Right From The Start -H.S. AU

H -6

Violet has been on bed rest for a little over four weeks, and she's making it everyone's problem. This woman can barely sit still for a whole day, let alone a month.

I thought with Niall and Mia moving to the city, in addition to Phoebe, Cam and myself, there would be plenty of people to keep her busy. Turns out that is not the case.

The only ones even close to being able to keep her calm is my mum or Maverick. With her dad, she practically melts into the mattress and becomes a little girl again. It warmed my heart seeing them laying together, asleep, with old reruns playing on the TV.

It's different with my mum. With her, I can hear them talking for hours on end about nothing, and everything, all at once. Violet rambles off questions about motherhood and raising children, etc, and my mum happily takes every single one.

They've each only been able to make it out twice in the past month, but I'm incredibly grateful that they can be here for her. For us.

"Harry?" I hear Mav call from the living room when I shut our bedroom door, leaving a sleeping Violet to rest.

"Let me help with those." I jog down the hall and help carry his bags down stairs. I line them up at the door and take one last look around the house for anything he might have missed. I can feel him staring a hole into the side of my head, but the nervous pit in my stomach won't allow me to look him in the eye.

"Harry- hey." Mav says with a soft chuckle at my frantic state.

"Did you have another-" I attempt to walk back into the living room, but he stops me.

"Look at me, son." He says firmly, grabbing me by my shoulders and turns me to face him. "You alright?"

I exhale a breath and shake my head slightly, unable to find words. He squeezes my shoulders gently and shakes me a little, smirking as he does.

"No." I mumble truthfully. "I'm not alright."

"Come sit with me." He requests firmly, letting me go before he heads into the dining room.

"But- your flight." I mumble half-heartedly.

"Come have a chat with your father-in-law, Harry."

"Yes sir." I mutter and take a seat in the chair across the table from him.

"So, do you think you're ready?" He asks suddenly, catching me off guard a little.

"I mean... we have everything prepared. I feel like- probably as ready as I can be." I bumble my words around like an idiot. Like someone who is absolutely not ready to have two infants.

"Trick question." He chuckles. "No one is ever ready."

"I'm kind of lost on what to do, Mav." I lean my elbows onto the table and run my hands over my face. "These last few months just flew by."

"I was nineteen when Barbara told me she was pregnant the first time." The mention of Violet's mom makes me pause, and I can't help but lean forward to listen when a small smile emerges on his face. "No one is ever ready, but especially not a poor, greaser kid from the wrong side of the tracks."

"I can't imagine..." I trail off when a memory of Violet shaking, holding a pregnancy test at that same age comes to mind. I guess, maybe, I can imagine.
I smile to myself, but he doesn't catch it, lost in his own memories. "What was that like?"

"Fucking terrifying." He chuckles and runs a hand down his scruffy face. "But I loved her, and I was determined to do everything in my power to provide for her and that baby."
He crosses his arms over his chest and looks up at the ceiling, still smiling. For a second, I get a glimpse of who Mav used to be, before things started to fall apart with his wife. His smile mirrors the one in that picture Violet put up in the nursery.
"We got married about a month after we found out. Classic shotgun wedding, but I didn't care. They were everything I had ever wanted in my life. When Violet came a few years later, she completed our family so perfectly."