She is giggling beautifully while pulling her brother's hands in circles.
She has his eyes, deep lush green that penetrates the deep of the forest.
Small upturned nose and thick lips that for sure will break many men's hearts in the future.
Dark hair passing through her shoulders in series of wavy locks,
Clearly from the mother.
He could see himself in her,
The mini-him, female version.
She is so beautiful.
The boy has dark, brown eyes and straight dark hair, like his.
But his features are softer than his sister,
And the man's heart hitched a little when he hears the boy's laughter.
He laughs like his mother.
He is perfect.
They both are.
He unconsciously held out his hands,
Itching to feel that they are real, not a figment of his imagination.
"Don't."
A cold voice from behind startles him. He was used to silence for a long time, but her voice jolted him out from his trance. He turns around and see her, after 4 years and age has been kind to her.
She still looks the same.
Except that she is a mother now.
A mother to his children.
"You left." His voice is calm, but there are no accusation in it. Just a statement. There is no small, awkward greetings, they never did that before, why start now? It is better to get this over with. But she doesn't look guilty or even flinched from his words.
"I had to leave. To protect them." She stares at him, eye level. She is different from the girl he'd known 4 years ago, motherhood changes her.
"They are mine." He knows this, he sensed it when he first saw them playing by the meadow. But he needs to hear it from her, to finalize the feelings that has been tingling within him.
She took a deep breath, glancing towards her children, oblivious of their mother and the stranger.
"Yes."
He sighed internally, this is a lot harder than he had ever imagined it to be, and he had caused this.
"I want to know everything. Tell me everything."
"No, because even if they're yours biologically, they are mine. Mine alone. You cannot barge in demanding like this. Don't come when everything is good when the time I was suffering you weren't there." Her voice is low, but sharp and meant to hurt.
"Please," he pleads.
She stills, her features freeze and he sees her rubbing the back of her hair absentmindedly. It is one of her gestures when she is anxious or seconds from having panic attacks. He knows that too well to memorize all her body languages. But the girl, woman standing in front of him has better self-possession than the girl he knew. She tries to inhale and somehow calms herself up.
"They were pre-mature babies. At 36th week, the placenta has detached. The babies weren't getting any oxygen and stuck. They cut me open so that they won't asphyxiate and die. And I was badly hemorrhaging, it took 18 hours to end it all. " She calmly states, as if telling him the weather. He flinches slightly at the information, knowing that she almost die, they almost die, all of them.
"You're okay?" He whispers, voice trembling. She looks at him sheepishly, with a subtle hint of annoyance.
"Do I look dead to you?" She retorts with a small sarcasm in her voice. She has always been like that. Too straightforward and honest, it annoys people. He chuckles lightly, relieved to see there is some parts of her still there, even after all these years.
"Ibu!"
Their conversation is cut from the toddlers, running toward their mother in series of giggles and laughter. Her features quickly softens as she opens up her arms to squish two laughing kids and blows raspberry in their cheeks. His heart drops to a thud, seeing them, Seeing what should have been his.
He knows she won't let him in easily, knows that she has been broken before him, and all he ever did was adding a new scar to her old ones. But no matter how, he is determined not to fuck things up again.
She held her babies, nicknaming them from her favorite novel and glancing briefly at the man watching her and the kids. Of course, she could be selfish. Shutting him out again and never letting him come close to the children, but she knows they need their father, despite having a handful of uncles and aunts to smother them with love, every single day. She would let him in, step by step, into the kids' lives. But not hers. Her heart is frozen to anyone except for Widget and Poppet, as everyone calls them.
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