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Stede has been enjoying his pregnancy immensely.
This has been so much better than his last one with Kyrie, significantly better. This pregnancy has reminded Stede of what he actually likes about being pregnant. He hesitates to call it easy— especially considering that it’s his sixth pregnancy, and his body’s more than taking notice of that— but it is certainly enjoyable, and, especially in comparison to his last, feels much more in line with his expectations and desires.
The thing is, Stede really does like being pregnant. When things are going his way, he’s overjoyed, he glows with it, he can’t get enough, he sort of never wants it to end.
Even if he also wants to meet his baby.
The only thing that can distract him is getting his other babies back, and he’s practically vibrating with excitement as he and Izzy are preparing to go into port to retrieve Alma and Louis for the next six months.
It’s been a long half a year without his two eldest children. He misses Alma and Louis so deeply when they’re not here, like pieces of his body are missing, like fragments of his heart are gone. Though it’s important that they spend time on land with Mary and Doug, and he knows that’s important, and he knows they enjoy their time there— none of that helps him to miss them any less. They’re his babies, no matter how old they get.
At least, it’s easier than it was the first time: he always knows the next time he’ll see them again. He’s always coming back. They exchange letters, they make plans, they stay close.
His pregnancy is going smoothly. His crew is living happily. His children are coming back on board.
Stede is thriving.
“You sure you don’t want me to come?” Ed asks, Kyrie rubbing her hands over his cheek, running her little fingers through his beard as he holds her against his chest. She’s less than three weeks from turning one year old; Stede’s hoping he can manage to keep her birthday separate from the new baby’s.
If he’s right, he has nothing to worry about. If the pressure that keeps tightening in his spine and the false contractions that occasionally surge through his belly are any indication, that problem will solve itself sooner rather than later, he thinks.
“You’re still a bit recognizably Blackbeard,” Stede reminds him, apologetic. “Besides, there are four children here who would very much like to keep your company, I think.”
“They can come,” Ed insists. “We can come together. I bet they wanna see Mary, too, anyways.”
Izzy rolls his eyes, assisting Stede into his cloak without a word. Stede will accept the silence over his former open vitriol, and is grateful when Izzy helps him pull the sleeves down and the hood up, situating the thick cloak over his bulky frame, concealing the swell of his belly beneath.
“If we go together, we’re too obvious,” Stede reminds him. “You’re the one who said that.”
Ed’s brow creases. He probably wants to argue, but Stede’s right— Ed did say that. He said it while he believed he would be able to convince Stede to be the one who stayed on the ship, but, still— he said it.
From the twins’ room, they both hear a shriek, followed by Unu’s shout of, “Again, Ari!”
They can hear next the rhythmic smashes of Ari playing musical notes on the small child-sized piano they found a few raids back. The twins adore them right now, following their older sibling everywhere, always demanding their attention; it doesn’t surprise Stede that they’re already in each other’s space this early in the morning. Luckily, Ari loves their younger siblings right back, allowing them to trail after them like ducklings all over the Mercy.
Ariel’s little singing voice joins in a beat later, one of the shanties that Pete likes starting up on deck with the whole crew, and the twins are singing with them not long after, the three of them audibly laughing and fumbling the words from just out of view.
Stede catches Ed’s eye again and finds him smiling.
“Won’t you keep an eye on them for me?” Stede asks him, and Ed rolls his eyes, too. He and Izzy have spent entirely too much time together in their lives, he thinks.
“If anything happens,” Ed warns them, “send Izzy back immediately. Don’t fucking wait.” He hesitates, then asks, “Why aren’t they just coming to the fucking beach?”
“They can’t be seen bringing the kids to shore just to vanish,” Stede reminds him, playfully scolding. “People will start whispering. They might find out I’m still alive. I can’t put them in that sort of danger, Ed.”
“Oh, but you’ll put yourself in danger,” Ed argues. “You’ll put the baby in—”
“Hey,” Stede stops him, sharper this time. “If I thought there was any real risk to our baby, Ed, I would not be going. Don’t you say something like that.”
They evaluate each other for a long moment before they both deflate.
Ed’s the first to speak, saying, “I’m sorry, I know, I know you wouldn’t, I know the plan. Stupid— fucking plan. I just— I don’t like being apart from you.”
“I know you don’t,” Stede agrees, and leaves Izzy’s side to go to him, knotting their hands together, weaving their fingers through one another’s. “I don’t like being apart from you, either. But we do still have an entire plan, and we’ll be in and out, and we’ll be back here in just a couple of hours with Alma and Louis.”
“You’ve said this before,” Ed reminds him. “Remember when you were just going in for a second and had Ari? Or when you and Izzy went into port and—”
Kyrie cuts him off with a shriek, her hands gripping his beard and pulling close to the skin. Wincing, Ed separates them, and Stede’s put sharply in mind of when Ariel used to do the same thing, back when they were as small as she is, and he can’t help but smile.
It’s been five years since they conceived Ari— four and some change since they were born— and Stede’s life got a hundred— a thousand— a million times better. He has never looked back, nor does he ever plan to.
“Nothing is going to happen to me, or the baby, or even Izzy,” Stede reminds him with what he hopes is a reassuring, comforting smile. “It’s broad daylight, we’re going down one road, and I’m in disguise. Nobody’s going to lay a hand on me.”
Ed still seems skeptical, but he’s always a little skeptical about them being parted from one another. Not that Stede can blame him— after the experiences they’ve had together, the things they’ve been through, it stings something in his chest, too. Being apart, that is.
Stede needs to leave all the same, though, and he calls to his children, “I’m going to be getting Alma and Louis now, if you’d like to say goodbye!”
The tiny, clinking piano-notes crash into a cacophonous, clattering end as Ari’s hands presumably flatten on the keys to push themself upright. Stede can hear the pounding footsteps of Ariel, Hector, and Juno as they all sprint into the main cabin of their family’s quarters, stumbling into each other in their haste, skidding to collide with Stede’s legs, nearly sending him tipping backwards.
In all honesty, if it weren’t as chaotic as it is, Stede’s not sure he could escape without Ed figuring out a way to go with him. But—
Also in all honesty, Stede feels a lot better knowing Ed is with Ari, Hako, and Unu if anything happens. If their children are going to be divided, they should be, too— no matter how difficult it may feel. They should always have at least one of them with them, and there’s not much Stede could do to help the younger kids if he’s the one staying on the ship, in his current state.
It makes sense to divide them up this way.
It doesn’t make it any easier.
They’re both twitchy as they part, and Stede leaves the Mercy with a tremble in his hands that he tries to hide by concealing them within the sleeves of his cloak.
Together with Izzy, in the new light of the day’s dawn, he disembarks close to Mary and Doug’s new estate, but not too close. He keeps his face concealed, he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t lift his chin; he does everything as he’s been told, and he avoids every single person, and he keeps himself moving, forward and forward and forward, determined to collect his children.
He’s equally determined that nothing will go wrong. He will not get trapped in a barn in a storm; he will not get himself and/or Izzy captured, he will not catch ill, he will not get hurt, he will not end up in a fight.
In fact, he’s so determined to make it to Mary and Doug’s home unscathed that he pays attention to little else.
When he and Izzy finally do arrive, Stede is winded. Understandably so, in his opinion, and he’s grateful when Mary is the one to open the door so he can say to her, “If you give me a place to sit down, I’ll give you my ship.”
“Dramatic,” she says, drawing him into an embrace. “It’s nice to see you, too. Christ, but I don’t remember you being this pregnant when we took the kids.”
“That is how it fucking works,” Izzy comments. “Can we come in, please? Don’t like being all— fucked exposed out here.”
“Always lovely to see you, too, Izzy,” Mary greets him, and steps aside, allowing the both of them inside her home.
She seems so much more comfortable here than she ever did at the Bonnet estates. In all fairness, though, neither of them— none of them— were happy at his family’s estates; the place was shrouded in misery, foggy with fear, hazed over with hatred. Stede doesn’t like to think all that much about it.
This estate, by comparison, is stunning. Mary sold off what she inherited from Stede with his eager, enthusiastic blessing to purchase these lands instead, and she adores them. She cares for them, she and Doug both; the grand landscape is filled with colorful gardens, dotted with smaller spaces. Stede knows there are art studios, greenhouses, tearooms— a collection of properties as wonderfully eccentric as their owner.
