The next week was fun for all of us as we helped get the babies room ready and set things up. We even took the time to go and do a little shopping for the necessities that they would need. Wipes and burp blankets.. Lots of burp blankets and I made sure to get them in all different sizes ranging from 2 foot squares to 4 foot ones.
Cass laughed saying those would be too big. I laughed at him, "Oh you think so?"
That retort made him pause and think. We continued on finding little outfits and booties. I warned her about getting too much of the 'new mom' bait items. They seemed like they were useful but most of them were just bulky wastes of space, time and money. She fell for a few things and I just shrugged as we made our purchases and had fun doing it together.
After the week was up, we left them alone to do their own thing while we went go scour China's national forests and then the famous tall mountains before coming back home. It was going to be fun, we had a very limited knowledge of Cantonese, our Mandarin was better but not by much.
We loved trying eating and hiking and honestly, scared out our minds walking on the glass bridge in the mountains.
"I am never doing that again." I said as my shaky legs stepped off the bridge and made myself sit down out of the way as John finished his way across.
"Land!" John cried out dramatically and landed next to me to sit down.
"Shut up you ass, it didn't even bother you." I smack him on the arm as he laughs at me.
"Oh come on Mary, it wasn't that bad. Hell, you made it over here pretty quickly for someone who's legs were shaking like a brand new colt trying to walk for the first time."
I look at him with a disgusted look that quickly turns to a smug one with a devilish glint in my eye, "That's okay, go ahead and tease me... You'll just get it back ten fold later." I get up and walk away from him to head to the tram cars that will take us down.
He mumbles something and gets up in a hurry, "Hey hey! Now let's not be mean about it! It was just a little teasing my love, my beautiful, amazing, loving wife." He comes up beside me and wraps me up in his arms.
"Keep kissing up." I mutter as I continue to walk with him wrapped around me.
"Will it help me?" He asks hope filling his words.
"Maybe?" I shrug his arms off and walk ahead to get into line.
I can hear his gasp over in the line, sounding like a total diva about to make a scene.
I turn and roll my eyes and motion him to come to me, "Come here my loving diva of a husband. Stop making a scene or I might change my mind about being nice later."
He quickly snapped to my side and wrapped his hand in mine smiling. He looked like a kid who just got first place in school.
I chuckled to myself as we got on to the tram and headed down. My head was in my arm attempting to keep my breathing calm and steady.
I can handle heights most of the time but this is crazy. The fact I can't see earth under me is nerve wrecking. I try to focus on the horizon which helps a little bit. John wraps his arms around me and starts to talk to me about the stuff we're seeing off in the distance as we ride the tram down.
He takes some pictures of us together on the tram and I try to smile, but you can see my forced smile is riddled with anxiety. He kisses my forehead and puts the phone away. We're halfway down at this point and we're receiving judgemental looks from some of the older people onboard. I know our PDA is not considered respectful, but I need the support. I stick my head in his shoulder so I don't have to look any more.
'When will this end?' I feel dizzy from the ride down feeling the sway of the car in the breeze. I clutch John tighter, I feel like I'm going to faint.
"Hey we're almost there." He rubs my back and speaks low, trying to soothe my nerves. We come to an abrupt halt, the car swaying back and forth.
I take a peek out from his shoulder. We are stopped a little way away from the off loading deck. I feel nauseous now.
"John, I don't feel so good." I mutter.
"We are almost there. They have to unload the car in front of us and then it's our turn. Don't worry honey." He tries to soothe me some more.
We're moving again slowly to the offload deck. The car stops and we are allowed to depart from the tram. I'm able to make it past the people standing around barely and get to the trash can before I lose my lunch.
"Oh honey." John rubs my back and pulls out a bottle of water for me to rinse my mouth out and drink.
After I feel alright enough to keep moving John suggests we find a place we can snap out of there without anyone seeing. It takes us a while since the place is crowded with tourists.
We snap back to the country house and I immediately go wash my face and mouth out.
John gets me into the bed and makes the statement, "Alright, No more glass bridges and glass bottom trams. I'm sorry honey I didn't realize it would bother you that much. You did fine with the heights in Norway, but I guess with the ground under your feet it makes a difference."
I groan thinking about those glass walkways again. "It's okay. I didn't think I would be bothered that much by them as well but now we know."
I feel weak and shaky. "I need something light to eat."
"Soup and crackers it is." He takes off and heads to the kitchen.
I lay my head down and must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know, John is back with my chicken and rice soup. Crackers and a glass of water join the bowl on the tray.
There's a knock on the door and it's Cass.
"Hey everything alright?" He looks at me laying down and the soup.
"Are you sick with a cold? You never get sick." Cass immediately assumes I'm sick.
"No, not a cold. Just nerves made me throw up and I'm still feeling the effects." I mumble and sit up to take the soup.
"Nerves? What the hell did you two just do?" Cass is taken aback from that news.
"The glass walkway and glass bridge in china. Oh..and the glass bottom tramway down from the walkway." John informs him.
"Oh, well you got bigger squirrel bait then I do, Sin. I'd never get on those things willingly." Cass shakes his head and goes to leave. "I hope you feel better soon, though."
He shuts the door and leaves us while I start to sip on the soup.
"You know it's going to be interesting around here very soon. Next week, Thietian will be making new moves to strike out against his father." John makes note of this out loud.
"Yes, it will be interesting. In more ways than one. What do you think our next move will be? I know he's been trying to gather the Fae and half Fae up, discretion can be a devour of precious time though. I hope he feels like the information we've compiled from the labs is adequate enough to start leaking out to the public. We could always give more to the human governments that we've found little to practically no involvement in these plans." I run some of my ideas that have gone through my mind lately.
"Yes, but with out weeding some of those black chess pawns from this game board..... It could make it easier for someone to play both sides of the field. Not that Cass hasn't created the best network of mini spy drones, we just don't have enough trusted manpower to be able to sit there and listen and watch every single person on that list. Did you know there's over 300 corrupted individuals in government on the American Continent alone? That doesn't include their cronies and hired help. "
I raise my brow at him as if to say, 'that's all?'
He continues regardless, "Europe has about the same amount and I don't want to get into Africa and the Asian continents. The best one is New Zealand, if you're not counting Antarctica....." He gazes at me disappointment over the fellow human race evident in his eyes.
"You know honey, let's worry about this later. We'll have time to worry about it when we need to. By the way this soup is really good. How did you make it?" I ask slurping it up from the bowl.
"Oh I just opened a can of chicken broth, threw in some leftover rice and some of the stir fry veggies and chicken and ... Voila! Chicken and Rice soup all for you my love!" He sounds so proud of himself.
"Well that explains why you were able to do it so fast. Also I thought I could taste some soy sauce and peanut oil in it." I give him a taste and he pulls a face.
"Thought you could taste?! I just made stir fry soup! I'm a genius!" He smiles smugly.
Warmth invades every pore of me. I am so lucky to have my love back in my life and enjoy these little things with him. I place my hand upon his cheek and stroke his smiling face.
"I love you Johnathan Lacroix." I adoringly gaze upon his gorgeous eyes that are filled with love to give right back to me.
"I love you too, Mary. Now that you're done with your soup, I'll take that for you and why don't you take a shower. Get nice and relaxed for the evening. I'll treat you to something nice." He tells me as he takes my bowl and heads out.
I get up and do as he says to come out and find him on the naked with some ropes and my little black box from under the bed out.
"If you're planning on still taking advantage of that bet dear, I suggest you tie me up.... Other wise I can't promise if you tease me to long, I won't just have my way with you.
I give him a wicked smile and hum in response.