Pov y/n

"Are you nervous?" I ask and ruffle Rose's hair a little. The little sunshine looks up at me and shakes her head.

"No because I know you will be there with me and once I can swim, I can explore the ocean with you." She says and grins at me, making me chuckle a little.

"Yes, that's true but if you also want to see the underwater world, you need to learn to dive as well." I explain and Rose hums before nodding.

"Okay, then I will also learn to dive and then you can show me all the animals. All the turtles, fish, dolphins, whales and sharks." She says excitedly and sways on her feet.

Her excitement is very cute and my heart feels so warm and full of love right now. Before I can agree though, Scarlett buts in.

"Maybe you two stay in the pool for now. One day you can go dive in the ocean but that requires a bit more knowledge and training." She says softly, smiling at Rose who pouts now.

"But y/n has the knowledge." She insists and crosses her arms. Scarlett looks at me for help but I just grin and raise my eyebrows. She sighs and leans her head against my shoulder.

"God, I'm discussing with two children." She mumbles and only I can catch it. I chuckle and kiss her temple.

"But we have good points." I point out and she gives me a short glare before looking back to Rose who still pouts.

"We can discuss this further when you can properly swim and dive." Scarlett ends the discussion and after a few seconds of thinking, Rose nods in agreement and turns around to look at the little queue in front of us that slowly moves.

We're currently at the local indoor pool because when her dad dropped her off this morning, Rose wanted to learn to swim very badly. She made her best puppy dog eyes and begged me to teach her.

Since it's almost December, we went to an indoor pool because the one in Scar's backyard would have been way too cold. Scarlett agreed as well but while I'll be in the water with Rose, she will go to the gym there to get her workout done for today.

On the way here, Rose told us that she watched a documentary with her dad yesterday that was about reefs and that she now wants to learn to swim to see them with her own eyes.

We get to the counter and Scarlett pays for us to enter.

Her and I quickly discussed this before and I agreed with her paying for me as well.

Rose waits excitedly before Scar nods for her to go further inside. The little girl takes my hand and tugs me towards the pool room but I keep her back with a little chuckle.

"I know you want to get into the water, little dolphin but aren't you forgetting something?" I ask and Rose looks at me confused.

"But I don't need floaties when you teach me how to swim." She says and looks from her mom to me.

"Well, that's not really true but that's not what I meant. I was referring to your clothes. We still need to change." I explain and realization overcomes Rose's face and she nods.

Instead of tugging me to the pool room, she now navigates us to the changing cabins. Scarlett's eyes shine with amusement at her daughters eagerness.

We arrive at the changing cabins and I let go of Roses hand to get changed while Scarlett will help her to get into her bathing suit.

A few minutes later, Rose approaches me with a huge excited grin. She wears her yellow bathing suit with white dots again and looks just as cute as she did the last time.

Her hair is braided, so it won't fall in her face. Scarlett is now in her workout clothes and hands me the bag with Rose's towels and floaties in it.

I appreciate a lot that she trusts me to teach her daughter how to swim.

Before she can go, I lean over to kiss her quickly. She returns it but it doesn't last long because Rose pulls on my hand.

"You can love each other later, now I wanna learn to swim." She says and I raise an eyebrow at her and hear Scarlett chuckle before she says goodbye and tells Rose to listen to me. Rose nods impatiently and I smile at Scarlett.

I go to a lounger and put our stuff on there before pulling out the floaties and sitting down to blow them up. Rose eyes them and looks at me in question.

"I thought you wanted to teach me how to swim? Why do I need them then?" She asks and plays with the zipper of the bag.

"I will, but it's a process and at first they will help you to stay over water because you need to learn the movements first and over time you will learn to swim without them." I explain and Rose frowns a little.

"It takes more than one lesson?" She asks and her bottom lip forms a tiny pout, making me smile a little at her cuteness.

