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invaderdoom78 · 4 years

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Eros part 1

Originally Trunks had intended to head back to his time immediately after Cell's defeat but, unbeknownst to him, the time machine had sustained some damage so he wasn’t able to return home until the Bulma of this timeline fixed it, which she did within a month's time. So, now that she had time to plan a proper send-off for her future son Bulma had organized a beach day for him and their friends at Kame House, though only Gohan, Chi-Chi, Piccalo (probably only at Gohans request) Krillin, Vegeta, and apparently his Uncie Nappa were able to make it. It was nice watching everyone have fun and relax especially after they’d spent so much time on edge as Gohan and Krillin played in the water, Piccolo watching from the shoreline, Chi-Chi and his mom talking to each other about Chi-Chi’s pregnancy while his father sulked behind them, and Nappa played with baby him, lifting him in the air like he was flying.

When he got home he’d have to remember to ask his mom if she knew if the Nappa in their time was still alive, though he doubted that the Saiyan would be interested in being his honorary uncle, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to have someone around they could reach out to if they needed to know something about Saiyan culture. Letting out a contented sigh Trunks closed his eyes feeling the waves as they flowed onto the shore, gently moving against his legs as laid back into the sand. He’d just barely gotten comfortable when he suddenly felt an energy that shouldn’t have existed anymore one that should’ve been left in the cold recesses of space.

“No,” Piccolo said as everyone who could sense energy looked up to the sky “it can’t be. Goku killed him!”

“What’s going on?” Bulma asked looking at where everyone else was

“Mom” Gohan said running towards his mother “you need to get inside now”

“What’s wrong Gohan?” Chi-Chi asked as the sky darkened above them

“There’s no time to...” Gohan didn’t get to finish his sentence because the next thing any of them knew Broly came floating down from the darkened sky, a twisted smile on his face.

“What do you want you monster?” Piccolo demanded “Goku’s not here”

“Broly not come for Kakarot,” Broly said shocking everyone “Broly come for Broly’s wife”

Trunks felt his heart-stopping dead in his chest as he felt Broly’s pupil-less eyes roaming over his half-naked body and, without thinking, he took off flying as fast as he could in the opposite direction just hoping that he’d be able to lose the other Saiyan, though he knew that would be next to impossible; especially once he saw the looming shadow of an enormous figure consume his body. Thankfully he felt the energy of his friends rapidly catching up to them along with several ki blasts aimed in their direction. Letting gravity take hold of him Trunks plummeted towards the ocean, both to put some distance between him and Broly and also to avoid the ki blasts.

He didn’t even bother waiting to see if the attacks had done anything because; one he knew they didn’t and two because he saw a crevice covered landmass that he knew he could hide in as long as Broly didn’t know how to sense energy. Finding the first opening he could Trunks squeezed himself into it as far back as he could before lowering his power level. Even from his hiding place Trunks could hear his friends and Broly's fight, it sounded even more intense than the one back on New Vegeta but they all knew that unless their last battle had left the legendary severely handicapped they didn’t have a chance of winning without Goku. The only moment of reprieve that seemed to come was when the fight grew quiet, that was until...

“Princess Trunks” Broly’s voice called out, sounding sickeningly sweet from right outside Trunks hiding spot

Covering his mouth with both of his hands in a near crushing grip, Trunks tried to make himself as small as possible hoping that Broly was only trying to scare him out of his hiding place and didn’t actually know where he was. Unfortunately, like always, luck wasn’t on his side and the mountain around him was destroyed and he was left floating mid-air looking up at the overpowered Saiyan in horror as Broly looking down at him in complete satisfaction before grabbing Trunks and punching him hard enough in the gut to make him lose consciousness.

——————————————————————————————————

“That was even worse then the fight on New Vegeta” Gohan panted after Piccolo pulled him out of the ocean, coughing up a bit of water

“What I want to know is how he survived Goku’s attack,” Piccolo said as Krillin handed them both a senzu bean “we watched him explode”

“Where’s Vegeta?” Krillin asked looking around

“That absolute bastard!”

They heard Vegeta screaming from where Trunks had been hiding and flew over to the prince.

