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How many times did you fight
I DID NOT FORGET ABOUT YOU, O TABLE OF SCHMOOP.
It was seeing Angie crank out two Father's Day themed stories that really made me bust my ass on this one. I've been fiddling with this story for about a month now and just need to get it out of my system.
Who: Deon, Mara, Rebecka, Samantha.
What: Biometrics/Future AU. Adjusting to being brand-new parents, finding the resolve to do the last thing they set out to accomplish.
Where: Reed's Louisiana home.
When: About four months after the raid to save Lynn. About nine months after a particular accident.
Why: For a Mother's Day/Father's Day combo fic, and also for the Schmoop tile Kidfic - Bedtime. Also by the song Rumblefish by Bonnie Pink.
Guys. I fucking love writing about babies. I try not to do it a lot, or ya'll would get so sick of me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It took Deon a great amount of begging before he was able to chase everyone out of the guest room. Two days since Mara gave birth and it still felt like they couldn’t get two seconds alone with each other, not with Reed and Tasha nosing around, or Joey’s flurries of excitement and questions. Deon owed Dusty his sanity, because without him they might have not gotten any time alone together at all. Of course, as soon as everyone was gone, Mara just dozed off in the middle of feeding.
He couldn’t blame her, not after over a day of labor and nearly two months before then of sleeplessness and anxiety. Deon felt about ready to fall over himself, even though Mara was quick to remind him that he hadn't suffered a fraction of what she had. Regardless, they’d both been nervous during the final weeks - scared that she’d give birth to the twins too prematurely, or that one of the babies was sick, or that one might die. They might have two healers nearby, but the hospital still remained out of the question. Deon had feared for Mara’s life the most, though he didn’t say so.
Actually, he found he wasn’t prepared for things to go so well. Samantha hiccuped, and when he tried lifting her against his shoulder and patting her back, it disappeared without incident. After that, he went to the window and looked outside as he held her. By the light of the bright Louisiana moon he could see clearly into Reed’s yard - at the baseball equipment Joey left on the lawn, Lynn’s bicycle resting against the side of the shed, and the spring tulips and stray dandelions that threatened to overtake the grass.
All Deon could think about was all of those months that passed since the last time he saw flowers in bloom. A year ago, nothing could have convinced him that he’d soon have two daughters of his own. Having a family was something for normal people to enjoy, not for fugitive Hunters on the run.
Mara stirred, muttering and complaining about her aches before she was even fully awake. Her vision was bleary, especially without her glasses, and she looked down at the nursing infant with a small degree of surprise. “Which one is this?”
“Rebecka,” Deon reminded her. “Samantha’s the fat one.”
“This one’s going to be the fat one,” Mara moaned. She moved Rebecka from one breast to the other, and the baby just resumed her sucking. He saw her fists flexes, and could guess at how badly she wanted to thrash and complain.
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You must taste good.”
“Shut up.”
He walked around the bed and sat down at the rocking chair, and pulled it forward so it wasn’t far from where Mara and Rebecka lay. He pressed his finger against her pudgy stomach, and Samantha grabbed at his hand with surprising strength. For a few minutes Deon played this game with her - poking her in the belly, then moved his finger slowly towards her face until she tried to make a grab for it The baby looked up at him with her rich brown eyes, her attention drawn to his face. It took him a while to realize Mara also stared at him.
“For god’s sakes, Deon,” she said. “She can’t sleep if you keep on poking her.”
He folded his hands under Sami’s diapery butt and contented himself with just holding her. Reed warned Deon and Mara not to give a newborn’s appearance much merit - hair color, skin color, and even facial features could change drastically since birth. Still, Deon did think that Sami called more from his side. He couldn't help but be reminded of his sisters Sara and Teresa. He thought they might have agreed with him, if they were ever given the chance to see Sami.
He frowned. “It’s gonna be hard leaving them behind.”
“Just for a month. We need the Fortress.” Mara stroked her baby’s forehead, brushed Rebecka’s wispy dark hair with her fingertips. “The sooner the better. We’re going to raise our babies there, not in someone else’s house.”
She was right, of course. They both agreed strongly on that point months ago. But Deon couldn’t help the deep, sinking feeling in his guts though as he thought about it. Years of running and then this last year of terror, and now these last two days felt like the first time he and Mara were really in the clear. Yet they had to go back on the road and put themselves on the line once more.
