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Every time Nico visits Gert and Chase, she almost feels like she’s intruding. She doesn’t know why she feels this way- logically, it doesn’t make sense in the slightest. They’re friends, have always been friends; it’s not like she’s B&Eing their life, or something. But that’s how it feels. Like she’s squeezing herself into a place she doesn’t fit. Like she’ll never have a life that’s as picture perfect as theirs, with their dumb nuclear family and Tudor style house in Massachusetts with the corny porch swing. Even if she’s as happy as she can possibly be- and she is , she so is- she worries that she’ll never be happy the way they are. It’s not like she’s not in love, because Karolina is the one person on earth that she would probably die for, if needed. And it’s not like she doesn’t enjoy her job, or their apartment, or anything about their life.
But maybe it’s not a feeling of intrusion, and more of a green eyed, snarling jealousy. Because this perfect love story, perfect house, perfect town of theirs...well, it makes her feel like a mess. A sloppy, badly put together dumbass who has about a million hairline fissures that threaten to crack at any moment. They have cracked, before, and it was not pretty.
But Karolina was there to pick up the pieces, and Karolina was there to help her through it. And she’s still here. Probably always will be- or, at least, Nico hopes so.
She looks over at her, studying the lines of her face. Her wife is concentrated on the road, her hands clenched on the wheel as she drives the rental car down the highway towards Concord. Nico would have preferred to not be a passenger of Karolina ‘Please Tell Me I didn’t Just Hit Another Mailbox’ Minoru-Dean, but there was no escaping it this time. God, Nico needs to learn how to drive, this is getting ridiculous. Like, technically, she has her license. She was Forced by her mother during her frosh year at UCLA. She can legally drive, she just...doesn’t want to. Or, ‘is afraid to’ would probably be more accurate. But can you blame her? You can’t have multiple people in your life die/very nearly die in car crashes and not be at least a little apprehensive.
“Nico, are you doing okay?” Karolina asks, jarring her from her thoughts.
Her eyebrows crease. “Of course I am, Karrie. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I dunno. Just...I know, sometimes, you get uncomfortable when we come out here. And I know you haven’t wanted to talk about it before- which is fine, like, totally fine- but I thought maybe you’d want to now, so it’s not hanging over you all weekend while we babysit two toddlers?” Nico doesn’t respond for a second, caught off guard by how in tune her wife is to how she’s feeling. She shouldn’t be- they’re married, after all- but still. It feels so nice to be known this way; she’s pretty sure she’ll never get sick of it. “...Or never mind, I guess.”
“No, sorry, no, I meant to respond, I just- I don’t know. Sorry, again. Um-”
“Babe,” Karolina says, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “It’s okay. If you don’t want to talk about it, then you don’t want to talk about it. That’s fine-”
“No, I- um. I just. I just get sort of...jealous, I guess? Not of- not of either of them, specifically, because that’s so stupid, and there’s no way I’d ever be in love with anyone but you, so don’t worry.” Karolina huffs a laugh, amused at her unnecessary reassurances. “I just...their lives are so perfect, you know? With their big house, and cushy jobs, and PTA meetings...I guess it wigs me out, a little. Like, it’s not even that we’re in a place where we could have that kind of life- and I’m happy where we are right now, I really am. But still.”
Karolina rolls that over in her mind for a moment, then says, “First of all, Chase is unemployed.”
Nico, caught off guard, bursts out laughing. Like, it’s true, but she shouldn’t say it. ‘Loving stay at home parent’ may be fulfilling, but it sure doesn’t pay all that much. Or anything at all, actually.
She calms herself down, feeling more relaxed, now. “No, no, I guess he isn’t. But you get it, right? Their whole life is a Hallmark movie.”
“I mean, I understand why you feel that way-”
“Karrie, please. No psychiatry-ing today, my poor heart can’t help it.” Oh, God, she sounds like her mother. Wait, no, the great Tina Minoru would never use a made up word, she’s good here.
