[AU: Motherly Affection]
[Adoptive-mother!Aqua, child versions of Kairi, Naminé, Sora, Ventus, and Roxas; no pairings]
"Mommy, can you read us a bedtime story?" the triplets, Sora, Ventus, and Roxas all sleepily murmur at the same time.
"Yeah, we want a story, too," Kairi pipes up, her younger sister Naminé holding her hand. The petite blonde's other hand is up to her mouth, the thumb being sucked on.
"Of course I will," Aqua coos as she shuts her laptop and sets it aside on her end table. "Bring a book in here and climb in bed with me. I'll read it aloud to all of you."
Seconds later, the five children are back in Aqua's bedroom, all of them bounding onto her mattress with a book in hand. "We want this one!" three of them chorus. The other silent two, Roxas and Naminé, nod their heads in agreement.
The four- and three-year-olds all huddle up around their adoptive mother and settle down, curling up against the young woman's sides and one another. The woman is merely twenty-seven years old, and already she had five kids. She works triple shifts, one shift per separate job, and occasionally gets child support from her ex-husband. And the only reason why she has so many children (beside the fact that she loves kids) is due to the fact that the orphanage they came from insisted that the children would be heartbroken without one another. They are two sets of siblings from two different families, lost from parents who had no siblings to take them in. Tragic, really.
Sora nuzzles into Aqua's arm and listens to her soothing voice. He doesn't remember his old life at all. All he's ever known is Aqua, and that's the only person he cares about. But Aqua is honest with her children; they all know that they're adopted. But they're okay with it because the blunette, they know, will never abandon them.
They mother reads no more than a chapter and a half of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets before the children are out cold, exhausted from the day and lulled to sleep by the sound of their mother's voice.
Aqua smiles to herself. She gently strokes Sora's and Kairi's hair, and lightly touches Ven's and Naminé's. She can't quite reach Roxas, so she leans carefully over to ruffle his hair as well. She gently slides Kairi and Naminé over enough to reach past them and shut off the lamp. In the darkness, Aqua sighs contentedly and snuggles down into her covers, her children surrounding her.
Peaceful rest has never come so quickly.