Beta'd by the toothy Insane Scriptist.

Last chapter! Yay!

Bolt from the Blue

R&D don't manage to crack the pharmaceutical contraceptives problem until late two-thousand-and-two, by which point Antiope and Melanippe have been joined by Myrina and Xanna is pregnant again. This particular pregnancy is probably going to be a little more challenging than the previous three however, because the conception date just about lines up with Squalo and Xanxus getting back from a severely misclassified and fraught Varia mission that ran nerve-rackingly over-long and the threesome to celebrate their safe return. They definitely all used contraceptives, but as her husband rather grumpily points out, that doesn't really mean much anymore. Three baby girls are proof that condoms are not truly reliable where her husband is concerned; spermicides are one of those contraceptive measures that Sky Flames bypass completely, so they've never bothered with them at all.

There is also the complication that Pantera crashed their 'hey we all survived' party the following morning to check up on his best friends –her and Xanxus– and his favourite cousin –Squalo– which took a very sensual and sticky turn although it did not actually involve intercourse. Unfortunately for them however, with Flames 'sticky' can be enough; Sky Flames in particular can massively prolong the active lifespan of sperm cells and Xanxus is not exactly restrained in bed. Neither is she for that matter, and nobody's ever done a study on the effects of Lightning Flames on sperm lifetime.

Luss thinks she's expecting fraternal twins, which makes it twice as likely that at least one of them isn't her husband's. However twin births are already tricky enough that nobody wants to attempt an amniocentesis –not that it's possible yet anyway– so determining paternity will have to wait.

It's barely been a month, but she's having an awful time of it with acute nausea and vomiting almost right from the second week, so it got noticed right away; morning sickness is not supposed to start that early. If fact she's having such terrible morning sickness that Lussuria isn't entirely sure she's going to manage to carry to term, so they are all trying to carry on as normal. Some morning sickness is expected as she's had varying degrees of it in all her previous pregnancies, but this is not normal and quite severe in how it's affecting her and those around her.

The three men are dismally failing to go on as normal, which Xanxus and Squalo are getting away with because she's vomiting several times a day and having occasional fainting spells, so quite obviously needs constant supervision, plenty of plain food that she has a half a chance of keeping down and lots to drink so she doesn't dehydrate. Doting husband and hovering fellow Guardians therefore get leeway. Everybody else in the Iron Fort is under the impression that she's got a really nasty stomach bug, so are mainly being sympathetic from a safe distance. The Vittore and Tsuna's little posse in particular are making an effort to take care of her usual domestic things and spend time with her baby daughters so she can rest, which is very sweet of them.

Pantera is having considerably more difficulty being discreet, seeing as he doesn't have any reason to come across to the Iron Fort on a daily basis to visit the very sick Donna Vongola. It also turns out he's been dating someone else for nearly three months, which Xanna punched him for when he confessed it to her; she broke his nose and blacked both his eyes, so he's been going around looking like a Technicolor panda for the past ten days. He is supposed to tell them this kind of thing! Silly tomcat!

"Of course, we would finally work out the problem after you got pregnant again," Lussuria mutters as she lays out the pages on the coffee table before pouring Xanna a cup of hibiscus tea and straightening the blankets covering her, "and you were right, honey: it is a Flame thing."

"How exactly?" Xanna asks, accepting the mug and sipping it gingerly. She reacts very strongly to certain smells at the moment, which is very awkward and has led to Maínomai moving into the Guardian suite alongside Pýř, so he can throw around Alterations like confetti and ensure the problem smells are swiftly and completely eradicated as she discovers them. Hibiscus tea is pretty much the only thing she can drink right now –there's something about plain bottled water that makes her stomach roil– and she is. Drinking. So. Fucking. Much. Of. It.

"Hardness, sweetie," the Sun says sympathetically, "which is probably also why your immune system is such an absolute beast: invaders get completely steamrolled by the combination of Hardened cell walls, Hardened internal cell systems and even Hardened chemical bonds, so they can't hijack your cells for reproduction, can't outfight your leucocytes and die very quickly. However this creates a problem with certain medications, as the point of pharmaceutical contraceptives is to fool your body's reproductive system into thinking it's already pregnant in order to suppress ovulation. Introduced hormones aren't Hardened like the home-grown ones are, so they get ignored or overruled. Same problem with common painkillers: the chemicals just can't function as they should."

"What a pile of shit," Xanxus growls from his armchair across from her, cradling his own mug of tea. Alcohol –any alcohol– is one of the scents that make her vomit, so her husband is currently avoiding it entirely. It's not helping his mood. Xanna had atypical reactions to common painkillers long before becoming Active, so she didn't notice a difference; Medical already resort to Mist-suggestion and markedly stronger chemicals to keep her sedated when necessary.

"Using Flame-absorbing fillers in the pills so that the Lightnings using them can 'charge' them before dosing themselves had a gratifyingly high success rate in the clinical trials," Lussuria continues, shuffling the papers, "by which I mean it was a ninety-nine point six percent success rate, once R&D worked out how to include an indicator in the fillers so the pill changes colour once sufficiently 'charged'. Lightning Division are really happy with the new painkillers –I had not realised how many Lightnings don't bother with taking painkillers at all due to ineffectiveness until you brought this to my attention sugar-lump, it's a travesty– and all the Active ladies in the clinical trials have signed up for a full prescription, which really says far too much about how widespread and under-addressed this issue was. Amusingly this also explains why your Lightnings are all fond of herbal teas: those actually do have a noticable affect since holding the mug as it cools provides a slight 'charge' to the tea."

"There's more to improving the lives of Lightnings than reforming training," Xanna agrees with a sigh. "Well, this is a start at least and it will be a relief to be able to plan any future pregnancies." She's twenty-seven and on her fourth pregnancy already; she's going to have to talk to her Division about retiring, there's no way she can keep up her Officer responsibilities while this ill and if it continues to term she'll probably have newborn twins to care for on top of her toddler and two older preschoolers. Definitely time to bite the bullet there.

"I'm moving in here to keep tabs on you, sweetie; multiple pregnancies carry higher complication rates and higher mortality rates for both mother and children so I want to keep a very close eye on how things develop," Lussuria says firmly. "My GMs can run the Division in my absence and Medical have themselves well in hand."

"I need to talk to my GM and Division Squad Leader about stepping down," Xanna agrees, steadily sipping her cooling tea. "I've barely been keeping up with the paperwork and maintaining Quality fitness levels as it is, and now with this as well? No chance."

"Will tell them," Xanxus grunts, downing his tea and getting up and walking across the room, leaning along the top of the couch and petting her hair. He's finding this very distressing and struggling with guilty feelings –all three men feel responsible for her current condition despite her being the one who dragged her husband to bed to begin with– and her telling them it's not their fault isn't helping. Because her being pregnant is definitely their 'fault', even if the associated medical problems aren't; said associated medical problems are due to her body throwing a spectacular hissy fit over this pregnancy for some reason.

"Also could you please come up with a plausible reason for 'Tera to be up here every other day? Babysitting his goddaughter only works if he actually does it, visiting Delfina holds no water while she's at school and according to Emanuela the rumour mill is starting to pick up on how much time he's spending with you right now and harking back to that week-long threesome we had, with the implication that since I'm ill you and him might be cheating on your respective partners with each-other," Xanna tells him wryly. "Which you will get away with, being men, but I dislike being pitied and I would prefer his girlfriend dump him for things he's actually done." Like the fully consensual orgy said girlfriend wasn't invited to and potentially knocking up somebody else's wife, for instance. 'Tera is very definitely a tomcat; kitties are politer.

Her husband groans. "Fuck. Shit. Damn," he growls, gently untangling a lock of her hair from around his fingers. "Got a Flame Tech renewable energy idea I'm working on; cat can make himself useful." Xanxus doesn't deal well with problems he can't solve; anytime he's not working or hovering over her he's in his workshop attacking problems he can solve, like new gun designs, new prosthetic designs, ways to improve mobile phone battery capacity and lifetime, a Flame-powered flight system involving electromagnets and ways to enhance solar panel efficiency. The latter is probably what he wants Pantera to help him with, possibly by recommending Superbi craftsmen with the skills he needs for the project. Or else he wants somebody to bounce infrastructure and implementation ideas off.

"Once your pregnancy's a bit more advanced I'll be able to get a better picture of what's going on," Lussuria says tightly as she tugs on her fringe, "which will open the way for mitigation strategies. Unfortunately however I can't do anything until we hit the foetal stage, which is another month off yet." She gnaws on her lower lip. "Even then I may not be able to do much; pregnancy's a delicate balancing act at the best of times."

"Pixie's health comes first," Xanxus says flatly. "Can have more kids. Only got one wife."

That is a very hard truth, but Xanna is selfish and wants to live too. She wants a long life with her husband and other children and isn't willing to give it up on the off-chance of maybe saving an unborn child she would never get to see. Not when it would mean abandoning all her loved ones.

"Agreed," she says quietly, "although I'm not getting an abortion unless it's absolutely necessary. If I miscarry, I miscarry, but I'm not doing it on purpose unless there's no other choice." Such as if they die or develop lethal deformities.

"Your body, pixie," Xanxus says quietly, bending closer to kiss her forehead. She has the best husband.

"You're our Officer."

"Sert–"

The green-haired twenty-three-year-old shakes his head sharply, sitting forwards in the armchair opposite her. "You are our Officer, Sprite." He's been Varia a year longer than she has, is a year younger than her husband and is easily more competent now than she was when she joined. "You, not Dread or Igor or Hade."

"Hade… pink hair, died last week?" She's still not good at names but she makes an effort to keep track of everybody in her Division, even the new ones.

"As I said," Sert says evenly, "you are our Officer."

Well that subtext is very nearly text in how clear it is… "Sert, you are the person I want to be Officer. Dread is a fine GM but she's not strong or scary enough to lead the Division, Igor's strong but not sensible and you have come a very long way over the years."

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

Sert is visibly struggling to process. "But… why me?"

"Sert, you are an excellent Lightning Squad Leader, you know everybody in the Division as well as their skills and mindsets, you are the one of the most experienced veteran Lightnings and you're still coming up with new and creative ways to use your Flames," Xanna says gently. "You've been doing more than half the Officer paperwork for me already; this is just formalising the arrangement."

Sert abruptly slides off his chair, scoots across the floor and drops his head into her lap; she strokes his hair soothingly.

"Really me?"

"Yes, really you. It's not like I'm going anywhere; if you need advice or reassurance you can always come and ask. Varia contracts are for life after all." The only distinction between a Varia assassin and a retired Varia assassin is that retired Varia assassins no longer take missions, and she's never done that anyway. Well, retired Varia assassins don't get basic pay either, but she has a generous stipend as a Vongola Guardian, another one as Donna and access to most of her husband's personal accounts, so it's not like she needs the extra money.

Sert takes a deep, slow breath, holds it for several seconds then lets it go in a long, shaky sigh. "Okay Officer. But you'll always be my Officer."

"Thank-you Sert," Xanna says gratefully. "I know you'll take good care of everybody and keep standards high." All the standards, not just the combat ones; emotional health standards are important too.

"Why are you keeping them, fairy?"

Of course it's Bel who asks the really awkward question. It's always been Bel asking her the really awkward questions, from demanding she give him the 'sex and dating' talk at twelve –after reading up on the biology of it independently and getting Xanxus and Sekti to give him their versions of the same talk first, because multiple sources are important– through all the pointed and difficult questions about how she intends to bring up her daughters, generally asked at random hours of the night while she's breastfeeding, to the expectation that she will explain to him right now why the fact that she is married to Xanxus but that they sometimes sleep with Squalo or Pantera –or both– either together or singly is not cheating. Not that she has intercourse with either Superbi when Xanxus isn't there, but there's a lot of cuddling and sleeping together wearing not very much, with occasional intimate contact.

Explaining poly relationship dynamics to a fourteen-year-old –even a genius fourteen-year-old– is not her idea of fun. Especially not at five o'clock in the morning while breastfeeding a colicky teething baby. Thankfully this latest awkward question has been asked at a reasonably civilised hour, if not exactly at a convenient moment. Because of course Belphegor would ask this while holding her hair out of her face as she throws up in a Conjured bucket.

"Why are you asking me this?" Xanna manages to mutter, gripping the edges of the bucket and trying to breathe as her body shakes in the aftermath of the full-body spasms.

There is a disgusted huff behind her. "You know one or both of your babies may not be Boss's," the Storm says flatly, voice soft and conversational, "which will be blatantly obvious when they are born, since neither the shark nor your cat look anything like him. Your relationship is not socially acceptable so drawing attention to it will harm you all, both personally and professionally, and cast doubt on the legitimacy of your other daughters. Boss will then have to deal with either accepting the children as his own and dealing with the blowback of people laughing at him for getting cheated on and not noticing, or handing them over to the Superbi family and then dealing with everybody bad-mouthing you and suggesting he divorce you for infidelity. And that would only be the beginning."

"Firstly, these are my babies and anybody suggesting I give them up will be finding out first-hand why my Division still considers me to be Officer Quality even while pregnant and sick as a dog," Xanna hisses through gritted teeth. "Secondly, not one of the four of us gives a shit about the opinions of the Vongola Alliance in the matter of our ongoing relationship; anybody trying to use it to denigrate us will find out very quickly why Tyrant thinks Boss is coming along very well as Head of the Varia and that Vongola Tenth has no qualms ensuring younger and less narrow-minded individuals assume leadership of other families. Thirdly, you are overlooking an important data point."

"What is that, fairy?"

"I am a Vittore as well as the wife of a Vongola Don, and one of exactly two adult members of that family. I have every right to name any of my children as Vittore –so long as my husband and the Head of that family agrees– and raise them as such." She knows both Natuski and Naomi would be delighted to have a claim on any of her kids and would go on a campaign of terror against anybody who tries to suggest there may be anything amiss with doing so. Risa would happily take a stand too, being the only other adult at nineteen and currently really enjoying university.

"Like the Giglio Nero, with the Donna's daughter taking her name rather than being Vongola," Bel mutters, then chuckles, patting her back as her stomach finally settles properly. "Shishishishi… definitely a fairy; whenever you find yourself in trouble, you change reality so it no longer applies to you."

"We can even announce it in advance," Xanna mumbles, sitting up and accepting a cup of tepid tea to swill her mouth out with. "Less scrutiny that way, like with Yuni who is Giglio Nero and therefore not a Vongola Heir candidate despite being a Sky." Aria's firstborn is completely adorable, with bright teal hair and big blue eyes. Grandma Vongola is over the moon at having four adorable great-granddaughters; she's so determined to dote on them all it's giving her a new lease of life.

"Fairy."

"Yes, highness?"

"Why has the prince not been asked to be a godparent?"

"Bel, you're my fellow Guardian; you're already family. I didn't think I needed to appoint you specifically to look after any of my kids in case something happened to me or Boss." It's why Squalo, Pýř and Lussuria haven't been appointed either. Her husband is not wrong when he says she's Bel's mother in every way that actually matters.

"Fairy asked the snake." Viper looks like a five-year-old now, which they find rather awkward but means Bel is no longer calling them 'baby'.

"Now the Curse is broken Viper feels useless," Xanna says shortly, "as their brain chemistry matches their physical age, so it is seriously affecting their ability to behave in a consistently mature manner. Being older sibling and minder to Mela is something they can do, providing a last line of defence for all the children without over-taxing themselves." Viper does other things too, challenging and complex financial things, but only for a few hours at a time as they can't focus for longer without tiring, and ignoring their body's warning signs could potentially affect their ongoing neural development.

Bel accepts her reasons with a nod, using his Flames to disintegrate the bucket and its contents. "The prince had not realised he was neglecting his responsibilities. He will spend more time with his little sisters in future," he informs her, helping her back onto the couch.

"They all like being read to, so take your pick of the nursery bookshelf," Xanna suggests. It's a good starting point; all her little girls love stories.

"The prince will consider it. More tea, fairy?"

"Thank-you." That went reasonably smoothly, all things considered.

Antiope is four and understands that her mother is ill so doesn't have much energy for normal things, but frets because she's a child and unconsciously assumes she is the centre of the universe, so feels on some level that she has to do something so Mamma stops being ill. Xanna regularly assures her eldest that getting ill just happens sometimes, it isn't her fault, Lussuria has everything well in hand and then asks the now rather tall preschooler about what she's been up to lately.

"Lambo was being silly again, Mamma," Titi says today, tone long-suffering, "so I got 'Gari to take us outside and we stomped in puddles and played at being explorers in the garden." 'Gari being Magari, one of her veterans and her eldest daughter's devoted slave. It's not a Guardian bond –Pýř checked– he just adores Antiope that much.

"Did you stay warm, sweetheart?"