“That’s not a word, but sorry. Anyway, what I was gonna say is that Gert and Chase are not as perfect as you think they are. Come on, you know that more than anybody.” Nico flashed back to how idiotic they were in high school, and decides that she agrees, at least on that front.
But because she’s still set on being contrarian for a few moments longer, she scrunches her nose up at her wife. “I guess, but-“
“Remember how Chase proposed to Gert? Remember how he literally got down on one knee in the goddamn shower?” Nico snorts, then nods. “See? Not perfect.”
Nico sighs. “You’re right. I know you’re right. I think it’s just me being dumb, you know? Like, I love my life. I love our life. I shouldn’t feel like this- it’s stupid.”
Karolina brings Nico’s hand to her lips and presses her lips to her knuckles. Her eyes are still on the road, which Nico is grateful for, because it means she can’t see her blush. “Your emotions aren’t stupid.” She turns to look at her, just for a moment. “But I love our life too, Nico.”
Lord give me the strength to not make her pull over so we can make out. We’ll be late and Gert will sniff out why. “Y-you can’t just say that, Jesus, Karrie.”
Karolina smirks, and though her eyes are still on the road, Nico still feels like she’s teasing her. “I say what I want. Oh, look, we’re here.”
She pulls into the driveway of Gert and Chase’s home, and Nico is struck, as she often is when they visit, by how beautiful their house is. Of course, the architect was very clearly drunk when he conceptualized it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not gorgeous.
The house, a Tudor, is a cloudy grey, with deep blue timbered framing the same colour as Gert’s sapphire wedding ring. They both swear that was a coincidence, but Nico doesn’t doubt that it at least swayed their decision when they first moved in. The thick turret on the left side of the house is also grey, and adds a level of asymmetry that Nico wouldn’t have expected Gert to like as much as she does. Gert was always the clean cut one, but this house is architectural chaos, disguised as beauty. Nico supposes that it’s the porch that must have convinced her- not many places these days where you can find a porch swing quite as nice as theirs.
Karolina pulls her out of her thoughts and towards the door, knocking loudly. Her wife’s incessantness makes Nico glad that the Yorkes don’t have a dog- though, according to their plans for Joey’s fifth birthday, that’s subject to change.
The door swings open to a four year old wearing a cowboy hat and a tutu. Joey’s face breaks into a grin, and she turns her back to them to yell, “MOM, AUNT NICO AND AUNT KARRIE ARE HERE!”
“Wow, not even a hello?” Karolina teases, crouching down to Joey’s height. “I expected better from my favourite niece, but-”
Joey crashes into her with a hug, almost knocking Karolina over. She readjusts, though, squeezing the little girl as tight as she can. Joey, of course, is not a fan of broken ribs, so she starts squealing as loud as she can manage. And that’s when Gert steps into the porch.
“Hey, Karrie, Nico, long time no see, why is my kid screaming her head off?”
Joey wriggles out of Karolina’s grip, panting. “Moooom, Aunt Karrie is being succofatiiiing.”
Gert laughs a little, then crouches down to her daughter’s height. “Suffocating?”
“Yeah, that.” She turns to Karolina, arms crossed. “Say you’re sorry.”
Karolina bites down on her grin (which, hot ), then says, “I’m very sorry, Joey.”
Joey nods once, satisfied. “Thank you for the apology.”
She stomps backs inside, and Gert watches her go, shaking her head to herself. “Just like her father.”
Nico snorts. “It’s the actor gene. Don’t be surprised if she wakes up one morning singing Defying Gravity.”
Karolina pouts. “I feel oppressed.”
“Ah, yes,” Gert says, barely containing her laughter, “We all fight for the gays and for women, but how can we forget the most oppressed group, actors.”
“Am I being made fun of?” Chase’s voice calls, and suddenly he’s emerging from the kitchen and into the porch, drying a travel mug with a dishrag. It’s got World’s Best Boyfriend written on it in big block letters, only Boyfriend is crossed out with tape, and replaced with Husband (written with a paint marker, of course. Gert is obsessed with them). “I feel like I’m being made fun of.”
