Every day after work, whether he mentally felt up to doing the drive or not, Yarne would take himself to the office for the day and then go out of his way to stop by his parents' house and check on his mother, something he never thought he'd actually be making the time to do. Panne always seemed to be in good spirits to see him, even if she was often in bed with a book or her phone in her hand, and they spent a lot of time just talking about everything going on outside of that house. She asked a lot about Kjelle, who she did feel like she'd shafted in getting to talk to her about her own experiences there at that dinner, and while Yarne tried his best to give her as much information as he could, he knew that it wasn't the same as Kjelle saying it all herself. "She'd come too, but they've got her working longer hours since she's really just sitting at the desk doing nothing else," he explained, knowing exactly why that was the case but not wanting to tell his mother about that whole incident. "Maybe one of these days we can come by after an appointment or something and—"
"You two should be finding out whether the littlest taguel is a boy or a girl soon, perhaps you could stop by and tell me after that?" Panne smiled at Yarne as her request sank into his mind, him blinking a few times when he'd processed it. "That is, if you're going to find out. Your father and I found out as soon as we could with this one, then had it confirmed at a later appointment, so we've been working on getting everything prepared for her for a while. I'm thankful for that, given that I'm not much in the way of help these days."
"—uh, I'd have to see if Kjelle's down for coming here after we find that out, but I know it's coming up pretty soon." Yarne gave a small shrug, not actually sure when that appointment in particular was as he wasn't too heavily involved in that process. "And then, if we do find out, we've got to get started on preparing too. I mean even if we don't find out, we still need to start preparing, we haven't exactly been good about that."
"Naturally, I would offer to assist in that regard but…" Motioning toward her current setup, complete with her pile of books on the bedside table, Panne made it clear without needing to say it why she wasn't going to be able to do much. "However I'm sure that things will come together for you somehow. Her parents are on board with all of this, aren't they?"
He grimaced, not knowing how he was supposed to answer that. "I mean, as far as I know they are, but you know how things can be with her and her parents. We've seen her mom recently enough, but the last time that she spoke to her dad didn't exactly…end well. But I do think they'd be down to help us how they can, especially since you can't." A thought crossed his mind about that strange bag he'd found in the closet that day he'd ended up cleaning it, but he knew this wasn't the time or place to bring that up. "Point is, if we need it I think we can rely on them a little."
"That's good to hear. I can always reach out to them and see if we can arrange a lunch or something over here to set guidelines together, given that this is the first grandchild for all of us and we should be very excited about it across the board." Her smile seemed so genuine, shining brightly on her tired face, that it was hard to believe that this was the same woman that Yarne had argued and disagreed and fought with for so much of his life. "But please, Yarne, if you could let me know as soon as you know, I would appreciate it."
"I'll see what Kjelle wants to do, but I'll keep that in mind." With her being confined to such limited places, the last thing Yarne wanted to do was have to break his mother's heart by denying her the information she wanted, but it wasn't up to him. He was going to default to whatever Kjelle wanted to do, and if that was not tell anyone, or not find out in the first place, then he was going to agree with it.
It was but a few days later that Kjelle mentioned, after dragging herself home from the fitness center looking completely beat down (after just sitting there all day at the front desk, checking clients in and running the phones), that Yarne needed to do something for her. "You're taking tomorrow off work," she said without any indication or prefacing what she was going for, which led him to immediately break into a panic that was complete with sharp, rapid breaths. "No, stop that, it's not for anything bad. I got an appointment rescheduled for an earlier time and you're going with me."
"Why am I going with—oh!" The realization had dawned on him mid-question, so when he'd figured out the reason he stopped himself abruptly, letting out a huge sigh of relief as he leaned back into his oversized chair. "Is this a time when we're going to get to see the baby?"
"Sure is. Was supposed to be tomorrow after you get off work, but I was able to get it moved to earlier in the day so we can just get it over and done with. I wasn't looking forward to being anxious about something going wrong all day, this is really for the best for both of us." She looked at him, watching how he seemed to be thinking about something to say in return, before shaking her head and going into the bedroom to change.
While she was switching into much less restrictive clothing, Yarne continued to sit in the chair, his mind racing with the reality that he needed to bring up what he'd discussed with his mother previously. If this was the appointment where they could find out what the baby was, then they needed to make that decision quick about what they were doing regarding that information, and then if they would be going to tell Panne right away. "Hey, Yarne, can you come in here real quick?" Kjelle called, startling him into jumping up from the chair with a slight stumble and running into the bedroom, to see her pointing up in the closet. "I think something went missing, I had a bag up there that I need you to get for me."
"Oh, that bag? It's in the box now," he told her, as he reached up above his head and grabbed the former candle box, bringing it down to his girlfriend's level and opening it for her to see that the ancient bag was in it. "I was meaning to ask you what that was about, but I didn't ever come up with how I would exactly do that."
Taking the bag out of the box and walking it over to the bed, Kjelle didn't say a word about what was inside of the bag until she'd pulled it out and laid it all flat on top of the covers. "These are baby clothes that have been in my family since…well, I don't know how long," she explained, touching one of the dirty, wrinkled, old-looking outfits, barely as long as her arm was. "My great-grandparents gave these to my mom before she was born, but my grandparents hadn't remembered they existed until way after she'd outgrown them, so they gave them to her to hold onto for if she ever had children."
"Which means that baby you wore these, yeah?"
"Ha, that would make me having them make a lot more sense, but nope. Mom dug these out of some storage bin not long after they'd started remodeling the house and gave them to me then, which…clearly, I didn't want these after I learned what I was apparently incapable of, so I'd given them back to her." Kjelle touched another one of the pieces, a frilly little dress where all of its adornments had not withstood the test of time and looked ratty and pathetic. "She actually ran these into the fitness center one day a few weeks back because she'd found them again, and made me promise that I'd at least try to put the baby in one of them."
"You know what, that explains why the note has your mom's name on it and looks as old as it does." Yarne paused, then looked at the clothes a bit closer. "But these don't seem like they'd be safe to make someone wear, are you going to actually respect that request?"
"I guess it depends on how big they are when they're born, because…" Kjelle's voice trailed off, as her eyes shifted from the clothing on the bed over to Yarne and how he hovered over her to look at the clothes himself. "Well, I'm not going to hold my breath that they won't be so big that these wouldn't stand a chance in hell to fit them. They're pretty tiny little things, I don't want to destroy one trying to fit it on a giant child."
"W-well, maybe they won't be a giant and it'll all fit just fine!" Trying to be optimistic that things weren't going to go wrong again for the old clothing, Yarne clasped his hands together in front of him and gave a solid nod. "I'm going to believe that, and I think you should too. It might make you a little less worried that the baby's going to be big."
Scoffing, Kjelle began to put the clothes back in their bag. "It's not even that I'm worried about it at this point, it's that I'm completely convinced it's the case. I knew I shouldn't have trusted it when the doctor said our sizes would have no bearing on their size."
He didn't want to get into that argument, so Yarne stepped aside and allowed for her to get the clothes back in the bag, and the bag back in the box, only for him to put the box back in the closet. The room now smelled slightly musty, thanks to the condition of those old clothes, but he didn't dare comment on that either. Instead, he went straight for what was on his mind the moment he'd been told what they'd be doing at the appointment. "Kjelle. We need to decide if we're finding out or not."
"Seeing as you're literally the biggest anxious wreck I've ever known, I think you trying to go months without knowing would end in a breakdown. We're finding out the moment they can possibly tell us." Her decision was firm, and it was clear that Kjelle had done her thinking about the reason why they were going to learn right away. "As cool as it would be to not know, I want to be at least a little prepared for what's coming."
