Gail wasn't an expert on pregnancy, on the different mood swings or hormones that came along with growing a person, but she was pretty sure the way her wife had been acting wasn't in part of it. It wasn't a mood swing, the quietness, the brush offs, the lack of eye contact, because it was all the time. There was no pause, no switch of directions. So it had to be something she did. Only problem was that Gail had no idea what she'd done, what she could have possible said or done to warrant Holly to lose the sparkle in her eye when they first saw each other after a long day at work.

She'd messed up on one late night run to the store, instead of grabbing raspberry tea she'd gotten strawberry, Holly had been upset about that. Upset but not mad. And it blew over in the morning when Gail woke her up with a fresh cup of raspberry tea. She even got a kiss.

Couldn't be the tea.

There was another time when Gail forgot to wash Holly's favourite lab coat and the doctor had to wear her spare, Holly had been mad then. But that couldn't be it either, it'd been too long for the brunette to be stewing about it still.

Gail tapped the steering wheel as she thought. For once she wasn't excited to go home, to walk into the house she was slowly beginning to call home, to hang up her coat and untie her boots, and shuffle I to the kitchen to find her pregnant nerd. Nerd, a nickname she only started referring the brunette by in the past week, a nickname Holly seemed to love. Gail really wanted to make up for whatever she'd done, there was an unsettling weight, dark and heavy, that grew in the pit of her stomach with each passing day Holly didn't meet her eye.

The freak outs? Maybe Holly was just realizing how stupid and hard it would be to keep her around, falling apart every other day, it'd happened twice already. Holly was probably tired of having to pick her up off the floor. Gail could understand, she wouldn't want to be on that end of any relationship, let alone with a baby on the way.

Gail parked in her usual spot in the driveway, not quite remembering how she'd already made it home. None the less she gathered her things and headed into the house with a defeated sigh.

The delicious smell of lasagna assaulted her senses as she untied her boots and placed them next to the little table that held keys and mail and a small vase empty of flowers. Gail made a mental note to fix that, bring home a bouquet after work. Before going to find her wife she decided to change out of her street clothes and get right into something comfy, anything to prolong the inevitable.

"Hey, hey." Gail hurried to the brunette's side, and placed her hand on Holly's arm to stop her from taking out the lasagna. "No. Let me."

Holly practically jumped out of her skin, pulling away harshly like Gail had burned her or something. She collected herself rather quickly with a clear of her throat.

Gail looked at her confused. Holly had never acted that way before, not even in the hospital. It was alarming to say the least. But she let it roll off of her and busied herself with serving them dinner.

"How was your day?" Gail asked around a bite.

"Good."

Gail nodded and looked back down to her plate. So Holly was still mad. Awhile passed before the silence rang far too loudly for her liking and she just had to break it.

"So, uh, anything new with the baby?" The baby was always a good topic, a never ending supply of conversation. "Pains, aches, symptoms?"

Holly coughed, choking on a bite of food. Gail was out of her seat and next to her wife in a flash. She pat Holly's back in an attempt to help her cough it up and breathe, luckily it worked and the brunette was spitting onto her plate of half eaten food. Gail kept her hand where it was, running soothing circles into Holly's back as she passed the brunette her glass of milk.

Her heart was racing, she'd never been more afraid then in that moment, not even when she was shot at on the job. Gail took the second Holly drank to calm her nerves. Holly is breathing, she's fine, she repeated to herself.

"Are you okay?" Gail asked just above a whisper, suddenly closer to Holly than she expected to be. Holly jerked away with the same ferocity as before so she let up and took a step back, hand in the air in surrender. "I'm sorry. I, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"You don't. I'm fine, just the wrong pipe." Holly explained too tensely to be taken in the casual manner she had gone for.

Gail silently picked up her wife's plate and took it to the kitchen. As she waited for the fresh slice to heat up in the microwave she sent off a text to her new friend, Kim. After their little run in at the store Gail had, on her word, taken the woman up on her offer to talk. It'd started casually, asking a few questions she was too embarrassed or just couldn't ask Holly. Then they met up for coffee and Gail got to meet Kim's son, Ian, they talked more and Gail learned a lot. They fell into a friendship of sorts. Kim was Gail's go-to for baby inquiries, Gail was a breath of fresh air for Kim. It was new. So it was second nature to text off the question to her new friend.

