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senseless-writing · 2 years

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Unforgiving Anxieties

Pairing: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x wife!reader

Summary: Rooster has to leave again, which isn’t something new. But this time, he’s leaving his wife with a baby at home, and Y/n isn’t sure if she can handle the stress that comes with parenting all by herself.

Warnings: Small spoilers for Top Gun: Maverick. LOTS of angst, but plenty of fluff to back it up

A/N: WOAH. Not the Witcher, and not an OC? Who am I?? Idk guys, but this has been on my mind for days, so I just had to write it. Let me know what you think :)

Masterlist

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Rooster thought he would have more time before his work pulled him away from his family again. Truly, he did. But things never worked out the way you wanted them to, and such was even more true for aviators in the US Navy.

Still, it never got better. To kiss his wife goodbye, hold her close, and promise “yes, baby, I’ll be safe,” “no, honey, I won’t put myself in any unnecessary danger,” was harder than any dogfight he’s ever been in. She’d pretend not to cry, he’d pretend not to notice, and he’d always leave with the same thought in the back of his mind that maybe, just maybe, flying wasn’t worth leaving her time and time again.

But then came Elijah. And for a while, at least, things were different.

Elijah Nicholas Bradshaw was the light of his parents' lives. Nearly six months old, no baby was more doted on them him. With a closet full of mini Hawaiian shirts to match his daddy, and an unlimited amount of affection from Y/n, the kid seemed to have a permanent smile on his face. Rooster even had to upgrade his phone to unlimited storage to make room for all the photos he took.

But paternity leave for the Navy was only twenty-one days. Eventually, he had to go back to work, and it tore him apart to leave every day, even if he got to return at the end of the night. It was hard, almost indescribable, but manageable.

Until now. Things were different now. He’d been called back to Top Gun without so much as an explanation as to why he had to leave his wife and half-year-old baby, other than the small detail that it was most definitely a dangerous mission.

He could’ve said no. Should’ve said no. But then he thought of his father, thought of how close he got to having him back whenever he was in the air, and remembered why he loved doing what he did. So instead, the Bradshaws went through the motions yet again. Except this time, Eli was in his mother's arms as Rooster said goodbye.

“Please be safe,” she mumbled against the crook of his neck, the pair clinging to one another on their front porch. He could feel the subtle drops of tears against his skin, but he pulled her closer and pretended not to notice. Elijah giggled at the feeling of being squished between his parents.

Rooster pressed a rough kiss to his wife’s head. “I will.”

“And keep me updated,” she spoke quickly, her words full of anxiety. “I know most of it is classified, but I just want to know-”

He gently pulled her away from his chest, cupping the sides of her neck to angle her face towards his own. “Breathe, baby,” he sighed, urging her to do the same. His thumbs brushed across the apples of her cheeks to rid them of tears, though he knew it was a futile attempt. “I will tell you everything I can, okay? I promise.”

His wife nodded up at him, her tears mixing with the fear and despair and pride and something he couldn’t recognize swirling in her eyes.

Rooster cracked her a smile, a dull sort of chuckle falling from his lips. “Hey,” he whispered against her lips. “No crying for me, baby. It’s just a classroom. The only thing I’ll suffer from is sunburns and acute boredom.”

It was a lie, and they both knew it. But it brought out a watery laugh from his Y/n all the same.

When she was done laughing, and he was done admiring her, the look on her face was something akin to determination. “Here’s what's gonna happen,” she spoke to him softly. These words were only for him and their little family of three. “You’re gonna go, and you’re gonna learn whatever it is they think they can teach you. And then you’re gonna complete this super-secret mission that everyone wants to pretend isn’t happening. And when it’s all said and done, you’ll come home to me. To us. Got it?”

This was the wife he knew. Strong and fearless and overly demanding.

He loved it.

“Yes ma'am,” he said with a smile, still holding her face close to his.

After a moment, he decided to move on to the baby in her arms. Eli, ever the mama’s boy, grumbled a little about the movement, but quickly settled against his father's chest. Rooster was immediately pressing kisses to his cheeks.

“And you, my little man. Are you gonna be good for mama while I’m away? You have to, being the man of the house and all. You gotta look after our girl.”

Y/n tucked herself into his side as she watched, and Rooster wrapped his free arm around her.

“Don’t grow too much while I’m away,” he whispered into his son’s ear, and that made Y/n laugh softly again.

“It’s only a couple of weeks, Roos.”

“Babygirl, he’ll be six months by the time I get back. I’m missing a milestone.”

“There’ll be more.”

Rooster wasn’t sure if he liked how casually she said that. As if the idea of him not being there for every important moment in their lives, of him missing the memories worth making, was something she’d already made peace with. But he didn’t have too much time to dwell on it, not with her practically shoving him towards his running car. It felt like forever, and it felt like seconds, them saying goodbye. But time passed, as it always did, until he was driving away with clenched fists and a heavy heart.

He didn’t regret his job, and he knew his wife didn’t either. But sometimes, none of that mattered.

It still sucked.

----------

“You look like you haven’t slept in days, honey.”

“Wow, Roos, you really know the way to a girl's heart.”

“You’re always beautiful, Y/n, but you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she sighed, brushing some stray hair away from her face. The bun she wore wasn’t holding much at this point, and though her eyes were still sparkling as they normally did when on a face time call with her husband, the bags underneath them were hard to miss. “Well, you’re not completely wrong. Eli is supposed to be sleeping in his own room from now on, which means I spend most of the time in there instead of in bed.”

Rooster shifted his phone from one hand to the other with a concerned look on his face. The tip of his nose was burnt from the San Diego sun, and Y/n couldn’t help but smile at how cute he looked. “Is he not sleeping well?”

“No, he’s sleeping fine. It’s me who can’t settle down.”

His eyebrow lifted in question, and Y/n let out another sigh.

“I just have this feeling,” she admitted, somewhat embarrassed. “That if I’m not watching him at all times, he’ll stop breathing. Which is irrational, but I literally can’t turn my brain off. I won’t sleep even if I do lie down, so I might as well watch him.”

Rooster immediately felt horrible. Worse than the 200 push-ups he’d been forced to do last week, or the uphill climb Mav was teaching them. It was like he had one job, one real job, and he wasn’t able to do it.

“Y/n,” he struggled to find the words.

“I know, I know. It’s stupid.”

Another punch to the gut.

“I should be there. It’s a tough transition, and meant to be a two-person job.”

Her eyes were all-knowing, and what Rooster wanted more than anything in the world was to drown in them. “You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

“I’m supposed to be with you,” he said with a pout.

“You will be,” she giggled. “In a few weeks from now, when you’re done doing whatever it is you're doing. Maybe by then, I’ll be a little more chilled out.”

“Stop saying that. It’s okay to be nervous. Can’t you call your mom, see if she’ll watch him for a bit so you can sleep?”

“I could…” she seemed unsure, and Rooster rubbed his face in discomfort.

Something told him his wife wasn’t being completely honest with how much this was affecting her. She didn’t trust anyone with their son that wasn’t herself right now, and he feared she would run herself into the ground before asking for help. And he wanted to offer it. He wanted to say that he was there for her, that he would help her in any way he could.

But he wasn’t there for her, and he couldn’t help. So what was he to do, other than offer useless words?

“Please just try, baby, okay?” he said instead, hoping whatever he said would be enough. “Your mom's great, and I’m sure she’d love to spend some time with Eli. Just have her promise to wake you if anything seems off.”

Her nose scrunched at the idea, but she nodded all the same. “Alright, I’ll give it a shot. Does that ease your mind at all?”

“I was hoping it would ease yours.”

“You’re impossible, Bradley Bradshaw, do you know that?” she rolled her eyes at him.

“Impossibly in love with you, Y/n Bradshaw.”

She laughed at him for that. A full-out belly laugh that shook the camera within her grasp, and Rooster couldn’t help but laugh with her. He thought she was absolutely stunning when she was like this. Carefree and happy and amused by something stupid he’d said. And, with utmost certainty, he knew he’d continue to make a goddamn fool of himself for the rest of their lives if it kept her this way.

“I miss you, baby,” he said once their laughter died down.

“What, your flying buddies aren’t good enough company?”

Rooster thought of Hangman, an ultimate pain in the ass with all bark and no bite. And he thought of Pheonix, who picked on him for fun, and Bob, who almost seemed to not understand the meaning of the word.

They were his friends, and he loved them. But they weren’t his wife.

“Nobody’s better than you, sugar bear.”

“Ugh, you know I hate when you say that.”

“I know,” he teased. “I just wanted to see your face scrunch up like that when I did.”

“You know what Bradshaw? I’m going to bed.”

“Promise?” he said with a somewhat serious edge to his voice.

She smiled up at him. “Mhm, it’s straight to dreamland for me. Eli’s already asleep, and I checked on him right before you called.”

The angle of her phone dropped to focus on the baby monitor at her side. It was a grainy picture, but the view of his son's wild sandy hair as he slept peacefully was enough to make Rooster’s heart soar.

“Alright, baby, I won’t keep you then. I love you.”

“I love you too. Be safe, okay?”

“I will.”

----------

It would be two more weeks before Rooster was reunited with his wife. As soon as he landed (rather roughly) on the carrier, he was calling her to let her know that the mission was over, and he was on his way home. She asked how it went, he said “as smooth as a car crash,” and she laughed and laughed until tears were slipping from her eyes.

The reunion itself, despite the seriousness of the situation, wasn’t nearly as tearful as one may think. In fact, they never were when it came to the Bradshaws. Goodbyes were miserable, but hellos were all smiles and laughs and dancing in the kitchen to music that wasn’t there. And at the end of the day, they ate dinner on their back porch and marveled at their son, who was too busy rubbing dirt on his face to notice how happy his parents were.

But with the night came anxiety. They put Elijah to bed together, with the baby in Y/n’s arms and Y/n in Rooster’s. It was everything she’d wanted for weeks, but it couldn’t ease her aching heart. When Rooster directed his wife to bed, she couldn’t help but worry.

Her brain wouldn’t turn off.

Rooster could feel it throughout the night. Every 45 minutes or so, even with his consciousness muddled by sleep, he noticed her slipping out of bed. Quietly, as if she didn’t want to wake him, but that didn’t matter. He was attuned to his wife’s every movement, even in sleep. Which meant that every time she pulled herself out of his arms to go check on their son, he layed awake, waiting for her to return.

It was the fifth or sixth time that he finally decided to say something.

“Honey?” he said groggily, pulling her back against his chest when he felt her move to get up. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothings wrong,” she whispered back. “I just want to make sure Eli’s okay.”

“He looks fine, baby, see? On the monitor, he’s sleeping like…well, like a baby.”

Y/n didn’t laugh at his joke, barely even cracked a smile. Her hands were still gripping the comforter, itching to stand and check for herself. Rooster couldn’t think of the words to ease her mind, not when he knew they didn’t exist. He wanted her to rest, and there was only one way she would.

“How about I go check on him, hm? You stay here, and I’ll make sure everything’s alright.”

“No, no, no, that’s okay, I can just-”

“Y/n,” he shushed her, leaning in to kiss her forehead. “I’m back now. You don’t have to do this alone anymore. Let me go check.”

She nodded to him as he rose, though he could tell she wasn’t fully convinced. With light feet, Rooster padded across the carpeted floors, all the way to the room across from theirs. White noise echoed from the crack in the door, and he pushed it open slightly to slip into the room.

He was immediately drawn to the crib in the far corner. Before he could realize it, a smile was spreading across his drowsy face. His perfect boy was fast asleep, sprawled on his back with arms and legs strewn haphazardly around him.

Y/n said that Eli slept as he did. Rooster always pretended not to agree with her.

He laid his hand flat on his son's chest, the baby still so small that it nearly covered him entirely. He could feel Eli’s chest rise, up and down and up and down. It was smooth and easy, and although Rooster hadn’t been worried for a second, the small part of his brain still relaxed at the feeling. So he leaned down, pressed a soft kiss to his chubby baby cheeks, and made his way back to their bedroom.

He found his wife sitting up in bed as she anxiously watched the monitor. “He’s all good, baby,” he reassured her, climbing in bed and moving the monitor back to its rightful place on their bed stand. “Let's go back to sleep.”

She let out an uncomfortable sigh, as if she didn’t completely believe him. He reached out to her, then, and pulled so her back was to his chest. “Come here, come here, come here,” he chanted softly, and she giggled at his foolishness. “Please sleep.”

She pushed herself deeper into his arms as he pressed kisses to the back of her head. “Okay,” she relented. Rooster could feel her settle, and God in heaven, he hoped she stayed that way.

But she didn’t.

With Rooster asleep, Y/n was left alone with her thoughts. It started slowly, at first. Little pricks of anxiety that spread through her brain like vines on a tree. But little by little, it grew. It grew until her fears were the only things she could think about, and even the arms wrapped around her waist weren’t enough to pull her back to Earth.

Instead, horror stories flooded her brain. Fears of SIDS cases after six months, of waking up to a blue baby and realizing it was her fault they lost the one thing that meant more to them than anything else in the world. Because she was the mother, she was the one who should know when something was off, right?

She could feel it in her soul, right down to the aching heart and burning skin. It was that sense that everyone tells you about, the sense that alerts you to a disturbance in your child. Her baby was alone right now, alone and scared and hurting because something is most definitely wrong.

Y/n tried to pull herself from Rooster’s arms. Who cares if he checked less than ten minutes ago, because I’m the mom and I know my baby needs help. But the man was just too goddamn persistent, even in sleep, and had the muscles to back it up. So if he wanted her to stay put, that’s where she would be.

She was quickly running out of patience, though, and so was her anxiety. Her chest was heavy with dread, her airway closing as panic began to run its course. And suddenly, it was no longer I need to see if my baby is okay, but instead, I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.

“Rooster,” she wheezed, squeezing his wrist where it lay firmly on her stomach.

The man didn’t so much as flinch, and Y/n tried again to grab his attention. “Bradley!”

Her nails were digging into his skin at this point. That was what awoke him first. However, he quickly noticed the quivering mess that was his wife in his arms. “Woah,” he struggled to understand what could have happened in the short time since he fell asleep. “What’s wrong, what happened?”

Rooster sat up to get a better look at his wife’s face. It was covered in tears and flushed from what seemed to be a lack of oxygen, a look that he’s seen hundreds of times on panicking aviators. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air as she tried to explain, but all that came out were desperate sobs.

“Please,” she breathed out, and he shushed her as best he could. With his arms, with his lips, and with his words; he wasn’t sure what other kind of comfort he could offer.

“It’s okay, you’re okay. Take your time, breathe, and tell me what’s wrong.”

She cried harder again, and he cradled her head close to his chest.

“You’re going to make yourself sick, baby. Relax,” he nearly begged her. He felt like cold water had been dumped over the both of them with the way they shook. Her with fear, and him with confusion. “Everyone’s okay.”

“No!” she burst out through quivering lips. “No we’re not, Eli’s not okay! I need to see him right now, Roos, something isn’t right.”

“We just checked on him-”

“You checked on him! I need to check on him! Please, please just help me. I need-”

“Wait here,” he said suddenly, springing from their bed.

Y/n called after him, wanting to follow, but her legs were too shaky to stand. She wasn’t used to feeling this helpless; had never allowed herself to. But now, with anxiety plaguing her in a way it never had before, the invincible strength of “military wife” was collapsing around her like a fragile house of cards.

By the time Rooster rushed himself back to their room, his wife was lost to a puddle of tears and exhaustion. He couldn’t quite describe the hazy look he saw in her eyes, and wasn’t sure if he’d be able to ease it.

But maybe Elijah could.

“Here honey,” he hushed in a frantic tone. “Look for yourself. He’s perfectly fine, see?”

Y/n’s shaking hands reached out to hold their now wide awake son, but Rooster was admittedly nervous that she would drop him. So instead, he simply raised the baby closer to her chest, moving until the three of them were huddled together on the bed.

It was easy to see that Elijah was confused as to why he was now awake. His cute little eyebrows even furrowed in child-like confusion, an expression that his parents would laugh at for years to come. But the poor boy never cried. His patience was a mystery to all.

Rooster used the arm that wasn’t holding Eli to tuck Y/n’s head against the crook of his neck. He breathed deeply, hoping that it would encourage her to do the same. Her arms clung to him and the baby nestled between them, and her trembling failed to cease, even after 20 minutes of him pressing soothing kisses to her temple.

“Y/n?” he whispered softly, lips still pressed to her head. “Can you hear me?”

He knew she was barely settled from a panic attack, and wanted to make sure she was coherent enough to understand his words. He also didn’t want to rush her or force her into anything she wasn’t ready for.

Y/n nodded. A small movement, but one he was able to catch. Her eyes were still firmly locked on the rising and falling chest of their child.

“Y/n, this isn’t normal.”

“Maternal anxiety is a part of motherhood,” she said to him in a hoarse, monotone voice.

“But debilitating anxiety? That’s not healthy, honey.”

Y/n didn’t respond. At least she was calming down a bit, which Rooster thought was a start. Her breaths were still shaky, but more even than before, and her hands finally relaxed over his own. More than anything, he wanted to know why she was so nervous. Why this fear, which was normal for most parents to have, suddenly became something that plagued her every waking moment.

He didn’t have to wait long for the answers he sought.

“Elijah is the best parts of us,” Y/n said after an excruciating minute of silence. “The very best parts.”

Rooster could wholeheartedly agree with that. At only six months old, Elijah was kind, compassionate, and stubborn as hell. He’d always thought it was impossible for babies to have that much personality in such a small period of time. In fact, in the past, whenever parents described their kids in such detail, he was sure it was all a figment of their imagination. But now, he saw firsthand how special these little ones can be.

His wife looked up at him, then, with anguish still in her eyes. “But more importantly, he’s a part of you.”

That threw him for a loop.

“What?” he whispered, running his fingers up and down her spine in what he hoped to be a soothing gesture.

“Every day, Bradley, you run off to who knows where to risk your life doing something that you love. I’ve always supported you in that, never asked you to stop. And I never will, because every time you go after something you want, with that fire and willpower that I love so much, I’m always incredibly proud of you.”

Rooster knew that. More than anything else in the world, he knew that.

“But I can’t,” she sighed, looking away, before meeting his gaze with something new on her face. Acceptance, perhaps. Or maybe a lack thereof. “I can’t keep you safe. Protect you. I can’t be sure that when you go to work, doing what you love, you’ll come back to me at the end of the night. And I think that every time you walk out that door, it kills me a little more inside.”

That hurt him more than he wanted to admit. Not because he felt she wasn’t supporting him, in a way, by being afraid. Quite the opposite, actually. He felt horrible that his wife thought the only way to truly support him in advancing his career was to hide the thoughts from him that kept her awake at night.

That wasn’t to say they didn’t have these conversations before. There were plenty of nights, in their early years of dating, when they stayed up and talked about every thought and fear that entered their minds. The thought of him not returning was painful for both of them, for different reasons of course. But when danger was a part of the job, and relaxing moments were few and far between, it was easier to laugh and kiss and celebrate life than dwell on the parts of it they couldn’t change.

Maybe it was easier to pretend. Or maybe, at times, they weren’t pretending. But it was a blurred line, and it was one the couple had learned to ignore a long time ago.

He laid a kiss on her quivering lips, only because he couldn’t find the words to say. She let him, and they sat like that for a moment. Not quite kissing, but simply with their lips pressed gently together. Breathing in the same breath, foreheads leaning together as if it was the only thing keeping them upright. Elijah was already asleep again, peacefully in his father's arms.

Y/n pulled away to whisper her next words to him, as if they were a confession she wasn’t quite ready to make. “But I can protect this baby.”

Her thought hung in the air, and Rooster ran it through his mind over and over again until, oh god, he hated himself a little more for realizing what she meant.

“I just feel like I have no control over my life anymore,” she cried to him. She couldn’t look at him anymore, too focused on the baby in his arms. Rooster wasn’t sure if he could look at himself either. “I have no say in whether my husband stays or goes, no control over whether my child has two parents or one. I can’t even control my own fucking emotions, for Christ's sake.”

She wiped her tears away with a sharp swipe across her face. Rooster wanted to tell her to stop, to be careful with the face he loved so much, but she had more to say, and his voice was still firmly lodged in his throat.

“But if I watch this baby, if I just watch him and make sure he’s alright, then I can be sure I always have a piece of you with me. I can be sure that a part of you lives on if…if everything I love falls out of my control.”

And like a dam, Rooster broke. Tears streaming down his cheeks, he leaned forward to hide his face in the crook of Y/n’s neck. Seeking for comfort he didn’t deserve, for comfort he should have been providing. But his wife wrapped her arms around him without question, which only made the tears flow faster.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked, the movement of his lips pressing butterfly kisses against Y/n’s collarbone.

“Don’t be. Please, I don’t want you to feel guilty. I never did.”

“I’m not feeling guilty,” he reassured her. “I’m just…sad.”

He smiled up at her with tears still on his face. It was a small, insignificant smile, but he wasn’t surprised to find that she was already doing the same. It was a silly confession. In most cases, the word wouldn’t at all fit the occasion.

Sure, there were better ways to put it. He was anguished at the fact that his wife, his beautiful, radiantly happy wife, was straining under the burden he’d put on her shoulders. He was embarrassed that the mother of his child was sometimes forced to do the job of parenting for the both of them. He was overly torn between his love for flying and his love for his family. He was enraged that he had to choose at all. And he was terribly afraid that the life he’d chosen for himself would doom Y/n to the same fate as his mother, who never truly recovered from the heartache she faced at the hands of his father.

But most of all, he was just sad.

“I love you,” he said, because it was the easiest thing for him to say.

She rested her head against his own, which was still on her shoulder. “I love you too.”

“I know I can’t tell you to not be afraid. And I know…I know you won’t let me step down.”

She was objecting before he could continue. “You worked so hard to get where you are, Bradley, I won’t let you slow down now. You’ve already lost years of your career, and even if you and Mav made up or whatever, you can’t just-”

“Breathe, baby,” he reminded her. The last thing they needed was for her to have another panic attack all over again.

She huffed, clearly annoyed at him, but obliged. Rooster fought off the urge to laugh at her stubbornness.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” she admitted at last. “I can’t…these nerves are eating me alive. It’s never been this bad before.”

Rooster lifted his head from her shoulder to cup her face with his free hand. Their faces were both red and puffy from crying, though he didn’t care about that. Not with the exhaustion still clear in his wife’s eyes. She leaned into his touch until he was nearly holding the entire weight of her head in the palm of his hand.

He’d hold her whole world in his arms if she asked him to. If she needed it.

“You don’t fix this,” he said with the sweetest look on his face. Y/n practically melted. “I do. And that starts with you getting some sleep.”

He watched, in real-time, as panic spread across Y/n’s entire face. Her hands tightened their hold on his wrists as if to pull Elijah closer to herself. Rooster immediately shushed her quietly.

“I know, I know,” he whispered, allowing her to pull the baby closer. She leaned down to press her already trembling lips to Eli’s forehead. “But you need to sleep. Anxiety only gets worse with sleep deprivation.”

“Is that something you learn in pilot school?” she mumbled cheekily against the baby’s head.

“Yes, actually, it is.”

Y/n didn’t reply, though the ghost of a smile spread across her lips.

“Come here,” Rooster beckoned, sliding until he was completely leaning against their bed frame. With his legs fanned out in front of him, and baby pulled to rest comfortably against his chest, he gently urged Y/n to lay with her head against his lap. She was hesitant, but obeyed, and once she settled, he wrapped their comforter tightly around them both. “We’re gonna stay right here, Eli and I, while you rest for a couple of hours.”

“What if you get tired, or fall asleep? You just got back from a mission, Bradley, you should be resting.”

“I don’t need it, baby,” he said honestly. He was fine with lying awake and holding his two most important people in his arms. “What I need is for you to get some rest. But if I feel like I might fall asleep, or if there’s anything wrong with Eli, I promise I’ll wake you.”

Y/n didn’t seem convinced.

Rooster tried again. “Honey, if he so much as hiccups, you’ll be the first to know. After me, of course. And if you wake up throughout the night feeling afraid, we’ll be right here to show you that everything’s alright.”

He ran a hand through her hair, down her back, and up again. She finally closed her eyes, an act that was somehow full of reluctance and relief at the same time. “This isn’t a permanent solution,” she mumbled, though she was already rubbing her face against the soft fabric of his sweatpants.

“We’ll deal with that later,” he reassured her, all the while continuing to rub calming circles on her back. “When we both have more leveled heads.”

Perhaps Y/n wanted to argue. Maybe the words were even on the tip of her tongue. But by the time she opened her mouth to speak them, sleep had already taken over. For the first time in weeks, both mother and son were peacefully sleeping, unable to be plagued by the fears that came with the life they lived.

And Rooster was more than content to see it.

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eyesthatroll · 1 year

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DADDY’S GIRL | BRADLEY BRADSHAW

pairing: dad!bradley x fem!reader

warnings: fluff, established-relationship, lower-case intended, not really edited. i need girl dad bradley right now

word count: 1.2k

summary: you never realized how possessive of bradley your daughter was until you attend a birthday party.

it's 2pm on a saturday. you, bradley, and your four year old daughter elora were attending a birthday party for one of her classmates at the park.

the party was in full swing. you, sitting and chatting with some of the moms, close enough to the playground to be able to keep an eye on your daughter, but far enough so you wouldn't have kids surrounding you. bradley, grown bored of small talk with the dads, now chasing the kids around the playground like a maniac.

"he's so good with the kids." leslie, one of the moms sitting at your table, comments, her eyes following bradley at the end of the slide.

you chuckled, shaking your head. "yeah, he's great."

you weren't lying, bradley was great with kids, phenomenal with elora. everything you wished your dad had been for you, he was for her. it made your chest swell with pride and happiness, knowing that you were able to raise your daughter in a healthy home.

"you would never catch adam playing with the kids like that." kaylee says, speaking of her ex-boyfriend.

you frowned at her words, you'd felt bad for her, remembering all the sad updates she'd sent the groupchat regarding her children's absentee father.

the conversation shifted from your husband to how shitty kaylee's baby daddy is, to gossip about a wide range of celebrities.

you sat quietly, sipping on your drink, chiming in when you wanted to. it was a beautiful, sunny day out, and you wanted to enjoy it as much as you could, knowing the next few days it was predicted to rain.

bradley runs around the slide, catching elora in his arms, holding her up as he runs, zooming her around like an 'airplane'. she erupts in screams and fits of giggles.

elora was a spitting image of her daddy. the same nose, eyes, lips, everything. and while elora had bradley all over her, on the inside, she was all you. reckless, adventurous, sassy, the four year old wasn't afraid of anything.

that scared bradley. all he wanted to do was keep her safe and protected.

he sets her down gently, and martha's little girl, jayda, tugs bradley on the shirt from behind. "do me, do me!"

bradley goes to lift the little girl up, when elora steps forward in a rush and shoves her to the ground. "no, my daddy!"

jayda hits the woodchips with a thud, releasing an over-exaggerated cry, which alerts the moms at your table.

the women around you gasp, you and martha quickly making your way over to the situation.

"elora-jane, no, that's not nice!" bradley scolds her immediately, shocking elora.

bradley rarely ever raised his voice with her. and when did, he apologized immediately after, un-doing any authority he had used.

not that you had roles, but bradley was definitely the good cop of the two of you. most of her discipline came from you, and bradley had had such a soft spot for elora that it sometimes led to him caving on punishments and spoiling her.

if you said no to something, she'd ask her daddy and he'd more than likely say yes.

you've already had a talk with him about this, about how him treating her as if she can do no wrong is going to turn her into a spoiled brat, but it seemed to go in one ear and out the other.

