A/N: Re the house they've bought - I didn't realise until about half way through this chapter that I'm pretty much giving you a tour around the first house I can remember living in (though in reality it was actually the fourth house I lived in - we moved around a lot when I was very little. I had lived in Dubbo, Sydney, Canberra and Alice Springs before I started school.) Please accept this slice of my childhood, pink bathtub and all
Pretty disappointed I failed already (though not surprised…) but in all fairness, I didn't expect to get quite sick again and my job decided to choose right now to get really busy on me. Still, I'm determined. Keep an eye out for at least a chapter every few days, if not quite every day.
Chapter 33 - 32 weeks, 5 days
"Put that down," Knight's voice echoed all the way from the front door through the mostly empty rooms.
"I'm not an invalid," Schofield retorted, rolling his eyes.
"You still shouldn't be carrying heavy things," Knight said as he stumbled in through the doorway under the weight of two much larger boxes than the one Shane carried. He wasn't an invalid - but he wasn't an idiot either.
Schofield stopped short, box still in hand and spun around to face his husband and this newly developed over-protective streak. He kept his face impassive, raising only one eyebrow and watched as Knight took in the word scrawled on the box in large black sharpie - towels.
Knight's eyebrows furrowed.
Schofield smirked.
"Good God, these large fluffy soft things. How ever will I carry them?" He teased, pretending to swoon a little and watched in amusement as Knight dove forward to help him, almost dropping his own boxes in the process.
Scowling, Knight ducked a little until his load was immediately beneath the box in Schofield's arms and straightened up so that the box of towels now rested atop his own pile. Of course, the three boxes now towered over his head and, unable to see, Knight very nearly staggered straight into Mother emerging from the kitchen with Beth.
"Oh for fuck's sake," She exclaimed, "Can't you two stay out of trouble for five minutes?"
She passed Beth off to Shane with a grunted, "Here," and took the top two boxes out of Knight's hands with ease.
"You, young man, are going to take over tea duty," Mother said, glaring at Shane over the top of the boxes before turning her gaze on Knight, "And as for you, you can help me with the unpacking."
Obediently, Knight trailed after Mother and Schofield headed for the kitchen. He plonked a squirming, curious Beth down on the newly wiped down counters and kept one firm hand on her whilst he rummaged through the box marked 'necessities.'
Knight, it seemed, had pulled off some sort of miracle because less than ten days after they had put an offer on the house, contracts were exchanged and the keys were in their hands.
Knight swore it had only taken a few extra thousands of dollars and that it was entirely legal.
And Schofield found himself inclined to believe him.
It had taken them twice as long as really needed to get out of the old apartment in the morning mostly due to one over-excited toddler. As every parent knew, children and empty boxes were a wonderful combination, could keep them entertained for hours.
As long as you weren't planning on putting anything in those boxes.
Beth had unpacked them, knocked them over and on one memorable occasion, caused a minor panic by climbing inside of one and getting lost for a good half an hour. But the icing on the cake was when she had snaked her way through the assembled pile of boxes on the living room floor, sat herself right in amongst them and giggled loudly until they all arrived and looked on in horror. None of them wanted to climb in amongst the boxes for fear of knocking them over and crushing her and so it was that Ralph had arrived to find both marines and bounty hunter standing anxiously around the pile, cooing and trying to coax the little ratbag out whilst Beth clapped her hands with glee at her own cleverness.
The three of them had wasted nearly an hour swearing and carefully moving boxes and trying to reason with someone who as of yet, had no grasp of the English language - though Shane was absolutely convinced she could understand them and was just being obstinate.
Ralph had walked in, announced, "You ain't never gonna win that argument," and left again.
And only when Beth was good and ready, did she crawl out all by herself.
Thankfully, it looked like unpacking was going to go a lot smoother. Neither a life in the military nor a life on the run really encouraged the collecting of possessions. Most of what was in the old apartment either belonged to the landlord or had been left on the sidewalk for some other lucky bugger to take.
Just about everything else belonged to Beth.
All the detritus of their lives had fit easily into Mother's beat up old pickup truck and Schofield's classic 80's ford. Ralph had offered to bring his truck around later with the few larger items of furniture and handful of things they had bought new. Even then, the massive eighteen wheeler had been half empty but none of them did things by halves - Ralph least of all.
Mother had already rustled up their old kettle and a handful of mugs but Schofield kept looking in the box anyway. There had to be one in here somewhere.
It was the first rule of moving house - something crinkled as his hand finally closed around it - always keep the coffee and biscuits in the first box.
Only, seeing as coffee was off the menu for Schofield, it would be tea all around.
Slinging the tea bags and boiling water into the mugs, he grabbed Beth back off the bench - where she had happily been examining some ants crawling in through a crack in the window sill - and left the tea to stew until it became bitter enough to almost resemble coffee.
