It is a wise father that knows his own child.

Had there ever been a time when they had gotten along? There were moments where fleeting glances at happiness were made and both seemed to wonder whether this was it, maybe everything would be put to bed, but it wasn’t. It was all dredged up again, taken out of a drawer as though it had never been thrown away but kept and instead left to fester and grow. What had been resolved when they had been away? Nothing. What was going to be resolved now? She doubted it would be a lot. It was just going to eke out until there was no stuffing left in either of them and all they could muster was the desire to get their children into their uniforms and off to Hogwarts. Then what would be left? An empty house and all these demons they’d buried for the sake of their babies. No love left. No memory of what it had been like to love.

Lifting herself into a sitting position, Millie drew her legs to her chest, her arms wrapping around her shins. Her chin came down to rest on her knees and she watched Keiran with her deep, expressive blue eyes. It was set to be the quietest argument they would ever have, the sake of their children’s slumber more important than screaming at each other like she was sure they could have found the energy to do. Shuddering a sigh, she wondered whether the world would do her the grace of swallowing her whole. She doubted it. She’d have to listen to an argument she’d incited, jumped up, bitten into like it was some sort of addictive mechanism they fell into, had to fall into. Impossible to avoid.

Melissa. That hurt more than the words that accompanied it. Her forehead moved to her knees as the threatening, salty tears broke forward, sliding down her cheeks and down over her neck. She shook her head fiercely but she doubted she’d make any difference. The word felt like poison. That as well as her name. She couldn’t imagine it. She didn’t know what she’d do. But she’d been threatening it, hadn’t she? She just didn’t want to hear the words. She just didn’t know how to react to the words, the reality of the thing. What would it be? She’d have the children during the week and then him on the weekend? With no job, no home and, indeed, no prospects she supposed it would be the other way around. It was probably about right.

“No. No. No, no, no!” She burst, splitting out of her little protective ball, her legs retreating back down and her arms throwing outwards as she looked up, her eyes red raw and her cheeks sparkling under the yellow light of the lamp above their heads. Her hands reached up and she scrubbed at her eyes with her screwed up fingers, wanting so desperately to take it back, to have seen that the way they were going to go was like this. She wished she’d known. She’d wished she’d thought it all through, been allowed to. As with everything, she’d gone in gung-ho because she’d felt rather than thought. That was never going to change of course but not for the first time she found herself on the losing end of an unfair bargain. On a dotted line she’d signed her life away and made a new one. No one had ever said anything about a clause that promised this one would fall apart, too.

“I’ve got these irrational fears too,” she hissed, trying her hardest to keep her voice down. “And I can’t fucking help it either. And I was never meant to have this but I did. I thought my ship had sailed a long time ago, believe me.” She brought her hand up, curling it around her neck, and sighed. “But you know what, I’ve tried. I really have. I’ve had to adapt. I’ve had to change. I didn’t have a choice. I was thrown out of my comfort zone when we got married but when I fell pregnant there was no hope of getting back into the shallows and I thought you’d have been there to keep my head above water and you were but now we’re both drowning and I don’t know how to get us out of trouble but it’s the only thing in this world that I want. I don’t want a divorce. That’s the last thing I need. I need you. I need you like I need air to breathe.”

Millie had never before felt scalded by Keiran. She’d never before felt like she’d genuinely let him down. There had been all of those fears, all of those abject concerns and little voices that teased that she had, that there was no coming back from the way she had let this one fester. She hadn’t thought to ask which was the most ridiculous thing. She’d always just taken Keiran as he’d come. A Transfiguration nut job – would’ve done anything to teach it, would’ve given the world to stay in and around it as the magical field evolved and changed. That was just part of him. She hadn’t ever considered a world within that, one where his ambitions had levels and tiers and there was a rhyme and rhythm to his desires. If she was to be truthful, she’d never considered him in that light before. So how could she ever claim to love him, truly, when she had not taken the time to listen, to ask and to wonder after him? Her husband. The man she so professed to love. She didn’t know him at all.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, shaking her head as she brought her hands to her face again, fresh tears spilling free with wild abandon. “I’m so, so, so sorry Keiran. I never… I never thought about it. I’m stupid and I’m selfish and I’m so wrapped up in me and you as I see you … I don’t even see you at all. How can I even say I love you when I won’t see that you want so much and my only contribution has seen you throw it all away …” she closed her eyes. “And I never asked, did I? I don’t have a clue who you are and I have the gall to be angry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve let you down. I never even tried, did I? Never mind what you did or didn’t do. I didn’t try. How can you even stand to look at me when I've let this happen? How can you stay when you know as well as I now do that this is all built on assumptions and a law and ... and we never really got a chance to find out who were were. I never asked who you were. And you spent so long with me. Why are you still here?"

