AN:
I wrote most of this a long time ago but I decided to get it out and finish it up and made it take place after the ending. Somehow Anna and he meet again, and since I am so unsatisfied the way they just dropped that entire plotline, I gave him his unseen happy ending instead of just him seemingly banished to Siberia. Enjoy the fluff!OOO
"Listen up men, I know your former commander did things differently, but that was before."
In the shade of a large twisting oak, the company stood in a line behind the large washtub, ordered from youngest to eldest and thus darkest to lightest. Aged two (almost), five and six; platinum, strawberry and russet. A tiny light footed fae, a fragile princess and a little shield maiden stood at attention.
The aforementioned commander in bed recovering with the youngest-youngest, a little prince (he was finally no longer outnumbered four to one) not even a fortnight old, and since moving to the frontier of the north, there was little in the ways of servants just yet, leaving the new Governor in an essentially womanless house and thus in temporary charge of a most rascally and grimy group.
"There will be no dallying. There will be no nonsense. Do you understand."
They all nodded and shouted at the top of their lungs, "Yes sir!"
The eldest his most eager soldier salutes with her chest pushed out, ready for any drill, mission or assignment she most eagerly loves to play. The other two were no strangers to being the fiercest most covert tactical mother tackling squad in the northern territories.
"Our first drill, is to strip down as fast as you can. Are you ready?"
All three adorably nod in sloppy un-unison.
"Remove clothes, gentlemen!" he shouts.
The middle one giggles and tried to pull her dress up but it gets stuck on her elbows, the eldest pulls her dress up over her head and is bath-ready in a flash of hurried efficiency and soon helps her sister, while their father chased down and play tackled a squealing toe headed deserter that had seen a kitty or a bird or something that required her immediate attention. He turned her upside down and got her laughing hysterically, narrowly avoiding the angry tantrum from interrupting her personal freedom and pursuits.
Holding the little wriggling ball of energy in one arm while balancing her on his knee, trying to remove her dress with the other hand, he said to the others, "Now, into the water, go go go!"
Unhurriedly, the middle child tentatively swung her leg over the wooden slats into the water of the large basin and then with a pained and shocked look, immediately pulled it out. "Cold, terribly cold!" she cried.
"What did I say about dallying? Get in! Have your sister help you," he said, wrestling with the youngest who starts immediately crying as soon as her feet hit the water, her little legs retracting up every time he tried to dip her down, sobbing with anticipated terror as he lowered her each time.
The eldest stuck her hand into the water and then looked at him with a nonplussed look.
"But its cold," the deeply serious child pointed out. "Mummy puts a full kettle in, like this," she explained, and mimicked the careful pouring and then stirring action for him with great condescension. "Should I go get her for you?"
"It's a nice spring day! Hot baths are bad for the blood, everyone knows that. Except your mother, apparently."
"But—"
"Little Soldier, you better do as you're told or a thousand lashes for you."
She scoffed. "No."
"What was that?"
"Mummy would never let you," she said haughtily, staring him straight in the eye with her dark pupils, the unsettling little replica of her said parent. She reluctantly stepped in the water after a small bribe (a promise of candied lilacs for cooperation) and he had her dunk down and wet her hair before taking her sister's hand to help her in and finally attempted to place the youngest in.
"Here we go, who's a big girl?" He said in exaggerated peppy encouragement, trying to keep the little trembling lip and welling eyes from going full speed ahead into tantrum territory. "Will you hold the soap for daddy?"
She pouted and shook her head, but as soon as he handed it to her, her face softened and her little scowl lifted, and slowly took it from him and inspected it very carefully before throwing it like trash on the ground. He cursed and turned to pick it back up.
"That's a bad word," his wife's mini-clone chastised.
Soap retrieved, he turned back to his three naked, whining, shivering children in the tub. He immediately starts soaping up one spindly limb, grubby paw and ticklish pit at a time, starting with the smallest who is now sobbing in broken pathetic utterances, while the eldest is doing the same for herself while assisting (bossing) the middle one. All was going relatively well for about a full forty five seconds, but then things started to break down in rapid order when the eldest, who had been doing her best playing mother and to conceal her authoritarian impatience under a mask of stern fake niceness, cruelly pinched her sister, which led to a retaliatory slap and then the screaming.
