Andy, Allbert and Sheldon IT BEGINS!

by lolzwaitwhat

the story of what their parents went through while the Ans were pregnant with them and how they grew as well. THERE IS NO SMUT IN THIS, THIS STORY DOES NOT COVER HOW THEY WERE MADE ONLY WHAT THEIR FAMILIES WENT THROUGH DURING THE PREGNANCY, SO IF I GET ONE REVIEW WHINING ABOUT A LACK OF SMUT IT WILL GET UGLY!

The three Ans sat on An's couch, playing peek-a-boo with April and tickling the bottoms of her tiny feet while talking to Double-N about her recent honeymoon.

"I still say you two should have gone some place far away for your honeymoon, like France or somethin'." Anny said, hiding her face with her hands for April, who was eager to see what face she'd make next, "Not staying cooped up in your own house for a week." She then revealed her eyes to be crossed and her tongue lolling out of her mouth, April squealed with laughter and clapped happily, pleased with the funny face Anny had given her.

"We just bought it, Anny." Double-N replied, "And it's not as if Larie and I haven't been to any exotic places before. We spent a whole year travelling abroad, and during that time, we spent two weeks in France."

"Whatever, I'm just saying, Sock-head, its hard to have some 'quality time' with the new hubby when you're stuck at home."

Double-N looked at her plainly, "I'm sorry, have you forgotten who I'm married to?" she asked flatly. Anny thought about it for a moment while An scooped up her five month old daughter, "She's got a point, Anny." An said as she snuggled her little girl and began kissing the top of her head, making the little girl explode with laughter.

"Fine." She then looked at her brainy friend, "So why didn't you go somewhere exotic, because from what Tee heard from Larie, you two really enjoyed your travels." She said with a smirk, An looked at them for a moment, then her eyes widened and she covered her daughter's ears. Double-N blushed, "To be honest, it was a combination of the lack of funds to do so after buying our new home, paying for the wedding and Larie's student loans, the stress from the wedding preparations and after all the time we spent in temporary housing, it was nice to go to our new home to our own bed for some well deserved rest."

"But from what?" Anny teased, trying not to laugh. Double-N narrowed her eyes at her, "Probably the same thing you and Tee did after and during the reception." She said coolly. An bit her lip to stifle a chuckle.

"What? Two adults can't drink at a wedding?" Anny asked.

"Oh you two did way more then that, Anny." Double-N said, a dark twinkle in her eyes.

"You guys were all over each other, I had to cover April's eyes." An reported.

"Larie was actually quite cross that Tee was getting more action at our wedding reception then he had gotten all day." Double-N teased.

"I bet you fixed that, though." Anny teased back.

"A lady never tells." Double-N said coolly, but she couldn't hide the proud look on her face when Anny had said that.

"Yeah right…" Anny stopped halfway through her cutting remark and puffed out her cheeks a bit, her hand flying over her mouth, suddenly looking as if she was about to be sick.

"Anny?" her friends said in unison, concerned about their friend's condition. Anny dashed to An's bathroom, and began throwing up. Her friends dashed into the bathroom and An slipped April into one arm so she could hold her puking friend's hair back as she continued to be sick in the toilet, "Good Lord!" Double-N cried as she scrambled to fetch Anny a glass of water so she wouldn't dehydrate. As she threw open a cabinet door and turned the sink on, she suddenly felt ill too, she suddenly found herself throwing up into An's sink, quickly pulling back her long black hair so it wouldn't be tainted by her own vomit.

"Double-N?" An called, concerned that their brainy friend hadn't returned from the kitchen yet and that she heard more sounds of vomiting emanating from said room. Anny gasped, feeling like shit as she tore a bit of toilet paper off the nearby roll and wiped her mouth with it, "What the…" but before Anny could finish, An shoved April into her hands, leaned over the toilet and threw up as well.

Double-N stumbled from the kitchen, looking pale and exhausted as she handed a glass of water for Anny then knelt down and held An's hair back for her, April sobbing at the sudden state of the women around her.

An finally stopped and sat there with her best friends and her daughter, all three women shaking violently as their bodies recovered from the sudden nausea they all just experienced.

Anny looked to Double-N, "What the heck just happened?" she asked.

"I assure you, Anny, I am just as perplexed as to what just happened as you are." Double-N replied.

"I haven't felt this sick since I was pregnant with April, guys." An replied, sounding tired. All three women stiffened and stared at one another.

"No way…" Anny murmured, "There's no way…" but she didn't have the stomach to finish that statement.

Literally, because she quickly handed Double-N her niece and went back to throwing up, An flushed the toilet when she had finished.

"Well, I have been late for a week…" Double-N admitted, looking down nervously at her stomach and cautiously cradled it with her hands, "However, I assumed it was because of the stress I had undergone for the wedding and buying our new home and moving..."

"I've been late too!" An said, pulling her daughter into her arms and holding her tightly to her chest, "I don't think Jay and I can handle another baby right now!"

"Hold up!" Anny said, holding up her hands in her friends faces before they started freaking out, as if to stop them from flying off the handle, "We don't know if anyone is pregnant or not yet, so everybody just calm down." Her friends nodded nervously and looked at her for guidance, "All we need to do is take some pregnancy tests and see if we really are pregnant, once we know for sure, then we can start figuring stuff out, okay? There's no need to freak out before we're even sure or not." She said calmly. Her friends nodded in agreement, then An's face pulled into a panicked expression, "But aren't the guys gonna be back soon?" she asked, "They'll wonder where we are!"

"No problem, Lumpy, we won't be gone that long." Anny assured her, but she knew just by the looks on her friends' faces that they doubted her words, "We'll leave a note saying we had to go out for some personal stuff and we'll be back, just in case the guys manage to make it back here before we do." She offered, her friends nodded gratefully, then An asked, "What about April?"

"We're taking her with us, of course." Anny said, then grabbed their purses, scribbled a short note and stuck it to the fridge and pushed her friends outside, April in her mother's arms, and made sure everyone was safely enclosed in the good old retro van before any more questions were brought up.

Anny was just as nervous as her friends as she drove to the closest drug store, actually, more so, at least they were married, so people were more accepting of it, however, she and Tee were just boyfriend and girlfriend, and she knew that if she, in fact, was pregnant, Tee would marry her just for the kid's sake.

She knew he would, he knew what it was like to have a parent abandon him (she came back eventually, but still) so the fuck he'd do that to his own kid, but if they got married, she wanted it to be because he wanted to marry her, not because of their kid.

If she was even pregnant, which was a fifty-fifty chance in Anny's mind. She knew that she and Tee had definitely had a good time after Double-N and Larie's wedding reception last month, even though she only remembered bits and pieces of it. But, in her defense, most of those bits and pieces were pretty hot. She flushed as a new piece resurfaced and pushed it into the back of her mind, this wasn't the time for that.

The three women quickly scooped up the most accurate tests they could find, thanks to a helpful recommendation from a sweet elderly pharmacist, who wished them luck with getting the answers they wanted and gave April a warm smile and made a funny face that made her giggle. The women thanked him for his kindness and his help and quickly went home, tearing the note off the fridge once they got back and saw the guys weren't home and shoved it into the kitchen trashcan.

Double-N read the instructions carefully, then they quickly pulled out a large quantity of sodas and iced tea and did what they needed to do, then placed them, covers on, on top of a bed of paper towels on the coffee table in the family room where they had been happily chatting earlier. The women fidgeted nervously as they waited, the clock on the oven seeming to take forever as their minds raced at how much the small pieces of plastic before them could change their lives forever.

Then a car pulled up into the driveway. Anny quickly glanced outside the window and saw the Kanker brothers chatting among themselves as they emerged from the car, and quickly withdrew back into the living room, "Crap, they're here!" she announced, her friends looked up at her, panicked, not noticing that April, whose mother was holding her up so she could reach the pregnancy tests, swatted them off the table with a laugh, the women looked at the floor, their hearts pounding in their throats, as if it wasn't bad enough that the men were on their way in, but now the tests were all mixed up on the floor.

"What are we gonna do, Anny?" An asked.

"We can't leave them like this!" Double-N cried, indicating the tests on the floor, "Especially since we now don't know whose is whose!"

Anny's mind was racing, they would be inside any second now, she quickly grabbed the paper towels the tests had been laying on, scooped up the tests ran to the nearest trash can, which just happened to be the one next to April's changing table, and threw them inside, she then washed her hands and ran back out to her friends, whispering, "we'll tell them we're going to pick up some groceries so we can have a barbeque tonight, we'll pick up what we need and grab some more tests and soda, we'll take the tests while the guys are grilling and find the answers before they get back in. Until then, don't mention anything about it, got it?" her friends nodded, nervously as the door opened.

"An? April?" Jay called in, "I'm home!" An looked at her friends, nervous, they both motioned for her to go to him and Anny hissed for her to act like she normally did, then when An still looked nervous, Anny whispered, "Just think about Jay in a chicken suit!" An flushed for a moment then happily rushed to her husband, April in her arms. She smiled at him vividly in the hallway when she saw him and April babbled happily at her father's return, "Hi Jay!" she greeted cheerfully, then she ran towards him and wrapped her free arm around his neck, giving him a big kiss while he held his wife and daughter close to him.

"Technically a male chicken is a rooster, Anny." Double-N corrected softly. While normally Anny would tell her to shut up or blow it off or ask who cared, but this time she let it slide. Double-N was trying to stay calm, and doing something she normally did, which was correct her friends, was helping her calm down a bit.

"Muffin?" Larie called into the house, "You here?" Double-N took a deep breath and walked towards the door, smiling at him warmly, "Naturally." She said before giving him a kiss on the lips, he quickly pulled her close, lifted her up in the air and spun her around, making her laugh when their lips finally parted.

Anny walked into the hallway and smiled when Tee came through the door, he gave her a knowing smile, "Guess I don't have to call for ya, huh?"

"Nope." She replied, then she walked over to give him a kiss on the forehead which he turned into a kiss on the lips, not that she minded. The kiss was so nice that it was almost a distraction from her current crisis.

Almost.

When she finally came up for air, she said, "we were thinking that we should have a barbeque tonight, does that sound good to you guys?" she asked them. The Kanker men smiled and nodded eagerly.

"Great idea." Tee said proudly.

"Sounds good to me." Larie replied.

"I'll do the grilling!" Jay volunteered.

"Okay!" An said cheerfully, "We'll get the food then!"

"Indeed." Double-N agreed, "Jay, if you could give us a list of what you might need, we'd be happy to pick it up for you." Jay nodded and ran into the kitchen and began making inventory of what they had.

"You sure, muffin?" Larie asked her, still holding her in his arms. Double-N nodded, barely hiding her nervousness from him, "Why, certainly! I remembered we needed a few things at the grocery store anyway..."

"Like what?" he asked, wondering what they might need at their house, especially since they had gone grocery shopping the day before and they had gotten everything on her list of things they needed for the week.

"Well, you mentioned that we were out of… whipped cream and chocolate syrup last night..." She said quickly, her cheeks flushed. His eyes widened as if he just realized something, "Oh yeah, those things." He said quickly then gave his wife a peck on the cheek and gave her a squeeze, "What would I do without you?" he purred.

"You'd be eating plain ice cream." An observed. Anny face-palmed while Tee cracked up.

"Got the list!" Jay declared, handing it to Anny, she smiled at them and said, "We'll be back in a bit!" An handed Jay their daughter, "It's daddy-daughter time!" She said with a smile. Jay smiled proudly as he lifted April into the air, making her squeal in delight, "You hear that, April?" he asked as he brought her down so their noses touched, "It's daddy-daughter time!" he said in a silly voice that made her squeal with delight, then lifted her back into the air and repeated the motion and said, "It's daddy-daughter time!" in the same voice, making her laugh again. Making them all smile at the sweetness of the moment.

The Ans left the house with waves and warm smiles as they climbed into the car, but as soon as they were out of their husbands/boyfriend's line of sight, the panic they had been hiding finally exploded out.

"OH LORD, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW?" Double-N cried, tugging at her hair.

"I'M NOT IN MY HAPPY PLACE, GUYS!" An shouted, obviously close to losing it.

"ALRIGHT ALREADY!" Anny shrieked, stunning her friends so they could have a moment to regain their composure, once they were all calm again, Anny spoke in a soft, calm voice, "We'll get what's on the list, we'll get the pregnancy tests, we'll drink lots of soda and ice tea and look at 'um while guys are grilling and see once and for all if any of us are pregnant. Once we know, we can figure out what to do next, okay?" An and Double-N nodded solemnly, their whole bodies shaking with anxiety, Anny's would have been to, but she forced herself to be still solely for their benefit. She was the leader of the Ans, even though their days of scamming were long, long gone, it was times like this where she had to be the leader again. She needed to be in control when their lives seemed to be spinning out of control, her friends needed her to be. So she would be the leader again. And once they knew for sure, then they could panic or calm the other(s) down, but nothing good would come from them panicking when they knew nothing for sure.

"I just hope they don't catch on until we know for sure." Anny muttered to herself as she drove to the drug store to pick up some more tests before they picked up the groceries.

.

.

.

Tee and Larie watched as Jay played with his daughter, Jay was lying down and playing airplane with April, who loved every second of it while both of her uncles watched them, feeling a little envious at her father's good fortune of having a child. While they knew it wasn't always easy for him and An to juggle work, their relationship and April, it was times like this that they'd wished that they had kids of their own too.

Larie smiled as wondered if he should use some of that 'whipped cream' and 'chocolate sauce' tonight to help do that.

Tee wondered why the Ans had seemed nervous when they had arrived back from their dad's place, and why they offered to pick up the food, as he thought about it, he wondered why they'd suddenly want to have a barbeque? It wasn't particularly nice out, it was cloudy and a little chilly, so why would they suddenly want to have a barbeque? He frowned, something was up, but what?

He looked to Larie, "Hey Larie, did Double-N seem nervous to you?"

"Yup." He said plainly, which after Tee thought about it, made sense, in fact, it should have been obvious that Larie would notice if his wife was nervous, Larie used to always go on and on about how cute Double-N was when she was anxious, so it was obvious he'd notice if she was nervous.

"And that doesn't bother you?" Tee asked flatly, annoyed that it didn't bother him.

