Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"It's not fair!" His lower lip jutting out, Charles Tucker the Fourth stopped just short of stamping his foot as he glared from one parent to the other. "I don't wanna sleep in the baby's room, I want my own!"

"Now, Charlie, you know Granny and Grandpa and Gran and Granddad are all comin' up to see you and Melissa and t' meet Jamie." His joints creaking in protest Captain Charles Tucker the Third squatted onto his haunches and draped his hands over the narrow shoulders of his truculent firstborn. "And we can't fit any of them in the nursery now, can we?"

"Why're they all comin' at once?"

Ignoring the growl of "God knows!" from his husband Trip ploughed on, gazing direct into the steel-grey, glinting eyes of his namesake. "'Cause they all wanna say hello to Jamie together, and because they all miss you an' Melissa and it wouldn't be fair otherwise, would it?" he said, proud of the reasonableness of the argument. Charlie, with all the stubbornness of youth, remained visibly unimpressed.

"Lissa can have the nursery," he stated. Immediately his small sister, clinging to their other parent's pant leg, began to wail.

"You remember what you said when Daddy an' I brought Jamie home?" Leaving Malcolm to placate their daughter Trip stayed focussed on their son, increasingly determined he was going to win this particular battle of wills. When Granny Leanne arrived he'd have no chance of getting his way, after all.

"Yeah." Reluctance in every line of him, Charlie nodded.

"You're a big boy now. Heck, you're almost five, goin' to school and everything. You've gotta help Daddy and me with the little guys."

"Not a baby!"

"Of course you're not sweetheart, but Charles is the oldest." Scooping the dark-haired girl into his arms Malcolm Reed finally got around to doing his part of the whole parental control thing. "And he did say he'd help us look after Baby, didn't he?"

"I never said nothin' about my room!"

"Never said anything," the Englishman corrected automatically. The two Charles Tuckers in his life grinned at each other.

Sometimes it was hard for Malcolm to remember which of the pair was the adult.

"I bet Granny Tucker's brought you all sorts of presents," he said, repressing shudder at the memory of the last mass visit, shortly after Melissa's birth when his dining table had disappeared under a mountain of stuffed toys, dollies and pretty dresses. Even his daughter forgot her manners enough to shriek joyously right into his ear.

"Yeah, and because we're so close to your birthday buddy, I'll bet she's brought extra for you."

Sometimes, Malcolm considered, it was the parent rather than the child who seriously needed a mute switch. Melissa's exuberance evaporated while her brother seemed to stand an extra centimetre high.

"I'll git more presents!" Charlie hollered, loud enough to set the newborn who had been slumbering in his basket next door into noisy paroxysms of displeasure. "Granny's gonna bring me more'n she got for Lissa 'cause she loves me more!"

"No she doesn't! G'anny loves Lissa!"

"Of course she does; it's less expensive for her to bring your packages, Charles, than to send them, which she did for your sister." Wonderful. A large vehicle was drawing to a halt beyond their high iron gates, visible on the monitor installed beside the front door. Two children squabbling were about to become three red-faced, snotty nosed little horrors all howling as if the Hounds of Hell, pursued by a battalion of angry Klingons, were rampaging through the gardens.

So much for turning them out smart, clean and smiling for inspection by the older generation!

"Cut it out, willya, you've woken Jamie now!" The despairing cry of his other half recalled Reed to his responsibilities and without a moment's guilt he presented his immaculate shirt sleeve for his daughter's dripping nose, trusting Trip to offer the same service to her brother. "Dammit! They're all here at once!"

Instinctive discretion would have prevented Malcolm expressing it in front of the children but his heart sank at least as hard as his husband's at the sight of two couples clambering from the same large vehicle, the two men - one bronzed and burly, the other lean and sternly smart, bony wrists protruding from jacket sleeves just a little too short - wrestling together with a Himalayan range of luggage, boxes and bags while the ladies dusted their skirts down, flapped their hands and bickered over who should pay the cab fare. Lip-reading skills and surveillance devices - both of which Enterprise's former Chief Tactical Officer had at his disposal - were redundant. He'd seen the whole performance far too many times before.

"Melissa, be a poppet and find James's dummy for me," he implored, gently setting the child on her feet. "And Charles, kindly remember you're very happy to give up your room, even if you're not."

"Poppa?" His smooth face wrinkling up with confusion, CT4 gazed up at the likeliest source of enlightenment. Trip grinned.

"Daddy means jus' say the right things to your grannies and grandpas, okay?" he said, ruffling the boy's hair in defiance of Malcolm's protesting squeak. "We know you're only doin' it 'cause you're a good boy, but they'll feel bad unless they think it was your idea."

"But it's...

"Extremely kind and grown up of you, Charles."

When Malcolm Reed said "Charles" in that particular, velvety-steel voice, both owners of the name knew better than to answer back. "Right," the younger version agreed, pulling in his bottom lip with a visible effort. "Hi Granny 'n' Grandpa! Hi, Gran an' Granddad! We got a baby brother!"

