A few days went by before Milah felt completely comfortable leaving the bed or bringing Harriet around the other members of the Underworld crew. Not because she thought Smee, Mollie, or Sammy would harm Harriet but because that's how long it took for her body to recover from the lovely throws of labor.
Oh yeah I meant it when I said if James wants to have any more kids, he'd have to be the one to carry them, Milah thought as she picked up Harriet. I love Harriet and I can't imagine life without her but to got through that again? Not happening.
"Hello love," Hook said as he saw her walk into the den; he had been making his way back from The Jolly Rodger himself. It paid to make appearances here and there, especially as the captain. Otherwise, with both him and Smee away from the ship, the imbeciles might get it into their heads that they could lead themselves—or worse, Frollo might try to ensnare more of them. "Anything I can get you or Harriet?"
"We're fine James," Milah promised, though she couldn't help but smile at her husband's concern. It was so different from the facade she knew he had to put on in order to ensure they could survive on the Isle but it was the real him. "I just wanted to show Harriet around. I know we're likely going to go back home at some point and she'll likely never remember this but she should at least get to see her home."
Hook nodded. "Aye Milah, I wasn't saying you couldn't have Harriet out and about. I was just making sure there wasn't anything I could get for you."
"...where's Jess?"
"With Smee and Mollie, playing with Sammy. You know it might not be a bad idea if Harriet met Sammy."
"You think so?"
"Aye, it definitely can't hurt if Harriet has a friend. Plus either Jess or Harriet could use Sammy as their First Mate when they get older."
Milah shook her head. Her husband would never change—nor would she want him to. "James, why do you always think in terms of a pirate crew?"
"Why would I think any other way, love?" Hook asked. "I mean, I'm a pirate captain so wouldn't it make sense for me to think in terms of a pirate crew?"
Milah chuckled. "Well I guess when you put it like that, it makes sense. But not everything has to do with a pirate crew you know?"
"Sometimes I forget that you weren't always a pirate," Hook chuckled.
"Neither were you James," Milah said softly, giving her husband a gentle smile. There had once been a time where her husband had been a member of the King's Navy, and before that a lowly deckhand with his brother Liam.
Hook sighed softly as he walked over to wrap his wife in his arms, trying to keep enough of a gap as to avoid smooshing his infant daughter. "I know love. But I like to forget about those times. They don't matter to me, not when I've got you and I've got Jess and I've got Harriet."
"And you'll always have us," Milah promised, looking up to kiss her husband on the lips. "I promise James. Nothing will happen to us."
"Don't make promises like that love. This is the Isle of the Lost, anything can happen."
"When we're allies with the Lord of the Underworld, I think it's a safe bet that I can make promises like that," Milah told him. "And therefore I will. I know we have to be prepared for anything James, but don't darken this moment okay?"
Hook nodded. "Aye, no more talk about something happening to you girls."
"Or you," Milah corrected him. "We may live on the Isle of the Lost where the sun is blocked out but that doesn't mean we have to put clouds over our thoughts as well."
Hook chuckled. "Careful love, you're sounding almost Boreadonian there."
"Oh perish the thought," Milah chuckled as she looked up to kiss Hook on the lips. "Now I do believe we were going to introduce Harriet to Sammy?"
"That was your doing love, you're the one who came in here with Harriet."
"Oh come on now, I thought we were a team?"
"We are and we always will be a team but 'we'? Really?"
Milah shook her head in amusement. "Alright fine, I'll go and introduce Harriet to Sammy. Better?"
"Much," Hook nodded.
"Captain Hook...more like Captain Pedantic," Milah muttered. "And wasn't it your idea to have Harriet meet Sammy anyway?"
"You know I can hear you right? The cannon fire hasn't made me deaf."
"That's the idea love," Milah called to him as she broke from his arms and began to make her way down the hall to the bedrooms. "If I didn't want you to hear me, I wouldn't have said it out loud or in the same room as you."
