A/N: Sometimes you just need a fluffy little story, and that's what I needed. It's been a tough few weeks, guys, so I'm trying to keep it light and airy until probably Christmas. I'm not updating frequently because, well, it's just a hard time of year and a hard season in my life right now in general.
So I hope that this makes you feel a little lighter like it does me because, ultimately, that's what writing is supposed to do.
Hope you enjoy!
Her watch beeps twice, the startling reminder that the clock has shifted from midnight, to one, to two way too quickly. The glow of her computer screen illuminates her face and catches the side of her mug, half-empty with her third cup of decaffeinated coffee. A sad attempt at a placebo to wake her up a little so she could finish this report that Conrad had asked for weeks ago. He emailed her about it last week, and though he didn't say "or else," it was clearly implied.
Beside the cup, a notebook is sprawled open with her handwriting scribbled across the page and a little coffee stain at the top from when she hit the mouse against it. Her calendar lays over to the side, too, the month of March staring back at her just as the stack of papers to her left has been doing all evening. She had to check the calendar three times before sending an email back to one of her colleagues, making sure she has no appointments or softball games or graduations to attend.
All the Xs led up to today's date—or yesterday's date—and crossed out only a week of March. If she remembers, she'll cross Monday the eighth out before she gets up to go to bed, but there's only a slight chance it will cross her mind when she closes this document.
Last time she looked, Henry was up, too, sitting at the kitchen table with his solidarity-cup-of-decaf and his laptop humming away. She hadn't been able to see the tabletop since he sat down around nine, his papers scattered all around with his dissertation committee's notes and his notes combined. His manuscript for his book had been sitting in front of him last she checked, but by now, he's surely moved on to his dissertation. At least, as she glances at the clock on her screen and sees it changes from 2:01 AM to 2:02 AM, she hopes that he has.
She rubs at her eyes and takes a deep breath, feeling the top of her belly push against her desk and wincing as she feels the soreness residing in her back, well, everywhere. As she blinks, she clocks that her eyes are so dry, and her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth. She reaches for the cup of coffee and sips at the cold liquid, almost wincing as she swallows it down.
When she gulps it down, she tugs at the sweatshirt sleeves, pulling them down over her chilled fingers as she rests them on the top of her stomach and leans back in the seat. Her head falls back and she stares up at the ceiling. Once the computer screen goes to sleep, she's left in almost complete darkness aside from the lamp over in the corner of the office.
She slides her fingers together, linking them and creating one long sleeve with her sweatshirt. Her teeth pick at the skin on her bottom lip, the slight ringing in her ears drowning out the hums of the computer below her. She picks her head up and stretches her neck, pulling her head to the left, then to the right, and letting out a frustrated sigh when it doesn't pop. She looks down at her fingers, pulling them out of the cuffs, and she picks at her thumbnails while the roundness underneath her hands stares back at her, though she tries to ignore it as much as possible. As if on cue, she feels the baby move, and she grabs at her right side, pressing her palm against it there and feeling what she thinks is the baby's head.
Her hand moves up toward her ribs as she feels the baby pressing against them, and she straightens her upper body out and tries to catch her breath, pushing back gently against the baby's movements to try and get it to move down out of her ribs. While squirming awkwardly, she catches a glimpse of the photo on the wall—their most recent family photo. Stevie looks so little in it, though it was just a year ago. She studies it and notices, too, that she and Henry both look about five years younger—way less tired and worn out. When she'd been promoted at the beginning of last year to an upper-level analyst, she had also gotten thrown in to being a handler that next month. That mission lasted three months, and by summertime, Henry was putting the finishing touches on his second draft of his book and his committee approved his comprehensive exams—one step closer to his dissertation.
When her eyes move down to look at Stevie's face again, she sighs a little, feeling a terrible pressure on her bladder so suddenly and closing her eyes in defeat. "Okay," she breathes, "I'm going."
She rolls the chair away from the desk, pushing her hands against the cool top and standing to her feet. Her hands rest against the small of her back as she arches, attempting to stretch any way she can, and she rights herself again. She reaches for the coffee cup and walks around the desk, bumping her hip into it and saying a quiet curse under her breath before closing the office door behind her—March 8th left unmarked on the calendar afterall.