“I’ll fucking kill him when we find him”

“What’s wrong Vegeta?” Gohan asked as they flew over to the prince

“Trunks is gone” Vegeta growled

“Did Broly kill him?” Krillin asked looking at the damage that had been done to the island

“I doubt it,” Gohan said surveying the ocean below them for any sign of the time traveler “he may be insane but I don’t think Broly would go through all this trouble only to kill Trunks”

“I can’t sense his energy anywhere on the planet,” Kami said

“An energy like that doesn’t just vanish” Nail added “they can’t be on Earth anymore”

“Agreed,” Piccolo said, “I think they must have gone off-planet”

“Do you think Broly has a spaceship then?”

“He must. We left that bastard out in space when we fought him last” Piccolo said as they started their flight back to Kame house

“Where’s Trunks?” Bulma asked looking around when they landed in the sand

“Broly must’ve taken him” Piccolo sighed

“Why would he do that?” Bulma asked confused as a million scenarios ran through her head

“Yeah, Vegeta” Piccolo asked, crossing his arms across his chest “why would he do that?”

“How was I supposed to know that when I gave him permission to bed Trunks that this is how it would turn out!” Vegeta demanded

“I’m sorry” Bulma interjected, “you did what?”

“It was for the sake of the Saiyan race!”

“Wow,” Nappa said

“Like you have any room to talk Mr. stab the baby or you’ll have to cancel your 6 o’clock!”

“Fair point” Nappa shrugged

“How would that be beneficial for the Saiyan race?” Gohan asked more to himself “they’d still need an egg donor in order to conceive a child”

“Not necessarily” Nappa chimed in “though it’s rare it is possible for male Saiyans to become pregnant and it is a trait that's most commonly found in the royal bloodline. Which is partially why they were considered the elite”

“Do humans not lay eggs?” Nail asked

“Shut up Nail” Piccolo almost growled under his breath

“Here,” Bulma said calmly, handing baby Trunks over to his uncle Nappa. Thankfully for Vegeta, he’d been wearing his casual clothing instead of a swimsuit because otherwise, Bulma would’ve grabbed him by the neck instead of his shirt collar. “Listen to me very carefully” her voice was dangerously low “if you don’t get your ass in gear and get out there looking for my baby then I will make sure that not only will you regret the day you were born but every day until you die”

“How?” Vegeta asked, managing to break out of the iron grip “we don’t even have a space ship!”

“What about Kami’s old ship?” Krillin asked “wasn’t it brought to Earth when Little Green wished everyone off of Old Namik”

“Yes it was,” Bulma said eyeing the prince out of the corner of her eye “we need Goku you realize that right”

“Yeah,” Vegeta said Broly being the only enemy they’ve faced that he would willingly admit he had no chance against

“ROSHI” Bulma screamed into the house “call your sister right now!”

——————————————————————————————————

Trunks wasn’t sure how long he’d been out for or even what had happened after he’d hidden from... Broly. Shit! Did the Legendary murder his friends, did they manage to defeat them? Wait? Trunks' thoughts were interrupted when he realized that a pair of arms were wrapped tightly around him. Once again he felt his heart freezing in his chest and he was afraid to open his eyes but he knew he had to in order to get some idea of what his surroundings were like. Cracking open an eye just wide enough for him to see, Trunks saw that he was in a room he’d never seen before, it was large, but the walls kinda looked like they were made out of clouds instead of stone as they looked soft to the touch. Looking around a bit more, Trunks could see that the room looked to have been decorated for royalty and that he was also laying in a rather large bed, that was when he finally noticed who it was that was holding him. It was Broly, who’d apparently slipped back into his base form in his sleep. Trunks couldn’t tell if this was a good thing or not as the young half-Saiyan was pretty sure he could beat the other in this form if given the opportunity but he also knew better than to assume the strength of his opponent. It was weird, the more he observed the unstable Saiyan Trunks couldn’t help but take notice of the almost innocent appearance Broly took on as he slept. It was unnerving. Despite his best efforts to stay as still as possible his subtle movements of looking around the room seemed to be enough to rouse the larger Saiyan from his slumber. Freezing Trunks watched as Broly slowly blinked open his eyes, seemingly also taken aback by the strange surroundings, that was until he looked down at the young half-Saiyan, his eyes going wide in shock as a blush spread across his cheeks.

