A/N: Thanks to anyone who's reading this, appreciate it, hope you enjoy, review if you want, I'd be happy if you did. :)
"Chris, come on."
"What, what am I doing?" Chris said.
"You're staring at my stomach for one," she told him. "It's annoying."
"What? I'm just seeing if you're starting to show at all."
"I'm probably not because I'm probably not very pregnant at all," she said. "I mean, I only just found out a couple of days ago, so I can't be too far along. I haven't even been to the doctor's to get it confirmed yet."
"You'll let me come with you, right?" he asked, looking up at her and smiling ever so gently, the sides of his mouth turning up and that was it.
"No, Chris, I thought I'd keep you in the dark."
"Well…you didn't let me come with you when you found out that you were pregnant with Finn, so I don't know what the protocol is around here."
"Chris…the circumstances were different with Finny," she told him. "We had only been seeing each other for a year, and we weren't that serious-"
"Hey, I beg to differ on that one, I wasn't seeing anyone else when you got pregnant, I hope to God that you weren't seeing anyone else, were you seeing someone else behind my back?" Chris asked, knowing the answer to that already.
"No, but you know how we were. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Finnegan was conceived in a bookstore bathroom."
Chris laughed, "Well, that was one time, and I doubt that's where Finn was conceived. Although that'd be quite the story."
"Shut up, but I'm just saying, we had never discussed the future, we had never discussed marriage except briefly and in passing, you said you loved me, but you know how those things can work out when things change, and we had never discussed children."
"That didn't mean I wouldn't have wanted one."
"Oh yes, which is why you thought about leaving me high and dry," Stephanie told him.
"I didn't…I couldn't," he said, shaking his head as he reached out to gently rub her stomach. "I saw you sitting there and you looked so lost and alone, and I just thought to myself, what the hell am I thinking? You're having my baby and I love you, and no matter how scary that is, I can't possibly leave you."
"Because you would've been fired?"
"Shut up, you know that's not it," he said, poking her gently in the stomach.
"Well, I thought about not telling you, so I guess we both had our…shortcomings about that situation."
"I'm glad you told me though. Can you imagine what would've happened if you hadn't?"
"Yes. I would've broken up with you, said it was fun, but that it wasn't working out. I would've laid low for a while, and quit the company or taken a home job, moved away and raised Finnegan by myself, and you would've…been free, I guess."
"What a pitiful existence that would've been."
She laughed, "You think that now, but sometimes I get the sense that you want to be able to go out every night and do whatever you want to do."
"Never!" he said with a laugh. "This is way better…Steph?"
"Yeah?"
"How did it feel finding out about Finn?"
She thought back for a moment to that time, to when the doctor had confirmed everything for her, "I was so scared. I mean, nothing was settled in my life, I hadn't planned on this little kid, and yet, there I was. I cried, I was just feeling so alone and I thought that you might leave me, it was bad. I didn't have fun."
"I think this one will be better," he told her sincerely.
"I sure hope so," she told him, "I mean, things are so different now. They're better, we're better, we're stable, nobody can look at us like we're crazy for deciding not to get married even though we were having a baby. We have a home now too."
He laughed and kept rubbing her stomach. "We hadn't even really started trying for this baby."
"Well, we didn't try for Finny either, our kids apparently just like to pop in on us. They like to be little surprises," she told him. "Besides, it's almost better when you don't plan on it. It's more exciting I think."
"When's your appointment again?"
"We have to leave in twenty minutes," she told him, looking at her watch. "Then as soon as that's over, we have to go pick up Finn from pre-school since today is a half-day, and then I was thinking we could go have lunch."
"See, here's another good thing about me staying with you. How would I have ever been organized at all if I didn't have you in my life?" He grinned impishly at her, then said cheesily, "You complete me."
"Oh shut up, you," she told him, shoving his head away a little bit. "So when do you want to tell everyone?"
"Well, once we find out if you are or not?" Chris told her. "I figure we can just tell the people closest to us, so our family and close friends. Nobody else though, we'll make people sign a writ of confidentiality until you get so big people are going to be like, what the hell is up with Stephanie's stomach? Hopefully the first one to notice that is Paul."
"Chris, come on, he asked me out like forever ago."
"Steph, it was months okay, it wasn't years, it was only months ago that his true colors showed up once again. With my luck, he'll have a fetish for pregnant women and try to go after you anyways. I mean, since we've been married, he's tried to ask you out, how many times, three times is it?"
