"Alright bébé, we've been playing for three hours. Let's grab you a quick snack," Risa called from the living room. Her daughter had suggested playing hide-and-seek after the family ate breakfast and her father left for work.

Before Pierce had left, he pulled her aside and told her that Yuliya seemed to be showing signs of a fever since last night. Risa, on the other hand, could hardly see a trace of it the entire day—the child was completely full of energy. At the end, she decided to keep her daughter inside the house and away from the beach for the next few days. Besides, they've been having their own storm of fun inside the house.

"Yuliya, come downstairs please."

Their current game was lasting a little past their usual downtime, so Risa decided to head to the kitchen and prepare herself and her daughter something. As she pulled her hair back with a hair tie, the phone rang.

"Hello?" she answered, picking up the call.

"Larísa," came a hospitable tone from the other end. "How's life treating you, love?"

A smile broke on her face as she put the phone on speaker and placed it on the kitchen shelf above her workspace. "Do you prefer to hear the run-down from Risa herself or as Yuliya's mother?"

"Mhm, now that sounds like Yuliya's mama so far," Kenya analyzed with a teasing air. "Give me Risa."

Risa arched her brows at Kenya's choice. Usually, the woman would take every chance she could get on calls like these to hear Risa talking like a mother; Kenya had confessed before that she found that side of her to be unusual, but also 'unbearably lovely.'

Risa turned on the faucet to wash her hands as she spoke. "Well, let's just say Yuliya's entire school knows of her Papa ever since he came in and told off her teacher."

"No one does it like our Commander," Kenya commended after a brief pause, clearly developing interest in the subject at hand. "Serves the jackanapes right. Who in their right mind insults a child, and an Easton child at that? You must have been proud of him afterwards."

Risa's faint laugh echoed in the kitchen as she turned off the sink water and dried her hands. "I was," she agreed absentmindedly, bending down for a pan, "but despite what you think, I did give him a yelling at home."

"You did?" the woman asked incredulously. "Risa Kennedy did?"

She straightened up and tossed the pan lightly up and down in her palm. "He was only supposed to call her school. But the next day when I left on my business trip and he was at home, he visited her school and confronted the teacher in person."

"I frankly don't see the problem."

Risa smiled as she glanced at the phone before looking away. "As her father he did nothing wrong, but as a father, the image he presented might not be suitable for her classmates. I'm sure other parents don't send their kids off to school for a random dad to come and create ruckus in the middle of class."

"Interesting, that didn't cross my mind," Kenya noted, then added, "you really are a mother now, love. Yet you're always mentioning how insecure you feel in this role. I think it fits you perfectly."

Risa gradually came to a stop before she turned on the stove fire, and a small frown formed on her face. "I don't know, Kenya—" she sighed, "—some days it feels like I'm fulfilling someone else's role, while some days I am the role."

"Should I be concerned with that or is that a mom thing?"

She grinned and shook her head a little. "What's up with you and Osias?"

"Oh him," Kenya brushed off as if they didn't need to bring the actor up. "Si's at a press conference with his co-actors for their new movie, then we're meeting up for some noodles. I'm only scheduled for small gigs at the moment. Don't really want to risk moving around much in the cold. By the way Risa, do you know any whereabouts on Cody? He hasn't returned any of my calls."

"Don't worry about that loser. Pierce told me he was meeting up with him today to decide on an aircraft model he'd keep back at the penthouse," Risa paused to roll her eyes, "in the emergency we ever need it, you know."

"No not really," Kenya shaded, a small laugh ensuing, "he acts like K2 doesn't already provide him with transportation."

"When men become adults, they'll want to own their own assets. Him borrowing from K2 his entire life was bound to make him anxious."

"Men," Kenya concluded as she waited for Risa to call her daughter again.

In the moment that the call quieted out again, Risa realized that the house had been unusually quiet for too long. She abandoned the phone on the shelf and went to search the kitchen, then the living room, and soon, the entire main floor. Her footsteps were heavier as they trekked back into the kitchen.

"Hey Kenya?" she grabbed the phone and placed it next to her ear. "I have to go find my baby. She might have not heard me call her downstairs."

