AN: Here we are, another chapter!
I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!
111
"Since you made it clear that it was not proper to ask before, may I ask now why it is so cold in here?" Elnor asked.
Elnor sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor with Raffi, their backs against the couch, in the mostly dark room. Raffi had brought him a blanket, and he wore it like a cape, much like she did. Between them were the remnants of their movie snacks. From time to time, Raffi picked at a pretzel, ate a few pieces of semi-stale popcorn, or selected a piece of chocolate from small assortment that she'd replicated to solve Seven's earlier sweet tooth.
The room was almost entirely dark because they'd lowered the lights to better enjoy the movie—some old Earth flick about what they had believed space travel would be like, long before anyone had done much more than go to the moon or visit a few planets that hadn't been settled yet; long before first contact with the Vulcans. Together, as a family, they'd all laughed at the little green men that didn't resemble any species that Raffi had actually seen—though she was reserving judgment until they'd seen more of the Delta Quadrant—and the wild ideas of how people would live on imaginary planets.
It wasn't late, really, but Seven had fallen asleep on the couch and, currently, she was sleeping pretty soundly.
"Seven was burning up," Raffi said. "Dr. Crusher thinks it could be a result of the…you know…maybe the hormonal response to Baby M's growth spurt or, maybe, it could just be a metabolic reaction to the growth spurt."
Elnor glanced back over Raffi's shoulder toward Seven. Thanks to the very low ambient lighting, he could see Seven sleeping, even if he couldn't make out every detail of her features.
"Should we relocate her so that she's more comfortable?" Elnor asked.
Raffi sat up enough to be able to look over her own shoulder at her wife. She smiled to herself.
"She looks pretty comfortable," Raffi said. "I think it's better if we just leave her where she is for now. I'll wake her when I get ready to bed. That way she can brush her teeth and regenerate, if she wants. We should let her sleep, though. It can't hurt anything, and it's possible that Baby M's growth spurt burned a lot of energy, or something. Come on—I'll show you the nursery and we can talk in there without worrying about waking her."
If Raffi had intended to actually get up entirely by herself, that was soon put to the wayside. Elnor was faster to his feet and his offered hand to help her up practically sat her on her feet as fast as she could unfold her legs.
He smiled at her, looking simply pleased to now be standing with her where he'd once been sitting. Raffi's natural response was to reach out to him and to hug him. He hugged her back, enthusiastically, clearly thrilled with the unexpected affection.
"Come on," Raffi said, tugging Elnor's hand. "I'll show you your sister's nursery."
Elnor followed Raffi into the nursery, and Raffi closed the door behind them so that nothing they said or did there would disturb Seven's slumber.
Elnor looked around.
"This room is an absolute mess," he said. "It appears that you've had some kind of replicator malfunction."
There was, Raffi thought, something to be said about having a child—though Elnor was nearly an adult—who had absolutely no filter and limited ability to truly consider how absolute candor might affect someone's feelings.
"Yeah," she mused, looking around at the islands of "parts" she'd placed throughout the room. "It's going to get better."
"Do you need assistance moving all of this out of here?" Elnor asked. "There's a large recycler near the mess that can handle a pretty great volume of matter at one time."
"What I need is assistance assembling all of this," Raffi said. She sighed and walked over to the pile that belonged to the bassinet. "I have to get this put together, safely, by the time I go to bed."
"What is it?"
"It's a bassinet," Raffi said. "A baby bed."
Elnor picked his way around the islands of parts. He didn't know what all of them were for, obviously, but he could at least tell that there was some kind of method to Raffi's madness.
"Isn't that what these are for?" He asked, patting the railing of one of the cribs—the one that they had arbitrarily designated the one that they would use for Baby M.
"Yes," Raffi said. "That's a crib, and that's for Baby M to sleep in."
"How many beds does she require?" Elnor asked.
Raffi laughed quietly.
"This will be a bassinet," Raffi said. "It's smaller, and it'll go right by our bed. It'll go right by Seven's side of the bed, to be exact, and it'll be a place for Baby M to sleep when she's too small to be all the way in here. Also—it'll help with nighttime feedings. We won't have as far to go to get her when she's feeding every couple of hours."
