november yumary otp prompt challenge!

babysitting

Yumeko had just come back from cleaning up the kitchen when she found Mary rocking the baby on the bay window, looking out at the starry sky. Itsuki and Kaede were in desperate need of a night off and asked Yumeko and Mary to watch their 14-month-old daughter, Aya. As she stood in the doorway, she let herself indulge in the sight.

Mary looked so tender and gentle, so attentive of how Aya's shut eyes and breaths from little lungs. She stepped like she was holding a precious yet fragile gem.

What if that was their own baby in Mary's arms?

She blocked out all the mountains of obstacles to achieve her answer and zeroed in on her fantasy. How would their child look? The first image that comes to mind is a little girl with dirty blonde hair and chestnut brown eyes. She's rebellious and determined like Mary, and bubbly like Yumeko. Or maybe he takes his favorite stuffed toy to the store and the park down the street. Or they've been in the system for years and just need loving parents.

Someday, she hopes with her entire being. Someday.

Mary carefully stood up and walked toward their bed, eyes studying Aya's tiny, sleeping face for any sign of disturbance. She undoubtedly has Itsuki's loose curls and Kaede's black hair before it was shocked white—Yumeko is still apologizing. Her bright smile was exactly like Itsuki's too, but she was quiet and observant like her father.

The whole time Aya watched Yumeko and Mary with curious eyes as they prepared her bottle and cleaned up her messes. When Yumeko played peek-a-boo with her, she laughed and giggled, and Mary grew tired of the charade before Aya did.

Oh, and Yumeko could not get over Mary.

She was methodical, but in a protective and efficient way. It was almost like she was nervous that Aya would break apart if her baby food wasn't given to her right as the clock turned two. But when she wasn't worrying over the schedule or the dangerous, circular edges of their tables, Mary played and talked to Aya. She processed the incoherent bangles and responded to them with clear—not babyfied—sentences.

It was adorable, and that's an understatement.

Mary moved by the inch to set Aya onto her blanket. Yumeko would've laughed at her unexpected arm strength if she wasn't so worried about waking the baby.

Once Aya was settled and wrapped into her sky blue blanket, Mary took a barely audible sigh of relief, and tiptoed toward Yumeko.

===

"Humor me," Yumeko wrapped an arm around Mary's shoulders. "Give me a moment of optimism."

Mary looked to the ceiling thoughtfully. "I'll bite, but I'm pretty sure I know what this is about."

Yumeko smiled longingly at their intertwined hands: "What if—" it being at all possible, "—we had a baby of our own someday?"

Mary was beaming; she shifted back into the couch seat, rubbing Yumeko's knee draped on her thigh: "I don't need optimism for that."

Yumeko laughed, "Well, I mean I just wasn't sure about how you felt about our options, or even having a child in the first place."

"I used to hate kids when I was younger," Mary mentally looked into her childhood. "My neighbors would ask me if I could sit, and I wouldn't do it no matter how much they would offer to pay me."

"Oh my gosh, really? Mary denying money?"

"I was such an angry child," Mary rolled her eyes. Then they softened, "But I don't know, I think I like the idea of us having a family..." she looked to the ground bashfully. "A lot."

"A family more than cats, right?" Yumeko joked, leaning her head into Mary's shoulder.

"Are you saying that our future child won't want a pet?"

Yumeko envisioned it. A little girl chasing around a cat through their living room. In a two-story house with a picket fence because she's feeling a little stereotypical.

"I'm sure they'll love a cat, actually." Mary laughed at the thought.

Out of the blue, Mary stated, "I can't wait for us to be married."

Yumeko could've burst from her excitement: "You and me taking on the world together. Starting a family."

"I'm happy to do whatever as long as it's with you," her fiancee kissed her cheek.

Fiancee, then wife, then mother of her children.

"Seriously, wherever our child is from, or children, I just want a life with you," Yumeko gave her kiss right on her sweet smiling lips.