Disclaimer: I don't own anything here (except for Al) and am just doing this for fun and to pass the long months until Season 4.
After the ultrasound appointment, Tim felt almost high from the overwhelming excitement of it all. He hadn't been able to pretend that he could see anything in those fuzzy images. He'd been a bit confused and embarrassed to admit that it didn't look like much of anything to him. Al squeezed his hand and he could tell from the way she smiled that she understood exactly how he felt.
But then the doctor had taken out what looked like a microphone and tape recorder, reminding Tim of a radio reporter. For a crazy second, Tim had the impression that the doctor was going to try to interview his wife's stomach. Then he heard it, the sound of their baby's heartbeat, a fast, steady pounding that made him feel a bit weak at the knees.
On the way home, Tim couldn't do much more than look at Al and grin. He was glad the drive was short because he was starting to feel like an idiot. When they got home, Al asked Tim to start a fire. When they were building the house, he'd scoffed at the idea of a fireplace in Texas, but Al had insisted. They didn't use it very often, but the cool winter days and some of the chilly, wet spring days were perfect excuses to have a fire.
When the fire was going, Tim and Al curled up together on the living room couch, the dogs sleeping on the floor near them. They were silent for a few minutes, the only sounds coming from the popping of the fire and the scratching of George's nails on the hardwood floor as his legs moved while he dreamed.
Tim could still hear their baby's heartbeat in his head and he slipped his hand under Al's shirt. She wasn't really showing yet. Maybe if she wore tight clothes, you'd think she'd put on a few pounds. But Tim could see the beginning of a bulge and swore that her skin felt warmer, although she always told him he was just imagining it.
"So the next ultrasound, we'll get to know if we're going to have a football player or a cheerleader, huh?" asked Tim.
Al elbowed him in the ribs. "Cheerleader. Like hell. Over my dead body."
"Ow...I was only joking," Tim said, thinking that cheerleading might be okay but there was no way any daughter of his was going to be a rally girl. "Do you....you know, are you hoping more for one than the other?"
Al took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I don't know.....I want a healthy baby and don't care about the gender. But I think I'd be better at being a mother to a boy, since I understand boys a lot better. Weird, I know, but that's what growing up with seven brothers gets you, I guess."
Tim nodded and watched the flames dance in the fireplace. He didn't realize Al was crying until a tear landed on his hand. He shifted so he could see her face and brushed her curls aside.
"Al, it's going to be okay. Really. You're going to be a great mother, boy, girl, it doesn't matter." He kept his voice low and soothing.
"I wanted a boy, the first time around, you know. Not like actively or anything, but it was just my quiet preference, although I had mentioned it to Stephen. When Avery was born, I was so happy and loved her so much, I didn't care that she wasn't a boy."
Tim stayed quiet while Al paused to take a breath. He wiped her tears away and pulled her closer.
"After.....everything....Stephen was good at first, about not blaming me, until he finally did start to blame me. One of the worst things he said to me is that I was careless because she was a girl, that I never would have left a boy like that."
Tim rubbed her back, wanting more than anything to interrupt and assure her that Stephen had just been acting like a jackass. And then he wanted to drive to North Dakota, find the guy, and beat the crap out of him.
"Then it became a question that haunted me for the next few years. I know now that he was just lashing out because he was hurt, but still....it colors everything somehow. You know what, I don't want to talk about this anymore. This is a happy day, for happy things only."
"You can talk about whatever you want to talk about."
"And I want to talk about happy things. I'm all emotional and hormonal, doesn't take much to set me off in any direction, so let's try for a happy direction. How about names? You have any idea about names."
Tim took a deep breath and let it out through puffed-out cheeks. He shook his head. "I'd sort of like to do Billy the honor of naming a boy after him, since that's what he did for me with TJ, but I don't like 'Will' or 'Willie' and it would feel wrong to call anyone else 'Billy'."
"William can be the middle name, you know?"
"Yeah, I'd like that." Tim paused for a few beats before continuing. "It just seems so hard, like such a big responsibility. You don't want to name the kid the wrong thing and then he gets beat up every day and has a miserable life."
"You really think any kid of ours is going to get beat up every day?" asked Al, twisting around to get more comfortable.
Tim grinned. "No, I suppose if anything, we gotta worry about the opposite. How did you name Avery?"
"The deal that Stephen and I had was that he got to name a boy and I got to name a girl. The deal was his idea because he was insistent that his son have his full name."
"So Avery was all your idea? It's a pretty name."
"It is a pretty name, but I wanted it to be more than that. I'd been reading The Color Purple and was taken with Shug Avery. She was a jazz singer who did her own thing and didn't let people's opinions get to her. Most of the town thought she was some sort of loose woman and couldn't see past that, but she was so much more. She had a kind, generous heart and an adventurous spirit that no one else could control. I guess those were some of the things I hoped my daughter would grow up to be.....well, except for the loose part."
Tim looked around at the book-lined walls, not at all surprised that Al had turned to books to help her make an important decision.
"I don't want to make that kind of deal with you. Whichever name we pick, we come up with it together," Tim said.
Al nodded. "You have any ideas then?"
"Nah, not really. How about you?"
Al stood up and stretched. "Well, I did have one idea that's been with me lately. I want to re-read the book to be sure though."
She went to a bookcase across the room and spent a few seconds looking, then pulled out a small paperback with a splashy painting on the cover.
"You read The Great Gastby in school?" she asked.
Tim gave her a sheepish grin. "I didn't really read much in school."
Al came back to the couch and laid down so that her head was in Tim's lap. "Right, I forgot. Rally girls.....there is no way-"
"Way ahead of you on that one, Al. I know too much about rally girls to let my daughter even think about doing it....so, the book. You're not thinking of naming the kid Gatsby are you?"
Al laughed. "No, not Gatsby. I was thinking about Nick, after the guy who tells the story. He's quiet, steady, open-minded, non-judgemental, and is the sort of person that people trust with their secrets."
"Sounds like a good guy."
"You might think this is weird, but I was going to read the story out loud, for the baby, since it's good to talk to them and everything. You're welcome to listen, if you want."
"Sure," Tim said, running his fingers through Al's hair. He settled back into the couch and closed his eyes as Al began to read.
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I'd been turning over in my head ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had all the advantages you've had."
Outside, it started to rain, the steady drops providing a percussive background for Al's reading. Concerned about falling sleep, Tim opened his eyes and looked around the room at the fire, the sleeping dogs, his wife. He knew that growing up with a lot of advantages wasn't something anyone was going to accuse him of and it was a special kind of vindication to realize that his children, at least, were going to born into a happy, loving home.