Every day felt like they were one step closer to a doomsday neither of them had ever anticipated, as the week and a half between the doctor visits slowly dwindled down to a week and so on. Each morning when he woke up, whether it was to his alarm or long before it, Yarne would find himself laying on his side of the bed or out in his chair, taking in the stillness of the day before needing to tackle it and get through things the best he could. When it was the weekend, it had been easier to manage, knowing that he didn't need to go anywhere and therefore he could be completely available for Kjelle if she felt she needed him; as soon as the workweek started once again, he felt like he was letting her down by needing to go to the office and do his job.
She wasn't speaking much to him, whether he was around or not, and when she did talk it was always out of necessity. At one point, he overheard her talking to herself about how she didn't want to talk to him and start feeling things about the situation that would make it harder to get over, which he understood but hated hearing. "Does she think that I'm going to make this difficult for us both?" he asked under his breath, feeling a bit like she was assuming things about him with no reason for doing so. "I'm just going to do what she needs from me, whatever that might be."
He could understand why she was so apprehensive to allow conversations about what had happened, given what they'd been told by that doctor. If it was true, and it was beyond likely that the next appointment would show nothing of note, then making sure that there were no emotional attachments to the situation was the best course of action. But all of the mornings where he was spending time alone was beginning to have an impact on Yarne's feelings on the matter, and he was starting to think about how it wouldn't be the end of the world if they were actually going to be having that baby around. Given his family background, he hadn't ever felt strongly about children to begin with—he'd spent plenty of time as a teenager basically raising Ribbon so that his parents could do things for themselves—and that had been something that had brought him and Kjelle closer together after they'd started dating. At that time, she'd been in the mid-stages of figuring out what had been wrong with her physically, and when it came out that her fertility was on the line, they'd both decided that it wasn't going to be a deal-breaker in their relationship.
But now, it didn't look like it was as much of a hurdle as they'd thought, if only for the week and a half between those doctor visits. He couldn't pretend to know what was going to be coming for them after she got to see another doctor about the potential growth of an impossible child, but if things turned out okay…honestly, Yarne was at peace with any outcome that could happen. Sure, there were outcomes that would be preferential to others, but at the end of the day, he would be able to accept anything that happened.
He was thankful that he had no obligation to get his sister that week, as she was on break from school, because it meant not needing to face her and possibly his parents while all of this was looming over him. Now, Yarne wasn't going to go off running his mouth to anyone he could talk to about things, mostly because he wasn't sure what was or wasn't appropriate to say right then. It was almost a given that his mother would try drumming up that sort of conversation if given the chance, though, and being able to avoid her until they had a bit clearer of a gameplan was a blessing. That, of course, was working in the mindset that there was even a gameplan needed for how to proceed, because as far as they knew there was going to be nothing notable past that appointment.
A week after they'd found out, things were slowly beginning to go back to normal, in the way that something stained could eventually get back to a recognizable state. Kjelle still wasn't up for doing a lot of talking, and certainly didn't address what was going on at all, but she was more open to being around Yarne instead of hiding in the bedroom all of the time she was home. He could tell that things were taking a toll on her, as her eyes couldn't seem to focus on anything when they were together and she was constantly fidgeting while they were in the same space, to the point that he had to give her his chair and sit on the floor to keep her from bothering him too much. "It's only until Wednesday that we have to live like this," she muttered at one point, sitting in the chair with her legs curled up underneath her, glancing around the room like eyes were focused on her in every direction. "Once we're done there, things will get back to normal."
"Will they, though?" he asked, realizing just a bit too late that he shouldn't have posed such a question in such an open-ended way. The way that she snapped her head around to face him, eyes unable to lock on his, before going back to looking around everywhere else was a great indication that he should have thought twice about what he asked. "Ugh, sorry, but you know what I mean, don't you? I don't think there's really a normal we can get back to after all of this."
"I…suppose you're right about that," she replied after calming down slightly, her motions less erratic. "I'm just struggling to accept that this happened. I'd have been better off never knowing and being completely unaware of what suffering my body was going through, but here we are, knowing something that's only going to hurt us."
There weren't any reasons for him to argue with her, so he remained quiet, sitting there by her feet with his face turned toward her, watching and making sure that she didn't start doing anything drastic. Their time together that weekend was almost entirely spent the same way, with them needing to stay just separate enough to be comfortable where they were, but needing to be close enough to be reminded they were there for each other. When work picked up again on Monday, it was a reminder that there were just a couple of days left until they had the rest of the answers they were looking for, and when Wednesday came around he knew that when he got home from work that afternoon, that chapter in their lives would be closed and they'd be moving on.
Except, based on the call he received at lunch that was entirely of Kjelle, trying her best to speak through tears, asking him to leave early and come home to spend time with her, it seemed that closing the chapter wasn't going to be as easy as he thought. His boss wasn't aware of what was going on, but when he mentioned that his girlfriend was going through medical issues he was allowed to leave without any further question. The whole time he was driving home, he couldn't help but feel like their roles were reversed from normal—usually it was him crying and asking for her help, not the other way around.
When he got home, he saw that Kjelle was right inside the window, sitting so that she could look out into the world with her eyes still unable to stay focused on one spot. She noticed Yarne as he was coming up to the front door and she slowly got herself to her feet, meeting him at the door right as he opened it. "Before I ask anything else, are you okay?" His words were rushed, in time with wrapping her in his arms in a hug that he wasn't expecting her to allow him to make. With her face buried in his shirt, she started stammering and stumbling over words and syllables that didn't seem to make any sense at all, prompting him to ask her to speak clearly.
She didn't listen initially, still trying to speak while her face was buried in the shirt, but eventually she pulled herself back and took in a few deep breaths, making hand motions in front of her face to promote calming down. "I don't know how to answer being okay or not," she finally said, clearly trying to get herself to look up at Yarne and keep her eyes steady with his worried ones. "That would be because I don't know if I am. They threw a lot at me today and…"
"Then would me asking you to tell me what happened help?" He was escorting her toward the chair to get her to sit down, but she was refusing the motions and wanted to stay standing right where she was, something that he ultimately had to accept. "Come on, Kjelle, you can't keep everything bottled up and away from me right now. You called me to get me home from work early, I'm not letting this feel like wasted time off."
The way her face contorted as she thought about how to reply told him that she was still grappling with things that he wasn't fully going to understand. "You're right, I need to just come out and tell you what happened." She paused to take in a deep breath, her chest rising as far as it could go before it fell steadily as she exhaled. "Everything went well, all things considered, and I'll go back in two weeks for another check on things. Until then, I have to pretend things are absolutely normal but not do anything normal at all. If that makes sense."
"Okay, honestly, it doesn't make sense, but whatever. When you say 'everything went well', was that part sarcasm or…?"
"Completely genuine. Yarne, they referred to it as a miracle. An actual miracle." After letting her words linger for a moment, Kjelle gave a very breathy, forced laugh before letting her head fall back a little. "I never thought I'd want this until now. To be told that it's not possible, that it'd never happen, and then for it to happen like this. I can't believe it."
He had to take a second to process what he was hearing, but when the meaning behind those words hit him, Yarne's knees began to buckle and he felt weak standing up. "You mean that there's…there's still a baby in there?" he asked, once again realizing too late that his words could have used some work.