“Doug’s helping them pack up the last of their things,” Mary explains to them as she leads them to her kitchens. Izzy’s shoulders are stiff, his gait stilted, his grip so tight on his cane that his knuckles are white; Stede wishes he could just relax for two seconds. “Good thing, because you look like you’re about to fall over standing up.”
“Do I?” Stede asks.
Izzy evaluates him, too, already suspicious. After the literal hours that Ed spent drilling into him that his sole responsibility here is protecting Stede and their children, planning what to do in any number of potential circumstances, Stede’s not surprised to see him jumping so quickly to attention.
“You should sit and drink something,” he says, firm and clinical, already searching out a chair.
“Charming as ever, Izzy, thank you,” Stede replies.
“The Captain—”
“Yes, I know what the Captain said,” Stede stops him. Honestly, he doesn’t mind Izzy’s hovering; it reminds him a bit of Ed, and it’s comforting knowing he has someone to help if something goes wrong. And—
Well, if he’s being frank, the walk here took a lot out of him. He’s past nine months pregnant, if his math is right. And his math is also Lucius’s math, so he’s fairly certain he’s right. And being nine months pregnant takes a fucking lot out of him on a regular basis, let alone when he’s walking around in the heat in a heavy cloak.
“Just for a minute,” Stede allows, and permits Mary to pull out a chair for him at the table.
“I’ll get you tea,” Mary tells them, eyeing Stede for a long moment before she’s heading for her kettle and her hearth.
Izzy is a lot more obvious with his eyeballing, openly studying Stede where he sits. His hand clenches about the handle of his cane like it’s the hilt of a sword. Stede knows which he’d rather be wrapping his fingers around right now, either way.
“You look pale,” Izzy comments to him. He takes the seat directly across from Stede, keeping his eye firmly fixed on him. “How are you feeling?”
“Just tired,” Stede assures him.
“How’re your joints?” Mary asks, setting down the kettle on a cloth. “Your back?”
“I—” Stede starts, then stops, cutting himself off so he can narrow his eyes at the two of them. “What are you doing?”
He genuinely never thought he’d ever see Mary and Izzy exchange a loaded look between the two of them, but his two worlds collide in the most absurd of ways right now, here in Mary’s kitchen.
Between them, they apparently decide Mary is the better to approach him, because she’s the one who asks, like he’s a spooked animal, “Stede, how are you actually feeling?”
It’s the question he’s been avoiding all day, pretty much. Stede looks away.
It’s just—
Today is the day they’ve been planning to pick up the children for weeks.
For— For months, actually, they’ve been planning this. Today is the day he’s picking up the children. They have a plan. He has disappointed Alma and Louis enough times in their lives. He has done enough without being late, or— or postponing, or changing— changing the plans on them last minute. He’s certainly not going to postpone them coming home to the ship with him because he was too busy giving birth to come and get them himself, like he planned.
His chest twists; his heart feels like it falls from the center of his throat to the pit of his stomach. He looks down at his hands where they’re trembling on Mary’s kitchen tabletop.
“I just wanted to pick up the children and go back to the ship,” he tells them. He’s still trying to ignore the way his body feels— the way he’s been feeling, since he went to bed last night, and worse by the hour. “I could be back on the ship in half an hour.”
Mary sets a teacup and saucer down in front of him.
“Alright,” Izzy says. “Then get your fucking kids and go back to the ship.”
Stede looks from him to Mary, evaluating each of them. They’re both just— watching him, and he frowns.
“Fine,” he retorts. “Then I will.”
He pushes his chair back, plants his hands on the table, and pushes himself into standing.
The second he’s on his feet, a band of pressure tightens around his belly and sparks lightning up through his back, and he exhales roughly, one hand going to the swell of his stomach. That pressure burns, and he bites back a groan at the same time he feels a burst that comes from deep inside his dropped-low belly, his waters breaking to splatter beneath him, so comically timed that Stede wants to scream.
“Oh, Stede,” Mary sighs. “On my floors?”
“I’m going back to the ship,” Izzy tells him, already pushing his chair back to stand. “I’m bringing Blackbeard back—”
“You are not leaving me here alone with him,” Mary warns him. “I don’t know how to deliver a baby.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Izzy demands. “You had two with him.”
“I didn’t have them,” Mary reminds him, as if he needs reminding. “I wasn’t much involved, either— Don’t you look at me that way, that’s not my fault. That just wasn’t done, alright—”
“Well, something’s going to have to be fucking done now.” Izzy grabs up his cane, says, “If I can’t go back, you’re going to have to—”
“Absolutely not. Sit down,” Mary instructs him before she turns and calls through the house, “Doug!”
A heartbeat later, Doug is replying with a shouted, “Yes?”
“Kitchen, please!” She motions Stede to sit back down, tells him, “He can go to the physician, then to the ship. He’ll bring Ed back and nobody will look twice.”
Stede’s heart seizes, and he shakes his head, moving to stand again. “No, I’m going back to the ship. It’s not safe for Ed to come out here—”
“—and it’s not fucking safe for you out there,” Izzy interrupts him roughly. “At least they can disguise him without him giving birth in the fucking road. And he can bring Lucius and Roach. It would help.”
The erratic, irregular panic of Stede’s heartbeat jolts once again. “The children—”
“—will be fine,” Mary finishes for him. “Louis and Al can wait a little longer.”
Stede shakes his head, eyes burning, insists as he stands, “They shouldn’t have to, they— And Ed will have to leave the babies on the ship, that’s— Fuck,” he spits, and lets his head fall back, trying to breathe through the birth pang as it burns around him, through him, inside him. “Shit, just— Just give me a second, I can get up, I’ll go back myself, I—”
“What is it?” Doug asks, sliding into the room. Of course, Alma and Louis are right behind him; it was too much for Stede to hope they wouldn’t be curious enough to follow.
“Dad!” Louis exclaims, in the same moment Alma laughs and says, “Hey!”
Before he knows it, he has his arms full of his children, practically climbing into his arms despite their age. He laughs, too, unable to stop himself, even with everything that’s going on, and the way he’s feeling, and— all that.
Nobody could blame him. They’re his children; he’s missed them.
Alma is thirteen, now, about a month off of turning fourteen; Stede still can’t believe it’s been fourteen years since he was pregnant with her. And Louis— Louis is eleven now, and he’d only just turned eleven when Stede last saw him, but now—
He’s gotten taller. They both have, actually, and Stede parts himself from them just enough that he can look them over. He’s visited a couple of times in the last six months, of course, but could never stay for very long, and it’s as though they’ve sprouted up like weeds in his absence.
Once again, his heart clenches, and he tells them, “My goodness, look at you both. You’re getting so old, aren’t you?”
Alma resembles Mary more and more the older she gets, growing into her build and height. Their faces are incredibly similar, down to the bone, and their hair is warm honey-gold. Alma’s kept the short haircut Stede gave her, and he’s pleased all over to realize how much she still likes it. Her eyes are a lovely blue-hazel that Stede had initially been terrified to see himself in, when she was first born, and long since has come to absolutely adore. She has a round set to her that puts Stede in mind of his own face, and he smiles to see it, now.
Louis, for his part, looks like a fair mix of both Mary and Stede, and it still surprises him sometimes to see just how much Louis grows to resemble him the older he gets. Their faces are structured similarly, though his blonde is dirtier than Stede’s, closer to Mary’s coloring; his blue-green eyes are bright and have nothing to do with Stede, but the freckles scattered across his face match the same sun-freckles on Stede’s, and he’s growing into the same height as Stede, if not a stockier build.
“Doug, you have to go back to their ship,” Mary tells her husband, already taking one of his cloaks up off the pegs on the wall, draping the red fabric over his shoulders, tugging the hood up over his head. “Bring back Ed, and— Who else did you want?”
“Lucius and Roach,” Izzy answers on Stede’s behalf. After a beat, he turns to Stede, asks, “Is there anything you need?”
It’s a consideration Stede isn’t expecting, and he can’t calibrate his mind and thoughts in order to come up with an answer. He wishes Ed were already here; he’d be able to answer for him, to know what he needs when he can’t focus on anything except the birth pangs squeezing through his insides, to fix everything, just like he always does— like they always do for each other, he likes to think.
