Her cries echo throughout the house. Loud wails that sound through a wall, a half opened door, and a closed door.
And Regina just wants to sleep.
It's too early. Or too early by her standards, the child should not be awake right now. Not at this time anyway.
But she is. And Regina has to deal with that. She doesn't want to deal with that. So she rolls over, buries her head beneath the covers even as Robyn carries on crying, and it's bad parenting, and she shouldn't do it. She should get up and tend to the child's needs but sleeeeepppppp.
By standards of routine, it was her turn. Robin had woken up with the baby yesterday, now it was her turn. But Regina didn't want to get out of bed. Didn't want to leave the soft, warm bed to pad around in the cold (maybe she should start setting the heating to come on at half three next time) she wanted to stay here and sleep.
Yet Robyn isn't letting her, it seems.
Beside her, her Robin shifts, rolling to the side clamps her eyes shut, keeps herself facing the wall so he won't know she's awake and tell her that it's her turn.
She can feel the slight twinges of guilt, however, when the bed shifts and creaks as Robin moves to sit up. He probably wants sleep, too, probably wants to stay warm but still, as he looks over to her, her eyes still close tighter, tries to even her breathing out to make it look like she's asleep and, with a sigh, he moves out of the bed and disappears to his daughter's nursery.
Regina rolls onto her back and opens her eyes, squinting a little when the landing light shines through the open door and onto her. She can hear the soft noises of Robin shuffling around in the next room, his voice just a little over a whisper telling Robyn to Go back to sleep now, and the two year old's much louder claim of, Wanna get out!
Regina smiles at that. Robyn's favourite words so far have been either No or the recently said sentence of, Wanna get out. Which she can achieve on her own much to Regina's horror when the child had burst through their bedroom door, grinning cheekily and laughing when asked how she got out of her cot. She'd ran off back into her own room then, Regina following right behind her as Robyn pointed to the chair beside the cot and Regina knew exactly how the child had got out. That had started the nightly routine of slowly emptying the space around Robyn's cot out, anything to make sure the child had nothing she could climb out of. So now she had resorted back to crying the house down.
Regina's eyes slam shut again when she hears the soft sound of Robyn's footfalls. Ears still awake, her hears the door shut, the room behind her close eyes falling dark, and a soft whisper of, Climb into the middle, and Regina knows exactly who's climbing into the middle.
A tiny hand falls against her nose, tugging, as Robyn loudly shouts, "Gina! Awakey!" Quickly followed by a hushed, "Shh, Robyn. Gina's asleep." from other Robin. And Regina can't help it. With the tugging the child's doing and imaging her grin, Regina's own smile cracks across her face.
"Or is she?"
At being caught, Regina opens her eyes and looks apologetically towards Robin who only shakes his head, then to baby Robyn who laughs and exclaims, "Gina awakey now!"
She mouths a sorry towards Robin as he shuffles back down into the covers, his arm falling protectively over the baby as he says, "It's fine. Just you're now doing tomorrow and the next day." And Regina just nods knowing full well that she won't be doing tomorrow or the next day, or the next week for that matter.