"Hey, did you grab the sunscreen?" Chloe asks from her position on the floor in front of the open refrigerator as she stacks identical plastic Tupperware containers one by one into the bag beside her.
"Mm," Beca checks the bag she has slung over her shoulder, rummaging for a moment before finding what she's looking for. With a smile, she holds it up for Chloe to see. "Check."
"You are on it this morning, Mitchell." Chloe adds one more box to the bag and then tosses in a few bottles of water.
"You're doing pretty great yourself there, Mrs Mitchell." Beca gets lost for a moment when Chloe looks up at her with a grin, only coming back to herself when Chloe stands and pushes the fridge closed. Spread across the front of the door are various photographs held in place by magnets that are shaped either like pieces of fruit or letters of the alphabet. Across the top, above everything else, a handful of letters spell out 'ODELE' and directly below that is a photo of the two of them sitting side by side on the beach with a toddler wedged between them.
She's small, with bright blue eyes and fiery red hair spilling out from underneath and bucket hat, and she's giggling hysterically as Beca's fingers tickle the back of her neck. Chloe has her head tilted to the side, watching them with a grin on her face. In the background, Jesse is creeping up on them, hunched over like something out of a Frankenstein movie with his arms outstretched and hands shaped into claws. He's the only one looking directly at the camera, his jaw slanted off centre and bottom teeth visible to give the illusion of an underbite. His eyebrows are pulled together in a frown that's more confused than it is menacing and if Beca were to look at the picture now, she'd remember the shriek she had let out once he'd pounced and the chase along the shoreline that had followed. She'd remember how he'd slowed down, out of breath, and bent over with his hands on his knees, and how Beca had been too busy looking behind her to try and find Chloe is the mess of people to realise he'd stopped at all. It had ended with them both in the ocean, though Beca maintained victory because Jesse had been the one to cut the chase short.
Aubrey, who had been taking the photo, had chastised him playfully when they trudged back to their spot on the beach, then screamed when Jesse had wrapped her up in a soaking wet hug.
"Oh, can you grab Pokey? I think he's in her room." At Chloe's request, Beca gives a mock salute and heads upstairs. She returns with a well-loved hedgehog plush, its soft spikes an earthy brown in colour and its belly an off-white. Beca bends down in front of the car seat that had been set down just inside the entrance to the kitchen and slowly lifts the toy into the little girl's eyeline.
Immediately, two tiny arms are stretching out as far as they can, trying to reach the obviously beloved woodland creature.
"'okey! 'okey, 'okey, 'okey!" Ten small fingers wiggle impatiently until Beca hands over the hedgehog with a laugh.
"You love that thing, huh Odie?" Beca reaches out to brush red curls out of her daughter's face and smiles when the girl holds Pokey tightly to her chest and rests her head on his soft spikes.
"Love 'okey." She plants a wet kiss on the stuffy and Beca rises with a smile still firmly in place.
"Okay, I think that's everything," Chloe announces, hauling the packed bag up onto her shoulder with a grunt, looking motherly and organised. "I got the bag, you'll get the baby?"
"Yeah, just," Beca holds up her index finger, asking Chloe to wait a second, and then steps right into the redhead's personal space. "Hey," she says, her voice only barely above a whisper. Chloe chuckles at her and returns the greeting, just as Beca tilts her head up.
She presses her lips to Chloe's, lifting one hand to cup the redhead's cheek, and they stay like that for a long moment. Enjoying a deep, leisurely kiss that leaves them both a little breathless when they part.
"What was that for?" Chloe murmurs, her words ghosting against Beca's skin as she refuses to step away just yet.
"You're just…" Beca shakes her head and huffs a laugh at herself. "I'm so grossly in love with you." She gives Chloe a quick peck on the lips, which is harder than it should be since Chloe is beaming right now, and turns to pick up the car seat. She swings it from side to side and Odele squeals in delight.
"You're such a sap," Chloe teases. Beca flips her off. "Ooh, and a rebel. My true weakness, a badass with a heart of gold." Chloe grabs both the car keys and the house keys out of a small, shallow bowl on the kitchen counter and ushers Beca out into the garage ahead of her.
PERCY'S PETTING ZOO - NOW OPEN!
The words are artfully burnt into a large piece of reclaimed wood, maybe some part of a tree trunk, that hangs above the entrance and welcomes visitors inside. Chloe drives beneath it and towards the already fairly packed parking lot.
"I did not sign up for this many people," Beca grumbles, staring out of the window.
