girlsolo | [For Will, Lilo] welcome to my silly life

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[For Will, Lilo] welcome to my silly life

When they get close to Will and Magnus's place, Kate puts her fingers to her lips and whistles. Both Lilo and Bonny come scampering back to her side. Lilo's got her face tilted up and Kate has to arch her eyebrows and cock her head toward the path to keep her from tripping and falling. Bonny's not much help, running around them in circles, jumping up for pets and nudging at Lilo's hands with her nose. She's getting better, though, with Lilo around to give her lots of affection.

They're all getting better. Better enough that Kate's laughing at Lilo asking if Elvis can ever come to the island, even though she's asked every day since she learned. Better enough that Kate's gut's not twisting even knowing what she's coming to talk to Will about. It's a bright good day, and maybe they'll go to the beach and Lilo can surf later.

She whistles again when they get to the hut. This time for Will. It's kind of handy that they all come to the same call. "Hey, Willmeister! You home?" That's just so he doesn't feel like a kid or a puppy.

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Will's out behind the hut, clearing away some weeds and plants and rock so he can think about making their house bigger. For the baby. It's still blowing his mind a little that he's going to be a father, and maybe it hasn't quite settled in yet because other than watching Magnus toss her breakfast (and sometimes lunch and dinner) every day, he can't see anything happening yet, so he thinks that doing something might make it a little more real to him. (Something besides snatching the Jays onesie and tiny baseball cap he found in the box the other day.)

"Behind the house!" Will shouts when he hears Kate calling for him, and then goes around the corner to meet her. She has a little entourage with her, and though he hasn't met Lilo yet, he's heard all about her. Cute kid.

Lilo stops when Will comes around the corner and stares up at him, fascinated. Bonny's still bounding around but Lilo ignores her too in favor of frowning up at Will. "How do you make your hair do that?" she says finally.

He didn't expect that, and he cracks up laughing because yeah, he knows he spends a ridiculous amount of time on his hair sometimes. "A lot of practice," Will says. "And hair gel." He kneels down to her height and grins. "You must be Lilo," he says. "I'm Will. Nice to meet you."

Kate's about to remind Lilo about inside thoughts and outside thoughts but she can't stop laughing long enough to say it. Because, yeah.

"Good call, kiddo," she says when Will's finished introducing himself. "I've been dying to ask Detective Matchstick that for years."

Lilo laughs because Kate laughs. She reaches out when Will kneels down and pokes his spiky hair. It's stiff and it makes little cracking sounds when she pushes it over. "Wow."

Then she remembers her manners. "Yes, I'm Lilo. You're Kate's ohana. Like Helen."

"Well yeah, I guess I am," Will says, after rolling his eyes a little at Kate for Detective Matchstick, and though he doesn't know what ohana means, he gets the general idea that it's something good. He lets her poke at his hair and then he reaches over and ruffles hers a little, though not enough to really mess it up. "And this is where Helen and I live. I'm just doing some cleaning up outside."

"Will and Helen are married, Lilo." And going to have a family of their own. She wonders if Helen told him she knows. "And ohana means family." Kate cocks her head at Lilo. "Tell him the rest. And about Stitch. I'm gonna go inside for a minute, 'kay?" She's just going in to get Roy, but she crouches down to give Lilo a hug. "Watch Bonny. Will sucks at it."

Lilo nods, not the kind of shy kid who wouldn't let a familiar face out of her sight. She does give Kate a hard hug back though and watches her while she leaves. It's only after she's disappeared inside that Lilo turns back to Will.

"Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten. Stitch is my dog. He's the best dog in the whole world. He's blue and fuzzy and he can talk. I was mad at him when I ran away but now I miss him. He's part of my ohana too."

Will wonders for a second why Kate's going in his house, but it's Kate and she does what she wants and he's really not bothered. "Stitch sounds like he's really cool," Will says, and is pretty sure he's not really a dog. An Abnormal, maybe? But definitely not a dog. Unless fuzzy blue talking dogs are a thing in Lilo's world. "I'm sorry he's not here."

