Work Text:
The Birds and the Bees
Or,
Waverly and Nicole discuss the future of their family
It’s almost time for bed, but Ariel soon-to-be-Earp is not in the tiniest bit tired. That’s why, after tapping the Movie button on her device, she’d earned a smile from her CoCo and Storks from Waverly. That had been an hour ago before they’d left for their double date, with Auntie Nonna and Uncle Doc.
Alice says that they absolutely, positively cannot think about going to sleep until her My Nonna and Daddy come home from their date.
“Why?” asks Ariel, pulling the weighted blanket over her shoulders. She promised herself that she’d stay up until her CoCo and Wavy came home, but her eyes are so heavy and her glasses slide down her nose.
“Because they might bring us ice cream from the restaurant, Ar. You don’t want to miss out on ice cream, do you?” Alice squeezes her cousin’s hand and looks at the television. She tilts her head and hears the microwave from the kitchen. Their Uncle Jeremy left to pop another bag of popcorn a few minutes ago. Perfect. She’s going to be so awake, that she can practically hear the midnight snack of ice cream calling her name. A thought pops into her head, and when thoughts pop into Alice Earp’s head, they pop out without much consideration.
“This movie is fake, Ariel. Babies don’t come from storks. ”
Ariel pokes her new stuffed puppy’s nose. Bolt is fluffy and looks like the real one from the movie. Her Bolt might not, though.
“It is?” She gives Bolt a kiss on the forehead and scratches his pointed ears. She pulls on the Lion King pajamas that Uncle Jeremy left out for her. They're practically swimming on her and incredibly itchy. The pants are actually Alice’s pajama pants instead of hers, but she doesn’t know how to tell him that.
She’s too scared to tell him because he might get mad. Mad men are scary.
Her cousin nods. “I know where babies come from, and it’s going to blow your mind.”
Ariel picks at the rayon pants and itchy wool of the sleep shirt. “Where?” (She doesn’t actually care. She wants the shirt O-F-F- off- please.)
“So, girls! What do you say to a game of UNO after the movie?” Uncle Jeremy emerges from the kitchen with a big bowl of popcorn. UNO is Ariel’s most favorite game in the world, but she doesn’t see how she can play it while she’s so uncomfortable.
“Alice knows where babies come from,” Ariel says, squeezing her hands together. She can say that, but she can’t say what’s really inside of her mind. She closes her eyes and scrunches her nose up.
“Oh God, okay. Okay. We’re doing this.” Jeremy sits down on the couch across from the girls and anxiously smiles as he offers them the popcorn bowl.
“I want to know.” Ariel pulls the sleeves of her sleep shirt up and grimaces.
“Actually we’re not about to have this conversation because I think that… Nicole and Waverly should be the ones to tell you, kid.” Jeremy pulls out his iPhone and begins to compose a frantic text to Waverly.
“My Nonna told me.” Alice shrugs and pets Bolt. She can’t wait for Ariel’s real service dog to come home.
“I’m sure she did, but that doesn’t mean we have to talk-”
“My Nonna and Daddy wrestled and he put-” The rest flies over Ariel’s head. All she knows is that Auntie Nonna and Uncle Doc wrestled on a bed, and then Stevie wound up in Auntie Nonna’s belly. She scratches so hard that a little blood begins to come out.
“And then Jesus said, here’s a baby girl and he sent Stevie down from Heaven and put her in My Nonna’s belly.” Alice crosses her arms, pleased with her explanation. Ariel stares at the storks on the television in disdain. She can’t believe that five-years-ago Jesus put her in her mom’s belly instead of Waverly’s or Nicole’s.
Jeremy’s jaw goes slack. Of course, Wynonna Earp ’s kid would know everything about the birds and the bees at six years old. He’s going to be in so much trouble when Waverly and Nicole come home and Ariel repeats everything. He notices how Ariel squeezes each of her hands into fists and presses them together over and over again. Each time she does it, Alice grabs her hand softly.
They try to go on double dates at least once a month. It’s such a domestic thing to do with two couples, but they’ve fallen into a routine, and much like her daughter, Waverly dislikes when routines change. Leaving the kids once a month means that they are doing this parenting thing kind-of right.
They always go to a tiny diner just outside of town where the waitresses know them by name, and the name Earp isn’t a curse upon their lips.
Nicole can’t get over how pretty Waverly looks in her flowery blouse and long black skirt. She’d tried to dress up herself, throwing on nice pants instead of her work Khakis.
“So,” says Wynonna, stirring her Matzo-Ball soup with her spoon. “Why are you driving up to Edmonton tomorrow when you could just mail in the Service Dog paperwork?” Waverly glances at her sister, clad in her I Only Date Cowboys sweatshirt.