"There is. And, in fact, according to the doctor today, it's the only thing in there, meaning that there's that obstacle taken care of." Still laughing in her forced manner, Kjelle did notice that Yarne was starting to get a bit unsteady on his feet and now it was her turn to help him to a seat, before she walked away and came back with something in her hands. "I…still don't know how long we're going to say they're sticking around, but it's already longer than I ever thought they would. And to give them the best chance to keep defying expectations, I've got to make a lot of personal sacrifices that I'm…oh, I know you don't care about that part."
He looked at what she was holding, finding it to be a similar envelope to the one he'd receive as part of his birthday gift, and the gravity of all of what was happening seemed to come crashing down on him. "That's the proof that we're having a baby." Not a question, a statement, and one that came with a sense that they'd begun traveling down a path they weren't going to be able to easily turn around on. "What are you going to do with it?"
"Keep it safe and sound, because for all we know this will be all we get. Who knows if they'll still be there in two weeks when I go back in for another visit, at my new doctor." She offered him the envelope, which he took into his hands and opened without any hesitation, wanting to get to see the proof for himself; the images were a lot different than the ones his mother had given him the previous month, which took him by surprise until Kjelle explained, "What your mom showed us isn't the same as what you're holding right now. I think she's having to go in for frequent scans too, or something like that, but this is what it looks like when the baby's just starting to, well, become something that's actually noticeable. A little clump on a piece of paper."
It really did look completely unremarkable, just a gathering of discoloration on an already busy page, but seeing it pointed at with several arrows overlayed made Yarne's whole chest tense up. "I never thought you'd be showing me something like this," he said, trying his best not to get emotional. "I'm kind of really at a loss for words here. That's our baby right there."
"For now, yeah. Don't get your hopes up that it becomes much more than this, because I certainly don't have any expectations that any of this is going to work." She waited until he handed the pictures and envelope back so that she could return them to where she'd originally placed them, then came to curl up on his lap in the chair. "Then again, I didn't expect to be sitting here talking about any of this today, so maybe…"
As she trailed off, he could tell that she was thinking about the same possibilities he'd opened his heart and mind to in the past few days. She wasn't going to let herself get attached, he was sure, but he was already starting to slip into feeling fondness for the situation and he knew it wasn't going to be long before he was eager to know what came next. But there was time for that in the future, not right while they were sitting together and sharing actual space for the first time since everything had happened. "Hey, so, changing the subject a little, we're not telling anyone about this even now, are we?"
"Gods, no, I'm not telling anyone a thing until I absolutely have to, which will be hard, all things considered. But seriously, I don't want any of them getting their own expectations for what's happening and what it might mean." Kjelle closed her eyes, leaning herself into Yarne's shoulder, before adding, "However, I have a feeling your mom's going to find out when we go over there this weekend for dinner. She's going to, I don't know, sniff things out and not take no for an answer."
"Are you worried about that happening?" He certainly felt worried about how his mother was going to handle finding out that somehow, her biggest wish for her son that year had come true, even if it wasn't going to be a negative reaction in the slightest. "She's probably going to run her mouth if she finds out, I'm sure of it."
Her eyes fluttered open, clearly rolling as they did. "Look, I don't want her knowing or even thinking she knows because I know she'll mention it to someone who will then mention it to someone else and so on. Even still, I'm a hell of a lot less scared about her finding out anything than my parents. All I have to say on that."
While that initially came as a shock for Yarne to hear, he slowly came to realize why that was and nodded in acceptance once he got it. "Right, because she at least expected this from us, your parents are going be thrown for a loop by it."
"I mean, you go from being assured that you'd never have grandchildren to finding out that maybe you'll have one after all through a huge miracle, it'll definitely be something they struggle with accepting. I can already hear the yelling now." Just like that, Kjelle closed her eyes again and sighed. "It's going to be about the ugliest fight I'll ever be a part of, and for something that's…honestly a happy little thing."
"The fact that you're not upset about this really surprises me," Yarne admitted, reaching up to stroke part of Kjelle's hair. "I wouldn't have taken you as the kind of person to be okay with having a family."
"Really? I mean, I guess it makes sense, given how closed-off about this sort of thing I've always been due to all of those circumstances, but that wasn't how I always was." She laughed softly, turning her head slightly so that Yarne could get access to more of her hair to play with. "I'm sure there's evidence of it somewhere, but when I was little I would always talk about how I'd be a championship-level athlete, usually a fighter but it changed as I found new interests, but I'd always mention how I'd have a family around to cheer me on. Obviously I dropped that part as things got worse, but the desire…well, it never exactly disappeared from my heart."
"That's so interesting, I really wouldn't have guessed that. Meanwhile, I pretty much helped raise Ribbon when she was little so I've felt like I had my fill of raising a kid, I didn't think I wanted one of my own. Except now…" With the hand that wasn't actively stroking hair, Yarne reached over and hovered his hand above Kjelle's leg for a moment, before shifting where it was going to land and placing it down on her stomach, which she flinched at. "This just doesn't feel like it's really happening, and I'm excited to see how it goes."
"Yeah, okay, hands off of me like that, you know I'm sensitive about people touching me around there," Kjelle muttered, her words coming off more annoyed than anything else. "But I guess I might have to get used to you doing it if this keeps up."
Already moving his hand back to its original destination on her leg, Yarne chuckled and said, "If you're not comfortable with it, you don't have to let me do it. I can be perfectly normal about this sort of thing, if it means making you happy."
"Right, because this is the experience you're going to willingly deny yourself in the future, getting to possibly feel your child moving around. I might just have to hold you to this, if you're being serious." Shaking her head as she sat there, Kjelle seemed to realize what she'd said and opened her eyes once more, looking into Yarne's face like she hadn't in so many days. "I can't believe I just said that and actually meant it."
"Ha, yeah, it's going to take some real getting used to thinking about this being an actual thing going on." Yarne had something else he wanted to add, but right as he'd decided it wasn't too hopeful a statement to make, something struck him and changed his whole direction. "Wait, we have dinner with my parents this weekend? Are you sure?"
She blinked a couple of times, almost like what was said had shocked her. "Same date every month, the day is the only thing that changes. That's how time works."
He let out a low groan as that truth began to sink in, dread beginning to overpower any good feelings that he'd had about what was going on. "Mom's going to find out this weekend and it's going to be everywhere by next week, just you watch."
"We're going to have to try our best to keep her from finding out, that's all I can wish for. I just know she's going to be speculating and guessing and I don't want her knowing that she's right, even though there's no way she should be." Kjelle's nose crinkled as she thought more, only to say, "If she does guess it, we're lying to her."
"I can't lie to Mom, not right now. You know how she gets when she finds out the truth about things."
"Look, it's either lie to her, or let the world know about a baby that we don't know the likelihood of survival for. I'm going with lying to her." With a huff, Kjelle adjusted herself in Yarne's lap again, now leaning even more on his chest than on his shoulder. "You can make the choice for yourself, I guess, but do you want to face that heartbreak?"
