PARENTHOOD
Chapter Twenty Early morning was always my favorite time of day. Just as the sun starts to arch over the horizon and the sky turns a faint blue and purple. I had seen many sunrises on so many worlds yet seeing the sunrise with a small baby in your arms is something dreams are made of. It's odd though. I've been a father before but seeing the calm face of my little girl as we stand by the window makes my hearts cry. "Faith," I whisper as she wiggles just slightly in my arms and grabs hold of my finger. I thank whatever powers are out there that I was able to be here for her birth and not in exile. "Stop that!" I tell myself as my mind replays those long few months, dreading the time when I would have to go back to Solis. True, it was only for a week but it was a week too long. But, I correct myself, if it wasn't for that exile I would never had the chance to be reunited with my mother. "Your grandmother is a very tough lady," I whisper and gently rock my daughter. My mother had spent who knows how many years thinking that I was dead and, truthfully, I thought she was dead as well. She had to become tough and run a rebellion against the bastard I thought was my father. "To think I had to prove myself to him when the one who was proud of me never had the nerve to tell me who he was," I think to myself and sigh, thinking about Pandor. I do understand that it was an experiment to see what the difference between natural childbirth to looming but I also understand why I'm so different from the Gallifreyans on my world. "I'm a rebel and I'll never be any good," I softly sing and Faith smiles. Oh, how she melts my hearts when she smiles. She has the cutest dimples and Frankie says that she got them from me. I never noticed my dimples before. Walking to the mirror, I smile when I see my dimples and hum. "Well, look at that, I have dimples!" Faith yawns then snuggles close to my chest as I cup my mouth and know that Frankie will be mad if I wake Faith up. I softly rock Faith as I walked around the room and look at things in the dim light. The walls were painted a soft pink with a baby blue border and multi color butterflies are on the walls. Frankie thought I was nuts when I put up the Disney Princesses stickers on the wall between the butterflies but Faith is my princess, so there. "You know something, Love, I've noticed something. Ariel, Jasmine, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are princess but the others aren't. Cinderella, she was the daughter of a baron, I think, until her stepmother turned her into a chav. Belle was a tinkerer's daughter. Mulan was the daughter of a shogun. Pocahontas, well, she could be a princess but she was really a chief's daughter. And that girl in the Frog Prince movie, I don't remember what she was before becoming a princess." Faith doesn't answer as I sit down on the rocking chair and place my feet on the footstool. I had gone through seven antique stores before I found the right rocking chair and footstool. It was a rich oak with animals carved into the wood and had green velvet cushions. Frankie told me that we had a perfectly good rocking chair and footstool from when Cam was born but it didn't match the rest of the furniture. "Hey, you deserve the best," I whisper while rocking Faith and she give me a tiny smile. I look at her while the sun brightens the room some more and I look at the bookcase. It was filled with shelves and shelves of books and most of them were Disney books. I know that her favorite book so far is The Lion King and I think I do a mean Simba impression. I do fudge over the part where his father dies but she seems to look at me like she knows that I'm not telling her everything. "How can I do that to you? It is so sad that he loses his father at such a young age then blames himself for his death," I think to myself then Pandor's face appears in my head. Is that why I'm so unsure about telling her? True, having Rassilon for a father, not the real Rassilon, that's the name he took, wasn't something I like talking about. My mother says that I need to come to terms with the past, see passed him and cling to the memories of my true father. "But how can I do that when I only knew him for a few days?" I ask myself. There is a simple solution for all this. I just need to talk with my mother about him. "Then why am I so scared to do that?" "Daddy scared?" Faith asks me inside my head and I realize that I woke her up. "Um, yes, I am scared." I tell her and she snuggles closer, squeezing my finger a little harder. "Why are you scared, Daddy?" "Well, it's because Daddy has to do something but isn't sure if I want to." "Is Daddy leaving again?" she asks and I feel the fear in her mind. Her lower lip starts trembling and I can just see tears at the edges of her eyes. "Sh, no, Daddy isn't leaving," I whisper as I hold her tiny face to mine and kiss the tip of her button nose. I gently rub my cheek against her head and, though asleep, she reaches up and grabs hold of my bottom lip. "Ump, Faif, I can' talk if you do that." "Daddy silly," she says inside my mind and I see her smile. She sighs but doesn't wake up and I feel her mind drift off as she goes back to sleep. Gently, I remove her fingers then kiss them and look at the room again. The cot has a little mobile connected to it and I still don't understand why humans do that. I mean having spinning animals circling overhead would not put me to sleep. I'd feel like I was some small prey being circled by something that wants to eat me. No wonder babies cry. "Good thing that yours is little stars and a moon, though it's not the real moon. When you're old enough, I'll take you there and show you where your silly Uncle Jamie near bashed his head against a rock," I tell Faith then softly laugh. The anger comes in a slow wave when I think about what happened to Jamie and that it wasn't an accident. Rassilon ordered that guard to knock the moment Jamie had... "No, stop that, don't think about it." Faith yawns as I look down at her and kiss the top of her head. I then look at all her stuffed animals and realize that Cam didn't have any when he was a baby. He wasn't really interested in them. He liked books, music and videos. Frankie said that it was because he was more advanced for his age, like his Uncle Cameron. Don't get me wrong, I love my son and I am so proud of how smart he is, but seeing Faith's face light up when she sees her Elmo or Skipper the penguin stuffies is priceless. "Just like you and your brother are priceless. I would never sell either of you. Well, maybe, if you get on my nerves," I tease as she thumps her head against my chest and I softly laugh. "See, you're starting to do that already." No, I'm kidding. But, with this family of mine, having silly kids is a blessing. I wouldn't want them to be the cookie cutter children that I grew up with on my Gallifrey. They were all lifeless, unimaginative automatons. No, our kids were silly, reckless, totally bonkers and a pain in the ass but we love them completely. "And, truthfully, we wouldn't have it any other way," I whisper while the sun lightens the room some more then I smell something. Faith's face is a slight shade of red and her eyes are closed tightly. That when I roll my eyes because I know that my little princess has just made a doody. "Right, let's get you sorted." "I poopy, Daddy," she tells me and I see just a hint of a smile. "Yep, you did, Miss Poopy Butt!" I tell her then carefully get up and head for the changing table. So, if you ask me if I'm happy about changing a smelly nappy first thing in the morning instead of being in bed with my amazing wife, I have just one word for you. Yep!
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