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She tries to be quiet as a mouse when she comes home.
CJ closes the front door very carefully and takes her shoes off before she steps off the mat. She tiptoes upstairs, placing her bag on the armchair in her and Andy’s bedroom instead of on the floor.
She doesn’t turn on any lights, but uses her phone at a dim setting to get her clothes off and is grateful for the twins’ hallway nightlight. She can find her way to the bathroom without falling down the stairs.
She’s been on her feet since seven this morning, and now that the clock’s about to strike one CJ can’t think of anything she wants more than a warm bath and thirty minutes to get the day off her. Her back started hurting in the afternoon — she’s all but tearing up at the thought of hot water against it.
While she cringes at the sudden noise of rushing water, she keeps an ear out for any disturbances in the house and finds none. Andy’s assured her, many times, that while the twins are sensitive to light and seem to have a sixth sense about footsteps and candy wrappers, Andy’s late night baths and early morning alarm clocks have never woken them.
CJ tries to trust that.
She’s grateful when, fifteen minutes later, she can turn the tap off and get in the water without making any other sound.
Her back is grateful. Her feet too. Her eyelids fall close as she leans back against the bathtub and sighs contently.
She has no way of knowing how much or little time has passed before she hears a door open. CJ’s heart sinks — she’d really hoped to keep it quiet.
A sniffle, then small footsteps making their way from the twins’ bedroom to theirs. A knock, an opened door before Andy would ever have had a chance to wake up. Another sniffle.
She sighs, more relieved than expected to come to the conclusion that it’s probably Huck, and if it’s Huck, she didn’t wake him. Probably.
As she expects, CJ hears some muffled voices and then hears Andy getting out of bed, footsteps coming down the hall towards the bathroom. Huck’s quicker ones follow.
CJ can look right at the door from the bath, and greets both of them when they come in after a quick knock. Andy looks exhausted — sometimes she jokes that she hasn’t slept through the night since she gave birth, CJ knows it’s barely a joke.
Huck says “hi” in an exaggerated whisper, clearly having been warned not to wake his sister intentionally. He looks tired, too, in wet pajamas holding his mother’s hand. He’s still smiling. CJ makes sure she’s smiling back.
“Hey,” Andy says, still wiping sleep from her eyes. Huck’s taking off his pajamas without needing to be told. “We’ll be in and out in a heartbeat, promise.”
CJ knows that promise is a polite way of saying sorry. Andy would never let Huck hear her apologise for the intrusion when he’s caused it, would never risk him feeling guilty about this. She loves that about her.
“Take your time,” CJ assures her. She smiles at Huck, who waves at her with his shirt in his hand. “How’re you doing, buddy?”
“We had pizza,” Huck tells her like it’s not surely nearing two in the morning. He sticks his hands in the bath water, giggling suddenly quite loudly. The pajama shirt he’s still holding falls right into the bathtub. “Sorry.”
CJ promises him it’s okay.
While Andy’s helping him get out of the rest of his pajamas, Huck’s staring at the bath with wide eyes, then at the shower with an apprehension CJ’s not seen before. Andy catches it too.
“We don’t need to shower,” Andy tells him gently. “We can wash up quickly, too, and go back to bed. What do you want? Shower or a quick wash?”
They both should have seen his bright and fully awake “bath!” coming from a mile away. CJ laughs.
“CJ’s in the bath, honey,” Andy ruffles his hair. She puts his pajamas in a wet bag to be dealt with in the morning. “Shower, or a quick wash?”
Huck repeats his request for a warm bath.
She and Andy share a look — neither of them apparently that sure which of them should be asking whose permission. They laugh.
“I don’t want to overstep,” CJ says.
Andy nods. “I didn’t want to push.”
She gets that.
As much as CJ is committed to being a safe place for these kids, she’s been open with Andy from the start that she’s never been sure about having kids of her own. She’s been on the fence about it for as long as she can remember, and the sudden presence of a pair of twins she’d give her life for hasn’t made her magically sure.
She’s still figuring out what it means to be a parent — if it’s something she can really do for the rest of her life.
