Work Text:
'cause when you love someone, you open up your heart
when you love someone, you make room
if you love someone and you're not afraid to lose 'em
you've probably never loved someone like i do
When June wakes up, she’s groggy. Too groggy. But almost immediately she notices three things are wrong.
She hurts, she’s in an unfamiliar bed, and she’s no longer pregnant.
She blinks heavily as she tries to get her bearings. Tubes snake around her in bed and she lifts her right hand to find an IV taped to it. The walls are mostly white and the room smells like bleach.
Hospital. I’m in the hospital.
She closes her eyes as she tries to remember how she got here. She can’t. The last thing she remembers is fleeing with Nick from the Mackenzie house. It was dark. Cold. They were close to the border. So close. She’d been having contractions and he was driving as fast as he could through the near blinding snow, her knuckles white as she gripped the door handle. Nick kept telling her to hang on, just a little longer.
That’s the last thing she remembers. Terror and pain.
Her eyes flutter back open, and she stares at the tiled ceiling. She’s still in pain but the terror she feels is different.
Where am I? How long have I been here? Where’s my baby?
She raises her head slightly to try and get her bearings, hoping to answer some of her questions, her breath catching when her eyes drift to the right.
Nick.
Sprawled out in a pink vinyl hospital chair, asleep. His legs extended straight out across the floor, arms crossed over his chest, his head angled sharply to the right against a pillow he has nestled between his shoulder and the back of the chair. His chest rises and falls slowly underneath a wrinkled white undershirt; his black guardian pants have been exchanged for teal hospital scrub bottoms. The only remainder of his Gilead clothes are on his feet, black boots scuffed and untied. His dark curls are unkempt, looking like they haven’t been brushed in days, and coarse, black stubble casts a five o’clock shadow on his face.
She tries to push herself up to a sitting position but she overextends herself. A lightning bolt of pain shoots up through her core and she hisses in pain.
Nick’s eyes blink open and he pulls himself upright in the chair, wincing as he brings his hand up to rub his neck. His eyes squeeze closed as he yawns before they flutter back open and he registers that June is awake. Immediately, he’s on his feet, crossing the room in two long strides to be at her bedside. She sighs as she settles back down against her pillows, the pain subsiding, as Nick’s eyebrows knit together in concern, his features softening in relief.
“Hey,” his voice is rough like gravel, coarse from days of not using it. He clears his throat. “You ok?”
She nods in spite of the still lingering pain in her abdomen. She doesn’t want him to worry, she just wants answers. “Nick, what happened? Where are we?” Her voice is nearly as rough as his, her throat dry and scratchy, and she coughs. Nick reaches out and picks up a water bottle resting on her bedside table.
“We’re in Montreal,” he begins, offering her the water bottle. She takes it gratefully, raising her head slightly to take a hesitant sip, the cool water refreshing her mouth and throat, his answer providing her a small comfort. Canada. Not Gilead.
Nick puts the water bottle back and she looks at him expectantly, but he remains quiet, tapping his finger on the plastic rail of her hospital bed.
“Nick, I need you to tell me what happened. I don’t remember anything except… we were about to cross the border and it was snowing so hard.” She feels the fear start to creep back in at his hesitancy. She starts preparing herself for the worst.
He takes a deep breath, clearly not looking forward to reliving whatever he’s about to tell her. They’d just driven over the border, he begins, when the contractions got strong. Too strong. She’d told him to pull over, that something wasn’t right. He’d pulled over and helped her out of the car and there was blood all over her seat. So much blood. Sometime after that, she’d lost consciousness. His face turns as white as her bedsheets, eyes pinching closed, as he recalls this part of the story. The terror still too fresh, too real in his mind.
June reaches out and touches his hand, pulling him out of his dark memories and he continues. A good samaritan driving by happened to see the car. He pulled over and helped them. He brought them to the nearest hospital. She’d had an emergency c-section and a blood transfusion when they’d arrived last night, and she’d been drifting in and out of consciousness since then.
June swallows hard, nodding her head, taking in the overload of information, all of it explaining their location, and why she was still in pain. She’d remembered none of this.
But there’s one thing he hasn’t mentioned, and her heart sinks when she thinks about the reason why he’d avoid the topic.
The baby.
Her eyes squeeze shut as she gathers up the courage to ask the question she’d probably rather not know the answer to.
“Nick,” she whispers, pausing to take a deep breath, “where’s the baby?”
To her surprise, his face softens, his lips curling upwards into a small smile and her fear evaporates almost instantly.
“It’s a girl. She’s here, she’s healthy. Her tests came back this morning,” his tone lightens almost instantly as he begins to talk about the baby and June sighs in relief. A baby girl. They have a daughter. A healthy one.
“She weighed six pounds, eleven ounces. 22 inches long. June, she’s so beautiful.” She almost laughs as she looks at him standing in front of her. The stony-faced, reserved Nick she knew in Gilead is long gone now, replaced with proud new father Nick. “Do you want me to call the nurse to bring her? She’s in the nursery.”
June nods and quickly Nick springs into action, pressing her call button and getting the nurse on the way with the baby. While they wait, he helps her adjust her bed, raising the head so she can sit more upright without aggravating the site of her incision.
A few moments later, a nurse wheels a plastic bassinette into the room, pushing it close to the side of June’s bed. She checks up on her briefly, telling her that the doctor will be in to see her soon now that she’s awake before disappearing; giving Nick, June, and the baby the privacy they need to share their first moments together as a family.
June’s breath catches in her chest as she cranes her neck to peer over at the sleeping baby, swaddled in a standard-issue blue and pink striped hospital blanket, hints of black curly hair on top of her little head.
Nick was right, she’s beautiful. Perfect.
Nick looks on with her, completely entranced, unable to keep a smile off his face until finally, something breaks the spell. He looks over at June. “Do you want to hold her?”
June nods, blinking as tears slide down her face. “Yeah, please.”
Carefully, Nick steps up to the bassinette, his hands shaking slightly as he slides them under the baby, picking her up like she’s made of spun sugar. “I hadn’t ever held a baby before last night,” Nick breathes out anxiously, “the nurses helped me out a lot.” Once he has the baby settled against him he smiles proudly up at June and her heart swells watching him hold their daughter, already a great father, like she knew he would be.
Slowly, he steps over to the bed, leaning into June, and transferring the baby into her arms. Once June has her he steps back, releasing a deep shuddering breath.
“Hi, sweetie,” June whispers to her as she traces a finger down her chubby cheek, sniffling as she memorizes the slope of her little nose, the curve of her round lips. She smiles up at Nick. “She looks like you.”
Nick sits down on the edge of her bed, shaking his head. “Wait until she opens her eyes. Those are all you.”
June purses her lips, running her fingers over the baby’s fine hair, considering something. “I want to name her Holly,” she begins, looking up at Nick. “It’s after my mom. Is that okay?”
Nick’s head begins to nod almost on its own. “Holly,” he says, testing the name out, seeing how it rolls off his tongue. “That sounds right.”
June smiles widely at him before looking back down at the baby. “Did you hear that, Holly? Your daddy likes your name.”
She tilts her head back up to look at Nick, a knowing smile on her face. His eyes meet hers, warm and full of love for her and their family, and for the first time in a long time, she knows everything will be alright.