Work Text:
-
So, it turns out that when you're almost constantly on the move, monitoring your birth control can prove to be challenging. After all, Gisele reasons, staring into a grubby bathroom mirror in a gas station outside of Porto Cristo while trying really hard not to look at the stick resting on the edge of the sink, it could happen to anyone.
-
It's earlier that morning. They're driving at a leisurely pace. It's been a gorgeous day and Porto Cristo is blissfully free of crowds, which gives them leave to cruise around aimlessly, soaking up the sun. Neither of them feels the need to say much, Han occasionally taking Gisele's hand, holding it loosely, Gisele catnapping more often than not.
It's been like this for the past seven or eight months. Mostly, they've been behaving like tourists, enjoying the sights and sounds of places, ticking off respective geographical bucket lists, only occasionally getting into a little trouble.
-
The trouble usually starts when Gisele gets that look in her eyes.
They always get out while the going is good.
-
Gisele's been looking thoughtfully out the window for a good twenty minutes, when suddenly, unexpectedly, she swears emphatically. In English.
"Fuck."
Han looks over at Gisele curiously. It's not like her to swear in English. If she's ever mad, or if they've fought, her frustration is vented in rapid fire strings of Hebrew and Portuguese, the two languages mingling in some weird, vaguely threatening way that almost always makes Han a little afraid. (Also, a little turned on. It's funny how often those two things coincide when it comes to her.)
Still driving, he reaches over, puts a hand on her knee and squeezes gently. "Everything okay, babe?"
Han has always been a capable driver. He finds he especially has to be now, because it turns out Gisele shares that same need to keep her hands and mouth busy. So when she looks over at him and says, in the same matter of fact tone she uses when they're on a job, "I'm late", the fact that he skids off the side of the road is slightly alarming for them both.
-
He's sitting behind the wheel, frozen. This was not at all in the plan. Not that there ever was a plan, really. But if there had been a plan, the plan would definitely have involved birth control. Probably at the top of the list, underlined. Their lifestyle is not exactly conducive to child-rearing.
Neither of them says anything, for a little while. And then they both speak at once.
"Are you sure?"
"I mean, it's probably nothing, right?"
Gisele laughs nervously. It's almost jarring to hear. A few more moments pass. Every breath feels louder than normal, he tries hard not to move. He’s a little scared that if he does, she'll bolt from the car like a cornered animal. He waits for her.
Then, just as suddenly, the atmosphere in the car changes and he instinctively knows what's happened. Gisele has decided to behave the way she always does, when they're on a job. She has a goal now, and she won't stop until they see it through.
"We need to find a pharmacist. And a bathroom."
-
While Gisele speaks Spanish well, neither of them have the grasp of Catalan necessary to get the elderly pharmacist to understand that they are after a pregnancy test. It takes some well choreographed charades and the translator app on Han's phone before they're finally handed a small box, which is mercifully labelled in English. They're also given a judgmental look from the pharmacist, but Gisele is already out the door without a backwards glance before Han's even paid for the test.
She's straight across the road, blazing through to get the key for the gas station bathroom. Han follows her, but she's already in the bathroom and his stomach sinks when he hears the lock slide into place. He's not sure what to do.
Being swept along in Gisele's single-minded devotion to this goal, he hasn't had a lot of time to consider the possibilities. Now, with a door between them and an agonising wait stretching out ahead of him, there's nothing but time.
He thinks about what will happen if she comes out and tells him she's pregnant. Will she be upset? Would he be upset? He paces up and down, just once, enough to kick up the dirt onto his boots, craving something to take the edge off, something to keep him busy. The question enters his mind again.Would he be upset? Up until about twenty minutes ago, he probably would have been, but right now, he just feels weirdly calm about it all. It feels a little like being in the eye of a storm.
He loves her. She loves him. She's going to have their baby. It all seems terrifying. Yet, not terrifying at all.
