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The doorbell startles David awake in the middle of the night. “Wha - what?” he murmurs, groping for his phone on his bedside table. When he presses the home button, the brightness of the screen hurts his eyes. It’s 2:51 a.m.
“Was that the doorbell?” Patrick asks sleepily at his right.
“It’s literally the witching hour,” David says, “who would be - ”
The doorbell rings again, followed by three distinct knocks.
“I guess we should see who it is?” Patrick asks, pushing a hand through his mussed-up hair and getting to his feet.
“You’re just going to go like that?” David demands; Patrick’s only wearing his boxers. “What if it’s a robber? Or a murderer?”
“A murderer who politely rings the doorbell?”
“Yes! To fool trusting people who don’t think a murderer would ring a doorbell.” David gets out of bed, too, and steps into sweatpants before tugging a cardigan on over his t-shirt. On impulse, he also pulls a sweater on over his head.
Patrick is watching him, amused. “Are your layers going to protect you from the murderer?”
David rolls his eyes and hisses, “Get your baseball bat.”
“David. Are you serious?”
The doorbell rings again, and again. David widens his eyes pointedly at Patrick, like their mysterious nighttime visitor's behaviour is proving him right, and Patrick reluctantly retrieves his bat from the closet.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” David echoes. “Now, you - you lead the way.”
“I lead the way?”
“You have the weapon!” David points out, and then basically attaches himself to Patrick, pressing close, as they make their way to the front door. Patrick flicks on a lamp, which David thinks is a terrible idea, but it’s too late to protest once it’s done.
At the door, Patrick lifts the cute, antique-looking metal flap up off the peephole and peers into the darkness. David clutches Patrick's shoulder and holds his breath.
The seconds seem to pass very slowly, but David’s agonizing wait ends when Patrick says, “Oh,” on an exhale, a hint of a laugh sneaking into the tail of it. His grip on the bat loosens, and he flicks the deadbolt before dropping his hand to the doorknob and turning it.
“What - ” David begins, but his question is answered pretty much instantly when Patrick swings the door open.
His sister is standing on their stoop.
“Alexis,” David says, surprised. He blinks hard, just in case his tired brain has managed to hallucinate her, but she stays where she is, dressed in leggings and an oversized UPEI sweater that must belong to Ted, her hair in a sloppy ponytail. “What are you doing here?”
She just looks at him with solemn blue eyes, half-illuminated by the light spilling out of their front hall. Behind her, David can make out the shape of a rental car parked at a haphazard angle at the end of their driveway.
There’s a tightening at the base of his throat, the same sensation that always followed the ringing of his phone and Alexis’ too-chipper voice saying, hey, David? I could use, like, a tiny favour?
He swallows against the feeling and says, more sharply, “Alexis. What’s going on?”
She blinks at him the same way he’d blinked at her, like she’s startled to find that they’re standing in front of each other. And then she says, “I’m pregnant.”
“What? Eugh,” is David’s instinctive response, and then exactly what she’s just said to him really sinks in and he demands, again, the pitch of his voice creeping up slightly, “What?”
“Come inside,” Patrick’s gentle voice interjects. He reaches a hand out to Alexis’ shoulder, guiding her into their house.
“Thanks,” she says, her voice absent and airy. Her gaze drops briefly to his torso. “Have you been doing crunches?”
David rolls his eyes, nudges Patrick and flicks his eyes at his husband in a way that’s meant to say clothe yourself, and steers his sister into the living room.
He deposits Alexis on the couch, plucking up the wool throw blanket folded neatly across the back and wrapping it around her shoulders. He takes a seat on the coffee table in front of her, close enough that their knees are nearly touching, and examines her face. She looks shell-shocked, but unlike nearly every other time his little sister’s come to him with a tangled mess she needs him to patiently unravel, her eyes aren’t hazy but clear, almost crystalline in their sharpness.
“You’re pregnant,” he says, and she nods, her chest heaving slightly as the result of a quick inhale.
David expected to have this conversation with Alexis at least once sometime between her fifteenth and twenty-fifth birthdays. He expected it to involve smoky makeup that had dissolved into smudged, raccoon-like circles around Alexis’ eyes; he expected wringing hands and that particular soft tone of voice Alexis got on the rare occasion she knew she’d fucked up. He did not expect to have it nearly a year into her marriage to an almost painfully responsible man, nor did he expect her uncharacteristic stillness.
“And this is…” He tilts his head as he regards his sister, struggling to find the most diplomatic way to phrase his question. He finally settles on, “A surprise?”
