every_blossom_blooming | Don't you see that lonesome dove sitting on an ivy tree

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Don't you see that lonesome dove sitting on an ivy tree

Nina sat at a booth near the back of the bar, staring at the bottle of liquor on the table. A glass sat next to it, though she hadn't touched either just yet. She wasn't even sure how long she'd been sitting there anymore.

It had been a day or two since Geralt disappeared. Maybe two, now, she thought. She'd spent the first day on the floor of Kaz and Inej's apartment, and she'd managed to leave, but she wasn't sure where to go or what to do with herself. And that was probably how she found herself in a bar, sitting in front of a bottle that she'd like very much to drown in. Her eyes were still red-rimmed from crying, her hair limp from the lack of a shower in the last few days.

She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts, barely focused as the tears threatened to overflow again.

Come sit with me? I'm at Tintern.

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"Yeah," he answers easily. There's nowhere else he's expected and even if he were, it's nothing a quick text wouldn't solve. There's no one waiting for him. He and Spike aren't exactly the sort to make plans, they sort of just fall into the same places at the right times.

It's better that they're not the kind to make plans. He doesn't want investigate that or dwell on what he wants or all the pointless shit he's been thinking lately. None of it's the sort of stuff he can allow to matter.

"Yeah, I can stay," he says. "You think you got a space big enough for me?"

"The bed might just work if you don't mind propping up on pillows or if you have the tendency to curl your legs when you sleep," she said with a little smile. It's a king bed, but Sweeney's just a little too tall for it's length, she's certain of that.

She found her keys as they neared the building and she looked up at him.

"You really don't mind?" she asked, a bit quieter.

"I really don't mind," he answers and leaves it at that. There's no sense in qualifying that, in telling her there's nowhere else he has to be and no one else expecting him. Even if there were, he'd stay with her. She needs him and he's not always good at being needed, but he'll be damned if he leaves her at a time like this.

"Long as you don't," he adds. "You might change your mind after havin' to spend just a single night with me."

He doesn't have the slightest fucking clue how it is Spike puts up with him. They have weird, differing schedules, and still manage to spend some of their nights together.

"You might change your mind," she said airily. "I might kick. Or what if I say unladylike things in my sleep? What if I bite?"

There had been a time that Nina took the stairs on a whim. Now, she headed straight for the elevator. With a soft sigh she leaned against the back wall and rested her arm across her belly.

"Did you see the way people were looking at me?" she asked with a grin, her eyes closed for a moment. "In the bar? Saints, I'm impressed no one tried to say something. The bar tender looked ready to call the police or something when I asked for the whole bottle."

"As if you're not already used to people starin' at you all the bloody time," Sweeney replies, following her onto the elevator. "You're an eyeful, darlin'."

And she knows it, too, he knows she knows it and the way he looks at her says as much. Maybe it's a different sort of state, but he's sure she'd endured worse than that, too.

"And if you bite in your sleep, it still won't be the sharpest bite I've had this week," he adds. "Bet you won't even draw blood."

Nina rolled her eyes but a smirk tugged at her mouth. Sweeney wasn't wrong, after all: she was used to people looking at her, especially when she wanted them to.

"You don't know. Maybe all grisha are secretly demons." But she bared her quite human teeth at him and she knew he was right. She'd have to bite hard and mean it to draw blood on anyone. "You'll be a husk by the end of the night. Grrr."

Sweeney is pretty sure if the vampire doesn't drain him down to nothing, then Nina won't be able to do it either, but he only grins and rolls his big shoulders in a shrug. "At least I already know I'd die happy," he teases.

It's not far off. Nina's something else, something special, even if he'll not say it, and that's not to say Spike's not special, just that it started somewhere else. And it'll end somewhere else, too. But what he knows of himself from Spike is that being drained of blood isn't such a terrible thing.

"You know, I've not really asked how you've been since your coin's come back. I just sort of assumed everything's been ducky."

She heard someone say that - ducky - and she'd picked it up. Nina let them into her apartment, grateful that Inej had been by to help her clean recently, and to quietly put away Geralt's things in a closet, until she was ready to deal with them. It was cozy as ever, plush and homey. It was easier to nest here in the winter, and if she was honest with herself, she wasn't sure she could bring herself to sleep in the cabin alone. She didn't know what she'd do with it now.