“Ed will know,” Stede tells him, because that’s all he can focus on as another contraction comes. To Doug, he says, “Just— Tell Ed the baby’s coming, and—”
“The baby’s coming?” Louis asks, bewildered. “What? Right now?”
“And you left the ship?” Alma asks him. “Dad—”
“I know,” he tells her, speaking through clenched teeth. “Sorry, just— Give me a moment—”
“Alright, back off, give your dad some air,” Mary instructs them, tugging Alma and Louis back so Stede can retake his seat, no longer able to stand up on his trembling legs, knees knocking. “Yeesh. Doug—”
“On it,” Doug says. “Which way am I going?”
Izzy gives Doug directions while Stede takes slow, even breaths, evaluating himself. He can feel how low their baby has dropped; Rowan is so close, right there, and if Stede realized how fast this would move once it started, he never would have left the ship.
Ed can tell him later that he told him so; right now, Stede has other things to focus on.
“I told him not to go for a healer,” Izzy informs him when he returns to his side. His determination has shifted; Stede recognizes Izzy-the-first-mate, the one who makes sure Ed’s plans follow through, the one who gets things done. He’s glad to have him here with him; surprisingly enough, he’s glad to have Izzy, and he’s not entirely sure when that happened, but. Here they are. “Too dangerous, if Edward is coming. Your faces are too recognizable. Especially together.”
“Thank you, Izzy,” Stede replies, and watches the uncertainty flicker briefly across Izzy’s face before dissolving to vanish again.
“We need to boil water,” Izzy states, apropos of nothing. Turning to Alma, he asks, “Do you know how to do that?”
“I know how to boil water,” Alma says, in a tone not unlike Stede’s own when he’s exasperated, and looks to her mother. “Can I?”
“Go ahead,” she says, “but be careful.”
“What can I do?” Louis asks Izzy.
For a beat, Izzy appraises Stede’s son. Stede fights down the urge to say or do something, beats back the near-constant pressure to protect his children from the world and the people in it the way his father never protected him, and he reminds himself that Louis is eleven, and Izzy’s not an animal, and everything is going to be okay. He’s just— on a hair-trigger right now, twitchy—
—and with good reason, when another birth pang seizes his middle, drawing everyone’s attention back to him when he can’t fight back the low, tight groan that rises in his throat while he just tries to move through the pain of the contraction.
Izzy’s eyes skim the table, and then he turns to Louis, telling him, “You can get a place ready to put your father. Do you have a bed or somewhere?”
“Go prepare the blue guest room,” Mary instructs Louis, and he nods before running off, vanishing from the room just as the front door to her home slams shut, signifying Doug’s swift exit.
Stede’s heart pounds in his chest. He’s trying not to remember the way Ari was born, but it’s hard not to, the flashes of traumatic memory coursing through his mind over and over, even though this is so unlike that. Then, he had been completely alone, trapped in a storm, terrified, unable to do anything but hunker down without anybody and do everything by himself, lost and scared, for over a day. When he’d pulled Ari from his body, he’d been so terrified to find them dead; when he felt himself split, he’d been so sure he would bleed out before anybody could find either of them; and when—
Mary’s hand takes Stede’s, and he blinks, and it’s not a dark and unfamiliar barn around him anymore. It’s Mary’s kitchen, and her face in front of his, and she squeezes his fingers tight in hers.
“Stede?” she asks, like she knows he’s not all the way here. Of course, she knows; she was the first person who ever really saw him. Even if they weren’t in love— they were the first people they could be themselves around. She’ll always be a bit his best friend, for that. “Hey, there. You still with us, love?”
A band of pressure tightens through his belly, a scorching burst of muscle-pulling agony, and his back feels like it’s splitting apart. He nods in a jerk, letting his head fall back, his eyes slipping shut, while he just tries to breathe.
“Okay, he needs to move now,” Mary insists to Izzy.
Nobody ever used to care about Stede. Nobody loved him; nobody liked him, even. He’s always been too much, too wrong, too himself; even though he never gave up on himself, other people did, other people that wanted nothing to do with his too much.
Those people are gone now. These people love him; in their own ways, they love him.
It’s nice, that they want to help.
To Stede—
It’s the best, actually.
Stede lets them haul him to his feet, feeling unsteady between the both of them despite their combined strength and surety. They don’t let him fall regardless of how shaky he is, and Stede doesn’t know what other random circumstances of fate would have ever led these two people to work together, but he’s glad they’re on his side— especially since they weren’t, not always, and he laughs to think that they’ve also both tried to kill him.
“What’s so funny?” Mary asks him when they’re easing him onto the edge of the bed in what Stede assumes to be the blue guest room, based on the bright aqua-teal paint on the walls.
“Nothing,” Stede replies. She gives him a raised eyebrow, and he explains, “It’s just— You’ve both tried to kill me, and now you’re trying to help me have a baby. Silly old world, isn’t it?”
Izzy glances at Mary, asks, “You tried to kill him?”
“Technically,” she answers. “I didn’t mean it, though.”
“Oh, see,” Izzy replies, “I meant it.”
“You both could’ve done it, I’m sure,” Stede assures them. “I’m just glad that you didn’t, and I’m— Sorry, I’m just grateful that—”
“Stop,” Izzy interrupts him.
“Yeah, that’s enough of that, Stede, love,” Mary says, kneeling to help him out of his shoes. Izzy starts tugging at his waistcoat, and Stede lets himself be moved, focusing only on the next birth pang as it hits, far too soon after the last. “Save that for later. Focus now, alright?”
“Why is it going so fast?” Stede laments. “Kyrie took days. Why can’t Rowan take days?”
“You already picked out a name?” Mary asks him. “You don’t even know what it is.”
“They’re my baby,” Stede answers. “I know what I want to name them.”
“He’s been using it for months,” Louis chimes in. To Stede, he says, “The bed’s all set for you, Dad. What else can I do?”
Stede’s heart seizes all over again. He reaches out, and Louis takes his hand automatically, letting Stede wind their fingers together, and Stede remembers when it was Louis all of this was happening for. He remembers being surrounded by only strangers on his own insistence, because he didn’t know how to share that with Mary— didn’t know how to let her see something like that, so intimate and vulnerable and— he thought, at the time— weak.
Like everything else about his life back then, Louis’s birth— and Alma’s before his— were just so detached. He had been entirely alone when he labored with both of them, and only had a physician and midwives come at the very end. He hadn’t wanted his mother there; far from it, he wanted her nowhere near him, had no connection nor desire to have her with him while he went through this.
Otherwise, he’d just bitten pillows in their bedroom and tried to remain silent.
It was his own fault, he knows that, and his own choice, but it had still been a nightmare for him. This is infinitely better—
—But, still.
He remembers, too, when he’d finally had them. Alma had been his first, and she had torn him, and he had nearly bled out, and that was after he’d labored with her for nearly a day before she was finally here, his first baby, the one who made him a father. Now, she’s a month off turning fourteen, and she’s helping him prepare for the birth of her new sibling, and he could get whiplash for how fast it feels time has moved since the moment of her birth to now.
And Louis, he’d been born in an afternoon, and he’d been born silent, and he’d terrified Stede right away. He remembers thinking he was dead, before the physician had pulled something from his throat and then his son had cried, just like Hector after him.
He remembers still being halfway-delirious when Mary had come in, apologetic, with his father behind her. He remembers his father looking Louis over with this expression on his face that made Stede’s stomach twist with fear, realizing his father finally had what he wanted, that he found it in Stede’s baby, the son he was looking for all along, and it had terrified him.
Most of all, he remembers laying in bed with Louis that night, the both of them alone. Alma had fallen asleep next to him, her head on his shoulder, all of two years old and determined to keep an eye on her new brother until she dozed off; Mary was still sitting up in the chair next to the bed, though she’d nodded off, head on her own shoulder. And Louis—
Louis had been a sickly baby. For the first few months, he just— was not well. Stede thinks he could tell even that first night that he wasn’t very strong, and he’d felt this need to keep him close, to protect him, to just— clutch him to his chest and hold him tight and never let him go. He couldn’t imagine a world where anyone could tear them apart.
And then he’d torn them apart himself.
