Author's Note: This is a companion piece to my fic, "Snitch." This will be much more meaningful to those who have read that first. However, I will write this to be as accessible and spoiler-free as I can make it for those who haven't read the main fic.
Eighteen years ago…
It had been seven weeks since a series of small mistakes had led to the biggest of Zoro's young life.
But then again, it wasn't his mistake alone. Kuina was also involved, and the pair of them were absolutely foolish for it.
Yes, they'd both been drinking underage, albeit in the safety of the dojo courtyard, alone at night, beneath the stars, sitting on the soft moss with a bottle of sake and a stupid challenge between them. It didn't matter how safe their environment was. Zoro was still only nineteen, and Kuina was twenty.
That was the first mistake.
The second mistake, as far as Zoro was concerned, was not his own. It was nature's, for making Kuina look as damn beautiful as she had that night. Even sober he knew she was, but the light of the moon on her smooth skin...she was practically glowing, drawing him in with a confident smirk on her face, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol.
Ironically, this whole thing had started as a stupid jokey argument over who would get to name their first kid down the line. Zoro wasn't even sure he wanted kids, but it was the principle of the thing, and the fact that he knew drinking was something he could beat Kuina at that had him chugging back far more sake than he ever should have.
And there was Kuina, looking far more stunning than she ever should have, and he'd kissed her out there as soon as she reluctantly tapped out. He'd reached over, grabbed her face, and kissed her hard, with more passion than he'd ever shown her.
Sure, three years of rather innocent experimenting with her had boosted his confidence some, but that night, he felt invincible, and she certainly wasn't doing anything to stop him.
In fact, she was the first to remove her shirt, practically tear his from his back, and she pulled him atop her when she lay back on the ground, huffed breaths leaving swollen lips when his hands came around her bare torso.
They'd never made it past this point, and both of them had been perfectly content with that, neither particularly sexual in nature.
But strong alcohol did funny things, even to the most tolerant of drinkers, and they'd only been thinking of each other, how right this felt and had felt for years. How perfectly their bodies seemed to fit together when Kuina pulled off her sports bra and Zoro brought his chest to hers, calloused hands worshipping as delicately as could be over the sensitive skin of her breasts as if they'd done this a thousand times.
Maybe he'd never worshipped her like this before, but there had always been worship. For nine years, since he'd first vowed to defeat her some day, and so, it really wasn't surprising that the third, most significant mistake occurred that night. That both of them, inexperience and uncertainty absent from their minds, would make love right there in the garden, with no accompaniment other than the faint chirping of crickets, the trickling of water, and the occasional clunk of the bamboo rocker against the stone of the sozu fountain.
They connected quietly, but no less powerfully. He loved her, regretted nothing but the massive hangover he suffered the next morning, and yet, it was a mistake.
Because one time, their first time and only time since, had been enough.
The reality was that Kuina was seven weeks pregnant, and their very real dilemma was what the hell they were going to do about it.
The stress had been wearing on them, ever since Kuina had told him a month ago, and they knew a decision needed to be made.
It was up to Kuina, as far as Zoro was concerned. It was her body, and he was willing to support whichever decision she chose, but it was terrifying. He'd never seen her this indecisive for the whole time he'd known her, and her window for making a decision was rapidly drawing to a close, at least as far as carrying to term went.
He'd tried not to push her, tried not to get on her case about it, when he already knew her father, Koshiro, was, with his usual quiet insistence, but with insistence no less.
He hadn't been nearly as disappointed in either of them as they'd both assumed, and neither had Zoro's uncle, Mihawk. At least there was that. If anything, the two men had hardly shown any surprise at all, and that was almost stranger.
Still, it was one day at the dojo when Zoro knew Kuina was particularly stressed, having seen it in her face and her stance, even as she helped the young kids there for lessons with their katas. Her brow was drawn in tight for the full hour, in contrast to how relaxed she was with them normally, and Zoro saw it when she looked at him after the last lesson of the day, after her dad moved into the office to take care of the day's paperwork, leaving the two of them to clean up as usual.
He saw that she'd made a decision even before she said so out loud.
She treaded up to him, crossing the training mats in the empty room, and stood before him with steeled determination.
Zoro didn't know what she was going to tell him, but he still managed to feel reassured. There was no way she hadn't thought long and hard about this, and he knew to trust her decision.
"Zoro," she said seriously, and while he didn't move to touch her, she stepped closer to him, brought hands to his jaw, her expression looking stuck between wanting to kick his ass or kiss him. "I've thought about it. And I am so stupidly in love with you that it's made me dumb enough to actually want to keep your kid."
That didn't stop the surprise from creeping into his expression though, his heart stuttering in his chest, and the breath shuddering out of him despite the strong conviction Kuina still held.
"Yeah," she affirmed, and removed a hand from his face so she could punch him lightly in the sternum. "I'm still not convinced either of us will make good parents. I'll be the first to admit that. And I know the timing is fucking awful right now…. But I also know that any kid of ours is gonna be stronger than us. Stronger than both of us, and no matter how much we suck, I think it would be a fucking shame not to give that kid a chance."
