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Rey had been acting strangely. More withdrawn than usual, and that wasn't like her.
She claimed it was just the impending finals wearing her down, but he couldn't shake the feeling that that wasn't true. Something was up, something she didn't want to tell him.
Still, he tried to give her space. Finals would be over in a few days, and hopefully she’d be back to her normal self for the holiday break. It’s what he told himself, anyway, up to his own elbows in finals that needed grading and fielding emails from desperate students trying to convince him to let them do extra credit.
But two days into break, his last bit of grading done, and Rey’s transcript all satisfying As and Bs, there was still something off. Most of the time, Rey seemed to do a good job of hiding it; arguing good-naturedly with him over the nonsensical anatomy of aliens in Doctor Who, kissing his neck while he cooked them dinner, curling up in his lap in his reading chair, each with their own books but perfectly happy with the comfortable silence.
There was a part of him that thought maybe it was his imagination; that she truly was fine, and he was seeing trouble when there wasn’t any. But there were times where she seemed to just be staring off into the distance, the corners of her mouth pulled down ever-so-slightly and her eyes looking unhappy and anxious.
“You okay?” he asked her more than once, pressing a kiss to her shoulder or stroking a hand down her back, and every time she would pull out of her reverie to give him a smile.
“Sure. Just daydreaming.”
He’d nod, pressing in for a kiss that she would always give him with a content hum, and he’d let it slide.
He wasn’t going to let it slide anymore.
Their evening had been lovely overall; it was Christmas Eve, and they had spent a very pleasant time at the cinema, sharing a bag of popcorn and cuddling in the theater's fancy new seating before going to dinner. Then they had walked downtown, admiring the lights on all the shops while sipping hot chocolate and listening to the sound of the Christmas Eve mass spilling out from the nearby church.
It had been a very nice time, he had thought, and they had come home to take a nice warm shower together, Ben taking great pleasure in going to his knees and pushing her against the tile to put his mouth between her legs. She had been all too eager to return the favor, the heat of the water cascading down his back nothing compared to the heat of Rey's mouth.
Then they had watched White Christmas, Rey's favorite Christmas movie, and gone to bed.
Sleep, however, was apparently far off; Rey couldn't seem to settle, more restless than he had ever seen her, even when he pulled her back against his chest and kissed his way across her shoulder.
“Alright?” he muttered, nosing behind her ear with a sigh, and she sighed back, taking longer to answer than he was comfortable with.
“Yeah. Fine, just...” She shrugged.
They didn't lie to each other. That was a cornerstone of their relationship, it was one of the things that had drawn him to her. He loved her unabashed candor, even when she was saying things that were hard for him to hear.
Yet there was no doubt in his mind that right then, Rey was unquestionably lying to him. Had been, every time he had asked her if she was okay in the last couple weeks, and he couldn't stand it anymore.
He let out a long breath, scrunching his eyes closed for a moment before pulling away from her and turning on the bedside lamp and sitting up.
She squinted at him in the glow of the light, rolling onto her back and frowning in confusion.
“You're not fine,” he said point-blank, his fear all but confirmed when she looked away from him under the guise of rubbing her eyes. “You haven't been fine for weeks. Talk to me.”
He watched her swallow, her hand still over her eyes, and his alarm grew when the tell-tale quiver of her lip signaled her being on the verge of tears.
She suddenly sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and putting her back to him.
Fuck, he thought in a panic. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!
His mind raced, frantically trying to anticipate what could possibly be wrong; he thought things were going so well, she couldn't be thinking of breaking up with him, could she? Was she sick? Was she having an affair? Was she-
He tried to calm down, swallowing down the anxiety trying to claw through his chest as he pushed the covers down and shuffled across the mattress to her side of the bed.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered tearfully, burying her head against his chest as he put his arm around her, her fingers clenched tightly in his t-shirt. “I'm sorry, I-I don't m-mean to c-cry...”
