[RvB fic, Allison and Leonard Church, AU] Rosemary

simpleandsarcastic asked you:

YAY YOU’RE TAKING PROMPTS. Well this one has been in my head for a while. An AU where before she died, Leonard and Allison had just had their first child. Feel free to make me cry.

 [Okay so this doesn’t have that much of an ending, but in my defense I never expected it to get to be eight pages long. I’ll look at it and probably rewrite it later but wanted to post it for now.]

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            Leonard stared, flummoxed, at the infant cradled in Allison’s arms. He had spent so much time preparing for this, but it had been financial preparation. Practical preparation. He had spent no time at all preparing for what a baby would do to him emotionally. There hadn’t been time, Leonard reasoned, not with work and…and everything else.

            During the pregnancy, Allison had not gone into the weeping fits that Leonard associated with the women on TV shows  (these were the only other pregnant women he knew) – rather, she had actually gotten more and more furious. During her labor she was downright violent, the scale of which Leonard had rather expected but the unfortunate nursing staff had clearly not.

            Now, however, she was calm. Her dark auburn hair fell in short, choppy strands across her forehead as she looked at the baby. (Their baby, Leonard reminded himself.) And then suddenly she whipped her head up and glared at Leonard, who was seated beside the hospital bed.

            “Well?” she demanded.

            “W-well, what?” Leonard replied, startled. He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

            “Well, what do you think of your daughter, dipshit?” Allison snapped, raising the baby for him to see more clearly.

            Leonard blinked at both of them, then settled his eyes on the baby, who gazed back with focusless, dark blue eyes. She was a quiet child so far, much quieter than her mother. The doctor had been slightly worried about it at first but after a physical examination had pronounced her healthy – just a bit reserved.

            “She – uh, she has your eyes,” Leonard tried.

            Allison’s expression eased, and she laughed. “You better hope so. You don’t want this kid ending up with your dysfunctional excuses for eyes.”

            Leonard smiled ruefully as Allison brought the baby back close to her chest. “Definitely not,” he agreed.

            Allison smiled back at him for just a quick pause, just a flicker of a moment that they had every now and then. Over the years she’d taught him to recognize the meaning of that look, ensuring that she never had to tell it to him out loud.

            It meant I love you.

*

            Because she always chose everything (including him) and because he was okay with that, Allison was the one who chose their daughter’s name.

             “Rosemary,” she told him. “Stands for ‘memory.’”

            Later, Leonard would wonder if she’d had some premonition. If she’d somehow known.

            On the worst days, he would wonder if she’d planned it.