A/N: This is a fic I've had in my drafts for so long. Too long , actually. So I've decided to upload it because why not?
There is an oc in here named Eve. I have written other Superman fics with her, so if anyone has read those, you may already be familiar with her. If not, she was developed around the time MoS came out, still paritally riding off of the expectations and personalities of Superman characters of previous incarnation. (Or you can read some of those. Eh, it's really whatever. Or feel free to shoot me an ask on tumblr.)
This fic is a sort of AU. A divergent of canon. But still canon-universe. I guess. I can't think of the name for it at this moment. This fic might have multiple parts, but at the most I wanted to get this out and see what type of reactions it would get or if it would be completely disliked.
[ Disclaimer: Superman: Man of Steel and its characters, settings and such belong to the Warner Bros. and whoever came up with DC Comics. ]
Poppy seed to Pumpkin
Eve's face presses into her hands.
She's shocked to say the least, and this is so sudden, so unexpected and—
She doesn't know what to do, and stares at that small, certainly hexed pink and white stick on the counter.
Her left knee is bouncing vigorously and her underwear slides a bit a few centimeters down her calves. She runs a hand through her dark brown curls, wondering how she's going to voice this, just how she's going to go about and to tell—to tell anyone, actually. This—this can't—just can't be real.
And yet, there is a warm, frisson feeling that is bubbling up her stomach. She presses a hand to her mouth; she almost smiles.
But this—she lets out a small chuckle, nervous—she hadn't believed it and still had to see for herself, and now she's freaking out in her second-floor apartment bathroom when she should be back in bed, under the blankets and it's probably only about half an hour left that she has the place to herself. She's going to get an earful if she isn't back in bed by then.
Eve gathers herself and washes her hands, leaning her weight on the edge of the sink by her palms curving around the slick porcelain. She's too tired, her hair disheveled from being bedridden, and she pokes at her cheek, noting that her complexion has paled. She's going to have to drink fluids more; hopefully, she'll be able to hold that down now.
She's been bedridden for two weeks now, and she fears that she's already used up all her sick days from work.
Earlier that afternoon, she had snuck out to a doctor's appointment. At first she had been riding on the last waves of irritation from that morning—because the antibiotics prescribed aren't working and her symptoms had only worsened, she's still congested, the cramps made it difficult to fall asleep, and now she can barely hold down solid foods. She hadn't been in the best of moods either as of late, and on top of that, had practically thrown her husband out the door when all he he'd done was express concern for her well-being.
She's overreacting, she knows.
She's been frustrated, and has felt quite clingy lately, and his worrying just hadn't helped.
"It's been two weeks, I really think you have a virus. You should call—"
"I said get out!" She had yelled, and thrown an empty plastic cup at his head which he caught effortlessly. "Go do something useful, like—go on to work before Perry chews you out too." Then before rushing back to the bathroom, her stomach turning itself out again, she had slammed the front door in his face and clicked the locks. If she hadn't, he would have stayed another day, missing work, and she couldn't have him babying her so much just because she has a little flu.
He called through the door that he forgot some things so she tossed out his briefcase and jacket after him, then locked the door again.
She also wouldn't admit that she finally made an appointment after his adamant urging and recommending.
Lately, Eve has become quite acquainted with their bathroom toilet.
Except, when she described her symptoms to her doctor, and after having ran a urine, blood, and then cervix test—because it couldn't possibly be true, be possible—the doctor had huffed, and revealed that the results had not changed for either test. Because Eve assumed it was the local virus that has been circulating, and that her birth control what made her keep on that water weight. She was told to not worry, the doctor clicking her pen on the clipboard.
"Congratulations. You're pregnant."
Still, Eve sat with wide eyes and mouth ajar and still had to see for herself, and hurried to the nearest drug store on her way home. She bought three different brands of pregnancy tests, and they all gave the same little plus or blue lines or digital YES on the tiny screen. Still, she hadn't believed it until now, two weeks later. Two of them were in the trash bin now, hidden in wads of tissue.
