BRIGHTER THAN STARLIGHT ✶ lando norris
in a perfect universe, their son is born a couple days overdue after an intense but otherwise normal labour. this, however, is not that reality.
﹙ 🍼 ﹚ 𝒻em ! oc ✴ husband , dad ! lando ◟ 🥨 oneshot , heavy angst. set in 2030-ish, timeline's a mess ◜ᴗ◝ word count. 6.8k radio. trigger warnings: this one contains descriptive mention of difficult childbirth experiences (blood loss, nausea, pain) and so many medical terms that are unfamiliar to me. if google has led me astray, please overlook the inaccuracies. to the anon who kinda requested this, enjoy! ／ 𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐘.
Lando likes to think he’s plenty familiar with surprises.
They are the kind of necessary evil that comes with his job description. The best way he can explain it is like the expectancy of getting burnt once or twice as a fire fighter, or the promise of hitting turbulent waters when a ship’s radar spots an approaching storm.
Still, as often as he lives between the few hundredths of seconds cooped inside what is an engineering marvel in theory, nobody likes bracing for impact.
There's one sentiment his performance team has drilled into his head ever since he was barely reaching his peers’ shoulders in F3 and outperforming them twice as frequently; it is easy to forget all the risks and fears when everything is going swimmingly, but complacency always comes with an overhauling stop.
It begins on a chilly February night, sometime between arse o’clock and dawn, when Evelyn shakes him awake.
“What– What is it?” Lando sputters, blinking sleep out of his eyes. He reaches to the other side of their bed where she is already sitting up, legs crisscrossed with both hands on her bump. “Ev, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she says, in a strained voice. “I woke up and the whole thing just– hurt so bad.” Evelyn looks up at him, and Lando thinks it’s possibly the most scared he has ever seen her, blue eyes glassy and every bit searching for answers. “He’s too small, Lan. He can’t– he can’t come yet.”
The overthinker in him should be on the cusp of overdrive and for someone who keeps certainty in a vice grip, being unsure is probably the worst thing he can be. But at that moment, hearing her breath catch, shaking hands reach out to him almost helplessly, Lando doesn’t think – just pulls Evelyn forwards into his arms.
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, sweetheart,” he says like a mantra, maybe trying to convince them both as he runs his palms slowly up and down his wife’s back while she gets her breathing under control.
The thing about Lando is that his brain nitpicks the most ridiculous nuggets of information to store away for later. Mostly they are completely useless when they resurface, but this time it comes to his aid somewhat: though far from the ‘ideal’ situation, he’s tried reading enough parenting books to know that otherwise healthy babies at thirty-five weeks survive maybe ninety-percent of the time.
But Evelyn doesn’t need pragmatism right now. She’s clearly terrified and that means he absolutely cannot be.
“Here’s what we are going to do,” he starts, impressed by how composed he sounds, at least to his own ears, “I’m going to ring the neonatal unit and we will drive down there right now to get you checked out. Alright?”
Evelyn nods, still a bit out of it. But now that she has a task, she can focus on something other than the worry. Or she tries to. As soon as she gets to her feet, she crumples back onto the duvet again.
Lando catches that from the corner of his eyes, instantly abandoning his phone on the nightstand to cradle her head. Her eyes are screwed shut, face twisted. “Talk to me, baby. What hurts?”
“Everything,” she chokes out, a barely stifled sob wedged inside her throat. “I feel like I could throw up and– and– why the fuck did you turn the heater up so high?”
He didn’t. The temperature on the remote display is still the comfortable warmth they’d gone to bed with. Lando swallows dryly over the alarm bells blaring inside his head growing louder, pressing a kiss to her temple only to recoil immediately. She’s burning up.
“M'going to take you to the bathroom, yeah? I think a shower might help, but let me know what you need. Anything.”
Evelyn might not be in the best state to broker an argument but she seems on board with the idea. He runs a lukewarm bath instead, afraid she might fall standing under the shower. It's the next best thing to letting her swim in ice cold water, while he chats with the frustratingly calm OB office’s receptionist all while his heart threatens to combust.
He’s aware enough to know the list of hyper specific symptoms that they grill him about are not a good sign, not when he’s still trying to soothe Evelyn with the vague idea of everything being fine. The conclusion to that call is for them to meet at the nearest hospital since it’s past midnight and the clinic is closed.
