Cody learns to love

The one chapter where the twins want a birthday party

  Fox moving out initiated a chain reaction. Some of it was good. Some of it not so much. Cody was desperately trying to stay optimistic but he wasn't entirely successful. He could still try to focus on the good stuff, though.

  Emerie had her appointment with her mind healer. She seemed to enjoy the therapy session, the mind healer clearly knew what she was doing. Emerie was scheduled to come two times a week for a month. After that, if everything goes well, the visits at the mind healer's office will lessen.

  Cody also took Emerie to doctor Che for a physical check up. She was distrustful of the doctor in the beginning and refused to let go of Cody's hand but she quickly understood that doctor Che means no harm. Cody was really grateful for bringing Kix with them because he didn't know if the doctor's reluctant kindness would put Emerie at ease the way Kix literally hugging the infamous scary doctor did. Emerie even agreed to stay at the doctor's office alone for the part where she needed to undress. Cody was glad. That would be pretty awkward.

  All in all, he now had confirmed that Emerie was pretty fucked up mentally, not that it was possible not to be after how Nala Se treated her. Physically she seemed to be somewhat alright. The doctor said Emerie needed to gain some weight and spend some time on fresh air but that was all.

  That was where the good stuff ended.

  Well, technically, Cody now had more time for Emerie and the younger kids with Fox staying in Waxer's capable hands. Wolffe also didn't seem too keen on spending time in the house as he spontaneously decided to sleep over at Tanya's multiple nights in a row.

  Logically, it was probably supposed to be a plus. Only it couldn't really be positive. Not when it meant that two of Cody's little siblings didn't feel good at home. Not when it meant that Cody wasn't able to take care of them properly. He hoped it wasn't too late to change things for the better. Because Cody would change the universe for the kids. His kids. They were his, they have always been his. Why did Cody only realize that now?

  Maybe it was easy to see when observing Boba and Omega sleeping. The two of them were cute. From the moment Cody put Omega and Boba together, Boba changed. He cried less and was a little bit less grumpy in general. He also seemed to sleep better with his little sister next to him. Omega continued to be her darling little self.

  Emerie liked helping out with the babies, mostly Omega. It was adorable how much Emerie cared about her baby sister. It was mostly Emerie playing with Omega and Cody supervising, Emerie still wasn't entirely sure what was okay with babies and what wasn't, but Cody was sure Emerie will make a competent babysitter soon.

  "Cody!" The train of thoughts in Cody's head stopped when Fives jumped at him. Cody only caught him thanks to his military training. Not even the military training helped him with catching Echo too, though, so the other boy just slid down Cody's legs after failing to grip Cody tightly enough.

  "Sorry, Echo. Seems like I don't have enough hands." Cody laughed as he carefully maneuvered Fives so the boy was sitting on his lap. "You want to sit on my lap too?"

  "No, I'm fine," Echo answered and sat down on the floor next to Cody's chair instead. Now that was a surprise. Echo rarely refused cuddles or any other form of physical contact.

  "Is something wrong, Echo?"

  "No. We're just being super nice," Echo explained, not that it actually explained anything, and leaned his head on Cody's leg.

  "Yeah. Super-duper nice," Fives added. "We even cleaned our room!"

  "Really? That's amazing." Only there were background intentions. There always were. Children didn't just clean their rooms for no reason. Well, Fox did but Fox was an exception.