"What do you mean?" He follows her inside, closing the door behind them. He's listening but he really doesn't have a clue what she's talking about. "How the hell could he know?"
"I don't know, but you didn't hear him, Dempsey. He was...odd. He didn't even try to argue with me when I used the extra hours we worked last week as a bargaining tool for us leaving early today." She frowns at him, clearly confused by their boss apparently being totally fine with them escaping the office not long after three on a Friday afternoon. "And then he asked if I was sure we'd prefer to take the hours rather than the overtime because perhaps we might have additional expenses coming up soon and a little extra in our wages here and there may come in useful. That is odd, surely you agree?"
"I mean, I guess, but…" She takes off her shoes, puts the bag of books down on the hallway table, and he follows her as she heads for the stairs. "Maybe he's thinking you might want to plan a vacation, or upgrade your car-"
"Why on earth would I want to change my car? I love my car." She cuts him off in defense of her precious car and even though she's ahead of him on the stairs he can clearly picture the expression on her face.
"Oh, I know you do. I feel like it's my biggest competition for your affections." He hears her snort in response but notices that she doesn't deny it. "Anyway, maybe you just got lucky and caught the chief in a good mood. It had to happen one day."
"Do you know what else he said?" She hasn't finished so he follows her into the bedroom and decides to just stay quiet while she gets it out of her system. "He said it would probably be good for me to get some country air, then he said he presumed you were going with me and he asked if there was a special reason for our visit this weekend, and when I said no, I'm almost certain he narrowed his eyes at me. And then, after I thanked him and I was just about to walk out of his office, he said he hoped I was feeling better."
"He hopes you're feeling better?" He watches as she takes off her skirt and exchanges it for her jeans, still not quite sure why she's so fixated on her conversation with Spikings. "He did find us in the locker room a few days ago, Harry, while you looked like you'd just finished a week on a particularly rough fishing boat."
"Well yes, I remembered that so I told him it was just a stomach bug and I was much better now." She pauses and starts to unbutton her shirt. "Okay, fine, so maybe I did just find him in a good mood."
He kicks off his shoes and when he looks up his eyes widen. She's standing in front of the mirror in her jeans and bra and she looks...breathtaking. She's always gorgeous, it took all the strength he had not to just stare at her all day long when they first met, and more often than not he ended up giving in to it anyway, but today there's something more. Standing up, he walks over to her and runs his hand down her arm, unable to suppress his grin when his gaze settles on her chest.
"Well...it looks like I may need to go bra shopping." She sighs and a hint of a frown appears as she gestures towards the bra she's currently threatening to spill out of. "God, I hadn't even thought about any of this. I'm going to have a drawer full of underwear I can't squeeze myself into, and then I'll reach the point where I'll have a wardrobe full of clothes that won't fit either. I'm going to have to buy awful bras and terrible dresses, and-"
"Alright, here we go, I'm talking you down off of that roof right now." He stops her, bringing both of his hands to rest on her shoulders, gently kneading in an attempt to calm her down. "You, Sergeant, are going to be the hottest pregnant woman in London, no question."
"I bet that's in one of those books, 'compliment the pregnant lady'." He watches as she attempts to adjust her bra, succeeding only in making him stare a little harder. "I know I said I didn't want to say anything yet, but I was thinking...maybe we should tell my father this weekend. What do you think?"
"I think…" He hesitates only because he wants to talk to her dad this weekend, he wants her to marry him, and soon, and he wants to ask properly, and before he does he needs to know her dad is okay with it. He has a ring, he's had it for weeks, and it's going with them this weekend, but he doesn't want her dad to think he's only asking his daughter to marry him because she's pregnant. So he throws the ball back into her court. "I think it's your decision. If you feel like you want to tell him now then let's tell him now. If you want to wait, then we'll wait. Up to you, babe."
"It's up to me?" She steps out of his hold and he senses he's said the wrong thing, although he doesn't quite know what. "You have no interest in whether we tell him or not, is that what you're saying?"
"What? No interest? No, that's not what I…" He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, trying not to dig this hole any deeper even though he's not sure how he even dug it at all. "I just mean, you're the one having this baby, it's you who-"
"I'm the one having this baby? Just me? No input from you?" Oh hell, now she's mad and that's not what he meant at all. He's a hundred percent in on this and he's made that very clear. Or at least he thought he had. Over and over, in fact. "Is this your way of absolving yourself from all responsibility? Well, congratulations, your enthusiasm lasted a good few days before suddenly this is my problem."
