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You Were Everything

Derek Danforth x AFAB!GN!Reader

Summary: It’s been a few years since the divorce. When you accidentally got pregnant by Derek, he left immediately out of fear, leaving you pregnant all alone. Compromises and communication had become established and all he could do now was call your daughter. But one day, just like some others, he asks to see her in person again.

Word Count: 2.3k

Content: angst, mentions of accidental pregnancy, reader is divorced from Derek, ‘P/n’ = parent name (what your child would call you, whether it be mommy/daddy/etc)

(A/n: I’ve gotta stop being inspired by Richie Jerimovich… reader is afab yet implied/intended to be genderqueer—either nonbinary, genderfluid, transman, transmasc, etc. but it can also apply to cis fem readers. Anyone with a uterus. I know this arrangement isn’t accurate—the custody thing—but it makes things more dramatic, you know?)

“Y/n, please.” You heard your ex-husband plead over the phone.

“Derek, we’ve already talked about this countless times. I’m not going to change my mind,” you sigh wearily.

Things with Derek were… complicated, to say the very least. You had once been married to him a few years ago, and everything was going so well. That is, until he got you pregnant.

It was a complete accident. You two always thought you were being safe. You both never planned on pregnancy, let alone even talked about the possibility of having a child. And with your conditions, you weren’t even sure you would be willing to raise it, to carry it all those nine months. But you went through with it anyway.

When Derek found out, he was utterly terrified. He never thought of himself being a father, he never thought he’d ever be the father of your kid, and he especially never thought you would even have a kid of your own. And so, out of sole fear and impulse, he just left one night. Gave you space, you supposed. But things ultimately just ended up in a bitter divorce. Derek was barely there for you.

Which was why you were so insistent on not letting him see your daughter. Jessica or Jess, she was named after Derek’s mother. She was four-years-old now, only communicating with her father on the phone, consoled by the lie you told her that he lived across the globe. During your pregnancy, he still paid for the medical bills, child support, formula, et cetera, yet he was separated from you. Therefore, you simply denied him visitation for your daughter, court-ordered, because you believed he didn’t deserve to see her. He left you alone for all those months, knowing how drastic of a concept pregnancy was to you. You never planned to let him see her.

“Y/n, please. Just for a day. Or even—even just an hour! Let me see my little girl. Please,” he begged with hopeless desperation. It was insulting to you, the fact that he finally wanted to be part of you and your daughter’s life.

“I’m not changing my mind,” you assert forcefully. “You left us. You left her and you left me.” You two always had this same conversation with the same statements and reasons. He had always brought up the possibility of seeing his daughter. This same conversation happened nearly almost every month.

“C’mon. She—she deserves to have a dad present in her life. I can’t just—just call her up all the time while she just believes I’m across the sea and unable to see her!” He urged imperatively to his ex-spouse.

“You’re right. She does deserve to have a dad. A present dad, a good dad,” you utter pressingly. “But that’s just not you.”

Derek pinched his nose bridge in frustration and sighed. He felt terrible. He felt so regretful and so horrible and undeserving of seeing his daughter in person. But he was also selfish—he needed to see her. Derek believed that he learned from his mistakes. Ultimately, he didn’t want to be a father in the beginning because he knew he was unfit. That is, until recently, when he shut down UDG and Nine Star.

“I know I messed up. I know—I know things ended horribly and—and you will never forgive me, but… but I just wanna see Jessica. Not even for an hour? Even five minutes? Five minutes, Y/n, come on, five minutes. Let me have this,” he implored. A part of you felt bad. After all, deep down you still loved him. But you kept remembering every grueling and difficult second while you were pregnant and alone.

“Derek, we’ve already had this conversation. You can continue to call her just like it has been for the past four years. But that’s it. You—” you paused in your tracks as you looked at the kitchen table, the plastic cup of milk tipped over, the drink spreading across the surface. You rushed to get napkins and you soothe your daughter. “Hey, sweetheart. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s just spilt milk. Easy to clean. You’re okay.” You wiped the milk with the napkins after setting the cup back up. She was a sensitive child, so she was definitely upset about the spilled drink, yet you were able to distract her from the accident. “There. See? All clean. Did you eat your vegetables? Oh my, you did! All of them? Good girl!”

Your sweet, higher pitched voice transmitted to the other side of the phone, Derek hearing you speak to your daughter. His heart nearly stopped as he began to hear the muffled babbles of the toddler in the background of the call. His voice softened immediately, and he couldn’t think about anything but the presence of his daughter.

