A/N: Thank you very much everybody who read the story and especially thanks for the nice reviews! Reviews make me smile and happy :)
Disclaimer: Again, nothing is mine and allcharacters were made up byother poeple,except for Lailie.
Later that night everybody is curled up in front of the living room fireplace. Lailie is asleep in her night gown, her back resting against my upper body. The book I read to her, the good night story that wasn't even over before she had fallen asleep, has fallen between the blankets and pillows. Rory gets up from leaning against my left shoulder and walks towards the big and colorful Christmas tree that is standing between the grand piano and the fireplace. Underneath its heavy branches there's quite an amount of artistically wrapped boxes, from tiny to big.
"Don't you dare trying to figure out what I got you!" I tell her with a determined whisper. "Besides… It isn't there anyhow."
"Mean…" I love pouting Rory.
"So…" I whisper still while I pick up my Pixie to take her upstairs. Rory is trailing behind me, picking up some toys on the way upstairs, placing them on the shelves in the playroom.
"I heard from a quite anonymous but also bubbly source that you bought me something, and I quote, 'cute and soft' for Christmas. Should I be worried? But again, you know, small key chain teddy bears are the latest fashion in the CEO world."
Again that 'I-know-something-you-don't' smirk mixed with some silent laughter.
"I sense my lovely wife is having a lot of fun with this one. Plus she's being extremely secretive about it. Hm… I might as well think… Nah."
"What? What might you as well think?"
"Nothing, my dear, nothing…"
Ah, got her! She's looking unsure, biting her lip, wondering what I'm up to while she's being Mrs. Secret.
We've reached Lailie's door.
"Come on Mister, I'll take from here." Holding out her hands for me to hand over the sleeping beauty, but she waits for me to give the beauty a good night kiss. I tell her I can handle it and sighing, she kisses Lailie's forehead and leaves towards our bedroom.
She moves a little when I put her down on the canopy bed and cover her up with several layers of bedding. I find Mr. Bear, who is actually a yellowish bunny, hiding underneath the bed skirt, put him in her arms and tuck him in as well. She snuggles into his soft fur and smiles. Quite like her mother this one, she likes everything that is soft and cuddly. I gently wipe a few stray hairs off her forehead and place a kiss just above her right eyebrow.
"Daddy…" I hear her whisper, "please stay."
Knowing it won't be long until she's back in dreamland, I pull the ottoman nearer and sit by her side, caressing her cheek with my fingertips.
How did I ever get this lucky? Why did I deserve this wonderful life? I've done so much wrong, made so many mistakes, hurt so many people. Still, I got the two most precious things in the entire world. I'm so scared that I might lose them over some idiotic mistake I could make. Again I think about the what ifs… What if Finn and Colin had never talked any sense into me when I thought the relationship Rory and I had had been completely lost. What if she had been only a little firmer in her rejection? What if things had been even harder than they already were? What if Lailie had never happened?
I could kick myself today for thinking once, and only one time, a long, long time ago that she was an 'accident'. Right after Rory had told me. God no, she wasn't and isn't. It wasn't the greatest timing and we could've had a lot less trouble with our families, but God, no, she was no accident.
From the first time I saw her little heart beating on the ultrasound I was completely in love with her.
My two girls are the most important thing in the world to me. They were definitely worth fighting the great big wolf…
A warm hand runs over my neck and sneaks around my shoulder.
"Hi there." She whispers snuggling against my neck. "Thought you might have fallen asleep…"
I turn my head and run a hand over my eyes.
"Nah, just thinking." Getting up I take her hand and pull her up as well, she starts pulling me out of the room, aiming for our bedroom.
As I close the double doors behind me, it's her who softly forces me to stay in place and it's her who initiates some tender kisses. I notice that she lit a fire in the bedroom fireplace. As the kisses get more passionate and I manage to push her a little towards the bed, she pulls away.
She laughs when she sees me pouting.
"Oh, poor baby…" She strokes my head as if I were a 5-year-old whose ice cream just fell in the dirt.
Sitting down on the loveseat in front on the fireplace she motions for me to sit next to her and I comply.
