659. Chapter 659

When she’s a puppy, she chases after dogs five times her size in the dog park.

Alex is nervous at first – her protective instincts kicking into overdrive when Gertrude yelps – but Maggie steadies her with her fingers on the pulse point of her wrist, and sure enough, the yelp proves to be a yelp of excitement, of joy, at getting to play with such gigantic versions of herself.

Maggie tilts her head and squints in adoration when Gertrude winds up rolling over on her back and squirming around in the dirt like she has no bones before bounding back up to press her nose to the other pups’.

Alex doesn’t know who’s cuter – her dog or her wife – but either way, she’s ecstatic.

They’re both nervous at first when Gertrude starts having what are apparently very vivid dreams.

Because they keep her safe and protected, away from DEO drama, away from attacks on aliens and alien attacks, but – even though neither of them say it, because both of them know there wouldn’t be a scientific basis for it – they both worry that some of their nightmares have somehow transmitted into the mind of their baby.

But when they get to know her a little better – when she’s lived with them longer – they recognize the ways she’s panting, the ways she’s moving her legs like she’s running even though she’s fast asleep on her side, the little yips she’s making.

They come to recognize those sounds, those movements, as joyful ones. Not from nightmares, but from pleasant dreams of running through fields and playing and chasing.

So Gertrude’s dreams become one of their favorite things.

When James comes by to take a series of family portraits of them, they’re all a little worried that he’ll have a hard time – Pulitzer Prize winner though he is – getting their hyper little baby to sit still long enough for a good shot.

But Gertrude apparently loves the camera.

She poses and she preens and she makes sure her eyes are just wide enough, that her expression is just adorable enough, to make the humans around her all melt.

And that night, she sighs contentedly as she curls into Maggie and Alex’s bed to sleep, her belly full of treats and her heart full of the knowledge that her parents love her so, so much.