Chapter 7: No Breaks

Ermilinda works out in the nursery where her daughters sleep, as an attempt to feel closer to them in these early hours.

Somehow, despite neither of them being heavy sleepers (and thankfully, light sleepers for that matter), the twins aren't waking up. This just encourages Ermilinda to continue working out at the nursery anyway.

On the other hand, Leo prefers to disturb the neighbors with his mastered guitar skill.

But would you really call it a disturbance if it's really really really good? He gets asked about this sometimes, and he finds the question a bit biased somewhat.

He's been getting a lot of calls lately, and the earliest that he would get home would be at 11 pm.

Ermilinda hates hearing the ringtone over and over again; it reminds her of the time Cresalina started to receive a lot of calls from a stalker.

She pulls him aside and looks over him carefully. "You haven't been getting much sleep lately. Maybe you should consider asking your boss for a quick break."

The surprise in his face shows that he probably isn't thinking of taking a break. Ermilinda just hopes that he won't crack under pressure any time soon.

Thea tries to figure out this new thing, given the freedom to roam after responding to potty duties quite remarkably well. She doesn't seem to mind sitting beside the presence of her own poop.

On the other hand, Hana's training session with the potty did not end well, and has to be put on hold for a while. She pouts dramatically to emphasize her sadness over this unfair system of rewards and punishment for physically unstable children.

Instead of music to his ears, all he's hearing is the constant nagging from a former colleague who was recently fired. Something about getting a raise and ended up with giving a fit.

He's not really sure why he even bothered to listen to this in the first place; he prefers the toddlers' screaming compared to this one.

It's been a hassle.

"Money hardens people," Leo tells his daughter sadly.

All Hana could do is bite on her fingers and ignore whatever her father is saying.

Eventually, he finds a very effective strategy in making her learn something AND pay attention to what he's saying too.

Trisha had suggested to work on the homework together, but Lucida can already tell that it's to see her half-siblings. Unfortunately for her, she gets to see Thea on one of her bad moods.

"Oh no, no, no," Trisha looks at Lucida expectantly. "She's gonna cry!"

Lucida simply gestures at Thea. "Try picking her up and snuggling her."

Trisha never felt so betrayed before.

The toddler thrashes and struggles against her hold as if her life depends on it; she just doesn't want to deal with any strangers right now, but Trisha is taking this all in so hard.

"You told me it will work!" Both Trisha and Thea face Lucida, and she suddenly finds herself with two pairs of sad puppy eyes staring at her. It's kind of overwhelming

"It was supposed to work," Lucida mutters sheepishly. "Here, let me try it."

"Of course it'll work with you!" Trisha complains.

Thea looks at her older sister and calms down almost immediately. It makes Lucida smile for a bit, seeing how simple this seems to work.

But Trisha isn't feeling any satisfied. In fact, she feels restless, and slightly playful for that matter.

Determined to make things fair, she goes straight to the nursery, where the twins are starting to fall asleep, and turns on the stereo. 

With this, her sisters will wake up and think that it's Lucida playing the music on purpose. 

She goes downstairs to see Leo snacking on one of the leftover sandwiches. Grabbing a random book from the counter, Trisha proudly sits down on the chair next to her uncle.

Leo wonders what might have put her into a good mood, but is too preoccupied with eating to ask.

(The kids from upstairs continue to sleep soundly)



_______________________________________________

I'm gonna push through this one, glitches and story aside.

Chapter 6: Look forward to it

Checking the mailbox at 6 am.

Posing with the food at 7:30 am.

Playing chess at 8 am (even when there's a physical chess set downstairs).

At 10 am, Ermilinda opens the door to see a crying teenager on the porch. Recognizing him as one of her daughter's classmates, she stares at him and decides to wait for the teen to say something first, which he eventually does. 

"I'm sorry Ma'am," he sniffles. "I spilled your garbage can while throwing out the newspapers."

"That's...okay," Ermilinda wonders why would he cry over that, but she doesn't have room to judge. "Why don't you come inside?"

Lucida sees a crying classmate getting inside the house and sighs. She's going to have a long talk with her mother about inviting her classmates in when she's still in the house.

Turns out there was a meeting for a group project, and Lucida apparently doesn't have the plan to go. She knows she's dragging them down with her lack of motivation to work, but Oliver Saint is the only one who bothered to go to her house.

"Can't I just send the instructions over the chatroom or something?" she says, exasperated.

"We just need you to be there for a couple of minutes," Oliver insists. Leo wonders why Lucida is so bent on not going there, but decides to keep it to himself.

"You could just, search stuff on the Internet," she suggests quickly.

"I know, but it's better to have someone there to teach us," Oliver looks at her pleadingly.

Lucida opens her mouth to point out that there's a thing called "instant messaging," but a look from Ermilinda means that it's better to just begrudgingly go with this poor boy and be done with it. 

Fortunately for both of them, most of the group had already left when they arrived at August Woods' home. It's not that Luciaa hates her classmates or anything, it's more like she just isn't in the mood to interact with people right now, but this coincidence is making her mood better.

She finds their house really...eccentric in all sorts of ways. But she likes it.

In the end, only Lucida and August is working on the assignment, as Oliver had been called for his part-time job already.

August glances at Lucida's paper only to see it almost done. "Wow, if you have been here earlier, our group would have finished by now!"

Lucida frowns, knowing that August means well, but can't help feel a bit cheated.

Ermilinda starts to make some paintings for the nursery as soon as the baby started to kick.

