Archive of Our Own ^beta

The warm gray of sunrise was starting to creep through the blinds when Peter jolted awake around his usual time. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face, careful not to move his body too much so he wouldn’t wake Rose. 

Peter had always been an early riser. Back in the Academy, Cisco had complained endlessly when Peter had scheduled their swimming lessons for 6 a.m. because he liked to start his day with exercise. Before the Metro Bombing, Peter was in the habit of hitting the gym before work every morning and still having time to stop by a coffee shop afterwards without being late. His routines had changed up when he was assigned the night shift working the Night Action line, but he still slept lightly and minimally. 

It had been years since he worked that night shift, and now Peter was firmly back to being an early riser - made all the more pronounced by the fact that his wife was very much not . 

Beside him, Rose was curled up on her side, facing him. Her breaths were shallow and her body was relaxed with sleep. A strand of her dark hair had fallen over her face, and Peter gently reached up and smoothed it behind her ear - careful to keep his touch light so we wouldn’t wake her. The contact helped him swallow down any residual tension from his latest recurring nightmare which had jarred him from sleep a few moments before: the one in which he could hear Rose screaming his name and a baby crying behind a closed door, but every time he opened the door he just saw an empty room with another door. He’d open them one after the other while listening to both of them calling for him but never being able to find them. 

He had had a dream like that three times this week already. 

Luckily, Rose didn’t seem to have noticed his abrupt awakening. She was having a harder time sleeping since reaching her second trimester, but more from discomfort than from nightmares like him. Her belly had grown enough that sleeping on her stomach was starting to be uncomfortable for her, and at her last doctor’s visit the nurse had scared them both shitless when she told them that Rose sleeping on her back could unintentionally cut off blood flow in a major vein as the baby gets bigger. Rose wasn’t much of a side sleeper, and Peter had lost countless hours of sleep in the past few weeks waking up every hour or so and anxiously checking to make sure she hadn’t changed positions while she slept. 

He didn’t mind always being the first awake. He liked seeing her so peaceful. In a few months, it might come in handy that he was used to surviving on a few hours of interrupted sleep when they would have an infant to feed every 3 hours. 

No matter how much time he had to process that fact, sometimes the thought still stole his breath. 

He and Rose were going to be parents. There would be a real, living baby - their baby - in their home five months from now. There would be diapers to change, and bottles to clean, and onesies to wash. 

It filled him with anxious excitement as much as it filled him with mild panic. 

He stared at Rose for a minute or two, watching her steady breaths and the way her dark eyelashes made long shadows fan across her cheeks. Their kid was going to be lucky as hell to have her for a mother. She was beautiful, and smart, and strong, and she would do anything for her family. Peter wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve having her in his life, but he started almost every day by taking a moment to watch her sleep and thanking fate for bringing her to him. 

He knew it was sappy as fuck, but he didn’t care. No one but him knew it was his morning ritual anyway, and he liked starting his day with something good. Sometimes, with the job he had, this moment of peace in the morning ended up being the only good part of his day and the only way to calm the fear from the nightmares enough to let him function. 

Today though, Rose stirred before he had had his fill of watching the rise and fall of her chest and and before he had traced the freckles he had memorized by now with his eyes. 

Her eyes squinted open and she scrunched up her face in displeasure. Peter felt his lips tug up. “Good morning?” he whispered, amused. 

“It’s too early,” she replied, voice groggy. 

It was almost 7 a.m., but she was right that it was earlier than she usually woke up. “Go back to sleep,” he proposed softly. “I’ll make you pancakes when you wake up.” 

Rose made a thoughtful face then snuggled deeper into her pillow. “With whipped cream?” 

Peter smirked. “Fine.” 

She smiled and shut her eyes. “Deal.” 

Peter tried not to laugh. She was probably still half asleep for that entire conversation. He was rolling on his side, preparing to sneak out of the bed, when she spoke again. 

“Fuck,” she grumbled. “I have to pee.” She tossed the covers off her body in irritation and sat up. Peter huffed a laugh, and Rose threw him an annoyed look over her shoulder as she lowered her legs over the side of the bed to slide her feet into her slippers. He grimaced apologetically, and she just shook her head as she walked toward the bathroom. “Men have it so easy,” she mumbled, so low that he didn’t think she was talking to him. 

Seeing her shuffle along wearing his oversized t-shirt over her pajama pants had the smile rising to his face again. His t-shirt hung so loosely over her small frame that it was difficult to see the small bump of her belly, but he knew it was there. 

While she was in the bathroom, Peter shifted to sit against the headboard and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. He unlocked it and read over a message from Catherine. She wanted him to read the case file she’d sent to his email and send back a few notes. Peter frowned and felt his eye twitch. This was still supposed to be his week off. 

He and Rose had a lot to figure out about their profession. Once they had a baby, they couldn’t be running all over the globe investigating dangerous targets. For one, Peter didn’t think there was a soul alive on this Earth he would trust to babysit his child. But without someone capable taking care of their kid, he and Rose couldn’t take even a weekend away for an investigation. What were they supposed to do? Put the baby in a back carrier and bring it along to a gunfight? It was as ridiculous as it was terrifying. 

They’d known from the day they found out she was pregnant that something would have to change. They were still working through a plan though. 

For now, they were making subtle changes. They were on a three week work sabbatical, and the plan was that when they returned next week, Rose was no longer going into the field with him - something that he felt just fine about but that he knew gnawed at her. If the roles were reversed, he’d probably lose his mind, so he tried to be understanding every time she voiced her discontent. She was still going to be his partner, but she was going to stay safely tucked away here in the United States and be his eyes and ears on comms. It made him feel better that she would be working out of the FBI building in DC with tons of trained agents around making sure everything was fine, but he’d be lying if he said the idea of being on the other side of the world as her didn’t also cause him some stress. 

They had a few months left to decide what their lives would look like after the delivery. Peter wasn’t sure that being agents would still be a viable option, but he was keeping an open mind. There were some less dangerous roles they may be able to transition to. All he knew for sure was that if Rose was out, then he was too. He wasn’t going to continue without her and have to fly out to an undetermined place for an undetermined amount of time and leave his family behind. 

Rose padded back into the room and Peter lifted his eyes from the phone to glance at her. “Catherine sent a report for us to look over.”

Rose scrunched up her face and approached the bed. “We’re not back until next week.” 

Peter smirked and went back to scrolling through any other messages or headlines he may have missed during the night. “I told her you’d say that.” 

Rose sat down on the bed in front of him, crossing her legs and resting her forearms on her knees. “I’m awake now.” 

Peter glanced at her, feeling his lips twitch. He lowered his phone and eyed her. “I see that.” 

She smiled at him. “You know what today is?”

Peter raised an eyebrow. 

“Week 21,” she grinned. 

Peter chuckled and rubbed a hand through his hair while passing his phone to her. Her smile grew and he saw her tap in his passcode and navigate to the baby tracking app they both had on their phones. Rose got a kick out of reading off the new developments and milestones the baby was reaching each week, and Peter got a kick out of seeing her so excited. 

Rose pushed some of her loose, dark hair behind her ear and then began reading with a smile. “In week 21,” she started, “Baby’s inner ears are developed enough to hear the sound of its mother’s heartbeat and even voices from outside.” She raised an eyebrow and glanced up at him. “Damn, we need to start watching our language already?” 