"Yes, Mamma, I wore all my waterproofs and 'Gari helped me make sure Lambo did too, then when we got back we changed our clothes and had hot chocolate." Her daughter grins, red eyes bright and impish. "I dipped orange segments in mine and Lambo had grapes."

"It sounds like you had lots of fun, birdie," Xanna says warmly, "come give your mamma a hug."

Titi kneels up on the couch and hugs her very carefully, making sure to wrap small, strong arms around Xanna's ribcage rather than her almost constantly sore abdomen. "Do you feel better now Mamma?"

"I always feel better after hearing about what you've been up to and getting a hug," Xanna assures her eldest. "Now I heard there were going to be stories in the nursery this afternoon…" she trails off leadingly.

Titi looks torn. "Can I stay for a bit?"

"Of course you can, darling; I'm always very happy to spend time with you, even when I haven't got much energy," Xanna says firmly. "You could get your embroidery out and keep me company." Repeated pregnancies have meant having to spend a lot of time sitting down, so she's picked up a few more sedentary hobbies, like needlework and patchwork. Both offer remarkable scope for experimental thought-exercises with Mist Flames, so it's creative as well as productive and soothing.

Antiope eagerly drags her little sewing bag out from the sideboard and climbs onto a footstool, sitting cross-legged on it and frowning intently as she threads her needle with a short length of wool, then starts meticulously back-stitching her way along the coloured line drawn on the canvas. The picture is one her daughter drew herself and Xanna transferred to tapestry canvas using the same felt-tip pens used in the original picture, then dug around in her wool box for yarn the right colour for Titi to stitch it with. It's the third such project –the first one was done when her precocious baby was only two and a half– and the previous two are hung in pride of place on the nursery walls, properly framed along with one of Mela's more intricate collages.

Little Myrina is still in the messy finger-painting phase, but Xanna had Housekeeping screw a massive sheet of Perspex to one of the nursery walls so that all her children's artwork can be stuck up without damaging the wallpaper. It usually takes a few weeks to fill the entire screen, by which point the kids have lost interest in the older work so it can be discreetly thrown out and replaced with new things. Of course every now and then they produce something really beautiful, which gets scrapbooked. Or, as with the tapestries and Melanippe's amazing collage of the meadow, gets framed.

Parenting is like getting a mystery seedling from a friend who has never gardened before: they don't know what it is, you don't know what it is and all you can do is nurture it, protect it, pay close attention to it so you don't accidentally kill it and as it grows, you start to find out what –or rather who– you have grown. Then all that it left to do is tend and encourage them until they are fully grown.

A willow will never be a sunflower; a rose will never be an apple tree. Comparing them is not helpful; they are what they are and each are beautiful on their own merits.

The door slams open, revealing a five-year-old with riotously curly hair who hurtles into the room and dives under the coffee table, sliding on his stomach until he collides with Xanna's feet on the other side. "Lambo the magnificent is here!" He announces, somewhat superfluously.

Antiope ignores him completely, being focused on her embroidery.

"Hello Lambo," Xanna says calmly, looking up from the hexagons she is stitching together to smile at him. "We're having quiet time."

Lambo nods, gets to his feet and hurries back over to the door so he can shut it. Quietly. "Can I do quiet things too?" he asks in a loud whisper.

"Of course you can; the basket on the shelf over there has pens and paper in, if you want to draw, and there are jigsaw puzzles in the cupboard underneath," Xanna says easily. Lambo is very well behaved once he knows the rules, despite being easily excited and prone to hyperactivity when over-stimulated.

"I will draw for Mamma," Lambo says firmly, side-eyeing her to see how she feels about him claiming her.

"That would be lovely, Lambo." She doesn't mind; she practically is his mother now, what with how he ended up in her care. It was… dramatic.

It turns out the Bovino Family have been experimenting with time travel for nearly twenty years now and have been able to send living beings through time for well over fifteen years, but only perfected the means of getting people back two years ago. Lambo is a Bovino, and his family apparently had a rather lax attitude to child safety because the first thing they did upon ensuring that they could get people back was to try their short-term time travel device –called The Ten Year Bazooka– on their children, to find out about future scientific advancement and see what those children would grow up to be like.

Which might possibly have been less of a fiasco had then-newly-four-year-old Lambo not been a Varia mook by the age of fourteen; teenage Lambo had instantly knocked out all the scientists, grabbed the bazooka and ammunition, escaped the building and run for a pay phone, managing to call the Varia with a longstanding emergency code before his five minute time limit ran out. The Varia team scrambled to his location found a preschooler eating grapes, a very odd-looking weapon and a scribbled note. Talking to little Lambo about the note led them to decide to shoot the boy again, which resulted in Teenage Lambo giving a quick and detailed summary of what exactly was going on, with a plea that Tenth confiscate all the research and records, then arrange proper care for his younger self.

Time travel is not a normal Varia hazard, but Lambo having grown up to be Quality gave the Varia a degree of leeway: Lambo is still Lambo after all, and once a Varia assassin, always a Varia assassin. So Xanxus confiscated all the Bovino's time-travel research –as requested– on the basis of them having used it against a member of the Varia, took Lambo in as his foster-child, locked up the Ten-Year Bazooka and all the associated ammunition with a Sky Seal then set an R&D team to reading every last scrap of paperwork. The whole process has likely generated even more paperwork, if mostly as summaries and 'easy reading' versions for her husband to look over later.

He also set Legal on the Bovino –the charge being 'child endangerment', which will probably stick– and a number of more subtle Varia Mists to rooting out all the details that the scientists never actually wrote down.

There being over two decades of notes, reading them all is still ongoing almost eighteen months later; Lambo however has settled in well and adores Antiope, despite being almost a full year older than her. Possibly because on their first meeting Lambo declared himself four, born on the twenty-eighth of May, so older than then-three-year-old Antiope, which the girl countered by stating that she was born on May the tenth, so she is in change because she was born first. Lambo was convinced and is now a devoted follower.

Child-logic is wonderful. Really, truly wonderful.

Xanna continues her patchworking as her daughter embroiders and her newest foster-son sprawls on the floor, tongue sticking out of his mouth as he concentrates on his drawing. It's restful and pleasant and she will hopefully not throw up again for a while longer.

Feeling queasy, exhausted and generally emotional all the time is intensely annoying, which makes the wibbly emotional feeling worse as she knows she's being irrational about this but knowing that doesn't help. Xanna's solution to the internal emotional drama is to sit on people, which helps.

It sounds ridiculous, but going about her day leaning into someone and sitting in their lap while on the couch shuts up the little internal voice that whimpers about feeling unloved and wanting comfort. Squalo is taking his status as 'favoured cuddle toy' with good humour, although he's generally happy to be 'rescued' by the time her husband finishes his work for the day and comes to take over. In fact Squalo's taken to having paperwork brought over so he can 'at least get some work done' while he's with her, not that he gets much done since most of her day revolves around the children, little Myrina in particular, who takes being ignored as a personal challenge.

So by the time a member of staff –her name is Viola– arrives at the sitting room door to announce guests around eleven, Squalo has given up on his paperwork and is telling the black-haired, blue-eyed toddler cuddling him a rambling made-up story about a hippo, punctuated by answering Mela's questions about animals, plants, behaviours and everything else under the sun as the red-eyed three-year-old leans on his legs and 'walks' her toy horse all over him.

Xanna is sat sideways along the couch with her back against Squalo's shoulder and his arm around her waist, writing letters to friends who are out of the country or now living too far away to visit regularly. Lambo is at 'preschool Lightning classes' –he's not Active yet but the energetic socialisation is good for him– and Titi is having her fortnightly day out with her godmother, so isn't here either. All the older kids are at school, so it's relatively quiet. Relatively; neither Squalo nor Mela are quiet people, although with Squalo the issue is volume and with Mela it's that she has so much she wants to talk about.

"Pantera Superbi and a Miss Lanza to see you, Donna Xanna," Viola says, smiling as her eyes dart to the toddler clinging to the Vongola Rain Guardian's neck. Squalo ignores her; he's thoroughly desensitised to toddler-induced embarrassment after four years of continuous exposure, although Xanxus is never going to let the Rain forget about how long it took to give up on dignity and start wearing his long hair in a bun whenever doing anything around babies, so it didn't get pulled, knotted or chewed on. Squalo never spent much time with the smallest Vittore when they were this age, having lots of other things on his plate back then, but he always has time for her daughters.

Xanna was wearing her hair in braids from her first day nursing and has almost given up on earrings altogether; then again, she had considerably more experience of toddlers than Squalo did four years ago.

But Pantera's brought somebody to see them? Somebody not his family? That implies it's his lady-love. Well, clearly she hasn't dumped him yet for his idiotic thoughtlessness. 'Tera's usually so incredibly poised and deliberate about everything he does that his occasional slip-ups are really very awkward and embarrassing indeed.

"Show them in, please," Xanna says, setting her writing aside on the coffee table and getting to her feet so she can greet her friend and his guest properly.

When they walk in Xanna gets a glimpse of a tall, dark woman with keen eyes and a kind smile next to 'Tera, but the accompanying whiff of sickly chemical florals and ethanol makes her stomach roil and she turns tail and sprints to the bathroom, vaguely aware of Squalo swearing behind her.

She's bent over the toilet bowl, shivering and gagging at the perfume smell sticking stubbornly to the back of her throat despite her stomach being violently emptied when firm, dry hands smooth loose strands of hair back off her skin and rub her back soothingly, a fine wisp of Flame soothing her spasming muscles and calming her roiling gut.

"Hey, what was it this time?" Squalo asks, tone flat yet sympathetic as he kneels beside her.

"Perfume," Xanna manages between retches, eyes closed and skin sticky with cold sweat.

"Shit. Going to have to get Maínomai in; I can stop you smelling it but I can't actually make it go away," Squalo mutters, still rubbing her back and arms comfortingly. "Alteration's not my thing; better at Binding and Conjuration." Squalo's a Mist-tertiary, but he gets a lot out of it. Mostly combat-relevant things though.

"Can still taste it in my throat," she mumbles, trying not to start gagging again. She hasn't got anything in her stomach anymore, it won't help.

Her fellow Guardian presses a soft kiss to the back of her neck. "Can try an Enchantment to neutralise it, see if we can knock it loose," he offers.

Enchantments are brute force applications of Mist Flames, making things happen despite not understanding the mechanics. "Would probably work," Xanna agrees thinly, "so long as you make sure to drag it out of my lungs, not just unstick it."

Squalo coils a hand around her throat, the other resting against her sternum as he leans into her back. "You, give me a moment," he mutters into her shoulder, his Flames twisting and fluttering under her skin.

Xanna breathes steadily, then wheezes when he abruptly pokes her in the solar plexus. "Ow," she manages a few seconds later, then takes another breath. "It's gone though; all I can smell now is sweat and vomit."

"Yeah that's so much better," the Rain agrees dryly, shifting himself around and tilting her upper body back so she's sitting on her heels. "Here, swill your mouth out." It's warm tap water, insipid and with a mineral tang that's not really very pleasant at all, but it's better than nothing.

She swills, spits and repeats, then climbs to her feet and lets Squalo take a warm flannel to her face to wipe the sweat away. Throwing up is a full-body experience and really tiring, even for somebody in peak physical fitness. Xanna's no longer quite that fit, but muscle tone doesn't just vanish the moment you drastically reduce your exercise commitments. Her struggle to keep enough food down isn't helping her there, although she is at least managing to put on a little weight. Probably not enough, going by Luss's fretting, but something is better than nothing.

"Here, sit down you," Squalo says shortly, steering her over to the stool in front of the sink then leaning back to flush the toilet. "Maínomai keeps an eye on you so he's probably showed up by now; I'll go tell him what the problem was while you settle."

"Order me more tea and something bland?"

"I'll order you hibiscus tea and crackers," he agrees long-sufferingly, "like I do every time this happens."

"Just because you and crow manage without words doesn't mean I shouldn't verbalise," Xanna grumbles, flapping a hand at his midsection.

Squalo bends down and quickly hugs her around the shoulders. "You always ask. It's nice," he admits, kissing her cheek before letting himself out of the room and closing the door behind him.

Well, as first meetings go it can't really get much worse than this. However the reaction she just had is classic pregnancy behaviour, so that cat may well be out of the bag.

When Xanna returns to the sitting room her little apple has climbed proprietorially into her godfather's lap, charming the Lanza sitting next to them on the couch with her happy and frequently idiosyncratic babble, Myrina has been scooped up by Maínomai –her own godfather– who is swaying and singing her a nonsense song in an unfamiliar language and Squalo is fiddling with the furniture, having dragged the loveseat over to the coffee table from by the window and trying to pick an angle he's happy with.

"Tea's here," he says, shifting the coffee table with his foot –taking care not to jar the tea tray– and pushing the loveseat back a little further. "I fetched a blanket, come sit down, you."

Xanna sits on the loveseat, letting him wrap the blanket around her and leaning into him. She does chill easily and with her body already kicking up a stink about so many other things, adding a chill to the problem is not going to do her any good.

"Very snug," 'Tera says slyly. Squalo glares at him.

"My fellow Guardian, my family, my friend," the younger man says sharply, "and my Sky wants her properly taken care of."

"Jealousy is unbecoming, kitty-cat," Xanna adds, tone sweet and words chosen specially to sting. The Superbi Heir cringes.

"Shit. Sorry. I didn't mean it like it sounded."

"Bad word!" Mela declares brightly from Pantera's lap, giggling as he groans and covers his face with a hand.

"What is it about Sprite that you always put your foot in your mouth at exactly the worst possible moment?" Squalo demands incredulously.

"I have an excuse but it's not a proper reason," 'Tera admits ruefully. "The proper reason is that I am an overly-possessive idiot. The excuse is that Xanna and I have a Flame-bond."

"Oh, like me and Pýř," Maínomai interjects, wandering closer with Myrina snoring gently into his shoulder. "If either of us were a Sky it would be a Guardian bond, but we aren't so it isn't. Still just as strong though."

"You're right, it's a crappy excuse," Squalo agrees sourly. "How long?"

"Always, I think," Xanna admits, mind darting over her current feelings for 'Tera and how they compare to how she used to feel about Xanxus before she started seeing him as someone she could have a truly equal relationship with, "within an hour of meeting him, at most." It's that feeling of clicking perfectly with somebody, of similar priorities and opinions and goals. He's a kindred spirit and she really would have been happy marrying him, but she's no less happy being married to Xanxus and having 'Tera as their best friend.

"So what? I've known her longer than you have and we're Guardians together," Squalo grumbles. "Get over yourself."

Xanna leans into the grumpy swordsman and pokes him in the ribs. "Chill," she says lightly. "He's already admitted to being an idiot."

"So what does this kind of bond entail?" the Lanza on the couch asks, visibly making an effort to withhold judgement for the time being. Mela loses interest in the adult conversation, slides off 'Tera's lap and starts playing with her horse under the coffee table, narrating quietly as she does so.

"Being best friends really," Maínomai says easily, sitting down in the vacant armchair and shifting his grip on the sleeping toddler in his arms; "the kind of best friends that act like siblings or lovers despite not being, casually occupying the same space and not really understanding why everybody else thinks that's a bit weird. It's hard to explain, but saying it's like a Guardian bond comes close, although it's balanced rather than the Sky leading and everybody else following."

"Do we really follow Xanxus?" Xanna asks musingly. "I mean, it's not like we don't disagree with him regularly."

"Or heckle," Squalo agrees, grinning toothily. "Or get in his face when he's being Dumb."

"You'd both follow him to the ends of the earth and he wouldn't even need to ask," Pantera says dryly, "and you know it."

"Pýř would too," Maínomai agrees cheerfully, "although he'd grumble a lot and insist on knowing what the plan was."

"I wouldn't follow you to the ends of the earth, 'Tera," Xanna says bluntly, "but if you wanted to go I'd help you pack and set things up so everybody was well looked-after while you were away. And I'd expect you to write and call regularly while you were away and send Varia after you in you didn't."

"Sounds about right," the Superbi Heir admits, ducking his head. "If I thought it was a bad idea I'd tell you so and try to get Xanxus to talk you out of it, but if you insisted I'd help you set things up and make suggestion for people to take along." He smiles wryly, "these days I know better than to insult your agency."

"Ingrained sexism is a terrible trial for everybody," Xanna agrees sweetly. "You're doing so much better now."

"Why thank-you dear, I try."

"See what I mean?" Maínomai says impishly.

"Incessant flirting?" the Lanza inquires, tone desert dry.

"I'm not flirting," Xanna says firmly, "I'm teasing my friend. Flirting implies sexual interest and the intent to solicit reciprocal sexual interest. I only flirt with my husband and when I do it's usually very blatant; he's about a thousand times flirtier than I am and even Squalo flirts more than I do."

