9-1-1 Week, Day One: "Wanna Bet?"+fluff
Rating: General Audiences
Written for day one of @911week , just some fluffy nonsense between Hen and Karen cooking dinner together and telling each other that they're amazing mothers
"So what do you think the odds are that Chimney's going to call you the second this all sinks in and he starts freaking out?"
Hen pulls her head up, shifting her eyes to focus on her wife's across the kitchen. She flips shut the cookbook she was skimming and chuckles at the idea. "Insanely likely. I'm kinda surprised the call hasn't happened already, honestly." Thinking back to the call she did get a few days before, she can practically hear her best friend's excited voice ringing out through the phone around the words, 'I'm going to be a dad!'
There were no doubts in Hen's mind that Chimney would be a wonderful dad, but she also knows the kind of experience he had with his own father growing up, and could only imagine how close he probably was from spiraling down a path of self-doubt. Obviously Karen had the same thought, Hen figures, and if her face is anything to go off of, she knows her wife also shares her conviction that Chimney has nothing to worry about.
Karen's smile is pure amusement, even as she looks back down at the peppers she's cutting up. "How often do you think he'll be calling for advice?"
Getting up from her perch at the island counter, Hen comes around behind Karen, planting a kiss on her cheek and stealing a chunk of pepper. She crunches into it with a smirk as Karen chuckles at her, and she walks toward the fridge to pull out the chicken she'd been letting marinate.
"Once the baby comes or before?"
Karen throws her head back and laughs. "If that man calls us for advice about Maddie being pregnant, he might need to have a chat with whatever doctor told him he didn't have any brain damage after that rebar."
Hen cackles slightly and shakes her head. "Good point. We're fresh out of advice on that subject."
"Fresh out? We never had any to begin with."
"True that. If we're talking about after the baby's born though, I can guarantee he'll be calling for help. At least once a week, probably," Hen says over her shoulder, digging out the bamboo skewers they would need once Karen finished prepping the veggies.
As Hen sidles up next to her wife with everything they'd need to assemble the kebabs, Karen bumps their hips together playfully and says, "Wanna bet? You better plan on at least 3 calls a week if I were you. Let's be real. That man thinks you're the best mother in the world. He will definitely be blowing up your phone."
Hen chuckles, leaning over and planting another soft kiss of Karen's cheek. "He only thinks that because he doesn't get to see how amazing a mother you are as often as I do."
Karen leans into Hen's side and turns her head in a way Hen instantly recognizes. She drops down to capture Karen's lips in a quick kiss and can't help but smile as she straightens up.
"Well then it's a good thing he's such good friends with two of the world's best mothers, isn't it?"
As if on cue, Denny pops his head above the back of the couch to look into the kitchen. "Mama? Ma? Can one of you come help me with this math? I can't figure out number 4."
Hen smirks at her wife and elbows her softly in the side. "Duty calls. I'll get this finished up and start grilling. Go save the day, super-mama." Karen rolls her eyes playfully and skirts around Hen to wash her hands at the sink before going to Denny.
As much as she knows they were joking, it never fails to warm Hen's heart to hear Karen telling her things like that. She knows plenty well that her job makes it so Karen is just naturally with their children more often than she is, and some of her deepest insecurities stemmed from that. They make her think, on particularly bad days, that she could never live up to the level of motherhood that Karen seemed to come by naturally. It doesn't matter that she knows those thoughts aren't logical; she could sit there and argue with those thoughts all she wanted, proving them wrong, but they would still be there, because that's just how anxiety and insecurities work.
It was moments like these - the simple domesticity of Hen and Karen preparing dinner together, of their son asking for help with his homework and them delegating who goes to help - that reminds Hen that it isn't a competition. Karen is a phenomenal mother to Denny and Nia, and has proven so a million times over again. But Hen knows that Karen feels the same way right back at her. They've had their issues in the past, of course, and they don't ignore them, but they've moved past them in order to focus on being the best family they can be. And if you'd ask Hen, looking out into the living room at her beautiful wife helping their adorable son work through his math homework, she'd say they've done a pretty damned good job of that.
