Chapter Thirty-Five

May 14 ^th, 2021

As happy as he was to have his two daughters delivered safely into the world, Andy wanted nothing so much at that moment as to go home and take a shower. It was late afternoon, and Andy was planning on heading back to the house in a few hours, but he was exhausted. Aisling's labor had been prolonged, with one of his daughters almost refusing to come out, even after her sister had almost popped right out at the start.

Unlike with little Matty, picking the twins' names had been a long and ongoing process that had gone back and forth more times than a game between two evenly matched tennis pros. It had started out easy enough. Aisling's one rule was "nothing trendy or fashionable," which had crossed off Olivia from Andy's list. (Ash said it sounded like a future stripper's name.) Andy's one counter rule was "no unfairly pronounced Irish weirdness," which had crossed Róisín off Ash's list. (Andy insisted if he had to constantly use Microsoft Character Map to be able to type his own daughter's name, he would lose his mind.) From there, they made sure neither of them had any names too similar to any other member of Team Rook already, which scratched a couple more off of each of their lists.

When they finally did come to a decision in mid-December, the two of them kept it to themselves as a closely guarded secret, and constantly shot back snarky responses to anyone who asked, even the other fiancées (now wives) didn't know, except for Niko, who simply pretended that she didn't know.

Andy and Ash had made a game of their answers to anyone who asked. They'd said things like "Frick & Frack," "Starsky & Hutch," "Abbott & Costello," "Statler & Waldorf," "Brooks & Reiner," "Tango & Cash," "Butch & Sundance," "Lennon & McCartney," "Mick & Keef," "Woodward & Bernstein," "Rogers & Hammerstein," "Dolce & Gabanna," "Kit & Kat," "Dot & Dash," "Pitter & Patter," "Phobos & Deimos," and Andy's favorite, "Cagney & Lacey."

While they didn't know for certain until after they were born, the ultrasounds Ash had undergone revealed separate sacs and separate placentas, which means they had known there was about an 90% chance that the twins would be fraternal, not identical. Once they'd been born, that had been immediately confirmed, as the first girl out had strawberry blonde hair, while the second girl out had more of a deep red shade to her hair, like her mother's. It meant they would be much easier to tell apart growing up.

In the end, they'd settled on a pair of names both liked and felt unique enough that the girls wouldn't get confused with anyone else in the house. The girl who'd come blazing out first they'd named Honor, which had actually been the second name they'd picked. The younger of the twins, by a matter of hours, they'd named Hope.

Hope had been a name picked by Aisling from the list of the seven Catholic virtues - Hope, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, Faith, Charity and Fortitude - and had sprung off when they were entertaining the idea of calling one of them Faith, something they'd backed off the longer they sat with it. Hope and Faith just felt too... puritanical for them, especially with Andy being an atheist, so they decided to keep Hope and just try and find a different name for the other girl.

Then in early December, Andy pointed out that a lot of twins were named alliteratively, so maybe they could consider other girls names starting with H. A lot of those had been struck off immediately by Ash because of her rule. Many of the other options (Harriet, Helena, Hadley, Harper, Hattie, Harlow, etc.) felt stodgy, and, of course, Hannah was right out, for obvious reasons.

A few weeks later, a bunch of them were doing an entire watch-through of the James Bond franchise, when they were watching 'Goldfinger' and in the opening credits popped up 'Starring Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore.' From the intense amount of giggling Ash had begun next to him, he'd known what she was going to say before the words had even left her lips three or four minutes later, when she could finally breathe again.

"If there's any man on this planet who has pussy galore, it's you, Mr. Rook," she whispered to him, tears still staining her grinning cheeks. "Honor and Hope. I like it. Do you?"

To his credit, Andy had kept a straight face as he leaned over and whispered back to her. "Oh, sure. I was afraid you were gonna suggest we call her Gertie after Gert Frobe, ol' Goldfinger himself."

That had sent Ash back into another wave of inescapable giggling fits as she hid from everyone, burying her face into Andy's chest and hiding underneath a blanket like a burrowing cat. Even Muninn and Huginn had found it strange.

They'd kept the names to themselves the entire time.

Xander and Eric had both come down to the hospital to check on him, and to greet Andy's two new daughters to the world. Eric had gotten to the hospital even before Andy's plane had touched down, so that Ash would have some friendly faces around while she waited for Andy to get back to California. Phil, who'd been on Andy's plane back, had gone home and to bed before showing up the next day in the afternoon, just an hour or so after Hope was born.

