A/N: My thanks to Gayle for her grammar expertise, all remaining mistakes are mine:) And thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment, I really appreciate it! So, a baby or no baby? It's time to find out:)

Day 11

Saturday, February 27th 2010

Sitting at the kitchen table, Will looked at the pad of yellow Post-it Notes in front of him. It was seven A.M., and Bell was in the bedroom, still fast asleep. Was he making the right decision? After their conversation the previous night, it seemed so. But would she agree? He looked at the bag that stood by the door, packed, waiting. He would have to decide something soon.

Taking a deep breath, he ripped a sheet off the pad and reached for the pen. In careful, measured strokes he wrote down the words that had played in his head the entire, sleepless night. Looking at the finished sheet, he swallowed hard. What would she think of it? Gathering his courage, he took the sheet and headed for the bedroom. In the faint light coming from the window, he could see her face. Her brow was creased in worry, and he wondered what she was dreaming of. He stood still for a moment, looking at her, before quietly placing the Post-it on the pillow next to her. With a light kiss on her constricted brow, and a whispered "Bye, love," he left the room. In the foyer, he looked at himself in the mirror while putting on his coat.

And then, he took his bag and left.

:-:

At a quarter to eight, Elizabeth woke up, yawning. Still half asleep, she rolled onto Will's side of the bed, ready to bump against his warm, lean form and snuggle in his arms for awhile before getting up. It took her a moment to realize that she was alone in the bed. Pushing herself into a sitting position, she called for him but there was no reply. Falling back onto the bed, she heard something rustle under her head. Lifting her head, she turned around to look at the pillow, but there was nothing there. But again, when she laid her head back down, she heard the rustling sound. Reaching her hand behind her head, she realized that there was something stuck in her hair. A piece of paper. Reaching to turn on the lamp, she squinted to see what it was.

Having read the words on the small, yellow slip, she gasped and fell back on the bed in wonder. Was he serious?

:-:

On his way to London, Will contemplated the unexpected turn their lives had taken. Of

course, he had always thought that a family was something that he would want sometime in the future. A family with Bell. Surely enough, he had even daydreamed about it more than once, imagining a home full of kids, love and laughter. But his dreams had always been set somewhere in the vague, distant future, and he never would have thought that they would show up knocking on his door so soon.

He sighed as he remembered the night that he had come home from Richard's and found the pregnancy test on the kitchen table. He had slept restlessly, and awakened sometime in the wee hours of the morning. For a long while, he had lain still, his arms around Bell's sleeping form, staring at the ceiling. Then, she had moved slightly, a heavy sigh escaping her mouth.

"Are you asleep?" he had whispered.

"No, not really," she had mumbled in reply. "You?"

He had smiled. "Hardly."

She had tightened her hold on him and pressed her cheek against his chest. "I... We need to talk. I... I'm late. Three days."

"I know."

She had lifted her head then, an eyebrow raised in surprise. "You do?"

"Yeah, love. I saw the... the test."

She had scrambled over him then, reaching for the lamp that stood on the nightstand. Having turned the light on, she had sat on her knees, her eyes wide, her hands fiddling nervously with the hem of her t-shirt. "Well?"

He had reached to cup her cheek, stroking the soft skin with his thumb. "Well, maybe you should do it."

He had sat on the edge of the bed, reading the instructions while she'd gone to the loo. When she'd stepped out, her face had been white as a sheet.

"Where is it?" he had asked, noticing that she didn't have the test stick with her.

"I left it by the sink. I don't know if I'm brave enough to look."

She had come to him and sat on his lap, wrapping her arms around him and resting her head on his shoulder. He had felt her chest rising in an uneven rhythm, her breathing shallow. When he'd tried to draw soothing circles on her back, he had noticed that his own hand was shaking.

"Love," Bell had whispered. "What do we do if it's positive?"

Will cursed out loud as he noticed that he had missed the exit he was supposed to have taken. When the female voice on the navigator told him to make a U-turn as soon as possible, he felt a sudden urge to throw the machine out of the window. It was too bloody late to be thinking of U-turns. Not that he even wanted to make one. He hoped that she agreed.

:-:

The Post-it burned in Elizabeth's pocket as she walked on the riverbank. She had been restless all morning, taking the small, yellow sheet out again and again to look at it. Itching to call Will but determined not to, she had finally left the flat altogether, hoping that a bit of fresh air would calm her down. She should have guessed that this was his plan, after their conversation the previous night, but still she had been surprised.