Still, here Louis is, over a decade later, eleven years old and strong and healthy and perfect, nothing like his father and everything like himself and here and alive, and Stede can’t regret anything that brought him here, even if he can regret the hurt he caused along the way. To himself and others.
Stede squeezes Louis’s hand, then pulls him into a tight hug.
“I love you,” he tells him, holding him close.
“I love you, too,” Louis replies before he laughs. “It’s going to be alright, Dad. Don’t freak out.”
He sounds like some funny combination of Mary and Ed when he says that, and Stede laughs, loosening his grip, allowing them to separate from one another. It’s perfectly timed, too, because the next birth pang comes then, and Stede’s unable to focus on anything except that.
One thing this labor has in common with Alma’s, and Louis’s, and Ariel’s, and Hector and Juno’s, and Kyra’s: it fucking hurts.
He’s abruptly seized with the reminder that Alma and Louis are children— they’re his children, and they’ve been through so much already, and they don’t need to go through more. Thirteen and eleven aren’t really that old, and it’s maybe too much for them to be here when all of this happens. They’re mature— they had to mature quickly, and he blames himself still for a lot of that— but that only makes him want to protect them more. They shouldn’t have to deal with this, they’re his children—
Alma brings in two large, steaming kettles just then, one in each hand, and drops them near the bed, asking, “What is this all for, anyways?”
“Sanitization,” Izzy answers, as Louis’s hands leave Stede’s. “Nasty fucking work.”
“Mary, love, can you—” Stede starts, then stops. He’s not sure exactly how to word what he wants, and he can’t verbalize anything a beat later when another birth pang comes, silencing him with clenched teeth. He motions vaguely, forces out, “The children, please—”
“Oh, right.” Mary turns to Alma and Louis, gathering them closer to her. She’s always been such a good mother to them; he would have favored her, too. “Alright, come on, you guys. Even I don’t want to see this, c’mon.”
“But I can help,” Louis insists. “I help with Anna in the kitchens all the time, and Roach when I’m on the ship. I’m really good with a knife, I promise.”
Stede blanches. The thought of a knife needing to come into play is bad enough; the mental image of Louis being the one to wield it, standing over him with the blade, is enough to make him dizzy, and he shakes his head, closing his eyes, swallowing thickly.
“I’m so sorry,” he chokes out. He feels guilt, shame, upset that he didn’t get to spend any time with Alma and Louis before Rowan started coming, and now he’s making them leave, even if he feels that it’s for their own good. “I’m—”
“They’ll be here when it’s over,” Mary reminds him. “You focus on what you’re doing.”
Stede opens his eyes just in time to see Alma and Louis being shepherded away, and he reaches out, says, “Wait, wait— Just— Before you go.”
He beckons, and they slip around Mary to go to him, one to each arm. It’s something he never expected, and is constantly, continuously grateful for. He’s so lucky his children are so much better than he is.
“I love you,” Stede tells them both firmly. “You know how important you are to me, don’t you?”
“Obviously,” Louis replies, and Stede chokes on a laugh, tugging them both in closer.
“You get so weird when you have a baby,” Alma complains. When Stede kisses her cheek, she smiles, though she still groans theatrically. “Fine. I love you, too.”
“Thank you, sweet girl,” Stede says, and she rolls her eyes. “That’s my love.”
“Love you, too,” Louis chimes in. “Can you have another boy this time? I want to balance it out.”
“I’ll try my best,” Stede promises him.
“Do you think Dad’s going to make it?” Louis asks then. “Ed-Dad, I mean.”
The question makes the center of Stede’s chest crinkle inwards. He inhales shakily, the back of his throat pulling and his eyes prickling, and tells him, “I hope so.”
“He’ll get another chance,” Izzy comments. He eyes Stede, then, and adds, “Or thirty.”
Mary gives him a half-amused, half-scornful look that just makes Stede laugh, and he’s grateful for the brief moment of levity before another birth pang is coming and he’s allowed to forget about his longing for Ed, his melancholy regarding his children, his fear about this going wrong, to focus only on bringing his baby here.
“Alright, here we go,” Mary says, and escorts the children from the room, allowing Stede alone with Izzy for now, which— while not ideal, is absolutely better than being alone—
—alone, in the storm, thunder crashing overhead, Ariel screaming between his thighs, blood rushing everywhere, Stede’s pulse thrumming in his ears—
“Bonnet,” Izzy says, loud and clear, and Stede blinks into staring up at him. “Are you with me?”
Stede jerks his head in a nod. His jaw hurts, teeth aching from being clenched together; he tells Izzy, “I want to wait for Ed to get here.”
“I’m not sure you have much of a choice,” Izzy argues. At Stede’s heated glare, he asks, “Well, what the fuck did you two think was going to happen, you coming in like this?”
“I wasn’t thinking, alright?” Stede snaps at him. “I never think! I wanted to see my children and I wasn’t thinking and I— I’m— I’m stupid and I do stupid, selfish things and I—”
Izzy slams his false leg down, the wooden end making a heavy, interrupting thump that stops Stede just as short as his bitten-off, “Hey!”
Stede’s head snaps up, and he meets Izzy’s eyes again, fists gripping the sheets of the blue room’s bed. His chest is heaving; his stomach has dropped low; his contractions are on top of each other; his heart is pounding in his chest. His baby is nearly here regardless of what he is— or is not— doing about it. And now Izzy is yelling at him.
“That’s not going to help your fucking baby, is it?” Izzy demands. Stede starts to argue, but Izzy asks again, “Is it?”
The way he’s talking pisses Stede off, and he spits back, “No, but neither is this—”
“Then do something about it,” Izzy prompts him, encouraging in his own fucked-up way. “Get your baby here—”
“Not without Ed,” Stede snaps again. “I’m not doing this without him again, I’m not— Fuck!”
He tastes blood in the back of his throat, a metallic tang that infuriates him, and he forces himself into standing up. He doesn’t want to be laying down, he wants to be up, and he lurches to his feet so he can tear at his clothes, wrenching his soft trousers from his legs, leaving himself in the stockings Ed tied with lavender ribbons that morning, and the long white chemise that clings to the dropped-low swell of his belly and hangs down to his mid-thighs.
“Better,” Izzy tells him. Stede’s put in mind of long training sessions with Izzy, in the moments when Stede would, after hours, improve his sword-form in whatever way he’d been struggling to learn, and Izzy finally would praise him for it.
It’s hard to get approval from Izzy; he doesn’t give it easily. Stede’s almost relieved to get it now, though he can’t find the words for his gratitude, instead waving him off so he can crouch next to the bed.
“What are you doing?” Izzy asks him, voice tight.
“Having my baby,” Stede tells him, straining, gripping the bed to keep himself from tipping over when he bends his knees and squats on the floor, just trying to relieve the pressure in his back, his belly, his pelvis. “Like you told me to, thank you very mu— Shit!”
Stede nearly falls over, then, his balance shivering, and Izzy’s hands fly to his shoulders before he can topple. He catches him, rights him, and Stede clings to him for a moment, just trying to breathe.
“Shit, it hurts,” Stede bites out, just because he needs to. It just comes up. “Fuck, God, shit, it hurts, where the— Where the fuck is Ed?”
It’s been long enough, their ship isn’t that far, he has to be coming. Doug has to have made it by now; once Ed heard what was happening, he has to have started running, started moving as fast as he can, and Stede can see him in his mind’s eye, frantic in the way he only gets when it has to do with Stede or one of their babies, and he can only hope he’s being properly safe in getting to them, because the only thing worse than Ed not being here when their baby is born is Ed not being here at all, captured or hurt or hanged or—
Another contraction practically overlaps the last, and Stede screams into it, unable to stop himself.
A beat later, Izzy’s looking for something he can bite down onto; unsure of what, if anything, from this unfamiliar room can be sacrificed, he ends up tearing off his own glove and shoving it towards Stede.
“Put this in your mouth,” Izzy instructs him, and Stede thinks it speaks volumes about his current state of mind that he doesn’t even question the order; he just does it.
His next scream, thanks to the thick hide of Izzy’s leather glove in his mouth, is far more muffled, and he feels leagues better that his children don’t have to hear the way he’s sobbing through this.
