How Green Becomes Wood

"Maybe if it was not when we had reached the point we wanted to leave," Dark replied, bending down to scratch Enkidu behind the ears, "And were the teenagers good for you? I know how hard you work to watch them. Such a good dog." After giving his dog the attention he was owed, Dark walked over to greet his daughter.

"A surprise for us?" Daizi asked, rubbing Ivy's back, "What happened?"
 
"Of course he did, he is the best dog in the world," Dark replied, turning to put his boy one last time. It bothered him, sometimes, not being able to dedicate as much time to Enkidu as he used to, but he supposed there were more people to give him attention, so it must balance out. Then he slowly turned and squinted at Alec, "What is it you should not say?"

"Hummingbird," Daizi cooed, kissing her baby on the cheek while Ivy stole her sunglasses, "What is it your silly brother isn't telling us? What did Ivy-Qadira do?"
 
"Ivy-Qadira, what did you do, my darling?" Dark asked, rubbing her back, but when Ivy only babbled at him he shook his head, "You are so secretive, my dear, I do not understand."

"She wants to tell us, she just hasn't figured out how to yet," Daizi argued, giving Ivy another kiss, "and it can't be she started speaking, because Alec said he'd let us see for ourselves, which---by the way---is horribly rude of you. I'll be waiting a long time if I have to wait until I see it." She teased, pressing her cheek against Ivy's.
 
Alec rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "It won't be long until you experience what she's learned," he quipped with a grin.

"Then again, that would require both of you putting her down, so that might take a while," Xander said dryly.
 
"She missed us," Daizi chided, turning to emphasize how tightly Ivy was holding onto her, "I'm not going to put her down until she is ready to be set down." It was true, if Daizi had tried to put Ivy down already, the moment she wasn't pressed firmly against her Mama, she would have begun to scream. Both Dark and Daizi had missed Ivy, because she was so small and having a baby meant organizing their entire lives around her, but Ivy had missed them. They were the great majority of her life, and they had been gone for what felt like forever.

But now Mama was holding her, and she didn't want to be anywhere else. She would have held onto Dark with the same ferocity, but Alec had given her to Daizi first, so that is where she would stay.
 
"It's called a joke," Xander said, something these two seemed utterly incapable of when it came to Ivy. "And it applies to her, too. Anyway. She's been fed and changed and all of that, so materially, she's fine and all yours now." He turned and headed for the stairs.

"It will be a while before you can experience what she's learned to do at this rate, but once she's willing to be put down, it'll be no time at all!" Alec told Daizi. "Although you are getting lipstick all over her, so she'll need her face washed when you're ready to make her cry."
 
Daizi sighed, rubbing Ivy on her back, "It's not fair to make light of her feelings, how is she supposed to grow up knowing she's okay expressing them if she's teased for them. I don't joke about your feelings. She's just a baby." She nuzzled her cheek against Ivy's hair one more time before asking, "Do you want to go sit down, habibti? Sit down with Mama and tell her all about you're day? I'm glad to hear you were very good for your brothers."

After watching Daizi go to the living room with her daughter, Dark looked at Alec, "Thank you for watching her."
 
"You're welcome!" Alec said brightly. "Xander helped her out with coloring a little. She still doesn't care much for it, but she's starting to get the idea. At least, I think she is. It's kind of hard to tell. And we went outside and did stuff out there, too. She still wants to eat literally everything, so that didn't change in the few hours you were gone."
 
"She is a bit young to understand the purpose of colouring," Dark replied, walking with Alec back to the living room, if he followed him, "in a few months she will be better at it. I do not know when the 'eating everything' will stop, but, we are told, eventually. By the time she is three, at least. But it is good the world did not drastically change while we were away."
 
"It was... fine. Not much to say about it, really. The food was nice. Most of Daizi's friends were there, so she was able to catch up with them. I had not seen many of them in awhile. Really my purpose at those events is to be an escort."

"That is not true," Daizi replied, "Your job is to sit there, look pretty, and make old ladies laugh. Old women find him exhilarating."
 
"I can imagine," Alec grinned. "I think I'm going to head upstairs. Give us a yell if you need help with anything since it looks like Ivy has baby koalad you for the next while."
 
"Alright," Daizi replied warmly, "we will be here."