She's asexual, which makes flirting almost impossible as she's not spontaneously sexually attracted to anybody, so she's never been interested in soliciting reciprocity. She only starts getting interested in sex if already engaged in heavy petting and sensual contact, at which point it's less flirting and more making sure she and her partner are on the same page. Her approach to soliciting physical affection is to lean into somebody or ask them to hug her, or go on her tiptoes with her husband so he knows she wants a kiss. Or outright demand a kiss. Talking is just talking, unless the topic of conversation is actually sexual and explicit, and that is different again to gossiping with Luss; while not adverse to sex, Xanna's not really interested in it for its own sake. It's the people, not the act.

"Squalo flirts?" Pantera looks delighted. "With whom?"

Squalo mostly flirts with her husband, but she's not going to say that in front of a relative stranger. "Alessia Scarlatti's taken a shine to him," she says slyly, "so she flirts a little and he flirts back. It's not serious but they're both having fun." Alessia's Varia now, going by Sumu and already a Squad Leader in Cloud Division, but Squalo's not going to start anything with her due to the power imbalance; he is after all running the Varia for Xanxus. The Varia has Rules there; nothing wrong with a little flirting though.

"Tsuna's Cloud Guardian? Really?"

"Stand-in Cloud Guardian," Xanna corrects. "Tsuna's actual Cloud Guardian is Latent and nine." Mochi, as everybody calls Paloma, is the very youngest of the Vittore family and half-sibling to Damiano, who is twelve, also a Cloud, Active and fairly autistic. Being an Active Cloud prompts people to give him lots of space –and they don't expect him to even try to meet their social standards– which amusingly means he's actually quite comfortable in school, has several friends and is cheerfully open about wanting to play the flute professionally in a proper orchestra when he's older.

Mochi is probably also a bit autistic, although not officially diagnosed because the symptoms can look different in girls and the medical establishment hasn't quite caught up yet. Tsuna is very attuned to her and offers as much support for his youngest Guardian as he can, as do the members of Housekeeping who raised her and the rest of the Vittore. She's the family baby after all.

Tsuna has a full complement of Guardians now: the massive, affable and firmly non-violent Mauro is his Sun and the intellectual, enthusiastic and bespectacled Luisa is his Lightning. What with having four Vittore as Guardians it's looking increasingly likely that Tsuna's going to take on the name once he's grown, especially since he's Sky to the technical family head and currently crushing very hard on Naomi. Which is cute and hilarious considering Naomi is three years older than him and has recently decided that gender distinctions are for other people; their current reply to the –rude and insensitive– 'are you a boy or a girl' question is 'no'.

Naomi identifies as non-binary, but likes plural pronouns because in Italian the second person plural is a polite form –if not the most polite form– which obscures the matter further. Otherwise female pronouns are fine, since the 'Lei' form –third person singular feminine– is the most polite form of address that exists in Italian. There have been Varia jokes that Naomi doesn't need gender; they have class.

"He decided what he's doing with himself yet?" Pantera asks curiously, abandoning the prospect of teasing in favour of asking after the youngest Active Vongola Sky.

"Barely started his first year of high school, 'Tera," Xanna points out, accepting a cup of tea from Squalo and sipping it. "He's got time." Tsuna's taking social track, which involves fewer of the intellectual subjects which he struggles with. He's very sensitive, perceptive and practical, but he's never going to be a multidisciplinary technical and theoretical genius the way Xanxus is.

"CEDEF, perhaps?" the Lanza lady murmurs.

"I'm sorry, what is your name?" Xanna asks, deciding that she can't just let the confusion continue.

"I didn't introduce you," 'Tera groans, tilting his head back, "I am so sorry Xanna; this is Immacolata Lanza."

"Immacolata," Xanna repeats, "and no, I don't think Tsuna's interested in the CEDEF. He may end up heading a House, but I think he's far more likely to join the Vittore in settling nearby and expanding the Vongola's area of influence." Tsuna has confided to her that he wants to teach, not in a formal school setting but something like sports coaching or music or reading lessons for small children. It's a wonderful idea and she's all for it; if he wants to be mostly civilian then there's no reason why he can't be.

He'd make an excellent Flame-tutor, for that matter, and being officially Vongola means he's not bound by family secrecy and could teach Lightnings too. An additional school further east might also tempt the Allies in closer, strengthening ties and improving the inside line of communication.

"He's a sweet kid," Pantera agrees fondly.

"Nothing like you then," Immacolata says absently, picking up her own drink.

Squalo snorts. 'Tera catches up a split-second later and pouts, lower lip protruding as he widens his eyes woefully. "I am sweet!"

"When you want to be," Xanna agrees mildly, letting Squalo refill her cup; "which is not very often and usually when you want something."

Maínomai snorts very quietly, ducking his head forwards to hide his smile behind his chin-length hair.

"Cat," Squalo says dryly.

The Superbi Heir huffs, folding his arms sulkily. "Fine, be that way."

Mela chooses this moment to launch herself out from under the coffee table at her godfather, which creates a pause in conversation as Pantera starts ticking the three-year-old, then chases her around the room after she manages to squirm out of his lap. The high-pitched squeals are very piercing, if cute.

"Donna Xanna, I've been hearing all over about your illness," Immacolata says eventually, eyes darting from where 'Tera is tossing a happily screaming Mela into the air and back to her and Squalo in the loveseat, "but you're not actually ill in the conventional sense, are you?"

She had suspected her abrupt reaction to her guest's perfume might have given the game away. "No, I am not," she admits, "but we are keeping the story as it is, considering how poor my health has been so far. The medics who have examined me are concerned how much else might go wrong from such a poor beginning and are not confident I will carry to term."

Immacolata's grimace is deeply sympathetic. "I understand. I will not mention it."

"Thank-you," Xanna says gratefully. "How long have you been seeing Pantera?"

"Just since the summer," the other woman says, going along with the change of subject. "I've not been introduced to any of his other relatives yet."

"Wants to spare you the inquisition," Squalo says dryly. "We're a big family and we all know each-other; plus he's the Heir, so everybody's invested."

"I suspect I only avoided the inquisition because I knew a lot of Superbi before dating him and was living at the Varia," Xanna admits ruefully. "And there were a suspicious number of relatives 'just stopping by' when I visited him in the first few months." Although she'd dated Superbi before 'Tera, so the local branches of the family were likely able to provide a summary of her character for the out-of-towners. Xanna's not sure what Falena and Colubro may have said, but it was probably positive. Hopefully not too embarrassing.

"You don't count?" That is a very nuanced raised eyebrow.

Squalo snorts. "Hey, he's my favourite cousin and a total ass; if he can win you over, good for him. He's got a type and you fit."

"Type?" Immacolata asks; Xanna can't quite put her finger on the undercurrents there.

Her fellow Guardian smirks toothily. "Gorgeous, Electric, intelligent, sense of humour, far too good for him," he says, voice loud enough that 'Tera can't miss it, "and always calls him out on his bullshit."

"What a lovely compliment," Xanna says cheerfully, leaning over and kissing his cheek. "Pour me more tea, please?" So Immacolata is a Lightning? Clearly Latent, but Squalo's got incredibly sharp Flame-senses. Her husband also hits at least four of those criteria, which is amusing.

Squalo rolls his eyes but does so.

"Wife?"

"Hm?"

"Aria wants to give Tsuna a ring set." Meaning clearly a set of Flame focuses.

"Why?"

"Like the Vongola rings, to help stabilise the world."

"Truth," Xanna agrees. "They won't hurt him?"

"Says he may get some odd dreams, but that's all," her husband assures her, pulling back the sheets so they can get into bed. "Feels massively indebted to you over the Arcobaleno thing, so wouldn't do anything that might hurt people you care about."

That is also true. "So this is something that will help Tsuna grow," she deduces, "and enable him to protect himself better." Tsuna's weapon of choice is a fountain pen; not something any civilian would think to confiscate and very good for stabbing people. Oh, and he can write with it, although Xanxus had to make it specifically from extra-hard Flame-conductive metal so it wouldn't melt or bend and then had to find ways to protect the ink inside it so it wouldn't evaporate or cause other issues after being exposed to high levels of heat. The pen's not Tsuna's only weapon but it's his favourite one; he dislikes his gloves as they make him look like he's trying to be First and going bare-handed is less effective as his Flames are not naturally destructive like Xanxus's are.

"So yes?"

"She can offer them to him," Xanna agrees; "up to him though." Rings mean more people in the mafia will look to him; mean he will have greater control over his Flames and more power at his disposal. Tsuna may not want that.

"True." Xanxus looks satisfied with her choice. "Says they're called the Mare Rings."

"Rainbow, sea, clam; what a funny theme for things involving multicoloured fire," Xanna mutters, shaking her head; well 'rainbow' sort-of fits due to the colours, but clam? Seriously?

Giotto originally called his family-centred little band the Alliata, because they were 'allied to the people', but changed the name to 'Vongola' upon being given the Vongola Rings by Aria's ancestor Sepira. Or was it Sappira, Sephira, or Zephyra? Spelling was rather random in those early journals of Lampo's. It could even have been Zafira or Sapphira; half of those names mean 'sapphire' though.

The descendents of First's full-siblings still carry the Alliata name, but they are probably the only ones who remember why. It came as a surprise to her to find that titbit in the old journals.

"Pixie?"

"Yes, crow?"

"Kisses?" Her husband looks like he can't quite decide whether it's more considerate of him to try and give her something more enjoyable to focus on than her ongoing terrible health or to just let her rest.

"I would very much like to be kissed," Xanna decides, "but not on the mouth, please? The toothpaste taste makes me gag right now and the mouthwash is just as bad." She has to just use water and a bit of baking soda, which is unpleasant but at least doesn't make her want to throw up. Vomiting because her husband tastes like minty freshness is an experience she'd rather avoid.

"Will manage," Xanxus assures her, leaning closer and smiling as he strokes the side of her face, sliding his fingers under her chin.

Lussuria 'taking a look' at her body's inner workings is done at the beginning of December, since it takes about eight weeks for an embryo to become a foetus and there isn't really anything to detect with an ultrasound until then. Her husband is already confident it's a multiple pregnancy –he says he can sense two distinct variations inside her– but Xanna knows better than to assume that there being two now means there's still going to be two when she gives birth. Chimerism and 'vanishing twin syndrome' both exist.

Her examination however does not involve ultrasound, since Mist Flames let you see in far more detail than that. First though Lussuria has to finish poking and prodding her and taking lots of notes.

"Morning sickness is technically hormonal, although why it happens is something nobody really agrees on," the Sun chatters absently, one hand splayed on Xanna's lower back and the other scribbling illegibly on a notepad. "Some people think it's to protect the developing embryo and foetus from toxins, others think it's to protect the mother since pregnancy reduces immune effectiveness so food poisoning and parasitical infections are less likely to get picked up on then. Whatever the reason, it's hormonally induced. And your hormones are looking rather wilder than they were in your previous pregnancies, sugar-lump."

"Could it be because there's more than one foetus?" Xanna asks. Twins are not something she is aware of being a feature of her family history, but her memories are still shit and random happenstance is a thing.

"Very possibly, as more than one foetus may well mean more than one placenta and it's the placenta producing some of these hormones," Luss replies. "I'll have a look for that now; got to be much more careful for this next bit…" His voice trails off.

Xanna waits patiently.

"Huh," the Sun says eventually, tone bemused. "Yes, that could do it. Honey, it's not twins."

"What's wrong then?"

"Nothing's wrong, sweetie; you're expecting triplets, not twins."

Xanna palms her face. "Great, extra variables." Are any of them her husband's?

Lussuria side-eyes her. "We could always play twenty questions and you tell me when I'm wrong," he points out, clearly having no trouble whatsoever deciphering the subtext of her complaint.

She doesn't like doing that; there's a reason she dislikes letting people speculate about the sex of her unborn children and it's that when she was starting to show with Antiope some gossip or other was twittering about 'how wonderful than Tenth is having a son' and she'd had to bite down on pointing out the lie. She did tell her husband about that when she became pregnant the second time, so Xanxus summarily banned gender-based speculation within her hearing. Melanippe being a girl was therefore a delightful surprise and so was Myrina.

Triplets are however surprising enough as it is and more data might be better. She might even learn how she managed to conceive triplets in the first place; releasing three egg-cells at once is rare enough to suspect Flames at work and identical twins are also fairly unusual, especially in younger mothers. Xanna sighs.

"This time then, for strictly medical reasons."

"Okay then, let's start with the obvious: you're pregnant with triplets."

"Truth."

"Your husband fathered all of your babies."

"Lie."

"Your husband fathered none of your babies."

"Lie."

"Your husband fathered two of your babies."

Xanna pauses. "True-ish? That feels… complicated." There's a sense of 'close but no cigar' there that she's had a few times before; generally in situations where a person could say 'technically true, but…'

"We'll come back to that then. One of the unborn is Squalo's child."

"Truth."

"Two of the unborn are Squalo's."

"Lie."

"Well that's nice and clear. None of the unborn are Pantera's child."

"Lie."

"Well, that's interesting when there are definitely only three of them…" Lussuria trails off, tapping his lips with his pen.

"Could one of them be a chimera?" Xanna asks. "A mix of two fathers?" Flames do odd things to biology, as the Vittore's medical files over the years have proved; some sort of chimera with three parents that her body is trying to purge would explain much. Her husband only being able to sense two 'distinct presences' is more likely to be due to two of the foetuses having the same Flame-type, as it's still early days and they're barely there at all.

"I don't know honey," the Sun admits. "Let's find out: none of the babies are chimeras."

"True." And now she is all out of ideas. At least this means it's somewhat less likely that her third baby is already dead or going to die shortly.

"Well that doesn't really help sort out the numbers issue, does it," Lussuria huffs.

Xanna has a very odd thought. It is very unlikely but so are triplets. "Luss?"

"Yes cupcake?"

"Flames can make weird improbable biology happen, right?"

"Yes, honey, it can," the Sun agrees warily.

"So, could one of my babies not be technically mine? I mean, they've come up with a way to replace the nucleus of egg cells in the lab, haven't they? So I was thinking that if two sperm cells entered an egg nucleus at the same time and fused with each-other rather than with the egg DNA…" she trails off. How do egg cells work again? Two divisions into four cells, one egg, two or three extras discarded in two steps? That makes it more plausible and even if both ovaries ovulated, it could explain why she has three different babies rather than one different and two identical.

Luss frowns. "I mean, theoretically yes?" he says distantly, twirling his pen between his fingers. So you think this might be why you got the funny answer earlier; genetically speaking you and Boss are splitting maternal inheritance in one of the children, with your mitochondrial inheritance, his nuclear DNA and one of the two Superbi providing the other half of the nuclear DNA."

"Truth." Well. Eek. So much for 'theoretically'.

"Well that could definitely explain why you're having such a rough time of it; if one of the babies isn't even half yours then your body's much likelier to try and get rid of it and the placenta will have to make more of an effort to get your immune system to chill." Lussuria's face is intent, not looking at her but at some point in the middle distance. "Honey, I'm prescribing Flame transfusions from Boss; extra Harmony in your system should hopefully make your body less twitchy about the babies, so in turn improve your health. It's likely the closeness of Boss's bond with you that's kept a miscarriage at bay thus far, so having him actively and consciously Harmonising with you several times a day should settle things further." The Sun pauses. "I'd like to ask a few more questions, please."

"Go for it."

"One of the foetuses is genetically your and Boss's."

"Truth."

"One of the foetuses is genetically Boss's and the Captain's."

"Lie."

Lussuria suddenly looks very interested. "One of the foetuses is genetically yours and Squ-chan's."

"Truth," and oh, that's going to take some getting used to. Her and Squalo having a baby together, eek. Well at least he's twenty-two now…

"The third baby is genetically Boss's and Pantera's then."

"Truth." Xanna suddenly has an irresistible urge to giggle. She's pregnant thrice over and one of them is only hers by technicality; does this make 'Tera her husband's mistress or the other way around?

"Honey, are you okay there?" Luss is smiling but he looks a little concerned; possibly due to the fact she's bent double and hiccupping with laughter.

"F-f-fine," she eventually manages, "I just," gasp, hiccup, giggle, "of Xan and 'Tera," gasp, "which one's the mistress?"

Lussuria tries and fails to hide his gleeful smile behind a hand. "Honey, your priorities," he scolds, tone light and teasing.

"No really! Mafia Law says the mistress gives up the child to the father; who gets this one?"

The Sun starts laughing, a slow chuckle that rows rapidly into a deep belly laugh nothing like his usual gleeful giggle.

"I think," Lussuria wheezes after almost a quarter of an hour of the two of them setting each-other off into fresh fits of laughter, "that Boss may decide to rework those laws a bit. In light of the circumstances."

Xanna can't wait to see how that goes down, she really can't.

