Archive of Our Own ^beta

Week Six

“I’m pregnant.”

Nobara doesn’t hold back or take her time to get to the point – that would be pointless. She feels as if the whole world already knows and she hasn’t told a soul, but at least this one will know of her own accord. The words are out as soon as the door is open and it seems like an eternal moment after that before Utahime manages to say anything.

“You haven’t told Yuji,” she guesses.

Nobara shakes her head. They both know that she wouldn’t be here if she weren’t desperate for someone else to tell, and she wonders if Utahime knows why she’d come to her – knows she needs to tell her secret to someone who’s faced down the same formless dread that’s pulsing behind her ribcage now and won.

She doesn’t even really know what she’d planned to say. There really aren’t any proper words yet and she doubts she’d be able to say them if there were, shocked as she still is. It’s been weeks since she begun to suspect, but she’d been able to tell herself it wasn’t real until she’d held in her hands the incontrovertible proof that it was. And now that she can’t, she’s too dumbstruck to speak.

“I’m pregnant,” she repeats, hollow.

She spends half an hour wrapped in a worn blanket at the kitchen table, silent as Utahime directs her children’s prying eyes elsewhere. I could never do that, she can’t help but think, watching her crouch beside her youngest son, saying something that has him nodding; I could never be that.

Nobara had come here to talk, but she’s relieved when Utahime doesn’t ask her to say anything at all.

**

It’s kind of a trend by now, this silence. Nobara just can’t find words, and she learns to live with that. It isn’t as if she needs them.

Yuji knows something is wrong before he sees her, because he always does, and she feels his warm, broad hand against the blanket she’s pulled around her shoulders before she hears him approach. She’s crying and she knows he knows it, but he doesn’t ask questions – she hates them, and he knows they make her want to pull herself closed again – so, save for the rustle of clothes as he crouches beside her chair, she hears nothing from him for what she counts as a minute and a half.

She’s taken to counting seconds, and she doesn’t know how she let so many get away from her.

“Princess,” he says gently, “tell me what’s wrong.”

He knows she’ll dodge it if he phrases it as a question. It’s a good tactic. And she doesn’t have the energy for evasion, so she reaches out her hand and uncurls her fingers, clasped so tightly around the plastic stick that it’s got condensation marks on its surface where the gaps between her fingers had been. She feels him take it from her hand, and there’s a sharp catch in his breathing that lets her know he’s realized what it means.

“You’re upset,” he says, careful not to betray any emotion.

She’s…not sure what she’d call herself between panicked, despondent, and ashamed, and she feels all three more acutely for the knowledge that he’s probably not feeling any of them. “I’m…I’m sorry,” she says softly, and now what she’s feeling leans solidly towards shame.

Yuji tilts his head. “Why?”

Of course that would be his question, why?, as if there’s ever even been one. Why. What a thing to ask when they’ve never even spoken about children, when they both know she’d be a disgrace of a mother, when she cannot shake the feeling that it’s her fault. She’d always been the spur-of-the-moment one who’d never thought about the future, and now that it’s staring her in the face, it’s heavier than she could’ve imagined.

And all because of her.

“I…you…”

“’Bara-“

“I’m…we never…talked about this.” She digs the heel of her hand into her forehead. “It…I…we’re broke and we have no idea what we’re doing and” – Nobara pauses, waiting for Yuji to cut her off, but he doesn’t – “way too young and…and I don’t know how and it’s….it’s my fault-“

“It’s not.”

“Yuji-“

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Nobara. How can anyone be at fault?”

She finally looks up, pawing at her watery eyes in a vain attempt to clear them. Yuji sees through it and his fingers wrap around her wrist, gently taking her hand from her face and setting it back down in her lap.

“We can’t be parents,” she says, looking down again. “We…everything about this came out of nowhere.”

“It’s…sudden, but-“

“What would we even do with a baby? We can barely handle ourselves!”

Yuji pauses for a moment, sinking back on his heels, and he doesn’t seem to know what to say, either. Nobara’s throat closes – of course he doesn’t. That’s about as bad a sign as she could get, because Yuji’s the positive one of the two of them, the one who’s up for anything, the one who loves children, the one who always finds something to say, even if it’s stupid – if her Yuji is speechless, there really is nothing to be said.

“We’ll figure something out,” he finally says, voice soft. “We always do.”

It’s not comforting without a concrete plan, but it’s hope, at least. He wants to try. He isn’t angry, at least.

“How?”

“Figure it out as we go? Isn’t that what everyone’s parents do?”

Nobara laughs shortly. “Figure it out as we go.”

“Yeah!” Yuji tips his face up towards hers with a smile. “Exactly.”

“Yuji, do you realize how big of a deal this is?”

“Of course.”

“So why aren’t you freaking out?!?”

“I mean, no point, right? Not gonna solve anything.” True, but she’d rather not hear that now.

Of course he’s cool and collected. Figures.

“You’re…not scared?”

“Honestly? I don’t even think it’s sunk in yet.”

Well, that’s fair enough. He’s not the one whose stomach started to twist two weeks ago at a missed period and then rebel against every bite she tried to eat for the remainder of the time between then and now. “Right. Sorry.”

“Princess. Stop apologizing.”

She goes quiet at that, because the next words she says doubtless won’t obey if she doesn’t.

**

“Nobara.”

It’s late, and they’ve been silent beside each other for too long when Yuji finally speaks up. She turns to face him. “Yeah?”

“We’re going to make this work.” He’d said that earlier but apparently thinks it bears repeating. “Okay? I’ll take on as many extra missions as they’ll let me. We’ll find people to help us out. I’ll read a parenting book-“

“You, reading? Hilarious.”

“No, really!” Yuji sits up, taking her hands so she’s pulled upright with him, and he’s smiling – really smiling, the ear-to-ear kind that makes him look younger than he is – when he meets her eyes. He looks like he might laugh, and Nobara doesn’t know whether to feel kicked or relieved. “I will! Even one of the long ones!”

“Yuji-“

“Nobara.” He pulls her close enough to press his forehead to hers. “We’re gonna have a baby.”

She pulls back a little and plays with the hem of her tank top, its fabric stretched thin where she pulls at it when she’s worried. “You…seem excited.”

“I am, ‘Bara.”

“You’re supposed to be scared,” she says quietly. “You’re supposed to be thinking about all the reasons this is a really bad idea.”

“Am I?” Yuji asks, pulling back so he can look her in the eyes.

“Well, obviously, you can’t just bring a whole kid into the world without thinking-“

“Scared is normal,” he tells her. “But…we don’t have to only think about the bad parts.”

“But it’s impractical-“

“Sure. But so was us getting married, wasn’t it?” Yuji’s nose crinkles when he smiles. “And look how good that turned out.”

Nobara grumbles something contrary under her breath.

“Anyone with sense woulda thought we’d make each other miserable, right? We were too young and broke and rushing into things and all the same stuff you said earlier but…” he looks at her knowingly. “We’re happy, right?”

Nobara nods. It’s easy to lose sight of now, but she is happy. Sure, their apartment is cheap as they come and their collective agony during tax season is unparalleled by anything in this world – not to mention that half of their appliances barely work. But they are happy, in the mornings when Nobara wakes pinned under one of Yuji’s limbs because he’d been unwilling to let her get too far, in the evenings where he kisses her hello after she returns from work, on the free weekends they spend getting up to mischief, late at night when they lie awake covered only by a single sheet and talk for hours. She loves it all – loves him, loves his sleepy ‘hi, princess’ in the mornings, loves the senseless choice she made. Yes, it was stupid by every mature standard but no, she wouldn’t ever say she regretted it.