As Millie started, angry and still out of Keiran’s view, he felt more and more like she was going to say she did want him gone. He couldn’t believe he’d actually said it, actually given her the chance to duck out on him. His stomach, his chest – his entire torso really – felt smaller, felt constricted. Neither of them managed to word things right, it seemed, because her phrasing made him tuck his chin and brace himself for her retaliation, her retribution for all he had done. She thought they were drowning. What was he supposed to do about that? They had never quite learned to swim, what with everything that happened in their first few months. Of course she would want-

But she didn’t.

That was probably what surprised him most the entire evening. Truly. Some part of her was accepting of the trouble he had caused, was causing, and would cause in the future. Keiran found himself wondering why she didn’t just take the house and send him back to his mum’s. Not that Bridget would’ve taken him in. He had sat there, mentally preparing himself for the lecture about how he needed to learn, how he needed to take time and come back when he wasn’t going to screw everything up. He just didn’t expect her to want to stay when she put forth the image of one so very unhappy. When he couldn’t make it better. He didn’t want her to stay if she wasn’t happy. If the twins couldn’t be. They hardly knew the gravity of the situation, those kids. His – their – kids. They didn’t quite deserve what their parents seemed near prepared to throw at them.

Keiran’s head whipped around to look at her, finally, when she started apologizing seemingly for nothing. Although he had heard the tears, the anguish, in her voice, seeing it was much worse. Dammit, he’d made her cry again. Keiran nearly slapped himself for being frustrated by it – he had seen it coming the moment she started her rebuttal for his attempt at an explanation. They both had known from the get-go what was going to go down after he began.

His mouth opened and closed over and over, wanting to say that he had never expected her to ask. That he never wanted her to feel obligated. Because they were true, to an extent. Up until the twins were born, he hadn’t really registered that he would know her forever. The law repeal came and she had scared him more than he thought anyone ever could, in hiding. In all but running from him.

But he knew now. He knew. There would be no end of this for him. There would be no forcing her from his mind or allowing himself to deal with her wanting anyone else. Hadn’t he decided so long ago that he wouldn’t accept her leaving? How in Merlin’s name had he forgotten that? And Millie thought she was the one deserving of anger. Hardly.

“Don’t.” He began, having to pause and clear his throat. It was too tight, the tone of his voice too pained. “Don’t put that on you. I never mentioned it, which makes it equally my fault. I’d never even voiced the idea to anyone, so how would you know? How would anyone know to mention it to you? Who was I to think I could become Headmaster, anyway? A man who can’t even handle his own family hardly is capable or deserving of the title.”

Keiran swallowed, taking in the fact that he rarely called them that aloud – a family. He hadn’t been sure why until very recently. Now it was painfully obvious that he was worried they wouldn’t remain one. Some bit of him knew that there would be this collapse, this destructive force coming at them from every side. The irrational, angry side of him pointed out that it was a good decision not to show Millie the ring. Not to suggest they give proper vows in place of the ones claiming they would try. Neither had quite lived up to their promises.

“Why am I here? I’m here because we worked, Millie. We did, you know we did.” Keiran added after a moment, turning and pulling his feet in front of him so he could cross his legs and face her. He couldn’t help that his words were too fervent, that his hands were holding the duvet too tightly for wanting to touch her. “Because the rational part of me knew I would need you and our family.”

On any normal day, he would have joked that he also stayed because Bridget would have up and murdered him if he left. But he couldn’t bring himself to tease her just then. It would only make things worse, he knew. “I’m here because I remember when I decided to tell you how I felt. Rather, how I feel. I remember thinking that I couldn’t say the words, and then just deciding to hang it and tell you anyway. Because I can still pause and remember what it felt like to know you were saying it back because you meant it with everything in you… Millie, I- I can’t always tell, and that scares me. I don’t like being that coward you know me as. I don’t. But the moment I decided to change you just reacted so badly. I just wanted to explain… I didn’t want to make you angry again.”

Keiran couldn’t remember telling his hand to do so, but it lifted and settled on her cheek, fingers threaded part-way into her hair. “I may have just sat here complaining about how you’ve changed, how we – both of us – have changed. But that does not mean that I don’t still love you. I could never just stop loving you. I don’t care what you do, or how old we are, or how badly I may miss teaching. I can find new favorite things. I can teach the kids and make them into inexplicably brilliant students in Transfiguration or whatever the hell you want them to be good at. Divination, for all I care! I don’t often realize that I could focus my determination on things that I can change, since I’m always so focused on the past and my mistakes and the mistakes of those who affect me. I always claim that I change when the situation calls for it... The irony of it all is very painfully hitting me in the face, and I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll change. Maybe I just needed a goal or a reason to. I had one but didn’t realize it.”

