#i will fix the dashes..........lllllllater

[luluwquidprocrow]

sweetest things

violet, klaus, beatrice, bertrand

gen

3,155 words

To the consternation of most of the Baudelaire household, the third Baudelaire child takes her very sweet time making an appearance.

my fic for @snckt for @asouefanworkevent's wicked way exchange!!! lainey, i loved ALL your prompts so much and i, fully 100% intend to do another one as well, when i can get my head around it better. but here is some baudelaire family slice of life!!

By Friday afternoon, according to Violet’s checklist, the Baudelaire family had tried –

1) An after dinner walk (It was fun for the four of them to go around the block after dinner, with Klaus pointing out all the summer flowers, but it hadn’t done anything at all. Mother hadn’t been very optimistic about that option anyway. She walked around all the time, and if that wasn’t enough to jog anything, more average physical exercise was unlikely to move things along.)

2) Surprising Mother (Father had hidden himself around the house all day and tried to startle her – it had only really worked once, and mostly just succeeded in Mother almost smacking Father right in the face with her summer book. They were all very thankful Mother was rereading Violet and Klaus’s books from when they were very little, and not her customary enormous summer novel. Violet wondered what would’ve become of Father’s face if he’d been smacked with, say, Mother’s gigantic illustrated Moby Dick with the gilded cover. Something very horrid, she thought. Father was very handsome.)

3) Dancing (Also a regular activity, but one Mother enjoyed much, much more than the after dinner walk. They’d all been sure that a whole afternoon of elegant tangos and brisk but careful sambas would be the perfect thing – but Mother had ended the day sitting and grumbling when nothing happened.)

4) Not doing anything in particular (On the chance that merely suspending their wait and pretending they weren’t waiting might cause something to happen. They all carried on with their usual day – Father brought Mother lemonade, and Mother read regular, adult books, and then did a crossword puzzle with Klaus, and Father worked on his puzzle book, and Violet and Klaus played chess in the library and gave answers when Father asked them for help with the trivia section, and then Mother and Father played game after game after game of backgammon, and they all painted their toenails again (with Violet and Klaus and Father taking turns doing Mother’s toenails), and none of them entered the nursery just to even look at it and make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and they even moved Mother’s hospital bags from the front foyer into a closet, and then they all sat around in the afternoon sun not doing anything until Mother let out a very dramatic sigh and said they should give it up as a lost cause. They’d gone out for ice cream that night, as a reward for all their trouble. They were a few days past Mother’s initial due date now, or her due week, because Violet had been late and Klaus had been early, so when it came to expecting her third child, Mother circled the whole first week of August so she was prepared at any moment. After the ice cream, she’d looked at the calendar in the hall almost like it had betrayed her.)

5) Laughing (Father told the most terrible, awful puns and jokes, and went around a whole morning making jokes in the library to make Mother laugh. Violet and Klaus thought Mother had to be humoring him, but it was her genuine laugh, every time. Maybe, they figured, when you married someone, you thought them saying “You’re a real page turner” and looking between Mother and the book she’d been holding was endearing, not embarrassing. Either way, that hadn’t worked, either.)

Violet starred the next thing on her list – spicy food – then put down her notebook and scooped up her invention into her arms. She carried it back downstairs, stepping over Klaus, who was in his usual position on the floor outside the kitchen, where the sunlight came in the best through the big glass window above the sink and filled up all the spaces of the Baudelaire home with a soft, yellow light. It fell right on the pages of Klaus’s book, just the way he liked it.

“What are you reading?” Violet asked, looking back over her shoulder.

“Nothing,” Klaus mumbled. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet this week, Violet thought, barely helping at all with Violet’s list. It was like all the anticipation, all the excitement, all the wondering and waiting just passed right over him. Violet frowned down at Klaus’s head, buried back in his book. She figured that when Klaus wanted to talk, then he would surely tell her what was bothering him. She’d just have to wait him out, too. And Violet was getting excellent practice at waiting things out.

