Chapter 5: Sealing The Deal

Upon her declaration of pregnancy, Moira began feeling discomfort, but she stomped her foot and declared loudly, “Knock it off already! You’ll hurt the baby, and I’ve already told you that I’m not going back to Cassandra until after the baby is born. Abuse it, and you lose it!”

The queasy feeling departed as quickly as it had started.

She looked at her three lovers, and seeing them beginning to wilt, she continued forcefully, “And you bullies leave my Loves alone. They are going as soon as I get my farewell kiss. We have a wedding to prepare for.”

These events proved one thing frequently tested, but not with the same level of success. The mechanism to force the instant departure of Heroes and pregnant Damsels was not always on automatic pilot. There was discretion. Perhaps the keys were sufficient advanced warning and more than a little coercion?

The trio’s arrival back at Daniel’s Earth portal was boisterously happy. Moira was pregnant! The usual mechanics of Hero departure had become convoluted and interesting.

They came almost tumbling through the portal and stood, arms around each other, in front of a bemused Daniel.

“She’s beautiful!”

“She’s smart and wonderful!” Her name is Moira, and she’s pregnant!”

“You are going to be a great grandpapa!”

“When we go back, we are getting married - all four of us!”

Daniel held up a hand and declared, “That’s wonderful! BUT you know what I need to know.”

Robyn supplied the answer, “Melody is fine. She loves and misses you.”

“And,” Miriam said while tilting her head up to her grandfather, “she gave us both a smooch for you.” She leaned further up, grabbed his head, pulled him close, and delivered a very ungranddaughterly smooch on Daniel’s lips. As he was drawing his breath, his other granddaughter pried Miriam out of the way and delivered another kiss that was at least as steamy.

Pēteris, smiling fondly, told Daniel, “Your two vixen granddaughters kept me up all night tag teaming me and Moira. We didn’t get breakfast, and I for one am starving.” He looked steadily at Daniel, and said sotto voce, “You can probably tell that the virgin-hold-out didn’t. Now she’s insatiable!”

He dodged an elbow and headed for the kitchen, where he began removing large quantities of edibles from the refrigerator. With four pairs of hands working together, it wasn’t long before they sat down to scrambled eggs, grits, bacon, ham, pancakes, juice, fruit, and coffee.

“Just a snack to hold us over until lunch,” Pēteris joked as they dug in. He sighed contentedly and listened while his ladies related their stories between mouthfuls of breakfast.

“So, Papa,” said Miriam, “we want you to come to our wedding and give us away. You’ll need to go on your own rescue, but we sure do want you there for us.”

Robyn looked sideways at him through wide, innocent eyes. “Who knows, someone might find an interested party and negotiate a second wedding... “ she said, her voice trailed off.

The following weeks were beyond hectic. The two ladies took two weeks of vacation and shopped for wedding dresses.

The process was slightly complicated by the necessity to find three matching dresses in the needed sizes, and by their sneak purchase of a dress for Melody. They showed Daniel a lovely pink dress, and then after he departed, bought the same dress in white.

Daniel and Pēteris followed directions, went to get measured for tuxedos, and later picked up what the ladies had chosen for them. They didn’t bother to look. Then Pēteris went to a custom jeweler and had rings made. Not just any rings - sapphire rings that would allow the metal to pass through portals; he needed his own ring anyway, and fashioning them as wedding rings served a dual purpose. Having secretly asked Galahad for ring sizes, he was sure that he could surprise the ladies - including Melody.

While the ladies spent much of their energies shopping and fitting, Pēteris and Daniel invested time with Daniel’s attorney and financial advisor/broker. Daniel had early on established a trust for his granddaughters, and almost all his Earthside assets were nestled within. Now, the trust was expanded to include Pēteris, and Pēteris moved his own assets within as well. He did leave his two sisters as beneficiaries of his one life insurance policy, and Daniel added them as secondary beneficiaries to the trust.

Confident that their families would be financially secure in the event of one or more deaths, the two spent the remainder of their time in training, and being men, in telling ever more outrageous but true war stories.