A/N: By popular request, here is Laxus' reaction to the twin-gate from my previous fic, so basically, the Miraxus side of things. This fic is sort of devided in two parts, the first one takes place two weeks before 'Goodbye, My Love' and the Second takes place two weeks after. Enjoy!

Edit: (Apologies if you got two alerts in a row - I used the wrong text source but when I tried to replace the chapter version, the site kept crashing, so I had to delete and repost)

As he sat at a table with the Raijinshuu, Laxus' eyes remained fixed on his pregnant wife as she sat at the bar (on the opposite side from the one she usually occupied) studying some sort of humongous catalogue with an equally pregnant Erza, having apparently hit the pause-button on the incessant competition in what came to childbearing.

Although he could hear Freed speaking of something on the background, he wasn't paying enough attention to actually make out the words. It was likely related to the month-long job they were leaving on in the following morning, since they were supposed to be discussing it.

Of course, the job was the least thing in his mind. Why? Because he was too busy staring at the two pregnant women at the bar. Not in some kind of perverted way like he was expecting them to go down on each other at any moment (though he had to admit that the thought had, at one point in his life, crossed his mind – he was a red-blooded guy, after all!). No, he was merely noticing a fact… or rather comparing two facts that should have been rather similar but that he was just noticing that really weren't. How had he missed that? Had it been happening for long?

"… Laxus, are you listening to me?" Freed asked, shaking his shoulder.

Laxus turned around and gave him a look. "What?"

"I was suggesting Ever, Bickslow and I left on the 8 o'clock train and you joined us around noon since you travel much faster using lightening," Freed stated.

"Isn't that what we always do?" Laxus asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It never hurts to refresh the memory," the rune-mage stated, a hint of a pout on his face.

Bickslow hit the smaller man on the back jovially. "C'mon, Freed. Let the man ogle his wife's hot bod all he wants to."

"I've got to say. I didn't expect you to crumble to Jellal-levels of adoration," Ever commented, waving her fan around.

Laxus shot her a look. "What are you comparing me with that hopeless idiot for?" he demanded, vaguely gesturing at the man in question. As if on purpose, Jellal was indeed displaying said preposterous levels of adoration, randomly staring at Erza as if she was some kind of divine idol or deity that had no place in the mortal realm outside of shrines or half-naked artistic depictions. Laxus personally had nothing against the guy (the very opposite, really) but, romantically speaking, Jellal was thoroughly whipped and Laxus couldn't help but take issue with being compared to him in that specific area.

"Well, what's the staring all about, then?" Bickslow questioned. "'Cause Ever's got a point. It kind of looked like you were 'Jellaling' Mira."

"I was not 'Jellaling' anybody. I was just noticing something," he defended himself. And since when was Jellal's name used as a verb?!

"Anything you'd like to share?" Freed asked.

Laxus had been about to say 'no' but then stopped himself. As a matter of fact, their opinion might come in handy. "This doesn't leave this table," he declared.

And, for all their usual mocking and bickering, all three nodded without hesitation, faithful to a fault.

"Of course!" Freed said.

"Like it needs to be said…" Ever mumbled.

"Babies, secrecy mode!" Bickslow ordered of his dolls, how responded with an echoed 'Shhhhhh!'

"So, what's the problem?" Ever asked.

Laxus hesitated for a moment before speaking. "She's friggin' huge!"

"Who?" Bickslow asked.

The Lightening Dragon Slayer looked at him like he was nuts. "Mira, who else?!"

Freed frowned. "Now, Laxus, you know I hate to criticize you but you are being terribly insensitive! Mirajane is expecting your child! You can't really blame her for being on the larger side now. That sort of consequence is to be expected from pregnancy," Freed said in a tone that clearly displayed a certain amount of disappointment on their Thunder God. He had a great deal of fondness for Mira and if fate dictated that Laxus had to marry a woman, he was glad it was her.

