Editor's Note: The plan is for there to however many super shorts or scenes all grouped together. They won't be connected as far as I know, lol. For now their just here.

Enjoy.

Lou

Baby, It's Two of Them

An Elani Short-Short

by Lou

"Baby...it's two of 'em..."

He said it every morning when he woke up, said it in his sleep, mumbled it, absently, around the house throughout the day.

Hearing it again now, Lani laughed to herself, shaking her head at the disbelief in her husband's words. Still. Hat backward on his head, Eli stopped what he was doing, thinking it again, she knew.

He wouldn't let her do anything; not because he was a chauvinist, far from it, or because didn't believe that Lani could do it, or should; Eli had sense. It was the way that he dealt with his fear. His fear that the same ending would befall their children now as it had their brother before them.

David.

The probability was low, yes; but it was still there. Lani believed Eli when he said that everything was going to be alright. She knew that he believed it, too, but their fear was still very real. He was never upset or annoyed when it crept up on her. Wherever it was, whenever it happened, whether Lani went to him with it, or Eli saw it on her face, he was there; his arms always strong around her. His heart a steady beat, his words so soft, so sure, confident. His belief was so real.

But he wasn't immune.

Eli had his fears, too. When that happened he had to do...something. Then, when he worked it out of his mind, quietly reassuring himself. She didn't mind when all he wanted to do was hold her, hold them, and be quiet; or get out of the house, walking it off, or having the same conversation with his mother.

He talked about it with her, but he was so careful not to amp up her fear with his. It was something that had bothered Lani in the beginning. They'd fought about it. She didn't like that he had been dealing with his fear alone, suffering in silence, to protect her.

"I'm not about to stress you out and let what happened to David..." His voice broke.

"Happen to these babies? Eli?" She saw his anxiety, that terror that flashed in his gaze a split second before he pushed it away. Lani had to watch as he swallowed it down, and it tore at her. Hurt and anger battled for dominance. "Don't do that." She demanded, her throat growing tight, tears welling.

"Baby,"

"Don't do that, Eli Grant."

"Saying people names like that..."

They met in the middle. face pressed together, he kissed away her tears. "Don't cry, " he told her over and over, unaware that he was crying, too.

The love they made afterward was a desperate reassurance for, and from, the both of them.

Now, he came to her, and they dealt with it.

This, the building of the beds, was that and, it wasn't.

He'd had a nightmare the night before, and hadn't slept well because of it. They'd talked about it, but he had been bothered by it, still, afterward; but her man's fear had had to take a backseat.

Salem was in the middle of a heatwave...and their ac had just crapped out. Which would have been fine if the company hadn't charged them an arm and a leg to fix it.

Eli could fix a lot of things, but an air conditioner was out of his scope. Running the fan did zero. All it did was circulate warm air.

"How much?" he demanded. "To replace a whatever whatever? Just to come out and look?!"

They went back and forth for the better part of 30 minutes to end with a late in the day appointment, a still hot house, and an unhappy Police Commissioner.

It was sexy.

Even when it was funny.

"They can come in here with some bullshit if they want. Whole damn college tuition to cool off the damn house. Better be icicles hanging off my ass and penguins having a block party in my bathtub for all that money. Greedy bastards..."

He'd grumbled all the way it the nursery. The walls were covered in baby animals stacking blocks with letters and numbers etched into them.

"Bet you I'm about to learn how to fix an air conditioner." He went on taking a box from the wall to the floor then setting out all bed pieces to put together. Still muttering under his breath he got his toolbox from the garage.

"Babe, you okay...?"

"I'm good. You alright?"

"Mmhm."

"You sure?" He asked. "I can go get you some ice. Let me call mom or Abe; their ac works."

"I'm fine."

"I don't want you in this heat."

"It's not that bad."

"Lani-"

"I don't want to be away from you."

Stopped his words cold. "...Tell me when you get uncomfortable."

"Okay."

"Lani." He didn't believe her.

"Okay." She said again.

He put a whole bed together, grumbling. Lani had known it was going to be one of those days when he'd come out of their room in basketball shorts this morning. Low on his hips, they were his favorite shorts; hers, too; an old white tank top and a cap backward on his head to keep the heat off him while he mowed the lawn.

He looked like he was about to head to the park for a pick-up game with his boys. Straight temptation. She knew that her pregnancy hormones played a part in her already sky-high need for her some Eli Grant. She knew this, but nobody told his ass to look like that in those shorts, his chest to stretch that shirt the way it did, or for his arms...

Oomejesus, his arms.

There wasn't enough ice water on the planet...

Lani fanned herself as the phone rang in the kitchen, he was the reason why there were two of them, she thought.

