Magical Disclaimer: Winx be not mine, but the babies are mine! This is I guess a mini prequel to Winx: Rebirth, I thought it was a cute idea…okay, I go now, bai bai…

Baby Drama

My blood ran cold and everything went black the first time I heard the words, 'Riven, I'm pregnant'. And once I was revived, peeled myself off the wood floor of our kitchen and made sure it wasn't some cruel joke a long journey of nine months began.

At the time we were both in our early 20's, I was working at a military base on Melody where I trained new recruits and Musa worked as a sound technician in one of the most famous recording studios in all the realm. We lived in an apartment only a stone's throw away from where her father lived and despite the fact that we quarreled everyday (stupid, meager little things like there being no milk in the fridge) it was true, and still is, that we were more madly in love than dolphins during mating season.

I was paranoid now that I knew she had something growing inside her and I kept having nightmares of clawed baby hands ripping out of her belly and strangling me, that's the point where I stopped watching horror movies before bed.

At first there was not a noticeable difference, I kept looking at her stomach everyday to try and see the baby bump but for the first month or so nothing could be seen with the naked eye. Then she started to complain that her skinny jeans no longer fit and began wearing long skirts with elastic waist bands to accommodate the growth. When her belly started to become noticeably bigger she bought a measuring tape and every week recorded the change in a little blue book she kept on the nightstand.

Her vomiting in the bathroom every morning became my alarm clock and I started worrying about how work was affecting her health, this began my rigorous campaign to get her to stop working and take leave. I pointed out all the benefits of taking leave, she wouldn't have to heave around that big belly of hers and she wouldn't have to worry about looking good for the office. Apparently I offended her with these statements and for about 2 days she gave me the silent treatment.

When she started talking to me again Musa started asking for some really strange foods, like peanut butter and pickles (YUCK), and to keep her from flipping out at me in the middle of the night I would run out to the local 24/7 and fetch them for her. She would complain about headaches, backaches and sore spots on the soles of her feet, she felt dizzy if she stood up too fast and she went to the bathroom more times a day than I could count on both hands (I almost had to start using my feet).

I could barely focus on training the new maggots that came onto the base every day, my every thought was her and how was she doing? What exactly was going on inside her? My cell phone was on all the time in case she phoned, I couldn't stand the thought of her suddenly needing me and not being able to make contact.

A couple months into the pregnancy, when the package she was carrying was about the size of football, she went to see the doctor for an ultrasound. I came home a little late that evening after dealing with some unruly troops (they spray painted a generals personal vehicle), she was sitting in the living room smiling nervously.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

Musa shook her head, "not exactly…"

"How's the baby?"

"…babies." She corrected me.

"Babies?" My heart skipped a beat.

"Yes."

"More than one?" My face twitched at the thought.

"We're having twins."

And for the second time I blacked out.

After facing the reality that I was quickly going from a fatherless married man to the future daddy of two little ankle biters I wasn't any better, but life just has that annoying way of chomping you on the ass when you least expect it. Though she never said it Musa felt a little guilty about bearing twins and my reaction didn't help, but I did all I could to try and make it better.

She finally agreed to take leave and didn't know what to do with herself around the house, she was used to being out and about every day and socializing. Her growing belly made it nearly impossible to strap on a guitar and play it, mostly everyone she knew in the city worked during the day and my hours made it difficult to spend enough time with her. Musa started spending most of her time going through old class books from her days at Alfea and trying to call up the girls, but they too had lives of their own and were usually too busy to chat for long periods of time.

So without her music and her social life she became obsessed with the over dramatic soap operas on tv and those little chocolate eggs with the cream in the middle (I was always stepping on the crumpled foil wrappers when I came home). Not able to stand seeing her in this depressed funk I took a day off and consulted her father, he suggested forcing all her close friends to take a day out of their lives to come and see her, in other words the traditional baby shower.

So one day out of the blue while Musa was in her baggy maternity clothes watching another angst ridden episode of 'Drama Cove' she got a surprise at the door, all her female friends came and attacked her with hugs and good wishes. Of course they brought gifts for the twins, we had no idea what the gender of them was going to be but there was a HELL of a lot of pink hiding under all that wrapping paper. During the visit they talked about what was going on in their lives, how far along Stella and Bloom were with their own little soon to be brats and when they were due. They told her she was beautiful and that had a magical glow about her, the sad look on her face melted away and became a permanent smile.

She was 100 happier after they came, it was enough of a boost to get her off the couch and have her do some traveling of her own. Of course I worried when she went to another planet by herself, what if something happened and there was no one to help her? She was fine though, Musa has always been a tough nut to crack (except when you really hit the right buttons…I seem to have the natural ability to do that. Maybe that's why we married each other?).

