Taking A Chance

A Kiss

By the time Maria and Jorge arrived at the hospital with a bag of clothes for them, the triplets were fed and changed. They came into the room quietly thinking Keith would still be unwell, only to find him up and eating breakfast.

Molly cried out when she saw Keith and Jorge took her over to him.

She hugged him then touched his face grinning. 'Dada.'

Keith smiled. 'Hey, little girl.' He cuddled her before Jorge lifted her and put her on the floor and she ran over to Lance and hugged his leg.

Enya wasn't as receptive to Keith. She pulled away when Maria tried to give her to him, clinging to her and whining.

'Hey, it's okay,' said Keith. 'Look.' He changed into his Galran form then back again.

Enya stared at him, then started to sniff the air.

Maria inched her closer and when she caught Keith's scent she scrambled into his arms and held him tight.

'Jaya stayed with Adam and Shiro last night. They'll bring him in soon. We decided to let him stay home from school today to come and see you all,' Maria said, as she went over to the bassinets. 'Have you picked names yet?'

Lance nodded and joined her. 'First born is Zuri, second is Seth, and last is Lila.'

'I like those names very much,' she said with a smile. 'No middle names?'

'We couldn't find anything we like to go with them, so decided not to,' Lance said.

'Fair enough,' Jorge said.

'We let Veronica and Marco know this morning,' said Maria. 'They will visit as soon as they can. I swear I'm deaf from how loud she screamed down the phone.' Lance laughed. 'We have not told anyone of the difficulties Keith had because that's not our information to tell.'

'Thanks,' said Lance. 'For the time being we're just going to say it went well.'

Jorge went over to his son and put his arm around his shoulders. 'We're so proud of you both, and especially proud of you with the way you looked after Keith all through the pregnancy.'

'Thanks, papa,' Lance said.

Less than an hour later, Veronica, Marco, Matt, Romelle and Naroc burst into the room in a wave of noise.

'They're a mix of human and Galran,' said Romelle in awe. 'I've never seen anything like it.' She reached out and took Seth's hand. He looked Galran, had yellow, human eyes, and human hands. They all had red Altean markings, and Keith's Galran marking.

Next, Adam, Shiro and Jaya turned up and the room was crowded, and there were lots of different conversation going on, and there was no break in the noise as they gushed over the kits.

Lance turned to look for Keith and saw him standing on the other side of the room, looking distressed, trying to see the kits through the crowd.

He turned to Maria and gave her Enya. 'Mama, can you do me a favour and guide everyone out of the room.'

She frowned and followed his gaze to Keith, and immediately moved into action.

To add to the crowd, Jo and Michaels came in, and they followed Lance over to Keith.

'It's okay,' said Lance. He pulled Keith into his arms. 'It's a bit much, hey.'

Keith nodded and clung to him.

Maria made short work of getting everyone, except Shiro and Adam out of the room and closing the door.

Jo reached out toward Keith until Lance gently stopped her. She nodded and slowly withdrew her hand.