Baby on the Brain
"Do we have to go?" Stef whines as Lena drags her towards the park pavilion, a big gift bag in her free hand. It was a cool, December day in San Diego and Stef would rather be anywhere but here today.
"They're our closest friends." Lena tells her wife of almost six months. Life had been rather uneventful for the couple since returning from their honeymoon in Turks and Caicos in June. Stef still worked forty-plus hours a week. Lena still brought paperwork home to their apartment each night. And some weekends they didn't even bother leaving their bed.
"I still don't know why they went and got themselves pregnant." Stef rolls her eyes.
"Because they wanted to start their family." Lena rebuttals. Jenna and Kelly had, unbeknownst to Stef and Lena, been trying to get pregnant for most of the time leading up to their wedding. Today, Stef and Lena were headed to their baby shower since their friends' due date was quickly approaching.
The park pavilion is decorated with light blue balloons and streamers, a tribute to the gender of their unborn child. Stef thought it was a little archaic - assigning your baby a color based solely on its still-forming genitals. But what did she know? She had barely given any thought to having kids someday. It wasn't something that was on her life's radar.
"Congratulations!" Lena says to Jenna and Kelly, giving the very pregnant latter woman a gentle hug. "How much longer until your due date?"
"About two months." Kelly says, stroking her already very pregnant stomach. "Do you want to feel him kick?" Kelly asks, taking Lena's hand and placing it on her stomach just beneath her breasts. Beside Lena, Stef shifts her weight from foot to foot uncomfortably. She'd never been very comfortable around pregnant women before. The last thing the blonde cop wanted to do was feel the alien-like movements of an unborn fetus.
"That's so amazing!" Lena gushes, her face lighting up with a smile. Stef excuses herself and heads over to the refreshment table. It wasn't that Stef had something against babies in general. They were fine - for screaming, crying, pooping goblins. But Stef had yet to meet a baby that she actually liked. Whenever she was around the tiny, helpless humans, she felt completely awkward. How was she supposed to hold them? What did they want when they cried? She had no idea.
"Morning sickness, weight gain, mood swings." Jenna lists as she walks over to join Stef at the refreshment table.
"What are you doing?" Stef asks pointedly, sipping the blue kool-aid from her blue paper cup.
"Just listing all the things you're going to have to experience in just the first trimester." The kooky brunette cackles.
"What are you talking about?" Stef asks incredulously.
"Look at her over there." Jenna says, pointing over to Lena. The curly haired woman was sitting at a picnic table with another baby shower guest, chatting. In Stef's wife's arms, there is an infant - maybe a year old? Why was Lena holding a baby? The curly haired woman was holding the baby, cooing and playing peek-a-boo with it. Lena's face is alight with joy as the tiny baby wraps it's tiny fingers around one of her own.
"If that isn't the face of a woman with baby fever, I don't know what is." Jenna comments before heading off to go find Kelly. Left on her own at the pastel blue refreshment table, Stef continues to watch Lena interact with the tiny human being. Jenna definitely has a point. Lena seems to really be enjoying playing with the baby. She looked so natural with the baby.
Sweat begins to trickle down the back of the blonde woman's neck. Did Lena want kids? Somehow, the topic of kids had never come up between them. How had they not had that conversation? Especially before getting married. Stef wasn't sure she had what it would take to be a mother.
That evening, back at their apartment, Lena can feel the tension radiating off of Stef. During the baby shower and since it ended, Stef had been acting oddly. But Lena couldn't figure out why. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened at the shower - there had been a random assortment of blue-dyed food, silly baby shower games, and gift opening. So why was Stef avoiding eye contact and barely speaking to her?
"Okay, what's going on with you?" Lena finally asks her blonde haired wife, who is setting the table for dinner.
"What do you mean?" Stef asks, cocking an eyebrow at her wife.
"Ever since we got back from the baby shower, you've been acting weird. You've been ignoring me." Lena elaborates, her hand on her hip.
"I have not!" Stef shoots back defensively. Anger flares between the two women. Never before have they been in such a stalemate of an argument. Lena knows she won't get very far like this with Stef. Lena could never match Stef's quick temper, so she opts for a different approach.
"Stef, just tell me what's going on?" Lena asks again, this time trying to soften her voice despite the angry emotions still inside her. Lena watches the flames behind Stef's hazel green eyes dim just a tiny bit. The blonde haired woman looks down, studying her feet for several heartbeats before speaking again.
"Do you want kids?" Stef finally asks, looking back up at her wife.
"What?" Lena is completely taken aback by the question. Did she hear Stef right?
"Do you want kids?" Stef repeats her question more slowly, emphasizing each word.
"I, uh, um." Lena stutters. What had brought this about?
"I saw you holding a baby at the shower this afternoon." Stef states. "You were so happy. Your face was just lit up like a Christmas tree."
"Yeah, I want kids." Lena finally answers the question. Stef's stomach drops. So, Lena did want kids after all. Of course she would. Lena would make a fantastic mother. She was raised by two loving and supportive parents that are going on thirty years of marriage. But how could she, the daughter of a homophobic divorcee, how could she manage to raise kids without fucking them up severely? No, kids weren't something Stef could handle.
"Stef." Lena says tentatively after a few minutes of silence from her wife. She could see the flash of various emotions in Stef's hazel green eyes.
"I can't-" Stef begins. "I don't think I can do this." She whispers, her voice cracking in her throat as she grabs her wallet and keys from the counter. She needed to get out of here.
"Stef, where are you going?" Lena asks, her voice desperate. What did Stef mean? What was she doing?
"I'm sorry, Lena. I just can't." Stef chokes, pulling their apartment door open and disappearing down the hallway with one final look at her wife's stunned face.
A/N: DUN DUN DUN! What's going to happen next? Let me know what you think.
