ℂ𝕠𝕕𝕖𝕩𝕥𝕠𝕓𝕖𝕣, 𝔻𝕒𝕪 𝟚𝟘- 𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖
Haytham Kenway x f.reader
Summary: Haytham recovers from his fatal stab wound, and his wife is concerned for their future.
Rating: all my works are +18 // Warnings: pregnancy, fluff, talk of death
{a//n: This follows after the death of reginald birch, probably gonna make a mini series since this is just an extension of my other Haytham/reader works! I'll eventually stop writing in third person. }
Haytham had nearly died in her arms.
The wound was still there, a puckered and angry scar just beneath his left collarbone, tracing a path dangerously close to his heart. She had memorized its geography—the ridge where the skin had been stitched, the paler pink of newer tissue, the way he flinched when he thought no one was watching. She saw everything. He thought he was so careful, so controlled, so Haytham about it all—but she saw, and even now she couldn't rid the image from her mind.
(y/n) snapped herself from the memory, as she stood in the large french kitchen, her hand resting on the swell of her bump as though she could quiet the restlessness of the child by sheer will. The last of the evening sunset was creeping in through the shutters in red & gold slats, illuminating the dust that floated between the rooms like tiny ghosts. She watched them for a moment, those motes of nothing, and envied them their weightlessness.
She was now almost nine months gone now, and the child inside her seemed to know it. The child’s kicks had grown more insistent and purposeful, as if the baby were becoming increasingly impatient—a trait they undoubtedly inherited from their father—ready to take its first breaths of life, and to meet it's parents.
But (y/n) wasn't sure if she was ready. Not yet. Not when "what came next" for her and her family still felt like a question with no answer.
She exhaled slowly and looked down at the shaving kit in her hand, and the shaving bowl in her other hand, the straight razor resting against its edge, the brush and soap tucked beneath her arm. She had been looking forward to this small act of tenderness all day, tending to her husband, caring for him in the way only a wife could.
As she made her way through the hallway to Haytham's chambers, she heard familiar footsteps coming from behind her, quick and heavy in the way that meant Jim Holden was moving with purpose.
She turned to meet Jim, who stood in the hall doorway, his familiar frame filling it almost entirely. His hair was unkempt, his shirt collar open, and there was a look on his face that she had come to recognize as his particular brand of professional concern, the kind that tried very hard not to look as worried as it actually was.
"I don't suggest you go in there right now," he spoke with a tone of guilt as he nodded in the direction of her husbands room.
She felt the familiar tightening of anxiety in her stomach. She knew it meant that her husband, and sister-in-law were having another dispute.
"What are they arguing about now?" she asked, though she suspected she already knew.
Jim hesitated, his jaw tightening. "Lucio," he sighed. "Haytham's still wound up about it. Wants to make the boy pay for what he did."
She closed her eyes for a moment. Of course he did. His pride was hurt and he had become paranoid over the young man.
"Ten minutes. Maybe longer. Jennifer started it this time, if that matters."
Jim leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms, trying to hide his weary amusement. "No. I didn't think it would."
(y/n) set the shaving kit back on the hallway table, then picked it up again, then set it down once more, unsure of how to proceed .
But she decided that she wasn't going to stand here and wait for two people she loved to tear each other apart. Not today.
"Let's go," she said, already dreading what was to come.
The two made their way toward the bedroom where the argument was being held, and the pair stood together outside Haytham's bedroom door. (y/n) leaning slightly against the wall for support, Jim standing close enough to catch her if she swayed or fainted, which she had done twice in the last week.
(y/n) signalled for her friend to wait outside in the hallway.
She took a step forward, her hand reaching for the door handle. But Jim caught her arm gently, his touch unexpected.
Jim hesitated. "Are you sure? You don't have to listen to this. Please, let me," he said quietly so they weren't heard. "You shouldn't be exerting yourself. Not in your condition."
She smiled tiredly, appreciating her friends concern but knowing that this was something she had to do herself.
"Thank you, Jim," she said, "but this is my husband. My family. I have to try."
Jim studied her for a moment, then nodded respectfully and stepped back. Once again she looked down at the shaving supplies in her hands, she needed this task. She needed the ordinary. Any distraction would do.
The voices inside were unmistakable.
