Dear Diary,

Y'know something? Waiting for something you really want can make it even better. Enough said about that.

Yeah, who the hell do you think I am. Saffron and Marie wound up showing me exactly how that whole 'Stabilize' thing worked. I think they're both a lot more sadistic than me by nature. Then again, I can't say I don't like it, so what the hell. Light me up like a neon sign, Kitten.

The family slept at Lancaster House last night. Much like our earlier visit, we went to pleasantly exhausted sleep and woke up with a living room full of kids, some of whom needed to be changed. Saffron declared 'baths for everyone' again, in part because some of the rug rats needed one, in part because she'd gotten so wrapped up in the exhausting parts of spell research that she'd totally missed the fact that she'd gotten a little whiff. I mean, I didn't say anything, because I kinda liked it, but when she asked, I wasn't about to lie to her about it. I think it's gotta be pheromones or something.

As for last night, Mimic was focused on the stones board. I hadn't realized previously, but she'd kinda started leaning on the board, and some parts were a little hard to see. The far right corner from her perspective was full of black stones, the near left almost completely blank except a line of black stones stretching out from the rest of her part of the board. The far left and a line facing hers was covered in white stones. I'm not an expert, hell I don't even know the name of the damn game, but it looked like she was winning. Then again, maybe she'd gotten herself into some kind of weird untenable position. After all, I couldn't even see the near right corner of the board. I think she might have been laying on it. Would that be cheating? I've got no idea, but I really hoped, what with her being associated with me on some level, that she wasn't the stones equivalent of a chess playing pigeon.

Y'know, the whole 'shit on the board then strut around it like they won anyway' deal.

Sad part about the rug rats in residence was that I didn't get to watch the slow, normal, uninterrupted Saffron boot-up sequence. I can't help it, she's just so damn cute, the little nose scrunches and mlem before her eyes open especially. Still got my daily dose of cute though, since Saffron got in the tub and set about washing kid after kid, leaving me to towel them dry and Marie to do stuff like combing their hair and dressing them. About halfway through turning the herd of sticky little kids into a herd of less sticky little kids, I noticed something about Marie and her combing and brushing. "Hey Marie?" She looked at me. "Are you combing the boys on purpose?"

"Yes."

"Cool." Huh, did not expect that, but as usual my partners were way ahead of me. Treat 'em all the same when they're pre-pubescent, they're less likely to think the other side ought to be treated different once they start growing hair.

Saffron looked over to me as she soaped up the next kiddo and said, "what was that you said about a baby shower?"

I gave her a little side eye as I ruffled a towel through my next victim's hair to dry it. "How did you know about that?"

She grinned at me. "You don't think I'd miss Bonnie breaking the news to Larry, did you?"

At that moment I realized something that had just kinda lurked in the back of my head, waiting to pounce on me, and the biggest wow of all? When I realized that for months now I'd been living with another person, and not a Deity of some kind, but my significant other, my lover, my wife, right there in my head, getting way more 'oh, shit, I better not tell Saffron' stuff than anybody who'd ever gotten to my phone while it was unlocked, I figured I'd freak out. Because, like, that's what you do when someone gets into your private business, right?

I had someone I trusted so much that they could literally read my mind and I didn't get even the slightest bit upset about it.

I kinda pushed the warm fuzzies that gave me in her direction, and she just looked at me and smiled. Not That Grin, but... just smiled. So fuckin' weird, but that... oh, flippity fuck, the woman was Pavloving me hard. Her smiling that warm, knowing, loving smile? That made it even better. And yes, I heard that fucking singsong in my head. No, I'm not upset at that in the slightest, but somehow the ideas of Saffron, how much I loved her, how much she accepted me for me, hell, loved me for me, and that stupid little sex-jingle had all become kind of intertwined in my head. And I was perfectly fine with that.

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When she got to the 'scrub the soapy hair' phase with the next kid, she asked, "so, baby shower?"

I shrugged. "I haven't been to many, but I've heard all kinds of things about them. Basically it's a big party where all the mom-to-be's friends get together and give her baby stuff. Back in my neighborhood it was usually practical stuff, like clothes or diapers or formula. I think most not-desperately-poor people gave each other the same kind of stuff, only nicer versions. Rich people I've got no idea, but somehow the idea of one of the Kardashians giving her sister diapers just doesn't feel right. Maybe they did, like, super upscale designer baby clothes or some shit like that? Or maybe they bought them a nanny? Fuck if I know. The whole idea is a woman's friends coming together to show their support, I guess. Most of the really goofy drinking games were for the bachelorette party, and the even stupider non-drinking games and traditions were for the wedding shower, but Bonnie didn't exactly get either of those. So I figured, y'know, maybe we ought to do something like that?"

