Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This love left a permanent mark.

This love is glowing in the dark.

These hands had to let it go free.

And this love came back to me.

February 3rd

“What did she say?”, Colin asked while Penelope struggled. She held the phone between her ear and her shoulder while she tried to put on the jacket and not drop her bag.

Colin had called her the second she’d left the doctor’s office. Well, no that wasn’t quite true. He’d called three times while she’d been in the doctor’s office and she would have been annoyed if she hadn’t known how anxious he was.

“She told us not to get discouraged. Three months aren’t that long”, Penelope sighed. Colin didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “You still there?”

“Yeah. If she’s not worried we shouldn’t be worried either, right?”

Penelope thought that his voice sounded slightly off but she couldn’t tell over the phone.

It had all started a bit over three months ago when Colin had helped Anthony and Kate out of a pickle and had babysat Charlotte quite spontaneously. Penelope had been wedding dress shopping with Eloise (which had proved to be a venture in itself starting at 10am with brunch and ending at 8pm with drinks at a bar) so he had been all by himself with a 2 year-old.

Colin, who loved all of his nieces and nephews to death, had, however, never had to actually take care of any of them so he’d been quite nervous and had called Penelope (who honestly didn’t really have much experience with children either) a total number of eight times with the most mundane questions like ‘Can 2 year-olds eat carrots?’ or ‘I should not let her near water at the park, right?’

And while he’d complained endlessly about how much work kids were and how he’d even forgotten to eat while with her, he’d also caught it. He’d caught the baby fever.

So for the following two weeks all Penelope had heard was how cute Charlotte was when she fell asleep on his chest, how much she’d laughed at the faces he pulled, how cute a girl with Penelope’s face and his eyes would look. And while she’d rolled her eyes at first, not really sure if she wanted to jump into that phase of her life just yet, he’d eventually worn her down because if she was being honest with herself, she really wanted a girl with her face and his eyes. And so she’d stopped taking her birth control pills and he’d literally spent a night worshipping at her feet for it.

“I’m not worried, Colin. I went in for a routine check-up. I wouldn’t have even asked if you hadn’t been such a pain in the ass about it.”

She couldn’t see him but she was sure that he was smiling when he said, “Whatever you say, Bridgerton. We’ll just have to try harder. Talk to you tonight? I miss you.”

“Yes, of course. Miss you, too!”

Colin had been on a business trip to Brazil for the last four days. He was there to talk to environmental organisations and eventually travel to the Amazon rainforest to take pictures for the magazine.

While he’d never quite given up on his instagram, still updating it regularly and making some money through advertising, he’d slowly started focusing on getting more involved in the travel magazine. It had started with him expanding his column and taking on a permanent position at the magazine by changing his focus from simply talking about people's journeys to talking about the effects climate change has on people around the world. Right now he was additionally preparing a column on climate-friendly travelling which is how he found himself in Rio.

While they’d done these trips together as often as they could this past year, this time it hadn’t been possible since Penelope was currently in the process of having her second novel published which meant a lot of meetings, calls and discussions with her agent.

And so he was there alone and while she was very jealous, since she’d always wanted to go to Brazil, and she missed him very much (this was, after all, only the second time they were apart for longer than a night since they got together, really). But they skyped every night before bed.

That evening, while she was lying on her side on the couch, the laptop with Colin’s face on the coffee table in front of her, she asked, “Have you thought about what I asked you to think about?”

“Darling, you ask me to think about a lot of things so you’ve got to be a bit more specific here”, he answered, seeming a bit distracted by the banana he was currently peeling.

“About your job and the travelling. With a baby.”

“Right”, he murmured, looking up for a glance before he said, “I have, and my answer has not changed.”

Penelope huffed. She felt like he hadn’t really thought this trough and it really put her on edge.

“I feel bad”, Penelope said. And she really did. She didn’t want him to give up one thing he loved for another thing he’d love. But she absolutely did not want to be the mum that stayed at home with the baby while the husband was off travelling the world. And she absolutely did not want him to resent her for it. “I don’t want you to have to choose. I just… I can’t think of a way to do this that is family-friendly.”

This had been one of the things they’d discussed most when talking about having a baby. And they’d fought about this. Mostly because Penelope just couldn’t imagine how he could give it up so easily.

“Pen, I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again. I like travelling, I like the freedom. But I love you and I love the family we are going to have sooner or later. So it’s not even really a decision. In fact, I’ve talked to Claudia and Lauren about it and they said they’d definitely consider giving me a more permanent role at the magazine.”

Penelope didn’t say anything but stared at him wondering once more if it really was that easy for him. If he’d really just give it up because he'd choose her over his own happiness any day.

“Look, it’s not like I don’t love the little editor’s stuff I’ve done before and even if that won’t work out, then there will be something. I feel very strongly about the fight against climate change so I might get more into that. Figure out how to do that. I’ve also still got the instagram and can restructure that if needed. Plus your novel is doing really well. Our children won’t starve. Stop worrying.”

And when she still didn’t say anything, just stared at a spot on the wall, the photo wall in their apartment, where there was a photo of them on their wedding day, their real wedding day, he sighed, “Pen, my therapist always says to trust your partner to make the right decisions for themselves. So now I’m asking you trust me on this. You’re not making me quit anything. I’m choosing to change things.”

She only smiled at that. Him throwing the therapy back in her face when she was the one who’d suggested it in the first place. He loved doing that, quoting his therapist, and although it bugged her when they were actually fighting and he started to go on about some shit his therapist had told him, she couldn’t help but grin at how he’d outsmarted her here. 

“Besides, it’s not exactly a selfless decision. I was the one bugging you about having a baby after all.”

And finally, she laughed.

March 15th

Penelope struggled with the lock as she entered the apartment, the inconspicuous brown bag clutched tightly in her left hand. 

“Hi”, she mumbled as she entered the apartment, hoping her voice didn’t sound as nervous as she thought it did. “Why is it so cold in here?”

“I just got home as well. Already turned up the heating”, Colin, who was sat on the couch muffled up in a big blanket and working on his laptop, said.

Penelope walked over, dropping a quick kiss on his cheek before making her way out of the living room as stealthily as possible. She hoped he wouldn’t notice. She really wanted to get to the bathroom as fast as possible without raising suspicion.

“So that’s where it starts”, he sighed rather loudly and pointedly in her direction. 

