Parker triple checked her reflection in the floor length mirror before she gave any thought to the items that she had seemingly abandoned on the vanity behind her. She normally wasn't overly concerned with her appearance and had become even less so once she started fooling around with Remi, except for a few rare occasions. But for some reason today was totally different. Why that was happening now was a complete mystery to her, but it was beyond important all the same.
Once she was certain that every hair was in its place and that her dress looked smooth, she turned to walk back over to her vanity. As Remi had predicted, they did move to a bigger room at Peltier House so that they would be more comfortable. Parker had liked the set up in her first room there that Remi had insisted that she bring most of her furniture to their new room.
Parker smiled to herself at that thought because she barely said "mine" anymore. No, now it was pretty much always 'ours'. She never knew how amazing it could be to share practically everything in her life with someone. Since she an only child, everything she owned was hers and hers alone and she was never really expected to share, although she would share anything she owned with anyone who asked without complaint, even as a young child. After they had decided to share a space, Parker almost worried that she might have difficulties with it, but so far there had been no issues. She joked with Aimée that she was sure that it must be some sort of magic that came with being mated because some days it felt too good to be true.
At her vanity, Parker stared down at the white envelope she had placed there. She then picked up a pen to address it, but as she moved the tip of the pen closer to the paper, her hand started to quiver. She pulled her hand away and shook it vigorously in the hopes that she could relieve her nervous tension.
"Come on Parker, it's just a name. Four little letters," she whispered to herself as she made yet another attempt to address the envelope. "Or maybe you could just put his first initial on it."
With a quakey motion, she started to press the tip of the pen to the paper. Parker knew that her nerves would never permit her to write out his name smoothly, but she hoped that a single letter would at least be legible. Then again, as soon as she placed it in his hands he would be sure to know that it was for him.
Just as she was about to scroll out a quick initial, Parker was interrupted by someone knocking on the door. Her mind and gaze remained so completely focused on the envelope that she actually jumped when she heard them knock again.
"Parker?" Aimée called out from the other side of the door. "Sweetie, are you having troubles with your wardrobe again?"
Hearing her soon to be sister in law's question made Parker laugh because of the memory that comment had evoked. Last time that happened Parker had managed to make it look like a hurricane had plowed through her room because she had had no idea what to wear to meet her potential new employer. Today she hadn't had that issue because she had picked out her dress months in advance. In fact, it was Bride who had called her when it had arrived at her store because she was sure that Parker would fall in love with it instantly.
She quickly picked up the crop shrug that matched her navy crushed velvet, knee length spaghetti strapped dress before she rushed to the door to meet Aimée. The bearswan was beaming as she watched Parker slip on the shrug, but she saved her comments because she could tell that Parker was about to speak.
"I'm so sorry, Aims," the human apologized quickly. "I totally lost track of the time. Is everyone here? Can I help with anything? Is the food getting cold?"
Aimée clamped her hands onto Parker's shoulders and made very direct eye contact with her as she replied, "Cub, it's alright. Everything is taken care of and we're still waiting on a few people to arrive before we sit down to dinner. I was just worried about you because you've seemed a little distracted these last couple of days."
Parker's cheeks rouged and she tried not to look too guilty as she replied, "I know, it's just... well... It's my... well you know, since Remi and I and all..."
"I know Cub," Aimée mercifully cut in. "I know. But we've considered you a part of the family since you were a little girl. You being Remi's mate just made it official."
Parker pulled Aimée into a hug. She had always considered her closest friends as part of her extended family, so she hated that she couldn't be completely honest with Aimée or anyone else right now. Soon she would have to face the brutal truth, but until then she had to keep it to herself and keep up appearances.
That, of course, was easier said than done because she knew that both Dev and Aimée had somewhat of a sixth sense about her emotions. Remi was starting to develop on too, which made the butterflies in her stomach start to flutter wildly. She somehow managed to keep her breathing steady and even as she eased out of her embrace to give Aimée what she hoped was a carefree, easy-going smile.
"Thanks again Aims. I know I'm being silly but I still feel really nervous."
"That's okay Sweets. But just keep reminding yourself that we all love you and one little dinner isn't going to change that."
"Little? Ha! Since when has a Peltier Family Christmas dinner ever been 'little'?"
Aimée let out a beautiful laugh then replied, "Touché. That's very true, Cub." She then made a point to rub her protruding belly as she added, "And it isn't looking like it will be getting smaller any time soon."