"i'm gone a lot for work, i just want her to know that i love her."

on one hand, you could sympathize and understand what your husband was saying, but on the other hand, you absolutely did not condone brushing off your daughters bad behavior.

you'd also never realized how possessive of bradley your daughter had become, until today.

you couldn't imagine how she would react if you'd had another baby, it worried you a little bit just thinking about it.

elora flinches at her daddy's words, before blubbering into a fit of tears, immediately running over to you.

bradley frowns.

she jumps into your arms, sobbing into your shoulder. sighing, you turned over to martha. "is she okay?"

martha wipes the tears from jayda's face, letting out a small laugh. "she's fine, always kids with the production value."

you smiled at her, excusing yourself from the group to talk to elora alone. bradley goes to follow you, but you shake your head no, telling him to give you a few minutes.

"how bout' that airplane, kid?" he tears his eyes away from the two of you.

"yay!" the little girl cheers, now seemingly perfectly fine.

your daughter on the other hand, was still bawling to her hearts content, making a scene throughout the park as you walked back to the car.

you opened the passenger seat door, and sat with her in your lap.

"stop crying, elora." you wiped her tears, and moved the few strands of hair that strayed from her pigtails out of her face.

it takes a few minutes, but she settles down. you uncap the water bottle sitting in the cup holder next to you, and hand it to her.

she downs half the small bottle before handing it back to you.

"you do not push other people elora, not unless they push you first, okay?"

"but he's my daddy." she says, her nose scrunching as she begins to cry again.

"yes, he is baby, he'll always be your daddy. but sometimes you have to share, okay?"

"i don't want to share."

bradley approaches the truck, leaning down in front of the two of you.

"why are you crying, babydoll?" he speaks softly to elora.

"y-you don't love me n-no more." she sobs.

a pained expression sets on bradley's face. "why do you say that?"

"because you yelled at me."

bradley takes elora from your lap and sits her on his knee.

he wipes her tears and wraps her in a tight hug. "i will always love you, elora, even when i yell at you."

he soothingly rubs her back as she calms down. she sticks out her pinky for him. "p-promise?"

he wraps his around hers and kisses her hand.

"i promise."

"i'm sorry, daddy." her bottom lip pouts, her hands playing with the dogs tags around bradley's neck, something she did quite frequently.

"you need to say sorry to jayda too, alright? no more pushing."

"okay."

bradley moves elora off his knee, standing back up. he sticks out his hand for elora to grab. "c'mon, sweet girl."

the three of you make it back to the party, the food now being served, the prior incident being forgot about.

elora apologizes to jayda, and the two of them sit together laughing while they eat, as if nothing happened.

"such a drama queen, she gets that from you, ya know." you tease bradley as the two of you make your way down the food table.

"please, have you met your mother, she invented the term crocodile tears." the two of you burst into laughter.

he was right and you knew it.

"seriously, though, we gotta nip this sharing issue in the bud if we want more kids."

he smirks. "so what i'm hearing, is you want me to put another baby in you."

you smiled sweetly at him, before smacking him on the back of the head. "oops."

"ow."

a/n; this idea was heavily inspired by that one episode of modern family, if i remember which episode i'll edit this and link it later but um, it took a mind of it's own i guess. not sure if i like it or if it's a mess. as usual constructive criticism or any writing tips are super appreciated. i have my my pharm exam tomorrow, and wrote this while i should've been studying. oops. anyways, that's it. hope you enjoyed:)

#bradley bradshaw #bradley bradshaw fluff #bradley bradshaw one shot #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #bradley bradshaw x you #bradley bradshaw x reader #rooster fanfic #top gun: maverick #top gun: maverick fluff #rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw fic #dad!bradley bradshaw

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sunnysidevans · 1 year

Text

Part Of Me - J.Seresin

Synopsis: Continuing to build your family after the Uranium mission, jake continues to realize the best part of him was your family, through everything.

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Pilot!Reader + Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Pilot!Reader - Callsign: Joker.

Warnings: 18+, language, mentions of injury, mentions of blood, mentions of cheating (its so tiny), angsty. lots of angst. dad!jake and dad!bradley.

This is part II to this fic which can be read here -> nothing else matters

a/n: so uh as I was editing this guy I realized i hit 1k? whaaaat? I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart and for that I present you this lil gem. I can't belive that many people like me enough to follow me. thank you thank you thank you <3

i do not own the gif used below. full credit to owner.

Jake Seresin was a man who lived his life on the edge, lived life by the edge of his sleeve.

Until now, the baby staring up at him with her soft brown puppy dog eyes.

He smiled at the little girl, holding her into his chest. He looked back at you laid soundly in the bed. He knew the amount of painkillers you were on, an almost fourteen hour labor. Sitting in his arms was the result of that labor, the one thing changing his world.

"Hi sweet Eve” he smiled as she babbled slightly, her small hand reaching out to him. “I’m never gonna let anything happen to you okay?” he whispered to her, lifting his pinky for her to hold onto. His Naval academy ring shined under the fluorescent lights as he smiled at the small pink bundle.

You smile, watching the moment from the bed. “I think she knows” you mumble as he turns around to face you. His smile grows at the sight of your own eyes staring back at him. “Hey you” he walks towards the bed and sits on the edge beside you.

“Look what you made,” he whispers, holding the little girl towards your chest. Sitting up, you take the bundle into your own arms and against your chest.

“God” you whisper more to yourself than him, he smiles. “I mean it” he whispers, looking at you. You hum in response, looking back up at him with a dazed smile. “Nothing is gonna happen to her if I have anything to say about it, either of you” he reaches out, pushing the sweat dried pieces of hair out of your face, pulling you forward to kiss your sweat dried forehead.

“You are my girls” he whispers against your skin as you smile. “I know” you look up at him with the dazzling smile he’s always loved. “Never thought Hangman and Joker would be sitting here with a baby” you smile as he chuckles, nodding.

He moves to sit beside you, letting your body fall into his side. He smiles down at the babygirl in your arms. “Jake?” you whisper, eyes focused on the baby as he hums in response. “Please don’t leave us” his heart breaks at the sound of your voice, he leans forward, kissing your hairline.

“I’m never leaving either of you” nodding, you both fall silent and listen to the babbling of your baby.

As you laid beside him, he watched the rise and fall of your chest. Maybe it wasn’t too late for him. Maybe he could be the man the two of you deserved. He could fly home to Texas and gain the courage to ask his Mom for her wedding band that she saved just for him. The band that would look perfect sitting on your left hand.

He had all he needed laid beside him, you and Evelyn.

He kissed the top of your head, letting his nose rest on the crown of your head. HIs thoughts continued in waves, interrupted by his phone.

He pulls his phone from his pocket as slowly as possible, looking down at the text in front of him.

Phoenix: Drinks tonight? ;)

His stomach plummeted at the text as he sighed. He moves you to gently lay back in the bed and climbs out. He takes one look back at you as he stands in the door, tapping his phone in his hand. It wasn’t too late for him.

“Hey you” Phoenix's voice is sultry, flirty on the other end of the phone. “This stops now” he says, looking back at the door as he stands in the hallway. She scoffs softly on the other end. “And why is that? There’s no way someone tied down the Jake Seresin'' he sighs, pushing his hair out of his face. “She did and you know that'' he says, hands on his hips. “Don’t tell me you fell in love with Joker of all people'' she seeths as he bites his tongue.

“You know how I feel about her Phoenix '' he can hear the hurt she tried so hard to hide from him. “She’s gonna backstab you Bagman” he shakes his head, knowing she couldn’t see him. “It’s my decision to make and I am making it” he hangs the phone up then, not continuing to listen to her arguments.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath as he continues to let the thoughts flow through his brain like waves. Jake was going to keep his promise, he was going to stay. It wasn’t too late for the two of you and the family you were building.

The two of you were home from the hospital finally. His girls under the same roof. You fall onto the couch beside him with a heavy sigh. “You okay?” he asks, looking down at your tired eyes.

You’ve only been home for two days.

Home.

Jake’s home that he helped make yours. Together. You nod, moving under his awaiting arm, “I need to ask you something”. Your voice is soft as he nods, kissing the top of your head. “Anything you want” he whispers, running a soothing hand through the strands of tangled hair. “We tell everyone we don’t know who her father is okay?” you ask, looking up at him through your lashes.

Jake’s heart stops. The two of you knew exactly who her father was and chose to keep it between the two of you. “If anyone asks, we don’t know, '' he nods, watching your face closely. “I-I love her and I don’t want anything to happen to her, the world does not need to know she belongs to Chicken'' he chuckles softly at the nickname you've picked up for the man in question.

“What if I say she’s mine?” he whispers, making your heart stop. “I’ve been here the whole time, I mean we can certainly make it work” he cups your cheeks. “Are you sure you would want that? This?” you ask sitting up. You knew Jake and his reputation.

“Jake, you don’t do long-term” you whisper, his heart clenching one word at a time. “I don’t but I want long term with you. It's not too late for us Jokes'' you nod slowly.

“I want you and Evelyn beside me in this life, you two are the best parts of me” he admits. “Okay” you whisper, smiling. “You are her father, it’s the three of us” he nods, pulling you in to connect his lips to your own, kissing you as if the world was crumbling.

“I promised, remember?” you nod with a chuckle, “you did”.

Jake was fully intent on keeping that promise.

present day.

The waves crashed against the sand as your breaths followed the crash. Taking a deep breath as one made its way in, exhaling at the crash. “It’s gonna be okay” Jake whispers beside you, kissing your temple. “I promised him and I can’t take that back” you mumble, looking over at Jake. He nods, looking at you with a smile. “She’s our little girl okay?” nodding, you sigh.

The sound of gravel pulls you from the bubble you tried to hide in, looking back at the blue Bronco. “I’ll go” he mumbles, moving from your side.

With a shake of your head, you reach out taking his hand to stop him. “Please don’t, if this goes south, I want you here for her” he nods slowly, lacing your fingers together.

“Hi guys” Rooster makes himself known then, looking at the two of you with a shy smile. You smile, looking back at him behind your own aviators. “Hi Chicken” he sighs, Jake stands with a proud smile.

“Evelyn! C’mere sweetheart” you yell to the toddler, she sat making a sand castle a few feet ahead. “Comin Momma” she yells back, standing and running towards the three of you. You and Bradley crouch down to meet her at eye-level.

“I have someone I want you to meet” she wraps an arm around your neck as she buries her head in your shoulder at the sight of Rooster. Pulling her into your chest, you hold her closer, sending rooster a sheepish smile.

He nods, watching the scene unfold. “Evelyn” you whisper as she pulls her head from your shoulder, looking at the man who made her, she didn’t know it yet.

“This is Bradley,” he smiles, waving at her gently. “He’s your dad sweetheart” you whisper, rubbing her sides soothingly. She looks back at you, then back at Bradley and lastly, she looks up at Jake. He stands beside the three of you.

The four year old was smart she looked between the three of you then between Jake and Bradley. “Then he’s not my dad” she points to Jake as he crouches down to be eye level. “Of course I am sweetheart, you have two” he smiles at her, as she nods slowly. “Bradley and I are both your dad okay?” she nods, looking at the other man beside her.

Bradley smiles at her, waving again. She walks over to him, looking him over. “I’m Evelyn” she mumbles, looking up at him through her lashes.

He smiles, “hi Evelyn, I’m Bradley” he whispers, “but you can call me Rooster” she thinks, nodding slowly. “Chicken!” He closes his eyes behind his aviators as Jake tries to hide his laugh.

“Rooster, do you wanna go make a sand castle?” she asks, looking at him as he nods slowly, standing to take her awaiting hand. “Thank you” he mouths to you and Jake as he follows her down the beach to her station of building a sand castle.

You watch as he sits down beside her, helping her build the sand castle she was building moments before. “Do you fly planes like my dad?” she asks as they pile sand into the bucket. “I do,” he nods, looking over at her. She nods, looking at him. “Why do they call you chicken?” she asks, he chuckles at her bluntness.

“Your mom and dad gave me that nickname a little while ago” she nods slowly, watching his face. He takes the aviators off his eyes, hooking them to the white tank top he wore under the Hawaiian shirt.

She looks him over, taking in the features that were so close to her own then looks away. “There's a picture of you in our house” she mumbles, continuing to dump sand into little blue bucket. “Oh?” he asks, as she nods, “you, my mom and dad”. He knows what photo hung there it was from after the Uranium mission, the three of you.

“I think it’s going well” Jake mumbles, wrapping an arm around your shoulders, you sigh. “I hope it is, looks like she is giving him the third degree” you can see the discomfort on Bradley's face as they continue to talk. “Eh, gets it from her momma” he says as you slap his chest, “ow” he chuckles.

Evelyn moves to sit between Bradleys legs as he laughs, helping her dump the bucket. “Okay, now what do you want to use to decorate?” he asks her as she taps her chin in concentration. “Shells!” she yells, standing as he stands after her. He takes her awaiting hand and walks to the edge of the sand. “I hope she still loves me” Jake mumbles, whipping your head around, looking at him with furrowed brows.

“She’s gonna still love you as much as she has before, I promise you” he nods, kissing your temple. He hoped that you were right and that she would still look at him as he held the world and stars.

Rooster made his way beside the two of you, sitting down on the sand to the left of you. “She is just like you” he mumbles, looking over at you. Chuckling, Jake nods, “yes she is''.

You shake your head, looking between the two of them, “she gets a lot of qualities from you as well Rooster. Don’t give me all the credit” he nods slowly, looking at you with a smile. “I have to give you most of the credit, you’ve raised her to be the wonderful girl she is” you smile, bumping his shoulder gently. “You too Hangman” He mumbles, looking back out at the young girl who ran through the waves, looking back at the three of you with a bright smile.

Her smile is almost as wide as the sun. “Daddy!” Evelyn squeals from the shoreline, Jake kisses the top of your head, standing from the sand. “Where are you goin?” you ask, he smiles as he nods toward the four year old, “i’ve been summoned” he laughs at the shake of your head. “I’m comin Eve!” he puts the aviators back over his eyes as he jogs down to the shoreline. “It’s weird, seeing such a different side of him” Bradley says as you smile.

“This is Jake Seresin'' turning your gaze from the sight in front of you over to Bradley, “this is not Hangman” he nods as you continue.

“He may be a cocky aviator in the skies and that's fine, his ego is huge but here” your smile grows as Jake holds evelyn on his shoulders, “He’s just dad”.

The sun setting pulls the three of you back to the parking lot, Bradley crouches down to Evelyn’s level. “Bye Roo” she whispers, wrapping her small arms around his neck as she yawns. “Bye Eve” he whispers back, rubbing her back. “Make sure you are good okay?” he asks as she shrugs, looking up at him. “I make no promise” she grins at the growing smile on his lips. “I’ll see you later okay?” he asks as she nods, looking between you and Jake.

“Of course” Jake nods, picking her up to set her on his hip, she nuzzles her nose into his neck. “See you tomorrow Rooster” he nods in goodbye and makes his way past him and to the truck a few feet away. “Thank you,” Rooster says, looking at you with a smile. You smile up at him nodding, “I think she enjoyed your company” he nods with a chuckle. “It’s nice to see you again, it's like Top Gun all over again” he winks, nudging you gently.

“In the best parts of Top Gun” you defend, following him to his Bronco. He nods, pulling you into a hug with a chuckle, “I know and listen, motherhood fits you so well” he whispers, giving you an extra squeeze. “Bye Bradley, see you tomorrow” he nods, watching as you walk back to Jake and Evelyn.

The alarm beside the two of you rang, blared into the emptiness of the bedroom. Reaching over, you slam a hand down to shut off the screeching.

In seconds another much more muscular arm does the same beside you. Rolling over, you nuzzle into his back, arms wrapping around his waist.

Jake’s hand reaches down, taking hold of the hand you had on his boxers. “One of us has to take Eve to school” he grumbles, voice full of sleep. “When do you have to be on base?” you ask, kissing his shoulder blade. “0600” he mumbles, looking at the red numbers on the bedside table beside him.

“I’ll take her” you mumble as you roll away from his body, sitting up. He reaches out running his fingers along your back soothingly. The cold of his hands on your back makes you shiver. “Sorry” he chuckles, his eyes still full of sleep.

“I’ll pick her up” he mumbles as you nod. “Okay handsome” you lean back, kissing his chest as you stand. Stripping the shirt and panties you wore to bed, his snores were soft but you knew he had fallen back to sleep.

You toss the shirt at him with a smirk as he jumps, sitting up. “I’m up” he sighs. Jake Seresin never thought this would be his life, the love of his life waking up beside him and the daughter you two shared slept down the hall. “Love you” your soft whisper doesn't register with him at first.

It makes him smile in his daze, “love you more” he mumbles back.

The door is peaking open as the bathroom door closes. “Daddy?” her voice is hoarse as it comes out in almost a whimper. “Hey baby girl” he’s sitting up immediately at the sound of her voice, he notices it then. She’s holding the stuffed shark that Bob got her for her birthday tight to her chest as she sniffles.

He invites her onto the bed as she climbs beside him, holding onto his arms as she goes. “C’mere” he pulls her into his chest, cradling her head as he did the day she was born. “What’s goin on?” he asks, looking down at her. She sniffles into his chest, nuzzling deeper to hide her face from him. “Honey” he whispers, running his fingers through her hair, he can feel the small tears falling onto his pec.

“I-I had a bad dream..” she finally whispers, voice cracking softly. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks as she shakes her head, moving deeper into his arms. He smiled slightly, pulling her closer to his chest. “Eve?” he whispers, looking down at her. She nods in response as he kisses the top of her head, “no matter what, I won’t let anything ever happen to you okay?” he whispers as she nods slowly.

“You are my girl you know?” she looks up at him with tear stained cheeks. “More than momma?” she asks as he grins, holding a finger to his lips, “just don't tell her” she smiles.

He climbes out of bed and holds a hand out to help her down, “let’s get you ready for school okay?” he asks as she nods, walking towards the door. “I love you daddy” she stops at the door, looking at him. He feels his heart clench as he smiles, “I love you too sweet girl” Jake says, following her down the hallway to her room.

“Good Morning” you smirk, pulling the glasses off your face, looking around the room of Aviators. “I have some good news” setting the sunglasses down on the podium, you move to stand in front of it.

The group sat with bated breath, watching your every move. “As you all know, the naval ball is approaching and I got word from Admiral Simpson, the dagger squad is all to be honored” you grin at the smiles breaking out on their faces. “Now, of course that's a big deal but I have more news on top of that” the group moved to the edge of their seats, watching your every move.

“You are all staying here in North Island, the dagger squad will remain a strike-team for the Navy '' the room breaks out in cheers as Jake looks at you with a bright smile, smiling back at him, you wink.

“You are all going to continue on with dog-fight maneuvers today, show some of these recruits how it's done” you smile, “dismissed”. The group all files out slowly, Jake is the last remaining in the room as he makes his way to you. “I get to stay?” he whispers, looking down at you with wide eyes.

Reaching out for his hand, you nod. “You do,” you whisper as his smile grows. “We can be a family” he whispers more to himself in pure disbelief. Reaching forward, you pull him into your arms. “We are a family, we can just be together now” he nods, nuzzling his nose into your neck to hide the tears in his waterline. “I am so proud of you” you whisper, running your fingers through the hairs on the nape of his neck.

“I asked if I could be the one to present you with your accommodation” he grins against your skin, “so of course I am”. He stands to his full height, looking down at you with a smile. He reaches out, cupping your cheeks with a wider grin.

“God, I love you” he whispers as you grin, kissing his palm, “i love you more cowboy, now go” you nod towards the door.

“I need you to go show these recruits how it's done” he nods, saluting as he walks out the door.

Standing at the mirror, Jake attempts to tie his tie for the fifteenth time. He was more nervous for this pinning than when he got his academy ring. “You need help, sailor?” you ask from the doorway as he looks over with a smile.

There you stood in the dress he helped you pick out a few weeks ago, still hugging you in all the perfect places. He nods, turning to face you as you tie the tie slowly.

He smiles, looking over the small details of your makeup and jewelry. The small “J” pendant looked perfect sitting on your neckline. “There” you whisper, patting his chest with a smile, looking up at him. He kisses your forehead gently, wrapping his arms around your waist. “I’m nervous,” he admits as you chuckle softly, looking up at him. “You deserve this, all of you do” he nods, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Woah!” Evelyn says from the doorway, looking between the two of you. Smiling, you look down at your daughter who is grinning as she makes her way to the two of you.

“Momma, you look so pretty! You look nice too, daddy!" she looks up at the two of you with a smile. Jake reaches down, picking her up to place her on his hip as she grins, looking at the three of you in the mirror.

Jake’s heart stops for a split second, his family staring back at him.

“Give me a kiss so momma can take you to Aunt Pens” he grins as the girl kisses his forehead, he leans up to place a kiss on hers. “Be good, okay?” he asks as she nods, hugging his neck. “You be good. Be nice to Rooster” she mumbles as he laughs, nodding, “of course, for you I will."

The rain poured in North Island, something you were not completely used to. Evelyn sat quietly in the back seat as the world was lit with multiple colors of storefront signs and red lights. “Momma, I dropped my toy” Evelyn mumbles as you come to a stop, reaching back and grabbing the toy from the floor of the truck, holding it out to her to take. Jake told you to take the truck after you dropped him off with Coyote for them to carpool.

The world stopped as the light turned green. You had no time to stop as the truck came barreling towards the two of you. “Evelyn!” you yell as you attempt to reach back into the back seat as the oncoming truck came and hit the driver side of the truck.

Within seconds, the world was dark.

Jake stood beside Coyote, looking between everyone and their spouses, sipping the beer in hand. He looked down at the watch on his wrist. He knew it didn’t take long to get to Penny’s from the venu.

“Where's Joker?” Bradley asks as he looks over at him, shrugging. “I have no idea, maybe she got distracted with Penny” Bradley nods slowly, looking out the window at the pouring rain. The sirens could be heard for miles, Jake and Bradley thinking nothing of it.

Reds and Blues filled your vision, looking around the truck as the world was upside down and spinning. “Ma’am can you hear me?” the paramedic’s hands were cold on your skin as you groaned. “I have a pulse!” he yells as you gently move his hand away. “No, No please help me daughter okay?” he stops, looking at you.

“Ma’am you need medical attention” shaking your head, you look up at him with pleading eyes.

“I don’t care about me! I need you to help her” you yell. The movement is shifted from you to the back of the GMC.

“Momma!” Evelyn whimpers as the paramedics help her out of the top of the truck. Closing your eyes, you sigh. “It’s okay baby! Go with them, they are gonna help you” she sobs as the additional paramedics take her to the awaiting ambulance.

“Ma’am, I’m gonna be honest-” the fireman stops at the look on your face. “Just tell me” you say, looking up at him he tried his hardest to hide the sadness on his face. “It’s gonna take us some time to get you out of here” he says as you nod.

“Can I just make a phone call?” you ask. He nods as you ramble off the phone number, a number you knew by heart. Bradley notices the vibrating first, nudging Jake’s shoulder. “Phone” he whispers as Jake nods, pulling the phone out of his pocket. He furrows his brows, he was not one to accept unknown calls but something in him told him to answer it.

“Hello?” he answers, the room full of noise but he doesn't miss the sound of an ambulance as hears you sob. “Baby listen to me” he sits up as the seat scratches along the floor. “Baby, what is it? What's going on?” he stands, the group of Aviators watching him.

“I need you and Bradley to meet Evelyn at the hospital” you say,taking a deep breath. “(Y/N) answer me what is going on?” He slaps Bradley's arm, motioning him to follow him.

The two men apologize to the group, walking out. “Just meet her there for me okay? I need you to take care of our girl” he stops at the door, taking a deep breath. “Baby, I need to know what's going on” he levels out his voice, hiding his nervousness. “There was an accident, I-I’m sorry about the truck, I don’t know what happened but what matters is that you and Bradley are with Evelyn right now” your voice cracks as the firefighter beside you nods slowly.

“I love you Jakob Seresin don’t you ever fucking forget that, you are the best part of me” your voice is soft as another voice comes on the line seconds later.

“Evelyn, the young girl will be transported to General, she should be there in about fifteen minutes” the line goes dead before Jake can reply.

The two men run into the Emergency Department like wild horses, pushing past nurses and people. “My name is Jake Seresin, I’m looking for my daughter Evelyn (Y/L-” a small voice down the hall stops him.

“Daddy! Rooster!”

Jake looks at the young girl as she runs towards the two of them as Rooster catches her first, holding her into his chest. She had a small bandage on her forehead, otherwise she seemed okay.

“She’s just got a few scrapes and she will be okay” the nurse nods, looking at him with a reassuring smile. “Do you know if her mother is here yet?” Jake asks. “I need an OR stat!” a doctor yells, running down the hall to meet the paramedics rolling in the gurney.

Jake turns his attention back to Evelyn for a brief moment until the gurney is rolling past him and the small ‘J’ pendant is shining brightly under the fluorescent lighting.

“Baby, stay with Rooster '' he whispers, kissing her head as he runs after the doctors. “(Y/N)!” pushing past the oncoming doctors and nurses, he manages to take your hand, noticing the blood that ran down onto his own palms.

“Baby listen to me” he’s whispering, holding your hand to his chest. “I love you, I love you so much and-” he lets the tears roll down his cheeks. “I need you to pull through this, for Eve, she-she needs you, I need you Jokes” he kisses your knuckles as the nurse gently moves him from the gurney.

“Sir, I need you to please step aside” she nods in understanding as he sobs looking at her with a nod.

The hospital fell silent in the hours of the morning. Jake sent Evelyn home with Rooster much to her protests of wanting to stay with him. The presence beside him pulls him from the blank stare at the now empty vending machine.

“How is she?” He looks over, noticing Phoenix sitting beside him. “I don’t know” his voice is hoarse, the first time he’s spoken in almost two hours. She nods, reaching out to give his arm a comforting squeeze. “I’m sorry” he furrows his brows, looking at her. “Why are you sorry?” he asks as she sighs. “Joker and I may have had our difference as you and I but she doesn't deserve this and neither do you” he nods slowly, running a hand over his face.

His head falls to her shoulder in a heavy sigh, “I couldn’t protect them”. She furrows her brows, looking at the top of his head as she sits back in the linoleum chair. “Evelyn is okay” she starts, noticing the shaking of his shoulders and the small wet droplets she felt on her bare shoulder.

“(Y/N) may not be” he whimpers, closing his eyes tightly. “She will be Jake” she reassures him, running a soothing hand along his back in comfort.

“Jake” Bradley’s voice is soft as he shakes his shoulder, Jake sitting up quickly. “What, what is it?” he asks, looking up at the man in front of him. He fell asleep on Phoenix's shoulder and before he knew it the sun was shining through the hospital windows.

“They’ve got an update on her, c’mon” he motions to the doctor standing behind him, walking towards her. Jake rushes beside Bradley, standing straighter. He looked disheveled, the suit still adorned his body from the night before.

“Good Morning” the doctor smiles at the two of them, “I am Dr.Cameron” she motions for the two men to follow her. Both men on either side of her follow down the hallway of fluorescent lights. “I have been taking care of (y/n) since her arrival, I performed her surgery also” she turns to the two of them, stopping at the door.

“So, is she gonna be okay?” Bradley asks, watching as Jake makes his way to the small window that shows the inside of the room. He can barley makes out your silhouette.

