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January 2027

The Star Wars theme song echoed through the bedroom of the two-story house in the outskirts of Langley. Lynn swung her arm around to her husband’s bedside table, grabbed the phone, and held it in front of her face. With her eyelids still pressed together as much as possible she attempted to turn off the alarm with a loud sigh.

Of course the man lying next to her didn’t even flinch as he’d become a very deep sleeper over the last few years. Only when Lynn leaned in to place a gentle kiss on Nate’s neck did he stir slightly.

“I’m gonna get the kids,” Lynn mumbled before letting out a big yawn.

“M’kay.”

“Why am I even talking to you?” She groaned and rolled her tired body over to her side of the bed to step out of it.

“Because you love me,” Nate mumbled into his pillow before pulling the blanket a little higher to fall straight back to sleep. Lynn watched him a moment longer, a smile lingering on her face, her heart burning with the love it held for this man.

She stepped out of the room and walked along the hallway towards the second bedroom on the other side. The wooden door was full of pictures the girls had drawn over the last two weeks and insisted on hanging on their bedroom door. Neither Nate nor Lynn understood where that creativity came from, as both of them struggled to draw a flower. Hovering over the collection of self-drawn pictures were colorful letters that spelled the names of their almost three-year old twins.

As silently as possible, Lynn opened the door to the bedroom and stepped inside. Although each of them had their own bed, they snuggled together in one, small arms hugging each other while lying face to face.

Nothing could describe the love of a parent for their child.

Lynn’s heartbeat increased, a smile appeared on her face, and she felt at peace every time she was near her children. She had been protective with Nate already, but that was nothing compared to the protectiveness she felt for her girls. She would climb Mount Everest for them if she needed to, even with her fear of heights.

But right now all they needed was their mother by their side, so Lynn went towards the bed on her tiptoes and carefully kneeled next to it.

“Ann. Luna. Time to wake up,” she whispered with a loving voice, one hand carefully caressing through the wild, brown mane on Luna’s head.

Both girls stirred a little and Lynn could see Ann carefully opening her eyes to see who had interrupted their peaceful sleep.

“Mama!” she exclaimed in a sleep-driven voice as soon as she realized who was kneeling next to them.

The excitement in her voice made Lynn’s heart flutter. How could someone be so happy to see her just because she was their mother? She would never understand how lucky she was because she had given birth to two wonderful human beings.

“Good morning, Little Star. Did you sleep well?”

Ann nodded seriously in response before carefully shaking her sister’s shoulder .

“Luna. Mama’s here,” she whispered.

The other girl mumbled something that neither Lynn nor Ann could understand, so Lynn decided to just pick Luna up and place her on her hip. The small girl let her head rest against Lynn’s collarbone, small hands loosely wrapping around her neck.

Ann stood on the bed on her own, arms outstretched towards Lynn to show her that she wanted to be carried as well. Lynn had always carried both twins at the same time, but the bigger they became, the harder it was for her.

With the help of a little jump, Ann landed on Lynn’s other hip, holding herself up all alone while looking around to where they were going. Her right hand moved to her face to rub her still sleepy eyes.

“Daddy’s still asleep, so you have to be quiet,” Lynn explained mostly towards Ann, as Luna had fallen asleep on her hip again. She was definitely taking more after Nate than her.

When they entered the bedroom again and stood in front of the king-sized bed, Ann wiggled out of Lynn’s embrace and tiptoed over the mattress to Nate’s head. Even though the girl was still light as a feather the shaking of the mattress must have woken Nate as Lynn could see his quickened breathing on his bare chest.

He barely had nightmares anymore but waking him by surprise still triggered his fight or flight mode sometimes. Lynn watched her daughter carefully, ready to intervene if she could see any sense of a panic attack in her husband, but thankfully nothing came.

Not even when Ann stumbled over her own feet and fell with her whole body on Nate’s back. The man groaned a little, but otherwise remained in the same position.

“Daaaaaaaddddddyyyyy,” Ann whisper-screamed in his ear and Lynn saw him furrow his face in a grimace.

The girls had been really talkative for over a year now, but they were not able to control their voices. Their whispers were mostly so loud that everybody in the same room heard them, but at least they were trying.

“I’m sleeping,” Nate mumbled.

For a moment his answer seemed to confuse Ann as she climbed off her father, kneeled on the bed, and looked at him with a scrunched face. Then a wide grin spread over her features and she clapped her tiny hand on Nate’s shoulder.