"You looking forward to this bundle?" Ermilinda looks down fondly at her daughter, reminding herself that she used to be that bundle before.

It feels weird to touch this lump, but she knows that it's not going to be a bad thing. Looking up, Lucida meets her mother's eyes and admitted, "Not really."

Leo is looking forward to this a LOT.

He has already read both pregnancy books twice and intends to review them tonight when his phone starts to ring. He doesn't seem to snap out of it, though, or rather he doesn't seem to mind it at all. 

Ermilinda has to prod him with her elbow to make him take the call. She doesn't want to hear any complaints coming from his colleagues, especially her sister.

Ermilinda's cravings usually lead to eating grilled sandwiches at 1 am. 

Her daughter sees her up at 4 am playing the guitar, and wonders if this is how her mother was back then, when she was still a lump of flesh living on tummy rubs and random cravings.

Leo gets the award for panicking in advance.

While trying to get out of the bed carefully and comfortably, Ermilinda decides that this will be the last time she'll experience this. 

"I'm just gonna go to the hospital now," Ermilinda calls out to her daughter, who has to cram on some forgotten homework.

She waves her hand and didn't bother to look up. "Sure, sure, take care."

Leo sees the school bus waiting outside and wonders what's taking Lucida so long. Then he remembers that he's supposed to take his wife to the hospital now, and quickly whips out his phone.

Going to the hospital in style.

The news that one of the town's prominent artists is giving birth now has spread already, and two doctors try to compete with each other to get to the hospital first until they realized the blinking green light. Sadly, someone has already beaten them to it.

Presenting the very blue and pink nursery!

(flash forward to toddler pics since I didn't bother to take any during the baby stage)

Thea is almost an exact copy of her mother's features.

While Hana gains her father's likeness.

____________________________________________

And with Hana and Thea in the house, the rolls for the 3 children and half-siblings are officially fulfilled! I might as well wing it now while I can. 

Chapter 5: Random abstraction

Sorry Leo, but she just doesn't give a shit about dimsum.

Word about Ermilinda's mastered skill in painting eventually reaches the people who manage most of the art in the city, so she gets the opportunity to have her own paintings hanged in the museum. 

It's dark and wide enough to get lost into. This might be a good place to hang out at.

The longer she stays in the place though, the angrier she gets at how "generic" everything is. There's nothing worth looking at in this place, and she's seriously considering to reconnect with some artists who have also secluded themselves, but she is also one of them. 

Ermilinda has long given up on attaining fame and wouldn't want to stay too long in the spotlight, but if THIS is what the people get to see as art, then she feels obliged to do something about it.

Seriously. Another generic stock picture of a car. 

Leo's not having too much fun with work right now, but he manages to get by with putting on the right facial expressions and reactions and by being the with the "right" people. Amused by the younger colleague's effort, Yolanda tells him gently, "You can drop the act right now."

It's unsettling him, but he drops his cheery facade cautiously. He may as well be working as an actor.

During lunch break, he meets up with Cresalina at the karaoke place to vent out together on this silly thing. (So far it's working to the point that they forgot about going back to work)

One of them is out of tune, but who cares? The guy in the suit is apparently famous and rich. (I forgot his name, oops)

Promoted!

As a reward for getting promoted, Leo offers to cook a "special" dinner for everyone.

Ermilinda isn't too fond of this dish called "Goopy Carbonara," but is far too polite towards Leo to push it away. Luckily for Lucida, she got her favorite: Ratatouille, with some modifications.

Ermilinda goes out to look for venues for the coming wedding. In this particular place, she spots her sister-in-law and niece at the bar area.

Instead of greeting with a "hello" or a "what are you doing here," Ermilinda starts with, "Your mother isn't letting you drink this early, is she?" 

Trisha likes how blunt her aunt is, and immediately laughs her assumptions away. "Don't worry, mom's not going to risk THAT much to rile up my other mom."

She will never grasp this 'little feud' between Felicita and Sammantha they always seem to have, and hopes that they both won't get too far with whatever they're doing.

In mere days, the little art studio that Leo and Lucida made for Ermilinda is already filled up.

He also notices that she doesn't name most of her pieces. Leo personally calls that one "Mysterious blocks of random abstraction."

In Lucida's dream, the wedding goes perfectly well. There are no rings dropped, no shoes stepped on, no wine spilled. When she wakes up, she feels less excited.

As much as it concerns him to see Lucida eating ice cream as breakfast on a daily basis, he knows better than to criticize her food choices (as a child, Lucida pretty much ignores him).

He clears his throat. "Are you okay?"

Lucida chews more slowly before swallowing it at once. They both can't tell what the other is thinking. "Yeah. It's going to be a big day."

A big day indeed, especially for these two.

Leo is just the happiest person alive right now. He couldn't believe that this is actually happening. 

From the audience, Lucida doesn't show much interest in watching the ceremony. Everyone else is too preoccupied, like Felicita, who is just happy to see that things are working out for her sister in the love department. 

Sammantha notices Lucida's indifference, and walks to get closer to her niece. "What's wrong?"

"I kinda wish that they have a DJ booth in here," Lucida mutters. 

"Maybe you'll get to have one in your own wedding," Sammantha jokes. Her niece doesn't respond anymore, and, feeling obligated, looks at the couple instead. 

Looks like she got herself a new dad now.

____________________________________________

Aaaand Leo's officially part of the family. Everyone's concerned for how Lucida will react to this kind of thing but she pretty much doesn't care anymore. 

I know this is a pretty short chapter, but it's been so long since I worked on this and I want to move on to the story as much as I can.