14 May 2022

Sylvie woke up early. She always did the first night she slept in a new place, nevermind the fact that she grew up in this house. Matt was still asleep, and her parents would be out of town until later that afternoon with some friends.

Originally, Sylvie had wanted to make some breakfast when she got downstairs, but she noticed her parents were low on groceries, so she decided to go grocery shopping for them. She'd never be able to repay everything they did for her, but she could try.

She got home around nine and the house was uncomfortably hot. She threw open all of the windows downstairs and flipped on the ceiling fan in the kitchen before peeling off her shirt. She loved Chicago, but nothing beat the fresh morning air and privacy of the country during the warmer months.

Once she was comfortably in just her sport bra and shorts, she turned back toward the kitchen, catching a glimpse of her scarred legs in the mirror. The scars from the fire two and a half months ago were fading, but they'd be there for a while. She and the baby were okay - and that's what mattered.

Back in the kitchen, she started putting everything away. Thankfully, her mom wasn't one to reorganize much. Everything still went the same place it had when she was in high school.

When Matt finally woke up at 9:30, he noticed Sylvie was already up and her side of the bed was cold. He padded downstairs and found her in the kitchen. It appeared she had gone grocery shopping, and most of it was put away. Currently, she was staring at a watermelon as if it were some sort of alien, arms crossed over her chest, her bare stomach slightly bulged out in front of her.

He stopped in his tracks. She had an actual baby bump. Dr. Cameron had told them it wasn't uncommon for some women to have to wait until the third trimester to start showing. Stella had a noticeable bump by - what had Severide said she was at, 22 weeks? With Sylvie's smaller stature - they'd both assumed she'd show early like Stella, who was obviously larger than Sylvie. Now, at 25 weeks, he finally saw it and a warmth washed over him, his heart melting. He'd never seen a more beautiful sight in his whole life than his wife, obviously pregnant with their baby.

Smiling, he walked up behind her, put a hand on her shoulder, and was leaning in to kiss her when WHAM!

Suddenly, her shoulder was no longer under his hand and her elbow came out of nowhere, making solid contact with his cheekbone and eye. "Ow, fuck!" he hissed, ducking away. He tripped over his feet and landed on the floor, one hand over his eye, the other behind him, holding himself in a sitting position.

"Jesus, Matt, don't scare me like that!" Sylvie chastized. Then, realizing he was hurt, "Oh, shit, are you okay?" she asked as she knelt on the floor in front of him.

He slowly nodded.

"I'm so sorry, Matt, really," she said, eyes filled with concern as she gently moved his arm from his face. "I didn't hear you come downstairs. You're gonna have a hell of a shiner."

"Don't I know it," he groaned as he pushed himself to his feet, offering his free hand to her. "Remind me to never do that again."

She gladly accepted and he pulled her up. She pulled a bag of peas from the freezer and wrapped the bag in a thin dish towel, offering them to him with a weak smile.

He held the frozen bag to his face and Sylvie's attention floated back to the fruit on the counter. "So," he said after a beat, "What's wrong with the watermelon?"

"Hm?" she asked, her eyes unmoving from the fruit.

"The watermelon," he said. "You're staring at it like there's something wrong."

"Oh, um, it's nothing," she responded quickly, flicking her gaze to him then dropping it to the floor. "I mean - it's something - obviously - but you're going to think I'm crazy."

"Try me."

"This baby's never coming out."

Maybe she'd hit him harder than he thought, because that made no sense. "What?" he asked, making sure he'd heard her correctly.

"The baby," she said, looking back up at him. "They can't come out. It's not going to happen."

Okay, so it wasn't the elbow to the face. She actually did say that, but she'd delivered numerous babies on the job. She knew just about every way this pregnancy thing could end - and in none of those ways did the baby stay in. "Sylvie, what on earth are you talking about?" he asked incredulously.

"Matt, look at me! I can't fit one of those -" she jabbed a finger at the melon - "out of there!" she proclaimed, pointing her other hand between her legs.

He shook his head at her. "Sylvie -"

"I know it's ridiculous," she interrupted, "but you know how tight it is down there -" she pointed again - "and our baby is going to be this big -" she picked up the watermelon and shook it at him - "when they have to come out!" She spread her legs and held the melon between them, looking between the melon and her husband, waiting for him to understand that she couldn't possibly do this. "And this is a small melon!" she added.

Matt raised his brows, unsure what she wanted him to say.

After a few moments, she turned and put the melon back on the counter. She twitched her nose at it in annoyance then moved it to where she thought her mom would want it. Turning back to her husband, she explained, "I started researching delivery options last week."

Ah. So that's where this was coming from. "And?" he asked, shifting to hold the bag of peas with his other hand.

"I've been thinking about it, and it'll just be easier to never have it. Little one is staying in there forever." She patted her bump.

He put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her, a playful glimmer in the eye that wasn't currently turning every shade of black and blue known to man. "Now, I don't know much about babies, but I'm pretty sure they have to come out." He smirked at her and she smiled sheepishly up at him. "Do you want to talk about it? Or do you need a break from it?"

"Can we eat first? How do you feel about Chinese?" she asked.

He barely stopped himself from groaning. They'd been having Chinese nonstop for the last three weeks. There was only so much a guy could eat before he got sick of it. "It's fine," he said finally, the look on his face giving him away.

"You're lying," she said, squinting at him.