She rolled her eyes but stopped. She knew he only started the dramatics to bug her but she couldn’t help it. She had to ask. “Where what starts?”

“My wife comes home, I get a kiss on the cheek and she is off again. Not even married a full year and here we are.”

She thought about what to do. The bag she was currently carrying held a pregnancy test and she really wanted to get it over with without him knowing, mainly so he wouldn’t get his hopes up and be disappointed if it came back negative. 

“Sorry”, she said, dropping the bag inconspicuously and walking towards him again to kiss him properly. “Really have to pee.”

And she was off again, laughing as he shouted after her, “I’d hold it in for you. Anything to kiss you.”

When she’d finally closed and locked the bathroom door behind her she breathed out a sigh of relief. It’s not that she didn’t want to share this with him. Of course she did. But she also knew he’d wanted this for four months now and it was stressing him out more than she ever would have thought possible. And since all she really went by at this point was her period being three days late (which was not really late at all) and a gut feeling, she did not want him to be disappointed.

With shaking fingers she opened the packaging, reading through the instructions carefully, her heart beating out of her chest before squatting down to… well… pee on the stick. 

As she he stood there, staring at the stick and knowing she’d have to wait a full five minutes she couldn’t help the tiny spark of hope that had weaseled its way inside her chest from spreading. And she paced and paced and wondered how it’d feel to look at that stick and it say positive and be… alone. In the bathroom.

So she huffed once before opening the bathroom door and stepping outside and back into the living room. Colin was still on the couch, his back to her when he said, “Do you want to get take out tonight?” at the same time she said, “I just took a pregnancy test.”

He turned around on the couch with a whispered, “What?“, the laptop slipping off the couch (which made her wince, she knew how expensive they were) while she mumbled, “Yeah, we can get take out”.

“Forget the food, did you just say you think you’re pregnant?”

“Maybe? It’s a bit of an off chance but… it’s in the bathroom. I didn’t want to look without you.”

And he looked at her, his eyes boring into hers and grinned, no beamed, the smile spreading across his whole face while she nibbled on her bottom lip. She could feel her heart rate pick up at the way he was looking at her, just like it always had at the beginning when she’d been so secretly in love with him her body hadn’t known what to do with the emotion.

They just remained like that for a second, just staring at each other from across the room both grinning stupidly and it felt like if she reached out she could actually touch and feel the love between them in the air.

“So do you want to go look?”, she asked after taking a deep breath.

He jumped up on the couch, standing unsteadily for a second before muttering, “Yes, yes. Yes I do.”

He sounded nervous and Penelope hoped that he wouldn’t be disappointed. That their hopes wouldn’t be crushed.

But then it happened. Maybe it was because he was so nervous and his mind was somewhere else, maybe it was because he’d forgotten that he’d had the blanket around his shoulders.

He jumped up onto the back of the couch like he’d done a million time before and attempted to jump down, but his foot somehow got caught in the blanket and he tumbled down, hitting his head hard on the floor.

“Shit, Colin”, she screamed and hurried towards him, the panic nearly closing up her throat when he didn’t move right away.

He was just laying there, face down, and with shaking hands she tried to turn him onto the side when he mumbled, “Ouch.”

He turned over slowly, carefully and she gasped.

“Colin you’re bleeding. I’m calling an ambulance.”

“No”, he mumbled. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He tried to sit up but couldn’t. “Get the pregnancy test.”

She ignored him, dialling to get an ambulance while she untangled the blanket from his feet so she could apply pressure to the bleeding wound on his forehead.

It all felt like a blur. To go from being filled to the brink with nervous excitement to being filled with nervous dread in a matter of seconds. 

“They said to make sure you don’t fall asleep and to turn you on your side”, she mumbled, her hands shaking. She could hear her own panicked breathing while he just lay on his back, looking up at her slightly dazed.

“Don’t panic”, he mumbled while closing his eyes. “It’s bad for the baby.”

 “Don’t close your eyes. Please. Just look at me. Can you turn on your side?”, she asked her breaths coming fast. “I don’t… I can’t turn you, you’re too heavy.”

“Uff, wow. That hurt”, he grinned in that stupid dazed way and she wanted to hit him and kiss him and make sure nothing like this would ever happen to him again.

But he did turn on his side for her and he grasped for her hand, holding it while they waited. Waited for what felt like hours but was in reality only around 10 minutes.

“I’m just locking up and coming to the hospital straight away”, Penelope said as he was lifted onto the stretcher. 

“No, I don’t need a hospital”, Colin mumbled, grabbing one of the EMT’s hands. “Pen, check the test. I just need to know…”

But they were already wheeling him out of the apartment.

“Mrs. Bridgerton?”, a doctor asked upon entering the waiting room and she jumped up right away.

“Yes! Yes, that’s me.”

The doctor smiled at her kindly as he was shaking her hand and the vice grip her heart had been in for the past hour and a half loosened a bit.

“The head wound is superficial, which is also why it bled so heavily. He’s got a concussion though so we’d like him to stay overnight. But all in all, he’s fine”, he said, then after a short pause. “Very talkative. Something about a test?”

Penelope giggled.

“Either way, you can go see him now.”

“Thank you”, she nodded. “Thank you so much.”

She took a second before she actually opened the door to his room. Her heart still felt like it was racing and she couldn’t quite get over the shock of it all. There was a big part of her that felt like crying, but she pushed it down. It wouldn’t do any good and he’d only worry.

So she swallowed once and steeled herself before opening the door.

“Hi”, she murmured as stood in his doorway. He was lying in bed, eyes closed. “Are you allowed to sleep?”

“Are there rules against sleeping in hospitals?”, he mumbled but opened one of his eyes and grinned at her sleepily. “Come here.”

She walked over, her hands clasped in front of her. 

“You really scared me”, she murmured when she stood beside him and he took her hand to kiss the palm of it.

“Sorry”, he whispered.

“Are you in pain?”, she asked and pushed the hair away from his forehead. His head was bandaged and she felt like crying when looking at him.

“A bit. But the nice nurse gave me painkillers.”

“The nice nurse?”, Penelope asked her eyebrows raised. “Was she also the one that got you this single room?”

“Mhm.”

She kissed his forehead, swallowing heavily before taking his hand and sitting on the edge of his bed.

“So it was negative, huh?”, he asked, his voice unusually quiet and strained.