"Tee, were you listening to a word she said?"

"Yeah, what about it?" Tee asked.

Larie looked at his older brother and looked at him as if to say, 'you can't be serious right now.' When Tee's expression didn't change, he sighed and replied "Think about it, Tee, what do newly weds do with whipped cream and chocolate sauce?" Tee made a disgusted face at his brother, as if to say, 'I did not need to know that.'

"Exactly." Larie said smugly, "You think it's easy for her to talk about that stuff? Even if it's in a bit of a code for our niece and sister-in-law's benefit?" he asked him. Tee looked at him, it was obvious that Larie didn't smell anything fishy about their behavior, so he looked at Jay, "What about you, Jay?" he called to his brother.

"What about me?" Jay asked before making a fart noise on his daughter's belly with his mouth, making her squeal with delight at her father's tomfoolery.

"Didn't you notice how nervous the girls were when we got here?" he asked. Jay contemplated it while he held his daughter's tiny hands and moved her up and down so it seemed as though she was bouncing on his stomach. Suddenly April looked uncomfortable and started to fuss.

"Looks like somebody needs a diaper change." Jay said, then pulled himself up and took his daughter to the changing table in another room. Tee looked at Larie, "Oh, come on, you don't really think they'd just randomly want to have a barbeque on a shitty day like today, do you?" he asked.

Larie stared at his brother for a minute before finally asking, "Okay, what is your problem?"

"What do you mean?" Tee asked.

"You're acting as if they're trying to hide something from us!" Larie snapped, scowling.

"They are hiding something from us!" Tee replied, frustrated at his brother's inability to see that something was up.

"Okay, you know what, fine, for argument's sake, lets say that they might be hiding something from us. What could they be possibly hiding that could be so important that they'd have to lie to us?" Larie countered, annoyed with his brother's allegations against the women they loved.

Jay listened to his brothers' conversation as he scooped up his daughter's soiled diaper, since he had just placed a clean one on her, and stepped on the little pedal on the bottom of the trash can besides him to open it, only to see a bunch of rolled up paper towels inside. He frowned at it, confused.

The trash can by the changing table had been designated as a diaper only trashcan by both him and An, so the random paper towels shoved inside empty trash bag was certainly not what he had expected. He put the dirty diaper down and pulled the paper towels out, only for three gray things to slip out, as they fell, Jay thought that they looked kind of like thermometers. The caps cracking against the floor, Jay's eyes widened at the gray things on the ground as they finally landed with deafening thumps.

"Uh, GUYS!" he called to his brothers, "I think I know what they were hiding!" Tee and Larie walked in, curious, and their eyes widened at the sight of the three gray pregnancy tests on the floor, each one with a little pink plus sign in the tiny window where the results would pop up.

All three brothers looked at the gray plastic on the floor and understood why the Ans had seemed so anxious, they suddenly felt nervous too.

"Well, I guess this answers my question." Larie said, a little hurt that his wife hadn't told him the good news.

"Looks like our boys are on their way." Tee said, biting his lip, wondering why the Ans had kept this from them.

.

.

.

The three women bought new tests and had consumed enough fluids to take them, each one of them now had the test waiting in her purse in a little sandwich baggy that Double-N had pulled out of her purse. The small chunks of plastic feeling as if they weighed a million pounds in their purses.

While they searched through the grocery store for the ingredients on Jay's list, An got a call from Jay, after listening for a minute, her face drew with panic, "Is she okay?" she asked, gripping her phone, after a few more minutes she cried into her phone, "I'M COMING! I'M COMING!" She dashed out of the store, crashing through aisles and walls without getting a scratch on her as she ran towards home with alarming speed that only An was capable of.

"Clean up in aisle… well, all of them." A voice called over the speakers.

"What the fuck was that all about?" Anny asked. Double-N opened her mouth to comment on their friend's sudden departure, but was interrupted by the sound of her cell phone ringing in her purse, it was Larie's ringtone. She pulled it out, which took her little time since it was so well organized, smiling a bit to herself that her husband was calling her.

Husband, she felt her face flush a bit as she turned the word over in her mind, Larie Kanker was her husband, she stifled a chuckle, if someone had told her that Larie Kanker was going to be her husband at any point in time from the summer when she had seen him again and finally learned his name to the summer of her seventeenth year, she'd ask you not to wish such a thing upon her, but now she was beaming with glee for being his bride. 'Funny how things change.' She thought to herself as she answered the phone, "Larie?"

She listened for a moment, then she suddenly looked concerned, "Is she alright?" she asked, she listened for a moment, then said, "Well, that doesn't sound too bad, hopefully she'll feel better soon." She looked to Anny, her hand on the speaker, "April started throwing up and according to Larie, she has a fever, so the boys decided against a barbeque," she explained, "Jay called An so they could take her to the doctor." Anny nodded in understanding, "She gonna be okay?" she asked her friend, Double-N nodded, "From what Larie's told me, it doesn't sound like anything too bad, she should be fine..." She then stopped, listening, "What? You're here?" she asked, surprised, then slowly turned around to see Larie with his phone, Tee behind him, giving Anny a triumphant smirk, both men waved at them.

"Hiya Muffin." Larie said with a small, warm smile on his face. Both women were caught completely off guard as the Kanker men approached them, Larie kissed his wife on the cheek, "I figured we could meet you three here and Anny and Tee could drop An off at home so she and Jay can get April checked out while we picked up those things you mentioned earlier and head home but…" he looked at the silhouettes of An's fleeing form through the aisles and the walls. "I guess An already left?"

"Gee," Anny said sarcastically, "What makes you say that?" Tee chuckled and took her hand, "Come on, you two, we'll take you home." He said. Larie nodded and wrapped one arm around Double-N's shoulder, kissing the top of her head.

Anny and Tee hopped into Tee's car and Double-N and Larie would take the retro van home after picking up a few things at the store. Niether An noticing the thin bulge in their back pockets where their abandoned pregnancy tests sat.

.

.

.

An was panting when she finally got home. She stood on her front porch, hands on her bent knees, catching her breath before she'd head inside.

She had ran about four miles in five minutes, all in a straight line, so she had crashed through fences, trees, a few cars, a few buildings, etc. She was tired, but her baby needed her and she wasn't gonna let a couple ton objects get between her and her sick child, and it wasn't like smashing into them hurt or anything, she was completely fine, her clothes were a bit torn and her hair was a little messy and she had to keep her purse to her stomach so the possible baby inside of her would be safe from harm, but other then those things, she was fine.

While she recovered, she wondered what was wrong with April, after all, she had been fine before she had left… she shook her head, there was no time to think about it, right now, her baby needed her.

She nearly ripped the door of it's hinge when she burst into her home, "Jay!" she called, frantic, "I'm here! Is April okay?" Jay walked into the hall, April in his arms.

An was surprised to see that April looked fine, almost as if she had never been sick at all.

Jay was surprised to see An back so early, "Did you run home all the way from the store?" he asked, stunned. She nodded as she looked from him and their daughter, "Yeah." She said, she then looked at him, "Is April really sick?" she asked, confused as to why she looked fine.

Jay felt awful for worrying her and lying to her and the other Ans, but he knew it was the only way the brothers could have an excuse to talk to each of them privately and figure out why they didn't mention the positive pregnancy tests to them when they arrived back from their dad's place. "No." he said, wincing and hoping An wouldn't be too mad at him for fibbing about their daughter's well being.

To his surprise, his wife let out a sigh of relief as she scooped their daughter into her arms, "Thank goodness." She said, hugging April tight, pleased that their baby wasn't ill. Jay smiled, pleased that she wasn't mad at him for lying to her about April being sick. After a moment of cuddling with her beloved child, An looked up at Jay, concerned, "If April's not sick, then why did you tell me that she was?" she asked him, sounding a little hurt. He sighed and motioned for them to sit on the couch, the test tucked away in his back pocket.

An and Jay sat side by side, April sitting in her mother's lap, babbling happily, not noticing the grave looks on her parents' faces.

"An, after you three left, I changed April's diaper and found something in the trashcan when I was throwing her dirty diaper away." He looked at her, "Do you know what I found?" he asked her, she shook her head frantically, her eyes wide with anxiety.

"Well, I found a bunch of rolled up paper towels in there…" An looked confused, "Paper towels?" she echoed. He nodded, "I went to take them out and…" he pulled the pregnancy test out of his back pocket, "When I did three of these fell out." He looked at her, upset, "An, why didn't you tell me?" An looked at the test and her eyes went wide, then she tucked her head into her neck, not making eye contact.

"An?" Jay asked, putting the test on the coffee table in front of them and leaning in close, putting an arm around her for comfort.

She sucked in a deep breath, then let it out, then she spoke in a soft, wavering voice, "Today…" she began, then she had to take in another big breath and let it out before she could continue to speak, "Anny, Double-N and I were talking… then Anny suddenly got sick and threw up… Then Double-N got sick, then me." She slipped her daughter's tiny fingers through her own, "I said the last time I felt like that was when I was pregnant with April…" She looked up at Jay, her eyes welled up with tears, "So we went to the store and picked up tests, just to be sure…" Jay nodded, urging her to continue, "but while we were waiting to see what the tests would say, you guys came home…" she looked at April, "we freaked out and they got knocked onto the floor and got mixed up…"

"How did that happen?" Jay asked her. As if on cue, April let out a laugh and swatted at the pregnancy test her dad had put on the table and made it clatter onto the floor. She then laughed and clapped her hands at her work.

"Oh…" he said, An nodded. "We didn't know whose was whose and we didn't want you to know yet because we didn't know for sure, so Anny hid them in the diaper trashcan." An explained, wiping her nose with her sleeve. Jay gave her a small smile and gently brushed a few tears off her face with his fingers and said, "so the barbeque was so you could get new tests and figure it out without us knowing?" Jay guessed. An nodded and buried her face into his chest. Jay sighed, relieved that he now knew the truth, and kissed the top of her head and pulled April up to them and held both his girls close.

He smiled, An had no idea that all of the tests had been positive, so it didn't matter that they all got mixed up

An pulled her head out of his chest and said, "I did get a new one, though." She said, then she dug through her purse, pulling out random items and saying "nope" if they weren't the right one, after about ten minutes and pulling out half a zoo, three lamp posts, a grandfather clock, her phone, her wallet, various beauty products and two stinky good luck charms that she quickly shoved back into her purse so they wouldn't hurt April, until she finally found the baggy with the new pregnancy test inside. Jay didn't look at it at first, mainly because he was stunned at all the random things his wife had managed to stuff into her purse. But when he did, he looked confused.

"Why is it in a bag?" he asked. She looked at him as if it was obvious, "Because I peed on it." she said plainly.

"You WHAT?" he cried, then looked at his hands and scrubbed them, leaving a confused An with their little girl. When he got back, hands all clean and holding a wet, soapy paper towel, he asked, "Why would you do that?" while wiping his daughter's little hands and arms and any other bare skin he touched on either his wife or his daughter.

"That's how it works, you pee on it and wait a bit and it tells you if you're pregnant or not." An explained. Jay looked bewildered for a moment, he hadn't been there when An took a pregnancy test back when she was first pregnant with April, the other two Ans had been there along with her mom, so he had no idea, after a moment of thought, he finally said, "Well that explains why Larie put on gloves before picking one up…" He had just thought it was because he'd been living with Double-N for too long and her habits were starting to rub off on him.

An laughed and held up the baggy, "You wanna see it together?" she asked. He smiled and nodded, even though he had seen the results of the first test, he wanted to see it with both of his girls in his arms. An held the device while Jay held the cover, April sitting in his lap, wondering what the heck her parents were doing.

"One..." Jay began.

"Two…" An said.

"Ahhahaha!" April cried out gleefully, An and Jay looked at each other and shrugged, it was close enough to three. They gently pulled the two pieces apart and looked at the screen.

"It's a pink plus sign." An said, as if she was out of breath, she then looked at her husband and child, and pulled them into a tight hug crying out, "APRIL'S GONNA BE A BIG SISTER!" Jay smiled widely, he hadn't even thought about it like that, he then stood up, both of his girls safe in his arms as he spun them around, making them laugh. After a few minutes of that he put them down and said, "We've got to call our moms!" An nodded, "And Gladys!" she agreed, "But first we should call the others!" The two pulled out their cell phones and then the two began dialing numbers and calling friends and family, letting them know the good news.

.

.

.

Larie got a call from Jay while he and Ann were still getting the few items they had missed before at the store yesterday. He looked at the caller ID and sheepishly excused himself, Ann smiled and waved it off, only for her to get a call from An a few seconds later.

"Larie, the reason they didn't tell us is because right before they were gonna see the results, April knocked the tests off the table and got them mixed up, they didn't know whose was whose. They didn't know and didn't want to tell us until they knew that they really were pregnant." Jay explained.

"So she's pregnant again?" Larie replied, not wanting Ann to know what Jay had just said to him.

"Yeah. April's gonna be a big sister!" Jay said proudly. Larie smiled, "That's great, Jay, have you called Tee yet?"

"Yeah, I got his voice mail, An got Anny's voice mail too. I'm gonna call Grandma, then mom and dad, An's gonna call her parents and brother after she's done telling Double-N."

Almost if on cue, Ann cried out, "That's wonderful, An! Congratulations!" she listened for a moment, smiled proudly and then said, "Well, if April's anything like you, An, she'll be a wonderful older sister."

Larie smiled and said, "Congrats, Jay, now go call Grandma, you know she'll be excited to hear that she's getting another great-grandkid."

"Alright, bye Larie!"

"Bye Jay." He said, then hung up. He looked to Ann, who's call also ended. "Looks like we'll have another niece or nephew." He said, then smirked, "We ought to start having kids too, or Grandma will be on both of our backs." He teased. She let out a nervous laugh, "Yes, we wouldn't want that." She said anxiously, clutching her purse tightly.

After they had paid for everything, Ann and Larie walked back to the van, holding hands, a paper bag with their purchases in Larie's free hand. She was trying to stay calm, but she really wanted to see the results of the test, especially after An's call telling her that she was pregnant again, but she was too nervous to do so now, especially in front of Larie.

