Chapter 18
Nonplatonic Co-Parenting

Lisa quite liked mornings. They had taken some getting used to, especially when she’d first come into a human body. Back then, mornings had been waking up from one nightmare into another. Living with Daniel had made them bearable, back then, even before she’d admitted it to herself. But in time, as she slowly made peace with her circumstances (and nudged them just a little bit) they had become the favourite part of her day. 

For one thing, it was where coffee was. Not that she didn’t have coffee throughout the rest of the day, but the smell of the first cup was different. She drummed her fingers on the countertop as she waited for the coffee machine to finish pouring, looking out the back window at the casually swirling miasma in the garden. Hayden and Daniel had strung a tarp above it, to avoid any prying eyes. At least the bloody thing hadn’t expanded yet. 

She felt a soft kiss on the nape of her neck and she smiled, letting herself lean back into the arms that wrapped themselves around her. “Good morning, love,” Daniel said, in that voice he only ever used when it was just the two of them together, barely a whisper. 

This. This was why mornings were so good. “Hey you,” she purred softly. They’d been up quite late the night before. Despite Sabine’s eagerness to get started, she had been convinced to spend the night. In a house with four adults and two kids, they had plenty of spare rooms, and once she had calmed down, Sabine had realized that there was a lot she needed to catch up on. With Daniel especially. 

And so there had been a lot of talking. After a while, Jenny and Hayden had gone to bed, too tired for even events like this to stay up, although they had been more than happy to get to know someone who knew Daniel from before they’d met. 

Sabine, for her part, had been a delight. Clearly still out of it from having been dead for years — and who could blame her — she drank in every new bit of information, and she had been made to calm down from getting up and doing things, almost constantly. Like someone with a lifetime of experience nevertheless seeing the world for the first time. Even Lisa had tuckered out, eventually. She’d fallen asleep on the couch, she was pretty sure, but she’d woken up in her bed nonetheless.

“How did you sleep?” Daniel asked as he poured two cups of coffee. 

Lisa kissed him and gratefully took her cup. “Well, if not enough. Were you up for much longer?” Daniel drank his coffee slowly. The exhaustion of a short night was visible on his face, but not in his eyes. He was as alert as ever. 

“A little while. After you’d fallen asleep, it felt strange to keep talking. I put the three of them in the third floor bedroom. With the three of them, and Liz being that large, the box frame made the most sense.” He took her hand in his, their fingers intertwining, and kissed it. “How are you feeling?”

“Anxious,” Lisa said. “There’s a lot that will need to be done. And I don’t know how to feel about all of it yet.” She caught his eye. “I’m not having second thoughts, mind. Just…”

“It’s all gone back, hasn’t it?” Daniel said. He swirled the coffee around in his mug. “For a few years… sure, it was strange, because you’re an incredible and ridiculous woman.” That got him a kiss. “But it was also quiet and gentle and… normal.”

“It was perfect.” Not in a thousand years, when she had been The Dragon Demon Queen, had she thought living with partners and kids, of all things, would have been her idea of an idyllic life. But it had been.

“It was. We were,” Daniel said. 

“And now it’s all gone mythical again,” Lisa said. “This is one of those tales people will tell their children about. Oh hells, do you think there will be tapestries?”

“On their side of that portal? I’m quite sure. On this end, I think we’re more likely to get a dramatic documentary or two. Maybe a film.” Daniel chuckled, but his smile quickly faded. “Are you… scared, at all, love, of going back to who we were?”

“Terrified,” Lisa said. “Which is why I’m not letting that happen. Not letting myself, at the very least, and I’d rather die than have you off on a grand world-saving adventure on your own. But even with all that… yes. Stories have a way of getting told, and not really caring about the people in them. We know that better than most. They made a video game about us, for crying out loud.”

“Yeah, that was… a thing that happened. Did you see they’re making a sequel?”

“I did, but I don’t care much for it,” Lisa said, putting her cup down and wrapping her arms around Daniel’s neck. “Why would I care about a story that isn’t even about my wondrous Hero of Efferton?”

“Fuck off,” Daniel grinned, and he kissed her. They stood there like that for a moment, and then slowly pulled away. “So… what now?”

“I want to talk to Hayden and Jenny. They’re our family, too. They might not know about magic and dragons and whatnot, but they have just as much of a say in what happens as the two of us do,” Lisa said. “That’s not even mentioning the kids.”

“Speaking of which,” Daniel said, “lest mine ears deceive me, I think I can hear two mice in the hallway trying very hard not to breathe too loud so we can’t tell they’re listening in.” He poked his head around the corner. “Boo!” 

Two tiny shrieks came from the door, and then two small faces were carried into the room, one under each of  Daniel’s arms. “Oh my,” Lisa said, “looks like we’re having mice for breakfast today.”

“Nooooo,” the girl said, giggling. “‘mnotamouse!”

“Don’t eat ussss,” Samuel squealed, laughing so hard he was almost crying. Daniel put both of them down and immediately each of the kids ran to one of them for hugs. 