The Thunder God in question rolled his eyes. "Don't be a moron, Freed. I don't have a problem with the fact that carrying a brat around is obviously going to make her bigger! But for fuck's sake, look at her…" he prompted, gesturing at his rather large wife, whose bump was nearly as pronounced at three months as Biska's was at the sixth-month mark in the old pregnancy pictures she and Alzack had tried to keep Macao from passing around after they'd returned from Tenrou Island "…and then look at Erza," he went to say, gesturing at the redhead, who sat by her side, whose equally three-month-aged bump looked… well, not like a bump at all. If they didn't know, they wouldn't even be able to guess that she was pregnant too. "Am I the only one seeing the obvious difference?"

"Well, no," Ever admitted. "But Erza's not having her kid until January. And you guys…"

"Late December or early January," Laxus informed her.

Ever raised an eyebrow. "Really? I could swear I heard something about September…"

"No, Laxus has a point," Freed admitted. "I remember them saying the baby is due around Christmas or New Year's…"

"Maybe Mira has just been pigging out more," Bickslow shamelessly said.

Ever kicked him under the table. "Don't say that about a woman, you insensitive idiot!"

"What? She's way bigger than Erza even though she'd just as pregnant! There's got to be something!"

"Not that," Laxus told him. "The woman has gone nuts about what we eat! She doesn't let anything but low-sugar, low-fat, fully organic crap into the house. It's a nightmare! She won't even let me eat electricity unless it's 'naturally collected'. And guess what: it's a nightmare to find actual lightening in the middle of the summer!"

"She doesn't look fat either," Freed agreed. "Just… bigger around the middle. Bigger than she should be at this point, I suppose. But only there."

"True. If it was a matter of overindulging, you could probably see her getting chubbier on the face and the rest of her body," Evergreen stated. "Besides, if anyone is binging on sweets, it's Erza. She's been gorging on cake like there's no tomorrow. I'm surprised she's not actually the bigger one…"

"Well, she is bigger in certain areas right now," Freed observed in an almost clinical manner. "But I hear that type of change is of the hormonal sort…"

"Tch, don't comment on Erza's massive jugs when Ever's within ear-shot," Bickslow said. He placed a mock-supportive hand on the woman's shoulder. "There, there. Don't feel bad."

Ever pushed his hand away. "I don't know what I could possibly feel bad about. Erza and I happen to share the exact same bra size under normal circumstances."

"Yeah, but while Erza can thank God for that, you can thank your doct… ouch!" he shouted when she whacked him with her fan.

"Idiot! You know you're forbidden from bringing that up! Laxus, tell him!"

"Leave Ever's fake boobs alone, Bickslow," Laxus said, sounding anything but interested. Really, he wished he didn't know as much as he did about Ever's chest – she was like a sister to him, after all. He cursed the day a few years before in which she'd taken a particularly hard blow to the chest area during a mission and had a panic attack thinking her plastic cans might be leaking… which hadn't even been the case, they'd come to realize after the woman had made them carry her all the way to the hospital as if she was dying from it.

"That is not helpful!"

"I don't know why you must torture Evergreen about her venture into cosmetic surgery," Freed said calmly.

"Corrective surgery! It was corrective surgery! I told you one was bigger than the other – I couldn't walk around like that all my life!" Evergreen protested.

"Of course," Freed said with a long-suffering sigh. "I stand corrected. If it's any consolation, as far as I am concerned, your cleavage looks very natural despite it."

Bickslow looked at him incredulously. "How would you even know how to tell the difference?! Ever's naked cans are the only ones you have ever seen and only by accident that time in the hot springs!"

"As a matter of fact, they're not anymore," Freed pointed out.

Evergreen and Bickslow gasped.

"Who?" Evergreen demanded in shock. Freed had seen a girl naked? When?! How?! Why?!

Freed looked away, blushing. "Lucy Heartfilia's, I'm afraid. She had a wardrobe malfunction last week and, well, I didn't look away fast enough."

