Survival

#26 Choose my name

Tears of happiness glistened in Lila's eyes and then she smiled brightly. It was exactly the smile that Five adored so much. It was the smile that made him smile too.

She leaned in to kiss him and then hugged him. And it was a very joyful and energetic hug. In fact, she almost jumped into his arms and, as he hadn't expected, they ended up on the floor, looked at each other and started laughing.

Lila looked at him, "this is perfect..."

"Yeah?"

Lila nodded her head and gave him a long kiss.

As they picked themselves up off the floor and sat back down on the couch, Lila looked at Five, "you know I love our paperless marriage... but that doesn't mean that if it grabs us one day that we don't decide from minute to minute to make it official... that I'd be against it. I don't want any planning... if it's going to happen, it's going to happen. Is that okay?"

"Totally."

"And you think I can wear the ring?"

"Well, of course, you can do whatever you want with it."

Lila put it in his hand and then held out her own hand for him to put it on. Five looked at her as he did so with that slightly cocky grin of his. Then he took her hand and kissed her on it. Lila smiled happily again and then took a good look at for the first time.

The ring was white gold, and the ornamentation made the stone in the middle look like a strawberry, with a heart-shaped cut in a pinkish-purple hue.

"It's really beautiful! Thank you."

"I'm glad you like it."

--

Lila and Five were lying in bed together, discussing names for the baby. Or rather, it was mostly Lila talking.

"If she were a girl, her name might be Jora. It means time in Persian. Or Aika. In Japanese it's a love song, that would be pretty cool too." Lila came up with one idea after another, and Five watched her with interest. She had already thought of at least twenty names.

"And what name would you choose for me?"

Lila looked at him in surprise, "what do you mean?"

"Seeing how into it you are, I thought you might choose a name for me."

Lila rolled onto her side and they looked at each other, "why didn't you ever have one? What happened to you that day was before the others got names?"

"No, I was still with them. Grace helped everyone choose their names."

"And she didn't choose any for you?"

"No, because I didn't want to, I didn't care."

"Why?"

"For many reasons... I've gotten used to being a Five. And besides, when I started life as a number, it didn't seem that important to have a name. And maybe it was a bit of a rebellion, since our father only saw us as numbers based on how useful we are to him, and the names Grace helped us choose didn't seem... real."

Lila nodded her head, she sort of understood what he meant, she got her name from her parents, she'd never had any other name and she wasn't Eight, for example. "Now why would you want it after all this time?"

"Because now someone who truly loves me could choose my name." Five's words warmed her heart. "Seeing you trying to come up with something for our child, I'm beginning to realize that the name might be more important than I've been letting on. Besides, when I be on the birth certificate as the father, I can't be there as Five, and Jerome was never a personal name for me, but part of the job."

"And if I choose a name for you, could you arrange to use it officially?"

"Yes, I could pull a few strings and have it official, not just a fake ID or driver's license with a weird photo. The option was always there, I just didn't have enough motivation to really want to deal with it. And honestly, if it ever came to that impulsive wedding of ours, I guess it would have been a good idea too."

Lila remembered his driver's license she'd seen by chance recently and had to chuckle, "Yeah, that might be nice if you had an ID that was actually yours and a picture of you too, without your Greek mustache." Then she mused, "you're giving me a lot of responsibility."

"I trust you can think of something suitable."

"And would you like the last name Hargreeves?"

"To associate me with my crazy siblings?"

"Exactly."

"Could be."

"Mmm... okay." Lila lay back down again, looking like she was really thinking about it. "I'll try to think of something."

--

Lila took her task really seriously, and thought for a few days, looking for a name that Five might like. She wrote down several options and gradually eliminated them until finally she was left with one name.

Five was in his workroom when Lila came in and sat down across from him. She looked a little nervous.

"Everything okay?"

"I may have found a name you might like... I mean... if you don't like it, I'll keep thinking. But it's actually kind of hard, picking a name for someone who already has a say in it," she smiled.

Five leaned back in his chair and stared at her, "Tell me."

"Uff, okay. You know, the first thing I want to tell you... why the name caught my attention... you said you were born in Ireland, right? I tried to look up Irish names... it means brown haired leader or chieftain. And as for your family, you were always the one who led them... and who wanted to protect them, and when I read that the name fit someone who was very protective, it seemed fitting. Plus, as far as the hair goes, well, you know... that's my thing with you," she smirked at that, "so it fits you in a lot of ways. But I still think that you will always be Five to everyone."

"Wow, you really took that seriously. Now I'm getting really curious."

Lila handed him a folded piece of paper, and Five smiled at that, taking it and looking at what was written on it.

"Donovan Hargreeves?"

"Yeah. Do you like it?"