The screaming, which had paused for a few ragged breaths, starts up again in two-part harmony.

Putting down his marker, Char tugs on Tim's sleeve. "The babies gots more mad."

Tim sighs. "They sure did get more mad."

"Why's the babies mad?" Char asks.

"They need to spend more time on their stomachs to keep getting stronger," Tim says, glancing over to make sure the twins really are just mad and not hurt in any way. The screams continue on, but the twins look okay, just upset, so he turns his attention back to Char. "It's called tummy time, the books said, and it's good for them. But they sure don't realize it's for their own good."

Char picks his marker up and starts coloring again. "Did I gotta 'tummy time?'"

"You sure did," Tim says, wincing at the memory.

"Was I a good boy?" Char asks, his eyes wide.

"You're always a good boy, Char," Tim says firmly. "You didn't like tummy time, and you got mad, just like the babies do, but it didn't make you bad. You're a good kid."

Char thinks about that for a moment. "Ra's says I'm not good. He says I gotta be better."

"I know what Ra's says," Tim says, shoving down the burning anger that those two sentences set aflame in his chest. "But I say you're a good kid, not him. Because you know what I think about Ra's?"

Char grins, clearly knowing the kind of thing that's coming next. "What about Ra's?"

"I think-" Tim begins, then he cuts himself off and does a loud raspberry, sticking out his tongue and blowing out the air with a goofy noise. "Pffft!"

Char giggles and bounces in his chair. He imitates the raspberry happily, all thoughts of not being a good kid evidently gone. "Pffft!"

"Exactly," Tim says. "You keep coloring, okay?"

"Okay, Dad," Char says, already looking down at his paper intently.

Tim gets up from his spot at the table. He walks over to the fabric mat on the floor where the twins are having their tummy time, kneeling down when he reaches them.

Sonny has his face planted directly into the mat, mushed into it, really, as he wails. Sandy, on the other hand, has her face hovering a little over the mat, huffing and puffing and sobbing all the while. The poor babies are doing their best, and it's all Tim could ask for.

"Hey, babies," Tim says soothingly. "It's okay. I'm here."

At the sound of his voice, the twins try to look up at Tim, but their little bodies must be nearing exhaustion, because it seems like hard work from the way the crying increases in volume.

Tim helps them out. He spreads himself out on the floor in front of and between them, his head up between their heads.

Sandy, now seeing Tim's face better, stops crying for a moment. Sonny, with his face still stuck to the mat, cries even louder.

Tim reaches out and helps Sonny get unstuck. "There you go, bud."

Looking up and over at Tim, Sonny sniffles a few times, quieting down a lot.

Sandy, on the other hand, starts to wail again.

"Oh, baby," Tim sighs. "What is it now?"

Sandy keeps wailing, and Sonny starts to make little whimpering noises, clearly about to start up again too.

Quickly, Tim sits up, plucks Sandy off the floor, and holds her close. Before he can even start to rock her, however, it's evident by the weight of her bottom and the smell of all of her why she's so upset.

"Okay, I guess it's diaper changing time again," Tim sighs. He looks over at Sonny. "Are you clean, at least?"

Sonny makes a gurgling sound. (Tim hopes the gurgling is coming from his mouth. Tim knows better than to just hope at this point, though.)

"I'll check on you in a minute," Tim promises Sonny, and he stands to bring Sandy over to the changing table. A few minutes and one fresh diaper later, Tim sets Sandy back on her belly on the mat, just in time for Sonny to start crying again.

"I'll check you too, I'll check you too," Tim says, picking Sonny up, and sure enough, he needs a change as well. So Tim does that, puts Sonny on his belly on the mat again, and stands to the sound of two babies making little desperate whimpers.

"It's not so bad," Tim says soothingly as he slowly backs away. "It's just tummy time. I'll be right with you in just a moment, okay? Okay."

To the sound of the twins' whimpering, Tim peeks over at Char.

Char is steadily coloring away. Much of the markers are making it into Char's hands and face rather than his paper, streaking gold and black and red across his skin, but some of the color is on the paper, so Tim counts that as a win. He counts it as a triple win, in fact.

First, it's a win because Char is doing something other than trying to teach himself to read, which usually consists of him begging Tim to go through the same book over and over and over again until Tim feels ready to cry and Char still wants another read-through.

Second, it's a win because it'll improve Char's fine motor skills, one of the things that Ra's was most unimpressed with the last time he "checked the primary's progress," so it means that Char shouldn't have as much cause to hear about how much he has to "be better" next time Ra's visits to test the kids or magically age the kids up or gloat about having Tim doing his bidding or whatever.

Third, it's a win because Char is occupied enough that he doesn't notice Tim making his way toward the cloning chamber corner.

Tim carefully pulls the curtain a bit to the side and peeks in.

The middle cloning chamber is glowing and humming, the numbers above it having ticked up yet again since Tim checked last, the small form within it bobbing slightly as Tim watches. The chamber to left and to the right are dark and still, waiting for-

Tim sighs. The other two chambers are waiting for "the second round," as Ra's put it, while the middle chamber finishes the last "candidate and heir of the first round."

It hurts.

The thought hurts for many reasons.

Tim gives the middle chamber's "experiment" one more look as he gets ready to close the curtain again.

"Not long now until you join your 'fellow potential heirs,'" Tim says quietly. He shakes his head for a long moment. Then Tim gives a smile. It's small and crooked and more than a little wistful, he's sure, but it's still a smile, and barely even forced. "Your siblings are excited to meet you, Ian."