Lando hovers in the doorway, ruminating with that information as he watches Evelyn dress herself clumsily. He would have helped but she needs this. The sense of control in a situation that is slowly spiraling out of her hands.
When she spots him, the comb running through her ruffled brown hair freezes. She looks like a deer in headlights. “Can you check the hospital bag? I know we finalized it but… but if–” the rest of her words get lost when he surges forward, squeezing her as gently as he can into an awkward hug with her swollen tummy between them.
He presses a hand on the underside of it — that usually helps — feeling a dizzying amount of emotions as Evelyn buries her face in the crook of his neck. Because fuck, there is a very real possibily that this is it.
They might actually be parents a lot sooner than they expected.
She doesn’t let him go when Lando loads their things into the car, sitting on the passenger side wrapped up in a fuzzy pink shawl and cream colored maternity dress that fittingly resembles a beacon in the darkness. She does not let go of his hand for the whole ride either, and it helps him in ways he cannot voice.
He did need it, because the next sequence of events is nothing short of a rollercoaster.
When they make it to the hospital, they are immediately brought to the OPED where their usual doctor meets them with a retinue of nurses. The first thing they check Evelyn for is her blood pressure and, by the looks on their faces, it’s not what they expected it to be. They go through all the standard procedures then, like taking her blood and urine samples for running labs.
But to Lando’s and – most importantly – Evelyn’s disappointment, they don’t administer any drugs for her upper abdominal pain that, in her words, has now escalated from a manageable five to a daunting eight.
She is not in labour but Lando has no qualms offering her his hands to crush as another bout of piercing pain washes over her, evident by her ragged breathing. Against all logic, he wonders how he will ever be forgiven for inadvertently causing this.
“You’re a freaking legend, you know that?” he whispers, bringing their joined hands up to his lips, using the cold towel they'd requested to wipe away the sweat on her brow.
Evelyn shakes her head, smiling wryly. “If this is what it takes to be one, it’s a terrible deal.”
He snorts, carding careful fingers through her hair. She closes her eyes upon habit, chasing the warmth of his skin. “How are you actually feeling?”
“You want me to be honest?” Lando nods earnestly. “Feels like I need to take a massive shit.”
It’s such a bizarrely normal concept in an environment that feels anything but—what with all the bazillion monitors on the walls and five different drips needled into Evelyn’s arms—it makes him crease up. She takes the opportunity to swat him upside the head.
“Yeah, go ahead and laugh. You won’t be when I actually shit during delivery.”
Lando sobers instantly. “Wait– is that normal?”
She rolls her eyes. “According to our mums, uh-huh!” She tries to shift her arse on the mattress, hunched over because even laying down hurts, reaching up to him only to wince. Lando leans down, happily accepting a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry for ruining the night,” she whispers.
“You didn’t ruin anything,” he shuts it down immediately. “Always better safe than sorry.”
“Yeah, but I probably lost it over some Braxton Hicks. It's stupid.”
Just when he is about to launch into the world's most poorly worded speech that, no, nothing about her or their baby is ever going to be stupid, especially when it concerns their health, the main doctor ‘assigned’ to them walks in.
She's in her mid-fifties if Lando were to guess, a pleasant face riddled with smile lines and a soft European accent that oddly reminds him of his mum. The last he'd seen of her was a video call some days back where she insisted she and Katie—Evelyn’s mother—were happy to come over to help in their Woking flat once Lando's sim sessions got more frequent as the season opener crept closer.
Dr. Carter—or Jenny, as she introduces herself—is armed with a serious looking clipboard. “I'll get straight to the point. We ran some necessary tests because your OB-GYN suspected it, and they mostly all came out with results showing signs for Preeclampsia.”
Lando glances sideways, catching Evelyn's eyes as she speaks, hesitant and audibly panting now. “That's– so, what does that mean, exactly?”
He takes her hand in his, soothing a thumb over her knuckles. “The nurse mentioned something about giving her magnesium which was causing the heat flashes? Was it to help with that, then?”
Jenny nods, addressing Evelyn directly. “We also tried a few doses of different medicine to lower your BP but it is still high. You also have some prominent symptoms like protein traces in your urine and, well, the abdominal pain.” She purses her lips, “It’s severe enough that we might have to think about inducing labour.”