"I get that, I really do." Knowing ahead of time meant less worrying about having a name prepared, and it meant being able to get clothes and decorations and toys all squared away, and Yarne was ready to be able to start doing those things to keep his worries at bay. "On that note, after we find out…can we go tell Mom?"
"Your mom. Who you frequently get into fights with and can't stand being around for that long? You want her to find out right away too?" Her eyebrows raising, Kjelle looked at Yarne in an attempt to get a read on his reasoning. "What's gotten into you if you want to do that?"
He glanced from side to side before lowering his voice. "Mom asked if we could do that for her, and with everything else going on in her life right now, I think it'd be nice for us to do it. She's suffering, Kjelle, she really isn't having a good time being stuck in bed like she is and I want to be able to do something nice for her."
After taking a second to think about it, Kjelle shrugged. "You know what, it's not like this is a huge deal to begin with, so why not? We find out, we go tell your mom, then we tell everyone else immediately after. I think that sounds like an excellent idea. On the condition that if she refers to the baby as the 'littlest taguel' again, all of this is taken back and we don't tell her before everyone else after all."
"Yeah, like she would do that after you'd told her to stop," Yarne chuckled, knowing that Panne had, in fact, done that after she'd been told not to say that. He found it harmless as a statement, and it was accurate to the situation so it didn't bother him, but he wasn't the one running on motherly hormones and instincts so his opinion didn't particularly matter. "I think she'll be so happy to learn what the baby is that she'll keep her mouth shut about them being, you know, what you said you don't want to hear."
"Why are you sounding like you know she's going to go ahead and say it again anyway?" Almost like she knew what the truth was without having been told, Kjelle seemed apprehensive on believing Yarne, even after he'd repeated several times that he knew his mother wouldn't say it again. "Right, well, I think it's great that this is something your mom has asked for, even if I'd definitely say no if she wasn't…suffering like she is right now."
"You're always so considerate." With a smile on his face and his eyes shining, Yarne leaned down and kissed the top of Kjelle's head a couple of times, before pulling away and coughing to clear his throat. "I-I'm sorry, I should've made sure you were fine with that before I did it, I know you're not the biggest fan of being touched right now and—"
"Calm down, you know you're allowed to touch me however you'd like, and besides, it's not every day that you kiss me unprompted." Kjelle reached up and pressed her hand against where she'd been kissed, sighing as she did. "It's definitely a good way to get me motivated for whatever tomorrow's going to bring. But you know what else is a good way to give me that motivation?"
Yarne's initial answer was going to be sitting out in the other room together playing a game, but then he saw the dreamy look that had crossed his girlfriend's face and considered that it might have been something a bit less wholesome. It wasn't, and he was glad that he didn't suggest trying anything there to her face, but when the choices he felt he'd been given were getting to spend some personal time in bed and ordering in a nice dinner and watching a movie together, he almost wished it had been the first option instead.
Either way, he was able to climb into bed that night and fall asleep peacefully, only to be woken up with chills several times over the course of the night, his mind at war with itself and making him think of horrendous things. Nightmares weren't all that uncommon for Yarne, but he'd convinced himself that he was getting over having so many of them, only for what was looming on the horizon to bring the nightmares right back. That night was full of bad dreams of what could happen at the appointment the next day, except it wasn't actually that appointment but one further in the future, and every time the him in his dream had to look at the dream version of Kjelle on the verge of breaking down, he'd shoot awake and make sure that she was perfectly fine and fast asleep.
The last nightmare was by far the worst one, and even though he woke up from it far before sunrise, he knew that going back to sleep after that wasn't an option. It had taken place in some unfamiliar building, where he'd been left pacing the halls around and around, only to be chased down by a faceless doctor who'd been calling for him to come back to the room. He obliged after some resistance, and went into what was definitely a hospital room, complete with all the machinery that he didn't know the purpose of, to find what he could clearly make out as Kjelle's lifeless body lying in the bed, surrounded by doctors and nurses trying to bring her back. The doctor who'd fetched him kept trying to ask him something, but the words sounded like static in his head and he couldn't respond because he didn't know what he was responding to.
Of course, in reality, she was perfectly alive and snoring very, very softly next to him when he woke up with a tight chest and a face drenched in beads of sweat. Despite the early hour, he got out of bed and went to take a shower to clean himself off, only to find that being alone under the running water amplified the voices of there being something wrong with the woman he loved so dearly. It was an all-around mess of a situation, and he ended up merely drenching himself in the shower water, then drying off and sitting fully clothed in his spot on the bed as he waited for Kjelle's alarm to go off to wake her up. It was a long and lonely time spent there, but as long as he could visibly see her chest moving and could hear her breathing, he knew that there was nowhere better he could be in that moment.
She didn't ask him about why he was already ready to go when she woke up in the minutes before her alarm, accepting that it was probably something that she didn't want to know about. "I'm looking forward to getting this over with," she said as she carefully rolled herself up to sitting, then got off of the bed one foot at a time as to keep herself from getting hurt. "I know this is a big one, and it's an important one too, but the stress is starting to eat me alive."
"Ugh, don't say that sort of thing, please," he begged her, not wanting to elaborate on why he was iffy on hearing her talking about her mortality in any way. "It's all going to be perfectly fine, and then we get to act on our plan. Just…think about it, by the end of today almost everyone we know is going to know that we know what our baby is, and that's exciting, don't you think?"
"Sure, and if things go how I hope they will, then we'll already have half a name for them, too." Putting a finger to her lips as she finished speaking, Yarne looked at Kjelle with a confused gaze, then let his eyes shift downward as he realized what she meant by that. "You should've known that already, this can't be new information."
"It's not," he replied, "and honestly? It's kind of a relief knowing that. At the same time, though, it makes me worried about what we're going to do if that's not the case. I'm no good at names, it's not in my blood."
Shaking her head as she watched him put on a pitiful expression, Kjelle kept herself from laughing only by holding her finger in place. "I'm no good at them either, you know, but I'm giving it my best effort and you should too."
The idea of what they would possibly name their baby hadn't been something they'd really discussed before then, even though it was something that had needed discussing for a long time. Yarne just hadn't wanted to bring it up and say something that offended Kjelle, and he didn't know why she hadn't talked much about it but he was sure it had to do with what she'd just said. It was clear that her family had some tradition to uphold when it came to names, and if that was the route they'd need to go, then he was on board with it because it made things easier for them.
But there was one small little element that came to Yarne's mind about naming a child that had him once again thinking about something that had been rattling around in his brain off and on for a while. Without question, he knew that they'd be defaulting to giving the child his last name when the time came, and that was going to be what they were working with as they came up with a name for them, but…what if it didn't have to be a choice? He didn't say it as he watched Kjelle get ready that morning, and he didn't say it as they rode over to the clinic together, but he was pretty sure he'd made a final decision on that matter, even if it wasn't the pressing issue at hand.
There was anxiety about going into any sort of doctor's office, stemming from that one horrible week that still hadn't fully disappeared in their minds, but Kjelle made it very clear that there was nothing bad going to happen to them inside those doors. "At worst, your mom might be here and we'll have to play awkwardly around her presence, but that's not even that bad of a thing. Besides, if she's already here then that makes telling her the news all the easier, doesn't it?"
"But if Mom's here, then there's probably even more of a problem than she's already got," he whined, knowing that he was psyching himself out when he didn't need to. "I…I think I can just force myself to go in and have things be okay. I won't leave your side, and as long as we're together I can do just about anything."
