Chapter Text
♪♪ In the day we sweat it out on the streets, of a runaway American dream ♪♪
The gravelly voice of Bruce Springsteen filters out of the bluetooth speaker by the microwave, but what Tim’s interested in is Lucy’s voice…singing along in perfect harmony.
It’s a Thursday night. A warm breeze blows in through the open kitchen window, carrying with it the smell of the honeysuckle they’d planted together last weekend. Tim breathes in the sweet scent as he watches Lucy dance around the kitchen, helping him make fish tacos. She’s radiant, her hair wild around her shoulders. No makeup, wearing bike shorts and one of his faded LAPD t-shirts.
There was a long time, after Isabel, when Tim didn’t ever think he would get this.
They’ve been married for 43 days. And Tim has cherished every single one of them. He feels comfortable with Lucy in a way he never did with Isabel. He’s different because of Lucy. He’s a better man because of Lucy. For a long time now she’s been the thing he orbits around. She’s the center of everything. He thinks about her, he dreams about her, he’ll never tire of looking at her.
He can’t wait for a lifetime of Lucy …
He’s slicing a red onion for the tacos and enjoying the duet of Lucy and Bruce when he makes the mistake of glancing up from what he’s doing.
♪♪ I want to know if love is wild, babe, I want to know if love is real ♪♪
Lucy shakes her hips to the music, effectively making it impossible for Tim to look away. The split second distraction is enough for him to forget to curl his fingertips away from the knife, which slices into his middle finger. Blood blooms up immediately, making the presence of the cut known before he even feels the bite of pain.
“Fuck,” he mutters, moving to the sink and turning on the faucet to let the cool water run over the wound.
Lucy’s there in a second, murmuring “let me see” as she pulls his hand over to inspect.
It’s not a deep cut, and she determines it won’t need stitches or anything…just some bacitracin and a bandage.
“I’ll go grab a Band-Aid,” she says, kissing Tim’s cheek before moving off to their bedroom. She thinks there’s a box under the sink in their ensuite. Or maybe they were in the hall bathroom? They had to have Band-Aids somewhere . Tim had always been so anal about keeping fully stocked first aid kits around the house, but when Lucy had moved in…well, the usual Tim tidiness and order had kind of been kicked to the curb.
Not that he complained. Lucy had brought chaos, yes , but also life . She had filled the silent corners of the house with laughter and painted the gray walls of the kitchen yellow and covered the cold hardwood floors with patterned rugs. She, quite simply, had turned his house into a home .
She’s rummaging around under the sink in the master bath when she notices the box of tampons, nearly full and shoved to the back of the cabinet.
Huh.
She pulls them out and studies them like she’s never seen tampons before. And now that she’s looking at them she knows that she hasn’t touched this box, hasn’t even thought about tampons, in a long time. Definitely not since the wedding. And it’s definitely been over a month since the wedding.
She’s late.
Immediately, she’s counting days and thinking of events and trying to remember the last time she had her period. The gears in her brain spin and spin as she tries to think back. Okay, so she hasn’t had it since the wedding. And before the wedding…she’s not sure. Her bachelorette weekend had been two weeks before the wedding. They’d spent four days in Napa and she knows she didn’t have her period then. She’s pretty sure she didn’t get it at all in the two weeks between the bachelorette and her wedding…it’d been such a chaotic two weeks of finalizing wedding plans and honeymoon plans and time off work. No , she thinks, she’d remember if she’d had to deal with her period while running around like a crazy person. She definitely hadn’t had her period in the weeks leading up to the wedding.
Which means she’s not just late. She must be very late. Like two months late.
Part of her is wondering how the hell she didn’t notice before now, but she’s been busy . First busy with plans and then busy with being blissfully happy and content to be Tim’s wife. She’s kind of been walking around with her head in the clouds for awhile now, just enjoying every moment she gets to spend with him.
