Jim reached out and carefully brushed Claire's hair from her face. She scrunched her nose in unconscious protest, her eyelids fluttering before her expression fell back into one of dozing neutrality.
He smiled, heart fluttering fondly. More carefully, he shifted their blankets, pulling the covers up to protect Claire's exposed shoulder from the subterranean chill.
Claire suddenly started, eyes popping open. Jim winced with guilt, worried he had woken her.
"Ow," she grunted in discomfort, wincing. "Definitely a soccer player. One of them is definitely playing soccer."
Jim rumbled sympathetically.
Claire rolled with some difficulty to face the other way and began groping around for her phone. Jim took the opportunity to hook his arm around her waist and reel her in towards him.
"Nooo," Claire groaned in protest, but he could hear the playful lilt in her voice, "I need to get up."
"Five more minutes," he mumbled into her unruly hair, his hand moving to engulf the curve of her stomach. Almost immediately his palm was assaulted by a flurry of tiny kicks.
Claire wiggled back into him and allowed herself a content sigh as she gathered the blankets beneath her chin. "Ok, five minutes."
She felt the vibrations from his chest pressed against her back as he rumbled happily.
It was a tiny victory, but Jim was going to indulge in it.
He dipped his head down to nuzzle affectionately into her neck, immediately freezing when she made a quiet sound of protest.
"Easy," Claire cautioned with a yawn. "We've only got five minutes and I've been medically forbidden from any funny business."
"Funny business?" Jim scoffed in feigned indignation. "Wow. Didn't know you thought it was funny."
She laughed, rolling uneasily to face him. She pressed her lips to his in a quick peck. "That doesn't mean I don't enjoy it," she responded coyly.
"Careful," Jim cautioned with a grin. "We've only got five minutes."
His hand came up to cup her cheek and he guided her back to him for another kiss. When they parted, he felt Claire's fingers ghost against his ribcage, tracing old battle scars she was so familiar with she could follow their patterns without seeing them.
She looked back at him with a sad little smile. "I really do have to get up soon."
"I know," Jim lowered his head and pressed his forehead to hers. Claire closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. "But we've still got a few minutes left."
"I'll call you," Claire promised, watching Jim load her bag into the trunk of her car. "Whenever I can."
Jim closed the trunk and smirked. "Whenever we both have a signal, you mean."
"That is a big factor, yeah." Claire responded, folding her arms over the roof of the vehicle. "But it's just Arcadia. It's not like Merlin's dragging me off for a magic lesson in some weird jungle or anything. A signal's going to be a little easier to come by."
Jim moved around the car to stand behind her, stooping to coil his arms around her waist. "Looking forward to staying with your parents?"
"It's gonna be weird," Claire admitted. "We get along alot better than we used to. But it's still going to be super weird. Spending more time with Enrique will be cool, though. I mean, what nine year old wouldn't want to hang out with his pregnant, much older sister?"
Jim chuckled. "Maybe you can try doing some magic tricks."
"There's an idea," Claire considered thoughtfully. "Something small should be ok, right? Or am I being too cautious about the whole 'magic while pregnant' thing? Maybe I should just go all in and conjure him something."
Jim quirked a brow. "Is that… is that something you know how to do?"
"I might have copied something down forever ago. But I don't think it was a complete spell," Claire made a mental note to check the battered notebook that she had been using to document her magic lessons. She shrugged. "Maybe I can wing it."
"Please don't," Jim said, a somewhat worried edge to his voice.
Claire laughed and turned to face him. "Fine. But when Enrique asks why I can't summon him some weird eldritch horror, I'm going to tell him it's all the mean Trollhunter man's fault."
"I think your parents would thank me," Jim countered. "Infact, if you could just drop that, even if he doesn't ask about it, that'd be great. I could use a couple more points in their favor."
"Yeah, especially after knocking me up out of wedlock. Very scandalous."
"Hey, what happened to 'it takes two?'"
"I know that," Claire began. "But my parents aren't quite as cool as me."
She gave his shirt a meaningful tug and Jim bent down for a kiss. Their eyes met as they parted and Claire set to fussing with his collar. Having something to do with her hands seemed to help distract from the heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"Ok, you still have time. Go give Nomura your amulet and get in the car. Tell everyone you're on paternity leave," she suggested, tone playful but the sad edge was unmistakable.
Jim huffed. "Would if I could. Trollhunting doesn't really offer many benefits, unfortunately."
"We really need a union." Claire joked, half-heartedly.
They met in another kiss, more tender and lingering than the first, making the most of what would be their last for the months to come.
Jim was more than a little surprised to find Nomura waiting outside the gyre station for him.