“She… She’s been eating her vegetables?” He asks softly in awe.

You bring the phone back to your ear. “Yeah,” you answer simply, looking down at her as she continued to eat her lunch.

Derek felt a rush of pride. Even though it was something as small as finishing vegetables, he was extremely proud of her. He always was.

“Is she—is she there?” He inquired breathlessly.

“Uh, yeah,” you reply.

“Can I talk to her?”

“Derek—”

“Please.”

You sigh, pausing. You only let him speak to her for a certain amount of hours and at a specific time of the day, but… you figured there was no harm in letting him speak to her right now. “Fine,” you yield.

After handing the phone to your daughter and telling her who it was, you caught the sudden change of her expression—she nearly beamed.

“Hi, daddy!”

Derek felt his heart explode and his whole world practically stopped at the moment he heard his child’s voice again. Sure, he gets to call her every day, but he could never get used to it, to the feeling, to her voice. The way she called him her father with enthusiasm and exhilaration, as if he was worth all the excitement. Then his lips curled into a soft smile once he fully processed the moment. “Hey… hey, baby, how are you?”

“I’m good!” She chirped sweetly. “Guess what?”

“What is it, sweetheart?” He replies excitedly.

“I can do a cartwheel now!” She exclaimed.

“Oh really?” He chuckles softly.

“Yeah! My friend Emmy, who-who’s in gymnastics, she showed me how!” Derek smiles as he continued to hear the purity and cheerfulness of his own daughter’s voice. His heart melted every time he heard her, every mispronunciation, every babble.

“That’s amazing, honey!” He praised with admiration.

Her happiness was overwhelming. While he was proud of her—and he was—he couldn’t help but feel miserable. He couldn’t be there to see it. To see his daughter, unlike other kids, finish all her vegetables without any problems. To see her do a cartwheel for the very first time.

“I wish you could see it, daddy! It’s so cool!”

“I bet it is, Jess,” he replies joyfully, ensuring that there were no hints of anguish in his tone. “I wish I could see it too.”

It hurt him a lot, if he had to be honest—not being able to see his daughter and her achievements and growth in person. It was slowly, deliberately killing him.

“And-and yesterday, p/n’s friend Josh took us to the aquarium!” she giggled.

Oh, right. Your new boyfriend. Josh.

Josh, the one who always took you out to dinner whenever he could. The one who treated your daughter with ice cream regularly.

Josh, the one with a clean background and normal, humble life.

Josh, the one who Jess mentioned on several occasions, especially whenever she brought up your happiness.

Derek felt his mouth become dry, obligated to lick his lips. He gulped, attempting to disregard the whole painful ‘Josh’ thing with a relevant question. “Yeah? What kinds of animals did you see there?” He asked curiously.

“There were a lot of fishes, and penguins, and seahorses, and turtles, and octopuses! But my favorite were the seals,” she babbles gleefully, completely ignorant of the entire situation.

“That sounds so fun, baby,” he replied with a wide smile. “Why are seals your favorite?”

“I don’t know. They’re just really cute,” she shrugs with an innocent giggle. “P/n said that they remind them of you, though.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Your p/n said that?”

“Mhm!”

“Me? Seals?”

“Yeah. They said it was because you had big puppy eyes,” she giggles.

Derek laughs. It felt nice to hear that you still spoke of him to your daughter, let alone fondly. And it was also very typical of you to say; hearing that was inexplicably nostalgic. It warmed his heart. “Can’t argue with that.”

A pondering thought lingered in his mind as he thought about you, and he felt it eating at him.

“Hey, baby, can I ask you something?” He implores gently.

“Okay!” she replies simply.

“Is… Is your P/n happy?” Derek felt nervous as he asked this question.

“Yeah!” she babbles cheerfully. “They’re always happy!”

There was a wave of a warm, bittersweet feeling in his chest as he smiled softly to himself. But also relief. He still cared about you, so, so much. Derek regrets leaving you that day. He wants to come back for Jess, of course. But he also wants to come back to you.

Derek opened his mouth to speak, until suddenly—

“Oh. P/n wants to be back on the phone.”

Derek’s smile falters immediately. He knew you never really approved of any interaction between him and your daughter, so he assumed you wanted to cut the call short. But in the end, nothing would be enough for him. Not a five minute or five hour call. He would sacrifice anything to see her. But he knew that as long as you never forgive him, it’ll never happen. “O-okay, baby. I love you, okay? Give—give the phone back to your p/n, please.”

“Okay! I love you! Bye daddy!”

