RP: Little Child

[rar_fleur]

Date: 28 April 1999 | Morning
Characters: Fleur Weasley, Bill Weasley, Healer and St. Mungo's Personnel [NPCs], Genevieve Grace 'Gigi' Weasley, Molly Weasley, Arthur Weasley, George Weasley, Lee Jordan
Location: St. Mungo's Maternity Ward
Status: Semi-Private [Weasley family and friends]
Summary: Fleur and Bill give birth.
Completion: Incomplete

Comments

[rar_bill]

This was frustrating. Fleur was obviously in pain, and there was nothing Bill could do to help. In fact, it was his fault that she was going through all this now. Well, not fault, since the baby was something they both wanted, but he still felt guilty. There wasn't much he could do since they'd arrived at St. Mungos except try to make her comfortable

[rar_fleur]

Fleur wanted her baby but she knew she'd see her sooner if she cooperated and let everyone clean her up and help her into the bed, which she asked to be sat up. She had no desire to lie down when she wanted to hold her child.

Finally she was free of the flurry of activity and saw that Bill was holding her. She swiped her sweaty hair back from her face and smiled at her husband. "We do? Per'aps you might bring her over so that I can meet her too?" she teased.

[rar_bill]

"Huh?" He looked up and blinked at Fleur before he smiled sheepishly. "I have to share? I don't know if I like that. Might should have had two, so we'd each have one."

He carefully stood up and walked to the hospital bed. "She's loud," he confided to Fleur, as if she couldn't hear their baby making noise. "Fleur, meet our daughter." He looked down at the baby and couldn't say Victorie because he hadn't liked the name much before but definitely didn't think it suited now. He shifted the baby so that Fleur could hold her before he introduced them. "This is Mum."

[rar_fleur]

"Maybe next time, 'usband." She grinned and teased, "Per'aps in a year or two we can negotiate ze terms?"

"She is a Weasley. Were you expecting something less?" Fleur took her daughter and felt her eyes tearing up. "Oh," Fleur was in love. "She is so tiny. Look at her eyes, Bill. She knows her mama." She knew that babies couldn't really focus well enough at first but Vic... no, that name did not suit this little girl at all. "Hello, little one. She is beautiful, Bill. She needs a pretty name."

[rar_bill]

After Fleur was sleeping, Bill put Gigi down into the cot the Healer indicated. He kissed her cheek and touched her hand once more before he left the room. He took a few minutes in the hall to collect himself. It had taken hours, but it also felt like it had happened so quickly that he wasn't able to really comprehend that he was a father now

[rar_molly]

Molly watched her eldest son enter the waiting room. He looked tired but happy and she resisted the urge to do a little dance. A girl! She would have been happy with a boy as well, but girls were so rare in the Weasley family. She hugged him tight, kissing his cheeks.

"Congratulations, Bill," she said, her eyes glistening with happy tears. "I'd love to come meet my granddaughter." She picked up her handbag. "I brought sandwiches, tea and pumpkin juice if you need anything. And I'll leave a sandwich for Fleur. I'm sure she'll be hungry when she wakes up. Gigi. I'm sure she's going to be a little wonder."

[rar_bill]

"You didn't have to bring food, Mum. There canteen here isn't that bad," he pointed out. "Fleur will appreciate the thought, I'm sure. She'll probably be hungry when she wakes up. Right now, she needs some rest. It's been a long morning."

He walked her back to Fleur's room and stepped inside. "She's over here." He led his mum over to the cot where Gigi was lying. She was still awake, but she'd quieted down some from earlier. He carefully picked her up and held her against him. "Gigi, this is your grandmum. Mum, meet Gigi."

[rar_molly]

Molly shooed Bill's protests away with her hand. "Nonsense. You're parents now and you'll need your strength. And poor Fleur will need plenty of rest."

Molly followed Bill into the room, looking over at her sleeping daughter-in-law before seeing her granddaughter. She felt herself tear up again at the sight of the tiny baby in her son's arms.

"Hello Gigi," she said quietly. "Oh Bill, she's beautiful. I'm so proud of you, son. You're going to make a wonderful father. You're going to be such a happy girl, Gigi," she said to her granddaughter, touching her little fingers gently, "because you have such incredible parents, and me and your grandpa and your grandmere and grandpere and all your uncles and aunties. And we're all going to love you so much."

[rar_arthur]

Molly had been gone for a few minutes, and Arthur expected it would be a few more yet; he was impatient to go meet his granddaughter, but it wasn't something to be rushed, after all, and Molly had missed having little ones around

[rar_bill]

After he got Gigi settled back into the cot, he walked with his mum back to the waiting room. They'd barely entered the room when his father was standing up and walking towards them. He smiled at the question. "Of course she's perfect, but I think you should see for yourself," he said with a nod back at the door.