It was his touch which broke the stalemate between them. It was his touch which reacquainted them with each other. It was his touch that made her lean into him, that made her curl her arm around his neck and curl up against his chest. There she could hear the strong beat of his heart thrumming just under his skin. Heat radiated from him, enveloping her in this comfort blanket that smelt distinctly like the man she did truly love even if she did not wholly know him. When he was near her, touching her, she felt like it didn’t matter, that as long as they were together they could take any hurdle and jump one twice as high as the one life was forcing them over. So long as they were a team they could do anything, she thought. Even at their darkest, Millie thought, hoped, knew, that there would be no one else, that Keiran would always be there for her just as she would stand next to him regardless of what happened. Always. Here was the man who couldn’t believe he’d squandered a Sunday with her. There was the man who didn’t care anyway because they’d spent it together. The man she loved.

“I think you’d be a good Headmaster,” Millie murmured, her fingers sliding over the back of Keiran’s palm. “Just like you’re a good father. You can still do it if you want to. It’s things like this that I wish you’d have told me.”

Millie smiled a little as she began to draw circles in her husband’s skin, the action involuntary and natural to her. She turned her head, placing a kiss into his palm, quietly revelling as she did so in the fact that his nearness meant that for now they were taking steps to resolve this portion of the saga of arguments that had constructed their early married life. She wanted that to end now. She knew that while she wanted to resolve it quickly with kisses and cuddles there was also a much more pressing, underlying reason behind all of their upset and difficulties. It wasn’t singularly one thing. It wasn’t another. It wasn’t solely Keiran. It wasn’t solely her. They were all at fault and a myriad of contributing factors were at work and they needed to make sense of it as much for themselves as for their children because Millie was not prepared to let their relationship deteriorate to the point where his glib offer of a divorce was voiced again and that time actually taken up. She needed Keiran and Liam and Kelly needed both of their parents. They’d always needed both.

“I’m sorry,” Millie sighed, lowering her gaze. “I didn’t want it to get like this. I never stopped loving you Keiran I just… I don’t know what it was. I guess I just let you go and now that I’ve got you, now that you’re here… I know it’s a lame excuse but I’m scared you’ll go again. So I suppose it’s easier to push you and make you go on my own terms than … well, depend on you, get attached like you said… and then for you to go. We need you. Because you complete our family and it’s not been right for so long. Now it is and I’m scared. We’re both cowards,” she laughed a little despite herself. “But we’re working cowards, eh? As long as I know you’re coward one and I’m coward two I reckon we can fix this.” She leaned up and nudged his nose with her own, her lips grazing his.

Millie smiled, popping a kiss to the side of his mouth. “Brown paper packages tied up with string and all that?” she inquired with a laugh. “I love you, Keiran,” she murmured. “Really. Truly. The same way I did that night in the bath and all the more now for all of the ups and downs we’ve had.” Her spare hand pushed some of his hair away from her face and she reached up, kissing him soundlessly again before disentangling herself and leaning over her side of the bed, reaching into the drawer for a notepad and pen. Millie bobbed back onto the bed properly and crossed her legs, her knees touching Keiran’s as she set the pad in her lap.

“We need to work out the bits that are just rubbish,” she explained slowly. “And scrap them and try to be better. And we need to be certain of what we both need so that we can try and do that and we just… we need to write it all down and get everything out on the table because it’s not this marriage that I can’t do anymore, it’s this argument so we need to do it this time. We need to resolve it for good and make sure we’re both happy. Then, at least, we’re both clear and square with each other and we know where we went wrong. That way it won’t happen again. What do you reckon?”

It took no prodding for Keiran to wrap his free arm around her shoulders, resting his cheek atop her head as his thumb swept away her tears. Instead of repeating the fact that he had promised – it sounded far too much like he could be placing blame on Millie – Keiran merely shook his head at the suggestion that he go back to teaching. “I think I might be needed here,” he returned lightly, smiling against her hair.

He could quickly feel himself wanting to get lost in her touch, to ignore the truth they both knew: Things weren’t right. Not yet. And they wouldn’t be fixed with the method that they usually chose. Indeed, no great change would come from passing over the problems in favor of activities that took no real thought. “You’re the only Gryffindor here, love. Having fears because of me doesn’t make you a coward. We’re both just worriers, I figure.”

Keiran smiled into their kiss, glad to feel the assuredness he had at first struggled to swallow at his parent’s house that night. Now he clung to it, not even daring to question the emotion. His hand followed her as she moved away, a puzzled albeit amused expression coming over his face until she returned. The idea was rather brilliant, he had to say. Nodding along, Keiran’s hands fell to her knees, pressing circles into her skin with his thumbs as he listened.

