How Green Becomes Wood

Dark stood, stooping to kiss Daizi's head, and then went to help Xander help with moving the cradle. It wasn't exactly his most precious creation, but it was up there.

"I'd love some tea," Daizi said, "Or, actually, once they bring the cradle down, I'm going to set her down, and then I need to pet my dog. Holding a cup of hot tea and dealing with an excited dog at the same time is a recipe for disaster."
 
Xander guided the cradle to a spot near the couch where he felt it should be out of the way of traffic and checked to make sure the wheels were locked. They did not need Ivy to go sailing off before she was old enough to steer properly.

"I can make it for you and leave it on the counter for when you're ready," Alec offered.
 
"That would be nice," Daizi said and stretching after Dark came back around and took Ivy from her, "but if it starts getting cold, you drink it, okay?"

"Are you ready?" Dark asked, and when she stood, they walked over to the cradle and lay Ivy down in it. Daizi leaned forward to smooth her hair, and Dark stood still beside them. As he looked down at his daughter asleep in the cradle he painstakingly built for her, his expression switched from showing no emotion to every emotion and back again. And back again. Until he very quietly hugged Daizi from behind and kissed the top of her head.

Daizi rubbed his forearm, "Go get some sleep, darling."
 
Alec went to make tea, and Xander followed him, leaving Dark and Daizi to get reacquainted with their old house with a new person living inside. Their intent, now that Dark and Daizi had been properly welcomed home, was to try to stay out of the way for a while and hope they relaxed.
 
Dark lingered with Daizi for some time, just watching Ivy sleep, but eventually he gave into the gentle urging to go upstairs and take a nap in his own bed. He would have preferred it if Daizi went with him, but she was still adamant that she needed to say hi to her dog first.

So, after Dark had gone upstairs, she opened the backdoor, and sat down so she could pet Enkidu as much as he needed. Once he was inside, he forgot to be loud, and just wiggled, showering Daizi in big dog kisses, only occasionally squeaking out a sound. Daizi, meanwhile, was very excitedly talking to him, and doing her absolute best to be quiet about it. Before she knew it, both she and Enkidu had fallen asleep on the couch together, quite content to be reunited.
 
The next two weeks were a blur as far as Alec and Xander were concerned. They focused on staying out of the way and keeping the house clean and tidy as much as possible now that baby items seemed to have exploded over the house. Xander still walked Enkidu and took him on runs while Alec looked after the laundry, and they both tried to pay attention to school. It was harder to sleep with a baby in the house who didn't sleep through the night. Much easier than Dark or Daizi had it, but still difficult. They both felt a little lost and forgotten, but logically they understood. Eventually, things would calm down. Eventually. It was just a storm to ride out, and an easier storm than some of their mother's old boyfriends.

Then one evening shortly after dinner, a car pulled up at the house and two people got out. One was the CPS agent who'd dealt with them before, and the other was a stranger, a woman wearing business casual attire and her hair caught up in a bun. They walked up to the door and rang the bell.
 
Halloween was fun. Ivy cried through it, which wasn't a surprise, but it was fun dressing her up, and it was fun getting to spend time with the boys, and the few guests they allowed to float through the house seemed to enjoy it. Their anniversary was rushed but sweet, even though the happy couple were sleep deprived through it all. Amty Zeinab, who hadn't been at the house the first day Ivy went home because she wanted to give the immediate family time to themselves before she reintroduced herself: she only stayed for the first week to help with the cooking, cleaning, and diaper changes to give both the new parents and new big brothers a break from keeping the house running, and then she flew back home, leaving lots of leftovers in the freezer, ready to be reheated.

But besides that, things were... Good? They were exhausted all the time, and Daizi felt like a buffet, but she and Dark had always been a good team, and both of them pulled their weight. And Ivy was doing well, she was getting bigger, and by the time two weeks hit, even though it was still two weeks before her due date, she did fall in the category of babies who were born full term, before their date. Her pediatrician was very, very pleased with her progress. So, yes, Dark's beard was longer, and yes Daizi called Sally crying about once a week from stress and sleep exhaustion, but really they felt like if they could make it to December, it would be okay.

Then, one day, there was a knock at the door, and Dark rose from the couch where he had briefly nodded off, and went to answer it, "Hello?" He asked, yawning, and he looked with tired eyes at the man's face for a few confused moments, and then, recalling, he tensed, his grip on the door tightening as the exhaustion left his face, "Hello."
 
Lance Constable gave Dark a nod as he took off his sunglasses. "Good evening, Mr. Dark. Long time no see," he said pleasantly. He nodded toward his companion. "This is Mary-Sue Smith. She's a specialist in babies under the age of two. You see, the thing is, we got a report that there was a baby suffering from neglect and potential abuse in your home. Now, I can't see that happening, but the rules are we have to check it out."