"Come on, Dad. You can see her before Fleur wakes up and scolds me for letting so many people visit the room and disturb the baby."

[rar_arthur]

Arthur beamed and followed Bill back through the door. "I think she might have to just get used to the disturbing. The baby, not Fleur. Or, well, her too. We're not the smallest or the quietest family that ever lived."

Still, he slowed his steps a bit, moving more quietly than was his inclination, so as to be a little less disturbing.

When the arrived, he looked at Fleur in the bed. "I'm glad she can sleep," he said to Bill quietly. "I always found it so difficult to know how exhausted your mother was, and then the baby, or too often, a baby, a toddler, and a four-year-old, would need her." He shook his head. "It's a bit beyond imagining, isn't it, that they can do this?"

[rar_bill]

"No, we're not," he agreed. "Gigi takes after us. She was noisy and squirming around not long after she entered this world." He was proud of that, that she took after his family even if he was just imagining things.

They entered the room, and he listened to his dad as he walked over to pick up Gigi again. "It's bloody brilliant, though I have to admit that I'm glad I wasn't going through it." He looked down at Gigi and grinned. "She's going to end up resenting me when she's older without knowing that it's because I kept picking her up when she was born."

He held her carefully and showed her off to his dad. "Isn't she beautiful?"

[rar_george]

George had given up pacing and reading and sitting quietly, and had turned to compulsive sandwich picking. It was driving Lee crazy, but George couldn't be arsed to care. Several paper wrappers lay on the empty chair beside him, filled with bits of bread as he ate through the filling of the sandwiches. He'd done chicken, corned beef, and ham, and was in the process of reaching past Lee for another when Bill came back into the room.

He nudged Lee, then grinned. For all his lack of knowledge about babies, he somehow couldn't wait to get his hands on this one...

[rar_bill]

After he walked his dad back to the waiting room, Bill noticed George grinning nearby. He put his hands in his pockets and walked over to where George and Lee were.

"Did you want to see your niece or were you planning on eating something else?" he asked, nodding towards the pile of rubbish in the chair next to him. "If you choose a ham sandwich over her, I'll have to be sure to tell her when she's older so you'll lose 'cool uncle' points, of course."

[rar_lee]

Lee snorted, "Can't afford that, George. You already have to beat out the dragon tamer."

He stood and clapped Bill on the shoulder, giving him a wide, stupid grin. "Congratulations, mate. This is amazing. How is she? Both of them?"

[rar_george]

"Oh, shut it," George muttered, sweeping his leftovers into a nearby bin, then bouncing to his feet. "I'll have infinity of cool uncle points the first time she comes into the shop anyway, so..." He chuckled.

"Let's go. Come ooonnn...." He caught Bill in a swift, fierce hug, then tugged him toward the door.

[rar_charlie]

Charlie tried to keep out of the way, determined to give Bill a little room with all of the family flustering over him. Besides...he was also a bit...scared. Not that he was about to admit it.

Honestly, he had no right to be scared. Bill was the father. But he was an uncle now...and somehow it felt more of a mantle than brother somehow. He had a neice. A neice divided by five, and he didn't know whether he'd be able to keep up with that kind of responsibility.

He hadn't been here for Fred. What if he made the same mistakes with her?

[rar_bill]

When Bill walked back to the waiting room with George and Lee, he saw Ron there along with Harry and Hermione. He also noticed Charlie hiding away from the rest of the family. Instead of asking Ron if he was ready, he walked over to Charlie.

"I think the wall can hold itself up without your help," he pointed out before he nudged Charlie's arm. "You planning to come visit your niece or do you want me to leave you alone for now?"

[rar_charlie]

Charlie dropped himself from the wall, glancing back at it just in case it did. It didn't, of course, but it gave him a second not to look straight at Bill. When he did, he managed to hold his breath for only a second before a frightened sort of grin flickered across his face.

"Sure. Let's go, huh?" He probably said it too purposefully, but he was trying to convince himself that it was okay. Things weren't changing that much. Honestly, having a married older brother with his own firstborn...it was just a change in title, right? It was odd that it seemed more real now than it ever had in the last nine months. "I'm ready, Bill." He coughed. "And what about you?"

[rar_bill]

"I'm more ready than I was last night," Bill said honestly. "It's amazing how none of those fears mean so much once you're holding your daughter in your hands, and she's looking up at you with big eyes."

He led Charlie into the corridor and glanced at him. "There's nothing to be scared about, little brother," he murmured quietly.