Who: Mel and Nick What: Discussions... Where: Aiolos house When: Recently Warning: None, really.
Babies babies babies.
It hadn't always been on Nick's mind. Just over a year ago, he'd been cruising through town, getting drunk and pissing off cops. Now here he was. In a nursery. With his kid. Thinking about babies. Shaking his head, he tiptoed away and down the stairs so as not to wake her, wondering if Mel had started lunch yet. Because he was craving a BLT like nobody's business.
She wasn't. She'd never gotten used to having a house staff that did everything for her, and thus hadn't really ever had them do things for her, but at the moment, she wasn't making lunch, or even really thinking about it. Instead, she had claimed the kitchen table as a kind of work space, covering it with catalogues and print outs of different articles and toys having to do with baby birthday parties. Unlike some who threw the huge parties that were more for showing off then the child's actual birthday, Mel was planning something small and simple. All the research was merely her realizing how much she didn't want a bit to do that, and rejecting ideas. Her iPod was almost audible through the buds in her ears as she continued to shift pieces about. What about a theme around the royal blue?
Walking up behind her seat, he put his hands on her shoulders to keep her still for a second, so he could kiss the back of her head. Mwah~ "What's up?"
The muse stiffened in surprise, relaxing with the kiss. She hadn't heard the question though. Tugging out the ear buds, she let them rest on her shoulders as she turned to look at the mortal. "Hey."
Heh. He figured she hadn't. "Looks like you're having fun with all this preparation."
Mel shrugged. "Just something that needed to be done. You haven't really said much about it."
"Summer's a high season for the ranches," he said, though she already knew, with a shrug. "And going to church again has kinda taken up a bit of extra time, too."
She stared at him for a moment, deciding to not make a further comment on the amount of time his church studies were taking. That was his choice. She reached across the table and grabbed a print out, then turned to show it to him.
Her silence spoke just as much as her words, though. His smile fell just a hint but recovered when he saw her handiwork. "Wow, nice."
"I thought the zoo might be boring for Eric, but if these guys come, they'll bring all those animals so the kids can touch them." The huge snake that made the front of the print out was rather impressive, but there looked to be rabbits, lizards, ducks and a variety of other animals as well. She shrugged again. "It was one idea, if we can get them still."
He took it from her hands, glancing over it. And, even with his inherited estate, the price made him cringe a little. "Do we really wanna spend this much on a birthday she won't remember?" he asked her, looking down. "That's a pretty expensive petting zoo." Presuming the animals weren't plated in gold.
"Maybe when she's older then." She slipped the paper back out of his hands, took the black sharpie in her pocket and drew a huge X through it. The paper was then sent to join all the others that had been marked in similar manners as she turned back to the other papers. If that was too much, what else had she been considering that would need to be tossed?
He watched her as well, but with other thoughts on his mind. And Nick Aiolos was no someone who kept stuff in his mind for long.
"...I want to get her baptized."
Mel froze. Then blinked. Then slowly turned to look at him.
He stared back, completely serious.
She wasn't going to like this, was she? "Why?"
"It's tradition," he said. "I was. My parents were. Their parents were."
"....." Was he serious? "Family tradition is your reasoning for wanting to do something?"
"And... I want to do it," he added. "Not just because of tradition."
"Why do you want to do it?" She frowned slightly, trying to understand his reasoning.
....... "I'm Greek Orthodox. And, I know I'm not devout. Never have been, probably never will be. But..." He sighed, looking down to the floor and shrugging. Why did he feel bad? "I don't know. I feel like since I've met you and Hades and whatever, it's... changed. And the fact that I haven't taken her to even see the church just... bothers me."
And the fact that he did go to church bothered her. Not that she'd ever tried to stop him from it. "Wait until she's old enough to decide if she wants to do it herself or not." Loosely she crossed her arms in front of her, tilting her head up in slight challenge, to meet his eyes if he looked up from the floor again.