… and the shock was gone. "Pfft, everyone has seen cosplay queen's babies at least once!" Bickslow stated. "Look at how often she ends up naked – they're practically public domain, so it doesn't count."

Evergreen pointed out. "Wasn't she loaded before she joined the guild? I wonder if hers have been touched up too…"

"Maybe you should ask your surgeon's opinion," Bickslow mockingly suggested. He was promptly hit again.

"Can we stop talking about boobs and focus on my wife's size instead?" Laxus requested.

"Double-D, that's for sure," Bickslow offered. "If you wanted to know so badly, you might have wanted to check her underwear drawer."

"General size, Moron! Not bust size!"

"Oh… so did I guess right?" the seith mage asked out of curiosity.

Laxus shot him a glare that could kill.

"Well, I don't know what you want us to tell you concerning her… pregnancy-related-expansion," Ever said. "It doesn't seem like she's just fat and we can probably rule out water retention too using the same logic. You know, you're not exactly small. It could just be a big kid. Especially when keeping in mind that she is related to a virtual giant."

Freed nodded. "Evergreen may have a point. Elfman is particularly large. Maybe macrosomia runs in her family."

"Macro-what? What language are you speaking?!" Bickslow demanded.

Freed sighed. "It means big baby, Bickslow. Couldn't you guess, given the theme of the conversation?"

"No, because I didn't swallow a dictionary when I was a baby, unlike some people at this table," the seith mage complained.

The green-haired man ignored him. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, assuming Elfman was born abnormally large and didn't just grow to be that way, Mirajane's family history would make it perfectly plausible for her to be carrying an abnormally large child."

"Fuck no!" Laxus denied. "That can't be it. The woman would never let me touch her again if I made her push some sort of humongous brat out of her right on the first time I knock her up!"

"Uncomfortable as it may be, I'm afraid it is a possibility," Freed stated. "Though there are, of course, other equally-plausible explanations, even if less likely."

"Such as what?"

"Well, I suppose rather than one enormous child, it could be two regular-sized ones," Freed pointed out.

There was a moment of silence. It was Ever who broke it after about thirty seconds.

"Twins? No. Not a chance. I veto it," she declared.

"You 'veto' it?" Freed asked skeptically. "Twins are a natural-occurring event! Why on Earthland would you even think of vetoing such a possibility?"

"Too cliché."

"Cliché?! There is a less than two-percent chance of twin births occurring."

"And yet it's been done to death," she stated.

"Certainly not any more than single births," Freed argued. "In fact, name one twin that you know!"

"Hmm… Jellal had an evil twin, didn't he?" Ever pointed out.

"Only a fake one," Bickslow remarked.

"Lucy Heartfilia has twin Celestial Spirits," she continued stated.

"Not human. Still doesn't count," Freed informed her

"Bickslow's babies are quin…"

"They are made of wood, so same as above!"

Starting to feel slightly frustrated, Evergreen scratched her chin, trying to think of something. "Any chance Mira and Lisanna are actually twins, because they look so much ali…"

"Lisanna is two years younger than Mirajane," Freed stated. "Just admit it – you were mistaken."

She deflated a little. "Meh… I don't know. It feels like everywhere I look there is twins being born: lacrima-vision shows, books, radio dramas…"

"That is fiction! This is reality!"

"Speak for yourself," Bickslow said. "With all the shit that keeps happening in our lives, sometimes I wonder if we're not just part of some long-running work of fiction."

"For fuck's sake, Bickslow, leave the existential drama to another time," Laxus said, turning to Freed. "You really think it could be twins?"

"I don't see why not. I know no history of twins running in Mirajane's family and it would be more likely if she was older but that hardly makes it impossible. Could she, by any chance, have taken fertility drugs?"

"I don't know about drugs but she sure as fuck started drinking a lot of weird teas as soon as we started trying."

"Well, I am no expert but I suppose some herbs could have made her more fertile somehow…"

"I still think it's campy," Evergreen commented. "Twins. The only thing worse would be if it was a boy and a girl. Such an overused trope…"

"Evergreen, please refrain from using that tone when referring to Laxus's potential children," Freed requested.

