Grumpy. That was the word to describe me this morning, grumpy as everyone that I had passed had felt the wrath of my grumpiness, and if I was feeling better, I might have pitied them. The mood was caused by many things that had happened to me, so my bad attitude definitely felt justified considering everything I had been through. Firstly, I tried to go to bed early last night but as soon as my head hit the pillow, the baby woke up and started kicking like he was in the Rockettes and wasn't giving me a moment of peace. After a while of finally getting used to the movement and pain, being overly tired, I was able to slowly drift off, only to wake up minutes later. Wherever he had settled inside of me was pushing on my bladder and then I was running – well moping – to the bathroom. It wasn't just the once though, the pressure remained so every time I thought I was done, I felt like I was going to wet myself and I had to get up again to use the toilet.

After getting the bare minimum sleep and almost destroying my phone every time the alarm went off, I managed to drag myself out of bed, desperately needing coffee. There wasn't any. How had I not noticed that I didn't have any coffee or even noticed that I was running out? This pregnancy was getting worse and worse. Michelle had told me about pregnancy brain, but I thought it was just her excuse to be a bit ditsy but now I was convinced it was true, I couldn't even have tea as I had put the milk in the cupboard with the tea bags and I refuse to drink it black. Not only was I sleep-deprived, lacking caffeine but now I was wanting to cry over my milk going off.

"Carla… Are you alright?"

"What?"

I looked up in time to see Peter standing in front of me with a concerned Kirk standing behind him as they both stared at me. When did they get here? Sure, my mind had wandered from work as I contemplated the morning's events, ignoring the work I had to do as nothing was going right and it was only adding to my bad mood.

"Yes, why?"

"You're crying…"

I was? Shit. I quickly lifted my hands and wiped the wetness off my face and the only thing I could connect it to was me remembering the milk. This was getting out of hand.

"I'm fine. What do you want?"

It came out as a snap and I didn't have it in me to apologise or feel bad for the overreaction, I had been through too much right now to be nice. Kirk flinched at my tone and attitude, whereas Peter just let it go, he was used to my temper, and it didn't faze him any longer, this was nothing considering what he had seen of me.

"You wanted me to get Kirk remember…?"

I did. Taking a quick look at my screen, gave me all the answers I needed as it was about ordering packing supplies, he was good at his inventory. Shaking it off, I glared at Peter for assuming that I had forgotten, even if I technically had.

"Yes, I know, right Kirk, let's go through what you need."

I had only been at work for a few hours until I had had enough, I felt tired and frustrated, restless, and fed up all at once. My hand dived into my bottom file drawer to retrieve a snack, something to try and distract me, maybe even lift my mood. Once upon a time, this used to be where I hid my secret alcohol stash, now it contained chocolates bars and packets of crisps. With how many late nights I had spent here, and the unpredictable cravings that would take over at random times of the day, having a snack drawer saved time and energy. Just as my hand settled on a bag of crisps, my eyes caught sight of Alya, and Peter huddled together just outside the office, and it made my blood boil.

Peter and Alya had been there, all the time, there was never an escape from their flirting or giggling, it was thrown in my face every second of the day. It wasn't like I was jealous; I wasn't, it was that if he was interested in dating someone else, did it have to be someone so close to me? I have been practically grooming her to be a businesswoman like me and now he was going after her. Even if she wasn't working for me, she was still so young, a similar age to Tina, and that was a terrible experience for all involved. Did he not learn from his past mistakes? Also, could he not see that I was miserable? I didn't want to see anyone happy right now, that may be selfish, but I don't care.

Instead of doing what I wanted, which was to shout at everyone and make them all feel as horrible as I was feeling, I dug in angrily to the crisps. No longer working, I was mindlessly scrolling baby websites and stumbled on onesies that could be engraved and my mind was somewhere else. What would be his name? I had dated and slept with enough men for their names to not be suitable, I don't have a dad to honour, and my brother is a murderer. The closest male figure I had was Roy, but I couldn't imagine naming my son Roy, he could be honoured some other way. I guess the closest male figure in my son's life was Peter, I wouldn't call him Peter though, that would be weird, he was the dad.

"Car?"

"Hmm…"

"You might want to pay attention, you aren't eating anything."

"What?"

I looked down and he was right, I was so tired and wrapped up in my own thoughts that I had already eaten my crisps and was now just moving my hand due to muscle memory. It was embarrassing but I felt too frustrated to care, I glared at him and went back to actually working, typing as hard as possible being aggressive to make sure he got the message.