This contraction hurts in a different kind of way, in a far more purposeful sort of way, and Stede can feel the intent in his body as it tries to push his baby out with or without his assistance in those efforts. He bears down because he has to, pushes because he needs to, focuses on bringing his baby out of his body and into the world because he is laboring and because he feels like an animal and because he has no choice.
“Oh, God,” he sobs into the glove, muffled, when he can feel the burn of their head in a fiery ring of pain. It feels like it’s been a decade and no time at all, and he shakes his head. The glove starts to fall from his mouth when his jaw slips slack, and he says through it, scraping, “I can’t, not without Ed, I can’t—”
He nearly chokes on Izzy’s glove when he hears the front door to Mary and Doug’s home bang open once again. The relief that surges through him when he hears pounding steps, followed by Ed’s clear voice demanding, “Where is he?”, is dizzying, and Stede leans forward, glove dropping, groan ripping, throat tearing, forehead pressed to the mattress, nails clenching into the sheets, Izzy’s hands gripping his shoulders tight to keep him upright.
“Thank fuck,” Izzy says. He claps Stede on one shoulder, tells him, “There he is,” before he raises his voice to call back, “In here!”
Those pounding footsteps draw closer; Stede can hear Alma’s and Louis’s voices, and Ed’s right after them, moments before the door to the blue room is crashing in and Ed is there, he’s here, filling the doorway, dressed haphazardly in a long emerald-green cloak tugged up over his head. His trousers are his own, but his top is Stede’s, one of his larger chemises for when he’s pregnant; his heavy black boots look almost humorously out-of-place with the rest of the thrown-together ensemble. When he tugs the hood back and throws the cloak off, his hair is wild beneath, thrown up into a messy bun of spilling silvering curls; his dark eyes, wild now, are everything Stede’s wanted to see this whole time, and he sobs into the relief he feels now that Ed is here with him.
“The baby’s coming,” Izzy tells Ed, perhaps unnecessarily. The sunlight burns through the blue room, and Ed is at Stede’s side in a heartbeat, crouching, his arm replacing Izzy’s hands to hold him upright. “You should probably—”
“Ed, I’m so sorry,” Stede insists before Ed can say anything else. His breath comes faster than his pulse, ragged through his lungs, tearing up his throat. “I thought we had more time and I wanted to see the children and Kyrie took three days and I didn’t think it would happen like this, Ed, I didn’t, I’m so sorry, I should’ve known and I didn’t and I feel so fucking stupid and I—” His nails tear at the sheets, and he cries out, “Shit, it hurts, Ed—”
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re okay,” Ed soothes him, trying to calm him, and Stede shakes, eyes falling closed and tears slipping free. He hadn’t realized how bone-deep his need for Ed had become until he heard his voice again. “I’m right here and I don’t see a baby already this time. No harm done.”
Stede chokes on another sob, begs him wildly, “I’m sorry, Ed, I’m sorry, please, I’m—”
“Shh.” Ed pulls him into his arms, kissing the sweat-thick hair at the side of his head. More footsteps fall into the room behind them, but Ed doesn’t turn, and Stede doesn’t lift his head away from his chest, burying into his throat, shuddering through the next contraction that’s pushing his baby further, nearly out of him now, and he almost bites Ed’s shoulder before he remembers himself. “Hey, hey. I gotcha. Do you want to stay here or do you want to get up into bed?”
Stede’s legs are shaking, his thighs burning, and he doesn’t think he can hold this position any longer, so he answers, “Bed,” and Ed echoes, “Bed,” before hoisting him to his feet.
“At least you got yourself into a bed this time, Captain,” Roach comments, amused, as Ed hauls Stede towards the pillows. “I’m impressed. Well done.”
“Thank you, Roach,” Stede bites out. When he looks down at him between his thighs, he feels such relief that his next repeated, “Thank you, I— Thank you,” is far more sincere, because he is not alone. Roach is here to help, and Mary is at his shoulder, and Lucius has joined Izzy in the corner— though wide-eyed and horrified, and Doug is ready to go if they need him, and Alma and Louis are here, and—
And, most importantly, Ed.
Ed is here.
Ed is here, just in time for their baby to get here. Just in time for Rowan to be here.
“Christ, is that the baby, then?” Lucius asks, blood rapidly flushing his face. “Should that look like that?”
“Should he be in here?” Ed asks on top of his voice, speaking over him.
“I have the log, the— the kids’ book,” Lucius says, and holds aloft the book Stede has written all of his children’s birth-experiences and baby-firsts and important information into. “What should I—”
“We’ll tell you about it after,” Ed insists. “Go— Fucking get a cloth, then, if you actually want to help.”
Lucius hesitates, then he’s off, taking the out when it’s given. Izzy pauses, too, before he tells Ed, “If you need anything,” and then stops there, vanishing, the door to the blue room slamming closed behind him.
“Now, I feel like I should remind you,” Roach says to them, pocketing the roach between his lips to free his hands and focus, “I’m not a midwife. I’m barely a healer.”
“And if something goes—” Ed starts, before he quickly amends to, “If anything happens, you’ll go with Doug for the physician and a midwife like we discussed. You remember that?”
Roach knocks off a salute, agrees, “Aye-aye, Captain,” before he takes up one of Alma’s hot-water kettles to douse his hands. They’re already clean, from what Stede can see, but he appreciates the extra lengths more than he can verbalize while he’s laboring out his seventh child.
Which he is very actively doing, he realizes in the next beat, and it helps him enter this state of mind where— where everything is perfect.
Or, well. It’s almost perfect. If it weren’t for the pain, it would be perfect.
In moments like these, when Stede’s body is just his body, doing something incredible, that he loves doing, he couldn’t be happier. He doesn’t have to perform, doesn’t have to be perfect, doesn’t have to be any gender or concept or— or anything. He can just be himself, separate from all of that, like he is inside.
His child is nearly here, then, and it burns, and Roach says, “Oh, there we go,” in a way that makes Stede realize Rowan really is coming.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he tells Ed, mindless. “I’m so— I’m so glad, Ed, thank you, thank you—”
“Shh,” Ed shushes near his ear. “You’re doing awesome, Stede, love. You just focus on having that baby, you don’t have to thank me. That’s a love, come on, there we go—”
Stede cries out again, and Ed fits himself behind him, bracketing him in bed, spooned behind him, wrapping around him, holding him upright. Stede’s hands grip Ed’s arms, nails digging into his flesh, and he shoves forward on his next push, feeling their head, feeling them there, and he’s shivering when he has to wait for the next contraction to come before he can push again.
At his side, Mary grips his shoulder, tells him, “You can do this,” supports him through this birth after she was unable to be at the others. It strikes Stede just how far the two of them have come that he feels more comfortable with her here now than he had when they were actually her children he was birthing.
“That’s it, Captain,” Roach tells him, as if everything is normal, as if this is just another day for him. “Nice and easy. They’re right there, just give me another couple jumps there.”
“Hear that, Stede?” Ed asks, close to his ear. “Our baby’s right there, you just have to give him two more pushes. That’s it, that’s all—”
Ed says two more, but Stede nearly bursts a blood vessel in his eye pushing their baby’s skull the rest of the way out on the next one push alone, and their shoulders come on the next after that, the burn and stretch impossibly painful and peculiarly familiar as they finally and abruptly spill from his body into Roach’s hands with a great release of pressure and a bright, ear-piercing scream from their baby as they take their first real breaths.
Behind him, Ed shifts away, wriggling loose so he can crawl down the massive bed on hands and knees and kneel up next to Roach where he’s holding their baby in his hands.
Ed laughs, breathless, and tells Stede, “You did it, love. Oh— Fuck.” His attention shifts back downwards. “Shit. Rowan. It’s— Rowan. Hi, Rowan. Hi, baby.”
Stede smiles, too, collapsing back into the pillows, ears ringing from their crying and the immense pressure he’s just pushed through his whole body. He can feel tears spilling from his eyes, uncontrollable; he’s not even really crying, they’re just— coming.
He doesn’t even mind. He just lets them come.
“Can I see them?” Stede asks, shifting, holding his arms out. “Let me see them, Ed, give them here, I want my baby—”
Ed takes Rowan from Roach to pass to Stede, lifting them up and onto his chest. He takes them, screaming and tiny; he thinks they’re his smallest baby, and when he looks them over, his heart just bursts for loving them.
