Kids

Memories fade
Like looking through a fogged mirror
outfit | Beckett Archibald Graves
Date: 27 January
Location: Odelia and Langdon's

She was home for the weekend; that was it, really. She wasn't going to be there for much longer, but she had gotten a bit of time away from the school so that she could go home and see her family. Odelia knew that there was a lot to be expected of the Deputy Headmistress. She knew exactly what she had gotten into when she had taken the job. She had a job to do, she had to make sure that she had everything in shape, and it was with exhaustion that she had been able to Floo home to see everyone. She had finally managed to get her grades done and ready to be tallied, she had her lesson plans done for the next week, and the planner was finally updated and ready for the next month or so, give or take. There was always the off chance that Delilah would have some random little date sprinkled in, but she wasn't sure... She could never really be sure with her daughter, but she did try. Odelia didn't like when things fell behind, she hated feeling out of the loop. Things were going to fall into place, they were going to work and make sense if she had a say in it. Of course, she couldn't control everyone, and she was usually pretty fine with that. Some things just didn't work in the way that you wanted them to. 

But she was home, now. She was home for the weekend and Odelia was going to do as much as she could to make up for how many hours, weeks, and days she was up at the school. She had always known that going home was going to be a rare occurrence, that it wasn't really going to happen very often. This was going to be something that she could do once or twice a month, she was sure. Hogwarts wasn't an every so often commitment, it was daily. It was hourly. Taking the job she knew that she was going to be missing out on some aspects of her life and her family's, but she had made that decision long ago and she was sticking to it. She loved teaching, after all. She loved how the kids looked up to her, she loved how she could explain her passion. It was amazing, really. She could trail on and on about numerology and Arithmancy, and they had to listen. They sat there and they took notes, and once in a while she would end up with kids in her class that were really genuinely interested in what she was teaching, and then they went on and graduated just to ask for an apprenticeship in the future. 

That, in short, was always fantastic. That felt great, just seeing someone who was interested in things like that, in what she liked. She always felt like she had done something great. She loved helping kids hone their talent, especially in her own line of work. Unfortunately, her kids hadn't taken such a shining to her job, which was sad. She wished that they had, but Owen and Delilah had their own opinions, their own ideas, and she loved that just as much. They were her beautiful, fierce, loving kids. They followed their own path, and they did just as well. Now, they were hanging around with their father and aunt, and she had managed to corner Beckett in the other room when she went to fetch more wine. "So..." she said, her lips pulled into a grin. "I hear your wife has baby fever." She tried not to laugh, but she did feel Olivia's baby fever. She just knew she couldn't handle that right now. 

KIDS

OUTFIT

Langdon had always been the one that had it all figured out. His younger brother-the one that met the witch that he loved, and got married. Beckett had always been more focused on politics back then, and the power that he wanted in the Ministry. He was the one that had gotten married to Eliza because it had made sense, and because she had known how to play the game. Langdon had gotten married to Odelia, and had Delilah. They'd had the perfect little family, far before Beckett had even realized that he'd wanted that. It had taken a bit longer for him to realize that he didn't just want a political marriage, or power in the Ministry. He had wanted more than that. Even when he had first met Olivia, he hadn't realized that. For a time, she had just been a woman that he knew he needed to avoid, because it made him tempted to do something he shouldn't. It made him feel like he was going to betray his marriage to Eliza, and that wouldn't do anything positive for his reputation in the Ministry. That was what had been important to him back then.

But then he had given into that temptation, and they had started quite the affair. No one had known about it-not even his family. Not Langdon, not anyone. They might have had their suspicions, he could admit that. They might have thought that there was something different about him, and honestly… they might have even thought that an affair was a reason why. Langdon knew him well, and Odelia was observant. But if they thought that he was cheating on Eliza, they hadn't said anything. And if they had thought that, they wouldn't have known who. They hadn't met Olivia, hadn't had a reason to think it was her, because they didn't work together in the Ministry. She was a lawyer, they had met after the fiasco at the Quidditch World Cup, they had needed to work together in the Triwizard Tournament, but then they hadn't had much of a reason to interact. That had worked in their benefit, really.