“We’re…happy,” she says, her throat dry.

“I’m…not saying you’re not right to be scared. I mean…growing life…that’s gotta be kinda gnarly.”

She crosses her arms.

“In a good way,” he corrects himself. “Like. The cool kind-“

“Please quit while you’re ahead.”

“It’s just that…” he gives her a lopsided smile. “I like kids. I…never said I didn’t want them.”

“Which means that you did, or that you’re not opposed?”

“I…wanted them if you did,” he admits. “But I guess it…never came up.”

“Oh.” She wishes she’d known that before she’d gone and assumed he was upset with her. “So you…you’re happy.”

“Well…”

“’Well’ what?”

“I love you,” he says plainly. “And we…didn’t exactly plan it, but I made a baby with you.” He presses his forehead to hers again; she can feel his smile only an inch or two from her face. “So yeah, I’m excited. I mean, you’re right – we have every reason to be freaking out, but you know what I’m thinking?”

She cracks the smallest of times. “That I’d look hot with a bump and swollen ankles?”

“Well, I mean, you prob’ly will, but I wasn’t thinking that.”

“Oh?”

“I was just thinking that…that I never got to have a family when I was younger.” His hands find hers without him having to look for them. “And I get to make a family with you. And that’s…that’s pretty cool.”

Family is admittedly not the word that comes to mind when Nobara thinks about the circumstances in which they’ve found themselves – panic and terror, maybe, or impractical, or disastrous, but never that. Never a word so stable and domestic and soft as family – never, when family had been none of those things to her, or anything at all but a stifling world of misunderstandings to escape. When she tries to picture it – their already-scatterbrained lives with a baby’s cries as a backing track – she doesn’t see sweetness, or contentment, or peace.

But Yuji does, and that’s worth something.

“Oh,” she says after a moment. “I…I see.”

“I know you’re probably still freaking out-“

“I am.”

“That’s okay. But…just something to think about.” He leans in to kiss her forehead. “And I’ll do whatever I have to, ‘kay?”

That, at least, she’s never doubted.

**

Week 12

They get used to the idea, eventually, but not always to the reality. Especially not when nausea means days off of work, and boredom, and time to sit around, weakening and worrying – that does no one, least of all Nobara, any good.

He does what he can, to his credit. The barely-working fridge is full of chicken broth and he’ll sit with her, propping her up so she doesn’t have to support her own weight as she tries to drink from a heavy thermos. It helps, sometimes, but after three months Nobara is thinner than she has been since high school, and she doesn’t miss the way Yuji’s eyes follow her everywhere she goes when they’re home together. She knows without being told that he’s looking for some kind of sign that things are improving, but they don’t.

It’s the same story every day: she tries to keep food down and can’t; she grows thinner when she shouldn’t; she’s come around to the idea of a baby but it’s hard to be excited like this. A day turns into two, two to a week – it’s not very long before people are starting to wonder, and it’s not really surprising when Nobara opens her door, bleary-eyed just after Yuji’s left for work, and finds Maki standing on the porch, arms crossed.

“Are you dying?” She asks flatly, which Nobara is decently but not entirely sure she knows she isn’t.

“No, surprisingly.”

Maki takes that as her cue to invite herself in, nudging the door open with her shoulder and circling to the couch. “Then would you care to explain why you’ve been MIA for a week and a half?”

Nobara’s kind of touched that Maki had noticed, but, upon further thought, it’s not surprising considering they’d had…some assignment together. She can’t remember what, though – she barely even remembers what she does for a living after a week and a half of the kind of morning sickness that keeps her in bed until three most days. It’ll probably be obvious that something is off, so it’s best to rip off the band-aid. “’m pregnant.”

Maki looks like she’s going to say something, then closes her mouth. She studies Nobara warily, then looks down at the floor, then finally manages to meet Nobara’s eyes again.

“Well,” she finally manages to choke out, “that wasn’t what I thought you were going to say.”

Nobara shrugs. “Me neither, if you’d asked me three months ago.”

Maki’s silent again after that, hands planted against her knees, leaning forwards. Then she looks back up at Nobara. “When’d that happen?”

“You really wanna know?”

“I know you know I didn’t mean it like that.”

Nobara huffs. “Found out, like, two, three weeks ago?”

“And you’re out of the field for…how long?”

“Wish I knew.”

“Hm.” Maki’s not the type to ask how she feels about any of this, and Nobara is grateful for that. “Guess that means I’m gonna need to find a backup partner for that Hokkaido mission, then.”

“Sorry.” Nobara sinks back against the couch cushions. “Wish I could go, but-“

“Not safe?”

“No, I’ve just been way too sick to be working.” Nobara sighs, tracing a pattern in the worn plush of the couch. “Actually lost some weight. That’s not supposed to be happening.”

“Uh. Shouldn’t you get that looked at?”

“Do I look like I know what I’m doing, Maki?”

“Just saying.” Maki shakes her head. “At least google it.”

“Wow. I’m touched.”

Maki gives her an irritated look that doesn’t last long, then glances down at her lap. “Didn’t know you two wanted kids.”

“Isn’t that kind of invasive?”

Maki gives her another look – Nobara knows by now that their friendship is like this. Both of them tend to ignore the rules that govern polite society and they like it fine that way. “Just wondered.”

“It…wasn’t planned.” Some defensive urge in her doesn’t want to give Maki the impression that she doesn’t want her baby, even though she hadn’t asked for one. “That…doesn’t mean we…we don’t want it.”

“Ah. That makes more sense.”

Nobara stiffens. “You don’t have to tell me it’s a bad idea.”

“Wasn’t gonna.”

“You weren’t?” Nobara raises her eyebrows. “Color me shocked.”

“I mean…not my business what you two do with your lives.” She rolls her eyes. “Unless you’re being stupid and not taking care of yourself. Then I get to tell you what to do.”

(She calls as soon as Maki leaves.)

**

Fourteen Weeks

The hospital, apparently, hadn’t wanted Nobara, and that had been good enough for her. Not so for Yuji.

“You look pale,” he comments. “When was the last-“

“You saw me eat a piece of toast an hour ago,” she interrupts him.

This is true, and that is that. He still frowns, though. “So you’re feeling a little better?”

“Little.” She’s not as sick as she had been, which barely feels like an improvement even though it’s actually a significant one. “’m okay, though.”

He studies her across the table. “You going in this morning, then?”

“I mean, no reason not to.” Except for the depth of her hatred for desk work, but they need the money and she needs to get out of the house and if she starts feeling sick at work it won’t be a problem when she’s sitting around anyways. This is supposed to be a temporary setup – maternity leave is tricky in a job like hers - but she thinks it might be a little more permanent than she likes, and that isn’t going to be good for anyone. “So yeah, I guess.”

“How are you liking-“

She silences him with a look that leaves no room for questions.

“Right.” Yuji nods, then shrugs apologetically. “Sorry, princess.”

“Meh. Better than being unemployed for nine months.” More like seven and a half. Whatever. “And they let me do whatever I want as long as I get my paperwork in on time.”