He hesitated, knowing that he certainly did not want to have to talk about a baby that might not exist weeks later with someone that didn't need to know about them in the first place. On the other hand, though, he knew they were going to be dealing with his already manipulative mother who was going through a lot of difficult things on her own. While he'd done his best to block out the memories of how she'd been when she was pregnant when he was younger, he definitely remembered how much it had altered her treatment of him and how insufferable being stuck with her had been in those times. He was sure that things were only going to be worse this time, and if she caught them lying to her, there might end up being more than just the silent treatment between them.
"I think lying to her's the worst idea we can come up with, second only to choosing not to go to our already planned dinner with her." He grit his teeth, knowing that his read on the situation might not have been the pleasant one to hear. "If she figures it out, she has to know the truth."
"What if she just throws it out as a guess? What then? You want to just break down and tell her, then let her pretend she figured it out ahead of time? I'm not doing that, not right now. There's no point." All of her sentences were choppy, like they'd been spoken while actively still figuring out what to say, but Kjelle seemed like she was not going to be convinced that lying was wrong in their position. "Just…hold your tongue on this one, just at least until I'm more comfortable with people knowing."
His jaw still tightly clenched, Yarne considered just not responding, but another reason for the insistence on lying struck him. "You're scared of telling her, aren't you?"
"I'm scared of telling anyone. Don't want, don't need people's hopes getting up about things."
"No, I mean like scared scared. Like she's going to do something dramatic when she finds out and you don't want to deal with that." Truth be told, that was a big part of why Yarne didn't want to have to lie about things if it came down to it, because he was scared of the sort of reaction the news would garner. "Come on, I know she's my mom but you can—"
"Listen. I'm way more scared of telling my parents than yours, if we're going by worried about how negatively they're going to react. I don't want to tell your mom because I don't want her getting excited about this for it to all disappear." The words felt about as honest as Kjelle could possibly be, and Yarne knew that she wasn't trying to skirt around any issues while saying them. "You have to respect my wishes on this, just go along with what I want, and when it's fine then you can tell her. Deal?"
He sighed. "Deal. But I really don't think this is the best idea, not with Mom."
"I get that, I really do, but you have to believe in what I'm telling you." She lifted her head from his shoulder, looking around the room before settling back down, her mind having shifted to another topic. "I'm sorry that I asked you to leave work early to talk me through all of this, I clearly haven't been in the best headspace lately and I wasn't ready to handle this by myself too."
"It's no big deal, everyone in management knows that you've got different issues we might have to work through and—hey, Kjelle? I just thought about something else." Even though he saw that she was trying to move on to other things, probably asking him to turn on his game so she could watch him play, there was one thing that he hadn't even considered until right that moment, talking about what his bosses knew. She gave an inquisitive squeak, not a full word or even a partial one, but an indicator that she was curious. "At work, they always give me a bit of trouble when I remind them that you're my girlfriend."
"Yeah, you've told me that before. What's that got to do with anything?" Her tone showed that her curiosity had not waned at all with that short answer.
"Well, uh, once I have to tell them about all this, that heckling is probably only going to get worse and I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle it." He locked eyes with her for a second, before feeling too embarrassed to keep looking in her direction, having to turn his head away from her. "Maybe we should do something about that to keep that from happening, don't you think?"
She was silent for a few moments, taking in what he'd said, before bursting into laughter. "Yarne, I know that you're super worried about fitting in with a company of old women who only work to fill their time, but I don't think it's necessary to worry about that in particular. If any of them want to start bugging you because you're unmarried and having a child, then they can just deal with it. I don't think we need to add that stress to everything else."
"If you say so, I suppose I can agree with that." He didn't know what else he could do except agree with her, given the fact that they'd never actually talked about marriage or engagements or even what their long-term future needed to look like; this was, by all accounts, just a curveball that they were going to have to accept with grace and hope they hit a home run when they swung at it. "At least we know Mom's not going to be unhappy about us being unmarried. Your parents…do you even know how they'll take it?"
As she was still laughing here and there, it took Kjelle a bit of time to be able to word her ideas in a way that made sense. "Best case, they won't care, worst case, they'll get upset about it for a little while and then get over it when they realize they're getting something they didn't think they'd ever have. You know, provided that things don't go bad like they probably will, which is why I think we don't even need to bother with thinking about getting married over this."
Yarne slowly brought his eyes back to looking at Kjelle, seeing how much joy she was expressing in her answering of his question he hadn't thought was that funny. He didn't quite appreciate how much of a joke she was taking it as, but she seemed so happy, so amused, that it was hard to get upset about it. The past week and a half had been hard, and things still weren't going to be easy for some time, so he felt like she was allowed to have this moment for herself. "I get your point," he conceded, reaching past her for his controller and the remote for the TV. "Let's just take some time to forget about all of this for a little while, shall we?"
There was no avoiding the fact that they had to go over to Yarne's parents' house that weekend for their monthly dinner, especially after he'd received a call from his mother the night before it, reminding him that they needed to be there and what they were expected to bring along. "Whoa, not even a full day's notice on needing to bring all these foods?" he asked when he heard how many different dishes were being rattled off. "We haven't prepared a thing, you can't expect all that with just a day to prepare!"
"I can expect it, and I will," Panne replied, sounding like she was trying to prove her power over her son with what she was saying. "That, or you can try to make up for your failure in that regard some other way. I doubt that you're actually capable of thinking that fast on your feet, though, so you might want to get planning."
"Mom, you're being ridiculous. We'll bring something, but I'm not promising you any of what you just told me. I don't even remember most of it to begin with!" The call ended there, without Panne giving so much as a response to his admission that he hadn't caught the majority of her list, and he was left shaking his head at his mother's behavior on the phone. When he brought it up with Kjelle later, she thought it was pretty bad that they were getting told what to do the night before the dinner as well, but she had a plan for how to handle things in a way that would most likely fare well for them.
"I have all of those recipes she gave me for your birthday, I can see if there's anything in those we've got the stuff for, and if we don't, we bake a cake and pray that she'll be happy with that offering." True to her word, Kjelle went and found the collection of recipes that she'd used before, and while they didn't have all of the ingredients for anything among those pages, they had just enough for some of them that giving the foods a fair shot was possible. It did result in them having a very similar problem to the first time they'd had the monthly dinner at his parents' house, but this time they weren't having to troubleshoot carrying trays of food on the fly, at the very least.
Just the act of going over to the house on a Saturday night felt like they were forgiving what had happened the previous month, but there wasn't much they could do to get around that. In fact, on the ride over with the food in the backseat, they discussed how awkward it was needing to spend time with his family without having actually gotten past what had happened previously. They mutually decided that they weren't going to act nasty about it, no matter how easy it would have been to do exactly that. "It's just not worth the fight, not with Mom," Yarne decided, heaving a sigh as he spoke. "She'll act like she doesn't get why we're upset with her, she'll act like we're just being mean for unrelated reasons, it'll be a huge thing that ends with her getting her feelings hurt and us looking like bad people."
"That's just so manipulative. I don't understand how she can do that sort of thing to her own child and act like it's fine." Rolling her eyes, Kjelle reached over to Yarne and touched his arm, making sure that he wasn't actively in the middle of turning the steering wheel when she did so. "You promise me right now that we're not going to be the same damn way with our kid when they're old enough for it to matter."