Eve wiped off the end of the newest test and then wraps the pee stick end in a few sheets of toilet paper, and tries to figure out how to go about all this.
She rakes her fingers through her hair again, teasing the curls to one side and making a mental note to take an actual brush to it. She glares down at the little test and feels bile rising up her throat again.
Well, now she knows why she had been sick for the longest time. Now she knew why the pounds weren't waning off no matter how adamantly she returned to the gym, and that it definitely wasn't the sugary foods she's grown a raging craving for.
Then that bubbly, gleeful sensation returnes again. Her stomach gurgles nada she hopes that it isn't the glass of Sprite she had an hour ago coming back up.
Lately, she's barely been able to hold anything down, and is considering making another appointment—maybe there was medication she could take for her sickness? Or maybe needed vitamins?
Now she has about twenty more minutes until her husband returns, unless he has other...engagements to attend to, he can be expected more or less on the dot.
Eve hurries to brush her teeth and uses the mouthwash under the sink before jumping under the bed covers right as the front door opens. She hides the test in the pocket of her baggy jogging pants and sinks into the lush pillows.
*.§~§.*
The first thing Eve does is play it off.
When the door clicks shut, there's shuffling of what sounds like grocery bags sitting on the counter, and she waits until he pokes his head inside the bedroom. Eve is laying on her side, drifting off to sleep when she sees him.
He grins. "I thought you'd be sleep."
Eve's returning one is heavy and tired—she'd only gotten four hours of sleep the night prior. "Yeah, not quite."
She gets up, crawls to the edge of the bed as he approaches, and he gathers her in his arms. She wraps hers around his neck when he leans down low enough.
"Feeling any better?"
The last few times she isn't running to the bathroom, she's curled around the bicep of her husband, or in the crook of his side.
She muses, head tilting back to look up at him. "...Kinda..." And she shrugs, giving him a peck on the lips. She swings her legs over the side of the bed, standing, swaying on her feet. "I went to the doctor's today—"
And his mouth is already parting in a smiling "I told you so" when she holds up and hand. He quiets but he wears a smug grin.
"—And she said that I should be sick for only a couple more weeks."
His brows furrow and his grin drops. "A couple weeks? How long is a couple? Two—or three? Are you sure this isn't something more than a flu and not a stomach virus? Did you ask that—"
Eve shakes her arms—she's wearing one of his long-sleeved shirts that is too big for her and drapes past her knuckles. "Just said that it should lift on its own."
She decides to be purposely vague and not reveal the test because right then, she decides that she doesn't want to tell him, to rather let him figure it out.
It's been three years that they've been married, three and a half more that they've been together prior. And as bad as it is, Eve isn't even sure if he'd want a baby. Sure he's mentioned it before in the past, said that kids on Juicy Juice commercials were cute or that Pampers commercial's tiny actors were adorable, but she isn't sure if he'd want to go through with this. It's just her overthinking and over-worrying, she knows. But still. So in truth, she is partially afraid to finding out, to tell him.
Eve nervously twists the gold band around her finger and fidgets.
"So I have a few more days to spoil you then?" he jokes, hugs her waist.
Eve insists that he doesn't have to do that, that she doesn't want him to. But he's already planning to make soup that night and that's what he's already started in the kitchen and claims that "there's nothing you can say to change my mind."
*.§~§.*
Eve calls in to work the next day. She's still slightly congested but doesn't trail too far from the bathroom toilet bowl and has been reduced to nibbling only on saltine crackers. Meaningless to say, her boss isn't too thrilled to get her second phone call requesting more time off, as it had been expected, but she apologizes and she thinks she convinces her when Eve hastily hangs up before rushing to empty out her stomach again. She hopes her higher up doesn't hear her puking in the distance.
She feels guilty about last night and how she had barely been able to hold her dinner down even despite its careful preparation. But her morning sickness feels to have worsened since four that morning and hasn't eased.
