Chapter Text
**Fourteen months later**
Lying on her back, Rose holds the ring above her head. The ambient light in the room, even at three in the morning, makes the opal’s veins of color shimmer. The diamonds on either side twinkle like stars. Sometimes she stares at it and wonders what Tom was thinking. Sometimes she tears up, thinking of how he’d kept it, out of hope? Fear? Self-loathing? It’s something she hasn’t asked him, although he’s told her much more than he ever did before, and might even tell her this if she asked. She doesn’t bring it up because most of the time she’s done dwelling on the past.
But tonight she’s felt squirmy, itchy in her own skin. She usually sleeps very well. Tom and Will both had struggled with sleep those first six months, and nightmares for some while after. She never did – she considers that this is because she suffered so much the first time she’d gone to hide. She’d felt so alone…but she’s not alone this time. Far from it.
Beside her, Tom stirs. Usually when she’s awake, he’s awake too – it’s some kind of sensor in him, it’s like he knows. She stays still, trying not to disturb him, but even so, he rolls over and one arm slides around her midsection, his face pressing into her shoulder. His eyes flutter open briefly, and Rose closes hers – if he sees she’s awake he’ll ask her what’s wrong. And then he’ll be awake. Which she doesn’t want.
Yet.
She feels him shift, adjust, tighten his hold briefly and then relax, back into the Sandman’s world. When she’s sure his breathing had steadied she opens her eyes again.
He’s still so beautiful. His hair is lighter, there are more curls on top of his head, and his face has fewer lines. He smiles more, his shoulders are rarely so rigid, in spite of the fact that she knows he worries. Always in the back of his mind, he worries. He plans, he anticipates. That much about him will never change.
She is grateful.
The first six months had been the hardest. In those she’d kept to sleeping with her son, soothing him through most of the night, listening to Tom pace the floorboards when he couldn’t sleep. Sometimes he would pop his head into their room, kiss Rose gently, rub Will’s back, slip out again to rest for a few hours and then he’d be at it again. Pacing, restless. Waiting for what he was sure to come.
When they started to share a bed, after this ring had been put on her finger in a very small ceremony – where she’d worn a beautiful embroidered dress that skimmed her knees and bared her arms, something she could use for other occasions if they should ever arise as money was now to be rather carefully guarded – it had been temporarily worse. Will was not used to not having Mommy beside him if he awoke. Many times she wound up going to comfort him and not returning. Occasionally Tom had carried her back to their bed, unable to be without her, especially if Will was back into a sound dreamland. But by then Will was adjusting – to Tom, to their home, to their life together. His nightmares evened out, only occasionally appearing at their bedside for his mother. And Tom insisted Will crawl into their bed instead of her leaving. After an initial rebellion, Will now even curled into his father, every once in a while.
Now, at three years old, Will’s height is considerable – he seems at least as tall as a five year old. He already takes after his father in features – sharp cheekbones, dazzling blue eyes, and now a long, lean frame. He’d been 21 inches when he was born, one of the longest babies the nurses had ever seen. But now that he was older it was really starting to show.
It hadn’t been easy, Tom and Will adjusting to each other. Tom, of course, adored Will from the start, but Will was unsure of his father, and suffering from the trauma of their reunion had stacked the odds against him. But Tom was nothing if not persistent – although it was a struggle for him not to retreat for a time. Tom had dealt with his frustration with her in the same way, she realized, right before she left him. Retreat, and regroup.
Now, they were very nearly an ideal family.
A twitch in her abdomen makes Rose give a bit of a start. She’s felt it for about a week, but nothing strong enough for anyone to feel from the outside. Will had started kicking sooner and she had just begun to worry. But the second child was never quite the same as the first.
Rose was just waiting for little Hero to kick hard enough so Daddy could feel it. Maybe tonight–?
The flutter stops. Rose relaxes, rubbing her belly. It will come when it comes, not a minute sooner. She’s learned patience.
Tom’s fingers tighten against her hip. “What’s wrong?” he whispers into her shoulder.
“Nothing, Tom,” she replies, lifting her hand to rub his arm.
“Is this normal?” he asks. “You’ve been waking up in the middle of the night a lot this last month. Is it about the baby?”
Rose gives a little shrug. The movement makes another flutter go off in her belly – this one much harder. She moves her hand to track it, pressing to see if she can feel it. No, not quite…“Hero’s getting stronger. No, everything is fine, Tom.” She can feel him tensing up.
“Do you need anything?” Silly question. If she’d needed something she’d have woken him up long before now. Poor man has endured her mood swings like she never imagined he could. But tonight she’s feeling rather sane.
