Things Are About To Change

[Demeter Lesley]

Demeter Lesley was not sure whether she was over the moon, or completely in another galaxy. Two weeks ago, she had noticed that she had missed her period for the second time. Whilst she was sometimes a little late, she'd never missed two periods in a row. She knew something was up. Having purchased a potion from the local apothecary, Demeter had established the possibility of a pregnancy. It had taken going to a mediwitch to further convince her that she was indeed, going to have a baby. She could not have been happier, except for the small task of telling Audel and then her sister. She was fairly certain she knew how Desislava would react, especially after the major fiasco with Davalynda a while back, but her main priority right now, was how she was going to tell Audel. She wasn't worried that he would be angry, more that he would be hesitant. She'd discussed the possibility of a baby with him before, but he hadn't really seemed to be overly enthusiastic about it. He seemed to have wanted to wait, rather a very long time. However if she waited for him to make the decision, she would be forty by the time she finally got her baby. It wasn't like she had any plans on leaving anytime soon and whilst she would have probably preferred to be married, she liked where her relationship with Audel was right now and she thought this was just an appropriate time. She wasn't getting any younger and neither was Audel. When they'd finally gotten together all that time ago back at her apartment, he'd complained that he was old. She'd shot him down of course, but she was aware of their gap. She didn't worry, nor did she care, but she was aware. She was twenty three years old and she wanted a goddamn baby.

Closing the fridge with her foot, Demeter padded out into the living room with a spoon hanging out of her mouth and a tub of ice-cream. Though Audel disproved of her eating habits, he couldn't quite convince her that healthy food was good for her. She worked out and she ate a balanced meal of junk food, so she wasn't afraid of losing her figure, though having this baby was likely to do that all on its own, not that she cared. She'd do anything for a baby. Smiling at Damide who had hunkered down in the corner of the room to read his latest letter from Desideratus, Demeter walked through the house and then back into the kitchen. "If you want me, I'll be in the bath." Demeter popped the ice cream into her mouth and walked off down the hall way. She was always able to think better when she was in the bath. She wasn't sure why, but it had always been that way for as long as she could remember. She loved the water, probably because it was the complete opposite of fire, something she was deathly afraid of. Fire had killed her parents, apparently she was still not totally over it and probably never would be. Demeter placed the icreceam on the side of the bath and quickly fixed it all up before dropping her clothes into a pile and stepping into the hot water. Smiling to herself, she slid into the water before moving back over to the ice cream. She didn't want Audel to suspect anything until she was ready to tell him. She'd been thinking about a way to bring it up all day, but she wasn't sure where to start. She didn't want to scare him. Scooping the ice-cream out of the tub with her spoon, not even having bothered with a bowl, Demeter set about enjoying her dessert. This was her afternoon tea. Lunch had been something like salad or whatever, she'd liked it, sort of, but mostly she ate those things to appease Audel. Whenever she genuinely liked the food, she tended not to tell him, because then he would never let her live it down. Considering her mantra was "healthy food is gross". If she liked it, she couldn't say that anymore. "Oh Merlin, this ice-cream is so good."​

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[Audel Lesley]

Audel almost tripped over the door mat, he was so tired when he got home. He barely registered Damide running into him and sitting on his leg to swing the boy as he walked. The father just wandered into the kitchen to dump his work bag and started rummaging through the fridge to begin supper. His son was chattering away about his newest letter and he responded with appropriate 'Mm hm's and 'Oh, did he?'s like an expert.
What am I making tonight? thought Audel, barely conscious and pawing through the freezer. It'll take an hour and a half to defrost the spinach for a quiche ... Oh, Hel, what's the spell for that again?
"Papa," said Damide emphatically, and Audel blinked and looked down at his son, who was looking displeased with being ignored.
"Sorry, honey. What was that?"
"I said Deme's eating ice-cream in the bath," Damide told him, his stern face cracking a little into a grin.
"Oh, not again," sighed Audel, bending down to unwrap Damide from around his leg. "I'm sorry. Tell me about the letter in a little bit, I'll be right back." His son nodded and trotted over to the living room corner with his little child-sized beanbag waiting for him.