"That's strangely positive coming from you, Yarne, but I'm glad to hear it." Kjelle smiled at him, before she offered him a hand to hold while they walked inside together. It had always been on the comical side watching the two of them try to maintain pace with each other, given that his legs were incredibly long compared to hers, but in the weeks since her stomach had started to become a noticeable problem, her attempts at staying at the same speed as her boyfriend had become even more futile. That did lead to him having to go a bit slower than usual to allow her to keep up, but he didn't mind it and she was insistent that they weren't late to begin with so there were no problems at all.
There were barely any empty seats in the waiting room when they got inside, and the receptionist told them with a hesitant smile that some of the machines in the building had gone down earlier that day and all appointments were backed up for a while. "You will be seen today, but it could be much later than anticipated," the receptionist explained, unwelcome news to their ears but not the end of the world. Kjelle went through with the check-in process fairly quickly, but there was one slight hang-up that Yarne noticed, that being in verifying her information on her appointment; he wasn't sure if he was just hearing things that happened regularly or if he was imagining it, but it seemed like she'd hesitated on her name when she'd been asked to give it. Seeing as she'd had the same name all her life, that just didn't make sense to have happened, but he didn't bring it up in case it hadn't.
The receptionist had not been joking about the appointment being much later, because it was nearly the time it had been scheduled for originally when they were allowed back into the exam room, the tech apologizing profusely at how much of a delay there had been. "Look, if I hadn't been able to reschedule for earlier, we would be getting here just now and having to wait into the night, I don't see much of a problem here at all," Kjelle told the older woman, who seemed relieved to be hearing someone with sense doing the talking. "We were even able to go out and get lunch and get back before you called us, so that's a plus."
Following behind like he didn't know where he was supposed to stand, Yarne merely listened as the tech and Kjelle had a conversation about the machines and how them shutting down like they had impacted everything for the rest of the day. He was surprised at how social she was being, given that she'd been forced to wait and had only gotten that lunch because there was somewhere right down the road that they could get to quickly, but he wasn't going to look any sort of gift horse in the mouth. If she wanted to make friends with the tech, then so be it. That was his mindset, until he heard his name getting mentioned and he had to listen for the context.
It turned out that the tech was the one who usually did appointments with his mother, and Kjelle seemed to know that for some reason, so she was explaining the connection there. "Do you know if your mother is heeding the doctor's orders?" the tech asked, looking over her shoulder to see Yarne's nodding. "Good, that woman's always been a pain in our necks whether she means for it or not. Glad to hear she's doing one thing right."
"Hey, what do you mean by that?" Not sure how he was supposed to take hearing his mother being spoken about in that way, Yarne wasn't given his answer as the tech escorted them into their room and told them she'd be back shortly. The moment the door was closed, he was looking at Kjelle to see if she knew what was going on. "That tech didn't seem to really like Mom all that much. Why'd you bring her up?"
"Because it's interesting to them that I know her to begin with, and now that I've brought you here they can put a face to both of our stories." Smiling at him after her response, Kjelle once again offered a hand toward Yarne, this time for a different reason than one of them needing some moral support. "Help me up, will you? They really don't make these tables easy to get on when you're not super tall, and my usual method of jumping and sliding isn't going to cut it these days."
He naturally helped her exactly as she needed, even if he wasn't sure why they didn't just get tables a bit easier to climb up on for people who needed them. Once she was laying in what he could only assume was the usual spot for her appointments, he sat down in the adjacent chair and looked over at her again. "Okay, but, you're not in here telling these people all sorts of…bad stories about me, are you?"
"Can't say that I am. You know that I adore you, Yarne, and I wouldn't go around telling everyone your flaws because I'd rather celebrate your strong points. Your mom, I don't know what she says about you, but I'm sure it's mostly in relation to me and to…" She pointed to her stomach, which she'd already pulled her shirt up off of to make it accessible. "I don't think you need me to say it, you're probably thinking it."
"You know what, that's definitely right. Mom's probably out here telling everyone about her grandchild that she's—" Yarne was cut off by the knock at the door, which he hadn't been expecting, and after it opened and the tech came back, he honestly couldn't remember what it was he'd been talking about prior to the interruption.
Because of how long the delay had been getting into the room, the tech didn't want to waste even a moment more of their time and was quick in getting all pre-exam things taken care of, to the point that it felt like the speed was something that had been practiced. After the last question had been asked, she stepped out of the room again, bringing back with her an even older-looking doctor that seemed to light up at the sight of not just Kjelle in the room, but Yarne as well. "You must be the eldest Leichtfoot kid," the doctor said as she sized Yarne up from head to toe. "Your mother speaks so fondly of the man you've become, and she knows that I love hearing it. Why, I was present at your birth, and your sister's as well, if you can believe that."
"I really…can't believe it," Yarne replied, feeling all sorts of awkward at hearing such a piece of information be dropped on him suddenly. "Now you're helping Mom with her new baby and you're helping her oldest kid with his baby, that just doesn't seem real."
"It happens from time to time, just never quite like this." The doctor's eyes crinkled at Yarne, then she turned her attention toward Kjelle while the tech began getting things set up next to her. "The two of you are in great hands. When Ms. Laine received the recommendation for this office, she had no idea of what kind of history she was getting herself wrapped up in, but it's been nothing but smooth sailing here."
It was very slight, but Kjelle winced at what was said. "Right, except for the part where I ended up hospitalized and we're still not sure why that was. But it was a one-time thing, we're just looking past that, aren't we?"
"It had no ill effects on anything else, so I'd say we're all doing our best to keep it out of our minds. Now do you want to get to see this baby today or do we want to stand here and chitchat all evening?" There was only one right answer to that question, so the doctor and tech both masked up and put gloves on, before the exam got underway. It was a lot different than the last proper exam Yarne had been present for, given that the machine wasn't the internal one, but it was also different than the impromptu one he'd seen at the hospital that night too. They weren't rushing through finding anything, they were taking the time and care to make sure that everything was perfectly fine, and they were doing a great job of actually discussing what was being shown.
Given how long she'd been at the job, the doctor came off as incredibly professional when narrating what was appearing on the screen attached to the machine in the room. "We're going into this with two goals today, one being checking for any abnormalities and the other being checking for any physical indicators of gender," she explained, as the tech rolled the little wand through the jelly that had been slathered all across most of Kjelle's lower stomach. "We've been doing a pretty thorough check on the first one every appointment up until now, and I can say that I don't anticipate finding anything concerning popping up today, but we're still going to be cautious in that regard."
"I'm pretty sure if something was wrong, we'd have figured it out by now," Kjelle remarked, as she craned her neck to see the screen as best as she could. "But I'm glad that you're being super careful about that, I'd hate for something to get missed because of how much attention you've given it previously."
"All part of the job," the doctor replied with a nod, before pointing to something on the screen and diving into specifics of what they were seeing. On occasion, the tech would push a button and a shutter sound would play, and the doctor would explain what that was as well, usually something meant as a keepsake. It wasn't until the sight of a small arm and hand on screen was being explained that Yarne realized the explanations were for his sake, as he hadn't been around for any of the previous scans at that office, and he did his best to keep paying attention from then on.
When a profile of a little face was made somewhat clear on the screen, he audibly gasped, excitedly gesturing toward what they could see. "That's so cool, getting to see them like that," he said, making zero effort to mask his excitement. "I wonder which one of us they look like already."
The doctor, amusedly chuckling to herself, looked between the couple before going back to the screen. "I'm not going to say that they look like either of you right now, but there's plenty of time for that to change. What I can tell you is that their facial features seem fairly standard, nothing to be worried about with development in that regard. You'll get some more peeks at this in the future, provided that we maintain the current level of care and don't feel the need to drop to something more standard. I think the medical history here justifies the extra exams, but it's not up to me."