He turns to face her, his eyes full of hope. “She’s expected to make a full recovery, she has suffered some sustainable injuries but she will be okay” she smiles at the smile breaking out on Jake’s face, nodding towards the door. “You can go in” she encourages as she shakes Bradley’s hand and walks away.

Jake pushes the door open quickly, you turn slowly at the opening of the door, smiling. “(Y/N)” he sighs, rushing beside you. “Jake” you reach a hand out to him, his hand sliding into your awaiting one. He sits beside you on the bed, resting a hand on your knee. “You scared the shit out of me” he pants, looking you over. Scrapes across your face, bandages over the ones that looked too deep.

“I’m sorry, I-I’m sorry about the truck” he shakes his head, “I do not give a fuck about that truck, it protected you and Eve”. Reaching out, he runs his thumb over the bandage on your eyebrow. Bradley makes his way into the room, smiling sheepishly.

“Rooster” he smiles from the entryway, waving slightly. “Came to check on you, I’m gonna go back to Eve but I had to see for myself” he says, watching the smile on your face.

“Take care of her for me?” you ask, voice soft. He nods, “of course” he smiles at the two of you, turning to the door and shutting it behind him. “Hey” Jake pulls your focus back to him, looking up at him. He reaches out, cupping your cheek, "I thought I lost you tonight” his voice is soft as tears make their way to his lash line. "I may have never gotten to tell you all the things I've been meaning to" he smiles sadly, “You walked into my life all those years ago and changed my life, I have walked through this world living on the edge” the two of you chuckled slightly.

“But then four years ago, we sat in a hospital room very similar to this one and my world changed forever. It was at that moment I knew I wanted to better myself for the two of you” smiling, you kiss his palm. He smiles, stroking your cheek with the pad of his thumb, “the two of you are the best parts of me, you changed my life and made me a better man, the man I want to be for you and Evelyn” he smiles, catching the tear falling onto your cheeks.

“So no, (Y/N), you are the best part of me” looking over his face, it was full of seriousness as you leaned up to pull him closer. “Get over here” you grin, pulling his lips to your own. Jake Seresin lived his life vicariously, he lived his life as he knew his two girls needed him.

He pulls away from your lips, nudging your nose gently. “I love you” he whispers a grin breaking out on his face. You smile, looking up at him through your lashes, “I love you more than words could ever describe”.

The two of you fit like puzzle pieces, filling each missing part of the other.

The school yard was full of kids, Evelyn laughs from her spot on the playground. School was on its way out, she was waiting to be picked up. She looks up at the sky as two planes fly overhead, she knew exactly was flying those planes.

“There’s my mommy and daddy!” she points. True to her word, Jake grins from the plane beside you, “Think she saw it?” he asks. You turn to look at him with a grin, “I know she did” he chuckles with a shake of his head.

“Evelyn!” she looks back, smiling. Rooster stood beside the Bronco, hands on his hips. “Dad!” she runs down the playground steps, “wait, I thought your dad just flew a plane?” a kid asks. She looks back at the kid, smiling. “I have two dads,” she laughs, running to Rooster. He scoops her up into his arms, “there’s my girl” he grins.

“Let’s get you to base huh?” he asks, putting the aviators on her face. He straps her into the car seat into the Bronco, grinning as he climbs into the driver seat.

“Can we listen to grandpa's song?” she asks, he nods from the front seat with a grin. “Of course we can!” he turns the radio up, “Great balls of Fire” plays through the speakers.

The two of them sang loudly down the road towards the base.

Cyclone smiles from his office at the sound of Evelyn's giggles down the hall. “Hi Uncle Cy!” she says in the doorway, waving as Bradley sends him an apologetic smile. He smiles, waving to the little girl. “Hi sweetheart” she waves and runs off back towards the hall.

She knew exactly where to go, running these halls for almost two years. Pushing out the door, she makes it just as you and Jake land on the tarmac.

The canopy opens and the two of you climb out, Jake makes his way to you and wraps his arms around your waist. “You still got it, Jokes” rolling your eyes, you wrap your arms around his neck, “shut up”.

Jake grins over your shoulder, causing you to follow his sight. Bradley held Evelyn's hand as they walk along the rows of planes, “so that’s aunt phoenix’s plane” he points out the planes as he goes.

“And there is Mommy's plane” he smirks as you pull the helmet off your head. “Momma!” she runs over as you crouch down with open arms. “Hi sweetheart” you grin, hugging her tightly. “Thanks Bradshaw, leave me out” Jake says, shaking his head as he ruffles the little girl's hair. She shakes her head, standing back to move to look up at Jake. “Daddy, that’s mean be nice to dad” he chuckles, picking her up onto his shoulders.

“Got it” he nods, handing her his helmet. She plops it on her head as they walk inside. Standing to your feet, you smile.

This was your family, the three of them. The best parts of you lived on in the little girl on Jake’s shoulders, as well as in Jake. Bradley who was someone you least expected to be part of your family.

“C’mon Admiral Seresin, we got stuff to do” Jake yells as you chuckle, jogging to catch up with them.

"We got a little girl who needs to get an Ice cream sundae from the cafeteria” he says as she giggles, holding onto his head.

“I second that,” Bradley grins, following the two of them.

a/n: i hope i did this justice, if I love a fic I normally don't write prt 2's but I knew I had to write about dad!jake/dad!bradley. If you enjoyed this, likes,comments and reblogs are appreciated.

if you enjoyed this fic, you can find my other fics in my library.

library.

#glen powell #miles teller #jake seresin fic #jake seresin x reader #jake seresin x you #jake seresin angst #jake seresin fluff #jake seresin fanfiction #hangman #jake hangman seresin #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw fluff #dad!jake seresin #dad!bradley bradshaw

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fandomxpreferences · 1 year

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I Missed You

Pairing; Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x female!reader

TW: none really, mention of pregnancy

Summary: Rooster is finally home and his two girls can't wait to see him. (Based on this request)

Word Count:1k

A/N: I’ll probably make a little mini series based on this because I love dad!brad so much. ALSO, respectfully I simply refuse to name Bradleys daughter carol/Caroline. I think he would stick wholeheartedly to his family weird little bird legacy and I love it

You're standing in the kitchen with your three-year-old daughter when your phone dings. Rooster has been away on a detachment for three months now and he's supposed to be getting back any minute. You wipe your hands on a towel and look at the screen with a bright smile. You drop down in front of your little girl and brush a stray hair away from her face.

"Guess who's home, Wren." You smile and her eyes light up. "Daddy!" She yells before taking off toward the front door. You stand back up and follow after her, equally excited to see your husband.

Rooster’s stood at your front door in his military fatigues and you watch your daughter launch into his embrace as he drops all his equipment on the ground. His arms wrap around her small frame and you feel your throat tighten. No matter how many homecomings you go through, you'll always get emotional. It's been hard ever since she was born. You knew the life you signed up for, but your daughter didn't get a say.

Rooster does his best though, calling when he can and sending gifts home from wherever he's stationed in the world. You stand back and let them have their moment with a hand placed over your heart. "Hey, Birdie. I missed you baby." You smile at the nickname that was given to Wren.

When she was born, Rooster had affectionately called her "little bird" and it just stuck. Over the years it slowly adapted into the shortened moniker. She's well known within the group and referred to by her "call sign" more than her regular name. You hear her small voice mumble into his neck and if possible, your heart grows even more. "I missed you too, daddy."

They stay like that for another minute before he sets her down and opens his arms up with an expectant look. You grin like a madman as you follow in your daughter's footsteps, quickly jumping up and wrapping your body around Roosters.

You feel him squeeze you in his broad arms and he nuzzles into your neck while he spins you around. "I missed you so fucking much." You place a chaste kiss on the side of his neck before pulling back and slowly capturing his mouth with yours. "I missed you more."

He shakes his head with a smile and gives you another quick kiss. "How's my chick been?" He asks and you roll your eyes playfully at the pet name. When you and Rooster first started dating, his team had called you chicken little to mess with him. It started as a joke but over time you became "little chick" and now it's usually just "chick".

"I've been good, just taking care of your little clone." You answer before hopping down, careful not to land on your daughter who is clinging to your husband's legs. He nods his head and looks down at his little girl.

She really is a carbon copy of him. She's got the same sandy curls and hazel eyes as him and from the moment she developed a personality she acted just like her daddy.

She's also a people person and loves playing the piano for a crowd. Those Bradshaw genes run deep and they've been best friends since the moment he laid eyes on her.

"Why don't we head inside? I'm just finishing up lunch." You suggest and Rooster agrees while picking up Wren. He carries her inside and the three of you spend the afternoon eating and laughing before it's time to get the little one ready for bed.

Rooster always handles bedtime when he's home and Wren loves every second. He always lets her stay in the bath a little longer and picks an extra book to read.

Once he tucks her into bed and kisses her goodnight, he makes his way into your shared bedroom. You're sitting on the bed in your pajamas when he walks in and you smile up at him.

He gets himself ready and climbs in next to you wearing nothing but boxers and your eyebrow quirks. "What are you up to Lieutenant?" You tease but your husband's face is serious. You snuggle into him and he pulls you into his strong chest.

"Are you okay?" You ask with concern laced in your voice and he nods. It's silent for a few minutes and he finally speaks. "I think we should have another one."

You pull back to look at him with a frown, trying to get a read on his expression. "Another what?" You ask and he leans forward to kiss your forehead. "Another little bird." Your eyebrows shoot up at the confession and you feel your lips quirk.

"You want another baby?" You clarify and he nods his head. "Yeah. I've been thinking about it and I want her to have a sibling. Her friends are always moving away, she needs someone consistent."

You ponder for a second and break into a wide smile. "Okay." You see your husband smirk and he observes your face for any sign of humor. "Okay?" He asks and you run your fingers along his defined jaw.

"Mmhm. I've wanted another one for a while, I just hadn't found the right time to bring it up." You whisper and Rooster's face looks like it might split in two. "We're going to have to think of more bird names." He remarks and you roll your eyes.

"You and your damn birds. I just told you I want you to get me pregnant and that's what you're thinking about?" You quip and his eyes darken before raking over your body. "Not anymore." He growls and you squeal as he flips you over so he's on top of you. What an interesting turn of events.

Taglist:

@drakelover78

@manyfandomsfanvergent

@ssprayberrythings

@disturbedbeautywrites

@desert-fern

@one-sweet-gubler

Click here to be added!

#bradley bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw imagine #Bradley bradshaw fluff #rooster top gun #Bradley Bradshaw topgun #rooster x reader #rooster imagine #rooster fluff #dad!bradley bradshaw #top gun fluff

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thedarkworldofhananerea · 5 days

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I'm new to this whole tumblr thing, but I have some ideas about some shots on Bradley Bradshaw or Jake Seresin, help me, we know we deserve it

#bradley bradshaw angst #mitchell!reader #bradley 'rooster' bradshaw x reader #maverick x daughter!reader #bradley bradshaw x mitchell!reader #jake hangman seresin #bob floyd x female reader #bradley bradshaw smut #top gun maverick #dad!bradley bradshaw #top gun 1986

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see-the-divine · 4 months

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ATTENTION ROOSTER NATION!!!!!! okay so im looking for this fic about rooster where yn's call sign is rebel and mav's daughter and they were like super close and rooster like ghosted her after mac pulled his paper. flash forward to now they meet again and slowly reconcile and shes super close w coyote. anyway someone please help bc i cant find it

#bradley bradshaw angst #bradley bradshaw x reader #dad!bradley bradshaw #fratboy!bradley bradshaw #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #bradley bradshaw x female reader #bradley bradshaw x you #bradley bradshaw fic #bradley bradshaw smut #bradley bradshaw fluff

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prongsflower · 1 year

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this is a video of a baby seeing her father without his beard for the first time

watch the video and tell me this isn’t bradley bradshaw’s baby seeing him without his mustache for the first time!!!

someone pls write something based on this 😭😭

video credit: @/karina_valim on tiktok

#bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw #dad!bradley bradshaw #jake seresin x reader #dad!jake seresin #jake seresin #bob floyd #dilf jake seresin #dilf!bradley bradshaw

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jackiequick · 1 year

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Life or Death Experience [Part 2]

Read Life or Death Experience [Part1 Here]

Top Gun Maverick Au Series

Pairings: Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x Jennifer ‘JenPen’ Mitchell, Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin x Amber ‘Skysolo’ Kazansky

Supporting Characters: Maverick, The Daggers Squad, Cyclone, Bates, Hondo and etc

~~~~

The snow is slowly getting ready to pick up speed as some bit fell from the sky onto the ground level in the air, as she flew. JenPen wasn’t sure if she was gonna be fired or not after that stunt she pulled back there, but after feeling like she just died twice hearing Dagger 1 and 2 were down, she felt like the gearshift to race off and find them. The girl refused to believe they were goners.

The girl was like a ball of dust behind and in between the clouds, speeding off a fewest touchdown with other aircrafts until she noticed Maverick and Rooster from far away and two misleading shot heading towards them. “Not today..” She muttered taking down a pilot’s leading missiles as Rooster quickly started shooting down another pilot. He didn’t notice his girlfriend was the one in the cockpit, until he whipped his head to notice her plane gasping, “Jen?!” Before either one of them to respond to their radio, the couple was hit separately by the enemy aircrafts…

From where Maverick was standing and dodging a hit, he saw it all. The older man was taken back, in his eyes both of his children were down for the count and exposing themselves to the snowy woods. His whole world stopped pacing in itself as he paused fearing he lose them forever due to his picks for the mission, then he saw it, two brightly colored parachutes flying in the air and his feet ran quicker than his brain could process it.

~~~~

Rooster quickly woke up in a pile of snow and groaned sitting up, wiping away the snowflakes that fallen onto his face. It was an addicting adrenaline run that came over him as he noticed a few feet away from him stood JenPen, then he remembered that just happened and grumbled loudly. JenPen sat on her knees pounding the snowy ground, sucking her teeth and groaned as relief and realization hit her.

She noticed Bradley starting to wipe away snow from his suit glaring her. JenPen raise an eyebrow with such attitude and yelled, “What? You mad at me or something?!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Rooster yelled with a strong look.

“Is that how you greet the woman who saved your ass?!”

“You throw my ass in the snow!”

“I did not!”

“What are you doing here?!”

“Saving your ass from there ass!”

“I was fine, I didn’t need you to save me!”

JenPen stood up at this point with her hands on her hips and joked, “Aww, Princess Bradshaw doesn’t need saving? I’ll just go then!”

“With what form of transportation? You’re feet?!” Said Rooster as he rolled his eyes with his hands on his own hips.

“I—? That’s not the point! I deserve at least a ‘thank you’ or—”

“Is that Maverick?”

“Huh?”

The couple turned their heads slowly to see what looks to be a Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell running at lighting speed the best he could in the high piles of snow that surrounded them. The pair looked at each other and gulp in fear knowing something was coming with the face the older man had. Once he arrived Maverick yelled, “You alright?”

“Yeah I’m good! You alright?” JenPen and Rooster asked with their arms in reach expecting a smile but instead they were pushed to the ground.

“Fucking hell!” Bradley yelled in surprise, looking at Maverick like he was insane, “What the hell?”

“Bradley stop cursing!” JenPen shouted to him then, turned to look at her father surprised by his action, “What was that for?!”

“What are you guys doing here?!’ Maverick shouted in relief and annoyance at their actions.

“What am i doing here?” Bradley shouted back standing up and helping JenPen onto her feet.

Maverick pinched the bridge of his nose and ground, “You think I took down that missile so you could be down here with me? You should be back on the carrier right now!” He turned to his daughter next, “And you! You are a Dagger Spare, you should be back there waiting for him and the others, not here. Especially in your condition.”

Rooster questioned Maverick’s last words ‘condition’ and sucked in his teeth in frustration pressing, “First off, i saved you life, Mav! We both did!”

“I saved your lives! That’s the whole point! What the hell were you even thinking?” Maverick questions.

“You told me not to think!”

“Well i…” Pete was left without words knowing that’s what exactly what he said and exhale, “It’s good to see both of you.”

“Good to see you too.”

Jen looked around with a hand on her chest exhaling, “So were sticking together right? So what’s the plan?”

“First off, you’re just as insane as i am for coming here.” Maverick exclaimed and half smiled, “In all likelihood, search and rescue won’t be up here in a few hours. We got two option, stay here and hide, or get back up in the air.”

“How would we even do the second one, exactly? We got no functioning aircrafts with us.” Bradley said, looking around keeping an eye on his girl and uncle Mav for any injures.

~~~~

Pete gave them a knowing look to indicate for them to follow him to the other side of the forest. He noticed how close they’ve grown holding hand and wished he saw more of it over the last two weeks before the mission. Bradley sighed marching towards the direction of the mountains grumbling. JenPen followed both her boys, marching along the forest questioning if they might not even get a chance to talk.

She stopped, “Guys wait! We not make it out alive and if I’m gonna fly with you guys, i need to know we’re all on the same page…please?”

Maverick looked at Rooster, as they shared a look then look at Jen knowing she was right. Bradley sighed, “Why did you pick me and not Hangman or Coyote? After everything that’s going all between all of us, I figured you wouldn’t want to!”

Pete winced, “I’d prefer to have you by my side any day, regardless of what happened. I was just scared okay…”

“Scared of what? Screwing up or getting drafted on a dangerous mission? Pulling my papers broke us apart! All of us!”

Jen looked down at the last part and spoke, “The night we found that the paperwork was pulled broke us, dad! Bradley left us…we were all heartbroken, you even wanted to pulled mine…why?”

~~~~

“Because i was scared of you guys getting hurt or worse, not making it out alive!” Pete sadly admitted, “I’ve lost so many people in my life because of the Navy…i lost my parents, best friend and even wingmen. I wanted to save both of you from that heart ache of losing each other!..you two are my kids and i love both of you. You were the last people in my life i refused to lose, but i lost you guys anyway due to my actions…”

Bradley frowned but stayed quiet, looking away for a moment before glanced back at them. Tears started to form. “I left our family behind because i thought i wasn’t good enough for the Navy, Mav! I made Jen believe that it was her fault and that she didn’t tell me because she didn’t want to break my heart…i broke the heart of the one girl, i knew i want would have my back! I ran away from you…” He said, shaking his head at the mere thought of that night, “I hated it!”

��Because i didn’t know either before i was given that letter from you, Roo..i told you and i screamed at dad that day…I made Bradley believe he wasn’t trustworthy! I knew i wasn’t gonna make it into the Navy without your support and i threw my enlistment papers in the trash..so we were sent back a few years. I was heartbroken, i cried for days because of that night…” Jen said as she admitted to how she felt, “Because dad didn’t want to see us in the Navy or something!”

Maverick stayed quietly hearing both of them. He knew it must’ve hurt and he remembers how crazy that month went. Pete decided to tell them the truth, “You’re both right. I was scared, but both of you are born to be in the air! Bradley, you don’t trust yourself nor your aircraft and it tends to hold you back. Jennifer, you get spooked too quickly and end up doing something hugely impulsive that can backfire. I could see it..”

“You didn’t..I—” Bradley spoke but Pete stopped him with a look.

Pete contained a sigh and continued, “The day you told that me wanted to join the Navy, i was trilled, but like i said i was scared. I remember, i made a promise to Carole that i wouldn’t let you guys fly just yet, especially after what happened to Goose. She was scared both of her babies would goners before they got time to live their lives! And so i was..i wanted both of you to live longer than Goose and any other wingmen in the past who died young, in doing so, i messed up…I’m sorry for what we did, we were trying to protect you.”

“You made a promise to my mom that we live our lives before we fly? You wanted me to fly?”

“Yes i did! From the moment you were born, a part of me always knew you would be flying up there and having a good time. I never wanted for anything of this to happen and I’m sorry I stood in your way. I just want to..”

JenPen stayed quiet wiping tears as she listening to them with a hand on her chest. It took her a moment but she finished her dad’s words, “..protect us.”

~~~~

They were marching on a little to keep warmth and not stay in one place. Maverick let out a sad smile taking both Bradley and Jennifer. The pair grabbed Pete’s hand and gripping onto them for dear life, realizing how much they missing out on contacting one another.

Pete sighed, “You two are my pride and joy, and i want to see you guys succeed! There are still things you need to work on and clear out, before you can reach the level of greatest I know you have within you. You’re skills and instincts are what got you guys here so far.”

Bradley smiled wiping a tear from his eye and chuckled, “Damn right i did! I took down a missile to save your ass.”

Jen rolled her eyes and smiled, “If were talking truths and revealing stuff...i got something to say.”

“What is it?”

“I’m pregnant.”

JenPen grinned, tapping her gloved hand onto her very flat belly. The girl shrugged playing it off cool but couldn’t stop the giggles that escaped her lips. Maverick’s eyes popped up like a Jack-In-The-Box laughing with joy already knowing the important news, it’s why he pushed his daughter more lightly onto the snowy ground in the pits of his anger than Rooster. Speaking of Rooster, the man was completely speechless at the news of him being a father and never imagined it to happen so fast.

Jennifer raise an eyebrow giggling said in a jokingly manner, “Uh, earth to chicken? You alright?”

“You’re pregnant?!” Bradley exclaimed as a huge smile filled his entire body.

“Y-yeah! You happy?”

“Happy?!”

Before JenPen had a moment to response, Rooster lifted his gorgeous gal into his arms and spinning them around in gleeful smiles. His emotions couldn’t handle the craziness of the situation first finally he told the reason why his papers were pulled and now he’s told about going to be a daddy. The man was trilled. Maverick laughed, throwing his head back at Rooster’s reaction and JenPen’s giggles.

Once Jen was back on her feet and still in his boyfriends arms, the girl said, “I’ll take that as long yes?”

“Oh my god, yes!” Rooster replies grinning and then turned to Mav, “Did you know?”

Pete nodded with a smile and replied, “I was told earlier today, i almost let it slip after i found. Now let’s go before we’re dead!”

~~~

The trio walked, more like ran up a mountain of snow, eventually ducking behind a snow bank as they peered through the smoke and debris as the cold played on their faces while looking for an escape plan, hopefully.

“There!” Maverick said, pulling out a set of binoculars that he carried with him. Bradley and Jen peered over to see what he was looking up, their eyes widen at the realization.

“The hell-are you crazy?” Jen asked, “Oh wait, don’t answer that.”

“You’re not serious.” Bradley asked, “An F-14..?”

“I shot down 3 MiGs in one of those.” Maverick responded as if it was nothing and his daughter sighed wondering how this can work.

“Uh hello?! We don’t even know if that bag of ass can fly!” Rooster argued, making a very valid point.

“Let’s find out.”

And Maverick was off racing towards the frontlines down the mountain. Jen gasp, “Dad no!” as Bradley yelled, “Mav?! I...okay.” The two ran off him bumping into each other until they all reached the planes. Maverick gave them instructions to get in the F-14 as he got into the other one.

As Bradley entered the backseat he joked, “This thing is so old!”

“So is dad!” Jen joked pack fixing her helmet in the front seat.

Maverick rolled his eyes and grumbled, “I heard that!”

The two laughed, getting ready to fly and follow Maverick’s lead. JenPen grinned, “Never thought we get fly together huh, honey?”

Rooster thought about it for a moment and grinned, “I would’ve liked it in better circumstances sweetheart. Wait-have you ever flown one of theses before?!”

“Do you want the answer to that right now?”

“We’re gonna die.”

“With that negativity we just might!”

“Again, you almost killed me back there!”

“I was saving your ass, dummy!”

“I was saving all our asses, women!”

Maverick cut them off, “Hey! As much as I love you two together, it’s not the right time to argue, understand?”

They both mumbled, “Yes.” like two children being caught in the act. Soon enough they were off flying behind Maverick, wondering how they were gonna get this in the air but they were answered rather quickly.

“Why are the wings coming out dad?” JenPen asked glanced at the jet in front of her, following her father’s lead, confused after no response from him.

“Uh, Mav? This is a taxiway, not a runway! This is a very short taxiway, Mav!” Rooster reminded, but it was no use, no response from him either. The jets started moving forward, picking up speed.

“You just hang on and follow my lead.” Maverick said calmly, guiding the kids up with him as flew up the runway. JenPen grumbled and took a breath, flying upwards while Rooster braced for impact, as the two yelled slightly. A cling was loudly heard from behind them and smiled in relief, getting a strong feeling they are gonna make it home.

~~~~~

Back on the carrier. Cyclone was humming and gripping the sides of the desk looking between the controls. Warlock sighed trying to figure out a new move as he saw The Daggers return from the mission with a sad success. Amber was pacing back and forth watching her friends return keeping an eye on controls and walked out of the room, begging the world for a response from Maverick, Rooster and JenPen. The women glares at Cyclone was a fire pierced glare, sass and cries of anger filed up her body.

Bob and Fanboy were in the hallway with Payback and Hangman discussing the actions of the mission. Coyote was in the medical ward of the carrier with Phoenix since she was being looked at the nurses and doctors for any damage to her body. The whole carrier felt silent while a high piercing sorrow filled up the airways of everyone in it, searching for any signs of pilots.

Cyclone was walking down the hallway glancing at the young Kazansky walking down with Warlock to discus matters with the Daggers, she followed. Cyclone kept going on and on about how reckless they acted and wanted answered on the Michelle family, since he figured they knew about the relationship between the group. The Daggers tried their best to explain but none of the answers was to his liking.

Amber’s temper was rising more and more knowing that this could’ve all been resolved if she was just able to sent Hangman and anyone else after them from the start. She hated the fact that Cyclone was tossing JenPen’s name around as well, calling her impulsive and reckless wanting her to be court-marshaled once she returned, if she did return.

Then the top of the glass was filled when Cyclone said, “Rooster, Maverick and JenPen desired what’s coming to them! Not once, was I informed about the couple either. Their wings will be taken away the hour they step foot onto this carrier, the three better hope the officers have a change of heart.”

“That’s it, let me at ‘em!” Amber shouted with her fists curled, chest puffing heavily, speeding towards the admiral’s face to give him a good swing in that jaw of his.

Her shouts caught all of them off guard, Cyclone’s eyes widen and Warlock let out a grunt. The Daggers got quick to their feet, yelling and shouting. Amber arm was in the perfect position to swing a good one towards’ his face when a pair of arms wrapped around her waistline, dragged her backwards. “No, let me at ‘em! Let me go!” she said shouted once again trying back the arms that tighten around her waist and the gentle hand placed on forehead.

A few hushed were heard in her ears and small circles rubbed onto her back to calm her down. She soon realized who’s arms she was placed into. Phoenix and Coyote’s arms. Hangman was standing behind them, glancing between her and Cyclone in full force, his chest was puffed out and ears were ringing.

Warlock stopped them all but before we can say a word, an operator ran from the room, a frantic expression on their face. “Sir, sir!” They said, “We’re receiving a signal from Rooster’s ESAT, but it appears to be malfunctioning, sir!”

“What?” Amber asked, now calmer and looked around the room in pure shock.

“Malfunctioning how?” Cyclone asked, while Bate questions knowing JenPen wasn’t far behind.

“Sir, Overwatch is reporting an F-14 Tomcat is airborne and on course for our position.” Explained another as they ran into the control room.

“He’s airborne.” Amber muttered.

“It can’t be..can’t it?” Bate said in awe and hopes it was true.

“Maverick.” Cyclone muttered his face a pure picture of surprise, then sighed deeply, “Get Hangman in the air and I want him to get eyes on that Tomcat, now!”

~~~~

Amber run up to the taxiway of the carrier where Hangman was setting up his cockpit and hearing the radio from the operator. He placed his helmet on again and glanced at his lady, “You alright?”