She smiles. “No, darling. It’s normal. I was awake a lot with Will. But that was probably…” She trails off, realizing she shouldn’t finish that sentence. For other reasons, she thinks. Reasons she no longer has.
Tom knows. His nose brushes against her jaw. “It’s okay. You can tell me.”
How often had she said those words to him? She’d been an utter hypocrite not to respond in kind. But she hates remembering those days. She hates making him think of them, even more.
“It was hard then,” she says softly. “It’s not now. Not at all.”
A jerk. Her hand is a mere inch away from where she feels the little foot give a sound thunk against her insides. She gives a gasp, reaches for Tom’s hand. “There, Tom, quick!’
"What?” He’s on his elbow to position himself above her, alarmed. But she’s smiling.
“She’s kicking,” Rose laughs. Another bump, another ripple in her skin. Rose barely gets Tom’s fingers in the right place. “Right there. Oh, I hope she does it again!”
Tom’s jaw starts to drop, amazement making his eyes shine, even in the darkness of their bedroom. “Is that…”
She holds her breath. Waiting. Come on, baby girl, kick again. Let Daddy feel you.
A prayer is answered. Hero kicks again, right into Tom’s fingers. He jumps, making the whole bed shudder. “Oh my God,” he whispers. “There she is.”
She’s seen him smile much more in this last year plus change. But smiles this radiant are rare. It’s just pure joy, pushing away the years, the pain, the effort and strain he endures each day to shield them from the past. He looks at her, his blue eyes sparkling like a little boy at Christmas.
“I mean, I knew,” he stumbles. “But…feeling her. What…” his brow furrows, but the smile doesn’t disappear, “what does it feel like from inside?”
“Sometimes like gas,” she teases with a giggle.
Tom gives a little growl, then bends to kiss her, holding her lips against his for a pronounced pause. “Naughty,” he chastises.
“Well, like bubbles, mostly,” she explains, still giggling. “They’re going to get stronger. Mommy is going to feel like a punching bag by the time she’s out.”
“Oh, my poor sweetheart,” Tom says, massaging the area with his fingers, but Rose knows he’s waiting for Hero to do it again.
“I’m glad you’re sympathetic,” Rose says with an arched brow. “Because I can already tell you I’ll need more tummy rubs.”
Tom gives a grunt, a smile still evident. “I’ll think about it.” Truth is his hands are barely five inches from her in the course of a normal day. Either he’s rubbing her back or her feet, kissing her fingers, kissing her cheek or just kissing her full stop. Will’s jealousy threatens to reappear at times with how much Daddy keeps touching Mommy.
She strokes his cheek, and the mood softens between them. “You do so much,” she whispers.
He shakes his head. “I’m just making up for lost time.” He kisses her again, his hand still at that place, but apparently Hero has worn herself out. “Will you please sleep? I don’t want you to tire yourself out so quickly during the day.”
Rose wants to tell him that it’s an impossible request – of course she’s going to get tired. She’s carrying around another human being and it’s not like she can just put the baby down and rest. But she doesn’t – she knows Tom’s fiercely protective nature and knows better than to counter it.
“I’ll try,” she says. He smiles against her cheek.
“Any way I can help?”
She bites back a snort. “I know how you’d help. That’s how I got into this mess.”
“Well, at least we wouldn’t have to worry.”
“And you’re taking full advantage of not worrying.”
Tom squeezes her against him. “Please. Like you’ve been able to keep your hands off me these last five or so months. I’m the one who’s being treated like a punching bag.”
“Only because you’re so irresistible, darling.” The mood swing comes hard, she doesn’t expect it. One moment bickering, the other wanting him so badly she swears she has the strength to flip him over and crawl on top. Luckily Tom is pliant enough to take it.
Would it have been like this, she wonders, if she’d stayed with him while she carried Will? In her darker moments she tries to picture it. Wonders if pregnancy hormones would have made her crawl back into his bed, in spite of her anger, in spite of her revulsion. Or rather, if they would have made her desperate enough to break from him openly, defy him to his face. She wonders if Tom would have been this giving, this attentive, this patient. This happy. If he would have tried everything he could to please her because she carried his child. If maybe he would have considered her desires for him to give up his criminal life, desires she’d never admitted to anyone, including herself. If he would have wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, or if he would have done everything in his power to shield Will from it, as he had her.
But there is little use in wondering. Tom is here with her, warm and real. That life is far away from them. Tom has sacrificed it to save her, save her and Will. And although she knows, one day, there will be a price to pay for this life, this isn’t the day she has to pay it.
At least not today.