Extra Harmony does help stabilise her condition and enable her to start putting on weight properly, but Xanna still feels queasy and tired and scales back her social commitments accordingly. She therefore does not attend the winter solstice ball alongside her husband, but spends the early evening with her kids and goes to bed early, Pýř abandoning the party to keep her company so she can sleep. That is probably half excuse to escape the crush and half genuine concern, so Xanna is very grateful. He could avoid the party without napping next to her after all.

She does however attend the music recital put on by the Academy on December twenty-third, as a good number of her kids are playing in it. There's Falco, fourteen years old and already getting offers from the Sicilian Youth Orchestra, Takeshi who plays trombone pretty well for somebody who divides his time between music and athletics –with particular focus on the throwing sports like shot put and javelin– Rossana who is shorter than her double bass but undeterred by the challenge, Delfina whose dexterity and precision at the piano is only limited by the size of her hands, Damiano who is truly excellent on the flute and Trina, who can do amazing things with a drum and loves every last instrument in the percussion section despite being only eleven and not quite tall enough to play everything effectively. That's what boxes are for, apparently.

The funniest part of the concert is listening to people assume Falco is Delfina's older brother, because both are white-haired and green-eyed with sharp cheekbones and identical focused frowns when concentrating. According to Squalo being pale and musical is a Soave family thing, which despite him and Delfina being only fourth cousins to Falco –they did manage to finally hunt down the exact family tree details there– has resulted in remarkably similar looks and temperament in the two younger children.

It also turns out that Squalo and Delfina's maternal grandfather took in and raised Falco's mother Lavina after her parents' untimely early death, so Silvia Soave has taken a marked interest in her all-but-nephew since discovering his existence. Which has been rather fraught at times due to unavoidable personality clashes, but still manages to be a healthy and positive relationship; Squalo likes that his mother now has somebody else to push her musical aspirations onto and has stopped attempting to guilt-trip him into taking up the cello again now he has a fully articulated and responsive prosthetic hand, so he is prepared to mediate occasionally. Xanna found out afterwards from her fellow Guardian that Silvia recorded the two kids playing so that her father could hear her daughter and Lavina's son performing together, which may possibly have a greater effect on Squalo as a completely unintentional guilt-trip.

Christmas Eve is not a working day, but Massimo shows up mid-morning with a stack of files, three Guardians and a worried frown, so Xanxus distracts the toddlers with piggy-back races around the Iron Fort's main hallways –Pýř rolls his eyes but goes with it, Turmeric allows himself to be suborned and Bel declares he and Mela will be victorious– then settles in for a private meeting in the nearest study. Well, not entirely private: along with Massimo and Xanxus there's Andrea, Squalo and herself attending.

"It's not exactly a problem just yet," Massimo says as an introduction, laying out the folders on the table and shuffling a few pages of notes, "just a series of coincidences; increasingly suspicious coincidences."

Xanna sips her tea as her husband opens the nearest file and makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat. "The Gesso family?"

"They're new; well newish," Massimo explains. "Started out as a legitimate family business selling replicas to people who couldn't afford original artworks back in the mid-nineteen-twenties, branched out into art fraud during World War Two to con the Nazis and fund the Resistance, then stuck around on the fringes of the Underworld. They do legitimate restoration and original works as well, but most of their mafia business lies in creating perfect copies of famous works for wealthy collectors, who then pay a thief to do a substitution with the original." He pauses. "Except now they seem to be branching out into electronics, computer technology and the internet."

"Very successfully," Squalo notes, turning another page of the open folder in front of him.

"Suspiciously successfully," Massimo agrees seriously. "Despite the dot-com bubble bursting this year due to the American stock-market downturn, the Gesso invested and divested at all the right points in the past eighteen months to make themselves a massive fortune, coming out the other side as the sole owners of three-dozen separate internet-based companies across a wide range of sectors, many of them purchased at fire-sale prices. Through a range of shell companies, of course."

"Luck?" Squalo suggests dryly.

"Lie," Xanna says instantly.

"Well that's me told," Squalo grouches good-naturedly, returning to his reading.

"How?" Xanxus asks, setting his current reading aside and sliding another folder across the table towards himself.

"No idea," Massimo says bluntly, "but nearly half the businesses deal in satellite mapping, digital photography, facial recognition software and other surveillance-tangential services, which makes my Intuition itch. A few of the others are computer modelling, behavioural programming, robotics software and developing high-speed communication networks."

"Have you read Orwell's 1984?" Xanna asks, trying to get a grip on the ominous murmuring in her brain concerning white orchids and Rubrics-cube-buildings. "Satellite surveillance with high-resolution real-time monitoring seems suspiciously plausible in the near future, considering how quickly digital development's been progressing lately." Plus she remembers Google Maps, which is the kind of thing the Vongola should be justifiably wary of. Flames do show up on camera after all and satellite photography clear enough to pick out people's faces as they wield multicoloured fire would be very bad for Omertà.

"You think?" Andrea glances at her, then back at the pages in his hands, "You do; set-up phase. Fuck, how did we miss that?"

"Ambitious," Xanxus grunts, eyes narrowed as he glares at his own reading; "really insanely ambitious. Unnaturally prescient too; the Intuition is not this precise." The famed Vongola Intuition is, in the words of Squalo, 'even more bullshit than regular Sky bullshit,' but it is still limited by what a person actually knows and believes, extrapolating based on prior experience rather than just conjuring facts out of thin air. In some ways Xanna's knack for truth is even more bullshit, what with it not depending on her own perceptiveness or the knowledge of the people around her but something both less tangible and more fundamental.

"The Varia was initially set up to do sabotage during the war," Xanna says thoughtfully, looking down at the reports in front of her, "and whatever the Gesso are doing looks exceedingly micro-managed. Time-sensitive too; you have to be really quick and attentive to play the stock market like this." So many instances of perfect timing, 'casual' encounters and 'just happening' to know the right people couldn't possibly be anything but staged. Maybe some Mist-manipulation at work too, considering serendipity does not work like this. Not for nearly two years straight.

"Sabotage their investments and businesses with plausible accidents and bad luck, find out who's orchestrating the changes, monitor them for further information on how they're doing this and maybe assassinate later," Squalo summarises; "hey, it's easily done. Orders, Boss?"

"Get Viper to consult," her husband orders, "and loot the lot. If this is the future I want the family to have a head start." Looting is another longstanding Varia Tradition dating back to the Second World War; when you're an independent scouting force fighting Nazis on home ground you need all the resources you can get your hands on and robbing the enemy of everything –both nailed down and not– is both logical and patriotic.

"Yes Boss!"

Xanna is reminded of the Varia Story involving a wartime Squad who actually stole an entire faming hamlet and the adjacent mile-long stretch of road off a mountain pass so the arriving Nazi force would think they'd got lost and retrace their steps; it's even a true story. That they then 'left' the tiny settlement –and road– in the next valley over, leading across a stretch of mountainside infamous for its landslides… well that was just showing off.

Hopefully the Squads assigned to investigating the Gesso will have just as much fun with their latest mission. Xanna may not be an Officer anymore but she is kept in the loop and wheatever they get up to is bound to make her laugh; maybe she should suggest they offer Marvel Squad a chance to play?

Of course, the problem with triplets –and it's still triplets, four months and she hasn't lost any of them yet– is that's a lot of baby in quite a confined space; she's already looking rather rotund and she's not even halfway through gestating yet. Biggest baby was her darling apple, who was born five days late too, but the photos confirm that even then, Xanna didn't get as big as she is now until starting month seven. And month five is not quite ended yet.

As a result everybody's noticed she's pregnant and is under the impression that she's further along that is actually the case, which is somewhat handy as people are assuming she conceived before that nerve-racking four-day-turned-two-week mission which had Xanna fretting that Grandma would have to step in and gently guilt Tsuna into taking over for the decade and change necessary for Titi to make it to sixteen. Considering morning sickness usually starts after week four, not in week two, her symptoms actually support the assumption; that multiple births are often also premature births will further obscure matters.

She's not going to lie, but assumptions are handy things. Unfortunately however the morning sickness is still going strong, so she's limited to light exercise and is disinclined to wander very far from home. As in, the grounds of the Iron Fort are quite far enough.

Well there's been a trip to Cesco's, but she has not set foot inside Varia Headquarters since conceiving; Xanxus thinks it's a bad idea considering how sensitive she is to meaty and chemical smells and the rest of the Officers agree. She is not exactly Quality right now, so Xanna is happy to accept the restriction. At least everyone now has mobile phones, so she can talk to her Varia friends without having to faff about with the landline and can invite them to visit her whenever she wants.

Her kids are all very excited at the prospect of a new baby sibling, although Myrina is too young to really understand what the fuss is about and Lambo had a bout of insecurity about being 'replaced', which Xanna swiftly disabused him of.

The only people who know she's expecting three babies are Luss, Squalo and her husband, although Pýř is sufficiently Flame-sensitive to have noticed as well by now. The Cloud is keeping his mouth shut though, so Xanna isn't prying into what he does and doesn't know. Only Luss knows about the mishmash that is her babies' parentage however and she's sworn him to secrecy; there's no point sharing that mess until she knows for certain that all three babies are going to live to be born, which is by no means guaranteed.

'Tera doesn't know yet. She has told him that she is fully aware of the parentage of her babies but it waiting until birth to share the specifics, in case things don't pan out, and he has accepted her decision. He's calmed down now she's a little better and her calm confidence in asserting that she knows who fathered her baby –or babies, since 'Tera is smart enough to guess there might be more than one– has reassured him that however things turn out, everything's going to be fine.

Which it will be; the surprises will be funny and will serve the three men right for being so dead set on messing around with Flames to one-up each-other in bed. Sex is supposed to be fun, not a power struggle or a competition; tangible awkward consequences should cool their enthusiasm, or at least persuade them to be a bit more careful where she's concerned. This is her worst pregnancy ever and she does not want to repeat the experience.

It's early May, she's reached thirty weeks pregnant and she looks like a hippo. She feels like a hippo too; a bloated, achy hippo with three caffeinated monkeys trampolining on her bladder. Being able to Harden her muscles and interstitial fluids is a wonderful skill, as without it Xanna is sure she'd be even more sore and bruised. She much prefers her blood to be running around her veins, not just sitting under her skin.

Luss is now starting to hover more blatantly, as triplets are born on average a month premature and he really wants to prevent that if possible, so they won't need any medical interventions or be at such a high risk of developing complications later in life. Her being able to Harden her muscles really helps there, as she can more easily support their weight and being also able to Harden her interstitial fluids –not much, but a little– is protecting her poor squished internal organs and reducing the likelihood of her developing complications of her own. Luss has been monitoring her blood pressure and diet in particular, so as to lessen the risks of preeclampsia since three babies mean more risk of practically everything.

Standing up is getting very difficult; lying down is not much better, to be honest, and she can't roll over in bed without taking half the sheets with her.

It's now blatantly obvious to everybody that this is a multiple birth, although the rumour mill still thinks it's twins. Only close family and Housekeeping have been informed of the impending triplets –and told it's a secret– but the Varia all know anyway and her friends 'just happen' to visit far more often than usual, so have probably picked up on it. 'Tera included; he's practically family so knows how many babies she's expecting and is clearly a little bit twitchy about the statistical possibilities as he's not ignorant of what Flames can do in bed. She still hasn't told him the details yet though; she hasn't even told Xanxus yet. She has told them that is was surprising though. Which is mean of her, but the ongoing reactions are worth it.

Today however a bunch of Varia are accompanying her husband and all the kids on a shopping trip to buy clothing, bedding and toys for the babies, since what they have left over from her daughters being newborn is barely a third of what they're going to need and probably too big to begin with. Xanna is therefore sprawled out on the couch in her sitting room, patchworking with the material propped up on her bump. She's spent so long sat on the couch this pregnancy that she's made an entire double quilt and is already halfway through another single one, now in diamonds rather than hexagons.

"Ah, granddaughter; you look terribly uncomfortable." Grandma Vongola is always refreshingly direct about her pregnancies, it's wonderful. She never romanticises any of it.

"I am horribly bloated, my ankles ache even while propped up on cushions and the froglets are practicing their kung fu against my kidneys," Xanna says, half in jest and entirely seriously. "Please distract me?" She's given the triplets the collective nickname of 'froglets' since she has to call them something and they are very, very bouncy. Xanxus thinks one of them is a Cloud and the other two are Skies –all Latent of course– but lately he's taken to specifying 'Sky-ish', so Xanna has a feeling those two might take more after Makoto's side of the family. Possibly; Flames aren't really set in stone until a child gets to age nine, unless of course they become Active before then. Generally it is the secondaries that might change, but Sky is a composite Flame so it's possible that they have; it might even be part of normal development, but the science is very limited there.

The aged lady –she's turning ninety-three next month– smiles a little slyly as she settles in the armchair closest to the sofa. "As it happens I do have a story I think you'd enjoy hearing, dear. Since it's just you and me and there's nobody still alive to make a fuss about it."

"Oh?" Xanna is abruptly aware that it really is just the two of them in the room; Grandma's Mist is loitering outside in the hall and her Rain is nowhere to be seen.

"I'm sure you've noticed my prevarication on the subject of my marriage, dear," the former Eighth says cheerfully, "so I think it's about time I explained why. The story will amuse you, I believe, and may even give you a few ideas." She side-eyes Xanna mischievously; the pregnant Lightning gets the impression that unlike the rest of the Vongola Alliance, her husband's grandmother has got the maths right concerning conception dates. And is highly amused by the possibilities rather than scandalised.

"So, my marriage," the old lady says brightly. "As you know, I was the only Sky among Seventh's children. However the option of me inheriting only became possible in nineteen-nineteen, when married women were legally permitted to hold money and property separate from their husbands. Not that the mafia is massively concerned by regular laws, but it made matters more straightforward and prompted a cultural change as well. I could have been made Heir even before then, but I could not have married without granting my husband a sense of entitlement to the Vongola, which I would never do, and unless I married I could not continue the family without being disrespected as a loose woman, the dichotomy of which weakened my position. Indeed, up until I was nine most of the family believed it would be one of my three male Sky cousins who would inherit, despite my being very obviously a strong Sky."

"However, it was clear that should the family become mine, any husband would still have the lion's share of the legal rights over my person," the former Eighth continues, "and that I refused to allow. If I was to be Donna and inherit, no-one could be allowed to own me in such a manner. Unfortunately I still needed to marry; my place in the succession was precarious due to my sex, but marrying and producing a Sky heir of my own would consolidate my power base. So I knew that marry I must. The problem was finding a suitably respectful prospective husband." She sighed. "And being a woman, I couldn't just marry one of my Guardians; I had to make a proper match with somebody who wasn't 'help'."

Classism as well as sexism; it's so nice to be reminded how far society has come in the past century. Although to be honest, Xanxus would have got a hell of a lot more whispers and side-eyeing had he been a woman marrying a male Guardian, so that aspect has not changed.

"In the end my Guardians decided that, in order to secure the family, they would have to resort to subterfuge," the old lady continues, pouring herself a cup of the hibiscus tea laid out on the coffee table. "So they found a recently-deceased young man of good but obscure family and modest temperament, made his parents and close friends forget that he had died and created a very convincing illusion to court me. Mist did most of the work of course, but Rain –my first Rain, not the one you know– played a large part as well and so did Cloud and Lightning. Sun and Storm were women, so they couldn't wear the illusion, but they added authenticity to the farce by 'chaperoning' and then gossiping about it later.

"My father was pleased by the match –although to this day I have no idea how long they actually succeeded in fooling him– gave his blessing and the wedding went ahead. Which left me on my wedding night, standing just outside my bedroom and realising that I was going to have to sleep with somebody in order to get pregnant and it was going to have to be one of my Guardians; I was after all a wife with no husband. Mist I had known since childhood and was my brother in all but blood; Cloud was married. So it had to be Rain or Lightning. Lightning noticed this as I did, turned to Rain and offered to flip a coin; Sun and Storm promptly hit him for being so crass and insensitive. As the violence escalated Rain politely propositioned me, I accepted and my wedding night proceeded more or less as expected."

Xanna blinks. This is not a turn she had anticipated the story taking. It's all true though, which makes it all the more hilarious: Ninth was a bastard. Eighth was never actually married. You could not make this up.

"I became pregnant fairly quickly, giving birth to my Sky son shortly before turning twenty," the former Eighth continues, "which consolidated my position in the succession and made me my father's favoured candidate. The External Advisor still favoured my oldest cousin, for his gender more than anything else. However I recognised I could not become Donna with a living husband; the other Dons would expect him to moderate and control me to their narrow standards of acceptable female behaviour and the longer the deception continued the more likely it was to be discovered. So shortly after my son's first birthday, my 'husband' succumbed to the illness which had in fact killed him almost four years earlier, a private funeral was staged and his headstone edited. Once widowed I was legally granted full custody of my son, full independence from any other man and full access to my own inheritance; more than enough to lead the Vongola on my own merits. Which I then did, and very well too if I do say so myself."