“You know what part of the problem might be?” He asked after a moment, removing himself from his spot on the bed and moving over to their dresser. Pulling open the one that had been assigned to him for tees and bottoms, Keiran continued. “We never had to truly think out promises we wanted to make to each other. Our wedding was just… yeah. We’ve been over how strange it was. That’s not what I’m getting at.” Digging through the drawer, he found the correct pair of shorts and pulled them out. “I’m saying that we both had these promises that made sense at the time but they were hardly based on what we wanted or needed. Mine, I recall, were based on wanting to create a place for you, but not being entirely sure how it would work. I mean, I tried to make them more eloquent than that, but I clearly have trouble saying what I mean to say without much forethought.”

Stuffing his hand into the pocket of the shorts he had only that morning unpacked from their trip, Keiran pulled out the box and decided to forego his usual tidiness, dropping them to the floor. He wasn’t even sure what she would say or do, but she had to see it coming by now. He had never been very good at surprises – Slytherin 'cunning' or not. He hadn’t exactly planned to do it this way, after all. Sitting on the bed once more, he ignored the fact that he wasn’t doing it properly. They weren’t normal, so why should this end up normal, too?

“I’m not ignoring your suggestion. It’s brilliant, truly. I’m just… I feel like part of this argument comes from the fact that we didn’t choose this originally. Sure, when the law was repealed we decided to keep it this way. But you have to admit that sometimes people question us, and it probably makes you wonder, too. I’ve never wondered about my own stance on this so much as wondering if you wouldn’t have wanted to do it differently. So, I suggest that we just do it differently anyway. I want us to choose this, to choose to be who we were when this started and when we grew together rather than growing closer and closer apart. I mean, we- the more we try to fix it without truly saying what we mean, the worse it gets.

“So, as part of your idea,” Keiran picked up Millie’s hand and set the box in her palm, “I would like to know… if you would accept this ring. I know you have the wedding band, but after everything, you deserve something better. Something more real. So, Missie… if you want to, I’d like for us to renew our vows. To take the time to really think about them and to make them ones we want to remember rather than things we said to make sure that the parents wouldn’t be against it. I feel very… I don’t know, foolish, doing this. Considering what we just spent time discussing, it seems almost redundant. But I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, regardless. This seems a far better time than the others I considered,” Keiran offered a weak chuckle. He pulled his hands back to set them in his lap as he watched her. “I want to do it over, to ensure those who may wonder after us that I’m choosing you. That I don’t care what I’m giving up, because I’m choosing my family.”

There was still hope for them: that was something that in the soft yellow glow of the lamplight above their heads, she believed. She didn’t think it would do for anyone else to love Keiran. She didn’t think anyone could, not in the way she did. It wouldn’t do, either, for anyone to try and replace him. He was it. He was the be-all and end-all for her and there could never be another person for her. That was why it just had to be right. Because there was no sense in letting break what was only cracked, not broken.

“You give me heart palpitations,” she accused with a roguish smile as her lips stroke a path across his jaw. “I have to live up to my Gryffindor name, you reputation ruiner, you.” She giggled, stroking her hand across his shoulder, and snuck another kiss, plucking it soundly from his lips. Then, just like that, he left her side and Millie dropped her hands to the blanket, her shoulders curling in a little as she looked at him, her eyes full of an old mirth that they’d not had for a long while.

Pushing herself forward, she tossed the paper away and laid down on her belly, her legs flitting up into the air, bent at the knee, her elbows in the duvet and her head propped in her palms and she watched Keiran, listening to him intently as she watched him root around in the chest of drawers. There was a part of her that wanted to interject and ask him what in Merlin’s name he was doing to the contents which, she would’ve protested, she’d spent all week ironing and he should be more mindful of. She didn’t mind too much though, not really. From her angle, she got a very good view, indeed, of Mr Hayes’ behind. Taking him up on the ironing offer could wait. As far as she was concerned, he could stand there all day.

“It wasn’t the worst wedding in the world,” Millie offered lightly as she rolled over, letting her head tip over the side of the bed, her gaze admiring Keiran’s bottom from a new and more interesting angle. “The food was a bit rubbish, though, in hindsight.” She smiled, pushing back some of the wild tendrils of hair hanging about her face and she watched him with rising curiosity as he first, picked out a pair of shorts over all of the others – none of which were bed clothes though she was willing to indulge him for the moment – and then, to her half-delight and incredulity, he abandoned them on the floor!

Millie turned, rising back up onto her knees as Kieran returned to the bed. She plopped down onto her bum and looked at him, her eyebrows quirking a little his words carried along. Millie’s heart leapt into her mouth when she felt the velvet box slip into her palm. She looked down, up and then down again before finally bringing her eyes back to Keiran’s, shock registering deep within her. She had expected them to talk, to decide things out but throughout his speech it had not registered with her. It was the last thing that she’d have expected and she couldn’t find the words to describe it.

Leaning up, Millie’s fingers curled around the box and she held it to her as she took another kiss from her husband. Fiancé. Her hand lingered at the nape of his neck as she sat back and placed the ring box between them. Her other hand linked into his and her fingers played with the soft curls at his neck as she poured over the words she wanted to say. They came easily though. She hoped all future words would, too.

