“Oh come on… don´t tell me you are going to lock her up until she is 40,” she hit his arm lightly. “I wouldn´t be surprised if your son decides to help his dad with locking his sister…”She placed her head on his shoulder when he wrapped his arm bringing her close to his chest. “I am happy too,” It felt so natural to hold them, to just be with them, as if those babies were hers and not Mira´s.

The smell was starting to fill her nostrils; it didn’t take long to figure out who needed a change of diaper. “Time to change that diaper…” she was getting ready looking for some diapers and some other stuff inside the bag when Brian decided to take that chance.

“Hmm… are you sure?” he had time to take a step back and let her handle changing the poopy diaper. Her answer came when he took the baby from her arms placing her gently on top of the towel, a minute or two removing the clothes, getting ready to open the diaper, the smell was getting stronger, she let out a laugh as he closed the dirty diaper. “Please, do not stop”

"Hm." Brian groan while trying to hold his breath. How could a little baby stink that much?
Quickly he pulled out a bunch of wet wipes to clean off the brutal mess and then shoved a new daiper under her butt. To close it up wasn't a problem but the clothes were tricky plus his daughter was getting antsy.
"Apparently mom's faster." He frowned.
He then picked her up and bounced her on his lap. "C'mon, baby girl. I'll show you the house."

Slowly he went from room to room talking softly about 'the kitchen, that's where we eat, great place, beers in the fridge but not for you....then here we have the bathroom, living room and out there the backyard. That hammock is awesome."
With his daughter in his arms he went outside and sat down to swing a little, which she seemed to like because she started complaining.

"Mia!" Brian shouted. "We're ready for our cocktails!"
Gently he ran his huge thumb over her tiny hand, which was pretty much the same size. everything about her was so delicate that he was afraid he'd break it if he dropped her. Not in a million years would he do such a thing.
"You're so beautiful." Brian told his rosy cheeked daughter, who was looking at him with big eyes and tried to reach in the direction of his face.

She stopped laughing when he finally finished cleaning the little girl and placing a new diaper and smiled as Brian showed her daughter the house, she was so little to understand although the cute little smile never erased off her lips.
She sat there looking at Brian´s boy who was now starting to wake up. “Hi,” she greeted him, and again those blue eyes caught her attention. She quickly took a look at his diaper to see if needed to be changed. It definitely needed a change.

“Okey-dokey,” she picked him up and started to walk to the patio, he didn’t remember Mia at all and was starting to cry searching for Mira. She sat down next to Brian in the hammock. Problem solved. The moment he set eyes on Brian, he reached out to him. “You want to switch?” kissing his little head gently. There was no way he was going to calm down unless Brian took him.

"You want to come with me, now?” she asked the little girl and didn’t think twice and extending her little arms to her, giggling. Her laughter was contagious to Mia. The house was so damn quiet, but their cries and laughter made the Fort seemed more like a real, real home.

even from outside Brian could hear Jasons cries. Once he started it was hard to get him to stop and even though Mia bounced him, talked in a soothing tone and tried her very best he wouldn't stop. Two at once were hard to handle. Thank goodness there were two adults as well.
"I can only imagine what Mira felt like with these two whaling while she's throwing up." brian rolled his eyes.

Mia sat down next to him suggesting a change of guards so Brian handed over the easy little girl in exchange for a crying boy. Brian turned him around and placed him on his chest. His finger served as a replacement pacifier for the little guy, who eagerly sucked on it and stopped crying.
"I think he's hungry." Was his best guess.
Brian had only helped Mira, who always told him what to do.
"I grabbed some formula, it's in the changing bag. I have no idea how to mix that stuff though and I'm afraid all we have is cow milk in the fridge...can they drink cow milk or water?" Brian wondered.
For now everything was fine but the peace would only last a few minutes.
"You have about three minutes to whip something up or start breastfeeding, Mia." He grinned at her.
Mia was doing an awesome job helping him and looked so pretty holding Laura. She'd make a great mom but Brian wouldn't dare to say such a thing.