“No,” Alexis says quietly, and he feels his chin jut forward, reflecting his confusion.
“What?”
“We… Ted and I want to have a baby?” she says, her words creeping upward, turning her sentence into a question.
David opens his mouth and then snaps it shut again when Patrick walks into the room, dressed this time, somewhat incongruously for three o’clock in the morning, in a pair of Levis and a baseball tee. His feet are still bare, which David can’t help but find adorable.
“I’m going to make tea,” Patrick tells him. He throws a quick smile in Alexis’ direction before disappearing into the kitchen.
With a sigh, David peels off his sweatshirt and tosses it on an armchair. “Walk me through this, Alexis.”
“Well,” she begins, then stops before starting again, “I mean - ” She swallows and seems to manage to get it together: “Ted loves kids. And he’s so good with anything small and cute. When we talked about it, I thought, like, yeah, you know? Because it would make Ted so happy, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it could actually make me really happy, too. For us to have a family. And our kid would be so cute, David, because Ted’s so cute, and I’m cute, and I thought if it was a girl we could get matching Burberry coats - ”
“Alexis,” he cuts in with what he hopes is gentleness rather than impatience. He arches a let’s move this along eyebrow at her, and her shoulders slump.
“But then I…” She toys with the tassels on the edge of the blanket. “Then I was late, so I took a test, and it when it was positive it just felt… really, really real.”
“Right,” David says. When she looks at him imploringly, clearly hoping for more, he clears his throat and starts twisting one of his rings around his finger. “You know you don’t… have to make any particular decision about this, right?”
Alexis curls both arms around her midsection, the blanket dropping off one of her shoulders. There’s startling tenderness and protectiveness in that one simple movement, a shielding kind of care that conjures memories: his sister vaulting onto his hospital bed after he had his tonsils removed, still small enough that her little white socks had ruffles at the ankle; kneeling at his side, clutching his hand, still wearing a shaky smile at how masterfully he’d proved their dad’s bar mitzvah gift to be a bad one, despite the blood gushing from his nose; returning early from Tulum, yanking open his curtains, hauling him out of bed, refusing him mall pretzels for his own good.
“Alexis,” he says, his tone undoubtedly gentle this time, and when her eyes fly up to meet his, her fear is palpable.
“I don’t know how to be a mom,” she says. “I have no idea. It’s not like our mom showed me; I never had an example, except Adelina, but I was always being a brat to her so I can hardly remember half of what she told me when I was really little even though she was probably right, and I don’t - I don’t want to mess up.”
David nods, breathing deeply through the ache blooming in his chest. “I know,” he says, and means it.
“And I mess up everything, don’t I? At least once? Even Ted. And you don’t get a do-over with your kid, so I - ” She shakes her head. “I can’t let my baby feel how we felt, when we were growing up.” Her voice cracks when she says, again, “I can’t.”
“You won’t, Alexis,” he says, shuffling closer to the edge of the coffee table so that their kneecaps bump. “You’re not Mom.”
“But she is my mom, just like she’s yours. And what if you’re right? What if the right way to feel after a childhood like ours is to - to not want to be a parent?”
“I might’ve inherited my distaste for babies from Mom but I don’t think she… ingrained it in me, with her parenting.” David pauses. “Or lack thereof. Listen, Alexis,” he tries, but his sister is very clearly not listening.
“Could I just, like, give Ted the kid?” she asks with a hint of hysteria, starting to spiral. “Because I know he’ll be the best dad, and I - I don’t know if - I’m not - oh, god,” she gasps, startling David, who casts a fretful look toward the kitchen, wondering where the hell Patrick is with the tea. Alexis grabs both his hands, says, “David, all your Tamagotchis that I murdered - ”
David wrestles his hands out of her grip so that he can lay his hands over hers instead and squeeze. “Alexis,” he says firmly. He’s always felt like he was born with his fair share of anxiety and the bulk of her share, too; it’s unnerving to see Alexis doubt herself, to worry so earnestly. With difficulty, he says, “The Tamagotchis don’t matter.”
She frowns at him. “Of course they do.”
“Of course they do,” David agrees. “I faced a serious betrayal at your irresponsible hands. But they don’t matter now, okay? Not in this conversation. You’re not eleven years old anymore, and a baby is not a Tamagotchi, and I think that if you want to do this, you can.”
Her chin quivers. “You do?”
