Title: One Love (Just Isn't Enough)
Words: 2382.
Pairing: Laurel/Oliver.
Genre: Romance/Comfort.
Status: Done.
Summary: Oliver and Laurel's kid gets sick and fussy when Laurel has an important work deadline and he won't stop crying. She calls Oliver to come over and help her so she can just get her work done.
Thomas Robert Lance-Queen wailed in the other room and Laurel pushed out of her desk and went to check on him. "Hey little guy," She said as she picked him up and bounced him on her hip. He didn't stop crying and she bounced him to the kitchen. "Let's just get you something to eat," She cooed at him.
A bottle didn't help. He didn't stop crying. "Do you need a change?" She asked and he cried louder. So no on the diaper change. What else did the books say about babies crying? Maybe they needed a temperature change. She put a blanket around him, but he still didn't stop crying. "What's wrong with you, Tommy? Mommy needs to work."
Tommy cried for hours and Laurel tried everything to calm him down and her nerves were fraying. "Come on, Tommy. Just tell Mommy what's going on," She asked as she pushed her bangs back from her face. She took hi to the bathroom and found the baby thermometer. Maybe. There was nothing except fussing that he was doing that would indicate he was sick, but that was the last thing the book suggested. She put the thing in his ear and looked at it 98. Oh no. He had a fever. "Oh baby, you're not feeling well. But mommy needs to get this deposition done, come on, please, stop crying." She cried to him, just holding him and rocking him back and forth.
After what was probably another hour of constant crying, she broke down and put Tommy on her hip and went and got her cell and called Oliver. She hated calling Oliver for this, but she needed him to come over to deal with his child too. "Hello," Oliver answered, seemingly in good spirits.
"Oh, thank god," Laurel said, relieved to hear something that wasn't Tommy's constant and unending crying. "You picked up," She wiped her brow of the sweat on it.
"Laurel?" He asked, hearing the baby cry in the background. "Are you and Tommy okay?" He voiced his concern.
She laughed out of frustration, "No, Tommy has a fever and won't stop crying and I need to finish a deposition I need in the morning," She cried a little. "Look, I wouldn't ask this normally, but could you come over and just watch over him for an hour or so. I just need to finish this deposition and I can't think while he's crying and..."
Oliver just stopped her in the middle of her monologue. "I'm leaving right now, okay? I'll be there in fifteen." He promised her, "You can always call me, Laurel." He said.
Laurel looked to Tommy and smiled out of relief and Tommy for a minute stopped crying. "You hear that? Daddy's coming." He let her have one minute of quiet and then it was back to fussing.
She paced around the apartment waiting for Oliver, bouncing the baby, which seemed to make him the least fussy, but didn't stop it. "Hush little baby, don't say a word, momma's gonna buy you a mockingbird and if that mockingbird don't cry, momma's gonna sing you a lullaby..." She crooned to him, but nope. "Come on, you can do it. Daddy's coming. Come on. Just be quiet for a minute." She asked.
Oliver looked amused as he walked in on the frazzled Laurel, "Has he been like that for long?" He asked.
"Just like four hours, Ollie," She said as she put Tommy in his father's arms and he seemed to quiet down instantly. "You've got to be kidding me. You come along and he just stops?" She asked.
"Hey," Oliver put his hand on her shoulder. "Just go write your deposition. I've got Tommy." He said, sitting down on the floor of Laurel's living room and playing with the baby who fussed a little bit but definitely not enough to reach the office.
She looked at the two of them on the floor, "Are you sure?" She asked.
"Yeah, Laur," He said, smiling up at her. "Don't worry about me. Go get your deposition done and I'll stay with Tommy," He told her.
Laurel went to her office and went to her computer and thanked Oliver for the blessed quiet that she had to write the deposition. She got to writing. It was so much easier when Oliver was there to watch Tommy.
She dove into her work and smiled. The client she had taken on was fighting for her daughter's stuff back from the ex husband. The Daughter had always expressed interest that her mother get all of her memorabilia but she hadn't gotten around to writing a will. It was a hard case, but it was fulfilling work.
She answered her emails from other clients and looked back to her work and realized that she had it almost done. In no time at all, blessedly. She saved the deposition and sent it to herself at the office and turned away from the computer. She heard Oliver on the baby monitor and smiled.
Laurel went and stood in the doorway of Tommy's room as he saw Oliver putting him into his crib. "You're a good daddy," She smiled as she heard the pleasant sound of silence.
Oliver blushed. "Oh, I wouldn't say that. You dealt with the crying for four hours before you cracked. I don't think I could have done that," He told her as he wrapped his arms around her and walked her out of the doorway and put her on the couch. "You deserve some wine," He said.
"No, Oliver, you really don't have to do that," She said, getting up on her feet and he smiled and just pushed her back onto the couch.
He shook his head. "Let me do this for you, besides, I can make sure that you only have one," He said as he went to the kitchen and got a bottle of wine and two glasses.
"God," She said as he gave her a glass of wine, "How did our parents ever manage it?" She asked him as she took a sip and looked over to him. Tommy being in bed really did a number on her nerves to ease them so.
He laughed. "Well, my parents had staff to help them who all had babies before us. And your parents, well they were superheros. Or they just got incredibly lucky and you didn't start being feisty till you were a teenager, but probably not," He told her with a smile.
"I don't think I could have ever dealt with a baby like me," She laughed as she looked in his eyes.
