"Norma?"
"Living room." She hollered back, her voice echoing through the house. He smiled, as he rounded the doorway, taking in the way she was lounging casually on the couch, her hands resting against her protruding stomach, knitting something.
"Hey." He said lightly, lifting up her feet to sit at the other end of the couch, depositing her feet back down on his lap.
"Hi." She glanced up from frowning at her knitting, smiling widely at him, before focusing on her task again.
"Whatya doin?"
"Spear fishing." She shot back, smirking at him from over her knitting needles, pleased when he chuckled at her response.
"Ok, smartass. I meant, what are you making?"
"A hat." She said simply, pouting as she stared at the yarn in confusion, holding it close to her face and muttering something that sounded like "knit one, pearl one" to herself.
"For the baby?" He asked, slipping one shoe off her foot and letting it drop to the floor haphazardly.
"No. For you." She deadpanned back, her face deadly serious as she held up the impossibly tiny baby pink hat, her face falling dramatically as she glanced from his head to the little ball of pink wool in her hands.
"Ohh no. Do you think I made it too small?" Her face broke into a smile as she giggled, pleased when he laughed back at her.
"Ok, ok. You're hilarious." He rolled his eyes, slipping off her other little brown loafer, tossing it to the floor and slipping his hands around her foot. His thumbs worked into the arch of her foot, the pads of his fingers expertly squeezing and massaging from her heel to her toes. Her head dropped back against the arm of the sofa, letting out a relaxed little sigh as he rubbed her aching foot.
"How was work?" She muttered out, not looking up from where she was lying back, her knitting now forgotten, her eyes closed, her entire body melting into the couch.
"Good. Fine." He murmured back. There was a pause, where she moaned gently as he applied pressure to the arch of her foot, and he had to close his eyes and take a deep breath to block out the sound. She still seemed to have no idea the effect she had on him.
"I'm sorry I had to stay so late." He apologised for the millionth time.
"It's ok." She said reassuringly. He wasn't convinced, gazing guiltily at her bump.
"How was the baby class?" He asked remorsefully, feeling absurdly guilty for missing one.
"Lamaze? It was good. Turns out breathing in and out real slow hasn't changed since the last time I gave birth, so I'm already top of the class." She smiled up at the ceiling, clearly still thinking she was hilarious. He carried on rubbing her foot, not noticing her other toes wiggling wildly to get his attention.
"This one, this one." She whispered, flexing her toes to get him to move onto her other foot, shoving the other one behind his back, uncomfortably wedging it between his body and the couch to get it out of the way.
"Was Lorraine mad I wasn't there?" He asked in a small voice, like a kid who'd missed soccer practice. Half the other dads only turned up occasionally, a fact that made him feel impossibly sad for those women, who sat there alone most of the time, but he still felt guilty for missing even one. He didn't like missing out on a single part of his child's life, even before she was born. He wriggled uncomfortably as she stretched her toes out, digging them into his spine painfully, pretending it didn't hurt.
"No. Norman came with me."
His hands on her foot froze for a second and her eyes flew open, flicking her head up to stare at him in confusion.
"What?"
"Norman. Norman came with me. He didn't want me to go by myself."
Alex closed his eyes, his mind flooding with images of Norma practising deep breathing with his mother, Norman wrapping his arms around his mother, before Alex shook his head. He would never understand their bond and there was no use trying.
"He's got something he wants to talk to us about." She said mildly, not noticing the look of confusion on Alex's face, his hands pausing for a second before continuing.
"Us? Like, you and me?"
"Yes Alex, that is the definition of us. Gold star Sheriff." She smirked at him before dropping her head back onto the cushions, wriggling her toes to signal to him to continue.
"Any more name thoughts?" He asked casually, flinching as she jumped up as suddenly as a pregnant woman could, pottering over to the table and retrieving her notepad.