"—so you'll just kill him, then," Jennifer argued. Her voice carried the particular sharpness it took on when she was upset, the clipped, precise enunciation of someone who had learned long ago that anger was only effective when it was controlled. "A boy. You'll kill a boy."
"A boy who drove a blade into my chest, and he won't be a boy for much longer." Haytham replied.
His voice was lower than it used to be—rougher, still carrying the gravel of fever and exhaustion. There were moments when his wife heard it, and she would feel a fresh wave of fear, because it reminded her of those terrible days when his voice had been nothing more than a rasp at best.
"He was acting out of grief, Haytham." Jennifer's voice cracked on his name. "His mother was Birch's prisoner. A slave. She died because of Birch's doings—and what you allowed Birch to do. And now you want to hunt him down, and kill him for trying to avenge her, like we did father?"
"He is a threat, I cannot take the risk of allowing him to live." Haytham replied coldly.
"He is a child who lost everything!"
"Children grow up, Jennifer. And a threat unaddressed is a threat that festers."
(y/n) closed her eyes briefly. Of course. It was always about Lucio now, about the wound that had nearly taken Haytham's life. The boy had been young—too young, she thought, to understand the full weight of what he'd done. But Haytham had allowed Reginald Birch to keep the boy's mother as a prisoner, a slave in all but name. That knowledge had fueled Lucio's rage, and he'd struck in the only way he could when he had the chance.
(y/n) felt Jim shift beside her. She reached out, without looking, and placed her hand on his forearm to still him, as she tried to eavesdrop on the argument.
Inside, there was now a silence. The heavy, and dangerous type, the kind that preceded either reconciliation or destruction when it came to the Kenway's.
"Do you hear yourself?" Jennifer's voice had dropped to something quieter now, more dangerous. "Do you actually hear yourself? You talk about threats, strategies, and the Order as though the rest of us are just pieces on your board. As though what happened to that boy is just...collateral. His mother's death was acceptable loss." She paused.
"You nearly died, Haytham. And you still haven't learned, and to think you had grown into a better man than father."
"No. You don't get to 'Jenny' me. Not this time."
(y/n) heard movement—the scrape of a chair, perhaps, and the sound of footsteps.
"You let Birch keep that woman. You knew exactly what was happening Haytham, and you did nothing. And now you want to kill the person, who has every reason right to hate you for it, you took his mother from him, you and your order. That's not the Kenway way, Haytham. That's not even a human way."
"And what would you have me do?" Haytham's voice was rising now, and his wife could hear the pain in it—the physical pain that came with raising his voice, with the deep breath it required, with the wound that was still healing.
"Let him come for me again, or even better my wife and child? Let him find me while I'm—" He stopped. "While I'm like this?"
"You do not get to use you're family as an excuse—" her voice dropped with venom, "—your wife has been here, tending to you, carrying your child, while you've been unconscious or raving with fever. And now you want to drag her into your vengeance? Is that what a good husband does?"
"Jenny." (y/n) knocked, before placing her palm flat against the door. She didn't push it open. Not yet. "That's enough."
The voices inside stopped.
Jim looked down at her with a grimace. "You sure about this?"
"No," she said honestly. "But I'm going in anyway."
She pushed the door open with the hand that wasn't holding the shaving kit and stepped inside.
Haytham was sitting on the edge of the bed. Or rather, he was attempting to sit on the edge of the bed, his left hand gripped the mattress, his right braced against his thigh, and his jaw was clenched tight enough that she could see the muscle working beneath the skin. He was wearing a loose shirt, unbuttoned halfway with dark chest hair showing, his face was drawn with pain and frustration in equal measure, but she couldn't help but admire how attractive he looked with his dark hair down—she couldn't help but wonder if their child would inherit his good looks. She also noticed his skin held color again, no longer the greyish pallor of the infection, but there were still shadows under his eyes that hadn't been there before all of this. He looked like he had aged so much in the last few months. But she did notice a couple grey strands. Still, in her eyes he was still the most handsome man she had ever seen. He aged like fine wine.
Jennifer stood by the window, her arms crossed, her expression caught somewhere between righteous anger and worry for her brother. She looked like she was at her wits end, though she would never admit it. She was wearing a dress that her sister-in-law had lent her.