Funny how all it takes is a light breeze to knock a trail of dominoes off their predestined trajectory. Lando is not much for euphemisms, but sitting here right now, he feels a breeze could knock him over too.
Twenty four hours ago, he was joking with Max how soon they could take their boys karting, Evelyn and Pietra chiming in with various renditions of ‘absolutely fucking not’. And now… now he might be a father in the next twenty four.
It's his wife's voice that once again snaps him out of a daze. “But I'm still not to term. What about the baby?”
The hot rush of shame that courses through this body is a nasty wake-up call. He can't do this right now, can't spiral into a pathetic mess of self pity when they are quite literally talking about Evelyn and the baby's safety. They come first, they always come first.
“Baby's vitals are normal for now,” Jenny assures them. “Normally in Preeclampsia patients, a growth restriction for the fetus is common, so he is on the smaller side but thankfully not by much. That might be why your two-week checks did not catch it earlier.”
Lando finds his voice again in the midst of the hurricane inside his head. “And if she chooses to go for the induction, will it ease some of the pain?”
Jenny goes quiet momentarily. “Mr. Norris, I'm afraid it is less about ‘choosing’ in this scenario. Frankly, induced labour is the only cure we can offer. Before this escalates into both mum and baby being at serious risk.”
If Lando had thought he'd known fear, the universe has chosen once again to personally craft his worst nightmare in hopes of humbling him. But he puts a lid on it, ignoring his heartbeat thundering against his ribcage, because Evelyn has gone eerily still, tripping over words, “But… I...”
He grabs her hand before she can pull it away, coaxing her into a sideways hug before she crumbles. “Baby, look at me.” Her eyes are blown wide open, red rimmed and terrified. It tugs painfully at his chest yet all his efforts are going into keeping his voice level right now, cupping her face. “Sweetheart, you'll be okay. Both of you.”
Evelyn, however, is done taking things lying down and she shoves him off. “Lando, this wasn't the plan!” Her breathing falters as she yells, then the smallest beads of tears trail down her flushed cheeks. “I'm not even– What if it is painful?”
That scares him more than anything, how small and utterly defeated she sounds.
“You will have options,” he insists but that's a joke compared to the gravity of their situation. “Painkillers, epidural, the whole lot if you wish. She can do that, right?” Lando throws a glance at the doctor who nods in compliance, busying herself with the data to give them their privacy.
He takes that as cue to kiss the top of Evelyn’s head, her cheeks, before finally gently kissing her lips. Trying to get her to match his inhales and exhales. “See, you can. You can do anything, my brave girl.”
The amount of paperwork they have to go through is honestly a blessing. Not that you'll ever catch Lando saying that in any other situation but it successfully takes their mind off the impending notion of actually beginning the induction procedure.
Their private suite is a beehive in the meanwhile. Nurses who check in on the BP machine's cuff every ten minutes, a multitude of specialists from neuro and cardio that all ask the same questions about her medical history even if they are already listed in Evelyn’s records to the point Lando starts assuming they're talking for the sake of it.
Her pain doesn't get any better, but it's not like she is in a position to move around much. Even as Jenny finally confirms that they have started her on Cervidil, Evelyn only throws up a hand in a half-wave. “Cheers. So, should I stay on the bed, or…?”
“I'd actually prefer if you could move around a little because it speeds things up. However, in your case, it won't be wise to stress yourself out.”
Lando knows that at this stage, the things he can do are numbered. He should probably let the family know, for instance, given they also were not prepared to meet the first grandson on either side for at least a month. And the other most important thing is making sure Evelyn is okay in any capacity.
He won't lie that the second idea doesn't draw a blank in his mind. He's endlessly grateful to the staff at the hospital and how calm they all are, even if the subtle murmurs he catches between nurses paints a picture that something like this is not seen every other day. Hell, even the ‘rookie’ is a picture of professionalism despite the way his eyes go wide in recognition when he enters the room.
The midwife they are assigned is a lovely lady named Sarah who has objectively the most adorable Scottish lilt and a wilder mess of grey-flecked red curls than even Lando's bedhead. Evelyn seems to find her endearing; and when she categories someone under ‘instantly likeable’ she gets chatty. By the end of an hour and half, when Sarah comes to check in on Evelyn, she doesn't even fuss as the woman confirms that while she is contracting, her dilation is a rather slow work in progress.
