Author's note:Well here's a special Christmas gift to you all! Now before you read this just a heads up, if you are following my main story 'What Will It Take', just note that this is not a part of the same story. This is purely a stand alone. The plot for this came to me in my sleep and I thought it would be perfect the holiday season. Enjoy.
Maybe Now Is The Time
She sat quietly next to the fire place, basking in its warmth as it shielded her from the bitter cold that radiated from the snow outside.
Eliza Cohen was currently at the city of Leipzig, Germany. Christmas was only a few days away and everyone in Rainbow had been given time off for the holidays. Eliza didn't celebrate Christmas, being Jewish and all, but her birthday fell on the day before, which she usually celebrated with copious amounts of alcohol. And no, the irony of her life situation was not lost on her. She was a Jew born in Jerusalem, on Christmas Eve. On top of that, when she joined Rainbow she was given the code name Ash, and her first training session with the team pitted her against Smoke and his gas canisters. And the cherry on top, she had fallen in love with a full blooded German.
The German who's home she currently resided in for the holidays. The Weiss family owned a beautiful house in the middle of the city, the home that her wife Monika grew up in before joining Grenzschutzgruppe 9. It was a no brainer that the two of them would be spending the holiday season together, after all, it would be their first as a married couple. As for who's family they would spend it with, that was also a no brainer.
Eliza's family was never supportive of her attraction to women. It was only made worse when they found out she was marrying someone not of Jewish heritage, none of them even showed up to the wedding. "To hell with them." Eliza would've said, but she couldn't help but miss them a bit.
Monika's family on the other hand, was on the opposite end of the spectrum. When they learned that Monika was seeing a woman, not only were they totally supportive, but they welcomed Eliza into the family without question or hesitation. Monika's mother had even treated Eliza as if she were one of her own before the two were even engaged. It had been a nice change of pace from her previous relationships.
Now, here she was, curled up in a blanket on the couch, in front of her new family's fireplace, enjoying a glass of German beer. It was late into the night and the whole family, including her wife, were already fast asleep. Eliza on the other hand, couldn't sleep at all. She had received a message in the middle of the night and now she couldn't even keep her eyes closed. Now she had to face the dilemma of how to tell Monika, maybe after she's woken up and had a good breakfast, or maybe it would make a nice surprise for Christmas morning.
"What are you doing up?" A voice came from above her.
Or maybe now is the time. Eliza looked up at the blond beauty walking down the stairs toward her. "Couldn't sleep." She answered.
"Too cold?" The German asked as she joined her under the blanket, nuzzling against her.
Eliza happily wrapped her arms around her wife, pulling her close. "No, it's…something else."
"Something bad?"
"No. Definitely not bad." The redhead smiled.
Monika, now curious, looked at her wife questioningly. "Then what is it?"
Eliza looked into Monika's eyes and gave her the most genuine smile she could give her. "I love you so much, you know that right?"
"Considering you said it about twelve times in your wedding vows, yes I know that." The blond smiled.
"And I love your family. I'll always be thankful that they welcomed me with open arms."
"And they love you back. They were more than happy to accept you as an addition to the family." Monika now grew concerned. "Where are you going with this?"
Eliza smiled again. "Speaking of additions…" She reached over and grabbed a folder from the coffee table. "I was going to wait before telling you this, but now I'm too excited." She handed her wife the folder. "Take a look."
Monika recognized the folder as one that they get when Rainbow receives new operators. The folders always contained the newcomers profile. "Is that a new operator?" She looked at Eliza, confused. "I thought we agreed not to talk about work during the holidays."
"Just open it." Eliza urged, her smile never faulting.
Monika sighed and opened the folder, and immediately noticed something was different. The profile picture was not of a seasoned war veteran, but a child. She had pale skin and dark brown hair. The information on the side noted that her name was Sarah, and she was less than a year old. "Who is she?"
Eliza's smile grew wider. "Well, I'll you who she could be."
Now Monika was confused. "Okay…who could she be?"
"Our child."
Monika stared at Eliza for a good ten seconds or so. A chill ran down her spine and although she tried her hardest to conceal it, her whole body jerked up. She didn't know what to say, her mouth kept opening and closing but nothing dared to come out of it.
"She's an orphan, and I want to adopt her." Eliza stated. She had been waiting for this moment for so long, and although she seemed calm and collected on the outside, her heart was almost jumping out of her throat. She knew how Monika was; every move of hers was coldly calculated, and having a child – or adopting one – was a huge deal, she knew that much.
"Have you gone mad?" Monika nearly shouted at the auburn-haired girl next to her, but caught herself before it came out – she didn't want to wake her parents or scare Eliza away. She tried processing every little consequence having a child could bring to their lives, and the outcome wasn't very promising.
"Trust me babe, I know it sounds crazy, but I mean it." Eliza tried, "I've been talking with the people at the orphanage, I gave them our information and our records to see if we are eligible parents."
"Did you not think to consult with me about this first?!"