“Yes,” he says firmly. “You’ve changed. Not in every single way, but in some really good ways. And I know you know that. You have a business that you built all by yourself. You let Ted go. You waited it out - with him, with your clients, and it’s paid off.”
“But this will be, like… a full person. That I need to make the right choices for.”
“You can do that, Alexis.” He offers her a smile. “You’ve gotten pretty good at making choices.”
She chews at the corner of her bottom lip. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. And you… you know you’re not our mother. You like to boop people on the nose. You actually willingly touch dogs now. Whenever I wasn’t bailing you out of jail or rescuing you from a compound, you were the one doing those things for all your dumb friends. You’re you.”
Alexis nods, flashing him a quick, grateful smile, but traces of hesitation remain on her face. David sighs and gives her fingers another squeeze as he tells her, “And I’m not touching a single diaper, and I will not feed a baby because they have the sloppiest mouths, but if you need me, you can call me.”
“Like always,” she says, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
“Like always,” he agrees, and then Alexis’ arms are around his neck and she’s hugging him. It’s a bit of an awkward angle, their knees jammed together, but she doesn’t seem to mind so he decides he doesn’t, either. He folds both his arms fully around her, one hand patting her shoulder.
“I love you,” she says into the fabric of his cardigan.
It’s strange to hug his sister, who looks and feels exactly the same as she always has, with the knowledge that there are the beginnings of an entirely new person inside of her. He has vague memories of Alexis as a baby, bald and chubby-cheeked, peering up with him at curious eyes that seemed to know him. He wonders if her kid will look like she did.
“I love you, too,” he tells her.
They pull apart as Patrick comes into the room, carrying two mugs. He hands one to Alexis, tells her, “Chamomile.”
“Thanks, Patrick,” she says, pressing her lips against the rim of the cup before blowing on her tea to cool it. She leans back into the couch cushions, looking far more relaxed than she had when she arrived. There’s an impish quality to the way she tilts her head at Patrick before she asks, “So, does David always wear this many layers to bed?”
“Oh-kay,” David says, getting to his feet before they can gang up on him. “I think it’s time to show Alexis the guest bedroom.”
“I’ve seen it,” she says guilelessly, not moving, and Patrick laughs.
“Congratulations, Alexis,” he says. “I’m really happy for you.”
“Thank you,” she says, soft and heartfelt. She stands up, mug cradled in her hands, and leaves the throw blanket in a mess on the couch, of course, because Alexis is allergic to folding. David exhales sharply through his nose and resolves to forgive her, given the circumstances.
“Come on,” he says, waving her toward the hallway, and Patrick offers, “Want a toothbrush?”
They leave Alexis in the guest room with a t-shirt, a pair of sweatpants, and a spare toothbrush, of which they have many, since Patrick likes to buy toothbrushes in bulk from Costco, a store that had horrified David upon his first visit until he realized they had free samples.
David collapses onto his side of the bed, not even bothering to push back the blankets, his eyelids heavy with exhaustion. He sighs contentedly, sinking into the mattress.
Patrick sheds his jeans and shirt, laying them neatly over the back of a chair, and then wrestles the comforter out from underneath David, who makes a couple obligatory noises of protest. “She’s okay, yeah?” Patrick asks.
“Yeah,” David says, squinting his eyes open. “She’s okay.”
“Good,” Patrick says, pulling the comforter over them both.
“Think we can keep the store closed tomorrow?” David asks through a yawn.
Patrick considers it for a couple seconds and then says, “Yeah. I’ll run over before nine and put a sign in the window.”
“Mm,” David says by way of agreement, letting his eyes drop shut again. He nestles in as Patrick wraps an arm across his chest, and falls asleep almost immediately.
He wakes up a few short hours later, when Patrick returns from his brief trip to the store.
“Sign’s up,” Patrick whispers, respectful of the fact that David is still half asleep. “And I stopped and got decaf coffee for Alexis. And croissants.”
It’s classic Patrick, to think of the sweetest possible thing to do and do it, and his words coax David’s tired mouth into an automatic smile. It’s nice to have someone else on the Alexis Rose Crisis Mitigation team. It’s really nice to have Patrick on his team, always.
He reaches out, lazy fingers undoing the buckle on Patrick’s belt. “Why do you keep putting on these jeans?” he asks as Patrick leans down to kiss him.
“’Cause you like to take them off,” is the response he gets, mumbled into his mouth, and David can’t argue with that.