"I didn't think we'd be talking about it like this, but yeah, that's a promise I fully intend on keeping for my whole life. And theirs, I guess." Yarne's initial reaction was to think that having to make that promise to begin with was silly, but he knew why that was the case; he knew that Kjelle was trying to make sure that they weren't going to intentionally make the same choices and mistakes that their parents had, especially the ones his mother had made herself known for. "But you should know that I'd make that promise. I wouldn't ever want anyone to suffer the same way I did."
"I needed to hear it, just to be certain." Kjelle pulled her hand away from him, bringing it back over to her side of the car. "I'm making the same promise too, obviously. After the neglect I experienced, I wouldn't wish that on anyone else."
"Then it's settled, I guess." Not wanting to dwell on that subject for very long, Yarne put his full attention on driving once more, and soon enough they were parked outside of his parents' house completely not ready for another night spent in their presence. Much like the last time, they had to get the food inside on their own, but this time there wasn't Ribbon hanging around to be a nuisance, or either of his parents standing around watching them. It was just the two of them, carrying fewer boxes up to the door and hoping they'd be able to get them inside quickly.
It was Ribbon who opened the door after they knocked, grinning from ear to ear at her brother's presence. "Mom didn't think you guys were actually coming," she explained, moving out of the way so that both of them and the boxes could make it inside without too much hassle. "She even told me that she wasn't holding her breath over it, because you're a bad son and all that."
"Yeah, I'm sure she said exactly that." Yarne knew that it was more likely that it was said than that it wasn't, but the idea of his mother telling his sister that and not expecting her to parrot it just felt wrong to him. "Listen, can you go get her and let her know we're here? I'm guessing she's taking a nap or something."
Ribbon nodded. "Sure is. Wow, you're so smart when it comes to knowing what Mom does sometimes. I'll go get her, Dad's in the garage but he thought you were actually coming so I don't know what he's doing out there." With that, she flounced off to do what she'd been asked, in theory, and the two were left responsible for closing and locking the door, as well as getting the food into the kitchen.
Based entirely on how much food was already sitting on countertops and on the stove, it was clear that Panne had in fact expected them to show up after all, which only made what Ribbon said sting that much more. "Why does she say those things to someone who doesn't realize how hurtful they are, and not expect them to get repeated?" he asked no one in particular as he unpacked one of the boxes onto every empty surface he could find. "All she does by doing that is make me want to be around her even less."
"Maybe she doesn't realize that Ribbon's repeating the stuff to you?" Kjelle suggested, before shaking her head. "That doesn't make sense, though, because of course she'd realize that. It's why she's saying it."
"See, you're picking up the problem too!" Groaning, Yarne finished emptying one box and began working on another, leaving the remaining one still in Kjelle's hands until he was finished. By the time they'd gotten everything they brought with them out of the boxes, Ricken had come inside from the garage and was standing idly alongside, watching as the two did their work. Yarne hadn't realized that the door he'd heard open and close was the one from the garage, so when he turned around and saw his father standing behind him, he let out a loud scream and jumped a solid foot into the air, to the point that he swore his head brushed against the ceiling above him.
"Sorry for the scare there," Ricken apologized, bringing his hands in front of him as he winced from the volume of the scream. "I didn't know you didn't know I'd come in, otherwise I would've said something when I did."
"Giving the warning is always appreciated, you should know this by now," Yarne replied with a hand pressed over his heart, feeling it rapidly thumping in his chest. "You could've spooked me so hard I could've died there!"
"A bit dramatic, it wouldn't have been deadly, but noted." Sliding through the kitchen until he was into the dining room, Ricken seemed to be looking around for someone (or something) but didn't find it, looking back at the two visitors with a concerned expression. "I wasn't expecting you both here quite yet, and I don't think your mother is either. Did you send Ribbon to go get her?"
Given that Yarne was still trying to collect himself from being scared by his father's presence, Kjelle took the opportunity to answer the question posed. "We did, but that was when we got here and we haven't seen or heard them since."
"Ah, that makes sense, I'll go…see what's keeping them." Ricken took more sliding steps until he was walking briskly through the house on his way to the other side where the bedrooms were, leaving the two alone once again.
Turning to look at Yarne with eyebrows raised, Kjelle said, "I think something's going on here that we haven't been told about, given that you've been on bad terms with your mom for a while now and all. You think she's hiding from us for some reason?"
"If she's not, I'd be really surprised." All of the possible reasons for why things were taking so long had been coursing through Yarne's head the moment he'd heard what his father said, and he really hoped that all of them were false. He wanted to have faith that his mother had just been taking a really deep nap, and that she was having a hard time willing herself up out of the bed, but he knew that the chances of that being the only thing going on were nearly zero. "She's probably mad that she didn't convince me to just not show up after our talk yesterday, because it wasn't a good conversation and I think she was trying to use it as a way to keep us away."
"That would make sense," Kjelle agreed, "and if it's the truth, then I'm even more disgusted with her than normal."
They had to cut any discussion short because the sound of footsteps and voices elsewhere in the house started to grow, until Ribbon popped into the dining room with that big grin once again on her face. "Guess who I brought!" she called in a sing-song manner, knocking her head and long hair from side to side, the braids she wore newly weaved. "Mom thought that I looked really messy when she saw me, so she made me redo my hair before we came out for dinner. I didn't understand why, but you know how it is with Mom and what she wants."
"Please don't tell lies about what happened, Ribbon, you and I both know that you undid one of your braids on accident and needed them touched up before you came back out here." Panne's voice was commanding, like it always was, but there was just enough exhaustion to back up the fact that she had been taking a nap beforehand. "You would have been mortified to join everyone with your hair in that state of disaster."
Ribbon drew in a deep breath, puffing her small shoulders and her chest as far as she could until she exhaled it. "I mean, you're right, but I said I would be okay with it since it's just Yarne and Kjelle here—you're the one who told me that I had to fix my hair. I didn't really have a choice on what to do."
"Again, you would have been mortified, I was merely protecting you from that feeling of shame we both know you would have experienced." Now that she was in the room with them, Panne was standing right behind Ribbon, hands down on her shoulders to hold her in place, using her as a shield from any glares that might have come her way. "It's lovely to see you both, by the way. A whole month since we last shared space together."
She didn't sound even slightly upset with them, proving Yarne's worries to be completely wrong, but that didn't mean that he was thrilled to see her. "Yeah, a whole month," he repeated, making sure his eyes were looking everywhere but at his mother, not wanting to see her in any way. "Look, sorry about last night, I was frustrated that you waited that long to tell us what you wanted and…" He trailed off as he found himself staring at the ground, knowing that he was about to be met with his thoughts being torn down, except that wasn't the case at all.
"Your feelings on the matter are valid, and I apologize for throwing things on you in a way that made you uncomfortable. I'd merely forgotten to say anything about what I wanted you to bring and only remembered last night, and my handling of the situation was…questionable, to say the least." Punctuating her sentence with a long yawn, Panne continued, "You see, I've been a lot more tired than usual, my mind hasn't been quite as sharp as it should be, and little things like that have been falling to the wayside."
"That doesn't sound very fun," Kjelle said under her breath, stiffening up her stance and moving a bit closer to Yarne's side. "But it wasn't like we had a huge problem getting some of the things you asked for made, so it all works out, right?"