"It was business."
"Business my ass. Him wanting to go out to dinner to 'discuss the storyline' is completely bullshit," Chris said. "What does he think he's trying to pull?"
"Let it go," she said, rubbing his head. "You get too worked up over him. He's just a jackass, and it's not like I'm going to suddenly fall for his charms, especially since he has no charms to begin with."
"We better get going though, I don't want to be late for the appointment," Stephanie said as she pushed Chris off of her. Chris sat up and fixed his shirt before offering Stephanie his hand so she could get up. She got off the bed and he followed her. They were already in their clothes so they just headed downstairs, where Trish was reading something on the couch as she ate a croissant. "Hey, Trish, we're heading out for a little while, you going to be okay by yourself?"
"Of course, have fun," Trish said, glad for the opportunity to be alone. She didn't mind staying here, in fact she loved it here, but sometimes she did want to be alone.
"We're hoping," Chris said as he grabbed Stephanie's coat and helped her put it on. They left and Trish was just happy for the quiet. She looked around the expansive living room, looking at lives in progress and it made her ache. There were toys all over the floor, Cray was here, sleeping peacefully on his bed. There were pictures on the mantles, most of them Finnegan, and once upon a time, she had hoped for all this, and now it felt hopeless, now she felt hopeless.
"Hello again, Dr. Grimble," Stephanie said as she greeted her obstetrician. "You remember Chris, my husband."
"Hello, Chris," the doctor greeted kindly, shaking his hand. "It's nice to see you again."
"It's been a while," Chris said. "Stephanie and I haven't exactly been lighting it up on the scoreboard of kids."
"Chris," Stephanie said, rolling her eyes. "Excuse my husband."
"What?" he said.
Dr. Grimble laughed, "Well, we did the tests, and congratulations, your suspicions were right, you're going to be having a baby."
"That's great," Stephanie said, smiling at Chris. The change from the last time was different. She didn't feel like crying right now, there was no nervousness thinking about how Chris would react, there were no thoughts of running away. There was just a sincere happiness over getting to have another child. Chris was smiling too, having never been on this end of the receiving news. There wouldn't be any midnight confessions to pregnancy this time.
"Yes, you're actually about twelve weeks along, so fairly far into it."
"I've been busy with the wedding and Finn and everything, I guess I just didn't realize it, Chris and I were actually going to start trying for a child anyways, so this kind of came as a relief that we wouldn't have to plan and what not."
"Well, I'd actually like to see you right now if that's any and at all possible," the doctor said. "Since you're already at 12 weeks, I'd just like to go in for a general check-up, see how things have progressed so far, so if you have the time?"
"Um," Stephanie said, glancing at her watch. They were already running a little bit behind. "Well, we were going to pick up our son from pre-school."
"I can go pick him up and we'll come back for you, Steph," Chris said. "I want you to get checked out. You aren't doing any cool stuff today, are you? Heartbeats and what not?"
"Well, we can wait for you to get back, how does that sound, and you can bring your little boy in and he can listen too. We'll get the equipment set up and everything."
"Awesome, Finn will love to hear that," Chris said, kissing Stephanie. "You can get all of the gross stuff out of the way now. I'll be back."
Chris drove as quickly as possible to Finnegan's school, getting there just as they were being let out. Finnegan seemed to be dawdling a little bit as he had his hands full with projects that he had done over the past few days. Chris walked over and grabbed what appeared to be a drum made from an old thing of oatmeal. It was decorated with pictures cut out from magazines and Chris admired it as Finnegan gave it to him proudly.
"Where's Mommy, you said Mommy was coming?" Finnegan said as he looked around the parking lot.
"She's at the doctor's, we have to go get her."
"Oh," Finnegan said, then frowned, "Is Mommy sick?"
"No, they're checking her out because of the baby," Chris said. "They just want to make sure that everything is okay in there. So we're going to go and we'll probably get to hear the baby's heartbeat."
"Really, how?"
"Well, they have ways of doing it," Chris said as Finnegan climbed into the backseat and buckled in his seatbelt. "Your mom and I got to hear your heartbeat and it was pretty cool, made you actually seem like a human."
"Daddy, I'm human, I'm not an alien," he said, sticking his tongue out.