Audel had made it to their shared bathroom and knocked on the door.
"Princess? Have you got icecream in the tub again? You know it melts faster, that way."
His girlfriend had been acting pretty erratically, lately. Between the two of them, he wanted to ask her if she was ill or needed some time alone, because some days all she wanted was his arms around her, and then the next minute she was pushing him away and telling him not to scold her about her eating habits. They joked about it, mostly, but Demeter was becoming cross with him and he was doing it less. Still, she hadn't stopped eating his cooking. On the contrary; even the vegetables disappeared off of her plate. What was happening?​

 

[Demeter Lesley]

The ice-cream was slowly beginning to disappear as she scooped more and more of it into her mouth. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was aware that Audel had come back home. She wasn't going to love from here though, not until she knew what she was doing. Audel had been working late and so she'd been spending a few evenings in the tub, or some of them alternating between wanting to crawl into her bed and stay there forever and wanting to run out into the middle of Obsidian Harbour and inform the whole of New Zealand that she was going to have a baby. Audel needed to know first so he was her first priority... as soon as she got out go the bath, which probably wasn't going to happen any time soon. To be quite honest, she didn't even know if her relationship with Audel would survive a baby. She knew she wanted one, but she didn't know how he would react. He already had one child and it wasn't like they were anything other than dating at this point and that had been slow going. How long had they been dating, a year and a half? Sometimes it felt like longer, other times it felt like less, but it always felt comfortable and safe, so what was she so worried about?

Demeter sighed as she spooned more ice-cream into her mouth and nearly choked when she heard Audel at the door. She was sitting in the bath, fully clothed with ice cream and she was nearly choking on it. She coughed and spluttered a little bit as she tried to calm herself before hiding the ice-cream under a towl in the corner of the bath and laying back to place her foot on it. It had not occurred to her that there was no water in the bath, so this looked weird anyway. "I don't have ice cream! Damide is a liar!" She pouted slightly, though Audel couldn't see it and frowned. She was being childish, she knew that, but she was getting a little defensive and this was how she acted when she was defensive. "It melts no faster in here than it does in the lounge or bed." She thought she might need to inform him of this as he didn't seem to know. He barely ate ice cream anyway, how would he know when it would melt faster or slower. She was the ice cream expert in this house.
​

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[Audel Lesley]

Demeter made a sound like she had choked on a spoon, and Audel frowned in concern. Consequently, he completely dismissed her assertion of not having icecream in the bath, since her clattering around could only be her hiding the bucket. This wasn't the first time his girlfriend had gone on a sugar-binge, and while he did not approve at all (on general principle, not because he didn't want to allow her), his girlfriend was a hellcat without her favourite treats available.
Audel sighed and leaned on the door, waiting for a proper response. When none was forthcoming, he eased the door open a little, peeked in to glance at Demeter's shoulder, then opened it fully when he realised that she was fully clothed.

"Babe, what are you doing?" he said, coming into the bathroom and shutting the door behind him. There was laughter in his voice as he knelt down beside the tub and put his chin on it. "Sorry I'm late, by the way. I'm going to have to ask Anthony to split the night shifts again. I'm just too tired."
The longer he looked at her, the more ill-at-ease Audel began to feel. Demeter liked to eat in the bathtub (let's be honest, Audel occasionally took a beer with him in the shower) but she did not look relaxed at all, rather she looked a bit ill. "Hey. What's going on, love?" he asked her seriously, putting his head to the side on his arms.​

 

[Demeter Lesley]