They said their goodbyes and Risa immediately headed up the stairs, calling her daughter's name. Every time, it was met with silence. She walked briskly to Yuliya's room and checked every nook and cranny, but the child wasn't there. Every room on that floor was searched in the next 10 minutes, yet still no sign of Yuliya.

Her anxiety shot up. She knew her girl had to be inside, but now her own house felt like a maze. She placed a hand on her chest, and her face scrunched up. Why is your heart pounding? This is nothing. As she ascended the stairs to the second floor, she decided to confine in her last resort.

He picked up right away. "ты в порядке?" [are you okay?]

Risa's hand wrapped around a doorknob and opened the door to Yuliya's room, already knowing that the child wasn't inside. "Am I catching you at a bad time? I know it's been a while since you've met up with Cody."

"Нет, поговори со мной. Он может подождать." [no, talk to me. he can wait.]

"I know she's in the house, but she's not responding. My mind's all over the place."

Pierce calmed her down by talking to her solely in Russian. He knew it would force her to strain her ears to understand, which in turn would make her listen thoroughly. When she was calm, he continued.

"Xорошо, try our closet."

With her mind cleared, Risa held her breath as she walked into their bedroom. "Why'd you narrow it down to here?"

"I told her that was the safest place in the house. 'No one dares to enter mama and papa's room except Yuliya. They would go through us before they reach the closet.' I don't know, it was one of her late night talk sessions."

"That's cute Pierce, but it's also the most obvious place an intruder would look if they enter the bedroom."

"Well, that's why for now you, her Mama, can find her. She might've had a burnout and slept in there."

Risa found their daughter. Yuliya was lying in a basket of fresh laundry, sound asleep. As she wrapped her arms under the child's head and over her torso, Yuliya woke up. The six year old breathed out warm air as Risa checked her forehead.

"You won, Mama," her child struggled to talk with her eyes half-awake.

"Papa was right," Risa's brows deepened, "you do have a fever." She stood up slowly with her child in her arms while Yuliya held the phone tightly in her hands. Her cheeks were burning and hot air surrounded her whenever she breathed, but that didn't stop the little one from playing with the phone. When the phone emitted static sounds, she held it up to her ear and played telephone. Little did she know that her father was on the other end.

Risa turned on the humidifier on her way to her and Pierce's bed. She tucked her daughter in while she heard the child talking to Pierce.

"Papa... ты дома?" [are you home?] Yuliya gripped the phone as if her life depended on it, not letting Risa take it away so she could sleep.

"I'll be home soon, Yuliya." Pierce's voice put their daughter in ease. She finally relaxed her hold on the phone, slipping into a light trance as he continued talking to her. "Вам жарко внутри?" [are you feeling hot inside?]

"да," Yuliya replied to him tiredly, "похоже на лето." [yes, feels like summer.]

"будь хорошим ребенком и поспи немного, хорошо? Я люблю тебя." [be a good child and get some sleep, okay? I love you.]

"да."

The phone slipped out of Yuliya's hand after her barely audible response, and Risa scooped it up to end the call. "I'll see you at home then. Drive safe, Pierce."

"I'm bringing Cody and K2 home with me, is that okay with you?"

Risa exaggerated a sigh, but her lips were arched in a smirk. "Oh? The old geezer too. Are they there with you? I haven't heard a sound from them."

"Cody's in the back resting his eyes. K2's... further back."

"What... other back is there?" she asked skeptically, holding the phone in place with her shoulder while her hands covered Yuliya with a thin blanket.

"Well," he paused, "I stuffed him in the trunk."

"You're joking?" Risa scoffed, her hand hovering over their daughter. "What are you grown-ass men doing?"

"It's probably for the best after the stunt I pulled on him."

"And what is that?"

And this was where his usual smugness came through. "My dear wife, you're tired. I wouldn't want to taint your ears and mind with what we men have been up to."

She placed her forefinger and her thumb on the bridge of her nose, unable to share the same child-like thinking as her husband now that she had gotten a taste of what being a mother was like. "Give the director a break. He's old, Pierce, you keep messing with him and he'll come out of his grave and haunt us 50 years from now."

Pierce let out a malicious laugh when he heard her concerns, and Risa began to reconsider what was really going on.

