Chapter Text
They listen to music while they work; he insists on Queen and she giggles and hands him her cellphone, the album ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ already pulled up on the screen.
She gets him like no one else he’s ever met before; she’s his other piece, his true soulmate, and of that, he is convinced.
The album loops once through, before she turns on Queen’s ‘Greatest Hits’; with her soft voice, she sings along to every word. The sound of her vocals combined with the music of his childhood accents the noise of her paint roller sweeping across the small room’s walls, the noise of his electric drill occasionally turning on, drilling holes and screws into the pieces of wood he’d opened from the small IKEA box in the corner of the room.
It’s a lazy Saturday— or rather, what Frederick Bulsara would consider to be a more relaxed day, for his long hours working at the pharmacy only minutes away from his shared house tended to be much more tedious and long than the few hours he’s spent building furniture.
It’s simple furniture anyhow; the kind that hardly needs one to decipher the instructions in order to build— that or Frederick is too stubborn to read such literature and insists his intuition will guide him.
So far, he’s built a high table and a small, house-shaped bookshelf for the room; making good time for the almost six hours he’s already invested into crafting. Unfortunately, the rocking chair and its nearly millions of parts before him look more delicate, more difficult, and so he slides his square-shaped glasses onto his face, and pulls out the instructions with a humph.
His wife looks over at him carefully reading over the manual, and lets out a soft giggle. She sets her paint roller down for a moment, and watches him with a love-stricken gaze.
“This thing’s got so many damn pieces,” he grumbles, noticing her stare from the corner of his eye. The question on the tip of her tongue goes unsaid, which makes her laugh.
“I see,” she giggles, putting her hands on her hips. He can’t deny how much safer he feels, knowing she’s watching him.
He looks up from his manual. “How are you doing, Jack-O’?”
She steps away from her painted wall for a moment, as if displaying her light blue stained progress. “Ta-da!” she smiles, before looking up to the unpainted part of the wall that hangs above her. “I’m making good progress, if you ignore the parts of the wall that I can’t quite reach.” She tilts her head in thought. “Maybe if I grabbed our step-ladder—“
“Bad idea,” Frederick remarks, setting down the chair’s instructions. She looks at him in curiosity. “I don’t want you getting hurt on it. And I’m not concerned with the wall— I’m concerned about you and the little one.”
Jack-O’s lips tug into a cute grin. “We’re fine, Frederick.” She moves a slightly blue paint-stained hand to the curve of her stomach. “I promise, we’re okay.”
“I just don’t want you over-doing it—“ He starts, but she cuts him off, an exasperated smile on her face.
“I’m not going to, sweetheart,” Jack-O’ replies, looking at him in the face of his loving concern. “Asuka said we still have a few weeks until she’s here, and I’m not going to break by painting a wall.” She chuckles, and puts her other hand on her hip.
Frederick relaxes, before standing to his feet. “You know I worry about you,” he comments, lightheartedly. “Both of you.”
“I know,” she sighs, with a calm expression written on her gorgeous face. He walks over to her and places his hands on the sides of her face, before kissing her cheek.
“And you know I love you?” He asks. She giggles.
“Of course I do, Freddie.”
He presses a kiss to her soft lips, which makes her cheeks flush a bit. “Good,” he remarks. “Because I do love you, Jack-O’— more than you could ever know.”
She smiles; since the beginning of her pregnancy, she’s had a sort of glow that he’s noticed, almost like a halo around her. “You’re such a dear, Frederick,” she chuckles. “And you’re going to be such a good father.”
Frederick’s heart pounds, as a sense of pride blossoms in his chest. “I’m relieved to hear you say that, actually,” he comments, as Jack-O’ pulls her head back a moment.
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about that.”
He exhales. “Just a bit.” The moment the words leave his lips, Jack-O’ puts her hands on his shoulders.
“Frederick Bulsara,” she starts, with a serious expression. “There is no one in the world I’d rather parent our daughter with. You’re going to be the best father— I just know it!”
Frederick’s shoulders drop with his relaxation. He kisses the tip of Jack-O’s nose, and gives her a grin. “I love you, Jack-O’,” he sighs, before kissing her again. “So, so much.”
She smiles; it’s a beautiful thing, brighter than the sun itself.
“And, in case you were wondering, I know you’re going to be a perfect mother.”
Jack-O’ simply beams, and pulls him in for another kiss.
It takes Frederick another two hours to figure out how to build the rocking chair; through puzzlement over the wording of the instruction manual and time spent drilling, it takes him a while before the chair looks the way it ought to.
He watches it rock back and forth against the carpeted floor for a moment, admiring his own handiwork.
When the two of them had first learned Jack-O’ was expecting, it had been from the mouth of Asuka R Kreutz— Frederick’s long time friend from both college and medical school as well as Jack-O’s effective OBGYN. At first, it had felt unreal, and to a degree, still does, but moments like these make it feel all the more real.
Since the death of his ex-fiance, Aria Hale, Frederick’s life has never been the same. He’d spent a long time mourning; he’d always thought that he’d grow old at her side, raise a family with her— he’d thought they were soulmates.
And then lady fate had handed him Jack-O’ Valentine, and things had never been the same. Truthfully, Frederick couldn’t be more thankful for the woman he now had the pleasure of calling his wife; she had shaped him forever. She pulled him from the worst year of his life, and always met him with that beautiful smile and laugh. She cheered him along as he finished medical school and as he got his first job as a pharmacist and clinical doctor. She’s always been a part of his heart, he simply didn’t know it.
With an exhausted sigh, Frederick stands to his feet, and walks across the room to where Jack-O’ continues to roll paint across the walls.
“Let me help you with that,” he says, hugging her from behind, and letting one of his hands touch the back of hers. She leans her head back against him, and he kisses her forehead, as she exhales loudly. “Tired?”
“My feet are killing me,” she groans.
Frederick offers her a gentle smile. “Just finished building your rocking chair, if you wanna go sit down. I’ll finish up painting.”
She hums, and gives him a peck of the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispers, before handing him the paint roller.
It’s a periwinkle color that he plasters across the walls, and finishing the job that Jack-O had started was not difficult at all; she’d done a fantastic job at lathering the walls with the paint itself, other than the places too high for her to reach. He begins to paint higher up on the walls, when she breaks the peaceful silence between the two of them.
“Freddie, we still haven’t found a name for her yet.”
He turns around, to find her sitting upon the rocking chair, gently pulling it back and forth slowly with a foot. His face softens at the sight.
“Alright,” he says. “Any particular name in mind, then?”
Jack-O’ shakes her head. “I was wondering what you were thinking.”
“Well, let’s see,” Frederick says, swiping his paint roller across the wall. He thinks for a moment, before a name crosses his mind; something unusual, something beautiful and adorable. A perfect name for their little one.
“Dizzy.” He blurts it out, faster than he can process thinking of it.
“You are?” Jack-O’ asks, as Frederick puts his paint roller down and looks over at her.
“No, no,” he says, with a slight chuckle. “We should name our daughter Dizzy.”
He watches her mull it over in her head, before a wide smile erupts over her face. “Little Dizzy,” she mutters, with a grin. “Frederick, it’s perfect.”
He walks over to her, and kisses the top of her head. “She’ll be perfect. She’ll get that from her mom.”
Jack-O’ gently laughs and Frederick kisses her and the walls don’t get finished being painting until the next day.