“What?”

“The test. You didn’t say anything so I guessed…”

He wasn’t looking at her but at a spot on the ceiling. His hands were bunched up in the white blankets. And it was exactly the kind of look she’d wanted to avoid in the first place. 

Which is why it took her a few seconds to answer. She considered just not saying anything. Telling him she hadn’t looked and that they’d find out when he returned home. 

But something inside her told her that they could use some good news right now. 

“I haven’t… I haven’t looked yet”, she said and leaned down to reach for her bag. “I brought it, though.”

“You did?”, he exclaimed, his voice excited again and he attempted to sit up while holding his head. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t want to look without you.”

He looked at her, holding himself up on his left hand, while his right hand reached for her face and pulled it towards his.

“I love you”, he mumbled before kissing her, his lips moving slowly, tentatively as if not quite there  and now Penelope couldn’t stop the tears. 

He only noticed when she took a shuddering breath and broke the kiss.

“Don’t cry”, he attempted to console her and kissed away the tears on her cheeks. “I’m fine. You’re not getting rid of me that quickly.” Then after a short pause. “We are getting rid of that blanket, however.”

She laughed through her tears, something between a sob and a giggle escaping her. 

“Now, if you don’t show me that stick soon I’ll get a nurse and tell her you’re endangering my health by not telling me whether we’re having a baby or not.”

She snorted, “No. Not the nurse”, while rolling her eyes and taking out the stick.

“Ready?”

“I’ve been ready for months, sweetheart.”

She turned it around.

And when they saw the two pink lines clearly telling them that they were going to be parents in a matter of months, he grabbed her and pulled her down on the bed with him, whispering, “Thank you” with a choked up voice and kissing her senseless.

She stayed with him for as long as she could that night, snuggled into his side on the hospital bed and running her hand through his hair while his hands were basically glued to her stomach. 

And the night ended as absurdly as it had begun when he mumbled sleepily, “Can’t wait for my oranges to turn into cantaloupes”, before burying his head in her boobs and falling asleep.

April 19th

“You ok?”, Colin asked squeezing her hand. 

“Yeah. Just give me a second”, Penelope said resting her head on the headrest, her eyes closed.

“Was it my driving?”

“It is your baby”, Penelope groaned. “It’s either hungry or making me throw up. There’s no in between.”

“I feel like it’s ‘our baby’ when you’re picking out furniture and clothes but my baby when you’re throwing up”, he pouted but quickly recovered at the look she threw him. “Alright. That’s cool. I’m fine with that.”

Some days she didn’t know how to do this for another seven months. Penelope knew she already loved this baby dearly but it was also absolutely killing her. She was tired most of the day. Her boobs hurt and her skin broke out in all kinds of weird ways. She didn't get how some people could claim that they liked being pregnant. This sucked.

She spent most of her mornings leaning over a toilet and she would have been fine with that if the joke wasn’t on her. Because apparently morning sickness didn’t mean that you were only sick in the morning. She was basically sick all day and whenever she wasn’t, she was absolutely starving.

“Ok, let’s go”, she said and unbuckled her seatbelt.

They were having dinner at Benedict’s today to celebrate Alexander’s fifth birthday. They’d gotten him ‘Cars' bedding and Penelope had had a hard time convincing Colin that 1) their child wouldn’t need bedding for at least a year and 2) she absolutely did not want a ’Cars’ blanket.

“Penelope, Colin”, Sophie greeted them as they entered the little cottage they lived in. “You look… ill.”

Colin snorted softly while Penelope said, “No, no I’m fine. Colin just drives like a madman. Where’s the birthday boy?”

Sophie did not look convinced but didn’t say anything. They hadn’t told anyone about the pregnancy because… well… their doctor had said that some couples like to wait till they’re out of the first trimester and while Colin had wanted to scream it from the rooftops right away, Penelope wanted to wait. She didn’t think she could bear it if something happened and they were forced to tell everyone.

“He’s in the garden testing his new bike” Sophie said as she released herself from Colin’s bear hug.

Once outside, Colin immediately made a beeline for Charlotte who was sitting on Anthony’s lap and munching on an apple.

“Pen, please do give him a daughter soon”, Anthony said with amusement in his eyes as Colin dropped kisses all over Charlotte's face. “He keeps stealing mine.”

And before she could stop herself she muttered, “I’m literally working on it.”

Anthony probably wouldn’t even have noticed if she hadn’t gasped, put her hand over her mouth and if Colin hadn’t turned around, Charlotte on his arm and whispered, “I’m so glad it was you that messed up.”

And then things happened all at once. 

Kate, who had somehow creeped up behind her, screamed, “Damn!” Then, “Sophie, you won!” while Francesca laughed behind her.

Anthony jumped up, immediately walking towards his brother, taking Charlotte from his arms to put her down and embrace him. Penelope had to look away. It felt like a rather intimate moment and she didn’t really want to cry right then.

Gregory walked over to hug her and whispered in her ear, “Good luck raising two children” while glanced at Colin warmly, then winked at her.

Daphne appeared from inside the house and had tears in her eyes when she looked at everyone embracing Colin and Penelope and pieced two and two together.

Violet was next when she arrived with a present on her arm, saw Anthony and Colin embrace and exclaimed, “Penelope is pregnant, isn’t she?” She rushed over then, kissing Penelope’s cheeks and muttering that she couldn’t wait to become a grandma.

“You’re aware you have 10 grandchildren already, aren’t you?”, Colin grinned as he reappeared by Penelope’s side, sneaking an arm around her waist and pulling her closer to kiss the top of her head.

And then, finally, Eloise appeared in the entrance to the garden yelling, “Why am I always the last one to know these things when she’s my best friend?”

June 9th

“I am absolutely melting in this heat“, Penelope cursed as she turned over in bed, kicking the sheets away from her and kicking Colin in the shin in the process.

He only groaned, grumbling something under his breath and turned over. Away from her. 

They had been out late last night celebrating Gregory’s graduation from university and Colin had had quite a few drinks too many. As his wife continued to huff and puff beside him, Colin tried to remember what exactly had happened yesterday. He was hardly ever hungover but today. Today was brutal. He felt like his whole body hurt from top to bottom and the fact that Penelope continued to kick him (and not subtly either) did not help matters either.

