Chapter Text
Aaron rolls his neck as he climbs out of the car, mentally making a checklist of what he wants to get done over the weekend. It was a habit Emily always gently made fun of him for, a wry smile on her face as she told him not every second had to be accounted for.
He smiles as he steps into the house, pleased to see that the box that contains the crib is just inside the door. As soon as he saw the email confirming it had been delivered he’d text his wife to say he would take it upstairs to the still partially decorated nursery when he got home. Part of him had imagined he’d walk in the door to find it already up there, Emily’s need for independence one of the many things he’d always loved about her.
She’d been more willing to take a step back and let him help her since they found out she was pregnant. It had surprised him at first. How she agreed to everything the doctor told them about her taking it easy without argument. She’d stopped going away on cases when she was just over 5 months pregnant, a spike in her blood pressure enough to make her doctor ground her. Aaron had said to her one evening when they were curled up in bed, both their hands on her belly as they waited to feel their daughter move, that he was proud of her for how she’d taken it all in her stride. She’d whispered back, as if scared speaking too loudly would jinx something, that she had waited so long for this, had convinced herself it would never happen, that she didn’t want to risk anything.
She was close to 7 months along now the due date they’d been given at Emily’s first scan that had once felt so far away feeling within reach. He was looking forward to seeing her, to spending time with her and Jack, after a few days away on a case.
“Sweetheart, I’m home,” he calls out, dropping his go bag on the floor as he walks further into the house, furrowing his brow when she doesn’t respond. It doesn’t take him long to find her, but he frowns when he does, his concern rising as he immediately picks up on the fact she’s annoyed.
He approaches her carefully, her fury rolling off of her in waves as she paces back and forth in the living room. He’d never dare tell her, but she looked adorable. She’s wearing a t-shirt that used to be his, the material tight around her bump, and a pair of leggings, an outfit she often wore at home now - changing into it from her work clothes the moment she stepped into the house.
As he gets closer he realises she’s muttering to herself, her eyes slightly wild as her jaw flexes, her irritation clear.
“Sweetheart,” he says as he steps into the living room, his presence finally registering as she stops pacing and looks at him.
“Hi,” she says, clearing her throat as she looks at him, her smile not quite reaching her eyes, “When did you get home?”
“A couple of minutes ago,” he says, not mentioning that he’d called for her when he opened the front door, “Is everything okay?”
She huffs out a breath and rolls her eyes, “I spoke to my mother.”
He berates himself for not thinking about it the moment he walked in and saw her pacing. There was only one person on earth who could get to Emily to the point where she was physically irritated. Even with her pregnancy hormones, which had given her more of a short fuse than normal, she was mostly able to keep it together - apart from the one time Derek unknowingly ate her snack one morning in the office. Elizabeth had this ability to undo Emily, to pull apart the walls she’d built around her brick by brick.
He clenches his teeth and gives himself a moment to get through the immediate irritation that rushes through him whilst he wonders what his mother-in-law has done this time, “What happened?”
“She called and we talked about the baby,” she rubs a circle on her belly, “And she said she wants to be there when I give birth.”
It’s the last thing Aaron expects to hear and it makes him furrow his brows, a laugh escaping him before he can stop it, “She wants to do what?”
“We’re talking about the woman who didn’t even come with me to the hospital when I was 7 and had to get my tonsils out, but this she wants to be there for? When I have a person tunnelling out of me?”
Aaron frowns, finally interjecting into her rant, unable to stop himself, “She didn’t go with you to the hospital when you had your tonsils out?”
She sighs and rolls her eyes, her arms crossed and resting on the top of her bump, “The nanny came with me,” she huffs out and she shakes her head, “And that’s not the point I was trying to make. I don’t want her there,” she shrugs, “I don’t even know if I would if we had a ‘normal’ relationship.”
“Em,” he says, stepping closer to her and placing his hand on her back, smiling at the press of her stomach between them, “It’s your decision. If you don’t want her there I won’t let her attempt to guilt you into it.”
She smiles, pressing her lips together in an attempt to hide it, and she raises her eyebrow “You won’t let her?”
