It was later in the morning, hours after Clover was born.
Mother and daughter slept blissfully side by side, the daughter bundled up in a blanket and the mother finally prone.
The father looked at them, still incredulous, but above all proud.
He didn't feel sleepy, perhaps a little thirsty, the shirt that emotion had made him sweat was just beginning to bother him.
Leaning over the crib, Seventeen only wanted to watch Clover for long moments.
He needed to look at her more than he wanted to hold her.
"So you made your little redhead. Your little Carly."
The top ranger decreed, giving affectionate looks to that person so tiny but finished with sparse lashes and nails still soft.
Seventeen watched her, his lips hard.
"Why do you always have to be in my way? In every milestone?"
That was supposed to be a moment of his, alone with his daughter finally out of that belly.
His friends -and brother in law- had brought Carly to give birth while he was literally on the other side of the world, for a whole night they had stayed all packed in those atrocious waiting room chairs.
Waiting for little Clover, too.
Yet he was not happy.
His domineering tone distracted her, making her feel bad, but Lillian searched her heart for some empathy.
"Well, that's what friends do. Like it or not, Sev/Lapis, you're my best friend. So, here I am."
At times he just needed someone to remind him that he wasn't alone. That joy is sometimes greater when it's shared.
In the end, Lillian hadn't imposed.
"What did you think, that I would immediately throw myself at her?" Lillian uttered, with a haughty stance.
But a look from Seventeen was enough to make her laugh, in a way that made her confess without words: it was still Lillian, it had taken some crazy self-control to remain calm before the baby of her two best friends. Lest she jump into the arms of her best friends themselves.
Krillin gave Seventeen an unwelcome pat, "Wait, do you realise what day it is today?"
"Sunday?"
"Look at your phone."
Sunday...November 17th.
"Bro, your daughter was born on the day with your number." Laughed Brent. "This is love."
"Can you imagine at school?" Elliott jumped in too. " 'What's your old man's name?' '17'. "
"'The day you were born?' '17'. "
" 'Favourite color?' '17'. "
/
On the way back from Monster Eighteen had stopped home to check on Marron.
By the time she landed in Verny the yokel gang had already left.
"So you went all the way to Monster Island to get me and you didn't find me?" Chuckled the younger twin. He lay on the bed beside Carly, occasionally stroking her sweat-slick hair.
"I went there to kick your arse. If only I had known you boarded that ship the moment I sent for you..."
"You have no luck sis."
"You have no integrity."
Eighteen blurted out, still incredulous to his attitude toward Carly, leaving Seventeen with no ready-made answer.
Just on time the door of the hospital room creaked open.
"It's fine, honey. Carly herself told me it was fine for her." Krillin intervened in Seventeen's defence.
He threw him a can of Red Bull chilled from the vending machine, before opening one for himself.
"She means well," he stroked Eighteen's back, looking up at her.
Eighteen rolled her eyes in slight disappointment in herself: she had thought bad of Seventeen by default.
He didn't do that with her...
"Mum's on her way. I'll go pick her up at the airport later," she offered, cell at hand, scrolling her chat with Kate. "You'll have a fuller house soon."
Mother had jumped on a plane with Ronan as soon as she had had the latest news.
"Of course you can stay with us, thank you for asking."
Thought Seventeen, indulging his instinct for isolation. But then he thought deeper. Kate was his mother, it was natural that she be there. She had stayed at Eighteen's when she had Marron, after all.
Seventeen wondered if his sister had ever dared think bad of the woman they owed life to.
Krillin knew it would not be long before Carly and Clover woke up again.
"I'll go if you want."
He needed not any other answer than the twins turning around to look at him, their smile only hinted, but true.
"See you later family," he took his leave with a small nod, wrapping a scarf around his neck as he approached the hospital main entrance.
"Wait."
The mini monk turned around, meeting Seventeen's gaze.
There was an awkward moment or two before the cyborg handed over something that had been left behind.
"This yours?"
"Oh, gee, my beanie!" Krillin smiled, wrapping his sensitive head in the soft wool. "Thanks Seventeen. See you."
