How Green Becomes Wood

"I will not implode," Dark said, but still got up to hand her his wrapped gift, "careful, it is heavy."

"Oh, so I'm opening them now for your sakes, not my own," Daizi laughed.

"Call it the spirit of giving."

"I'll have to." When she unwrapped a gift, she was neither the person who did it in some long drawn out process of shaking the gift and trying to guess it, nor was she the person who tore wildly into the package. Instead, Daizi carefully unwrapped it and set the paper to one side. Now holding the large, bronze statue, a small smile played at her lips as she tried to feel the multitude of tiny parts, trying to figure out exactly what was on the cool metal, until eventually asking, "Who are the women?"

"Maiden, mother, crone," Dark replied, and couldn't help but smile at the way her face lit up. He reached over and helped her find the parts that most represented the three. She mumbled her gratitude, too thrilled with this new item to be much louder.

"I'm going to put it in my garden, I think, if it's safe to be outside."
 
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Alec and Xander both leaned forward to see it better, careful not to impede Daizi's examination.

"That's some good craftsmanship," Xander approved.

"Won't it rust if left outside?" Alec worried. "And who are the maiden, the mother, and the crone?"

"Triple goddess," Xander replied, still looking at the statue. "It's a Wicca and Neopagan belief, the three phases that represents the life cycle of a woman, and is sometimes taken to mean the passing of time, like the turning of the seasons and the cycle of a year. Something about a wheel, too, Wheel of the Year, I think?"

Alec gaped at Xander openly.

Xander realized he was being stared at and turned beet red. "I read sometimes too, you know, and the internet brings up weird stuff when you try to search up any-old thing if you get the spelling wrong," he grumbled, sinking back into his seat.
 
Daizi had been about to say bronze doesn't rust, but then Xander's awareness of their origin surprised her, and she looked at him with immense joy clear in her face, "Ah, you're growing up so quickly! Soon he'll be a little witch of his very own, right after my heart!" The fact he had gone from arguing with her about the salt to that hit her right in the pregnancy hormones and brought tears to her eyes, "You're learning!"

Then her emotions hit harder, after her wall had been breached by Xander's knowledge, when she touched again the mother, "And I always thought I'd skip this one, that my chance had been taken from me, but..."
 
Xander spluttered at Daizi's "You're learning!" comment, not sure if he should be complimented or insulted since it sounded like she thought he was incapable of learning. He wanted to declare he still didn't believe a single thing about it, but he felt that would hurt her feelings. He fell into a quiet grumbling of gibberish words instead.

Alec laughed hard at that, nearly falling off his chair. He caught himself and tried to be more sober as Daizi mentioned the mother part. He smiled at Daizi. "You went from none to three really fast, didn't you? As fast as Xander's latent intelligent side grew."

"Oh, give it a rest and give her our gift," Xander grumbled at him.

Alec handed Daizi a small box just a bit bigger than a ring box normally was. "Here. For you from Xander and me."
 
"No, no, I don't mean--" She wiped her face and tried to remind herself to take deep breaths, "He's learning about, you know, this," She getured to the statue, "Not that he's learning to be intelligent, or that, you know, he couldn't learn before. Just that, this---" Her face crumpled again, "And yeah, I did, and I never thought..." Her hand found its way to her belly, trying not to be overwhelmed with all of the feelings so early. Dark leaned in, and gently rubbed her back, which made her quickly say, "Oh shut up, you made me this way, I used to be much more controlled!"

"I know," He replied.

"They never got a real chance to see that I'm not crazy," She pouted, setting his gift down, drying her face, and gently taking the gift from Alec before unwrapping it. She took the lid off the little box, and then very lightly touched the object inside. She exhaled softly feeling the touch of the cool metal and the smoothness of the stone, "wow... this is beautiful..." feeling the metal near the top more closely, she remarked, "it feels sort of like a heart."
 
"You met us on day one looking like some kind of Gypsy witch looking to use our hearts to cast spells," Xander said dryly. "We've always known you were crazy. Just in a different way."