Their features, he’s surprised to notice, strongly resemble his own, something he wasn’t expecting at all. After Kyrie, he thought he’d pretty much run out of luck on that front, but Rowan’s nose is his, and their coloring is his, and they don’t even hurt all that badly to see. Their hair is Ed’s, thick glossy curls, though their color is Stede’s, golden-blonde beneath the blood; their eyes are Ed’s shape, but they’re honey-gold and hazel-near-yellow, uniquely theirs.
He notices, too, that they actually haven’t got a penis or a vagina, not really. They have more of a combination, something else entirely. Stede examines them for a curious moment before he traces up over their face, swiping blood away from their eyes, finding dotted freckles and a dark-red birthmark over their left eye. He traces the edge of the birthmark’s shape, dropping his head closer to theirs, tears burning in his eyes as their foreheads push together, their shared blood smearing along their skin.
“What is it, then?” Lucius asks from the doorway, pointedly not looking up, face buried in the book, quill scratching quickly. “Boy or a girl?”
“Neither one,” Stede tells him. “They’re special.”
Ed buries himself in Stede’s side, looking over Rowan with him. After a beat, he says, “Look at that. Wow, that’s— Okay.” He pauses, then asks, “What do we do? What do we call them?”
For some reason, Stede already knows exactly what he wants to do. It feels right, in a bone-deep way, but he can’t vocalize it for a moment because the afterbirth is already coming, and he’s forced to pass Rowan, beautiful and still screaming, off to Ed while Roach pulls the bloody mess out of his body and Mary pretends she does not see a single thing and Lucius jolts out of the room to noisily vomit down the hall.
Roach uses a long, curved blade to slice Rowan’s cord, separating them from Stede; his fingers deftly twist twine around the end before he’s taking the cloths Lucius left in here with them and pushing them towards Ed.
“You can use those to clean them,” Roach tells them. “Captain, I’m going to need to make sure you’re all set before I leave you alone in here, alright?”
Stede acquiesces, though his head tilts to the side, focusing on Rowan in Ed’s arms as Ed scrubs them down with some of Alma’s hot water and the clean cloths. Bit by bit, Rowan is revealed underneath the blood and gore of their birth, until Ed has them shiny-clean and pink-raw and perfect, until Roach is finishing his uncomfortable, painful, probing examination, until he’s sitting back and clapping his hands together, smiling at them.
“Made it out of this one unscathed,” Roach tells him, while Ed tilts in, working on cleaning Stede, now, as well. “Well, besides— You know,” and he motions in a vague sense towards Stede’s general thigh-and-vagina area. “Lucky thing the kid’s small.”
“Oh, yes, very lucky,” Stede comments, halfway-sarcastic, halfway-genuine. “Thank you very much, Roach.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” Roach says, standing. “Give us a shout when you’re ready to go. I’m sure Izzy won’t mind running ahead, getting the ship ready.”
“Thanks,” Ed says, and it’s dismissal enough that Roach is gone a beat later.
At his side, Mary ducks down, pressing a soft kiss to Stede’s cheek. He loves her more now than he ever did while they were married; he’s so grateful to her for everything, so glad to have her in his life, and he turns to her, catching her hand, squeezing it, kissing the back of it before he’ll let her go.
“Thank you,” he tells her. “Sorry about your floors. Ah— And the room. And—”
“Don’t worry about it,” she stops him. “You’ll have the kids for the next six months. I’m sure they’ll mess up enough on my behalf.” She squeezes his hand, tells him, “You did an amazing job, Stede. That— That was fucked up.” They both laugh, and she says, “Thank you.”
He knows what she’s saying, and he squeezes her hand back.
“Thank you,” he echoes, and she smiles before she’s releasing him and heading for the hall, leaving with a small wave, the door closing softly shut after her.
Then, it’s just Ed, and Stede, and Rowan, their newest baby, and Stede’s heart turns over in his chest.
And then, looking at them, and seeing them, and realizing that they’re not born a boy or a girl but something else entirely, something clicks inside of his brain.
Ever since he met Mary, he’s been wondering; ever since he met Jim, he’s been thinking; ever since Ari started expressing who they really are, he’s started having realizations. Now that Rowan’s here, the pieces snap into place, and Stede realizes what he’s been feeling all along, just as Ed is removing himself from between Stede’s cleaned thighs to rejoin him at the head of the bed.
Once he’s there, Stede tells him, all in a rush, impulsive and instinctive and unable to stop himself, “Ed, I’m— I’m not sure I’m a man,” and his heart rushes in his chest, and his lungs are tight, and it feels inexplicably right to say.
At his side, Ed’s quiet, for a beat. Stede allows him the moment of processing before he’s leaning into the pillows on the massive bed, tucked into Stede’s side, passing Rowan back over into his arms.
“Okay,” Ed replies. Stede feels a relief so massive his head rushes; he laughs, turning into him, and he can feel Ed’s smile when he presses a kiss to his forehead. “What are you thinking, then, love?”
Once Stede starts talking, he can’t stop, thoughts becoming words that spill out of his mouth in a waterfall, in waves, in an ocean that rushes from him. “I just— I’ve been watching the children, and the crew, and my family, and you, and you’re all so— You’re all so yourselves, and you’re yourselves in ways that I never even imagined people could be, and I didn’t— I didn’t realize people could exist like we did before I came out here, Ed. Really, I didn’t, and it’s been— Wow, has it been eye-opening! Ed, I have seen— I have seen everything, I have met so many people, and I’m finally— Finally, I’m with people who understand, who help me understand, who I can— I— I can talk about this with, and they get it, and now, with them,” and he motions to Rowan, “I’m realizing that I— I—”
He stops, cutting himself off, his thoughts moving faster than he can process them. He considers what he’s saying, then looks down at Rowan, into the honey-gold of their eyes as they’re calming down in his arms, screaming cries coming to a stop, resting with their round cheek squished to pillow on his chest.
Stroking his thumb along the petals of the flower-shaped birthmark over their left eye, Stede continues with new confidence and surety, “I never knew people like Ari, before. Or Jim. Or Rowan, now. I knew me, and Mary— But, even that, her— She came later. But I— I’ve called myself a man for so long, because I knew calling myself a woman was wrong. But now, I’m not sure— You know, I don’t think I’m a man, either. Not entirely, not really.”
When Stede looks up at him, Ed smiles, of all things, and Stede finds himself smiling wide in return, making him feel buoyant and joyful and calm inside in a way he’s never felt. It just enforces the rightness of all of this.
“That’s awesome, mate,” Ed says, and Stede’s eyes burn with tears. “Aw— No, that wasn’t supposed to be a sad thing! Love, I—”
“No, no, I’m not sad,” Stede insists. “I’m very, very happy, actually. I’m sorry, I— I know we just had a baby, now isn’t the time, I shouldn’t be—”
“Nah, fuck that,” Ed stops him. “Shit— Like you said. You just birthed a whole fucking baby, Stede. You tell me whatever you want to tell me, you— you feel however you want to feel. You don’t need to be a man if you’re not a man. You can feel whatever you want, just— Fuck, honestly, I’m not surprised you’re feeling this way. Giving birth— That’s like, a body experience. That’s crazy shit.” Ed grips the back of Stede’s head, fingers threading through his hair. “Stede, I’m so glad you told me. I’m— I’m so glad you figured this out. I can’t tell you how happy you make me. I want you to be so fucking happy— I love you.”
“I love you,” Stede echoes, and tilts his head for a kiss. They part after only a moment, and Stede’s already starting to talk again, telling him, “I don’t know. I don’t— I don’t know if I’m doing it right—”
“Love, there is no right way, c’mon,” Ed reminds him with a sweet sort of laugh. “Look at our crew. Fuck, look at Ari, look at Roa,” and his hand settles on their child between them, over their tiny chest, thumb stroking over their heart. “There’s no one way. There’s just being you, yeah? Isn’t that what you taught me— taught fucking all of us? This is how it should be. And you should get to be who you are in all that, yeah? Isn’t that why we’re doing all this? So we can do what we want and be ourselves?”
Stede nods in a vigorous jerk. He’s said the words, but their crew and his children and Ed have really made them real.