Harriet cooed softly from in her mother's arms, preventing Hook from firing back a retort as he smiled at the sound. Yes he enjoyed hearing Jess just as much but there was something different about hearing the coo of the child he'd waited nine months to meet.
Oh Gods, if the crew ever heard him say those words, he knew he could expect a mutiny to be certain as they'd never follow someone who'd gone soft. Well almost all the crew would mutiny. Smee wouldn't.
Smee's a good First Mate, he may be a bumbling oaf but he's loyal, Hook thought as he followed Milah and Harriet to the Smees' bedroom where Sammy and Jess were located.
"Oh! Captain! Captainess!" Smee said as he noticed them in the doorway. "Is everything okay?"
"Everything is fine William," Milah said with a small smile. "I just thought I'd introduce Harriet to Sammy if that was okay with you and Mollie?"
"Of course," Mollie said with a small smile of her own as Sammy cooed on the bed, propped up by a couple of pillows. Her ash blonde hair had already begun to grow fairly long, longer than what one might keep their hair on the Isle but then again, there really wasn't anywhere Mollie could go to trim Sammy's hair.
Curl Up and Dye wasn't exactly the best place for a baby to go and in all honesty, the Tremaine women might have been good midwives but they weren't the most patient of hairstylists.
On top of that, Sammy was, well, a baby so the threats of the Isle didn't yet register with her.
"Harriet, this is Sammy," Milah said as she slowly sat down on the edge of the bed. "Her papa is your papa's First Mate and her mama is our ally over on The Rose."
"What were you saying about me being the one to always make things fit within the pirate spectrum, love?" Hook asked, amusement evident in his voice as he leaned against the doorframe.
"It's never too early for Harriet to know these things or Jess for that matter," Milah said, smiling at Jess as she laid on the bed on her stomach. Jess cooed as she looked at Milah, content to just lie there.
"Has she needed anything?" Milah asked, looking at Smee.
"Young Mistress Jess has been as good as good can be," Smee said. "We fed her about an hour ago when we fed Sammy lunch, I hope you don't mind Captainess."
"Why would I mind you making sure my daughter got food, William?" Milah asked. "And you really don't have call her that. You don't have to call either of my daughters that."
Mollie chuckled. "I told him you'd say that Milah. But according to him, he's showing deference to the daughter of his Captain."
"Oh now you're just going to make James' head bigger than it already is."
"I heard that!"
"Again, love, you were meant to," Milah said with a small chuckle as she looked over at the doorframe. "Aren't you going to come in and sit with us?"
Hook raised an eyebrow and held up his hook. "I'd have thought you'd want this as far away from the babes as we could keep it."
"You raise a good point but I had a thought," Milah said, shifting Harriet so that she was cradled in the nook of Milah's arm, and got up to walk over to Hook. "What if we put something on the hook to prevent it from harming the girls?"
"Milah...this is the Isle. Not Boreadon."
"I'm well aware of that James, thank you. I had a baby, not my brain removed."
Hook shook his head. "What would I even put on the end of my hook, Milah? It's not like we can run to the corner store and get something there. The resources Boreadon deems us worthy of having need to go to—."
"Actually, I think we might have a solution for that," Hades' voice said as he turned the corner and walked over to them.
"Lord Hades?" Milah asked.
"Pardon the interruption but I was just chatting with Persephone and she brought up the 'baby proofing' as you called it," Hades said and pulled something out of his pocket. "Would this work for baby proofing the end of Hook's hook?"
"...Lord Hades, where did you get cork board?" Milah asked, staring at the item in Hades' hand in shock.
"A damaged bulletin board arrived during one of the barges," Hades said. It was fairly rare that they'd get an item like that but most if not all of their furniture had been stuff Auradon had damaged out. Hades was just waiting for the day they'd damage out a dishwasher.