“Yes, he is. I just changed his diaper…” Little Laura started giggling finding Mia´s bracelet around her left wrist interesting.

She looked at what was keeping Brian´s daughter so busy. “What are you laughing about?” placing little kisses on her cheeks making her laugh even more, moving her wrist making the girl want to remove the bracelet.

Brian started asking all this questions about how to mix the formula and how if she didn’t feed them with some formula, she was going to have to. “Very funny,” she hit his arm.

“Stop panicking, I got this… take her for a few minutes,” she stood up entering the kitchen taking the diaper bag and placing it on the counter. It was going to take a few minutes to disinfect those bottles same as the water to boil. While she waited, she took out the formula and other things the bag had, a few toys and clothes, some of those clothes were blue, pink or light yellow, even some cute headbands to be placed on Laura´s head, and some cute little baseball caps for Jason.
***
It took her more than a few minutes to join Brian giving him one of the bottles. “Time to eat, kids” that´s all they needed, to just eat, making them burp was the next step and after that they were asleep in their arms. Laura stayed in Mia´s arms with her hand around the bracelet, like she wanted to make sure Mia stayed with her at all times, and Jason had his hand wrapped around Brian´s shirt. It was a beautiful picture, a wonderful moment. Taking care of his kids came out so natural.

"oh, c'mon...suck that thumb." Brian keep pleading with his boy who grew steadily unhappier because he was hungry and no milk inside.
Brian got up from the swinging hammock one baby on his right arm, one of his left. Aside from their wiggling it wasn't hard to do because they weighed next to nothing.
"Are you almost ready?" He hollered over to Mia inside the kitchen and starting walking around the garden to get some movement going, which calmed them down for a moment.

When Mia finally showed up with two bottles Brian breathed a sigh of relief because he wasn't a fan of the brief high pitched cries. "Thank goodness, how do you know how to do these things?" He wondered because none of Mia's friends or family had babies. "Is that something you girls simply know?"
Maybe it was something little girls picked up like boys learned how to carve or shoot a ball pretty early on.

Instantly the small mouth latched on to the bottle when Brian held it in front of his nose. His sucking was fast and hectic at first but soon became mellower and finally his eyes closed with the sucky still in his mouth.
Brian burped the kid to prevent a big spillage and then placed him on a blanket on the grass. He stretched out on the grass next to the babies and looked over at Mia. "Wow, great job, Mia. I need a break now!"
He reached for her hand to pull her down next to him once she had placed Laura on the blanket, and pulled her close wrapping his arms around her. "I'm so glad you're here with me right now. This is how it's supposed to be."
Did he go to far by expressing his feelings like that?

Jason started to suck faster once he recognized the bottle in front of him, poor little guy, he was hungry same as his sister. “Working at the hospital helps a lot, but it also comes by instinct, it feels natural… at least for me,” she smiled when she noticed how the boy was fast asleep while the little girl was taking her time eating, after burping them, they were placed on the blanket on the grass.

“You think you need a break? Wait until they wake up in the middle of the night,” she giggled being pulled close to Brian´s arms making themselves comfortable on the grass watching the sleeping babies. "I'm so glad you're here with me right now. This is how it's supposed to be." Her head was placed on his chest preventing him to see her face, so when the words were out of his lips, she couldn’t help but feel a little sad hearing that last part.

It was good he felt that´s how it was supposed to be, but it wasn’t that way the last two years, which brought more questions…watching his kids so little and here in her house. Did he want to have children with her? Did it ever cross his mind? “I am glad I could help,” This wasn’t the best time to cry, but for some reason his last words made her eyes with tears.

For a moment the world was right. After all these months of havoc and sadness Brian finally felt at peace with himself and the world when he was lying in the grass with Mia in his arms, her body pressed against his and the twins sleeping happily next to them.
He closed his eyes when he felt Mia's back move rapidly under his hand. Why was she breathing so fast?
Moving back a little he tried to catch a glimpse of her face, which she had burried in his chest. It was red and even though she tried to hide it there was a tear rolling down her cheek.
"Are you crying?" He asked confused why this happy moment would make her cry or was it his words?
The only thing he could assume was that seeing the babies didn't really make her all that happy.
"I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have brought the kids here."
Gently he caress her cheek with his thumb wiping away her tear and then hugged her tightly.
"Mia, the last thing I want is to make you sad. If this makes you unhappy, I'll find a different solution."

