Hey everyone, I'm back with another chapter.
I still own nothing but the plot…and the twins.
Finding a dream home…and the trauma that comes with it
Brett pov
"Dear Diary, it's been two days since Reagan, and I have been searching non-stop for a nice home to raise the twins in because…well Rand got her kicked out of her apartment (though part of that might be my fault) and now we need to be out of it by the end of the week. I would offer my apartment, so we'd have more time to search for a good home but as you know I ended the lease at my own place once I found out Reagan was pregnant with the twins." Brett explained while speaking into his tape recorder, at the time it had seemed like a good idea when he decided to move out so that he could camp out in his car outside of Reagan's apartment. Brett wanted to be close by just in case anything happened, so getting out of his lease and putting his things in storage seemed like a good plan since he had been looking at homes to buy well before he had even started working at Cognito Inc.
It started when he first got into therapy, he would go to open houses, walk around the neighborhoods, and pretend that those places would be where he would raise a family if he were ever lucky enough to start one. This was how he used to cope with his family issues until he started working at Cognito, then he just started using the virtual simulator to live out his fantasy family life. But throughout the years that he had been coping by going to open houses he had met a few realtors, and had been around several neighborhoods that he and Reagan could possibly raise the twins in. But even with this knowledge finding the right house was proving to be more difficult than even Brett could have predicted.
The first obstacle was that they needed to find a home with enough space for the two of them, the twins, an office for Reagan, a gym for Brett, at least two maybe even three bathrooms, and an extra room for guests or another child (though it was mostly Brett who thought about that possibility). Not many places had all the space that Reagan and Brett wanted so a lot of the surrounding areas near DC lead to nowhere. The next issue was the neighborhood itself Brett wanted to be in a neighborhood with neighbors that would live only a few yards away at most, that way he could have people to interact with and maybe meet other couples with children that their twins could grow up playing with. Reagan though wanted a large amount of space between the houses to the point where if she wanted to, she could forget that they were even there. Though isolating her reasoning beyond not wanting to deal with other people made some sense in the contexts of the fact that the two worked for the shadow government and they could not tell any neighbors this, and it's not as if they could engage in any small talk with any potential neighbors about why their house suddenly looked radioactive. (Since Reagan would be free to expand more on home experiments now that she'd have a bigger space to do so) And the last problem of course was that no matter which house they did end up choosing the two would have to be able to move in right away, though Brett had enough money that this would be a non-issue, it still was a big ask for a pair of new buyers.
"I'm still hopeful that the two of us will find the right place, even though we don't have enough time to look at a lot of houses." Brett said into his tape recorder. "There is the option of 'the house' but I don't want to bring Reagan over there just in case she-" Brett's alarm goes off reminding him that it's almost lunch time. "Oh, got to go Diary almost time for lunch which means it's time to be a loving and support boyfriend! Talk to you later!"
Because of the stress of having to find a new house in less than a week the only good part of Brett's day has been having lunch with Reagan. Because his own projects (which mostly centered around building moral) weren't being processed by Rand, he had most of the day to fill out the report needed to be inside of Reagan's office for more than ten minutes. And now that he in Reagan were pretending to be in a 'relationship' he now had excuses to spend more time with Reagan at work again and as a bonus he can now make sure that she's actually eating the lunch that he made for her at lunchtime. On top of that their lunch dates now pissed off Rand, which puts Reagan in a good mood. And considering that Brett knew it was kind of his fault that they now had to find a house in a short amount of time, he was happy to do anything that kept the mother of his children in a good mood.
Brett happily whistled while walking the short distance from his office to Reagan's lab/office. He waved at the few fellow employees he passed by who also were going on their lunch break, though most now had to eat alone in their office spaces because of Rand's new rules, Brett was at least in a high enough position (even though he still wasn't being paid) where he could take his lunch break with Reagan now that they were dating. Plus, again he had all day to fill out Rand's overly complicated meeting forms since he basically didn't do anything else unless he was on a mission, it always seemed to annoy Rand whenever he came back from those missions still very much alive.
"Hey Rea-Sunshine!" Brett exclaims happily after getting through her security system so that he could enter her lab. "I'm here to have lunch!"
"Ah, Brett you and those stupid nicknames." Reagan says scoffing a bit while still not taking her eyes off the new war machine she was building on Rand's orders. "What the hell is even Rea-Shine?"
