1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years ago i didn't see a belly with a child on the inside Who: Cian and Ash What: Ash made a decision and figured Cian should know. Where: Cian’s apartment When: Tonight! Rating: PG-13 because lbr: Cish Status: Complete
She’d decided to keep the kid. Neil had a hell of a lot to do with it, but mostly it just felt right. Which wasn’t really something she could explain to Cian if he asked - and she wasn’t sure if he would since he hadn’t really said a fucking word about her being pregnant since she’d told him about it nearly a month ago - but she’d figure something out if he did decide to be curious. Of course, she was running late; she’d spent too long poring over random shit for a heist she wasn’t sure why the fuck she was planning, but the last thing she wanted to do was get shot.
Again.
With her luck in this fucking city, something would come along to knock her on her ass soon enough. Ajora, how the fuck did fighters carry to term?
She shook her head, undid the traps, and started up, resetting Ci’s alarms as she went. When she got to the door to his apartment, she opened it and stepped inside, kicking off her shoes and yawning. She was going to have to start getting more sleep or the midwife would hand her ass to her.
It didn’t look like Cian was back yet, so she sprawled on the couch to wait.
He was a quarter hour late, which wasn’t the way he usually did things -- when he said eleven, he meant it -- but the slight bruising across his cheek and over his right knuckles told the story before he could. All he said about it, however, was, “Sorry I’m late. Got tied up. Hope you didn’t wait long.”
At least she’d made herself comfortable. And at least she wasn’t walking around bruised and battered from the recent debacle in the Theatre District, so he had to assume she’d finally grown a brain and stayed out of it.
She looked over at him and sighed. “Just got here myself. Got held up near the crystal.” Literally. One of these days, people were going to stop trying to kill her. Although this guy had muttered something about Hilt before he’d taken off - a knife to the throat generally made people think twice, and if that didn’t work? Well, she’d made a point to start carrying her damn gun.
“Rough night?”
“Saturday in the Red Light District,” he said with a shrug that clearly indicated he didn’t think much of it. “Some people are sore fucking losers. The way I figure, if you’re gambling away your last hundred gil, maybe you ought to think twice about whether you’d like to eat tomorrow instead of punching your opponent for shattering your illusions. Guy had a shit right hook anyway. Coffee?” As soon as he’d said it, he backtracked: “Wait, no. I got tea.” In case she came by. Because she’d said something about not drinking coffee, and what the hell did he know about pregnant women and whatever wizardry went on with them?
Basically, he figured stocking a few teabags was to his benefit. How hard could that shit be to brew, anyway?
Aisling shrugged and propped herself up on the arm of the couch. “Tea is good. What kind?” She ignored the surprise and the warm feeling that was pooling in her stomach at the gesture, chalking it up to indigestion. The promise of tea and that encounter with the fucker at the crystal had killed what nerves she might have had, and she was feeling pretty damn calm.
Of course, that was a temporary state; depending on how Ci reacted - or didn’t react - to her decision could easily change that. But he said he’d be around if she wanted him to be, and she did, so she was just going to have to trust him. And fuck if that still wasn’t hard.
“You heading back out tonight, or you in for the night?”
He bit back an irritated, what, there’s types? and opening the cabinet where he kept his coffee, said, “The kind in a green box.” He’d asked the guy who took care of his shopping to buy him tea, and that was about the extent of his thoughts on the matter. He took the box out, trying to casually read the label, then opening another cabinet to find something in which to boil water. Probably better not to put this stuff in the coffee maker.
“I figured I was staying in,” he said. Was there more work to do? Sure, it was the weekend, best time to be seen and get in some gaming, but he didn’t have anything urgent breathing down his neck, so the interruption wasn’t much of an issue. “Unless you’re taking off later, I guess.”
Pretty likely it was caffeine free. She bit back her sigh - Neil had purged anything that even looked like it had caffeine in it the second he’d found out. Except her dark chocolate. She’d fought him for that. And then went out and bought more and stashed it under her bed. Fucking Neil.
“Not unless I want to go and get into more trouble,” she quipped. The mention of Hilt meant she’d have to follow up on it, but Ci didn’t need to know about that, and she sure as fuck wasn’t going to worry about it. At least not for now. “Was thinking I’d stay here tonight. I swear to fucking Faram Neil is waiting at my place with a bowl of spinach. He’s getting on me to eat better.”
