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Levi gets a call at four in the morning. He rolls over in the too-soft hotel bed to make a grab for his cell phone and nearly falls on the floor. From across the room in the other bed, Erwin sighs.
“God dammit, answer your phone, you ass.”
“‘M working on that…” Levi trails, finally grabbing the thing just as it stops ringing. “Fuck.” He lets his head fall back against the pillow and mumbles an apology to his business partner.
The damn thing starts ringing less than a minute later. This time, however, Levi yanks it off the nightstand and hits accept without even pausing to look at the picture on the screen.
“Levi?” It’s Hanji’s voice.
"Hanji? Why are you calling me at four in the fucking morning? Isn't it just after one there?"
"I need you to not panic."
He groans and then rolls over to see Erwin glaring at him. Levi ignores him. "Why would I panic? Are you okay?" There's a slight edge to his voice; the sleepiness is quickly making way for nervousness in his mind.
Through the phone, Levi can hear the shuddering breath his wife takes. His...pregnant wife. No. She's not due for another week, there's no way--
"I'm having contractions, Levi."
Fuck.
He takes in a sharp breath and mouths something at Erwin that looks like get your fucking as up right now. “Are you sure?” he asks, rolling over and getting out of bed.
"Well either I'm going into labor or I have appendicitis. But, seeing as though all evidence points to labor, I'm gonna say yeah, I'm sure."
Levi flicks the switch on the wall next to the lamp and Erwin curses. "Dammit," he calls from his bed, "we have a meeting in three and a half hours."
“Okay. Okay, Erwin and I will go to the airport right now. Is Petra with you?”
“Levi, I know how important this meeting is to you--"
“Are you alone, or is Petra there with you?” Levi cuts her off. The meeting isn’t important anymore, not by a longshot. He hears Hanji make a noise of protest through the phone and he stops her again. “Look, this meeting is shit compared to you and our baby, you know that. Now, is Petra there?”
There’s a beat before Hanji answers. “Yeah. She’s been staying over since you and Erwin left.”
“Good,” he tells his wife. “Get her to take you to the hospital. Erwin and I are gonna catch a flight as soon as we can.”
She sighs and then takes a sharp breath. He can hear her curse over the line and then Petra’s calming voice telling her to just breathe. “I’ll try not to have her before you get home, okay?” she breathes.
“Wait, it’s a girl?” They weren’t planning to know the sex until the day of. Well. Apparently Hanji couldn't wait that long.
"Oh. Shit, Levi, I'm sorry! You didn't want to know and now you do and I'm so--"
He takes a breath and cuts his wife off with a, "Relax, four-eyes. I would've known pretty soon anyways, so, for the love of God, just listen to Petra and breathe."
"Okay," Hanji says. "Okay, I'll be fine. Just get home soon, yeah?"
"Of course. I love you. Don't do anything stupid, alright?"
"I won't. I love you too. Bye. Oh! And tell Erwin I'm sorry for waking him!
"Goodbye, Hanji."
On the way to the airport, Levi's a mess. He keeps checking his phone for any news of his wife and child, but there’s nothing. Erwin’s surprisingly calm, though. After he’d heard why they were rushing out of New York so quickly, he’d completely understood. Having two kids will do that to you.
“Don’t worry,” Erwin says in the back of the cab. “Hanji will be fine. Petra’s with her, and she’s been through all of this before.”
Levi looks up from his phone. “Yeah, but you were there with her both times. I don’t want to fucking miss this. I promised I’d be there, no matter what. I can’t miss this.”
“Labor can take a while, okay? You’ll probably be there in plenty of time.”
“Yeah, well,” Levi starts, “I better be.”
The flight is short--just over five hours--but it feels so much longer. There’s no way for Levi to keep in touch with Hanji on the plane, so he’s basically a sitting duck. He nearly bites the flight attendant’s head off when she asks if he’d like a drink. Erwin tries to get him to relax.
“You excited?”
“About flying to San Diego? No, dumbass.”
Erwin takes a sip of Sprite and laughs. “I meant about the baby. Surely you’re excited. It’s exciting, becoming a father. Scary, but exciting--”
“Please stop,” Levi says, his voice harsh. “You’re a little too sentimental right now, old man. Your boys are only two and five.”
“Hm,” Erwin starts, “little Holden just might end up being your son-in-law. Wouldn't that be something?”
Levi clenches his jaw. “She’s not even born yet. Don’t start setting up your son with my daughter yet, okay?”
