Your Beauty Never, Ever Scared Me - Wintumn Stories

And In the End

Winter loved his job. He had wanted to work in childcare since he was young and he knew how lucky he was to be able to have achieved that dream. Anyone who knew him would tell you that he was very good at it. He moved up the ranks to manager quite quickly at his first job and when he decided to leave to find a position that would put him back in the rooms he received an offer at every setting that interviewed him. For some reason, he decided to take the position at the Knight Nursery. It wasn't the best setting he interviewed at, it didn't pay the most, and he was certainly overqualified for the position they had open, but something in his mind told him that was where he needed to be.

These days going to work had become much harder. He hated that he had to leave his girls alone all day. Winter knew that they were just fine without him, Autumn was a fantastic mother and her bond with Rose was already so strong, but especially in these early days Winter wanted to be there for every moment.

The upside of returning to work, though, was being able to show off his daughter to anyone and everyone. From the moment she was born, Autumn and Winter couldn't stop taking pictures of her. They had a shared folder on both of their phones that was filled with shots of Rose. A lot of them looked exactly the same, as they took five to ten shots of the same moment as their daughter only slightly wiggled around. But they couldn't get enough of looking at her, and Winter couldn't get enough of talking about her with his coworkers, the parents in the nursery, even the children. Any time he could, he would swing the conversation to Rose and show off the new pictures that Autumn had sent that day. It was shocking that somehow Winter was able to work "my daughter" into conversations as much, if not more than, "my wife."

Thankfully everyone loved hearing about Rose. The nursery staff really was a family so they loved seeing just how excited their friends were about their new addition. Of course they poked fun at Winter's excitement, but he always had the same response.

"Have you seen my girls? They're absolutely perfect! You'd be going on about them too."

Both Winter and Autumn decided that they were going to wait to take Rose in to meet her nursery family until after she got her first set of shots. They knew that was going to be a long day for all of them, so Winter took the day off to be there for his girls. Since they were already taking Rose into a doctors office they figured they might as well take her to the nursery that same day. They would already be out of the house so it just made sense. All of their co-workers agreed to stay late immediately. Even the ones that weren't working said they would come in to meet Rose. They had heard so much about her from Winter...and Reece...and Marjorie, so they were incredibly excited to meet her. Sorscha even planned to bring in Clodagh and Quinn so that Rose could meet her first best friend.

The day of the appointment Autumn woke up extremely early. Between Rose's appointment and introducing her to the nursery staff, her nerves were keeping her awake. But as she laid in Winter's arms she couldn't help but think about how excited she was for the staff to see him with Rose. No one doubted that he would be an amazing father, but actually seeing it was something special. Autumn's love for her husband only grew every time she saw him holding their little girl, stroking her hair and singing to her every time he did. Whenever Winter called Rose "bug" Autumn's heart skipped a beat. Autumn was so glad that her daughter had a father that loved her, a father that cared about her above everything else. The kind of father that Autumn never had.

When she heard Rose start to stir in her cot, she placed an incredibly soft kiss on her husband's lips before carefully getting out of the bed. She made her way over to the bassinet and scooped the fussy girl into her arms, giving her a kiss as she did.

"Good morning, my little love."

Rose cried softly as she settled into her mother's arms.

"I know, I know. It's still so early! How about we get you some breakfast, hmm?"