"I'd rather spend the time being seen more often and have nothing ever be wrong, than to make the choice to go to fewer appointments and have there be an issue." Since it was Kjelle's decision to make, the doctor was in complete agreement with her, but still had the tech take a couple pictures of the baby's profile before moving on.
As the appointment began to draw to a close, there was just one piece of the puzzle that they still needed to address, but the doctor was cautious about it as the tech began searching for a good view. "There's zero guarantee we can find out through these images whether this is a boy or a girl, but I do have some good news if we're unable to get a peek. Do you want the news now, or do you want to save it?"
Without looking at each other, or even making a point to know what the other was going to say, they simultaneously answered, "The news now."
"Oh, I can tell there's a bit of you being on the same train of thought, that's always a plus in situations like this. So, the news is that I do already know what we should be looking for here, barring any abnormalities of course." The doctor let those words land before elaborating on the why. "We did run some tests at the appointment immediately following that hospitalization, just to check and see if there was an issue with the baby or if it was something else entirely, which it clearly was. Included in those tests were a bunch of genetic checks to cover all bases, given that this was a miracle child to begin with, and one of those checks did involve some chromosomal testing that did come back clear."
"So let me get this straight, in making sure that nothing was wrong with them and causing me to faint out of nowhere, you were able to get all of that other information?" Kjelle asked, sounding like she wasn't sure if she had things straight, and the doctor confirmed that she was indeed correct. "Right, makes perfect sense. I guess then it doesn't matter if they want to show us what we need or not, since you can just tell us."
"But the showing part is the most fun, especially when I make unsuspecting spectators guess at what they're seeing." The doctor winked in Yarne's direction, which made him immediately stiffen up in his seat. Sure, the scans on the screen didn't make the most sense to him, but he had a pretty solid idea of what he was looking for if he was asked about it.
He wasn't asked, however, because there was no denying what they were seeing on the screen as soon as the tech had the wand positioned perfectly and the baby's legs moved around just enough to see everything going on between them. Without needing to be told what they were looking at, he was cautiously reaching over toward Kjelle's arm to grab it, because she'd moved both of her hands up to her face and was covering her mouth in awe of what she was looking at.
"Very subdued reactions in here, usually these reveals are met with a lot of cheering or cursing," the doctor remarked, indicating for the tech to take a couple more pictures before pulling the wand away entirely. "I'm taking it that the two of you were fine whichever way this went? Or is it that you're so happy you're speechless?"
"I…I don't really know how to react," Kjelle admitted, her voice muffled by her hands still being in the way of her face. "You've heard the whole story, you've seen my records, you know that none of this was anything I thought would happen. And now you're in here telling—no, showing—me that I'm having a daughter of my own? I just…"
"You can take your time to collect your thoughts, you'll have plenty of time to process this information at your own pace." That was when the doctor looked over at Yarne, who seemed equally as stunned as Kjelle was, even though he wasn't hiding himself. "What about you? I'm sure that this little one is going to be great, close friends with her aunt when they get older, whether you intend for that or not."
Almost out of nowhere, the weight of those words hit Yarne much like a loosely-falling dumbbell and he shrunk down in his seat a little, his shoulders arching forward as he began to take in rapid breaths. "Mom's going to…this is why she wanted to…she's not going to like this very much…" he spat out, his words impeded by how hard he was starting to hyperventilate, to the point that he only freaked himself out more.
Unfazed by what was going on, the doctor went right back to looking at Kjelle, pulling her mask down so that her brilliant smile could be visible. "Hope that he's just being dramatic for the sake of things, I think his mother is going to take this news very, very well. We'll get you cleaned up and out of here as soon as we can get those images to print, I apologize if this being so much later than intended has thrown a wrench in your day's plans."
"I think our plans are perfectly safe, thank you." Kjelle's voice was a lot smaller than it usually was, a sign that she was still mentally processing what she'd learned, and after the tech had wiped everything clean and left them with a smile on her face as well, it was just the couple left in the room once again. That was when she sat up, struggling a little to get completely upright unaided, and looked at Yarne as he was still in the middle of stressing himself out far too much. "What are you freaking out about? Your mom's going to love this, she's going to lose her mind when she finds out but she's going to love it."
"She's going to hate it, what are you talking about?" Every word Yarne said was slow, spoken with a strong breath attached to it. "I know Mom, I know that she's going to hate her daughter having to share the same attention as our daughter, and it's all going to come back to how much she doesn't like me."
"Here you go again, she clearly doesn't hate you or think as little of you as she once did, and you know why that is, don't you?" Now getting down off the table, Kjelle made it look a lot easier than getting up there had, and once she was down on the floor with both feet she stood in front of Yarne and put her hands on his shoulders, getting him to make eye contact with her where he sat. "She's proud of you and what you've done, and there's no way that the very thing that brings her that pride is going to suddenly make her hate you all over again, it's just not happening."
He nodded meekly, feeling a warmth from the eyes staring into his that told him he needed to listen and believe what he was being told. "She's still not going to like my sister not getting all of the attention that she thinks is deserved."
"So what? Your new sister can get all of the attention from all of your parents' friends, it's not like those people would be giving our baby any attention anyway. If your mom gets upset about this, that's on her, then." Tightening her grip so that her fingers dug into Yarne's shoulders, Kjelle continued, "Look, I'm no expert on any of this, given that I haven't even thought about how to address not personally telling my parents about this and I'm not crossing that bridge until I have to, but I think that you're making all of your problems worse in your head and you need to stop. Right now."
Once again he nodded, but this time with his eyes falling out of combat with hers and landing further down on her stomach, where he knew he shouldn't touch but could barely resist with it right in front of him. "I'll try my best to stop, for her," he replied, giving a little motion with his head toward the bump he knew was keeping their baby safe. "She doesn't deserve to get thrown into this world with me fighting with my mother again."
"That's…not quite what I wanted you to do here, but honestly? If it gets you to stop convincing yourself that your mom hates you, then I'll allow it." She turned and went to stand closer to the machine, stretching her arms and back for a few moments while Yarne continued to just sit there, watching her and taking in all that had been said. He wasn't actually sure what Kjelle had expected him to do after asking him to stop, but he also wasn't particularly itching to find out her actual intention. So instead, he sat there and thought about how he needed to do the best he could to maintain a positive relationship with his mother going forward.
And if that meant sticking to his word and visiting her once they were allowed to leave the clinic, then that was exactly what he was going to do. There wasn't much said on the drive over to his parents' house, aside from Kjelle asking at one point if he was really sure he wanted to go through with things, and when they pulled up outside it felt like a daunting task to go inside and let Panne know what they'd learned. The one thing that was motivating Yarne to just get it over with was the decision to try and have that positive relationship, because he knew that respecting his mother's request was going to do wonders when it came to how she felt about him.
The front door was locked when they got to it, and he was thankful to have a key to get inside because they'd already come all that way and turning back then just wouldn't have felt right. After entering and relocking the door behind them, Yarne led the way down to his parents' bedroom, where Panne was laying in bed with a book held very closely to her face. "That's definitely not Ribbon coming to check on me," she remarked as she lowered the book to see her son and his girlfriend entering. "Oh, it's the two of you. Was today the day?"
"It might've been, yeah," Yarne answered, suddenly feeling the pressure of what he was there to talk about. "Look, Mom, you'd asked about this before and I told you I'd see if we could make it happen, so…here it is, we're making it happen."
Setting her book down next to her, Panne shifted herself so that she was sitting up a bit while still reclining in the bed, looking at the pair expectantly. "Well? Are you going to actually 'make it happen' or are you going to make me sit here and suffer until I finally guess it myself?"