The reply was surprisingly fast and she was thankful it was, she didn't know what else to do.

Encyclopedia: You're going to have to be more specific

She's been jumpy and weird

Encyclopedia: Doesn't sound like a symptom. Maybe she's nervous about the baby, it's getting really close

So it wasn't symptom, it had to be Holly. Gail rejoined the table, careful not to touch the brunette when she placed the new plate on the table in front of her, but once she sat down Holly stood up.

"I'm not hungry anymore." The pregnant woman murmured and made her way to the living room.

Gail grabbed her wrist as she passed by, stopping her cold in her tracks, she could feel the kick of Holly's pulse quicken. "What's up, Hol? You've been acting weird."

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it." Holly brushed off.

"That's hard to do when you act like I tase you with every interaction." She stood and met Holly eye to eye. "Just tell me what I did so I can fix it."

"You didn't do anything." Holly dismissed.

Gail licked her lips, earning her a quick lip look from her wife. She tried to suppress the roll of excitement that ran through her. "Well something is going on."

Holly began pacing the floor, she looked uncomfortable, every movement of hers seemed uncomfortable. Gail couldn't blame her though, she was carrying around an extra twenty pounds, and the angles were weird too. But even so, she was beautiful, even more so than in their wedding pictures. There was a softness, a warmth, a promise, and as cliche as it was Holly was glowing. It brought a smile to Gail.

"I'm tense." The brunette settled on the two words.

"That can easily be taken care of with a massage."

"No!" Holly stopped her pacing with such a look of horror that Gail was almost offended.

"Believe it or not, Holly, it wouldn't be the first time. And the fact that you're pregnant doesn't change that, it's fine. You deserve one, even." Gail was even more confused then she had been before. Holly was tense, she could relive it, she didn't see what the problem was.

Holly bit her lip and shuffled nervously. When she spoke her voice was just loud enough to hear. "I appreciate the offer, Gail, I do. But it's not that. Kind of...tense."

Gail shot her a weird face. She thought she was lost before but this was a whole new world.

Holly looked to the ceiling as if the answer would be there waiting. She sighed. "There's an itch, that I can't scratch, because I'm too-I'm very pregnant."

If they were in a cartoon a lightbulb would have appeared over Gail's head as all the pieces fell into place. An itch. Gail knew all about those itches. She'd even had one or two in recent weeks, but she had taken care of them with her usual methods. Holly couldn't. Gail blushed at the thought of what that would look like, Holly taking care of herself.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. My hormones have been all over the place, and I thought I'd gotten over this phase. I'd been able to take care of it then, my belly wasn't so big, and it was easier to keep the feeling down because you weren't here. Though it didn't help either because it'd been so long." Holly was in a full on babble, working herself up. She sat back in her seat with a huff. "Now I'm not shutting up and making things worse. Please just ignore the past five minutes."

"Oh, Holly, no. You didn't-I'm fine, a bit caught off guard is all." She reassured calmly. Holly finally met her gaze, her dark eyes glassy as tears bubbled over her lashes, the sight was a punch to Gail's chest. She tentatively walked to her wife hand stroked her hair. "It's normal, Nerd, natural even."

"Can you please not...touch me. I can't-it just makes me." Holly trailed off and put her hands over her face to hide away from the current subject.

Wait. Gail paused what she'd thought a soothing touch. Did Holly jump from her every touch, and not make eye contact, because she made her... She didn't remove her hand, instead she tucked a strand of hair behind Holly's ear.

"Holly," Gail raised her chin with a few fingers and dropped her voice a bit, "I'd be very willing to scratch that itch for you. If you'd like."

Holly removed her hands from her face, her eyes considerably darkened and she shook her head. "I couldn't ask you to-"

"You didn't, I offered." Gail cut her off.

She tried to respond but nothing came out. So Gail took the moment into her own hands and pulled the brunette to her feet, placed her one hand back to Holly's cheek, the other on her side, and kissed her. Slowly and reassuring. She felt Holly sigh when she gently stroked her thumb over soft skin. It was unlike any of the other times they'd kissed, there was a charge to it, an undercurrent. It was leading somewhere, a place they hadn't dared to even broach subject to. She pulled back slowly but kept them close together, "come upstairs with me?"

Holly nodded slowly.

Gail leaned back in for another kiss and trailed her finger tips down to her wife's hands, entwining their fingers together. Just as she was pulling away there was a poke to her abdomen, a familiar jab of tiny limbs, she breathed a laugh and looked between them to Holly's belly.

"This is going to be interesting." She mused.

"Definitely a first." Holly's smile was still unsure, a war was being fought behind her eyes. Gail didn't like that.

"We should get to it then." Gail dropped her voice, letting it get heavy, enticing and reassuring the brunette. She watched as Holly swallowed thickly. She gave her hand a squeeze and then lead Holly up to their room.

Once in their room, door closed, Gail rushed around turning on bedside lamps and turning off the big light. When the lighting was better she gestured to the bed for Holly to sit, her feet had to be killing her, and the more comfortable she was the better. The night was for Holly after all. She just hoped she'd be able to live up to whatever expectations her past self had set, and if her history was of any consolation the bar was set high.

She slowly approached her wife, she had to remind herself of that title -that Holly was her wife, the one person she could trust in every situation imaginable-, and stopped when she reached the edge of the bed between Holly's legs. "Is this okay?" She asked quietly. Holly nodded. She placed a hand on either side of her wife's face and tilted her chin up just that extra bit, she brushed her thumb across Holly's bottom lip "and this?" Again Holly nodded. Gail leaned in, closing what little space they had between them, and caught Holly's lip in her own. She let Holly set the pace, let her tell her where they were at and what she wanted.

Slowly the spark grew into flames and their kisses went from nervous to needy, the desire they each felt showing more and more with every second. Gail lost her hands in the sea of dark hair, knotting and pulling, while Holly's had found purchase on Gail's hips digging into soft skin every time a moan escaped her throat. It was different than what she'd expected, what she was used to. The hunger was different, more intense, lips and skin were softer- more satisfying to touch, and the hair. Gail had no idea that running her hands through long hair, playing and tugging, was such a turn on for her. She wasn't sure if it was because Holly was a woman or if it was just because she was Holly, either way Gail liked it and never wanted to go back to what she'd always known. Holly was it for her.

Gail notices a tug on her shirt. It'd happened a few times but Holly still hadn't taken it off yet, hesitated to go beyond what Gail had given and it was frustrating if not adorable. She moved to kiss along Holly's jaw, savouring each one, until she reached her ear.

"If you want it off, take it off, Holly." She smiled into the tan skin when a shiver ran through the brunette, making tiny goose bumps appear under her lips. She changed course and tentatively went down the column of Holly's neck, across her shoulder and back to her collarbone, staying at a sweet spot that made Holly gasp.

Holly expertly unbuttoned her wife's shirt. She slipped her hands across Gail's stomach, ghosting over the pale skin she'd been craving for far too long, tickling up her sides. Gail had a shiver of her own, thoroughly enjoying the brunette's ministrations. She leaned forward as best she could but it wasn't quite enough to do what she wanted.

Hearing a low frustrated growl and feeling a puff of hot air against her skin Gail stopped, glanced at the mark she'd made, and pulled away to see what was wrong. Something was making Holly upset and that was the opposite mood she wanted her in. She caressed her wife's cheek to get her attention, "what's wrong?"

"I can't do what I want to because I'm too big."

"And do you want to do?" Gail trailed her fingers down Holly's arms.

"You."

Gail breathed a chuckle and brought their foreheads together. It was intimate, a feeling she'd never shared with any of her past lovers. She liked it. "How about I take care of you first? You have been waiting the longest." Goose bumps rose under her fingertips, dancing down the length of Holly's arms.

"Okay."