Chapter Text
The first rays of sunlight crept into the bedroom through the half-drawn blinds. Tickled by the warming sensation across her face, Veronica wrinkled her nose as she rolled over, facing the dark side of the room. She fumbled for the covers blindly, dimly aware that most of her body was no longer covered by anything other than her sleepwear. Her eyes peeled open slowly and focused on the body sleeping soundly on the other side of the bed, wrapped in the majority of said covers she was missing on her side of the bed. Splayed out on his back, one arm dangling off the side of the bed, the other strategically draped across his face. Logan had always been a messy sleeper, hogging both covers and space on those occasions when their bodies drifted away from each other during the night.
Back in the days when he'd still been with the Navy, she'd always wondered how he'd actually managed with being cramped into a twin-sized bunk on any of his tours. She just could not imagine the bed hogger that he was to make due in such a tiny space. Or maybe it was just because of this that he'd take advantage of the wide open space he had at his disposal again when he'd actually been home with her and would completely take over their king-sized bed, arms and legs stretched wide as he lay diagonal across the mattress, leaving her only a smidge of space. But she never complained. It was one of the cuter things she loved about him, as it always gave her the perfect excuse to squeeze into that tiny bit of space he left and snuggle close thim.
It was also one of the things he had passed on their daughter. The first time they had stopped swaddling her for a nap, Veronica had come into the nursery to find their baby laying sideways in her crib and upside down. One leg was sticking out through the rails at the front, an arm through the ones at the foot. Her head was tightly pressed against the back rail, covered half by the light baby blanket, but still sleeping soundly. That incident had brought out the crib bumper again and prompted the immediate purchase of a sleep sack.
They'd dreaded the day she'd outgrow her crib and they had to trade it for a toddler bed. There'd been quite a bit of teasing from their friends and calling them overprotective when they'd told them that they'd placed a second mattress in front of the bed even though the toddler bed had a slightly elevated frame that was supposed to keep her from falling off. Better be safe than sorry. Come end of the very first nap time she'd taken in her new grown-up kiddy bed, they'd found Ava sleeping in what looked like the most uncomfortable position they could think of. Sometime during her nap, she'd drifted over the side of the bed, and now hung halfway off. Half her bottom and one leg was still on the mattress, tangled in her snuggly blanket, while the other leg was hanging loose in the air. Her elbows were resting on the spare mattress in front of her bed, her chin securely placed between them, while she was still in a very deep slumber. Two years from that incident, the spare mattress still was pulled out every night just because... like father, like daughter.
Chuckling lightly, Veronica scooted closer to Logan and slipped back under the comforter. Hooking one foot over his calf, an arm tightly wrapped around his midsection, she settled herself snuggly against his body. As if on cue, his arm moved from its position across his eyes to around her shoulders, pulling her in even closer while she nestled her head in his nook. For a moment, she watched the even cadence of his chest rising up and down slowly, then brushed her lips against his jaw in a gentle kiss.
"Happy birthday, handsome," she whispered, noticing the smile that crept across his face.
His eyes fluttered open, and he looked down at her with an incredibly cocky grin before he claimed her mouth with his. His hand slipped under her shirt, fingers lazily brushing up and down her spine, clearly marking his territory and declaring his intensions. A content sigh traveled across his lips when he broke their kiss.
"Can I fully unwrap my present?"
"Mmmh," she murmured, "I was hoping you could help me with something else first."
"I'm the birthday boy," he grumbled, a playful undertone in voice. "Don't I get to decide?"
"Unwrapping this present will be much more rewarding if we do the other thing first."
He shifted, never once breaking the embrace, and came face to face with her as he settled on his side and tucked her in against him. One hand travelling down the length of her thigh, his fingers curled around the back of her knee and he hooked her leg over his. A gentle thrust of his hips, a wicked eyebrow waggle, and he was sure she’d gotten the message loud and clear.
"I can't think of anything I'd much rather do than open my present, devour it in all its glory and then spend the rest of the morning in bed with my wife celebrating a kid-free birthday."
She chuckled at his decisiveness, but deliberately ignored his growing hardness that was pressed so tightly against her body. There was this tiny little thing she had to get out first that would make any birthday-bedroom-celebration so much more worth and meaningful.
"Help me pee on a stick first?"
He blinked at her, absolutely taken aback by her reply. That wasn't what he had been expecting, at least not like this, and especially not on his birthday. They had talked about having another kid, about all the pros and cons, about the whys and why nots. Fifteen minutes into that conversation, Veronica had cut him off in the middle of rattling off all the pros he had so carefully prepared by simply saying that she was gonna stop taking the pill. And that had been that. A mere six months ago.
"Are you sure?"
She shrugged her shoulders slightly, "We'll be ninety-nine percent sure after I've peed on that stick."