"Don't get me wrong – I have nothing against the kids. I just can't help feeling that Laxus could do something so much less… ugh."

"What? Like triplets?" Bickslow suggested. "Or maybe quads… Hey, if it were quints, I could give you some advice on them. I do have some experience in caring for quintuplet babies," he said gesturing towards his floating dolls.

Laxus rolled his eyes. "Okay, the quality of this conversation is quickly going downhill, so I'm just gonna say we end it here."

"Of course," Freed agreed. "But before we put an end to it, I would just like to state that it is my belief that no matter what the number, gender or physical features your children will turn out to have, I have no doubt they will be just as glorious as you are."

"Kickass brats," Bickslow added in agreement

"Less annoying than most, despite their potential flare for cliché and unfortunate choice in maternal uncles," Evergreen offered.

Laxus could only huff. "Idiots," he said fondly under his breath.

Laxus didn't get around discussing the possibility that they might be getting twice as many kids as they'd expected with Mira before he left, mostly because he was still digesting it himself.

Said digestion quickly turned into indigestion. He hadn't signed up for that – two kids at once! For god's sake, he was freaked out about having one kid, let alone two all of a sudden. Heck, he hadn't even been married a year!

Sure, the brat had been planned… sort of. He hadn't been too eager about starting to try having kids so soon after tying the knot – Mira was simply too convincing. Especially when said convincing was done in bed. As she set astride him. In a bouncy sort of way.

And Gramps was getting ancient, so he might as well satisfy the old fossil's craving for a great-grandbrat while he still wasn't so gaga that he couldn't lend a hand or two in raising it. He'd probably spoil the kid rotten same as he had spoiled him when he was little, Laxus mused. It'd be a pain for him and Mira… but a dream for the brat, same as it had been for him, as much as it pained him to admit.

Plus, he might or might not find himself now and again imagining stuff he could do with the kid: teaching it to ride a bike; how to hold its own against Erza's own little rascal in a fight because his kid sure as hell wouldn't lose to Titania's; showing it how to play its mother like a fiddle… when she allowed it, of course.

But still, his mind just couldn't process that times two! Not without it slipping into the bumpy road of twice as many shitty diapers, dual crying and synchronized vomiting. Not to mention an even smaller chance of scoring with Mira because if they said banging was a rare event on the first months with a kid, it would become a virtual myth when said months were spent with two beloved shrieking brats.

So, with that in mind, he tried to forget the possibility of multiple reproduction in his absence from the guild… only to be reminded very shortly after he returned from his job.

While Freed, Ever and Bickslow had taken the train home, Laxus, unwilling to suffer through hours of motion sickness, took his alternative Lightening-shaped means of transportation, arriving far earlier than they had. He was only a block away from the guild when events set in motion… starting with Natsu hitting the ground not ten yards ahead of him. Hard.

At that, Laxus stopped and waited to see what was going to happen next. Usually, it would be a murderous Erza coming after him or the idiot getting up and running back inside to kick Gray or Gajeel's asses. That time, however, he seemed to be having a little trouble recovering from the blow. In fact, he seemed a tad… unconscious. Laxus actually had to walk over and kick him lightly in an attempt to wake him.

"Oi! You alive?"

"Guah…" was his untranslatable response.

"You idiot! When will you learn?!" he heard the idiot's blonde girlfriend saying as she exited the guild and kneeled by him

"Just what the hell happened to him?" he had to ask.

Lucy looked up. "Oh, Laxus, you're back. I didn't notice you there," she acknowledged him.

Laxus raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer.

Gray, who was walking out with Wendy, who quickly ran to provide Natsu with some first-aid. "Your wife kicked his ass," he said simply.

His eyebrows actually went higher. "Really?" He looked down at Natsu and took in the sorry state of him. Boy, he must have really pissed her off. "What did he do?"

