#dad!cullen

“Adhlea,” he called at last, frowning, crouching to glance under the dining room table. No, not there either. Hm. 

Perhaps he was going about this all wrong. 

Cullen stood, set his first two fingers in his mouth, and whistled hard. Distantly, on the second floor, there was a sharp cry and then the sound of skittering feet. Sylvas raced down the stairs to Cullen and skidded to a stop several feet past him in the dining room. 

“All right, then,” Cullen said, reaching out to pat the hound’s head, “Where is she, hmm?” 

Sylvas nudged his knee, then turned back to the stairs. Cullen followed him all the way upstairs and into Adhlea’s bedroom, directly opposite his and Emma’s. Odd. Adhlea disdained to spend very much time in her bedroom, ever suspicious of urgings to take a nap or go to bed for the evening. If there was anything his daughter hated, it was missing out on something that might be happening in another room. Maker, if she didn’t have his undivided attention at the end of the day, he didn’t think she’d go to bed at all. 

“Adhlea?” he said quietly, in case she actually had fallen asleep somehow, and nudged the door the rest of the way open. 

His first, startled reaction was to think that there had been some sort of burglary. The room was in disarray, the blankets and pillows stripped from the bed and discarded around the room, various pieces of furniture tipped over, and a trampled path from the hearth to the doorway. 

“Papa?” a tremulous voice said from the hearth, and he picked his way over the treacherous terrain to the blanket draped over a chair on that side of the room. 

“Are you all right?” he asked, lifting the hem and peering inside. 

Adhlea was curled up under the chair, face streaked with tears, and her golden hair was tousled. As soon as he came into view, she scrambled out from under the chair and threw herself into his lap. Her little body was trembling with suppressed sobs, but her arms were iron around his neck. Cullen batted the fluttering blanket away and sank onto the floor, wincing when he sat on something hard. He fished it out from beneath him—a toy soldier carved of wood, it was, from one of her various aunts and uncles—and tossed it aside. 

“What is it?” he asked, smoothing a hand over her mass of hair, “What happened?” 

A strong gust of wind sounded outside, rattling a tree branch against the window, and Adhlea groaned against his neck. 

Ah. 

“It sounds very scary, doesn’t it?” he said gently, squeezing her tightly for a moment, “But it won’t hurt you. Come; let me show you.”

“No!” she said, squeezing herself even closer, but Cullen stood anyway and went to the window. Her curtains were thick and warded with magic—her privacy and safety were paramount to them—but he could still balance her on his hip and hold the fabric aside with relative ease. 

Outside, the late afternoon was grey and dim, snow piled against the houses and settled in thick drifts on the street. The tree outside her window was heavy with it, its skeletal branches weighed down in thick, unfamiliar shapes. As they watched, wind blew it against the house, making that awful scraping noise again. Chunks of snow came loose, falling to the snowdrifts below and making little holes in the powder. Wind and snow filled them quickly, building up the breaks in the lines of snow packed onto the branches, and the whole process repeated when the wind blew hard again. 

Adhlea had been trembling when he opened the curtains, but gradually she stilled and loosened her arms around his neck. 

“Just a tree?” she said doubtfully, and he smiled. 

“Just a tree. But it sounded like something else, didn’t it?”

“A big mean dragon,” she said in a hushed voice, tipping her head back to look at him, “Uncle Varrit says Mamae fighted a dragon and it almost eated her up.”

Varric. He’d told the man to wait until she was older for all that, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Cullen sighed inwardly and carried his daughter to the door. 

“Maybe she’ll tell you all about it someday,” he said, “Now, where is your lion?” 

He let her go when she squirmed, and for a moment she was all limbs as she raced across the room to thrust a hand beneath the blanket. She emerged a moment later, stuffed lion in hand, and clutched it to her chest when she raced back. He held out a hand to her and she took it, her tiny palm all but engulfed in his. Now, as often happened, he felt that odd tug in his chest, the urge to scoop her up in his arms and put himself bodily between her and the dangers of the world. 