He could feel her eyes on him.

Nope, uh-uh, Eli told himself. He'd been trying to put these damn beds together forever but something always got in the way.

If it wasn't Sami slapping the daylights out of Nicole in the Square, or Salem's newest resident Dr. Rieber and Weston having words about Ciara's care; that was a whole barrel of "my name is Bennet" that Eli tried to stay away from, but it was Shawn's sister and she didn't remember him. Or Weston.

Her husband.

Something her grandfather was taking full advantage of.

"My name is Bennett, and I ain't in it." He shook his head as he sat the completed bed frame on one side of the window, setting the mattress in and testing the rails before starting on the next, 95% confident that he wasn't about to let his wife and her pregnancy hormones, her thighs...those shorts...just thighs all out and EVERYWHERE.

Had the nerve to walk about the house barefoot with her shirt tied at the hip, pulling that fabric tight over breasts...that were the foundation of your childrens' growth, sir, Eli tried to tell himself.

He was sweating, and not just because of the heat.

Why did she have to smell so damned good? That damned lotion had his baby shining and glistening; testing the hell out of him. And Lani wasn't helping, staring at him like she didn't want these beds put together. She was the reason why there was two of 'em.

Who told her to go around looking like that, smelling like that, tasting like that?

"Man...if you don't put these beds together," Eli scolded himself. Damn neck was sweating.

He chanced a glance over his shoulder then blew out a breath when he found the door of the nursery empty. Lani wasn't standing there watching him. Eli put that last bed together like time was running out on the clock. The heat in this house was turned up everything. A man could only take so much. He prayed the phone didn't ring with reports of Salem on their bullshit and that his wife didn't come back.

That's what he got for thinking about Lani with any of his five senses.

The hell was a crook to fix the ac?!

Eli tested the bed rails of the second bed, put in the mattress, then set it to the other side of the window the way his wife had wanted. She would have him move it again before the babies got here he knew.

He took his time breaking down the boxes. Eli thought about opening the window to breathe in Lani-free air, but that wouldn't defeat the purpose.

"I know they'd better come and fix this damn air conditioner," Eli complained as he finally left the nursery. "Lani; baby, did the..."

She stood at the kitchen island, an empty glass of lemonade in front of her, ice melting inside the glass, condensation running down the sides. The moisture dried up in his mouth as he watched his wife run a melting ice cube, water dripping through her fingertips, over the nape of her neck. He watched a droplet break from all the rest. Watched as it slid down, down the slope of her neck into the valley between her breasts.

"Eli?"

"Mm...?"

"I said that the repairman won't be here until tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yeah," she sighed out massaging the back of her neck. "Something about two or their work trucks breaking down. We can go stay at my dad's for the night," She went on absently licking at the moisture on her top lip.

Lani's words stopped when Eli took the glass from in front of her gulping down the melted water. Sitting his hat down on the counter with one hand, he snatched his shirt off with the other. Taking a tray of ice from the freezer, Eli walked silently to his wife taking her by the hand.

"Oh..." she murmured as her husband led her back to their bedroom.

"Yup."

"Okay." He could hear the smile in her voice.

"I know okay."

Two beds.

Two.

Beds.

He'd bought two beds with the highest damned safety rating, put two heavy ass boxes in the back of his truck, lugged those same heavy ass boxes into their house. Put two beds together and set them up just their way their mama had wanted.

Only for these...stubborn, strong, amazing, little...Lani's to refuse to sleep apart.

He wanted to be highly agitated. On some level, Eli knew that he never would be. This was going to be that embarrassing story he saved for when they got on each others' nerves. Why? Because he stayed smashing his knees into the damned things in the middle of the night forgetting which bed they were in when they needed something.

Lani talked a good game about separating them later on. "Good luck," Eli thought not for the first time. As many times as he stubbed a toe and half-heartedly debated putting that extra bed in the garage so that there would be more space for the mounds of ridiculousness that their grandparents sent every week, if not daily-if his mama sent one more damn bear...and he was taking Julie's emergency key- he couldn't be mad.

Not when his babies slept so soundly, wrapped around each other like they were still in the womb, smiling in their sleep.

"Daughters..." Abe had said. He'd had none of this Lani, but he still felt that pull that Eli now understood.

The fear was still there, but the love; the love was just so overwhelming. He didn't know where to put it; but, just like this room, it all fit.

He felt her as soon as she started down the hallway, not embarrassed in the least about the tear she wiped away. Lani pressed a kiss to his jaw whispering words of love that didn't help his composure in the least.

"Love you, too." He replied brushing a kiss to his wife's temple. "They're sharing a car."

-End-