"Uh…" That was when Yarne looked down at Kjelle with a bit of a panicked expression on his face, hoping she'd take the floor and let him back out of things. "D-do you have the pictures they gave us, by chance?"
Her eyes narrowing as she returned the look by tilting her head up to face Yarne's, Kjelle replied, "There was zero need to bring those in, if we're taking your mother saying that she's having a girl as truth without proof, then she can take our word as it is when we tell her the same exact thing." She paused, before snapping her head to see Panne's reaction to what had just been said, which was to drop her mouth open in surprise. "I…didn't think that one through before I said it, sorry to tell you in the literal worst way."
"Two little taguel girls getting to grow up together, I never thought I'd see the day until I was much older…" Her cheeks raising in a gentle smile, it seemed that Panne was actually quite happy with the news. "They'll be able to learn together, to experience the world together, to do things side by side, just like myself and so many others who were stripped away from this world far too soon. It's already starting to bring a tear to my eye just thinking about it."
She wasn't lying, as they both could see a shine of a teardrop brimming in the corner of one of Panne's eyes. "So, there's that, is there anything else you want from us or are we good to go and soak this in a bit more?" Yarne wasn't trying to make it obvious that he wanted to get home and be able to talk about where to go from there, but he certainly wasn't doing a good job of masking his true intentions.
"I have one further question, if you would please indulge me." After reaching up to wipe that lone tear away, Panne looked at the two with the same gentle smile, and it simply felt wrong to deny her what she wanted to ask. "I'm sure that Yarne has known this expectation to be the case since the moment he knew there was a child to begin with, but I do have a request pertaining to the little one's name."
"We're not naming her after you." Kjelle's response came immediately after the sort of request had been stated, and the rapid head-shaking she received in return told her that she'd made the wrong kind of assumption. "Oh, so you're not asking about that? I mean, that's good, because we're kind of already bound to following my family's naming tradition, but only sort of."
"We are?" Yarne asked, this being the first time that he'd heard it stated like that. "And what do you mean, I know the expectation? I don't know anything about baby names!"
"Then let me explain it, since if you claim to not know, then you'll be enlightened as well." There was a moment where Panne seemed to get tangled in her own thoughts, as she took an extended pause before she began explaining. "As the last taguel, it was imperative to me that my family name Felicis become everlasting, but there was a bit of humor to be found when I married a man whose last name felt more taguel-like than mine was, which is why when I changed mine to match his, I gave myself a middle name—as that wasn't something that my parents had given me."
"Wait, hold on, I have the same middle name as you," Yarne interrupted, the gears in his mind beginning to turn. "Is that what you mean as the expectation? Giving her the same middle name as me, and you, and Ribbon, and I guess my new sister too?"
Panne nodded firmly. "That is exactly it. I do apologize if you had other plans for what to do with the name, but this would mean more to me than…almost anything else, if we're being honest. My request is simple, and that's all I ask for."
Her face scrunching as she thought the request over, Kjelle seemed to be deeply processing what she'd just been asked to do, and when she relaxed she even gave a laugh to show that she wasn't upset with what she'd thought of. "Well, that puts us in a really weird spot if we go through with that, because my mom's family tradition has always been to give the first daughter the mother's middle name as a first name, then pick a good middle name for far in the future when the cycle continues. So if we follow both traditions, then…" She looked at Panne, seemingly rethinking what she was saying as their eyes met. "You might have yourself a deal. Maybe."
"It truly is all I ask of you here. I understand that this is probably it in regards to children the two of you will have, and I don't want to take complete control and make impossible requests when you most likely won't get a second chance at this." Holding her gaze firm, Panne seemed to be trying to convince Kjelle merely with the way her eyes were widening as her head tilted back and forth. "But you don't have to tell me what you decide to do until you're ready. I've already gotten more than I probably deserve out of you both today."
"Good, because we need to discuss it ourselves before we make any decisions." When they'd come to tell Panne what the baby was, they hadn't expected there to be more things attached to that information, but they were able to leave the house that day with an inkling of an idea for what their daughter's name was going to be. At least part of that idea was reinforced later, after they'd told several others the news as well, because someone else had asked if the child was going to bear part of her mother's name as her own, and even though they still hadn't properly discussed it, that was the most likely option going forward.
By the time they were going to bed that night, it was more or less understood that the child's name was almost certainly going to be Tatjana Felicis Leichtfoot, and they still hadn't said a word confirming that to the other. "Next time someone wants to complain about how hard it is to name a baby, they should just have their families help them out," Yarne said as a joke, fluffing his pillow under his head before laying down on it. "I'm pretty sure that we don't have to come up with, you know, anything at all right now."
"Honestly, it's kind of a relief knowing that it's more or less taken care of for us already," Kjelle replied, not taking what had been said as anything less than completely serious. "Your mom's point about this being it for us did hit me a little, but I don't see anything wrong with what we've been given. Maybe in the future I'll rethink it, but for now? All of this is fine."
His eyes shifted over to where Kjelle was still sitting on her side of the bed, legs crossed underneath her as she had her head tilted back, eyes focused on something above her. "What are you thinking about?" he asked, knowing that there was only one reason she was sitting in such a position, and when he watched her hands lace themselves together in front of her chest, he knew that he wasn't getting an answer right away. It was very rare that he actually saw Kjelle going through the physical motions of prayer, because she usually did it where he couldn't see her, and while he knew that it was a private thing for her to do he couldn't help but watch as she whispered something up to the gods above, followed by a long sigh that coincided with her hands coming down to sit on top of her stomach. Yarne wanted to see if he could get her to talk about what was on her mind, but she seemed content with just sitting there for a while instead.
It wasn't until after he'd rolled over and closed his eyes that he heard her speak, quietly as if she wasn't trying to wake him up if he'd immediately fallen asleep. "Everything going on is so miraculous, I don't even know how to process it all. But I'm lucky to have someone so…caring, so understanding, so unique to go through this all with. I'm so, so lucky…"
He heard her get up, then the room darkened, but she didn't return to the bed right away and by the time she did, Yarne had drifted off to sleep on the back of the good feelings hearing him being appreciated had given him.
Whereas life had felt like everything was going wrong for a little while, now every day felt like a huge blessing and a relief to get to live through, even with the less-than-pleasant things still going on. Yarne was continuing to visit with his mother every day after work, her struggling to stay in good spirits as her condition seemed to have plateaued, to the point that she was considering hospitalizing herself just in case things being stable weren't as positive of a sign as people seemed to think they were. Hearing that had originally made Yarne's anxieties spike, but when his mother had explained that she'd be making that choice for her health and the health of his sister, and it wasn't going to be a negative thing if she had the control, he felt more at ease with the whole idea. Therefore, he was able to begin mentally preparing himself for if that choice was made, so that it wouldn't come as so much of a shock as it would have otherwise.
His job was going a lot better than he had anticipated it would be, with everything else that was happening in his life concurrently. He'd tried to keep the fact that he was having a child under wraps while in the office, but one of his bosses that knew had mentioned it to him within earshot of one of his old lady coworkers, and she had naturally spread that information around the whole place within a few days. Rather than be judgmental about his situation, they were all super excited for him and were offering to do things for him if he wanted them to (and some were even doing the things without him saying to, because they felt that his baby was like a grandchild to them). It was to one of the women there, who'd declared that she'd make a personalized quilt for the little one, that he'd first mentioned the baby's name to, and she promised that she would keep that secret between them until she finished the quilt.
