Chapter Text
It had been just a handful of days since Doey had returned to Safe Haven with his surprise little doughling. The toys were all really surprised by the turn of events, and there’d been a million questions, most of which had honestly gone unanswered. But the general consensus was to give him and the baby space, let things settle down, and Hoppy stepped up to keep things going more.
He’d woken up alone. It hadn’t fully registered at first, because of course he’d be alone; he and Hoppy shared this closet because it was small, and they both never were supposed to be sleeping at the same time. That and he’d had trouble sleeping through the night (?) since the doughling, so getting some uninterrupted sleep had been nice. But once it clicked, he was scrambling out of the tiny room, panicking. Where was the baby, what had happened??
Things seemed…normal. No one was in trouble, it was business as usual, which meant reorganizing the space with the supplies they’d managed to collect. He spotted Hoppy on the other side, towards the main gate, helping drag some mattresses in. She’d help him; she’d know what to do. So he headed over there, and as he got closer he noticed that the oversized green rabbit was wearing a sling across her chest. He went through relief, anger, and then curiosity about that fact before he reached her.
“Hoppy.”
“Hey,” she greeted cheerfully, despite the huff as she pushed the mattress into place, “You’re up. Sleep well?”
“Sure…” he said carefully, not trying to be too obvious, “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Ed and Izzy suggested setting up the beds over here since we found the On-Call Room the other day.”
“Uhhu…and,” he gestured to the sling just as the little purple head poked out.
“Oh, that,” she said sheepishly, “I went to check on you two before we started this and you were knocked out. But Mini Dee was making a fuss, so I figured I’d let you sleep and just bring them with.”
“Mini Dee?” he raised an eyebrow at that, reaching for his doughling, “Will you stop giving it terrible nicknames.”
“Well then pick name,” she teased, easily taking the doughling from the sling and handing it back to its parent, “We can’t just keep calling it “the baby”.”
“Uhhu,” he instantly released what little tension he didn’t know he was still holding the moment he had the purple bean back in his arms; the doughling immediately snuggled up close to him, just adding to the calming effect, “So you two went all the way to the On-Call Room then?”
“Of course not, I’m not stupid,” she explained, going back to dragging the mattress, now less gentle about it since she didn’t have the baby strapped to her anymore, “I stayed in the main corridor, Ed and Izzy went the rest of the way. They brought me the mattress, then went back for another,” she flopped it down into the proper place now with an unceremonious plop, “Now that you’re up though, I’ll go all the way and speed things up.”
“I didn’t mean,” he sighed, rolling his eyes, “No, no, you’ve done most of the work lately, I’ll go.”
“You sure? I got it handled; you can just hang back here with Boey.”
“Boey?”
“Baby plus Doey, Boey.”
“No,” he said simply then offered to hand the doughling back to the rabbit, “And yes I’m sure. I could use the stretch and exercise. Just,” he hesitated before letting go of the baby, fully handing it off, “Don’t go running off with them without telling me again, ok?”
“I…oh,” she now realized that what she’d thought had been helping, might not have been the obvious thing, “Sorry, got it, my bad.”
“It’s ok,” it was just a little bit of a lie, but it was fine.
“You know I wouldn’t do anything though right,” she reassured, getting the doughling situated back in the sling comfortably.
“I know, I just…” he trailed off a little, noticing that once the doughling was situated it snuggled on up close to the rabbit’s warmth, and she just reflexively patted it safely, reassuringly, “I know Hoppy.”
It was clear that they both wanted to say something more, do something more, but…the words weren’t really there for them to use. There was so much going on, so much to do, and now with the doughling, there was…there was a lot. But one step at a time, they’d get through it, together.
“Well,’ he broke the silence first before it could stretch too thin, “I’ll be back.”
“Right,” she nodded, “We’ll be here.”