"(y/n)," Haytham said, his voice softening despite his anger. "You shouldn't be up. You should be resting."
She ignored the comment and all it's irony, focusing instead on the tension that filled the room.
"I've come to shave you," she smiled gently, her voice steady despite her growing exhaustion. "Jenny, would you mind giving us some time? I think we've all had enough argument for one day."
Jennifer's eyes narrowed stubbornly like a true kenway, and she held (y/n)'s gaze challengingly. For a moment, (y/n) thought she would refuse—but then Jennifer uncrossed her arms, her posture relaxing slightly and released an exasperated sigh.
"I didn't mean for you to hear—"
"I know. But I think all of this town can hear the two of you bickering. You definitely share the same stubbornness." She smiled half heartedly, and held up the shaving kit. "Now please let me shave the stubble, it doesn't suit you my love."
She turned from Haytham to Jennifer, who was now looking out the window with a pout on her face, trying her best to give her brother the cold shoulder.
Jennifer turned her attention back to (y/n). "For what?"
"For not getting here sooner." (y/n) sighed, and set the shaving kit down on the small table by the door and crossed the room to Jennifer. "You're both exhausted, and you're both hurting, and neither of you is thinking clearly. I know that because I'm not thinking clearly either."
Jennifer stared at her. Then, slowly, something in her posture softened hesitantly. The crossed arms loosened, the rigid set of her shoulders dropping ever so slightly.
(y/n) reached out and pulled her into a hug. Jennifer stiffened for a moment, she was never good at this, never comfortable with tenderness, especially now after everything she's been through, but then she relented, and her arms came up around she reciprocated the hug.
"I'm sorry too," Jennifer apologized gently. "I shouldn't be causing more stress to this already stressful situation, I know this isn't healthy for you or the child."
"It's not good for any of us," (y/n) reminded her softly. "But we'll manage. We have gone this long without killing each other, let's not break that streak before we get back to England okay?"
She released Jennifer and gave her a gentle push toward the door. "Go get some air. Talk to Jim. He'll make you tea, and you'll pretend it's not terrible."
"I heard that," Jim called half defensively from the hallway.
"I know you did." she yelled back.
Jennifer moved toward the door, passing (y/n) with a curt nod. As she reached the doorway, she paused, her hand resting on her sister-in-laws arm.
"Take care of yourself," she said, her voice quieter now. "And take care of of my niece of nephew. Haytham is not worth the stress."
Jennifer almost smiled as she slipped past (y/n), to meet Jim outside in the hall.
(y/n) smiled weakly. "I'll try."
But Jim gave his old friend one last look over his shoulder, a mixture of concern and admiration, as he followed Jenny down the hallway, she nodded to him with a soft smile, and closed the door softly behind them.
The room was quiet now. The kind of quiet that followed after storms, not peaceful, exactly, but cleared.
(y/n) sighed deeply, as she turned back to face Haytham.
He was still sitting on the edge of the bed, but something had shifted in his posture. He was trying to hide his pain from her. Yet she could see right through her husband, and she saw what looked like a man who had been fighting for so long that he had forgotten how to stop.
She didn't scold him like he had expected. Instead, she turned to fetch the remaining shaving items, her movements slow and deliberate. The pregnancy had made her clumsier than usual, and thrown her balance off. Every step felt like an effort.
But Haytham's voice stopped her as she walked to reach for the basin of water. "You're walking too fast," he said, his tone sharp. "You'll strain yourself."
She paused, turning to look at him. A side small smile tugged at her lips at his worry, before brushing off his worry with her hand. "I'm pregnant, darling, not dying."
"You exhaust me sometimes woman," he said, but there was a hint of relief in his eyes as she moved back toward him. "Sit down before you fall."
She rolled her eyes, but did as he asked once she slowly made her way back to him, before lowering herself slowly onto the small stool beside the bed. The same stool that she spent many long days, and sleepless nights sat by his side waiting, and praying for her husbands health to return. It was low to the ground, and her bump made it difficult to sit comfortably, but she managed, her hand resting on her stomach as she tried to find a position that didn't squish the baby, more so her bladder though.
Haytham reached out, his large hand catching her arm to steady her. "Careful," he murmured, his touch gentle despite his gruffness.
She didn't need his help, but she didn't comment on it, his pride was delicate these days. She also secretly enjoyed him dotting on her.