His disastrous plan spiraled out of control into the parental trifecta of comforting, threatening and pleading, all of it peppered with the general utterances of: No, now hold onto your sister. It's alright! No pushing. Do not hit her! Stand still. No! Hold onto—no you're going to fall if you keep doing that. Quit splashing me, or I swear to Christ. Please just stop crying—
"Look, I'm Daddy," said his eldest, standing with the white soap between her legs and protruding her shiny tummy.
"You keep doing that, you'll turn into a boy," he told her sternly, grabbing the soap away from her. "And be sent to the deep dark mines where all disgusting little boys go."
She shook her head violently. "Nuh uh."
He scrunched up one side of his nose and curled his lip and nodded in turn. "Uh huh."
"Daddy, I want to get out," the middle girl complained, on the verge of tears, grabbing for him, trying to cling onto his shirt with her wet claws.
"We're almost done!" he said peeling her off, "No crying now, come on, be good."
"This isn't how Mummy does it," the eldest said in a very informative matter-of-factly tone, shaking her head in a disapproving manner, in case he hadn't realized how much he was doing it wrong. "Not at all."
His patience maxed, his clothes soaked, he threw his hands up. "Alright, enough, we're done," he cried, and stood up and grabbed a bucket of rinse water. "Everyone close their eyes!"
And with probably too quick of a swing of the bucket, he doused all three in a torrent over their heads, creating a symphony of little girlish gasps, cries, laughs and screams simultaneously echo off the house and made several birds find higher ground.
From the upstairs window, he heard an angry familiar voice shout, "What in Heaven's name is going on out there?"
"Nothing," he yelled back over his traumatized children's cries, wrapping them all in a towel and with both arms in one big hug around this heavy, crying, laughing, squirming mass of children; carried them across the yard back to the porch to avoid disgusting little muddy feet. "We're just having a bath."
"A bath? Do you need help? Truly?"
"It's all under control, my dearest, please, just trust me!"
He then heard the window slam shut and he released all three shivering onto the wooden steps. The eldest grabbed another towel from the large pile on the porch landing and was being a good big sister in a mock imitation of her mother drying off and dressing her littlest sister, while he toweled down the middle one.
"Arms up," he commanded, her little arms shooting up obediently. In between her giggles as he dried off her ticklish underarms and ribs she said, "Daddy," she laughed and started over, "Daddy, say, 'bring me my hat'."
"Bring me my hat."
"No," she said, seriously, keeping her arms up as he worked her dress sleeves over her wrists and elbows. "You have to—have to say it, use the scary voice, Daddy."
In a low bellowing voice so opposite of his own that makes her laugh with a thrill, he said, "Bring me my hat."
"No," she said, becoming serious again, her arms down now, one hand on her hip as he tied the back. "I can't," (sighing) "Daddy's hat is gone."
"Why?"
"Because, it got stolen."
"Okay."
"No, say, Daddy," (tapping his knee) "say, 'why did—why did daddy, your hat stolen'."
He sighed. "Why was my hat stolen."
"I think," she whispered, nodding solemnly. "Bears. And a French."
"French bears?" he laughed.
"No."
"No?"
"They're bears but they're not," (scoffing as if it were absurd) "not a French at the same time," she said.
"Where do you get this delightful nonsense?"
Off the steps on the grass in the front of the house he saw, his still naked as day eldest holding the hands of her partially clothed little sister dancing around in a circle. When he shouted to her why she hadn't gotten dressed yet, she dropped the toddler's hands like a boring toy and started to slowly walk away.
"Petronella Annette Simcoe," he yelled, making her stop in her tracks. Slipping on and buttoning up a last shoe on, the three year old took off into the house, no doubt to go pester her poor mother. "You need to get dressed now."
"No," she insisted, rather somberly, as if it were a bitter truth. "I need to go over there," (pointing to a rope swing on a tree) "there might be dogs."
"We don't have dogs."
"But I really like dogs. You know, to pet?"
"What are you even on about? Get over here right now."
She wiggled and fidgeted in frustration. "But I don't like that dress," she whined.
"I don't care, get over here right now, or else."
"Fine," she sighed, plodding over with her arms wrapped tightly and poutily around her nude little chest.
"Hey," he warned. "What did you just say to your father?"
