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Stede Bonnet was walking around the living room, softly humming ‘twinkle twinkle little star’, patting the back of Elizabeth Bonnet-Danes as she was drifting off to sleep, her head leant on his shoulder and her eyes fighting sleep but losing.
His husband was sat in the armchair watching him, his brown eyes wide with awe at the sight in front of him, their cocker spaniel Arthur curled up at his feet fast asleep.
Him and Ed were baby-sitting for Alma and Jamie tonight, having encouraged them to go out and have an evening for themselves now Lizzie had hit the 3-month mark. Ed had fed Lizzie using one of the pre-prepared bottles Alma had left them and Stede had taken on the arduous task of getting her to sleep.
“It would have been nice to see this before” Ed said quietly, barely more than a whisper.
“Hmm?” Stede replied, glancing over at Ed.
“Seeing this. Before. It would have been nice. I can picture you doing exactly this with little Alma and Louis”
Stede smiled at him, leaning his cheek down onto Lizzie’s head affectionately, turning to look at his husband, bobbing slightly to keep her rocking to sleep.
“I did do this with little Alma and Louis. I’d sit with Mary as she fed them and then I’d walk them round the nursery like this on my shoulder to get them back to sleep. Sometimes I wouldn’t go back into to my own bed, I’d sleep on the chair we had in that room. I was 24 when we had Alma, can you believe that? We still felt like kids ourselves. Except we were married and had moved halfway across the world to get away from our parents. And then we suddenly had this tiny little thing to care for and … we weren’t exactly compatible obviously. But the one thing we agreed on was how much we loved our children”
Stede had a strange look on his face, Ed couldn’t quite read it, which was unusual. He’d been able to read almost all Stede’s expressions in the nearly 25 years they had been together.
“What is it?” Ed prompted.
Stede swallowed, his hand gently rubbing over Lizzie’s back as she dozed.
“There have been times in my life where I wish I’d met you earlier. I think about how much more time we could have had. But then every time I think that I feel so tremendously guilty because if I had, would my kids be the same people they are now? Would I even have them?” he said, wistfully. He seemed to tighten his grip on Lizzie just a little, as if checking she wouldn’t float away.
“Babe you know I’ve had those kind of thoughts too right?” Ed said, standing up, gently stepping over Arthur where he slept. He made his way over to Stede and placed his hands on his husband’s biceps rubbing up and down them comfortingly.
“I sometimes wish I’d met you when I was 19 years old and I was this awful angry rude guy, who hadn’t dealt with his father’s death, who was being unnecessarily cruel to his mother, who for some god-awful reason was pining after Jack fucking Rackham after he left me for the first time. I think you might have been the only person who could have pulled me out of that even then.” He sighed a little before continuing.
“But then I maybe wouldn’t have made the Kraken video game. I put my heart and soul into that because my grief and hurt and anger had to go somewhere and creating something where a scared little boy found his way out of the dark helped me in the end. I had to do that for myself. And then the same thing, over a decade later, when I was feeling stuck, I had to get out of that for myself. But that led me to you. Which has been the greatest adventure of my life”
Ed smiled, his hand that had been resting on Stede’s arm moved upwards to reach for Lizzie’s little hand. Even in her sleepy state, she held onto Ed’s finger tightly.
“Ed back then, he would have no idea or no hope that one day he would be stood in a cosy living room with his dog, the hottest and kindest and most beautiful soul of a husband and an actual bloody grand-daughter. All I meant by saying it would have been nice to see this stage with the kids, is just that. It would have been nice. But I’m seeing it now with Lizzie. I think it’s okay to think about what could have been, but everything we have done? I wouldn’t change it”
“I wouldn’t either” Stede replied softly. “I love you”
“I love you too babe. So much” Ed leant forward for a kiss, which Stede reciprocated as much as he could when there was a sleeping baby between them.
“Besides” Ed laughed, pulling back from the kiss. “Can you imagine me trying to feed a baby at 3am? I’d have gone absolutely insane. Kind of cool I got to be a parent when they were already grown up”
Stede frowned for a second. “What do you mean?”
“Well you know, the kids were already kind of ready-grown when I came into their life. I didn’t do any of the middle of the night screaming fits or the changing or, you know teaching them how to read” Ed said.
“Ed darling. Those kinds of things don’t make a parent. They were still babies when you met them practically. Sure, you didn’t have to do any nappy changes or the grosser side of parenting. Although I seem to remember you were the one who dealt with Alma when she got drunk for the first time. But you saw them both through so much of their emotional learning and just… by being there. I’ve let them down before, especially just after the divorce. I was there physically in the room but not mentally. You, however, even when you are in a bad mood or your knee is giving you trouble, you still show up for them, you drop everything for them. They love you so much. I see you in Alma when she concentrates hard on a task and she narrates it to herself but also in how loyal she is to those she loves, in Louis with his passion about accepting people for how they are but also his inability to pack appropriately. I cannot tell you how much it warms it my heart you know. That you, the love of my life, shares those traits with our kids”
Ed smiled, his hand not currently being gripped by baby Lizzie settled on Stede’s elbow, just holding him close. “We’ve done alright haven’t we? You and me” he said.
“We have darling. And now, we get to navigate the world of grand-parenthood together! From the start. A new adventure for us!”
“I’d go on any adventure with you but this one? I’m so excited for it. For all of it” Ed replied.
Stede grinned in response, staring lovingly at his husband and holding tight to his grand-daughter and realising he might just be the luckiest man in the world.