Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harvey's room was a beacon of warmth if ever you knew it. The warm lamps offset the darkness from outside, the shrouding grey that happened every time it rained. The hills took the water like they were crying, rolling wails murmuring throughout the valley where it collected in streams. 

You were going to finally confess your attraction. That for two years you'd had a hopeless, soul-ending crush on him, and you needed to tell him now before you went insane with it. Last week- the end of summer- you’d nearly ventured below his belt. Called it drunken mishaps, called it a favour. You had to confess your attraction before you went insane or did something stupid. 

The kettle boiled, and you felt the counters rumble with it, vibrations through your palms.

“Harvey…”

“Yes, sweetheart,”

His nature of comfort was a complete trap.

"My sister’s invited me for lunch."

He lifted his head from the couch, looking over at you in the kitchen with disdain. 

"That’s odd,"

"Yeah,”

“Good news, though. Surely,”

You bit your lip, rubbing an elbow. Harvey was one of the few people you knew to have any kind of paternal instinct, including the other fathers in the valley. You wanted to talk to him because he was your friend, and he’d house some concern for the welfare of this woman he’d never met, and because he was generally very good at consoling you with this kind of thing. 

You watched his brows refuse to flicker. 

“I don’t know. Not generally. Last time I saw her she seemed fed up of even having a baby. I ended up cleaning her whole apartment and took the girl out for a walk and told our Mum to keep in contact with her.”

“And now she wants lunch. Randomly. Is this in the city?”

“Yup. I assume I’m paying, it was really out of the blue. She literally said for me to meet her and nothing else.”

He got up, exhaling loudly through his nose. You flinched- this was his ‘it’s not good news’ sigh. 

“Well. At least you’ll be able to see her.”

A muscle tensed in your jaw. 

“You still get to know if she’s okay or not, now she’s reached out. You can take a nice trip up on the train- do your thing where you mindlessly make the noise of any animals you see-”

“-That’s the law when you’re on the train-”

“- and just take her out for lunch. Take yourself out for lunch. See your niece.”

You nodded. You wanted to think you were just being maternal; convinced everyone was burdened because your own past sat heavy in your bones, because you lived in a town full of alcoholics, people fuelled by sertraline and people who probably should be. You could not shake the weight of a nameless, shapeless fear. 

Harvey came up to you, a hand on your arm. 

“Do it for me,” he instructed softly. “Take a day off, and have lunch out in the city. Seeing her is a bonus. It’ll ease your mind when you know what she’s been up to.”

You looked down into his amber eyes and tried to make sense of how he made you feel. You wanted to break down and cry and surrender to his broad chest. You wanted to jump his bones- just a little bit. 

You took a deep breath in.

“O-kay,”

“Okay?” he smiled. “Good girl,”

It froze your body; every lonely peripheral tensed with it. One day you’d work up the courage to tell him. Flush-faced over a drink to ease your nerves: Harvey, I’m kind of attracted to you, and I just want you to know so I can think about something else. 

You could picture his face as you told him. This same gentle smile, but flushed. 

You turned away, busying your hands by making a tea, but couldn’t help throwing your head over your shoulder. 

“What do I get for doing as you tell me?” you teased. 

He raised his eyebrows. 

“You get lunch out in the city.”

The smile plastered onto your face, and you forced it away- a difficult task when he moved himself to stand closer, reaching around you to put some sugar in your mug. 

“You get a sticker if you want,” he said gruffly. “Or a cup of tea,”

“I’ll take that,”

Maybe it was enough. Standing close to him, smelling his cologne, being in his kitchen so much there were designated mugs that were ‘yours’. Maybe you could live with just this much of him, and be satisfied.

Harvey had to contend that- somewhere along the line- he’d been incredibly stupid. 

Moving into the country’s smallest hamlet might have soothed the soul, easing the ache in his bones from long ED shifts, but it stirred nothing helpful in his heart. 

He wanted children. He’d always wanted children. And at some point he’d decided to slow down, move somewhere rural, get a job with the work-life-balance he desired. 

When he came to the valley he realised- breath even, mind quiet for the first time in a long time- he hadn’t exactly made a life for himself to bring with him. 

So it was no surprise to him that he was immediately crippled when you moved in. You were younger. Sweet. Intelligent. And you seemed to like him. And he was aware both that he’d not had sex in months- and that in a room of a hundred women he’d still be drawn to you- and aware, simultaneously, that there was nowhere to go if this didn’t work out, the valley a dead end, peaceful cairn for both of you. 

It was dangerous to be attracted to you. He was quite adamant that for as much as he wanted you, and felt it might work, and was willing to put in that effort to get it to work, he’d never risk life for either of you. 

Until a week ago, when your hand trailed towards the edge of his shirt, and a scary film had you both jumping, laughing, settling in a different position, your eyes not reaching his. 

And now he wasn’t sure of anything. 

Your voice on the phone scared him. Scared him enough to let his heart sink to his feet, all nervous and even, the tone he could tell was a practised attempt to keep something under control. 

He grasped for a pen over some paper, anticipating needing to write something down, needing everything you were telling him. Except you weren’t telling him much. 

“Are you alright?”

“I’m- oh I’m fine, Harvey, just, could you please come and get me? It’ll be so much easier if you come and get me.”

“Where do I need to get you fr-”

“-Harvey,” you called impatiently. “You can drive. Can you get a car and pick me up from the city?”

He considered it for a moment. He would. He wanted to. It was difficult but he’d manage. 

“Mayor Lewis will ask me why I’m borrowing it, sweetheart, why can’t you get the train back?”

You whimpered down the line. It flared down his spine. 

“Look,” you sighed. “I just- I’m bringing someone with me, and I’d rather not everyone in town know immediately. Could you just meet me from the train station tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” 

“Well, unless you’re bu-”

“-Why are you staying overnight?”

His voice rang a little harsher, a little more protective, than you assumed he’d wanted it to sound. 

“Um- yeah. You’ll know when I see you. Just meet me from the station tomorrow, please. Please?”

His mind flashed with the worst possibilities- working in the ER will do that to you. What if you were hurt, what if you were bringing back sister and the baby, trying to raise them both? But then the second-to-worst scenarios started filtering in, potentially worse than the first one. 

What if you’d met someone? And you were bringing him home but you didn’t want the whole valley to know yet? He wasn’t sure his heart could take that disappointment. He knew one day there’d be someone else. He didn’t think it would happen so soon. 

“Of course I’ll meet you,” he answered gruffly. 

Your sigh of relief down the phone poured butterflies over his skin. 

“Thank you. I love you, Harvey,”

You hung up before he could decide if he could say it back. 

Harvey waited patiently for you under the roof of the train station, rain splashing off the track and bouncing back onto the platform. The train pulled in with a screech- they rarely ever stopped here, normally passing straight through- and he let out a single, tired breath. 

No worrying. No stressing. You were about to step out of those carriage doors and he’d know exactly how to deal with you. 

Except he didn’t. 

You threw the pram off angrily, clattering onto the platform, nudging a large suitcase off its wheels to also fall out of the train. 

There was a baby on your hip. 

“You came,” you cooed, fury dissipating quickly when you saw him. “Thank you. Can you help me get all this home?”

“You have the baby.”

“Mm-hmm. It’s a fold-up pram but I swear to Yoba it’s been superglued shut or something. Three train guards couldn’t get the damned thing to open.”

“You-” he swallowed hard. The seriousness of the situation wouldn’t set in without any more context. There was just you, and some sweet thing with soft downy hair clutching at your hip, and you were as beautiful as he’d ever seen you. 

“You have the baby,” he repeated. 

“I know,”

“Is your sister- How long-” he pinched the bridge of his nose. You readjusted the girl on your hip, and looked up at him expectantly. At some point he had stood up in his shock, and now he slouched over you, so the height difference wasn’t that large. 

“I’ll explain on the way home,” you mumbled. “Can you get the bags, please?”

He reached for them quickly, the train screeching back away. The baby girl squinnied. You covered her ears for a moment, before dragging your nose across hers, trying to pick her spirits up once the train had crawled away. 

Harvey watched with a flipping stomach. 

This was definitely the worst case scenario, whatever it was that was happening. 

You explained everything on your way home. How your sister- for once in her life, accepting that she couldn’t quite do this alone- begged for a break. You cleaned her apartment, stocked her fridge, stayed with her and your niece for a night. The five-month-old was now to stay with you for a week and a half. You’d give her back when your sister was more stable, steadier on her feet, and you did not delve into your fear that she wouldn’t take her back at all because it was really only a short walk and there wasn’t enough time.

Harvey kept an umbrella over you, careful not to walk too quickly. As you came back into the farm, he watched your shoulders droop with visible relief, and he was quick to unlock the door and throw everything inside. 

You dropped to your couch quickly, putting the baby on your lap. 

The house was still. It was sturdy and it was quiet and it was yours. You wanted to cry. 

“You want a tea?” Harvey asked, hands to the back of the sofa. 

“Please,” you murmured. “Could you stay for a little while, do you think? Are you busy?”

“Clinic’s closed anyway. I’m here for as long as you want.”

You tried not to get that to mean anything else, and just bounced the girl on your lap. 

She might have been small for her age- your knowledge of babies hadn’t been used since you were the oldest cousin in charge of the litter - but she did seem clingy. Not surprising. You looked like your sister, everyone said so, but at this old she’d know the difference. Know, perhaps, that the calm of the air and clean, earthy breath was all a bid to distract her from things she was too little to know yet. 

You were annoyed that your sister hadn’t said anything sooner; grateful she knew when and how to ask for a break; mournful for a life she obviously found difficult; angry she couldn’t cope and pull things together in a way you were always expected to; furious with your parents for never understanding the true extent at which they failed to support either of you. 

And now you sat with her on your lap, Harvey next to you on the couch. You dug your feet between his thighs and he let you. 

“Well,” he murmured, holding a mug of tea to his lips. “How do you feel?”

“I think her little cardigans are cute,” you smiled meekly. It was quiet for a while. 

The girl on your lap kept looking around intrigued by the new house, occasionally fixing her gaze on the man beside you. He would smile softly, wave his fingers, tilt his head. She looked quickly away. 

You wanted children; always known you had, and you’d always wondered if there was some intrinsic part of you that would know when you were ready to have them. You had a beautiful house and a steady job and a clear head. This, for the moment, her weight in your arms, did not feel bitter with yearning. 

“You have the same ears,” Harvey said eventually, breaking the soft silence in your home. 

“Do we?”

He nodded, and took another sip of tea like it was the most natural thing in the world to say. 

“All small and cute and pink. I want to eat them,”

He reached out a hand to the girls head, tickling her ear with a light stroke. She pushed her head against her shoulder so he couldn’t reach. 

“H-harvey,” you sputtered. 

“D-darling,” he didn’t a miss a beat.

“Can I ask you something? As a Doctor. Or do I have to wait until office hours?”

“If you’re about to show me something strange on your feet I’d rather wait until we’re in the clinic.”

He raised his eyebrows lightly, arm laid over the back of the sofa so his hand hung limp, grazing the girls cheek when she got close enough. Yoba, you loved when he spread his form with confidence through your house. Your mind was in a million places at once today. 

“It’s on my ass,”

“Say no more, get undressed.”

Harvey took another sip of tea, eyebrows raised and auburn eyes intrigued. You swallowed the lump in your throat. 

“Doesn’t she look a bit small to you?”

Quiet, again. Harvey took a careful sigh, and tilted his head at you. 

“If you’re worried, I can dust off the health visitor hat tomorrow and we can assess her at the clinic.”

“You have to wear a hat to be a health visitor?” you frowned. Harvey frowned in return. “Oh. Oh , I- it’s not my fault you have the vocabulary of a grandpa,”

“That is a common phrase!” Harvey argued. 

“Who else is saying this? Mayor Lewis?”

“You are tired,” Harvey laughed good naturedly, scooping your feet away from his thighs as he stood. “Now do you want Gus’ for dinner, because I’ll walk over and preorder now. Easier than you cooking.”

You looked up at him, stood over both of you, and felt the girl in your lap crane her head too. Harvey was always a lot taller than you remembered. 

“I thought I wasn’t allowed to let you use Gus as a scapegoat anymore. You told me not to let you order from him, you’re saving money.”

“Are you saying that now?” Harvey raised his eyebrows condescendingly. 

And you smiled. For the first time in hours- not just the fleeting joy of a baby’s bright eyes, or the announcement of familiar consonance sounding out home on train speakers- you felt Harvey’s genuine affection for you pour into your own chest and warm your stomach. 

“No,” you smiled. 

“No,” Harvey smiled back. He pat the girls head, and yours, on the way to the kitchen to wash up an empty mug. “What would you like from Gus’?”

You told him. And he left. 

The house was empty, somehow, without him, though it was more lively than usual. 

You stared down at the babe in your arms and saw your own features across her face: larger, brighter, more innocent. 

“I know,” you murmured, leaning back into the couch, just sort of waiting for Harvey to get back because you didn’t know what else to do with your day now. You were in charge of the baby, your sister, your whole family apparently; he was in charge of you and it meant you could manage all the rest of that. “I know.”

Morning dawned on a weather kinder than you’d seen in a while. The excuse of a baby in your house meant the heating pleasantly greeted you; the pram by your bedside was only at arms reach anyway, crying soothed and picked up and held without ever having to prove your feet to the cold. 

And then it was just another day. 

Your family were not bad people. It was comprised, mostly, of troubled people, trying to do good things. They were misguided. They’d raised you; still, they’d raised your sister. Your sister was the first to admit she hadn’t been ready for motherhood and you were glad, at least, she had the sense to reach out, but still mad overall, at everyone, everything, and did it really matter?

Your niece needed you. She cried, wanted milk. The chickens laid eggs and if you didn’t collect them now they’d all pile up and twice as many would need collecting tomorrow. The cows needed milking; the babe needed fussing, a change of nappy. Old water out the troughs, salt on the gravel, bunny kisses on the nose, a girl strapped to your chest with nothing but an old winter scarf and a tutorial from the internet. 

You still had things to do. The sun shone down carefully, the sky bright and crisp, and if you could cope  with your frustration then you’d be doing right by her and it was worth, really, someone putting this baby first. 

You opened the clinic and let Harvey’s face warm you. Bright eyes, kind smile, broadening as he really took you in. 

“Morning,” you smiled. “Made you coffee,”

“Why on earth did you do that?”

“You like my coffee,” you shrugged. 

You noted that he was less likely to argue with you when his attentions were half-taken by the babe at your chest. Luckily, nobody had seen you wandering to the clinic. The longer you could go without strangers clamouring to hold your niece was probably better.

She was untangled, stripped, weighed. She did not seem to like these things. 

You pulled yourself onto the clinic chair, unused for this visit, and kicked your legs idly as Harvey worked. He was sweet with her. You’d never actually seen him with a baby, and knew that for all his medical training he had to have some paediatric knowledge, but it sat softly in your chest that he could soothe and distract her with just a pen torch and his low humming. 

“Is she alright?” you asked, as Harvey flicked through a big growth chart. You lay your niece on the clinic chair in front of you, dressing her again. 

“What’s her red book say? The- little red book, health visitors write in it and update with-”

“-I know what it is, Harv. She didn’t give it to me.”

“Well,” Harvey sighed. “She’s a little small. How big is your sister, though, is the Dad a-” Harvey looked up, brows flickering as he struggled around the words. “Sometimes, if the parents are just short, you know. You get a short baby.”

“My sister’s about half a foot shorter than me,” you nodded. 

“There you go. And the Dad?”

“Never seen him.”

“Well. Her length isn’t worrying, not to me, at least. She is quite small- this age we like them fatter than they are tall and she’s slightly taller than she is fat but we can keep an eye on it. That’s me saying stop worrying, sweetheart,”

“I’m- not,” you argued listlessly. 

“You are. What is it?”

You smiled meekly, your niece dressed, and picked her up so she could spring her baby legs against the clinic chair and practise standing. Harvey rolled his wheely chair over, the edges of tiles clicking as he came. 

“I just- I’m just worried,” you managed. 

“Worried about what?”

“You’re doing the Doctor voice,” you pouted, tilting your head over at him. Harvey had a habit of dipping into the low, sultry tone, of someone carefully interested in knowing everything about you, and while it shivered over your spine you were always adamant to remember that he didn’t genuinely care that much. 

“I’m at work,” he said. “What are you worried about?”

“Everything,” you murmured. “I don’t know. Just all of it. I’m so angry, too. That’s mostly it, I’m mostly angry.”

He took a deep breath, his sigh loud over the empty clinic. Your niece gurgled. 