“I heard from the Facebook group that if you deliver it in person they take your request seriously. That’s what the moms in the group say. I even made an appointment to talk with the supervisor.” Waverly pokes a tomato with her fork and chews.
“Look at Mama Bear in your Facebook group! I’m proud of you, baby girl. You get shit done.” Wynonna snuggles into Doc’s side, and his cheeks turn red. She unzips her purse to grab a mint because he needs one, desperately.
A note falls out:
“Oh god. We’re being bribed.” She unfolds the sticky note and hands it to Doc. It’s sort of cute how Alice spelled the words wrong on purpose.
“It appears that our daughter signed her letter with, your friend. I find that amusing.” Doc turns the note over and smiles at Alice’s scrawled penmanship. “It appears that Stevie was on her mind, too.”
“There are plenty of groups out there on Facebook... We’ve even seen Down Syndrome groups… and… are you sure you don’t want me to take the ride up there with you, Waves?” Nicole takes Waverly’s hand in her own and pushes a lock of hair behind her girlfriend’s ear.
“I’ll be okay. It’s only a few hours away, plus… I need my lady here, protecting the streets of Purgatory.”
“Yeah, but I’ll miss my cuddles in bed tomorrow night.” Nicole pouts, and Waverly giggles, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
“Ugh! Cuddle with your kid, for God’s sake.” Wynonna groans, but notices a blush creep up Doc’s cheeks.
“You look lovely tonight, Wynonna.” He takes a sip of water, and Waverly nearly chokes on her lettuce. She loves her sister, but she looks like a mess tonight. Granted, Waverly isn’t four months pregnant, so she’s not one to judge, but it’s evident that the cowboy is smitten.
“Don’t look too bad yourself, Holliday.” She gives him a small smile and winks.
“Your smile is effervescent.” With that, he reaches over to take Wynonna’s hands in his own.
“If I’m so eff-you something, why isn’t there a ring on my finger?” She glares at him and Nicole sighs. It’s going to be a long night.
Uncle Jeremy has just tucked them into bed, with a hug and a kiss from Alice and a thumbs up from Ariel. Ariel doesn’t know if she’ll be able to sleep because her Mama and Ma are still out, but Alice promised that they’d secretly stay up until their parents return home from the double date.
Alice crawls out of bed and helps prop her cousin up on the headboard of her bed. She sits criss-cross-applesauce across from Ariel, atop the covers.
Ariel won’t stop scratching herself, and a gash forms on her right arm. The tiny redhead pulls at the woolen sleep shirt.
“Is it itchy?” Alice leans forward and steadies her cousin’s hands. Ariel’s eyes wander about as she cries out. She can’t say yes or no at the moment because she’s too preoccupied with discomfort.
“I think you’re itchy, Ariel.” Alice helps her cousin pull the Lion King top off, and grabs one of Ariel’s real pajama tops from the drawer. Ariel stops scratching and rests her head on Alice’s lap.
“You know you’re my best friend, right Ariel?” Alice helps Ariel unclench her tiny fists.
“Yeah.” She stares down at the gash she’s created on her left arm. CoCo and Wavy aren’t going to like that one bit. Maybe she can pretend that she didn’t scratch herself.
“I’ll do anything in the whole wide world to protect you. I swear I would. I’d even fight a Dalek for you, too.” Alice strokes her fingers through Ariel’s curly red hair. She continues talking to her cousin.
“Daleks are only scary if you think they are. If you pretend they’re not scary, they aren’t. Plus she gets them every time.”
Ariel shrugs and squeezes her hands into fists. “CoCo said Daleks are pretend.” Trust me, she thinks. Daleks don’t come into your room at night as real monsters did to her. “And I don’t think the new Doctor even met a Dalek.”
Ariel desperately needs a band-aid and she stares down at the scabs that cover her arms. She wishes that CoCo and Wavy were home already because they would have tucked her in and sang Thank You For Being A Friend before giving her three kisses on each of her cheeks.
“Just like the stork!” Alice exclaims. “The stork is pretend.” She nearly bounces on the bed. “Adults have so many secrets they don’t tell us because they think we’re too little. But trust me. I know stuff because My Nonna tells me. I can’t wait until Stevie comes because then we can all be best friends and I know I have to be gentle because of her head but-”
Ariel doesn’t know how Alice is so awake when all she wants to do is fall asleep in her CoCo and Wavy’s arms. She squeezes Bolt to her chest and pretends that they’re lying in the bed next to her.
