Work Text:
The first time Reno really freaked out about it all, they were six months in. Six months, two weeks and five minutes (if you wanted to be specific), just after midnight in a sticky-floored dive in Junon, midway through July.
He knew it was that long for two reasons. First, Tifa told him at New Year, blurting out the news moments after he kissed her senseless to ring it in. Second, because books, magazines and appointment cards covered every available surface at Seventh Heaven, an unavoidable reminder of just how quickly things were progressing.
They said it was the size of a Tantal Green. Reno didn’t think he’d ever been so terrified of something so small.
It was a surprise to everyone (himself included) that he held it together for so long. Oh, he had a couple of wobbles along the way (New Year’s day was interesting) but he’d somehow avoided the absolute meltdown everybody else was waiting for.
It was inevitable. Luckily, when it happened, Tseng and Rude were there to detain him.
He was staring into his fifth bottle of beer, tilting the amber brew from side to side and chatting away when the words that triggered it left his mouth.
“The kids are pretty funny, actually.” He took a long pull from the bottle, feeling the familiar buzz between his eyes. “They keep talking to the bump like it’s a real person.”
Rude stared at him.
Tseng, already on the whiskey, missed the cue in Rude’s silence. “It is a real person.”
Reno laughed. “Yeah…”
He wasn’t bad with the kids. There was just a lot of history. Denzel took a while to warm to him, and things were rocky for a while. Marlene took pointers from her adoptive brother, and it was tough for Reno to win them over. He didn’t blame them in the slightest. They accepted him eventually, and that was what mattered.
The thing with Denzel and Marlene was they already had people to look up to. Barret was a gentle giant and doted on his daughter, and Denzel worshipped the ground Cloud walked on. Reno just had to behave himself when he was around them, tone down his potty mouth and make sure they didn’t catch him copping a feel of Tifa when they weren’t looking.
According to Elena, he was the cool uncle. He liked that.
Rude and Tseng were both staring at him now. He couldn’t peel his eyes off the beer in his hand.
“A real person,” he said, mulling it over. “Ha.”
“What else would it be?” asked Tseng.
Reno drained the last of the bottle. It was always going to be something dumb that tripped him. Standing on the edge of the metaphorical cliff, vertigo loomed.
“Shit,” said Reno, to nobody in particular.
Tseng waved at the bartender and ordered another round. When the tumbler of whiskey hit the bar in front of Reno, he downed it in one. The liquor burned on the way down and things got a little hazier.
“You’ve still got time to prepare,” said Rude. “No sense losing your head.”
“Two and a half months,” added Tseng.
Reno's knuckles were white around the empty glass. “What if it’s early?”
Rude chuckled, taking a sip of his drink. “It has your genes. I doubt it.”
“Ten weeks.”
Reno sat up straighter and dropped the tumbler. It clattered on the bar, drawing a disapproving glare from the bartender. “What?”
“Ten weeks,” Tseng repeated. “Two and a half months.”
“Ten weeks.”
“Reno… you knew this.”
“Yeah, but… ten weeks.” He stared at the glass, eyes wide. “Who the fuck am I kidding? I can’t look after myself. How the fuck am I supposed to raise a kid?”
How long had they been in Junon? Three weeks? It wasn’t the longest he’d been away from Seventh Heaven, although last time Tifa wasn’t pregnant. Now, three weeks felt like a long, long time. Too long, but suddenly nowhere near long enough.
She'd stood on the doorstep and watched him leave, laughing through the tears that rolled down her cheeks, assuring him she was fine. It was something to do with the hormones, apparently. Reno couldn’t keep up. One minute she was trying to tear his clothes off over breakfast and making him late for work. The next, she was bawling her eyes out staring at her reflection in the mirror and snapping at him if he so much as breathed in her direction.