“It's because I have the drugs,” Sarah chimes jovially when Lando teases Evelyn about her amiability. “Speaking of that, we are saving the Pitocin for the last stages of labour if everything goes according to plan. And you have the gas, obviously,” she taps the giant tank on the side of the bed, the pump already in Evelyn’s grasp. “Baby is the right side up, so that's an added relief; saves me from breathing down your neck. See how you get on for the next couple hours. If you need anything, Lando can get one of us from the desk.”
The contractions don't become obvious till it's pushing six a.m. and first light has broken past the cloudy English sky. Evelyn waves him off when he hovers, but it is hard not to when she clamps down on his hands like they are her lifeline, heaving into the side of his neck.
She says they are not any worse than the pain she was already experiencing. Lando thinks that is not the consolation Evelyn believes it to be.
Regardless, her nausea seems to have subsided somewhat after she took one look at the bacon baps that a nurse brought over on a lunch trolley and threw up over the side of her bed, with him scrambling to hold her hair back, drawing imaginary circles on her back.
“Kid's definitely a picky eater,” she chirps, between an interim of pain as he finally drops the bomb in their family group chat.
Lando shoves his phone inside his pocket, ignoring the barrage of question marks and exclamation marks piling in. He grins, “So, he has good taste. Although, if he ends up picking fish over meat, I might have to disown him.”
Evelyn laughs—well, that's the general idea, but everything fucking hurts, in her rather eloquent wording, so it comes out a grimace. “If he wants to taste the wondrous world of sushi, who are we to stop him?”
“I will,” Lando deadpans. “Happily. In fact, I am banning anything from under the sea from our house forever. Effective immediately.”
“What will we tell him when he asks what Flounder tastes like?”
“You psychopath! We'll tell him 'fish are friends, not food!'”
The joking does its job, alleviating some of the tension, but nothing can actually take her mind off the cramps wracking through her whole body. When the next jolt comes, Evelyn's hands are dug straight into Lando's joggers while he quickly twists the cap onto the bottle of water he was holding for her to drink from.
“You're doing so good,” he murmurs, sticking close to her since the warmth and soothing touches seem to help even a fraction. “Just a couple more hours, and then bub will be here.”
“Oh, who could have fucking guessed Lando Norris’ son would make a dramatic entrance?” she moans. Exhausted beyond belief yet still holding herself together with sarcasm. As they say, to each their own.
He finds it in himself to smile. His son. Who will be born in less than a day, ideally. And if there was ever a more appropriate time to think ‘everything will be just alright’, now is as good as one.
Active labour, Lando learns, is a separate level of gnarly.
If the beginning of induction was figuring out a maze, this is like figuring out a maze without a proper map, blindfolded, and someone has taken the liberty to spin you around a couple times just to throw your sense of direction out of whack.
Evelyn has remained almost fully soundless while dealing with it, her only constant demands being that he stroke her hair and her sides when the ache gets particularly bad. Although Lando is not sure her silence is a good thing, his tasks are abysmal compared to anything her body is going through at the moment. He is ready to help in any way he can to make the experience bearable.
“D'you want the epidural?” he asks when a strong contraction makes her body shake. It's painful to see her go through from a spectator's standpoint, Lando can't imagine what it is to feel it happen. “I'm not trying to convince you anyway—but would you want it?”
He's also halfway on the bed now, holding her through another bout of shivers. “I don't know mate,” She grits out, gulping in nitrogen-infused air. “Ask me in like– fuck– an hour.”
Evelyn throws in the towel around ten o'clock, right when the doctor stops by to make sure she's dilated enough. “Putain de merde–! How fast can you get that needle in me?”
“I will speak to the anesthetist,” Jenny says, taking the string of french expletives on the chin, her eyes fixed on the foetal heart rate monitor with a prominent crease between her brows.
Lando, against all logic and mental fortification he'd practiced for this exact moment, feels the dread pool into his gut. He tries to shake it off at first. The baby's cardio results came out fine and his heartbeat is in the steady one hundreds. Everything is perfect… right?
