7.
Seven months.
Seven months can fly by when you've got sort of time sensitive things you need to be concerned about.
Seven months and Tadashi still hadn't decided what he was going to do. He weighed the pros and cons of keeping the baby, the pros and cons of giving the baby up for adoption, and the pros and cons of ever having sex again because all this decision-making was stressing him out.
"This will never work." Tadashi sighed as he was trying to put pieces of his nursebot back together. "Another dud." He tossed the ruined bolt into a box of 'never again working parts'. He had tested his prototype for the third time earlier that day; and it exploded. As in, exploded. Pieces and parts came flying off, almost hitting him and knocking Honey Lemon over, who was in a completely different room.
In all fairness, he had to admit that he wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing, hadn't really been for a few days now. Vivienne was due to have the baby a few days ago, and she still hadn't yet; or at least, no word had gotten to Tadashi that she was having the baby.
So he tried to distract himself.
The college freshman shook his head in stressed defeat. "Back to the drawing board." He leaned his head in his hand and sat there for a moment staring at his notebook in front of him, feigning a sense of focus if anyone had looked over at him.
Suddenly, his phone vibrates almost violently, the sound ripping through the quiet atmosphere in his lab space, scaring him half to death. He blindly picks it up and has to read the text multiple times before it actually hits him.
The baby's coming.
Tadashi cleaned up his lab, shot out to the parking lot and pulled out on his moped in record time. Whether he did everything safely was another topic; he had forgotten his helmet and Wasabi would probably ring his neck later when the bigger man sees that Tadashi just threw all the parts into a box and deemed it cleaned up. And the speeding that Tadashi did as he drove from the school to the hospital Vivienne was at, because she just had to pick the one furthest from his school.
His son was on the way. When that thought hit him, like a freight train, he almost had to pull over to breathe. Almost.
When he pulled into the parking lot, he called up his aunt as he walked up to the building, telling her to meet him there. When she asked why, he told her he needed someone there when he signed over his parental rights.
And she sounded a little too relieved about that.
He got lost along the way, the halls of the hospital was just a maze and he some how kept ending up at the same waiting room multiple times until a kind nurse decides to point him in the right direction, which was left all along. And he eventually reaches the maternity ward.
"Name of the patient?" An elderly nurse asked him in formality.
"Vivienne Thompson." He quickly tells her.
She types in her computer for a few seconds. "Are you the father of the baby?"
He nodded.
"I'm sorry, she specifically asked not to let you in until later." The nurse told him, a sad smile on her face.
"B-but my son is being born!" He was practically pleading with her.
"I'm sorry, hospital rules." She gently told him. "You'll have to wait. Someone will be out to let you in later." She motioned to some chairs by a door. "A doctor or nurse will be coming through the doors."
Tadashi sighed and stepped back from the desk. "Thank you." He started walking towards the chairs she had pointed to.
"Congratulations though." The nurse told him a smile.
He gave a small, somewhat forced, smile in return before taking a seat. He took out his wallet and passed the time by looking at the ultrasound picture.
Tadashi sighed, leaning back in the chair, he felt it was sort of wrong that Vivienne didn't want him there for her, he felt like this was something he should be a part of. This was his son being born, his. And hers. Tadashi wanted to be there for the both of them.
But. But he could understand a little why she didn't want him in there with her. If he was being honest with himself, and he was – why would he lie to himself when he knew the truth- he would have tried to broach the subject of them raising the baby. Together. Not giving their son up for adoption. And he knows exactly how that conversation would go.
It wouldn't.
He didn't know exactly how much time had passed, but long enough for the nurse who directed him to sit down went to lunch and came back. Tadashi was still in the chair, hadn't gotten up or anything, running his thumb over the ultrasound, the picture somehow keeping him from letting out a frustrated noise.
When he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder, he jumped, not expecting it. He looked over to see his aunt sitting next to him.
"Sorry it took a while." She started out, setting her back down next to her in the chair. "I couldn't find someone to watch the café."
He looked away from her. "It's fine, nothing's really happened yet."
Cass glanced over his shoulder to see the ultrasound picture, the picture she didn't ask to see when he first got it, not wanting to really encourage anything. "That the ultrasound picture of him?" She asked even though she knew.
Tadashi nodded, not verbally answering her, and handed the little piece of paper over to her to look at.
The aunt took it quietly and glanced down with green eyes at the picture; quick memories of her sister showing her Tadashi's ultrasound picture so many years ago. Wow they sure have changed. She thought as she held onto it for a few more seconds before giving it back to her nephew.
Uncountable hours passes with the two member family sitting in the maternity ward waiting room before a male nurse walked over, immediately assuming they were there for Vivienne.
"Tadashi Hamada?" He asked just to make sure.
Tadashi immediately stood, Cass following suit.
"He's a healthy baby." The nurse began with a smile as he looked down at his clipboard. "He's a nine on the Apgar test, he weighs five pounds, seven ounce. He's a little on the small side, but that's fine." He looked back up at Tadashi. "Would you like to see him?"
Tadashi nodded without hesitating.
The nurse led them down a few halls toward the nursery. He stopped them in front of one of the windows that looked into the very colorful room; pinks, greens, blues, and purples covered the walls along with what Tadashi could only assume were large copies of children's drawings of characters on the walls.
"Second row, right in the middle. " The nurse pointed out.
Amidst all the quiet, sleeping babies with name cards on the front of their little bins was a small crying baby in a bin marked Hamada. Tadashi stood there watching the baby, his baby, his son.
Seven months and Tadashi still hadn't decided what he was going to do as he looked at his son, who was most definitely mostly Vivienne, right down to the personality, with the exception of the baby's hair, sort of. The wildness of the hair was definitely from his mother, but he color was Tadashi.
