#girlparents tomshiv

[finalgirlkateausten]

"Where is [child's name]?" "I thought you had them!"

can you tell I was listening to my shivlina playlist while writing this? 😉

Even with private jets, a transatlantic flight with an eight-month-old baby is still fucking stressful. By the time they've done flights and drives and been shuffled into various rooms in Caroline's expansive manor (and Shiv thanks god every time that her mother had immediately moved away from the sprawling cage they'd grown up in), she has a pounding headache that she'd rather treat with liquor than acetaminophen and she can already tell that the baby's routine is going to make her own jet lag worse.

She's in the bathroom of the suite, the same one she's gotten used to because fucking Roman gets the one Caroline used to allot for their dad. The small office space will hold Genevieve's cot and the trunk full of baby necessities, from the seat she needs in the bathtub to the tiny red dress she'll be dressed in for Christmas. But the luggage hasn't been delivered yet, and Tom hasn't even arrived with the baby, so Shiv splashes water on her face and then pats dry with a towel, digging through her purse to find eye drops to make her eyes less red.

She hears the heavy door open, and exits the en suite to find Tom lugging the overstuffed diaper bag, but no baby along with it. "Wait, where's Genevieve?"

"I thought you had her!" Tom's eyes go wide, and he drops the bag. "I wasn't in the same car-- did she get with someone else somehow?"

"No, she was with me in the car, she took a bottle--" Shiv shoves her hands into her hair, trying to remember. Fuck, how bad at this does she have to be to lose track of her daughter in the hubbub of international travel!?

"Oh my god, did we 'Home Alone' our baby?" Tom sounds horrified.

"No, you idiot, that doesn't happen," Shiv hisses, certain Genevieve is here, probably with some relative or staff member who had passed her around instead of giving her back to her mother. "Fuck, where's Chloe-- she probably has her-- or maybe Connor got her, you know how he is about wanting to hold his niece as soon as he sees her--"

"Who did you give her to, Shiv!?" Tom spreads his arms, his tone accusatory. "I wasn't in the car with you two!"

"Jesus, calm down, everyone here is family," Shiv snaps, panic rising in her own throat. "You call Chloe, I'm going to--" but as she paces to the door, it opens, and Karolina steps in, holding Genevieve safely in her arms-- and the baby is asleep.

"Oh, sorry," she says, looking between them and clearly noticing their panicked looks. "Chloe was taking her for a diaper change, I thought you knew where she was-- but then there wasn't a trash can in the powder room, so I volunteered to take her while she figured that out. I thought she could use a lullaby, so I didn't just deliver a cranky baby to your door."

"Thank god," Tom says fervently. Now that Shiv has her baby in her sight again, she feels like he's overreacting. Genevieve was never going to end up with anyone they didn't already know.

"You must be magic," she murmurs to Karolina, giving her a wry smile. "I'll..." but Genevieve shifts as Karolina starts to move her away from her chest, and Shiv holds up her hand in pause. "Hm. You don't... have anything you urgently need to do, right? The couch here is pretty nice, if you wanna put your feet up..."

"Shiv," Tom says, "you can't make Karolina sit here for the whole time Genevieve naps."

"Hey, it's nicer than my suite," Karolina says, giving Shiv a familiar smile, like they're sharing a secret. "I'll stay for a while." She strokes a hand over Genevieve's soft hair, and Shiv feels her heart skip a beat as she watches Karolina watch the baby.

"Thanks," she says softly, following Karolina to the couch and sitting next to her. "I'm glad she was with you."

"We get along alright," Karolina answers.

Shiv is so entranced by the gentle ease with which Karolina cradles Genevieve that she doesn't even look up when Tom leaves the room.

[finalgirlkateausten]

"Little one playing dress up with a grown-up set of shoes" + Shiv and the bebe

"What doing, Mama?"

Shiv turns away from her vanity to see Marla poking her head into the bedroom doorway, Genevieve just behind her and Lainey taller than them both. Her three-year-old is much more mobile than Gen was at that age, maybe even more so than Lainey, thanks to two big sisters escorting her around everywhere. Shiv sets down her powder brush.

"I'm getting ready for the--" she doesn't want to say 'ball' or 'gala' in front of her Barbie-obsessed daughters. "Sad sack wasp trap," she offers, almost hearing Roman's voice instead of her own. "Aren't you three supposed to be with Chloe?"

"Chloe's making dinner," Lainey says.

"More like burning it," Genevieve adds. Which is why they pay Chloe to nanny and not to cook, but it's the cook's day off. So it makes plenty of sense that the girls were able to run off while their nanny was distracted. "Are you doing makeup, Mom? When can I wear makeup?"

"I let you wear lip gloss," Shiv points out. "Makeup is hard, and even though it should be just for fun, people think it's something that grown-up women have to do. You can start learning if you're interested, but you don't want to have to do this kind of makeup." She scowls in the mirror, picking up her contour stick.

"I wanna watch anyway," Gen says, peering over her shoulder. Shiv feels something in her chest twitch at the sight, her tiny clone of a daughter, blue stare as intent as her own. Behind them, the other two have moved to the closet.