Cold pre-winter air wafted in the hospital hall as the automatic doors parted to let him pass.
"Krillin."
"Yes?"
Seventeen had not moved. There was nothing to hold now, except the inside of his pockets. He punched a hole with his right little finger.
What to say, was there anything really perfect to say? Images of Carly still pregnant, of the eparrowhawk and of his brains-smeared first meeting with Krillin flashed in his mind's eye.
He had thought of so many things to say, but nothing was perfect. Seventeen let himself stand taller.
"Thank you, Krillin."
"Anytime, brother."
Krillin gestured goodbye and left for North City Airport, his heart a little lighter.
/
The hospital room still felt comfortable and private enough for Eighteen to hold Seventeen's masterpiece.
Clover wasn't even twenty-four hours old, but she already looked curious about the world.
Eighteen returned that attentive gaze, her new niece's eyes appeared even more upturned, pushed up by her extra chubby cheeks.
"You're a bit fat."
Like her father as a child.
"Just think she even came two weeks early." Carly said proudly.
She, who had been worried about her iron, for having been at -3 kg until the third trimester. Yet her daughter was healthy. Beautifully chunky.
"See, where all the lasagna and chips ended up." Eighteen rocked her niece, "You fat little leech."
"What did you call her?" Seventeen snapped.
Eighteen hadn't yet stopped breastfeeding, nor having that innocent nickname in mind.
"Chill out! I call Marron like that, too."
/
The night after Clover came into the world, Seventeen walked down the maternity ward with the baby girl leaning on his shoulder.
Not knowing what song to sing to her, he described the dark corridor where other parents walked as he did.
"A procession of zombies."
The other parents didn't look cool as a cucumber.
"Hey! Mr Brightside!"
The cyborg heard someone speak in the accent of the Centre: the neighbour girl, Iris Cheney, was referring to the only time she and Seventeen had conversed.
That night when Carly had practically run away from home had been one of the lowest moments Seventeen remembered. He held his baby tighter.
The neighbour woman cradled her newborn and observed the foreign boy's body language.
"You're all crazy over her."
"Something like that."
Iris Cheney and Seventeen were the same age, had had children on the same day, their chalets touched at the back. Yet they had had no other chance to cross paths.
When morning rose, Iris wanted to go say goodbye before going home and she also met Carly for the first time.
"Ah, is this the baby mommy? You're blooming."
That fellow new mother was certainly tired, but she looked so happy to have had her baby that she almost glowed.
"G!" Iris called. "Come and meet our neighbours!"
The husband - the burly young man with the Eastern accent- ran to the call and dropped the empty carrier.
"Carly?!"
Carly, who was nursing Clover, hurriedly covered herself up.
"!...Gage."
Seventeen and Iris glanced at each other: did their husband and partner know each other?
"Iris, well, this is Carly."
"That Carly?"
The girl from the uni he had fallen in love with but had to let go of.
Iris took in her large eyes, her Pre-Raphaelite vibe.
"Now I get it..."
Seventeen was the only one who didn't understand, "Who is this guy?"
Three years before Gage had returned to East City, but then he had met Iris and re-established himself in the North.
"Look at the coincidences! And now we're here, each of us with our own husband and child!"
Iris wasn't mischievous. She was even less so than Carly, but Carly didn't take those words well. She gave Gage a sincere look.
"I'm really happy. You found the love of your life. And I found mine again."
"But wasn't he dead?"
'No. It's complicated. "
Seventeen was getting nervous, both with the neighbours and with Carly. He was right there, heck.
"Care to explain?"
Iris wrote her number down and gave it to Seventeen.
" Of course. At our place, over tea. As soon as you feel ready."
/
5 months later
Marron had found a snail in a pot of geraniums.
"Mummy mummy mummy!"
She took it delicately between her fingers and mimicked engine noises, putting the animal under Eighteen's eyes.
Once again, Eighteen was waiting out of the chalet for Seventeen to come home, tapping her flat sandals, but this time she didn't use kachi katchin fingers to pick the lock.