"Yes, sweetie but as I said, that's normal. And if we practice regularly, you will soon be able to swim all by yourself." I promise and she thinks about it before nodding slowly. She watches as I blow up her floaties before I help putting them on.

"Can we jump into the water, like at home?" She asks and eyes the pool.

"I'm afraid we can't. See, they have an own area for jumping into the pool from different heights." I say and point to that area and Rose follows my finger.

"They don't really like it when you jump into the other pools, for safety reasons." I explain and Rose thinks about it while I lead her towards the pool.

"But it's not bad when we do it at home." She thinks out loud and I smile at her curiosity.

"That's because at home there are less people in the pool. Here are more people and the risk of accidentally hurting them while jumping in is higher because they don't always want to look out for that." I explain further and Rose nods, accepting my reasons.

We reach the pool and I step into it, keeping an eye on Rose as she follows me.

As soon as I'm on the ground, I stop going further and watch as Rose is also in the water up to her chest now.

I reach out my hand for her to take and she does so, slowly going down the next step and going over to floating.

I gently pull her to me, to have a safe hold on her and she wraps her legs around me as I walk us away from the steps.

Once I reach a good spot, I stop and Rose lets go of me. I still keep one arm around her, just to be sure before I explain her which movements she's supposed to do.

She listens intently and I can see how she minimalisticly tries them out while I explain them.

"Alright, ready to try the movements with your arms?" I ask and she nods.

I slowly let go of her and she starts to move her arms. It doesn't seem to be as she wants it to because with each passing second, I see the pout on her face growing.

Before it ends up in her being frustrated, I ask her to stop, to explain something to her and she does so but looks at me with a pout.

"I barely moved from my spot." She complains and I brush over her hair.

"That's okay, honey, you were only doing a part of the whole movement and it was just for you to get used to it. It'll probably take a while until you can swim like the other people you see here but all of them started of just like you, so don't be sad if it doesn't work instantly, okay?" I try to reason but she still pouts.

"I know it can be frustrating but trust me, you will swim soon, this is just practice." I assure her and she looks at me for a few seconds before slowly nodding and the pout disappears.

I kiss her forehead and explain further what she has to do with her arms and what she should pay attention to.

After that she tries it again and it looks better but she still barely moves from her spot and when she starts to kick her legs randomly in frustration I gently pull her towards me again.

"It doesn't work." She complains and I open my arms a little, offering her a hug that she nods at, so I softly pull her into one.

"You really want to learn how to swim, hm?" I ask and brush over her hair. She leans back to look at me.

"Yes. I wanna swim in the ocean just like you and I wanna see the fish." She tells me with a little whine. It's cute that she wants to be like me but it seems to really bother her right now.

"And you are frustrated because it doesn't work?" I ask softly and tug some hair out of her face. She nods and crosses her arms.

"That's okay, everyone gets frustrated sometimes. Maybe we can try and take a deep breath together to calm down a little?" I suggest, still in a soft voice.

Rose nods and watches as I visibly breathe in and slowly out. The next time she does it with me and after a few deep breathes, the pout on her face disappears.

"What am I doing wrong?" She asks and looks at me. Still a bit frustrated but calmer now.

"You're not doing anything wrong. It's just a new movement you're learning and your body isn't used to it and needs time to do that. But with every lesson, you will improve until you can do it." I answer and she hums.

"How many lessons does it take until my body knows the movements?" She questions.

"Well, that's different for everyone. I actually needed quite a lot because I didn't understand it." I tell her and her face lights up a little.

"You couldn't swim from the start?" She asks and I chuckle silently.

"No, sweetie, I couldn't. It took me a long time to learn it." I reply and she nods.

"But now you can do it so well...so maybe I can get good at it too?" She asks and I kiss her hair with a smile.

"Yes, you most definitely can." I agree and her smile widens.

As her spirit seems to be lifted, she wants to try it again and I let her. Here and there I remind her of little details and she nods and changes them. She still doesn't seem happy with the progress but is a bit more patient than before.