"Not totally," he sighed. "We've just been having it a lot."

Sylvie stopped to think about it. She was loving her basically daily dose of cashew chicken, fried rice, and egg rolls - not to mention the fortune cookies - but they had been having it a lot lately. "I'm sorry," she said, "Apparently our kid likes it. What sounds good to you?"

Matt tried to think of something that would be close enough to keep his wife's cravings happy that actually sounded appetizing. "How do you feel about going out?" he asked finally. "It's a nice day - we could pick up something and eat at that park in - Gas City, was it? - right along the river. That way you could get whatever Little One desires and I can have something that's not dictated by a tiny parasite."

She lightly smacked him on the chest.

"What was that for? Haven't you abused me enough today?" he asked facetiously.

"It takes two to tango, Matthew, and it's not my fault you scared me," she replied matter-of-factly, "You should feel lucky it wasn't worse. The last guy who broke into my house got beat up with a baseball bat and crawled out. Pretty sure I broke a rib or two on him."

Wait what? "The last guy?" he asked. "How have I never heard of this?"

"It was shortly after I moved to Chicago," she explained with a shrug. "I was living in a shoddy part of town. Came home from shift, place was trashed, guy was still there. There was a bat on the ground so I picked it up and beat him until he left. I never told anyone - well, no one besides Harrison, but he doesn't count, then he had the audacity to tell me I couldn't take care of myself."

Matt mentally cursed Sylvie's ex. Anyone who thought his wife was anything other than strong and capable was sorely mistaken. The only reason he wouldn't be first to tell them that is if Sylvie beat him to it.

"Anyway, it was almost a decade ago. Now, let's go. Your child is hungry, and it's a whole fifteen minutes just to get there."

Matt chuckled, double checking he had his keys, phone, and wallet before following his wife out the door.

Fifteen minutes later, as they were about to turn off of Main Street toward the Chinese restaurant, the sign for a cash-only pizza joint caught Sylvie's eye. It was her among her favorites as a child, and her craving for fried rice vanished in a heartbeat. Matt gladly agreed to it and the two decided to eat in then go for a walk in the park before they returned to Sylvie's parents' house.

Their conversation about delivery options got delayed until they arrived at the park and started walking around.

Matt listened carefully as Sylvie laid out what she had researched, giving the key points of each option before telling him what she liked and disliked about each option.

When she'd finished, he nodded pensively. Normally, he might give his opinion in this space, but not with the topic of giving birth. He'd helped a woman deliver a baby once, on a call some ten years ago. It was an incredibly magical moment, and there was little he'd experienced like it since. He would give nearly anything to witness and be part of that again; however, he also knew that whatever Sylvie wanted to do would be what they did. It was her body that would be going through the process. His only job was to support her in every way he could.

She stopped walking and turned to face him. "Can I ask you something else?"

He, too, came to a stop. "Anything," he replied, looking her in the eye.

"Matt, I don't know if I can go back."

He tensed. Was she going to pull a Gabby on him? "Go back where? Chicago?"

"No," she said, quickly shaking her head, knowing exactly what through his head - because it went through hers too, after she heard how she said what she said. "We are definitely going back to Chicago."

He visibly relaxed and she grabbed his hands. "Matt, I would never just up and leave like that. I love you too much. I love Chicago, and I'm insanely happy with our life here - together."

He pulled her close and kissed her softly, letting his lips linger against hers a little longer than he usually would have deemed appropriate for public affection, but he didn't care. Swallowing the small lump in his throat, he asked, "Then where?"

She took a deep breath, dropping her gaze to the dirt path under their feet. "To 51."

"What? Why?"

"I've been doing a lot of thinking about what happens when the baby comes lately," she said, looking back up at him.

"And?" he gently asked.

"You, me, Stella, Severide - we all work on the same shift. What if - God forbid - what if there were a really bad call and something happened to all of us? Who would take care of our babies?"

He nodded solemnly. The thought had crossed his mind, but he'd always just brushed it off. Plenty of firefighters had families. However, he didn't know any families where both parents were on active duty. "Whatever you want to do," he said, "I'll stand by your decision, one hundred percent."

"I - I don't know that I could do it forever, but maybe I try the stay-at-home mom thing for a while. Then, if Stella wants to go back to work, I can watch their daughter, too." Matt nodded thoughtfully, and Sylvie continued, "I know there's an academy class finishing up soon. I just thought I would bring this up now. Maybe Foster will get bumped to PIC and 61 can bring in a candidate."

"It has been a while since we've gotten fresh blood in at 51," he said.

"So you like the idea?"

"Like I said, Sylvie, I'm happy as long as I have you. Sure, I miss you like crazy at work, but I think we've grown even closer since we're forced to spend time apart."

She nodded her agreement. "I've been more worried about you since I've been off duty, but it makes me appreciate the time we have together a lot more."

"Well then," he said, giving her hands a squeeze, "Do you want to give me a ride on Wednesday? We can talk to Boden and Chief Hatcher, then I'll catch a ride home with Severide."

"Sounds like a date," she replied, smiling up at him. Just then, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She found a text from her mom wondering where they were. She texted back that they would be home soon, then she and Matt walked hand-in-hand back to his truck and they drove back to Fowlerton to spend the rest of the weekend with her parents.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I sincerely appreciate everyone's continued support. As always, feel free to drop a review!