That earned her a brief laugh, because after years of employing the guy, even if he mostly steered clear of him, Cian could envision it pretty well. “Good luck with that,” he told her. “Better you than me.” Only now he had to wonder exactly what it was Neil knew about what the hell she was supposed to be eating -- and probably not eating -- and so there was another thing to figure out. Not that he cared if Neil got pissed about something he fed her (the guy knew better) but… well.
Right, he’d just have to ask about that, too. And here he’d thought tea was his biggest concern. Who the fuck had known this shit was so complicated?
“He took all my alcohol, too. Apparently, pregnant, hormonal women can’t be trusted to not break out the vodka or something.” Another sigh. “Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about…” She trailed off and made vague notions at her stomach, which was still nice and flat. She’d tried to imagine what it would look like when she started showing, but that freaked her the fuck out.
To his credit, he was completely calm as he turned around, and showed none of the bewilderment (he refused to call it distress) that he felt at the gesture. His eyes followed her hand, then snapped back to her face. That was easier than trying to contemplate the fact that she was carrying around a tiny hume in there. “Kind of figured, when you were light on the details of this talk. Shoot.”
And Faram fuck, it was probably too much to hope for that she wouldn’t hit him with another shocking revelation right now, but he still hoped it. He almost thought he’d rather be treated to a list of Neil’s dietary restrictions or morning sickness or whatever it was that was annoying her in her everyday life.
Well, at least he wasn’t getting pale. “I decided to keep it.”
Again, he had to bite back his first response, which was, I’ve known that for a month. Instead, he decided to focus on boiling water and the box of tea and wondering when the other shoe would drop. “I assumed,” he said after a moment. “So… good?” It sounded a bit more like a question than a statement, but what was he supposed to do?
She shrugged. “Far as the mage and midwife are concerned,” was the nonchalant response. “Midwife suggested letting close family know and figuring out any genetic shit that could be passed on to it. Faram knows what happened to my mom,” but she was pretty sure that she was at the bottom of a lake or the ocean, “and Papa is dead, but I’ve got access to his medical records. Which leaves your part of the family.” Which he’d never mentioned, at least not in any detail. She didn’t know if they were alive or what, but she did know that Cian hadn’t had a happy childhood.
So even though the midwife had said it wasn’t necessary - just recommended - she figured she could push. Just a little.
“I don’t have any,” he said, with the sort of finality that generally shut down conversations.
That didn’t take long. Ash sighed. “So, they’re dead?”
He really wished she’d leave it alone. He considered lying, but the response, in the end, was mostly honest: “I have to assume it’s likely, and the world’s no worse off for it, I’m sure. Might even be an improvement.”
Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about it, so she decided to let it go. From what she recalled, her father had bought him at a fairly young age; it was entirely likely that he didn’t know jack shit about his parents, so pushing at it wouldn’t get her anywhere. Well, it would get her a pissed off Cian, and she was kind of liking the fact that they could be in the same room for more than fifteen minutes without trying to tear each other to shreds.
“All right,” she said, closing her eyes. “At least that means there ain’t anyone we have to tell. Neil already knows, so I’m sure the second someone lights up around me, the entire org will know.”
It was a relief to put it away. Frankly, the bitch that had popped him out could rot in hell, for all he cared, and she’d been well on her way there when she’d sold him off a couple decades ago. “Figure it’d be pretty fucking hard to hide after awhile regardless, though you can decide what the hell you want to tell whom, I don’t care.” A pause, then, “You got someone lined up to fight for the house bets at the Ring? I can toss over a likely candidate or two if no one you’ve got now suits. For obvious reasons, I’m not picking that end up.”
Finally, he brought her over the cup with the tea bag floating in yellowish liquid. “You want your caramel crap in this?” he asked, giving it a dubious look.
She took the tea and shook her head. “Seriously? Caramel in tea? That’s disgusting. And no, I figured I’d still be taking them.”
He gave her a flat look. “I thought you wanted to keep the… kid.”
“I do, but doesn’t mean I can’t keep up at the Ring.”
It was a struggle not to rub his temples. “You get punched in the stomach how many times on a given match night? Princess, are you stupid?”