Demeter looked up as Audel entered, she was stretched out along the bathtub, her head was back against the wall and she was looking at the ceiling. She watched Audel as he knelt down beside the tub and placed his chin close to her hand. She removed her hand and looked away from him. She was sulking abit, but, who cared, she was getting over the fact that she had her foot on top of her ice cream. It was a ridiculous place for ice cream, that was true, but she had no where else to put it, and she really did want to eat it right now too. Demeter rolled back to look at Audel as he mentioned being back late again. She didn't really mind. She had been finding ways to occupy herself lately so it wasn't so bad anymore. Damide was always around somewhere and Greg fluttered about too. Demeter sighed. She didn't want to tell him like this, but there wasn't much of any other way to tell him. She couldn't exactly... Demeter laughed to herself slightly and sat up a but as Audel tilted his head on his arms. She bopped him on the nose and took her ice cream out from under her foot.

"Nothing, I'm fine really. I was just relaxing until my adorable boyfriend got home." She grinned at him and winked. "I know you don't like being called adorable, but if you keep doing adorable things is it really my fault?" She asked as she presented him with the ice-cream and brought her legs back up to her chest to throw her arms around them. "There really isn't much point hiding the ice cream anymore is there?" She opened it again and spooned some into her mouth. She let it sit on her tongue for a while. Audel had been right, it was melting faster than it normally would, but she wasn't feting up to anything right now. "Oh my god, this ice cream. It's like heaven in my mouth." She looked at Audel and offered him her spoon. "Will you partake, my love?"
​

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[Audel Lesley]

Audel raised an eyebrow at his girlfriend. His knew his French belle like the back of his hand, and while he wasn't exactly being lied to at this time, the truth wasn't forthcoming, either. The ice-cream didn't surprise him at all, but her location was telling; the bathtub was Deme's safe haven, filled or unfilled, and he was becoming impatient with her flippancy. He could only sigh and roll his eyes at being called cute again. I'm thirty-five, damnit, thought Audel, putting on a pout as impressive as Deme's sulk. There is nothing cute about a middle aged man!

Audel sat back onto his buttocks until he was offered ice-cream, and a rather cheeky idea came to his head. His grin was a tell-all, but he'd certainly surprise his girlfriend by leaning forward and accepting her spoon. Without further ado, he dug into the half-melted ice-cream tub and remove less than half a spoonful, popping it into his mouth. Audle sucked on it thoughtfully.
"Hmm. Not bad. I'd prefer apple pie, though." Audel reached forward and plucked the ice-cream from Deme's hands, standing up. "Well! Seeing as you're completely fine, I think the ice-cream's good to go away, don't you?". His smirk was almost splitting his face. Audel's nose wrinkled slightly at the overly-sweet taste still lingering in his mouth, which was his penance for being so cheeky, he supposed. "Unless there was something bothering you, Miss I-Never-Spend-Hours-In-The-Tub-Unless-Something's-Gone-Wrong-That-I-Don't-Want-To-Tell-My-Boyfriend." said Audel in one breath. "Then we can participer à cet together, of course." His pronunciation left something to be desired.​

 

[Demeter Lesley]

Demeter would have fallen over if she had been sitting up. Audel did eat ice-cream, sometimes, maybe... well she was pretty sure that he did on occasion, but she had never really expected him to take her offer. She did manage to crack a smile though when he told her that he would have preferred apple pie. She was about to tell him that he could go make some when the ice cream was suddenly plucked out of her hands. Her eyes widened and she followed it for a second until she was crushing herself against the side of the tub. She pouted and rolled over to sit on her knees. "No! My ice-cream!" She couldn't handle her sadness without her ice-cream. She was an emotional eater, unfortunately, and so she needed her ice-cream. It was her crutch and now it was being taken away from her. Demeter slumped back down into the tub, her face falling in defeat. She beckoned him back and sighed. "You better sit down, and give me back that ice-cream too." She still didn't know how she was going to tell him, but she was just going to have to come out with it. She was excited, yeah, she was sure she was, but she wasn't excited about what Audel might say. He kept complaint about being old and what ever else. He'd never mentioned having another child. She never thought this would be so hard.