“Ah! Is this it?”

Violet turned back to the kitchen. Father was looking at her expectantly, standing by the counter with the tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers and one onion all laid out. She rushed over and set her invention down.

She picked up one of the tomatoes and fit it onto the top dowel. Violet pressed the tiny button she’d put a tomato sticker on, and her invention whirred to life as she and Father watched – the tomato spun around as the record player underneath it started up, and on the first revolution, the skin of the tomato peeled off, and on the next, it split open, sliced out from the inside, creating neat little cubes of tomato that fell onto the transparent plate below, all to the tune of one of Father’s bossa nova records, the sound coming out of the gramophone horn fixed on the side. Violet beamed. She’d designed it last week, after seeing a box grater display in the supermarket, and knew she could do better.

“Wonderful!” Father said. “Very well done, Ed.” He removed the tomato pieces and set them in the big glass bowl at his elbow, then set one of the cucumbers on the dowel. “You can get started on the croutons,” he continued, gesturing at the sideboard cabinet, where he’d put the bread last night.

Violet picked up the big bread knife nearby and got to cutting. It would be easier, she started thinking, if there was a machine for this, too – and something that would toast the croutons – and something to saute the garlic to put them in – and maybe something to tell time while you were doing it, too – and maybe –

“Croutons first!” Father said.

Violet realized she’d been reaching for the ribbon in her trouser pocket. She gave herself a little shake and got back to the bread. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Father set the chopper for the cucumber. He was humming along with The Girl From Ipanema, and perfectly at ease. An excellent opportunity to try and catch him off guard.

“Where’s Mother?” Violet asked, to start.

“In the library,” Father said. He removed the cucumber and replaced it with a pepper. “Relaxing.”

“And it did not work,” came an irritated voice, and Violet and Father both looked up to see Mother in the doorway, holding onto the jamb as she stepped over Klaus as well and lowered herself slowly and gingerly down into one of the stools by the counter. Klaus watched her carefully until she’d sat down, and went back at his book.

“Aha! Here she is!” Father exclaimed. “Miss Tall and Tan and Young and Lovely herself!” He leaned over and gave Mother a quick kiss on her forehead, brushing some of the hair that had fallen out of the bun atop her head out of her face.

Violet barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Father was at it again. Certainly, Mother was tan and young and lovely, but not very tall at all. But it made Mother look a little less grumbly, and that was good.

“Anything I can do to help?” Mother asked. She adjusted her position in the stool, sitting at an angle so the curve of her stomach didn’t hit against anything. “Get you the vinegar? The coriander? Dance around with the salt shaker until I salsa this child out of me?”

“All you have to do is sit there and look nice,” Father said. “Which you already do, effortlessly. And not eat all the cucumbers,” he added, waving Mother’s wandering hand away from the big bowl.

Violet waited a few moments, slicing into the bread again. She wasn’t sure how she’d fare against both of her parents at the same time, now, but maybe it would cheer Mother up. And hopefully Klaus would join in. “I wonder if Ginger will like gazpacho,” she said, keeping her tone light.

Father started humming again. Mother was suddenly inspecting her fingernails, looking very interested.

Violet reached over into the icebox for the half-used garlic bulb. “Or if – ” She caught sight of the mason jar filled with soft, small green leaves. “ – Sage will like garlic croutons.”

Father smiled once more, his eyes sparkling behind his glasses, and Mother successfully stole a piece of cucumber from the big glass bowl and popped it into her mouth. “Very refreshing,” she commented. Father gave her a mock-stern look, until Mother said, “You said all the cucumbers, that was one cucumber.” She maintained eye contact as she reached into the bowl and took another. “Two,” she said, around the cucumber.

Violet puffed out a sigh. Mother and Father had been so tight-lipped for the past nine months about what they were going to name their third child. Violet and Klaus had taken to dropping name options at every opportunity, to see if they could jog a response. Not even food-themed names could get them to talk. Mother and Father were going to make them wait until the baby was born. Which, at this rate, could take an age.