"Well, Rea-Shine is actually a play on words for 'Ray of Sunshine' only I've cleverly replaced the Ray with Rea from your name Reagan, and I replaced Sunshine with Sunshine! I drop the of because I'm pretty sure it's implied." Brett explains in a cheerful manner. "What nicknames have you come up with to call me?"
"I've decided that your nickname should be…Brett." Reagan states in a deadpanned tone.
"It's not very creative." Brett proclaims as he begins to ponder over this new nickname. "But I guess I don't hate it!"
"Glad you approve then." Reagan said rolling her eyes sarcastically.
"Come on Reagan it's lunchtime, time for you and the twins to eat!" Brett cheerfully reminds her as he walks towards the only table in the lab that isn't as cluttered with files and spare robot parts so that he could pull out a chair for her.
"I swear Brett, you're such a mother hen sometimes." Reagan says with a sigh before setting down her tools and turning away from the machine, knowing that Brett would keep bothering her about eating lunch if she didn't stop.
"I know, I think I'm developing that parental instinct thing that all the parenting books have talked about." Brett exclaims in an excited tone as he walked over to her mini fridge so that he can take out their lunches. "Usually that doesn't happen until after the baby is born!"
"Well, has your parental instinct helped you find a house for us to move into yet?" Reagan asked as she sat down on the chair he pulled out.
"Well, I saw three decent looking houses up for sale on the website today." Brett began to explain, as he set down her lunch in front of her. "We can look at them after we leave Cognito for the day?"
"Yeah, I guess we're gonna have to." Reagan says with a huff. "Ah, I'm just so sick and tired of having to spend so much time after work looking at houses!"
"I know Reagan." Brett said patting her hand sympathetically. "Just think of it as us getting one step closer to finding our dream home!"
"You know I don't believe in 'dream houses' Brett!" Reagan proclaimed groaning in frustration. "I just want to find a decent house to move into so that this stupid fucking searching can be over with!"
"Language Reagan!" Brett scolded as they both sat down to eat. "We wouldn't want our little ones to start repeating these bad words."
"For the last time Brett! The twins can't hear us yet!" Reagan very nearly yelled. "I've only recently even entered the third month of pregnancy for fucks sake! And even when they develop their ability to hear things it will be at least a year before they start understanding anything!"
"But what if the twins understand words earlier than other babies?" Brett countered back forcefully. "After all your dad is a genius, you're a genius what if the twins turn out to be…baby geniuses?!"
"Well, then I'll be sure to call up MIT and make sure that they have two spots ready for them." Reagan said sarcastically rolling her eyes at him.
"But I'd really like it if at least one of the twins goes to Yale like I did?" Brett tries to plea. "I always imaged my children going to Yale and having as much of a good time as I did. They could join all the Frats that I did and-"
"Are you sure you'd want them to join your Frats?" Reagan asked looking at him in disbelief. "After all, didn't it turn out that those guys were jerks who never liked you? And came up with borderline sexually traumatic pranks to humiliate you?"
"True, but I didn't find out about that until like almost ten years later sooo-" Brett proclaims with a shrug.
"So how about we focus on making sure that the twins have a place to grow up in first." Reagan interrupts. "After all college is like maybe thirteen years away…fourteen if we put them in daycare instead of kindergarten first."
"Right." Brett said nodding in agreement.
Two days later
Brett was really starting to feel the pressure right about now, in the past four days he and Reagan had looked at a total number of fifteen houses. And yet they still hadn't found the right one, a lot of them just didn't have enough space for his growing family. And the houses that did have enough space would make the commute to work almost impossible. Not to mention that many of the houses couldn't be moved into right away which made things even more difficult for the soon to be parents. To say it has been a stressful week after having to look at house after house and come back to an apartment where you'd have to pack up to move to a still unknown location would be an understatement.
On top of that the selection of houses the two were able to visit was very limited because Rand refused to give them time off work. Apparently, their poor planning shouldn't mean that they have a right to slack on their jobs according to Rand. Which was pretty ironic considering that the only reason they were in this mess was because of Rand and the fact that Brett could be excused from work without any issue(he currently wasn't doing much), but Rand was insisting that he needed to be in his office for his shift regardless of the fact that Brett already spent most of his time searching for house while at his desk(because again his own suggests at work weren't being taken seriously).
It wasn't easy but Brett was finally able to find something that he at least hoped that he and Reagan could settle for. It wasn't by any means 'the house' but it was a decent three bedroom, two bathrooms, a basement, and a driveway Bungalow style house. It was in a good school district, the commute to work would be okay and best of all they would be able to move in right away. It didn't have everything they were both hoping for, but it was still pretty good, and again they were running out of time.
