she considered sitting down but knowing herself barbara was sure it would only be a matter of seconds until she got up again and had to start walking around the room. she was tense, that much was obvious from how she wouldn’t stop shaking her right leg even if she was standing, her bottom lip was trapped between her teeth a bit too hard — she could start tasting blood any minute — or she wouldn’t stop drumming her fingers against her stomach. “ it is. ” she confirmed. maybe he expected her to have an actual explanation for it but she didn’t. it had only been two days and all she did was take a test, all she had were assumptions. “ twice the number it should be. i haven’t seen a doctor yet but i checked my chances and they’re quite high so i’m just assuming it’s more than one. ” she had already accepted the idea: she was pregnant, again, and probably with two kids this time. yet, she still didn’t say the words pregnancy or baby once in that conversation. they knew what they were talking about and maybe using the words would bring too much reality to it. “ i wanted to tell you before doing anything else but i also know it’s a lot to process so just– take your time, i guess. ” for once she didn’t want him to feel like she made decisions without asking him. she also wanted to know what would happen now but that would be a long conversation and maybe he didn’t have all that time. everything between them was beyond complicated, this couldn’t be any different.
“more than one?” he could physically feel those words stuck to his throat like leaches. And yet they were out, and like all sound, floating their way to the blonde. Perhaps in a higher pitch that was usual for him but that this point that was the least of his concerns. He had expected her to tell him he was wrong. Had expected that the paper, and Barbie not drinking alcohol the night of the wedding were just ticks of his mind. Not exactly hoped thought. He couldn’t say he had hoped to be wrong. There was that small part of his brain, the part that belonged to a small kid who looked beyond big wood doors into family gatherings with cousins that weren’t his, and grandparents, uncles and ants. That small part that had always been searching for a family. A big family, all his own. He had it with Maia for a while. It had been them against the world- and Leda was prove of that. He was still grabbing the paper she’d given him and so that was the first casualty when the tears started freely rolling down his face dropping from the tip of his nose into the page bellow. “More than one!” he repeated putting the paper aside as he got up- choosing to walk around the room like her. This time his voice didn’t came off terrified. It had clearly tried to be exited but failed the only way someone crying their eyes out could. “More than one” his pitch was back, backed with emotion raw and clawing at his chest as he stopped in front of Barbie. He didn’t know what to say or feel in this situation. He was washed with unbearable happiness. Yet there was all the other things, fear, of not being good enough a father, uncertainty about their footing, genuine surprise she had told him at all. He had no other way to describe it, but hoped she would still be able to read him like a book. “Fuck.”