He huffed, amused. In day-to-day activities, neither of them was used to child-proofing their words, but she could make a sailor blush with the amount of cursing she did when someone merged a little too closely to her when driving. 

She smiled in victory when she saw his face, then continued reading. “The baby’s muscles are growing, and it can now yawn, hiccup, twist, roll, punch, and kick. Ok, now that really does sound like-” 

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Peter groaned, and she laughed. She loved to tease him about their child following in their footsteps, but Peter knew she just liked to make him squirm. If their kid actually ever wanted to become a Night Agent, he wouldn't stop them. But he wouldn’t be excited about it either. 

“Ok, ok,” she continued, still laughing a little bit. “It says this week, Baby is the size of a small papaya and weighs about 12 ounces.” 

“Wasn’t it a carrot last week?” Peter asked. “How did it go from a carrot to a papaya in one week?” 

Rose raised an eyebrow. “It says small papaya. And I’m sure it meant a big carrot. Use your imagination, Peter.” 

Peter quirked an eyebrow and smirked at her. “Does it specify that on the app?” 

Rose rolled her eyes good-naturedly and continued. “Oh look, it says here that during week 21, mothers need to make sure they are staying well hydrated and eating plenty of food. It also suggests that the fathers bring the mothers any food they want, especially ice cream, at any time of day to ease stress-” 

Peter barked out a laugh. “It does not say that.” 

“I swear it does!” Rose laughed, her nose scrunching up. 

“Let me see.” Peter reached for his phone, but Rose held it away and kept looking at it. 

“It also says the father should be prepared to give the mother plenty of foot rubs and back rubs, and that he should-”

“Give me that,” Peter laughed, shifting forward to gently tackle her backwards on the bed. She shrieked with laughter and tried to hold the phone away from him, but her arms were shorter than his and he easily plucked it from her fingers. 

“No fair,” she laughed from where she was trapped beneath his body. He braced his weight against his knees and forearms so none of it actually landed on her, but he was still close enough to feel the slight swell of her t-shirt covered belly graze against his bare stomach. 

He held the phone out to the side and squinted at the screen. “I don’t see anything about ice cream or foot massages on here,” he stated with mock seriousness. 

“That’s weird,” she returned, with an equally playful tone. “I swear it was just there. Maybe you clicked something when you stole it from me.” 

“It’s my phone,” he replied. “It’s not stealing when it’s mine .” 

She grinned and held up her left hand to showcase her gold wedding band. “Is anything really just yours anymore though?” 

He laughed again, clicking the side button to lock the screen and then tossing it onto the bed nearby. He looked down at her, and she was already staring at him. Her cheeky grin had faded into a soft smile, and he felt her eyes dancing across his face. “Sweet Pea’s moving,” she said softly. 

Peter felt his heart squeeze lightly. “Yeah?”  They didn’t know the baby’s gender yet, and Rose had taken to calling it “Sweet Pea” ever since the doctor who had confirmed her pregnancy to them compared the baby’s size at the time to a pea.

She bit her lip and nodded, her lips still twisted in a soft smile. She grabbed the hand that he’d used to take back his phone, then guided it under her shirt to lie flat against the soft, rounded skin of her torso. She held his eyes as she set her hand on the back of his palm and nudged it until he shifted it to lie just to the side of her belly button. Peter concentrated on the feeling - her skin was warm and soft, and he could feel the subtle rise and fall against his palm as she breathed. 

He hadn’t been able to feel the baby move yet. Rose had started feeling the movements a few weeks ago. She told him it mostly felt like a goldfish was swimming around under her stomach. So far, every time she had tried to share the feeling with him, he hadn’t felt anything but his wife’s familiar skin. 

“Anything?” she whispered, staring at him hopefully. 

He kissed her nose. “Not yet.” 

She sighed. “I can’t wait for you to get to feel it too.” 

He stroked his thumb over the skin of her belly and smiled slightly at her. “Yeah, me too.” 

It wouldn’t be long, Peter was sure. As much as he knew there was a baby on the way and could see and feel the changes in Rose’s body, he still sometimes felt a little disconnected. Like it was all a dream. Like the baby was an abstract thing rather than a physical person being grown right under his palm. 

Feeling it move would make it even more real. 

Rose let go of his hand and smoothed hers up over his side and onto his bare back, hugging him to her as he still hovered above her body. “I like starting the morning this way,” she admitted. 

Peter smirked, and continued brushing her belly with his thumb. “With me on top of you?” 

Rose grinned. “Obviously, yes.” He laughed, and he felt her fingertips dancing up and down his back. “I meant this though. Just lying around and laughing and stuff.” 

Peter’s heart tugged in his chest. This woman had turned him into the biggest softie on the planet. Cisco would give him so much shit if he could see him now. But Peter had a hard time caring about that when Rose was looking at him with her big brown eyes and her blinding smile. 

“You know we could start every day like this if you woke up earlier,” he teased. 

“Or if you woke up later like a normal person,” she pointed out. 

“7:00 isn’t that early.” 

“I hope you know it’s going to be your job to get this kid ready for school in the morning in a few years.” 

Peter felt the corner of his lips tilt up. “I guess I have to do my part somehow.” 

“Exactly,” she teased. Her fingers slid from his back, around his side, and to the front of his chest. She crept them higher like her fingers were taking one step at a time in order to leave as many sparks under his skin as possible. “So…” she began, blinking at him innocently. “About those pancakes…”

He huffed out a laugh and she grinned. 

Thirty minutes later, he was serving her a plate of pancakes loaded up with syrup and whipped cream at the kitchen island of their new home. 

They had purchased the modest two-story home shortly after finding out she was pregnant, deciding they needed a more permanent home base. Peter had done his thing and presented her with a list of some of the quietest, safest communities in the country to choose from. Once they decided on a small, sleepy town in northwestern Maryland that was a reasonable 2 hour drive from D.C., Rose had done her thing to hide any digital footprint that connected them to this house. 

Peter liked how the town was private, their yard was big, and being tucked up near the mountains provided some natural security. Rose liked that there was a brand new library in the center of town and that their nearest neighbor - who lived about a fourth a mile away - had dropped off cookies when they moved in. 

Peter had almost gone ballistic when he had come inside from installing a motion sensor in the backyard and had seen Rose munching on oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from some random neighbor he’d never even met. As far as they knew, there could be poison in those cookies and the “neighbor” was an adversary that had tracked them here. When he told her as much, Rose had only patted his chest, given him a pitying smile, and then offered him a cookie. 

Luckily, they’d spent the last three weeks here, and not only had life been calm and quiet, but the middle-aged neighbors in question had passed a background check. Peter had also begrudgingly admitted he liked them after the couple had invited them for a barbecue and the man, Dave, had won Peter over with his passion for NBA basketball and his stories of being on the security team at Fort Knox for a decade. 

But he still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was living in a dream. That this was all too good to be true. There was no way this happy bubble could last, right? 

The more content he grew, the more he heard a whisper in the back of his mind that everything would go to shit soon. That he should brace himself because calm didn’t last in the life of a Night Agent, and that his nightmares would follow him into the real world soon enough rather than only haunting his sleep.  