Using the pads of her fingers, she pushes up under her ribs and tries to relieve some of the pressure there, not able to take the baby pushing on both her bladder and her ribs at the same time. Physically uncomfortable, but also wildly anxiety-inducing, and she's tried to push that to the back of her head as much as possible. Her mind flips through Rolodex-style of all the calendar events she has coming up—doctor's appointment, Stevie's dance recital, Stevie's softball game, softball practice, Henry's book release, Henry's defense, Henry's graduation. Oh, yes, and having a baby in a month.
As she waddles toward the kitchen, she tries to stop flipping the Rolodex over and over, but she's caught trying to take deep breaths instead as she feels like she can't make it stop.
Some of the anxieties aren't new, of course. Some of them are familiar from the last time she was in this situation—bringing a new child into the world is never comfortable, neither in the physical sense or emotional one. With Stevie, she'd been surprised, taken off guard, and then was terrified because she was alone while Henry was halfway across the world on deployment. A story that, one day, they would laugh about—Stevie was a military stereotype kid: either the "I'm so glad you came back from war" conception or the "please don't die at war" conception, and Stevie was the latter.
When he got back from that deployment and Stevie was born just a month later, they'd agreed then that they would wait on continuing their family. They were young, they had time. There was no need to rush while they both were trying to get on their feet in a fairly new marriage and new careers. Henry had stayed with the Marines only three more years before he began his PhD program, and suddenly his world was consumed with Aquinas, his three-year-old, and his insanely busy wife who was trying to climb the CIA ladder. Finally, when she'd gotten that promotion last year, she felt like they had a little stability.
Her job didn't pay terribly, but it was difficult living off that alone while Henry was going through school and writing his book. (She always wondered, and sometimes pestered him by asking the question over and over, what possessed him to do both at the same time.) When she'd gotten the promotion, it came with a pay scale raise, and they were able to move out of their apartment and into a house—this house.
It was nothing fancy. Three bedrooms ("we'll have more kids one day, you know," she'd reminded him when they looked at a two bedroom close to UVA), an office that had originally gone to Henry, but he gave up whenever he decided he liked working at the kitchen table more ("I just have more room to spread everything out," he'd said when she protested that this was supposed to be his office, and she felt bad for taking it), and two baths. A nice little yard in the back, big enough for a grill and a splash pad for Stevie who had also been begging for a puppy since they moved. Henry and Elizabeth both knew that though it was nicer than their apartment, their yard was not big enough to please a dog just yet. They'd have to hold off for a while. ("We got her a baby instead," she'd said sarcastically one night to Henry after feeling bad about accidentally getting pregnant again.)
This was supposed to be a move for stability. The promotion. Him finishing graduate school. Everything. It only took her two months to realize, finally, that she was late, and that was probably why she'd been so nauseous the past few weeks. She hadn't even slowed down long enough to take a pregnancy test at home—she simply brought it in to work with her and called Henry from her office that day. "You're never going to believe this."
When she sees Henry's papers sprawled all over the table, she does a quick assessment to see if they're dissertation papers or book papers. Dissertation. Good, he moved on. She walks up to the side of the table and gently rests a hand on his shoulder, and it apparently startles him. He picks his head up out of his hands, and she smiles sideways as his hair sticks up in all directions from where his fingers had been nestled in.
"It's two."
"In the morning?"
His voice is befuddled, and she smiles again, pulling a sleepy smile up. "In the morning," she confirms, running her hand along the back of his neck and rubbing his shoulder on the other side. She looks down at his notes and rests her arm over her stomach, liking that she can at least use it for an armrest, "Did you make some good progress tonight?" She asks. Before he can answer, her eye notices the pile of laundry in the living room that's sprawled across all three cushions of the couch. Damn it, she thinks to herself, pressing a breath out between her lips, I forgot the laundry.
Her hand slides down his back tiredly, "I think so," he says, "I feel like some of these revisions are just…" he's so rarely at a loss for words that it always catches her off guard, and it pulls her attention immediately back from the laundry.
"Bogus?" She provides.