When she opens her eyes again, she’s in between Nicole and Waverly, tucked under the covers of her weighted blanket and their queen-size comforter. It must be the middle of the night or ten-o'clock or something.
“Close your eyes, Princess. We’re home. It’s okay.” Nicole tucks Bolt underneath her daughter’s armpit and stares at the scabs that adorn her tiny, freckled arms.
Waverly leans over her tiny body and presses a kiss to her forehead from the other side of the bed. “You were such a good girl for Uncle Jeremy. Try to go back to sleep.” Ariel can smell the pretty perfume that she secretly hates and wrinkles her nose.
Ariel falls into a dream easily. She doesn’t have nightmares whenever she stays in CoCo and Wavy’s room.
It’s hard not to stare at her when she sleeps. She’s so much tinier than the average five-year-old, but her ribs no longer poke out of her skin. She has chubby little cheeks and tries to smile more than she used to- at least that’s what Waverly thinks.
The scabs are new. She picks at her skin more often when she gets irritated and no positive reinforcer helps besides compression hugs from her Mama and Ma. She tantrums during school and refuses to speak, to her new teacher, although she uses her voice most times instead of her communication device at home.
So they take her into their room most nights (a habit that the Mommy blogs call disgraceful) and hold her close in hopes that one day she will stop scratching, and that the paperwork for the Autism Assistance dog will go through sooner than later.
Nicole doesn’t give a single shit what the Mommy blogs Waverly reads have to say about co-sleeping. Ariel’s comfort is their number one priority.
“Jeremy said she was an angel. She didn’t melt down once.” Waverly reaches across the covers to grasp Nicole’s hand. Her arm droops protectively over Ariel’s belly.
“An angel, hmm? She must get that from her Mama.” Nicole snorts at her own joke and takes Waverly’s hand.
“She believes in princesses and Santa Claus, but would never believe me if I told her that I have angel blood.” Waverly squeezes Nicole’s hand and presses a kiss to her palm. “Jeremy loves her.”
“It’s pretty hard not to love her, huh?” Nicole reaches over with her other hand and pulls Waverly’s tank top strap over her shoulder. There isn’t a doubt in her mind that Ariel is not only extremely adorable but also so good at home. “It’s a shame that she’s been having a tough time at school these past few weeks.”
“Every day when she comes home with that damn flat face on her token board, I get another gray hair.” There’s nothing that Waverly hates more than Ariel coming home with a neutral “smiley” face in her daily binder with no explanation as to why she didn’t earn a happy face.
“It’ll get better, baby. It has to. It’s not like they’re going to keep her in Kindergarten forever if she doesn’t get perfect smiley faces every day.”
Nicole watches as Waverly’s face becomes sour. “Sweetheart no, I didn’t mean it like that.”
Waverly’s intrusive thoughts race as she imagines Alice walking across the stage at Kindergarten graduation in June, Ariel nowhere in sight.
“They won’t hold her back, right? She has every right to move on to grade one as everyone else in her class.”
“Baby… we have her IEP meeting coming up. I’m sure they’ll discuss the plans for next year. We can talk about what we want but they’re not going to keep her in Kindergarten. Despite her behaviors, she’s pretty damn smart.”
“I want her to be happy, Nicole. I just want her to smile and I don’t fucking care if she can’t add or subtract yet like her classmates. I want her to have more good days than bad and make friends. I don’t want to see her meltdown all the time because it’s not fair to her to be so overwhelmed in such a big class.” A lot of the Mommy-blogs she reads advocate for inclusion, but Waverly knows that her daughter benefits from small-group settings.
“I know baby, I know.” Nicole feels Waverly’s frustrations in the pit of her stomach. She wishes that they could do something to make Ariel feel comfortable in a classroom setting.
“And the scratching… it bothers me. God only knows if we’re going to be approved for the dog and if the dog can even help her stop it… we’re going to have to cut her nails again and she’s going to hate us for it.” Waverly shakes her head and buries her head in her knees. She feels the bed creak as Nicole gets up and walks around until she’s on her side of the bed.
“Come here, sweetheart. Come here.” Nicole lifts Waverly from the bed and places her atop her lap at the foot of the bed. “This parenting thing is tough. You’re the bravest Mama in the world, you know that, right?”
“It sucks that she’s hurting. And...you're the greatest Ma.” Waverly exhales and rests her head in the crook of Nicole’s neck. Nicole smells like vanilla and home and… play dough.
“It does suck… but… baby this is just a bump in the road… just because she’s exhibiting these behaviors now doesn’t mean that she’s going to be like this for the rest of her life.”
