Chapter Text
“But daddy!” Liv had not touched a single carrot on the plate in front of her. Neither the pasta covered in tomato-sauce that came with it. Instead, she had miraculously found one new subject after the other to talk about for a solid 20 minutes now and usually Matty would have been severely impressed by how much she had been going on about their little trip around the block. To be fair, the encounter with a lady and a dog they had there had been very exciting indeed - not just for Liv but for their bodyguards as well when the three-year-old escaped Matty’s grasp and ran towards the animal. But he remained impressed nonetheless about how much she obviously felt like talking about it.
“What if the lady forgets to give dog food? Then dog is hungry!”
Well…”, Matty said smirking, absolutely aware of the irony of the situation. “I’m sure she won’t forget, no need to worry about it.”
He caressed Liv’s cheek reassuringly. His daughter didn’t seem entirely convinced.
“How you know?”, she asked.
Matty hesitated for a second. Then he said: “Because you don’t forget important things like this. I don’t forget to make you food, you know?”
Liv looked at him skeptically for a second. Then she looked down at her plate as if she would double-check if the food was indeed still there.
“Yes”, she confirmed finally.
“See. So how about you continue eating a little bit of that now and we keep talking about the dog later?”
Liv nodded, to Matty’s surprise, and continued to pick some of the carrots up with her fork. Matty took a look at the clock on the other side of the room. They had been sitting here for about twice as long as their dinners usually lasted and he just realized how surprised he was by the fact that Liv hadn’t insisted on just getting up from the table yet. Apparently, either her hunger or her need to keep talking were stronger than her distaste of staying in one place longer than absolutely needed. That was new though. And while he kept thinking about what exactly this meant, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Carefully he pushed it up from there a little to have a glimpse at it. The “no electronic devices at dinner”-rule was of course too important to be broken now and he had learned the hard way in the past few days that Liv had started to pick up on such things. Still, the little glance on the display of his phone he got confirmed what he had been thinking anyway: The text he received was not the one he had hoped for.
“But daddy!” Liv had obviously realized that he dared to not give her his undivided attention for a few seconds and decided to change that. “Why don’t we have a dog?”
Matty frowned.“That’s a good question, actually. I don’t know. We didn’t used to because your mummy and me we used to be away quite a lot but you know that changed now anyway soooo…I don’t know. I had a dog once.”
Liv’s mouth fell agape.
“You had a dog?”
Her eyes became wide, her whole face was lighting up in excitement and Matty had to admit once again that he loved seeing her like this.
“Yes, for quite a while. A really pretty one actually. Black and about as huge as the one we saw today. His name was Mayhem.”
“Can I see?”, she asked excitedly, slightly leaning forward in her chair as if she wanted to reach out to him - while conveniently placing her hand in the middle of the food on her plate before he could intervene.
“Ah Livi no…”, he sighed, carefully pushing her back onto her chair and grabbing for the paper towels. They were sitting to his right anyway, luckily.
“I’ll show you when you have finished your dinner, alright?”, he suggested while wiping her hands clean.
Liv frowned.
“But you said we’ll play after dinner”, she contradicted which led to her father raising his eyebrows.
"Oh, really?"
Liv nodded very fast. “Yes.You said we’d play and that you’d do my hair and we’d watch a movie together.”
He was severely impressed by the nonchalance his daughter lied straight to his face now but he was also determined not to show it.
“I recall that slightly differen-”
“No. You said. You promised. And now you have to do my hair and then we play and then we watch a movie and then-” Liv stopped her immensely fast babbling when he put a kiss on the top of her head.
“Ok, darling! Ok ok ok, alright. It’s alright, I promise you don’t have to go straight to bed after dinner, ok? But could you please do me a favor and finally finish your food?”, he asked in a tone that was inappropriately pleading. And after that, Liv seemed at least reassured enough to do him the favor. It was the small things sometimes. The small things like a message on the phone would have been. But he didn’t get one, not even after Liv was finally done with her dinner.
