#felicity laegiver

[sissytobitch10seconds]

Eve With You

Fandom: Secrets of Soulford Summary: Cody has a lot of memories from his childhood. Most of them aren't great, even though he knows that his father was trying his best. Still, he wants to make sure that his children don't carry the same weight with them. Warnings: Mentions of pregnancy and childhood illness Word Count: 2,660 Ship(s): Felicity Laegiver/Cody Garriford

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A/N: Full disclosure here, I'm not super into Secrets of Soulford so it's possible that I messed up some of the canon or the world. I just wanted to write this for my brother as a Christmas present because he really loves it. I hope that it's somewhat enjoyable! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

To my little brother: Thank you for teaching me how to expand my horizons and being so patient. I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas and know that I love you to the moon and back.

Felicity had been run off of her feet all day, which wasn’t that uncommon given that they had twin troublemakers that had made it their life mission to cause as much mayhem as they could. She was glad that her girls were old enough that they could understand instruction and actually take it into consideration. She sometimes wished that she had chosen a husband that didn’t have such a high stubborn streek in his family, but then she would see Cody carrying around their little ones and every thought would be gone.

She truly couldn’t imagine having a family or being married to anyone but him. They had grown up together and seen the other become the worst and then the best versions of themselves. He had been there when she was so sick that she wasn’t even allowed out of her room into the hallways. He had sat with her and read from the books she had been forbidden to touch out of the fear of a single bruise or papercut. She remembered the choppy way that he would sound out words he didn’t know and the flush his ears would get when she said it properly for him. She had been there to see what he had been like when he and his brother had started their training. Cody had been able to pull his head out of his ass and realize that he had to treat others with compassion and empathy long before Gan had kicked it into Logan.

She was glad that it as all over, that they were finally settled. She wasn’t sure what she would have done if her life continued to be that kind of chaotic nightmare. She had her tinctures to make sure that she didn’t suffer from her condition and she didn’t pass it onto her children either. Cody and Logan had long since gotten their curse lifted from them without a single person having to die, something that was far easier than the Motherless wanted to say that it was. They were able to live happily in their little home on the edge of the Soulford, attending counsel meetings and working to better their community.

One day, her parents would pass or decide that they could no longer rule over the land as they once had. She would have to pack up her family and move into the massive house that she had resided in when she was younger. She would have to attend every meeting instead of just the ones that held some amount of interest to her. One day, Isaac wouldn’t be able to train more Garrons to take over the police force and Cody would have to spend more and more time away from their family.

She knew that it would come one day, but today was not that day.

For now, she had her home. It was a quaint cottage that Logan and Cody had built together as a way of quelling their nerves about their wedding and baby respectively. The walls had been painted over with a lovely bright white that was grimy within toddler reach, despite her attempts to clean it. The floor was covered in rugs just about everywhere that they didn’t hinder movement or make a mess, such as the kitchen and the bathroom. There was a large family room with as many bookshelves as they could fill with things from their life before they became parents. Further into the house was the main bathroom, their shared office, the dining room, and the kitchen. Upstairs was the nursery, the spare room that would be taken by the other twin once they were old enough to sleep apart, and the room that she shared with her husband. She had decorated her space the way that she had liked it soon after they moved in, pleasantly soft colors and eclectic furniture that they had purchased from the local craftsmen.

Currently, her home was decorated for the upcoming Christmas celebration. She had strung red and green tinsel over every picture frame, the tree was sparkling happily with the light from the fire in the living room, and the girls had produced quite a few paper snowflakes to fill any empty space on the windows.

The holidays were different with children than they had been when she was younger, or even when she and Cody had first gotten married. The beginning years that she had spent with her husband were only difficult because they had realized how different their traditions were from each other. They had since assimilated them together into a wonderful amalgamations so that they both felt like the dark winter months were special. Once they had children, the struggle had returned and then quickly faded away.

Cody was able to take the girls sledding and have them help him pick out the tree, two things that Felicity had never been allowed to do. In turn, she was able to read her favorite stories to them and take them to the ball that her mother threw every year. Something new that they had started with only their family, however, was baking Christmas cookies on the eve before the holiday.

With everything else that they also had to do given their stations and the quickly fleeing hours until the big day, they had to rush it. The girls had been absolutely coated in flour, which had made Ella more upset than she had been since Maggie put snow down the back of her coat. Cody had taken them to have a bath while Felicity finished putting the last batch in the oven and cleaning up. It was a lot easier to clean chocolate chips out from between the floorboards when she didn’t also have to worry about how close her four-year-olds were to the stove.

She had just finished placing the mixing bowls back into the cupboard where they belonged when she noticed that she couldn’t hear the noises of bathtime any longer. She wiped her hands on her ruined apron and then reached behind her so that she could undo the strings. She felt a bit of viscous batter that had made its way to her hair that she would have to get out at another time, but for now she wanted to find her babies.

Felicity hadn’t really known what kind of mother she would be when she realized that she hadn’t had a cycle in several months. She had gotten her pregnancy confirmed by the town healer and then had to do a lot of mental work. She knew that Cody would be overjoyed since he already liked playing with Logan and Gan’s little one, but she was still worried about what being full time parents would do to them. She adored her husband and tolerated her father-in-law, but just the change in generations made her a bit stressed that they wouldn’t be as good as her parents had been. Even then, her parents had made some poor decisions about how to raise her that had hurt her for a very long time.

Then their girls were there, finally in their arms with their tiny perfect everything. They had made the biggest decision that they had in a long time and finally named them Cordelia and Margaret, their Ella and Maggie. Felicity had been unable to look away from them and she knew that even if she struggled with parenting them, she would always try. She would correct the mistakes that their parents had made without going too far in the other direction and harming her children in another way. She would be humble and learn from them, she would apologize and be gentle at all times. She wasn’t an outside perspective and she wasn’t in the minds of her still very young children, but she was confident that she and Cody were doing a good job so far.

