The last chapter was a bit intense so whose ready for some fluff even if it ends up being a bit on the bitter-sweet side.
Song Suggestion: The Nights by Avicii
Disclaimer: I own nothing~ Resident Evil belongs to Capcom, and I'm not affiliated with them /o/ I wish I were. I would make all the content.
The rest of May was spent overseas for Chris and the rest of Hound Wolf Squad. And much to their dismay, they found something. A lot of something, actually. At least 3 different labs all connected and working with different samples of mold from Louisiana. All this to say, he was going to continue to be busy for some time. Missions had been slow and rather unintrusive for the last year or so. He knew it wouldn't last forever but at the same time, part of him almost hoped it would.
Similarly to how it was before, Chris made his way home late at night. The tired man got out of his car and clicked a button on the wall of the garage to get it to close before taking out his phone to check it.
Wednesday, June 1st, 10:22 PM.
Rose was hopefully behaving an in bed by now. With that thought, he put his phone away and quietly heads inside to find Emma sitting on the couch with her laptop.
"Hm? Oh hey, I thought I heard the garage door," Emma says with a smile as she moved to get up. "Are you hungry?"
A mixture of happiness and regret washed over him as he noticed she was showing more than before. " I could eat," He says in return. He didn't need to share the bad news just yet. Instead, he walks over to her and holds her before giving her a kiss. "How are the two of you doing?"
Emma returns the kiss and stays put to enjoy the sense of closeness, rather than hurrying off to their usual routine. "Well and healthy, though the little parasite keeps kicking me in the bladder. I'm starting to think they think it's a game."
Chris laughs at that before allowing a hand to rest along the side of here stomach. "Behave for your mother." he says with a gentle smile.
"I'll settle for a warning so I can brace myself," Emma replies with a chuckle. "It won't be too much longer before we find out what we're having."
"Next month right?" Chris asks curiously to make sure he was remembering correctly.
"Yep," Emma replies with a smile. "Let's head over to the kitchen though, so I can start cooking while we talk." she offers knowing it was late, and he'd likely want to get some rest.
Chris follows her lead and takes his place at the kitchen Island. The location was different, but the routine remained the same. Emma placed a glass of water in front of him before digging around in the fridge.
"How was your trip?" Emma asks with a gentle smile.
"It was work," Chris replies with a quiet sigh. Probably best to bring this up now. "We got a few leads... I'll probably be touch and go for a while."
Emma tried not to frown and nods. "Work is work. Just make sure you come back in one piece okay?"
Chris nods in return, "Hopefully we can wrap this up quickly."
"Take the time, do it right, we'll be here," Emma says as she gets started on putting together a meal. Breakfast sounds good.
"That's the goal," he admits as a small twitch of a smile returns. Okay, now to ripe off the band-aid. "I'll be heading back out again on the 8th..."
"So soo-," Emma pauses as it clicks, "Oh no... Bastion's wedding," She says while trying to force a neutral expression.
"Yeah," Chris replies not thrilled either. He was going to miss it. "Take a lot of pictures, okay?" He requests in return.
"Of course,"Emma agrees in return as she turns her attention back to the pancake mix she was supposed to be stirring. "Before you head out again, Do you think you can make time to teach Rose how to ride a bike?"
"Right, yeah I can do that," He agrees and nods. He's almost forgotten. "Tomorrow after work," He adds. The sooner he took care of that the less likely he'd be to forget.
With the pancake mix made Emma puts out two pans and butters them to grease the inside. The two continued to talk as she managed one pan of scrambled eggs and another with pancakes. Before long two plates were set on the kitchen Island. Chris looks over at the extra plate that held a regular pancake and a much smaller mini pancake.
"Did you run out of batter?" He asks curiously as he gestures to her plate.
"Nope" Emma replies while smiling. "That one's for me and that one's for the parasite," She says while gesturing to the regular pancake, then the smaller one.
