Work Text:
They’re not trying to get pregnant. If he’s sure of anything, Cassian’s sure of that. Jyn says those exact words (twice), and looks him dead in the eyes as she tosses out her birth control.
“Okay,” he says. Because who is he to question it? He doesn’t have particularly strong feelings in the way of kids, at least not yet. They’ve only been married for 18 months anyway. Still a short enough time to be counted in months. Of course, he does want kids eventually. More than one, if Jyn agrees. But he doesn’t need them now. There’s no need to rush.
Jyn nods her head again. “It’s like an experiment,” she says. “We’re just going to see what happens.”
“Sounds good,” Cassian says.
So they go about their normal lives and he tries to forget about it. He does not think about what color they’d paint their spare room should they need to turn it into a nursery, and he also does not pause oh-so-briefly by the baby section in Target next time he buys tampons for Jyn.
He doesn’t. It’s not on his mind. They don’t need a baby right now. It’s an experiment.
Jyn also, does not pay any more attention to her cycle than she used to. Or more than she has to. She complains that it’s a little less regular since she went off birth control, and Cassian asks if she wants to go back on it.
“No,” she says immediately, and Cassian lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“It’s just annoying,” she says as she stands up from the edge of the bathtub. “Next time I’ll wait a bit longer before taking a test.”
She tosses the offending white plastic into the garbage and brushes past him into the hallway. “What do you want for dinner?”
Cassian makes shrimp scampi with noodles, and it’s a good thing they eat light, because Jyn jumps him twice that night, kissing him so hard sometimes it hurts. Cassian, usually one to take it slow, is more than happy to oblige. Afterwards, when the image of the single line on the pregnancy test follows him as he tries to fall asleep, he can banish it with the idea that this time, maybe, it happened.
Neither of them acknowledge it, but things take on sort of a desperate edge after that. Jyn downloads some sort of app on her phone and begins pulling him into their bedroom at odd times– when they’re about to leave for work, when he’s in the middle of a phone call with his parents.
She glares and won’t look him in the eye when he brings it up. “I was just curious,” she says. “I’m not, like, paying attention to it or anything.”
“Are you… uh…” He isn’t sure what the word is.
She shrugs and begins pulling on her clothes. “Dunno.”
He looks at the notifications on her lock screen while she’s in the bathroom. Huh. That’s the word. Ovulating.
The real turning point is when Han and Leia reveal their news. They’re eating breakfast, Cassian’s phone on speaker in the center of the table, and his heart does a terrible stutter-y thing as he puts down his fork. His mind is suddenly a mess of thoughts and emotions he can’t process and he ends the call as quickly as possible after some sort of congratulatory statement he forgets as soon as it leaves his mouth.
He takes a few deep breaths before he looks at Jyn. Her face is pale, her lips pressed together. Her fork is frozen halfway to her lips, but the eggs have fallen back onto her plate and she doesn’t move to pick them up again.
“They… They weren’t even trying,” she says, as if the words are being squeezed out of her. “It was an accident.”
“We’re not trying either,” he says. He knows it’s a mistake as soon as he says it and the fork goes flying across the kitchen.
“Of course we are!” Jyn says. “What do you think we’ve been doing for the past year?”
Cassian lets out a breath at the revelation that she’s been keeping track too, and at the relief that they’re finally being honest with themselves and each other. “It’ll happen,” he says, for lack of anything else to say, really. “We just have to be patient.”
“But what if it doesn’t happen?” she says, her voice suddenly small.
Cassian swallows a lump in his throat and then Jyn’s crying. He almost slips running around the table to meet her and she presses her face into his chest.
They stand there for a long time, rocking gently from side to side, wondering what comes next.
Doctor’s appointments, it turns out. Very awkward doctor’s appointments that make both of them extremely uncomfortable and even more terrified of this cliff they’ve suddenly found themselves on the edge of.
It’s a relief when they’re finally both declared fertile (a process much longer and more arduous for Jyn, to Cassian’s frustration), but also infuriating because if nothing's wrong then why hasn't anything happened yet?
“Just relax,” the doctor says. “The majority of couples under 40 conceive within the second year of trying.”
Cassian decides he hates this doctor, and ushers Jyn out of the office before she can do the doctor any bodily harm. He checks his watch and sighs. They’re late for the gender reveal party Leia’s bougie parents are throwing, and although he loves his friends, he cannot think of any party he wants to go to less.
Nevertheless, he tries to take the doctor’s advice and relax. He tries to distract Jyn (and himself) with a camping trip, where there are no pregnancy tests to stare at and Jyn can take out her aggression on the trails.
The time alone helps, and to Cassian’s relief, they both start to unwind. There are fewer tense conversations and too-meaningful silences. Sex becomes less desperate and more enjoyable (thank God). Jyn doesn’t delete the app on her phone, but turns off notifications and they stop keeping a constant supply of pregnancy tests in the bathroom.
By Christmas, he swears he’s barely thinking of it. They spend it at his parents’ place and he even starts to think children might not be so great after all when one of his nephews infects the entire house with a stomach bug on the 26th.
Jyn seems to be hit the worst, and they leave as soon as he’s well enough to drive. She sleeps for the entire 3-hour car ride home and barely wakes up long enough to collapse into bed. Still headache-y and a bit nauseous himself, he’s not far behind her.
They’re both basically recovered by New Year’s Eve, although Jyn still doesn’t have her energy back. He tells her they can skip Bodhi’s party if she’d rather keep resting. She agrees surprisingly quickly and settles back on the sofa to continue her nap.
“Are you sure?” he says, not convinced she won’t regret her decision later, because she hasn’t seen her brother since before Thanksgiving.
“Yeah,” she says, eyes already closed. “I won’t be much fun anyway.”
“We can have our own celebration here,” Cassian says. “I can run out and get some chips and dip.”
“’Kay,” Jyn says. She wrinkles her nose. “Nothing barbecue flavored.”
“Got it.”
The TV’s on when he gets back and Jyn’s turned to face it, but it’s on mute and her eyes are closed. She wakes up the rustle of plastic bags from the bodega, even though he tries to be quiet.
She yawns, stretches, and blinks slowly at him. “I just remembered,” she says. “I forgot to ask you to get something else while you were out.”
“What?” He drops his keys in the bowl by the door and toes off his shoes.
“Another box of pregnancy tests.”
The bags crash to the floor and Cassian’s halfway out the door before he remembers to put his shoes back on. He nearly runs to the bodega and back, because it all makes sense now, and he knows this is it– he knows.
They don’t manage to stay up even close to midnight. He carries her back into their bedroom as soon as they see the long-awaited double red lines, where they just lie there smile at each other and he kisses her until she falls asleep again.
He does see the ball drop next year, although not on purpose. They fall asleep at 9:30, unable to keep their eyes open any longer, until Mira wakes up hungry around 11:45.
Jyn feeds her in the living room with the TV on low to keep herself awake, and Cassian stays up with her even though he’s so tired he’s seeing double. He takes Mira when she’s finished and Jyn falls asleep with her head on his shoulder.
Cassian thinks about where they were only a year ago and takes a deep breath, his nose next to Mira's soft baby hair as he watches the glowing ball inch down.
5…
4…
3…
2…
1.