If she was pregnant, he'd be ecstatic, if she wasn't, well, he'd probably be upset or feel a little less confident in certain areas. And she didn't want that, so even though he might be angry for not confiding in him sooner, she decided to figure out for herself. If she was pregnant, then she would tell him the good news, if she wasn't, she wouldn't tell him anything.

Larie opened the back door and put the groceries in, he then leaned over and pushed them back towards the front seats, but wasn't getting them back where he wanted them, Ann patted him on the shoulder, "I can do that, Larie." She offered.

"You sure?"

"Absolutely." She assured him, giving him a peck on the cheek and scooting inside so she could push the bag so it was against the back of the passenger's seat. She suddenly felt the van move a bit and heard the back doors close. Before she could even turn around, Larie had his arms around her in a tight hug from behind, he kissed her neck, "I know about the test, Ann." He said to her softly, sounding a little hurt. She froze.

"H-how…"

"Jay found the tests in the trash when he was changing April's diaper." Larie explained quietly, pulling out the pregnancy test in a sandwich baggy from his back pocket and placed it into her hands then placed his on top of hers, "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, sounding almost heart broken as he squeezed her hands.

She took a shaky breath as she looked down at their hands. "To be honest, Larie, the possibility of me being pregnant hadn't crossed my mind until earlier today when An, Anny and I suddenly all felt ill and An commented that she hadn't felt that way since she was pregnant with April." She replied in a quiet voice, "I mean, I have been late for over a week now…"

"A week?" he cried, turning her around to face him, "You've been late for a week and it didn't cross your mind that you could be pregnant?" he asked. She looked up at him, tears spilling down her cheeks, "I assumed it was due the stress I experienced during the move and the wedding and that by next month I'd be back on schedule!" He stopped, then nodded, she had been very stressed out about both of those things, she had hardly ate or slept in that time, other then working and prepping for the wedding, they had to call to get insurance and their utilities and had to order some new furniture, and before they even got to the house, they had to move from their old apartment to temporary housing in the mean time so they wouldn't have to pay three month's worth of rent when they wouldn't stay there for the whole time. Ann had also been dieting so she would look nice on their wedding day (Larie thought she always looked nice, but Ann was insistent about it).

Luckily Larie managed to wear her out so she'd get some sleep at night and there were days where he had to feed her mouth to mouth or else she didn't eat, so he could see why she'd think that the stress would mess with her… schedule…

He wiped away her tears and pulled her close, feeling her hot tears soak into his shirt, "Then what happened?" he murmured in her ear. She pulled her head out of his chest and took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure, but her voice was still thick with emotion as she spoke, "So we picked up some tests, deciding it was better to be safe then risk potentially harming any developing children inside of any of us. But before we saw the results, the tests somehow got knocked off the table and mixed up, we didn't know whose was whose, so Anny threw them away…" she looked up at him, "We used the barbeque idea so we could have an excuse to go out and get new tests. We just wanted to make sure if we were or not before telling you all." Larie leaned against the side of the van, "Why?" he asked.

She leaned against his shoulder, "Honestly?" he nodded, "We didn't want you to get your hopes up in case it was a false alarm." She said softly, "You three have always valued family so much, and it would've been cruel to say that we believed that we were all pregnant and then have a piece of plastic tell you all otherwise." She explained. Ann snuggled beside Larie, tears flowing down her face, "I am sorry for not telling you earlier, though." She reached into her purse and fished out another baggy with the other pregnancy test, "If you would like, we could find out together." She offered, a small smile on her face. He smiled back and kissed the top of her head, wrapping his left arm around her waist while she pulled a pair of gloves from her purse. They each put one on and removed the test from the bag, Larie held the cover while Ann held the test itself.

"On the count of three?" he asked, she nodded.

"One." He said.

"Two." She said.

"Three!" they said in unison as they pulled the two apart. They looked at the little window.

"It's positive." Ann said, an excited smile growing on her face and tears leaking from her eyes. While she had been hoping to have a child once both of them had some more money saved to provide for their baby, she was thrilled nonetheless at the news that she was now a mother, she knew her own mother would be delighted by the news as well, she couldn't wait to tell her!

"It's positive." Larie repeated, just to hear the good news one more time as pride pulled his face into a large smile. He'd been dreaming of a moment like this since they were kids, and now, they were going to have a baby!

"ITS POSITIVE!" they shouted in unison as they pulled each other into a tight hug, then into a long kiss on the lips. When they finally parted, Larie lifted her up until her belly was at his eye level and kissed it before pulling her back into another tight embrace, both of them laughing and crying at the same time.

Then Ann got a call on her phone, it was her mother, asking if she would like to come to dinner at their house with the rest of her family to celebrate her and Larie's one month wedding anniversary, Ann tried to tell her mother the good news, only for her to be told that she had to go and asking if she could tell her tonight during dinner, Ann agreed and looked a little hurt when she hung up the phone. Larie kissed her head, "It's fine, Ann, we'll tell them tonight, besides, there are a lot of other people we can tell in the mean time." She nodded, glad for his words and that he was holding her tight.

"I'll call Anny if you call Tee." She replied. Larie nodded and pulled out his phone and they began dialing numbers.

.

.

.

The car ride to the apartment Tee shared with Anny was a long and quiet one, neither one spoke until they arrived inside of their home.

"Hey Anny." Tee began, catching her by surprise, "Your phone's buzzing." She rummaged through her bag and pulled out her phone, seeing she now had two missed calls and had two voice mails. She swore under her breath and made a mental note to clean out her purse so she'd stop missing calls.

She listened to the first voicemail, "Hi Anny!" An's cheerful voice cried, "Good news! I am pregnant! Again! April's gonna be a big sister! Call me back, okay? Bye Anny!"

Her eyes widened at the news, but she was pleased that An was happy, she pictured her simple friend, waving good bye before hanging up the phone and calling whoever else she needed to tell the good news to and smiled.

"Hey Tee," she called out to him, surprising him and making him jump, "You've got a new niece or nephew on the way." She informed him, "An just called, you should probably check to see if Jay called you too." Tee didn't seem surprised at the news, but he walked over to the counter, where he had left his phone to charge and had forgotten to retrieve it before leaving this morning, and did as she asked, making Anny look at him, concerned.

The first time Tee learned that An and Jay were gonna have a baby, he quickly went from stunned to ecstatic, he was jumping up and down and cheering about how he was gonna be an uncle, pulling Anny into a series of dances and laughing, but when she told him that An was pregnant again, he didn't look surprised in the least.

In fact, it was almost as if he had been expecting the information… then again, Anny remembered An's mom offering to watch April after the reception, saying that she and Jay could use a night off after all the prep for the wedding, but still, Anny assumed they had just collapsed into bed when they got home and fell asleep…

Her eyes widened, did they find the pregnancy tests that Anny had tossed into the trash can? She fiddled with her phone so she could listen to the second voice mail, dismissing the thought, why would the guys go digging in the trash? Especially one next to a diaper changing table? Gross!

Tee typed into his phone a moment, then listened, his eyes widened with the new information Jay had told him, then he smiled warmly. He then listened to Larie's voicemail and his smile just grew larger. Then he looked over at Anny who was still listening to her voicemail.

He knew what he needed to do.

The second voice mail was from Double-N, informing her that, she too, was pregnant and that the guys knew about the pregnancy tests, that they had found them while Jay was about to throw away one of April's dirty diapers and to please call her back as soon as possible. And while Anny was pleased to hear both of her friends were happily with child, she felt as if she was going to be sick, although if it was from the thought that she was probably pregnant too or the fact that Tee knew about the pregnancy test, she didn't know.

She then ran to the bathroom to be sick and figured out why she had felt that way.

Tee raced after her and pulled her hair out of her face, his eyes wide with panic. When she finally stopped, she sat on their bathroom floor, coughing and trying not to cry as she flushed the toilet, "How much… do you know?" she managed to ask. Tee gently rubbed her back and spoke in a soft tone, "Most of it, I know that you three got sick and went to take the tests, but you never saw what was on them since they got mixed up and that you three suggested the barbeque to have an excuse to know for sure before telling us." He said. Anny still didn't look at him as she wiped at tears that were starting to fall down her cheeks. He took in a shaky breath and opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off, looking angry, "Don't you dare!" she cried, pushing herself away from the toilet to face him. "I don't want you to marry me for a kid that not might even exist!" she snapped, "I don't want to marry me because you feel like you have to! I'd rather raise it on my own then go through that!" she then grabbed a few squares of toilet paper to wipe her mouth, "If I'm even pregnant…"

Tee scowled, "If you think I'm gonna leave you when you're pregnant with my kid…"

"IF!" Anny corrected, "IF! I don't know if I am or not!" she stopped then looked at him, her eyes widening with comprehension, "But you do…" she said softly, Tee winced as he saw tears falling down her face faster then before, he nodded sheepishly and pulled it out of his pocket, Anny popped the cap off, revealing a little pink plus sign. She frantically dug through her purse, until she pulled out the pregnancy test out of it, still in it's baggy, which confused Tee as to why she had it in a baggy, and pulled it open.

Another pink plus sign…

She curled herself into a ball and started to cry, what was she gonna do?

Tee pulled himself beside her and placed his arm around her, making her wince a bit as he did, "Whatever you want to do, Anny…" he said softly, "if you want to…" he couldn't bare to even finish the suggestion, Anny looked at him, appalled by it, "NO!" she shouted, hugging herself, horrified, "I'm not gonna kill it!" she looked down at her belly, "I said I would raise it on my own…" she said in a soft voice, she tried to hold the fear in her voice back, but much like when they were kids, but Tee could easily sense her fear much like Larie could easily sense when Double-N was nervous, it was as clear as the pink plus signs on the pregnancy tests in their hands to him.

"Like hell I'd let you." Tee said, taking her hands into his, "I'm not gonna let the woman I love take care of my baby all by herself!" he said firmly. She looked at him, relief in her eyes before they flashed with determination as she angrily snapped back, "I don't want you to marry me because of this kid!"

"And why the fuck not?" he asked, angry now.

"BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO MARRY ME BECAUSE YOU LOVE ME, NOT BECAUSE OF OUR KID!" she shrieked back, tears streaming down her face, catching him by surprise. She pulled her hands back and wiped her face with the back of her hands.

Tee frowned, annoyed and pulled her shoulders towards him, shoving his face into hers and giving her a long kiss, feeling her relax in his arms.

"ANNY SKEETER McGEE, YOU ARE THE BIGGEST, LOUDEST, MOST STUBBORN WOMAN I'VE EVER MET!" He shouted as soon as their lips parted, making Anny look up at him with wide, tear filled eyes, "YOU'RE A FOUL-MOUTHED WOMAN WHO ALWAYS WANTS TO BE THE CENTER OF ATTENTION AND TRIES TO ACT BIG AND LIKE NOTHING BOTHERS YOU, EVEN WHEN ON THE INSIDE YOU'RE STILL THAT TERRIFIED LITTLE GIRL I USED TO HUNT DOWN FOR FUN! AND YET I HAVE LOVED YOU SINCE WE WERE SIX FUCKING YEARS OLD AND THAT'S NOT GONNA EVER CHANGE!" she looked at him, stunned, her tears slowing down to a stop as a small smile crept up her cheeks.

"SO IF YOU THINK FOR EVEN A FUCKING SECOND I WOULD ONLY MARRY YOU CAUSE OF OUR BABY IN YOUR BELLY, YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR DAMN MIND!" he shouted, then he pulled a small box out of his other back pocket and forced her hands around it before he stood to look down at her, "I GOT THAT THREE WEEKS AGO AND HAVE BEEN HAVING TROUBLE THINKING OF WAY I COULD GIVE IT TO YOU IN A WAY YOU'D FUCKING ACCEPT IT!" he explained as she opened it to see a simple, but beautiful engagement ring tucked inside, two chunks of familiar crystal that she realized came from his special place sat on either side of a modest sized pink diamond (which she knew must have cost him a pretty penny). Anny wiped her face some more, smiling at the ring in the box while Tee sucked in another breath to continue his rant, but before he let out a sound, "Hey Tee?" she said softly.

"WHAT?" he shouted, still fuming about her refusal to marry him.

Anny then gently pulled his face down to hers and give him a soft gentle kiss. When they finally parted she smiled and said, in a quiet voice, "You win, dumbass, I'll marry you."

He froze for a second, trying to process what she had just said through the bliss of her kiss, still hunched over, then said, "What?" She rolled her eyes and said in her normal voice, "I said I'd marry you."

It took a few minutes for her words to sink in, then his face broke out into a huge smile, "Are you serious?" he asked, overjoyed that after all these years, he could make Anny his until death do they part. (Author: for realzies this time)

"YES!" she cried, a little annoyed she had to repeat herself. Twice. He pulled her into a long kiss and a tender embrace, both of which she happily took. He then put the ring on her finger and held her tight.

After a little while, they parted, smiling, and Anny looked at the ring, "So, how did you manage to pay for this?" she asked, holding up her left hand to clarify what she meant by 'this'.

Tee stiffened at the question, then quietly pondered how he would word his response, then said, "… I'll answer your question if you answer mine."

Anny's eyebrows rose in surprise. She knew he'd try to weasel out of telling her how he paid for it, but this particular method had caught her a bit off guard, what could he possibly want to know? After all, he and his brothers had learned about the pregnancy tests a little while ago and she guessed Jay and Larie managed to get the details from An and Double-N, what could this question of his be about?

Anny considered his offer for a moment, than nodded in agreement, her curiosity getting the better of her. He sighed and rubbed the back of his head, "Remember that week we were in Paris?"

"Which week?" Anny instantly replied, "Cause we spent a few weeks there while you were in the Olympics." She reminded him.

"The first one, when we found my mom." He clarified, "Remember Pierre Formage?"

"Ugh!" Anny cried, making a face, "Seriously, you're gonna remind me that we met the guy? I already barfed twice today because of the baby, I don't need another reason to puke!"

Tee laughed at her reaction, then said, "Well, apparently his brother is trying to shame him to prove that he would be the better owner for the hotel, so he needed some embarrassing videos of his older brother leaked…"

"More embarrassing then the one of your mom punching him in the face at the alter? Or the one of you, Larie and Jay kicking his ass? Or the one of him being attacked by a goat in his own limo?" Anny asked, trying not to laugh to hard and not hear what glorious way her fiancé humiliated the unpleasant man they had met in their youth. "That's gotta be a riot!" she cried.