They couldn’t take the girls to California yet, not until they were sure they could take the Fortress back without being monitored and seized. The Biometrics act was nearing the end of its days, but that hardly meant that Hunters were free from the human monsters who wanted to cut them to pieces and exploit their unique genetics. There were bounty hunters out there, there were those agents, and there were simple assholes who were just mad to have their prison busted. If something happened to Mara and Deon on the road - if they got captured and experimented to death, as Lynn had been - well, then the girls would be left to Reed and Dusty and Tasha to be raised. He thought he was okay with the decision, even joked around as Mara set up the babies’ trust funds earlier.
Their daughters might be raised without knowing the faces of their parents. Christ. After everything they suffered to deliver the babies safely, he and Mara had to go out and monopolize themselves all over again.
“I could go alone, you know,” he said. Deon smiled, as if no thoughts of death or forced abandonment crossed his mind. “We don’t need both of us. And if I run into trouble, I could get Peter to help me out-”
“Don’t you even think about that,” Mara warned.
Deon couldn’t help himself though. For months they talked and planned, decided what they must do to make it so that the babies could grow up safe and normal. But facing danger was a lot easier when before he had a face he could put to his children. He looked down on Sami again, and wondered how he could find the courage at all. “You know what I mean, Mara. It makes more sense if only I go.”
“I don’t care how much sense you think it makes. That’s not going to happen. The end.” Out of the corner of his eye, he knew that Mara stared hard at him. “Did you forget? You were the one who promised that it’d be the two of us, Deon, no matter what we had to do.”
He kept his head bowed. "I don't know. Maybe I was wrong."
Mara shifted, moved towards him. One of her arms cradled Rebecka, but the other was able to reach Deon were he sat. Her fingers dug into his thigh, but her eyes stabbed him even more sharply. “You’re not leaving me alone here.”
She wouldn’t be alone, of course. Mara would have the babies, there was Reed and Joey, and Tasha and Dusty rented a place nearby. If he was in a better mood, he’d be smugly flattered. Deon leaned back against the rocker and sighed heavily. Sami still stared up at him, and he smiled the best he could back for her.
“It’s just...dammit, Mara. I didn’t think they’d be so beautiful,” he said. It was true. He had worried a lot more about keeping Mara and the twins alive that he hadn’t considered the simplicity of just looking at the babies, of having them in his arms. Sami got too tired to keep her eyes open, and gave a tiny yawn as she turned her face against his arm.
Mara slowly loosened her grip on Deon’s leg, and her face softened. But that didn't mean she was going to cave. He recognized the determination in her eyes as being not too different from how she looked whenever the topic of saving Lynn came up. She didn’t want him going where she couldn’t protect him. “I’m not letting you go do something stupid on your own. I need you to come back here with me in one piece. To change all the diapers.”
Deon kicked the floor a little, getting his rocking chair going a little bit. “You just can’t wait to ditch the others.”
“That’s only part of it. I mostly want my house back.” Mara allowed herself a brief, frustrated hrmph. “I own the damn thing. It’s stupid that I’ve been chased away from it for so long.”
Stupid or not, exile had brought the two of them to an entirely unexpected place together. When they left Sunset City after his sisters' murders, Deon had fully expected to die with Mara somewhere on the road. He’d even convinced himself that he’d be happy with an ending like that, even believing that a good death with Mara was the most he could hope for with her. If it wasn’t for the pregnancy, and how the girls had suddenly given them something else to try to live for, then maybe things might have ended up that way.
“We can stop in Vegas to get married,” Deon said. His voice had dropped, though he hadn’t meant for it to. “It’s on the way.”
He wished he could have sounded more confident, and he thought that in any other situation he’d have this in the bag. But he was at an emotional low now, and besides, there was still some possibility that Mara would refuse him. She had his children, but that had been forced on her, not planned. The loss of Lynn still haunted her too. He saw it sometimes when she gazed off into nowhere, thinking of all of the ways she could have done better by her cousin.
But she wasn’t looking off into empty space now. Rather, she stared at Deon like he was an idiot. “Of course we are. How else is my agent going to believe the eloping story?” Mara rolled her eyes, and pat him on the thigh. “We can do the fancy one later.”
