Reason To Be (A Zouis Family AU)

Interlude Four, Extra Four

First Time for Everything
[the one where liam is there for all of his baby daughter's firsts — set between interlude three and part four]

zero
The first time Liam holds his daughter in his arms, everything feels right. He's terrified, indefinitely, because this tiny human is his, is part of him and she's just so fragile that he's afraid to even breathe too hard for fear of hurting her. Yet everything seems to fall into place the exact moment that he settles her against his chest, cradling her head in the crook of his elbow, shoulders hunched as he looks down at her through teary brown eyes.

She's perfect. Barely a few minutes into existence and yet he already knows that he would die for her in an instant. He'll, he'd kill for her if it came to it — and that terrifies him too. But he knows that's how it's meant to be.

She's a piece of him and a piece of the world and holding her in his arms just makes everything else cease to exist. It makes sense. Nothing matters outside of the people he loves and this inexplicably small person in his arms — he loves her more than he's sure he's ever loved anything or anyone.

He smiles, a few tears dribbling down his cheeks on their own accord, lifting his free arm (because she's so damn small that he can support her entire being with just one) and running the gentlest fingertip over the soft slopes of her already chubby cheeks, over the little jut of her chin, eyes skimming over the dark lashes and fine brown hair already layered over her scalp.

A wet laugh escapes him when those eyelashes move in relation to her eyelids, two dark eyes looking up and focusing on him.

"Hey Gracie," he breathes, sniffling and glancing up to the bed where Emily is leaning against the pillows, somehow a million times more radiant and beautiful than she's ever been after seven hours of labour, watching them both with tired eyes. He turns back to the baby, the life that they've created that he can hold with one arm.

The fear stays heavy in his chest, but it goes unrivalled by the love he feels alongside it.

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When Gracie says her first word, it's unexpected to say the least. When the baby isn't screaming and crying and refusing to sleep, she's silent. Almost eerily so — Liam has once asked Emily not to go to class because the baby staring at him and making no noise kind of creeped him out. Emily has laughed and he hadn't had the heart to tell her that he was only half joking.

So she's a quiet baby most of the time. She never babbles, rarely giggles, and mostly cries. And Liam worries, because that's what he's always done best; the number of calls and messages sent to his parents asking them whether they think he should take her to a doctor because surely she shouldn't be so quiet are countless, and of course, everyone does what they've always done and they tell him not to worry and to just calm down.

He does neither of those things. He worries and he is the opposite of calm.

Which is why, when he and Emily are watching the TV whilst their infant daughter crawls around on the play mat in front of them, slapping her tiny hands against her stuffies and throwing those building blocks that she never actually uses to build anything, he really isn't expecting a sound to leave her mouth.

But it does. She crawls over to the foot of the couch, looks up at him with wide brown eyes and just stares for a few moments.

Liam glances down at her and smiles, leaning forwards to rest his elbows on his knees so he's towering over her slightly. "Hey baby. Are you missing the attention?" He says teasingly, reaching one hand down to tickle a finger against her stomach over the onesie that she's wearing.