Jack and Rose sat on the train, hand in hand, just looking out the window. Rose's morning sickness had been pretty bad, and she was feeling sick all the time. It pained Jack to watch her go through this, and obviously he couldn't take the discomfort away. He just tried to be as helpful as possible, all the time.
"Are you hungry? Thirsty? Do you need anything?" Jack asked. He was desperate. This was new territory for him, and he had no idea what he was doing.
Rose smiled. Jack was so sweet and caring to her all the time. "I'm perfect, since I'm here with you."
"How's the morning sickness?" Jack asked.
"Not too bad," said Rose. "I'm feeling better today."
"You should be feeling better soon," said Jack. "Your first trimester is almost over."
"I know, it's crazy. Time flies." said Rose. "We'll have a newborn baby in about six months. By the way, I bought a cool pregnancy book."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah," said Rose, taking out the book and opening it. "It tells you based on each week how big your baby is. So since I'm at eleven weeks, the baby is the size of a raspberry."
Jack picked up an empty paper towel roll that he had in his bag (he had no idea why it was in there) and put one side against Rose's belly. He put the other side against his ear. "Hey, little raspberry," he said in a funny baby voice. "It's your daddy. Mommy and I love you so much already, but please stop making her so sick. I can't bear it."
Rose was in tears. More than tears, she was sobbing. "Hey," said Jack, taking his ear off of the paper towel roll. "What's going on? Are you okay?"
"I'm okay," said Rose, still crying. "I just don't know how I got so lucky to get you as my husband, the father of my children, and the love of my life."
Jack kissed Rose and said, "You're not the only lucky one. I thank God every night that I found you."
Rose nuzzled herself against Jack, and Jack wrapped his arm around Rose's waist. They sat together and discussed their plans for when they arrived in Santa Monica.
"I made arrangements to get us into the Waldorf Astoria in Santa Monica while we look for a place to live," said Jack.
"You did? That's amazing," said Rose.
"Only the best for my Rose," said Jack, kissing her forehead. "I have lined up a few places to look at today, since we're arriving in an hour. I thought we should get a jump on moving in, so that we can furnish the house, set up a nursery, you know."
"That sounds perfect, Jack," said Rose.
•••
Jack and Rose got off the train, went to the hotel, set down their things, and went to look at the houses in the area. Before that, though, Jack took Rose to a restaurant to eat something. She hadn't eaten all day, and he was worried about her.
"Jack, I'm not hungry," said Rose.
"I know, sweetheart, but you need to eat. Even if you just eat some dry toast. Please? For me?" Jack took Rose's hand and begged her. Finally she caved and ate some food.
After lunch, Rose kissed Jack on the cheek. "Thank you," she said, "You were right. That made me feel better." Jack smiled. Finally he was able to help Rose. They were walking over to the neighborhood that they liked, when they passed a real estate office.
Jack stopped at the window. "Look at this!" He exclaimed. "This land is beautiful, and huge, and right in our price range. We should check it out!"
"Building a house from scratch? Are you sure?" Rose asked. Jack seemed sure, but Rose wasn't so sure herself.
"It couldn't hurt to look. Besides, since this land is so cheap, we could build a really amazing house. Think about it, Rose. We would get to design it ourselves."
"But what would we do until it was built? We certainly couldn't stay in the Waldorf Astoria that whole time. It would also take so much longer before we could move in. I'm not so sure about this, Jack."
"We could live somewhere cheap while it was being built, and we could pay a little extra so the work crew would stick to a projected date. It's in a good school district, and it has beautiful views." Rose could tell Jack was already so attached to the property. "If you really don't want to, we don't have to. I only ask that we go and look. It could be awful, you never know."
Rose sighed. "I guess it couldn't hurt to look."
Jack and Rose went into the real estate office and went to the property. It really was beautiful. It was in the mountains of California, and it looked out over the city of Santa Monica. It was a quiet area, and there were hardly any other houses around, while also not being completely abandoned. Rose couldn't deny it any longer; she loved the property. "What do you think, sweetheart?" Jack asked.
Rose smiled. "I love it. It's perfect."
Jack grinned and looked at the real estate agent. "We'll take it," he said confidently.
•••
Jack and Rose went to see Jena and Alex. They arrived and knocked on the door. Jenna answered. "Oh my god, you guys are back?"
"Not just that," said Jack. "We're moving here."
"And I'm pregnant," said Rose, her hand on her swollen belly.
"That's amazing!" Jena exclaimed, hugging both of them. "Where are you going to live?"
"We bought a property and we're building a house," said Jack. "We're going to find somewhere to live until it's done."
"You can live here!" Jena offered. "I know you may want to be alone since you've been living with people for the last two years, but I would absolutely love it!"
Jack looked at Rose, who nodded. "Sure, that would be great!"
•••
The rest of the afternoon, Jack and Rose signed papers and mortgages and all kinds of things that neither of them really understood. Finally, they finished, and the property was theirs. On the way home, Jack snuck into a supermarket and bought sparkling cider to celebrate. He was just so excited that he and Rose would be building a house of their own!
As soon as they got back to the hotel, Jack took out his sketchbook. Rose stopped him and took his hands in her own. "When you snuck off to buy the cider, I snuck off somewhere too, and I have a surprise for you." She told Jack to close his eyes and put out his hands. "You can open your eyes."
Jack opened his eyes and gasped. Rose had gotten him a beautiful black leather sketchbook with the letters JD inscribed in the leather. "Rose, this is… it's beautiful. But it's too much. It must have cost a fortune."
"Only the best for my Jack," said Rose, kissing Jack's cheek. "And it wasn't too much. It was pretty reasonably priced."
Jack opened the sketchbook and grabbed his writing utensils. "I think I'm going to use this for the house designs. How does that sound?"
Rose smiled. "Perfect."
Over the next few hours, Jack and Rose sat designing their house. Jack had designed the downstairs already, which was pretty easy since they wanted it to be an open floor plan. Now he had moved onto upstairs. "How many bedrooms do we need? I was thinking we could make the second floor the bedroom for our child/children, and then the third floor could just be our master bedroom."
"That sounds great. I don't really know about the bedrooms, what do you think? How many kids do you see us having?" Rose asked, slightly uncomfortable. Moments like this could be so awkward!
"Let's say we have three children. Each of them could have a bedroom, and then we could have an extra room which could be a guest room or study, we can decide later," Jack said. "Then, for bathrooms, every two rooms would share a bathroom, and the bathroom would have doors that opened into each bedroom. Like a jack and jill bathroom."
Rose smiled. "Sounds perfect."
Somehow, they had finished all of the designs in one night! The next day, they had the designs approved by a construction crew. Then, they decided to look for jobs, since they now needed to pay for the house they were building. Jack had met the owner of a museum in Santa Monica while he was looking for new sketching tools. The owner liked his work and invited him to be the new manager of the museum. Jack agreed to this, since it was art related and would allow him to be home at a reasonable time.
Rose also wanted to work. She didn't want to just be sitting at home waiting for Jack to return; she wanted to be doing something. She found work as an assistant to an interior designer. She had an eye for interior design, and it was an easy job, which was perfect since she was pregnant. Her boss was a nice woman who also was from Pennsylvania, and she seemed to be rather successful.
Finally they returned to the hotel. "Well, that was a successful outing, wasn't it?" Jack said excitedly.
"Yes, it was," Rose was excited as well. They really were building a life together. She was so happy. But unfortunately, the happiness wouldn't last long.