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We were out walking the babies through the countryside in little strollers. They had a single stroller to share and Ruby was gently pushing it along. I gazed out across the autumn forest where the leaves were turning yellow and orange. I took in the fresh air and I listened to my daughter bable. She was just chatting to herself the way babies do. And Nebel, silent and stoic, was barely tolerating his little sister's antics. But he was tolerating them for the sake of the stroll.

"I want another baby," Weiss said out of the blue.

I said nothing at first. I just took that knowledge in. She was ready for another one. It had been almost a year since Nebel was born. That was an acceptable time frame for me. Ruby just pushed the stroller in thought. "But you want to do it in vitro to make sure you have a little girl," Ruby clarified.

"Yeah. I do. I want that," Weiss agreed.

"..." I still said nothing. What could I say? She'd obviously thought about it and she knew what a laborious act it was to bring a child into this world. She knew the consequences of her desires better than I did. Still I shuffled in the chilly air. "You…" I started and stopped.

They both looked at me. They were waiting on me and I rolled my eyes.

"Okay, first off I'm going to give you what you want. You don't need to act worried," I touched things up real quick. And it was the truth. If only I could be a vehicle to their dreams and nothing more. I'd rest a little easier if that were the case. "Second off I was just going to ask if you only wanted one more. Because I'll be honest this plan for six is about at my limit. You want two. Ruby wants four. I think that's it for me. I'm done at that point. This bad boy is cooked. So that's what I was going to ask you. Make sure you only wanted one more."

"Two is already pushing it for me. All my life I figured I'd only want one. Two is my cap," Weiss informed me gently.

"And we'll see if I ever get to four. Yeah, it's what I always wanted but a baby is a lot of work."

"You say that but I give you two years after your third and you'll saddle on up to me with those gorgeous silver eyes and look up at me and say 'I want another one.' I give you two years tops," I hummed.

"Well…"

"No bet," Weiss agreed. "Two years tops. She already wants another one and I have to keep convincing her to give her body time to recover."

"They're so cute though. Look at Garnet and Nebel. They're adorable!" Garnet fed off of her birth mother's excitement and babbled a little louder. I swear silent Nebel rolled his eyes. He had his birth mother's sass.

I wasn't really sure how Weiss and Ruby worked out the mechanics of being mother to both babies but they found a way to live with it. And from my perspective they seemed to love both babies equally regardless of who carried whom. It was… really impressive. I'm sure it wasn't that easy but they made it look that way.

"So…" Weiss returned like a Diana in her orbit. "I want another baby. And there's no guarantee even with in vitro that we'll get one right away. It could still take a while to get a good set up."

"Yes. If you're lookin' for me to say 'yes' I'm saying 'yes,'" I agreed readily.

"You don't have to say 'yes' to us all the time. You know that don't you," Weiss attempted to remind me.

"I promised to do my best for you with the time I had left. A part of that is this. Having kids with you. I swore I would at the altar. And I asked Ruby to wait a little while longer only to let her recover or else she would throw herself into it. You know how she is."

"Hey."

"Granted Ruby is the sort. But not me, I'm guessing."

"Hey!"

"No, not you," I marched onwards. "I trust you to know when you're ready for another one. Ruby wants four and she wants them yesterday. You're more patient about how you want your next one."

"Our next one," she corrected lightly. "Well if you're really ready and willing then I am too. And I know having the babies is exhausting. Thank you for that. You really are doing so well with them. I admire how you parent so far."

"I haven't had to make any hard decisions yet. Admire me then when there's more to do besides change diapers."

"Hmm…" Weiss hummed absently.

"We really do look up to the way you parent," Ruby mumbled. "The way you love them both…"

"I have to love them both. They're my son and my daughter. I have no choice. It's like you put me in an armbar and forced the love out of me."

"Don't say it like that! Don't make it sound like we forced you!"

"We sort of did," Weiss went on. "We sort of forced him."

"We gave him every chance to say 'no.' He wanted this as much as we did."

"I did want this…" I purred. "I did. I do. A normal life. It's better than I could have hoped for. I love it. And teaching at Beacon is a dream come true. And yeah the occasional odd job comes up but it hasn't been anything I couldn't handle."