“We need to do it our way,” she told him, her face devoid of her natural humour but still fair and gentle. “We need to take time and we need to do it right. The way we want to, not in two weeks planned by my mother and everyone else around us. We need to do this. I’ll always choose you. George Clooney might give me pause but it’s always going to be you. I love you. So much.”

She smiled a little then, her face cracking and betraying her youthful vivacity after having stolen a kiss, her eyes growing mischievous and cheeky.

“We’ve never actually been not-married, d’you know that?” She giggled. “I want a string of dates before I commit to you, Mr Hayes. I mean, for all I know, I could have missed out of a wealth of poor attempts at small talk! God,” Millie flopped herself down onto the bed, letting the box up and sitting it on her belly. “Think of all the missed opportunities in dark cinemas to have very sneaky shenanigans. And awkward dinners. Not knowing what in Merlin’s name the wine list actually says and bowling – because every couple loves a bit of bowling.”

Millie sat up, a soft smile gracing her lips. She looked down and with a twitch of her fingers she clicked open the box, revealing the sparkling ring inside, the beauty of which struck her dumb for a few moments. She took it out, clicking the box closed before shimmying off her wedding ring. She brushed her fingers across the wear line and flexed her fingers, curiously mournful of the loss of weight there. Slowly, she pushed the engagement ring down over her knuckle and watched as it glinted in the light.

“Wow,” she whispered, glancing up at him. “You’ve got a good eye, Professor.” The wedding band was slipped on after the engagement ring and she turned her hand over, getting used to what she imagined was the proper feeling. But that proper feeling was within her, not on her hand. She leaned up, clasping his cheeks between her bookended palms and kissed him soundlessly. After a few moments she broke away but rested her forehead against his, catching her breath a little before kissing him again and again and again and again.

“You can tell the twins we’re going to have a strictly married-engaged-dating relationship,” Millie chuckled against his skin as she broke off, pealing kisses across his neck. “And they won’t get it but they’ll be happy all the same. Just like I am.” She lifted her head up. “Because none of this makes any logical sense, you know that, don’t you?” She curled her arms around his neck. “But we work. We complement each other like strawberries and cream or chocolate and chocolate or lazy Sundays and sex.” Millie brushed her knuckles across his cheekbone. “Thank you for wanting us. All of us.”

Watching for a reaction was the most difficult part; Keiran found himself suddenly impatient and trying not to fidget. He merely watched as she looked down at the box but didn’t even bother to open it and see. As she reached up to pull him in for a kiss, he had to actively stop himself from grinning at her actions, returning the gesture without question. It spoke volumes, he felt, that she didn’t even wonder what it looked like before agreeing – hadn’t every experience he’d had with proposals of any sort involved the potential bride staring at her ring, first? Millie didn’t even seem to care which ring he had chosen, and he decided to take that as her just being happy that he chose her. A bit presumptuous, perhaps, but he would just let his mind think it that way.

The Keiran from a few days ago would’ve been slightly affronted at the mention of the actor, but he just found himself laughing and running his hands up and down her arms as if he just had to be touching her. As if the knowledge that he was most definitely allowed to made it impossible not to.

Her words made him pause and think, but he merely found that she was right. “Be careful what you ask for, darling. You’ll be spoiled, yet, just wait and see. We can be the most obnoxious pair in the building if you want it. And take trips like we did before the twins were born, just because we could. Just because we can.”

Then she was finally opening it and he knew he had done well. Keiran hadn’t chosen it on his own, exactly – but then, what man could really say he had? Didn’t other blokes ask their friends or the ladies working in the stores? There was no way he could be the only one who was nervous that it wasn’t quite right. He grinned almost smugly at her decision to call him ‘professor,’ but chose not to comment on the fact that he had picked up on when and why she used certain endearments. It would be a total and complete lie to say his thoughts didn’t stray momentarily to his office back at school.

Extending his legs, he scooted forward so she was seated to his side and he could wrap his arms around her middle as she trailed kisses across his skin. “When have you ever known me to make sense?” He teased, turning his head to look at her when she pulled away. “Mm,” he agreed, “Lazy Sundays are the best. Thank you for making me realize that. I don’t think I could ever not want you. Not want them.”

One hand drifted to toy with the ring where it rested around her finger, thumb brushing over the top several times. “So, the real question here is this: I don’t have to stop calling you Mrs. Hayes, do I? Because I’m willing to bribe you to let me keep on with it.” A smirk reminiscent of the ‘Professor Hayes’ Millie might have remembered lit his face as he wrapped his arm more firmly around her, chin ducking so he could press kisses along her collarbone. “You wouldn’t dare deprive a man of addressing his wife properly…” He added, even as a hand snuck under the hem of her shirt to graze the skin at her waist.

