(This story has been entered into the Watty awards :D)
After not being approved to move to the states, George takes a small two week vacation in the summer to visit his friends. His friends drag him to a party where a reckless decision was made.
Tw...
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Months after June
He sat with his leg bouncing nervously on his carpet. Hand's raking through greasy hair. And then the doorbell rang. Slowly, he swallowed, pulled himself from the mess of emotions on the couch, and tread over the carpet to the door. It was early February, snow threatening to fall at any moment. And when he opened the door he was hit with a wave of frost then a wave of uncertainty.
There she stood with heavy bags beneath her eyes and a baby carrier in her arms. The blanket was pink, she'd told him it would be blue.
"Hey."
He shook his head and ushered her in the door, "hey."
It was a quiet affair, only the lingering sound of steps transpired between them. She kept her head down and her eyes on the task. The carrier made a soft thunk sound when it made contact with his coffee table, rocking slightly to keep the cargo at bay. Then she turned to him and found him zoned out on the blanket.
"You said... I thought it was a boy."
She swiped a hand over her eyes, "I thought so too. They got the ultrasound wrong, they mixed up my pictures with someone else."
"You must've had more than one photo session."
She looks away, lip abused beneath tight teeth, "I didn't think you'd want her."
He sighed, "Stella-"
"I'm sorry alright! You are the best chance this baby is going to have because I can't do this, George." Her arm motioned to the carrier. "Call me a coward but I can't. I know I can't, I'm not ashamed of that... but this... she. We brought her here, she's innocent in all of this shit and... I love her. We can't let her go into that asshat of a system."
George doesn't really know what to say, so he doesn't say anything at all. Instead, he draws the pink blanket back over the top of the carrier and stares down at his own creation. She looks squished, cheeks pushed together by another pink blanket. She's not even a week old, four days to be exact.
"I... what am I gonna do with a girl, Stella?"
She sniffled, "I don't know? I... I don't know."
George has an arm around Stella's waist before she has a chance to fall over. She's weak, and fragile, and George guesses that's not uncommon for someone who just had a baby. He guided her down to the couch behind the carrier and pushed her hair back.
"You alright?"
"No," she swipes at her nose, "no, I pushed out a baby and then flew out of the country for the first time ever all within one week and now you don't want her-"
"No," George cut in, "no. I never said that... I just. I don't know how to take care of a girl is all. I'm a bit overwhelmed."
She drops her head into both hands and George takes a seat next to her on his plump couch. Stella leans against George after a few moments of coaxing, welcome's the kind embrace of the other. She let out small bursts of tears and George kept an arm around her through it.
"She's a perfect baby," Stella said, "she only cries when she's hungry and sleeps when you rock her."
George nodded against Stella's messy blonde hair, tickling his nose when he breathed in, "I'll figure it out."
"I'm sorry," he's already shaking his head at her apology, "we're so stupid and now you're being an amazing guy while I'm running away and-"
"You're not," he reassured. "I shouldn't have been so reckless when we... whatever. You never wanted this, it's okay." Stella grips his hand. "When's your flight home?"
"In the morning." She reached over to the coffee table and pushed the carrier down to see their baby waking from a quiet sleep.
"Stay here," he whispered, "for the night. You're exhausted and I think I'll need you here for a few hours while I figure this out."
She huffed humorlessly, "it's just a baby, George."
"It's our baby," he corrects, "it's entirely different."
He pulls down the carrier to angle their baby up at them and then she blinks open her eyes. It's only for a second but George is wrecked to his core by the color present behind those soft lids. He knows that hue all too well.
"You sure you don't want to try?"
They'd talked this conversation dead but he still needed to ask.
"I don't want to be together just because we have a child." George kissed Stella's temple despite the confirmation. "You don't love me, I don't love you. Forcing it isn't good. I just... I don't want to be a parent."
"Okay," he whispers. "Okay, just had to be sure."
***
"You're so small."
With his back to the couch, George held his baby along the short length of his arms and whispered to keep Stella from waking. She'd fallen asleep after showing George the correct way to bottle feed their child and hadn't made a sound since.
"I was told you were gonna be a boy," he said to the bleary eyed baby. "So, I have a list of boy names picked out on my computer. Isn't that silly."
She cooed and shifted in his arms, George immediately tensed and held her closer. She's so new, so fragile, he figured he needed to be gentle.
"I thought about naming you Nick, like my friend but he would hate to share a name with my Kid. Say it's unfair or something stupid." George realized he wasn't going to get a verbal acknowledgment from a baby a little too late into the silence. He sighed eventually. "Then there was Alex and Karl, but giving you either name just didn't feel right. I... I had Clay. I had it at the top of the list before I realized what I was doing. You couldn't have his name. One because it's a silly name to me now, and two because... I couldn't bare calling you it all the time."
George shifted to lean his head back against the armrest, "now what am I going to name you? Huh? Your mom doesn't want to name you, she said it's my choice since you'll know me. Since you'll be mine. But the last time I named something was my cat, and I named him Cat." He smiled and kissed the crown of his baby's head. "I can't name you 'baby'. Maybe I should name you Georgina."
The baby grunt as if she understood him so George chuckled and let the silence fill the room. On a cold night in early February George watched the oven clock tick into the sunrise and held his newborn baby close to his heart.
"I'm gonna take care of you okay?" He nodded to himself, "I promise."
A/N Hi. I had writers block and wanted to finish this snippet. I also have a little oneshot of Karlnap after this epilogue I'm working on.
