Pregnant.
It still doesn't feel real.
You stand in front of the mirror, shirt pulled up, examining your still-flat stomach and wondering if this is all just another joke that life has decided to play on you, dangling a chance of normalcy just out of your reach and then snatching it away when you get too close. Your hands close possessively over your stomach at the thought. After all you've been through, after as many times as you and Peter have lost each other and fought to regain what you have, surely you're due for a bit of compensation. You deserve this. You want it. You need it.
You're so lost in thought that you don't see his reflection in the mirror as he comes up behind you, slipping his arms around you and sliding his hands underneath yours to gently cover your stomach. He kisses your neck before resting his cheek against yours, and you let yourself enjoy the feeling. "Stop worrying," he whispers in your ear, and his eyes meet yours in the mirror as he smiles, and you find yourself smiling back, because he knows you so well.
"I keep wondering if this is all a dream," you admit. "I almost can't let myself believe it's actually happening because I'm afraid it'll all disappear."
He turns you around then, wrapping you securely in his arms as you rest your head against his shoulder. "Relax, 'Livia," he whispers. "Nothing is going to happen. Not to me, not to you, not to the baby."
You nod against his shoulder, willing yourself to believe him as you reach up to pull his head down to yours and kiss him.
The nursery is done.
He has spent the last two weeks pouring every ounce of energy into finishing it. Painting it, furnishing it, making sure that every last detail is perfect so that it's ready for her arrival. This is the first he's let you see it, because he knew that if you were aware of what still needed to be done, he would've found you doing it, and he's wanted to you spend these last few weeks relaxed.
It's perfect.
You smile as you sit down in the rocking chair next to the crib, eyes tracing a path around the room- the changing table, the toy box and the giant stuffed bear sitting on top of it, the animal stickers decorating the walls. You close your eyes, and for a moment you can almost hear the laughter of a child warming the room. You rest your hands on your swollen stomach, and smile as she kicks, as if she's telling you that's she ready to come out and meet the world.
He finds you still sitting there sometime later, lost in your thoughts, staring off at nothing in particular. "Sweetheart, you okay?" he asks, and the smile you give him tells him the answer.
"It feels like it just occurred to me that this is real, that it's happening," you say softly as he kneels in front of you. "That we're going to have a daughter, and she's going to grow up here." You gently stroke his hair as he kisses your stomach. "It feels like we're getting a second chance at a normal life."
He kisses you then, a lifetime of promise on his lips, an assurance of love in his caress. And you can imagine your daughter, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, sitting on her father's lap, and the adoring look on his face as she looks up at him. This is more than a chance at normal.
It's a new beginning.