Hey everyone! Just a short oneshot that popped into my head while I was driving. I'm not sure if I want to keep these going or just leave them as they are. Read and Review please!
Looking back on it Rosie realized she should have expected this to happen sooner or later. Her parents had gotten married, all three of them, when she was nine years old and she couldn't have been happier about it. After all she'd been the one to suggest they all just love each other so Lyssa could be her new Mommy. She always cringed when any of her parents told that story now though. At 5 it had been cute, at 10 it was amusing but at the dignified age of 15, nearing 16, it was an embarrassment ta all the same. And her parent were all still so in love all the time. Dad and Lyssa more than Papa and Lyssa but still, bad enough she caught them snogging in front of the stove after ten years. Or on the landing, the sidewalk, the Tescos… ugh.
But now her whole world was upside down and slightly to the left when Lyssa sat her down and explained that she was pregnant. Rosie didn't even want to think about the mechanics of it though she knew perfectly well how it happened but they were her parents for heaven sake, it was just gross. Dad looked over the moon about it and Papa just looked stunned, his verdigris eyes lost somewhere in his own head. "Is it a boy or girl?" She heard herself asking.
Like it really mattered that much, she'd be going to Uni soon, next year if she could talk Papa into signing the papers without Dad knowing. She'd already graduated with honors from the very difficult Boarding School in Finland that she'd begged to go to when she turned twelve.
"It's still too early to tell." Lyssa replied smoothing some hair out of her face.
It was purple this month and Rosie found herself examining her mom in a detached sort of way, her face had a few new wrinkles around the eyes, curved crows feet from smiling, the little lines around her mouth from smiling and the faint lines between her eyebrows from the times she worried about her husbands while they were out on cases. She still looked youthful even at almost 45 and she was still slim though that would change with advancing pregnancy. She glanced at her fathers her mind rattling off the signs of their age. Dad was older than both Papa and Lyssa and it was showing, he looked careworn, his hair a solid steel gray now and fine lines creasing his weathered face but his eyes still looked the way she remembered when she was little, bright blue and so very alive. Papa was as always a rake thin man who looked like age would ever show though a few strands of gray touched the curls at his temples. He'd finally managed to put on a stone or so but he was still a tall stork of a man.
"So you're less than three months." Rosie said to fill the silence.
"Somewhere around there." Lyssa replied with a smile. "I know it's a bit of a shock, I didn't think I could get pregnant this late in the game."
"Women are fertile and can conceive right up to menopause mom, and you're not that old." Rosie retorted.
Lyssa smiled a little more broadly. "I know but I was shocked. We'd kind of given up on having a baby years ago"
Rosie remembered the painful months when she'd been ten and eleven when Lyssa had tried to get pregnant only to fail to conceive time and again. It had broken her moms heart and the fertility specialists who informed her that she just didn't ovulate very often and thus was less likely to get pregnant didn't help. She'd heard them all talking about alternatives but it had been decided for some reason to forgo them. Rosie liked being an only child and she wasn't sure if she could cope with sharing her parents with a sibling.
Lyssa was watching her and she realized she'd been silent too long, her mom could read her like a book sometimes and it was usually when Rosie was having some internal struggle. "It's ok to be ambivalent for a while Rosie."
And there it was. Lyssa had nailed it and laid Rosie's thoughts bare without any recriminations or accusations, it was Rosie thought, one of her best qualities. Her mom accepted without rancor all the strangeness of their family and gave all of them the space to just be. Rosie took a deep breath. "I… I'm not sure how to feel about it. I've been an only child all my life and the kid will be 16 years younger than me."
Her Dad gave her a sad sort of look. "We didn't mean it to happen like that honey."
"I know, it's just a lot to take in, will I be moved up to Lyssa's old room so the baby will be closer to your room? Will Lyssa still be able to come on Holiday to Greece in three months? Will you be…" She paused and realized she was worried that she was being replaced now that she was so close to being an adult.
Lyssa moved over to the couch and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, Dad nudged Papa to break him out of his reverie and inclined his head towards them and Papa moved to sit to her other side while Dad crouched down in front of her like he had since she was little taking her hands. "Rosie love, we're not replacing you, we never could. You're our daughter."
"But now you're having a child with Lyssa that will be all of yours." She mumbled.
"You're all of ours too sweetheart." Lyssa said softly. "Just because I didn't give birth to you and Papa didn't donate genetic material doesn't mean you're any less ours."
Rosie let herself relax in their arms. "Does this mean I can't go to Uni next year?"
Lyssa laughed and kissed her hair. "We'll discuss that."
Rosie smiled a little and felt foolish for having worried, somewhere in the far back corners of her own mind palace she brought out the old excitement from when she had been ten and her parents had announced they were going to try to give her a sibling. She dusted it off and moved it to a new room a little closer to the surface. "Is it weird that I hope it's a brother?"
Papa chuckled, his deep baritone had gotten richer with age. "Given that statistically sisters are more competitive with one another and you hate to lose at anything it makes perfect sense."
Rosie giggled and the excitement got moved to another room a little closer and she let herself be excited, not just for herself but for the joy and hope in her mother's eyes at the chance to have a baby, and the awe and wonder in her Dad's eyes at having another baby and the burgeoning excitement in her Papa at the prospect of another young mind to teach and shape. Lyssa kept telling him he should start a school since he loved to teach. This would be ok.
After all, she thought she had the best family in the whole world anyway, a sibling could only make it better.