Plonking down on a bench, she shivered, both because of the cold and because she was nervous. Or maybe excited? It was hard to decide. She had definitely been nervous that night a month ago, as she and Will had sat on the bed and waited for the requisite three minutes to tick by. She had sat on his lap, clinging to him, knowing by the tension that she felt in his body that he was nervous, too. Though she had always thought that it would happen eventually, they had never really discussed having kids. It had seemed a faraway thought, something to contemplate after they had married. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that it might become something to contemplate after only a half a year of dating. How bloody careless of her to forget that pill.

She had told him that, too, while they had sat waiting for the results of the pregnancy test. She had thought that he might be angry, but of course she should have known better. He had told her that these things happened, and rocked her gently until she had calmed down. When the three minutes had passed, they had looked at each other, his expression mirroring the trepidation in hers. Hand in hand they had got up, the short walk to the bathroom seeming to take forever. On the innocuous little stick, waiting for them by the sink, two bright pink lines had greeted them. Neither had slept a wink for the rest of the night.

The next week, they had gone to see a doctor to confirm that they were, indeed, expecting. Elizabeth had felt very much out of place, sitting there in the waiting lounge, surrounded by a number of other couples. Next to her, a woman about her age had sat with a baby in her arms, crooning to the little one while keeping her other eye on another child, about three years old, wandering about the room. The woman had seemed to be there alone, and Elizabeth had idly wondered if she was a single mum. And then, suddenly, the older child had stumbled on something on the other side of the room, a loud wail filling the space. Unexpectedly, the woman had turned towards Elizabeth with an apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry, Miss, would you mind holding my Allie? Just for a minute?"

Elizabeth had nodded, gaping speechlessly as the woman had thanked her and carefully placed the baby in her arms, before hurrying to look after the other child. She had sat ramrod straight, her hands rigid, looking at the tiny bundle in her arms in wonder.

"It's so small," she had breathed to Will, amazed.

After a minute, Will had nudged her side gently, and when she had turned to look at him, he had given her a small smile, inclined his head towards the mirror on the other side of the room and whispered,

"Look."

And there, looking at them from across the room Elizabeth had seen – a family. Her cheeks had been flushed, and the small wonder in her arms had looked oddly at home. Will had been smiling, his arm going around her shoulders and gathering her closer. She had looked up at his face and whispered,

"That doesn't look so bad, does it?"

He had smiled, leaning to kiss her temple. "No, love. Not bad at all."

:-:

"So what do you think, Mr. Darcy?"

Will blinked, not having heard a word the woman had said. Damn, he should have sent Richard to take care of this, he was too bloody distracted these days. If it wasn't for the fact that the building was full of people on weekdays, he never would have set up a meeting for a Saturday morning to begin with. And certainly not this Saturday morning.

"I'm sorry?"

The woman shook his head. It was the third time this had happened in the course of the morning.

"No, Mr. Darcy. I'm sorry. I had understood that you were interested in this project."

Oh, bollocks. He was really blowing this. What the bloody hell had been thinking, imagining that he could get anything rational done after writing that Post-it? Damned idiot.

"I am, Mrs. Oakes, I promise you."

The woman raised a skeptical brow. "Are you sure about that?"

"Absolutely," Will replied, trying to look more confident than he felt. "Now, about the bow windows..."

Six exhausting hours later, Will walked back to his car. He had managed to convince Mrs. Oakes and her partners that he and Richard were, indeed, not only interested in the project at hand, but also the best choice to take care of it. But it had been a constant battle to concentrate on the task at hand instead of thinking of what awaited him at home. He'd lost count of how many times he had surreptitiously checked his mobile to see if Bell had called. But she hadn't. What if she didn't agree with him, after all?

Will thought back to their first doctor's appointment. After the doctor had confirmed that Bell was pregnant, he had given them a long talk about the different options they had. It had been one of the most unreal moments of Will's life, sitting there, hand in hand with Bell, their palms sweating as the doctor had discussed the possibility of a termination or giving away a child neither of them still quite understood they were going to have. Later, they had sat in their kitchen, shell-shocked, untouched mugs of tea slowly cooling in front of them.

"We're not ready for this, are we?" he had finally said, looking at her uncertainly.

She had sighed, leaning against his shoulder. "No, probably not."

He had turned to hug her, resting his chin on her head. "So what do we do?"

She had pressed her face against the folds of his shirt, and he had guessed that she was trying not to cry.