"Careful not to break the shell, Marron."
"Unky!"
The child awkwardly dropped the snail and ran at the end of the driveway.
Seventeen had appeared with Clover under his arm, confabulating with a woman who appeared to be twice his age. Eighteen chose not to listen, but watched her pass him a large rolled-up paper sheet and shake his hand with a smile.
"Unkiky!"
Seventeen knelt to caress Marron, gave his sister a brief glance. "What good wind?"
"Acacia honey." Eighteen held up a canvas bag. "Hi, Seventeen."
If she craved local produce so much, she could have shopped online.
"No, I really wanted to come over."
Eighteen always appreciated seeing her brother, but she was also curious:
Carly had texted her that sometimes he would come home later than usual, he was preparing something special.
She followed him into the house.
"Who was that woman you were talking to?"
Seventeen shunned the question, placed the rolled-up sheet and his baby girl on the rug in the living room.
Clover rolled over to her aunt and cousin, all she said was a never-ending brrrrrr, in different tones.
"Why is she doing this?"
Seventeen became interested, amused by his daughter talking.
Eighteen exchanged a knowing look with her niece, stroked the thin wisps of red hair on her crown.
"Because she's little."
Eighteen was not usually cold but she always forgot that April still meant the end of winter in Verny, her yellow sundress left goosebumps exposed. On the sofa she wrapped herself in a blanket, yawned.
"Seventeen, do you have any paracetamol?"
"Cabinet in the bathroom. Are you sick?"
Eighteen looked great in her delicate make-up, loose hair and summer outfit, but underneath she didn't look all hale and hearty: all Seventeen needed was she coming to his house to cough out her germs!
"I don't have the flu."
It had been recurring over the past four weeks to start the day with a sluggish headache. And not only that.
"Maybe an aspirin will do, sis."
The cyborg girl pinched her nose and swallowed the small paracetamol tablet as fast as she could.
"No aspirin for me. So who was that person?"
"Someone I'm working on something with."
"Mmm. Something what? "
She really had to force the words out of him.
It was since the beginning of spring that Seventeen had been busy with a project, not being officially top ranger anymore left him more free time. Even for a cyborg, extra time could be valuable.
Eighteen was on edge, a feeling she hated.
"Can I know? I won't tell Carly."
"I'm throwing a surprise."
"Ah, you mean ..." Eighteen moved the fingers of her left hand, letting her wedding ring sparkle.
"No, not for now. One day."
Seventeen intended to marry Carly, eventually. Sure why not?
"I thought you knocked her up again and wanted to marry her eventually." Eighteen smiled, intrigued.
"No...Why?"
His tone exuded reproach.
The older twin was just teasing him, Seventeen wasn't the only one who loved doing so.
"If not the proposal, then what is it?"
Seventeen sighed, hands in pockets and a fleeting gaze.
"It's Fairspeir."
"?"
Seventeen might have regretted the words that were about to come out of his mouth but on the other hand, Eighteen was the perfect person to share. He took his cell phone from his pocket and opened a map.
"Here."
Eighteen zoomed in on the spot indicated by a red pin. "So? Seventeen, this is just forest. "
"I'll take you to see."
/
The calm care Seventeen took in placing Clover in the car seat and tying her with the belt was almost contradictory to the usual ways he displayed.
"Let's go off road. Ready? "
The daughter's bright gaze met the father's: Seventeen felt reassured by communicating to her the funny things they did together.
Clover looked at her dad and smiled without teeth, the search for a foot to grab hampered by a too chunky leg. Seventeen took a quick moment to study his daughter. Given her age, little Clover's features were not yet perfectly defined.
Button nose and rutilism made the resemblance lean toward the Der Veers, but the eyes were Seventeen's. Not really for the colour (green or blue? It was still unclear), no doubt for the shape.
"Why don't we go flying?"
Eighteen moaned from the back seat, with Marron sitting in her arms.
If she had been a human woman, Eighteen would have endangered her daughter.