"K2's sitting right beside you, isn't he?" Risa stated in a flat tone.

"Uh huh."

"You taped his mouth shut, didn't you?"

The silence merely indicated he was smiling throughout the call while K2 grunted a muffled sound.

"You took him out of that penthouse against his will?"

"My wife is so smart."

"And he just heard everything I said about him."

His laugh turned soft before he whispered, "See you at home, Sunny," and the call ended on a rather cruel cliffhanger. She shut her eyes in defeat and a low sigh came out. Then she turned to her daughter and watched her sleep for a bit before leaning in to kiss her head.

Risa murmured in the kiss, "Don't grow up like your father. He gives me a headache."

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

"You know," Cody dragged out his last word as he and Risa stood behind the counter to the living room, watching Yuliya and her father tackle each other on the sofa. "If my phone hadn't died, I'd record this side of him to use as blackmail in the future."

"You would have no future if you blackmailed him." Risa countered indifferently, sipping her cup of tea.

"Already done lads," the voice that walked up to them belonged to no other but the infamous K2. The director wave this phone like some exquisite item on display in a museum, and proceeded to safely tuck it into his vest. "I'll AirDrop parts 1-6 on Christmas Eve." Part of his remorseless mien could be due to the fact that this was his revenge for his treatment in the car ride earlier.

Cody smirked and swung his head back at Risa, as if indicating that she was the only oddball out of them all. "When there's a will, there's a way."

"Unless the will is waylaid," she mirrored his cheeky smile. Before the man could get another word out, she turned to K2 and asked, "Director, how are you?"

"You mean physically or mentally?" K2 tested.

"Whatever Pierce did to you," she mocked. "I really can't believe your old bum just let it happen. How rusty have you become after managing 6 teens?"

The man sighed, but there was a nostalgic smile on the corner of his lips. "You even have your own offspring now, how can I keep up?"

"Well you better get used to it," Risa winked. "It could be any of," she waved her hand towards Cody—and the other nonexistent members that would soon arrive in the following days— "them next."

Cody purposely slurped his drink extra loud to interrupt her before he said, rather bitterly, "I've already decided to be alone."

Both Risa and K2 rolled their eyes. The older man then spoke up, "Find me a woman first, then you can dwell on your unfortunate life."

"I suggested Ms. Island," Risa sipped her tea, "but you two didn't hit it off as I expected."

"Of course we didn't," K2 suddenly refuted, pointing at her. "You locked us in her classroom for a whole night! Do you know how long it's been since I've had to care for another adult, nevermind a random woman until the next morning? It was the worst day of my life."

"But director," Risa pleaded, a slight whine evident in her tone, "She practically raised me. I think if I tried again, it could work ou—"

"No no," the director waved his elephantine hands in her face, "I appreciate it, but you Eastons are the last people I'd go to for help."

At that, Risa brought her cup up to her lips and sipped her tea. "She said she liked it though." As the older man turned away to sit down, she could tell his ears perked up at the newfound information.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

Pierce's POV

He picked their child up in his arms and laid her head against his chest. The child was breathing hard, but this time it was from laughing and not the fever that he tried his best to make her forget.

"Yuliya," Pierce murmured to her in Russian. "Let's go have Mama give you medicine now."

"They don't taste good," Yuliya looked up at him after responding in her developing Russian. He could see her cheeks heating up as she continued. "Mama always gives me bad tasting ones."

He and Risa decided together to teach their daughter French first, a compromise for him naming her Yuliya while Risa named her Blaise as her middle name. It wasn't until she reached four that they began sticking to their original languages so that she wouldn't get mixed up. Risa spoke to her solely in French, he in Russian, and when they were together, she would respond accordingly to the language spoken to her.

"That's because they make it taste bad." He kissed her as he carried her to the kitchen. "Also, Mama gives me bad tasting ones too."

"We should give her some so she can taste it before giving it to me."

"I will," he smirked at her sly response. "If she ever gets sick again."

"You're right," his child fumbled, peeking over his shoulders to find her mother, "she doesn't get sick. She only got sick one time."

