How Green Becomes Wood

"Oh its whatever you'd like to play," She yawned, and bent to give Ivy a little kiss, "You are still our guests, although I'm not sure how great Dark and I will be at either game right now. We're barely sleeping. But she's really very good, she is rarely difficult to soothe."

"She is loud now," Dark commented, wondering if he should feel guilty for immediately thinking if they played the partner game, he would want to be Daizi's. Considering everything going on with the boys, they really should split them between their parents, but... Damn, if Daizi wasn't still his favourite person.

"Next time, we'll have to invite our friend Cooger, then it won't be uneven."
 
"Dear, dear, dear," Sally tutted, looking closer at Daizi. "You are certainly tuckered out. And I would hardly consider us your guests considering we invited ourselves over. This was meant to be a celebration for you and Ivy, but if you are tired, we'll clean up and let ourselves out. Truly. So, games? Or rest? It's up to you."
 
"I am pretty tired," She admitted, "Dark is too. He just hides it better, he's got more experience. But I don't want to send you away after you were so nice to come and celebrate with us."

"Well, since Ivy is still awake, which means we cannot sleep anyway, we could always play a short game and have dessert," Dark offered, trying to bridge the gap between the two sides.
 
"Very well, a short game of your choosing," Sally said with a warm smile.

Jack stood up and started cleaning off the table. "You lot head into the living room, then. I'll get cleaning up in here. Where is that son of ours? I could use a hand."
 
"They went upstairs," Dark said, standing, "I can get them."

"We can't play Jenga," Daizi said, heading back to the living room with Sally, "I can't see the tower or what pieces anyone else took, so me just deciding what piece to pull would probably cause me to topple the tower. That game about guessing the word sounded interesting, but I don't want to make anyone sit out just for my sake."
 
"You can always feel the tower and 'accidentally' knock it over," Jack chuckled.

Sally rolled her eyes. "The point is to not knock the tower over, dear. And I will happily sit out and read all the cards for you, Daizi, so you can be partnered with Dark."

"I suppose that means I'll be partnered with Peter, then," Jack nodded, "and the twins will want to be partners, right?"
 
"Is it a good idea to have the twins be partners?" Daizi asked, "They've lived literally their entire lives together, they might have an unfair advantage. Twins can communicate telepathically--Not, literally, obviously, but they do not always need to talk aloud to talk to each other."

Dark glanced at Daizi, briefly squinting his eyes at her, and then took a glance at Sally and Jack before saying, "We can leave it up to them. They might decide they want to try something different."
 
"Excellent!" Sally agreed. She took Daizi's arm lightly. "Let's go set up in the living room. We need a small space on a table to set the cards up and a scoring station, but not much. Or would you rather set up in here so we won't accidentally wake up Ivy?"

"I'll have this cleaned up in a mo'," Jack assured them, already hunting and finding containers for the leftovers. "If you want to go get our boys, Mr. Dark? Then we can work out teams."
 
"Oh, no, we can do it in the living room. She's not even completely asleep yet, right baby?" With her free hand, she stroked Ivy's cheek. It wasn't easy for her to tell when Ivy was awake or not, since she was still a bit too young to even coo--had she been born on time, she wouldn't be, but this was day zero--but she could mostly guess by how Ivy was breathing and how much her arms were moving, "anyway, she needs to learn to cope with normal house sounds. As long as nobody starts yelling, it should be fine, and honestly even if we stayed in the dining room and started yelling, she'd be woken anyway, since we are not in a fully seperate room. We can set up on the coffee table."

Dark nodded to Jack and then slipped upstairs, knocking lightly on the door, "Hello," he said, "we are going to play a game downstairs, your presence was requested."
 
"Here that, Jack? No yelling," Sally told her husband as she found the correct box and took the game into the living room. "He gets a little competitive and excited, but it should be fine. We may be a little out of practice when it comes to babies, but we are not complete heathens."

After a moment, Xander opened the door. "Our presence was requested?" he repeated, amused by the phrasing.

Behind Xander and standing in the middle of the room, Peter had one foot on a stool and held his left hand up in the air. It was holding what looked like a flashlight. The other hand held a gathered fold of the blue-striped bedsheet that was draped over his shoulders. He didn't even flinch or glance at Dark, his expression serious and stern as he stared at the wall. Alec sat crosslegged on his bed with a pencil, but he seemed to be writing something out, not drawing it. He nodded from time to time but barely glanced at Dark.
 
"It's okay, I've never been in practice," Daizi said, sitting down on the couch, "I have relatives who have had them, but I live so far away I've never really gotten to spend much time with them. And the cousins didn't tend to trust me with them." She rocked Ivy, smiling down at her tiny face while she spoke, "So I'm really just learning everything. But she's a good baby to learn with. She's very calm, which is shocking, considering how sick she made me." She laughed lightly, kissing her baby's forehead, "She still keeps me awake just like she did when I was still pregnant with her, though. Except now when I can sleep, it's a bit easier to get comfortable."

"It felt more polite than saying get downstairs, the Hollis' want you to play the game with us." He replied, softly teasing. Looking past Xander at Peter and Alec, he ran his tongue over his teeth and asked, "What have you three been up to?"
 
