Chapter Text
Keith startles awake at hard and heavy raps on his front door.
They sounded like gunshots in the silence of what he assumed was the middle of the night, but as he gropes around for his phone in the darkness, he hits its home button to realize it’s three in the morning. His eyebrows furrow in annoyance. Keith tries to steady his pounding heart as he rises, shaken nerves causing everything from his fingers to his knees to shake. He eyes the silver baseball bat sitting near his bedside table, and grabs it as another round of knocks echo throughout his apartment.
As he pads quietly to his front door, Keith tries to think of who the knocking could belong to. Perhaps it was Acxa, a friend of his who was constantly at his apartment. She was either trying to escape her rowdy roommate and her equally rowdy girlfriend or simply making his electricity bill go up by wasting away on his couch while watching scary movies in alphabetical order. If it really were her waking him up at such an inane time, he might bop her on the head with the bat. He doubts he’d be able to though; she had the reflexes and speed of a cheetah. He would probably be the one ending up getting hit over the head.
The knocking stops and Keith pauses. He listens for something, the scurry of feet, mischievous laughter, anything, but instead there is soft wind making his curtains flap and a chorus of crickets outside his window. He looks through the peephole and, after seeing nothing, wonders if what he heard was real or not. He unlocks his door and opens it a smidgen. He catches a glimpse of something sitting on his welcome mat and opens it wider, expecting a package of some sort.
He is met with a baby and a diaper bag.
Keith drops the bat. The light in the hallway flickers overhead. This had to be some cruel joke. Who in their right mind would ever leave a child on some random person’s doorstep? You couldn’t get more careless and irresponsible than that. Heart beating a mile a minute, he forgoes bringing the baby inside and instead hops over it and down the stairs. He sprints outside and, with eyes darting around, searches for movement. Keith expects to see a car preparing to drive away or someone running down the street. He sees nothing and shivers. He’d ran outside wearing nothing but a pair of gray briefs and mismatching socks. As he heads back to his apartment, he looks up at the sky. The stars were gone, and the sky was violet.
He goes back inside feeling lost and shaken. Of all the other people living in this unit, why did it have to be his door they left the baby in front of? For a second he thought of sliding the baby to another door and rapping as hard as he could before hopping back into bed and forgetting this whole ordeal ever happened, but then that would be doing the exact same thing the mystery person did. He decided against it. If he wasn’t happy with this burden, he doubted anyone else would be.
With a shaky exhale, he lugs the car seat and diaper bag inside and sets them down gently near his couch. Keith sits and studies the infant’s sleeping face. She has long dark eyelashes that rest on chubby cheeks. There is a white hat with bunny ears sitting atop her head, a tuft of black hair poking out from underneath which curls around her forehead. She sucks peacefully on a transparent pacifier. Keith’s heart soars. She’s beautiful, how could anyone ever think of abandoning their child like this? Softly, he caresses the baby’s face and smoothes down an eyebrow with his thumb.
Keith pulls his attention to the diaper bag that he lugged inside, which is baby pink and adorned with cherubs. He brings it closer to him. It is heavy and thick, close to overflowing with supplies. He unclasps a latch and opens the bag to look inside.
There is formula, diapers, ointments and medicines. He unzips a pocket inside the bag and finds shampoo and baby wash, along with soft pastel colored washcloths and a bright yellow fabric which he assumed was a towel. There were many other items, like a thin storybook and a teething ring, but Keith finds himself drawn to a white envelope. It sits tucked behind a bag of wipes and a fleece baby blanket patterned with kittens. He takes it out and feels his stomach drop at the sight of his name, Keith K. , which is written on the front in cursive with red ink. Keith swallows thickly and opens the envelope slowly and as quietly as possible so he won’t wake the baby. He takes out the paper that sat inside and lets out a breath.
Tentatively, he unfolds the letter.
Keith,
Hey. I know you’re probably confused right now. Or angry. I was too when I found out about her, but I couldn’t possibly stay mad when I looked at her face. She has your eyes, and I know she’ll have pretty dark hair, just like you. Her name is Violet and she is our daughter Keith. Beautiful, isn’t she?
You may not remember me, or remember what may have led to this, but I remember you and how you ran away that night. I think you were scared, and I almost don’t want to forgive you for the nine months I had to go through all alone. It sure as hell wasn’t easy, so I think it’s only fair if I leave her with you for nine months so you can experience what I had to. It’s time you stopped running away from everything. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
I’m going on a well-deserved vacation. Don’t know if I’ll be back after the nine months are over, but I promise I won’t be gone forever. Promise.
Take good care of her Keith.
S.
Keith gawks at the letter in disbelief. He reads over the words once, twice, three times before flipping it over and looking to see if there was anything on the back, like an answer to one of the many questions swirling around in his brain. He wanted to see if there was an address, a name or maybe even the words “SIKE!” or “GOTCHA!” written in capital letters with that stupid red ink. There was nothing. He drops the paper like it’s on fire and looks at the baby, his daughter. Violet. His Violet.
He stares at her, and stares, and stares, and stares.
