As they all waited for the test results, everyone was lost in their own thoughts. Jillian wondered how her son would cope with a permanent relationship with Tifa. If that's what they decided to do…if she was pregnant that is. Raising one child is a life-altering experience, but Tifa already had two adopted children. Her poor Dickie would probably end up feeling terribly neglected, because he always needed such special attention, she thought with maternal fondness.
Reno felt ill…he was going to lose his manhood no matter what he did…even if Tifa wasn't pregnant, his parents knew her, and had already started telling her things that he'd face Sephiroth himself to keep hidden. And Tseng had ordered him to marry while giving him and Tifa romantic cruise tickets…and his parents! This was some kind of bizarre nightmare, he told himself.
Patrick was concerned that he might be going to become a grandfather. He didn't feel that old yet, but…he tried to have more positive thoughts, like it was a guarantee that two attractive people like his son and Tifa would have beautiful babies at least. But was his son ready to settle down? He was always so awkward that they worried he would end up a loner, until the end of his high school days when he started feeling the need to prove himself a man without knowing what that really meant.
Tifa wasn't feeling too good herself, and she had turned a little pale. This was the most unreal situation she had ever been in…her ex-boyfriend and his lover, who was the boss of the last man she had sex with, had set her up to end up on the doorstep of the parents of the man who might have gotten her pregnant…and on Christmas. And his parents were surprisingly nice and ordinary people who were trying to be open-minded and welcome her with open arms, and Tifa liked them. But she didn't like how they seemed to have already tied the knot between herself and Reno…or Richard, she clarified. Or what was it her mother affectionately called him? Dickie? Tifa barely smothered a giggle in time. What else didn't she know about the maybe father of her maybe baby?
"Is it time to check the da…rned thing yet?" Reno finally blurted out, changing his language so his parents wouldn't complain, but he couldn't stand the suspense anymore.
"I'm sorry, I thought all pregnancy tests were instant." Tifa apologized again to try and ease her nervousness.
"It's nothing to apologize for. Why don't I go check?" Patrick volunteered. "How do I tell whether it's positive or negative?"
"Positive is a plus sign, negative is a minus sign." Jillian replied, with Reno giving his answer right behind hers. "Two lines is positive, one's negative."
"And how do you know that?" his mother demanded, and Reno sheepishly looked down at the carpet and shut up.
"Okay." Patrick headed into the bathroom. "We're…going to be grandparents!" he shouted, and pandemonium broke out in the living room.
"Oh, thank you for such a wonderful Christmas gift!" Jillian squealed and hugged Tifa. Patrick hurrying back into the room to join her. "Wait…I'm going to be a grandmother?!"
Reno tried to get as far away as possible. Unfortunately, he tripped over Tseng's package, and the gift for his parents fell out of the gift bag it was in. "What the…" he started to say before remembering where he was.
"Well, I'll be…will you look at that, Richard, it's your Blanky!" Jillian exclaimed, picking up the small blue blanket. "Didn't we lose this when you were ten? How did it come back here after all this time?"
"I don't know." Reno said sourly, inwardly fuming at what he knew was coming next, and sure enough...
"This was little Dickie's security blanket." Jillian told Tifa.
"And he'd throw such a tantrum if you tried to make him take a nap without it." Patrick added, smiling. "Why don't you go get the family albums, Mother? Tifa is part of it now, and it might help her to know what she can expect."
"But then we'd miss watching It's A Wonderf…oh, we've seen it enough, you're right, Daddy, this is more important." Jillian said and hurried to get her son's baby album to start with.