Mordecai awoke in the night to the sound of crying. It was faint, and clearly an infant was involved, and that was enough to wake him. Really, he was used to getting up and comforting crying from any age group, especially the soft, stifled kind. He was discombobulated enough to think for a minute that he needed to collect Erik.

Erik, who was sleeping in his bed on the floor and looking faintly uncomfortable, like any further upset would wake him. Mordecai froze and put his bare foot back on the rug.

Oh, yes. We’ve been through all that. Teething. Colic. Also, the brain damage and the god damage.

He knelt down beside the mattress, pulled up Erik’s blankets and moved a pillow so that it was over his ear. He pet Erik’s shoulder until the creased expression softened.

…And he doesn’t have an eye. Yeah. That’s forever.

He sighed, then he pulled himself to his feet and went after his greatcoat in the closet. It was getting cold again.

I was going to get a bathrobe. And some damn slippers. Whatever happened to that?

Oh. Right. Barnaby walked around all the time in a bathrobe and slippers. And Barnaby was a crazy old man.

Unlike this person, who makes practical fashion decisions based solely on vague emotional associations, and who will now be running around the house at two o’clock in the morning in a greatcoat and wingtip shoes and no pants.

It wasn’t like he was going to waste time getting dressed when someone was crying, just so he could look sane.

He knocked lightly on Calliope’s door and then peeked in. Yeah. Calliope was crying too. She was sitting on the bed with her knees drawn up and rocking back and forth with Lucy in her arms. “Please,” she said softly. “Oh, please…”

Yeah, that never works, thought Mordecai.

It looked like he was intruding on one of those everything-is-horrible-and-my-life-is-never-going-to-be-the-same moments. He’d been through a lot of those, several of them personally.

“Calliope?” he said. “Is it okay if I come in?” If this resulted in screaming and denial, he would adjust his technique.

Calliope looked up at him with a wide, desperate expression and for a moment, just a moment, he was back holding the wall during the siege.

Oh, gods, is that child dead?

He blinked and shook his head. No. It’s crying…

“I-I don’t know what she needs,” Calliope said thickly. “It… It… It’s not her diaper. She’s not huh… she’s not hungry. I don’t know… I don’t nuh… nuh… know…”

“Well, let’s see if I can help a little…” He turned his head, lifted his finger for a moment’s patience and coughed into the bend of his sleeve. “I’m sorry. I’m not sick, I promise you, it’s just the cold. Is it okay…?”

Calliope sat forward and put Lucy in his arms. He settled her against his shoulder and slipped right back into the bent-kneed, bouncy walk that he hadn’t required in years, like a pair of old shoes.

“Oh, poor Lucy,” he said. “You’re sure giving your mom a workout. Didn’t think you could give her a break for a couple days, didja? It’s okay. We’ll sort you out somehow. Calliope, did she eat? Just now?” He had already surreptitiously felt the diaper.

“Uh-huh,” said Calliope. She sniffled. “But she didn’t want any more.”

“I think she might have a couple of bubbles in there. Let’s see if we can get them up.” He walked with her, and he patted her back. His hand was practically the width of her shoulders.

Gods, they start out so small. Was Erik ever this small?

He knew Erik had been this small. Erik had been terrifyingly small.

Erik was still terrifyingly small, and easily hurt. It was just harder to pick him up now.

Lucy was either being obstinate about the bubbles or there was some other issue. “Okay, let’s try it sitting down.” He sat on the edge of the bed, near Calliope who was curled up in the middle, and put Lucy in his lap.

“Sometimes they want a different position,” he told Calliope. “But they usually have a favourite.” He sat Lucy upright, supporting her head from the front, and tried it that way.

“And sometimes they’re just unhappy,” he admitted, with a weak smile. “I think there’s an Invisible out there who whispers in babies’ ears and tells them how much being alive is going to hurt.”

“That’s awful,” Calliope said. She sobbed into a tissue. There was a box of them on the bed, and maybe a half dozen used ones.