She was busy picking at her claws with a dagger and when he approached, her glowing green eyes snapped up to stare at him.
He marveled for a moment at how those same eyes used to make his blood run cold.
Under normal circumstances, he didn't see her around Trollmarket unless she was out bartering for food or supplies, or on the rare occasions she popped into Blinky's library to borrow a book or two.
And it was for that reason that Jim couldn't help feeling a small twinge of concern that something was wrong, but he was careful to exercise his usual politeness toward his friend.
"Hey, Nomura," he raised a hand in a small wave. "What's, uh, what's up?"
"Are you always here so late?" She growled, looking back at the gyre station behind him as the rest of the crew filed out into the streets, many of which were heading in the unmistakable direction of the Glug's pub.
"I mean," Jim shrugged, scratching his jaw. He hadn't really been paying attention to how late it was. "Usually? We're trying to get the gyre finished as, uh. As soon as possible."
Nomura hummed in thought, eyes shifting back to him. Her pupils expanded slightly, searching for something in his face.
Jim fidgeted uneasily under her scrutiny. "Did you… did you, uh, want something, Nomura-"
"I need your help." She responded bluntly, continuing to clean her dangerously sharp claws with her equally as dangerously sharp weapon. "I need to make a, what is it now? A call? Yeah, one of those."
"Oh," Jim blinked in surprise. He couldn't remember a time that the changeling had ever made a call before. At least, not so blatantly. "What do you need help with?"
Nomura inclined her head, gesturing him to follow but she made no attempt to explain.
Jim hesitated before falling into step behind her. With the changeling taking the lead, they made their way through the heart of Trollmarket, passed vendors managing their stalls and storefronts- several of whom tossed loud greetings toward their resident Trollhunter- and into the outskirts of the city.
As they began to climb their way along a narrow path that winded it way along a steep precipice, Jim realized they were heading for Nomura's cave.
"So, um," Jim began after a while of climbing. "Are you going to tell me what we're doing or is it a surprise?"
"I'm moving." Nomura responded flatly.
"Oh." Jim hadn't been expecting that. "Is there… something wrong with your cave?"
"Someone had mentioned recently that it might be easier on visitors if I lived closer to Trollmarket," she responded. "I've been giving it some thought and figured they might have the right idea."
Nomura bounced lithely over a crumbled gap in the path. As Jim hopped over it himself he couldn't help but remember how Claire had made this same journey a couple weeks before. It was a genuine struggle to suppress the worried frustration he felt as he imagined his very pregnant girlfriend trying to jump the gap.
"Didn't think you really liked having visitors." Jim remarked.
"Not particularly." Came Nomura's growling response. "But, assuming my lessons with the human are going to continue when she returns, I imagine it would be easier for her when she's stuck carting around your whelps if I were more accessible."
"That's… considerate of you, Nomura." Jim regarded the troll curiously, unfamiliar with seeing a side of her that wasn't readily brandishing a weapon at something. "I think Claire will appreciate that. I do too."
"Yeah, well. Don't be too grateful," the changeling cautioned quickly. "I get bored during these peacetimes. She can be a refreshing distraction. She has grit."
"Yeah, and she's stubborn too," Jim sighed, weary fondness in his tone as he stepped over yet another break in the path.
"You've got some of that yourself," Nomura sneered over her shoulder. "Bodes well for your offspring."
Jim snorted. "Heh. Don't remind me."
They walked in silence for a time as they drew near to the top of the precipice.
Jim looked off to the side, out over the admittedly brilliant view of the distant entirety of New Trollmarket. The heartstone rested at the center of it all, its brilliant green glow pulsing like a heartbeat.
"And you're completely sold on keeping them? Your whelps, I mean." Nomura asked, alarmingly nonchalant.
"Well, yeah," Jim responded. "We're, uh, pretty attached already."
Nomura clucked her tongue. "Pity. Plenty of powerful spells call for a baby or two."
She heard Jim falter behind her and the changeling rolled her eyes. She looked over her shoulder at him. "I'm just kidding."
Somewhat.
"So are you the one who taught Claire to conjure… something?" Jim ventured curiously.
Nomura thought for a moment. "Conjure what?"
Jim shrugged, making an uncertain sound.
A beat passed before Nomura shrugged. "Possibly."
They reached Nomura's cave and the changeling snapped back the curtain that obscured it's entrance.
"Whoa. You have a lot more stuff than I expected." Jim commented, eyes roaming over numerous boxes and locked chests that had been stacked neatly against the walls.
"I've collected some things over the years." Nomura explained simply, stooping to pick up one of the chests. The metallic sounds produced from within gave away that it probably contained weapons.
Naturally.
