Erik the Pink

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Erik?

His head snapped up. The endless drumming of his fingers against the edge of the rickety plastic chair finally ceased. The waiting room had been filled with men like him, hours ago. But one by one, they’d bled away to the sound of their own happy news, and now only Erik remained. Watching the clock. Wondering why it was taking so long. Wondering what was wrong.

But the nurse was smiling.

Congratulations, my love, she said, and all the air in the room seemed to disappear. You have a gorgeous little girl.

He half-stood, then his knees buckled and he collapsed back into the chair like he was made of rubber.

A girl, he said stupidly.

A girl. His girl. He had a daughter.

"A girl, he repeated, and the smile hurt his own face. Oh my God, I have a daughter. I have a little girl!"

The nurse beamed right back at him.

Would you like to come and see her?

Yes. He pushed down on the chair. It creaked. Uh. In a minute.

She chuckled and came to take his arm. He dwarfed the nurse—Erik dwarfed most people—but she took his elbow in a firm grip and steered him like he were a lost kid.

First one? she asked as she bore him through the double doors into a wide, gleaming corridor.

Yes.

Ooh, it’s a lovely thing, isn’t it?

Erik made a strangled sort of noise. Absolutely nothing about the last twenty-four hours had been lovely. Andreas had gone into labour a week early. The promised caesarian had been suddenly dropped by the wayside, the midwife insisting on trying a natural birth first. Andreas had gone nuclear, and Erik didn’t speak Spanish but could guess pretty well that it wasn’t the kind of language Andreas had learned in church. And, of course, Andreas had been right. Twenty-one hours after they had arrived at the hospital, Andreas had been taken into theatre, still incensed.

And Erik had been kicked out.

Not even by the staff, but by Andreas. He hadn’t wanted Erik there. He didn’t want Erik to see him like that. He hadn’t wanted anyone there who wasn’t strictly, medically necessary—and Erik didn’t count. Erik had finally lost the bitter argument that had been going on for the last nine months.

But as the nurse drove him through another set of doors into a small ward, Erik stopped caring. He stopped caring about the rows, the awkward silences, the tirades of furious Spanish, missing that incredible moment, all of it.

Because there, there in a hospital bed, in brand new sheets and a brand new gown, was Andreas. The centre of Erik’s universe. His sarcastic sun. Awake. Shattered, but smiling. Fine.

And cuddled to Andreas’ chest, a baby. Their baby.

His sun, their baby. Pronouns had never sounded so good before.

Hello, Erik breathed, sinking reverently into the chair by the bed.

Andreas gave him an exhausted smile. He was collapsed back into a thousand pillows, and looked—even to Erik’s rose-tinted gaze—like shit. He had been cleaned up, but his hair was still wet from the sweat-soaked hours in labour. The usually wild, loose darkness was matted flat in grim knots. There were great shadows under his eyes, and the tell-tale huge pupils of heavy-duty drugs. His skin looked strange, almost like greaseproof paper, grey under the brown.

But he smiled, and Erik’s heart skipped a beat.

You doing okay? he whispered, leaning in.

Andreas didn’t move a muscle, but for those needed to accept the kiss.

Ask me again tomorrow, he said.

You did great, Erik breathed, finally looking down at the blankets in Andreas’ arms. She’s finally here, on the outside where she belongs.

She’s definitely yours, Andreas murmured sleepily, his accent thick with exhaustion. Nearly ten pounds.

Erik blinked. "But—but she’s tiny."

The bundle in Andreas’ arms looked big, but it was all blanket. Erik could see the way the folds fell over his forearms. But inside, through a miniscule gap, he could see dark pink. A nub of a nose.

Hold her, then, Andreas said. You’ve spent nine months trying to cuddle her through my stomach—give her one for real.

How? Erik asked. She’s too small. I’ll break her.

Don’t be silly.

Here, dear, let me.

The nurse swooped down, and Erik gawked as she hefted the blankets out of Andreas’ grasp like their new arrival was nothing more than a breakfast tray. Something that new couldn’t be held, surely? Something that fragile couldn’t be that—

Heavy.