"Called her fat."

Laxus's eyes widened and he glared at his fellow Dragon Slayer, feeling tempted to get him off the floor and rough him up a little further. Sure, Mira was big and he would be the first to admit it, but to actually call her fat… the moron deserved every bruise he'd gotten and more.

But then…

"Did not!" came Natsu's groan from the floor as he started trying to sit up. Wendy's magic seemed to be working well.

"Tsk, might as well," Gray scoffed.

"No way!" Natsu protested. "I ask her about the twins! How's that calling her fat?!"

That caught Laxus's attention. Twins… the forbidden word in his mind. That couldn't be good…

"It's calling her fat because she's not having twins, Natsu!" Lucy said. "I've been telling you this for two weeks!"

"But she is having twins!" Natsu replied.

His certainty only alarmed Laxus further. So Natsu was actually convinced Mira was having twins?

"No she's not, Moron," Gray told him. "Don't you think she'd know if she was?"

Wendy cleared her throat. "Actually, Porlyusica-san hasn't checked for that yet," she said. "Mira-san wanted to wait for Laxus-san to return before having any important appointments so that he could be there."

"Wait, so she could be having twins?" Lucy asked, surprised.

"She is!" Natsu insisted, getting to his feet. Then, he turned to Laxus. "You tell them, Laxus!"

Laxus frowned, unwilling to acknowledge it. No, no, no. Not twins. Not twice as many crappy diapers. Not an extended hiatus to his sex life! "Tell them what, Moron?" he asked, in full denial.

"That you and her are having two kids, not one!" the fire Dragon Slayer supplied. "Didn't you hear them? The thump-thumps?"

"What thump-thumps? Are you talking about heartbeats?" Laxus asked, alarmed.

"I guess," Natsu said. "You see, I first noticed it when Gildarts came to the guild a couple of weeks ago. He wouldn't talk to me until he'd talked to the Master, so since I figured that meant something cool must have happened, I decided to overhear what they were talking about."

"How many times do I need to tell you that eavesdropping is rude?!" Lucy shrieked.

Natsu shrugged. "It didn't turn out to be as cool as I thought, anyway. Just that a bunch of women want to test him to see if he's a good dad or something."

"What? Why would people be testing him now? It's not like Cana is a kid anymore or anything…" Gray mumbled.

Natsu shrugged. "Don't ask me. I know for sure that he said 'paternity test'," Natsu said.

Wendy gasped and blushed, clearly knowing the meaning of the term.

"Wait, 'paternity test'?! That's not what a paternity test is about, you idiot!" Gray told him.

"It isn't?"

"No! A paternity test is a way to see if you're someone's dad, not if you're a good father!"

"Why would anyone wanna do that to Gildarts? Do they think he's not actually Cana's dad?" Natsu asked.

"No, Natsu. It probably means that Cana could have a sibling she doesn't know about," Lucy pointed out.

"Siblings," Gray corrected her. "He did say 'a bunch of women', after all."

"Oh, good lord," Lucy said in disbelief.

Gray shrugged. "Are you really that surprised? Everybody knows he gets around. I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner…"

Natsu was frowning. "So Gildarts could have a bunch of super-strong kids? Cool! I can't wait to fight them all at once! And then, after I beat all of them, I'll finally fight Gildarts and win!"

Laxus whacked Natsu on the back of the head. "Stop letting your head wonder around, numbskull! Get back to the twin issue."

"Ouch! Don't hit me there – my head still hurts from Mira's kick!"

"Twin issue," Laxus repeated threateningly.

Natsu winced a little. "Fine. Where was I, anyway? Oh, that's right: I was over at the bar trying to listen to them talking. 'Cause, if I followed them upstairs, Mira would probably notice what I was doing and drag me back down and since the Old Man's office is above the kitchen, the bar is close enough. So, anyway, I was really focusing on my hearing so I could understand what they were saying through the wall, but whenever Mira passed by, there were always those really weird thump-thumps. Two of them. So, I figured it was twins."

