With her first pregnancies, it had taken about a week for any symptoms besides a late period to kick in. but with that one, it took two days. Every morning without fail she would stumble from their bed straight to their bathroom and spent the next three hours throwing up, retching and then when there was nothing left, dry heaving.

And every morning, Jesse was right there beside her, pulling her hair back into a loose ponytail and rubbing her back and holding her tight when she needed it.

"Morning sickness is a sign of a healthy baby", Jesse reminded her after a full week, as she lay on the lounge, her face pale, a red lollypop in her mouth (Jesse had ran out to buy a supply, as lollypops were the only thing that settled her stomach when she was pregnant with Rosie).

"I know". She closed her eyes tight, wishing for her stomach to stop rolling.

The next twelve weeks were the longest and simultaneously the shortest of their entire lives. Beca's morning sickness improved (only to the point where she was able to haul herself off the bathroom floor, if she was honest), but she felt symptoms that she hadn't until later in her previous three pregnancies.

"You're starting to show", Jesse commented, as Beca strolled out of the bathroom wearing just her bra and undies. "Aw, look at that bump!"

"I feel heaps bigger than I did with the others", she replied, taking a shirt out of her side of the wardrobe and holding it up against herself. "Is this loose enough, do you think?"

"What does it matter, are we not telling them?"

"We're telling them", she assured him. "I just don't want to rock up and Aubrey be like 'you're knocked up'".

"Aubrey would never say that", he objected. "Fat Amy, on the other hand, would".

Beca nodded, tugging the shirt over her head, before reaching for her jeans.

"How much longer do you think I can get away wearing these?" she groaned, as she jumped to get the jeans up her legs. "Jesus… this isn't fair!" she whined, throwing herself onto the bed with her jeans sitting halfway up her thighs. "Why don't these fit?"

Jesse tactfully bit his bottom lip. "Um…"

"I'm so fat!" she wailed.

After ten minutes of fighting, she threw the jeans across the room (very violently, Jesse observed) and decided on a pair of leggings, grumbling the whole way. Tearing the wrapper off a lollypop with her teeth, she snatched up her bag.

"Let's go".

"Beca!"

The redhead's embrace nearly knocked the tiny brunette off her feet.

"Oof!"

"Hey there Chloe", Jesse chuckled, seeing his wife lifted off the ground.

Beca gasped, as Chloe's crushing hug began to cut off her oxygen (and make her boobs feel like they were on fire). "Oh my God, Chloe! Boobs! What did we talk about?"

"Sorry". Chloe released her, and Beca gasped for air. Laughing, Jesse wrapped an arm around her, taking her towards the backyard.

"You're here!" Cynthia Rose said brightly, offering them a bag of chips that Fat Amy was yet to see (in Fat Amy's own words, she was all over the chips on any occasion).

"We're here", Jesse grinned at her, before going over to the barbecue to join Benji, Donald, Tom (Chloe's partner of four years) and Austin (Aubrey's husband).

As they wandered through the yard, interacting with each other like they did when they were in college (and all the old stories came out- "hey Shawshank, remember when Chloe and Aubrey came to visit one morning to surprise us for Bellas practice and they caught you doing the walk of shame?" Fat Amy said brightly and Beca had blushed as red as Chloe's hair. "For the record, I was not ashamed".).

But it was when they sat down to eat that Beca's stomach turned, and she fought down bile. "Jesse", she whispered, leaning into him and burying her face in his shoulder. "We've gotta tell them".

Jesse, sensing her discomfort, moved the platter of barbecued meat further down the table (knowing it wouldn't solve the situation but hopefully be able to prolong the morning sickness), kissing the top of her head. "Just wait until Lily's finished, alright? She doesn't talk much anyway".

"What are you whispering about Shawshank?" Fat Amy wanted to know, leaning over Lily to see the couple.

Beca saw her opening, and took it. "So, um, Jesse and I…"

And realised halfway through her sentence that she didn't know how to tell them.

(When she was pregnant with Connor, she had just blurted it out, out of excitement. When she was pregnant with Rosie, she had got Connor a shirt that said 'big brother to be', and he had paraded around, telling the news for them. And when she was pregnant with Isaac, a photo of their feet were taken, captioned with 'our family will expand by two feet in June'.)

She had she passed the bat.

"Jesse?" she said brightly, plastering a huge smile on her face.

Jesse groaned quietly. "Thanks dear", he said sarcastically, turning to find Lily staring at him with her wide eyes. "Beca and I…"

"Spit it out, Swanson". Donald rolled his eyes.

"Beca and I are going to have a baby".

He spat it out.

And he forgot to prepare himself for their reactions.

Fat Amy jumped up from the table, disrupting the dish of macaroni and cheese and sending it skidding (Benji lunged for it and caught it, luckily, because God only knew the kind of fit Fat Amy would have thrown if the macaroni and cheese had hit the ground). "What?" she shrieked.

"What?" Stacie's eyes grew wide.

"What?" Lily's eyes, if possible, grew even wider.

"Congratulations!" Donald offered.

Cynthia Rose summed it up perfectly. "Holy shit!"

"A baby?" Aubrey's jaw dropped open and Beca braced herself, fearing she would projectile vomit over the table.

"Congratulations", Austin said with a grin, putting an arm around Aubrey and kissing the top of her head.

They could tell, just by the way that Jesse wrapped his arms around his wife, that that baby had not entirely been planned. It wasn't that it was unwanted, it just was a surprise. And they could tell, by the way Beca leant into Jesse's side, that she was scared shitless.

"How do you feel about this, Beca?" Stacie wanted to know.

(There was always an element of surprise within the group when Stacie asked such heartfelt questions- she was a lot deeper than any of them gave her credit for.)

"Scared", she admitted. "Really scared. Also sick- get rid of those hotdogs, now. The steak I can deal with, but the hotdogs make me want to blow chunks".

Tom chuckled, before picking them up and whisking them inside the house.

"We're gonna be there for you, you know that, right?" Chloe checked, and Beca nodded, feeling tears well up in her eyes.

"I know", she whispered.

"Group hug!" Fat Amy shrieked.

If someone had told her eighteen year old self that she would be jammed in the middle of a group hug between the Barden Bellas and the Barden Treblemakers, Beca Mitchell would have laughed in their face.

But she was Beca Swanson, and that kind of thing was the norm in her life.