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My Little Sunshine,
At first, I thought I was just gaining weight. The possibility wasn't entirely out of the question, after all I did have a live-in chef. With Solo at the stove, both Illya and I have occasionally gained a few pounds, only to work it into muscle.
However, this weight, I could not seem to lose. Then I became ill. Poor darling Illya was convinced someone had poisoned me. I was checked over by U.N.C.L.E.’s medical team, given our distrust for hospitals (one too many blown covers or T.H.R.U.S.H. doctors soils the taste in your mouth). That is when I discovered I was carrying you.
I was terrified, initially. All sorts of horrifying possibilities flashed through my head, and I could see them flashing behind Illya's eyes as well. I could feel it in the shaking of his hands as he held mine. In the way the color drained from his face. It was Solo, as always, who brought us around to the idea. He broke the fearful tension with a carefully timed joke.
“If it's a boy, we're naming him after me, right?” is what he said, if memory serves me. I laughed, full of nerves, and began to cry. Illya pulled me to him, and Solo completed the circle, kissing both of our temples. Now what he said next, I will never forget. It lives in my head to this day, and I will carry it to my grave. He held us in his arms in the cold, sterile room and said, “I never thought I'd see the day my fantasy of a family would become a reality.”
I proposed to Illya the next week. I asked to take his name, so you would have it too. He was hesitant, for reasons you will come to know, but I told him, “You have carried your name as a burden for so long. Let it be a vessel for something you love, instead.”
The only time I've seen him cry like he did then was when I woke up from a coma after a mission went south.
I'm sure when you get old enough, you'll want to see wedding pictures. Unfortunately, there are none. We weren't ones for big events, so it was just pen and paper in a courthouse.
I hid you as long as I could from our organization. Waverly was the first to notice. He has always been able to read me, better than your fathers, at times. He sat me down in his office and asked, off the record, if I was alright. That was when I told him. I was showing, by that point, but only a little. Waverly ordered me to take leave until you arrived. I tried to fight him on it, but his logic was sound and he had the boys on his side.
Your Dad, Solo, treated me like a queen. He gave me full control of the radio and menu, drew baths for me, helped me dress, near the end. I think he'd always wanted someone to pamper like that. He seemed to enjoy it as much as I did.
Your Papa, Illya, grew fiercely protective of me the further along I was. I teased him often about how I'd married a guard dog. But I was never once in any danger, thanks to him. And at night, his cold exterior turned to warmth and he would lay curled beside me with his hand on my belly and his head on my chest.
He was the first to feel you kick.
It was a Sunday evening, and we were tangled together in bed while Solo made dinner. I was half-asleep when I felt him flinch. He sat up suddenly and pressed both hands to my stomach, his eyes closed and his brow furrowed.
“Illya?” I asked him, worried.
He was silent for a moment, then flinched again, and his scowl morphed into a wide smile. “I can feel her,” he had breathed, “I can feel her moving.”
I sat up, and we both called for Solo, who came running in with a whisk still in his hand. I don't think I'd ever seen him so afraid. I'm not ashamed to say that I laughed at that.
“It's kicking!” I squealed, and then there were three hands over you. Waiting with bated breath for you to move. I think about that day a lot. About the image of three very different hands pressed to my skin, all for the same reason, with the same amount of love and fear.
And then you kicked again.
And Solo laughed and Illya sighed (I think he'd been holding his breath), and I cried. You made me one emotional woman, I'll tell you! Until you, the last time I cried was in primary school! Well, besides a few of your fathers’ near-death experiences. I'm sure you will hear those stories some day. You didn't kick again for the rest of the evening, but Illya kept his hands on you, kissed my belly, listened for you moving, until dinner was ready.
The more you grew, the more beautiful I felt. No doubt your fathers had a hand in that, but I felt radiant. I was even excited for the baby shower U.N.C.L.E. threw me! Everyone was so kind, and Illya made sure no one tried to touch me without permission. As I write this, you are asleep, swaddled in the lilac blanket that Edith from business gave to me as a baby shower gift. She is an old woman who's only daughter passed too young. That blanket was her daughter's baby blanket. I promised her it would be put to good use. You love that blanket, and you love Edith. Sometimes I wonder if she believes in reincarnation.
I am getting side tracked.
You have aunts and uncles all over the world. Your crib was from Waverly. Your favorite stuffed cat was from Joseph in accounting. Your mobile was from Sarah, another enforcer. Michael in the science department gave me a collection of classical vinyls to play for you. Your favorite is Bach. When you would keep me up at night by squirming around, Illya would put on Bach and cradle my belly and you would calm right down.