“P-princess?” Broly stammered out, releasing his hold on the other “wha?”

Taking the opportunity Trunks pushed himself away from the other, landing a few feet away from the bed. It was then that he realized that he was still only wearing his swimwear and this was something Broly had noticed as well as his entire face became beet red. There was a long, long stretch of silence; Trunks trying to figure out what exactly the larger Saiyans plan was as Broly lay on the bed looking more and more embarrassed and confused about what was going on.

“Your hair is shorter,” Broly said suddenly, sitting up hoping that this would break up the awkwardness of the situation

“What?” Trunks asked, getting agitated at the other's ignorance of his actions

“Your hair,” Broly said pointing at Trunks' head “it’s shorter. It’s, cute”

Looking the other in the eyes Trunks could tell that he was being genuine with his compliment and the fact that he didn’t quite understand what was happening. Letting out a frustrated sigh Trunks walked over to one of the dressers he’d spotted earlier hoping that he could find something that he could at least cover himself with. The dressers weren’t made out of wood, they’d been chiseled out of a large slab of sapphire, the one next to him being made of ruby. Pulling open the doors Trunks let out a frustrated groan when he saw that it was filled with nothing but different kinds of dresses, all of varying length and style, and half jackets. He went over the ruby one and opened it, this one being full of clothing that was obviously Broly’s judging by the size. Slamming the door shut he reluctantly went back to the first dresser again and grabbed the first dress and half jacket he saw.

“Do you mind!” Trunks snapped, turning to face Broly who’d just been watching him from the bed the whole time

Jumping slightly Broly scrambled off the bed and out the room. Waiting for a minute or two Trunks listened carefully for any signs of the other attempting to re-enter the room. Once he was certain that the other wasn’t going to burst in, Trunks reached into the secret pocket he’d sewn into the inner lining of his swim pants and grabbed the capsules of emergency supplies he’d stuck in there. So now he at least knew that he had some emergency rations and fresh drinking water on him. The dress he’d chosen wasn’t anything flashy; it was a simple sleeveless rectangle of fabric that had an over-fold at the waist, that was just long enough to reach past the edge of his swimwear. Sticking the capsules back into his trunk pockets the young half-Saiyan slipped on the dress and dark blue half jacket before giving the room one final glance, trying to see if there were any shoes he could wear, but there weren’t any, so he realized he’d have to go barefoot for now. Opening the bedroom door Trunks stepped out and almost walked straight into Broly, who was standing out in the hall waiting for him.

Shoving past the other Trunks decided that it would be best to explore the castle so he had some idea of what his surroundings were like so he could more easily plan his escape. He wasn’t sure how successful it would be since Broly was following a few feet behind him, shuffling his feet and staring down at the floor as he bumped his knuckles together nervously. At least he was giving Trunks some space unlike back on New Vegeta where he’d been right on top of the young half-Saiyan the entire time he explored the hastily made castle. Trunks wanted to say something to get Broly to go away, but he was afraid that if he did it would trigger Broly's temper, realizing that he’d already been pushing it when he snapped at and shoved past him earlier. The halls were full of columns that had all been made out of different types of crystals and the walls were decorated with what seemed like portraits that had been directly carved and painted into the walls depicting very human-like beings but some with pointed ears, extra limbs, horns, tails, fins, ect. Eventually, they came across a double glass door that Trunks just happened to look out of as they passed.

“Crap baskets!” Trunks exclaimed, his shoulders slumping in defeat once he realized they weren’t on Earth

He was barely able to register the sound of heavy footsteps rushing towards him.

“What’s wrong, princess?” Broly asked, the concern obvious in his voice

Trunks ignored him as he nearly ripped the glass door open as he ran out onto the balcony. The foliage around them looked to be tropical in nature even though the temperature was too cool to be considered a tropical environment and the colors of the foliage were complementary to what they should’ve been, so instead of green leaves they were varying shades of red, and instead of an azure blue sky, it was a light purple.

