314 The Rush

Phillip put on his coat, warning the children to behave and kissing Finn on the cheek before taking Amelia's hand to run back to her home.

Gabe took it all in, quietly. He had occasionally thought that Amelia would have made a good mother for him and Finn. The thought felt disloyal to his real mother, but since he'd never met her, it was hard to cling too tightly to that feeling. 

It would have been easier on Finn to have another woman sharing the duties of their household for those years. 

Of course, now Finn was married with her own babies. It left Gabe feeling rather… motherless. 

He shook his head with a sigh as his sister went back to the kitchen to continue her cleaning and cooking, and turned back to his niece and nephews on the floor. 

"You look sad." Victoria observed. 

Gabriel cut his eyes over to the girl. Apparently he wasn't the only one paying attention to others. 

"I hope everything's ok with Miss Amelia's family." He said simply. That was true. 

"You can't fool me." Victoria said. 

Gabriel looked her in the face. She was studying him rather seriously. Though she was a year younger and had her moments of girlish frippery and giggling, she could be good to talk to sometimes. 

"In the orphanage, you learn to watch people. I see you do it too." She shrugged. "Cause you don't want to be in the way. The adults can't handle everything. Kids have to learn to take care of ourselves. So we watch, to figure out how." 

Gabriel remained quiet. Though his mother had died, he still had a father who loved him. Even though Victoria had been adopted…

"Do you miss your real parents?" He asked suddenly. 

"I don't remember much about them." Victoria admitted. "I was at the orphanage for a long time." 

Gabriel hesitated. Finn often told him it was rude to pry, but he didn't always know what that meant. Then again, kids his age and younger didn't care nearly so much about rudeness as adults did. 

The girl saved him from coming up with a reply as she continued, "Dr. and Mrs. Sherman are nice. And I have Roland for a brother, and Finn for a sister since they got married, and now Caspian and Naomi for cousins. I guess you're my brother too! And a niece and nephews… that's plenty of family." 

"I don't think I'm your brother." Gabriel protested. 

"Roland's my brother, and Finn says she's my sister-in-law, and you're her brother, that makes you my brother." Victoria traced the steps on her fingers as she spoke. 

"That's not how that works. We're not related." The boy insisted. 

"These babies. I'm their aunt, and you're their uncle. We're definitely related." Victoria nodded. 

"No…" Gabriel paused. Now he wasn't as confident. "We don't share blood." 

"I don't share blood with anyone, but I have a family anyway." She began to get defensive, and Gabriel had to backtrack. 

"No, I just meant… Fine. We're sort of related." He conceded. He hated when girls cried, and she looked like she might if he kept up the debate. 

He'd probably get in trouble if Victoria told Finn what he'd said. 

"You don't actually think so," The girl glared at him. "You're just trying to keep from arguing." 

"That's true… isn't that enough? Can't we be friends? Do we HAVE to be related?" He asked with mild irritation. 

"I guess we can just be friends." Victoria frowned but nodded, and Gabriel smiled in relief. 

He didn't like fighting with girls.

"Roen, no!" Victoria cried, reaching for the baby laying on the rug in front of them. 

With the city's efforts to keep the roads clear of snow, and the fires keeping all the houses warm, it was understandable that a lot of mud found its way indoors. The frozen mud must have come in on Amelia's boots; she was fairly distraught when she'd arrived and hadn't paused to wipe them.

The baby had wriggled his way to getting a handful of icy clay off the floor and gripped it tightly in his fingers. Victoria was gently trying to pry it away, but Roen's hand was clenched, and he flailed to prevent her interference with his new acquisition. 

"Roen, please," She insisted. "Mud isn't for babies and you don't need that, I'll get you a rattle to hold instead…" 

"Babies can't understand you, you know," Gabriel said as he watched her struggle. 

"I know, but… oh, just help me, will you?" Victoria demanded. 

