#sp!leon

You were in so much pain, you were hollering and crying so hard you could barely get a breath in, and apart from holding your hand, he was powerless to help you. It was gutting.

"Shh, shh... you're doing so good, baby, just breathe with me, just breathe," He said to you, trying to manage his tone to be as reassuring as possible, but the stress had long since become him.

How could it not? He was watching his own lover split apart while conscious, pleading with the universe to ease the pain, even with an 18-gauge needle in the spine. You were miserable, and you were terrified, and Leon was terrified too. Perhaps even more than he'd ever been, because this wasn't supposed to be happening yet. He was supposed to have at least another month and a half to pamper you and watch you grow, at least another month and a half to prepare for this. 

Not to mention he wasn't entirely fond of the swarm of nurses in your face and between your legs, the rotating door of doctors and specialists working on your exposed body with absolutely no capability of understanding how important you were to him, how special and sweet you were, how little you deserved this.

It did occur to him, in the midst of all the noise, that perhaps this was the wrong idea. That he shouldn't have forced the one person he loves the most in the world to suffer like this on his behalf. That maybe he'd made a grave mistake that he could never atone for, a mistake that would surpass anything he's ever experienced in its devastation.

But all of those fears crumbled to ash when he saw her for the first time.

Monday, December 21, 2015. Winter solstice. 3:36 a.m.

She was so pink. She was so, so small, so pink, and so angry to be alive, but she was alive and crying. She was alive.

In that moment, Leon experienced whatever the opposite of blacking out was, a shot of pure adrenaline down his spine that made everything shine a little brighter. He didn't even realize he was crying with relief until he turned and saw that you were, too. You were barely cognizant, what with the delightful cocktail of shock and panic and pain medication coursing through you, but you were conscious and aware— at least for now— limp with exhaustion aside from clutching Leon's hand for dear life while the professionals got to work sewing you up, and he couldn't help but swipe your slick hair away from your forehead to shower you in tearful kisses.

"My good girl... I'm so fucking proud of you," He spoke into your hair, pressing a heavy kiss to the crown of your head as his free hand cradled your cheek, holding you as close to him as he could physically manage. "I love you so much... I love you..."

You weren't really registering much other than the pure relief of it all, but Leon couldn't blame you. In his eyes, he just witnessed you creating his entire universe, and you deserved all the rest you could get. You'd certainly need it in the coming months.

And even just the coming weeks, as many as it might take for her to incubate and grow a bit.

She was alive, and she was as healthy as she could be, considering the circumstances, but Christ, she wasn't even done cooking yet. She was so little, weighing in at just three pounds, seven ounces, and she looked more like a gummy bear than a baby. She was hooked up to so many machines in the NICU that he could barely stand to even watch after a while, for his own peace of mind.

But he couldn't relax, either, so Leon just stayed at your bedside for most of the night, watching you sleep. Killing time. Occasionally he would wander off for a walk up and down the halls, or to the cafeteria for a bitter black coffee to jump his brain, or he would linger by the window into the NICU for a while to watch her sleep, to see her pink and yellow baby blanket just barely rise and fall with every tiny breath so he could know for sure she was really here. And then he'd repeat his rounds all over again.

The nurses promised him over and over again that she was healthy, that there was no cause for concern at this point, but that didn't really stop him from concerning himself quite severely. He wasn't even sure he understood his own metric for what it would take to get him to relax at this point, so he just stopped asking questions after a while.

Walk the halls. Bitter black coffee. Check on baby. Walk back. Check on you. Wash, rinse, repeat. Eventually the nurses were looking at him like they were debating offering him an Ambien under the table just to calm him down, and perhaps because he'd grown so used to avoiding drawing attention to himself, that was when he finally decided to just sit his ass down at your bedside and stay there.

In his boredom he found that the TV was perpetually stuck on the Hallmark channel, streaming from an endless well of corny, poorly written holiday movies that left more than enough to be desired, but it was better than nothing. Leon couldn’t stand the silence, and at least it kept his mind somewhat occupied while he thumbed through that heavy book of baby names.

He’d already found one he liked— Abigail— but that still left room for one more. He couldn’t even decide if he thought that should be her first name or her middle name. All he knew was what the book told him, flowery words describing the meaning of the name as that of my father’s joy, and that was quite true, wasn’t it? She was his firstborn, and more than that, her mommy was you. Nothing in the entire universe could possibly stand to make him happier or more joyous, and thus Abigail was fitting. But how was he supposed to find another name to describe her when he hadn’t even had the opportunity to get to know her yet?

Or was this secondary name his opportunity to start a thread of her destiny for her?

It’s not like he never asked you for your opinion, you had just chosen time and time again not to give it to him. You were almost completely impartial when it came to talking about the baby, so regardless of how badly he ached for your participation in planning for the life you’d created together, he had long since become bitterly used to making decisions like this on his own.

With a deep sigh Leon let the book rest in his lap, fingertips drumming on the wooden armrests of his chair in thought of the kind of life he wanted for his baby girl. All he could think was that he wanted her to run, play, and be happy. He wanted her to be good to the world and he wanted the world to treat her even better in return. He wanted to ensure she’d never have to worry about a thing, that she would grow up kind and quick and a much better woman than he ever was a man.

He wanted her to be gentle and sweet and protected, like a princess, his jubilant little baby princess.

Lifting the book once more, Leon opened it back up to its table of contents and skimmed over the lines for the millionth time, only now he actually had a vague idea of what he might be looking for. The book was structured in sections, the first being cultural and regional names, the second being historical and literary names, and the last section was an alphabetized glossary of them all in one. It was exhaustingly organized and comprehensive to the last detail, but hey, so was he.

Tracing the page with two fingertips, he found the historical section of the table and went down the line, skimmed over architects, artists, explorers, war heroes, religious figures… all the way down to royalty.

Leon’s hope wavered a little bit when he found most of the names under that section to be underwhelming or flat-out bad when paired with ‘Abigail,’ but his mind had been set on that for so long that he’d already decided he wasn’t budging on it. He was toying with the idea of taking a break from his search for the night, until an entry on the list of princess names caught his eye. In his exhaustion, he must have previously overlooked it.

Charlotte.

“Charlotte Abigail,” Leon mumbled aloud, testing the name on his tongue. “Charlotte Abigail Kennedy…”

It flowed from his lips like a beautiful waltz.

The enticing scent of Leon's umpteenth black coffee was the first thing you noticed when you woke up, followed by the dull, full body ache that weighed you down to the hospital bed. Your head was throbbing, your eyes and throat were stinging and dry from overexertion, but more than that, you felt something like relief.

Yes, it was definitely relief, because any amount of pain in that moment felt like reprieve in comparison to active labor. And maybe you were still a bit fuzzy from the meds, but you weren't complaining.

Slowly, you blinked awake and took in your surroundings, the room quiet aside from the occasional beep of electronic medical equipment, and the subtle, rhythmic rumble of... Leon snoring?

Tilting your head, you saw Leon right there at your bedside, coffee untouched and still steaming on the little tray next to him. His legs were outstretched, arms crossed at his chest, and he had his head tilted back with that comically large book of baby names split open to rest over his face, blocking the fluorescent lights and rising sun from his tired eyes. You just watched him for a moment, knowing he'd likely spent all night fretting over you until he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore.

For as much as you would have loved to just lay there and enjoy the quiet for a moment, though, you knew it was probably wiser to let him know you were awake. At least that way you could talk him into forfeiting his coffee.

"Hey," you spoke up gently, your voice hushed with sleep and a bit hoarse, "I'm pretty sure the shop in the lobby sells bookmarks."

He jolted a little and then stirred, gravity pulling the heavy book down until his arm shot up to catch it and lift it from his face with an exhausted look of surprise. "Y-You're awake—”

"Gimme that," you interrupted, arm outstretched in a dramatic show of grabby-hands at the paper cup of coffee placed just outside your reach. You could barely even remember the last time you were allowed a sip of coffee, and having to lay here smelling it but not tasting it when you so sorely needed it was torture.

Leon blinked once or twice in confusion, clearing away the haze that clouded his frayed neurons, and as his eyes followed the path between your fingertips and the shitty cup of black coffee he'd fallen asleep before having the chance to drink, he couldn't help but puff out a little laugh, handing it off to you without hesitation. For fuck's sake, you'd earned it, hadn't you?