Tee smiled proudly, "Yeah, well, way back during those dance lessons we tried to give him, I recorded his progress on my phone," he smiled triumphantly and shrugged as he went on to say that, "I got a call from his brother two months ago, asking if Mom or me or any of my brothers had anything on him that could smear his reputation more. My mom had plenty of stories, but no evidence, so while her stories were somewhat helpful, he still needed something concrete. When I mentioned the videos and that I still had the files, he offered to pay me big bucks for each video and paid me a bonus to post them myself, so that idiot, Pierre, would just assume I was randomly out to spite him instead of helping his brother steal that hotel out from under him." He pulled out his phone and quickly pulled up a video of Pierre trying to do the steps of a waltz only to trip over his own feet and flop onto the ground like a fish. "It's not in HD, but it's still got over a few million views on youtube." He said proudly while Anny laughed her ass off. "I bought the ring and put the rest in my account for safe keeping." Tee said, "It's enough to buy a house and help pay for a mover and supplies, but since we're engaged with a baby on the way, we might need it for other things."

"We'll deal with all that crap later," Anny said with a wave of her left hand, her new engagement ring glittering in the light, "Tonight we'll call everyone and give them the news, but I don't want to deal with the wedding, the baby or the money until tomorrow." She said firmly, then she looked at Tee, "So what was your question?"

"Why was that test in a baggy?"

Anny looked at him for a minute, as if stunned that he had just asked such a stupid question, "Cause I peed on it."

"You WHAT?" he cried, hopping up to wash his hands as Anny started to laugh, "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" he demanded.

"Because that's what you do, dumbass!" she laughed, "You pee on it, you wait, you get results! How do you not know that?"

"BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT THIS STUFF!" Tee replied, indicating the tests on their bathroom floor.

"APPARENTLY!" Anny blurted, tears flowing down her face now from laughter not anger or sadness. Tee tried to be angry, but quickly let it go and started laughing too as he held her tight once more, his hands urine free. After all, if he was going to be a dad, he was gonna have to learn to let some things go.

.

.

.

Sam and Jamie were making out on her bed, she got up with a small smile and whispered that she'd be right back after slipping into something more comfortable, Sam grinned eagerly at the news as he watched her slip into her bathroom a moment, flinging off his shirt, and halfway through removing his pants when his phone rang.

'I really need to put that thing on silent.' He thought as he took it out of his back pocket and put it on a nearby table, he was going to ignore it, only the contact photo that came up on his phone was a photo of him, An, Jay and little April.

So it was either An or Jay calling him. He glanced at the name on the caller ID, which revealed it to be An.

'They probably want me to babysit or something.' He thought, debating with himself whether or not to answer it as he hopped out of his jeans, while he loved spending time with his sister, his brother-in-law and his adorable little niece, since he and Jamie entered college they hadn't been as… intimate as they had been since the day April was born and this had been the first time in a while that they were finally alone. He wanted to ignore it, but the last time he did that, he nearly missed the birth of his niece.

His mom was really pissed about that and told him if his sister or brother-in-law ever called him, he was going to pick up his damn phone whether he wanted to or not or risk a hell of a beating from her.

So he sighed, sitting on the couch in his underwear as he picked up the phone and said in a flat voice, "What is it An? I'm kinda busy…" Jamie peaked her head out, looking confused at Sam on the phone in his underwear, he covered the speaker and mouthed 'It's An.' Jamie nodded, understanding, and came out, wearing lacy ice blue lingerie, making Sam's face burn and really wishing An had called at another time. Jamie motioned for him to put it on speaker and he quickly obeyed, his eyes glued to his girlfriend for a moment before quickly moving his head back towards his phone.

"I'm pregnant again!" An cried happily into the phone. The two of them smiled as she went on to say, "You're gonna have a new niece or nephew!"

"That's great, An." Sam said, happy for his older sister and, even though it interrupted his and Jamie's alone time, he was glad that she had called to give him the good news.

"That's all I wanted to tell you, sorry for interrupting you when you're with Jamie." Sam and Jamie froze, "How did you know Jamie is here? I didn't say anything…"

"Well you said you were busy so I figured Jamie was there cause you two are always together." An said, "Hi Jamie!"

"Uh, hi An." Jamie replied, stunned.

"Well, I gotta go, I'm gonna call Mom and Dad and tell them. Love you guys! Bye!"

"Bye An." they said in unison. Then they looked at each other, "It's scary when she does that." Jamie said softly.

"No kidding." Sam replied.

It was silent for a minute then Sam asked, "Still ready to go?"

"Uh huh."

"Okay then."

Then Sam and Jamie embraced and leaned back and began making out again.

.

.

.

Ann and Larie smiled as they made their way up to her parent's house, holding hands while Ann's free hand rested on her belly in the van, even though they had bought a house in the new cul-de-sac next to it, where An, Jay and April were living right next door, the drive gave them a few minutes to take a few deep breaths and prepare themselves for their upcoming announcement.

They were greeted by her smiling mother at the door, who lead them inside where her father and seven year old cousin Luca were chatting on the couch, with Luca telling her father how school was going while her mother and aunts working on dinner in the kitchen, they all cheerily greeted the two, Luca actually hopped off the couch and nearly hug-tackled his cousin, only for Larie to quickly scoop him up and say, "Nice try, but you can't get past me!" Luca laughed and hugged him and then hugged Ann once Larie put him down.

Ann opened her mouth to try to tell her family the big news again, only for her to be cut off by her Aunt Fiona, "Luca, can you help set the table?" He told her he would and walked to the kitchen, "Would you like some help, Luca?" Ann called out to him, he came out with two handfuls of knives, forks and spoons and nodded. Ann walked into the kitchen and picked up a few glasses and walked into the dining room, Larie walked over to help too, but her father stopped him and asked him to sit down, that he wanted to talk. Larie nervously smiled and said, "Sure, why not?" and silently hoped that someone would interrupt them as they sat down on the couch together.

Meanwhile, Ann placed the glasses around the table while Luca shuffled through the utensils in his hands to put the right down one in the right spot.

"Is something up, Ann?" he asked her, surprising her, he apologized, then flushed as he explained, "it's just that, you looked like you were gonna say something and my Mom interrupted you…"

She smiled at him, and put her last glass down and gently took the rest of the utensils out of his hands and put them on the table and placed the seven year old's hands on her belly and said, "I'm pregnant." Luca's eyes widened and he gave her a gentle hug, "Congratulations, Ann!" He said softly. Ann hugged him back, "Thank you, Luca."

"Does Larie know?" she laughed as she nodded, "I tried telling my mother about it earlier, but she invited Larie and I here tonight instead, so we're planning to tell everyone else at dinner."

Luca nodded, "I won't tell!" he promised, covering his hands over his mouth for good measure. She laughed and gave him a kiss on the cheek and helped him redistribute the remaining utensils before her mother came in with the plates and began putting them around the table. And her Aunt Miranda called for the men to help carry the dishes into the dining room, much to Larie's relief.

Ann's father had been asking Larie about their finances now that the contract metal sculpture jobs he had taken to pay for their new home and to help pay for their wedding and everything else were over. Larie had no idea, it had been a stroke of luck that the sculpture he did so long ago in France was featured in some Magazine and got him a bunch of very well paying sculpture jobs, but the calls for his work had dried up and the last of them were complete. While he preferred doing that kind of work, he didn't want to be a man who solely relied on his wife to be the only bread winner… but he didn't know what else he could do, he could find a few more metal sculpture jobs, but it wasn't as if they were easy to come by in the first place, he had been lucky to get the ones he'd had, the fact that they had been high paying ones just made him feel more lucky. The conversation had been a very bleak one for him and made him start to feel anxious about having a kid right now when he was currently unemployed and they had bills to pay, but Larie shook it off, they were going to be fine, after all, his wife was a genius and he was pretty damn smart himself, they'd figure something out…

Right?

They all sat at the table, Miranda telling everyone some funny tattoos she had done for a few clients and Fiona telling them about how bad a recent Bridezilla she encountered at work blew up while everyone stacked food onto their plates and started digging in. Ann's father walked around the table, offering glasses of pink champagne to everyone but Luca, since he was still underage, so he got sparkling cider instead.

"No thank you, Father." Ann politely reclined, he looked surprised, "But Ann, this is your anniversary dinner, don't you want to celebrate?" he asked.

"Of course I do, I just…" she scrambled through her mind, trying to find an excuse until she felt Larie's hand slip into hers and she took a deep breath.

"I just happen to be pregnant." She finished, pleased with herself for being able to say it and smiled at her husband, pleased that he had given her the courage say it to her whole family like this and gave his hand an extra squeeze. He smiled proudly at her and gently rubbed his thumb against the back of her hand as he gave her a kiss on the cheek.

Her mother covered her smile on her face with her hands as tears of joy trickled from her eyes. Her Aunt Miranda was stunned but pleasantly so and her Aunt Fiona was pleased, but also chuckling at the stunned look on her brother's face at the announcement that his daughter was pregnant so quickly after getting married, but then again, he was in his early forties and his wife in her mid-thirties when they finally had Ann, and they had gotten married when she was eighteen and he was twenty-five, so it would be a big shock for him.

Honestly, most of their family'd had children later on in life, they had for generations. They also usually had only one or two children. Fiona smiled as she recalled what Larie had said when he had first met her, "I plan to make lots of kids with her, so you're all stuck with me." 'Looks like the kid was true to his word.' She thought with a snicker, 'And that they're starting early.'

Luca began bouncing in his seat and eagerly asked, "Is it a boy or a girl?" excited at the idea of having someone closer to his age to play with, not that he didn't like spending time with Ann or Larie or that he didn't have friends his own age to play with, cause he did, but he was the baby of the family and it would be nice to have someone closer to his age to play with at these kinds of family gatherings.

"We don't know yet." Larie replied, although due to info from Karen way back when they were teenagers, he knew that their eldest would be a boy, but he decided it was just best to wait until they knew for sure, as to not freak Ann out.

Ann's mother got up from her seat and hugged both of them tightly, too choked up to speak, they both hugged back, pleased that she was overjoyed at the news.

"Was that what you wanted to tell me on the phone earlier?" she finally managed.

"Yes, Mother." Ann replied, "We had just found out and we wanted to tell you first." She kissed her daughter's head, "I'm so sorry, Ann."

"It's quite alright Mother." She said cheerfully. "No, it is not." A male voice replied from behind. They all looked at her father, stunned that he'd say something like that.

"How can you two afford to take care of this child when one of you don't have a job, you have a mortgage and bills to pay and almost nothing left of your savings since you two took that trip around the world last year, your wedding and buying your own home?" he asked them.

"Lennard!" Ann's mother cried, horrified that he'd rain on their parade like that. "I'm being sensible, Carla." He said sternly, then looked at his daughter, "You understand that women on maternity leave are usually not paid, how can you take care of all the medical bills and supplies you'll need for a baby when you both are out of work?" Ann looked down at her belly, looking nervous, her eyes watering as she imagined the two of them unable to provide for their own child.

"Len!" Fiona growled in a warning tone, pushing off the table to stand, pissed that her brother was now deliberately trying to make his daughter feel bad about having a baby so early in her marriage. Luca looked at Miranda, "Mom? Mom's doing that thing she does before she says things you don't want me to hear at the table. Should I cover my ears now?"

"Not yet." Miranda replied, glaring at her brother-in-law.

Her father looked at Larie, who was livid that he was making her this upset, "You said you had no idea what you were going to do for work now, how can you two pay off all those bills, the costs that will occur Ann's pregnancy and a baby if you have no income?" he asked him.

It was Larie's turn to push off the table to stand, looking furious and surprising Ann's parents, aunts and Luca, who had hardly ever seen him look so angry or scary in all the time they knew him. (Author: okay, Luca was too young to remember the times he saw so that doesn't really count and Miranda and Fiona were usually just as angry as Larie so they didn't really pay attention to how fucking terrifying he looked when he was mad)

Miranda looked at Luca, "Now you should cover your ears." She said.

"Should I close my eyes too?" he asked anxiously.

Miranda looked between the two men on either side of her niece, "Probably." She said. Luca covered his ears with his hands and closed his eyes tight as Larie began to speak, his voice like venom, "And what would you suggest? Huh? Are you telling us to… to…get rid of our unborn child?" he demanded, his face red with rage. Ann clutched her mother's hands while her mother mirrored the horror on her daughter's face at the suggestion.

"Never!" her father replied, insulted by the accusation, "I'm saying you two should have thought this out more clearly, tried planning what your lives would be instead of losing yourself in the romance of what your lives could be!" He snapped.

"Well it's kind of late for that now!" Larie growled.

"I'm well aware of that!" His father-in-law replied darkly.

"Then what should we do then?" Larie snapped, "Huh? Since all you see is what we're doing wrong, why don't you tell us how to make it right?" he challenged, rage radiating off of his form.

"Oh just tell him about the job, already, Lennard!" Ann's mother shouted, tired of the anger and arguing and wanting to get back to celebrating the many wonderful things that were happening in her daughter's life.

"Huh?" Larie and Fiona said, confused. Miranda patted Luca's arm, letting him know that he could open his eyes and put his arms down now, Ann just looked stunned, "Job?" she echoed, looking up at her father, who looked almost embarrassed now, "What job?"

Her father sighed, "One of my art teachers is retiring this year and I remembered that Larie had a bachelors in art and some of my students have requested that we have a new art class and well," he looked reluctantly at Larie, "you definitely have skill with sculpting metal, and Ann has shown us some of your paintings and such during the move…"

A small, watery smile grew up Ann's cheeks, then she hugged her father, surprising him, "Thank you, Father! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"I'm not giving him the job! He has to do the interview all by himself and get the approval of the students to get it!" he said, trying to be firm but unable to hide his flushed face. Larie was stunned for a second then smiled sheepishly and put his hand on his shoulder, "Ann means thanks for giving us a chance to support our new family." Larie explained. Ann nodded before releasing her father, her eyes wide with gratitude and tears of joy, then she hugged her mother who was beginning to ask about baby names and nurseries and other things. Larie shook his father-in-law's hand, "Thank you, sir, I won't let you down."

