Baby Blue
He knew it was foolish. Logic told him that he shouldn’t be bringing a child into the world when there was a war raging, but his complete adoration for Sophia told him that if she wanted a child, he couldn’t tell her no. They had been married for almost two years; it was socially acceptable for them to have a baby. People in the office kept shoving pictures of their children in his face, and he would turn to look at his redheaded wife, knowing that she was staring at him with her eyes wide and her lower lip pushed out in a pout. Sophia was was ready to be a mother, and he — well, he was busy pretending like his family wasn’t in danger every day. So far, he was doing a pretty good job. Amelia and Edgar still came over every Sunday for dinner, and both knew better than to bring up the war with him. Oliver was aware that he could lose Edgar any day to a mission for the Order or the Auror force, but he wasn’t focused on that. Edgar could — and would — protect himself. Mia had stepped back from the Auror force and taken a clerical job in the Ministry. As long as Edgar wasn’t caught on a mission for the Order, and the rest of family kept their heads down, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wouldn’t target the Bones. At least, this is what Oliver told himself at night when he couldn’t sleep for fear of the future. All they had to do was go about their daily lives, and they would be allowed to live. Right?
In the spring of 1979, Oliver finally gave in to Sophia’s pleading, and they began to try to conceive. By fall, they had succeeded. Months passed, Sophia began to show, and Oliver’s anxiety grew. His siblings and their significant others were thrilled; this would be the first Bones baby since Mia was born, and they were all excited to have a little light in the darkness of the war. Emmeline and Mia began spending ridiculous amounts of their paychecks on baby clothes, and Edgar and Cameron would argue over who would make the better uncle. Sophia’s family, while happy for the couple, were distinctly less excited; there were already more than ten Tubbs grandchildren fathered by her various brothers. Sophia, on the other hand, was lit up from the inside by the life growing within her. Oliver had always thought it was just a saying, but he found it to be the truth with his wife.
Oliver didn’t think about how he would be as a father. He planned with Sophia, bought and built baby furniture, purchased a few hundred diapers, and tried out a thousand names to find the right one. By the time June came, everything was ready for the baby, except for Oliver. Once in awhile, he would allow himself to wish that his father was still alive; even if his dad didn’t know the answers to all of the questions Oliver had, he would feel better being able to ask them. His biggest question, one he couldn’t ever tell anyone, was when would it feel real? It didn’t matter how often he glanced at the picture of the tiny baby growing in Sophia’s womb –– it still wasn’t real to him. It wasn’t real as he crossed off the days on his calendar (Sophia’s due date marked with a huge circle), it wasn’t real when Mia gave him a shirt that read “I’m the dad”, and it wasn’t real when Sophia woke him up early in the morning on June 9th. It wasn’t real until the midwife handed him a small screaming bundle, and he looked down into the dark blue eyes of his tiny daughter. Her name was Susan, her eyes would lighten to the same shade as his own, and she was the most real thing he had ever helped bring into the world. It didn’t matter that there was a war going on — Oliver would never let anything touch her.