Room 614, the Arms Hotel, Saturday lunchtime

[momslilassassin]

Turns out that waking up as a woman when your daughter is expecting you to be a man is not the most exhilirating start to a morning-now-heading-into-afternoon.

"Come on, Val," Ben soothed, rocking the sobbing infant as he paced the room for the thousandth time. "It's me. I still feel the same in the Force, I just...look different."

Perhaps philosophical discussions of gender and sex were not the place to start with a distraut one month old. "Ender?"

Comments

[momslilassassin]

Ben grabbed an extra bottle, three diapers and the squeaky giraffe (and the baby, yes), and went out the door, closing it quietly behind him.

Val started screeching halfway down the hallway.

[endsthegame]

The sound was enough to make Ender open one eye again - it was instinctive by now.

Then he pulled the blankets over his head and lapsed into an exhausted sleep.

[momslilassassin]

Val fell back to sleep five minutes into their circuit around the island. Ben kept his steady pace and his slightly off-key version of "Dance, Dance Little Ewok," for the trip before finally stopping at the Perk for two enormous coffees and heading back to the room.

He opened the door as silently as he could.

[endsthegame]

Unusually for him, Ender didn't jerk awake at the noise or the sudden presence.

He was still sleeping quietly, face pressed against Ben's pillow.

[momslilassassin]

Ben smiled softly at Ender and kept the stroller moving to keep Val sleeping as he sipped from his coffee.

[endsthegame]

It took Ender five minutes to register Ben's presence in the room.

He flopped over onto his back and squinted through the fuzzy permeating his vision. "Ngh."

[momslilassassin]

"Coffee?" Ben murmured, holding out the cup.

[endsthegame]

Ender waved his hand in the cup's general direction.

Yes, coffee.

[momslilassassin]

Ben handed it over with a grin. "Love you."

[endsthegame]

Ender didn't echo that "love you" until he had that coffee firmly in his grasp, but then he sighed it with conviction.

He took a sip. "Val?"

[momslilassassin]

"Out pretty hard," Ben murmured. "She hasn't made a peep in ten minutes."

[endsthegame]

"C'mere, then," Ender sighed. "You need sleep, too."

[momslilassassin]

Ben slipped onto the bed and leaned back against the pillows with a tired sigh. "Maybe a little."

[endsthegame]

Ender reached out and tucked the blankets over him. "I'll get Val if she wakes up again," he promised softly.

[momslilassassin]

"That's why I kinda married you," Ben mumbled, eyes closed already. "You're astral."

[endsthegame]

Ender leaned in and kissed his cheek.

Then he settled back on the bed himself, shutting his eyes. Hopefully Val would sleep with them? ...At least for another hour?

[momslilassassin]

Ben snuggled in: he wasn't bothered at all by Ender's curves, but knew this wasn't Ender's favorite weekend and so didn't do anything but fall back to sleep.

Three months ago!Ben was so disappointed in the prioritizing of sleeping over sex.

[endsthegame]

Three months ago!Ben didn't properly appreciate how sleeping could be transcendentally better than sex if you hadn't done much of it for a while.

Ender managed another half hour's sleep, when a tiny noise from across the room woke him up again. He sat up and eyed Val's crib, but there was no other sound. Perfect silence.

A minor sense of worry spiked up in his heart.

He got up.

[momslilassassin]

Ben stirred, mostly picking up Ender's distress. "Kreetle?"

[endsthegame]

"It's fine, it's fine," Ender said, padding up to the crib.

He released a breath when he realized Val was still breathing. "Go back to sleep."

[momslilassassin]

"She's all right?" Ben breathed.

[endsthegame]

"Yeah," Ender said softly, smiling down at Val's little face. "She's perfect."

[momslilassassin]

"I knew it," Ben said, smiling back.

[endsthegame]

"Just go back to sleep, love," Ender said, looking up at him, still smiling. "You still look exhausted."

[momslilassassin]

"I am," Ben admitted, letting his eyes drift closed.