“I’m angry at her and I feel guilty about being angry at her. So what she can’t cope? She has to cope. I’ve always had to cope, I’ve always put myself to bed alone, I made dinner when people died and I called ambulances when boyfriends were taking drugs in the bathroom and I’ve never had another choice . Why does she get to fall apart? I’ve never been allowed to fall apart. And she gets to fall apart, she gets to not cope, and what happens? Well I have to cope, because she can’t, and somebody has to. And I fucking can cope, apparently, and it’s, I- God…”

“I know,” Harvey purred. He reached out to put a hand on your knee and it did not have the intended effect of soothing. You blinked into his eyes, the kindness of his face, and felt nothing but electricity and lost words.

“I- ah- I’m just angry. ”

“That’s fair. That’s perfectly reasonable.”

Harvey let the sentence sit for a while. 

“Would you like Gus’ for dinner again?”

“No,” you laughed stiffly. “No, um, I’m going to cook. You can come round, if you want, and watch her, and you can have some.”

Harvey felt his chest rise and fall with nothing but the offer there to give him energy: warmth bloomed, an excitement ebbing in his intestines like the promise of a good birthday present. Yes, fuck, please. He enjoyed your cooking at the best of times, the evening company, and the idea of playing mummy and daddy was delightfully intoxicating. 

“Only if you’d like,” he coughed, frowning. 

You smiled. Harvey felt the sight etch behind his eyelids like a bad dream. 

It turns out, having a baby under the right circumstances, was fairly easy. One- you did not actually have the baby. The general wellness of this infant was your responsibility for the time being but you did not have to think about schools, birthdays, anything else past this week and a half. 

Two- she was a ready-made five-month-old; not as needy as a newborn and meaning you were without postpartum fatigue. 

And three, and most importantly: you were fine. You were a self-sufficient single woman who’d been taking care of the bills, cooking for yourself, managing laundry, for however long. Most of your free time was perfectly available to be filled up with a burbling, happy niece while you worked leisurely from home. 

You could see how your sister struggled. She’d never been stable, never properly worked, never really kept on top of the laundry or feeding herself even before the bundle of joy. 

And- she didn’t have Harvey. 

He came round every day you had her. Had breakfast with you, had lunch. Your niece was wary of him at first but when you’d pass her to him to use the toilet, or have a shower, or take care of some farm task, she had no choice but to settle (eventually), until she didn’t mind that you passed her into his arms. Sometimes you gave her to him just to watch his eyes light up at the responsibility. 

Harvey was round again, spread-legged on the floor as your niece sat herself up, chewing on a wooden chicken ornament. 

The house was full, lively, warm, the orange glow of the lights illuminating every misplaced tray and toy you’d gratefully borrowed from Jodi. You were grateful that the few people who knew, kept their distance. Grateful still that Harvey had been so eager to help cook dinner. You had to shoo him away with a gentle hand to the chest, the pulse in your thumb connecting to the beat of his heart, and tell him that watching the baby was help enough. 

You were boiling by the oven, the scent of roast chicken filling the air. You were afforded a few minutes while everything was cooking, to cast your glance over the sight. 

“Should she be gumming that?” you asked, over the noise of simmering vegetables. “I’m just thinking if she manages to flake the paint off, that can’t be good for her.”

“I doubt she will. She’s barely got teeth.”

You watched Harvey stack some blocks into a tower, having decidedly more fun with the toys. He was so… gentle. He was tall, fairly broad-shouldered, but hunched over the living room rug you found him nothing less than soft. 

You watched his angular hand reach out to gently pry the chicken out of your niece’s mouth, and swallowed the attraction to his fingers. 

“Paint still intact. Baby decidedly not overdosing on lead.”

“Don’t even joke, can you imagine? I hand her back to my sister and she’s full to the brim with paint.”

Harvey did wonder how you felt about giving her back. He didn’t want to bring it up. He assumed you’d be left with a baby-shaped-hole in your heart, 6.8 kilograms lost from the weight of your footsteps making you feel weightless, untethered to the ground. 

He felt he should gear up for the ensuing conversations of if you were ready for a baby (yes, seemingly), if it would ever happen for you at all (yes), why it was so hard to find a good man who loved you (he didn’t know this one). 

Looking into your eyes over the kitchen table, with the only breaks being to look at the dinner you’d cooked and the baby that looked endearingly like you, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

“My train’s quite early tomorrow,” you said, pushing some peas around your plate. “I won’t ask you to say goodbye to us then because we’ll be out the door before seven. I’m afraid you’ll have to wave goodbye to your new best friend tonight.”

“I’m sure I’ll finagle some photos of her out of you in the near future.”

She gurgled and looked at Harvey with an adoration that you felt echo in your core. Yes, tiny human, wasn’t this man across the table wonderful? 

“Thank you for taking care of us, Harvey.” The words sounded foolish, juvenile out of your mouth, as though they should come with glitter glue in a pop-up card. You felt all the more compelled to say them. “You’ve been really helpful, and really sweet, and-”

“-oh, don’t,”

“You’ve been a massive help, Harvey, and just having you around is so comforting. Even if she didn’t let you hold her half the time. You’ve just been- you’re just- thank you,”

Harvey tilted his head, resisting the urge to reach across the table and hold your hand. He watched you do just the thing- slender fingers reaching across the table, delicate over his fist as he held a fork. 

“Why are you making it sound like you’re leaving tomorrow, with the girl?”

“I just want you to know that you’re important to me,” you declared. 

“I know that,”

“Then let me say it.”

“I’ve not stopped you,” he laughed. 

“Thank you, Harvey,”

In a few short hours you’d take the child away, and return, arms bare: it was probable they’d be outstretched for him, and he’d provide whatever comfort you needed as his heart leaked, completely aching to hold you in a way that felt selfish, all the more eager to throw you over his shoulder and take you to bed because he knew you both could handle the consequence of a little mess. 

Harvey squeezed your hand, lost in your eyes as they glimmered, reflecting candlelight and the fire in the fireplace and your warm lamps. His throat might have closed up. He didn’t care; nothing mattered, when he was looking at you. 

And he sighed. 

“You’re welcome,” he murmured limply, aware that his tone was more sombre than he wanted it to be. He retracted his hand from yours, in favour of chasing a stuffing ball around his plate. 

A couple of weeks ago he’d been so sure about you. He knew he was attracted to you- body, mind, and heart- and knew that it would be a bad idea to jeopardise his only close friendship in favour of something so unstable as love. 

But then there was the dance of the midnight jellies, and you’d snuggled then on his couch, hadn’t been as close since, and your hand played lightly with his chest until his breath was holding. He’d been about to ask you, with danger in his voice, what you were doing- in the hopes it pushed you over the edge to actually do it. 

Now he wasn’t sure of anything. He didn’t know quite what you wanted, if that had been a thinly veiled declaration, or tipsy bad judgement. He wasn’t sure if he should ask or try or declare anything because- at the end of the day- he couldn’t bare to live with himself if you explicitly turned him down. 

The babygirl had a bath and Harvey washed up while you did it. You left the bathroom smelling like baby shampoo, frowning petulantly at him.

“ Harvey ,” you whined. “I told you you didn’t have to do that.”

“Do what. Oh, the washing up? Oh, no, it did that by itself. Am I saying goodbye now?”

Your stomach sank, and you didn’t know why. The girl was on your hip wrapped in a towel, the few curls of hair she did have tufting up in sweet little cowlicks. She chewed on her hand, blinking up at you. 

The concept of ‘goodbye’ wasn’t particularly easy on your insides. 

“Oh. Um- if you’re going,”

Harvey wandered up to you both, lowered from his great height to coo at the girl.

“Well, it was very nice to meet you,” he declared, hand outstretched for a handshake. She giggled as he forced a vague handshake out of her. “You take care of your auntie tomorrow, alright?”

His head tilted, exposing perfect jawline, his dark lashes fluttered closed, as he placed a chaste kiss on her cheek. He did the same to you in the next moment. So enamoured with his casual paternity, with your niece’s light giggle, you didn’t realise that Harvey was kissing your cheek until he was breaking away.

You moved with surprise, noses brushing, faces too close. 

“You’ll be alright, you know that?” Harvey told you, voice low and solid and reverberating through your spine. 

You were already making plans in your head. Tomorrow you’d come back and you’d step off the train, and without the girl, but with a glimpse of a future, you’d offer something so vulnerable and needy that it’d forever change your friendship. 

You were scrapping the plans. The words wouldn’t ever get out. 

“I know,” you lied. “I know, Harvey. Thank you for the help this week,”

“Thank you for being so adorable,” he rubbed his nose against your niece’s: once more she was delighted. You thought she might have been in love with him. Just her baby brain knowing nothing except his strong arms, his low voice; you wondered what it felt like to her, rolling through her spine and her chest cavity, his complete adoration a soft bed for her to sleep on. 

“I’m off. Goodnight, girls,”

“Night, Harvey.” 

The honey on your hip gurgled, and you held her tighter, closer, for longer than she wanted and longer than she needed. 

Harvey was thinking about you all morning. Actually, he’d been  thinking about you all evening, for most of the night, dreamt about you (not unusual, he saw you most days). 

Now he sat in his dim office, clicking a pen over and over and over, humming lowly over a coffee that you hadn’t made. 

He wanted children. He was thinking about how he wanted children and, in an unrelated train of thought, he was thinking about you. Hoping you weren’t too sad to give the girl up again, not too anxious to give her back to a woman struggling so obviously to raise her. Thinking about how pleasant the week had been. To wander through the pathways to your warm house and hear your voice sing lullabies and see your eyes brighten in a way he’d never seen before. 

It was a pleasure to know you so intimately, a gift to get to know you through this. Harvey wanted to remain respectful of this gift but it was difficult when he’d been absolutely, utterly, irrevocably attracted to you since he’d met you. 

He clicked his pen and clicked and clicked and finally, finally , the working day was over. 

The phone rang and he was beleaguered to still be in the office at five past three. 

“Harv!” you chirruped. “Hi,”

“Are you home yet?”

“No,” By the tone of your voice, the gentle sigh, he knew this would be a longer conversation. He perched on the reception desk.

“Are you coming home?”

“Yes. Avec mon cherie. Turns out, um- have you got time?” Harvey gave a gentle laugh and you continued. “So, um, as it turns out- my sister didn’t show up.”

“Right,”

“Yeah. So I went to her house and she’d left this note-”

“-oh,”

“ No, Harv, Yoba, um- she went travelling. I called her job and, and I called our parents and apparently she just up and left. So she’s in Thailand right now, um… Yeah, she’s in wherever she is, and all the baby stuff is just kind of lined up at her front door. As if I could take the big furniture cot back on the train. Um…”

Harvey took the phone away from his ear, and added ‘call robin’ to a note. 

“...And like I called the police, obviously. They said I should come in so we had this big long chat and apparently this is legal, it’s like, kinship care? Apparently you can just give your baby to your sister and go and do some soul-searching and it’s like… fine. It’s fine. I am coming back but I’m still here and it’s fine. They got in contact with her but she doesn’t want to talk to me ‘cause she thinks I’m angry.”

Also on the list: buy chocolate. Actually, he should stock your fridge. All your unhealthy snacks that you liked. He could assume that you’d stop eating properly, too consumed with other priorities to give yourself lunch.

“I mean I am angry. She’s right. You can’t just do this without saying- Now this little honey is mine. For- for however long.”

Your voice floated through the clinic with uncertainty. Afraid to hold on too tight or you’d never let go. Cursed with the knowledge that at any point- no matter how much in love you were- your sister could come and take her back and all you’d be able to do was be proud that she felt strong enough to do it. 

“Oh, and here’s the kicker. I need to get in touch with social services because, obviously. Guess who’s the main contact for our area.”

Harvey was adding many more things to the to-do list, feeling the energy grow within him as he made a mental note of his priorities. 

“I… fuck, is it me?”

You laughed light-heartedly down the line. 

“Doctor Harvey Rowland is the safeguarding lead for Stardew Valley, it turns out.”

“And the everything else lead. I actually think we’re under Zuzu City. They tend to forget that we are because not a lot happens out here. I mean in fairness, there are two children. I’ve never had to contact social care out here.”

“Well can you work out how please because you’re legally obligated to as our doctor.”

Another thing on the to-do list. With less priority than buying you as much chocolate as can fit in your cupboards or else you’ll never eat. 

“Of course,”

“Maybe you could help us get back from the train station? I’ve loaded the pram up so completely and the girl’s strapped to me. I can’t put her down if I wanted to.” 

“How is she?” Harvey asked, voice softening at the idea of you wandering through a train station loaded with bags, a pram heavier than hell, wearing a baby. The more you could accomplish the more attracted he was to you; the more eager the need to lighten your burdens. 

“Sleepy. Got a bit snuffly at mummy’s house, didn’t we? But we’ve worn ourselves out now and we’re asleep. About to sleep? About to sleep, we’re still fighting it a bit.”

“Bless. I’ll help you get back, put you to bed.”

“Me or the baby?” you teased, down the phone. 

Harvey added another note to the bottom of his to-do list: ‘ tell her you want her before it’s more difficult to say’. 

Chapter Text

The rain was light when the train pulled into the station. Harvey waited, not anxious, but slightly damp, sheltering in cool air. The hills cried out in their strange echoes as heat and pressure exchanged, and the train screamed as it pulled in, and he could hear crying before the doors ‘bing-binged’ into opening. 

You fell out of the train, onto the platform, into Harvey’s arms. 

And you weren’t crying. The girl on your chest was, wailing with upset, but you- you had your breath held, steady, as you pushed your head into the crook of his neck. 

“It’s alright,” Harvey soothed, not sure who he was talking to. He wanted to hold you, but the pram was barely on the platform, and he had to tug you and everything backwards before the train rolled away again. 

You clutched at blazer, head buried in his body. The train screeched again, rumbled away loudly, and then it was just the baby crying out. It echoed in the old wood of the small station. 

“It’s alright, honey,” Harvey tried again. 

Strong hands scooped around the girl, Harvey’s skin so nearly colliding with yours, all too intimate over your chest. You let him take her, put her on a hip. And still you had your head buried into him. 

“Shshsh,”

He was rubbing up and down your back with his free hand, chin resting on your head. He could see his breath swirl out in a light mist although it didn’t feel that cold. And the girl was still crying. He felt like it was rude not to comfort her properly, but she was held, she was safe, and she’d settle- she would settle. 

Harvey felt the infant start to snuggle, putting her head in the crook of his neck on the other side. 

He had never been so important before. His large frame wasn’t usually a monument of comfort- it intimidated, it was too tall for trousers, it made dents in couch cushions and hit against doorframes. But now- in a small village where he was not, entirely at home- he was something softer, gentler, than he ever had been. 

You craned your head upwards, looking at Harvey while still in entire contact with his body. He wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“I don’t understand how this is allowed. She’s allowed to leave and give her to me. I just… get her. My sister wants me to take care of her, so I get her. Can I do that?”

“You’ve managed this far,” Harvey cooed. 

“Should I, I mean? Am I the best option?”

He could see the smudge of eye makeup across your face- you hadn’t been crying, but you’d been tearing up. He could see the day long and worn over you. He could see your childhood heavy in your bones. 

“I’ve met parents who weren’t as ready to be parents as you are. As long as you think you can cope, having her, then you can cope having her,” he told you. Which wasn’t really an answer. But it was comforting- he hoped it was comforting. 

You buried your face back into the Harvey’s chest and just blinked at the girl again. She had your ears and you’d never considered that anyone would have much love for your own features until you were loving them on her. 

“Can you help me get this fucking pram home?”

“Of course.”

Life continued in the careful way it did in the valley. 

Your sister was AWOL but potentially happy. Happier. You hoped she was happy. You hoped she was okay, that she was finding something while travelling that she couldn’t while she was raising a child in the city. You wished she’d call. 

And the girl was yours. 

She smiled, she burbled, she cried, she tried to start crawling though she couldn’t get the hang of it yet. You took her to the clinic for another check-up at her six month mark and thanked Harvey with a cup of coffee because you didn’t know how else you were meant to thank him. 

He was around most days. Evening company most nights. You knew that he liked to eat your cooking, that it saved him from microwave meals, but it didn’t seem like enough. Your niece was dangerously close on getting the ‘V’ sound into her babbling; his name was as close on her tongue as it was yours. 

And you weren’t sure how to feel about that. If it was… alright, for Harvey to be so close to you both, so integral to your wellbeing, because he really had no need to be here in this way. For either of you. 

The autumn air was warm, humid, as you wandered down to the fair. Niece strapped to your chest, a nice dress actually devoid of baby sick and mud, you enjoyed the fallowed trees and dirt streets, the distant bustling of a busier town square, with a slightly lighter spirit. 

