Erza came home moping one day, when Jellal was in the middle of counting off the days he had left until he was done being pregnant. He had passed the thirty week mark, and while he knew Meredy had told him months ago that it was only a single boy, his stomach felt so ridiculously huge that he suspected she had somehow missed that Kiseki had a twin.
Granted, he only ever felt one baby moving. One baby who'd hardly stopped moving for weeks, hence his being so eager to have the kid out, even if it meant he and Erza wouldn't see as much of one another.
"What's that tally for?"
"How many days until we get to see Kiseki's face."
She smiled, briefly, but then her face fell again. "I didn't realize we were getting so close. Is your guild coming back for the delivery?"
Jellal hoped they stayed away, after ditching him for the duration of the pregnancy. And personally, he thought they could stand to be a little closer to done. But neither of those sentiments would have been taken well with her current mood.
"I'll miss being able to see so much of you."
"Me too." She mumbled, toying with a loose string on her skirt. "Maybe we could go… um… we should make dinner."
Rather than go over to the kitchen and get on that, she continued to stand over him, picking at that string.
With a huff, Jellal pushed himself up. His balance had been off ever since Kiseki decided to grow too much, and he liked to avoid standing, but if Erza wanted dinner and wasn't cooking, then that left him to handle it.
Looking through the fridge he saw no particular cohesion between the ingredients available, and decided that a soup would suffice. You could through just about any vegetable into a chicken soup and call it a meal.
He was chopping celery when he felt Erza wrap her arms around him, her forehead resting between his shoulder blades. He paused a moment, then resumed chopping as he asked, "Is something on your mind?"
"You leave in two months."
"That's what you were thinking about when you came in?"
She shook her head, forehead rubbing against his back. "Natsu and Rogue went off to some resort. But we're stuck here."
Jellal felt a twinge of guilt, and set the knife aside, leaving the celery half cut. Now devoting his full attention to Erza, he reached back and placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's not like we won't see one another again once Kiseki's born. I won't be around constantly, but I'll visit often. I want him to know his mom's face."
"Dad's," Erza corrected.
"Sure. Sure. But if you're tired of keeping close to town, I don't want to force you to stay. I can survive for a few days on my own."
"Just a few?"
"I might feel a little offended if you left me behind for longer than that," he admitted. "I'd feel worse if I were holding you back, though."
"Don't worry about it. There isn't anywhere I want to go. Not on my own, at least." The hands wrapped around Jellal's torso slipped away. "But I'm jealous of those two. I wish we could go on some sort of vacation. I could never sneak you into a hotel, and it's too cold to camp."
Save for the last few months, Jellal had been camping for seven years. Often when it was cold enough that no person who had the option to do otherwise would pitch a tent and huddle around a small fire. If Erza really wanted to camp mid-winter, he could give her quite a few pointers as to how to pull it off without getting frostbite. But if what she wanted was a romantic getaway, then camping would not be it.
"Let's move the couch," Jellal decided. "And the coffee table. We can clear out a space in the living room and set up a tent."
Erza laughed.
"Why not? We already know we can roast marshmallows over the stove."
She stopped laughing, considering it, then leaned forward so he could see her face. "Alright. We'll give it a shot. Give me a few days to get set up."
"To put a tent together in your living room? That takes five minutes."
"Maybe for you. And besides, it's not just the tent."
"What more do you need?"
"The full camping experience. Just wait. You'll see."
-o-
A true full camping experience would include dirt. Lots of it. Everywhere. And no matter how hard you tried, you would track it into your tent. It would get into your boots, then your socks, and at some point you would give up on trying to keep the space between your toes clear of it.
For as much effort as Erza had put into making her living room look like the outdoors without actually trashing it, Jellal refrained from pointing this out to her.
Aside from the dirt, she'd done a fair job. The regular white curtains had been replaced with heavy black ones that further blotted out the sun. Potted plants had been placed everywhere to make it look somewhat forest like, and the ceiling had been covered in sheets of blue and white paper that were speckled with dots of glow in the dark glue, making it look something like a clear sky with the lights on, and a starry sky with them off. She'd even found a variety of pillows and sheets to throw under the tent to comfortably simulate the feel of an uneven sleeping surface.
"I wanted to get Lucy to help me set up the stars—she knows all their positions. But she was away on a job. So they're not accurate."
"I would never have noticed," Jellal lied, then added more truthfully, "I'm sure they'll look just as beautiful this way." If I can manage to look away from you. The cheesy line almost made it out, but he blushed and looked away without saying it.
Erza cocked her head, curious as to why her beloved would have turned red without warning. When no explanation came, she discounted it as mood swings. Did those get worse the later into pregnancy you were? Jellal looked just about ready to burst, so she sometimes felt like he had himself too well under control.
