Our Secret
AJ and Punk sat on the bathroom floor for quite some time just staring at the test which indicated that she was pregnant. Punk tried on many occasions to say something, but then his mind went black and went back to freaking out. AJ tried to take deep breaths and remember that it really wasn't the end of the world, but it was just a shock and something they didn't plan until maybe a few years down the line.
"What do we do?" Punk whispered to her as if scared to speak too loud.
"I don't know." AJ looked at him, "I mean… it's not like I'm dying." AJ nodded positively.
"Yes, that is a positive." Punk nodded, "So do we… go to the hospital or something?" He shrugged. He'd never been in this position before and neither had she, which made it a little easier because they both were freaking out.
"I think so." AJ nodded, "We go for a scan, right?" She asked, "See how far along I am and if everything is ok." She shrugged. She assumed that's what people done when they found out they were pregnant.
"And you get to see it on the monitor thing?" Punk asked as AJ nodded, "Ok so we make that appointment. What else?" Punk asked her as she shrugged.
"I don't think we do anything else." AJ shook her head as he nodded.
"Ok. Well it doesn't seem so bad." Punk assured her, "It's just a baby." He turned to her as she looked back at him and smiled a little.
"Our baby." AJ smiled. She found a wave of excitement and joy at the thought of them having their own little version of themselves. Someone they could love and care for. Being a mother wasn't something she was desperate to become. In fact, if anything it was probably the last thing on her list, but with Punk, there was a tiny part of her that was excited, and overwhelmed with joy.
"Yeah, our baby." Punk smiled, looking down at her stomach, "What does it feel like?" He asked her as she laughed a little.
"Nothing." AJ smiled, "It's probably the size of a grain of rice." She laughed, "It'll be tiny." She nodded, "I can't believe I'm actually pregnant." She shook her head, looking down at her tummy as Punk watched her. Her smile was infectious, and although he knew she was absolutely terrified like him, and very shocked, he couldn't help smile when he saw how happy she looked. It wasn't like they weren't stable, and it certainly wasn't like they didn't know one another and had been dating for a year. He felt overwhelmed joy also, but they couldn't deny how scared they were.
"I can't believe it either." Punk shook his head. It was going to take a while to wrap his head around it.
"People have babies, right?" AJ shrugged, looking at him, "It's not like it's anything out of the norm." She said as he nodded, "And we've got like nine months to get ready… that's plenty of time." She assured herself as Punk smiled.
"This went better than I expected." Punk admitted, "I thought-"
"That I'd have a mental breakdown and start crying?" AJ asked him.
"No." Punk said loudly, "But… well I did think you would freak out… I thought I would too but… it doesn't actually seem that horrifying." He shook his head, "Maybe because it feels like we're already married and we've been together for a long time." He shrugged.
"Don't get me wrong… I am terrified." AJ laughed to herself and nodded, "Like, shakenly terrified." She nodded, "But… it's not like we've got money issues, housing issues… anything like that." She said, "And I'm glad that my first baby I'm having is yours." She smiled to him as he laughed a little.
"Will the second one not be mine?" Punk laughed a little.
"You know what I mean." AJ said, "I could have had a kid with Ben." AJ shrugged, "We talked about it. I mean we were married and settled down." She said, "But I'm glad I didn't… and we're doing this together, and it's new for both of us." She smiled as he nodded.
"Yeah, me too." He said, taking her hand in his, "We're in it together." He said, kissing her hand as she smiled to him.
"Oh my God." AJ said suddenly.
"What?" Punk shook his head.
"Dean will faint." AJ turned to him as Punk laughed, "I don't think he'll like sharing us with anyone else." She said as he smiled.
"Well looks like he'll have to. He has no choice." He said as AJ nodded, "He'll be a good uncle." Punk nodded, "This is crazy." He shook his head, trying to drill it into his head that his girlfriend was really pregnant. It was something that was hard to digest.