The cup had been sitting there idle for just long enough that its contents weren't blistering hot, but perfectly drinkable. You took a quick sip, and then another, nose scrunching up for a moment because it tasted more like a dirty ashtray than it did coffee, but somehow it still went down like liquid gold. At least the taste was enough to keep you from drinking it too fast.

"How do you feel, pup?" Leon asked, tracing the curve of your cheekbone with a delicate thumb. As joyful as it was to see you awake and in decent spirits, he had to ask, because it's not like you were just waking up from any old nap. He watched you split apart last night. He could still smell your blood. Surely you had more to concern yourself about than caffeine.

Setting aside the cup, you searched your mind for the right way to articulate how you felt right now, but found it exceptionally difficult to encapsulate what all was going on up there after giving birth for the first time. So, you decided to start with how your body felt and work your way through it from there.

"Sore, like a bowling ball went through me... but it's not unbearable. I think the pain meds are still working," you began, tilting your head to let your cheek squish into the palm of his hand. "I feel a little numb and groggy."

With a sympathetic hum, he nodded, leaning over you to smooth your messy hair back and press a kiss to your forehead. "I'm not surprised, baby, you do seem a bit silly. They drugged you up pretty good," he said, speaking from experience, "but at least you're not in too much pain."

A beat of surprisingly comfortable silence passed between you two as you finished waking up and Leon just stared at you, as he often did. While the air between the two of you felt thankfully free of tension, it wasn’t without anticipation, nor was it without the presence of that massive elephant.

You knew she was okay because if she wasn’t, Leon would be having a nuclear meltdown, but you barely even got to see her before you passed out, so you didn’t know how okay she was. 

“Where is she?” You asked gently, hands fidgeting in your lap.

“She’s in the little incubator, but they said they could bring her in here when you woke up, if you were feeling well enough,” he answered, looking up at you through his lashes like a pleading puppy as he asked, “are you?”

You felt a rush deep in your chest that you couldn’t explain, emotion, and you found that your head was bobbing up and down in a nod before you even thought about it. You didn’t need to think about it. Of course your feelings about your situation and this baby were… complicated, to put it kindly, but you spent seven-ish months cooking the damn thing, so you might as well take the chance to hold her and get to meet her, right?

Leon didn’t waste any time scrambling off to get a nurse, and as you sat there waiting, you couldn’t help but wonder what she was going to be like. You weren’t ignorant of the fact that newborn babies didn’t have strong features yet, but you wondered if she would have any hair on her head, or what she would feel like in your arms, or what little sounds she might make. The few short minutes it took for Leon to return with your baby and a couple of nurses felt like a million years.

The door opened, and your heart stopped beating for a second. Your mouth dried and your eyes burned with tears.

She was so little.

Even swaddled up in a blanket, her tiny body was barely the width of Leon's forearm, her little head rested in the crook of his elbow while her socked and blanketed feet were tucked in the palm of his hand. Everything you felt in this moment was truly overwhelming— fright, nerves, and perhaps even a bit of pride, because come on. You made that thing. Willingly or not, you made your own little human, and in a removed context, that was crazy.

She was so little that you were almost afraid to touch her, trembling as Leon lowered her into your arms, but right away there was something about having her near that felt familiar to you.

Like an old friend.

For a long few minutes, you just cried. Deep, ugly, open-mouth cries that made your entire body feel weak. You couldn’t possibly get ahold of yourself, or even begin to understand how you were meant to.

Stooping down to kiss the crown of your head, Leon spoke gently into your hair, voice thick with emotion, “I-I named her Charlotte. Charlotte Abigail.”

Oh, how pretty. Internally you had to admit that he chose well, whatever his reasoning was.

“A beautiful name for a beautiful girl,” you sniveled, thumb caressing the thin, tender skin of her cheek, your chest throbbing as she squirmed and poked the tip of her tiny tongue out. “I-Is she okay? Are there any issues?”

The nurses calmly explained to you that she seemed to be regulating her temperature well enough on her own, but that the incubator was a precaution that would allow you and Leon the opportunity to get some actual rest. Her blood tests didn’t show any concerns and her oxygen levels were okay, but other than that, it was too soon to tell if anything else might be off, and they spared you the anxiety of getting too specific about the potential complications just yet. She would likely be spending at least 30 days in the NICU for good measure.

You, on the other hand, would be well enough to be on your feet as soon as the numbness wore off. That wasn’t to say it would feel good if you did, just that it was possible and wouldn’t kill you, though Leon would probably need to help you around for a few days… as if he needed the doctor’s order to do that.

Once they were sure you were healthy and comfortable, the nurses stepped out and for the very first time, it was just you, Leon, and your child.

“I’m so proud of you,” Leon whispered, watching you reverently. The sun had risen enough now to drench you in a saintly glow, your skin radiant and dewy with motherhood, your eyes glittering with tears as you gazed down at the sleepy baby cradled in your arms. “You’ve come such a long way, puppy, and just look at what you made for me. Look at what a perfect little angel you made for daddy.”

Letting out a slow breath from your nose, you resisted the urge to react to that. He’d done a pretty decent job of acting normal since you went into labor, and you didn’t realize how badly you were hoping he would keep it up until he ruined it with a brisk return to form. Perhaps the blame was on you for getting too comfortable with your expectations that high in the first place.

What felt especially unfair about it, however, was that his phrasing got beneath your skin more than you thought it would. Telling you that you’d come such a long way, and all because you made a perfect baby for him.

For daddy.

You’d only just had the chance to allow yourself to feel some kind of a bond with her, and Leon was already claiming ownership over it without a second thought. You wanted to snap at him that not everything was about him, that it wasn’t your goal to please him even if something you did made him happy, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to say any of it.

Charlotte hadn’t even been born for 24 hours yet, you couldn’t start fighting in front of her already.

You stood in front of the window with Charlotte swaddled tightly in your arms, letting her watch the glittery, falling snow outside in an attempt to calm her. She was red in the face and hollering with all the power in her little lungs— which was a lot, you’d come to learn— quite cranky about the fact that your milk was taking its time to come in. In defense of your boobs, the girls thought they were going to have eight more weeks to prepare than they ended up getting.

But at a certain point you just had to wonder when enough might be enough. You knew it wasn’t your fault, that your difficulty producing breastmilk so soon after going into premature labor didn’t reflect negatively upon your ability to love and provide for your daughter, so why did it feel that way? You were trying to keep ahold of your emotions for the sake of your daughter while wondering somewhere in the back of your mind if you were even fit to care for her, if it was your fault that she was starving.

“It’s common for newborns to lose a little bit of their birth weight in the first few weeks, especially waiting for mama’s milk to come in,” the attending nurse calmly explained to you as she changed the sheets on the bed. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, dear. There’s no guide to being a new mother.”

“Thank you,” you replied over the shrill cries of your daughter, letting some of the tension drop from your shoulders. Leon had told you nearly the same thing practically a thousand times over the past few days, but it was hard not to convince yourself that he didn’t know what he was talking about and was just spouting nonsense to make you feel better. It felt more legitimate coming from a professional.

Once she finished up changing the bedding, the nurse offered to take Charlotte for a while if you needed a break, but for right now, you didn’t really mind. Having her close was supposed to stimulate milk production, as you’d been told, and for lack of a better way to put it, you sort of enjoyed hogging her from Leon. He’d stepped out for the morning to check in at work and grab a few things from the house, so he wasn’t here to take her anyway, but you felt it was your responsibility to seize every available opportunity to bond with her. You needed her to know that you were there for her, that you weren’t budging, and that you never would.

Being alone with her was a treat. She really was so cute, just a teeny tiny little thing, and you could have already sworn she had your nose. She was pretty.

“Oh, Lottie, Lottie, Lottie,” you sighed affectionately, cupping the back of her head to cradle her close to your shoulder, gently swaying and bouncing on your feet. “What am I gonna do with you, huh?”

As expected, her only response was a continuation of shrill cries. Part of you worried that your presence wasn’t comforting her at all, but every time you slowed in rocking her or made any move that she perceived as you getting ready to put her down, she hollered louder and clung to you for dear life. Clearly she knew where her bread was buttered.