Slowly, and then all at once - like someone falling asleep – Keiran sat back against the pillows, releasing her entirely. “So,” he began brightly, preparing himself for some sort of reprimand for abandoning her in the center of the bed, “time to work on that list?”

The equality had returned, as though a switch had been turned on and the fight forgotten, the problems forgotten. With his hands on her skin, smiles ablaze on both of their faces they were symmetrical once more and curled into each other they were part of each other again. It made her chest feel lighter, her laughter come easier and her fingers itch for Keiran to fall beneath them. They were settled again. It wasn’t resolved but they were settled, together again and not just because they had to be, but because they wanted to be.

“So obnoxious they kick us out,” Millie chipped in with a grin before adding. “But the babies have to come too on these trips. Just so one duo is at least decently behaved even if we’re terrible.”

Millie contentedly brought her own arm around Keiran when she was drew to his side and wriggled under his kisses, trying to skilfully nudge him back to her lips but not succeeding too well – or at all, it seemed. She giggled, shrinking, her shoulders coming up around her ears, as his scruff tickled at her skin and she pushed him with an accompanying smirk of her own.

“I dunno,” she played, bouncing a little beside him. “You sometimes make a bit of sense but then I turn my back for a few moments and then suddenly you don’t make any sense at all.” But sense didn’t matter, not really. Not when it had come to mean so much and so little at the same time. They still understood each other, even if neither of them really ever made much sense.

“It’s been a while since Sunday has been utilised properly, hasn’t it?” Millie arched an eyebrow and looked at him, mock-seriously, before breaking into giggles once more. “Maybe I’ll treat you to breakfast in bed. How does that sound? A day for pampering my man, hm?” She pinched his cheek gently and smiled before nudging his nose with her own. “I’ll remember that,” she whispered against his skin.

“Well,” Millie began, her body language suddenly growing excessive and over the top. “We’ll have to see about that,” she continued teasingly, retracting as his touch struck a chord within her that was highly inappropriate for that point in time. Her lips came together, pursing playfully, and she prodded him again before relenting and coming back for a kiss. “I could accommodate you on that… but I do want to see what sort of bribe you have in mind.”

“Hey,” Millie protested as Keiran relaxed back against the pillows. She shook her head and turned, grabbing up the notepad and pen again before dropping it onto his chest – revenge. Kicking back the covers, Millie crawled underneath and grabbed down a cushion, propping it under her chin, her arm coming around to cuddle it, while the other took up the pen in her grasp. Keiran was the table, it seemed.

“What do we need then, huh?” She asked, tapping the pen against his belly. “I think we need to portion off a bit of time to talk, don’t we? Like, I do think a lot of us … mucking up was because we didn’t talk. Like, maybe depending on who is home … hold off on dinner and we could make it together so we could talk then, I think that’d be … sort of …” she smiled shyly, suddenly feeling all silly and ridiculous. “I guess… just not holding stuff in and bottling it up because it really doesn’t work does it? Plus you get that cute little frowny face,” she tapped her pen between his eyes, “which says you do wanna talk but won’t, don’t you?” She smiled, leaning up to pop a kiss there before returning to her roost. “That could be number one… maybe, yeah?”

This, this was progress.

Keiran ignored Millie’s attempt at feigning seriousness, instead going for his most self-satisfied smirk. “I wouldn’t complain,” he returned with a shrug, shaking his head as she reached up to pinch his cheek. Changed though his opinion was about touching, he still wasn’t a fan of that particular action – though he had a feeling she knew as much. “Good,” he returned at a murmur.

“Well, that bribe can be figured out later, don’t you think, Mrs. Hayes?” He teased once he had settled and was looking up at her. As she moved to lay next to him, Keiran let out a quiet chuckle and moved his arm so she could move her pillow over.

Of course, the moment she started rambling, Keiran started grinning. It wasn’t a rarity for either of them to feel almost shy – not recently, at least – in trying to get their words out. Rather than commenting on it, though, he just started running his fingers through her hair as she kept on. He didn’t see a reason to say something that could start any sort of potential argument. Turning his head to watch her, he blinked in surprise as the pen came at him, but offered a good-natured and apologetic smile in return.

“Mm, yes, well. I think I picked that habit up from my father.” He said, attempting to shrug but then thinking better of it considering his new job as her desk. “That’d be good, Mills. We clearly both like cooking, so I don’t see any issue with it. Considering my plan for tomorrow, unless you decide you want to go work with Elliot again – which, by all means, love. I mean, you really seemed to enjoy it. - Unless that happens, I figure we’ll both be around for a while, anyway.”