“Could be better. We will deal with that outburst later.” Amber tried reasoning with her boyfriend and sighs, standing on the latter nearby the jet.

“Everything will be fine, I promise. Also, I would’ve let you punch Cyclone it wasn’t for our position on this mission.”

“I know you would’ve. Now go kick some ass!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

And Hangman was off the carrier as The Daggers raced off in preparation for the landing soon

~~~~

The trio had to keep their helmets on while smiling and waving at bandits like idiots, flying off and around the air to return home. It was stressful and dearly annoying, JenPen got inpatient and Rooster tried fighting out the urge to telling them race off while Maverick stayed calm. The jig was up and they all knew it, as one bandit pulled up beside them.

“His wingman is moving into a weapons envelope, so listen up. When I tell you, you grab those rings above your head. That’s the ejection handle.” Maverick remained calm, trying not to show how scared he felt in that moment. He didn’t neither of the kids to fill up with fears, knowing they are strong enough to hopefully face this.

“Honey, I think we can outrun theses guys.” Rooster said in a fear and proudness laced in his voice. He was just the RIO in this moment while JenPen was the front facing pilot with nerves in her eyes but remained playing it off cool. He and Maverick talked, knowing it was a dogfight.

“Yeah. An F-14? Against 5th generation fighters?” JenPen reminded both of them with her hands on the wheel, glaring at the skies between them. Maverick glances at the side of their planes and the bandits.

“It’s not the plane. It’s the pilot.” Bradley repeated himself. “You’d go after them if we wasn’t here.”

Maverick sighed, “But you are both here...I’ll fight one of them off, you take the other one.”

So the fight was on. Maverick stayed in his lane fighting off the fighters while JenPen and Rooster fought against another set. They fired missiles and gun, focused on shooting them down. The bandits were smart but so were they, flying behind the clouds and around mountains of greenery and snow as their covers, getting the jump on them. JenPen saw sometime in the radar and shot a missile, “I’mma try something.”

“Go ahead.” Rooster said pushing the bottom switch to eject more flare with a slight smirk.

They decide to do a small similar maneuver on the bandit after seeing it do a spiral spin on them and started firing at them. One bandit was in the air searching for them, finding nothing on the radar confused when suddenly Rooster and JenPen did a inverted dive and flipped over where they were upside down facing the bandit with a grin.

“What the-?” The bandit questioned was confused for a moment and looking around for Maverick’s signal but found nothing. Rooster smirked sticking out the middle finger saying, “Smile for the birdie!” as JenPen flew them above and beyond the bandit. Rooster pushed the button and send out flares to the guy in the cockpit and the other behind them. The two laughed.

“How’s that for commentating with foreign relations?” Rooster joked as they speed off towards the higher edge of the clouds. Maverick was in the air soon a few clouds away. Everything was fine until they took a few hits as it turned into a cat and mouse game, they were out of flares on both ends, the kids panicked as Maverick felt like he re-living a fear of his all over again.

He sighed squeezing his eyes and shouted, “We gotta bail! We gotta eject!” That caught Bradley’s attention, “What?! No!”

“It has to be done! We need altitude! Pull the ejection handles the second you do.”

JenPen groaned and her grip on the wheel tighten, it felt like a nightmare and looked over her shoulder at the guys. “DAD NO! WAIT!”

“There is no other way, you have to!” Maverick recounter flying upwards, hoping they followed his lead.

She looked up in the air for reassurance whispering and Rooster prayed to whoever was listening muttering, “Talk to me, dad...” Without a second to spare they were off in the air higher and fast as JenPen shouted, “Eject!” They can both hear from the radio Maverick screaming to the top of his lungs to eject from their seats that very moment. His heart dropped his to stomach and his ears rang as he heard Bradley’s cries, “It’s not-it’s not working!”

The pounding in Maverick’s chest rises as he hears both JenPen and Rooster shouting trying to escape the jet but nothing was working. The handles refused to eject them out of the plane. He tighten his eyes shut mumbling how sorry he was as it dawned on him, he failed both of his kids that very moment...

~~~

Rooster felt his body went cold and his hands squeezing for warmth looking around in full force to survive this mission, but he knew he was a goner. He was gonna die the same way as his father. Bradshaw family gone. He can hear Jen’s heavy breathes and impulsive ways of pounding the front of the dash, he knows she was upset and mostly scared.

Bradley wished he can hold her and tell her it was gonna be okay but he can’t. His only thought was how he didn’t get to marry her before he died, or to even ask Maverick for his permission first...

BOOM! It was heard loud and clear, Jen snapped her head whipping around releasing a breath she was holding onto. An explosion that spooked her, seeing it was a bandit and a few other getting blasted into pieces. Maverick took a sharp breath believing he died at the moment and was sent off to heaven with Goose, but he wasn’t. Bradley rolled his head back gasping for air and turned to see what just happened.

A jet appeared from the black smoke and rough piercing noise. A solid F-18 in it’s full glory. Then they heard it. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is your savior speaking. Please fasten your seatbelts, return your try tables to their locked and upright positions, and prepare for landing.”

Bradley rolled his eyes in relief and broke into a small. JenPen laughed and shook her head. Maverick grinned proud of this student.

“Hey, Hangman! You look good.” Bradley said into the radio.

“I am good, Rooster. I’m very good!” Jake replied with a grin, “The missus let me go take it for a spin.”

“I can see that.”

“I’ll see you back on deck.”

Jake flew guiding them to the carrier with glee, radioing to the tower that he found them and they will need medical attention. Amber heard it from the radio calling was troops on deck to get ready. Maverick followed Jake with JenPen and Rooster behind them. They lost an engine but Jen wasn’t gonna confirm that to Bradley.

It was a rough landing but they got out safely. Maverick out of his jet first asking if they were ok as they nodded, as the trio found themselves hugging in the crowd that surrounded them. A few tears were shed that they survived, pulling away Rooster run towards Bob and Phoenix in full force.

Jake grinned shaking his hand and said, “You did good!’

“Thanks! You got yourself another kill.” Bradley respond returning the grin.

“Make that two! Sorry about the last few days.”

“It’s alright!”

For the hell of it, Phoenix couldn’t help herself and said, “You know, Mav has five. Makes him an ace.”

The two shrugged knowing they can’t beat Maverick for the life of them, pulling Phoenix into a hug. Amber found them slapping Rooster’s arms for the stunt he pulled earlier dragging JenPen along, who she found hugging Hondo.

JenPen was released from the hold and hugged Phoenix who scolded her saying, “What is wrong with you?! You almost gave us all a heart attack!”

“I’m sorry! I was impulsive.” JenPen admitted looking around at her friends, noticing Payback, Coyote, and Fanboy coming into the group. She thought it was a good time as any to tell them. She sighed, “Also I got something to say!”

Payback and Coyote looked each other confused, Bob shrugged having no idea. Jake raised an eyebrow at her, “What? Did you get promoted?”

“Not exactly in the way you think, Bagman.” Natasha remarked chuckling and winked at Amber.

Rooster smirked placing a hand on his girlfriend’s flat belly and rubbing a few small circles. Fanboy grinned and Bob clapped hugging JenPen. Coyote’s eyes darted quickly noticing the hand placement and gasped, “You’re kidding?!”

Payback smirked, “You went up there to save your baby daddy?! That’s my girl!”

Rooster laughed throwing his head back hugging The Daggers. Jake is silent the whole time breaking into a howling laughter and joked, “Papa Rooster and Mama Mitchell?! I better be the uncle!”

