Cresswell: The Lunar Chronicles

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Four

Thorne stirred, blinking his eyes open and glancing at the clock on the nightstand. He could hear Nova crying and Cress's space in the bed was empty. With a grimace, he pushed himself up and stumbled downstairs toward the nursery.

Cress was slowly pacing back and forth, holding a crying Nova. When Thorne walked in, Cress glanced over at him and looked like she was about to start crying herself.

"I don't know what's wrong—she finished eating and it's not to cold but she's so upset and I don't know why," said Cress, her words mashing together. A sob choked its way out.

Thorne stepped inside, kissing the side of Cress's face and then taking Nova. "Why don't you go back to bed and let me take this one?"

"You're tired too," Cress murmured. She sniffed, pressed a palm to her eye.

"Not half as tired as you. Go get some sleep."

"No, it's fine—"

"I know." He kissed her again, nudging her toward the door. "Go to sleep."

Cress finally nodded. She lightly rubbed a still crying Nova and then disappeared.

"Aces you're a noisy little beast," Thorne said around a yawn. He adjusted his hold around her, cradling her and then patting her back.

Nova kept on crying, her sad little wail piercing the air, her hands balled into fists.

"Well if you don't help me, I can't help you," he deadpanned. "Here, want your thumb?" he worked her hand open and tried to help her find her thumb but it was hard to see and he couldn't tell if she actually found it or just got tired of crying.

Nova let out a partial cry but a yawn interrupted it.

"Yeah, all that screaming really takes it out of you, doesn't it?"

Nova's lower lip thrust out and she started crying again.

"Okay, let's try something different." Thorne started patting her back. He kept at it for almost two minutes before Nova let out a rather impressive burp.

"Oh, there we go."

After that, Nova stopped crying altogether. Her eyes slowly blinked and her fist lowered, her mouth still open in a small O. She sucked in a breath and let it out.

Thorne faintly smiled, watching her fall asleep, his heart swelling with love and pride and a million other emotions he didn't think possible. She looked so much like Cress. He held her for a while longer, simply because he wanted to, before carefully setting her back down in her crib. He checked that the window was shut and then crept back up the stairs. He leaned over and gave Cress a gentle kiss on her cheek, snuggling behind her and snaking an arm around her waist.

Much to his delight, Cress didn't move until early the next morning when his alarm went off. He tried to turn it off before it woke her, thinking she could use some extra sleep, but knocked his port off the nightstand in the process.

"Sorry," he mumbled irritably.

"It's fine." Cress smiled. "I need to feed Nova and finish getting all our stuff together anyway."

"Lemme know what I can do."

"Maybe make us some breakfast?"

He nodded, sliding out from the blankets. Cress waited until he'd finished in the bathroom before getting up. While she was getting ready upstairs, Thorne rifled through the pantry and fridge for something to make. There was some left over pancake batter from yesterday that would go bad while they were gone, so he pulled it out and fried up some eggs to go with them.