“I know,” he murmured softly, rubbing his hand up and down her back soothingly and kissing the top of her head. “It's okay, sweetheart, just breathe.”
She cried for a solid five minutes, wetting the front of his shirt while he did everything in his power to keep himself patient and some shadow of calm. She would tell him. She would tell him what was wrong and they'd solve it together. They were partners, they were a team, whatever it was could be fixed.
He told himself that over and over again, just stroking Rey's back with one hand and cupping her knee with the other.
When her crying finally wound down to soft hiccups and tiny hitches of breath she pulled back, leaning over to grab a handful of tissues from the tissue box on her nightstand.
Still he silently waited, letting her wipe her eyes and blow her nose messily until she was ready to speak.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered again, tossing the used tissues on her nightstand to throw away later. “I didn’t mean to melt down like that.”
“It's okay,” he murmured, stroking her back again. “I'm just worried, Rey, I just want you to tell me what's wrong.”
She took a deep, shaky breath in and let it out slowly, looking down at the floor instead of at him, her hands clenched into fists on her thighs.
“I know,” she said softly. “I've just been... I don't know. I don't know how to talk about this, I don’t even know—”
She rested her elbows on her knees, burying her face in her hands, and he exercised every shred of restraint he had in him to keep from demanding she just spit it out before he went completely insane with worry.
“I'm late,” she suddenly forced out in a scared, breathy whisper. “Like really, really late.”
For a solid handful of seconds, his mind drew an absolute blank on what on earth she meant. Late? Late for what?
He was about to open his mouth and ask her to elaborate when the realization suddenly dawned on him.
Late. “Late” as in the euphemism for a missed menstrual period. Late as in-
“You're pregnant?” he found himself gasping in a timid whisper, his body frozen in a confused shock of terrified and just utterly gobsmacked. “Are... are you sure?”
Rey moaned with frustration, dropping her hands to grip her shins and bending completely in half at the waist to press her forehead against her knee.
“No,” she moaned miserably, “that's half the problem too. I've been too afraid to take the test. I told myself that I couldn't take it before finals because if I am I couldn't possibly deal with it and do finals at the same time or I'd go completely insane. And then I told myself I'd take it after Christmas, because I didn't want to ruin our holiday with dropping this on you, but I'm still freaking out and now I've gone made you all worried about me and—”
“Rey,” he interrupted, finding his voice again and gripping her shoulder, sensing her rising panic and trying to quell it. “Sweetheart, breathe.”
She just growled in frustration, grinding her forehead against her knee and breathing shakily.
Okay. Okay.
“Okay,” he said out loud, taking a calming breath for himself and resuming his rubbing along Rey's back. “How late is ‘really late’?”
“Three weeks,” she confessed meekly.
Three weeks. She had been sitting on this, agonizing over this by herself for three weeks. She could be half way through her first trimester already, she could be a third of the way through her pregnancy without seeing a doctor, what if—
No. No. One thing at a time.
“Okay,” he said again. One thing at a time. “We'll get a test, and we'll know for sure, and we'll go from there.”
“I have one,” she murmured. “It's in my bag. I bought it on my way home from my last final.”
He swallowed, nodding numbly.
“No time like the present, then.”
Rey sat up, looking emotionally exhausted and frightened and biting her lip anxiously. “Right now?”
“Right now.” He got up, leaving their room to get her bag from the living room closet.
He felt like he was on autopilot, weirdly detached from his body as he opened her bag and shuffled through it until he found the small blue box that had the potential to radically upend their world.
He met Rey in the hallway, the both of them stepping into the bathroom as he opened the box. There were three tests inside, and he read the directions out loud as she opened one.
Then the longest five minutes of his life.
They sat on the edge of the tub together, shoulder to shoulder with their hands folded in front of them; quiet, nervous, the test sitting on the edge of the sink.