He remembered the beginning of it. They’d had dinner at his mum’s and he’d fed Charlotte and they’d made a huge mess. Kate had pretended to be angry because of the mess and Penelope had not been able to stop staring at him. 

He’d originally planned to refuse to have drinks, for a number of reasons. Firstly, because he’d promised Penelope (even if she said that she didn’t really care) that they’d do this together and he wouldn’t drink anything either as long as she couldn’t. He thought that this excuse would work wonderfully because, secondly, he did not like drinking with his brothers for the sole reason that things always seemed to escalate when they did.

Whenever they all got together to drink, things just seemed to take off. One time, when he was still in college, they’d hired a stripper for his mum’s birthday party the following week, then forgot about it the day after. Save to say Violet Bridgerton was not amused. Another time they stole their mum’s pall mall set and broke into a private park to play it. No one would have been the wiser if Benedict had not started throwing up in the middle of the game. Again, it would have been fine if Benedict threw up like a normal person but he didn’t. He screamed and roared and made the most hilarious noises while throwing up and so naturally, someone heard them and alerted the police.

All of it was, of course, fun but Colin was a married man, an expectant father now, so he really did not want to get arrested last night. Which is why he did not want to drink. 

Lying there, as he was now, feeling half dead, he couldn’t help but wonder when, how and why he’d changed his mind.

 “Colin, can you open the window?”, she asked and he considered pretending that he hadn’t heard her for a fraction of a second. But then he remembered that she was pregnant and often a bit uncomfortable these days so the least he could do was open the window for her.

“Sure”, he said and fought a groan once he opened his eyes, the light nearly blinding him. Once he got up he really felt his headache as he grabbed for the handle on the window. This was horrible. 

“Don’t tell me you’re hungover”, she laughed as he let himself fall back into bed. “I thought you don’t get hungover.”

“I should have specified“, Colin whispered, throwing one arm over his eyes, his whole face contorted in pain. “I don’t get hangovers, except when I drink with my brothers.”

She giggled and he opened one eye to stare at her.

She was beautiful, flushed as she was. There was finally real colour in her cheeks again after the endless weeks of throwing up each morning. Her hair was in a tousled bun on top of her head and her face was wrinkled from where she’d slept on it. But she’d never looked more stunning to him. 

“Did you just laugh at me?”

“Well, let me enjoy this. It’s been the other way around far too often.”

“Did I look this great waking up next to a hungover you? Because you’re a sight”, he said before throwing an arm around her waist and pulling her towards his chest, her back to his front.

“No, stop! Colin. You’re hot”, she chuckled and tried to wiggle away again.

“Aw, thanks sweetheart”, he whispered in her ear and bit it softly.

She squealed and laughed.

“No, you’re warm. I’m already sweating as it is.”

“I don’t care”, he murmured and pulled her closer, slipping his hand under his T-shirt, the one she always wore to bed, and starting to run his hand up and down her stomach. “You can sweat on me all you want.”

And then he stopped dead in his tracks.

“There’s a bump“, he whispered and as he said it he could feel the smile spread across his whole face.

“What?”, she said, obviously confused.

“You’ve got a bump”, he repeated, pushing himself onto his elbow and laying her down on her back so he could look.

And really, there it was. The bump. His bump. Their bump.

“There’s not… what?”, she said now pushing his hand away and running her hand over her own stomach. “How? I could swear it wasn’t here yesterday…”

Colin only grinned. That stupid, happy, elated grin he always had in these moments. These moments that felt so absolutely, unquestionably perfect. These moments that he usually captured with his…

“Stay right here”, he mumbled and jumped up, his head screaming in protest but he didn’t care. He stumbled into the living room, desperately looking for a camera. Any camera. 

“Where is… shit”, he grumbled as he stubbed his toe. “I could swear it was… Right.. HERE!”

He picked up his camera, slinging it over his neck before sprinting back into the bedroom and stopping at the foot of the bed to take the picture. To capture this moment for all eternity.

“Push up your T-shirt”, he mumbled as he raised the camera to his face and after some grumbling and mumbling about being 'embarrassed' she did. 

“Are you done?”, she asked after he’d taken the hundredth photo. Of her tiny, nearly invisible bump. Of her fingers sprawled across her stomach. Of her breathtaking smile. Of her adorably flushed face. 

“Yes”, he said and crawled up on the bed to lay down beside her again, the camera still in hand.

“Give me that”, she mumbled as she she pushed herself up, grabbing for the camera and straddling his legs the second he lay down. 

Colin smiled, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious but also so incredibly happy as his hands found her bump again.

“It’s really there”, he mumbled. “We’re really having a baby.”

She only grinned at him as she raised the camera to her face and whispered, “I want to see the face you’re making right now for the rest of my life” before snapping the picture.

July 13th

“God, it’s hot in here”, Penelope groaned as she entered the apartment and let the door fall into the lock behind her. “I can’t do this anymore.”

It was only July, she was only in her 20th week of pregnancy and London was currently suffering through another heatwave. It had been entirely too hot for weeks and it was only getting worse. 

Colin stuck his head out of the kitchen. 

“Which is why I’m only making a salad”, he grinned as she walked over and kissed him. “How was your day?”

“You’re aware we’re having dinner at my mum’s tonight, right?”, Penelope said as she wiggled herself between him and the salad and stole a piece of tomato from the bowl. 

“How could I forget”, he said as he put down the knife and sneaked his arms across her waist, resting his hands on her bump and rubbing softly. “Has she been moving a lot today?”

They’d found out that the baby was a girl last week and Colin had been absolutely ecstatic. Truly, Penelope had been too but she’d not really cared as much about the gender as he had. He’d wanted a girl ever since he’d gotten so close to Charlotte and while he’d said he would be happy either way, Penelope knew he’d really, really hoped for a girl.

She’d also finally managed to feel the baby move a few days ago while she’d been at a book signing. She’d gasped and reached for her stomach which had made Colin, who’d been there to take pictures, freak out.

“No, only a bit”, Penelope said, happily munching away on the salad in front of her while rubbing the spot where she had just kicked. She was surprised he let her. He normally hated it when she stole food while he was cooking. Then again, he’d been much more lenient with her when it came to food ever since she was pregnant.

“Can’t wait till I can feel it”, he mumbled, kissing along her neck while his hands slowly moved from her stomach up towards her breasts.