"Well, then it's a good thing that we're here for our daughter and that our feelings don't matter," Chloe says, tongue in cheek, and flashes Beca a smile that's too sweet as she pulls into an empty space and shuts off the engine.
"Why don't we just take her to an actual zoo? You know, somewhere with wider roads and probably a bit more shade." Beca slides her sunglasses down from their place perched atop her head and steps out of the vehicle.
"Because here there are fluffy bunnies and cute little goats, and Odie will get to stroke them and hold them, and be enriched." Chloe follows suit and goes around to the trunk. She opens it and starts unloading, stroller first.
Beca rolls her eyes and opens the back passenger side door, then reaches in to release the car seat.
"You remember that when one of the animals pees on her." Beca snaps the car seat into place on the stroller and takes the heavy bag Chloe had packed from her, tucking it in the storage space suspended under the main body of the stroller.
"Can you at least pretend to have fun in front of her?" Chloe asks, eyebrow raised in mock annoyance.
"Fine," Beca sighs, "whatever. But don't say I didn't warn you."
"Well, she definitely didn't warn us about this, did she, Odie?" Chloe is kneeling in the sawdust and wood shavings that cover the ground inside the large pen they'd finally been ushered into after waiting for half an hour. Only a few people at a time were allowed in, so as not to overwhelm the animals, and there was a very strict 'no ear pulling, no squeezing, no hitting' policy that Chloe was grateful to see in place. She remembers going to a petting zoo as a kid and seeing some of the other children handle the animals a little too roughly for her liking. Even then, she'd had the foresight to wonder why their parents weren't stopping them.
She has her arm around Odele's waist and the little girl tucked against her side. A turkey had gotten a little too close and scared Odele a few seconds after they'd entered and she's been reluctant to move too much since.
Beca, however, appears to have no such qualms.
She's sitting in the shavings with a lazy old goat being jumped on by a fuzzy, overly boisterous baby goat lying on one side of her, and an inquisitive young sheep is trying to nibble her hair on the other. Chickens walk back and forth over her outstretched legs and there's an overly excited, shirt-wearing pot-bellied pig doing laps around the pen that bumps up against the bottom of her feet every time it passes.
And she's smiling like this is the best thing that's ever happened to her.
When a giggling Odele asks why the pig is wearing clothes, Chloe directs the question to one of the volunteers standing watch close by. He explains that Percy - the pig in question and, as it turns out, the Percy of Percy's Petting Zoo - had been one of the first rescues the founder of the organization had made. She'd named the zoo after him and he'd become a mascot of sorts, so he needed something to help him stand out in a crowd.
And a shirt that has 'These guys saved my bacon!' printed on the back of it does the job pretty well.
But back to Beca.
"Oh my god, Chloe! Look!" Beca flails, trying to get up even as the baby goat decides that she would be just as much fun to jump on as its larger counterpart. She waits for it to bounce off and then tries again, using a nearby hay bale for leverage. Once she's upright, she starts waving a finger towards the young alpaca being led in and Chloe can't help but laugh at the childish glee spread all over her wife's face.
"You know," Chloe starts, lifting Odele up into her arms and carrying her over to Beca. "I thought this was about Odele experiencing farm life close up but I think you're having more fun than literally any of the kids here."
Beca purses her lips and chooses not to reply, instead standing in place with her hands clasped behind her back like she's waiting for something.
After a few seconds, Chloe decides to show her mercy.
"Go pet the alpaca." The words are barely out of her mouth before Beca lets out an excited squeak and walks towards the animal as slowly as she can manage. "What about you, baby girl?" Odele turns wide blue eyes on Chloe. "Want to help momma?"
It's the 'help' that does it. Their daughter has been obsessed with helping, no matter the task, for weeks now. Ever since Odele had questioned the word and Beca had explained what it meant to help someone.
"Help momma!" She claps her little hands and thrusts them victoriously into the air as Chloe carries her forward. As they get close, she wriggles until Chloe puts her down and then suddenly stops, staring, unsure. But Beca looks back and reaches out with her hand, and Chloe watches as Odele takes it.
"This guy's little, just like you, Odie." Beca slowly moves her daughter's hand until it's touching the woolly fleece of the alpaca. "Doesn't he feel neat?"
Chloe watches Odele as she bobs her head in happy affirmation and, glancing at Beca's smiling face, she thanks the stars she got so lucky.
Fun fact: In Greek, Odele means 'song'.