His doubts get validation when Jenny faces them again, gnawing at her bottom lip. “I'm going to have you turn on your side, Evelyn, if you please.”
“What? Why?” She perks up, the doctor's orders cutting straight through the haze.
“Baby's heart rate is a tad higher than we'd like. He might be getting distressed and trust me, that is the last thing we want.”
“You gave her a lovely gaff, now he doesn’t want to leave,” Lando quips. Thankfully, she thinks better than to smack him for his efforts to keep her from spiraling. That, or she sees right through the façade, at the nervous wreck he is underneath. “Look at it this way, Ev, you won't have to bother with laundry for a while.”
“Lucky me,” she sing-songs begrudgingly, before an expression that is crossed between concern and disgust lands on her face. “Yeah, we will need a change of sheets. Either I have spontaneously pissed myself or that was my waters going.”
He chokes on a chuckle, forcing himself to relax, as the doctor smiles tightly, “What a dignified process indeed.”
Evelyn huffs, taking a breath from the gas pump as another contraction ramps up. And Lando is so horribly gone for her that he might give up everything for her to be able to laugh properly again. She sighs, making grabby hands, “Fine, yeah, fuck it– Lan, please?”
He leans over her, intent on trying to lift her comfortably enough to strip the ruined sheets and help her turn — when he sees it.
The puddle of blood soaked through the hospital gown all underneath Evelyn.
Not many can say they have shunted into a metal wall on what is essentially a rocketship and walked away to tell the tale. It's nary an inconsequential tidbit, but most people don't live to do so afterwards, or would much rather clutch caution to their chest in favor of not taking chances at tempting fate.
It's all the same here, really, if he's feeling particularly imaginative: the screech of metal, wheels barreling faster than reason and the all-consuming numbness that takes root inside his brain. Just like watching a wreckage in slow motion, Lando cannot fucking look away.
A bunch of things happen in rapid succession when he stumbles back from the bed, transfixed on the blood coating his palms, dripping thin lines onto the pristine tiled floor. The uptake is a gross understatement, the trickling horror that oh God, the pain on her belly, where I was rubbing.
Jenny runs to the emergency call button on the wall and starts banging on it with all her might and soon a whole crowd floods into the room. He's vaguely aware of the ruckus being made but none of the complicated medical terms traded like a grenade between the medical professionals actually registers. All Lando can do is stare at Evelyn who has gone really fucking pale.
It's almost like he is standing in the middle of a burning house, angry flames lapping at his ankles. Except he isn't and this isn't a ‘worst case scenario’ imagined in a fucking simulated strategy run. It's real life and he's right there and, holy shit, he's terrified.
Lando steps aside to give Sarah space when she charges towards them, acting like a shield between Evelyn and whatever is happening at the foot of the bed.
One of the nurses is lowering the panel there, urging Evelyn to lay down as Sarah starts speaking in a measured tone, “Love, you might be having something called a placental abruption. It's when the placenta detaches from the uterine wall and it might cause us some complications. It's unfortunate, but highly common in those who show signs of severe Preeclampsia — or HELLP syndrome as it's called. We are going to put you to sleep for a bit, okay, dearie? And when you wake up, you will have your baby boy.”
Evelyn, though, barely hears any of it. Her gaze snaps towards him instead, piercing through the uproar as she croaks, reaching for him, “Lan… what's happening?”
And that one sentiment, merely a throwaway breath in the storm—the confusion and mortification cementing the fact that they are in a room full of strangers and all of this is happening too fast, and the only person she trusts is Lando—urges him to take the plunge.
He's by her side in a blink, grabbing her hands that have become awfully cold, kissing them fervently between blowing on them for warmth. “I'm here. It's okay. Nothing will happen to you. You're okay.”
He hopes that is the case. Maybe if he repeats that enough times, it might ring true. But really he has no clue and the only thing he can do is hold onto her as they finally start rolling her bed into the hallway, towards the operation theatre. He doesn’t dare focus on the flurry of people working on her lower half, thinks he would not be able to digest it.
Lando is no stranger to injuries. Hell, he basically grew up with bruised limbs from wheelspins and bumping into people on karting tracks. He's familiar with hospitals too, from the amount of times his teenage ambition had resulted in broken bones or a cracked skull. But none of that comes marginally close to seeing Evelyn openly sob.