This year you were emphatically Not participating in the fair. Lewis was understanding- your plate was more than full. 

“Aa-hvvv, vvhhh,”

“Mmh,” you cooed absently, scanning the crowds. ‘Crowd’ was a generous term. There were people scattered, the smell of grilled pork rolling down the mountain with the comforting undertones of soot and leaves. “Where is Vrr?”

You were intercepted by a cooing Jodi, by the pulling off of a hat, and by the time Vincent had returned the hat and put it back on a tiny head you’d located Vrr, eyes narrowed, stomach squirming. 

Now that was new. It wasn’t new to see him with Maru and it wasn’t new to see him smiling, laughing. It was new the way it twisted your insides; coiled upset writhing through you in a way that induced complete nausea. 

“Ah-vrr, ah-vrr,”

“We’ll talk to Vrr-vrr later, okay?” you held onto a tiny hand, the girl wiggling as well as she could while strapped to your chest. She was bigger now, so she faced outwards; you weren’t sure if she could actually see his form hunched over, arm leaning on a pillar of the pig sty as he leant into Maru, or if she could hear his laugh tumbling over the scattered leaves. 

You took her to the fishing stall and inhaled the musty water; took her to look at the pigs though she wasn’t interested in them any more than the pigs on the farm. You took yourself to Marnie’s display. Took the both of you to the dark tent by the river. 

“Could I have a fortune, please?” you asked, slightly unsure of the etiquette for morning television celebrities in dark cloaks. 

“If you have the money.”

“Yes. Could you do one for the baby?”

Welwick- of course you knew their name, you watched the show most days- looked at you off-handedly, but then started humming. The baby on your chest giggled as the cloaked women got close to her face, peering all around her, prying a chubby baby open to look at the palms. 

“She has a great disturbance in her family life. For someone so small, she has faced much hardship.”

You swallowed hard. You weren’t sure how much you believed in this. Yes, you watched the show, but more so for positive affirmation and a wise word here and there- and, you supposed, it might have been easy to overhear the words adopted, fostered, just-for-a-while among the townspeople.

“Interesting. A lot of love in her life, despite the hardship.”

Your stomach settled. The fortune teller flipped a few cards onto the table, the satisfying ‘thwick’ of them entertaining the girl. 

“Not surprising. A lot of growth in her future, new beginnings, new opportunities. Learning.” Welwick tilted her head at the girl. “Words, next,”

“She’s been working really hard on vvv . Before buh and puh even, which is quite unusual.”

“Any V names in the family?” Welwick raised her eyebrows. You weren’t sure if she was an oracle at this point, or just a well-lived woman. 

“Kind of,”

“Keep him. He’s good for you two.”

“Are- what d’you mean?”

Welwick nodded her head towards the price board, and you didn’t feel like any kind of reading for yourself would make you feel anything but impossibly pensive. 

You swapped the humid tent for slightly cooler air, and, bored, and with no Harvey in sight, you took the girl up the hill because daylight still reigned bright through the town and you felt like you should still be out. You sat yourself on the grassy floor, and held your niece’s hands, let her bounce up and down in her soft dungarees with embroidered daisies on the front. 

You picked a daisy and put it in her hands. She was enamoured, of course, as babies are with things they shouldn’t put in their mouth, and you led her around, crawling from daisy to daisy in an effort to get her to practise it. 

“Vbbr, vrr!”

“Harvey doesn’t want to play with us right now, honey,”

“Yes I do,”

“Fuckin-” you whipped around, to find Harvey stood right behind you. You smacked at his legs, heart in your throat, and he just laughed. “-Yoba, you scared me.”

“I can tell.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I came over to say hello,” Harvey blinked, brows furrowing lightly. The sun was starting to set, a gorgeous golden hour over the hills and treetops, and you watched it light his auburn hair on fire. “Hello,”

“Hi,” you sniffed. 

Harvey crouched down, settling himself into the grass with a grunt. Of course your niece’s arms were immediately outstretched for him, light whimpering because she wasn’t being held by him right this second. Of course your niece was in love with Harvey. Apples don’t fall far. 

“How was the fair?” Harvey asked the girl, as he bounced her over his legs. “Did you see… Pigs? And did you see… cheese? What else did you see?”

“The fortune teller.”

Harvey turned to you, eyebrow raised, and you’d never been more annoyed with him in your entire life. 

“What did they say?” he asked, disbelief already palpable. 

“She said she’d grow.”

Harvey gave a burst of a laugh, and looked down at the girl with affection. She stared up into his eyes in the starstruck way she tended to do. 

“I’m sure she will grow. Did she predict anything else, or is that all you got for your money, that your baby will grow?”

“Pretty much it.”

You sighed a little, looking at your hands where they sank into the grass. Gus was still grilling burgers and saliva was pooling behind your teeth.

“You okay?” Harvey asked. 

You threw an off-handed look at him, and murmured a vague agreement. 

“Really,” he pursued, a hand to your knee. It reached the skin, where your dress was short, and you bounced his hand off your leg. “Hey,” he reached out to your chin, forcing you into his gaze. “Look at me. What’s wrong?”

You blinked into his stern features, the sunlight coating them in warmth. 

You were in love with him. You could see it now, in the sweet heat of golden hour: you were jealous, you were lustful, you were fostering a child that was learning his name. 

“You’ve not hung out with us today,” you managed limply. “You- I understand that my life revolves around the baby now and that can’t be easy,”

“No,” Harvey dismissed, hand off you to help the girl keep bouncing on his thigh. You’d never been so glad to lose his touch- you could think again. 

“-but it can’t, not with what you want out of life, and I understand that if hanging out with me means also hanging out with a baby then I see that you might not want that all the time. But I just thought I’d get to see you today at least,”

“I’m seeing you now,” Harvey protested lightly. 

“Yeah, after you’ve spent the last hour and a half walking around with Maru.”

It flashed through his eyes faster than you could register what you’d said. His hands flexed as they held the girl, fingers tensing before he remembered what exactly he was holding. 

“Are you jealous?” he bit, quickly. 

“No,” you lied quicker. “Why would I be? She’s a child.”

And this was, perhaps, the wrong thing to say. Harvey regarded you in silence for a very long time before leaning in.

“I realise I’ve been round a lot,” Harvey said, voice low. Every nerve in your spine inflamed with his voice. “And that you’ve grown accustomed to having me. I’d understand that my- wandering off with someone might feel like being abandoned. I promise I’m very happy to help you with this new part of your life and it’s not a struggle for me at all.”

Closer, his eyes lowered, voice low, your breath catching in the back of your throat. 

“I’m not your sister. I’m not going to leave. And I’m not your Dad, darling, you know that,”

Something was so painful in your chest you didn’t know how not to fall into him. You were looking at his tie and the grass and the top of a bald infant head. 

“I care very much about the both of you. I thought you’d have liked some alone time just as a family, I thought you wouldn’t mind my talking to someone else.”

“I don’t mind you talking to Maru.” You mind him flirting with her. “But what do you think I do all night? All I have is alone time with the family, I bloody collect like- a dozen eggs each morning and she’s always desperate to hold one, and I’m so worried about animal diseases, and-”

“-She is vaccinated.”

“Yes, but they’re not making vaccines for children who grow up trying to hug chickens.”

Harvey gave a gentle laugh, and somehow, you’d forgiven him, even though he’d never done anything wrong. Your tensions released. 

He reached out again, a hand tucked behind your ear, and as he stared into your eyes you wondered if he was watching the sun light your features gold with the same affection that you watched it paint his. 

“Could I be helping more? I can stay round, or just have her for the mornings so you can work. I can do more.”

“One day, Harvey, we’re going to have to give her back. I don’t think we need to be breaking any more hearts.”

“Don’t worry about that. When do you get up, and I’ll come to have her.”

“I get up earlier than you love me,” you teased, poking him in the thigh. 

Harvey knew that wasn’t possible. So instead he just asked you if you’d eaten already, and got up to get some food, the girl on his hip, and as he wandered back over to you- legs spread in the grass- he wondered if he could ask again about Maru, because he was really wondering (hoping) that you’d actually been jealous (fuck, he wanted you to be jealous), and even if you were, there was an infant child begging for a stable family, and now had never been a worse time to be falling in love with you. 

Chapter Text

Jodi, in an impossibly kind and almost certainly selfish gesture, offered to babysit your niece for an evening so you could have a night to yourself. Actually, she worded it as ‘night in the saloon’, eyebrows raised halfway up her forehead. 

And while you appreciated the gesture- and contemplated what the fuck she was trying to suggest with that- you’d have much rather had a night inside , to yourself. 

But the offer was made and those appeared to be the terms, so you took her up on it anyway. Worrying incessantly if the girl was crying. If she thought she’d been left again. You left her with a blanket spritzed with your perfume like she was a dog.

“Mummy’s on a night out, huh?” Shane sidled up to you as you traced the patterns of woodgrain in the bar. 

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

You said it with no malice, more teasing than anything, but Shane’s face softened anyway. You put your head on your hand, and looked up at him in intimate saloon lighting. 

You were still safe enough in your twenties that bars and partying might have been expected to play a little more of a role in your life. Moving to the valley had been a little early of a mid-life crisis. Still, though, you weren’t used to it, and you nursed your one drink while the one company you’d actually invited sat in deep (and what appeared to be largely medical) conversation with Evelyn. 

“Sorry. Sorry, I know you’re just- ‘fostering’, is that it?”

“She’s just mine for as long as she needs to be.”

“Ah. Right. Is that what the kids are calling it these days? Something so superfluous you couldn’t write it on a government form.”

“I can’t believe you’re still sober enough to use the word superfluous.”

“I can’t believe you’re jealous of some teenage lab assistant.”

You pouted, staring into the melting ice of your drink. You and Shane weren’t close, not particularly, and you wondered why he was talking to you like you were. You missed the weight of the baby in your lap and knew, heavy-heartedly, that this was a pain you’d have to feel in extremes later down the line. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you sighed. 

“Mummy and a man that looks suspiciously like Daddy had a domestic at the town fair.”

“I- Shane-”

“-ub-ub, don’t even, you looked at them across the town centre and I’m surprised the man didn’t burst into flames. I’ve never seen you actually look so angry.”

“I’m angry at you,” you muttered. 

“No you’re not, princess. But- listen to me, will you? It is obvious. To me. To eeeveryone. And it seems like you two are the last two people to get it.”

“Get what?” you murmured. 

Shane leant in, and he had your full attention. 

“No man in his right mind would step in and play Daddy if he was off trying to fuck an upsettingly young woman that he works with.”

You studied his face for a crack or a fault line; for the glimmer of a smirk he was known to have. Tonight, Shane was surprisingly yours. 

“And I don’t think he’s in this just because he thinks baby shoes are cute.”

“Baby shoes are cute.”

“That’s why they were invented, babies don’t need shoes, I- I’m not convinced you’re listening to me.”

You narrowed your eyes, nearly finished with your drink now and feeling it start to affect you. 

“It’s obvious I’m jealous,” you recited.

“Yes!” Shane cried. “And?”

“And… um,”

“And- fuck. Yoba, I can’t. Maybe if you were drunker you’d get it, I’ll get you another one of those.”

You sat in the corner with Shane for a while, listening to him ramble about concepts you couldn’t really get your head around. He told you some anecdote from before he’d lived here and all you got from that story was that he went on a date with a woman who once stole his watch. 

“Daddy’s here,” he clicked his teeth eventually.

You looked behind you, Harvey coming up with a hand reaching for your back. He stood behind you, and you leant lightly into him, gazing into a surprisingly defined jaw. He’d shaved this morning. You saw him yesterday and studied his jaw as he cut carrots into batons and boiled them to a reasonable softness to give to an infant, and now the delicious shading was gone, he was just pale skin for you.

“Why- what does that mean, Shane?” Harvey sputtered. You watched his cheeks grow a pleasant pink tinge. 

“Yoba, I can’t do this. Princess, you think about what we said. Harv-” Shane slid off his stool, patting Harvey on the shoulder as he walked away. “Get her home for me, I let her drink too much.”

Harvey regarded you with a quirked brow when Shane left, perching in the man’s stool.

“What were you talking about?”

“Some lady stole his watch. And I’ve only had three drinks, actually, it’s not much at all. I’d have another.”

You watched him order you another as if that’s what you’d been saying. You weren’t at all. You were about to mention that as nice as the deep smell of wood and alcohol was, the steady murmuring of conversation a light rumble through your body, you might have wanted to pick up the baby and tuck you both up on your near-silent farmland. 

But a drink got set down in front of you. Harvey had another, and you watched tipsy paint him slovenly- tie loosened, curls fluffed through his hair where he’d run his hand through, eyes dark and dangerous when they slipped from your gaze to run over your body. 

“I did consider,” you murmured, your own eyeline caught on the vein in his hand as he flexed around his drink. “I’m not gonna have sex for a while,”

“What makes you say that?” Harvey purred. You took a moment to sigh wistfully at the sight of his exposed forearm- sleeves rolled up to three quarters- as he loosened his tie further. 

“I- well, it’s difficult anyway. We both know that. And I don’t think my looking after a baby is going to boost my appeal.”

“Yes,” Harvey agreed. “But you forget you’re gorgeous.”

You sputtered, reaching out to hit his knee lightly. Harvey raised his eyebrow at your touch and you were quick to retract it before his dark eyes killed you. 

“Stop it,”

“It’s true. You are absolutely gorgeous. Any man would jump at the chance to sleep with you. Straight man. Any of them.”

“Oh,” Speech was so difficult on your tongue when Harvey looked down at you like that. Affection so resonant in his eyes, words so easy as though he was completely disaffected by them. “Where are they, then?”

“Here. If you asked around, you’d get- ach. You’d get offers.”

You leant in, lips curling, and Harvey met your action. 

“ Who ?” you laughed. 

“ All of them ,” he was eye level with you, lips curled, wafting his delicious cologne right under your nose. “Most men here would sleep with you.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes.”

“Are you really sure?”

“ Yes. Are you contemplating it?”

“No,” you lied. You weren’t sure it was a lie until you were pulling away, swirling around the remnants of your fourth drink. Harvey leant back, supported by the wall, staring at you through the thick light. 

“M-maybe,” you blinked. “I mean- it’s good for you, sex is good for you. Hormones and- for men, regular sex helps with fertility, right?” You waited for the nod, tracing your finger over the bartop. The drink hadn’t affected you that much- you could feel the pleasant burn in your thighs, the tingle over your peripheries, and it signalled your usual endpoint. “So it makes sense to go to a friend and…”

Your gaze was on his form again. The shirt crumpled, loosely tucked in, a hand hanging between his thighs as the other cradled his drink. You suddenly remembered the end of summer. Where you’d nearly floated the idea with him anyway, telling him without words, a wandering hand interrupted by a jumpscare and settling with more certainty back up on his chest. 

“... ask for a favour,” you finished, lip curling around the favour. 

“Favour,” Harvey repeated. “What kind of favour?”

“Any kind. Stress relief kind. You’d both get something out of it.”

“Selfish favour,” Harvey purred, drink to his lips. He took the last of it down and stared at you. “Who would you go to?”

You. 

“Someone I could trust,” you said. The words were light, casual, as though you’d ever be able to do this in an intimate setting, when the jukebox wasn’t blaring, when snooker balls clicking off each other didn’t interrupt conversation. “I don’t know that I could enjoy it that much if I didn’t really like the person, but-”

“-bad sex is still sex,” Harvey finished. 

“Exactly. When’s the last time you had any?”

And he regarded you with a smirk, an eyebrow raise, as if in complete power over the conversation. 

“Before you got here. Why’d you ask?”

Your cheeks burnt and now definitely wasn’t the time. You thought you could have done it before- a dark room and the embarrassment of the motion held in your mouth, flesh speaking for itself. Now you were trying not to sputter, just trying to breathe, as Harvey gave a cavalier flirt. 

“ Are you asking, sweetheart?”

“Offering,”

Your mouth was so quick to betray conscious thought. 

“Are you now?” he laughed. 

Yes. Fuck. 

“I- don’t know,” you sputtered. “I trust you. I’m a little bit drunk.”

“As am I.”

Fuck, fuck, and there was cheering from elsewhere, someone potting a ball in pool. Someone else opened the saloon door- to leave or enter- and in the rush of cool air you remembered you were alive; your heart had something to beat against. 

“But you know everyone thinks we’re together,” Harvey said, still regarding you carefully. “I don’t know how easy it would be to convince anyone else they weren’t getting in the middle of something.”

