"Ah, ah, ah." Maxon's voice cooed. "I know you much prefer nudity, but you really must wear something when going in to the office in the morning. That shall be your very, very first lesson, my heir baby."
Addy gurgled contentedly in response, limbs still waving helplessly around her.
America inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of baby powder and Maxon's soap, and then opened her eyes. She was lying on her side facing Maxon's side of the bed, which was empty except for the one and a half week old baby laying on her special blanket, being forced by her father into wearing a very cute little onesie. America propped her head up on her hand and smiled.
"Good morning, my love." Maxon said, grinning. "I hope we didn't wake you."
"I like being woken by you two. What are you up to, today?"
"It's 'Bring Your Heir to Work' Day." Maxon informed her. "I'm going to start teaching Addy the ropes, getting her ready to take over for me."
"You don't want to let her turn eleven days old before you start training her?" America asked, amused.
"Nah. The sooner, the better." Maxon grinned.
"Maxon, you don't have to take her today."
"I want to. Kenna's off, you're still narrowing down the pool of nanny applicants, and I want you to have a little time to yourself. It's been a long ten days, and we promised Dr. Ashlar that we'd take care of you, didn't we, Addy?" He consulted the baby, who squirmed her reply. "So, my love, sleep in, take a long bath, eat a leisurely brunch, and then we'll trade off and you can take our baby bird for the afternoon. It's gorgeous weather outside for winter, I recommend a stroll through the gardens."
America bit her lip as she studied the expressions on her two favorite faces. Maxon looked determined and cheerful, and Addy was making her bird face. "She's hungry, at least let me feed her and bring her to you."
"I still have the bottle you made me yesterday afternoon. Honestly, America, you were up four times to feed her last night, you didn't let me take a single turn." he almost seemed to pout about this.
"You're going back to work full-time, Maxon, you need to be rested. It's for the good of the Kingdom. I still have two weeks before I'm full-time again."
"Yes, that was Dr. Ashlar's recommendation, with the intention that you use your time off to rest."
America stretched under the blankets and frowned thoughtfully. Addy began to complain about her lack of breakfast, making the fussy sounds that preceded an outright fit.
"Come on, America." Maxon implored, "Please let me take Addy to work today? We'll have so much fun!" He scooped Addy up from the bed and cuddled her to his suit-clad chest.
America relented at the adorable sight in front of her. Maybe Addy's cuteness would be enough to soften Jepsen a little, maybe convince him to give a little on the negotiations for the first draft of next year's budget. "Fine. But if she gets to be too much, or she throws a fit, or anything, I want you to send for me."
"We promise." Maxon kissed Addy's head, now sprouting tufts of soft, pale red hair, and began making soothing noises to keep her calm while he fetched and warmed her bottle. "Come, Adrienne, you can eat as we make our way to the first floor. That's called efficiency, little love, and efficiency is very important in our job."
America giggled, Addy grumbled, and Maxon nodded sagely, "Oh, I know, it would be nice to be able to take our time about things, but we are very busy people, Addy, and efficiency is how we keep this country on track. Sometimes that means eating on our way to the office, I'm afraid. Come, it's not so bad, I'll show you." and with that, he and Addy left the bedroom and made their way through the family room to the nursery to pick up a chilled bottle of milk from the tiny refrigerator in the corner. Maxon quickly popped it in the bottle warmer, danced with Addy until it was ready, and then they both proceed to their very first daddy/daughter day at the office.
In her first week of life, Adrienne had proven to be quite the arm baby. As long as she was being held, she was mostly complacent. America theorized that Adrienne took after Maxon, if Amberly's letter about Maxon's temperament as a baby was any indication. Either way, Maxon had no trouble feeding a bottle to Addy on their walk to the first floor. She sucked happily away, wide, dark eyes trained on Maxon's face. The walk from Maxon's bedroom to his office was the perfect amount of time for Adrienne to finish off her little, newborn sized bottle, and then coo contentedly in Maxon's arms.
It was a different kind of journey from the third floor to his office, now that Maxon was toting a diaper bag and baby girl, but it was infinitely less lonely. He found that he wasn't agonizing over the future as he used to do on his walk to the office, nor worrying about the past. Now, he was calm and at-ease, and obsessed with his baby. His precious, precious daughter.
A guard named Richter bowed and opened the door to Maxon's quiet, vacant office, and Maxon entered with confidence. This was that rare part of the morning before any advisers showed up, before the chaos began, when Maxon could sit and center himself.