Gabriel sighed and leaned forward to hold Roen's arm still while the girl worked at prying his fingers apart without hurting him. A delicate and difficult task. 

"Come on, Roen." She cooed. "Give Auntie Vicky the mud." 

The baby's response was a squeal of discontent. 

Finn came into the room, having heard the cry of the infant. 

"What's wrong with Roen?" She asked as she entered. 

"How can you tell their crying apart? They all sound like babies." Gabriel squinted at her. 

"They're my children. I know their cries." She breezed, bending to pick up the baby. "Now, what do you have, Roen?" 

Naomi followed in behind Finn, wiping her hands on a towel as she watched the scene. 

"He got some frozen mud from the floor and wouldn't give it back." Victoria explained. 

"Just give that here, now." Finn said, smiling at her son. "Don't be stubborn like your uncle." 

She took a moment to wink at Gabriel, who pursed his lips, but denied nothing. He was only stubborn about things when he cared a lot about them… which, apparently, Roen cared a lot about the cold glob of mud quite a bit. 

Finn blew into Roen's face lightly, causing him to scrunch it up and flail his hand slightly. Deftly, his mother opened his fingers and pried away their contents. 

Kissing the baby's forehead, She laid him back on the rug on the floor and examined what she had just retrieved from him. 

Her brow furrowed, and Naomi leaned forward to look over her shoulder. 

"I thought you said he got ahold of some frozen mud?" She looked at Victoria questioningly. 

"Yes, Miss Amelia tracked it in when she came a few minutes ago." The girl answered dutifully. "I tried to get it away from him, but he was holding it so tight, and the cold and slipperiness of it was hard for me to get a grip on." 

Finn's mouth flattened into a serious line. "Thank you, Victoria. Naomi and I are almost done with cooking dinner, and then we can eat. Did Father say whether he and Amelia would be back for the meal?" 

"No," Gabriel was watching her face carefully. Something was strange about the way his sister abruptly changed the subject. "What's wrong, Finn?" 

His sister's eyes met his seriously, and she paused for several moments. 

"It's nothing for you to worry about, but thank you, Gabe. You're sweet to notice things like that." 

The boy understood what was behind her words. 'I don't want to tell you because you're too young to handle grown-up worries'. 

He chafed at it, and she gave him an apologetic smile. It softened him only slightly. He knew she was probably trying to protect him. 

"You can tell me things, Finn." He said in his most grown-up voice. "I can handle them." 

Finn and Naomi exchanged a look that frustrated him. He should be the one his sister shared things with, not this visitor. 

"It's not that I think you can't handle it," Finn regarded him seriously. "You just shouldn't have to handle any more than you already have so far in life."

He couldn't come up with an argument for that, but suddenly he was glad that the recruitment age had been lowered to fourteen. It meant he was two whole years closer to being treated like a man. He sighed, but tried to put the feelings of being minimized aside. Though it irritated him, he knew he was loved. 

Finn and Naomi left the room without noticing the change in his expression, but Victoria missed very little. 

"Don't grow up too fast." She warned the boy.

"What?" He turned to her. 

"It's something Miss Jessie at the orphanage used to say. 'Don't grow up too fast'. To kids who acted older than they were." She nodded. 

"Like you?" Gabriel challenged. He didn't want to get a lecture from a girl a full year younger than he was. 

"She was talking mostly to the weird kids–the halflings–" She corrected herself, "but sometimes to me." 

He considered the girl in front of him. He couldn't dispute that her life had been harder in some ways than his, since she'd had no parents and no family, and he had his father and sister. But Victoria hadn't been kidnapped by the Rhone and imprisoned in Darkness. He still had bad dreams about being taken away again. 

Her eyes weren't judgmental or mean, just matter of fact. He decided not to argue with her. 

"All right, I won't grow up too fast." He agreed. "As long as you don't, either." 

"We'll grow up together. Deal?" She asked with her hand outstretched. 

"Deal." He smiled, shaking her hand firmly. 

It was nice to have a friend.