"What's up with those two?" Jesse questioned.
(For the two who seemed to hate each other, Rosie and Ben had been spending a lot of time together. Coming out of their classrooms, the two were huddled together, talking seriously.)
"Rosie posie", Beca called.
"Hi Mum". She grinned sheepishly.
"Hey Benny, what's goin' on?" Jesse said suspiciously.
"Nothing".
"You are horrible liars", Beca pronounced. "What's going on?"
"Well", Rosie drew out. "We've got a- what's the word, Ben?"
"Proposition".
"Whoa!" Beca held up her hands, laughing. "You've got a proposition for us?"
"Yeah!" Rosie said indignantly. "Me and Ben have a proposition for you and Jesse".
"Oh, I can't wait to hear this", Jesse chuckled. "Spit it out, what's happening?"
"You and Beca always choose where we get to go", Ben complained. "And we just have to come! Or we get left at home".
"Okay…"
"Me and Rosie think that we should get to choose where we get to go next time", he nodded.
"Yeah".
"Do you really?"
"Yeah". The two of them nodded, looking equally determined.
(Beca didn't know what to be more worried about- the fact that their facial expressions were identical, or the fact that they were getting along solely to plot things.)
"That sounds fair", Jesse said, and Beca's eyes widened.
"Excuse me?" Beca eyed him warily.
"But, Beca and I will have to discuss a few conditions. That sound fair?"
Rosie and Ben exchanged suspicious looks, in the same silent conversation that their parents shared.
"Okay", they said together.
"Okay, we have a few conditions", Jesse said the next day, and Rosie crossed her arms, looking at him suspiciously. "Holy cow you look like your mother. Alright, condition number one".
"We can't leave Georgia", Beca informed them. "More specifically, we aren't travelling more than an hour outside of Barden".
(Because it would be just their luck that they requested Disney World or something. Beca knew how her girls worked and they may very well ask for a trip to Tasmania.)
"Okay", Ben said easily. "Anything else?"
"It can't be too expensive".
"That's fine".
(They were agreeing way too easily. Beca was worried.)
"And three, when we go, the two of you have to get along for the whole day", Jesse warned.
Rosie and Ben eyed each other warily, exchanging silent words that Beca and Jesse couldn't decipher.
"Okay", they said in unison.
"Let's go to Disney!" Brody said brightly.
"No!"
"Beca Mit-chell!"
Beca heard her friends before she saw them, and she knew she had to act fast.
"Courtney, go and tell them Mummy's not here", she said quickly. "And while you're doing that, Mummy's gonna escape out the back door and jump the fence".
Natalie started to chuckle. "Aunt Amy says you couldn't jump the back fence if you tried because you're a shortie".
"Excuse me?"
"Yeah, you're shorter than Mummy!" Courtney said indignantly.
"Thank you!" Beca rolled her eyes, as Chloe almost broke the front door down.
"Bec!"
"Hi Aunt Chloe!" Rosie said cheerfully, going to hug the redhead.
"Hey there Rosie posie! Hey Natty bear, hey Courty!"
"What's going on?" Beca said suspiciously, as Stacie wrapped her arms around her.
"Girls night in!" Stacie said brightly.
"Get out of my house".
"Beca!"
"Sorry. Get out of my house please", she elaborated, pointing to the door.
"Nope. You're not getting out of it like that. We are going to sit down and have a serious discussion".
"Nope. Not happening". Beca shook her head.
"Come on, we'll help make dinner", Cynthia Rose offered.
"Dinner's already on the stove", Beca informed them. "Actually, Amy, while you're here, I need to ask a favour".
"Anything for my favourite shortie".
"Hey" Courtney protested.
"My favourite big shortie", she correctly quickly, and Courtney burst into giggles.
"You liked that, did you punchkin?" Stacie chuckled, swinging the little girl into the air.
"You're my favourite little flatbutts", Fat Amy said with a grin.
(All of Beca's college nicknames had come out, and Fat Amy, much to Beca's dismay, had begun to call her children those names.)
"In the next few weeks can we borrow your car?"
"The beast?"
"Yep".
"Of course".
