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It was March eleventh, Robertson's birthday, and breakfast had been spent telling anecdotes, as well as whispered discussions about the plan for the day. As soon as the meal was over, most of the squad headed towards the locker room to prepare for training, and the coaching staff went to the office to discuss strategy. The non-coaching staff and a couple of the players that were too injured to train at all, meanwhile, scattered in different directions to complete the morning chore list.
Alisson, thankfully, wasn't one of the players who had to abstain from training. He wasn't able to fully train with the other keepers yet, but he was doing light grass work as well as maintaining fitness in the gym. Cycling in particular allowed his mind to drift away from the task and towards the conversation at breakfast.
Robertson was close with almost the whole team, with his loud and jovial personality and cheeky sense of humour. That's why the team had decided, in one of their traditional basement meetings, to plan a big surprise party for Robertson's 30th birthday. But beneath that jokey exterior, he was quite observant, and would put together any hints quickly and easily. So the surprise party had to be almost secret, with everything done so Robertson would have no chance of knowing beforehand.
The catch was that if the effort to keep the surprise party a surprise was too effective, Robertson was also sensitive enough that he might start to think that the team had forgotten his birthday entirely. That was why they'd all decided that after training, Alexander-Arnold would take Robertson out around the city so they could spend some quality time together while the rest of the team set up the party. That included Alisson, who'd been assigned to gift-wrapping duties.
Szoboszlai hadn’t been too pleased at the prospect of being away from his boyfriend for so long. He cheered up, though, after Nemmer said he could lick the frosting bowl.
After cycling and a brief shower, Alisson went to the kitchen to start cleaning up the breakfast dishes. It wasn't his day to do the dishes, but since Thiago, Nemmer, Adrian, Salah, and Klopp would be cooking so much food for the party, it felt like the least he could do.
"Ali!" Vera Rakotomalala-Khemson poked her head through the door. Her curls were tied in her usual pink bandana, but today she'd ditched her white lab coat and colourful scrubs for faded blue jeans and a yellow T-shirt. "Can we talk for a second?"
"No problem, we can talk." Alisson dried his hands on a paper towel and started to walk towards Vera. He then noticed that Vera was carrying Aya in a baby sling.
"Well, hello you little cutie!" Alisson playfully pinched Aya's cheek, prompting giggles from the baby. "A fofinha dormiu bem hoje? Ela fez? Tenho a sensação de que você fez isso!"
Vera rolled her eyes in amusement. "Up here, above the baby carrier."
Alisson looked up from Aya, a faint blush growing across his cheeks. "Oh, sorry, I just got distracted by Aya. She's such a precious little sunshine."
"That's exactly why I wanted to talk to you.” Vera rested a hand on Aya's back, calming her squealing and kicking daughter. “Chan's getting started on the spring flower bed, and the rest of the staff and I are going to be busy prepping for Robbo's surprise party. So could you babysit Aya for a bit?"
"Do we wear red? Are Bobby's teeth immaculate? Of course, I will!" Alisson resisted the urge to squeal, instead ruffling Aya's hair. "How could I resist spending time with esse preciosa pequenina ?"
"For some reason, I knew you'd say yes.” Vera dug into her pocket and handed Alisson a folded piece of paper. "Here's her schedule. There's fresh milk in the freezer, and the bottles are on the rack. Also give her some soft, chopped-up fruit or veg. She's in her mango and strawberry phase now, but try to get her to eat something else as well. Make sure she sleeps after she eats, or she's going to be grumpy for the rest of the day. And exactly one hour of naptime, okay? If you don't wake her up, she'll stay up too late at night and we won't be able to sleep.”
Alisson shuddered, remembering how Nunez once forgot to wake Aya up from her nap while babysitting her. Aya had been wide awake as a result, wanting to play until two in the morning. "I will. We don't want another repeat of the Darwin Incident No. 86.”
