Everything I Am - Orm Marius/Ocean Master

Chapter Three - Maternity Leave, Pt. 1

Later, after going through all the albums in great detail, Aurelia asked, "Are there any baby pictures of you?"

Orm shook his head.  "No."

"Seriously? None at all? I bet you were a super cute baby."

"Well we certainly didn't keep record of my birth like your father did of yours."

"Darn."

"I still have lots of your baby stuff in storage," Tom added. 

Aurelia shrugged. "I'm game."

And so they started unloading the closets into the room that had been chosen as the nursery.  "Damn Pops, you really did keep everything."

"It's all got sentimental value."

Add that to the stuff they'd kept from when Atlas was a baby, and they had quite the collection.  Baby Curry-Marius already had it all. 

"This is horribly designed," Orm remarked from where he was closely examining a bucket seat. "This is really what surface dwellers use for their children?"

"Yes, lots of babies use the same stuff and they turn out fine."

"Debatable."

"Hey, I turned out fine, didn't I?"

"I could do much better than this." He set the bucket seat aside with a wary look.  "I'm making everything. Only the best for our prince or princess." He began tapping away on his tablet, setting tasks for himself the next time he visited his lab.

Tom and Aurelia exchanged an amused glance.  "I appreciate it, and I'm sure the baby will too, but that's a lot of extra work."

"It will make me feel better knowing that we are using something more secure. I will use only the best materials: Atlantean steel and the likes."

"Okay, you do you." She reached for the next box at the back of the closet. "Oh hey, my college stuff." Funny that the college stuff was mixed in with all the baby stuff, but it was all storage. 

Orm looked up from his tablet. "College?"

"Yeah, you know, my extended education. I studied oceanography of course. But I dropped out after a couple of years. I thought it was perfect because there no one knew me. I was just Aurelia, not the fish freak. But I quickly learned that it didn't matter, I was different no matter where I was. I kept coming home, I didn't like being away from Dad and leaving him all alone, so in the end I just dropped out and moved back home."

"That was where you met your previous boyfriends wasn't it?"

She gave a little snort. "Subtle Babe, real subtle.  Yeah, again, a fresh start, or supposedly. I didn't know anyone. But I was a young adult and I made some bad decisions. I was so desperate to be loved by someone outside my family, but all it did was convince me of how different I really was, and I didn't see it in a good way then. I came to think that maybe I really was an unlovable freak."

He set his tablet aside and came over to her. "And now you know that you're not a freak, and are in fact very lovable."

She cracked a smile.  "Oh I'm still a freak, but a lovable one." 

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"What's wrong, Babe?" Aurelia asked of Orm's deflated look.

There was a moment, then, "Arthur's making fun of me. Again."

"Arthur, leave my man alone," she hollered down the hall. "Or you're going to get your ass whooped by a pregnant woman!"