“So you’re my only option?”

“You’re my only option,” he corrected. “You do with that what you will.”

This was getting dangerously close to something you actually wanted. 

“We’re such close friends, though. I wouldn’t want to change anything.”

“Then we don’t need to talk about it anymore,” Harvey replied simply. 

You looked into his eyes as you stood and completely, wholeheartedly, believed that he’d drop the whole train of thought for your own comfort. It made you need him. 

With unsteady, bambi legs, you started pulling your coat off your chair. To wrap around yourself. The whole mechanism- arms in the sleeves, readjust, zip together and up, felt remarkably slow. You were drunker than you realised and it gave you a bit of reprieve from the shame in your stomach. 

You’d been so close to asking him. You’d basically spoken about it. 

“Ready to leave?” Harvey asked, eyebrows raised and hand over the saloon door handle. You nodded eagerly because you hadn’t realised you’d wandered over to the door already. 

In the brisk autumn night you felt winter start to nip at your cheeks. Harvey was asking you questions in the light, changing-the-subject tone he had, just smoothing over the heat in your core by asking if it was nice to have a night off, laughing good-naturedly because you missed her even more now. 

The girl hadn’t slept but she hadn’t fussed much. You thanked Jodi and took a sleepy babe in your arms and within a few moments of being back in your stride you felt her start to droop against you again. 

“Are you walking us home?” you asked Harvey, as you came up to the path that you’d split away from. 

“You never need to ask,”

And of course you were thinking of that, then, how his affections skewed all motivations. 

The question was could you. Were you going to? You knew that you wanted Harvey: you could have climbed onto his lap within five seconds of meeting him, and watching him wander around with a baby these days didn’t exactly help matters. But could you do it? Could you give into temptation and talk to him like normal, cope with the fact that you didn’t kiss him after, just cope, watch him wander around and make Maru laugh and know what he feels like under his clothes, what he tastes like. 

You were fumbling the key into the lock and Harvey was wandering over the cot where your niece slept- some travel thing you bought online because you knew the moment you bought a nice wooden cradle from Robin, your sister would return with arms outstretched. 

The baby was put down and peacefully asleep and your coat was hung up, shoes kicked off, and then you were just looking up at Harvey as he hovered at your doorway, his hands in his pockets. 

“Harvey,” you started. 

“Don’t. I can’t say no to you.”

You blinked up. That’s not what you’d… 

You studied his face, the way his brows tilted downwards, eyes deliciously dark and full of affections you couldn’t pick apart from concerns. 

“What did you think I was going to ask?” you teased, taunting him to say it. 

“You know I can’t say no to you, sweetheart. Don’t torture me by asking.”

“I was only going to ask you to stay,”

“And I’d have to. I’ll have to.”

“Only- just to stay, Harv,” you laughed, a hand up in what was meant to be a light touch of his chest. You lingered. You were drunk and you lingered. “Help me in the morning, or if she wakes up in the night,” 

“And that’s all”? Harvey scathed. He stepped back from your hands just to start pulling his shoes off, hanging his coat on the hook. The upkick of movement reminded you of how safe he smelt. Sweet cologne hung by his collar. 

“Well I don’t know, now- you really don’t think you could say no to me?”

“Don’t tease me,” Harvey pushed your head away, smiling a roguish, boyish smirk. “Go get ready for bed.”

He did stay all night. You watched him change into just his shirt and pants, and he did get into bed alongside you, with no argument and no suggestion that this might be strange. 

You knew in the morning is when it’d hurt the most. You’d wake before him and place the babe in his arms and by the time you got back from the morning chores either they’d be fast asleep mid-bunny kiss in the bed, or awake and giggling through an animal sounds book, or up and cooking breakfast for you, and that’s when your chest would pain the most. 

For now you just watched him. Laying on your front, head turned to the side to just watch his curls glow golden with the light of a bedside lamp. You could smell him more than the bedsheets, more than the distinctive baby shampoo you could generally smell from the girl. 

You almost reached out to trace the shape of his nose with your finger, his perfect side profile, but sleep caught you before you could. 

Harvey stood at the kitchen window, wiping the inside of a bowl with a tea towel. Your home smelt like cranberry jam (as it always did nowadays), and he watched the ducks flutter through the pond, skip and play and take flight. 

He’d never spent much time on the farm before and he’d liked the valley- he’d always liked the valley- but he liked the view more when it was past your kitschy, sun-faded curtains. 

“I’ve been thinking,” he started. 

“First time for everything,” you muttered from the table. 

Harvey turned and set the bowl down on the counter, reaching for another to dry. The girl had been trying all sorts of new foods lately, and Harvey couldn’t say it wasn’t the highlight of his life watching her make her way through boiled parsnip, bone marrow, peas. 

She was on the floor in the living room now- on her own, in sight of you at the table and him by the counter. You’d placed her a little far away in a bid to encourage her crawling. She seemed unsure about the whole thing, chewing on a ceramic cow ornament that outdated your own stay. It seemed to soothe some teething.

“What about Christmas?”

“What about Christmas?” you echoed, barely glancing at him. “I’ve been trying not to think about it, honestly. I don’t know that my heart can bear playing happy families just- just knowing,”

Harvey let your lament sit. The girl started to cry, more of a whine really, and you waved at her. She was only a few feet away and she could crawl but she refused to do it most of the time. She stopped squinnying and kept chewing on the cow. 

“We can spend it together,” Harvey suggested, trying not to sound too hopeful. You were more sensible than him. Braver than him. More aware of your heart and the space it took up in your chest; aware of it beating, aware of the ache. 

“Yeah?” 

“Mmh. I mean, Gus will cook, but it might be nice to have little turkey and cranberry sandwiches for tea. Together. Watch a film and keep cold out.”

“Would you like to come round in the morning and have her while I do the animals?”

He was hoping you’d ask. 

“Yes, of course. Or we could all go out and do it together.”

At this you took full interest. Your head snapped up from where it had been studying something on your laptop; you hadn’t been entirely paying attention until now. Harvey tried to understand what was behind your eyes but he saw the faded sunburn of your nose, the slight fluff of your hair from where you’d cooked lunch, and only knew that he was one brushed hand away from being deeply, madly, in love with you. 

“Oh,” you said, lips perfect around the sound. “I didn’t think you liked us that much,” you laughed. 

“Don’t be stupid. Of course I do.”

“But it’s your day, too. You don’t want to get up early,”

Harvey shrugged as noncommittally as possible. He was drying baby bowls in your house and he was slightly resentful that you didn’t notice it. His astray glances, the catch of his breath when he caught sight of your thigh, the chores he took on as if they were his own. He wouldn’t do this if he didn’t want it. He wanted this so badly and still you didn’t seem to realise why. 

“What are you looking at that’s got you half-listening to me?” Harvey asked instead of answering, a handful of baby spoons now being dried in the tea towel. He came round the table, glanced at the screen. The emblem of the government sat proudly at the top of the page and he read the word ‘adoption’ before the start of the sentence. 

“Oh,”

“Mmh.”

The baby squinnied, and you were waving at her again, reaching out. She wriggled like she was going to crawl and then gave up. 

“Have you gotten contact with your sister yet?”

“Nope. Come here, honey. Honey. I’m right here, use those little leggies. But I mean, if she’s not- if we don’t hear for a while- surely I can just- and they’d let me just take her, right? They’d let me have her.”

The girl did not crawl, just squinnied. You slid off the chair and knelt on the floor. You were about one chubby baby arm away from her and if she scooted, or bum-shuffled, or crawled, she’d be within your reach. 

“Do you think my being self-employed would hurt my chances?”

“Business owner, I wouldn’t think so,”

“And I could get you to do the- be my- like the thing, you’d said I’m a good, Honey, come on, use your lil leggies.”

“I’d write you a reference, yes,” Harvey finished. 

“Thank you. So I’ve just got it in my head. Just in the back, is all.”

“But you don’t want to think about Christmas together,” Harvey clarified. He started putting the spoons back in the drawer. They were yellow, green, blue, pictures of lions and tigers and bears (oh my) faded and scratched off. You’d annexed a lot of Jodi’s things. She gave you a big box and still, round for tea one day, you strongarmed her into a lot of the stuff that Vincent was too big for that she was reluctant to give away. Kent and Sam seemed thankful that you’d help free up some space in the house. 

“No, because I’ll be in love then, and it’s so much harder to do things when you’re in love. I wouldn’t keep my head straight.”

Harvey watched as the seven-nearly-eight-month old bum-shuffled towards you, all knitted cardigan and sock, bumblebees on her nappy, and you took her into your arms with a big ‘whoosh’ and lots of kisses, lots of giggles, lots of love. 

It was a lot harder to do things when you were in love. He had to agree with you there. His stomach could have crippled him with pain, with longing, and he tried to cast his eyes over something else but then he was just reading the adoption website and his stomach didn’t feel any better. 

Spirit’s eve descended with the usual kind of fanfare as it did when you were an adult: Harvey didn’t really notice it, didn’t really care. He made sure that the clinic had some sweets in from Joja for the trick or treaters (Jas and Vincent) and you’d been telling him excitedly about a hallowe’en costume for the girl and it was, actually, increasingly too late to check what her actual name was. 

You always just called her by some ridiculous term of endearment. It was catching, it was suitable, of course, but he didn’t know her name. He’d never seen the little red book with all her information because it was lost somewhere in your sister’s apartment. It was embarrassing at this point. 

You wandered the girl round on Spirit’s eve in her costume. A pumpkin fairy. A little orange skirt, silly tights, a hand-knit cardigan courtesy of auntie Evelyn, wings and a little orange hat with a stem. 

You put her on the counter and she bounced in her outfit. You were smiling, but like you were elated, like the mood of seeing an adorable baby dressed like a pumpkin fairy was really the only thing holding you together. 

“You are very adorable, darling,” Harvey purred, distracted by his work. He couldn’t do his work because your niece was currently dancing on the sheets. “Do you have anything else to do today?”

“We’re going to have pumpkin soup,” you listed. 

“Cannibalism.”

“Yep. We’re going to maybe try some chocolate? If the doctor says yes? If babies can have a little chocolate as a treat?”

Harvey shrugged. 

“Not really my expertise. I’m a thirty-something bachelor before I’m a doctor.”

“Then we’ll do it anyway. Maybe melt some in a pot and let her lick some off a strawberry. Because it is a sweet-eating holiday. Maybe Joja will have some kind of mousse that would be better.”

“Oh, no, yes, try a yoghurt or something.”

“Right, we’ll do that. And then,” you sighed evenly. “I don’t know.”

“You okay?” Harvey asked. The girl outstretched her arms and Harvey took her, barely looking at her, just putting her over leg so she started reaching for pens on the desk. Harvey gave her a clicky one because it didn’t have a lid she could swallow and after showing her it clicked she was enamoured, desperate to get it to happen again. 

You stood in front of the desk, swallowing carefully. 

“Uhm… yeah.”

“Uh-oh. Tell Doctor Harvey what the matter is,”

“My doctor can’t help me, he barely knows what an eight month old is allowed to eat.”

“Tell your friend Harvey what the matter is.”

“Again,” you laughed nervously. 

Harvey considered wielding the ‘Daddy’ card over your head. He assumed it’d make you come up a beautiful shade of cranberry, that you’d sputter and die under it. Still, he didn’t want you to think he was desperate to be in this baby’s life in such a way that you could never shoo him back out of it. He didn’t play the card. 

“Well you’ve got to tell someone or we’ll be here all day.”

“And. Yeah. Well…” You gave another heavy breath over sterile clinic walls. “Do you- tonight’s a busy night for you, isn’t it?”

“Historically the accident and emergency gets a little crowded. Hopefully nothing as bad as last year. That crash down the road where they all limped in, lord knows why they didn’t call an ambulance. If you want to do something-”

“-No,” you choked. “No, don’t worry about it. I was going to say if you’re free- but you’re not, if you’re not. Give her back, then, I’ll go find some mousse from somewhere.”

Harvey kissed a sweet pink nose and wondered if it would be inappropriate to kiss yours in passing. He stood to hand the girl back over the counter and leant forward anyway, leaving something chaste and reverent on your cheek. 

Chapter Text

Harvey was thinking about you all day. Not very different to normal. 

His work always melted away; if voices were too loud outside he’d start listening out for your sweet lilt. He liked to think about your eyes and he liked to think, guiltily, about your thighs. The backs of them, the top, the little he saw when you bent over in a skirt. Not enough skin to be ass but tantalisingly close. 

He’d slept round yours a few times and you always seemed to get a strand of hair stuck to your lips while you slept. Even if it was up, even if it was in a loose plait over your back. You had awful morning breath and a light snore but you slept in little shorts that killed him and he was guilty, of course, that you’d stretch out before bed, moan, crawl into bed with the only bits he’d never seen of you obscured by cheap jersey, and find heat between his thighs that he was desperate to rub out. 

But then you’d lay your head carefully on the pillow and look up through dark lashes and declare that you loved him. And he thought that it was probably alright to get an erection every time you gave a light moan because he would have walked through fire for you. 

He was thinking about you (post-shower, pink and clean) and how something was clearly bothering you (the face you pulled when you put mascara on). But the clinic was full because of course Sam chose tonight to fall off his skateboard into his friends and they definitely weren’t all high. 

So Harvey didn’t get to see you (your laugh), didn’t get to comfort or explore your mind (your laugh when something was really funny; conversely when it was just a little entertaining) and he was three sprain leaflets into the evening before he realised that he’d never sleep tonight if he didn’t check on you.

(You mentioned once you liked it rough and he could still see the exact look in your eyes when you’d said that). (You completely clouded his mind today, not for any particular reason, except that you wouldn’t tell him what was bothering you, and it could break him, and it was breaking him). 

Armed with the spirit’s eve sweets nobody had eaten (three high teenagers got through about half the bowl; he’d bought a lot ), Harvey took himself through the cool night air to your house. 

And he was glad he did. 

Before he even got to the house he saw you. Door open, a warm glow spilling onto your porch, you sat illuminated on the steps. Your hands were over your knees, form small but shrouded in a large jacket that he’d given you last year because he never wore it. 

As he got closer he saw you didn’t have shoes on- saw you weren’t doing anything except sitting outside, head held high as if to evaluate the treeline or let the breeze bite back the sting of tears- door open to hear a baby cry but outside enough to feel as though you’re free of the burden. 

He got closer, shoes not sounding on a dirt path but dry leaves alerting you of his presence. He watched your shoulders raise in a big movement, and your head roll to meet his gaze. 

He was close enough now to look into your eyes, but the night was still dark, so he couldn’t evaluate for pinkness. 

“I didn’t mean to worry you earlier,” you murmured. Choked throat, even tone: you’d been crying. Trying not to cry. 

“You didn’t worry me.”

“You came, you were worried about me.”

Harvey had his hands in his pockets, and gave a nonchalant shrug. 

“Sue me for caring about you.”

“I will,” you sighed, looking back out at the treeline. Harvey kept looking at your face because he liked it, looking at your face, devoid of the shame of being watched while he did it. 

“I’ve just-” you started. He watched something stall you, and tilted his head. “I’ve been very pensive today. I think it’s all just hit me. If she doesn’t come back or she doesn’t want her and I get her- I want Honey, I do- but if she’s mine. Just mine forever and not mine for a while. I mean I can’t raise a child, here. Look at it,”

Your pace picked up, arms gesturing to your beautiful lot of farmland. 

“There’s no school. Penny’s a good girl, she is, but no child of mine is being raised by a woman who’s never actually had any kind of assessment for schooling. The girl will have no friends her age, she’ll never be able to take the bus, she’ll have panic attacks in moderately populated cities because it’ll just be so overwhelming, I mean social development is really gonna tank. And the- what’s she gonna call me, Harvey? She can’t call me my name. And then she’ll ask why she doesn’t call me Mummy and the other two fucking children she knows have a Mummy and what do I tell her? What do I say to that? I’m not going to lie.”

Harvey thought you were beautiful in your concern. Care poured out of you; you brimmed with love and it turned to anxiousness in every periphery. 

“That’s a lot of thoughts for one afternoon,” he said carefully. 

“Mmhmm. And what if she’s like- five or something ridiculous and my sister rocks up with a tan and a beaded necklace-” the plosive ‘b’ sound made you break, laugh, half-cry- “and asks for her back? I’m not saying no. I’m not shipping her off. I’ll just have to have them both live with me and I love my sister but I’m not seeing her every day, I’ll go insane, Harvey, I will go insane.”

Harvey kept his hands in his pockets, head tilted, and waited for you to come to a standstill. 

