A Surprise

Ten

"Wow," Ruki grins as she checks on the icebox cake. "I think this actually turned out okay."

Jen laughs as he picks up used pots and cooking utensils, bringing them all to the sink. "Maybe I should put you on dessert duty more often."

Rounding up nine sets of plates and cutleries, Ruki starts setting the table while Jen cleans up the mess they'd made while cooking. Technically, she's setting the kitchen island. The apartment is by no means cramped or small, but it does lack a dining area. The four of them usually make do but with two sets of parents and Shiuchon coming over for lunch, they've had no choice but to turn the marble countertop into a makeshift dining table. Renamon and Terriermon were sent out half an hour ago to shop for counter stools, to match their temporary dining table's height.

"All done," Ruki announces. She picks up on a particularly hard kick just as she sets down the last of the glasses, and jabs at the outline of her daughter's foot in retaliation. The baby kicks again. "You are in so much trouble once you get out of there." She warns.

"Stop threatening the baby." Jen orders, trying to hide a smile.

"Tell her to stop beating me up first!" Ruki huffs childishly. She picks up a dishcloth and gets to work on the growing pile of washed dishes. "Brat," She mutters, poking at her daughter once more. The foot has vanished from sight, for now.

"That's a fight I'm not getting involved in," He tells her, rinsing off a pan. "She definitely gets it from you."

"What," Ruki says sharply, "do you mean by that?" She sets down a dry plate a little too forcefully.

Jen's shoulders stiffen. "Nothing!" He tells her, a nervous laugh forcing its way out of his throat. It's times like these that he wishes he could carry around a white flag and wave it in surrender to let Ruki know he doesn't mean to offend her. Something tells him that'll only make her even more pissed off, though. "Only that," Jen hurries to elaborate once he catches sight of the less-than-amused look on her face. "She's just like you. That's why you two keep clashing."

"I hope she'll look like you, too." He throws in for good measure, chancing a glance at her. Ruki smirks.

"You can stop now, Jen. I'm not going to smash this plate over your head." She bumps his shoulder with her own. After a while, he returns the playful move.

"I'm not kidding," Jen says, still focused on the dishes. "I really do hope she'll look just like you."

"What, so we can do the whole matching mother/daughter thing?" Ruki scoffs. "No, thank you. Besides, don't you want a little you?"

He speaks without thinking his words through. "The next one can look like me."

"Next one, huh?" Ruki echoes lightly, turning to look at him. He can feel her eyes on him as he slowly puts down a half-clean plate and moves to face her. "I haven't said yes." She reminds him.

"You haven't said no, either." Jen counters quietly, dropping his eyes to the ground.

Ruki shrugs; he wasn't expecting that. "I guess." She concedes, turning back to the task at hand. "Let's just focus on bringing this one into the world first, okay? And we've still got to name her."

Jen picks up the plate and gets back to work. "About that," He says, "I was thinking maybe you could come up with the name, and I'll pick how we write it." Finally done with the washing, he moves on to the stack of dried dishes and returns them to their rightful places.

"As long as we get to veto each other," Ruki names her condition, balling up the now-damp dishcloth.

"Deal," He agrees easily. "Now, come on. We've got an hour if you want to shower and change."

"I'm seven months pregnant and I've just spent the whole morning cooking," Ruki scrunches up her nose at how uncomfortably sweaty she feels now that she's paying attention to herself. "Of course I want to shower."

"The whole morning might be an exaggeration, don't you think?" Jen teases as they make their way to the bedroom. "Besides, I did most of the cooking."

She shuts the bathroom door in his face. "Just for that," He strains to make out her words through the closed door, "I'm using up all of the hot water!"

"It doesn't work like that, Ruki." He says calmly as she turns on the shower.

"Just you wait and see!" She calls back petulantly.

Jen can't help himself from laughing at her. She stays in the bathroom for nearly thirty minutes just to get back at him.

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While everyone else lingers over empty plates and half-finished cake, Rumiko brings up the nursery. It isn't long before everyone is asking to see the newly-refurnished room.

"I hope you two didn't do this all by yourself," Mayumi turns to her son and Ruki. "Most of the furniture in here was quite heavy."

"Don't worry," Jen assures his mother. "Juri and the guys helped out a lot."

"Those three?" Janyu joins the conversation. "How did you get them to agree in the first place?"

"We bribed them with pizza." Ruki explains, much to everyone else's amusement.

"And they're even more terrified of Ruki now, so it wasn't that hard to get them to help out." Jen adds, earning an elbow to his gut.

"Well," Mayumi says with a controlled smile, one that suggests she's holding in laughter. "You've all done wonderfully. This room is definitely ready for a baby."

"And it's safe," Seiko adds. "Not a single window in sight." It's true; the room features four cream walls, and not a single one of them holds a window.

"I suppose that's a good thing when you have a little one," Mayumi agrees. "But I never did like that when we lived here. Didn't you mind it, Ruki? This room doesn't get any sunlight."