"I know." AJ agreed, feeling just as overwhelmed. But she was glad they weren't freaking out completely. It was still calm, and she was glad they had found out together instead of having to find out on her own and sit him down to tell him, "I'll make an appointment for our next day off together. For now, we should just keep it between us, just until we go for the first appointment." She nodded to him.
"Yeah, ok." Punk agreed, "I still can't believe it." He smiled to her as she looked up at him and nodded.
"No, me neither." AJ shook her head, "But we have each other." AJ smiled. That was enough to keep her fears at bay for just now. She was absolutely terrified about the whole thing but having him by her side made such a big difference, and he felt the exact same way.
"Yeah, we do." Punk smiled, leaning over and pressing a soft kiss on her lips, feeling her cup his cheek as she deepened the kiss, kneeling up and putting her leg over him as she straddled his hips, sitting on top of him on the bathroom floor as they kissed passionately. It was something they had both wanted with one another, it just seemed to have been sped up a little, and it was a mixture of excitement, joy, fear and love all wrapped up in one.
Meanwhile Anna had headed over to Dean's apartment after they agreed to cook dinner together. Dean was surprised at how much he actually enjoyed having his own space in the apartment now. Of course he missed AJ and Punk, but he felt a little more independent now.
However, Anna's lie she had been feeding him was still on his mind, and even though he was trying to be as discrete as possible about it, he was starting to get too suspicious to hold back. He really couldn't understand why she lied to him about her job. The only reason he could see sense in was that she was perhaps ashamed of her actual job, which made him sad. He thought that she felt comfortable enough with him to be honest.
"Where'd you learn how to cook so good?" Anna asked him, standing in the kitchen taking a sip of her wine as she watched Dean finish off dinner. She'd done some chopping and cutting up but he seemed to take charge and know what he was doing.
"AJ is a good cook." Dean nodded to her, "She taught me a few things. She tried to teach Phil but he didn't have the patience" He said as Anna nodded.
"Were you not ever… jealous of them?" Anna asked him, "Seeing them together all the time?"
"No, not really." Dean shook his head, "I was happy for them. I knew they cared a lot about one another." He said, "And I never minded being on my own." He said honestly as Anna nodded.
"I think it's great how close you guys are." Anna smiled, "I literally don't talk to anyone in high school anymore."
"Well… Phil is my brother. I don't have the choice." He teased as she smiled.
"I guess you guys have always just had to stick together." Anna nodded.
"Yeah." Dean said, "He's the only family I got left." He shrugged, "So as you can imagine, him being on death row wasn't my finest moment." He shook his head as Anna frowned.
"I can't imagine how that felt." Anna shook her head.
"It was even more annoying that… I knew he was innocent." Dean said, stirring around the pots.
"Was there ever any doubt?" She asked.
"With what?" He asked.
"That he was innocent." Anna said.
"Look, my brother is impatient and you probably wouldn't want to cross him when he's pissed… but… is he a killer? A rapist?" Dean said, "Absolutely fucking not." Dean said, "So no, there wasn't any doubt. We knew he was innocent and we proved it." He said as Anna nodded.
"He's lucky to have you." Anna smiled, "You're a good brother." She nodded as he smiled to her. Although the lie had thrown him off guard, he wasn't treating her any different, because he still cared about her and he believed that things were still going well for them. He was trying his best to wait off for her to explain to him, instead of him having to confront her about it. If it was the case that she was embarrassed about her job, he didn't want to make it worse by confronting her on it.
"So how did you become a hairdresser?" Dean asked casually, draining the pasta over by the sink as Anna looked over at him and sat her wine glass down next to his beer he was drinking.
"Just… fell into that career, I guess." Anna shrugged, "My mom was a hairdresser so… I'd always been around that sort of environment." She nodded.
"You enjoy it?" Dean asked her.
"Yeah, it gets me by." Anna said.
"Maybe you can start giving my hair a trim instead of me paying money to get it done in some barbers." Dean hinted as she just laughed it off and nodded, "Hey, I'm serious." Dean smiled as she nodded.
"I know you are." She laughed a little, "This smells really good." She smiled, kissing his shoulder and walking on by him with their drinks to sit them at the dinner table as Dean watched her.
