Author's note: For Tears Thursday, Frejaverse. I've had this fic on my mind for a while, a couple of sweet moments between Daddy and his Freja, and now seemed the perfect time to write and share it.
A few tears fall
1.
Her screams fill the room, both Lukas and Berwald immediately rising and running out of the study, down the hall, through the kitchen, and to the backyard where Christen stands awkwardly with Freja screaming in his arms, her knees scraped up.
"What happened?" the Swede barks and their friend begins some lame attempt at explaining that she'd fallen was all and had hurt herself.
But Lukas doesn't care, snatching up Freja and holding her as tight as humanly possible to comfort her. He kisses her cheek, over and over, holds her head to the crook of his neck, as she screams.
"Daddy, Daddy, make it stop Daddy! It hurts Daddy! Make it stop!"
The Norwegian's eyes barely meet his partner, Christen standing with Berwald as the pair watch him. But he doesn't care: this was his daughter, his baby, hurt and in need and that broke Lukas to remember that he couldn't protect her from a world that didn't deserve such perfect girls like Freja.
"Daddy! It hurts!"
He holds her closer and lets a few tears fall.
2.
In her little skirt, neat shirt, sweater and tall socks, Freja looks a vision. "I'm pretty Daddy?" she inquires as Berwald takes a few more minutes to remind the school's headmaster that their daughter should not be treated differently though her fathers were and thus she was too.
Kneeling, smiling for maybe the first time in centuries in public, Lukas pushes aside a lock of soft blonde hair and kisses her forehead. "Radiant, Freja."
The little girl giggles, a soft, "tehehe," and then her other father comes back. "Ready?" Berwald asks.
"Ready!" and with that the girl marches off to her first day of school. Lukas stays kneeling for a few more minutes though, unable to move, hand to his mouth. His little girl was growing up; how he wished that maybe, this time, he could stop time for just a little while longer.
3.
There's a ding and then the screen fills with Freja's face close to the camera, Berwald's laughter of, "Lean back baby girl or he can't see you properly," filling Lukas's ears as he sits on the bed in his hotel. There had been no way to reschedule this meeting, or to reschedule Berwald's: one of them had to miss being there on their daughter's birthday, for the first time in her short life.
Freja laughs, leaning back, and waves. "Hi Daddy! I miss you!"
"I miss you too, Freja," Lukas whispers and his daughter only smiles more, missing the pain, the dagger in her father's knife, at being the one to miss such a day. "I love you."
"Tehehe," she giggles, just like she had as a toddler. "I love you too Daddy! Look what Papa gave me!"
In the corner of the screen Berwald, face set in stone, pities him and Lukas almost hates his partner for not having to feel this pain he feels.
4.
Lukas, coffee in hand, fully intent on heading to bed to read till Berwald retires as well for the evening, stops just outside Freja's door. Soft, gentle sobs move through the wood and at the sound the Norwegian sees red around the corners of his eye, anger that something had hurt his baby. Maybe he couldn't lift her high as easily anymore, but Lukas would still hurt anyone or anything that hurt his daughter, using all the power he had to revenge his beautiful girl.
Knocking yields no response so he steps in, setting down his mug, and moves to lay beside his daughter on her bed. Her face is red, her blonde hair sticks to her skin, her blue eyes are bloodshot. "Daddy?"
"Yes baby girl?"
Her lips tremble, her eyes going hazy as if she can't focus on her father's face, before she whispers, "Why doesn't her love me Daddy?"
Lukas licks his lips, thinking that over, before sighing and pulling her as close as he can. There are no words, there is no answer, to such a question and so he holds Freja instead as she cries over her first broken heart.
5.
The Swede steps out, kissing Lukas's cheek and squeezing his hand. He'd said his goodbye and anyway, Berwald was better at this: Peter and Olav were already away at school. Now was Freja's turn.
She looks so small in her Viennese dorm room, more like the child that had wept at bloody knees than a young woman ready to begin her university education.
And Lukas feels small too, like a boy in man's clothing, like the unsure Norseman he once was. He bites his lower lip at the same time that Freja does; old habits die hard, especially when they shared just such habits.
Without a word Freja moves to him and they wrap each other up in arms that never want to let go. Her long blonde hair is soft under Lukas's nose, her body thin, her sigh heavy. They stand almost the same height when Freja wears heels, and often stand together. Oh Berwald was special to Freja but Lukas was too, in a different way: Berwald was Papa and Lukas was Daddy and those two names perfectly defined their relationship with their daughter.
Their beautiful, loving, mortal daughter.
"I'll never let go Daddy," Freja breathes as she pulls back so that their faces are so close. "Never."
"I know," Lukas sighs, pushing back hair and kissing her forehead. They both let a few tears fall before Berwald returns.