“No, no, I have no problem with you bringing the kids here...it´s just…” she shook her head not even believing how hard it was for her to control her emotions. “I guess I´m just so stressed out with the amount of work at the hospital…” it was true, the stress of working in the E.R. and to see people live or die in a matter of seconds was getting to her, but his words was what made her cry, she knew he didn´t do it on purpose. Would he believe her words? Probably not, even though it had some truth.

The coldness of her tear rolling down her eyes and cheek was replaced with warmth as he gently wiped it away with his thumb. “Don´t worry, I´ll be okay” She moved out of Brian´s arms and sat down on the grass rubbing her eyes looking at the babies. She could still feel her nose red.

It was interesting to see them lift their little hands and occasionally smiling, they were probably dreaming. Carefully she lifted Jason who was almost on his way to touch the grass, feeling he was no longer on the blanket, he opened his eyes and instead of placing him on the center of the blanket, she rocked him a little hoping he´d go back to sleep. “Go back to sleep,” she whispered to him, as if on cue Jason yawn and closed his blue eyes making himself comfortable in Mia´s arms making it hard for her to place him back next to his sister, instead she kept rocking the small boy back and forth.

He heard her say that she didn't have a problem with him bringing the kids to her home and when he saw how she handled them, how lovingly she held Jason and rocked him back to sleep he knew it was true but why the tears.

Mia blamed them on the hospital work. The job was always stressful and hard on the nerves. But Mia chose it when she knew what she was in for and usually handled it quite well. Occassionally she had bad days though. Usually when something bad happened.
"Has anything happened at the hospital today?" Maybe some patient had died, maybe a kid?

The smal boy in her arms seemed to give her comfort but there was sadness in her eyes that told Brian this was personal though. And she wasn't sharing it with him when he had spilled his gutts and more to her. Why did Mia hold back? Was it too personal for her to share it with him?
He placed his hand on her back to rub it. "Some thing is making you sad. I can see it. Why don't you tell me?"

He knew something else was bothering her other than her work. “Cases kept coming in this morning, every ten minutes, some people could be saved and some others couldn´t, including kids…” she rubbed at her temples.

“It was weird… usually you would think the E.R. had lots of cases coming in but it hasn´t been that way until this morning... it was chaos, running from one patient to the next… but it´s not just that…” she caressed Jason´s cheek. “Your words… ´This is how it´s supposed to be´” How could she explain what she meant?

She was getting nowhere and confusing herself even more in an effort to explain why she reacted that way when he heard those words, she was happy with him, she was happy to have the twins and a job but something else was missing from her life and that was to have her own family at one point, she still didn’t know how Brian would feel about that, that question had always been there but she didn’t dare to ask, well now was the time to ask him. “Brian, have you ever thought about having more kids?”

"I don't know how you do it." The job she had to do on a daily basis was one of the hardest he could imagine, especially when kids were the victims. "I've seen a few bad things during my time as a cop but not every day. Not that much, you know." Often the people who got shot or injured were some sort of scum responsible for their own trouble.

Just when he thought that was it Mia overcame her inhibitions and told him what had provoked the tears to fall. It was exactly what was making him happy. Seeing her with the babies in his arms. A perfect moment for Brian had turned into a sad one for her because she was longing to have the same thing with him.
Her question however stunned him. Neither of them had ever talked about having children, nor were the twins with Mira planned.
"With you?"
The question actually overwhelmed him because he didn't know what to answer.
For a moment he worked against his jaw dropping before he simply placed a kiss on her shoulder.
"If you want an honest answer...I can't tell you. These two are still so young. I'm not sure what will happen with them, whether I really get to be their dad?"
Brian could understand Mia's wish but at the same time his head wasn't anywhere near that.
"Right now I'm too worried about loosing these two."
Looking into her eyes he hoped she would understand. Deep down he wished he would have had them with Mia but there was no use in expressing that because it couldn't be changed.
"Do you understand that?"