“I won’t,” he says, kissing her again, “How did you leave it with her?”
She groans and rests her forehead against his, “I told her I’d think about it, even though I don’t have to,” she pulls back to look at him, “I just want it to be you.”
He nods and runs his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head as he holds her in place, “Then it will just be me, you, and her,” he says, placing his hand on her stomach, smiling when he feels the baby kick, “She’s kicking a lot.”
Emily hums and places her hand over his on her belly, shifting it to where she can feel the baby moving even more, an elbow sticking into her ribs as if the little girl was begging for attention.
“She missed her daddy,” Emily replies, “I missed him too.”
“I missed all of you,” he says, dropping a kiss on her forehead before he leads her over to the couch, “Where’s Jack?”
She grunts as she lowers onto the couch, the movement forcing the air from her lungs, “Jess picked him up from school and took him for dinner, he’ll be home soon.”
“Have you eaten?”
She shakes her head and rests against him, wrapping her arms around one of his as she feels him start to move, intent on making sure she ate something before he ever truly relaxed on the couch, “No. But let's sit here for a bit, then I’ll eat whatever healthy crap you pull together for me and baby girl.”
He smiles against her hairline, “Even even if I put brussell sprouts in it?”
She scrunches her nose and looks up at him, her disgust clear, “Don’t push your luck honey.”
___
Two Months Later
She feels nervous. It’s shifting around under her skin, making her restless, itching at a scratch that doesn’t exist as she looks at the time and huffs out a breath.
“There she is Mia,” Aaron says as he walks back into the living room, their 5-day-old daughter against his chest almost impossibly tiny in his hands, “Mommy is right where we left her.”
Emily immediately feels a little calmer the moment she sees her baby, and she playfully rolls her eyes at her husband as he passes Mia over, “Because Daddy told me to stay here whilst he changed your diaper.”
He sits next to them, his smile wide at the sight of his girls together, “You had major surgery 5 days ago, sweetheart,” he says, carefully looping his arm over her shoulder before he pulls her towards him gently, “I’m going to look after both of you.”
She smiles softly and kisses the top of Mia’s head, holding her closer at the mention of her birth. Things hadn’t gone the way she planned at all, and in the end, after a very long labour that ended up stalling, her doctor decided a c-section was the safest thing for her and her baby. It hadn’t been what she wanted but as soon as she was handed her little girl the fear and disappointment disappeared. It was a moment she’d been waiting for much longer than the almost 9 months she’d been pregnant.
She looks up at Aaron and feels her heart clench at the barely concealed fear that still lingers in his eyes. He’d been her rock during labour, the support she’d needed at every awful turn, but she knew him well enough to know he’d barely held himself together at times. Seeing her in pain had always been his Achilles heel. He’d been treating her like she was made of glass ever since, like she was fragile, and she was letting him - partially because she felt like she was. Like she could shatter at the tiniest thing, physically and emotionally exhausted in a way she’d never felt before. She’d let him look after her like this until she felt more like herself again.
Or, at least until Mia was the only one wearing a diaper.
“My mother will be here soon,” she says, resting her cheek on top of Mia’s head, the thought of it making her blow out a shaky breath. Her mother could pick at her insecurities easily when she was at her best, but right now she could barely stand up without needing help from Aaron. He knew she needed the support for this, even though she’d never ask, so he’d made sure Jack was out with Jessica for the afternoon so his attention could be solely on his wife and what she needs.
“Are you okay, Em?” He asks, stroking her cheek, protectiveness sparking in his belly.
She sighs, “Yeah,” she says, smiling tightly at him, “No. I don’t know,” she chuckles humourlessly at herself, “She’s criticised everything I’ve ever done. My degree, my career…marrying you,” she pauses as they exchange a smile, “And I’ve always done my best to take it in my stride. But…if she says something about Mia I don’t think I could take it,” she looks down at the baby contentedly sleeping against her, “I mean look at her Aaron. She’s perfect.”
“I know she is,” he says, kissing Emily’s temple, “She’s just like you,” he adds, and she chuckles and shakes her head at him, “Em, she’s coming to meet her granddaughter,” he says, pushing some of her hair from her face, “She’ll behave.”