“Oh, alright then,” Lisa said as she hugged Tiffany. “We’ll just have to have pancakes again.” More squeals of delight. 

“Pancakes!” Samuel said, jumping up and almost slamming the top of his head into Daniel’s jaw, who only barely managed to dodge out of the way. 

“What’s myffic?” Tiffany said as she hopped onto the chair with the booster seat, bouncing and ready for pancakes. Lisa and Daniel looked at each other for a moment.

“How about,” Lisa said, “I make pancakes, Daniel gets Jenny and Hayden, and we have a family talk about it? Sound good?” After some affirmative-but-not-too-loud cheering, Daniel kissed her on the cheek and Lisa turned to the stove. She’d never really lost her passion for cooking, although her writing career kicking off had meant she’d had less and less time to indulge in it. The advantage of living with four adults is that there’s almost always someone who has the time to cook. The downside is that now, one has to cook for four. Six if counting the kids. 

But it was still a relaxing experience. Something she could focus her hands on while her mind wandered. And there was a lot of wandering for it to do. She served the first few pancakes to the delighted kids and gave them both a kiss on top of their head when she put the plates down, then went back to make more. Soon, things would change. They’d be different. She wouldn’t be the Demon Queen, not now, not ever again, but she wouldn’t be just Lisa Drake anymore. She wouldn’t just be important — because she was, to both the children, and her partners in this house — but she’d be Important. People fret about interesting times, but so much worse than interesting is Important. 

Hayden and Jenny both walked in, bleary-eyed and be-slippered. Jenny made grabby motions as she approached the coffee-machine while Hayden greeted the kids, and then they traded places, getting liquids and giving affection respectively. Finally, both came over to kiss Lisa on either cheek, before also sitting down next to Daniel and the kids. 

“The guests?” Jenny asked, her voice still full of sleep. 

“Still asleep upstairs,” Daniel said. 

“So, family meeting, huh?” Hayden asked as he sipped his cup. “You know, I’ve been thinking long and hard what it could be about, but gosh darnit, I don’t have a clue.”

“Issabout myffic!” Tiffany said helpfully in between bites. Hayden looked at her nonplussed for a moment, then burst out laughing and gave her a little smooch on top of her head. “What?” she asked, with the indignation of a four-year-old not in on the joke. 

“Nothing, Tiff,” Hayden said. “Thank you. But just for clarity’s sake, why don’t we have momma Lisa explain to me what she means with ‘myffic,’ is that okay?” Tiffany nodded enthusiastically as she smeared syrup over most of her upper lip. 

Lisa sat down as she put the final, largest plate of pancakes in the middle of the table. “I was talking to Daniel just a bit ago,” she said, “and about what everything that’s going on is going to mean.” She poured herself some more coffee. “As well as what the opening of that portal did to me.” Jenny and Hayden looked at her expectantly, but didn’t say anything. “I mean, the kids already saw everything when they walked in on me…”

“Going *fwoosh*,” Jenny said, nodding. “So what do you want to do, Lisa?”

“I want us to stay a family,” Lisa said. “And I want to help. I have the power to do so, but I’m not leaving any of you.” She reached across the table, to squeeze hands and rub the heads of two slightly-worried looking children. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“So…”

“I’m going to make a statement,” Lisa said. “I think that’s the best thing for it. The whole world is connected, all the time, so I need to be somewhere visible. But before that… I might know someone in the press who will at least know to release a statement to go with the big reveal.”

“What kind of big reveal?” Jenny asked. “Like, turning into a big dragon or something?” Immediately, Samuel’s eyes went wide as dinner plates, and the big grin on his face was only exacerbated by the missing baby teeth.

“No, not a dragon,” Lisa said quickly, much to Samuel’s dismay. “Never a dragon. But something big and ostentatious. Something loud.”

“Something myffic,” Hayden added helpfully. 

“Exactly.”

“When do we want to do this?” Daniel asked. “We can’t wait too long. From what I’ve heard, the amount of people that need feeding will become a problem, and soon.”

“We’ll need to set up preparations on this side,” Hayden said, "which means we’ll need help from charity organizations.”

“We can’t do this on our own,” Lisa said. “But we need to make the statement first. Hells, maybe we can make this into a good thing. Spin it somehow?”

“We’ll think of something,” Jenny said. “Together.”

“The world is going to change a lot,” Daniel said, mostly to the kids. “And things might get noisy and maybe a little busy for a while.”

“But none of us are going anywhere,” Hayden added. “And we’re all gonna need each other, okay? So that means that, when something’s wrong, you have to say it, and when we tell you something’s wrong, you gotta believe us, okay?”

Tiffany nodded, mouth full of pancake and not really understanding. Samuel, having a slightly more nuanced grasp of what was being said, nodded sternly. “Yessir,” he said. Hayden grinned and ruffled his hair. 

“Why do we have the best kids in the world?” Jenny asked. 

“I know this one!” Tiffany said, piercing the air with her fork. Everyone looked at her. “Twice as many moms and dads!”

Lisa smiled. She quite liked mornings.