janica carlile || desmond hume (pushthebutton) wrote in thereincarnates, @ 2010-11-02 21:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | janica carlile, thomas doyle |
Who: Janica Carlile and Thomas Doyle
What: Dropping the b-bomb.
When: Monday evening.
Where: Janica’s place, Wellington, New Zealand.
Warnings: We may get to see Thomas panic. Stay tuned!
All it took was one little stick with two little pink lines to turn her world completely upside down. Along with Amanda, she’d confirmed it. She was pregnant. Just in case, she’d gone to the doctor that morning, making excuses with her boss so that she could skip work. The very kind man who had brought her the definite news had just nodded in understanding when she’d burst in to tears, even if he really didn’t get it. He’d seen that kind of reaction before, but for completely different reasons. She wanted kids. The alternate reality had really opened her eyes to that. But this was all so strange, nearly impossible to absorb. She’d been so disappointed to wake up not pregnant, when that wasn’t the case at all. She had been pregnant, she just hadn’t known it. Her head felt like it was going to explode just thinking about it.
The first thing she’d done when she’d arrived back at home was call Thomas. Even considering the time change, he’d cheerfully agreed to zap out and meet her. She’d tried to keep her voice light, but he probably knew that something was wrong. Janica shoved her hands through her hair, wandering mindlessly around her happy little home. How as he going to react? They were nowhere near the stage in their relationship where they would discuss the possibility of children. They hadn’t even known each other that long. He was such a nice man, he probably wouldn’t abandon her with a kid, but she didn’t want to be an obligation to anyone, either. If he was happy, she would be much happier. Until she knew how he felt, she couldn’t help but panic.
When she heard the knock on her door, she smoothed out her hair and took a deep breath. She could do this. Squaring her shoulders, she pulled open the door and gave him a smile. “That was quick. Come on in.”
---
Thomas had gotten to the point where he spent almost as much time in Wellington as he did in Dublin. He spent plenty of time in other places too, of course. The Agency knew that he liked to go odd places, so he ended up with the more obscure cases that came through HQ. The other caretakers were probably just as happy not to end up in Azerbaijan, Timbuktu, or West Bumblefuck every few weeks anyway and it kept Thomas and Ford both amused. In his off time, he occasionally went home, or he zapped off to find Janica.
They hadn't been together that long, but they'd already gotten to a point where their relationship was pretty comfortable. Just spending time together was normal, either at one of their places or out or occasionally he'd talk her into some insane adventure. He was happy about that, and not just in his usual madcap cheerful sort of way, but in a content sort of way that was pretty much new for him.
"Hey, luv. The MTN clerks don't even look up anymore when I come through. Pretty soon their going to ask me to start running the thing myself." He greeted her with a grin. He definitely didn't have any problem with making the jump out there as soon as she called. Was he imagining things, or had she sounded rather freaked out on the phone? They usually had a lot less drama in their lives than most reincarnates, but the reality shift had really shaken her up, he knew. "You okay?"
---
She made herself laugh as she waved him inside, leaning briefly against the closed door in an attempt to gather her resolve again. He was always so cheerful, usually just having him around perked her right up. Today, it just made her heart hammer even faster. Desmond was, as usual, no help at all. He’d given her all the advice he had, which was to make it quick and hope for the best. No wonder people kept tossing him in to holes, all the help he was.
Jan took his hand, giving it a quick squeeze as she stood in front of him. There was no sense in drawing it out, since there really wasn’t a way to sugar coat it. “I’m fine. I’m just...” She paused, searching futilely for some way to make it sound better than it was. Not surprising, she came up blank. So she took a deep breath and just went for it. “...pregnant. I’m pregnant, Thomas.”
Nerves made her barrel on without giving him much of an opening to respond. “I just found out yesterday. Last night. I went to the doctor this morning. He said I’m about five weeks in.” She stopped long enough to try to gauge his reaction, carefully studying his face.
---
During that little pause he could have come up with a hundred things that she was 'just'. Tired, distracted, happy, drunk, waiting for the end of the world, trying to come up with the perfect new recipe for marshmallows. Lots of things. Not one of them would have been 'pregnant'. The word failed to make any connection in his brain at all for a moment, and when it finally did he looked rather like someone had hit him in the head with a brick.