Sitting down on the couch after setting his blazer on the coffee table, Dark put one arm around Daizi, who shifted so Ivy could settle in between the two of them, "Old women are not 'exhilirated' by me."

"You are handsome, polite, soft-spoke, intelligent, and well-dressed, but you're also covered in tattoos so you look like a bad boy," Daizi argued, "of course they are. Now you also have a baby. You're old lady catnip."
 
Alec headed upstairs and saw he arrived only just behind Xander, meaning Xander had likely been going up slow and heard everything. "Sounds like they had fun! And looking after Ivy was fun."

"Yeah, it was pretty cool," Xander agreed, plopping down on his bed and rolling onto his back.

"Except they really don't like," Alec started to say.

"And I really don't care," Xander interrupted.

Alec stared. "What?"

"Last I checked, you aren't one of the parents, and since we now finally have a couple, you can retire from your self-appointed position," Xander said, picking up a magazine.

Alec frowned and crossed over to his own bed. "What's gotten into you? I was just going to say they don't like your jokes about Ivy being clingy."

Xander snorted. "Then they can tell me. Like they already did. But let you off scott-free for the same thing."

"It was not the same thing!" Alec protested.

"Just stop trying to monitor people, okay?" Xander snapped, glaring over his magazine. "No one likes it. It's about time you figured that out."

"And no one likes your jokes. It's about time you figured that out," Alec retorted.

Xander told him what he could do with that information, and the pair started resolutely ignoring each other.
 
Downstairs, the biggest problem Dark and Daizi were dealing with was the fact Daizi was pretty sick of wearing a fairly uncomfortable outfit, but there was no chance of successfully prying her very sweet and snuggly daughter off of her so she could go and change. The best she managed was undoing the safety pins, but although the strappy, exposed dress she wore beneath her sweater was gorgeous, it was nonetheless restrictive and, after a period of time, not something she liked to have on her body.

"I really should have demanded to change before picking her up," Daizi murmured, putting one hand up beneath her sweater to try at least to loosen them, without much luck.

"I bet I can take her from you so you can change," Dark suggested, turning to try to see if he could switch Ivy over like he was Indiana Jones, "Surely she has missed me, too."
 
Alec came back downstairs perhaps fifteen minutes later to get a drink from the kitchen and to try to get away from some of the stress and tension that had built up in the bedroom. They needed more than one bowl of salt in this house.

Xander came down shortly after because he'd forgotten something in the livingroom and wanted to get it before Ivy found and destroyed it. He was trying to be subtle about it and get back upstairs as soon as possible.
 
Once Ivy managed to be successfully peeled off of her mother, Daizi went upstairs to change in something that wasn't secretly club wear, and shortly after came back down, fluffing out her hair. Dark greatly enjoyed the time he spent one-on-one with Ivy, wondering how they managed to have the absolutely cuddliest child ever born, but when Daizi joined them once more, he thought about what Alec had said, and gently peeled Ivy off of him, and said, "So, my darling girl. Your brother tells me you learned something new. Mama is back, see?" He pointed, "Let us see what our clever girl has figured out."

Having said this, he sat Ivy on the floor. Of course, the very first thing Ivy did was crawl to her mother, and Daizi bent down to stroke her hair and told her "You have to show us what you learned, habibti!" before sitting next to Dark on the couch. It took a little while following this, but eventually Ivy crawled back to the couch, fussed at her parents for leaving her on the floor, and when she failed to get a sufficient reaction, pulled herself up to her feet using the couch and Dark's pant legs so she could 'yell' at them from a higher vantage point.

Immediately, Dark recognized the doom in this, but the realization of how much harder it'd be to keep her out of things was vastly outweighed by his delight, and as he hurried to get his phone to photograph it before she lost her balance, he said, "Spider, she's standing. Ivy, you're standing! She pulled herself up onto her feet."

"Oh my god," Daizi replied, squeezing Dark's arm and reaching out to touch Ivy, "Hummingbird! You're doing such a good job! Oh my god, oh, does that mean she's tall now? And not long?"

Ivy cooed at them again, pleased by this attention, but still feeling like they weren't really giving her what she wanted.
 
Xander smirked at Ivy when he saw her standing. "You should have kept it a secret a little longer, Mini. Think of all the things you could have reached before they realized you could reach them. Nice leg work, though, and good upper body strength."

"Oh, did she do it?" Alec asked, poking his head into the living room.
 
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