Max out of a new set of eyes, and then rotated again and considered him out of the large one that he normally used. “I can continue several hours.”
“I know you can. But I think that little one needs more than several hours to grow self-sufficient. Query. Am I wrong?”
Rick didn't answer.
“We need to work together and take turns,” Max said firmly. “I finished eating and sleeping, so I can handle several hours before I will need to pee and get more food. If you sleep now, you'll be able to take over and give me a break later.”
“Query. You would care for offspring?”
If a human had asked that, Max would have been insulted. He still felt a hard knot of disappointment that Rick thought so little of him, but he knew Rick didn’t understand him. “Of course I will care for offspring. I wouldn't let any child die, ever. I would risk my life for any child. But that child came out of me. I've already been protecting him, and I will not stop protecting him until I know he is safe.” Max closed the distance so he stood right beside Rick. “Besides, it's not like I'm offering to give up anything other than some sleep and some time sitting at a computer database trying to teach your damn ship how to speak English. Query. How can I help?”
Rick rotated, his tentacles barely moving in the water as he did a full three-sixty and considered Max out of each of his various eyes. Max waited, willing Rick to trust him with this. Max would never choose sleep or personal comfort over the life of the child. Never. But he didn't have the vocabulary to explain his moral compass to an alien.
And he suspected that Rick’s spaceship-sized inferiority complex didn’t help. Several times he had told Max how much other aliens disliked him. That wasn't easing the way. But with the little one’s life on the line, the big moron would either agree to a co-parenting plan or Max would make him.
Chapter Twelve
“I think I’ll call you Xander,” Max told his little friend who clung to his hand. Offspring Three was so small that he could hold on to the base of Max's pinky or the base of his thumb; he wasn't large enough to stretch all the way across the palm from one to the other.
“I don't think you guys get Buffy the Vampire Slayer out here, but you seem like a Xander.” That was stretching the truth a little, but he went on to explain. “The other people on the show all had powers, but Xander had this grip on life. It was like he never gave up.” Max moved his hand a little faster, and the baby held on tightly. “No matter what got thrown at him, he kept plugging.”
“Now I'm not saying he was the brightest member of the Scooby gang, because he wasn't. He once showed up for a fight with a vampire carrying a rock.” Vampires weren't real, but if they were, showing up for a vampire fight with a rock seemed a little stupid, and the older Max got, the stupider that moment seemed. “However, Xander kept plugging and he never gave up on life, and he never gave up on his friends. That's what you have to do now.”
Max slowed as he ran his hand through the water. Rick insisted that was all Xander needed. As long as Xander had the warmth of Max's hand and help moving through the water, everything else would eventually fix itself.
“You have to channel your inner Xander and not give up. And maybe things are hard right now, and maybe they’ll be hard for a while, but I saw you on that scanner. I saw you swimming for all you were worth when you were behind your brother. You're not the sort to give up easily.”
Max turned and tried to find Offspring Two. He didn't seem to have any sort of middle child inferiority complex. He was not one to stand on the edge of things—or in his case float—and wail Marsha Marsha Marsha. Nope. Rick's middle child was determined to explore the far reaches of the pool. At one point, he'd even tried crawling out.
If Max hadn't been busy with Xander, he would've gone after the idiot. Luckily, the idiot in question decided that he was not quite ready to live in the open air, and he got back into the pool. Max needed to