Questionable Loyalties

Family

By late afternoon, everything is clean and picked up. The shopping is done, and so is my laundry. I'm pacing, waiting for something, or someone. Nothing happens until late evening. There's a knock at my door. It's my mother in law.

I open the door and invite her inside. She doesn't say much as she walks through the apartment. She's inspecting. I hear small sounds that I take to be of approval. "I suppose you've earned the reward."

"I'm sorry?" Her goon produces a heavy, bound photo album.

"So you can learn about the family tree you've married into," she explains. "We'll leave you to it." She and her goons leave as quickly as they came.

I sit down with the album to learn all about what I've married into....

Later that day my phone rings while I'm going through the album. I'm not looking at the caller ID, but I pick it up anyway. "Hello?"

"Sophia?"

"Who's this?"

"It's Brian."

I pull the phone away from my face and let out a sigh. I take a second before putting the phone back up to my ear. "Look, if you've called to verbally beat me up, can we do this some other time? I can't really take much more right now."

I hear him sigh too. "I'm not calling to verbally beat you up. I was actually calling to apologize." I don't say anything, because I don't know where this is going. "I'm sorry that I hurt you. You have every right to be mad at me after how I caused that wreck. And don't blame Mia for not calling. It's my fault. I told her not to do it. I guess the other reason I'm calling is to tell you that you have a niece now, too."

"Really? I didn't even know she was pregnant," I reply quietly.

"You'll have to come out and see everyone soon."

"That's if Nobody's people will let me leave the State," I replied. "Which is probably not going to happen anytime soon."

"I'll see what I can do." Before we hang up, he tells me that I should be expecting a call from Mia within the next week or so, when she was feeling up to it.

~~~

A couple days later Deckard comes home. He's got a baby carrier. "Who's this?" I coo down into the carrier.

"This is your nephew," Deckard says. He puts the carrier down, and unclips the harness. He pulls the baby out and hands him to me. "I don't know what his name is."

"Hi little guy," I smile and bounce him on my hip. "You're too cute. Yes, you are." Apparently babies turn me into a babbling idiot.

Deckard laughs at me and tips my chin in his direction for a kiss. "God I missed you, Soph."

I lean my weight against him and let him hold me. "I missed you too Deck." The baby babbles in my arms and we both smile down at him. "I wonder who the mother was," I comment absentmindedly.

"Don't know." He looks at his watch. "I told Dom we'd watch the baby until he gets this stuff with Cipher sorted out."

"How long do you think that'll take?" I ask.

"A couple of days, tops."

We had the baby for three days. Deck and I took turns getting up with him in the middle of the night. One night I got up to go see if everything was okay, only to find the baby passed out in Deckard's arms, who was also passed out. For not being great at the domestic thing, we were sure doing pretty well. I might have spoiled the kid rotten for those three days. He got a small wardrobe to go home with, and a couple toys - a Jaguar model car, and a Charger. Deckard got the call on the third morning that Dom was ready for him to bring the baby back...