"Which, knowing you, maybe isn't the best assumption to make," she said with a coy little smile.

"Luck's back with a vengeance," he says and that counts for a hell of a lot. Most days, he coasts through, no longer having to worry about even the smallest things. If something bad is coming in his direction, it's diverted somehow, and good things tend to find him instead. They tend to find the people who leave offerings for him, too, at least for the time being. Until he gets bored of that.

"You ever want to play a round of roulette and take home a hefty prize, you just call me," he answers.

That's not really the question she asked, but he doesn't know how else to properly answer. Trying to explain the ways in which Darrow is proving a hell of a lot more interesting than what he'd come from feels like an especially shitty thing to do in a moment like this.

Nina rolled her eyes and gave Sweeney a little push. "I know a stupid boy that would do anything for a promise like that." She combed her fingers through her hair and started to work it into a loose braid. She needed to wash it.

"I wouldn't mind a little luck in a few months," she said with a wry smile. "I'm getting to the point where the end is sort of in sight, and I realize that worrying about carrying the baby is over and worrying about having the baby is starting."

"Go," he says, nodding toward the couch when she starts to braid her hair. "Sit your ass down and let me."

One of the many, many things he's learned over the years, although where he learned it, he's not sure he remembers. Maybe it was even in Ireland, before he was a bird, when his mother was still alive. There's a faint, blurred memory of his hands, still small, working through waves of thick red hair, pulling it back and away from a strong featured face. Or one of the women in the years that followed, maybe even Bast. It's been too long. He can never be sure.

"You'll manage it," he says. "The havin' it part. He may not be here anymore, but there's someone to come in the room with you. Doctors and nurses and all the safe shit they've got these days. You'll hurt, but you'll manage even without my luck."

Which isn't the say he won't still give it.

Nina stuck her tongue out at him, but did as he asked. She ran her fingers through her hair one more time before she stayed still to let Sweeney have at it.

"Watch yourself or you'll find yourself recruited to hold my hand," she warned. "Do you have strong feelings about that kind of thing? Men being present when babies are born, I mean. Not with me, just in general."

She was curious. She'd met men that looked like they'd faint the moment their woman's water broke, and others yet that thought it was taboo or just bad luck, or that it was a woman's thing. It made her wonder.

He begins to braid, pulling Nina's thick hair over her shoulder, separating the strands before he starts to work with it.

"Thoughts have changed so much over the years," he says. "About nearly everything, men being present for childbirth included. Gone one way and then back again more times than I can count. When my parents were king and queen, I don't think anyone really gave a shit. He was there when I was born, far as I was ever told."

He's not bothered by it himself. He's seen too much to be offended by the nature of it all.

Nina smiled faintly as she listened. It felt rather nice to have someone taking care of her hair. "We'll see how I feel when the time comes, I suppose."

She knew she didn't want to be alone, but that was the extent of it.

"Part of me thought about doing a home birth, but-- I don't know. Maybe I'd feel better if there are doctors nearby."

She wrinkled her nose a bit and resisted the urge to lean back into Sweeney - not yet, not while he was still working.

"Doctors aren't far away, if you want the best of both worlds," Sweeney answers with a shrug. "And you're young anyway, it'll be simpler for you now than it would be even five years from now. Doctors told you there's anything to worry about?"

He probably doesn't need to say it, but he's not a big fan of hospitals. They ask too many questions about men like him and it's just best to avoid doctors as often as he can. If Nina wants a home birth, he thinks she ought to do it.

He finishes the braid and ties it off, laying her hair against her back and giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze to indicate he's done.

"No, so far everything seems fine to them. And I can't feel anything wrong."

It's both strange and a little bit comforting to be able to check on her baby the way she'd check on any other patience. Its heartbeat, the way it moves, little growth spurts. Nina scoots back more until she can lean into Sweeney, mostly because it feels good not to sit up straight. She smooths her hand over her belly and looks down when she feels a little kick. A smile tugs her mouth.

