Home in Athens

Another couple of minutes passed but Tony waited patiently. Finally, Levi sat up, and crooking his knee so that his bent leg belted Tony's waist, turned to face Tony.

Tony tapped the tip of the boy's nose with a forefinger and smiled, and Levi responded immediately with a lopsided grin.

Tony reached up and brushed his hand across a still wet cheek and put one hand under Levi's chin. "We are going to work hard on taking turns and on not hurting each other, and sometimes mistakes will happen, like today, and it will be something you and I can fix together. But I want you to understand that you are welcome in my lap until the end of time, and I will always need to hold you and hug you and love you. Do you understand that, Levi?"

Rather than respond verbally, he played with a button on Tony's shirt. Still, he did not take his eyes off of Tony.

"Want me to tell you something?" Tony tilted his head conspiratorially.

Levi nodded.

"Well," Tony asked, "last night who snuggled with me the whole, entire night?"

Levi's head jerked back to check the bed and he whispered softly, "Vivienne."

Tony waved a finger to contradict the reply.

"Nope, not baby Vivienne- Vivi didn't appear until a couple of hours ago. Do you remember that I changed her into her nightgown before I put her to bed in her crib?" Tony pointed at the baby bed.

Levi's dark blue eyes met sympathetic green ones and the vulnerability reflected in the intensity stabbed at Tony. "No, you and Ava crawled into my bed with me, and do you know where you slept all night until I woke up to tend to Viv?"

A little blond head turned back and forth, raptly following the account.

"Right here," Tony motioned down his left side, and added, "stretched out right next to me- just you, Levi, only you."

Levi's slowly unfolding smile lit his eyes as it widened.

Cupping his chin, Tony promised, "You will always be my boy, Levi."

For several seconds, the child just absorbed the words, evidently accepting that the oath was genuine.

Glancing at the clock, Tony stood and carefully placed him on the floor. "Now, I have to find some decent outfits for all of us so we can go to breakfast, 'cause they don't want us eating naked."

Levi giggled with delight.

Tony pointed towards Ava and inclined his head towards the birdwatchers."But something tells me that you have a very important thing you want to do first, don't you?"

Levi leaned over and kissed Tony's leg before rounding the table to stand on the other side of Ava. Tony watched as the child offered an apology, then couldn't restrain his satisfied sigh as Ava patted the space beside her and Elijah and invited Levi to join them.

A scant two hours later they climbed into the van for the final prong of the journey, the just shy of two hour drive from Greenville, South Carolina, to Athens, Georgia.

Tony's mind jumped from one area of practicality to another, attempting to establish what to prioritize once they actually arrived at the destination. The house they would occupy, he had been told, a safehouse, lay situated in a residential area near the Navy School's campus. Experience told him it would contain at least the bare minimum of furnishings, but he would make a thorough inventory later and see to securing what he and the kids needed. Thankfully, the agencies had commissioned the stocking of the kitchen with, they assured him, enough food to last a week to ten days.

At least grocery shopping could wait.

Despite his party boy persona, Tony faced the reality that making the situation work, and work believably, would require dedication, effort, and talent. An even more serious consideration lay in the underlying acknowledgement that at this point, all five children accepted the past several hours and the meetings prior to leaving D.C. as a temporary issue in their collective existence. Having experienced the justice system already, they had relocated before, a fact especially in the forefront of the minds of the older three.

Though all of them managed to relate positively to each other currently, Tony did not delude himself that his patience and confidence would not undergo some battering as soon as they lapsed into a genuine family routine. His father and abuela had warned that though the end result of the assignment would bring him immense joy and love, he needed to anticipate battles on the homefront while five little entities struggled to understand their futures.

Crossing serene Lake Hartwell, Tony pointed out that they officially had crossed into the heart of Dixie and the state of Georgia, and as he carefully maneuvered them onto country roads he narrated the state's history as one of the original thirteen new colonies of the United States and pointed to natural beauty of the environment as a selling point for the initial settlers.

Driving past farmland and animals delighted the younger kids, while Ethan expressed his disinterest in the scenery in general. Tony focused the conversation to the varied landscape of Georgia, which ranged from the mountain region they bordered, to the vast Atlantic Ocean, to flat lands and natural wonders such as the Okefenokee Swamp. As he talked he recognized his own excitement at encountering a new environment, and despite the evident challenges, the latest mission.

Even from the initial views of the periphery of the city, he could understand the appeal of Athens. Just skirting one edge of the town as they followed the route to the Navy School and residential area, the gorgeous Southern mansions and wide streets he travelled added to the air of genteel charm.

Tony checked the mirror and covertly witnessed Ethan's excited face as he gazed expectantly out of the window at the first sighting.

They located the Navy School, gated all around in black wrought iron and beautifully landscaped, and drove carefully past it as Tony squinted at street names. Finally locating the elementary school cited as the landmark to the subdivision, he turned into a neighborhood filled with towering trees, well maintained lawns, and beautiful, sprawling brick homes. The children fell silent, seeming to revere the introduction to the new phase of their lives, cemented once Tony pulled into the driveway and parked under the carport of their house, their new home.

