A/N: For daseyloverwholived. Spite the fact that I don't really ship them, I am super excited for this fic; hope you enjoy :)
Prompt: my idea is Denley fic where Henley is pregnant.
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Month Four.
One trimester down, two to go. Danny reminds himself as he sat against the headboard, massaging Henley's pained stomach.
She'd been writhing around all night, still engrossed in sleep, but whining about her pain. He discovered that if he gave her a massage, he got a few minutes of silence. But he knew that it wouldn't last.
His own body had grown tired from her kicking him off the bed the last few nights, so he was grateful for the few minutes of sweet silence he sucked in, like a drug-addict dependent on heroin.
After a few minutes, he lays back down, closing his eyes. He actually thinks he'll fall asleep when he earns a swift kick to the stomach, which tackles him off the bed, forcing him to bang his head off the nightstand, bringing the alarm clock with him; it hits him clean in the chest.
Groaning, he stands and sneaks out the door.
For once in a long time, the apartment is dark. Pungent snores waft through the paper thin walls between the living space and Merritt's room, and he can hear Jack roll over restlessly two rooms away.
Spying the futon next to the computer, Danny uses the city lights outside to guide him to the beat up bedding. Falling on it with ease, he masks himself with a thin sheet and falls into a dead sleep, one he hasn't gotten in months.
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The next morning, he wakens to a scream.
Merritt and Jack rise from their rooms, rubbing their eyes with quizzical looks as the three men meet and approach the open bathroom door. Cautiously, they peer in.
It's Henley.
She's wearing a hot pink sports bra and cutoff sweats, and she's stretching the skin on the side of her left hip, examining it in the mirror. Four jagged vein-like marks color the skin that she prods at, almost like a frog during dissection.
"I have stretch marks!" she cries, turning to her fellow magicians, and she points at them as if they hadn't seen them already. She stands on shaky legs, and her ankles are swelled. Dark circles captivate her eyes, and she looks as if she was an insomniac. Her growing belly seemed to weigh her down, like a paradox.
Her clothes were almost ripping from the expansion of her body. It was horrid to watch.
"I hate you!" she states, pointing her finger right in Danny's face; it almost bumps his nose.
With that, she strides past her accomplices, shouldering Jack hard as she shoves past and storms back into her bedroom. A slam of the door completes her dramatic exit.
Danny feels hollow. Even as Merritt claps him on the shoulder, and Jack gives an apologetic look, he sees their wary glances toward the door. He hears Merritt mutter something about researching pregnancy hypnosis as he and Jack go to the kitchen. The acrid scent of coffee abuses his nose as he stands paralyzed in the bathroom doorway.
He knows she didn't mean it.
But he couldn't deny the pain wrenching in his gut, twisting and poking his stomach to mush. His mind wandered.
What if she leaves? What if she really hates me and wants me to move out? What if I don't get into the Eye? What i-
"Danny." It's Jack. He's holding two cups, one which he folds Danny's fingers around, "You know. It's a pregnant-woman thing."
Merritt's quote from the night before couldn't hold back the chuckle Danny let slip. Smiling, the Brooklyn native wrapped a hand around the scruffy magician's shoulder and dragged him to the kitchen, letting the stiff air behind.
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That night, he peers through the crack in the door of their bedroom, staring at the lone figure curled timidly on the bed. Shiny red hair is blinding from the lamplight, and he can see a surprisingly calm expression clad on his girlfriend's face.
Cautiously, Danny twists the knob and crept into the room, flicking off Henley's bedside lamp before tiptoeing to his side and drawing back the covers. Slipping into the warm envelope, he soon dims into a sad silence.
A warm arm curls around his waist, and he feels a heart-shaped chin dig into his shoulder, kissing the bare skin of his shoulder, "I'm sorry."
"It's okay, you're stressed." Danny says, playing with the ring on Henley's thumb. Tender fingers caress his stomach, and he looks down to the cut up skin of Henley's hand. When she was a teenager, she had almost killed herself from the neglect of her family, and with her being the social outcast, she felt as if it was the only release.
Danny remembers the night she told them.
It was before their relationship became official, and they were working late with the others when Henley unstrapped her glove and let the sacred skin hit the bare air. They all couldn't help but stare at the thin red cuts separating the smooth skin into little lone strips, up to the skin on her wrists, which had faded and were now little brackets over her wire blue veins.
Intertwining their fingers, Danny rolls over so he can face her. Her pale skin shines in the moonlight, and her eyes light up as he leans down to peck her lips.
Travelling down her torso with his mouth, he whispers, "You're beautiful no matter what; thin, obese, round-"
"We are not getting into an argument over that trapdoor," Henley tells him, reaching down to mold their lips together.
And just with that, the small movement to press lips to lips, the couple knows that everything will be okay.
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A/N: I just thought of a way to explain why she wore the gloves the whole movie! Interesting concept, I think, review if you want more ;)