Paperwork: never Nobara’s favorite part of her job to begin with, and an absolute nightmare when it means deciphering Okkotsu’s chicken-scratch field notes and putting them into words that might, to someone important, make more sense than his own. Well. Not even just Okkotsu’s – even her own husband’s, sometimes (and that just feels insulting), Todo’s (the worst of them all), Tsukumo’s (serviceable but impossibly lazy); God only knows Gojo won’t do his own paperwork. It’s shocking how many jujutsu sorcerers are perfectly willing to foist the work of writing up their field reports onto a poor, sick, frightened expectant mother who-

“Oh, that’s not so bad,” Yuji comments. “You can just watch your reality shows or something.”

K-dramas, actually. She saves her reality shows to watch with Yuji when he has time in the evenings.

She thinks it still fits, though: how cruel of them all, throwing their indecipherable notes and mundane responsibilities at a poor, sick, frightened expectant mother who just wants to watch her damn K-drama in peace, Todo, have you ever filed a report in your damn life?

“You make it sound easy,” she huffs, pouting. “It sucks.”

“Oh, no, it definitely sucks. Just…has perks.”

“Like K-dramas.”

“Oh, not reality shows?”

“You know those are for you.” Ridiculous of him to think her rollercoaster hormones would let her watch The Bachelor without bursting into tears because that’s Yuji’s show and it’s only for Husband Time and he wasn’t there to wrap her up in a nest of blankets and feed her snacks. “No. Just K-dramas.”

“I mean, the perk I was referring to was you being safe, but…I guess?”

“Oh.” Nobara wouldn’t really call that a perk. No one goes into her line of work because they want safety, and she hates that Yuji is the only one risking his life every workday nowadays. “Right.”

“I know you miss it-“

“But it’s ‘for the best’?” Nobara makes a face. “Right. Sure.”

“I mean, it is-“

“I know why I’m doing this, Yuji.” It’s the only reason she’s willing to. “That doesn’t mean I like sitting around decoding your field notes like…like some glorified secretary-“

“Wait, you’re the one who does my reports?”

“Itadori Yuji!”

“Wait, I didn’t know-“

“Who did you think-“

“Um…I kinda thought we hired people for that?”

“And they all quit because the pay is terrible and the clients suck, so yes, we do, and yes, it’s still all me.” Never put it past the jujutsu higher-ups to take every possible advantage of a sorcerer without a choice.

“Oh.” Yuji looks chastened. “’m sorry.”

Nobara would say something biting to that, usually, but right now she’s just too tired, and she drops her chin heavily against her palm with a sigh. “I mean, it’s keeping a roof over our heads,” she says listlessly. “Gotta deal with it.”

The Itadori Nobara of four months ago would never have imagined feeling so resigned, but she’s quickly learning that there are concessions to make when it comes to growing life that she has to suck up. Months of illness were one; Yuji’s long hours and constant absences are another, and so is this temporary desk job. She’s not happy about it, but it’s the hand she’s been dealt, and – stubborn as she is – she knows when things are unavoidable.

She can only hope that the older women who are forever fawning over her at the office are right when they say it’ll all be worth it.

**

Sixteen Weeks

It’s expected and yet somehow the most jarring sight in the world once Yuji starts to notice the beginnings of a bump beneath Nobara’s oversized hoodie.

It’s barely there – apparently she’s a little late to start showing – but once he notices, it’s all he can see. And he wonders where that came from, when their new reality stopped being an abstract concept and started being a little swell he can seen through his wife’s clothes if he looks at her from the right angle. She asks, once, when she catches him staring; there’s really nothing to do but admit it.

“You’re kinda showing,” he says faintly, praying to every deity he’s ever heard of and some he probably hasn’t that she won’t take that as an insult.

“Oh. Right.” She looks down, then lifts her sweater to show him. “Yeah. For a week or two, so…guess I look like this now.”

Seeing the much-more-obvious swell of her abdomen now that it’s bare, Yuji finds it less alarming that he can see the evidence of her pregnancy so clearly now than it is that it’s taken him this long. Normally it never would’ve taken him two weeks to notice, but – he realizes now that he does – it’s been a long time since he’s seen her without a shirt.

That is very alarming indeed.

It’s not even just the lack of…certain types of quality time spent together, which he imagines is to be expected since she’s just now starting to pass morning sickness by. Even without it, they usually change together at least once a day, or share the shower, and Nobara sometimes sleeps in her sports bra – he should have been able to tell as soon as there had been something to notice. But lately he’s been leaving early and coming home late; she showers and changes without him; they’re headed into the latter half of the autumn, and she’s always covered up against the cold.

And now she looks pregnant and he wonders how he’d let that escape his notice.

“Can I?”

Nobara tilts her head curiously. “Touch it? You don’t have to ask.”

“I…wanted to make sure?” Yuji can think of few transgressions more offensive to an already-volatile Nobara than such a brazen intrusion into her personal space. “I just…wanted to see.”

Nobara swallows hard, then nods, and he’s pretty sure her eyes close for a second when he kneels at her feet and takes the wadded-up fabric of her shirt in his own hands and lays it back down over her belly. “Go ahead.”

Yuji is silent as he smooths the shirt down as carefully as he can, pulling it taut to see if the outline of her bump is visible beneath clothes. It is – he runs his hand along the outline, fascinated, feeling the firm ridge between her hipbone and the beginning of its upward curve, and she murmurs something that could be contentment or surprise or something else.

“That’s a baby,”  he murmurs, as if he has to say the words to believe them.

Wordlessly, Nobara nods, and takes his hand away from her belly so she can lift her shirt again. Then she sets his hand back where it had been at the juncture of her hip and thigh, and molds it to the little bulge beneath the spot. “There,” she tells him, though even she isn’t sure if she’s referring to herself or the baby. “Feel.”

He does, for a moment, silent and unmoving, before he leans his forehead against the upper half of her belly and uses his free hand to stroke the outline of the other side. Kneeling like this is uncomfortable, but that discomfort is barely a thought in his mind – he really can’t think of anything but Nobara, moreso even than he thinks of the baby, and when he looks back up at her, he wouldn’t be surprised if she found tears in his eyes.

“You like that,” she says aimlessly, though it’s a pointless observation. “Being able to see it.”

He doesn’t say anything, only gets to his feet and takes both of her hands in his own.

“Yuji?” She asks again, but he gently unfurls her clenched hands and sets them both against the sides of her stomach beneath his own instead of answering.

“Yuji,” she says again, hoarsely, “please say something.”

His face spreads into a smile, long and slow, and she supposes she shouldn’t be as surprised as she is when he lifts her chin and kisses her.

**

“I was waiting for you to notice.”

Nobara hadn’t been sure if she should mention that – it isn’t Yuji’s fault that he hasn’t been able to spend much time doing anything but working lately. It’s not anyone’s preference, but it’s about the only way to avoid financial ruin with a baby in the picture, and she’s grateful. She really is. But sometimes she notices the little changes in her body that he hasn’t yet, and she wishes she could tell him how much she wants him to notice them, too.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, helping her settle against the couch cushions. “I’m sorry, ‘Bara, I am-“

“It’s okay.” She could have told him, after all. She’d just wanted him to notice for himself, wanted to know he still looked at her, wanted to know he knew her body well enough to see when it had changed. “I…it isn’t your fault.”

He braces one arm against the edge of the couch so he can hold herself up over her, and when his free hand reaches to cup her cheek, she ducks into his touch like she’s trying to hide in it. Amazing, how much she chases every contact she can get these days. “I’m gonna fix that,” he tells her. “I’m gonna notice next time something changes-“

“It’s okay, Yuji. You don’t-“

“Routine inspections.” He smiles down at her. “I’m gonna start looking.”

