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“Okay, that’s not fair, you got to choose last time,” Lup pouts.
“Got to implies that I wanted that,” Barry points out. “It’s not as if you were offering alternatives.”
“I was in an umbrella!” She counters. “And now I’m, like, disgustingly heavily pregnant, so you have to be nice to me or I’ll cry or vomit or – it won’t be good, so just let me choose.”
He sighs heavily and looks over at her. Sure enough, she’s huge, laying back on the couch with her feet up on his lap. “But, Lup, your idea fucking sucks, is the thing.”
Her mouth drops open, and for a second he thinks she was serious about crying, before a grin splits her face. “What’s the problem with Tortilla?”
“Well, it might be an ancestral name, but – well, since Taako, and tacos, and – it's a food, now, and they’re definitely gonna get bullied for it.”
She rolls her eyes. “Alright, but your suggestion?”
“Rose is a nice name! It’s - elves are meant to like nature names and shit!”
“Lup Junior,” Lup proposes, ignoring Barry’s interjection entirely.
He pauses rubbing her feet for a moment, thinking. “If it’s a girl, sure. But then you have to promise that if it’s a boy, he’s Barold Junior.”
She retches. “Nope. No way. Lup is – Lup works for either gender. Lup Two. Twop.”
“Oh my gods,” he shudders, an involuntary reaction of horror. “No. Definitely not.”
“Well, I guess we’re going with Taako’s suggestion,” Lup muses. “Since we can’t agree.”
“Gods, no, that’s worse,” he replies. “Jorts? He wants his niece or nephew’s name to be Jorts Bluejeans?”
“Jorts Bluejeans-Taaco,” she corrects. “It’s - it’s illustrious. We’re building a dynasty here, babe. Plus, our kids have to be as prodigal as Angus, or we’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Pfft, they’ve got your genes,” he says, smiling a disgustingly sappy smile at her. “How could they be anything but?”
“You’re awful,” she rolls her eyes, with an equally disgusting adoring grin. “Says the most prolific scientist of his generation.”
“Ah, Ellie’s not interested in science at all,” he says, a little sadly. “She’s a mummy’s girl.”
“She just likes making things explode,” Lup replies, patting him reassuringly on the hand. “Show her the potassium and water thing, that’ll hook her. Anyways, if we’ve got one mage in the family, the next one’ll be a little chemist, because of Punnett squares and shit.”
“That’s absolutely not how Punnett squares work,” he replies, laughing. “But I hope so. We’re just lucky Ellie didn’t inherit necromancy from either of us. And that she’s never gotten curious about what’s in the basement, because we for sure don’t need her stumbling on some of those textbooks.”
Lup laughs too. “Yeah, I don’t think there’s much chance of her ever getting reaped, though, do you? She’s got Bird Mom wrapped around her little finger.”
“And Kravitz. Did you see how much candy he brought her last time? We need to have words with that man, because she knows exactly how to manipulate him.” She hums, unconvinced, and he looks at her, confused. “What?”
“Did you not see Taako unload all of that chocolate on Kravitz right before they rang the bell? It’s my brother you should be worrying about, he just likes to pretend it’s all his beau.”
Barry laughs, delighted and surprised. “Are you serious? That’s - of course, I should’ve known. Your brother’s heart is ten sizes bigger than he likes to pretend.”
“You knew that already,” she teases. “How often does he go in for a Barry cuddle?”
“He says I’m warmer than Kravitz,” he replies, puffing out his chest with pride.
“You are,” she agrees. “Softer, too. He’s all bony. I don’t know how Taako stands it.” Saying that, she pulls her feet from his lap and painstakingly sits upright to lean on him, wrapping an arm around his waist. He melts into her touch, resting his chin on the top of her head.
“Love you,” he murmurs, and she hums into his chest.
“I love you, too.”
They sit in comfortable silence, for a moment. “I just – just wish we could’ve had this with Ellie,” she says, quietly, and he nods.
“I know, Loopy.” He rubs a small circle into her back with a heavy sigh. “Me too.”
