It was almost (quite disturbingly) idyllic, the few days after Takaba found out about her pregnancy, how, after the initial chaos, everything settled down as it were before, and they went back to their daily routines.
Except not quite.
Now, they have a child on the way, Takaba is no longer in the crime beat, and Asami is possibly more of a bastard than before. And they are living together (this time, Takaba has no more excuses, no I-can-always-leaves — they are together, and for the long term; how has her mind not exploded from that she'll never know) in a new (well, renovated) house, to raise what would eventually, if whatever gods out there are merciful enough, be a family.
Family is a topic that often came up in their conversations. Takaba doesn't ask much about Asami's background, though she was certainly curious about them, her lover's origins being a complete mystery to her despite all her previous digging for information. She has a feeling, though, that should she ask, all her questions would be smoothly deflected, and it would end with her distracted (with sex, most likely). She is also not naïve enough to think Asami would confide in her in due time.
Takaba knows she's at a disadvantage, because Asami knows so much about her, while she knows very little about him. But still, sometimes curiosity gets the better of her, and she eventually does gather the courage to ask, taking Asami's earlier statement of her having questions as a sort of (flimsy) permission to ask him about himself.
After the second check up with her doctor — and, no, she will never, ever talk about what happened on that second check up; she will forever erase that incident from her mind, so traumatizing it was (She will remember, though, the way her and Asami's fingers touched during the ultrasound, when the image of their child was shown on screen, the brief brush of fingers, the warmth that flooded her body, knowing he was here with her) — she had asked him, en route home, "Do you have other children?"
"No."
"Did you ever plan to have them?"
"Did you?"
"I, well, uh, not now, but yes. Eventually. Someday. You didn't answer–"
"I had no plans of having children." He'd been answering her earlier questions dispassionately, perhaps with a hint of amusement, but now his eyes darkened into burnished amber, with a piercing intensity that made her uncomfortably aroused. "Until you."
Her eyes went a little wide at that, her face growing warm. "Wait, what? What does that me–" She stopped and held up one hand. "OK, never mind, don't tell me the answer to that. Forget I ever asked. I do not want to know."
"Really, Takaba?" His tone was teasing, but his eyes didn't lose their heat. "In that case," and in a heartbeat she found herself trapped in his arms, Asami pressing insistently against her, warm hands sliding up inside her skirt, "why don't we start following the doctor's orders now?"
Things got rather incoherent for her after that.
She doesn't ask him what he would have done had she been pregnant with Fei Long's kid rather than his. It would only be a pointless, hurtful, and vicious conversation, and Takaba didn't want any of that right now. She has enough stress to deal with as it is.
Besides, she already knows what his answer would be.
Another conversation Takaba has been avoiding is the one with her parents. The one where she tells them that they're soon going to be grandparents.
"You don't seem to be looking forward to telling them," Asami says, then returns to his newspaper after he sees Takaba pick up her cell phone, stare at it for several minutes, then fling it back to the sofa beside him where she goes off to curl up and crush a cushion to her chest in a tight hug and sulk for the umpteenth time, another failed attempt to inform her parents about her pregnancy, which she has been trying to do for two solid weeks now.
"Well, considering the facts of the matter, I am a little bit worried," Takaba replies. "I mean, I am nine weeks pregnant, unmarried, without much of a stable job, and the father of my child is a cri–a businessmen of dubious repute. Surely they're legitimate concerns, and would justify why I am hesitant about telling my parents of my condition."
Asami raises a brow, and his lips quirk to a small smile at her lofty, sarcastic tone. "Such grandiloquence. I didn't think you were capable of it." He turns a page, ignoring the heat of the glare she gives him, and then asks, "Do you want to get married?"
She bolts upright, eyes wide and nervous, like a startled doe. "What?" The look of pure bewilderment on her face is priceless. "No! That's not–I never said I wanted–oh forget it." She huffs in annoyance. "I'm not worried my parents would reject me. My main concern is I'm just not sure how the hell I'm going to explain to my parents how I ended up from being a rookie photojournalist to a crime lord's lover and now soon-to-be mother of his child."
"Do you plan to tell them everything?"
