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“I can’t stay sitting in here anymore,” Max grumbles from the front seat of Billy’s Camaro. She’s nine months pregnant and was due two days ago, but the baby still hasn’t come. Now, sitting in the broken down two-door and freezing their asses off on Christmas Eve of 1994, Steve can tell that she’s really lost her cool. “Let’s just go into that barn, okay? Look - there’s a light on and everything. It can’t be any worse than a car without working heat.”
“Without working anything,” Will grumbles from next to Steve in the backseat.
Max grins to herself and reaches up to the back of the passenger seat and hums pleasantly when Will’s hand curls on top of hers.
“Someone will come soon,” Billy insists, wringing his hands on the steering wheel. “I mean, someone has to, right?”
“No one’s been by in an hour, Billy!” Max snaps, and she shoves the door open and struggles out, swinging one leg before getting stuck. She shoots a withering glare over her shoulder at her brother. “Help me the fuck out of this steel box.”
Billy grimaces but slides silently out of the car as instructed, leaving the door open for Steve and Will to slip out while he helps Max. She winces as she stands up, sending another glare at the car. “I’m never riding in this thing again. That was hell on my back.”
With all of them out of the car, Steve closes the driver’s side door and takes a deep breath, eyes going wide as he looks over the field they have to cross to get to the barn.
“At least the sky’s clear,” he says optimistically with a little tilt of his head.
Billy and Max, when he looks at them, are giving him twin looks of betrayal and disgust. Will comes around the car to help on Max’s other side, curling an arm around her and holding her hand with his free one. Steve trails behind at first, feeling incredibly out of place as he always does with Max. She’s just… so pregnant these days that he can’t stop looking at her belly sticking so far out from her body. It boggles his mind thinking about Max, having known her when she was young, having known Will when he’d been young, too. They’re both grown up right under his nose and Steve doesn’t know how to deal with it. Doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that soon, there’ll be a baby in their lives.
Steve trudges around them to walk in front, paving the muddy path through the wet snow and ignoring the fact that he left his jacket at home because he thought they were simply dropping Max and Will off at the Byers house. He didn’t realize he’d be outside for an extended period of time. Now, clutching his arms, Steve wishes he had more than just a sweater on. Wishes he’d brought his puffed jacket like Billy told him to.
He shivers, feet wet, then it dawns on him that Max is feeling all of this *and* she’s nine months pregnant.
Wow, idiot Steve strikes again, he thinks self-deprecatingly. He shakes his head and takes a deep breath, exhaling in a small white cloud that dissipates in the cold night air. Maybe think of someone else once in a while.
The barn is close now, and Steve hurries forward to open the door. It’s warm inside and smells strongly of hay. When Steve pokes his head in, there are lights on but - as the saying goes - no one is home. Just some horses peeking their heads out of their stalls.
“Hello!” Steve calls out, trying to find someone. “Is anyone in there?”
He gets no human response… just a faint whinny from further in the barn.
Frowning, he ducks back outside and sees the three slowly making their way up the path Steve had carved out for them. He stands there outside the door, wringing his hands because there’s not much for him to do to help. Max already is being helped on either side by Billy and Will, who are leagues better at handling Max than Steve could ever be. He would just be getting in the way if he tried.
“There’s no one here,” Steve says, licking his lips as they finally head into the relative warmth of the barn. “Maybe they’ll be back soon?”
“Whatever,” Max scoffs, eyes darting around the barn.
It’s an old thing, but well-made and not at all drafty. There’s a lot of hay everywhere which is, of course, how Steve views all barns in his mind, but he knows from seeing a few in his life (living in Hawkins is always farm life-adjacent, after all) that they’re usually a little neater than this if there are animals inside. Maybe the hay helps with the insulation.
“Can you find her somewhere to sit, Steve?” Billy snaps, the words sharp enough to startle Steve from his thoughts, and chastised, he nods and sets about a search.
There aren’t many doors to open - most of them are stalls already occupied by horses, but finally he finds a small chair and sets about lugging it back down the hall. By the time he arrives with this hulking armchair, padded and fluffed and patched in places with mismatched fabric, Max has already sat down on a bale of hay and has a hand perched on her stomach.