“Never, babe,” Gert says, pecking him on the cheek. For a moment, they do that dumb lovey-dovey thing where they stare into each other’s eyes, until Nico clears her throat to jar them out of it. “Oh, right. Uh, come in, Jesus, you must be freezing!”
Nico is, in fact, freezing. February in Massachusetts is Not Warm. Even when they step inside, closing the door behind them, she doesn’t take off her coat. She and her puffer coat are best friends, now, she can’t just leave it behind . (Yes, this is a blatant ploy to stay so warm she overheats and, like, dies. What about it?)
They follow Chase into the kitchen, where he goes back to putting away dishes like no time has passed. Karolina joins him, because of course she does. Her wife is too damn nice for her own good. One day she’s probably going to break her arm falling out of a tree to get some random kid’s kite for him, or something equally dumb, and all Nico will say is, I told you so.
Well, first she’d coddle her and make sure she was alright, because Nico loves her wife more than anyone else in the world. And then she would say ‘I told you so’.
Just as they’re all mid conversation about The Latest (mostly just the recent antics at Gert’s school- Nico never realized how chaotic the New England educational system was) when Cherry toddles into the kitchen, hands on her hips and eyebrows furrowed. “Mommy, where’s Cody?”
Cody? Did the Yorkes have another kid, and I just forgot? She makes eye contact with Karolina, conveying all this through a single look, but her wife shakes her head. She doesn’t know who ‘Cody’ is, either.
Gert screws her mouth up. “Where’d you last see him?”
Cherry shrugs, wearing that adorable doe eyed expression of hers that says, help me look? Gert gets up from the island, Cherry grabbing her mother’s hand as soon as Gert reaches her to drag her down the hallway in her search.
God, that kid is cute. Even her name is adorable- even if it is a nickname. Her real name is Geraldine, after Chase’s grandmother, but nobody calls her that. It’s Cherry or nothing. It sprung from Joey not being able to pronounce her name when she was an infant, and then everyone took to calling her that. Lucky little duck; Nico always wanted a cool nickname.
~~~~~
About an hour later, Gert and Chase start getting ready to leave. Cody, who is apparently Cherry’s baby doll, has been found, and the little girl clutches it as she says goodbye to her parents. Joey teases her sister for being a sook, but the minute Gert and Chase are out the door, she starts sniffling.
“Aw, were you being tough for Mom and Dad?” Karolina asks, crouching down. Joey nods, then shuffles into her embrace. She rubs her hand up and down the little girl’s back, sharing a look with Nico, who’s comforting a teary Cherry.
This feels so right, to do this with her. Already, she’s got baby-crazy butterflies in her stomach, and they’re here for another two days - how is she gonna survive?
And it’s not that she thinks they’re ready for children. Because, really, they’re not. Nico doesn’t even have, like, a steady job right now- she just does freelance art for whoever hires her. Painting, sculpting, charcoal- you name it, her wife does it. Her ‘studio’ has taken over at least half of their apartment. So, no, an infant doesn’t really fit into that environment. And then there’s the issue of whether or not either of them would even be good parents- well, whether Karolina would be a good parent, is more accurate. Nico would crush it- total mom of the year. But Karolina is a whole other story. She can’t even take care of a houseplant, there’s no way she could take care of a child long term. Babysitting, though; that she can do.
And she’s pretty damn good at it, too. For the rest of the evening, there’s not one- not one!- meltdown, slip-up, or crisis. Joey and Cherry go to bed on time, even. When she texts Gert about it, just as her and Nico settle down with the wine and snacks, she gets three party horn emojis in a row. Three.
She excitedly shows the screen to her wife. “See, I told you we’d be good at this!”
Nico gives her a soft look, then leans in and presses a gentle kiss to her cheek. “You did.”