“Oh, really.” Nobara can’t help but smile back. “You are?”

“Mmhm.” He nods eagerly. “I’m going to check. Then I won’t miss stuff like this, even if…if…”

“Even if?”

“I’m…not around as much as I should be.”

She’s tried to assuage his guilt a thousand times but it never works. “You’re doing the best you can, Yuji.”

“You know what I realized earlier?”

“Hm?”

“I haven’t seen you with your shirt off in, like, two months.”

“I was sick, Yuji. I probably would have made you sleep on the couch if you’d tried anything.”

“No, but…normally I’d see that all the time. But when was the last time I saw you getting ready in the morning?” his face falls. “You’re always still asleep when I leave. And I haven’t seen you after a shower because I’m never home then, either, and…I missed it.” He sighs. “How did I miss it?”

“Look, no, it’s not what either of us wants, but…I’m not upset.” Nobara had thought pregnancy would make her even less patient than she had been before, but it’s had a surprisingly different effect. “And it wouldn’t be fair for me to blame you for that when I can’t pull my weight.”

“What do you mean, can’t pull your own weight?” Yuji asks, narrowing his eyes. “Just because you can’t be in the field-“

“You’re running yourself into the ground while I sit at a desk, Yuji!”

“Yeah, because you’re pregnant-“

“And completely useless!”

She freezes, then, deer-in-headlights startled, and Yuji gapes at her without the foggiest idea of how to reply. He’s so good at reassuring her, normally, but now he seems totally tongue-tied – figures. He can’t very well refute that.

Except that he tries to.

“There’s nothing useless about needing to be out of the field.”

“I’m not even good at paperwork-“

“But you’re making a person, ‘Bara.” He touches her cheek with the back of his hand, and she cracks one eye open for a few seconds before closing it again. “That’s not being useless.”

“Tell that to the stupid Jujutsu Council-“

“They’re idiots.”

“Well, yeah, but in this case-“

“They’re bigger idiots. Do you wanna know what I was thinking just now when I realized I could actually tell that you were pregnant just by looking?”

“I-“

“That I was lucky. That’s it. Literally. No thoughts except that. ‘I’m lucky.’ Because I get to be parents with you.” He stops to set his hands against her cheeks so she’ll look up at him again. “I…I know you don’t like how it happened, and you don’t like being in the office, and you’re scared, and I get that, I do. But…I mean, I feel kinda bad for thinking like this, but…I just feel lucky. That…that you and me get to do this, and…there’s nothing useless about that, and if anyone tells you there is I will pound ‘em-“

“Don’t do that.” She’s about to cry, which she hates but knows to accept as an inevitability now. “The last thing I need right now is the Council locking you up for insubordination.”

“Well, someone has to defend your honor-“

“My honor is going to be perfectly fine, Yuji.” She sniffles and swipes at a stray tear, but she’s smiling, and that’s heartening, at least. “You…mean that?”

He nods eagerly. “I am lucky,” he says, probably as earnest as he knows how to be.

There’s never any question as to whether he means it.

**

Twenty-Two Weeks

“Nobara,” Yuji says out of the blue, resting his head against Nobara’s chest. “Wanna know something?”

It’s a rare night off, so Nobara figures she can afford to indulge him just this once. “What’s that?”

“You’re really beautiful,” he tells her.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I was just thinking about that. Earlier. Like, remember how it took me forever to notice that you were showing ‘cause I hadn’t seen you shirtless in a while? I was just thinking about that, and…that half the reason it sucks so much that I haven’t seen you with your shirt off lately is that you went and got even prettier than before and I…have not been appreciative enough. Of that.” She thinks he might be blushing and tries not to laugh. “Like, seriously, I don’t want you to think I’m, like, pushing you when you need space, so I wasn’t gonna say it, but. Like. You, with…” he gestures to her belly – “that…it’s just, I dunno. Ridiculously hot.”

Well. Leave it to Yuji to get me flustered without meaning to. “Um…thanks?”

“I kinda just wanna stare at you all the time,” he admits, as if that announcement is in no way unusual. “I wanna take showers together again just so I can see you. I miss that. Sometimes I think about that at work when there’s nothing going on – like, how I hope you’re still up when I get home so I can ask if you wanna join me. But…you know. Long hours.”

Nobara is almost certain she’s blushing now and wishes she wasn’t. “So what I’m hearing is that long work hours and not seeing much of me make you really horny.”

“No, not even! It’s just, like…I miss you a lot and I wanna look at you and…and…” he trails off. “Yeah, maybe,” he admits sheepishly.

“So now I’m also a distraction-“

“Yes,” he says bluntly, because apparently he hadn’t picked up on the self-deprecating tone of her words and it is, after all, the truth. “Which is good, ‘cause it reminds me why I’m doing this in the first place.”

“That might explain why I have to wash our sheets every five seconds because someoneis always bleeding on them.” She crosses her arms. “You’re not supposed to be distracted at work.”

“No, no, not like that. Like…think of it as, like. You being the reason that I’m there in the first place.” He pokes at her belly playfully. “The two of you. Supporting my family. Makes me feel all manly.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Nobara swats at his arm, though she knows he can tell she’s smiling. “Does getting stabbed all the time also make you ‘feel all manly’?”

“No, that just sucks.”

“You’re very strange sometimes,” Nobara tells him, running a hand through his hair. He lets out a contented murmur and nuzzles against her chest – it’s his favorite place to rest now because you’re like a pillow, as he likes to say. It’s endearing, really, watching him come to love all the ways that the work of carrying their child makes her softer and rounder. “Maybe try to avoid puncture wounds?”

“What, you mean it’s not hot when I come home at midnight and drip blood everywhere?”

“When I’m so hormonal that my brain convinces itself that you’re going to die every time you get so much as a papercut? Yeah. No. Find another seduction tactic.”

**

Twenty-Six Weeks

“I saw Nobara yesterday.”

Megumi looks up from his paperwork at Nobara’s name, but he doesn’t say anything. Maki crosses her arms at that.

“You’re supposed to ask how she is,” she tells him.

“Oh.” She and her condition are the last thing Megumi wants to think about, but he supposes it’s an inevitable topic of conversation. Maki’s been seeing a lot of her lately now that Yuji is on a three-week mission with Todo in Aomori Prefecture and needs (in Maki’s opinion) extra oversight. “How is she?”

“Miserable,” Maki says flatly. “She was doing better, then Yuji had to leave, and now she’s kind of a mess. Lonely, feeling useless, uncomfortable, not to mention that the hormones either turn her into a rage-monster or the biggest crybaby you’ve ever seen every ten seconds, terrified-“

Megumi lifts an eyebrow, trying to seem unaffected. “Lay it on thick, why don’t ya?”

“She’s your best friend.” Maki gives him a look that could cut metal. “She specificallymentioned that she hasn’t seen you in a while the last time I was there-“

“Look, it’s nothing personal-“

“Oh, really.”

“No, seriously-“

“Tell that to the pregnant lady whose husband had to go away for almost a month just to make ends meet and wants to know why her so-called best friend won’t even talk to her.”

“I do talk to her.” Via text, where he doesn’t have to be confronted with the direct evidence of her pregnancy, but still. “Look, I’m sorry, but-“

“How heartless can you possibly be?”