Now, if we wanted you to dance, we would put on Tchaikovsky. Illya was thrilled to learn that.
I never had any expectations when it came to your sex, but your fathers never passed up on an opportunity to bet against each other. They have never lost the rivalry that brought them together in the first place, but it is out of love, now. Illya was certain from day one that you would be a girl. I'm not sure if he truly believed this, or if he just decided to pick the opposite of Illya, but Solo called you a boy up until the day you were born.
“Napoleon Kuryakin Junior has a nice ring to it, wouldn't you say?” Solo would purr.
Illya would fire back, “Napoleon is strange name for a girl. Anastasia is better.”
Then I would shoot that down with, “We are not naming our child after failed and dead rulers, hm?”
Around and around it would go. We never did decide on a name for you until the day you were born.
It was a warm day in early spring. A rare dry spell, too. You were late, by five days. The doctors told me to walk, so I did. The three of us were strolling through a park in London, admiring the blooming trees and returning ducks. The first contractions didn't faze me. I thought it was just a stitch from walking so much. Solo and Illya helped me to a bench by the pond and sat with me until I could catch my breath. The next contractions were worse, but again, I thought I had just eaten something you didn't care for.
The third wave, I knew it was time.
Most of what happened next was a blur, but I distinctly remember screaming at your Dad, because who does he call instead of 999?
Alexander Waverly.
From how Illya retells it, however, it seemed to be the right thing to do, because an U.N.C.L.E. enforcer's car screeched to a stop behind Illya and I before Solo even made it back from the telephone box. Solo switched directions and threw open the back door, then helped Illya help me into the car. I remember the pain being manageable. It was an alien feeling, but I had adjusted to many alien feelings since learning I was pregnant with you.
But by the time we reached a cleared hospital, I was getting loud. The pain became blinding, and the next thing I know, I'm in a hospital bed, a team of nurses and doctors surrounding me. I never once let go of your Papa's hand. I think it was bruised for a month, afterwards!
Oh! Another thing I remember very clearly before my memory becomes a haze is the doctors demanding, “Only the father is allowed to stay, who is the father?”
And my boys both snapping, “We are!” with enough threat that they didn't try again.
Your birth was a blur of pain and shouting and a very scary moment where everyone was quiet– including you. Solo looked at Illya, who was trembling like a leaf, and nodded. Illya broke away from me and, he told me later, went to see why our baby wasn't crying. Solo tells me I actually asked that question out loud, though I have no memory of doing so. All I remember is Solo brushing my hair out of my face with the hand not gripping mine and noticing that he was shaking, too. I remember him kissing my forehead and the terror on his face when he pulled back. I remember how he wouldn't look away from me.
I remember how utterly afraid I was. I hadn't even met you yet, and I was so scared that I had already lost you.
…
Sorry. I had to start a new page. The last one was too wet to keep writing on.
The sound of your first cry tore through the silence. It was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. Solo sighed shakily and he smiled through the tears that streamed down his face. Then Illya returned– he had been crying too– with you in his arms. He placed you on my chest and kissed your wrinkly little head, then kissed me, then kissed Solo. You were purple, but the more you cried, the pinker your skin shifted to.
I sobbed, holding you for the first time. You fit in my arms like you belonged there. Like you were always meant to be there. I had been so worried that I wasn't meant to be a mother, but the second your skin touched mine, I realized I was meant to be your mother.
I was meant to be your mother.
I love being your mother. Every restless night, all the pain, the fear we all felt; I would repeat every second of it in a heartbeat.
I am getting side tracked again.
Your little face, all scrunched up, was just so perfect. You didn't have much hair, but it was blond like your Papa's. It's been darkening as you grow, and I am convinced it will be brown like mine when you get older. It's starting to curl, too. Not as much as your Dad's hair, more like mine. You have your Papa's eyes, now, but when you were first born, they were more oceanic, like your Dad's. He joked to check your left eye because maybe he was actually the father (That would have been impossible. I will explain to you why some day.).
Your name came to us that night in the hospital, in a moment of tranquility. Solo paid Illya the absurd amount of money he owed him because, as it turned out, your Papa was right. You were a girl. We had a daughter.
Elena. Our little ray of light.
We had you.
The World Will Be Your Oyster,
Love, Mama