A/N: Well, I'm finally back. Not that I was here for a long time. You get my point right? ;)
I'm shivering in the cold. The droplets of rain do not cease to fall from the sky. The clouds above me show themselves for a moment in a flash of lightning. The thunder follows right after and I jump in surprise. I draw my coat closer to me and think, 'There's nowhere else I'd rather be.'
"Ted!"
'Except of course the hospital.'
"I'm coming!" I enter the car hurriedly and fiddle with my keys in excitement. I jam the key into its slot and can't believe I broke it.
"Shit." I curse. "Stupid keys." I hastily throw the keys to the back seat and rummage my pockets for my wand.
"Ted!"
"Just a minute honey!" I yell from the car. "Damn wand. Where the hell are you?!" I shout frustratingly as I continue to search my pockets.
"Are you cursing me Theodore Tonks?!" Andromeda shouts angrily back at me.
"No! Not you hon-AHA!" I draw out my wand triumphantly and mutter a spell. It produces a bright light and the engine roared in response.
"Thank the heavens!" I quickly drive to the front doors of our house, hitting a few of my neighbor's trash bins in the process. "Sorry." I quickly apologize as I run out of the car to open its door for my beloved wife. She goes inside and seats herself while I run back and forth loading her luggage. I mentally curse the fact the she has so much clothes.
"Ted!"
"Coming!" I throw the last bag into the car and hurry to the driver's seat, slipping in the wet ground twice in the process. I enter the car panting, my hair sticking to my forehead drenched in not only my sweat but also the rain. I turn to her and reach my hand out to comfort her. "I can't believe we're having a baby." I say to her softly.
"I know." She smiles warmly back at me. "Now drive" she orders.
I'm snapped back to reality and grasp the steering wheel. "Right."
We drive for ten minutes. The only sound that fills my ears is are my heart beat (which by the way seems to be beating ten times faster than usual), Andromeda's breathing (which not only soothes her but me as well), and the splattering of the rain outside.
I stop abruptly as we reach a fork in the road. I mentally curse myself for forgetting. I've been there tons of times before! How the bleeding hell could I forget?!?!
"What are you waiting for?"
I snap my head to the direction of her voice. I'm now contemplating on whether or not I should ask her. On one hand, if I ask her she would explode like a balloon placed too near a candle. And on the other hand, we would actually get there.
"Left or right?" I say. They're much more important.
"LEFT!" she shouts at me unbelievingly.
"Sure?" I can't believe I just questioned her at a time like this.
"OF COURSE I'M SURE!"
I wince at the volume of her voice. "Alright then." I steer the car to the left.
In a few minutes we arrive at the hospital. 'Thank goodness she was right.' I inwardly sigh in relief.
I get out of the car, slipping twice again, and open the door for her. I run inside the hospital doors as she gapes in shock at me.
I am now soaking wet and stumbling all over the place. I can't believe this is happening.
I come back out pushing a wheelchair in front of me. "Sorry, I forgot this." I quickly apologize as I help her to the chair. I then patted the leather seats in the back and grab the car keys. I push the wheelchair inside as I throw the keys to who I thought was the valet. Thankfully, he was. "Take care of it will you? I'll come back for it later!"
He looks curiously at the broken key and asks, "What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Use your imagination!" I answer back as I search the entrance for a nurse, doctor, anything! I wheel Andromeda to the nearest nurse's station. I place my hands on the counter searching for an available nurse.
"Damn it. Where the hell is everyone?!"
"Calm down, Ted. I'm the one having a baby not you." I feel her hand hold onto mine. I feel myself calming down after her the soothing voice of my lovely wife.
"I know." I kneel down before her so that we would be within eye level. "I love you." I kiss her hand softly.
She smiles back at me. "I love you too."
We share a brief moment with one another which is suddenly broken by an arrival of a nurse. I jump from my place and go on panic mode again. "Oh thank God another human being who has the ability to help us." I pull the nurse to our side. "She's in labor."
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I'm pacing the hall waiting. My heart is beating twenty times faster than it was before and my palms are sweaty in anticipation. The suspense is making me feel sick and I wonder if I'll hurl when I see the doctor come out from the doors before me. I can't bloody wait anymore!
"Ted, relax." I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn to see my smiling sister. "She'll be fine," she says as she leads me to a nearby seat to therefore stop my incessant pacing.
"I know she'll be fine." I reply. "I'm excited that's all. I'm gonna be a dad." I can't help but grin at the thought of having a son or daughter.
"So, what are you two planning on naming h-"
I immediately clamp her mouth shut as soon as I hear the letter 'h' escape from her lips.
"What the?" came her muffled voice.
"Don't spoil the surprise." I state simply as I remove my hand from her mouth.
"You mean to tell me that you have no idea whether your kid is going to be a he or a she?" she asks me disbelievingly. "Heck! Even I know! How can you not know?"
"I told you. I want it to be a surprise."
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"It's a girl! It's a girl!" I chant joyously and can't help myself from jumping in pure and utter bliss. "It's a girl!"
"I know! I know!" my sister laughs at my giddiness. "Now go hold your daughter."