"There you are," she murmurs to the baby. "Do you want to feel it?" she asks Sweeney.

It's a bad idea, he knows, letting himself get attached, but he seems to keep doing it and so when Nina asks if he wants to feel the baby, he holds his hand out toward her. She can place it where she likes, where he's most likely to feel movement, and all the while he thinks he ought to get out of here.

But that remains the obstacle at the end of each day. There's nowhere for him to go. He can't get out of Darrow itself and so, no matter how many flats he leaves, no matter how many conversations he refuses to have, he's still here. And no one can live without any human connection.

She moves Sweeney's hand until it's over a little flutter of movement. His hand is huge and it makes her smile. She's quiet for a moment, listening to Sweeney's big heart behind her and the tiny little heart inside her.

"Will you stay? Even if it's just til I fall asleep. I won't keep you if you've somewhere you need to go, but-- the company would be nice."

She'd gotten used to sleeping next to someone, and maybe she needs to get used to being alone again but it still feels new and lonely.

With a shake of his head, he dismisses the idea that there's anywhere else he needs to be. Whatever they're doing, he and Spike are shit at making plans, and if he doesn't text or show up, it won't be a complete surprise. They spend nights together, but they spend them apart, too, and neither asks the other what they've been doing.

This is beyond innocent anyway.

He's focusing on that movement, though, the press and shift he can feel just beyond Nina's skin.

"I'll stay," he says. Then, in a lower voice, to the baby, he adds, "Bealtaine airm láidre agat. Tá claonadh aireach ort. Ádh mór chun tú a charm."

"Sounds like Kaelish," she murmurs, smiling. "Something about strength and luck?"

The language reminds her of better days, all of which feel long ago and far away now. Geralt had told her she's done far too much living for a girl her age, in the same breath knowing sometimes it couldn't be helped. Nina sniffs, intent on avoiding any more tears tonight. She can't cry herself into a husk.

"Somethin' like that," he agrees, not wanting to translate it directly. It's bad enough when people know all the soft spots he hides without him giving them a direct line to them with his words.

It would've been better for him to say nothing at all. But if there's one person in this goddamn city to give the child a proper Irish blessing, he's the one to do it.

"I'll take it." Nina smiles and carefully tries to get herself off the couch without looking too ridiculous. She can't imagine getting bigger than she is now, but she knows it's coming. She offers Sweeney her hand.

"Come on. Let's fall into bed and pretend everything is alright."

If he were a different sort of asshole, he knows he's take advantage of this, of her state, of the situation. And Mad Sweeney might be a piece of shit, but he's not that piece of shit. Nina doesn't need some asshole trying to get his hands on her when all she needs is some fucking comfort.

Besides which, he hasn't put his hands on anyone but Spike in awhile. Which it its own bit of fucked up trouble.

"Everything's alright enough," he says. "Or it will be eventually. It's the way of the world, lass, the good and bad balance out in the end. Like the wind, it's always changing."

Nina drifts back to the bedroom. She's pushed evidence of Geralt to the margins, or into the closet. She doesn't know what to do with most of what's been left behind, even if there isn't much of it to start with.

She remembers to kick her flats off and sits on the edge of the bed, feeling the weight of her pregnancy again. It was easy to think about when she had a partner. She knows she won't have to do this alone, but it's still different. She puts a smile on.

"I'll try not to kick you terribly. And no one's ever complained about me talking in my sleep or snoring, so you'll not have that either."

Nina thinks, for a moment, that she's talking to much. But she isn't exactly trying to seduce Sweeney or she'd be wearing something much nicer and she certainly would have washed her hair. She probably should do that anyway, but all she wants tonight is to feel someone breathing next to her, and to listen to a heart much older than hers.

"C'mon now," he coaches gently as he kicks off his boots. "Into bed, stop apologizing for things you haven't done."

He goes around to the other side as he speaks, pushing back the covers and stretching out, his hands behind his head. He's still fully clothed, but Sweeney has slept in clothes more often than he's slept in his altogether, so it's not even something he notices. His feet hang off the end, but that's to be expected.

"Lie back, lass," he says. "I'll put out the light."

Don't you see that lonesome dove sitting on an ivy tree

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