"You know I don't fly with Clover."
Eighteen tensed up seeing Seventeen in the process of opening a can of Red Bull.
"Don't you dare! Don't drink that crap in the car."
Eighteen hated the mere thought of that concoction, not to mention the smell.
Swell, the nausea was back.
Technically Seventeen had not got into the car yet, but he'd just found a pretext to spite her.
"Or else?"
"Or else, I'll throw you up in the car. For real."
The smirk of the male twin quickly disappeared.
/
Seventeen's jeep whizzed out of Verny and climbed up a dirt road, not too far from the former capital, but deep enough into the forest.
The trail ended at thick fence hedges and a gate packed in plastic sheets.
Beyond, Eighteen saw the sloping roofs and tall chimneys of what looked like a conglomerate of houses.
Or maybe one huge roof, one huge house.
Seventeen parked in the gravel bed of the driveway, Eighteen looked up at the huge house and saw dark red roof-tiles, not gneiss.
Shutter-less bay windows and exposed brick, white façades and dark beams instead of grey stone.
The house also had a name of its own, older than the twins and spelled out in tiles near the door.
In a moment, before Fairspeir, Eighteen forgot she was in the North.
She felt like she was at home: her home, the Centre.
She huddled into the blue parka Seventeen had lent her, a surge of nostalgia went through her stomach like a needle. She never realised how much she missed the Centre.
"I know what you're thinking: 'What's an old Centre-style house doing up here?' The woman I spoke to is an architect. "
Seventeen unrolled the paper he had brought. Eighteen sensed from the design that among the changes he wanted to make was a more explicit wink at traditional Northern architecture.
Gneiss and carved wood.
"Don't you dare. It's perfect like this. "
"We'll see. I thought Fairspeir wasn't glitzy enough to attract your sympathies. "
"It's a dump actually, my taste is certainly not that."
Eighteen slapped the paper in his hand and walked away with small steps.
Seventeen had already put the key in the big lock.
"Don't you want to see inside?"
/
Everything lay in wait inside Fairspeir.
No one had lived there in the past six years, and the coffered ceilings languished in cobwebs, the brass had turned dull and the tap water reddish.
Seventeen's footsteps echoed on the worn floorboards.
"I knocked down a wall the other day, so this will be an open-plan space. A hall, picture it. With a statement fireplace. "
Eighteen was afraid that Clover would fall from Seventeen's hands, as carried away as he was by the vision he was having of the house he had secretly bought.
"Will Carly be okay with all this secrecy?"
Eighteen figured that if she were to buy a house someday, she would appreciate seeing it with her own eyes before writing cheques.
"Carly trusts me. Unlike you."
Carly didn't even know Fairspeir existed.
"How's it going? Between you two."
"She has her job, I have mine. And with Clover, our hearts are full."
Eighteen could literally feel his heart beat faster, with baby Clover rubbing and hiding her little face in his hair.
All of that was very poetic, but ...
"And what about sex."
Seventeen raised his eyebrows. And one corner of his lips.
"Excuse me?"
"Do you still have sex?"
"... Mmpf. All the time! "
Eighteen knew Seventeen and his facial expressions too well: there was no need to be ashamed, if he was never out of battery Carly was a normal human new mother ...
Seventeen opened a double door at the back of the house.
" And this space will become a game room. Can you already see it? "
"Actually, no."
What a drag, Eighteen. How could his own sister be so boring?
Clover rolled on the worn-out parquet in search of Marron, Marron's pigtails bounced with every proud jump: she felt extraordinary compared to that ball of fat of her cousin, who didn't even know how to keep up with her.
"Look at her roll. You'll lose sight of her." Eighteen warned the less seasoned parent.
Seventeen shrugged, with a shrewd laugh.
"She often comes here with me. She can't tell her mother anyway."
With the help of the architect, Seventeen hoped that everything would be ready by the end of the year. He had not hired workers to flip Fairspeir, he wanted to do it himself, he'd started as soon as he had signed Lapis Lang on the notary papers.
"So you bought it with your own money. This ... this chalet?"