She cocked her head at his tone and then resentfully and forcefully said, "Yessir I said it."
"Arms up, you depraved child," he sighed as he slipped a shift over her head and then a yellow dress. "When are you going to wear clothes like a decent lady?"
"I wore clothes on Sunday, Daddy."
"Is that so."
"Yes. For God."
"Well that's something at least."
As he worked her bonnet over her damp wavy hair and tightly knotting the ties under her jaw so she could not easily remove it, she added while scowling, "Clothes are hot."
"You can run around naked later, but I'm expecting company," he said turning her around to tie up the back. "So will you promise me to behave?"
"Okay," she agreed huffily. Slapping her lightly on the rear he told her to go play with her sister and off she ran back to the toddler, who was now crouched down in nothing but her cream shift, digging with a stick in the dirt.
After de-mudding his own feet, he climb his way up the stairs and into his bedroom to find a subdued calm toddler chattering to herself idly on a red lap robe spread open on the floor with her doll, laying supine, looking at some picture book of monkeys, elephants and possibly French bears. Quietly he opened one of the drawers of his dresser and standing in front of the dresser he replaced his wet trousers and shirt with dry ones. He then discreetly made his way over to the bed where Anna lay on her side with her back to him, in the middle of the bed. Her lightly veiled body and bare limbs formed in a Z. She had put all the pillows under her dark tousled head and a lightly bundled pink creature lay nestled against the curve of her.
He heaved himself onto the bed and snuggled up against her, burying his face into her neck. He wrapped his arm around her and closed his eyes.
"Were you defeated, Colonel."
"Never," he murmured into her hair, and then gently pulled at his pillow to eek it out from under her head until she whined. He sighed and quit.
Before his head could uncomfortably lay down onto the mattress she asked, "Did you get her to keep her clothes on?"
He hesitated and sucked his teeth. "Well, for now, we made a deal."
"Oh, John."
"She'll grow out of it soon enough, you said so yourself. Don't worry about it."
"I'm not," she sighed. "I just wish you were more firm with her."
"She's happy and innocent, do you think me a monster?"
"No, but I think you're making one. She has you so tightly wound around her finger."
"Ah, she can join the club." He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at the sleeping babe. It was true he had a weak spot for his first born, but he found himself weak at behest of all of them. Stroking the light fuzz of his head, he said, "I bet this one will be the same way."
"If the other three are any indication."
They lie quietly together for some time. He caressed her hair, and then felt his eyes grow incredibly heavy.
"Let's name him," she said.
"Already?"
She nodded. "Why not? I don't believe in superstition. Do you?"
"Alright. What then?"
"You decide. He's your son."
"We'll name him James then. After my brother."
She kissed the baby's head and said, "Little James, then."
With a gentle rising, she sat up and cradled the baby for a moment and then handed the bundle to him. Going to make dinner she said. Did she feel up to it? Yes, she thinks so, so he does not argue and with a kiss on both of their heads, she went downstairs.
He sat up against the headboard and held his son in the crook of his arm, rocking slightly side to side. He let his lips brush over the impossibly soft skin and inhaled the incredible smell of his silken hair. A slight disturbance to the mattress draws his attention away for a second, only to look over and see two little blue eyes watching him.
"Come here, princess," he quietly said to her, and she smiled and slowly crawled over to him, and then hulked her awkward weight against his crotch moving her bony knees and bottom into his lap. He let out a heaving groan as he pulled her up into his other arm. She watched the new addition with intense curiosity and after a few shy moments, reached across and touched with a light finger the chub of her brother's cheek and placed a kiss onto his forehead.
"Baby is cute," she whispered.
"Yes, baby is cute."
"It's leaving?"
"No, I'm afraid not. Is that alright?"
She thought for a moment and nodded.
Tucking her head into her father's chest, she wrapped her arm across him. If anyone had told him not even that long ago that he'd be a governor of an entire territory with the one who got away and the family she had given him, he would have never believed such a thing possible. It had taken him a long time to accept that he would never be a soldier again, he would never fight another battle. Perhaps he never truly did. But something even more important to him, and what he had so badly wanted for so long was now here in this house, in this strange and wild land. After thinking for awhile he realized that to his right and his left, two sleeping children lay and he too after a few moments of resting his heavy lids, found himself along with them.
OOO
Thanks for reading!