You're Going to be the Best Dad [closed]

[ccecilia]

If she had done the math properly, counting back to the moment when this might have all started, it was Valentine's Day. It was a bloody stupid day, one fixated on commercial obsessions with love and lust and it was hardly a blip on Cecilia's radar. But then, George was standing there at her door with that look on his face, that grin tugging at his

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[george_goesboom]

It had yet to get any easier to see her walk in like this, chained up and flanked by gruff guards and looking more and more strained and weary every time. The more he kept finding himself waiting for her in that room, the more impossible it became to keep hoping that this was some extended nightmare from which he would still wake up.

As he had every other time, he had to steel himself against the urge to reach out to her and pull her in against him, the effort it took him not to bordering on physically painful.

"Hey- I'm so sorry, it's been a few days- I got caught up at the ministry-" (Or rather, he had spent an hour yelling at a poor administrator who most certainly didn't deserve it, and another few more chasing various Wizengamot members and solicitors around the place.) "-and then they wouldn't even let me in here, I swear they keep changing the stupid rules." He shook his head with a sigh, raking a quick hand through his disheveled hair before leaning across the table between them, as always keep his hands just short of too close (yet never close enough) to hers.

"You okay?" It was an obsolete and relative question, clearly, yet he still had to ask.

[ccecilia]

For the first time since she had been here, the nod of her head was sincere. Her blond waves fell haphazardly around her shoulders as she blinked back the growing tears clouding her vision. It didn't matter to her in that moment where they were- what the situation really was (that she was locked up with no real understanding of when she was getting out). All that mattered to her in that moment was the photo she had tucked away in her pocket, the little growing form in her belly and the fact that she was having a baby with George.

"I hoped it was you-" she said quietly, raising her eyes to meet his.

Not that she hadn't been glad to see Daphne or Molly or hell- even Susan Bones had been a nice reprieve from the silence of her cell.

But George was the one who was fighting for her outside of this prison, the one really pushing for her release. He was everything to her.

"I um-" she paused, then, as her heart began to beat wildly in her chest, her fingers shaking as she realized that the secret she had bottled up inside of her was actually going to come out now.

"George-"

She rummaged in her pocket, her hands pulling out the black and white image, the impossibly small figure of an infant floating in the center. She stared at it fro a second before finally laying it down on her table in front of him, her palms flattening it out so that it lay there perfectly.

"George- I'm pregnant-" she said, looking up at him with wide, doe eyes, her brow furrowed as she waited with baited breath for his response.

[george_goesboom]

George hadn't realized he had been sliding to the very edge of his seat, that hesitant weight of 'I have something to tell you' all too obvious from the moment Cecilia had walked in, until he was very nearly falling off of it, catching himself along with his breath as that innocent little piece of paper was slid across the table in front of him.

Pregnant-

He heard the word all too clearly, yet somewhere in his muddled mind things suddenly seemed to stopped connecting. His heart skipped a beat before picking up again more quickly and loudly and intensely, and that twist at the pit of his stomach that had become the norm since hearing of Cecilia's arrest tightened and shifted, and a wave of something that could have been either nausea or soul-warming glee spread throughout his chest, and yet it took a few moments, a few deep breaths, for the why of it to actually slip into place in his mind.

George's gaze shifted blankly from the little black and white image to Cecilia's expected face, then back and forth again, and again, eyes wide and breath clipped as he reached out with a shaky hand, fingertips brushing against the edges of the picture which framed that little spot of burgeoning life.

In some other, past version of his life, this had been his biggest nightmare. Getting inherently trapped by a single slip up, by one night's mistake, suddenly being burdened by a responsibility he had never quite been sure he wanted to take on for himself despite those occasional times when he would find himself playing with Vickie or Dominique and there would be a moment of 'what if', which was promptly shut down the moment it sparked-

-but then, Cecilia had happened. And everything he had ever thought he wanted had shifted around that new perspective.

"You're- I- wha- you're pregnant?" he repeated rather dumbly, the word feeling strangely foreign on his tongue, his heart heavy in his chest as it pushed a knot of tangled emotions up his throat.

[ccecilia]

She nodded her head again, her lips pressed together to prevent them from quivering any further, her hands shaking as she set them on the table, close enough so that while maybe their skin wasn't in contact, maybe she could still feel his warmth. She missed that, the way he felt, the way he touched her- even the slightest touch enough to make her feel safe and free.

She wasn't granted that here.

"I'm a little more than two months, it's not early enough to actually tell anything other than its healthy and breathing, you know-" she told him, voice hoarse, quiet, Cecilia's brow furrowing as she spoke. She paused, realizing she was rambling.