"We're goin' out with Jesse!" Courtney said brightly. "And Brody".
"What about the other boys?" Cynthia Rose chuckled.
"Yeah, them too". She nodded enthusiastically. "Brody is my best friend, Aunt Cynthia Rose".
"Is he, sweetie?" Aubrey grinned, and the little girl nodded.
"I can't believe you and Jesse had sex and you didn't say anything!" Stacie crossed her arms, glaring at Beca. "Why the hell didn't you say anything?"
"Mostly because you'd react like this!" Beca objected. "Like what the hell is wrong with you? And Aubrey, you tell Michael everything!"
"What, you think I'm going to go and tell Michael?" Aubrey's eyebrows almost shot off her head.
"Yeah, because he's your lobster!" she said sarcastically. "How did you even find out? Seriously?"
"Beca, we've known you since college", Chloe said unhelpfully. "We know you".
"Still, that doesn't give you the right to march yourself into my house and announce for the world to hear that I had sex". Beca's cheeks darkened. "I mean, it's not like I went around announcing it!"
"Because you hate public displays of affection and hate it when people advertise their love lives on Twitter and Instagram and social media of the sort". Stacie rolled her eyes (because it was a rant they had been hearing from the brunette since college). "Seriously, though. When are you meeting his parents?"
"We're doing Thanksgiving together, apparently".
Chloe actually squealed and clapped her hand. "I can't wait!"
(She was the spitting image of a seal, actually, Beca thought.)
"Beca!" Ben called excitedly.
"Beca!" Brody ran ahead of his brothers, throwing his arms around the brunette and making her grunt.
"Oof! Hey there Brody!"
"Jesse!" Courtney screeched, running towards him with all her force.
"Guess what?" Dean said excitedly. "We know where we wanna go!"
"Yeah, and it's not even Disney!" Natalie said brightly.
Jesse laughed. "Really?"
"Yep". Rosie nodded.
"Alright, let's hear it".
"Me and Ben have decided that we wanna go to the big safari park", Rosie informed them. "We all decided together".
"Yeah, it's different to the zoo", Dean informed her. "We talked about it".
"We did". Natalie nodded.
"Yeah", Ben said. "And then we wanna come back home and watch The Lion King and make pizzas!"
"Make pizzas?"
"Yeah, Daddy does it with us all the time", Dean said cheerfully.
Beca and Jesse exchanged looks.
"Okay", Jesse said finally. "This weekend. Prepare yourself for a safari getaway".
Brody and Courtney shrieked excitedly, grabbing each other's hands and dancing around, making both her mother and his father laugh.
"Everybody in!" Beca announced, steering Fat Amy's beast of a car into Jesse's driveway. The three girls were strapped into the backseat, waiting for the three boys to join them (and whilst Ben and Rosie promised to get along with each other, they didn't want to sit anywhere near each other).
"Let's do this!" Jesse called, coming towards the car with Brody's seat. "Let me anchor this in and we'll be on our way".
And once Brody and his seat were strapped into the car and the other two boys had climbed in, Beca climbed over the gearstick and settled herself into the passenger seat.
"Let's go", Jesse called, and Natalie let out an excited whoop.
The drive to the jungle safari park they had selected was a little under an hour, but in that hour the kids sang, laughed, joked and fought slightly (Jesse saw, in the rear view mirror, the dirty looks that Rosie and Ben were exchanging and called out gaily "If there's fighting I'll turn this beast around!"), before Jesse steered the car into a parking spot.
"Let's go!"
The fact that they were giving out balloons at the entrance cemented the fact that the park was the best place in the entire world for three year old Courtney and four year old Brody. The fact that tigers were the first thing they saw cemented it for Dean (and even Natalie).
"This is so much cooler than the zoo", Ben declared, and Rosie nodded in agreement.
They saw tigers and lions and monkeys and a variety of different birds, all before lunch. And afterwards, they took a ride on the train throughout the park, which was almost definitely the highlight for little Rosie.
"Daddy, that one looks like Rafiki!" Brody giggled, holding Beca's hand tight.
"It does, doesn't it?" Jesse agreed, squeezing Courtney's hand.
