It’s ArcaneFanKidWeek over on Twitter! I initially I wasn’t going to participate bc it feels weird knowing that my fic isn’t complete so there’s, like, not a fankid to write about? At least, not in the ways the prompts are set up. BUT! I couldn’t resist. This is for the prompt, “new sibling.”
I don’t consider it a spoiler for anything (except for maybe Slugger’s name if you haven’t figured it out yet), but it is set about three years after the final chapter of glad you’re here. I hope you enjoy a little fluff about actual CaitVi moms!
“Mama?” Caitlyn calls softly from the doorway, her voice high and lilting. “Mama, may we come in?”
“Who’s ‘we,’ Mummy? Is that my Cammie?” Vi answers.
Vi hears Cammie’s sweet giggle before she sees her, muffled behind Caitlyn’s thigh where she clings tighter than a secret. That giggle, so unlike the baby’s powerful cries not even an hour before, has Vi’s chest hitching with nostalgia as she looks down at her new daughter’s sleeping face. It wasn’t so very long ago that Cammie was small enough to be swaddled this way. It wouldn’t be so very long before the new baby giggled that sweetly. Today was the day her daughters became sisters, giggling and sleeping and too little to remember it.
Vi wants to remember every second.
The double doors open wider to reveal Caitlyn and Cammie, peeking around Mummy’s leg and gasping when her wide blue eyes land on Vi.
“Hi, bud,” Vi smiles at her. She had already had a bath and been dressed in her little nightgown, damp lilac hair slicked back from her rosy face. “I missed you. C’mere, I wanna hold you.”
Vi lifts the baby off her legs and settles her into the crook of her elbow. Her little mouth grunts in displeasure, but Vi is quick to offer her a kiss and a soothing, “Oh, it’s okay. Big sister’s here to see you.”
Cammie doesn’t trip forward on bare feet, she doesn’t run for Vi’s unoccupied lap. She just watches from behind Caitlyn’s leg until Mummy bends down to pick her up and cuddle her close.
“Your baby sister wants to meet you so badly, blossom. She can’t wait, she was talking all about you.” Caitlyn says, kissing her cheek.
Cammie lets herself be kissed—for which Vi is grateful, she had recently taken to wiping her kisses off as a ploy to get more—but she doesn’t look away from Vi. Caitlyn had helped Vi clean up as best she could and brushed her hair, but she must still look worryingly subdued to Cammie.
“You okay, Mama?”
Oh, her sweet girl.
“I’m okay, bud. I’m just sleepy.”
Cammie flexes her little bicep with a grunt. “Bein’ so tough?”
“I was bein’ so tough—just ask Mummy.”
“So, so tough,” Caitlyn assures her, squeezing Cammie’s bicep. “Do you want to go show Mama what you made for her?”
“Come show me, Camellia,” says Vi. “Come here, baby.”
Caitlyn walks her over to the bed and sits gingerly down next to Vi, giving her a quick kiss over their daughters’—their daughters’—heads. Vi can still taste Caitlyn’s earlier smile, the salt of her tears and the shape of her teeth, unable to stay hidden in her joy. Camellia shifts around in Caitlyn’s lap until she is leaning all the way on Vi’s arm to peer down at the baby.
She catches Caitlyn’s eye and can’t help but laugh at the way they both mist over at the sight of those two purple heads, sweetly close. Caitlyn cups her hand behind the baby’s head. Vi watches her. She rubs her thumb against the edge of the knitted cap and traces the shell of the baby’s ear in wonder.
That nostalgia overtakes her again. The remembrance of holding Camellia like this nearly three years ago, the same wonder guiding Caitlyn’s every touch against petal-soft skin. And now Cammie follows Caitlyn’s example. She traces her finger right behind Mummy’s, eager to touch her baby sister.
“Where’s her…nose?” Caitlyn asks softly. “Where’s her…ears? Where’s her…big sister? Very good. Where’s her…well, not her eyes. Um, where’s her…chin? Good.”
Vi is overwhelmed by it. By her new baby girl’s sleeping face. By her big girl’s growing confidence. By her wife’s tender hand as she guides them along together. Tears gather in the corner of her eyes and her face begins to crumple with the force of it all, but she sniffs it back and asks Cammie, “What do you think, bud?”
Camellia looks back up at Vi with her Mummy’s curious eyes. “How come your tummy getted big but she just getted so tiny?”
Vi laughs despite the ache it causes and Caitlyn brushes Cammie’s damp hair back to kiss her temple better.
“Well, babies have to grow inside a tummy before they can come out and meet their families, remember?” Caitlyn asks. “It feels like she grew for a very long time, but she’s still just tiny, isn’t she? She’ll get a little bigger every week until she’s big enough to play with you.”
“Yeah, ‘member when I was a baby when it was lasterday, and I was so, so teeny tiny too?”
“You were so teeny tiny,” Vi all but chokes. “And now you’re a big girl, huh? Got all your teeth and everything. You’re a big sister.”
Cammie shows all of her teeth and then turns her attention to the baby again, continuing her soft tracing.
“Show Mama what you made for her,” Caitlyn prompts. “Do you have your drawing?” Cammie offers up the crumpled piece of paper in her hand. One of the drawings Meggie and Heddy kept her occupied with while both of her moms and her Yèye were busy bringing her baby sister into the world.
Cammie points out the little blobs of color one by one. “That’s me, and Mama and Mummy, and baby sister. That’s Yéye, and Meggie, and Addie.”
“Are those your arms? They look so strong,” says Vi.
“Yeah, so strong so I can hug all of everybody in our whole family!”
The baby’s bleary eyes open at Cammie’s exclamation and she begins making unhappy little noises. Vi and Caitlyn each pat a hand against the baby’s back and bum as Vi rocks her. It’s surreal to be a team in this way again. Not that they aren’t a team in raising their toddler, partners in all things, but to soothe their new baby with the shared confidence they lacked with the first is a bittersweet blessing.
“You need a hug, baby?” Cammie asks. She looks down at her little sister’s scrunched up, wrinkly face, smiles sweetly, and lays her head down on the baby’s chest. Confused but comforted, the baby quiets back down.
It won’t last long, she’ll need to eat very soon and she’ll make quite a ruckus if Vi takes too much longer, but for now, Vi just holds her family. She holds them and lets them hold her. Tomorrow will be the first full day of their family of four, but today is the first minute, the first memory, the first moment.
Vi wants to remember every second.