Hey, he had no problem doing his own dishes when it was just him and his imps but add in four adults and three babies? Yeah, that dishwasher seemed better and better with each passing day.
Too bad it'll never happen, dishwashers seem to be the only thing that don't get damaged out from Boreadon and Steph can bring a lot of things through the portal but they'd probably question her bringing a dishwasher, he thought.
"Anyway, I was talking with Persephone and she suggested that we try the cork board," he said, pulling himself out of his thoughts. "If that doesn't work, she'll bring over some materials from Boreadon to try."
"It's greatly appreciated, Lord Hades," Milah said as she bounced Harriet, biting her lip to keep the chuckles at bay as Hades slapped the cork board on the tip of Hook's hook. She couldn't help it, the look on her husband's face...
"Aye...it's appreciated," Hook said, shooting Milah a look as if he knew how badly she wanted to laugh. "At least now I can hold the lassies and not hurt them."
Milah smiled and looked down at Harriet. "How about it Harriet? Do you want to go see papa?"
Harriet cooed softly and Milah took that as a 'yes'.
"Alright now, mind her head James," she said, placing Harriet in Hook's waiting arms. As soon as the cork board touched Harriet's skin, however, she began to whimper.
"What's wrong?" Milah said quickly. "She's had food, she's been changed, she's being held..."
"Captainess, it...begging your pardon but it might be the cork board," Smee spoke up. "New babies have softer skin than we have after all."
"Oh..." Milah said, sighing slightly. How had she forgotten that? She hadn't been born on the Isle after all, she should have retained that knowledge.
Mollie gave her a knowing smile. "A first time mother's worries, Captainess. Believe me, I had the same thoughts with Sammy the first couple of months after her birth."
"Milah, love, take her," Hook said. The last thing he wanted was to be the reason his daughter was in pain or even experiencing slight discomfort.
"But...you'll never be able to hold her if we don't—."
"I'll hold her and Jess when they've grown up," Hook said, looking in Milah's eyes. "A captain doesn't hurt his crew after all and a father doesn't hurt his children."
Milah knew what James was trying to say in that moment, despite not being able to come out and say it with Hades, Mollie, and Smee in the room. That he would be a better man than his father, the man who sold him to a crew to work as a deck hand.
"Alright love," Milah said softly and took Harriet from him. As soon as she entered her mother's arms, Harriet's whimpers ceased and she cooed happily once more.
"Any injury?"
"A bit of irritation from where the cork board touched her but other than that she's fine," Milah said as she went to sit back on the bed with Smee, Mollie and the babies. "You know just because the cork board didn't work, James, that doesn't mean you need to distance yourself from us. Come on, the crew won't sink The Jolly Rodger just because you're here with us."
"Don't put the idea in those scurvy rats' heads," Hook muttered but went over and sat next to his wife; Hades having gone back presumably to his job of judging the dead. Either that or yelling at his imps but they'd have heard the yelling.
Harriet cooed and reached out a small hand, wrapping it around the curvature of Hook's hook the same way she would grab Milah's finger.
"Looks like we've got a papa's girl," Milah said, her smile growing as Harriet continued to coo. "That's right Harriet, sweetheart. That's your papa."
Hook chuckled and gently ran a finger over Harriet's cheek. "She's a strong one, she is. Like her mama."
"Oh James," Milah said, the smile never leaving her lips as Harriet's hand left Hook's hook and seemed to be reaching out to Sammy. "That's right my darling. That's Sammy. Hopefully you two will grow up to be the best of allies."
"Or better yet, you'll grow up and she'll make a fine First Mate."
"Honestly James," Milah shook her head but smiled as Sammy seemed to almost be reaching out for Harriet. Hook smiled as he sat down on the bed next to Milah, his hand gently rubbing Jess' back as she cooed from her spot on the bed.
They didn't have many nice things or moments on the Isle so the ones they did have were sure to be cherished. And Hook had a feeling that this moment right here would become one of the cherished ones.