That same afternoon, when he came home after his visit with his mother, he found a pile of boxes sitting outside the front door of the house, all addressed to Kjelle specifically and coming from all sorts of online retailers and one from Ferox with the label written in Lucina's handwriting. "Oh no, where did all of this come from?" he asked himself, unlocking the door and getting the boxes inside the main room so that there was zero chance of any of them going missing. Since none of them were strictly for him, he didn't feel right in opening them up, but he had an inkling that he knew what they were all containing to some extent.
When Kjelle came home not that much later, her feet dragging as she entered the house but some energy seeming to pop into her when she saw the collection of boxes, he didn't even need to ask her what was going on with them. "You've been spending time with your mom after work, so it's only fair that I've been spending time with mine too. Her and Dad decided to let me use some of their house money to do a…little shopping, which I never really was a fan of, but buying things for babies is so much fun."
"One of these is from Lucina," he said, accepting that explanation for everything except that single box. "Did you tell her to buy things as well?"
"No, I definitely didn't. I did talk to her a bit about things, but I didn't ask her if she could buy something." Putting a finger to her chin as she thought about what that could have meant, Kjelle shrugged it off and decided to just roll with things. "We'll open that one first, then. You want to grab the scissors to get it open while I change?"
"I suppose I can do that," he replied, heading to find a pair of scissors in a kitchen drawer while he heard the bedroom door close. He'd only gotten as far as getting the box opened and removing an envelope from inside of it before Kjelle came back out of the bedroom. He looked up to see that she was standing there, in the sea of boxes of her own creation, wearing a loose dress so heavily patterned that it actually obscured the size of her stomach a great amount. "Whoa, what's with the dress? You planning on going somewhere?"
"Honestly, it's that I didn't feel like putting pants on. You're welcome." She smiled at him, before carefully stepping between boxes until she was at the oversized chair, where she sat down with a sigh, kicking one of her legs up onto the arm of the chair to show how her leg was roughly the same width from calf down to her toes. "I'm not sure why anyone would ever want to go through this willingly, because there's not a single part of being pregnant that I think is worth it. Well…aside from knowing that I'm growing an actual human, but that's…oh, whatever, can we just get to the packages?"
Yarne laughed, handing over the envelope he'd gotten from the box first. "This was inside, and Mom always told me that you've got to open the card before you see what else is there."
"Knowing Lucina, this is probably her explanation for why she sent something to begin with," Kjelle remarked, pulling the envelope open and finding a card decorated in baby animals inside. There were no words on the cover, and all of the words on the inside were penned in the same handwriting as the box's label had been, meaning that this had been entirely Lucina's doing. She leaned in to read it, with Yarne up above her reading as well, so that they could know what was going on.
Kjelle (and Yarne too!), I'm sorry I didn't warn you I was sending this ahead of time, it started, but I felt that keeping this as a surprise was the best way to do it. I know that with the distance between us right now, doing nice things like this will be difficult, but I came up with this idea that night we were looking through those old pictures and I couldn't help myself. Gerome helped me pick out the colors, but it was really all my idea from the start, but I'm sure you definitely wouldn't be able to guess that on your own. Can't wait to see you again sometime, hopefully sooner rather than later! All my love, Lucina
"Whatever's in that box is going to be absolutely hideous." Speaking completely seriously, Kjelle set the card down to the side and motioned for Yarne to give her the box, which he hesitated on doing because of that comment. Still, he couldn't deny her what she wanted, so he handed it over and let her finish opening it for herself.
It wasn't nearly as hideous as she feared, but what Kjelle pulled out of the box was definitely not something that most people would consider cute. The thing was, it wasn't meant to be cute, it was meant to be a personal, surprise gift from a dear friend of theirs, and it filled that role well. The label on the bag said that it was a jacket, and while it was far too big to be meant for a newborn baby, it was still small enough that it was definitely something meant to be grown into; it was a garish mix of a brown and purple tie-dye pattern, not very pleasant to look at in the slightest, but after the bag it was in was opened and Kjelle was holding it up in front of her for both of them to look at, the thing that made it so personal became obvious to them. Embroidered in the front, which had been covered by the sleeves when it was in the bag, was a small version of one of the team insignia from one of the soccer teams Kjelle had played on with Lucina.
After looking closer at the insignia, Kjelle's eyes widened in surprise. "She…that team had purple and brown as its colors. She must've had Gerome pick one of the teams we were on and ran with it. Which, if that's the case, then…" She trailed off as she turned the little jacket around, the sight of the back immediately bringing her to tears.
"Oh wow, that looks…that looks good," Yarne said quietly, his eyes transfixed on what the back of the jacket had to offer. It was made to look just like the back of one of those sports jerseys would have, with the number 8 stitched into place exactly like on a jersey, and above it, in carefully-placed letters, was the only part of the child's name Lucina could've known without needing to ask. "Is this what it's going to look like in a few years when we put her on sports teams like you got to be on?"
"It wouldn't look like this until she's on more advanced teams than the basic ones little kids get put on, and that's even if she wants to get into sports, but…" Kjelle closed her eyes, the tears that had collected falling down her cheeks. "Leave it to Lucina of all people to think of doing this for us. My number, your name, it's perfect."
A breath caught in Yarne's throat as he took in that last sentence, as he looked around while gathering his thoughts. "Why did you say it that way?" he asked, trying not to make it sound like he was upset. "Calling it my name, I mean. It's going to be hers too, after all."
"Because it fit with me calling it my number, that's all. Do you have a problem?" Her eyes opening back up, Kjelle dropped the jacket in the chair next to her and looked up at Yarne, who shook his head. "Right, well, it sounded like you had a problem with it."
He didn't have the words available to him to explain that he did, sort of, have a small problem with it, but he knew that he'd be able to make that clear someday. But Yarne wasn't going to dwell, and he was going to avoid conflict over something that small at all costs. "It's not a problem at all, I just thought it was a weird way to word it. But enough about that, can you open everything else you bought so I can see it? I'm curious about how much your parents let you spend."
Although her eyebrows narrowed for a second at the attempted diversion, Kjelle went along with it and directed him to bring her specific boxes from specific places first, so that she could give him a very detailed list of what had been bought. It was all clothing, of many different sizes and styles, and each little thing that she got out of the boxes had her tearing up—the whole concept of actually owning things meant for a little human starting to hit her hard. She was so busy getting caught up in her own emotions that she didn't notice that Yarne was often crying at seeing some of the things too, his excuse for his tears being that she was crying too, but in reality it was the fact that they were actually getting ready for that next chapter in their lives that had him choked up.
There was still a lot they needed to do before the time came, but things were peaceful and pleasant and there was nothing that could take those small pleasures away from them.
That weekend, on a day where both of them were not working and had all the time in the world to do things together, Yarne suggested that they go out and take advantage of the nice summer weather for a change. His reasoning was solid, especially when he added that they could swing by and visit his mother afterward, since they'd already be out and the monthly dinner that was supposed to have been that night had been cancelled due to her being unable to leave the house. "You're not asking for us to go on a long walk or something, are you?" Kjelle asked him after hearing his initial idea, her nose turning up at the concept of needing to do a lot of walking. "Seriously, if you're thinking we're going to go take a bunch of steps, you can do it all by yourself."
"Never in my life did I think you'd be turning down physical activity," he replied with a laugh, finding amusement in how against walking she sounded. "But no, I was thinking we could grab a blanket and go out to the park and just lie together and—"
"Lying on the ground? I'm struggling with lying in bed, and you're suggesting that I get down and lie on the ground with you?" That was a fair takeaway from what had been said, because even that morning Yarne had felt like he was going to need to intervene in Kjelle getting out of bed, and he felt only slightly bad that he'd suggested such a thing. She wasn't finished arguing against it, though. "I'll go to the park, but I am finding a bench and I am sitting there in the sun, that's it. And if anyone dares come up to me and ask any questions about how many babies there are or how close I am to having them I'm going to throttle them, that's that."