"She'll be too old then," he argued back, not in challenge but slight annoyance. He had a feeling this was going to happen.
"You're never too old to be baptized." If Melpomene hadn't had lifetimes of maintaining her expression, she probably would have pulled a face as she made her statement.
"It is with the church. At least the Greek one."
"{And when do the Greeks say that one is too old to be baptized?}" She didn't bother to not frown now, barely realizing she'd changed languages.
"{It varies,}" he replied, "{depending on the church... my family's always done it by the first birthday. With the Orthodox, you can only be baptized once, so we do it early.}"
"{Before anyone can escape the embrace of Christ,}" she stated. Her eyes stayed on him, her muscles relaxed. This wasn't the conversation she was expecting to have.
Now he frowned and sighed. "{To assure her place in the church, whether she choose to act on that or not,}" he corrected.
A number of responses went through her mind before she dropped her eyes and turned away from him, ignoring her chaos on the table and focusing simply on heading toward the door that exited out of the house. "Shadow!" she bellowed, hoping he'd hear her if he were somewhere within the house. "Pick your godparents well," she answered to him in a softer voice.
"Mel..."
She continued walking toward the door.
With a scowl, he ran out to catch up to her, catching her by the wrist. "{If I wanted to decide this by myself, I would've done it ages ago,}" he said before she could get a word in, "{without telling or asking you. I want to know what you think as much as I want to do it. And I refuse to pick out godparents without you.}"
"{You are choosing to set our daughter on the path of faith that separated me from all of my family, that demonizes me, and with roots in my land of birth where they would kindly ignore all that my family had granted them before an upstart came,}" she replied frankly, without emotion, as if reciting something to a class. Glancing away from him, she shrugged. "{I've had daughters raised in whatever way the father thought was right before, so why not now? I'm not part of the church. It's too late for me.}"
Why wouldn't she look at him? Somehow, that stung deeper than her words. "{To refuse it would be to deny her heritage as much as mine,}" he replied. "{My soul, your uncle says, may be that of your history. But I'm still me. And this is how my family is. I'm not asking you to never practice your rituals or whatever with her and I'm not saying I'm gonna ship her off to some private school so she's the perfect little Christian wife for some Greek boy. I'm just saying... can't we find a middle ground somewhere?}"
"{What would the middle ground be?}" she asked simply, giving no emotion in either direction.
"{I dunno. One year Christmas, one year winter solstice. Baptism, whatever blessing thingie you guys do for babies...}" The man shrugged, moving to take a step closer to her. "{It doesn't have to be a one way street. I promise.}"
Melpomene stared at him, letting the various words he had said float about her, considering different ways of responding. She was Melpomene, daughter of Zeus, sister of eight muses, master of the theater and tragedy. Quickly words chased themselves in her mind as she watched his eyes. "{When Uncle was master over the Underworld, he judged people by what they did, not simply what they thought. I have that luxury no more. Take her. Take her to church each Sunday, raise her to know your ways. And when she dies, at least she will have the chance to see one of her parents, as she will have no chance to see me.}"
"{Mel, don't be this way,}" he sighed. Christ, the conversation was just exhausting. "{What do you want then? To just have her know about your side of the family and pretend mine doesn't exist?}"
Her eyebrows rose. Did he not hear what she had just said? Perhaps it was that she hadn't raised her voice... "{I said what I wanted.}"
"{You told me to do something. You didn't say what you wanted.}"
"{I want my daughter to live long enough to have children,}" she answered honestly, without pause.
"{And how is me introducing her to the church going to stop that? Do you think I'd let them hurt her? And it's not like I'm going to be disappointed she doesn't become a nun or something! I couldn't care less if she suddenly decides to go worship... Fucking squirrels!}" He sighed and threw up his hands.