"Very good point. Alright," Parker paused to straighten out her shrug so that the small, silver beaded snowflake accents were laying flat on her chest. "Let's not keep everyone waiting then."
She presented her friend her bent left arm and Aimée slipped her right arm through it replying, "On y va."
Once they made it into the dining room of Sanctuary, Parker immediately felt the knot in her stomach tighten. Like Aimée had pointed out, this wasn't her first time attending a Holiday dinner at Sanctuary, so she tried to remind herself that it was all in her head. She was the one psyching herself out about this evening and she needed to just calm down. Or start thinking about something else so that she would stop obsessing about...
"Simi and Ash are here," Aimée said, drawing Parker out of her thoughts. "I'm sure they'd love to see you."
"Sure, I'll go find them in a minute, but first..." Parker replied sounding somewhat distracted. "Have you seen Remi? I mean, do you know where he might be right now?"
Aimée laughed and gave Parker an enthusiastic hug saying, "Of course, I should have known you'd want to see your mate first. Last I saw him, he was backstage working on something for the show tonight to help out Cody."
"Oh, right. He had mentioned something about that before he left our room. Thanks Aims."
"Anytime Cub."
Aimée was still chuckling softly to herself as she watched Parker maneuver through the crowded dining room. The human tried to move as quickly as possible to the backstage area, but she had to stop periodically to talk with some of the other party-goers to keep from being overtly rude. Luckily most of them were Were-Hunters with their own mates, so they more than understood when she apologized for being so brief because she was trying to find Remi.
It felt like it had taken her forever to get to the door to the rear of the stage, but it took her no time at all to find Remi. He had his back to her and was kneeling on the floor working on one of the speakers. As soon as he came into view, Parker sucked in a breath and she felt her pulse rate start to speed up. She still couldn't believe that such a gorgeous specimen of pure male perfection would want to be mated to her, but here she stood with the mark on her had to prove that they belonged to each other.
As she stood there watching him work, Remi started to turn to face her, almost as if he could sense her presence. Once he had almost fully turned around, he started to rise to his feet. Before Parker could register that she was looking into her mate's face, Remi had crossed the room and had scooped her up into his arms for a loving embrace.
"That dress is beautiful," he remarked as he placed her back on her feet.
She smiled demurely and tucked a look of her faded blue hair behind her ear with a barely audible, "Thanks."
"Not that that's a surprise," he continued, seemingly not noticing that Parker was looking somewhat uncomfortable. "Because there isn't much that you could wear that could be diminish your beauty."
"Thanks Remi," Parker answered with more volume in her voice. "Bride has a really great eye for fashion. I'll have to remember to thank her again."
"I'll have to as well," he playfully retorted as he moved to hug her again.
Parker quickly took a step back and away from Remi. He froze in his place and she visibly cringed at the hurt look on his face. She wanted nothing more than to run into his arms and kiss that look off of his face, but she had sought him out of a specific reason and she would not allow herself to be deterred from her goal.
"Remi...? There's... uhh... That is to say, I..." Looking as flustered as she sounded, Parker shook her head and the she pulled out her left hand from behind her. Remi's eyes flicked from the white envelope covered in silver glitter with a large "R" scrolled on it to Parker's face. She wouldn't make eye contact with him as she pushed it into his hand saying, "Here, take this. It should be able to explain everything better than I can."
Remi cautiously claimed the envelope from her, but he looked like he was worried that it might explode in his hand. That fear appeared to have been heightened when he saw Parker take another large step away from him. She kept her eyes laser focused on his hands, so he flipped over what he thought was a card or a letter to open it. On the back was a familiar snowflake sticker. Although neither of them were Christian, Parker still used the festive season as an excuse to send out cards and letters to her friends. This year she had been particularly excited because she could gloat that she had been mated to a Were-Hunter (and a Peltier no less!) and that they were engaged to be married. For her true, close friends it was a head's up that they would be receiving invitations to the wedding. For the rest, it was just a fun way for her to brag.
Remi smiled down at the image of the snowflake as his finger gently caressed it. He then let out a breath to steady himself before he carefully tor opened the envelope. Inside he found what he thought was an index card. After he slowly pulled it out, he saw a note written in Parker's beautiful cursive writing saying, "I THINK WE HAVE TO POSTPONE THE WEDDING."
He forced himself to re-read the note at least three times in the hopes that the words would say something different. When they didn't change, his head shot up so that he could look at Parker and nearly shouted, "You can't be serious!"