"That is quite a story," Xanna says mildly once she is sure the old lady has finished. "Illuminating."

"It's amazing what you can get away with if you are brazen enough and have a good Mist to hand," Grandma Vongola agrees wickedly, "and believe me dear, I do completely understand the appeal of Rains. Although my grandson has gone one better than I and managed to bed both his Rain and Lightning at once; I rather envy you their vigour and athleticism."

Of course she knows; grandmas know everything. It's a rule. "There are already three little Vongola girls," Xanna says calmly, "so I thought it might be nice to have one or two of the children I have this time take the Vittore name." She is not going to admit to anything; she is not almost ninety-three and well past the point of risking her children's parentage being used against them.

"That's a lovely idea, granddaughter; they will still be my great-grandchildren, of course, and able to take the Vongola name if they prove to be Skies, but you are the oldest of the Vittore so technically the head of the family until young Natsuki comes of age," Grandma Vongola agrees cheerfully, eyes twinkling, "and of course there is no doubt in anybody's mind that your children have the right to take on your family name." The Vittore are not technically an Alliance Family, so they don't have the Rule that states that Guardians can't be Dons. In theory it should be Naomi inheriting, but not being obviously male means most people assume they won't. Xanna is leaving it up to them to decide.

However the fact that one of her children does not technically have an automatic right to the Vittore name makes Xanna spit up an entirely inappropriate giggle.

"Share the joke, dear?"

Xanna shakes her head. "This one is for my husband first," she demurs, "and I have been sitting on it for some time." So has Luss, although she knows there have been moments they've been tempted to spill the beans as the Sun comes rushing to her to share the circumstances of potentially comedic timing every time they have to hold themselves in check.

The twinkle in Grandma Vongola's eye turns wicked. "A good surprise, I hope?"

"Most excellent and genuinely amusing," Xanna says sincerely. "He will probably tell you himself right after."

"Then I shall look forwards to it, dear."

Xanna manages to make it to dinnertime on the eighteenth of June before labour pains become frequent enough to be seriously disruptive; still two weeks before full term, but much later than is usual for triplets so there are unlikely to be any health complications related to their being born prematurely. Birth-related complications are however still terrifyingly plausible.

"A Caesarean?" she asks Lussuria as the Sun carries her out of the dining room at speed with Maínomai, each of them with an arm wrapped around the back of her ribcage and their other hand steadying her bloated belly. Xanxus is delayed by having to corral the suddenly very excited children and Squalo is probably calling 'Tera; they've already got an excuse prepped involving his and her husband's ongoing infrastructure design project.

"Something a bit more Mist-sneaky than that, sugar," the Sun says distractedly, steering them around a corner. "No actual cutting you open, for one; we'll move the babies out one by one as the amniotic sacs burst but before they start moving down through your cervix. I'm so glad I decided to take that midwifery course in the lead up to Melanippe being born; I really do not want to try and explain this to one of the regular Vongola midwives, they'd be scandalised."

"Because you're involving an Active Mist with minimal medical training in something as intimate and awkward as childbirth or because I'm a guy?" Maínomai asks brightly.

"To their credit, mostly the former," Luss admits with a quick smile. "The fuss would be over my doing something experimental, in that this has never been done for childbirth before. However we've done it countless times at the Varia to remove objects stuck in wounds without further aggravating injuries and to rescue trapped kittens, so I'm confident."

Xanna knows all about the hundred thousand ways the variously sized and overly adventurous offspring of Varia cats get stuck behind, above, under, around and inside things, including the plumbing, the air vents and under the floorboards. When your options are 'demolish a foot-thick cement wall' or 'find a Mist' when you need to rescue a piteously mewling kitten scrabbling somewhere around eye-height, the Mist is by far the most practical option. Mammon was always happy to stick extortionate fines on people who did punch holes in the walls and his successor has continued the tradition.

"Except that babies emerge still attached to the placenta, so I have to make sure to remove them so they sort-of do come down the birth canal," Maínomai explains conscientiously as they hurry up the stairs, "but I'll be fiddling with space so it's quick with no chance of getting stuck part-way through."

They're not taking her to Medical; Medical is not a comfortable environment and being stressed while giving birth makes everything so much worse, especially for Flame-Actives. As a result the Vongola Alliance is very old-fashioned in its birthing practices, because old-fashioned gets the best results. Trying to take the baby of an Active Cloud away to a hospital nursery would result in there no longer being a hospital, let alone a nursery –provided the new mother even got through labour without murdering anybody due to being well out of their comfort zone in a strange place– so the whole issue is neatly avoided by having a network of fully trained midwives attached to Vongola Medical, who do pre-natal checkups for every woman in the Alliance, attend home births and follow up with the post-natal checks as well. When Xanna got pregnant the second time Lussuria decided she wanted to be able to see to this part of her fellow Guardian's medical care as well, embarked on the training, attended Mela's birth as an assistant rather than just an observer and delivered Myrina personally eighteen months later.

Traditionally Donnas give birth in their rooms, a big rubber sheet on the bed under the usual bedding to protect the mattress so that once everything's over it can all be taken off by housekeeping and carted off to be washed while the mother lounges on a sofa and coos besottedly over her new baby. The rubber sheet's been there for over a month now, in case she went into labour during the night, but now it's going to get used.

She's unlikely to be ready to give birth for another five hours at least –well that's what Luss said before they whisked her off– but she's perfectly happy to spend that time lying down. Especially–

Owwwwwwww! Ah!

Especially since labour pains are no joke. Why does she always forget how much this hurts?

It's a quarter past midnight when her waters finally break, and two in the morning when Lussuria finally deems her sufficiently dilated for Maínomai to remove the first baby, which means Xanna has to make an effort not to push. It's really difficult.

Her waters break again the moment the Mist is gripping the slippery newborn, so Xanna does not actually get to see her baby properly until five minutes later, when Lussuria lies it down across her upper chest as Maínomai prepares to remove the next one.

He. Her first son. He's smaller than any of her older children were at birth, but that's to be expected when he was sharing space with two other babies. He latches onto her nipple almost instantly.

There is a thin wail from the other end of her body and Maínomai instantly starts talking.

"Sorry about that, little man; no, it's not so warm out here but at least it's not so cramped?"

Another son? Three girls then two boys at once? Are they both her husband's, both hers, or what?

The little boy curled on her chest is a little wet and sticky, but his hair is a brownish colour. The second little boy deposited on her upper body has much darker hair, although whether it's actually black or just some other dark colour won't be clear until he's properly dry. He stops wailing the moment he comes into contact with her skin though, settling across from his sibling and nursing as well.

It takes another fifteen minutes for her waters to break again, at which point Maínomai removes her last baby and Lussuria starts moving her body on to the third stage of labour, using his Flames to gently encourage the placentas to finish coming loose from the wall of her uterus.

"Okay, honey, you can start actually pushing now," Luss says encouragingly as Maínomai carefully balances the last baby in the middle of her chest, between her breasts so it can nurse now the boys have stopped but without displacing the other snoozing newborns. This one's a girl, and even slightly soggy Xanna can tell her new daughter has blue hair. That one definitely has Superbi heritage.

Finally getting to push is a tremendous relief.

"Perfect, sugar-lump, and keep going? Fabulous. You're doing fine honey, nothing torn or bleeding where it shouldn't be," the Sun says soothingly, hand dancing over her bare stomach. "Let me clean the four of you up and arrange for one of Medical's Storms to come and burn the placentas, then I can let the men in while you're on the couch. Provided you actually want to see them, sweetie?"

It's ten to three in the morning and she's exhausted, but she also feels triumphant –three healthy babies!– and the sheer relief of having nothing go wrong is making her feel giddy and mischievous.

"Once the babies are weighed and checked over and wrapped up and I've had something to eat," Xanna decides. "You can tell them now that we're all fine though."

Oooh, she now gets to explain parentage to the men. It's going to be hilarious.

Once cleaned and dried off her little girl's hair is proven to be a very bright shade of azure; the boys are mouse-blond and jet black, although she thinks there might be bluish lights in the black if the lighting were different. They're all within a few grams of two and a half kilograms weight-wise, which is slightly below healthy weight but not by much, considering there are three of them.

She's been carrying around seven and a half kilos of baby in her gut, plus all the associated amniotic fluid and placenta. No wonder her back aches despite all the Hardening she was doing in the last few months.

"Okay, before we let the menfolk in let's get parentage cleared up," Luss says cheerfully once the maids have changed the sheets and Maínomai has staggered off to get some sleep.

"Shoot," Xanna says, yawning. The babies are all dozing, bundled up warmly on her chest, and she's tired too.

"The little girl is Boss's daughter."

"Lie."

The Sun pauses. "You mean that amazing hair was hiding in Squ-chan's genes?" Two of the babies are her husband's after all, and the only one that isn't is hers and Squalo's.

Xanna grins. "Truth," she sing-songs. Squalo's father has blue hair and green eyes, although his hair is definitely not this bright; this implies that whatever it is making Squalo and his sister so pale-haired is a dominant complex rather than a recessive one, inherited from their mother. An inhibitor for hair pigmentation maybe?

"Wow," Lussuria chuckles. "So the itty-bitty blond boy is yours and Boss's."

"Truth," Xanna agrees, yawning again. She is so, so tired.

"So the dark little boy is the accidental surrogate," Lussuria surmises, making a note. "I'll be keeping a close eye on all their health, since there being three of them makes complications more likely, but I think that one is the one to watch most closely."

"True, just the first bit," Xanna specifies. "You were speculating at the end and developmental health is not set in stone, so I kind of get a 'meh'." Her ability to perceive truth only works when there are facts to perceive.

"Well that does at least imply that there's nothing wrong that proper diet and good parenting can't fix," Lussuria says happily. "Are you comfy, sugar-lump?"

"As much as I can be," Xanna sighs. Her body's still adjusting from giving birth, she's being Mist-monitored and there're a few Mist-tricks active on her to deal with the usual post-partum issues like incontinence and lochia so she can not worry about them.

"I'll go get the men then; don't worry honey, they're all sober."

Xanna snorts. "I am so tired, Luss, just go get them so I can watch them try to get their heads around the facts and then go to bed." Housekeeping have already set up the almost square wicker cot basket she decided she wanted to start her babies off in, so they can cuddle together like they did in the womb. Not that they'll be sleeping in it much to begin with; she needs to feed them at least every other hour and provide lots of positive contact, so she's going to doze propped up against the head of the bed for the first few days like she did with her other babies.

Her dark-haired boy –because he is hers, she did the hard work– is more awake now and rooting at her breast; she moves him slightly so he can latch on and feels him suckle; good. Hopefully they won't all want feeding simultaneously though, as she only has two breasts. They've fed once already, but newborns have tiny stomachs and that was an hour ago.

Her blue-haired girl also starts showing an interest in food as the bedroom door opens, so by the time Xanna has her new daughter settled comfortably she has an audience of three wide-eyed men.

Both the Superbi are staring at her daughter; Pantera in particular looks a little faint.

"So, parentage!" Luss says gleefully, clapping their hands. "You may want to sit down for this bit, boys."

Xanxus sits on the floor by the end of the couch she's propped up at, leaning his head back against her thigh so he can grin goofily up at her. Her husband goes all soft every time she makes him a father, it's adorable.

Squalo twitches, but grabs a chair from by the wall, drags it closer and sits on it backwards so he can lean on the back and stare at the trio of babies over it. He looks bamboozled and his emotions are all over the place, flaring randomly through his not-quite-controlled Flames.

Pantera very deliberately flops sideways onto an armchair like the cat he is, peeking at her and the babies from under lowered lashes.

"All comfortable?" Lussuria asks cheerfully. "Good! Now, first things first, Xanna. The reason you had triplets in the first place is due to the shark here being second-generation Visconti and a Cloud-secondary; Active Clouds have the highest rate of multiple births on record, around one in eighteen; mostly fraternal twins. Which rises to one in eight if the Cloud in question has a habit of playing around with Flames in the bedroom."

Xanna glares flatly at her fellow Guardian, who cringes. "Hey, I know that now," he grumbles.

"If this happens again I will find a way to Seal your Cloud aspect and smile vindictively while you suffer," she tells him flatly, meaning every word. This has been a terrible pregnancy; she only avoided severe complications through relentless supervision and meticulous self-limitation. Thankfully she now has access to birth control that actually works, so she has a few years of being able to see her feet and exercise properly to look forward to.

"Noted," Squalo mutters, eying her warily.

"Still, I will forgive you for it this time because I got a very pretty daughter off you in compensation," Xanna says pleasantly, stroking the girl's fuzzy blue spikes. "This little treasure, in fact."

Squalo chokes. Xanxus makes a delighted noise in his throat. Pantera looks both relieved and disappointed.

"But, blue!" the Rain Guardian manages.

"Gorgeous isn't it?" Xanna says affably. "Much less blatantly obvious than white hair would have been." Her skin's still red from being less than two hours old, but Xanna has a feeling this daughter will be far paler-skinned than any of her other children. She's much fairer than her husband and Squalo is fairer still; the Rain doesn't even freckle like she does.

Squalo makes a wheezing sound and clonks his forehead down on the chair back. Xanna decides to move on.

"Husband, the little one snoozing on my ribs is ours; congratulations, it's a boy."

Xanxus's eyes widen. "A son?"

"Yes, crow, you have a little boy to show off for now," Xanna says fondly.

"Name?"

"Well, you let me name all our girls, so you get to pick," she tells him, "but as with the girls, we have to agree." Myrina was nearly Andromache, but Xanxus vetoed it and she picked something else. She's glad she did too; Myrina's name suits her perfectly.

"And the third one?"

Xanna knows she's smiling rather wickedly now. "Ah, yes, baby number three… well, something a little funny happened there. You see, this one is not actually mine, genetically speaking." Which she now realises is probably Squalo's fault somehow. Obviously Cloud Flames in bed mess around with natural processes too; egg cells do not usually leave the ovary with polar bodies attached, as polar bodies normally get broken down and recycled. Luss has spent the entire pregnancy fretting about possible chromosomal abnormalities since polar bodies are not naturally void of DNA; they are the by-product of egg formation that don't have enough cytoplasm to reliably support cell division following fertilisation.

"Two sperm combined with a polar body and I ended up being surrogate. So congratulations husband, you managed to have a son with 'Tera." Although given that 'close but not quite' feeling when Luss asked the question all those months ago, she suspects that it's Pantera who supplied the Y-chromosome. So her husband is technically the 'mother' there.

Her husband gapes. Squalo topples to the floor, dragging the chair with him. Pantera chokes.

Oh yes, this is definitely worth it. The black-haired little boy in question stops suckling so she burps him gently and settles him on her stomach, moving his now-grizzling brother up to feed.

"Two sons," Xanxus manages. Off to one side Lussuria is giggling and there are a few flashes from a camera.

"Two sons," Xanna agrees. "One from your wife, one from your mistress."

Squalo starts laughing on the floor as 'Tera makes a wounded noise.

"Mistress?" Xanxus repeats, baffled facial expression twisting into a very naughty grin.

"Vongola Law says that if a Don conceives a child out of wedlock then the mistress must relinquish all claims to the child as soon as it is born," Xanna says cheerfully. "You're a Don and 'Tera isn't, so he's your mistress and you get to keep the baby. Well, we get to keep the baby; as your wife I get to raise your kids."

Squalo is now hiccupping and crying with laughter, curled up around his stomach as he shakes, and the Superbi Heir is staring blankly into space, collapsed back on the upholstery with jaw slack and skin unhealthily pale.

"No more one-upmanship in bed, please?" Xanna requests, looking her husband in the eye as the two Superbi try to pull themselves together. "One ridiculously improbable pregnancy is quite enough for a lifetime."

Xanxus catches her hand and kisses her knuckles. "Will try not to drag you into future dick-waving contests," he promises wryly. "Definitely not fair on you."

"Thank-you. Now, how about names?"

It turns out she's too tired to debate names; barely ten minutes after dropping the parentage-bomb Xanna is dozing off where she sits and her husband carries her carefully to bed, her babies still tucked against her chest inside the loose robe she's wearing.

Xanxus knows exactly how to deal with newborns after three baby daughters so Xanna falls asleep in his arms, confident that he'll manage to settle everyone just fine.

She doesn't actually awake until the next day –which suggests her husband did not sleep since somebody has to have moved the infants around on her chest so they could all take turns nursing through the night– and when she does she just feels… flat. Exhausted, but in mind and heart rather than body. Not that her body doesn't ache too. It is possible to breastfeed triplets without any one of them being deprived of essential nutrients –she had Luss check the medical literature for her– but she has to feed each one as they become hungry and eat plenty so her body can keep up and not run out of milk. She could use formula, but the idea sits really uncomfortably for some reason –something she's forgotten maybe– so she's going to avoid going there if possible.