“I can be careful,” she said, sipping her tea, but fuck if he didn’t have a point. It was one thing to get involved with shit when she didn’t know she was pregnant, it was another thing entirely to do this shit when she knew that there was a tiny hume waiting to play drums on her internal organs. “Fine,” she relented. “I’ll find someone. But taking me out of the Ring doesn’t mean that fights aren’t still going to come my way.”
“Why the hell else do you have Neil and his muscles?” Cian said. “Use him, fuck’s sake. He doesn’t need every other day off, and don’t tell me you don’t give it to him because he fucking reports them.”
Faram damn it. She’d told him to just take the fucking days and not report them. “Shit still happens, with or without him,” she continued stubbornly. “Doubt Neil being around would have stopped that fucking would-be mugger tonight.” And the second that left her mouth, she winced; she hadn’t been going to tell him about that.
“Oh?” Cian’s voice did not bode well. “Interesting night for you too, I take it. And you were going to tell me about this when, exactly?”
“Never?”
“Sometimes,” he told her, “you make me want to drink. And I fucking hate alcohol.”
“It’s not the first time someone has tried to hold me up,” Ash pointed out, “and it won’t be the last. If I had to tell you every time someone tried to off me, that would be all we’d talk about. And it’s not like you tell me when someone tries to fuck with you.”
“No one’s tried to kill me in awhile,” he said. How did she actually not see that it was completely different? “Also, I’m not... pregnant.” Fuck, but that word felt awkward to say. “Obviously. Not to mention, any mugger cocky enough to come at you when you have Neil-the-mountain along for the ride is either too stupid to live, or a big enough fucking deal that you should be worried. There’s no magic in Ivalice that’ll make you tall and menacing, so while I appreciate you’ve got the skill to kick a would-be mugger in the teeth, you wouldn’t have to if you’d just use your bodyguard. Which you’ll especially need when you’re all...” none of the adjectives that came to mind were particularly flattering -- neither big nor waddling would win him any points -- so he finished, “off balance.”
“Off balance? You mean when I’m bigger than my house and can’t see my damn feet?” And fuck if that wasn’t something that frightened her. All people needed was a second of weakness - she was going to give them months of it. But it wasn’t like she could literally just hide out until the kid was born. “Fine,” she relented. “I’ll drag Neil around with me. But I’m not making him work extra - he’s got kids of his own.”
“Depends on your definition of extra,” Cian told her. “Unless you’re saying kids mean you’re not supposed to work more than a few hours a week, which, I have to warn you, isn’t how this world turns in my experience.” And here was hoping she didn’t expect him to scale down to free afternoons every other day whenever this kid was born, because that was a hilarious impossibility. “Though if you want to scale down, I’ll figure it out.”
She rolled her eyes. “I meant I’m not dragging him with me when I go out at night. He can work his regular hours, and when he clocks out, he’s done. I’m not going to drag him around with me day and night. And I’m not going to scale down.” She’d go insane if she had to work less.
“So, shifts,” Cian said. It was sensible, which meant she’d probably hate it. “You hate Kirill’s guts, fine. You can interview your own second shifter. As you pointed out, people keep trying to fuck with you, and you’re going to be… impaired.” She could say bigger than a house but Cian was not a stupid man and knew that he couldn’t. “You need to go out, call up whoever it is. If you’re staying in, activate your security and don’t think about it.”
“I don’t need a shadow following me around all hours of the day, Cian.”
“Only when you go out,” he said. He’d been trying to get her to agree to it for over a year. “I’m not telling you to sleep with the guy, fuck’s sake. He can follow along behind and leave you alone unless you run into another idiot mugger, and at that point it’ll be good to have him there.” His expression was mildly annoyed as he said, “You can punch me in the face for implying I worry, but tough fucking luck. You’ve got a better right hook than that asshole earlier, but I can handle it.”
“I get that you worry, but I don’t want someone else following me around everytime I leave the fucking house. If you want me to stay out certain places at night, fine. Not like I’m going to be going clubbing, but fuck, Ci. I’m pregnant, not incapacitated.”