“I don’t know,” said Mordecai. “Maybe it’s better to hear it when you’re still small enough to cry about it and let someone hold you.”

He had shifted Lucy so that she was lying belly down. He felt rather than heard her bring up a burp, and then the familiar dampness of spit-up in his lap. Well, the coat could take it.

He sat Lucy up and smiled at her. She was still squirming, but she was fussing less. “Nope, just gas. Not existential dread. Think you’ve got room for a little more food, little girl?”

“I…” said Calliope. “I don’t know if I have any more…” She shook her head with a pained expression. “I don’t know if it’s enough…”

He scooted nearer to her and offered Lucy, and a smile. “It’s all right. She isn’t going to need a lot right now. When I saw how little Erik was drinking… Well,” he admitted, “my brain wasn’t working very well. But it was scary enough that I remembered about it and asked Hyacinth, so that’s saying something.”

Calliope didn’t reach out to take her, she just sat with her arms lying limply in her lap. “What if it still isn’t enough?” She shuddered and pulled out another tissue.

“Then we’ll figure it out. If she’s still unhappy, we can try a bottle. And Hyacinth is just upstairs. She knows more about, well…” He made a vague gesture in Calliope’s general direction.

“Breasts?”

“I don’t think just the breasts,” he replied. “Whatever else your body is doing that’s weird and bothersome. All I know about ladies is stuff that they scream at me when I’m being insensitive.”

She laughed weakly. She accepted Lucy, who did appear more interested in feeding now. “What sort of things do they scream at you?” Calliope asked.

“Oh, let’s see…” He enumerated on his fingers, “Menstrual cramps are like someone kicking you in the uterus with cleats. I may be more easily upset right now, but I still have a legitimate reason and it is not just hormones. It’s not fair that coloured women don’t have to deal with this. It’s not fair that men don’t have to deal with this. Childbirth is the most painful thing you will ever experience, barring a kidney stone. Yeah, my breasts look really awesome right now but they’re sore. Do not just throw chocolates at me like I’m a goddamn Invisible and run away, I want you to listen to me and then hug me, you stupid bastard. That sort of thing.”

He considered, while Calliope laughed. “They usually do eat the chocolates, though,” he said.

“I think if I make some phone calls, I can get them to make you an honorary woman,” Calliope said. “You want me to do you a certificate?”

“I’m tempted,” he said. “It would annoy Hyacinth.”

There was a moment’s more laughter, then Calliope was right back to crying and cradling her infant daughter. She usually bounced pretty well when she fell, but there had been too much falling lately and she was tired.

I think it’s more like Milo pushed her, Mordecai thought with a frown. But it certainly didn’t help that newborns required feeding on a truly sadistic schedule, with no understanding of “my caregivers need to sleep.”

He had been out of commission both mentally and physically for most of that phase, but the whole houseful of people was all too happy to cede ownership of the loud green sack of tears and poop back to him when he was capable of sitting upright and stringing together coherent sentences. Hey, do something to shut this kid up! He’d probably been about as ready for that responsibility as Calliope, maybe less.

And Calliope hated the hospital, let’s face it.

He sighed. That part was his fault. Now that Lucy was here and doing okay, he wasn’t as convinced of the hospital with real doctors and a roof being objectively better than this broken house with Hyacinth.

…And him, it was about time to face that as well. He didn’t want to be in charge. He didn’t want to be responsible. Not if something went wrong. And, well, something went wrong (though an entirely different sort of thing than he’d been afraid of), and here he was again, shoving people aside and putting himself in the line of fire. He could’ve just woken Hyacinth and then gone back to bed. You know, theoretically. If he were a totally different person with a different brain.

And no heart.

He wrapped an arm around her and put her cheek against his shoulder. A real hug was not an option while Lucy was trying to get a meal in, and that might be a while. “I know, Calliope. This has been hard.”