“Where the hell are we?” Trunks asked feeling any hope he had of escaping fleeing his body, gripping the stone railing tight enough to crack it under his grip

Wanting to get a better look at the planet itself and search for any signs of life, since none were visible from the castle even though it appeared to have been built on top of a mountain, hoping that he could find out if maybe, just maybe, New Namek happened to be nearby, but when he tried to fly into the air he found that he couldn’t.

“No!” Trunks exclaimed jumping a few times in the hope of making it work “no! No. Why can’t I fly?”

Trunks suddenly felt everything finally crashing down around him, all he wanted to do was get back home to his own timeline and make sure his mother was alright and finally take down the androids that had been terrorizing them for so long and avenge Mr. Gohan and his friend's deaths. Dropping to his knees, Trunks began pulling at his hair, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to fall, so caught up in his emotional turmoil that he almost missed the feather-light touch that was placed on his shoulder. Jumping a bit he yanked his shoulder away from the touch and whipped around to look at Broly, who was obviously out of his depths judging by the panicked look in his wide eyes. After a brief stare down the larger Saiyan hesitantly placed his hands on the young princes’ shoulders and pulled him close until Trunks was flush against his chest in an attempt at a hug, but at this point, Trunks didn’t care. He didn’t care that Broly was the one that was attempting to comfort him, he was just desperate for any type of physical contact, so he wrapped his arms around the larger Saiyan as tightly as he could manage, which Broly took as a sign of encouragement so he copied the other's actions and wrapped his arms around Trunks as well, feeling his chest starting to become wet as tears finally began spilling, not stopping until the young prince felt numb.

——————————————————————————————————

After getting changed out of their swimwear everyone at Kame House flew off for the Look-Out, Chi-Chi being carried by Nappa as Vegeta carried Bulma who was holding their infant son. When they got there Krillin dropped down to Korin and Yanjarobe’s so he could grab some senzu beans that they would absolutely need, as Vegeta stood at the edge of the platform glaring out in the direction of where they had fought Broly, and Dende ran up to them looking a bit panicked having sensed Broly’s immense energy.

“What the fuck was that!” Dende borderline screamed

“That was Broly” Gohan sighed

“WHAT!” Dende shrieked “you told me he was dead!”

“Somehow he survived being exploded” Piccolo growled as Krillin flew back up lugging a literal sack of senzu beans behind him

“Where’s Kami’s old ship, Dende?” Bulma asked since it was being kept on the Look-Out just in case the young Nemekian ever wanted to visit back home

“It’s by the Hyperbolic Time Chamber,” Dende said pointing the direction of the room Bulma running off in the direction to run a check of the ship's systems “How the hell are you gonna fight that monster if Goku’s dead?”

“We asked Fortuneteller Baba to bring him back,” Gohan said

“When is he getting here?”

“Hopefully soon,” Piccolo said

“Hey, guys!” Goku’s voice called out from not to far off

“Goku!

“Dad!”

Gohan and Chi-Chi exclaimed as they ran up to the Saiyan, almost tackling him to the ground as they hugged him after he’d landed.

“Now all we need to do is find Broly,” Krillin said, cheerfully

“I searched for their energy while I was on King Kai's planet so I could Instant Transmit us there,” Goku said raising a hand to his forehead “that’s weird” he lowered his appendage “why’s it not working?”

“Where is the planet?” Dende asked

“It’s a few hundred kilometers to the left of where Old Namek was”

“I know that planet,” Dende said gripping his staff “it is a bit of an oddity that either has some type of supernatural protection around it or has such an odd gravity field around it that it’s near impossible to fly there much less instant transit”

“It’s a good thing we have a spaceship readily available then,” Krillin said as they all walked towards where Bulma had run off to

It took a couple of days but Bulma was able to give the ship's engines a boost to make them more powerful as well as install a way for them to communicate with everyone back on Earth.

“My mom and dad are going to be out of town for the next few weeks but you can reach them at this number and...”