Patrick gets up for the day around noon, but David stays in bed for longer, figuring he deserves the rest after the night he had. He finally gets up around three-thirty, twelve hours after his sister showed up at their door.
He finds his husband in the living room, watching a baseball game with the volume turned down low. David greets him with a kiss, and asks, “Alexis isn’t up yet?”
Patrick shakes his head. “Nope.”
David perches on a chair. “Should we wake her?”
“I don’t know. She got here in the middle of the night, and she’s, you know… growing a person. That probably takes some energy.”
David nods, grimacing very faintly at the thought, and then remembers, suddenly, something he thinks Patrick said in the morning. “Was I dreaming, or did I hear something about croissants?”
“In the kitchen. Maybe after you eat, you can wake Alexis up? We should probably ask her if she has a return flight booked.”
“Knowing Alexis, she probably booked it for a month from now,” David says on his way to the kitchen, where he helps himself to a wonderfully buttery croissant and pours himself a cup of coffee. His mid-afternoon breakfast loses a bit of its charm when he takes a sip - there’s something about the coffee that doesn’t taste right. He pokes back into the living room, asks, “Is there something wrong with the coffeemaker?”
Patrick grins at him. “It’s decaf, remember?”
David shakes his head, frowning deeply at the contents of his cup. “I can’t believe people choose to live like this.”
He taps on the guest room door and lets himself in after eating a second croissant to make up for the disappointment of the coffee. Alexis is sleeping like she always does, in a sprawl of limbs and a tangle of hair. She stirs when he enters the room, pushing the hair in question out of her face.
“Hey,” David says. “It’s four o’clock. We thought you might want to get up.”
“Yeah,” she says drowsily, rubbing at her face. “Thanks.”
“Patrick got you decaf coffee.”
Her smile is bleary but full-fledged. “He’s such a button, David.”
“Yes,” David agrees, because that much is certainly true. “But the coffee tastes awful.”
Alexis is sitting at their dining table, back in her leggings and hoodie with her knees pulled up to her chest, when their doorbell rings again. Patrick looks between her and David like one of them will magically know who it is, and when he gets nothing in return but two what? looks, he goes to answer it.
“Alexis!” he calls a beat later. David and Alexis head for the living room, where David almost runs directly into Ted, who’s speed-walking into the house, and, to David’s chagrin, still wearing his shoes. His shoes that were just on an airplane. In economy.
“Lex,” Ted breathes, and David manages to refrain from saying anything about the shoes when he sees the panic at the edges of his brother-in-law’s eyes.
“Ted, I’m so sorry,” Alexis says right away.
He stares at her, eyes skimming over her body like he’s looking for clues. “I woke up and you were gone,” he says. “And you didn’t respond to any of my texts, and when I called it went straight to voicemail, so I looked at your e-mail, which I guess is maybe something I shouldn’t have done, but your password’s our wedding date so it wasn’t exactly hard to crack, and I saw the plane ticket and the car rental confirmation - ”
“I’m so sorry,” Alexis repeats, her fingers knotted together. She doesn’t wear an assortment of rings everyday anymore, just her engagement ring and her wedding band. “I thought I could get here and come back before you even woke up, but I forgot how long everything takes when you can't charter a jet, and when I got here I was so freaked out that I didn't remember to text you, and I forgot my phone charger, and - ”
“Freaked out?” Ted interrupts. He’s doing his best to appear calm, but his eyes are still bright with panic, and his fingers keep flexing at his sides.
Alexis drops her eyes to the floor. “I just really needed… to talk to David.”
“Okay, Alexis, but you could’ve told me that. You could’ve let me know you were coming here.”
“I know,” she says. “I know. I really am sorry, Ted. It was - I was… freaked out,” she says again, before pressing her lips together, hard enough that they turn white.
Ted moves closer to her. “Freaked out about what, Lex?” he asks, with a steady kind of patience that David recognizes, that he’s heard from Patrick before.
Alexis casts a very brief, nervous glance at David before she looks into her husband’s face. “I’m pregnant,” she says in a rush. “And obviously I meant to tell you, right away, before anyone, but then when I saw what the test said I just got so… nervous, about being someone’s mother, and then I was at the airport and then I was here and I…” She takes a shuddering breath. “Are you mad at me?”
“What? No,” Ted says, seemingly automatically. “I mean, I’d really like to know where you are so I’m not scared some cartel kidnapped you, but - babe, you’re pregnant?”