-
They'd tell Dom first, Gisele would probably insist. She’d be the one to call him, listening to his voice tinny through the phone, the sound of oceans between their family. Dom would laugh, that deep reverberating sound (the same sound as when Han told him he and Gisele were leaving Rio together). Gisele would laugh too, phone in one hand, Han's hand clutched in the other. He'd kiss her, even as Dom is still talking to them, catching her laugh pressed against his lips.
The others find out in stages. They fly to Hong Kong, while the flight’s not too hard on Gisele. It's close to Tokyo, after all, and Roman is pretty much the king of Macau society at the moment, which makes it easy for them to settle in.
-
Roman laughs and laughs, and then laughs harder still when they tell him. He sweeps Han up in a hug that nearly cracks a rib, which then escalates into a complex series of back slaps and fist bumps and one slap to his ass before Roman lets go, one hand already diving into his pocket for his phone to call Tej. Tej’s reaction is much the same, the phone on loudspeaker, a question directed to Gisele about conception positions. She answers with a hand gesture that would (and probably did once), make a soldier blush.
"But seriously," Roman says later on, the three of them sitting around a booth in a bar in the City of Dreams precinct, "Seriously, do you want me to call now, or later?" Gisele, who is already drinking iced tea by the gallon, raises a quizzical eyebrow. "What do you mean?" she asks, leaning back against the booth, one hand threading lazily through Han’s hair.
"Should I call Ford Models now, or later? Because your kid is gonna be crazy good looking, is all I'm saying." Gisele's face splits into a radiant smile, and Roman continues, sounding so serious Han’s pretty sure he’s about to ask for his ten percent. "For reals though, y’all, that little baby's gonna have that whole exotic Eurasian look going on. I mean, man, I know models, trust me, that's b-e-a-utiful."
Han takes a long pull from his beer, and thinks that as long as the baby has Gisele's smile, it'll be okay.
-
They read the baby books. Correction, they read all the baby books. Having gotten into this situation through a lack of planning, Gisele is apparently now determined to make up for that. They’re both learning Cantonese, so Gisele goes out and buys a copy of every Cantonese baby book there is, and they struggle through them together, Han sounding out the words as Gisele leans back on the couch, every now and then flipping through their now well worn dictionary to look up a word.
They rent a little place. Well, little is a subjective term, it’s a large open plan apartment in one of the more sought after buildings in Hong Kong. The realtors are only too happy to rent out an apartment to a young software tycoon and his very lovely pregnant wife. (Gisele throws a pillow at him when he suggests those particular aliases. "Who am I supposed to be? I’m just barefoot and pregnant now?" He grins in response. "Well, it’ll keep you from scratching up the floors, at least." She throws ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ at him. He's pretty glad she bought the paperback.)
They sign the lease, move what little belongings they carry with them into the place, then set about buying furniture. “You know we're not going to change the sheets every day, right? This isn't the Ritz.” Gisele says, raising a mocking eyebrow. Han nods woefully, looking down so she can’t see the wry smile threatening to creep over his face. “Yeah, I know. We’re all making sacrifices.”
(That night, not having yet decided on a bed frame, they sleep on the couch. He’s worried that Gisele, who has become quite subconciously territorial, will accidentally shove him off the edge. Instead, she practically blankets him, arms and legs wrapped around him, head pillowed on his chest.)
-
Pregnancy really isn't all sunshine and roses. Morning sickness isn't just restricted to mornings, and Gisele gets irritable and sore and more often than not craves something called Bamba, an Israeli snack food, which, as it turns out, is almost impossible to find in Hong Kong, unless you import it at great cost. Han gets to be real friendly with the Hong Kong harbourmasters.
But then the first trimester passes, and he discovers that the most notable characteristic second trimester Gisele has is an almost constant need to be touching him. For around two months, he almost never gets to leave the apartment, and he's lucky if his feet touch the floor for more than an hour at a time.