“I’m scared Nicole. What’s going to happen as she gets older? What’s going to happen when we’re gone one day?” Waverly knows that she’s spiraling. She tries to breathe as she grips tighter onto Nicole’s hand.
“Baby… I know it’s hard to think about, and I can’t honestly tell you at this moment if I think she’s going to be able to live independently or not one day…but we don’t have to figure out the rest of her life right now. I know, I’m scared too. But she’s five and despite her challenges at school… she’s doing exceptionally well around us… the people she trusts.” Nicole places a gentle kiss to Waverly’s lips.
“But what’s going to happen to her? I want her to be as happy as she can be for the rest of her life.”
“We’re not going anywhere for a long time, Waves… and… I don’t think Alice would object to her cousin tagging along on her life’s adventures. We’re a team, Waverly. No matter what happens, we don’t leave each other in the dust. Behaviors change, too. Ariel is a smart little cookie.”
“I don’t think we should have another kid,” Waverly blurts out. She covers her hands with her eyes, scared to see Nicole’s reaction.
“What?” Nicole rocks Waverly back and forth gently and drums her fingertips in a soft rhythm against Waverly’s back. “Who said anything about having more kids?”
“ Jeremy. You’d already gone inside. He caught me off guard.” Waverly peeks through her fingers and pouts up at Nicole.
Ariel is darling. When will you two have another one?
“Waves… I know we’d talked about you getting pregnant or adopting an older child a few months back. Have you reconsidered?” Waverly thinks she’s falling more in love with her tall, ginger girlfriend than she knew was possible. She doesn’t ask the question with an ounce of judgment in her voice or pity in her eyes.
“I… I don’t think I want to get pregnant anymore, Nicole. I can’t say about adopting again in the future but… I’ll admit… I baby Ariel a little because I keep thinking what if she’s my only baby? And… I kind of like being able to devote a hundred percent of my Mama time to her, you know?”
“I like it too. I like our family Waverly, and I don’t think that anything needs to change.”
“You like us? That’s good to know.”
“Pshhh,” Nicole says, peppering soft kisses upon Waverly’s neck. “I love you.”
“And I know this co-sleeping thing is weird but… I just want to make her as comfortable as possible at home because school is a mess. I want her to trust us.”
“She trusts us, Waves. I’m sure of it. She wouldn’t be calling us Mama or Ma if she didn’t trust us. She knows that she’s not going anywhere. The visit with Leise confirmed that. She wants to dress up like me for career day next week. I’m flattered.” Nicole runs her fingers through Waverly’s hair and smiles at the thought of Ariel in her little blue police officer costume.
Waverly giggles and strokes Nicole’s cheek with her pointer finger. “I think she’d rather be a princess, but I’m not sure that there’s a job opening, considering Prince Harry just got married.”
“ Please.” Nicole retorts, pulling Waverly onto her lap, “Fancy Nancy doesn’t stand a chance against Sheriff Haught.”
“I’ve told you, Nicole. Fancy Nancy isn’t a canon Disney princess, although I can see why you would jump to that conclusion seeing as she wears a tiara. It’s just a headband. I think that Ariel likes Fancy Nancy more than Elena now because she scripts from her more than Elena.” Waverly pokes Nicole’s dimple with her index finger and appreciates the way that only she can make Nicole laugh.
“When did we become such Moms?” Brown eyes meet hazel, and Nicole stares down at the Rapunzel band-aid that covers her girlfriend’s index finger.
“I have to say,” Waverly answers, as they lay back down in bed, Ariel in the middle of them sleeping soundly, “our whole adoption journey is obviously going a lot differently than I thought it would, but… I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
At six-thirty in the morning, Nicole has a stroke of a genius idea.
“C’mon. Let’s make Mama breakfast in bed since she has a long trip ahead of her today.”
She watches as Ariel trudges forward in her walker independently and grabs the box of (vegan) Fruity O’s from the lower shelf of the cabinet.
She’s amazed as their little girl grabs a bowl from the said cupboard and sets it atop the counter. Her tiny hands grab fistfuls of cereal and place them in the princess themed bowl. She stares intently at Nicole.
“What do you need? Tell me.” Nicole crosses her arms and waits patiently. Ariel takes her hand, moves it into a sideways fist and relaxes. Milk. Look CoCo. Look. Milk.
The look on her daughter’s face is priceless as she pours the milk (from the highest shelf on the fridge) into the bowl. Without prompting from her CoCo, Ariel takes a spoon from the drawer and plops it in the bowl.
“What’s the last step? Who is this for?”
“For my Mama.” Ariel grins, two top teeth missing from the accident, and Nicole spins her daughter around.