Fairly quickly though catching a shuttle to visit Solaria and hauling around two babies became too much for her so she cut off her long distance traveling and remained within the city. By this time she was almost to term, gallivanting around the local bookstores and record shops wearing flip flops and printed sun dresses, her music collection EXPLODED and the living room was overrun with vinyl recordings I didn't even know existed. Every morning in the dark I was tripping over 'Von Germain' and 'Sally Struts-it' and every evening I was sitting through the wail of 'Mark Gambler and the Sour Strings' while I tried to scarf down my dinner.

Her musical interests were at par with her food cravings during this time period, strange and sometimes horrifying. I couldn't stop the ringing in my ears while I was on the training grounds and in the last couple weeks of her pregnancy I also took a temporary leave. I didn't tell her this of course, I still pretended to go to work every day and instead of going to the base I took refuge in coffee shops on the other side of the neighborhood to hide from the awful noise as long as I could.

Unfortunately for me one day as I was browsing online at an internet café, she caught me.

Musa was furious that I lied to her and she made a big fuss about it in front of everyone, I tried apologizing to her and explaining why I wasn't working but she was too worked up to listen. She grabbed my car keys from my hand and got out of the shop as fast as her pregnant waddle would let her. I watched her speed away and turn the corner sharply, so now I was one vehicle down and my wife was madder than hell fire at me.

The apartment was 10 city blocks away, instead of taking a bus I walked there figuring she just needed some time to cool off. But when I got up to the apartment it was empty, also my car was missing from the parking lot. Where the heck did she go?

That's when my cell rang, Musa started yelling in my ear so loud I didn't understand what she was saying. After a moment I made out 'MY WATER BROKE YOU DIRTY LIAR! I'M GOING TO THE HOSPITAL! I DON'T CARE IF YOU COME OR NOT!!!' and then she hung up.

Women, so damn emotional. Would men act like that if they could get pregnant? Never mind, perish the thought.

But of course she did care so I took her little pink two seat sports car and drove slowly but surely though through rush hour traffic. By the time I got to the hospital my heart was pounding in my ears and my panic was very visible on my face, I nearly yelled at a nurse in the maternity ward asking where she was. A doctor who seemed all knowing talked to me very calmly and told me to follow her, that Musa was just fine and there was no reason to lose 10 years off my life worrying about her.

When I got to the room she was sitting up in bed reading a trashy celebrity tabloid, her pigtails were an awful mess and she didn't look any happier to see me. I got down on my knees and started begging for her forgiveness, now that she was much more relaxed I explained to her that it was the awful music she was listening to that was driving me nuts. I even offered to stay day and night until the babies decided to come out and be her slave granting her every wish.

"Stop groveling, it makes you look like a wimp." She said and when back to reading, in other words she accepted my apology.

We both ended up falling asleep in the room (I was surprised I didn't find the arm chair more uncomfortable) but when I awoke it was to the sound of someone saying, "dude! Wake up!" with a finger poking my face.

"Zuh?" I responded to a blond haired freak that used to be my school mate, Sky shook his head and pointed to the door.

"Musa just went into the delivery room." He informed me, I shot up out of the chair and left the room as fast as I could. But really should have gone a little slower because I slipped on the wet hallway floor and smacked head first into the brick wall.

I had this awful nightmare that the babies were in trouble, that something happened to them during the delivery, that we lost them. In my head I was screaming but I couldn't wake up, I was sorry for my lies and not being there more often, sorry for being a jerk and not caring when I should have.

My eyes snapped opened and everyone was looking down on me like I was some alien, then they all smiled and said 'congratulations! You're a daddy!'

They tell me everything went smoothly, the best it could for a woman giving birth to twins on her first try. I went to her immediately; she was holding two little warm bundles in her skinny arms protectively and smiling at them. The first born was a little girl with a dark pink swirl of hair on her head, and the second born fifteen minutes later was a boy with huge blue eyes.

This was what all the stress and waiting had been for, and after holding them myself for the first time they sure as hell were worth it.

Musa was responsible for naming them, she called the girl Della and the boy Fabry. The cried all night and ate like crazy (did I mention the awful smell and spit up?), good thing they were cute or else I would have gone mad helping her take care of them. As they started to grow they developed very distinct personalities, Fabry was very shy and attached to his mother were as Della was much more of an extrovert and liked to cling to me.

On their first birthday I came home from work early, they were just starting to walk by then and could say a few words, they babbled 'baby!' at me. Strange since they normally said Dada when I came through the front door. I picked them up and maneuvering around toys on the floor carried them to the kitchen were Musa was trying her hand and making a cake, she had that nervous grin on her face when I said hi.

"Is something wrong?" I asked while she cracked some eggs into a bowl.

"Not really…"

"Are you sure?"

"Uh…remember how emotional I was while I was pregnant with the twins?"

I nodded while the brats tugged on my hair and squealed in my ears.

"Well…Riven, I'm pregnant…again."

To make a long story short, another wild nine months later a chubby baby girl was born. I named her Lola and her siblings took an instant liking to her. As for Musa and I we both agreed that 3 kids was more than enough, the universe would probably spiral into chaos if we had anymore offspring…

THE END (duh)