After a few times of her trying out the movement with her arms, we switch to her legs and for that, I gently place my hand under her belly, so she's flat in the water. She starts kicking her legs and I watch her. After a couple of tries I carefully bring her back into her original position and she purses her lips when she looks at me.

"That felt weird." She says and I smile softly.

"It is a strange movement." I agree and think for a second.

"Maybe think of it differently. Think about being a frog, that wants to jump, so it pulls its legs towards its body and then you push them away in the circular motion we talked about before."

Rose giggles at my words and I can see her pulling her legs up and pushing them down. She nods and I slowly lift her back up so she's flat again and watch her legs.

This time it looks way better and by the giggles she lets out, I can tell she thinks about the frog.

A little while later we stop with the swim training because I don't want Rose to overdo herself or to get frustrated again.

She's only a little sad that it didn't work out as quickly as she hoped for but she's excited for the next lesson.

I take her to the 'fun-zone', where the water isn't as deep and where she can also jump into the pool. I let her do that a few times and catch her when she does so, her giggles filling my heart with love.

We goof around in the pool where she can stand as well and I pretend to fall when she shoots pretend lasers at me. She laughs and comes running at me but this time I catch her and throw her a little into the air before catching her and lowering her into the water.

She laughs and cheers, wanting to do it again. I follow her request and do it a couple more times until my arms get tired and I set her onto the ground again.

She splashes water at me before squealing and running away from me when I chase after her.

Eventually I get her and kneel down to be on her height, wavering her through the water, making her laugh even more. Her laugh just purely makes me happy and in this moment I realize how much I adore and love this little girl and that I want to make her happy and laugh as long as I can. I wanna be there for her throughout her life and protect her from all the evil out there, even though I know it's not possible.

When I notice someone looking at us, I look up to see Scarlett standing there, smiling at us.

Her hair is damp, which tells me that she already showered after her workout.

My misplaced attention leads to another attack by Rose, splashing me with water. I chase her around the pool one more time before we get out as well.

Scarlett grabs my towel while I put Rose's around her shoulders to keep her warm. Scar does the same to me and takes the bags, following us back to the changing cabins and showers. Rose and I both shower off the chlorine before we go to change into our usual clothes again.

We make funny faces at each other while I blow dry my hair and Scarlett does the same to Rose's hair, so neither of us catches a cold.

On the way out, Rose takes both our hands.

"Can we go eat something? I'm hungry." She tells us and Scarlett and I both agree.

We get into the car and decide on fast-food, but only exceptionally and Rose cheers.

All the way there she thinks out loud what she wants and it makes Scar and me both smile.

We arrive and Rose hums to herself while letting us look at the menu before we order.

The food feels good after being in the pool because that always makes me hungry. Rose seems to be very hungry as well and barely talks during the meal, which is rare for her but it makes me chuckle a bit.

Once she is all fed up, she starts to tell her mom about the swimming lesson and doesn't let out how frustrated she got and how I told her it's normal and helped her to calm down.

Scarlett looks at me with a warm smile and mouthes a 'thank you' that I reply to with a smile.

In the corner of my eye I notice people looking over to us and getting excited. Under the table I tap Scar's knee and nod towards the other people and she quickly glances over before she nods, telling me silently she saw it.

I don't know how she handles those kind of situations, so I just keep doing what I'm doing, listening to Rose and let Scarlett handle the situation.

She glances around again and it looks like she's counting how many people are potentially gonna come over if she offers to give autographs or take pictures. In her eyes I can see that this situation is clearly stressing her out and her eyes dart to Rose who doesn't seem to have noticed the situation.

It's obvious that Scar is worried about Rose as well, wanting to keep her daughter away from this side of her fame.

When Rose drinks something from her water, I lean closer to Scarlett to whisper something into her ear.