“You. Are. Not. Because. You. Are. Talking.” Every word was emphasized with a clap on Nate’s shoulder, who couldn’t hide his smile anymore.

In a quick movement he rolled on his back, grabbed his daughter, and threw her in the air before catching her again with outstretched arms.

Lynn held her breath, her mother's instinct kicking in as she was scared that one of her babies could be hurt. But it was Nate; she knew that he would never hurt Ann intentionally and she trusted him that he knew exactly what he was doing.

The squeaking laughter of their second-born (she beat her sister by two minutes) echoed through the bedroom, now finally waking Luna. She raised her head from Lynn’s collarbone and looked for the source of the loud laughter. Nate had stopped throwing Ann in the air but still held her firmly between his hands while plastering her face with kisses.

“Stooooooop, Daddy. Stoooooooop,” Ann now whined, her whole face already covered in wet kisses by her father. But he only stopped when Luna jumped from Lynn’s arm onto the bed and crawled along Nate’s body towards his face and her sister.

“Let her gooooooo,” Luna squealed before starting to tickle her father’s waist.

Lynn could see Nate’s abs tense while he tried to not burst into laughter. At the last minute he managed to put Ann down on the mattress before his hands were occupied in trying to stop Luna from tickling him. How both girls played together made Lynn smile widely. She hoped this companionship would last their entire lives.

Their bedroom was now filled with Nate’s beautiful laughter, while he pulled his knees towards his middle to ease the pain a little, carefully avoiding hitting Luna with his legs. He could have easily overpowered his daughter and stopped the tickling but he didn’t want to. Most of their mornings were as chaotic as this, but it was exactly how the two of them had imagined their life and they would never change it for anything else.

“Help me, Darling. Our kids are torturing me.”

His ocean-blue eyes were fixed with her chestnut ones and she could see the love sparkling in his. Over the years this love never faded, it grew with every single day and was multiplied exceptionally when the twins were born.

“Okay girls, I’ll make breakfast for you, but you have to stop torturing your father. We all still need him, okay? Don’t break him.”

Ann let her gaze alternate between her mother and father and immediately slapped Luna’s shoulder to signal her to stop. Between her tickle-madness, her own squeaking, and Nate’s laughter Luna probably hadn’t heard Lynn.

Her tiny head spun around to look at Lynn and Nate took his chance to grab Luna's hands and pull them towards his head to place kisses on each finger.

The girl didn’t protest, pressing her small body against her father before he let go of her hands and she could wrap her arms around his chest. Well, at least as much as she could as her arms were way too short. Nate then raised one of his arms so that Ann could snuggle into his side as well and he placed a kiss on her head.

Lynn slightly shook her head while she watched her husband cuddle with their little girls. Both had been Daddy’s girls from the day they were born. In the beginning Lynn was sad about this because she carried the girls under her heart for as long as her body allowed her to but as soon as they were born, only Nate was able to calm them when they cried. She had tried to nurse them, but one of them was always hungry and she felt she didn’t have enough milk to nourish both of them enough. That’s why they decided to add the formula to make sure both girls got enough nutrients to grow and be healthy.

That had made things way easier for her and Nate, but she still struggled a lot with the bonding with the girls. It took her a few therapy sessions to understand that it wasn’t the girls not accepting or loving her, but simply Nate’s calming vibe that had a positive effect on them. With her hormones going crazy after the pregnancy, she was constantly under pressure for the first weeks after Ann and Luna were born. And of course the girls had felt that, that’s why she was not able to calm them.

Nate on the other hand had survived so much worse in his life, that even though the birth of his daughters had freaked him out, he was still able to radiate the calmness that the girls needed.

Now, at almost three years old, they were still Daddy’s girls, which mostly resulted from the fact that Nate stayed at home after the girls were born, even after Lynn had gone back to work when they were 6 months old.

“Should we come and help you?” Nate asked with a tiny smile on his face.

“No, it’s alright. You take your time and cuddle and I’ll make pancakes for us. I’ve got an hour till I need to be at headquarters, so there’s plenty of time.”

“You’re sure, Darling?”

“Yes, Honey. Take your time.”

“Thank you,” he mouthed back at her, pressing both girls even closer to his body and inhaling the scent of Ann’s messy hair.

They had grown so fast over the last two years and eleven months and Nate was scared that he’d blink and the girls would be heading off to college, so he wanted to enjoy every moment he could.

Lynn left the room and Nate adjusted the blanket a little so that all three of them were lying under it.