Parker was no longer looking at him. Instead she had retreated a few more steps back towards the door and had her gaze fixed on her hands that were fidgeting with the hem of her dress. "It's just... I mean... it makes the most sense and all."
"No, Baby it doesn't. This makes no sense to me AT ALL. I thought this is what you wanted. I thought you loved me."
"I did... I mean I do... but..." She let out a heavy sigh and finally lifted her head to look him in the eye. "I do love you. You're my Teddy Bear, but... well... the timing just won't be right. Plus, I said 'postpone' not 'cancel'."
Remi's eyebrows knitted into a deep scowl as he said, "Okay, so you're still in love with me, you're still my mate, you still want to be my wife, just not yet? Did I hear that right? What does that mean?"
Parker's scowl deepened as she replied, "Remi Peltier... Did you just read the back and then jump to all of sorts of conclusions?"
Remi started to return her glare with one of his own, but then he realized that she was right. She had been working on not letting her thoughts run away with her when they were talking and he in turn was supposed to be working on not jumping to conclusions and letting his anger get the best of him. Both had been succeeding for the most part, but when their emotions were running high they both seemed to fall back into their old bad habits all too easily.
Seeing his cheeks start to turn pink extinguished all of Parker's anger. She then walked over to him and gently extracted the envelope from his grasp as she said, "I guess that also means that you didn't notice that my note was written on photo paper then either, eh Teddy Bear?" Remi had the good grace to look embarrassed as he shook his head. Parker then went up on her tiptoes to place a soft kiss on his lips. When she was back on her feet she held up the photo (with the photo side showing) for him to see. "Does this explain it enough for you?"
Remi's eyes bulged out as his hands reclaimed the photo without any conscious thought. Parker fought not to laugh at his reaction. He remained silent as he started to scrutinize the photo like it was a priceless piece of artwork. Parker then started to try to shadow him as he was pacing because she knew that once he had processed what he was looking at that he would have questions for her, so she wanted to stay as close to him as possible.
Remi suddenly stopped which caused Parker to run into his back as he asked, "Does this mean...?"
"Cub? Are you alright?" Aimée called out sounding out of breath from where she was standing at the door.
Parker turned to reply to her friend but she was quickly interrupted by her other best-friend calling out from behind her, "Parker? Is everything okay?"
Suddenly Fang flashed in behind Aimée as he check in on his mate. Parked made her way to Remi's side as the room started to feel like it was being filled with Were-Hunters and a few Dark-Hunters as well. Neither Parker nor Remi noticed how everyone arrived, but soon enough the backstage area felt like it was full of their friends and family (not that it was difficult to achieve because of the small size of the room).
Parker snuggled into Remi's side as she whispered, "Teddy Bear? What do we do?"
Before Remi could reply everyone went silent when a very imposing looking Acheron flashed into the room at Parker's side. To be fair though Acheron's sheer size was imposing enough without his vintage punk rock look or death god air. He seemed to only have eyes for Parker as he asked, "Is everything alright? Everyone seems to be worried that they saw Aimée running this way because she thought you were having troubles Parker."
She shared a look with Remi and then took the picture out of her mate's hand to pass it to Acheron. The Atlantean's eyes went wide for a split second because he now finally understood why everyone was so up in arms.
Acheron then turned towards the young couple so that he could very loudly say, "Congratulations you tow. Your babies are so blessed to have you as parents."
Parker gave Acheron wide eyes because even she hadn't known for sure if they were having multiples or not. Remi gave her an almost hurt look so she quickly added, "The doctor said it was too soon to tell anything beyond the fact that I'm definitely pregnant. He said that because of your family tree that it was likely but..." She then directed her commentary towards the leader of the Dark-Hunters as she asked, "Acheron? Are you saying...? Are Remi and I...? Should we be thinking of more than just two names?"
It had been a while since Acheron had found himself almost being an Oracle for anyone close to him, so he wasn't sure what to say. He had had a very vivid image of the day that Parker would be giving birth, but he didn't want to ruin the surprise for either of them, so he simply replied, "It might be for the best."
"Best?" Parker nearly shouted. "Come on Ash! How many more? Two of each or three of each or...?"
Acheron reached out a hand to pet Parker's cheek so that she would fall silent. "How about I don't completely ruin the surprise for you two and just say that you should try to come up with two names for each sex instead."
"Two...?" Parker started to stutter. "Ash...? Am I...? Am I having a litter?"