Karolina turns to kiss her properly, in that simple, easy kind of way from years and years of smooching. God, Nico hates that word. Smooch. Karolina doesn’t really know why, but she just hates it. It’s her ‘moist’. Karolina’s ‘moist’ happens to be ‘ointment’, for reasons that evade her at the moment. It’s hard to focus on anything else when you’re making out with Nico fucking Minoru-Dean.
And then she very nearly spills her glass of wine, and they pull back from each other in a hurry. That could have been very bad for the Yorkes’ cream coloured couch.
Karolina breathes a sigh of relief as she realizes that there are no stains, flopping back onto said couch. Nico huffs a laugh, then curls up against her. She’s eyeing the Yorkes’ brand new baby grand piano, so Karolina isn’t all that surprised when her wife starts, “Hey, do you think they’d mind if…”
“Nope.”
“But it’s, like, brand new,” she says, wary, “Chase bought that thing for her for their fifth anniversary-”
“No, you’ve got your facts wrong. Janet bought that- or, he bought it with her money, I’m not sure which. I just know that it didn’t come out of the Family Funds, and it’s not like Chase has a job to-”
“Right, like a married man with two kids doesn’t have any rainy day cash put aside.” Nico gives her a skeptical look. “Come on, it’s Chase. He’d probably been saving up forever to buy it for her. Which is why I shouldn’t.”
“Neeks, I highly doubt someone who can’t reach the top shelf and sometimes has to shop in the children’s section is all that liable to break a piano . Just play the damn thing, they won’t mind.” Nico twists her mouth up, unconvinced. She decides on a different tactic. “You know, I wouldn’t mind, either.”
Nico sighs sarcastically. “Well, if you insist.”
She gets up, and sits down at the piano, starting up a bit of Tchaikovsky. It’s beautiful, as it always is. You can’t play piano since age six and not become a bit of a master. Karolina wishes she could play an instrument the way her wife does, with such ease and proficiency. Unfortunately, she can’t even carry a tune, much less be handy with an instrument.
“So, are we betting?” Nico asks, distracted.
Her eyebrows crease. “Huh?”
“On whether Chase is gonna get Gert pregnant again. Are we betting? I’d like to. I say...20 bucks? Does that work?” Well, that came out of...nowhere. Nico does that every now and again. She’s quite unpredictable, at times.
“Uh, I mean, sure, because you’re wrong. Come on, a Valentines Day baby? No way.” Like, Gert and Chase are cheesy, but not that cheesy. Right?
“First of all, technically it’s not Valentines Day yet. That’s two weekends away, they just took this one as their little vacay because they knew they’d be too busy.” Her voice is still soft, distracted. She’s paying more attention to the keys than the conversation. “Second of all, the past two kids were happy little accidents, what makes you think this one wouldn’t be?”
Karolina shrugs. “Fair point. And you owe me forty if it’s twins.”
She can’t see Nico’s face, but she can tell she’s scrunching her nose up. “But you just said you thought they wouldn’t. Don’t be contradicting.”
“I’m not being contradicting. I’m raising the stakes. Plus, they’ve got to have twins sometime, right? It’s in the cards, I can just tell.”
“Tarot is my thing, babe, not yours.” Her voice is far away. Karolina can tell that she won’t want to talk for much longer- even if she’s the one who started the conversation. She’s like that. Finicky. Quiet. Sometimes it feels as though she married a housecat in disguise.
“I suppose so. I’m gonna go get some of those snap peas in the fridge, do you want any?”
Nico hums in response, now hunched over the piano as her fingers flit across the keys. Yep. Conversation over.
~~~~~
Nico is avoiding the piano. She played for three hours straight last night, and would have done so all night long, had Karolina not dragged her to bed. She’s just...obsessed. It’s such a nice piano, and so high quality, and she’s obsessed . But she can’t. She’s here to babysit, so she can’t waste the day like that.
Which is what she sticks to, until Cherry toddles up to her, songbook in hand, and says, “Prattice time.”
Nico cocks her head at her, putting down her mystery novel. It’s a good read, even if it was originally printed in Swedish, but the real life mystery prevails, this time. “Practice what, kiddo?”