Oh. It's only now that Ruki remembers this was supposedly the room she occupied when she first moved in, and Jen's family remains in the dark about the truth. "No," She lies easily, ignoring her family's knowing looks. Curse her mother for smirking. "The rest of the place gets enough sunlight as it is, so I didn't mind it in here."

Mayumi and Janyu nod while Jen turns his attention to the ground. They're silent for a while until Shiuchon saves the day.

"Oh, look! Are these replicas of our Digimon?" She asks, pointing to a baby mobile. Nine little figures dance in mid-air, each of them bearing a striking resemblance to their Digimon.

"Juri had it custom-made." Terriermon explains, ambling in a few minutes too late. He'd stayed behind in the kitchen to finish up the cake.

When it becomes apparent that her partner isn't with Terriermon, Ruki turns to the rabbit. "Where's Renamon?"

"Still in the kitchen." Terriermon yawns, dangerously close to sleep now that he's had more than his fair share of lunch. "She said she'd clean up."

"That's not fair," Ruki frowns. "I'm going to help her."

Everyone else shuffles out in agreement, leaving the nursery behind for now. Terriermon plops himself down on the carpet. "Yeah, sounds great. You guys go ahead."

Jen picks him up by one ear. "Come on, you. I'm betting you used up more dishes than anyone else."

"Hey!" The rabbit cries in indignation, swinging himself up and around Jen's shoulder. "I'll have you know I used one plate for everything, and I ate the cake straight out of the serving plate so that doesn't count."

Rumiko laughs at their bickering as it fades away, until she's left alone with her daughter.

"You can go ahead, you know," Ruki says, turning off the lights.

"I'll walk with you." Her mother decides. She takes one last look at the room before Ruki closes the door. A mischievous grin lights up her face. "I bet you never spent a single night in that room." She whispers, bursting out into laughter when Ruki's cheeks heat up.

"Mother!"

"What?" Rumiko asks innocently. "We both know it's true. I'm surprised no one's told Jen's parents."

"Just make sure you aren't the one to spill the beans," Ruki warns her mother. "It's better this way. There's no point in bringing that up."

"I suppose," The older woman sighs as they join the others in the kitchen. Ruki shoots her mother one last warning look before they dive into the chaotic mess that is nine people fighting over the dishes.

"Enough," Seiko declares with the kind of authority a person can only possess when they're the oldest one in the room. "You two," She points out Mayumi and Rumiko, "will join me. Janyu and Jen can clear the table. Ruki and Shiuchon will dry; Renamon and Terriermon are in charge of putting things back where they belong."

Not a single person would disrespect Seiko by questioning her orders, so everyone gets to work; even Renamon, who thinks hers is the easiest task and should have been delegated to someone else.

The kitchen becomes a bustling hub of conversation and laughter as everyone does their part and before long, everything has been cleaned and put away. They move into the living room then, and stay there until the sun disappears.

"I guess we should be going now," Janyu says around nine in the evening, vacating his spot on the sofa. "Tomorrow's Monday, so I trust most of us have early wake-up calls."

One by one, everyone follows his lead and soon, they're all crowded by the front door to exchange goodbyes. Shiuchon is the last to leave, carrying a message from Terriermon to relay to Lopmon.

"Well," Jen says, closing the door behind him. "I think that turned out well."

Ruki sighs. "At least our families get along; imagine how much more stressful that would have been otherwise. Or worse, we would have to do this twice, once for each family." She seems horrified by the thought of it.

"Hey, it wasn't that bad."

"No," She agrees. "Just very, very tiring."

They stop by the kitchen for a while, where Renamon and Terriermon are stocking up on snacks and drinks. "Are you guys off to the park?" Jen asks, watching Terriermon fill a bag with cookies.

"Yes; we will be back before midnight, as usual." Renamon assures them, dropping two bottles of water into Terriermon's bag.

"Have fun," Ruki tells them, waving as they disappear from sight. She heads straight for the bedroom after that, claiming first shower. Jen checks his emails and gets to work on typing out a few replies until she relinquishes the shower to him.

When he comes out, Jen expects to see Ruki getting dressed, maybe even asleep already. So it's with a touch of concern that he notes she isn't anywhere in sight. He pulls on clothes as fast as he can before heading out of the room, only to come to a stop at the door next to theirs.

The door is slightly ajar, and when he pushes it open, the sight of Ruki greets him. She's curled up on the ground, leaning against the wall.

"You know," Jen says softly, trying not to startle her. "I did build a rocking chair for you to sit in."

Ruki scoffs. "I'd hardly call that build."

"Hey," He protests, sitting down next to her. "I figured out what goes where and drilled it all together; that counts."

He waits for a retort that never comes. Instead, she leans her head on his shoulder.

"Your mother said this room is ready for a baby," Ruki casts a look at the nursery they've put together. "But are we?"

"What?" That was unexpected.

"There's nothing that I regret, Jen." She assures him, still curled into his side. "But I've been so confident about this. In the beginning, I had to be. I made entire lists telling myself that we can do this, we're ready for it. And we had so much time back then; I thought we'd have long enough to figure everything out."