He had given thought to this, of course he had. In his more fanciful moments he would vividly daydream about proposing to her, getting married, welcoming their first baby. Rey was The One, there hadn't been a doubt in his mind about that since the first time he had woken up with her beside him in bed, looking like she belonged there. She did belong there, she belonged in every aspect of his life, and he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with her, wanted nothing more than to be a family with her, and all that entailed.
But he never even considered it happening this soon. He knew Rey had plans; she wanted to power through school, she wanted to get established in her field, maybe get her foot in the door at NASA, pay off some of her student debt. Having a baby now—when she wasn't even through her bachelor's degree—wasn’t even a consideration. Hell, he doubted she would even say yes to marrying him until she was through her master's, at the very least; she was goal-driven, just like he was, she wouldn't want to fuss with getting married when there was so much else she needed to focus on.
Which brought him to the thought he had been subconsciously avoiding; what they would do, if that little strip confirmed she was pregnant.
He found himself viscerally upset at the sudden thought that she wouldn't want to keep it. That come Boxing Day she'd be making an appointment at a clinic to terminate.
He swallowed thickly around his sudden fear, conflicted at the overwhelming emotions running through him; because the other side of that coin was just as frightening.
If she did want to keep it, was he ready to be a dad? He was thirty-one, there were a hell of a lot of people who had multiple children by his age, so in theory he should he more than prepared to handle it. But could he? Would he be any good at it? It wasn't like his own father was dad of the year, what if he was just as lousy?
Rey would be a great mom, of that, he felt sure. She was loving, compassionate, patient, wonderful. She was strong, so strong, stronger than he would ever be, and she would tackle being a parent with the same dedication and determination she did everything else.
If she wanted to, he reminded himself. She hadn't said outright, but she very clearly wasn't thrilled at the prospect of being pregnant either, if her small breakdown was any indication.
His thoughts circled back again to her terminating the pregnancy. He gave serious, hard thought to how he would feel about that, and found himself unjustifiably upset at the idea, despite all the perfectly logical reasons why that might be the best choice for them at that particular point in their life.
But the truth of the matter was that no matter how he thought about it, no matter what angle he tried to see it from, no matter what logic he tried to apply, he found himself desperately hoping she would want their baby. He thought about her belly swelling, about putting his hand there and feeling their child kick, about holding a tiny human they had created together, about being a father, about living the rest of his life with Rey and their son or daughter. He wanted it, he wanted all of it, and he wanted Rey to want that too.
Her sudden snort drew him out of his thoughts, and he looked to the side at her as she rubbed her hands over her face.
“It's just dawned on me,” she muttered, “this time last year, we were having sex for the first time on the kitchen counter. Now a year to the day later we're waiting to see if I'm knocked up.”
He hadn't really thought about it like that, but she was right; this was technically their one year anniversary.
“Well...” he mumbled lamely, glancing at the clock. Under a minute to go. “Can’t say we don't know how to make Christmas eventful.”
She made a sound that was halfway between a chortle and a moan, leaning against his shoulder for a moment and angling her face against his sleeve.
Five minutes were up. The test should be complete.
He squeezed her knee gently and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then got up.
Negative. Not even the faintest hint of the double line that would indicate pregnancy.
Wordlessly he picked up the test, and showed it to her.
It seemed like all the tension in Rey's body left in a rush, her relief so palpable she actually swayed a little, gripping the edges of the tub for support.
Seriously fearing that she might faint, he went to his knees, dropping the test on the floor as he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
She wasn't pregnant. There would be no baby, no agonizing decisions, no emotional turmoil over what to do.
Rey let out a little sob, unexpectedly bursting into tears again as she clung to Ben's shoulders, burying her face against his neck.
He let her, rubbing her back again through her much shorter cry and trying to process the terrible, weird twist of simultaneous relief and disappointment sitting square in the middle of his chest.
“Sorry,” she whispered again, leaning back and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand before reaching for some toilet paper to blow her nose. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to cry again.”
“It's okay,” he reassured her. “This has been weighing on you, I don't blame you for getting emotional.”