"Don't eat those," he chided, brushing the black smudges of squashed ants off Beth's fingers before she could stuff them in her mouth, "Yucky. Why don't we go and pick you a bedroom instead?"
Setting her down on her fat little feet, Schofield watched with a low chuckle as she tore off to explore the new corridors as fast as those feet would carry her - which for him, following a few steps behind, wasn't really that fast at all.
Shane was just glad Louis had gone to spend the day with Mother's dogs.
One excited toddler was quite enough for him to be getting on with today.
The first room she found was the one that had so drawn Schofield on their first visit. The window had been thrown open to clear out some of the musty smells that lingered and already, it felt more alive. In his belly, the baby twisted and kicked out hard so he could momentarily see the outline of her footprint stark against his skin.
"Alright, calm down," Shane muttered at the swollen skin. As he bent over to scoop Beth out of a dusty corner, he pressed one steadying hand to his thigh to brace himself and another to his stomach, feeling her fluttering movements. "Sorry Bethany-Boo, I think your sister's already claimed this one."
Beth dug her feet into his sides and squealed as the little one kicked up a storm on his insides again. Schofield let out a noise that was caught between a laugh and a wince.
"Ganging up on me already?" He said, tickling Beth's tummy where her shirt had ridden up.
There was another bedroom just down the hall and wedged between them, a bathroom with multi-coloured tiles right out of the 90s and to top it off, a pink bathtub. One day they might get around to updating it but for now, the girls would love it. As for the bedroom on the other side, it was painted a cheery yellow that reminded Schofield immediately of the sunflowers that had adorned Beth's old nursery.
Schofield wondered if Astro would be up for a repeat performance.
The room was bare.
Beth's crib and other pieces were all coming with Ralph in the eighteen wheeler.
All except for the worn old rocking chair which had travelled carefully swaddled in blankets, upside down on Mother's back seat.
"Looking for this?"
Knight, it seemed, had snuck up on them. In his arms, he held out a box and packed right at the very top of it was the blanket that had adorned the chair in the old apartment.
Shane offered him a smile.
Michael Schofield's rocking chair and the Knight family heirloom blanket.
It felt like home already.
Knight set the box down and rummaged through it. Down on his haunches, he found what he was looking for with a triumphant yelp and offered it up to Beth.
"Saw this the other day," he said casually, still on one knee and employing all the roughish charm he could muster, "thought it might be good for your new room, baby girl."
Looking over Schofield's shoulder, Beth's eyes went wide and she pitched herself forward with grabby hands outstretched, trying to squirm out of Shane's hands grip.
'It' turned out to be clock shaped like an elephant where the trunk spun around as the hour hand.
Knight hung it up carefully on the wall before tipping the box upside down and scattering its remaining contents - Beth's various toys - all across the room.
Shane just watched and shook his head fondly.
"Perfect!" He announced.
"Yeah," Schofield replied, chuckling, "Who needs a bed anyway? If that's your definition of unpacking, I hate to see what you and Mother have got up to."
"Oi!" Knight began but Shane interrupted, looking him up and down with a smirk and dammit if Knight didn't think that was unfair. That sort of effortless sexy shouldn't be allowed.
Especially when he didn't even know he was doing it.
Add in the adorable factor of holding a baby and it really wasn't fair.
"Tea and biscuits are ready if you want," he said.
The sound of Knight's protests followed him down the hall.
"We did unpack properly," he whined and Shane could practically see the pout, "We even put the linens in the cupboards."
Ralph, of course, arrived just in time for tea - brewed black as night and with enough sugar, just about drinkable.
"Why are we drinking this shit again?" Mother said, grimacing.
Shane opened his mouth but it was Knight who got there first.
"Because this is currently a coffee free house for the comfort of everyone within it."
That last part he directed pointedly at Schofield, who only rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, 'what can you do?'
And if he was quite honest with himself, a small part of him didn't mind this protectiveness his condition seemed to bring out in the normally emotionally-removed bounty hunter.
He also rather enjoyed the surprised look on Beth's face when he gave her a gingernut biscuit and she found she couldn't bite into it. Gumming away at it kept her preoccupied - and no doubt eased the pain of her last few teeth coming through better than any of those stupid teething gimmicks - whilst the four of them got the proper furniture unpacked. Of course it didn't last long and soon she was trailing after them again, leaving little footprints in the dust and running sticky fingers along the wall, as they lugged the heavy furniture through the house.
It would have been adorable had it not been so dangerous.
