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Carly has been oddly quiet since they got in the car. It’s not that he’s exactly worried about it, they had just gone on record about their relationship in front of all of their family and friends, their coupledom, if you could call it that, was as locked down as it had ever been. Still, the sight of his usually peppy best friend and now girlfriend, seemingly in deep thought had him… Curious?
She had been so happy just hours ago, dancing in the foam, eating ground sushi and laughing with all those they held close, and yet now… Now she seemed anything but, the joy and excitement of the previous hours all but forgotten.
“You okay?” he asks as they stop at a red light, hand dropping from the steering wheel to gently rest over hers. He watches as her gaze which was squarely fixed out the window mere seconds ago comes to rest on their hands, her small dainty one turning to entwine their fingers. She sighs.
“Babe?” He asks again, body now turning to face hers completely as he does the once over. Brown hair… Pretty eyes… Flushed cheeks…. And those lips… Check. He misses her smile.
She finally speaks as the light turns green.
“You were so happy tonight” she begins, hand releasing his, in favour of clasping her other, a nervous tell if ever there was one.
“Of course I was, it’s finally out, everyone finally knows that you’re my girl. No more worrying about Millicent or my mom slipping up and telling Gwen, we just get to be.. Us”
Her cheeks flush, a small smile settling on her lips as she looks over to him, brown eyes fixed on his face.
“It will be nice to just be us” she nods, before leaning back against the back of her seat fluttering her eyes shut.
It’s still quiet. Which is not Carly.
He turns the corner at the next traffic light, changing their direction as he drives toward the lookout at Washington Park. If he knows his girl, and he does, she can’t resist a romantic gesture, even if said gesture is just a walk around a garden.
Carly keeps her eyes closed for the rest of the drive, the only tell that she’s awake the way she mindlessly mouths the words of ‘Leave before you love me’ by the Jonas brothers. He thinks it’s cute the way that even when she’s trying her hardest to look like she’s sleeping, she still can’t resist the pull of a good song.
He pulls into the mostly empty car park, the tourists long gone now that the sun has set.
“Babe, wake up” he whispers generously, full well knowing she is not asleep, but willing to pretend for the sake of whatever it is she’s currently trying to work through.
Carly flutters her eyes open, a soft yawn escaping her lips that is more exaggerated than he’s willing to admit, but like the good boyfriend he is, he plays along.
“You must be exhausted” he says with a soft smile, fingers threading through hers as he brings their joint hands up to his mouth, kissing her knuckles.
“Oh I am-” she begins, but stops as she looks around, finally noticing the lack of underground car park. “Wait, I thought we were going home?”
Her nose scrunches in that cute little way it always does when she’s confused, wide doe eyes going an impossibly lighter shade of brown as the overhead lighting hits her in just the right way.
“You are so pretty” he tells her, leaning over the center console to take her face in his hands, cradling it softly as if she’s the most precious thing in the world, because to him, she is. “Could never have known you’d been sleeping the past twenty minutes…” He trails it out, smiling at the odd expression on her face as she seems to pick up on his words.
“How long did you know?” She sighs, but even while trying to be annoyed, she can’t keep the small smile from her face.
“Know, what?” he whispers, bumping his head against her forehead as he rubs his thumb against her jawline. “I know nothing, well maybe not nothing. I know I love you..” He leans in kissing her nose. “And I know you’re beautiful” his lips brush against her forehead. “And I know that I’m really really happy that we get to build our ecosystem together, finally.”
She lets out a soft breath, eyes fluttering shut again as he continues to hold her face, gently stroking her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs.
“And I hope I know that you’re going to tell me what’s going on in that big ol’ head of yours..”
She bites her lip.
“Please, Carls, If this is too much then-”
She cuts him off.