He just hoped like hell that whenever the other shoe dropped, he’d be able to keep any of the fallout trained solely on him and away from his family. That was the only thing that mattered to him. 

“So what time do you want to leave?” Rose asked lightly before shoving a bite of pancakes into her mouth. 

Peter sipped at his black coffee. They were starting to run low on days off, and who the hell knew where Catherine was going to send him next, so they were trying to get as much done around the house as possible before their brief sabbatical ended. On today’s agenda was heading into Baltimore to pick up the baby crib and bassinet Rose had ordered from a local shop and get some paint for the nursery. “I’ll be ready whenever you are,” he replied. 

She scrunched up her face in thought. “It will take about an hour to get to the city, and the store doesn’t open until 9.” 

Peter shrugged. “How about we leave in an hour then?” That would give him time to look over the reports Catherine had sent over while Rose showered. Rose didn’t approve of him doing work when he was supposed to be off (“They’re not paying you overtime for that,” she always chided him), but Peter couldn’t help it. When his boss gave him an assignment, he itched to get it done as quickly and thoroughly as possible. 

Rose agreed, finished her pancakes, and headed to the bathroom. Peter set his empty mug in the dishwasher, then grabbed Rose’s laptop - the one she allowed him to use, not her “special one” as she called it - and padded back over to the dining table. He powered it on and navigated easily to the files Catherine had sent. 

The file was a report on the national security threat posed by a rising incel group that had organized on a dark web chatroom. There were names, arrest warrants, and manifestos attached to the file, and Peter scanned through them with growing disgust. A few of the documents detailed a litany of crimes some of the group members had committed against women in the last 12 months - most of them heinous, and most of them making Peter glad he hadn’t eaten any pancakes and had a mostly empty stomach at the moment. 

When he got to the case file about one of the men who had fixated on a pregnant woman who had rejected him, then stalked her and murdered her and her unborn baby, Peter had felt an uncomfortable churning in his gut. 

Why the fuck did Catherine have to send him this file to review? He’d take rogue CIA operatives or treasonous military generals any day of the week over this. 

He was paranoid enough as it was without wondering if Rose was going to come into contact with some sort of incel freak the next time he wasn’t around. When Catherine sent him away on assignment, maybe he could get her to agree to assign Rose a Secret Service agent. Maybe Chelsea could– 

“Ready?” Rose said happily, interrupting his thoughts as she came back into the room. 

Peter continued scanning the file. “You don’t have any crazy ex-boyfriends you never told me about, right?” 

“What?” Rose laughed, picking up her purse from where she had stashed it on the countertop next to the fridge where the first sonogram pictures of the baby were hung by a magnet. 

“Any losers you rejected? Any men who were mad that you weren’t interested?” he prodded. He glanced at her, then did a double take. She wasn’t wearing a loose fitting sweater like she had been for the last month or two. Today, she was wearing skinny jeans, ankle boots, and a form-fitting top that hugged her curves more closely and accentuated her growing belly. 

Her baby bump was still relatively small, but there was no mistaking it for what it was now. She definitely looked pregnant. 

Something in his chest felt warm at the sight of her. 

She unzipped her purse to check that her wallet was inside and laughed again. “I’m pretty sure all women have a story like that, Peter.”

The warmth vanished and was replaced by ice water suddenly splashing through his veins. “What?” he demanded. “Who?” 

She looked up at him and quirked an eyebrow, seemingly amused. “What’s this about?” 

Peter rubbed a hand over his face. “Nothing. Just this case file Catherine sent.” 

Rose approached him and looked over his shoulder at the file. “Ah,” she nodded in understanding, a dark look on her features. “I don’t think I ever went out with anyone of that caliber of creepy. Does that make you feel better?” 

“Not really.” 

She kissed his cheek and then reached forward and shut the laptop. “Stop working. Catherine can get someone else to review the file if it’s urgent. Right now we have shopping to do.” 

Peter sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face again. “Yeah. Fine.” 

She grabbed his car keys off the table as she walked toward the garage, then tossed them back to him with a small smile. He caught them easily with one hand, then followed her out to where their new mid-sized SUV was parked. They’d needed a family car that would make it easy to get a baby in and out of a car seat, so the SUV had been another big purchase on their sabbatical from work. Naturally, Peter had made sure they chose something with top of the line safety features, and Rose had ensured the vehicle came with data security that was up to her standards. 

Rose settled comfortably in the passenger seat and started turning the dials on the heater while Peter backed out of the garage and clicked the button to shut the garage door behind them. The late November air was chilly enough to need a bit of heat in the car and a jacket for walking around, but they weren’t in winter coat territory yet, temperature wise. 

One thing he and Rose had liked about the location was that their child would grow up experiencing all of the seasons - the way Peter had in his home outside of D.C. Sweet Pea would get to play in the rain in the spring, go swimming in the summer, rake leaves in the fall, and build snowmen in the winter. 

When they were about 10 minutes out from the city, Peter spotted a car in the distance off the side of the road. As they approached, it looked like the car had a flat tire and had crashed into a small ditch beside the road. He squinted his eyes and tightened his hands on the wheel, trying to make out if there was anyone still in the car. 

Rose reached out and grabbed his forearm. “Peter,” she said firmly, staring at the car. There was a light plume of smoke coming out from under the car’s hood. 

Peter glanced into his mirrors. There wasn’t much traffic out this morning, especially on such a remote section of the highway, but the few cars that were around didn’t appear to be making any moves to stop. 

“Shit,” Peter muttered to himself, putting on his hazard lights and pulling into the emergency lane so he could park the SUV up behind the crashed car. The car in the ditch was a small red sedan. The front right tire was blown, and the entire back half of the car was about a foot off the ground because of the angle with which it was resting half inside the ditch. 

Peter shifted the SUV into “park” and then glanced at Rose. “I’ll check it out. Stay here.” 

Rose eyed him doubtfully, her hand already on her seatbelt. “You might need help-” 

“Then I’ll come get you,” he interrupted, opening his car door and glancing at her again. “Call 911 to report the accident. I’ll make sure whoever is in there is ok.” 

She exhaled and nodded, already taking out her phone. 

Peter stepped out into the chilly November air and shut the car door behind him. He stalked toward the car and ducked his head to try to get a look inside the windows from a distance. He could see someone moving on the driver’s side. He picked up his pace and jogged to the driver’s door. 

Inside was an elderly looking woman who was struggling with her seatbelt, trying to unbuckle it. The airbag had deployed, but she was conscious. Peter knocked on the window, causing the woman to look up with a start. 

“Are you alright, ma’am?” he called through the glass. 

The woman tilted her head like she was confused. “What’s that?” she yelled, cupping a hand against her ear. 

Peter sighed internally and reached for the door handle. The front of the car was the only part that appeared damaged, and the door swung open easily for him. Peter reached through the doorway and helped the elderly woman bat the inflated airbag down so that she could move more freely. 

“My wife is calling 911,” Peter assured the woman, making his voice a little louder when he noticed her leaning toward him to hear. “Are you hurt?” 

“The pothole came out of nowhere!” the woman yelled in a wobbly voice as she finally unclipped her seatbelt. 

Peter reached through the door frame and helped guide the woman out of her car. She was skinny and frail-looking, and her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. The woman had short white hair curling around her head like a helmet. She gained her footing outside of the car and held onto Peter’s forearm for balance. When she glanced behind her at her car, her brows dipped in confusion. 