He nods, and she smiles tiredly. "Get some sleep," she says, "Maybe they'll feel less bogus tomorrow." She starts toward the living room when she sees him scooting his chair away from the table, shutting his laptop down first and piling all his papers together.
She hears the papers shuffling behind her as she steps onto the carpet, and he stops her. "Hey," he says from the kitchen, his voice hushed to keep from waking Stevie down the hall, "You're not doing those tonight, right?" He asks.
She stops at the couch and turns around in the glow of the lamps, shrugging and picking up a pair of Stevie's pants from the top of the pile, "I won't have time tomorrow before work," she says, though her voice sounds as if she's already asleep.
She sees him walking toward her out of the corner of her eye, and she sets the pair of folded pants on the back of the couch before moving on to a pair of her own sweatpants. "I'll do it tomorrow, babe," he says, "After I drop Stevie at school," he assures, gently taking the pants from her hands and laying them on the pile.
Their fingers brush just slightly when he reaches, and she shudders. They hadn't had time to be this close very much at all recently, and her rubbing his shoulder in the kitchen apparently didn't grab her attention. Maybe it was the touch, maybe it was the sweet gesture of him taking over the massive laundry pile for her, or maybe it was a multitude of other things. But she rests her palms against his chest and leans into him, kissing him sleepily and resting her head just under his chin. "Okay," she whispers, yawning as she stands half-asleep against his body.
She can hear him smile, and he presses his lips to her head before reaching between them slowly and pressing his palms against her stomach. She pulls away a little, looking down at his hands, "The baby's in my ribs tonight," she admits, taking a deep breath.
She always tried to not complain much about being pregnant. Truthfully, she almost liked being pregnant—almost. But there was also this tiredness and pure exhaustion that she couldn't ever help, and by now, she felt like the least-pretty woman in the entire world. At her last doctor's appointment, he'd announced that she had officially reached the thirty-pound mark, and politely reminded her that she needs to start watching what she's eating a bit more after she explained that she'd mostly had a hankering for vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. And tonight, from being so tired and overworked, she almost felt like she could cry just from thinking about the frustration of carrying this weight around.
In her ribs, specifically.
But she keeps it in, taking a deep breath as he rubs his palms along her sides gently, and she feels the baby kicking her other side. Her hand immediately goes to the little feet movements, and he notices, "He kicking?"
She raises her brow up at him while he moves his hand to feel where she was feeling. They've been through this a thousand times, it felt like: Elizabeth is positive it's a girl. He's positive it's a boy. They've never disagreed on something so much in their entire lives.
One of them was wrong, though, and she's sure it's him.
He slowly moves around to the backside of her body and slides his hands underneath her stomach, gently lifting up. She melts backward into his body, feeling the immediate release of tension all the way up her spine and into her neck. His chin is resting against her shoulder, and she rests her head to the side against his cheek. "Can you just follow me around and do this all day?"
He laughs quietly, and the breaths tickles her ear. "I would if I could."
She knows they can't stand like this forever, but she soaks it in for a little while longer before making the move toward their bedroom. "Are you sure about the laundry?" She asks, looking at the clock behind him. 2:19. Her bladder spasms again, the stark reminder that she'd gotten up to pee in the first place.
"I'm positive, babe. You're doing enough."
He has that tone again, the one that makes her feel pitied. A feeling bubbles up from her stomach and into her chest, residing in her throat as a lump, and she nods and turns toward their bedroom after quickly checking that Stevie's door was still closed down the other hall.
Once in the bedroom, she pulls her sweatshirt over her head and reaches behind her, unclasping her bra finally and sighing when she feels that next release. She tosses the garments behind her onto the chair, grabbing her lotion from her bedside table and lathering her stomach and chest in vitamin E and shea, desperately hoping her body won't betray her by aging and she will maybe make it out without an abundance of stretch marks again. She hears him coming in and she turns her head, screwing the lid back onto the lotion and getting the remaining lotion out from between her fingers.
Her eyes drop down to his hands, and she smiles, "Did you bring Oreos to bed?" She asks, "You've already gotten me knocked up, McCord."