"You haven't gotten the job yet." The man reminded him.

"Yet." Larie repeated with a smile that his father-in-law quickly returned.

.

.

.

Tiffany McGee'd had a pretty shitty day and was sitting in her trailer pouting with a tub of chocolate ice cream with chunks of brownie in it as she watched a romantic comedy to try to lift her spirits.

It wasn't helping all that much.

She sighed and threw her spoon into the container in defeat.

She had lost her job, her boyfriend had just dumped her for someone who she thought was her best friend, her car had been towed, and she had broken the heel of one of her favorite pairs of shoes on the way back home.

There had been a few other gems that had happened to her that day, but those were the highlights.

Her cell phone rang, she quickly scooped it up and looked at the caller id, hoping it was her ex-boss or her ex-boyfriend or ex-best friend calling to make amends, but instead, she saw it was her younger sister.

She sighed again but decided to pick it up, Anny hardly ever called her, and when she did it was usually something funny or about some family event that was coming up to remind her about it.

"Hey Pipsqueak." She teased when she picked up the phone, "What's up?"

"Hey Tiff…" Anny replied nervously, "Uh… okay…" Tiffany heard her younger sister take a deep breath and let it out before she said, "I'm pregnant."

"What?" Tiffany cried, nearly knocking the ice cream out of her lap, only to quickly grab it before that happened. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah." Anny said.

"I'm gonna guess it's Tee's?" She said, trying to recover from the shocking news she had just received.

"As if I'd screw anyone else." Anny replied plainly, making them both crack up and relax a bit before Anny took in another breath and said, "He asked me to marry him when he found out." Tiffany was on the edge of her seat, "Annnnddd?" she asked, eager to hear her sister's answer.

"And I said yes." Anny replied softly, her tone light and Tiffany knew that Anny had a humungous smile on her face as she said that. Tiffany hardly knew the guy, but she could tell that they really liked each other from the start (hard not to tell how happy your six-year-old sister was in the back seat of that car as she went on and on and on about him while bouncing on her butt). Anny had left a message on her phone the day they officially started going out and she sounded as happy back then as she did now. Heck, she sounded happy every time she would tell her about him.

"Well that's good, cause if he knocked ya up and tried to ditch ya, I'd beat the son of a bitch half to death." Tiffany half joked.

"Hey, first of all, he bought the ring weeks ago and just couldn't think of an awesome way to propose to me before, and second of all, that 'bitch' is a nice lady AND she's gonna be my Mother-in-Law, so watch your mouth or I'll get in trouble." Anny replied. Tiffany laughed, "I'll try, Sis."

"Good."

The line was silent for a bit, then Tiffany heard her sister suck in a breath, "Look… I know it might be kinda hard for you with work and all, but do you think you could come to town soon and stick around for a while? I could use the help with Mom and this wedding stuff and my pregnancy and with my best friends also pregnant, I'm gonna need someone to make sure I don't have a friggin' break down while I'm hormonal and swelling up from the baby and stressed with wedding crap who isn't hormonal too."

"Holy shit, those two are pregnant too? What, did you six have an orgy or something?" Tiffany teased.

"UGH! NO WAY! Tee and I had too much fun at Double-N and Larie's wedding reception and An and Jay finally had some time alone since their daughter spent the night at her grandparents' place that night."

"So, it just happened to work out that way?"

"Yup…" another pause, "So can you come?"

"No problem." Tiffany said, pleased to have an excuse to head home without losing face here. "I'll head there as soon as I can. I'll call you when I'm on my way there."

"Really? You won't get crap from your boss?"

"Nah, I've been thinking about changing jobs for a while now, so this is kinda perfect timing anyway."

"Okay then…" the two sisters were silent for a bit, then Anny finally said, "Well, I've gotta call Mom and Dad and my friends, so I guess I'll hear from you soon?"

"Wait, you called me before mom, dad, and your friends?"

She heard a shifting sound from the other side of the phone, before Anny spoke, in a soft voice, "Well, my friends and I all kinda got pregnant at the same time so they probably figured out that I am pregnant too, and, well, you're my big sister, even though we've had our problems, I still love ya and wanted you to know about all this… after all, you're gonna be an Aunt, you have to prepare all the cool things you'll show our baby once the kid's born."

Tiffany smiled, tears beginning to form in her eyes, "Anyways…" Anny said, trying to act as if she wasn't starting to cry too, "I've gotta call mom and dad, talk to you later Tiff, love ya, bye."

"Love you too, bye." Tiffany said before ending the call. She turned to a framed photo of her holding a baby Anny beside her, than smiled, "See you soon, Anny."

.

.

.

Gladys Kanker was ecstatic as she waited for her son and daughter-in-law to come over to eat with her tonight, ever since the boys had moved out, they had all decided to have dinner together once a week, normally they'd either discuss what was going on in the boys' lives or tell funny work stories.

Usually it was a bit of both, but tonight, funny work stories would not dominate the dinner table, not since they had gotten the news…

It started that afternoon when Jay called her "Hey Grandma! An's pregnant again! April's gonna be a big sister!" Gladys then demanded to know everything he knew, only for him to tell her about what had happened earlier that day.

"So all of the pregnancy tests were positive?" Gladys asked, bouncing in her seat.

"Yeah. I told Tee and Larie what happened and now I'm calling you to tell you the good news!" Jay said cheerfully. She then heard babbling, "Hey April, you wanna say hi to your Great-Grandma? Okay…" Gladys was then graced with the sound of her infant great-granddaughter laughing and then trying to eat her dad's cellphone, only for Jay to say, "Daddy needs his phone, April, you can't eat it." Gladys laughed as her youngest grandson's voice came back onto the phone, "Anyways, I just wanted to let you know, I'm gonna call Mom and Dad and let them know, bye Grandma!"

"Bye Jay! Bye April!"

As soon as she ended the call with Jay, her phone rang again, it was Larie.

"Hey, Grandma." He said, his voice a little weird, "We've got good news." Gladys guessed that since he said 'we' and that he sounded weird, she was probably on speaker.

"I'm pregnant!" Ann cried happily into the phone. Gladys let out a squeal that sounded like one a little girl might make and asked when they found out and all the things she had asked from Jay, she knew how Larie had found out, but still, it was nice to hear how Ann did. After hearing everything, she smiled and said, "Ann, have you told your parents yet?" it was silent for a moment, making Gladys wince a bit, remembering that Ann's parents were very busy and very traditional people, she remembered talking with Ann's parents at their wedding, her parents were nice and polite and all, but when she had brought up the subject of them having kids, her father had told her that they didn't have Ann until they had been married for roughly twenty years. Gladys' response was, "Please don't tell them to do that, I want to see their children while I'm still alive." Her father seemed surprised by the response, but Ann's mother replied, "We won't, I want to see their children before I die too."

"My mother called after we found out, I tried to tell her, but she was busy and had to end the call before I could give her the good news…" Ann said softly, sounding a little hurt.

"But her family's having a special dinner for us so we're going to tell them all then." Larie added quickly, and, knowing Larie, he was probably comforting her in some way, "But since we couldn't tell her family, we wanted to tell you."

"Did you call An, Jay, Anny and Tee first?"

"We tried Anny and Tee, but both didn't pick up, Ann managed to get An on the phone and tell her, Jay's line was busy so I thought I'd call you before we called Bethany and Dad."

"Jay was telling me the good news, so that's why he didn't pick up." Gladys explained.

"Ah, well, we're gonna call them and tell them the good news, you'll probably hear from Tee and Anny soon anyways, love you!"

"Love you too, and congratulations!" she said before they hung up.

It had been about two hours later when Tee finally called.

"Well?" she asked him.

"Well what?"

"Well, what took you so long?" she demanded. Tee laughed, "I guess Jay and Larie already called ya."

"Yes they did, now…" she tried to control her tone so she didn't sound too eager as she asked, "do you have something to tell me?"

"Well, for starters, Anny and I are getting married." Tee said triumphantly, Gladys was taken aback, she didn't expect to hear that, not that she wasn't happy for them or anything, but she expected Anny to refuse to accept his proposal if it was purely for the baby's sake, she would only accept it if he proposed out of his love for her, not a feeling of responsibility for their child. But instead of acting pleasantly surprise, she curtly replied, "It's about damn time." Tee laughed, "You couldn't even let me have that one, huh?"

"No. Anything else you like to tell me?"

"Anny's pregnant." Tee finally relented. Gladys cheered and then demanded details. When Tee had finished explaining, Gladys then understood why Anny had agreed to marry him, but still, she had to wait this long for him to finally do it, so she was gonna give him a bit of a hard time, "You couldn't have asked her in bed?"

"Grandma!" he cried, embarrassed and a little grossed out that she even had said that.

"What? I'm just saying..."

"This is not something I want to talk to you about."

"I'm not asking about that, Tee." She said, "I'm just saying that you had to wait until you got her pregnant to work up the nerve?"

"Sorry I'm not Jay, who can propose on International Television after winning Iron Chef and I'm sorry that I'm not Larie, who can propose on the way to the hospital with his sister-in-law having a baby in the back seat of the van after his girlfriend stun gunned a flirty toll booth woman who refused to let us pass even though we paid the toll and had a woman giving birth in the back."

"Apology accepted." Gladys said, making him laugh.

"Anyways, I just wanted to tell you before I called Mom and Dad and Larie and Jay. Talk to you later."

"Bye Tee, and congratulations on the baby and the bride."

"Thanks Grandma, bye." Then he hung up.

Gladys bounced around her kitchen, humming and dancing as she cooked. There was no doubt in her mind that the boys hadn't already called Ben and Bethany and told them the good news, but still, it was an exciting topic and one Gladys was eager to talk about.

The doorbell rang as she finished putting the last dish on the table and the old woman skipped towards the door with the energy and grace of a child, "Coooommminggg!" she sang as she walked to her front door and opened it to her son and daughter-in-law, who were both in good spirits as well.

She ushered them inside, "Can you believe that they got all three of those girls pregnant in the same night?" The old woman gushed.

"I know, right? How the heck did they manage to do that?" Bethany cried.

"Kanker genes." Ben immediately replied. Bethany gave him a flat look, to which he replied, "How do you think I got you, Babs and April pregnant in the same night?" he asked fervently.

"Massive amounts of alcohol." Bethany replied without missing a beat. Ben considered it for a moment then said, "Okay, the alcohol helped, but the rest was all Kanker genes."

Bethany scoffed, but Gladys piped in with, "Actually, after the first time Horace didn't use a condom, I became pregnant with Ben."

Bethany looked at her with a look that screamed, 'Ew, I didn't need to know that.'

"Anyway, Mom, the boys didn't give us any details about what happened, you mind filling us in?" Ben asked, steering the conversation away from her and his father's night time activities and knowing anything that had to do with any his son's love/family lives would overrule any other topic of conversation already in progress. Gladys beamed as she lead them towards her kitchen table and began to tell them the tale of how their three new grandchildren came into being.

.

.

.

MONTAGE TIME!

.

.

.

An

First Trimester

.

An and Jay sat at their kitchen table, a mountain of papers between them that they began sorting through, armed with pens, pencils, credit cards, laptops and calculators.

April was spending the day with Uncle Sam and Jamie, leaving them time to sort out all these bills they had to pay. Having a child had made a huge dent in their bank account, the diapers, the clothes that she constantly grew out of, doctors visits, and they were putting some money aside for a college fund for her. But that wasn't all, there were the bills from the hospital from when April was born, the extra electricity they used when April was crying in the middle of the night and they turned on the lights or opened the fridge, the extra water they used when giving her a bath, or two if she had a really explosive poopy (which they never covered in that parenting class they took when they were in high school).

An placed a hand on her belly, then looked at the stack of bills, "Hey Jay?"

"Yeah An?" He said, trying to look at her over the pile, only to realize that it was too tall, he then moved his chair so they could see each other.

"Do you think we'll have trouble paying for both of our babies?" She asked softly as she rubbed her belly. Jay smiled and grasped her hand, "We'll manage, An. I know we will." An smiled back as she got up, then placed his hands on her belly, "You hear that?" An asked the life growing inside her, "Mommy, Daddy and your big sister will manage, so don't worry, okay?" Jay smiled as he pulled his wife closer until he was holding her and gave her a light squeeze.

.

Ann

First Trimester

.

Larie and Ann were sitting side by side on the couch in their living room, reading books about babies and snuggling, when the phone rang, Ann moved to get up, but Larie stopped her with a hand, "I've got it, Muffin" he said before he kissed her forehead and walked over to the kitchen and picked up their home phone, "Hello, Kanker residence…" he listened for a moment before saying, "Speaking." He paused again and said, "Oh… Well thanks for telling me… uh huh… Well, sure, I can do that. Thanks, have a good evening, good bye." He then hung up the phone, his face obscured from view. Ann pulled herself off the couch and walked beside him, "Well?" she asked. He turned around and revealed the enormous smile on his face.

"I'm going to meet with your dad tomorrow to discuss what supplies and equipment and everything we'll need from the students and the school and what my lesson plans will be." Larie said, obviously pleased with himself.

"Lesson Plans?" Ann echoed, a smile curling up her lips.

"Yup! I get to teach a metal sculpting class and two painting classes, so that's three right there." Ann hugged him tight, "I'm so proud of you, Larie!" He smiled and kissed his wife's head as he wrapped an arm around her, "I'm just glad that I got the job." He patted her belly, "We've got this little one to worry about after all." She smiled and nodded.

.

Anny

First Trimester

.

Anny and Tee looked over various reception venues and locations, feeling the stress start to get to them, who knew planning one's wedding was so difficult? They had the rings, but that was it.

They had not gotten any clothes for themselves nor had they discussed what anyone else would be wearing, they had no idea where they wanted to get married and they had NOTHING lined up for a reception. And it was driving them nuts! Well, it was more like their mothers were driving them nuts about all that stuff, but still...

Anny threw down a handful of flyers, "Urg! At this rate, we're gonna end up saying our vows in a nut house!"

Tee looked at her and sighed, "We might as well just have our wedding at the court house and the reception here at home…" They both paused and looked at each other, stunned that they had missed such a simple and cheap (since they had put a deposit down on a house, but were waiting to hear back from the realtor) solution to this annoying problem. They quickly called their parents (and siblings and siblings-in-law) and told them what they had decided. When they had finished with the last call, Tee and Anny finally allowed themselves to relax on the couch.

