Author's Note: Thanks so much for all the reviews! I'm still replying to every single one :)

Song for this chapter is Chasing Pavements by Adele.

And as usual, I don't own or have anything to do with Skins.

Chapter 21: Chasing Pavements

October 18th, 2013

It was early in the morning as Emily drove down a winding countryside road in our new family friendly car. We had bought the car about two weeks ago, which was one week before we moved into our new house. The house was still an absolute mess and the only room we had even a little set up was the bedroom. Everything was still in packing boxes, from plates to clothes to DVDs and books. We hadn't even finished moving out of the flat just yet, only bringing over full boxes, our bed and a sofa. We didn't even have a TV at the moment. I had taken three weeks off work to try to set up the house and was slowly but surely making progress. Effy would come over every day to help me move things and set things up but we couldn't do very much. Effy was now almost 20 weeks pregnant and I was 16 weeks along. Effy's bump was something to be reckoned with. She was carrying all out front, so much so that if you looked at her from the back you couldn't even tell that she was pregnant. But the moment she turned around, all you could see was a big baby bump. It was actually pretty cute. She was still skinny everywhere else though.

I was carrying in two places – boobs and bump. I didn't have a ridiculously large baby bump like Effy's but what I lacked in bump I made up for in boobs. Emily was positively ecstatic, as were the salespeople at the local department store where I was regularly found buying new bras. I got alarmed as soon as the salespeople started to call me by name and ask me about when exactly I was due.

But today, Emily and I were taking a break from babies, boobs and unpacking our new house. We were going to the seaside to freeze our asses off and wander around aimlessly. We were even taking the long way to get there, through winding country roads that housed old farms and even older pubs.

I was staring out the window, watching sheep graze when I felt an odd sort of fluttering inside my stomach, almost like I had to burp or if I'd just eaten some spicy Mexican food. I frowned to myself and continued to look at the sheep when I felt a tiny tap tap tap on the side of my belly.

"HOLY CRAP!" I exclaimed, almost making Emily drive into the herd of sheep. She looked over at me, alarmed, and immediately pulled over. "The baby moved! The baby moved!"

Emily squealed and parked the car, immediately leaning over and placing both her hands on my belly.

"Baby, are you in there?" She asked my bump quietly.

"Of course she's in there, Em-" I began to say before I was rudely interrupted by another tap tap tap right under where Emily's left hand was. Emily yelped and looked extremely shocked before smiling widely at me.

"Holy crap, Naomi, our baby is moving around inside you," Emily said, still smiling and looking shocked. She was stating the obvious, likely because she didn't know what else to say. I was pretty dumbfounded too. I didn't know what to expect, or how I would feel when the baby moved for the first time but this was...weird.

"The midwife said that she'll start to hear us speaking this week, maybe she's reacting to our voices," I mused as I stared down at my bump, which was still covered by Emily's hands. I quizzically returned the little tap tap tap gesture, tapping gently against my bump with my index finger. The baby moved around again, a little flutter, before doing the same tap tap tap on the left side of my belly. I smiled widely. "Ah! I see we have established communication, tiny one."

I looked over at Emily to see her smiling widely and fighting back tears.

"What's up, Em?" I asked, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.

"It's just too fucking cute!" Emily replied, letting a few tears fall down her cheeks. "I can't handle the cuteness of it all!"

Emily leaned over and grabbed my bump again.

"You're just too darned cute!" She said to my bump before kissing it gently. I sat back with my hand on my belly as Emily composed herself and started to drive again.

We finally made it to Minehead after almost two hours of driving. We had contemplated going to Weston-super-Mare but decided against it mostly because I was craving ice cream from a specific shop in Minehead. Emily was very accommodating for anything pregnancy or baby related. We parked up and walked hand in hand by the seaside until we reached the ice cream parlour.

