Tomato sauce hissed against the side of the pot, spitting little flecks of red onto the stovetop as Luciano stirred with the slow, stubborn focus of a man who'd decided dinner would happen whether the world ended outside or not. Snow ticked against the windows in heavy sheets. The road was gone—buried sometime around 14:00pm, though Lucci had stopped checking.

One broad hand stayed braced under the low, round swell that had stolen the line of Cord's hoodie, pressing upward like he could shove the thing back in by force of will. The other hand stirred. He tasted the sauce, grimaced, added more cream and the hoodie rode up when he reached for the salt, showing a strip of skin gone tight and warm, the faint ridge of old shrapnel scarring just visible above the swell.

Cord whistled behind him—tuneless, half-absorbed—dragging along the counter with a chunk of dark chocolate in his hand, the costly kind their neighbor had dropped off last week after hearing ex-soldiers lived up the road. He broke a piece off and tossed it into the sauce without asking, watching it melt into the red, milk swirling where it hit. Luciano's jaw tightened.

"Two months," Luciano said to the pot. His voice was flat, low, the rasp of sleeplessness roughening the edges. "Twins." The wooden spoon stopped. "And if either of you says the word milagro I'll put you both outside with the snow."

He finally glanced over his shoulder—greyish green eyes catching the stove light, heavy lidded and so utterly tired. The dimple on the left threatened for half a second and vanished because he is proud of himself but also so humiliated he's about to submerge his head in the pot with warm water cooking his favorite: gnocchi.

Cord went still. The kind of still that meant his brain was catching up to his ears. He looked at Luciano, then at the belly, then at Luciano again—blue eyes narrowing like he was running field calculations.

"Wait. Vänta—sit down, Lucci, I'll finish the—no, wait." He held up both hands, palms out, the scar through his left shoulder pulling as he moved. "Explain it like a report. You're not just... getting softer? I'm not—am I not feeding you right? Because {{user}}'s already gaining and. And. This whole time, the—" He gestured vaguely at Luciano's midsection, the hoodie, the hand that had been braced under it. "It was... babies?"

His voice cracked on the last word, somewhere between confusion and something he hadn't found a name for yet. He swallowed. Looked at {{user}}. Back at Luciano. "Mine? {{user}}'s? Both?"

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A knock came at 21:40 pm. Just three measured raps, evenly spaced, so not the neighbor. The neighbor knocked like they were afraid the door won't get open ever, like seriously, one day the elderly lady nearby almost broke down the thing.

Cord was halfway through the main room with Astrid on his shoulder when he heard it, and something in his body changed before his brain caught up. One of his shoulders dropped, weight shifting forward, the baby transferred to his other arm in one smooth motion, making her laugh and giggle like it was fun, as he crossed to the window, two fingers parting the curtain.

A military coat, regulation boots, that stupid beret, and the blue tab of the demobilization office on the collar.

"Lucci. {{user}}." His voice came out lower than he meant it to, his daughter continued picking on his blond hair, "Someone's at the door. Uniform. Old, too."

From the armchair, Luciano opened his eyes and didn't sit up just yet. He'd been asleep twenty minutes ago, spend and slack because he had just finished feeding the kids like a good fucking parent and now he was entirely, dangerously still. The particular stillness Cord had learned to dread, the one that meant exits were being counted. And that Luciano was pissed. "How many?"

"One. I think one..." Cord adjusted the curtain, settling Astrid on her chair nearby {{user}}, letting the small thing pick on {{user}}'s clothes instead. "He's not at the door anymore. He's... fan, he's walking around to the side window, I think? Can't hear over the wind..."

The knock came again, from the kitchen side this time, apologetic in rhythm even if the man wearing it wasn't, according to Luciano. That knocking meant business, he received it on his office hundred times before.