Anny stroked her belly, "Now that we've got all that settled, tomorrow we're gonna have to figure out what we need to do for this one." Tee kissed her cheek, "Tomorrow sounds good." He said.

.

Jay

An's Second Trimester

.

Jay came home with a skip in his step as he burst through the front door, "AN! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED!" he cried.

"You met a talking blue hedgehog?" An guessed as she leaned out of their kitchen, April curled up in one arm while she cradled her bloated, baby-filled belly with the other.

"No! Remember that potential carry out menu I showed my boss last month?"

"Yeah."

"Well, we've tested it out and it's been a huge hit! My boss was so happy about the way it turned out that he gave me a big bonus!" he cried as he pulled his wife and daughter into his arms, "That's great, Jay!" An exclaimed, giving him a quick hug, "I got something to tell you too!" An said cheerfully, then placed April in his arms and scurried into the kitchen, then returned with an ultrasound picture, "It's a boy!" she cried as she handed him the photo.

Jay took it and smiled as he bounced his daughter in his arms, "looks like you are going to have a little brother, April." His daughter clapped happily as Jay admired the human shaped creature in the photo.

He couldn't believe how lucky they were to have such a nice home and family, but looking back at it, they had both worked very hard to get here:

He went to culinary school right after high school and managed to get a job at Selina's after he graduated two years later and An went straight into the movie business, making fantastic scenes, props and costumes and making a name for herself in the movie business, so they were able to make plenty and save up enough to buy a house before April was born.

He pulled his family close as he said, "Well, it's a good thing we've this money, now we can finally go to the hardware store and buy blue paint for the new baby's room."

.

Larie

Ann's Second Trimester

.

He picked up the cake and was taking it home, where Ann and both of their families were waiting for him.

Apparently Ann had heard about a service some bakeries had for expecting couples from some of his older art students; you'd give them an envelope with the baby's gender, and they'd make either a blue or pink colored cake that would be covered in white frosting and have a big black question mark on the top. You'd cut into the cake and see if it was a boy or a girl based on the color of the cake inside.

He didn't really get it, but Ann had been so excited about it and it was a nice opportunity to get together with the rest of their families. Which was nice, since he and his brothers had learned that they were each expecting a bundle of joy, they hadn't seen each other as much as they used to.

Jay and An were either busy with work or April or the baby on the way, but he definitely saw them more then he'd seen Tee and Anny lately.

They'd been working like crazy around the clock so they were hardly ever around except to go get baby stuff with the rest of them every couple of weeks or so. He was honestly surprised that they even came to this, but then again, they probably needed a break from their work lives and were up for some free cake.

Larie parked in his driveway and stared up at his home for a moment, then smiled as he grabbed the cake box on the passenger's seat and hopped out of the car and up his front steps. The Kanker brothers were no longer the crazy, chaotic, violent (well, Larie wasn't as violent as he used to be) kids from the trailer park anymore.

They were men.

Men who had jobs.

Men who had homes.

Men who had wives.

And men who were fathers.

His smile widened as he opened his front door, "Ann, got the cake!" he called into the room. He heard a cheer as he brought it in. Ann had a hand on her belly as she walked over and held up the cake cutter they had received as a wedding gift with her free hand, "Shall we?" she asked. He smiled and helped her cut the cake and slide out a piece to reveal the interior to be…

"Blue!" Luca cried excitedly, "It's a boy!"

The room quickly filled with excitement as Ann gave him a big hug with tears in her eyes, leaving him to hold the slice of cake by himself. He wrapped his free arm around his wife and smiled at the others, "So, who wants the first slice?" he asked.

.

Tee

Anny's Second Trimester

.

Anny laid on a cot in the hospital with her shirt flipped up to reveal her bulging belly, pouting, "This is gonna suck." She said, her arms crossed.

Tee disagreed, they were going to see their baby, to him, this was going to be amazing, a true highlight in his life so far.

If anything sucked in their lives at the moment, it was that they were barely scraping by financially. After their wedding, they moved into their new home and began to put some money aside for the baby's college fund, as if that wasn't enough of a drain on their checkbooks, they both recently made the decision to become business owners.

Tee had made a deal with the current owner of the dance studio he worked at, upon learning that he was planning to sell, to put some of the money he made aside so he could buy it from him, which sucked a bit since he and Anny could've used that money, but at least they still had money coming in, even though it barely covered eletricity, food and gas. But Anny's decision to leave the talent agency she worked at and had start her own agency really made a huge dent in their finances, but with her sister as her assistant and their friends spreading the word and the professional dancers from the studio signing on with her, they managed to scrape by.

"We're seeing if our baby is a boy or a girl, how is this gonna suck?" Tee teased, "You've never had that gel plopped on your belly, it's like ice in goop form." Anny curtly informed him.

"Aw come on, it can't be that bad." Anny rose her eye brows at the comment and called out to the technician, "Ya mind showing him how much he's wrong?" The technician chuckled as she asked Tee to lift up his shirt so she could put the gel on his stomach. Tee obeyed only to feel goop as cold as ice suddenly was smeared on his chest, every hair on his body stood up and he instantly recoiled and made a face that made the two women in the room laugh as the technician handed him a few tissues to wipe the gunk off of him, "I suggest you take a shower when you get home", she said with a laugh as the two women watched him toss tissues full of gunk into the nearby trashcan.

"Alright, alright, you proved your point and had your fun." Tee snapped, embarrassed, "Can we see if our baby is a boy or a girl now?"

"Okay, here we go." The technician said as she squeezed some of the cold gel on Anny's baby bump, making her jump a bit in her seat, only for the technician to press a machine to the gel and a small curled up child silhouette appear on the screen. The technician began pointing out the baby's toes and fingers and even, "Looks like this little one is a boy."

"Huh? How can you tell?" Anny asked. The Technician pointed at a part of the image on the screen, "You see that?"

"Yeah." The parents-to-be replied.

"That's how I know." She replied plainly.

"Holy crap, is that…?"

"Yup."

"Man that's big." Anny said, stunned.

"What do you expect?" Tee said with a smirk, "Like Father like Son."

.

An

Third Trimester

.

An and Jamie sat on the couch, April babbling happily between them as Jamie reached into a large canvas bag beside her and pulled out adorable outfits that were obviously designed for infants and toddlers, holding them up for An and April to admire, then folding them up and putting them beside her.

"These are so cute, Jamie!" An exclaimed as she lifted up a cute pale yellow baby sundress with several daffodils poking up from the corner of the skirt, "I can't believe you're giving them to us, they're so nice!"

Jamie smiled proudly at An's compliment as she neatly folded a small pair of pants and a yellow shirt with a baby chick on it, "Yeah, I finished up all my pieces for the school fashion show and I couldn't get April or the sonogram of little Sheldon out of my head. So I decided to use some of the left over material to make some clothes for them." An smiled, touched that Jamie had thought of them and took the time to make these cute outfits for their children. An was also grateful for her charity, because, while they had plenty of baby things, like bottles and pacifiers and toys and such and Jay had gotten a big raise a few months back, they were a little short on money thanks to buying another crib for the new baby and needing more diapers for April and new clothes for An, who seemed to be getting bigger and bigger in the middle every week, and April, since she grew out of clothes fairly quickly and, now that she was crawling and starting to walk, she got dirty very easily and would constantly need to change clothes during the day.

(They'd drop April off at her mom's with three extra sets of clothes and even gave her a spare key to pick up another set if needed… Her mom had to collect a spare outfit for April every other day and An and Jay would often have to pick up April's fresh laundry from her mom's house.)

Now, Double-N had knitted plenty of sweaters, scarves, mittens, socks, and even a few toys for all of the Kanker babies but An and Jay were worried about not having enough money to buy clothes for two constantly growing babies, since Sheldon obviously couldn't wear any of the skirts or dresses April had already worn. (they hoped he'd be okay with wearing her old shirts and pants, since not all of them were super girly or anything)

An gave her brother's considerate girlfriend a hug, "Thank you Jamie, if there is anything we can do to make it up to you…"

"Actually…" Jamie said as she reached into her purse and pulled out a camera, "My teacher said it was a smart idea to make clothes for people that need to buy a lot in a small period of time and I thought about how Sam said you and Jay were needing to buy lots of baby and Maternity clothes, so I made a few outfits and want to see how they fit, if you and April wouldn't mind modeling for me..." An smiled eagerly, since she was now on maternity leave, she didn't have much to do except watch her daughter (although she could now spend more time with Double-N, and Anny when she'd give herself days off) and although she loved spending time with her baby, she missed not having projects to do, so she was excited to help set up a spot for a photo shoot, even though it wasn't somewhere spooky, creepy or bizarre, she could still use what she knew to help Jamie. "Sounds good to me, Jamie!" she exclaimed as she popped off the couch to prep a nice spot for taking pictures.

.

Ann

Third Trimester

.

Ann cradled her head in her hands.

She couldn't believe she had just done that.

She looked at the big, empty bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and the half empty jar of peanut butter before her. "Anna Marie, I cannot believe you just ate sandwiches made of spice covered corn chips and peanut butter!" She moaned to herself before resting her arms on the kitchen table and letting her head fall into it in shame. "And you even licked your fingers afterwards instead of washing your hands!" she wailed.

Ever since she left work on maternity leave, her food cravings had completely taken her for a loop. Everyday it was a new odd combination of food that seemed more like a weird science experiment then a meal. She tried distracting herself with her knitting, side projects, books, her ant farm, but every couple of hours, she found herself eating massive amounts of food in pairings that normally would not be combined and then end up face down in defeat in the aftermath of her assault on any edible matter in her kitchen.

Her head shot up as she heard the sound of an engine coming close and then being turned off.

No…

Oh no…

She couldn't let Larie see this!

She, as quickly as she could with her baby bump, got up from her seat and began gathering the evidence of her crime…

Only for him to come in with two large brown paper bags cradled in one arm while the other one opened the door and see her standing halfway down the hall with her arms filled with the empty chip bag and the jar of peanut butter and some crumbs on the side of her mouth.

She turned pink with shame as Larie bit back a laugh, closed the door behind him and walked up to her, "Hold still," he chuckled as he carefully wiped the crumbs off her face with his thumb. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes as he carefully led her into the kitchen, took everything she had in her hands with his free one and put everything on the counter before pulling her close as she began to break down. "I feel like such a crude, corpulent creature with no self control!" she sobbed into his chest, he let out a soft chuckle and gently stroked her hair back, "You're a cute, clever chick who's pregnant with our little Allbert." He corrected quietly, then added, "with two Ls."

"I still haven't agreed to that name yet." Ann sniffled defiantly. Larie chuckled and kissed her on the forehead, wiped away her tears and led her to their couch, telling her that he had a surprised for her and to wait here for a moment while he set it up.

Ann nodded as she regained her composure and picked up the half-finished baby sweater she had been knitting for their son before her craving had set in and went back to work, wondering what Larie's surprise was.

Hopefully it wasn't anything with the name 'Allbert' engraved on it.

Larie had come up with that name while they were first discussing baby names, "Cause then he can be Double-L!" he had declared with a laugh.

And while she had to admit, it was a nice name and she thought it was clever that it combined her old nickname with his name, but she was firm about their son having a family name… not that they had agreed on one yet, but… still.

Finally, after finishing the sweater and a tiny pair of socks, Larie came back in and helped her off the couch, instructing her to cover her eyes as he led her through the house.

"Okay, you can open your eyes now." He said proudly. Ann opened her eyes and gasped.

The kitchen was lit by a few candles in the center of the table, which had a dark colored tablecloth white rose petals sprinkled on it. The table was set for two and there were several small plates with different foods on them between the two seats.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, Larie kissed her cheek, "you should see our bedroom," he teased as he pulled out her chair for her.

Ann looked at him, utterly touched by this grand gesture as she carefully sat down, "I cannot believe you went through all this trouble..."

"Trouble!?" Larie cried, as if it was an insult, "I wanted to give my amazing, beautiful, brilliant wife a romantic dinner, how is that trouble?" he asked as he took his seat. Ann opened her mouth, but Larie quickly placed his finger on her lips and answered his own question, "It isn't." He then slipped his fingers so they gently caressed her cheek, "And even if it was, you're worth it." Ann intertwined her fingers looked at him, her eyes sparkling, then her face shifted from loving to surprised then to pained as she grabbed her middle.

Larie grasped her hand tightly, "Is he kicking too hard again?"

"Yes," She squeaked, then after taking a moment to recover, she looked down at her stomach, rubbed the sore spot and said, "Allbert with two Ls, your father and I are going to have a very long discussion with you about being mindful of your own strength after dinner."

Larie got up and walked over to her and placed his hand on hers on her belly, "Let's not be too hasty, Muffin." He then place his hands on either side of her belly, as if covering their unborn infant's ears and whispered, "'cause I was serious about our bedroom." Ann chuckled as he then removed his hands, went back to his seat and they happily dug into their meal.

.

Anny

Third Trimester

.

Anny and Tee sat on either side of their couch, staring at each other intently, not backing down, Tiffany sitting between them, trying to ignore them and watch TV.

Anny watched her sister finally let out a huff and threw the remote onto the ground, "You two have been at this for HOURS! Can you two PLEASE just agree on a name for my nephew already!?" she cried.

Anny and Tee finally closed their eyes and leaned back into the couch. Their son was due in a month and they still hadn't agreed on a name for him yet. They thought it would be a good to have Tiffany come in as a neutral third party to help them either pick or compromise, only they got into a staring contest and had been silent since she arrived, leading Anny to think that her older sister might just have to have the final say in their son's name.

The two let out a breath then turned to the elder of the two McGee sisters, "Anny wants to name him Casey." Tee began, "And Tee wants to name him Andy." Anny finished for him.

Tiffany nodded, "Annnnddd?" she asked, motioning for them to go on.

"And… we've kinda been going back and forth about it for the past week?" Anny said with a shrug.

"… Are you two friggin' serious?" Tiffany asked flatly.

"Sadly yes." Tee commented.