Sighing, she replies, "Well, no, of course not. I would probably skip over some — no, several — details, but–" She sucks in a deep breath. "It's hard to lie to my parents." Lips curling to a small smile, full of begrudging pride, she adds, "If you ever get to meet them, you'll know why."
"You don't lie very well. I doubt they had much difficulty knowing if you're telling the truth or not," he says blandly. Takaba's face is an open book, just as her body language; her emotions and thoughts are far too easily detected and predicted, which is why he could tell she is lying about not being worried about her parents' rejection. "Your parents are probably very tolerant people, if they have such a problem child as you."
"I hate you."
Later that night, when Asami is asleep, Takaba, quietly padding into the kitchen and sitting on a stool, screws up enough courage to call her parents.
They would be in Portofino, Italy right now, vacationing quietly in some posh resort — at least, she hopes so. Her parents had a knack of getting into trouble, like that one time her Dad was nearly gored by a rampaging bull in Pamplona, Spain when he was trying to get a closer shot of it.
She presses their number on the phone with heavy fingers, as if they were tipped in lead. Waiting for their phone to ring felt like an eternity. When it does ring, the ringback is loud and clear in the hush of the night, but not quite loud enough to drown the heavy thudding of her heart against her sternum.
"Kitten." Her father's warm, gruff voice is low and amused, full of affection, calling her by the family nickname. "Checking if we're behaving?"
For an instant, everything that happened so far overwhelms her, a huge tidal wave of emotions pulling her under, leaving her without breath, without the capability of speech, and she's seized with the need to cry, to ask for her father to come homeand take her in his arms and keep all the bad things away, just as he did when he was a little girl, when she was having bad nightmares, as he did years ago, when he told her he was sorry, and that it was not her fault.
"Aki? Aki? Are you still there? Is everything all right?"
But she's not a little girl anymore. Shaking herself mentally, she smiles tremulously, takes a deep breath and speaks, her voice calm. "Hello, Grandpa. How are you doing? Is Grandma with you?"
It went better than she expected. Her Dad even joked, "Is this an immaculate conception?", which of course it was not, but Takaba didn't elaborate on that. Her Dad and Mom were both very supportive and happy ("You know you will always have our love and support, no matter what, don't you? Well, it's true then, and it's true even now and always. So don't cry. We're her for you." Takaba cried even harder after hearing that.), if a little worried ("Are you all right? Everything okay with you and your baby? Do you need anything?") and more than a little surprised ("I had no idea you were dating anyone.").
(A fucking understatement on both counts. Her mother bawled at the news. Tears of joy, she said. Her little Kitten, all grown up. She is probably designing a nursery room in her head already, if not on paper. Her father is probably ruining the carpet with his pacing.)
Her parents then decided to cut short their trip and come home immediately to check on her, despite her protests ("Don't be silly; you're our priority. We can always take another vacation. Italy will still be here...if its economy doesn't default, that is."). And when she finally told them about Asami being the father of her child, they decided they want to meet him, too.
Her parents phrased it politely enough, but she could feel their enormous curiosity even thousands of miles away. She can't really blame them. They're parents; it's only natural they get curious about the man who is their daughter's lover. But the moment she told her father Asami's name, he was silent for a moment, and, in unusually strong language, asked to meet him.
The possibility that her Dad could know what Asami's line of business is, or even get an inkling of what happened to her in the past few months, is just…something she doesn't want to even contemplate. That alone was enough to trigger her into nervousness, and with it came her nausea.
Asami had awoken to her vomiting in the bathroom, and spent an hour or so holding her up as she continues to hurl on the sink, one large hand holding back her hair from her face to keep it from getting soaked in bile. They must look absolutely ridiculous right now; Takaba would have laughed, if she could.
He carried her to the bed (bridal style, what the hell), and Takaba was too drained to protest, instead babbling to him about what happened during the phone call. Sternly telling her to not stress herself too much, Asami tucks her under the warm sheets, then cuts of her retort with an almost-gentle kiss, before slipping in beside her, leaving her stunned.
Is this real life?she asks herself. But despite her worries, she sleeps without interruptions, lulled by the warmth beside her.
So, meet the parents next chapter. I'll probably eventually post 'what will happen had the kid been Fei Long's'. But we'll see.
Again, thank you very much to those who read and reviewed this. Thank you for giving this fic a chance.
