Title: Forty Weeks
Rating: PG
Characters: Nate Ford, Sophie Devereaux, Team
Pairing: Nate/Sophie, peripheral Parker/Hardison
Summary: There are an average of forty weeks in a pregnancy. That means the team has at most thirty to prepare for the hardest job they've ever pulled: raising a baby. Sequel to Happy. N/S, but with heavy presence of the team.
Spoilers/Time Period: Set at the end of a hypothetical fifth season, does not dispute canon up through The Morning After Job. Set six weeks after Nate and Sophie tell the team in Happy, but all you have to know is that Nate and Sophie are married and expecting.
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine.
Author's Note: Y'all really lucked out on this one. It was supposed to be two separate chapters, but I decided each would be cruelly short. Here's a double dose. Hope you enjoy!
Part Three
26 weeks
They've taken half as many jobs since they learned she was pregnant. When they do take one, Sophie takes Nate's role as mastermind and Nate and Parker (god help them) split the role of grifter. It's a pretty good system, but it does mean that Nate is out conning a mark when it happens.
Nate's sitting in on this mind-numbing lecture simply to establish his cover. Parker has already completed her part and hurried back to the apartment to join Eliot and Sophie. Hardison and Lucille 3.5 (3.0's body with a new engine) sit watch three blocks away, listening in on the mark's bug just on the off chance their relatively safe recon goes sour.
Nate pretends to take notes, but instead focuses on Parker, Eliot, and Sophie's idle chatter in his earbud. Outwardly, his demeanor remains passive, but inside he's grinning at the ridiculous baby names the team members suggest and the reactions they elicit from Sophie.
"Uhura," Hardison tosses over the line.
Eliot groans, though Nate doesn't think it is any worse than his contribution: Talulah.
"No Star Trek, Hardison," Sophie says for the umpteenth time.
"Well, in that case, I think Alexandra is really nice."
"That is pretty," Sophie muses.
Nate waits for her to catch on. Three, two…
"Oh! Hardison! We're not naming her after you."
Parker laughs, and Nate can almost hear Eliot rolling his eyes.
"Why not?" Hardison whines.
"Because," Sophie starts, but she doesn't finish, because she then makes the single most awful sound, part moan, part gasp, that Nate has ever heard, and all hell breaks loose.
"Sophie!" Parker cries, utterly distraught. Eliot echoes her.
This is accompanied by a muffled thump and then:
"Good catch, Parker. Keep her head elevated."
"What the hell?" Hardison demands as the blood rushes into Nate's head and his stomach drops.
"Soph passed out," Eliot says in his clipped, ex-military voice. "Hardison, get Nate to the hospital, now. Nate, just breathe. Forget about the con. Hardison will pick you up out back. Hardison, private line."
Nate's com goes dead.
Eliot returns his attention to the two women on the floor before him.
Sophie has shown no signs of stirring. Parker, whose astounding reflexes had saved Sophie from serious external injury, is now cradling the grifter's head in her lap. She strokes her dark hair, not unlike the way Sophie strokes the thief's when she cuddles up close "to the baby" on Movie Night. Her eyes are terrified as they beg Eliot to do something.
"Hardison. Beth Israel. We'll meet you there. Keep an eye on him."
"Is she alright?" his anxious voice demands.
"No. She grabbed her stomach and passed out. Probably not okay."
"Oh god."
"But that's what hospitals are for," Eliot tries to soothe his harsh words, mostly for devastated Parker's benefit.
"Got Nate," Hardison says, sounding far too detached.
"What the hell was that, Hardison?" They hear Nate rage over Alec's com. "What's wrong with Sophie?"
"Leaving now," Eliot tells the hacker, leaving him to handle Nate. He bends down to receive Sophie's limp frame from Parker. He notes with relief that there's so far no sign of the telltale blood of a miscarriage, though he knows these things can be tricky. Settling Sophie in his arms, he realizes that if he were a praying man, right now would be a great time to start begging for her to be okay. He's not, but he starts asking anyway.
She smells Parker first when she comes to, probably because the thief is perched cross-legged on the hospital nightstand earnestly studying her for signs of life. The fact that scent is her first conscious sense tells her she's been spending far too much time with the younger woman.
