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lostloveletters · 2 months

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All That Heaven Will Allow (John Brady x OC)

Summary: We’ll fill this house with all the love / all that heaven will allow (AO3 link)

Note: This literally wouldn’t exist without @karasnonsense99, Woody and Brady’s biggest hypewoman and someone I’m so grateful to call a friend. This is the visual reference for the dad!Brady vibes that almost made me feel ill. So. Title comes from the Bruce Springsteen song which should surprise no one. Do not interact if you're under 18, terf or radfem, or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: None besides some inevitable inaccuracies.

“I’m glad we skipped the parade this year, it’s too hot out for her,” Woody said. She laid the newspaper she’d been fanning herself with on the kitchen table, watching adoringly as John cradled the baby in his arms, allowing her to wrap her chubby hand around one of his fingers.

“She’s only two months old. How has she gotten so big already?”

Woody folded her arms over her sensitive chest, her lips twitching up in a smile. “Guess.”

John grinned, nuzzling his nose into their infant daughter’s squishy cheek. “She’s got a healthy appetite.”

If Woody wasn’t sure she could fall any more in love with her husband, the day their daughter was born made her feel like Cupid got her straight in the heart.

It’d been almost a year since she told John she was finally ready to have kids. For all of his prior eagerness, she thought he was a lunatic when he suggested they plan it. ‘So he’ll be born in the summer, when I can be home with you,’ he had said earnestly. Except he was a she, and she was born at the end of April, a Taurus who had her parents’ hearts wrapped around her tiny finger the moment she wailed at the world.

Happy, healthy, nothing short of perfect, they brought her home, and Woody felt relieved that the nurturing, maternal instinct that passed over her own mother was alive and well in her.

John wasn’t the slightest bit disappointed their first child was a girl. He’d sing to her, make up soft, sweet little songs about Samantha, bounce her in his arms with the rhythm that came so naturally to him until her cries turned into bubbling laughter. The corners of his eyes would crinkle at the sound, and he’d start laughing too. Woody might as well have been in heaven.

Her parents never sang to her as a child. Stale air and empty silence composed the soundtrack of the Woodward residence—hardly a house, certainly never a home. A place where people slept and breathed and moved around but didn’t live.

It’d taken getting used to, being in a place that felt so warm and alive, love radiating from the floral wallpaper John’s brother helped them put up one weekend, the couch his mother bought for them when Woolworth’s was having a sale, the piano they found on a curb one afternoon and spent weeks fixing up until she could hear the sound of John playing from the other side of the house.

“The fireworks are gonna start soon,” Woody said, glancing at the clock on the wall, a wedding gift from one of his cousins.

He nodded, standing up from the kitchen table and passing Sammy to her mother. “I’ll throw the blanket over Blue’s cage and get some music playing.”

Out of all the pets they could’ve gotten, a parakeet probably wouldn’t have made anyone’s list. Upon moving into their first house, John graciously agreed that pet ownership could serve as the test run to assuage Woody’s fear of motherhood, specifically whether or not she even had the emotional capacity to care for something that relied on her so heavily to survive. Blue—a temporary name which ended up being not so temporary—fit right in with their noisy household. Whistled and chirped along to John’s music, and picked up an expletive or two from Woody, which was funny until Sammy came along.

The Fourth of July marked a little over two months since she’d given birth to Samantha Brady, and Woody no longer felt like the other shoe was going to drop and motherhood would end up being some big mistake she couldn’t handle. It certainly wasn’t easy. Woody worked at the garage as long as she physically could during the pregnancy, and John taught private music lessons after school and during the summer to make up for the gap in their income. Even then, the belt tightening meant less things like going to the movies or out to dinner, hardly feasible with an infant, anyway.

Typically, the parade in town started early to avoid the worst of the heat before it settled in, but she and John would end up spending so much time talking to other couples and families, people from their parish that they’d run into, both of them would be sweating by the time they got home in the afternoon. It was one of few holidays they didn’t join his family for, despite one of his uncles hosting what Woody had heard was one hell of a barbecue.