Movement on her chest catches Xanna's attention and she looks down into the unfocused blue eyes of her oldest boy.

"Hey there," she says quietly, lifting up a hand to stroke his mousy hair. "Aren't you gorgeous? My beautiful baby boy. I bet you're going to be the best kind of trouble growing up, just like your big sisters are."

She probably pissed herself during the night due to all the water her body is now purging from its system, but Mist-tricks mean that's all been instantly diverted to the nearest waste pipe so she doesn't have to deal with wet sheets and attempting to juggle babies while going to the toilet.

Her blue girl –whom she has a name in mind for but Squalo deserves to get a say– is nursing, but her other boy is snoozing with her nipple in his mouth. If her little mouse starts fussing then she'll move her tiny black-haired tom-kitten off her breast, but unless that happens she can leave him be. Well, for given values of 'leave'; his hair is so soft and lovely to stroke and she wants to touch all her beautiful babies.

The mattress moves; Xanna glances over and realises she must be really out of it to have not noticed Squalo watching her from where he's sprawled across the sheets, fully dressed if not obviously armed. No boots though, since they're in bed.

"Afternoon, you," he says, voice barely a murmur. "Boss is with the girls, the cat's asleep in his usual room, Luss checked you over while you were sleeping." 'Tera's 'usual room' is the guest room he sleeps in when not crashing with them. He mostly keeps changes of clothing in it.

"Did he sleep?" 'He' being her husband.

Her fellow Guardian nods. "I've watched you and Boss with three different infants, Sprite," he says dryly, voice still barely audible, "I can make sure this batch all feed while you sleep."

"So you're sleep-deprived." She doesn't have the energy to care right now, so it's a fairly flat statement.

Squalo shrugs. "Today. We can take turns."

Like Xanna's going to turn down help; one infant is already enough effort to keep two working adults teetering on the edge of exhaustion. Three… that's effort cubed.

"Not back yet, are you?"

Xanna considers the question. "No." she has a bit of a depression problem anyway, so post-partum blues hit her hard. With Myrina she actually segued into post-partum depression, which her husband dealt with by taking her on holiday for two weeks. A holiday in which he doted on her unstintingly, did most of the child-care and invited over all her female friends to talk about normal things with her, which did really help and enabled her to start bonding properly with her daughter in the following weeks and months.

She's probably going to get a never-ending stream of visitors once Luss decides she's physically fit enough for them, which will be more effort but means she won't slide into isolation and misery. No true depression, just 'a bout of melancholy' as Mab phrased it.

Squalo nods, apparently not seeing any point in rehashing all the things they both know already. "You naming the girl?" He asks instead.

"I've got a name I'd like your input on," Xanna replies, petting her newest daughter's bright blue hair. It really is bright: literally the colour of blue smarties. It's an artificial-looking blue, but lacks the flatness that dyed hair has. "It's not a Superbi name though." Wildlife names are Traditional for Superbi.

"Your baby," her fellow Guardian says shortly, although his gaze has dropped to the hours-old blue-haired infant now dozing on her chest. "Not your husband."

Xanna assumes this to mean that Squalo was not expecting to have any say in names, as a different name would draw attention to this baby being 'not like the others' and potentially lead to speculation concerning parentage. She and Xanxus have already made it known that all the non-Sky children born this time would be taking the Vittore name, so this girl not being a Vongola will not be cause for gossip; her first name however will match those of her other daughters.

"I was thinking Clymene," she says.

Squalo pauses. "Wasn't she an Oceanid?"

"The name means 'fame' and yes, there's an Oceanid Clymene, but there's a Nereid and an Amazon too," Xanna says quietly.

"Fits with the other girls then."

"Plus a marine theme, for you and for her hair," Xanna agrees, the joke coming out a little sharper than intended.

"Hey, I have no fu–" Squalo cuts himself off and takes a calming breath "–I have no clue where that blue comes from. Dad's got blue hair but it's dark like Grandpa and the cat," he complains. "She looks like a Mist's been screwing around with Alterations!"

"You know that the blue hair gene inhibits the brown hair gene?" Xanna asks. This being something she actually looked into because hair in every colour of the rainbow was not a natural feature of her previous life. "So there's blue-black hair, intensely rich blue hair, blue-gold hair which is green in various shades and blue-red hair which is all the purples. But my hair's light brown. Just really light brown, with the wispy hair around my face being almost white-blonde." She knows she has a platinum blonde gene under the brown, as there's no other explanation for Titi's hair. Oh, Flames make things weird with the occasional spontaneous pigment mutation but those are usually more exotic changes, like the 'golden blond is very diluted recessive brown gene' changing to 'golden blond is bright acid yellow inhibiting the black hair gene and the presence of diluted recessive brown moderates it'.

"So it's your hair pattern, but with a blue gene not a brown gene." Squalo looks from the baby to her and back again. "You'd look really sickly with blue hair."

"I have slightly yellow skin," Xanna points out dryly, "which the baby probably will not; you're incredibly fair-skinned so she's going to be paler than me." All three babies are still more red than anything else, so skin tone is still up in the air. Blue hair pigment will probably correlate with wintery lavender skin-tones though.

"I like Clymene," Squalo says, going back to the original topic of conversation.

"Clymene it is then." Xanna pauses, her stomach gurgling. She needs to eat and eat well to be able to keep all her babies fed. It will get harder as they get bigger, but starting them on other foods after the six-month-mark sits better than using formula right from the outset. "Is there food?"

"There's food. I'll get it."

Two weeks after giving birth –and Grandma Vongola is delighted to have three new grandchildren as a ninety-third birthday present– Xanna is cuddling her three sleepy babies and telling them what a silly shark her fellow Guardian is for running off to the Varia because his grandpa came over to visit, when 'Tera walks into her sitting room. He looks frazzled.

"Dear friend, can you talk to my lady-love, please?" he asks in Greek, presumably to stymie the eavesdropping attempts of Titi and Mela, who are both sprawled on the carpet playing with Playmobil, their sprawling village taking up almost a third of the floor. It's ridiculously hot outside, it being July, but having three newborns to care for has made Xanna decide that her air-conditioning Alteration is a necessary addition to all the rooms she uses regularly. Her visitors certainly appreciate it.

"On what subject?" Xanna inquires, handing over Helenus –as Xanxus has named his younger son– to his other parent. The little boy has faint bluish lights in his black hair, skin a warm, rich olivine and very dark brown eyes, but despite very clearly having her husband's slightly Asian eye-shape he is in every other way a miniature of his other parent, from face to ears to hands and feet.

Pantera automatically accepts his son, cuddling the baby close and staring down at him with baffled wonder. "Me and your husband," he replies a bit distractedly, running a fingertip over Helenus's palm and smiling as the baby grips it tightly.

Yes, Immacolata definitely deserves to know about that before agreeing to marry 'Tera, which is likely to happen considering they've been seeing each-other for most of a year and the woman seems disinclined to dump him for being unconsciously intimate where Xanna is concerned, if only because she trusts Xanna's commitment to her wedding vows.

She and 'Tera have already broken their hearts on each-other; they are no longer passionately in love and never will be ever again. They're friends; really close friends who are still fond of each-other as friends. 'Tera and her husband on the other hand… well, her husband's not in love with 'Tera. The cat however is definitely a little smitten.

Thing is, 'Tera is manipulative. Xanna knows this intellectually, but most of it goes over her head and he can't pull much on her anyway because she can hear when he's being dishonest, so it's never been an issue in their relationship. Other people however are either entirely oblivious –and therefore not really his friends– or notice it, dislike it as they become aware of more of it and stop spending time with him. Xanxus on the other hand decided instantly that her ex-boyfriend's mile-wide manipulative streak is awesome and hilarious, just like he finds the Varia's constant power-play of lies and half-truths to be amusing and entertaining. So they are the worst kind of best friends, egging each-other on to greater heights and darker depths when not casually coexisting in the same space, having heated debates over some obscure thing or other, or plotting the downfall of some incautious fool who crossed them. Sometimes they do all four at once.

Her husband loves Pantera; her husband is not in love with Pantera. Pantera on the other hand is more than a little in love with being completely accepted and is rather attracted to her husband on top of loving him as a friend. Xanxus reciprocates the attraction –'Tera is his type– so they have a thing. A thing that she is fully aware of and frequently participates in, since Xanxus is her husband and all sex decisions are joint decisions. Their relationship with 'Tera is mainly sensual –cuddling and kissing and sleeping in the same bed– but they have sex once or twice a year, by which Xanna means there is mutual sexual contact but she usually only has intercourse with her husband.

They haven't done anything sexual together since 'Tera revealed he was seeing somebody –Xanxus may not have broken the damn cat's nose like she did but he definitely was not impressed by the deception– but 'Tera wanting her to talk to Immacolata about this implies he doesn't want to end either relationship if he can possibly help it. Or maybe he's giving his girlfriend one last chance to back out before proposing; probably both. 'Tera is clever like that.

"Why are you asking me?"

"You don't lie, or omit things because they're awkward and embarrassing," the Superbi Heir says with a sigh, settling in an armchair and snuggling his son in earnest. "You're reliable."

Okay. The implication being that 'Tera is not going to hide his relationship with Xanxus from a potential spouse and won't compromise on it either; his choice, although it will probably make marrying rather challenging for him. Then again, he does technically have an heir now –although he won't have any rights to Helenus until Xanxus changes Vongola Law a bit to allow for the complication of a mistress being a mafia heir or heiress in their own right– so he doesn't need to marry to continue the family line. Even though Traditionally the Superbi 'strongly encourage' their Heirs to marry before they become Dons, as marriage is a growing and learning experience that changes a person. Like becoming a parent is.

Another implication here is that 'Tera has been rolling around the idea of being her husband's 'mistress' in his head and decided he's not actually opposed. So this is making it official, although generally a man has a mistress rather than being one. 'Tera is older than her husband so is obviously not a 'boytoy' either, but in Italian the world for any extra-marital partner is 'amante' –meaning 'lover'– which is not gender-specific. Xanna however still thinks in English despite having spent over a decade in Sicily and most of her friends are polyglot, so they use English as much as they do Italian, French, German and Japanese and most of those languages have gender-specific terms for 'person a man is in an extra-marital relationship with' which imply that said person is female. Her husband likes using those terms because 'mistress' is funnier than 'lover' and implies companionship as well as emotional and physical intimacy.

Oh, and baby. 'Tera and her husband have a baby and 'Tera is not going to do anything that might compromise his ability to visit his son as often as humanly possible.

"I'll tell her about you and my crow then, tomcat," Xanna agrees. "About your little kitten as well."

"Tomcat?"

"You somehow bred with my husband," Xanna points out dryly. "If you hadn't crashed our party I would probably have only had twins."

'Tera snorts. "Can't say I'm sorry for that," he admits, smirking wryly down at the sleeping infant in his arms, "though I do regret what it cost you."

Quite right too; it was a terrible pregnancy. It's over now though so she agrees, her adorable little trio are worth it.

"When?" she asks instead.

"Three days?" he suggests. That's a Monday.

"Morning," Xanna says firmly; July afternoons get very stuffy even with the artificially-imposed temperature cap indoors and she is still recovering.

Explaining to another woman that your husband and her boyfriend have an ongoing relationship that is occasionally sexual is not easy. Xanna however has a plan, because she can be sneaky too.

Most of the plan is babies, culturally-dissonant casual girl-talk bombshells and refusing to lose her temper, but it is a plan. Getting Immacolata to like what she's going to hear is not the plan; the plan is to manage to say everything and ensuring Immacolata understands what is actually going on, as opposed to what cultural knee-jerk reactions say is going on.

After that her reaction is up to her, but hopefully Xanna's new friend will take the time to think critically about the situation rather than be impulsive and emotive.

Although 'impulsive and emotive' is definitely the reaction of choice for most non-Varia people, bafflingly. Xanna still doesn't understand why; so many novels, movies and television dramas have 'emotive reaction to misunderstanding causes unnecessary drama' as a plot point –sometimes several times in the same story– that you would think people would notice it is a thing, taken a deep breath and try to think critically. But no.

Well, she will be hopeful; this is after all the woman 'Tera wants to marry and he has good taste in friends.

"Immacolata!" Xanna really is delighted to see the other woman; they've become friends over the past six months as her fellow –if Latent– Lightning has visited her regularly throughout her pregnancy to chat about a variety of subjects, Pantera included. "Could you hold Clymene for me? I've burped her and everything, but Astyanax and Helenus still need feeding and I don't have enough arms." The main problem with triplets is not having enough arms; it's only going to get worse as they grow, as there will come a point when she can't carry them one-handed due to changes to their centre of balance.

"Of course; who's a lovely little lady then? Yes you are!" her friend coos, cradling the baby comfortably and sitting down at the other end of the couch from Xanna. Clymene blinks up at Immacolata, burbling curiously and waving a hand. "Yes, it's me again!" Immacolata says brightly. "It's lovely to see you too, angel!"

Xanna turns her attention to her sons, who are starting to fuss. "Now, now boys, there's no need for that kind of thing," she croons, slumping backwards to make feeding both of them at once easier. "See? Isn't that so much better."

"Those two look so like their father," Immacolata comments, "but the little princess here is so different!"

Oh look, an opening. "That's because my husband and I have a thing going with Squalo and these three were conceived when he was in bed with us," Xanna says matter-of-factly, "hence why we decided months ago that all three of the triplets would be taking the Vittore name unless they turned up Sky; less scrutiny that way."

Immacolata double-takes visibly. "You were having an affair?"

Xanna frowns. "No. My husband and I decided between us that we did not mind engaging in a semi-serious relationship with his Rain Guardian. It was a shared decision, made after Squalo expressed an interest in the both of us; we, as a married couple, are in a relationship with Squalo. It's on and off, he's still dating other people and looking for someone to be his partner and match like Xanxus and I are each-others, but he sleeps in our bed half the time when he's at the Iron Fort and when all three of us are there we sometimes have sex."

"Sometimes?" Immacolata looks morbidly curious, like a spectator at a traffic accident.

"It's not about the sex, not really; mostly we cuddle," Xanna says honestly. There's been even less sex of late, what with having three infants needing to be fed every other hour; sometimes the snuggling has taken a brief detour into intimate touching and orgasms but that's been it. She is too tired for anything more than that and what with helping the babies feed while she's sleeping neither man is exactly in great shape either. Her husband has been napping behind the sitting room couch in the afternoons and Squalo has reportedly dozed off at his desk at the Varia on several occasions.

"Is that a Sky and Guardians thing?"

Xannna ponders the question. "I don't think it's a universal 'Sky and Guardians' thing," she admits scrupulously, "but it might be an 'us' thing. All Skies are different after all, so it follows that different Skies will have differing perceptions of Harmony and that will affect bonds."

"Never thought of it like that," Immacolata ponders, rocking gently as she cradles Clymene against her upper chest. "Tenth has always been very physically affectionate though."

No, he hasn't; Xanxus only got cuddly as a preteen after Xanna made it very clear that hugs were not 'childish' or 'girly' but a normal human craving and he could have them –and give them– whenever he wanted. She is sure all that physical affection she poured into him has done wonders for his mental health and that he now spontaneously hugs people he likes is a truly wonderful gift. It's amusingly diplomatic too: getting hugged by the Vongola Tenth is a very uplifting experience since he only hugs people he is genuinely pleased to see. And knowing that Xanxus is genuinely pleased to see you is very cheering.

No, she's not biased; well not much.

"Sometimes 'Tera joins the cuddle pile," Xanna continues, "seeing as he's got a thing for Xanxus."

"A thing?" Hello, tension. Xanna smiles brightly and ignores it.

"I'm sure you've noticed 'Tera's manipulative streak," she says fondly, "and you may have noticed that he's not exactly swimming in friends. There's a connection there; Xanxus on the other hand thinks 'Tera's Machiavellian schemes are hilarious and decided they were best friends. So my dear ex-boyfriend has a bit of a thing for my husband, because Xanxus likes 'Tera's controlling tendencies and takes great pleasure in one-upping him or joining in on various schemes."

"So kind of like a crush?" Immacolata asks, relaxing again and smirking faintly.

"Kind of, yes," Xanna agrees, "So in addition to being our best friend and a person we hang out with, he sometimes pushes the boundaries a bit with Xanxus."

Immacolata instantly catches the implications; they've just been talking about Squalo, it's not hard to spot the similarities. "Xanna, is my boyfriend having sex with your husband?"

"Not recently," Xanna specifies scrupulously. "He told us he was dating when I noticed I was pregnant and I broke his nose for not telling us sooner. But before then, yes occasionally. Maybe twice a year occasionally, I mean."

"Telling 'us'?"

