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Wellspring Arms & Meditation Center, Friday

Rikku was oddly flat as she came into work Friday morning. She was supposed to be hyper about prom, but she felt like maybe she shouldn't even go. It seemed weird to be off partying when one of her good friends was in pain.

Anyway. Wellspring Arms was open, and Rikku was thinking. A lot.

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She's here.

In the morning, Cable came down the stairs.

As per usual.

He was carrying a baby in a sling around his torso.

Not so usual.

"Morning, Rikku," he greeted, upon entering the store, and made a beeline for the security panel.

Edited 2008-04-25 17:40 (UTC)

"Morn--"

Rikku stared.

"Is .... that your baby?"

How did she not know her boss had a baby!?

"In a way," Cable replied, trying to focus on doing the numbers while the baby in question made-- noise. He'd have to put this on hold until he sat her down somewhere--

Crib. Back room. He turned back towards the hallway. "She'll be staying here for a while."

"What's her name?" Rikku asked, hurrying over. "Ooooh, she's beautiful. Are you watching her for someone?"

It seemed so out of place, the tiny girl strapped to Cable's massive frame, and yet there was something about it that was somehow all the more endearing.

He came to a stop, then, few feet away from the door. And shot Rikku a look, almost surprised, something like a smile on his face. "She's hope," Cable said-- not her name, but her being.

A name-- that was something he was going to keep to himself. She wasn't his child, after all... "The first of our kind in a long while." The smile quirked into a faint smirk. "She's a trooper."

"Hope," Rikku said, smiling. "I bet she is."

She got closer, and folded her arms in tight to resist the urge to ask if she could hold her. She didn't know if that was okay.

"Do you ... need any help? I mean, with her."

He was halfway into telling her no-- and then he thought of Scott, that morning. Talking about big pictures and living lives... "I could use a hand from time to time," Cable replied. He wasn't really looking at Rikku, at that.

The baby gurgled up at him, as she had for the past few days. "She sleeps a lot." He brushed a thumb across the baby's temple. "I need to get her something more permanent for the store."

Definitely dragging that crib out for good.

"They probably have baby stuff in Turtle & Canary's," Rikku said. "Like a bassinet and diapers and all that? And little stuffed animals. I can run over on my break if you wanted to hold down the fort."

She paused. "We ... you know. Helped watch the kids while everyone was off doing patrols and fixing up mech, back Home. They always sleep a lot, when they're that little."

"I've already got the works," Cable replied. The baby was-- well, she wasn't crying, or doing anything in her diapers, which was good enough for him right now. "I remember a few things."

He'd take the gurgling. "But thank you," he said, honestly. "I'll keep it in mind."

"It's not half as hard as people make it sound," she smiled. "And I'm around. I mean, you have my number and all that, right? In case something comes up, or whatever."

"She seems to have her priorities straight," Cable returned, wryly. "And you seem to be angling for a raise."

He was joking. Mostly. Sort of.

Rikku snickered. "Pfft. I don't work here for the money. I just like being around guns."

"And babies," he deadpanned, resuming his march towards the hallway. "I'm putting a crib in the store."

"Can we hang little toy guns around it?" Rikku grinned.

"Might not be completely ethical."

He was smirking as he said it.

"I'll keep that in mind," she grinned.

Shortly after Rikku's lunch break, she returned to the shop with a couple of bags from Turtle and Canary's.

She skipped the guns for the crib. Ducks and elephants were way better for that. And of course a soft little giraffe rattle, an elephant, and a little lamb that played music. Every baby needed toys. And it was never too early a book or two.

She blushed, scuffing her toes, and held the bags out to Cable. "I ... uh. Here. She might need ... I mean, more toys are good, right?"

Cable--

Took a moment to look away from the crib. "Um," he said, eloquently.

And then pulled himself together. "In general, yes," he continued, fluidly. "Thank you, Rikku."

"No problem," she said, taking the bags back instead so she could fish out a few things. "Some of these just make noise so she can sit and play with them and they're all soft so it's okay if they stay in the crib with her. Oh, rats, I forgot a mobile, I knew I was gonna forget something."

"We'll work on that," Cable said, gently. He lifted the baby up out of the sling with both arms, glancing over at Rikku. "She'll appreciate it." Somehow.

He was still a little clueless; it never quite went away.

The baby stared up at him with big eyes.

"She's beautiful," Rikku said, again. "And it'll work out, you know. You've got the basics. Babies are pretty simple when you get down to it. Feed them, change them, hold them a lot. Everything else, you can kinda just wing it."

Jack popped in. This was that bouncy girl's shift, right? "Um. Hi."

"Hi," she said cheerfully. "No, I'm not selling you a gun."

"Aw, man," he said, as cheerfully, "then I guess I'm not going to prom. Oh, well, saves me the trouble of finding a dress for a rifle."

He cocked his head to the side a bit. "Haven't been in here for a while. Was wondering if it still looked the same."

"Could always go by yourself," she said cheerfully. "Rifles don't do the whole lace thing well, anyway."

"Yeah, but I never bought the tickets. Hm. Not sure if they'd let me in," he said, pensively. It hurt. "Pfft. You don't put lace on a rifle!"

"Then buying a rifle wasn't gonna help anyway," Rikku said. "And good luck finding a prom dress without lace"

"Ah, well," he said. "Maybe I'll crash it anyways. Thanks!"

"Good luck!" she called, waving.

Mod your zen.

Pow, right in the kisser!

No world-ending before prom.

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Wellspring Arms & Meditation Center, Friday

Talk to Rikku

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The Meditation Room

The Shooting Range

OOC