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Bulms” Nappa said, placing his hands on her shoulder, the Saiyan staying behind as his producer job leaving him in a position where he was unable to leave the planet “I’ve got everything under control. Everything will be fine”

“Ok,” Bulma said taking a calming breath

Handing her baby over to his uncle Bulma kissed the infant Trunks on the top of his head before getting on the ship, Nappa waving them off.

#team four star #dbz abridged #Dragon Ball Z #dbz #trunks/broly #broly/trunks #future trunks #princess trunks #abridged broly #bulma briefs #vegeta #son gohan #piccolo #krillin #son goku #super kami dende #nappa #chi-chi

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imnotwolverine · 4 years

Text

The marriage pact - London bits

Henry Cavill x OC Alice - multi-chapter

< Part 14 | Part 15 London bits | Part 16 >

Disclaimer: some strong language

Author’s note: It was so much fun to do some actual research on Jersey’s history - even though it is only mentioned very briefly in this chapter.

Word count: 1.265

(Link to my Masterlist)

Dear readers,

One can find and do many things on our Jersey island, its rich soil housing some 107.000 inhabitants. But as it appears, the world has more to offer than multi-horned sheep, lovely beaches and close knitted communities. Today I’m once more writing from the metropolitan city of London, my journey taking me to meet some ex-inhabitants of our beloved Jersey.

In this “Old Faces goes London”, I’ll be visiting a baker who decided to bring his infamous Jersey-rolls to the great City of London, a linguist who strives to keep Jèrriais (our territories unique Norman dialect) alive and I’ll be having a cup of tea with an exporter of Jersey’s very own apple cider. Yum!

And, as time is ticking I will now bid you all adieu. Or, to keep it in the Jèrriais realms;

À bétôt!

Ali

‘Morning.’ Henry pressed a kiss on my cheek while he brushed past me, his hands busy with making toast while I prepped some lunch boxes. It was 6 AM on a Tuesday and, though I was far from awake, I did admit that I felt quite happy being here, in Henry’s Mews kitchen.

In the far corner I could hear Kal hogging down some food after an even more ungodly early doggy walk - from which I thankfully had been spared - and before long the kitchen was filled with lovely scents and we were all enjoying our breakfast.

‘Sleep well?’ I said, keeping my voice down as the walls were rather thin. Henry nodded, cup of coffee hovering beneath his nose, cheeks dimpling with a tender smile. ‘Sure did. Though looks like you are STILL sleeping.’ He laughed. ‘Mmm... I’m very much enjoying this dream, thank you very much. So please, allow me.’

‘Then so I will. So what are you up to today?’ He took a hesitant sip of the far too hot drink, scrunching his nose as he nearly burned his tongue, then decided to put it down, his hands instead moving to cut into the toast, his egg all gooey perfection as it oozed out onto the plate. I could see Kal push his head on Henry’s lap, hoping that his puppy eyes were enough of a persuader to earn himself some bacon. But apparently it was just another part of their morning routine, Henry��s hand near automatically running through the Akita’s fur before returning to his breakfast, no bacon bits shared in the process.

Sweet bears.

‘Going to have an interview with that baker in a little over an hour, then visiting that publisher followed by some work calls. You?’

‘No baker interviews unfortunately,’ He smiled. ‘Just meetings. Meetings, meetings, meetings.’ Henry shrugged, obviously not looking forward to it. ‘Oh..What do you want to do for dinner by the way?’ He inquired.

‘Eh…eat food?’ I grinned, earning an exasperated look from him. ‘Hahah..sorry..but eh..let’s just cook something at home. Shall I cook or..?’

‘Cooking as home is good, sure. And, Ali, honestly..I’m not THAT traditional. Maybe let’s just say that the first person who gets home, cooks? That seems to be more fair.’ He said simply, hogging down onto another huge bite.

‘Very well then, my fair feminist knight.’ I winked, also cutting into my toast, my nose sniffing happily as the savoury scents drifted into my nostrils. Gosh, how nice it was to be with a man that could cook!