"You're... uh..." His tongue was having trouble working. Or maybe it was his brain. That definitely wasn't working properly. "Come again?"
Her continued explanation finally penetrated the fog of his brain. "Wait... with a baby?" Okay, so his brain still wasn't supplying any useful information. Ford was zero help. He checked out completely after the less than useful suggestion to not panic and the mental equivalent of nice knowing you, mate.
Thomas took a few steps one way, and then another, running his hands through his messy hair. He was pretty sure he should be doing something right now. He had no idea what, but something. "Are you sure? No, you went to the doctor, of course you're sure. Fecking hell. Is it from this reality? I mean weird shite happens a lot here and... no, don't listen to me, wrong question... five weeks is about..." He couldn't seem to make himself shut up or finish an actual sentence. He forced himself to stop, standing in front of her. "So you're... wow. That's... a surprise."
---
When he started pacing, she gave up and went to sit on the couch. “Can you be pregnant with anything else?” That question had a little more bite than she meant for it to. Janica rubbed her forehead, trying to talk herself in to calming down. Sensing that there was about to be either an argument or another crying episode, Desmond retreated to the farthest corner of her brain. He didn’t want to get blamed anymore than he already was. Men just didn’t deal well with pregnancy.
She ran her hands over her face, trying very hard to hold it together. It didn’t exactly work, especially when she didn’t actually ignore his question. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s this reality. And it’s really real. I’m sure.” Briefly, she glanced up at him. She’d never actually seen Thomas get worked up about anything. She didn’t even know it was possible. That made her feel even worse about freaking him out.
“Yeah, I am.” She sniffled before she looked down again, burying her face in her hands. ‘Surprise’ wasn’t the most reassuring thing he could have said. Now she was crying again, shaking a little as she tried to hold it in.
---
He was being an idiot, he was pretty sure. This was entirely new territory for him though. Not that it wasn't for her. Right. The one good thing he had going was that he was a lot better at calming other people down than he was at freaking out himself. He hurriedly sat down next to her, putting his arm around her and patting her shoulder.
"Not a bad surprise, necessarily," he said, back-peddling quickly, if not entirely effectively. "Just a surprising surprise, with good potential. Like a surprise party. But in a way where you're like, 'I was not expecting this surprise party at all, since my birthday isn't for a couple years at least and we've never really talked about if either of us liked parties come to think of it.'" He stopped before the metaphor could go any further off the rails. He was flailing, but he thought he was going somewhere positive with this, even if his triumphant conclusion was no more than, "So it's alright then."
---
She leaned against him, taking some comfort in the fact that he was still there. He could have gone screaming for the door, after all. Especially considering that she’d dropped the news on him with absolutely no warning at all. Yeah, she probably hadn’t handled that well. But he was here, and she could try to find a way to be more rational now. The first step in that was to stop crying. She took a long, deep breath and told herself not to panic. He’d given her that advice quite a bit. It was about time she was able to remind herself.
His metaphor made her stare as she tried to sort it out in her head. Once she did, it actually kind of made sense. The end was the important part, anyway. “It’s alright?” She sounded hopeful. Janica really wanted it to be alright, for them to figure this out together. She would do it on her own if she had to, but it definitely wasn’t her first choice. Thomas was one of the best parts of her life. It was only fair that all of her happiness went together, instead of working against her to make her miserable. Or something like that. She was feeling slightly less miserable now, which was a good start. “I know it’s sudden and we never talked about it because we haven’t been together that long but...” She paused to take a breath. “I really want it to be okay.”
---
He pulled her close, glad she seemed a little calmer. He hated seeing her upset, and even if this was kind of a mess, they would work it out together. It could be good. She hadn't really said what she was thinking, but she wouldn't have told him if she wasn't planning on keeping it and wanted him to be some part of this, right? "Yeah, it's alright."
She was, unfortunately, getting to witness him processing the whole thing. It wasn't a pretty or simple process. He'd gone through shocked silence, shocked rambling, and now the more he thought about it, the more it was starting to seem like this really would be okay. Why not? "I want it to be okay too. So we'll make it okay." That was a good place to start. "Are you, uh, okay?"