Andy stood nearly alone (Melody had come in to keep an eye on him after the girls were born and it was safe to be near Ash) looking at the window into the room of newborns, seeing his two daughters next to each other, the two quite the contrast from one another. Honor had been born at 8 pounds, 7 ounces and 21 inches in length while her younger sister Hope had been born at 6 pounds, 13 ounces and 19 inches in length. As Sheridan pointed out over FaceTime, both girls were Taureans, meaning they would be patient, grounded and loyal. She also pointed out that in the Chinese Zodiac, they were being born into the year of the Metal Ox, which meant they would have strong willpower and firm belief in justice, although they could also turn out to be very stubborn.

He'd joked to her that it sounded like the perfect melding of him and Ash.

After the girls had been born, the nurses had been asking them for their names and Aisling had stopped to correct herself as to not spell it 'honour.'

"So, I hear Eric owes me $50," Xander said to Andy as he walked up to his old friend, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Congratulations, by the way."

"What names did Eric have his money on?" Andy asked his bear-like friend out of amusement.

"Fortune & Glory," Xander said. "Seemed like a reasonable guess as opposed to some of the others, what with your love of Indiana Jones. I considered putting in for Laverne & Shirley, but it felt like too much of a long shot."

"Yeah, we decided against going for a famous duo, and wanted to pick two names we liked," Andy told him as the two men shared a big hug. "I'm a fucking father of three, Xan. How the hell did that happen?"

"I'm certain you've got the mechanics down by this point," Xander teased. "Don't worry - you won't be alone for too long. I think just about all of us will be having our firstborns within the next year or two. You're just slightly ahead of the curve."

"Oh yeah?"

"Both Madison and Betsy got back positive results over the last couple of days, so I'll be a double father early next year. I expected one would be coming soon enough, but I didn't think I'd have two announcements on the same day."

"Congrats!"

"Yeah, I'm still wrapping my head around it myself," Xander said. "I called Mom, and she seems to think I'm going to be a great dad."

"You are. You just don't know it yet."

"Yeah, well, I've gotten this far in life by studying the best, and I intend to keep copying whatever you're doing, brother, so I hope you won't lead me astray," Xander told him. Ever since his best and oldest friend had moved out to California, he'd become Andy's confidant, the person Andy felt safe talking about nearly anything with. "You're only a few days younger than me, and while I always tell you I learned more in those days than you'll ever catch up to... you've done more in just the last few years alone than most people do over dozens of lifetimes. You... you're our north star, Andy. Not just me but a lot of us. So I hope even if you're feeling tired, you're okay to keep going on, because we need you, man. More than any of us can even tell you."

Andy stopped and looked at his friend, offering him a slightly bitter smile. "You know, you're one step away from 'good luck, we're all counting on you,' with that little speech of yours, right?"

"Don't worry, stewardess - I speak jive," his mountain of a friend laughed back at him. "I'm just sayin' - you got a lot of eyes on you, friend, so stay hopeful. We look to you to spread it all around and be the tide that raises all boats."

"No kidding," Andy sighed, looking back through the glass at the small room with half a dozen newborns in it. "I'm just one guy, but it feels like I'm one of the keystones some days, and that if I take one wrong step, everything's going to get fucked up in my wake. Just keep trying my best, I guess."

Xander put his tattoo-covered hand back on Andy's shoulder. "All anybody can ask of you."

Phil approached them from down the hallway, Melody checking to make sure it was him before he got too close. "Hey, man. Ash wants to see you before you head home for the night. The doctors say she and the girls will probably be ready to go home tomorrow, although they may want them to stay one more day, just to make sure they've got all the test results they need."

"Test results?" Andy asked, narrowing his eyes. "What kinds of tests?"

"They're just comparing their vitals against all the other QT babies, Andy. We've got a lot to learn about the next generation - how the serum's affected them, what things are just like kids born before them and what's radically different."

Andy was too tired for this, but he wasn't sure Phil would tell him easily otherwise, so he figured he'd better ask his questions now. "How different is Matty from kids born before the serum?"

"Night and day," Phil said, his smile also a little tired. "Maybe we shouldn't be talking about all this in front of a civvie, but fuck it, it's all going to come out soon enough. These kids, man. They're perfect. This whole Serum Generation 1. All of them. No defects, no birthmarks, no complications. Do you know there hasn't been a Caesarian section for a serum baby yet? Not one. Nobody's been born prematurely, either. And not a single birth with signs of medical disorder or chronic conditions like diabetes or asthma. No signs of clubfoot, or cerebral palsy, or Down syndrome, or spina bifida, or heart defects, or or or... it's wild, Andy. They come in all shapes and sizes, all sorts of skin colors and hair colors and eye colors, but all of them, to a tee, they're in perfect health when they're born."