She nodded, sniffling and getting a bit more toilet paper to blow her nose again before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, her head tilted back as she let it out.
“Okay,” she murmured at the ceiling, then looked back down once more as she squeezed his shoulder with one hand. “Okay, just give me a minute to wash my face and I'll come back to bed. Go get comfortable, alright?”
He couldn't find a reason to object, so he simply nodded, giving her a brief kiss before standing. The pregnancy test had ended up on the floor beside the toilet, a couple random strands of hair stuck to it; a weird, surreal reminder that he needed to sweep the floor. He swallowed as he bent down to get it, unsure why he felt weird as he threw it in the trash can. Then he wordlessly returned to their room.
That detached feeling was back, his body feeling like it was driving itself without any input from his brain as he got into bed, pulling the blanket up to mid-chest before tucking his hands under the pillow behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
Rey wasn’t pregnant, he told himself again. They could get on with their life as normal, they could enjoy the rest of the winter break as they had originally planned.
A few minutes later Rey came back into the room, and he waited until she was back in bed before turning off the lamp.
She pressed against his side, slinging her arm across his belly and laying her head on his chest as she hiked her knee up onto his hips.
He didn't realize how much he needed the physical reassurance until that moment, squeezing his eyes shut as he let out a shuddery breath and brought his arms down tight around her.
“I love you,” she said, squeezing her arm around him and rubbing her cheek against his pec. “I love you so much, Ben.”
“I know,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head warmly. “I love you too, sweetheart, so much.”
They were quiet for a moment, just holding each other and trying to come down from the emotional rollercoaster that had occurred in the last hour.
“Can I ask you something?” she suddenly whispered, squeezing her arm around him again tightly.
“Yeah, of course.” He nodded, despite the fact that she couldn't see it in the darkness of the room.
“If... if it had been positive. If I was... if I was, what would you want to do?”
Conflict bubbled in his chest again, making him mildly panicked. He didn't want his answer to upset her, or make her feel like if they ever did end up with an unexpected positive pregnancy test in the future, that she would need to do what he wanted, or even worse, hide it from him and take care of it herself.
“Ben?” she prompted softly, timid and unsure, twisting at his heart.
“Whatever you would want to do,” he whispered, kissing her hair again and scratching his fingers gently against her shoulder. That was the truth; he would want her to keep the baby, but he would never try to force her to do that if she didn't want to. He knew all too well what it was like to be a child his parents hadn't planned on, and her even more so; he would never, ever want that for his own offspring.
She turned her head to kiss his chest with another squeeze of her arm, then her hand stroked reassuringly up and down his side.
“Thank you,” she whispered with another kiss. “I know you mean that and it means the world to me. Thank you.”
He wiggled a little, scrunching down the bed slightly as he moved onto his side, pulling her flush against his chest and pressing a kiss against her forehead.
“What would you want?” he couldn't stop himself from asking. He needed to know, he needed to have the reassurance that they were either on the same page or if their differing desires would be something they would have to work through.
Rey was quiet for a long moment, her fingers clenching and relaxing a few times around a handful of his shirt in the small of his back before she answered.
“Two weeks ago I would have said I couldn't do it,” she murmured. “I was scared half to death at the very idea.”
His heart sank, but she wasn't finished. “But just now, sitting there with you, bracing myself, convincing myself that it was going to come back positive... I don't know.”
He swallowed, and despite his best effort not to sway her with what he wanted, he couldn't help the words from spilling out of his mouth in a quiet rush. “I was sitting there convincing myself it was going to be positive too. And I... I almost wanted it to be. Is that crazy?”
Rey seemed to melt a little in his arms, burying herself more snugly against his chest with a quick little breath of relief.
“God, no, me too,” she confessed. “That's exactly it; when it was just this abstract idea I was trying not to think about it seemed terrifying, but when I really had to think about it being real, about it actually happening... it... it didn't seem like such a bad thing. And I knew that if you wanted the baby too there was no way I could even think about not keeping it. I couldn't do it alone, but I could do it with you, I would want it.”
