by Windsor Blue
A Favourite Uncle ficlet
Notes: Giselle is back with a vengeance! For those who didn't see it the first time around, I wrote a sappy little thing a long while ago called "Favorite Uncle", where Quatre's niece Giselle made her debut. She's been pretty quiet since then, but she's been getting more and more demanding of late...who knows where she might turn up next? Inspired by my little boy, who slept in our bed the other night because the noise from the fireworks at Anaheim Stadium scared him, poor kid.
A "Favorite Uncle" Ficlet
I went straight home as soon as I got the message, but I was still too late.
"Hi, it's me. Listen, I know you're busy, but Giselle was so excited about spending the weekend with us that she was driving Iria crazy, so I told her she could bring her over a day early. Anyway, she's here now, and for the moment she's happy with just me. But she really wants to see Uncle Trowa before she goes to bed, so if Wufei could let you off of saving-the-world duty a couple of hours early, I'm sure she'd love it. We'll save you some pizza and chocolate cake. See you later, love."
The house was dark when I got home - no surprise, really, considering how late it was. There was a note on the kitchen counter telling me my pizza was in the refrigerator, and I smiled as I read it. I stole upstairs to the bedrooms as quietly as I could and peeked inside the room we keep especially for her.
To my surprise, the bed was empty.
I'm sure I was frowning as I went into the master bedroom, but that frown was cast aside by the sight of disheveled blond hair on both pillows. They were facing each other, sort of - their heads turned together in conference as their limbs sprawled across the bed. You wouldn't think that a 150-pound man and a 37-pound five-year-old could take up an entire king-size bed between them, but in the case of Quatre and Gigi, you'd be wrong. My husband and my niece are both chronic, unrepentant bed hogs. A shared gene somewhere, I suppose.
I stood there for a moment just letting the scene become a part of me. Quatre doesn't really like to have Gigi sleep with us when she visits. Not that he does anything to stop her, of course. But he's always tired for a couple of days afterward, and he claims it's because he can't sleep as well when Gigi's in our bed. I think there's still a part of him that clings to that paranoid fear that one of us will roll onto her and smother her in our sleep, but he claims otherwise.
"She kicks in her sleep," he says.
"So do you," I say.
I had to suppress a chuckle as I picked up the pajamas that Quatre had laid out for me. Boy, you come home late one lousy night and your pillow gets pilfered.
I changed in the bathroom, so as not to wake them up, and when I came back Gigi had turned closer to Quatre, gathering up her arms and legs into a sweet little bundle. Without even waking up, she made room for me.
She made room for me.
I held her for the first time just a few hours after she was born. Quatre had insisted that we stay in the hospital while Iria gave birth to her, and I have to admit the whole thing held me in a morbidly fascinated sort of dread. All I'd ever known about babies had been learned by observing people on the street with them. I'd never really seen one up close before, and I'd certainly never actually held one. So the first time Quatre tried to get me to take her, I begged off. The second time, he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, so I let him make a cradle out of my arms and then I let him place her inside.
We just stared at each other for a few seconds, me trying not to break her, her little arms wiggling and little legs kicking at random. Finally she reached up and grasped the strands of hair that fell in front of my face. When she pulled them back towards herself, I remember thinking that babies shouldn't be so strong. Then, with her fingers threaded in my hair, she looked into my eyes and smiled, making the happiest little noise I'd ever heard anything make.
Funny how I was so afraid I'd break her, when in fact she was the one who broke me.
The nurse standing there at the time told me that it wasn't a real smile - that it was just gas - and under my breath I told the nurse to go to hell. The way Quatre's lips twisted up at the side told me he'd heard me, and when I stole a glance at him I realized exactly how much trouble I'd gotten myself into.
By himself, Quatre is my biggest weakness. Giselle is a close second. Put them together and I'm pretty much done.
They know this, of course. They use this knowledge against me regularly. It's odd, because every once in awhile I'll see one of them give the other a funny sort of look; one that says "I know what your game is - you don't fool me". But at the same time, they regularly work in concert to bring whatever resistance I have crashing down around my ears. They know each other's games, all right, but they're each more than willing to let the other play me.
Quietly, I pulled back the sheets and slipped into bed beside her. I kept my limbs as close to my body as I could, trying my best not to wake either of them up. I thought I'd been successful for a few minutes there when she rolled over and blinked sleepy eyes at me.
"Hi, Uncle Trowa," she said.
I put my finger to my lips in the gesture for quiet. "Don't wake Uncle Quatre," I whispered.
She nodded a little and whispered back "Hi, Uncle Trowa."
I had to smile at that. "Hi, Gigi. Go back to sleep, okay?"
"Okay," she replied and pressed her face against mine to rub noses with me. Then she snuggled her head into my chest and pulled one of my arms up to embrace her, finally falling back to sleep with a soft "G'night, Uncle Trowa".
"Goodnight, Sweetheart," I replied, kissing her forehead. I watched her for a few moments before I realized that someone was doing the same to me. Looking over her shoulder, I caught sight of a second pair of sleepy blue eyes.
"Goodnight, Uncle Trowa," Quatre mouthed.
"Goodnight, Sweetheart," I responded in kind.
His arm reached around her to rest across my hip, and I realized as he drifted off that they'd played me once more. Sure, Quatre's tone in the message he'd left me was polite and unassuming, but behind the "if you can manage" and the "wouldn't want to impose", there was the solid confidence that I would, in fact, drop everything and run home just because they'd asked me to. And I had, hadn't I? Without so much as a second thought, I'd made my excuses to Wufei, gathered my coat and been on my way. And now here I was, clinging to the very edge of a king-sized bed, sharing my pillow, while my two bed hogs snored carelessly away. I scooted in a little closer, and Giselle shifted to allow me to stretch out a little.
Even in her sleep, Gigi makes room for me.
The last thing I remember thinking before I finally fell asleep myself was that Uncle Trowa was a pretty nice thing to be.