By the time her husband returns home that early evening, she's fallen asleep on the bathroom floor curled up on the pillow she asked for before he left that morning. A packet of a column of saltine crackers is half eaten and lying beside her, the top twisted closed. But six minutes after walking in the door, he hears her vomiting again, and he rummages around in the kitchen before going to stand by the bathroom door, waiting until she finishes and flushes the toilet to enter, a glass of ginger ale in one hand. She thanks him and drinks a third of it. And she's hunched over, panting into the bowl, and looks miserable but still she tries to smile and asks about the day.
She fidgets with his hand as he talks, playing with his watch, cleaning under his fingernails, rubbing the wrinkles of his knuckles. He tells her about his boss's rants, of the sudden rush in the late afternoon due to a interstate pileup, two more lunches were stolen from the break-room, how a coworker almost fought the pizza deliverer and how two more almost did with each other.
Twenty-three minutes later, the ginger ale is rising back up her throat. Her hands grip the sides of the porcelain bowl and she shutters, coughs, her shirt sliding off one shoulder. He wrinkles his nose.
*.§~§.*
"Hey, where are you going?" Eve is lying face down on their king-sized mattress, arms propped up under her as she sits up. She's pouting, covetous, and he registers that she's been a lot more clingy lately. She reaches for his arm that swings her way and misses, whines that he should stay here. She's remained home for nine days now.
"Down to the store," he answers plainly, rolling to sit at the edge of the bed. "We're out of coffee. And toilet paper, and Adobo seasoning."
She's whining now even though she knows that the trip shouldn't take long.
She watches him pull his arms through a sweater.
"Oh good. 'Cause while you're out, can you pick me up some of those fig cookies? The Fig Newton ones?" she perks up.
He nods, pocketing his keys.
"Oh, and some of those grape sodas?"
"You can't have grape soda."
"But I've really been craving some and—"
"You're not having grape soda, Eve. You've finally haven't been puking for a day now."
"...Fine," she snarls, pauses, and begins innocently all over again. "Then can you get me something else?"
"There's ginger ale in the fridge." He's sliding on his shoes now.
She whines.
"No burgers either! That stuff's too greasy for you—"
"Hey! I know what I can and can't eat, mister!" She snaps, joking, but not. "And one last thing?" she calls.
He's at the door now.
"Can you get me some pastries from that bakery down the road? The one on the way there?"
He's about to object again but pauses.
She presses, "pleeease?"
He hesitates, eventually caving in.
Eve smiles, triumphant. She silently thanks that she hasn't felt too nauseous lately.
"And one more thing?"
He waits.
"Can you carry me to the kitchen? My knees are still hurting."
He tries not to smile, and feigning aggravation instead. He makes a loud grunt as he shuffles her on as if she's weighed down, both knowing that she isn't at all, not to him. She seems tiny on his back, her feet bare and in tickling proximity.
*.§~§.*
He's checking the mail on his way out when he notices another coupon add. He turns it over, seeing that it's for Johnson & Johnson products, and gives a huff, dropping them off on top of the neighbour's mail box instead before leaving, taking his mail with him.
This is the second time they've gotten this junk mail mixed up with the neighbour's. The incident started five months ago and it had begun to irk him. He pulls off from the curb still slightly fuming. He flicks on the radio, presses one of the buttons that holds pre-programmed stations and finds the local jazz station.
Unfortunately, he hits another obstacle: he doesn't realize until he's about to order from the bakery that he doesn't know what pastries to get for his wife. And while he's got the phone to his ear and trying to pick more favorable selections, the cashier grows a grin as he orders practically one of everything behind the glass.
"Sad girlfriend?" the cashier asks, thinking this is an apology delivery.
"Wife," the other clarifies, giving a polite half smile.
"Oh," the cashier smiles. "Funny. ...I remember my mom was the same way when she was pregnant with my little sister two years ago. I don't know why this reminded me of that..."
And he smiles. "No, I doubt she is." He means Eve.
"Is what?"
