How about a time stamp for the Home Improvement/HGTV verse: (new) addition. Thanks so much for doing this again!!
Series here!
“Honestly, I’m impressed it took them this long to ask us about kids,” says Clarke, which is the most positive spin she can put on the email they just got from the network.
Bellamy snorts. “Which isn’t creepy at all.”
“I never said it wasn’t creepy, I said it could be creepier. Big difference.”
“I guess it has been an entire season since we got married. They showed a lot of restraint not asking sooner.”
Clarke smiles. “That’s what I’m saying, yeah. They were probably just hoping we’d bring it up first, but whatever.”
“They’re definitely growing.” He flops down next to her on the couch. “Do you want kids?”
It’s not their first time having the conversation, but it’s also not a conversation they’ve ever really resolved. They’ve established that Bellamy wants kids and Clarke isn’t opposed, but it’s not as simple as that for them. He’s reluctant about having a kid on TV, but not completely against it, depending on how it’s handled, which Clarke does get. And she can’t imagine the email made either of them feel better on that front.
But they’re getting older, and while Clarke wouldn’t exactly say her biological clock is ticking, she knows that if they want to have children the old-fashioned way, they should start thinking about it sooner rather than later.
“I’m not sure,” she says, leaning into him. “And I feel like we should be?”
“At least seventy-five percent sure, probably.”
“I might be that sure.”
That seems to surprise him. “Really?”
“You’re not?”
“I still don’t really want to raise a child on camera.”
“Yeah, there is that. We could just start trying to get pregnant and end the show once it works.”
“The babies-ever-after ending?”
“I hear it’s a classic.”
He takes a second. “Do you want to be pregnant? I sort of thought you were leaning towards fostering.”
Clarke considers that herself. “I’m still not sure. But some of that is also–fame stuff.”
“Yeah?”
“You know how the network is. We’re not the only leading couple they’ve got, and most of the shows follow the same formula, just at different stages. You get together, you get married, you have babies. It’s what most of our viewers want. And it’s not like that’s the worst thing ever, but–”
“But you’re still mad about all those people who said that the network was trying to get woke points by casting bisexuals and then having them end up in a heteronormative relationship?”
“Like you’re not. They kept putting bisexual in scare quotes!”
“I know, they’re all assholes. But unless you’re going to divorce me and marry a woman, there’s nothing you can do to stop them from being assholes. You’re allowed to want to have kids, and fuck anyone who says you’re lying about who you are because you fell for me.”
“Obviously they’ve never seen you,” she says, with a small smile.
“Obviously. So, ignoring people on twitter who are wrong anyway, what do you want to do?”
“I’m still not sure.”
He kisses her hair. “Okay, well, the good news is that you don’t have to know. The network can wait.”
“But we should still think about it. For us, not for them. If that’s something we want.”
“And you think you do.”
“Yeah. You haven’t said much about what you want,” she observes. “That matters too. Is it just the TV thing?”
“Kind of.” He sighs. “I feel like I should be happier just giving it up, I guess.”
“What else is new? You hate admitting you like being a weird, HGTV celebrity.”
“I know. So maybe it wouldn’t be bad for a kid. Or not worse, I guess. But if we had a baby and quit the show, by the time it was old enough to know about the show, everyone would have mostly forgotten. It wouldn’t be a big thing at school or whatever. That sounds better to me.”
“It probably wouldn’t be even if the show was on,” Clarke says. “Kids aren’t really our demographic.”
“Their loss.”
“I grew up in Hollywood,” she points out, gentle. “It’s weird, but it doesn’t ruin everyone. Especially not this level of fame. It’s not like we’re going to star in blockbusters with a baby.”
“And we don’t live in California, let alone LA.”
“I’m not saying we have to have a kid on the show, or involved in the show. Just–it might not be as bad as you think.”
“Yeah, that’s how pessimism usually works. Stuff isn’t as bad as I think it will be.”
Clarke smiles, leans up to kiss him. “All I’m saying is maybe you don’t have to give up your career to be a father.”
“A father.” He sounds a little awestruck. “Jesus.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“Yeah. Let’s see how that goes.”