You crossed the room in slow, bouncing steps, trying to keep her distracted just long enough for you to sit down with her in the rocking chair. Little as she was, your arms were getting tired from holding her up, and you just needed a bit of a break from it. Pressing your lips to her soft forehead, you breathed in through your nose and began quietly singing to her.

“I’m… a lonely little petunia in an onion patch, an onion patch, an onion patch,” you hummed, “I’m a lonely little petunia in an onion patch, and all I do is cry all day… boo-hoo, boo-hoo…”

It was an old, old song, and you weren’t even really sure where you remembered it from, but Charlotte seemed to enjoy it, and it felt fitting enough right now. Dragging in a breath, Charlotte reached up to rub her eyes with her chubby little fists, wailing cries beginning to soften down to weepy whimpers. It was victorious moments like this that almost made you forget how you got here.

“Hey, sweetheart,” came Leon’s voice from behind, reminding you exactly how you got here, “how are my girls?”

Almost immediately, Charlotte started screaming again.

Sighing out an exhausted breath, you turned over your shoulder to watch Leon approach, trying not to let it show on your expression just how annoyed you were that he’d ruined her calming mood right after you managed to get her there.

“Cranky,” you answered him simply.

Leon clicked his tongue and moved to sit at the edge of the coffee table in front of you, reaching out to brush your hair away from your face with a sympathetic gleam in his eye. “No milk yet, huh?”

You shook your head.

“Oh, puppy… I’m sorry.”

The look on your face gutted him. He could tell you were blaming yourself in some way, feeling guilty for not being able to produce quite yet, but his mind wasn’t lingering anywhere near blaming you for this. You’d already been through so much just to deliver the baby— if anything, he’d be more surprised if these next few weeks were to proceed perfectly after that. You were a superhero to Leon right now, a goddess, and not even gods or heroes were exempt from hardship, from plain bad luck.

“It’s fine,” you said with a slow sigh, “the nurses swear we’re getting somewhere. There was some of this… I don’t know, like… clear, sappy stuff that came out this morning, and they said it’s good for her, so…”

Nodding gently, Leon took your hand and squeezed it, trying to get you to actually look at him. “Well, that’s a good sign, right?”

“I think so… I don’t know. I hope so.”

“I hope so, too, baby.”

A few moments of silence fell between you— aside from the screaming newborn, of course— and Leon continued to think about how proud he was of you. When he first brought you home with him, you were adamantly against the idea of having babies, let alone being pregnant at all. But you took it like such a champion, nourished and cared for your child anyway, his child, and even after going into labor unexpectedly early, your priorities and your focus still remained on her.

He couldn’t confidently say he’d have been as brave if it were him. That alone gave him a lot of reflecting to do.

“You’re incredible, you know that?” Leon asked, squeezing your hand again. “Absolutely incredible.”

“I don’t know about that,” you puffed out a dry breath, finally looking up at him. “Women have been birthing babies for thousands of years. I’m no different from any of them, unless you count panic-attacking myself into early labor, and even then I’m not the first. And I definitely won’t be the last.”

Shaking his head in affectionate disagreement, Leon said, “As far as I’m concerned, you didn’t just hang the moon, you molded it with your bare hands. Just… take the compliment, pup. You deserve it.”

A slight smile graced your lips for just a second, like you briefly allowed yourself to believe what he was saying. As much as it pained him to think about, Leon knew you hadn’t been given a whole lot of incentive to take him at his word on anything, but when it came to the praise you’d earned for making him a father, for growing his baby in you, it was so important to him that you knew he wasn’t just talking out of his ass.

So he spoke up again, following his praises with a gentle, genuine question; “Why are you being so hard on yourself?”

This gave you pause. He wasn’t wrong by any means— you absolutely were being hard on yourself here, in every way you could think of. The ways you’d been talking about and carrying yourself since he came home from San Francisco were indicative enough of that. It was like you were cowering from yourself, avoiding every part of you that made you you, like a mouse in a lab finally recognizing which buttons would shock you.

“She needs me,” you finally muttered, cradling Charlotte closer to your chest, even as she screamed your eardrum out. “She depends on me, I can’t just… fail her.”

“Fail her?” Leon whispered, encouraging you to continue.

Swallowing back nerves, you suddenly found you were having a difficult time making sense of what you’d been feeling lately, let alone putting it into articulate words. Still, you replied to the best of your frazzled, tired ability, “She was supposed to have eight more weeks… she wasn’t ready to be born yet, and I freaked myself out so much that I put her at risk. I’m so grateful that she’s okay, that it didn’t end badly, but Leon… it could have. It really could have.”

“I know,” he soothed. “I know it could have, but it didn’t. It didn’t. Look at her, she’s here and she’s alive and she’s healthy. She’s got strong lungs. She’s got your nose. She’s perfect, sweetheart, she’s absolutely perfect, and that’s not in spite of you, it’s because of you. I’ll repeat that as many times as it takes for you to internalize it.”

That framing of the situation was surprisingly insightful, coming from Leon, though you supposed he’d had some practice in forgiving himself over the years.

Sniffling, you nodded, letting out a shaky breath. “T-Thank you… daddy.”

He leaned in to kiss your forehead, and Charlotte began to settle.

You were so confused when you woke up in the middle of the night to Charlotte crying again— not because of anything she was doing differently, but because of how you felt. Sitting up in bed, you briefly glanced over at Leon to find that the commotion had roused him too, stirring him from a light sleep.

“I can get her,” he was quick to rasp out, voice clouded with grogginess, but for once, you put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“No, no, wait,” you whispered, your other hand kneading at your sore chest in an attempt to soothe the discomfort, but this wasn’t the same kind of breast pain you’d grown used to by now. They were tender and full to the touch, nipples stinging under your nightgown.

And leaking.

Eyes widening, you shot out of bed with a quiet, excited exclamation of, “oh, shit,” not even taking the time to mull over how silly it seemed to be so ecstatic that your nipples were leaking milk through your favorite nightgown. All you could think about right now was her. You could finally sate her hunger.

Leon sat up too, rubbing his eyes and leaning over to turn the bedside lamp on, trying to wake himself up enough to understand what you were acting so urgently about. Only once Charlotte’s cries were silenced and replaced with a soft, greedy suckling sound did he realize what was happening.

“Oh,” he gasped, stunned, “shit.”

You just laughed, completely unable to wipe the stupid grin off your face. Feeding for the first time felt really fucking bizarre, but with how happy you were that your daughter was finally able to eat, you couldn’t bring yourself to care even slightly. That was far from the biggest thing on your mind.

“She’s eating,” you beamed, turning over your shoulder to look at Leon, desperate to share this moment with the only person who could truly understand your relief. “She’s eating, Leon, she’s— she’s perfect. Holy shit.”

“You’re perfect,” he smiled wide, crawling out of bed to join you where you stood by the crib, his strong arms slinking gently around your waist. Pressing a kiss to the highest point of your cheekbone, Leon whispered in your ear, “I knew you could do it, puppy. I love you, I love you both so much.”

And now you were crying. You couldn’t help it.

Charlotte fed for a good long while that night, gulping down every stray drop she could find, and you and Leon just watched her in complete awe. She could barely keep her eyes open in her satisfaction, long lashes fluttering angelically upon chubby cheeks, her squishy little lips bobbing back and forth with every suckle as you both cooed at her and cheered her on.

Wiping away a drop of milk from her chin, Leon preened, “Oh, little Lottie… such a good eater, princess, my goodness…”

“Such a good eater,” you echoed, adding playfully, “must’ve gotten that from your daddy. He gets grouchy without breakfast, too.”

“Hey now, it is the most important meal of the day,” he pointed out to his own defense, very much in on the joke, though he couldn’t help but add another cheeky point that was reserved only for your ears. “Well… the second most important meal of the day, right behind dessert.”

Groaning, you rolled your eyes at him, “Cornball. You’re a horny, horny cornball.”

He only smirked, “Guilty as charged, pup,” and kissed you again.

Your mood improved a lot over the next several days, and Leon was so grateful for it. The timing couldn’t have been better for squashing your insecurities about being able to care for Charlotte. Waking up to feed her wasn’t something that stressed you out anymore, it was something that made you feel useful and needed, which you always were, but now you truly believed it. Leon joked more than once that he’d never seen you happier to whip your boobs out at any given time.