He didn’t want to look too relieved. “Yeah, one for when everyone can make it.” Deon stood up out of his chair, careful not to wake up Sami. “Good job. We’ve got the flower girls already.”
“They might be teenagers by then. I want to get their college funds set up before we waste it on a big wedding.”
Deon allowed himself a grin as he set Sami into her crib. “You never know. If what Max said about lawsuits really comes through, we can afford a wedding next year. Probably hold it anywhere in the world we want to. Spain? Singapore?”
Mara groaned. “Then have it without me. The idea of going anywhere but home makes me sick.”
He put his elbow against the headboard, and looked over Mara and Rebecka. His thoughts wandered, and he recalled their immediate plan for the Fortress. She would get a temporary job while he minded the kids and house, stay-at-home dad and watchguard in one, just in case. But whenever they both had the time, they would go to town remodeling the Fortress and baby-proofing the shit out of it. Man, he thought, cracking a smile despite himself. He really must have gotten old, if he thought being married and staying home with babies sounded like fun.
“Hey, look at that,” Deon whispered, noticing Rebecka starting to move a little. He leaned in, and watched as the baby finished her feeding and turned her face up towards her mother. The baby tried to open her eyes, straining against sleepiness and the light, but when she did they finally got a look at her irises. Dark violet. “Thank god. She got your eyes.”
“Good.” Mara yanked her shirt back down, and brought Rebecka closer against her face. “Now you can stop calling Samantha fat.”
injury – minor | shopping | bad day | ||
cloud watching | honeymoon | nuzzling | anniversary | |
first fight – making up | candles | anniversary – miles apart | ||
kidfic – vacation | baby – adoption | making out | ||
karaoke | bedtime rituals | birthday – surprise party | hot cocoa |
It was seeing Angie crank out two Father's Day themed stories that really made me bust my ass on this one. I've been fiddling with this story for about a month now and just need to get it out of my system.
Who: Deon, Mara, Rebecka, Samantha.
What: Biometrics/Future AU. Adjusting to being brand-new parents, finding the resolve to do the last thing they set out to accomplish.
Where: Reed's Louisiana home.
When: About four months after the raid to save Lynn. About nine months after a particular accident.
Why: For a Mother's Day/Father's Day combo fic, and also for the Schmoop tile Kidfic - Bedtime. Also by the song Rumblefish by Bonnie Pink.
Guys. I fucking love writing about babies. I try not to do it a lot, or ya'll would get so sick of me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It took Deon a great amount of begging before he was able to chase everyone out of the guest room. Two days since Mara gave birth and it still felt like they couldn’t get two seconds alone with each other, not with Reed and Tasha nosing around, or Joey’s flurries of excitement and questions. Deon owed Dusty his sanity, because without him they might have not gotten any time alone together at all. Of course, as soon as everyone was gone, Mara just dozed off in the middle of feeding.
He couldn’t blame her, not after over a day of labor and nearly two months before then of sleeplessness and anxiety. Deon felt about ready to fall over himself, even though Mara was quick to remind him that he hadn't suffered a fraction of what she had. Regardless, they’d both been nervous during the final weeks - scared that she’d give birth to the twins too prematurely, or that one of the babies was sick, or that one might die. They might have two healers nearby, but the hospital still remained out of the question. Deon had feared for Mara’s life the most, though he didn’t say so.
Actually, he found he wasn’t prepared for things to go so well. Samantha hiccuped, and when he tried lifting her against his shoulder and patting her back, it disappeared without incident. After that, he went to the window and looked outside as he held her. By the light of the bright Louisiana moon he could see clearly into Reed’s yard - at the baseball equipment Joey left on the lawn, Lynn’s bicycle resting against the side of the shed, and the spring tulips and stray dandelions that threatened to overtake the grass.
All Deon could think about was all of those months that passed since the last time he saw flowers in bloom. A year ago, nothing could have convinced him that he’d soon have two daughters of his own. Having a family was something for normal people to enjoy, not for fugitive Hunters on the run.
Mara stirred, muttering and complaining about her aches before she was even fully awake. Her vision was bleary, especially without her glasses, and she looked down at the nursing infant with a small degree of surprise. “Which one is this?”
