notsocommon | happy anniversary [timed to november 26]

Helen hadn't entirely expected the baby to come early and with the whirlwind of Thanksgiving and labor, it was really only a few days later that it sank in that she and Will were parents. She and Gregory were still settling into a rhythm with feeding and at the moment, it was more 'he cries, you feed' than anything else. While it was exhausting, the hard bits were yet to come, and Helen felt like the days were starting to run together.

It was just before dawn this time when Gregory cried and it was much easier to bring him to her breast and nurse when he was asleep beside her than the first few times when she'd gotten up to get him from his cradle; Helen had a sinking suspicion that Gregory was going to end up in bed with them more often than not.

Once she'd gotten Gregory settled and nursing happily, she looked over at Will, who seemed just as bleary-eyed as she felt. "I believe it may actually be our anniversary, if I've got my days and nights straightened out. Happy anniversary, Will."

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"Happy anniversary," Will says, and leans over to kiss her cheek. Everything about this seems so surreal--even now, he still can't believe he's a father, that this is his son--but he wouldn't change this for anything. Not even for a few hours' more sleep, even if he's dead on his feet.

"He'll get into a rhythm soon," Helen murmured. "It won't always be this exhausting, I promise. He just doesn't know how much and when to eat yet."

Helen shifted the baby slightly, trying to get more comfortable, and Gregory smacked and whimpered before he latched on again. "Until he does, we won't sleep, will we?"

Will carefully smoothes his hand over Gregory's little head. "He'll learn," he says. "It'll take him a little while, but he'll learn." Not that Will has any experience with kids whatsoever to draw from, but he's guessing that's how it works. "I can deal with a couple of months of no sleep. I mean, I got through college with no sleep, this can't be much harder, can it?" Even if it is, it's totally worth it.

"He will," Helen agreed. Gregory seemed to have finished nursing and she lifted him up to bring him to her shoulder to burp. "Oh, I should have asked...did you want to do this bit? I know you can't feed him yourself but I wanted you to feel involved in the process, as it were."

Besides, she'd had nine months to bond with Gregory and Will was just beginning.

"Oh yeah," Will says eagerly, and he's already holding out his hands to carefully take him from Magnus. "I'll take him." This doesn't come naturally to Will, and even after a few days of being-a-dad he doesn't know if he's supporting Gregory's head enough or holding him too tightly or not tightly enough. He's half-afraid he's going to squish him or let his little head flop around too much and it's kind of terrifying. So far, he's managed not to drop him or squish him, though the very first time he changed Gregory's diaper he got peed on because he didn't know how to... deflect.

"There you go." He settles the baby against his shoulder and lightly rubs his back. "Got a burp in there, kiddo?"

"Probably more of a burp than desired," Helen said, yawning a bit and pressing her hand over her mouth to muffle it. "Sorry. If I start that, you'll be yawning, and then we'll all be in a mess. Though I suppose we can all just settle in for another long nap after he burps, hmm?"

Helen had become excessively fond of napping during her pregnancy and now she craved sleep more than she ever had in her life. Gregory didn't always let her have it on her terms. She reached out and lightly rubbed her hand against the back of Will's where he was supporting the baby.

Will rubs the baby's back a little more and is rewarded with a soft urp sound and a small warm puddle seeping into his shirt. Oops. One day he'll remember to put one of those little towels or burp things or whatever they're called on his shoulder before he burps him, but today is unfortunately not that day. There's a little basket of them by the bed though and he reaches for one and wipes off his shirt and Greg's chin, then decides his shirt is a lost cause. He doesn't want to smell like sour spit up the rest of the night.

So he carefully puts Greg on the bed between him and Magnus, peels off his shirt and tosses it in the general direction of the clothes hamper. It doesn't make it, but he's too tired to care, and anyway, he'd read some stuff in the approximately fifty thousand books he read about parenting and fatherhood that babies like skin to skin contact with their fathers, too, so he doesn't bother to get up and get another shirt before he cradles Greg against his chest again. Greg probably doesn't notice; he's got that kind of drunk look he gets after Magnus feeds him (drunk on milk) and Will figures he'll be back asleep soon.

Helen liked watching Will with the baby. It was a novel thing for her, having a partner in raising a child, and while James had loved Ashley and taken care of her when she was small, he'd never exactly been like this with her. She finished doing up the buttons on her pajama top and laid back down next to them both, lightly trailing her fingers down Will's bare arm before moving her hand to stroke Gregory's back.

"He'll drift off soon. He's such a sweet thing. I know it's only been a few days, but I think he'll be sweet and won't fuss like Ashley did."

"He's perfect," Will says, and he thinks he would say that even if he cried all night and never slept, because he's their kid and he loves this baby so much he thinks his heart might explode. Greg smacks his lips and his mouth works like he's still sucking and then his eyes close and his little body relaxes against Will's chest.

"Of course he is. I've always loved babies. So full of potential," Helen murmured drowsily, drawing a bit closer so she could lightly rub Gregory's back while he dozed.

"And ours is perfect. He's so beautiful, Will. Which of us do you think he favors, hmm? He's really too small to tell but..."

"It's hard to tell," Will says. Greg's face is still kind of round with newborn puffiness, so in some ways he still looks like 'generic baby' instead of obviously theirs, but still... He lowers his voice, because Greg is drifting off and Will doesn't want to wake him. "But right now, when he's sleeping and his face is kind of..." Will closes his eyes and let his face relax a little, and it's an exaggeration. "He looks like you do when you're asleep and it's totally cute."

"You realize that I don't actually sleep," Helen whispered, not wanting to wake the baby if at all possible.

"So really, your description of darling Gregory is slightly inaccurate. I think he has your eyelashes. So long and black and perfect - every woman he meets is going to be completely jealous."

"Uh huh," Will teases. "So all those naps the last four months were just you resting your eyes? Okay. Well, he looks like you when you're resting your eyes."

"Those were actually Gregory's naps," Helen said airily. "I was sharing a body with him so I suppose I had to nap a little too."

She slid up close and carefully eased Will's free arm around her, not wanting to jostle the baby. "And I'm absolutely not planning to nap now. No way in heaven or earth."

Will shifts his arm around her, holding her close. "Okay, I know you like to pretend you don't need things like food and sleep, but you just produced like, this whole other person, out of your body, a few days ago," he teases. "I think you're entitled to some freaking sleep, okay."

"I think we established that while I might not need food, I can certainly enjoy it. I enjoyed...enough food for a small army before this boy was born."

And yet, she still felt ravenous. Helen knew it must be because so much of her energy was sapped from giving birth and lactating but she craved food like she'd never really done outside of her previous pregnancy.

"I love you. There's nobody better I could have picked to start a family with."

happy anniversary [timed to november 26]

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