You were eating well, you were laughing, you were getting lots of good rest, and you were actually talking to him. Like, talking talking, not just nodding your head and pretending to follow along. You told him about your day, you told him how you were feeling, you commentated on TV shows together. Your unanticipated stay in the NICU was turning out to feel a lot more like a dream than a nightmare, and as such, he was almost reluctant to see it end.

But time marches on, as it always does. Part of him worried you’d go right back to being difficult once you were home and the novelty of new parenthood wore off. Part of him wanted to trust that you wouldn’t, because you truly understood everything now. Didn’t you?

The final week of Charlotte’s monitoring was dwindling down, and now that he wasn’t so preoccupied with worrying himself sick about you both, he couldn’t stop thinking about what you said to him before you went into labor.

‘Daddy, I have to tell you something.’

Whatever it was, you never told him. In the chaos of everything that happened right after, he almost forgot you even mentioned it, but it’d just been gnawing at him since the dust settled.

Leon wasn’t sure how to approach this with you. Talking about it clearly distressed you last time, even though you brought it up on your own, and he didn’t want to risk setting you off, but the intensity of emotion it brought was undoubtedly indicative of its importance. By principle, you should tell him if there’s anything he needs to know, right?

Maybe it wasn’t all that important. Maybe your reaction at the time was just a product of your condition, the hormones and anxiety, and maybe you hadn’t even thought about it since that night. Maybe it really wasn’t a big deal.

So why had it been so obviously eating you alive during the final leg of your pregnancy?

“Baby?” Leon asked quietly, tilting his head to look at you. It was three in the morning and you were laying in bed together after Charlotte finally fell back asleep for the millionth time, partly trying to get some more rest and partly preparing yourselves to have to get up again at any moment. But it was peaceful, and he hoped that would mean you were calm and comfortable enough to have this conversation.

Humming in acknowledgment, your eyes met his. He had his arm around you, thumb caressing you at the waist, your cheek against his chest. It was now or never.

“I’ve just been thinking lately… the night Lottie was born, you said you had something to tell me,” he began, pouring all his effort into coming off as non-threatening as possible, careful not to spook you. “The little lady interrupted you and I never got to hear what it was. Do you remember, sweetheart?”

At first you couldn’t move, completely paralyzed in his arms. Your initial inclination was to panic, of course, but for once in your life, the nerves weren’t manifesting like they probably should have been.

Or, rather, like they definitely should have been.

You resumed breathing, biting your lip while you tried to organize your thoughts and come to a decision. It would be a tough shot to lie right now, you knew that, and while you would have usually tried to come up with a convoluted way to worm yourself out of this, for some reason, you didn’t even really feel the need to right now. Leon had been in a great mood. You were pretty sure he hadn’t stopped smiling since Charlotte was born, and even leading up to her birth, he had been acting so gentle and loving with you.

But you still needed to cover your bases if you were going to be honest with him.

“Do you remember saying that whatever it is, we’ll handle it? That I wouldn’t be in trouble?”

Uh oh, Leon thought to himself, but didn’t dare let it show on his expression. That’s not a great start.

“I do,” he nodded encouragingly, “and that still stands.”

All you had was his word, and that was going to have to do, wasn’t it? Taking a deep breath, you tightened your arms around his middle as if preemptively pleading for mercy, and then you quietly admitted, “I-I broke the rules while you were away on that mission.”

He figured as much while speculating on what it might have been, so this didn’t really floor him too much yet. “Okay. What rules did you break?”

You hesitated for a beat, looking away to collect your thoughts and then back again, hoping he could see the guilt in your eyes, the regret.

“I went outside,” you whispered, feeling an awkward and unpleasant heat burning at your ears— shame. “I-I went on a walk, a long walk, and…”

Now it was Leon who wasn’t breathing. “And?”

“And I tried to get h-help.”

There it was. You tried to get help. Help. As if you needed any fucking help when you had Leon.

But then again, he thought, she didn’t have me. I wasn’t there.

His bottom lip quivered until he bit it back, stooping his head down to bury his face in your hair, hiding, both arms holding you tightly to him. He wasn’t sure how to feel. He thought he was prepared for anything you might have to confess, but this… this was devastating. This felt awful.

“God fucking damn it, puppy,” he wept, “what were you thinking?”

The realization that he was crying made you tear up too. He wasn’t angry, he was anguished.

“I-I’m sorry… I know, I’m sorry—”

“Did anything happen? Did anyone see you? Did anyone touch you?”

“No, no, n-nothing happened, no one touched me, I promise—”

“Don’t you ever do that shit again,” he sobbed weakly into the crown of your hair, clutching you to him like you’d fall apart if he let go, or perhaps like he would fall apart. “Do you hear me?”

You just nodded, stifling your cries with a hand over your mouth to keep from waking the baby. She was sleeping so peacefully in the crib a mere few feet away.

“I hear you, I hear you, I promise I won’t ever do it again… it was freezing and I was so scared, I… I couldn’t get home fast enough…”

Home. Was that what it was to you now?

“Good,” Leon said firmly, but not apathetically, sighing out a deep, shaky breath. “You don’t just have yourself to worry about anymore.”

You and Leon were practically tangled with one another, stuck together like glue as you desperately tried to soothe each other. Silence fell around you again.

It wasn't at all difficult for Leon to talk his way into some time off after what happened in San Francisco- - the D.S.O. owed him big time for the damages to his Ducati and his psyche, and with the nightmare of a cover-up they already had on their hands as a direct result of an incident like that occurring on U.S. soil, Leon was the last of the government's concerns. For once, that worked out in his favor. 

Naturally, every spare second of time he now had was spent attached to you like a leech... often more literally than figuratively. 

"F-Fucking Christ," Your jaw unhinged in a needy cry, hot tears leaking from your eyes which had been rolled far back in your lids for a while now, a length of time you couldn't possibly approximate if you tried. 

Your arms were shaking with strain as you reached over your taut, pregnant belly to claw at Leon's hair, yanking him closer, desperate to soothe that nagging ache of desire that had plagued you constantly as of late. He had one broad hand pinning your left thigh to the bed while the other alternated between gripping at your hip and smoothing over your bump. 

Pulling away from your cunt to gasp for air, his lips rosy and swollen and gleaming with you, Leon's fingertips printed hard into your skin, but never enough to hurt. "God, look at you," He mused, trailing a line of wet kisses from the hood of your clit to the highest point of your round belly. "Really popped while I was gone..." 

In the absence of his mouth, his calloused fingers sank deep into your hole, feeling absolutely no resistance with just how deliciously slippery you were. 

Spreading your legs as far as he could with one hand otherwise occupied, Leon ground the heel of his palm against your engorged clit while pumping in and out of you, nipping at the plush, warm flesh of your tummy as he cooed, "Aren't you just a pretty little puppy mama, stuffed up nice and full with daddy's baby? Couldn't hide that gorgeous belly anymore if you tried, huh? Poor thing..." 

Something changed between you and Leon following his return from California. Months ago, a statement like that from him would have made you start angry crying. You always used to hate it when he would rub your helplessness in your face just to break you down-- as most people would-- but now it held a certain kind of catharsis to just go along with it. 

Maybe it was because his intentions felt different now, too. Given your pitiful track record, you didn't feel comfortable asking him what happened while he was gone, but you had gathered that something happened to shake him. 

He was clingy to begin with, became even clingier when you got pregnant, and now he was tightening his grip again. Except this time, it didn't feel quite as aggressive or controlling as usual, it felt desperate. It felt fearful, but it also felt relieved, like kissing the tarmac after a particularly turbulent flight. 

Worse yet, your demeanor toward him wasn't much different. At this point it didn't seem as though he knew about your outing, and for as sweet as he had been since the second he returned home, you were terrified that he could somehow find out and snap at any moment. 

So, you threw everything you had into gaining his good favor, proving to him that you were a good, obedient pup who would never dare take advantage of his trust in you to do something so stupid and dangerous, and maybe then, if he were to find out, you could preemptively soften the blow. Maybe he would see that you had learned your lesson, that you corrected your behavior on your own and understood the error of your ways, that you understood the importance of following daddy's rules and had long since learned the hard way never to question him again. 

