Entry tags:
who’s idea was this anyway
WHO: Korra & Hei
WHAT: Hei promised to be home to set up the baby’s nursery. He lied.
[Korra is going to punch Hei in the face next time she sees him. Hard. This nursery thing was his idea to begin with. Korra had been planning to keep the cradle in their bedroom, but Hei refused. He insisted that the baby have a small room all its own. He promised he would be home to help set up the cradle and shelves for the toys her friends (mostly Bolin) were already overwhelming them with.
So of course he's not here. Korra waited all afternoon, wait through dinner, and now that the sun is setting, she is done waiting. She'll assemble that stupid crib herself, and then she'll beat him to death with it.]
WHAT: Hei promised to be home to set up the baby’s nursery. He lied.
[Korra is going to punch Hei in the face next time she sees him. Hard. This nursery thing was his idea to begin with. Korra had been planning to keep the cradle in their bedroom, but Hei refused. He insisted that the baby have a small room all its own. He promised he would be home to help set up the cradle and shelves for the toys her friends (mostly Bolin) were already overwhelming them with.
So of course he's not here. Korra waited all afternoon, wait through dinner, and now that the sun is setting, she is done waiting. She'll assemble that stupid crib herself, and then she'll beat him to death with it.]
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A thought occurs to her.]
Would a nanny have to live here? With us?
[She doesn't like that idea at all. She's gotten quite cozy having the house just be the soon-to-be three of them.]
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[ Forcibly, he tries to shake it off. Reminds himself that. for better or worse, he's not so alone. Not anymore. He has a baby on the way. He is loved by a wonderful woman who will take him in, even if he's been absent for years. Who will forgive him for him failings even though he can't forgive himself. ]
[ Squeezing her hand, he manages a reassuring sketch of a smile. He hears her worries, and understands them. Privacy, for the two of them, isn't a luxury but a necessity. ]
She could stay at Air Temple Island. Arrive by dawn, when we're leaving for work. Depart by evening, once one of us returns.
[ Basically do what nannies in Tokyo and other big cities do. It's not rocket science. ]
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I'm hoping I won't have to leave a lot, though. Things have been pretty quiet for awhile now.
[And they should stay that way, as long as the Equalist situation doesn't get out of hand. She'll have to keep an eye on it, but she has faith. They're all older and wiser than when Amon was in power. Surely they can handle it better this time.]
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[ At Korra's words, he smiles with a faint affection -- but only because there's something bittersweet about her optimism, her clear-eyed hopefulness. He regards not her face but her hand, curled in his, the knuckles solid under his stroking thumb, the skin like hot calloused velvet. ]
[ Dryly, ]
There's no guarantee they'll stay quiet. A back-up plan is necessary. [ Lifting her palm, he presses a kiss to the center, idle habit meeting sincerity. ] You'll get sloppy as a stay-at-home mom. I don't want that for you. Better to stay in fighting trim.
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She leans over to kiss his cheek before finishing her meal.]
Could you take a look at the cradle? I don't think I put it together quite right.
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[ The way he inflects the word makes it sound like a herculean chore. But he drains his glass of milkshake, before slipping off the stool readily enough. He'd been hoping to shower and then fix himself a proper meal. But that can wait. He owes Korra for his absence, for an entire wasted evening. ]
[ In the nursery, padding over the crinkled newpapers strewn across the floor, he regards the half-constructed cradle. All told, Korra hasn't done a bad job. But the rockers on the underside are rickety, and one of the support strips is crooked. ]
[ Sighing, he sinks to his knees. Patiently reassembling the cradle, he lets the task, the mindful hammering, the careful measuring, flatten out his brain. It's strange: all this effort is for the baby, yet he's not thinking of the baby at all. Hours can pass without a single concrete thought if he's preoccupied: just empty, static wind gusting and swirling through his head, snatches of instructions repeating themselves in an endless loop. The bubbling paranoia -- about Korra, about their future -- that so often manifests itself in other forms, as cold nausea, as nameless dread, is, if not erased, at least temporarily buried under the weight of simple exertion. ]
[ It isn't long before the cradle is finished. Not elaborate, trimmed, with hand-rubbed varnish or intricate carvings -- but styled like a pretty antique, solid enough to bear a squalling brat. My squalling brat, he tries to remind himself. The words mean nothing. ]
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That first pregnancy was so much easier. Even with the Red Lotus and the stress, it had been easier. She hadn't had any morning (or anytime) sickness. Definitely no heartburn. But most importantly... she'd felt more certain of Hei. Once the baby is real, she reminds herself. Once the baby is here, he'll connect with it. It's barely a bump in her belly right now, so of course it doesn't feel like something he could love yet. But he will.]