“Oh no,” she said tremulously. “Will my hair appointment be cancelled?” 

Peter ground his molars together. “You’re not hurt, right?” he tried again. The light pressure her hand was putting on his arm made him feel like she would blow over in a strong gust of wind. 

The woman shook her head and then put a hand against her forehead - making Peter think he really needed to find a place for her to sit down. He glanced around, noting a guardrail on the other side of the car, about 6 feet from the edge of the emergency lane. 

It would be safer there than standing around this close to the highway with scattered traffic still driving by. 

“Let’s go sit on that guardrail, ma’am,” Peter said calmly, starting to steer the woman in that direction. “Then you can tell me what happened.” 

The woman shuffled along with him slowly. “A deer ran out in front of me. I swerved to avoid it, and then I hit that large pothole.” 

Peter glanced back toward the car. If this lady thought the giant ditch the front half of her car was stuck in was just a pothole, then Peter had some serious concerns about her ability to drive. The entire back half of the car was still suspended off the ground because of the angle, and there was still smoke billowing out from under the car’s dented front hood. At this angle, Peter could also see some sort of fluid leaking out from the bottom of the back half of the car. 

He didn’t like the look of it. He decided he should get this woman a little farther away from the car while they waited. 

“EMS said they will be here in 5 minutes,” Rose said from a few feet away, causing Peter to snap his head in her direction. 

She was rushing up to them in the grass off the side of the emergency lane. A semi truck barreled past all of them with a roar, not even bothering to shift over a lane to give them more space as a courtesy. Peter could feel the wind it created whipping against his face despite being situated off the side of the road.

“I thought you were waiting in the car?” Peter ground out. 

She ignored him and reached for the woman’s other arm, helping steady her. “What’s your name, ma’am?” she asked sweetly. 

“Paula,” the woman rasped. 

“Rose, I’ve got this,” Peter tried again, waving his free arm toward their car to signal that she should go back there where it was safer. She only glanced at him quizzically, then ignored him again. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Paula,” Rose continued. “I’m Rose. I just talked to the 911 operator, and they’re sending help, ok?” They reached the guardrail, and Peter and Rose helped the woman lower herself into a seated position on the top of the metal rail. Rose sat next to her and wrapped an arm around the woman’s waist to hold her steady. 

Rose was sturdier than Paula, but she wasn’t much taller. Peter didn’t think his wife was the most qualified one around to be supporting the weight of an elderly woman against her own. 

He stepped forward and sat on Paula’s other side, and then he wrapped his arm around the woman’s back so that his arm overlapped Rose’s. She shot him a grateful smile. 

While Rose spoke to Paula and got more information out of her, Peter was distracted. He kept seeing the cars whooshing by not far away. If one driver spent a few seconds too long looking at the crash, could they lose control and send their car barreling toward the guardrail? Would Peter have time to react and get Rose out of the way? 

He could practically hear the liquid dripping out of the wrecked car. Was it gasoline? If there was an explosion, would they be far enough away? Would he go to hell for pushing the old woman aside to get to his wife?

He should have made her go back to the car. He read one time that you are statistically more likely to be injured or killed if you exit your car on the side of the road instead of staying inside of it.

There was a wooded area to their backs. This whole thing was odd. Who was this woman, anyway? How certain was he that this wasn’t some kind of setup? With their line of work, they had to be constantly vigilant - now more than ever if they wanted to keep their kid alive. 

Peter glanced at the tree line a few yards behind him, scanning for anything out of place. 

He didn’t see anything suspicious, but that didn’t mean much. He studied the old woman, Paula, again. She was looking at Rose and had a small smile on her face as she spoke. Peter hadn’t been listening, so he jerked in surprise when the woman leaned towards Rose and pressed a hand against her belly.

Rose’s surprised eyes connected with Peter’s for only a second before she smiled politely. 

“When are you due?” the woman crooned in her crackly voice, her hand still pressed against the center of Rose’s stomach. 

Peter didn’t like it. She might be a frail old woman, but she was still a stranger and that was his wife . He didn’t like seeing anyone with their hands on her, elderly lady or not. 

“Not until the spring,” Rose said, an awkward note to her voice. She wasn’t used to strangers putting their hands on her either. Peter’s skin itched with discomfort as Paula nodded and shifted her hand more to the side of Rose’s belly.

What was he supposed to do though? Take off an old lady’s arm? 

“That’s lovely,” the woman sighed. “Do you know the sex?”

Rose glanced at Peter briefly, then back at Paula. “We have an appointment at the end of the week to find out.” 

Paula finally, mercifully, removed her hand from Rose’s belly, and Peter felt a little tension release from his shoulders with it.

“It’s a girl. I can tell. You’re carrying her low,” Paula nodded confidently. 

Peter’s breath hitched, and Rose caught his eye and grinned. “I’d love that,” she said softly. 

A girl. 

An old wives’ tale about determining the gender of a baby based on the shape of a baby bump was no better than making a wild guess and having a 50/50 chance of being right. Peter knew that. They wouldn’t know the gender for certain for a few more days. 

Yet visions of a baby girl with Rose’s cute button nose and dark hair flooded his mind. He could hear his daughter’s tiny laugh and see her big brown eyes and the pale pink bow in her hair. He imagined buying her teddy bears and braiding her hair and slaying the monsters under her bed.   

The overwhelming yearning he felt hit him in the gut like a sucker punch. 

Rose seemed to understand what he was feeling based off of just the look on his face, because her smile turned soft. They stared at one another for a few heartbeats, and then Rose directed her attention back to the older woman. “Do you have children?” she asked Paula. 

“Oh yes, honey. I have six! Never a dull moment. Maybe you two will have that many someday too.” 

Six? Jesus. Peter was already losing sleep with worry for his wife and one child. He wasn’t sure he could handle the stress of half a dozen of them. 

Rose laughed. “I think we’ll try to get the hang of one for now.”

Paula chuckled and then launched into a raspy story about one of her children. Peter tried to listen politely, but his attention kept being drawn to the cars whizzing by. 

Finally, a police car pulled up to the scene with sirens blaring, followed shortly by an ambulance. Peter stood up to signal to the police with a waved hand. The police car pulled up alongside of the crashed car, forcing the oncoming traffic to move to a wider lane and easing a few of Peter’s fears of a second crash. 

Twenty minutes later, Peter and Rose had provided all the information they knew about the crash to the police and helped see Paula safely into the ambulance under the care of the paramedics who were looking her over, and then they had gotten back into their SUV and finally continued on their way into the city. 

The baby boutique Rose had found was a small, locally owned store in the city. When they pulled into the lot beside the store, Peter took a glance around and noticed a man and woman sitting on the ground at the back end of the lot near an alleyway passing a vape pen between them. Peter made sure to park the car so that his side was facing the duo, then he turned off the engine and hopped out to round to Rose’s side before she was even fully out of the car. 

She smiled at him when he grabbed her hand and shut the door behind her. She linked her fingers through his, and together they walked to the front door of the brick building. The door jingled when Peter opened it and held it for Rose. She passed in front of him, and he followed close behind, enjoying the warmth of the store when he stepped inside. 