As if such a thing would help. Cullen pushed the urge away and looked down at her. 

“Were you trying to hide?” he asked. She shook her head emphatically, curls and waves bouncing at the motion. 

“Were you…building a fort?” he asked. She nodded. 

“Ah,” he said, glancing back at the blanket draped over the chair. It was slowly slipping off to pool on the floor, leaving the chair misplaced and crooked before the banked hearth. 

“It’s not very structurally sound,” he said, “You see how it’s fallen down?” 

She glanced back at it, pulling her little lion tighter to her chest.

“Come on,” he said, “We’ll go to the library. It’s much bigger. I can show you how to make it better next time.” 

Adhlea considered this a moment, surveying the wreckage of her room, and at last she lifted her eyes to his. 

“Together?” she said, the th sounding far more like an f since she’d knocked one of her front teeth out trying to sled down the stairs a month ago. 

“Of course,” he said, smiling down at her, and she bounced. 

“Let’s go!” she said, and so they went. 

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Emmaera had been reading by the fire, attention focused on Varric’s latest prose, when she heard the soft thump of fabric dropped from above. She lifted her eyes from the book and found her daughter’s bedspread, thick and green and draped messily over the other couch. 

A giggle from above. She looked up, only to see the poof of her daughter’s hair disappearing around the corner and into the hallway to their bedrooms. 

Hmm. 

She weighed whether she needed to go check on this for a moment, book resting on her chest. Before she could make a decision, a ball of bedding with her husband’s legs walked back around the corner and dropped the mass from the second floor railing. 

“Redecorating?” she asked, and Cullen grinned down at her. His face was slightly flushed, his hair messy and loose. 

“We,”  Cullen said, just as Adhlea dashed back around the corner, her back bent by the weight of two pillows, “are building a fort.”

“Hah!” the little one said, hurling one pillow with all her might. It hit the railing and bounced back, knocking her to the ground. Emma braced herself for tears, but Adhlea laughed instead, and Cullen laughed with her. 

Oh, he was beautiful; she only ever saw him look this young and carefree with their daughter, the years and stresses of his life melted away by the simple joy of her presence. 

“Here, now,” Cullen said, crouching and lifting their daughter, pillows and all. She hurled both pillows with glee, and they bounced from the blanket-covered couch one after the other, tumbling into each other and to the floor. 

“More!” Adhlea said, lifting two small fists into the air, and Cullen set her back on the carpet. Adhlea raced back into the hallway, vanishing almost at once. Cullen looked down at Emma over the iron railing. 

“Seems rather haphazard to me,” she told him, and he raised his eyebrows. 

“Just you wait,” he said, “It will be a marvel of engineering when she and I are done.”

“Oh,” Emma said, grinning, “My mistake. Carry on, then, Commander.” 

He smiled down at her—and if he only looked young when he was with their daughter, he only looked like that when he looked at Emma—and disappeared around the corner again. Emma heard the clatter of distant objects falling and shook her head. If someone screamed, she would be concerned, but until then she had a book to read. She lifted the volume from her chest, smiling to herself, and read on. 

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“I think this might be sufficient,” Cullen said at long last, absently reaching to rest his hands on a sword hilt that wasn’t there. He settled his hands on his hips instead, surveying their extensive creation. Adhlea had shooed her mother from her perch by the fireplace, so Emma sat by the window now, occasionally casting them amused looks from behind her book. 

He glanced down at his daughter, who also had her hands planted on her hips, looking at the draping cloth with a little wrinkle between her eyebrows. Emma insisted Adhlea looked just like him, but whenever Adhlea concentrated he could only see Emma in her face. The little frown about her eyes, the crooked way she held her mouth when she was displeased—those were all her mother. 

He had to admit that the hair and the nose were all his, though. 

“It’s issicient,” Adhlea proclaimed, nodding firmly, and Cullen smiled. 

“Well,” he amended, “there is only really one way to know for sure.” 

Adhlea looked up at him, and he regarded her as solemnly as he’d once regarded his new recruits.