Acheron let out a hearty laugh that filled the room and silenced every single whisper before he replied, "Parker... Remi... I don't want to take the fun of finding out away from you. Just know that you will be blessed with more than one child. Beyond that..." Acheron then mimed securing his lips with an invisible lock and key.
Seeing one of the most powerful beings on the planet force themselves not to spoil the future for them caused Parker to sputter out a laugh before it turned into a quiet sob. Acheron took a step forward to offer to comfort her until he heard a familiar sing-song voice call out, "Parker-Cub, you...? Why? Parker-Cub, who has made you cry? The Simi will fry them and eat them for breakfast for hurting you!"
Parker sputtered out another tearful laugh as she replied, "Simi, these are tears of joy. If I sound like I might be scared it's because Acheron just told us... uhh... Remi and I that is... he just told us some really surprising news."
Simi scowled then asked, "So it was Akri... Akri told Parker-Cub something that made her cry?"
"Not like you think," Parker answered as she took a couple of steps towards the winged fairy-like demon girl. "Simi? I'm... I'm going to have my very own cub... or two or three or maybe more. I'm kind of scared that I won't be able to take care of all of them... and your... umm... Acheron was trying to help us which made me so happy that I started to cry."
"So, Akri made you so happy that you burst?" Simi asked before she added in a faux whisper, "Because I can't fry Akri Parker-Cub. The Simi has to protect him no matter what, but Simi doesn't want her Parker-Cub to be hurting."
"And I'm not!" Park jumped in quickly as she once again stepped into Remi's side. "I'm going to be a Momma Bear Simi. Do you know what that means?"
The little demon's eyes went comically wide before she answered enthusiastically, "The Simi gets to give them cubs all hornays?"
Parker sniffled in a breath as she laughed and then replied, "Of course it does Simi. But you have to make sure that they are removable just like the ones you gave me when I was a little girl, okay?"
"Okay!" Simi shouted before she clapped her hands and rubbed them together. "How many hornays do you need?"
"Well..." Remi jumped in sounding very unsure and a little frightened.
Parker quickly elbowed him in the side hard enough to make her mate take in a deep breath before she answered, "Simi, I just found out that I'm having babies. I'm sorry, but I'm only human, so it will be a while before I... we know for sure."
Simi nearly bounced over to Parker's side and tapped the human's head before jovially saying, "And those are for my Parker-Cub so that she can show her own cubs how beautiful their hornays will make them look."
Simi then flounced her way out of the room with more than one mention that she was hungry. Parker was still laughing as she maneuvered into a modified side hug with Remi.
"Don't worry Remi," she said quietly as she wrapped her arms around his waist. "All of the horns she gave me as a little girl were removable, I'm sure she will honor that request."
"So these ones are too then?"
She raised her hand to her head and lifted the horns to show him that they were in fact on an elastic string. "Of course they are."
"Good, good. So back to this whole postponing the wedding..."
"Postpone!?" Aimée shouted when she over heard her brother. "Why would you suggest such a thing?"
Parker opened her mouth to speak, but Remi squeezed her shoulders with the arm he had wrapped around them. She immediately understood that it was his way of asking for her to stay quiet, so she did. He then squeezed her again to silently thank her.
"We were discussing it as a possibility because if we wait until the summer like we had planned then there is no way that Parker's dress will fit. And we all know how hard it was for her to find a dress that she truly loves."
"True, but instead of postponing it, why don't we have it before she starts to show and the dress still fits?" Aimée countered.
Remi shrugged then looked down at Parker to say, "You did say you wanted to be married before you and I started our family. What do you think?"
"I'd have to check with the dress shop because they were going to do some alterations," Parker replied with a large smile on her face.
Aimée quickly scooped Parker into her arms and cried out, "Perfect! Once we know when they can have it done, we'll have our new date!"
"Really?" Parker asked as she hugged her friend. "You think that we can get everything switched to an earlier date?"
"For you Cub we will. Now come on, the foods probably getting cold by now."
"Alright. Thanks Aimée."
Aimée gave Parker one last squeeze before she let her go. She then moved over to where Fang was standing and waiting for her. Once she was released Parker moved back to her mate's side and wrapped her arms around him.
"So Teddy Bear? Are you okay with the change in the timeline?"
Remi hugged her tightly and said, "Mon ourson, you know that as long as you are happy, I'm happy. So are you?"
"No," Parker replied with a chuckle. "I'm ecstatic."