"Me too. And my sister. She tried hard to keep us together but then Cobra Bubbles said that she wasn't doing it good enough." Lilo glances off after where Kate has gone but not like she's nervous being alone with Will. Kate is only going to be gone a little while, she's sure of it. But she can't help worrying a bit anyway.

Will's guessing that 'Cobra Bubbles' is a social worker, given the tiny bit of context, but with a name like that, who can be sure? He's dealt with his share (and more) of social workers through the years, so if that's the case, he can sympathise. "I'm sure your sister did a great job," Will says. "Things can be tough, sometimes."

"She tries hard. But she had to quit her job because her boss was a vampire and he wanted her to join his legion of the undead." Lilo's very matter-of-fact about it. It was too bad but what was Nani going to do? It's hard to surf at night.

"Huh," Will says; where most people's reaction to that statement would be along the lines of whaaat the hell? or come on, kid, stop telling lies, Will's pretty conversant with the fact that little kids say bizzare things (either because they want them to be true or actually believe they are) and that vampires actually exist(ed). So he doesn't blink an eye, but nods understandingly. "Well, I have to say, if my boss was a vampire, I'd probably quit, too. I know a vampire--well, an ex-vampire--and I definitely wouldn't work for him. Joining the legions of the undead doesn't really sound like a good time, or a good way to raise a little sister, to me."

Lilo grins at Will. Most adults try to tell Lilo that she's wrong or weird or funny (and what they mean is wrong and weird) when she tells them things. Will is obviously much smarter than most adults.

"It's not and that's why she quit. Also because Stitch tried to eat a lady's head. But she was okay." Lilo still feels a little bad about that. "But then Nani didn't have a job and that wasn't good either. And she was trying to find a job but it wasn't easy and then aliens attacked and I called Cobra Bubbles and he came but then he tried to take me away!" She takes a deep breath, having hardly stopped for one that whole speech.

"And now you're here," Will says, after she's finished that speech (which is a lot of words, for a little kid). He doesn't tell her she's weird or wrong or a liar, because he knows what that's like, when you're a kid.

"Yes." Lilo is quiet for a moment or two then looks up at Will again thoughtfully. "Kate says that people from home come here sometimes. And that I'll see Nani again."

Will nods. He doesn't want to get Lilo's hopes up too much, because that's not really fair, to keep her looking forward to something that might never happen, but there's really no way to ever know. "Helen and I were here for a while before Kate showed up," he says. "And there's still some of our ohana that aren't here. You just never know when someone might show up. Could be tomorrow, could be months from now, could be years from now. But in the meantime, you won't be alone."

There's plenty to keep Lilo occupied with Roy, including the little climbing structure Will had built for him, and the hibiscus bush, and Will wants a break from yardwork, so he sits in the shade of a tree a few yards away. "It's good you took her in," Will says to Kate, nodding at Lilo. "It's hard for kids, showing up here with no one."

Kate drops down beside Will, arms around her knees. She wants to sprawl, but Lilo moves fast and sometimes Kate needs to move faster. She glances along her shoulder at him, expression tight but amused. "She didn't give me much choice. She asked if I would stay with her until her ohana came. That's what Sanctuary does. Give people a safe place to be, so I promised. I didn't know she'd mean she wanted to live with me."

"Would you have turned her down if you knew that's what she wanted?" Will asks. He thinks Lilo can't be more than six or seven, not a baby but not old enough to fend for herself. Will certainly wouldn't have been able to say no, if it had been him.

Kate shrugs, but her lips curl in a softer sort of smile while she watches Lilo. "Maybe. She deserves better than me." Since it's Will, though, she tells the truth. "Probably not. I couldn't help thinking of, you know, our Magnus. I would've wanted someone to take care of him who could protect him. Guess I'm paying it forward or something."

"It's good," Will says, and he understands. He would want that, too. "She seems happy." As happy as a kid could be without her family, anyway. "And it seems like you're doing a good job with her. Maybe I'll come to you for advice one of these days."

"She's pretty tough for a kid." Kate's proud of her, which feels weird and kind of stupid. But there it is. "Don't let appearances fool you. If I have to listen to Jailhouse Rock one more time, I may murder her in her sleep." Her lips quirk up at the corners, but her hand snakes out to grab Will's. "Already told you. Any kid of yours, any kid of mine, we do this together. Ohana," she tells Will and takes a good solid look at him. "You freaking out yet?"