“We shall have to battle test it,” he said, and from the corner of his eye he saw Emma set her book down on the windowsill. 

“Cullen,” Emma said, a warning note in her voice, but Adhlea’s eyes had gone large with delight. 

“Battlest!” she said, bouncing once. 

“Yes,” Cullen said, looking up at his wife, who’d narrowed her eyes at him, “I think a dragon attack would be best, don’t you? And my brave knight will help me protect the battlements.” 

Adhlea, who’d gone a bit still when he said “dragon,” perked up again. 

“A knight?” she said, “With an ammor and a swort?”

“Well,” Cullen amended when Emma shook her head behind Adhlea, “Perhaps just the helmet and the big axe your uncle Bull sent for Wintersend, hm?” 

Adhlea squeaked with delight and darted away, heading straight for the little trunk in the corner where she kept her toys and treasures. Her “big axe” was about the length of Cullen’s forearm, with a wooden haft and a leather blade. It hurt if swung with sufficient force, but thus far Adhlea was really only succeeding at hitting someone on accident no matter how hard she tried. After they’d firmly banned her from chasing poor Sylvas with it, there had been very few accidents. 

“Cullen,” Emma said from just behind him, resting her hand on his arm, “Are you sure about this?”

“Hmm,” he said, turning to wrap an arm around her waist, and lowered his voice, “She was frightened of the trees. Said it was a dragon outside the window. I thought perhaps this…”

“I see,” she said, and lifted her face to be kissed. He obliged her with a quiet fondness, and they parted a moment later. 

“And I am to be the dragon, I assume?” she said. Cullen smiled sheepishly.

“If you don’t mind.” 

Emma sighed with exaggeration, lifting her eyes to the heavens, but there was a crooked smile on her lips that told him she didn’t really mind. 

“Then I will have to be properly fearsome,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper as Adhlea approached, haphazardly juggling Cullen’s old lion helmet and her big axe, “or the whole exercise will be moot.” 

“Whas a moot?” Adhlea asked, and Emma knelt to help her with the helmet. 

Adhlea had loved the helmet since she’d first seen it a year ago. Emma had been cleaning out an old trunk and had set it aside absently, and Adhlea was immediately taken with it. She could only lift it if she really tried, but that didn’t seem to slow her down. At last, Emma had taken it to an armorer to have a softer interior added. The outside of the helmet had not been altered, so it rested more or less comfortably on her tiny head now, though it made her head comically large and she still had to tilt her head back to see between the jaws because the eyeholes rested somewhere over her forehead. Its mane tumbled black and red down her back, made somewhat ragged with time, but this did not seem to bother Adhlea at all. 

“It’s like a big pond around a castle,” Emma told Adhlea, “To keep people out. But you can’t have one around this fort. We’d have to dig a very big hole and then we couldn’t have a library anymore.”

Emma winked at Cullen, who smiled and crouched. 

“Alright, Ser Knight,” he said, “To our defenses! The enemy approaches!” 

Adhlea gasped and darted beneath the lifted span of blankets, and after one more peck on his wife’s cheek Cullen followed after. 

It was time to test the fort’s structural integrity. He was absolutely certain it would hold—at least long enough for them to make a proper show of it. 

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The villagers were in dire peril. 

Adhlea crawled toward them, breathing hard at the weight of the helmet on her head and the discomfort of the axe tucked into her belt. It was her sworn duty to protect the people of this realm, and the dragon had come to take them all away and eat them up. If she didn’t reach them first, they would be lost forever. 

“I’ll save you!” she told them, sweeping some of them into her arms, and painstakingly began to crawl backward again. One, a little soldier, poked her arm uncomfortably, but the cloth of the rest squished softly in her arms. 

“Ser Knight!” the Commander called behind her, “The creature nears! Hurry, we must prepare the trebuchets!” 

Adhlea couldn’t remember what a trebuchet was, or what one might use it for, but the villagers seemed safe enough under the couch. She rose unsteadily to her feet and dashed to the Commander’s aid. 