The couple watched as Tiffany rubbed her temples and let out a frustrated groan. She then sucked in a deep breath, then spoke in an even, but obviously slightly annoyed tone, "Alright then, here is what you two are going to do. Since no matter what I say to end this debate will probably just make this worse, you two are going to make a bet on something, because you two are competitive and stubborn as fuck and I don't want shit to escalate."

"Bet on something?" Anny repeated, confused.

"Seriously?" Tee asked.

"What? It's not like you two don't bet on shit ALL the time!" Tiffany argued, "I mean, you bet on if your kid was a boy or a girl!"

Tee smirked triumphantly while Anny pouted and muttered a complaint about having dish duty for a week.

"So, come on, there has GOT to be something going on that you two can bet on!" Tiffany cried.

The two were quiet for a moment, thinking, then a devious smirk began growing on Anny's face as she spoke, "Actually, we do know of one thing…" she then turned to her husband and said, "Why don't we bet on if Nate will finally pop the question tomorrow?"

"Why tomorrow?" Tiffany asked. An impish smile grew on Tee's face, "Cause it's her birthday tomorrow." He purred, "And what better gift to her than a nice gold ring on her finger?"

"Okay then." Tiffany said, clapping her hands, "What are your bets?"

"I say he finally mans up and puts a ring on it," Tee said plainly, "I mean, he's had the ring for a fucking year, if he keeps it in his back pocket much longer, it's gonna leave an imprint in his ass." The McGee sisters chuckled a moment before Anny made her own bet.

"I say he'll chicken out." Anny said, "He's been one of her best friends since they were five and it took him until we were fucking seniors in high school to ask her out!"

"Okay then, the day after tomorrow you two can check on your friends and see who won." Tiffany instructed as she got up and made her way to the doorway, "Call me and tell me what I should call my nephew when he's born." She said before closing their front door behind her.

Two days later, the two went over to Nate's place with the excuse of asking if Karen, who worked with Anny as a talent scout, was there and if she had any new potential client information for her and Tee to ask Nate if he was up for a guy's night at their house next week.

Anny cradled her belly with one arm and had her sister's contact page up on her phone, ready to call her about her child's name while Tee knocked on the door.

They heard some murmurs behind the door for a moment before it opened to the couple holding each other, a ring on Karen's left hand, "WE'RE ENGAGED!" they cried in joyful unison. Tee looked at his wife triumphantly after they congratulated the happy couple, Anny hid her frustration well as she quickly apologized to them and fibbed that her sister just texted her about a deal and needed to discuss it with her in private for a moment and walked a few feet from the door and began meddling with her phone, her face pulled into a disappointed pout as she called her sister.

"So dude, you and Anny finally decide on a name for your kid?" Nate asked, Tee smiled proudly and said, "Yeah, his name is Andy."

.

End of Montage

.

Bethany and Ben were sitting on their couch, quietly relaxing after a long day.

They had visited Gladys and discussed the latest news about the young families their boys had started with the women of their dreams, then went to Babs and April (Jay's mother not daughter)'s graves and gave them updates about their boys, their daughters-in-law and their grandbabies, both born and soon-to-be-born.

The two had started visiting their old friend's graves together after Bethany came back and they always were very somber after their visits there. They had been inseparable in their youth and loved each other very dearly, and that two of them had left them so young when they still had so much that they wanted to do and so much of their children's lives that they wanted to be a part of… it was still painful to them.

It would probably always be painful to them.

Bethany turned off the television and looked at her husband, "I wish they were here to see our boys all grown up and starting their own families." She said softly. Ben gave her a soft smile and a warm hug, "Me too, Beth, but knowing those two, April is bouncing around heaven, showing pictures and ultrasounds of her precious 'wittle' grandbabies to everyone who is around, while Babs is herding her family, in heaven and hell, so they can see the newest little ones in our family when they're born." Bethany chuckled and hugged back.

Even though they were gone, bits of them were in all of their boys, even the ones they had not given birth to. And their granddaughter, April, even though she was quite young, reminded them so much of her namesake that it was almost overwhelming.

"Dad? Mom? You guys home?"

The two forty-something grandparents turned around to see their sons, daughters-in-law and even little April, who looked upset, in their doorway.

"What are you all doing here?" Ben asked as they got up from the couch and ushered them in.

"We came for a visit." Tee said simply.

"And a chat." Larie confirmed.

"And April needed a diaper change and was getting really fussy." Jay added sheepishly as he held his unhappy baby girl up for inspection.

"I've got her." Bethany said, taking her granddaughter and began bouncing her in her arms, "Come on, ladies, you can give me the latest gossip about your friends while I see if I remember how to do this right." The pregnant Ans carefully followed their mother-in-law, each cradling their bellies as they moved into the kitchen, which was actually kind of a gross place to change a diaper, but their trailer wasn't the biggest place in the world and the boys obviously wanted to talk with Ben alone for a moment, so he kept his mouth shut and waited until the last An had vanished into the kitchen.

"So what's up?" He asked his boys as he patted the rest of the unused couch beside him, offering them a seat. They took it, the unease that Ben had sensed once they arrived finally settling on their faces. They looked at each other, then Tee finally spoke up.

"Our girls' due dates are soon and we're feeling a bit uneasy…"

"Why? I mean, you boys wanted this, right?"

"Of course!" Jay blurted.

"Yeah, we've been dreaming about this for years!" Larie agreed.

"So why are you three so worried?" Ben asked.

But before any of them could answer, three splashes came from the kitchen and April started to cry.

"BEN! BOYS! THE BABIES ARE ON THEIR WAY!" Bethany shouted from the kitchen.

.

.

.

Two men paced back and forth, sweating like crazy while two more sat down in chairs, one held a baby and nervously cradled it and another looked at the two pacing with annoyance etched into his face.

"Knock it off and sit down! Everything will be fine!" Ben Kanker finally snapped.

"But what if it's not, Dad?" Tee asked, his whole body shaking.

"They've been in there for a while!" Larie said, biting his thumbnail as he walked back and forth across the thin, dark carpet.

Jay said nothing and cradled his daughter, despite the fact that he had been here less then a year ago when April was born, he felt just as nervous and scared as he did the first time he had been here. He wasn't very fond of hospitals, as a kid he was fine with them, even looked forward to going to the hospital, because that meant that they were visiting his mom. But after that last visit, hospitals became a scary place for him.

Ben Kanker sighed, it was four in the morning and they had been there since nine the previous night, he wanted to sleep but he could feel the stress emanating off of his sons. So he took a deep breath then began counting down off his fingers, catching his sons' attention, when all eight fingers were up, he continued to count back down as he let his fingers slip back into his palm and back again. "It's a trick your grandpa taught me while I was waiting for you three." He explained, then motioned for Tee and Larie to sit down and watched as his sons began counting off their fingers, Jay counting April's off instead of his own.

"When a baby's born, they'll give it to the dad, or anyone who's with the girl and ask 'um to count their fingers and toes." He said, "Your grandpa was so nervous that he would screw something up that he couldn't remember how to count, so he started counting off his fingers just like that. Once he could do it without much difficulty, I was born." His sons watched as his fingers rose and fall, one by one, "Doing something simple over and over helps you calm down, by giving yourself a small routine that you can start up at anytime or place, you can give yourself a break from your own thoughts anytime you want to." He said calmly as he watched his boys relax a little.

"When I was in here waiting for your moms, I was a wreck. I was making a path in the carpet with my sneakers. Then my dad showed me how to do this and the next thing I knew, I was being called in to meet Tee for the first time, then Larie was born, then Jay." He recalled, then leaned his head back and counted down, "four… three… two and…" he pointed to the door, and a nurse walked through.

"Mr. Kanker?" she called, looking down at a chart.

The four men looked up at her expectantly, and Ben told her, "You've got four in here, Lady, you're gonna hafta be a little more specific." The nurse blushed and apologized, then said, "Mr. Tee Kanker, would you like to meet your son?"

Tee got up and nodded solemnly and followed her out of the room.

.

.

.

He never expected his child to be so small, but then again, Anny had been tiny as a kid, so he guessed he got that from her. Now she was big and very sweaty and tired, her mother and sister were exhausted as well but, they were the only ones she let in at the time… well she did let her dad, Jack, in, but he fainted when he saw the needles they were sticking into his daughter, but he had woken up a little while ago and had stayed by his daughters side during the birth and held her hand while she gave birth… leaving him to now cradle his aching hand as he watched his son-in-law kiss his daughter. He let Tee hold the baby before him, knowing how much it meant to be holding your child for the first time.

Anny had been up for hours pushing their little boy out, her mother and sister telling her to "push, come on Anny, you can do it!" and now the little guy was wailing in Tee's arms as he used a tiny turkey baster (or Canadian squirt gun, whichever you'd prefer) to get all the goop out of his eyes, nose, ears and mouth, the unhappy infant was making bubbles with it without him realizing it, making Tee chuckle a bit. He then counted off his sons fingers and toes (four fingers on each hand, three toes on each foot, perfect) and then they wrapped up the boys' cord, wiped him up a bit and bundled the tyke up in a blanket and Tee placed their little boy in Anny's hands.

She looked at their son, smiling softly and tears of love and pride welling in her eyes, "Considering how much it hurt to push him out, I figured he'd be bigger." She joked, then began to rock the infant back and forth, "he's beautiful though." She said softly, kissing their baby on his head. Tee pulled the two close to him and kissed both of them on the head, "You did really good, Anny."

"Tell me something I don't know." She replied, making them both chuckle as they admired the baby and Anny's mom, Jessica was taking pictures like a mad woman off her meds. After letting the rest of Anny's family hold the baby and then give him back to them, Tiffany and Jack had to remove Jessica so they could let the three of them be. Tee smiled as the baby's tiny fingers curled around one of his own and was fascinated that they could hardly wrap around it.

"Hey, Tee?"

"Yeah Anny?"

"We never agreed on a middle name for him." She said with a devious smile. "Tell ya what, since I got to give him his first name and you spent hours pushing him out, you can give him whatever middle name you want." Tee replied.

Anny pouted, "You take all the fun out of it." she complained before leaning her head back, her eyes closed in thought.

She stayed that way for a few minutes before saying, "Tee."

"What?" he replied.

"What what?"

"What is his new middle name?"

"I just told you!"

"No, you just said my name and then didn't tell me what Andy's middle name is gonna be."

"Your name is his middle name, dumbass!" Anny snapped, annoyed that it took him so long to get it. He flushed, than gave his wife a kiss on the cheek and chuckled as he gently rubbed his thumb against his son's teeny fingers, "Andy Tee Kanker." He recited softly, "Welcome to the world, little guy."

.

.

.

It was now two in the afternoon and Larie had been counting and counting and it was starting to make him feel like a crazy person!

Jay had to change April and keep her happy and pre-occupied, so he had been able to stop and start up again when she fell back asleep, so he'd had a secondary distraction. Ben watched Larie with calm eyes as he began to wring his hands and then threaded them through his hair and began tugging on it.

The Ans were tough girls, but Ann was about as physically tough as tissue paper. Bethany had called all of the girls' parents and they had called their siblings and aunts and cousin for them, so their parents and Anny's sister were there as soon as they arrived at the hospital and had stayed with them ever since. Luca and Miranda had left with Jamie and Sam in the morning and took the Ans' fathers (except for Anny's since he was with his daughter) to help them get breakfast for everyone and were currently out to grab the remaining Kankers and the other Ans fathers something to eat while Fiona and Ann's mother, Carla, were inside with Ann. An's mother was with her but that was it, Jamie had tried last time to be moral support, but she had fainted as soon as An began to really push so she was outside this time.

Ann's father, Lennard sat there calmly typing on his laptop, but Ben could easily see his hands shake a bit, he looked over at Tim, who was a bit calmer than the last time they were there, reading the paper. But it didn't surprise him that much, since, like Ben, this wasn't his first grandchild, however, unlike Ben, his child was the one giving birth, so he was plenty nervous, often glancing at the clock on the wall. The five men sat there, waiting.

Larie was going insane, unlike the other men sitting in the room with him, he had never been through this before, when Tee was here, he felt a little better since they both had no idea what to do with themselves while their wives were giving birth in another room, but now he was alone in a room full of fathers who were all somehow managing to stay calm.

He wished she had let him stay with her, let him be there for her, but he had been a bundle of chaotic nerves when they came in and had nearly punched out a male nurse who was taking her to the room and sticking an IV into her arm, he understood that she needed calm at that moment and, maybe when they had their next kid, (kids, whatever Karen had said when they were teenagers, he didn't care at the moment, he was too busy FREAKING OUT OVER HERE!) he'd be calm, but for this kid, he was nervous as all hell, he had no idea what to expect.

"Larie." His father said calmly, "relax, yer not the one giving birth here." The other men chuckled a bit.

"How can I be calm? Ann isn't like Anny or An, she isn't physically tough, she's as delicate as it gets! She can hardly lift a bowling ball and she's squeezing out a baby!" Larie cried, sliding down in his chair, pulling at his hair. Lennard watched him critically out of the corner of his eye, but said nothing.

Honestly, Lennard felt that Larie should have thought about her lack of physical strength when he first learned Ann was pregnant, he also should have thought about what he was going to do for a job to support their new family once he learned that she was pregnant… however, Carla informed him the day after their announcement that they had only just learned that fact earlier that day, so it was understandable that the two of them were not thinking about their financial situation when they came over for dinner that night…

He called and apologized for giving them such a hard time after they gave them the good news. Lennard tore his eyes away from Larie's now huddled form on his chair and looked at the time written out in the upper right hand corner of his laptop, knowing that staring at the time would not make it go any faster, but wanting it to speed up so he and his son-in-law could see his daughter.

A nurse came through the doorway, "Mr. Kanker…" she stopped, then remembered there were three in the room.

"Laurie?" she tried reading off the sheet. "Larie" he quickly corrected as he hopped out of his chair and walked over to her, she smiled and said, "Would you like to see your wife and son?"

"Do I!" he replied, relieved as he followed the nurse inside, he then paused and walked back and closed Lennard's laptop and put it on the chair next to him, "Come on!" He said with an excited smirk, relief beginning to show on his face, "They're waiting for us!" Lennard was shocked by his action, but slipped his laptop into his briefcase and followed Larie and the nurse to the room where his daughter and grandson awaited them.