Gray rolled his eyes. "Mira isn't dead, you know? She also has a heartbeat."

"I know she does, you ass! But hers doesn't sound like that! People's heartbearts sound like… well, heartbeats, I guess! Baby's sound like really weird, echo-y thump-thumping."

"Gee, slow down with the medical jargon, genius," Gray mocked him.

"Shut up, Ice-Princess! Like you could do any better!"

"Wait, but if you hear an echo, couldn't that be the reason why there seem to be two heartbeats rather than one?" Lucy asked.

Natsu shook his head. "Erza's baby's sounds echo-y too but I can tell there's just one. It's hard to explain but there's definitely two – I know that much for sure."

After that, there was a moment of silence. A moment of silence in which Laxus was freaking out a little because, sweet Mavis, he was not ready to have twins. Why him? Why couldn't Jellal have been the one saddled with twins? The guy had lasted decades without getting any! A few extra years too busy with twins to get his hands on his woman would probably not make that much of a difference!

"So… I guess congratulations are in order, Laxus," Lucy said.

"Yeah, congratulations," Gray agreed.

"Finally someone believes me!" Natsu shouted.

"It's not like you bothered to explain things properly before," Lucy scolded him.

"You guys never gave me the chance! And Mira always hit me before I could too!"

"Porlyusica-san will be home all day tomorrow," Wendy told Laxus. "If you want to come by and have her look into it then, I could let her know for you, Laxus-san."

Laxus nodded slowly. "Yeah, that might be a good idea," he mumbled, his tone still rather flat. Natsu got hit on the head a lot, right? It probably wouldn't be that surprising if there was something faulty in his brain by then… Who knew if Natsu's hearing was even trustworthy? So, really, it wouldn't hurt to have a second opinion… a third, actually, since Laxus planned to look into it himself. In fact, he wasn't going to waste another minute waiting to do it. "I'm going in," he declared.

"Okay!" Lucy agreed.

"Good luck breaking the news to Mira," Gray added.

"Careful! She hits hard!" Natsu informed.

Laxus rolled his eyes, dismissing the warning as he made his way in.

The afternoon was just beginning, so aside from Cana, who clearly was already tipsy, most people were relatively sober. A bunch of the usual patrons waved at him and he acknowledged them with curt nods on his way to the bar, not stopping for a second before reaching it.

When he arrived, it was Lisanna rather than Mira who stood there.

"Welcome back!" his cheerful sister-in-law greeted him. "How did the job go?"

"Fine," he responded gruffly.

She frowned at his tone. "That doesn't sound very honest. You're kind of pale – are you injured?"

"No. Don't worry about it. Where's Mira?"

"In the kitchen," she provided, prompting him to walk around the counter, towards the hatch that led behind it. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Peachy," he replied, pushing the kitchen door open and going in.

Inside, he found Mira alone with her back turned to him. She seemed to be too busy decorating a birthday cake (whose birthday was it, he vaguely tried to recall? Macao's? Elfman's?) to notice him coming in.

Perfect, he thought. That would give him the chance to test his theory without freaking her out.

He closed his eyes and focused on his hearing, attempting to enhance it futher. The sounds around him became louder, yet he attempted to shut them down in his head so that he could focus on the one that interested him: Mira's belly. And then, after a second, he heard it… or rather, he heard them: matching heartbeats, beating not quite in full synchrony, but one just a fraction of a second after the other.

Well, goddamnit. The idiot had it right.

"Laxus?" she said, following a little gasp. His eyes opened and he found she had turned around and was looking at him in surprise, one hand touching her chest as if she'd just been startled. Sweet Mavis, she was even larger. He wondered just how huge she would be by the end of that pregnancy and considered the possibility of her exploding rather than giving birth. "God, you scared me! Why didn't you say anything when you came in?"

She walked over to greet him, frowning a little when he didn't respond.

"Laxus? What's wrong?"