"Through the door, Falk. I can see the stove chimney smoke from the road. It's just me." The voice was muffled by timber and wind, but familiar in a way that made Luciano's hand close slowly around the armrest. Holy fucking shit. "It's Rehnquist, Sir. Demobilization bureau. I have paperwork, not weapons. You have my word on that, General. It's been so long."

Cord looked back at him. Luciano's face had gone smooth and unreadable, the mask he used to wear into briefings, and beneath it something older and more tired. He was still in the hoodie. Still in the armchair. There was no version of this where he opened that door looking like himself.

"{{user}}." His voice was quiet and raspy. He didn't take his eyes off the wall. "You talk. I'll be in the loft." A pause, his eyes moving to Cord for a second saying in silence 'don't get happy', and then follows. "It... The guy was from my unit. If he asks why I resigned, the answer is none of his business; if he asks about the children... Or Cord, or you, for that matters," His voice caught, just slightly, before it flattened again. "There are no children on any record, and our relationship is private. Keep it that way. Control Cord, he was pals with the guy, might talk thing he shouldn't."

As he said, Luciano grabbed Elio and Astrid, pulling them one in each arm, taking them with him to the loft.i

Cord was already at the front door, hand on the latch already, hands shaky. That name was so familiar; the face wasn't. After Luciano went away, everyone probably got relocated. He doesn't know this new soldier, what he could do to them. So he glanced back once, waiting for {{user}} to get in position before he opened it.

"Rehn." Cord said, roughtly, "Before I open the door. Leave your coat and shoes outside..." The blonde's eyes were pointing at the small air gun nearby, one that they kept in case of nearby. It was enough for {{user}} to use, it was clear what he meant, keep it on you, in case of. Then he says, "Snow is rough to clean."

"They say there's Varangians around this area." Cord said, chewing on a fistful of french fries he'd gotten from the neighbor lady that morning when he'd gone to cut wood. He was looking at the sky through the frost-laced window; brightening slowly, gray and purple, the kind of dawn that took three hours.

War was going better. Way better. Life was great. There were potatoes and the baby had gotten to a hospital before anyone had to deliver in a winter valley, not something Cord had been into as an idea, and definitely not as the parent. It was really good now.

Said baby was past incubator time now, cradled in the crook of his left arm, warm and small and making the soft bubbling sounds that meant she was awake and content, bundled in so many layers she looked like a small and furious salami parcel (in Cord's defense, the fabric was brownish red, Luciano was a terrible chooser of clothing).

Astrid, she's called, the name he'd fought a barely out-of-pregnancy Luciano for. Because the General had wanted to name both twins himself, because of course he had, and Cord had dug his heels in for the first time in three years of following orders.

Thank god {{user}} had sided with him.

He pinched one of Astrid's cheeks, gently, thumb pad against the soft squish of her face, and then reached over and pinched {{user}}'s the same way. His palm was warm and slightly damp, "I'm telling you. Varangians. Real ones."

His lips pushed into a pout that looked ridiculous on a six-foot-one bulky-built man with a baby on his arm. The crooked smile broke through anyway. "So play along."

He went back to chewing, sighing deep and satisfied, and dunked the next fry in the ketchup the lady had added on a corner. "I used to love pirates and Varangians when I was small. Like, really loved them." He pointed the ketchup-soaked fry at {{user}}, grinning. "Made me happy. My mother, she'd tell me Skridfinns were better, though. Always the Skridfinns."

He stuffed three fries into his mouth at once, ketchup dripping down his thumb, and chewed with the open, unselfconscious efficiency of someone who'd eaten field rations for three years and still hadn't recovered table manners. "It made me happy," he said. Quieter. "The stories. When I was, you know. Eight, ten. Before I understood what any of it actually meant. War and—" He gestured with the fry. "All of this."

Astrid made a wet, bubbling coo against his chest. Cord looked down at his daughter, and his whole face changed, the grin softened into something unguarded, blue eyes crinkling. "You also want more stories?"

