bed. She paddled down the hallways, Milo breathing sleepy sighs down her neck to find her husband as passed out as their little boy, cramped together in Edmund's small bed, with the chubby corgi wedged between them.
She barely remembered falling asleep herself. She decided against trying to wake Anthony and direct him to their bed, afraid to wake Ned and start the night all over again and instead moved to Miles' nursery. After a couple of failed attempts to put Milo down without causing a huge pandemonium of tears and wailing, she settled on the rocking chair, swinging them gently as her littlest boy snored happily against her and that was exactly how she fell asleep.
" Kate ." She blinked awake in confusion at her husband's hissed call. Anthony was standing at the door to the nursery, his hair rumpled and his clothes wrinkled, looking like he had just rolled out of bed.
"What?" She croaked, resting her hand on Miles' back to make sure he was still, in fact, there, clinging to her. Anthony brought his finger to his lips in a silent motion before gesturing for her to follow him.
With a confused frown, Kate rose from her sitting position, Milo letting out a soft, sleepy protest at their sudden motion.
"Ned's up," Anthony commented in a whisper when she reached him at the door.
" Already ?! What time is it?"
"It's around five twenty." He ran his fingers softly through the baby's brown curls, looking more amused than Kate would have expected at the prospect of their three-year-old being up before the sun.
"Where is he?" She narrowed her eyes at her husband. "Why are we whispering?"
Anthony motioned with his chin towards the living room door at the end of the hall. "He got up, kissed my forehead and tiptoed out of the room with Newton on his heels. I want to see what he's up to."
"Probably nothing good," Kate mumbled under her breath, unable to hold back the grin at their eldest son's sweetness.
"Well, let's find out."
They could hear Edmund's soft childish voice as they approached the open doorway that led to the living room, the boy's words low as he chatted with Newton.
"Do you want to dance, Newtie? Dance is good to get happy." Ned's hair stuck up in all directions as he moved around the room, picking things up from the floor and settling them on the sofa. He looked so similar to Anthony that it made Kate's heart burst in her chest with the adorableness of it all, although their son looked much more alert and happy to be awake than his father did. "But we can't wake Amma and Papa and Milo, so shh !"
The chubby corgi sat on the floor with his tail waggling happily as he stared at the little boy bustling around the room. Kate exchanged a look with her husband, who had procured his phone from apparently nowhere to record whatever the boy was up to.
"Alexa," Ned called, frowning when the little round device didn't turn blue on his command. "Alexa. Alexa! " Kate raised her eyebrows at her son, wondering when the hell had he learned to use the Alexa devices. Next to her, Anthony had his free hand pressed to his lips, his face contorted in a mix of surprise and amusement. "Play I Still Stand at Potfy ."
Kate had to swallow her loud laughter. There was no way ...
"Playing I'm Still Standing by Elton John on Spotify."
The chords started, echoing around the Alexas spread in the kitchen and in the master bedroom, making Edmund giggle happily. Luckily, Kate had realised what was going to happen fast enough to cover Miles' ears and save him from being startled awake by the loud noise. Next to her, she could see Anthony shaking with silent laughter as he filmed the little excited boy, who had begun bouncing up and down, moving his hips side to side along with the beat with a childish lack of coordination.
Kate could not even be mad at the ungodly hour she had rudely been woken in the past few days at the sight. Edmund moved all around the living room with Newton following him, wiggling his body in the same level of excitement as the little boy. He was mumbling something that resembled the lyrics of the song, although not quite.
It was just too damn cute.
Edmund noticed his parents watching him from the door halfway through the song, but instead of looking bashful or embarrassed at being caught, he just opened the brightest smile he could muster. "Good morning!"
"Morning, mate." Anthony smiled softly, putting his phone away. "What are you doing?"
"Newtie and I are dancing." He explained with an unbothered shrug as if it was the most obvious thing. "It makes us have a happy day. Wanna dance?"
Anthony turned to his wife with a grin, his hand outstretched towards her. "What you say?" Kate smiled as she settled a sleeping Miles tightly against her in one arm, taking her husband's offered hand, giggling at Edmund's happy claps of delight. "Alright, mate, show us your moves."
The first half hour of that Sunday morning was spent dancing in their pyjamas in the living room, Anthony adding one cheery old song after the other as they moved around. Miles eventually got woken up by being swayed side to side, but he didn't seem as annoyed about it as the other two morning, perhaps because he found himself pressed between his mother and father, with his brother right along with him, all of them giggling and smiling, and soon enough he was on the floor bouncing on his chubby legs along with the music, as happy as the rest of them.
There had been a chat later in the day, of course, about playing very loud songs so early in the morning and how on Earth Edmund knew Elton John's 1983 song (It was Violet, she liked playing music on her Alexa as they did things in the days she watched the children and she had imprinted on them a great love for Sir Elton's biggest hits). Rules were made about music only being played at Alexa with Amma or Papa's okay and about respecting people when they are sleeping.
The video of Ned dancing had been shared in the family message group, where it was an instant success, although Anthony’s mother did apologise profusely for being the cause of their early mornings and consequent harsh days.
But from this moment forward, music became a morning routine for the Sharma-Bridgerton household. Anthony or Kate would always put a playlist as they prepared for the day and weekend mornings always involved some sort of dancing in the living room in their pyjamas and socks, albeit at a more reasonable hour, when the sun was already fully up, along with all the family members.
Ned was right. Dancing really did make everyone have a happy day.