He laughs and bites his lip, "I know I shouldn't have," he says, "Brought the Oreos, I mean." He adds, shutting the door behind him and revealing the glass of milk.
She feels her heart pounding as she rubs the remaining lotion in, and she smiles at the bag of delicious chocolatey goodness in his hands. He's right. He shouldn't have. She knows the whole doctor conversation about weight had just happened, but…in this moment, she doesn't care. She can't say no, and she needed this for her soul.
She reaches for her pajama tee and slides it over her head before leaning across her spot and plumping her pillows—the head pillows first, then the body pillow, then the pillow that she puts between her legs so she can maybe get a decent night's sleep. As she preps, he's crawling into the bed and the glass of milk is setting on his nightstand, and he lays the bag of cookies down over the crack between their pillows.
Hands first, she crawls in, hoisting her knee up and feeling like a zoo animal—maybe pachyderm, maybe hippopotamus. She's yet to decide. Reaching behind her, she props the pillows up against the headboard and leans back on them, making the grabby hands toward him until he rips open the bag. "Gimme," she says, her voice still thick and sleepy.
As she munches on one, soggy from dipping it in the milk, she rests her head tiredly against the headboard and listens as they both crunch on the cookies. She takes a deep breath after swallowing it down, letting her head fall over in the direction of the clock ticking on his nightstand—a nagging reminder of time, and the fact that it's 2:26, and that they're officially on the baby countdown (four weeks…or less).
She sees him watching her, but she doesn't acknowledge it. She just reaches for another cookie as she stares at the clock, blindly trying to dip it into the milk somewhere below her while he holds it in his hand. "Babe," he laughs, "Babe, it's over here."
"Oh," she says, looking down and seeing that she had been missing the glass by about an inch. She adjusts, letting the cookie soak for a moment as she watches the milk crawl up the black outsides. "I wish we could pause time," she whispers, bringing the cookie to her mouth and biting into the sogginess as she stares at the clock—though it's more like into space, now.
She can hear his crunching again, and the clock ticking, and all of it makes her feel like she's trying to crawl out of her own skin. To top it off, the baby's feet are pushing against her side, and she knows it's the feet because she feels one and then the other, not unlike a cat kneading something. With that and the sounds, she feels like she has no control over anything suddenly, and she has to take a sharp breath while her cookie is half-eaten.
"Hey," he whispers, and she feels his fingers brush against her wrist before she looks down at him, "I can see it in your eyes, babe."
She swallows the cookie and pops the rest of it in her mouth, and he takes her fingers in his and gives them a little squeeze.
"I know that it's a lot right now," he says, "I kind of—well, we both hoped it would be easier the second time." He admits, "But we're here, and I know that you know it'll all work out, but it will." He says, sighing and dropping his gaze down, "I feel like I should've hit pause on my dissertation, like maybe it would've made time slow just a little—"
"No," she insists, shaking her head and taking another cookie, pointing it toward him, "You've worked hard for this. You're going to finish it this semester—you know you will. It already took you a semester longer because of my job, and you're doing this, Henry." She says, determined to not let him postpone his defense again.
She hears the clock ticking again and she tries to shake it off, but she knows he's already seen it in her eyes—the panic, the fear, the worry that she's not going to be able to juggle it all. Adding another life into this world is scary, and neither of them have the proper time for their first child it feels like sometimes, let alone a second. But that's the scariest part, knowing that she's going to have to make time. A baby doesn't wait for anything, nor does labor, which is why Isabelle has been on her at work every day about needing to go on maternity leave.
"If you go into labor while I'm here, Elizabeth, I'm not going to know what to do," she told her this morning. Elizabeth replied, "You're going to call Henry first, and then maybe call 911 depending on how freaked out I am, and then you're going to sit with me until my husband gets here."
Stevie has been such a good sport, though she obviously doesn't always understand why they're so busy. Elizabeth and Henry have both tried to keep her life as normal as possible—she does ballet and tap on Mondays, has softball practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and games every Saturday and sometimes Sundays, depending on if they're participating in a tournament. For five-year-olds, they do play a lot of ball. But Stevie loved it, and she loved her teammates, so Elizabeth made the effort to be there at her games every weekend even if most Wednesdays Henry had to take her to practice. She's only missed one softball game, and she missed two soccer games in the fall because of work.