“Yeah, we’ll see how it goes for now,” he said. Mostly, he didn’t intend to argue with her, but the moment she showed signs of being too unbalanced to fight, she was getting a detail if he had to hire someone to sleep outside her damn house. “Not an issue right now, mostly, in your neighborhood.” In his, though……..
Yeah, something to consider.
“So… do you need… anything?” the pauses were unlike him, but this whole situation was unlike him, so really, it wasn’t so surprising that he was out of his depth, here. “Other than a bodyguard you don’t want, anyway.”
She was getting a second shift detail whether she wanted it or not. Great, she thought. She’d played dodge the tough before - looked like she’d have to brush up on her skills soon enough. But since he was letting it drop, she would, too. But his next question had caught her off guard.
Sure, he’d said he’d be around, but she hadn’t exactly expected him to do shit. Hell, she wasn’t even sure what needed to be done - Neil had gotten her a pregnancy book which she had so far obstinately refused to read because fuck if that shit wasn’t too soon. “Not that I can think of. I’d say give me caffeine, but pretty sure Neil would actually try to kill you, boss or not.”
“I can take Neil,” Cian said, with more confidence than he ought to have felt, perhaps. Neil was twice his width. But there was a reason, too, why he was the boss. “But you’re still getting tea. Sorry.”
Speaking of tea, Ash took another sip. Fuck, she missed coffee. “Yeah, yeah. The amount of shit that I’m not allowed to do, drink or eat is going to drive me batshit.” And wasn’t that the truth. At the very least, she wasn’t getting strange as fuck cravings. Yet. Neil had said that shit can come during the second trimester. Not something she wanted to think about.
There was a frightening amount of shit she wasn’t thinking about.
“In all seriousness, pretty sure there ain’t anything that can be done until it’s closer to the due date. I mean, no point in buying clothes or shit until we know gender. If we want to know gender. And anything else I’ll need’ll probably only come up when I need it, so I can get it or I can send Neil.”
“Right.” Was he supposed to have an opinion on this? Was she asking? Or was she just talking it through? “So if that changes, you’ll let me know, then?” And otherwise he’d just… steer clear of all this. He’d stay as involved as she wanted unless it came to actually buying baby clothes (he had people for that, thankfully) but he wasn’t going to push her about any of it, considering he had no idea about these things and the last thing he wanted was to fuck it up. About the only thing he could do, for her and for the kid both…
Yeah, that would involve a lot of thought sometime later. She wasn’t involved in that mess, and she didn’t need to be.
“Yeah, I’ll let you know,” she said. Then: “Did you want to know? The gender, that is.”
There was most likely a right answer to this, and thus a wrong answer too, but he couldn’t begin to imagine which was which. The best gamble he could make here seemed to be, “Your call, princess. I’ll go whichever way you go.” It was her body and all that, and she’d seemed all right with him telling her to make decisions about other aspects of this, so he had to hope this would go the same way. He was still trying to reconcile the fact that he’d have a kid running (crawling?) around in a few months; the intricacies of that kid’s plumbing were past his ability to really process just now.
“Okay.” She wanted to know, which meant that as soon as she was able to find out what gender the kid was, she was getting that information. If Ci didn’t care either way? Well, then she’d keep quiet. Let him be surprised.
She finished off her tea and sat up. “Anyway, I’ll stop boring you with insignificant details and shit.”
“It’s not insignificant,” he disagreed. “I’m just… a little out of my depth here, princess. It’s not like I don’t care, I’m just…” a little terrified “doing the best I can with what knowledge I’ve got, which is honestly pretty fucking spotty. I bought tea,” and no, he didn’t sound petulant. “That was sort of the best I could come up with right now.”
Ash smiled and grabbed for her bag, which she’d dropped near the couch. After rifling through it, she withdrew a book. “Neil thought you could use this. He helpfully bookmarked pages for you.” And no, she wasn’t looking even a little gleeful at the prospect of Cian reading through a pregnancy book with all of the most disturbing parts highlighted. (She’d skipped those parts; if Neil thought it was important, she’d read it when she was in that stage of pregnancy and not a fucking second before.)
In his defense, he managed to mask the horror as he took the book. It looked like every other page was dog-eared. He tried to imagine it as one of the mathematical treatises he took out from the cathedral library once in awhile (it didn’t work, but he tried). “How helpful of Neil.” And smart of the guy not to bring this to him himself… this way, there was a chance that he might actually try reading the thing. “I’ll give it a look. You can stop looking smug at me any moment now.”