It ate you alive a little bit to keep it from him, for fear that your failure to be honest with him might come back to bite you later, but you didn't feel particularly inclined to walk yourself into a punishment over a mistake you had absolutely no intention of ever repeating, either. 

Your vision blurred white as his tongue slipped back down to flutter over your clit, his long, thick fingers reaching deep into your guts to untangle the delicate thread of your arousal. He was groaning in response to the flavor of your essence, the vibration sounding through your whole body and carrying electric pops of pleasure with it, your own wanton cries melting in with the chorus of wet noises that accompanied his devouring of you. 

"Fuck, you're so fucking perfect," Leon panted into your folds before stooping forward to seal his lips over your bud once more, drinking you in with an obscene slurp. "My blushing, breeding bride..." 

"Daddy," You cried out, voice light and airy with need as you rutted up toward his face and devolved into mindlessly repeating yourself, "Gonna cum, gonna cum, g-gonna cum..." 

He chuckled, hooking his fingers inside you abruptly just to send your poor, dumb little puppy brain spinning out and to coax more of those precious noises from you. "Oh, are you?" He teased. "Are you gonna make a pretty little mess all over daddy's fingers, darlin'? Gonna give daddy something sweet to lick up?" 

He hadn't even finished speaking and you were already nodding, the upward lilt of his tone being the only thing it took for your hazy brain to know you were being asked something, which naturally meant that whatever it was, the correct answer was yes. You weakly tried to grip at his hair again, only to draw an amused puff of laughter from him as he watched you struggle. 

"Can't even reach over that bump now? Oh, poor princess... Looks like daddy bred you up too good, didn't I?"

Whimpering, you nodded, giving up your attempt to grasp at his hair in favor of the simpler option, allowing your shaking hand to rest over your swollen stomach as you came undone. Being seven months pregnant was no fucking joke, as you'd come to learn, and while you'd spent the bulk of your pregnancy so far obsessing over your discomfort with the physical changes, recently your self esteem had very much taken a backseat to all the other bullshit that came along with growing a baby. 

Your boobs hurt. Your back hurt. Your hips hurt. You were waddling more than walking, you couldn't stop crying, you constantly wanted to fuck, and to top it all off, you were beginning to leak strange fluids from your vagina and your nipples on occasion. With everything you had going on, you couldn't possibly handle worrying about your appearance, too-- at least you could sleep at night knowing you never had to worry about giving Leon the ick. 

Writhing and twitching as Leon dragged your orgasm out for as long as he could manage, the room was spinning around you, your jaw dropped in a high pitched cry of his title on repeat until you had no choice but to gasp a breath in. He continued to pump in and out of you down to the knuckles while he sipped from your cunt like a fountain, knowing you could take it-- or rather, that you would take it. 

"One more f'me, doll?" 

A deep, guttural shiver tore through you. It didn't matter whether you were to agree or not, because you knew it wasn't really a question anyway, so you didn't bother giving him a clear answer. You just clawed at the sheets and tried to prepare for what he decided to give you. 

His denim eyes darkened, pupils swallowing up much of the familiar color as he zeroed back in on your dripping sex with fierce determination. Locking his arm around your thigh, he dragged you down the bed until you were pressed flush against his face, the bridge of his nose bumping against your puffy, sensitive clit with the motion. The veins in his bicep rose beneath his skin as his muscles tightened to pin you firmly in place, and then he took off like a wind-up toy car. 

It was like you were watching him surrender control to something other than himself in real time. The fire alarm could have started going off right in that moment and you figured he wouldn't have even flinched, at least not until he'd had his fill of you, not until he'd delivered upon that promise to work just one more from your poor little body. 

"You're always dripping wet when you're being good, baby," He praised, licking his lips salaciously at the taste of you on his tongue as he continued lazily pumping his fingers in and out of your drooling cunt. "I bet you were so horny without daddy around to keep you sated..." Leon unexpectedly withdrew his fingers, admiring how they gleamed with your juices before bringing them up to smear a stripe across the mound of your full stomach. 

But the digits returned almost as quickly as they were withdrawn, stretching you open with a third and sucking your clit up into his mouth simultaneously, silky tongue catching every last little drop of arousal that dared to leak out of you.

Leon groaned softly, his cock twitching eagerly in his boxers. The sight of you squirming on the bed with a puffy bellyful of puppies that he put in you was almost enough to drive him wild-- knowing that he was the only source of relief from your raging lust was enough to drive him insane and then some, fueling his obsession limitlessly. 

"Just beg nice and pretty for daddy, baby. Beg for me to stuff you up with babies so you don't feel alone." He instructed firmly, two fingertips taking an aching pace at your clit as he spoke. 

You didn't usually like giving Leon any wins. It just wasn't your style... or at least it didn't used to be. 

But you did anyway. You writhed and convulsed and shattered practically on command, your vibrating thighs attempting to stick shut around his head as the noises that fell from you melted down into mindless babbles, and unabashed begging. Before that mission, he would have moved to stop your thighs from shutting him out, but not now. Not since everything changed.

A car door opened and shut, a set of keys jingled, the lock clicked, and you couldn’t move, just staring wide-eyed at the door from the base of the stairs as it swung open to reveal your captor, who froze at the sight of you, too.

His duffel bag dropped to the floor beside him, long forgotten in Leon’s mind as he feasted his eyes upon the image of you for the first time in over a month— or at least for the first time since his phone broke. He nearly fell to his knees with relief. 

“Oh, puppy,” He sighed out, tears pricking at his tired eyes, overwhelmed with the insatiable need to feel you in his arms again. In just a few short strides he crossed the distance between you and embraced you so tightly, it was almost crushing. 

Euphoria, pure and uncut, a high unachievable in this universe by any other means. That was the only way Leon could think of to describe what he felt in that moment. 

Pulling back to look at you, he cupped your jaw with one hand while the other pushed its way up beneath your shirt, finally feeling the soft, round warmth of your bump under his hand again, and he almost could have sworn he felt a little kick. He was beaming now, vibrating with excitement, almost at a loss for words entirely. 

Almost. 

“My beautiful fucking wife,” He laughed, a single tear breaching the threshold of his eye to drip down over his reddened cheek. “You’ve grown so much…”

You couldn't argue with him there. It felt like you'd doubled in size since he last saw you, your ripening belly putting every shirt in the house to the test over the several weeks he'd been away, and you weren't even done cooking yet. Not nearly.

Now he really did fall to his knees, and Leon's hands came forward to tug your shirt up, baring your rounded middle to him. In no time at all, his lips were scattering across the smooth surface of your skin like delicate rain, his warm hands cradling either side of your stomach as he hoped to himself that he might feel his child kick again, that he might feel them squirm. His lids fell shut as though he were in a dream, or maybe he was reminding himself that he wasn't.

The entire time you felt like you were holding your breath. You didn't know what to say. You didn't even know how to feel. You couldn't tell if you were going to throw up from relief, or from fear. Maybe from guilt? Regret? 

Or was it just from the root of his progeny in you? You just didn't know, and as the minutes melted away from you, it all began to collapse into itself until your skull became an echo chamber of blaring alarms and racing thoughts and... and... 

"Daddy, I m-missed you," You choked out, one hand coming down to thread into his hair while the other raised up to your mouth, quieting your cries. You weren't even sure if you were just saying that as a defense mechanism, or if you actually meant it, and you couldn't even bring yourself to care. Maybe you did mean it, if only a little. "I-It was so quiet, it was so quiet..." 

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," He spoke against your taut skin, locking his arms around your hips to tug you even closer, his cheek squished up against you. He was well over a week out from his last shave, the gruff shadow on his face tickling you as he continued, "I don't ever wanna have to leave you like that again, baby. Never ever. I'm so sorry--" 

"W-What if you didn't come back?" You cut him off, bottom lip wobbling, "How long was I supposed to wait? What was I supposed to do?" 

He shook his head at this and cut you off firmly, determined to nip that line of thinking in the bud. "Don't say things like that. It didn't happen that way and it's never going to, do you hear me?" 

"W-What even happened?" 

"Do you hear me, puppy?" 

For a moment, you hesitated. Wasn't the whole issue with his job that he had absolutely no power? That there wasn't an assignment he could turn down, or a day he could take off, or a report he could slack on, or an order he could defy? How could he say with any certainty that this wasn't going to happen again? That it might not be worse next time? 