The baby wouldn't lie still, seemingly trying to squirm his way out of the little cozy blue blanket.
"He's been crying nonstop." The male nurse told them, breaking through Tadashi's thoughts. "I don't think it helped that the mother didn't even want to hold him."
How could she not? Tadashi shook his head to himself. Her child was just born and she didn't even want to comfort him. His mood instantly started depleting. She really didn't want anything to do with the baby.
He looked over to the nurse on the other side of his aunt, purposely keeping his gaze from going to her. "Can I hold him?"
The nurse nodded, a smile on his face. "Of course! You're the father." He motioned for Tadashi to follow him; Cass didn't move an inch as her nephew walked around her. The two men stopped just inside the little door that was next to the hallway window, Tadashi still avoiding looking at his aunt. Had he had been looking he would have noticed the slightly confused expression on her face, like she was thinking about something.
The nurse carefully picked up the loudly complaining baby, tucking the blue blanket around the newborn, and walked him over to Tadashi, trying to wiggle his way out of the nurse's arms.
"Fidgety little guy, aren't you?" The nurse commented to the child. He made it back over to Tadashi and carefully put the moving baby in his father's arms.
The second the baby was passed into Tadashi's arms, he stopped crying, calmed down and looked almost curiously up at Tadashi.
"Hey buddy." Tadashi muttered quietly. "What's with all the crying, huh?"
He was almost pretty sure his son gave him an 'are-you-serious' look.
The college freshman gave the baby a soft smile as he gently stroked the baby's thick head of hair. As he watched the baby's expression soften and his brown eyes close, Tadashi couldn't help the little feeling in his chest as it bloomed; he's a dad now, a father.
"I think he likes you." The nurse quietly joked.
Tadashi let out a little huff of a laugh, trying not to wake his son up.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked over to see his aunt standing next to him, an unreadable expression on her face.
Watching her nephew hold his son was almost like a mirror image of all those years ago when she was able to see her brother-in-law hold Tadashi for one of the first times. How Tadashi's father never wanted to put his son down and had this 'proud father' look about him. Cass had never seen him cry until he was holding Tadashi.
And now, here was Tadashi holding his son in his arms for the first time, and he had the same 'proud father' aura about him.
Tadashi had turned from his aunt for all of two seconds to look down at the baby when he felt the newborn move, seeing that the baby had sensed a new presence near him and he just had to see whom it was. When Tadashi looked back over to her, he could see tears barely hidden in her green eyes.
"I can't give him up." Tadashi mumbled to his aunt, looking at her this time. "I can't do that."
"Tadashi-" She had started but her nephew cut her off.
"I know what you're going to say." He continued. "That I'm only eighteen, just starting in college, I need to focus on that."
"Tadashi, I-" She tried again.
"I know you don't approve of this, seven months of quietness and mad looks from you have proved that. But I can't leave him with strangers." Tadashi kept rambling on and on. "I don't want anything bad to happen to him. I know this will disappoint everyone in like, the entire city, but Vivienne already left him, I can't leave him too. I can't do that."
"Tadashi." She gave up trying to cut into what he was saying and just tried to get him to be quiet for a moment.
"I know you really don't want me to take him, and if you kick me out, that's fine but-" This time, he got cut off.
She pinched his shoulder to get him to shut up. "Tadashi." She made sure he was listening before she continued. She walked around so she was standing in front of her nephew and her great nephew. "I'm not going to kick you out, I would never do that. I'm sorry I made you feel like I would and that I would be mad at you forever. I was just so disappointed that you made some stupid decisions. But keeping him would not be one of those." She gently told him. "If you want to keep him, keep him." She smiled at him for the first time in a long while.
He smiled back, taking a quick glance down at the baby in his arms.
"But, there are several conditions." She stated in a more stern voice. "One. He. Is. Your. Top. Priority. Your responsibility no matter what. This is a child, not one of your robots." She gave him a look. "Mochi was supposed to be your responsibility, remember?"
Tadashi nodded sheepishly. "Yeah."
Cass tapped him on the shoulder. "Two. As long as your living under my roof, you're going to continue going to school. Whether you stay at SFIT or go somewhere online if you think that'd be easier, fine. But if the thought of dropping out ever even crosses your mind, you're in trouble." She finished. "I'll think of more conditions later."
"Wanna hold him?" Tadashi asked quietly.
"Sure." Cass smiled again. She held her arms out as Tadashi slid the baby into her arms. "Have you decided on a name yet?" She did the pro move of bouncing a bit in place to gently rock the baby.
Brown eyes looked into a fresh, new pair of brown eyes as he thought. He had a list of baby names he had compiled in his mind, just in case he decided that he couldn't give the baby up, played around with how the names would sound against Hamada; and while a lot of them did have a nice ring to it, looking at the baby in front of him, they didn't fit.
The baby started squirming in his great aunt's arms.
"You're an active little one, aren't you?" Cass asked in a baby voice. "You're gonna test your daddy's patience aren't you?" She gave a small laugh.
Hiro. A little thought popped into Tadashi's head. Means tolerance. "Hiro." He voiced the name.
Cass and the baby, Hiro, looked over to Tadashi.
"Hiro Hamada." Tadashi gave the baby a look. "How's that sound?"
The baby, Hiro, gave a small little smile and garbled something in baby language. But the two family members took that as a sounds good!
Cass passed Hiro back over into his father's arms.
"We've decided on a name?" The male nurse looked over from one of the other babies in the nursery.
Tadashi nodded. "Hiro."
"I think that's a perfect name for you, mister." Cass poked a gentle finger at Hiro.
The baby snuggled closer to Tadashi.