The ceiling of their keep hung above them, glowing rose-pink with firelight, and she carefully peered through the crack of it to the dragon’s wasteland beyond. Mists filled the room, hiding the dragon away, and the Commander called for her attention again. 

Right! She needed to help him. 

Adhlea dashed forward, peeking through each crack in their defenses as she passed. No sign of the dragon, but it had to be near. She could hear it somewhere beyond the walls, watching. 

Waiting. 

For a moment, the fear curled itself around her ribs again, just as it had earlier. The fear of something unseen and just out of reach, scraping at the window. It was—

“Ser Knight! It’s attacking our defenses!”

The brave Commander!

Adhlea repositioned her helmet and dashed forward. The Commander waited there, peering through the fortifications and into the mist. Beyond their borders, something stirred, and as she watched he loosed a rock into the mysterious beyond. Something screeched out there, something huge, and all at once ice was sweeping toward them. 

“Down!” the Commander called, and they ducked behind the walls just in time. Adhlea felt its icy touch along the back of her neck, the kiss of certain death. 

“We can’t take much more of this,” he told her, his face very serious, “What should we do, Knight?” 

Adhlea thought as quickly as she could, as the walls shook around them and the dragon swept past the walls again. She wouldn’t be able to see out there; she couldn’t track it down alone, and her trusty steed was lost, packed away in the trunk—er, its stall. What could she do? 

Wide-eyed, she searched his face, as if a plan might be written there. He looked back at her expectantly, and ice shot over the barricades once more. 

Of course! 

Of course, that was it!

“I know!” she said, bouncing onto her toes and unbalancing herself. The Commander set her gently back to the side and waited, watching her intently. 

“The dragon wants to eat you up,” she whispered quickly, tugging on his arm, “If you can make it look at you, I can sneak up behind it and defeat it once and for all!” 

The corner of his mouth jumped—maybe in determination—and he nodded solemnly. 

“I shall gladly sacrifice myself to protect the keep, Ser Knight,” he said, and Adhlea held him in place, alarmed. 

“No!” she said, “No, no, no! You just distract it, Papa, not the other thing!” 

“Oh,” he said, eyes widening, “Of course, ah, Knight. I will distract it.” 

The brave knight nodded, the world settling back into its proper forms. 

“When I count to three, you jump out, and then I will get its knees.”

He nodded his agreement, and she hid herself away in the shadows of the walls. 

Another roar, and the Commander watched her. 

“One,” Adhlea said, and the walls shuddered as another blast tore past them. 

“Two,” she said, and the far end of the fort—opposite the townsfolk, who were safe under the couch—collapsed in on itself. 

“Three!” she yelled. 

The Commander pushed through the gates and called out, just as another sweep of ice rushed toward Adhlea’s hiding spot. Quick as a fox, she tucked herself away, and the ice blew past. 

Fast, fast, or the Commander would be lost! Adhlea drew her weapon and leapt forth with a mighty roar (like a lion, just like a lion, like mamae always said). The dragon was reaching for the Commander, swiping for him as he dodged, and just as they’d planned Adhlea leapt in from behind. Adhlea didn’t know if the dragon saw her in those last moments, with its spiky head in the way, but she hit it in the back of the knee with all her might. 

“Ow!” the dragon said, “Ah—arrrrrrrrrrgh!”

The monster went down in a rush of sparks, and as the sparks lifted into the air they dispelled the mysterious fog that had filled the room. Adhlea waited for it to fall, then drew back and struck it in the wing, just to be sure. You never know when a dragon is just faking, after all. 

“I think you’ve killed it, brave knight,” the Commander said, eyeing her giant axe, “Ah—the kingdom is saved! And the fort is still…more or less intact! Hooray!”

“Hooray!” Adhlea echoed, lifting both hands over her head and jumping in place. 

The Commander swept her up in his arms, then settled her on his shoulders. The world looked so different from up here, the room resolving itself into shapes at once familiar and very strange to her. When at last her mother stood up, wincing slightly, Adhlea was shocked to realize how much smaller she was from here. 

“Mamae, you’re so little!” she said, “Papa, did you know?” 