Felicity’s fingers brushed through her hair to card out any of the leftover cookies that were clinging to her blond ringlets. She tucked the apron onto the back of one of the chairs next to the dining room table. Her dress underneath was still stained with bits of flour and egg, which was why it was the one that she used when she was doing housework. She would have to change it after she found out where the loves of her life had gone.

She walked carefully up the stairs towards the hallway where the nursery and spare room were. She made sure that she was quiet enough that she could pick up on any hushed whisperings. Her beautiful little girls were so close to each other and both so imaginative in their own ways that they would make a game out of everything. They knew that they were supposed to be quiet when they went to bed and thus would try their best to do so when they were playing past bedtime, but they almost always failed. Just last week, she and Cody had caught them playing in the hallway with their little toy soldiers while mimicking their uncle in something that was akin to Cody’s goblin voice.

She was met with a noise, but not what she had been expecting.

Tiny angels - Christmas angels try to sleep

Don't let Santa hear the sounds of little feet

Now its time to close your eyes and drift away

Until you wake tomorrow and its Christmas day

Cody’s dulcet tones echoed through the lofty ceiling of their second story. She immediately realized that he was already in the nursery with their girls, she could hear the underlying snuffling of toddlers falling asleep that proved it. Felicity raised a single hand to her mouth to make sure that she stayed quiet as she drifted closer to where the sound was coming from. She leaned on the door as she took in the scene in front of her, her heart hammering in her chest.

Tiny angels - I have heard you every night

Whispering with bright eyes shining in the light

Daddy, when is it Christmas - will it soon be here?

Well my darlings, it's very, very near

The nursery had changed quite a bit since they had taken their twins out of their room. Gone was the huge crib where Maggie and Ella slept together, holding each other’s hands to comfort the other as they slept. They had exchanged them for twin beds that were tucked under the sloping edge with a huge piece of cloth each so that they created a faux-canopy. The other half of the room held the half dozen shelves that were filled with numerous book and toys, handed down to the twins from their parents and Logan. 

Cody was seated in between the heads of the beds with his back pressed into the wall. He had turned towards Maggie, who always had a harder time falling asleep. His eyes were so heavily glued to his daughter that he hadn’t even registered the fact that his wife was right there, watching him.

As near as you my angels - since you came to me

Now Christmas day and every day is the same to me

The only gifts that I could want are you, my darlings

Cody brushed his fingers over Maggie’s already sweaty forehead to remove some of the dark black locks from where they were falling into her eyes. She gave a little noise of acknowledgement and then rolled over. She burrowed further down into her blankets, her arms tightening as hard as they could around the stuffed animal she had received last year for Christmas.

Tiny angels - Christmas angels sleeping tight

May Santa bring you all the gifts you want tonight?

And some day when you have tiny angels too

I hope you find the joy I found in you

Felicity worried for a minute that she had been found out when she noticed that her husband was turning. She almost let out a sigh of relief when she saw that he was still enamored with their children and she was hidden.

He turned so that he was facing the other twin, singing lightly to her while curled around the side of her bed. If the scene in front of her hadn’t been so sickly sweet, then she would have thought that it was almost comical. The furniture had been made especially for a four-year-old and Cody was a grown man that worked out every single day. He looked massive sitting in between the tiny toddler beds while trying to make himself as small as possible.

You changed the world, my angels - when you came to me

Now Christmas day and every day is the same to me

The only gifts that I could want are you

She knew that sentiment inside and out. The girls had been a surprise to them both, something that neither of them had taken into consideration as early into their marriage as they had come. They had been so worried, so nervous and anxious that they were going to do it wrong. The moment they saw their babies, they knew that they would have to at least try. She remembered it like it was yesterday and likely would for the rest of her life. Their daughters had changed their entire worlds if not the world has a whole.

Tiny angels - Christmas angels try to sleep

Don't let Santa hear the sounds of little feet

Now its time to close your eyes and drift away

Until you wake tomorrow and its Christmas day

Cody finished the last verse and then gave both of the girls a kiss on the head. Ella stretched out so that her foot was hanging out from her blankets, but he quickly tucked her back where she belonged. Maggie gave another stir of discontent but when one of her blue eyes blinked open and saw that it was only Cody, she slipped back into her lull of sleep.

He stood up and watched them for a moment. Both of them had always done that and likely would continue to do so until their girls were old enough to stop needing to be tucked in. Felicity didn’t want to think about them being that grown up though, even the thought of it made her heart ache in her chest.

Cody turned around and walked towards her. She had the common decency to look guilty at being caught, but the only thing that he did was smile at her. He grabbed one of her hands with his own and then used the other to close the door so that they wouldn’t wake their children. “Are the cookies done?”

“Thank the gods, yes,” she laughed. “The girls give you any trouble?”

“You’re asking about our girls? Not Logan and Gan’s hellion?” he asked with a small chuckle. He kissed the knuckles of her hand as he led her further down the hall. “I’m sorry if my singing scared you, I know I don’t have a very good voice. I just… I saw that song in one of the books that Harold gave us and I thought that it would make Christmas Eve even more special. I’ve been singing it to them since they were newborns.”

“Cody, your voice is amazing!” Felicity gasped like she couldn’t believe that he had just said that. “And I think that you doing that for them is so sweet. I’m so glad that I married you.”

He paused and turned towards her, his spare hand coming to rest on her cheek. He traced his thumb over her cheekbone for a few seconds before he leaned in for a kiss. “I love you.”

She closed the distance between them. “I love you, too.”