Room 407, Sunday evening

[dude_its_jude]

There was a kid. There was a kid named Bayla who could skateboard and speak Al Bhed and was totally adorable and apparently hisSo of course the first thing Jude did was call Jonesy and panic at him for a while

Comments

[dude_its_bayla]

"Daddy!" The door flew open and a tiny ball of energy zipped through the doorframe. Bayla kicked off the board with just enough room to tackleglomp the unsuspecting Daddy-guy.

"We got you candy but it's a s'prise! And Mommy got all kindsa stuff 'n I got a coooooone! For my collection! Wanna see? Wanna see?"

[the_merriest]

Shortly after Bayla was an amused but tired-looking Rikku, carrying a few shopping bags and an enormous orange traffic cone.

"I said it was okay, so if it's not, then yell at me, not her." She gave Jude a wry smile. "Hey, you do have a double! Nice."

She set a few items down to give Jude a quick kiss hello and felt so weird at how domestic this all was. Trippy.

[dude_its_jude]

Jude caught his daughter - daughter! - at the last second, staggering backwards with an 'oof!', hugging her tightly.

"Very nice cone, kiddo," he praised her gravely before stretching over her head to kiss Rikku back. "Hey."

Yes. Trippy. He felt the need for a white picket fence.

[dude_its_bayla]

"'Kay bathroom time for me! Gotta change into my peeeeeeeeeejays!"

And with that Bayla grabbed one of the bags and ran out of the room.

[the_merriest]

Rikku sat down on Jude's bed and looked up at him, shaking her head. "This is crazy."

And in a softer undertone, swallowing hard, "I love her so much."

[dude_its_jude]

"This is insane," Jude agreed, flopping down next to her.

"She's . . . amazing."

[the_merriest]

Rikku nodded, leaning against him. "One minute I think, I can't do this. And the next I think, I hope she never, ever leaves."

She shook her head. "She's really ours, Jude. We were talking in Al Bhed and she called your parents ... Opi and ... Opa? I mean, it was obvious anyway, I mean I knew when I held her but ..."

[dude_its_jude]

"Oma and Opa, yeah," Jude said with a small smile because I suck and apparently had a brainfart earlier. "Just Polish for grandparents, kinda. Whoa. Weird. My parents would be grandparents. That's . . . whoa."

He slipped his arm around her. "I love her too. She's just . . . I know she's a part of me, y'know?"

[the_merriest]

"Yeah. I mean, I realized? I haven't even met them, and she knows all about them. And was rambling on about Grampy Cid." She snuggled against him. "That's my dad."

"She says she knows some Polish and she wanted chalk so we could lie down and draw body shapes." Rikku laughed. "And we got some candy for you in case you were upset about the cone, because she said you told her no stealing."

"Oh! And!" She sat up quickly and fumbled through one of the bags, and turned to hand him ... What else? A can of shoe polish.

[dude_its_jude]

Jude blinked at it in confusion for a second before he got it and started laughing. "Happy two month anniversary, bra," he said between chuckles, leaning in to kiss her. "Er, happy seven years? Possibly?"

[the_merriest]

She giggled and leaned in. "Seems like a lifetime in the past day. I guess it was."

Rikku thought for a moment and tried to guess Bayla's age. "Hopefully add a good six or seven on before she shows up, too," she mused.

[dude_its_jude]

"Yeah . . . but you know as soon as Professor Deadpool hears about this we're going to have to be one of those creepy underage married couples. 'Cause he'll kill me otherwise."

[the_merriest]

Rikku was leaning in for another nibbly kiss when Jude mentioned Deadpool, and she gasped instead. "Oh, no. You don't think ... you think he'd ... but, I mean, in Bayla's world we probably are, and she's ..."

She stared at him for a minute. "Can we hide all week?"

[dude_its_jude]

"Yes," Jude said firmly, kissing her again. Because he didn't want to think about that yet.

[the_merriest]

Rikku didn't want to think about that either. So she reached up to play with the ends of his hair and leaned in for another thorough kiss. Because they would totally hear the door open in time to separate, right?

[dude_its_bayla]

Not so much, no.

Bayla bounced into the room. "Ewwwwww. No more grossness! That's all iiiiiiiiiiiicky." She put her hands on her hips. "You guys know better."