“Rebecka,” Deon reminded her. “Samantha’s the fat one.”
“This one’s going to be the fat one,” Mara moaned. She moved Rebecka from one breast to the other, and the baby just resumed her sucking. He saw her fists flexes, and could guess at how badly she wanted to thrash and complain.
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You must taste good.”
“Shut up.”
He walked around the bed and sat down at the rocking chair, and pulled it forward so it wasn’t far from where Mara and Rebecka lay. He pressed his finger against her pudgy stomach, and Samantha grabbed at his hand with surprising strength. For a few minutes Deon played this game with her - poking her in the belly, then moved his finger slowly towards her face until she tried to make a grab for it The baby looked up at him with her rich brown eyes, her attention drawn to his face. It took him a while to realize Mara also stared at him.
“For god’s sakes, Deon,” she said. “She can’t sleep if you keep on poking her.”
He folded his hands under Sami’s diapery butt and contented himself with just holding her. Reed warned Deon and Mara not to give a newborn’s appearance much merit - hair color, skin color, and even facial features could change drastically since birth. Still, Deon did think that Sami called more from his side. He couldn't help but be reminded of his sisters Sara and Teresa. He thought they might have agreed with him, if they were ever given the chance to see Sami.
He frowned. “It’s gonna be hard leaving them behind.”
“Just for a month. We need the Fortress.” Mara stroked her baby’s forehead, brushed Rebecka’s wispy dark hair with her fingertips. “The sooner the better. We’re going to raise our babies there, not in someone else’s house.”
She was right, of course. They both agreed strongly on that point months ago. But Deon couldn’t help the deep, sinking feeling in his guts though as he thought about it. Years of running and then this last year of terror, and now these last two days felt like the first time he and Mara were really in the clear. Yet they had to go back on the road and put themselves on the line once more.
They couldn’t take the girls to California yet, not until they were sure they could take the Fortress back without being monitored and seized. The Biometrics act was nearing the end of its days, but that hardly meant that Hunters were free from the human monsters who wanted to cut them to pieces and exploit their unique genetics. There were bounty hunters out there, there were those agents, and there were simple assholes who were just mad to have their prison busted. If something happened to Mara and Deon on the road - if they got captured and experimented to death, as Lynn had been - well, then the girls would be left to Reed and Dusty and Tasha to be raised. He thought he was okay with the decision, even joked around as Mara set up the babies’ trust funds earlier.
Their daughters might be raised without knowing the faces of their parents. Christ. After everything they suffered to deliver the babies safely, he and Mara had to go out and monopolize themselves all over again.
“I could go alone, you know,” he said. Deon smiled, as if no thoughts of death or forced abandonment crossed his mind. “We don’t need both of us. And if I run into trouble, I could get Peter to help me out-”
“Don’t you even think about that,” Mara warned.
Deon couldn’t help himself though. For months they talked and planned, decided what they must do to make it so that the babies could grow up safe and normal. But facing danger was a lot easier when before he had a face he could put to his children. He looked down on Sami again, and wondered how he could find the courage at all. “You know what I mean, Mara. It makes more sense if only I go.”
“I don’t care how much sense you think it makes. That’s not going to happen. The end.” Out of the corner of his eye, he knew that Mara stared hard at him. “Did you forget? You were the one who promised that it’d be the two of us, Deon, no matter what we had to do.”
He kept his head bowed. "I don't know. Maybe I was wrong."
Mara shifted, moved towards him. One of her arms cradled Rebecka, but the other was able to reach Deon were he sat. Her fingers dug into his thigh, but her eyes stabbed him even more sharply. “You’re not leaving me alone here.”
She wouldn’t be alone, of course. Mara would have the babies, there was Reed and Joey, and Tasha and Dusty rented a place nearby. If he was in a better mood, he’d be smugly flattered. Deon leaned back against the rocker and sighed heavily. Sami still stared up at him, and he smiled the best he could back for her.
“It’s just...dammit, Mara. I didn’t think they’d be so beautiful,” he said. It was true. He had worried a lot more about keeping Mara and the twins alive that he hadn’t considered the simplicity of just looking at the babies, of having them in his arms. Sami got too tired to keep her eyes open, and gave a tiny yawn as she turned her face against his arm.