"We worry about you on those missions…" Ruby murmured.

"I have to take those missions. It's the job. It's what I signed up for. I have to. I'm sorry. But I can't shirk my duties onto someone else. Anybody else could get hurt. I have to be vigilant. I still have people I need to kill but they've been laying low so I've been letting sleeping dogs lie. But eventually we'll have to pay up."

"You're talking about Salem too aren't you?" Ruby tagged.

"A little," I granted. "So you really have your heart set on having four?"

"It's a lot, isn't it," Ruby whined.

"It's a lot," I chuckled. "But if it's what you want, if it's for you, then I can do it. Just… be patient with me. I know that's a lot to ask for. But please be patient with me. I'm struggling over here and while I'm drowning I don't need you to hand me a baby. That's just undue stress. But yeah. Four is doable. Four is in the realm of possibility. Of course, if you decide to quit before four, then I'm game. But I can do four if that's really your dream. It's my job. To try my hardest to make your dreams come true. That's what I signed up for before I have to face my fate."

Garnet giggle loudly from the chair at a spinning falling leaf. I bent down and picked the leaf up again and I dropped it in front of her and sent it spinning and fluttering to the ground. She laughed all the harder and even stoic Nebel cracked a smile. I bent down one last time and picked the leaf up and handed it to the giggling baby in the stroller.

"She could choke on that," Weiss scolded.

"It's a leaf!" I shot back. "She'll be fine."

Weiss huffed and Ruby pushed the stroller between Weiss and I.

"Taiyang stopped by the other day while you were out," I informed Ruby. "He wanted to see his granddaughter."

"Did you let him?" Ruby asked.

"Did I- did I have a good reason to stop him? Yeah I let him. He seems like the sort who wants to help out even with the gross parts of being a parent. So yeah, I let him. Should I stop him if he comes by and you're not around?"

"Well… no… I was just wondering. You two…" Ruby trailed off.

"We could butt heads very easily. Yeah," I agreed. "I mean… we get along fine but we could come to blows at any moment over some pretty important stuff. How to raise the kids. How I'm treating you. We're both spring loaded and ready to go off. We just need some provocation but until that happens I'm game to have the old man around."

"I think it's healthy. The things you think that you two would fight over are, as you said, important. Plus I think it's good for the kids to have at least one positive grandparent in the mix. I'm onboard," Weiss decided.

"I suppose. You really didn't fight with him?"

"We disagreed. I wouldn't call it a fight. But he was pretty in my face about the right way to raise a little girl," I murmured.

"The right way to raise a girl," Weiss repeated.

"Does he know?" Ruby asked.

"I don't know? I figure you can answer that. Does he? He was more about coming of age than anything to do right now. Respecting her space and privacy. He warned me that if I didn't respect her space or privacy, he would open his doors to her. I thought it came from a good place so I tolerated it."

"What else did you talk about?" Ruby wondered. She tried to sound disinterested but I saw through her.

"How adorable the babies are. How my-Salem may or may not know about my kids."

"You really don't know?" Weiss asked.

"I have no idea. I think she's up to something, though."

"You always think she's up to something," Weiss rolled her eyes.

"That's 'cause she is! She's got plots! She is always up to something. She won't just do nothing when it comes to my kids, Weiss. If she can get her claws on even one of them she will do it. My kids are precious and not just because I love them to death. Though that is a good enough reason for her to do something about my babies."

"Okay, okay. Don't rev yourself up," Weiss waved to calm me down. It didn't really work. I was already revved.

I breathed anyways. "Look, I'm just saying our babies are at the top of her hit list. Or not 'hit' but kidnap and raise herself for nefarious purposes."

"And you're scared. We hear you," Ruby whimpered.

"I'm out of my mind terrified," I confessed. "And you want more. You want more targets out in the wild. Both of you do. And I'm going to give it to you because I literally can't say 'no' to you two." I sighed. It was so hard. But they… they had to know what they were really asking from me. It wasn't 'just' that they wanted me to be a good father. They wanted me to be a good father in the context of Salem anyways.

