Prompts from the 100 prompt challenge

1. introduction:

He hadn't been allowed to cut the cord. They'd whisked the infant away instead and he stood nervously by, holding Allison's hand as their baby is rubbed with towels and they make her cry. Allison's face is lined but she doesn't express anxiety, just waits, quietly, until a nurse places the baby in her arms. She seems to feel slightly awkward, trying to settle the baby against her bosom, which strikes Leonard as sort of cute; it's not often she looks out of her element. Allison licks her lips before smiling just faintly and stroking the downy head with a finger. "She has your hair, Leonard," she says, and that's true until the baby's hair falls and it comes in fiery red.

2. love:

She never intended to become a mother, never knew what she'd do with a child, but she's surprised by the fierceness of her affections. Tears of anger spring to her eyes when she hears about her daughter's bully, and she immediately takes the girl to the backyard to spar. 'Never, ever let someone tell you you're less than what you are. You are amazing. You're my daughter and that means you're the most important girl in the world.'

3. light:

She doesn't understand, of course, and they can't explain it, but she looks fascinated as the candle flickers, the golden tones of it glimmering on her face and making the features of her face appear both blobby and angular as it dances. The two of them crowd next to her, eschewing the singing of the birthday song as trite, before blowing out the candle in unison.

4. dark:

Kisses are stolen in the light, accompanied by lingering touches, but it's not until their toddler is in bed and the lights are turned out, most nights, that the two are able to meet, whispering to avoid waking the child, and repeating the ritual that brought the child into their lives in the first place; the comforting, familiar folding of their limbs as they fit together just so, the hungry touch of his palms as he smoothes them over her breasts, her strained gasp as she envelops him.

5. seeking solace:

When the news comes he's unable to turn to the one person left, the one he should be closest to in the world, not until he manages to choke the news out to her, and she approaches to whimper and shudder against him, arms around his neck, but does not wail out for her mother as she begins to cry.

6. break away:

Her rebellion started at a younger age than many, influenced by the loss of both parents, one to death and the other to grief, and she becomes even more unruly when, already shattered and unable to bear her behavior, he sends her to live with his father, her grandfather. Lawrence is retired, is more patient, more understanding than his son, has more time for her. Afterward on visits with her father she holds this over his head.

7. heaven:

Bliss had been Saturday mornings with pancakes, warm syrup and fruit, him and Allison laughing at the antics of the baby as she clapped her hands and cooed, and Leonard thinks of those days, still longs for them, and wishes that year of stay-at-home motherhood had never ended.

8. innocence:

She knew her mother was a soldier, hadn't been ignorant of the fact there was a war on or the fact that her mother's career meant her life was in danger on a regular basis, but her mother's death dropped the bottom out of any trust she'd had for things going the way they were supposed to.

9. dive:

In the aftermath of the breathless emergency room visit, of the setting of the bone and the tears and confusion, Allison has to admit that describing the job of an ODST in such detail to a six-year-old may not have been the best plan.

10. breathe again:

Allison is already coming running when that thud is followed by a breathless silence, seeing in her mind's eye the child's face indubitably screwed up in a voiceless scream. Once she calms the girl and Carolina falls into a sniffling sleep does she turn in ire to Leonard and ask him if he would have bothered to respond to that noise had she not been here. No, he isn't a natural parent as she is but he isn't utterly cold. He protests and retorts and she rants and stomps, but finally they make up and she sighs as he kisses her.