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For as long as she could remember, she’d always liked the idea of having children.
When she was young, it came from a determination to do better than her parents had done. Each time they’d let her down, each time she’d look out and see empty seats at a recital that they’d deemed their work to be more important than, she’d tell herself she’d do better. When she was 15 and terrified, clutching her belly as she lay curled up in bed, painkillers the doctor had given her buried deep in her school bag, she told herself that next time, next time, she could want it.
For years after that, it seemed a cruel twist of fate that it was never quite the right time for her. She knew it was largely down to the career she chose, the partners she chose. Nothing was ever quite right, the timing or the person she was with wrong for one reason or another, and eventually, it felt like a part of life that would pass her by.
After Paris, after everything she and her body endured, it felt like an impossibility. Something stolen from her by a man who thought she’d stolen his child, a type of irony that seemed cruel even by the universe's standards,
Then Aaron happened. Sweet, funny, handsome Aaron, who had really been there all along. When they started to get serious, something that happened almost as soon as their first date came to an end, they had all the discussions you’re supposed to have with someone you want to spend your life with.
Where they’d live.
If they’d get married.
If they’d have more kids.
She told him she wasn’t sure she could, that she wanted to, god did she want to, but that her injuries from Ian had meant she might not be able to. When she told him, thinking about the conversation she’d had in Paris with a doctor who mentioned her fertility as an afterthought, she wondered if it would be a deal breaker for him. It was a fleeting thought she immediately felt guilty for when he tugged her into a hug, a promise whispered against her skin that she was enough and she always would be, and anything else would be a bonus.
He’d always been a better man than anyone gave him credit for.
They started trying for a baby after they got engaged. She knew time wasn’t on her side, even in the best circumstances, the ticking of her biological clock getting steadily louder as the months and years passed by. She spoke to her doctor, her hand sandwiched between both of Aaron’s, as she was told she was likely to have no issues getting pregnant, but maybe staying pregnant because of her scar tissue. It was a warning that had echoed in her head when she stood in her bathroom holding a positive test, and one that she heard again and again throughout her pregnancy.
It only faded when the doctor handed her her son on the day he was born, when her shaking hands held him against her chest, his cries only quieting as her skin pressed against his. He was beautiful, and hers and worth every aching moment of anxiety throughout her pregnancy.
She wondered if that was why she hadn’t been able to come up with a name for him. That she couldn’t think of something that seemed perfect as a poor attempt at protecting herself, as if that, in any way, would have helped if anything had happened.
She had spent weeks trawling through books. She dog-eared pages with names she liked, she made a list on her phone of names she shortlisted, but nothing seemed right. Nothing jumped out at her as a name she wanted to give her little boy.
She thought it would come to her when she saw him for the first time. That a name would pop into her head when their eyes met and that it would be perfect, but he was 3 days old now, and there was nothing. He was still officially Baby Boy Hotchner, the name that was written on the bracelet she’d snipped off his ankle when they got home from the hospital to put in his memory box.
She sighs and kisses his forehead, and she looks at him, stares at the tiny face she’d imagined for months - for years if she was honest with herself - hoping that by some miracle a name would jump out at her.
Naming someone, it turned out, wasn’t easy.
“You okay, sweetheart?”
She looks up, drawing her attention away from her son to look at her husband. He smiles at her from where he’s standing in the living room doorway, exhaustion and happiness written across his face, the bright colours of it pressed into his eyes and the creases around them. She wonders how long he’s been there, staring at them.
“I’m okay,” she says, looking back down at the baby as he shifts in her arms, and she smiles, “We’re okay.”
He walks over and joins her on the couch, careful not to jostle her or the baby as he sits next to her. He kisses the side of her head and wraps his arms around her shoulders, “Still no closer to thinking of a name.”
She groans and turns her head to bury her face in his shoulder, “I know you think I’m insane.”
He’d been good about her inability to come to a decision. He was as patient with her as ever, as his suggestions fell short, as each name suggested wasn’t the one.
“I don’t think you’re insane,” he assures her, stamping a kiss against her temple, “It’s a big thing naming a person.”
She hums, “It would help if we hadn’t arrested or profiled someone with almost every name I might have liked at some point,” she grumbles, turning her head to look at the baby again, “I used to like the name Benjamin when I was younger,” she says, scrunching her nose up as she thinks of her time stuck in a cults compound in Arizona, “But we can’t call him that.”
He runs his fingers up and down her arm, kissing her cheek as he rests his chin on her shoulder to look down at their son, “Haley and I struggled to name Jack, too,” he says, “Every name made me think of a serial killer.”