It was understandable that the last thing in his mind was having more kids, but what about the future? The subject of having kids now that they were back together was never discussed until now. "With you?" it stung a little when he said it; he was overwhelmed she could clearly see that…

Mia couldn’t see him in the eye until he confessed to her that he was too worried about losing Jason and Laura. Maybe she went too far asking that? He didn’t give her an answer, not a ´Yes´ or a ´No´. She felt… she didn’t know what to feel. She managed to put on a brace face and blinked hoping fresh new tears wouldn’t fall or sting her eyes.

"Do you understand that?" When she had her emotions under control then she looked at him and nodded her head. “Yes, I do” she sounded so sure, when all she wanted to do was to not answer his question. Will she ever have that chance to become a mother at all? She was starting in her 30s, maybe it was time to face the fact that she wasn’t going to be a mom.

After holding Jason for a while she placed him on the blanket taking the empty bottles. “I´ll be right back, I need to wash this…” she needed to step away from Brian for a second, afraid she was going to break down.

Her struggle was plain to see but Brian let her have her moment so she could regain her composure. Mia wasn't a woman who cried easily but when she did it meant that it was a matter that was very important to her, so Brian took her words very serious.
She claimed that she did understand but deep down she was obviously disappointed.

When she excused herself Brian watched her walk away. He could tell she was barely holding it together and wondered what had overcome her. It must have been the fact that they looked like a cute little family to any bystander but the children weren't hers. Maybe there was a secret wish in her to have children of her own and now that she was with Brian again this was in jeopardy.
But what should he tell her? That everything would work out great between them and they'd be together for good? Right now he still feared the police knocking on his door and taking him away one day for that failed run from Mexico with his brother. His prints had to be somewhere at the crime scene or some cop had to be able to identify him. If he promised anything under these circumstances it was worth nothing.
Or should he tell Mia to find another man, that she could have a family with? The thought alone made his chest tighten. Maybe there was a chance that they'd have a child together one day...

It took her a while to come back so Brian busied himself with watching his babies sleep. For him this was extraordinary and he wanted to enjoy the moment.

When Mia returned he could tell that she struggled to put on a normal face but he accepted it.
"Everything okay?" He asked knowing very well that the question was stupid.
"I didn't say no, Mia, you know that. But that's all I can offer you right now because I don't know what the future holds. Give us some more time, okay?" Hopefully that would somehow satisfy her need.

It took her a while to calm all these crazy emotions that seemed to take over her but washing and disinfecting those bottles helped a lot, it kept her mind busy, it also gave her plenty of time to process what just happened outside.

Before she went back to Brian she took a deep breath and joined him. She took a seat next to Brian on the grass, the kids’ hadn´t move or fuss which was a good thing. He could clearly see the moment she left him alone she wasn’t okay at all. “Yeah, I had a little fight with the bottles back there, but next time they wake up it shouldn’t take a lot of time to prepare their milk,” He then started to explain his answer regarding her question about having more kids.

“I know,” she searched for his hand giving it a light squeeze. Brian had a lot on his plate right now, besides the kids being still babies, there were a lot of thing he´d had to go through with Mira… that was the main thing on her mind, but she was going to be by his side no matter what.

“I can do that,” Maybe time wasn’t such a bad thing, she still didn’t know what was going to happen but she wasn’t a lone anymore. Plus, he had a point. He didn’t say ´No´. She turned to look at him, placing her arms around his neck bringing him close to her. “Thank you,” kissing his cheek. If there was one person that could understand her words, why she acted the way she did, it was him.

Mia struggled through her emotions but they were still visible on her face, in her eyes, at least to Brian. He had looked at those pretty brown eyes long enough to know when she was hurting, happy or in this case longing for something.
"I didn't know this was on your mind." He whispered while hugging her.
"Did this just come now that you see Laura and Jase or...?" He wondered what was going through her head. Did she hear the clock ticking or had Mira sparked something in her?