"Are the nanobots--"

"Yeah, that's another thing. It's in the stack of research we've been sending you, so if you haven't seen this yet, don't feel bad about it," Phil said as he moved to sit down in one of the chairs that looked over the observation room. "Anyone who's gone through a regeneration cycle has this new and unique protein we've identified in their bloodstream. We think it's a by-product of whatever's doing the low-level regenerations to our reproductive systems. That protein? It's in the SGen1 kids. They aren't generating any new nanobots themselves, and the old nanobots they're getting from their parents are just being flushed out by the spleen and deposited in their poop."

"That's both disgusting and fascinating," Xander said. "Biotech poop."

"Biotech warfare is more like it," Andy said. "I've changed some of little Matty's diapers. The contents of those things violate the Geneva convention some days..."

Phil carried on, ignoring the joking asides. "Plus we've found a new organ in these kids! It's an offshoot of the thymus, and it seems like its main purpose is to shore up the adaptive immune system, make it better at fighting off diseases, and also to accelerate healing and cellular damage repair. It's making stem cells and using them to keep these kids in prime physical health. They heal from cuts and scratches way faster than the generation before them."

"How the hell did you find any of this?" Xander asked.

"So, when the first SGen1 kids were born, there's a test they run to check for something called bilirubin levels, which tells you how the endochrine, kidney, liver and lymphic systems are running. The higher the level, the more complicated the birth process likely was. They usually test them right after birth and then test them again later. All the SGen1 kids came back with unusual results."

"Too low? Too high?"

"None at all," Phil said with a shrug. "Freaked the fuck out of a bunch of pediatric and neonatal doctors like you wouldn't believe. They ran the test like a dozen times before they accepted the result. The way it used to work, they would see what the levels were, then check again several hours later, make sure the bilirubin levels were going down, which meant all the bodily systems were in line, doing their jobs, getting rid of the stuff. Here? Doctors didn't know what to think. It's like... how do you diagnose a complete lack of a problems as something?" He mimed his thumb and finger into the shape of a phone, holding it to his ear. "'Hello, yes, I'd like to report my daughter as being too healthy. Hello? Hello?' She hung up."

"Must be your mime skills, Marcel Marceau," Andy joked. "So, what are the actual ramifications of all of that?"

"Well, our kids are healing way faster than we ever did, that's for certain. The new organ seems like it's a dedicated glow up of our bodies' repair systems. Whatever you think the nanobots are doing for us, the organ does kinda the same thing but on a smaller scale and with less power."

"They going to have our appetites? We haven't noticed anything with Matty, but I guess we wouldn't even know what to compare it to."

"They'll eat more, but not anywhere near your or my caloric intakes, no."

Andy laughed, miming wiping sweat from his brow. "Thank God for that, otherwise I'd get eaten out of house and home before the end of the year. So, nothing to really worry about?"

Phil sort of wiggled his head from side to side. "We're a little worried that there isn't much to be worried about, actually. I think that's why all the pediatricians and neonatal doctors keep looking. They need to know what they should be worried about moving forward, and so far, the complete lack of problems has got them a little shook."

"Take it as a sign," Andy said. "Maybe the nanobots know they can't run forever and are trying to establish tools to help us replace them."

"Heh, yeah, I wouldn't bank on that," Phil said. "First off, you're giving the tiny little buggers far more credit than they deserve. They can't think, they can't plan, and they certainly can't develop long-term strategies. They're short-term problem solvers. They see a problem, they set about to fix it. They're not writing doctoral theses on the doctrine of artificial life existentialism, you know?"

"Didn't you say you thought you talked to them, though?" Xander laughed.

"No, I hallucinated they were talking to me. That's very different. You and Linda are still the closest examples we have of anyone actually communicating with the damn nanos, and even then, I wouldn't consider that communication beyond a sort of basic input/output level."

Andy scowled at his friend in mock annoyance. "That's literally the definition of communication, Phil."

"Fine fine. You can call it communication if you want, but it's still insanely primitive. Barely beyond 'Hello world.' I wouldn't worry about them refusing to open the pod bay doors any time soon, if you know what I mean."

