The rocks may melt and the seas may burn

[every_blossom_blooming]

When she finally extricated herself from the couch in Kaz and Inej's apartment, Nina had gone back to her own. She couldn't bring herself to go back to the cabin yet, though she was sure she should do... something. She drifted around her apartment, touching things left behind. There was too much of him here and not enough.

At some point after the sun had gone down, she found herself on the floor with the stupid owl mug that, in all its ridiculousness, had become Geralt's. The tears fell without notice now. She found her phone, vaguely aware that she had all but disappeared from the world since Geralt did. It had been days.

She sent a text to Frank.

Help me. He's gone.

Comments

[onebatch_twobatch]

"If you want me to come along, I will absolutely come along," Frank assured. He thought Nina's friend Inej might be a better choice, if only because she was someone Nina had known for years, someone that meant something to Nina outside of the context of Darrow.

He sipped the tea he'd brought over for himself.

"I think it's more important that you do what's right for you," he said softly. "Not to erase his presence. But because you're the one that's here, you're the one making the choices. I hate to keep comparing things to me and Maria, but you know--she had to make those choices because I just wasn't there. If she wanted to know if Frankie and Lisa were a boy or girl, if she was going to tell me, when, all that stuff. Because she was the one that was there, going through it. I don't know how different it would have been if I was there."

[every_blossom_blooming]

Nina huffed a weak laugh. "It wouldn't have been terribly different, I think, because hearing you talk, I know exactly who the boss was in your relationship and it wasn't you," she teased him.

She sighed and ran her hand over her belly. Her eyes widened briefly and she reached out to grab one of Frank's hands. She put it where her hand had been a moment ago, then moved it a little.

"Can you feel it?"

She felt the flutter inside her as the baby moved, then something a little sharper as it kicked.

"Right there?"

[onebatch_twobatch]

It took a moment of shifting. She'd done it once before, but he'd been a little hungover and a lot flustered at being caught out with Guy in his bed, the awkwardness of that whole morning. It was better this time, this quiet moment. He shifted his hand under hers and smiled gently.

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "Yeah, I feel it."

[every_blossom_blooming]

Nina just smiled down at her hand covering his covering the baby. She ignores the tears trying to well up. Geralt liked feeling the baby move. More than once he'd rested his head there and told her about the baby's heartbeat and what he could smell. Maybe someone else would've found that off-putting, but Nina liked it.

She took a shivering breath and let it go slowly.

"Oh, I might recruit you for a hand to hold when I actually have to give birth. I might break Inej's and Kaz won't let me touch him."

[onebatch_twobatch]

"I think Inej can take the grip," Frank assured, but only because he was pretty sure that if she wasn't allowed in that birthing suite she would break her way in. He'd met the girl after all, even if only in passing. She could take more than she looked like she ought to be able to.

"I'd be honored," he said, and leaned over to kiss her forehead.