Lenora Marina Romanov.
"It's been 53 years, Marius."
I turned my head to see my husband at my side, his hand tightening in my own. Together we'd waited for this moment to come. It had been 53 years and 19 days to be exact. There hadn't been a single day that had gone by that I hadn't visited her, that I hadn't sat at her side with my hand against the glass cover of her casket like box and told her how the days were going on without her; how the household missed her dearly. I'd always known she was special, she was my daughter and to me she always would be the most special being in my life. I'd always known she was special to the others too, I just hadn't realised just how special.
"She deserves to have her family at her side."
I looked back to the large man standing by the door of my husband's study, his hands folded together at his front and both his green eyes looking to Amadeo rather than me who were addressing him. I followed his eyes so I too was looking to Amadeo's face, looking up rather than down.
"Soren wasn't able to get a flight this quickly. The best he can do is first thing tomorrow morning."
"And there's no other way of travel?" My husband asked his own maker with an expression as blank as always. Marius replied with a shake of his head.
"The waters are too rough to sail. He'd never put Finnick in that kind of danger."
Amadeo pushed out a breath of unneeded air through his nose while remaining perfectly still for the next counted four seconds until his eyes dropped to me. My right hand was still holding his left, my thumb sliding back and forth against the back of his hand, his skin smoother than the finest quality marble while my left sat at the top of my ever growing pregnant bump. His dark eyes dropped lower to my left hand, catching a glimpse of the glimmer from the diamond he'd put on my finger almost 55 years earlier. He held his silence as his lips curled at the corners to the soft smile I knew him to always wear around me; his eyes softening at the corners and his frame letting go of his tense composure. I hadn't said a word to him and seeing that he'd made me exactly what and who I was, Amadeo couldn't read through my mind the way he could the others. Still he knew he could always read what my heart wanted.
"It'll be done today." He spoke clearly, keeping my eyes held with his until they left me to find Marius once more. "Inform Soren and have him back as soon as possible with my grandson. His mother will be asking for him."
Marius' breath from his nose was much heavier than Amadeo's had been and there was something in his eyes that looked reluctant to bring my daughter back to us. I hadn't seen such a look on that man's face in the years I'd known him. It hadn't gone unnoticed on my behalf at all. After giving the two of us, my husband and I, a single nod of his head, Marius was gone and we were alone.
Amadeo slipped his palm from mine, untangled our fingers from interlacing to hold my fingers in his whole hand as he moved at a humans pace to crouch down in front of me in his large arm chair. Marius was gone, we were alone and these were the moments I got my Amadeo: the man I married who was gentle, sincere and constantly worried about how I was… even if I were on cloud 9. His right hand cane down to lie against my rounded stomach, sending the little life I was carrying into a certain happy frenzy from papa's touch. "You're okay?" He asked me in a much softer tone.
I smiled across to him, being at his level now that he was crouched and cupped the side of his face with my ring hand.
"I'm fine, my love." Lolling my head aside slightly I moved my fingers to tuck back some dark locks of his hair that has slipped from the grip of his hair tie. "I'll be better when we have our Boe back with us."
Just the mention of Boe's name, our first born daughter who'd always undoubtedly been the apple of Amadeo's eye brought his smile wider to reach his eyes. "It's been a while." He spoke with a soft chuckle in his tone. I nodded in response, dropping my hand gently from the side of his face to sit against his chest, hooking my index and middle finger into the hole of his shirt between buttons. "It'll be strange in the best of ways to have her with us again."
My own smile had been pulling wider when he spoke to me, wide enough for my teeth to show over my lower lip. I sucked at my lip between my teeth briefly. "We can hold her again. Feel how warm she is, have her talk to us when we talk to her."
Amadeo kissed the back of my fingers still in his hand. "I miss her voice."
"Her smart remarks."
His grin returned as his brows twitched. I laughed softly, giving his shirt a gentle tug in my hand. "We both know who she gets her smart comments from."
Our daughter was her father's child completely. She was tall and slender, dark hair like Amadeo's, his hazel eyes. It had sat the cherry on top of the cake when she grew up to think like him and act like him too. She grew to enjoy the things in life Amadeo had always enjoyed. Before she'd left us they'd play music together or Amadeo would find her in the yard of our house, below the thick branches of the willow tree lost in a new world of a book. Our second daughter Rue couldn't have been more different to her sister. Still she was like her father, but the girls' personalities and values were worlds apart. Rue's teenage attitude was all me. I was less patient than my husband and I'd get angry over the slightest of things. I'd voice out my opinion before listening to reason and if I wanted a point made I'd make sure the world knew it. And she was just as bad. Unlike her sister, even as a child Rue was more of a 'diva' as we called her. She was spoiled not only by us, but from the coven too. She'd never ask twice for what she wanted and within weeks of being with us she had every single immortal, male and female, young and older wrapped around her tiny fingers. In the pit of my stomach as our baby danced inside me from papa's touch, I was excited to have my two girls finally meet.
Amadeo stood himself back up, leant in enough to kiss my forehead with his hand stroking down the rounded side of my stomach before letting go of my hand completely. "Get some rest, love. I'll call Leenan and the others to give them our news."
He'd been telling me to rest for the last few months I'd been pregnant. It was a short lived time for an immortal to be with child, but more than anything else it was a pure miracle just as it was before with Rue. Giving a softer smile and a soft sigh to my husband, I stood as normally as I could with being so round to waddle through the back of the study where we shared our bed. My pregnancy was slowly coming to an end. But as I lay down on my side, cuddling into the satin sheets of my bed with an arm laid over my unborn baby inside me, I had no more time to think of my pregnancy first and foremost.