*
In Diyoza’s defense, the email really isn’t that bad. The network seems to be aware that they need her and Bellamy more than she and Bellamy need the network; after all, they like doing the show, but if it ended tomorrow, they’d be fine. They have as much work as they can handle and if they stopped filming, they’d keep getting work. And obviously the network would be okay too, but they’re happier keeping a hit show around than trying to find something new for their time slot. They’ve got a good thing going and there’s definitely no reason to rock the boat.
But Moving On Up has always had broad seasonal story arcs, starting with her and Bellamy’s second courtship, and they’ll need a new one for the fifth season if they want to keep the trend going. And she and Bellamy have actually had a break from that this season, since Miller got together with one of the camera men back in season two, and he and Monty are now secure enough in their relationship to allow it to be dramatized. It was nice, taking the back seat for a little while, but it was a risk for the network too, and the ratings for the season have been down. Diyoza probably wants to bounce back from that with an affirmation that the show is still about Clarke and Bellamy.
Which is another reason Clarke is bristling against babies as a solution. Like Bellamy said, she’s not going to change her entire life because some assholes on twitter think her marrying a guy (and Bellamy marrying a woman) makes her straight, but there are people making good points in there too. Her life is less and less of a lie, as the show catches up with reality, but she could have had a female love interest or something. She could be doing more to be a visible bisexual woman on a network that skews very cishet.
On the other hand, she doesn’t owe anyone her life or her happiness. Just because she’s bisexual and in the public eye, she’s not required to be the perfect representation.
But making it about babies still feels like a lot.
“What about foster kids?” she asks Bellamy.
“Is it weird that I feel worse about those?”
“From a fame perspective?”
“Yeah. If we had a baby, a lot could change by the time the kid has grown up, like you said. But if we got a foster kid, I’d want someone older, and then we’d be having them sign onto–” He waves his hand. “All this.”
“Which they could do.”
“And then what?” Clarke cocks her head, confused, and he clarifies, “We’re not going to be on this show forever, right?”
They probably could be on the show forever, or on another one, if they got tired of this gimmick. But at the same time, their lives without the cameras are good too. Clarke couldn’t imagine keeping going with what she did in Should I Stay Or Should I Go after the show wrapped in part because what they did was so tied to the show itself. She could have kept on doing renovations–and she did–but the traveling around, the competition with Murphy, those things she’d lose.
And Bellamy, of course. If she and Bellamy hadn’t been together when the show wrapped, she would have let them recast Murphy, would have kept going just to stay with him. But now, she has a life. She and Bellamy are married and settled, with a shop that does well enough and jobs lined up all around the tri-state area. They’ve settled in as part of the community, the town’s best-known citizens, and they don’t need the show to keep that status. At some point, she’ll get tired of having cameras around. The logistics of cameras and reshoots and everything else will stop being worth it, and she’ll settle in to just being a person.
It could be soon.
“What if we just let them give us a kid?” she asks, the words coming out at the same time the idea is forming. “If we cast someone in the role of our foster kid. It doesn’t have to be real, it just has to be a good story. We spend a season talking about it, making up our minds, signing up for foster programs, and then we see one season of us as a family, and then–that can be it.”
“It?” he asks. “Done after five seasons?”
“I think maybe.” She taps her knee. “I don’t think–we’re never going to feel like we’re living our lives, as long as we’ve got the show. It’s always going to be about how it works on camera, what that means, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. That’s part of why I didn’t mind taking a bigger role, I think. For this show.”
“Really?”
He shrugs. “Not that I thought of it in those terms, but yeah. Even on Should I Stay Or Should I Go, I always knew the cameras were there, so taking on a bigger role wasn’t that different. It was fun. It’s still fun.”
“But it’s always a little fake.”
“Pretty much.”
“Whatever happens with kids, with family–I want that to be real.”
“Me too,” he says. “So–two more years, and we’re done? At least with this one.”
Clarke has to smile. “This one?”
“If we miss it, we could figure out something else. Something that isn’t about us. More business, less personal. Just if we want.”
“You’re going to miss being on TV.”
“I might,” he admits. “But I’m not sure. I want to find out.”
“So, two more seasons, one fake foster kid, and then we decide what we actually want to do with the rest of our lives.”