He wasn’t cut out for this. How much did a baby grow in three weeks? He pictured the bump that peeked out beneath the shirts she refused to replace, skirts she couldn’t button anymore, the flutters and kicks that she pressed his hands to, breathless and wide-eyed. He wasn’t stupid. He knew it was eventually going to be a baby, but half an hour ago, the bump was just a bump.
Oh, fuck.
“I can’t do this,” he barrelled on, liquor making him tongue-tied, stumbling over the words. “What the fuck was I thinking? What the fuck was she thinking? I can’t have a baby. I don’t even like kids! How the fuck did this happen?”
“Well…” Tseng was smirking. Reno could see it in the mirror behind the bar as he stared, glassy-eyed, into the future. “When two people love each other—”
“I’m glad you’re finding this funny,” Reno growled.
“You’re losing your head for no reason,” said Rude.
“It’s a fucking baby.” Reno wiped his hand over his face. “I can’t do this.”
“You can.”
“No, I can’t.” He stood up, knees weak. “I can’t go back there. I’m done. I’m out, I’m—”
“Sit down.” Tseng kicked Reno’s stool. He buckled when it hit the back of his legs and he slumped onto the bar.
“I’ll get another round in,” said Rude.
He held onto the bar as the room tumbled slowly around him, staring at the forest of glasses. If he squinted just so they multiplied and warped and—he was going to be sick.
Reno lurched to his feet and staggered for the door. The doorframe attacked him on the way through it.
“Reno,” Tseng slurred. He’d undone the top buttons of his shirt, and his tie was trailing on the floor. “Get back in here.”
Probably not his finest moment. The alleyway wall caught him before he face-planted the gutter and he threw up on his own shoes.
He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and peeled himself off the bricks, leaning back against them instead. While the afternoon was scorching hot, the early hours were quiet, cool. He swallowed back the whisky tang and stared up at the sky.
Not a single cloud; the stars shone. Suddenly, he felt small. Inconsequential.
His first instinct wasn’t to pack his bag and bolt. That threw him. He wanted to go home. He just wanted time to stop, maybe, or at least slow down. He just needed long enough to work out what the fuck he was doing.
The sound of glass shattering dragged him back to reality. A silhouette appeared in his peripheral, hands shoved in its pockets.
“I can’t do this,” Reno said, palms flat against the slimy wall. This time the words weren’t hysterical, they were just there, existing in the air like a foul smell.
Rude settled in next to him and pulled a carton of cigarettes from his suit jacket. He balanced one between his lips and lit it, and Reno didn’t miss the fact he struggled to line up the flame and the tip on his first attempt.
They both stared at the smoke curling into the air.
“I can’t,” he repeated, when it became apparent Rude wouldn’t help him out.
“Too late for that.”
Reno grunted.
“If you want to carry on wasting time, be my guest.” Rude took a drag from the cigarette and blew a stream of smoke over his shoulder. “But we both know you’re not walking away from this one.”
“What if I fuck it up?”
“You won’t.”
“What if I drop the baby?”
Rude rolled his eyes. “You won’t.”
“I might.” Reno drummed his fingers against the brick. “Babies are small and wriggly, man.”
“So you know something about them.”
“Fuck off.”
“You’re forgetting something really important.” Rude held out the cigarette. Reno shook his head. “It’s not just you doing this.”
“I don’t want to let her down."
“You won’t.”
“I will.”
“Reno. I’ve seen the way she looks at you.” Rude tapped the cigarette on the wall. “She’s crazy, clearly—”
“Thanks...”
“—but she won’t let you fuck this up.”
Reno closed his eyes. “I guess.”
“Remember the first time you picked up a gun?”
He turned to look at Rude with a frown.
“You didn’t have a clue what you were doing,” Rude continued.
“Yeah alright… I get it. Practise makes perfect, yadda yadda yadda.”
“Nah.” Rude laughed, dropping the spent cigarette on the floor and grinding the stub beneath his heel. “You’re still clueless... but you haven’t shot yourself yet.”
“Bastard,” Reno replied.