There was a slight chuckle from him in response and instead of giving him the reaction he wanted, I typed even harder, trying to break my keyboard with my force. My eyelids were heavy, and I desperately wanted to go home and take a nap, but I refused to show anyone my weakness, it wasn't for them to see. My anger was fuelling my energy to stay awake and work, I'm not even completely sure why I was angry, I just knew that I was. Alya was back and luckily, she read the room, understood the atmosphere, and stayed quiet, no one daring to say a word until lunch.

"Mrs. Connor, I'm just going for my lunch, did you need anything."

"No Alya, I'm fine."

She shuffled out of the door to get away from me as I snapped at her, Peter looked at me like he was tempted to say something, he was working up the courage. He didn't say what he wanted to in time, he was stopped as Michelle walked in carrying sandwiches from Roy's. Not saying anything, I just raised an eyebrow at her sudden appearance waiting for her to explain herself.

"I thought you could do with some lunch, and we could do with a catch-up."

Once that was said, she stared at Peter, waiting for him to leave as he was clearly not included, and it was actually pretty funny that he was being kicked out of his own office. He got up but before he left, mouthed to Michelle 'Good Luck' which had me scowling at him again, he ignored me and carried on leaving. Michelle sat in his abandoned seat and waited for me to speak, she could read me like a book and could tell something was off.

"What?"

"Come on…"

"Nothing… I'm just tired, I couldn't sleep last night, and everyone is so annoying."

"And…"

"And what?"

She was staring at me like she knew exactly what I was thinking, even if I didn't know it myself, she was waiting for more, and what else was there to be said? Her staring was becoming intense, and I felt myself shrinking to her, feeling guilty for no reason and I searched for more of a reason to be in the mood I was currently in.

"What do you expect? He keeps kicking me all night and then when he does fall asleep, it's on my bladder so I am up-all-night peeing. My boobs hurt, how long are they going to ache like this? I feel like I'm waddling everywhere, and I couldn't even wear my boots today as my feet are swollen. Pregnancy sucks, I deserve to be moody at least once a week."

"Once a week?"

"Hey."

Michelle was mocking me and implying that I was grumpy more often than not, but her insulting joke effectively lifted the mood, and I was grateful. Confessing most of my misery actually lifted such a huge weight off of my shoulders and I couldn't help but love her even more. Sadly though, I know the moment she leaves the happiness and lightness probably will too. We were smiling at each other, and she finally slid over the brown bag of food towards me as I eagerly dug into the food feeling like I hadn't eaten in years.

"And this mood is just about you hating being pregnant and all the symptoms to go along with it, nothing to do with Peter?"

"Peter?"

That was unattractive, the look Michelle gave me proved that she saw me drop a chunk of bread out of my mouth as I spoke my ex-husband's name. I couldn't help it; she had confused me by even mentioning him and it made me react quickly without thinking. My eyes were trained on the bread on my desk and although a part of me considering just putting it back in my mouth, I decided to act like a normal human being and just drop it in the bin.

"Yes, Peter. From what I heard on my way over, you have been giving him the hardest time, I'm just wondering if something happened."

Where had she heard that? Had I really been harsher to Peter than anyone else? Maybe. He was annoying me the most I guess because I shared an office with him, so I heard him the most. Maybe.

"He's just in the office with me a lot, I hear him all the time, don't I? His stupid laugh at jokes that aren't even funny, Alya is smart but not funny. He is always talking, like can't he shut up? I would fire him if I could but then Simon would come begging and Peter would probably be mad that I fired him for talking too much. He keeps bringing me tea as well, without even asking, it can get on your nerves."

Wow, I really was in a foul mood today and it was taking no prisoners. Everything Peter had been doing today, just living his life was annoying the crap out of me and I could see it was petty, didn't stop me though. If this was all due to my pregnancy, my little boy was filled with an enormous amount of anger, just like his mom, I guess.

"You don't like hearing his voice, but you mainly don't like that he is laughing at Alya's laugh?"

What? Did I say that? Damn it.

"No, I just meant that he keeps laughing and I don't want to hear it, it annoys me even more than they aren't funny."

"You don't like that he is laughing at another woman's jokes? Don't tell me you are jealous."

"What? No. As if I would go there… again."

I did sleep with him and get pregnant.

"Good, not after what he put you through, don't you forget that."

"Yes, Miss."