Raffi could tell that Elnor was unsure about the whole thing. Still, he accepted her explanation.
"And the rest of this?" He asked, gesturing somewhat vaguely at the mess.
Raffi winced.
"This is everything else that we might need in the nursery," Raffi said. "For Baby M and anyone else who might join us in the future."
"I don't require even a quarter of this quantity of items," Elnor pointed out.
Raffi sighed.
"Yeah—well, you're our least needy child," she said. "And…babies need more. And if we're being entirely honest, I imagine that we'll find that Baby M doesn't need half of this. But—it's been a long time since I put together a nursery, and half the PADDs we've gone through have given us recommendations of what we absolutely have to have on hand. Seven's never done this before, and…"
"I understand," Elnor said, reaching his hands out to touch Raffi's shoulders and ground her. She realized that, just maybe, she was doing a bit of bottling up. Things had to come out eventually, after all. She smiled at Elnor.
"Seven is excited about the baby, but these changes are so unpredictable. I mean—we're learning as we go, and we'll be ready for the next one, I think, a bit more. But, when we wake up and Baby M's done some pretty dramatic growing through the night, it kicks everything into overdrive. All that instinct. Expectant mothers—at least human ones—have this sort of nesting instinct. It's this need to get everything ready for the baby. The only thing is, Seven hasn't even reached the normal point where it happens, but it's like she's been pushed into because there are no guarantees. Both of the doctors want twenty more weeks of development, at least. But twenty weeks to Baby M isn't twenty weeks to everyone else. At least not right now. Not with the nanonannies running things. It could take her the full twenty weeks to get to the finish line, or we could wake up next week to find out that she's due any minute. Seven's feeling that pressure, and I'm feeling the pressure to help her not feel that."
Raffi sucked in a breath and blew it out. She looked around the room and shrugged.
"And this isn't your burden, Elnor," she said.
"She's my sister," Elnor said. "She isn't a burden."
"No, and I didn't mean that. I didn't mean her, specifically. I just meant this." She gestured at the mess.
"If she were to be born tomorrow," Elnor said, "which it sounds like she will probably not be born for at least a few days, what would she most require?"
"Ehh," Raffi said, the sound non-committal, as she wandered around the room. On each island of parts, she'd placed the replicated instructions for how to put the items together. They were theoretically designed so that anyone—even the civilians with no training and no advanced education beyond standard studies—could follow them to put something together. In reality, Raffi felt, as an engineer, that it was easier to put an entire shuttle craft together from scrap parts than it was to get the damned bassinet to look like it was strong enough to hold a ten-pound infant.
"Raffi—focus," Elnor said.
"Sorry," Raffi said. She laughed to herself. "Maybe I've got baby brain, too. Maybe it's contagious. The bassinet. Seven wants the bassinet, and it's going to be useful. That changing table and…a dresser for organizing the baby's clothes, linens…diapers—which we also haven't started preparing, but we ought to have some on hand so we're not constantly at the replicator. A swing."
"Fine," Elnor said.
"Fine?" Raffi asked.
"We'll put those together now."
"Elnor—it's 19:00 hours," Raffi said. "We'll never get all that together."
Elnor smiled at her and raised his eyebrows.
"Are you doubting our abilities?" He asked.
"Yes," Raffi said. "I'm absolutely doubting our abilities. If it were that easy, I'd have it done by now."
"The problem is," Elnor said, "you've been trying to do it yourself." He tapped his combadge. "Elnor to Wildman…"
Raffi stood there, arms crossed across her chest, amused as Elnor called several people to help with their dilemma. Few of those coming were engineers—some were scientists, others were command—but they were all willing to pitch in at 19:00 hours, while the Gamma Shift was keeping the proverbial lights on, to help make sure that Baby Musiker had everything she needed, and that Seven and Raffi both could rest well, knowing that they were prepared for her—whenever her mother's nanonannies might decide that she was ready to come into the world.
"We'd better wake Seven up," Raffi teased. "She's not going to sleep through this."