"She's up," Parker announces to the room.
Sophie's eyes immediately search out Nate, because she knows he's in there; she can feel him even before she can see him. He pauses in his pacing and crosses to her.
"Eliot, the doctor," he orders.
Eliot vacates the room, motioning for the other two to follow. Hardison has to drag Parker away.
"Nate," Sophie says urgently. "The baby."
"She's fine, just fine," he assures her, letting out the breath he's been holding since she'd passed out. He takes her hand in his as he sits at her side, his other hand cupping her cheek, proving to himself that she is actually here and real and whole. "Gave me a repeat performance on the ultrasound while you were sleeping. Definitely waving this time."
"What happened?"
"You were pretty dehydrated and a little anemic," a young doctor answers from the doorway, a professionally warm smile on her face. "Welcome back, Mrs. Baker. I'm Dr. Green. You gave us a bit of a scare, but you'll be just fine. And so will your daughter. How are you feeling?"
"A little out of it, but otherwise okay. When can I go home?"
"We're getting your fluids back up, and I'd like to keep your overnight for observation, just in case."
"I thought you said I was fine," Sophie says. Neither she nor Nate relish the idea of her spending a night cooped up in a hospital room.
"Will be fine," the comely blonde corrects. "We need to make sure all your levels stabilize and run a few more precautionary tests. If everything checks out in the morning, you can head home."
"No need to rush anything," Nate reiterates, "We have to make sure you're both healthy."
Sophie meets his eyes, sees how haunted their blue depths are.
"Okay," Sophie agrees. "Thank you, doctor."
"You're welcome. Alright, so visiting hours are almost over. You need your rest, so I'll have to kick your entourage out."
"But I can stay, right?" Nate asks/demands.
"As long as you're comfortable sleeping in a hospital chair."
Sophie's heart breaks at the though of how accustomed to that Nate really is.
"Okay, thank you, doctor," Nate echoes.
Dr. Green nods and leaves them alone.
"You don't have to stay, Nate. I know how hospitals affect you. I'm sure Parker can…"
"We talked about this. I'm not going to let Parker be a better husband that I am," Nate tries to lighten the mood.
"Nate…"
"Soph, I'm not going anywhere, and that's it. You should get some more rest."
Her eyes do feel heavy, but she fights it.
"Nate, talk to me."
"Later. After you sleep, and I stop… thinking."
Her body betrays her, eyes slipping closed.
"Tell me what," she yawns, "You're thinking."
"Caught you. Now sleep. I'll be here," he assures her, squeezing her hand.
She does begin to doze off, and Nate takes the opportunity to kiss her temple and whisper:
"I can't lose you two, too. Can't put it back together without you to pull me into living again."
She sleeps through the confession, but it's a pointless one, anyway, because she already knows all that, knows the risk he took in loving again, in allowing himself to have something that could be taken away. She knows, or at least intuits, that allowing himself to love their daughter is the hardest thing he's ever done, and that imagining her future, having hopes and dreams for her, without letting fear overtake him, is the bravest.
Sophie is thankfully sent home in the morning with a few dietary instructions and a stern reminder that she's hydrating for two now. She is otherwise given a clean bill of health, her defense again the over-protectiveness of the team.
"I can walk up the stairs by myself, thank you," she informs them. "In fact, I can walk so much that tomorrow, I'm going crib shopping. Any of you who would like to join me and who can refrain from coddling me are welcome to come."
"Crib shopping?" Nate questions, and she can see him struggling to help her up the stairs without giving the illusion of coddling.
"Yes, we only have some three months left before she'll need said crib, and the nursery's nowhere near decorated."
"Sophie darlin'," Eliot says, gently, "The nursery's not even finished."
"Hmm, sounds like something you and Hardison can do while we go shopping."
"What about Parker?" Eliot asks.
"She's coming with us," Sophie decrees with a reassuring touch on the hovering blonde's shoulder.
"I get to go?"
Sophie nods.
Parker's eyes light up, and she grabs Hardison's hand, pulling him up the rest of the stairs at a sprint.
"Where are we going?"