Zoro stared at her, wide-eyed, almost as shocked as when she'd first told him she was pregnant.
Of course, he'd entertained every single outcome of this in his head by now, but hearing it out loud was something else. Hearing it voiced as truth of what Kuina wanted was….fuck.
"You're - You're sure?" he stuttered, wanting her to be absolutely positive, despite knowing she wouldn't tell him such things if she wasn't. "I - I mean. You really wanna - keep it? Not even like - adoption or-"
"And what would you do if we gave our kid up for adoption, and that kid grew up to become some boring, mainstream sheep who lived a sheltered picket-fence life and never even touched a sword," she shot back immediately, quirking a brow at him in challenge.
He only had to blink at her for a second before he cringed, pulling a face.
"...Fuck," he muttered. "I'd hate it."
"Exactly," Kuina replied, and she brought both hands up to play with his hair, not to persuade him, but rather, to give both of them a bit of comfort.
She leaned in to press her forehead to his a second later.
"If you don't want this, tell me now," she murmured. "So I can stop imagining our kid kicking your ass with Wado."
"Shut the fuck up," he grumbled, instantly closing the distance between their lips to press a hard kiss there that was meant to be punishment, but ultimately turned rather sweet when his hands migrated gently to her hips, eventually sliding around to caress her still-flat stomach with great care.
"I want it. I'm scared and I dunno how we're gonna do it, but I want it," he breathed, pulling back from her lips ever so slightly. Slowly, he grinned. He wasn't willing to give up, after all. "And this also means I get to put my kid names to good use. Been thinkin' about 'em ever since I beat your ass at that drinking contest."
Kuina groaned loudly, very nearly falling under his spell for a moment there, but now forced to whack him in the shoulder.
"Oh, this I gotta hear," she muttered, as a look of total pride creeped onto his face.
"Kay, so, for a boy, Tachi. Y'know, like the swords they used in Japan before the 1500s. I think it's-"
"Zoro!" Kuina shrieked, appalled. "We are not naming our child after a fucking sword!"
"What!" he shot back. "I like swords. You like swords. We'll have to like our kid. Why the hell not?"
"Who says we won't like our kid! Besides, it's a kid, not a pet!"
"So? I think it sounds good!"
She groaned again, bringing her hand to her forehead and squeezing her eyes shut.
"Do I even wanna know what you thought of for a girl…?" she hissed under her breath.
"Tana! Like katana, and that sounds even more normal, so you should be happy with that one!"
"Alright," Kuina huffed, extracting Zoro's hands from her stomach and the precious yet-unnamed cargo underneath, moving towards the door. "Seven and a half months is a long time to think of something better."
"I'd love to see you try," Zoro grumbled, following after her and flipping off lights as they exited the room. "Except, oh wait, you can't, because I beat you!"
They argued all the way down the hall.
As it turned out, seven and a half months wasn't nearly long enough to prepare for the inevitable, and the name debacle had gone largely abandoned during the mad scramble to accomplish everything else.
Supplies had to be bought, living arrangements changed, the two of them finding a tiny, cheap apartment together so they wouldn't have to burden their respective guardians, despite how terrified they were to do this on their own. Zoro would still work at the dojo to bring in money, and Kuina would go back as soon as she could too. Hell, if at all possible, they'd be bringing the kid with them immediately after it was born.
Aside from that though, they rather foolishly did nothing else. No parenting books were consulted, neither of them wanting to seek much advice until the kid was actually born. And neither of them had mothers, so there was no one to raise many concerns within them or take them through the actual birthing process.
They hadn't even wanted to know the sex of the baby, knowing it wasn't going to matter in the end, so long as it was healthy.
Zoro's uncle never had kids of his own. Fuck if he knew anything. And Koshiro helped when asked, but was, ultimately, as hands-off as ever.
They'd assumed they could wing it. They were tough. Kuina was tough. She could do anything as far as Zoro knew, and maybe they were still scared, but together, they could fucking do this.
How hard could it be?
But Zoro had never been so terrified in his fucking life as he was when he found himself in the fucking delivery room, next to Kuina, who wasn't screaming bloody murder like he'd heard from some of the other rooms when they'd arrived, but her face stayed contorted in pain throughout the whole labor in a way Zoro had never seen from her before.
She held it together, as strong as ever, insisting on no painkillers, but he could fucking tell from how tightly she held his hand, from the sweat plastering her bangs to her head, and the tears that forced their way down her cheeks that this was easily the most difficult challenge she'd ever had to face.
It took a few hours, in the middle of the night. He'd felt awkward as hell being there, not having a damn clue what to do and feeling like he was in the way the whole time, particularly when a nurse asked if he could step aside so she could check a machine. But Kuina had practically growled at the woman, insisted that Zoro stay right where he was, and he'd known he shouldn't be anywhere else.