Not that she dared joke about that, considering how many years he'd gone having his feelings dictated by someone else.
She had decided the stove wouldn't cut it as a campfire, and dragged a charcoal grill into the kitchen. It wasn't the right time of year to leave windows open, but being exposed to outdoor air was part of camping, so she'd opened them all. And with the chilly breeze coming in through the living room and out the kitchen window, she'd figured the grill was relatively safe to use indoors.
In lieu of stumps, she had found two old, rustic stools to pull up around the grill, and she and Jellal roasted sausages for lunch.
"How did I do?" Erza asked as they ate. "How authentic is it?"
They were indoors, so not very. It would have been closer to the real thing if she put all those fake trees in her backyard to try and keep neighbors from looking. But you couldn't get fake trees tall enough to obscure them completely, and as Jellal had learned over the years, he had very, very distinctive appearance.
Besides, right then there was a nice balance of cold breeze and heat from the grill that the walls didn't want to let slip away so easily.
"It's perfect. Better than the real thing."
Erza laughed. "You would know."
She tried to lean to her side, then stopped, scooted her stool closer to his, and leaned over again, resting her head on his shoulder. Jellal went still, afraid that if he moved too much, he might cause her to lose her balance.
"I'm happy here, you know. The two of us like this. I wish time would stop. Don't you?"
"Three," Jellal corrected. "Any yes, I—Crap!"
Holding still as he was, the sausage he'd positioned over the grill had caught fire.
Erza scooted away as he yanked the sausage back and blew the fire out, then inspected the damage. Not too burned. Without giving it much thought, he bit the black part of and spat it into the fire.
Then he remembered that Erza was watching.
"Ah… Sorry. That was…"
"It's okay. Burning food is part of the camp experience. Although the smell of burnt food in my kitchen…"
"Sorry…"
At least she didn't think he'd been too uncivilized, spitting out food like that. There were habits that you got into when you spent the better part of seven years camping. It was agreed upon by him, Ultear, and Meredy that the fire was the easiest way of disposing of ruined food, and if you didn't have a knife, you had to improvise with separating parts of your meat. But Erza, who was able to stay in town and could always make sure she had absolutely every luxury item one could want when going on a camping trip…
Erza didn't care about him taking a bit out of the sausage and spitting it out. And once she confirmed that the smell of burnt meat was being carried out on the cool breeze, she didn't mind the meat sitting in the bottom of the grill either. So no harm done.
Except she was no longer resting up against him. He kicked himself mentally for not paying more attention. It would have been nice if she'd kept her head on his shoulder a little longer.
"Don't worry about it," Erza insisted. "You had to buy them in packs of eight, so there's plenty more."
The loss of food wasn't what had worried Jellal, and when Erza's assurance did nothing to make him loosen up, she tried to push that angle harder.
"Here. Mine's done cooking. Have a bite."
She held it up in front of him, waving it between the corners of his lips.
"What of mine isn't burnt is still—"
She silenced him with the sausage, popping it into his mouth while it was open, and sliding the roasting fork out of the meat once he obliged her and bit in. She then took him by surprise a second time, moving forward and biting into the sausage, her lips brushing up against his. On reflex pulled back, blushing wildly and taking his half of the sausage with him. A second later he caught on to what she had done, and regretted the reaction.
Erza laughed, seeing him so flustered. "What's wrong? It's not like we haven't kissed before."
Jellal covered his mouth with his hand and looked away, still blushing. At least she truly didn't seem bothered by his poor manners.
"Jellal? Hey? Are you alright?"
"O-oh! Yes. I just… I wasn't expecting that. Sorry."
"Did you not like it?"
"No… No it was… It was nice. I don't think we've ever done that by surprise."
Erza smiled. "We only have a few more months like this. I'll be sure to find more opportunities to surprise you while I have the chance."
-o-
She found her second opportunity that night as they settled down in the tent.
After a great deal of time and effort was spent on Jellal's part finding a way to make himself comfortable with the baby on top of all of the uneven pillows, Erza easily slid into a sleeping bag beside him, smiling like she wasn't trying to make him insanely jealous of how little effort it took her to be moderately comfortable. She probably wasn't, honestly.
"Do you like the stars?" she asked, and he looked up to see that the top of the tent was mesh rather than solid fabric, and you could see her glow in the dark dots from where they lay.
"Their lovely," he said.
He looked back to her to say it again, but the words were smothered by her own mouth. This time, to see her so much closer suddenly didn't startle him, and he couldn't have backed away wrapped in a sleeping bag in the one spot where he could make himself comfortable anyway.
He closed his eyes, blocking out all sensation but that of her lips.
They didn't have much time left together. Even if he was fed up with being pregnant, he dreaded it being over.
