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Chappie #9 – Lunch Says It All
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Vaughn had his hand entwined with mine the entire ride home. We were both silent, obviously deep in thought over what this meant. This meant that we were going to have a family a lot sooner than expected. I would most likely have to retire from being a field agent so I could stay home with my baby. Wait, our baby. This is our baby. It's going to be me, Vaughn, and this little baby. Of course, it wouldn't be a baby forever. This baby would grow up to be a mama's boy or a daddy's girl. This baby would take care of us when we couldn't care for ourselves anymore. This baby will cover the refrigerator with colouring book pictures, drawings of our family, spelling tests, and report cards. This baby will be in the pictures we show to everyone we meet. This baby is half me and half Vaughn. This baby is more than I could ever dream of. For 5 long years, I've wanted this whole thing, and now I was finally getting it all at once. It was almost too much to take.

"Vaughn?" I said, snapping out of my reverie.

"What?" he asked.

"Do you think it's a boy or a girl?"

"I think it's a little too early to be taking bets on that." He replied.

"I know, but if you could pick, would you want it to be a boy or a girl?" I asked.

"Every man says he wants a boy to carry on his family legacy, but I actually hope it's a girl. I've always wanted a little princess to love and spoil rotten." He said with a smile.

"What about me?" I asked with mock disappointment.

"You're my beautiful queen that I get to love and spoil for the rest of my life." He said. I lay my head on his shoulder and sighed contentedly.

That night, I awoke to my stomach doing flip-flops. I carefully slid out of Vaughn's arms so I didn't wake him, and I ran to the toilet for the 11th day in a row; Or was it the 12th? I'd lost count by then. As always, Vaughn was by my side by the time I finished the first two bows to the porcelain gods. I always felt guilty for waking him with my morning sickness, but he never seemed to mind. He always sat by my side, holding my hair back and offering me a damp washtowel to wipe my face with. No matter how bad my mood swings were, he still took me in his arms, kissed my forehead, and told me everything would be alright. It comforted me to know that no matter what happened, I would have the next 9 months with him always by my side.

After about 2 weeks of knowing about my expectancy, I couldn't hold in my excitement. I was already starting to show a little, and there was no way in the world I could keep it to myself. I saw Carrie one day at work and couldn't resist.

"Carrie, you won't believe the wonderful news I have!" I said.

"Ohmygosh, you're not!" she replied.

"I am!" I said excitedly.

"We must talk about this over lunch. Meet me here at 12:30." She said.

"Of course." I said.

I loved being able to talk to Carrie about this stuff. We'd been best friends since high school, and I knew that if there was no one else in the world I could trust, I could still trust Carrie. She was the first one I told about my engagement, and she was the first person to sit around my apartment with me and share girly talk with me about Vaughn when I first fell for him.

Right at that moment, my dad rounded the corner. I gulped.

"Hello Sydney." He said.

"Hey Dad. What's up?" I asked innocently.

"Nothing." He said, looking at me oddly.

"If it's nothing then why are you looking at me like I have toilet paper stuck to my shoe?" I asked.

"It's really nothing. I just thought you looked like you'd gained a little bit of weight." He replied, still eyeing me suspiciously.

"Oh yeah. I've been skipping my morning runs lately. With all this wedding stuff, it just adds more stress to have to worry about going running at 6:00am. In fact, I barely have time to do my afternoon runs." I said.

"Okay then. It just worried me." He said.

"Don't be worried. I'm fine. I'm getting married in a little over a month and life couldn't be better." I replied.

"Alright. Well, I've got a lot of work ahead of me, so I should get back to that." He said.

"Of course. I'll see you later." I said, smiling. He gave his trademark half-smirk and walked back to his office. Not even a minute later, I felt the strong arms of my fiancée slide around my waist.

"Morning Mr. Vaughn." I said.

"Good morning my beautiful soon-to-be Mrs. Vaughn." He replied cheerily.

"Someone's in a good mood." I said.

"J'ai eu une dernière nuit rêveuse merveilleuse au sujet du bébé." He said. ("I had a wonderful dream last night about the baby.") We both decided that if we had to talk about my pregnancy, we would speak in French – which was not a decision I came to easily.

"Really? I wonder what that was all about." I responded, turning to face him.

"Can we talk about it over lunch?" he asked.

"How about dinner? Carrie m'a déjà demandé que pour déjeuner aujourd'hui ainsi nous pourrions parler du bébé." I replied. ("Carrie already asked me to lunch today so we could talk about the baby.") He frowned slightly.

"Well, I guess I'll have lunch with Eric today. I don't know what I'll do with my hour away from you." He said.

"You'll talk to Eric about guy stuff. You'll totally forget about me and talk about hockey and he'll ask if you know anyone he can take as a date to the wedding." I replied with a smile.

"Well, I'm sure we'll talk about guy stuff but I know I won't be able to forget about you for 5 minutes, let alone an hour." He said.

Just then, my Dad walked across the main room of the rotunda, apparently on his way to speak with Dixon. Vaughn gulped.

"Why are you so afraid of my dad?" I asked.

"Puisque je sais que s'il découvrait jamais au sujet du bébé, je ne vivrais jamais pour voir mon propre mariage." He replied. ("Because I know that if he ever found out about the baby, I'd never live to see my own wedding.")

"Well, besides his unflinching efforts to keep me safe and my honor intact, he's not as bad as he seems." I said.

"Let's hope for my sake that you're right."

At 12:30, I met Carrie and we went to Las Palmas for lunch.

"Okay, you absolutely must tell me everything!" she said excitedly.

"I went to the doctor 2 weeks ago, and I found out that I'm now almost 3 months pregnant." I replied.

"That's so exciting! What'd your dad think of that?"

"He has no clue and he won't know until I'm the size of a Greyhound bus." I said, "But Vaughn can't wait. We're both hoping for a little girl."

"That's so cute! Have you thought of any names yet?" Carrie prodded.

"Well, I thought of Amy or Leslie if it's a girl, and James or Chad if it's a boy." I replied.

"What about Carrie? I mean, Carrie Ann Vaughn sounds pretty good to me…" she said.

"No Ann or Anne. It's already bad enough that my parents were so unoriginal to give me Anne as a middle name. I wouldn't wish that kind of ordinary on anyone. But there was a girl's name that I always wanted to name my daughter…" I said, thinking back to my younger days. I spent an entire week planning my future wedding and coming up with outlandish names for my future children.

"Well, spill it!" Carrie said, intrigued.

"I always wanted to name my daughter Syrina Lynn. I guess I wanted to have a child with a name similar to my mother's." I replied.

"Aww. Syrina Lynn Vaughn. That sounds beautiful." She said.

"Yeah. But Vaughn & I haven't even started considering names. We're just too caught up in the fact that I'm pregnant." I responded.

"Well, in any case, I think it's a lovely name and I think Vaughn might like it too." She replied. I smiled and wondered how I would approach the subject with Vaughn.