"Break anything," Nomura growled in warning, jabbing a claw at the Trollhunter's chest. "I will personally kill you- pending paternal status or not. And I trained you for years, so I know all your moves."
Jim pointed back at her, unphased by the empty threat. "Likewise."
Nomura's new cave, recently abandoned by a small family of trolls who had decided to return to their home tribe, was a considerable distance closer to the heart of the city. For any following magic lessons, Claire would only have a short, ten minute walk from the heartstone if she cut through the central market.
And nothing steep and potentially dangerous to climb, Jim couldn't help but note with approval.
It took several trips to transport all of Nomura's things to her new home and, while the work was tedious and involved way too many long walks back and forth for either of their liking, Nomura's occasional snide remarks and Jim's sarcastic retorts reminded the Trollhunter of just how little the pair of them had been interacting as of late.
With Blinky's then newly acclaimed status as Trollmarket Elder, Nomura had taken over much of his combat training when they hit the road from Arcadia. With the new Elder busying himself with the well being of the trolls and Merlin monopolising much of Claire's time, Nomura and he had spent a significant amount of time in each other's company.
And it was Nomura who had frequently knocked him back into shape whenever Jim would step out of line during his frustratingly troubled late teens.
Answering the changeling's call had offered a sense of familiarity the Trollhunter hadn't realised he'd missed.
"How do you feel about having neighbor's again?" Jim asked, setting down the last of Nomura's boxes.
"Tolerant." She replied flatly, following him into the cave. In her arms, she carried a bundle of woven fabric.
She stopped in the center of the main room and unrolled the bundle with a snappy flourish, guiding it down to the cave floor.
Jim moved to look over her shoulder.
The rug looked old, the once brilliantly colored threads faded from however many years it'd been since its creation. Accents of purples and oranges were woven throughout the brilliant azure fabric, depicting an abstract scene of trolls fighting a beast Jim could not name, either because he'd never come across such a creature or it was stylized beyond the point of easy recognizability.
"What's that?" He asked.
"A relic. Of sorts," Nomura replied as she made her way around the rug, smoothing out the crumpled fabric and straightening out the frayed tassels that decorated the edges. "It's from my birth tribe."
There was a strange tenderness in her voice that made Jim give pause. Long as he'd known her- which, he supposed for trolls wasn't much time at all- he couldn't remember a time where she'd ever mentioned anything about her family before the Janus Order.
He crouched down toward the ground beside her, inspecting the old rug more closely. "It's pretty. The colors, I mean," he explained quickly when Nomura fixed her gaze on him. "That's a, uh, nice shade of red for the blood."
That comment earned him a dry chuckle.
Jim lowered his hand to feel the textured surface of the rug. "What's this a scene of?"
"I don't know," Nomura answered. "A hunt, of some kind. A successful one, as you so observantly pointed out." She outlined the red pattern bursting from the unidentified beast's flank.
Jim watched her carefully for a moment, raising a hand to absently run his palm along one of his horns. "I don't think I've seen this before."
"I've only had it for a few years." Nomura explained. "These peacetimes make me restless. And, with the war I've been raised to fight over and done with, I've just been… collecting." She gestured to the boxes surrounding them.
"From your old tribe?"
"Not all, but much of it." She folded her legs underneath her, observing the rug with more scrutiny. "I don't remember much. In the Order, the trick was to take whelps when they're too young to fight back. And a troll too young to fight is too young to remember much of anything before becoming a changeling.
"We were a nomadic people, I know that. I can remember our weapons-," she followed the familiar sickle shape of the depicted trolls' blades, "-and I remember this. But that's it."
"I'm sorry." Jim said softly.
"What for?" Nomura regarded him, confused by his apology. "You didn't have anything to do with this. You weren't even a concept yet."
"Yeah, but-"
"Stop," Nomura snapped, reaching for one of the nearby chests and popping it open. She began setting out the ancient looking tea set contained within. "It's one thing to explore your history, but it's not worth the effort to linger on what could have been. All things considered, what this life has lead to could be much worse."
She took the kettle and moved toward the stove. "We're in a time of peace. A few years ago, I never would have even thought that possible."
Jim watched her for a moment, thoughtful, before his gaze drifted back toward the tapestry before him. His thoughts wandered toward his own history, of what his family used to be; of a father be barely remembered, of his mother who had always been strong, even despite the hurt her ex husband had caused her.
He thought of what his family had become; of his father figure Blinky, of Strickler who- despite his complicated feelings toward the changeling- was far better for his mother than his biological father had ever been. He thought of little Wally and Nell- the rambunctious changeling familiars that his mother had taken into her care since his leaving Arcadia. He thought of Claire, so fierce and unapologetically herself, and of their twins who no one would meet properly for months to come.