"...Uh, pregnant." He hasn't spoken that word in many months now and it felt weird to the tongue.
His polite grin fades as a memory sets in—a sterile white antenatal office, the diagrams of vaginas and their insides hanging on the walls, of the needles and tests and sample cups spent. Of the hard gray chairs they sat in as the doctors delivered the news, and him locking himself in the bathroom at home and Eve curling up in bed but not fall asleep for hours.
He frowns, the topic bitter and morose. "I highly doubt that..." But he smiles gratefully and takes his three large boxes—getting some for himself of course—and leaves a generous tip.
He eats his box of doughnuts on the way home.
*.§~§.*
Eve is on the living room couch when he returns . The television is showing the Rachel Ray morning show's dish of the day, and as if on cue, her stomach rumbles. She immediately calls him over and pulls him down by the shirt collar to plant a chaste kiss on him.
He hands her one of Kelso's Bakery boxes and goes to empty the single bag of pharmacy store purchases in the items' designated areas. "What was that for?" he asks about the kiss.
Eve doesn't look over her shoulder at him. She begins eating from the box, taking a jelly-filled donut first, and remains glued to the tv screen. "Oh, nothing."
And he pauses, staring. He can tell that she's up to something but remains silent about it. He finishes emptying the plastic bag and comes to sit down next to her.
"Found another of the neighbour's junk mail in ours again. You think I should report this time? Or at least let them know that it's still happening?"
Eve hesitates for a beat, and has to force herself to continue chewing. She hopes that she looks discreet.
This is the umpteenth time that they've received mailed coupons about maternity and baby product companies. But actually, they were all subscriptions she hadn't cancelled—they had all been from subscriptions that she both forgotten and hadn't been emotionally ready to cancel.
Eve denies calmly, states that it isn't such a big deal and that the coupons could possibly come in handy. He doesn't think much of it.
As her eyes are on the screen, he reaches for a pastry from the large box. Eve smacks his hand without looking away and he draws it back as if truly hurt.
On screen, the guest cook advertises a bottle of wine. They were cooking steaks and a sort of wine sauce.
Eve's stomach rumbles again and her husband looks over and sees that she's already emptied a second of the box of sweets with no seeming sign of slowing down. Also, that her hair is pulled up in a messy bun and there is a dust of sugar crumbs on the left ends of her mouth.
"Are you eating those or inhaling them?"
She pauses, glances down at the open box in her lap, and then smacks him on the arm. She's not surprised that he stays still as a rock.
He grins nonetheless. "No but really, be careful with those. I don't know why I bought all those..."
It's nearing four in the afternoon and he's off work today, so he's happy to run around for her.
"Look here," she finishes chewing, swallows. "I'm the one sick here. You don't get to patronize me."
"I don't get to patronize you when you're sick?" He's grinning; they're both joking.
And Eve realizes her words were mixed up. "Shut up." She begins eating a stuffed guava pastry. "Don't pick at me for what makes me feel better."
But he's laughing now and when he finally catches his breath, wipes the smear of jelly from the corner of her mouth with a thumb. She looks down, embarrassed; he licks his finger clean.
"I'm sorry."
His brows begin to draw together. "For what?"
Her mouth opens and she almost admits it all, almost tells him, but she herself is too afraid that this is just another slim possibility and it's just going to slip through her fingers, be yanked from her grasp and doesn't want to get hishopes up too.
Eve snaps her mouth closed. She claims that she thinks she left some things the oven and if he could take it out for her. He gets to the oven and there's a single hotdog bun on the rack.
He calls, asking if she had been preparing to make hotdogs, assuming she must have gotten mixed up.
Eve hesitates. "Sure!"
"Well why didn't you just use the toaster to toast the bread?"
Eve's jaw hangs open and doesn't know what to say. He doesn't get it.
*.§~§.*
It's three days later and she has a doctor's appointment later that day for nausea and then to the drugstore for vitamins and lemon juice.