"Well haven't you grown!" Leanne Tucker, the smallest of the visitors, had an aura about her that cast the rest of the group into shade, and as she breezed up the garden path it was all being beamed her grandson's way. "Melissa, give Granny a kiss sweetheart, and Trip Tucker, don't you just stand there boy, help your daddy and Stuart with those bags. Malcolm, honey you look so well!"

"Thank you, Leanne, I could say the same about you." Meekly submitting himself to his mother-in-law's effusive greetings Malcolm offered a smile to the rest of the newcomers and braced himself for the bone-crushing embrace that was his father-in-law's customary hello. "Mum - Dad. Hope the journey wasn't too uncomfortable. We weren't expecting you all to arrive together..."

"Neither were we, son, but when we saw your folks's flight was due right after our own we figured - hell, why not be sociable?" Having squashed his son breathless Charles Tucker II performed the same service to Malcolm before, with unexpected gentleness, gathering the two wide-eyed children into his arms. "My, you're a fine young lady an' gentleman now! Stuart, Mary, quit whinin' about the cab; you can pay on the way back, alright?"

"It's really not on, Charlie, it's only proper we should make some recompense for your wait." Barely troubling to shake the hands of his hosts, Stuart Reed bent stiffly from the hip to brush cheeks with his grandchildren. Malcolm only hoped he didn't notice how Melissa tensed, a reflexive reaction he understood too well, when her turn came along. "There was really no need to wait an hour for us, we'd have made our own way perfectly well."

"That wouldn't have been family-minded of us now, would it?" Not for the first time it occurred to the younger Englishman that his Floridian family thoroughly enjoyed the elder Reeds' discomfort.

He wondered whether it was shockingly undutiful of him to feel the same.

"Just you leave those bags, Dad, and come see the baby," Trip commanded, taking easy charge of a situation rapidly careering down into chaos. "Charlie, Lissa, get out from under folks's feet! Malcolm and I'll deal with the luggage. Jamie's just woken up, so don't blame us if he's a little grouchy..."

"Aww, he's adorable!" Leanne Tucker made more noise, but Mary Reed's small squeal was the first sound Trip had detected beyond an inarticulate mumble as he had kissed the lady's pale cheek. "And isn't he just the image of Malcolm?"

"You sure they remembered your DNA, son?" Charlie Tucker Senior - Malcolm shuddered at the thought of how embarrassing it had just become to chastise a son known by exactly the same diminutive as his grandfather - chortled, accepting the small bundle his wife offered with a confidence that made Stuart Reed blench. "There's nothin' Tucker about this one! Even Melissa looks more like you than he does!"

"Melissa has her digestive tract from Trip, just as Charlie does," Malcolm pointed out, less solemnly than he had intended in the face of triple-Tucker exuberance. "And her energy levels," he added as the little girl skittered around her grandparents' kneecaps, just managing to avoid clattering into her Granddad Reed.

Even Leanne, he thought, drew in a sharp breath as that particular collision was narrowly avoided. "Why don't you all sit down and I'll get the kettle on?" he suggested hopefully.

"I'll come and help, dear." Trip sometimes said he didn't see anything of either in-law in his husband, but in her eagerness to escape being social Mary Reed was her son's perfect role model. "Coffee, Leanne - Charlie?"

"Please, hon." And if CT2 hadn't done that deliberately to see Captain Reed bristle, Malcolm Reed was changing his middle name from Andrew to Daisy by deed-poll. "Lee..."

"Hm?" Far too fascinated by her latest grandson's tiny toes, Mrs Tucker ignored the hint with blithe serenity. "Charlie, Melissa, you go grab Granny's handbag, okay? You don't mind them having candy at this time of day, kids, do you?"

"Just don't eat it all before dinner." Knowing when he was beat, Trip threw up his hands. "I'll go move your bags. Charlie's offered to give up his room, 'cause we didn't think either of you'd fit in the nursery...

"Aww, isn't that sweet?"

His father's neutral tone followed Malcolm all the way into their airy kitchen, where he pulled up so sharply his mother ran right into the back of him. "Dear!"

"Sorry, Mum."

To his great surprise, she squeezed his hand. "He's trying to get along with people," she said in a hurried whisper. "It's not easy for your father, you know."

"Yes." There didn't seem much more to say. Mrs Reed's full lips quivered.

"He might always have seemed very cold to you but he did try to be a good father. He always provided for us..."

An explanation. A reason for the long absences, the stiffness; the occasional unconsidered cruelty toward a small, puzzled boy. All his life Malcolm had yearned for it. Now it was offered, he felt only embarrassment.

"It doesn't matter, Mum." Or perhaps, he mused, it was all just too late. "I presume Dad would prefer tea?"

When her pale moon face fell, he did something neither would expect. He hugged her.

And when she scuttled back to the lounge, away from further surprises, he thought she might even have enjoyed it.

Still, the next few days were going to be one hell of a trial!