And why did you even care? 

Weeping, you nodded. "I h-hear you. I hear you, daddy."

"Good," Leon's right hand rubbed measured, soothing circles along your belly, subconsciously mapping the feel of your gravidity beneath his palm. He would keep you just like this forever if he had the power to, heavy and radiant with his fruit, though he couldn't wait to meet the growing baby in there, either. It was a constant struggle of the mind. "I don't wanna miss one more second of this."

And as such, he wouldn't. 

"Shit," Leon grumbled under his breath, standing aside to observe the shelf he'd just hung on the wall before turning over his shoulder to gauge your opinion; "Does that look level to you?" 

Humming in thought, you took a step back to get a better perspective. Now able to compare the little white shelf with the rest of the nursery decorations on the pale, lemonade colored wall, it became quite evident why he was concerned-- it might as well have been diagonal. 

"It's pretty skewed to the left, babe," You answered him honestly, one hand perched to support the small of your aching back while the other rested atop your belly. 

Narrowing his eyes in concentration, Leon joined you where you were so he could look at it from your angle, and yeah, it was pretty fucking off. With an exasperated puff of laughter at his own expense, Leon shook his head and approached the wall again to start taking the screws out. "Well, I guess it's a good thing I didn't go into carpentry." 

You laughed too, because he was right. Every last one of those little wall decorations had been a headache to put up, and the furniture was another thing entirely. Just days ago you spent an entire afternoon watching him lose his mind over the incoherent instructions included with the crib you'd begged him to order, hence why it took him half the week to cool off enough to deal with the shelving. 

"Well, if you would just let me try..." 

But he was already shaking his head 'no' before you made it more than three words through that sentence. He gave you an affectionate look of disapproval before reminding you, "Nope, no way. Pretty puppies don't get to play with sharp tools and heavy things." 

You poked your tongue out at him playfully, he poked his right back out at you, and then returned his attention to the task at hand. 

With your input, Leon adjusted the shelf and stepped back to observe it again, nodding in satisfaction only once you did too. "Happy with that?" 

"Maybe," You grinned, "Can I put the stuff up there?" 

Leon raised a brow, "You think you're tall enough to reach?" 

"Probably not... but you could lift me?"

He softened at this. Leon would be a fool to pass you up on such an adorable request, although he couldn't help but give you a deep, playful sigh anyway as he opened his arms to you. "Alright, princess. Hop up." 

You were all too giddy to do so, letting him lift you up by your hips to reach the shelving. One by one, he handed little trinkets off to you for proper placement, his muscles bulging against his shirt but not even shaking beneath your weight. It was equal parts sweet and a reminder of your weakness in comparison to him, which you felt quite numb to by now, for better or for worse. 

Once you had both feet back on the floor, the afternoon melted away in the nursery. With your due date creeping up faster and faster, the preparation felt never-ending, like every time one thing got scratched off the list, another three were added. But in a weird way it was sort of nice-- it gave you both something to do, and whether or not it made sense, you actually worked quite seamlessly together. 

Every onesie, every set of sheets, every furniture piece, every toy, every binky and bottle and blanket had to be washed and sanitized and then washed again, and put into place. If it didn't yet have a place, one had to be arranged for it. Every outlet had to be plugged with safety covers, every cabinet had to be childproofed, every sharp corner had to be padded. As expected, Leon was unwilling to take any risks, and you supposed you couldn't blame him. You didn't really want to take any either, knowing the remainder of your life was about to be judged by your ability to raise Leon's children. 

What else were you supposed to do, though? Leon sucked, the kidnapping sucked, the IUD thing sucked, the pregnancy thing sucked, everything sucked. But unless the universe would decide to cut you a break by smiting Leon where he stood, your situation would remain unchanged for the foreseeable future, and you just had to deal with it. Like it or not, you nailed that coffin shut when you came crawling back home that day. 

And honestly, you still weren't entirely convinced he didn't know you tried to escape. He hadn't said a word about it, he hadn't even alluded to it, but it was still like you physically couldn't stop yourself from overanalyzing his every move just in case. At the same time, you were constantly filtering yourself, playing the perfect princess, strategizing your every word until you couldn't even remember how you felt before you started acting. 

Sometimes you wondered if you even were acting anymore. 

Times like now, as you relaxed in bed together at the end of the busy day, each of you propped up against the headboard and engaged in your own task. Leon was flipping through a book of baby names the size of an encyclopedia while you worked your way through the unnecessarily excruciating crossword puzzle in today's newspaper, your pen slipping into the next box over when a particularly strong kick to your organs caught you off guard.

You let out a barely audible oof, resisting the urge to roll your eyes as soon as the pain dulled-- the first several times you felt your baby moving in there felt like a horror movie, but now that you'd made it well into your third trimester, it was a sensation you'd become quite exasperated with. You weren't a monster, of course, and even you found it sort of cute after a while, just not while you were trying to relax... or focus. 

Or not get kicked in the ribcage, which was most times. 

"You okay?" Leon asked softly, reaching out to rest his hand on your bump. 

"Yeah," You huffed, sitting up a bit to get more comfortable and hopefully soothe the unborn little one, your hand coming to squeeze his own in the process. "She's just training for her black belt or something." 

It came out so easily you didn't even think about it, like discussing the weather. But your phrasing certainly didn't make it past Leon. 

He froze, setting his book aside to look at you in complete bewilderment. "She?"

"What?" 

"Did you just say she?" 

Oh, yeah. Huh. Fuck. 

For a moment you just stared at him blankly, unsure whether you were about to be in trouble, and his expression wasn't really giving you any pointers. Nervously, as you'd come to be conditioned by now, you just blurted out the truth, "Y-Yeah, I did." 

Outwardly, you were frozen just as solid as he was, but inwardly, you were bracing yourself for nuclear fallout. After all, that's what you'd done that for in the first place, right? To irk him? To hurt him? To get under his skin? 

But suddenly you were retroactively regretting that decision. Just as soon as you said it, you were silently drafting an apology, maybe even an excuse. Maybe you could tell him the doctor just said it without even asking. Maybe you could blame it on nothing more than a slip of the tongue-- you just wanted a girl so bad that you must have said it without meaning to... but not even Leon would believe that. 

Right as you were drawing in a breath to respond, Leon spoke first. His gaze was intense with emotion, tipping your chin up so he could meet your eyes and ensure you got a good sense of his elation. "Pretty puppy, are you serious? We're having a daughter?" 

You were glad he forced you to look into his eyes, because what you found there was unexpectedly disarming. It wasn't rage, or betrayal, or authority, like you'd been preparing yourself for. It was vulnerable and adoring, hopeful, like the only reason he even asked was out of fear that the answer might be no, and any expressed excitement would be for nothing. 

"Yeah," The tension in your posture dissolved, "We're having a daughter."

A broad smile set in across his face, his eyes welling with tears as he regarded you with both hands on your belly. Shortly thereafter, you were both surprised by the distinct feeling of your unborn daughter landing a kick beneath his palm, and that really did him in. Leon was all but weeping now, lavishing your baby bump in smooches and happy tears. 

Leon genuinely didn't go into this with a preference on the sex of his first born. He wasn't concerned about 'male heirs' or any of that other macho bullshit. He just wanted his darling wife, and a whole brood of healthy, happy babies. Knowing now that the seed he'd planted and nurtured so lovingly in your womb was growing into a girl, a beautiful baby girl, he felt like he'd just had the wind knocked out of him in the most incredible way. 

A daughter. You were giving him another beautiful angel just like yourself to protect and adore. Christ, he was so overjoyed that he didn't even entertain the idea of asking you why you didn't tell him until now, because he didn't care. He should have been there in the first place instead of letting himself get infected like an idiot, instead of rotting away on the cell block floor at Alcatraz while you were all by yourself learning the sex of your baby. His baby. 

What a fucking let down, He thought to himself. What a complete and utter fucking let down. 

Nearly a year he'd spent trying to convince you he would always be there to hold your hand, that he would take care of anything and everything for you, especially as far as supporting your pregnancy was concerned, and he failed you. You went into this scared to death of him and becoming a mother, yet you placed all of your trust on his promise to ease your burdens, and he failed you. 