Demeter waited for Audel to get comfortable and wrung her fingers together. She took a couple of deep breaths and sighed again. "Okay... " How to start? She shook her head and rolled her shoulders and looked Audel in the eye. Maybe not saying anything was the way to go. Nodding to herself, she carefully took Audel's hands in her own, kissed them, and placed them on her stomach. She was having a baby, his baby, the only question was, would she be doing it with him, or without him?
​

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[Audel Lesley]

Audel couldn't hold the ice-cream against Deme for long; her face was so tragic, it broke his heart. She beckoned him back to her and he followed, placing the bucket on the side of the tub and kneeling down to meet her again.
"Are you going to tell me what's eating you up?" he asked her, running a hand through his girlfriend's hair. Her body language was starting to worry him. Demeter had always been a stress eater; it must have been her Veela blood that kept her wand thin, as well as exquisitely beautiful. He often worried that she would make herself sick if she didn't know when to stop, but by the look on her face, something much more pressing had occurred.

He hadn't been so confused in a very long time with his hands now poised on her stomach. Was she trying to tell him that she had a stomach ache? Demeter's face wasn't one of pain, though, more apprehension and excitement. No one had ever accused Audel of being fast on the uptake.
"You're not ... playing a joke on me, are you, princess?" said Audel slowly. His face was slowly losing its colour, and when he didn't get an immediate response, his hands slid off and he fell backwards onto the floor. Fortunately, he didn't lose consciousness, but merely stared at the ceiling, hands by his sides, white as a ghost.

Eventually Audel uttered a most uncharacteristic phrase.

"Oh s***."​

 

[Demeter Lesley]

</COLOR>

<COLOR color="#000"> Demeter stared straight at Audel for what seemed like hours as she watched him figure it out. She often thought that it was good the man wasn't running for Government, as he had the tendency to be a little, slow, sometimes. Not that she would ever hold that against him. She loved him as he was, quirks and all and it was probably this side of him that kept her coming back. She noticed the shift in his eyes the second he caught on. She blinked when he finally spoke and was only seconds away from voicing the information when the colour on her lover's face turned pale and he fell to the floor. Deme immediately launched herself out of the back tub and landed on the cold tiles with a slight thump, miscalculating slightly and jarring her ankle. But she didn't care right now. Audel was in shock, or sick, or very likely, both. She crawled over to him and kneeled beside him, leaning over him. She was slightly shocked by his reaction, but she supposed she had to expect something akin to this. After all, it was not something they had planned. Rather something that had been thrust upon them that they were just going to have to deal with.

Demeter placed the back of her hand across his forehead, but felt no evident fever. So perhaps it simply was the shock of this. Demeter caressed Audel cheek a second before finding one of his hands again and placing it on her stomach. He would feel nothing yet, but she could, she knew the bean was there and this was something she knew she wanted ever since she was a little girl. "Audel, hun, you okay?" She had her other hand placed on his head. She may have slightly been treating him as a child right now, but she was in the mothering mood, as she so often was with her man. He brought out her maternal side and she knew he would be the prefect father, well, he and Greg. She couldn't ever forget Greg. "Damide's going to be a brother!" She hadn't said it out loud before now, but it felt amazing.
​

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-_- This is crap. I sorry.

 

[Audel Lesley]

The ceiling had the most interesting patterns sometimes. There, a crack in the plaster in the left corner, was vaguely rabbit shaped. Perhaps he would point that out to his future child. Audel jolted back into reality, and gasped a little as he felt Demeter's hand on his head. His own hand was pressed against her stomach, where she had supposedly placed it. He sat bolt upright so that they were eye-to-eye where she'd crouched next to him. Audel looked stricken. This was all his fault, surely. He had a tendency to be forgetful. They doubled up with spells for him and potions for her, for their own protection, per say, but they most must have messed up the timing for this to have happened. Not great at reading people, he searched her face for signs of happiness, fear or anger, and found mostly joy. He tried to find some of that joy, too, but for the moment he felt only guilt. He remembered his first wife's pregnancy, and her complaining and pains and all sorts of other nasty consequences that came with bringing life into the world. He didn't want to do that to Demeter, not when they should have planned it, and prepared, and made sure to have everything ready in time for the arrival.