He sank down into his desk chair, pulled out a soft, terrycloth towel from the diaper bag, and laid Addy across it on his legs. Magda had taught him this trick somewhere around Addy's third day. It was brilliant. With her lying on his legs, all he had to do was tap her back with one hand while he began sorting through the documents awaiting his perusal. There was one mild spit-up incident, but the towel absorbed it all as it was supposed to, and Maxon pressed kisses to Addy's content little head the rest of the time, as he finished updating himself on the relevant world events and statistics for the day.
Addy yawned widely, just as there was a knock at the door and Stavros appeared. For a moment, Maxon's top adviser just blinked. Then his serious, professional face split into a wide, goofy grin, "Your Highness! Aren't you a little young to be assisting your father at the office?" he said, in a silly voice.
"Not at all, Stavros." Maxon grinned, tilting Addy slightly so that Stavros could peer happily down at her little face. "I'm starting her young, that's all."
"I'll say, sir."
"There might be something in the laws about child working conditions, but there's nothing about baby working conditions, so we can work her as hard as we desire. However, her mother is coming for her around lunchtime, so we'd better not do anything too rash or the Princess will be telling on us."
"That would be grim, indeed, sir. I shudder to make an enemy of your queen."
"Me, too, Stavros. Me, too." Maxon said, gravely.
While Stavros summarized the information Maxon would need to know going into his meetings for the the day, Maxon cuddled Addy, occasionally bouncing her in his arms. At one point, he passed her to Stavros, who was more than eager to hold the little heir. Stavros was still cooing and making absurd faces when the other advisers arrived to begin the preliminary budget discussions, but no one laughed or teased him. Several junior advisers even joined in. Adrienne already had this council, the youngest members of which would likely serve her when she became Queen in twenty-or-so years, wrapped around her tiny, little fingers.
"Your Majesty, I'd like to start with some fresh information on the situation in the Kingdom of Romania, as it is rapidly developing."
"I see." Maxon said, nodding and laying Addy across his lap so that her head was near his knees and her feet were near his stomach. He rubbed her tummy gently and bounced her on his legs while he sat behind his desk.
He remembered that the Romanians had been intensely insulted by the German Federation nearly two months ago, when the German Federation was unable to uphold their end of a trade deal due to the difficult economic circumstances they'd been facing. Since then, it had been one minor insult after another swapped back and forth between the two countries, who shared borders and tensions regarding emigration and immigration among many cultural and religious differences. "Something has developed? Stavros didn't mention anything in my briefing this morning, and I didn't see anything in my materials." Maxon gestured to the papers that, earlier, he'd read through to prepare himself.
"No, sir, there was a development in the last half hour." One of the junior advisers volunteered.
This caught Stavros' attention, for Stavros did not at all like being out-of-the-loop. "Go on."
"It is currently 6:30 in the evening in the Kingdom of Romania, and it gets dark there early this time of year. At sunset, we received reports of major troop movement in the western portion of Budapest."
"Major troop movement, what does that mean?" Maxon asked. "How much is 'major'?"
Maxon's chief military adviser, General Corpus replied, "Your Majesty, we were informed of three infantry divisions, two armored divisions, and several tanks. Approximately 3,000 troops, sir."
"Where are they headed?" Maxon asked, baffled.
"There are no direct pathways to any major cities within the German Federation from the Kingdom of Romania still in-tact," Corpus replied. "But the units have taken off on what looks like the skeleton of what once was a major thoroughfare between Budapest and Vienna."
Stavros swore and Maxon scowled, "That's one of the German Federation's largest cities, and you're telling me the Kingdom of Romania is pointing 3,000 guns at it?"
"Something like that, sir." Corpus nodded, soberly.
"It's a show of force." Stavros shook his head. "It's posturing, they won't attack. They want to scare the German Federation, show that they won't be trifled with. No one wants a large-scale ground war right now, least of all the Romanians. It isn't in their best interests."
Maxon sighed, letting Addy wrap her fist around his finger. "Alright. Who is our ambassador to the Kingdom of Romania? We need to get him on the phone immediately."
A wave of awkwardness rippled through the room and then Stavros cleared his throat, "Ah… Your Majesty… we don't have an ambassador to the Kingdom of Romania anymore."
Maxon blinked. "What? Why not?"
"We… never replaced the last one, who retired."
"Why not?" Maxon repeated.
"We… just didn't get around to it, sir, we were focused on New Asia."
Maxon frowned down at the baby in his lap, who blinked right back up at him curiously, and pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "You're telling me that the Romanian troops are moving toward a sovereign German border and we don't have anyone over there who can tell us why it's actually happening? We're just supposed to sit over here and guess? We can't let a full-scale ground war break out on German soil, it would send our economy into a tailspin, not to mention England, Italy, and the Federal Empire of Russia!"