You trusted him, and he failed you. His darling little puppy mama, his beloved wife. He could hardly breathe. 

"Y-You shouldn't have been alone," He choked out, lips brushing over the surface of your skin. "My two sweet princesses... I'm so sorry. I-I can barely even think about it." 

Of all the emotions you expected from him in this moment, remorse certainly wasn't high on the list. You couldn't do anything but just watch him at first, stunned, and briefly wondering if he was testing you. But there was no way, right? Leon didn't strike you as the type to be able to cry on command-- he barely even cried when he needed to. Maybe you should just accept the win of getting anything resembling an apology from him. 

You swallowed that paranoia back, having convinced yourself enough to relax for now. Threading your fingers through his hair, noting silently to yourself that he was probably overdue for a cut after his last mission, you attempted to soothe him with his own reassurances to you, "Don't think like that, okay? You're here now, we're all safe, and it's never going to happen again. That's what matters."

He knew you were only saying that to make him feel better, but it melted his heart just as much that you were trying at all. Not long ago, you would have been content to just watch him hate himself. You might have even thought he deserved to.

And you did, of course, just not for this. He had a lot of things to be sorry about, and his scary government job that he had no control over just wasn't one of them. Over the months you'd managed to gather that Leon dealt with a lot of guilt around the people he couldn't save, and probably also the people he'd been forced to hurt. Even if it wasn't technically a direct result of his occupation, you were beginning to realize that what he'd done to you wasn't exempt from that laundry list of regrettable life choices. 

What you felt toward him these days wasn't exactly sympathy... but it wasn't exactly not sympathy. The lines blurred more and more every day, and the further your pregnancy progressed, the less capacity you had to be distraught about it all the time. You had bigger things to worry about, obviously. 

Things Leon would rather worry about too, as you were reminded by the heavy thud of that book tumbling from the bed, propelled by the shifting of the covers. 

Leon crawled atop you, knees perched at either side of your hips on the mattress. Slowly, he slipped his fingers beneath the hem of your nightshirt to draw it up and over your shoulders, laying bare to him all but what lay beneath your panties, and without incident, to boot. 

As you'd come to expect by now, he was pressing feather-light kisses all along the rounded surface of your stomach at the first opportunity. Reaching forward to take your chin between his thumb and forefinger, always careful to ensure he had your full attention, Leon whispered, "Do you like the way your belly looks, sweetheart?" 

Not really, was your immediate thought, but right after that, it was, well... I don't know. Do I? 

Your heart clenched in your chest as you stared down at his hands roaming the swollen surface of your baby bump, committing every square inch to textile memory by feeling along the curve of it, by brushing his lips over the feathery stretch marks that had bloomed there in his absence. To say you didn't like it would be a complete and total understatement, but with Leon scrutinizing your every move in an effort to gauge your emotions, you were having a terribly difficult time finding the right words to speak. 

Finally, you admitted, "Depends on the day." 

Which was true. It tasted bitter on your tongue to give him the satisfaction of even insinuating you enjoyed this, but there were times in which you would gaze at your reflection and pretend to be someone else, and in that removed context, you found the woman in the mirror to be quite the cute little pregnant lady-- but Leon didn't need to know all that.

"It'll be okay," He promised, resting his chin atop your bump and breathing in deep, entranced by the heavenly scent of motherhood that clung to you now. "Before long you'll come to love how beautiful you look with daddy's baby in you."

Stroking gently down your sides, unable to ignore just how obvious it'd become that your breasts and the dips of your waist had filled out with the evidence of his claim over you, Leon's cock was starting to tent up in his boxers. He couldn't get enough of you if he tried, even if you didn't want anything to do with yourself. He would take you all, over and over again, let every rejected piece of you flow over him until his cup runneth over. 

Meanwhile, you were wondering to yourself what 'before long' even meant to him. You were already 30 weeks pregnant and barreling toward your due date. It's not like there was long left for you to come to love it-- most of the time you didn't even like it. 

But the sex was so good. That, even you couldn't deny you'd come to love. 

"Daaaaddyyy," You whined, long and drawn out as the throbbing head of him pushed past your sodden hole, tunneling deep into you with a low groan from the throbbing core of his chest. 

He could barely keep his eyes open, right hand gripping the meat of your thigh to pin you open while the left steadied you at the hip, and the sounds you made were nothing short of heaven to him. The wet suction of you pulsing around him, the incoherent whining and weeping that knocked from your plush lips with every inch you took. 

"You're so damn eager to get fucked aren't you? Poor thing," Leon coaxed you cruelly, even as he could hardly get a breath in himself. There were certainly worse things in the world than having a dedicated partner so keen on servicing you; his possessive nature coupled with your hormonal neediness had turned this unwilling partnership into something undeniably effective and powerful. 

As soon as he was sure you were comfortable, his thrusts picked up pace steadily, and as usual, he couldn't help the way his hand crept up from your hip to your rounded tummy. You looked perfect like this, absolutely perfect, down to the molecule. Such a proper little puppy bearer you were, almost to term with your first litter yet already crying out for more, your swollen tits bouncing, your nails biting into his skin and your eyes rolling back in your head, your pretty pussy clenching around his shaft at half the pace of your beating heart. It was an image he wished he could frame, an image of you that only existed in his mind's eye until now.

"Such a pretty, pretty princess," He mused, bringing his hand away from your belly only to swipe his hair back from his sweat-slicked forehead, and then it was promptly returned to its place with a gentle pat to gather your attention there, to just how big you'd gotten. Every rigid inch of him set your insides on fire, feeding a white hot pit in your core that smoldered through your blood and seeped all the way up to your shrinking little brain like rot. Like an infection.

"D-Don't stop," Your words came out in breathy, stunted, braindead mewls, oh, so fucking braindead. Poor puppy, you were so focused on pleading for him not to stop, you didn't even realize you were cumming already, convulsing, sobbing, cunt sucking his cock in so nice and deep that daring to remove it might as well be considered sacrilege.

And it was to him. Oh, God was it sacrilege to deny you the pleasure you so deserved. Everything he did was for you, for the privilege of spreading you out upon your altar and feeling your holy body accept him, beckon him, cleanse him.

"I'm here, darlin'..." He prayed to you, "I'm right here."

"I fucking knew it. I knew you were guilty as sin," Leon scoffed, tossing his cards on the table in exasperation. Bulging arms crossed over his chest, he shook his head and added, "Colonel Mustard, you conniving piece of shit." 

Your lips parted with a nervous laugh, followed by a slow, discreet exhale to steady your heart again, only when he wasn't looking, of course. Hearing him say things like that just set your fucking teeth on edge, but even with the little spike of anxiety he caused, you had to admit to yourself that it was a bit funny. 

Gathering up the cards on the table, you flashed him a playful smile and asked, "Did you wanna play again?" 

You only looked up from shuffling the deck when you realized he was taking longer than expected to respond. Chillingly, that's when you noticed he was just studying you with an expression of neutrality that gave away nothing about what he was thinking. That rarely ever meant anything good for you. 

Naturally, Leon didn't miss the way your pupils narrowed to pinholes in alert beneath his scrutiny. Perhaps in an attempt to disarm you, he cleared his throat and relaxed, reaching forward to help you reset the game board. Instead of answering your question, however, he asked you one instead. 

"Something on your mind?" 

"No," You replied quickly, "Why?" 

His eyes narrowed just a teeny tiny bit, barely even recognizable if you weren't looking right at him, if you didn't know him well enough by now. Or did he narrow his eyes? Were you just imagining things? 

"You seem jumpy." 

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Immediately, you began to beat yourself to hell for letting your guard down. As far as you knew, you were doing so well. He hadn't suspected a thing for so long, and of course you had to go ahead and fuck it all up for yourself over a game of Clue. 

Taking a shaky drink of water, you swallowed nervously before responding, "Oh. I'm sorry."

And now his eyes were going a bit narrow. When it came to you, a non-answer like that was a pretty solid indicator that you were hiding something, but Leon was beginning to learn that he couldn't scare you off too early with the interrogating-- he needed to take more of a delicate approach if he wanted to get anywhere with you, especially if he wanted to get anywhere with you willingly. 

With a fond, gentle tone and a relaxed posture that he hoped would encourage you to open up, Leon asked, "Sorry for what, pup?" 