Another thing that had changed once she’d entered her second trimester was her libido. She was horny half the day and hungry the other half. Now that she thought about it, she had basically turned into her husband.

“Wait”, she sighed. “It’s too warm for this kind of exercise.”

“Who said you needed to move?”, he grinned and turned her around, pushing the salad bowl out of the way and helping her up on the counter while his hands moved under her dress, quickly followed by his head.

“Where are we?”, Penelope asked as she looked out the car window and up at the little terraced house in front of them.

“We’re meeting a realtor”, Colin mumbled and upon seeing her face immediately added more forcefully, “All I want us to do is look. We don’t have to like it or take it. I just want you to take a look. And keep an open mind.”

Penelope's heart dropped and she could feel her blood start to boil. She swallowed heavily, her face set in a grim frown.

“I don’t get why you keep pushing for this. I already told you I don’t want to move out. We’ve got a spare room. It’s fine.”

“Pen”, he sighed heavily. They’d been having this argument for weeks now and she knew she was being stubborn about this. But she was also hurt that he kept pushing this even when she’d made it abundantly clear that she was done discussing it. “It’s just not sustainable. You’re the one that keeps complaining about how badly insulated it is. It’s too small, even for the two of us. It doesn’t have an elevator, how do we want to get a stroller up and down the stairs when we’re by ourselves?”

She only looked out the window of the car. She knew she was being irrational. She just hated that he was pushing this so much. That he was so willing to give up that apartment. The one she had moved into. The one that he had fallen in love with her in. The one that had started them. 

“Hey”, he said, grabbing her hand but she snatched it away. “Can you please talk to me about this?”

“You can go meet that realtor and look”, Penelope said and got out of the car. “I’m going for a walk. I’ll meet you here in what… half an hour?”

With that she slammed the door and stomped away.

“Are you two having a fight?”, Nigel asked as he looked at Penelope across the room. She was sitting next to her sisters and holding a glass of apple juice in her hand while she was pretending to listen to Prudence and was rather pointedly not looking at Colin.

They’d sat through dinner fairly quietly, letting the others speak. Colin hadn’t eaten much and neither had Penelope, which quite honestly worried him a bit. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t help it. Pregnant women needed to eat more, didn’t they?

“Kind of?”, Colin said. He couldn’t believe even Nigel had noticed something wasn’t right. That was not a good sign at all.

“What about?”, Nigel mumbled while fishing a fly out of his glass, once again proving that he’s got the sensitivity of a rhinoceros.

“The apartment. Us staying there with the baby is just not sensible and for some reason she doesn’t even want to discuss it.”

Penelope cast him a quick glance but immediately averted her gaze again when she saw that he was looking at her. He hated this. He always hated when they fought but he would take her screaming at him any day over this silence where he felt like he’d hurt her in some way. Only that he didn’t know how.

Nigel nodded, taking a sip of his gin tonic before he said, “Oh, right. The one she moved into with you back when, huh? Is that such a great apartment?”

And suddenly Colin knew. He couldn’t believe that it had taken Nigel Berbrooke to snap him out of his idiocy. Of course. That’s why she didn’t want to move. Because the apartment was more than an apartment to her. To them, actually.

Colin didn’t say anything for a few seconds, only nodding at Nigel once before he excused himself and got up. He walked towards the kitchen pointedly looking at his wife, hoping that she would follow him.

He looked around the room while he waited, snatching up a bread roll from the counter. He couldn’t believe he’d been this daft. Of course she’d be mad that he wanted to move out of the apartment. 

Penelope was a bit sentimental on her best days, they both were to be honest, but now that she was pregnant there was a new edge to it. Last month she’d cried when he’d made her dance with him in the kitchen. When he asked her why she was crying, she blubbered that ‘This song was playing on the radio when you visited me in the coffee shop once’.

She’d also bought children’s apple juice packages at the supermarket because she claimed that he’d drunk one of them the night he suggested she move in with him. She also really craved apple juice most nights so he wasn’t complaining that she’d bought in bulk. He’d already had to go on an apple juice run at 3am in the morning once. He didn’t exactly look forward to another one.

When he’d finished the bread roll and Penelope still hadn’t appeared, he sighed heavily and was just about to walk back into the living room to take his spot beside Nigel and listen to him talk about his new hobby, sailing, when Portia stood in the doorway.

“Oh”, she said, smiling. “Sorry, I didn’t know you’d be in here.”

“Yeah, I just had another bread roll, hope that’s ok”, Colin said leaning back on the counter.

“Of course.” The silence stretched between them uncomfortably. He’d never been on the best of terms with Portia Featherington, mostly because of the how she’d been the cause of many of Penelope’s insecurities in the past. 

 “I… I know it’s not my place to say anything and I know Penelope doesn’t like to listen to me but I… she sometimes holds onto the past a little too strongly and I think it’s good that you’re pushing her to let go of that a bit.”

Colin nodded politely. He was surprised at her perceptiveness and even more surprised that he agreed with her, partly at least. They were both guilty of that. Holding on to the past a bit too strongly. But he didn’t think it was always a bad thing. If she hadn’t held onto her feelings for him for all of these years, who knew where they’d be right now. 

But then again, they were starting a completely new chapter of their lives. It was time for them to make new memories. It was time for them to give their children the chance to make memories in a place that would be their childhood home. A place where they could grow up.

“Thank you”, he said and threw her a warm smile. She really wasn’t as unobservant and dull as he sometimes made her out to be.

They’d driven home silently, Penelope staring out the window while he was driving. The whole time he’d wanted to do nothing more than hold her hand but he was afraid she’d rip it out of his again. So his hand remained on the steering wheel while hers remained by her side.

She stormed out of the car as soon as he’d parked it, basically running up the stairs to get inside. If he hadn’t been feeling like absolute shit, he would’ve found it funny and cute, the way she wobbled slightly while running.

He sighed and got out too, prepared to trudge in after her and figure out a way to get her to talk to him, when he had an idea. Instead of following her he went to the little ice cream shop they both liked, the one they’d visited after the cinema, and got a whole tub of apple flavoured ice cream.

When he opened the apartment door he immediately saw her sitting on the couch, the phone in her hand.

“Where have you been?”, she asked. “I called you. I was worried. I thought you were right behind me.”

He smiled softly. At least she still worried for him. That was a good sign, right?

“Sorry. I got you some ice cream”, he said holding up the container.