"Is this your dress for tonight?" Lainey asks. "It looks fancy. I would like it better if it was purple though. Dark purple. That's the best color."

"Mhm," Shiv says, focused on blending in her makeup. "Can't wear purple with red hair, though."

"Oh."

"Mama, look!" She hears a series of clacking noises and sets down her brush to turn and look at Marla, who is standing precariously in a pair of her heels. The look of triumph in her eyes, the sparkle of mischief, is so familiar, so genetic, that Shiv stands from her seat at the vanity and scoops Marla into her arms, kissing her cheek gently, her eyelashes brushing her cheek in a silent apology for the Roy characteristics she's never going to escape.

"Those are too big for you, silly," she teases, as one shoe falls to the ground.

"Duh, Mama," Marla says, and Shiv doesn't think Gen or Lainey knew that word at three but then again, they didn't have two older sisters. She remembers her own vocabulary being quite expanded by Kendall and Connor, even when she was small. "They your shoes, not my shoes."

Shiv sighs deeply, shifting Marla to her hip as she loses the other shoe. She returns to the vanity, Marla in her lap and Genevieve still hovering by her shoulder, and when she looks in the mirror she sees her daughters all staring back at her, even Lainey, who is wrapping herself in the fur Shiv will wear over her shoulders tonight. They're all watching her in wonder, because she's someone entirely different to them than she is to herself.

"Well," she murmurs, in answer to Marla's comment that she's probably forgotten already, "maybe you'll grow into them."

[finalgirlkateausten]

this one has succession potential :) “Tomorrow is Take Your Kid to Work Day.”

Shiv is more than happy to let Tom tuck the girls into bed tonight-- their third daughter, just a few weeks from making her entrance into the world, is taking up all her energy these days, and she feels like she herself could use a seven-thirty bedtime as well.

Walking past the nursery, though, she overhears a conversation that makes her pause outside the door.

"Lainey, Genevieve," Tom says, "are you excited to come see where Mommy and Daddy work tomorrow?"

There are sleepy, high-octave noises of excitement, but Shiv sticks her head in the doorway to make eye contact with her husband. "Tom," she hisses, "what?"

He blinks up at her, his work shirt rumpled, his eyes deep and calm. "Tomorrow is take your kid to work day."

"Okay, well, we're not doing that," Shiv says, grimacing and avoiding the curious gazes of her daughters, who are already enticed by the offer. "That-- that doesn't apply to the CEO-- right?"

"Why shouldn't it?" Tom cocks his head, his lips pressed together, the expression somewhere between confused and guilt-tripping. Shiv glares.

"Because you're going to parade them around for ten minutes and then feed them ice cream for lunch and then use them to push me out of anything you can get away with calling 'important' as if this one isn't already doing that," she snaps, gesturing to her belly under her dressing gown. "I had to suffer through the same bullshit when I was their age--" she doesn't want to get into that. Six years out and she can't talk about her father without crying or yelling, neither of which she wants to do in her daughters' room. "--besides, Gen has school."

"Do I have to?" Genevieve interjects.

"Yes," Shiv says shortly.

"I thought it was scheduled for before schools went back from Winter Break," Tom tries.

Shiv rolls her eyes. "Did you forget the part where we're paying the GDP of a small country to have her in private school? The schedule's different, Tom."

"Mommyyyyyy, why not?" Lainey pleads, the last word turning into a whine.

Shiv sighs, resists the urge to roll her eyes, and sits down on her youngest daughter's bed instead. "Because, honey," she says, as patient as she can, "Mommy and Daddy are both very busy. It's not fun for you guys while you're so small. We have to do important work, and if we're worried about you two wandering off or getting into trouble, we won't be able to work well. You would just be watching shows or coloring like you do with Chloe, but it wouldn't even be that fun because we won't be able to do it with you."

Genevieve's brow furrows first. "That's boring."

Shiv nods in agreement, matching the ridiculously serious expression on her daughter's face. "It is."

"Don't wanna go work," Lainey declares, her voice full of the whining vowels and blurry consonants of toddlerhood. "Wanna go playground."

"It might be too cold for that, sweetheart," Tom interjects.

Shiv glares at him, wishing he would get her pretty fucking clear message to shut his mouth. "We'll see, honey. You can ask Chloe in the morning."

Lainey nods, seeming satisfied. "Tired now."

Genevieve pouts. "Noooo, I don't wanna go to bed. One more book?"

"We've already read three, honey," Tom says, but Shiv reaches around her belly and her daughter curled into her side and pulls Goodnight Moon from the nightstand.

"I've got them," she tells her husband. "You can get ready for bed."

Tom stands but hovers, looking uncertain.

Shiv adjusts Lainey where she's pillowed against her sensitive breasts and wraps her other arm around Gen. "Go," she insists. "I'll stay here for a while."

Tom finally leaves, and the tension in the room disappears. Relieved, Shiv reads until she's hoarse and her girls are both asleep, and then, in the middle of the large but not-big-enough nursery bed, she falls asleep herself.