He shook his head and smiled. "You're a crazy good mom, Laur. You're capable of taking on the world." He told her as he flicked her chin and watched her blush.
"I couldn't even take on Tommy crying because he was sick," She said seriously.
He laughed. She couldn't be serious. But then she frowned at him. "Babe," Oliver got her attention, "He was crying for four hours and you had a lot of work. That would have made anyone crazy," He told her. "Don't even worry about it."
"You think that because you have to. Because I'm your baby's mom," She took another drink and laid out on him.
"No," He said, seriously, "I think you're a great mom. One of the best," He told her honestly. She was so hard on herself. "Come here," He said seriously and opened his arms so she could sit with him.
She pushed herself into his arms and he closed around her and settled into a comfortable position. She smiled gently at the whole thing. This was what she wanted when she first figured out she was pregnant. This moment was perfect. "Why couldn't it be like this when we were together?" She asked him.
He shrugged. "Don't know, but doesn't make it less special," He said. Laurel having Tommy was the biggest light of his life. Tommy was perfect in every way. But he and Laurel fought and it was better to have their own space, so he moved out and they shared custody.
"Do you ever think about what it would be like if we were still together?" She asked him, looking at him with big doe eyes.
He nodded. He didn't want to admit that he thought about it more than he liked to. Oliver thought about what it would be like to watch Laurel nurse his baby boy. He thought about what fun it would be to see her play with him. He wondered how she changed him. These were all the simple pleasures of his existence that he wished he could see. "Yeah," He nodded. "But you deserve someone better than me,"
"There is no one better than you," She told him as she turned around in his arms and looked him straight in the eyes. "Absolutely no one. You're the best dad there is. And the best man out there. My best friend, always have been and always will." She told him with upturned lips and sparkling eyes.
He leaned forward and tilted his face toward his and kissed her. She gasped and her fingers went to his waist as she drew him closer and he put his arms around her neck. He smiled as he kissed her again and again and again.
"Ollie?" She asked him.
He took his face away from hers a minute and saw her smiling like he knew she could and it was the most beautiful he'd seen her in a while. "Yeah?" He asked in acknowledgement.
Her cheeks reddened. "Do you want to stay over?" She asked him.
"Absolutely," He said to her. There was no way he was gonna let this get away from him and he picked her up bridal style and took her down the hall to her bedroom where they would no doubt have a laugh about the silly things in life. She held onto his neck for dear life and he felt like the absolute hero of the story when it came to her.
She looked up to him and sternly said, "Stop," And he did. He wasn't sure what he did wrong but he let her down and she went into her office and confused him. That wasn't normal behavior. She came out and smiled back to him as she showed him the baby monitor. Oh, yes. That was important. They should be able to get Tommy up when he needed it.
She didn't hop back up into his arms, but instead took his hand in hers and kissed his knuckles. God, how could she be so affectionate with him? He was bad for her. He was bad for the baby too. He was bad for the first Tommy. But it didn't mean he didn't want them in his life. No, in fact, the opposite, he wanted them more than he could imagine. The worse he was, the more he wanted them.
He opened the door to her bedroom and it had hardly changed since he moved out. His clothes probably still held in the drawers. She unbuttoned her blouse and threw it away. "God, you're beautiful, Laurel," He told her.
She shook her head. "Still have baby weight to lose." She said, caressing her stomach in front of the mirror.
"Shhh," He hushed as he moved behind her. "You look stunning," He said, looking at her body and pressing kisses into it and really doing everything he could to make sure that she felt beautiful. "But we should sleep."
She nodded. "I'll let you pick what we put on," She said, tossing the remote to him as they got out of regular clothes and he stayed in his underwear and she changed into one of his old t-shirts. She made it look sexier than he ever could.
He crawled into the bed and turned on the TV. She put the baby monitor on her side table and then got into the bed and put her head on his chest and for a minute he could believe it was just like the old times when Tommy wasn't their first priority. He picked out A League of Their Own just before the first big match.
"Thank you," She whispered to him after awhile, "For coming over,"
He shrugged. "In truth, I want to come over and see you everytime you have him. I want us to be a family," He told her, looking her in the eyes.
"So why don't we try the family thing?" She asked him and there was a little bit of hope in it. Did she really want that too? Did she want him around? He thought they always fought and they couldn't possibly fit quite right.
She looked intent on the idea and his heart swelled, "Really, Laur?" He asked.
She nodded to him, "Really, Ollie. Truth is, even on the best day, it wasn't nearly as good without you,"
He kissed her again. He couldn't believe it. They were gonna be a family again. They were gonna be Oliver and Laurel and Tommy again. They could get those corny family photos together. "We'll go get my stuff from the Queen Mansion tomorrow, just the three of us. And then maybe we'll get Mrs. Queen a coffee from starbucks," He said, giddy and kissing her.
She was never Mrs. Queen and would never be a Queen. She loved being a Lance but when he called her that, it wasn't too bad. Her cheeks flushed and she had the biggest stupidest grin on her face.
And then Tommy cried through the baby monitor and they both got up and went into his room. She picked him up and he reeked. "Mommy and Daddy are here," She gently whispered.
Oliver stood back and watched her undo his onesie and change him like a pro and then put him back and put his bottle in his mouth and how Tommy utterly adored his mother.
"Yeah," He said as they got out, "Don't ever try to convince me you're a bad mom, because that, that just proved how utterly untrue that was."
Her nose wrinkled and she laughed, "only because I have the greatest help there is."