Charlie sneaks one of the chocolate covered strawberries from the container. It's taken longer than she thought it would to get Santana's old apartment all cleaned out and all of her things moved over to their place, but it has been worth it. The only thing that's left in the apartment is the bed Santana sold on Craigslist that an unsuspecting beta couple is going to pick up tomorrow. She's been carting boxes back and forth between the two apartments and now she's earned a reward.

Now, they had a whole day because Harper had a sleepover and Charlie intends to make the most of it. She's not a complete ass, she set up with those weird rose petal things that Santana likes and lit a few candles. But Santana's surgery must have run long and so she's lying here, stark naked eating strawberries and other chocolates while she waits for her mate.

She's got another strawberry that she's just about to pluck in her mouth when the door to Santana's apartment swings open and her mate breezes in. "Shit, I'm so sorry, I had the crappiest day at work and everybody was avoiding me for some stupid idiotic reason and—" Santana stops, taking in the sight, "You finished."

But Charlie caught something else entirely. She slowly gulped down the treat, blinking at her mate in shock.

Santana smirks at Charlie's reaction. She scrubbed out of surgery but she still feels gross, but it's a little nice that she can still get that look from Charlie. She had expected to spend the rest of the night packing up boxes and moving trinkets and crap to their home together, but now she has enough time to give Charlie a proper reward for her hard work. "I get it, I'm the sexiest person alive, but—"

"You're pregnant." Charlie says the first thing that comes to mind, her mind blanking on anything else she can say that could possibly be helpful.

"No I'm not." Santana took a step back, immediately defensive. Sure, she had been a little bit lax about her birth control, but she wasn't an idiot. She hadn't been sick. She'd made Charlie wrap it every single time. Even for anal. There was simply no way she was pregnant. "It's only been a few days since I was in heat. I can't be."

Charlie blinked, still processing it herself. There was no mistaking the scent wafting from Santana, something altogether different from her normal smell. It was indescribable, but it was there like a mixture of her scent and Santana's but just a little sweeter than the way Santana smelled just after sex. People always said that alphas could tell the instant that they got their mate pregnant, but she and Santana had been on such wildly different schedules, this was possibly the first time they had been alone together for more than a second. What were they going to do? Should she buy Santana a pregnancy test? Most of those were for betas who needed some sort of confirmation, but—was she ready to be a mother again? "You're pregnant." She repeats.

"Stop saying that!" Santana snaps, running her hand through her hair as she tries to come up with a really good reason why Charlie has to be wrong. "You've gotten hit in the head too many times, did it fuck with your olfactory sense? I didn't know it could do that—"

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm fine." Charlie waves off Santana's concern, still trying to wrap her head around it. They were going to have a baby. A baby.

"You're not fine, you're smelling things. I didn't even know that was a thing and I'm a surgeon."

"We're having a baby. How the hell did that happen?" Charlie wonders to no one in particular.

"No we're not!" She insists. She's been hot and itchy all day and her boobs ache like a motherfucker, but that's just because Charlie loves her boobs. Her boobs are great. "There is no possible way that I am pregnant."

"Are you sure?" Charlie challenges. "Because I remember doing things to you that—well, I may not have had a lot of sex over the last few years, but I'm pretty sure that's how people make babies." She notes sarcastically. Maybe it's the bond, or maybe it's just starting to hit her, but her anxiety is growing out of control.

"Fine, dickwad. It's possible. It's just—no. I'm not pregnant."

"We used a condom." Charlie agrees, despite the fact that their baby is currently cooking in Santana's oven—is that a saying? She wonders to herself, her eyes widening. She didn't do this whole pregnancy thing with Mack, she doesn't even know what she's supposed to call it. "We used a condom all the fucking time."

"I know." Santana frowns. She even watched Charlie put it on to make sure she did it right. She knows Charlie wouldn't lie to her, and she's got a sinking feeling that she refuses to acknowledge that Charlie is right. It's not that a baby would be unwanted—necessarily. She's just—well she loves her body. She doesn't want stretch marks or leaky boobs or any of the gross shit that comes with pregnancy. Sure, babies were cute or whatever, but she and Harper and Charlie were happy.

"I put my dick in a fucking condom, how did you get pregnant? It was awful, what the fuck are condoms for if I can still get you pregnant?" Charlie cries exasperatedly. There should be a warning about this. What good was it to use a condom if it didn't do anything? But then, musing softly to herself, she adds. "Dad did say that Fabray sperm was potent stuff."

Santana throws up her hands in frustration, "Oh, so now you tell me."