"Always trying to look for the positive in a situation," Panne replied, her head slightly tilting as she looked at Kjelle and her rather unusual behavior as she'd been talking. Her gaze lingered for a moment, before she shook any thoughts on the matter off entirely. "It's a blessing that my son has been able to be exposed to those habits from someone, even if he hasn't quite grasped them for himself."
"H-hey, I'm learning how to be more positive about things!" It was true, at least in Yarne's mind, but he knew that on the outside it seemed that he was always focused on what could go wrong, not how things could go right. He had an example of the situation being flipped, and very nearly opened his mouth to share it as a take that to his mother, but a gentle stomp on his foot from his girlfriend reminded him that they'd agreed to not talk about that. "I have things I need to work on, and that's just one of them. Don't make it seem like a problem that I haven't mastered it yet."
Standing sort of behind his wife, Ricken whispered something that the couple on the other side of the dining room couldn't hear, but Panne seemed to laugh at what she'd been told. "I suppose that would be a good idea, yes," she said, before lifting her hands off of Ribbon's shoulders to release the younger girl into going wherever she wanted. "Your father has suggested that we get right to eating, rather than standing around letting all of the food grow cold and go to waste. Would you two mind terribly if we saved the rest of the conversation for after our meal together?"
"There's going to be more that we need to talk about?" Yarne asked, thinking that getting the apology he hadn't been expecting was as much as he needed to hear. Everyone laughed at that to some extent, his sister taking it furthest until she was crying from her laughter, and he felt a bit awkward until Kjelle hugged him with one arm and reminded him that there was always more talking than necessary when it came to time with his parents. His shoulders sagged and he felt like he was a fool for not thinking of that, but no one seemed to be upset with him that he'd expected it to be a quick visit so he was able to move on fairly quickly.
Like it was every time they were over at his parents' house for dinner, there was more food than they knew what to do with, and the expectation was to get more than they could feasibly eat in one sitting just to try a little bit of everything. Yarne didn't think anything of it until they were sitting down and he saw that, while his portion was overflowing like always, Kjelle had been a lot more mindful about what she'd picked. "Is something the matter?" they both heard Panne ask when she saw the smaller portion in front of someone at her table, and they looked over at her and her own less-than-filled plate. "Usually you're quite good at grabbing everything you want on your first plate."
"Oh, I…" Almost like she was pretending to not have realized what she had (or hadn't) done, Kjelle looked at what she had in front of her and brought a hand to her cover her mouth, before sliding her chair back and returning to the kitchen. "I'll be right back, then."
"Mom, you can't call out someone else for not getting enough when you didn't either," Yarne pointed out, motioning toward what his mother had in front of her, but he did notice that it was almost entirely what they'd made and brought. "If you're going to make Kjelle get more, you've got to do it too. It's only fair."
"I'd be choosing to waste more food in that case, and we don't want or need that right now. This is already going to be too much, I can feel it." Pursing her lips together as she took a look at her own sparse servings, Panne shook her head. "Why, if I didn't know better, I'd think that someone's trying to avoid eating things to make herself sick. But that would be a foolish thought, wouldn't it be?"
His heart beginning to pick up speed in his chest, Yarne attempted to answer and found that his mouth was barren and dry, a desert that his words couldn't traverse. "It wasn't intentional, you're reading far too into things," Kjelle replied as she returned to the table, a second plate about equally as filled as the first in her hands. "I was going to get all of this on a second round, but obviously I can't offend you by changing things up a little."
"Now, now, can't we just accept that we're all eating what we want and leave it at that? There's no need for all of this tension here." Ricken was stepping in where the hotter heads weren't going to stop themselves, and he was able to direct them to eating rather than getting angry at what the others were doing.
Still, even with that in mind, Yarne found himself constantly looking between his girlfriend and his mother, watching how they were both also looking at each other every so often. Panne was picking at what was on her plate, but any time she'd notice that Kjelle's eyes were in her direction she would dramatically take a bite of something, which would in turn have Kjelle eating more of her own meal, whether she wanted to or not. It got to the point that Yarne almost called for them to stop doing what they were doing, but he knew he wasn't strong enough to face the wrath coming at him from both sides. "This is really, really good! I'm so glad we get to do dinners like this!" Ribbon said to break up the sounds of utensils on plates, completely unaware of what mind games were being played at the table. "When I'm an adult, I want to have dinners like this too."
"That would be the plan, there'll have to be some way to get you both here to spend time with your younger brother or sister," Ricken replied, glancing over at Panne to see if she had anything to add; finding that she was staring down at her food, he instead moved to looking across the table and found Yarne staring straight back at him, brows slightly furrowed. "Hm? Is something the matter, Yarne?"
It wasn't the way he'd hoped to address what he'd been watching, but his father had just given him an opening and he wasn't going to waste it. "Nothing's wrong, not exactly, but I think Mom's making Kjelle feel bad about what happened and I wish she'd stop."
"Can't your girlfriend speak for herself on the matter?" Panne asked innocently, still looking down at her plate. "Or is she afraid to tell what she feels is going on?"
"I don't know what's going on, you're just intimidating me into eating more than I'd planned to right now and I'm honestly kind of tired of it." Pushing one of her plates out toward the middle of the table, Kjelle sat up straight in her seat and pointed over at Panne, choosing to look at Ricken while she spoke. "She keeps staring me down, like she's expecting me to do something that isn't eat, and I don't get it. Can you please control your wife before we just walk out of here or something?"
"Panne, is that true?" Ricken reached over to touch Panne's shoulder, but she moved out of his reach and his hand fell down, fingers slowly curling into a weak fist. "Why are you doing such a thing, since you clearly are?"
She huffed, before sliding her chair back from the table and crossing her arms in front of her, eyes glued like daggers in Kjelle's direction. "There's something going on and I want her to own up to it. I need to hear the words from her mouth, no one else's."
All of the discussion that had taken place before they'd come over for the dinner felt heavy on Yarne's mind as he watched things unfolding, knowing that gears were turning in Kjelle's mind to try and cover for herself like she'd planned. She'd known this was going to happen, she'd been the one to call attention to how likely it was, and now she was on the spot to try and lie her way out of things. "Seriously, I don't know what you're going on about and expecting me to say right now," Kjelle told her, sounding absolutely earnest with every word. "I work in a fitness center, do you really think that coming here and gorging myself on food with your family is something I like doing? I know the importance of not doing it all at once, at the very least."
The dagger-like stare did not shift, even as Panne leaned forward to bring herself that much closer to her target. "Funny how this is the first time I recall that ever being brought up," she spat, "because it sounds like you're making excuses."
"I most certainly am not making excuses. Stop trying to make things where they aren't."
He knew he wasn't supposed to say a word. He knew that if he made even a slight motion in that moment, all suspicions would be confirmed and he'd be the blame. But Yarne was struggling where he sat, his whole body beginning to shake at how heated things were and how nasty this lying situation was going to get if it went on any longer. "You have something to say, don't you, Yarne?" his mother asked him, having seen the way he was trembling out of the corner of her eye. "Go on, be a good son and confess whatever you're hiding."