"So, what do you think of this place Rea-Shine?" Brett asked in a cheerful but exhausted tone. "It doesn't have everything we wanted but-"
"But we're out of options and this is the only house left that we have to choose from." Reagan said in a tired voice, the realtor had given them space so that they could discuss their options…or in their case the lack of anymore options. "Fuck it, I'm tired of looking at houses and after this I've got to pack some more stuff so that I can move out of the apartment, I might as well finally have some fucking place to move to!"
"Great, I'll go tell the realtor that we'll take it." Brett sure hoped he at least sounded more excited than he actually felt, maybe he was just really tired right now and tomorrow he'll feel differently when he starts moving in. "My partner and I have decided to make an offer on this house." Brett states as the two walk back over to the realtor.
"Great!" The realtor who's name that Brett pretty sure was Jeff Smith or something, exclaims with a cheerful smile. "I'm sure you'll fall in love with this place as soon as your start moving in, and it's a great area to raise your kids in, I'm sure they're going to love going to Mr. Peanut butter's Park all the neighborhood kids love to play there and it's only a ten-minute walk from here and-"
"Did you just say Mr. Peanut butter's Park?!" Reagan interrupts her eyes narrowed intensely at the realtor.
"Yes, Mr. Peanut butter's Park is very popular around here and has been around for over forty years and-" Jeff began to explain, when Reagan suddenly ran out of the house. "And was recently renovated."
"I'm sorry, I have no idea what's gotten into her?" Brett says with a shrug and a nervous chuckle. "I'm sure that after we've talked, we can continue with buying-"
"We're not buying this fucking house!" Reagan proclaims with a shout she ran back in, and Brett noticed how out of breath she suddenly was.
"Reagan?! You look exhausted why are you so out of breath?" Brett asked in a panicked tone, he cursed the fact that there wasn't any furniture around so that Reagan could sit down. "Did something happen are you alright…fuck the twins how are they?!"
"We need to get out of here!" Reagan stated in a panic tone while trying to pull him out of the house. "We're not buying this fucking house or living anywhere near this shitty neighborhood!"
"Reagan?! What's gotten into you?" Brett questioned in disbelief as she dragged him out the door. "You were okay with this place just five minutes ago?"
"This kind of thing can happen with a lot of first-time buyers." Jeff tries to reason while nervously following after the two. "The buying process can sometimes be a bit overwhelming and if you need to take your time you should do so. However, I should warn you that we have a lot of interested buyers and-"
"You're not going to convince us to pay for this shitty fucking house!" Reagan angrily shouted at the realtor.
"Reagan?!" Brett shouted back while staring at her in disbelief. "I thought we agreed that-"
"Well, I changed my mind!" Reagan says forcefully interrupting Brett as she marched towards the car.
"Really, if you just need a little bit more time I can understand!" Jeff tries to reason again. "The home buying experience can be a long draining process where-"
"What part of 'I'm not buying this shitty fucking house' do you not understand?!" Reagan shouted causing some people nearby to turn their attention on the group. "God why did we have to get stuck with such a braindead realtor!" She leaves Jeff the realtor in a state of shock as she enters the car, it was a good thing that Brett had been driving or else she might have left without him.
The car ride back to Reagan's apartment was very quiet, Brett hadn't even bothered to try to play music to cut through the silence. He just drove while wondering what went wrong everything seemed to be fine…so why did Reagan snap like she did? Sure, the house didn't have everything they wanted but they had agreed that it was decent? And now they were back to square one, driving to an apartment that they would have to be moved out of by the weekend. This had been their last chance, they both knew that there were no more options after this one and though Brett was usually pretty good at giving Reagan her space when she needed it, he still couldn't help but to ask, "Why?" He says finally breaking the dead silence.
"Why what?" Reagan responds in a huff tiptoeing around the subject.
"You know what Reagan!" Brett exclaims in a tired sigh. "We both know that we're tired! We both know that we don't have many more days to keep looking! We both know that was our last fucking option!" Brett rarely ever cured so whenever he did you know it was over something very serious. "The least you could do Reagan is to try to explain why! Why did you suddenly change your mind? I know the place wasn't perfect but as soon as the realtor mentioned that Mr. Cashew's Park-"
"Peanut butter." Reagan corrects interrupting him mid-sentence. "It's Mr. Peanut butter's fucking Park!" Reagan sighed while covering her face with her hands. "I never thought I'd ever be anywhere near this god forsaken neighborhood again. Maybe if it had been daytime, I would have realized where we were going on the way over to that house."