After several rounds of discussion that followed, a middle ground had finally been reached. Liv would brush her teeth and put her pajamas on without further delay right after dinner. In exchange, Matty would braid her hair while they would move the movie-night that had been scheduled for Friday a few days early.
So, they sat on the beanbag now, Liv settled between his legs, her head leaned against his body.
“Ok, darling, you know the drill. You chose one movie in the end and that’s it. No more discussions, no more changing the streaming platform. One movie now for the rest of the evening. Shoot.”
Liv’s eyes became wide and she nervously started to clap her hands on her thighs like she sometimes did when she was excited. An affectionate chuckle left Matty’s lips and as it happened so often throughout the day, he had to hold himself back from telling her how absolutely adorable she was. In the end, he didn’t want it to go to her head too much.
“Sea-princess! Or flying-rug-princess! Or sleeping princess”, she said finally and Matty giggled slightly, tongue caught between his teeth. Oh how much he loved it that they had developed some sort of secret language in the past few weeks, inside-jokes, sort of, references only the two of them understood.
“Good first choice. Soooo…which one is it? I need to know so that I can put it on.”
She looked at him for a few seconds, her forehead slightly wrinkled like it was so often when she was thinking really hard. Then finally she said: “Sea-princess.”
“Alright. But that’s quite a long one. So I’m not sure if we’re going to make it through all of it tonight. So if we take a break at some point and continue with it tomorrow, I need you to respect that, please, ok? No discussion, no crying, darling, promise me? I count on you for that.”
She nodded immediately, several times, and that was enough for him to turn on the TV and start the streaming-service where Ariel would be found. He hadn’t watched it in a while, in fact he couldn’t even recall when it was he actually did the last time. So it was good to have the opportunity then. He selected the movie and leaned in slightly so that he could look his daughter in the face again.
“Ready then?”, he asked and she nodded, facing the TV but turning back to him immediately.
“But daddy!”
If I got a nickel for every time I heard this sentence today, Matty thought, still asking her patiently what it was she had to say.
“Can you make sleeping-hair?”
“I will, as soon as you turned around and we can start watching the movie, love”, he replied and Liv did indeed obey and turned around again. Matty pressed play on the remote, “The little mermaid” started, and Liv giggled in excitement.
A few minutes in, he grabbed for the small brush and the scrunchies he had brought with him from the bathroom on the upper floor. They were pink, of course they were and as the opening-credits ended, he gently started to brush Liv’s hair. He moved the brush over her head carefully, taking some strands between his fingers when he felt knots so that he could hold them more tight in an attempt not to hurt her while he untangled them carefully with the brush. The act itself was soothing, really, and it had calmed him down so often these past few weeks. No matter how stressful the day had been, sitting somewhere with Liv and getting her ready for bed had always been a source of calmness, for him as well as for her. The feeling of the soft, blond strands of hair running through his fingers, of Liv enjoying their little ritual, of knowing that she really liked it when he did her hair, while he had been so insecure about it in the first place. But she had taken that insecurity away quite soon. Like she did with so many things, actually. The crab on the screen made a snarky comment and Liv giggled immediately. It was interesting watching how her humor developed over time. Like with so many things, he was under the impression that she had taken huge of steps in quite a lot of aspects in the past few days. She became more self-confident, more articulate about things she did and did not want to do, she was talking more concretely about things that happened to her and she was, as she had just proven, way more able to make choices. She’s growing up , whispered the voice inside his head and as so often when he noticed something like that, a bittersweet feeling spread inside of him. It was great to see her gain more independence, more awareness of the things around her, of her developing a personality he admired badly already. But at the same time he knew where this would ultimately lead to. And sometimes he had a feeling as if he wasn’t quite ready to let go of the idea of her being his tiny little toddler-girl yet. Which was weird, really, because before she had been born he had always thought that parents who didn’t want their child to grow up were selfish. But he had learned to understand that, recently. All too well. After the last few knots were untangled, he carefully started to part the blond hair in three sections, before intertwining them. He used to do a french-braid at first but realized quite soon that it was way too tight to guarantee Liv a comfortable sleep at night so he opted for the looser-option. Meanwhile, the film made its way to its first musical-number and Liv happily babbled along to it, halfway knowing the lyrics, apparently, halfway making stuff up Matty was not even sure if it was words, really. Still, he listened to it mesmerized and even forgave her that she made his project way harder than it would have had to be by moving her body to the music. How could he have stopped her, when she was obviously enjoying herself so much? So he joined her for the last part of the part-of-your-world-chorus which let to Liv patting his thigh in excitement.