"Research!" Parker duhs as they disappear into the apartment.
"This baby's gonna have the safest crib on the planet once Parker's done with her research," Eliot notes wryly. "And yes, Hardison and I will make sure there are at least walls in the nursery by the end of the day."
"You could just hire someone," Sophie suggests as they reach the apartment at a more sedate speed and Nate holds the door open (gentlemanly, not coddling, he tells himself).
"That'll work well," Eliot snarks. "Sure, come build a nursery in the apartment above our secret lair."
"You sound like Hardison," Nate notes.
Eliot looks very disturbed.
"Alright, then. What do y'all want for lunch? Besides lots of water for mama and baby, of course."
Boston is a lovely city, a bit awful midwinter, but otherwise quite nice. But in all of her earlier fantasies about sharing a life with Nate Ford (back when they had been silly impossibilities she dreamed in lavish European hotel rooms while he returned to his life and wife and son in ridiculously sunny, horridly American Los Angeles) she had never once imagined them in Boston. In her fantasies (as in their real life chase), they had moved from pied-a-terre to pied-a-terre in the great cities of Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa, ancient cities full of romantic history and lots of exquisite art for them to steal together. (Nate the thief, apart, perhaps, from the ring on her finger, is the one part of her fantasies that actually, surprisingly, came true.) She certainly did not dream of them crib shopping with a notoriously insane cat burglar in Boston, Massachusetts. (She would have allowed him the occasional visit to New York if he had really felt the need to return to the US.) Of course, Boston is definitely superior to Chicago, that awful, cold, windy city where she'd somehow found herself trying to live as an honest citizen away from her enemies in Europe and in the same country as the most honest (and now most broken) man she'd ever met.
So now Boston, where Nate grew up, will be the city where they raise their daughter. Though she still longs for the familiarity and grandeur of Europe, she's come to terms with Boston, grown even to love it on crisp, cool days like this one, when she can wear pretty warm scarves against the cool breeze and slip her hand into Nate's on the pretense of trying to stay warm, pressing her side close against him to steal his heat.
Their fingers linked, she pulls him along behind Parker, who claims to have found the perfect crib. His nose is a bit red from the cool air, but that same cool makes his eyes seem even bluer as he looks at her, half with concern, half with an appreciation that still makes her blush.
Parker finally leads them to a very cute (and very high-end) baby store, stopping in front of the lovely mahogany crib on display, with a Parkerish flair of ta-da.
"It's beautiful," Sophie praises.
Parker launches into a long explanation of why this is the best crib for the baby. Nate listens intently, but Sophie trusts Parker on this one and instead focuses on the crib itself.
Dropping Nate's hand, she runs her hands over the smooth wood and allows herself to imagine putting her daughter to sleep every night in this bed, to imagine tiny eyes (dark like hers or blue like Nate's?) drifting shut, nuzzled comfortably on the crib's mattress.
"What do you think?" Nate interrupts her imagining, hand covering hers on the wood.
"It's perfect."
Parker's mouth says: "That's what I said," but her eyes beam at the affirmation of her hard work.
"We'll take it," Nate calls to the clerk. "And anything else the ladies pick out."
Of course, at this confirmation of their big spender status, they have the full attention of the staff.
"Hmm," Sophie murmurs, arm around Nate's waist under his warm fall coat. "How easily you spend my money."
"I've been in the storage unit. Several of them, actually," he says back softly, sliding his own arm around her shoulders even as he watches Parker flit about the store badgering the clerks. "There's plenty left." He drops a kiss to her crown. "You gonna let her pick everything out?"
"No, just letting her do the research." She directs him towards the linens. "Now, we need a color scheme."
Nate groans. "Soph, you know I'm bad at this stuff."
"Just pick a color, and we can pick a complementary one to paint the walls, once they're up."
"Can't we just do pink?"
The look she gives him makes him groan again. Parker comes over to tell them all about their choices for the best stroller, high chair, car seat, and changing table.
"And we should get a sling. One that fits Alec and Eliot, too," Parker laughs at her own visual.
"Alright, Parker," Sophie agrees. "But you're still not allowed to rappel with the baby."
to be continued