(y/n) dipped the brush in the basin of warm water that she had Jennifer set out before her argument with Haytham.
She worked the water against the soap, and began to build a lather.
"Come closer," she requested softly.
He didn't move immediately.
She watched him push himself lean closer to her ever so slowly, and carefully, even this simple movement he had calculate to minimize the strain on his torso. He kept his left hand pressed against his side, not quite hiding the pain but not broadcasting it either.
His eyes shut for the briefest second as he got closer, which told her more than anything else could have. The Haytham Kenway she had married, the Haytham who had swept through her life like a force of nature, all confidence and charisma, and that infuriating, magnetic certainty—would have insisted on doing this in a more dignified location, and not on their bed, and he would have dismissed her concern with a flick of his hand, and a sarcastic remark designed to make her roll her eyes instead of worry.
But that man had been stabbed, fatally. That man had lain in a fever for weeks, drifting in and out of consciousness while she held his hand and prayed. That man had woken up to find himself diminished—dependent, bedridden, his body weakened and almost defeated—and it had cost him something that she wasn't sure he knew how to get back.
But she knew better to doubt her husband. So she distracted herself with the task at hand.
She dipped the brush into the water, working up a lather with the soap. Her hands moved with the practiced ease of a wife who had done this many times before—though never with a husband who was so heavily wounded, so fragile beneath her. It broke her heart to see him so weakened.
After lathering the brush, she began to apply the soap to his stubble. His eyes were closed, and she let her fingers move gently over the sharp lines of his jaw, the angle of his cheekbones. He always enjoyed her touch, it relaxed him. After lathering the brush, she began to apply the soap to his stubble. His eyes were closed, and she let her fingers move gently over the sharp lines of his jaw, the angle of his cheekbones. He always enjoyed her touch, it relaxed him.
She studied the small scars on his face with her eyes, taking in his handsome features. She knew this face. She had memorized it over the years. She had even memorized it in laughter and in anger, in desire and in sorrow, and she had memorized it in those terrible weeks when it had been slack and pale and frighteningly still.
She kept her hand steady.
She paused, trying to not make a fuss. "Don't what?"
"Don't lie to me." His grey eyes were dark with intent, focused on her with the kind of precision that made her feel as though he could see right through her, straight to the thing she was trying to hide.
She could feel him studying her intensely, reading her in the way only he, her husband, could. It had always been like this between them. He knew her too well, understood her too deeply. She couldn't hide anything from him, no matter how hard she tried—vice versa. They could read each other like a book.
But he noticed it—her hands trembling slightly, her movements more hesitant than usual. He had always been observant, even before his injury. But now, in his weakened state, his perception seemed sharper, more acute.
"You're not yourself," he said, his voice quiet, but firm. "What's wrong? And I know you better than you think my dear wife. And I know this is more than hormones. So don't try and lie."
She almost laughed. Almost. He knew her well.
"You're in no position to diagnose my emotional state, Haytham. You can barely lift your self off the bed, and you are already plotting another murder."
"Me being in this bed has given me the opportunity to observe my wife, and it is precisely why I've had nothing to do but watch you, for the last month." He tilted his head slightly, and something in his expression shifted, the Templar in him receding, and the husband in him emerging. "I see you my dear wife. I see you when you think I'm sleeping. I see you pacing the hallway at three in the morning with your hand on your stomach. I see you arguing with the midwife in broken French because you're too proud to ask Jim, Jennifer, or even your own husband to translate for you. I see you carrying everything on your shoulders because you believe that if you stop for even a moment, everything will fall apart."
She swallowed hard and resumed her work. The razor moved in careful, practiced strokes—downward, with the stubble, the way he preferred. She was trying to busy herself by concentrating on the angle of the blade, on the warm slickness of the lather, on anything besides the truth sitting in her throat like a stone, or the man in front on her.
She wiped the blade on the cloth.
Another stroke. Then another. The room was quiet except for the soft scrape of steel against his stubble.
"I can not help you if i do not know what is wrong," his voice had dropped to something barely above a whisper. "Tell me what is wrong. And when you answer me, do not say 'nothing,' because I have spent the better part of my life being lied to by men far better at it than you, and I am done with it. I do not wish to be lied to by my own wife."