"What the hell, Harry?!" He's trying not to get mad because when they're both mad they butt heads and neither of them will back down, but damn, she's being unreasonable here. "We're having this baby together, of course we are, but you're-"
"Look, I know you didn't ask for this but it wasn't exactly on my to do list for right now either." Is this just pregnancy, he wonders, is she going to spin from loving him to hating him within minutes for the next seven months? He has no idea how he's going to cope with that. "I didn't expect to fall in love with you, I didn't expect to get pregnant, but I at least thought we were in this together."
"We are in this together. We bought books, we've talked things over…" He sighs and tries again to figure out what he did wrong here, but he's coming up empty. "I don't know what the hell I've done wrong here, I don't know what you want me to say, I-"
"Forget it, it's fine." Then she's gone, striding past him, grabbing a shirt from the bed on her way past before she's heading out of the bedroom and he hears the slam of the bathroom door.
He's clueless. Genuinely clueless. He has no idea how this went from her newly discovered explosion in the boob area to her apparently deciding he has no interest in the baby. He would apologise, probably should apologise, but he doesn't know what he's supposed to have done wrong and he fears getting himself in even deeper if has no idea what he's saying sorry for. He decides to get changed, figuring that if he gives her a few minutes either she'll calm down or he might realise just what he said that sent her marching from the room. By the time his work clothes are on the chair and he's wearing jeans and a t-shirt he's still none the wiser and she still hasn't emerged from the bathroom. He heads out of the bedroom and stands outside the bathroom door but he doesn't hear a thing.
"Harry…Harry, please. Come out, honey." No response, other than the flush of the toilet, and even that feels like it's directed firmly at him. He would rather her come out so they can deal with this, but hell, he's just going to have to try and say his piece with her still on the other side of the door. "Alright, fine, you want to do this with the bathroom door in between us then have it your way. I don't know what's going on right now, I just know that you're mad at me for something. Not that you being mad at me is anything new but I do usually know what I did to deserve it. I was trying to say that I'm cool if you want to tell your dad this weekend, and I'm cool if not, I didn't mean I'm not interested. I mean, jeez, do you think I expected any of this either? Do think I planned on falling in love with someone three thousand goddamn miles from home-"
"Well, excuse me for causing you such a terrible inconvenience, Dempsey." Her voice rings out through the door and it's clear she's still mad. "Feel free to go back to New York and get on with your life if it's all a bit too bloody much for you. Perhaps my sending the occasional photo of your child might not be too much of an imposition. I'd hate to cramp your style, or-"
"You know what, I can't argue with you if you're not even listening to what I'm saying. No, I didn't plan for any of this either but you know what? I wouldn't change a damn thing. You drive me insane but I love you, although right now…" He pauses because he doesn't want to say anything he'll regret, anything that will make this situation worse. "Maybe you can let me know when I'm forgiven, and maybe you can let me know what the hell I even did wrong because I have no idea."
He sighs and heads downstairs, standing in the living room for just a minute, hoping she'll follow, but knowing how stubborn she is he's not surprised when she doesn't. He grabs her keys from the table in the hallway and slams the front door behind him. It takes him only a few seconds to realise a couple of things; firstly, that he's in socks, and more importantly that he can't run away, that he doesn't want to run away. Sitting down on the top step he thinks about last Friday night, how he almost proposed to her, properly, romantically, but stupidly lost his nerve and tucked the ring back into the jacket pocket he'd been keeping it in. Simone used to tell him all the time that he'd make a shitty husband, and for the years the two of them were on and off, him working too much, her drinking too much, she was probably right. What Simone didn't count on was Harry showing up in his life and making him realise he would actually make a damn good husband, as long as she was his wife. Idiot, Dempsey, you're a grade A, prize idiot. He's about to stand up and go back inside, to sit outside the bathroom door and wait for her as long as he has to when the front door opens behind him.
"Did you come to see if I'd stolen your beloved car?" He turns and looks up at her, pleased to see she looks calmer, relieved when she moves to sit down next to him, leaning her head against his shoulder.
"Actually…" She pauses and lifts her head to look at him. "I had visions of you halfway to the airport."
"The airport?" He studies her for a few seconds, just long enough to see the hint of a smile in her eyes so he knows she's not completely serious. "I'm not even wearing shoes."
"No, I can see that now." She smiles properly now, and she's beautiful. "I wouldn't have blamed you though if you had been running for the first flight to New York, I-"
"I'm not running, Harry." He slides his hand onto her knee and smiles at her.
"I know that." She closes her eyes and shakes her head, the way she does when she's annoyed with herself. When she's annoyed with him her eyes stay open and her glare could kill a lesser man. He knows the difference by now. "I'm sorry. I just... I don't know what's wrong with me. Apart from the surge of hormones apparently turning me into a maniac, obviously."