Before they entered the actual door into the house, he insisted that they explore the property first, and he hoisted Vivienne to his shoulders.

Levi hastened to Tony's side and grabbed his left hand, swinging it as they walked, while Ava and Elijah raced ahead, running back and forth to call out what they saw. Ethan followed, silent but attentive and Tony beckoned him to his other side. He obeyed, but stayed a bit aloof.

Dogwoods, pines, an oak, and a tremendous Japanese magnolia graced both the front and back yards. Even Ethan stared in wonder at the towering magnolia, marveling in the scent of the flowers and then joining the others as Tony led them inside the canopy of branches and watched them scramble to climb it at once.

Securing Viv with a hand around the waist as she tried to follow, he held Elijah steady with the other. It came as no surprise that Levi jumped the branches reminiscent of a little monkey, while Ava doggedly followed. Ethan moved up several branches before seating himself on one and utilizing the one above him as his anchor, he swung gently, peeping down to grin at the toddlers.

Lost in the serenity around them blanketed all of them with a feeling of relief. This, then, was the unknown that had worried them the whole trip.

With a shock Tony realized Levi towered several feet above them all, threading his way nimbly through the foliage, and he called to him to stop and return. Pausing and peering down through the waxy leaves, Tony could barely make out his face, but did hear the shouted response.

"I'm going to go to the tip top," he insisted, setting back into the mission.

"Levi!" Tony demanded firmly, craning his head upwards and glimpsing flashes of the child's clothes. "If you don't get back down here to me by the time I count to ten, you will regret it!"

Levi paused and the sound of moving branches stilled.

"One….two….." Tony began, his voice no nonsense and non negotiable.

Levi bent down and peered through the greenery to gauge Tony's sincerity.

"Seven, twenty five, six," Elijah added helpfully, beaming when Tony laughed out loud at the toddler's contribution.

"Levi," Tony warned, "you will not be happy if I get to ten, I promise."

Evidently not willing to risk it, the boy began his descent without the aid of further counting.

Tony helped Vivienne and Elijah to the ground, but the baby tried at once to climb back. Ava shimmied down with just a little help, and Ethan jumped to the ground from the last couple of feet of branches.

Finally Levi appeared, face animated with the thrill of the activity. "I'm Tarzan," he whooped, then warned, "and Tarzan wants the daddy to catch him!"

Tony spread his arms and watched with pride as Levi stood and gained his balance, then launched himself downwards into Tony's embrace.

Laughing, Tony kissed the top of his head and set him down. "Wonderful tree climbing prowess, Tarzan, fantastic jump, and even smarter decision making skills when you obeyed getting back down here to me."

They finished the tour, excited at the beautiful azaleas, camellias, altheas, and abundance of summertime greenery, and Tony exhaled in relief at the size of the fenced backyard. The kids would have plenty of grassy play area.

Finally the exploration ended back where they had first started, right at the carport with entrances leading into both the den and the screened porch.

Whipping out the key with a flourish, Tony unlocked the door and ushered the children before him.

Deserting him at once, they scattered like ants, leaving him standing in the first room, the den, while they spread in all directions.

Tony took in the paneling and built in bookcases in the den before entering the kitchen and sunny breakfast room, both attractive, and then the living room, which shared a large area with the dining room. Outside of the breakfast room a tremendous screened porch faced the backyard, and Tony came to an instant halt when he found all five of the children rooted there, gazing out into the backyard and watching a baby deer standing up against the exterior part of the fence.

Leaving them there, he finished a quick tour of the house, pleasantly reassured as he introduced himself to each of the three bedrooms and two baths.

Oh yes, they could certainly live comfortably in this place!

The rest of the day passed in a whirlwind of activity, with Tony just scrambling to set up the rooms while juggling naps, diapers, directions and distractions for the kids.

Putting Elijah and Vivienne down for a siesta proved a fight to the finish, and Tony blamed himself for bringing forth the hysterical reactions by not getting them into their beds earlier. Beyond tired, both either screamed or cried themselves to sleep. Worse, Tony found himself forced to turn their belongings upside down until he located Elijah's security blanket, aka his cartoon hospital gown, and presented it to the toddler, whose hysterics at his misplaced possession still rang in Tony's ears.

As soon as they dozed, Tony located enough blankets to fashion serviceable sleep pallets in the den for the other three, and resisting their vehement insistence that in no way did they require restorative sleep, he insisted they lie down anyway.

Surprisingly, Ethan succumbed to the sleepman first, but Levi and Ava were not far behind.

It earned him a free hour to investigate the interior of the premises more thoroughly and to transfer all of their belongings into the proper rooms.

Children needed to belong, to feel ownership, to have the assurance that they could point to rooms and say that they were theirs.