IT'S A BABY-BONANZA!

[paradisamods]

Good morning, residents! Did you sleep well? You're going to need all the energy you can muster because congratulations: You're parents! Again! The Paradisa Stork has paid some very lucky residents a visit last night, and even moved them to a more kid-friendly environment.

Some of you may already recognize your little bundle of joy and--my, how they've grown! Others will have to get acquainted with their little rugrats. You may not know them, but they certainly know you. By they way? They're bored. And hungry! And they want all the attention you could possibly give them.

It's going to be a long week.

(ooc: Use this as a catch-all post! This will be the only mass post for the Sunny Skies Retreat, so you may use it for any day that you'd like. Feel free to make your own posts and/or sections whenever you'd like!

SECTIONS: BEDROOMS | PLAY ROOM | PETTING ZOO | POOL | GARDENS | THE CASTLE)

Comments

[encryptedlock]

[Victoly. York quickly heads over to the counter to grab her some chicken strips and a salad. Not quite fried chicken, but close enough.]

[youfallback]

[As he does, Carolina will aid Jack in directing those spaceships toward his mouth, but not too strongly to rush him through the rest of lunch. He still has a handful of nuggets, some carrots, and pieces of apple, so they're not going anywhere fast.

When he gets back, she'll just nod, not quite up for stomaching gratitude right now. Clearly, she's the one doing him a favor.

(You don't deserve him. The back of her mind fights back against that rationalization.)

And then she'll start actually eating the food he got for her.]

[encryptedlock]

[Hey, a small victory is still a victory. He'll also slip some apple slices to Laura since she finished her meal already and he doesn't want her to get antsy.]

So, are you guys liking vacation so far?

[Laura's expression brightens up and she nods vigorously.] I am, Daddy!

[youfallback]

[That distracts Jack from his Spaceship Nugget adventure and claps his hands, getting ketchup all over them.] Yes Daddy!

[The jury's still out for Carolina as she fills her mouth with salad as an obvious excuse to not reply.]

[encryptedlock]

[They're definitely going to have to wash up after this, York sees.

As for Carolina, he gives her a very slight eyeroll; maybe the stick up her butt will loosen and maybe it won't.]

Good. But we still have a lot left to explore here, and lots more playing to do. I missed you guys.

[Which, yeah, he includes Carolina in that statement too. He did.]

[youfallback]

[Carolina pauses her lunch and is in the process of trying to wipe down Jack's hands, which he frowns at because he can't have spaceship adventures without his hands. She figures he isn't talking about her, and keeps wiping at their son's hands, but she does consider that and remind herself to have the kids make something for him later.

A kind of physical proof that he'd always wanted that he could make it.] We'll have plenty of time to explore this week.

[encryptedlock]

[As for York, he loves these babies too much for him to consider them anything but real - but he still doesn't really believe he'll make it. No one can change the future. Carolina's enough proof of that. But for now, the best he can do is to show the kids how very much he cares about him and pretend, even if it's only for a week, that he could really be happy.

Because damned if they don't make him truly happy while they're here.]

Mommy's right. Maybe we can visit the gardens today, then watch a movie together after dinner?

[youfallback]

[She isn't exactly excited about doing something intimate like watching a movie (because to her that's pretty intimate right now), even if the kids are there. After all, she remembers too clearly several times when they'd been watching a movie, only to end up making out or having sex.

Those days were long gone, though, and she doesn't want to be reminded of them.

Once Jack's hands are clean, she gets back to her salad and he gets back to space adventures.] Can it be a spaceship movie?

[encryptedlock]

[It'll be a family-friendly feature and he'll stay strictly on the other side of the couch. In fact, York has been thinking on and off all day about how to broach the subject of sleeping arrangements, since he can only imagine she'll want to be on the other side of the room from him, and he wants to be sure she gets the bed.]

We can look at what they have. If there's a spaceship movie, we can choose that.

[Laura frowns and opens her mouth to protest.]

--And then your sister gets to pick tomorrow. Okay?

[She purses her lips but then nods.]

[youfallback]

[Ideas for sleeping arrangements, though, would assume that she'll sleep, which she's planning on not doing, considering how much she got this morning. She quickly finishes her food with her usual efficiency and tries to help Jack again in moving those nuggets closer to his mouth. He finally gives in and finishes up his last couple nuggets.

But there's still carrots to be little rockets.]

Yay spaceships!

[encryptedlock]

[She's a lot more likely to get sleep on the bed than anywhere else, though, and York won't even consider the possibility that she won't. It's terrible for you not to get enough sleep, after all.

Laura's getting a little impatient at how long her brother's taking, though.]

Hurry up, Jack! We gotta go exploring!

[youfallback]

[To her, it's either sleep and have nightmares and possibly wake up the kids, or stay up and try to control her anger the next day. She'd rather deal with the latter than add more guilt to the weight on her shoulders.

Jack makes a face at Laura as he eats one carrot very slowly.] But they're pockets! [He makes an exaggerated ZOOM! noise]

[encryptedlock]

It's rockets.

[York bites back a grin at that bossy tone. Sure does sound familiar. Even so, he doesn't want her to bully her little brother.]

Let him take his time. Are you in school yet, honey?

Of course I am! [And she'll start babbling a bit about normal second grade things.]