The shop itself was mid-size. Peter could see baby furniture like strollers, cribs, and changing tables lined up and displayed along the left side of the building, and along the right side were aisles of shelves full of baby care items. For a Tuesday morning, the store was more crowded than expected, and Peter found himself shifting closer to Rose. 

“Welcome to Baby Bear Boutique,” a middle aged woman said cheerfully. “Can I help you find anything?” 

Rose took the lead and approached the woman. “We’re here to pick up a crib and bassinet? I ordered online last week.” 

The woman pulled a small tablet out of her work smock and began tapping the screen. “Sure! Let me look that up for you. What’s the name?” 

“Sutherland,” Rose replied automatically. 

Peter was half listening as he looked around the store. There were many women pushing carts around or walking with baskets hung over their arms. Some had men with them, and a few had other children with them. Peter’s eyes snagged on a man who appeared to be here alone - browsing around some racks of baby clothes. Something about the way the man was spending more time glancing around at the women who walked near him than at the actual baby clothes put Peter on edge. 

“Peter?” Rose asked, drawing his attention. He blinked at her and shook his head slightly, refocusing. Her lip quirked, knowing he had missed the question. “She asked if we need help loading them into the car.” 

Peter shook his head and regarded the worker. “I think I can handle it. Thanks, though.” He was expecting both to be encased in flat boxes that could fit on top of the folded down back seat in the SUV. Rose had already warned him that the furniture required assembly. That was on their to-do list for this afternoon and tomorrow. 

The woman nodded and tapped something on her tablet. “Great. I’ll have the boys bring it out from the back. It might take a minute because they’re loading a few other orders ahead of yours, so feel free to browse around while you wait.” 

Rose nodded in thanks and squeezed Peter’s hand. As the employee walked off, Rose turned to Peter. “Let’s look at the baby monitors. I’ve been researching the most reliable, wifi enabled monitors with the strongest data security.” 

Peter snorted softly. That didn’t surprise him one bit. He motioned for her to lead the way, and she obliged. She led him by the hand to an aisle full of baby tech, and he almost laughed at the way her eyes narrowed in concentration as she started scanning the options. 

While Rose scanned the baby monitors and other tech, Peter scanned the faces of the other shoppers - staying alert. His training was more deeply ingrained than Rose’s was. She teased him sometimes about not being able to turn it off.

“Do you think we need this digital heart monitor that goes on the baby’s foot?” Rose asked idly, grabbing a small box from the shelf and reading over the information on the back side. 

Peter glanced at her. “Why?” He was pretty sure neither his parents nor Rose’s parents had had one of those. 

Rose narrowed her eyes like the answer was obvious. “In case its heart stops while it's sleeping,” she explained. “Look, it says here that it will send an alert to our phones if the baby’s heart rate changes while it's asleep.” 

Peter felt himself frown and his eye twitched. “Is that likely?” 

Rose looked up at him, her eyes a little round. “I don’t know? I should Google it.” 

Fuck, searching up ‘how often does a baby’s heart stop while sleeping’ was guaranteed to be a bad idea, but suddenly Peter needed to know that information too. 

“Oh, we have one of those, and it’s amazing,” came a voice from behind them. Peter and Rose looked over to see a heavily pregnant woman looking at them with a pleasant smile on her face. She appeared to be only slightly older than he and Rose were.

Rose held up the box and tilted her head. “Is it really necessary?” she asked. 

The woman shrugged. “I thought we wouldn’t need anything like that, but my friend convinced me after her baby stopped breathing during the night and she had to do infant CPR to keep him alive. She never would have known until it was too late without the monitor. Luckily our first two kids haven’t had any issues, but you can never be too careful, you know?” 

Peter looked at Rose at the same time as she looked at him, and her suddenly pale, anxious face was probably a mirror image of what his looked like. Peter grabbed a shopping basket from the stack at the beginning of the aisle next to him and then took the box from Rose’s hand and set it inside the basket. 

“First baby?” the woman asked, smiling at the two of them. 

Rose swallowed and nodded, forcing a smile to her face. “Yep. We’re just trying to figure out what all we need.” 

The woman laughed. “Oh I remember that. There’s so much available it’s impossible to know what’s essential and what’s convenient.” 

“Exactly,” Rose confirmed, nodding her head. “It’s kind of overwhelming.” 

The woman smiled. “I’d be happy to help if you two have any questions,” she said. “I’m Danielle, by the way.” 

“Rose,” Rose smiled. “And this is my husband Peter.” Peter nodded in acknowledgement. He watched the two women, content to let Rose be the one making a friend in the baby store while he sat back and held the shopping basket. He wasn’t really one for small talk. 

Danielle stepped closer to Rose and reached out to rub Rose’s belly, making Peter tense and eye the woman carefully. He wasn’t about to physically restrain a pregnant woman, but that didn’t mean he liked seeing a stranger touching Rose, again . “And who’s this little one?” Danielle cooed. “Do you have a name yet?” 

Rose half smiled, glancing at Peter. “We’re still deciding. We don’t find out the gender until the end of the week.” 

“Oh, that’s exciting!” Danielle cheered, throwing Peter an encouraging nod. She still hadn’t removed her hand from Rose’s belly, and Peter was having a hard time keeping the scowl from his face. “You look like you’re all belly, so I think it’s a boy,” she added, rubbing her hand slightly over the side of Rose’s stomach and then finally removing her hand. 

Rose lifted her eyebrow at Peter over Danielle’s shoulder. “Someone else told us it is probably a girl just this morning,” she laughed. 

Danielle clicked her tongue. “I’ve had two boys so far, and this one is my third. I know what they look like! It’s definitely a boy.” 

Rose didn’t argue, but her smile turned soft again. She looked at him, and a flurry of images ran through his mind now. A baby boy with Rose’s dark eyelashes and his freckles. Peter could imagine cleaning dirt off a little boy’s hands, building pillow forts in the living room, and teaching him how to shoot a basketball. 

These scenarios had run through his mind over and over again in the last few months. No matter which version he fixated on, the girl or the boy visions, they always came with a stab of love and longing so acute he didn’t quite know what to do with them. 

He didn’t care one bit whether their child was a boy or a girl, or whether they liked “boy” or “girl” things. All he cared about was that Rose and the baby were both healthy and safe. As long as that was the case, Peter considered himself the luckiest person on the planet. 

“Did you baby proof the house yet?” Danielle was asking, having looped her arm through Rose’s now and spun her to look at some items on the opposite side of the aisle. 

Rose frowned. “I ordered a baby gate for the stairsteps even though we won’t need it for a while.” 

Danielle tsked. “Oh honey, no. I mean things like covers for the wall sockets? Or safety locks on the cabinets? Or foam edging around the fireplace? That kind of thing.” 

Peter blanched. Oh fuck, they hadn’t thought of any of that yet. His mind ran through the floor plan of their new house. There was an open space on the second floor hallway overlooking the foyer and the living room, with only a spindled railing as a barrier. A crawling baby could slip right through it. There were floor level cabinets full of cleaners and other chemical products in the laundry room. The brick fireplace in the living room had sharp, jagged edges to it, and the sliding glass door leading to the back deck could easily smash a tiny finger. Shit, there were even a few electrical outlets wired into the floor in certain areas. 