He fumbled. Instinct had him copying her hold, Andreas’ hold, and shoring up the sudden leaden lump of weight. His hand curled awkwardly under something round, and it rolled. He sat back a little in the chair to look at her properly, and the blanket squirmed.

Oh my God.

She moved. Life rippled all along his arm, and he felt the jolt of love inside his very skin like an electric shock. The hairs on his hands stood on end. He’d waited his entire life to be here, and the enormity of it threatened to burst him right out of his own body. He held his breath as a tiny starfish hand emerged. As a head settled against his chest, supported by his wayward palm. His jaw sagged when the little pink nose rubbed against his chest once, screwed up, and—

And the most familiar eyes in the world peered up at him.

Andreas’ eyes.

Erik worked his mouth, but no sound came out. His heart was too big for his chest, and it suddenly hurt to see her. It physically hurt. He knew her face. He knew her eyes. He’d never seen her before in his life—and yet he had. Every day for the past two years, he’d seen those bottomless brown eyes. Every morning for the last thirty-seven years, he’d seen that nose in the mirror.

She looked like them.

He had expected her to look just like Andreas. All dark—hair, eyes, skin, the works. But he’d forgotten all about everything that wasn’t colour. She was dark like Andreas. Beautiful black curls, deep pools for eyes, skin that even under the angry red blush of being born was already noticeably darker than Erik’s lily-white hue. But the nose was his. The wide mouth that yawned at him stretched just like his did over coffee on Saturday mornings. And the little starfish hand that waved at him, then slowly curled into the world’s smallest fist, was somewhere between them. The same stubby, wide fingers as Erik’s—but the soft, shallow knuckles of Andreas’.

She’s beautiful, he whispered, and Andreas reached over to tug the blankets open a little.

She was dressed in a tiny white vest and nappy. Little socks hid tiny toes. Her whole body lay along his forearm, legs still curled up like they’d been since she’d stopped being a clump of cells and started being a baby. Big feet, compared to her size. His feet.

"She’s perfect."

Her hands flailed at the disturbance, and the eyes disappeared as she screwed up her face and whined. Erik gingerly extracted a hand, balancing her carefully between chest and forearm, to close the covers up again. She whimpered, then snuffled and settled once more.

She’s got your curls, Erik mumbled hoarsely. God, she couldn’t have been more perfect if she’d tried. His nose, Andreas’ hair, all ten tiny fingers…

She’s got your lungs, Andreas murmured. Should have heard her.

Yeah?

Uh-huh. Knew the minute she was born, just from the noise.

I take it all back, Erik whispered.

What?

About wanting a boy.

Andreas hummed softly. When Erik looked up, his eyes were closed, but then he spoke. Never know. Might be hereditary. She might be a boy after all.

She’ll still be perfect, though, Erik said, and touched a tiny hand with the tip of his finger. It opened like a flower—then seized tight like a vice. He laughed, thrilled by the sheer power in her grip. How could something so small be so strong? So? Your name or mine?

They weren’t married. Erik wanted to be—truth was, he’d wanted to marry Andreas the moment he’d met him—but they’d wanted a baby first. Marriage could wait. Andreas, and his original plumbing, couldn’t.

And way back when the bump had still been mistakable for indigestion, Andreas had said, Your last name is ridiculous. I’m not having a child with that name.

Yours is unpronounceable, Erik had fired back, and Andreas had rolled his eyes.

"Because you’re English and can barely speak one language."

They’d never actually agreed on a surname—but when Erik looked up, Andreas had dozed off, one hand still resting on a corner of the white blanket that trailed over Erik’s elbow.

Maybe we’ll find out your last name later, sweet pea, he whispered to the drowsy bundle in his arms. We know your first name though, don’t we?

He jiggled her carefully. She grumbled, snuffling, and squinted up at him once more.

And Erik beamed down into the most beautiful face in the world, and said, Hi, Beatriz. I’m Dad.

Chapter 2

Beatriz stared up at him as she devoured the bottle, and Andreas couldn’t help but beam tiredly back at her.

It had been nine months of absolute hell, but it was worth it. He couldn’t tell yet if she’d look more like him or more like Erik, but she was so unmistakably theirs that it made his heart ache. She had Erik’s nose and mouth, but her colouring was that of home. He could see his mother and father in her, all of his brothers and sisters, even some of his cousins.