---
They would make this work. Somehow. There were a lot of details to go through, but that could wait until they’d both adjusted to the news. For now, they could just cover the basics. At least they’d gotten it out of the way that they both thought it was going to be okay. “Good. Because I want it to be.” She shook the hair out of her face, tilting her head to the side so that she could look up at him. “I’m fine. Tired. A little ill. But that’s normal.” It was so weird that she had memories from the alternate universe that lined up way too well with what was happening now. Oh god, at least she wasn’t having twins. Or she wasn’t according to the doctor. That would be too much for her to stand.
“So you really think we can do this? I mean, we live on opposite sides of the planet and we never discussed this. Or anything resembling this. But I want to make this work. I want to have the baby. Together. If that’s, you know, an option for you.”
---
It was a little odd that she knew that was normal. He was impressed. It didn't occur to him that she had the alternate universe experience to draw from and he assumed this was the sort of thing that women just magically knew.
"I really can't think of any reason not to. There's some complications, sure, but we'll work them out." His mind ticked over the various problems. Nothing major. Admittedly, he had a skewed perception of what a major problem was, but taken one at a time these were nothing much. "Let's do this together." It actually sounded pretty great.
The distance was a problem. It had been since the beginning, although the MTNs rendered it mildly inconvenient instead of completely insane. "I could move out here, that would take care of one problem." He'd thought about mentioning it before, he spent as much time in Wellington or London as home and he didn't like being tied to any one place anyway, but never got around to bringing it up. There was no rush, not before. Now maybe they'd just speed things up a little. Or a lot. "You've got a house and a job here, but the Agency doesn't care where I'm based out of."
---
She grinned at that, leaning over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. They’d slowly progressed from a double freakout to actually looking at this like somewhat reasonable (yet arguably) adults. Janica didn’t have the foggiest idea how to raise a child, but she did have some vivid memories of being pregnant. Thomas probably knew even less. It was terrifying, sure, but at least they could get through all the scary part together.
“Really? Well, I mean, if you don’t mind that would be...great.” She felt marginally guilty about being so happy that he would move here. It meant that she wouldn’t need to pack up and cart herself across the globe, since there was no way they could do this from opposite ends of the planet. Well, they probably could but it wouldn’t be easy. Having him here would take a huge weight off her shoulders. “At least my house is big enough for three people.” The words were out of her mouth before her brain caught up and realized that ‘here’ could have meant just Wellington. "Unless you wanted to find your own place. I would understand. But I don't mind if you want to stay here here."
---
Great. It would be great. Here had just meant Wellington, in the sense that he hadn't really thought it through any further than that. Getting his own place didn't make a lot of sense though. "If you don't mind, yeah, that'd be brilliant." Were they really moving in together? Settling down? Having a baby? Those were some big steps for one day, but neither of them were panicking anymore, so they must have been good steps.
"Listen to us, it's almost as if we know what we're doing. If we just keep faking it this well..."
---
“No, I don’t mind. Not at all. It makes the most sense and, well, I’d like to have you here. Because, really, it’s only a matter of time before I freak out again, and you’re the only one that can keep me from panicking.” That had been true ever since she’d learned she was a reincarnate. Thomas had always been the one to step in and distract her, give her something fun to do so that she wasn’t focusing on how strange her life had become. She was incredibly grateful to have someone like that in her life. Otherwise, she would have retreated to the Hatch the moment it showed up.
That made her laugh. “Right? As long as we keep this up, we won’t do a half bad job.” God, she was going to be a mom. That almost made her panic, but not in a bad way. In that sort of half terrified, half thrilled way that she’d felt during the alternate universe. Knowing that that part was halfway coming true was pretty exciting. “So I guess the next step is letting our families know. Unless you want to handle it differently?”
---
"Hm, I really had better move in here. We can't have any extra panic." Thomas was pretty skilled at keeping people from panicking, especially Janica. They always managed to have a lot of fun with whatever alternative to panic came up as well.
"That sounds logical. I have no idea what my family will say. Probably, 'It's about fecking time.' Half the siblings already have broods of their own running around. So at least there will be plenty of cousins to entertain and corrupt it. Er, him or her." Not an it. They were going to have a son, or a daughter. That was absolutely terrifying, but in a thrilling way. He laughed, stunned all over again. He looked at her, grinning madly and totally awe struck. "We're going to have a kid."