[youfallback]

[Carolina can't help the light tug of a smile as well at that tone. Definitely sounds like someone she knows and Laura's babbling is a good distraction from the thoughts of the movie later. Jack slowly makes his way through his carrot rockets and his apple slices. Once he's finished, Carolina gently wipes down his hands again before he pushes back from the table.]

'Splorin time! 'Splorin time!

[encryptedlock]

[York will take the trash from the meal and deposit it neatly in a nearby bin and then walk over to join the others. Laura takes his hand to guide him.]

The garden is this way! I saw a sign.

All right, all right.

[youfallback]

[Jack eagerly bounds along York's other side, definitely wanting to help with this leading (and not knowing where the garden is). It's easy enough, though, to follow Laura's directions. Carolina doesn't exactly trail behind but she's not joining the hand chain of love anytime soon, so she'll stand just a bit apart, enough to still be in their general area without needing to really be all that close to York.]

[encryptedlock]

[Hey, if she wants to leave both of the kids to him, he'll let her. At least the kids genuinely like him--quite honestly something York's been needing badly ever since Carolina decided to toss a pair of dogtags off a cliff. A little reassurance that his life here had some meaning to someone.

The garden, of course, is set up like a giant outdoor playground with a little bit of landscaping, and sure enough there's Hyzenthlay and her bunnies around here somewhere. True to the nature of kids everywhere, Laura immediately dashes over to a short slide.]

Look at me, Mommy! Daddy!

[youfallback]

[Carolina wouldn't deny that his life has certainly meant something. She had loved him back then, he had helped her back then, but now she didn't want any of that. Now, he's more of a threat than ally.

Still, she can pretend as well as anyone else, with the inspiration of the slowly-emerging awfulness of her father's parenting.

She watches at Laura climbs up to the top of the slide, with Jack of course hot on her heels. Carolina offers a little wave and watches intently.] We're watching.

[encryptedlock]

[If she thinks he's a threat, she really does need to learn the difference between her enemies and her friends. A threat is not someone who laughs and waves at little kids going down a slide or playing on a rocking-horse or playing spaceship with their chicken nuggets.

Even so, he does his best to keep his gaze firmly on the kids, as much as he wants to glance over at Carolina and make sure she's all right.]

[youfallback]

[Like York, she keeps her gaze focused on the kids; it's easier to just full-out ignore him, even when she's seated barely out of arm's reach. As the kids play, though, her conversation with South begins to invade her mind alongside the one with Church.

It takes her a long few minutes of just watching the kids before she speaks in a low tone,] South asked if you were available.

[She doesn't turn her head, but her voice sharpens.] Anything you need to tell me.

[Oh no she's lost the ability to ask questions again.]

[encryptedlock]

[He does turn his head, and his gaze is suddenly very focused on her. "Available"?

God dammit, South.]

No.

[Yeah, that's an answer to both not-questions.]

[youfallback]

[The thought of him being with anyone else, despite her obvious dislike for him right now, sends another spike of hot anger and jealousy burning through her. Before she can think about it rationally, the part of her mind affected by both earlier conversations jumps to the conclusion that he must be lying. That she doesn't deserve York, just like she'd never deserved an inch of love from her father (and obviously why she'd never gotten any), just like she'd never deserved the team that she had loved once upon a time. She didn't deserve Jack and Laura, she didn't deserve to be here on vacation (she should be training, only training to be better), she didn't deserve to eat, she didn't deserve to breathe.

But she does still breathe. Her jaw clenches as her rational mind catches up with the rest of her and tries to tamp down those insecurities as quickly as possible. Her gaze remains in the kids' direction, but whether or not she's actually seeing and observing them is a different story; she can feel his on her.]

I was gone.

[She was supposed to be dead. South didn't want her here, obviously, and she was pretty sure York didn't either. Still, her response has the not-so-subtle underlying statement of You don't have to lie to me and a hint of I know you get lonely.]

[encryptedlock]

[Is she actually accusing him of lying? Spoilers he's not that good at it. Wow, Carolina. Wow. He actually scowls at that.]

Not long enough.

[For him to get involved with anyone else, he means, though he's angry enough at her implication that she even needed to ask that he doesn't realize that could be taken another way.]

[youfallback]

[Carolina goes very, very still at his answer, feeling the heat of his anger plainly. Not long enough. The irrational part of her mind pushes back against the rational with this new piece of ammunition. No, of course not. It would be better if she had died at the bottom of that cliff. It would have been better if she'd never come back, he'd said so himself shortly after she'd thrown one of his few important belongings after a cliff.

She wonders if this is how her father felt every time he watched that damn video and realizes that there's a little bit too much of him in her right now. It hurts. If she isn't hurting, then she isn't reminding herself of her failure enough, she isn't doing the dead and departed honor by being happy. She's not working hard enough if she's not in pain.

Swallowing, she lets out a breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding and her gaze flicks down at the grass, going decidedly silent. So, this is what she's become, a piss-poor echo of her father. Except she would never build up a great military program, she would never come close to what he'd done with his life.]

[encryptedlock]

[The laughter of children seems impossibly far away right now. York's too busy trying to breathe, trying not to explode in rage at her for even suggesting he would be seeing someone else so quickly after they--after what they'd had. It had taken years for him to get over her the first time, and given a second chance he wasn't sure he'd ever recover. Not fully, anyway.

When he talks, it's almost a mutter.]

Why the hell would I want to put myself through that again, anyway? Everyone I ever cared about left. And if they do come back, they either forget me or hate me.

[The second part being pretty much exclusively Carolina, of course.]