Pierce set her on the counter as he arched his brows. They were in the kitchen, but it seemed like Risa was tending to K2 and Cody so that they would have a place to sleep. He shrugged and went to the cabinet to give Yuliya her medicine himself. While he prepared her liquid medicine in her plain sight, he kept her distracted with her favorite topic: her Mama.

"And you remember it?" he asked, giving her a curious smile as they met eyes. "When was that?"

"When she had me," Yuliya replied, a little softer than he was expecting.

Pierce mixed the medicine cup with a little water after pouring in the appropriate amount for her age. Yuliya watched him work, and slowly, her expression matched her distaste for the drink. When he caught her staring, he continued distracting her.

"You really remember it, huh?" Pierce nodded in thought, "you're right. Mama was sick then."

"Very sick, Papa," the child threw her arms up as if that was the most crucial part of her memory. Pierce stared at her with a mixture of surprise and concern.

"Did I really tell you that much?" he whispered, "Sorry sunshine. I didn't mean to put a bad memory in your head."

"No, it's not you only," she confessed. "I just know. Mama told me some things too when she gets sleepy."

"I see." Pierce pondered on the statement for a moment, then a frown etched on his brows before he shook his head. "What did Mama tell you?"

"That the doctors tried to harm her," Yuliya stated carefully, even to the point of avoiding his eyes. Her hands clasped together in her lap. Pierce watched her every body signal closely. "That they left Mama on the bed for hours without help, and you made a scene."

"Well that's embarrassing," he made a remark under his breath, turning to go put the medicine box away.

"But I'm proud of you," Yuliya beamed, balling up her fists as if mimicking a boxing fight. "You protected her."

"Of course."

"And," she emphasized, rather proudly with her whole chest. "You treated her because you're a doctor."

Pierce came back and grabbed the cup, giving it to his child while he continued her story. "Something like that. I have special permission to step in when someone messes with the order of things. Especially when it comes to your Mama."

Yuliya obliviously gulped her medicine and exclaimed in one sweeping breath, "that's when I was born."

He smirked, slipped the cup from her hand, and stealthily brought it away to wash before putting it up in the cabinets.

"Papa?" Yuliya abruptly interrogated.

"I'm listening, sunshine."

"Does Mama have special permission too?"

Pierce closed the cabinet and nodded. "Mama too."

"That explains why she can give me yucky tasting medicine." The child put her hand on her forehead and talked to herself, a common thing for her to do these days when it got late. She would ramble until she burned out, which was also Pierce and Risa's favorite part of the day.

"Does anyone else have it?" she asked. "Does my friend have it too?"

He scooped her up in his arms again, and she let out a faint giggle. "No, just the uncles and aunt, and Mama and Papa. Just our family."

"Why?" Yuliya tilted her head, then drilled her skull into his chest to play with him.

"To protect you," Pierce answered, taking her upstairs. "And whichever cousin pops out after you. Although I doubt Uncle Cody has any plans to give you one soon. You can fight him tomorrow morning and let Mama and me sleep in."

"I don't want you to sleep in," she smiled cheekily, as if knowing that he slipped that last part in for his own benefit. "Who would make me breakfast?" Her tiny voice echoed off the walls as he turned off the lights to the main floor and the hallways, taking her to her room.

Pierce pretended to think as if he didn't already have an answer when he proposed the scenario. "K2 will."

Yuliya sighed as if he should have known better, "you don't get it."

"I just want to sleep in sunshine," he laughed as he reached her door. "Papa had a long journey to get home."

"Then I'll sleep with you," she suggested innocently.

"Oh, how perfect," Pierce smirked in defeat, pinching their daughter's cheek. "Now there's two of you on my bed."

"There won't be when Mama kicks us both off."

And he laughed out loud as he plopped her on her bed. Pierce stroked the girl's hair before his hands gently lifted her chin. "Brush your teeth and then go straight to bed, okay? I'm going to go check on Uncle and K2."

"Papa. They probably locked their doors already because you're sneaky." The child attempted her final cheeky remark before hopping off the bed and into the restroom.

Pierce got up and walked to the door, then kept his hand around the knob as he looked around. When he heard the sink faucet turn on, he closed the door and walked across the hall to his and Risa's room.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

She woke up and heard the faint breathing of the Commander beside her. When she tried pulling the covers off, he stirred beside her, and she let out a sigh as she knew any second now his eyes would open.