The first time she realised things were going to be okay, they were sixth months in. Six months, two weeks and five minutes. Not that Tifa knew that. She was struggling with so many things recently, and time was at the top of the seemingly endless list.
It started the evening before. It was late, so late it was actually early, still pitch black outside. Too exhausted to feel anything, she lay curled on her side, wide awake. The crying never seemed to end and when it did, she couldn’t settle, couldn’t stop listening out for it. And Reno slept through everything, or so it seemed, snoring into his pillow without a care in the world.
If she wasn’t so tired, she’d cry. Her eyes were so dry they burned.
She was drifting off when the first strangled gurgle snapped her out of it. She was already sitting up when the wailing started.
“I can’t do this!” She fisted her fingers in the duvet, knuckles white. “I can’t…”
“Wha—” Reno rolled over, blinking sleepily. He took one look at her shaking hands and rolled in the other direction. “I’ve got it…”
She watched him clamber out of bed and all she wanted was to call him back, curl into his arms and squeeze her eyes shut.
The pitch of the crying intensified. Tifa drew her knees to her chest and balled her fists against her temples. Reno grabbed a pair of sweats off the floor and dragged them on, balancing precariously on one leg, and all the while the noise continued.
“Alright, alright. I’m coming,” he cooed, heading for the cot in the room's corner. “Keep your hair on.”
Tifa didn’t peel her fists away from her face until she heard the bedroom door click shut behind him. As the crying faded, her own sob bubbled through her chest and spilt into her hands. She clamped them over her mouth, shoulders shaking, and fell apart. Six months since she gave birth, and this wasn’t how things should have been. She shouldn’t spend every night balanced on a knife-edge, waiting for the baby to cry. Every tip and trick in the books fell short. They said she’d know, that her maternal instincts would kick in. Instead, her heart was breaking.
Eventually, her shoulders stopped heaving. She wiped her eyes on the blanket and reached for the light on the bedside table. The yellow glow illuminated puffy eyes and dishevelled hair, a body she still wasn’t used to. She refused to meet her shell-shocked gaze in the mirror when she climbed out of bed.
Reno wasn’t in the living area upstairs. She frowned, confused by his absence until she heard a faint clatter down in the bar. Grabbing her bathrobe from the back of the bathroom door, she slipped her arms through it and padded downstairs.
Eyes raw, she stood in the doorway and took in the scene. Reno sprawled on a bench in a corner booth, legs crossed at the ankles, their daughter tucked against his chest and sound asleep. He looked up when he realised she was watching them, dark shadows under his eyes and his scarlet hair sticking up at odd angles. He'd propped his PHS up on the table and she could hear the faint audio from whatever video he was watching.
Her heart ached.
“You should be asleep,” he murmured when she crossed the room to sit next to him.
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah… She’s cranky… like mommy.”
“I’m not—”
“I’m kidding.” He reached out, threading his fingers through a tangle in her hair, and slipped it behind her ear. His blue eyes were uncertain. “Have you been crying?”
“No,” she lied. “I’m just tired.”
“Babe… talk to me.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “What is there to say?”
“That this sucks? I knew it was gonna be hard, but fucking hell… it’s hard.”
He wasn’t wrong. She knew he was joking, mostly. The arm curled protectively around the baby was proof of that, but it was difficult, far more difficult than Tifa ever expected it to be.
She sighed. “Reno…”
“I know, I know…” He ran his index finger along the baby’s tiny ear and smiled ruefully. “But you can’t understand me yet, can you, Lily?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Alright.” He shrugged it off, the smirk fading from his lips. “Sorry.”
There it was again, the distance opening up between them. She wanted to tell him she was struggling, that she was constantly in fear of getting it wrong, that the books were telling her conflicting things and she didn’t know where to turn to. Instead, it was all frustrated words and snappy replies. She didn’t know how to admit how lost she really was.