“Like, I love her more than anything, and – I missed so much. Her first words, her first steps -”
“I know,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss into her forehead. He waits a beat before he continues. “I’ll let you change all this one’s diapers, promise.”
She squawks with startled laughter. “No fair! You didn’t have a nose, last time!”
“Didn’t have running water, either,” he points out. “No hand-washing unless I hiked down to the nearest stream -”
“Gross!” She pushes at him. “Disgusting, awful.”
“That’s what prestidigitation is for,” he shrugs. “Still, it’s not the same without water. I always had that feeling, like... Like you’d touched some gum stuck under the table. Ew.”
She shudders. “No, see, you’re the expert now. You’ve had all the practice. I’ll take care of the feeding, you take care of the other end.”
“Well, I mean, I hope you weren’t expecting me to do the feeding,” he says. “Not sure I’ve got the relevant biology for that.”
“You’ve got hands though!” She points out. “Perfect for baby-changing!”
He nods. “Lup, if that’s what you really want, I’ll change every diaper for you. Anything.”
She tuts. “No fair. You can’t get all genuine and sappy when we’re talking about diapers.”
“You’ve done all the hard work up to this point!” He indicates her enormous belly. “It’s only fair -”
“Mmm, true,” she muses. “You’re really not pulling your weight in this group presentation, Bear.”
“It’s fine, you’ll let me crib off your notes, right?”
“You know I will,” she grins. “But there’s a price.”
“Hm, I don’t know,” he taps his finger to his lips, thoughtfully. “Mama always did warn me about signing blank cheques...”
“Alright, get down here,” she rolls her eyes and pulls on his lapel as he laughs, bringing his lips down to meet hers.
He’ll never take this for granted again, he thinks. He could spend eternity like this. When he’d been alone at the Institute, he’d believed happiness to be a large book and a comfortable chair. When he’d been on the Starblaster, he’d believed it to be a moment alone, in peace and quiet, without the apocalypse hanging over him. When he’d married Lup, he’d believed that he could never be happier, that he’d burst with it, filling his heart and spilling over. But, now, with his daughter asleep upstairs, his wife pregnant with another child, everything else pales. He counts himself so, so incredibly lucky.
But, all too soon, she’s pulling away, pushing at his chest. “Bear,” she murmurs into his mouth. “Babe, stop.”
“What’s up?” He asks, his brow furrowing in concern.
“Uh, we’re gonna have to worry about names later,” she says, looking down at her lap, prodding at the couch and examining her fingers. “My water broke.”
He blinks at her, for a second, uncomprehending, before he leaps up. “Oh, shit!” She just laughs as he dashes to get his stone to call Taako.
“We still don’t have a name,” Lup murmurs, almost a full day later, the baby cradled on her chest. She’s got Barry’s finger trapped, vice-like, in one of her tiny hands, and both parents have obvious heart-eyes as they stare down at her. Taako’s been and gone, bringing Ellie to visit her new sister, and they’d promised to visit the Raven Queen just as soon as they could get out of the hospital.
“Lup, honestly, whatever you want,” Barry replies, quietly, not wanting to wake her. “You’re right, I chose Ellie, so – she's all yours. You can always let me choose some middle names.”
She hums, cuddling closer into Barry in the medical bed that he’d clambered into. “I don’t know. Can we just wait, let her pick her own? It worked for me.”
He chuckles softly. “And, what, call her Girl in the meantime?”
She scowls. “You’ve always gotta shoot down my good ideas, huh?”
“I did say I’d let you choose,” he says, grin still on his face. “If Girl is really speaking to you -”
“No, no, we can’t have “Ellie” and “Girl,” that’d definitely make it sound like we have favourites,” Lup says, her hand brushing the wispy hairs on the baby’s head aside. “You know what? Rose has grown on me.”
“Really?” He finally looks up from the baby – from Rose – to examine her face. “I thought -”
“You were right,” she admits. “It’s cute. And it suits her, right?”
“Sure you don’t want Lup Two?”
“Pfft, she needs to earn that name,” Lup replies, snobbishly turning her nose up, and Barry laughs.
“Rose it is.”