"—uh, I don't think it's necessary to think people are going to ask a lot of questions, I don't even know if there'll be too many people at the park to begin with." It was a weekend in summer, Yarne knew very well that there would be a whole bunch of people milling around ready to ask questions to strangers. "But it's a nice day out there, and I think we've been spending too much time not enjoying the sunshine lately."
"Forgive me for not wanting to go out trying to walk with what feels like a watermelon strapped to me." Rolling her eyes, Kjelle put one of her (small) hands on her stomach, trying to illustrate how big it was, but when Yarne put one of his (much, much larger) hands on top of it, the illusion was broken. It wasn't that she looked more pregnant than she actually was, but rather that the rest of her was so small that her stomach was just made to look way bigger—even though it was true that the baby inside was measuring in the highest percentiles based on scans. "You're not making my lived experience any different by showing that you've got giant hands, by the way."
"I wasn't trying to, sorry." Sounding sheepish, Yarne was just about to pull his hand back when he felt something akin to a wave underneath the part of his palm that was resting directly on Kjelle's stomach, not on her hand. "W-what was that? Did you just try to push me off of you or something?"
She blinked a few times, her eyes glancing from side to side, before he yelped at the sensation a second time. "Oh, yeah, that's a thing that's happening now. Yarne, I'm not really sure how to explain this to you in a way that isn't going to get you all emotional, but that's…that's your girl doing that, not me."
"How long has she been able to be felt like that?" he asked, his voice audibly a bit wobbly. "You haven't said anything about it before."
"That's because it hasn't really been noticeable up until, like, yesterday, and even then I wasn't sure if I was actually feeling something on the outside or if I was telling myself I was feeling it." She slid her hand out from under his to give him more space to touch and feel, which he took immediately, only to feel another flutter underneath his palm. "It's pretty weird, isn't it?"
His hand starting to tremble against her, he replied, "It's weird, but it's neat at the same time. That's her, I can actually feel her, I've never been able to do this with a baby before. Mom wouldn't let me touch and feel when she was pregnant with Ribbon, and obviously she hasn't let me this time either."
"I couldn't imagine why she wouldn't allow it, except for the part where it's…kind of weird to be being touched like some sort of animal so that you can feel a lighter version of what I'm feeling inside." This time, Kjelle put her hand on top of Yarne's, tapping her fingers gently against his knuckles. "I'm going to allow you and you alone to do this, for now, until I change my mind. Does that sound fair?"
"It sounds perfectly fair." He would savor every chance he got to feel his unborn child moving around, but he wasn't going to let it distract him from what he wanted to do that day. "She'll be moving around later, though, so I don't need to keep feeling her right now. Instead, could we maybe, well, go to the park like I suggested?"
"Surprised you didn't cancel the plans you wanted to make just to stay here and get to feel her every time she moves like this. My previous point still stands, I will go to the park with you and stay on a bench, but that's it. I'm not doing anything else there." There was no point in arguing with that, seeing as Yarne was still getting his opportunity to go out and enjoy the day, even if it wasn't exactly like he'd hoped for it to. Within an hour they were out at the park with a couple of waters for them to use to keep hydrated and a bag of snacks in case either of them got hungry, taking their treasures with them to the closest bench to the parking lot and staking it out for themselves.
The park was crawling with people, all taking in the clear sky and the cool breeze that was keeping the day's temperatures from getting too warm. Thanks to where they were sitting, there weren't too many passersby to try talking to them, but they were able to watch them from a distance and occasionally comment on some of the stranger things they saw people doing. At one point, Yarne got up from the bench and sat down in the grass behind it, so that he could be at the perfect angle to play with Kjelle's short hair, running his fingers through it as she kept watching the people at the playground and walking through the park's flowerbeds. "I played a lot of soccer at this park," she reminisced, pointing toward an open area that some kids were flying kites in. "Back when I was just getting into playing team sports, there was a group that did all of their games here. It's a fond memory, but…"
"Are you going somewhere with that?" he asked her, letting her hair fall out of his fingers so that he could give her the space to turn around and look back at him shaking her head. "Okay, because I thought you were going to say, but we'll get to make new memories here someday soon."
"I mean, I was kind of implying that, even if I didn't say it." She turned back forward, sighing contently when she was once again watching those kids in the field. "I've done a lot of thinking about how we're going to get to spend a bunch of time getting Tjana into all of our interests, then letting her decide which things she actually likes. I'm not going to force her into anything she doesn't want to do."
Hearing their daughter be referred to by the shortened version of what was absolutely going to be her first name brought butterflies to Yarne's whole body, him feeling like the joy it brought him could've lifted him up into the sky and carried him away like the kites they were watching. "I'm glad we're on the same page about that, because that's the one good thing my parents did for me, letting me pick my own interests no matter how much they didn't like what I decided on."
"Whereas my parents threw me into everything they wanted me to do and didn't let me have a say in it until I was older, and even then it was less letting me decide what to do and more letting me pick which sports I had to play." There was a bitterness to some of what Kjelle said, but she seemed to move past it almost immediately. "I'm going to be a better parent than my parents were for me, that's that."
Yarne returned to playing with her hair, the soft blonde locks dancing through his fingers and occasionally being picked up by the breeze. This was a tender moment, the kind of which he'd always looked for in life, and all he'd needed to do was convince his girlfriend to come to the park with him to find it. But he wasn't satisfied with leaving it at just being a tender moment, even if he wasn't sure how he actually wanted to go from there. That was how they ended up there until the sun began to lower in the sky, most of the people who they'd been watching having left and been replaced with other people who had come to the park for similar activities.
He was back to sitting next to her on the bench, her head against his arm and their hands intertwined in between them, when a question came to his mind. "Hey, Kjelle, can I ask you something?" he started, wanting to see her reaction before adding anything else.
"Depends on what it is, I guess. If it's about me being tired, hungry, or wanting to go home, the answer to all of those is yes. Other than that…hit me with it." She lifted her head off of him to turn and smile, just to see the look of concentration on his face. "Oh, you're thinking hard about something."
"Yeah, I'm trying to recall something you told me once. It wasn't that important, so you might've forgotten it too, but would you be okay with me asking about it?" Even though he was being vague, she nodded to give him the go-ahead. "Right, so, we'd had a discussion about saving money a while back, do you remember that?"
"I…do remember that, yes." Right away she was turning to look out at the people in the park, unable to continue holding her eye contact with Yarne any longer. "There was something I'd wanted to say that day that I couldn't bring myself to tell you, and it's something I've done a lot of thinking about since then. Why do you ask?"
"Okay, so, I've also been thinking a lot about that too. About how you we decided that all the extra money I'm getting for working those few extra hours should be saved up for when we need it. And don't worry, I've been sticking it right into savings so that it's there, untouched and unused. So you don't have to think I've done something stupid with it." Yarne chuckled, glancing at Kjelle to see that she still was looking away from him. "But that doesn't mean that I haven't…done something stupid anyway."
"I'm going to turn around and you're going to be holding something useless, aren't you?" she asked, shaking her head. "Look, I get that you know where I was trying to go that day, but we'd already discussed that we don't need to be married to have this child, and I still agree with that statement. It's just too expensive, and we wouldn't have the time right now to have a wedding but—"
He interjected with a sharp cough. "Sorry, dry throat, but I get all of that. Do you have more you want to add or can I speak?"