He sighs as he heard the phone being passed to you, taking a deep breath as he prepared to speak to you once again. It was kind of draining, mostly because he was intimidated by you. Speaking to you was just a reminder of his failure, of how he failed you.

“Hey,” you sigh.

“Hey…”

There was a slight pause until Derek spoke up.

“So… seals remind you of me, huh?”

You groan playfully and place a hand on your forehead. “She told you that?”

“Mhm. I mean—personally, I don’t get why you’ve always talked out my eyes being ‘big and brown,’ like every time, you always said that same thing—”

“Because they are,” you chuckle under your breath. Little did he know, and little did Jess know, that she had his eyes. You had mixed feelings about Derek indefinitely, especially because of the past. But there was something so invigorating about talking about your daughter with him. “Did she tell you about the cartwheel?”

“Yeah,” he replies with a grin on his face. Knowing him for a long time, you could imagine how his face looked just by the sound of his voice. “I’m so proud of her.”

“You know, um… she’s very invested in math right now,” you bring up.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, there was this, uh, cartoon… on the TV showing simple math problems and uh… she just sorta fell in love with it. She wanted me to teach her more,” you reiterate. “Derek, she’s four.”

Derek listened in awe, becoming more and more amazed by his daughter.

“Really? She wanted to learn math?”

“Yeah,” you were practically beaming. “She is so smart, Derek,” you affirm, “Our—our daughter, she is so smart.”

”Y-yeah. She—she really is,” he replied briefly with mere astonishment.

That was the first time that you referred to your daughter as his. ‘Our,’ echoed in his mind. ‘Our daughter.’ He wasn’t sure that you even caught that, that it was intentional, because you said it so naturally and quick, but… he couldn’t help but feel good about himself—about everything—after that.

There was a short pause before you cleared your throat. “Hey, um… I thought about it a lot and, uh… I have this business thing across the country… and, um… I was planning on having my mom watch her or a sitter, but, uh…”

You pause, afraid to even make the proposal.

“I wanted you to watch her. On that weekend. You can, uh… finally meet her, spend time with her, and…”

Derek was in complete shock. His eyes were wide, he felt his entire body freeze, it was like he couldn’t move.

“When is this?” He uttered quietly in disbelief.

“In two weeks,” you answer, “Are you up for it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. Of course, I…” Derek was incredibly astonished. Was this even real? You were finally going to let him see his daughter? “Of course. I’ll—I’ll be there.” He was so prepared to cancel every single plan on that weekend, clearing up his schedule just for Jess.

“Y/n, thank you. Thank you so much, I…” He was still in utter shock. It was unexpected after all, just a few minutes ago you had denied him again. But while your daughter was calling him, you got an email from your work, reminding you about the business trip. You weren’t entirely sure why you changed your mind like this. You just hoped that you wouldn’t regret it.

“Just… please don’t mess it up,” you sigh exasperatedly.

“I—I won’t,” he says confidently. Derek felt his hands shake ever so slightly, eyes watering from the realization he had—he was going to see his kid. For the first time, he was going to see his child.

“Okay.”

Derek felt emotional. He was actually going to see his kid. He was actually going to watch her cartwheel, he was actually going to hold her. He could take her out for ice cream like… how Josh had.

Derek gulped as he pondered.

“Y/n?” He mumbles silently.

You hum in response.

“I, uh… How are—How are you doing?”

“I’m doing alright, Derek,” you reply briefly.

You said his name softly this time, however—not harshly like before. It tugged on his weak heartstrings as if they were useless, frayed string.

And then there was an awful, deafening pause.

“I, uh… I still really love you, Y/n.”

You felt your heart sink before it shattered completely. Your vision began to become blurry with your now glassy eyes. It hurt. This all hurt.

Derek wouldn’t know much this affected you, however. He could only hear your voice or your silence. He’d never know how awful you felt just from hearing that, like how awful he felt from blurting it out. He believed you completely moved on from him. But he adored you, to say the very least, hopelessly. It was simply a cry for a second chance.

There was a terrible, piercing silence. Were you still there, behind the phone?

“Y/n…?”

You were speechless for too long as his words lingered horribly in your mind.

Then finally…

“I know,” he heard you reply softly, under your trembled breath.

“I—I still care about you,” you add. Wrong. You still love him too. But he would never know that. He would be foolish to assume without hearing the three words leave your own lips. And you couldn’t. You couldn’t tell him that you still loved him, because he would just hold on and hope longer. So instead, you express your gratitude for him. “Um… Thank you for… for all the good times… for being in my life…

You were a wonderful experience.”

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