She hums and smiles at him, “Why does that kind of sound like a threat?”
He’s cut off from responding, his comment that it absolutely was a threat on the tip of his tongue, as the doorbell rings. He feels Emily tense against him and he kisses her before he stands up, winking at her before he leaves the room.
“You two stay there and look pretty, I’ll be back,” he says as he walks towards the front door. He gets to the door quickly before Elizabeth can ring the doorbell again, not wanting Mia to wake up. He takes a steady breath as he pulls the door open and smiles at his mother-in-law as his eyes meet hers, “Elizabeth, good to see you.”
“You too, Aaron,” she says, stepping into the house and past him, “Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” he replies, closing the door and leading the way to the living room, “They are just through here.”
He pauses in the doorway when Elizabeth steps into the room, giving them a moment alone but lingering just on the perimeter. In any other situation, if his mother-in-law was anyone else, he’s sure this would be a moment full of nothing but joy. A mother watching her little girl holding her own little girl. He had more time than he cared to admit wishing Emily had the mother she’d deserved, but he also knew if she had, if Elizabeth had been who she needed, then Emily wouldn’t be who she was. In a way that felt endlessly selfish, he was glad for it. Grateful Emily’s life had led her straight to him.
He couldn’t imagine his life without her.
“Hi Mom,” Emily says, smiling up at her, her chest warm at the look on her mother’s face, a tender look she had only ever seen a handful of times throughout her life, “This is Mia.”
Elizabeth pauses before she sits down, her breath catching in her chest for a moment before she sits next to Emily, “Hello Mia,” she says, smiling up at Emily, “Can I hold her?”
Emily nods and shifts, covering a wince as she passes the baby over, “Careful with her-”
“Head, I do know how to hold a baby, Emily,” Elizabeth says, raising her eyebrow at her as she settles Mia into the crook of her arm.
Emily throws Aaron a look and he walks over, slipping in next to her on the couch, letting her relax against him. He reaches for her hand and squeezes it tightly, linking their fingers together as she feels herself itching to grab her daughter back from her mother, the need to have Mia with her at all times was something she was still getting used to. It felt instinctual, like something deep inside of her that overtook any time she was separated from her daughter.
She wondered if her mother ever felt the same way. If Elizabeth ever looked down at a tiny newborn version of her and felt the need to pull her into her arms, to just sit there and look at her and wonder at the fact she had come from her.
“She’s so big already,” Elizabeth says, and Emily clenches her teeth, her grip on Aaron’s hand increasing.
Emily knew it was a dig, that it was a comment aimed at the fact she’d put her foot down and said she hadn’t wanted her mother in the hospital when she had Mia. It was a decision she’d only felt more sure of when everything went wrong.
“She’s 6lbs, Mother,” Emily replies, her smile tight, “She’s tiny. She’s actually lost a little weight since she was born.”
It was normal, she knew that, but it didn’t make it any harder to take, especially since nursing Mia hadn’t come easily to her yet. Aaron had, more than once, found both of them crying as she tried to feed her, his reassurances that it was normal, that no matter what they’d be fine, feeling less than helpful when she was half convinced she was failing her daughter.
Elizabeth hums and looks back down at Mia, pulling the blanket wrapped around her back just enough to look at her face properly, “She looks just like you, Emily,” she says, “Right down to your nose, poor thing.”
Emily chokes on a laugh, the sound catching in her chest, as she realises what her mother has said. She doesn’t have a chance to respond, doesn’t have a moment to think about what she would say in response, because Aaron does instead.
He feels his patience snap. His barely there control over it, frayed by the lack of sleep that came with having a newborn and the lingering fear over how Emily’s labour had gone, disappears in a second. Her words from almost a year ago, before she’d fallen pregnant, ringing around his head as he carefully eases her up from him as he stands.
“If we do have a baby, and she ever says anything remotely mean about them or Jack you have my permission to break your promise.”
“You need to leave,” he says firmly, easing Mia out of Elizabeth’s embrace, his back turned to her as he passes the infant back to Emily causing him to miss the confusion that flashes across the older woman’s face.