A slight laugh passed through her lips, the absurdity of the whole situation making her head spin.

"I'm sorry-" she said, shaking her head.

She brought her hands to her face, rubbing at her eyes roughly.

[george_goesboom]

Pregnant-

Two months-

Healthy and breathing-

George hadn't quite realized he had been holding his breath, slack-jawed and gaping as he watched and listened to her ramble, his brain slowly gearing up and working up to speed to be able to assess that fluttery yet lung-crushing weight that had settled on top of his chest. He finally caught himself with a sort of gasp, shaking his head as he heaved in breaths of air whose damp, steel-tinted taste and oppressing feel for once went completely unnoticed.

Pregnant-

"You- you're- don't- don't be sorry," he finally managed to stutter, his gaze still wandering back and forth between Cecilia and that mind-boggling picture laying flat on the table between them.

He peeled the little piece of glossy paper up from the steely tabletop, fingers playing along the blurry lines of that somehow, in a matter of split-seconds, had very much just changed every single little thing about his life.

"Don't be- you're- we're- bloody hell-"

[ccecilia]

Cecilia peeked through her fingers at George, the obvious confusion apparent on his face but she wondered if she saw a little bit of light behind his eyes- an excitement that she had hoped to see, as selfish as it was considering she was behind these walls. She wanted him to want a family with her, no matter what the outcome of this situation was.

"Yeah-" she said, softly. "I don't want you to think-"

She paused, brow furrowing.

"I mean, I don't know what this means-"

She finally admitted it, the sort of looming fear hanging over her. She was pregnant. She was going to have a baby and the problem was- she wanted to. From the moment she found out, it was all she could think about. And she wanted to be a mother. But that didn't change the situation, or the fact that she and George never really talked about it before.

Not seriously, anyway.

"I don't know what to do."

[george_goesboom]

They hadn't talked about it. They had skirted the topic, had toyed around the issue, had played house with Madeline and adopted the furry equivalent of a child, completely with a 'Mum' and 'Dad' exchange.

But directly approaching the subject, actually straightforwardly discussing this on a level that actually connected with reality and a possible future?

And now here he was, holding a picture of something that, despite looking like little more than a bean, had his stomach squirming in a way he couldn't describe, filling him with a sort of jittery warmth he had no idea what to do with.

As much as he had caught himself wondering, his thoughts running away from him before he could really catch them, this was nowhere near anything he might have imagined-

"Okay-" George nodded slowly, looking up to meet Cecilia's gaze again, blinking past the itch that had sprung up at the backs of his eyes.

"That's- okay- that's just- bloody hell, Ces- are you- I mean- that's good, yeah?" He caught his senseless ramble before it could get any more out of hand, his voice catching slightly on 'good' before giving out entirely.

'Good' was hardly the word to apply to anything that had been happening these past weeks Cecilia had spent in here. But this- well, this was completely outside the scope of anything he knew how to deal with.

[ccecilia]

"Yeah-"

She couldn't help the sad sort of smile that tugged at her chapped lips, her eyes burning as she blinked. She couldn't help but feel an inexplicable warmth in her chest knowing that no matter what happened in here, she was going to have George's child. She was going to be a mother.

And the idea of starting a family with him was something she couldn't shake the giddiness of. She hadn't realized how much she wanted it until it was right within her grasp.

She brushed her hair back, shaking herself out of the tears she knew were probably coming.

"Your mum knows," she said then, softly. "She came to visit a couple of days ago and she just knew-"

She hadn't believed it then, how easy it was for the older woman to tell.

"I had hoped our first meeting would be a little bit different but my timing was never really all too good, I guess."

[george_goesboom]

George's brain was still working through the realization, trying to slowly piece together the facts and repercussions, too muddled and focused on Cecilia's expression and making sure to confirm that the giddy excitement confusedly bubbling in his chest wasn't one-sided to really properly take in what she was saying-

"Yeah, she does that, she told Fleur and Bill about Vickie before either of them even had a cl- wait, what, my mum was here?" he stuttered, what he imagined had already been a gaping and dumbfounded expression growing that much more wide-eyed.

Well. That was certainly one way to break that nervously anticipated ice.

[ccecilia]

Her brow furrowed as she took note of George's reaction, the shock and surprise confusing Cecilia as she sat there. This wasn't the first time this happened, Susan growing into a panic that Gabe had made an attempt to see Cecilia. But she had thought Mrs. Weasley would have told her son about the trip. She licked at her lips as she nodded her head.

"She was just here a couple of days ago," she said, hoping that was right. The days muddled together here sometimes, Cecilia hardly knowing if it was daytime or nighttime.