"What are the odds of it being positive?"
"Pretty darn good I'd say."
"How pretty darn good?"
"Do you wanna keep asking me questions? Cause I could just take the test instead and we'll know for sure."
"What are we waiting for?" he exclaimed, flipped back the covers and was out of the bed in a jiffy. Standing there in nothing but a white t-shirt and black boxers, he extended his hands towards her, a look of excitement spreading over his features, mixed in with just a tinge of awe and glee.
"You're suddenly all giddy," Veronica chuckled as she crawled to the edge of bed. Straightening, she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Can we agree on something first?"
"That we're messing up the second kid just as bad as the first one?" he quipped, tenderly brushing a strand of tousled hair out of her forehead.
"Let’s keep this between the two of us for now."
“Ava,” he simply stated. There was no need to really mention the temper tantrums she’d thrown when she’d found her parents cooing over all the new offsprings that had joined their close-knit friend circle the last few weeks instead of showering her with the attention and affection she was demanding that very moment. If that was an indication of how life around the Echolls-Mars household would be with another little one joining their family, they were in for quite a ride. A constantly sulking 4-year-old wasn’t particularly a pleasant thing at all, especially if that 4-year-old was a Mars through and through.
"She’ll come around when she meets her little brother or sister for the first time,” Logan said with just that hint of reassurement she needed before he leaned in to peck her lips, “No Mars woman can resist the Echolls charm.”
“From your lips to God’s ears!”
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Veronica set the timer on her cell and placed it on the coffee table next to the pregnancy test. Three minutes of waiting that would feel like a lifetime. She was pretty sure she knew what the test would say, after all her body worked like a clockwork and the only other time she'd been this late had resulted in quite a lot of tears and crying nine months later when that naked screaming pink bundle had been placed on her chest for the very first time. Leaning back on the couch, she curled up against Logan, wrapping her arms around his body as her head came to rest against his shoulder.
"And now we wait." He placed his chin on top of her head, tucking her comfortably into his side. "How long have you been suspecting?"
"A few days," she replied nonchalantly, hoping he wouldn't ask any further how many days it was exactly that she'd been suspecting. But knowing Logan, she was sure a not-so-precise definition such as a few would most probably prompt a subsequent question. And it came only a secont later.
"How many days exactly is a few days?"
She cringed, really having hoped that would be one confession she didn’t have to make, "Eighteen.”
He pulled back a bit and looked at her incredulously, "Eighteen?"
"It kinda went from I'm a week late to I should take a test to I've been so busy, I've just crossed into week two without taking that test. I kinda figured this really is it and I'll just wait a few more days for your birthday so we can take the test together and celebrate properly without the prospect of a kid interrupting us."
"And you didn't tip over during all that time? Who are you and what have you done with my wife?"
"Trust me, it was killing me doesn't even begin to cover it!" she admitted, "The other day at the hospital, when you were holding Tara in your arms and told Mac what a joy little girls are, I was this close to telling you."
They remained silent for a moment, the steady tock, tock, tock of the antique clock that had found its final resting place on the bookshelf the only sound that echoed through the living room. His arm slipped around her midsection, and his hand came to rest against her stomach, fingers splayed wide.
"Do you want a boy or girl?" he murmured, his nose nuzzled into her hair, inhaling the mix of summer breeze and ocean water that was so unmistakably Veronica.
"Any kid of ours is probably bound for trouble,” she chuckled as she lazily patted his chest. “So no preference."
"Another girl would be nice. They really are such a joy."
"What, no boy to level the field?” she snorted, “Someone you can invite to your secret man cave?"
"I'm all about gender equality. I can invite my daughters to my man cave just as well."
Shifting slightly, she pulled back just enough to meet his gaze, “You really do want another girl, do you?”
“Like I told you last time, all I care about is that it’s healthy and has ten fingers and ten toes.”
“So a two-headed cyclopes with four legs and three arms would be all right? Given it has those ten fingers and toes in total only.”
"Cyclopes are by definition one-eyed meaning they can't have two heads. If they did have two heads, they'd have two eyes, ergo no longer a cyclopes."
"They can if just one of the heads has an eye. See? Two heads. One eye. Cyclopes."
He laughed and tickled her side, causing her to flinch and twist and turn, though he wasn’t really sure if it was his playful necking that had caused her sudden jumpiness or if it was the squawking ringtone of her cell that announced the timer had run out.
"Time of truth."
She took a deep breath as she scrambled to her feet and picked up the pregnancy test from the coffee table. Covering the result with her palm before she could read it, she turned back to Logan and held up her hand. Very slowly, she uncurled one finger after another, then removed her hand completely, twisting the test between her fingers so he would see the pregnant or not pregnant on the little stick first. The genuine smile that lit up his whole face a second later was all the answer she needed.
"Best birthday present ever."