Sally started setting out the cards in a very simple setup. There was one deck of cards, a spot to discard the used ones, a small timer, and a notepad and pencil for scorekeeping. "There were times when I barely trusted myself with my own baby. I kept thinking, 'that's it? They just send me home with this tiny being with no questions asked? And I'm supposed to know what I am doing?' A horrendously terrifying time, but, obviously, we did well. Strangely, I did become absolutely paranoid that he would somehow pull boiling water over onto himself like some horror stories I'd heard. He was about as mobile as a meatloaf, yet I could not bring myself to even make tea or boil pasta water for nearly a year. It's absurd, but I did what I needed to do, and we survived."

"Not much," Xander said with a shrug. "Just typical teen stuff. We'll be with you in a minute."
 
"With me, questions were asked. And asked again." Daizi remarked bitterly, smoothing Ivy's hair with her thumb, "but now I am going to worry about boiling water, too. At least, I will once she learns to stand. I already cut myself when I broke a vase and couldn't see where all of it had gotten to." She sighed, keeping her head bowed and her legs crossed. After a little bit of silence, she said, "It was terrifying being pregnant with her, because every day I thought would be the day I lost her. Even when it began to seem very likely she would live, I never completely moved on from that fear. And now she's here, and if it weren't for the weeks of bleeding and how, just, different I feel to myself..." She trailed off, not even sure of what she was trying to say. It was difficult, it was all difficult. If she were only with the boys, she felt she could handle it. If she were only with Ivy, she felt she could probably make it work. Ivy scared her more. But she was still struggling to make it all work. "In some ways it's easier, because I'm not the only one responsible for her. But..."

"Alright. I will see you down there," He said, slipping back down to the living room.
 
Sally reached out and gripped Daizi's hand, giving it a little squeeze. "Being a new parent is terrifying, and you will make all sorts of mistakes no matter how 'normal' you may look on the outside. Things will happen. The baby will get hurt, you'll get hurt, you'll make random mistakes, and it is all okay. Just take a deep breath and allow yourself to be human. Try to enjoy this time and not let the fear of what can happen take away from that. You'll find a way to make this work for your family. It will just take a little time."

"I wonder what we're playing?" Alec said, closing his notebook and setting it aside.

"Probably a verbal game of some type," Peter replied, folding up the sheet. "My parents are big on those."

"Oh, goodie, as long as it's not Spelling; the Game," Xander grumbled. The three of them headed downstairs to join the others.
 
"For those first two weeks when we were in the hospital, all I wanted to do was come home." She half smiled, for just a moment, "I am glad to be home. I like that she's not hooked up to machines anymore," Her smile faded, "but I still feel like if I'm too excited and loving towards her, it'll hurt them, and sometimes they've said I shouldn't worry about that, but of course I do. Because they're keeping so many secrets, I can't trust them not to lie to protect me. And even if they think they're being honest, sometimes people think they'll be okay with something, only to get hurt by that thing. I couldn't cope if something I did hurt them. It'd be too much."

Dark was waiting at the bottom of the stairs with them, "It is some partner game, so we need to figure out how that will work. We have to try to guess some secret word. Daizi and myself will probably be together, but we are unsure yet."
 
"Daizi, darling," Sally said softly, "I can only imagine the weight you are carrying, but I want you to know this one truth: You are allowed to happy and excited about this baby. You are allowed to feel exactly how you want to feel about Ivy. It is okay."

"If you and Daizi are in a group together, then my parents should be in a pair, and of course, you two," Peter said, indicating the twins. "Oh dear. That leaves me out."

"We'll find a place for you," Alec promised him with a smile.
 
Daizi nodded, pulling Ivy closer and rocking her, "I..." She hesitated, "I'm just so afraid of something happening to them. If it's easier for them..." She trailed off. "I just hope it gets better before she's old enough to be aware of it. They're both good with her, Alec holds her, they both talk to her. Until recently I thought Xander wanted nothing to do with her, but it turns out he just hadn't talked to her when Dark and I could hear. Dark and I just adore her."

"Daizi thinks it is an unfair advantage to let you two to be on the same team," Dark explained, looking at the three boys the same way he looked at Sally and Jack regarding the irony of this opinion, "and Sally said she would sit out, because someone needs to read the cards to Daizi."
 
Sally smiled and patted Daizi's arm. "Just be available for them to talk to you and give it time. They are good boys, likely just as nervous about this as you in their own ways."

"I could sit out and read the cards instead," Peter offered, chuckling.

"I could do the reading to really throw things off, and the two married couples cannot be put together," Alec grinned.

"Are you fellows still discussing teams?" Jack grinned, walking up to them.
 
Daizi smiled slightly, even though it still all weighed heavily on her, "We're really trying."

"If married couples cannot be together, and Alec is reading, then..." Dark squinted, trying to work it out, "Peter and Daizi, Sally and myself, and Jack and Xander would probably be the most fair, since Xander and Peter are friends, so are Daizi and Sally, and Peter is, or was, my students. And, parent and child is also an unfair pairing."
 
"Sounds like the perfect teams!" Jack nodded. "Come on, let's see how well we can communicate with each other.'

"Wait, this is communication the game?" Xander groaned, following Jack into the living room.

"Shall we go over the rules and gameplay?" Jack asked.

Sally smiled and nodded. "Did you get the teams worked out?"
 
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