A father. He was a father. Keith, out of all the millions and billions of much more capable people on the globe, was a father. This couldn’t possibly be. This was a dream, it had to be, right? What was it called, when you could gain control over whatever happened in your dreams? Liquid something or other. Maybe that’s what was going on. He pinched himself, slapped himself, splashed water in his face. He didn’t wake up.
Keith opens his curtains. The deep violet of night was disappearing now, slowly being replaced by a milky dawn. Bedroom lights were turning on, a girl opened her kitchen window and rested on the sill, a steaming mug in her hands. So that’s it. It would be another cloudy day. Some reruns of Friends would be on, Acxa would text him something snarky because he hasn’t called her in a while. Shiro would be at work, but he’d still call Keith and ask him how he’s doing. Adam would possibly drop by to bring a meal, something home cooked and hearty, something made with love. There was no denying it. Time was moving on, as normal as ever. He closed his eyes. This was all real.
Keith falls to his knees. He was not a father, not in any sense of the word. He had no fatherly instincts, was irresponsible and unreliable. He partied and drank and smoked too often. He would leave for days at a time, worrying what little friends and family he had, before stumbling back into their lives without a word. He was reckless, had terrible habits and was ridden with anxiety. He was a hopeless, jobless misanthrope with no dreams or concerns for anyone or anything. A father isn’t supposed to do those things, be those things. He was not a father.
Keith brushes his bangs away and stares at his carpet. He tries to find the memory of him having sex with a girl, one he didn’t use a condom with. He goes through mental images of all the girls he’s met at parties and ended up in bed with, especially ones whose names started with an S. He goes through them, Sarah, Santana, Summer, Sapphire… He could barely recall their faces, or if he even went so far as to have sex with them. Figures that he got nothing out of attempting to slog through the sugary haze that was his clouded mind during a party.
A storm of emotions stir violently in his head and in his chest. He crawls over to his daughter and sniffles at the sight of her sleeping face. He knew nothing about this little girl, or the woman who birthed her, and yet he’d managed to let them both down. He untucked the blanket from underneath Violet’s neck and searched for her hand, which was balled into a tiny fist on her tummy. Keith unballs it and slips his pointer finger into her tiny palm. She immediately grasps it and squeezes. Keith can’t take it anymore.
He sobs openly and loudly, something he hasn’t done since Shiro and Adam had hugged him and told him they weren’t angry with him the time he’d unceremoniously dropped out of school and ran away only to return a month later. Heaves and sorrowful gasps shake his entire body, and he bends over onto Violet’s little lap. Tears collect in his eyelashes and fall onto her blanket. He wants to blame it on stress, wants to blame it on the fact that he has less than $30 in his bank account, wants to blame it on the fact that he doesn’t know what he’ll do with an infant, if he’ll survive. The truth is, he knows why he’s crying, but he isn’t going to admit the reason. He doesn’t want to.
Minutes pass. Keith rises from Violet’s lap and looks down at her again, sucking in a breath when his gaze meets his daughter’s. Maroon eyes stare at him in question and she unclutches his finger, an action that makes Keith’s eyes well up again. Violet looks around in curiosity and, when she doesn’t find what she’s looking for, begins to kick around in the car seat. Not before long, she is crying out loud, something her own father was doing just moments ago. Keith unbuckles her from the car seat and takes her out.
He shushes her, but she continues to cry. He tries to stuff the pacifier into her mouth, but she spits it back out. He rummages through the bag for something to quiet the baby, and ends up finding a bottle with milk in it. There is a post-it note stuck to it but he doesn’t care enough to read it. He just wants her to stop crying. Keith stuffs the nozzle into Violet’s mouth and enjoys the few seconds of silence he gets before she gasps and chokes and turns her head away. She continues to cry.
“Shh, it’s okay, sweetie. You’re okay,” Keith tries. “C’mon, please, please stop crying.”
The wailing continues. When bouncing and rocking her does nothing either, Keith gets up and goes to his room to retrieve his cell phone. He opens his contacts and thumbs through them until he gets to Shiro’s name finally. He should be up by now, showering or getting dressed for work. His thumb hovers over the call icon.
Is this the right thing to do? Would it be right to reveal to Shiro that he’s a father? Is that a bombshell that he wanted to drop at five in the morning, or even at all? Violet squirms around in his arms, the shrieks getting louder and louder, and Keith is unsure of what to do. What would even happen if he told Shiro? He would probably take her away and care for her himself. The thought makes him hug Violet closer to himself. While admittedly it would be for the best, it’d also prove that he’s as much as a screw up as he thinks he is. He doubts Shiro would ever even talk to him again after this…
On the other hand, he had no idea how to take care of a baby, or even raise a child. He had no money, no job, barely had enough food to live off of for the next week. He’s lucky this S chick was gracious enough to leave him supplies, but who knows how long they would last. He didn’t know how to make formula, didn’t know how warm to make her bathwater, didn’t know what half of the ointments and medicines in the diaper bag were for. If he kept Violet to himself, he’d be going into fatherhood completely blind with no one to help him but his instincts and Google. He would have to keep Violet a secret from Shiro and Adam. He would have to.