She's excited about the baby. She's gone through all the stages of grief, however, about adding another baby into the family.
At first, she seemed indifferent, and then came the anger. "I don't want a baby sister," Stevie said, and Elizabeth tried to reconcile with her and say it could even be a baby brother, "I don't want a baby brother either!"
The denial came next, "I don't see a baby in your belly," Stevie said, but Elizabeth hadn't even switched into bigger pants yet.
Then the confusion, asking all the questions in the world. "Where will the baby sleep?" "Where did the baby come from?" "Why did the baby come here and not next door?" "Was I inside your belly too?" "How does the baby come out?"
Then, bargaining, just when she thought it couldn't get worse than confusion. "Can't I trade the baby for a puppy?" "If I promise to be extra good, can you send the baby back to where it came from?"
The sadness just came in the form of tears and unusual, out of character temper tantrums. Once the sadness seemed to mostly go away, when Elizabeth was finally showing enough to look as though she might have a baby in there, Stevie started talking to her brother or sister. One morning, Stevie had come in and snuggled with Henry and Elizabeth before they all had to get up for the softball game.
She had her head smushed up against Elizabeth's side as she twisted her fingers through her daughter's messy hair, and Stevie was just talking away while Elizabeth and Henry both read—Henry a book on Aquinas, Elizabeth a report. "Mommy and Daddy giggle a lot, and they tell secrets to each other and giggle, too. I don't know what the secrets are, but when I find out, I'll tell you." Elizabeth looked at Henry, holding the report still so that she didn't startle Stevie into stopping. Henry had wide eyes as Stevie continued, "Sometimes I hear them laughing whenever I'm asleep, and they have tickle fights a lot." Elizabeth's face reddened, and Henry bit his lip to keep from laughing then. "Mommy and Daddy shared lots of special kisses until you came, and I can't wait to hold you."
Elizabeth's mouth was hung open, and Henry's was shut tight to keep from laughing as Stevie continued to quietly babble away to the baby. In a way, Elizabeth had been glad that Stevie had gotten over the fears a little, but now she just felt utter embarrassment.
She's pulled away from her not-so-distant memories when Henry tugs at the glass to take a sip of the milk, and then hands it to her so she can do the same. She's rolling the bag up so she stops eating the cookies, and shoves the rest of the one she had in her hand into her mouth. "I know," he finally answers about his dissertation, "I think I'm just scared for what comes next, you know?"
Setting the bag on her nightstand, she furrows her brows, "Teaching?" She asks.
He shrugs, "A whole new career."
She nods a little before sliding down and laying on her side, tucking the pillow between her knees and resting her belly on the body pillow that laid between she and Henry. She wants to groan at her discomfort, the pangs of tightness she feels going up her back, but she holds it in.
"I could always re-sign with the Mari—"
"Don't even finish that." She says sternly, putting her finger up to his lips tiredly. She shakes her head, "You're not going back to the Marines if you want a wife."
He laughs and his eyes bat slowly, and she can tell he's just as sleepy as she is. He's worked so hard for this—he's truly worked all day and night to finish this degree and while finishing his book, too. Everything was hurdling toward him, and her, all so fast that she can't even begin to fathom how either of them are keeping up. It feels like a cruel game of dodgeball where their feet are in quicksand.
He reaches backward and turns off his light, and then he reaches over her and turns hers off, too. "I do like my wife a lot," he decides.
"You just like her?" Elizabeth murmurs tiredly, smacking her Oreo lips together and knowing she should've brushed her teeth.
Her eyes are already closing, though, as he answers, "I think I might love her," he whispers.
She smiles sleepily, brushing her tongue along her teeth to scrape the Oreo crumbs off. "You better," she says, "Because these hemorrhoids aren't for someone I don't love, let me tell you that."
She feels his lips on hers, and she makes an attempt at kissing him back, but her body is already shutting off. She'll be up again in a mere four hours, and this'll all just feel like a dream in the morning.
"I love you," he whispers.
"I love you," she whispers back.