All of a sudden, Klaus cut in. “Babies can’t eat gazpacho,” he called, looking into the kitchen. “Or garlic croutons.”

Violet didn’t scowl – she thought she was much too old for scowling – but her face scrunched up, just like Mother’s had been doing. Why didn’t Klaus want to have fun anymore? It wasn’t as if they’d run out of food names. And of course babies couldn’t eat gazpacho, but that wasn’t the point.

“Perhaps Pepper will like gazpacho when they’re old enough to try it,” Father said. He scooped up the last pepper and dropped it in with the rest of the ingredients. “Klaus, stop sulking down there and get the vinegar and citrus juice for me, please.”

Violet almost thought Klaus would insist he wasn’t sulking, he seemed in that sour of a mood, but it was hard to talk back to Father. So Klaus got up from the hall, bookmarked his page with a thin slip of paper, and joined Violet and Father and Mother in the kitchen.

While Violet and Klaus bustled around, getting the remaining ingredients, Mother chopped up a scallion into little pieces with a knife. Scallions! The one thing Violet hadn’t allotted for in her invention. She’d have to make an adjustment for that, later. Mother complemented Violet’s handiwork, then helped her cross a few wires so they could use it as a regular record player too, without needing to slice or chop anything more, and the Gilberto album went on, filling the kitchen with soft saxophones and guitars. When Father and Mother had mixed everything together in the bowl, Father placed the soup in the fridge so it could chill, and then the four of them made the croutons together.

They crowded around the stove top, pressed close to Mother as she sauted the butter and garlic in a pan before tossing all the bread cubes in alongside. Klaus got to shake the pan around to coat the bread, and use the big salt grinder to sprinkle them with salt after, and he looked a little happier.

Mother and Father piled the croutons atop a cream napkin on plate. “Well, we have to try them,” Mother said. The gazpacho would take forever to chill – or at least a couple hours – but garlic croutons were considered spicy too, Violet realized, and maybe that would be enough to convince the third Baudelaire sibling to make their appearance.

“I concur,” Father said, and the four of them each took a crouton. “What do you think?” he asked over all the crunching.

“Buttery,” Klaus said.

“Toasty,” Violet said.

“Garlicky,” Father put in.

“Very garlicky,” Mother said, looking pleased, and she took another crouton, and then a handful of them. “Well done, troupe.” They stood in the kitchen, waiting and waiting, but the only thing that happened was that Violet’s feet started to get a little sore from standing. The warm summer breeze continued, and the sun was still bright in the mid-afternoon sky, and Desafinado was playing now, and Mother was still, despite everyone’s best intentions, very, very pregnant. Violet frowned; Father kissed Mother’s forehead again; even Klaus sighed.

“Maybe the gazpacho will do something,” Mother sighed, and dusted crouton crumbs from her fingers. “It’s early, but how about the two of you set the table anyway, mm?”

Klaus got the napkins, and Violet got the silverware, and they passed under the big archway between the kitchen and the dining room, filled with soft purple and blue shards of sunlight from the pieces of stained glass in the dining room windows.

“I could always try to scare you again,” Violet heard Father offer, back in the kitchen. “I’m still upset that didn’t work.”

“If you tell me you’re going to scare me, how is that going to work, Bertrand?”

“Forget I said anything – look, that’s an awfully interesting frying pan, isn’t it? What if you look at it while I go over to the other side of the kitchen and get a washcloth and on the way back, while you’re very engrossed in the pan, who knows what will happen?”

Mother started laughing. Violet and Klaus followed each other around the table, putting each place setting down a piece at a time. It was a good sized table, Violet thought. Definitely enough room to accommodate the fifth Baudelaire.

“Which end do you think the baby will sit at?” Violet asked. She thought the far end, by Mother, would be the best, so Mother was right there if they needed anything.

