With an unconscious but stable Callida cleaned up and safely tucked in bed with her feet elevated, Rogue finally turned his attention to the babies lying next to her, still wrapped in the doublets of the commanders’ uniforms. They’d been born in order of hair color; that was really the only feature he’d been able to identify to keep them all straight. The firstborn was blonde like his mother, the last had pitch black hair like him, and the middle was, well, somewhere in the middle with a very dark brown hair color. Rapax and Baca had both commented that all three of them looked exactly like him. Poor kids, he laughed to himself. Maybe when their faces were less squishy they’d look less like him.
The babies were starting to fuss, probably getting hungry; Celarus had sent for the nurse when they first walked in — a young woman Callida had found through referrals who lost her own baby a couple of years ago but had since been nursing other babies. They would probably need to find a second nurse with three babies to feed instead of the expected two.
Until the nurse arrived, all three boys needed baths, and Rogue needed to wash up and change his clothes too. Cleaning himself up quickly, Rogue prepared some warm water in a wash basin and began bathtime, enjoying the different ways each boy reacted to the water.
The first baby, (Primordials, you need names!), hated the water and protested loudly, his little face turning a beet red from screaming so hard before the bath was over. He quickly calmed down once clothed and swaddled, becoming sleepy after his tantrum, and Rogue was tickled by the way the baby suckled on his finger while drifting off to sleep, his sparse, blond hair now fluffy like the down of a duckling.
When it was his turn, the second baby flailed excitedly in the water, accidentally sloshing much of it over the edge of the basin. He was a delight to bathe but then got mad when the bath inevitably came to an end. Clothed and swaddled, he exchanged fussing for rooting, looking for food, and was disappointed to only find one of his father’s fingers to suck on. His demands became insistent.
Rogue hurried to get the third baby bathed. Immediately relaxing in the warm water, the baby watched quietly as Rogue washed his silky, black hair. He complained only a little about the cold air when Rogue wrapped him in a towel, and then returned to watching quietly while being dressed and swaddled. Laid on the bed between his brothers, the black-haired baby squirmed around, trying to see things, eventually finding the second baby, still screaming for food, to stare at. “You’re a curious little guy, aren’t you?” With all three boys lined up on the bed, Rogue couldn’t help but grin at their already wildly different personalities: one asleep, one screeching, one patiently observing.
A light knock on the door sounded, and Rogue got up to answer it, finding Celarus returned with a young woman. “Hi. I’m Tutella. You hired me as your baby’s nurse?”
“Perfect timing,” Rogue said quietly. Celarus bowed out, and the nurse followed Rogue in to start with the baby screaming his head off.
“Wow. Three of them?!” Tutella exclaimed in a whisper upon seeing the babies lying next to their mother.
“Yeah. It was a surprise.”
“I… have never nursed three babies at once,” the nurse frowned. “I’ve done two before, but I might not be able to keep up with three. Well, eventually. This early, they don’t eat much yet, but eventually…”
“I had the same thought,” Rogue nodded. “If we need to get a second nurse, we will.”
The nurse nodded and collected the second baby to carry to a chair near the hearth for his first feeding, and Rogue took the opportunity to send for some food for Callida. The boys were rotated through, and Rogue dismissed Tutella to get set up for the night in her own room near the nursery down the hall as a tray arrived from the kitchen.
Time to wake Callida. Rogue arranged the bathed, fed and sleepy triplets on Callida’s chest and held them in place while he nudged his wife awake. “M’lady, can you wake up for me? There are some boys here who’d like to meet you.”
She struggled to wake up, but eventually her eyes fluttered open and her arms wrapped almost instinctively around the babies on her chest. “Where am I?”
“Home. In bed.”
She looked down at the heads resting against her chest and blinked with confusion. “Rogue, whose baby did you steal?” Rogue chuckled and leaned down to peck her forehead. “I’m serious, Rogue. Which one of these babies isn’t ours?”
Now he frowned. “What do you mean which one isn’t ours? They’re all–?”