Under her legs, her Papa’s shoulders shook and she grabbed two handfuls of his hair to keep herself in place. 

“Oof,” he said, “Adhlea, that hurts. Softer hands, please.”

“Sorry,” she said, patting his head, which also looked very strange from above, “But you were moving!”

“I suppose I was,” he said, and she couldn’t see his face but Mamae must have thought it was funny. She was laughing too, her hand not quite covering her mouth. All at once, Adhlea remembered that she had an audience of two, not one, and brightened. 

“Mamae, did you see what I did?” she asked, rocking forward slightly. Her Papa reached up to steady her, then lifted her down instead. Adhlea hardly noticed, focused as she was on catching her mother’s attention. 

“Did you see?” she said again, wrapping her arms around her mamae’s leg, “I saved everybody!”

“I saw, ma vherain,” her mamae said, and crouched to look at her, “You were very, very brave.”

Her mother reached out and stroked several curls away from her face, tucking them back behind her ear. Her mamae had the best hand in the whole world, very soft and strong, and now it cupped Adhlea’s face. 

“Brave warriors deserve a reward,” she said with a smile, “what do you think?” 

This last piece she directed over Adhlea’s shoulder, where Papa still stood. 

“I think cocoa might be in order,” he said solemnly, and Adhlea gasped. 

Cocoa was a rare and special treat, sent by her Aunt Josie from a land very far away. They only ever drank it on very special occasions, like holidays or birthdays. She hadn’t had any at all since Wintersend, even though it had been much colder than usual this year. 

“Come, ma vherain,” her mamae said, and offered her hand, “Let us read by the fire while your Papa finds the cocoa.”

Adhlea, filled with a warm, golden glow that knew no fear, took her mother’s hand and went. 

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Much later, Cullen wrapped an arm over Emma’s shoulders and surveyed their daughter, who lay in a heap near the fire. She’d opted to use Sylvas as a pillow, and thankfully the hound didn’t seem to mind his new role too much.

“Down at last,” he murmured into his wife’s ear, and she chuckled quietly. 

“I should hope so. I’ll have bruises from that, just you wait.” 

“I’m sorry,” Cullen told her, chagrined, and peered down at her lap as if he could divine the extent of her injury that way, “I didn’t think she’d take it quite that seriously.”

Emma shrugged, her shoulder shifting under his arm, and leaned her head against his chest. Her hair tickled his chin, but Cullen didn’t move it away. He liked the way it felt to hold her like this, and he could bear a mild discomfort in exchange for the greater pleasure of feeling Emma’s warmth in his arms. 

“Just a bruise,” she said, yawning, “I believe I shall make it after all, Commander, though you may have to carry me upstairs.”

“You know,” he said, pressing a kiss to her temple, then brushing her hair aside so he could add another just below, “I believe our Adhlea said much the same thing to me earlier.”

Emma snorted, but her eyes had already fluttered closed, the lashes dark and fine against her cheek. The firelight gilded the edges of them, dark though they were, and the rest of the room as well. All of it took on a soft golden haze, the likes of which he knew he would treasure later. A simple afternoon of draping and pinning blankets they would now have to carry back upstairs, but his heart was full of it even so. Or rather, full of them—for his whole world might as well be in this room. 

“Go to sleep, love,” he murmured, pressing softer kisses along the curve of her cheek and settling her more comfortably in his lap, “I’ll take care of the rest.”

Emma murmured something, though Cullen could not properly make it out, but she was so plainly asleep that he didn’t try to ask her what she meant. He sat still instead, holding his wife, listening to her light snores and to the soft, even breath of his daughter before the fire. 

Outside, the storm raged on, branches clicking against the windows and walls, but the library around them was warm and cozy, draped from railing to rug with blankets and pillows. Cullen supposed he ought to get up, ought to set it all to rights, but—

Perhaps for now, such disarray was worth leaving alone. It would take time to undo the mass of it—it was as structurally sound as he’d been able to make it, after all—and the sight of the chaos reminded him of Adhlea’s delight in building it. 

