Day 16:
Two days.
Two days and Pacifica wasn't feeling any better. Well, that wasn't true. She was feeling better...for now. Around lunch time she always felt back to her normal self, then she'd wake up the next morning throwing up again. Dipper was bound and determined to take her to the doctor if she threw up tomorrow. Had it not been for a meeting with the University he probably would have brought her today. So here she was, alone in the house wondering what the heck was wrong with her…
...and wanting tuna for lunch. She scoured the fridge, cabinets, cupboards, but there was no tuna in the house. Well, she could eat something else. But she really wanted tuna! Well, there wasn't much of any other food in the house either, and she was tired of being cooped up, and she felt fine right now. Off to the grocery store she was!
She made a list of things she noticed they were running low on: chocolate cereal, pickles, lemon juice, potato chips, and neapolitan ice cream. She went to hers and Dipper's room to change out of her pajamas. As she tried to button her blue jeans she noticed they were a little snug.
Ugh! Bloating!
Granted, her cycle still hadn't started, which was odd, but it didn't have her worried. She only hoped it would start soon so the boating and sleepiness would go away. She slipped on a t-shirt, put on her flip-flops, sunglasses, and ran a brush through her hair before heading to the one van the guys had left her.
It didn't take her long to find all of the foods on her list. She started heading towards the check out when she noticed the pharmacy section of the store out of the corner of her eye. Her cycle was overdo, might not hurt for her to pick up some more supplies and ibuprofen while she was here. She pushed her cart down the first aisle where she found a bottle of ibuprofen. She tossed it into the cart next to the pickles. She then went over to the female health aisle where she picked up a pack of pads and a box of tampons. She was about to head towards the check out when something caught her eye.
Pregnancy tests.
Well, there was no way she could be pregnant. She had been on birth control since a month before she and Dipper were married. She began to walk away again, then stopped.
Her cycle was late. And she was sick every morning. And she was bloated. None of that meant pregnancy, though. So, her cycle was two days late, big deal, it happened. No biggie.
Well, better safe than sorry, Pacifica concluded, and she tossed a pregnancy test into the cart. As the lady at the register checked her out, her eyes lit up at the sight of the test.
"Oh, congratulations young lady!"
"Oh, it's just a precaution," Pacifica corrected her. "I'm not pregnant. I'm just ruling stuff out."
"Oh, okay," the older woman gave her a yeah, suuuuure, look as she finished ringing up the order. Pacifica paid for it and then drove back to the house. She put a skillet on the stove and began to fry up the tuna to make a taco. As the pan was heating up she slipped into the half bathroom downstairs to take the test. She set the test on the bathroom cabinet and then went back into the kitchen to fry her tuna, and roll it into a taco with pickles, tomatoes, and peanuts, then turned on the TV to watch a few episodes of Judge Junie as she ate.
It was halfway through the second episode before she even remembered she'd taken the test. She tossed her dishes into the sink on her way back to the bathroom. As she was turning the test over, she noticed she still had some food in her teeth. She picked it out with one hand, and held her test with the other, not even looking down at it until the food was gone.
"Hm. Two line. What's that mean again?" she asked herself out loud she looked at the box. She knew it probably meant negative, but better to double che-
"POSITIVE!?" Pacifica shrieked. She checked the test again, then the box, then the test.
"No, no, no, no, no," Pacifica shooked head. "I must have just it sitting to long. That's it! Yeah, I'll just take another one."
She raced back to the van and drove back to the supermarket. While there she grabbed a handful of tests and brought them to checkout.
"Just a precaution, huh, honey?"
"Shut up," Pacifica muttered as she paid for the tests and drove home. She took the first test she'd already taken, and all the new ones up to hers and Dipper's bathroom. She took a second one, and set a timer on her phone. She set the test upside down on her nightstand, and stared at it as she waited for the timer to come off.
She wasn't really pregnant. She couldn't be. She was on birth control. They'd only been married a year. They weren't planning on having kids for another four years. She just couldn't be-
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Pacifica flipped over the test.
"POSITIVE!?"
Well, this was one of the cheap tests anyways! She tossed it aside and picked up a fancier test, one of those that was supposed to tell you how far along you were. This one would show that she wasn't actually pregnant. She took it, set it on the dresser, and then began pacing back and forth as she waited for her timer to go off.
This was the one. This one would show that she wasn't actually pregnant. The last two tests were just getting confused because her cycle was late. And she had been sick, so that probably messed her hormonal state up…
...could tuna mess up a pregnancy test? Probably. Yeah, that was it. No telling with all the stuff getting dumped into the ocean what funk got into the fish and then into her. That was why the cheap tests were saying she was-
Beep! Beep! Beep!
She turned the test over. It read:
Pregnant. 1-2 weeks.
"No, no, no, no, no!"
She snatched up another test and rushed to the bathroom. 1-2 weeks along? That didn't make sense. Dipper had been too buried in getting up to speed on his classes for when he returned to be bothered with sex the past week! No chance to make a baby. The week before that? What were they doing the week before that?
"Oh, no!" she gasped. The week before that was the week they had the Stan-O-War all to themselves. And there had been plenty of potentially baby-making activities then. She sank to the bathroom floor, set the test aside, and set the timer. He began rocking back and forth as she thought over their week alone on the ship.
She'd still been careful, though. She took all her pills right on schedule. That should have meant that she was-
-Wait. Can you get pregnant while on birth control? She began googling it. Surely not! I mean, it's in the name! She thought to herself as she scrolled through the results. There was a 1-3% chance she could get pregnant while on the pill. Oh, great!
Beep! Beep! Beep!
She turned the test over. "Pregnant. 1-2 weeks."