"I didn't know I was going to get you pregnant." Charlie retorts, then gasps. "Fuck, what are we going to tell Harper?"

"We're not going to tell her anything because I'm not pregnant." Santana insists.

"Take a damn test if you don't believe me, or walk outside and ask the first alpha you see because you're pregnant and that's my baby." Charlie takes a deep breath, she's still freaking out but it isn't going to help solve the problem if she yells at her mate. It's one of the downsides to both of them accepting the bond, the emotions that pass between them can grow exponentially if someone doesn't put a stop to it.

"The only sure test is a blood test." Santana says before she can stop herself. Then, she shakes her head. "And I'm not about to waltz into my own hospital for some intern to run a blood test and let the whole hospital know that you've lost it. One too many blows to the head—I told you that you should have quit fighting." She's grasping at straws, but there's no way she can be pregnant already.

Charlie can see that Santana's reached the edge of her rope. She awkwardly puts her hand on Santana's stomach. "We're having a baby?"

Santana narrows her eyes at her mate and stumbles toward the door. "You ruined a perfectly good last romp in the bedroom. Now I'm not in the mood. I've got—work. I have to go to work." She doesn't offer a second glance before storming out of her old empty apartment.

Charlie storms after her and even makes it outside the front door and a few feet down the hall before she realizes she's still naked while the elevator doors shut behind Santana. Glancing down at herself, she's just a second to slow to stop the door from closing behind her, locking her out without keys, phone or clothes. She scratches her cheek, frowning. "Fuck."

~0~

Santana stomped the snow off her boots in the entryway of her new apartment complex with a huff. Heading back to the hospital had been a stupid idea, none of her co-workers had become less assholey in the time she spent with Charlie. To make matters worse, everybody avoided her like she was some pariah. Even Tina kept a ten foot distance—which was usually enough to warn Santana that she needed to turn the bitch down a notch. She may have taken a blood sample and threatened a tech within an inch of his life to call her with the results as soon as possible, but that had been an hour ago and she was pretty sure that he should have the results already.

Opening the door to the apartment she now shares with Charlie and Harper, she can immediately smell that Charlie's ordered takeout. Good. She's not really in the mood to cook tonight and if she remembered correctly Harper was having a sleepover at a friend's house. She notices Charlie fumbling around with something in the front room and winces when her mate looks at her with her arms over her chest. "I'm mad at you."

"Well I'm mad at you." Santana retorts. It's not her best comeback, but she's tired and cranky.

"You left me naked in your hallway and I had to borrow your neighbor's phone to call Quinn to come get me. I'm sure he was going to call the cops on me! How was I going to explain to Harper that her mom got arrested for indecent exposure?"

"My mom probably wouldn't have pressed charges, probably." Santana responds after a moment. "Besides you're the one that said that I was pregnant."

"You are pregnant," Charlie retorts. She had been tempted to simply make Quinn stay and force her to take a whiff of Santana. "And we need to get on the same page before Harper gets home tomorrow and freaks out. We haven't even been mated for two months and I just finished moving you in, plus she's just getting used to the idea of being a Fabray-Lopez."

"Harper has nothing to worry about because I'm not pregnant," Santana insists grabbing a carton of rice and some chopsticks.

Charlie tilts her head for a moment and opens her mouth before closing it. Harper would probably be able to smell it, so if Santana wasn't going to deal with it she was going to need to find some way to keep her daughter from freaking out. She had no idea where she had gotten this crazy idea that if they had another kid they were just going to get rid of her. "Santana, all kidding aside. What are we going to tell Harper? What are we going to tell our parents? Cause you know that the moment we tell them it's going to be this huge thing where they fight for the affections of a baby. I mean yeah free babysitting but still."

Santana frowns slightly, if she looked at the evidence, there was a very good chance that Charlie didn't have anosmia. She had after all been able to smell her in heat last week. But she didn't want to believe it, Charlie had been careful. "For the last time I'm not—" Her phone decides to go off at that moment and she picks it up after glancing at the number on the screen. "It's the hospital, give me a moment."

Charlie nods and chews on her rice, maybe making sure Santana and Harper had regular time together would make things better. Things hadn't been the most consistent lately, and maybe that was why Harper was getting anxious all of the time. She would need to stop dropping her off with her family and just remember that her daughter was important to her. She would need to do the same thing as well, to remind her daughter how important she was to her. It could work, it didn't matter if Harper was ten or a hundred she was always going to be her little girl.