"You know eating this late at night will make you sick in the morning," he points out while trying not to laugh, before digging into his own plate of food.
Emma does the same and starts to eat her meal for two. "It's worth it." It wasn't.
'*'*'*'*'
[Chris] How do you think we should bring up the whole Bike thing anyways
[Emma] I could set the bike up by the front door? It has a kick stand, so it will stand up properly.
[Emma] you could point it out when you pull in to park if she doesn't see if first.
[Chris] That could work.
Chris looked from his phone to his laptop. How to teach your child to ride a bike in 45-minutes, The laptop screen read in large bold font above a picture of children on bicycles. Chris was in his office again the next day when he realized. He didn't remember a thing about how he learned to ride a bike. It could be dude to the multiple concussions or something to do with his last round of PTSD induced amnesia but for the life of him that memory was gone. Normally, he was against distractions like this at work, but he needed to figure out how to teach this before he got home.
"Hopefully they mean the process is 45 minutes, not that the article takes 45 minutes to read," Chris says with a quiet sigh before taking a bite of his lunch. Luckily, eating in his office like this would minimize the impact of being distracted, but it still felt weird using company property like this.
How long will it take to teach your child to cycle? Roughly 45 minutes depending on the child's coordination development.
Okay, cool off to a good start, that hopefully means he won't be reading for 45 minutes.
At what age should you teach a child to cycle? Four to six years old.
Awesome, still doing good there. ...Kinda. Rose was almost 2 technically but at this point she was biologically she was closer to a five and a half year old according to the latest update from the doctors.
How should you start to Teach a child to cycle? Without pedals.
What? Chris looked at that one with concern and confusion. The article went into further detain stating that the parent should remove the pedals of the bike, so the child can push the bike along with their feet at first and learn how to balance... Okay, so some assembly required. Hopefully they have the right kind of screwdriver?
Where should you teach your child to ride a bike? On a flat tarmac surface. Avoid grass it seems softer, but it's harder to pedal on and will quickly become frustrating.
Tarmac? Wouldn't grass be-oh... Well, fine then. Note to self: have bandages ready. Make sure the helmet is very well secured... They remembered to get a helmet right? Chris thought as he continued to eat while reading.
Important tips: Hold the child not the bike. If you hold the bike you're more likely to fight them for control, and they won't learn. Once they're safely doing well on their own stay nearby. Don't let them go off on their own until they're good at stopping.
Okay, so how do you teach them how to stop? Chris thought as he scrolled down and found that was the end of the article. That's it? How do you teach them how to stop?! Don't just say that's important and not mention how to do that. Chris pinched the brow of his nose and exhaled. This was going to take some work...
The rest of his lunch break was spent looking through different but similar articles and after an hour of reading he did not feel any more confident than he did before that he'd know how to do this but whether he liked it or not the end of the day quickly arrived.
Rose walks out of the training area feeling tired and achy. She usually felt that way, but today it was a bit worse than normal. She was ready to be led to the gym only to be surprised when she found Chris waiting for her outside.
"Hey kiddo, Ready to go home?" Chris asks.
"Yeah," Rose replies as she follows him. They two made their way out of the Headquarters and through the parking lot to Chris's car.
"So, what did you do today?" He asks after they were both in the car, since she wasn't particularly talkative.
"Tests," She replies in return. "And I worked on my letters and numbers."
"Are you practicing counting?" Chris asked and Rose nods. "How's far can you count?"
"I can count to twelve," Rose says with some pride in her tone.
Why twelve? Alright. "Nice job. Do you want to show me?"
"Okay," Rose replies and counts. The rest of the ride home continued similarly where he'd have to coax her to speak. She just wasn't interested in talking to him like she used to. However, as they pulled into the park, Rose pressed her face against the window to try and see better. "What's that?" she asks as her view was blocked as they pulled into the garage.
"What was what?" Chris asks feigning ignorance.