"A ground war really isn't the threat that's on the table, sir." Corpus objected, respectfully. "They've moved these troops as a show of force, Adviser Stavros is correct. But the Kingdom of Romania has a powerful arsenal, sir, they've had hydrogen bombs for several decades now. We don't have the deproliferation deals with them that we have with other civilized nations."
"Why not? And you'd better not say—"
"We just haven't gotten around to it, yet—"
"Son of a—"
"We've been busy, your Majesty, we've spent hundreds of years focusing our attention on New Asia, other elements of our foreign policy are still in their infancy due to neglect." Corpus defended.
Maxon frowned. "So the real threat on the table is a nuclear detonation in Vienna? Is the bomb within range?"
"Not yet. If it's with the troops, it won't be in range until they reach the half-way point between Budapest and Vienna, somewhere around the city of Gyor."
"When will that happen?"
"Sometime in the next twelve hours, sir."
"And do they have the bomb?"
"We don't know."
"So this could just be a show—"
"Maybe." Stavros interjected.
Maxon traced Adrienne's cheek delicately with his thumb as he considered this news. "Alright, Addy. This is the kind of problem we'd better take care of before Mommy gets here for lunch."
Addy gurgled her agreement.
While Maxon and his team awaited confirmation that the military movement in the Kingdom of Romania was just a drill, he telephoned other world leaders and made sure that they were aware of the situation. Most of them were, and thanked him for looking out for them, and congratulated him on his new baby.
He and Addy had time for a quick diaper change, and a few seconds of snuggling in the bathroom, before it was time to review the tax rate and make sure it was still working for the royal treasury and for the people. Addy gurgled while Maxon discussed the possibility of allowing tax collection monthly instead of yearly, as it was an unnecessary burden on many people to pay a lump sum at the end of the year. While Addy had her mid-morning milk snack, Maxon commissioned a team to explore the logistics of such an initiative.
Then Maxon received a call from the Chancellor of the German Federation, informing him that the King of Romania had been in contact and was making veiled threats, and if there was an attack on German citizens by the Romanian military, the German Federation would have to treat it as an act of war and respond in kind.
Addy was laid out on her blanket, on a clear patch of Maxon's desk. She couldn't roll over or move, but she still liked to kick her arms and legs like she had in America's stomach. As he looked down at his squirming baby girl, Maxon had to seriously consider how far he could let the Romanians go on like this when war would be an economic threat to Illéan citizens. An economic crash would have a dramatic impact, not just on his reign, but even on Addy's reign as the Kingdom, then technically a Queendom, struggled to recover.
"That's it." Maxon frowned, shaking his head. "We need to have a summit."
"Sir?" Stavros asked, surprised. Maxon still had the phone to his ear, the Chancellor on the other end.
"The major leaders of the world need to sit down in one room and talk, face to face, it's been too long. Illéa will host, it won't cost you a dime, Chancellor."
The woman on the other end of the line paused, considering. "If you can convince King Borko to attend, then I will be there as well."
That was easier said than done. It took a long phone conversation with the King of Romania to convince him to bunker down his troops and fly to Illéa for a chat with other major world leaders, and even longer to get the King of Romania on the phone in the first place. Maxon and King Borko agreed that the beginning of January would be the best time for such a summit, and Maxon thanked him for being so 'reasonable' and calling off his troops until after the meeting.
Stavros bowed to Maxon, tickled Addy on the cheek, and then hurried off to begin preliminary preparations for the emergency summit.
Maxon sighed, alone again, and carried his baby over to the couch, relaxing into it and nestling her close under his chin. "You were so good today, baby girl. I'll bet you learned a lot, too, didn't you?"
Addy yawned.
"Yeah, it's tiring work, but you'll get used to it." Maxon encouraged. "Soon you'll be ready to take over for Daddy, and Daddy will go on a long beach trip with Mommy to celebrate."
"I like the sound of that." America's voice cooed. Maxon looked up and found his wife leaning against the doorway, watching them with a beautiful smile on her face.
"Hello, Love. You look well-rested."
"I am, thanks to you."
"You had a nice morning, then?"
"Wonderful. I took a nap, had brunch with Marlee, had a long, hot bath, and then played some piano."
Maxon smiled, "I'm sorry I missed that. I haven't heard you play the piano in ages."
"I'll play for you anytime we get the chance." America promised.
"Good." Maxon grinned.
"So, how was your morning?" America crossed over and joined them on the sofa. With a little baby shuffling, Maxon was able to wrap an arm around America and embrace both of his girls at the same time.