They sit in silence until the pilot lets the cabin know they’ll be making their descent in a few minutes. Instead of looking relieved, Leiv tenses and takes a few deep breaths in an effort to stay calm. He murmurs something to himself that sounds like I promised I’d be there and then begins collecting his things. Erwin smiles knowingly. “You’re nervous.”
“Of course I am, fuckhead. My wife’s having our baby and I’m in a damn airplane thinking about how I could’ve missed the whole thing by now.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“Stop talking.”
By the time they make it to the hospital, Levi’s a nervous wreck.
“I need to find my wife?” he asks a nurse in the maternity ward. Erwin’s sitting in a chair with Mike and Nanaba, who’ve been here since early this morning. “Her name’s Hanji Zoe?”
“Zoe?” the nurse replies, typing the name into her computer. “She’s in room 128--down the hall and to the left.”
He nods and sets out to find his wife. “I swear to god, if I fuckin’ missed it…” Levi trails as he walks through the white halls.
“Petra, how the hell did you do this twice?” he hears. Ah, there’s Hanji.
Someone--Petra--laughs and says, “Yeah, and my husband is a lot taller than yours. Plus I’m smaller. It’s a pain in the ass, but so worth it. Just wait until they hand you your little girl and she looks up at you with those big baby eyes--you’ll forget about the pain. That’s how women wind up having like seven kids.”
“Yeah, well I think one might be enough for me. Maybe two if this one is really good.”
Levi knocks on the door and Petra lets him in. “Levi! You made it!”
“Levi?” Hanji practically falls out of the hospital bed trying to see him past the forest of flowers and balloons near the door to her room.
He walks to the bed and presses a kiss to her sweaty forehead. “How’re you doing, shitty-glasses? Didn’t miss anything, yeah?”
“Nope! I’m nine centimeters dialated, so it should be soonish. How was your flight? I’m so sorry you had to miss that meeting, though,” she adds, a trace of guilt in her voice.
Levi moves to join her on the bed, sitting beside her while she rests her head on his shoulder. “The meeting wasn’t important. This is.”
“...If you say so. Oh! Is Erwin here?”
“He’s out in the waiting room with Mike and Nanaba, I think.”
Petra grabs her purse from the bedside table. “I’m gonna go with him and bring the boys up here. They’ve been with my mom all weekend, after all. Call me if you go into delivery!” she says, waving at the two of them.
“Bye, Petra!”
“Thanks for taking care of my wife,” Levi calls as she walks out of the room.
A few minutes after Petra leaves, a doctor tells Hanji she’s ready to go to delivery. A nurse hands Levi a pair of scrubs and some gloves and says, “It’s about to get a little messy,” with a smile. He groans while Hanji giggles.
Once the scrubs are on and Hanji’s wheeled to the delivery room, things move quickly. There’s not as much screaming as Levi had anticipated, but there’s more blood. And Hanji squeezes the shit out of his hand--enough to leave bruises, he thinks. But shockingly enough, labor is over within an hour.
Hanji lets out an enormous wail at the same time there’s a high pitched cry from the doctor’s arms. “Here she is,” he says with a bright smile. “You did a great job, Ms. Zoe.”
Levi cuts the cord and then a nurse takes the baby to go be cleaned off, weighed, and measured. Hanji’s crying a little, her glasses falling off of her nose as she takes in hiccuping breaths.
“Hey,” he starts, brushing the sweaty hair from her eyes, “you did good. Really fucking good, okay?’
“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
“She’s pretty,” Levi says softly. “Looks like you.”
“I hope she has your nose, though.”
He presses a kiss to the tip of her nose and says, “Why? I like yours.”
When they’re back in the room, Hanji’s exhausted. She starts dozing off with the baby in her arms, so Levi offers to take her. “You sure?” she mumbles sleepily. He nods and carefully extracts her from Hanji’s grasp.
He looks down at her. She’s got a thick head of dark hair, matted in little curls. Her skin is pink and soft, just like any other newborn’s. Although her eyes are shut, Levi knows they’re a rich brown just like her mother’s. She’ll look a lot like Hanji, for sure.
Just before the nurse starts letting people in to visit, she comes in asking if they’ve picked out a name yet.
“Yes, we have. Madeline Carissa Ackerman-Zoe.”
“That’s quite the mouthful!”
“It’s an important name for an important kid,” Levi says. And she is. She’s the most important kid. His kid. And he’ll spend the rest of his life proving that to her.