“Aaron, it was just a joke-” She scoffs, as if he’s being ridiculous, and it just makes him angrier. He turns to look at her and clenches his jaw, his hands on his hips as he shakes his head.
“No,” he says, cutting over her, “You need to leave. I have stood by and let you be rude to Emily because she asked me not to say anything,-”
Emily sighs, wincing as she shifts forward enough to reach out for him, her hand on his arm, squeezing his wrist as she holds Mia to her chest with one hand, “Aaron, honey, it’s okay-”
“It isn’t okay, Em,” he says, his voice softer for a moment as he addresses her, “It’s never been okay but I am done just sitting down and not saying anything,” he turns to look at Elizabeth again, “So you need to leave.”
Elizabeth stands up, her brow furrowed as she crosses her arms over her chest, “I am her mother-”
“Then start acting like it,” he says, his teeth clenched as he tries to keep his voice down, still aware that Mia was in the room, that he never wanted her to see him angry even when she was only a few days old and far too young to understand it, “Otherwise as her husband, I’m not letting you in this house until you do.”
For a moment, he thinks Elizabeth is going to argue with him. He can see familiar anger in her eyes, he’d seen it in Emily’s before, burning and wild and cracking through the walls built tightly around her. Whatever she was going to say, she thinks better of it, instead she clears her throat and grabs her purse, her eye flicking between Emily and Aaron as she steps away.
“It really was a joke,” she says, her lips pressed together and she looks at Emily, “We’ve always joked about it.”
“No, you always have,” Emily says, feeling bolstered by Aaron’s defence of her, his love a foundation she could build her strength on until she could do it by herself again, “I never have,” she swallows thickly, any hope she’d had that this could be nice, that her mother would be who she wanted just this once, gone as quickly as it had appeared, “Aaron’s right, you should leave.”
Elizabeth sighs and shakes her head, her grip on her purse tighter as she walks out of the room. Aaron follows, acting as her shadow as he makes sure that she leaves. He closes the front door behind her and sighs, pressing his palms on the door whilst he breathes in and out slowly, desperate to relieve some of the tension in his shoulders. He gives himself a moment before he heads back into the living room, his hands in his pockets as he avoids eye contact with his wife, any confidence he had that he’d done the right thing gone.
“Well,” Emily says, breaking the silence, “That went as well as I expected it to.”
When he looks at her she’s got a wry smile on her face but he can see the hurt behind it. He walks over and sits on the couch next to her, he places one hand on her thigh and the other on Mia’s back over hers, “I’m sorry sweetheart.”
She hums and looks down at Mia, her eyes flicking over facial features she loves, especially the ones she’d never liked on herself, “For what? Breaking the promise you made or for the fact I have a shitty mother.”
He sighs and rests his forehead against her temple, “Em, I’m sorry-”
“No, you don’t have anything to apologise for. I’m glad you said something. Mia’s only five days old and my mother is already starting…being herself. I’m not going to expose my daughter to that.”
He nods and then kisses the side of her head, running his thumb back and forth on her leg, the material of the leggings soft against his skin, “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” she says honestly, “I need some time to think,” she rests her head on his shoulder, “Thank you for sticking up for us. No one’s ever stuck up for me like that before.”
He chuckles and pulls back to look at her, “You never have to thank me for that.”
She smiles at him, her words trapped in her chest. There was so much she wanted to say but she also just wanted to sit here with her husband and her newborn daughter and enjoy the moment, to sit in the love and joy she’d found and curated all by herself.
“It was really hot,” she says, her smile turning to a smirk as she purposely moves on from the seriousness in the air. He catches on, as he always did, and he smiles wildly, the same smile Jack had - the one she hopes their daughter will have too.
“Yeah?” He asks, raising his eyebrow at her.
She nods and bites her lower lip, looking up at him, “Yeah,” she kisses him, “But I’m sleep deprived and your daughter’s own personal dairy cow right now to store this away for blowjob points. So you’re going to have to remind me of this in approximately five weeks and two days, okay?”
He kisses her, his hand on her cheek as he kisses her again, “I’ll remind you,” he says, smiling before he leans in again, his words lost against her lips, “I promise.”