Whatever Happened To Predictability?

Ain't A Bird

Avi holds Ada just above the ground because he knew that as soon as he let her go she is gonna do her 'moving' thing, what you could call her attempted crawl. He is holding her up though because he wants to make it a big deal for Josh when he walks through the door. It's a good thing Ada isn't heavy, because they'd been like this for three minutes now, Avi could have sworn he'd heard Josh's car pull in.
     Finally the front door opens and Josh walks in.
     "Surprise!" Avi yells and puts Ada on her stomach, on the ground where she... does absolutely nothing. Avi's face falls before he looks up at Josh. "I swear, she's been doing it for the past hour."
     "Crawling?"
     "Sort of, more like sliding on her stomach, it was cute though and I wanted you to see it," he frowns.
     "It's okay, I'll see her, tomorrow's my day off," Josh shrugs.
     "You're not as disappointed about this as I thought you'd be," Avi speaks, picking up Ada again.
     "Well I'm not sure how I feel about it you know? Amanda's missing this too; she's going to miss all of Ada's milestones that we saw together with Scarlett and Paisley. And there's nothing we can do about it, Ada's going to grow up without a mom." He stops talking, unable to take his eyes off of Ada who is smiling. At least someone is happy, but that is only because she doesn't understand and she might never.
     "Apparently Paisley stripped Scarlett's bed again," Avi says after a while of silence, deciding to change the subject because he hates it when Josh is sad, he hates it when anyone is sad. "Sam went up there just before you got home. But I don't think he knows how to make a bed," he tries to joke, nodding over at Sam's mess, including an unmade bed in the alcove.
     "Why does she keep doing that?" Josh asks with a sigh, somewhat glad they were off the previous topic.
     "Your guess is as good as mine Josh."
     "Alright, I'll go up and take a look, could you feed Ada please?"
     Avi nods, "Sure thing." He takes the baby into the kitchen and sits her in her highchair. "What shall we eat today Ada?" He asks, watching her just stare back at him, "Right, you can't tell me what you like, so I get to pick for you, ha-ha," he puts on a goofy grin to make Ada laugh and succeeds. He bounces over to the cupboard keeping his youngest niece distracted and laughing.      "Ew, it's all green," Avi complains as he scans over the small tubs. He takes one out and pulls off the label, if he doesn't know what vegetable he's force feeding her it might go down better if he doesn't want to puke too.
     He finally gets the pottle of green mush and a spoon to Ada and pulls a dining table seat up in front of her.
     "Now darling I know green food tastes bad, but it's a cool colour, in fact green is my favourite colour," he pops off the lid. "It's the colour of nature. Not that you get out much, but maybe we can go to the park before I have to go to work tomorrow." He holds out a spoon full for her, which she actually takes without a fuss. "The restaurant opens tomorrow, so it's my first day and theirs. Then guess what I'm doing afterwards Ada?" He pauses, giving her another mouthful of food, and so even if she could talk, she couldn't answer right now. "I'm actually going on a date, can you believe it?"
     Her mouth pops open and all food inside it spills out.
     Avi laughs, "A bit surprised are you? Yeah I haven't even told Josh, not after our conversation last week. But this girl makes me think that I'm ready to move on from Jess. I hope your dad finds someone like that soon too," he nods, knowing it wouldn't be as soon as it had been for Avi, a break-up is an entirely different thing from your wife dying.
     Avi continues to feed Ada, and there aren't more food "spitting out" incidents. So he lets her out, placing her on the floor. He throws out the empty pottle and turns around to watch Ada push herself to her hands and knees, his eyes widen and she holds herself there. Avi wants to call Josh, but he's worried he'll scare Ada if he's too loud. But he has to get Josh before she crawls.

...

Josh walks into Scarlett and Paisley's room and see's Scarlett's bed stripped of its sheets. But neither of the girls are in the room. He double checks under the bed and in the closet just in case, but to no luck.
     Leaving the room he notices the door to his room is shut. Scarlett must be in there, she hadn't asked him, but in all fairness he'd only just gotten home. He has no idea where Paisley is. Josh has searched almost the whole house, and he can't find her. There is only one place left, the attic, but there is no way Paisley could have unlocked the door, the key is in a box in the cupboard above the fridge, even if she gets a chair she wouldn't be able to reach it. Besides, she knows they aren't allowed in there, that's why it's kept locked, it's stacked full of boxes that could fall on them and hurt them. But he tries the door anyway, it clicks open and Josh sighs.
     "Paisley!" He calls into the room. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a flick of red hair disappear behind a stack of boxes. "Paisley, please come here, you know you're not supposed to be in here."
     Her head slowly rises from behind a box and Josh can tell that she's been crying. He isn't mad at her, he can't be, he just holds his arms wide open for her. She comes running and pulls herself as close as she can to her dad.
     "What's wrong Paisley?" He asks softly, crouching down to speak to her at her level.
     "I hate my hair," she hiccups, trying to take a deep breath.
     "Aw, no honey you have beautiful hair," he coos, brushing her red curls back, then his eyes widen and he spins her around. "Did you cut out a chunk?"
     "Only a little bit."
     "You still cut it hon, you shouldn't do that, I love your hair, your curls are so pretty, and the colour you have, sweetheart do you know how much money people would pay to have hair like yours?"
     "I want hair like Scarlett's, not..." she gets quieter, "Not mommy's."
     Josh pulls her back in for another hug. "You have no idea how lucky you are to have hair like mommy's. And she loved her hair, so you should too. You will have to get a bit of a cut though to blend in that patch," he tries to joke, but it seems like Paisley is unwilling to crack a smile no matter how small.
     "I don't want to look like mommy."
     "Why not?"
     "Because... Just because."
     "That's not a reason Paisley. If it's because you're sad then that's okay."
     "But it's been since forever that it happened," she sobs.
     Josh realises that she can't say died or passed away, that Scarlett has never said it either, and neither has he. "Three months sweetie. Only three months."

A/N: This story makes me equal parts happy and sad to write :P

Hannah