(no subject)
Title: Blueprints
Prompt: utter joy
Year: 2010
Type: Fanfiction
Series: Doom/Star Trek XI
Characters: John/Leonard, Jocelyn, baby!Joanna
Word Count: 1,153
Rating: K
Disclaimer: well, it's Christmas in a couple of days. let's see shall we!
Summary: The make-up of John Grimm is twisted and scarred and so very, very human.
When Joss tells him she’s pregnant, his mind goes stark blank. She laughs and pushes his mouth closed, curling against his frame and telling him he’ll be a great father. He holds her tightly and lets her think his stammering and stunned demeanour is from happiness.
But she couldn’t be more wrong-he’s fucking terrified.
So far, he’s the only one that hasn’t been rendered into a blood-thirsty demon by C24, and god knows procreating was the last thing on his mind during those years when he was just starting to test his abilities with Sam. He has no idea if it’ll pass to the fetus-and if does what’ll happen to Joss during those nine months she’s carrying it around. And what of the baby? Will it have his abilities like his; will it even make it through the first term?
Later, there’s a moment where the haze of the bourbon recedes and his mind briefly entertains the thought of being a father.
Does he even want to be one?
Most of his credible life was spent deep within jungles or burrowed in sand dunes, always peering through a sniper scope. Then he’d been so buried behind Reaper and trying to get over Sam and Olduvai that parenting had never even been a faulty blip on his radar. Then he started slipping into personas left and right to avoid the ever-reaching grasp of the UAC and getting married of all things.
Joss had been an unexpected but welcome reprieve from the dark and bitter loneliness. They had met during his first and her second rotation through St. John’s.
(Reaper enjoys the irony; Grimm, not so much.)
He does love her, but the proposal is entirely selfish on his part. He’s so tired of being alone and having Reaper as his only companion is doing terrible things to his psyche. Realistically, he knows that they can only end up in divorce-or, mutters Reaper, some horrible accident where they can’t identify your body.
(when he looks back, he half-heartedly wonders why the truth was never an option. but he knows that he was still too bitter and jaded to trust anyone other than his long-dead sister.)
Pregnancy wasn’t something they had discussed at any point during their relationship-interning already taking up more of their lives then two kids would. Even during their engagement and after she had become Mrs. “Leonard McCoy” (Reaper still howls at the stupid moniker), it had never been a huge concern for her. Now, even while the pregnancy had been unplanned, she certainly didn’t see it as anything other than a dream come true.
John wants to puke.
He watches her carefully and closely through her first term, much to Joss’ amusement. When nothing more dangerous than morning sickness and intense mood swings occurs, he begins to relax minutely. When she first starts to show, he starts covertly drinking bourbon in the garden shed. The first time he feels the baby kick, a strange sense of awe falls over him. Then he starts drinking in the bathroom too.
He knows, if the baby lasts another two terms he will officially be a father. If there are no side-effects, he will get to watch his child grow into a beautiful person.
And then you will watch your child die, whispers Reaper solemnly. He wants to sob with the unfairness of it all. If it wasn’t for his ridiculously high metabolism, he would be drunk all the time-his fairly invincible liver saving him from alcohol poisoning.
Terrified as he is, he is there for Joss the whole way through: massaging her back and ankles, holding back her hair, bringing her pickles covered in jam. She handles it beautifully, and never does she suspect that his ever-watchful, nervous fussing is caused entirely by half-drunken panic.
Her water breaks and for a minute he actually thinks he crapped out his lungs.
Joss is in labour for ten-and-a-half hours. He lasts three before she screams him into the waiting room. He spends the rest of the time pacing the halls of the maternity wing and drinking out in the parking lot. He’s about to go inhale a carton of cigarettes when he picks up the sound of a faint wail. Barely a minute later the doctor comes out and smiles at him where he is frozen in his chair.
Her hair is matted to her forehead and she looks exhausted, but Joss is practically glowing and she smells healthy enough that John can’t help but relax in response. She looks up from the tiny bundle in her arms when he comes in and her eyes have stars in them.
“We have a daughter.”
His mind goes curiously blank, just as it did all those months ago and his tongue is just as thick and useless. “We have… I-really?”
She laughs wetly. “You’re a daddy to a beautiful baby girl.”
His eyes are drawn to the tiny creature in his wife’s arms as he steps closer. Without a word, Joss holds out her arms and before he can think it through, he gently picks up his child and cradles her against his chest.
He feels his soul warm for the first time in a long time.
She’s gorgeous.
Rosy cheeks and Sam’s button nose. Tiny cupid’s bows lips are already pursed into a teeny scowl. Then she opens her eyes and his heart stops.
She has his eyes-more green then gold, but they are his.
“Hi,” he whispers, fingers coming up to gently stroke the fine tuft of dark, golden hair. “Hi there, baby girl.”
“Any ideas for a name?”
He’d dutifully gone through lists of names during the pregnancy-not really caring-but now he feels as if it’s the most important decision of his life. “’Love-Of-My-Life’ too long?”
Joss huffs out a quiet laugh. “She’ll hate us enough when she’s sixteen. Let’s not give her any more ammo.” She yawns and snuggles back into her pillows. “I was thinking Joanna.”
Startled, he cuts his gaze back to hers. He had thrown out his mother’s name during the list-making; the second one to come to mind, the only one to not make him want to cry. “Really?”
She smiles tiredly. “My parents can get in on the middle name.”
“Joanna,” he murmurs, looking back down at his child.
Her arm is waving around half-heartedly and when she knocks into his hand, she manages to grasp onto his finger. The doctor in him knows that it’s just a reflex, but it doesn’t stop the massive grin that spreads across his face, or the tears that well in his eyes. His heart swells so much he thinks he can feel his ribs crack.
Reaper stirs quietly and whispers, Mine.
John cries quietly and for the first time in a long time, does not hate the decision Sam made for him all those years ago.