And he can't do anything to help. He's completely useless.
“If I'm not,” Evelyn says, suddenly slurring, “If it's between me and Baby, you need to– to make sure he's okay.”
Lando's stomach churns. That ‘if’ is not a possibility he is willing to accept. “Don't,” he mumbles, brushing the hair away from her face, “Don't say that.”
She shakes her head, resolute even when her lips quiver. “Promise me.” Evelyn looks to Dr. Jenny, “Bubba… is the priority.”
And he adores that about her, her ability to make something out of any disastrous situation but that stubbornness feels like a hacksaw on his fraying nerves. He wants to scream and cry knowing everything would eventually get drowned out.
The doctors are not feeling any better about her progress because suddenly they're off on a run and the last thing he sees is Evelyn’s eyes fluttering shut as they fly past the swinging doors of the OT. Lando is left alone with the sickening rust of blood—Evelyn’s blood—all over him and the sterile walls of the hospital closing in with a silence that might suffocate him.
There is a midwife rubbing his back but he doesn't notice until he's slumped against an empty row of metal chairs. He has never been more aware of himself yet so numb to everything around him. She is saying something, maybe, but the whistling inside his ears refuses to die down. He asks her to repeat herself.
“Do you have anyone you can phone, lad? You don't look very good yourself.”
He takes her word for it, only thinking for half a second before retrieving his phone, screen smearing red. The lump in his throat is painful as he goes through the contacts list on autopilot, arriving on a familiar name.
The call rings once, twice, thrice before the line connects. There is absolutely nothing holding him back from spilling over his roughened edges at the staticky whisper of his name.
Alone, with his head leaned on the cold plaster, Lando cries. “Dad? Daddy– I need help. I don't know what to do.”
He is not sure he can ever walk away from this grinding shunt, in case it goes sideways.
The concept of time blurs after that and Lando's not completely sure when exactly his dad storms into the private suite of the empty L&D ward. It has no trace of the nightmare that had transpired earlier; the floor has been scrubbed clean as were his hands upon the insistence of the midwife who refused to leave him to become a contamination hazard.
The moment he stands up from the tiny brown sofa off to the side, his dad crushes him into a tight embrace.
He thought he was done with the waterworks, that he can't possibly have any more tears left to cry before he started pulling out his own hair, but the moment he gets a whiff of his dad's colonge—the same one that he's kept since Lando only measured up to his waist, being tucked in a warm hug after a bad result or on a nasty sick day—he breaks again.
His dad doesn't bother with empty words, just holds him until Lando pulls away on his own accord. Only then, he asks, “What have they told you?”
Thing is, Lando should feel ashamed. For all the people who call him ‘too soft’ or ‘too sensitive’, he's doing everything to prove them right, running into the safety of his dad's presence that somehow always feels larger than life.
But even he can’t act like a complete embarrassment. When he's got no fucking clue if they're going to make it past this day intact.
“Ev's pressure won't come down so they wanted to monitor her,” he starts, cringing at his dry throat. “But then she almost– she almost hemorrhaged.”
His dad purses his lips, an arm coming round Lando's shoulder to squeeze him. “Placental abruption?” he guesses and Lando nods, mildly surprised. It must show on his face because his dad cracks a tiny smile. “Your mum used to fixate on all the worst outcomes when she was having you lot. Said it made her prepared, that crazy nut.”
Then he straightens up, looking at Lando with so much fondness and single-minded determination that Lando feels untouchable, “She's going to be okay, you hear me? Both her and Baby. We are going to get her the best treatment available.”
Lando cannot manage anything more than a nod. He's inclined to believe him, but he also needs to be realistic. Serious conditions that lead to a person bleeding out without signs can't be normal. And the look on her face… Christ, it might haunt him for ages. Because a person like Evelyn who hates losing grip over her autonomy will be every definition of spooked when she comes to.
When, not if. The alternative does not fucking exist far as Lando is concerned.
His dad goes quiet after a while, probably on the phone with his mum. He must have violated a dozen speed limits to get through the mild snowstorm outside in a measly fifty minutes.
And when Lando imagines his family waiting around anxiously for any news, he also feels a twinge of jealousy. It's unfair is what, that him meeting his baby – his and Evelyn’s baby – had to be paired with a gutpunch.