And, of course, she never was good at tracking her period. She’d gotten a lot more lenient with birth control after becoming intimate with Tim, forgoing condoms and just relying on her implant. The benefit of having Tim inside her, with nothing between them, far outweighed the risk of getting pregnant. Besides, she was never really worried about an accidental pregnancy with him, because the idea of having babies with Tim never scared her. But still, she never really thought it would happen..the implant was supposed to be over 99% effective. And now that she’s thinking about it…it was kind of at the end of the line and didn’t she have an appointment coming up in a few weeks to get a new one?
Panic flashes through her mind. She’s not scared about having babies with Tim. But they haven’t really talked about it in anything other than a “someday” hypothetical. They never talked about a timeline. They certainly weren’t trying .
Lucy’s still standing there clutching the tampon box when Tim suddenly appears, walking into the ensuite and triumphantly holding up his bandaged finger.
“I found a first aid kit under the kitchen sink,” he states proudly, before he notices the look on her face. “You okay, Luce?”
Lucy swallows and stutters out a faint, “I’m…I…don’t know.”
Tim crosses to her in one short stride and grabs her biceps, looking into her wide eyes. “What’s wrong?” He looks down, notices the box of tampons in her shaking hands. “Is it…did your period just start?”
Lucy shakes her head slowly, stares at the tampon box. “No. I don’t have my period.”
“O..kay,” Tim slowly states, confused and concerned. “You’re scaring me, baby. What’s going on?”
The fear in his voice snaps Lucy out of her daze and she finally looks up into his anxious eyes. “I’m late. Really late.”
Tim might’ve been confused if she had said this in any other scenario…but the fact that she’s trembling in their ensuite, holding a box of tampons, makes it pretty clear what exactly she means by late .
She’s pregnant.
The thought hits him like a freight train, bringing with it absolute, unbridled joy . He’s going to be a dad . They’re going to have a family . Except…
Lucy doesn’t look happy. Lucy looks terrified.
He quickly schools his expression, not wanting to share anything about how he feels until he knows how she feels. Wanting her to know that he’s with her and wants what she wants, no matter what.
“So…you’re pregnant?” he asks tentatively.
Her shoulder rises in a little shrug. “I don’t know. I literally just realized I was late.”
Tim nods slowly, processing that information. “Well…do you feel pregnant?”
Lucy gives him an exasperated look. “I don’t know! I've never been pregnant!”
But as soon as the words are out of her mouth she knows she’s lying to herself. Because she’s never been pregnant, but she knows the signs and symptoms. And then she’s thinking about how she'd felt nauseous a few days last week. How on Monday Celina had given her a knowing look and told her that her aura was changing. How she’d spent all day yesterday fidgeting with her bra, her breasts unusually tender. How she's been so tired lately but she'd thought it was just because of work and studying for the Sergeant’s Exam.
Tim watches as understanding and realization bloom across her face.
Her eyes are comically wide when she looks up at him. “Oh my God, Tim...I think I'm pregnant.”
And hearing it out of her mouth? Tim’s plan to follow her lead goes right out the window. He can’t stop the giant smile that spreads across his features. Because he’d known that with Lucy he was going to get the life he always dreamed of, but now it was actually happening .
Lucy notices the smile on his face (she’d have to be blind not to) and blinks up at him. “You’re…happy?”
Tim is nodding emphatically, still smiling, when he blurts out, “Yes. Yes . I’m happy.” But her expression still hasn’t given any real indication to how she’s feeling about this, so Tim gathers his courage and asks slowly, “how…how are you feeling about this?”
Lucy breathes in and then out, gathering her thoughts. “I just…we never really talked about timelines. I’m just shocked, I guess. And I don’t know how ready I feel to be a parent. But I’ve always wanted a baby with you. ”
Tim understands her hesitation. It’s a lot to think about…being responsible for a whole other human. And neither one of them had great parents to model for them. But he rushes to reassure her anyway.
“Who cares about timelines? I want this with you. I've wanted to build a family for so long . Have a baby and give it a better life than our parents gave us. And this is the perfect time because I love you and we can do anything together and we’re us .”
His declaration seems to wash away the last of Lucy’s fears and a smile spreads across her own features, a hand falling down to cradle her flat stomach.
“We’re us,” she murmurs, tears of joy and devotion and love gathering in her eyes. “All three of us.”