This mansion.
"With whose money, if not."
"Mother's?"
"Are you serious now?"
And Eighteen was still living at the Kame House ...
Rikki De Villiers had paid for Fairspeir. Seventeen had received a fairly high fee for that eparrowhawk intervention, the rest had been borrowed and would be returned to the bank before Clover would set foot in a school.
The "weak" Northern light lost some intensity as the afternoon progressed, but Eighteen was in no hurry to leave: Marron was letting off steam running like crazy in those empty spaces, she would sleep well later.
Seventeen had laid Clover on the floor, with technical expertise Eighteen watched him change her and give her a bottle.
He was good at holding her, helping her to suckle in an optimal position.
"When Carly is at work I take care of it."
Carly had gone back to the clinic of her student days at the end of March.
She had sent him a photo of her office with the door bearing the tag
Carly Der Veer - Veterinarian
The place Leni had originally thought she joined in January. Before Carly and Seventeen holed up in Kate's basement and she forgot to take the pill, thanks to Ronan's too many cocktails.
Carly was sorry not to see Clover during working hours, but she was also happy to finally be able to cross the threshold of the clinic with a degree in hand.
She had left those rooms as a trainee, had come back as a full-time veterinarian.
Caring for a small child was not the prerogative of mothers, Seventeen loved to keep Clover: some days he took her with him at work (the rest of the week, he left her in nursery), at night he alone fished her from the crib to change her.
He would put her next to Carly for feeding and many times Carly wouldn't even wake up while the baby girl suckled.
"Sorry if I dare, but wouldn't it have been easier to give her formula?"
Since Seventeen didn't need to sleep.
Technically he had mentioned it to Carly but she wanted to breastfeed, she had been stubborn as a mule. She even pumped milk at work.
For Carly, carrying and giving birth to Seventeen's daughter had been an honour, beyond being romantic and making her feel complete: she had loved her pregnancy, feeling Clover's presence inside of her, but having her in her arms was infinitely better.
She wanted to feed her with her milk, nothing would change her mind.
Eighteen understood: she herself had felt the need to be necessary, through breastfeeding, to a creature that had come out of her.
/
Later, Seventeen played with Marron and Eighteen walked around with Clover in her arms.
She held her up to look at her, and Clover vocalised.
"My chubby little singer."
Eighteen liked the way natural light hit the little irises, she held Clover up ... for too long.
"Oh no!"
Her niece had vomited on her décolleté.
"Holy shit, Clover."
Irritated by the unexpected, Seventeen took her back abruptly and gave Eighteen a couple of wet wipes.
Not all of their father / daughter moments were idyllic. Seventeen often lost patience.
Clover realised that Dad was angry, opened her eyes wide and started to wail.
And hearing her cry out loud, Marron felt the irrepressible need to do the same.
Eighteen wanted to scold Seventeen's choice of language, but apologised and left him in the future game room, alone with two screaming brats.
Seventeen found her outside the room, vomiting down a drain.
The composure with which Eighteen had faced that little accident was admirable - she had touched up her lip gloss in front of a mirror, even before taking a breath. A matter of priority - but it made Seventeen laugh.
If every time Clover got him dirty he got sick, he would spend the days with his head in the toilet.
Marron joined her mother and uncle, dragging Clover with her as if she were a teddy bear.
"Mummy mummy, boo boo?"
To Seventeen it looked like Marron was used to seeing her mother being sick and to comforting her.
He didn't like that.
Eighteen had nothing to throw up but lowered over the drain again, looked after by her little nurse.
"Again?"
Seventeen gave her more wipes, sat down next to her on a rusty bench.
"Look, it's worse for me to feel than for you to look at." Eighteen drank from a bottle, frowning at her brother's half smile. "What are you fucking laughing at?"
"Nothing. Leverage."
Eighteen played dumb.
"You know about the house. And I, now, about this."
Eighteen focused her attention on a tangled bramble.
"This childbearing business must have shocked you, you see a girl be sick and you immediately think about that: don't you think it's a bit cliché?"