"Ah Reagan I know that you don't like talking about your feelings-" Brett begins to say before pausing for a moment to think about Reagan's words. "Wait have you been here before?" He finally asked.
"More than been here." Reagan said sarcastically before sighing again. "I used to live not to far away from here. Where that house was is maybe two or three streets away from where I 'grew up' if you can even call it that."
"So, when you heard about Mr. Peanut butter's Park." Brett cautiously brings up as he continued driving down the road.
"I knew it couldn't have been a coincidence." Reagan admits in a deadpanned tone. "God I must have looked like a crazed woman running to that park and running back to the house shouting and cursing and…fuck I completely screwed us over, didn't I?"
"What?! No, it's fine!" Brett says calmly backtracking while trying to keep Reagan from panicking once more.
"Come on Brett, I've completely screwed us all because I couldn't just get over the fact that I would have to live anywhere near my childhood home! What's wrong with me I haven't even been there since I went off to MIT?!" Reagan groans as the weight of everything finally hits her and her eyes begin to tear up. "I basically went on a rampage! I cursed at the realtor and in front of the whole street and it was…it was our last option; the twins won't have a place to grow up because of me!"
"It's okay Reagan." Brett said while putting a hand on her shoulder as she began to cry. "The twins won't be here for another six months and-"
"And I'm being kicked out the apartment this weekend!" Reagan interrupts as tears continue to fall. "They're not even born yet, and I can't provide a roof over their heads, because I was so afraid that living anywhere near my old neighborhood would make me become like my parents!"
"Come on Reagan, you have to know that you wouldn't treat our twins like your parents did!" At this point Brett had pulled the car aside knowing that he had to focus on comforting Reagan. "Even if we had ended up living around the same neighborhood!" He pulled her into a hug as best as he could from where he was seated. "We're a team Reagan, together we'll be great parents no matter where we raise our kids."
"Maybe." Reagan says still sniffling a bit. "But we still need to find a house and we're out of options."
"No, we're not out of options." Brett says in a serious tone before starting up the car again. "There is still one more house that we have to see."
"Brett, what are you talking about?" Reagan asked in confusion as Brett started driving in a different direction, that was clearly not going to be anywhere near her apartment. "We've looked at every house on our listing that would let us move in right away."
"Reagan, I promise I'll explain when we get there just…just let me show you this last place." Brett quickly explains as drove towards the new destination.
Brett never thought he would ever show another person 'the house' even a member of the gang, 'the house' was one of the few things that he kept very private. It wasn't as if he was ashamed or anything it was just that 'the house' was his place of refuge for years before he started working at Cognito. It was meant to be the place of dreams where he could image having the life, he sometimes didn't think he could have. So, to say that Brett was very nervous as he pulled into the driveway of the large two-story American Craftsman style house would again be an understatement.
"This is it." Brett states in a nervous but excited tone as he opened the car door.
"Whoa." Was the only thing that Reagan could manage as she stood next to him speechless, the house was impressive even from looking outside in the dark Reagan had no doubt that this house would have more than enough space for herself, Brett, and the twins. The front yard was rather large, and she could image all the hours it would take to maintain even just the lawn.
"Come on let me show you inside." Brett said still in his excited tone.
"How are we going to get in without a realtor?" Reagan asked as he began to lead her to the front door noticing that all the lights were off inside the house. "We didn't have a chance to tell anyone that we wanted to see it?!"
"It's fine, I have my own key!" Brett explained happily as he unlocked the door.
"Why do you have a key?" Reagan asked in confusion.
"Come on let me show you around." Brett says redirecting her question as he pulled her along.
For the next thirty minutes Brett dragged Reagan from room to room showing her everything the house had to offer. And just as she had assumed the house had the perfect amount of space for them, four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a linin closet upstairs. Another staircase that leads up to a very spacious fully ventilated attic. A living room, dining room, office space and a large kitchen that leads down a basement and a connecting garage! It even had a large backyard that according to Brett could fit a decent size pool and a hot tub. This place had everything they would need to raise the twins and then some.
"Brett! This place is amazing how did you find it?" Reagan asked him with a mixer of disbelief and suspension.
"I found this place about five years ago when I first moved to D.C." Brett explained with a sheepish shrug. "See before I started working at Cognito, I used to go to a lot of open houses as a way to deal with my family issues."
