October, 1999

Erik pulled his thin lips into a severe frown.

He pouted, and then huffed in dejection before he pulled them back into a beaming grin that bared all of his teeth. When the appropriate reaction wasn't solicited, he chewed on his bottom lip in thought before he pulled both of hands up to his face, covered his eyes, then quickly pulled them away. He repeated the movement a few more times, exaggerating the raise of his brows and a offering a soft gasp again and again.

"Nothing," he moaned into the crook of his arm.

"She's only four months, Erik, give her time."

Erik sighed as he placed his chin on the tabletop, and leveled his gaze to his daughter's eye line. She stared back with her mother's bright, blue eyes. Erik dejectedly lifted his head, and glumly shoved a tiny, plastic spoon into a container of apple sauce. He offered it to the little girl's firmly closed lips.

"She doesn't like me," Erik complained. Magda laughed from where she stood by the sink, hand-washing the dishes despite Erik's demands to use the dishwasher he had just bought her.

"Anya Ruth Lehnsherr," Erik started firmly, "You will eat this applesauce, and you will give your favorite papa a smile."

The baby frowned, lower lip pushed out and little brows puckered in the middle, before she waved a bracelet-clad arm in the air and effectively knocked the entire spoon out of her father's hand. Erik ruefully watched as the spoon clattered to the floor and splashed bits of sauce on his trouser-clad leg. Magda's laughter was a little heartier this time around.

Anya's wobbly head turned to her mother's sudden laugh, and a playful coo erupted from her lips as she banged sauce covered hands atop the plastic tray of her highchair. Magda smiled fondly at Erik's pout as she placed her last plate in the dish rack. She wiped her pruned hands with a hand towel before coming forward and picking up the gurgling baby.

"Hello, sweetie," she cooed before placing a chaste kiss on Anya's dark hair. She transferred the baby to her hip so that she could carefully grasp the bracelet her daughter was bestowed. "Looks like we didn't completely escape the sauce-capade."

Erik placed an elbow on the table, and rested his chin within his hand as he watched his wife and daughter interact. He almost didn't give Ruth's bracelet to his daughter, but Magda had convinced him that it was something his late sister would have wanted. Although Ruth would have been delighted enough by the fact that his child was named after her.

"Well, ladies," his affection-coated words ringing out in the near quiet of their home, "Papa needs to make sure his bags are packed."

Magda looked up in surprise. "I forgot."

Erik smiled warmly. "It will only be a few days." He bent over to grab the spoon from the floor, before standing up and walking behind his wife. He still clasped the utensil in his hand as he wrapped his arms around Magda's middle, and rested his chin on her shoulder. He placed a small kiss on her neck before settling back again. "But I will miss you both fiercely, all the same."

Magda sighed, offering a small jounce of her hips to keep Anya preoccupied. "We will miss you very much."

They stood together for several minutes, content to listen to one another breathe and watch Anya play with strands of her mother's frizzy hair with stubby fingers. Magda murmured affectionately to her child in her usual, Polish tongue; her cheek pressed to the side of Erik's face.

"Don't you think she'd be confused by the two of us speaking two different languages?" Erik finally asked after a moment longer. "I speak German, and you Polish. Should we pick only one?"

"No," Magda replied back. "She will be taught all the languages we know."

"Okay, Mrs. Lehnsherr," Erik conceded with a smile. "Wish me luck at our match?"

"Good luck, Mr. Lehnsherr." She turned her head for an awkwardly placed kiss. "Kick some ass."

TBC...

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