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Her eyes slowly blinked open, not being surprised at the darkness that coated the room (aside from the one small night light in the corner). Alina had another dream about that lady. She was super tall (probably even taller than Papa) and kept trying to speak to Alina, but the toddler had none of it. She just wanted to return to having normal dreams (plus they were getting repetitive at this point).
The two-year-old crawled down to the end of her bed and clambered down from the part without railings. Her new bed was cool. She used to have a crib a few months ago but she liked this a lot more (mainly because she could get in and out with ease). Alina walked past her toy box, which was rather empty due to the floor being littered with blocks, dolls, and plushies, and, using all of her might, pushed the door open. Mama, Papa, and Dad always left the door open just a tiny bit after tucking her in, just in case she needed something and couldn’t get to the handle. She was tall enough to reach the doorknob now but it seemed to be a force of habit as they still left the door open.
She wanted some juice. Alina had already brushed her teeth but that had been hours ago so surely, she was fine to have some now. The toddler glanced into her parents’ bedroom, giggling at no matter how big their bed was, Papa always seemed to be 2 inches from falling on the floor.
Gripping at the wooden posts, she slowly creaked down the stairs one step at a time. The cold floor made her shiver, making her regret not putting her slippers on. The neighbourhood was always really quiet at this time; it made sense and she was used to it but after staying over at her Grandma Sylvanna’s house a couple of times, she seemed to focus on it a lot more. Her neighbourhood always had some kind of noise going on no matter what time it was. Whether it was cars driving through, people having a conversation downstairs and outside (though Alina didn’t understand why they’d still be awake after she went to bed), and sometimes, if she listened really closely, she was able to hear planes going by from above.
Alina was about to begin scraping her footstool across the floor, possibly about to wake the house up from how loud it was when she spotted the backdoor.
It was open.
Not all the way, there wasn’t even a big enough gap to fit your finger in but you could tell it hadn’t been closed. She wanted to play on her swingset outside, just for a minute. She wasn’t allowed to play outside without supervision yet and she definitely wasn’t allowed to be outside past her bedtime but no one was awake. Not even Celeste was awake. No one would know if she slipped out and back in for 5 minutes.
Completely forgetting about her original mission, the girl reached up for the door handle and pulled. She yelped slightly when, all of a sudden, a dark figure leaning on their patio fence jerked its head back toward her. It dropped something in its hand and, just before she slammed the door and ran back upstairs to tell her parents, it came toward her.
“Hey, hey. It’s just me, snuggle bug.” Her heartbeat quickly slowed down as she recognised the familiar piercing-littered face of her dad smiling at her. Her dad’s hair was pulled back away from his face with one of her butterfly hairclips, revealing the other side of it. Alina never saw his hair pulled back often (unless they were playing hair salon) so when she did, it always made her happy. She didn’t understand why he covered his face. All his little brown dots looked pretty and she always thought that only having one eye looked really cool (even if the parents at daycare were freaked out by it).
“What are you doing out here?” He asked, quickly lifting her up and sitting her on his hip. She liked being held by her dad. He loved being held by her Mama and Papa as well but her dad was just short enough that she wasn’t freaked out by the height and he was just chubby enough that he was all soft to cuddle with.
“Had the dream again. She was sayin’ weird stuff. Like, don’t be scared ‘cause she just watching. Don’t like it.” She responded, resting her head on his chest and paying no attention to the weird smoky smell coming from him. Alina didn’t know why but cuddling with one of her parents always seemed to stop the dream from happening and that tall lady never showed up.
If the toddler’s eyes were open, she’d be able to see a look of concern painted across her parent's face. The younger had been having this dream for a while now. His daughter didn’t seem to care that much about what her dream had been saying but he was definitely worried. Especially if this “tall lady” was who he thought it was.
Alina wasn’t even a concept by the time everyone got home from Starlight; all of the trauma still being extremely fresh to even think about life commitments like that, however, when they got the news that Aph was pregnant, all 3 of them discussed when would be the right time to tell Alina about all of this. All of their past. Collectively, they decided to wait until she was a bit older. Until she was emotionally mature enough to handle information like this. Maybe when she turned 13. But, after all of these dreams, they might need to revisit that conversation.
Zane walked back inside, with Alina now cuddled up on his chest and attempting to curl up (though she wasn’t very successful); the night was getting far too cold, plus both of them needed to get some sleep before daycare tomorrow.
He liked this life. It was domestic, something he (and everyone else) never expected for him. Paranoia was never something that came as easy as it used to now. For years, he was always paranoid that everything he had worked for, every relationship he had built, every amount of healing he had done, everything he and his partners, nay his family, had built together was going to come crumbling down by something. Anything. And twice in his life, he had been right. First, Ein. And then, Starlight. Those experiences forever changed the trajectory of his life and destroyed his relationships with people, with his family, and with his loves in such a way that it felt impossible to fix.
But, now? He felt none of that fear. None of that paranoia. None of that panic. Nothing. He felt at peace. Happy. Happy at the life he had built, happy at the relationships he had fixed, happy at himself for attempting to heal.
The emo looked down at his daughter. She had fallen back asleep. And, walking into the bedroom he and his partners slept in together, in the house he had moved into with them years ago, looking at the daughter that they were parenting together as three, he realised.
Alina was what it was all for. Everything he had gone through in his life, every time he just barely escaped death, was worth it. Just to see his family sleeping peacefully next to him without any ounce of fear anymore. And he couldn’t be any more grateful for that.