Work Text:
Kate’s fingers drummed restlessly against the keys of her laptop as the blinking cursor mocked her lack of progress.
“How are those notes coming?” Anthony asked, only slightly teasing.
She shot him a look, though his words barely registered.
It wasn’t that the task at hand was particularly difficult. They had been co-teaching the initiative for years, and although it hadn’t always been the case, the lectures largely wrote themselves now. But Kate’s mind lingered stubbornly elsewhere, only half-tethered to the open document in front of her.
Anthony bent to retrieve another abandoned toy from beneath the coffee table, adding it to the small pile he had already gathered.
“If he owns this many swords, we may need to negotiate a disarmament treaty,” Anthony muttered, pulling yet another plastic stick from underneath the couch.
Kate hummed absently, her fingers still hovering over the keys. The cursor just blinked back at her. Her shoulders ached. She rolled them once, realizing she’d been holding them tight for…how long? Long enough that the tension had begun to feel normal.
Anthony clocked it. He always did.
“I spoke to Mother today,” he began, one eye on his wife as he plucked a stuffed rabbit from the bookshelf. “She’s thinking of adopting a dog.”
“That’s nice,” Kate replied automatically, her gaze still fixed on the screen though she couldn’t have said what she was thinking.
“Yes,” Anthony continued mildly, the start of a playful grin appearing. “Apparently, he’s something of a celebrity in the animal world.”
Kate didn’t look up.
“He’s running for Parliament,” Anthony added, fully aware at this point that Kate was not truly listening.
“That’s nice.”
Anthony’s grin widened. “Naturally, I’ll be expected at the swearing-in ceremony.”
That did it. Kate looked up, the words catching up to her a beat too late. “What ceremony?”
Anthony set the rabbit atop the pile and studied his wife.
“Are you going to let me in on what has you so preoccupied this evening?”
Something about his tone drew Kate fully out of her own thoughts. She swallowed and let out a quick exhale, realizing she’d been holding it longer than she’d noticed.
“I’m not—”
Anthony cut her off with a “don’t bother denying it” glare.
Kate lowered the laptop lid with a quiet click, letting herself believe, for just a brief moment, that Edmund had been entertaining himself for the last ten minutes and that maybe, just maybe, she and Anthony could have an uninterrupted conversation. She almost smiled at the thought. Perfect timing, she mused, clearly not understanding that in a house with a toddler, perfect timing did not exist.
As if to prove a point, Edmund chose that moment to run into the living room. A streak of laughter, energy, and a mischievous glint that made Kate feel like she was looking straight into a younger version of her husband.
Her chest tightened.
Love, she had learned, was never a finite thing. It only grew—often at the most inconvenient, miraculous times.
“Edmund, what do you have there, mate?” Anthony asked as the toddler crouched to investigate some urgent matter behind the sofa.
“My sword,” he said proudly, clutching it to his chest.
“It looks a little small to be a sword,” Anthony replied. “Where did you find it?”
“Amma’s bathroom. In the bin.”
Kate’s head snapped up.
Her stomach dropped as Edmund held the slim white stick aloft like a trophy, and for one wild moment, she considered crossing the room, snatching it quickly, and inventing something—anything. A thermometer. A battery. A…sword apparently.
But Anthony was already reaching for it.
“Let me see it,” he said lightly.
Edmund hung his head but dutifully handed it over.
All Kate could do was watch as Anthony inspected the slim white stick in his hands, a faint furrow forming between his brows.
She held her breath as his confusion gave way to growing recognition.
His eyes lifted to hers.
“Kate?”
Just her name. Nothing more. A question and a realization wrapped into a single breath.
She closed her eyes briefly, her shoulders rising and falling with a careful inhale. The same skipped heartbeat she’d felt just hours earlier, when those two blue lines appeared.
“Surprise,” she said softly.
A stillness settled over the room. Even Edmund who was always in motion watched with interest like maybe he’d be let in on the secret.
“Is this…?”
Kate nodded once. “I only found out this morning.”
He looked back down at the pregnancy test, and then back to her again, as if the world had quietly rewritten itself in the space between those two glances.
“How?”
Kate’s lip curved, small and private. “I have a few theories.”
“Sword please,” Edmund interrupted as politely as the impatient boy could.
Anthony blinked and looked down at the small hand tugging at his sleeve, then at the pregnancy test still dangling loosely in his hand. “Of course,” he mumbled, handing it back to his son.
Edmund beamed and scampered away before Anthony could change his mind.
Kate let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “We should…probably confiscate that,” she said, her voice catching somewhere between practicality and amusement.
Anthony huffed a quiet, startled laugh, slowly coming back to himself. “Yes,” he agreed softly. “We probably should.”
He looked at her then. Really looked.
And Kate saw it—not fear, or hesitation, but the same quiet dawning wonder that had taken root in her chest that morning. As though the world had shifted beneath his feet in the best ways.
Something inside her eased at the sight of it.
In two slow steps, he crossed the space between them and drew her into his arms, careful almost reverent.
Kate let herself fold into him, her forehead finding its familiar place beneath his chin. For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then she felt it.
Anthony’s shoulders began to shake, his chest bumping against her ear as it rose and fell faster, looser. The sound of his quiet, incredulous laughter rang through the room.
Kate felt it ripple through her and found herself laughing too, the sound soft and breathless against his shirt.
“You were going to tell me?”
“Obviously,” she rolled her eyes. “I was just trying to catch up to it. It was—it is—”
“Unexpected,” Anthony laughed.
“A shock.”
“A surprise,” Anthony said gently, echoing her earlier words. “But a good one.”
It wasn’t quite a question, but the hope in his eyes asked it all the same.
She let her hand rest along his jaw, her thumb brushing the familiar rasp of his beard.
“The best one.”