"Go to sleep Pierce," she said.

The man beside her sighed in his sleep, before managing to mutter in his half-asleep state, "Where are you going?"

She rose off the bed as his eyes opened gradually. "To check on Yuliya," she replied.

The man breathed out roughly, brushing back his hair. Then he pushed himself up by an elbow and mumbled, "... I'll come too."

"No," she turned around, expecting him to be out of it, but his eyes were now open and watching her. She took a moment to think, then leaned in and kissed his lips ever so softly. "Stay in bed."

As she walked out, she heard him say something to her in Russian. She ignored it, discreetly wiping her mouth with the back of her hand when the door closed.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

The tender smile was set on her face as her eyes searched for the room. The entire house was asleep—K2, Cody, and the little sunshine. Darkness surrounded her as she ambled on the wooden floor, down the silent hallway, and leisurely turned roundabout to the child's bedroom.

As she reached Yuliya's door, she found that the doorknob was—coincidentally—a little harder to turn than usual, as if the child hadn't slept in her own room for a while. She twisted her wrist more assertively than usual. The door creaked open, and she used her arm to pry it wider as her head slipped in.

The six year old was lying in the safety of her bed, the covers pulled up to her chin. Her room was simple, and Risa and Pierce had gone to great lengths to add tiny lights around the room because their daughter couldn't sleep in complete darkness.

"Yu-li-ya," she mouthed, smiling.

The child slept on.

"My baby, Mama's here," she cooed, breaking the silence in the room. She knew she had woken the girl when her breathing pattern halted sharply for an extensive time, then it picked up again, this time more rapidly as if she was conscious of her mother standing at the doorway.

Now the child's eyes were on her, but she did not stir or utter her Mama's name. In fact, she remained motionless. "Are you sleepy, Mama?" Yuliya asked in French, barely above a whisper, reaching over to turn on her night light.

She shut the bedroom door firmly behind her, while she masked the sound of the lock turning with her tongue clicking the roof of her teeth. "Oh my love," she guessed the girl's words. "How can I sleep when I've forgotten to tell you your bedtime story?"

"I'm good," Yuliya replied cautiously. "Papa told me a story before I went to bed."

She could see that the child was uncomfortable with something, but it seemed like the six year old hadn't quite figured it out yet—despite this not being her first visit. She walked slowly to the child's bedside until she was sitting right beside her. Yuliya's face came into full view, eyes wide awake, just merely observing her.

She laughed in the eerie silence that Yuliya was creating for herself. "Then I'll tell you a different story, my baby. How about," she stroked the child's face, then traveled down to her chin. "Ah, that night. When the rain poured down on her limp body, and the sewers filled with a bright color..."

She saw the girl glancing at the door for a quick second, her body language signaling that she eagerly wanted to run into her father's arms at the moment. Yuliya was quick to mask it with her fake, gullible smile, but she could see that the little one's eyes were troubled.

"But no one came to my aid," Leigh switched into a satiric temptress in a blink of an eye, a sinister smile ripping at the corner of her lips. A stinging thought pierced her mind, but she knew exactly who was making that futile attempt after shaking her head with a dry smile. Don't hurt my child, came the voice in her head.

"Guess who didn't come to Mama on time, Yuliya," she stirred up the sensitive topic, stroking the child's hair as she stared at her with those little crestfallen eyes; eyes that were petrified, and were naively losing trust in her mother—just as planned.

"Is Papa awake?" Yuliya managed to move her mouth, reaching up to fondly cup her mother's face. "Let's go to Papa, Mama," the smart thing suggested, not knowing the door was locked so that the no one could interrupt them tonight.

"You want to go to Papa?" She stressed the word in such a distasteful way that it made the child frown in hesitation. "That's right, Papa always makes himself look like the hero, doesn't he?" Yuliya pulled her hand back slowly, staring blindly in front of her as Leigh unplugged all the lights with a smile, and left the two of them alone in the dark to play.

"Say, Yuliya—" she seized the child's hair with her nails, twirling it around her finger. "—does Mama look a lot like the bad guy right now?"

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

Leigh: :D