"You really don't have to come with me," Alex insisted yet again.
"It's fine," Emily insisted, "I'm fine." It perhaps wasn't the most convincing she'd ever sounded, but she was stubborn enough that Alex wasn't going to argue the matter. At least, not until they came to the threshold of the baby store and Emily stopped dead in her tracks.
Wordlessly, Alex reached over to clasp her hand, squeezing it gently. When Emily looked up at her questioningly, Alex offered an encouraging smile. "Are you sure you..." she started. She didn't finish the question, though, when it earned her a glare.
In truth, she hadn't wanted Emily to come along with her, had tried quite hard to talk her out of it, but when Emily set her mind on something, there was simply no talking her out of it. And, in this case, that meant bringing her along while Alex shopped for a baby shower gift.
Most people balked at the idea of inviting a vampire to a baby shower – a carry-over from older, more superstitious times when it was believed that unborn babies were a delicacy to a vampire – and that was fine with Alex because baby showers weren't a social situation she was all that comfortable with. Her co-worker, though, was decidedly not superstitious...
Alex had been planning on coming up with an excuse not to attend and had thrown the invitation in the trash...only to have Emily rescue it from the refuse bin and insist that it would be rude to skip it, no matter how many excuses she tried to come up with.
"I can go into a baby store without having a nervous break down," Emily said pointedly. She didn't let go of Alex's hand, though.
Alex gave her a look that seemed to ask why, then, she was still frozen on the threshold. But even if she'd wanted to question the matter one more time, Emily didn't give her the chance, swallowing down the hint of panic and barging determinedly into the store.
Emily could feel Alex's eyes on her every so often as they browsed the store in search of an adequate baby shower present. She knew Alex was just concerned, that she was only thinking about her (admittedly) tremulous emotional state...but it was also kind of pissing her off. She did her best to ignore it, but finally she could contain herself no longer. "Alex, I'm fine!" she snapped.
Alex winced slightly at the outburst, immediately feeling guilty. "I'm sorry," she said, "You're a grown woman and if you say you can handle this, then I should believe you." She sighed, tongue flicking out over her bottom lip. "Doesn't this make you feel...something, though?"
She nodded. "It does," she confirmed, "And it's scary. But I just don't want you to treat me with kid gloves. I don't want my mistakes to, you know...change your life. You didn't ask for this."
"I didn't ask for it," Alex agreed, "But neither did you. And I don't want you to feel discomfort because you feel you have to walk on eggshells around me." She offered her a small but genuine smile. "So, with that in mind, do you want to leave?"
Emily chewed her lip for a few moments, internally debating the answer to that.
"Besides," Alex added, "I can always just get them a gift card for diapers or something. It's probably what they need the most anyway – way more practical than some cute outfit the baby grow out of in a week."
"Are you sure?"
She nodded. "I'm getting kind of tired of people staring at us anyway." She gestured vaguely at their surroundings to indicate the extremely wide berth the store's other patrons were currently giving them. She'd long since gotten used to the rampant sanguivoriphobia in society, but it usually wasn't quite so obvious as it was in that Babies-R-Us...
Emily whipped her head around as if in search of these staring people. (Normally, she would have easily picked up on the feeling of eyes on her, given her years of law enforcement experience, but on that particular occasion she'd been far more wrapped up in maintaining her grip on her sanity.) "People are staring?" she asked in a whisper.
Sensing that her imagination was about to run away from her, Alex was quick to course correct. "Because we're vampires," she said. "People don't really associate vampires with babies. I've had people with strollers literally cross the street upon seeing me so they wouldn't have to walk past me." She shook her head, rolling her eyes.
"Oh..." Emily said. And, while she was glad that people weren't staring because they somehow psychically knew she was pregnant by an internationally wanted terrorist, she couldn't help but develop a new fear...
As if sensing Emily's developing phobia, Alex reassured her, "Just because people assume vampires can't be trusted around infants doesn't mean you're going to be a bad mother."
"I know..."
"But?" she prompted.
Emily sighed. "But there are lots of other things that suggest I will be," she said.
Alex raised a brow. "Such as?"
"My only parental role model was my mother and she's just about the least maternal person to ever reproduce. The fact that I don't know the first thing about babies. The fact that I don't know the first thing about vampires. The fact that I'm scared shitless..." she listed.
"Those things are all fixable," Alex said. At Emily's dubious expression, she amended, "Okay, well, not the first thing, but the others are simply a matter of learning. Like everything else in life, no one is born an expert. Motherhood is a 'learn as you go' kind of thing."
Emily still didn't seem entirely convinced, but she let the matter go for the time being. "How about we hit the bookstore instead?" she suggested. "And maybe grab some frozen yogurt..."
Alex laughed softly, expression filled with fondness for the other woman. "That sounds much more appealing," she confirmed. "You know I can never resist the siren song of a Barnes and Noble..."