"Not 'a girl', Eighteen. You."
Seventeen was intuitive only when he wanted to.
"Tsk. As far as you know, it's just indigestion. That's all."
"Yeah, with paracetamol?"
"! .. That's right."
Maybe Seventeen wasn't happy just because now he could actually blackmail her: she was still his sister, she'd once told him "It's a good thing".
Eighteen pulled the blue parka round her bare shins, more out of vulnerability than cold.
Of course, with all the lies she could tell her brother, indigestion was the least credible: she and Seventeen didn't have those problems.
She stared on at the bramble, her chin on her knees.
"I've already done this shit."
It was different from the time before but some things didn't change, unfortunately.
Seventeen had said it to tease her, but that admission made him wince secretly.
His twin sister, the person he was closest to in the world ...
"Okay, but you shouldn't talk about it in those terms."
Obviously, Eighteen always thought about what she would get in return, once the torment was over.
She'd even thought about having Bulma deactivate her to skip all the shit, but had come to the conclusion that she wasn't going to miss a year of Marron's growth.
Nor little Clover's, now.
Seventeen wasn't expecting it, "How do you feel? Paracetamol aside."
"The truth? I'm a little scared. I'd rather it didn't happen."
How much she had suffered in that search for Marron that had felt so long! Now she wasn't looking for that and Marron was only twenty months old.
"You are # 18."
"This doesn't mean being almighty."
"Nah, it means you'll win this rodeo. I know you."
Again, she was lucky.
Not everyone had someone to rely on without any ifs and buts.
"If you say so ..."
Even before her daughter, her husband, her mother, Eighteen had her twin brother.
Seventeen picked up Clover and brushed the damp dirt in which she had rolled off her.
"Now don't keep that poor fella waiting too long."
"Like you?"
"Call him. Or I'll go get the Red Bull."
Eighteen didn't need to call Krillin, she would tell him at home.
She handed the blue parka back to its rightful owner, prepared to take off with Marron, and stared at Fairspeir.
"Seventeen, thanks for showing me your house."
Seventeen answered her with just another half smile.
But before he let her go, he gave Eighteen a little pat on the cheek.
/
Thoughts of the author:
And we are at the end of a mini arc!
I'm being very slow with my updates, truth is I'm in a pretty difficult place in my life and I just wish I had unlimited stamina like our favourite sibling duo.
Next chapter will be set four years later. Since it has already been 50 chapters and I don't know when I will be able to post again, I'll leave you guys a quick recap of my most relevant OCs (Geosphere had requested it a while ago, this one's for you!):
/
Brent Geirsson and Elliott Gontier: Northerners that become friends with 17
Bruno Weiss: Lazuli's first love, a policeman
Carly Jane Der Veer: my version of 17's partner. The daughter of a Central City car dealer, she's Lapis's high school sweetheart. She and 17 are reunited in chapter 23
Cloe Mafia: a Central City drug lord, (over)killed by 18 in chapter 15
Clover: the daughter of 17 with Carly
Commando Magenta: Central City's drug cartel. Obliterated by 17 in chapter 15
Defiance De Villiers: the head of the MIR before 17 got to Monster Island. She's the twins' cousin unbeknownst to the three of them
John Dubochet: the Royal Nature Park chief ranger
Kathryn "Kate" Lang: the mother of the twins. Born in Amenbo Island, she emigrated to Central City before their birth
Leni: Royal Nature Park HR executive
Lillian Dahl: a Northern girl, the best Royal Nature Park ranger before 17 got there. She's his best friend
(Commander) Malina Klintsov: the captain of the South City Coast Guard. She's the twins' half-sister, always unbeknownst to the three of them
Rikki De Villiers (née Erica Lang): the owner of Monster Island. Mother of Defiance, older sister of Kate
Robin "Robbie": a young Northerner. He will be 17's adoptive child in chapter 51
Ronan: a Central City producer. He will marry Kate Lang later in the story.
Sara Weiss (née Keller): 18's best friend
/
I guess that's all.