"I saw something!" Rose announces and quickly starts to wrestle with the kid proof seat belt. Her curiosity was being foiled by extra plastic!
"Wait until I turn off the car," Chris instructs as he hears the struggling.
"Hurry!" Rose says excited and impatient.
Chris rolls his eyes at that, "Rose watch your tone," he reminds but puts the car in park and turns off the car.
"...Sorry," she replies quietly as she began to pout instead.
Chris got out and opened the car door to help her out of her seat. Once free and out of the car she waited for him to close the door before hurrying off on her own. "Come on I saw it over there."
"Alright, let's see what you found," Chris replies and follows along.
Rose happily gasps and makes her way over to and examine the bike.
"IT'S A BIKE!" She announced excited as she jumps around. The achy pain from before was now wholeheartedly ignored in favor of her excitement.
"Now how did that get there?" Chris asks with an amused smile as he watches Rose pick up a matching helmet off the handle bars.
At this point Emma hears the commotion and walks over to open the door. "You're at the front door today?" she asks with a laughing smile.
"There's a bike!" Rose says again with excited laughter.
"There is," Chris affirms as he looks from the Bike to Emma. "With Roses painted on it?" Emma smiles and shrugs. "I suppose that means it's for you."
"Really?" Roses asked surprised. "I'ma go ride it now," she says with a determined smile as she tries and fails to get the bike to move thanks to the kick stand. "WHOA!" She almost fell forward, but Chris managed to catch her and the bike.
"You have to eat dinner first," Emma says which earns frowns and pouts in return. "Pouting that turns to crying over gifts," Emma reminds,
"Makes gifts smaller, I'm sorry," Rose quickly says before hurrying into the house while still wearing the helmet.
Emma chuckles at this before looking to Chris. "Ready?"
"As ready as I can be," He replies with quiet hesitation.
"You'll do fine, even if she doesn't get it, it's about spending time together outside of the office and mold stuff,"Emma replies quietly. "Come on, I think I hear her messing with the dishes."
Chris chuckles at that last comment and follows Emma inside. Dinner was served, and the bike helmet remained on the whole time. There was no if's, and's, or but's that could convince the child to take that helmet off.
Empty plates were put into the sink and Rose ran for the door, completely forgoing dessert. "Come on! Before the sun goes down," Rose insists even though they had plenty of daylight left thanks to the rapid approach of the beginning of summer.
"Alright, let's go," Chris says as he heads back to the front door as well.
Rose pauses and looks from Chris to look past him. "Is Emma coming too?"
"Sorry Rosey I need to stay in side. Bikes are a little too dangerous for baby bellies," Emma offers as a reason for why she wasn't going to help with teaching. This really was something Chris needed to do.
"Oh... Okay," She replies with a slight frown. It was always about the baby now...
The sad tone was not lost on Emma. "I'll watch from the doorway once I'm done cleaning up, okay?"
"Okay," She replied though she wasn't particularly thrilled still.
The two made their way outside and practice began. The bike seat was adjusted and for now, Chris left the pedals on. As much as it was a decent idea, he was not confident he'd be able to put them back on right. Practice balancing first.
Rose quickly became frustrated just like the article said she would as the pedals would repeatedly hit her in the legs.
"Can I ride the bike yet?" Rose asks with a pout. This whole learning thing wasn't fun she just wanted to ride the bike...
It doesn't matter if she actually learns, what's important is spending time together. he nods as he remembers this. "Alright, let's try something else," He agrees. Chris initially moved to hold the back seat of the bike but remembered the article's warning not to hold the bike and fight for control. He moves to hold her under her arms like the article said. "I'll hold you up, when you think you're ready tell me to let go,"
"Okay," Rose says and nods.
It took a few tries. She fell and tumbled a few times and band-aids were required. Scraped up knees and palms just made her more determined to get this right.
"Okay, I'm ready," she says for the 14th time.
"Are you sure?" Chris asks.
