So begin the honeymoon years of the Moon-Monroe household, the period of time that gets brushed over often for the relative dullness of reading the unremarkable happiness of ordinary people. Perhaps, if they'd taken up Mrs Moon's offered papers might have found a way to spin their occasional fight over whose turn it was for laundry or their constant handholding at the grocery store into a story. Then again, had they become "those" Moons, they wouldn't have been doing groceries or laundry, and it was in these small normal spaces that they most enjoyed each other.
Lillia moved into Noki's modern little starter home on the edge of town and they made up for all the time they'd wasted.
Noki's work was predictable and paid the bills, Lillia's career as am agent was still more of a theory than a reality, but that was okay. They had all the time in the world and things that were much more fun than thinking about pensions or savings to occupy their time. They had a couples bowling night every week with Rose and Mugsy which always ended with Noki as a pile of blushing apologies as Rose lovingly ridiculed his playboy past. They had a weekly family dinner at the bistro with Lillia's parents, siblings and the assorted cousins, spouses and old friends that a family of their size always seemed to acquire.
Nobody except Lillia and Noki was surprised when a stubborn bout of stomach flu turned out to be the next fork in the family tree.
They hadn't got round to talking about babies as a specific rather than a definite future plan, but after so long spent waiting to be together, why wait now. Privately they both thought that having a bigger family might be nice. The Moons had always heavily implied to Noki that they thought having more than two children was tacky, unless of course you had failed to have a boy, in which case it was desperate but understandable. Lillia had a raft of cousins but her own childhood had been lonely at home, between the legacy of Eva's disappearance and Caspar's Asperger's, she'd often felt a bit lost.
Still, these were thoughts for the future and for now there were first baby logistics to fit in round the morning sickness, family announcements and work. The long planned bathroom remodel went on hold and the money went on very small socks and enough wash cloths to dry an army of babies... or so they thought.
Noki sent a polite email to his mother, letting her know she was going to be a grandparent, but wasn't surprised not to hear anything back. He was starting to get used to the disappointment of their disinterest in him as anything other than the Moon Petroleum heir, and what had once stabbed now only stung. It helped that after a bumpy start, the Monroes had basically adopted him, and getting to know them, realising that many of them had pasts they regretted and were still accepted was healing him in ways he hadn't really known he'd needed.
They were a noisier, tired-er, messier household, but also sillier and connected in a different way. Noki only had a week off work to soak it in while Lillia decided to wait to complete her final qualification.
Sometimes at his desk, Noki would worry that his girls back home were forgetting about him. Sometimes, home with the baby, Lillia worried that she was forgetting how to do anything aside from keep a baby alive. In the evenings they would each read that worry on each other and talk about it, cry about it, in a way they hadn't before they were exhausted parents with no capacity for subtlety.
Things were working so well, that following a promotion for Noki, it seemed as good a time as ever to add a sibling. Lillia felt like it would be easier to take one longer break from building her reputation as an agent than two shorter ones.
It would be tight, they barely had space for soon-to-be-toddler Rumi and all the clutter that came with that age, but that felt like a delightfully normal problem to have. Gray and Rachel had offered them the legacy house, it had too much room now they were on their own, but Lillia wasn't ready for that yet. She loved living with just her little family in a cosy kind of chaos and she wasn't ready to try and work out how she might make her parents house feel like her own.
Lilla was standing rocking Rumi back to sleep the night the familiar pangs of labour came back. A nervous thrill ran through her and she paused a while before waking Noki.
She loved this. This house, this family, this life they had made, and she was sure that the new baby would only compound that love.
Two days later and hundreds of miles away, an impatient hand crumpled the newspaper, flown in specially from Lucky Palms.
"What kind of name is Asa?" he grumbled to an assistant hovering nervously at the door. The assistant cast about for an answer that wouldn't get them fired but an answer wasn't required.
"At least it's a boy this time" the man concluded, his voice thoughtful. "Please call my wife in. She's going to be making a trip".