Yes, he decided, pressing one more kiss to Emma’s forehead, he would leave it like this—for a little longer at least—and hold her instead while the storm outside blew past. 

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An entry in a leatherbound book left open on the windowsill in Comtesse Lavellan’s library:

“Two hours it took to undo the knots on the upper railing, and Torsa berating me for half of it. I cannot complain; I cannot think of an afternoon better spent than the one we had together yesterday. Even so—perhaps next time I shall put a little less effort into maintaining the knots. I have learned my lesson.” 

Below the entry is a rough drawing, which appears to depict a tall person with flowing hair and a huge axe. Underneath the drawing in misshapen letters is a brief description: 

Sr Nyte Adhlea

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Lydia chuckled. Nights between them passed where the man she loved held the world in his hands, pouring over war reports. The world became so much smaller, a tiny baby in her husband’s hands, but they were much more tired than they ever were before. It was what happened when you were more alive, when mundane day to days were new again with a new little one. Yes it was all worth fighting for.

It was taking Emma entirely too long a time to fall back asleep. When the moon was up, she was up. Cullen rocked her, then Lydia. A tiny hand palmed Lydia’s breast. Such a hungry little one she was, latching quickly after Lydia decided to hell with it and doff her nightgown to the floor. She sat cross legged, focusing on the gentle pull. Cullen asked how it felt.

“Strange,” Lydia replied, Cullen settling by her side. “A relief sometimes. But right. She latches on well.”

“Are you tired at all?”

He meant with her arm. It did tire her sometimes, but there was noticeable sinew from it’s constant use. She hoped to one day ride Pepper and Jesper again, or take Emma out to see them at least. Cullen promised a stable in their backyard, a white picket fence that delineated their home. Cullen saw so many things for the two of them and their home, a good night sleep eventually one of them. Lydia saw the same and she saw a life. She didn’t know every step, other than one day Emma would turn one, and then two, and then eventually she’d grow up. She knew them but didn’t dwell on them. She liked where she was. Even if more sleep was desirable.

But Emma cooed after she had her fill, belching for them. It was so loud in their otherwise quiet murmurs that the two laughed together. Lydia loved quiet nights like this, Cullen in her arms. She loved quiet nights like this, her daughter in her arms. She’d never poured more love before. She made up for what was lost to her.

“I’ll be here,” she said to Emma as she finally fell asleep. “We’ll stay together always. I promise.” Cullen said he would never doubt.

Cullen took Emma from Lydia. Ten minutes later Lydia let “her eyes rest,” on the loveseat, Clio between them. The hound looked deep into Cullen’s eyes, making her threats. Do not hurt the tiny, squishy crying little one. I love her. Maker how she did, dutifully sleeping by her cradle and wagging her tail whenever she was near Emma. Emma adored her too. She turned her head and perhaps even smiled a little when Clio barked at the fallen branches that fell on the roof. A good Fereldan girl should always have a hound at her side.

She smiled at her parents too, at her mumma and papa. He was often referred to as “papa,” “dad,” or “a father,” to their friends and family that wanted to stop by and see their little one, their home a rotation of people they loved. Lydia called him papa too. She even thought of her own father sometimes. She admitted her thoughts the night before when he rocked Emma to sleep with a small song, can’t help falling in love with you. He sang it to Lydia once or twice, the first time when she found out her father would arrive at Skyhold.

Thank the Maker Emma has you. You won’t turn her away. You’ll always love her, she said. He held her as she cried into his arms, her fingers tangling through his chest hair as he wiped away her thick tears he didn’t understand because they were never happier together, never more in love. But he still held. He still held, and in the quiet moment after he understood. His Lydia. Dearest, love. A night holding her as she wept was a night holding all the world, like holding Emma.