“How did you sleep?” he asked.

“Good,” Ann answered right away, a grin on her face while her hand was placed on top of Nate’s waist. The slight brushes of her fingertips tickled him but he remained silent, enjoying the moment.

“What about you, Luna?”

“Mhm.”

“What does that mean, Little Moon?” He gently stroked his free hand through Luna’s brown hair. The girl was still sprawled along her father’s chest and stomach, wrapping her limbs around him like a koala.

“I had a bad dream,” she mumbled into his chest.

Nate shifted a little, startling Ann who was pressed into his side.

“Tell me about your dream, Baby,” Nate whispered and placed a kiss on Luna’s head.

“No.”

“But it will make you feel better. I promise.”

“You can’t know that.”

Nate rose into a sitting position, pulling Ann and Luna with him so that both were sitting on his lap, facing him.

“I had a lot of bad dreams before I met your mother,” he started slowly while taking a deep breath and evaluating how much he should tell them.

Ann’s and Luna’s eyes widened in unison, their little lips parted into big o-shapes.

“Really?” Luna asked, curious.

“Yes. A long time ago Daddy’s job was to catch bad guys together with Uncle Oliver. ”

“Wooooooow. Like in ‘NAVY CIS’?” Ann asked. She leaned forwards, both palms placed on Nate’s chest while she looked at him like he was the coolest person on earth.

“How do you know about ‘NAVY CIS’?” Nate raised an eyebrow at his daughter, knowing well that neither Lynn nor he let them watch something like this.

“Uncle Oli and Aunt Marta watch that sometimes,” Luna answered for her sister when she saw her frozen on the spot, too scared that Nate would be angry at her. Luna had always been the brave one of the two. And the chaotic one.

“They do? I’ll have a chat with them later about that…”

“Please don’t tell them that we told you. It was a secret,” Ann intervened, tears glistering in her eyes.

“No worries, Little Star. I won’t let them know that you told me. This stays between you and me.”

Nate booped the tip of his index finger on Ann’s nose, making the girl chuckle, before she sat back to listen to his stories.

“Tell us more!” Luna demanded loudly.

“When Uncle Oliver and I caught the bad guys, we had to fly around the world to find them. Sometimes that put us in danger and we had to face some very difficult situations together. I had a lot of bad dreams about those situations, so I know exactly what you are talking about, Luna. But talking to your Mama about all those dreams helped me a lot. We always had orange juice when I had a bad dream and that helped the most.”

A smile crept onto his face as he remembered all the situations with Lynn. The moments they were snuggling in her bed or drank orange juice in the middle of the night.

“I… I dreamed that Mama said we need to eat broccoli for breakfast,” Luna started, her face showing an impressive pout for someone who was still discovering all the functions on her body.

It took Nate tremendous effort to not burst into laughter about the ridiculous and adorable dream of his daughter. For her this was a serious situation and he didn’t want to destroy her trust that she was able to tell him everything.

“I don’t want broccoli,” Ann commented, her face furrowed in a painful grimace.

They were both at an age where it was almost impossible to feed them green vegetables. They hid them in every possible dish, but their two princesses were like green veggie detectors as they found them everywhere. Thankfully they weren’t picky with fruits or other colored veggies.

“Oh, Baby. Come here.” Nate opened his arms widely, inviting Luna in for a papa-bear hug.

As expected not only one, but both his daughters accepted the invite and snuggled into his embrace. He wrapped his arms around their backs, holding them as close as possible, so that their faces were buried on each side of his neck.

“I promise you that Mama won’t make you eat broccoli for breakfast. I’ll fight for you if she tries. Okay?”

He felt both girls nod frantically into his neck before he placed a loving kiss on both of their heads.

“I want Nutella pancakes,” Ann mumbled, earning a loud, approving exclamation from her sister.

“Okay then, let’s head downstairs and see if we can manage to get you some.” He opened his arms so the girls could get out of his embrace and Ann immediately climbed over him to slide out of the bed on that side. But Luna halted her movement a moment, looking at her father with wide, ocean-blue eyes and whispered,

“Can we have orange juice? For the bad dream…”

“Of course, Little Moon.”

Nate placed a kiss on Luna’s forehead, grabbed her, and stood from the bed. His other hand slipped into Ann’s, who had her arm already outstretched towards him.

Together the three of them made their way downstairs, where Lynn was already waiting with a plate loaded with pancakes. And the jar of Nutella was already standing on the dinner table because she knew her girls inside out.