"Look listen to me, I'm going to need you to run that test again. The results are impossible," Santana insists on the phone barking orders at the lowly tech. She glances at Charlie who is watching her intently. "Yes I'm sure that it's impossible. You probably made a mistake so run the damn test again." She ends the call with a huff and turns to Charlie, "Not a word. This is your fault."

"My fault?" Charlie crinkles her nose. How was this her fault? It's not like she mapped out Santana's heat cycles.

"Yes your fault. I don't know how you got me pregnant but I'm blaming you," it comes out as a bit of a whine and she frowns suddenly wanting to be comforted by her mate and she looks at Charlie who rolls her eyes and opens her arms for her. She immediately goes and curls up on Charlie's lap. "Make me feel better," she demands. It wasn't impossible now that she thought about it. Their sex life prior to her heat cycle had been condom free, and she did remember how babies were made. It didn't matter that Charlie had worn a condom throughout her heat cycle, not when the day before she had been in heat, Charlie had fucked her on ever surface of their hotel room.

"You're going to look hot being pregnant with my kid?" Charlie offers and smiles at Santana broadly. She's met with a dull look from Santana and she barely has time to duck out of the way before Santana smacks her with a throw pillow.

~O~

Harper raised a brow when she saw her mom standing in front of her truck waiting for her. There was a nervous expression on her face coupled by a nervous wave and she couldn't help but narrow her eyes. Santana was supposed to pick her up, she wanted to introduce her to some of her friends, but it was just her mom. She didn't even have her belt with her to make it interesting. She quickly says goodbye to her friends before hopping off the porch and heading straight to her mother. "Mom? Is everything okay with you and Santana? Is she mad at you?" Harper asked.

"Yes and yes," Charlie flashes her daughter a nervous smile and opens the door. She thought by being mates met that they had to do the hard things together, but as Santana pointed out she smelt pregnant and maybe it would be easier to break the news to Harper before she freaked out. She had agreed it was a smart plan only to realize that she had probably been tricked. "I mean apparently it's my fault, but we're going to meet her for breakfast. You know at the diner where they give you all you can eat bacon?"

"The place that we were banned from?" Harper asked a slow grin crossing her face as her mother opened the door for her.

"Yeah well, that was before your mom was a world champion. Now the owner wants me to be his sponsor, and we worked out a deal where we can go once a month and have all the bacon that we want."

"Awesome—wait a minute, why is Santana mad at you? What did you do?" Harper waited for her mom to get into her side of the truck before prodding her in the stomach.

"Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. So you know how I gave you that book about going into heat it had pictures and—"

The amused smile on Harper's face fell immediately. "Santana's pregnant!"

"Oh thank god, you did read it," Charlie lets out the breath that she had been holding. She wasn't in the mood to give Harper the sex talk this early in the morning. "Yes, Santana's pregnant but that doesn't mean that anything is going to change. I mean not really, we're probably going to need to move again to a bigger place. But the most important thing is you're still my daughter, I'm still going to protect you and make you mac and cheese even when you're sick of it. We're still going to watch terrible cartoons in our pajamas while eating cereal that is really bad for you."

Harper frowned, her mom said this now but that was only until the baby came and then she'd be more interested in being a family with Santana and the new baby. "Right," she mumbled. "That's what you're saying now, but the moment the baby comes you're just going to get rid of me or ignore me and—"

Charlie pulled over to the side of the road, "Harper, look at me. Are things going to be hectic? Yeah. Babies are little demons that cry, eat, shit, and like throw up on you. I should know, you enjoyed doing that with me. I don't think I owned a clean shirt for months. But don't you doubt for a moment that my love for you is going to be any less than the new baby."

"But it's Santana's baby and I'm not—"

"You're Santana's daughter too. Fabray-Lopez remember? You remind me more of her than your—biological mother. I mean yeah Santana is really bad when it comes to being on time for anything, but you're smart just like Santana. You're driven just like Santana. You're learning to stand on your own two feet just like Santana. You say what's on your mind, I mean at least you're more polite about it than Santana is but you do. I know things are new right now and we haven't given you a lot of time to adjust but you're also my daughter which means you've probably got a mean left hook and an amazing ability to adapt."

Harper crinkled her nose and nods, "But what if Santana likes her baby more than me? And she doesn't want me to be around her anymore or tells you to get rid of me?"

Charlie raised a brow, "If Santana tells me to get rid of you then she's not the person I thought she was and we'll leave together," Charlie promises and looks at her daughter. "I'm her mate, I know how much she adores you Harper. You should have heard her bragging to her parents about you. Which is why I think you two should have an activity that's just for the two of you. I won't interfere and when the baby comes you two can still have your time together. I imagine it will be mostly plotting my demise but as long as you have fun."