"—there's still something we could do, I suppose," she finished, turning to look at him as if she was expecting him to ask her what her suggestion was, but she was met with him holding up a thin, plain golden ring in between two of his fingers, looking pale and nervous behind it. "O-oh, you're just going right for it, aren't you?"
"The more I think about things, the more I realize that I'm nothing without you. And when I think about how I'd be nothing without you, I think about how you've given me everything and you're giving me more every day." Coughing again, it was clear that the nerves of what he was trying to pull off had completely dried out Yarne's mouth, and he had to interrupt himself to get some of the water they'd brought before he could keep going, Kjelle just staring at the ring he still held the whole time. "Okay, back to it. I thought we'd be able to save this until after everything was taken care of, but I don't want to deny Tjana having her parents happily married for her whole life—after all, that's like the one thing we had going for us in our childhoods."
Completely speechless, Kjelle's eyes shifted from the ring to Yarne's face and back to the ring, before she shook her head rapidly. "You're really going this route with things, here I was thinking I'd ask if we could just elope but you're…you really want to go through with a whole proposal, huh?"
"I figured it'd be mean of me to deny you at least that much."
"I already have the paperwork, it's at home, I was seriously going to ask you about it before we left here tonight." Her eyes meeting Yarne's again, Kjelle blinked and suddenly she was crying, which caused him to start as well. "We're so synced up that we both had the same idea, just in different ways, huh?"
"Seems like it. So, uh…" Sniffling, Yarne reached over to wipe some of the tears off of Kjelle's face with his free hand, before pushing the ring closer to her. "It's not the prettiest, I got too anxious at the store to get anything more, and it's probably not the right size, because again, anxious at the store, but…Kjelle Tatjana Laine, would you please, please, please marry me and make me the happiest man in the world?"
His attempt at clearing her tears was in vain, as the moment he'd used her full name she was sobbing as she held out her hand for him to get the ring on it. "I never thought I'd be proposed to while crying my eyes out, but of course I'd marry you, I couldn't imagine marrying anyone else in this life."
By the time he had the ring past the first knuckle on her finger, he was crying hard enough that his vision was blurry, and when he finally got it all the way down to where it belonged he was lacing his fingers with hers to feel the way it was different having their hands together now. "I kn-know I should've done this sooner, but I was scared you'd turn me down and I didn't want that," he sobbed, his whole body shaking with his cries. "It was just the negative voices telling me that, I know, but I could've given us the chance to actually get married before we become parents and…"
"We're still getting married before then, we can get the legal part sorted out next week and then worry about the part to appease our parents another time. A wedding isn't the only way to get married, and honestly? I can do without one, forever." She squeezed his hand tightly, before pulling him in closer to her so that she could rest her forehead against his. "We're going to be a proper family for Tjana, and that's not a thing anyone can take away from us."
They stayed there, hands holding and foreheads pressed together, for what felt like several minutes, until Yarne felt like he was able to pull back long enough to get her to look up at him, only for him to come back toward her, this time for a long kiss that went on just as long as their previous pose had. When they separated that time, he let go of her hand as well and brought his hand up to his face, rubbing at his cheek. "We're really doing this. I can't believe it, we're actually going through with this."
"I wouldn't have it any other way." Looking at how the simple ring sat on her finger, slightly too big but at least able to stay mostly in place, Kjelle smiled behind her tear-stained cheeks. "Literally none of this has gone how I ever imagined it would, but this way is so, so much better than everything I came up with growing up."
That was enough to get him crying again, which put an end to their time at the park. After collecting all of their things they walked back to the car, where he was able to get behind the wheel and cry to his heart's content, while Kjelle watched him and offered him comforting leg pats every so often. Once he wasn't sobbing his eyes out, he reminded her of what the second part of their day was supposed to be, and she raised her eyebrows at how he still thought that was something they needed to do. "We just got engaged, and you really want to go visit your mom anyway?" she asked, taking on a teasing tone. "You and her really have worked on your relationship these past few months, haven't you?"
"I want to stay true to the plans I made," he defended, turning the car on to show that he meant business. "I also didn't think we'd be here so late today, but I like how it all fell into place the way it did."
"Right, you and your plans and everything going according to your schedule, I should be familiar with that by now. Well, if it can't be helped, let's get over there. We can see if she can figure out that you proposed without either of us telling her." The way that Kjelle laughed about that showed that she'd gotten over the negative feelings about how, once upon a time, Panne had been able to deduce she was pregnant without hearing a word of it, and the sound of that laughter made Yarne feel a bit better about sticking to what he'd told himself he was going to be doing that evening. They talked about how serious the whole "the paperwork is at home" comment was (which was, in Kjelle's words, very serious because she'd actually been planning on throwing that at Yarne within the next few days), and they talked about how they were going to handle letting everyone know that they'd just gone ahead and gotten married without any fanfare, and things were incredibly lighthearted as they pulled onto the street that Yarne's parents lived on.
There was only one slight issue that arose, when they came to the house and found that most of the lights were off in the windows. "Mom should be here, I wonder what's going on?" he said, as he threw the car into park and got out, leaving Kjelle behind to wait for just a moment while he investigated. He got to the door and found it locked tight, prompting him to go back to the car to get the keys.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Kjelle asked him, already going through unbuckling herself so that she could join, but he told her to stay put. She seemed uneasy with that decision but didn't fight it, reminding him that he could come back and get her whenever he needed to.
This time, when he got to the door, he was prepared to unlock it and let himself inside, but as he was bringing the key to the lock, he saw Ribbon's face in the window, her visibly upset and scrambling to get over to the door to open it. "You're not Dad," she choked out when she got the door open, tackling Yarne the moment she could. "He said—he told me—do you know what's going on?"
"I'm here to see Mom," he answered, knowing that it didn't actually answer the question his sister had posed, and when she buried her face into his side and started howling in her crying, a pit began to form deep inside of him. "Ribbon, is that why you're looking for Dad? Did something happen to Mom?"
"He had to take her to the hospital earlier, she was complaining about not feeling good and her doctor said to take her in and he said he'd be back to get me tonight and I'm scared, Yarne! I don't want to lose Mom!" The genuine panic and worry in Ribbon's voice was enough to bring Yarne's entire mood crashing down, but instead of the normal anxieties that appeared when he was faced with a difficult situation, he found himself being filled with a boost of adrenaline he'd never experienced before.
"Ribbon, go back inside and grab anything you want to bring with you, I'm going to call Dad and find out where they are, and we're going to go visit Mom ourselves. Make sure to lock the door behind you and get in my car when you're ready." He put a firm hand on his sister's back, her hiccuping as she nodded in understanding before running back into the house, while he went down to the car to see Kjelle watching him the whole way. "Something happened with Mom and we're going to go make sure she's okay," he explained, Kjelle inhaling deeply before accepting that as what was happening.
By the time Ribbon was in the car with a small blanket, a tiny stuffed rabbit, and a book that she put on the seat beside her, Yarne's adrenaline boost had only gotten stronger, bolstered by the abrupt conversation he'd had with his father that had amounted to learning which hospital they were at and where to go to get inside. He had a duty as an older brother and a caring son to help his sister and reunite with their parents, but he had no idea how long he'd be able to process everything clearly. Each second wasted was one he wasn't going to get back, and with that in mind, he peeled out from in front of the house and took a little less care at intersections for the first, and hopefully only, time in his life.
After all, who knew what was going to be waiting for them when they arrived at the hospital, and he didn't want to make it just in time for everything to fall apart.
A/N: ffn you better have a good reason for not wanting this chapter uploaded i s2g.
