Extended Family

Chapter 119: First Meetings

Takes place before chapter 23

"Why are you so nervous?" Alicia asked.

"What if they hate each other?" Angelina asked, fretting slightly.

"First of all, that won't happen.  Second of all, why would you say that?!  Don't borrow trouble or invoke what you don't want to happen!"  Alicia glared at Angelina and the expression was returned in kind.  "Third of all, they have already met.  We visited each other every few days with them and have done so for months now."

"Yeah but that's when they were less aware of things," Angelina argued.  "They were sluggies."

Katie laughed.  "What's a sluggie?"

"Slug baby," Angelina said.  "They just slugged about."

"Don't call them that," Alicia scolded but with a smile on her lips.  "You're not wrong though."

"I'm just saying I'd be heartbroken if they weren't friends," Angelina said weakly.

"I'm sure they will and if they aren't at first, well, they're babies," Katie said soothingly.  "And well, we can bribe them to be friends forever too because I'd be heartbroken too.  It'll be fine."

The women assembled in the Potter sitting room and gently sat their little girls down onto the play mat.  The girls were all able to crawl now and they looked around their surroundings, sucking on their pacifiers before noticing each other.  Dahlia, Hailey, and Hadley looked at each other without blinking for long moments.

"Come on babies," Angelina said softly, "be besties."

"Yes, you can do it," Alicia encouraged when Hadley crawled closer to Hailey.

After a long moment of staring at one another, Hailey flailed all of a sudden and accidentally knocked the pacifier out of Hadley's mouth.  The motion made Hadley flail too and she accidentally bonked her head against Hailey's and Hailey fell onto her back.  Both girls began to wail with infant indignity, crying and waving their arms and kicking.

"Oh no," Katie said while Angelina and Alicia started laughing uproariously.

"You know, that was actually very similar to how Alicia and I met the first time on the Express," Angelina said, holding her middle.

"She tripped into the compartment and headbutted me and I acted on reflex and smacked her," Alicia said, wiping tears of merriment from her eyes.  "And we hated each other for about a month or so."

"Thirty-three days and a half," Angelina sighed gustily.

"You petty bi...b-word," Alicia smiled.  "It's okay Hadley, don't cry.  It was an accident-oh my."

Dahlia's eyes had widened when the other two began sobbing.  After looking back and forth slowly, she clumsily reached to her mouth and pulled out her pacifier.  With remarkable aim, she managed to pop her pacifier into Hadley's mouth, stopping her crying.  Hadley looked with surprise but quieted down, sucking on the new pacifier.  With intense baby concentration, Dahlia pulled a bunny plushie over and flopped it against Hailey, calming her down.  She then slowly picked up Hadley's pacifier and stuck it in her mouth without a second thought and sat against Hailey comfortably.