Audel analysed that feeling for a moment. Supposedly, he wanted to be prepared for a baby with Demeter. Did that meant that this ... was a good thing? He cast his mind back to Damide, and the moment he felt both hands around his precious son. He'd stared for hours, entranced and utterly in love for what (he realised now) was probably the first time ever. A little boy, again, thought Audel. Or a girl! He looked to his hand, still resting on the gentle curve of Demeter's stomach, and felt a lump in his throat grow.
"I'm going to be Dada again," he said faintly. He began to blink back tears. "Oh, Deme." Audel, suddenly flooded with a barrage of emotions, laughed while the tears dropped onto his jeans. "What are we going to do?".​

 

[Demeter Lesley]

Demeter had been worried about the reception she would get with this news. She knew that Audel had gone it alone with Damide, there was no contact with the mother in that respect at all. She also knew that they hadn't been planning this. Accidents happened though and it wasn't like she had done this on purpose. She did want a baby, yes, but she would have preferred to have been married first, it was something her mother had always wanted. She'd lived her life very closely to how her mother had always raised them, but she supposed that this small concession wasn't something overly bad. These things happened all the time. Most of her clients back when she still did weddings had children already, so she wasn't even sure how normal it was to be married first these days. Still, it would have been nice to have the security, not that she didn't trust Audel, it was mostly that she was worried for Slava's poor heart. Her sister had nearly died upon hearing that Danika had kids out of wedlock and also Davalynda. Considering her parents and the rest of the Lesley's were pretty big on marriage, none of them were getting married.

Demeter smiled at Audel and held his hand to her stomach as he seemed to be appropriately processing this news. She wasn't that far along yet, but she wanted to hurry up and meet this baby. She wanted to hurry up and be a mother. This was a good thing for them, she was sure of it. Maybe this would be able to push Audel into deeper commitments, not that she would ever say anything. She just sat there, watching him, listening to his breathing, to her own. She looked down at her stomach, that would not show her condition for a few more weeks. When Audel finally spoke, Demeter looked up, the tears he blinked back entirely visible to Demeter. She laughed with him and pulled herself closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. "We're going to do what we always do. Be happy."
​

 

[Audel Lesley]

Their laughter carried on for some time, both delighted and terrified. Audel pulled his girlfriend closer till he could feel her stomach pressed against him. There was nothing there yet except her gentle curves, but he knew now, and that made all the difference. He started to wonder what they would have; a girl, a boy? Both? Audel suddenly felt a bit nauseous at the thought of two babies, and quickly put it out of his mind. She was barely a few weeks in, they had time to plan. Their laughter finally died, and there was a pleasant silence as they cradled each other on the floor of their own bathroom.

"Demeter, I promise," began Audel, speaking into her hair. "You won't be alone." 'Not like I was' went unsaid. Damide had been one year old when Audel's first wife had left. In hindsight, she was likely suffering from a bit of depression as well as feeling a bit repressed in their young marriage. The first year was always the hardest, but he hadn't had much help even then. This time, he was not alone, and neither was Demeter. Even if things went pear-shaped (Merlin forbid), they could still count on each other to to the right thing and be each other's support.
They stayed that way for long minutes, rocking and smiling, occasionally whispering a few endearments and hopes for the future. When the floor started to get uncomfortable, Audel skipped the middle man and picked Deme up, cradling her in the bridal hold. He hadn't forgotten the ice-cream, too, which floated along behind them. He might even indulge an a celebratory bowl, himself.

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Finis​