"I don't know, love. I don't know."

Getting his garment bag from the backseat, Will walked to a nearby cafe. He ordered a pot of tea and a sandwich, wolfing them down without much thought to how they tasted. In the restroom he changed into the clothes he had worn on his way there and folded his suit back into the bag. He was in a rush to get home. But there was one more stop he had to make before he could head back to Meryton.

:-:

Standing on one of the aisles of the grocery store nearest to their flat, Elizabeth looked again at the list Jane had written to her. Fresh nutmeg and ricotta cheese. Did they even sell those things here? And what the hell did fresh nutmeg look like, anyway? Maybe she should have accepted Jane's offer to help, after all. But no. She wanted to do this herself. For him. And, should she manage to make a royal mess out of it all, there was always Mr. Wong's across the street. Determined, Elizabeth pushed the cart forward. It was only lasagna, after all. How hard could it be?

At the check-out line, Elizabeth's attention was caught by another customer, further ahead in the line. It was a man, somewhere in his thirties, carrying a baby girl – or so Elizabeth suspected from the staggering amount of pink the baby was wearing – in a carrier. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she observed the excited squeals the child made as the man cooed at her and twisted his face in quirky expressions. She also observed the bags under the man's eyes, and the fact that he seemed to be wearing something that much resembled pyjama pants. In fact, the man looked downright haggard. And still, somehow, very content. She wondered if this was what Will would look like in a year or so. There was something heart-warming about the idea.

After that first visit to the doctor, she and Will had thought of little else other than the pregnancy. At first, both had agreed that they were highly unprepared to become parents. She, in particular, had been alarmed by the mere idea of motherhood. What if she was horrible at it? A baby was not exactly something that one could return if things did not work out. Will, she thought, would no doubt make an excellent parent. Of course, he had said the exact same thing about her.

For several weeks, they had mulled over the matter. And the more days that had passed, the more distant the thought of not having the baby had become. The idea of becoming a parent still seemed daunting to Elizabeth but somehow, though she could not quite explain how, it had also started to seem exciting. And after their conversation the previous night, she knew that he felt exactly the same way.

Elizabeth had been lying on the sofa, her feet propped up on Will's lap, both reading a book. She had been much engrossed in the events of her novel when suddenly, quite out of the blue, he had posed her a question.

"What think you of Abel?"

She had looked up from her book, her brow knit in confusion. "I don't know. That Cain sure pulled a mean trick on him?"

He had looked amused. "No, I mean, what do you think of Abel as a name?"

"Oh," she had gasped, and by the way he had laughed at her, she had guessed that she must have looked pretty dumbfounded.

"Isn't it a bit... a bit biblical?" she had stammered.

He had shrugged. "I don't know. I kind of like it."

She had not known what to say, and he had put his book away, settling down to lie next to her. His face a few inches from hers, they had lain there for a long while, looking at each other, his hand absently playing with her hair.

"We're really going to do this, aren't we?" she had whispered, finally.

"I think we are, love."

"We're going to have a baby?"

He had smiled. "It would seem that way."

It had started out as a tiny tingle at the pit of her stomach, soon evolving into a throbbing in her chest. And then, with a lightness that had surprised her, the laughter had bubbled out of her mouth.

"Oh, my God, love, we're going to have a baby!" she had choked out, and he had laughed too. That night, for the first time in weeks, she had had no trouble falling asleep.

"Miss?" the cashier snapped in a pinched voice.

"Oh, sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

"For the third time: Do you have a Nectar Card?"

Elizabeth blushed, noticing the chiding looks directed towards her by both the cashier and the older lady in the line behind her. "Um, sorry, no."

Should they get one, she wondered, while packing her purchases. Maybe all responsible parents had Nectar Cards? It definitely sounded more grown-up than having a discount card for Mr. Wong's. With an amused snort that earned her a few more disapproving glances from the cashier and the lady behind her, she exited the shop.

:-:

By the time that Will had parked his car in front of their house, he was a bundle of nerves. The results of the last stop he had made weighed in his pocket. What would she say? She had neither called him nor left any messages, but he was unable to decide if it was a good sign or not. His feet felt heavy as he walked up the stairs, and the closer he got to their door, the more difficult breathing seemed. By the time he was trying to fit the key into the lock, his hand was shaking, and he had stopped breathing altogether, or so it felt. He reached his hand to touch the light switch on the opposite wall in order to see better. And then, he saw it. Fastened to the door was a familiar, yellow, rectangular sheet of paper, with three letters on it, followed by an equal number of exclamation marks:

YES!

