Summary: Lucy and Garcia start to come to terms with the news that she is pregnant.
Note: For extasiswings who gave me this prompt: "You're so beautiful all spread out like this, just for me," from a list of sentence starters on tumblr. With extasiswings' permission, I'm writing a brief companion piece to her lovely Lucy Preston/Garcia Flynn story titled take a breath (dive in). This site strips links out of stories, so I'm afraid I can't link you. This story will make more sense if you go to AO3 and read her story first. :)
my arms were always around you (1/?)
Garcia leads Lucy away from the hall bathroom and upstairs to their bedroom with his arm curled tight around her shoulders. Sometimes he thinks it's been centuries that he's lived without the mercy of another person's touch. With Lucy in his life and in his heart, he touches her often—because he wants to. Because he needs to. Because he can.
Fortunately for him, Lucy accepts his need to be near her without question or complaint. They've never discussed it, but they've never needed to. Somehow, for them, it hasn't been one of those numerous and sundry issues couples have to negotiate. (Sometimes he wonders how he survived without touch for so long.)
After Lorena's murder, sexual intimacy wasn't what he'd missed the most. Not even close. No, what he'd missed the most had been a tie between intimacy—knowing someone well and being known just as well—and the myriad casual touches he'd once stupidly taken for granted: the reassuring pressure of a warm hand on his shoulder; the brush of soft lips against his cheek; the presence of another body, another breath, against his chest when he woke in the pre-dawn and his very bones ached with the yawning melancholy that stretched through those early hours.
He'd left their home for hours after Lucy had gotten sick, and it is almost noon now. The sun should be at its zenith, but it's difficult to tell because the sky hangs heavy and dark through their bedroom window, weighed down with grey clouds. As pregnant as Lucy will be in several months, growing heavy with their child—if she, that is—
They need to talk about it; they have to talk about. He can't assume anything. The front of his shirt is still damp with her tears, but those tears could mean anything. He reaches down and takes the pregnancy test from Lucy's unresisting grip, his fingertips grazing her hand. His gaze takes in the plus sign on the test, then drops to the hardwood floor beneath their feet and Garcia clears his throat, the sound violent in the room's stillness. "—What do you want to do about...it?" Something in him recoils at calling his child; her child; their child "it," but he needs the infinitesimal distance that word provides until he's sure of her answer. "Do you—?" His voice cracks and Garcia's face flushes hot. In his head, he hears Wyatt's voice commanding him to Breathe...In for one, two, three— He tries again, looking up until his eyes meet the compassion and softness in Lucy's. "Do you want to keep the— keep it?" It's a small relief to finally have the words out and sitting between them in the hazy daylight, but his pulse pounds painfully while he waits for her answer.
Lucy's teeth sink into her lower lip, and she hugs her arms over her chest, fists clenched. "Yes," she says, the word so quiet it's just a puff of air. "Yes. I want our child." Her back straightens, her arms drop to her sides, and Garcia's breath catches at the openness and vulnerability sketched on her beloved features.
She wants our child. Relief and fear war within his body, leaving his equilibrium a casualty. Lightheaded, he stumbles toward the bedside table, the small muscles in his face tense with shame at how unsteady his gait is, and drops the pregnancy test there. Blindly, hands trembling, he turns and reaches for Lucy, folding himself around her until it seems they are a single body.
A single person.
A single soul.
Please, he begs the cold, uncaring universe and a god he no longer believes in. Please let me have this. Let me keep them safe. "Thank you," he breathes, caught in the moment like a leaf preserved in amber, "Lucy," and his lover's name resonates with all the wild desperation of a prayer. The copper penny bouquet of freshly spilled blood stings Garcia's nostrils, threatening to drag him beneath the waves of the old sense memory of Iris and Lorena and their final moments. With every muscle tensed like a bowstring about to snap, he clutches Lucy tighter and dips his head until his nose rests in her dark, silky hair.
Breathe...In for one, two, three— "So do I."
A breeze pushes the fresh scent of impending rain into their bedroom and twists its phantom fingers through the sheer ivory curtains lining the open window.
"Are you tired? Should you take a nap now?" Garcia bends down and scans her face, his green eyes narrowed and the bones of his angular face knife-sharp with concern.
A laugh curls in Lucy's throat, asking permission to be released; she gives it. But she leans up and caresses Garcia's cheek with the backs of her fingers to take any sting out of it. "Is this how you're going to be until our baby's born?" Her laugh melts into a smile, and she taps Garcia on the tip of his long nose.
Something secret and primal hidden fathoms deep inside her thrills at the idea that their child is growing inside her. Pieces of him and pieces of her joined to form something—someone who will be theirs to protect and guide and cherish, but who will not belong to them. The notion fills Lucy with giddiness and terror, in equal measure.
"What? I can't worry about the mother of my child?" he says, capturing her hand in his and smiling a crooked smile she thinks he saves for her and no one else in the world.
"Of course you can. Within reason. And no, I'm not tired. I've been lying around since you ran out of here this morning. Speaking of which…" Her voice trails off as her eyebrows lift. They've developed a non-verbal shorthand; she knows he's getting her message.
His cheeks puff up on a weighty sigh, his hands shifting to his lean hips as he levels a stare at the floor. "I know. I owe you an explanation. No"—one hand moves to his hair, tugging at it—"you deserve an explanation. Just...Give me a little time." He scratches the back of his neck and shuffles his feet. "Please," he adds, a sheepish look on his face.
Taking pity on Garcia, she stills his nervous fidgeting by threading her fingers through his. "OK," she says, and raises his hand to her mouth for a kiss. "I'll wait. But I'm not taking a nap." She shoots him a mock glare and a vicious frown.
He chuckles and leans into her space, easing her closer with an arm encircling her waist. "Fine," he murmurs right beside her ear, his warm breath drawing a shiver from her. "But then you have to dance with me."
"If I must," she says with a sigh.
He laughs, the sound warm and easy in a way the rest of their day has not been. Just hearing it makes her feel lighter.
We can do this.