Forever [Prim/Cato]

Chapter 3 - The Standoff

Willow has woken up out of her sleep twice already tonight, and I guess now she wants to go for another round. Her piercing screams find their way through the hallway and into our room, waking us up even though we were both dead tired. The first time around, Cato went to get her up, but ultimately, he had to wake me up, too, because she was hungry. Willow doesn't like to drink breast milk from a bottle, which makes things that much harder for me. The second time, I got up to tend to her, and all she needed was a diaper change and a little attention. As soon as anyone picks her up, she calms down. She's already spoiled rotten.

We hear her screams loud and clear through our open doors. I stay still as I feel the bed shift. It's Cato's turn to tend to her, but I bet he's going to be shuffling his way in here to hand her over to me. Momma knows when her baby is hungry.

I groan as the bed moves underneath me with Cato getting up. I feel him place a kiss to my forehead before he walks out.

Looking at our clock, it reads five a.m. I know it's going to be this way, with Willow waking up so often through the night, for a very long time, but I don't think I'll get used to it. Hopefully as she develops, we can teach her that someone will not run up as soon as she starts crying. Soon, she'll lose her spoiled ways and only wake up and cry when she actually needs something.

As I close my eyes to fall back to sleep, I hear her cries getting closer and closer. I sit up, unable to relax, and Cato is standing on my side of the bed with Willow in tow. He's staring down at me apologetically.

"She needs Mummy," he yells over her crying. It only means that she's hungry. Cato can calm her with anything else but when she's hungry.

I reach out and grab her so that I can nurse her as quickly as possible and hopefully get a couple more hours of sleep. Cato sits down next to me on the bed, waiting for me to finish so that he can take her back. He watches carefully, weirdly amazed by how the whole process of breastfeeding works. He's already asked me to try it out himself about ten times. Every time, I say no, and every time, he has a mini tantrum. I know it's just a trick to feel me up but my chest is too sore.

Once she's done and Cato has her, he stands to take her back to her room, but she starts to cry again. He takes her all the way into her room and a few minutes later, he's stalking back into our bedroom.

"Aren't you gonna put her back to bed?" I ask, settling back into my own bed.

Cato smiles, shaking his head. "As soon as I lower her into the crib, she starts to scream."

Willow yawns, rubbing her cute little fist on her eyes. "She's still tired." She's so cute when she's tired.

"I'll just keep her in bed with us." The heavens knows that he would love to have her sleep here, right next to his heart.

Cato lays down on the bed and places Willow down between us. As he places her down, she smiles up at us, like she knew what she was doing. She's already a sneaky little baby.

We lay back down, and while Cato and Willow fall back into their deep slumbers, after an hour, I cannot get myself to go back to sleep. As the clock hits 6:45 in the morning, I finally decide to get up and just make some breakfast. Cato and Willow are laid out similarly, their arm held over their heads. It's so cute.

Anyway, I have about an hour to myself, so I fix up a quick breakfast for us and sit down to eat. It's nice to have some quiet time. It's weird with it being so quiet and lonely because Willow has already filled in those quiet spaces for us. The penthouse always feels full and alive now that she's here.

There's some stirring near the guest room and I look up to see Carrick. He's walking towards me slowly, and in response, all I can do is frown.

I avoid making eye contact as he sits across from me at the kitchen island.