He wasn't quite sure how to break the news to her… so, he did it in the bluntest way he possibly could.

"It's twins. No wonder you're huge."

Her reaction, rather than the delight he'd been expecting (because of course Mira, who had loudly announced that she wanted to have something like half a dozen brats the moment he'd popped the question, would be delighted to put two ticks on that list rather than just one), was more towards the side of murderous anger. Her face became purple and her eyes shot daggers. "You jerk!"

And so, before he knew it, Laxus Dreyar was knocked unconscious by his wife with a single punch for the second time in his life.

"I'm so sorry!" Mira apologized for the millionth time while holding an ice-pack against the side of her husband's face. "I don't know what got to me! Oh, dear, I must be out of my mind…"

"Don't sweat it," he mumbled.

"I was just so sick of everyone commenting on my size! And then you walk in from being away for a month and that is the first thing you say to me… I just… snapped. Still, I'm so sorry, Laxus. It's no excuse."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I guess I did make my own bed by wording it like that. At least you didn't break my jaw this time," he mumbled, taking the ice-pack from her and holding it himself, so that she could take a seat on the infirmary bed across from the one he was sitting on.

The first time he had found himself on the wrong end of her fist of death, it had been during her second S-Class trials. He had been an examiner on the one-on-one second phase of that year's trials and, surprise, surprise, the demonic little flat-chested brat who he hadn't properly seen since his old man had been kicked out (and he'd started spending as little time as possible at the guild) had been his contender. Of course, by then, she was anything but flat-chested… which, summed up with the tattered state of her clothes at the time, had made him unable to resist making a possibly-tasteless comment. In return, she'd promptly told him where to shove it and, before he knew it, he was looking stunned as a scantily clad demon (a literal demon, wings and all, as the result of a transformation he had never laid eyes on before) was aiming her fist at his face. The last sound he'd heard before passing out had been a crack and by the time he'd woken up, he couldn't move the lower part of his face, Mira had been an S-Class mage and sat at his bedside with an annoyed look on her face due to the fact that his grandfather was punishing her for her 'excessive use of force' by making her his caretaker until his jaw was fully healed.

"Well, I wasn't actually aiming for that last time," she pointed out. "I mean, who could have guessed you would just stand there staring at me rather than block the punch?" She giggled at the recollection of his face.

"It was a single moment of senselessness," he mumbled in return.

She kept on smiling in amusement before shaking her head. "So, it actually is twins? For real? When Lucy explained it to me, I couldn't believe it!"

"Believe it 'cause it's true."

"Are you sure? Did you check yourself or are you just going by Natsu's word?" she asked with a look of excitement on her face.

"I looked into it. There's two heartbeats alright," he mumbled.

She clapped her hands together and her smile widened even further. "Oh, that's so wonderful! Two babies! Twins! I love twins – they're always so adorable… I can't wait to dress them up in matching outfits! They're going to look so cute!"

Laxus groaned. Of course her mind would jump straight into that, rather than the many disadvantages of dealing with two shrieking, helpless infants at once…

"I can't believe that possibility didn't even come to mind before!" she went on to say. "I guess I was already so defensive, that I wouldn't even consider it when Natsu said it – I just thought he was being an ass. Poor guy… I guess I'll have to treat him to free meals for a few weeks to make up for it."

"Tch… don't get carried away. He'll eat the guild out of house and home," Laxus commented.

"Oh, maybe you have a point. I guess I'll slice it down to half a dozen meals or so… but I'll make them extra spicy the way he likes it," she vowed before taking a long breath and touching her belly with a smile. "Oh, thank God it's twins," she said with enormous relief. "I was starting to worry I'd have a really big baby like Elfman! Poor Mama… she went pale every time someone mentioned how large he was. To think she had the guts to have Lisanna just a year after having him…"