Nick was clearly going off the deep end. Reaching out, Mel grabbed his hands as they started to fall, stopping them and gripping them firmly until he was looking straight into her eyes. "{Stop hearing what you think I should be saying, start hearing what I am.}" She paused, giving him a chance to really focus. "{You are both mortal. When she dies, she will not be facing my uncle. She will be facing another who plays by different rules. Take her church, get her baptized, and hope that she is not cursed for being the child of a fallen god.}"
He looked back at her with a sigh. "{If she was... is... a child of God... then He will love her despite her birth,}" he murmured in reply. "{I'm not afraid of that. If He would accept my father, if He would still allow me to live despite what...}" He had to pause, looking away then as his voice went down more quietly, "{...what I am or ever was, then I have to believe that. But I've heard what you and Hades say the Underworld is like now. What it's called now. Would it be better if she were under your uncle's graces?}"
"{Since he doesn't master the afterlife now as he did before, it doesn't matter.}" She relaxed her grip on his wrists and heard the soft clicking of claws on the tile of the floor. Glancing up, she saw Shadow, answering her earlier call. But he was moving back, giving them privacy in his own way. She looked back to Nick.
The mortal sighed and shook his head. He was overreacting, wasn't he. "{It's not all bad. It's not,}" he said, either to her or himself. Or both.
Mel leaned up and kissed his cheek, trying to be reassuring. "Write up a list of people you would consider for godparents."
He smiled a bit then and snorted. "I'd suggest Grandma. But her age kind of puts her out of the running..."
"She's not very local either..." Though, it was one person Mel would approve of. "She'd be honored probably though to be asked."
The mortal shook his head. "She's just too old. A godparent is supposed to be someone who could take over if either of us died. I know for you that's kind of a freak circumstance, but they'd see it as kind of weird."
She could think of a few reasons why it would be good to have a god parent named. "It's also supposed to be someone of the church." Which knocked out all of her choices.
"Our church is kinda liberal. For a, um, church." Hey, a joke! "I mean, I don't remember them making my aunts tell them what affiliation the godparents had..."
Mel blinked at him. Which church was he going to? Someone changed the meaning of godparent on her. ".... Do you plan to do this here, or in Greece?"
"Not sure yet. I'd like the family to see it. But I"m not above having them flown out to see it."
".... Were you going to surprise them with this?" She was now very confused. If he'd been thinking about this, why hadn't he mentioned it sooner?
He considered that with a slightly wicked grin but shook his head. "No. We've been talking about it back and forth for about two months. They want it done in Greece, in Athens to be precise, ASAP. But I told them I had to talk to you first. I just wasn't... you know. Sure how to ask you."
"Then you have to decide godparents ASAP if someone else is going to fly there besides you and Helen." She shrugged. "Work on your list and we'll talk about it tonight. We'll just make sure her party is after she gets back."
"Who would you suggest?" he retorted, intent clear: he wasn't going to do this without her input.
"I don't know anyone who would want to be a godparent." Well, that she would choose. A few people came to mind, but most of them were family.
"True enough..." He sighed and reached for her hands. "{I'm sorry I yelled.}"
Mel shrugged, letting him take her hands, as if the whole thing were nothing. "We'll discuss who we put in our wills as caretakers for Helen if something happens to us." Not the same as a godparent, and something she could make a few suggestions with.
Sounded right. Smiling back more confidently, he leaned in and gave her a kiss. "Does this mean we're done arguing for now?"
"Sure," she answered lightly, then patted her leg to call the dog over. "Shadow and I will go outside while you work on your lists."
Oh thank god. Nick looked absolutely relieved and kissed her again. "Since I'm staying in here then, what do you want for lunch?"
Booze and chocolate. "I'll make something when I get back in," she shrugged, accepting the second kiss.
That sounded fair! "Okay."
Nodding, she opened the door and waved Shadow out first, kissed Nick on the cheek, then followed the dog out. It would be a good break.
Summary: Mel is trying to plan Helen's birthday party when Nick surprises her with a question. He wants to baptize Helen. An argument/discussion follows.