"Good morning, Wife." He mumbled as he turned off the alarm and turned to wrap his arms around Juliet.
"Good morning, Husband."
"Jules…we have to figure out how to tell them."
His wife of exactly four months rolled over in bed to face him. "Tell who, what?"
"The girls…my parents…Gus and Nicole…I've been keeping this a secret for forever now…"
"It's been a couple weeks. I seem to remember you keeping the fact that you're not really a psychic a secret for…how many years?" She retorted playfully and he scoffed and pulled her close.
"I think it'll be a little harder to keep the fact that you're pregnant a secret." He said with a small laugh as he pulled her close. "Plus, my mom knows."
"Yeah, but that's it—"
"Sweetheart, what's wrong?" He asked, sensing she was holding something back.
"Nothing! I just—"
"Jules…"
She sighed and turned on her back, placing a hand on her not-yet-showing belly. "I like being married…" She started and he opted to remain quiet. "Just being married. Once we tell people I'm pregnant, it'll be different."
"But Jules…you are pregnant…" Why were women so confusing?
She sighed again and rolled out of bed in response. "We find out the sex today, maybe then we'll tell them."
"Wait, Jules, just talk to me!" Instead, he heard the door to the bathroom close and lock. With a sigh, he rolled out of bed and stumbled toward the bedroom door, opening it to hear screeching from the girls' room. "Jules…they're fighting again…" He mumbled into the locked door.
"Your turn…I dealt with the cookie crisis yesterday." She replied shortly and Shawn couldn't help but feel like today was going to be a very bad day.
He tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes and brace himself for whatever he would find when he opened the door. Right after the wedding, the girls were absolute delights. Even as he and Juliet adopted the other's respective daughter—a simple signing of papers, the only fun aspect was the 'Mommy' and 'Daddy' adoption papers his parents helped the girls make—the four of them had slid into familydom with ease. The girls even opted to celebrate their birthdays together July 17th, as twins, between their actual birthdays. All worries he and Juliet had were for nothing.
At least until August…
Dates had continued on a regular schedule, family time happened any time it could, the girls had been on their best behavior as they went to the Open House in school. Then the next day Rachel was crying about how Rebecca stole her sunglasses and Rebecca whined that Rachel always got to have her nails done and things just escalated from there. Not often, but more than they had previously and he and Juliet were at their wits end. Suddenly, their inseparable girls needed to be separated.
He opened the door to their room and thought a bomb had gone off. Clothes and toys were scattered across the floor and the mattress had been pushed off the loft and Rachel screamed at Rebecca from floor to loft respectively.
"Girls!" He shouted sternly and immediately they quieted. "What is going on here?"
He understood the chorus of "Daddy", but that was it as they both started whining and wheedling.
"Enough!" He interrupted and once again they quieted, tears now in both sets of eyes. "Rachel, are either of you hurt?"
"No Daddy, but—"
"Rebecca, is anything broken?"
"No Daddy, but—"
He pointed out the door. "Then Rachel go sit on the top stair and Rebecca go sit on the bottom. If you move or say or do anything other than sit quietly, your punishment gets twice as bad. Understand?"
"Yes Daddy…" They mumbled as they exited.
Shawn took stock of the room, honestly impressed they could make it that messy. Every article of clothing they both possessed, and every toy, must have been on the floor. And for Becks to push that queen-sized mattress off the loft—which had a lip—that girl was strong.
"Rachel, Rebecca…" He heard his wife start—evidently she emerged from the bathroom.
"Mommy, Rebecca—"
"Rachel Lynn!" He snapped, poking his head out the door, and his Baby Girl took great interest in her thumbs. "Juliet, honey, could you come here?"
Juliet studied him curiously. He'd rarely been that short with Rachel, and had no reason to be since they'd moved back to Santa Barbara, but enough was enough. However, Jules did come and he saw her eyes widen as she looked in the door. "What the…how did they get the bed off the loft?"
"That would be the blond one's doing…" He muttered. "What do we do about this?"
