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It was fair to say that Ivan had no idea how to to raise a child. When Till came home with Myun that fateful day, he had had no idea what he was going to do. They were rebels. They didn't have the resources to raise a child. But one thing that Ivan promise himself was that he was going to try.
He wasn't going to be the best dad ever.
Ivan knew that.
So did Till.
But apparently, the silver haired man believed in him. Apparently he had ever since they were children. Even after Ivan tried to sacrifice himself for him, just so that Till would continue living. But Ivan had survived, thanks to Mizi and Hyuna, and they were reunited after Mizi saved Till during the final round.
And now they were unofficially "married", according to Dewey and Isaac.
Neither man really knew what marriage really was, because they were really still figuring out what love was, but they accepted the label nonetheless.
So they were husbands.
And they had a little girl, made out of both of their DNA.
(This was only possible because Till was trans, of course, as to synthetically make a child, you have to have the DNA from someone who is biologically male, and from someone who is biologically female, i.e, Ivan and Till.)
Myun.
Till named her, not trusting Ivan to name her. She didn't have a last name, because neither man knew their last names. Their entire identities had been stripped away after ANAKT, after all.
So she was just Myun.
And they were just Ivan and Till. Who somehow, even with all of their complications, were still madly in love.
"Myun! Darling! Wake up!" Ivan called their three year old daughter, excited to give her her presents. It was Christmas, and neither one of them had really celebrated Christmas before, but they really wanted to give their daughter something special.
It had been a year since Till found Myun, and she'd grown quite a bit. She was three now, of course, but she was also very bright. She could speak rather well, and was picking up both English and Korean. The Korean from her dads, and the English from some of the other rebels.
"Don't wanna! Too early!" Myun mumbled in Korean, and Ivan sighed. The one time that she decided to sleep in was the day that Ivan and Till didn't. What were the odds?
"But there are presents!" Till trudged into the room, smiling.
And then immediately, Myun leaped up and began running towards the common room.
Ivan chased her, laughing at her burst of energy. "Slow down, Myun!" he chastised playfully. "They aren't going anywhere!"
"Gotta get to the presents!" she chirped.
Till huffed, walking slowly behind the two of them, two tired to deal with their shenanigans. "You're both ridiculous." Till wrote down in his notebook, then showed Ivan. Till could speak, yes, but he didn't want to over exert his voice, so sometimes he would write things down. He would only really speak out loud if he was talking to a group of people, or Myun, because then he had to specifiy who he was talking to, or he was talking to a three year old who struggled to read.
"Don't be mean, Papa!" Myun said, climbing all over Till once he reached the common area. "Where are the presents?"
More footsteps. Hyuna, Dewey and Isaac, most likely.
"Presents are coming, little gremlin." said Dewey, grinning from ear to ear.
"Uncle Dewey! You know where presents are?" Myun said, letting go of Till and running over to hug her "uncle". Everyone in the rebellion who were close to Ivan and Till received some sort of familial nickname from Myun, because they didn't really have a proper family for her other than her dads.
So everyone else became her family members.
And Ivan and Till loved it, and thought it was sweet.
"Presents are coming!" Mizi said, carrying boxes upon boxes of boxes wrapped in brown paper. The rebels were able to get a surprising amount of gifts, through donations from other free humans.
And they'd made special requests for the child this year, so hopefully there were some things that Myun would like.
Till sat down on the couch next to Ivan, and took his hand. "Say nothing." he wrote down for Ivan, knowing that Ivan was probably about to say something about him finally caring about Ivan, or something along those lines. It would have been a tease, of course, but Till was more in the mood to watch their daughter as she ripped open one of the boxes.
When she pulled out a rather large stuffed rabbit and squealed very loudly, Ivan laughed, and so did Till. "Do you like it?" Till asked slowly, making sure to keep his voice low so it didn't damage his vocal chords.
Myun nodded. "Thank you! Thank you! I love it!"
Till suddenly felt very warm.
He hadn't known that he could feel this much love. Neither had Ivan. Honestly, neither of them thought that they were going to survive ALIEN STAGE, so even being here was a miracle. And they weren't going to waste that miracle.
So when Myun opened her next present (a puzzle) and Dewey picked her up and spun her around, everything felt perfectly right.
Even if they were on the run from everything, from the aliens, from life, really, everything felt safe.
"I love our family." Ivan murmured into Till's hair. "I love you. I love Myun."
Till used his hand to sign "I love you", and smiled. He pressed a soft kiss to Ivan's forehead, making the older man blush profusely. For Ivan, it was still a shock that Till loved him and not Mizi. But Till's love for Mizi had long since diminished into the love one would have for a sibling.
When he looked over to Mizi and also gave her the "I love you" symbol, that's what he meant by it. I love you, but like a sibling.
And Mizi understood that.
She would only ever love Sua. And even though Sua was gone, she had gotten over the sadness of her death, and was living for Sua, not with the guilt of her death, because it was what Sua would have wanted.
"Daddy! Papa! Can you do my puzzle with me?" Myun said, grabbing both Ivan and Till's hands, gesturing to her puzzle. At some point, Isaac must have given her a cookie, because she had half a Christmas cookie in her mouth, and there were crumbs all over her shirt.
"Of course, sweetheart." Till said softly, slipping off the couch and onto the ground, while Ivan followed suit.
"Alright, bud. What type of puzzle is it?" Ivan said, grinning. He put up his shaggy hair into a half up ponytail so he could see better, and Till playfully tugged on it. Ivan scowled dramatically, but laughed.
"Animals! C'mon! C'mon!" Myun said, pouring the puzzle out onto the ground.