After finishing combing his hair and putting on a second layer of gel, Jesse Katsopolis stood back a little way and admired his reflection in the silver bathroom mirror. Attempting an Elvis-like smirk, he smoothed down the last flyaway strands of hair and then proceeded to replace the hair care products he had removed from the cabinet, whilst humming a short refrain from Hound Dog.
"Finished?" asked a female voice from behind Jesse. He jumped, startled, and closed the cabinet door with a little more force than was required, causing the contents to judder and knock each other. Jesse's wife, Becky smiled. "Only two layers of hair gel tonight?" she joked.
"I thought I might try out the 'natural' look. Besides, it's not going to look this well-kept after the meal, is it?" he teased, playfully.
Becky grinned but tugged on Jesse's shirtsleeve. She was anxious that they were going to be late - the reservation was for 6:30 and it was already quarter past the hour. They shared a brief, passionate kiss before running out of their bedroom, in the attic, and downstairs to the front door.
* * *
"Jesse Katsopolis, we are not going to name our first child Elvis!" Becky exclaimed, slamming the cutlery she had been using onto her plate, hoping to emphasize her point by getting Jesse's full attention.
"Come on, Beck. The kid would be proud to have been named after such a legend." He paused. "Alright, fine. Let's compromise. Presley -"
"No!"
"– as a middle name."
Becky looked thoughtful for a second and then shrugged, defeated. Her husband had obviously got his heart set on this, and was it really worth the hassle to disagree? Besides, she thought, they weren't likely to have children any time soon; they had only been married for a couple of months.
"But we are agreed that we want children," Jesse said, a few moments later.
"What, now?" Becky asked, taken aback and choking slightly on her smoked salmon fillet.
"Well, ok. Why not?"
Becky had suddenly lost the ability to say anything remotely coherent, despite the fact that she had a whole internal monologue spinning around in her head. It was too soon. They weren't ready. Although…
"I suppose we both love kids… and we have talked about it before…" she began, slowly.
"See, it's perfect timing! Waiter! A bottle of your finest please – it looks like we have something to celebrate here."
* * *
"I'll get it! I'll get it!" shrieked Stephanie Tanner, rushing down the stairs towards the phone, backpack and schoolbooks in tow. Eventually, dropping almost everything she had been carrying, the handset was in sight, within reach. "Hello, Tanner household. Who is calling?" she answered the call, in her sweetest voice.
"Aw, nuts!" exclaimed Stephanie's younger sibling, Michelle, pouting to show her disappoint at being too slow to get there first this time.
Stephanie shot a condescending look at her sister, listened half-heartedly to the caller and then shouted for her uncle to come into the kitchen. "Uncle Jesse, it's for you!" she yelled, leaning up the stairs to ensure that he heard her. Her last action was not entirely necessary, however, as Stephanie Tanner could be very loud when she wanted to.
Groggy, and still not entirely awake, Jesse pulled on his dressing gown and hopped down to the kitchen. He was squinting as his eyes were still bleary from a lack of sleep, but he could still see the puzzled look on his niece's face. "What?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing," she replied. "It's just, I don't really think pink is your colour, Uncle Jesse."
Michelle giggled and the realisation dawned on Jesse that he'd pulled on Becky's nightgown by mistake. "What are you laughing at, munchkin?" he joked, messing up Michelle's hair affectionately with his free hand, while talking to the caller.
"Yes, this is Jesse Katsopolis… oh, you should probably talk to Danny Tanner about that… no, it's not about the girls?" his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to make sense of everything.
Stephanie, the empathetic middle child, could see that something wasn't right. "Who is it?" she asked her uncle.
"Just a minute - " Jesse told the caller. He then held the phone a little way away from his ear and, in hushed tones, said to the girls "You should probably get going to school or you'll be late. Have a good day." Obeying their uncle, but still curious as to what was going on, the younger Tanner girls left the room to find their carpool, sometimes better known as their father.
* * *
Pacing the sparsely furnished room, Jesse tried to gather his thoughts. If she's fourteen… then I… and… but then… It was all a big mess. How was he going to tell his wife? What was he going to say to this girl? A million questions were flashing in his head, burning to be satisfied with answers that Jesse barely dared think about. He was absentmindedly fingering his wedding ring at the same time and, when he realised this, the answer came to him.
Jesse muttered a brief apology, left the room, and dashed down the magnolia-walled corridor to the phone he had spotted on the wall in the entrance. He had to call Becky.
* * *
"Oh, Jess, I came as soon as I could." Becky rushed over to her husband and hugged him, choosing to 'misplace' the anger and frustration she had initially felt after receiving his call. "Why didn't you tell me before?" she asked softly, wanting to know but equally not wanting to press him too much at the present time.
"I didn't know," Jesse conceded, embracing his wife. "I… I didn't know." She pulled him closer and hugged him more tightly. He wasn't sure what to feel: regret, perhaps, at the childhood he had missed out on; or, instead, anger at the woman who had kept him away from the truth. From his daughter.
"Mr Katsopolis, if you'd like to come through here," the social worker Jesse had been talking to previously motioned for the couple to enter a room to the left. She had a withering look on her face, somewhere halfway between pity and distrust but, nonetheless, remained courteous and held open the door. The couple pulled apart slowly and walked inside where, sitting on a sofa of no discernable colour, was a young girl accompanied by what appeared to be another employee of the facility.
Looking at his daughter, Jesse thought about her mother. A tall, elegant Irish beauty with enticingly bright eyes; this girl looked nothing like her.