"We most certainly don't. Chan won't be done for a couple of hours, and then Domi and I are going to pick up Milly at the train station. But Chan will finish before I come back.” Vera tilted her head downwards, pressing a kiss to Aya's forehead. Aya squealed, grabbing a fistful of Vera's hair. "I'll be back soon, malala . Neny loves you."
Aya cooed, smiling widely. She began to squall in protest, though, as Vera lifted her out of the baby sling and settled her onto her hip.
"Oh, you'll be okay, sweetie. Neny's just going to help set up Robbo's birthday party. Trust me, you don't want to be there before it’s ready.” Vera unbuckled the baby carrier from her body and helped Alisson put it on, adjusting the sling until it fit. Then she settled Aya into the sling until she was secure. “Good thing Chan and I settled on the wrap carrier, or else you wouldn't be able to put this on. She's going to fuss for a little, but then she'll settle down. Remember the list, okay?”
Alisson nodded, narrowly dodging a flying baby fist. "I promise, I will."
*
After reassuring Vera for the fourth time that everything would be fine, Alisson looked down at Aya. After the initial displeasure of being unwrapped from her mother, the ten-month-old had calmed down, babbling softly to herself while she chewed on a churro plushie. It had been a gift from Nunez at Kanchana and Vera’s baby shower last march. It was more of a pretzel stick than a churro, and Nunez hand ended up poking himself with the needle until half of his fingers were bandaged. But ever since she was two months old, Aya had taken a liking to the toy, especially during her teething phase.
Alisson made no effort to conceal his joy as he set Aya on the nursery floor, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. Aya’s hair was no longer as wispy as it had been when she was born, but it still had that unmistakable baby-hair softness. “Alright, according to your Neny’s schedule, we’ve got about forty-five minutes before you eat. Want to play?”
“Ay iii !” Aya half-crawled, half-scooted to the stack of soft building blocks near the toybox. She grasped one in her hand, waving it insistently in the air. “Da! Dati! Ehhhh!”
“Okay, so we’re architects today. I’ll be Ruy Othake, do you want to be Daisy Igel?”
“Ya!”
Alisson chuckled at Aya’s excited prattling, carefully lowering himself onto the rug. By now Aya could say a few words, mainly “Mama” “Neny” and “no”, but most of her “speech” was still nonsensical sounds and imitation of actual speech. Thankfully, she’d inherited both of her mothers’ expressive natures, so figuring out what she wanted wasn’t hard.
Alisson watched as Aya giggled and babbled while they built a tower the blocks. He loved kids, and he especially loved spending time with the kids in the team. Despite the fact that none of them were biologically related to each other except Henrietta and Grace, it was easy to mistake them for a horde of siblings. Yet they were all their own different people.
Arwen, the eldest at nine and a half years old, loved art. She drew dozens of comics in her free time, each with their own elaborate and winding lore. She was also advanced in multiple subjects, especially arithmetic, and she could complete some simple pre-algebra questions despite her only being in Year 5. It was a wonder how her parents hadn't moved her up a grade or two yet, because it was obvious that Arwen was destined for intellectual greatness.
Moana, Arwen's two-year-old sister, had been adopted a couple of months after the Powers came to work in Liverpool. She was a little athlete, climbing stairs and Arwen's wheelchair before she could put three words together in a sentence. She loved all of Arwen's stories, but her favourite was Arwen's twenty-second story, a mini-epic about Vikings and Amazonite warriors with heavy inspiration from Homer's Odyssey. She'd loved it so much that Arwen had transcribed it onto paper as a book, complete with drawings in coloured pencils, so that Moana could enjoy her favourite story when Arwen was busy at school or doing homework.
Although Arwen was the oldest by quite an age gap, Florrie was the driver of the group. She'd come out of her shell so much since the day Alisson, Firmino, and Fabinho had found her in an old playground. Beneath the anxiety brought on by her birth parents abandoning her at an early age and leaving her at a terrible orphanage, there was an affectionate and kind little girl. Though Florrie was only five years old, she possessed more empathy and wisdom than some kids twice her age did, and she was often the one who pulled the other kids together. She was also very social, and seeing Florrie alone in the training ground was an almost impossible sight.
