A/N: So I'm back with these two. I just love them to bits honestly. And last night's episode had me all in my feels so I finally got this finished. I really hope y'all like it!
Fitz combed through nearly two-year-old Tommy's damp shoulder-length ringlets while the tot sat on a towel drying off after his bath, rolling his favorite wooden train back and forth on the floor. "Livvie do you think it's time for Tommy to get a haircut?"
Olivia looked up from the hats she was knitting for Tommy and the soon-to-be-born second Grant baby. "No. He has beautiful hair."
"Well if he's gonna have such long hair, can we at least not put him in dresses?" Fitz rolled Tommy onto his back to put a diaper on him. Tommy raised the train above his head, repeating, "Choo choo," softly to himself. The tot had developed the interesting habit of being quiet when his name came up in conversations, almost as if he was eavesdropping.
"There's no point in putting him in pants until he's toilet trained. I can't stop and strip him out of pants every time he needs changing, especially not now." At 7 months, she was quite a bit heavier than she had been during her first pregnancy, and could barely bend to pick her baby boy up. Tommy, undaunted, just latched onto the hem of her dress and toddled beside his waddling mother wherever she went. "He'll be trained soon enough. He's close already."
"You think maybe we ought to try to speed him up? I mean you're due in a couple of months and you can't have two babies in diapers." Tommy rolled onto his knees, pushing his train across the floor to where Olivia sat in her rocking chair near the drawing room's window. He pulled up on her knees and raised his chubby arms, wanting to sit in his mother's lap. Reaching around her cumbersome belly, she lifted him onto her knees and leaned down to kiss his forehead.
"Well he already knows what the urge feels like, so I think he'll go on and go when he's ready," Olivia replied. "I understand what you're saying though. And the way I'm feeling now, I'm thinking it might be twins. I'm practically a house."
"Twins'd be nice," Fitz said with a smile as he folded Tommy's bath towel. Since Tommy's birth, Fitz had managed to be home in time to help give him a bath and put him to bed every night. "Especially if they're girls. I want two little girls just like you."
"I just want them out. Celestine says twins always come early." She rocked the chair and Tommy leaned against her, thinking it was time to be rocked to sleep. His little head rested on her belly while he rolled the train back and forth on the top of her stomach. She could hear him gurgling softly, making sweet baby sounds and yawning occasionally. She looked down at him with a smile. "Tommy do you want sisters? Huh? Do you want to be a big brother?"
"Baby!" he replied, poking her stomach. The little boy had the most delightful southern drawl, dragging out his words just like his mother. Fitz, despite his many years in the south, still had his California accent.
"Yeah. There's a baby in there. Maybe two. Do you want two babies?" Olivia asked, stroking his clean hair.
"Two baby!" he replied with a toothy grin. Olivia yawned and smiled down at him. She and Tommy had fallen so securely into their routine that rocking in the chair made her sleepy too, even though it wasn't quite his usual bed time.
"You're gonna have sisters, Tommy boy," Fitz said as he walked over to help Olivia out of the chair. He wrapped his arms around his wife's no longer small waist. Tommy's arms locked around his mother's neck, his head on her chest as he yawned again. Fitz kissed the back of his head then Olivia's lips, resting his forehead against hers. He smiled as he began swaying them to an imaginary song.
His fingers traced patterns on her back and Olivia smirked at him. "Don't even think about it, Fitzgerald."
Fitz smiled. "Can't blame a man for trying."
"All that trying is what get us into this position."
Fitz laughed. "If I recall correctly, you weren't exactly saying no, little woman."
Olivia yawned. "And look what it got us."
"I think we're fairing pretty well," Fitz replied with a smile.
Olivia yawned again. "I think we'd fair a lot better if we all went to bed."
XXXXX
*Two months later*
"There's the birthday boy!" Fitz lifted Tommy off his feet when he caught the little boy running through the sea of people in the Popes' backyard. Between the children from the neighborhood and their parents and the two dozen colored circus workers that Eli had wrangled from Baton Rouge to perform for Tommy's second birthday celebration, the yard was full of so many people that Tommy had gotten lost in the pandemonium. Most children would have panicked at getting separated from their parents, but the tot was having the time of his life, eating sweets and being showered with birthday boy attention.
"I a lion Daddy!" Tommy pointed at his yellow painted face.