Peter had researched the area to make sure it was safe. He had run background checks on the neighbors and browsed the local crime reports. He had installed motion sensors and security cameras around the property. 

But was their whole damn house a death trap for an infant? 

He looked at Rose, and she was already looking at him. Her lip twitched, and she mouthed the words “it’s ok,” clearly reading the panic on his face. 

It wasn’t ok. 

But it would be. He was going to do a shit ton of research tonight and their house was going to be completely baby and toddler-proofed before they left for work next week - even if he had to skip sleeping from now until then. He wasn’t bringing their child home to a dangerous place. 

Thirty minutes later, Peter and Rose had combed through each of the aisles with Danielle’s help and picked out all the items she recommended as far as baby proofing went. Peter had switched out his basket for a cart, and they made their way to the checkout counter with all their new items. They had some sturdy netting that secured to the banisters so nothing could slip through the spindles, electrical outlet covers, foam padding that would adhere to sharp corners for the fireplace, coffee table, and any other edges they could think of, childproof cabinet and door locks, and even foam disks that could attach to a door to keep tiny fingers from being pinched when the door closed. Rose thought that was overkill, but Peter disagreed. 

The nearest urgent care was thirty minutes from their house. He wasn’t planning to have his baby crying in the backseat for a half an hour with a broken finger while he drove to the doctor. He was willing to just remove every interior door rather than risk it, so foam stoppers seemed like a fine compromise. 

The line at the checkout counter was more crowded than Peter would have expected for a weekday morning. Rose thanked Danielle for her help and exchanged phone numbers with the woman while Peter maneuvered the cart easily into the line. He scanned the area again, noting that the suspicious man who was staring at the pregnant women seemed to have left the store, thankfully. 

Rose joined him in the line with a small, almost bashful smile. “I thought we were just picking up a crib and bassinet today. I didn’t know we’d leave with half the store.” 

Peter eyed their full cart. “I never knew babies needed so much stuff,” he said, only half joking. 

Rose scrunched up her nose in amusement. “Now imagine how we’re going to have to fill that cart at least three more times with all the clothes we need, the bottles, the bedding for the crib, the diapers, the baby toys…”

She trailed off, and Peter rubbed at the back of his neck and mumbled “fuck me” to himself. 

Rose laughed at whatever look was on his face before squeaking in surprise when someone bumped her from behind, making her shuffle forward a small step. Peter instantly grabbed her waist to steady her, then threw an annoyed look over her shoulder at the balding man who had backed into her by accident while he was trying to situate a large, flat box in his cart. The man turned around with wide eyes and put his hands up. 

“Sorry about that!” he apologized, directing his words towards Rose, who waved him off easily and smiled as if almost being bulldozed in the baby store checkout line was fine with her. Peter’s jaw ticked. 

“I’m fine, no problem,” she told the man politely. 

The man smiled gratefully and then turned back to what he was doing, taking more care to not bump into Rose again. Peter glared at the back of the man’s head for a moment before Rose put her hand on his forearm and smiled. “Relax,” she whispered to him. “It was an accident.” 

Peter glanced at her and then back at the guy behind her who was still trying to wedge to box into the shopping cart. “Well maybe he should accidentally find himself in a different line so my wife doesn’t get trampled and I don’t have to kick his ass.” 

Rose barked out a laugh and her eyes lit up with amusement. “Oh my god,” she breathed, grinning. “Why are you so tense today?” 

Peter just gave a noncommittal hum, and Rose laughed again before taking his hand in hers and giving it a reassuring squeeze. Any man would be annoyed if someone bumped into his pregnant wife, and most men didn’t even have as many reasons to be on alert on a daily basis as Peter did. He did feel a little bit better with her hand in his, but only marginally. 

They paid for their new items, then took them out to the car. A couple of boys who looked barely out of high school wheeled the crib and bassinet boxes out of the store on dollies and helped get them loaded in the SUV’s trunk while Peter loaded the bags of baby supplies onto the floor of the folded down back seat. 

Rose convinced him to drive to her favorite cafe a few miles away for an early lunch before they continued the rest of their baby errands. The rest of the early afternoon went similarly to the morning: Rose was excited to make progress on all their tasks, and Peter was distracted by all the ways something or someone could come out of nowhere to put his family at risk. 

When they’d crossed the street after lunch, Peter had had to quickly put out an arm to stop Rose when an oblivious cyclist had sped through a red light right in front of them and almost clipped the two of them with his bike (which pissed Peter off. A lot). 

When they’d been in the hardware store looking for nursery paint, the small forklift down the aisle had been beeping and backing up in their direction, raising Peter’s blood pressure with every foot closer it got. The driver stopped with plenty of distance between them, but how was Peter supposed to know that would happen? He was just supposed to trust that this forklift driver had noticed the two people behind him innocently picking out paint swatches? No chance. Peter didn’t trust strangers with Rose’s safety anymore. He’d been relieved when Rose decided on a neutral cream color so they could get the paint cans and get the hell out of there.

When Rose had insisted they stop at the local market for handmade goods because she saw an ad for a knitted baby blanket, Peter had complied. But when another person - this time a skinny old man with a white beard like Santa Claus who was standing next to his portly, elderly wife - had tried to touch Rose’s belly, Peter had been at his limit. He wedged himself in between them and apologized that he and Rose had to get going, then steered her away while Rose looked at him quizzically. 

At that point, he decided that they needed to go home because if one more person tried to touch his wife today, Peter was going to lose his goddamn mind. Rose might have suspected his agitation, because she held his hand over the center console of the SUV, and he felt her sneaking looks at him during the whole drive home. 

Once they were safely back at their house, Peter started to feel a little better. Rose carried a couple of the lighter bags from the baby boutique inside while Peter unloaded the boxes from the back and carried them to the room they had designated to be the nursery. It was right next to their room, and it was in the back corner of the house. Peter felt more secure knowing his and Rose’s bedroom was at the top of the stairs and a person would have to pass them before getting to the nursery. He was also happy there were no trees within falling distance of that corner of the house so he wouldn’t have to worry about tree limbs smashing through windows or bricks during a strong storm. 

He and Rose spent the rest of the afternoon trying to assemble the baby crib she had ordered. Rose read off the instructions and handed him the tools he needed while he worked on screwing the wooden slats into place. She teased him and made him laugh, and by the time the baby crib was standing and he was jerking the sides with his hands to make sure it was sturdy, he was feeling much more relaxed.  

His mind wasn’t ready to let go of the anxiety and paranoia though, because when he returned home from picking up dinner that evening, every small little crack in his psyche from the day’s events fissured into a full blown break. 

“Rose?” he called easily as he set the bag of carry-out fried chicken and mashed potatoes on the kitchen counter and started removing the containers. 

“Up here!” 

Peter’s brows furrowed. Her voice sounded like it was coming from the nursery. When he left, she had been walking around the main floor covering the electrical outlets with safety covers. What was she doing back upstairs in the baby’s room? He finished removing the takeout containers and threw the plastic bag into the trash can, then made his way to the stairs to track down his wife for supper before the food got cold. 

When he rounded the corner into the nursery, his pulse picked up speed and his heart dropped down to his feet. 

Rose was near the window, humming to herself while she added painter’s tape around the edges of the window. The evening sun glowed against her skin, making her look radiant and beautiful. 