The most that they saw each other in the public eye had been at Ministry events, where they hadn't socialized more with each other than anyone else, in order to avoid suspicion. So while his family might have had their suspicions, due to being just that observant, they hadn't met Olivia officially until he had chosen her. Until she had told him that she wasn't going to be the other woman anymore, and had made him choose. Until he had divorced Eliza, and then introduced her to the family. He hadn't wanted to wait. He hadn't wanted them to be publicly apart for long enough for people not to think that there had to be cheating. Beckett had chosen her and he didn't care if people had their suspicions when the news of the divorce had come out, and when his and Olivia's relationship had come out. At the very least, it seemed like his family had approved-still did. Merlin knew that his wife's best friend at this point was Odelia. Them together could be… a lot, but he much preferred it to the woman that had previously been Olivia's best friend. But better not to speak ill of the dead.

He was just glad that they got along. He was glad that he had figured it out, because now their family events were a hell of a lot more fun than when Eliza had been around. They had Delilah and Owen, and he and Olivia had Callahan, Lyla, and Anderson… though the elder two were at school. It was still fun when they could get together, even if it was a smaller gathering today. Anderson was running around somewhere, and it seemed like Odelia's current mission involved wine. "Heard about that, did you?" He asked, with an amused grin. It was something that had been… a tough subject between the pair for a while now. They weren't ones to argue about all that much, because they were usually on the same page. But they really weren't with this. He thought that they were getting a little too old, that the difference in ages between Anderson and a newborn would be a little too much-that they wouldn't be free of kids for another eighteen years if she got pregnant again and by that point, Merlin he would be old. He wanted them to still be young enough to enjoy having no kids around, once Anderson got through Hogwarts. And yet she didn't really seem to see a problem with that, which was where their disagreements came about. "It's an argument I don't really think I'm winning." He added, shaking his head. He wasn't all that surprised that Liv had told Odelia about it.

She loved her family, it was as simple as that. Odelia was a family-oriented witch, and she knew that wasn't going to change. It had been like that since the start, ever since she was younger. She followed her brother around, when she was younger. She and Greg were close, they were the ones who made jokes and ran around the house fighting off dragons. She hadn't ever been a damsel in distress to her elder brother. If anything she was the one who protected him, most of the time. She was the overprotective younger sister, the one who got nervous when her brother went on a date. Greg was fragile. Emotional. Even now she was a bit nervous. Greg had a lot of feelings, and they were easily hurt. She made sure he didn't get too wounded when they were younger, just like her parents had asked her too. She knew that it was a bit funny that she was asked to look after Greg, but he was a wreck, and she had always had her life in order. Even when she was younger, everything was in order, and she had always put her family first. 

Odelia had married into a family that was also really, really focused on that. It wasn't something that had been super important, at first, because she and Langdon had just fallen in love in a whirlwind before she had retreated for a little bit. It was so fast, so... She was lucky. She was more lucky than she knew, because they had had Delilah and she had gone to Lufkin, and Langdon had helped take care of their daughter so that she could do what she needed to do. They were a close knit little group even before Olivia, and she was already devoted to the Graves the second that she had become one. Sure, she really didn't like her original sister-in-law, but there was nothing she could do about it. She tried, she really did, to smile and grin, and she thought that there was something up with Beck, but she really didn't know. She was detail-oriented just as much as she was family-oriented, so it was the little things... She couldn't say that she was expecting it, though. Olivia had come as a shock, but Odelia had been happy nonetheless. 

She liked how everything was, now. She loved having Olivia around, she loved the fact that she had a sister, now. They had a perfect little family, them and the kids, and Beck and Olivia and her niece and nephews. They were adorable, they were all together now... She didn't want to let go, but Odelia knew that she had to go back to Hogwarts to her other kids. They might just blow up the school if she disappeared for too long. "I have ears everywhere, Beck," she teased, looking around for the bottle. She must have misplaced it earlier, or her own kids had decided to take it for a little joyride. No, she just moved it out of the way. She reached for it and hoped that the tension had eased out of Beckett's shoulders a bit. She knew that it must have been a sore subject; she could tell just in the tone of his voice. "Is there something scaring you about that idea?" 