"Mmm hmm." She murmured, plonking herself back down on the couch and not hesitating to shove her foot behind his back again, the other draping across his lap, effectively trapping him between her legs. He stroked up and down her ankle as she shifted, settling back down and settling the notepad against her stomach.
"Addison?" She began, glancing up to see him shrug noncommittally. That was the usual response she got from him when they went through the seemingly endless task of going through baby names. He never seemed overly enamoured with any of them, and it was the only part of her pregnancy that he hadn't shown a boundless enthusiasm for, which she found confusing.
"Isobel?" He crinkled his nose, like he was thinking it over, before giving a tiny shake of his head, and she sighed heavily, crossing another name off her lengthy list.
"Norah?" He gave a single quirk of his eyebrows and, after a pause, where she waited for him to give her something else, she rolled her eyes and left the name untouched.
"Cornelia?" She announced with a little flourish, because she knew he'd hate it, but she loved it and was trying to convince him with her tone. He gave a tiny shake of his head.
"Roselyn?" He raised his eyebrows in a not entirely displeased way and she left the name untouched.
"Bea?"
"Like the insect?" He wrinkled his nose, and she rolled her eyes at him, beginning to grow weary of his lack of enthuisiasm.
"Like Beatrice?"
He mouthed something to himself and then nodded slightly.
"Maybe."
"Marion?"
"Marion? What century are you getting these names from?"
She fixed him with a steely glare, before crossing Marion off her list with more force than necessary.
"Alexandra?"
"Alexandra?" He repeated back to her incredulously, earning him an unimpressed look.
"Men name their sons after themselves all the time. Why not their daughters?" She pointed out coolly, and he laughed.
"We're not all as self obsessed as you, Norma." He joked mildly, reaching over to take the pad and pen out of her hands, and jotting a name down on the bottom before she could stop him. He turned the page to her, ignoring her little pout, his messy scrawl standing out harshly against her pretty, feminine handwriting.
"Louise." She read outloud, sighing and rolling her eyes again. This was not the first time he had suggested this name, repeatedly pointing out that it was perfect because she was "obsessed with herself."
"Very funny."
He smirked at her, clearly thinking he was hilarious.
"I just thought I'd add it to the pile, in case you wanted a full brood of children named after yourself?"
"I wouldn't want Dylan to feel left out." She joked, though she was half serious.
"Who's Dylan named after?" He wondered suddenly, tapping the pad against her toes absent mindedly, as she picked her knitting back up, turning her attention back to the slightly tangled mass of pink.
"Dylan McKay." She said simply, keeping her eyes trained down, biting her lip and he frowned for a second, trying to remember where he recognised the name from.
"Oh god." He groaned suddenly, and she smirked over the yarn at him, pressing her lips together in slight embarrassment. "Really? Really?"
"I was seventeen!" She protested, pouting. "It was the 90s! It was a different time!"
He shook his head at her, pretending to be deeply disappointed, before he lifted the notepad back up suddenly, studying it intently.
"What are you doing?" She said, reaching forward to snatch it back, frowning as he pulled it away from her reach, his eyes scanning the page of tiny, neatly written names.
"I'm making sure Brenda's not on here. Or Kelly. Or any other TV characters." He joked, laughing as she tried to lean forward, impeded by her stomach, struggling to snatch it back out of his hands and failing miserably. He held it out of reach as he read, his movements faltering as his eyes landed on a name near the top of the page, one that she was yet to read out to him.
"Theresa?" He read out simply, his smile dropping, pressing his lips together in a tight line. He sank back into his seat, and she leaned back too, her fingers coming up to nervously toy with her lip, unsure of how he was reacting.
"Er.. yeah. I just thought..." She trailed off, as he stared at the page, like he was reading that same name over and over again.
"Yeah, no... I know." He mumbled vaguely, nodding to himself, hearing the doubt in her voice. He turned to her finally, his expression unreadable, letting the paper drop back onto her ankle.
