Keelin Mikaelson is the (lastmalraux) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2021-07-28 16:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, !log, ~2021 july, ~~freya mikaelson (familydefines), ~~keelin mikaelson (lastmalraux) |
Who: Freya & Keelin
What: Being married mommies
Where: their place
When: this evening
Warnings: nope
Status: complete gdoc
Freya sat on the couch, thumbing through a book while Nik played off to one side with a set of plastic blocks, right beside the abandoned fire truck he’d been running around on the floor a few minutes earlier. From time to time, she looked up to make sure he was alright, and then checked the clock to see when Keelin would be home. Absently, she hummed quietly as she continued to look slowly through the book without really reading it, mostly content with just being in her son’s presence while waiting for her wife to walk through the door.
***
Things had been a little busier at the clinic than usual, so Keelin was a few minutes late getting done with her shift and heading home. She felt bad because she knew their son was at an age where he could be very exhausting to keep up with and hated leaving Freya alone to care for him longer than she had to. Of course, they also needed her income, so it wasn’t like she couldn’t stop working. And at least the clinic was generally less chaotic than the hospitals back home.
She stopped and grabbed takeout from the Thai place on her way home to make up for being late. “Sorry,” she said as she walked into the house and braced herself for the whirlwind of a toddler attacking her legs. “We were surprisingly busy today. I brought food though.”
***
Looking up when she heard the key in the door, Freya shot Nik a grin. “Mama’s home!” She sang out, then stood as he launched himself at Keelin when she walked in. Grinning, Freya reached past her to shut the door, then took the bags from her wife as she leaned in to kiss her cheek.
“That’s good, since I was just thinking about heating up some leftover lasagne. This’ll be better.” Taking the food into the kitchen, she left Keelin to spend a few minutes with Nik, knowing that their son would brighten Keelin’s day. “How was work?” She called back over her shoulder.
***
“Nothing life threatening,” Keelin replied, the relief obvious in her voice. Ever since finding Brooke bleeding out on the sidewalk shortly after her arrival, she worried about what might come through their door. “Just a lot of check ups and whatnot.”
She turned her attention to Nik while Freya handled dinner, listening to his nonsensical toddler babble that was presumably telling her about his day. There was definitely something about a fire truck in there, but she couldn’t really decipher most of it. He didn’t seem to mind though, content to have a captive audience.
***
Unpacking the food, Freya got out a couple of serving dishes to dump different things into, then plates and utensils in order to set the table. While she occasionally didn’t mind eating in the living room in front of the tv, a part of her really preferred the traditional ‘family around the table’ types of meals, and went for that most of the time.
“I’m glad to hear it, especially after some of what people were saying about the ‘other’ Madison Valley,” she replied, and a few minutes later she walked back out to the living room and smiled at the two of them. “Dinner is served.”
***
Since they were trying to raise Nik to be an adventurous eater, Keelin hadn’t gotten him a separate dish, figuring he could pick at the same things they were eating. Especially since it was anyone’s guess if he was going to eat three bites or ask for seconds on any given day. Life with a toddler was challenging in ways that couldn’t possibly compare to med school or werewolf politics or even the Mikaelson family history.
Keelin got up from the floor and took Nik’s hand to lead him to the dining room. After years of eating whatever she could whenever she could through her residency, she appreciated that Freya preferred traditional family dinners. “Thanks, hon,” she said, kissing her wife’s cheek before settling their son in his seat. “How were things here today?”
***
Freya cut up a few pieces of Nik’s food to make them smaller and more manageable for him, then set a sippy cup by his plate and smiled at the kiss from Keelin. For the two of them, she poured a glass of wine each, then sat. “Quiet, for the most part. Though Nik has taken to banging his blocks on each other, the floor, the wall…”
Shaking her head with a laugh, she shot her wife an amused grin. “We should think about getting him one fo those toy drumsets, maybe. If anything, it might save the walls and floors from dents.”
***
Keelin chuckled. “At least we don’t have to worry about werewolf strength,” she pointed out. When they’d made the decision to have a child, she had been adamant that she didn’t want to pass along her genetics and put the pressure of being the last Malraux on her future child. With Vincent as their donor, it made more sense for Freya to provide the egg anyway so their child would have stronger magic.
“I’m not sure if my ears can handle toddler drumming,” she said, wincing slightly at the thought. “We can figure out something though.”
***
“That’s a very good point,” Freya agreed with another grin before starting her food with one eye on their son to make sure he was managing alright.
“What kind of toys did you have when you were little?” She asked Keelin curiously. She herself hadn’t exactly had any ‘toys’, and even despite her limited experience with Hope when she’d been little, she knew there were a great deal more things out there for toddlers.
***
“I… don’t know?” Keelin said, pausing to take a bite of her food while she considered the question. “Normal stuff, I guess? I had blocks. Some stuffed animals. We played outside a lot so we had balls and other outside type things.”
Neither of them exactly had a traditional upbringing. “I could ask Theo about developmentally appropriate toys for him,” she said.
***
“That’s probably a good idea.” Nik certainly had the blocks and stuffed animals, but he was too young to play outside by himself or with others, and she wanted to make sure he had the best access to absolutely anything he needed.
“What do you think of the things we saw happening recently?” Freya asked as she changed the subject, choosing her words carefully around their son. “With the…other versions of people.”
***
Making a mental note to do that, Keelin took another bite of her food as Freya continued talking. She’d thought New Orleans prepared her for anything weird this town might throw at them and was discovering that wasn’t the case. “It’s… interesting,” she said. “And I’m very grateful no one in our family was involved.” The idea of an evil version of Freya’s siblings, or even her wife, was more than a little terrifying.
“I think perhaps we should come up with some safeguards for the future. To make sure that Nik is protected.”
***
“So do I,” Freya replied whole-heartedly, and nodded at the suggestion of safeguards. “I can put wards around here, and make a charm for him to wear.” Not something that would be a choking hazard, like the bracelet that she’d once made for Hope to help bind her powers when needed, but something a little different.
“He’s starting to show his abilities...we may want to mask his powers somehow.”
***
Keelin nodded. “That would probably be good. Until he’s old enough to understand how to use them properly.” She didn’t want to think about what kind of chaos their son could potentially unleash on the town by inadvertently using his powers. “And we should come up with a code word or something. So that we’ll always know we’re really us.”
That was a sentence she never expected to say.
***
“Something that wouldn’t be easy to guess by anyone else,” Freya said with a nod of agreement. “Any particular word you can think of?” She ate a little more of her own food, then reached over to Nik’s high chair to cut a piece of meat into a smaller bite for him.
***
After thinking about it for a moment, Keelin started to giggle. “I have one suggestion, but it might be a little too ridiculous,” she admitted, even though she was clearly amused by it. She cleared her throat and gave her wife an apologetic look. “How about penis?”
It was the last thing anyone would expect two women to use as a code word.
***
“Ridiculous and juvenile,” Freya retorted, then shook her head with a laugh. “Fine. Penis will be our code word - if anything, it’s not exactly a word we’ll need to use on a regular basis, until this one starts to get old enough to learn about body parts,” she replied as she used a napkin to clean off Nik’s ear - honestly, how did he manage to get sauce there? - then went back to her own meal.
***
“We can change it later if we come up with something better,” Keelin said. Moments of levity like this were far too rare for them, even before Madison Valley, so she enjoyed them all the more when they happened. “It’s good enough for now though.” With any luck, it wouldn’t need to be used anytime in the near future.