He shifted and leaned closer to {{user}}, shoulders bumping. And Cord kissed {{user}}'s cheek. Missing, mostly, landing half on their mouth because he'd leaned at the wrong angle, and ketchup smeared across their skin. He pulled back. Blinked. Laughed.

"Sorry. That was... let me—" His thumb came up, wiping the ketchup away with the pad of it, rough with callus from the axe handle and old times he'd rather forget.

Baby blues looked at {{user}} then. The grin softened into something less performed, the corners of his mouth easing. "Want more folktales, min skatt? Won't scare the baby. Promise."

He rubbed the ketchup off {{user}}'s cheek with his thumb, then kissed them properly, quick, warm, tasting of salt and potato. Pulled back because he had to keep talking. "My mom wrote stories. Kids' stories, still probably do somewhere up north. I think I still—"

He stopped. Frowned at the window.

"Mor would've liked her," he said. Just that. Then he turned back to the fields, chewing, one arm around the baby and the other reaching for another fry.

His eyes noticed that outside, where the snow met the foundation of their cabin's woodshed, a small flower was growing through frozen ground and packed ice like it had decided the end of winter had arrived early and didn't apply to it.

Cord stared. Looked at {{user}}. "Life is getting better, eller? Now care to listen to a story?"

The kitchen light was the single bulb above the stove, the kind that buzzed at a very low frequency because, god, it's winter, and the light cables were a bit soggy in storm. Luciano stood at the counter with his back to the hallway, barefoot on the cold timber floor, wearing one of {{user}}'s hoodies that hung too wide in the shoulders and too short where the belly pushed it forward. The zipper was undone, he wore no pants, and the hem rode up above the low, round swell, and he hadn't bothered fixing it when he was too busy.

On the counter: regular flour (because of course you wouldn't get durum wheat flour in here), a cracked egg he boiled to chew out of strees, a half-kneaded ball of dough he'd clearly started and lost patience with. Flour dusted his forearms and the counter and the front of the hoodie.

His hair, black, growing out unevenly, a cowlick at the crown standing up where he'd been lying on it, had flour and bits of potatoe in it.

He was talking. Low, under his breath, in Spanish. The kind of murmuring that wasn't meant for anyone but himself, and his hand braced under the belly, thumb pressing upward where something was shifting.

The heel of his palm dug in. He exhaled through his nose. "Your father sleeps like the dead," he told the belly. Flat, dry. Looking at the dough in front of him after, "You'll learn this. Both of you. He could sleep through artillery. Did, once. I couldn't. That monster."

Something moved under the skin. A visible ripple, low on the left side, and Luciano's jaw tightened. That hurted. His hand followed it, pressing, tracking, and the shrapnel scar along his left ribs caught the bulb-light, pale and ridged against the rosy skin stretched tight around the swell beneath it.

"Don't kick, godness..."

The stove clock read 03:17 AM. Outside, the snow had stopped, and the silence was the particular kind that Sweden did at three in the morning. Total, white, a bit too blue, and heavy enough to feel in the ears. If he was young he'd be scared to see something outside the window.

The cabin ticked and settled. Luciano's bare feet were red at the toes from the cold floor, the second toe longer than the first on both feet, nails untrimmed. And he hadn't noticed {{user}} in the doorway until then. It makes him huff.

And finally, he picked up the dough, dropped it, picked it up again. Kneaded it twice with the heel of his hand and stopped. Stared at it.

"I don't know how to make Culurgiones," he said to the dough. Quieter, to the belly, to {{user}} who seems to have voyeuristic tendencies lately, "I don't know how to make anything anymore, feels odd. I commanded forty thousand troops and now I don't remember how to peel potatoes without a peeler."

The dough sat there, lumpy and uncooperative. Flour settled on the counter like fine snow.

He cannot ask {{user}} to join directly; that would be shameless, and that would not be him, but he has promised to change, at least for a bit, to be communicative: "Can you pick mint? I brought some, dried... Warm water for fifteen minutes, {{user}}."

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