"Sometimes, I'm not so sure," he said, winking at Finnegan, who glared at him a little bit. Oh man, sometimes this kid was so Stephanie it scared him. "Come on, we don't want to make Mommy wait."
They drove back to the doctor's office, where Stephanie had been waiting for them. Finnegan was a little wary of what was going on, especially when he saw his mother laying on a table with her stomach exposed. There were also a lot of really weird and gross pictures and statues or something around here. It was creeping him out a little bit. It creeped him out even more when they brought in some weird machine.
"Daddy, what is that?" Finnegan asked.
"Be patient," Chris told him as he held him in his arms.
"Okay, here we go," Dr. Grimble said.
Finnegan's eyes were still wide as they were driving home from lunch. He didn't understand how that little wand thing had allowed him to hear what sounded kind of like a heartbeat, but also kind of sounded like someone beating a really fast drum. His parents had told him that was his little brother or sister, and he had just looked at them like they were crazy. He had heard his own heartbeat at the doctor's and it wasn't that fast, so he wondered why it was so fast inside of his mother.
"Mommy, my heart doesn't sound like that," Finnegan piped up from the backseat.
"Well, it slows down as he gets bigger."
"That's weird."
"Well, a lot of things are going to be weird about the baby right now, but then it'll start to get bigger, and get to be an actual baby, and you can see pictures of it and then you'll be convinced."
"Mommy, what if I didn't want the baby?"
"Well then I'd say too bad because it's going to happen whether you like it or not," she told him, with a shrug. "Of course, if you didn't want a little brother or sister, I guess that we can have you go live with Grandma and Grandpa or something, or maybe Grandpa Ted will take you in."
"No, Mommy, I'll stay!" Finnegan said. "I want to stay with you and Daddy."
"I thought you might say that," Stephanie said as she turned to the front again. "Do you want a baby brother or sister, Finny?"
"I don't care," he shrugged. "Either way it's going to cry and be little and I can't play with it. I know how babies work, Mommy."
"Oh, I see," she laughed. "I know how babies work too."
"Because you took care of me," Finnegan said. "And I was a good baby, right Mommy?"
"Um, no," Stephanie told him. "You were kind of annoying because you cried a lot, but I loved you anyways, so we worked through your little crying problem."
"Does Grandpa Ted know you're going to have a baby?"
"No, we haven't told anyone except you."
"Really?"
"Well, you're a part of this family, so you get to know before anyone else. If you were just some friend we had, then you wouldn't know right now, but you're definitely special," Chris told him. "Plus, we kind of like you."
They arrived back home and Finnegan jumped from the backseat and ran up to the door, waiting for someone with a key to come to the door. Chris came over and opened the door, Finnegan hearing the scratching of Cray's feet against the hardwood floors. He was there, barreling into Finnegan a second later. Finnegan hugged Cray and then Finnegan and Chris took Cray to the front yard to relieve himself. Stephanie walked inside and saw that Trish had at least moved to the kitchen.
"Hey, you switched rooms," Stephanie joked.
Trish smiled, "I am capable of moving."
"Feel like anything for dinner?"
"Nah, whatever is fine."
"Okay," Stephanie said, wanting to talk more with her friend, but not wanting to push her. She was obviously still upset over everything with Ron. She just didn't know how to help her out of this funk. "You know if you want to talk…"
"I know, Steph, you're being really great about this. I just kind of barged into your house and your life."
"You never barge in," Stephanie said. "We've got plenty of room here, and we love having you around, you know you're welcome to stay around here as long as you want."
"I was thinking about moving out here, I want to be around my friends and away from Ron, far, far away from Ron."
"That'd be great, we'd love to have you living around here."
"Trish, guess what?" Finnegan said, coming into the kitchen.
"What?" Trish said sweetly, giving him a kind smile.
"I got to hear the baby's heartbeat," Finnegan said matter-of-factly. "It was very quick."
"Baby?" Trish said, looking up at Stephanie with widened eyes. Could she…
Stephanie shrugged, "Thanks, Finny, for letting the cat out of the bag. Yeah, Trish, I'm having a baby, I was at the doctor's earlier getting it confirmed, but yeah, I'm pregnant, you're the first to know."
"Wow…wow."
"I'm going to have a brother or sister, it's cool," Finnegan said.
"Hey, congratulations," Trish said, hugging Stephanie.
Inside, she was crying.