“I think you’re trying to plan for something you’ll never be able to,” he purred. “Tomorrow we’ll make a big go of contacting your sister and trying to make some kind of plan. For tonight, you need to stop thinking, or you’ll make yourself ill. Would you like a cup of tea?”

You remembered you were in love with him. Things felt worse somehow, like the inky sky above you was collapsing, pressure in your chest. 

“I don’t know,” you gulped. 

“Have you got any alcohol?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Let’s go inside and we’ll see what we’ve got.”

Harvey outstretched a hand. You took his cool, steady palm, and let him lead you inside like it was his house. He pulled you to the girl in the crib, took a careful look at her sleeping form, and then took you back across to the kitchen. 

He was looking in cupboards, the soft bang-bang of them soothing somehow to your ears, and he didn’t let go of your hand. 

With only one appendage, Harvey started pulling things out of the cupboards. Cocoa, whiskey, sugar. 

“Feed me a sweet, darling, they’re in the bag.”

You let go of him for a moment to retrieve his tote, and unwrapped something soft and chewy. You stood close, closer than you needed to, to pass the sweet through his lips. He didn’t lick your fingers after so you did it for him, having a sweet yourself. 

His shoulder seemed a good place to land as any, stood by the stove. Baby stayed asleep in her corner of the bedroom. Harvey’s low hum reverberated through your sternum. You had enough sense to ask if he had a good day and he didn’t seem fussed about telling you; you nuzzled against his shirt, crumpled with stress and sweet with cologne, fresh sweat. 

“You’re stalling,” you accused gently. “You don’t know the answers this time, you’re just trying to comfort me.”

“I don’t have the answers a lot of the time. You just don’t always notice.” 

Harvey moved to place an arm around you. You were stood together like you could be a commercial for instant coffee, for a newly renovated kitchen. With your head on his shoulder the thoughts didn’t come so quickly, so painfully; you felt his heart beat through his clothes, head rising occasionally as his breath displaced you. 

“How much spike are we spiking the cocoa with?”

“Harvey,”

He ‘mmh’d deliciously, the sound running down your spine with a chill. His jaw was on the top of your head. 

“What are you going to do when she leaves. If she leaves?”

“I don’t think about it.”

Stir, stir, stir the liquid on the stove. You always preferred gas stoves and there had never been any in the city. 

“What are you going to do if she stays?”

Pause. Stir. 

“I don’t think about it.”

This one felt considerably more like a lie. 

“You’re thinking too much, sweetheart. Unless you correct me I’m going to spike your hot chocolate with rather a lot. Prescription nightcap.”

“Harvey, when you told me you can’t say no to me, what did that mean?”

You watched his hand hover over the spoon. You kept your head still on his shoulder and hoped he wouldn’t shrug you off just for the privilege of looking at you. 

“I meant... That at your best, you’re a very attractive woman with a very sweet tongue, and I’m not at liberty of turning down a woman stupid enough to tell me that she loves me. However platonically that is.”

The last sentence seemed like an afterthought. He went back to stirring, arm out from around you so he could reach for the whiskey. 

Now seemed like a good time to mention you’d never had it, it’d just been at the back of the cupboard when you moved in. Your grandfather’s. Harvey poured a little into the cap and presented it to your lips. The burn felt warm. The room smelt like cocoa. You were thinking at a million miles an hour and there was only one idea to get it to stop. 

“Go sit down,” you murmured gently, looking Harvey dead in the eyes. This wasn’t a drunken favour in the heat of summer, nor a lust-filled confession in the saloon. This was decided, and feelings weren’t a part of it. 

Harvey’s face flashed with something indescribable. 

“To do what?”

“Go sit down,” you urged again. 

Harvey set the pot of cocoa on a back burner, fire turned off, and put the cap back on the whiskey. You watched him slope away and turned off lights as you followed him, until only the warm lamps remained. 

With no warning, no fanfare, you pulled yourself onto Harvey’s lap. Somehow he was expecting you. He was dead centre of the couch, hips tilted forwards and legs spread wide. You curled into the space for you over his body, his arm up to your back in the moment you were on him.

He was heat, he was flesh, he was a good friend. You pushed your lips to the side of his neck, kissing tenderly against the flex of his tendons. 

A soft sigh escaped him; heated your core. You rubbed it gently out over his pelvis. 

“You always think too much,” Harvey purred. His voice was syrupy with an affect you’d never yet heard. 

You clutched at his shoulders, pressing your lips with tender caress into his neck. He felt like a man underneath you. Solid, firm , if not then firm-ish, firming. Your stomach was fluttering but your mind, thank god, was clear. 

“All the time. If I could fix it for you I would.” 

“I’ll let you,” you murmured in response. His tie was in your palm, anchoring your movement so you could switch to the other side of his neck. With confidence from his compliance, you started moving your hips a little rhythmically over his, so there was some kind of release as you took his flesh between your lips. 

“God,” Harvey threw his head to the back of the couch. “You’re gonna kill me,”

“Am I?” 

“Mmh. Back to just friends in the morning?”

The heat was thick through your thighs. You backed down from the tent in his trousers and just moved yourself, too nervous to go straight to sex, rubbing yourself over his thigh in a way that had you wilting into his neck. 

“Uh-huh,”

Just friends, just neighbours, just co-parents, just your doctor, just a man you needed. Just Harvey. Just Harvey. 

“And we never bring up what’s been said?”

You answered in a light bite, fumbling at his tie. Harvey caught your wrist and the shock sent butterflies through your spine. Electricity in your stomach. 

“Uh, yes,”

“Take your fucking clothes off.”

Harvey was a different man to the one you’d known. A different figure to the one you loved. You were sliding off his lap, watching him pull against his tie with feverish intent. Your jumper came off, thrown across the room, and under his dark gaze the shirt, the skirt came off, until you were just in your underwear and socks. 

He was standing, and your knees were weak. With a strong, easy movement, Harvey had you in his arms, pushing you towards the sofa. 

“Touch yourself,” he grunted. Your body moved on its own to obey him. He knelt before you, between your legs as you perched your feet on the coffee table. A trembling hand slivered down your stomach and you looked away because you were afraid you’d lose your nerve if he met your gaze. 

But then he was on you again. Desperate, reverent kisses teased your inner thighs, his arms locked around your legs to keep you close to him, and the need for friction had your hand trailing with a little more certainty. 

“This is just a favour,” he breathed, almost as if to remind himself. “One for you, one for me.”

“That’s fair,” 

“You’re not doing that well enough if you can still talk to me.”

Harvey caught your hand, and urged you below the seam of your underwear. You gasped at your own touch. Flexed around nothing, just stretching into Harvey’s embrace. He sucked a hickey into your thigh as you felt the wet arousal he’d bestowed on you. 

“O-oh,”

Harvey purred and you were wetter. He kept kissing, teasing, biting, light pain making you nothing but wet. 

You looked down at the top of his head affectionately, your fingers curled up inside yourself. This was a good idea. You were hardly thinking about the things you were trying not to think about and all that mattered was this room, this couch, Harvey’s hands massaging the fat of your thighs and his mouth finding work in the flesh. 

“I- want-” you were embarrassed to ask, but his mouth was inching further and further towards where your own hands spread your apart. You were embarrassed, but he let out little grunts everytime you bucked your hips and whimpered. 

“Want what, sweetheart?” Harvey purred. 

You let out a ragged sigh, and stared down into his eyes. He stopped kissing you just to look up, just to meet your gaze with a hunger you’d never seen. 

“Are you gonna do as you’re told?” 

“Yes,”

“Sit on my lap.” 

He threw your legs away, standing suddenly, and you scrambled to make space for him on the couch. You went back to the first position- him underneath, you comfortable on his pelvis- although this time there was considerably more need for friction. 

Harvey’s hands came up to your hips if only to rip your panties further down your legs. You rubbed yourself over the tent in his trousers, making a little wet patch over his fly, desperately ripping shirt buttons off. 

It was all skin, all movement, all him. You didn’t think about the next move because he was always in charge of it. Rocking up a little to reach something in his pocket, moving your hips to a different patch of pelvis so he could unbuckle his belt. 

“You okay?” he asked, a hand up to your cheek. The pleasure you’d built up from fingering yourself was desperate for release but there were butterflies in your stomach again when he looked at you like that. A little flush, a little hungry, altogether serious, his face without glasses and with a soft curl coming over his nose, searching compliance in your features. 

You nodded eagerly because you didn’t know what to say. Yes, you were okay, yes, you wanted him, you wanted his thigh or his dick or his hands or his something because his eyes were too much to take on most days. 

Steady palms were at your hips, and suddenly he was in, just, fuck, warm inside you, his head lolling backwards, a united moan betraying you both. 

“Aren’t you just perfect?” Harvey purred. 

You clutched at his shoulders, fidgeting to get comfortable.

“You’re so big,” you whimpered. You hadn’t expected him to be so- and right away, without the need to re-position- and he was smirking underneath you and you felt yourself wetten, contract around him anyway. 

“More things like that,”

“You feel so good,”

You fidgeted again, desperate for purchase, and soon enough it became a rhythm. Harvey kept hold of your hips, head burying into your own neck. Pleasure was building, balling, threatening to seize you. 

“Mmh- Fuck, you feel so good. Fuck, you feel good,”

You leant backwards, hands to his knees, and he wrapped an arm around your back to help support you. He was ripping your bra aside with the other hand just to tease, toy, pinch, hurt. 

“You close?” 

He was panting, making delicious little grunting sounds, and you could just drool over him. You’d wanted him forever. Wanted this forever. And he was here, in you, in you, in you, and he was enjoying this just as much as you were. 

“Fuck, Harvey, I need you,”

“I’m right here,”

“God,”

The pleasure was twisting, churning, and then it just took you. You convulsed, back arching. Harvey let out a careful grunt of voyeurism, watching you pant and cum and scream for him. You tried rubbing the tension out over his dick but your body was seized; he guided you over, over, as best as he could, but your harsh whines were met with his own heavy breathing and soon the clutch on you was just to feel you, not direct, not control, just feel, feel, feel. 

You tightened around his dick, and as you slumped, heaving, the aftershocks still enjoyed the feel of his cock as it softened inside you. 

You didn’t realise you were falling backwards until his arms were harsh on you, pulling you towards his chest. The tie was barely on his neck, shirt open to showcase his chest peppered with hair the same colour as his moustache. 

Though you were looking at him through hazed, fuck-drunk eyes, and the warm light of the living room, you could see him in an extreme. Not Harvey from bed, nor clinic Harvey, nor making eye contact over someone’s stupid statement Harvey. This was freshly-fucked. Flush, serious, eyes alight. 

“How was that?” Harvey asked, gaze dipping to your mouth in an entirely obvious way. Your pussy fluttered, dick still inside you. “That feel better?”

“So much better,” you breathed. 

Your head was in his hands and you were losing capacity by the second. Consciousness was a wicked thing. You were tired from the day, from the orgasm, from the worry. And Harvey’s dick was inside you. And his hands carefully held your head up so he could see every smudge of mascara he’d fucked carefully into your cheeks. 

“I love you,” you panted, eyes almost drooping shut. 

You registered how quiet the room was for the first time- the hum of the fridge from the other room, and a baby’s quiet snuffle every now and again- and as you shifted off of Harvey’s dick, collapsing into his chest, you heard your own words echo and bounce with only his soft breathing as reply.

He’d done it. He’d only fucking done it. 

You were a wet dream, an inconsequential thought in the shower, a hardening of the trousers and a stand by the freezer to calm back down. But he’d just ignored all of that. 

He knew it was a risk to want you, he knew it was a risk to put your relationship in this place. 

But he’d folded. Because you asked. And he didn’t know if you wanted him for a night or if you might want him more than that, and he didn’t know if you’d thought about it more than he’d ever put it in your head, so he’d settled- and it was still sex but he settled- on not taking the last of your underwear off, not really touching beneath the cloth, and steadfastly refusing to kiss you. 

You fell asleep on his chest. He was replaying your little noises in his head, the sound of you- fuck, want, need – getting himself worked up and bothered again. He carried you to bed and kissed your forehead- kissed the baby, changed a nappy- and then he was out in the cold. A note on the counter: early appointment (lying), hot chocolate in the fridge. He’d see you later. (He didn’t sign it with a kiss but you would have, but then again you were always better than him, so good at baring your heart). 

And with the night cold on his cheeks, his clothes dishevelled and smelling like you (perfume, sweat, cum), all he replayed in his head- over and over- was your final declaration. You love him. And his own, meek silence. 

Chapter Text

Harvey did not have an early appointment. Not any earlier than normal. He slept fitfully, rolling over to look at the numbers blink by on a digital alarm clock he’d bought when he first moved out at eighteen. Every woman he’d ever slept with had woken up to it. Except for you. 

It was the time geriatrics tend to die on a night shift and he tensed with it, and then it was the time the baby normally grizzled, and soon after that the time you normally got up for chores, and how could he sleep then? When he knew you were awake, you’d be thinking about him? You liked help in the mornings anyway and he should have stayed- should have stayed anyway- and there was a tar pit of guilt in his stomach. He should have stayed anyway but he was scared and he left you and that wasn’t fair. 

He loved you. He could admit it without crippling nausea but the grief, the guilt of it, pushed against his chest. 

He loved you and it was the time he normally got up, time for Evelyn’s appointment. 

“You don’t look well, dear,” Evelyn cooed. Harvey gave her a grim smile and avoided the urge to run his hands through his hair again or it’d look worse. He settled idle hands on straightening his tie. “Long night with the baby?”

“Mmh? No, no- you know she’s not mine, Evelyn?”

“Could have fooled me,” she laughed, stirring the pot in the way only kind, elderly women are allowed to do.

It was time he normally ate and he should have been hungry but he didn’t know if he should call you. So then the whole weight of the world was on his shoulders, his guilt crippling him, and he couldn’t work out if he needed food. 

The phone rang and he wasn’t sure how long it had been ringing for until he picked it up. 

“Hello, it’s Doctor-”

“-Harv, it’s me, don’t do the whole thing. I was wondering if I could book an appointment for little Honey, tomorrow. Don’t -”

“-What’s wrong?”

You were laughing, and the sound simultaneously coiled his intestines and set him on fire. Fuck, he missed you. It hadn’t been any longer than he’d normally go without you and he missed you. 

“-Don’t worry. I just think she’s coming down with something. About to come down with something. She’s been really clingy all day, isn’t finishing her bottles. I’d normally give her a little breadstick to chew- not that she chews it, they kind of disintegrate in her mouth- but I didn’t bother. I can’t put her down and I’m fine- we’re fine. But I can imagine we won’t be fine tomorrow.”

Harvey blinked, a part of his brain whirring into life, and he’d always been incredibly thankful it started and stopped without him having to try. 

“Her breathing, is it, normal- is she,”

“Yes, she’s breathing, Harvey, or I’d be hysterical.”

“Snotty?”

“Yeah,”

“Temperature?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.” You pondered. “Maybe a bit warm.”

“Usual suspect,” he groaned. “She probably will be worse for wear tomorrow. If it started this morning watch out this evening, and tomorrow evening specifically just- I can come round, if you like, I can stay, I know parents get absolutely terrified when first baby gets bronch but it’s really all we see-”

You were laughing. Giggling. He could imagine the girl on you, half asleep and snotty, and could only assume she was in her favourite knit- some blue jumper one of the townsfolk had presented to you- in an effort to help her relax. There were little brown buttons on the sleeves and she liked to try and nibble them when she had the chance. 

“-I don’t know what you’re saying, but , I was thinking, I’ll try to give her a few spoonfuls of bone marrow. For the nutrients. Given she loved it so much last time, I thought I’d invite you round to watch her again.”

“Oh, yes, yeah,”

“Well could you pop over to Marnie’s and see if she’s got any handy? If not Joja might have a bone-in steak and that’s fine, she won’t eat a lot.”

Harvey gasped in fake upset.

“You used me,”

“I don’t remember you complaining,” you purred. 

And just like that his whole brain was working again. For a moment there you’d settled into something he could do- he could be your Doctor and he was finding feet trying to be your friend, but he was more than capable of offering medical advice and professional comfort. But you were teasing. Voice low. And somewhere in the joke, perhaps you’d forgiven him: not angry that he left and not asking for anything more than what he’d already given you. It made his pulse rise, stomach flare, dick doing both. 

He guffawed- half a laugh, half a choke. 

“I’m- certainly not complaining.”

“Good. I have to, ask, though,”

Fuck. Shit. Stall and cover and hold you off. Harvey found his hands playing with the cord of the clinic phone. 

“Did you put me to bed? I remember falling asleep kind of on the sofa, on you, but I don’t… I’ll be honest, I don’t remember putting my clothes back on.”

