(prompt request: "a kiss out of habit")

dawn

"Mama." Ysa calls out from her room, a plaintive whine. "Mama, help."

She opens her eyes with a soft groan. It's so cold outside and the bed is warm and Theron's warmer; she curls into his arms as he stirs awake, too.

"I'll get up," he murmurs. "It's my turn."

That is, she thinks, an excellent point. It is his turn and it's early yet, only the smallest hints of dim grey light slanting through the far window and snow still falling in the courtyard beyond; she can see the flakes in the near-dark, if only barely, but more than that she can feel it in a nagging soft ache in her shoulder, in her spine, all the old injuries her body can't quite manage to forget. Beneath the blankets it's easier. But-

Ysa keeps crying, pitch creeping upward little by little- mama, mama- and then a fierce doggie, no! with all the toddler sternness possible in a vocabulary limited to half a hundred words. When Theron starts to sit up, starts to fold the blankets back over her body, she nudges them back toward him.

"She wants me," she says, wriggling out of the pile of quilts. "And you heard that. She's trying to climb out. Again."

Theron reaches out for her hand, catching her fingertips with his and pulling her back down. "Natural-born escape artist. Can't imagine where she gets that from."

Her grin punctuated by a wide yawn, she lets herself fall over beside him; head on the pillow beside his once more, she turns toward him to catch him in a lazy kiss. It's a habit they have: going to bed, getting up, leaving or coming home, ever since he came back to her after Nathema and he'd wake up clinging to her like he couldn't quite believe she was real, like she might crumble into dust if he let go, even for a moment-

(She always knew, somehow, that he'd come home.

But there were times, he told her more than once- on so many nights when his nightmares wouldn't let him sleep they just lay together instead, speaking the worst of their secrets into the silent dark and letting it carry them away to wither out of consequence in the light of the morning that came after- that he didn't think he'd live that long.)

Kiss me, she'd say and he'd lean in with a teasing grin, or she'd steal up behind him just loud enough to give the game away and when he turned to catch her she'd laugh and claim her prize, or he'd bend down to meet her as she sat in the courtyard with her face turned up to the warm sun. It's a habit they have, and this morning his kiss doesn't mean don't go or see you soon or be safe. It simply means I love you, sleepy and sweet and gentle, and she smiles against his mouth.

"You, I expect." She kisses his nose, too, just because. "I'm sure I was perfectly well-behaved as a child."

"I never climbed out of any cribs."

Hard to believe, frankly, given his tendency to climb, perch, or hang upside down from anything in easy reach, although- "Did you ever have a crib to climb out of?"

"Semantics."

Ysa calls out again, then, and Theron leans off the side of the bed, grasping blindly at something; after a moment he drops something fabric- her shirt or his, she can't quite tell in the dark- on her head and she blinks and reaches up to take it.

"I'll find something else to put on," he says, "while you get her."

She climbs across him, off the bed and toward the bedroom door, and slips her hands into the shirt (his- last night's T-shirt still smelling faintly of his cologne; she inhales out of reflex, breathing him in) as she moves. "She needs to learn to stay in bed. This is the third-"

One last howl. She winces.

"Never mind." The floor's a comfort under her bare feet, at least, the heat beneath it an expense that had paid for itself in the first few weeks of winter. "We'll be back in a moment."

Already halfway sitting up, Theron mutters something that's probably agreement as she steps out into the corridor. When she gets near enough to Ysa's room, just around the corner from theirs, she can hear her still fussing, babbling animatedly over the noise of muted claws on padded floor. Peering into the room, she folds her arms across her chest.

"Ysa? What are you-"

She can't quite see her daughter, only two small hands pressed firmly against the snout of a very aggrieved-looking akk dog, and at the sound of her voice Pinky (they'd tried to argue that the dog was red, really, but Ysa'd insisted, and she supposes one could call that color pink if one squinted) turns back toward the door with an expression that could only be interpreted as I Am Trying To Keep Small Squishy Thing From Falling, Larger Squishy Thing, But You See What I Have To Deal With and a short, soft whine.

(Since it appeared in the courtyard a month ago the dog had hardly left Ysa's side. All her Holonet searches had done was confirm that yes, akk dogs are Force-sensitive and yes, they do bond with people and there was likely going to be very little any of them could do about it beyond figure out what to feed it and where it was going to sleep.

She'd even called the Corellian Zoological Society- anonymously, of course. The akk dog keeper, Void take the man, only laughed and wished her luck.)

Nine sighs and scratches behind its ears. "I've got her, pup. Go lie down."

With a whuff, Pinky does, backing away from the crib to curl up on the huge cushion in the corner of the room and revealing Ysa, standing up with both hands on the bars and her sleeping-sack in a heap beside her and already trying to lift one chubby leg over the top rail.

"Ysa. No. You're going to hurt yourself."

Her eyes wide, blinking upward- Theron always swears she takes after her but there's no mistaking it; she got that expression from her father- Ysa pauses mid-climb. "Want up."

"It's not time to get up yet, dearest." Even as she says it she moves to intercept her, looping her hands under Ysa's arms and depositing her back on the mattress. She isn't going to win this but she can at least pretend she's not going to give in immediately. "Let's go back to sleep, hm?"

"Mama, no-" that was at least six syllables. She got that one from her father, too. "Up."

She can pretend to be stern, too. "How do we ask?"

"Up please?"

She lifts her back up into her arms and Ysa wraps her arms around her neck, nestling her face into her shoulder with a happy hum that winds her own heart all the tighter around her daughter's tiny fingers. "That's better." Pressing a light kiss to her forehead, she settles her onto her hip. "Shall we go and find your papa?"

"Mm-hm." Already half-asleep again, she thinks.

It's back down the hall and around the corner together, then, step by step until she crosses the threshold of their room and Theron looks up and smiles; he's fixed the blankets in her absence, a little nest in the middle of the bed for all of them to curl up in together, and opened up the curtains to a better view of the falling snow. Sitting up in the blanket-nest, he holds out his arms and she passes Ysa to him before she sits down too.

"Another escape mission, I see." He settles back again, Ysa draped over his chest with a barely audible hi, papa before she's snoring softly. "Successful?"

"Foiled by the dog," she yawns and squirms in beside him, pulling the last blanket over all of them. "But then I was sabotaged by a very convincing please."

"She gets that," Theron grins, "from you." His arm around her, he turns his head toward hers for one more kiss before they all fall back to sleep.

An old habit, now. One worth keeping.