"There's nothing to tell her, you can tell her that much," Kjelle reminded him, the unspoken part being that he wasn't going to be telling, he was going to be lying. And when put in a position of needing to do what was best and what was right, Yarne was always going to default to answering to the person who scared him more.
"We shouldn't lie about things," he said quietly, Kjelle gasping at what she heard. "I told you that lying wouldn't be a good idea, Mom's too good at picking up on people not telling her the whole truth."
"Thank you, you've done a difficult thing for yourself and I want you to know I'm proud of you. Now, since she won't say it, will you do it?" Her tone softening as she was speaking to him, it was beyond obvious that Panne was trying to manipulate Yarne into getting her way, but she wasn't quite in control of everything.
In fact, Yarne had been mentally preparing himself for this very moment, and now he was stepping into the fray to protect his girlfriend and receive all of the heat for himself. "She doesn't want to talk about it, but I know that they're doing some…challenge at the fitness center that she's been forced to participate in. She didn't want to tell you because she knew you'd say that she had to do what you wanted instead, but that's what's going on here."
"What sort of challenge?" Ricken asked, curious about the details and giving a reprieve from Panne's behavior as he attempted to flesh things out further.
"It's meant for the clients, but it's a healthy, clean eating challenge. One that this sort of food doesn't really fit into, but I was going to split it into two servings to make it seem a little less extravagant." Under the table, out of view, Kjelle had reached over and placed her hand on Yarne's thigh, patting it as her way of thanking him for saving the situation. "I got convinced to participate to give everyone a goal to meet, even though I know that what I do on a weekly basis might just be worse than most of our clients."
Giving a big sigh as she rolled her eyes and head both, Panne sat back in her chair, her arms uncrossing and falling to her sides. "Is that all? What a waste of a confrontation, I was almost certain that there was something a lot bigger, so to speak, going on here."
"What do you mean by that?" Ribbon chimed in, having been watching the fireworks and now feeling left out with the switch to adult talk. "Will you tell me, Mom?"
Panne seemed to think for a second before shaking her head. "No, there's no need for it right now. My apologies for letting that get so intense, I should have thought twice about how I was acting toward you."
"Apology heard," Kjelle said, her way of making it clear she wasn't moving past what had happened. "Now can we get through the rest of this dinner without you staring me down all the time so I can eat at my own pace?"
That was indeed what happened, and by the time everyone else had finished what they wanted to eat, the only person with a lot of food left was Kjelle, and even then she didn't seem interested in finishing things, citing her so-called challenge as the reason for it. After the plates were cleared and there was space to talk freely, things once again fell into an awkward rut of half-arguing here and there. It seemed that Panne just couldn't open her mouth without trying to start an argument with someone, whether it was one of the guests or the people she lived with, and talking to her became difficult.
As difficult as it was, though, there was one elephant in the room that Yarne felt obligated to mention, even if he hated the mere thought of the situation. "So, uh, how's everything going with that baby?" he asked, biting his lip after his question landed because he knew it was a minefield that had already ruined one family evening.
"Not as well as I would like it to be going, but that's my fault for being as old as I am and heeding taguel traditions to the letter." Panne looked relatively wistful as she spoke, but she didn't seem like she was regretting a thing about what she was saying and doing. "I'm thankful that I've found a good place that's taking great care of me, at the recommendation of the doctor that helped with Ribbon before she was born."
"That's good, that they helped you with that." Not knowing what else he wanted to say on the matter, Yarne considered his duty to acknowledge what was going on finished and tried to just turn away from continuing to talk, but then his mother kept going. She wasn't specifically speaking to him, more like rambling on about baby-related things, but when she mentioned some name of some place, probably the place she was going to visit with her doctor, Yarne felt a hand smack against his side, and he quickly looked to see a wide-eyed expression on Kjelle's face. Before he asked her what was going on, she forced a smile at him and gestured for him to turn back toward his mother, which he did while unsure of why that was necessary.
It turned out, as he found out on the way home after they'd managed to get out of the house without any further drama, that the office Panne had namedropped was the exact same place that Kjelle's own familiar doctor had recommended for her to go for her next (and any future) appointments. "What are the odds of that?" she asked under her breath, leaning her head against the window of the car. "But, it's not the end of the world. She's still not going to know until we want her to know, and no going to the same office is going to change that."
"What if it does, though?" he asked, a chill coursing through his spine and down his arms and legs. "I mean, the odds aren't great for you two to run into each other, but it could definitely still happen. Mom's luck is just that good when it needs to be. And if you're there and she's there, then she'll know and—"
"Yarne, listen to me." Kjelle's voice was firm, but had a tone to it that was meant to calm him down, even if it wasn't immediately doing the job. "I know you're great at coming up with worst-case scenarios for everything, but you don't need to worry about this. If she runs into me in there, I'll tell her I got sent there from my doctor for my one working ovary and she'll just…believe me, because why would I lie about that?"
"—you would be lying, though, that's kind of the problem. It's never a good idea to lie to Mom, and you're just out here advocating for it over and over again!"
Kjelle took a moment to breathe in deeply, exhaling slowly as she looked at Yarne with absolute annoyance across her face. "Might I need to remind you that you actively lied to her on my behalf tonight? And that I didn't ask you to come up with anything to tell her when she started trying to poke holes in what I was doing? That was all you, you're the one who chose to help defy her."
She was right, he knew that, but he didn't want to accept that he'd had anything to do with the lying that had happened. "I just said something that I thought would make sense to her, it was more or less sort of the truth, wasn't it?"
"No, it was far from anything close to the truth." She looked away from him, her head shaking slowly up and down as she added, "But I'm prouder than you realize that you did it. Lying to a parent's never easy, and you've never been great at following through with it without getting caught, so this working out…it's important. It really is."
"When she finds out, she's going to murder us," he said, feeling the surge of relief that she was proud of him for something that he hadn't been asked to do but knowing it was would be short-lived. "Genuine murder. I don't even know if they'd be able to find our bodies."
"She's not going to murder anyone, and if she tries I'll just have to remind her that she asked for this, sort of. Implied it, tried to force our hands, that sort of thing. We'll have to come up with a way to drop this on her gently when the time comes, so that she doesn't suspect that we lied to her, but…" Kjelle shrugged. "Not a 'right now' kind of problem for us to be dealing with. I think we can save that one for at least after my next appointment."
"I'm going to leave that up to you, the telling her thing anyway," he replied, not even wanting to think about how they'd go about doing that sort of thing. "I'll help with telling others, but I don't want her to take her wrath out on me when she finds out the truth."
Giving a long, drawn-out groan, Kjelle tried her best to silence him by saying, "She won't take anything out on you, she'll be too overjoyed by knowing that she got her way to care that any lying was involved. Can you please just believe me about this?"
He was stunned silent for a moment, then quietly, in the smallest voice he could manage, he told her that he would believe her, even if deep down he knew that there was no point in thinking things would end well. He'd known his mother for twenty-four whole years, he knew how harsh she took things when they weren't how she liked them, and he knew for a fact that she was not going to like this news at all. But it wasn't time for her to know yet, and she could remain completely unaware as long as they were able to keep their lies up—which would be made infinitely easier by choosing not to talk to her at all again.