"Hectic. I'm certainly glad I didn't try to wait until tomorrow to return to work."
"I'm sorry. Was Addy too much?"
"Addy was the absolute least of my worries, Love, our baby bird was an absolute angel."
"She didn't cry?"
"She didn't even fuss, really." Maxon said. "I'm very impressed by our little desk baby."
"What?"
"She took a nap right there, in the middle of my desk." Maxon nodded over to where the baby blanket was still laid out. "I don't think we ought to tell her that she was napping in the same place where she was conceived."
"No, she might not like that." America agreed.
"Little desk baby, in every way." Maxon grinned again.
"Okay, you're not allowed to call her that in front of other people."
"I wouldn't! She's a royal princess, Ames, I have some respect." Maxon feigned dramatically, and America giggled.
Maxon gently lowered Addy so that America could take her, and America pressed several kisses to Addy's tiny, chubby face. "She gets more perfect every day. I know that seems impossible, but it's true." America sighed, happily.
"It makes perfect sense to me. She's your daughter after all, and you are the most amazing woman in the world."
"Should we go to lunch?"
"Yes, I worked up quite the appetite." Maxon nodded. "You had a relaxing morning, though?"
"Very relaxing, thank you." America said.
"Good. I want to do that sometimes; I know you'll be taking Addy to work with you quite a lot and I want to take her sometimes, too."
"You definitely should. I think it will help her when she's Queen, too, to know that she grew up in this room and has fond memories of you here and that she's comfortable here in a way you haven't been because of the different way your father trained you."
Maxon scoffed, "Oh, it was different alright."
"Hey." America sense they were in treacherous territory, talking about Clarkson right now. "I love you a lot."
Maxon smiled and nodded, wiping his father out of his mind. "I love you a lot, too. And I also just called an emergency summit of world leaders to Illéa, set for the beginning of January, so—"
"What?" America sat upright and Addy squawked at the sudden, jarring movement.
"I know it's sudden—"
"Maxon!"
"It's an emergency, Ames, and I know you can handle it. You have a strong, smart team working with you in the form of your Queen's Council and you are an unstoppable force when you put your mind to something."
"But Maxon—" America softened, still objecting.
"I know you're meant to be on maternity leave, and it's not my intention that this should end your convalescence, but I need your help on this, Love. It's a bad situation right now, over in the Kingdom of Romania."
This sobered America. "…Since when?"
Maxon chuckled, darkly. "I suppose since 9:00 this morning." he sighed heavily. "At any rate, if you want, I can ask Eoan to host. I'm sure the Queen of England is more than capable—"
"No!" America balked at the mention of her arch rival. Well, to call Waverly her arch rival really wasn't fair, Waverly was a kind, generous, beautiful person, a commoner like America had been, who had been chosen by a Prince to become her country's next queen. But Waverly was virtually flawless in personality and physicality, and America was constantly being compared to her in the media, in one way or another, so America liked to think of it as a great rivalry. "I can handle it."
Maxon smiled, having anticipate this reaction to his mentioning Queen Waverly. "Alright then, Love, if you're sure."
"I'm sure." America said, darkly. "I'll host this summit. I'll host this summit so well, everyone in the world will think 'Oh, wow, Queen America is such a great hostess, we should always have summits with her and we should love her and she's beautiful, and let's give her flowers and chocolates…'"
"That's what they'll say?" Maxon was laughing at the soft, high pitched voice she'd used as the voice of 'everyone in the world'.
"Mhmm." America nodded and stood, shifting Adrienne in her arms. "Come on, your Royal Husbandness, lunch is waiting for us."
Maxon took the hand she offered and stood up, stretching. "Thank you for making me laugh, Ames." he said, genuinely. He'd had a brutal morning, even with his sweet daughter to keep him company. It was not nothing that America had been able to make him smile so readily after all of that. He treasured her company above all others, cherished that ability she had to ease his burden. He knew he'd be lost without her, or at the very least, miserable.
America nodded and kissed his cheek. "Clown Queen, at your service."
Maxon laughed again, and then opened the door, content to follow just a half of a step behind his wife the whole way down to the dining room. He considered it the best view in the Palace, able to watch her lavish their daughter with affection and attention but still close enough to laugh with her when Addy made a silly face. Most of all, he was right there when America reached down and slipped her free hand in his, lacing their fingers and stroking his thumb with her own.
Despite the challenges, Maxon had his partner with him; his co-captain. When they worked together, they could do anything, even avert a major war on the other side of the ocean. He loved this woman more than reason, and he had her by his side, so, all things considered, it was a very good first morning back at work.