"Yeah," Rose affirms.
"Alright," Chris stops and let's go. Sure enough, Rose actually managed to keep going.
"I'm doing it!" Rose happily cheers as she continues to pedal around the cul-de-sac.
"Good job!" Emma called back from her place by the door.
Chris smiled as he watched. Okay, she should be stopping any second now. A second longer and the article came back to mind.
Practice on a flat tarmac surface. Don't let them go off on their own until they're good at stopping.
Shit shit shit, oh come on there's not that much of a slope! Chris sprints to catch up and quickly grabs the child from behind to get her off the bike before it crashed into the curb and tumbled into a rose bush. He breathes a sigh of relief, that could have been much worse.
Arthur walks out of the house and squints a bit "hey, you guys okay?" he asks as Chris put's Rose down.
Chris looks at Rose as he puts her down, and she nods. With that, he looks back to Arthur, "Yeah, yeah we're okay... Sorry about the flowers,"
"Not a problem, they'll grow back," he says clearly not attached to them in the slightest. "Stay safe," he says before heading back inside.
"I think that's enough for today," Chris says as he walks over to get the bike out of the bush.
"I'm sleepy," Rose admits. If she was achy before it was definitely worse now, but she didn't mind. This was fun.
"Let's go home then," He says as he holds on to the handle bar, and so he could walk it home for the child.
Rose follows alongside him before cautiously glancing at him a few times. Chris Felt a tiny bandaged hand hold on to his free hand as they walked causing him to look over a bit surprised. It had been a while since she did that. A gentle smile formed as he said nothing and continued to walk at her pace.
Emma smiles as she sees this before pressing a button on her phone.
[Emma] -Photo of Chris and Rose walking back with the bike-
[Emma] He's doing well.
'*'*'*'*'
Emma enjoyed what time she could with Chris before he had to leave again. She knew why he had to go, but it didn't make it any easier. The 11th of June arrived, a lovely sunny Saturday and a perfect late spring day for a wedding. Emma smiled as she sat next to Rose and waited for the outdoor ceremony to start. There was something lovely and nostalgic by being in this park again. It had been over a year at least.
"What are we doin?" Rose asks quietly as the music plays.
"We're watching a wedding," Emma replies.
"Whatsa wedding," Rose asks.
"It's when two people who love each other very much, decide to promise to stay together forever," Emma replies. Granted forever was kind of a blanket term and there's always divorce to consider, but she was not going to be making that social faux pas and talk about divorce at a wedding.
"So are they going to have kids?" Rose asks confused. Chris and Emma got married and then her belly started growing.
Emma chuckles a bit. "Well. Maybe. That's up to them." she replies in return. "Not every couple ends up wanting kids."
You have to want kids? Rose's concern from before started to grow. They're always so excited about the baby. The baby this, the baby that. Baby, baby, baby. What about Rose? If you have to want kids... and they're having one of their own... what if they don't want her anymore... They said they love her, and they want her, so why do they need a baby? She did do bad things since then too... like biting rose, and she used her powers in the house again even though she's not supposed to. She did that twice! Oh no... are they replacing her because she was bad? She didn't mean to.
This line of thought continued in a quiet panic as the ceremony went on. Bastion and Travis walked in after the precession. Rose looked around feeling both nervous and bored about all of this. Meanwhile, Emma was blissfully unaware of the inner turmoil of the child next to her as she tearfully watched the beautiful ceremony. The grooms left with the party to make a line for everyone to get a chance to congratulate the couple on their way over to the area that was set up with tables and flowers and silk covered trellises.
Emma and Rose waited in line for their turn to speak with the two. Bastion smiled widely. "Emma! good to see you, you look great," he says with a smile. "And Rose! You're dressed so nicely, you look very grown up," Bastion says which causes rose to smile. The complement offered some peace of mind after her bought of inner termoil.
"Where's Chris?" Travis asks a bit confused.
