Thanks for sticking with me, guys. I have no excuses for how fluffy this chapter is. I promise I'll make it up to you with some angst later. Thanks to my betas, who are always so patient and brilliant.
Forgive the urgency, but hurry up and wait
The first night with the baby is long. He wakes every two or three hours, screaming and flailing within the confines of the brand-new crib that Rick and some of the male staff members put together after dinner. Juan Carlos has loaned them his two-room bungalow for the duration of their stay, and Kate is glad he's sleeping in the dorms instead of on his couch; that way the baby isn't waking him up, too.
Kate knows how confused the baby must be: he's in unfamiliar surroundings, and despite her best efforts to comfort him, she's not his mother. Her patience with his wailing, however, seems to be getting through to him. Each time he wakes, he fusses for shorter periods of time. At Rick's suggestion she'd tried to see if he'd go back to sleep on his own, but he wouldn't. The periods of crying only get shorter if she holds him close and whispers to him.
She can't stop thinking about her first night without her mother. The ache in her chest, the chill of the pillowcase on her cheek as she buried her head in the pillow to cry so that her father wouldn't hear. The baby is anything but quiet, but every time he starts to cry it's empathetic heartbreak that washes over her instead of exhausted frustration.
X-X-X-X-X
The alarm goes off at eight. Rick groans and rolls over, burying his face in the back of her neck.
"Nu uh," he murmurs. "Turn i'off."
Kate yawns, but she doesn't want to sleep in. Juan Carlos invited them to La Casa's Sunday morning mass, which is put on by a priest from the local parish. Juan Carlos said he'd asked Padre Antonio to start coming Sunday mornings a few months ago because so many of the older children missed going to mass with their families. Kate was intrigued to see how it affected them. Rick had said he'd go with her.
"Come on," she says softly after she shuts off the alarm. She sits up in bed. "You promised."
"No," he pouts, burrowing under the blankets. "Promise revoked."
Kate smirks. She gets out of bed and pads over to the crib. The baby blinks at her blearily and gurgles. She smiles and lifts him into her arms.
"You can't revoke a promise, Rick." The baby nuzzles into her neck, and she rests her jaw against his head as she turns to look at the breathing mass beneath the blankets. "I want to see what it's like for them."
"Just like any other mass," he mumbles. The pile of blankets shifts. "Nothing new."
"That's not true and you know it. Get up, drama queen. I'll feed him while you shower."
The baby paws at Kate's nose and she smiles, grabbing his hand and kissing it. She doesn't bother telling Rick again; she goes into the kitchen to get a bottle instead. When she comes back into the room, she sits cross-legged on the bed with the baby cradled in the crook of her arm. Rick is fidgeting but still hiding stubbornly beneath the covers. It takes him a few minutes, but finally he throws the blankets off. She watches him shuffle toward the bathroom, grumbling the whole way.
He glares at her from the doorway. His gaze moves between her and the baby in her arms, sucking eagerly from the bottle she's holding up to his mouth, his tiny hands on top of hers as if he's afraid she'll take it away.
"Not cute," Rick mutters. It's written all over his face that he's lying.
Kate grins. He shuts the door, still glaring, and she laughs.
"Somebody's grumpy," she murmurs against the baby's head, his dark, soft hair brushing her lips. "You'll have to be extra cute and melt away the grumpies."
The baby continues to suck on the bottle. She hears the sound of the shower being turned on.
"You have to try not to cry during mass, okay?" She wraps her hand around one of his legs. The doctor was right; he is thin.
"Mass is a church service," she adds. "A Catholic service. Juan Carlos—you remember Juan Carlos, don't you? You met him yesterday. He held you while Rick and I asked all those people about your family."
The baby fidgets in her lap and the bottle slips out of his mouth. She guides it back to his lips before he can cry.
"Anyway, he has a priest come here on Sundays and he invited us to come. Most of the older kids went to mass with their families before they lost them." She stares at how small his fingers are on top of hers. "Did your mom take you to mass, little man?"
She's answered by the sound of frantic sucking.
"My mom used to take my dad and me to church on Christmas Eve." More sucking. He grips her hand tighter, and she holds him closer. "She's gone. Like your mom."
For a while, there's no sound except continued sucking and the faint sound of the shower. "I'm sure you miss her," Kate murmurs. She presses a kiss to the top of his head. "But it'll get easier. I promise. Especially when we find your family."
He releases the bottle from his death grip and freezes, and then a hiccup rocks through his little body. Kate laughs and turns him toward her. She puts his feet on the bed and helps him stand, her hands beneath his armpits. He hiccups again, his knees buckling. Kate tightens her grip, holding him up. He puts his hands on her face for balance, smooshing her cheeks together.
"Hi," she whispers.
He gurgles, and a trail of drool seeps out of the corner of his mouth and onto her arm.
"Oh gross," Kate says, wiping her arm on the bed. She dabs at his mouth with the corner of a blanket. "Gross," she says again, only this time she says it like she's talking to a dozen puppies or…well, a really cute baby.
