It's a chilly morning in autumn when y/n is sitting across from her ex-husband, Harry. It's his turn to have the baby after a week. Neither of them want to wake her so there they were, sitting at the table in her apartment with the baby monitor as a barrier between them. The sun is peaking inside through the window and it grazes Harry's face as he sips from the plastic iced coffee cup he brought. His is nearly halfway gone while Y/n has only taken three sips from hers. Amidst the silence, baby Alaia's whines come through the monitor and they both stand up to go to her room.
"Stay, I'll get her." Harry murmurs and rushes to the baby's room. y/n can hear him cooing to the baby through the monitor. "Hey you, none of that, yeah?" He pulls her in to lay on her chest and she finally calms down, babbling something to Harry. He gently weaves his fingers through her curly hair and scratches at the baby's scalp, watching her lean into his touch. Their voices fade off from the monitor and become louder as they approach the table. Alaia reaches for her mother as soon as she sees her and Harry wordlessly hands her over, watching Alaia quickly cling onto her.
"Do y' still nurse her?" Harry sits back in his seat across from the pair.
"Sometimes when she asks for it, but never after breakfast. She gets the formula throughout the day with the baby food now." y/n mumbles and watches her baby, who goes to reach for her chest. "Okay bab, calm down," she whispers and kisses Alaia's forehead, lifting her shirt over her head and lets the girl latch on. "I don't think you'll need to take any with you though, the formula will do for her." She looks back up at Harry and he nods. Both of them watch their baby girl eat, her tiny hands grasping onto y/n's supple skin.
Alaia looks nearly identical to Harry with the same curly hair, bright green eyes, and smile, when she does it from time to time. Harry thinks she looks more like her mother, with the same nose and cheekbones. The three of them sit in silence with the only noise being made is Alaia softly suckling on her mother. "Agh, gentle, baby." She pulls her away from her now sore nipple and she whines for a second until she switches her over to her other breast.
"Do you need the ointment?" Harry asks pointing to her chest, walking to the bathroom when she nods. At times like these, y/n misses having Harry as her husband. She remembers how patient he was (and still is, most of the time) with her and the baby and all of their mishaps. But she knows that they can't go back to how things were before. Not when Harry left them the way he did.
"Are you really gonna choose that over us? Your family?" Y/n yelled, tears streaming down her heated face. Harry looked back at her with tired and sad eyes. "She's 5 months old, Harry. You promised us at least a year."
"I know I did, but this is important, y/n."
"More important than your daughter? Me?" His eyes dropped from hers and she sighed, wiping the tears from her face. "It's like you didn't even consider us in all of this."
"Y/n, it's only 3 months." She eyed Harry and sat down on the bed. "I'll come right back, even visit on long weekends, we talked about this before. You remember don't you?" The couple are silent for a few seconds, eyes avoiding each other and hands fidgety. Alaia's tucked into her crib in the room over, somehow still asleep after her parents had a screaming match with one another.
"I was hesitant about it even then," she whispers, looking up at him. "I can't do this on my own, Harry. You know that, we talked about this. I don't want our baby growing up with her dad always being away. You know how much 3 months is for a baby? She'll probably be starting to walk or crawl around by then, Harry. We talked about this before I even got pregnant, you said you'd give us at least a year, and now you're going before she's even half a year old."
Harry sighs and sits next to Y/n. He sees her twisting the silver wedding band around her finger nervously, like shes scared. She is, but she doesn't want to tell Harry that, as if he doesn't know her like the back of his hand. "It's already set in stone, I can't change it now."
"Harry,"
"Y/n. I can't do anything about it now."
"But you could've! You could have told Jeff or anyone that right now isn't the time. I just had a baby Harry!" Y/n yells, and Harry reaches out for her.
"Sweethear-"
"No, don't 'sweetheart' me right now! You don't get to do that." Sniffling, she turns away from him so he can't see her face. "This isn't gonna work, Harry."
"Y' didn't need to pack her a bag, I have all of this stuff at my place," Harry mutters as he digs through the baby bag Y/n prepared before he'd gotten there.
"Now really isn't the time to start an argument Harry, she only let me sleep 4 hours all night." When Alaia's done, y/n sits her in the highchair across from her and smoothes down the curls on her head identical to Harry's. "Pretty baby, want a snack?" She whispers to the girl, tickling at her pudgy torso to make her laugh. "One second baby." When she walks across the kitchen to the cupboard with all of Alaia's snacks in it, she feels his burning hot gaze on her. She reaches for the teething crackers she knows her daughter likes and places two of them on her table in front of her, watching the girl immediately take one into her mouth to chew on. Harry is still watching her and it makes her face burn hot.
"Y/n, we should talk about the last few months since I'm back." He finally speaks up, hoping her eyes will finally meet his.
"Not with Alaia sitting right here." Her voice gets shaky thinking of the last few months and both of them hear it. "She's probably gonna wanna nap in a few minutes, always does after I nurse her." Harry nods and watches his daughter gnaw on her snack. It gives Y/n a moment to fully take him in. He's wearing a navy blue beanie and the hood to his jacket, probably to somewhat cover his face. He has on black sweats and his usual white vans that he's now washed. His reading glasses are pushed up on his face and he's got a light stubble on his usually smooth skin. His hands are completely bare, drastically changed from how they were when she last saw him.
He still wore his wedding ring majority of the time he was away, just to feel a sense of closeness to them, to her, but she doesn't know that.
He doesn't think he could ever tell her that. She didn't look at any pictures of him while he was gone, couldn't bring herself to. Y/n gets pulled out of her thoughts when Alaia whines and reaches for her, eyes sleepy. "Ready for a nap already?" She pulls her from the highchair to soothe her a little before she goes to sleep, rocking her back and forth as she babbles mindlessly. She carries her to her crib and lays her down on her back, her eyes already closing. Y/n chuckles and leaves the room, taking a deep breath when she realizes that she has to face Harry again. She finally reaches the kitchen and sits back at the table across from him.
"She's getting so big now," Harry mumbles as he pulls the hood and beanie off his head, revealing the mess of chocolate colored curls underneath. "Is she walking yet?"
"Not yet, but she's trying to," She whispers, adjusting her glasses on her face. "Wish I recorded her when she was trying, you would have loved to see it. Wish you were here the last few months, actually." The last part is so soft that if Harry would have moved the rustling of his clothes would have been louder.
"Y/n-"
"Don't." Y/n sighs and covers her face, feeling herself about to cry. "You left me Harry, left us," she chokes through soft sobs. "And I told you that I couldn't do it on my own and you still left." Harry's silent, biting his lip knowing every word of what she's saying is true. "It's been so hard taking care of her on my own, you know I don't have any family here. She keeps me up all night and gets fussy if her bottle's not warm enough or if she's misplaced a toy and it's so hard, Harry. Every day. It would have been so much easier with you here if we hadn't if spilt up." Harry reaches for Y/n and she doesn't let him hold her like he used to. He doesn't get to do that now.
"I'm sorry, Y/n. So so sorry."
"Sorry can't fix how things played out, Harry."