He smiles. “This, but with kids.”
“Something like that. I’ll ask Diyoza if casting a kid for us is actually a thing. If it’s not, we can just be–working on it, I guess. See how it goes.”
“It’ll be nice to not worry about that,” he admits. “Not having to think about whether or not we want something to be a part of the show.”
“Or feeling bad if we don’t put it in the show.”
“Or that.” He puts his arm around her and squeezes. “It’s still our life, Clarke. We don’t have to feel bad for wanting to keep some of it to ourselves, or all of it.”
“I know. But I’m looking forward to not having to pick and choose.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Can’t wait.”
*
The weird thing about getting older is that time starts to mean something different. Two years still sounds like a long time, but Clarke knows it’s going to fly by, especially once filming starts. The cameras eat up time in great gulps, and it’s not bad, but it means that a decision like “we’ll get a kid in one year and be done with the show in two” sounds like it won’t happen any time soon, but once the choice is made, everything goes very quickly.
They start filming a couple months after that conversation, and the first few renovations they do are all for families with small children. Bellamy’s a natural with kids, so he’s the one who does more interacting, asking them what they want for their rooms, how they want the yards remodeled. It makes something flip in Clarke’s chest every time she sees it, how natural he is, how much he clearly loves kids. Even if they hadn’t planned this, it would probably inspire her to start talking about next steps.
As it is, they’re about halfway through the season when she says, “Did we ever come to a conclusion about babies?”
“I thought we did. Did you not?”
“We agreed to do fake fostering and then figure it out. I think I figured it out: I want to have a baby.”
“Huh.”
“And probably foster too,” she adds. “We have plenty of room, and I know there are kids who need families, especially older ones, and I think we could be good at that. But we could do that and still have a baby.”
“We could, if you want. Do you want to start working on that soon?”
“Maybe once this season is over. Then if it works, we still don’t have to deal with having a newborn on the show.”
“And we have some time to get used to the idea.”
“You need time?”
“A little, yeah. Just to wrap my mind around it.”
“If you don’t want–”
He kisses her. “I want. I just thought you didn’t, so–I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”
“You could have just told me, too.”
“You’re the one who has to have a human grow inside you, your vote counts more.”
“Cool. My vote is that we talk to a doctor and start planning.”
“I like that plan.” He smirked. “It was me giving that girl a piggyback ride yesterday, right?”
“No,” she lies.
As usual, he sees right through her. “Of course it wasn’t. You were pretty cute not knowing how to hold the baby last week.”
“I can learn!”
“You can. It’ll be fun.”
“Fun,” she agrees, trying for dubious, but ruining it with an irrepressible smile. “Sure.”
*
There’s a part of Clarke that wants to cancel the foster-kid auditions once they’ve decided to actually start trying for a baby sooner or later, but a larger part of her is kind of morbidly curious. Diyoza’s looking for kids between nine and twelve, old enough to know what’s going on but young enough to still be cute, who are in the foster system for shorter stints with no real need of a forever home. It feels vaguely surreal, but probably fine, assuming everyone is on the same page and no one thinks they’re being taken advantage of.
So, of course, the first kid fixes them with a calculating stare and asks, “Are you getting a sponsorship or something for this?”
According to the profile Diyoza gave them, her name is Madison Templeton and she’s eleven years old. Her parents died when she was seven, so she’s been in the system for a while, living with various relatives. Her aunt is her current caretaker, but she’s been declared unfit and has to complete a course before regaining her rights. It’s a good position for the show, because the woman was able to grant the network rights to show her niece as a foster kid, but they won’t need to keep her for long.
It makes Clarke feel like she needs a shower.
“A sponsorship?” Bellamy asks.
“Or is it like a ratings stunt? You want to test drive adding a kid to the show before you commit.”
“This is the last season of the show,” says Clarke. “Ratings aren’t really a big deal anymore.”
“So you just want to get good PR before you go out?”
“We’re really thinking about fostering,” Clarke says. “Why not get started now?”
“But you’re just looking for kids you can’t actually keep. What’s up with that?”
“It seemed like the best solution when we were trying to figure stuff out,” Bellamy says. He cocks his head at her. “You don’t think so?”