"Work?" Bastion asks knowing well enough.
"Work," Emma confirms with an apologetic smile.
"If it's not one thing it's another, He needs to learn to say No sometimes," Bastion replies shaking his head.
"I don't think he really had a choice on this one," Emma admits. "I'll be taking pictures though,"
"Oooh send me what you get, I won't see the ones from the photographer for a few weeks and that's if I'm lucky." He requested with an excited smile.
"Sure, I'll put them in a cloud folder and send you the link," Emma agrees.
"You're the best, save a dance for me, okay?" Bastion asks and Emma nods in agreement.
'*'*'*'*'
Emma Hummed quietly to herself as she and Rose made their way through the store. As much as she wasn't a fan of it, she was starting to get used to being tailed by Gary pretty much all the time. She felt bad that they guy basically lived in a van 3 weeks a month... hopefully it was a nice van?
She tried not to think about it and went back to looking through different items on the aisle. Cards, Ties, Wallets and Keychains were among the plethora of different goods on display that read Father's Day June 19th. That would be tomorrow and there was a good chance Chris wouldn't be home, but she wanted to get something all the same. Let's see what else was there. A 'paper weight' that was just a rock that had the words 'my dad rocks' painted on it. no... A jar of Nuts that says 'nuts for you', a bag of golf tees that says 'you're TEE riffic'... Were all of these gifts puns? She liked a good pun as much as the next person, but these were horrible.
"Hey Emma," Rose asks as she looks around while holding on to the cart. "What are you looking for?"
"hm? Oh, I was looking for a present for Chris," Emma says with a slight frown. Past tense seems most appropriate, she was ready to give up and just look else where in the store.
"Why?" Rose asks.
Oh dear, we're entering the 'why' phase. Everything's a question. She was a bit late for that. or... well early? It's hard to say. "Well, There's a holiday coming up where you give Father figures presents to say thank you," Actually she should probably send something to her dad too now that she thinks about it...
Rose waits a bit and looks between the shelf and Emma. "...Why?"
Oh Lordy, give her patience. "Because it's a nice thing to do."
"Oh," Rose replies quietly... She contemplated asking why again to make a game of it but remembered her fear from the wedding that she was going to be replaced. If she was really really good maybe they'd change their mind and put the baby back?
Emma looked over the gifts again before looking at rose and back at the shelves. "Why don't you pick something for him too?" Emma offers with a smile. This could be a good way to eventually led into that 'hey do you want us to be your mom and dad' conversation once they finally have the time.
"Me?" Rose asks surprised.
"Yeah, Go ahead and pick something, to give Chris for Father's Day," Emma confirms.
Rose looked around the isle and eventually found a bunch of Paint and bake mug kits. She dug through the boxes and ended up with a decent collection of rejected boxes around her on the floor of the store. Frustrated grumbles and whines became audible as her search continued.
"What's wrong?" Emma asks concerned. Why was she digging through the same section of boxes?
"... I can't find one that says Chris on it... They all say dad..." Rose explains as she picks up a box and holds it up for Emma to see. The box showed a child painting the mug in question with the help of a parent and an image of the potential finished product was shown to the left as a brightly painted mug read #1 DAD!
And that was the sound of Emma's heartbreaking. Emma clears her throat before speaking. "Well. If you want to get him that, and you want it to say Chris I'll help you paint the letters. How does that sound?"
"Really?" Rose asks excited.
"Really really," Emma agrees, "Let's put these back on the shelf though," Emma says while trying to figure out how on earth she was going to bend over to pick all this up.
"I got it," Gary says having noticed the problem pretty quickly and made his way over.
"Thanks," Emma says with a grateful smile as she managed to avoid the unfortunately difficult excessive.
Whoops. Rose thought while internally wincing. she made a mess. Darn it that was another bad thing. she wasn't supposed to do that. While neither guardian ever got notably upset with her over messes, the narrative rose built in her own mind about potentially being replaced made any form of failure to meet expectations seem like a very big problem. The only one keeping track was her, but she wasn't able to tell.