"And now we have less than two months." Jen says, getting her point.

"Do you feel ready for this?" Ruki asks, fiddling with the hem of her nightshirt.

"I…" He struggles with an answer. On the one hand, he needs to assure her that everything is going to be fine, that they'll be able to handle whatever challenges the baby brings their way. But on the other hand, he's just as lost as her, and he can't hide it. "No, not at all."

She sighs. "Same here."

"We're going to be fine, though." Jen forces the words out for her sake. "I mean, we've got our parents. I'm sure they'll let us know if we really mess up." He thinks on his words for a while, then repeats them with more conviction. "We're going to be fine."

"Keep saying that," Ruki pats his arm almost condescendingly. After months of mood-swings and out-of-character sweetness, this is comfortingly familiar. She's always at her sharpest and most hurtful when she's scared and lost. "Maybe you'll start believing it eventually."

"Maybe you will, too." He says, too tired to let her bait him into an argument.

Ruki's fist shoots out to land a half-hearted hit on his arm. "Stop being so nice to me," She grumbles. "You know I need to find something to be pissed at to distract myself from this."

"The bookshelf," Jen suggests. "I couldn't figure out where one of the screws go so now it's just sitting there and this shelf is pretending to be complete even though it's obviously not. Go pick a fight with that."

After a beat of silence, they both start laughing.

"Idiot," Ruki shakes her head affectionately.

"Did it really take you that long to figure it out?"

"I've known since the day I met you. Tamer who wouldn't let his partner fight," She scoffs. "Ridiculous."

"Hey, if you're going to start, then I have a few words for you. Who goes around challenging random guys to Digimon battles?" He pauses for a moment. "I've always wondered, actually. Takato was the first Tamer you ever met, right?"

"First one other than myself." Ruki affirms.

"So why was your first reaction to challenge him, not get to know him or find out how he became a Tamer? I mean, wasn't it a surprise for you to find out there were others?"

"Come on, Jen. Didn't you always figure there were others? I didn't think I was special enough to be the only one. Of course," She mumbles, "I didn't think there would be so many others, either." They both know she's referring to Hirokazu and Kenta. Ryo – well, at least he proved himself to be a worthy Tamer. But sometimes she wonders how those two were ever considered worthy of Digimon partners. Jen likes to think it was the power of their belief; after all, that seems to be a big part of the Tamer/Digimon partnership. If belief can make cards work, then maybe enough of it could earn you a Digimon partner. Hirokazu and Kenta had maintained their belief the entire time they were in the Digital World, trusting that they would find their partners eventually.

They lapse into silence after that; this is a discussion they've had many times, and there's really nothing new for him to say to Ruki. After a while, she bumps her shoulder against his.

"You did it, you know."

"What?" He fakes ignorance.

"You know exactly what." She huffs when he remains silent. "Fine, you win. You distracted me from my panic attack."

"Well, obviously I didn't do enough." He points out. "You're still freaking out, aren't you?"

Ruki sighs. "A bit," She admits. "But I'm starting to think… that maybe it's okay. Maybe I'm just always going to be worried about this, and her, and the whole parenting thing. I'm going to think I'm not holding her right, and after that I'm going to worry that I'm not teaching her the alphabet early enough, and years from now I'm going to freak out about her manners and think I didn't bring her up the right way. I think that's just what parenting is." She turns to Jen for some sort of support.

"I'll save the freaking out for when she starts dating," He jokes, trying to lighten things up. Ruki laughs.

"I'll do the worrying for now and you can take charge of that when she's a teenager." She proposes.

Jen smiles and gets up. "Deal," He says, offering her a hand. Ruki takes it, only because she's pretty much lost the ability to pull herself up on her own these days. "Now can we please go to sleep?"

His words coincide with a yawn from Ruki. "I'll take that as a yes. Come on, sleepyhead."

She lets him lead her out of the nursery, turning off the lights as they leave. Ruki takes one last look at the room and tries to picture their daughter sleeping in the crib. The image still worries her – the baby will be so tiny, should she even be left on her own? What if she gets tangled up in her blankets? What if she chokes on her own saliva? What if, God forbid, their baby isn't as healthy as the doctor says and they won't find out until she's born, until something happens in the middle of the night?

But for the first time, she's able to push down all of those concerns and let that picture – her daughter, curled up in bed, clutching her blankets with little fists – fill her with warmth and joy.

Ruki smiles, earning a curious look from Jen as they enter their bedroom.

"What?" He asks with a smile of his own.

"I think," She says, echoing his earlier words, "we're going to be fine."

About a thousand-five-hundred words into this chapter, I realized I was stumped and tried to start over. That went a bit better, but by ten o'clock, I had only three hundred words. So I've decided to go with this anyway. It's very short and pretty much just a filler but I really wanted to put up a new chapter for you guys.

Also, three more chapters plus an epilogue left. Countdown starts now!

E Salvatore,

November 2014.