Keiran nearly found himself embarrassed at his words, knowing full well that they hadn’t been true until a few days before when he had decided to give his family what they wanted rather than working in his awful job another day. It felt wrong, in a sense, to know that he would go in to work the next morning but come out without a career or professional direction. It would be better, he decided, to focus on things at home – at least until he knew the kids would be okay. Right then, he realized that he knew very little about either of them.

“Y’know,” he added after a pause, “if you did go back, I could cart the kids around, drag them to your shop, make them sit around for a few minutes while I bothered you. It would actually be kind of amusing. I’d bet anything they would make a mess, though.” Keiran frowned only slightly, figuring that of anyone, Millie would probably find it endearing rather than frustrating.

“I’m not sure how you’d feel about it, but I was going to offer that maybe I take a day with each of the twins individually. It’s just, I don’t really know much about them, and-“ Keiran frowned, staring at the end of the bed where Millie’s sheet-covered legs pressed against his uncovered ones. It took him a moment to regain his thoughts, and when he spoke again he couldn’t keep his eyebrows from tugging together out of frustration with himself. “I figured it might do for me to get to know them – to understand them. I’m not sure it’s the best way to do that, but… I don’t know.” Glancing at her again, he watched his fingers pass through her hair once more, combing it out. “What would you have me do?”

A scribbled note of their decided plan appeared on the page, Millie’s flurrying script pacing across the page brightly, and ending with a sharp, firm full stop. She looked up then, bringing her mouth unconsciously around the pointed lid of the pen. Her lips curled up either side of the small piece of black plastic and a snort of air left her nostrils, her nose crinkling at the tip with poorly concealed humour. She waggled her eyebrows suggestively at him and brought her hand back down to the page.

“Well, the plan is to try and get a gig at the Wizarding History Museum gala in Dublin next month and sometime this week we’ve got the curator coming in so… maybe, I dunno.” She rolled her lips together briefly before shaking her head, curly tendrils of hair bobbing about her cheeks. “I can’t believe I’m a florist – but anyway, if we get this then it’s pretty big… the museum would back us so we can get some pretty impressive clients.” Millie tapped the pen against her cheek, a different smile crossing her features, one that suggested that there was something there, lingering just beneath the surface – something that looked, in that light, oddly like aspiration and determination, too. “It’s not important at the moment though. I’ll probably have tomorrow, anyway… come up with some designs… anyway, yeah. No, no work, um.”

Millie laughed genuinely and nodded at Keiran’s words, her mind tracing back to the days when the twins were just beginning to crawl and suddenly they’d also managed to work out that the table was a good scaffold to get hold of different things and, crucially, to annoy mum, too. Flowers had been thrown all over the place then and much of the same hadn’t changed only Millie had learnt to sit on the kitchen island and do it, putting the twins in their high chairs with their mangos and their yoghurts, asking them their opinions as she worked but studiously keeping them at arm’s length from the plants – not because they’d destroy it but because they tended to have buttercup hiccups during the evenings afterwards and all three of them would be covered in bright yellow flower buds, much in the same way she had a habit of hiccupping feathers after chewing the ends of her quills.

“You could take those babies to go and look at a brick wall and they’d go,” Millie assured him, “they adore you. But yeah, they love the flowers but my arrangements just don’t like them. That’ll be why we have buttercup cure in bulk under the sink.” She smiled brightly. “But I bet they’d like it in the shop. Delores would just eat them up and…” she trailed off, her lips coming to a playful purse. “See, you’re full of good ideas… I don’t know why you doubt yourself.”

Millie’s eyes focused completely and unwaveringly upon her husband when, almost unconsciously, she recognised the twitch and change in his frame. His hedging words gave her a moment, worry riddling through her, but as his words moved along she blinked at him, brightness returning to her face as she wiggled up the bed, moving the pad off of his chest, replacing it with herself. Her hand came to his cheek, curling back a few wispy pieces of hair that lingered against his skin. Her gaze searched his earnest, gentle face and she smiled, the look growing slowly at first, barely moving at the side of her mouth and then rising up, meeting her eyes making them bright and wide and so very her; her when she looked upon him.

“I think you’ve got to trust your instincts, actually. Honestly, they’re good ones and you’re their dad, you know whether or not you know you know, you know what I mean?” Millie giggled before sobering herself a little. “But, if I’m honest, there’s never been a time where they’ve been apart and Kelly’s not Kelly without Liam and Liam’s not Liam without Kelly… but I think you’ve got to let them come to you. You’ll be confusing for a few days yet so they’ll be a bit funny at first so if I’m going to offer any advice I’d say just be there and play and do the dad thing and you’ll begin to get a handle on them - they run this house, remember, and they don’t know a lot about you. The three of you are going to be curious.”