"We have to leave for the doctor in an hour…" She started, bringing a hand to her head. "But we can't take them to the Lassiter's like this…not when they're friends with Andrew and poor Carol is getting huge."
"My parents?"
She shook her head. "Spoil them more than even Gus and Nicole…"
"So we have an hour …" He sighed and she nodded.
She'd never seen Shawn this mad…at least not at the girls, and she suspected a little bit her. However, part of her was almost glad to see him upset. It was a relief, because even upset, he was in control and loving—she wasn't scared of him, which is a lot more than she could say about her late husband.
"What have you done so far?" She asked as the baby kicked again. The doctor reminded her that fluttering didn't actually occur until between sixteen and twenty weeks, that at ten weeks it must have just been maternal instinct, but now, at eighteen weeks, she had absolutely no doubt that this was her child kicking her.
"Not much. I silenced them. Asked Rachel if they were hurt, Rebecca if anything was broken, and figured those were the most critical issues for starters so I sent them to the stairs. Rach gets double the punishment for trying to talk to you though."
She nodded. "That's a good start." She walked over to the toppled mattress and tried to pull it up some.
"Sweetheart, you shouldn't, let me—" Shawn responded, gesturing toward her belly.
"I'm not useless yet, husband." She muttered, keeping her hand on the mattress. "We'll do it together." He looked taken aback, but for his part said nothing and instead grabbed the mattress with her and hauled it back onto the loft. "So…hurt, broken, what other criteria should we have?"
"Criteria for what?" He asked as he threw blankets and pillows back onto the loft as well.
"The Tattle-Tale Rules. They clearly need something."
He smiled at her. "Jules, you're brilliant!" Then a thoughtful look came over him. "Uh, house rules?"
"Good. And expand that to anything we've specifically told them not to do before." She continued as she picked up Sophie and Maggie and put them back in their Bitty cribs. "Anything else?"
"I mean we've never specifically told them not to trash their room, nor is that in the house rules…how do we punish them for this?" He gestured around the room and she sighed…he made a good point.
"If you use it, put it back?" That was one of the house rules, but this went waaaay beyond that. "Ugh, I don't know…"
"Jules, stop cleaning, they need to do it." He reminded and she gazed at the stuffed bear in her hand Frank had given Reb for her second birthday. "And how do we figure out why this happened?"
She shrugged. "Talk to them?"
"Girls! Front and center!" Daddy called and she didn't even wait for Rebecca to go. Daddy was real mad and even Mommy didn't seem happy and she knew it cause she and Rebecca were being bad but it wasn't her fault! She just had to make sure Mommy and Daddy knew that.
"Yes Daddy?" She tried to put on her best 'I'm sorry' face but Daddy didn't seem to be buying it. Instead, he pointed to a chair.
"Yes Daddy?" Rebecca copied when she came in and Dad pointed to the chair right next to hers. Rebecca was always copying her.
"Rebecca, as you did not break my order of silence, you may speak. What happened here?"
So unfair…goodie goodie Rebecca getting to talk.
"Well we woke up and I asked Rachel if she wanted to play with our baby dolls and she did so we did but she wouldn't let me put the sailors outfit on Sophie and its's mine!"
Rachel so wanted to say something, but she knew Daddy would just be madder if she did.
"Now Rachel," Mommy sighed. "Speak."
"She just grabbed Maggie and started taking off her clothes and I said she couldn't and she said she could cause they were hers so I said she couldn't borrow any of my clothes anymore and then she said they were our clothes and I said if Sophie's clothes were Sophie's, my clothes were mine and if she wasn't gonna share I wasn't either and then she pushed the bed off!" She finished and took a couple deep breaths. It was hard keeping all that inside for so long.
"Only cause she said she wouldn't share the loft! So I said she didn't havta, but I got to keep the bed!"
"Enough!" Daddy said and she knew to get real quiet. He rubbed his head a couple times then looked at Mommy. "Can we drop them at the station?"
