Chapter Text
“C'mon, Cait, work with me here.” Vi sighed and tried to find a slightly more comfortable position on the couch. This far along into her pregnancy, it was difficult to exist without some kind of ache or soreness. She didn’t complain much about it – she was still working on her tendency to shoulder pain alone – but Caitlyn had developed a way of reading her and silently sprung into action at the sight of Vi struggling.
“Let me take care of you before you start fussing at me.” Cait moved to collect extra pillows, a heating pad, and a blanket.
“Tuh! I am not fussing. I'm trying to figure out our daughter's name. You know – the first gift we're gonna give her. Her introduction to the world. How she'll be penciled in on the fucked up family tree. That sound familiar to you? Did you forget to put ‘participate in the naming of my first child’ on one of your thousand pregnancy to-do lists?” She huffed again, this time harder, with a more pointed look at her wife.
Caitlyn made a noncommittal noise, dodging the sharpness of Vi's gaze while slipping the heating pad behind her back and propping her up with more pillows. She didn’t respond to Vi’s grumbles while laying comforting fleece across her lap. When she ducked out to retrieve Vi's thermos of tea from the kitchen, she did so sheepishly. Saying, ‘Sorry I'm avoiding this,’ in her demeanor if not in words.
After offering the thermos to her increasingly irate wife, Caitlyn finally sat down, scooping Vi's legs into her lap to rub at her feet. “I didn't forget,” she said quietly, looking up to meet the tempest brewing in Vi's stormy gray eyes.
There was something in Caitlyn’s tone, a subtle pleading for understanding, that turned Vi's mood. Cait watched her face soften.
“Okay. I'm not – well, I was gonna say that I'm not trying to rush you, except I kinda am. We're under a bit of time crunch here.” Vi patted the rounded curve of her belly for emphasis. “Junior's gonna pop outta me any day now, and I'd like to stop calling her Junior before that happens. It's making me nervous. It's bad luck for a kid to be born without a name.” That was a Zaunite superstition, one Vi had only grown more attached to as the countdown to her due date progressed. “Why don't you wanna talk about it?”
Caitlyn chewed on her lip silently, continuing to massage Vi's feet in lieu of responding for a few, long moments. Then, “I don't want you to feel obligated.”
Vi tilted her head, puppy-like in her confusion. “Obligated to do what, sweetheart?”
“Follow tradition. My family's traditions. I –” Her voice cracked, forcing her to clear her throat. “I've been thinking about my mother. And the House. And our lineage. Everything we left behind in Ionia and the handful of things we kept. Kiramman women have followed a naming standard for generations. I know we don't have to follow their examples. Everything's changing. That can, too …” Caitlyn trailed off, pressing her lips together.
It was clear that something was going unsaid here. Vi had a strong suspicion about what that might be. She was insightful with people in a way that often surprised them. Even Caitlyn, who knew Vi more intimately than anyone in the vast, endless space of the universe, was still shocked when she cut right to the truth of things.
“You don't want the convention to change, though, do you? It's something you wanna hold onto,” Vi guessed, correctly.
Caitlyn nodded in her solemn, serious way. “The last thing I would ever want to do is make you or our baby feel trapped within my family's expectations. I swear, that isn't my intention. I just –” She stopped, looking pained. “It's something I can give her that won't hurt her. Everything I've got to hand down – all this legacy – is a burden. This doesn't have to be. I want so much to name her like my mother named me.” A lifetime of yearning shone through there, powerful enough to send a sympathetic twinge through Vi's heart. “But that isn't the only thing that matters. It can't be.”
“Aw, Cait. I wish you'd said something sooner. You don't have to be all honorable about it. It doesn't upset me that you have a preference. What – did you figure going the traditional route would shut me out of everything?”
“Doesn't it?” Caitlyn laughed bitterly. “You've been thinking about it all this time. You've put in effort. Who am I to come in and impose all this on you, especially at the eleventh hour?”
“Who are you?” Vi started, incredulous. “You're her mom, Cait. You're not being an imposition. Ridiculous. You get a say too. I'm not going to pick on my own and expect you to ‘yes ma'am’ me about it. We need to decide on something that we're both happy with. Us. Together.”
“That’s not –”
Vi interrupted her immediately. “Cait. Can I show you the list of names I've been working on?”