“We just had dessert at my mum’s”, was all she said and Colin sighed. Right. This would’ve been too easy. 

“Yeah, cool”, he mumbled and trudged into the kitchen to find a way to put this enormous tub of ice cream into the freezer.

“Wait”, she called after him. “I… What flavour?”

“Apple.”

She bit her lip looking absolutely adorable. He wished he could take a picture of the way her face scrunched up.

“Ok, yeah. I’ll have some.”

He grinned, hopping into the kitchen to get two spoons and then sitting down on the couch beside her, putting the tub of ice cream into her lap and throwing his arm around her shoulder.

“I get it”, he murmured once she’d started eating. “I get why you don’t want to move out of this apartment.”

She didn’t say anything for a while, only swirled her spoon in the ice cream without really eating any. And he wondered whether he’d been too pushy. Maybe she wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. 

“I know it’s irrational and immature and stupid but I feel like this place is just so us…. I’m scared to let it go”, she whispered.

“It’s not stupid”, he said and pulled her a bit closer to kiss her head while he leaned back on the couch. He felt like he could breathe a bit more lightly again. At least they were talking.

“I feel selfish because I know you want this and it’s better for the baby I just can’t… I don’t know.”

The way she sat there, leaned against him her fingers fidgeting, he cursed himself for not having seen it sooner. That this wasn’t about her being stubborn. This was about her being scared.

“You do realise that I didn’t fall in love with you because fate conveniently placed you in this apartment, right?”, he said and was rewarded with a smile. 

“I also didn’t fall in love with you because of how entranced you were with all my things in this apartment those first few days.” 

Another smile.

“I also didn’t fall in love with you because of how cute you look when you’ve got your feet up here on this coffee table while watching a film.”

A giggle.

“Or how hot you look standing in that tiny kitchen in your pyjamas while you’re cooking breakfast.”

A laugh.

“I would have fallen in love with you anywhere. Because you’re you.”

She finally looked at him and raised herself up a tiny bit to drop a kiss on his chin.

“I understand being sentimental”, he continued while rubbing her arm. “Hell, I have a whole wall consisting of photographs I took. I’m as sentimental as you can get.”

He grasped for her chin softly so she would look up at him.

“But there’s no reason to be scared. I love you. I love our family. And I love this apartment and what it’s done for us as much as you. I’m just also ready to continue this journey somewhere else.”

And when she didn’t say anything, he added.

“I feel like we’ll always have this place, you know. The one thing that was ours and the thing we can go back to, through your writing, by looking at pictures, by talking to each other. I want our kids to have the same thing. To have a specific place, a specific smell in mind when they think of family.”

Again she remained silent for a tad before sighing heavily, wiping at her eyes and saying, “Yeah, alright. I hate that you make sense.”

He laughed, kissing her soft lips and nipping at her bottom lip quickly before she broke it and said, “But if you ever manhandle me again and drive me to some godforsaken place to make a decision about our future without discussing it with me first, I’m cutting off your balls.”

October 23rd

It was three months later that the day had finally come. The day they were moving out of their apartment and into their brand new semi-detached house, the one they’d purchased (with the help of Anthony and his connections) just four weeks ago.

Penelope was in her 34th week of pregnancy and slowly but surely moving around a lot was starting to become exhausting.

“You know”, Colin yelled from the living room. “I’m not sure if you heard me the first 43 times but I’ll say it again just for the fun of it: You can sit down. I’m handling it.”

Penelope rolled her eyes. She was currently putting all of the stuff they had in their kitchen, pots and pans and cutlery, into boxes. She wasn’t really surprised that they were the kind of couple that would start packing most of their stuff the night before they’d arranged for all of their friends and family to help them move. That didn’t make it any less annoying though.

“It’s fine, Colin. It’s not exactly heavy lifting”, she yelled back, biting her tongue as hard as she could.

Ever since he’d felt the baby move Colin’s overprotectiveness had gone into overdrive. He told her when to eat, when to drink and when to sit down. And she’d born it with dignity and out of love for him, until he’d asked her one day how often she pooped which was also when she snapped. 

She’d ripped the baby book out of his hand and had thrown it back in his face. 

Now she sometimes saw him staring at her from across a room trying hard not to have an aneurysm when he saw her lifting something he considered to be 'too heavy' or standing for too long.

Then again, she considered herself lucky. Sophie, but Kate especially, had horror stories to tell about her pregnancies. Now that she thought about it, Penelope remembered that Anthony had needed to be taken to the hospital once during Kate’s second pregnancy. She’d just never known that he’d brought it upon himself.

“Ok, Pen… I swear I’m trying but I know that pan and I know it’s heavy”, he said from the doorway, rubbing his forehead.

Penelope breathed heavily, just like she was learning to do in lamaze classes. Breathe through the pain. Or in this case, annoyance.

“Ok, well. How about you let me pack the DVDs then and you do this?”, she asked smiling sweetly. Too sweetly. The kind of sweet smile one puts on before murdering their husband.

“Ok. Sure.”

She got up and walked towards him, trying hard not to run into him on purpose or hit him in the kidney with her elbow while passing him.

He grinned though when he saw her face and caught her hand as she was passing by.

“Hey”, he whispered.

“What?”

“I love you.”

“I know and it’s annoying.”

He laughed.

And just like always his laughter made her laugh. And just like that her annoyance ebbed away. His laughter was like the waves of the sea taking away with them all the annoyance and hurt and pain she might have felt.

“Ok. Alright”, she giggled when he pulled her close and leaned down to bite her shoulder. “I love you, too.”

That night they bid farewell to their apartment, Colin drinking some apple cider out of a paper cup while Penelope stuck to apple juice. 

They sat on the living room floor, Colin leaning against the wall while Penelope was sitting between his outstretched legs and was leaning against Colin, the wall of pictures, or what used to be the wall of pictures, opposite them. There was only one picture on there now.

And the whole thing felt bittersweet as they stared at the first picture, a polaroid, he’d taken of them together in the flat that first night.

“Did you ever think that this would be us when you first moved in here?”, Colin asked as he rubbed her belly right where their daughter was currently kicking.

“Not even in my wildest dreams”, she said and smiled as she looked up at him.

October 24th

“Pizza’s here!”, Penelope screamed into the house where the whole family was scattered assembling furniture, unpacking boxes or just causing mayhem.