"Why open houses?" Reagan asked not completely free of judgment, though it was clear that she was curious.
"Because I could go to them and pretend." Brett said with a bit of a sad sigh. "I didn't have access to the virtual simulator like I do now, before I would go to at least one open house every other day after I was done with being a personal trainer for the day. I'd pretend that I had a family and that we were looking for a house…I'd walk around the neighborhoods and visit local parks and stores and…just pretend. Of all the houses though this one became my favorite." Brett admits. "The main realtor for this listing Stephanie eventually figured out what I was doing and because it's been on the market for so long eventually, she let me have my own key so that I could visit anytime I wanted to as long as no one bought the house."
"Well, that explains why you're able to let yourself in." Reagan states shaking her head a bit at him. "But why didn't you just show me this house from the start! We wouldn't have had to waste all that time looking and stressing over where we were gonna raise the twins!"
"Because…because this place isn't just a house to me Reagan it's 'the house' my dream house!" Brett began to explain. "And I know that you don't believe in 'dream houses' but that's what this place has meant to me for years…a dream and if I took you here and you hated it-"
"Then the dream would be over." Reagan states finishing his sentence for him. "It wouldn't really end if you moved into a different fucking house or if someone else had bought it, as long as you never brought it up it would always be your dream house."
"Exactly!" Brett exclaimed happily, sometimes he tends to forget that Reagan understood him almost as much as his therapist did.
"Well, lucky for you Brett your dream is finally gonna come true." Reagan said mustering up a small smile. "I think we should buy this house."
"Really?!" Brett asked in an enthusiastic tone. "You want to buy this house?!"
"It's perfect, has all the space we need inside and it's far enough away from any possible nosy neighbors." Reagan reassures. "Plus, we don't really have any more options soo-"
"Reagan are you sure?" Brett asked again in a serious tone. "I mean really sure. Because if you don't like or want this house for any reason-"
"Brett." Reagan says in a forceful tone as she interrupts him. "I'm fucking tired and unless you have a secret even better (and you know I hate using this term) dream house then we're buying this house…well actually you're buying this house since you're the one with the huge trust fund that allows you to afford to live in a city like D.C. without having a paying job."
"Oh Reagan, thank you so much!" Brett squeals throwing his arms around her and squeezing her into a huge hug he lifted her up a bit and spun her around. "And don't worry your name will be on the title too!"
"Of course, the twins and I have to inherit something after your untimely death." Reagan joked while chuckling nervously, she was still sometimes a bit uncomfortable with the whole hugging thing.
"Seriously though thank you." Brett states finally setting her back down though his arms were still around her.
"No problem." Reagan says evenly. "What are BFF's for right?"
"Yeah." Brett says with a happy sigh, he leaned in to give her a peck on the cheek, but she moved her face at that exact moment and his lips met her lips instead. Brett wasn't sure if it was because of the shock of accidently kissing her on the lips instead of only briefly peck her cheek but the two were locked in a kiss for almost thirty seconds before either thought of pulling away. "Oh sorry-" He begins to apologize his face turning red.
"Sorry!" Reagan says at the same time her face turning a bit red herself as she backed away as far as she could while still being in his arms.
"Oh, ah sorry!" Brett said sheepishly releasing her once he realized his arms were still around her, he wasn't sure if his face could become any redder. "That was an accident!"
"Yeah, I know not a big deal." Reagan says in a nervous chuckle as she backed away a little bit more. "We've done worse anyway."
"Right, that's why you're pregnant with twins." Brett adds on, now his face felt as if it was on fire. "My twins."
"Yep, the twins…who are why we need to buy this house." Reagan reminds him hoping to redirect their conversation.
"Right…I should call the realtor for this listing…get started on the paperwork and moving in." Brett stutters as walked backwards to another room so that he could call Stephanie. "So, I'm gonna make that call!"
"Great…I'll look at the backyard again." Reagan proclaims before nearly running in the other direction.
A few minutes later after he was sure Reagan was looking at the backyard (never mind the fact that it was nighttime, and she wouldn't be able to see much) Brett dialed Stephanie's number he needed the distraction of finally buying his dream house and get his mind of the awkward accidently kiss…and get his mind off of wondering if it was just his imagination that Reagan had kissed him back.
A/N and that is the end of this chapter! You might be wondering if the ending had to be as awkward as it was and the answer is it didn't…but I wrote it like that anyway!