Pacifica dropped the test and buried her face in her hands. "Ugh!"
This could not be happening! She could not seriously be pregnant. She and Dipper had only been married a year and three months! They were only 21! She just could not be pregnant!
She took the last test. It came back the same as the first four. Positive. Pacifica laid out all of the tests in front of her in the bathroom floor.
Positive.
Positive.
Pregnant. 1-2 weeks.
Pregnant. 1-2 weeks.
Positive.
It couldn't be! But here was the evidence. Five pieces of it staring her straight in the face. She crossed her arms over her stomach. There couldn't be a baby growing in there. They weren't ready for a baby. SHE wasn't ready for a baby.
"Pacifica?" Dipper's voice called from downstairs. "We're home."
"Hoo!" Stan sighed. "Someone was in a fishy room!"
She could hear Dipper's footsteps coming up the stairs. A part of her wanted to hide the tests away. Another part wanted to hit him for doing this to her. Another part wanted to cry. Another part wanted to scream. But she couldn't do any of that. All she could do was stare at the tests laid out in front of her in shock.
"Princess?" Dipper asked as she heard him open the room to their bedroom.
A weak "eh" was the only answer she could muster. Dipper stepped into the bathroom. Pacifica's breath hitched as he drew closer to her.
"Hey, Love, how are you-"
Dipper noticed the five white sticks lying in front of his wife. He knelt down and picked one up. It was a pregnancy test. His heart skipped beat as he looked back down at the ground. All of them were pregnancy tests. Two had to stripes, one had a plus sign, two had the words "Pregnant. 1-2 weeks" written on them. Dipper's hand shook as he picked up one of the test with actual words on it.
Pregnant? Pregnant? Pregnant!
"Um...Pacifica. Are theses yours?"
That dumb question managed to snap Pacifica out of her shock. "No, they're Soos'. He Express Shipped them to us."
"Okay, okay, that was a dumb question," Dipper said as he slowly set the test down. "Um. Okay, well." he rubbed his hands over his face. "Uh...so...you're pregnant?"
Pacifica stared back at the tests. She slowly shook her head. "I took my pills everyday, there's no way I-"
"Well, they are only effective 98% of the time," Dipper said. "Given our track record, that's just enough for us to have a little surprise. Case in point," he gestured to the tests.
The reality began to hit Pacifica. She was pregnant! Holy smokes! Holy guacamole! Holy Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...all the holies, she was pregnant! She and Dipper were having a baby. Dipper…
...he had said multiple times he wanted to be graduated, get the Gravity Falls program started, buying a house, and building up a savings account before even thinking about having kids. Now…
Pacifica looked up at him. He had one hand placed to his foreheads as he stared at the tests on the floor, eyes wide as saucers. He wasn't saying anything, or doing anything. Just sitting there, staring.
Don't be mad at me. Please don't be mad at me. I didn't mean-I tries-I thought-
Pacifica burst into tears, covering her face in her hands.
"Hey," Dipper called in a soft voice. He gently grabbed her wrists, pulled her hands out of her face, and began wiping the tears off her face. "What's all that for?"
"I'm sorry," Pacifica whispered.
"Sorry, what? Why?" Dipper chuckled. "Why are you sorry? You've done nothing wrong. Heck, I'm just as guilty as you for this, well, situation."
"I know. I know," Pacifica sniffled. "But, we talked about this. And you said you wanted so much to do before we had kids, and now it's all messed up!"
"It's not messed up," Dipper pulled Pacifica into his lap. "It's just a little out of the order we thought we were going to follow."
Pacifica rubbed her face on the back of her hand. "You are a lot calmer than I thought you would be."
"I don't think it's fully it me yet," Dipper answered.
Pacifica chuckled a bit, but she still had a knot in her stomach. "Wha-What are we going to do?"
"We're going to have a baby," Dipper answered.
"I know that, but-oh gosh we're having a baby! We're not ready, I'm not ready, I'm-"
"Hey, sh, we've got 8 and a half months to get ready."
"How are you so calm!? Seriously!?"
"Well, one of us has to keep our heads, and I'm not the one whose hormones are going to be out of whack for the next few months so I guess it has to be me."
Pacifica punched him in the shoulder.
"Ouch! Okay, no hormone or mood swing jokes. Got it!"
"Ugh!" Pacifica covered her face in her hands again.
Dipper hugged her again. It wasn't that he was not freaking out, oh he was, but on the inside. Right now Pacifica was a mess and her needed to comfort her, he'd probably go scream into a pillow later. But for now…
"Talk to me, Pacifica, why are you crying?"
"Because I'm scared!" Pacifica answered. "I'm not ready for a baby! I don't know how to be a mom!"
"Well, you'll figure it out. Besides, we always knew we wanted to have kids someday. Not so soon, but we knew this would happen."
"I know," Pacifica said. "But that as in the future. I was planning on dealing with that when it happened."
"And now it's happened, so now we'll deal with it. And we'll deal with it together."
"Really?"
"Really?"
"You're not scared or upset?"
"Upset, no! Scared, a little. At this point I can't tell what's fear and what's excitement."
Pacifica chuckled. "Same."
Dipper kissed the top of her head and hugged her tight. "So, we're having a baby."
Pacifica nodded, the fear slowly creeping away and being replaced by excitement. "We're having a baby."
Dipper tilted her face towards him and kissed her, smiling through the whole kiss. Pacifica's heart fluttered. They were having a baby. A baby! She was pregnant! She smiled softly.
Dipper tightened his arms around her. She was pregnant. His beautiful wife was pregnant with his baby, their baby. He was going to be a dad! It was exciting, terrifying, uplifting, overwhelming, and just huge all at the same time.