You're Mine

chapter 156

Tuesday, 7th February:

Logan: 13; Layla: 7; Leo: 4; Twins: 1; Eleanor: 2

-

"Hi, good morning.", Anton greeted the couple and the twins with a huge smile on his face. "So, that is our little gate, just to be as precautious as we can. Here, let me close it for you.", he said. "Over there is Luna's wardrobe spot, the one with the giraffe. And this one right here with the meerkat is Lucas'."

"Are there no other kids here yet?", Amelia wondered, surprised that there were neither jackets nor shoes. They weren't that late, but also not that early and she had thought that other parents would have left for work earlier than them today.

"They're outside with two colleagues for now. I figured it would be too much at once considering Lucas' mental illness. He's supposed to like it here and I don't wanna freak him out right away.", the blonde explained.

"Makes sense.", Owen agreed. "Okay, let's take off your clothes then, huh?", he asked his son and put him down to sit on the little bench. "Do you wanna help him do it?", he addressed Anton. He had decided to give him a chance for the sake of his children.

"Yeah, but let's do it together.", the daycare teacher suggested instead. "Hi Lucas, I am Mr. Grady.", he began talking to the curious but shy baby that unsurely glanced at his dad. "We're gonna spend a lot of time together, you know?"

"Alright, Luna is ready.", the neurosurgeon informed the men and picked up her daughter to watch them undress her brother. "Hey Lukie, you're doing amazing.", she smiled at her son, encouraging him.

"Okay, next step is for you two to take Luna inside and let her play something, while I finish getting Lucas ready and we'll join you in a few minutes.", Anton guided the parents through his plan. "He'll be rewarded with seeing your faces when he comes in."

"Dada?", the one-year-old boy whispered in shock as he watched his family leave him there with the stranger. He immediately started crying, silently. He also felt Anton let go of him, causing him to be confused and look at him with tears in his eyes.

"Look at my arms Lucas.", the blonde softly ordered, holding them open for the tiny redhead to climb into if he wanted to be soothed by him. "They're open for you and only you. But I am not going to just wrap them around you because I want you to come to me. I trust you, now you will take your time and whenever you're ready to trust me too, I will comfort you."

Lucas was sucking his pacifier, still crying. He kept glancing up and down between the man's arms and his face. While it seemed safe to let him embrace him, his eyes were soft as well. To his supervisor's surprise, the boy's first action was trying to push his arm away, probably to check if he could really trust him or not.

"See? They are stable and just waiting for you to want to be calmed down.", Anton repeated, finally having gotten at least a little bit of the boy's trust as he slowly scooted forward into his arms. "Yay!", he cheered. "Let's go see your sister."

"DADA, MAMA!", Lucas beamed upon noticing that his parents hadn't left him yet. He reached for them, but also glanced at his twin playing peacefully. He wanted both. Therefore, his daycare teacher decided to let him choose.

"Here you go, Sweetie.", the blonde chuckled at the suddenly very excited boy, putting him down. "You can walk towards whatever you wanna do.", he said, watching the child decide for a second. And to the couples' surprise, their baby chose to play.

"How did you do that?", Owen questioned, confused. He hated to say or even think it, but this Anton seemed to be really good at his job. And apparently, he had meant it when he had told them that everyone was welcome in his group.

"I like giving the kids options in certain situations.", the supervisor shared. "Not always, because they quickly learn how to use your kindness and openness against you. But for example, I knew he wanted to be comforted when he cried. Still, I let him come to me instead of throwing myself into the hug and overwhelming him. Now he wanted to do two things. Playing and snuggling you. The other kids are outside for half an hour longer, so you two can stay and interact with them for fifteen more minutes, then you'll leave, and I take over. And after, they get to meet their classmates."

"But never more than two options?", the redhead continued the conversation, shocking his wife since she had thought he hated Anton. The blonde nodded and added that too many options were too much and this way, the kids had to make a choice and wouldn't even question if any of it was something they would currently want to do.

"Mr. Hunt, if you don't mind, I would like to get your number too.", Anton said, basically reminding him of the fact that he already had his wife's. "Your wife might be busy or at work at times when I am calling and therefore, it's good to have both of your numbers and in cases when I cannot reach either of you two, you've written down three additional ones on the pick-up-paper, right?"

"Yeah, here you go.", the trauma surgeon agreed and wrote it down for the other man. "We actually added four numbers but marked them as such. The three first ones are belonging to friends of us living here, Addison, Jake, and Charlotte. The fourth one would be the last option because it's her brother's number and he still lives in Seattle. Normally, you will always reach one of the five of us, but if not, Derek is going to find a solution."

"Perfect.", his counterpart smiled. "So, who's gonna pick them up after lunch?", he wanted to know since they always wrote down the original plan of the parents of whom would get the children once the day was over and when.

"I will.", Amelia replied. Owen was going in for a rather long shift, only coming home during the upcoming night. "I've told Mrs. Lucardo that I'd like to take Leo with me too since it doesn't make sense to come here twice, so she is going to be brought here to wait for me. Is that okay?"

"Sure thing. I am probably going to take her inside with me, because I am not a fan of children waiting for their parents outside of the group-rooms. But other than that, it's absolutely no problem.", the blonde responded.