Chapter 8 the first six months of Maia's life
First month
Kate was hardly separated from Maia, whenever Maia was out of her arms, she stay where she could see Maia. Expect for when Will held Maia.
Kate was sick with an infection of the kidneys called pyelonephritis and was asleep in the infirmary. Magnus had her on a drip which put antibiotics straight into her vein. Declan was looking after the week old Maia.
Declan walked around the infirmary singing quietly," The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown. The lion beat the unicorn all around the town. Some gave then white bread, and some gave them brown; some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town."
Maia seemed to quite like Declan's singing. Henry had started his journey off trying to find Magnus and Declan to tell them that he had partly cracked the code of Declan's necklace and Magnus's bracelet. He had spent hours going through the fraction of database of the Praxian map and he had come across so interesting information. But when Henry walked into the infirmary and saw Declan singing and walking around with Maia in his arms, the sight was so cute that it made Henry forget his mission.
Will came into the infirmary and told Declan that Nathaniel was on the phone for him. Apparently there something wrong with the UK security system. Nathaniel wouldn't say what was wrong but he kept repeating the code word 'Coulson'. He said Declan would know what it meant.
Declan muutered under his breath, "Nathaniel, you have been in command for nearly 10 months and only now you found this part of the system?"
Declan told Will he would only have to look after her for five minutes and remarked that Nate was a stupid article. After he handed Maia to Will, Will tried to cuddle Maia.
Maia didn't know who was holding her, but she knew it was her dad and she didn't like being held by this strange man. So she made her feelings known and cried. So she cried so much that Will handed her to Henry.
Maia's crying woke Kate up. She watched Will, clearly not knowing what to do with Maia, hand Maia over to Henry. Maia was more familiar with Henry and she liked him. So as soon as she was in Henry's arms, she stopped crying.
When Maia stopped crying, Kate smiled and said, "Aw, she likes you, Uncle Hank."
Will asks, "What did you do?"
Henry shrugged, "I don't know, I just smiled at her I guess."
"But I was smiling at her!" Will whined. Kate wasn't sure if Will was upset because Maia didn't like him or she called Henry 'uncle'.
Henry held her for a few minutes before putting her back in her crib next to Kate's bed.
Henry later found Magnus and Declan what he had found. Magnus bracelet had the coat-of-arms of a high born family of the Lycanthropeus Vampirs. When several members form two families marry, they form a new high born clan and the two coat-of-arms get combined. The high born families are the only ones who ride dragons and the kind dragons they ride are on their family coat-of-arms. The database told Herny that the dragon with no wings and saddle impression on it's back holding the sword and rifle was most likely from the Satteldach clan, a family of famous warriors and weapon builders. The dark green jade was the family colour because their dragons are the same colour. Wearing jewellery with a clan's coat-of-arms showed that the wearer was an ally of that clan.
Magnus, from John's letter, was able to guess the name of the other dragon represented the Grau clan. This seemed to confirm what he had told her in his letter. But Magnus still wasn't sure if she was prepared to believe everything in John's letter. She suggested to Henry to search the database for information about a Lycanthropeus Vampirs family called the Grau clan. But Henry told her that he already tried to find the other dragon but it most have been on the part of the database hadn't been downloaded yet.
Once she got over her infection, Kate actually found that working for the Sanctuary had prepared her well for motherhood. She used to wake up at all hours of the night to feed abnormals, now she got up at all hours to feed her baby.
Although, one morning Kate was really tired, she said to Helen, with dark circles under her eyes, "You know, there is something about the SAS that it turns out guys that no matter how many times their baby daughter woke them up last night, they are still ready for any and all action the next day."
Helen chuckled in agreement before offering to watch Maia for an hour or two so Kate could have a well-deserved nap.
When Maia was four weeks old, Declan was walking down a flight of stairs while caring her and he missed a step. He then contorted his body so that it nearly every part of him and no part of Maia touched the ground. After coming to the end of the journey, he opened his arms to look at Maia and make sure she was okay. Declan found that she was smiling and giggling and thoroughly enjoyed the journey. Later he still thought that it was worth get a concussion to see Maia's first smile. Kate never had the heart to tell him that he hadn't seen her first smile, but she decided that, given he got a concussion, to let him believe that one.
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2 months
Declan worked out in the mornings often while Kate is feeding Maia, sometimes he swears Maia is watching him. He is sure of this when she starts doing mini-pushups, (lifting her head and shoulders) Kate loves rolling around with her baby. Although, now Kate had to kept one of her hands on Maia when changing her to stop her rolling off the bench.
Kate wouldn't let Abby anywhere near her or her baby. Declan kept pretending that they very both sick and showed Abby pictures of Maia on his phone. And he would very politely ask Will not to invite Abby over to see Maia without absolutely clearing it with Kate first. Biggie and Henry had a running bet on when Will was just going to send Kate around the bend and kill him and Abby before feeding them to something in the Shoe. Magnus didn't approve of this bet when she found out because she thought that may actually just happen.
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3 months
One night, Henry was doing something in his lab. The said something caused the Sanctuary to have a blackout.
Kate was in a good mood that night and wasn't bothered too much when the lights out. She simply finished feeding Maia before putting her in her sling and going to help the others with the candles.
When Declan came to their room, he couldn't help but tell Kate how beautiful she looked in candle-light. Kate raised her eye brows, put their sleepy daughter in her crib and told Declan that she would like him to show her how beautiful she was.
Kate and Declan make gentle love on the floor of their room. Gentle as they were trying to be quite and not wake their baby, whom they assumed was asleep. Little did they know that Maia was already awake and was happily watching the candle light flicker on the walls.
Maia's first swimming lessons were with Declan, Kate and Sally. Maia loved swimming. Sally loved Maia. Especially playing with her and Maia was quite fond of her. So, Declan soon got Sally to after their baby during her swimming lesson while he finally taught Kate how to dive.
4 months
Maia starts babbling, combining consonants and vowels 'baba' and 'yaya'. She says 'mama' and 'dada' she says 'nana' when Helen holds her and she says the same thing when the big guy holds her. Helen says that she won't equate certain words to individual until she is one year old.
5 months
When Maia started crawling, Kate and Declan tried really had to never let her out of their sight. But Maia wasn't the baby of a former SAS officer and a con woman for nothing, and every time she did escape, The Big Guy or Henry (whichever is closest at the time) would have to help the frantic parents find her. Even though the free residents would never let any harm come to her.
One day, TwoFace stopped Maia crawling up the stairs. To be clear, he picked her up, however, he wasn't very familiar with holding a baby and so he held as though she were about to explode. Maia wasn't used to being picked up without being cuddled and she responded with crying which made Kate angry. Later Declan apologised to TwoFace on Kate's behalf and thanked him for finding Maia.
6 months
Most babies start teething at 6 months old and Maia was no expectation. Kate's baby brother found cold foods soothing so does Maia. Soon she found other little tricks that she taught Declan to calm Maia down when her teeth hurt.
Kate couldn't help but thing about how now Maia was the first thing she thought about when she woke and the last thing she about as she went to sleep.
She was especially aware of this on the day she, Helen, Will and Hernry left for a mission to South America. Declan, having broken his leg, was left in charge of Maia He made Kate wear the necklace Dunja had given him. Something told Declan that if she was wearing the necklace, then she would be safe.
Kate felt nervous about leaving but she ignored her instincts telling her that she was heading for trouble, passing it off as hormones.
Besides, abnormal communities in the Falklands had been abandoned and now communities in parts of South America were also being abandoned. And they needed to find out why.
(This mystery shall be continued in 'Here be Dragons' once I finish writing it.)
