Everything She Wanted

A bed built for two

A slight whimper crackles through the baby monitor, and Regina is out of bed in a heartbeat.

She more or less stumbles into Phoenix and Matilda's nursery. This must be the hundredth time the babies forces her out of bed in the middle of the night.

This time, the "sinner" is Matilda. The three month old baby is awake and kicking her feet unhappily as she cries.

"Shh," Regina soothes. "It's alright. Mama's right here."

She lifts her unhappy little girl out of the crib and cradles Matilda into her chest. Rubs her back and then kisses the top of her head. Matilda is completely red in the face, and her anger has reached a point where it has been reduced to hiccups.

"Are you hungry, sweetheart?" Regina asks softly and gives her daughters back another gentle rub.

Matilda gurgles slightly, and the next second, she spits up on Regina's pajama shirt.

Regina grimaces slightly. "Thank you for that, my darling. How did you know that that was what I wanted the most?"

Matilda gurgles again, and Regina is quick to grab a napkin and wipe her daughters' little mouth.

"There. That's better, isn't it?"

Matilda's only response to that is a rather loud burp. A very possible reason for her unhappiness.

"There it is," Regina softly praises. "Did that help, my darling?"

Matilda makes another gurgling sound. She doesn't seem quite ready to settle down for the night, though, so Regina brings her over to the old rocking chair. It creaks slightly when she sits down. Matilda wiggles in her arms, so Regina tries a song. That usually does the trick.

"Baby mine, don't you cry
Baby mine, dry your eyes
Rest your head close to my heart
Never to part, baby of mine..."

Matilda immediately stops fussing and looks up at Regina with her big blue eyes. Regina runs a finger through Matilda's soft baby hair and continues the song:

"Little one when you play
Don't you mind what you say
Let those eyes sparkle and shine
Never a tear, baby of mine."

Admittedly, her voice is pretty rusty. Bursting into song at 2 in the morning is challenging, and whether it sounds pretty is fairly debatable, but it does the trick, and Matilda soon becomes heavy in her arms.

To be on the safe side, Regina sings another verse, and once she's sure that the baby is completely asleep, Regina carefully rises from the rocking chair and lays the baby down in the crib. Matilda remains asleep.

Phoenix doesn't.

Regina sighs gravely. Of course he's awake now that his sister asleep. Of course he is. Why on earth should they be awake at the same time? No reason to make it easy.

She picks him up. Cradles him into her chest. But he doesn't settle for a song and a backrub, no, he's hungry.

So back to the rocking chair it is. She holds Phoenix in her arm all the while she undoes the buttons on her pajama shirt. A few seconds later, she guides the wiggling Phoenix to her nipple to soothe his hunger.

She winces slightly as he latches on. She has been doing a lot of breastfeeding lately, and she's really starting to feel it.

But Phoenix is completely satisfied, and he makes little suckling noises as he nurses. Regina leans back in the rocking chair and closes her eyes for a moment. She reminds herself not to fall asleep like this. Because while Phoenix might enjoy it, her back will most certainly not be happy.

She runs her fingers through Phoenix's hair. For some reason, he has way more hair than his sister.

"My sweet boy," she softly praises and then chucklingly adds: "even at two in the morning."

Phoenix's only response is another soft suckling noise.

Nursing the little dragon is highly sleep inducing, and Regina has to remind herself again and again not to fall asleep in the rocking chair. Your back will hate you tomorrow.

And Phoenix takes his time tonight. It feels as though he can keep going all night. Regina suffocates a yawn and wrinkles her nose slightly. She'll have to throw her shirt in the laundry basket before going back to bed. Everything else would be disgusting.

Phoenix keeps suckling, and the little noises he makes, makes Regina chuckle softly. But unfortunately, they make her incredibly sleepy too, and not once, but three times, she almost falls asleep only to jerk awake so violently, the old rocking chair creaks dangerously.

Finally, Phoenix is satisfied, and he ends up as a little, warm "puddle" snuggled against her chest. Regina immediately "strikes" and lays him down in the crib. But as soon as she has done that, Matilda starts cooing. Maybe it's her stomach again. Either way, the idea of going back to bed now is done for.

Regina ends up sitting in the rocking chair with Matilda. It's not her stomach. It quickly turns out that she is hungry too.

Regina nurses her daughter as well. And manages to fall asleep in the old rocking chair while doing so.

After first swaddling and then putting Matilda back to bed, Regina can't quite bear the thought of actually returning to the bedroom. She has a nasty feeling, the moment she does so, either one or both babies will wake up again. So instead she waves her hand and makes the spot on her pajama shirt disappear. Then she buttons said pajama shirt and groans slightly as she drags her unwilling body over to the makeshift bed in the nursery. It isn't very often she has slept in that bed, but tonight is definitely a special occasion.

She more or less falls into bed. Buries her face in the pillow and pulls the covers up to her chin. This is perfect. Now she doesn't have to fly out of bed. Now she can be her own baby monitor.

She curls up. The bed creaks slightly, but it's actually not that bad. She can definitely work with this. Admittedly, it's not a very big bed, but she's tired enough to not be bothered by it. She tries to be as quiet as possible as she yawns. God forbid she should wake the babies. Again.

Maybe Phoenix and Matilda will decide to not wake up at 2 tomorrow night.

She chokes back a snicker. Not be awake at 2 tomorrow night? What an absurd thought. No, tomorrow night is gonna be exactly like this. And the next one will be too. And the next one. And the next one.

That thought alone is enough to make her even more tired.

She should definitely go to sleep now. As in right now. Who knows, maybe Phoenix and Matilda will spoil her and be awake at 4 too. That would be a real treat.