"Well Xanxus is my husband so bedroom decisions are joint decisions; again, I have zero sexual attraction to 'Tera these days and he's is equally not attracted to me, but he is attracted to Xanxus so we have ended up in bed together on occasion. I haven't had sex with him in well over a year though; I think it was…" Xanna racks her brain, "last February. Yes; his Valentines' day went sideways and we found him face-down on our couch the next morning, moping."

"Well before we were dating then." Immacolata relaxes a little more. She's still… unsettled is probably the best word… but she's thinking and listening and Clymene's still sleeping peacefully so she's probably not angry and hiding it.

"Yes," Xanna agrees carefully, "but he did show up on the morning my children were conceived –it was right after my husband and Squalo got back from that mission that ran very long last October– and things did get intimate and sticky. Which is why I broke his nose afterwards for not mentioning he had a girlfriend."

"Ah." The other woman looks like she rather wants to break 'Tera's nose too. Today. Immediately.

Both her boys have finished nursing for the time being, so Xanna decides to move onto stage two of 'distracting Immacolata with babies and bombshell revelations.' After burping Helenus, of course.

"Of course, the problem with Flames is that sometimes 'sticky' can be enough," she continues, holding her dark-haired son against her shoulder and burping him over the white cloth that is turning into a permanent accessory; not that her Varia jacket isn't wipe-clean for bodily fluids, but it's nice to not have to. "Especially if your husband isn't very discriminating about where he's putting his hands."

"One of your boys is Pantera's?"

"Flames make all kinds of intensely unlikely scenarios possible," Xanna says wryly, lying her younger boy across Immacolata's lap so the other woman can get a good look at his face. "In this case, my husband and 'Tera managing to have a son together."

She then has to steady Clymene, because Immacolata can see it and it's definitely come as a shock.

"Sorry," the other woman manages, one hand reaching out to steady Clymene as she wakes and whines and the other holding Helenus in place on her lap; the little boy reacts to Immacolata's tensing up with a loud wail.

"I just ambushed you with weirdness, you're allowed to be shocked," Xanna says calmly, taking Clymene back and leaning the grumpy infant against her free shoulder so she can burp Astyanax as well.

Really, her husband's naming choices are deeply questionable but they fit the Classical naming theme, they were both decent characters and the connection to his own name is very punny, so Xanna allowed it. Then again, she was exhausted and sleep-deprived so maybe she should have waited a few more days before making a decision. Not that she's exactly been getting masses of sleep since then, what with three babies to care for, but labour is a long and exhausting process and it was stupid o'clock in the morning by the time everything was over.

"So, how..?" Immacolata ventures once Helenus has calmed down again.

"Sky Flames and all three men in the bed at that point trying to one-up each-other, I suspect," Xanna says wryly. "There's a reason it's not usually all four of us at once and it's that so many egos in one place is not restful. Anyhow, two sperm combined with what should have been a non-viable polar body and now I have a bouncing baby boy with two fathers, to whom I only contributed mitochondrial DNA and gestation space. Which led to the question of 'who gets the baby' since I lack maternal rights, and thus led us to designate 'Tera as my husband's mistress for legality's sake, since the mistress of a mafia Don loses all rights to his children as soon as they are born; because Xanxus is a Don and 'Tera isn't. This is despite my not being entirely sure which parent my little kitten gets his Y-chromosome from. "

Immacolata shakes. With laughter. Possibly hysterical laughter, but she's laughing and Helenus is waving gleefully and babbling happily, so Xanna counts it as a win.

"How did he react to that?" Immacolata finally manages to wheeze.

Xanna grins. "It took him a while to find any words at all," she admits candidly, "but I do not get the impression he minds very much. I also do not think he is going to stop spending time with us –and my husband in particular– despite also wanting to marry you."

"Oh."

"Although if you do agree to marry him I think you should ask to join in; spouses do things together after all," Xanna says judiciously, "provided you are comfortable in that kind of setting, of course." Polyamory isn't for everyone.

Imacolata looks… Xanna does not know what that look is. "Are you propositioning me, Donna Vongola?"

"I do not personally experience much in the way of sexual attraction," Xanna says carefully, "but I do like sex. With my husband in particular, but I don't mind being intimate with other trusted people we are both comfortable sharing ourselves with, regardless of gender. On occasion that is; we want to have plenty of time together by ourselves as a couple. 'Tera likes you –I'm pretty sure he wants to marry you– and since meeting you I've come to see you as a dear friend. You don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with, but if you are serious about 'Tera at the very least you should come along and watch sometime." She smiles slightly. "They look very good together."

Okay, that look Xanna can decipher: Immacolata is imagining 'Tera and Xanxus naked together and finding it very distracting. She should help this along. "I have pictures." Because her husband is an exhibitionist, their tomcat has no concept of shame and both men enjoy raising the stakes on each-other. Squalo's not comfortable with that kind of thing, so she hasn't taken anything more daring than candid shirtless photos of him, but her fellow Guardian has taken a few pictures of the rest of them or helped her set up a few of the trickier poses of the other two men.

Yes, she does have nude photographs of Squalo, but they're stylish artistic nudes not 'oh look we're in bed together, let's take pictures' nudes.

Immacolata clutches at Helenus, eyes bright and eager. "Can I see?"

"So..?"

Xanna glances briefly up from Astyanax and across at where Pantera is sprawled on the sitting room floor, peeking up at her over one of the large floor cushions with Melanippe asleep on his back and her arms around his neck. All the under-fives in the room are napping right now, as are a few older people. Like Squalo, who is lying on his back half-under the couch with Clymene cradled against his shoulder; Xanxus is sprawled behind the coffee table under Helenus, Antiope, Lambo and Myrina, but he's watching her with lidded eyes while the kids snore. It's hot, everybody's just had lunch and the combination is very soporific.

"She may yet break your nose," Xanna concedes, "but I don't think you're going to get dumped." She pauses. "Correction: you are unlikely to get dumped as a knee-jerk reaction to her finding out you cheated on her back in October, or for accidentally having a child with Xanxus. She may yet dump you for not telling her this sooner, or for any number of other reasons connected to you being you."

"That hurts, you know," Pantera says with a pout.

"This may come as a surprise to you, tomcat," Xanna says dryly, "but you are in fact a fallible human being. Your failings are varyingly compatible with other people's flaws –hence your delightful disaster of a friendship with my husband– and it may be that Immacolata feels she cannot handle your foibles. If so, more power to her; if she however decides she can put up with your various indiscretions then you should propose instantly, because people like that are one in several million."

"I love how you call us a delightful disaster," 'Tera drawls, "so eloquent. You know we're up to no good but you enjoy the show so much you never step in."

"If you do marry her I expect you to bring her along sometimes," Xanna retorts sweetly. "Bedroom decisions are joint decisions for couples after all."

"You like her, pixie?" Xanxus rumbles sleepily.

Xanna considers the question. "She's pretty," she concedes, "and smart, if in a more intuitive and less intellectual way to what I'm used to; more like Tsuna in that sense really, good with people rather than science. What I do like about her is that she's grounded and practical and can see the funny side of things. Oh, and she really likes my photos."

"You bonded with my girlfriend over your dirty pictures," the Superbi Heir says flatly, easily catching the nuances.

"I bonded with your girlfriend over nude and occasionally obscene photographs of you and my husband," Xanna replies wickedly, "and I gave her some of you to take home with her."

Xanxus chuckles quietly as 'Tera chews this revelation over.

"If this is the female conspiracy my father warned me about then I can live with it," he says eventually, snuggling back into his cushion and going limp.

The conversation is clearly over, so Xanna settles back on the couch with her oldest triplet –whose hair is reddening and will probably look like Makoto's soon, or maybe even darker– and tries to nap a little herself. It's too hot to do much else and the babies will be hungry again in a few hours.

"Mamma?"

Xanna opens her eyes because that is a familiar voice with a familiar wobble in the middle; she smiles at Tsuna and beckons him closer. The triplets are eleven weeks old now, so they're sleeping in the crib at night and it's safe for the fourteen-year-old to slide in next to her. "C'mere, Tsu."

Tsuna slides under the sheet, snuggling close so she can feel his rapid heartbeat. "Sorry."

Xanna has no idea what time it is and doesn't really care. "Nothing to 'pologise for; bad dream?"

"I don't think they're dreams, Mamma," her Sky boy mumbles into her pyjama shirt as she wraps her arms around him. "Aria said the Mare rings connect 'parallel worlds and the infinite sea of possibilities', so I think I'm seeing that. And it's awful, Mamma."

"True," Xanna admits with a sigh. "Why is it awful, Tsu?" She never uses Japanese suffixes with Tsuna's shortened nickname. Fish-related nicknames are also banned and even Lussuria avoids using '-chan' altogether with him; they all make him flinch. Tsuna is also very emphatic about being Tsunayoshi Vongola, so mentions of his biological father's surname are also right out.

"All the future possibilities I can see are full of war and death," her kind, compassionate, loving baby whispers, "and the parallels are heading the same way; the same steps taken as everything everywhere hurtles towards destruction."

True. Well, that won't do. "Who is it doing it, Tsu?"

He doesn't answer immediately. She rubs his back and lets him settle.

"He calls himself Byakuran," her boy replies eventually, "but I don't think that's his real name. Or at least not his full name; he looks like me, half and half. The group is called the Millefiore, but it's an amalgamation of other groups. In the future possibilities he has the Mare rings, but in the parallels he's maybe 'Tsuki's age? He's got white hair and light purple eyes, but his hair is spiky and wild, not like Squalo's. He's also got this birthmark or tattoo on his face under his left eye, which is a purple curve with three spikes radiating down."

That sounds vaguely familiar. "We'll talk to Xan in the morning, 'kay? See about nipping it in the bud." Although her husband is probably already awake and listening, seeing as their boy's Flames are still not settled and Xanxus is so much more sensitive to such things than she is. Never mind that Bel is currently sandwiched between her and her husband and probably shamelessly eavesdropping as well, despite feeling asleep to her less attuned Flame senses. Tsuna's Intuition is very sharp, so he's either very shaken to not have noticed the Storm Officer or genuinely doesn't care; Xanna would prefer the latter. Bel gets offended when his princely presence is overlooked.

"Thank-you, Mamma."

"Welcome, Tsu. Sleep."

Xanna is soothing Clyne and singing for Asti and 'Leno –nicknames have already set in, partly because two-year-old Myrina can't pronounce her younger siblings' names at all– when her phone rings, which is massively inconvenient and makes her little blueberry wail louder. She swiftly turns up the volume of the CD player a little to keep the boys entertained, grabs her phone, walks across the room and answers it, still bouncing on her toes and snuggling her baby daughter close.

"Pronto?"

"Can I ask questions, pixie?" Why is her husband using Irish? Oh, it must be a secrecy thing.

Xanna wants to sigh, but doesn't. Her husband wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. "Shush, darling girl, shush," she croons, kissing Clyne's forehead. "What's got you so wound up, blueberry?"

"Wife?"

"Just talking to our littlest girl, crow," she replies absently, also in Irish. "Ask away."

"Byakuran Gesso is aware of the thoughts of other versions of him in parallel universes."

"True." How is he sane? Telepathy is not exactly conducive to creating a solid personal identity; it's hard enough working out who you are without other people sticking their thoughts in your head.

"Byakuran Gesso dreams of potential futures, the same ones the Bovino's time-travel tech accesses."

"True."

"Byakuran Gesso is insane."

"Lie."

"Byakuran Gesso's foreknowledge is always accurate."

"Lie." Oh, interesting.

"Byakuran Gesso is a danger to the people around him."

"Lie, although I suspect that means 'the people around him right now' there." Who are therefore Varia and rather harder to kill than is usual. Byakuran is also very likely to be heavily restrained right now, as otherwise her husband would not have risked calling for her input at all.

"Byakuran Gesso is a danger to his immediate family."

"True."

"Byakuran Gesso is a danger to the Vongola."

"I'm getting a 'meh' there."

"So he might be one, but also might not." There's a pause on the line. "Byakuran Gesso is a danger to you, personally."

"Lie."

Another pause; Xanna rocks in place, snuggles Clyne and hums as the infant finally nods off.

"Pixie, if I bring him home will you give him a talking-to?"

"What kind of talking-to?"

"He's delusional pixie, but you just told me it's not entrenched. I think you can shake him out of it." By making it clear she knows when he's lying, even if he doesn't. That's harsh, but it would be better than killing the teenager, which is the other option.

"Why are you suggesting this?" Her husband is not really a 'mercy first' person, not when those he cares about are being threatened.

A quiet huff over the line. "I… he's so fucking lonely, pixie," Xanxus says very quietly, "and he hasn't a clue who he is, not really. He's reminding me of the cow brat back when we first got him, screaming and smashing things to get attention. He's a Sky too; not Active but could easily have Creep."

In other words, her husband has found another highly dangerous feral child he wants to bring home, one who reminds him of himself and who he might have become if she hadn't been there validating his experiences. "I'll talk to him for you crow, if you think it will help."

"Thank-you." He hangs up.

"Well, it looks like I need to go change into something more formal than house clothes, doesn't it blueberry?" Xanna murmurs to her sleeping daughter. "Let's get you settled with your brothers so I can go put on something different." Probably the Varia uniform Luss is still supplying her with every year, because she is still the wife of the Varia Head even if she has retired from being Officer. Despite most of the Lightning's still calling her 'Officer' when she sees them.

Xanna is not objecting; there is no footwear anywhere else on the planet as comfortable as Varia boots.

Byakuran, delivered to her office tied up in Bel's wires and firmly gagged with one of Sert's handkerchiefs, is very definitely not all there. He feels fragile, ossified and brittle, as though all the truth is being ruthlessly bleached out of him.

"Go join Boss," she tells the hovering Storm Officer; Bel loves doting on her kids doesn't like being called out on it, due to his being a touchy sixteen-year-old. Giving him excuses is something he appreciates.

"Have fun, fairy!" the teenage Officer carols as he shuts the door behind him.

Xanna pours the tea she ordered before her 'guest' arrived, sets out the cups and then uses her Mist Flames to untie the gag from the sixteen-year-old Byakuran Gesso's mouth. No need to give him a chance to bite her.

"Who are you?" are the first words out of his mouth.

"My name is Xanna Vittore and I am the Donna Vongola," she tells him calmly, sipping her tea. "Who are you?"

"I am Byakuran and I am going to rule the multiverse," he says, voice a confident chirp.

"Lie," Xanna responds easily.

He blinks at her. "What?"

"My gift is to know the truth and recognise lies when I hear them," she tells him matter-of-factly, "and that was a lie."

"I am!"

Xanna smiles patronisingly. "If thinking that makes you feel better, dear."

The teen glares at her. "I'm going to gather the Tri-Ni-Set and use them to shape the world to my liking!"

"Lie," Xanna tells him absently, sipping her tea. "The Tri-Ni-Set no longer exist; the Arcobaleno system was abolished." Aria's explained a lot more about the old system since getting out from under the Curse and the more she's heard, the more Xanna is relieved she spoke up when she did. It was a terrible system and in more ways than the obvious ones.

"You're wearing a Vongola ring," Byakuran points out smugly.

"I said the Arcobaleno were abolished; the Vongola and Mare ring sets still act as additional anchor and stabiliser, but the main bulk of the system is now automated and decentralised," Xanna says blandly. "Has been for years, in fact; Lal Mirch has long since been restored to adulthood and the other former Arcobaleno have all recently turned six." Not that she's seen any of them lately other than Viper and Skull, but Fon stopped by two years ago to express his thanks and Verde is apparently very interested in how the new system works.

Byakuran takes a few minutes to digest this; Xanna pours herself more tea.

"It doesn't matter," he says eventually; "it still exists elsewhere, so I–"

"Lie," Xanna says flatly. "You cannot do anything."

"I am everywhere!" the teenager bellows at her.

"Lie," Xanna retorts firmly. "You exist here and only here."

"I can see and hear–!"

"They are not you." Xanna knows this in her bones. "Their being genetically identical to you does not make them you; identical twins are different people. Their sharing your name does not make them you either; each of them is their own person, discrete and individual, just as you are. Each individual Byakuran in every parallel world is a different person, solely responsible for their own choices and actions. That you all hear and see each-other changes nothing; each of them is wholly and solely themselves, just as you are wholly and solely yourself."

She sips her tea. The purple-eyed teenager stares at her, confusion and unease all over his body language.

"But I can see the future!"

"So can the Giglio Nero," Xanna says brutally, "and they know that what they see is only possibilities. Hell, I remember a potential future from another universe; you're not the only one with inter-dimensional brain problems."

"I am going to rule the world!"

Xanna does not bother to point out the lie this time; instead she asks, "Why?"

"What?"

"Why do you want to rule the world?" she repeats patiently. "Sounds boring to me, never mind thankless and lonely. What's the point?"