Megumi wisely chooses to refrain from answering before Maki slams his head into the wall.

**

Twenty-Seven Weeks

Fushiguro Megumi is not, in fact, heartless.

Yes, he’s apprehensive, and he has been – if he’s being honest – since the wedding. He doesn’t really know how to support something he’s sure is bound for disaster, and when circumstances call for him to be happy for his friends, there are always reservations that accompany his congratulations. And that’s worse now that they’re bringing a kid into this mess, and pregnancy has never been a thing with which he feels fully comfortable, and he doesn’t even know where to begin.

He loves them – that makes it all the worse, that these were his first friends and they’re still the closest thing he has to a real family. He can’t be neutral when it comes to them. He wishes he could, but it’s never going to happen – he’s never going to be able to knock at their door holding three pints of her favorite ice cream (because Maki had told him she’d pound him if he wasn’t extra apologetic for staying away so long) without dreading the inevitable greeting.

But Nobara doesn’t seem to feel that way when she opens the door and sees him standing there.

“Oh, wow,” she says, obviously trying to play it cool. “Look who finally decided to show up.”

He has to take a moment to orient himself before he replies, sizing her up. She’s a little flushed; she still looks tiny, but a little more filled-out than she’d once been, and…well. It’s obvious that she’s very pregnant, and that’s never not going to be weird to him.

He doesn’t know how to reconcile those two words, Nobara and pregnant. Probably because he’d never expected to hear them together. Probably because he’d never seen her as the type who’d want to be a mother, and yet apparently she does. “Hi,” he says hoarsely. “Nobara.”

The surprise fades and gives way to a smile. “Megumi,” she says warmly – since when has Nobara ever been warm? – and opens the door. “Hi.”

**

They eat their ice cream in total silence. Megumi tries not to look at Nobara’s stomach, and Nobara tries not to look at the pinched expression on Megumi’s face.

It’s obvious that he’s uncomfortable. Maki probably forced him to come, and it hurts, being looked at as if she’s some sort of taboo, but she gets it, in a way. Family is a sore spot and he’s not the biggest fan of impulsive decisions.

“We’re doing the best we can,” she tells him, even though he hadn’t asked. “Can you be satisfied with that?”

He nods, and his ears redden at that obvious acknowledgement of his discomfort. He hadn’t meant to make her feel as if she needed his approval.

“Good,” she says. “I missed you.”

**

Twenty-Nine Weeks

“It’s a boy, by the way.”

Megumi looks up from his weekly sitting-in-silence ice cream. Okkotsu, snitch that he is, had told Yuji about Megumi’s first visit after Nobara had told Maki, and he’d been so overwhelmed with gratitude that now he’s got triple the guilt to bear if he doesn’t show up to eat ice cream and provide wordless moral support. It’s a tradition now. “The baby?”

Nobara nods. “Mmhm.”

“Oh.” Megumi doesn’t know what to say to that, but he owes it to Nobara to try. “That what you wanted?”

“I didn’t care.”

“You definitely did.” Nobara has an opinion about everything, and almost certainly did about this.

“…yeah,” she admits, a little sheepish. “I totally wanted a boy.”

Megumi allows himself a small smile. “Good. ‘m glad.”

“I wouldn’t have known what to do with a girl,” she admits.

“But you do know what to do with a boy?”

Nobara snort-laughs. “Who am I kidding? ‘Course I don’t. I don’t know anything about kids. But I sure do have a lot of experience wrangling you two idiots.”

“Wow. I’m so flattered.” Megumi shakes his head. “What did I ever do to have to be wrangled?”

“Plenty.”

Fair enough.

She stabs at her ice cream (a whole carton – she eats whole cartons now. Gojo would be proud) with her spoon. “I don’t know what I’m doing, though,” she admits. “You were right about that.”

“Obviously not. You’re twenty-four and have no experience with kids.”

Nobara shoots him a black look. “You don’t have to say it like that.”

“Well-“

“I’m letting it slide because I missed you, but you’re kind of being a jerk about this.” She takes a heaping spoonful and swallows it whole. “I don’t need you to tell me that I’m not qualified to be a parent. Trust me.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then why-“

“I…don’t get family. It freaks me out, okay? I…I don’t know how to react to…to you having a kid.”

“Neither do I, Megumi.” Nobara sets her half-eaten carton aside. “I…we didn’t plan this. We don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t care if you don’t know what to say, okay? Just don’t remind me that I don’t, either. And…quit acting like I have some contagious disease.” She eyes the distance between them on the couch. “It’s not like I’m gonna infect you.”

“I…um. Sorry.”

“I need people to talk to sometimes.” She reaches for her water bottle, resting on the end table, and begins to turn it end over end in her hands just to distract herself. “Y’know? It’s scary. And Yuji…”

“Did he…do something? Say something?”

Nobara’s eyes flash. “Megumi.”

“I just wanted-“

“Yuji’s doing the best he can,” she says coldly. “He’s just…not always around to talk to.”

“Okay. Sorry.” He figured – Yuji’s showed his baby’s ultrasound to nearly every active jujutsu sorcerer in Japan by now – but…better safe than sorry. “Um…”

“He’s just gone a lot. Long hours.” Nobara shrugs. “We’re kind of strapped for cash as it is, so…this is sort of the only way to be ready, but it still sucks.”

“Having him gone all the time?”

“I miss him.” Nobara wraps her arms around her belly the way she’d usually hug her knees to her chest. “Is that pathetic? I miss him.”

Megumi watches her out of the corner of his eye, noting her downcast eyes, her slumped shoulders, the stoop in her back from the weight of her baby, the sadness in her expression, and guilt twinges in his chest.

“No,” he tells her. “I…don’t think it is.”

“Thanks, ‘Gumi.” She looks so young like this – hardly like someone who’s about to be a mother, and for the first time since these visits began, Megumi’s first impulse is protective and not repulsed.

Like it’s supposed to be.

“I’m…sorry,” he says haltingly.

“Thanks.” She pats the couch cushions next to her, inviting him to move in closer – so she’s sensed the shift as well as he has. “Appreciate it.”

Megumi settles into the couch next to Nobara, careful not to upset her careful balance on the cushions, and wordlessly passes her his carton – she’s been eyeing it this whole time. “Um,” he tries to start. “Uh. Do you…”

“Do I…?”

“What does it feel like?” he blurts out, perhaps the most un-Megumi-like question he could’ve asked. Nevertheless, it seems like the right one.

“Being pregnant? Uncomfortable.”

“No, not…physically.”

“Oh.” She nods, swallows a bite of (his) ice cream, and answers, “scary, I guess.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” She starts to stab at the ice cream with her spoon again. “I’m scared.”

“Of being a bad parent?”

She shakes her head. “That I’m not ready.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No. Being a bad parent…that’s, like, hurting your kid, right? Messing them up. I’m not worried about that.” A ghost of a smile crosses her lips as she presses a hand to her belly. “I know I’m never gonna hurt this little guy, y’know?”

It’s a surprisingly sweet picture, and Megumi’s ears redden – he feels like he’s seeing something he shouldn’t. It’s too intimate; that’s not where he belongs in Nobara’s life or social circle anymore. “Um. Yeah.”

“I honestly don’t know how it happened, but…I love him.” She rubs a circle against a spot where he guesses the baby had kicked before she looks up. “So no, I’m not worried about being a bad mom.”