111
Seven had protested, at first, the need to invite so many people to join in putting together the nursery at a moment's notice and relatively late in the evening, but her protests had quickly been forgotten as their quarters were filled with people who were very obviously happy to be there and to help—all of them dressed for the nearly subarctic temperatures, as they'd been instructed to do.
Raffi couldn't help but feel a truly overwhelming support from the number of people that showed up. Nobody had to be there. Nobody had been guilted into coming. Nobody had been begged. The whole thing had been presented, either by Elnor or by someone that Elnor had contacted, as merely an impromptu gathering to get things together for Baby Musiker, since her arrival time was, at best, unpredictable.
Raffi had pointed out the pieces that she thought were most important, but people had paid relatively little attention to that. By the time the last people were ready to leave, there was nothing left in the room that needed to be put together, and many of the mothers of the group remained behind to put finishing touches on things that they simply thought might be beneficial to Baby Musiker and her mommies.
"I getta take care of the baby all by myself, right?" Kestra Troi-Riker pressed; her hands planted on either side of Seven's belly as she admired the proof of their future arrival and tried to make some kind of empathic contact with the baby.
"I'll be doing most of the babysitting," Sekaya Janeway informed her from where she was folding clothes according to her mother's instructions. When everyone finished, Raffi was pretty sure that Seven would be entirely without a worry moving forward—at least in regard to having what she needed to care for the baby after her arrival. "It's important to be responsible when you're taking care of a baby."
"I'm babysitting," Miral growled. Raffi could hear the slight pick-up in her tone that came from a slightly sharp edge on her temper—something that came very easily, given her ancestry and her age. "Raffi already promised me. And I've had practice taking care of Owen."
"I've taken care of Owen, too," Sekaya protested.
"That's not fair!" Kestra said, moving her hands from petting Seven long enough to ball them up at her sides. "I only just got to know Owen, but I could take care of him, too!"
"I'm suddenly glad that I never had to deal with a girl," Doctor Crusher offered—Beverly, as she insisted to be called while discussing the different kinds of diapers with Seven and Raffi that they might prefer to try first with their baby.
"Girls! Girls!" Kathryn Janeway barked. When she wasn't loud enough to cut through the squabble that broke out among the three sometimes-friends, B'Elanna interjected her own voice and, between the two of them, they were able to quiet down the squabbling teens.
"None of you are babysitting," Naomi Wildman offered with a laugh. "Because Elnor and I are going to keep Baby Musiker when her mommies need a break."
"She's joking!" B'Elanna said loudly, before the uproar could begin again. "She's joking! At least—mostly. Look—there are plenty of babies to go around, and plenty of parents who need a night off. Owen would love to make the rounds and give everyone a taste of what it's like to have a Klingon baby."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Miral asked her mother, practically growling at her. B'Elanna rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"It means that you all get to babysit," B'Elanna said.
"But not with these attitudes," Raffi said. Suddenly, she had the attention of every one of the teenagers—each very different, but proof that some things extended across a variety of species. Raffi smiled at all of them, and she lowered her voice to the softest she could make it and still be heard. "We want Baby Musiker to spend as much of her life in peace, and happiness, and light, as possible. Whether her babysitters are human, or Klingon, or even Betazoid, we want her to have loved ones looking out for her who are committed to her safety, well-being, and happiness. She can't get that from the energy you're bringing to the table right now."
Miral looked the most betrayed, possibly because she'd already spent a fair amount of time in Raffi's presence for various reasons. Miral had suffered the indignity, after all, of crawling into a baby's crib and testing out its strength and integrity.
"You promised."
Raffi held her arms out. Miral was reluctant, but Raffi only had to wiggle her fingers at her for her to finally come and grab her in a hard hug—the type that took her breath away a little.
"Resistance is futile," Raffi teased with a laugh as she squeezed Miral back. "You're babysitting. You're all babysitting. We'll need plenty of help with Baby M. Just like we saw tonight, it takes a village. And we've got the best damn village that anyone ever had. But I mean what I said. I'm not dealing with your squabbling teenaged drama, so you girls better work that out. Every last one of you is a role model to Baby M, and she only needs to learn the best that each of you has to offer. We only accept the best of everyone in our collective."