Work Text:
Welcome Home
Rhys always hated visiting the Hewn City, especially without his queen by his side—but Feyre had just recovered from a cold that she’d had earlier in the week, and unfortunately, Rhiannon seemed to have caught it as well, so she had to stay behind and take care of her.
At ten months old, Rhiannon was very bright, but she’d recently started to become extremely clingy to each of them—depending on her mood. Some days she would only want Rhys to hold her, and others she would hardly let him hold her for a few seconds while Feyre went to the bathroom. She was starting to walk finally, a few steps here and there, although she mostly crawled everywhere, and her baby babble was staring to turn into words that they could understand. She said things like “bubba” when she wanted her bottles, and “mama”. She had yet to say Dada, but Feyre assured him that it would come soon.
Rhys hated to leave them at all, but with Rhiannon constantly changing and developing, it was even harder to leave them now—especially to go to the Court of Nightmares, and alone at that. Someone had been causing trouble, and there’d been a whisper of a rebellion, so he had to go and deal with it. He would have preferred to have Feyre with him, but with her recovering from her cold and Rhiannon having her fits whenever they weren’t with her, they’d both decided it would just be better for him to go alone.
But he hadn’t been expecting that he would have to stay overnight. Someone had been causing trouble in the Hewn City, spreading whispers of a rebellion, and it had taken longer than he’d thought to find the disrupters, and then properly deal with each of them. By the time he had finished, it had been too late and he had been too exhausted to fly home, or winnow. So he had stayed overnight, but as soon as he finished breakfast this morning, he flew for home immediately.
Feyre’s anticipation for his return buzzed down their bond, and he flew faster. When she’d first learned she was pregnant, he had feared that their intimacy might suffer with the baby in the picture—some women refused sex while pregnant, he’d heard. Thankfully, it hadn’t, and in fact, Feyre had seemed to want him even more while pregnant, and initiated sex most of the time. For the first several weeks sex had been all she wanted—aside from frequent back massages, foot rubs and many, many baths. She had taken two baths a day while she’d been pregnant, once she’d passed her first trimester and started showing. He hadn’t complained about it, but there had been a part of him that still worried that it might fade once the baby was actually born, and he was glad that no such thing had happened. They still yearned for each other as much as they had those first few months after Feyre had accepted the bond, even if the more territorial part of it had all but disappeared after two years together. The urge wasn’t quite as intense, and it wasn’t nearly as painful to be apart as it had been then. Those months that she’d had to be away from him in the beginning... He still cringed thinking about them. It had been one of the worst things he’d gone through, and they had sworn never to let something separate them again, if they could help it.
Rhys landed outside the door to the townhouse, and took a moment to straighten his jacket, breathe in the scent of home, and then he opened the door.
“Feyre? I’m home, darling,” he called into the open hallway, and before he could close the door behind him, she was in front of him. Her magic blew the door shut, and she all but threw herself at him. He was caught by surprise, but a groan slipped out of him as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely.
“Feyre...” he murmured, softly. He wrapped his arms around her waist, needing to feel her, to touch her. He wanted to devour every inch of her. “Dear gods I missed you.”
“Don’t ever leave without me again,” she said, in between kisses. “I was so worried.”
He reached up and cupped her cheek with his hand, looking into her eyes. “I know. I won’t, I promise,” he said. “Next time, I swear I’ll wait until we can both go.”
She smiled, and then pulled back, looking at him properly. Studying him, making sure that he wasn’t injured. It was something she always had to do, whenever they were away from each other. I’m fine, love, he told her.
I know. I’m just checking. “Cauldron, I missed you.”
“Not as much as I missed you,” he replied. “I hated sleeping in that bed alone again.”
A mischievous glint appeared in her eyes, and he saw the memories replaying in her head. “Hmm. Remember our wedding night?” She whispered, leaning closer. “We had glorious sex in that bed. The only thing about that damned mountain I actually enjoyed.”
“If I recall correctly,” he teased, “someone broke the headboard.”
