Harold let them sleep, at least for a few hours more. He covered them with a blanket and with his protective arm, leaning into their warmth. Their faces were quiet, perhaps even serene. And so would Harold’s have been if not for the sense of foreboding creeping along every aching, unquiet nerve. “I love you,” he sighed, closing his eyes.
Leila woke up first, patting Harold’s sleep-slack face. “Ba-ba?”
The retiring librarian and scholar grinned. “Ba-ba! Coming up, sweetheart,” he replied, groaning as his forced his muscles to unclench and his bones to straighten so that he could prepare her a bottle of milk. John’s soot-dark lashes fluttered as he hugged the tiny girl against his chest. “Good morning.”
“Good morning to you,” said Harold, handing the sleep-deprived soldier the baby’s meal. She didn’t need him to hold it, Harold realized happily. Her strength had begun to return and she concentrated on examining John’s ears, nose and eyebrows as she drank. Leila brought tears to John’s eyes with one spectacularly aimed fist to his nose but he only chuckled, bouncing her until fits of giggles nearly toppled them both.