“That’s good.” In that sense, Megumi has no doubt that she’ll be fine – they both will. They’re kind people. “But…the other way?”

“Oh, not being ready. Right. That’s different.” She sighs. “That’s, like…loving them, but…not knowing what to do. Or not being able to give them a good life. That scares me.”

“You have all of us,” Megumi points out, and again, he doesn’t know where it came from. He doesn’t regret having said it, though. “Just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

“I dunno. If…you need help?”

“You’re gonna help us raise our baby?”

“I mean, I don’t really know what it would look like, but, um…we have…resources.” He shrugs. “I mean. Maki said she was going to stab me if I didn’t go see you. She obviously wants to help. And Gojo and Utahime know things about babies, right?”

“I would actually die before I took parenting advice from Gojo.”

“…fair point.”

“When did you get good at feelings?”

“Didn’t. I’m just saying stuff and hoping it works.”

Nobara shakes her head, then lets it fall to rest against Megumi’s shoulder. “Idiot,” she scoffs.

“I’m aware.”

“Why were you so stupid about coming to visit, anyway?”

He shrugs. “Uncomfortable, I guess.”

“Idiot,” Nobara repeats, this time with feeling, and punches his arm. “You think you’reuncomfortable?”

“Pregnancy freaks me out, okay?”

“That’s not an excuse, Megumi.”

“I am aware-“

“And it’s not that weird once you get used to it.” She looks up at him. “Gimme your hand.”

“What?”

“Your hand.” Nobara holds out her own. “Give it.”

He reluctantly reaches out to place his hand in hers, and his eyes go wide when she sets it against her stomach.

“See?” she says. “Not that weird.”

It’s extremely weird – far too intimate, and much too close – but he can’t even get words to form.

“Megumi,” she says, trying to snap him out of his trance. “It’s fine.”

“I feel like I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Well, that’s just dumb. I told you to.” She moves his hand down a few inches and giggles when a fist (or is it a foot?) connects with his hand and his eyes go wide. “See?”

“That is,” he says, a little choked, “extremely weird.”

But oddly satisfying.

**

Thirty Weeks

Nobara hates feeling like this.

It’s not the physical discomfort she struggles with – if it were only that, she’d take it standing up like she always has her training. But it’s the neediness, too – her clinginess, her desire to be cared for when she knows perfectly well that she can take care of herself, the way that the smallest provocation is enough to make her cry. She wants to rely on others the way she’s always prided herself on not having to; she wants to be held and touched and reassured. It’s so uncomfortable, wanting to be protected and nurtured as if she is a child again, that some days she almost can’t stand it – that cognitive dissonance, the misalignment of her reality and everything she’s trained herself to be.

But it isn’t worth fighting it sometimes.

She thinks she should be ashamed of the way she throws herself into Yuji’s arms the moment he’s set down his bags in the doorway, but she’s not. If she already misses him and her hormone-addled brain is going to be so stupidly insistent on clinging to him like a limpet because of it, she’s not going to try to stop herself.

He seems glad that she doesn’t.

“Hi, Nobara,” he says, arms already tightening around her shoulders, and ducks his head to rest it on her shoulder.

“Yuji,” she murmurs, almost whimpers, and she wants to be embarrassed but isn’t. “You’re back.”

“Yeah.”

“Hi,” she replies.

“Hi.” He’s too comfortable to lift his head to kiss her lips or forehead, so he plants a lazy kiss on her shoulder where the shirt she’d borrowed while he was gone is slipping down. (She has a rotation, so that none of them lose his smell, and if not one of them has been washed in three weeks, that’s someone else’s problem.) “My shirt?”

“Missed you.” Nobara doesn’t usually steal clothes, so that’s probably obvious, but it bears repeating. Besides, she’d say just about anything right now, feeling as she does – like she might melt with relief. She isn’t even sure what she’s relieved for, but she doesn’t care. He pulls back and smiles at her; the room feels warmer, but pleasantly so, as if someone’s switched on the heater against the chill. (It’s the dead of January and someone really should, but it’s too expensive.)

“Hi,” he says again, tapping his finger against the tip of her nose.

**

“You…are a sight for sore eyes, princess.”

Nobara rolls her eyes, but her cheeks redden. “Oh, really.”

He shifts his weight to his right hand so he’s a few inches above her, and uses his left to brace himself against the sofa’s armrest. Her breathing is a little heavier than it should be lying back against the pillows, but she hasn’t seen Yuji in weeks, and she’s willing to give herself a handful of passes. “Yeah,” he says, nodding into the kiss he bends to give her. “Three weeks was too long.”

Nobara threads her arms around Yuji’s neck. “It was too long.”

“I was so unbearable,” he laughs. “Yuki said she was going to duct-tape my mouth shut if I didn’t stop talking about how I missed my wife.” He taps her nose again – you, the gesture says. That’s you. You’re my wife. He likes reminding himself of that.

“She would’ve.” It’d normally be kind of an amusing image, but Nobara doesn’t want to think about it when she’d rather his mouth be free for other things right now. “Look at you, turning into the ‘I-love-my-wife’ guy-“

“I missed you.”

“I mean, it’s not just you.” She’s feeling very clement tonight. “I…I think I might’ve made Megumi hate ice cream.”

“Sucks for him. He should just be grateful you agreed to see him at all-“

“You are so-“

“Nobara-deprived,” he finishes, laughing, and slips a hand behind her back to help her sit. “Think I’m gonna need you to kiss me pretty soon.”

“Just do it,” she tells him. “Don’t ask. You’re not gonna break me.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that I read that-“

“Don’t care. Three weeks, remember? I’d be mad if you didn’t-“

“Oh, would you, now?”

“Yeah, and whatever happened to ‘routine checkups’?” Nobara crosses her arms. “I think I’m a little overdue-“

“Oh,” he laughs, and she knows he’d tackle her to the couch and kiss her until he had to catch his breath if not for the baby. “I love you, Nobara.”

And oh – she doesn’t want to, but she could melt into the couch cushions at those words.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she grumbles, then pulls him in for a kiss before he can waste any more time. “Love you too.”

“I’ll let that slide ‘cause I know you do.” He shifts to get a better angle and then looks up at her expectantly. “Now. What were you saying about checkups?”

**

Thirty-Two Weeks

“Babe?”

“Mmhm?”

“Do you think it would be inappropriate to put hot sauce on the baby registry?”

Yuji tilts his head and Nobara tries not to think too hard about the fact that he probably stole the gesture from Gojo. “I mean, no, sounds reasonable to me, but why would you?”

“’Cause I want some.” She shrugs. “And I don’t wanna pay for it. So I think I’m gonna put it on the baby registry and just…hope someone else buys it for me.”

“You’re craving hot sauce?” Yuji raises his eyebrows. “That’s a new one. Kinda weird.”

“Yeah, well, we have a weird kid.”

“Mm. We do.” Yuji doesn’t seem to mind, seeing that he uses her stomach as a pillow more often than not even though – to Nobara’s utter delight – their son seems to like to punch first and ask questions later. “But, I mean, I can buy you hot sauce. It’s not that expensive.”

“But we’re supposed to be-“

“Saving money, yeah, I know, but…I mean. Cravings are cravings.”

She sighs. “Cravings are cravings.”

“But maybe still put it on there-“

“Oh, yeah, I already did.”

**

Thirty-Five Weeks

“Sometimes I think we must be pretty cruel, bringing a kid into a world like this.”

