In Any Event. 6
A/N- This chapter sees us jump forward a couple of months.
Caroline rolled the small tights up her fingers and spread them wide at the bottom, making it as easy as possible for Mya to pop her foot inside, there was a modest amount of wobbling, but they managed to get her into the thick pink tights, the waistband pulled up high over her childish, slightly pot -belly.
"Okay princess." Caroline asked. "Shall we put on your pretty dress?"
Mya nodded and hopped from one foot to the other excitedly, even at this age she enjoyed dressing up and seemed to be showing her preference for all things pink and girly, no matter how Kate had tried to encourage her interest in toys and games regardless of gender stereotypes.
Caroline secretly enjoyed the girlishness as it was in such contrast to her experience with the boys with their cars and their guns, though William had always had a slightly more sensitive and creative side. Still, being able to enjoy Mya and her small triumphs in development over the last couple of months had been both, wonderful in its own right and had also found Caroline being reminded of a time when the boys had been this small, moments and anecdotes from those days resurfacing and giving Caroline the chance to share them with Kate and to enjoy them all over again herself.
Laurence had actually been really good with Mya from day one of him coming home to find her surrounded by her paraphernalia in the sitting room and Caroline had watched him form his own bond with the little girl, enjoying pulling stupid faces that made her collapse into fits of giggles and showing her how best to catch the fluffy soft rugby ball he had bought for her.
Caroline slipped the dress over Mya's head and pulled the neck down to reveal her face.
"Boo!" She said, crouching before Mya and helping her now to negotiate the short sleeves.
"Wow!" Caroline gasped, clasping her hands together. "You look spectacular!"
Mya grinned and spread her arms out as she ran in a little circle to show herself off to best effect.
"Oh my goodness!" Caroline said, standing and offering a hand out to the girl who looked like a little replica of the woman she loved but was so very much her own little lady.
"Shall we go and show mummy?" Caroline asked.
"Yes!" Mya nodded, grasping Caroline's fingers and tugging her out of the spare room, the room that had quickly filled with several of Mya's belongings over the last few weeks and which Caroline had to confess to renaming, if only in her own mind, Mya's room.
Kate came to the bottom of the steps as she heard the slow thud , thud of her daughter negotiating the stairs, with Caroline's hand still tightly held in her own.
"Oh, you look beautiful!" Kate said as she waited at the bottom. "Both of you." She said to Caroline with a wink.
"Did you go to the toilet and brush your teeth?" Kate asked seriously.
"Of Course!" Caroline informed as Mya nodded beside her in agreement.
"Good girls." Kate grinned, bending to tickle Mya in her side as she reached the foot of the stairs.
Caroline looked at her watch and sighed. "I suppose it's time?" She asked.
Kate straightened and brushed Caroline's cheek with her fingertips, kissing her lightly on the lips. "It is." She whispered regretfully. "Come on Mya, let's put on your shoes and coat!" Kate announced, trying to sound more cheery than she felt as she knelt and slipped on the patent pumps.
Caroline moved around Kate and took Mya's warm jacket from the hook and stooped to help her into it as Kate reached for her own coat.
"Now you be a good girl and take care of mummy for me and I will see you at dinner time." Caroline told Mya.
"Mya cook!" Mya called out definitively.
"Yes." Caroline said. "You can help me cook dinner, good idea!"
Mya toddled to the front door and Caroline was left looking into Kate's gaze of concern.
"We won't be long." Kate assured softly, reassuring herself as much as Caroline..
"I know." Caroline nodded. "Its...fine. Well, it isn't but..."
Kate kissed her once more and ran a hand down her arm. "See you soon." She smiled and made her way to the front door.
Caroline watched as Kate piled Mya into the car and strapped her into her carseat and then made her way around to the drivers side. Caroline held her arms around herself to ward off the cold but shivered anyway and wished she had put on her own jacket. The car started and Kate fully opened the window so she could see Caroline for a moment longer.
Caroline waved her fingers at Mya in the back and then turned to Kat and frowned suddenly, she stepped toward the car and put her hand on the drivers door.
"No." She said. "No way." She opened the door. "I'll take her." Caroline told Kate determinedly.
Kate looked surprised but not annoyed. "What? I thought..."
"No. He wants to see her and we can't do anything about that right now, supervised access, fine. But that doesn't mean that he gets you both. If we are right and he is doing this to get to you, then we are giving him what he wants. If I take her and his interest really does lie with Mya then that's fine, it's just something we have to learn to live with, but if he realises that he cannot use Mya as a way to get to you, then he might just let this drop all together. It's worth a try isn't it? I mean if you think Mya would be happy with my taking her? If...if its alright with you?" Caroline asked anxiously.
Kate considered Caroline's words, chewing her bottom lip, then released her seatbelt and nodded.
"Are you sure you can handle being in the same room as the "little shit" for a full hour?" Kate smiled as she made the quotation sign, having slipped out of the car now and standing close to Caroline, putting a hand to her waist.
"I will be both pleasant and charming for Mya's sake, I promise." Caroline said as she hopped into the driving seat.
Kate took off her Jacket and passed it to Caroline who slipped it on gratefully. It didn't fit exactly but it felt good to be going into enemy territory with something of Kate with her and Caroline smiled as she caught the scent of her lover on the garment.
Caroline closed the door and was speaking to Mya, letting her in on their change of plan as Kate moved to wave at her daughter through the window.
"See you later." Kate called as Caroline drove them out to the street.
Xxxx
Caroline made it through the door and dropped their belongings in a heap, kicking off her shoes carefully. As Kate appeared in the hallway Caroline put her finger up in front of her lips making a shhhh sound, as if Kate wouldn't have guessed by the way that Mya lay draped over Caroline's shoulder, like a sack of spuds, that the little one was fast asleep.
"Do you want me to put her down?" Kate asked, enjoying the adorable sight of Caroline holding her sleepy tot.
"No, its alright, She's comfortable where she is." Caroline assured.
Kate raised one eyebrow. "Oh, I am sure she is." She muttered as she followed Caroline into the sitting room and watched her carefully lower herself onto the sofa without disturbing her passenger. Caroline repositioned Mya gently now so that she cradled the little girl in her arms as one would a new born.
"You tired her out then." Kate observed quietly.
"Yes. We were at some lights on the way back and she spotted a playground. She kept calling swings! Until I had to stop, she had been stuck in a room for an hour, poor thing and she was so good." Caroline justified, her face was turned on Mya while she spoke and when she finally turned to Kate she found an amused but knowing expression.
"You can't carry on like this." Kate said, but seeing sudden fear spring to her girlfriends eye's, she continued. "You can't keep spoiling her if you are going to be a regular part of her life. She has you wrapped around her finger already, she's going to be a nightmare."
"I'm allowed to spoil her." Caroline said defensively. "I feel like..." She was shaking her head and watching Mya again. "I've missed so much."
Kate took Caroline's fingers and laced them in her own bringing the back of the blonde's hand to her mouth and dropping a kiss there.
"Today when I was watching you leave...I just thought..." Caroline broke off as the words stuck in her throat and she wondered if she could keep them inside.
"What?" Kate coaxed patiently.
"I thought...She should have been ours." Caroline said, her eye's filling to the brim with long unshed tears.
"She still could be!" Kate said quickly, brushing the hair from the side of Caroline's face so she could hide behind it no longer.
Kate snuggled into the side of Caroline, pulling the arm she held onto around her, so that the three of them sat now on one seat of the sofa, in peace.
Xxxx
A/N- Thanks for reading folks. More soon. xx