“You looked so happy when you thought I might be.. That we might be-”
His hand stills, a cold chill going through his body as his mind starts to put the pieces together. She’s upset he wanted kids. She’s upset he wanted kids with her. He lets out a steady breath, body pulling away slightly as his hand hovers against her cheeks. Could he give up kids for her? He’d always wanted kids, but he’d also always wanted Carly. She was EVERYTHING he ever wanted. Did that change if she didn’t want a family? Did he need more family, it’s not like he didn’t already have a kid, he had Millicent, if she was the only kid he ever had then-
His spiralling is cut off by brown eyes piercing his own, pouty bottom lip bitten before she speaks. “I’ve never seen you look at me like that before, like I was everything… Like we were everything..”
“I told you..” He whispers, cheek twitching as he tries to hold back the emotion he’s feeling. This was not how the night was supposed to go. “I meant it, Carly. You are everything to me.”
Her bottom lip quivers and he feels the dread sweep over his body at the look in her eyes, the confusion that is so clearly there masking everything else. They just told Gwen, he thinks. They were just celebrating with their families. How are they having this conversation? Has she changed her mind?
“You’re everything to me” she repeats, breaking out into a sob as she crumples against him, and he’s waiting for the ‘but’, he’s waiting for the ‘however’ but it never comes. What does come though…
“And I think I want to have a baby… With you..”
He freezes. Mouth dropping as his eyes search hers, desperately trying to decipher whether she means it or if she’s just trying to say what she thinks he needs her to say. Just trying to make him happy.
“Babe..” he whispers, shaking his head softly as he wrestles with her words.
She continues with more of them.
“I-” she starts, before stopping to take a breath. “I never..” another stop. “No, I always knew that one day, far down the line, that maybe I would have a family. Isn’t that what they tell you when you’re a kid? You’ll meet someone, fall in love, and then you’ll have a baby and a house and a dog and live happily ever after.”
He nods.
“And I thought that was true, but then I was twenty six, and without a job, and had just been dumped, and even if I hadn’t of been, I wasn’t in love… I’d never been in love… I’d never had what they promised.” She sighs, voice growing shaky as continues. “So I think maybe, I think I might have just stopped thinking that it was going to happen. I think maybe I had accepted that life for me might not look like that… I didn’t grow up with a mom around, I wouldn’t even really know how to be maternal, I thought that maybe that was just the universe's way of saying that it wasn’t for me.. That I didn’t get that life.”
He’s hanging on her every word, breathing all but stopped as his eyes stay locked on hers.
“And then you looked at me tonight… And you were so happy, and you were so excited… And you wanted it, and you wanted it with me.”
He nods, squeezing his eyes to stop the tears that he knows are coming.
“And for the first time in a long time, it felt like I was wrong.” She chokes on a sob. “It felt like I could have it. It felt like I was finally home”
His composure breaks at the word home, his hands quickly reaching down to lift her up, dropping her down against his lap as he takes her face back in his hands, cradling her chin as he searches her eyes.
They’re no longer heavy. Deep brown and sparkling with unshed tears, yes, but the weight? It’s gone.
“Crap” he swallows as a sob ripples through his body, his shoulders shaking as he holds her face with trembling hands. “You are home. You’re my home. This..” he motions between them both. “Is our home.”
The tears slide down her cheeks wetting his fingers as she finally lets out a breath, the most beautiful smile he’s ever seen taking over her lips.
“Can our home have lots of babies…?”
He laughs through his own tears. “As many as you want.”
“And can our home have a dog?”
“Of course” he nods, resting his forehead against hers.
“Can our home have a matching rockers on the porch for when we get old and crabby?”
“Mmhm” he nods, nuzzling her nose with his own.
She pauses, pulling back for a moment to look into his eyes.
“Can our home start now?”
He thinks on it for a few seconds, a smile slipping against his lips as he finally responds.
“I think it started fifteen years ago, in the hallway, when I saw you standing at your door and thought, I’m going to marry that girl someday.”
She blushes, hands reaching out to pull him closer as her lips gently brush against his.
“Will you?” she whispers against his bottom lip, and he can sense the way her heart is beating from the way her breath is coming out in small ragged bursts, eyes locked on his as she waits for his answer.
“I will.”
Fin.