Everyone was laughing and cheering, noticing a few admirals and officers, trying to process all that happened. However it all came to a stop when a strong voice was heard in the crowd. “Maverick. Rooster. JenPen. To the briefing room, now!” It was Cyclone with a piercing look that meant business.

~~~

Thanks for reading this long story! Hope you like the series so far, I'll love to here your thoughts down below <3

Tags: @gaminggirlsstuff @mandylove1000 @theloveoftoms @t-nd-rfoot @rooster-84 @topgun-imagines @hangmanbrainrot @bradshawsbaby @hanlueluver @starkleila @gcthvile @msrochelleromanofffelton and etc

#top gun maverick au #top gun au #top gun maverick x reader #jake hangman seresin #jake seresin imagine #hangman x reader #dagger squad au #rooster top gun #bradley bradshaw x oc #bradley bradshaw x reader #rooster x reader #rooster fluff #dad!bradley bradshaw #top gun fanfic #rooster angst #bradley bradshaw fluff #rooster x oc #iceman lives

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roosterbruiser · 1 year

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𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞 ☾☽ 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐕.𝐈

☾☽ 𝐁��𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐲 "𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫" 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐰 𝐱 𝐅𝐚𝐲𝐞 "𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫" 𝐋𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐫

☾☽ 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: It’s been almost three years since the accident that took half of her, and Faye “Clover” Ledger seems fine, really. She loves her old house, she has a perpetually expanding vinyl collection, she’s got a job she likes on base, and she is only a short drive from the beach. She’s grounded--literally. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw feels like he’s been homesick his entire life. He’s always on the move; jumping from one squadron to another, living one mission to the next. Somewhere in between losing both his parents and carving a successful career as a Naval aviator, he’s never found himself a home. When a call to serve on a high-priority mission with an elite squadron brings Rooster back to Miramar, he finds that home. Except it’s not a house that he finds--it’s the former backseater that observes and records the mission for the Official Navy Record.

☾☽ 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

☾☽ 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

☾☽ 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐯𝐞.𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟕𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟏

I’ve made my decision: I’m never really alone. Not since April, really. But especially now. If not because olive is the size of a watermelon now--always stretching and twitching and nestling and tumbling--and filling out my midsection quite prominently, then because of Buttercup and Marmalade. Even right now, just before dawn as the morning light still filters in the bedroom that precious cornflower blue I think is sacred to Virginia, their wet noses have snuck beneath the quilt to press up against the bare skin of my belly.

It’s fruitless to sleep in shirts. I cannot help myself, though--not when our room is so chilled at night. We haven’t gotten the windows checked, yet, but surely there is an issue with the sealing--which is why we’re lucky to have a fireplace in the bedroom. Most everything is too tight against my belly now or gets nudged up by Bradley and the dogs alike throughout the night. Even this sweater I have on now, which used to swallow me, is interrupted by my belly.

I don’t even need to open my eyes to know that they’re both there, blinking up at me with their tails wagging ceremoniously as whines begin to wind up in their throats. It’s only a matter of time until they start to cry and howl--this is what they do each morning when daylight breaks, when they want to get into bed with us. And because olive doesn’t believe in letting me miss the sunrise, she wriggles beneath my skin, pressing down against my bladder and encouraging the dogs to whine louder when a hand or foot brushes against their cold noses.

Buttercup, I think, licks the skin of my belly a few times.

“Oh,” I whisper groggily to Buttercup, “thanks for that, Buttercup.”

That precious heavy breathing beside me hiccups and dissipates into a groan as soon as I speak. If he was a light sleeper before, I’m not even sure what to call him now. He’s awake as soon as my vocal cords vibrate, even if I’m just telling him to keep sleeping, baby while I wrestle out of the blankets to go to the bathroom. Often I’ll find him sitting up in bed when I return from my third bathroom break of the night, eyes half-shut and lips pulled into their best pout. His arms will be open and he’ll whisper something through his fog, telling me to get back into bed right this instant, little lady.

Bradley turns, the bed shaking slightly beneath his weight.

“Girls, we’ve talked about this,” Bradley says tiredly behind me, pulling me back against his bare chest and wrapping his arms around me, “mama’s mine ‘til seven. G’away, now. Scram!”

He says this with all the authority of a cooked spaghetti noodle, already burying his nose in my hair as he gives their snouts a friendly pat. That is something neither of us have been able to do since bringing them home: tell them no.

He’s very solid and warm behind me, the fire in the fireplace flushing his already naturally-heated skin. He’s tangling our bodies together anyway he can, still half-asleep, pressing all of his skin against all of mine.

“They didn’t listen,” I whisper to Bradley, peeking an eye open.

Buttercup’s blue eyes are staring straight into mine, surrounded by little white and gray hairs and a most desperate pink tongue. Marmalade is squished right up next to her, standing on the tips of her paws and clawing the sheets to get to me, whining.

“You’ll be big enough to jump on the bed soon, Marmie,” I whisper, biting my lip, blinking at the dim light, “poor baby.”

Marmalade keens at my reaction, sniffling desperately, clumsy puppy paws digging deeper into the sheets. Buttercup licks my forearm a few times and I finally give in--lean forward and pet her sweet little snout. Her fur is soft beneath my skin--she smells like the flea-wash Bradley bathed her in last night and the patch of icy grass she rolled in afterward.

“Mornin’, old girl,” I whisper to Buttercup, who yawns and blinks a few times at me with a most pleading expression, “Bradley, Buttercup wants to know if she can come up?”

Bradley makes a show out of sighing, burying his nose deeper in my hair, pulling me closer to him, pressing two broad hands to my belly. We’re both very warm, sheets of heat fanning out to our faces when we shift closer beneath the quilts. He kisses blindly in my hair, ghosting over the skin of my neck and shoulder. Then he falls deeper into me. Sleepy honey.

“Baby,” Bradley whines, “we don’t negotiate with terrorists in this household.”

“They’re not terrorists,” I whisper, reaching out to give them identical scratches, “they’re our babies.”

“They’re hellions, that’s what they are,” Bradley mumbles, slotting his leg between mine, “who raised them?”

Our neighbors raised Buttercup, really--we think.

“Some softy who can’t tell his wife no,” I whisper.

Bradley grunts, sinking his teeth into my neck teasingly, pulling me closer to him.

Now Buttercup and Marmalade are both blinking at me, their tails thudding against the floor in a pitifully excited rapidity. They know just as well as I do that they will be on the bed, making a nest in the blankets, in no time at all. They know how much Bradley adores them--he’s the one that feeds them scraps of rotisserie chicken and buys them special collars for upcoming holidays. In fact, he was the one that came home with Buttercup a few months ago, carrying the shaking, dirt-caked thing through the door with a bewildered expression. He was still in his flight suit, his eyes wide and his neck flushed. I was standing in the living room in a pair of paint-dotted overalls, holding the itty-bitty Marmalade to my chest.

“Baby, they were gonna shoot her,” he told me, his cheeks still pale as he carried Buttercup up the stairs towards the tub, “just cause she’s out of commission. ‘Cause she’s too old to herd or some shit like that. Poor, old girl! I couldn’t let ‘em do that.”

“Somethin’ tells me this bed won’t ever be just ours again,” he sighs, pressing another kiss to the back of my head before he lifts up to throw a groggy smile at the two dogs whining at our bedside, “c’mon, honey’s!”

“Spoiled pups,” I whisper to the dogs, patting the bed.

Buttercup hops up at once, like the floor was burning her paws. Her whole body vibrates when she’s excited, her little behind coming around to greet us in what we call the macaroni dance which all Aussie’s seem to have. But Marmie, the poor sweet puppy, cannot get onto the bed. She yips, scrambling on her toes to get onto the bed, her golden fur glowing in the early morning light.

“I’ll getcha, Marmie,” Bradley mumbles after a moment, sighing before flinging his arm over to his side of the bed and snapping.

Marmie seems to get the idea--skittering across our wooden floors and right past the nice, plush beds they have before the fireplace that Stevie has all but adopted now--and is in Bradley’s strong arms in just a moment.

Bradley grumbles sometimes about the dogs--grumbles about them sleeping in bed with us and curling up at our feet during every single meal. But I know that he loves them, is incredibly soft for them. He will pick Marmie up anytime she needs to be picked up, cuddling her close to his chest, letting her kiss his face. He bathes them every week and never complains about it, even when they shake and splash him.

Buttercup nuzzles up close to me, her tail wagging and her eyes wide, and rests her snout against my belly that bulges beneath the bedding when I move to lay on my back. God, I’m infinitely heavier when I lay on my back--feels like there is a ton sitting on my chest and belly. Olive is stirring still.

Bradley is smiling, his hair messy and his cheeks ruddy, as Marmalade licks his cheeks in utter gratitude. She’s wriggling out of his grip just as soon as she’s able, floundering to get into my awaiting arms.

“Wonder if she has a favorite,” Bradley grumbles affectionately, scratching behind her ears as she settles against my chest, licking the scar on my jaw fervently.

“Two against one,” I whisper back, glancing down at my belly.

Marmie lays down after another moment of greeting, resting her snout against my belly with Buttercup’s. It’s quiet and still now. Bradley’s laying on his side, absently stroking Buttercup’s head as I stroke Marmie’s, his eyes heavy but watching me.

“How’re you feeling today, mama?”

I haven’t even thought about what I feel like today. My chest sinks a little bit at the sheer notion of today starting right now, at five in the morning. But it is not new, not in this household, not with two dogs of such vastly different ages and a Navy husband and an olive that presses down against my bladder each time I finally get comfortable enough to doze. Not to mention the overall heaviness, discomfort of being so achingly pregnant.

“Tired,” I tell him, “let’s go back to sleep.”

Already, it is difficult for us to sleep these days. At first it was because there were a million things to do, to get ready, to prepare. But now all of that is finished--we are ready for olive. at the drop of a hat, at the blink of an eye. Now it is hard to sleep because there is so much waiting--we are waiting every single day, counting the hours, ticking the minutes.

I am lucky--it is my body that is determining the timeline of our impending parenthood. I am waiting, but I am the decider. Bradley, though--he is relying on me, relying on my body, relying on olive to make him a father. And it is difficult for him to be a bystander; I know this. He is always there, even when he’s not. If he isn’t cradling my bump, if he isn’t pressing his lips against my belly and whispering sweetly, if he isn’t getting me a glass of water and a prenatal vitamin, then he’s calling me on his lunch break or shooting me a text right before he goes up in the air. It is hard for him because this is my part--that he cannot control this portion, cannot maneuver one way or the other and move into a weapon’s envelope. This is something that he has to sit back and ride out, something he has to let me and my body do. Maybe more than his desire to control, it’s his inability to take this difficult task from me and allow me to sit back. I know he wants to do the hard things for me--wants to make everything easy. It’s classic really--I’m his backseater, he’s my pilot, and I’m suddenly flying the plane.

But now, we’re just waiting, that’s all. Waiting for the baby.

“Rooster,” I whisper.

He hums in response and I know he is close to sleep again. I know this is when he is most relaxed. It is when we are here together in bed, when I am resting and his body acts as a shell around mine. It is when he can feel every part of me against every part of him, whenever he can press his hand as close to olive as humanly possible and feel that they are squirming and kicking and thriving. It’s right now that he is able to let his shoulders drop, let his guard down. This is the time of day that he can breathe the easiest.

I move to cover his hand with my own so we are both holding my belly. His hand is so warm, so big against my sweater. He’s humming still, nuzzling closer to me, affectionately rubbing my belly.

“You’re the best person in the world,” I tell him because I really mean it--and I really have to tell him, even if it’s too early in the morning to be talking, “and our baby will know that.”

He swallows thickly. I think his chest is warm now--sticky, gooey warm.

“Well, they’re biased,” he teases, slurring with sleep, “you grew their brain.”

“I grew their everything,” I say, “which is also how I know they’ll have great taste in music. And a linen preference.”

He chuckles--his breath is hot in my tangled locks. The fire pops and crackles softly. Buttercup is doing that cute snore she always does. Stevie is stretched across Rooster’s feet again, ditzy and deeply asleep.

“Alright, mama, close your eyes,” Rooster finally says, softly pinching my hip, “and you, too, olive. Give mama a rest.”

It only takes a few moments before he asks, leaning up slightly.

“You comfortable?”

This is another question that frequently falls from his lips and into my ears; in the Bronco on the way to the grocery store, at the kitchen table during dinner, in bed before falling asleep, on our daily walk around the property with Marmalade and Buttercup, when I’m getting settled on the couch with yarn and a crochet hook, when I’m pushing the cart in the grocery store while he reads the list, when he’s buried inside me and filling me to the hilt and I’m sighing softly as he strains below me, when I’m on a step-ladder painting the walls or hanging a picture in the nursery. I know that even before I was pregnant, before olive was a literal hardness between us, that he cared deeply about my comfort--it had been obvious to me from the very start of it all. But now--now that I am pregnant, now that there is precious cargo--he is even more neurotic about my comfort, my safety.

Right now, I am comfortable. I am not aching except the usual ache of my spreading hips and swelling breasts. There is a pressure very deep and low inside me, but it is a pressure that has steadily built to this point over months and months--it’s bearable still. Olive is quiet now. I feel heavy and full to the brim, but it is a heaviness and a fullness that is exuberant because it is one that means life--new life, sweet life. I am not hungry, I am not full, I am not hot, I am not nauseous. I am just sinking into this bed, into these linens, with Rooster’s body around me, basking in the glow from the fireplace and my eyes are growing heavy as the winter night drags on.

“I am,” I say, “just the usual.”

“G’head,” he whispers, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to my shoulder, “sleep, baby.”

The exhaustion--it is something that got better for a while. I can at least ride in the car for more than ten minutes without falling into a deep, unblinking sleep. I don’t take long naps on the couch before dinner, snuggled under a wool blanket while Bradley starts on dinner. I don’t wake up ready for a nap, not usually, not if it’s past seven. But this exhaustion that I feel right now--now that everything is ready to go, now that we are waiting patiently on olive--is something else entirely. This one is deeper, heavier. This one is imminent.

Wordlessly, he moves his hands to my hips. And when he starts to knead them, his grip firm but careful--I almost cry out. I forget how tense, how tight, the muscles in my hips are now that they’re supporting the extra weight of B.B. and myself. He works his fingers so easily, so expertly, over my skin that I feel myself sinking further and further into the bed.

“Oh,” I whisper, “that’s mighty kind of you, tramp.”

He nods, kissing my head again, a tired chuckle in his throat.

“Anythin’ for you,” he tells me, “anythin’ at all. Say the word and it’s yours, mama.”

“Mmm,” I sigh, “don’t stop.”

I turn into his touch, careful not to disturb Marmie, Buttercup, and olive as I do. He just chuckles, moving in closer to me, pressing his lips against my temple and bringing his other hand down over my belly.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he mumbles and I know that he is going to fall back asleep soon. But he’s going to wait until I fall asleep first--which he always does.

That’s how I fall asleep--with his hands kneading the achiest parts of myself, with his warm lips against my skin, with his body over me, with his desire to give me what I want swirling in the warm smoky air around us.

When I wake up again, I know something is wrong as soon as my eyes are open.

There is sweat gathering on my cheeks, a flush covering my body like I’m fever-stricken--but my skin is goosed. Everything is aching--the pulse across my nose, the blood rushing through my temples, Bradley’s favorite freckle on my throat, my swollen breasts, my convex belly, my spreading hips, my knees, even my littlest toes. The ache radiates across my entire body and holds me still--holds me so very still that I cannot even stir inside Bradley’s grip. He’s connected to me, careful not to press too much of his weight onto me now, his arm draped across my waist and hand comfortably cupping my belly with his nose buried deep in my hair in a fruitless attempt to find my neck.

I blink at the sunlit room. Why am I awake?

And that’s when it washes over me, soaking me to the bone: I’m going to throw up.

I’m voiceless as I scramble, throwing the linens off my body, getting myself onto my feet, rushing to the bathroom with a heaviness in my step. Marmie and Buttercup stand to attention at once at the end of the bed, dazed and confused.

“Baby?”

But I can’t speak, even when his voice sounds as sweet and tired as it does, even when I know that I should tell him that I’m okay--really. I just need to throw up. Even when I know that he must be panicked--if not because he is a man with a heavily pregnant wife then because he’s my Bradley and I’m his Faye--I know that his heart is leaping out of his chest now.

The bile is hot as it spews out of my mouth and into the toilet bowl. It is acidic, burning my throat, cutting my mouth, clogging my nostrils. And there is so much of it, all spilling out of me, my body--the broccoli salad and baguette from just last night reappearing in a mangled heap in this freshly-cleaned toilet.

It hurts--my belly twisted in knots, tightening and tightening as it sprints up my throat, stinging all the way. It’s a kind of pain that is making me sweat all over, making my cheeks red, making my knees ache.

Fuck.

Distantly, I can hear Bradley scrambling to turn his bedside lamp on and tear back the covers before he makes his way into the bathroom. On the bed, I know Stevie must’ve staked her claim on her favorite spot near his feet and that she is unmoving even now. But Marmalade and Buttercup, the forever loyal and protective girls they are, are up and following Bradley--I can hear the tippy-tappy noises of their little claws on the hardwood.

I know Bradley is tired; has been holding his breath everyday, has been contemplating buying himself a beeper for the hours he’s out of the house on base, has been bouncing his leg at work all day and racing home not a moment after quitting time, has been watching me from the corner of his eye like I’m an overfilled balloon floating past a sea of tacks carelessly.

Fuck, it feels like we’d just fallen asleep again, too--both of us drifting in and out of consciousness with his fingers drawing sweet, lazy shapes against my belly. I was softly combing his hair, both of us mumbling last bits of sweetness to each other almost non-coherently, just a rumbling of the throat and a flex of the jaw. It was so quiet except for the crackling fire, Rooster’s heavy open-mouthed breathing, Stevie’s purring, Marmalade’s content sighing as she curled up against my belly, Buttercup’s whine as she stretched her legs over Bradley’s. Even olive was quiet, nestled deeply inside me but also somehow pressed just against Bradley’s fingers--content, stirring only softly. A little twitch of her fingers, a tiny kicking with even tinier feet; it was sweet, soft, silent almost.

But now we’re both awake and he’s kneeling down behind me, a sound of sympathy ticking from his throat as he sighs softly. And Marmalade is beside him, pressing her cold, wet nose into my forearm and sniffing--even a little whine of sympathy vibrates her throat. Buttercup is trailing in just behind them, rumbling and grumbling about being awake but falling into place just beside Marmalade anyway.

“S’alright, girl,” Bradley says and I don’t know if he’s talking to me or the dogs, “mama’s alright.”

The dogs.

The bathroom is at least cooler than the bedroom is--the fire crackling in our fireplace is radiating heat in thick sheets, all across our leather couches and onto our linen bedding and velvet curtains. It’s stifling is what it is, which happened sometime after I fell asleep again--the scent of smoke thick and overwhelming. But here in the bathroom, with my knees against the polished checkered tiles, with my elbows resting on either side of the toilet seat, with the light above me emanating an orange glow about the otherwise dark room--the temperature is bearable.

I wish that I could stand, stretch these aching muscles in my legs, run my fingers across the vast expansion of rounded skin that makes up my belly, and press my cheek against the window that overlooks the greenhouse. I know that it would feel so heavenly, so decadent against my flushed skin, the icy glass straining against the whispering winds.

“Let it out,” Bradley soothes, his open palm warm and soft as he grazes my curved spine through my sweater, his voice thick with the sleep I jolted us out of so suddenly, “‘m right here, baby. I’ve gotcha, mama.”

He’s kneeling now, his knees against the tiles, bending over so he can hold my hair back from my face with one hand and rub my back with the other. His breath is hot as he speaks, lingering on the back of my dewy neck.

I must have a sheen of perspiration covering me by now--can feel how pale I must be, all except for my fire-stricken cheeks.

My heaving is making olive kick harshly against my ribs, pounding against my already sore muscles. She’s been doing that more often now that she’s running out of room--sometimes it feels like she’s clawing me from the inside out. It must feel like the walls are closing in on her.

I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry. She must be tired.

Marmalade whines and Buttercup follows closely--poor babies. I know they must be tired, too, especially Marmalade. She’s a small thing, only four months old, but already seems to understand my condition as well as Buttercup. She’s always resting her head on my belly, her little blonde ears perking when olive nudges against her snout. Marmalade sleeps on her tufted bed before the fire with Buttercup each night--but wakes up every hour to investigate me on her own. She will meander over to my side of the bed in the dark, sniffing my belly, nudging her nose against my hand, jumping onto the bed to press her snout against my legs. She’s just as nervous, just as careful with me, as Bradley is.

Reaching up, I blindly flush, moving my face from the opening.

“Take it easy now, baby,” Bradley whispers, carefully letting my hair fall, his arms coming up around me until he’s holding me under the armpits, “c’mere, I’ve gotcha, I’ve gotcha.”

It’s easy for me to give him my weight--he’s secure, a solidness that is constant here in this house. He spreads his legs so I can fit between them, encouraging me against his chest. So I lay back, rest my head on his shoulder, let his arms wrap around me. It feels good to be held, feels good to be securely in his arms.

Marmalade does her usual once-over, carefully stepping between my legs to sniff and sniff, her black nose wet and cold. Bradley and I reach to pet her in tandem, scratching behind her ears, cooing--and that seems to assure her enough to flop down over my legs, her head resting on my thigh. Buttercup is already lying at my feet, content to rest and watch simultaneously. Clever girl.

“Good girl,” Bradley praises, “takin’ care of your mama.”

“Takes after you,” I whisper, watching Marmalade’s eyes slip shut finally.

“Nah,” he tells me, “she’s always been a mama’s girl. Who could resist?”

I smile, warm again. I scratch behind Marmalade’s ear again and she sinks into my thigh further, sighing. She has been a mama’s girl--my sweet little golden-haired retriever, trailing behind me on clumsy puppy paws and blinking up at us with big, brown eyes.

“Morning sickness in the third trimester,” I whisper softly, my voice soft but strained with sleep and sweat, “olive’’s a procrastinator.”

His chest rumbles when he chuckles.

He is very softly ghosting his fingers through my hair, slyly feeling my forehead for a fever. His touch is gentle and sweet, his fingers calloused and careful. He presses a few kisses to the top of my head and I can feel that pretty, pretty smile on his face.

“Going out with a bang,” he teases softly.

“Few more days until she’s supposed to be going out,” I sigh, falling into him deeper, “and I sure hope it isn’t with a bang.”

He chuckles again--he sounds very tired.

But he feels so good beneath me, so soft and very hard all wrapped into one perfect human specimen. He’s warm from the fire, too--and his heart is beginning to slow now that I am here in his arms instead of leaping out of bed wordlessly and sprinting to the bathroom.

“You know I’ll do whatever it takes to make it easy for you, mama,” he insists softly, petting my hair. “We’re ready, huh?”

He means: we’ve been to birthing classes, the ones that he took slightly more serious than I did. He was pinching my hip when we were practicing the swaying labor position because I was muffling my laughter in his chest, the seriousness of his eyes and intensity of his sturdiness reddening my cheeks and burning across my neck. We diligently attended the six-week course, the husbands all fawning over Bradley in his flight suit and practically asking for his goddamn autograph in the middle of the instructor’s My Water Broke! How Do I Know? lesson. He took pictures of me bouncing on those ridiculous yoga balls, smiling coyly and cupping my belly unceremoniously. We’ve watched birthing videos--which have bled into my dreams upon occasions in visions of blood and baby and beds--and practiced lamaze, even if it makes me lightheaded. We’ve picked a hospital--which is really just the hospital nearest to us, which still puts it at forty-five minutes away--and we’ve found a doctor that we both like. We’ve even formed a birth plan, typing it out on printer paper and keeping one copy in the car and one copy on the refrigerator under our most recent sonogram of olive, who will absolutely have Bradley’s nose based on their profile. We’ve gotten preparations in place to have immediate skin-to-skin after birth and we’ve told the hospital that we’re saving cord blood. Our hospital bags have been packed for weeks, sitting just inside our closet, waiting for us. The car seat has been checked--twice now--at the local fire station. The nursery has been ready for a few months, the final touch installed on my birthday: a most precious, felted animal mobile that dangles delicately above the arched crib. We know our neighbors will wander over to the house, grab the spare key from under the mat, and feed the dogs for us while we’re gone. There’s even a folder packed in olive’s baby bag, one that will be filled with all her important information when we leave the hospital: her little inky footprint, her birth certificate, her social security card, her first hat, her first blanket. From the outside looking in--we’re ready. We are maybe the most ready people to have ever become parents. I’m certain my parents were not this prepared for me and Maggie all those years ago.

“Did you think it was time?”

He breathes out a laugh. It is such a good sound--even here in the bathroom at six in the morning with an aching belly and a spot of vomit in my hair.

“For a second there, I sure did,” he whispers, chuckling, “so did the girls.”

I hum, nodding.

It is strange to feel the way I do right now--so many strange emotions have held me in their capable palms since we married each other in the backyard of our old house in California. My life, my feelings, before seems to dim in comparison to the slew of intense feelings that have occurred just through this pregnancy alone. Right now, I feel very loved and very adored; I am thoroughly taken care of by Bradley, by Marmalade, by Buttercup, by our friends that message us each day and have officially put me on Baby Watch--which they claim is their own personal version of Shark Week.

But I feel, also, that I am sometimes not myself--I am someone else, someone that is just a placeholder, someone that is just waiting for this condition to fade and for the next part of my life to begin. It is strange that this is just the before, the during. And I wonder, each time this thought dances across my frontal lobe, if Jake was right all along. I am going to become someone’s mother--it will take such a large piece of me, of who I am, of who I’ve always been. The last few months have drifted along in terms of counting kicks and trying to take videos of the hiccups that frequent poor olive. And I know that the next few months will drift along in terms of clogged milk ducts and colic and spit-up--and they’ll continue on that way until forever. Sometimes I wonder if that makes me better or worse--that I am choosing for my life to be defined by these terms. I haven’t decided yet.

“Olive’s comfortable,” I tell him, which is true.

The baby does feel comfortable--entirely too comfortable. Each day is a sprawling mirage of kicking and Braxton Hicks and elbowing and nestling and hiccupping and turning and rolling, yet at day’s end olive is still and quiet. They are not ready--no, not yet. They are comfortable, soft, safe.

“How could they not be,” he mumbles, his hand falling down to cradle my bump, “you make a great home, mama.”

I make a great home.

“Are you trying to say that I’m as big as a house?”

He hums, kisses my forehead. He smells like sleep--like minty toothpaste and soap, like laundry detergent. Marmalade is snoring now, sleeping peacefully beneath my soothing fingertips. Buttercup licks my ankle a few tired times before sighing deeply and closing her eyes.

“Honey, if you’re a house, you’re a brick house,” he whispers.

Marmalade doesn’t stir when I laugh. Buttercup merely peeks an eye open, grumbles, then falls back asleep.

“Nice save,” I whisper back.

His hand is very soft as he cradles my bump. When I look down at his fingers--his fingers that I love so much--spread across the front of my sweater-covered belly, it makes me want to cry. He holds me very securely but gently, presses his skin against mine with a severe carefulness, one I know he will possess with olive when they’re finally earth-side.

I dream about it, really--watching him hold our baby for the first time. Their little wrinkly skin against his taut, sunkissed chest. His lips coming down to feather across the wispy little hairs on their head. Matching each other’s breathing, holding onto each other.

Bradley presses a lingering kiss to my temple, encouraging my hair behind my ears.

“Y’alright, baby? What can I do for you?”

His voice is quiet and genuine.

“Think I’m okay,” I tell him, “just need to catch my breath.”

My stomach has settled slightly--the nausea has dissipated, the knots have untied themselves. The perspiration on my skin is beginning to dry.

Olive stirs, an elbow here or a knee there. They’re sitting low these days, a burgeoning pressure that grows with each passing day and fitful night. But there is still that distinct sense that they are staying put--they are not hasty, they are not anxious to move on, move out. They’re completely connected to me, tethered, and they want to remain there where it is warmest.

He hums, body softening. Marmalade yawns, snuggling deeper into my thigh, her wet nose pressing against my sweatered bump. Affection washes over me, drenches me like the short-lived fever had, like my nausea had.

“Good girl,” I whisper to her again.

Rooster chuckles, patting the side of my belly gently.

Olive stirs, presses against his palm. It still pleases him endlessly. I think I can feel his heart swell.

“Olive loves you,” I tell him, sighing, “s’excited when you touch her.”

It’s true, too--olive has a distinct sense when Bradley is cupping my belly. She already knows how well taken care of I am and how spoiled she will be when she joins us here on solid ground. She’s a sweet thing, just like I told her she would be, and always presses against Bradley’s hands. She must get that from me; a blind belief that being held by Bradley is cause enough for settling.

Bradley’s smiling--I can feel the curve of his lips around my scalp, don’t even need to tur around and look at him to know it. He’s humming, too, almost keening at my words. Certainly he must be more nervous than he lets on--fatherhood is staring him directly in the eyes and he’s blinking back at it, pretending like it isn’t unfamiliar territory.

“Let’s hope it stays that way.”

As if olive could do anything but love Bradley.

He’s good at pretending like he’s calm, which is what he’s doing now--but I know him. His pulse is quickened right now, his breathing straining to remain even and heavy. I’m sure if I turned around, if I turned around and looked at his orange-lit face, when I would see the blush in his cheeks and the water in his eyes.

His spine has been rigid since October 31st, which put me officially at full-term. Halloween--a few days after my birthday, which used to be my sister’s birthday too, and only a few days after the anniversary of my sister’s death. He’d circled the date on the calendar on the fridge, crossing off every day just before we went upstairs to bed.

I’d caught him that day, the 31st, just standing before the calendar with his arms crossed tightly over his chest and his lip caught in the wrath of his front teeth. He was just looking at it--the circle drawn crudely with a red permanent marker.

37 weeks -- FULL TERM! it read in big, bold letters.

It had been so quiet in the house when I’d caught him staring at the calendar--not a sound other than Marmalade trailing tiredly behind me and Stevie snoozing in front of the fireplace. He had been so quiet too--his spine so rigid, his jaw so set. He was focusing on the date so closely, almost willing it to burst into flames or break my water or start something, anything. But it didn’t--it just stared back at him, unblinking, unmoving. A physical, everyday reminder of his impending fatherhood given to him by his past-self.

It’s quiet right now, too.

Then he groans like he’s just remembered something, stretching his legs and arms, yawning. And then he presses a few kisses to my head before sighing, nose in my hair.

“Well,” Rooster starts, shaking his head softly, “good mornin’, I guess.”

I turn--he’s already looking at me, the softest of smiles on his lips.

“Mornin’,” I whisper, nuzzling my nose against his, “stud.”

When my teeth are brushed and my hair is rinsed and tied back, I walk back into the sweet heat of the bedroom. Bradley is on the edge of the bed, sitting amongst the linens, rubbing his eyes with one hand and absently petting Stevie with the other. Bitch didn’t even stir when I sprang out of bed.

