Clara was finally old enough to understand that it was her birthday...which was fun until approximately five AM when she came running into Emily and Lucy's bedroom and climbed into bed with them, jumping up and down and squealing, "Birfday! Birfday!"
Lucy groaned. "Emily, your daughter is awake."
"The midnight to six AM shift is yours," Emily replied, rolling over and pulling the quilt up over her head.
"Until you can breastfeed, you deal with hyper three years olds before dawn," Lucy replied.
Sighing, Emily rolled out of bed, picking up Clara and moving out of the room. She settled into bed with the child, letting her snuggle up to her chest. "I love you, pretty girl," she murmured to Clara. "Do you know how much I love you?"
"So much?" she replied, looking up at her with a soft smile.
"I love you to the moon and back. And back to the moon," she replied. She kissed her forehead.
Clara thought for a moment. "Is that where I comed from?" she asked.
Emily giggled softly. "You didn't come from the moon, silly."
"'Cause I comed from the stars?" she said.
Smiling tenderly, she tweaked Clara's nose. "No, monkey, you came from Mama's tummy. Just like Rory – remember?"
A pause. "Oh." Another pause. "How I gets in there?"
Thinking quick, she said, "Well, Mama and I really really wanted to have a baby, so we wished on a star very hard. The star heard our wish and rained magic down on Mama to make you."
"I did comed from the stars!" she trilled.
"I guess so," she said, smiling. Tenderly, she stroked Clara's strawberry blonde hair. "Would you go to sleep now?"
She pouted. "But it's my birfday..."
She sighed softly. "If you go to sleep now, I promise to let you stay awake tonight until the stars come out so you can say thank you to them for making you. Deal?"
She nodded eagerly.
With Aurora strapped to Lucy's chest, dozing peacefully, the little Mills-Prentiss family walked hand-in-hand through the butterfly garden. Clara was obsessed with anything and everything butterfly, so they'd decided to show her the real thing up close for her birthday.
Her little eyes were wide as she watched the fluttering insects dance about above her head, little face aglow with awe. "Mommy!" she exclaimed, pointing at a big blue butterfly, "That one's my favourite!"
"You say that about every single butterfly," Emily pointed out with a laugh, tickling under the girl's chin.
She shrugged, continued tugging them along by their hands towards a swarm of butterflies milling about a tray of sliced fruit. "They likes wabermelon, like me!" she said pointing at the three butterflies that alighted on a slice of the pink fruit.
Aurora started to wake up then, squirming and squalling. Patting the baby's back, Lucy said, "I think someone needs a snack. I'm going to find somewhere to sit, so I can feed her, okay?" She kissed Emily, then bent down to kiss Clara's forehead, before wandering away.
Waiting until Lucy was out of earshot, Clara sighed sadly, her enthusiasm all but vanishing. Her little shoulders sagged, her bottom lip wobbling, a sure sign of oncoming tears.
"What's wrong, sweet pea?" Emily asked, kneeling down to meet Clara's eyes, finding the enthusiasm previously sparkling there having vanished, replaced with the sparkle of tears. She shuffled along slowly, staring down at the path instead of up at the butterflies.
"Mama doesn't like me anymore," she mumbled, bottom lip jutting out in a little pout.
Emily felt her heart break a little, remembering all too well what it felt like to believe her mother didn't love her. "That's not true," she promised. "Why do you think that?"
She sniffled softly. "Mama likes Wowa better 'cause she's a baby. She likes me only when I's a baby, not when I's big girl." She hiccuped, a fat tear spilling down her cheek, followed quickly by another. "Does you still loves me?"
"I will always always love you," Emily vowed firmly. She pulled Clara into her chest, wrapping her in an embrace. "And so does Mama."
"But..." She trailed off, sniffling.
Emily gently tipped Clara's chin up so she could meet her gaze. "I know it's hard having Rory around because she needs a lot of attention and sometimes it feels like we don't have time for you anymore. But it doesn't mean we love her any more than we love you. Babies need lots of attention because they can't do much for themselves like you – you're a big girl, so you can feed yourself and use the potty and dress yourself. She can't do any of those things yet, but she'll learn. And she's going to need your help because you're her big sister and you're going to teach her so many things."
Clara thought on that for a moment, seemingly debating whether she believe that or not.
"Mama and I are going to try really hard to spend more time with you, okay? Just the three of us. It's hard right now because Rory eats from Mama's body, but we're going to do better. Because you're always going to be our special girl."
That night, after a whispered discussion of Clara's tearful plea for attention, Lucy took it upon herself to spend some time alone with her.
Pulling Clara into her lap, Lucy pulled out the photo album, flipping through to the pictures of the night she and Emily had first met. There were no pictures of the two of them together that night, but Lucy had saved the program from that evening's performance of The Nutcracker and their gala tickets, as well as pictures they'd taken individually.
"I'm going to tell you a story," Lucy said to Clara. "It's the story of how you got your name."
Clara cocked her head to look up at Lucy, quizzical expression. "Like from a store?"
Lucy laughed. "No, you got your name from a very special moment before you were even born. The day I met your Mommy."