Fireworks were a crapshoot, generally unwelcome on the Fourth, and the odd ones New Year’s Eve. Loud music and a little alcohol ended up being the solution, a house party for two, though adding a baby into the equation made their tried and true method more uncertain.

He joined them in the living room, having successfully tricked the parakeet into thinking night had already fallen. The first few times they’d done so, Woody felt bad for the poor bird, but she supposed there would be things she’d lie to Samantha about too, like Santa Claus and transubstantiation.

“Alright Sammy, first song of the evening’s your pick,” he said, holding up three singles from their impressive record collection. It seemed silly at first, working that into their budget, but John’s students were always bringing up new music, and he liked to be in the know, found it easier to teach them songs they were interested in learning.

Sammy vaguely kicked toward one of the singles.

“What’d she choose?” he asked.

“The Louis Prima one.”

“Interesting.”

“She probably likes it because of the sleeve,” she said. “It’s bright blue and the other two are just plain.”

“She’s developing her own taste already.”

Woody laughed. “Just put the song on, Johnny.”

He did, dropping the needle on the 45 and taking her free hand to pull her in for a kiss.

Two hours, half a dozen singles and LPs, and a diaper change later, the only indication of the fireworks outside had been the faint flashing through the curtains, hardly noticeable among their raging party of three.

John declared a break after finishing his second glass of whiskey and leading a tango Woody practically tripped through, but she was absolutely thrilled when he dipped her at the end of the song and gave her a kiss. The break turned into him dozing off on the couch just before the roaring Latin record ended.

Woody switched over to the radio, setting the volume loud enough to drown out any fireworks, and took Sammy into her arms.

Slipping outside, she held the baby close as they watched the night sky light up red, white, and blue from the backyard. Sammy squealed when the first firework burst, her big eyes sparkling as the falling embers faded in the distance. She threw her little hands around in excitement until tugging on a thick lock of Woody’s hair.

“I know, baby. Aren’t they pretty?” Woody cooed. Her gaze was glued to the sky as the next few fireworks went off. “That’s where you came from, straight out of the sky to save me, just like your daddy,” she whispered, nuzzling her nose into her daughter’s wispy hair.

She pressed a kiss to her cheek and nearly laughed when she saw that Sammy was asleep. After watching one more firework go off, she went back inside. Unlike their daughter, John stirred awake when the back door closed.

“There you are,” he mumbled.

“Would you believe she fell asleep out there?” Woody said, her voice carrying softly over the sound of the radio.

He yawned, sitting up as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “I can believe it.”

“No, you stay. I’ll put her up and be right back.”

“Not without letting me give her a kiss goodnight.”

Woody easily conceded, a small smile on her face as John kissed Sammy’s forehead.

She brought Sammy into her room, carefully placing her in her crib. There had been plenty of sleepless nights since the baby had been born, Woody taking on the bulk of them since she wasn’t working, but sometimes, John couldn’t sleep anyway, and the following morning she’d find him asleep in the armchair in the living room, baby in his arms and the radio playing low. When she’d wake him up to take Samantha, she tried to make sure coffee was already brewing—it was one of few things in the kitchen she could do well.

When she returned to the living room, he had his pipe between his lips, smoke slowly rising above his head.

“She doing okay?” he asked.

He reached out for her, and when she put her hand in his, he pulled her onto his lap. Her laughter mixed with a shriek of shock, a joyous howl that pierced the air as she situated herself. She glanced toward the stairs, and hearing nothing from their daughter, said, “Absolutely perfect,” and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “How about you?”

“Couldn’t be better,” he said. “Beautiful wife, healthy daughter, and a bird that knows how to whistle along to ‘When the Saints Come Marching In.’”

“Really though, you’re good?”

“Yeah, I am, sweetheart.” He was silent for a few moments as he puffed on his pipe. “She was worth the wait.”

“So were you. I didn’t know I could be this happy.”

He smiled. “Me either.”

#john brady x oc #john brady #masters of the air #masters of the air x oc #mota #mota oc #mota fanfic #hbo war x oc #hbo war fanfic #hbo war #ch: woody

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