Chapter Text
Ali and Ashlyn both watched helplessly as the doctors worked on their baby. It seemed like time was moving in slow motion but all too fast at the same time.
It was the constant buzz coming from the monitor that brought Ashlyn out of her trance. She pulled Ali tightly into her as she saw the doctor walking towards them. She didn’t want to hear it, she wanted to shield Ali from hearing it, she wanted the earth to swallow her up so she didn’t have to see her wife grieve the loss of their baby boy.
~~ ~~
The next few days were hard. Ali stayed grieving in their bedroom, she didn’t come out. She wouldn’t eat the food that Ashlyn and her mother brought her. She would occasionally let Elijah stay with her, to comfort her, to grieve with her. The little boy couldn’t possibly understand how he could have a little brother one day and for him to be gone the next.
Ashlyn was the one making all the arrangements. She, first, had to notify everyone, which really only consisted of calling her family and Whitney, and Whitney then offering to take care of everyone else. Speaking of funeral arrangements to Ali was a lost cause, they both only ended up in tears every time it was mentioned, so Ashlyn decided to handle it herself. She was shocked when the funeral home asked her what clothes they wanted to bury him in…she didn’t know, she never even got to dress him herself.
~~
Getting Ali to the funeral was difficult. She looked like a wreck, but she was there, sitting in the front row, wrapped in her father’s arms…crying.
Ashlyn took courage in having all of their friends there. Ali’s teammates from both the spirit and the national team. All of the girls who ever had Ashlyn as a coach, both spirit and UNC. She took a deep breath as she looked out over the crowd before starting the eulogy. She let her eyes rest on Elijah, who was sitting in Whitney’s lap with Chris holding his hand. She couldn’t believe that she was doing this again, saying a eulogy in front of her son, a little boy who had lost two very important people, both will he probably never remember.
She started. “I don’t have much to say, I don’t think any of us have much to say in a moment like this. I’ve been thinking the past few days about how the world could just keep turning when I felt like my whole world was crashing down around me, but then I realized…my world isn’t crashing down. My wife once told me that a family means to love each other. To put each other first. To be there for each other. To support and cherish each other. And I plan on doing that, and I know that I can count on all of you, as our family, to do the same. Tristan had such little time on this earth, but he taught me something very important. He taught me what it means to be a family. When Tristan died, for the first time, I really understood those words my wife told me and I’m putting them into action.” She took a long breath and closed her eyes for a second. “I’m going to live out what I’ve learned in this brief time with my son because I know that’s why he was given to us. He wasn’t given to us and taken away to cause us grief. He was given to us to show us something of importance. And I’ll always remember that.”
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Ali had her mother and brother take her home immediately following the funeral. Ashlyn stayed to oversee everything with the help of her own family. When almost everyone was gone except Ken, Whitney, and Elijah, Ashlyn made her way over to them. She took Elijah from Ken’s arms and held him close.
“You ok?” Whitney asked as she put a comforting hand on her bestfriend’s back.
Ashlyn nodded. “You two can go on back to the house. Elijah and I will be back later.”
Ken furrowed his brow at her. “Where will you be?”
“I just have something I need to do and I want Elijah with me.”
Whitney sighed, “Ash, I don’t think it’s good for you to be alone right now.”
“I’m fine. I’ll see you guys later.” She said as she walked off to her jeep with Elijah.
They pulled up to a tattoo shop a few minutes later and Ashlyn carried Elijah inside. The woman behind the desk recognized Ashlyn and gave her a sad smile. Ashlyn had been in the day before to meet with the artist and had explained that she would be coming by after the funeral.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
Ashlyn nodded and they went to a back room. They printed the design on Ashlyn’s back.
“Do you like it?” Ashlyn asked Elijah, who was watching curiously.
Elijah nodded as he looked to see the print underneath his name on his mom’s back. It read “Tristan Kyle Harris - ’14”
Ashlyn gave the artist the go ahead and it was done after a couple of hours. Now she had both of her boys’ name on her back to remind her just what it means to be a family. She wouldn’t forget.
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Ali didn’t have the will to make it to the 2015 World Cup. Their family was missing a piece and their hearts hadn’t recovered, nor would they ever recover.
However, Ali and Ashlyn both approached the 2016 Olympics with the blessing of new beginnings. Ali was back in full force, she amazed everyone, even herself, with running times better than she had pre-pregnancy. Ashlyn was now the new head goal keeper coach for the U.S. Women, allowing the little family to be able to travel together for games.
Now, they both stood on the pitch, in Brazil, hands over their hearts as they sang the U.S. national anthem before the start of the gold medal match. At the end of the anthem and line-ups, the players came back to the bench to remove their warm-up jackets before starting the game. Ashlyn made her way over to Ali, wrapping her in a hug from behind.
“I’m proud of you, baby” she whispered in her wife’s ear.
Ali smiled and turned around in the coach’s arms to give her a tight hug. “I’m proud of you too, Coach Harris. Thank you.”
Ashlyn scrunched her face at the defender. “Why are you thanking me?”
“Because I couldn’t have made it here without you, I couldn’t have gotten through everything in the past two years to get here without you always supporting me and pushing me forward. I love you.”
Ashlyn smiled and gave her wife a kiss on the forehead before pulling apart. “I love you too, baby. Now go kick some ass out there.”
Ali giggled and started to walk away from her wife to join the other players who were having last minute pre-game pep talks before she quickly turned back to Ashlyn. “Wait! We promised Elijah that we would wave to him before the game started.” Ali said to her.
“Oh yeah.” The blonde turned to the side of the field that she knew her and Ali’s parents’ seats were on and began to look diligently for her son. “There he is.” Ashlyn pointed out as she spotted him.
Ali and Ashlyn both smiled and waved in that direction as they noticed Elijah look their way. The 7 year-old boy was sitting between Ken and Deb, and sitting in Deb’s lap was her new 6 month-old grandson. Ali and Ashlyn had adopted him only four months ago. They had started the adoption process before the Olympics, thinking that it would take a while to go through the system. Little did they know that a teenage mother would literally leave her three week-old baby boy on the front steps of the adoption agency that the couple had visited the month before.
Neither woman had given their upcoming busy schedules a second thought when they were asked to come down to the adoption agency to meet a baby boy that would be perfect for them. And after having the baby placed in Ali’s arms for the first time, there was no doubt that the baby was meant to be theirs. 6 weeks later everything was processed and Ashlyn, Ali, and Elijah finally got to bring home a baby boy to the bedroom they had prepared almost two years earlier.
Ashlyn hung a sign with the baby’s name on the nursery door, the same name that was now tattooed on her back right below Elijah and Tristan. John Lucas. He completed their family.
The End