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elementof_risk[Companion piece to this.]
He listened as the sound over the monitor raced along like it had just sprinted for its life to get out of a building before the timer wound down. His seemed to be echoing it, pounding hard enough that he could hear it in his ears trying to drown out that tiny sound and being utterly eclipsed. It having a heartbeat, in theory, and hearing it were two different things altogether, because as the sound filled the room, his world seemed to narrow to it. Whatever had been growing in the past few weeks seemed to explode inside of him in a determined moment, and he was fairly certain that there wasn't anything he wouldn't do to keep that heart beating.
Not that he had many moral compunctions about things, anyway, but. The few times his latent protective instincts had flared in the past were nothing compared to this. But above and beyond protectiveness came the awe, an emotion he had to struggle to put a name to. Everything he'd seen, everything he'd experienced, and mostly he'd arched an eyebrow, stood ready with a quip, and moved along his way. If the news had stopped him in his tracks, the sound of that heartbeat echoing in his head froze him there. There weren't words. There wasn't a ready remark to rappel in and reassert the reality of his life.
Even when the doctor stepped back and the sound physically stopped, Sark could hear it. Above the instructions, the murmur of voices around him, call and response as it were, he could still hear the echo in his head. Before, he could snark about children's television and punching bag clown balloons as much as he wanted, keeping his walls up, keeping the impending alteration in his status at a distance, but one sound and suddenly it was real.
He and Baileigh were going to have a baby. He was going to be a father. Of every eventuality Irina had prepared him for, that one hadn't been considered. He had nothing to draw upon for the job except what not to do, and even the one person he'd met who he secretly thought epitomized fatherhood (though he'd never have told him, his ex-wife, or his daughter that) hadn't always gotten it right, so really, what were his chances? The fact that millions of people did this every day was very little comfort, no matter what he said to Baileigh. She was carrying a life inside of her, one that was going to be a small human being that he was going to be half responsible for not fucking up. It was terrifying, but the terror itself was something he'd been going rounds with for weeks.
The awe was new. That life inside of her was half her and half him and something they'd done together. They'd created a new life, and even with as little value as he tended to place on life, that struck him, hard. He had a chance to have...god. Everything he'd never had. It wasn't a mission, wasn't an assignment. It was a family, his family, their family, and as his fingers tightened on Baileigh's hand, and he forced himself to listen to the doctor's instructions, he found that, much to his own surprise and probably the shock of anyone who'd ever known him, it was something he wanted more than he'd ever wanted anything before.
He listened as the sound over the monitor raced along like it had just sprinted for its life to get out of a building before the timer wound down. His seemed to be echoing it, pounding hard enough that he could hear it in his ears trying to drown out that tiny sound and being utterly eclipsed. It having a heartbeat, in theory, and hearing it were two different things altogether, because as the sound filled the room, his world seemed to narrow to it. Whatever had been growing in the past few weeks seemed to explode inside of him in a determined moment, and he was fairly certain that there wasn't anything he wouldn't do to keep that heart beating.
Not that he had many moral compunctions about things, anyway, but. The few times his latent protective instincts had flared in the past were nothing compared to this. But above and beyond protectiveness came the awe, an emotion he had to struggle to put a name to. Everything he'd seen, everything he'd experienced, and mostly he'd arched an eyebrow, stood ready with a quip, and moved along his way. If the news had stopped him in his tracks, the sound of that heartbeat echoing in his head froze him there. There weren't words. There wasn't a ready remark to rappel in and reassert the reality of his life.
Even when the doctor stepped back and the sound physically stopped, Sark could hear it. Above the instructions, the murmur of voices around him, call and response as it were, he could still hear the echo in his head. Before, he could snark about children's television and punching bag clown balloons as much as he wanted, keeping his walls up, keeping the impending alteration in his status at a distance, but one sound and suddenly it was real.
He and Baileigh were going to have a baby. He was going to be a father. Of every eventuality Irina had prepared him for, that one hadn't been considered. He had nothing to draw upon for the job except what not to do, and even the one person he'd met who he secretly thought epitomized fatherhood (though he'd never have told him, his ex-wife, or his daughter that) hadn't always gotten it right, so really, what were his chances? The fact that millions of people did this every day was very little comfort, no matter what he said to Baileigh. She was carrying a life inside of her, one that was going to be a small human being that he was going to be half responsible for not fucking up. It was terrifying, but the terror itself was something he'd been going rounds with for weeks.
The awe was new. That life inside of her was half her and half him and something they'd done together. They'd created a new life, and even with as little value as he tended to place on life, that struck him, hard. He had a chance to have...god. Everything he'd never had. It wasn't a mission, wasn't an assignment. It was a family, his family, their family, and as his fingers tightened on Baileigh's hand, and he forced himself to listen to the doctor's instructions, he found that, much to his own surprise and probably the shock of anyone who'd ever known him, it was something he wanted more than he'd ever wanted anything before.