Cherry points to the piano. “Pano. Haf to prattice.”
Huh. Nico takes the book from Cherry, then leads her over to the piano, helping her onto the bench. They practice together for a while, and it’s extraordinarily fun, if a bit loud. Cherry’s idea of practicing is just banging on the keys as hard as she can. At least it’s only the two of them in the house- Joey and Karolina are outside, tossing a baseball back and forth. Karolina is totally going to get a cold, but she didn’t listen when Nico told her to put on a jacket, so it is officially not her business. She might be convinced into making hot chocolate, though- wait, shit, that’s a good fucking idea, she should do that.
Just as Joey and Karolina come back inside, shivering, Nico exits the kitchen with a tray of hot chocolate in her hand and a small child named after a fruit on her hip. “Y’all thirsty?”
Joey flops down on the couch. “Mom says not to say ‘y’all’ because we’re not ‘dirty yeehaw people’.”
Nico rolls her eyes. “Your mother spent the entirety of her teenage years starting every second sentence with ‘y’all’. She has no right to be cowboyphobic. Now, do you want hot chocolate or not?”
Joey reaches out for a mug, wrinkling her nose. “Mom also says not to use fake words.”
Karolina snorts, taking a mug. “Gert is such a hypocrite. You can say as many fake words as you like, okay? Even if you say a thousand right here right now, it still won’t beat how many she’s come up with.”
Joey grins. She’s missing her front tooth, which Nico somehow didn’t notice until now. What the fuck, she is so selectively attentive.
From her position on Nico’s hip, Cherry yawns loudly, basically announcing to the room that it’s time for her nap. Nico hands off the remaining mug to her wife, then takes Cherry to put her down for her nap. She manages to get her to sleep, even if it is a bit of a struggle. Who knew two year olds were so bad at doing what they’re told? Nico spent, like, fifteen minutes tucking her in, Christ. Although, it was a very cute fifteen minutes.
For the next while, her, Joey, and Karolina play a very intense game of Monopoly. This is where Nico learns that four year olds aren’t that great at money management. Well, the typical four year old, anyway. When she was that age, her and her piggy bank had a very intense relationship. Mostly because her mother never let her smash it with a hammer, so she had to find very creative ways to get the money out. Usually these plans involved Gert somehow, because she was, and still is, the world’s greatest instigator.
~~~~~
After Monopoly, the rest of the afternoon goes just fine, just perfect - until Karolina is tasked to handle supper.
Now, the thing is, Karolina has tried to learn to cook. She even took lessons from Molly, once, but even her prowess in the kitchen did nothing to help Karolina’s disastrous attempts. Once, she fucked up pasta. How does that even happen?
But Nico handled dinner last night, so now it’s her turn. Karolina doesn’t think that that’s particularly fair, seeing as all she had to do was reheat the lasagna Chase made. But a deal is a deal. And, besides, now Nico has to put the kids to bed. Good luck with that one.
She looks through Chase’s large collection of cookbooks, trying to find something easy to make that doesn’t take hours. It’s almost funny, that Chase is so good in the kitchen now- he used to suck even worse than she did. But, apparently, he started to learn to cook when Joey was a baby. According to him, stay-at-home dadding gave him a lot of extra time around the house, and he didn’t want to waste it.
She finds a recipe for something called Fennel and Lemon Risotto (?), sees how easy it looks, and goes at it. Unfortunately, she starts off...a little too enthusiastic. Turns out, she really, really doesn’t know how to chop fennel. Or how to Not burn rice.
As the burning smells fill the room, Karolina panics, pulling the pan off the burner and all but throwing it in the sink, flicking on the water. Steam billows from the sink, which she should have expected, really, but how was she supposed to know that cold water touching a hot pan would create more steam than your average sauna?
“Babe?” Nico’s voice asks, and Karolina whips around to find her wife at the kitchen doorway. “Why has the kitchen become a hot springs?”