She scoffs quietly and pulls the covers up to hide her face.

Regina's last tired thought before falling asleep is maybe I should just sleep in here permanently. It would certainly make things easier.

****************************************'

Something is different when she wakes up. Not the time. No. A quick glance at the alarm clock tells her that it's 5:15 in the morning. Regina always wakes up at 5:15. Nothing new there.

What's different is the bed. Regina is so tired, she can't quite make the connection at first, so she foolishly believes that the bed has somehow shrunk. But then she feels like an idiot when she realizes that it isn't the size of the bed that's changed. It's the fact that there's one more person in the bed.

Regina lifts her head from Maleficent's chest, which apparently has been her pillow for a while, and glances at her barely awake wife.

"What are you doing in here?" she rumbles and tries to force herself to wake up.

"A second ago I was sleeping," Maleficent answers cheekily.

"Why in here?" Regina questions. "Our bed is far more comfortable than this one."

"Right you are. But our bed was lacking terribly," Maleficent says, and her voice is a bit hoarse from sleep. "I woke up and found my lovely wife missing."

"The babies were fussing."

Maleficent yawns sleepily and pulls Regina a little closer. "Where you sleep, I sleep. I don't like when we're sleeping in separate rooms. It makes me feel as though we're divorced."

Regina snorts. "That's very dramatic of you."

Maleficent ignores that statement and instead muses: "perhaps we should get a bigger bed in here. That way we both could sleep in here."

"I don't know," Regina half-chuckles. "This isn't half bad, is it?" this bed is so small, she's currently pressed flush against Maleficent.

"Definitely good for spooning," Maleficent agrees and drops a light kiss on her hair.

"But you do of course realize that we have to get up soon, right?"

"The babies are still sleeping," Maleficent points out.

"Those aren't," Regina laughs and lifts her head just in time to see the door to the nursery open. Not one, but three little dragons comes trotting inside.

Amelia shoots them a suspicious look. "Why are you sleeping in here?"

"The babies woke your mother sometime last night. Then I woke up, and I thought it would be a shame if your mother should sleep all alone in here," Maleficent quickly sums up.

Emerald rubs her eyes sleepily. "The bed's too small for both of you," she cleverly points out.

"No, no, little dragon, there's plenty of room," Maleficent assures.

There's a moment of silence where Amelia and Emerald and Jonathan looks at each other conspiratorially. Then Emerald nods firmly, and three little dragons comes racing over to the bed and promptly hops up.

"Oh dear," Regina says as the bed is invaded by little dragons crawling all over them.

"It would appear that we're under attack," Maleficent agrees.

Jonathan giggles at that statement and dives under the covers.

Regina shakes her head as she glances over at the two babies sleeping peacefully in their cribs. "Last night, all it took to wake them, was a creak from the rocking chair, and today they're sleeping through this. I don't understand."

Maleficent laughs. "At least they didn't wake you at 4."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I was here at 4," Maleficent tells her.

"Right. Of course you were."

"Where you sleep, I sleep," Maleficent repeats plainly.

"We should sleep in here all five of us!" Emerald happily suggests and grins.

"Seven of us," Amelia corrects. "Phoenix and Tilda too."

As on cue, the bed creaks when Jonathan readjusts.

Regina shakes her head. "I think the bed would break if we ever tried that."

"And that wouldn't be fun, now would it?" Maleficent asks.

Obviously, a rhetorical question, but all three of the little dragons are quick to say that that would be incredibly fun.

Both Regina and Maleficent disagrees with that statement.

"How on earth are we gonna get out of bed?" Regina asks with faux sadness in her voice.

"I don't think we can," Maleficent replies and chuckles slightly when Emerald snuggles closer to her.

Amelia's eyes starts twinkling at that. "We should stay here all day! Without getting up!"

"What a brilliant idea, baby," Maleficent praises and snickers. "I'm all for it. What do you say, Regina?"

"A lovely suggestion, but I don't think we can," Regina says. "In a moment, Phoenix and Tilda will wake up and be hungry..."

"Nooooo, stay here!" Jonathan says firmly, and his little fingers squeezes Regina's pajama shirt.

"We're stuck," Maleficent says plainly.

"Apparently so."

And for ten glorious minutes, all five of them are wonderfully stuck in the too small bed. For ten wonderful minutes, the world has come to a momentarily stop. But then Matilda and Phoenix wakes up in their cribs. Matilda starts wailing, and all five of them winces at the too sharp sound.

The nursery quickly empties for dragons. Only the two smallest and the biggest one stays.

Maleficent is very helpful and scoops the babies up in her arms to give Regina a moment to go to the bathroom and get a chance to wake up just a little.

The babies are still very much wailing when she returns from the bathroom, and Regina resumes her position in the old rocking chair. This time with two little baby dragons suckling at her chest.

"Tell you what," Maleficent says softly as she watches Regina feed their children. "Once you're done here, I'll bring them downstairs. Then you can get a few more hours of sleep. In our bed."

Regina gladly takes that offer. A few more hours of sleep would be wonderful.

"Thank you," she smiles and reaches out to squeeze Mal's hand.

Maleficent returns the squeeze, and she grins a little as she continues: "maybe I'll even come and join you once I walked our other children to kindergarten and daycare."

"Now that would we wonderful," Regina smiles. She could definitely handle a few more hours of sleep in their bed next to her wife.

"Give me an hour or two, and I'll come and spoon you," Maleficent vows and chuckles.

"I'll be looking forward to that," Regina says. And oh, how she means it.

To Be Continued...