She just smiled at me. I swear, even when I turned away from her to towel the next kid's head dry, I could have pointed straight at her without looking, just by the warmth I felt. Not even, like, heat, either, which boggled my poor goof brain. I mean, yeah, there was heat there, we were both basically starkers since we didn't want our clothes to wind up sopping, and apparently me being domestic lights a fire in her loins and hindbrain, but that? While it's really awesome and all, that warmth just kinda hit different.

"Well then, I suppose we ought to do something along those lines." Words weaving through the warmth, she thought, so many traditions in your world predicated on children living. I am simultaneously awestruck, hopeful, and furious.

I nodded. "Yeah. Gotta make sure her and her friends have time off for the party. Unfortunately, her boss is kind of a bitch, but I know her boss' boss, and she's susceptible to certain kinds of really unethical bribery." Why do you think I don't feel guilty about Artemis, or Apollo, or Octavio, or Oliver?

She chuckled. "So you're saying her boss isn't?"

I returned her smile with interest. "She is, but I really don't think she's my type."

She sucked her teeth and shook her head as she rinsed her current kid's head. "We both know that is an absolute lie, Goof. We have, in fact, proven otherwise at times."

"Okay, fair, but I'll be busy bribing her boss' boss. Can you take care of making sure her boss will give her the time off, just in case I can't convince her boss' boss to make pointed suggestions?"

"Since you asked me so nicely, then certainly I will." I'll also be making some pointed suggestions of my own, Goof.

It was right then that I knew I'd kinda fucked up. Not because of anything my Kitten thought at me, but because Liam asked me, "my father tells me bribery of officials is wrong, and should be punished."

Before I could respond, our little menace piped up, "cowwupt officiaws awe bithes."

Saffron looked at me over the head of her final customer of the day, thought, I cannot wait to hear how you handle this one, then broke out laughing as she scooted the rinsed-off kid my way.

As I toweled the little girl dry, I shot a glare at Isnomi. "Menace, 'bitch' is an adult word. No penalty this time, but if you say it again you're grounded."

She rolled her eyes and said, "Ohtay." I could barely keep my severe look up, both because of her obvious precocious teenaged drama look and because I'd just realized how literal the punishment would be for her.

I turned to Liam. "We were mostly joking. Do you know who's Bonnie's boss?"

He shot me a little bit of a suspicious look, but said, "no?"

"Since she's part of the Expedition still, and I'm the Commander of the Expedition, I'm her boss."

His forehead and even a bit of his nose wrinkled up in confusion. "So... why would Miss Saffron need to convince you? Oh, and who's your boss, who you were gonna bribe?"

I leaned down and whispered, like it was some big state secret, "I report directly to the Imperator of the Inter-City Council."

His eyes got big. I doubted he really understood that, but it sounded pretty impressive, and the whole 'hush hush' treatment made it sound even better. "Who is the Imperator?"

Saffron called out from the bathtub, where she'd sat down on her butt to give herself a scrub and a bit of a sit down in the warm water. "That would be me."

Liam looked back and forth between the two of us for a solid ten seconds, during which I finished drying him off. "Grown-ups are weird."

I laughed, looked at Saffron and said, "you hear that? We're grown-ups now."

She laughed as she waved me over to get cleaned up myself, and before I could sit down and enjoy the remaining heat in the tub she pulled me close for a quick kiss. "Don't worry, love. I still love you, even though you're decrepit and ancient now."

That... might have started a bit of a splash fight. Luckily the floor in the quarter of the room around the tub was tiled. Unfortunately, the kids took great glee in rushing over to cheer us on from well within the splash range. So all of us except Marie walked down to breakfast more than a little damp.

Lancaster House waffles made everything good, though. Even when I had to spend the day ferrying Cadets and Troops around to deal with a bear menacing the northeasternmost Lancaster farmstead, some thefts in the southern bridge village, and some dumbass who'd gotten himself a bunch of shattered ribs fucking around with a cow.

I didn't bother to ask the Holder if that was metaphoric or not. I really didn't want to know.