Chapter Text
Syd’s already awake, doing yoga, when her phone rings. Usually she’d have it on silent, on the kitchen counter, and most people know not to call her during her yoga half-hour, but not this morning. She drops out of Plow Pose with a very non-yogi-like thud and grabs her phone hurriedly.
“Hello?”
“It’s Noah,” answers the voice on the other end. “Baby’s here! She’s tiny, Finn’s overwhelmed, and the Berrys are overbearing.”
Syd grins. “Well, nothing too terribly new in that report, Noah. Are they up for visitors? What’s her name? How much does she weigh?”
“Yes, Eliza, and actually, I don’t know,” Noah admits. “We’re grabbing breakfast and something to go for Finn, and then we’ll head back. We went up right after she was born and.” Noah stops and sighs into the phone, and it echoes in Syd’s head. “He hadn’t held her yet. The Berrys had.”
“That woman.” Syd bites down on her lip, hard. “I’m going to do a few things and I’ll head over. With champagne!”
Noah laughs. “We’ll definitely stick around until you get there, then. Shit, food’s here. Later, Syd.”
“Bye, Noah,” Syd responds, but she’s pretty sure the call disconnected before she got the words out. She shakes her head once and turns off the yoga program, heading for the shower. She has no idea how long it’ll take to make it up to Columbus Circle at this hour on a Monday morning.
By the time Syd finally steps off the elevator into the birth center, she’s convinced it’s far later than what her watch tells her. The receptionist quickly points her in the right direction, though, and she peeks in just as she’s about to knock on the doorframe.
What she sees, however, makes her freeze, hand hovering in the air, and then she slowly lowers it. Rachel’s asleep, and Finn’s sitting with the baby—Eliza—in his arms, Kurt and Noah on either side of him. She can’t see Finn’s face, since it’s bent over Eliza, and Kurt and Noah’s heads are resting on each of Finn’s shoulders.
The scene is so sweet that Syd can’t interrupt it or whatever they’re saying to each other, so she just stands there, watching them as they fall silent. After a minute, she slowly pulls out her phone, turning it to silent and disengaging the flash so that she can snap a few pictures before they realize.
All of the pictures look good, but it’s the third one that really makes her grin, and she leans against the wall while she works on her phone, sending it to one of the few photograph printing places still around. She’ll grab the print at lunch and pick up a frame at the same time. Syd’s pretty sure she can find one that will work with the rest of the nursery, and there’s nothing about the picture that can’t be displayed.
When she peeks around the doorframe again, the moment is over, and she grins broadly, hefting the champagne bottle as she walks in to meet her new (honorary) niece.