“It seems kind of shitty. You give a kid a few months of the good life and then throw them away.”
“Don’t you just need a couple months?” Clarke asks. “And then you go back to your aunt?”
The girl considers for a moment, face twisting like she’s trying to find a way around it. “Yeah, but still.”
Bellamy is watching her with interest. “We don’t have to foster anyone. If you think it’s a bad idea.”
“If I do?”
“We wanted an older kid because we figured we could talk about what was happening with them and make sure everyone was on the same page. So, yeah, we want to know what you think. You’re the expert.”
Madison chews her lip, thinking it over. “I’ve been a lot of places,” she offers. “And every time I tell myself I’m not going to stay there, but I get my hopes up anyway. Like, even if my aunt takes the class and gets me back, I don’t think I’m going to be with her for that long. So you can tell some kid that this is just for a few months, but they’ll probably still be hoping you’ll keep them. You’re rich, right?”
“Pretty rich, yeah,” Clarke says. “The house isn’t that big, but we have plenty of money in savings. And more than enough room.” She wets her lips. “You don’t think your aunt is going to get custody back?”
“She will eventually, probably. But it’s not really a priority for her.”
“So what do you want?”
Madison looks surprised. “What do you mean?”
“You showed up,” says Bellamy, figuring out Clarke’s train of thought as easily as ever. “Did you just want to see what was going on? Or do you want a couple good months while your aunt gets her shit together?”
“I’d take the months if I could get them,” says Madison. “It sounds kind of interesting. Would I have to do anything?”
“Appear on camera occasionally, go along with reality TV stuff. Other than that, probably pretty standard foster-kid stuff. Go to school, do your homework, talk to us if you have problems.”
“If you pick me,” she says, careful. “You’ve got a bunch of kids to audition, right?”
“Talk to,” says Clarke, feeling uncomfortable. “They’re not auditions, just–getting a feel for people.”
She tries to convince herself it’s not a lie, but she and Bellamy make it through exactly one more interview before the guilt gnaws through her.
“We liked Madison, right?” she asks Bellamy.
“Yeah, we did.”
“And we’re going to pick her, right?”
He smiles. “We are?”
“Aren’t we?”
“Probably, yeah,” he admits. “You don’t want to keep going?”
“I feel like an asshole, making these kids line up for us.”
“Yeah, I feel that. It seemed normal, but I was picturing, like–actors. Not real foster kids.”
“Diyoza said it would be easy for people to figure out if it was just actors,” Clarke says, with a sigh. “But we know people don’t check, so I should have told her no.”
“But you didn’t, and you want to take Madison.”
“Like you don’t.”
He smiles with half his mouth. “It’s going to be a disaster.”
“You think?”
“We’re going to get attached and want to keep her.”
“But you still want to.”
“I still want to.”
He nods. “Me too. I’ll tell them we’re done with the meetings. We made up our minds.”
She still feels like a little bit of an asshole, but in the unavoidable way that comes from feeling like doing something is worse than doing nothing, because she can’t do everything. They could maybe take another foster kid, maybe even two, but they can’t take everyone who needs a place. And they might not even be a good place, after all. Starting with one kid and going from there is a better plan, and Madison will probably give them honest feedback about whether or not this is a good fit for them.
Despite everything, Clarke has a good feeling about this.
They go to pick her up the next day, find her outside the social services office with two duffel bags, apparently all the possessions she has. She watches as they drive up, eyes narrowed, loads up her stuff without comment. They drive most of the way back to the farm before she asks, “Why me?”
“We liked you,” says Clarke.
“That’s it?”
Bellamy shrugs. “It seemed like the best reason.”
She sits with the words for a long moment. “Yeah,” she finally says. “I guess so.”
*
They have a month to settle in before filming of the last season starts, and it’s definitely necessary. One of the nice things about Moving On Up, at least from Clarke’s perspective, is that the reality is always in the past tense. They went back and recreated the start of their relationship; Bellamy proposed off-screen months before the second season, which followed his attempts to come up with a sufficiently romantic gesture. The two of them were married a week before the big ceremony that happened on TV. If they’d had to deal with meeting Madison–who prefers Madi–and getting used to her in real time, on camera, it would have been incredibly stressful.