Take Kairo, for example. After bonding with Florrie at the nursery school they attended together, he'd started coming over to Kirkby Ground for playdates with Florrie. To make a long story short, Kairo had been rescued from his abusive father and brought to live with the team permanently. Nemmer, seeing how close Florrie and Kairo were, had adopted Kairo as her own, so now Florrie and Kairo were officially brother and sister. Kairo's energy and liveliness could only be compared to the fullbacks or even Nunez, and he could hardly sit still for ten minutes without having something to do. Usually that something was reading, or drawing. He was also a jokester, and his favourite book was a children's book of jokes that Chamberlain had gotten him for his fourth birthday.
Henrietta and Grace, the twins, used to live in Kirkby with their parents and little sister Ella, who everybody just called Ellie. But after a bitter divorce, both Robert and Chelsea O'Hara had decided they needed new starts. While Robert had dropped off the grid entirely, Chelsea had retaken her birth name, Shearer, packed up her things and the kids and moved to Birmingham, where she now worked for Aston Villa as a nutritionist. They'd last visited on Christmas Eve, and had scheduled another visit for late March.
When the Shearers had visited last December, it was clear that the twins hadn't changed much despite both of them being two and a half years old. Henrietta still possessed the same chatty, extroverted, and outspoken tendencies she'd had since her infancy, often overpowering her quieter sister. The two were polar opposites, but they still stuck together as much as when they were infants. So much, in fact, that Ellie was often left to her own devices.
Even though she was still young, Alisson could tell that she was going to be very different from her sisters. While Henrietta already loved dressing up and movies, and Grace preferred reading or listening to music, Ellie loved playing in the garden and animals. Her favourites were birds, and she'd loved playing with Ludger the owl when he was alive. Of course, during their last visit, Ellie had noticed that Ludger wasn't there, which had led to an awkward explanation from Klopp. Ellie, being only nineteen months old, didn't understand that Ludger had died a few months ago, but she did understand that her owl friend was there and wasn't coming back. Both Klopp and Ellie had been upset until Matip suggested that they go bird watching together. It hadn't been the first time that Klopp and Ellie had exhibited similar tendencies.
If Ellie took after Klopp, Tristan took after Milner. The boy was only two years old, but everybody was already used to his sarcastic and dry personality. He only really laughed around his mom, Kerry, and Milner. He'd picked up language very quickly, and spoke with the language fluency of a five or six year old. That did not include the various swear words he'd picked up from sneaking into the living room in the evenings to sit behind the couch as Milner watched Sky Sports. It had been a problem until last August, when Endo had got the bright idea to discourage Tristan from actually using the swear words by introducing him to some more innocuous words in Japanese. Tristan had been fascinated by the new words, and had forgotten about all the swear words he'd learned before. Kerry had been so relieved that she'd booked Endo an appointment at a spa.
And, of course, there was Aya, who was such a joyful and adorable, if not slightly capricious, baby. Everybody in the training ground had adored her since Vera and Kanchana announced their pregnancy, but Florrie had been, by far, the one that was the most enamoured with Aya besides her moms. When Aya was born, Florrie would sit in front of her bassinet in Vera and Kanchana's room and refuse to leave until Aya was awake. It was adorable, and Klopp had taken at least twenty photos of Florrie guarding Aya while she slept.
" Ehhhhh !" Aya beat her hand against Alisson's arm, derailing his train of thought. "Ayi, eh!!!"
"Hungry, aren't you, fofinha ? It's about time for your lunch, anyways." Alisson picked Aya up and placed her back in the baby sling. He would clean up the blocks later, while Aya slept. "Let's go to the kitchen."
When they got to the kitchen, Alisson fed Aya the bottle of milk, which he'd left out to reach room temperature beforehand, before settling her in her high chair before proceeding to prepare her lunch. Careful to remove any stray leaves or strings, Alisson chopped up some mango and strawberry into bite-sized pieces. Remembering Vera's instructions, Alisson did the same with a piece of fresh avocado. Aya eagerly gobbled up the food, getting fruit juice and avocado all over her face and hands as she hummed to herself.