"Yeah you are." Fitz planted a kiss on Tommy's chubby whiskered cheek. "Let's go show Mama."
Olivia sat at a picnic table, fanning herself in the September heat and drinking lemonade. She was a few weeks from delivering and a few days from going out of her mind. She was miserably heavy, her stomach the size of a beach ball and her breasts the size of cantaloupes. One baby rested on her bladder. The other was content to kick itself back and forth between the walls of her womb. If they didn't come out soon, she was going in after them. She smiled at Fitz swinging Tommy around by his left arm and leg. Their little boy whooped joyously. The only consolation for her misery was that she would soon get to watch him be just as adorable with their new little ones.
"Mama I a lion!" Tommy roared as he ran to her. He wore a little red seersucker smock with a wide white collar and little blue short pants underneath to appease his father. His red birthday hat was slightly askew on his curly head. The summer sun had tanned him golden and bleached his curls blindingly blonde.
"I see!" she cooed, lifting him onto her lap to cover his face in kisses. "Did Daddy get his face painted too?"
"No," he replied, scooting off her lap. He took hold of her hand and gave her arm a tug, attempting to pull her up the way Fitz did. Olivia managed to stand on her own but Fitz was quickly at her side, his hand planted firmly on her lower back to support her.
"Where you going Livvie?"
"I guess we're going to get my face painted." She smiled as Tommy pulled on her hand to lead her to the picnic table where a tall, thin clown was waiting to paint faces.
"You too Daddy!" Tommy took his father's hand and led both parents to the face-painting table. Fitz helped Olivia lower herself onto the bench and watched with a smile as the clown turned her into a cat.
"What's Mama?" Fitz asked Tommy, pointing to Olivia's painted face.
"Kitty!" The little boy let out a delighted laugh, clapping his little hands together and throwing his curly head back. Fitz laughed as he straightened Tommy's party hat.
"You turn." Olivia smiled as she scooted over on the bench so Fitz could sit down.
"I guess I'd like to be a lion like my boy." Tommy clambered into his father's lap to watch the clown paint his father's face. He babbled on about the ice cream cone he'd had, and the juggler, and the balloon animal making clown who had made him a puppy. Olivia listened, nodding excitedly, ignoring the wincing pain in her lower abdomen. Celestine had told her to be on the lookout for false labor so she paid no attention to the faux-contractions.
"All done," the clown announced when he finished Fitz's face.
Fitz grinned at Olivia. "How do I look?"
"Dashing," she replied with a laugh. She looked toward the house at the sound of her mother announcing it was time for cake. She grinned at Tommy as she scooped him into her arms. "It's time for your cake sugar lump."
"Cake!" he whooped as she stood to carry him to the table where the enormous cake sat.
"Hungry?" Fitz asked, smiling down at his wife as she waddled beside him.
"If Celestine made the cake, you bet." Celestine's cakes were famous around the parish. They made their way to the picnic table where Tommy stood on the bench behind a huge white cake emblazoned with "Happy Birthday Tommy" in scrawling red script.
"Cake Mama!" Tommy whooped when his parents moved to stand behind him.
"Are you gonna blow out the candles baby?" Olivia asked.
"Yeah!" Fitz lit the two blue candles on the cake and took hold of Tommy to keep him from blowing them out before the song. After the song was finished, Tommy blew out the candles and promptly stuck his hand in the cake, bringing a frosting-covered fist to his lips, much to the amusement of everyone.
"Eat Mama!" He thrust his little fist up at his mother and she licked a little frosting off.
"Mmm," she said, dipping her finger in the frosting and holding it up to Fitz's lips.
"I don't know if it's you or the frosting but that's the best cake I've ever had." Fitz grinned at his wife.
"Have some more and let's find out." She brought another dollop of frosting to his lips and Fitz licked it off slowly, staring intently at his wife.
"Now that's how you got pregnant in the first place," Celestine dead panned as she approached them with a knife and plates for the cake. Olivia laughed as Fitz kissed her cheek. Tommy continued gobbling handfuls of cake even as Celestine cut the cake into squares and handed them out. Olivia winced when a particularly painful contraction rippled through her body. Fitz frowned at her. "Are you okay Livvie?"
"Yeah. It's just false labor," she replied.