Unfortunately for him, her constantly moving while she watched the movie and enjoyed the songs led to him loosing grip of her hair and the braid to dissolve again so that he had to start all over. But he didn’t mind. Despite everything else, this was another opportunity to maybe make it better this time. He had turned into an absolute perfectionist when it came to Liv’s hair and he would always find something to improve if he only looked for it hard enough. So he started all over while the move went on and Liv pointed at the screen in excitement.
“Look, daddy, there's a dog!”, she exclaimed and smiled broadly.
“Oh yes there’s indeed. And it’s a fluffy one!”, he noted which led to Liv nodding.
“Not like ours today”, she stated and he told her that she was right of course while he kept on braiding her hair. He did better this time and faster as well, because he was just finished in time for the scene where the prince’s ship was hit by the storm so that he could carefully pull Liv’s head into his chest so that she wouldn’t have to watch the scenes he considered too scary for her - although she herself would of course never have admitted to that. So he just held her, telling her that this was not real and everything was going to be fine and it didn’t take too long until Liv curiously turned her head again and kept on watching. And now that he wasn’t preoccupied with something else anymore, Matty himself had more capacity to pay attention to the movie as well. So he did, joined Liv for singing and even tried to trick her into sort of a duet for “Under the Sea” which failed because she didn’t quite understand the concept.
He still sat there with Liv in his lap who had started to lean back against him more often by then, which he took as a sign she slowly started to become tired, when it occurred. He didn’t even know why it came so out of nowhere for him, but it did. He watched the scene where Ariel was told off by her father after rescuing the prince, watched Liv’s eyes go wide at their argument. And then it was there and hit him like a slap in the face. “But daddy I love him!”, the little mermaid on the screen exclaimed and without being able to help it, Matty burst into laughter. A half amused, half shocked laughter because he had literally forgotten that this line existed in this movie. He had absolutely wiped from his memory where it actually came from, once. Because the meaning of those words had changed so much the moment he first heard them all those years ago - and again dramatically as he noticed just now. Oh how breathtakingly beautiful it was thinking that what had been such a mess for such a long period of time finally ended up here. With him watching childrens’ movies with their daughter in his lap, waiting for Taylor to come home. Breathtakingly beautiful and unbelievably funny given where they once had been - and scary as well, thinking that probably none of this would have happened if she didn’t scream “But daddy I love him” at the whole world at some point. He instinctively pulled Liv a bit closer into his chest, who turned around to him and scrutinized him, giggling unsurely, obviously not quite convinced this really was the time for it. But it was. Oh how much it was.
“Why are you laughing?”, Liv asked, giggling herself and he just shook his head.
“Nothing…”, he replied, still chuckling, “I just…I remembered something funny.”
Liv didn’t seem too convinced and, in her defense, the fact that he just couldn’t stop laughing must just add to her confusion.
“What?”, she asked but before he came to reply, the sound of the frontdoor being opened and closed again, followed by an “Hello?”, rather carefully sent out into the room freed him from having to answer.