That next week and a half went by a lot smoother than the last time they'd had to go through such a wait, without there being as much angst and worrying that there wasn't going to be any good news when the next appointment came. There was still the fear that there was going to be something bad discovered at that appointment—the possibility of the baby no longer being alive wasn't even the only one this time around—but Yarne found himself able to relax and think positively a lot more about what was going to happen. He didn't want to talk too much about what could happen on the good side of things, especially not when he knew that things could sour easily and that all of the positive talk he'd done would suddenly be a sore subject. But at the same time, he was beginning to really think about how great of a turn of events this had become in his life, even if it was completely unexpected.
So, when he came home from work on the fateful scheduled day and saw Kjelle already there, sitting in his chair with her legs folded underneath her and a serious expression on her face, every single positive thought he'd dared to entertain went right out the window. "Please tell me that everything's okay," he said, not even having locked the door when he started speaking. "I know that look, I know that it means trouble."
"Oh, uh, everything's fine, I'm not super thrilled with the new doctor I have to see but I think she'll grow on me over time, it was a lot of information thrown at me at once and a lot of planning out future visits and tests and it's got my head all jumbled." While she was talking, Yarne was in the middle of his usual routine, so when she noticed that he was heading into the bedroom to change, she tacked on a bit more. "It's going to be a lot of appointments going forward but I think everything is for the best, your mom knows what's going on, and there's a lot of things that we're going to have to—"
"Hold on, what was that middle thing there?" Yarne was halfway in the bedroom, his work shirt untucked and his belt already in his hand, but he stepped backward to look at Kjelle, to give her his full attention. "Could you repeat it for me, just so I can be sure that I heard you?"
"That there's a lot of appointments? It's like one every other week at minimum, they're really going overboard with it but I don't think I want to argue with them, in case I manage to mess things up that way." Her expression had not changed, but she was staring past Yarne at the wall behind him. "It's really just something I have to account for with work, it's nothing you need to worry your time with for now."
He drew in a breath, his shoulders rising until he exhaled, knowing that he'd heard correctly and she was just refusing to say it again. "Not that part, the thing that came after it."
"What I didn't get to finish saying? That there's a lot of things we're going to have to start preparing for, because it's more and more likely that we're actually having this baby?"
"About my mom. That she knows."
The serious expression cracking on Kjelle's face, she was trying her hardest not to grimace but the reality of what she needed to say made it impossible to not look pained at the words. "It wasn't intentional, but she was there when I finished up and we passed each other in the waiting room, I tried to play off why I was there but the doctor…she didn't know any better, she didn't know what she shouldn't have said, she wanted me to get my information and your mom happened to hear it." By the time she'd finished, the grimace had been replaced with a jaw-dropped, completely disbelieving expression that had Kjelle shaking her head from side to side. "I know she heard it. She didn't say a word of it to me, but the look she gave me…damn, Yarne, those glares are not fun to experience when you're alone with her."
He wasn't sure what to say, but with anxieties building in his mind, Yarne did what he was best at doing and ran into the bedroom, slamming the door closed and locking it behind him, so that he wouldn't be followed. His mom knew. She was aware they'd lied to her at dinner, she was aware they were keeping a secret from her that she wanted in on, she was going to lose her mind whenever they spoke next. As he changed out of his work clothes and into something more comfortable, he felt his heart trying to burst out of his chest and his heavy breathing as he was struggling to stay calm. But how could he remain calm when his mother was going to be out for their blood?
There were knocks on the bedroom door as he heard Kjelle trying to get in from the outside. "Hey, come on, if she's going to be upset at anyone I don't think it's going to be you, and you don't see me locking myself in a room to hide from it. Let me in." Her knocks grew more aggressive as he continued ignoring her entirely, having re-dressed himself and moved to sitting on the bed with his hands running through his hair, trying not to tug it out as he rocked slowly back and forth.
When the knocking ceased, he felt a moment of calm and clarity, a peace that didn't seem possible in that moment, but that was when he heard a different sound coming from the door, the sound of a pin being shoved into the hole on the doorknob to forcibly unlock it. As the door came open and Kjelle came inside with a worried gaze focused on her boyfriend, he started actually tearing at his hair, closing his eyes tightly to try and block the world out. He felt her grabbing him, wrapping herself around him, as the bed beneath him started to creak as she climbed up on it next to him. "If she was going to be angry, she would have done something by now," Kjelle assured him, a soft whisper that was aimed entirely to calm Yarne down, even though he was far too stressed for it to work. "When she didn't say anything to me there, I think that was her processing it, and her not saying anything now is her accepting what she knows. It's all fine, it's all going to be okay."
"It's not, you don't know her, it's just not," he replied, his rebuttal not going any further than that and consisting of repeating those same phrases over and over again. Memories of incidents past where he'd been caught deceiving his mother and having to face consequences for those actions were hitting him hard, each one a reminder of two things: one was how nasty it could get when his mother was upset, and the other was how much he hated being in a position where lying to her had been seen as the best choice. He couldn't put those into verbal words, though, merely holding onto them as he was hugged tightly on the bed.
Some things were harder to work through than others, and this was one of those more difficult concepts to push past, because it was something that he had been dealing with all of his life. Disappointing his mother, causing her to call him hopeless, bringing her to break him down yet again, those were all things that he actively tried to avoid and felt like he'd brought onto himself this time. When he started crying as he remained in Kjelle's arms, he knew that his mother's power over him had never faded, even after he'd moved out of her house and started a life of his own. He was terrified of her, and his emotional breakdown there in his bedroom was proof of it.
"I'll talk to her then, so that you don't have to do it. I'm not as scared of her as I think I should be, after all." The words Kjelle said weren't the words that Yarne wanted to hear, but they were the words he expected her to say, willingly subjecting herself to torment to keep him safe, and he wanted to tell her to change her mind but simply couldn't. He was gasping for air with every breath, body shaking as he struggled to calm himself down from his fears, and he felt utterly worthless in that moment. This wasn't how things should have gone, and he knew that he didn't do enough to keep them from ending this way.
Their time on the bed together was cut short by another knock at a different door, someone coming to see them at their house, and as Kjelle got down to go see who it was, Yarne was able to pull himself together long enough to ask her to close the door on her way out before she was gone. He knew who it was out there, without a fraction of doubt, and he didn't want to have to face his mother while he was so distraught, even though he knew sending Kjelle to do it alone wasn't the smartest idea either. From where he still sat, he could hear the front door open, he could hear one surprised greeting and one sharp response, and he could hear the door close—but that was it. No further voices, no further discussion.
The moment he felt like he could stand on his own feet without collapsing from his fears, Yarne was up and at the door, opening it to see that there was no one in the house with him. After checking and double-checking that he was truly alone, he went to the front window and looked outside, seeing both Kjelle and his mother outside, talking like they were on great terms with each other, and the mere sight of that pleasant conversation made him fear the worst. He got as far as getting a hand on the handle of the front door, it still unlocked even though it never should've been left that way, before he talked himself out of going out there and trying to be the big, brave guy to protect the woman he loved.
In a reversal of when he'd come home, he was the one sitting on the chair looking serious when Kjelle came back inside, her laughter a surprise as she closed the door behind her once again and made sure it was locked tight. "That went…surprisingly well, actually," she said, leaning against the door with a sigh. "Your mom really took being lied to in stride, which I didn't expect to be the case."