I stop my jumping and approach the nurse excitedly. I feel like a little boy who just found out that Christmas was coming early this year, only it was a MILLION times better!
The baby is now placed in my arms. "Hello there baby." I coo to her. I rock gently in my arms and can't believe that I feel like I'm going to cry. I've imagined this moment for so many times ever since I found out that Andromeda was pregnant. But not once did I think that I would literally jump for joy and end up crying in the end.
I feel a single tear escape my eyes as I whisper to my baby daughter, "I'm your daddy."
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"Quit hogging her Ted," my lovely wife laughs at me.
I can't believe she still looks so beautiful even after enduring numerous hours in labor, Muggle style!
"I can't help it." I smile as I sit beside her. "I'm a dad!"
No matter how many times I repeat that, it never loses its meaning. I silently wonder if Andromeda has already gotten tired of me repeating that same old line for the past two hours.
"And I'm a mom. Now give her to me Ted!" she laughs again.
It looks like she can handle one more.
"I'm a dad!" I exclaim as I place our daughter in her arms. "I can't believe this is happening." I murmur softly.
"You better believe it Tonks!"
That's not my wife's voice.
I turn to find no other than Andromeda's cousin, Sirius Black. He enters the room in his normal Sirius Black way.
"Hey Ted." He greets as he strolls to Andromeda's side. "Hey Andy." He bends down to kiss her on the cheek as greeting. "So is this the little bundle of joy?"
"Yeah." Andromeda and I proudly reply in unison.
"She's cute." Sirius nods approvingly. "Well done." He gave us the thumbs up.
"What took you so long?" Andromeda demands from her cousin.
Sirius looks a little taken aback by the sudden event of demanding. "Unless you haven't noticed dear cousin, there's one hell of a storm outside and you're in a Muggle hospital so I couldn't very well have apparated here… not that I can." Sirius was only fourteen and already he was so… Sirius-y.
"So?"
He silently gapes at her. "So there's a storm outside and you're in a Muggle hospital!"
I laugh as I say, "He's got a point Meda."
"Thank you!" Sirius exclaims gratefully. "So," his mood suddenly changes and I wonder how in Merlin's name he does that so rapidly. "What're you naming her?"
"Uh…" I stammer as Andromeda and I momentarily glance at each other. "We haven't really gotten to that part yet." I turn back to Sirius as he stares at me expectantly.
"Seriously?" Sirius says. 'It's kind of weird hearing Sirius say 'seriously' considering his name is Sirius', I ponder silently.
"Seriously."
"Sure?"
"Sure."
"No name in mind?"
"Nope."
"Not even a teensy bit?"
"None at all."
"Wow. Good luck on that then." He claps my back as he wishes us luck.
I have no idea what to reply to that. "Uhm… Thanks?" I say uncertainly.
"Well," he rubs his hands together. "I have to go. James says he needs to tell me something really really important. Something about some girl, Lily Evans, I think." He shrugs. "Maybe he's finally ready to admit that her hair really is that red and not just an aftermath of a potion gone haywire," he continued almost nonchalantly.
"So soon?" Andy complains.
"I still have school you know," he says as he tickles my daughter. "Bye nymph."
"What did you call her?"
"I didn't call her anything!" he suddenly becomes defensive. Perhaps it's second nature to him. Andromeda says he gets into a lot of trouble often. I chuckle.
Sirius watches me chuckle and realizes that I am in fact not Argus Filch, Hogwarts caretaker, or Mrs. Norris, Filch's cat. "Oh. Umm… Nymph. I called her nymph."
"Why would you call her that?" Andromeda asks curiously.
"We have this really big test today about nymphs and Moony made me question him everything about them. So I'm pretty much all nymph today." He shrugs. "Well, got to go. Ta-ta!" He waves good bye and leaves the room.
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"Anything?"
"Nope. You?"
"None."
I sit on the chair by Andromeda's bed as we try to think of a name for our new born baby.
"Can't we just call her baby?" I try to lighten up the mood.
"No." she glares at me and I try my best not to cower in fear.
"I was just kidding." I smile at her sheepishly.
She ignores me. Oh great.
Oh no it's fine. She's thinking.
"What about that nymph thing that Sirius called her?" she asks me.
"I dunno. Nymph?" I shrugged. I'm not so sure if I'd like my daughter to be named Nymph. I don't think my daughter would like to be named Nymph as well.
"Well, not Nymph per se. Something like that. You know like Nymph-something"
I watch her struggle to think of that something to add to the word 'nymph'.
"Let's just sleep on it." I suggest as I stretch my arms. It's still raining outside but not as hard as before. "It's getting late." I bend down to kiss her on the forehead. "Sweet dreams."
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I stirred in my sleep as I heard a faint rustling. I grumbled noisily as I shifted on the chair of which I slept in. It's rather uncomfortable, sleeping in a chair. It's not even a couch so I'm just cramped up in this teeny tiny --- "Ah!" I shot up and almost fall of my seat. Who am I kidding? I did fall of my seat-slash-bed.
"G'morning Ted." I hear my lovely wife greet me a fine morning. "Are you alright?" she seems concerned. Seems. Something didn't feel right.