Not that getting to know her without cameras isn’t a lot. She’s a good kid and Clarke likes her, but she’s prickly, distrustful, and it takes time for them to get used to each other. She refuses to unpack her stuff because she could be gone any day, and Clarke wants to tell her she’s not going anywhere, even though she knows as well as Madi does that it’s true. Her aunt is still her guardian, and she’s a temporary part of the family.
By the time the cameras show up, they’re not perfect, but they’re at least mostly settled. Madi likes the dog and the farm, is coming to like Clarke and Bellamy despite her better instincts.
Bellamy’s the one who suggests they sit her down the day before filming starts to check in, but Clarke agrees it’s the best choice. At this point, they pretty much understand her, and it’s worth addressing their concerns now, before the cameras are around making everyone self-conscious.
“How are you feeling about filming?” Bellamy asks, to start them off.
Madi shrugs. “Fine. I don’t have to do much, right? Just be around?”
“Yeah. We’ll probably see you once or twice an episode, and the producers want you hanging around the store, but we’ll be doing most of the talking.”
“Saying how great it is?”
Her voice has an edge to it, and Clarke and Bellamy exchange a look before Clarke picks up the conversation. “It’s not bad, right?”
“No.”
“We’re not going to kick you out when the season ends. You have a place here for as long as you need one.”
She jerks up, eyes flashing. “What if my aunt never wants me back? What if she doesn’t care enough to get custody back?”
“Then you can stay,” says Bellamy. His voice is calm. “And if she does take you back, we’re not going anywhere. If you need us, we’ll be here for you.”
As is her way, Madi takes her time considering it. “You really mean that, don’t you,” she finally says, less a question than a revelation.
“We haven’t done the best job with this whole thing,” he admits, slow. “TV really does destroy your brain. We don’t know how to be people anymore, we’re paranoid and careful, even with–you’re a kid. Don’t argue,” he adds, smiling a little. “We’re older than you, we still get to call you a kid. You’re old enough to understand what’s going on, but that’s not enough.”
“It’s not?”
“We were never just planning to throw you away. If you need someone–you’ll always be family, Madi. Even if you don’t live with us for very long, that doesn’t change anything.”
“What if I never want to leave?” she asks, voice so soft Clarke can barely hear it.
“You’d have to talk to your aunt.” She puts her arm around Madi’s shoulders. “We can’t just take you, it’s still–she’d have to give you up.”
“She would,” Madi says. “She doesn’t want me.”
“We can talk to her,” Bellamy says. “If you want. It might take time, though.”
“Just like that?” Madi asks.
“If you want,” he says again.
“But you didn’t want to keep anyone.”
“You’re not anyone,” Clarke says, smiling. “You’re Madi. We want to keep you.”
*
The last episode of the show is Bellamy adding an extension to their own house, the first renovations they’ve ever done for themselves.
“You know we already have enough bedrooms, right?” Madi asks Bellamy. She took to reality TV like a fish to water, but Clarke doesn’t think she’ll miss it. She’ll find something else to be good at.
“It’s symbolic.”
“What does is symbolize?”
He glances up at Clarke, and she smiles. The pregnancy is small and new, enough that it hasn’t been confirmed in the show. They just had a conversation about wanting to try, leaving their fictional lives on a more uncertain note. The truth can just be theirs.
“Our family getting bigger. You don’t want more room?”
“I like room outside.”
“There’s still plenty of that. It’s not going anywhere.”
“And this way you’ll be farther away from any babies we have,” Clarke adds. “They won’t wake you up.”
“They still could. Babies are loud.”
“It’s good TV, that’s it,” Bellamy says. “Happy now?”
“Kind of. I figured we were good TV already.”
“People have spent a lot of time with us,” Clarke says. “They want closure. To feel like we’re happy and doing well. They want to know that we’re going to be okay.”
“And we are, right?” Madi asks, sounding only a little insecure. She mostly believes, these days. That they’ll be keeping her.
Clarke gives her a hug around the shoulders, her favorite kind of low-pressure affection. “Yeah. We’re going to be great.”