Mrs. Smith gave Dark a polite smile, but she was all business. She had Lance's word that these people were good folk, but after ten years as a social worker, it was hard not to look for trouble in the shadows. "May we please come in? I promise we will be as quick and painless as possible, but there is a process we need to go through."
 
His mouth went dry hearing why they had come. CPS being there at all was awful and he thought he was done with his family being messed with, but... He swallowed and exhaled, "Of course. Come in. I think she is nursing right now, and she normally falls asleep right after. You do not have to wake her, do you?"
 
The pair stepped in, and Mr. Contable took the time to wipe his feet. After just a moment, he remembered to touch the salt. Surprising considering he'd only been at their house once, but he remembered and gently nudged Mrs. Smith to do the same.

"I will need to see her physical body to see evidence that she has not been abused," Mrs. Smith explained. "I would like to do it in a private room with one of her parents or guardians present. You may do the handling, if you wish, as long as I can see everything."

"It doesn't usually wake the tykes as long as they are handled gently," Mr. Lance said cheerfully.
 
What Mrs. Smith was saying suddenly clicked for him, and he felt like he had been struck. His mind forced him to imagine hurting Ivy and forced him to remember what had been done to him all at once and he tried to shut it out but the images-- The memories of what he had been through, kept replaying. In his memories, he wasn't that small, obviously, nobody could recall being that little, but in his earliest one, he recalled knowing what was coming. But as rattled as he was, his expression hardly changed, except for his eyes, "You think I have been hitting her? Or..." He couldn't think about the 'or.'

He forced himself to swallow again and turned away, hoping to see one of the twins there, or someone, even his dog, who would be able to affirm this was insane, "You can follow me upstairs, Daizi and Ivy-Qadira are in the nursery." He said in monotone voice.
 
Mr. Constable lifted a hand as if he was going to grip Dark's shoulder but aborted the movement. "I don't think any such thing," he said gruffly, his gravelly voice somehow gentle, "but we gotta take all calls seriously. I'm sorry."

"Mr. Constable?" Alec said, stepping into the room. He glanced between Dark, Mr. Constable, and Mrs. Smith curiously. "What seems to be going on?"

Lance Constable smiled at Alec - or at least his hedgehog of a beard moved like he was smiling - and said, "Just a quick check. I heard you got a new member. Right on."

Alec smiled tentatively but looked to Dark.
 
Dark looked at Alec, who would likely be able to see in his face what Mr. Constable and Mrs. Smith couldn't, and he struggled to voice why they were there, so after a moment he quickly said, "They just want to make sure she is okay," before starting to lead them upstairs, trying to figure out what he was going to tell Daizi and trying to anticipate how she would react.

The nursery door was open only a crack. Daizi did try to close it, because she knew the twins felt uncomfortably anytime they caught a glimpse of her nursing, but she regularly failed to completely shut it, since she was trying to be gentle and often holding a screaming baby. Normally, she didn't make an effort to feed upstairs, because it seemed entirely inconvenient, but sometimes she did prefer to sneak off to somewhere secluded.

From the hallway, the gentle creak of the rocking chair and her Arabic lullaby could be heard, and at the sound, Dark looked at the two social workers.
 
Alec scrambled to go fetch Xander the moment Dark turned away. "Xander!" he gasped, his eyes wide with panic. "Xander! The agents, their, they came and-"

Xander was elbow deep in suds in the sink washing dishes. He shook his hands off but didn't take the time to fully dry them before catching Alec's shoulders. "Slow down. Who is here to do what?"

Alec took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I think they might be here to take Ivy," he said shakily.

Xander stared at him, eyes narrowed. "Bull." So saying, he dried off his hands and headed for the stairs.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Smith nodded to him. "Go ahead and explain the situation. We'll wait out here."
 
Explain the situation. Explain the situation? It seemed a lot easier in theory. But it wasn't like he could say no. So he softly knocked on the the door, as a formality, before slipping inside.

"Daizi..."

Immediately she knew something had happened. He never called her by her given name. Almost never. "What's wrong?"

"I love you. I am sure everything will be okay," he wasn't, "CPS is here again. They..." He looked up at her face and down at Ivy's before very gently kissing his daughter's head and his wife's hand, "Someone filed a report. So they need to make sure..." They were speaking in Arabic.

"What do you mean?" She asked, tensing just as he had done, "A report? We don't take her anywhere except the doctor's and the backyard. But she, she's fine, she's healthy, the doctor said she's very healthy, she said... Dark, Dark," She reached out for him, fumbling until she found any part: his hand, his shoulder, his face, she didn't care, and he caught her hand to save her the trouble, holding it firmly between his, "I don't understand."