"We can go soon if you want to. Rose only has a few fries left and will be done after that." I suggest and she nods.

I gently place my hand on her knee and she almost instantly relaxes a little at my touch. Rose tells her mom about how we goofed around later on and eats her fries in between and once she ate them all up, she takes the last few sips of her water. Usually we would stay for a little while longer, comfortably chatting but right now Scar's tensing up with each passing moment and I think it's better if we go home now.

When we grab our things, Rose seems a little confused and looks around until she notices the attention on us. Her expression changes and I can tell she feels uncomfortable as well.

For her it must be even weirder than for me as she probably doesn't fully understand the situation. I glance over to Scarlett and we look at each other for a few seconds before I reach my hands out to Rose.

"Come here, sweetie." I say and Rose instantly comes to me, her body almost gravitating towards me.

I pick her up and her arms wrap around my shoulders while her legs do the same around my hips. My one arm is placed under her bum to keep her up, the other is free to either push people out the way or to hide Rose's face.

I know very well that Scarlett doesn't want her daughter to be photographed by strangers or paparazzies, so I am ready to shield Rose from that.

Scarlett gives me a thankful look before she puts on a smile and leads the way out of the restaurant. She hands me the car keys and I understand that there is a possibility that she might be asked to take pictures or something and that I should take Rose to the car in that case.

Just as she expected, someone politely asks her to sign something and with an almost not noticeable sigh, she agrees and nods for me to go outside with Rose. When I step out of the door, I am a little startled for a second when camera flashes blind me but in an instinct I hold Rose closer and hide her face with my hand.

Suddenly the paparazzi start throwing questions at me while their flashes don't stop. They come closer, holding their microphones towards me. Rose makes a noise that tells me she is clearly uncomfortable and scared and nuzzles her face in my neck.

That gives me the opportunity to use my free hand and pave a way through the reporters and paparazzi. I ignore all their questions and mumble encouraging words to Rose, worried she might start to cry and is overwhelmed.

It's a weird feeling being interrogated by so many people and having my picture taken without being asked. It's like I'm an animal in a zoo and I don't like it at all.

Some of the reporters turn around with me and I shoot them glares to scare them off, not wanting them to get false ideas.

I'm annoyed when they don't seem to get it but when Rose whines a little, I rub her back and mumble soothing words, pushing my way out of the crowd.

Knowing Scarlett has to go through this as well worries me a bit but right now Rose is my priority, I will take care of Scarlett later if she wants me to.

After a few more steps, I reach the car and open it, getting into the backseat with Rose still clung to me.

I close the door and pull my arm from underneath her since she can now sit on my lap. While whispering soothing words, I rub her back and kiss her hair, doing my best to calm her down. Eventually she lifts her head off my shoulder and looks at me. Her eyes are a little red as if she's on the verge of tears but she isn't crying.

"It's all good now, we are safe and those people are away." I tell her in a soft, calming voice.

She breathes in shakily and looks out the window. I brush over her hair and kiss her temple.

"I don't like that, Mama." She whispers and looks back at me. I cup her face and stroke her cheek with my thumb.

"I know, sweetheart, it is very scary and overwhelming." I say and she nods, leaning into my touch.

"They are away now and we are safe in the car." I assure her and her eyes dart to the window before she looks back at me and nods.

"Their flashes are so bright and they always ask so many questions." She says silently and I nod slowly.

The scared look in her eyes hurts me and I wish there was a way to protect her from all of this.

"Yes, they do." I agree and she fiddles with her fingers that rest between me and her.

"Mommy says the best thing to do is ignore them but that's hard when there are so many." Rose shares and I tug some hair behind her ear.

"That's true. When there are so many it is scary." I say and Rose nods.

She wraps her arms back around my shoulders and hugs me. I hold her close and rock us a little back and force to calm her down further. She rests her head on my shoulder again and stays as she is, needing the comfort right now. I stay silent and let her process while being there for her.