Nobara is balanced on the armrest of the couch, and if it were anyone but his wife, Yuji would be surprised that someone so far along could manage the agility to sip tea on an armrest without spilling. He’s not, though.

“I think about that, too,” he admits, standing by the window, “sometimes.”

“We have a lot of enemies,” she says, tired, as if she’s had enough of thinking about this but can’t stop.

“Yeah.” Yuji kicks at the ground. “No idea what we’re doing.”

“I feel like I just graduated from high school some days,” Nobara says softly, hands wrapped around her mug for its warmth. “I’m not…I don’t feel anywhere near old enough to be somebody’s mom.”

“I barely even feel old enough to be your husband, and that’s old news.” It’s rare for Yuji to commiserate without trying to sound more positive than she does, and she appreciates that he’s doing so now – she needs to know she’s not the only one with worries.

“Well,” Nobara says faintly, “you’re doing okay with that so far.”

“Because you’re easy.”

“Please. You couldn’t have picked a harder person to be married to.”

“Nah, I know you think that, but you’re easy. I know how you work.” He looks over at her and seems like he thinks of smiling but then thinks better of it. “How to keep you happy. At least, I hope? You’re really not as high-maintenance as you think you are.”

“I take offense at that.” It’s one of her defining traits, she thinks.

“’s true. You’re just…my Nobara.” At that, he does crack a smile. “I know what my Nobara needs.”

Nobara doesn’t want to dwell on the things that sentence does to her in the middle of a serious conversation.

(She does anyway.)

“But…I don’t know how to raise a kid. I don’t know what he’s gonna need or want from me and…I dunno. Babies are one thing, right? Just feed ‘em and change ‘em and make sure they don’t feel unwanted-“

“That’s what you got out of all those parenting books?”

“Okay, it’s important!” he protests. “Babies need to be properly loved!”

“Well, I think you’re fine there.” Nobara’s hands are always hovering around her belly now – it’d be hard for them not to be, prominent even as her relatively small bump has become – and one of them settles against its left side, as if to ask, are you hearing this?

Ridiculous, that Itadori Yuji, when presented with an overwhelming list of things to worry about, would ever choose whether he’d know how to properly love someone as his chief concern. Yuji, who loves people so naturally it’s shocking sometimes – she can’t conceive of a scenario in which their child isn’t the best-loved baby imaginable. That’s just what Yuji is like.

That is not what Nobara is like.

“Not sure about me, though,” she admits.

“Why?”

“I dunno, I’m just…not soft.” She shrugs. “I’m not, like…ever going to be the mom who packs cute lunches, or…comforts them when they fall over and start crying even though they’re totally fine, or knows what to say. Like…think of a good mom you know, then think about me. We probably don’t have anything in common.”

“I think…I dunno. There’s no checklist of personality traits you need to be a good mom.” He looks over to her to see if she seems to get it. “I kinda figured you just had to love the kid and be in it for the long haul.”

“I guess.” She loves and hates it when he’s accidentally wise. “I guess…I’m just kind of cold. I’m not sure if…if that’s something I can train out of myself.”

“You’re definitely not. That’s…just what you think about yourself.” Yuji pads over to the couch and flops down over the back, forgetting that he’s trying not to jostle Nobara; she stands before he can shake the couch enough to spill her tea. “Y’know?”

“You really don’t need to parkour the couch, you know.”

“Yeah, but it’s-“ he notices her standing and cuts off. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Think about that next time,” she grumbles, than accepts his offered hand and sits with no small effort on the couch beside him. “I don’t really know what you mean by that.”

“Well, you love me, right?”

Nobara looks up, surprised. “’Course I do.”

“Right. I’m…obvious, ‘cause you’re probably the nicest to me, but you love lots of people.” He wraps his arm around her shoulders. “Saori, Megumi, Maki, Gojo-“

“I do not love Gojo.”

“You do too love Gojo.”

“Unless the Gojo you’re referring to is Utahime-“

“Nope, but her, too, I guess. See? You love all kinds of people. You’re…not cold.” He pauses, then tells her, “Megumi told me about your ice cream thing.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Sorry he was so weird about it.”

Nobara sighs – those days are ones she’d rather forget. “Not your fault.”

“I just…think it says a lot.” Yuji looks at her knowingly. “He told me that you, um…tried to make him more…comfortable with you being pregnant. Whatever that means. That wasn’t cold.”

“That was because I missed him and I wanted him to stop treating me like a plague victim.”

“Still.”

“Yuji-“

“But it’s not just that,” he interrupts. “You’re…loyal. You’re good with the Gojo kids-“

“Because the Gojo kids are unhinged!” Nobara throws up her hands. “They’re unholy terrors who’d probably fight God for a corn chip! Of course I’m good with them!”

“…you realize that any kid with your DNA is probably going to be just as nuts, right?”

Nobara pauses to consider. The idea pleases her.

“I guess,” she concedes.

“And you’re…tough, but you know when to lay off. You’re adventurous. You can laugh things off.” He looks over at her and she’s surprised at the tenderness in his eyes. “And you’re…a lot of fun. Those are all things that I think are gonna make you a good mom, y’know?”

“I’m…a lot of fun?” Nobara’s never heard that compliment before – it makes her cheeks heat up. “Really?”

“’Course you are. Why do you think baby me picked you to fall for?”

“Because I was hot?”

“Well, yes, but mostly ‘cause I had fun with you. You made things interesting.” He frees the arm that’s wrapped around her and leans forwards on his elbows. “You still are. And I can totally see you being like that with our kid.” Now Yuji’s smiling in earnest. “I dunno, like…playing with him. Takin’ him places. Remember that time at the beach when you and me tried to bury Megumi in the sand while he was asleep? That, but it’d be you and the baby trying to bury me-“

“I should do that.”

“You should,” he says solemnly. “Point is, kids are…fun. Chaotic. He’s gonna love you. And…I know you think you’re cold and everything, but you love him, too. Already. I know that.”

“Yuji-“

“That’s all it takes,” he says gently. “I mean, I hope. Not that I’m not over here worried that I’m going to turn into a workaholic who never sees his kid just to make ends meet-“

“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about that, if I were you.”

“Hm?”

“I know you, Yuji.” She takes his hand, turning it over to trace his palm with her nails. “I know you’re going to take one look at that baby and never want to let him out of your sight.”

“I…guess?”

“Yuji. It’s a cute, squishy thing that looks like me. Do you really think-“

“Who says it’s gonna look like you?” Yuji pulls a face. “What if I have stronger genes?”

“Yeah, no. Definitely gonna look like me.”

“But-“

“I made him, Yuji. I carted him around in my uterus for almost a year. He had better.”

“I don’t think genetics works like that-“

“Itadori Yuji.”

He cracks a smile and one eye open. “Itadori Nobara.”

“You can’t get out of everything by last-naming me, you know!”

“No, but I made you mad.” He turns so he can wrap his arms around her front. “Checkmate.”

She hadn’t even realized that he’d been trying to.

“Yeah,” she says faintly, because she hadn’t seen it, but it had worked. “I guess you did.”

**

Thirty-Eight Weeks

So…this wasn’t exactly ideal.

So, ideally, this would’ve happened while Yuji wasn’t out on a mission.

So it would’ve been better if anyone but Megumi had been put on hospital check-in duty. Maki, Utahime. Inumaki. Okkotsu. Todo, who’s as bull-in-a-china-shop as anyone ever could be. Gojo Kazuki, who’s seven.