"Um, I'll have one scoop of banoffee, please," Emily ordered while I browsed through the flavours. I pursed my lips as I was trying to decide what was likely to be the most important decision of my day – a welcome relief from all the stress that was unpacking and moving into a brand new house.

"And I'll have a large chocolate dipped waffle cone with two scoops of mint chocolate chip, please," I said with a smile as the lady handed Emily her ice cream. She noticed that I was pregnant and added a free flake on top, which I thought was very nice considering I had decided half-way through her making the ice cream that I wanted a flake on top but didn't say anything.

Emily paid and we sat down at a table in the shop since it was bloody freezing outside and the ice cream was only going to make us colder.

"So I've been thinking," Emily said with a gentle smile as she licked at her ice cream cone. "We should start thinking about baby names pretty soon."

I nodded and continued to eat my ice cream. "I sort of have a name in mind already."

Emily raised her eyebrows at me and nodded. I smiled at how excited and nervous she seemed all at the same time.

"Since mum thinks we're having a girl and nobody can doubt Gina's intuition, I've been thinking mostly about girl names," I said, dragging things on as long as possible while Emily was hanging on my every last word. "So...I really like Pearl as a middle name. And I sort of like Elisa for the first name. Elisa Pearl."

Emily scrunched up her face and then quickly tried to hide her distaste for my name choices.

"What's wrong with Elisa Pearl?" I asked, somewhat offended. I'd thought long and hard about those names.

"I don't know...Elisa Pearl Fitch-Campbell. I like Pearl as a middle name, but I don't really like Elisa," Emily said. She murmured to herself while she ate her ice cream, obviously thinking of names. She looked up at me brightly a few moments later. "I've got it. Elouise Pearl Fitch-Campbell."

My heart melted and I actually let out an "awww" without realizing it until Emily nodded.

"I know, right? Elouise Pearl."

I tapped down at my bump, but didn't feel a tap back. Maybe she was napping or something. I was sure she was going to get active again as soon as she felt the sugar from the ice cream in her system in a few minutes though.

"Sweetie, do you like that name?" I said quietly at my bump. "Elouise Pearl."

Emily stifled a laugh as a young couple walked by and shot me a confused look as I continued to talk to my belly.

"You look like a right nutter," Emily murmured, reaching over and grabbing my hand tightly.

"Your mommy is being difficult with me, Elouise," I whispered down to my bump, making Emily really laugh this time. "She says I'm a nutter for talking to you in public! How ludicrous!"

We finished up eating our ice cream and walked back to the car as slowly as we liked despite the crappy cold weather. We spent the afternoon in a town called Taunton, where we shopped around for things for the house and baby clothes. We found quite a few good things and before we know it the car was completely full with things we'd bought. We decided then that it was probably best that we headed home. It was still early in the afternoon which meant that I could take a short nap while Emily went back to the flat to bring some more things over to the new house.

"You sure you're going to be okay bringing things over by yourself?" I asked as Emily pulled into the driveway. We waved at Katie, who was in the front garden raking some fallen leaves up.

"I'll be fine. I'll ask Katie to help me and I'm sure she'll say yes," Emily replied, kissing me on the lips before we both got out of the car.

"Katie! Wanna help me move things over from the flat?" Emily asked. Katie shrugged but nodded, dropping her rake and walking over to the car.

"Fucking hate raking leaves anyway," Katie replied as she took her seat in the passenger side of the car. Emily waved at me and drove off towards the flat.

Instead of taking my nap as I'd originally planned, I head over to Katie and Effy's house just next door to check in on Eff. I let myself in using the "emergency" key I had.

"Eff?" I called. Effy called back to me from the nursery upstairs. I took my shoes off and raced up the stairs to see what she was up to. I found her taping paint samples up to the wall.

"Which one do you like? I've decided I no longer like this pale yellow colour we've got in here and I want to change it," Effy said. She pointed at two paint samples – one in a dusty rose and the other in a turquoise blue.