We spent the next few minutes eating lunch, but I knew her eyes were on me, watching me, waiting for me to slip up and confirm her theory. I wasn't jealous though, I know I wasn't, it just felt weird that he was doing it right under my nose with Alya, it didn't sit right with me. If they did date and get serious, I couldn't see her being a brilliant stepmom at her age and with her mindset, so I was looking out for my baby as well. Jealous? Why would I be jealous? It was Peter, we always put each other through hell and destroyed one another, now there was a baby involved, we couldn't do that anymore. After our divorce and everything that caused it, I couldn't, I wouldn't do that to Michelle, she would kill me as she held on to so much anger from that time.

"Sorry, I'm not interrupting, am I?"

Peter popped his head around the door of the office looking awkward and I realised that a substantial amount of time had passed during our silence. Michelle gave him a tight smile and stood up, deliberately wiping off any crumbs onto his desk.

"No, I should get going. Are we still good to go shopping on Saturday for baby and more maternity clothes?"

Saturday? What day were we on right now? Thursday. Yes.

"Yeah, I need to, I'll text you."

"Ok, love ya"

"Love you too."

She didn't even bother to say goodbye to Peter, and I couldn't help but feel a little bad for him, even if I would do the same if I was in her position if he had hurt her as he had hurt me.

Two hours later, half an hour till clocking out time for the factory, I got up and went to retrieve a file from the cabinet, then my mind was taken over by the fact that I needed to reorganise it. Then there were files beginning to pile up over my desk and falling to the floor as I emptied the entire thing just to fulfil this desire.

"Car… what are you doing?"

"Reorganising."

"Ok… why are you re – "

"Because it needs to be done!"

That got him to shut up. My project had begun, and it felt good as I looked at the empty filing cabinet until I looked at the mess I had created and realised what a mess I had caused. This was ridiculous. Forty-five minutes in and I had barely made a dent and I was regretting ever going to retrieve the file that had caused this madness. The machinists had left but Peter and Alya hadn't, I could feel them desperate to go, probably for a date, but they were too nervous to go.

"You can clock out, I am fine."

"Alya, why don't you get going, I'm going to help with the reorganisation."

"You don't need to – "

"Bye Alya."

The young girl scurried out of the door probably regretting the fact that she came into work today, scared that my mood was going to be turned onto her. Peter approached me but I didn't look, not wanting to give him the time of day, even if I needed help, I didn't want it as then I hadn't reorganised. How would I know if he had done it how I wanted?

"So… what's been up with you today?"

How dare he? Does he not realise that he had been annoying? It was not all in my head, at least I hoped not. Not wanting to admit that I may have partially been in a mood to him, I tried to turn the focus onto him.

"Why are you even here? Shouldn't you be on your date?"

"Date? What date?"

Were we really going to walk around in circles? this was ridiculous. I grabbed – well snatched the file out of his hand as I needed it next and put it in the drawer, just over half of the cabinet was full and it convinced me that I wasn't as far behind as I had thought, it just looked like a lot more on the floor.

"With Alya, the girl you keep flirting with and giggling with her all the time…"

"Alya, really? I'm not even interested in the girl like that."

Lies.

"Come on Peter, I'm not an idiot. You are always laughing with her, going to the pub one on one with her, I've seen you."

"What?... Oh, yeah we go to the pub because I am helping her."

"Helping her?"

"Yes, when you were out, she asked to help guide her, I think it's to impress you, so you think she knows everything. We got close because we talk a lot, giving her advice and pointers, we became friends, it's nice. That's it, just friends."

That was such a simple answer, I hated that it sounded so sincere, and it made me sound crazy and jealous just like Michelle was accusing me off. I also hated that stupid smug smirk he was sending me. Not giving up, I threw my last reasoning trying to prove him wrong.

"No, you asked me how Nick won me over, asking for dating advice, if it's not for Alya then who is it for?"

"You, you idiot."

What.

"What?"

He looked shy now but was still smiling as he worked, stacking the files back where was fairly sure they already were.

"Nick won over this new version of you, and I guess I wanted advice so I could do the same. As if I would need actual dating advice from Nick of all people. I know you need to focus on our baby and being healthy, that doesn't mean I can't win your heart slowly."

"Let's just finish this."

Not everything is bad... a few answers were given in this chapter which I hope you enjoyed. Thank you for all the reviews and to just clear things up, time goes by between these chapters so the pregnancy is moving along.