This was fine. This was a question he could answer. 

“Yes, I put you to bed.”

“Oh. Like the baby?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” you laughed. He was sure he could catch a hint of nervousness in your voice. 

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Things returned to normal- a new normal- not entirely different from your old normal. Instead of not talking about the midnight jellies near miss, hands about to dance, you just didn’t talk about sleeping together. And actually it was easier, because a baby was there most of the time you were together, and you wouldn’t talk about it with a baby in earshot. 

And actually, it was easier, because with the admittance- the knowledge of what it was- you could throw a joke out with a blush and a smirk, and it would be met with a blush and a smirk, and it was as good as talking about it. 

You met Harvey at the door with the girl on your hip and his face didn’t linger on your expectant eyes. The girl was sick, getting sicker, but Harvey said the history was common and if it was what he suspected you had to ride it out. 

He hunched over a chair in the kitchen feeding her, with Vincent’s old spoons, tiny slivers of cooled bone marrow. She seemed to like the taste but didn’t enjoy the process. 

“What we’ll do,” Harvey murmured, with an authority that fluttered your stomach. “Well we’ll have a clean first, darling, you got that everywhere. And we’ll just give her little teaspoons occasionally.”

“Is it not bad if she doesn’t eat, take her milk,”

“She’s had more than half of what she usually does, so I’m not worried.”

“Is that the threshold?”

Harvey threw a glance at you over his shoulder and smiled, before pulling the girl from a high chair, wiping a food-covered, snotty face. 

Pain flashed through your stomach. You wished- chest taught- that he’d stayed last night. But you knew that was selfish. You asked him for something he got something out of, an equivalent exchange, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask him for more. 

So, cleaning the kitchen, you said he could stay and the offer is always open, but he doesn’t have to. And he just asked you how hard today was. Hard work, with the girl. So he offered to bath her while you did the evening chores and offered to clean the kitchen, or do bedtime, or both. You were not one to deprive Harvey the joy of bedtime. 

The girl didn’t sleep. She was enamoured by him and you couldn’t even be concerned; she’d been asleep for most of the day. And so you were all crowded around the television, feet in various laps, and you were aware you were falling asleep because Harvey’s voice vibrated your sternum in an unsettling, visceral way. 

“Your auntie’s very tired,” Harvey cooed to the girl. “I think we should put her to bed. Don’t you?”

“Bite me,” you murmured, thick with sleep. 

“There’s not a thing I wouldn’t give to have you bite me,” Harvey teased. 

Your stomach fluttered, pussy warm; eyelids drooping further closed with the safety of his sweet taunt. For the second night you were falling asleep on the couch next to Harvey. You didn’t know if you should tell him that you were in love with him before or after you had to give your niece back; before or after you found out she was staying, she was yours, she’d be raised with you, and he would have to decide if he could keep up the act or not. 

You tried not to think about Christmas.

Winter descended slowly, beautifully; you’d always found it beautiful. Fallowed trees losing their leaves so they reached into bright blue skies naked. Snow setting, or threatening to set, just painting fields of grass pastel green. Chunks of ice floating through the ponds, rivers. 

January, February, was a horrible time, but the beginning of winter was a gift. Early sunsets that your niece could enjoy. Snow she could taste. She recovered from her illness and she needed slightly bigger onesies- “a growthspurt , Harvey, that means she’s growing ”- and then she caught another winter bug, but then you all did. 

You huddled under blankets in the house for a few days and Marnie helped out on your farm, and just when you were on the brink of complete fatigue, Harvey caught the same thing and you found the strength to stand up if only to put the kettle on for him. 

You didn’t like thinking too far into the future but you couldn’t help it. Didn’t like factoring Harvey into all your dinners and fun activity ideas because it wasn’t fair. But you couldn’t help it. 

Still, your sister was completely absent and impossible to reach. 

Harvey did offer to come with you to have lunch with your parents. Apparently, despite the fact you had an infant child to lug with you, the fact that you moved away meant you had to do the bulk of the leg work getting into Zuzu City on the train to meet them for lunch. 

Not only did Harvey offer to come with you, he offered to borrow- or rent a car- and drive, offered to take you but wait in the car, and you couldn’t help but be so madly endeared by this that you knew you had to decline everything for fear of stripping your clothes in thanks. 

As you made your way back on the train carriage, niece leaving tiny handprints on the windows, the sight of the valley and its leafless trees, evergreens, rolling hills, made your stomach settle with a sense of ‘home’ that very few places in the world afforded you. 

You stood at the doors as the train squealed to a stop, girl on your hip and pram carefully held still in the other hand. A whoosh of the doors let in stark winter cold, and Harvey, of course, was waiting on the platform. 

“Ahh-vrrr,” the girl beamed, arms outstretched towards him. 

“Hello,” you laughed. 

“Hello,”

He had his arms outstretched too, taking the girl from your arms. He attempted to shuffle her to a hip to help you off with the pram, but she was launching her large baby head to his, leaving a large, wet, open-mouthed kiss over the edge of his lips and his moustache. 

“That’s new,” Harvey beamed, wincing and utterly overjoyed. The train doors were shutting, Harvey careful to pull you back behind the yellow line with your things. Your niece kept open-mouth kissing Harvey as though she’d not seen him in an incredibly long time; he was the love of her life and she had been cruelly kept away for many volatile years. 

“I was telling her we’d see you,” you laughed. “I said we might stop by the clinic to say hello. She does understand your name,”

“Thank you, darling,” Harvey recoiled from some of her kisses to look at her properly. After a moment of studying her overjoyed face, he placed a kiss on the tip of her nose. She burrowed into his neck as if embarrassed and he turned to you. 

“I made reservations at Gus’. To take out.”

“Did you, now?” you raised an eyebrow. “What are you trying to butter me up for?”

Harvey started off walking, one hand manoeuvring the pram along the platform and off towards the hill. It had never been built for this purpose- the off-road dirt paths- and you didn’t tend to use it, but you wanted to take it into the city. 

“How would you possibly know I’m trying to sweeten you up?” Harvey teased. “You’re going to be mad at me.”

“Am I?”

“Bought the girl Christmas presents.”

“Why?” you declared, and he was all already mimicking you, talking over you. 

“ Why, Harvey, you stupid, broke man . How could I not? Whether she’s with you- she still gets a present, wherever she is in the world. Don’t pull that face at me, darling, it wasn’t that expensive.”

“ ‘That expensive’,” you echoed.

“Mmh. You’d approve.”

“Am I going to approve?”

“Yes, you are.”

You sighed, but fell into step behind him. You didn’t need to follow like a lost puppy, but you liked watching him. His broad shoulders carrying the girl. For him it wasn’t cold enough yet to need more than his coat- a thick, old-fashioned thing he never bothered to button- and every now and then your niece could switch between looking up at his perfect side profile to turning her head, looking at you. You’d smile. She’d smile. Babble a little, incomprehensible nonsense, and turn away as though she’d just told you the most understandable thing in the world. 

“Notice how I’m talking about other things so you don’t have to tell me how it was if you don’t want to,” Harvey said. 

“I noticed, don’t worry. It was weird. I always think my parents are going to be as bad as I remember them and they never are.”

“People can play nice for an hour or two.”

“One hour twenty,” you corrected. The pram struggled a little on the terrain and somehow Harvey was managing one handed, the girl on his hip. You didn’t take either off him because it was nice to walk weightless awhile. “Granddad paid,”

“That’s all Daddy’s good for, I think.”

Your niece didn’t flinch at the word because you supposed she’d never really have heard it. It made your stomach twist, hearing it out of his mouth. 

“She didn’t like the train out but she loved the train back in. Needs a nap, really, but I let her look out the window so she’ll be aggy later. And she wasn’t totally fussed about the new company, either. Broke my mother’s heart I think.”

“Then she should see her more.”

“Yes. Well. I did move very far away. I did kind of deprive my mother of seeing her.”

“Then your sister should have stayed.”

“She was struggling.”

“You see how this is no-one’s fault?” Harvey threw his head back over to you. “Least of all yours. Things happen, people move. This little girl here is happier and healthier and chubbier, and she’s learning to talk, and roll and eat, and that means someone is doing something properly. My money’s on you.”

“My money’s on you ,” you clarified, following him towards your farm. The sun was starting to set- early winter darkness- and the treeline was dark against a dim lilac. “Want to take her in while I put the animals to bed?”

“Milk?”

“And a snack if she wants it. Don’t bother if not, but- nothing sweet. My father kept trying to feed her raisins with icing on from his eccles cake and he wouldn’t listen when I said no. Thankfully she wasn’t that bothered.”

Harvey laughed good naturedly and, as you passed him the key to get in, you wondered why you’d never made him one up- why you didn’t give him the emergency spare- and before you could really think about it, he placed a hand on your lower back as he passed, and then that was all you could think about, all you wanted to think about, his laugh and his unending love for a niece with ears like yours and his hand, too low, on your body. 

Chapter Text

Harvey declared, with his perfectly firm and kindly tone, that all he wanted for his birthday was to go on a walk with you, and the girl. 

Of course you got him presents anyway- made him the oat and raisin cookies that were the only remotely unhealthy thing he’d have of yours- and he helped you strap the girl into a carrier, taking you both through the woods- through the field where you held the spring festival- and beyond. 

Your boots crunched on icy grass, and every so often he’d pick up a gloved hand to help lead you over an iced mud puddle. He dropped it just as quickly. 

“How come you caved?” Harvey asked. 

“What’d’you mean?”

“I thought you weren’t buying things for the future.”

The carrier was a new, bulking thing of safety straps, that helped sit the girl comfortably on your front. Girl herself was in a new onesie, faux sheepskin with little fuzzy ears in the hood: it was bought with a collection of other babygrows and socks and jumpers. You’d bought so much, in fact, that it came with a complimentary rucksack for all your nappy-bottle-wetwipes needs, which Harvey was currently wearing. 

“She’s completely outgrown everything she arrived to the valley with, and Jodi’s selection wasn’t actually very comprehensive. The boys weren’t this little in the winter here and Marnie didn’t have anything of Jas’ because she didn’t have her that little. I asked practically everyone else and they all got rid of baby things for space.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Fuck. You forgot how Harvey’s low voice tortured your insides; how easily he saw through you. 

“She needed things,” you shrugged. 

“Two hundred dollars worth of things,”

“She will anyway. Whoever she’s with.”

Harvey nodded and the conversation was stopped. You kept walking for a little while. The girl shouted- some simple kind of ‘ah!’- and pointed at birds flying in the snowdrop sky overhead. She tried desperately to look around to check everyone had seen, and settled again. 

“Do you actually know where we’re going?” you asked. 

“Believe it or not, I do have a life outside of you girls.”

“What hat means you know where we’re going?”

Harvey looked at you, confused, and tried to fight the smile when it clicked. 

“My Doctor Hat. Plain-Old-Harvey Hat, really.” His breath misted in front of him and pinked his own nose. “When I first moved here I took a lot of walks to explore the area. If I needed to calm down, if something went–wrong, if I was dwelling on things. This one’s a nice walk. Let me know if you need me to hold her.”

“What kind of things clouded your mind when you moved?”

Harvey went quiet and let it play as thoughtfulness. He felt lonely. The impossible kind of crushing loneliness, like the kind in your early twenties. He felt ten years too old, like he’d made a mistake somewhere, moving all the way out here with no-one. Lonely and cold in bed. Worried he’d never have children. 

When you moved in and he saw your hair illuminated from behind with sunlight for the first time, he started going on the long walks again. He hadn’t been on any as of late. 

“Nothing that seems to matter that much now,” he decided. He turned to look at you and your smile could have melted the whole forest. 

Through a long trek through the woods, you were on the outskirts of another town. It was better populated than your hamlet, and a road with occasional passing cars reminded you of that. Still, there was a pub right by the exit to the forest, and your cold feet were grateful for the reprieve. 

Warm air revived you, and the baby woke up from her cool-air nap. 

“Find a table and I’ll get a high-chair.” Harvey turned his head back to you and wondered off with purpose, leaving you lonely in the place. It was all dark wood, beer-smelling, with snowflake cutouts decorating the windows. 

You looked around a little, holding the girl’s hand more as a comfort to yourself. You’d been completely led around by Harvey, and it took a second to remind yourself that you were capable of being in charge and making decisions. 

You found a booth by a window and Harvey appeared with a wooden highchair. The girl did not want to sit in it under any circumstance and you couldn’t blame her. She was passed off to Harvey, sat on his lap, and she kept sticking her hand in the mash on his plate. He couldn’t see this properly. 

“Is the mash salty?” you asked idly, digging into your own pub food. 

“Little bit. Why? Oh,”

You smiled at him as a shadow overcame your table.

“Your family is beautiful,” someone said. Some nondescript older woman, the kind that seem to flock to Harvey because he’s got an approachable, please-start-a-conversation with me face. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, but you look absolutely lovely.”

“Thank you,” Harvey nodded easily. 

An already uncomfortable chest twisted with grief. He shouldn’t have to lie like this for you. Shouldn’t hurt himself playing pretend because you knew he wanted a family as much as you did. 

“How old is she?”

“Nine months.”

The cooing continued, the older woman vying for the girl’s attention. She’d grown tired of Harvey’s mash and wriggled until he’d turned her round, meaning she was now staring up to his face and was oblivious to the rest of the world. 

“She’s absolutely in love with you,” the older woman cooed. She turned to you, endearingly: “Can’t blame her, can you?”

“Ah-hah,” you laughed nervously. If she thought you were family then she just hit on your fucking husband. You weren’t a family; he wasn’t your husband. You were sick from subpar chips; you were sure the oil they were cooked in hadn’t been changed for weeks. The pub ran a bit too warm anyway. 

Harvey smiled the older woman off, and you couldn’t find your voice, nor your appetite. 

“It’s like they know I’m too weak to decline conversation,” Harvey complained. The girl reached up for him, desperately trying to pull herself to stand. When she couldn’t manage, her unsteady surface being his lap, she started to squinny. 

“Are you alright?”

“Mmh?”

“What’s wrong?” Harvey studied you as he helped the girl stand. She gave her open-mouthed birthday kisses. “Oh. I only agreed so she’d leave quicker. I didn’t-”

“-oh. No, Harvey,”

“Something’s upset you.”

“Yes, but,”

Without Harvey’s attention the kisses turned a little head-butty in their fruitfulness. 

“You are not the only girl I love, sweetheart,” Harvey turned his head. “I’m talking to your auntie, alright. Alright?” At his smile she was giggling. “Look, I can’t promise I won’t turn the Doctor Voice on and I know you hate that-”

“-you’re doing it now-”

“-But I can’t help it. You look forlorn.”

“I am forlorn.”

“Why are you forlorn?”

You smiled grimly as he turned his attention back to the girl, half-singing against his face. She liked to babble, liked to do it in his ear, and on the rare, rare occasion, that he wasn’t completely enamoured, she gave a little baby pout and got visibly angry. 

Harvey spoke to her and she ‘spoke’ back, a conversation of ‘are you quite alright’-’bah!’-’what does that mean?’-’bah- bah ’ until Harvey apologised and she decided she wanted to look out the window. 

When his attention was relieved, the girl sat up at the other end of the table and watched the world go by, you’d found the words. 

“I just feel bad,” you said. “For you. I can’t help but feel guilty that when you try to spend time with me you have to split your attention.”

“It doesn’t bother me, I’ve told you.”

“Doesn’t help that whenever we’re out together some trouble-making pensioner bitch insists on reminding everyone that it’s not all actually ours.”

Harvey tilted his head, frowning at you, scooping up the last of his dinner so the baby didn’t get it. Half of yours lay untouched. 

“Why are you pouting? It doesn’t bother me that people think we’re married.”

“I just know it’s what you want,”

“I know,”

“I know that it hurts to, to have it, to not really have it,”

“Sweetheart,”

“But it does, I know it does, and you can sit on the outskirts and get baby cuddles and not think about the future because you don’t know my family. It could be two years before my sister rears her head, decides she wants her back, and everyone would be on her side. Would make me give her back. I just don’t know how you can- not be sad about it.”

“Because I don’t borrow grief from the future.”

“Grief from the future my ass, I know this is going to hurt. Whatever happens, whatever the option is, I know this is going to hurt, Harvey. You can’t ‘oh dear’ your way out of this and you can’t pretend I’m not worrying for nothing.”

The girl hyperventilated, turning back on herself, on the verge of a cry as if she remembered that she couldn’t see either of you. You reached for her and she was back on your lap. 

“I’m just sorry,” you declared. “I feel guilty.”