Soon enough, Beth was shooed out from under their feet before she managed to trip one of them or something unfortunate landed on her head or both; and Schofield, unsurprisingly, was sent with her. It had been a long day and Beth was grumpy and overtired from all the excitement. Shane was glad of the reprieve as well. His centre of gravity had shifted and much to his irritation, his feet had started to swell. If he had fallen over, apart from fearing for the baby's safety, he wasn't entirely sure he'd have gotten back up. Reluctant as he was to admit it, moving house might have been a little ambitious.
In the end though, trying to settle Beth didn't prove to be a much easier task. With all the banging and thumping still filling the house and people popping past her all the time, she wasn't the slightest bit interested in her dinner. Shane could see the struggle going on in her little body between curiosity and exhaustion. Her eyes would brighten with each sound and sight onto to droop again as soon as it had passed. She would slump forward in her highchair, sleep threatening to sneak up on her and face dangerously close to her mashed potatoes, only to snap upright again and look around with dazed confusion. Schofield was torn between amusement and his own exhaustion. Eventually, he gave in and abandoned dinner in favour of the tried and tested bottle. She sucked down the warm milk happily, blinking up at him through heavy eyes, as he brushed a few clumps of potato out of her dark curls.
He was still wandering through the rooms of their new home, rocking her softly as she fought sleep every step of the way when Knight and the Newmans came blustering in.
"Looks like we're all finished," Ralph announced proudly, wiping his hands on his pants. The three of them stopped short comically when they saw Schofield hastily trying to press a finger to his lips to hush them but not disturb Beth with the movement.
"Looks like we're all finished," he repeated, this time in a whisper.
"We'd best be leaving you two to it," Mother added with a wink. "I'll bet you've got lots of settling in to do."
Schofield mouthed a silent 'thank you' over Beth's sleeping head and then they were alone as a family for the first time in their family home. Knight was at his side in an instant, lifting the sleeping child out of his arms and Shane immediately sank into the first available chair. His arms were glad to be rid of Beth's weight and his feet were doubly so to be rid of his own.
"She's asleep," Knight said completely unnecessarily as he came back from putting said sleeping child in her crib.
"Thank god," Shane muttered, letting his head fall back against the couch.
Concern washed over Knight's face. It wasn't readily apparent to just anyone but Shane could see it in the way his mouth crinkled at the corners.
"You okay?"
Shane would've nodded but that would have required movement and that required more effort than just answering.
"I'm fine," he said without even opening his eyes. "Just sore and tired, which is stupid because I didn't really do any of the hard work today."
Knight was at his side in an instant.
"You're doing all of the hard work right here," he said seriously, poking Schofield in the swell of his stomach.
That raised a small chuckle from Shane and even a smile. He took that as his cue to just stay there whilst Knight ran off to wash up the few mugs and plates they'd gone through during the day. He could hear him moving about in the kitchen, talking half to himself and half to Schofield.
"Not long now," he said, excitement evident in every syllable. "Have we talked about names? We should probably do that at some point. Preferably before the baby arrives this time. What do you think about Gabriella?"
Knight wandered back into the room, still talking to himself, "Nah, too fussy. Guinevere? Dramatic, but perhaps too much so."
It was unclear whether or not he expected an answer or indeed for Schofield to participate in the conversation in any way. Shane however, was rather preoccupied. A sudden and irrational wave of fear had shot through him. His breathing quickened and he felt lightheaded. Without meaning to, his hands sought out the bump that protected his daughter.
"What's the matter?" Knight asked urgently, dropping his playful demeanour.
"It's nothing," Shane replied immediately, shame already colouring his cheeks.
He couldn't explain it.
He wasn't sure he wanted to.
"No it's not," Knight said evenly and for a moment there, Shane saw the man he had once been - the man who had stood up for Rufus against an entire platoon, the man who had been so gentle when he broke the news to Schofield of Libby Gant's death, the man who would have been and still was a great father. He waited patiently for Shane to fill the silence.
"Can we not talk about names?" He said after a long moment, and to his horror, felt tears sting his eyes. "It feels like a jinx."
Knight laughed but not unkindly. The broad pad of his thumb brushed Shane's dry cheeks, threatening to catch any tears before they could fall - not that Shane would have let them but it felt good to have the backup. The motion was oddly calming and he found his breaths falling in line with the rhythm of the movement.
"Listen," Knight said slowly, "You've only got to hang in there for three more weeks and then this will all be over and the both of you will be fine. Both of you. You got that?"
He stooped down to find Schofield's eyes, drifting aimlessly across the floor, and grinned goofily at him until Shane couldn't help the smile that twitched at the corners of his own mouth.
"I got it."
"Excellent," Knight said, leaning in close so he was practically breathing in Shane's ear, "Because we've got a new bed - a bigger bed - and it could use some breaking in."
Knight waggled his eyebrows and Schofield let himself be dragged toward their new - bigger - bedroom with a snort of laughter.
But the unease still clung to him.