"They just want to make sure she is okay," he told her, bringing her hand to his chest, "and they need to look at her to make sure there are not any signs of..." That, he couldn't voice. Again, his childhood flashed behind his eyes, and now Daizi's fingers gripped his palm. They stopped talking, then, because neither of them knew what to say. So they were silent until Dark mustered the courage to say, "You can come in."
 
Mr. Constable stayed out, leaning on the wall of the hallway. He noticed Xander marching up the stairs and gave a nod that was downright companionable, but he didn't say anything.

Mrs. Smith stepped into the room and smiled, her eyes squinting a little as it was dimly lit. She didn't say anything immediately, her eyes flicking to gather every inch of the room in seconds. She was analyzing, processing, and making initial impressions on what she saw. "Good evening," she greeted pleasantly yet still cool and professional, "I am Mary-Sue Smith. I am very sorry, but someone filed a report with the CPS that an infant was being neglected and potentially abused here. I know this comes as a horrible shock, and from what I have seen, you certainly do not look like that type of parent. However, I am also certain you can understand why we have to take such reports seriously. I promise I will be as quick and painless as possible so we can be out of your hair in a moment. Do you have any questions before we continue?"
 
Dark was torn between wishing someone, anyone, had tried to intervene when he was small (and therefore being glad that, hopefully, kids here weren't being missed) and frustration that he and Daizi, who had never done anything to harm any of their children, could not do anything without these intrusions. He squeezed Daizi's and tighter and looked up at Mrs. Smith silently from where he still kneeled beside his wife. Meanwhile, all of the colour had left Daizi's face, and she held Ivy as protectively.

"Why?" She asked in a small voice, when she had any sort of voice again, "Why do you--or, whoever--think we're abusing her? We're not, we're--" Her face broke, "We were just at her doctor, don't you think her doctor would have said...? Dark built..."
 
"Ma'am," Mrs. Smith said gently, "I need you to breathe. If you haven't done anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear. I am not here because I want to disrupt your family. I am not here because I want to cause you fear and stress. I am just here because someone thinks a child might be in danger. Please, if I can just have you set her on the changing table or another flat surface, all I have to do is see her physical body. The diaper stays on." She glanced at Dark. "I am afraid I need to request that it's only one of you in here. It can be either of you. It will go faster if I can look her over myself, but if you want, you can just take off her onesie and let me look without touching her. That's all. If there's been no sign of any kind of trauma and your doctor isn't worried, then I'll be out of here in five minutes."
 
"Would you be able to breathe?" Daizi asked, "Thirteen years we've wanted her."

Inside of his head, Dark swore. He was scared, and he was upset, and he wanted to throw these strangers out of his house but one of them needed to at least pretend like they were thinking clearly, and he had always been better at surpressing his feelings, so even though his hands were shaking, he said what might have been the hardest thing he ever had to say, "Daizi can stay in here."

"No, but I want him here," She did her absolute best to not sound frantic.

"And I would rather stay in here too, but we have to listen to them," Dark replied, pushing himself to his feet. He bent and kissed Daizi's temple, and ran his finger along Ivy's cheek. In Arabic, he told her, "It is for the best you stay in here. Let her see what a wonderful mother you are. Five minutes, we can handle that."

Daizi was less certain, but Dark was walking out, so she had to pretend, even though it felt like she couldn't breathe. Cautiously she stood, making her way to the diaper table where she lay Ivy down. She was drowsy, but still awake, barely, and when she was on the table she began kicking a little bit more, but not quite fussing yet, "It's okay Hummingbird," Daizi cooed, trying to make her voice sound normal so Ivy wouldn't worry, as she began to undress her.

Out in the hall, Dark looked straight ahead of him, and as soon as the door was shut, he leaned his weight against it. It was just five minutes. Just five.
 
"This is bull," Alec said flatly.

"Maybe," Mr. Constable said with a slight nod, "but better twenty pointless visits than one that gets missed." Under his breath, he muttered, "Even if they are a waste of time we could be spending elsewhere."

Xander growled but stelled down to a moody glower as he stood next to Alec and Dark and waited. Strangely, the biker agent's calm was assuring. He knew they'd find nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with Ivy, but it was his job. Xander knew they didn't have to like it, but at least the man wasn't instantly throwing around accusations or worse.

Mrs. Smith was cool, calm, and efficient. She spoke little, only enough to tell Daizi what was needed as she made a few quick notes and checked areas that were most prone to be hurt as well as areas where people most commonly hid purposeful injuries. The most she found was a tiny scratch where Ivy had scratched herself with her own nails. A common problem with babies. She took note of it even so. In four minutes and twenty-three seconds, she gave a sharp nod. "Thank you, Mrs. Wahid. That will do. If Ivy," she checked her notes, "Qadira is ready for a nap, why don't you settle her down in her crib? Then we'll go downstairs for a brief chat."
 
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