"There we go, Just don't let them know I broke protocol this time okay?" Gary requests and Emma nods.
"Thanks again, don't worry I won't tell," She replies before looking at Rose. "We still have a bit more shopping to do, are you ready?"
"Yeah," Rose replies and follows alongside the cart likes she's supposed to.
Emma eventually gave up on trying to find a gift at the store and settled on ordering something online and hoping it made it home before Chris.
When the two made it home the table was covered in old newspapers, so the painting set could be set up.
Emma Paints out the word 'DAD' with blue paint to block it out for Rose while she watched TV and waited for the kit to be ready. Emma baked the paint on for now and looked at it. it looked a bit strange just having a blue square there. Emma put a Green Triangle over where the #1 was supposed to be to go with a sort of Deco Pop design to cover the original design. sort of like an old fashion 80s abstract shape set up. It took a bit for that to dry but once that was done she put that down on the table.
"Rose, did you still want to paint?" Emma asks curiously.
"Yeah!" Rose replies and hurries over to take the Seat. oh. oh no the guild lines were gone. I mean that's what she asked Emma to do but. She'd have to remember letters on her own. She stares at the mug before handing it back to Emma. "Help?" she asks with a nervous expression.
"You can do it, here," Emma goes and gets a pencil before walking back and draws a # on the mug. "Can you paint that shape?" She was not going to explain what a pound sign, hashtag, whatever you want to call it, was to a five-year-old. she'll worry about that once she's old enough for social media.
Rose paints over the marks in bright yellow paint.
"Very good," Emma praised. "You're learning your numbers, can you paint a one next to that?"
Rose concentrated extremely hard on it and painted a proper 1 with the lil feet and the handle like they showed during number class. This went on with each part of the painting. Emma would let rose what letter to paint and she'd think it over to remember the letter and paint it onto the mug. by the time she was done the mug happily read #1 Chris.
The lettering was baked in then offered back to the girl to paint on. Rose added squiggles and swirls in lots of colors. One more bake. glazed so the paint would stay on in the wash and then baked again. The kit even included a paper bag for Rose to draw on and tissue paper to put in side in order to wrap the gift.
"All that's left is to wait for Chris to get home," Emma says with a smile.
'*'*'*'*'
Another 21 day sprint in Europe was finished and there was no end in site. it looked like the trend was going to be that he'd get a week off here and there but that's a bout it... "What happened to stay the hell out of Europe," Chris grumbles to himself as he finishes up the last of his Cigarette while making his way home again. He looked at the car radio but luckily this time it was only 7 pm.
Chris parked his car, and went through the motions. grabbing his bag from the back before heading over to the door. She should still be awake but just in case he remained quiet "I'm home," he says in a moderate indoor voice instead of loudly proclaiming like usual.
Rose excitedly gasps. "HE'S HERE! HE'S HERE HE'S HERE HE'S HERE," She announced repeatedly while hurrying around.
"I am," Chris says with a laugh before moving to put his bag down by the shoe tree and kick off his shoes.
"I got you a present!" Rose says happily as this was the first time she got to give a present instead of getting one. It was kind of exciting. Hopefully he likes it. She hurried to the coffee table and picked up the gift bag, so she could hurry over to give it to Chris
Chris accepts the paper bag decorated with marker doodles that was stuffed with tissue paper. "You did?" Chris asks a bit confused as he looks to Emma who was happily smiling to herself.
"Yeah, open it, open it," Rose repeats excitedly.
"Alright one second, let's go sit down" He says in return.
"I'll go warm up a plate for you," Emma says as she heads to the kitchen to serve up some of the leftover dinner that she only recently put in the fridge.
Chris goes to the dining room table and takes a seat while Rose quickly scampers into her own seat. and nudges the bag a bit closer to Chris after he set it down.