“Which one!” she shrieked, and the babies startled. Rogue realized a little late that she was panicking, her breath shallow and rapid, her hands trembling, and she was trying to roll the babies off and onto the bed.
“Whoa! Whoa, Callida!” Quickly, he helped her get the babies lined up on the bed next to her and then captured her in a hug, holding her tightly while she broke down.
“It’s not mine! Which one, Rogue?! Which one is the imposter?!”
She was serious, and Rogue felt sick. He racked his brain for ways to help her overcome her denial. The labor and delivery had been traumatic. Maybe this was the trauma in the never-ending string of them that would finally shatter her mental health, and in her vulnerable psychological condition, there was a real risk of the new mother rejecting at least one of her babies permanently. “Callida, let’s feed you. You need to eat something before….” He recalculated. “You need to eat something.”
She was blubbering incoherently into his neck, and Rogue made the decision to remove her from the situation entirely until she could compose herself again. He picked her up and carried her to the sitting area by the hearth, holding her until her panic lessened. Then, he coaxed her into eating, playing with her hair and rubbing her back while she calmed down. When she’d eaten her fill, Rogue allowed her to curl up in his lap and doze in and out of a light sleep for a while until her heart rate and breathing had settled into a steady rhythm.
Now, how do I reintroduce her to her babies? Accepting every baby had been a struggle for her: accepting the initial pregnancy, accepting twins, and now accepting triplets. But if he could just get her to hold them and really look at them, maybe she wouldn’t be so quick to reject them. Or smell them. Newborns had a uniquely wonderful scent to them, and Callida had an unusually strong sense of smell. Maybe if he appealed to her nose, she’d be able to overcome this mental hurdle. The thought made him smile.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“I’m going to set you down, Callida,” he whispered and rotated to shift her into the chair so he could get out from under her. He stretched and then knelt by her knees. “M’lady, can you trust me for a minute?”
She was already trembling again when she next spoke. “What are you going to do?”
“I just want you to close your eyes for a few minutes. Can you do that?”
“What are you going to do?!”
“Callida, can you trust me enough to close your eyes for a few minutes?” he repeated deliberately slowly and steadily, trying to stave off her returning anxiety attack.
“I… yes.”
He smiled encouragingly. “Then close your eyes.”
She set her jaw and obeyed, leaning her head back into the chair, and Rogue quietly left her side to collect all three sleeping bundles from the bed, returning to kneel in front of her again.
“Alright, Callida. Lean forward a bit. Tell me what you smell?”
“What sort of trick is this?”
“It’s no trick. I just want you to smell them.” She leaned forward hesitantly, testing the air. “Take your time, Callida. Feel free to get close.”
Slowly scooting closer, Callida eventually dropped her nose into the neck of the blonde baby and inhaled deeply. The baby gurgled in his sleep and shifted, unwittingly nuzzling against his mother’s cheek. Callida moved down the line, smelling the black-haired baby next, and then the brunette baby. She pulled away frowning and went back for a second pass while Rogue held his breath. Finally, she slouched back in the chair, tears streaking silently down her face by the time she opened her eyes again.
“Callida?” She turned away, wiping her tears and sniffing back more. “M’lady? What are you thinking?” Her response was limited to a tearful nod. Rogue smiled and leaned forward, and Callida shakily met him halfway to accept the intended kiss. “They’re beautiful, Callida. All three of them.”
***
Callida had yet to hold them or to even touch them really. Rogue had offered to help her hold them at least a dozen times, but she simply didn’t feel…. It didn’t feel right. She’d been crying continuously since Rogue had asked her to smell them, and she didn’t want to hold them until she could stop. At least, that’s what she told herself. For now, she simply watched them sleep on the bed next to her — watched and cried. She wasn’t even sure why she was crying anymore, but her heart was aching just the same.