At first, her husband doesn't want to leave her when she empties her stomach that morning, and then moments on her pale complexion. But she shoos him out the door again and he hurries to work.
Before shutting the door, she keeps it cracked ajar and hears him checking the mail and then curses under his breath at finding another advertising coupon. Eve keeps her giggles to herself and shuts the door and then gets dressed to leave. She pukes one more time before walking out the door forty-seven minutes after her husband.
It takes thirty-eight minutes to get to the antenatal clinic.
And her thick, curls are pushed back by a headband and she's wearing a pair of yoga pants because she feels so bloated and the doctor chuckles at this, claiming that she looks like she's doing "just fine." But she's tense and fears that there's going to be a claim that there's no longer anything there and she'll return home saddened, sullen, and emotionally numb again, and doesn't relax until the appointment is over.
The doctor guesses why she's worried on the first try. And Eve nods, feeling slightly ashamed, and slightly embarrassed. She's asked why and explains that she's turning thirty this year and that this all should be so mucheasier than it is and that she doesn't want to put her husband through yet another disappointment because they have wanted this so, so badly for so long now.
The doctor closes her eyes and exhales through her nose once when Eve finishes, and then gently informs that there are other methods: surrogates, insemination, adoption. Eve admits that they're still afraid overall, not to mention the prices. She doesn't say that some of those methods aren't possible for them.
The appointment lasts for an hour and fifteen minutes. When done, she's given a prescription for nauseating medicine and a name of vitamins to take.
Her next appointment will be in three weeks. It's learned that she is about 5 weeks pregnant.
"From the looks of it, you look like normal and healthy."
"If by normal and healthy you mean feeling like you're a bloated mess and you can't hold down anything without ginger, then I hope this is going to have to be some strong medicine."
*.§~§.*
It's almost a week later and Eve tries the bun clue again.
The medication feels to be working and she's had minimal sickness and is ready to call back in to work when her husband walks through the front door. He practically shoves the thick paper coupons—Huggies and a Wal-Mart catalog this time—in to the kitchen garbage and she can tell that he is up to here with them.
She's on the sofa reading and barely listens to his grumbling to himself from in the kitchen. She fingers the crease in her current place in the novel she's reading, the fingers of her other hand rub across the buttons to the remote aimlessly, nervously. She watches out the side of her eye, him stomp to the bedroom and the door closes. His briefcase drops and she could hear his shoes hit the wall of the closet. She held the remote in her hand now purposely so he couldn't turn to the news. She needed his undivided attention for once, for now.
She pulls the already oversized sleeve over her hands and brushes a curl away that strays from her messy bun.
Her pulse beats erratically. She couldn't concentrate to read.
When he exits, no more than two minutes later, he is in jeans and a steel blue Metropolis Sharks t-shirt. Still huffing, he trudges around the back of the sofa, heading straight for the door. Confused, Eve watches; there's no stopping him now.
"Where are you going?" Her neck cranes over the back of the sofa, eyes following him. There's an empty cup of ice cream on the coffee table and a half-full glass of ginger tea.
"Out." He slides one arm through a button-down flannel shirt.
"What?"
"Eve, I'm going out," he snaps.
She reminds him that he forgot his glasses but he doesn't seem to hear, or to be listening. She frowns, not being able to remember the last time he's been this perturbed. "Clark!"
He whirls around, tone holding a biting edge. He hadn't even gotten his other arm through his shirt. "I'm going to go talk to Mr. Mahoney downstairs to stop leaving their junk—" He inhales through his nose to calm down.
A heavy silence is held in their apartment.
Her neck rests on the back of the couch, still watching him. He couldn't even look at her. The junk mail is just an excuse because the real problem, the real sensitivity is something else entirely, but it still is triggered by the majority of the content they have to throw out weekly. Eve wishes she had cancelled those prescriptions to parenting magazines weeks ago.
She rubs a page of her book between two fingers. "Ok. But don't beat them too severely." It was a dry joke. She hears his steps making their way to the door again. "Hun? Can you hand me something before you go?"
