Monday morning did not dawn; it ambushed. Clara had been awake since five, her mind a frantic hamster wheel of worst-case scenarios, each more vivid and terrifying than the last. She had prepped Leo's bottles with the precision of a bomb disposal expert, arranged his nap-time accoutrements like religious artifacts upon an altar, and reread the "Leo Manual" – all six, single-spaced, passive-aggressive pages of it – no less than four times. It lay on the kitchen counter now, its laminated surface gleaming under the track lighting, a sacred text for an unbeliever.
By 8:55 AM, the air in the apartment was so thick with Clara's anxiety, she felt she could have bottled it and sold it as a particularly potent nerve agent. Leo, sensing his mother's frantic energy, was wide-eyed and clingy, occasionally patting her cheek with a chubby hand as if to say, "It's okay, Mummy, I'm sure the handsome, scary man won't actually sell me to the circus."
At precisely 0900 hours, a sharp, punctual knock echoed from the front door. It was the sound of a guillotine dropping.
Clara took one last, deep breath, squared her shoulders, and opened the door.
Ethan stood there, looking just as out of place as he had during their negotiation, yet somehow more so. He wasn't wearing one of his severe, architectural suits. Instead, he wore dark trousers and a simple, fitted grey Henley that did infuriatingly wonderful things for his shoulders and revealed the corded muscles of his forearms. He looked less like a corporate shark and more like an off-duty god of something dangerous and brooding. He was holding a sleek laptop bag in one hand and an expression of grim determination on his face.
"Good morning," he said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate right through the floorboards. "I am here to commence my duties as per Section 3 of the agreement."
Clara's eye twitched. "He refers to it as Section 3," she thought, a fresh wave of hysteria bubbling. "Right. Come in, the Supreme Overlord awaits his new vassal." She winced internally. Had she said that last part out loud? Judging by the slight quirk of Ethan's eyebrow, perhaps she had.
She led him through the apartment, her words tumbling out in a rushed, anxiety-fueled torrent.
"Okay, so, the kitchen. Bottles are here, pre-measured. They must be heated to exactly 37 degrees Celsius – there's a thermometer. His lunch is puréed pear and avocado, he may resist the pear, you must be firm but encouraging. The 'Leo Manual'," she gestured to the laminated masterpiece on the counter, "has a full breakdown of nutritional directives in Appendix B. His nap is at eleven. The white noise machine is preset, do not touch the frequency. The 'Pat-pat-shush' method, as detailed in Clause 4.2a of our… pact… is critical. I cannot stress this enough."
Ethan listened, his face an unreadable mask of polite concentration. He didn't interrupt. He simply absorbed the information, his grey eyes scanning the room, taking in every detail. He walked over to the counter and picked up the "Leo Manual," flipping through the pages with a terrifying seriousness. Clara half-expected him to pull out a red pen and start making annotations.
"The rhythm," he said finally, his gaze lifting to meet hers. "Seventy beats per minute. I have a metronome app on my phone. That will not be a problem."
His sheer, literal interpretation of her sarcastic clause was so unexpected, so utterly devoid of irony, that Clara was momentarily struck dumb. He was actually going to use a metronome. The man was an alien. A beautiful, well-built, terrifyingly literal alien.
And now she had to hand him her son.
She scooped Leo into her arms, burying her face in his soft hair for a moment, inhaling his familiar scent. "Okay, my sweet boy," she whispered, her voice thick. "Mummy has to go do some work now. You be good for… for Ethan."
Then came the moment she had been dreading. The physical transfer. She turned and held Leo out to him. Ethan set his laptop bag down and stepped forward, his hands coming up to take the baby. His fingers, long and deft, brushed against hers as he took Leo's weight. A jolt, sharp and electric, shot up Clara's arm. His hands were warm, his touch surprisingly sure.
He settled Leo against his shoulder with an awkward but secure-looking hold. Leo, instead of bursting into the tears Clara had anticipated, simply stared at Ethan's face with wide, curious eyes, then reached out a tentative hand and patted his cheek, right on the sharp, unforgiving line of his jaw.
Ethan froze, his entire body going rigid, as if he'd just been touched by a strange, unpredictable creature. Which, Clara supposed, he had.
"Right," she said, her voice strained. She backed away, creating a chasm of space between them. "I'll be in my office. The second bedroom. If you need anything, if anything happens…"
"I will refer to the manual," Ethan finished, his voice still low, his gaze fixed on the tiny hand now exploring his face. "If the manual proves insufficient, I will notify you. As per Section 6, The Emergency Clause."
The Emergency Clause. Clara wanted to weep. She nodded mutely, then fled, shutting her office door behind her with a soft, final click that felt like a prison gate slamming shut.
She sank into her chair, her heart pounding. She couldn't hear anything. The silence was terrifying. She opened the Aura Bloom files, but the sleek designs blurred before her eyes. Her ears strained, trying to decipher the noises from the other side of the door. A soft thud. A quiet murmur – Ethan's voice. Was that a cry? No. Just a gurgle.
This was impossible. She would get no work done. She was a mother hen separated from her chick by a wall and a contract with a man who referred to emergencies as "clauses."
After twenty minutes of pure, unproductive agony, she couldn't take it anymore. She crept to the door, her bare feet silent on the floorboards, and opened it just a crack, her breath held tight in her chest.
She peered into the living room.
And what she saw made her heart stop, then restart with a confused, painful lurch.
Ethan was sitting on the floor, on her vibrant, chaotic rug, surrounded by the bright plastic chaos of Leo's stacking rings. He had his laptop open on the coffee table, but he wasn't looking at it. He was looking at Leo, who was sitting opposite him. Ethan held up a blue ring.
"This is the foundational layer," he said, his voice a low, serious murmur. "It is the largest circumference, therefore it provides the most stability for the subsequent structure."
He placed it on the post. Then he held a green ring out to Leo. Leo took it, gurgled, and promptly tried to eat it.
"An unorthodox approach to material testing," Ethan observed, a flicker of something almost like amusement in his eyes. "But I respect the hands-on methodology."
He gently retrieved the ring, wiped it on his trousers, and guided Leo's hand to place it on top of the blue one. It clattered into place. Leo squealed with delight, a pure, happy sound.
Clara leaned her forehead against the cool wood of the door, her world tilting on its axis. He wasn't just watching him. He wasn't just keeping him alive. He was… teaching him structural engineering. He was talking to him. And Leo… Leo was happy.
A strange, warm, and entirely unwelcome feeling unfurled in Clara's chest. It was a dangerous, complicated feeling, and it had no place in their neat, contractual arrangement. It was the terrifying, dawning realization that the man she'd entrusted her son to wasn't a robot after all. And that, she feared, was going to make the next six weeks infinitely more difficult, and infinitely more dangerous, than she could have ever possibly imagined.