"I'm consulting with you now." Eliza took Monika's warm hands with her own. She knew the blonde wanted a child before they begun to date – she told her that once, when they were both drunk – and that was something Eliza never thought about until a couple of months ago. She planned it thoroughly, as if it was Monika doing the planning, and it was all set. All she needed was Monika's endorsement.
"Eliza, you can't be serious." Monika was growing anxious, her wife was always spontaneous and impulsive, but needless to say, she was treading on something completely uncharted. "We are in no position to raise a child."
"The orphanage seems to think that we are. They called a little while ago, they looked into our records we've been approved."
"That's because most of our records are classified!" Monika now yelled, throwing caution out of the window. "They only saw what they are allowed to see of us. Do you honestly think that if they knew that we were top secret operators working for the U.N. that left the country every few weeks to fight terrorists, that they would say yes to letting us raise a young girl?"
"Zofia seems to manage it well." Eliza tried to reason.
"Zofia's husband is not a part of Rainbow."
"So?"
"So when Zofia is working with us, her husband is considered non-deployable, therefore he stays home with their child, and vice versa when she goes back to Poland." Monika explained, "Six would never grant us the same luxury. Remember the fit she threw when she found out that we were dating, and the even bigger fit when we got married?"
"Yeah, that was pretty ugly, but kind of hilarious." Eliza recalled.
"Focus dummkopf!" Monika pulled her wife by the ponytail to get her attention. "Remember what she told us. She wouldn't give us any special treatment, our mission is to help the U.N. stop the White Masks, regardless of any personal detriment. That mission will always come first, no matter how it may negatively affect our relationship or our families."
"Right." Eliza was disheartened.
"Not to mention, what if we went on a mission and one, or god forbid both, of us…didn't come back."
"Yeah…" Eliza sighed in defeat.
"So think about it one more time. How on earth would we raise a child?"
Eliza knew the Monika's words were true. She looked at Sarah's picture one more time. When she first saw the image it was love at first sight, her heart had been so filled with joy at the thought of a beautiful baby girl being a part of their lives. The thought of having a family of her own, the thought of being a better guardian than any of her family had been. She now felt that all of it could be washed away. For the first time in a very long time, she felt like she was on the brink of crying. But Monika was right, after all in their current situation, it would never work.
Unless… Unless there's a way to change their situation.
"What if I quit?" She asked.
"What are you going on about now?" Monika sighed, still confused and clearly frustrated.
"What if I quit Rainbow?"
"You really have gone mad haven't you?" Monika thought her ears were deceiving her, after all, Eliza took pride in her job above all else.
"No, really." Eliza argued, "The job pays a lot, even if only one of us was to work for Rainbow. On top of the fact that we've been saving a reasonable sum of money for a couple of years now, even with only one of us working, we can still get by comfortably while I stay home and take care of her."
"Y-you're serious." Monika was stunned by her wife's reasoning: Eliza was willing to flip her life upside-down for their sake.
"Think about it, in a few years you'll be eligible for military retirement anyway. So it's not like you won't be a part of her life."
"Are you calling me old?"
"I'm calling you capable." Eliza quickly retorted, "And the only person I'd want to spend the rest of my life and raise a child with."
"But you love your job."
"I love you more." Eliza stated. "Besides, it's not like we're planning on doing this forever. All of this warfighting was going to come to an end eventually for us. It might as well be for a reason worth while."
Monika couldn't help but smile at the sentiment. She could tell Eliza wasn't playing around on this one. "I don't know."
"Look at her." Eliza gave her the picture one more time, gesturing to the adorable child in it, "Doesn't she deserve a nice home, with two loving parents?"
Monika looked at the photo of Sarah once again. The child was smiling the most pure and innocent smile that only a child her age could give. And the thought of being a parent to such a creature really did pull at Monika's heart strings. Eliza was the first, and only, woman that Monika had been with, and one the reasons behind that was because she wanted children someday. She thought she had given that up by being with her, adoption never crossed her mind, not that she regretted marrying the redhead, not in the slightest. But now that dream was possible once again. "She is beautiful."
"Right?"
"Are you sure about this?" Monika asked, still apprehensive.
"I'll tell you what, I've scheduled a meeting at the orphanage next week. We'll be able to see her in person. I guarantee that you'll be on board after that."
Monika thought about it, "Alright, we'll go see her. But if I'm not convinced after that, we call it off. Deal?"
Eliza smiled in delight. "Deal."
Deep down, they both knew that once Monika held that child in her arms, she would never be able to give her back.
Monika gave her wife a kiss. "You're crazy, you know that?" She teased.
"You agreed to marry me." Eliza retorted.
"I love you."
"Ich liebe dich auch."
For a while the two simply lay there, under the blanket, enjoying the fire and each other's company.
"Merry Christmas, Monika."
"Happy birthday, idiot."
Author's note: Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all. I was hoping to get a Christmas special out for you guys and thankfully the creative part of my brain decided to wake up. I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season and I really hope this story maybe made it a tiny bit better. As always, hope you enjoyed and feel free to leave a review. Until next time.