She hid her eyes against him. “I’m so… I’m so… I’m so bad at this!”

“What? At being a mom?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice, even though she clearly meant it.

“Calliope, no,” he said. “You’re new at this. Everything that I’ve said tonight, I was told. I haven’t raised a hundred kids or anything, I just wound up with Erik in a house full of really great people who were willing to help me… And some less-great people who were willing to do anything to get him to be quiet. Gods, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing when I started out. For the first few weeks, I couldn’t take care of him at all.”

“You… you were hurt, though,” Calliope said. She didn’t have all the details on it, but she was pretty sure he’d almost died. Also, he had gold lungs now.

“Yeah, then I got better and I still didn’t know. And it seemed like everybody expected me to know. I guess I expected me to know too. And I didn’t. It was terrifying.”

“But I’m her mom,” Calliope said softly. Mordecai wasn’t even Erik’s real father.

He shook his head. “Being a mom is a really wonderful thing, but it’s not magic. You don’t just turn into one like the General rearranges herself into a bird whenever she wants.”

Calliope looked down at herself and laughed weakly. “It feels like it.”

“Well, I mean… I… I don’t really know about that part.” He’d been through a little of it with Alba, (“Ahh! Goddammit, my boots don’t even fit anymore!”) but it had abruptly ceased after Erik was born. He cleared his throat. “But I know you don’t just suddenly understand how to do everything, even if you’re a mom. It’s like growing up. You don’t get a test and a license, one day you wake up and you are, and you’re still the same person you always were too.”

“I wouldn’t want to be different,” Calliope said, shaking her head. “But I thought it would be easier. I knew it was going to hurt, but I thought when she got here I would just be happy to see her. Instead it’s… it’s…”

“It’s scary and you kinda wish it wasn’t happening?”

She pulled back and stared at him, with her hand still on the breast of his coat. “Yeah.”

“That’s okay, you know?” he said. “I felt that way too. I still do, sometimes, but it gets easier.”

That was only half-true. But, gods willing, Calliope might never find out how hard it was when your child got hurt and there was nothing you could do to fix it. All the fear and pain and doubt that went along with that. At least let it be a few years, and something easier, like Lucy falling out of a tree and breaking an arm.

He glanced down at the baby. Sorry, Lucy, I don’t really want you to break your arm. Just, if something bad has to happen…

He amended his thought, frowning, Cousin Violet, I do not want Lucy to break her arm!

“I feel like someone must’ve made a mistake,” Calliope said. She laughed, but not a good laugh. “And maybe it was me.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you did,” he said. “I think once you get a little help and a little time to figure things out, you’re gonna take off like you’re on a bike with no training wheels. You’re a caring person, Calliope, and that’s half of what you need right there.”

“It’s really worth a lot,” she said. “Thank you, Em.”

He shrugged and turned his head aside.

“Aw, Em. Are you blushing?” It was hard to tell from colour on a red person, but the posture and expression were like Erik.

He put up his hand. “Do not sketch me, Calliope. I don’t need that at two o’clock in the morning. When Erik came out of here, he looked like you hit him over the head with a two-by-four.”

She frowned at him. “I wouldn’t do that, Em. It’d dent him.”

“I think it depends where you hit him — I know you didn’t do that, Calliope,” he added, quickly. “But the human mind is not constituted to absorb forty-five minutes of nothing but compliments. The poor kid wanted to marry you.”

“Aw,” said Calliope, smiling. “I think he’d be cute in a little tuxedo.”

“Yes, and you would undoubtedly be very nice in a white dress, but I’m afraid with the age difference I am going to have to put my foot down.”

“I’ve kinda had enough of guys wanting to marry me, anyway,” she said uncomfortably

He blinked at her. Was that what Milo did?

Why would he…? Well, okay, there were several obvious reasons why. Mordecai might’ve honourably proposed himself if he were a few decades younger. But how in the hell did Milo screw up “marry me” this badly?