"Oh, hush," Alec whispered as Daizi opened her gift. "It is! Xander did that. The stone's a moonstone. It's supposed to be the crystal of motherhood and hold maternal energy. It's supposed to relieve stress, soothe negative emotions, heighten intuition, and balance pregnancy hormones. It's also supposed to be helpful for children, but I picked it out for you because of the motherhood and maternal energy thing, and Xander wrapped it in wire so we could hang it on a chain for you to wear as a necklace."

"I tried to make that tree of life thing that's so popular right now, but I couldn't get it right, so we settled for kind of a basket with a heart on top, sorry," Xander explained.
 
"I always look like a witch," Daizi replied, but full silent as Alec explained the gift, and she struggled then, to know what to say. Instinctively, she wanted to make a joke about really needing the hormone balancing, or about the need of stress relief, but she couldn't. They were both such thoughtful, thoughtful kids. It almost made her angry, as bizarre as it might sound, because she knew she wasn't half as thoughtful at their age--so once more, with these kids, who had been so forgotten and sidelined their entire lives, when they were so, just, good.

Gently she picked it up out of the box, and held it in her palm. They made it for her, the two of them. Alec had helped with this and still came to her the week before feeling as if he didn't do enough for her. Daizi forced herself to swallow, still focusing all of her attention on the charm and said, as best as she could, "Don't apologize. It's perfect. Don't ever apologize."
 
Xander glanced at Alec and smiled, giving him a tiny thumbs up. Alec beamed, his eyes a little damp, and took Xander's hand. For once, they both felt that they had done exactly the right thing. They'd worried it would offend her with the stones supposed properties, but, no, they'd got it just right.

"I'm glad you like it," Alec said quietly. "Really glad."

"Just be a little careful with it," Xander warned. "I tried to make certain there were no sharp bits, but I might have missed one. If you feel any, let me know and I can round it out."

Alec cleared his throat. "Where are you going to put your statue?" he asked, offering a change of topic before he started crying. Mostly he felt like crying because Daizi was crying.
 
She nodded, "I will." Again, Dark reached over to rub her back, and this time she let herself fall against him, and he glanced at the twins to gave them an appreciative nod. They had done well, and he was proud of them. She let herself cry for a bit, because she knew it'd be worse if she tried to push it down, but after a few moments, she said, "I think beneath my apple tree, or near to our ivy trellis... I think by the ivy."

Dark dried her face, and holding her close said, "I think it would be lovely near the ivy."

"Oh, I wish I didn't need to go to work. I'd love to spend more time with you all today."
 
"By the ivy would be perfect," Alec agreed. "For what it's worth, the colors of ivy and your statue will go well together, and the ivy would really frame the statue."

"Hmm, there's an idea. Your birthday gift to yourself is you get to play hooky from work without feeling any guilt," Xander smirked. "You'd totally be able to do that, right?"
 
"Do you know..." Daizi said, pushing her hair back, "back when we were in school, my window was right by a trellis like what we would have, on the second floor, and Dark would sneak in through my window by climbing up it. It's a wonder the ivy didn't die, but when we got our house, we knew we needed to have our own. Although ours has never been climbed--and you shouldn't try to... I just got into his dorm by just walking right in through the side door they forgot to lock and playing dumb if I got caught."

"Sometimes I miss the days of you coming to illegally visit myself and Cooger," Dark sighed, "I still sometimes think about the smell of that polyester carpet when we were just lying on the floor and I was reading Teen Vogue to you so we could make fun of it together."

"It was fun taking those stupid quizzes though," She smiled, and smiled wider when he kissed the side of her head. They had gotten so old since then, it seemed, "and no, I can't take any more time off. I've got to keep those days free for when this one makes her appearance."
 
Xander waved a finger between them. "You two are so gross," he said flatly. "And sappy. It's amazing, really. I didn't think the air could get this sticky outside of a preschool birthday party with a rented cotton candy machine."

"That was a fun party," Alec said wistfully. Then he frowned. "Until Lisa Thompson stuck a giant wad of gum in her hair, claimed it was me, and one of her friends backed her up."

"Really? All I remember is sitting inside a closet having a bit of quiet time with some punch until another came in so fast it scared me and I tossed Hawian punch all over his shirt," Xander said.