Haytham knew how to get his wife to open up. They both knew it.
She finished applying the final strokes of the razor. She was doing her best to not give in, she didn't wish to burden him with her own issues.
She proceeded to wipe the remaining lather from his face with the warm cloth, gently.
But as she moved to set the cloth aside, his hand caught her wrist, his grip firm but not painful. His grip was weaker than it used to be—she could feel the difference, the loss of strength in his fingers—but it was still firm. Still deliberate. Still her Haytham.
"My dear, I will ask you once more," he said, his voice commanding. "Tell me what's wrong, right now, no more of these games."
She tried to pull away, but his grip held.
"(y/n)." His thumb moved over the pulse point on the inside of her wrist to check her pulse, before bringing her hand to his lips, and gently placing a kiss on it. "We promised. No lies between us. Especially not now. Especially with a child on the way."
She could now feel the tears building, the pressure behind her eyes that she'd been fighting for weeks. She didn't want to cry—she hated crying, hated showing her weakness, hated the way it made her feel exposed.
But with Haytham watching her, his eyes searching her face, and she knew she couldn't hide it anymore.
"I..." her voice broke, she sounded lost, the words catching in her throat. "I'm scared, Haytham."
He released her wrist, his hand moving to cup her face. His thumb brushed away a tear that had escaped down her cheek.
"Scared of what?" he asked, his voice gentle now.
Feeling the weight of everything she had been carrying—the fear, the exhaustion, the bone-deep weariness of carrying not just a child but a household, a marriage, all for a future that she couldn't see. She had been holding it all together for so long. She had been the steady one. The calm one. The one who didn't break. But with Haytham's large hand warm cupping her face gently, and his grey eyes were full of something that looked unbearably like understanding, and he was seeing she was so tired, he could relate, but he needed a answer.
The first tears fell before she could stop them. They slid down her cheek and ran down his fingers, onto the back of his hand, and she watched him register it, and she watched the concern in his eyes, the almost imperceptible tightening of his jaw.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Don't be sorry. Just tell me what scares you." he whispered as gently as he could. Being gentle was never his strong suit, but he was trying for her.
Instead of giving him a answer, she finally broke down for the first time in what felt like forever. It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't loud. It was the quiet kind of breaking. It was the kind that happens when a structure has been bearing too much weight for too long, when the last brick is placed and the whole thing simply gives way.
She sank forward to her knees from the stool, and he shifted his thighs apart to accommodate her. She pressed her face against his muscular thigh, with her hands gripping the fabric of his breeches.
Her whole body began shaking with the force of what she had been holding back for so long.
He ran his long fingers through her hair softly, trying to comfort her.
Carefully, he pressed his lips to her hair, and he said nothing because he knew that there was nothing to say yet. Not until she had emptied herself.
She cried for a long time.
When the sobs finally subsided into shuddering breaths and the shuddering breaths into something approaching calm, only then did she speak. Her voice was muffled against the fabric of his breeches, and her words came in muffled fragments, but he understood.
"I'm scared Haytham." she admitted.
"I know-" Haytham couldn't finish before she cut him off.
"I'm scared of losing you. I'm scared that nothing...nothing will change, and someone else will come for you, and I'll be—I'll be left to raise a child who's father is—" She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.
She picked up her head off its resting place on his thigh, to look at him with tearful eyes. "I can't do that. I can't Haytham."
"Nothing is going to happen to me, I promise you that my dear."
"You don't know that." Her eyes were red, her cheeks streaked, and she knew she looked a mess, but she didn't care.
"There's no way you can know that. You can't promise me that, because even with all your power, you don't control what happens out there. You don't control the assassins, the other orders, or any of it. And I..." Her voice cracked. "I'm scared for our baby, Haytham. I'm scared that our child is coming into a world where danger is all they'll know. Where they'll never have a normal childhood, where they'll always be looking over their shoulder, where-" She drew a shaky breath. "Where their father might not be there. Our child needs their father, like you needed yours."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy and raw and nothing but the truth that he so desperately desired, he was tired of the world lying to him, at least he knew his wife was still truthful to him, no matter how much the truth hurt.
She studied his face, expecting anger, expecting denial, expecting the cold mask that he was so good at wearing.