"What?" She asked. She knew she'd been bad but she didn't think she was that bad. And she did love being sisters with Rebecca. "No! I'm sorry! I'm sorry Mommy! I'm sorry Daddy! I'll even say sorry to Rebecca! Just don't put me in jail!"
Shawn rubbed his forehead again as his daughters dissolved into tears. "No, girls, I'm not having you arrested!" He interrupted their pleas and they sniffled.
"Daddy and I have to run an errand…" Juliet sighed, then looked at him. "Unless I can reschedule—".
"No, sweetheart…not this time." He wasn't going to spend one more second not knowing if he was having another beautiful daughter or—he hoped—a son. "Girls, back on the stairs while your mom and I figure out what to do with you."
They obediently walked out and he leaned against the ladder while his wife paced the room for a moment and walked over to him. "So…"
"Is this why you don't want to tell anyone?" He asked suddenly, he'd been thinking about it while she paced. "Because the girls are misbehaving?"
"No!" She replied adamantly, then her expression slowly softened. "Yes…I don't know. What happened with them?"
He shrugged. "I think they need more separation. We've kind of lumped them together to a degree, and if this was really about sharing…"
Juliet looked thoughtfully for a second, then leaned forward and kissed him. "Smart man." Another kiss and a little more of his frustration with the morning melted. "So now what?"
He sighed. "Twin mattresses? They'll fit on the loft. I'd say separate rooms but they're so different in size and plus…" He gestured to his wife's belly and she nodded.
"…we need a nursery…" She looked around the room again. "Mattresses are good, but what about the rest? I don't even remember who's clothes are who's anymore." She was quiet for a beat, then looked up at him with a sparkle of an idea in her eye. "We could each let them pick five articles of clothing to be just theirs, and two toys. Ones the other has to ask to borrow or play with."
He pulled her close and kissed her slowly. "Brilliant." He whispered in her ear and the two of them stayed like that for a moment: holding each other in the chaos. But something was still nagging at him. "Sweetheart, we have to tell them. I think they need something to bring them together."
"Shawn, it could also tear them apart—or make them feel like their being replaced—or…"
"Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But they deserve to know. They're old enough."
"But we can't just drop it on them!" She cried. "We had talked about tee-shirts or presents or something. We can't be punishing them and then suddenly—'surprise! Baby Brother on the way!' That's—"
"Whoa, wait, what?" He interrupted. "Did you just say 'baby brother'?"
She brushed off his interruption. "I guess I feel like it's a boy…or hope it is or something." Then she gestured around the room again. "But we still haven't figured out what exactly to punish them for. Let's start there."
He stared at his wife for a second, then racked his brain for solutions. "They are supposed to share…and respect their possessions. I vote we make them clean, do the specific clothes and toys thing, and take away the baby dolls for a week."
Juliet looked him over thoughtfully. "You're a seriously good dad, did you know that? But I think we have to be a bit more drastic. Take everything away for a week. We'll pick out their clothes each day and they can keep their dolls with the matching outfits they came with. Then we'll let them pick the stuff, otherwise I'm worried it's not going to get better."
He pulled her close in response. "Fair enough…and I'm glad you think that, considering we have three kids…now why don't you want to tell people about this one?" He asked again, placing his hand on her stomach.
"Like a dog with a bone, huh?" She remarked playfully but for once he wasn't in the mood to joke. "Fine…with Declan, it was a shotgun wedding, right? But we told everyone it wasn't. Still…I think they knew. As I'm sure they did with you and Abigail…"
He shrugged. There weren't that many people to tell with Abigail…just his parents and Gus really.
"I don't want anyone to think I married you for any reason other than I love you and our girls."
"Jules, if they don't see that, they're blind! Plus…this is our family we're talking about—yours, mine, the SBPD…they know us."
"And the girls…" She continued, not really listening to him.
"And the girls are six and getting used to being sisters with two parents. Finding out about a baby now is going to be better than down the line, they need time to figure it out."