Our room is washed white by sunlight; the folded quilts stacked at the end of the bed, the rug that spans across most of the floor, the worn antique furniture that dots the room in rich wooden hues, Carole’s wallpapered walls that we did not touch, the linens draping across our bodies, the gold frames scattered across the walls, the wilting flowers on top of our dresser, Marmalade’s golden fur as she stretches out at my feet and yawns.

It smells good in here, which is an odd thing. Since becoming pregnant, I feel that I can smell everything: the sickly sweet decay of the marigolds on the dresser, the anti-flea soap we use on the girls every week, the minty toothpaste on Bradley’s heavy breath, the baking soda I sprinkled on the rug and vacuumed up, even the lingering scent of gardenia that seems to have stained this room--despite Rooster claiming that he cannot smell it anymore.

“Hot mama,” Rooster whistles at me.

I roll my eyes.

“This sweater has a hole in the armpit,” I tell him.

He holds his chest, howling.

“And, mama, you wear it well!”

He spreads his legs, opening his arms to me, grinning something fierce.

Dammit if I don’t love that cheeky grin.

When I come to him, my cheeks pink, he laces his fingers together and lets his hands rest on the small of my back. He’s so warm--another fireplace in this room. He leans down and kisses my belly a few times, letting his nose rest against it.

“Gonna miss being pregnant?”

His voice is muffled by my sweater.

It doesn’t really feel real--not being pregnant soon. I have been pregnant for almost this entire year and have grown so accustomed to it. What will it be like when I can lay on my belly again, when I can sleep with my leg drawn up to my side? What will it be like when I can see my toes again--will I see the messy paint job Bradley did a few days ago? What will it be like when olive and I have untethered and she doesn't hiccup in my body anymore but outside of it? How will I go through the motions of everyday life when there isn’t a foot in my ribs or a burgeoning pressure in my pelvis? Will it feel empty--my body without hers?

This is just the before--I know that. I know that. But it is strange still to think that this condition is not permanent. This is just for now, just for a few more days. But then the after begins and it will span from now until eternity.

“I think so,” I tell him, raking my fingers through his hair, “but I am unreasonably excited to have deli meat again.”

Bradley laughs--and it’s at that precise moment that olive gets her first case of hiccups of the day. Bradley and I feel it at the same time, those first little spasms that make my skin quiver.

They’re quick little things. Pop. Pop. Pop.

He gasps softly, looking up at me with his mouth ajar and his eyebrows pulled together. Oops. He’s still cradling my belly, eyes widened.

“Look what you did,” I tell him, sticking out my lower lip, “gave poor baby the hiccups.”

Bradley kisses my belly again and again, moving to hold the sides as if to keep olive still. But the spasming is still happening every few seconds.

“Sorry, baby,” he whispers.

I know he’s talking to olive.

Really, her hiccups are triggered by anything. Sometimes they’re even triggered by nothing. She is constantly plagued by them, the poor thing. It’s been happening now since my sixth month of pregnancy. They’re little jerky movements, ones that are steady and strange. They don’t feel like the fists or the feet or the legs or the arms.

“So mean, daddy,” I whisper, shaking my head.

Now he pulls my sweater up, letting it rest on top of my belly.

Pop, pop.

And there it is--my belly. It looks very normal to me now. This is the stretched skin that has been thickening and swelling since February, streaked and dotted with freckles. I feel very full--like I could genuinely be deflated if someone pushed a tack into my skin. But when I look down and there it is--my baby’s first home--it makes me feel like I could stay like this forever. I am safe and warm; and so they are safe and warm. I sometimes already feel so overwhelmed by all this love in my being for this little stranger I haven’t met--it makes my hands tremble. I sometimes feel like if they needed to, we could just stay like this forever: I would carry their weight, I would protect them from the cruelties of the outside world. It wouldn’t matter if it meant that I wouldn’t ever know their face; I would do anything at all to keep them warm.

The skin of my belly gooses at the sudden exposure.

“S’cold,” I whisper.

But Bradley is quick to tut and pull me closer to him. Olive is still hiccupping.

Pop. Pop.

“I’ll warm you up, mama,” he mumbles. “I’ve gotcha.”

He sprinkles warm kisses all along my belly, his mustache prickling my skin very sweetly. He is rubbing that tired skin that used to be the curve of my waist, rubbing it like he’s trying to soothe me and olive at the same time.

“M’little hiccup-er,” Bradley whispers, his open lips against my quivering belly. “Y’gonna give us Hell when you’re here, baby?”

I sigh.

Pop, pop. Pop.

“Of course they won’t,” I tell him, smiling, “they’re sweet.”

I’m serious--they are sweet. I know that already, can feel it in my bones. The same way I know that I am carrying a daughter, I know that they will be sweet. I know that they are already sweet. They will be like me and they will be like Bradley--there is no room for them to be anything but sweet and soft.

“You two know each other?”

He’s peering up at me through his lashes, his hair still entirely unkempt and his eyes very open and whiskey-colored. He kisses my belly again, a few more times.

Pop. Pop.

“Yes,” I tell him, biting my lip, combing his hair gently. “We go way back.”

All the way to February.

He laughs--a sweet, throaty thing, right there against my belly.

That warrants a jolt from olive. A quick, sudden roll and there is a ripple across my skin followed by a few more hiccups. Pop, pop. Pop. She has a good startle reflex--it’s what our ultrasound technician said at the last appointment when olive jolted and got the hiccups from the door slamming shut behind me.

In apology, Bradley kisses my belly again. His lips are wet still and minty from brushing his teeth.

“First-name basis, then?”

I should’ve known he’d bring it up.

“Not yet,” I whisper, shaking my head, exhaling. “Y’still against Maude?”

He wrinkles his nose, which is answer enough.

“Maude Bradshaw,” he says, chewing it like it’s bitter in his mouth, “sounds like a 50s-housewife.”

I scoff.

“And Julep Bradshaw sounds like a porn-star,” I say.

He laughs again.

Pop. Pop.

“She doesn’t like it either,” I say, holding my bump.

He is quick to pepper little kisses over my belly and nuzzle against me.

“Mama’s lying,” he whispers, “you like Julep, don’t you?”

“Julep Maggie Bradshaw,” I whisper to him, grimacing.

I shake my head, sighing. It sounds like a cocktail--named after a porn star.

He grins up at me.

“S’cute,” he defends. “Our little Jujube.”

Jujube. It makes my lips purse. I don’t want my daughter to be called Jujube. Even her nickname will sound like something that just gets stuck in one’s teeth.

“And you don’t like Eleanor either?”

He shakes his head, sighing, giving a final kiss to me and olive before he lets my sweater fall back down over my belly.

“Her name’ll be too long,” he frowns, “Eleanor Bradshaw. That’s, what? Three, four…that’s fifteen letters and that doesn’t even include the middle.”

He has been surprisingly picky about the names, especially the girl names. It makes my heart swell that he’s thinking about it, even if I do like the names Eleanor and Florence and Margaux.

The room is beginning to yellow as the sun rises higher in the sky, the blue an endless one as it spreads above the Eastern Redbuds that line our gravel drive and the ivy that climbs our house so charmingly. Buttercup and Marmalade will start to get restless soon, each of them crying by the door until we wander downstairs to feed them and put their sweaters on.

But for now, it’s just us standing here with olive. And we are talking about what we are going to name her even if we will not meet her for a little bit. But she’s here--she’s nestling and tucking. And still she is hiccuping. Pop, pop, pop. Pop.

I take a deep breath, fill my lungs up very nice. The stretch feels good and deep.

“Ivy, then,” I try, exhaling.

He shakes his head, squeezing my hips.

“Too short,” he says.

Oh, my God.

“You’re impossible,” I tell him, rolling my eyes. “Throw me another name, then.”

He thinks for a moment--I know he must have some in the chamber. He keeps a stack of baby books on his bedside table; everything from The Birth Partner 5th Edition: A Complete Guide to Childbirth for Dads, Partners, Doulas, and Other Labor Companions to The Penguin Classic Baby Name Book: 2,000 Names from the World's Great Literature to Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love. It is so very like him to study these things, especially the names. Often, he will read them as I’m falling asleep beside him, tucked into pillows and linens with my cheek against his ribs. He’ll utter names to me quietly as he strokes my hair or ask how we’ll handle the terrible-two’s as he kisses me goodnight.

He’s always thinking about fatherhood--about me, about him, about our daughter.

He smiles softly.

“Lyla,” he says.

Pink has dusted his cheeks.

Lyla Bradshaw. It’s pretty, but it doesn’t make my fingers tingle. It just feels like words.

“Maybe,” I say, “but surely you’ll come around to Maude or Ginger.”

I’m teasing him. He sighs, shaking his head again, pretending to roll his eyes.

He turns to Buttercup and Marmalade who are stretching in front of the fire, their tails wagging softly whenever they notice his gaze. They start for us in tandem, little tippy-taps on the hardwood as they happily pant.

Marmie nudges her head against my leg, licking a few times while Bradley strokes Buttercup’s short snout.

He looks back up at me with a very unimpressed face--flat lips and sullen eyes.

“May as well name her Gladys or Petunia,” Bradley teases, exasperated, “since you wanna give her such an old lady name.”

“Hey,” I argue defensively, “that’s how you talk to the woman having your baby?”

He bites a grin.

“Sometimes,” he tells me, “when I think I can get away with it.”

I bite the inside of my cheek.

“You mean when your baby makes me sick and I’m too weak to fight back?”

I feel fine now--the vomit feels like a fever dream. But I’ll milk it--it’s my right as a pregnant woman who lived through a San Diego summer, a cross-country move, and adopting two dogs in one month.

His throat is flushed now as he laughs. The dogs are getting excited, putting their front paws on the bed and sniffing me and Bradley alike, looking between us with sweet and wide eyes.

“Poor mama,” he coos, resting his fingers against my cheek to check for a fever mockingly, “should I put you on bed rest?”

I shake my head, nipping his hand softly as he cups my cheek.

“You are a mean daddy,” I breathe, tutting.

Marmalade and Buttercup have that little whine in their throat--the kind that is winding up for a howl or a bark. Bradley squeezes my cheek, chuckling. Then he turns to the girls.

“I’m not mean, huh? You girls think I’m mean?”

He talks to them in a silly voice--something higher-pitched than his regular gravely tone and more attuned to younger ears. He sounds goofy, but tooth-achingly kind.

There it is--those little barks. Marmie’s is more of a desperate whine, very high pitched and squeaky. Buttercup’s is deeper and raspier. But they bark in tandem, licking Bradley. Bradley nods, gesturing to them and smirking up at me.

“There you have it. Proof’s in the puddin’, baby.”

I wrinkle my nose at him, sticking my tongue out. He moves quickly, trying to grab it, but I move away too quickly and push off him. I’m chewing a grin--my cheeks are aching from smiling so widely so much.

Olive’s hiccups are gone now--she’s just calmly burrowing and twitching, settling. Sweet little thing.

Chateau Bradshaw is very beautiful--especially now that it is not just white walls and bare bones anymore. We are slowly filling in all the cracks; a leather sectional here and a reclaimed record table there. There are houseplants on the piano and crochet blankets on the sofa and lavender on the mantle. Photographs are all over the walls, those same precious gold frames containing snapshots of us and our friends and olive. There are even a few photographs of Marmie and Buttercup sprinkled in, frolicking in the Virginia bluebells in the backyard or with little birthday hats on when we sat for a family picture on my 29th birthday a couple weeks ago. There is art cluttering the walls and vases of backyard wildflowers and the cabinets have groceries and all the rooms are not without beds; it’s starting to become our home. And right now, with the early morning sun piercing our hardwood floors and carefully selected wallpaper, it is angelic.

We eat breakfast at the big kitchen table, the dogs lying at our feet, licking our ankles. They are not beggars--they are just attached to our hips, especially now that olive is so close to being here. I lay my feet in Bradley’s lap across the table as I finish my coffee and he strokes my ankle as he flicks through a name book, a smile tugging at his lips.

One day we will be feeding olive strips of banana pancakes in her high-chair, laughing when she gets peanut butter on her nose, cooing when she reaches out for Bradley to hold her. Maybe she’ll hate to get her face wiped off, hate getting cleaned up. Maybe Bradley won’t have the heart to upset her so whenever I’m not there to do it, she walks around with syrup and banana around her lips all day.

All Shook Up by Elvis is playing on the stereo now, flooding the lower level with sound. This is a song that makes me think of Carole now--the same way it makes Bradley think of Carole. I sometimes imagine her here in this house, rummaging around in the cabinets with flour strewn across her cheek or rocking on the back porch with a mug of tea. It is easy to imagine her here--just knowing that she once was here, before I ever was, it only feels right.

“Maybe we’ll luck out and have a boy,” he mumbles to me, taking a sip of his creamy coffee.

“Boy names are so much easier,” I agree, sighing.

We both decided, almost immediately, on the name Finch for a boy. Finch Nicholas. We’d call him Fin or Finny or maybe even Goose--but that feels like make-believe. Maybe one day we will have a son, but it will not be soon.

He squeezes my ankle.

“But it’s still a girl?” He raises his brow.

I furrow my brows, pressing my palms against my stomach and screwing my eyes shut.

Then I open my eyes and nod. He’s glaring at me with a grin.

“Yes,” I say.

He shakes his head at me.

“You’re just a comedian today, huh?”

“When I can get away with it,” I tease.

He bites the inside of his cheek--he looks beautiful bathed in this fine Virginia morning. Then he just goes back to the name book, leaning back in his chair, keeping his warm hand on my ankle.

Sunday’s are easy in our house, the way I like them to be.

He washes and I dry while Elvis plays and the dogs play outside. We brush our teeth in tandem and share the same face wash. I dress mostly in my most loose-fitting sweaters now, tucking them into a trusty pair of denim overalls. And my hair--it has grown so fast. Already it is sitting in the middle of my back, so it has been tied back with bandanas most days. Bradley kneels wordlessly, just humming to himself, to slip on my Converse and tie them for me.

“Thank you,” I whisper to him.

He kisses my belly a few times then regains his posture and kisses me, too. He’s smiling against my lips.

“Happy to help the needy,” he teases, nuzzling his nose against mine.

We put the girls in their sweaters and leash them up, not a spot on their snouts unkissed. We load into the Bronco and make the thirty minute drive to the farmer’s market. We like the farmer’s market in town--we’ve frequented it almost every Sunday since we moved to Richmond. And the girls love the farmer’s market; they are endlessly pet, coddled, complimented, fed, kissed, cooed at. I receive almost the same treatment now that I am a familiar fixture, one that’s grown so visibly pregnant since our move here. I like all the people that run the stands, the ones who care enough to ask if we know the gender and what the baby’s name will be, but I do sometimes feel like I get pet more than Marmie and Buttercup.

“Still pregnant?” Josephine, the woman who grows my favorite apples, asks incredulously when Bradley and I break through the bustling crowd and approach her little wood table.

I cup my belly--olive stirs. She can feel when I touch her, which is strange. Even more strange is that it makes me choke up to think about, to think about my touch soothing her.

Bradley squeezes my hand, holding onto Marmie’s leash tightly.

Josephine is standing with her hands on her hips, her earmuffs riding low on her ears as she grins at me. Her eyelids are dotted with freckles, as is much of her face.

“Still pregnant,” Bradley confirms with a small grin, “gettin’ there, though.”

Josephine shrugs, puffing her cheeks.

It’s cold outside--cold enough to keep me close to Bradley’s side even with my coat on. But it is very sunny, so sunny that Bradley and I are squinting behind our sunglasses even.

“First baby’s are always late! Better buckle in,” she tells me, already loading a bag of apples without us prompting her. “My first son was two weeks late. I thought I was gonna be pregnant for the rest of my life!”

Bradley squeezes my hand again. A silent acknowledgement. So much unprompted advice, so many unneeded horror stories. It doesn’t matter where we are--people are always telling us things that we honestly don’t need to hear.

“Well, if your baby is late then it means it’s a boy!”

“Baby must be waiting for a full moon.”

“You’re carrying high up, honey. That means you’re having a boy!”

“Take a bumpy car ride and you’ll be pushin’ them out in no time!”

“I’m tellin’ you! Eat an entire pineapple and you’ll go into labor right away!”

Josephine’s words are not unfamiliar, nor are they unkind. It’s just what people do.

“They’re comfy-cozy,” I tell her, which is exactly what I told Darla and Mike from our favorite honey stand a few minutes ago. “I’m okay with it.”

Josephine eyes me, gaze lingering on my bump. Marmie and Buttercup sniff excitedly at the apples, waiting for Josephine to offer them a Milk Bone--which she keeps in a special ziplock bag just for them in her big purse.

“Well, y’look like you’ve dropped! Breathing any better now?”

Oh--the realization dawns on me at her utterance. Yes, I can breathe better today than I did yesterday. When I took a deep breath, the stretch felt so good. And maybe olive does feel lower right now than she did yesterday, maybe there is a minuscule pressure there today that wasn’t there yesterday. I hadn’t noticed before she said anything--maybe it was because of our very eventful morning and my romp in the bathroom.

“Y’think?” Bradley asks with a soft smile, glancing at my bump.

His eyes are swimming with affection, awe. He still looks at me like this frequently, even now that I’ve been pregnant for as long as I have.

My heart swells, my throat grows warm.

“Oh, yeah,” Josephine says, nodding as she ties our apple bag. “She definitely looks like she’s dropped.”

“I guess I can breathe a little bit better today,” I say softly, crossing my arms.

Buttercup circles around and presses her nose against the bottom of my belly, sniffing shortly, whining, then circles back to begging Josephine for a treat. Josephine finally takes notice, smiling down at them before fishing their treats out. They take them politely.

“There you have it,” Josephine says proudly, handing Bradley the bag of apples. Then she grins at me, raising her eyebrows. “Can I have myself a little feel?”

I nod, squeezing Bradley’s hand before Josephine excitedly rounds the table with her hands already extended. She smells like cinnamon, even her gray hair and her pink-painted nails. She takes her gloves off quickly, stuffing them into the big pocket of her Carhart.

“Here,” I smile, softly taking her wrist and leading her open palm near the bottom of my belly, “she’s punching me.”

Olive is moving, little jerky movements. I wonder if she’s sleeping, lulled by our long walk, weaving around the park from stand to stand.

“Still deadset on she, huh?”

“You know it,” I tell her, blushing.

Marmie and Buttercup excitedly sniff Josephine’s blue jeans as she comes closer, pressing against my belly. I’m sure she can feel it--she’s grinning, on the verge of saying aww. She takes the liberty to feel around a little bit more, but it’s okay--she has big, warm hands.

I don’t mind this at all now, not that I ever disliked it very much to begin with. People love pregnant people, which I wasn’t aware of until I got pregnant. The people who ask to touch my belly have been very polite and careful with me, usually older women who won’t experience it again. It is nice to share it with someone beside Bradley on a day to day basis, since I don’t have a sister or mother or mother-in-law to fawn over me.

“Spunky little one,” Josephine says gleefully, moving her hand to the top of my belly. “May I?”

I don’t know what she means but I’m nodding and smiling. Bradley steps closer to me, an eyebrow pitched. He puts a hand on my shoulder, just observing with a small smile.

Very carefully, she presses down on the top of my belly and oh, that is strange--it is softer now, more spongy. It is empty there now. There is infinitely more give there right now than there’s been in months.

Josephine’s cheeks are flushed when she looks up at me, a knowing look in her eyes.

“I’s right,” Josephine sighs gently, “you’ve dropped. Shouldn’t be long now, then, huh?”

Shouldn’t be long now, then, huh?

My mouth goes dry for a moment.

“We missed the lightening?” Bradley asks softly, kissing my temple.

Of course he knows what it’s called.

“Don’t you know your stuff, Bradley,” Josephine praises, pressing her palms to the bottom of my belly again. “Been doing lots of reading?”

I nod swiftly.

“Just about everything he can get his hands on,” I tell Josephine, “but as many name books as we read, still haven’t found a girl’s name.”

Olive is a little bit more active now. She swiftly rolls, which feels like a flock of birds taking flight in my belly, and Josephine laughs joyously. It makes me miss my mother for a fleeting moment, even if we haven’t spoken since before my wedding. It would have been good to share this with her--this intimacy. I was in her belly once and now I have her granddaughter in my belly, which she is entirely missing out on.

“Running out of room in there,” Josephine laughs. “Draw a name from a hat! Or open a book at the library and pick a random page.”

Bradley shakes his head.

“Bradley’s picky,” I tell her, biting my lip. “Not too long, but not too short. And nothing from Charles Dickens books.”

Bradley shrugs, kissing my temple again.

“Gotta have the best for my girls,” he defends with a grin.

Josephine likes his answer--she’s grinning at us.

“Well,” she starts happily as a few people meander up to her table, “you two’ll figure it out. Better have that baby by next Sunday! That’s an order, now, alright?”

The prospect makes my spine prickle.

Bradley’s chuckling, pulling Marmie to his side as she finishes her treat. Buttercup is already leaning against my legs, happily licking her lips of crumbs.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say softly.

The girls sleep most of the ride home, tucked in between Bradley and I. I’m buckled in, fingering the hem of Marmalade’s pink sweater. It’s still a little bit big on her--but I made it with the intention of her growing into it. Bradley is very softly stroking Buttercup’s head, which is resting on his thigh.

Hold On by Alabama Shakes is playing now.

I like this drive, especially when it’s sunny. It’s just hills and trees and wildflowers. It’s nice living so far away from everything else. It feels like Bradley and I are in our own sweet world sometimes, like we’re all the other has.

“You know,” I sigh, “I’m fine with the way things are now.”

Bradley glances at me from the corner of his eye, raising a brow.

“Being pregnant,” I clarify. “I don’t mind it, really. People keep trying to tell me how to get olive to come, but it’s fine, really. I’m fine.”

He nods, turning the radio down a hair so he can hear me. Marmie sighs into my leg and rolls onto her back so her feet are all up in the air.

“You’ve been a trooper,” he says after a moment. “I mean, really, baby. I knew you were a tough cookie before, but you’ve blown me away.”

Pink paints my cheeks. I lay my head against the sweet-smelling leather seat and watch him watch the road. His sunglasses are low on his nose and there’s a smile tugging at his lips.

“Olive’s made it easy,” I say, humming. “She even turned me onto tea.”

He laughs. Buttercup sighs into his thigh. But I am being serious--I feel like I’ve done a million things more difficult than growing this baby. This is maybe the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do, which I know is not true for other people.

“You’re being humble,” he says, “Baby, your heart is literally bigger now.”

He told me this for the first time on one of our first nights in the house, as I was subbing coconut oil into my belly. He plucked a headphone out of my ear and when I turned to look at him, he was wide-eyed and red-cheeked. He explained to me, very excitedly, that the ventricles in my heart were thickening to supply enough oxygen to the blood for me and the baby. It had amazed him--but it made me a little nauseous to think about. It still does.

“Don’t remind me,” I breathe, wrinkling my nose.

He laughs, reaching out and cupping my cheek.

“S’amazing,” he says. “Everything you’re doing right now amazes me. Really, baby.”

A fist is squeezing my heart. My fingers are very warm. Olive nestles deeper.

“Thank you,” I say quietly. “S’nothing, really.”

He scoffs.

“I mean it,” he warns. “I’m in awe, baby. Totally and completely.”

“Falling in love with me all over again?”

He squeezes my cheek, nodding, shooting me a grin.

“That happens everyday, anyway.”

I wrinkle my nose.

“Sap,” I whisper.

But I still hold his palm to my mouth and kiss there very softly. His hands smell like apples now.

��I’ll hold onto that for you,” he says quietly.

He sounds stricken with affection and love--voice warm and gooey.

The car is quiet for a few minutes. He’s resting a hand on top of my bump now, softly stroking my skin through my overalls.

Everlasting Love by Carl Carlton starts just as we turn onto Black Willow Lane.

And just as it begins, my nose prickles and I sneeze. The jolt, the noise--olive startles again. Then there they are, those little twitches. Pop, pop. Pop.

Bradley’s smiling something fierce, rubbing my belly, chuckling.

“Bless you, mean mama,” he coos, “givin’ olive the hiccups again.”

I hold my belly, too. She can feel it when I touch her. It makes my fingers tingle.

Pop, pop.

“Mama’s sorry,” I say quietly, sniffing.

There’s a rustling, just a few stretching limbs here and there. It’s strange to think that there are tiny feet in my ribs right now, with little toes that curl.

Pop, pop. Pop.

“Little scaredy cat,” Bradley sighs contentedly. “God, think how much she’ll startle whenever Jake’s around. Loudmouth he is, she’s gonna be hiccuping the whole time.”

I’ve thought about it some--Jake being around our daughter. Things are still not the same between us, but they are better now. My soft spot for him is much smaller now, calloused. But I do love him. He will be good to my daughter, I know this. He’s a good man even when he says bad things. I’m not sure he could do anything but love my baby; I think he would love anything I made.

“He’ll be gentle with her,” I whisper. “Maybe she’ll shut him up.”

He laughs softly. Pop, pop.

“It’d be a miracle,” he muses, shaking his head.

The day drags on quietly.

We unpack out farmer’s market groceries; pour the honey into the honeypot, put the apples in the fridge, trim the yellow chrysanthemums and set them on the kitchen table. Bradley starts a fire while I take the girls’ sweaters off and let them give me and my belly a once-over. I have tea with lunch while Bradley reads aloud to me and the dogs laying at our feet.

“Your baby is now the size of a small watermelon. They have a firm grasp, can turn their heads, and will be able to see your face when they’re born. Baby should be head-down now, ready to make their grand entrance. Their skin is grayish-white now, but their pigment will appear shortly after birth. Since you’re full-term now, watch out for signs of labor which include: the bloody show, your water breaking, pelvic pain, and steady contractions.”

He’s all smiles across the table while I finish my mug of tea, absently stroking olive. Of course he’s excited at the prospect of having the baby soon--as much as he is afraid to become a father, I know his excitement far outweighs any qualms. This has been rocky for him and I think, for a while, he didn’t feel like he was standing on solid ground. I think this is why he has done so much reading, why he has been so involved. It makes him feel better about it all.

We take a long walk around the property with Marmie and Buttercup. They sniff excitedly at the stunted green grass, tangle their leashes chasing squirrels, roll around in the witch hazel. It feels good to breathe in the brisk, earthy air. And I love seeing the smoke plume from our chimney, love to see the windows lit by late afternoon sunlight.

Some football game neither of us are watching drones quietly on the television while I crochet and Bradley folds a load of laundry. We sit in the living room together for a long time, my legs draped over his lap and his hand lying on my belly. He falls asleep for a while, just a little bit, when Marmie and Buttercup come to lay on either side of us.

It’s just before dinnertime that I carefully detangle myself from him, leaning forward to press a few soft kisses to the warm skin of his cheeks. He comes to easily, blinking a few times and yawning, smiling. The girls still sleep soundly by him.

“Hey you,” I whisper.

He kisses me, still smiling.

“Hey yourself, mama.”

“How’d you sleep?”

He cracks a tired grin.

“With my eyes closed,” he mumbles, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “Really don’t wanna go back to work tomorrow.”

He’s saving all fourteen days of his paternity leave for after olive is born--but it is not without a grudge. He has not understated how little his desire to be away from me is, going through all seven stages of grief between our front door and the driver’s seat of the Bronco.

“I don’t want you to go back either,” I whisper, swiping my thumb across his cheek. “Guess I better hurry up and have this baby, then.”

He peppers kisses across my jaw, pulling me closer to him.

“Mmm not so fast, baby,” he breathes. “Y’look so fuckin’ good like this.”

His words float through the space between our mouths and melt on my tongue.

He feels it, I’m sure--the stutter in my breathing, the quivering of my lips.

“Overalls really rev your engines, baby?” I whisper softly, kissing the scar on his cheek tenderly.

He laughs, nodding, kissing my jaw.

“Baby, you could be wearing a brown paper bag and still get my engines revvin’,” he all but croons, tugging and tugging me until I submit.

He has to help me straddle him, has to guide my thighs up and over his and steady me with two hands on my waist. Olive is a literal hardness between us--protruding from my body and keeping us from coming as close as we used to. But Bradley still likes to hold me like this--likes to have me on his lap and likes to hold me tight.

“S’more like it,” he mumbles. “Gimme some sugar, mama.”

Very softly, he wraps my hair around his hand. He doesn’t pull, but his grip is secure as he guides me forward and connects our lips. God--his body is still warm from sleep, his lips wet. And already, his lips are parting, his tongue is swiping across my bottom lip.

It doesn’t take much to make me throb with need these days--already I feel the urge to press my thighs together. I moan against his lips--a quiet and deep thing. He hears it, shutters, sighs into my mouth.

“Am I crushing you?” I ask breathlessly.

He tuts, tugging on my hair very softly, nipping my bottom lip before sucking it soothingly. Fuck. A dull ache is starting to spread between my legs and up my thighs. I know that I’m wet already, can feel it gathering in my panties.

“Nope,” he whispers happily, pressing sloppy kisses down my throat. “Faye-baby, sit on my face.”

It almost makes me laugh--the abruptness of his sentence. He says it casually, but with want dripping in his gravelly voice.

My heart jumps in my throat, my lips pulling into a grimace without even meaning to.

“Can’t,” I sigh as he kisses feverishly across my sweater-covered collarbones.

He whines aloud, groaning, bucking his hips up to grind against mine. And oh--oh, that feels good. I reach forward, hold onto his left shoulder and tangle my hand in his hair.

“Why not?” He asks, peering up at me through his lashes.

Darts of pleasure are plinking against my skin like flakes of snow, melting and rolling down in droplets of cold water.

“‘Cause then I’ll really crush you,” I tell him, tipping my head back when he brushes my nipple.

Even through three layers of clothing, even with his touch as light as it is, it makes me jolt. I’m so sensitive these days, like the dry petals of a flower just waiting to flake off.

“No, you won’t,” he argues simply, “promise, baby. C’mon--I know you want it.”

It would feel good--I like to sit on his face, I always have. But sitting on his face right now, with my belly looming before me and obstructing my view of Bradley below me--it makes my spine prickle.

“‘M too big now,” I try softly, my voice thin.

Another scoff from him.

“Weren’t too big last week,” he argues, nipping at my throat.

Pink paints my cheeks.

“That-that was a momentary lapse in judgment,” I defend pathetically, twirling his curls around my fingers. “A moment of weakness.”

He pulls me closer, closes the distance between our lips again. It’s dirty--all tongue and teeth and spit. Heat radiates from my core like a radiator, makes my thighs shiver, makes my fingers tingle.

“It was more than just momentary,” he smirks against my lips. “C’mon, baby. Wanna taste you s’bad.”

God--the leather cord is tight from those words alone.

“Wanna make you feel good, baby,” he promises, already moving to unhook my overalls with one hand. “Wanna make you cum.”

I don’t want to say no--I really, really don’t want to say no. In fact, as much as my spine tingles at the thought of me suffocating him by accident, I want to say a resounding yes, yes, yes.

“Fuck,” I whisper, shaking my head. “You’re quite convincing.”

The sun is thinking about setting when my first orgasm washes over me, so the room is a soft yellow. The orgasm--it’s a hasty and greedy thing, beginning at the roots of my hair and jolting down my body until I can feel it in my toes. The pleasure is white-hot; it makes my cheeks flush, makes my nipple pert, makes my vision tunnel, makes my ears ring.

Bradley’s beneath me, his tongue lapping languidly at my clit and his arms curled around my legs to keep me upright as my muscles tense so severely. He’s moaning against me and I know he’s probably saying something fucking filthy, but there’s a solid tone echoing between my ears. The only thing I can hear beside the tone is my own rapid heartbeat.

I’m gripping his hands, nails digging into his skin; I know he likes it when his skin is littered with those little half-crescents, know he likes it whenever I can’t hold onto anything but him.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter finally, blinking.

He is relentless, holding me closer to him, licking long stripes up my center.

He must be uncomfortable, lying on the floor with my very pregnant body pressing down onto his face. But when I try to move, even just slightly, he grips the meat of my bottom and pulls me down on him again.

“Hold still,” he mumbles against me. “Not done with you yet, mama.”

And then his lips wrap around my clit again--I jolt and the noise that falls from my lips is one of agony, one of pleasure. His pace is utterly merciless, the kind of pace that can only be submitted to, the kind of pace that only just run its course.

“Mean daddy,” I whisper to him breathlessly.

When he laughs, it vibrates my core. I almost break the skin of his hands under the wrath of my nails.

It’s after I cum again, writhing and calling his name in a hushed and desperate voice, that he finally releases my thighs. The relief is something between sweet and bitter as I fall back, panting. I just lay on top of his body for a moment, blinking at our vaulted ceiling and letting my heart return to its normal pace.

He sits up on his elbows, grinning at me. The bottom of his face gleams with my arousal, plastering his mustache to his upper lip. He runs his hand along my right thigh, soothing me, cooing at me with that mischievous glint in his eye.

“Y’okay, baby?”