"Alright, I'm opening it," He says with a short chuckle. he removed the tissue paper and took the mug out of the bag to read it over. the faint outline of the words #1 Dad were still faintly visible under the paint that read #1 Chris instead.
"Do you like it?" She asks nervous that maybe he didn't and she did this whole gift giving thing wrong...
Chris smile gently at the gift before looking over to see Rose watching him expectantly. "I think I have a new favorite mug,"
He really liked it! Rose was thrilled to hear this as her ear to ear smile remained. "Really?" She asks surprised.
"Yep, is it okay if I bring this in to work to use there?" Chris requests which surprised Rose even more. he wanted to bring it to work too?
"Yeah!" she confirms with an enthusiastic nod.
"As hey, it ay, een bay, ashed way?" He says, asking 'has it been washed,' in pig latin to avoid offending Rose.
Emma nods.
"Well, guess I should test it out," He says feeling a bit more confident in the safety of the mug with that confirmation. The night went on and Chris was more or less not allowed to go anywhere without that mug. if rose noticed he left it behind she'd go and get it and bring it to him.
The child was eventually sent to bed and Chris was finally able to leave the mug by the sink so it could be washed later. Emma snuck two wrapped gifts out of the cabinet before walking over to sit next to Chris and Duke on the couch.
"You too?" Chris asks amused as Emma offers the gifts. a rather thin flat one and a small square box with a card.
"They're nothing too special," Emma says in return. "Though speaking of the whole gift thing. We still need to talk to Rose."
"Right... I would have brought it up earlier, but we haven't really agreed on what to say," Chris points on and Emma nods.
"Right. no, that makes sense. We'll work over what to say." She agrees, this was something they kinda needed to make a plan for
"I only have a week..." Chris says in return with a slight frown.
"We'll figure something out," Emma replies in return.
he nods before looking over the two. "Over the weekend... Is there an order I need to open this in?"
"The flat one is from me and the small box and card are from the parasite," Emma explains with an amused smile.
Chris rolled his eyes a bit at that but was smiling all the same "let's start with this then," he says as he opens the flat package. inside was a book of sheet music for guitars. He stared at the book unsure how to react. "... I can't read," he eventually says.
"What?" Emma asks surprised. He reads all the time.
"Sheet music," he says while gesturing to the book in his hand. "I never learned how to read sheet music. Never really took classes I just played by ear," Chris explains.
"Oh!" Emma replies surprised which causes Chris to start to laugh. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realize."
"It's fine. suppose I should probably put some effort into figuring that out," He admits
"Well. I think the parasite did a bit better?" She offers with a wincing smile. She'd have to remember that going forward. maybe some sheet music flashcards?
Chris opens and reads the card that was designed to look like it was drawn by a child. 'I'm excited to meet you' it read inside and Emma added a little note. that read 'for future fun'. Chris raised an eyebrow at that before opening the gift to find a baseball inside a neat little box.
"You think I'll end up having time to play catch with him?" Chris asks more so curious about her optimism considering how busy his schedule has been.
"Or her," Emma adds.
"but most likely him," Chris says in return.
"Oh so you know?" Emma asks amused.
Chris paused to assess if that was a warning in disguise before deeming it safe to joke around. "What can I say, it's a man's intuition."
"Yeah well Jack's intuition was wrong three times in a row," Emma points out while laughing now as well.
"Well, we'll be finding out soon anyways right?" Chris asks.
"True, Do you know when you'll be back again?" Emma asks in return.
"No idea... they're keeping this one under lock and key, Whatever was in that book, it made the BSAA nervous," Chris says quietly.
that was never a good thing. Emma tried to force a neutral expression "I'll see if I get something over the weekend. maybe they have a cancelation?"
Emma is [22] weeks pregnant.
Some cuteness, some sads and a bit of anxiety mixed with growing pains. This was such a fun chapter to write =v= hopefully you guys like it too.