My gods, Milo, did you punch her first?

He didn’t pull the thread. He left it where she had dropped it; if she wanted to pick it up and hand it to him, she could. He didn’t want to push, and he didn’t want to get this wrong. It was possible there had been some marriage-related upset with whatever-his-name-was who fathered the child, or something else that he had no idea about.

“Thank you for not talking about him, Em,” was what she said. And he knew she didn’t mean Erik, or Lucy’s father, whatshisname.

“You have a lot going on right now,” he replied. “It’s not all about him.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Some of it is, but right now, this is more.” She shifted Lucy against her. She looked up at him with a pained expression. “Am I holding her right, Em?”

He smiled and shrugged. “She seems comfortable enough. How are you doing?”

“My arm’s going numb and my back’s killing me.”

“Yeah, might be a good idea to move, then. Here. Cross your other arm over to take some of the weight, and let’s try you in the rocking chair with some pillows.”

He arranged her to the best of his ability, requesting frequent feedback. There was a bit of a logistical problem with the baby bottle being attached to the person, but he’d seen nursing before. Mainly, it was helpful to have an extra set of hands to move things around.

“That’s a lot better,” she said finally. “Thanks.”

“I think you would’ve figured it out on your own eventually,” he said. He took her hand and squeezed it. “But you don’t have to, okay? I’m here at night and Hyacinth is here all day…”

“And Glorie.”

“Yeah…”

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, and was mystified that Calliope seemed to trust the woman. The General struck him as one of those animals that eats its own young. Still, the fact that Maggie was still around had to count for something.

“If you need help,” he went on, “all you have to do is ask. People are full of advice about babies. You put a coin in the right machine, and it’ll dispense all the sodas it has. The trick is getting it to stop.” He snickered. “Took me a little while to figure it out.”

“Was Glorie here to help you out during the siege?”

“Uh, no. She came later. Erik was two.”

Again, not that he would have allowed her anywhere near Erik if she had been there. And Maggie had seen fit to murder Santa Claus before Erik’s third birthday, that was all he needed to know about that family.

“Hyacinth was here,” he said, “but everyone else was different. And there were lots more people. There weren’t a lot of safe places to stay and she was a medic. She’d patch people up and then keep them.”

“Oh. Like you.”

“Yes, but most of the other ones had enough sense to leave.”

“Cin is nice, Em,” Calliope said, frowning.

“I know. She is. But she is a little bizarre, and not always tactful or kind. She’d help out with Erik, but she’d yell at me and swat me on the back of the head too.”

Calliope snickered. “Sounds about right.”

“Now, I don’t think she’ll do that to you,” he said. “I had an added complication with some cough syrup that required occasional humiliation. But if she ever gets too rough with you, you pick up Lucy and walk away like when I said I was going to kidnap you. That’ll straighten her right out. She doesn’t like it when people walk off on her.”

“Then I wouldn’t like to do it,” Calliope said gravely.

“No. I know. This is just in case. For emergencies. You know you have to stick up for yourself sometimes.”

She nodded.

“I… I’m really sorry about the hospital, Calliope,” he said. He’d already apologized about the kidnapping, but he’d still managed to wheedle her into going to the hospital. “That, ah, that wasn’t fair of me.”

“It was the truth, wasn’t it?” Calliope said. “What happened to Erik’s mom and how you felt about it?”

“Yes… But that doesn’t mean you needed to hear it. And not like that.”

“It scared me,” she said. “But I went because I didn’t want you to be scared.”

“I know. That’s the part that wasn’t fair. It was my problem and I shouldn’t have made it your responsibility to solve it.”

“So now you’re saying don’t ask for help?” she said.

“I…” He flinched and touched a hand to his head. “No. I mean… I don’t mean that…”

“You need a couple minutes?” Calliope asked him with a faint smile.

“I… Yes. Thank you.”