"I can't promise anything Mia, only that I love you and want to see you happy. If that means you have to find another guy..." he took a deep breath to say the words he didn't really feel. He should tell her to find a guy she could have kids with but he simply couldn't.
"....don't do it!" He laughed briefly. "Sorry, I just can't bring myself to say that. No, no stay with me!"
Squeezing her tight he let her know that he would never let her go again.

She stayed in his arms for a few more seconds. It had been on her mind just a week before she decided to let Brian go (almost three years ago), it wasn´t a five minute decision. “No, it´s been a while…” So, when she first heard Mira was pregnant and that he was the father… she felt a little jealous, sad, something she dreamed of that could still be possible wasn’t because he moved on, until his life started to go downhill and the relationship with Mira was not the same.

But to be outside this patio with him and his twins, it looked so picture perfect, the way she held them and spoke to them, the patience she had changing a diaper. “I love you too…” but then she froze when he started to tell her about finding another guy to be with..wait what?

He paused but let her know he couldn’t say those words to her not when he loved her so much. He held her tight, he even laugh and begged for her to stay. “I am not going anywhere,” Mia slowly removed her arms from around his neck and lay down on the grass watching the twins; she could spend every minute if not all day watching them.

With his eyes on the sleeping babies Brian heard her confess that she's been thinking about kids for a while, whatever a while meant. He simply nodded as if he understood when in reality he didn't want to dig deeper. Maybe that wish had started when she was with somebody else, maybe with him, who knew?

"Good, cause I want you to stay right here with me...and my kids." He added carefully because he didn't want to provoke more hurt.
"Just see it as training time." He suggested a little jokingly.

For a while they simply laid there, caressing each others skin, kissing and looking up at the travelling clouds.
Half an hour later Jason woke up and started wiggling his arms before the first cry sounded. Brian's cue to get a move on.
He picked him up and bounced him on his belly while he was still laying down.

A little later he gave Mira a call to see how she was doing and let her know that the kids were all right.

OOC: Sorry muse less....

She smiled a little when he suggested taking it as some sort of practice. So, was that a ´Yes´ to her early question? He had a tendency to joke with her and she didn’t mind, but she could tell that underneath his words, was her answer, not that she was going to force him to say words he didn’t mean. Her heart skipped a beat when he let her know he wanted her to stay with him and his children…she felt overjoyed by his words.

She looked at Brian when he picked up Jason, he looked like natural when it came to take care of his son, even if he didn’t know how to prepare a bottle that would be easy to teach him but when it came to really looking out for his children, he was an excellent dad to his twins.

While Brian called Mira to see how she was doing, Mia took Laura in her arms holding her there, the little girl didn’t even move, or let out a cry. She could barely hear Brian tell Mira the kids were doing more than fine, although he didn’t mention where he was or who he was with. It took him around five minutes to finish the call. “How is she doing?”

OOC: Don´t worry. I feel the same way (probably because of school)

When he came back Mia had little Laura in her arms while Jason was on the blanket wiggling his feet in the air. Two were a little much to hold for just one person and silently he wondered how Mira managed to juggle her daily tasks and the kids by herself. Maybe she had some help Brian didn't know about as well.
Tossing his phone on the blanket he got down on his knees and reached for Jason to pick him up and place him in his lap.
"Sick as a dog." Brian said with little compassion.
"She's also worried that her babies will just lay in the crib with their diapers full and nothing to eat but I assure her that I'm taking good care of them and I can handle it. I didn't say we because she'd tear me a new one and be right over." He blew out some air.
"Beleive me, it was hard to stay calm."
He kissed the little boy on his head and got up.
"Let's go to the beach, okay?" He wanted to have a great day, the one time he actually got to have his kids and the beach seemed like the perfect place, even on a cooler day.
"I'll grab the bag and..can you get the food...actually show me how it's done first."
If he wanted to be a real dad he might as well learn how to make a bottle.