Alisson chuckled as he finished up the dishes, placing the last pile of plates in the cupboards. "You were really hungry, weren't you?"
Aya nodded, popping the last strawberry quarter into her mouth. Her legs, which she'd kicked back and forth in excitement, now rested still as she blinked sleepily.
"Aww, are you sleepy?"
Aya shook her head no, but a long yawn quickly betrayed her.
After cleaning off her face and hands, Alisson brought an already sleeping Aya to the nursery. But when he laid her in the crib, Aya woke up and immediately started to cry.
"Oh no, oh no, no, no. Don't worry, Aya, I'm still here, okay?" Alisson picked her up out of the crib, gently bouncing her up and down. "Go back to sleep."
Aya quieted down, and was almost asleep when Alisson returned her to the crib. He managed to pull the blanket over her body before she woke up, crying in protest. But when he picked her up again, the cries stopped.
Alisson finally caught on. "You don't want me to put you down, do you?"
Aya nodded, pressing her face into Alisson's shoulder. She gripped onto his shirt, refusing to be lowered into the crib.
"No need to rip my shirt open, docinha , I get it." Alisson picked up the baby sling and tied it around himself, settling Aya so her head laid on his chest. "If I had to choose between sleeping by myself and sleeping while being hugged, I'd definitely go for the latter."
*
Alisson wrapped the presents, careful not to jostle Aya too much and wake her up from her nap before it was time. Robertson had a habit of shaking his presents up and down to figure out what they were before opening it, which had led to crumbled cookies more than once. So he stuffed extra tissue paper around the fragile items, even adding some cotton balls so they wouldn't break. He used foam blocks to surround the soft items so they wouldn't wrinkle in their packages, and he decorated the packages with wrapping paper and ribbon in various shades of navy blue, white, and gold.
When the presents were all wrapped, Alisson loaded them all into Florrie's red wagon. He slipped a pair of infant-sized ear blockers onto Aya's head before stepping into the auditorium, where the party would be held. True to Vera's words earlier, the chaos was tangible. Gakpo, Gravenberch, and Quansah chased each other around the room, crashing into the pile of blue and white balloons Kelleher and Konate were weaving into a balloon arch. Gomez and Endo stood on stepladders opposite of each other, suspending streamers from removable hooks, Mac Allister and Jota set up speakers on the stage, and Tsimikas scrolled through his phone, occasionally stopping to speak into it.
"Well, it took you long enough to come!" Gakpo was the first one to notice Alisson standing in the doorway, running across the room to hug him. "Where have you been, man?"
Gravenberch popped up out of nowhere, a white balloon taped to his head. "Yeah, what took you so long? You missed us getting under Virg's skin again."
"Shh!" Alisson nodded towards Aya, who slept peacefully now that she was being held. "Vera asked me to babysit Aya earlier. I tried to put her down for her nap earlier, but she kept crying unless I held her. I really hope I didn't do something wrong."
"Oh, don't worry about it, mijn jade . She probably just wanted a hug." Van Dijk walked up to Alisson, taking his free hand and gently squeezing it.
Alisson smiled at Van Dijk, leaning on his shoulder and pressing a kiss to his cheek. "Thanks, Virg. I just don't want to mess up with the kids."
Gakpo, Gravenberch, and Quansah dramatically covered their eyes and gagged. "Oh my god, you two, get a room!"
"Nobody asked you three. Now run along." Van Dijk rolled his eyes and gently shooed the trio off. They immediately got distracted by the tank of helium being used to blow up the balloons.
"I know how you feel, schatje . I was the same way with my little sister. But trust me, you're doing great." Van Dijk leaned in closer. "And speaking of doing great, have you seen the cake yet?"
Alisson shook his head. "No, not yet. Is it amazing?"
"It's more than amazing. It's a work of art." Van Dijk set his stack of plates on one of the tables, pulling Alisson towards the door. "Come on, let me show you."