"You excited to watch that movie tonight, Brody?" Beca checked (she might not have liked movies herself, but she had three young kids and they had watched the Disney classics a thousand times over).
"Yeah!"
"It was even better than the zoo!"
"It was so awesome!"
"Can we come back again?"
"Thanks for taking us today!"
"Can we come back again soon?"
"The train and the monkeys was my favourite!"
"Now let's go and watch The Lion King!"
"Maybe Uncle Donald can come next time!"
The backseat was full of excited chatter, as Jesse and Beca leaned through and made sure all six seatbelts were buckled.
"Maybe we can come back sometime", Jesse amended, as he climbed into the driver's seat. That statement was met with excited shrieks, and Beca started to laugh.
"It's a proper sleepover!" Brody said in delight, Jesse roughly towel drying his hair. Courtney grinned from where Beca was braiding her hair back, swinging her slippered feet.
After returning to Beca's, all six kids had been bathed or showered and dressed into their pyjamas, while their parents cut up pizza toppings. And with the three boys and the three girls dressed in their pyjamas, they rolled up their sleeves and made their way into the kitchen to get to work making dinner.
Beca's kitchen table was covered in little bowls, and two jars of pizza sauce were being passed around.
"I love pizza", Dean said emphatically, as he carefully laid slices of pepperoni on his pizza base. "It's my favourite food in the entire world".
"I like spaghetti", Natalie said absently, as she made a pattern out of the mushrooms. "But pizza's my next favourite".
Courtney sprinkled cheese from a great height, getting more cheddar on the table than on her pizza, but no one said anything. "I love macaroni and cheese, right Mummy?"
"Right", Beca confirmed, as Jesse sprinkled cheese over the pizza they were sharing.
(They were so different in every way. Whilst she was happy with plain pepperoni and cheese, he wanted all the toppings. So they compromised- they'd have everything but anchovies.)
"I love pizza too", Ben said quietly.
Once all seven pizza bases were loaded with toppings and smothered in cheese, they were stuffed into the oven, the kids trooping into the living room to get the movie started. Rosie put the DVD into the player, the six kids sprawling out underneath the makeshift tent they had made.
"Today was the best day", Natalie voiced, as the Disney castle appeared on the television.
Jesse started to chuckle, as the movie started. "You know, Benny, when you were born and the nurse gave you to me to hold, I lifted you into the air like Simba just there?"
Ben shook his head, and Beca started to giggle.
"You're such a weirdo", she accused.
"Katherine freaked out and demanded that I gave him back before they declared us unfit parents". Jesse chuckled at the memory, wrapping his arm around Beca and kissing her cheek.
They spent the night tucked within the kids' tent, eating pizza (and once that was demolished, ice cream with chocolate sauce and popcorn) and watching the movie. And once the Lion King had finished, the kids pounced on The Jungle Book, keeping up with their animal theme of the day.
Rosie and Ben were the only ones awake by the end of The Jungle Book, propped up sleepily on their elbows.
"It's okay, lay down", Jesse said softly, moving the empty bowls of ice cream and setting them aside. "It's getting late and you've had a big day".
Rosie allowed Jesse to shift her slightly so her head was resting on a pillow, blinking sleepily up at him. "Thanks for taking us out today", she said quietly.
"Yeah, thank you", Ben murmured, as Beca pulled a blanket over him.
It wasn't long until they too were asleep, and Beca and Jesse climbed up onto the couch.
"I better put her to bed", Beca said, as Courtney shifted again (knowing that Courtney would be devastated to find out that she missed the campout in the lounge room but if she woke up, she'd never get back to sleep).
"It's alright, I'll do it". Jesse heaved himself up, sliding his hands underneath Courtney's tiny body. He rested her head against his chest, cradling her gently. "Good night Courtney", he whispered to the little girl, as Beca followed him down the hallway. He expertly tugged back the blankets, resting her down on the mattress. She curled herself into a ball and he adjusted the blankets around her shoulder. "Sleep tight munchkin".
"Night Daddy", she murmured.
The two adults froze, Jesse turning to stare at Beca. Her expression was blank, and Jesse was unable to draw anything out of it.
Holy shit.