Doesn’t he deserve one single piece of normalcy—the same mercy that all his siblings were granted unconditionally—when his whole life has been bent and warped to meet a bazillion superficial expectations already? Now it feels like a cosmic joke.
Lando doesn’t get to dwell on it however as, some ten minutes later, Sarah appears in the doorway. He jumps to his feet, eyes searching her perfectly practiced smile like a starved animal for scraps.
“Congratulations Dad,” she says cheerfully, “you have a handsome baby boy.”
And– that’s the funny part isn't it, Lando doesn’t know what to think. He had imagined those same two sentences about a dozen times and in every single conjured instance, Lando would have been there to see him getting lifted to Evelyn’s chest, hearing his cries as his son took his first breath. And now it's like someone had taken a sledgehammer to a shiny glass daydream.
“That's good.” His dad speaks on his behalf, probably sensing Lando is more than a little out of it. “How is he?”
“He is doing well,” Sarah assures him when Lando finally looks at her with laser focus. “Exceptionally well, actually. Premature babies are on the smaller side as you would imagine, but Baby is a decent 2.8 kilos. We are still keeping an eye out for signs of respiratory distress, just to be safe, so the doctors are keeping him on the CPAP through the night. But since the placenta had not fully come off, we don't think he has any oxygen deficiency.”
His dad claps him on his shoulder, chuckling, “Seems like you've got an overachiever in your hands, mate.” And, well, if that is one positive note in this mess, Lando will latch onto it greedily.
“And Evelyn? How is she?” His dad asks, once again saving him from the torturous process of picking words.
“Still in surgery. Evelyn hemorrhaged a couple more times during the procedure; it is unlucky but not an uncommon side effect when paired with the level of hypertension she has. She's lost about two litres of blood.”
“Fucking hell,” Lando says—and look, he's not particularly proud of those being his first words upon hearing about the birth of his child but it sums it up pretty well. He feels like an untethered kite, drifting aimlessly till five flavors of conflicting emotions take reins over his vocabulary. “That's not good, is it?”
“It is not ideal,” Sarah replies. Which, in his experience with media training, could mean a thesaurus worth of trouble. “The good news is, they are finishing up at the OT soon. She will feel rough for a couple of days but overall, things are looking up.”
Lando's not sure exactly what does it; the mounting adrenaline which had steadily reached a dangerous slope coming crashing down at the first glimpse of consolation not based on well wishes and manifestation alone– or the fact that he is running on virtually no sleep or food for the past fifteen hours.
But he's glad for it, when he slaps a hand over his mouth, knees buckling before his dad physically wrangles him towards the sanitization sink—at least he's somewhat functioning.
He braces his hands on the metal, heaving into the basin, but nothing comes out except the sting of bile behind his tongue. Lando closes his eyes and breathes, allowing himself this one thing, knowing he doesn't have time to cower. They've got this far, after all; would be a shame if he got cold feet now.
Lando turns to Sarah, all hesitation going down the drain as he finally enunciates the words begging to be freed, “Can I see my son?”
He thought it would be strange to say out loud, yet now that they have shared the same world for an hour, the notion comes with a sort of unsaid necessity that borders on frenzy.
Sarah picks up on it, smiling kindly, “Thought you'd never ask.”
As they walk towards the peds wards, the arid walls of the hospital taper off into brighter colors. They pass by a nursery with scattered toys, building blocks and painted animal caricatures keeping vigil over the unrestrained laughter spilling out. When Sarah halts before the pink double doors saying, “Here we are,” Lando thinks his impatience will get the better of him.
They have to stop and wash their hands first; Sarah assists him there, leaving his jacket on hooks and telling him to roll his sleeves up, doling out soap that smells of artificial strawberries. His dad lingers at the threshold like he's unsure what to do, but Lando asks the midwife to hand him the turquoise smocks, too. Call him the world's most pathetic man, but right now he cannot do this alone. His dad stares at him with an emotion Lando is too tired to comprehend, so he drops his gaze.
The world on the other side of the door is filled with whirring machines, mechanical beeps, and soft human voices — adult words and baby cries. Some areas are sectioned off with blue curtains for privacy, others are left open for anyone in the room to see. There are several clear cradles lining both sides of the room; most of them are empty but a few hold very small infants.