Mara slowly loosened her grip on Deon’s leg, and her face softened. But that didn't mean she was going to cave. He recognized the determination in her eyes as being not too different from how she looked whenever the topic of saving Lynn came up. She didn’t want him going where she couldn’t protect him. “I’m not letting you go do something stupid on your own. I need you to come back here with me in one piece. To change all the diapers.”
He sighed again, more lightly this time, and closed his eyes. “I guess I can’t argue against that.”
"No reason for me not to go," she reaffirmed. "Unless you'd just rather go with Peter than me."
"Now that's a dumb thing to say."
Deon kicked the floor a little, getting his rocking chair going a little bit. “You just can’t wait to ditch the others.”
“That’s only part of it. I mostly want my house back.” Mara allowed herself a brief, frustrated hrmph. “I own the damn thing. It’s stupid that I’ve been chased away from it for so long.”
Stupid or not, exile had brought the two of them to an entirely unexpected place together. When they left Sunset City after his sisters' murders, Deon had fully expected to die with Mara somewhere on the road. He’d even convinced himself that he’d be happy with an ending like that, even believing that a good death with Mara was the most he could hope for with her. If it wasn’t for the pregnancy, and how the girls had suddenly given them something else to try to live for, then maybe things might have ended up that way.
“We can stop in Vegas to get married,” Deon said. His voice had dropped, though he hadn’t meant for it to. “It’s on the way.”
He wished he could have sounded more confident, and he thought that in any other situation he’d have this in the bag. But he was at an emotional low now, and besides, there was still some possibility that Mara would refuse him. She had his children, but that had been forced on her, not planned. The loss of Lynn still haunted her too. He saw it sometimes when she gazed off into nowhere, thinking of all of the ways she could have done better by her cousin.
But she wasn’t looking off into empty space now. Rather, she stared at Deon like he was an idiot. “Of course we are. How else is my agent going to believe the eloping story?” Mara rolled her eyes, and pat him on the thigh. “We can do the fancy one later.”
He didn’t want to look too relieved. “Yeah, one for when everyone can make it.” Deon stood up out of his chair, careful not to wake up Sami. “Good job. We’ve got the flower girls already.”
“They might be teenagers by then. I want to get their college funds set up before we waste it on a big wedding.”
Deon allowed himself a grin as he set Sami into her crib. “You never know. If what Max said about lawsuits really comes through, we can afford a wedding next year. Probably hold it anywhere in the world we want to. Spain? Singapore?”
Mara groaned. “Then have it without me. The idea of going anywhere but home makes me sick.”
He put his elbow against the headboard, and looked over Mara and Rebecka. His thoughts wandered, and he recalled their immediate plan for the Fortress. She would get a temporary job while he minded the kids and house, stay-at-home dad and watchguard in one, just in case. But whenever they both had the time, they would go to town remodeling the Fortress and baby-proofing the shit out of it. Man, he thought, cracking a smile despite himself. He really must have gotten old, if he thought being married and staying home with babies sounded like fun.
“Hey, look at that,” Deon whispered, noticing Rebecka starting to move a little. He leaned in, and watched as the baby finished her feeding and turned her face up towards her mother. The baby tried to open her eyes, straining against sleepiness and the light, but when she did they finally got a look at her irises. Dark violet. “Thank god. She got your eyes.”
“Good.” Mara yanked her shirt back down, and brought Rebecka closer against her face. “Now you can stop calling Samantha fat.”
no subject
Seriously, I loved this. Something I'm loving about Future AU is seeing how the characters change with age and hardship, and I think it's fascinating to see how Mara and Deon's relationship has grown. I love seeing the more mature Deon worrying about things like babies and babyproofing (by the way, Deon, watch out, you're so outnumbered now XD), and I love how Mara's stout resolution has remained intact, even with two girls to worry about.
You really balanced it nicely between quiet and tense, and it was really well done. Also, babies up the cute factor for any story. <3 <3 <3
no subject
Thank you very much ;_; I really enjoyed writing this story because not only is it writing these characters as older, but it's also writing them as older with experiences very, very different from what is likely to happen in the regular canon future. Sort of a brain-teaser for writing.
PLUS I LOVE WRITING MARA DIALOGUE.