“Well… Snap. You don’t think I know this is exactly what you want? I feel bad imposing because I’m going to shun away the hundreds of other men that are interested in you. I’ve seen how people look at you when you’re out and I’ve seen how that changes when people think I’m with you. So I feel just as bad about imposing, but you’re just going to have to believe me when I say I enjoy spending time with you. ”

You two probably would have been a better point to make, forgive the baby for her dribbling sins, but he just enjoyed you, hanging out with you, and the sentence wouldn’t come out any other way. 

You blinked up at him, chewing pensively on a tepid chip. Still greasy. 

“I wouldn’t say it’s hundreds.”

“Then you’re not paying attention. I am sorry. I’ve seen you worry about a lot of things and I can’t say all of it was warranted. You’re allowed to tell me off if I don’t give it enough weight.”

He leant forward to steal a chip, and you let him. 

“I just did.”

By the end of the day, Harvey was lounging on your couch. The girl had been put to bed in her cot in the bedroom, and while the TV blared its ending of an aeroplane documentary, you and Harvey were shrouded in near darkness. 

“See?” he purred, voice low. “I told you it was interesting.”

“It was.”

Your voice sounded more sultry than you’d meant it to, dislodged with some fatigue and the way your windpipe opened where you were very nearly in Harvey’s lap. You didn’t go on long, nice walks often, because most of your day was tied up with the girl and the farm animals. But Harvey wanted this, so he’d bargained away cooking dinner, putting the animals to bed, putting the girl to bed, if it meant getting to spend the day with you. 

“I’m surprised you’re not asleep yet.”

His hand landed over your forehead in the darkness, rubbing back hair out of your face. Your stomach lurched. How many times was he going to do this to you- stop your heart, fray the raw ends of your nerves. You adjusted, head on one of his thighs, wondering if you’d cause a tension within him. 

“I wanted to make your birthday special,”

“You did.”

“You ate mash and we watched a documentary you’ve already seen.”

“An old man’s not allowed to have a good day?” 

You laughed, reaching up. In the dim glow of the tv you caught his tie, swirled it between your fingers. He pulled it gently out of your grasp and you let your hand rest underneath, feeling the buttons of his shirt. 

“What’s a good birthday for you, then?”

“In an ideal world it’s a national holiday.”

“Uh-huh,” Harvey spurred, hand now cupping the top of your head. You wriggled a little, getting further into his lap, and he let you. 

“Yummy breakfast. Snacky lunch. Some kind of nice dinner. Birthday Cake.”

“Would you look at that, sweetheart. I also got all of those.”

“You got mash and oat cookies.”

“Those are yummy to me,”

The word was so childish out of his mouth, like he picked up the slang just because it came out of your chest. 

“A nice walk,”

“I’ve got great news for you.”

“And-” you hesitated, still playing with his chest. Did you want this? Why did you need this? Why were you sure he was going to give this to you?

You reached your hand up, loosening his tie, and he looked down- half-lit with silver. 

“-in an ideal world,” you cooed. 

“Mmhmm,”

“I know on my birthday, I’d want…”

Undoing the buttons of his shirt. Still just laying on his lap, looking up at him and not quite meeting his eyes. 

“Want what?” Harvey asked, and it felt like foreplay. You felt the smile coat your face- teasing, girlish- as you slipped his tie off his neck and properly worked on his buttons. Not fast. Not slow. Casually getting through them as though it was a chore; you simply had to look at his chest spattered with hair. 

“To be taken care of,”

“Would you like to care of me?”

“Yes.”

You looked into his eyes and only half-recognised the man you found. Dangerous, firm, a man with all the submission of a big dog with an inexperienced walker at the lead- you held all the power because he let you hold all the power. 

“How would you like to take care of me?” Harvey pursued. 

“Anyway you’d let me.”

“You’ll have to be a lot more specific than that, darling,”

“Will I?” you laughed. 

“Very much so.”

“How much will you let me do?”

Harvey didn’t answer, only looked down at you. You felt your stomach alight with confession. 

You sat up, burrowing your head into his neck, labouring your kisses over his trapezius, his collarbones, his sternum, as a hand massaged his upper thigh. His careful sighing was your praise. With hungry hands you rolled his shirt off, untucked from his trousers, away from his arms, and you were surprised to find smooth muscle beneath. 

Harvey left a hand over the back of your head, and he kept it there as you teetered back a little. 

“Have you been working out?” you asked, surveying his torso. It wasn’t quite flirty- it was genuine shock, friend-to-friend. Though obscured with a layer of chub and thick hair, Harvey was surprisingly muscled over his broad frame. 

“I have.”

“Why?” you laughed. He stroked the back of your head nonchalantly. 

“Do I have to have a reason?”

“Well you never told me,” you argued, pulling yourself over a thigh and rubbing your hands over his shoulders, his chest. “I assume there’s a reason if you never told me.”

Harvey smiled guiltily. And fuck, he was hot, and you supposed you hadn’t stopped to take the shirt properly off last time. 

“Well the girl’s easy to lift now, but I still wanted her to be easy to lift in the future.” 

You watched him study you, his eyes shifting and difficult to read when you were looking at him through your own affection. 

“And it’s always good to know that I could lift you, if you were hurt.”

You needed him. You’d needed him before but you needed him now, his mouth to yours, desperately rubbing yourself over a thigh for more friction. His breath was fervent, movements earnest. It suddenly occurred to you, mouths breaking to breathe, that you’d never kissed before, and all you could think of to say- flesh of his chest deep in your hands as he worked at your own clothes-

“You’re such a good Dad,”

You were flipped to your back, laying on the sofa, Harvey between your legs and working through your clothes with anxious ferocity. When he found what he was looking for (a whimper, clutching at his chest) he retracted. 

There was a moment where he wasn’t on you. There wasn’t skin, the blinding sensation of his mouth on yours stalling all thought. You watched him roll a condom on in the silver light of the TV and remembered, breath catching up with you, that you were overwhelmingly in love with him. You reached for his face to kiss him, drown out the sensation. His tongue against yours only made it worse. 

He slipped inside- affection blooming in your gut, an awful fluttering of butterflies, pleasure- and he was fucking you, rough and grunting and enjoying this just as much as you were. You needed him tonight, here, needed him deeper inside you, and you needed him in the morning. You needed his breath and his skin and his heat, and his love, although he never said the word, but it was all his love. 

He fucked you in a harsh rhythm, quick and deep, and when it somehow wasn’t enough, he pulled your legs over his shoulders. 

“Ngh, fuck,”

“Moan for me,”

“ Fuck ,”

He’d never touched you like this before, it was new. He’d never needed you like this before. He slammed into you roughly and he praised you for how well you were taking it, how good you were, and your legs on his shoulders meant you were tighter anyway but you contracted around him with the praise. 

The pleasure overturned, spilt over his dick and out of your mouth in ragged moans. 

“That’s it, what’s my name?”

“ Har-vey ,”

He leant further down, still fucking in his rough, rough, rough rhythm, pressing your legs to your chest as he teased your lips with his tongue. You contracted again, the orgasm spilling into a second. You could hear your moans echo around the room, intermingling with his harsh breath. 

“Good girl. That’s it. Fuck, I love you,”

Your legs were thrown off his shoulders so he could pull your torso upwards to meet him, your breasts bouncing against his bare chest. 

You were panting through the comedown as he just kept fucking, his relentlessness impressive. You watched his muscles flex, held onto his arms, kept moaning in little spurts because you loved the way his jaw tightened every time you did. 

With one last kiss- open-mouthed, heavy-breathed, a grunt pouring straight into your throat- Harvey came to a stop. Without retracting his dick, he leant down again and gave you another kiss. You met him with as much effort as you could muster. 

“What did you say?” you asked, brow flickering, as he leant backwards again. 

“Mmh? I didn’t say anything,”

“No, earlier,”

You watched his eyebrows furrow as he thought for a moment. 

The baby gave a few loud hyperventilations from the bedroom before starting to cry, and as if by magic the phone was ringing. 

“Fucking hell,” you sighed, as Harvey slipped out. 

“I’ll get the baby if you get the phone.”

You took a moment to compose yourself. You were in love with him and you’d slept with him twice- and you knew this would end badly but you couldn’t bring yourself to ever stop sleeping with him, stop involving him in your life, because he was such a good influence on your niece, on you. 

With shaking legs, you rolled off the couch, and limped over to your phone. You could hear Harvey making gentle shushing noises next door and it didn’t aid your ability to stand, so you leant against the wall. 

“Hello?”

And it was your parents. And they’d heard from your sister. 

Chapter Text

Harvey was prepared for the worst of the worst. Most of the time. 

He kept his adrenaline in date, checked the resuscitation trolley every morning although it was (thankfully) never used. He checked his fire and carbon monoxide alarms at the start of every month and he offered to do Evelyn’s, and since knowing you he’d do yours as well. He kept an umbrella by the door in case it rained. Cash in his wallet although everything was card these days. 

He had not been prepared for you to move in and he was, least of all, prepared for this. 

Your sister had been in touch with someone and she was currently in eastern asia and she would be back from at some point in January. You definitely had Christmas with the girl but time after that was indefinite. 

You’d slept in bed together after the phone call- you hadn’t slept, you rocked the girl to sleep while she was going through a regression, waking through the night- and he hadn’t slept, too busy watching you both in the dark. But you slept in bed together and he took you into the clinic to talk to you on plastic chairs, make it seem official. 

“I would make the case, as a Doctor, that she not be moved again. At least until she’s two. There’s a lot of brain development until that age, and attachment, and she’s already had disruption. I’d want her to stay with you if I was just an outsider.”

“But you’re our social worker, too.”

“I’m- I’ve been in this fucking awful email chain, back and forth for months,”

You laughed a little. He was so glad he could make you laugh under harsh clinic lighting. 

“Basically the caseload is full and I’m meant to take you on- but I can’t , because of the conflict of interest,”

“Because you’re too close to the baby?”

“Because we’ve had sex , sweetheart,” Harvey condescended. Your thighs flashed with heat. “I’m out of the picture because I’m too close into it, but I’m not exactly about to say on an email chain that I semi-regularly fuck Child In Need’s adoptive Mummy. I’m trying to get it sorted, darling, I really am. At the moment you don’t have a social worker but you do have a named GP who’s kind of involved in the safeguarding case.”

“How come you can be my GP if we semi-regularly have sex?”

“Do you want to die?” Harvey declared disdainfully. “I just- sweetheart- we got the same amount of sleep-”

“-Alright, I’ll ask another time.”

“Don’t you dare. It’s me or Doctor Waverley an hour’s drive away and he’s not very good, I’m better. Listen. I would die on the hill that this little girl gets to live with you until she’s at least two. Your sister would need parenting classes, a social worker assessment, all of that, before I’d let them take her. I swear on my licence.”

You nodded, eyes wide, as you took his words in. He might have been your Doctor- might have been your friend- it didn’t really matter when you trusted every facet of Harvey with equal importance. 

“Okay,” you murmured, feeling as though your voice sounded like a patient. You looked at the girl where you’d lay her in one of the cribs in the clinic- snow hat off but the big cuddly suit still on. Worn out from a cold-air walk and a long night of waking.

Harvey smiled, a hand to your knee. 

“Alright?”

“Shall we just adopt her?” you spurred, words tumbling from your mouth. “Instead of being unsure, just to get a proper future, would we be able to?”

Harvey was stalled on the pronoun. We, could we adopt. 

“Uhm- sorry I don’t understand the question.”

“Not just staying here until two. Could we just keep her, and know that she’s okay?”

“That would depend on your sister,” Harvey said sincerely. 

“Fuck, I know. I know. If… If she is staying- would you want to stay with us?”

His heart stopped beating.

Harvey stared at you blankly. He’d seen you in extremes- half-naked or pink from the shower or flushed with rage and anaemic, sickly, and he’d seen you vibrantly worried, overwhelmingly excited, but now he saw it all in unflattering clinic light with no distraction. He was so in love with your face. 

“Again- uhm, I don’t- what’s the,”

“Well, she loves you. If she gets to stay, if I get to keep her, would you like to be proper- like on the forms and everything? I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

You knew exactly what you were trying to say and it made it difficult to get the words out. You took a moment to formulate the right feeling on your tongue. 

“I mean, in the event she does stay. I really appreciate your help. And she really loves you. So would you want to be on the forms and everything, and you can really- I mean Shane says you’re “playing Daddy” at the moment, but you can, I think you’d be good at it. You are good at it.”

“You’re asking if I’ll co-parent with you,” Harvey clarified, for his own heart. 

“Yes! I forgot that word,” you laughed nervously. 

He was earnest as he leant forward again, hand on you anywhere he felt he could place it on you. 

“Of course. I’d- of course I would.”

“Maybe now you could tell the social worky people that they need to assign somebody to us because you look an awful lot like Daddy.”

Harvey studied you, heart vibrant and painful through his chest. 

“You’re very resourceful when you need to be, you know that, darling?”

You shrugged. 

“I can’t do it without you. Might as well use you.”

“That reminds me,” Harvey started, getting up to present you with some forms. He put them in your lap, still standing so he could rid himself of some of the anxious energy. “Could you just fill this out? Just to make sure the name is right, and everything. I haven’t been able to send off forms anywhere because there’s nowhere for them to go, currently…”

“You don’t know her last name?” you cooed, head tilted upwards at him. 

He choked, blushed. 

“Ah, well…”

“No, don’t worry, it’s the same as mine, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that.”

Harvey reclaimed the papers from your lap once you finished putting in her details. First name-middle name-last name-birthday (she didn’t have a middle name, apparently). In your neat script, Harvey saw the girl in an entirety he hadn’t seen yet. A name on a form, the life ahead of her dim: forever she’d be on government papers; safeguarding referrals. 

His stomach writhed, unsettled with the amount of work there was to do (as her doctor, as a- not quite- sort of, father), and still, he found his lips curling upwards, as he realised what her name was.

Winter carried on in fitful cold. And the days until the festivals passed quicker than you’d think. Last year you’d spent Christmas evening together after the feast, but this year Harvey was with you for Christmas Eve. He watched the girl while you had a long, hot, bath, and you put her to bed and explained what would happen in the morning and she had wide eyes as though she understood every word. 

You watched a stupid film on the telly with spiked hot chocolate. You went to bed first, tired, kissing Harvey on the cheek, and he must have followed you to bed at some point because you woke up and he had the girl in his arms, half-asleep himself. 

“How long have you been up?” you murmured. 

“Long enough to know I need the toilet.”

You laughed and turned over, reaching for the girl. She seemed terribly upset that Harvey was leaving, no matter how much you tried to distract or play with her. 

“He’s only in the other room darling,” you soothed. She sprang on your legs, stronger than she had been- she’d be standing soon. “Harvey still loves you,”

“Vrrr-vrr,”

“He just needs a wee,”

“Vrrrrr,”

“He doesn’t stop loving you just because he needs a wee,”

She hyperventilated as if about to cry, entirely unsure that this was the truth. You wondered for a moment if she thought about her mother- and what she thought about her mother, if she thought about her mother. If her brain was wired irreparable with a sense of reasoned abandonment, if she loved your sister, if it hurts to love your sister. 

When you thought about the woman, there were two of them. You could imagine her somewhere sunny. In a loose, white shirt over a bikini of horrendous pattern, open-toed shoes to hike well-travelled paths through a rainforest, over mountains, sandy beaches. You could smell the warm breeze and the scent of her perfume. Still, when you thought of your sister, you could see her at five. The childish curls and pink cheeks of indignance, you could hear yourself singing the bedtime story when she needed the nap. At no point could you picture a malicia, a hated, her struggle; nor could you picture her love, her maternal instinct. She was not a bad woman. She made ill-timed choices with very little communication to the parties involved. But she was not a bad woman.

Harvey returned, the girl outstretching for him again. A comfort rolled through your chest as you saw him wander into the room again. 

“Have you got time for a snuggle?”

“I’ve always got time for a snuggle.”

He put an arm up and let you sidle up to him. He felt steady, like a home. Simultaneously you were aware, his pulse against your ear, that he was a whole entire person- no matter how close you got he’d retain some level of distance for which you’d always be intrigued. 

Your niece was quickly returned to his lap. She reached out to you, clammy hands on your face, and leaned forward in one of her big open-mouthed kisses. 

“Thank you, darling,” cooed,

She gave Harvey one. 

“Thank you, darling,” he purred.

With his breath under your chest, his warmth making you dozy, you struggled to fight sleep. 

“Merry Christmas,” you murmured flatly. 

“Merry Christmas. It’s sort of the law to feel a bit shit, isn’t it?”