He desperately wanted her to be honest with him. He would never judge anyone. It was only a matter of time before the truth had to come out, and he just wanted her to be the one to tell him instead of having to call her out on it. Never in his wildest dreams did it cross his mind about what she was actually up to…
The next week, Punk and AJ had gone to the obstetrician for their first appointment. They'd spent the week keeping their news to themselves as they wanted to wait until they knew everything was ok.
At first the obstetrician just gave AJ a regular check-up, checked her blood pressure, asked some questions and also explained to her about her options with her medication she took for her bipolar disorder. Once the talking was over she then done a scan. Because she was still very early in her pregnancy, the scan was done internally and so she sat up on the seat type bed whilst Punk stood by her head.
"Will you be able to tell us how far along I am?" AJ asked. She felt like she'd just been constantly asking questions, but she didn't feel ashamed, this was her first time doing this after all.
"Yeah. And I can give you a due date." She smiled to her whilst getting a clear image of the baby up on the screen as Punk looked on, "Here we go." The doctor smiled them, "So there's the head, arms…" She pointed out as AJ and Punk looked on, "By my exam you're approximately 8 weeks." She nodded, "Let's listen to the heartbeat." She said whilst AJ swallowed the lump in her throat.
She didn't think it would be something that would make her emotional, she was mentally blaming it on her hormones, but seeing the image of the baby on the screen, as blurry as it was, as well as eventually hearing the heartbeat, it made her tear up.
"Is it supposed to be that fast?" Punk asked.
"Mhm. Like a little train." She smiled, "It's a really healthy heartbeat. Healthy baby." She nodded to them both, "I'll print you out a picture of the sonogram." She smiled to them, leaving the room as Punk looked down to AJ who was wiping her eyes.
"Hey." Punk noticed, taking her hand. He was so distracted with looking at the baby he hadn't really looked down properly, "Hey, what's the matter?" He asked.
"Nothing." AJ smiled a little as he sat down beside her on a chair, "I just can't believe it." She laughed nervously, drying her tears as he smiled.
"It's amazing." Punk nodded as she smiled.
"I didn't think I'd be like this." She shook her head as he smiled. It was overwhelming for him to see her so overwhelmed. He could see that this already meant so much to her, and that made it mean all the more to him. It was something that they deserved to celebrate. Some good news. Another reason to live their life to the fullest.
"It's pretty overwhelming stuff." He smiled to her, "I feel the same."
"You're not crying like a baby." She rolled her eyes.
"I also don't have hormones going crazy." He smiled, "It's a big thing. We've never been through this before, and we're only gonna go through having our first kid once. The second will be boring as hell." He teased, massaging his hands through her hair and head as she smiled.
"Please. Let me get through this one first." She smiled to him as he nodded and kissed her head. The best thing was they were doing this together. They were experiencing this journey side by side, and she really couldn't have done it with anyone else.
"Ok." The doctor smiled as she came through the room again, "Here's your strip of pictures." She smiled to them, handing them over the sonogram pictures as AJ took it from her and smiled, looking on with amazement, "I'll let you get yourself together and then just pop out to the front desk and make another appointment for four weeks time for your twelve week scan." She nodded.
"Ok." AJ smiled, "Thank you." She said as the doctor nodded and left the room for AJ to fix herself and for them to have a few minutes looking at the pictures.
"So that's it's head?" Punk asked, pointing to the picture.
"No, I think that's the body." She nodded, tilting the picture around to try and work it out as they had a chuckle to themselves.
"Well I know those little blobs are definitely it's arms." Punk pointed, "I feel bad saying it. When do we know if it's a boy or girl?" He asked.
"Few weeks time." AJ nodded, "I don't think it's ever gonna sink in." She shook her head.
"It will." Punk nodded, "We'll do this together." He promised her as she smiled and nodded.
"I'm happy right now." AJ nodded to him tearfully as he smiled and nodded, pressing a soft kiss on her lips.
A/N: Let me know what you think!