Olivia wasn’t letting it go. She wanted another kid, and it was an argument that they had been having for months. He didn’t particularly like arguing with her. It wasn’t something that he enjoyed. Upsetting her wasn’t something that he wanted to do, but it didn’t really seem like she was taking much stock in the reasons why he didn’t want them to have any other kids. He knew that it was something that they had to figure out together--he couldn’t just decide they weren’t having a kid, and she couldn’t just decide that they were. If they didn’t work it out together, they were never going to get anywhere with it. But she honestly just didn’t seem to be listening all that much to the reasons that he had. He understood that she felt like they still had plenty of their life to live. He knew that. He knew that, by wizarding standards, he wasn’t even middle-aged yet. But that didn’t stop him from feeling like he was going to be old by the time they got all the kids out of the house.

He loved their kids. They hadn’t planned for any of them, but they had all been good surprises. Beckett hadn’t even known if he would be good with kids until he’d been around his own. He had been good with his nephew and his niece too. He had always enjoyed taking Delilah to Quidditch practices with him, and spending time with them. Even before he’d had kids of his own, he’d liked spending time with them. But until they’d had Callahan, he hadn’t known how much he liked being a father. Having three kids… he just thought that was the perfect number. They had Callahan and Anderson, and Lyla would always be his little girl. She was giving him too much of a heart attack already with all of the heels that she owned that were far too tall in his opinion. He was tempted to toss them all out but he hadn’t yet. He didn’t think that they needed another daughter to give him heart attacks. He was quite good with just the one.

But his wife was good at arguing, and good at getting her way. She hadn’t dropped this for months now and Beckett didn’t think that it was something that she was going to let go of anytime soon. He just didn’t want to fight her on it. He didn’t know how to come to some easy solution when they didn’t want the same kid. She could relent and stop talking about it, but she would still want another one. He could give in and they could start trying for another baby, but he wouldn’t really want one. There wasn’t an easy answer, so he wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. “Of course you do--how could I have forgotten?” He chuckled. Beckett found that he was a little curious what his sister-in-law thought about all of this, but he thought that he could guess that her vote was for another baby. “Plenty, Delia. She’s just not really seeing that.” Either she wasn’t seeing it, or she wasn’t taking his issues with it seriously at all. He wasn’t sure what one.

Odelia knew that it was a complicated subject, having kids, especially since they were all getting older. She knew that she and Langdon had had it easier than Beck and Liv. They had fallen in love and had had Delilah, and they had already been married before Liv and Beck had really gotten their relationship started. It was different because she had already grown up and had her kids, and they had been married, and she had had it all from the start. She wanted Liv to have that, but she knew that it was a complicated subject. She had broached it with Langdon, before, before she had decided to take the job at Hogwarts. She knew that it wouldn't be good for them, and she had her two kids who she loved more than anything. But it was a complicated subject for anyone, really, to figure out. It involved so much talking, so much focus and discussion. It was important. It was a huge change, it was something that would be a big part of their lives. Kids weren't just a small commitment, they were a life commitment, and they were all getting closer to older. Her kids were out of the house, now, and even if they were older than their cousins it was still... She didn't know what everyone was thinking, but Odelia thought that she could kind of guess.

She knew that it was a tough subject. She thought that Beck might have been against it, at least a bit, because she only knew that it was a discussion and it hadn't moved much further than that. And since she knew that Liv was so excited, it had to be Beck who was a bit against it. She understood, really, where he was coming from. She knew it because she was going through it, now. They had gotten the kids out of the house, and it was their time, now. She and Langdon had time for themselves. If they had another kid now then they would be... ancient, really, by the time that they got out of Hogwarts and out of the house. Beckett was probably thinking about that. She was definitely relishing in that period when she was home, even when she missed her kids. She definitely missed them being home, especially now that she herself wasn't home that often. She missed being able to see them all the time. Odelia definitely did enjoy the emptiness, sometimes. She enjoyed how she could just be with her husband and not have to worry about what else was going on in the house. So she understood both sides, and that almost made it worse. She wondered if Langdon had spoken to his brother about it all, or if she was the first one to see how they were faring with the whole decision. 