"You can say 'no' to us. You can," Ruby whined again.

"I can't. I love you too much. Even when I probably should say 'no' to you, I can't. I'm too… I'm too head over heels for you."

"What can we do for you?" Weiss asked. "You're hurting. Do you need space?"

"No. And I don't know. You already do so much for me. You hold me together when I want to fall apart. You make me a better person. That's inherently uncomfortable. You do so much for me I can't really believe it. I don't want space from you. I want to be a good father too. I don't want space from our babies either. I want… what I really truly want… is to walk away from my Mother's corpse."

They said nothing. They just looked at me and waited for me to go on. I took a breath and rubbed my eyes where tears were forming. I rubbed between my eyes hard and held in my tears.

"I want to win that fight. I want to raise my kids and struggle. I want to die with you two. That's what I really want. I don't want to die at the feet of that alien goddess. But that's probably how this whole thing is going to go down. And I can't get it out of my head."

"Okay. So win that fight," Ruby pleaded.

I scoffed. "Maybe I'm strong enough to even fight her. And it's in person it's not a free win for her. Ideally I'm that strong and I'm able to actually come to blows with her and she doesn't just order me to kill myself or something awful. Who knows what she can really do to me in person. No idea. I just have the words of my sisters and the outlook is bleak. So then maybe me and her come to blows. She's a regenerating, immortal, magical, goddess. So even if we come to blows, even if I am that strong. That still doesn't look good. She has had millennium to master her powers. I have not. She's going to crush me. And my kids will grow up without a father. And I'll probably die for nothing. That's the soul crushing part. Even if I can fight her, then I'll probably die for nothing."

"So stay," Ruby begged.

"She's going to force me to go. And even if she doesn't, then I still have to. Or…"

"Or what?" Weiss wondered. "What happens if you don't go? We won't stop loving you."

"Or I'm still Jaune Arc. If I don't go, then I'm not Cloud Strife," I murmured just under my breath. "And I'm sorry. But I have got to be Cloud Strife and not Jaune Arc. I have to. It's not about you."

"'It's not you, it's me?'" Weiss asked a touch angrily.

"A little bit. Kinda. So I'll have your kids. The plan hasn't changed. My Mother may or may not know about her grandkids. We can keep it that way as best as we can. And I'll have your second with you, Weiss. Me having kids was always a little iffy. Nothing has changed except now we know my psychic connection doesn't pass to our kids. So there's that. Nothing has changed. The outlook is better now than it was a year ago when I was thinking of taking off in my Mother's direction when I couldn't feel anything coming off of Nebel. So yeah. That's where I live. If my Mother knew where we were with our babies she would have sent my sisters to collect by now. She would have done something if she thought she could get away with it. I'm a pretty big deterrent. Maybe she's scared of how many of my sisters I could drop and the pay off of getting one or both of our babies if she doesn't know that there are two."

"It sounds awful. What you're going through sounds awful," Weiss waved a hand by her side. Ruby pushed the babies along in silence.

"Well… you both sort of knew all that already. Didn't you?" I wondered.

"A little…" Ruby trailed.

"Not to this extent. I thought that the worse had passed when our son was born. I had no idea you were dealing with this little war against your sisters in your head. Every day you wake up and you think to yourself 'maybe today.' Don't you?"

"Maybe today what?" I asked Weiss.

"Maybe today your sisters show up to take our babies. And you might not even be home. You might be out dealing with some big threat," Weiss clarified. "Or at work."

"Yeah. Pretty much," I shuffled my feet. "I can't be around all the time but my sisters could show up whenever. And they'd take off in the night with my babies and at least one of you dead and I would never recover. Ever."

"You really mean that?" Ruby asked.

"Oh yeah. One of you dies and I'm over. So yeah. I'll have your second. But I'm going to be worried the whole time unless you can give me a good reason why I shouldn't be?"

They said nothing.

Weiss shuffled her feet and Ruby pushed the stroller.

"Thank you, Cloud," Weiss whispered.

"Of course. Anything for you," I murmured back.

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-WG