His heart sunk, worry creeping its way back into his brain that the gyre wouldn't be completed in time, that his children would come into the world not knowing their father for however long it would take for the damn thing to finish being built-
Something thunked against his horn and Jim winced, vibrations racing down toward his temples and rattling around in his skull. He clapped a hand to his head and looked up at Nomura, who stood over him with kettle in hand.
"Stop that."
"Stop what?" Jim exclaimed.
"That." Nomura pointed toward his face. "That face you keep making. You've had that face since Claire left. Always looking like a kicked dog."
"I do not look like a kicked dog." Jim bristled defensively.
"You do." Nomura insisted. "Blinky said you haven't been going home til late, that you're always at the gyre station-"
"You've been talking to Blinky? What-"
"-You've been working yourself ragged. You don't even look like you've had a decent night's sleep or even bathed properly in days-"
"-Ok, we literally live around plenty of trolls who don't even know what soap is, so I don't get why I'm the one catching heat."
"They're not part human." Nomura countered. "This isn't a healthy way for you to live. Just because Claire's gone, doesn't mean you have to start neglecting yourself- you're the Trollhunter. People depend on you."
"I know that, Nomura. Believe me, I'm well aware of how many people depend on me." Jim growled, growing increasingly frustrated by this topic of conversation. "And I'm trying to manage everything the best that I can. But on top of all of my regular responsibilities, I'm trying to get the gyre finished so that, maybe, I can actually be there when these kids Claire and I made are born. So that, maybe, I can start this whole fatherhood thing with my best foot forward, instead of fumbling that like I end up fumbling everything else!"
Nomura was silent, clearly uncomfortable by his outburst. She lowered herself into a sitting position on the ground.
Another beat passed before she rumbled uneasily.
"I see I've hit a button of yours." She stated simply, tensed.
Jim couldn't help himself. He laughed, loud and real and unbridled.
"Yeah," he managed in between breaths, wiping at the tears gathering in his eyes. "You hit a big red button."
"I just wanted you to get some decent sleep and to stop moping around," Nomura clarified, smirking despite herself. She grabbed one of the teacups and passed one to the Trollhunter.
Jim nodded, accepting the cup. "I mean, I'll try. But any time I'm not working on that stupid gyre, I start thinking about the labor scare we had and I get all 'what if it's happening right now?' And I can't ever relax enough to actually sleep."
Nomura motioned for him to raise his cup so she could fill it. "Have you been talking to Claire?"
"Here and there," Jim grumbled.
The changeling lowered her kettle and pushed Jim's cup toward him. "Drink that. It'll help you sleep."
"What is it?" Jim asked, giving his cup a sniff.
"Tea."
Jim watched her sketically. "...Same kind of tea you used to knock my mom out forever ago?"
"Wouldn't you like to know." Nomura turned to fill her own cup. She set the kettle aside and the pair of them sat in silence, blowing on their drinks to cool before taking tentative sips.
Without warning, she gave Jim a shove hard enough to knock him off balance.
"Hey!" He cried out, catching himself before he spilled any of his tea. "What was that for?"
"I'm giving you a pass this time because you've been under a lot of stress," Nomura began, regally sipping at her cup. "But growl at me like that again and I'll snap your skinny little legs."
Jim regarded his legs thoughtfully for several moments before shrugging. "They used to be skinnier."
Nomura chuckled. "Not by much."
Their conversation as they drank their tea was pleasant and polite. They talked about nothing and everything; catching up on what they'd missed of each other's lives and vague details of their respective plans for the future. Jim offered his advice on how she could set up and organize her cave and Nomura doled out her critique on his and Claire's current naming options for their unborn children.
Playing the part of the good host, Nomura filled her guest's cup whenever it grew low and was careful to keep the stove going to chase away the chill of her new dwelling.
"You know," Jim scratched absently at his ear, swirling the contents of his cup. "There are going to be a lot of trollhunting duties Claire and I are going to need to delegate out once the twins are born."
"She'd mentioned as much," Nomura replied, dipping her chin in a nod.
"With you living closer now, it could maybe make it easier for you to take on some of that." He suggested with a solid attempt at a nonchalant shrug before lifting his drink to his lips.
"Possibly." The changeling responded noncommittally.
Jim winced as the scalding beverage met his tongue.
"But, you know," he coughed. "That's just a suggestion."
"I've been getting a lot of those lately." Nomura remarked, blowing away the steam drifting from her own cup.
"Hey, I've even got your first call lined up." Jim informed with a grin.
"And what would that be?" The changeling asked carefully.
"We've still got to get a nursery put together for the twins-"
"Not a chance, little Gynt."