Again, your vocabulary, your tongue, your lungs, and your brain were failing you in succession, taking turns lighting up your poor, exhausted neurons like an overloaded switchboard. He sounded sincere, he looked sincere, but... But it's Leon, you still managed to think to yourself, and your heart squeezed tight with every other syllable. Then, somewhere in there, you thought, But... it's Leon. And now you really didn't know what to do.

He had been so kind to you lately. Even you had to admit to yourself that a lot of your hesitation to trust him in the month since he returned was just the product of your own overthinking. You couldn't come up with a single thing he'd done or said to you since he'd been back that would give you any incentive to lie to him. In fact, all that came to mind only proved the opposite. 

He'd been remarkably consistent with rewarding your newfound honesty, even if it wasn't always exactly the kind of honesty he hoped to hear. The fact that you even made the effort at all was proof enough to Leon that you cared to consider his rules, and the fact that you were honest with him even when you knew you might get in trouble meant you trusted him to help you. 

Admit it or not, like it or not, you cared. You trusted him. Your hesitation to answer-- which, to note, was making him sick with anticipation-- proved your inclination for obedience in its own way. Those were sentiments he had to remind himself of as he continued his effort to navigate a conversation despite you not giving him much to work with yet. You were certainly a tough nut to crack, but he'd never felt so motivated to accept the challenge. 

Taking your dainty little hand in a reassuring squeeze, he cooed, "My sweet baby... It's okay. Daddy won't ever be mad at you for telling the truth, you know that, right?" 

Oh dear God, he's laying it on thick.

Your bottom lip quivered as you tried to swallow back the lump beginning to take root in your throat, only to find you could barely even swallow around it. For four weeks he'd been nothing but sweet to you, clearly putting forth a concerted effort to make up for all the attention you should have been getting while he was gone. For four weeks he'd taken the care to alter his own habits and behavior just to prove that you could trust him to adore and support you through anything, and not just you, but your unborn daughter. 

And yet, for four weeks, you'd been lying to him.

All at once you were hit with a sickening pang of guilt that gripped at the centermost part of your gut and twisted it tight. That kindness you'd been enjoying so much was entirely unearned, and the longer you avoided confessing, the more you were taking advantage of him and his belief in you. 

"D-Daddy, I have to tell you something," You spewed, and it was only once you heard the pathetic wobble of your own voice that you realized you were weeping already. 

Truthfully, Leon was caught off guard. He always prepared for some degree of pushback from you, but this wasn't pushback. You were having a meltdown. Thankfully, he had quite a lot of experience with your meltdowns by now, and he had learned all the best places to start trying to pull you back from them. 

So he quickly entered coddling mode. 

"Okay, okay, shh, you're alright," He soothed, standing from his chair to kneel beside yours. One hand on your knee and the other still squeezing your own, Leon looked you in the eye as he continued, "You're okay, baby, you're not in trouble. Whatever it is, we can handle it. I'm just glad you're being honest with me now, right?" 

In your distress, you didn't really pay attention, but had you been as vigilant as you usually were, you might have noticed how strategically selected his every word was in the interest of encouraging you to spit it out without making you feel pressured. Whatever he was doing was working, because you were soaking it up and nodding along like a bobblehead, even trying to match your shuddering breaths to the pace of his own to calm yourself down, just like he'd taught you. 

Just like a good girl would. And all good behavior was worthy of daddy's praise, yeah? 

"There you go, there's my good girl. You're alright, see? Daddy's right here with you, and I'm not going anywhere. Just take your time."

But you'd already taken a month. You should have told him the second he walked through the door that day and saved you both the grief, but you didn't, and for that, you didn't deserve his kindness, you didn't deserve his good graces, you deserved whatever he would have coming to you. All that progress you'd made in controlling your breathing was shattered in an instant, your chest puffing with every sharp, ragged gasp for air.

You had to tell him. You should have already told him, and that was no one's fault but your own. Every moment that you continued to hesitate only made you a worse liar. You had to tell him and you had to tell him right now. Right now, right now, right now, right-- 

"I--" 

Everything stopped. For one dreadful moment that you had no idea would be your most recent memory of comfort for the next several hours, everything stopped.

And then it all started up again. One second you were about to spill your guts about what you did, finally finding the breath to speak, and the next second that very same breath was punched from your lungs by a staggering pain that spread quickly from the root of you and smashed everything it touched to bits. As soon as you were finished choking on thin air, any and all thought about your impending confession was seared out of your brain-- you could only scream. 

Leon went wide-eyed in an instant, clutching your hand and standing to his feet to quickly assess you. He was choking on air too, for once joining you in a momentary inability to speak, purely out of shock and confusion. Your eyes screwed shut and you were curling into yourself in clear agony-- whatever you were about to tell him didn't matter to him either, now. You weren't faking this. 

Taking your face in both hands, trying to get you to look at him, Leon did his best to conceal just how much he was panicking on the inside. He had to be strong for you, he had to be strong for your daughter. 

"Sweetheart, hey, you need to breathe," He spoke calmly, but quickly, smoothing your hair back so he could get a good look at you. "Can you tell me what's going on? What hurts?" 

"E-Everything," You gasped, and he was trying to come up with a nice way to ask you to be more specific when you continued. "M-My back, my hips, everything..." 

You were only able to get a couple breaths in before it happened again, this time with a mounting feeling of pressure taking over your entire lower half. It felt like you were going to pop from the inside if it continued any longer, like your hips were just going to crack and split apart, and it was only then that you realized what this could mean. Little did you know, Leon was connecting the dots too. 

"Okay, pup, I need you to listen to me--" 

"D-Daddy, this can't... t-this can't be happening, this can't be happening, it's too early!" You wailed, taking two fistfuls of his shirt and yanking with all your strength, like you were clawing at him for a solution, teary, fearful, stinging eyes pleading for your daddy to make it all go away. It ground his heart down into a fine, fine dust.

Especially because you were right to be distraught. It was too early, your due date was still eight weeks away, and he wasn't prepared for this to happen any more than you were. But he couldn't let it show.

"Listen to me," He interjected, his tone firm, but not callous. "I know it hurts, princess, and I know you're scared. I'm scared too, but we're gonna get you taken care of, okay? Right now, I just need you to breathe for me."

You nodded, hanging off of his every word in search of guidance, relief, something to hold onto. Staring into each other's eyes, he lead you through your breathing, thumbs tenderly caressing the tears away from your cheeks as they fell. It was like the room was vibrating with you. The few cycles it took to help you to get a handle on your breathing felt like an eternity, but he wouldn't dare proceed until he was sure you were getting some oxygen to manage the pain.

And, truthfully, he needed to think over exactly what to do. Whether or not you were actually going into labor like you both feared, it was abundantly clear that you needed medical attention-- thanks to his neurotic preparedness, there was already a 'go' bag stocked and ready in the nursery, but that meant he would have to leave you on your own for a minute to go get it. In your condition, he wasn't worried you would try anything if left unattended, he just couldn't stand the thought of you in such agonizing pain without him there to hold your hand. 

Unfortunately, it was necessary. 

"I need to run upstairs and grab your bag really quick, and then we'll get you in the car, okay? Just sit tight for a second, and keep breathing for me." 

He didn't wait for you to answer, because he didn't want to give himself the chance to keep hesitating. As soon as he finished speaking he turned on his heel and rushed off. Enough time had burned away already, time you could have spent in the hospital getting the help you needed. 

While Leon was upstairs, you were writhing in your chair at the table, one hand grasping at the edge of it as the other clutched weakly at your belly. Somehow you were actually managing to maintain the pace he'd set for your breathing, if only because that was the one thing you could stand to focus on while terrified and crying by the unwavering pain. 

It only felt like you blinked twice before he was pounding down the stairs, diaper bag stuffed to capacity with supplies and slung over his shoulder. Scooping you up into his arms, he quickly moved to cross the house and get you to the car, the distance between your seat at the dining table and the front door feeling like lightyears... especially when you wrenched your arms around him tightly, planted your slick forehead against his chest and screamed, a gush of watery, reddish liquid spilling out from between your legs and dribbling down the front of his jeans.

That piece of evidence, neither one of you could deny. Ready or not, at just 32 weeks, you were going into labor.