His answer is more of a sigh, aggravated, antagonized.
"Can you take the wine bottles down from on top of the pantry?" She fidgets more, hearing him go to the kitchen, and then the glass set on the counter. "And," she stood from the sofa, limping slightly at a sudden sprain, "can you take my thing out of the oven?" Eve wrings her fingers. She hears the oven rack pull out. His grumbling silences.
Everything silences.
Oh god. She frets how he is going to take this. She doesn't want to repeat this, have him fall back into deep despondency—but it's been almost two months, much longer than the first time, and—surely she's just too hopeful, too optimistic. But she doesn't even know if he wants this, doesn't try to ask how he'd feel if it actually—no, surely she's overthinking it. She's overthinking it. She's overthinking it. He wouldn't get angry. He would look at her surly and unsated. Right?
His voice rang from around the corner from inside the kitchen. "Did you dump a whole bag of hotdog buns in the oven?"
She doesn't answer at first. She lies: "oh, yeah! I was...I was making something...chili."
"You sure you can eat chili?" Glass clinks on the counter.
"Chili? I meant hotdogs," she lies.
There isn't a response. Glass clinks again.
"Clark?"
"Yeah?"
She listens. "Are you drinking the wine?"
There is a "no" that sounds like it followed a swallow of something. "Most definitely not." He coughs.
"Really?"
"...Yup."
"Then are you still going to go rant to the Mahoneys about the mail?" she asks as he exits the kitchen.
"Yup. I was just getting ready to. This's been going on for too long and if no one says anything, then nothing's going to get done—"
"Do you really think that'll do it?" She highly doubts it, but still.
He shrugs.
"Wait, before you go, I need to tell you something."
"Don't." Her voice is low, moderately hoarse. "It's—it's not their fault, Clark. Don't...don't do it."
"And why should I...?"
She doesn't know how to answer that. Instead, she lies: "because I did already."
He looks off to the side, down at his feet, out the window. He doesn't know what to say.
Eve fidgets with her fingers. Wrings her fingers. Picks underneath her fingernails. Twists her wedding ring around.
"Well," she begins. Hesitates. Swallows. Inhales to steady herself, realizing that there was no going back now in case this were all to blow over. "I went to the doctor...and...well... I don't know how to say this..." She shuffles on her feet, and doesn't look him in the eyes; knows his stare is focused and it's stern, inquiring. "You know how you said you've always wanted a family? Well... Now we may have that chance again. I'm pregnant!"
Their apartment is quiet, unsettling so. The traffic outside and the neighbors across from their are the only noises. Eve wishes that she had a pen so that she could drop it to the floor.
Clark's reply comes slow and in a low voice. "You... You're pregnant?!"
Eve nods, still unable to look him in the eye, into those impossibly blue eyes.
He scoffs. Chuckles. "I'm gonna be a dad... I'm going to be a dad!" He runs a hand through his short curls.
She remembers what happened last time, and is straddling the fence to remind him. "If you're—I don't know—upset or unwinding of this, I understand. Just...tell me, and don't leave. Please. Just—I don't know—I can't—if you—" Her sentences stick together from anxiety and speculation. She's dazed when she feels a breeze and finds herself being smothered in hugs and kisses
"I would never leave you. I'm so excited for this baby!"
Eve shifts from shocked to relief as his transforms from delighted to happy to ecstatic.
He's hugging her waist, bombarded with excited questions about the baby. About how along she is? When is she due? When did she first find out? Has she done any strenuous activity? Has she eaten anything? Offering to treat her to whoever she wants even more.
She laughs, his cheek pressed to her flat stomach. She remarks how Perry is probably going to flip when she tells him, the man having been like a godfather to her.
Clark freezes. He hadn't thought of that.
A/N: If you like this little thing, don't forget to tell me because follow/favorite count doesn't say shit and it could be sitting as a to-read. If you want me to further this (even if you don't) leave a word or literally anything in a review the will let me know. Any words at all for a review are appreciated