Karolina pouts at her, not in the mood for teasing, and Nico takes on a comforting expression. “Aw, Karrie,” she says, closing the distance between them to wrap her arms around her middle. “Don’t cry.”
She pouts some more. “Stop poking fun at me, it’s not nice.”
Nico looks up at her, a twinkle in her eye that tells Karolina she doesn’t mean one word of what she’s about to say. “I’m not poking fun, Karrie. I appreciate that you-“ a smile starts twitching at the corner of her mouth. “I appreciate that you tried.”
Karolina mock-glares at her. “If you want to leave the kitchen to go crack up at me in peace, you can. I won’t mind.”
The last word breaks the seal, and suddenly peals of laughter are erupting from her wife. And, of course, her laughter makes Karolina start laughing, and by the time they’ve finished they’ve both got tears in their eyes. God, her face is so red, she probably looks like a blonde tomato.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Nico says, breathless, “let’s just order pizza, alright?”
Karolina agrees, and a half hour later, the pizza guy shows up with a half cheese and half pineapple pizza. Cheese for Nico and Cherry, pineapple for her and Joey. Nico makes a fuss about her pizza tastes, as she always does- but, hey, it’s not Karolina’s fault that she married a woman with no taste buds.
After the kids are put to bed, they cuddle up on the couch with wine and a cheesy romcom. It’s nice, even if they almost wake up the kids with how loud they were laughing. They didn’t, but it was a close call. It was a really badly written romcom, okay?
Eventually, they head off to bed, cuddling up in the king-sized bed and dropping off into dreamless sleep.
~~~~~
Nico wakes up the next morning to a yelling four year old jumping up and down on her bed.
“MOM AND DAD ARE BACK TODAY! MOM AND DAD ARE BACK TODAY! MOM AND DAD ARE-“
Nico snatches Joey mid jump, pulling her to solid- fluffy, goose feather- ground. Joey giggles, trying to wrestle out of her grip, but Nico doesn’t let her. “No escape!”
“Let me go!”
“No escape!”
“Let me-“
“ Will the two of you SHUT UP?” Karolina yells, blindly grabbing a pillow and tossing it in their direction. Oh, so that’s how she wants to play?
She and Joey share a look, each grabbing a pillow and hovering over Karolina, who’s face into bed and has no knowledge of their plans. Nico counts down from three with one hand, and when they get to zero, they both attack Karolina with the pillows.
Karolina yells in surprise, but doesn’t stay shocked for long- she grabs a pillow of her own and retaliates within ten seconds. It devolves into an all out war from there, the three of them ruthlessly attacking each other with the pillows. Joey cackles the entire time, clearly revelling in the chaos.
She’s still cackling by the time they tire themselves out, and has gone so crazy with power that Karolina has to toss her over her shoulder and carry her out of the room, telling Nico that she’s going to go get started on breakfast. Based on last night, Nico should probably be worried, but even Karolina can’t fuck up Eggos.
She’s proven right, for once, and breakfast goes off without a hitch. Well, it’s going off without a hitch- until the alarm dings, alerting them to the door that’s just been opened.
Joey immediately jumps up from her seat at the table and books it to the front porch. “YOU’RE HOME!!!”
By the time Nico, Karolina, and Cherry have joined her, Joey is already babbling excitedly to Gert and Chase about the weekend’s exploits. Chase is holding her in his arms, and the look in his eyes are so adoring that she melts, just a little.
Gert sees them and immediately makes grabby hands at her two year old, who’s grinning like a maniac as her mother picks her up for a hug. She squeezes tight, pressing her face into Cherry’s curls.
“Welcome home,” Nico says, and they both laugh a little, spouting apologies for not greeting them. But she gets it. Of course she does.
They stay for another couple days, just visiting, and then head on home to L.A.. Two weeks later, Karolina gets a phone call from a very excited Gert, and subsequently owes her wife 20 dollars. Five months after that, Karolina wins back her twenty dollars, plus twenty extra- turns out, her gut feeling about the Yorkes having twins? Way more than a gut feeling.