"Do you want me to take you home baby?" Fitz peered into his wife's grimacing face.
"I'm fine." She gave him an assuring smile.
"I'm sure. Just to be safe, I'm gonna hurry along opening the presents so we can go." He planted a kiss on her temple before going off to find her father. When Fitz told Eli what was going on, they agreed that Olivia needed to go upstairs and lie down just in case it wasn't false labor.
"I told y'all I'm fine," she insisted as Fitz helped her up the steps.
"I know baby. Just humor me." They reached her bedroom and Fitz helped her onto her bed, removing her leather sandals and propping her head up on a few pillows. He kissed her forehead. "I'm gonna go get you some water and a cool towel, okay?"
"Okay," she replied. When he came back, she was asleep. He wondered if maybe she was just tired as he put her glass of water on her nightstand. He was on his way back out of the room when her voice stopped him. "Will you lay with me for a little while?"
"Of course baby." He took off his boots and joined her on her twin-sized bed.
"Remember the first time you saw this room?" she asked sleepily.
Fitz smiled. "I thought I'd fallen in love with a child."
Olivia smiled. "I'll never forget the look on your face. It was like you'd made the worst mistake ever."
"Well if you had been 14 like I was thinking you were, we wouldn't be here now." He rubbed her belly lovingly.
Olivia sat up. "Unbutton my dress. I'm sweating through it."
Fitz reached up and undid the pearl buttons down the back of her blue dress then helped her slip it off, leaving her in her green slip and white undergarments. He watched as she threw her legs over the side of her bed so she could sit up and sip her water.
"Shit!" she hissed.
"What's wrong?" Fitz was immediately off her bed and in front of her.
"My water broke," she replied. He looked down. Her slip was black with fluid.
"Lay back. I'm gonna go get Celestine and your mama." He dashed from the bedroom and headed for the party. A few minutes later, he returned with Celestine and Maya. Tommy toddled closely behind the adults. He raced around his grandmother and Celestine, whom he affectionately called Gammy, and clambered onto the bed with his mother.
"What wrong Mama?" He peered at her with concern.
"Mama's having the babies. You're gonna be a big brother, baby." She smiled at him and his little face immediately relaxed.
"My baby!" He lay his head on her stomach, giving it an affectionate rub.
Fitz laughed as he walked over to pick his son up. He looked at Olivia. "Want me to take him out?"
"Not yet," Olivia replied as she sat up so Celestine could prop her up on pillows. He set Tommy back on the bed and the little boy clambered into his mother's arms.
"I sleepy Mama," he yawned, laying his head on her chest.
"Mama's sleepy too, baby." She swaddled him in her arms, letting out a yawn of her own. "Why don't we take a little nap while we wait on the babies?"
"Okay Mama." He smushed his face in the crook of her neck, something he did only to her, and closed his eyes.
"When he goes to sleep, I'll take him to your house. Your father's there putting away his gifts and getting his new bed set up," Maya said.
"My bed," Tommy murmured sleepily. Eli had bought his grandson a crib with removable bars so that it could become a "big boy bed" when Tommy was old enough.
"Yeah. Papa bought you a bed so the babies can have your old one." Olivia raked her fingers through his hair, something he loved just like his father. It wasn't long before his even breathing told his mother that he was asleep. Olivia began dozing herself.
Fitz pulled the sheets over her and planted a kiss on her forehead as he gently lifted Tommy out of her arms. He whispered, "I'm gonna go with your mama to the house and get your things."
She nodded sleepily. "Hurry back."
Tommy only stirred momentarily to whimper when removed from his mother's arms but quickly fell back asleep as Maya cooed and rubbed his back. She and Fitz left Olivia, surprisingly asleep, with Celestine, who sat in the white rocking chair in the corner of Olivia's old bedroom, sewing a patch for a quilt. She figured Olivia wouldn't sleep long before the first baby crowned.
Sure enough, she was awake within the hour, gripping the sheets and groaning loudly. Celestine put down her work and went to the bed. "Relax chile. Nothing gone happen while me here wit' ya."
Celestine's old Creole accent was comforting. It had been Olivia's companion through many a childhood illness. She lifted the sheet off Olivia's bottom half and peered between her legs. "Here come the first one. Got a full head of hair it does chile. Dark like yours."