Sarah expertly navigates, leading them in front of the last clear cradle, nearest the row of high windows in the back of the room.
Lando's breath catches in his throat, and– he doesn’t actually know what he was expecting, really. Like this whole shitstorm was building up to some grand seismic event, but in reality it feels like jumping off a mountain only to land on clouds.
He's tiny, is the first thought Lando can make sense of — tiny and thin, dwarfed by the white knitted beanie on his head which smothers a lot of fair curls peeking out. There are tubes and wires taped to his red skin. Tubes and wires that run out the sides of the cradle to machines that tell Lando nothing he understands, but his baby is here and he's perfect.
"Hi, bubba," Lando whispers, his voice breaking over the endearment, and his dad runs his fingers up and down his arm soothingly, never releasing his hand from a tight grip. “Oh hello, my love. How are you?”
There are voices he vaguely realizes must be staff, but he's entirely too focused on the little boy squirming before him. He's never been more grateful to his dad more than the moment he releases Lando and handles the talking. All Lando's capable of doing is sitting in the cushioned chair next to the cradle and staring at this little person who has been at the center of a hurricane for so long in complete awe.
Their conversation fades into a nondescript background thrum as Lando watches his son stretch his thin legs, his tiny feet lashing out at invisible enemies, his little hands flapping about as he wriggles into a more comfortable position.
Lando doesn't know whether to laugh because he's here and whole, or to weep because Evelyn — his sunshine, the mother of his child — isn't. She's somewhere else in this labyrinth of a building, fighting for her life.
“Your mummy was so excited to see you first, you know?” he murmurs. “She should be here.”
"Soon," his dad replies, and Lando presumes the medical personnel have left them alone if he's back by his side again. “She's just as stubborn as you are.”
If Lando could spare a second to look up, he'd see nothing but unmistakable pride on the man's face, witnessing a sacred rite of passage. But he doesn't, because that's how it's going to be from now until forever — Lando can't look back. He needs to be that unshakable pillar now, standing between anything that tries to affect his heart beating outside his own body, his beautiful baby boy.
Lando does laugh at that, inhaling deeply to mask a sniffle; the fond caress on his cheek says he failed there too.
He reckons at some point he has to start using a proper name in place of ‘the baby’, but… hasn't Evelyn earned the right to call dibs? To say it first, the name they had selected together over weeks of bickering and poring over lists on the internet.
It's unfair that he gets the privilege but Lando hopes she won't mind.
He hears Sarah's giggle and then the woman is crouching next to him, taking his hand in hers. "Here. Say hello," she tells him and leads his hand into the cradle through a circle cut into the side.
He tenses and it must be obvious because his dad squeezes his shoulder again. "Hey, it's okay. You won't hurt him."
He looks at him and then at Sarah, and her smile is encouraging. "You're sure?"
"Positive. It is good for him, actually."
Hesitantly, Lando reaches into the cradle, nudging one very small hand with his finger. Almost instantly, tiny fingers cling to his large one with a grip that is astonishingly strong for someone so small.
"Whoa," Lando breathes, then, “Fuck… nice to meet you, Ezekiel."
Ezekiel makes a noise, his face scrunching up briefly while his free arm flails. His feet kick out for a moment just as he yawns and Lando feels as if his chest is an open wound, a tidal wave of primal protectiveness bleeding out for this precious boy.
“You don't really like it, huh?” He doesn’t try to blink back the tears anymore, letting them fall. “That's alright. We can figure something out when Mama wakes up.”
It's a strange concoction of sadness and relief; eight long months of walking on eggshells just to reach the only conclusion that's ever actually mattered. Lando smiles, stroking over the swell of the cutest puffy cheeks, the part the mask on his breather doesn't cover. “Dada loves you so much, Zeke. Welcome to the world.”
𝒏otes. ✰ i am so so sorry for making you guys go through this but i had this planned since the origin of this story. now, there will be a continuation to this covering their experiences as parents of an infant — aka more angst — but i hope this gave you guys a little insight on why baby Z was decidedly kept an only child. per usual, i'm thankful for any comments/likes/reblogs. talk to me about what you enjoyed about this 🫶
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