“I tried her with the bottle again,” he said, as the awkwardness grew. “She was hungry.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe she’ll sleep now.”
“Mmm…”
A tear rolled down her cheek, and another, and suddenly it was like the dam burst all over again. She saw the flash of surprise cross Reno’s face before he shifted along the leather bench, careful not to disturb the baby, and wrapped his free arm around her shoulders.
“What is there to say, huh?” The exasperation was clear in his voice. “Are you gonna talk to me now?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He laughed humorlessly. “Hey, you’re right. We don’t want baby’s first word to be—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He hesitated. “I know. But you won’t tell me what’s wrong, so I’m clutching at straws, babe.”
“She won’t sleep. She won’t feed. I should know how to do this.”
“Says who?” He pulled her closer. “We’re learning. It’s not like she came with instructions.”
“But the books—”
“Screw the books. They’re not gonna come and stop her crying at four a.m. when she’s fed and changed and I still can’t get her to sleep.”
“I thought it was just me.” Hearing her own worries in Reno’s drawl chipped away at the lead weight in her stomach. “You always know what to do.”
“I haven’t got a fucking clue.” He sighed, and she let that profanity slide. “It’s driving me crazy too. But babe, you’ve gotta stop worrying so much. You’re gonna make yourself sick.”
“But nothing works! When she cries, it hurts!”
Tifa didn’t know how else to explain it, how to put a voice to the slew of emotions, worse still how useless she felt when she couldn’t stop Lily crying. Her baby. The fear of making a mistake was constant, scraps of information and old wives’ tales floating through her head, exhausted the entire time. And the entire time, Lily cried.
“It’s no fun for me either,” he muttered.
“You’re not listening to me.”
“You’re not making any sense!”
She inhaled slowly, forcing the bite out of her voice. “I should know what she needs. That’s how it’s meant to work.”
The conflict played out over his face. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer. Calmer. “I’m being a dick because I’m tired.”
“I’m tired too.”
“I know… Babe, all she needs is you.”
Tifa stared at her hands.
“And food,” he added, as an afterthought. “Not sleep, apparently.”
“No...”
Tifa tucked her feet under herself and curled a little closer into his side, her palm flat against his bare chest. It was so big compared to Lily’s… ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes. When she was sleeping she looked so peaceful, so delicate.
So fragile.
“I thought I knew what was coming,” she murmured against his skin.
“She’s a baby... Babies are unpredictable.” Reno pressed his nose into her hair, chuckling softly. “See, she’s taking after me already.”
On some level, she knew he was trying to make her laugh. Lack of sleep just made the tears roll again.
“Babe…” There was an edge of panic in his voice now. “I was joking.”
“I know,” she sobbed.
“Don’t cry…”
“I can’t help it!”
“She’s all you, really.” His lips were gentle against her hair. “She’s got your eyes and nose and everything. She’s perfect.”
She didn't reply.
“You’re perfect,” he murmured, filling her silence. “So you’ve gotta stop being so hard on yourself. Lily’s got everything she needs right here. You’re doing a great job.”
His skin was warm beneath her cheek. Tifa inhaled slowly, listening to the steady beat of his heart. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“They use sleep deprivation to torture people for a reason.”
Part laugh, part sob, part hiccup. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Sure you can. We’ll do it together.”
“But what if—”
“You can.” He kissed her temple. “Hey, you know who is good with kids? Elena.”
“Really?”
“Her sister has two. Maybe she has a manual or something.”
“Maybe…”
She yawned. It seemed to rattle through her, making her hands shake and her eyes water.
“Tifa, go back to bed.”
“No… I’ll take her.” She tried to sit up, head spinning. “You’ve got work in the morning.”
He held her in place against his side and kissed her again, lips lingering against her cheek. “I’ll work from home.”
“You can’t—”
“You need me,” he said simply. “They’ll understand.”
