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And all that I have is yours.
All that I am is yours...
Painted skies; I've seen so many that cannot compare
To your ocean eyes.
--Mae, "The Sun And The Moon".
*
The nurse pulls the corners of the blanket back, revealing the newborn with the thick, dark hair and the enormous eyes. Quillish Wammy strokes his finger along the edge of the material, the rough pad of his fingerprint running softly over the warmth of the baby's face. An almost-smile creases the corners of the man's mouth.
"May I hold him?" he asks, before drawing his hand back, as though he doesn't wish to infringe upon the child's rights.
The young woman - so young; they seem to get younger every year, although he himself is hardly old yet - laughs, and nods. "Of course, Mister Watari. He's going to be yours, is he not? If you sign the papers?" And she reaches out, and places the tiny blue bundle of life into Wammy's hands, even while he's still processing her words. He's yours. Yours. People say you cannot own a child, but there is something of the nature of possession in the relationship, she's right about that even if, perhaps, it's her migrant's tongue which is behind her statement, rather than some philosophical concept. Wammy takes the child, and cradles him with the ease of a man long accustomed to holding young things. And he is accustomed to it, of course; he's held so many children, so many newborns - first, in the orphanage where he'd grown up and then, later, whilst seeking for something... for something which none of them have ever had. He's sat in hospital rooms like this before, and held them. He's whispered hellos and maybes but then, in the end, he's handed them on, given them to someone else to name, because it wasn't there, that thing he seeks; that nameless whatever which he requires from a protege, an heir, a son. Small lost children, they'd all been; tentative echoes in a world that would turn a deaf-ear upon them. And he'd taken care of them, of course, taken care and seen them into their lives at his own orphanage, but...
Now Wammy takes a seat upon the chair in the corner, near the window. He rests the baby upon his knees, and opens the folds of the blanket wider. He looks at the boy and the boy, well, the boy looks right back at him. Wammy smiles properly at that thought - he knows, after all, full well that newborns cannot focus on any one thing, not properly, at least, barely more than fresh-birthed kittens can. He runs one hand along the child's face, supporting the baby's head with his other hand; warm and broad and sure. The baby shifts against him at his touch, soft kicks against Wammy's stomach, then raises his own hand to his mouth, and gummy-sucks at his tiny fist. Wammy gently pulls the fist away, then chuckles as the boy pulls it right back again and smiles, smiles, smiles up at him from behind the safety of it; a huge baby smile, from behind that thumb, and from beneath that shock of soft black hair.
"You're a determined little fellow, aren't you?" Wammy observes. "Well ahead of yourself, aren't you?"
The baby kicks at him again, softly, but insistent, until Wammy unfolds the bottom corners of the blanket as he had already done with its top corners, revealing two tiny, tiny bare feet, which wriggle in the open air, then snuggle, as if they belong against him, towards the man's body warmth.
For quite a while they simply sit there, the man and the newborn. Wammy shares his thoughts on life and the universe, and the baby blinks up at him, and sucks at his thumb, and jiggles his feet; sometimes he dozes, heavy-eyed, and sometimes he wakes.
He feels right. They feel right. They feel right together.
When the young nurse finally returns, she's carrying a slender pile of paperwork which needs to be filled in. She must have heard tell of his past record though, because she pauses at the door, and looks at the two of them questioningly. "What's he to be called?" she asks, as if she knows that that is the ultimate test to be passed.
Quillish Wammy looks from the baby to the nurse, and from the nurse to the baby, and then motions her and her paperwork inside of the room. "Your name is Lawliet," he whispers to the child, so softly that the woman cannot hear, and Lawliet wriggles his toes contentedly.
The nurse nurse places the papers on the table beside the pair of them, and his guardian begins to fill them out in swift, efficient handwriting, though the name he writes is not the same as the name he had spoken.
When he's finished, Lawliet has fallen asleep again, his thumb pressed firmly against his lips, and Wammy doesn't have the heart to pull away it another time. Instead he just brushes the child's downy hair from his eyes, wraps the blanket up around him, and rises to his feet.
"Let's go home."