Harper tries not to smile but she can't help it and shifts in her seat so she can hug her mom. She relaxes when her mom pats her leg even if she still felt a bit unsure of herself. "So why is Santana mad at you?"

Charlie snorts, "It's apparently my fault that she's pregnant."

"Isn't it though?" Harper presses and laughs when her mother puffs out her cheeks and huffs. "I'm going to be a big sister."

Charlie flicked her hazel eyes to her daughter for a moment and then made a face, she hadn't exactly informed her daughter that she was already a big sister and now wasn't the time to open that can of worms. When Harper turned eighteen then if she wanted to she could seek out Mack. There was a part of her that hoped that Harper never did, it wasn't as if she had anything to hide but Harper had a big heart and she had a feeling that Mack and her alpha might take advantage of that. She had no idea what Mack's ankle-biters would be like. "Yeah, but you can't tell your grandparents yet, the last thing we need is for them to start buying us crap that we have no room for."

"We could always get a bigger place?"

"I don't think we have a choice in that matter unless you want to share rooms with a baby," Charlie frowns. They don't have a space for the baby, sure there was three bedrooms but they had taken the third bedroom and made it into an office for Santana and a fitness room for her. Santana liked to watch her work out, and then have sex on her desk.

Harper nods as her mom pulls into the diner's parking lot, "Oh, a place opened up across the street from aunt Quinn's place. Beth mentioned it. Then you wouldn't have to worry so much, and Beth can sleep over at our house when aunt Rachel and aunt Quinn are being—weird."

Charlie popped the door open, "Really you want us to move across the street from Quinn? Do you really want to be near that crazy all the time?"

"You make them babysit me all the time," Harper points out.

"Because it's free," Charlie insists. "What's family for if not to inconvenience them at a moment's notice by dumping your kid on them for a few hours?"

"You rarely babysit Beth," Harper points out as they walk into the diner.

"I know because Quinn and Rachel like to hire nannies for her even though they could easily drop her off with me where she can eat mac and cheese with us and watch violent cartoons that she's not allowed to watch at home and she can drink as much soda and eat as much candy as she wants." Charlie smirked at her daughter.

"That's why they don't let you babysit Beth anymore?"

"Yep, Beth throws up one time on Quinn's shoes and I never have to babysit her for the rest of my life, might be different with Santana now," Charlie mused and ruffled Harper's hair. "You know she tried to get me back with you and you ended up getting sick all over me. Difference is I don't own any expensive shoes and besides who did Quinn think took care of you when you were sick?"

Harper rolls her eyes, as they enter the diner where Santana is indeed sitting reading something on her phone. "Hey Santana," her voice is small but it's enough to cause Santana to look up. The movement was enough to cause her to smell it, it was faint but it was there. Santana really was pregnant. "Mom told me you were mad at her."

Santana glances up at Charlie who gives her a small imperceptible nod, things were going to be alright. "Your mother told you what she did to me?"

Harper nods. "She got you—" Harper looks around the room but there isn't anyone paying attention to them. "Pregnant."

"And she's pleased with herself," Santana insists immediately pulling Harper onto her side of the booth and giving Charlie a look to make her sit across from them. Charlie sighs loudly and takes a seat and picks up the menu. "I'm going to get fat, and my boobs are going to big and you know what she said to me?"

"What?" Harper asked looking at her mom a grin on her face.

"She said I would look hot pregnant!" Santana repeats in a scandalized tone.

"Really mom?" Harper crinkles her nose and looks at her mom who is motioning for a cup of coffee. "You said that?"

"I was trying to give her a compliment," Charlie insists immediately, maybe if she was lucky this new baby would be an alpha like her and she'd have someone on her side for once. "It's romantic."

Santana scoffs at this and gently prods Harper in the side, "See what I have to put up with?" She immediately wraps an arm around Harper pulling her close to her. "I'm going to need you kid. I don't know how you turned out so awesome despite your crazy mom, but I'll need you to help make sure this baby doesn't take after her."

Harper feels a warm flutter in her chest with confirmation that Santana wasn't just going to forget about her. "If we let mom have her way, the baby would probably come out eating mac and cheese."

"We can't have that." Santana agrees.

Charlie grumbles, "There's nothing wrong with mac and cheese." She can't help but smile though mostly to herself as Santana and Harper begin to go into the fact that it was the only thing she could make for Harper.