"Well, Eff, those are very gender-based colours. Maybe you should wait till you find out the sex," I murmured, frowning at Effy's odd choices. Effy shrugged.

"I'm not so bothered with the gender stuff. I'm leaning more towards the blue because that can be a girl's colour or a boy's colour depending on the rest of the furniture. But I really hate yellow or green nurseries, which I suppose I should have thought of before I had Katie and Emily paint the nursery yellow," Effy murmured. I couldn't help but laugh at her.

"I prefer the turquoise," I said. Effy smiled brightly at me and took off the dusty rose paint sample.

"Turquoise it is, then," she replied. "Fancy a sneaky cup of tea?"

I nodded enthusiastically and followed her to the kitchen.

"Anything exciting happen today, then?" Effy asked as she began to boil the kettle. I grabbed the garibaldis and nodded enthusiastically.

"Of course! I felt the baby move for the first time on the way to Minehead," I said proudly. I bit into a garibaldi and immediately spit it into the trashcan. "Ugh, that tastes horrible! Have they gone off?"

I checked the back of the label and saw that they were still in date. I frowned quizzically at my favourite biscuit.

"Huh," I murmured to myself as I placed the garibaldis back in the cupboard. I guess I didn't like them anymore.

"It's the pregnancy," Effy replied. "I used to love beans on toast and now just the smell of beans makes me sick."

I nodded at her and slumped down at her table. I felt slightly depressed that now I'd have to go in search of a new favourite biscuit. Effy put a plate of chocolate chip cookies down on the table and handed me my tea. I nibbled at a cookie – not bad, but not the same as a garibaldi. I sighed and finished off my mediocre cookie. I much preferred my sneaky cup of tea to the cookie I'd just had.

"What's new with you, Eff?" I asked as I took another sip of my brew.

Effy shrugged. "Not much really, starting to organize my birth plan with my midwife and Katie. Next week we're having an ultrasound to determine the sex of the baby. But other than that, things are just nice and quiet. Have you heard from Cook at all?"

I stiffened and shook my head quickly. I didn't want to mention him again but after a few silent minutes, the temptation was too much to resist.

"Have you heard from him?"

Effy nodded. "He called yesterday, mostly asking about you though. Says he's sorted himself out a proper job and flat."

I nodded and looked down at my now empty mug of tea.

"Naoms...is he your donor?"

I didn't bother to look up when I nodded solemnly. Effy sighed and grabbed my hand reassuringly.

"He'll come back, Naoms, he always does," Effy said, trying to comfort me I suppose. I sighed and nodded but I knew Cook wouldn't be back for a long while, if ever. Cook had never left like this before.

More specifically, Cook had never left me before. Even when he'd left for a few short weeks, he'd always been in constant contact with me. But this time, not a phone call or even a text. I tried to understand why he had to leave. But it was such an act of pure selfishness that I wasn't sure I'd ever forgive him. I always wanted my children to know where they came from and with Cook gone, it seemed like that may never happen. Knowing where you come from is a luxury that I wasn't afforded when I was growing up, and I never wanted to raise my children the same way. It was why I was so reluctant to use sperm banks when building our family. I wasn't sure whether I should just let him be or fight for him to come home. Fight for him to be part of my life. I wanted to give up, I felt exhausted and was tired of fighting for everything. But I knew that this was worth it. Of course it was worth it, it was for my baby.

I went home a few hours later, firm on my decision to fight for Cook to come home. I found the living room, kitchen and master bedroom completely set up. I was so happy I was planning on erecting monuments in my wife and sister-in-law's honour. I felt completely content that night as I snuggled with Em and Libby on the sofa while watching TV.

"Happy?" Em asked me quietly. I nodded sleepily against her chest.

"Elated," I replied, grabbing her hand and placing it over my belly.

Author's Note: Please don't forget to leave a review and let me know what you thought of the chapter, and of course, the all-important baby name!