Tifa woke a little after six a.m., tangled in Reno’s arms. He protested vainly when she tried to extricate herself, grumbling incoherently in her ear. By the time she slipped out of bed, he’d pressed his face back into his pillow and was snoring again.
They’d put the cot in the corner, so it wouldn’t be too close to the window. Early morning sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains and cast her shadow across the wall when she stood beside it. Lily’s dark eyes were wide, curious. She kicked and wriggled, chirruping contentedly, not a single trace of the wailing she’d kept up through the night. Tifa stroked her cheek, wondering how something so small could turn so much of her life upside down.
She smiled. “Good morning...”
Lily gurgled. Some upturned pieces fell back into place.
Reno was wrong about one thing. Tifa could see him in the shape of Lily’s face, her high cheekbones and the curve of her mouth. Wispy strands of hair curled around her forehead, and Tifa gently smoothed them down.
Behind her, the bed creaked. When she looked over her shoulder, Reno was watching her. “Is she awake?”
“Yeah.”
“And she isn’t crying?” The pillow half-concealed his lopsided grin. “It’s a miracle.”
Tifa scooped the baby out of the cot and settled her against her shoulder. “She is.”
“No, no, no.” He propped himself up on his elbow. “Come back to bed.”
“The kids—”
“Can make their own breakfast today,” he cut in, yawning widely. “Come on... You need it.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Fine. I’ll make breakfast,” he corrected himself. “And you can stay here.”
“The last time you made breakfast, Marlene was sick,” Tifa reminded him.
“But now I know why you ration the syrup.” Reno laughed, sitting up against the pillows. “Get over here.”
“Lily needs—”
“Bring her too.” He held his hands out, calling her closer. “I’m not getting out of bed before seven and you can’t make me.”
His cocky grin melted her resolve. Tifa climbed back into bed, careful of the wriggling baby in her arms. Reno wrapped himself around her, dragging her against his chest. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder and buried his face in the crook of her neck, rearranging the blankets over her bare legs.
“That’s better.” He wound his arms back around her waist. “Did you sleep?”
“A little.”
“So… last night…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He kissed her cheek. “But you’ve gotta start talking to me.”
“I’m tired.” She shifted Lily’s weight to her other arm, holding her a little more snugly. “She’s so small. I don’t want to get it wrong.”
“You won’t.”
“What if I do, though?” She sighed, struggling to find the words again. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared.”
His breath was hot and damp in her ear. “She’s a fighter. Look at her parents. She’s gonna be fine.”
“You can’t know that.”
“We’re gonna be fine.”
She settled back against him, feeling his warmth seep through her nightshirt. She needed this moment of peace. Reno’s body was reassuringly solid at her back, Lily resting over her heart. It was comfortable, calm, as though a sense of normality returned. She stroked Lily’s pudgy arm, grounding herself in the feel of her skin, soft and pink.
Eventually, Reno broke the silence.
“I’m scared too. But you can’t keep focusing on the shit that might go wrong. You’ll miss all the shit that’s going right.” He dipped his chin to kiss her shoulder, his dishevelled hair tickling her neck. “Maybe we can get Elena to babysit when we’ve got the hang of things... take a little time out.”
She stroked Lily’s cheek. “I’d like that.”
“I’ll buy you dinner.” He slipped his hands beneath her shirt. They were warm against her skin. “You can wear that red dress I like.”
“I doubt it still fits.”
“Then I’ll buy you a new one.” He yawned against her ear. “I’ll buy you anything you want.”
“Stop being a creep.”
“Did I ever tell you how much I love you?”
Reno kissed her before she could reply, sweet and warm, and that was when it clicked, with him wrapped around her and Lily asleep in her arms. Things were going to be okay. They might not be perfect, but when had they ever been? Okay was more than enough for now. She let the tension drain from her body and lost herself in the gentle rise and fall of his chest.
Her eyes were drifting shut when he whispered in her ear. “This isn’t so bad, is it?”
“No,” she agreed. “It’s not.”