"Aw, and I was considering putting sexbots in the next Druid Gunslinger book," Andy laughed.

"You do what you want to, man, but it ain't gonna have any basis in reality if you do."

"Fiction, real life... it can be hard to tell the difference between the two some days."

"Anyway, there's also some minor things we're still investigating, like whether or not team size has any effect on the children, which, so far we don't think that it does, but it's definitely something that could get updated as time goes on," Phil said. "We're going to learn a lot about them over the next few years. But these kids are gonna be super different than we were as kids, that much is for sure."

"Oh yeah? What else should we expect?"

"They're learning faster, we think. Typically babies start crawling at around the 5-month mark, but Alice, the first girl on record born to parents with the Quaranteam serum in their blood stream, was born in mid-January, to some people who work at the base. She was crawling at three months and looks like she might start trying to walk soon, which is, just, like, way ahead of schedule. Recognizes her own name and responds to it. And we're seeing similar timelines for other kids who aren't quite as far along, so I'd expect Matty to follow suit."

"All the guides about raising children are off on their time scales, got it." Andy let out a deeply held sigh as he moved to sit down next to Phil. "Life comes at you pretty fast, doesn't it?"

"Man, you barely know the half of it, and you couldn't be more right if you tried," Phil said as Xander moved to join them in the chairs. "How do you do it, Andy?"

"Do what?"

"Keep moving forward, in spite of everything. Not constantly break down in tears. I'm a mess at least two days in any given week, and some days I don't even want to get out of bed in the morning."

"Nowhere else to go but forward," Andy said back as offhandedly, as if he'd been talking about the weather. But there was a quiet, stern resolution undercutting his words, a sort of ancient steel buried in his tone, like he refused to be a broken man. "Yeah, I have my moments where the totality of all weighs on me, same as you. The number of friends we've lost. The number of bodies we've buried. Shit, the generation that disappeared in less than a year. There's a lot of people I miss, every day, no two ways about it. All the people I was talking to just a couple of years ago who are dead now. My brother. The friendly guy who lived in the condo next to Eric's. The guy who ran the comic book shop I'd been going to for almost twenty years. The guy who did all the cover art for all the Druid Gunslinger books. Hell, the critic who wrote the harsh but fair review of the first one that I still have framed." Andy chuckled a bit to himself. "Okay, so maybe I don't miss that last guy all that much, but still... They talk about recognizing the forest for the trees, but when all you see are trees, the forest feels pretty damn big, if you know what I'm saying." He pointed towards the glass with a single fingertip. "Then I remember everyone who's counting on me, everyone whose lives depend on my survival for their own survival, and even if I think I'm having a shitty day, I pick myself back up, put one foot in front of the other and, y'know, keep moving forward."

"'Keep moving forward,'" Phil echoed. "Yeah, I like that. I can get behind that."

"Not mine," Andy said. "I think it's a Walt Disney quote."

"You saw it in 'Meet The Robinsons,'" Eric offered.

"You're right. That I did. How the hell did you remember that?"

"I forget nothing."

"How are the 'big ideas' coming along, Phil?" Xander asked. "You said you had some big plans in mind at poker night before you lot headed off to DC. They agree with your vision?"

"Partly, but we'll see if they'll follow through. I've got a list of things we as a society need to do, stuff like rebuild the international transportation system, the power grid, the push towards renewable energy sources... but there's loads of other things we're going to have to think about," Phil said. "And that doesn't take into account any of the things the politicians in Washington are talking about, because Lord knows if I can keep up with their crazy shit."

"Like what?" Xander asked.

"We shouldn't really talk about it," Andy said. "It's probably classified or something."

"Yeah, on this thing? I don't give that much of a fuck," Phil grumbled. "Some of the people in the president's orbit want to annex the rest of Mexico and Canada. Currently, cooler heads are prevailing, but the argument that neither country currently has much of a remaining military is certainly on the minds of people. I can't imagine the situation with Algeria is making things any easier in trying to calm people down and keep borders preserved."

"That's blowing my mind," Xander said as Eric started to walk up to them. "The whole Algeria thing seems totally out of control."

"Give it time," Eric said. "The Algerians can't hold it all. They've grabbed way more land than they're capable of holding onto, and it's going to start falling apart fast. They overplayed their hand, stretched their resources too far, and it'll backfire on them, and soon, if I'm reading the data right." He looked over at Andy, twirling his finger. "Anyway, you need to wrap it up and get in there before Ash comes out here with a fire ax looking for you."