“You are perfect,” she says, grabbing the cereal and carrying her baby piggyback through the still-quiet house into the bedroom.
“Hey!” Waverly says, eyes popping open, a few minutes later when Ariel crawls into her arms. “Hi, sweet girl.”
“Got you, Mama.” She settles next to Waverly as Nicole places the tray atop Waverly’s lap on the bed and climbs under the covers on the other side of Ariel.
“All by herself. She knew the steps. I just provided the transportation. Is Veggie cereal even good?” Nicole pulls Ariel onto her lap as Waverly takes a bite of the cereal.
“They’re fruit, not vegetables, Nicole. We are so proud of you, Ariel. Thank you, little love.” Ariel takes the praise from Waverly as an open invitation and takes the spoon from her Mama’s hand to try the cereal.
“You Veggie, Mama.” She scoops a single piece onto the spoon and puts it in her mouth. She hates the cereal and spits it back into the bowl before chewing. Normally they’d tell her, but why ruin a perfect moment?
Ariel continues. She's got something super important to say. “You have a Veggie. Alice said that boys have peas and girls have veggies and then they wrestle and a baby comes from Jesus nine months later.”
It takes both of her mothers a second to process this very complex statement from their five-year-old.
“What ?” Waverly remembers looking down at her phone last night and seeing something about babies from Jeremy.
“You have a Veggie down there and CoCo and I does too because we girls.”
Nicole’s face goes red because she’s fairly certain that they’re having a conversation with a five-year-old at six-forty-nine in the morning about the birds and the bees.
“Alice said the baby comes out of the Veggie and the Mommy screams and then pop pop pop. It’s born.”
“Oh my god.” Waverly looks mortified and presses her lips together. She doesn’t dare look at Nicole.
“You like Veggies and you eat them, too. Like tomatoes.” Ariel shrugs and leans against her Ma.
Nicole bursts out into tiny sniffles of laughter. “I do like my veggies, sweetheart. Just not cucumbers. I’m not really a fan of the eggplant either.”
“Eggplants technically aren’t a fruit or a vegetable” Waverly offers, trying so-so-for lack of a better word- hard to keep a straight face.
“What they?” Ariel asks. "Alice said Grapefruits are good."
“Grapefruits. Oh my god. Wynonna did this.” Waverly answers. “Baby… I promise we will talk more about babies when you get a little older, okay? But…what some people who identify as female have is actually called a vagina, and some people who identify as male have a penis. Sometimes people are born in the wrong body, baby. But… aside from that, you’re kind of right about how-”
The questions come flooding at once, and despite the sore subject, Waverly and Nicole are impressed with how much their daughter is verbalizing.
Waverly is also extremely unsure if her sister told Alice about sex in terms of fruits and vegetables (which she must admit is creative), or if her baby girl misunderstood the terms and turned them into something she could generalize.
“Do you wrestle with CoCo? Can CoCo put a baby in your belly? Can I wrestle with Alice?”
“Yes, no, and no. She'd beat you up. ” Nicole starts to tickle her daughter and watches as a very happy little girl comes to life before their eyes. She giggles and reaches up to touch her Ma’s cheek.
“Can we watch Fancy Nancy before Mama leaves?" Ariel likes that Fancy Nancy knows all of the words for everything in the world. She wonders if Nancy knows the secret about Vegetables.
As if by saving grace, Nicole picks up the remote from the bedside table and turns on the television. Fancy Nancy’s bouncy red curls adorn the screen. It’s a miracle.
“You funny, Ma. You should put a baby in Mama’s like Uncle Doc did to Auntie Nonna’s tummy so I can have a sister too.” Ariel yawns and stretches out her legs atop Nicole’s lap and closes her eyes.
“You’re hilarious, Ariel.” She pulls their sleeping beauty’s hair into a messy top knot and ties it off with the scrunchie around her wrist.
“Hey, Waves?” Nicole looks over at her girlfriend a few minutes later, whose face has drowned of all its color. Ariel’s eyes remain closed and her breathing steadies.
“Yeah?” Waverly can’t believe that they kind of had the talk with their daughter who could easily repeat this information to anyone at school.
“Wanna wrestle tomorrow when you get home? I’ll make sure to eat all of my Veggies.”
And… despite the situation, Waverly can’t help but laugh. They’ll worry about everything later. She doesn’t care what happens at her meeting this afternoon. No matter what happens, she gets to come home to her equally adorable fiancee and little girl.
(For the record, Ariel asks if her Mama and Ma brought her home ice cream as Alice asked for)
(They did, and ice cream for breakfast has never been more delicious.)
Of course, it's Strawberry.