She raises her eyebrow at him, “And you settled on Jack?”
He laughs and nods, “Don’t worry, I can see the irony in it.”
She smiles, but it fades, and she sighs as she looks at the sleeping baby again, “I feel like it shouldn’t be this hard,” she says, and tears that have frustrated her endlessly for months start to press at the back of her eyes, “People name their babies every day.”
“It’s a big thing, sweetheart,” he assures her, kissing her shoulder, “And we’ll come up with something. And one day, when you’ve said his name countless times and written it down on endless forms, you’ll forget you ever struggled so much to think of it.”
She chuckles at the thought of it, and it catches on a sob in her chest. She knew that was, in part, why she was struggling so much. Whatever she’d call him, she’d say it every day for the rest of her life, she’d write it down on school admission forms and for the doctor’s office. It would become so normal to her that she’d forget these few agonising days when her son didn’t have a name.
“It’s a shame we can’t just call him Baby Boy Hotchner,” she says, lifting one of her hands to wipe a tear from her cheek. “It’s cute.”
Aaron hums, “I don’t think he’d thank us for that when he’s 15.”
She laughs, and then nods, turning her head to kiss him, “True,” she says, nudging her nose against his, “Get the book again?” She suggests, “Maybe something will jump out this time?”
He nods and kisses her, stroking his hand over the baby’s head as he stands, “It’s on your nightstand, right?”
“Yeah,” she replies, “I think my candy is there too.”
He chuckles, “I’ll be right back.”
She watches him go, and the baby grumbles in her arms, halfway to crying already when she turns her attention back to him, “Oh, you’re okay, sweet boy.”
She stands up, wincing slightly as she does so, her body still sore in ways she didn’t know it could be, and she secures him against her chest. In the three days since he’d been born, she’d already learnt that he liked to be on the move. She’d pace with him for what felt like hours at a time, his tiny body slowly making her arms go numb as she did whatever he needed her to do to feel safe and comfortable.
She walks back and forth in front of the bookshelves, occasionally pausing to lean against one for a few seconds to adjust her gait and catch her breath.
Long gone were the days she used to chase down suspects in heeled boots.
As she pauses, she looks at her books lined up on the shelf, and she smiles. When she lived alone, she took great pride in making sure they were in a specific order. Organised by author and genre. Now they were mixed in with Aaron and Jack’s books, with the odd DVD thrown in amongst paperbacks for good measure. Jack often put things back in a place that made sense to him, using logic that only worked if you were also nine years old. It was a perfect example of the beautiful chaos her life had become, a worn copy of Notre-Dame de Paris she’d had since college next to a DVD for the Disney movie of the anglicised name.
She swears her heart skips a beat as she stares at them side by side. She runs a finger down the spine of the book, her finger lingering on the name of the author she’d read to her son when she was still pregnant with him. She’d read just about anything to him in French, much to Aaron’s amusement the time he caught her reading Les Misérables to her bump, because she wanted it to be something she shared with her little boy. The nursery upstairs was full of children's books and nursery rhymes, both in English and French, which she’d started to read to him, but it started with her reading one of her favourite books to him, way back when he was still just a tiny thing she worried she’d lose growing beneath her skin, worried if she bought anything baby related it would tempt fate.
“Got the book and the candy,” Aaron says as he walks back into the room, and he stops just a few paces away from her, smiling as their eyes meet before he looks at the book on the shelf, “Please don’t say you want to call our son Quasimodo.”
She chokes on a laugh and shakes her head, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she tries to control her smile, “No,” she says, kissing the baby’s head, “But I was thinking…maybe Hugo?”
As soon as she says it out loud, it feels right, like the puzzle piece she’s been looking for since she found out he existed has finally slipped into place. She waits, staring at Aaron, holding her breath as she waits for his verdict, knowing this wasn’t just her decision to make.
He nods contemplatively, her candy and the baby name book still in hand, “Hugo Hotchner,” he says out loud, smiling as it draws a gasp from her, “I like it.”
She sucks in a shaky breath, “Yeah?”
He walks over and pulls them into a hug, careful as he wraps his arms around the two of them. He kisses her and then their son’s head - Hugo’s head - and he pulls back to reply, “I love it. I love him. And you.”
She beams at him, and she kisses him, wondering if he can taste the relief on her lips like she can on his, “Our son has a name.”
He places his hand over hers on Hugo’s back, linking their fingers together as he repeats her words back to her, his smile and his love pressed into every syllable.
“Our son has a name.”
___
Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin. The inexplicable fact is that the blinder it is, the more tenacious it is. It is never stronger than when it is completely unreasonable.”
― Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame