When it happens, she's in the kitchen with her mom. Flynn had the brilliant idea to visit his niece for Valentine's Day. It's actually two weeks after though, because he had had midterms and couldn't find a break to not study until they were over with. Flynn is out in the living room, messing with the fireplace because the heater had been acting funny the last few days. At first it's just—uncomfortable, an ache in her side. She rolls her shoulders, and turns off the oven—except barely a few minutes later it happens again, harder, sharper. She grips the counter and quietly says, "Mom—"
She doesn't hear her the first time and when it stabs again a minute later, she yells, "Mom!"
When she runs into the kitchen, saying, "CeCe—CeCe, what's wrong?" she's already panicking.
"It's—I think—" she says, and she can barely breathe, all the sudden. "It's time."
"What?" her mom says. "It's too early, CeCe, are you—"
"Yes," CeCe says, and oh, Gosh, is she hyperventilating? She's gripping the counter so hard her fingers are white, and her legs are barely holding her up, and she says, "Please—please, I need, Gunther, Mama, call Gunther, please, it's—"
"Gunther?" she says, right after yelling at Flynn, and he is skidding to halt in the room, arms up like he's ready to carry CeCe to the car if he needs to. She would laugh, if that didn't remind her of Gunther so much. "Why—oh, CeCe, is he—"
"Mom, please," She says, and then they're going to the car, and she totally doesn't need to be all, carried out, but Flynn has an arm around her waist and her mom around her shoulders like she's about to collapse or something.
Her mom hands her her phone when they get in the car, and she's breathing hard, scared and terrified, but she dials Gunther anyway, because—because she needs him, right now, he has to be there for this, he has to be.
It takes three rings for him to pick it up, and when he does, he answers by yawning out, "Ce—CeCs? What's up? Little girl kicking again?"
"Gunther," She says, Gosh, she's practically crying, "Gunther, I'm going into, it's time for—she's coming, Gunther, you have to—please—you have to be here, I can't—"
"What?" Gunther says, loud into the phone, and CeCe can hear him curse and move and say, "Shit, fuck, I don't—I'm in New York for a convention, I don't know if I can get there."
CeCe says, "Please, just—please, Gunther, you—please, I need—" and Gunther says, "Don't hang up."
Her mom ends up putting him on speakerphone for the whole ride to the hospital, and CeCe starts breathing normally again sometime between "I'm headed to the airport, okay?" and "It's alright, this usually happens with first-time pregnancies, false alarms are quite ordinary—"
She puts her head in her arms and tries not to cry, she doesn't even know why.
But Gunther is coming, just like that, from New York.
CeCe—CeCe's going to have to tell him.