Olivia was barely aware of the footsteps on the stairs as she concentrated on the pain. "Can I push yet?"
Fitz rushed to her side, dropping her bag in the doorway. He took her hand. "I'm here baby."
"I count to then then you push. You hear me chile?" Celestine looked away from the little dark head to Olivia's face.
"Okay." Olivia nodded, tightening her grip on her husband's hand in anticipation.
"One, two, tree. Push, chile! Push hard!" Olivia did as she was told, bearing down and pushing as hard as she could. Celestine held the baby's head steady. "I count again then you push. One, two, tree."
Olivia pushed hard. They repeated the process three more times before the first baby, a girl as Fitz had hoped for, emerged. The world seemed to stop when she didn't utter a sound. Olivia's face froze in horror, her nails digging into Fitz's hand as he peered at Celestine's concerned face. Celestine stared at the silent child's closed eyes for a moment. She frowned and delivered a firm thump to the baby's chest. With a gasp, the little girl's eyes shot open and she let out a mighty cry. Olivia seemed to gasp back to life with a sob. Celestine cut the umbilical cord, then clamped it with a clothespin clipped to her apron.
"Calm down baby. She's fine." Fitz wiped at his wife's face as Celestine brought them the baby. She was a carbon copy of Olivia, all dark hair and brown eyes. But her skin possessed Fitz's peachy hue. Fitz held his baby girl, peering down at her face. "She looks just like you Livvie."
Olivia barely heard him as a new wave of contractions swept over her. "Here comes the other one!"
Celestine resumed her place, looing between Olivia's legs. She had delivered Olivia the same way twenty-something years before. And Maya before that. "Here come the head chile. Push hard. One, two, tree."
Olivia pushed hard, holding Fitz's left hand while he held their baby girl with his right. The little girl had quieted to only soft whimpers, gazing up at her father curiously. She had Olivia's pouty lips, but Fitz noticed that she had his nose, and his ears.
"Okay. I got the head. We gone do it two more time and you push hard as you can chile." Olivia nodded and took a deep breath. "One, two, tree. Little more, chile. We almost done. One, two, tree."
With a hard grunt, Olivia pushed as hard as she could. A high-pitched cry signaled the birth of the second child. Celestine held the baby up after clipping the umbilical cord and clamping it with another clothespin. "You got two little gals. This one smaller than the first but they look just alike."
Celestine wrapped the baby in a towel then handed her off before taking the first little girl to do the same.
"What do you want to name them Livvie?" Fitz asked, looking from one baby girl to the other. They were indeed identical.
"I don't know. I got to name Tommy. Why don't you pick?" She smiled at him as they switched babies.
"Well I think you," he touched the nose of the baby girl in his arms, "are gonna be Vivienne Grace. That was my mother's name."
"Well, you are Sophia Grace." She brushed an errant curl back from Sophia's face a looked at Fitz. "It's okay if they have the same middle name isn't it?"
"It's kind of cute." He smiled at her. "Do you want me to help you get them diapered before I go get Tommy?"
Before she could answer, Maya reappeared with Tommy in her arms. "He pitched a fit until I brought him back."
"Mama!" Tommy practically jumped out of his grandmother's arms, desperate to get to his mother and have a look at the babies. Fitz caught his son's chubby frame in his arms.
"Did you give Nanny a hard time?" He planted a kiss on Tommy's freshly-washed face, guessing that Maya cleaning off his face paint had been the catalyst for the fit.
Tommy smiled his tiny-toothed grin at his father then looked back at Maya. "Yes."
Fitz gave Tommy his "serious" face, an expression he was never able to hold for very long with his baby boy. "Tell Nanny you're sorry, Tommy."
Tommy's smile vanished as he looked back at his grandmother with wide, sad eyes. His top lip quivered, a trait he and Olivia shared when they were about to cry. "I sorry."
"Give me my baby." Fitz handed Tommy over to Maya with a smirk. She immediately wiped his sparse tears away and kissed his cheeks.
"You don't have to be sorry, sweet pea. Nanny knows you didn't mean it." She kissed his cheeks over and over until he was covered in lipstick and giggling. Fitz shook his head. Tommy could get away with murder where his grandmother was concerned. He looked back at Olivia, smiling as she slipped the right strap of her slip down so she could feed Vivienne.