Settling into this, Stede speaks the thought as he has it, tells him, “I can be myself. Whatever that looks like, whoever that is— Whatever feels right. Can’t I?”
And Ed, his home, space, freedom, support, understanding, smiles and says, “Fuck yeah, mate. You’re you. I want all of you.”
And it doesn’t surprise Stede that it took Rowan’s birth to bring him to this realization, though he’s glad for it. He has loved this pregnancy, and he has loved the way his body has worked, and he has never felt more himself. He realizes with a stilted breath that he’s not a man, and he’s not a woman, and he’ll— maybe have to ask Jim if they know what that means, or what he’s meant to call himself, or if they could possibly point him to a helpful book or two on the subject, but all he knows right now is that he’s him, and that he likes being him, and maybe he would also like being them— though he’s still certain he’s not exactly a fan of using her. That still doesn’t feel quite right.
Rowan is themself, and Stede is themself.
Even just thinking that feels right. Stede’s attachment to pregnancy and birth and his body and their children deepens, in that moment; they all feel like pieces of the puzzle, expressions of their gender, pieces of himself, so unique when compared with the rest of this world, and Stede could not love them more than they do right now.
Their body doesn’t feel like a man’s, or a woman’s. It feels like a human body. They feel as though they are separate, that they’re something else, and he relishes the bliss in acknowledging that they have finally found their identity. Even if they don’t have the exact words, even if he’s still figuring it out, he is figuring it out. They don’t fit masculinity, or femininity, but he fits himself. He can be a person who has children, and is a pirate, and dresses how he wants, presents how they want, is who they are.
“I want to be me,” Stede says, lifting their eyes to meet Ed’s, feeling like he’s in the greatest dream. “All of me. I feel like I’m more myself, like— Maybe I can even be a better parent to them if I’m more myself. If I actually figure it out. Maybe—”
He looks down at Rowan, and he thinks—
He realizes.
“I’ve probably told you this,” Stede says, both to Ed and to Rowan, “but, when I was a child, I didn’t feel like there was any place for me. I knew I wasn’t a girl, but I didn’t fit in with the boys, either.” Stede traces their thumb around the edge of Rowan’s birthmark, near one dark eyebrow. “Being a girl felt wrong. It didn’t occur to me that something would feel more right than being a boy. But this— Ed. This feels right.”
“That’s fucking beautiful, babe,” Ed tells him, and Stede laughs. With enthusiasm, Ed insists, “No, I’m fucking serious. I love you, that’s— I’m so proud of you. That’s fucking incredible. I can’t tell you how— just— fucking great this is.” Ed’s hand twitches over Rowan’s tiny belly, rising and falling with their breath beneath his palm, fingertips lightly stroking their soft bare chest. His eyes skim their baby before settling on their closed eyes, just beneath Stede’s sweeping thumb, even and rhythmic on their cheek. “I love all of you that I get. You’re always so fucking— everything. Just— Shit, Stede. You’re one of a fucking kind.”
Stede glows with his words, dissolving into him. They’re exhausted by Rowan’s birth, now, and emotionally blown-out by the ensuing realization. The adrenaline is starting to leave him, now, and the rush of doing all these things back-to-back is making them worn-out, slumping into Ed.
“We still have to get back to the ship,” Stede says.
“Yeah, yeah. Just give me a minute,” Ed replies, attention down on Rowan, and Stede—
Stede slows down, for a second.
His pounding heartbeat steadies into a regular, even pulse. Their blood stops rushing in their ears, and his hands slowly cease trembling, and they calm down, coming to a settling halt in Ed’s arms, Rowan held close to their chest, and he finally sighs, relaxing. The pain is still there, but the panic recedes; they can handle the pain when everything else is calming—
—Though, he wouldn’t mind a dose of something from Roach back on the ship. They could use a bit of sleep, he thinks.
For a long moment, they just enjoy each other, enjoy this moment with Rowan, with their newest child. Ed strokes his fingertips through their drying blonde curls, spilling brand-new gold locks like dripping honey through the soft motions of his hand.
“They are perfect, aren’t they?” Ed asks. To Stede, he says, “That’s what you meant, right? When you said you knew what you wanted to do. You want to do like we do with Jim, yeah?”
“If that’s alright,” Stede says. “I think it makes sense. Don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do,” Ed agrees. “And you’d want to use that, too, then?”
Stede considers, then tells him, “Not just that.”
“But you don’t want any she shit,” Ed clarifies, and Stede snorts on a laugh
“No, I’d rather not,” Stede agrees. “So long as that’s alright with you.”
“That’s perfect for me, love.” Ed kisses him on the forehead. “You are fucking perfect for me. Perfect little—”
“And I’m not— Too much? I’m not being too much? Or asking too much? Or—”
“Stede,” Ed stops him. “I know you think you’re too fucking much. But I gotta tell you— To me? You’re fucking not. It’s everybody else that's not enough. And being you is never fucking too much, I always want you. All of you, mate. No fucking less.” Before Stede can even think to start responding to something so crushingly wonderful, Rowan fusses against their chest, and Ed smiles at them, a sympathetic and affectionate creasing of his handsome face. “Aw, now. I know, you don’t have any clothes. You must be a little chilly, yeah? Here, just— Lemme—”
Rather than leave the bed for a moment to fetch another blanket, or a quilt, or even his own cloak from off the floor, Ed leans forward to tug his chemise up over his head. He tucks this around Rowan, wrapping it about their tiny body until they’re snug in it, and he runs his thumb along their hairline. “There’s a love. Much better, isn’t it? And it’ll be even better when we’re back on the Mercy. Fuck, you’re gonna love it. You’ll get to hang out with us for a while before you’ll get your own room. And— Shit, pretty, perfect little thing like you, everyone’s gonna love you. And we’re bringing Ally and Lou back with us— those are your big brother and sister. You’ll meet Ari, too, and Hako, and Unu, and Kyrie, and you’re gonna love them. Just as much as they’re gonna love you.”
Smiling, Stede leans into him, accepting the kiss that Ed presses to their temple before he’s leaning down to press an identical kiss to Rowan’s cheek.
“As much as I love you,” Ed insists to them. “As much as your— Uh. Dad?”
“Dad works for now.”
“Dad,” Ed repeats. “As much as your Dad loves you. As much as you love your Dad, I bet. Since they made such a nice home for you and all. And now— Look, he gets you. They’re just like you, yeah? Little— genderless blondies—”
“Ed,” Stede laughs, and Ed ducks up to kiss them again.
They do have to leave eventually, and Ed hollers for Izzy, brings the whole lot of them in. Alma pushes her way to the front of them, bounding up into bed, demanding, “I want to meet Rowan, let me see.”
“Roach said they’re not a boy or a girl,” Louis exclaims. Beside the bed, he peers at them, then says, “Better than being a girl, anyway.”
“Fuck off,” Alma says to him, and Mary groans from the door.
“You’re worse here than you are with those pirates,” Mary complains. “Louis, don’t be horrible about girls. Alma, for the love of God, stop cursing so much.” Her attention shifts to the bed, then, and she’s behind Alma in a heartbeat, saying, “Oh, Stede— They’re cute all cleaned up. Much cuter than either of these two were.”
“Hey,” Alma snaps, laughing. “They’re still all— crumpled up.”
“You’ve seen this how many times before, kid?” Izzy asks her. He leans over, looks into Rowan’s face. “Christ. You finally made a whole fucking blonde one.”
“Only a matter of time, then, isn’t it?” Roach comments. “Mary’s right, though. They’re cuter than I expected.”
“Oh, thank you all so much,” Ed replies, dry. “Bunch of rat fucking bastards—”
“I’ve got the carriage!” Doug calls, jogging lightly into the room. “Oh, aw! Look at them! They’re so small, aren’t they?”
“Carriage?” Stede asks.
“Figured you might not want to walk back to the ship,” Mary says. “Don’t worry, Evie’s new man is driving. He won’t say a word, on threat of— Well.” She mimes hanging herself; Stede wonders what she might have mimed if there were no children present to catch her in the act.