But they’re here, and Nobara is relieved enough to throw her arms around Megumi the moment she sees him in the hall she’s convinced the nurses to let her pace in.

It’s…wrong, because he may have been the one who’d been assigned to stay with her (per Yuji’s Nobara-Monitoring-Now-That-We’re-Near-The-End schedule) this afternoon, but he’s not Yuji. He’s not her husband, and he’s not supposed to be the one holding her hand when she presses her forehead to the wall in an effort not to cry out at a contraction in the open hallway.

He doesn’t know the first thing about giving birth, or about being the one in the room when it happens, which he dearly hopes he won’t be just because it seems so wrong. Yuji’s the one of their trio who’d married her, not him. Yuji’s the one who knows what she needs when she’s at her lowest.

But Yuji’s not here.

**

“Princess, I am so-“

“Save it.” Nobara doesn’t really sound angry, just pained, and she tips up her forehead for him to kiss when she knows he wants to. “I’m not mad.”

“You’re…not?”

“Nah. Nothing you could do.” She’s kind of surprised at herself, but she knows how these things go – he couldn’t have rushed off in the middle of an exorcism no matter how badly he’d wanted to. “’s gonna be a while, anyways.”

“Okay.” He takes a seat beside her bed, a little reluctantly. “Megumi looks nauseous.”

“Megumi probably is nauseous.” She winces. “He…wasn’t really thrilled that he was the one whose shift I went into labor on. No surprise.”

Yuji winces, too, but he’s not about to say why at a time like this. “And how are youholding up?”

She grins. “Starting to think contractions are overrated.”

**

“Okay.” Nobara stops, bracing one arm against the wall as the other grips Yuji’s forearm as tightly as it can. She’d be bent double in the hallway if not for Yuji’s supporting arm, and she bows her head so he won’t see the pain on her face. “Okay, yeah, no. Spoke too soon.”

“Princess?” he asks, placing his free hand on the small of her back for unnecessary but appreciated support. “You good?”

She shakes her head. “Definitely not overrated.”

**

For all that she’s short-fused and high-maintenance, Nobara knows how to take things like a champ, and – though her face screws up in pain – she doesn’t make a sound. Yuji wishes she didn’t feel like she had to be quiet, but he knows his Nobara and her inhuman tolerance for pain well enough to know that she’d never do anything else.

“You’re doing good,” he says, uselessly, because it’s really all he can say.

“I know.” Her breaths are coming out a little short this close to the end. “I know.”

“Almost there, right?”

She looks over at him. “That…honestly makes this a lot worse.”

Because she wants to meet her baby – they both do – but as soon as he’s here, he’s real and unavoidable and everything they do is going to mean something later, and it’s an easy moment to panic.

**

Nobara does not panic.

In all honesty, Nobara is too tired to panic, or to worry about the…baby gunk (what’s that stuff called?) smeared against her collarbone, or do anything but stare, and smile a little bit. Because she wants to sleep, but not before she gets a good, long look at her baby’s face, figures out who he looks like, whose genes won, whether he’s as beautiful as she’s privately always thought he would be.

He’s too squishy and red to look like anyone save for the downy patches of auburn hair – I won, she thinks fondly – but he’s not too scary, really. It almost seems like it’ll be easy in this moment, like someone’s pressed ‘pause’ and kept time still long enough for her to realize that she really does love the baby in her arms as much as she’d thought she had, that she’s glad that the unthinkable brought him to her.

It’s early evening now, early April – it’s getting chilly outside now. They’ve made it through, and her Haruki has his mother’s hair and Nobara can barely keep her eyes open.

She doesn’t even care, now, that the hard part is just beginning.

**

“His name is Haruki.” Yuji shifts the bundle in his arms, eyes shining. “Itadori Haruki.”

“Um.” Megumi doesn’t know the first thing about responding to things like that. “Um. Con…gratulations.”

Yuji probably knows the weight behind those words better than their speaker does, and he smiles. “Thanks.”

“Um…is Nobara-“

“Sleeping. Couldn’t keep her eyes open.” Yuji smiles, tracing the outline of his son’s face with his pointer fingers. “Do you want to hold him?”

“I…don’t know how.”

“Don’t have to.” He reaches his arms out to hand the baby over, and Megumi’s eyes widen, but there’s little he can do but accept, and let Yuji shift his hold for better support. “See? It isn’t hard.”

He stares for a moment, trying to figure out what he’s looking at, then says, “he looks like her.”

“He does,” Yuji says proudly. “It’s the hair.”

“It’s the hair,” Megumi echoes.

“Thank you.”

“For?” Megumi raises his eyebrows. “I was just agreeing-“

“For looking out for her.”

“Oh.” Megumi nods. “Yeah.”

Haruki’s eyes flutter open to lock on his – gold, like his mother’s.

“Any time,” he finishes.

**

One Week Postpartum

“No, no, no, we like her!”

Utahime can’t help but laugh softly at Nobara’s momentary panic, gently shifting the baby in her arms to see if it’ll soothe him. “It’s all right,” she says, giving Haruki a finger to latch onto – that had worked on Kimie, though not for her other three. “They’re always like this when they’re new.”

**

“Maki-senpai, please?”

It’s been years since Nobara used that honorific, and she hardly looks older than she did when she last had on Maki’s graduation day. “All right,” she reluctantly concedes, holding out her arms.

Haruki is warm, like his father always was, and the wisps of hair on his head are his mother’s ginger; he’s restless like them both, loud like them both, but he stills in Maki’s arms as if he likes her just as much as his mother does. Funny, how much of both of them she sees in their son’s face.

“He looks like you,” she comments, even though he looks like Yuji, too. Nobara knows that already – it’s the mark of approval she means to convey more than the literal sentiment. You did good, Maki really means – because she’s made it, done something Maki’s not sure she ever could. It’s a terrible idea from every objective standpoint, but it’s a challenge she has a feeling Nobara will rise to.

Nobara stands up on her toes to peer down at her son over Maki’s shoulder. “Doesn’t he?”

**

Two Years

“So close!” Nobara clasps her open hands, nose scrunching as she laughs. Her jeans are getting wet at the cuffs where she kneels in the snow, and she hadn’t remembered to change out of her trainers before coming outside, but the cold doesn’t register any more than the condensation when she exhales does. “C’mere, ‘kay? Just a little further.”

Haruki is still, head tilted as he tries to figure out what he’s supposed to do, and she knows he has when something lights up in his face. Wordlessly, he nods, tripping over his feet in too many layers of winter clothes as he stumbles forwards, and Nobara opens her arms.

She tries to brace herself, but she still loses her footing on impact when he falls into her arms – no matter. She laughs, pulling him close as her back hits the snow blanketing the driveway, and lets her legs splay out like she’s a starfish. “There you go,” she laughs, pressing a kiss to her son’s cheek beneath the flap of his hat. “See? Not so bad!”

It’s a bit of a balancing act, getting to her feet in a few inches of snow with Haruki perched on her hip, but she’s always been good at those. Nobara frees one hand to brush the snow from the back of her jeans, then wraps both around Haruki, smiling when he snuggles down into her embrace. “Cold, mama,” he mumbles, his face buried in her damp jacket. “Go home?”

They’re only in their driveway, but his choice of words still warms her chest. “Sure,” she replies, holding him just a little tighter. “Let’s go home.”