"It was really nice-" she told him, voice catching there slightly, knowing that it was something her own mother would never do. "She was sweet-"

She managed a smile.

"She said, 'Welcome to the family,'" Cecilia laughed as tears welling behind her eyes.

[george_goesboom]

Had the circumstances been any different, George wouldn't actually laughed at the idea of his mother being described as 'sweet' - overbearingly affectionate, perhaps. Intensely protective, even. Violently loving. But 'sweet'? He loved and respected his mother as much as anyone who knew her did, but 'sweet' was a rarely shown facet of that woman's personality.

Though, considering-

George let out a broken sort of laugh to match hers, the itching-eye feeling he had been fighting finally catching up to him, tears of his own glistening in his eyes - tears of fear, and uncertainty, and frustration, but mostly of overwhelming, heartwarming, unexpected pure joy.

He reached one hand out towards her, that now-familiar gesture that desperately stopped just short of contact, still tightly holding that small sprinted image in the other.

"Bloody hell- you're not kidding, right? This is real? This isn't a joke? You're- we're having a baby?"

[ccecilia]

"We're having a baby," she said, laughing softly.

Her voice caught in her throat, the whole thing sounding so surreal to finally say to him. She had been playing it over in her head for days, trying to find the right way to tell him the news, to convince herself that this was really happening. They were going to be parents.

And while it was in this dark, tight space that she was finally able to tell him, stuck in the walls of Azkaban prison, it almost didn't matter.

"Oh, George-" she sighed, tilting her head down slightly, her fingers reaching just shy of his as they hovered over the table.

No matter how happy she felt she knew that her time in here wasn't over- that her future was growing more and more uncertain as time went on.

"You're going to be the best dad, you know," she said then, wiping at the tears sliding down her skin. "Even without me- you're going to be incredible-"

[george_goesboom]

"Don't-" George quietly snapped the moment that last thought had passed her lips, a twitch visible at the edge of his jaw as he grit his teeth against that creeping fear he had been refusing to acknowledge from the moment he had heard about Cecilia's arrest, that fear made all the more potent now by this unexpected bombshell of a piece of news - that, no matter what he did, maybe she wouldn't be allowed out.

That she would be held as some kind of example for all those who had associated with Death Eaters in the past and escaped judgement and punishment.

That he had taken those last few months of being able to touch and hold and kiss her freely for granted.

"Don't you dare. We're doing this together. You're going to get out of here, and you're going to be the greatest mum-" He stopped himself as his voice caught again, shrugging and turning his head to stubbornly wipe away the tears clinging to his eyelashes against his upper arm.

His hands hovered close to hers, shaking slightly with the force of resisting the urge to grab and desperately cling, that little life-changing image resting on the table between them.

[ccecilia]

She wanted so desperately to be taken from this place, to be freed from the chains wrapped around her wrists, to be given a warm shower and real food and maybe find herself curled up in George's arms with Picard playing at their feet. It was all she could think about when it grew particularly late in the night, Cecilia unable to sleep thanks to the screaming that filled the prison after dark.

And now, especially, it was all she could think about, along with the idea that very soon a baby was going to come into their lives.

Their baby.

A little red headed thing with George's freckles and Cecilia's nose. Or her mouth and his eyes- the ones that completely caught her off guard when they first met (stained with ink as they were).

"I hope so," she said quietly, wanting to reach out and wipe those tears from his eyes, caught completely off guard to see that kind of emotion in George. "I want us to be a family-"

[george_goesboom]

A family-

George's nails dug sharply into his palms, hands clenching into biting fists to fight off the urge to reach for her, to grab at her hands or wrap his arms around her or pull her towards him and tuck her in against his chest, every inch of him desperate for that comforting touch he had only been able to dream of these weeks. As if that forbidden contact hadn't already been haunting him, the thought that there was a whole other being resting there between them only made that distance more unbearable.

"We will be," he said firmly, solid and certain despite the tightness in his chest and the waver in his voice, and this time he didn't bother to catch the tears as they slipped past the catch of his eyelashes.

"We will, I promise. You'll be out of here soon- I love you so much- we'll figure this out-"

[ccecilia]

"I know-"

She said it with absolution now, believing in George with everything she had in her. If there was anyone that could save her from this, anyone who could bring her out of this prison, it was him. He had been her savior since they first met, somehow releasing an ease in her she never thought she'd be graced with again.

And he was there every single bizarre and terrifying and wonderful step of the way.

And she couldn't wait until she could break free from these chains and be in his arms again.

"George, I love you-" she said, holding his gaze. "So much-"