*
Alisson followed his boyfriend to the large walk-in pantry attached to the kitchen, where a large table groaned under the weight of the multiple dishes already there. In the centre of the table, surrounded by several bowls of nachos, sat a huge, three-tiered cake. It was frosted in the Scotland national team's colours and adorned with miniature footballs, with candles and sparklers on top.
He could already feel his sweet tooth begging to be satisfied. "This is amazing."
"Wait until you taste it. I heard Thiago and Mona spent four days working on the recipe." Van Dijk's eyes glazed over as he thought about the cake. "It's a chocolate and vanilla marble cake, and there's raspberry jam and buttercream sandwiched between the cake--"
"Stop it, Virg!" Alisson groaned, forcing his eyes off the cake. "I was already craving sweets at breakfast. Even Aya wanted sweets at lunch."
Thiago emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. "Ali, Virg! I see you're looking at our masterpiece."
Van Dijk nodded, resting a hand on Alisson's shoulder. "It's gorgeous. We can't wait to eat it."
Thiago beamed with pride. "Ah, bueno . I see you're on babysitting duty, Ali."
As if on cue, the timer Alisson had set rung out loudly. Aya stirred as she slowly woke up, glancing at her surroundings before her gaze settled on Alisson. She gurgled, trying to reach for Alisson's hair.
"Oh, look who's awake! Boa tarde, fofinha. " Alisson hugged Aya through the sling, handing her the churro plushie she'd been playing with earlier. "Did you sleep well?"
Aya ignored the question, instead hugging the stuffed toy. She almost fell asleep again, if it wasn't for a certain voice.
"Oh, no you don't, thārk pheṣ̄ h̄ỵing . If you sleep now, you're not going to want to sleep until tomorrow."
"Chan! You're early." Alisson again had to dodge Aya's hand as she flailed and squealed, trying to reach Kanchana even though she was securely strapped to Alisson. "How did the gardening go?"
"Great, until I hit a rock two-thirds of the way through. It was too big for me to move by myself or with the shovel, so I had to change the whole central garden plot from a pentagon into a heptagon. We also need some new flower bulbs after the gopher invasion, so this is going to be delayed for a while." Kanchana wiped her brow and hands with a chequered handkerchief, turning to Aya. "Now how's my sweet baby girl?"
"Mama, Mama!" Aya chanted over and over, straining against the constraints of the sling.
"She was a little angel." Alisson grinned as he untied the sling, handing Aya to Kanchana. "She didn't want to sleep in her crib, so I let her sleep in the sling as I wrapped the presents. There’s still some blocks on the nursery floor from when we played, I couldn’t bend to clean them off the floor while she was in the sling. I’ll go pick them up now.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary. You babysitted my Aya for almost three hours. I think I can handle picking up some soft blocks.” Kanchana balanced Aya on her hip, shaking Alisson’s hand with a grateful smile. “Thanks for everything, Ali.”
As Kanchana left the room with Aya, Alisson couldn’t help but feel that somebody was watching him. He turned around to see Van Dijk staring at him with a soft smile.
"Hey, you okay?" Alisson asked, noticing the way Van Dijk's eyes shimmered.
Van Dijk nodded, quickly clearing his throat. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just... it's lovely to see you with kids, you know? You're so good with them. And I can't help but think about... well, our future. Maybe we'll have kids of our own one day. Not now, but maybe in a few years, after we retire."
Alisson felt a warmth spread through his chest at the thought. "Ever since you showed me that picture of you as a kid, I've wanted a mini-you."
Van Dijk nodded, his eyes sparkling with happiness. "We can have a mini-me and a mini-you, and maybe they'll even be a mix. I can already see you carrying them in the baby sling like you were doing with Aya."
"If we manage to get alone time with them during the day. All of our teammates will want to hold and play with them so much, I don't think any child of ours will learn to walk until they're at least a year old." Alisson took Van Dijk’s hand, nodding towards the door. “Come on, amor. Let’s help the others set up before the fullbacks return.”