"Fitz will you come put a diaper on Sophia while I feed Vivienne?" He walked over with a smile and peered down at his baby girls.
"How do you tell them apart?" He couldn't see any difference in the infants except that one was slightly bigger than the other, and even that difference was so slight that he could have easily missed it.
"Sophia has one of those dangly curls like you and Tommy." She twirled the lock in question around her index finger.
Fitz smiled as he lifted the baby from his wife's arms. "Hey pretty girl. You've got hair like your daddy. Are you gonna be a daddy's girl?"
The little girl peered up at him with wide deep brown eyes. She looked so much like Olivia that it was a little frightening. He kissed her button nose. "You're beautiful just like your mama. I've got the prettiest three girls in the world. Yes I do."
Olivia smiled as she watched him bounce Sophia as he walked to the rocking chair where the bag of diapers and clothes sat. She'd birth him a country of babies if he'd be that precious with all of them. She looked down at Vivienne. The little girls did look like her, but she could see traces of Fitz. They had his chin, and his hairline, and his ears.
"Are you hungry Vivvie? You're the most beautiful girl in the world. Don't you ever forget that, sweet baby." The little girl latched onto her mother's waiting breast and ate with gusto.
"And you've got the same face so that makes you the most beautiful girl in the world too," Fitz told Sophia as he wrapped her in a diaper.
Maya carried Tommy closer to the bed and pointed to Vivienne. "That's your sister, Tommy. That's Vivienne. Can you say Vivvie?"
"Vivvie!" He squirmed from his grandmother's arms to clamber onto Olivia's stomach to get a good look at the baby swaddled in the pink towel. He grinned at his mother. "Baby Mama!"
"Yeah. We got two babies Tommy." The little boy pulled the towel back and looked at his sister in wonder. Vivienne stared back, never letting go of Olivia's nipple. Tommy attempted to hold her hand and gave his mother a confused frown when Vivienne's fist didn't open for his hand. Olivia just smiled and smoothed his hair back from his face. Fitz walked over with Sophia, diapered and swaddled in a yellow onesie. "Look Tommy. That's your other sister. That's Sophie. Can you say Sophie?"
"Sophie!" He looked at Sophie with interest as Fitz deposited her into the curve of Olivia's unoccupied left arm. She shifted so he could take Vivienne. Tommy reached out to pinch Sophia's cheek the same way so many people had done him. She looked away from Olivia's breast to his face. Tommy grinned, pointing to her as he looked at Olivia. "Sophie!"
"Yeah. You've got two sisters baby. Are you happy? Do you like the babies?" She had been worrying for some time that Tommy wouldn't adjust well to not being the center of attention anymore. He didn't seem particularly bothered though.
"My babies!" He smoothed Sophia's errant curl back from her face the way his mother so often did his and Olivia smiled.
"That's right. They're your babies. Do you wanna take the babies home tomorrow?"
"Yeah. Babies sleep in my bed!" Eli had bought him a white crib with a cowboy mobile that Tommy was eager to show the world.
"The babies are gonna sleep in your baby bed. You get to sleep in your big bed, little man." Fitz handed over Vivienne then picked Tommy up off the bed.
Tommy looked at his father and yawned, pointing his little index finger at the rocking chair in the corner. "I sleepy Daddy."
"You want Daddy to rock you to sleep?" The little boy nodded. Fitz smiled at Olivia. "Well that's a first."
Olivia yawned. "I wouldn't mind a little sleep myself."
"You've had a big day, Livvie." Fitz grinned at her as he sat in the rocking chair.
"I know. Now I've got three babies with the same birthday."
"I can't believe we've got three babies."
"From what Celestine told me, I'm surprised you don't have more." Maya smirked at her daughter and son-in-law. Celestine had filled her in on their amorous activities.
Olivia blushed, covering her smile with her hand. "It's all Fitz, Mama."
Fitz scoffed, tossing her a wide-eyed look. "Really, Livvie? Are you sure?"
Maya shook her head. They were still as in love as teenagers. "Never mind whose fault it is. Just keep giving me grandbabies."
"Can do, ma'am." Fitz grinned at his mother-in-law before winking at his wife.
A/N: So I'm having a really good time creating Olitz babies. These two will probably have a dozen by the time I'm finished. Don't' forget to review! XOXO