“Callida, what should we name them?” Rogue asked from behind her, and Callida rotated slightly to lean against him, finding comfort in the warm pressure against her back. “We talked at one point about naming a pair of boys after our fathers, but we have three of them, and I don’t much care for the name Chikitsak anyway, even if it was my father’s name. I like Probus though. Do any of them look like a Probus to you?”
Callida’s eyes immediately fell on the blonde one. Her father had had blonde hair; he’d been a lion. People had told her she looked like her father. She missed him. And mom. Part of her wondered what they would think of this little family she’d created for herself. That ache in her heart twinged at the thought.
“M’lady?”
“Hm?”
“Do you think any of them look like a Probus?” She nodded, her tears somehow falling harder, and pointed. Rogue kissed her neck before reaching out to touch the baby’s downy hair. “Nice to meet you, Probus. Callida, do you have any ideas on what you want to name the other two?” She shook her head. “Maybe you should get to know them a little.”
A shuddery breath later, Callida set her hand lightly against the chest of the brunette baby who was stirring in his sleep. How does one “get to know” a baby? How does one name a person they don’t know? And at the same time, it felt like he already had a name that she only needed to discover. The sounds formed in her head involuntarily — something strong and succinct… “Tiaki.”
“What?”
“Tiaki.”
“Tiaki? That’s… an unusual name. Where’d that come from?”
“I don’t know. It just… fits,” she mumbled, withdrawing her hand now that the baby beneath it had settled.
“Tiaki,” Rogue rolled the name over his tongue a few times and grinned. “I could get used to that.”
“Tiaki Chikitsak?” Callida suggested, rotating to look her husband in the eyes. “The names sort of fit together, if you still want to name one of them after your father.”
He smiled and kissed her, reaching out to gently squeeze the baby’s foot through his blanket. “Tiaki Chikitsak, nice to meet you. Does Probus get a middle name too?”
She shrugged.
“Probus Animo?” Rogue suggested. “Your father’s full name? Probus Animo Yudha. How does that sound to you?” She couldn’t find words and instead wiped her eyes dry. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. So what about this little guy?” Rogue prompted, pointing to the darkest head of the three.
“I don’t know.”
“Do that thing you did with Tiaki,” he suggested and physically coaxed her hand to reach out. With her palm against the baby’s chest, Callida closed her eyes, seeking the sounds that somehow made sense assigned to this little person — something gentler, subtle… intelligent… “Mana… Manasik?”
“What?” Rogue laughed.
“Manasik.”
“Mah-nah-seek,” Rogue broke it down into syllables and then played with the sounds. “Why Manasik? Where did that even come from?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you like the name?”
“I… don’t know. It just seems to fit him.”
“I’ve never even heard that name before,” Rogue pondered.
“Me neither.”
“Are you just making names up on the spot then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, I guess,” she admitted tiredly. “It sort of just popped into my head. If you don’t like it–”
“No! No, Callida. Actually, you’re right. It does seem to fit him. I just don’t understand how. Do you want to give him a middle name?”
Callida curled up, tucking her hands to her chin and knees to her chest as she snuggled into the pillow and closed her eyes. She was honestly so, very tired. “You choose.”
Behind her, Rogue shifted and kissed her left temple. “In that case, what do you think of the name Manasik Germanus? After your brother.”
And just like that, she was sobbing. Losing their dad when she was only ten, Germanus had become her father-figure, and then mom was killed when she was sixteen. Germanus had raised her on his own after that. Callida had envisioned what her life would look like without any parents: growing up, dating, getting married and having children of her own…. She’d wondered what that would be like with only Germanus to represent her side of the family, and, ever since, Germanus had always been a part of those moments in her head — even still. So it hurt now that this moment was here and he wasn’t. She wasn’t ready. She would never be ready for these moments of motherhood without letting go of that vision in her mind, and that ache — that bitter, twisting, intangible ache — blossomed and burned from the fresh grief of missing loved ones, dashed hopes, and thwarted expectations. Rotating around to muffle her tears against Rogue’s chest, Callida clung to his shirt and felt his fingers glide through her hair.
“Welcome to the family, Manasik Germanus.”