I can only nod, can’t swallow this thick saliva in my mouth.

Really, I’m somewhere between fantastic and utterly spent. But when his fingers dance very high on my thigh, then dip between my legs again to swipe across my clit, I’m not too spent to clamp my thighs together. Aftershocks rock through me and I can do nothing but breathe through them, wrapping my fingers around his wrist.

“S’sensitive,” he coos, “can’t help myself.”

I don’t have the strength to speak. So I carefully sit up--his hands immediately hold my hips, keeping me secure, keeping me safe in the confines of his grip. His eyes are half shut now, his hair mussed. The yellow light washes over him and the flush across his chest is bright pink.

I’m straddling his hips now, bracing myself against his softening tummy. He exhales through grit teeth, watching me carefully. His chest is heaving--good. I want it to be heaving. I want him to be fucked out. But I know that I won’t last long like this on top; I’m too heavy, my muscles ache too deeply. He knows this, too--knows that he’s gonna have to take me from behind eventually.

“C’mon,” he whispers, straining. “Give it t’me, baby.”

I’m hovering him now, my heat surely stiffening his already painfully solid cock. I don’t move, though. There’s a great stretching in my hips, an unfolding of muscles, an ease.

“Ask nicely,” I whisper finally--my voice is ragged and soft.

He laughs, throat flexing. He’s gripping my hips now, rapidly thumbing my hip bones.

“Mean mama,” he coos, gripping me.

But I just stare back at him with my cheeks pink and my lips parted. My chest is still heaving.

“C’mon, daddy,” I whisper lowly. “Ask me nicely.”

His breathing hitches when I lower myself down just slightly, just enough for him to dip into me. God, it’s good--it’s a familiar fullness already, a stretch that is welcome. He throws his head back, groans.

Bradley tries to thrust into me, but I am like a rock--I don’t move, don’t let him ease into me. He is unwilling to press down on me any harder than he already is, unwilling to pound into me the way I know he wants to.

“Please,” he whispers, biting his lip hard, “please, baby.”

He spills into me with his back propped up against the sofa, with his lips closed around my nipple, with his hands guiding my hips down on his at a relentless pace. He holds me tight, holds me as close as he can. We’re both whispering each other’s names, breathing into each other’s open mouths, clenching and tensing.

We collapse into each other like we always do. My entire body is aching, radiating a deep soreness now. But it’s one that I welcome, one that is no better or worse than my permanent ache.

“Mmm,” he mumbles, kissing my breasts and gently nipping at my collarbones. “Y’okay, baby?”

I nod again, kissing his forehead.

“Fine,” I mumble. “Just dandy.”

It’s quiet for a little while as we hold each other. The fire is settling, emanating a sweet warmth in the living room. Bradley’s breathing is returning to normal finally, that steady and deep motion in his chest that has lulled me to sleep most every night for a couple years now. He gently tickles his fingers up, up, up my spine and hums when I lay against him.

“You’re my best friend,” he whispers into my shoulder, pressing an open-mouthed kiss there.

It makes me laugh at first; he’s buried deep inside me and I am going to give birth to his daughter any day now and he tells me that I’m his best friend. But he doesn’t laugh at all, he just kisses my shoulder again. And it makes me soft, very soft. I’m his best friend, I’m the mother of his child, I’m his wife. I’m all of these things.

“You’re my best friend too,” I tell him, combing his hair softly. “You’re the bestest friend I’ve ever had, baby.”

He sighs into me, his breath hot.

“M’telling Bob,” he sighs.

We laugh--I lean back, look down at him. He’s grinning.

I nod towards the stairs.

“M’gonna take a bath. Keep me company?”

He nods, already standing up and stretching. Marmie and Buttercup whine as they wake up, coming to. Olive stirs, twirls.

“Like you even have to ask, baby,” Bradley grins.

The sun is sinking in the sky when I sink into the lukewarm water, which is sprinkled with epsom salt and lavender oil. The tub is deep enough for almost all of my belly to submerge--just the tiniest bit of bump peeking out, the highest point of the hill. The water feels good, even if I wish it could be hotter. Even if I feel like carrying olive is easy for the most part, my muscles do ache from holding her.

Bradley’s sitting on the checker tiles, leaning against the wall so we’re facing each other. His face is washed and his hair is combed now. He has a baby name book propped in his lap and he’s smiling very softly at me, chuckling when a sigh slips past my lips.

“Feel good, baby?”

I hum, nodding.

My eyes slip shut as lavender tickles my tongue, my nose. Olive is stirring again, stretching. I’m sure it feels good for her, too. I hope it does.

Marmie and Buttercup, of course, have followed us and are lying by the tub. Stevie is somewhere in the bedroom, still snoozing away on our bed or preening on the sofa before the fire.

Our Sunday’s are easy. I hope it is this way forever.

“Faye,” he whispers.

I crack an eye open. He’s looking at me already, his eyes very open and soft. There’s the hint of a smile on his face, a faint blush in his cheeks and across his neck. This is the face he makes whenever he wants to tell me that he loves me. This is the face he has on whenever he tells me that Carole and Goose would’ve loved me. And now I am here, lying in this tub Bradley probably bathed in as a child, in the bathroom his parents shared, and I am pregnant with Bradley’s first daughter.

“Bradley,” I whisper because I know that he likes it when I say his name. And because I vowed, privately and silently, to say it whenever I can--whenever I know he wants to hear it. It is the name given to him by the parents he does not have anymore, a name that I will utter for the rest of my life; for him, for myself, for our children.

Breaking past the still surface of the bathwater, I reach for his hand. He takes it quickly, like he knew I was going to stretch out for him, like he can anticipate my movements before they have even begun. He doesn’t mind that my hand is wet and I don’t mind that his grip is so tight. This is how we should hold onto the people that we love. We both know that. We know it so much.

“I really, really love you,” he tells me very seriously.

A smile tugs my lips, a fond and sweet one.

“Oh, I know,” I breathe, “think everyone does at this point.”

I let my other hand slip over my belly.

He grins. His eyes are swimming with affection; love drenched in whiskey.

Silently, he slips his hand from mine and over the peak of my belly that emerges from the water. He just holds his hand there, with our daughter just beneath it palm, with that awestruck glimmer in his eyes.

“What’s she gonna be like?” He whispers.

We talk about this a lot--whispering it to each other between awake and asleep, when his palm comes to my belly and she stirs beneath his touch. It makes my chest warm to think about her, to think about what she will be like.

“Funny,” I whisper. “Funny on purpose, too. Quick-witted like Maggie.”

Bradley smiles very fondly at this.

“M’sure she’ll be a crack-up,” he laughs. “My mom told me I was funny when I was little.”

A fist squeezes my heart. Just hearing him say the words, it makes me warm all over. I can’t help the grin that is suddenly eating my face.

It is strange to think of not having parents to tell ourselves and others what we were like when we were little; they are the only ones that know. And Bradley doesn’t have that anymore, no, not now. But Carole must’ve told him before--before everything.

“I don’t doubt it. I’ve seen the socks and sandals picture in Mav’s hanger,” I laugh quietly. “Tell me some baby Bradley stories.”

Bradley’s relaxed against the wall, hand still splayed over my belly. His eyes are half-shut, his lips pursed slightly as he thinks.

“Mmm,” he says, shaking his head softly, “we used to have a Great Dane named Todd. He was a good boy--fuckin’ huge, though. Used to use Todd as my own personal mode of transportation around the house whenever I could swing it.”

I can see him now: that rambunctious blonde-haired little boy that’s always tan and never grumpy, hooking his little arms around a Great Dane and being carried all around Chateau Bradshaw.

We’re laughing. Olive stirs at the noise and Bradley pats my belly a few times in recognition.

“Keep going,” I whisper to him. “We’re enjoying this.”

Bradley grins, pink flooding his cheeks.

“Let’s see,” he starts softly, “oh--my mom used to take me to church ‘cause my grandpa was the preacher. S’one of those country churches where the preacher, like, yells and tries to make wheelchair-users walk. And one day, my grandpa started getting into his sermon. Like red in the face, yelling, spitting. So I stood up--God, I must’ve been about three or four--and yelled, ‘calm down, pawpaw!’ My mom was horrified.”

My sides ache from the laughter we share--it falls out so easily. He looks very happy right now, dipped in golden hour and open-mouth laughing.

“Poor Carole,” I say softly.

He nods. His eyes are glassy and his smile is smaller now. His gaze lingers on my bump warmly.

“You were a mama’s boy, huh?”

Another nod, his eyebrows furrowed slightly. Maybe it’s a silly question--how could he be anything except a mama’s boy? They were together by themselves often. But he’s not upset, no, he’s just answering me. Yes, he was a mama’s boy.

“What about you, baby?”

It feels like there’s something sticky on my chest when I think about my parents sitting in their quiet house in Topeka, never opening their daughter’s bedroom doors, living like they’re already in purgatory. Whoever those people are right now, at this very second, they are not the people that raised me.

“I was a daddy’s girl,” I tell him, exhaling. “Just wanted to do whatever he was doing. I’d go into the garage and sit on a stool at his workbench, watching Cheers reruns while he worked on his car or whatever he did. He took me to a lot of concerts, too--always held me on his shoulders.”

I can almost smell the garage: gasoline, oil, dirt, sweat, grass. I can almost hear the concert, too--Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones flooding the dark and crowded venue so sweetly. And my thighs are around my father’s neck and my hands are in his hair and he’s holding my knees. And even though I was too heavy, even though I was too tall, he didn’t stagger. He was firmly planted on his feet like a streetlamp rooted in concrete. It’s difficult to remember what I was like at thirteen--but I’m sure I was gawky, not easy to carry, not easy to hold in any sense. But he did it.

“He was good to you?”

Furrowing my brows, I nod shortly. Yes. Yes, he was good to me. Before everything happened, before he lost Maggie, before I lost Maggie. He was good--fleetingly good. But Bradley is permanently good, which is why we are going to fill this house up with our children. It’s why he owns that worn Steely Dan shirt now. It’s why I moved here with him.

“For a time, I think he’d have done anything for me,” I whisper.

Bradley exhales, nodding. He was there the very last time I saw my parents on Christmas of 2019; he understands. He knows thoroughly what it is like. He was there when I read their note before our wedding, when I was given all the home videos. He was there when I wrote them a letter to tell them that they were going to be grandparents and that we’d moved to Virginia. He has been here each and every day since then, coming in from the mailbox empty-handed, a sorry sort of smile on his lips.

“I’d do anything for you, baby,” he says quietly. “No expiration on that promise.”

I smile--of course he would.

“I know,” I say.

And he knows, just as well as I do, that I would give him anything in the world. But we’re starting with this, with olive: a daughter. I’m going to give him a daughter very soon.

“Do you want a son?” He asks this with his brows furrowed, but his lips smiling.

A son, a daughter--it doesn’t matter very much to me at all. When I imagine olive, a little plump and pink thing that cries in the middle of the night, I see a girl. But if olive is a boy, if I have a son, I will be just as content.

“I’ll take whatever we get,” I tell him, shrugging softly.

“So, if it is a boy, you won’t be disappointed?”

I sigh.

“Nothing we could make could ever disappoint me,” I say quietly, looking at his smiling lips and his flushed throat.

He grins shortly.

“Sap,” he teases.

I just hum.

Olive rolls and Bradley looks down at my belly again, cheeks pink.

“What about her? Think she’ll be a mama’s girl?”

That makes my cheeks pink, the tips of my ears too. Surely, she’ll be tired of me after spending almost ten months cooped up inside of me. Surely, she will understand that her father should be everyone’s favorite person in the world. I grew her, I grew her brain and her heart--she’ll love him more than anyone, I think. And that makes me warm all over.

“No,” I say, “she’ll be all about you. Unless you keep making her hiccup.”

He laughs.

“She’ll be a mama’s girl,” he says after a beat, shaking his head softly. “How could she not be? You’re gonna be perfect.”

Warmth blooms in my chest.

“Oh, you flatter me,” I whisper.

He shakes his head, inhaling.

“No, I really think you’re gonna be perfect, baby,” he says, shrugging. “Think it’s all gonna come naturally to you. Everything does, baby.”

He’s watching me now, the hint of a smile on his lips.

Fuck, I love him so much.

“Except repairing air conditioners,” I whisper.

He laughs.

“Olive’ll be so perfect, baby,” he muses, shaking his head. “Your brains and my brawn? Ideal human specimen right there.”

Now I’m laughing, holding my hand over Bradley’s.

“Perfect human specimens aren’t named Julep Bradshaw,” I smile, biting my lip.

He feigns offense, holding a hand over his heart.

“You just offended all the Julep Bradshaw’s of the world!”

When I go to speak again, I’m interrupted by Elton John.

“S’Bob,” I tell Bradley, sitting up slightly, pointing to my phone on the bathroom counter.

Bradley quickly wipes his wet hand on his sweatshirt and reaches for the phone while I dry my hands on a towel and sit up straighter.

Bob, who already called at least three times a week and texted nonstop, calls every evening to check in on things. It’s not just to see if I am in labor or if the baby is here, but he checks in on me--his best friend Faye. I’m living in Virginia now, so very far away from him and from my old life, and I’m alone most of the days while Bradley is on base. Bob knows this--he’s my best friend. He��s the best person in the world, which is why he calls so often.

“Bob,” I say jovially, pressing the phone to my ear, “I’m not in labor yet. And I really liked that Otis Redding song you sent, I just forgot to respond!”

It’s quiet on the other end, quieter than it usually is. All I can hear is distant mumblings, like someone else is talking in the room with him. It sounds like he’s pressing the phone against his cheek very hard, hard enough for me to hear his breathing.

“Fee,” Bob says and he doesn’t sound like he called to ask if the baby’s here or to get my official review of the Otis Redding song he sent me. He sounds very serious, the kind of serious that makes my fingers instantly numb.

He’s calling me Fee.

Cold dread seizes my heart, numbs my toes.

“Everything okay?” I keep my voice steady, try to keep my pulse even.

It’s very quiet on the other end still.

There’s more distant mumblings and sounds like Bob is shuffling, pressing the phone against his shoulder. Then he heaves a sigh into the receiver.

“Bob, is everything okay?” I sound a little bit more desperate this time.

Bradley’s head snaps up at that--his brows furrowed, his spine stiffening.

The last time I had a phone call as quiet as this with Bob was when he called me in the hospital, just after the accident, just after Maggie. We had barely spoken to each other, both of us too shell-shocked and dazed. There were no words between the two of us, both English majors, that could bring any semblance of comfort or understanding. It was too big for the both of us.

This quiet right now--this grief-stricken, empty, toe-curling silence--is the same quiet as that day. Even his shallow breathing, even the distant shuffling.

“I don’t know, Fee,” Bob sighs, his voice shaking.

It takes a lot for Bob--who is as solid as tungsten--to admit that he doesn’t know if everything is okay. Especially when Bob is talking to me, he usually does not admit it so easily. Usually, Bob will try and dance around an issue, assuring me that things will be okay. He takes care of me like that, attempting to shield me, trying to preserve my feelings.

My tongue is dry. Bradley’s watching me carefully.

“What do you mean?”

He takes a deep breath.

“When’s the last time you talked to Jake?” Bob asks.

My throat is caked in sand.

When’s the last time I talked to Jake? Why would he be asking me--why would anyone be asking me after the couple months I’ve had with him?

Something must be wrong--something must be very, very wrong.

“The last time I--what? Why? Why are you asking?”

The bathwater suddenly feels very cold.

My heart is hammering--I can’t stop it, can’t steady my pulse for olive’s sake.

“M’sorry, maybe I--shit, maybe I should’ve called Rooster,” Bob mumbles.

Now I know that he’s upset with himself after gauging my reaction, inducing my panic. If not because I am so far along that olive could come any time now, then because of my last few months with Jake.

I think I hear him wipe his hands down his face, keeping his palm flat against his nose and lips. Regret is probably pulsing through him.

The hairs on my arms are all standing at attention now. Bradley is leaning closer to me, arm on the edge of the tub. I can feel the fire in my cheeks now--the blush that is spreading all across my face and neck.

With a trembling hand, I hold the phone between us and put Bob on speaker.

“Bradley’s here,” I tell Bob--my voice sounds thin. “Tell us what’s going on, Bobby. Please.”

Bob sighs--it sounds muffled, like he is still holding his face.

“Nix and I were talking to some guys in the break room after a flight, and-and all of a sudden, someone got a call from a friend in North Carolina. And then everyone, they just, they-they started talking about some sort of freak accident in Greensboro. Like, like on Jake’s base. They didn’t know a whole lot, but they said there was, um, a casualty,” Bob says, his voice wavering, “And I’ve already called Javy and Reuben and Mickey and no one’s talked to him today.”

My molars ache from having my jaw wrenched shut so tightly.

“Oh, my God.” It falls out of my mouth before I can stop it, more of a breath than a coherent sentence.

Bradley’s staring hard at the phone, his bottom lip fallen victim to the wrath of his teeth. All the warmth in the room has vanished--no more docile conversations about our daughter and what she will be like.

Bob takes a wavering breath.

“Fee, tell me you’ve talked to him today. Please, please, please tell me you’ve talked to him today.”

There is a whole in the middle of my chest--a gaping, endless thing. Bradley’s staring at me and I’m staring at him with the phone wrenched in my cold fingers. His face has paled, his lips parted. We blink at each other, speechless.

“I haven’t,” Bradley says finally, very quiet.

He reaches forward, lays his hand on my wrist.

Oh, God. I haven’t. I haven’t spoken to Jake today. I don’t think I’ve spoken to him in a few days, not since he called to ask about Thanksgiving. And just like every time we’ve talked since he said what he did, he apologized. And just like every time he’s apologized since then, I told him that I needed more time. I told him that I was still trying to wade through all of it, trying to put my feet on solid ground. Without my sister here to throw me a life preserver, it is hard to keep my head above water sometimes.

Bradley doesn’t make me say it--he knows my face. He knows my body. He knows my voice. He knows what the tears gathering in my eyes mean.

“Faye hasn’t either,” Bradley says decidedly, his whiskey eyes swimming. “Bob, tell us what you heard, man.”

My ears are ringing. Olive suddenly has the hiccups again for the third time today, jolting and rolling. Maybe my plummeting heart startled her. My poor baby.

Pop, pop, pop.

“S’not good,” Bob mutters. “God, we heard that a pilot went into G-LOC and couldn’t get out of it, like-like they couldn’t…they didn’t, the mountain was--!”

Pop, pop.

“Jesus Christ,” Bradley interrupts, shaking his head.

No. No, no. Oh, God. Please, no.

I feel like I’m about to faint. I feel like I’m free-falling out in the open sky, the way my sister did. I haven’t felt this way in such a very long time, have been standing on such solid ground for so long that I forgot what it feels like to have the floor drop out from under me, the way my belly flips and tumbles.

When my sister and I ejected from our F-18 somewhere above Poland, just three days after our birthday, I watched her fall to her death when her parachute malfunctioned and actually severed from its cords at an almost perfect moment. I watched her fall from my own place in the sky, falling down so slowly, and I could do nothing. I descended for what felt like hours and I tried to keep my eyes on my sister, where I knew her body would be. When I neared the trees, I got caught in one, and in the struggle, I disconnected from my parachute too high up and my jaw fell victim to a jagged, snowy branch. My blood, leaking from my jaw like a spicket, kept me warm for hours.

The scar on my jaw is sizzling.

“We--obviously, we don’t know anything for certain yet. We’re just-just trying to, you know, see if anyone has called him or, just, I don’t know. I don’t really know what we’re doing, we’re just--just doing what we can. Which isn’t…it isn’t very--very much.”

Pop, pop. Pop.

Bradley’s face is stony. His lips are a flat line, his eyebrows sloped.

“I know, um, a captain on base there. I’ll--I’ll give him a call,” Bradley decides, nodding curtly.

Marmie and Buttercup are both sitting up, watching us with wide eyes. Neither of them are wagging their tails.

Pop, pop. Pop.

Bradley starts to stand up and I don’t know what to do with myself, don’t know where to go or what to do. I don’t know if I should be getting up or staying put or if I should be calling around. Fuck, I’m not in the Navy anymore--I don’t have the clearance to call around and ask for favors. I have no one, not one person, that can help me here. I’m floundering, really, that’s what is happening now.

There’s a warmth between my brows--Bradley’s thumb. It’s a quick, swiping motion. His eyes are narrowed as he looks down at me, studying my face. He cups my cheek, somehow getting the left side of his mouth to raise.

Pop, pop.

“S’alright,” he whispers. “Promise.”

And if anyone else in the world tried to tell me that it was alright, if they went so far as to promise it, then I would go ballistic. I think I would be bitter and angry. But when he says it, when those words fall off his lips with a reverence only he can possess, I believe him. Despite myself, despite this gaping hole in my chest and this numb cold in my fingers, I believe him. Just a little bit, just enough for me to nod.

Pop.

He leaves the room after that, the baby-name book left open and forgotten on the floor. Marmie stays put right beside me, just blinking at me, but Buttercup trails after Bradley briskly.

“You okay, Fee?” Bob asks.

He sounds like he’s about to cry--that alone makes me want to sob. My precious Bob, so far away from me, crying without my hands in his hair and a box of kleenexes between us.

“I don’t know,” I finally say, inhaling sharply. “I’m-I’m scared.”

I feel like I can see him nodding, holding the bridge of his nose with his glasses lying forgotten in front of him.

“Phoenix is calling around now,” he sighs, “just trying to get some-some answers.”

A beat passes.

I try to listen for sounds of Bradley in the house, but there is none. He must be downstairs in his office, that little sun-drenched room by the front door. The day is just as beautiful and quiet as it was before this phone call, which makes the vein across my nose pulse.

Pop. Pop.

“Good. Are you--are you okay?”

He sighs deeply.

“No,” he admits. “I’m freaking out, Fee.”

I swallow hard.

Pop, pop. Pop, pop.

It’s bad when Bob admits to me that he isn’t okay. Bob, who always holds it down. Bob, who is as solid as a sheet of concrete. It is like hearing him burn in with Phoenix, the desperate way his words ripped out of his mouth.

My brain is pulsing against my skull.

“Fuck,” I whisper, but Bob hears me. “God dammit, I’m fucking--I’m literally naked right now.”

That makes Bob laugh--a pathetic and dry thing, but still a laugh.

“Hope I just interrupted a bath?” His voice is as thin as mine.

Pop.

Now I’m the one laughing dryly.

“Yes,” I whisper. “And I gave the baby the hiccups.”

Bob makes a throaty sound, one between a groan and a sigh. It doesn’t feel right to be talking about anything but Jake right now--but what are we supposed to say? We know nothing at all.

“How many times today?”

I sigh. Pop, pop.

“Three now,” I answer. “Hold on, Bob.”

I can’t be in the bath anymore. I have to move, I have to get out. I let the phone call to the tile, grip the sides of the tub, heave myself up. Olive feels so heavy right now, so very low, lower than I feel like she was this morning. There’s a pressure there, one that feels like the heavy one pressing on my shoulders.

Marmie comes closer to me like she’s guarding me, her paws still so small as they step onto the rug before the tub.

Pop, pop, pop.

I towel myself off as quickly as I can when my fingers are this incredibly, fantastically numb. I take long, long breaths as Marmie licks water droplets off my calves and I wrap myself in my robe, tying it tightly over my bump.

My heart is still hammering in my chest. Olive is still hiccuping.

“Still with me?” I ask Bob.

“Uh huh,” he breathes shakily, “wouldn’t leave you, Fee.”

Fee. Fee. It’s pity. He’s pitying me already because he knows exactly what I am afraid of--if Jake is gone, if some freak accident cut his life short, then he will have died without my forgiveness. And I am entirely unsure if I would be able to keep going.

This feels so juvenile and so adult simultaneously. Something is going wrong and all of us are banding together, calling each other, trying to piece together an answer or a timeline. Being so close with each other that we call each other first thing. We need each other, have to stay on the phone with each other. Even miles and miles and miles away, we need to hear each other’s voices. I feel like if we all lived in the same town, we would be biking on our ten-speeds over to someone’s tree-house and setting up an official investigation.

Pop. Pop.

God, this pressure in my pelvis--it feels heavier now that I’m standing. It feels like she’s pushing down as hard as she can without it being painful for me yet. Uncomfortable, yes--but painful, no.

“Nix okay?”

Pop, pop.

I can see him now, looking across the living room and watching her rake her hands through her hair, her eyes screwed shut. I can imagine her talking through grit teeth, trying to get answers, but each of her attempts are fruitless.

“Not really,” he says honestly.

The sun is setting now, washing our room in orange light. If I wasn’t on the phone with Bob, if things were different, if I had spoken to Jake only a few minutes ago--then it would be beautiful. Marmie is trailing close behind me as I step into the bedroom, her fur soft against my ankle.

Pop, pop.

“What can I do?” I ask.

And I don’t really know if I’m asking him honestly or if I’m just saying it aloud. I am not in the Navy anymore. I am not a lieutenant. I cannot call in favors, I don’t have any more connections. I just have to sit tight now. I never used to sit tight before this, I used to claw my way into knowing, I used to know things and people and get answers.

My chest is burning because this is what Jake described all those months ago. Barefoot and pregnant in my big house in Virginia, a Mrs instead of Lieutenant. I am the only one in our friend group that is not in the Navy, the only one who can do precisely nothing right now.

Bob’s still quiet on the other end.

“Nothing right now, Fee,” he tells me softly. “You just sit tight, okay? Stay on the phone with me.”

Right--because I have no other choice.

Pop, pop.

“I hate just sitting here,” I tell him.

He makes a noise--one of quiet agreement.

“I know you do,” he whispers. “It’s the Maggie in you.”

Right--except Maggie would never discharge. She would never leave the Navy. So she would never have to sit tight, hold on, and stay on the line with Bob.

I don’t know what else to say, but I can’t stop my mouth from opening and my throat from vibrating. I can’t just sit quietly right now.

“Had a dream about her the other night,” I tell Bob in a hushed tone.

Stevie stretches out on the bed and blinks at me, unimpressed as always.

“Tell me about it,” Bob whispers back just as quietly.

Pop. Pop.

I know that he really does want to hear it, even if his voice is strained and his breath is bated. He’s the kind of person that listens to other people’s dreams with unblinking interest.

“We were seventeen,” I start softly, closing my eyes, “on the last camping trip we took as a family. We were parked beside Lake Michigan in this dinky little camper that smelled like cat piss. It felt real--I could feel the breeze and hear the gulls.”

Bob hums, listening.

I’m there now, parked beside Lake Michigan with my sister and my parents. We’re too old to be sharing a bed, but we do it anyway because we won’t be able to soon. We take long walks sharing headphones, listening to Dolly Parton and Lucinda Williams. We swim all day and eat smoky chicken legs at night. My dad tries to play guitar around a bonfire. We wash our hair in the lake.

Seventeen didn’t feel like a tender age when I was seventeen, but now that I am twenty-nine, it feels like maybe my softest age. Somewhere between girl and woman, somewhere between child and adult. No sharp edges on my body, just plush baby fat and unblemished skin.

Pop, pop.

“And Maggie and I are walking on a nature trail, walking towards each other with all this--this emptiness between us. I can hardly make out her face. And then a doe just walks right between us--very close to me, like, closer than doe’s should be. It isn’t running, it isn’t spooked by me. It just stands there. Then I woke up.”

Really, Maggie and I didn’t see any deer when we were in Michigan. We didn’t even really ever walk on opposite ends of the trail. We were always beside each other, always hooking our arms together.

Pop, pop.

“Cryptic,” Bob exhales, laughing dryly. “Can’t she ever just say that she misses you?”

“I guess not,” I return. “It’d be too easy.”

We’re both thinking about it: if Jake is gone, will we dream of him like we dream of Maggie? Will he send us images of deer and never let us get too close to him?

Neither of us say anything at all for a long time.

I take a shaky breath, turning to look at the dying fire in the fireplace. But that is the exact moment that Bradley appears in the bedroom doorway, standing between those pretty French doors. He’s pale--very pale. He’s gripping the doorframe, his cheeks flushed, his chest tight and still. He’s been running his hands through his hair and down his face, I can tell.

Pop. Pop, pop.

He’s washed in this orange light, glowing. But I know that face--saw it the night Admiral Kazansky died. I know that stricken stature and those wide eyes. He has been stained by loss the same as me: this look is not a permanent one but it is unblinkingly familiar.

Jake. Oh, no. Oh, God.

“What?” I ask, my voice hardly above a whisper.

Pop, pop, pop.

He’s shaking his head at me very shortly, his mouth parting. He can’t speak--he’s just looking at me. Watching me stand there beside our bed, the phone fallen onto the bed, wrapped in a silk robe, so very pregnant, so very sullen.

My cheeks are red and hot.

“Say it,” I beg softly.

Two fat tears spill from my eyes in total tandem. Twins.

The pressure is growing all over my body, increasing steadily in increments of one hundred pounds. I feel like I’m being buried beneath bricks right now, like our entire house just collapsed.

Pop, pop. Pop.

Buttercup whines beside Bradley, trying to nudge her head into his hand. I’m sure she followed him all around the house, sitting at his feet in the office, whining while he made his phone calls. He doesn’t move to stroke her snout like he usually does, doesn’t even seem to know she’s standing there. Marmie is whining now, too--always doing whatever her big sister does.

“Fee?” Bob is calling my name from a distance.

I can’t speak to him--I can’t look away from Bradley.

“I-I called Captain Delmar. He was able to-to confirm that Jake was a part of the accident, but couldn’t tell me if-if--he said they were still in the process of notifying the family. Couldn’t…couldn’t tell me anything else.” Bradley’s voice is hollow, echoing in our bedroom.

Pop, pop. Pop. Pop.

Suddenly I’m certain that this is a dream. Yes, this must be a dream. One of those strange and vivid ones I have whenever I sleep too hard. Really, I must be sleeping and we haven’t gone to the farmer’s market yet or talked about names. I must be lying in Bradley’s arms, snuggled close and tightly. The girls will wake me up soon probably and this will be over. Because surely, I would feel it if it happened. The earth would shake and I would have to steady myself on something rooted in concrete. If Jake had left, if he had been gone, burned in, dead--I wouldn’t have been able to let Josephine touch my belly or drink tea at lunch. I wouldn’t have been able to finish a pair of booties while Bradley napped. I wouldn’t have been able to sink into the bath so easily, so completely. Jake wouldn’t die--couldn’t die. He loves himself too much; he loves me too much. He wouldn’t leave this world without my forgiveness--without my love intact.

Maybe I am dreaming in that little camper parked on the lake, crammed in a bunk with my sister. Maybe when I wake up, my mom will be frying eggs and my dad will be baiting fish hooks for me and Maggie. Maybe when I wake up, I will be that soft seventeen-year-old girl again, the one who hasn’t lost her sister or her parents. Maybe we’re going to fish all day and eat bass for dinner and take turns telling scary stories around the fire.

Pop. Pop.

Oh, olive. This isn’t a dream.

It’s the mattress beneath my bottom that brings me back, back to our bedroom in Chateau Bradshaw, back to being face-to-face with Bradley. He’s standing before me now, his hands on my waist as he eases me onto the bed, my phone suddenly tucked between his shoulder and ear. His hands are warm and solid and they’re holding me and oh, my God--I’m awake. This is happening and I’m awake.

Pop, pop.

Buttercup is on the bed beside me, fanatically sniffing my hair and neck. Marmie is trying her damndest to get onto the bed, whining pitifully and clawing my legs. Swiftly, Bradley scoops her up with one arm and places her beside me. She immediately copies Buttercup--coming to sniff my cheeks, her puppy breath wafting in my face.

I know Bradley and Bob are talking--I can see Bradley’s lips moving. But I can’t hear anything. I’m just holding my belly, sitting on the bed, weighed down by one thousand pounds of grief. I sat still, couldn’t do anything but, and Jake was in an accident. And all I could do was sit tight.

Pop, pop. Pop.

“Bradley,” I whisper and my voice is pitiful, really. It’s making the girls whimper, making them desperately lick at my hands. I can hardly feel their warm tongues, can hardly feel anything.

“S’okay,” Bradley whispers, coming close to kiss my face, lips hot on my forehead. “S’okay, baby. We’ll figure it out, s’okay.”

I’m crying now--can feel the ugly pull of my lips and the way my eyes are narrowing and the way my cheeks are sagging. God, it hurts.

“Bradley.” It’s all I can manage to say as I weep.

Pop, pop.

He’s trying to do it all right now, holding the back of my head, stroking my hair. He’s still talking to Bob, keeping his voice even. He’s trying to console, kissing my head, trying to keep the dogs at a comfortable distance.

And all I can do is sit here and weep. Sit tight and wait for this to be over.

Pop, pop. Pop.

Bradley suddenly pulls the phone away from his face, his eyebrows knit. He says something to Bob, hangs up, turns the phone to me. There’s an incoming call from a contact I don’t have saved--but the area code is Greensboro, NC.

Pop, pop.

“I-I don’t know,” I say and my voice is pathetic, really. But at the mere sound of it, the girls are whining, coming closer to me, trying to get me to pet them.

Bradley kneels in front of me, one hand a permanent fixture on my spasming belly. I’m not sure if it’s to keep himself upright or to keep me from falling over. My feet are only just grazing the ground.