But what made his palms start to sweat and his head start to pound was the fact that she was standing on a goddamn stepladder. 

“Rose,” he gritted out, crossing the room to her with his arms outstretched to grab her. She turned to him at the sound of his voice, and her face contorted into a frown when she saw his expression. 

“What?”

He reached her and placed his hands against her sides, securing her in place on the step ladder. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked her, his voice tense. 

She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head slightly to the side like she was amused. “Uh…getting started on the taping? What’s wrong with you?” 

He held her hips more firmly. From her place on the step ladder, she was now an inch or two taller than him. He stared at her. “What’s wrong with me ? Why are you standing on a ladder? You could have fallen and I wasn’t even here to…” he trailed off, shaking his head to clear the thoughts and images bombarding his mind now. 

Jesus Christ. 

It was his job to protect her. It had been since the moment he met her, but by now it felt essential for his survival too. What if something had happened and he wasn’t even here ? How would he live with that? 

So much could go wrong at any moment. 

A driver losing control of their vehicle nearby. A gas explosion that no one could have predicted. A cyclist not watching where he was going. A stranger intent to cause harm. A missed step on a step ladder or stair-steps causing a fall. 

It wasn’t even just the outside world that could take her - take them - away from him. It was anything. The danger was everywhere. Coming at him from all sides. How was he supposed to go back to work next week and leave her alone? 

Suddenly, he felt a little like he was suffocating. 

“It’s two steps tall and there’s a railing on it,” she laughed lightly, like she was incredulous that he was worried about this. His jaw worked as he tried to fight the oncoming panic. Rose blinked, the amusement on her face fading. She gripped his jaw between her two hands and searched his eyes. He tried to avoid her gaze; she didn’t need to take on any of his paranoia. This was his problem. “Hey,” she said, voice gentle. “Talk to me. What’s going on with you?” 

“Nothing,” he denied, his fingertips pressing into her hips a little more tightly as if doing so would remind his body and his mind that she was right in front of him and she was fine . Despite all the strange events of the day that had raised his blood pressure, there wasn’t a scratch on her. She and Baby Pea were happy and healthy and he hadn’t fucked that up yet. 

“Peter.” She said it like a demand, and his eyes snapped to hers like a planet being pulled into the orbit of the sun, unable to fight it. She removed her hands from his face and placed one against his heart, gently nudging him backwards so she could climb off the step ladder. 

She didn’t stumble as she climbed down the two steps back to the floor, but he kept both of his hands on her just in case. When her feet were firmly planted on the ground again, she pointed at the wide, upholstered rocking chair in the corner of the room. “Sit,” she demanded. 

Peter sighed and did as he was told. He could see that look in her eye - like a dog with a bone. She wasn’t letting him off the hook without talking about this now. He dropped down into the chair, and Rose promptly climbed right onto his lap so she was facing him with her knees straddling each side of his thighs. Peter braced his hands against her hips and she placed hers against the sides of his neck while she stared at him with a raised eyebrow. 

“Ok, talk,” she told him. 

Peter’s tongue burned with the urge to not tell her all the dark shit that had been going through his mind all day. “About what?” he tried. 

“Don’t mess with me right now,” she replied. “You’ve been acting weird all day. You have Papaya Paranoia or something.”

“ What ?”

Rose continued without reacting. “You do. We found out Sweet Pea was the size of a papaya and you’ve been paranoid ever since. You were jumpy with that old woman whose car crashed, you looked like you were about to hit that guy who bumped into us in the checkout line at the baby store, you almost chased down a cyclist who ran a red light, and I thought you were about to tear that elderly man’s arm off when he wanted to touch my belly–”

“You have to admit that was weird as fuck,” Peter interrupted defensively.

Rose bit her lip to suppress a smile. “Ok, yeah, I’ll give you that one. But still. There’s something up with you. I can tell. So what is going on ?” 

Peter stared at her earnest eyes and felt his fingers start playing with the material of her shirt absently. “I just… I need to make sure you’re alright.” 

Rose made a face and slid her hands down to his shoulders. “What does that even mean? I’m fine. I’ve been fine…how does that have anything to do with you acting–” She cut herself off and narrowed her eyes at him. “Does this have to do with that case file Catherine sent over this morning?”

Peter’s jaw tightened. The answer was no, but now that she had reminded him about the incel scumbags targeting women because they couldn’t get laid, Peter felt the anxiety spike a bit under his skin again. 

Rose misread his tension as confirmation and started shaking her head. “Catherine has to stop sending that shit when we’re on vacation . I’m going to call her right now.” 

“Rose, it wasn’t the case,” he admitted hurriedly, and she jerked her attention back to him and raised her eyebrows for him to continue. He wasn’t usually one to voluntarily talk about what he was feeling. He had a hard time coming up with the words, and he had always been more of a ‘suffer in silence’ type. Rose never let him off the hook with that though. Through the time that they had been together, she had taught him that it was ok to tell her what was on his mind, even if he had only been learning how to do it slowly. He continued, “I mean, the case didn’t help, but I’ve…I’ve just been worrying a lot, I guess. Even before that.” 

Something in her face softened. “I know,” she whispered gently. “Nightmares?” Peter blinked at her. How could she know that? She sighed and shifted one of her hands to the back of his neck so her fingernails could rake lightly through the short hair there. “I’ve been awake more lately, and you’ve been restless while you sleep.” 

“Sorry.” 

Her smile was sad and she shook her head. “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me about them.” 

Peter sighed. “I didn’t want you to worry.” 

“I know,” she assured him softly. “But it’s kind of my job to worry about you.” His lips crept into a small smile for half a heartbeat, and he let his hands coast up and down her sides. “Will you tell me what they’re about?” 

Peter wrapped his arms around her lower back loosely and let out a deep breath. “They change, but they always have some things in common.” She nodded for him to continue, still scratching her nails lightly through the hair at the back of his head, anchoring him in place. “Usually I let one of you down somehow. Sometimes I can’t find you when you need me, or I don’t notice that you’re missing until you’re already gone or–” he couldn’t say the last one out loud - the one that had made him wake up in a cold sweat because in his dream he’d held his lifeless wife and child in his arms. 

She leaned forward so that she was hugged against him, her head lying just below his chin and her arms now tucked around his sides. “And then they set the tone for your entire day,” she surmised, sighing into him. He tightened his arms around her, savoring the warmth of her body pressed against his. “They’re just dreams,” she whispered to him. “None of that is true. You never let me down, and I’m not leaving you. You’re not going to let Sweet Pea down either.” 

A tremor ran through his hands at her words, and he pressed them against her back gently to still them. There was a dull ache in his chest and his throat felt a little scratchy. He took a breath, then swallowed. “I can’t stop thinking that everything is too good to be true,” he told her quietly. “I feel like if I let myself relax, then I’ll fuck up and you’ll get hurt. It feels like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop all the fucking time.” 

She hugged him more tightly and turned her face into his shirt. “I feel like that sometimes too,” she said, her words muffled. “But I think when we focus too much on the fear of losing it all, we forget to enjoy the good while we have it.” 

“Gretchen tell you that?” Peter asked, trying to deflect from his own mood with some teasing. 

