The discussion about sleeping arrangements was surprisingly complicated. Angelica had to be involved, to offer some practical insight.

"But why a crib?" Chise argued. "My brother and I always just slept on the tatami mats between my parents!"

"And that's as well as may be," Angelica replied; "But tatami mats are on the floor, right? Babies can't fall off floors."

"But it couldn't fall off anyways, not with Elias and me right there."

"Right—until you get up to pee in the night. And then—roll, roll, bonk, waah!"

"I won't need to get up in the middle of the night!"

Angelica gave a hearty laugh. "Ah, enjoy that innocence, lass," she said wryly. "You should keep a journal and write things like that down in it. Some sleepless night you'll need the laugh. —Besides, what if that great lummox goes and rolls over in his sleep?"

"It still feels unnatural," Chise grumbled. "Babies shouldn't be separated from their parents."

"Believe me, there'll be times you'll want that separation."

"But not as a regular thing!"

"There's no need to have the baby in a separate room anyways," interjected Elias. "We can put the cradle in our room. There's lots of room if we put the chair into storage."

"You'll want the chair," Angelica pointed out. "For late-night feedings and things."

"Wouldn't a rocking chair be better for that?" asked Chise. She had imagined holding her baby in the dimness of a moonlit night, peacefully rocking in the quiet.

"Hm. It would take up less space than the armchair," Elias added. "Might there not be room here for a cradle and a rocking chair?" He surveyed his room, hands on hips.

"You'll need a changing table, too."

"We will?" Chise looked at Angelica, wide-eyed. "We always just had a pad on the floor."

"I've done that, too," Angelica admitted; "But a table is easier on the back. Plus it gives you somewhere to store the supplies—diapers, wipes, bum cream, all that stuff."

Chise looked at Elias with a kind of despair. "This is all getting very... complicated."

"Well, I mean, you are preparing to look after an entirely new person who is going to be completely helpless—probably," she added, with a quick glance at Elias. "You need to lay in supplies. But also," and she gave Chise a reassuring one-armed hug, cuddling her against her side, "women—families have been doing this for millennia. Don't worry about it. I know it's scary; but once you get into the nitty gritty of it, you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly." She grinned. "And if nothing else, you'll probably be too tired to worry much about it."

"A breast pump?" Alice echoed, frowning at the weird thing Chise was putting away. It looked like a transparent air horn. "Are you sure you're going to need it?"

"No," admitted Chise. "But apparently babies have to be taught to nurse, and so do I, and it can be a difficult and frustrating thing for us both, and then they might not get enough milk, so this is just—" She waved her hands vaguely. "Just sort of back-up."

"No, I mean, are you sure Elias is even a mammal?"

"Well... He's warm..."

"So are birds, though." Alice raised an eyebrow. "Does he have nipples?"

"I'm not going to discuss my husband's physiology," Chise said, rather primly. "Besides which, if the baby nurses fine, we won't need it, and if the baby doesn't need to nurse, we still won't need it, so it really doesn't matter either way. Like I said, it's just in case. Angelica says they're hard to track down in the middle of the night."

"Yeah, I guess." She still looked doubtful. "Rather you than me, though."

"Have you and Mr. Renfred ever thought about it?" Chise asked, curious. "I mean, you're kind of getting on—"

"I am not!"

"—Getting on, too, I was going to say."

Alice slumped slightly, and brought her foot up to the seat of her chair in front of her, a sure sign she was uncomfortable. "Yeah... I don't know." She sighed. "We've never discussed it."

"But I thought you and he..?"

She blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. "Yeah, no, not really. He still sees me as his daughter, I think. Although I can't say he's really been okay with me dating anyone else, either. Not that I really want to." She sighed again, and looked away. "It's complicated."

"Do you want to have a baby? With him? Or anyone else?"

"Well, there isn't anyone else, is there?" Alice said, a touch bitterly. "And I'm not sure I want kids, anyways." She grimaced. "Nasty messy noisy things... Sorry. I'm sure yours will be adorable and perfect, because of course it will. It's yours. But for me..? Yeah, not really. I'd make a pretty lousy mother, anyways. I've got the maternal instinct of a cucumber."

Chise giggled.

"And I don't have enough magical talent to be worth trying to pass it on, anyways, and I don't think Mikhail wants kids, either. Not babies, anyways. I suppose we could always adopt an older kid, like he did with me." Her face twisted. "Not that I want to be his daughter anyways, adopted or not..."

"Another blanket, Silver Lady?" Elias looked slightly askance at the latest addition to the growing stack of supplies beneath the changing table in the corner of his bedroom. "Do you really think we need this many?"

Silky gave a firm nod, and marched out to sort out her dwindling supplies of wool. This would hardly be the first baby she'd seen in this house; she had very solid ideas of what would be required.

Finally, everything was ready. Every conceivable supply was laid in. Silky was already feeding Chise more iron-rich foods, and more whole grains, and more protein, and more dairy, and just generally more, despite her protests that she wasn't even pregnant yet. The brownie seemed to feel that her reserves needed building up. Elias had read through a whole slew of baby books—helpfully provided by Angelica, once she realized that the sole related book in his library, 'A Handbook For Nursery Nurses', dated from the end of the Great Wars. "Babies haven't changed!" he'd protested, to which she'd firmly replied, "Caring for them has," and loaded him up.

And Shannon's tests results had come in, and they had been given a cautious, but optimistic, all clear.

They were as ready as they could be.

A/N: My mother trained as a governess (or a "nursery nurse" as they were then called) in England in the Fifties. I have her edition; but the Handbook was originally published in 1946. It's full of very good advice-such as lying babies on their sides to sleep (nowadays they only recommend sleeping on their backs); waiting a bit before stopping one child from hitting another, on the assumption that the other will eventually lose patience and whack them one (and that that would be a better deterrent than an adult saying 'no', heh); and, if a child is having difficulties falling asleep, giving them a "hard-boiled sweetie" (small hard candy) to suck on as they drift off. So, like, tooth rot and a choking hazard! XD

It has some very solid advice as well; but while babies still and always have needed to be kept clean, and fed, and well-rested, the how's and why's of doing so have changed dramatically over the years! So, yes, Elias, you need a newer manual, lol. ~Kryss