 A meek smile teased at your lips, and you turned your head up at him. He smiled back down at you. 

“I hope my sister’s okay,” you said. The girl on Harvey’s lap didn’t care that you were talking about it, seemingly. Harvey was here and that was all that mattered to her. 

“I know.” Harvey pulled his arm around you, squeezing you slightly. “I hope you’re okay,” he raised an eyebrow. 

The house was quiet. It wasn’t snowing, outside: it had been slightly warmer recently and the snow itself was threatening to melt. You knew it would refreeze, that Harvey would see some injuries, knew that the girl would eventually get the hang of ‘milk’, of ‘cow’, of ‘Harvey’. In this moment- dull morning light and a chorus of soft breath- you could not convince yourself that everything would be okay. 

You tried not to think about it. Because nothing good would come from thinking about it, because it was Christmas. 

You took her to the feast of the winter star after she’d opened some new things and tried to eat the wrapping paper. Books that you loved as a child, books that Harvey loved as a child. A play doctor’s set that wasn’t yet age appropriate, although Harvey pretended to listen to her chest, take her temperature, and she thought this was hilarious because she loved him. She looked at you, then at him, so he pretended to do the same to you, and of course this was hilarious. 

She took tiny bites of stuffing balls, of cooled roast potatoes, of shredded turkey dipped in cranberry sauce, and licked tepid gravy off of tiny baby fingers. You’d never enjoyed the festivities much until you were looking up at the fairy lights with her same wonder. 

And then you got to wander home- bathe off cranberry sauce that had somehow made its way under her clothes- give her some milk, put her to bed, and recline on the couch with another shitty film.

Somehow the whole day was normal . Spending time with Harvey, letting him into your life. It all felt like it was supposed to work out this way. As though you could just co-parent a child together, be desperately, irrevocably in love with him, have your whole existence revolve a dozen chickens and a babygirl and him, his happiness, his laughter. 

You fell asleep in his lap on the couch and it was marginally worse than fucking him again because at least you could pretend it was just sex when you fucked him. 

Chapter Text

Just before the New Year could pass, the turbulence ruled your mind. Winter days were short and you couldn’t do a lot with them. Your life was utterly upended, washing full of tiny clothes and thongs no good man would ever see, and you were simultaneously distressed at the thought of raising a child and horrified at the thought she would leave. 

You were trying to hold it together. Trying to enjoy the warmth of the lamps to help stave off Vitamin D deficiency, depression from lack of sunlight. Trying to eat the rest of the Christmas chocolate and not feel sick with it. 

Trying, desperately, to not have every waking moment consumed with worry. Or guilt. 

Harvey let himself into your house, fingers pink with the cold. You’d given him the spare key and it was safe to assume you were up, but indoors, at nine in the morning. 

There’d been nothing to do today, except hang out with you, and as he stepped into the warm his heart flooded with uncomfortable, unhandleable love, so thick it could kill him. 

“Where is my nose?” Your sing-song voice ran through the house. He could hear your light laughter echoing off tile and strode towards the bathroom. “Where is Honey’s nose?” A prolonged silence, and then-  “-boop! There’s Honey’s nose. Where is my myyyy tummy. Here’s my tummy. Where’s Honey’s tummy?”

Harvey came to the door of the bathroom and could have keeled over. Through the scent of milk and honey, your shower gel and the baby’s bath products, Harvey was accosted with the true weight of his love. 

You stood, bare-faced and pink, in nothing but your underwear. The girl was on your hip- in a nappy but nothing else- as you presented her to the mirror. Your long hair was loose over your back, some over your shoulder, and the girl’s was fluffy where it stuck up out of her head. 

“Here’s Honey’s tummy! Where’s Harvey’s moustache?” 

He hadn’t realised you’d noticed him. He supposed it was better than scaring you. The girl whipped her head round, ecstatic to see him, arms outstretched, as his phone was vibrating in his pocket. He’d never been more glad that it was. 

His love was crushing. He could see that now. 

Beyond killing and dying for you, he’d kill and die for her, he’d kill and die to keep both of you together, and without you here he’d keel over with his severe love for her, and without her he’d be fucking you into a mother anyway. 

Harvey took his phone call, heart heavy in his chest. He was completely foolish. He could see that now. Everything was irreversible, gone too far, and he might never recover from this. 

When Harvey finished his phone call, which he’d retreated into a far corner of the kitchen for, you were (unfortunately) dressed. As was the girl. Each in dungarees and jumpers, the babygirl was set down by the sofa so she could crawl around as she pleased. 

“What was the phone call about?” you asked, pulling your hair off of your neck. You made towards the kettle, and Harvey got there first so he had something to do with his hands. 

“Hm?”

“The phone call. Who were you on the phone to.”

“No-one.”

You came round to look at him, head tilted. Harvey could almost feel you rummaging around in his head. 

“What’s up with you?” Your eyes were narrowing, and he was a dead, dead man. 

He’d only just figured it out- he’d only just been confronted with the entire, horrifying truth- so it’s not like he could tell you now, just out in the open in the morning light. Not in your kitchen . Not now. 

It was too long to have not said anything. Your face was pulling into a pout. 

“Harvey, what’s happened?”

“Nothing. Nothing, darling, I just need coffee to think in the mornings.”

“And you came here without any? What’s up.” Your hands rested over his. “Harvey, talk to me.”

“I just- my mother called.”

“Oh?”

“But I’m not going back home,” he shrugged. It was quiet for another moment. 

He regarded you carefully, watched it all flash behind your eyes. You’d know, fuck, you’d be able to see everything. 

“Don’t ask,” he added quickly.

“ Harvey? ”

“I told you, don’t ask,”

“I knew this would happen!” you threw your arms in the air, turning round to a misty window, back to the counter as he hurriedly shoved sugar into your mug. “I knew, I knew this would happen.”

“What did you think would happen?” Harvey sighed.

“This would get too far, you’d forsake your own life for me and the girl, and now you’re refusing to go home and see your mother because my sister is due home any minute and you don’t want to leave us for that.”

Well. Turns out you did know everything. Harvey held your gaze sternly, did not give into your wavering. 

“You did ask me to co-parent with you,” he added calmly. “I don’t know how else I’m meant to take that.”

“Not like this ,” you pleaded. 

“And what is this, I’m refusing to go home until your sister comes, I think that’s reasonable,”

“I’m afraid that I’ve not been reasonable,”

“You need to stop it.”

Harvey picked up a teatowel, feeling his volume rise as his temper rose, as his fear rose, and the kettle boiled with its grumble rising and its steam flowing, heating, warping the cabinets above. 

“You, darling, need to stop it. Ever since you got her you’ve been dilly-dallying with me about whether you want my help, and whether you don’t. Whether you want me to co-parent, or just help, and you’ll ask me to stay a night and feel guilty that you have, and you need to decide whether you want me, whether you want me, darling; you can have me in your life, but you can’t feel guilty about asking as though it’s a chore, you do not get to do both.”

He breathed out the last words with the same hot air as the kettle. It was still rumbling. He watched your body tense. 

“Are you raising your voice at me?”

“Yes, I am.” ( Don’t. ) ( He was doing it anyway ). “I am. Because you’ve played hot and cold with me for months , asking for me, refusing me, and I’m confused , I don’t know how to help you when you don’t let me help you, and I swear to Yoba you’ve been jealous of Maru the entire fucking time.”

“I- ah- uch,” You spit. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You need to tell me if you’re jealous.”

“Why do I need to tell you I’m jealous?” you argued. A beat passed. Harvey’s eyebrow raised. “If I’m jealous. If, if I’m je- why do I need to tell you, if I’m jealous?”

“Because I need to know.”

“And how is that any of your business?”

The kettle clicked off, and suddenly you could hear the babe’s whimpering. She whinnied at you, begging for attention, as she tried to pull herself to a stand with the back of the sofa. You walked towards her, but Harvey was following. You ended up stood in the centre of the kitchen.

“How is it not my business, darling?”

“It makes absolutely no difference to you how I feel about you, and I don’t see that-”

“-How do you feel about me?” Harvey intercut, fast, firm, dangerous. 

You gulped. Your heart was going to burst out of its ribcage, a thick nausea bubbling with the sound of your niece’s whimpering and the harsh look on Harvey’s face. You didn’t know why you were arguing, even, because this wasn’t an argument. 

“Well as I said, it makes no difference-”

“-bullshit, sweetheart, please. Please , you’re going to kill me,”

“Oh, right, I bare my heart and you’re the one who’s going to feel bad about it?”

“Are you in love with me?” Harvey was near a shout, now, guilty about it, guilty about everything. The girl was crying. Your eyes were pink. 

“If I say that, you’ll leave us,”

“Why would I ever leave you?”

“Because you don’t feel the same,” your voice broke. Harvey’s face fell. 

There was half a moment, looking into each other’s eyes, where you thought your chest couldn’t hurt much more. But then came the thud. A beat. And the thick cry of distress. What remained of your heart shattered into pieces, cursed by a head wound on the hardwood floor. 

You were by Honey’s side in an instant, scooping her into your arms. As she wailed into your chest, you dug your face to hers. 

“I’m sorry,” you cried, trying to rock her. “I’m sorry, darling, I’m sorry,”

Harvey had his arms around her, around you, trying to reach her head to see the damage. 

“It’s pink,” he said, surprised how choked his own voice was. He’d seen dislocated shoulders, bone through flesh, sudden amputations and keyhole surgery. This was, somehow, the worst thing he’d ever seen. A small pink bruise on your niece’s head. “But she is crying. It’s good she’s crying.”

“Should we take her to a doctor?” you choked, looking up at him with big, wide eyes. Harvey tilted his head. “Oh, fuck- god, I hate you.”

“I think you’re in love with me,” Harvey purred through the thick wedge of guilt in his throat, looking at the top of the girl’s small pink head as she hid her wails within you. “I think that’s why it hurts so much.”

“That’s not even true,” you mumbled, eyes downcast. The girl was quieting, comforted now, but still crying. 

“Is it not?” Harvey asked. 

“No,”

He reached up to trace a hair out of your ear, careful to follow your movement as you lightly rocked the girl on a hip. You held a breath, swallowed a cry, and allowed one stoic sniff before the crying stopped. 

“Then what is true?” Harvey asked you quietly. 

The door knocked. You never got a quiet moment to yourself, never seemed to be left alone to fall in love in peace, and Harvey held your gaze for a long second before slipping away to get the door. 

With its opening came an upkick of winter cold, and Harvey’s declaration at the threshold didn’t quieten your nerves. 

“Oh,” he choked, looking back at you cautiously. “It’s your sister.”

You hadn’t seen your sister since one weird lunch a few seasons ago. The baby in your arms had been five months old. Now she was nearly ten months. 

You’d been right about the sun-kissed skin, about the holidays, but not about the beaded necklace. Your sister looked just like you remembered her, but how you remembered her when she was small: full of fear, but with refreshment in her face like she could sleep. A deep tan glowed from her features; her hair was up in a messy, laidback way. 

Harvey took the baby from you, told you that you two should sit in the kitchen and have a cup of tea, and that for the time being he needed to give Honey a once-over in the clinic. 

You got the sense that your sister might have wanted to argue this. But Harvey was very kind, and very firm, and he was not one to argue with unless you were insane, or in love with him, or both. 

For a little while you made the awkward kind of quiet conversation. How was the trip into Stardew (terrible, the trains are awful) and where have you come from (parents house) so they do know you’re in the country (yep), so strange they didn’t call you (she supposes, although she never asked them to). 

But then Harvey left. With the girl. With the civility. 

You stared into some tea he’d made, and levelled your breath- but your sister spoke first.

“I was doing some thinking.”

Silence for a little while. You might have just professed your love to Harvey. 

“Whereabouts was this thinking?”

“Doesn’t matter. Thailand. Listen. I’m really sorry that I left and didn’t say anything.”

You nodded. 

“Good. That was stupid.”

“But- how is she?”

You gave your sister a gentle smile. Her daughter was good. She was doing well. You showed her some photos on your phone. Told her of the food she liked (carrot, bone marrow, but really any carbs. She liked porridge and roast potato and little oaty, raisiny biscuits). You watched your sister’s eyes well with tears and backed off. Told her of the sleep regression, the fight every night to brush the few solitary teeth that sat dead centre of her mouth. Told her what stories are her favourite, what you sing to her. The animals she likes to look at the most.

“And that man is helping you?” your sister cautioned. 

“Um. Yeah,”

“Are you together?”

“That’s- uhm. He’s a doctor, and he’s my friend, and before you came we had that little tipple like we said so he’s going to check that she’s okay.”

Your sister paused for a moment. 

“Are you sleeping together?”

You must have blushed, because she scoffed. 

“Okay. Listen…”

The door opened, Harvey coming in with the babe. She was happier than before, all rosy cheek, and with her hat on you couldn’t tell she had a bump at all. 

“Are you alright, girls?” Harvey asked.

“Is she?”

“Pupil response fine, blood pressure fine, resps fine when she stopped crying, and desperately trying to chew on all of my pens on the desk. I’d say she was fine.”

You reached for her, and she had her arms out for you, too. In your lap you could take her big baby onesie off, and there was a thick, guiltful pride, that she didn’t even seem to care that your sister was in the room. 

“I’m sorry darling. I’m so sorry. I will never argue with Harvey ever again in my entire life. I know, I’m sorry,”

“Good,” Harvey purred, coming behind you with a hand to your shoulder. “Would anyone like another cup of tea?”

“No,” your sister sniffed. “No, I came because- I came to give you this.”

She reached down into a bag, and you breathed deeply, knowing what it would be. She slid some papers over to you. When she looked back at you, her eyes were pink, full of fear, and you weren’t afraid of anything anymore. 

“Is this alright?” she asked. “I’m asking you, this time. I want to do it properly. Do you want- is this alright?”

You felt Harvey’s hand tighten on your shoulder, the other down to brush the girl carefully on her head, and your heart was full. 

“It’s absolutely fine.”

The house was warm. Today, out in the pastures, you’d noticed daffodils starting to sprout. It would take a few weeks for them to flower, but it meant the world was warming; soon enough the trees would defrost, and your niece- your child- would turn one. As soon as you were allowed to think about the plans, they were strong and fast through your mind. Gingham tablecloths, fairy cakes piped with flowers, lots and lots of little nibbles throughout the day. 

Your sister had left with some tears. You asked if she wanted a cuddle with the girl, and she did- out of some obligation, she did. She had her on a knee, didn’t keep her close, and Harvey was in the room so obviously the girl was a lot more interested in that. 

When she left- before dinner, without food- she was trying not to cry. You told her you were glad that she asked for help. You were proud that she had thought about something with enough weight to make a real, measured decision, but more than anything: you were glad she was happy. You watched her smile again, like she was learning how to smile. And she went home. 

The girl was yours. 

It was dark outside, now. The girl was asleep in her crib and Harvey stayed the whole day, mediating, cleaning up, cooking dinner while you made phone calls. 

You leaned your head against the doorframe to the bedroom. Listened to her breath in the gentle silence. A floorboard creaked and you leant carefully into Harvey’s weight. He took you easily, hands to your hips. 

“I suppose we should get her a proper crib,” you murmured, the smile evident in your voice. 

“I’ve already called Robin.”

“Have you?”

He hummed his yes, and you turned around. You were close, too close, lips threatening to brush. You wanted him. You wanted him in the future: for now, in this moment, you couldn’t lose him to flesh. 

“I was truthful, earlier,” you said, arms around his neck. He fit into your body perfectly. You fit together in your home perfectly, flush against each other with the same intimacy of crown moulding, panelling against the walls. 

“I am in love with you,” you swallowed. “But it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt at all.”

“Really? It hurts me tremendously,” 

You laughed lightly, head tilted to look up into his auburn eyes. 

“Does it?”

“Every moment that I’m not touching you, it physically pains me. I very much feel every ounce of anything you do.”

You laughed again and his lips were on yours. Not greedy. Not chasing time. He kissed you and you gave him something, took something from his own breath that he was willing to spare. You broke away at a light whimper the child gave- staring into the darkness, still wrapped around each other, you decided she was asleep. 

“We might be the most stupid people in the world,” you mused. “Trying to raise a baby together, fucking each other, still somehow terrified to catch feelings…”

“See, you say that, but Honey doesn’t even know where her stomach is,”

You laughed, just watching her sleep in the darkness. 

“What are you going to tell her?” Harvey asked, arms around your middle as he rested his head on yours. “When she’s old enough to understand.”

You thought for a moment. The girl breathed, Harvey breathed, and the house was warm. 

“Everyone loves her.”