Colin felt someone throw a wrench at him when he didn’t react right away. 

“Dumbass. She’s pregnant. She can’t carry eight boxes of pizza”, Anthony muttered before adding. “Throw that back to me before you leave.”

“Ow! Yeah, I know that”, Colin said. “But if I come running right away she’ll be peeved again because I’ve ‘sat around waiting for her to need my help’.”

He’d said the last part in a voice that imitated his wife quite poorly, he had to admit. Still, it made Gareth who didn’t really know the family well yet, laugh.

“Oh, you’re laughing now”, Colin cackled. “You’re dating Hyacinth. She’ll most definitely be the worst of them all.”

With that, he turned around and ran downstairs. 

It was just in time as well, as Penelope was apparently attempting to convince the delivery boy to hand over the pizza boxes to her.

“Ok, alright. I’ve got it. Thanks, mate”, Colin said and threw him a wink before taking the boxes.

“I could’ve…”, but before she could even finish the sentence, the look Colin threw her shut her up. “Yeah. Ok. Thanks.”

He walked into the living room, Penelope hot on his heels. He looked at her over his shoulder, grinning.

“What?”, she exclaimed while laughing. “I’m hungry, ok? This baby is a beast. I don’t even know why I’m surprised. She’s your daughter after all.”

Colin put down the boxes on the dining room table (yes they had a dining room now) and turned around, leaning down to kiss her belly. He knew that he was wearing one of those stupid smiles again, one of the ones she loved and hated for making her heart stutter, but he couldn’t help it. When she said things like that she was making his heart stutter.

“Aggie don’t listen to her. All you’ve got is a healthy appetite. That’s nothing to apologise for”, he whispered against her belly.

“Aggie?”, Kate asked as she entered the room and started sniffing around the boxes, quickly followed by Benedict, Sophie and Eloise.

“Shit”, Colin muttered and looked at Penelope apologetically, wincing. She’d wanted it to be a secret. In case she wasn’t an Agatha when she was born.

“Please don’t tell anyone”, Colin pleaded. 

“Don’t tell anyone what?”, Hyacinth and Eloise said simultaneously and Penelope snorted at his side. Of course it’d have to be those two. The two members of the family that could sniff out secrets before they even existed.

“Ugh”, Colin groaned while Penelope only laughed.

“The name of their baby”, Kate said and pointed at the two of them with the pizza slice in her hand.

And Hyacinth had the glimmer of madness in her eyes when she said, “Oh, you’ve decided on a name?” while Eloise squealed, “Oh, I’m so excited! What is it?”

Finally, the rest of the family appeared, Anthony being unusually friendly with Gareth while Gregory trudged behind them, rubbing the back of his head and muttering, “I didn’t say that I didn’t like Lucy. I just said that I like Hermione more”, to which the whole family rolled their eyes.

“What was this about a name I heard”, Sophie said and Colin recognised her giddy expression. She loved gossip.

He looked at Penelope pleadingly, silently asking for permission to tell them. Otherwise they’d all just bug him for the rest of the day and he didn’t know how to keep himself from cracking.

“Alright, Colin and I decided on a name”, Penelope said then, taking him out of his misery. “Do you want to do the honours?”

“Agatha”, he said and saying it out loud made him feel prouder than he’d ever felt. Especially as he looked at Penelope who was sitting down, a slice of pizza in one hand while the other one was cradling her belly. “Aggie. Agatha Bridgerton.”

Everyone started cheering, Benedict leaning over to give Penelope an awkward hug while Eloise punched Colin in the arm and said, "I like it. It's got class.”

And when everyone had calmed down a bit again, Gareth, who could usually be found at the back of the group, observing quietly and keeping an eye on things, said into the short silence that filled the room, “You named her after my grandmother?”

December 12th

Agatha Bridgerton was born on a Wednesday. Colin Bridgerton would never forget that it was a Wednesday that his daughter first saw the light of day, simply because he’d joked with Penelope that morning, claiming he could very well go and get his last Christmas presents since his daughter would not dare be born on a Wednesday. Colin hated Wednesdays.

Naturally, she had dared.

So Colin had been out, shopping for the last Christmas presents when Penelope had been visited by none other than Eloise herself. The baby had been unusually active all day and she’d had a hard time sleeping for days now, so she was grumpy and tired when it started.

The contractions hadn’t really been anything unusual at first. She’d had them before, Braxton Hicks contractions that was, and so she was kind of used to it by now. It was only when they started to come at regular intervals that she started to worry.

Eloise was prattling on about some flowers Phillip had had sent to her office, when Penelope felt another one. One that she actually had to breathe through.

“Pen, you ok?”, Eloise said as soon as she saw Penelope sitting up a bit straighter and clutching her belly.

Penelope only nodded and waited until the pain had passed until she said, “Erm, ok. Shit. El, I think I’m in labour.”

And that was the first time Penelope had ever seen her best friend speechless. Which was shocking, considering she’d talked to her yesterday about how her due date had been the 7th of December and her sister and two brothers had already had kids. Surely, this couldn’t come as that big of a surprise.

“Right”, Penelope said and it sounded more like a question. “Ok, I’m calling Colin.”

Colin naturally did not pick up but the phone went straight to voicemail. He hardly ever picked up, now that Penelope thought about it and they’d have to talk about this sometime. 

That finally made Eloise snap out of it. 

“Should we go to the hospital? I haven’t got a car but I can call an ambulance. Or drive yours! Yes, that’s what we’ll do.”

“Colin took the car so he wouldn’t have to carry the presents”, Penelope said and rolled her eyes at their stupidity. “But we don’t have to go to the hospital yet anyway. It’s still a bit early.”

Eloise did not look convinced but said, “Ok, it’s your show.”

So that’s how they spent the rest of that morning. Eloise attempting to distract Penelope while she suffered through contraction after contraction, becoming more worried with each one because a) they were becoming more painful and she wondered how much more there was to this and b) Colin still hadn’t called.

Colin ran through the shopping centre one last time, trying to think if there was anyone he’d forgotten. It was really the last opportunity they had to take care of the Christmas shopping since he had no desire whatsoever to do it with a newborn and he sure as hell wasn’t going to leave his family’s side these first few weeks.

When he was quite determined that he really got a present for everyone, he got himself and Penelope a pretzel and made his way home to her. 

It was only when he checked his phone before getting into the car and saw that it was dead that his blood ran cold. Shit!