"And then we got sent home," Alec sighed.

"Nice party up until that part. Good punch."
 
"Oh, so you both are able to reminisce on your past but we cannot?" Dark asked, raising one eyebrow, "You do realize we have known each other for longer than you have been alive? What do you expect us to do? Pretend those times never happened?"

At the same time as Dark made this point, for once seeming almost genuinely annoyed by the comment, Daizi waved her hand and said, "It's my birthday so I think that means it's actually illegal for you to give me shit for reminiscing with my husband. If I wanted to sit down and listen to the part of our wedding video where we signed our marriage certificate, I'd be well within my rights."
 
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Alec nodded toward Daizi. "She has a point,"

"Yeah," Xander agreed, "and it'd be fine to reminisce about the past... if most of your reminiscing didn't involve sneaking into each other's rooms and usually each other's..." He wiggled his brows at Dark. "Because I'm sure all you ever did was read teen quizzes together with Cooger right there in the same room."

"What were the teen quizzes?" Alec asked. "I want to hear more about those."
 
A smirk danced on Daizi's face as she recalled being young and nervous as she waited for Dark to make the first move which never came, so she had, when Cooger had gone to a wrestling meet, taken it upon herself to arrive in his dorm with the intent to... Talk about the nature of their relationship. Because if he wasn't going to do anything about what was between them, she certainly would. But that was a story none of her children should learn, so instead she said, "What? Are you accusing us of not saving ourself until marriage? That's blasphemy, we would never."

"We only officially married eight years ago, and even though we were living together for years before then, and had become pregnant, her father still made us sleep in seperate beds until we officially married," Dark grumbled, "In seperate wings of the house."

"I'm sure he still would make us, if he could get away with it," Daizi laughed, "and the teen quizzes were all stupid things like 'how well do you know your best friend,' and 'what hot celeb would you totally date,' and 'how hot is your relationship?' and all of those sorts of things you now find on Buzzfeed."
 
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Xander rolled his eyes at Daizi's declaration but didn't bother to say anything further about it.

"I've never done one of those. How accurate are they?" Alec asked.

"One of the girls who sits next to me in the computer lab does those all the time. Not at all accurate, but she takes them like a gospel truth. The gasping and sighing get really annoying after the fourth one," Xander grumbled.
 
"They work with really vague answers so regardless of what the answer is you feel good about yourself. Or, depending on the quiz, bad about yourself so you feel obligated to buy more magazines which may contain the answer of what might fix the problem. We never took them seriously, they were just fun to joke about." Daizi said, and was about to stand to put her plate in the dishwasher, when Dark took it from her.

"Because it is your birthday, not because you are pregnant," He said, in truth, to qualm her instinctual, 'I can do it,' and then said, "The ones we took on hair and skin type were very useful, though. My earliest education in skin and hair care came from those magazines, and who knows when I would have learned to wear sunscreen on my face every morning if it were not for Teen Vogue."
 
"You're suspposed to sunscreen your face every day?" the twins both said in confusion, not sure if he was serious or joking.

"I just stay out of the sun as much as I possibly can," Alec said as he moved to help clear up the table.

"Yeah, and you look like a ghost for it," Xander said dryly.

"Says the white sheet," Alec retorted.

Xander snorted and started wiping down the counters. "Doesn't someone here have a train to catch?"
 
"If nothing else, you should wash your face, apply a moisturizer, and then put on sunscreen," Dark advised, "you can get a sunburn on a cloudy day, and even if you do not get burned, your skin is still taking UV damage, and that is what makes your skin wrinkle."

"Ugh, you're right," Daizi sighed, standing up, "Have a nice day, try not to miss me too much. Come on, Goose."

"Oh, do not worry, my darling, you will be with us again before you know it," He put his hand on her back and walked her to the door, taking a quick glance behind him at the twins, eyes bright with the joy of their plot.
 
Alec frowned and started poking at his cheeks. Moisurizer? UV damage? Wrinkly skin? Was he going to get wrinkly skin at a young age for not taking care of it?

Xander grinned at Dark and gave him a thumbs up. This was going to be a lot of fun! He turned to finish cleaning up while Dark took Daizi to the station.
 
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