"Really? I hadn't noticed." Her eyes open and he grins at her.
"No, I don't expect you would. I'm managing it very well." She smiles and then leans up to kiss him, a soft, sweet touch that sees her lips lingering on his before she pulls back just a fraction, her breath still mingling with his. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay, princess. I mean, you're growing a person in there…" He grins again and points towards her middle. "A person who's half mine so, you know, he's probably going to give you some trouble from time to time."
"Oh God, there's no hope for me, is there?" Her hand moves to cover his and he hears her let out a soft sigh.
"Too late now." He starts to think about the parts of this kid that will be all her...those eyes, that beautiful smile, and probably her sometimes fiery temper. He honestly can't wait. "You okay?"
"Mm, I am." She smiles at him again and she looks much calmer, more relaxed, thankfully. "We probably should think about getting ready to leave fairly soon, see if we can miss some of the Friday traffic."
"You're right, we should." He hesitates for a second before going on. "I'm almost scared to ask...but did you decide if you wanted your dad to know yet?"
"I think...from what I could gather before I yelled at you, you don't mind if we do or not." Her smile turns slightly sheepish and he nods at her to continue. "So, I think I'll just see how I feel once we're there. Does that sound okay to you?"
"Sounds perfect to me." He runs a finger down her nose and then leans in to kiss her. "And don't take that to mean I don't care."
"I know you do. Oh, another thing...you're going to need to be on martini duty this weekend because if my father has to make a single one for me without alcohol there really won't be any need to say a thing about the baby." She squeezes his hand and smiles. "And yes, I'm very aware that makes me sound like a terrible alcoholic."
"I've never made a non-alcoholic martini in my life so I think that makes me sound just as bad." He stands and keeps hold of her hand, pulling her up gently to stand beside him. "Go and get ready, I'll finish packing the rest of our things, and yeah, I know, you'll keep yelling a list at me while you're getting changed."
"Well you said it, and I'm happy to keep reminding you..." She smirks and pulls him back inside the house. "I'm growing a person in here, Dempsey, and you're fifty percent to blame."
"And proud of it, honey." He can't help the grin that spreads across his face because even though they hadn't planned for this right now he really is excited about this baby, their baby. And he wonders how soon they can get married because damn, he wants that too, he wants all of it. If his mom hadn't heard the gradual change in him in their phone calls since he's been with Harry she'd think her son had been replaced by an imposter. Even so, he knows she's going to be ecstatic when they break the news to her.
"Is it the satisfaction of knowing your loins are in full working order because as soon as I stupidly missed a couple of pills you managed to get me well and truly pregnant?" The look on her face tells him she's not entirely serious but he thinks maybe she's looking for some reassurance anyway, which he's happy to give her.
"Oh, I've always had full confidence in my loins, honey." He grins again at her inevitable eye roll. "I was just picturing a tiny person with your eyes and your smile, topped off with my irresistible charm."
"You say that as though I, the mother of this child, am entirely without charm, and if that were the case…" She leans in and he reaches for her, pulling her towards him and fixing his gaze on her as she smiles and turns her definite charm on him. "Well, I wouldn't be in this predicament to begin with."
"Thank God for your charms then." He watches her eyes soften and he knows he's said the right thing.
"You really are excited about this, aren't you?" He can't help wonder again why she still needs to be convinced when he's almost damn sure he makes it clear every day.
"Nah, I just figured we'd buy a bunch of books on pregnancy and babies and then I'd get myself on the first flight out of here." He shrugs and moves his hands higher up her back, one settling on her shoulder blade and the other tickling the back of her neck. "You've got your books now, you don't need me."
"Ah, but the books won't run my bath or make me a sandwich. They won't go out at ten at night in the rain to buy ginger biscuits, or come up with a list of ridiculous baby names that I'll need to veto. And the books definitely won't tell me I'm beautiful when I'm on the bathroom floor throwing up my breakfast." She closes the gap between them and kisses him, pulling away and giving him a smile. "So you see, I really do need you."
"You know, I don't do so well without you either, princess." For a while he joked (to himself as much as to her) that he needs her to get him out of bed on time and to remind him that vegetables exist, but actually he needs her for so much more. He needs her because she makes him think, she challenges him, she brings out his softer side, and she makes him want to be a bit better each day. "And I still say Spartacus Dempsey is a great name."
"I love you, Dempsey, an almost absurd amount, but I'm not even going to dignify that suggestion with a response." Her grin tells him she knows he's kidding but he suspects he'll need to prepare for quite a discussion on names when the time comes. "Now, come on, let's get moving."