And though it was all a blur for him (he couldn't even imagine how it was for Kuina), somehow, at the end of it all, Kuina lay there on the hospital bed, thoroughly drained, with a baby girl nestled on her chest, and a look of tearful disbelief on her face as she caressed her daughter's tiny form gently.
Koshiro continued to stand quietly across the room by the window, having watched the ordeal in near silence the whole time, but the smile that pulled at his lips was enough to express his pride.
Zoro couldn't move, still next to the bed, but completely numb, eyes fixed on the baby, who wasn't crying or screaming as he thought babies did, but instead made only quiet little noises, squirmed ever so slightly when a nurse draped a white blanket over her pink skin.
Her face was turned away from him, but she had a full head of hair, dark blue-black, like Kuina's, as he'd hoped for, but there was a different sheen to it, a light green that, now that her hair had dried some, was obvious in the harsh light of the hospital room.
This was real. She was real. Their daughter was real.
And when Kuina finally looked up at him, her eyes meeting his with exhausted wonder, he felt his breath catch, particularly when she reached a hand up, loose hospital band sliding down her wrist, and grabbed his shirt sleeve, tugging him closer.
"Hold her, Zoro," she murmured, a nurse stepping in to help lift the baby, wrapping the blanket a little more securely around her, before holding her out expectantly towards the swordsman.
He didn't move, even as Kuina pushed herself up more against the pillows with a bit of difficulty and fixed him with a look.
"Come on. I didn't do all this work for nothing," she said, and Zoro had to let out a sound which was half a nervous laugh and half a huff that came with all the pent-up nerves that bundled within him as he stared at that life that he was now responsible for.
This was truly a responsibility unlike any he'd ever had, and if he thought he'd been worried about it before? Well, that was nothing compared to now, faced with the real, living, breathing deal that he had no idea what to do with.
His arms trembled as he held them out, no matter how hard he tried to stop it. His heart pounded and he shook like a fucking leaf, even though he knew he had no business reacting this way when Kuina was the one who'd just gone through a damn ordeal of hell.
But it was all to bring their daughter here, and when her weight finally settled in his grasp, unexpectedly, everything stilled.
His breathing slowed, and he found himself mesmerized by the tiny (tinier than he'd thought) form of his daughter, who seemed to settle perfectly in the crook of his arm. He looked at her closed eyes, her hands, which barely seemed big enough to wrap around one of his fingers, that batted unconsciously at her nose.
"Holy shit," he breathed, almost unaware of it, but in that moment, even Kuina had faded to the background, and it was only him and the baby he now held in his arms.
Slowly, her eyes flickered sleepily, and he couldn't help the quick intake of breath he took when she fully opened them, revealing a deep brown, just like his, that stared up at him almost quizzically, trying to make sense of the blurry, amoeba-like form above her, that she had yet to discern as her father.
Unsure of what to do, he stood there for a long moment, the two locked in a silent stare-off until, eventually, she moved, one of her hands lifting up a bit in a stretch.
He still didn't know if this was a proper reaction or not, but his instincts told him to shift her into one arm, raise the other to slowly approach her with one of his fingers.
He did it carefully, not wanting to scare her. What if she spooked and squirmed her way out of his grasp like a cat or something? If he dropped his daughter in the first few minutes of her life, he'd never live it down. But he'd never held a baby - fuck if he knew what to do.
Zoro waited, finger outstretched, saw her eyes lock onto the digit.
Then, her small hand reached out, grabbing at the air briefly with a lack of coordination before finally landing on his finger, her own curling around his large one delicately.
And the great, prideful Zoro Roronoa felt his heart actually melt in his chest, a warmth filling him as he gazed down at the sweet grasp his daughter had on his-
Until, nails. Sharp nails. Digging into his skin with surprising force, and he actually screeched.
"Ow! What the hell!"
Maybe comparing his daughter to a cat hadn't been far off, after all.
He didn't drop her, but he certainly tried to pry his finger from her vicegrip, though she seemed quite content to latch onto it with those damn claws of hers. A content little smile tugged at her lips, and then her eyes fluttered shut again, effectively trapping him there amidst Kuina's laughter, which he quickly became conscious of.
When the swordsman turned to glare at her, she was merely looking up at him with a tired, but joyful smile. Her head was flopped back against a pillow, hair disheveled and falling out of the short ponytail she'd pulled it up in hours ago.
But, in that moment, Zoro thought she'd never looked so beautiful, and his scowl morphed its way into a smirk.
His daughter's grip on his finger did loosen after a minute as she fell into deeper sleep, and he gently removed it from her hand so he could delicately caress his palm over her tiny head.
"What's her name?" he heard the doctor ask, the woman having finished cleaning up tools, smiling over at the young couple from across the room with encouragement.
Zoro felt his heart flutter with stupid excitement, and he turned his head to look, with hope, at Kuina….who gave a heavy sigh and brought a hand up to cover her eyes.
"I'm too tired to argue this," she muttered, and waved a hand in a gesture that looked dismissive, but Zoro really knew to be surrender.
A gleeful grin spread across his lips as he turned back to the doctor.
"Tana," he said proudly. "Her name's Tana."