Instead, she saw something in him crack. Only for just a fraction of a second, but she saw it because she had spent years learning the geography of his face the way one learns a landscape.
His eyes watered slightly as he took a moment to look in the other direction. His thumb stopped it's movements against her cheek, almost imperceptibly, and for one moment, one brief, unguarded moment, she saw the full weight of what she had said land on him like a knife to the heart.
He hid it quickly. She knew he would. But she had seen it, and she would hold that fragment of vulnerability close, the same way she held everything else that mattered. There weren't many moments where she saw her husband's vulnerability, but she was glad he could share it with her.
Haytham took her face firmly in his large, calloused hands. His thumbs wiped the tears from her cheeks, and he tilted her head up so that she was looking directly into his eyes.
"Listen to me," his voice sounding sincere. "And listen carefully, because I will say this only once, and I need you to believe it."
"You are not going to lose me. I am not going anywhere. I will not put you through that ordeal again. I will not allow this situation to happen again." His voice was low, and protective, and there was something beneath it that she rarely heard, something that sounded almost like desperation.
"I made promises to you when we married, and I have broken some of those promises, and I will answer for that. But this one I will keep, I promise you this. You, and our child will always be safe. I will make certain of it. I do not plan on forfeiting the chance of watching my child grow up. I will not make the same mistakes as my father. "
"No darling." His grip on her face tightened, his eyes narrowing. "No 'what if's.' I know what this world is. I know what I am. But I am telling you this now, (y/n), that I will burn the world down before I let anything touch my wife or my child. Do you understand me?"
She stared at him. At the man who had walked through hell, and in the shadows, and come out the other side with his convictions intact even after he almost died. At this man who could dismantle assassin networks, manipulate politicians, and kill without hesitation, but who held her face as though it were made of glass.
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that they could have a future, that their child could grow up in a safe environment, that they could build a life together beyond the shadows and the violence. But she had seen too much, lived through too much, to believe in easy promises.
"I want to believe you," she said, her voice quiet. "But I know the danger will always follow you. It'll always be there, waiting."
He nodded slowly, his expression solemn. "I know. But I have every intention of doing everything in my power to change that. To give our child a future that's safe, that's bright. I can't promise that there won't be challenges, that there won't be threats. But I can promise that I will fight to protect you, both of you, no matter what. You and this child, are the reason I seek to make this world a better place."
She studied his face, his eyes, searching for any sign of doubt or deception. But she found none—only certainty, only resolve.
"Whatever danger that awaits, I assure you, I will meet it. And I will end it. At the end of the day my dearest, I will come home to you and our child every single time." He pressed his forehead against hers gently, as he held her face in his hands. "That is my oath. Not as a Templar. Not as a Grandmaster. But as your husband. As your child's father. I swear it to you."
She closed her eyes, giving herself time to allow his words to sink in.
"Come to bed," he murmured, trying to distract her from her own thoughts.
"I'm not tired." she lied, and they both knew it. But he simply smiled at her, as gently as Haytham could.
"Your eyes say other wise my dear."
She was. She did her best to push through the burnout, but her body had finally caught up with her emotionally and physically. She even had slight trembles throughout her whole body.
"Come to bed." he instructed firmly, and this time she didn't argue.
Haytham helped her undress. Or rather, he tried to help her undress. It was a clumsy, tender process that involved him bracing one hand on the bedframe for support while the other worked at the laces of her bodice, his jaw tight with effort, while he kept pressure off his wound.
She told him to stop, told him she could manage, and he ignored her with the kind of obstinate determination that she found both infuriating and deeply, impossibly endearing.
"And to think I had you at my mercy not so long ago," she stated, as she looked over should and watched him wince as he leaned too far to the left.
"You couldn't even open your eyes, and now you're the one trying to take care of me."
"(y/n) I am perfectly capable of—"
"Of tearing your stitches and giving everyone in this house a collective heart attack. Sit down now, Haytham, this isn't up for debate."
He sat down on the mattress begrudgingly, he knew better than to test his wife's patience. But he couldn't help but admire her as she changed into her nightgown slowly, and she could feel his gaze like a touch, gentle, worried, and possessive in the best possible way.
They climbed into bed together. The mattress was narrow, too narrow for two people, and certainly too narrow for a pregnant woman and a man recovering from injury, but they had learned to navigate each other's bodies in this small space.