"Yeah," I smiled warmly at her as I rubbed my bum which previously served as a cushion. "G'morning." I kissed her softly on the cheek. "Where's baby?"
"Don't call her that. She has a name." she snapped at me. Must be the hormones, I thought to myself. Must be an after math of pregnancy or something. Wait. What did she say?
"What did you say?" I voice out my thoughts exactly.
She looks like a deer blinded by headlights. What the heck was happening? She held her hand to her mouth as she tried hard not to grow too red. I didn't know if she was turning red out of embarrassment, or of laughter, or something.
"I feel like I don't know something."
Obviously! I could almost hit myself.
Suddenly, everything just dawned on me. 'She has a name'. She has a freakin' name?! "You named her didn't you?!" I accuse her with an accusing finger which I wagged accusingly. "Didn't you?"
She nods with a chuckle.
"Augh!" I feel like a teenage girl who just found out that her best friend was crushing on the 'hot guy', who she oh-so-conveniently was crushing on too. That most definitely did not sound right, not even in my head. "Oh the betrayal!" Theatrics just poured out of me. "And you didn't tell me?"
"It's just that looked so peaceful when you were sleeping. I couldn't wake you up to tell you that I already thought of a name for her." She smiles innocently as she defended her actions.
"You could have just waited for me to wake up!" I rebound. Ha! I've got a point!
She's silent. She smiles. Oh that smile that made me love her in the first place.
"You were so excited that you just had to call the nurse and get her named didn't you?"
She nods in affirmation.
It's amazing how I can read her mind. I wonder if she could read mine. I stare hard on her.
She smiles again.
It seems that it's all that she can do right now. Smile.
Damn that smile!
I sighed defeatedly as I finally caved. "It's alright." I sat beside her on the bed and put my arms around her. "What did you name her?"
"Nymphadora." She states proudly.
"Nympha-whatta?" my brows knot involuntarily. I can not control my need to convey my feelings through my facial expressions.
"Nymphadora." She repeated.
"Nympha-whatta?!" I stood up in outrage. This was all too overwhelming. I paced the room. "You named our daughter Nym-Nympha…"
"It's not too hard to say Ted." She says sarcastically.
"I know." I snap back. "Sorry. For snapping at you like that." I quickly apologized. "It's just it so... so…. It sounds like something you name after a fat cat." I blurt out. Better now than never.
"WHAT?! IT DOES NOT!"
"But that's just my opinion." I shrugged as she started ranting at how much time she spent on thinking it up and how beautiful the name was.
Oh crap! She's crying. Stupid post pregnancy hormones thing!!!
"Alright, maybe it's a nice name. Yeah, come to think of it, it is a nice name." I try to comfort her and sit by her side once again.
"Get away from me Theodore Tonks!" she pushes me away. "You said it sounded like a fat cat!"
"Honey," I coo to her as I try to console her again. "It's a lovely name. And it's brilliant that you thought it up. It doesn't sound like a fat cat's name. It's absolutely perfect." I rub her back as she started hiccupping from all the crying.
"You're right."
Huh? It's weird how they change that quickly. It's quite scary when it happens.
She notices my confusion and continues. "It does sound like a fat cat. I named our daughter something that should only be used on fat cats!" she wailed as she sobbed on my chest.
Damn it.
I have no idea what to say.
"Maybe we can just change it." He wasn't so sure if he should have said that.
"SO NOW YOU'RE SAYING THAT YOU DON'T LIKE IT?!"
Stupid hormones.
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Eventually, my lovely wife did calm down. And in due time we did come to a mutual agreement.
Baby's name is now Nymphadora. There's nothing we could do about that anymore. It was already final. But in order to give our daughter as normal a life as we could possibly offer her, a nickname is in order. Right now, I'm too drained to think up anymore names. And besides, Andromeda's hormones need to un-surface first, if that's even a word which I don't think is. Back to the point. Otherwise she might have one of her mood swings again. I don't think I'd like to witness that again in so short a period of time.
I snuggled close to Andromeda as she slept on her bed. She agreed that I may snuggle next to her. It's not like we won't fit, she said. Honestly, I'm just too afraid to object and tell her that's it's a rather small bed and she hasn't lost her baby fat yet. Not that she's fat… Never mind.
"I can't believe this is happening." I whispered to her gently as I brushed some stray hair from her eyes.
"It already has," she replied tiredly as she allowed me to snake my arms around her.
It has, hasn't it?
I brought myself closer to Andromeda as I struggled to stay on the tiny bed. I wonder if my back would hurt more now than it did the night before, the night when I slept on a chair.
Oh well, I thought. It doesn't really matter. Because honestly, there's no where else I'd rather sleep… Except maybe our bed. But that's beside the point.
I'm a dad!
Damn.
And then it dawned on me. Sirius is never going to let down the fact that his niece, my daughter, is named Nymphadora. Sorry Dora. Really sorry, if anyone asks, it was Mommy's fault.
A/N: I hope you liked it. Cause I had fun writing this. LOL. Reviews are very much appreciated:D
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-the sillylittlepanda