"How do you know?" She countered and he shrugged. He didn't actually know, but it felt right. She just shook her head and looked hard at him, and Shawn realized this was their first fight as a married couple. And it was over something so stupid… "You deal with the girls, I'm going to shower." She said shortly, not giving him time to respond, and stormed out.
"Shawn! I'm in the shower!" She pointed out the obvious as he opened the glass door and hopped in with her…stark naked…
"And now I am too. We're married, it's nothing we haven't seen."
"Shawn!"
"We're talking about what is actually going on because I'm sick of you trying to hide it from me."
She stared at him hard, willing him to break, but he held her gaze. He knew the shower was her refuge from Declan…and as she continued to stare into the green eyes she loved so much, she suspected that was exactly why he came in. It was impossible to hide something when they were both so…exposed…close…physically and emotionally. So as the water poured down over her, she let the tears she didn't quite understand flow.
"I just want to be us!" She started. "I mean I know it'll never be just the two of us, but I wanted a little…peace! Something before our whole worlds flipped upside down again! My husband died a year ago Shawn, and in that time, I reconnected with you, fell back in love with you, married you, adopted your daughter, and got pregnant with your child!" She sobbed and Shawn pulled her close. "I just wanted…a…a little stability. A moment to breathe before…" She couldn't even complete her thought and Shawn held her until she could control herself.
"Sweetheart. Jules. It's okay." He assured her. "I know it's a lot. I know it's been a crazy year. I know. But you are pregnant. We can't just not tell anyone and pretend you're not."
"B-but Sha-awn!"
He kissed her. "But Jules…" He countered warmly. "Sweetheart. I love you. I love our daughters and I'll love this baby. Even when the girls are bad. Even when our whole world gets flip-turned upside down—"
She laughed slightly. "Shawn, that's from Fresh Prince…"
"Even when you try to hide things from me and storm off without talking." He continued. That was twice today she set him up for a joke and he chose a serious moment instead and it sobered her. He really did love her. Deeply. "Juliet, things may be crazy, but you and I? As long as we stay together, we are…" He sighed heavily. "We are still. Strong. Safe. Jules, I love you…and that's all that matters."
The tears were mixed with shower water, but she wiped them away anyway, more deeply in love with her husband than possibly ever before. "We're having a boy, I found out last ultrasound but felt bad because you couldn't come so I told you I chose to wait!" She blurted and he laughed and kissed her, warmly, lovingly. When they broke apart, she realized he had tears in his eyes too, it wasn't just water. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry? Are you kidding?" He let out a half laugh. "Jules, we're having a boy! I'm…I'm…" He just laughed and kissed her again and she was so happy they're first fight was over. So happy she told him. So incredibly happy.
She and Rachel had never been in this much trouble before. When they got back from Gramps and Nanna's, where they weren't even allowed to do anything but help Gramps clean out the garage, all their stuff was gone from their room. All that was left was two little mattresses on the loft instead of one big one…and Nanna had only sneaked them one cookie…that's how they knew it was bad.
So it had been a whole week. A whole week and all they had to play with at home was Sophie and Maggie without extra clothes even and Rachel had to go two whole days without Maggie. And Mommy and Daddy told them what to wear each morning. But they didn't fight all week. A couple times, she tried to tell on Rachel or Rachel tried to tell on her, but Mommy and Daddy had Tattle-Tale rules now and so far they didn't make the c-cry-tear-a. 'Was anyone hurt?' 'Was anything broken?' 'Did they break the house rules?' 'Did they do something they'd been told not to?' And after a couple days…'Were anyone's feelings hurt real bad.'
But that was okay. Rachel really was her bestest friend, and she loved being sisters. She felt bad they were always fighting before they got their stuff taked away.
"Girls, come into our room!" She heard Mommy call and she looked at Rachel who shrugged and held out her hand. She was really glad they were friends again.
"Coming Mommy!" They said together and when they got in, she saw all their clothes and all their toys laid out, and Mommy and Daddy sitting on the edge of the bed smiling.
"Mom? Dad? What's this?" Rachel said but she was thinking the same thing.