"Yep, that's my cue," Andy said as he stood up. "The minute she's threatening grievous bodily harm, I've been flapping my gums too long. Thanks for coming, guys. I appreciate it." He stood up along with Phil and Xander, the four men having one big group hug. "Poker again next week?"

"You know it," Phil said.

Andy separated from the pack and headed down the hallway with Melody in tow, moving towards the room his wife was in. "You think I'm in real trouble, Mel?"

"Nah, she sent Eric to come and get you instead of one of your guys' protective details, which she would've done if it had been a real hurry," Melody said with a smile, holding the door open for him.

"Hey hon, how you feeling?" Andy said, walking over to his wife. "I'm surprised you're awake. I figured you would've slept for like an entire day, considering how long you were up and in labor."

"I got a few hours nap, but I wanted to make sure the girls were doing okay," Ash said, still looking more than a little exhausted.

"They're both doing great. Better than great, actually. They're in perfect health."

"Thank Christ for that," Ash muttered. "With twins, there's always an increased chance of risk, and considering how long Hope clung to the walls of my uterus, I was worried there might be something wrong with her."

Andy sat down in the chair next to the bed and took his wife's hand in his own. "Nope. Two perfectly healthy baby girls. Nothing to be worried about."

"Now I'm worried that there's nothing to be worried about."

"You and apparently every neonatal doctor in the country," Andy grumbled quiet enough he hoped Ash didn't hear him. "Anyway, the doctors say that tomorrow, assuming everything looks the same, you and the girls can come home."

"I gave birth today Andy," she laughed. "Is it seriously like a one-to-two-day turnaround for giving birth?"

"Unless there's anything out of the ordinary, it really is that quick, babe."

"Jaysis, I always thought my ma must've spent a week or two each time one of us was born, but apparently my memory's spotty, and we were just popping out one a year and shipping'em home the day after they popped out."

"Yeah, about that... the hospital staff asked me to suggest you stop making such a big deal about it," he joked.

"What, the 'I am Gaia, Mother of the Earth, bringer of life' speech when I was high as Hunter S. Thompson on his way to Vegas for a bike race was too much for them?"

"Maybe just a little bit," Andy laughed. "But don't worry. Once you're at home, safe and sound, your insane rants are the sort of thing we're all used to."

"And you promise the girls are fine? Hope took her sweet ass time climbing out of my belly."

"She was worried she'd left the oven on is what she told me."

Aisling narrowed her eyes with a smirk at him. "I hope you're being figurative."

"Am I?"

"Stinker. How was DC? I was a little focused on pushing two little girls out of my crotch to ask earlier."

"Chaotic as all hell, but don't worry about that now. You just rest up and once you're back on your feet, you can worry about the state of the world as we know it."

"What time is it?"

"7:30 or so, why?" Andy looked at his watch. "7:34 pm."

"Ah, that means it'll be the middle of the night back in Ireland. I was going to call my family and tell them the news, but it'll keep until morning, I suppose."

"They'd probably be ecstatic even if you woke them up, babe."

"Let them all sleep," she said with a yawn. "I'm about to pass back out again anyway, and hopefully this time I'll sleep until dawn."

"Good. Yes. You sleep. I'll sleep with you."

"Oh no, dear," Ash giggled. "I checked your schedule, and you've got at least two people to tend to tonight otherwise they're going to be making demands of you in the morning."

"And by demands you mean wandering into the bedroom, pinning me down and taking what they want, don't you?"

"Look, Tala loves edging up to that line, but Sheridan's gonna be all over you the second you walk through that door, so you might as well tend to both of them before you crawl into bed. Any word from Em on how filming is going?"

"She'll be back in a day or two and can tell you herself, but she said it's nice being back on a set again. She misses it terribly when she's not working. Plus, she's back in London, so she's visiting all her old stomping grounds during what little down time she has."

"You know we're taking the girls to Ireland before year's end, yeah?"

"Before summer's end, I'd guessed."

"You know me too well, babe. And we're bringing Niko and little Matty with us too. Maybe we can stop and see Niko's mom on the trip out there."

"Sounds like a plan. Anything you want me to bring you when I come back tomorrow beyond a change of clothes?"

"Shot of good whiskey?"

"You're not supposed to drink alcohol for several months after giving birth, especially if you're intent on breastfeeding."

"Jaysis... the things I do for this family. I'm a fookin' saint, I am."