Not to work out what he meant, but to work out how to justify it. What he meant was, It’s okay for you to ask for help. It’s not okay for me to ask for help. Especially not if it hurts people. Erik is an exception, because I am not good enough on my own and I don’t want to screw up an entire human being.

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Calliope, my brain doesn’t work right.”

“I thought it was your lungs?” she said.

“My lungs also do not work right, but that is legitimate damage. The brain thing… I don’t know what that is. I’m trying to be better about it.”

She frowned. “This is how come you need to lie down in your room sometimes so you don’t cry?”

He nodded.

“Is it mean that I did you a drawing about it?”

He laughed a little. “No. I really love the drawing. It makes me feel better about myself.” He wondered if she was going to ask him about the brownies.

Instead, she asked, “Is this kinda thing hard for you?” which was much more difficult.

“No,” he said. “At least, I don’t think it is. Not the part where I listen and help. There is some associated stuff that is hard.”

“Like what stuff?”

“Memories that are good for helping people,” he said. “Remembering how scared I was about Erik is hard. Remembering the siege is hard. I was here with Hyacinth for the last couple months of it. That was… Hoo.” He shook his head. “It would’ve been a little easier if it was just Erik scaring the hell out of me, and just Erik up all night screaming. Not great, but, you know, the giant shell falling in through the skylight didn’t help. And all the dead people. Dead civilians.”

He’d gotten sort of used to dead people, numb maybe, but the end of the siege woke all of those emotions back up again.

He sighed. “There was this woman, tiny little thing. Not cute tiny like you, Calliope. Stringy like a piece of beef jerky.” He tensed his whole body and drew his fists against his chest, demonstrating. “You know, one of those?”

Calliope nodded with a smile of recognition. Her great-grandmother was like that.

“She had to be… I don’t know. Seventy? Eighty? Her name was Babbette. Thirteen grandchildren!” he declared. “She knew everything about everything. That thing where you wrap the baby up tightly so they can’t wiggle around? They like that. She showed me how to do that. She didn’t sleep very well, at least that’s what she said, and she’d stay up and walk the floor with Erik so I could get some rest. She must’ve done about a hundred miles with him.”

He snickered. “She used to smoke cabbage leaves. I mean, she used to smoke cigars, I assume, but this was the end of the siege and there weren’t any of those. I think what she liked best was reeking horribly and annoying people, so cabbage leaves were all right for that. And one morning I went down to the basement to see her and she was dead.

“Not gas or shrapnel, nothing like that. Nobody shot her. Hyacinth said it was her heart.”

He sat forward, and his hands twisted in his lap. “That shouldn’t have happened. She should’ve died quietly in a bed in her own house, and her thirteen grandchildren should’ve shown up for the funeral and brought casseroles and told stories about her and her stinking cigars.

“The way it happened, there wasn’t even anyone we could tell. And it didn’t matter. There were so many, it couldn’t matter. She just got mixed in with all the other dead people and forgotten. I don’t think even Hyacinth remembers. And it isn’t… And it just, it… And…”

…And this was in no way helpful and he was getting too loud and there was a tiny baby here that needed comfort and a woman too.

He stood up and took a few paces away, turning his back on them. He was breathing hard and that made him start coughing. He did it into his sleeve.

“Em…?” Calliope’s voice, close behind him. He’d yanked her out of the rocking chair with his stupidity.

He waved a hand at her, for the moment all he could manage. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “It’s all right.” He coughed again, but only once. “Just the cold. Is Lucy okay?”

Calliope offered him a smile. “I think she fell asleep on me, but she hasn’t let go yet. I’m kind of afraid to move her.”

“I think if you’re gentle about it, she won’t mind. You need to sleep too.” He tried a smile as well. “If she wakes up and complains, it’s my fault for the bad advice, okay?”

Calliope doubtfully attempted to remove Lucy from her breast. The infant huffed a brief, somehow irritated sigh through her nose, and then settled. Calliope bundled her a bit tighter and laid her down in the bassinet.