She doubted it, though. It was the Graves women who dealt with everything. They were the ones who had solved the problems, who had made sure that everything was running smoothly. She loved her boys, but they were pretty useless sometimes. Odelia doubted that Beck had even fully told his wife what his issue was, but she didn't know for sure. She wasn't really involved, she just kept butting her head in. There really was a difference between the two things, even if she didn't really see that. "Basically,  I know just about everything," she said, letting out a laugh. Odelia really didn't, but she knew that it looked it sometimes. It was just because she asked, really. She wanted to make sure her family was fine, so she asked. "Come on, you can tell me. I've got a pretty good listening ear." Because if Liv wasn't listening, then she would, and she would help them figure it all out. She wanted to help. 

This was an argument that he just hadn’t been able to get away from. For… very nearly a year now, it had felt like they could never get past this argument. It hadn’t necessarily been a fight for the entire year, but it seemed to be something that came and went from her mind that she saw fit to argue about every couple of months. It had started when Aurora had gotten pregnant, because her best friend getting pregnant was obviously enough to spark up that baby fever. That was… fine. Whatever. He wasn’t the biggest fan of her best friend, but that was beside the point. He could accept some baby fever because he had been sure that it was going to pass. But then she had died and somehow that had made Olivia want a baby more. Beckett couldn’t begin to understand it, he just knew that it was something that she hadn’t let go. It came up every couple of months, less sometimes, and then they argued about it until she said that she was going to drop it. But they both knew that she was not going to drop it. That was just how she was. When she wanted something, when she put her mind something, she wasn’t going to easily forget and let it go. She was very good at getting her way. Beck knew that about her--he always had.

And he had promised himself that he was going to spend the rest of his life making her happy. Salazar knew that she had been through hell because of him before. The entire length of their affair had to have been hard on her. Not at the beginning, when it had just been shagging in coat closets and no feelings. But the second that it had become more than that, he had known that it had to hard for her. He had just been good at trying to remain ignorant of that and he had just kept thinking that everything was fine the way that it was. That had been unfair of him, and he had almost lost her because of it. He had wised up, he had divorced Eliza, and he had told himself that he was going to make it up to her. He would spend the rest of his life making it up to her, and do whatever he could to make sure that she was happy. That wasn’t to say that their relationship was perfect. No relationship was perfect. Sometimes the Tornados lost a match and Liv threw china at his head. He was good at ducking. That was fine. But he didn’t think that they had ever had any major fights, he didn’t think that she had ever truly been unhappy since they had gotten together. He hoped she hadn’t, at least.

So he knew that he should just let her have another baby if that was what she wanted. He did love kids. He would love another baby--it wasn’t that he wouldn’t. He had found that he was surprisingly good with kids, if he did say so himself. Beckett should just let it happen, but he knew that wouldn’t be all that genuine of him. He knew that she deserved the truth and that was that he wasn’t sure that he wanted another kid. He was older than she was. If she got pregnant now, he would be fifty-five years old when that child was born. They wouldn’t go to Hogwarts until he was sixty-six. Wouldn’t graduate until he was in his seventies. He wanted them to be able to enjoy their kids being adults, and being on their own. He wanted them to be able to travel and do what they wanted before they were too old to enjoy it. It wasn’t that he didn’t love their kids--he did. He just thought every parent did look forward to their youngest graduating and being on their own, and knowing that they’d changed their last diaper, and that they could do what they wanted without babysitters and plans and kids to worry about. If they had another kid, they would have eighteen more years until they were on their own. She just didn’t get that. He sighed as Odelia spoke again. It was just hard to figure out how to put that into words. He didn’t think that his sister-in-law was likely to understand. “Cal is about to graduate. Lyla will soon… Anderson will be in school before we know it. I don’t know if I want to sign up to another eighteen years before we have an empty house. Does that sound terrible?”