He only ever panics once about being a father. Picks up the phone, dials a number. It rings twice before he hangs up, chastising himself for overreacting. A minute later, Brian rings back. They don’t talk for long, just long enough for Brian to tell him one thing that sticks in his head for months, keeps him going every time he thinks about late night feedings and choosing schools and soccer games and graduations and an entire life depending on him.
“You’re gonna be fine. What’s about to happen, it’ll make everything make sense.”
She gets bigger. Everything gets bigger, although according to the letters they get from Mia when they send photos of Gisele at six months along, Gisele even manages to make pregnancy look good. “I’m so jealous!!” She adds, in a postscript marked with more x’s and o’s than there is space on the paper.
The first time the baby kicks, they're on the couch, watching a Cantonese soap opera they've both become borderline obsessed with. Han is just marvelling at how mundane their lives have become, and more importantly, how little he seems to mind, when Gisele gasps and grabs his hands, pressing them against her abdomen. He feels nothing at first, and then there's a fluttering sensation under his hands and it is thrilling and utterly petrifying. Suddenly, nothing seems mundane.
(He does have to remind himself of this moment later that week though, when they’re out shopping, Gisele fussing over whether they need more yellow or more white sleepsuits, and whether or not he thinks they’ve got a baby book she hasn’t read yet.)
-
When the baby is born, Gisele is unsurprisingly, highly regimented throughout the process. She forgoes drugs and instead just walks calmly around the birthing suite, breathing in a fashion that puzzles the midwife. It's definitely not Lamaze. He recognises it almost instantly as the combat breathing exercises she taught him when she was teaching him Krav Maga. He walks with her, shadows her steps, breathes when she breathes.
It's not until the doctor tells her that she has to lie down, that now is the time to for the real work to start, that she looks even the slightest bit off kilter. A look crosses her face that he has never seen before. She looks vulnerable, younger than he's ever seen her look. He leans in, smoothes her hair back from her face, takes her hand with his free hand. "It's gonna be okay," He kisses the corner of her mouth, missing his mark as he says softly against her skin, "You're gonna do great." She nods, squeezing his hand gently. "Zeh zeh." she says, using her free hand to wipe her eyes, tears or sweat, he doesn't know. He also doesn't know what that means, and she doesn't tell him until after, when their squalling, pink-faced daughter has been brought into the world, and she is tired and joyous and more beautiful than he has ever seen her.
-
"It's something we say, in Israel. It means this is it. You are it."
-
She is tiny, and perfect. He knows this because they spend the first hour of her life pouring over her, examining her delicate fingernails and running gentle hands over her soft eyelashes. She has dark, thick hair, and soft brown eyes. She sleeps, and then Gisele sleeps and Han watches over them. He thinks he'll spend the rest of his life watching over them.
He knows it.
-
The lock on the door clicks, and it startles Han from his reverie. Gisele steps out, fiddling with the hem of her shirt, her smile a little too fixed, eyes a little too bright. Instantly, he knows.
"False alarm," she takes his hands, but he senses that she's keeping herself at arms length from him on purpose. "All that panic for nothing." She laughs, but it doesn’t travel to her eyes. He exhales slowly, and she nods once, stilted, and he knows that if he doesn't step in, doesn't say something now, they won't ever talk about it again.
The only problem is that he doesn't know what to say. She's almost staring at him, practically rocking on the balls of her feet, waiting for him, and he has nothing to say. "It's okay, right?" She asks him, suddenly wearing that vulnerable look that is achingly close to the one she wore in his daydream. He knows what she needs him to say.
"Yeah," he pulls her in, arms around her, her chin tucked into his shoulder. "It's okay." His voice is muffled by his hair, and she slides her arms around him as he says it again, pushing a free hand through his hair, a little ruefully.
"It's okay."
-
They stand like that for a long time. The next day, they make tracks to Hong Kong.
-
They always got out while the going was good.
-