Work Text:
It’s nearing midnight when Lucy Gray gives birth. He’s holding her hand.
He had been outside, in the private waiting room they had allocated for him. Listening to her cries and her screams.
He had brought her to the hospital, had paid for the best and made sure she was given every luxury the Capitol gave those having children. His Lucy Gray had gone through enough, he would be damned if he could not give her more. He had fully intended to stay by her side the entire time, especially when her water had broken and she had looked up at him with those big dark eyes. Full of fear , he thought. She had gripped his hand all the way to the hospital, her breaths tight. But when they had gotten here, the nurses had ushered him out of the hospital room, and the doctor had come down moments later and said that ‘ it was just not the done thing ’, and that was that.
And so he had stayed sat in the leather chair, his arms in his lap and his eyes wide as he waited, as he listened to her screams. It had been hours by then, and despite the nurses continuously asking if he wanted something, a drink or something to eat, he had shook his head and waited. All he wanted was to know that she was okay.
Her cries and her screams haunted him, it reminded him of the Games. Of when she had been there, and he could see her suffering, that even when he closed his eyes, he could hear her struggling but he could do nothing but wait for her to be okay. And she had been. She had been okay, and it had been four years, and he had done everything he could to make sure that Lucy Gray would forever be okay. She was his, and he needed her to be okay.
But this? Childbirth was risky for any woman, let alone someone like Lucy Gray, so small and fragile. She had been so badly malnourished when he had first met her, in her rainbow dress and dirty face. It had taken more than a few months for him to fix that for her.
What if he couldn’t fix this?
What if there was nothing of her to fix anymore?
So he had listened to her screams, because they were signs she was alive and no matter how awful they sounded to him, no matter what alarm bells rang in his head, no matter what memories her cries conjured up, he had listened to them.
And then it went silent. No more cries, no more screams. No more Lucy Gray, he thought for a moment, his skin turning white and the thoughts leaving his mind. Coriolanus had liked silence, in fact for a long while he had thought that silence was for the best. He had worked best in the silence of the night, had hated when the old faucet was leaking in the bathroom and the constant drip, drip had ruined his silence and made him want to tear out his curls.
Coriolanus Snow had liked silence, and then he had met Lucy Gray, and he had never liked silence again. Now, he liked when he could hear her soft breaths when they slept next to each other at night, how each breath was like a personal ringer to remind him that she was alive and safe. He liked hearing her footsteps around their home. Lucy Gray had never been a quiet girl, she was full of life and she made that known as she danced through the corridors and rooms. He liked when she hummed under her breath, doing her makeup in the mornings and getting dressed, her little tunes being the backdrop of his morning. He especially liked the days when she sat in his office with him, humming so sweetly whilst she read her books, not even aware that she was doing it. He liked when the humming was accompanied by the guitar. When he was home, he would often find himself standing just off the slightly ajar door of her music room, listening to her. How the strums of her guitar and her hums turned into words as she weaved together songs from nothing. He loved her words, whether she was talking to him at the dinner table about her day, or whispering secrets to him at night, or singing her lovely songs.
Coriolanus loved her songs. He loved it when she sang. He was damn near obsessed with her voice when she sang about him.
But now she was silent, no songs, no words, no humming, and from this far away he couldn’t even hear her breaths. Not even her cries, which had hurt to hear, but even he wanted those instead of silence. It was driving him mad with grief. He was so young when his mother had died, but even he could remember the silence of their home afterwards. It was meant to be loud, there was meant to be a baby, his baby sister, and babies were meant to be loud. And yet, it had been so, so quiet.
His eyes flooded with unshed tears, he had never been aware of his contempt for silence, having grown up in it, but he couldn’t bear the idea of returning to it now.
He needed to see. If his Lucy Gray was gone, he needed to see her, to be with her, to love her in her last moments. He got up, limbs shaking as he walked towards the doors. From outside them he could hear the beeping and the murmurs of the nurses and doctors talking, and he had bursted in.
The nurses and the doctors had all turned to him in shock, immediately getting in his way to try and convince him to go back out, and wait and that it would all be over soon. He couldn't care less once he spotted his Lucy Gray, not dead. Still, but not dead. Her face was red, cheeks covered in fresh tears, her lovely dark curls strung around all over the place, she was crying. His Lucy Gray was crying, and nothing else mattered to him.
Moving past the nurses, completely ignoring their pleas, he found his way to her side, and took her face into his hands, wiping away her tears with his thumbs. He had leaned forward, burying his nose and chin at the top of her curls breathing in as he placed a few featherlight kisses on his girl. And then he whispered, only for her to hear.
“You can do this my love, I’ll be here the whole time, watching over you. I know it hurts, but I know you can do it.”
And for that Lucy Gray had turned and buried her face in his chest, and sobbed. When the nurse came again to touch his arm, he had turned his head, and with all the authority he could muster, he told them that he was not leaving and to bring him a chair. He was sure he was met with some comments and some more urging, but all else faded away as his attention remained on Lucy Gray, crying in his arms. He whispered in her hair more; how proud he was, how strong she was, how happy she had made him. And after a while she began pushing again, even through her tears which Coriolanus dutifully wiped up.
He sat there as she pushed, her hand gripping his so tightly, but he said nothing. Not about how her nails had made marks in his hand, tinges of his blood on her fingertips, and not about how his fingers had been bent strangely in her grip. His girl was in pain, and he would do anything for her.
He wondered if his father had done this, the night his mother had died. Had he tried to comfort her, or had he stayed outside like Coriolanus almost did.
And so as it neared midnight, and Lucy Gray had given her final push, his hand in hers, they finally welcomed their child into the world. He had kissed her head so many times, and then moved to kissing her cheeks, wiping the tears away as the doctors cleaned their baby.
And then the doctor had handed it to him, and he had immediately given it to Lucy Gray, who was crying again now, but he knew these tears were good with the way that she had smiled and cooed at the little baby in her arms.
“A girl, Mr Snow, congratulations.”
***
It had only been a week past when Coriolanus had found himself in the nursery. Capitol nurseries were usually only white, with lacy embellishments and delicate fabrics for the baby. Lucy Gray would have none of that. The walls had been done a lighter blue, with little plant detailing that Lucy Gray had likely chosen meticulously to symbolise something. A dresser to the side made from a dark rich wood held all of the baby's clothes, and a beautiful green floral high-back rocking chair sat in the corner just for Lucy Gray. It was not all to his taste, but she was happy with it.
However, it was the mobile, placed above the bassinet which had been her pride and joy. It had been sent by the Covey, handmade with some spare wood and painted with what they had. It was birds, Mockingjays she had called them, made to look as if they were flying. He had thought it had looked so district. Had she wanted a mobile of birds he would have happily bought her one, but she had loved it and immediately hung it up, and so Coriolanus had stayed quiet.
At least it was only in the nursery. No one other than him and Lucy Gray ever came into the nursery.
But there he stood, hands gripping the edge of the bassinet as if he was afraid that it would fly away if he let it go. Looking down on her, his baby, sleeping soundly. So perfect.
Her hair was growing in blonde, albeit much darker than his own almost white hair, but still light enough. but the rest of her was all Lucy Gray. Her eyes were dark, not as dark as Lucy Gray’s but enough, and she had her complexion as well. She was so small and tiny and completely perfect.
They had named her Valeria, Valeria Rose Snow. Lucy Gray had been adamant that her child would follow the naming conventions of the Covey, and so he has acquiesced. It had only made sense to give her the name Rose, for as many had he given Lucy Gray over the years, she could finally give him one back. Names are everything , Grandma’am had once said to him when he was a child, and when he passed on the name Snow, that meant everything to him as well.
He stayed there for a while, just admiring his baby. It was rare that she was quiet, just as loud as her mother is. Another songbird on his hands , he thought. He remembered his own mother singing songs to him as a baby, and he smiled at the thought that he would get to watch Lucy Gray sing to their child now. He heard a shuffle behind him, turning his head to see his Lucy Gray at the door.
She was in a loose purple dress, distinctly district-looking, probably something she had made for herself in her free time. Her hair was messy and her face tired, but her smile was so bright as he grinned back at her. She came up to join him, wrapping his hand around her waist, her head on his shoulder.
He’d never thought he could be this happy, that he could have a wife he loved, a child he wanted. He had always thought that he’d marry a miserable Capitol girl, have a few heirs and be done with it, but now he had so much. He had his Lucy Gray, and she was his wife, and now the mother of his child, and she was all his.
He knew it made him weak, all this love in his life, and yet he could not find it in himself to care.