"You mean she didn't freak out and say nasty things about it?" Yarne asked, verbalizing one of the greatest fears he'd been grappling with the whole time. "Like, she actually handled it like an adult for once?"
"I can't say that I know what you mean by that, but she handled it a lot better than a lot of other people I know would have. She at least understood why we chose to lie to her, especially when I explained that this wasn't supposed to happen under any circumstances and we're trying to keep everything under wraps for now." Kjelle seemed to stop to think for a moment, before continuing on speaking. "She was upset at first, but the moment I explained that from the start this has been a medical miracle, she accepted that we weren't acting to be hurtful, we were acting to save everyone from heartbreak."
He looked over at her in disbelief, unable to wrap his head around the idea of his venom-tongued mother taking finding out she'd been lied to by both of them in such stride, but he didn't know how to make that clear without coming off as insisting that there was no way in the world Panne could handle things appropriately. She certainly could, it was just things that involved Yarne and doing things wrong that were always handled with less care and kindness than they needed. "She's excited, by the way, even though she recognizes that things are going to be pretty awkward between all of us for a long time. She's also…really grateful that things seem to be working out, so that you can uphold tradition."
"Right, because it always comes back to what's best for the taguel," he muttered, having tried to avoid thinking about that aspect of things in relation to his mother's acceptance of what was going on. He'd hoped she would look at the situation in a different light, perceive it through a different lens, but time and time again she proved that she had a one-track mind and let that one thing control how she took in everything around her. "I guess, end of the day, she's accepted it and isn't mad that she got lied to, and now we get to move on."
"We do get to move on, from telling her about it. I've told you, I've always been more scared about telling my parents than yours, and this kind of proves it." Kjelle's mouth moved around a bit without words being said, as she thought about what else she needed to say, but she ended up shrugging and stopping her point right there.
That wasn't good enough for Yarne, though, because he reached up and started tugging at the sides of his hair. "I don't get what you mean by that, your parents are a breeze to speak with compared to my mom. They're not going to possibly go completely off the deep end when they hear about things."
She raised a finger and waggled it slightly. "Not so fast there, Yarne, because you're approaching this in a way that doesn't work here. One, I haven't spoken to them on my own terms since I wrecked the car and stupidly told them about it, so there's a lot of stuff to deal with there that we haven't touched. Two, my parents are the kinds of people who just don't care about anything if it isn't in their specific plans, and I can promise you that this absolutely isn't in their plans because it wasn't supposed to happen. Ever. And three, if anyone's going to go off the deep end here, it'd be my mom because she wasn't the first person to find out, but refer back to points one and two for why that was to begin with. And even then, she'll probably not go too far off the deep end if she ends up reacting poorly."
"…And you really think all of that can manage to be worse than the threat of my mom losing her mind because we'd lied to her?"
"Without any doubt. Just you wait and see how badly this goes, because I can already hear the yelling and fighting now. It'll all go so well, until we crash and burn somehow." Lowering her finger, Kjelle shook her head and muttered something under her breath before going to join Yarne at the chair, sitting on its arm with her feet tucked in next to him. "I'll handle planning for telling them, though, since I'm the one more accustomed to dealing with their particular brand of everything. Besides, end of the day, it's my problem that I'm having to handle, I should be the one doing the talking about it."
"Did you just refer to our child as a problem?" Yarne asked, wanting to make sure that he had heard what was said correctly. If that was the case, he could already tell that he wasn't going to be happy with that being how things were being looked at.
"What? No, you misunderstood me, the whole having a child thing is my problem, because it wasn't supposed to be possible. I'd never—the fact that you think—would it really make sense if I said that the child is the problem?" It was true that it wouldn't make sense at all, but the fact that Kjelle was so taken aback by being heard in that way made it all the more obvious that she really did care about the baby, even if it was completely unexpected. "I already know that my parents both are going to have a field day knowing that a whole list of medical professionals got proven wrong."
"Yeah, proven wrong by a bottle of fertility wine and the persistence of the taguel," remarked Yarne in a whispered voice, trying not to laugh at what he was saying because of how absurd it was to think about. All of their problems stemmed back to those two things in particular, and he wasn't afraid to say it, but laughing about it in a serious moment didn't seem right. "But I get it, thanks for clearing that up for me. I don't think they're a problem either, even if they're causing a whole bunch of other problems."
Kjelle's nose crinkled as she squinted at that statement. "Ugh, yeah, there are so many other things we've got to deal with now because of all this, I'm barely able to wrap my head around any of them. Now that we know that there's less and less of a chance that we're going to suddenly lose this kid, although it's not a zero-percent chance, I guess we've got to start thinking about some of those other little issues that are going to arise."
Her words brought the room to silence, as they both looked at each other, knowing at least some of the issues that were being referred to but too scared to bring them up. Yarne knew that the moment he listed off all of the things he'd thought of, Kjelle would be able to come back with an even longer list of things he'd forgotten that were just as important. There were no shortcuts in being able to prepare their lives for the inclusion of a child, and even though they were far away from that being what was going on, they still needed all the time they could get to start preparing.
"Maybe we can wait until after your parents know, to see if they want to offer any help?" he suggested after some time, knowing that he couldn't say the same about his own parents given that they were in the same situation for themselves. "I'm sure, once they get over the shock and the confusion, they're going to probably be a little excited about this."
"I can't say for sure, but it'll be for the best if we wait until then, anyway. Gives us a bit more time to have even less of a chance of something spontaneously going wrong, makes it so that our planning is less likely to be useless." Leaning forward, it seemed for a moment that Kjelle was going to throw herself over Yarne, but she caught herself on him with both arms before she could move too much, a wide-eyed look on her face. "I…probably shouldn't be doing that, now that I think about it. Don't want to hurt anything or anyone."
"Ha, yeah, that's true!" It was like it had just dawned on him that some of the sillier things they did there in their home weren't the best for a growing baby to be subjected to, including a lot of the acrobatics that happened over the big chair. "You've got to be careful that you don't land weird and cause problems on purpose. That'd be awkward to have to explain to your doctor, wouldn't it?"
She pushed herself back up to how she'd been sitting before, flipping the long front parts of her hair out of her face as she did. "If something happened because I fell onto you instead of sitting here like a normal person, I'd come up with some grand lie for what happened, because the truth would be too embarrassing. Just…imagine that, having to tell someone with a straight face that you hurt yourself, or your child, on someone else sitting in a chair because you fell on them."
"Whoa, after all of this you'd still consider lying to get out of explaining the truth?" Yarne got it, he really did, but it still felt wrong that they'd just gotten out of one situation involving lying without too much trouble, just for lying to be brought up yet again. He didn't mean to sound like he was bothered by this being the case, and had tried his best to laugh when he'd been asking his question, but it seemed that his attempt was futile, as Kjelle began explaining why she would consider it, but wouldn't end up doing it because of the sensitive context in which that lie would be being made.
But, neither of them intended on getting into that particular situation where that would be a choice that needed to be made, and so when the conversation stopped and restarted as something else entirely, they made sure that they kept things as light-hearted as they could be in the moment. There were a lot of heavy, pressing problems waiting right around the corner, but they weren't current worries and therefore they didn't need current attention.