Penelope was 5 days over her due date as it was and he’d only reluctantly left the house today, reassuring her over and over again that he’d keep his phone close by. Now here he was, racing home and hoping that he’d find her sitting on their couch, miserable because she was sick of being pregnant, tired because she couldn’t sleep well, annoyed because Eloise had talked her ear off all day but fine. 

He parked the car, not even bothering with the garage they had, and raced inside as inconspicuously as possible. He did not want her to know his phone had died if everything was fine anyway. 

But it wasn’t. As soon as the door fell into the lock he could hear his sister approaching, a thunderous look on her face. 

“She’s in labour, you complete idiot!”, then adding more loudly, “What kind of complete ass knows his wife is pregnant at home but doesn’t charge their phone?”

Colin didn’t even look at her but pushed past her right away, basically sprinting to Penelope’s side and falling to his knees at her feet.

“I’m so, so, so, so sorry. Are you ok? How far apart are they. Why aren’t you at the hospital?”, he knew he wasn’t fully coherent but rather a stuttering mess but all he felt was the blood rushing through his body, the way his breathing was coming fast and how his hands were shaking when they grasped for hers.

“It’s fine”, she said and he couldn’t believe it when she smiled at him and ran her hand through his hair. “They’re still seven minutes apart. It’s fine.”

Colin sat back on his heels, exhaling loudly. But none of his worries were really eased.

“Ok, let’s go”, he said, getting up and stretching out his hand to help her up. 

“It’s fine, I’d rather stay here for a bit longer.”

Colin looked at her as if she’d grown two heads.

“You’re joking”, then turning towards Eloise. “Please tell me she’s joking.”

He could feel his breathing become more shallow again.

“Doc said that we can wait till they’re five minutes apart. That it’s most likely going to be a long labour anyway. I’d rather not be in a hospital room the whole time.”

“But, Pen. Listen…”, he started when she cut him off with, “Are you the one pushing this baby out of your body? No, so it’s up to me.”

So all Colin could do was sit down beside her, strumming his fingers nervously against his leg and chuckle nervously when she pointed towards the remote, signalling for him to hand it to her and asked, “What do you want to watch?”

In the end she had been correct, like she usually was, even if Colin hated to admit it. Three hours later, after endless nagging on Colin’s part and pointed looks by Eloise, Penelope agreed to be driven to the hospital.

There they spent another eight hours waiting for the daughter to finally arrive. Penelope had refused the drugs at first and when she finally cracked, at Colin’s insistence, it had been too late.  

Still, she’d done marvellously. Colin had spent the last few years being astonished by Penelope, marvelling at her beauty and intelligence and abilities. But it had all been nothing compared to the wave of love and reverence and admiration he’d felt during those hours of labour.

Colin would two days later, when his two elder brothers took him aside to have a drink on his new baby daughter, break down and tell them how absolutely horrible and wondrous it had been for him. To watch her suffer like that to bring their child into the world without being able to help. 

They only hugged him because they understood.

He’d been there for every second of it not even daring to go to the toilet, and while she would afterwards tell him that she couldn’t have done it without him, Colin knew that to be untrue. She hadn’t really needed him, even in hour seven of her labour when she’d lain there and claimed that she couldn’t do it anymore, he had known that she could.

He’d suffered along with her until the moment had finally arrived. 

The moment that he would never forget for the rest of his life. When he heard the cry of his baby daughter and the whole world must have stopped for a second and tilted on its axis because he knew that he would never be the same. There was no way to describe what he felt.

And when she was handed to Penelope, all pink and angry and absolutely beautiful, he knew that he would burn down the world for her. His daughter.

He cried and laughed and reached out his hand to touch hers and when she grasped his finger right away, he knew, he just knew, that he would spend the rest of his life making sure she was happy and taken care of and know without a shadow of a doubt how much she was loved.

Later that night, and it was the middle of the night by then, when Penelope and his daughter had both fallen asleep, absolutely exhausted from the day, after he’d taken about a thousand pictures of Agatha with four different cameras, he sat in a chair in the hospital room his daughter in his arms. 

And although he’d held plenty of babies in his arms in his lifetime, this was different. He felt insecure and awkward and as if every moment was so momentous that he’d have to cherish it for a lifetime.

And he thought of his dad. The way he must have felt sitting here, a brand new baby in his arms. How he must have made whispered promises to each of his children. Promises to be there, to protect them, to love them. Promises that were never meant to be broken.

And he missed him, more than anything in the world, more than he’d missed him in years. 

“You know”, Colin whispered, dropping a ghost of a kiss on his daughter’s forehead, “I can’t promise to always be here for you. I’d love to do that, but I can’t. But I do promise to always love you. Wherever you are and wherever I am, you will know that I love you.”

December 15th

“Colin, what are you doing?”, Penelope murmured, her voice betraying her sleepiness.

She sat up slowly, a little disoriented and dizzy and Colin couldn’t help but smile shyly from where he stood. He felt like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“I don’t know, I freaked out. She’s so tiny. What if she stopped breathing?”

Penelope let herself fall down on the bed again, wincing slightly while Colin looked down at his daughter again. She slept right next to Penelope’s side of the bed in a small crib. He’d wanted to buy a baby breathing monitor but Penelope had said they weren’t really known for their accuracy and she was probably right. Still, he couldn’t help but feel slightly panicked every time she was out of his sight. So he checked and watched her. Sleep and breathe and exist and be the most wonderful human being. Multiple times a night.

“She won’t, babe”, Penelope sighed. “Can you please just come to bed? You must be exhausted.”

“It’s fine”, he whispered back. “I’m not that tired.” 

But when she only looked at him with raised eyebrows, he ran his hand over Agatha’s head softly before making his way over to his side of the bed and snaking his arm across Penelope’s waist. 

“I’m not sure if I’ve told you today but: I love you, I admire you, I thank you, I worship the ground you walk on.”

Penelope giggled, the kind of giggle that betrayed her exhaustion but the kind that also still made his stomach fill with butterflies and she said, “You’ve only told me about eighty times these last few days.”

“Well, that doesn’t make it any less true”, he whispered and kissed the top of her head. Her forehead. Her eyes. Her nose. Her mouth.

“I love you. You’re amazing. Thank you.”

And she looked at their daughter sleeping beside them when she said, “Thank you.”