Work Text:
It’s easy to forget, sometimes, just how insane their lives used to be, just a short while ago, in moments like this.
All of the fighting, all of the pain, and the death and the seemingly neverending drama. The memory of it all just…melts away.
Oliver’s hand is trailing across her bare belly, round and full at 35 weeks. Every so often a little bump will appear in the smooth expanse of skin (and she supposes she can thank her mother for good genes and her lack of stretch marks). Each time, Oliver’s hand goes automatically to press against his son’s foot or hand, or what Felicity will swear to her God above is twenty elbows all fused together, meant to make her as uncomfortable as possible at any given point in time.
Currently though, for once, she’s relaxed and calm, nothing hurts, and everything is quiet. Her husband is alive, which is more than she could have hoped for just a few months ago, and their lives are theirs again. Finally.
It’s raining outside their window, and the house is completely dark. It creaks slightly in the night, like old, big houses are wont to do, but the sounds are comforting, theirs. The only light is the small lamp on Felicity’s bedside table, casting a glow over the two of them. She can hear Oliver’s soft breaths as the calloused pads of his fingers move over her belly button. It had popped a month earlier, to Oliver’s extreme delight.
The baby kicks again and then shifts, making her whole stomach move and jiggle. Oliver lets out a pleased huff of amusement.
“How do you ever get any sleep?” he asks her, his voice a quiet murmur.
“Hmmm, I don’t. Thanks for that.”
Oliver ducks his head and kisses another little bump. He whispers against her skin, “Your mother is trying to make me feel bad, but I’m not going to be sorry. Nope.”
Felicity laughs softly and runs her fingers through his hair. He lets his eyes fall shut in response and rests his cheek on her skin. The baby pushes against him a moment later and he opens them again, grinning up at her.
“I was thinking about names today,” she says, playing with the shorter hairs at the nape of his neck.
“Mmm, yeah, we need to get on that.”
Felicity nods. “Well, I had a few thoughts I wanted to run by you…”
“Okay, that sounds good. What were you thinking?”
Felicity bites her lip, wondering how to phrase her next sentence.
“I was… well, I mean, I was sort of thinking that I’d like to name him something that honors the past, you know? But I don’t want to put that all on him, so I also want it to sort of be a promise for a different future? Ugh, I’m getting way too ceremonious about all of this, I know, but-” She frowns and shakes her head. “But we have this new life, you know? And not just this baby, but our lives. We don’t have to be afraid anymore, we don’t have to be constantly looking over our shoulders, and he’s never going to have to live like that. But at the same time, we wouldn’t be here, if we hadn’t-”
“Felicity,” Oliver’s voice is low, barely a rumble against her stomach. She looks down at him and just breathes.
“I know,” he says. And he does, he really does.
She nods, swallowing past the lump in her throat. She cries at the drop of a hat these days, so really, she’s very proud of herself that she’s managing to keep it all together.
“I was thinking Jonathan,” she says with a sniff.
“Okay?” Felicity can’t help a little smile, because of course, Oliver doesn’t get it, not yet. So, she takes a deep breath and recites the passage she had learned by heart earlier that day:
“How have the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan is slain on your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was more wonderful Than the love of women.” She pauses. “It’s from Kings,” she says.
Oliver sits up slowly, one hand still on her belly, and he glances down at it before bringing his eyes back up to meet hers.
Oh. He gets it now. She can see it in the way his breath hitches. The way his other hand gestures vaguely before he drops it again. The way his eyes fill with a memory that has, over time, become a distant hurt but an ever-present force in his life. In their lives.
“David and Jonathan,” he finally manages to get out. And then, “Tommy,” he whispers.
“Yeah, I thought - I thought we could name him after Tommy. I mean, sort of name him. Like I said - remembering the past that brought us here, without all of the expectations that might go along with that… And just - it seems fitting? I don’t know. Tommy was the person who made you want to be better, put you on a new path, back when we were just getting started. And now, well, we’re starting out on another new path. It just seemed - hopeful. A promise for a brighter future.”
Oliver’s shaking his head and he chuckles. “And you don’t think naming him after a promise for a better future is hanging any expectations on him?”
Felicity smiles, because she can hear the tears in his voice, but there’s a lightness to it too.
“Well, I mean. it’s a sneaky promise,” Felicity shrugs. “The kid never has to know.”
Oliver throws his head back and laughs, and Felicity feels her heart swell with pride.
His eyes are shining when he looks back at her.
“So? You like it? It also has the added bonus of meaning ‘given by God’, which, I mean, all things considered has something to it, since I’m still a little huh? on how any of this happened at all to begin with. We were using, like, three different types of contraceptives, so yeah, divine intervention there for sure.”
Oliver’s grinning at her like she made the sun come out, and leans forward to kiss her softly.
“It’s perfect,” he says.
“You sure? You don’t want to look at other options?”
“There are no other options,” he says seriously, “This is it. That’s his name.”
“Yeah?” She’s nervous now, biting her lip again, because this is huge. This is forever.
The baby - Jonathan - kicks again. A big kick, right up against Oliver’s palm.
“Yeah,” he says, rubbing gently, his thumb brushing across her skin. “Jonathan. Yeah.”