“Babies can’t sit up right away,” Klaus said. “It’ll be months before they can sit at the table.”

Violet knew that, but that wasn’t the point of it, either. She thought maybe she should stop waiting out Klaus in particular and just come right out and ask him. She was his older sister, and soon to be the eldest sibling out of three, and she should be able to problem-solve this like she’d problem-solved an unexciting box grater, like she’d been making the list of things to try and help Mother, like she wanted to be able to do for their new sibling. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Klaus said again. He folded the fourth napkin and set it down on the table, a little too hard. He ran his fingers over the bend in the cloth. “Do you think the gazpacho will work?”

“I hope so,” Violet said. “Is that what you’re worried about?”

Klaus shrugged. “I mean – I liked things the way they were,” he said quietly. He adjusted his glasses, then the collar of his shirt, like the way Father fidgeted sometimes. “A baby changes a lot,” he pointed out. “Mother didn’t even read her summer book, this year.”

Things had been a little different this year, Violet realized. But not in a bad way. In a fun way, of getting things ready and helping Mother and Father, and they still spent a lot of time together, all of them. But Violet hadn’t been able to go to the museum with Mother as much as other summers, and Father had spent a lot of time looking out the window with a little crease of worry in his brow, when he thought no one else was watching. They’d all have to spend a lot of time looking after the baby when it finally did arrive. They might not be able to go to the museum at all, and maybe – it struck Violet with a pang – maybe Mother wouldn’t have time to read a book with Klaus next summer, either. Things might change a lot.

“And,” Klaus continued, “what if something goes terribly, terribly wrong? Babies aren’t supposed to be late.” He glanced past Violet and back into the kitchen, and when Violet followed his gaze, she saw the book Klaus had been reading earlier placed on the counter. One of Mother’s pregnancy books that they’d all taken turns reading.

“Oh, Klaus,” Violet said. “I don’t – I was late,” she remembered. “And Mother was okay. And – ” She hesitated. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing. “We’re all still a family, aren’t we? That doesn’t change just because some other things do.”

“It feels like it,” Klaus said miserably. “I like it when things stay the same.” He wiped the side of his hand under his glasses, over each eye.

Suddenly, Violet had an idea. She reached over and put her hand on Klaus’s shoulder. “I think Brie will really like you, Klaus,” she said, trying to put on her most serious face. The corner of her mouth twitched, just as Klaus met her eyes.

It worked – Klaus started to laugh, just like Mother’s genuine laugh, a loud and bright startled sound. “You think so? Wheely?” he asked.

“Of course they’re gouda,” Violet said, giggling.

“I hear puns!” Mother called. “Bad puns!”

“Excellent job!” Father called after.

The gazpacho was delicious. Mother was still pregnant after dinner – but the gazpacho was delicious, and so were the remaining croutons, after all of them sneaking handfuls while the gazpacho chilled. And Violet and Klaus and Mother and Father sat around the table, all of them suggesting the silliest food names they could come up with, making Mother laugh until there were tears in her eyes.

Father and Violet and Klaus gathered up all the dishes and took them in trips to the kitchen, letting Mother stretch out in her chair. When Violet and Klaus came back for the glasses, Mother grabbed hold of them and pulled them down onto her lap, all of them making a little oomph noise. They were a little too big to really fit comfortably, especially with Mother’s stomach taking up most of the room on her lap, but she held Violet and Klaus so close against her.

“Let me tell you a secret,” Mother whispered, looking at Violet and Klaus. “Don’t tell your father I told you, alright? Look surprised when he tells you. But I want to tell you.” She got a look in her eyes like she’d heard every word Violet and Klaus had said before dinner. Violet thought there wasn’t a thing in the world Mother didn’t hear. “Both of you, sweetest things.”

“What is it?” Klaus asked.

Mother smiled, slow and beautiful. “Sunny,” she said. “That’s what we’re going to name her.”