But she was different, too. Andreas was the oldest of six children. He’d fed most of them as babies—cuddled them, changed them, taken them out in the pram. He’d even been mistaken for the mother of his youngest brother more than once, what looked like a fifteen-year-old girl hefting a chunky toddler about on her hip all over the hills of north-west Spain.

Beatriz felt so very different.

Because she was his. And now she was here, he could stop pretending to be her mum. Or anyone’s. Ever again. And her wide-eyed stare, fixed unblinkingly upwards as she decimated the bottle, would never care. She just knew him to be safe. Comfort. Some instinctual family, formed out of blood and blind sound, before she had even been born. And as she got older, they could teach her everything else that she needed to know.

Everything he’d ever wanted from his family.

Come on, beautiful, he murmured as he tugged the empty bottle away. Daddy’s coming to get us today. We get to go home.

He’d been too exhausted, the birth too difficult, to go home with her at once like he’d originally planned. He’d even been too shattered to feel ashamed of it—women gave birth every day, and all his issues had been dogged by a sense of shame that he couldn’t just take it in his stride like they seemed to. But in the aftermath of the birth itself, he’d stopped caring. They’d spent the night on the ward, and Erik had gone home to bed, and probably told Jo and Lauren about their new arrival. Andreas had meant to grab his last night of sleep for the next two years with both hands, and entrust Beatriz to the nurses, but his instincts were maternal even if he wasn’t a mother. Every whimper had woken him up, and he’d insisted on feeding her even when the nurses had come to do it.

I’m awake, he’d said, each time. I may as well get used to it.

Not, really, that nine years seemed to have made a difference. He had been fifteen last time he’d taken care of a baby, and a significantly older baby than his day-old daughter. But the memory hadn’t left him, and he found himself humming his mother’s old songs as he rested Beatriz against his shoulder, pressing his nose into the top of her head and inhaling that soft, special scent that newborn babies all seemed to have.

Bet you’ve got your father’s belly, too, he murmured, and she proved him right by emitting an enormous belch that couldn’t possibly fit inside a baby. Yep, there it is.

She whimpered when he tried to put her back in the cot, so he leaned back and left her there, snuffling on his chest like a sleepy puppy. His hand covered most of her back; her legs still curled up in the position she’d kept ever since she grew legs in the first place. A fist clutched at his gown, and she snored contentedly.

Tears prickled at his eyes, so he closed them. She was beyond anything he’d possibly imagined. Nine months of absolute hell—unimaginable hell, from the horrifically persistent misgendering to the disgusting betrayal his own body had committed every day since the positive pregnancy test—had been worth it. Nine months of wanting to claw his way out of his own skin, nine months of staring at bottles of various noxious liquids and wondering if they wouldn’t stop this pregnancy in its tracks, nine months of hating himself for hating being pregnant when he’d always wanted a baby so bad—

He’d been so scared it wouldn’t be worth it.

But here she was. And despite all of his fears, he already knew he loved her.

Andreas must have dozed, too, for when he opened his eyes again, the sun had poked through the windows, a pillow had been tucked around Beatriz’s other side to keep her safe on his chest, and the empty chair was suddenly occupied by an enormous checked shirt.

Oh my God, he groaned.

Erik beamed. Morning. Er. Afternoon.

What are you wearing?

My best shirt!

Andreas dramatically covered his eyes with a hand, and heard the familiar guffaw.

Have to set a good example.

"That’s a bad example."

Nope. He heard the chair creak, then hair and teeth met his upper arm and Erik chewed mockingly. Andreas laughed.

That could sum up everything. Erik did something utterly ridiculous, and Andreas laughed. That was why they worked. That was why Erik had caught his attention in the first place.

The fact was, they looked like they didn’t work at all. Jo had once compared them to Roger and Jessica Rabbit. How does a guy like Erik get a guy like you? she’d said, and after laughing at Erik whining about being called a badly animated bunny, Andreas had shrugged.

Same reason, I guess.

Erik was no more a looker than Roger Rabbit. He was a bear—both tall and wide. He towered well over six feet, and weighed the same as the average rugby