“I could just carry him back,” Ed argues. “We don’t need a carriage, let me take him—”
“Not on your knee, you aren’t,” Stede argues right back. “We’ll take the carriage, Mary, thank you very much. I’m so sorry to impose, I didn’t mean to—”
“I certainly hope not,” Mary says. She squeezes his shoulder, tells him, “Seriously. It’s okay, Stede. I’m glad I could be there for you this time. Well,” she amends, “maybe not the whole time. But the important bit, anyway.”
“Christ, nobody should have to be here the whole time,” Lucius comments before he gags again. “Oh, God, that was awful—”
“Alright, back to the ship,” Ed declares with a loud clap-together of his hands, rising from the bed. To Stede and Rowan, he says, “C’meres, loves. I’ve got you, let’s go.”
Their proceedings are slow, but they’re steady, and Stede’s grateful this went as well as it did as he’s loaded up into the back of the curtained carriage, hidden from view for the short ride back to shore. The fears born from the memories of Ari’s birth subside like low tide, further and further away until they’re gone, and Stede can just drift in the hazy post-birth fog of their carriage ride to the shore.
Stede won’t let go of Rowan through the journey; while they fall asleep against Stede’s chest, lulled by the rhythm and their own definite exhaustion, Stede nearly falls asleep, too, their head propped up on Ed’s shoulder, drifting along the road, Louis and Alma talking excitedly between themselves about everything they’re excited to get back to on the Mercy
It’s not until they’re on shore and stopped that he rouses fully again. Even then, he’s a bit foggy as Ed leads them out of the carriage, covered head-to-toe in their cloak; with his head down, leaning into Ed, focus on Rowan, they move sightlessly along, allowing Ed to guide them to the dinghy that will bring them to the ship, trusting that he’ll get them onboard in one piece, moving them up the short gangplank into the little boat before they’re saying their goodbyes to Doug and Mary and sailing for their ship.
Stede dozes again there, still propped up against Ed. This time, Rowan is not only sleeping in their arms, but Alma starts to drift off against Stede’s other side, the late afternoon and the day’s overall energy lulling her, and Ed has to coordinate all of them into getting upright and climbing the ladder up onto the ship when they finally arrive.
Though it hurts, Stede rouses enough to climb up onto the Mercy himself. They pass Rowan back to Ed, trusting his grip more than their own right now, and hauls themself up until he can reach the deck, multiple pairs of hands taking hold of him, hauling them up and over, helping to steady them, becoming a rush and a blur around him.
They’ve taken one single step onto the Mercy when he hears Ariel’s bright, excited, “Dads!”
A moment later, Ed’s swinging himself up over the rail, Rowan tucked into his arm, and he jolts forward in just enough time to catch Ariel in his arm right before they launch themself at Stede and knock them both back over into the sea.
“Hello, beautiful,” Stede greets them, leaning over to give Ari a kiss where they’re caught in Ed’s arm, on his hip. “Oh, I missed you so much. I feel as if I were gone for days.” He glances around, asks, “Where are your sisters and your brother?”
“There!” they tell him, pointing, but Stede turns to see them pointing at Alma and Louis behind them rather than Hector, Juno, and Kyra like they’d actually been asking about. “Look! Ally and Lou are home!” A beat later, they’re focusing on Rowan, then demanding, “Who’s that?” They realize in a rush, “Rowan! Daddy— Look, it’s Roa!”
“What a fucking whirlwind you are,” Ed comments to Ari. “Yeah, Ari, that’s Roa. They’re all on the outside now, aren’t they?”
“They are!” Ari agrees, reaching across Ed’s chest to stroke their hand over Rowan’s hair. “Hi, baby. You’re so small.”
“Where are the others?” Stede asks, turning to find Pete closest at hand. “Are—”
“It’s the middle of naptime, Cap,” Pete answers. “They’re down below with John right now, he was reading them their stories.”
Stede loves the Mercy. He loves their crew. They love his family. They love this.
In Ed’s arms, Rowan fusses, and Stede’s reaching for them instinctively, pulling them once more from Ed’s hold. Their almost-crying settles nearly immediately, and Stede can’t help but smile when they draw them up closer to press a kiss to their cheek, dissolving at the realization that they take raw, instinctive comfort from him.
“You two should lay down,” Ed says. “Why don’t we go join the little squids for naptime, yeah?”
Stede’s exhausted and worn enough to just nod his agreement, allowing Ed to guide them below deck and to their quarters. Sure enough, as promised, John is just about to leave; he trades off with them, letting them know that all three of their smaller children are sleeping— since Ari had been too difficult to pin down, too aware of what was actually going down to properly rest, being sent to play alongside Viola with Oluwande instead.
Ed’s first move is to escort Stede to their bed. He helps them in, Rowan tucked into their arm still, and lays Ariel down at his side. He entrusts them to Alma and Louis while he goes and gently, gingerly lifts each of their sleeping children, one at a time, and brings them to Stede, without even needing to be asked.
He just knows what they want, and gives it to them without another thought.
Stede can’t rest until he’s settled in bed with Rowan against their chest, and Alma sprawled out on his left, and Ari curled up between them, and Louis laid out on their right, and Hako spread-out asleep beside his brother, and Unu asleep wrapped around her twin, and Kyrie nestled snug into the bend of Stede’s arm—
—and then Ed, climbing over and wriggling his way in, pulling Hako and Unu into his arms, letting Louis fit against him. Hako snuffles in his sleep, then turns into Ed, as if instinctively knowing that it’s his father that has him now; Unu winds her fingers in Ed’s hair, holding on tight, tucking herself neatly in between him and Hako without so much as a flutter of her dark eyelashes.
“Naptime,” Ed declares. “Everyone shut their eyes.”
“There’s a new baby,” Ari comments, as if they’ve somehow forgotten.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not naptime,” Ed reminds them. “C’mon, your Dad’s exhausted. They’ve had a long fucking day. You can show off Roa to everyone at dinner tonight, how’s that, squid-baby?”
Ariel considers this, then allows, “Okay,” settling back down with Alma’s arm draped across them. “But I’m doing it.”
“I’ll just get the next one,” Louis comments, and Ed lightly, playfully flicks at the crown of his head. “What? Like there’s not going to be a next one? It’s Dad’s favorite thing after sailing.”
“And you,” Alma adds, to Ed.
“Aw.” Ed leans in, kisses Stede on the jaw, the closest bit of them he can reach. “They’re my favorite, too.”
Every time Ed says they, and every time Ed so casually parents their children, and every time Ed tells them he loves him, Stede just feels so at home. Ed understands him; Ed gets them. They are—
They really are one, Stede thinks, and loves Ed so much he can hardly stand it.
“You’re all my favorites,” Stede tells them, a bit choked up. “And then sailing.”
“Then having babies,” Louis adds.
“And I don’t know why, when you’re all a bunch of goblins,” Ed accuses them. “Absolute little squid-beasts.”
“What’d you expect?” Alma asks. “Blackbeard’s kids can’t be all that nice, can they?”
Stede’s chest seizes. Blackbeard’s kids. His children, Blackbeard’s children, Ed’s children, their children.
“I suppose not, then,” Ed agrees. “Now, shut your eyes—”
“I’m thirteen years old, I don’t need a nap—”
“Well, I’m, like, a bajillion times thirteen years old,” Ed argues. “And I need a nap, so. Close ‘em or don’t, just be quiet.”
They all fall silent, for a bit, settling into each other. Stede’s grateful that their children are even willing to do this, to be content and calm, to just be together for a long moment.
Into that silence, Ariel says, “When is dinner, anyway?”
“You’re a monster,” Ed insists, reaching over to tickle under Ari’s chin, sending them into a ringing, spilling fit of giggles. Kyrie starts to rouse at the sound, and Ed hisses, “You be quiet, squid, you’re going to wake up your sister—”
“Then stop tickling me!” Ari squeals back, and their laughter is too contagious, setting Stede off to giggling, too, which only kicks off Ed, Louis not far behind, and Alma ends up even huffing a laugh, turning to fold her hands beneath her head as she looks up at the ceiling, a warm humor still washing through all of them as they settle in.
Stede falls asleep like that, with a smile on their face, his new baby in their arms, ringed by their family— the love of their life, their children— and the new acknowledgment of them, of who they are, and— and he’s not sure they’ve ever felt happier than this, comfortable, content, them.
Stroking their fingers through Rowan’s soft blonde hair, settling into his own body, surrounded by his family, Stede finds home again.