Andy is anxious about her kids; CJ can’t blame her.
“He can join, if that’s okay,” CJ tells Andy sincerely. “I don’t mind. I can get out, too, if you want to do it yourself.”
“No, no,” Andy shakes her head, smiling now. “Please. Kid’s all yours.” She laughs, ruffling Huck’s hair. He giggles.
CJ beckons him over and watches with a broad smile as he realises he’s being given permission to have a bath instead of a shower.
“Get in, buddy.”
Huck’s smile is the sweetest thing she’s seen all day. Five year old arms trying to steady themselves on the edge of a bath tub to get closer to her is a very solid second place.
Andy helps him climb into the water. He splashes some over the edge when he plops down with all the grace of a newborn hippo, but he does it with a sweet giggle that melts CJ.
Huck shifts between CJ’s legs and settles his head against her chest, dark brown hair sticking to her skin as she wraps one arm around his body and accepts the washcloth Andy hands her with the other. She kisses the top of Huck’s head without thinking about it.
She was never that sure if motherhood was for her. She’d never been anything but on the fence about having children, wondered her whole life if she’d be good at it, if she’d even enjoy it.
The sudden force of love she has for this kid she can feel in her finger tips, her toes, and right in the center of her heart. It’s as unexpected as it is the most predictable thing in the world. She holds Huck close. He tells her he had an accident, but that it’s okay because now he can take a bath. CJ thinks she could burst open with love for him.
Andy sits down on the closed toilet lid, and as much as CJ would like to tell her she can go back to sleep if she wants, get the rest she desperately needs, she knows better. When it comes to Huck’s accidents, Andy’s nervous if even Toby or her own mother deals with it without her. She has her overprotective tendencies, and CJ’s not about to fight her on them.
It’s nice, too, to be able to look at Andy with tears in her eyes just from feeling Huck wrap his tiny arms around her waist, and know she’s completely understood.
“Alright, kid, stand up for me please?” She asks her son. He pats at her cheeks like he’s trying to dry her tears, but he stands up.
CJ steadies him with one hand and lets him use the washcloth to wash his legs himself. “Good job,” she makes sure to tell him. She kisses the tip of his nose and is delighted when Huck tries his hardest to squeal as quietly as a five year old possibly could.
When he sits back down, his head on her chest and his hands firmly placed against her stomach now, he closes his eyes. It doesn’t take long at all for CJ to suspect he’s about to fall asleep right here if not taken to bed.
She gently stirs him back awake. The sleepy eyes staring up at her tug right at every heartstring she has. “Time to go back to sleep?”
Huck shakes his head. He rests his forehead against her and closes his eyes again. CJ chuckles.
“Alright, come here,” she hears Andy’s voice, leaning over the edge of the tub to grab the boy right beneath his armpits. “Up, honey. Come on.”
CJ narrowly avoids a foot to her face, but it’s a smooth process otherwise.
Huck’s wrapped in a large and fluffy towel while CJ gets out of the bath herself and is pleasantly surprised to find a towel waiting for her as well. Andy disappears and comes back with clean pajamas and the update that Molly’s still soundly asleep.
There have been other nights — Huck wets the bed most nights of the week; Molly wakes up half of them. Andy’s accepted that it’ll be a long while before she gets a full night of sleep again.
CJ hopes to help.
In the hallway, just before the twins’ bedroom door is opened again, CJ whispers “let me? You lie down.”
She can see Andy hesitate. She wouldn’t be offended at all if the offer was to be refused. As much as Andy is grateful for a second pair of hands, she’s readily admitted that she’s learned how to do it by herself for five years. It’s not an easy process to share any of it with a partner.
“Alright,” Andy kisses Huck sweetly, then kisses CJ’s cheek. “Just—“ she shakes her head. “Alright. See you in a bit.”
CJ loves her to death.
By the time she’s tucked Huck into bed and promised him she had a good time sharing her bath with him, by the time she’s standing in the doorway smiling at him and his sleeping twin sister, CJ couldn’t feel more strongly that she loves her kids every bit as much.
It doesn’t even feel that scary anymore to call them hers.