He laughs softly and nods, then lets out a long, slow breath. "God, yes," he says. "Since the day I found out." It's all been private freaking-out, though, because the last thing he wants is for Magnus to think he's angry or upset about this, or for this kid to somehow one day think that he (or she) isn't wanted. Because 'not ready' and 'not wanting' aren't the same at all. He still wants to kick himself for being careless, and thinks he'll spend the next several months worrying until he's sure Magnus and this kid will be okay. "What do I know about being a father? Not much."

"You're okay with it, though, right?" She'd guessed from how Magnus said it all that they hadn't been planning a kid. When she and Will talked about their other-world son, he said he didn't want kids on the island. He didn't want Helen having kids, because it scared him. That probably hasn't changed.

She nudges him with her shoulder. "You're going to be a great dad. Don't even worry about it. If I can do this, you can."

"I think I can handle the being-a-dad part," Will says. It's not like he doesn't have an idea of the kind of father he doesn't want to be, or the kind of father he wishes he'd had. "It's what happens before that that scares me."

As far as he knows, Magnus is perfectly healthy. And it isn't like the island has a history of maternal-fetal morbidity--as far as he knows, the maternal death rate here is zero. But also, as far as he knows, none of the other mothers on the island were on the other side of a hundred and sixty, and Magnus no longer has whatever it was in her blood that got her to that age.

"The being a husband of a pregnant wife part?" she asks, eyebrow lifting, tone almost innocent. Almost. "Because, yeah, I'd be chicken of Magnus's temper while she's pregnant too."

She waits a few beats, just to let the tease rest, and then: "She's going to be fine, Will. Even without the immortality, the Source blood made her strong. Physically, she's probably not older than you are."

Will nudges her with his elbow. "She hasn't got to the temper stage," he says lightly. "She's still in the all-day morning-sickness stage." Then he sobers a little and looks over at Lilo and Roy as he says, "I know she's strong. She's strong and healthy and in great shape. I'm probably worried for nothing. Can't help it, you know? It's just that if something goes wrong, I can't help."

"We were in a sub once in the Bermuda Triangle," he says, trying to explain. "This parasite got in her brain and made her homicidal. I figured out how to save her. When she took that ozone beetle to hide from the Triad, we all figured out what she'd done. Right before we got here, I pulled her out of an air vent in an oil rig. That stuff, I can do. But this... I can't do anything but wait."

"Babe." Kate turns on her hip, knees flattening down to rest against Will's thigh. "Magnus is going to be fine. Women have been having babies forever." He knows that, and he knows that she can't really promise it. "Pretty much every dude in love from the beginning of time has felt in this situation."

Thing is, she's pretty sure that's not doing much to help with the fear of losing her. Kate bites her lip and puts a hand on his arm. "I know she's, like, your whole world. And... I don't really know how that feels, but when you guys are out on retrievals and I should be there and I'm waiting to hear... it sucks. There's nothing you can do. You just have to believe."

"Just believe," Will says. "Sounds easy." But it isn't. If anything happens to Magnus... that's something he's got to stop obsessing over. Like Kate says, Magnus will be fine. He doesn't need to worry.

"You believed in monsters for an entire lifetime when everyone told you they weren't out there," Kate points out, a little wry, and grins at him. "You're like...what's it, with the impossible things before breakfast?"

She sobers a little to say, more quietly, "You know I suck at all this feelings and talking stuff--" Even if she's getting better at it by the day. "But you're not doing this alone. When you can't believe, I will." And if anything does happen to Magnus, she'll be here.

"Thanks, Kate." It's times like these that he's grateful for her friendship. "I'm sure she'll be fine. It's just expectant-father-jitters, I guess. And maybe I don't totally have my head around this, yet." But he will, long before the baby gets here.

"You're going to be a great dad," she says fiercely, chest tightening. He is. She knows it as well as she knows her own name. Fighting off the weird wave of emotion, she grins, sharp and bright. "And hey, if you need practice, I've got a six-year-old who's seriously cramping my nightlife."

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[For Will, Lilo] welcome to my silly life

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