He laid on his back, carefully, and she settled against his right side, her head on his shoulder, her bump pressed against his side. He enjoyed her touch, and the comforting feeling of having his wife safe next to him. It was one of the few things that brought Haytham peace and comfort.
With the arm he had wrapped around her, he drew patterns on her skin—idle, absent-minded strokes along her arm, her shoulder, the curve of her stomach.
"Our child has had quite the experience, wouldn't you say?" he mused after a while.
(y/n) smirked. "You could say that."
"Being created during a time of crisis and war, carried from the colonies, across the Atlantic, into other nations—enduring our endeavours, travels, and not to mention a mother who argues with midwives in broken French."
"My French is improving."
She pinched his arm, lightly. He caught her hand and brought it to his lips, and placed a kiss on her soft knuckles.
"This child will come into the world having survived more than most grown men. I think that bodes well."
"Or it means our child will come out fighting from the first breath."
She giggled at his pride, with a smile on her face. It was small and tired, but it was genuine, and it felt good.
She rested her head on his shoulder, watching his toned chest rise and fall with every breath. His hand rested on her bump, feeling the baby's movements.
"Do you think it's a boy or a girl?" she questioned suddenly breaking the silence, her voice soft.
"I don't know," he said, his tone thoughtful. "It does not matter. As long as they're healthy."
She smiled against his skin. "A girl would be nice. Someone to spoil."
"And a boy would be nice," he said. "Someone to teach."
She laughed softly, the sound tired but genuine. "Only time will tell I suppose."
They were quiet for a while. His fingers continued their patterns on her skin, slow, meditative strokes that made her eyelids heavy. She was almost asleep when she felt him stiffen, as if he just remembered something.
It was subtle. The slightest tightening of his arm, the faintest shift in his breathing.
(y/n) knew him, she knew him the way that only a wife could know her husband, and she could read that something was on his mind.
She lifted her head, her eyes filled with worry, but also a hint of skepticism. "Haytham, what's wrong?"
He was staring at the ceiling. She could swear he almost looked nervous, like something was weighing heavily on his mind.
Haytham hesitated, his hand pausing on her belly. "There's something I need to tell you," he said, his voice reluctant.
She propped herself up on her elbow, her eyes searching his face. "What is it?"
He was tensely quiet for another moment. Before he decided to speak hesitantly. "There's something I haven't told you."
Her heart rate quickened. She loathed the sound of that. "What kind of something Haytham?"
"The kind of something that I should have told you before we left the colonies." He paused. "I bought a property. In Virginia." He took a breath, his jaw tightening. "Before we left the colonies," he said slowly.
She stared at him, her expression blank, and unenthusiastic. "Virginia?"
Haytham nodded, not meeting her eyes. "I thought... I thought it might be a good place to raise a family. Away from the cities, away from the Order's politics. A place where we could be... normal."
She sat up fully, her back against the headboard. "You bought a property? Without telling your wife? Do I even ask when this purchase happened?"
"Before we sailed. I made arrangements through a solicitor in west Virginia. It's an estate—a proper estate to raise a child, on a large plot of land, near other families. I intended for us to live there, after everything is settled."
(y/n) stared at him, a unreadable expression planted on her face. "Did you plan on telling me sooner? Or was I to be left in the dark once again?"
"I didn't tell you because I wasn't certain you'd want to live there."
"You weren't certain? Haytham, we are married. Married people tell each other these things."
"I'm aware." his voice defensive. "I bought a property for my wife, and our child. There's a distinction." I wasn't sure if I was making the right decision."
She stared at him, a mix of emotions swirling through her chest. Annoyance at his secrecy, amusement at his nervousness, and something else, something like hope, for a better future for their growing family.
She opened her mouth, closed it, and then, despite everything, despite the fear and the exhaustion and the uncertainty that still sat like a stone in her chest, she laughed to herself.
"You—" She rolled her eyes, and took a deep inhale, before exhaling slowly. "You are impossible. You are absolutely impossible."
"Virginia," she repeated, her voice flat, despite her amusement over his nervousness, she was going to milk her anger a little longer.
"You want to move to Virginia, you thought I'd enjoy summers of humidity, and long winters? You must know me well Haytham."