Liv was on her feet in no time, running towards the hallway in a speed he did in no way expect, given how tired she had seemed a few minutes ago. His half hearted “Careful!” was absolutely overheard as Liv ran out of his sight and telling from Taylors surprised sounds a few seconds later, his warning had been in absolute vain. When he turned around the corner of the hallway though, a sigh of relief left his lips. Taylor kneeled on the floor, her arms closed around Liv who didn’t look like she was hurt or anything. And he just stopped for a moment to watch them, the two blond females sitting in the hallway of his house, cuddling like they would never ever let go of each other again. And for a moment the memories crept up on him again. Memories of him leaving said hallway, absolutely sure he was never going to come back. Memories of the fight that took place before that and the night before the fight where he managed to tear his own heart apart and wounding Taylor deeply in the process. It had taken him a lot of therapy to understand what exactly happened back then and why he did what he did. But he had been able to explain it to her, in the end - sufficiently enough as to be in the privileged position to watch her hug their daughter now, it seemed.
“And the dog was coming close to me with his nose and he nudged me and I stumbled. But it wasn't mean, dog-woman said. Was nice, just didn’t know I fall”, she recounted, obviously so excited that she messed up words. He could see Talyor more mouth an obviously stunned response as verbalizing it and decided that this was his cue. He walked over to them and saw Taylor’s face light up even more the moment she saw him. They greeted each other, briefly, kissed briefly and he managed to get her to respond to his question if her day had been successful with a short thumbs up which made a bright smile appear on his face.
“Great. Can’t wait to hear it, really. How’s Jack?”
She smiled and lifted her thumb again. It was not like she didn’t talk at all during those periods like she did for the first hours after a concert but she reduced her verbal communication drastically to take care of her voice. Because she needed it on the top of her game.
“So mummy we watching sea-princess. Do you want to watch too?”, Liv asked and Matty had already opened his mouth to explain to Liv that Taylor was, from the looks of it, at least as ready for bed as she herself was, but Taylor got ahead of him.
“I’d love that, Livi. Let me just change and then I’ll be down there with you in a sec, ok?”, she whispered.
And with that she let go of Liv for the first time and Matty helped her get off from the floor again, using the opportunity to pull her into his arms and kiss her one more time. He could feel her lean into him afterwards, a sign of exhaustion he knew all too well, leading to him putting another kiss to her forehead.
“Tea or lemon water?”
“Tea. Thanks…”, she hushed and he watched her face light up again when Liv impatiently grabbed for some of the fingers on her right hand and grabbed them, obviously trying to pull her with her into the living room, while she described the events that happened in the movie so far to her mother in a shockingly accurate way. Taylor’s slight protests that she needed to change first stayed unheard, obviously.
“On it”, he replied and made his way to the kitchen.
A few moments later they were all sitting on the beanbag again, Liv nestled against Taylor’s chest and she herself lying across the huge thing. He carefully presented the teacup to her with a smile, leading to a thankful smile from her before he himself found his space on the giant beanbag. They opted for three of those in total as an addition to the sofa Taylor had in her living-room anyways and they hadn’t regretted that decision eversince. She had her head leaned against him in no time and he wrapped one arm around her shoulders while he grabbed for the remote with his other.
“Oh!” , Liv exclaimed suddenly. “Daddy we have to go back!”
“Why?”
“Because before we paused you laughed and you didn’t tell me what was so funny. So we have to go back so that mummy sees too and then you tell me what’s so funny.”
He agreed and rewinded the film a little bit, noticing the asking look Taylor shot him all too well. Then, he pressed play finally, just in the beginning of the dialogue between Triton and Ariel and within seconds he could see a smile spread across the face of the woman he loved.
“Oh I see…”, she whispered, putting a hand on his thigh and intertwining their fingers as soon as he put his hand upon hers. And when the line came up again, it was only Liv who looked at the screen. Taylor and Matty, meanwhile, exchanged a look that spoke volumes. About where they came from. About all the painful episodes in between that lead to them sitting here today. About the pain and the fear and the heartbreak and the anger. And about how none of that mattered anymore. Because given this result, they would have chosen the exact same way over and over and over again.