He giggles and bounces on the bed. Kate laughs and says it again.
"Am not," Rick says, appearing in the doorway amidst a cloud of steam. He's got a towel around his waist, and his body's still wet. She must have one of those looks on her face because he grins.
"No lecherous thoughts in front of the infant, darling."
Kate rolls her eyes.
X-X-X-X-X
On Monday night La Casa has an epic shaving cream fight, boys versus girls.
It's Rick's idea. He remembers it from the one summer his mother sent him to a camp where there were actually cabins and campfires and forest for miles. He proposes the idea to Juan Carlos, who thinks it's fantastic. They buy dozens of cans of shaving cream and hook up multiple hoses in preparation for cleaning off the kids.
One of the members of La Casa's staff, an older woman by the name of Lupe, eagerly offers to look after the baby so Kate can be a part of the fight. At first Kate is hesitant, and Rick watches with disguised interest as she fumbles for an excuse not to participate. Lupe spent a decade or two in the States, so she speaks English well; she's got a rebuttal for every argument Kate makes. Finally, Kate has no choice but to agree. She hands the baby over with a murmured warning about how he likes to put anything he can get ahold of into his mouth.
Rick doesn't even pretend to squirt the kids. When Juan Carlos blows the whistle to start the fight, he beelines for Kate. Within minutes they're both covered in white and she's laughing as she smoothes his hair into a mohawk. Blades of grass are stuck to the shaving cream on the tops of her bare feet, and he's styled her hair into three long spikes. He's been good about PDA since they arrived, but when she squirts some shaving cream into her hand and then smacks it onto the center of his forehead with a very un-Beckett giggle, he plants one on her. She doesn't pull away.
A chorus of "beso beso" starts up thanks to Manuel, a rowdy eight-year-old who's big for his age. Kate laughs and pulls away from Rick, then takes off after Manuel with a can of shaving cream in each hand. Manuel can't waddle fast enough to escape Kate's long strides, but it doesn't matter; just before she reaches him she steps in a pile of shaving cream, slips, and then hits the grass in a mess of white-covered legs and arms and hair spikes.
Rick bursts out laughing, but it's drowned out by the sound of dozens of children giggling and shouting. Kate laughs as she tries to fend of Manuel, who sprinted back and started squirting her the second he realized she wasn't chasing him anymore. Manuel proves to be the least of her worries; Rick watches as she's surrounded by a crowd of wildly laughing, shaving cream-drenched kids brandishing cans in their little hands.
Rick charges toward the fray, wielding cans of his own and shouting about being her white knight. Only the children who are older and nearly fluent in English can understand him, but it doesn't matter; he's smiling and squirting them and they love him for it.
The tide turns and suddenly half of them are focused on him instead of Kate. Rick lets out a high-pitched squeal and cowers, yelping that it's Kate's turn to be his white knight. He can hear her laughing even over the wild giggling and shouting of the kids around him.
X-X-X-X-X
Later, Rick sits on the porch steps of the bungalow with the baby in his lap. Kate's in the shower, washing the shaving cream out of her hair. The sun is setting in the distance, and the baby is gnawing on the edge of a tiny toy football, drool oozing everywhere.
Rick pushes the baby's bottom lip aside and squints. "Are you teething?" he asks.
The baby gurgles.
"Hm," Rick says, lifting the top lip. "Yeah, a little. No wonder you've been fussy."
He bounces his knees and the baby jostles up and down and starts giggling. Rick grins. "Yeah, you're right. You're not too fussy. Fussier than Alexis though."
The baby gnaws on the end of the football and watches Rick with wide eyes, listening.
"She was quiet," Rick explains. "Very sweet, but very curious. Always knew what was going on, but content to watch. Buddha baby."
The baby squeaks and flails his arms around. Rick half expects him to launch the football across the porch.
"You're not Buddha baby," he observes. "You're active baby. Maybe you'll be a famous football player. Nope, no. You're right. It's soccer down here, isn't it?"
Something creaks behind him, and he looks over his shoulder to see Kate standing in the threshold of the front door, her wet hair falling in waves around her face.
"Hey," he says.
She smiles. "Hi."
She doesn't move. Rick frowns. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just watching."
Rick snorts. "Creeper."
She laughs quietly. The baby turns his head in her direction and then holds out his hands. Kate smiles and crosses the porch. She sits down next to Rick, and the baby leans forward, stretching his arms out farther toward her. Kate pulls him into her lap.
"Hi little man," she says, burying her nose in his hair. "Watching the sunset?"
Rick watches the baby rest his head against Kate's shoulder. She runs her hand over the baby's face, and he drops the football and wraps his fingers around her thumb, snuggling closer. When Kate plants a kiss on the top of the baby's head, Rick feels the same affection racing through him that he did in the middle of the shaving cream fight. He puts a hand on her knee.
"Hopefully the federales will call tomorrow with news about his family."
Kate nods absently, her eyes never leaving the baby. "Hopefully."