"It's not that bad," he reasoned, though his voice wavered slightly. "It's... it's a large estate, with room for children. It's settled on large parcel of land. I thought it would be well suited to raise our child there, and possibly more. Give them a childhood away from everything."
She couldn't help it—she smiled, especially hearing her husband speaking of children as if he already had envisioned it a thousand times over. Her smile broke his nervous tension, and Haytham's expression shifted from worry to a face of uncertainty.
"Are you upset, or...?" he asked, truly unsure if it was a trap or not.
"You bought a farm in Virginia and didn't tell your pregnant wife. You really are terrible at this. But I suppose our child deserves a proper home." she joked lightheartedly, a soft smile planted on her face.
Her husband watched her with an expression that was trying very hard to be casual and failing magnificently. "So you're not angry?"
"I'm not angry." She shook her head. "But you are right, I don't want to live in Virginia, Haytham."
His face fell. Just slightly. Just enough.
"I know," he said solemnly. "And I understand if-"
"But." She held up a finger to halt his speech. "I'm am pregnant with your child, and I don't appear to have much choice in the matter at this stage, do I?"
He stared at her skeptically. "Are you saying?"
"I'm saying that if we survive this, and if you keep your promise about keeping us safe, and if I don't change my mind between now and whenever we get there, then I suppose Virginia is as good a place as any to raise a child at this point, as long as you are with us."
She shifted, moving closer to him, her head resting on his shoulder. His arm wrapped around her, holding her close.
"But, I want my own garden."
"A proper one. With vegetables and herbs and maybe some flowers. And I want our child's bedroom close to ours. Not across the house, not down the hall, I want them close. So I can hear them at night. I want to tend to them, and not some nursemaid."
"Whatever you wish, you shall have my love," he said, and there was something in his voice, something warm and certain and quietly fierce, that made her believe him. Not just the garden, not just the child's bedroom. All of it. The safety. The future. The promise.
"You, nor our child, shall want for nothing, and you two will never be harmed. Not while I draw breath. Not while I have blood in my veins and strength enough to stand between them and whatever comes."
She traced the line of his jaw with her fingertip.
"I promise you, you'll be safe."
She closed her eyes, allowing herself imagine it—a house, a garden, children that looked like her and her husband, playing in the sunshine. A life beyond the shadows. It seemed impossible, too good to be true. But with Haytham's steady arms around her, his eyes filled with admiration, she let herself believe.
"Thank you," she murmured, as she yawned.
"For being here. For not dying on me, on our child, and waking up. For being you, even when you're impossible, arrogant, stubborn, oh and when you make important decisions without your wife."
He pressed smirked, before bringing his lips to her forehead. "I love you, my dear."
"I love you as well. Now stop with the sentimental nonsense, and let me gain some rest. Your child has been using my bladder as a cushion, and I'm going to need to get up at lest three times in the night."
He smirked at her as she resettled herself against him, her head finding the hollow of his shoulder again, her hand now resting on top of much larger one that was resting on her bump, where the baby was finally, mercifully, still.
His fingers resumed their patterns on her skin. Slow. Gentle. Steady.He pressed a kiss to her forehead, his hand continuing to stroke her belly.
"Sleep," he whispered. "I'll be here, allow your husband to take care of you."
She let herself drift, the tension leaving her body, the fear and anxiety fading into the background. For the first time in months, she felt something like peace.
Outside, the french countryside was quiet. Somewhere down the hall, Jennifer was asleep. Jim was probably reading by candlelight, the way he always did when he couldn't rest, which was quite often these days.
And hidden away from the world, a man held his wife, and a child rested within their mother's womb, waiting to be born into a world that was far from perfect—but perhaps, just perhaps, a world that could be brighter and a father who would be around to see them draw their first breath.
(y/n)—in this moment in time, was exhausted, terrified, almost nine months gone with a child she wasn't sure she was ready for, and married to a man she wasn't sure she could keep safe—felt, for the first time in a very long time, something that might have been peace.
But it was here. Right now. In this moment.
And that was enough for now.
{a//n: This took forever!!! I hate editing so i saved myself the grief and just said screw it, and posted it anyways. I know if i took the time to edit, I'd probably end up deleting this. So maybe at a future time i'll come back and make some edits.}
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