“Can you answer it, baby? Hm?” He’s asking this earnestly--his eyebrows pulled together and his tone soft.

Pop, pop. Pop.

I’m nodding before I can register what I’m saying yes to, pressing the phone to my ear before I have even caught my breath. This might be one of the worst phone calls of my entire life and I’m just sitting here, weeping on my bed, and my baby is hiccuping.

“Faye Ledger-Bradshaw,” I answer. Whoever it is will know that I am crying--can hear it clear as day in my wobbling tone.

Bradley holds my knees, his grip firm.

“Lieutenant Ledger,” a man says on the other line, his voice deep and serious, “this is Vice Admiral Byron. I’m the air-boss on base at the US Naval Reserve in Greensboro, North Carolina. I’m calling you in regards to Lieutenant Jacob Seresin--you’re listed as his emergency contact. There’s been an accident.”

I’m his emergency contact--me, Faye Ledger. When he filed the paperwork on base in Greensboro, when they asked if he wanted to update any information, he told them he wanted to change his emergency contact information. And then he wrote my name and my number right there.

My head is spinning. I don’t have any more fight in me, in this body--that has completely stripped it away.

Oh, my God.

My tongue is dry.

“Sir,” I simply choke in response.

Admiral Byron clears his throat.

Pop. Pop.

“Today at approximately 1200, Lt. Seresin was running a flight simulation for an upcoming mission, at which time he and his wingman experienced G-LOC. Lt. Seresin was able to regain consciousness and punch out of the aircraft, but sustained several injuries in his subsequent descent.”

He’s alive. Jake is alive.

Yes, I would have felt it. It is true--my earth would have shifted. But this pressure that’s weighing me down has not subsided, it has not even lessened. I still feel like I am one thousand pounds heavier.

Pop, pop. Pop.

“Oh,” I almost whimper, holding my face.

Alive. He is alive.

I grip Bradley’s hand and I know he can hear. He sighs loudly, head dropping, eyes slipping shut. It’s relief--the sweetest kind of relief. He holds my hand tight, bringing it to his lips and kissing my freezing fingers.

“Lt. Seresin was flown to Greensboro Medical and is currently undergoing surgery to repair a shattered tibia and fibula. He also sustained several non-life threatening injuries related to his abdominal region. He also suffered a moderate concussion. He has been in surgery since approximately 1400.”

I can hardly breathe. The pressure is growing now, growing into something that I know has an imminent ending, something that has a predestined climax.

“Unfortunately, not everyone was as fortunate as Lt. Seresin. That is all I am at liberty to say at this hour.”

He lost a wingman. He lost his wingman.

Then the realization comes screaming to me, knocking the air out of my lungs: my parents received a phone call just like this from Cyclone on October 28th, 2019. All the way in Kansas, they were told that there’d been an accident. There’d been an accident and their daughter Faye was in surgery, but they weren’t at liberty to discuss over the phone the condition of their daughter Maggie.

I have to blink a few times before I can even breathe again.

Pop. Pop.

Bradley sighs softly, shaking his head. Poor bastard.

“Will he fly again, sir?”

Bradley’s eyes are wide when I ask. The girls have not settled--they’re still desperately trying to get me to pet them, licking my neck and sighing into my skin.

It might strike Admiral Byron as a strange question, especially since I’m crying and my voice is ruddy and pitched. But I have to ask--I cannot let it go unuttered. I need him to say it. Because if Jake is going to be okay, if he is going to recover and he is alive in Greensboro, then I know that he will ask just as soon as wakes up. If he cannot fly--then who is he?

Pop. Pop. Pop.

“Lieutenant Seresin is expected to make a full recovery in approximately three to six months. Until then, he will be grounded. Effective immediately.”

There it is--Jake is alive and he is grounded. And when he wakes up from his surgery, when he comes to after losing his wingman and punching out of his jet and almost dying, he will be told that three to six months have been taken off his career. He will be entirely alone in whatever big hospital room he is in. He is achingly, completely, thoroughly alone in North Carolina.

“Understood, sir,” I whisper.

Admiral Byron clears his throat, takes a drink of something, and sighs.

Pop. Pop.

“Now, is this number appropriate to call outside of business hours? In the case that there’s any updates on his condition.”

“Yes, sir,” I say quietly.

I can’t keep sitting here. I hand the phone to Bradley, who takes it from me quickly, blinking up at my surprise.

“I can’t,” I mumble to him, smoothing my hand over my hair. “Can’t do it.”

“Alright, baby, that’s okay.” Bradley nods immediately, pressing the phone to his ear, hastily spurting something resembling a farewell before hanging up.

Maybe it’s because I stand up too fast, tensing the muscles in my legs and hoisting me and olive off the bed hastily. Maybe it’s because the sex we had earlier, the way I came and contracted my muscles before letting them go completely slack. Maybe it’s because olive dropped down low sometime overnight and this is the way it was always going to be. Or maybe it’s because the image of Jake being alone in a hospital bed in Greensboro entirely on his own rips the scar tissue that grew over my soft spot for him rip wide open.

But right there, standing just before the bed with Bradley kneeling beside me and the dogs whining on the bed behind me, the pressure finally reaches its peak. It’s enough to weaken my knees, enough for me to hold on tight to the linens on the bed, enough for me to make a strange noise: one not quiet enough to be silent but not loud enough to be considered a moan, a groan.

Olive is not hiccupping anymore.

“Faye,” Bradley says softly from behind me.

His hand comes to rest on my lower back, his other coming to hold my belly.

“Oh,” I say softly. I don’t know what else to say.

Bradley’s trying to catch my gaze, trying to get me to look at him, trying to search my face. But I can’t look up, can’t look away from my belly, can’t look away from his hand there.

“Talk to me, baby. Y’alright? What’s going on?”

Something has come loose--that’s what it feels like. Like something has dislodged, moved, and now there’s a warmth growing between my legs. Very warm and wet, a short gush. And the pressure dissipates.

Carefully, I release the linens from my fist and drag my hand down between my legs. And yes--there staining my robe is a warm liquid gathering. I don’t know how I know, but I know it. I know it as soon as I felt the pressure dissipate, as soon as I felt the wetness beneath my fingertips. My water is breaking now--right now, right here.

“Oh,” I whisper again quietly, pressing my legs together.

He realizes it after a long moment, watching my hand dip between my legs, watching my fingertips come back damp. He realizes it with his breath caught in his throat, with his mouth ajar. But he doesn’t stutter, doesn’t stumble, doesn’t sway.

He just holds me still for a moment--we’re both standing here with our breaths bated. I don’t move. Olive stirs, an elbow here and a knee there, a tumble. Hush, be still. Sit tight. Don’t move.

“Okay,” Bradley says very quietly, “okay. It’s--it’s okay. Why don’t you sit down, baby?”

I’m crying--I don’t know when it started, but I’m crying. I’m not sure if these tears were for Jake or if they’re for an entirely different reason. I can’t tell them apart from my first onslaught, before the phone call with Admiral Byron.

“But I don’t wanna move,” I say.

And it’s the last thing I say before I feel it for the first time: pain wrapping around my body, hardening my belly, a vice growing tighter and tighter around my back and thighs. It halts the very air that I’m breathing, almost stops my heart. It’s intense, sharp. It renders me speechless, soundless.

All I can do is close my eyes, grip the linens, and listen to the blood rushing in my ears.

God, the pain is hugging me close, breathing down my neck, stepping on my toes.

“Alright, okay,” Bradley’s voice is soft and close to my ear, “there you go, baby. S’okay. Breathe, take a breath.”

But I can’t fill my lungs until the pain has turned the corner, until it is fading from my body, until olive rolls and it is just her and I. Bradley is kneeling still, reaching up to wipe the tears from my face and the snot from my nose. I don’t even have it in me to turn away, to whine about him getting his fingers dirty.

I take a deep, deep breath--fill those lungs that seem easier to fill now.

“There you go,” he mumbles, “atta girl, baby.”

My brain is pulsing inside my skull, throbbing against the hardness. My eyes feel swollen from tears, my chest rising and falling unsteadily as I breathe jagged breaths. There’s thick saliva in my mouth and a flush spreading across my breasts. But it’s happening, I think: I’m going into labor right now, just after golden hour on the day that Jake punched out of his F-18 for the first time. My baby will be born tonight and I will lay in a hospital bed holding her whenever Jake wakes up by himself in North Carolina.

I’m gripping Bradley’s shoulders and he stays kneeling, very carefully pushing me down until I’m sitting on the bed. I give in because I can’t tense my legs again, can’t move, can’t breathe.

“Alright now, honey,” he mumbles, kneeling just before me with his hands on my thighs, catching my gaze. He’s smiling in a small way, his cheeks red, his eyes bloodshot. But he is only looking at me; I know that everything else in the world is tuned out, even Marmie and Buttercup as they whine pitifully. “S’all gonna be just fine, hm? Gonna get you dressed, then we’re gonna just take it easy, okay? S’all we’re gonna do right now. You stay put and I’ll get y’some clothes, baby.”

It’s almost a blur after that. I cannot decide if things are heightened or if they’re lessened. I can feel every movement of olive’s, can feel each and every one of the beats of my heart, can feel the vein throbbing across my nose. I can feel the pain waiting for me just ahead, slinking behind a corner, nestled in an alleyway. But I can’t feel Marmie and Buttercup’s noses as they come to sniff my hands and hair. I can’t even feel Stevie when she rubs up against my arm, desperate suddenly to touch me. I don’t feel the soft bed beneath me or the linens between my fingers. Everything is big and small at the same time.

But then Bradley is untying my robe, letting it pool around me, slipping cotton underwear up my legs. He’s putting me in his UVA sweatshirt, pulling a pair of sweatpants up my legs, leaving them untied and loose beneath my belly.

“Okay,” he sighs, kneeling before me still with his cheeks bright red. “We’re good, huh? S’all fine, s’all alright.”

He’s saying this with absolute certainty--enough to make my chest softer.

He leans forward, presses a kiss to my knee, wipes my cheeks again. I didn’t even know I was crying still, but he’s watching me very closely, taking care of me.

“So,” he starts softly, glancing down at his bulky watch with his brows raised, “s’about 1900 now, give or take a few. I’ll keep watching the time and you just sit there and look pretty, alright? You’ve got the easy job here.”

He’s smiling earnestly, tucking his bottom lip between his teeth. It works--a dry laugh tumbles from my lips and lessens the lump in his throat. He kisses my knees again and again, soothingly grazing the bend of my hips.

And then the realization dawns on me again; I am going into labor. I am going to give birth to our first child tonight, but before that I’m going to be in labor and I’m going to be in a hospital. All those birthing videos that bled into my dreams on fitful nights are a reality that is coming screaming towards me like a freight train.

“Oh, fuck,” I say very quietly, sniffling. “I don’t feel as ready for this as I thought I’d be.”

Just saying it makes the air lighter--Bradley sighs, nodding. Maybe it’s all dawning on him too; the hours that are going to stretch before us in a hospital room, the hours I’m going to spend writhing and laboring, the night that will end with a baby in our arms.

“Yeah,” he returns softly, “me neither.”

I scoff gently, more tears slipping down my flushed cheeks. This time, Buttercup and Marmie are licking them before Bradley can reach for my face.

“Doesn’t make me feel any better,” I tell him, frowning, “don’t think you’re supposed to tell me that.”

He laughs again--a small sound, almost drowned out by the roaring fire. It’s going to be too hot in here soon, November be damned.

“Sorry, baby,” he teases, kissing my belly. “I’ve never done this before.”

Tipping my head towards the ceiling, slipping my eyes shut, I silently plead olive in that voice only she can hear. Go easy on me, baby. Be good. Be sweet. And that is the precise moment another surge slinks its way up my legs and around my body again. I don’t even have to say anything, can’t when I’m breathless anyway. Bradley leans into me, presses his palms against my tightening belly, glances down at his watch.

“Good,” he tells me, watching my face as it pulls together and flushes, “s’real good, baby. I’ve gotcha, not gonna let you go.”

“Oh,” I manage to whisper, “it’s bad.”

“M’sorry, baby,” he says softly, “s’gonna be over soon, okay? Real soon now, any second.”

He nods, humming. Buttercup suddenly lays across my legs, her head heavy on my lap. The weight of her is a sweet one, keeps me here against the bed, keeps me still. Marmie curls beside me, Stevie right beside her.

“Good girls,” I breathe.

And then I’m released again, the kind of release that makes my face go slack.

“There you go,” Bradley whispers, cupping my cheek, swiping his thumb across my wet bottom lip. “Taking it like a champ, Faye-baby. You’re doing so well.”

It makes me smile--a tired one, but still a smile. I almost feel like I have whiplash; so much has happened in the past two hours, enough for my head to spin and my palms to sweat. I can’t believe it almost--can’t tell reality from make believe.

“So,” he starts softly, exhaling, “that was about seven minutes since the last contraction. Hospital wants us to come in at four or five minutes apart, yeah? So we’ll just stay here, take it easy, wait for things to pick up.”

The prospect of being in agony for an indefinite amount of time makes my spine prickle with cold, wet fear. My nails are surely marking his shoulders now, peppering little cuts in that shape of half-crescents. He doesn’t mind, doesn’t shrink away from my grip.

“Bradley,” I whisper, a frown tugging at my lips, “I think I’m scared.”

I think I can see it: his longing to have control over the situation that holds his face in a frown. More than anything, he wants to be the one to grit his teeth and get through it, wants me to sit on the sidelines and watch. But we both know, both have accepted, that this is my role and I will play it until the end when our daughter is in our arms.

“Don’t be scared,” he starts softly, kissing my belly, squeezing my hips. “M’gonna do whatever I can to make it easy for you, baby. I know it isn’t gonna be--but m’gonna blow you away, okay? M’gonna be the best support person in the world. Award-winningly supportive. We’re talking foam finger, face paint, jersey with your name on it, baby. Cause I’m your biggest fucking fan, Faye. And if anyone on this earth can do this, can bring our baby into this world, s’you, honey. S’you.”

I’m crying again, which has the girls in a frenzy again, moving to lick my cheeks. Bradley’s trying to keep them from getting too close to my red cheeks, chuckling as he tucks hair behind my ears.

“You’re a fighter. Even if you don’t know it, even if you don’t always feel like it--you are, baby,” he says quietly. “And you’re gonna fight tonight and I’m gonna be in your corner, okay? M’always gonna be in your corner, baby. Then we’re gonna have our baby and she’ll be funny and beautiful and so, so perfect.”

Olive stirs at the mere mention of her--a tangle of limbs nestled deep in my belly.

He stands, leaning over me with a hand over my belly, leaning down to close the distance between our lips. The kiss is sweet and salty. Even just having him this close to me, just smelling that pepper perfuming his skin and the shampoo in his hair and the chapstick on his lips, it makes my chest feel lighter. He will make it as easy as he can--I know this.

When we break away from each other, pressing our foreheads together, looking down at this mountain of belly between us, I laugh. It’s a short and dry thing. He glances at me, a smile tugging at his lips, but doesn’t say anything. He rests his palm against my belly and we sit there together.

“We still don’t have a girl name,” I whisper against his lips.

“We’d better get on that, then, huh?”

I sniff.

“Maude,” I whisper.

He groans, kissing me again, tucking my hair behind my ears.

“Don’t make me say no to you when you’re in labor,” he mumbles.

It’s almost ten o’clock when the contractions come every four minutes, rendering me a heap of hot skin and contracting muscle and grit teeth and bated breath. Hours have ticked by trickily, simultaneously feeling like mere minutes and long days. Dinnertime has come and gone and we have not left the bedroom at all. It is only when I am able to ground myself, when I am able to move someway, that I feel the slightest bit of ease.

I’m on my knees before the fireplace, bracing against Bradley’s shoulders as he kneels before me, lips pressed against my forehead. The girls are tucked away on the bed, watching me anxiously.

“There we go,” Bradley mutters, glancing at his wristwatch as I moan lowly, “few more seconds and s’all done, baby. Just a few more, you got it.”

And when it finally subsides, when it is finally done and it has left me back where I started, that’s when I can finally sigh. Olive shuffles. Quiet, baby. Hush now.

“That was a good one,” I whisper, smiling tiredly.

He laughs, kissing my forehead again and again.

“Gonna go get a washcloth for your cheeks, okay? Your poor face is flushed,” he tells me, pinching my cheeks.

So I am alone on the rug, leaning against the velvet sofa. I feel okay between them, between the surges that wrap themselves so thoroughly around my body. I can talk and I can breathe and I can stand up and walk between them. I can even be alone, sitting before the roaring fire, swaying my hips and propping my arms on the sofa.

“How about Piper?” He calls from the bathroom.

Piper Bradshaw.

I wrinkle my nose.

“No,” I call back. “Don’t like it.”

He laughs as I lay my cheek against the sofa, the velvet soft against my skin.

“May?”

“Faye and May,” I sing back, “no.”

He pads across the hardwood floors and sits on the sofa, setting a small basin of cold water beside him.

He looks so much like a father right now: very broad and tall, bathed in the soft glow of firelight, tired eyes, messy hair, untrimmed mustache, shirt wrinkled from my grip, dipping a washrag in cool water and wringing it out with his capable hands. His gold wedding band gleams in the firelight, a permanent fixture.

“C’mere,” he whispers.

I move to be between his legs, my biceps resting on his thighs, my face tipped towards him. He smells very good, very much like home. Still peppery and sweet, but fresh.

Delicately, he dabs my forehead. The rag is ice cold, droplets flooding my hairline. It feels good, especially before the crackling fire.

“Pink cheeks,” Bradley mutters softly, brushing the rag across my cheeks.

My heart is steady now--steadier than it has been before. I can measure the moments by the beats of my heart.

“Should we tell them?”

He blinks down at me, very softly grazing my bottom lip with his thumb.

“S’up to you,” he tells me, “what do you wanna do?”

I don’t know what I want to do. No one in the world knows that I’m in labor. At first it was because we didn’t know if I was actually in labor, but now it’s because no one has heard a word about Jake yet. Everyone is still scrambling in their seats.

“Just wish she had better timing,” I whisper, pressing my hand against my belly.

I’m touching her now, which she can feel. I hope she’s okay. I hope this is all very easy for her.

“Must get that from my side of the family,” he tells me, sighing. “I was born on the day of my great-grandfather’s funeral.”

Laughing, I shake my head.

“I didn’t know that,” I whisper.

He nods.

“Maybe I’ve always been marked by death,” he says--like it’s a joke.

But I don’t laugh now. I furrow my brows, look up at him, let the red flush my face. He keeps softly swiping the rag along my face and throat, the smile on his lips fading fast. I’m choked up--how could someone as bright as him be marked by something so ominous and dark?

“That’s not true,” I say quietly. “At least not anymore.”

He nods softly, chewing his bottom lip.

“You’re right,” he whispers.

I nod my head, squeezing his thigh.

“Oh, I know I am,” I tell him. “Always am.”

And then there’s another contraction gearing up, pulling me close. He knows immediately--if not from the grip I have on his thighs then the anguish that contorts my face, the words that I can’t speak.

“Alright,” he whispers softly, setting the rag down, stroking my hair carefully. “There’s another one, okay, s’alright. We’ve got it, huh? Good job--just let it happen, m’right here. Try and take a breath, baby. I know it isn’t easy, but just take it slow, yeah?”

He’s good at this--talking me through them, even though I can’t respond.

“Good job, baby,” he coos, “m’getting a jersey made for everyone at the hospital, okay? How much do y’think it’ll be to put Ledger-Bradshaw on the back of a jersey?”

If I could, I’d laugh. But I can’t--I’m stuck still in the hardened amber of this pain.

“Should be coming down any second now, baby,” he whispers, “any second. Almost there, so close.”

It ends--I exhale, releasing his thighs from the wrath of my grip.

“God,” I groan, “this is no walk in the park.”

He nods, humming, glancing down at his watch again.

“Doing fucking great,” he tells me, “doing perfect, baby.”

And when I look up, when I finally see his brown eyes looking at me already, when I see that little smile on his lips, I know. I know that the contractions are four minutes apart and it is time to go. It is all happening so fast, only three hours since my water broke, only three hours since my first contraction, only four hours since we learned about Jake.

It makes my bottom lip wobble.

“Time to go?” I ask.

“S’time to go,” he confirms, tucking my hair behind my ears.

“Okay,” I say and my voice is ragged.

I’m very tired, so tired that I could fall asleep standing up. But this pain, these contractions, olive sitting so low and deep inside of me: I can’t hold still. It brings me to my knees, renders me moveless. I have to move between the terrible minutes where everything seizes.

“S’okay,” Bradley assures me, “everything’s good, baby. Just gonna have to get going now, okay?”

I nod again. Okay.

But I feel like I’m going to cry. If not because I know that this is merely the edge of the pain, the very outskirts of it, then because we have not heard word on Jake since my phone call with Admiral Byron. I haven’t even had time to think about it, to digest it. Maybe it is a good thing that I am in labor now, or else I may have been trying to figure out how to get to North Carolina to be there with Jake.

We move as quickly as we can. He slips my coat over my shoulders, guides me down the stairs with his hands on my hips. The girls follow us all the way to the foyer, whining pitifully, their little eyes half shut and their ears perked.

He is the one that goes up and down the stairs, gathering bags and any other odds and ends. I lean against the bannister, cradling olive, breathing through my nose, pretending like my fingers aren’t very cold right now.

Marmie comes first--pressing her snout into my thigh, wagging her tail, whining. Buttercup follows closely, curling herself around my feet. Bradley gives all three of us an affectionate pat on the head when he walks by us, beaming.

“Hurry,” I tell him, inhaling when another contraction moves over me.

I try not to disturb the girls--try to just hold my breath and get through it without moving except to grip my thighs. They’re whining--crying, nudging me. But I can’t move to comfort them until I’m released.

“Sorry,” I whisper to them, shaking my head. “I wish you could come, too.”

Bradley walks me to the car with his arm over my shoulders.

The pain wraps me up and holds me tight, held me tight in the bedroom before the fireplace with Bradley’s thumbs pressing into the base of my spine, and holds me even tighter right now as I lean against the passenger side door. The car is cold, but feels so good against my cheek as I press against it, grounding myself, furrowing my brows and moaning very lowly.

“M’coming, baby,” Bradley calls in the dark, “take a deep breath. Breathe, baby, fill those lungs up nice and good.”

I don’t think I can--I don’t think I can move an inch. I have to stay right here in this spot and grip the handle and let the contraction wash over me. It’s such a tight sensation, like being wrapped up in a wet sheet. It clings to me.

Bradley’s hastily stuffing bags in the trunk and double checking the car seat, slamming car doors and pulling his coat around himself as the nippy air bites his cheeks. And then he’s behind me, kissing my ear, bringing his hands down over my hips. He holds me in place, presses down against the achiest part of my body.

It makes another moan slither out from my mouth.

“Good job, baby,” he whispers, nuzzling his cold nose in my hair, “good job. Any second now, any second.”

Now it’s over again, dropping me so suddenly that I have to take a deep breath.

All the minutes between contractions are hazy. He’s helping me into the car and buckling me in, kissing my forehead and belly alike before crossing to the driver’s side and starting the car. He’s keeping a hand on my knee as we pull out of the driveway. I think about Marmie, Buttercup, and Stevie being alone in the house and a lump in my throat grows. The headlights make the Eastern redbuds lining our driveway glow. The gravel crunches beneath the tires. Bradley fiddles with the air conditioning, positioning it this way and that, asking if I’m comfortable. It’s all melting together.

“How’s my trooper?” He asks, turning out of our driveway.

It’s dark in here--I’m glad. I can hardly keep my eyes open, anyway. But I hate the seatbelt across my belly, hate the bumpy movements of the car, hate that we are forty-five minutes away from the hospital. Especially when an intense pressure has returned with a vengeance, bearing low and deep inside me.

“Tired,” I whisper, resting my cheek on my shoulder, holding myself in place by gripping the leather seat beneath me. “Don’t wanna be in the car.”

He makes a noise of sympathy, squeezing my leg.

“Maybe we’ll have a home birth next time, then, baby,” he says softly.

There’s a knot of want in my chest now--yes, that would have been good. To not be in the car when my contractions feel near constant, to not have to endure the bumps and turns of a forty-five minute drive. To just stay home and not leave--that would be good.

I am not excited to be in a hospital, especially as a patient. I know, because I am a logical person, that I will be taken good care of. But the stench of antiseptic, the burn of bleach, the underlying scent of sickness; it makes my mouth flood with saliva just thinking about it.

“Whose idea was it to have babies in hospitals anyway?” I mumble. “And before you say next time, let’s get through this one first.”

He laughs again.

“What about Lyla?”

I face him--he’s smiling very small.

“Didn’t you already say that?”

He nods.

“I like it. It’s to the point, but it’s pretty. Not too long, not too short. Lyla Bradshaw.”

I still can’t feel it in my toes.

“Maybe,” I whisper because I don’t have the heart to say no.

He kisses my hand.

“Want music or quiet, baby?” He asks softly.

“Music,” I whisper.

“Good ‘cause I took the liberty of making a labor and delivery playlist,” he tells me very proudly.

I sigh, biting my lip.

“Is it called Push It Real Good?” I ask.

Smugly, he nods.

It feels like too much effort to even raise my lips, so I just fondly shake my head.

He fiddles with the radio, but I am the one that takes his phone, unlocking it as I take a deep breath. His thumb rubs soothing circles against my leg.

“Jake?” He asks.

He called between contractions, asking Phoenix to tell everyone else that Admiral Byron had called and told us about Jake’s condition.

There are a lot of messages in the group chat, almost one hundred. It makes my heart jump to my throat, makes my toes curl. I scroll carefully, squinting, ignoring the burn in my chest, the pressure between my legs.

Natty Pro: Any more word on Jake?

Reub: Haven’t heard anything.

B.O.B.: no :(

Dogman: Not yet--gonna see if I can head up there tomorrow. Don’t know if I’ll be able to tho.

Fanny: Radio silence on this end :/

Me: Keep us updated. We’ll let you know if we get any more info. Call me if there’s any updates--not Faye, please.

Natty Pro: Aye-aye, captain.

“No,” I whisper. “Feels wrong not telling them I’m in labor.”

Bradley sighs, nodding.

“Feels wrong telling them, too,” I follow, “with Jake.”

Saying his name right now makes my face flush. Jake--all alone in North Carolina. And I know that it isn’t my job to be the one that is there when he wakes up, but it makes me sick to my stomach that I don’t even have the option.

He nods again, squeezing my leg.

“Whatever you wanna do, I wanna do,” he says after a moment.

I don’t know what to do: I still feel like I’m in a dream.

I open my mouth to respond, but then it’s here and washing over me and pulling me beneath the waves. It’s so tight, so tight that I don’t think I can breathe, so overwhelming that I drop Bradley’s phone. And fuck--it’s torture to be sitting on my butt in this fucking leather seat, torture to be buckled in right now.

“Oh, oh,” I groan, tipping my head back, knocking my hair against the headrest.

I can’t breathe, can’t do anything except screw my eyes shut and bite my lip hard. I can feel olive just barely, being squeezed so tightly that all she can do is wriggle and shuffle, moving lower and lower.

This pain is worse, I think--it burns, burns across my entire body, makes my throat ache like I’m going to cry. If I could just move, if I could not be sitting upright on my bottom and walk around or pace or even just be on my knees--I’m certain it would help.

My nails slice the leather seats.

“Try to breathe, baby,” Bradley says softly, holding my belly, “good job, you’re doing it. Just keep breathing, baby. I know s’not easy, I know. But you’ve got it, honey.”

Heat is flooding the car now, blowing against my already flushed cheeks. The seatbelt feels too tight and the seat is too stiff. And I want to move, God, I want to move. I want to walk around and crouch when I need to crouch and have Bradley’s thumbs press into my spine. I want him to press the washrag against my forehead and ask about girl names.

“You’re making it look so easy, baby,” Bradley praises, cradling my head, “doing perfect.”

I’m sure I’m not making it look easy--it’s just happening to me, swallowing me, and I’m sitting still and waiting for it to be over. My cheeks must be glowing in the dark because they are so red, so flushed. And my hair is damp with perspiration and my legs and hands are shaking.

“Wanna move,” I all but grunt as the contraction tapers off, “fuck.”

“I’m sorry, Faye-baby,” he coos, brushing my hair carefully with his fingers, “we’ll be there in forty minutes and then you can move all you want. I’ll see to it, baby.”

Sighing, I keep my head tilted back, but open my eyes. I wish I could see the stars right now--I wish I could see the ceiling in our bedroom or the leaves of a tree. I wish that I was not in this car and that I was not in labor and that Jake was okay. I wish it all so much that a few tears roll down my cheeks.

There is so much happening--so many things going on all at the same time, I feel like I’m reeling. Jake is hurt, I am in labor, we are going to a hospital that is very far away, my sister isn’t hear, my parents won’t be waiting to meet their granddaughter, our friends don’t even know that I’m in labor now. Life is just happening right now on this Sunday that was supposed to be easy, this Sunday that was easy until the phone call, until my water broke.

Now I just feel sick--even between the surges, between the spine-tingling pain, I don’t feel very good at all. My fingers are cold and my heart is racing and my head is pulsing. I’m hot all over, head to toe, but my teeth are aching because of my quivering jaw.

“Forty minutes,” I huff, a few more tears rolling down my cheeks. “M’so tired. Don’t feel good.”

His fingers are cool against my cheek when he presses them there firmly, his skin rough and scented like smoky wood. If he feels a fever, he doesn’t tell me. He just strokes my cheek, just lets his hand rest there, lets me lean into his touch.

“Love you, baby,” he whispers, voice strained. “Love you so much.”

It prickles me--he told me he loved me for the first time in a car, which feels like not very long ago. And now he’s telling me again on our way to the hospital to have our first baby.

“I know,” I whisper. “Everyone does.”

It’s interrupted quickly--the contraction suddenly ripping across me, whiting out my vision, holding me hostage. It’s hardly been two minutes since my last one ended, I’ve hardly had time to even catch my breath. It doubles me over, sends my head between my knees, rips me away from Bradley’s hand.

“Another one?” He asks, his voice thin.

I can’t breathe, gritting my teeth as it edges closer and closer to me, kissing my skin.

“Oh, my God,” I moan. “It’s so--fuck, it’s so bad.”

It is so bad--it’s different, more intense, more consuming.

I can’t stop the low moans rumbling in my chest, can’t sit still when it feels like there’s a fire poker being shot straight through my core, bruising everything in its wake.

“S’alright, baby,” he soothes, pressing down hard on my lower back. “Deep breaths if you can. I’m going fast as I can, okay? We're gonna get there, I promise. Not gonna let anything happen to you or olive, okay? Gonna get you there.”

They don’t stop. The pain is so very near constant that I can do nothing but submit to it. My skin is permanently goosed, my teeth permanently ground, my mouth permanently parted, my throat permanently vibrating with moans. It’s happening too fast, so fast that it feels wrong. Olive feels like she’s going to come barreling out of me at any moment, lighting a fire between my legs that is almost as deep as the ache of contractions.

Distantly, I know there are red lights. I know that there are stop signs and traffic and I know that Bradley is doing his damndest to get us to the hospital. But time is moving so slowly, trickling by in increments marked by peaks and valleys of pain. I can hardly hear him when he speaks, hardly notice when he presses his fingers to my cheeks to check for fever again.

“Can’t,” I mutter, unbuckling myself and sinking to the floor, settling myself on my knees with my arms and face resting against the seat. “Oh, God.”

Being there on my knees makes this all feel so carnal. Like I’m submitting to whatever nature intends for me, like I’m letting go of whatever humanness I possess and giving into animalism.

The pressure is only a fraction relieved like this on my knees, the ache only dulled slightly. It’s enough to make me grab the seat with both of my hands and squeeze hard.

“Oh, my God,” I cry out quietly.

“Getting there as quick as I can, baby,” Bradley says.

I can hear it right now, like a fog has cleared; he’s scared. He’s very scared. Scared because our friend is hurt and alone, scared because I’m in labor, scared because I might have a fever, scared because we’re still ten minutes out and I can’t sit still, scared because he’s about to become a father, scared because I can hardly speak.

Blindly, I reach out for him, find his hand. And then I hold tight to him, embedding my nails in his palm. If I could, I would kiss his palm, close his fingers around it. But I can’t get up from my knees.

The pain becomes more intense--so intense that I can’t help the groan that tumbles out of me and into the quiet car. I’ve never made that noise before, never heard anyone make that noise before in my life. It’s guttural and desperate--a noise I’d hear in the woods behind my grandparent’s cottage. But it’s warranted; the pain is searing, burning, a thousand pounds of fire.

☾☽ 𝐚/𝐧: bestiesssss I love Rooster so much--love putting him in little situations!! remember to reblog if you're enjoying this story, please!! kisses and smooches and love!! last chance to guess the name and gender!!!! ☺

☾☽ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫

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