.

.

.

Larie held his little boy as if he was made of glass, which if he inherited his physical strength from his mother, was entirely possible, although, he doubted it after feeling the little guy kick while he was still inside Ann, those little feet were powerful, so much in fact that they both often had to ask the kid to lighten up on the kicking. He cleaned the infant's face of fluid before the doctors cleaned him up a little more and handed him back to him to count his fingers and toes, four fingers on each little hand and three toes on each foot.

They were so tiny, he was so tiny.

He carefully walked his son to his exhausted wife and gently placed the child in her arms, tears of joy were flowing down her cheeks as she kissed their child on the forehead as he finally began to calm down. Larie pulled a chair up and sat next to her and laughed with her as they marveled the tiny creature they had made together, both crying a little bit as they did.

"He's perfect." Ann choked out, unable to stop herself from crying from relief and joy.

"What did you expect? He came outta you." Larie teased as he kissed his wife's cheek, she chuckled as they spent a few more minutes admiring him.

Then Miranda and Luca came in and froze at the sight of the bundle in Ann's arms. Miranda then pulled out a camera and took about a million pictures as Luca ran forward to look at the little one who would officially take his place as the baby of the family.

Slowly and carefully, Larie picked up their child and handed him to his mother-in-law, who teared up as soon as the child was placed into her arms.

"What… what is his… my grandson's name?" she asked, her voice cracked with emotion as the infant gently grasped her finger, making her heart melt at the tenderness of the moment.

"Allbert," Ann called from behind her mother, catching everyone else by surprise, "With two Ls. Allbert Larie Kanker." Larie turn around to look at his bride, his eyes wide, "Allbert Larie…?" he repeated, touched and overwhelmed with joy as Ann's face turned pink, "Yes, well, we said we wanted a family name and Larie is technically a family name and you did name him so…" Ann didn't get to finish her explanation before Larie gave her a long, passionate kiss.

Once they parted, he gently held her face in his hands. Ann smiled and managed to lift herself and move herself over on the bed, making room so he could sit next to her on the bed while they held each other tight, watching their child being gently rocked in the loving arms of his grandmother.

Carla handed Lennard the infant and he nervously held the baby in his arms, it had been over twenty years since he had last held an infant and he didn't want to risk injuring his newborn grandson. "Look how tiny his little fingers are!" his wife squealed. Lennard carefully slipped his finger under his grandson's, she was right, the child's fingers were tiny compared to his own, he also had little toes and were those little eyelashes? Those were so tiny and cute! He felt a little smile crawl up his cheeks, this tiny, adorable creature was something his little girl, the one he held in his arms when she was just born, made with the blue haired man beside her, who was holding her in a loving embrace. Lennard felt tears slide down his cheeks, one thing was for sure, and it was that this little boy was in good, loving hands.

"Aw, Len's getting all emotional." Fiona teased.

"Of course I am." He said sternly, "I bet you will be too when you become a grandmother." Fiona was taken aback for a second before laughing, "Probably." She admitted, than pointed to the baby in his arms, "Can I hold him now?" Lennard gently placed his grandson in his sister's arms and soon Allbert was held by Miranda, who had passed her camera to her sister-in-law to take pictures and then Luca, who then looked up at his moms, "So how long before we can play hide and seek together?" he asked eagerly.

"Not for a while." They replied in unison. Luca then returned the infant to his parents and then they cleared out of the room, to give the family some privacy. Larie wrapped one arm around his wife while he fondled his sons fingers with another.

"He's just so beautiful!" Ann sobbed, a proud, gap-toothed grin on her face.

"Yeah, look at who made him." Larie teased, "Like I said before, Muffin, our kids are gonna be smart and beautiful."

.

.

.

It was seven in the evening, Jay sat in his chair, staring at April, who was babbling in Jamie's arms, smiling when she tickled her and made her laugh. Jay, Ben, Sam and Tim all silently waited for news about An and the new baby.

Two hours after Larie had left to meet his son, the doctors brought An's mother back into the waiting room with them and told them that the baby was having trouble getting out and that they were going to take her to another room to perform a C-Section, they then gave them the room number and said that only one family member could sit with her since the room was not big enough. Jay looked at Angela, his eyes pleading and full of hurt and shame, "I'm sorry, but I don't think I could handle seeing anyone taking a blade to An without losing it…" Angela smiled and took his face in her hands, "You stay here with your daughter," she said in a soft voice, "I'll go to mine and make sure everything goes okay." She then gently kissed his forehead, tears beginning to fall down her cheeks, "Thank you, Jay, for letting me be there for my little girl." Jay nodded and he watched his mother-in-law walk back to the room, then held April up, "Look, April, it's Mommy." He said, feeling his body shake a bit as his daughter lit up with laughter and glee at the sight of her mother, "We love you, An, we'll see you in a bit!" An smiled vibrantly at them, despite her obvious exhaustion, and blew them both a kiss before being wheeled away.

Jay felt his chest ache as he watched her go and prayed to every deity he'd ever heard of to please not take her away from him. April began to cry when her mother was out of sight. 'Us.' He corrected himself, 'Please don't take her away from us.' He thought, then comforted his daughter.

Afterwards he asked Jamie and Sam to play with her for a bit while he went to the bathroom, where he pulled himself together… as well as went to the bathroom.

He looked to Tim and finally spoke for the first time in a few hours, "Hey Tim," He asked, surprising everyone with the sound of his voice, "Is it scary to wait for An like this?" he asked, glancing back at his own daughter, a little concern in his eyes.

Tim noted this and said, "Yes, but I'm sure it's just as scary for you as it is for me, and having you here with me is a comfort." He motioned towards the door, "there's not much any of us can do but wait around and I hate every second of it." he glanced at April, "But I doubt you need to worry for April's sake for a while, at the very least eighteen years."

"Or forty." Jay said flatly, making his father-in-law laugh, "I doubt that will work, but I wish you the best of luck with that." He chuckled. Sam and Ben laughed too.

"You aren't serious about that, right?" Jamie asked.

"Uh, Yeah?"

"Then prepare to be disappointed." Jamie said matter-of-factly as she bounced April in her lap, making the other men in the room crack up.

"I'm gonna at least try." Jay said, defeated with a shrug and a small smile.

"Jay Kanker?" the nurse asked, who realized that she should just say the father's full name instead of just 'Mr. Kanker.' "You wanna meet your baby boy?" she asked.

Jay smiled and nodded, "As much as I want my daughter to meet her new little brother." He said, the group got up and everyone followed the nurse inside. Ben stopped halfway through the hallway and saw Anny's family chatting a bit with the doctor about what they'd need to do next, Ben stopped and walked up to them and chatted a bit, Jay stopped and called out to him "Dad?"

"I'm gonna see the other boys first," he said, "I was waiting for all three of ya to go before I went to see them."

"Why?"

"Cause you three are my boys. And you needed me there while you waited." He said with an easy smile and a shrug. "Any father would do the same for his son, isn't that right Tim?"

Tim nodded with a small smile on his face, "Yeah. That's what fathers do."

Jay nodded and continued down the hall to see An and the baby while Ben followed Anny's parents and sister inside another room.

.

.

.

Jamie gave April to An and pulled out her camera as she began taking pictures while Jay handled their little boy, when the infant was clean and everything was accounted for, he placed the baby with his sister and the two began cuddling instantly in their mother's arms, earning squeals and cries of how adorable they were from everyone else. Jay just sat down in a chair beside her and held his bride and looked at his children, feeling truly blessed for his good fortune as he then passed both children around for the rest of An's family to hold.

"What's his name?" Sam asked when it was his turn to hold his new nephew.

"Sheldon." Jay and An said in unison.

"I meant his full name, I know he's Sheldon." He replied, rolling his eyes, he knew why Jay was going along with it, but Sam would never know why An liked the name Sheldon so much.

"Speaking of which," Sam said, "Why do you like the name Sheldon so much?"

An looked at him plainly, "Because your name was either going to be Samuel or Sheldon, since you're Sam, our son is Sheldon." Sam looked up at his parents for confirmation, they nodded, "We couldn't decide which of your grandfathers to name you after." Angela explained, "When you were born, we decided you looked more like a Sam, but we still liked the name, so An promised us that she'd name her son Sheldon, after you."

Sam looked at An, stunned, they had just sort of, kind of named her son after him, even after all the crap he had done to her over the years. He felt tears start to swell in his eyes and handed the baby to Jamie, who handed her camera to Angela before taking Sheldon in her arms, so Sam could wipe the tears away. "So what is his full name?" Jamie asked, curious.

"Sheldon Jay Kanker." An said proudly, then sheepishly added, "I would have used Dad's name too, but Sam's middle name is already Tim." She said, then looked at her dad, "Sorry, Dad." Tim smiled and shook his head, "It's fine, An. I have you two and your mother and now I have two grandkids, I'm fine."

.

.

.

Ben drove home after meeting his new grandsons and learning their names, now he not only had April, but Andy, Allbert and Sheldon too. He had a feeling he'd get more eventually, but three in one day was pretty nice.

Bethany arrived at the hospital with his mother in tow and told him he could go home and get some sleep, that since he had kept the boys in check all day and night while she was cleaning up and wrangling his mother and calming her down after informing her that her new grandsons were coming, that she would do the same with his mom and that one of the Ans' parents would probably happily give them a ride home and to get some sleep. He happily dragged himself into their car and headed home.

He was exhausted, he had been up for hours with his sons waiting for the little tykes to be born, luckily he called into work to tell them why he wasn't in today after the girls' water broke in his kitchen… he then wondered if Bethany had managed to completely clean it before going to his mom's with the news.

… Knowing them both, it was entirely possible that he would have to clean up the kitchen floor after he got some sleep.

He knew the girls hadn't meant to have their water break at the same time in his kitchen, they had just left the room so he could talk to his sons in private and well, the trailer was a good size for a trailer, but still not very big for him, his wife, his three adult sons, a baby and three pregnant daughters-in-law so there was only so many places they could go and the kitchen was a nice place for it (plus with their cravings it seemed like a good idea).

Honestly though, he had no idea how they had gotten out of the trailer and to the hospital.

After the Ans' water all broke at the same time, his sons went into a panic. Bethany was holding a wailing April as she ordered the boys to "Get some towels so they can get out of here safely and then take them to the hospital! I'll call their parents and ask them to pick up your bags and meet you there."

Benjamin Horace Kanker had never seen his sons run so fast in their entire lives as they went to the linen closet to get enough towels to make a path on the floor for the four women and baby to cross the lake of… whatever came out of a woman when her water broke (he didn't fucking know) and cross into the living room safely before packing all of the young adults and April into the big retro van they drove around in as teenagers, Bethany took his shoulders, "You take them to the hospital, I'll clean up the kitchen while I call the girl's parents."

"You'll call my mom and let her know that the boys are on their way?"

"Of course I will! I know better than to hold that kind of news back from her! I like living, thank you very much!" She than gave him a kiss then firmly told him to, "Go. They need you right now."

She had been right. Really, really right.

But it was all good now, everyone was okay and his family had just got a little bit bigger.

He smiled at the thought of showing the guys at work pictures of his new grandkids (and that he actually had a legitimate excuse as to why he didn't show up for work today,) he had plenty of photos of the little ones on his phone and the Ans' families had promised to send him the pictures of him with his grandchildren and the ones of his wife and mother with them too.

He smiled when he finally pulled up by the trailer, he looked at it and watched as memories of his children growing up seemed to flash through his mind. His sons were not his little boys anymore, they were all fathers with their own little boys (and a little girl too, in Jay's case).

"They grow up so fast." He said softly before dragging his ass inside and falling asleep on the couch.

.

.

.

Bethany stood alone, smiling as she looked through a glass wall that showed all the newborn babies snoozing in little clear, plastic boxes, focusing on three little sleeping babies that lay side by side. The little blue papers in front of them reading as follows, "Andy Tee Kanker", "Allbert Larie Kanker", and "Sheldon Jay Kanker."

Gladys had gushed over her new great-grandbabies thoroughly, took a million pictures with them and of them, and was now going through the Ans' families' photos and asking them to send all of them to her and swapping contact info.

"I can't believe it! All of our boys are now Daddies!" April squealed as she grasped her friend's arm, "And now we have four grandbabies now! I can't wait to tell everyone!"

"With those boys, we'll probably have even more of them for you to talk about, April." Babs chuckled as she leaned against her brown-haired friend, "My family's probably bawling like those babies just looking at them!"

"… you remember when we were looking at the boys in this same spot when they were born?" Bethany finally asked softly as she put her hand on the glass.

"Yeah…" April said, a gentle smile on her face as she placed her hand on Bethany's, "They were wiggling around and crying non-stop until we held them again."

"That should have been our first sign that our boys would be little trouble-makers." Babs joked as tears began to trickle down her cheeks and she placed her hand on top of her friends'.

"I wish you could hold them all like I can." Bethany whispered, her voice warped with emotion as she tried not to burst into tears.

"We do too." Her friends replied in tearful tones.

After taking a few minutes to sob uncontrollably and then wipe their faces off while chuckling at how they couldn't help but cry as they looked at the boys.

"So," Bethany sniffled, a smile on her face and a giggle in her voice, "See you two the next time a grandkid is born?"

Her friends laughed and hugged her tight.

"Of course." Babs purred.

"We'll see you then, Bethy!" April cheered.

"Bethany?" Gladys said, making her turn around and look at her mother-in-law, "Were you talking to someone?" she asked, looking back and forth only to see that she was alone.

"Yeah, I was talking to my grandsons." Bethany fibbed.

"Well, what did you say?"

"That next time they visit Great-Grandma-Gladys, to prepare to be loved to bits."

Gladys laughed heartily as she hooked her arm in hers, "April and Babs would be so proud of the boys if they saw the newest additions to the family." She said in a warm tone.

"They are." Bethany assured her as they left, "They really are."

.

.

.

Author's Notes: … holy crap this story has taken me a while to finish, according to my file history, I started this on January 4th, 2014. I finished it March 20th, 2015. So this story has been put together, piece by piece, for over a fucking year.

Anyway, since I slaved over it for so long, you'd better fucking like it. And if you could let me know what you think of it in a review, I'd appreciate it.