Millie rolled over, back to her bedside table, and opened the drawer, pulling out the woven bracelet she’d made one rainy Sunday just before the babies had been born. Athena had shown her the charm, strangely enough, and it was not lost on Millie, even at the time, that there was something wrong with the use of it, that they should’ve been a team, but after a few weeks of Keiran being run ragged because of work and the twins not sleeping through the night, she brought it to an end and the charm that would alert her before they started crying proved invaluable, even if it meant that the three of them would flake out on the sofa during the afternoons.

“Here,” she declared brightly, clasping it around his wrist. “You’re on night duty. They’re not as bad now but I don’t think us being away has done them a whole lot of good so it might have to be all hands on deck in a couple of hours – we’ll see. Liam likes his milk just right, Kell prefers it a little bit cool.” Millie raised her eyebrows, a smirk flitting across her features before drumming her fingers against his chest. “Rest up, sweetheart. You’ve got the potential of having an interesting night. Chocolate chip cookies are also, always, a winner – just saying.”

Keiran shot Millie a wary glance at her claims of the twins’ affections for him, but knew that any disbelief he felt was undoubtedly caused by his own actions and not anything that Liam or Kelly could help. They, after all, could not voice their opinions for him to understand. They couldn’t, similarly, request that he stay home. In the end, it seemed, it was happening anyway. Although he huffed a bit at her comments, Keiran passed her a fairly pleased smile. “Don’t give me an ego boost I don’t need,” he joked. “Next thing you know I’ll be far too confident and driving you crazy.”

When she settled on his chest, Keiran’s fingers crawled their way down her sides to rest in the arc of her back, settling just above her hips. His reaction to her words was one of understanding rather than embarrassment. He had felt, from the start, that the idea wasn’t necessarily the best one. Just was grasping at straws trying to find an in. He nodded, expression serious and kind. “Right. You’re right.” He managed to drop a kiss on her forehead before she rolled away to retrieve some sort of bracelet.

Realization lit his face, and he sighed a bit, resignation at his fate setting in. Covering his face with his arm, Keiran let his head fall back into the pillows again. “Yeah, okay,” he returned, letting his arm fall across Millie’s pillow as he looked at it. “I earned this. I’d better get myself to sleep, then.”

- -

The first time the bracelet buzzed and woke Keiran, he could feel Millie shifting as if she were intending to go across the hall with him, so he took up his wand from the bedside table and cast a silencing charm over the room. After rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he pulled the covers closer to Millie’s chin and made his way down the hall. “Kelly Mae, what’s-a matter?”

Many minutes of hair petting and coaxing her back to sleep later, he snuck out of the room and pushed away a yawn as he curled himself around Millie again. Surprisingly, he thought, he actually got a couple hours of real sleep before the charm went off again, causing him to sigh heavily and had to practically peel himself out of bed. It was the pair of them, this time, rather than Liam as he had half expected.

“Hey, now,” he mumbled, gathering Kelly in his arms and sitting himself on Liam’s bed so the pair of them were within arm’s reach. “What’s this, babies?” Kelly gave a sniff as if to dry her tears so her father wouldn’t see them. Liam’s yawn was far too endearing for Keiran’s good.

It was going to be a long night, he mused. The yawn from his son set off one of his own, his mirror neurons clearly telling him that it was about time he slept properly. What was the point in going back to his room only to return to their side again? Running a hand over his face in an attempt to wipe away the sleep, Keiran decided that going back and forth would merely wake Millie and effectively ruin the point. After ensuring that their cries had quieted, Keiran rolled onto his side within the space of the bed, head settling into the pillow next to Liam. The boy’s tiny hand came up to paw at his father’s face as another yawn broke out over his little face. “C’mere, Kell,” Keiran mumbled, lifting her slightly and bringing her up alongside her brother.

It was a little over an hour before he woke to prodding and complaints from the elder of the two, his feet pressing into his father’s chest impatiently. Forcing himself up, Keiran collected both now-awake twins and carried the pair of them down to the kitchen where he set up bottles just as Millie had said he should. A glance at the time told him it was nearing on sunrise, and he felt more grateful than he should’ve for it. He had left his wand in the main bedroom, so it all was done by hand as he kept an eye on the twins where they were jabbering to each other on the carpeted floor of the living room.

Tired, though they seemed, their newfound ability to make all manner of sound was not to be ignored. He wondered vaguely if they could understand each other, but was soon distracted by the bottles being sorted. Settling himself on the floor with the pair of them, Keiran sat in relative silence for a bit, until he decided that they may as well have someone talking to them since their father didn’t have a conversation going, either. Stories of Greece fell from his lips first, followed by things he remembered about his student years at Hogwarts. When they finished and no longer seemed to be paying him any mind, Keiran trailed off, nodding. He was still tired, too.

When they settled into bed once more, Keiran wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself due to the fact that both twins seemed to decide that he would make a better pillow than the actual objects themselves. Part of him teased that they took after their mother in that way, but he just shifted a blanket around to tuck them in as best as he could, considering that they were almost immediately drifting off.