Rose smiled against him. “Yes, actually. And she’s not wrong.” He could feel her hands coasting up and down his sides and lower back, and her chest was rising and falling with his. After a moment, she spoke again. “I love you for loving me and wanting to take care of me, but you have to take care of you, too. You can’t be so hard on yourself. Not everything is in your control.” 

“I know,” he whispered. “I’ll try.” Peter smoothed some of her hair back and kissed the top of her head. “I think going back to work is fucking with my head a little bit too,” he admitted. “I can’t have you with me, but it scares the shit out of me to be away from you too.”

He felt her nod against him. “I know.” She shivered a little, and Peter tightened his arms around her back. He knew she was fighting her own demons about being separated from him. He knew she worried about him and his well-being too. 

He swallowed. “I think I might tell Catherine I don’t want to go.”

She stilled and then sat up to look at him. “You don’t want to go on your next assignment?” 

“Not without you,” he admitted softly. 

Her eyes looked back and forth between his and one hand smoothed over his eyebrow. “Don’t give up something you love out of fear,” she said. “Sweet Pea and I will be fine stateside waiting for you and watching your back like cyberstalkers.” Peter huffed out a laugh and shook his head, and she smiled. “We haven’t talked about what we do after the baby comes, but for now, things don’t have to change so much for you. I don’t want you to regret not living your dream.” 

“What if it’s not my dream anymore?” he replied honestly, letting his thumb draw circles against her back. He hadn’t done a Night Action assignment without her in years. Sure, the field work wouldn’t be all that different. She could still talk to him on comms and watch his back in her scary tech ways like she always had, but it would be different to not have her with him when he was off the clock at home. He was used to letting her be his one good thing every day. Even on the shittiest days, just being near her made them bearable. But being out of the country, hundreds of miles from her and worrying constantly that he might miss something important? That he might not be here when she needed him? It was getting harder to stomach. 

Catherine had promised to give him an assignment that wouldn’t involve months of deep cover. He would be able to call Rose, see her over FaceTime, and hopefully be back by her third trimester. But even with those concessions, his dread grew with each day that a new assignment drew closer. 

He didn’t want to go. 

He just…didn’t. 

Maybe he had once dreamed of being an Agent and helping keep his country safe, but that wasn’t his biggest dream anymore.

She gave him a ghost of a smile. “I can’t tell you what to do,” she said, settling back down to lie against his chest again, “but I can promise you that we’ll be ok for a couple of months. Do what makes you happy, not what you think I want you to do or what you think you have to do out of responsibility. We’ll make it work no matter what you decide.”    

Peter ran his hand through the ends of her long hair and pressed his cheek against the top of her head. He couldn’t promise her that her safety and well-being wouldn’t affect his decision. He was hardwired that way. He loved her for trying to convince him to put himself first though, even though she knew him well enough to know she was fighting a losing battle. 

“Please stop being so hard on yourself,” she said to him, her head still lying against his chest and her arms still wrapped around his sides. “I hate seeing you so stressed all the time. I’ll make an effort to be more careful about things that could be dangerous, but you need to stop thinking you have some kind of control over every bad thing that could possibly happen. It doesn’t work that way.”

“I know,” he replied with a sigh. “But I can’t help it. I don’t know how to turn it off.” 

Rose nodded. He knew she understood. She had had her own anxieties to work through in her life. She talked to him sometimes about how it felt like her mind was constantly projecting the worst case scenarios, and then she would spend all her energy trying to plan for the ‘what ifs.’ That’s exactly how Peter felt now. He felt like if he didn’t address the what-if situations, then he would be unprepared if they happened and his family would be the ones who got hurt by it. 

“I get that,” she said easily. “There’s no way to plan for every contingency and no way to predict exactly what is going to happen to us. Just know that whatever happens, good or bad, we’ll face it together.”

His body was warm all over from where she was sitting against him. Something about feeling her heartbeat against his and letting his breathing sync up to hers acted like a soothing balm against his soul. Peter pressed his lips to the top of her head again and smoothed his palm up and down her back. “I love you,” he told her quietly. 

Her lips pulled into a smile against his chest. “I love you too.”

They sat like that, tangled together in a rocking chair like they were two halves of the same person, until Rose’s breath hitched and she sat up gingerly, looking at him with a hopeful expression in her brown eyes. 

“What?” he asked her, trying to read her face. 

She smiled and grabbed his hand from her back. She guided it beneath her shirt to lie flat against her slightly rounded midsection. “Moving again,” she whispered, as if talking too loudly might scare Sweet Pea off and make him or her stop doing whatever it was doing in there. 

Peter watched her move his hand to the place closest to where she could feel the movements, just below her belly button. She set his hand there and then removed hers so that she could brace one of them against his other arm. She bit her lip and looked at him with round, hopeful eyes. 

Peter focused on the place where his skin met hers, trying to feel whatever it was she did. Her skin was smooth and warm, and he stroked his thumb softly against it while he waited. 

After a minute or two of sitting silently together and waiting, he shook his head. “I think it’s still too early. In a few more weeks–”

He cut himself off and inhaled sharply when he felt something different against his palm. It was only a small ripple beneath the skin, a barely there tap from the inside of her body. 

There and gone in an instant. A blink-and-you-miss it kind of movement. 

But Peter hadn’t missed it. 

His eyes slammed to Rose’s, and he watched her face morph into a wide smile. “You felt it?” she asked him, her voice breathless with excitement. 

Peter wasn’t sure he could form a coherent word right now. He nodded his head, then looked down at her belly sandwiched between them as if he could see through her shirt and skin right down to the baby moving around underneath. He felt it again then, a light brush of pressure just beneath his palm, and Rose laughed in delight at whatever she saw on his face in that moment. 

He looked up at her face again, awestruck and tongue tied. 

That was their baby in there moving around. Their child who might have Rose’s sweet tooth or his two left feet or a mix of both of their freckles. It was only the size of a small papaya, but he felt like it was squeezing his heart in its tiny fist. 

Rose gripped his jaw and then leaned forward to kiss him softly on the lips. Peter kept his hand pressed against her lower abdomen while he kissed her back. When he felt the movement again, just a slight fluttering against his palm, they both stilled. Rose’s lips pulled up into a grin against his mouth and her nose bumped his playfully. “See? Sweet Pea loves you too.” 

Peter laughed softly against her and shook his head subtly, but even her teasing couldn’t distract him for long from the high of feeling his child move for the first time. 

Is this what she got to feel all the time? 

Peter wanted to bask in this feeling all night. He wanted to strip off her shirt and lay her down on the bed and then spend hours with his skin connected to hers. He wanted to press his lips to her belly and whisper to their baby that he loved it, too. After this day of paranoia, he wanted to just sit in the presence of the two people he loved most in the world for the rest of the night and think about nothing but how grateful he was to have them. 

Their food was waiting downstairs, but they had a microwave. They could reheat it. 

Right now he wanted nothing more than to live in this moment of peace - free from his worries and anxieties - for as long as he could. Rose was right that he needed to be mentally present so he didn’t miss the good he had right now. It was going to take some work, but he would keep practicing that. He would try. 

He would attempt to focus on the way her lips fit against his, or the way their child moved beneath his palm, or the way her laugh made his chest feel warm and achy. Maybe that was how he could beat his paranoia. 

Even if only for tonight.