Laxus felt a whole new level of respect for his late Mother-in-law, who he had never had the chance to meet… and for his Father-in-law as well, who must have some monumental seduction skills to convince his woman to get frisky so soon after having a brat as humongous as Elfman had been. He's stumbled into a bunch of Strauss-sibling baby pictures back when Mira had moved into the house and there had been one of Mira with newborn Elfman: he would not be exaggerating much if he said that newborn Elfman had been practically as big as his one-year-old sister at the time…

"…I mean, I've been getting so big! I can't fit into a single one of my old outfits while Erza still prances around in hers when she's just as pregnant," Mira went on in the background, oblivious to her husband's thoughts. "Erza did suggest I might be farther along than I thought and for a while I thought she might be right, but then I got around to thinking and I realized that it couldn't be it. I mean, sure, I could be a week or so off mark but not much more – I was so excited when we started trying that I'd been taking tests every week, yet I didn't get a positive until the positive. I guess there's such a thing as false negatives but those couldn't go on and on for weeks, could they? So, really, twins should have come to mind sooner…"

"Tch… you say that as if it's such a normal occurrence. Twins are only something like…" his mind flashed back to his discussion with his team concerning Mira's size "… two percent of all kids or something."

Mira was far more excited about his words than she should have been. "Look at you knowing numbers and everything. Aren't you the studious daddy?"

He looked away, a little embarrassed. "Freed is the one who does the reading and passes information along," he mumbled.

"Aw, but to think you pay attention…"

"Control yourself woman," he told her dismissively.

"So, anyway, what do you think of this? Us having two babies instead of one," she asked.

He groaned. "I think it's gonna be a pain," he mumbled. "One brat is already a lot of work. Two brats is twice as much of that."

"And…" she prompted.

"And what?"

"Say something positive, goddamn it!" she snapped, although she wasn't really angry. More like… slightly annoyed, knowing that was just the way Laxus was. "You're always so stoic about these things…"

"Fine. I guess it'll probably be hell for a while, but once we get used to it, any future kids we have after those two, will probably be a breeze… unless you go and up it to triplets or quads next time!"

"Hey! It's not as if I was aiming for twins this time around either!" she protested. "But you have a point." She rubbed her belly. "With the sort of training these two will give us, we'll have a degree on parenting by the time the next one comes."

"Yeah… now can we drop the subject of future kids beyond those two? Because I'm still getting used to the idea of them," Laxus told. Was it too much to ask that they were born with the personality and temperament of angelic beings? Probably, given that their mother literally turned into a demon in a regular basis.

Mira sighed. "We have so much to do… we need to get doubles of everything we already bought, trade the single stroller for a double one…"

"Get diapers in bulk," he mumbled. Boy, he had some shitty months ahead… literally.

"We need to break the news to your grandfather too," she added.

"Where is that geezer, anyway?" Laxus had to ask, not having seen the man around since he'd arrived.

"I'm not sure. He and Gildarts left to go somewhere," Mira explained. "They said they'd be back by Sunday."

"Hmm… probably something to do with Gildart's paternity suits…"

"Gildart's what?!" Mira asked, morbidly interested.

"Ask Natsu – the fact that they exist is as much as I know," he said.

"Oh, dear, I'm starting to get an idea of what that might be about…" she mumbled, noting it down in her mind to ask Natsu about every single detail. "Now, since we're on the subject of breaking the news to people, what day is today?"

"Thursday," he offered. "The fifteeth, I guess."

Mira's face was suddenly covered with a dark smile. A very nasty sort of dark. "I see… so Erza is due back from her job with Jellal tomorrow," she said, her voice sounding all sorts of… plotty. "I can't wait to tell her about how I'm having twice as many babies as she is! I wonder how I should break the news… Oh, I know! I think I'll write it on her cake! Yes! That's perfect! She'll go nuts!"

And, with that, she left the room with no preamble, saying she had to go train her cake-penmanship, whatever that meant.

Laxus sighed. Why wasn't he even surprised? At least, on the bright side, twins should put her ahead for the next five or so months and end that stupid, pointless competition.

… little did he know how wrong he was.

The End