SOMEHOW, Thomas managed to convince her to get a kid.

Well... Minho claimed it was actually an accident and Thomas just forgot to wrap it before he tapped it, but Minho's mind was just different, alright?

Anyway, it wasn't a kid. It were two kids. Twins.

(Ignore how it's always twins in my stories)

Alice and Chase. Alby and Chuck. Named after the ones that had meant so damn much to Siren and Thomas.

Chase looked just like Thomas. Brown, messy hair and the cutest nose on earth.

Except, he gained Siren's personality. They only started to notice that when he turned two, but now that he was six, it was clear.

Alice, in fact, was as much of a sunshine as Thomas. Her hair was even blonder than Siren's, gold when she stood under the sun.

As Thomas was trying to get Chase to make a sand castle, Alice ran over to Siren.

"Mommy!" A big smile was on her face, showing off the gap between her teeth. "I got you a flower."

She held the flower so close Siren could barely see it until she had taken it out of Alice's hand.

A dandelion.

"Ahw." Smiling, Siren stared at it. "Where did you get this, sweetie?"

"Abuelo Jorge showed me a field full of them!" She jumped onto the sand with a cute laugh and watched Thomas and Chase like Siren had been doing before.

Thomas kept motioning at the sand, but Chase shook his head and quickly, slipped out of Thomas's arms and started a sprint toward Siren.

Obviously, Thomas could easily run past the kid, though he didn't. Instead, he caught the kid in his arms and scooped him in the air so smoothly it looked like Chase didn't weigh a thing.

It got the kid laughing so loudly that Siren squealed and Alice giggled.

"Ah, so you do enjoy that, little man?" He held Chase in front of his face.

"I'm not Simba!" He stuck out his tongue, then kicked with his feet. "Put me down now. Enough!"

Chuckling, Thomas put Chase down next to Alice before he sat down himself.

"Look." Alice pointed at Siren's hair, where the flower was in now. "I got mommy a flower."

"Oh, wow!" Thomas gasped. He took the girl onto his lap. "I'd almost steal it."

"Don't you dare!" Alice laughed, and she slapped his hand away before he could even reach the dandelion. "It's for mommy."

Thomas smiled. "Okay, Al." A pause. "Would you make a sand castle with me?"

"Can we add shells?"

"Of course," he replied.

"Then yes!"

Thomas and Alice got up together, hand in hand.

"Will be back." He placed a kiss on Siren's mouth. "Feel free to join!"

Siren and Chase watched them run toward the sea. "And you? What do you want to do?"

Chase shrugged. His hair got even messier by the wind. He sniffed as he moved in front of his mom. "Zach and Reeve promised we would make spaghetti together tonight."

Oh, also, those two were finally together.

"Really?" Siren raised an eyebrow. "And what're you planning?"

"I'm gonna put a fake spider in Newt's meal," he whispered. "And put salt in Min's water. Fry will be safe because he always gives me candy. And I'll give daddy less food than myself!"

"Ooh." Siren grinned. "You joker!"

"But!" Chase held up his small finger. "I will give daddy a lot of food after he noticed the prank. Because I don't want him to starve. You need a nice, warm body to sleep against."

She threw her head back, laughing. "Alright, buddy. That's settled. Will you add some Parmesan cheese for me?"

"Only because you're my mommy," he confirmed. His eyes twinkled while he watched sand slip through his fingers. The habit of fidgeting with his hands was what he gained from Thomas.

Then he poked her arm. Tugged at her sleeve. "Mommy?"

"Chase?" Now both of her eyebrows raised.

"Is your bikini on?"

"Got it under my clothes, yes. Why? Do you want to go swimming?"

The boy shook his head. "I wanna do the game. Can I? Pleaseee?"

Siren took a breath before she agreed and removed her shirt, so her torso was left with only the bikini top on.

"Wait!" Chase spread a blanket on the sand. "Now you can lie down."

Another thing he got from Thomas.

With a smile, Siren lay down on her stomach. And even though Chase played the game often, her heart still beat in her throat every time he did.

Carefully, Chase's finger drew over her scars. He followed the lines the best he could.