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[ Most expectant fathers wouldn't think that way, Hei knows. Most would, most likely, make their partner wear some body armor -- find a spare hubcap, even a nice cast-iron frying pan that she could tie around her waist. ]
[ Except the unborn baby isn't Hei's concern. Just Korra. (Maybe that won't change, even after the baby arrives.) ]
[ Creeping silently into the bedroom, Hei ignores the seasick lurch when he finds Korra curled up on the futon, her hair a dark mudslide across her scrunched-up face. Carefully, he settles at the edge of the futon. Reaches out, so the curve of her hot face is met by the cradle of his cool hand. A pregnancy isn't an illness, he reminds himself. Yet in moments like these, it's difficult not to regard it as one. To resent the baby like a cancer festering inside her, poisoning her blood even as it saps the life out of her. ]
[ Quietly, ]
Maybe the prawns were too heavy.
[ He's been keeping track of which foods trigger her pyrosis, and which don't, so he knows what dishes to avoid making in the future. ]
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This close, though, she can smell the reek on his clothes, no longer covered up by the delicious smells of food. She coughs and pushes him away.] You stink. Go take a shower.
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[ He can't say that to Korra. Instead he lets her coax him to sprawl next to her -- only to shove him away because his skin and clothes still carry the miasmic fug from the rally. ]
[ Scowling, Hei hauls himself to his feet. He blames the sprog for making her as unpredictable as a nest of rattlesnakes. She's never kicked him out of bed before for smelling like less than a spring rose. ]
I think I'll take the couch tonight.
[ Stripping his clothes off irritably, striving for that extra, imaginary inch of dignity that this lovesick relationship has deprived him of, he stomps off to shower. Damn hormones. Damn pregnancies. Why couldn't he have hooked up with a menopausal cougar instead of a teenybopper at the useless peak of her fertility? ]
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She's top annoyed to chase after him. If he wants to punish himself by sleeping on the couch, fine. Let him. She huffs irritably and rolls over too her other side.]
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[ Except he's going to be a father soon. He'll need a clean identity. Something official. Real, on file, even if it's another alias -- a nobody who is not worth the government's attention. A contingency plan, among the hundreds. If something happens to him and Korra, he knows any baby of theirs will land on its feet. But he wants to place a cushion there. ]
[ Not just a cushion. A nest. Lined in paperwork and fool-proof legalities. ]
[ Toweling himself dry, he slips into a pair of boxers and a T-shirt. Pads into the shadowed aerie of the bedroom, where Korra is still sprawled on the futon, her body an irritable curl. Briefly, he considers sliding in beside her, into the warm declivity of the mattress, apologizing without words but with a kiss to her nape. But he doesn't think he could stand it if she kicked his shin or swatted his hands off in another irrational burst of petulance. ]
[ Instead, he draws the blinds and switches the bright halo of the lamp off. A cool but considerate: Sweet dreams. Vacates to the nursery, to clean up the tools and wooden debris, and then to the livingroom to spend the balance of the evening on the couch, determinedly immersed in one of the dusty Air-Nomad tomes piled on the coffee table. ]