She nods, and Ted’s hands land on her hips, his thumbs on her abdomen. There’s the same protective tenderness in that gesture that David saw from Alexis last night, and he knows, instantly and utterly, that everything’s going to be okay for them.
“Alexis,” Ted says softly, with something like wonder, and kisses her. “Are you… still freaked out?”
“No,” she says, her hands wrapped around his biceps, keeping him close to her. “It was - I kept thinking about how I - how we - didn’t grow up… like you. With a mom like yours. And I didn’t feel like I knew… how.”
Ted glances at David, and David can see the understanding dawning in his eyes. “Baby, you’re more than just the way you grew up, the forgotten birthdays and the time your parents left you at Versailles by accident and - and all of that. You have… so much love, and you love so absolutely, and I’m so lucky that you give that to me. You’re gonna love our kid like that, and they’re going to be so lucky, too. I don’t know what I’m doing either, Lex, but I know we’re going to figure it out together, okay? And I know you’ll be momentous,” he says, which makes a tremulous smile break over Alexis’ face while David closes his eyes and gives his head several quick shakes, hands in the air at chest level like he could keep the pun from touching him.
“You’ll be amazing,” Ted promises Alexis sincerely, and she kisses him hard before wrapping her arms tight around him.
“You will too,” she murmurs, her voice rough with what David thinks are happy tears. Patrick touches his arm, head tilted toward the kitchen, a silent suggestion, and David nods, but before they go Ted catches his gaze and mouths thank you. Ted’s eyes are damp, and David finds his vision blurring with tears, just for a second, as he follows his husband out of the room.
“Eventful day,” Patrick says with a low chuckle. He tears the last croissant in two and extends half to David.
“I wonder which New Yorker will knock on our door next,” David says wryly.
“Well, our driveway’s full,” Patrick points out, “and you know how Roland is about street parking permits, so let’s hope this is it.”
“They’re going to be parents,” David says, gesturing toward the living room, where Alexis and Ted are presumably still wrapped up in each other and perhaps also discussing why getting on a plane without telling your spouse is not a great idea. “The vet who once treated my panic attack, and my sister.” Something occurs to him, and he says, “I hope Ted knows to teach it not to plug things in with wet hands.”
Patrick laughs. “I think between the two of them, they’ll have it covered.”
David nods, but he has one or two doubts, so he pulls his phone out of his pocket and sets a reminder three years into the future to try to have a talk with a toddler about electrical safety.
“And, you know,” Patrick says, leaning against the counter, wearing the smile that means he’s about the rile David up, “you and I are going to be uncles.”
“Mm,” David agrees, trying not to make too horrified of a face, since he knows that’s just what Patrick wants. “Maybe we won’t call ourselves uncles, though?”
Patrick’s smile grows wider. “Uncle David,” he says, and David is just leaning in to silence his husband with a kiss when there’s a very loud crash and a shriek from his sister.
They find Ted and Alexis, wearing matching sheepish expressions and even matching moisturized mouths, now that Alexis’ chapstick is all over his lips, in the powder room off the entryway, where the sink has broken off the wall and is sitting on the floor, one of its corners badly chipped.
For a moment all David can do is make a series of appalled sounds. Finally, he manages to say, or rather, yell, “Why would you do this?! You’re already pregnant!” He shoots Patrick a helplessly incredulous look.
“Oh my god, David,” Alexis huffs, “it’s not our fault you refuse to pay for quality craftsmanship!”
He waves his hands somewhat haphazardly through the air before using them to gesture, forcefully, to both the sink on the floor and the wall it was once mounted on. “Sinks!” he cries. “Are not meant! To be fucked on, Alexis!”
“Okay, well, your wrong opinions are also not our fault, David,” she begins, but she’s interrupted by Ted slipping an arm around her waist and edging them carefully out of the room, contorting his body at one point to avoid the hand that David’s still using to point repeatedly at the sink.
“We’re really sorry, guys,” he says, sounding at least partially serious. “We’ll go and talk to Ronnie right now, and get this fixed for you.”
“And pay the bill!” Patrick calls after them, but Ted is stamping kisses against Alexis’ cheek while she giggles as they step out of the door, and they don’t appear to have heard him. “I guess we’ll talk payment when they get back,” he says, one eyebrow quirked in amusement, which David can’t quite find it in himself to feel just yet.
Looking at their carefully selected sink, chipped on the ground, David has an entirely horrifying realization, and he grabs his husband’s shoulder for support.
“Patrick,” he says, certain that he’s gone pale, “they’re going to bring that baby into our store.”
fin.