The young artist snickered, took a step back, and framed the scene with her fingers. Just that little pink head with the brown fuzz, floating there in the middle of all the white, like a beach ball. Or a coconut. That was great. Like the opposite of The Wizard of Oz.

I am Oz, the Cute and Tiny. Pay no attention to the diapered butt behind the curtain.

She was still pretty darn Great and Powerful, though. Not only did she get meals and attention on demand, she’d also gotten her mother fired and evicted and lodged in this really neat new home with all puzzle pieces, and so many nice people to help her. Good job, little wizard.

Mordecai broke in awkwardly, “Um, Calliope, I’ll just get out of your way so you can get in some sleep.” 

He didn’t think he was going to manage sleep himself yet. He thought he might make pancakes. Again. They were flat and they stored well. He could leave some in the casserole under a towel for the house and put some on a plate under a bowl for Milo.

Surely Milo would be up soon, he had a real job. Mordecai had the luxury of sleeping in whenever he wanted. Well, theoretically.

“No, Em, come over here and meet Lucy.” Calliope motioned him near. She smiled. “I’ll introduce you quietly.”

Mordecai blinked. Apparently, there was some context for “meeting Lucy” that he had failed to fulfill thus far. Well, trying to get explanations out of Calliope was like trying to get sense out of Cousin Violet. Sometimes it was easier just to go along. He ambled over. “Hello, Lucy,” he said softly.

“Lucy, this is your Uncle Em,” Calliope said. She smiled again and her freckled nose crinkled. “I’ll point him out to you later. He’s pretty obvious. He’s real small.”

“I am a titan compared to your mother,” Mordecai said, but not with much venom.

“He’s the kindest person I’ve ever known,” Calliope said, and that made him feel very small indeed.

He shook his head. “Calliope, surely your parents…?”

“Oh, my parents are awesome,” Calliope said, nodding. “My dad’s pretty spacey and my mom can be kind of a buzzkill sometimes, but they were really great at all that parent stuff, you know? Bicycles and birthdays and loose teeth and fingerpaints. Dead goldfish. We used to dress ‘em up and put ‘em in matchboxes.”

Mordecai stared. Calliope thinks her father is spacey. Either he has a serious mental disorder or he literally lives on the moon.

…Or both. I suppose we can’t rule out both.

“They’re not like you, though. I think with nine kids, that’s not really an option. Probably it’s not a good idea. They wouldn’t have been able to function. It’s really too bad you have to make yourself sad like that to help people, but I guess I get how it works.”

He was staring again, and he had quite forgotten about Calliope’s father, who might or might not be King of the Moon. “You do?”

“Yeah. You see how someone is hurt and you go back through what you remember until you find something about you being hurt the same. Then you put it on like a hat so you understand. I think you have trouble getting the hats off sometimes, though. Do you feel better now that I feel better?”

“Um… Well… I’m glad you feel better, Calliope.”

“That’s not the same, Em,” she said gently. “You need some better hats. You need recreational hats.”

“I suppose I could go down to that shop on Sabot Street…”

She frowned at him. “It’s a metaphor, Em.”

“Yes, dear. I know. I was trying to be funny.”

She patted his hand. “That’s really sweet of you.”

◈◈◈

Emerging from Calliope’s bedroom in the small hours of the morning, Mordecai displayed slightly more decorum than Erik had after forty-five minutes of compliments. He did manage to trip over the dining room step on the way to make pancakes.

He burned several while trying to unpack the concept of metaphorical hats. It was like that drawing she’d done for him, with the sandwich. Look at it from one angle and it was impossibly profound… and from another it was completely stupid.

When he finished in the kitchen and looked in on her again, Lucy (otherwise known as the Wizard) was up and demanding diaper-related attention, so he offered his assistance with that as well.

He brought Calliope pancakes in bed. It was more comfortable that way. Calliope didn’t have a bathrobe or slippers either.