Caitlyn's face fell. They were in that nebulous bubble of conversation where the possibility of miscommunication stirred strongest. Unsure of what she might see, all Caitlyn could think was that Vi planned to throw away months of work spent on lovingly curated names for her sake. She couldn’t bear witness to that kind of sacrifice. She and Vi had sworn to always be honest with each other, but in this moment, Caitlyn wished she'd found a believable lie to peddle. “I –”
Vi stopped her again. “It'll be okay, Cait. I promise. Let me show you.”
Her hand wiggled beneath the blanket as she fished a bit of paper out of her slouchy sweatpants’ pocket. She retrieved it with a victorious sound and handed it over, smiling gently. The extra plumpness in her cheeks made her look cherubic, holy in her happiness. That was – unexpected?
Vi passed the note over to a baffled Caitlyn, who took it gingerly, as though it were a bomb set to explode. After all these years of peace, she had grown soft. She wasn’t used to getting blown up anymore, physically or emotionally. She had to take a moment to steel herself for the internal fallout that would surely come with facing what Vi planned to give up. Then, she looked down.
Cassandra (we already call her Junior)
Cassiopea (Cassie – still honors Cait's mom)
Caitriona (two Caits might be confusing)
Catalina (sounds good with the family name)
Carmen (Carmen Kiramman – ha, say that three times fast)
Camilla (pretty, not really feeling it though)
Calliope (Callie … really cute)
Caramel (I'm so fuckin hungry right now)
Caroline (meh)
Coraline (not Ca-, but the better sounding -line)
Clementine (sounds nice to say, feels like a name you'd hear in either P or Z)
Cordelia (gives me real old money vibes)
Circe (too short?)
On and on the list went. Names written neatly, in different colored inks, each with a note beside it. A wild mix of stately, whimsical, classic, modern, and so much more – contained in ‘C's all the way down.
Vi watched Caitlyn’s expression shift with each new entry, patiently waiting for her wife to catch up with her. As always.
“Well,” Caitlyn began, her voice trembling and watery. “This does make me look quite silly, doesn't it?”
“Cupcake, you're the silliest person I know. That's why I married you.” Vi's smile widened. She was going for insufferably smug, playing up humor to disperse tension. To Caitlyn, she just looked precious. “Now, if you're done falling on your sword, I'd really like to pick something before your giant kid drops out of me. I feel her massive head pressing on my cervix right now, begging to be freed.”
“Violet.” Caitlyn wrinkled her nose. “Don't be so crass.”
“I wouldn’t have to be if you'd quit the stoic soldier act!” Vi folded her arms and harrumphed indignantly.
“Fine – I'm quitting right now. Just stop talking about your cervix.”
“Nah, not until you start picking names. And anyway, you weren't nearly so shy about the ‘vix when we were making Junior …”
“Violet!”
“I'm still not hearing any names. What was it the doc said the last time I got in the stirrups and she took a look under my hood ...? Oh yeah –”
“I like Clementine! Calliope, too! And we're not naming our child Caramel under any circumstances. Why did you even consider that?”
“Didn't you read the note? I was really hungry and it sounded sweet to me.” Vi snickered at her own joke. “Get it? Because –”
“You have made me VERY familiar with the concept of a pun. Thank you, love. But, if it's alright with you, I'll be striking that one right off.”
“You only just got the list and you're tellin’ me what can and can't be on it? What happened to the anguished, indecisive Cait of not-even-ten minutes ago?” Vi adopted an exaggerated pensive look and pursed her lips. Cait knew what was coming next. In a familiar mockery of the high Piltovan accent, “But Violet, darling, it would be selfish and evil of me to have an opinion about what we call our baby.”
Vi broke the performance to laugh with her whole body. She even teared up a bit, from the merriment. Caitlyn blushed at the tease, up to the tips of her ears, and rolled her eyes.
“Ugh. I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I?”
“Oh no. Not while I live and breathe. Even after I'm in the dirt, I'll come back just to haunt you with it.” Vi wiped a stray tear while continuing to chuckle. “And of course we're not naming her Caramel. Strike away. You gotta have a few shit options in the mix. Easy eliminations. That's a tradition, too. One you can still participate in, actually. I left room for you.”
“So you did,” Caitlyn murmured. The line drawn down the middle of the page made more sense now. Who knew one stroke of a pen could make her feel so touched? “I ought to get to work then.”
Thus, they found Caitlyn a pen – and that's exactly what she did.