Oh, she struck a chord there; he's teetering on the edge of Activation now, but not for Sky Flames; for Lightning Flames.

Emotional pain is the most effective way to Activate Lightning Flames, so he must really, really hurt. Knowing this makes it very obvious why Lightning training turned to shit and suffering so quickly during Quarto's time.

"Ruling the world won't make people love you," she continues, not looking up from her tea. "It won't even make people like you and it definitely won't miraculously enable anybody to understand you. To not feel lonely you need to make friends, real friends you are completely honest with. Real friends won't care that you're a broken, fallible mess, because they know that they are too and they enjoy spending time with you regardless. Like how proper parents will make sure you know they love you even though they may not understand you."

"I am not a broken mess."

"Lie. You are a human being," Xanna counters, "we are all broken, fallible messes. It's intrinsic to humanity." She takes another sip of tea. "Besides, comfortable, self-confident people don't aspire to world domination; that's a symptom of insecurity."

"I will rule the world."

"No, you won't because my husband will kill you first," she tells him boredly. "He was going to kill you right off, but decided to let me see if you were salvageable first."

His smile is so fake it makes her teeth ache. "Do you think I'm salvageable, Donna Vongola?"

"Do you want to be?" she asks. "It's your choice. Do you want to keep your head firmly jammed up your ass, clinging to your delusional fantasy world where you can force people to pretend to like you and go on screaming inside, or do you want to come out into the real world where people take risks and put themselves on the line to form the challenging and painful but profound and genuine connections that make life worth living?"

She feels something crack in him as she says those words, can almost see something come loose. It's his Flames; Lightning Flames. Reaching out to him with her own Flames to soothe and reassure is instinctive after so many years of bolstering and reassuring struggling Division Members; offering assurance and acceptance and comfort.

He bursts into tears as his Flames dance along the conductive wires he's still tangled in; he's effectively shocked himself there. Xanna sets down her tea, hurries around the coffee table and uses Mist Flames to remove the wires –Bel's wire is sharp enough to slice through flesh without resistence– and sets them aside so she can hug the wailing teenager. He tries to lash out, but he's a baby Flame-User and she's been Varia Quality for a decade now. She can really feel his emotions now and he hurts so much, it makes her want to cry too.

"You don't have to be alone," she tells him. "You can trust people with yourself. Not everybody is going to use your heart against you. You don't have to lie all the time to be safe." He's probably not going to believe her right away, but that's fine. This kind of healing takes time and grace.

"I hate you!"

That's allowed. "I just smashed your world-view, you're allowed to hate me," she tells him soothingly.

"No!" Byakuran wails, "You see!"

"I see the truth, Byakuran," she tells him calmly. "It's not a very nice gift, but I make it work for me." She doesn't usually pay this much attention to people –which may be one of the reasons she struggles with names– but that's out of politeness, not lack of ability. Her truth-sensing skills have only become more acute with age and practice and they're tiresome sometimes. Especially now she has three newborns to care for and not much energy left for everyone else. Squalo says she's gotten more vicious lately, but it's mostly apathy and lack of care due to her being mentally and physically fatigued.

The teenager screams into her jacket, pain and frustration and despair mingling with relief and terror.

"You don't have to know what you want," she tells him, rubbing his back. "There doesn't have to be a grand plan. There is more to you than your achievements, plans and ambitions. You will still exist as a valuable person without them."

"But, I do want to rule the world?" He doesn't sound that sure.

"Why?" Xanna asks again, tone pitiless even as she offers him a handkerchief.

"I, I, I," Byakuran glares up at her, "I do!"

"Why?"

"I don't know!" Lie; he just isn't going to admit it, not even to himself.

"Then what's the point?" she asks, perfectly reasonably.

He screams again, probably in frustration, and slams his face down onto her thighs as he breaks out in fresh floods of tears.

Crying is cathartic, so Xanna rubs his upper back and lets him get on with it. At least he's taking her words on board, even if he's not entirely sure what to do about them yet.

"Knew you would fix him." Her husband sounds smug.

"I did not fix him, I broke him in a way he can probably recover from," Xanna retorts. She can't 'fix' anybody; she is not God. Byakuran recognising that she was telling him the truth and his reactions to that are all his own; hopefully he will be able to make a better life for himself than what he had initially planned.

"Not teetering on being Toxic anymore." Toxic is when Skies have unhealthy bonding conditions or use their Flames to warp the people around them to their liking, either consciously or unconsciously. Other Flame-Users can be Toxic too, but it's messiest in Skies because they become contagious and affect everybody around them.

"He's an Active and extremely unhappy Lightning right now," Xanna points out.

"Still a Sky," Xanxus says mildly. "Will train him. Should help him get his balance back."

"Are you going to introduce him to Tsuna?"

"Not yet; Fede and Aria say they'll host him for now."

"Despite Aria being seven months pregnant?" That doesn't sound very safe.

Her husband shrugs. "Volunteered, pixie. Probably a Seer thing."

Well, if it was her idea… "Well maybe she can help him deal with his dreams then; I have no idea what to do about those." Visions of parallel realities? Seriously? What is this, a sci-fi thriller? How can reality be so, so utterly ridiculous? Tsuna having dreams is one thing as that's a side-effect of the Mare rings that Aria says will eventually pass, but Byakuran's doing that and more naturally so she has no idea what might help him beyond emotional support and possibly counselling.

"Her point," Xanxus agrees, bending down to kiss her. "My gentle, ruthless pixie."

"Love you too, crow."

By the time Xanxus's twenty-fifth birthday comes around a month later Byakuran is starting to settle a little, although he is nowhere near back to being the buoyant, blasé trickster Sert and Luss described to her after the teenager was handed over to Federico. He's more stable though, so he's allowed to come to the birthday party, which is once again only open to close family and foster-kids.

This is the first birthday party without Grandma though, and the old lady's absence is still painful. Yes, it's been obvious for a while now that Daniela Vongola was hanging onto life by her fingernails, but her passing happened less than a day after Byakuran's schemes were foiled and the Gesso family was firmly divested of both its heir and two-thirds of its remaining capital and investments. Xanxus is nominally holding the money and businesses in trust for Byakuran, to fund his housing and education at the Vongola, but the truth is that the former Gesso heir is unlikely to ever leave the Alliance. Xanxus is teaching him about Sky Flames, about family and about bonds, all of which will shape the teenager and set his feet on a very different path to the one he was walking before.

Xanna misses her grandma-in-law. Her heart still hurts from the funeral.

This is the fourth Traditional Vongola Birthday Party her husband has held and the kids have settled into a rhythm now: first the individual gifts are handed out by everybody not joining in with the main show, then there's a break for food and setup, and then there's the play. It's Shakespeare again this year; after the incredible success of the first party, the actors wisely decided to do something completely different for Xanxus's twenty-first and put on a pantomime. Which was a roaring success, quite literally; Xanna's not sure Xanxus has ever had such simple fun as when he was shouting 'he's behind you!' at Delfina-in-boots as the 'hero' of the tale searched for the ogre.

Puss in Boots is a very mafia fairy tale, the story of a devoted con artist winning a fabulous palace and the hand of a princess for his master –played by Takeshi– the miller's son. Delfina voiced herself very eloquently, which was truly delightful and completely hilarious.

Year before last Natsuki very ambitiously decided to produce a musical, which was rather less funny than the previous productions but well-performed nonetheless. This year –possibly due to getting fewer points for the musical– they're doing Shakespeare again, specifically Much Ado About Nothing. Which is… kind of sharp and with considerable potential for disaster, all things considered. Not the slapstick humour of the earlier plays at all. Then again, the foster-kids are all much older now –Tsuna is fifteen– and the story of gossip and deception creating drama, heartbreak and confusion before a happy resolution is one they can clearly relate to.

Most of her kids are dating now, or at least starting to look at their peers with new eyes. It's not easy, for them or for her as a person most of them come running to when everything appears to go wrong.

Fortunately for her, Alessia Scarlatti is the other favoured person to turn to for the girls and the boys are usually more eager to talk to her husband or to Dino about their latest dating disaster. Usually it's the younger ones she has to comfort; the older teens don't actually want her to know what they've been up to, although she does because the people they talk to all keep her updated. Not in detail though; if she's truly concerned then one of her Lightnings generally notices and ferrets out the specifics for her.

They're always going to be 'her' Lightnings. They aren't letting go of her any more than she is letting go of them.

The play goes… interestingly. Tsuna is a most unexpected and surprisingly convincing villain with Mochi and Chicco –as Malachi calls himself these days– as sidekicks and Natsuki makes a benevolently scheming Prince of Aragon. Takeshi and Falco make an amusing double-act as the witty Benedick and smitten Claudio, balanced by the fiery and eloquently scornful –and now surprisingly tall– Delfina as Beatrice and petite, cheerful Luisa as Hero. The comedic constable Dogberry is played by Can, who has a charmingly hilarious turn of phrase and excellent timing. Xanna knows the scarred blond is severely dyslexic and is very impressed by how confidently and smoothly he recites his part.

The prize for the winners after the play is over is a firework display which all the kids rush outside to watch, leaving the older and less interested people some breathing space to chat and relax in. The display is only half an hour long, but that's a lot of time to a teenager and makes a nice break for an adult.

"So who are you?"

Xanna glances up from making faces at Asti. "I have already answered that question, Byakuran."

She doesn't look up when she hears him sigh, or when she notices him cross the room to lean against the side of her loveseat from the corner of her eye. Playing peek-a-boo with her itty-bitty redhead is far more important.

"Who were you before you were Xanna?"

Does she want to answer that question? Who is actually asking that question? Is it the Byakuran she knows, or one of the other ones?

"Who are you asking for?" She looks at him as she asks, to see how he reacts. The tiny hesitation and glance across at her husband –who is gleefully making faces at 'Leno and laughing as the baby squeals in delight– answers her question.

"Just… you don't fit," Byakuran says lamely. "The other Byakurans haven't met you at all anywhere, not ever."

Xanna thinks about that story she vaguely remembers and how broken and lonely so many of the characters were. She thinks of what she remembers of her own childhood and how angry and judgemental and naïve she was as a teenager, but also how badly she wanted friends, and how much she has always been willing to do for those she loves. Those others are not her, but they have as much in common with her as a twin would and they should get a chance to make their own choices.

"Crow?"

Her husband glances up at her. "Pixie?"

"Want to do the blood trick for me?"

He instantly gets to his feet and across the room Luss grabs a sheet of paper out of the cupboard; she's never agreed to this before, even though they've offered, partly to protect herself and partly because she was never quite sure what it would show. Now though, having read her way through a lot of the Bovino summaries in the last few months of that terrible pregnancy and having had time to think things over, she has a theory.

Bel appears behind her and Squalo sits down on the far side of the coffee table, Clyne chewing on his fingers and drooling happily. Xanxus sits down beside her, nuzzles 'Leno until he squeals again then cuts her fingertip and sets a Conjured quill to the paper.

Everybody stares at the information written out; this is not a family tree but a detailed personal biography.

"You were born in nineteen-eighty-seven? The hell?" Squalo demands after a short, incredulous silence.

"December thirteenth; well that's a surprise," Xanna admits. "The year I knew; the date's not what I was expecting though."

"What's up with your name, fairy?" Bel demands. Her name starts with a splodge, as though the quill tried to write two different things at once. It continues '–annah' and the middle name and surname are the ones she was expecting, which implies that the name her body was given is slightly different to the one she remembers having as a twenty-nine-year-old. Parallel world differences at work, most likely.

"In retrospect," Xanna says clearly, "I believe this specific version of me fell afoul of some badly-tuned Bovino tech in some other parallel world, which punted me sixteen years into the future and then into a different world –this world– twelve years behind where I started. Which may even have created a new branch; the specifics don't really matter. However I was dumped here in June nineteen-eighty-eight with the memories of a twenty-nine-year-old parallel self from twenty-seventeen, who incidentally lived in a world that was not ruled by Byakuran and definitely did not have people with natural blue and green hair walking around." She does not mention the manga with them in it. It will not help.

"So there might be a version of you walking around this world somewhere who's fifteen," Squalo muses.

"There can't be, that would cause a paradox," Byakuran says instantly. "She can only be here and be normal if her alternate self in this world is dead."

"Considering I remember my mother telling me she was in labour for most of two days and I was all tied up in the umbilical cord when the doctor finally dragged me out with forceps, it's very possible that several of my alternates died at birth," Xanna says candidly. "It may even be why I ended up here as opposed to anywhere else; there was a Xanna-shaped space in this world for me to occupy."

Lussuria cringes at the word-picture she just painted and her husband casually wraps an arm around her middle. Yes, she survived it; the odds weren't great though. If the cord had been tangled around her neck rather than her leg…

"So, almost sixteen?" Byakuran muses. "And British, going by your looks and accent."

"Yes, but the self I remember was living in Italy aged fifteen," Xanna admits.

"Northern Lombardy, by your accent when I found you," Xanxus agrees. "Old Estraneo territory; about where the Bovino had one of their bases, not far from Milan."

"The other versions might also be in America, or back in Britain," Xanna adds scrupulously. "Depending on where my father is working."

"This why you never looked for family?" her husband asks.

"I was pretty sure right from the outset than anybody I found wouldn't really be my family, yes," Xanna agrees quietly.

Byakuran is still staring at the glistening red script, possibly trying to memorise it. She should probably warn him so whoever he's asking for doesn't get their hopes up.

"Don't expect much," she says quietly. "Nobody's at their best at fifteen and who I am now is very different to who I remember being then. What little I do remember. I learned a lot and grew a lot between eighteen and twenty-eight. Any versions of me you find are probably going to be like I was as a teenager: confused, fearful, judgemental, narrow-minded and barely aware of my own emotional state."

"Typical teenager then," her husband rumbles, nudging her neck with his nose and pressing a kiss over her pulse.

"Yes, but two things I suspect will hold true: being slow to trust, but trusting completely and only once after it is given, and really hating being lied to. As in, lie deliberately to my face and you will never be truly trusted again, ever." Xanna's better able to get past that now she can see all the lies, but her teenage self was far less forgiving.

"But you see lies," Squalo points out.

"Only since arriving here," Xanna says, knowing it's the truth. "I mean, I can't remember being able to see lies before, but then again I remember nothing of who I was other than my twenty-nine-year-old memories, so maybe I could and I forgot? Don't count on it, anyway."

"Why are you helping?" Byakuran asks warily.

Xanna smiles. "I think all those other versions of who I could have been deserve a chance at the happiness I've found," she says lightly, "and yes, they'll have to work for it, but so did I. Working for things makes them more worthwhile in the end." She smiles a little wistfully, "and having more friends is always nice. I've never had as many friends as I do now."

"Or as many children?" Xanxus asks teasingly.

"You're my first husband, just so you know," Xanna teases back, poking him in the ribs. "I was too busy working out who the hell I was to juggle a relationship. Besides, nobody was interested."

"Their loss," her husband says, pressing another much louder kiss to her neck and making the babies giggle.

Squalo has no fucking clue why Boss didn't just throw Byakuran out of a window when he came by the Varia mansion with his possessed Mist Guardian claiming he had a birthday present for the Head of the Varia. That the two 'guests' vanished into Boss's office with him for four hours was even more suspicious; Boss then chasing them out of the building, shooting holes in the walls as he tried to blow the smirking albino brat's head off, did settle everybody's concerns though.

It would have settled Squalo's, except Boss has been brooding since then; weird quiet thoughtful brooding with occasional stints in his workshop or in the training grounds. The Rain's never seen his Sky like this before and it's unsettling. He's also drinking quite a bit of gin, which is not something Squalo's ever seen Boss mainlining before. The swordsman doesn't like it.

"Shark." Speak of the devil.

"Yes, Boss?" the Rain Officer asks, getting up from his desk and warily eying his Sky. Xanxus is standing in the office doorway, scars half-hidden by Mist-tricks as usual and a level, introspective look on his face as he toys with one of the longer feathers hanging down his chest. A nervous tic? The fuck?

"Pack."

"Mission, Boss?"

The Sky shakes his head. "Reconnaissance."

Squalo abruptly has a bad feeling. "This something to do with the flower asshole?"

The Sky smirks, eyes gleaming. "Turns out there's a world he got defeated before the brat stepped in; my Lightning talked him down and into pieces before he even got started."

"Levi did what?" Squalo refuses to believe it. Eloquent Levi is not; he's about as graceful as he is eloquent and by that Squalo means not at all.

"Not Levi; some chick." Boss looks amused by his assumption though and that's a good sign. "Was older there; Quality's Quality though."

In other words, Boss wants to hunt the local version of that chick down and see if she's got the potential to be Quality here too. Well, it's something to do; Squalo ducks into his bedroom and grabs his go-bag from his wardrobe.

"Ready when you are, Boss."