“You’re getting off easy,” she informed him. “I’ve got six books to read. Not to mention a list of every fucking name that has a negative connotation to the org so that I don’t accidentally name the kid something that will create a negative environment for it. And he has every single appointment scheduled in his comm device so he doesn’t miss a single one.” She rolled her eyes. “You’d think he was taking the kid once I popped it out or something.”
“Well, it’s his job to make sure you’re taken care of. Nice to know he’s doing it.” A pause. “Didn’t even think of the list, but I bet I could add to it.” Another pause. “Though I guess you’d probably… ask my opinion before naming the kid. Theoretically.” Wasn’t that how it was supposed to work?
The look she gave him was completely incredulous. “Why do we need a list of things we can’t name the kid? And yeah, you get a say in what it’s called.”
“Because some humes are sacks of shit,” was his very logical answer. “And sometimes, it’s easier not to borrow trouble.”
“You know what? I’m not even gonna argue this. Besides, I’ve already got a few names I like.”
“Yeah?” It seemed early to him to consider it, but then, what did he know? “Going to share?”
Her smile turned innocent. “If it’s a girl, I was thinking Alys, and if it’s a boy? How do you feel about Weyland?”
“Al -- you’re fucking with me.” At least he’d worked it out, even if not quite as quickly as he’d have liked. “I don’t actually know which of those ideas is worse. Pretty sure the king’s name made Neil’s list of bad fucking ideas, though. And let’s not name our kid after tiny, for fear of what it might do to its brain, all right?”
She laughed. “Actually, Alys and Genevieve topped Neil’s list on the girl side, with Weyland and Tynan topping the boys’ side, so yeah, I’m fucking with you.”
“I’m cracking up over here,” he said dryly. Just the thought of naming the kid after the countess… yeah, no, that was about as bad as the king’s name. Or the guildmaster’s -- except fuck if he knew the guy’s actual name, so hopefully, they’d manage to steer clear out of sheer dumb luck. And maybe it was her earlier line of questioning, but he couldn’t help but think of it, so he said, as nonchalantly as he could manage, “You can add Glenna to your list of ‘fuck, no,’ names. Just off the top of my head.”
That he remembered that name at all was both surprising and not. He’d done a lot to erase her memory from his life, but some things lingered.
“Glenna?” She shrugged. “I’ll add it to the list.” It was sheer will power that kept her from asking who the name belonged to, but she managed. “And on that note, I think I’m gonna head out. I’m tired as fuck.” Between shit at the Ruby and some errands she’d had to run, her day had been busy. And now she needed to check up on Hilt, but Ci didn’t need to know that.
“I figured you were staying.” He said it before he’d really thought about it -- she usually stayed, when she made these late night visits -- and anyway, hadn’t they just been talking about her nearly getting mugged? Again. “Not like you have to,” he added, because he didn’t need an argument about him telling her what to do -- which he wasn’t. “I’ll give you a ride, then.”
“I don’t need a ride” was the immediate reply. “But I’ll stay here if you don’t mind.” His bed was way more comfortable than hers, or maybe it was just that he was in it. She didn’t think too deeply about why that was since hers had been fine before her house had needed to be rebuilt. New bed or something. Probably.
“I never mind when you stay.” And she hadn’t really, he realized, since she’d dropped the bombshell. Which, now that he really thought about it, was kind of idiotic -- she was already pregnant, what was the point of being overly cautious now? He might have just picked her up off the couch -- wouldn’t have been the first time -- except he had no idea whether he was supposed to be manhandling her like that anymore (maybe Neil’s daunting book would tell him), so instead, he just reached down for her hand to pull her to her feet. “I figured you might want some space for a bit, considering, but I can’t say I’d mind if you came to stay over more often.”
They didn’t talk about emotions, no, but they’d found an understanding, so what did it really matter?
Ash rose up on her tip toes and placed a kiss on his lips. “I’ll think about it.” She didn’t want to spend too much time at his place, but she also wasn’t all that keen on spending so much time at hers. All that space just felt too… big now. She tugged on his hand and led him towards the bedroom.