He kissed her forehead again, so unspeakably relieved he felt tears well in his eyes for the first time that evening; like all the maelstrom of emotions he had felt since deciding to convince her to come clean with what was troubling her finally caught up with him.
He swallowed a few times, rubbing her back again as much for his own comfort as for hers.
“Just so you know,” he finally murmured, “I don’t know... look.”
He took a deep breath in, then let it out, organizing his thoughts before continuing, angling his head down a little to press his forehead against hers, “I want you to understand, I want this forever. Me and you. I have no plans to spend the rest of my life with anyone else, and that most definitely includes if a baby were to come into the picture. I love you, I want us to have a family someday, and if ‘someday’ had ended up being today I would have been picking out baby names tomorrow.”
He heard Rey sniffle, her fingers tightening in his shirt again, and he once again stroked her back. “You'd never have to do it alone, Rey. You're not alone.”
Rey was definitely crying again, but it wasn't the stressed, emotionally wrought crying she had done before; this was just soft little sniffles and quiet little huffs.
Then a small, watery laugh, Rey burying her face against his chest for a moment. “God, Ben, if this is your roundabout way of asking me to marry you, it's not very romantic.”
No, it definitely wasn't romantic to propose after a pregnancy scare, but her comment was so quippy it made him laugh, squeezing her in his arms and pressing a firm kiss to her hair.
“Not officially, no,” he laughed against the top of her head. “It's more like... a declaration of intention.”
Rey sniffled again, squeezing back as she raised her head and wiggled up a little to kiss his mouth.
“Then I guess...” she murmured softly, punctuating the middle of her sentence with another gentle kiss, “...consider this a declaration of my intention to accept.”
He felt like his heart was going to burst clear out of his chest he was so pleased by her words, laying kiss after kiss to her lips until she laughed, angling her head away and burying her hand in his hair to massage at his scalp exactly the way he loved.
“Alright, easy tiger,” she giggled, giving a scratch to his head and a little tug to his hair that practically made him purr. “There's still an important question we don't have an answer to.”
“Hm? What question?” he asked distractedly, chasing her mouth playfully.
“If I'm not pregnant, why is my period so late?”
It was a valid question, to be fair, making him pause. “We'll make a doctor's appointment for you right after Christmas. Get you sorted, okay?”
She nodded, and let him kiss her again.
***
Stress, as it turned out. After a referral by the local GP, Rey made an appointment at an OB/GYN, and after a thorough exam and round of questions, stress seemed like a likely culprit.
“She thinks the stress of finals affected my cycle, then the stress of thinking I was pregnant just made it worse,” she filled him in on the way home, positively chipper in the passenger seat. “But she assured me I'm not, by the way, they ran a test there to confirm it. So hopefully now that we know I'm not, and I'm done with finals, I'll get it soon, and I'll let her know if I don't so they can run more extensive tests if they think it's necessary.”
He was happy she was so relieved, and happy that they thought it wasn't anything more dangerous to her health than normal student stress.
“Good,” he nodded, reaching over to take her hand in his, entwining their fingers comfortably. “I'm glad it doesn't look like anything serious, that was way more frightening to me than the idea of having a baby was.”
“God, same,” she sighed, leaning back in the seat and crossing one leg over the other. “Like my second thought after that negative pregnancy test was that I was dying or something.”
“Jesus, don’t say that, I don't even like to joke about that.”
Mostly because that had been a very real, very terrifying concern that had plagued him constantly from Christmas morning up until the moment Rey stepped back into the lobby after her appointment with a spring in her step and a relieved smile on her face.
“Aw, Ben, don't worry. You can't get rid of me that easy.”
He squeezed her hand, giving her a side-eyed look before returning his attention to the road, and she answered with a soft giggle.
“I love you,” she said warmly, squeezing his hand back before bringing it up to her mouth press a kiss to the back of it.
“I love you too.”