She laughed. “I did no such thing,” she said. “You’re the one who made that whole mountain tremble.”
Ah yes. Lovely memories, certainly. He had spent half the night wide awake because of them. Wishing she were there beside them so they might re-create some of those memories. “Later,” she said, reading his thoughts. “Rhiannon will be awake soon.”
“Right,” he said, pulling himself together. She finally pulled away from him, and they went into the front room. “How was she last night?”
“Okay. She cried a bit when it was bedtime, because she wanted Daddy to sing her to sleep,” Feyre said. “Apparently Mommy’s not good enough for lullabies. It took me hours to get her to go to sleep. I kept telling her that you would be there when she woke up, but she was finally so exhausted that she just passed out in my arms.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, that twinge of guilt swirling around his gut.
Feyre took his hands, pulling him closer. “Stop feeling guilty, Rhys,” she said. “I know you would’ve come back if you could have. But it wasn’t safe for you to fly home that late. Imagine if something had happened to you. It was better that you stayed, safer.”
“I know,” he said. “Feyre... I’m so afraid that I’m going to screw this up somehow.”
The words slipped out without his permission, and they took them both by surprise. “Rhys,” she said, her expression soft. “You’re not your father.”
“I know that. I just... I keep thinking that I’ll do something wrong, and Rhiannon will grow up hating me, or you’ll leave me, and I can’t... I’d rather die,” he said, choking on the word. “I would rather die than be without either of you.”
“That will never happen,” she said. “I promise, Rhys. It will never, ever happen. I’m never going to leave you, and Rhiannon’s not going to ever hate you.”
He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to get like this,” he said. “I just... I hate being in that place, Feyre. It’s awful. Especially alone. You start believing that you’re worthless, and all of the despair in the place starts to sink in. I can’t stand being there, especially without you, my queen, at my side.”
“I know,” she murmured, touching his cheek. He turned his head so that his lips touched her hand, and she smiled. “I know, my love. But I’m here now, and you have me, and Rhiannon, and our inner circle, and we all love you. You’re not alone anymore.”
Tears pricked behind his eyelids, and a few fell, rolling gently down his cheek. Feyre brushed them away with her thumb.
“Dada?” A little voice asked.
They both turned, startled, to see Rhiannon standing in the living room’s entrance. She looked still sleepy, her clothes and hair rumpled. She rubbed at her eyes.
“Rhiannon, how did you get downstairs, sweetheart?” Feyre asked, surprised.
“I—I dunno,” Rhiannon said, rocking on her heels. “Me bad?”
Rhys stared at her, disbelieving. She thought she was in trouble? “No, sweetheart,” Feyre assured her. “Not bad. But how did you do it?”
He scanned their daughter’s mind, finding the moment he was looking for quick enough. It was all a jumble, but the memory was there. “She winnowed,” he breathed, realizing. “Feyre, she winnowed!”
“What? That’s impossible,” Feyre exclaimed. “She can’t! She’s not even a year old yet.”
He showed her what he had found, and she turned to stare at him in wonder. “Well, she did, darling,” he said. “Her powers could be early, or this could just be a weird random thing. We knew she would be powerful, love.”
“I know! But winnowing—at ten months old!” Feyre shook her head.
He laughed. And then, there was a sense of magic in the room, and suddenly Rhiannon was standing in front of him, tugging at his jacket. “Dada,” she said.
Then, in a split second, it hit him, what she’d said twice now. He knelt down. “Ria, did you just... did you just say Dada?” He asked, breathlessly.
“Dada,” she repeated.
He couldn’t believe it. She had finally said it, and he had barely noticed it, so excited and amazed that she had just winnowed. “Yes. Yes, Dada’s home, my princess,” he said, tears sliding down his cheeks again.
“Yay,” she said happily, and she threw her arms around his neck.
He looked up at Feyre, who was smiling and crying a little, too. “Welcome home, Rhys,” she said.
He smiled at her, and hugged their daughter closer. Yes, home. It was good to be home—where he belonged.