All at once, he exhaled the breath he'd been holding and instantly regained his ability to move. With a dexterity that would have made Angus MacGyver pale in comparison, he slipped the key into the lock and rushed inside in record time. In the foyer, however, he stopped in his tracks. Save for the faint light coming from the kitchen, the flat was dark.

"Bell?" he spoke softly into the darkness, carelessly dropping his coat on the floor as he walked towards the kitchen, drawn by the lovely, unfamiliar scent that hung in the air. It smelled almost as if someone had... cooked?

When he reached the doorway, he was greeted with an unexpected sight. The kitchen table was set for two, and in the middle of the table stood a single, tall candle.

"Bell?" he asked again and was startled when he felt her hands, coming from behind him, sneaking around his chest, her cheek nuzzling against his back. Happily, he heaved a sigh, leaning slightly against her. It was nonsensical, he knew, but he had longed to be held by her ever since he'd stepped out of the door that morning.

"I've missed you," she whispered, and his chest puffed with happiness. She was just as nonsensical as him.

"I saw your Post-it." His eyes fluttered closed, and he leaned his head back as he felt her hands, making their way under his shirt.

"I saw yours, too," she replied, and he was sure she was smiling against his back.

For a moment, he said nothing, reveling instead in the feel of her hands as they inched his shirt upwards, lifting his own hands to assist her in getting rid of it altogether. When she pressed her lips between his shoulder blades, the heat of her breath sending shivers down his spine, he felt the familiar stirrings of desire.

"Bell..." he groaned, covering her hands with his own, arresting their movement. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely," she mumbled, not pausing the trail of kisses across his back. But he was not done yet.

Turning around, he took her face between his hands, squinting to see her expression in the faint light coming from the candle.

"Love, you don't have to say yes. I know you wanted to take it slow, and..."

He stopped talking when he felt her fingers on his lips.

"I know I don't have to. I want to. In seven short months we'll be parents. And besides, I love you, so much that it bloody well breaks my heart. Let's get married. Taking it slow is for sissies."

With a bark of laughter, he lifted her up and twirled her around in the air. Soon, her legs found their place around his waist and her arms twined around his neck. Laughter changed into sighs and groans as he lowered her down for a long, lingering kiss.

"Take me to bed, love," she whispered, accentuating the demand with a hungry, impatient kiss. He grinned against her mouth.

"With pleasure, Mrs. Darcy."

:-:

Elizabeth awoke from a light slumber to the definite sensation of being watched. The first thing she saw as she opened her eyes was Will, stretched out beside her on the bed, his dark, steady gaze on her. The corners of his lips turned up as she stretched languorously, yawning.

"I hope I haven't exhausted you completely, Mrs. Darcy, as I'm much hoping for a second round later."

She giggled. "You really like that moniker, don't you?"

He leaned in to give her a languid kiss. "You have no idea."

"You know," she said, suddenly thoughtful, "I nearly missed the entire proposal."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I forgot that you were in London and I rolled around in the bed looking for you, and it got stuck in my hair."

He laughed. "Not exactly the romantic scene I had in mind."

"Maybe not, but you definitely managed to surprise me. It's not every day that a girl finds a crumpled Post-it with a marriage proposal on it tangled in her hair."

"Oh," he smiled, "not every day?"

"Nope. I mean, it has happened on occasion, but..."

Before she could finish her sentence, he had shut her mouth with a kiss. And another. Soon enough, he had pinned her against the bed, her chest heaving at a quickening pace as his lips teased her, slowly and meticulously covering new ground as they made their way down her body. And then, his stomach growled loudly.

"Oh, crap," he laughed, stopping just above her navel. "Maybe we should eat something first."

"Yeah," she agreed reluctantly, until suddenly, something occurred to her and she started to laugh.

"What?"

"I had completely forgot. You won't believe this: I've cooked for you!"

In the fading light of the single candle, Elizabeth and Will sat in the kitchen of their little flat, dressed in the sheets from their bed, feeding each other cold lasagna. If the pasta sheets were a little crunchy and the white sauce so runny that it slipped through their forks like water, neither noticed a thing. And when, in lieu of dessert, Will produced the ring he had picked up from London, both were in agreement that it was the best, most romantic dinner they had ever had. And right there, with his wife-to-be perching on the edge of the kitchen table, Will got his second round.