In his arms Emma still smelled of sweet newness, even two months along. She begun to smile, or at least that was what Cullen and Lydia insisted. She knew her parents and their voices. It was instinct that she knew when she was on Cullen’s bare chest, an instant latch and calmness. He had heard skin to skin was vital for bonding with a newborn. He’d do it for hours even if it wasn’t. He needed her in his arms and against his heart, her skin dewy and new, her perfection tangible and earthen. She perked when Cullen hummed or Lydia told stories, raising her barely sprouted eyebrows. Cullen hadn’t told her a story yet however. He talked to her, told her she was loved and quite honestly, the most exciting thing in South Reach or possibly ever. Oh yes, she could be indignant and squirm against his bare chest, wanting to poke her head up and observe the world around her, and certainly she could smell foul when she needed a change, but she could also settle against him and lay against his beating heart as he rocked her, wiggling contently. She’d do that and everything was worth fighting for. She did it for him then, his Emma. He was jealous his younger brother named his son Peter before Cullen could even settle down. Emma too was a sweet tribute to his mother. He loved and missed her dearly.

Thoughts drifted to something his father said a long time ago during Satinalia, when a purple and blue blanket Lydia now used for warmth covered all his children by a fire. He told Emma the same thing his father said that day. “I can’t promise perfect always, but I can promise us.” He promised it, again and again. Maker it was true. He wasn’t perfect. Not like her, not like Lydia. Some day he would tell her. He’d tell her all his flaws, tell her the reason why he sometimes still woke in a sweat and her mumma had to hold him tight in the morning. He’d tell her his mistakes, and say he didn’t redeem nor repent but did what he thought was right. He fell in love with not his redemption or salvation but a woman that loved him back and wanted to grow with him too. He’d tell his daughter why his hands shook sometimes. They shook then a little, tender against Emma. He could still hold. His hands were good hands for holding. Lydia told him once.

He kissed the top of her head as he so often did, her tiny feet stretching against his belly. She was happy. He knew it with every fiber and every measure.

“Little one,” he whispered, “little love, little dearest. I’ve never felt anything like this.”

“Neither have I. But I like it.”

Lydia stirred, leaning over and placing another kiss upon her daughter’s head. Emma knew her well. She stirred. She smiled, not toothy but wide.

Lydia looked at the both of them. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

She came to his side, tracing Emma’s chubby cheek, the curve of her arm. She held onto Lydia’s finger. “She’s perfect Cullen,” Lydia said. “She’s perfect.”

“Like someone I know.”

She looked at him sweetly. “Oh please. Don’t ever say I’m perfect.”

“I do often when I’m inside you, you know. You like it then.” He smirked.

“Not in front of Emma.” She scolded with a smile. “But you know what I mean.”

“I know, I know. You’re Lydia. That’s who I love. But you must know, she has little perfect pieces of you.”

She asked how he could tell. “She has a look,” he said. “Almost as if she’s…permanently quizzical.”

“Good,” Lydia deemed it, though she lightly smacked his shoulder. According to her, a girl should question all things. “Except that we love her,” she said. “We love, and we love…and Maker I’ve never felt anything like this.”

It took Emma a little more to drift to sleep. They went to their room and placed Emma in her cradle, Clio dutifully following and taking her place next to it. They crawled into bed, both deciding an afternoon nap was tantamount to a full night’s sleep. You had to get sleep in increments with a baby. You had to huddle together, relish in shared tiredness. Side by side Cullen kissed Lydia’s forehead, untangled the knots in her hair that she once would have ceaselessly combed out. He did it for her, took care of her with whispers. You are a good mother, you will be there for her always.

“You’re so sweet to her,” said Lydia.

“I love her,” replied Cullen. '"I will always love her."

There they were again. More tears. Soft and fat tears he kissed away to taste salt. “I wish…” she muttered without needing to finish. He knew. She wished for her own father. He couldn’t make up for a past. He only knew a future. It used to not matter, this elusive future. If they were together it hardly mattered. If all three of them were together now, everything mattered.

He worried for the world and the part he could play. He could cherish still.

She coaxed him to sleep with kisses. He slumbered with his arm wrapped around her waist. They woke up an hour later, still tired, but he liked this tired better than any tiredness he ever had. Emma needed them. He would tend to her. Everything was worth fighting for.