"This," Daddy said, "is all of your collective stuff. Minus the broken and too-small things."
Next, Mommy talked, "Now, I want each of you to look through your toys and pick one of them to be just yours, not counting Sophie and Maggie. Then two of your doll outfits. Then one pair of pants, one skirt, one dress, and three shirts. And if you fight about any of your choices, it automatically gets taken away."
"There's also something new somewhere amongst this monstrous pile, and I want you to tell me what you think about it." Daddy finished and she and Rebecca started going through all their stuff.
They didn't fight about the toys. She picked Mr. Cuddlekins the bear from Granddad and Rachel picked a doll she got from Daddy before Rebecca knew him. Rachel looked like she wanted to take Sophie's sailing outfit, but then she handed it over which was nice cause it was her favorite. Then she gave Rachel the dress that they both really liked, but she knew it was her sister's favorite. But they still hadn't found any new stuff.
Picking tee shirts was kinda hard cause she was mostly okay with sharing them, but she found two she wanted to be just hers and then she saw a white shirt that looked different. Two shirts actually.
"There's two of these." She said, showing them to Mommy and Daddy.
"And what do they say?" Mommy asked while Daddy did something with his phone. She handed one to Rachel and they both looked at them.
"Wu-world's best...big…" Rachel started.
"Sister?" She finished and she looked at Rachel. Yeah, she was a little older, but they decided to be twins. Plus, both shirts said 'big'.
"Now go look in the mini room." Daddy said and she grabbed Rachel's hand and walked over. The mini room was where Mommy and Daddy worked if they needed to, they were never supposta go in there. But when Rachel opened the door, she saw the desk was gone and there was a crib in there instead with a big blue bow on it and a tiny shirt she could tell said "World's Best Little Brother".
"We're going to have a brother?" Rachel said before looking at her. "We're going to have a brother!"
"A baby brother! We're gonna have a brother!" She said back and they hugged and then hugged Mommy and Daddy.
"Yes, you are girls!" Daddy said and they all pulled apart. "Are you excited?"
She and Rachel nodded…then looked at each other. "Are you gonna love him more than us?" She asked after a second. She and Rachel had thought about it once and while they knowed Mommy and Daddy loved them the same…this baby would be both of theirs.
"Oh, Sunshine, Sweetpea, no…" Mommy said, hugging them again.
"Girls, we love you so much! We couldn't possibly love the baby more."
"But he's both of yours." Rachel said. "And we're only one and adopted. You don't have to adopt him."
"Rach," Daddy said, "do you remember when we talked about love? That it's not like milk in a milkjug—"
"It's like water from the faucet. I remember…" Rachel said softly.
"Exactly." Mommy continued. "Rae, I love you as much as I love Rebecca."
"And Becks, I love you as much as Rachel." Daddy said, crouching next to Mom so they all could see in each other's eyes. "And we'll love this baby as much as we love you. No more, no less. We're a family, girls. All five of us."
She nodded and they group hugged again before Rachel said, "So does this mean we get our stuff back? And can the baby's middle name be Lynn like me and Rebecca's?"
Mommy and Dad laughed and said, "Yes, and yes!"
"Yay!" She and Rachel said and hugged everyone again and then she added "I love our family" real quiet.
And she did. She loved her mommy and her daddy, and her sister, and now even her little baby brother who wasn't even born yet. It wasn't just her and mommy for long, and she had liked that better than before, but she being part of this family, her family, was best.
/\/\
So...I realize it's been over 90 days since I've updated this story and I'm so sorry! There's been a lot of life changes going on for me (and I just realized I did the life-changes chapter for this...how about that...), and I haven't had time to write! Plus, when I knew I needed to write, I wanted to reread all of Second Chances to pick up the feel of this story again. Anyway, all this to say, thank you everyone for being patient (and for the slightly less patient nudges to post again, I needed that)! Hope you like this chapter and I'll do my best to post again soon! (Maybe the next step in Rachel and Andrew's love story? Thoughts?) Review as always! Y'all are the best!