She gives the armchair a disgruntled look and twists her face into a sour expression. “I’m *not* sitting in that.”
“Well it looks like you already have somewhere to sit,” Steve shoots back with raised eyebrows. “And this and a tiny stool is the only chair I could find.”
“Thank you, Steve,” Will says from Max’s side, his hand still supporting the small of her back. Will sends Steve a smile where Max is still glaring, and it helps Steve feel a little less like a total fuck-up.
“Let me see if I can find a phone,” Steve offers and practically runs away from where Max is still glaring at him.
He swallows as he goes back to the room where he found the armchair and he leans against a rickety table. He’s out of his element. Max being pregnant has been confounding him since she and Will made the announcement, and Billy’s gotten more on edge the closer Max gets to the due date. He’s been waiting for this baby to come for six months now, and it’s Christmas Eve, and they were supposed to go to the Byers and then they’d be back home - him and Billy on their first Christmas together after almost a decade of their will-they-won’t-they, holed up in the little apartment that they now shared, sitting in front of the tiny tree and watching the Die Hard VHS Steve had bought last week.
And Steve’s just a tiny bit pissed that Billy insisted on driving when the Camaro’s been acting up. They could have gone in his car, which has both heat and a working engine. Then Max wouldn’t be stuck in a barn, stressed to hell, about to pop, with Will clutching her hand and being as supportive a soon-to-be father can be. The more he stands there, the worse he feels about Max and the more he realizes that he could stand to be a little more helpful.
Maybe. Max is still being a bitch to him. But that’s pretty standard for Max and Steve, something strained where she makes fun of him half the time and gives him backhanded compliments the rest of the time. It’s their brand of affection… Steve thinks it is, anyway.
“Did you find a phone?” Billy asks, strutting into the room, and looks around himself.
Steve freezes up. Clenches his fists against the wall.
Billy’s been a bit hellish lately with Max so close to giving birth. Snappy. Steve feels like he’s walking on eggshells and he’s been looking forward to Max giving birth so that the tension winding up in Billy’s spine will release, even just a little. Steve’s hoping. Steve glances around the room and spots the phone at the same time as Billy, both of them starting for it before Billy gives him a pointed glare that stops Steve right in his tracks.
Billy picks up the phone and taps the receiver, trying a few words and numbers just in case, then sighing and slamming the phone down into the hook again. But before Billy can unleash some sort of tirade on Steve, the phone rings. Frowning, Billy picks it up.
“Hello?”
“Hello, what in the hell do you think you’re doing in my barn?” comes the voice of an older gentleman crackling over the line.
“Hi! Yes, please, my sister is pregnant and our car broke down,” Billy rushes the words, his fingers clutching around the hard plastic of the phone until his knuckles go white. He keeps his other hand busy twirling his index finger around the cord. “Can you please call Chief Hopper for us?”
There’s a pause of silence from the gentleman, who then asks, “Is this… is this Billy Hargrove?”
Billy furrows his eyebrows and makes a face. “Yeah, and who is this?”
“My name is Gerald Moore,” the man says. “You saved my daughter’s life that day at Starcourt. She worked at the movie theater, a few years older than you, but she’s my only daughter. You’re a hero, son.”
“Thank you, Mr. Moore,” Billy replies, sounding bashful. His cheeks redden from the compliment. “We just need Hop to come pick us up from the barn.”
“Sure thing, son. And would you like me to come down with some blankets? It’s getting mighty cold.”
“It is, Mr. Moore,” Billy answers politely. “There are four of us here, if you could bring enough.”
“And an extra for the baby,” Mr. Moore jokes, letting out a little chortle. “I’ll be down in a jiff, son. Y’all hold tight.”
Billy can’t help but smile when he sets the phone back on the receiver. Steve nudges Billy’s shoulder with his own.
“Hometown celebrity strikes again,” Steve teases, ducking his head to press a kiss to the edge of Billy’s jaw. Warm affection swells in Steve’s chest. “Mr. Moore is nice. It’ll be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Down the hall, Max starts screaming.