"It's... it's a nice idea." He started, his tone soft and sad, his hand finding her knee and giving it a little squeeze.
"I loved my mother... very much." He started in a conflicted tone, and she nodded, hating that she'd put that name on the list, hating that it had stirred up these feelings. She just felt like she needed to suggest it, since she'd never have considered her own mother's name. "But..." He took a deep breath, casting his eyes down to her calf, absent mindedly stroking his hand down her leg. "She wasn't a strong woman." He said guiltily, like he was doing her a great disservice by saying so. "I want our daughter to be named after someone strong."
She leaned forward, managing to push herself up a little, and reaching for his hands eventually, letting him grasp them and pull her up the rest of the way. Her legs were still wedged either side of him and she used her grip on him to shuffle herself towards, bending her knees and leaning in close to him. Her hands slid to cup the sides of his face, pulling his gaze up to meet hers and smiling sadly at him.
"Norma it is then." She said seriously, and smiled broadly when he barked out a surprised laugh at her little joke.
"Or Louise?" She rolled her eyes at his running joke that hadn't been funny the first time and definitely wasn't funny now. Opening her mouth to tell him this, she flinched suddenly, dropping her hands from his face to cup her stomach, her face screwing up in pain for a second, and he panicked. The smile dropped from his face and his hands shot out to gently grip her upper arms, watching as she leaned forwards, wincing.
"What? What is it? What's wrong?"
Her face smoothed out immediately, lifting her head to smile at his panicked reaction.
"She's kicking me." She announced and his face lit up.
"See! She likes the name too!" Norma pretended to be utterly exasperated by him, all the while secretly loving his excitement over every part of this child's development. She reached out to grab his hands, pressing them against her stomach, shifting them round a few times experimentally. She winced slightly as a little foot connected with her rib, and Alex frowned, partly at seeing his wife in mild pain (he was going to be a nightmare in the delivery room, she thought idly to herself) but mostly because he selfishly couldn't feel his daughter moving around where he was pressing his hands with giddy anticipation.
"I can't feel it." He said sadly.
"Oh poor you." She tutted at him as she jolted slightly again, and he looked stricken as his own selfishness, letting himself get caught up in the fact that he always seemed to miss any time she was kicking. He wriggled out from between where he was trapped between her legs, sinking to his knees in front of the couch and spinning round to face her. She swung her feet onto the floor, spreading her legs to make room for him to kneel in front of her, his hands resting on her knees for a second before he leaned in close.
"Hey." He whispered quietly. "Hey kid?" She giggled, as his hands came up to rest against either side of her protruding stomach, his nose brushing against her belly as he spoke. She leaned back on her hands, smiling down at him. "Stop kicking your mom, ok?"
There was a pause, where he waited, and there were no more little winces or jolts and he held his hands up smugly, like he had the magic touch and she shook her head at how easy he clearly thought this was going to be.
Her hand drifted through his hair, before sliding to his chin, tilting his face up to her, smiling down at him sweetly, pulling gently on his chin to tug him up. He knelt up, raising himself up till he was face to face with her, staring at her warmly for a moment.
He couldn't know that the fathers of her other two children had never talked to her belly when she was pregnant, or that they'd never rubbed her aching feet, or that they'd never cared what she'd called their sons. He could never guess the casual level of disinterest that John had shown, putting all his energy into masking his resentment towards her for trapping him, or the hostility that Sam had openly sent her way, only ever referring to their unborn child as "another mouth to feed". So Alex didn't understand why she was gazing at him so sadly, and sweetly and like he was the most perfect thing she'd ever seen, her eyes shining happily, her hands cupping his face tenderly.
She kissed him gently, and shivered as his hands tenderly tickled down her sides to rest on her stomach again, her own hands pressing over his, clutching at them gratefully.
"Am I interrupting?"
Thank you for all your name suggestions! I tried to include my favourites. You'll have to wait a little longer to find out which one I go for. :)