"Shuck!" He cursed, and removed his hand after two minutes. "I lost. Is there even a way out?"

The game worked like this: Chase would follow the lines as if it was a maze. He couldn't move over the same line in one round, so if he got trapped somewhere with no other lines, he lost the game. The white dots Janson left that time he shot a dozen bullets in her back, were supposedly Grievers. Beautiful Grievers, as Alice called them, yet she also cursed when she accidentally hit one of those during the game.

"You gotta find it." Siren smiled.

The first time her kids found out about her scars, she had acted all cool about it, then spent the whole night crying in Thomas's arms, afraid she had repulsed them.

The second time they saw, the two kids had an argument about the scars. Chase had claimed they looked like super cool veins on the outside of the skin, while Alice kept yelling it was like shooting stars everywhere. Again, Siren had cried in Thomas's arms that night, but this time because of the sweetness.

She had been frozen in her place the first time Chase started trailing his fingers over her back. In fact, she hadn't enjoyed it at all, until he explained what he was doing. That had happened a week after Thomas told a story about The Maze, though he left a few parts out.

Chase and Alice now believed the Grievers were very slow, idiotic creatures. They did know they were killers, just not how horrific the creatures actually had been.

When the kids asked why Siren's back was like that, she had gotten a lump in her throat. What the hell was she supposed to tell them?

And that also confused her, because she knew old her would've just told them and didn't care about the trauma she would deliver. 

But she wasn't the old Siren. She wasn't the girl who had rumors about her spread. She didn't eat her dinners alone anymore, and wasn't afraid to show her smile these days. She learned to trust people, even though that little voice in the back of her head still told her it wasn't good. And she ignored that.

So eventually, she told the truth about her back. With Thomas's help, and in sweeter words.

"Do you think it'll take me three years to find a way out too?" Chase urged. "I don't want it to take three years!"

Siren closed her eyes, slightly enjoying the feeling of his fingers on her back. "I don't know. Maybe you just need a savior."

"Most people around me don't even understand the game."

"At some point, someone will help you find a way out," she muttered. "And that could be anyone. Even an idiotic Crackhead."

"It's not that deep." Chase pecked a kiss on her head. "Alright. Maybe I will go make a sand castle with daddy. It's looking good."

Siren watched Thomas encourage the two kids into making the castle again. He pointed at it, told them what to do, and lifted Alice up so she could place a flag on top of the castle.

"Hey, baby." He jumped next to her after a while, leaving the twins alone. "How're you?"

"I'm good," she responded, genuinely honest for once. "And you?"

"I'm good." His smile widened. Exhaling, he wrapped an arm around her and joined watching the two kids play. Chase ran after Alice before she decided to collect shells, and he eventually joined.

The sundown was starting. They were still playing when the sky turned orange and the sun disappeared behind the sea, and Thomas still had his arm wrapped around Siren, who now rested her body against his side.

"Chase is making spaghetti with Zach and Reeve tonight," Siren murmured.

Thomas's head turned to look at her. "Your favorite."

She nodded, confirming it. "My favorite. Although I do really love three certain humans more than spaghetti."

A laugh escaped his mouth before he kissed her on the head. "I love you."

"I love you, Crackhead." She lay her head on his shoulder. Her cheekbones started to hurt from smiling, but she couldn't stop it as long as she kept watching her kids play.

Her kids. It still felt unreal. Glade Siren wouldn't have believed it if she got told she got two kids and shared a cottage with the one and only Greenie. With Thomas. With the 'most annoying' Greenie she had ever met.

"Mermaid," he shot back.

"Greenie."

"Second-Hand-Mermaid."

"Idiot."

"Baby."

"Asshole."

"Baby."

She laughed. "Fine, love."

He grinned widely. "Fine, baby."

Their lips connected. Siren immediately got thrown off the rails by his influence on her, and she closed her eyes as he ran his hands from her shoulders to her waist.

"Ewww!!"

"Would you not do that in front of me and Alice?!"

Laughing, the couple apart their lips, though their foreheads kept connected.

"I love you," he murmured against her lips.

"I love you more," she whispered.

"Don't make me start another war."

"Don't make me end another one."