Fiddling with her pajama pants drawstrings she looks at me quite nervously.
"Logan, we've got to talk."
I swallow.
"What is it, Ace?"
Calm, buddy, calm! Nothing you should worry about, right? Everything is perfect, right? Right! Should you work less hours? Nah, she hasn't said anything about that for quite some time now. Maybe it's the huge say-it-all-day? No… Right! Maybe she wants to confess the scratch in her new car, yeah, that's probably it. Phew… Nothing to worry about… Right!
She's just about to say something when I can't stand the quietness.
"No problem Ace, no problem at all. Accidents like that happen. Someone is going to get rid of it and all is well! No one will notice and everybody is happy again."
"What! How do you know about this?" she rather spats out. Her eyes are wide and I believe I just saw smoke coming out of her ears.
"The scratch…" I mumble. "The scratch in the car. That's what you wanted to tell me, right?"
"What scratch!" She almost yells and looks confused and I feel even more confused that she looks.
"The one in the BMW, are you not talking about the scratch on your new BMW?"
"No I'm not!" She's still fuming, but less than earlier.
"Ok, sorry." I hold my hands up in defense. After a couple of breath in/breath outs, she looks a little calmer. "So what is it you wanted to tell me?"
"Maybe I shouldn't…" She gets up but I grab her wrist and pull her back down.
"Rory, I'm sorry. I won't interrupt you again. It seems to be important to you, so it will probably be important for me, so please, just say it."
"Logan I can't…"
"Rory!"
"Fine, I… You know, when Lailie was… Well, when I got…" I raise my eyebrows. My Ace has lost her ability to speak. Such a sad world.
Breath in –
"You know, when I got pregnant with Lailie how everything was kind of head over heels. Keeping our families from killing you, me, us, getting engaged, eloping, keeping our families from killing us when they found out about the eloping part…"
All the sudden I get nervous. Is she going to divorce me?
"…finishing Yale, you fighting with your dad, Lailie being born during the hottest week for 50 years, you fighting with your dad again and finally coming to an agreement with him, which I by the way never quite understood, the new job, moving 3 times during the last 6 years… It was a pretty hectic time, right?"
I nod, since she's apparently looking for some kind of confirmation, but I still don't have a clue where this is heading.
"And you know I love you…" Buh-bye divorce anxiety!
"To make this short…" – Yes, please – "I'm pregnant!"
Blank.
Wow.
This woman is driving me nuts, making me question everything I've done for the last 8 years and in the end, she's pregnant!
"Wow, Ace, this is…" I feel how my face lightens up and I must look like a lovesick puppy. And suddenly it hits me. "…Shit!"
"What! Please not again, Logan, please don't!"
She jumps up and runs, I'm not fast enough to catch her wrist this time. So I run after her and captivate her in my arms before she has the chance to run out the door. She kicks and turns and tries to get out.
"Listen, Rory, listen to me!" I see tears running down her cheeks as she stops kicking but still refuses to look at me.
"I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! It's just…"
"What, another accident?" This cuts right were it hurts, I almost let her slip out of my arms.
"No, the most wonderful thing in the world!"
This time she looks at me skeptically. The look softens a little and I let her go. "But why…?"
"It's just… What I said before. I'm sorry about what I said, thinking you were talking about the scratch, about getting rid of it and it being an accident. I finally understand why you got so upset at first! Please, please don't think that I see this as an accident. It's more than I ever hoped for!"
I feel so desperate. I'm about to fall on my knees and beg her for forgiveness.
"Oh Logan… Come here!"
We hug. I still feel crappy about what I said.
"Please never tell my son I said 'Shit' when you told me about him." I mumble into her neck. I feel her chuckle.
"No, I won't… We should just go to bed. It has been a long day." She runs her hands across my chest and suddenly stops.
"How do you know we're having a boy? I'm only 8 weeks along, too early to tell."
"You know, Darling," I say as I move towards the bed, pulling her behind, "a man simply knows!"
Softly chuckling she gets in next to me. I'm happy.