~
In the end, Mr. Moore comes down with blankets, sees Max actively in labor with a puddle of water beneath her on the bale of hay, and huffs out an incredulous breath. Billy stares openly because he hadn’t expected the horse farmer he’d spoken to over the phone to be black, Steve knows it, but Steve grew up in Hawkins and he knows just about everyone there is to know.
Everyone’s on edge and Will looks like he’s about to cry, but at least Billy’s letting Steve rub his back encouragingly as Max holds Billy’s hand in a crushing grip.
“I’ve never delivered a baby without hooves but I know when someone’s ready to push,” he says with a deep inhale, spreading a blanket out below Max’s feet. “Darlin’, you’re gonna have to get ready to greet your child.”
At least Max is already wearing a skirt, and after WIll helps her shimmy out of her ruined underwear, Mr. Moore starts to remind Max how she needs to breathe through the contractions. And to start to push with each one.
After ten minutes of contentious labor that made even Steve sweat in nervous anticipation, Max’s little girl comes out screaming right as snow starts to fall outside. Steve squeezes Billy’s shoulder and even though babies kind of scare him, because they’re so small, Steve can’t help but smile at the sight of this tiny life that Max and Will created. The tiny life that is Billy’s new niece.
“What’s her name?” Steve asks as Max soothes the baby with some rocking and soft shushing.
Max stares down at her daughter with wet eyes, and when she looks up at Steve she’s smiling even as the tears start to spill over her lower eyelashes.
“Roxana. Roxana Evelyn Mayfield-Byers.”
Billy lets out a loud breath and when they all look at him, he’s crying too. It’s unexpectedly sweet and makes Steve grin so widely.
“Roxie,” Billy chokes out, reaching out to smooth his knuckles over her tiny cheek. She’s gone to sleep now that the fuss is over.
Red lights flash outside and when Steve moves to check the window, he sees Hopper’s truck and an ambulance out on the road near Billy’s car, making their way through the field towards the barn.
The door swings open, letting in a tiny flurry of snowflakes and a draft of cold air. Hopper stands there, mouth dropped open in surprise, while the two paramedics jostle him on either side as they spill in to check on the new mother and her daughter. One of them leaves to get a stretcher because there’s no way they’re making Max walk through the snow when she’s just given birth.
“Let me get this straight,” Hopper says, sighing and rubbing a hand down over his face. “You really gave birth. In a barn. At midnight on Christmas Day.”
Steve and Billy share a look and they both shrug.
“I mean, that’s what happened, yeah,” Steve says pointing to Max who’s holding her daughter bundled up in a soft blanket Mr. Moore had brought down with him.
The sweet farmer leans against the wall, a wide, fond smile on his face causing wrinkles in his dark skin.
“I’m getting too old for this shit,” Hopper mutters, rubbing his face again before the paramedics come back in with the stretcher and he has to move out of the way as they get Max loaded onto it, the baby tucked safely in her arms. Will goes to follow them, and Hopper stays him with a hand on Will’s shoulder. “There’s no room in the back, kid. You can ride with me and the boys to the hospital.”
Steve stands up and goes to shake Mr. Moore’s hand. Billy follows after, taking a shaking breath and bypassing the handshake to wrap the older man in a hug. “Thank you. Thank you so much for- for helping us. On Christmas. It’s a miracle.”
“Babies are a miracle, kid,” Mr. Moore says in his deep, husky voice, and though he’d gone wide-eyed at first, now he wraps his arms back around Billy and squeezes him gently. “Thank you for saving mine.”
Billy pulls away with tears in his eyes and sniffs sharply and loudly before Hopper calls to them.
“Boys, we gotta go drop this one off at the hospital,” the Chief says, patting Will’s shoulder who shifts anxiously on his feet as his girlfriend and new daughter grow farther and farther apart from him. “We’ll call a tow-truck in the morning for your car, Hargrove.”
“Thank you,” Billy says again, firmly, and shakes Mr. Moore’s hand this time.
Steve tosses the horse farmer a smile. “Thanks, Mr. Moore. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, boys.”