—

Still somewhat catching my breath from hurrying from meeting to meeting, I sat before one man called Charles Dunham, his golden nameplate shining proudly on his paper-filled mahogany desk. From the moment I had gotten into his office, it became clear that the old, fat cheeked man was most eager to get me on board; a good cup of coffee and some cookies were moved onto the last remaining bit of his space on his overcrowded desk and before I could even take my first sip of the welcome drink, the offer was already on the table.

‘Simply said; we adore your stories. And from a business point of view we see great potential. You have a solid fan base, and we recently released a similar storybook for adults that sold like hot buns on the Sunday market,’ He grinned happily, throwing three cubes of sugar in his coffee and mixing it with a freakishly small spoon. ‘So we are more than glad to develop this project with you.’

I blinked over the rim of the cup of coffee, hot steam raising up from the porcelain. HOLY DAMN! I let out a soft giggle and smiled. ‘My…alright then. I had expected to have to give you my sales pitch and perhaps a kidney or two. I mean, I even made a whole presentation, but this is far better. Thank you so much for your trust and enthusiasm Mr. Dunham, it truly means the world!’

Mr. Dunham chuckled. ‘And the world better be ready. How about we start editing a first version in the next few months, fine-tune a few things? Oh, and I did have one small question; are these based on actual people?’

‘Some are inspired by a mix of people I know, though all characters are definitely fictional in nature.’

‘Well, perhaps you COULD add a slight reference to Superman, since he’s from the Islands as well. Our readers would surely love that.’

I felt my stomach somersault again. Oh Mr. Dunham..if only you knew.

‘Haha..well. We might have to look into copyrights there, but it sure is true that we, I, adore our homeland hero.’ I winked.

—

Oh the homeland hero. I did adore him, indeed. In fact I craved him really.

The moment I had gotten back to Jersey I felt like I had left a piece of myself back with Henry. Suddenly the air was bleak and my parents house was not my home anymore, the large but comfortable house feeling like but a shell of what it had been just days earlier. And it got even weirder when I was laying in bed.

Here I was, alone, my hand outstretched to the spot where he would lay if we would sleep together. I even tried to sniff the pillow he had slept on, to see if any of his scent perhaps lingered there.

It didn’t.

It had been a strangely eventful day today. First the very early flight, a sleepy Henry - quite unique to find in the mornings - driving me to the airport. And then the near desperate hugs and kisses we shared, followed by a restless flight. And then I had to quickly drop off my stuff before heading to another doctors appointment. This time for one of a more invasive nature; a number of physical tests had to be performed so I could enlist for a sperm donor. My plan B. Just in case everything failed with Henry.

But, in all honesty, it felt more and more like a doom scenario I was increasingly less comfortable with. Did I want to become a single parent, if all of this failed? Was that really my dream? Or was a child just a result of something greater I truly wanted, something I had pushed away and hidden from my still beating heart. Did I actually want something quite different?

Did I want..eh..love, actually?

As I lay there looking at the ceiling, small glow-in-the-dark stars speckling the otherwise dark surface, I came to the bitter tasting realisation that I had not really taken into account that there was suddenly this extra person who had come into the equation. This person I had wild make-out sessions with on my parents couch, as well finding in him the person who offers a listening ear and who would consolidate me and be there during a doctors appointment.

He cared and was obviously not really wanting to leave. And I, to be even more honest with myself, well, I didn’t want him to leave either. I needed to keep him close and listen to him if I wanted this to last.

Rolling on my side I picked up my phone. 11.30 PM. He’d probably be sleeping now. I bit my lip and decided to text him, even if he’d only read it in the morning.

“I just tried to sniff the pillow but your scent is gone. I miss you😢”

Quite immediately a message returned. A selfie, taken with a flash in the starkness of a dark bedroom. Henry’s face sulkily grabbing onto a pillow. “That makes two. I miss you three!”

I giggled, silly bear, then imitated his picture, taking one myself, his pillow squeezed tightly in my arm, head resting on top. “Sweet dreams bear. I’ll keep your pillow safe.”

And then a little voice chat message came in, his silky deep voice filling my heart with joy; ‘Sweet dreams Ali.’

Oh sweet were my dreams indeed.

If only..if only he were here to share them with me.

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#henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fluff #henry cavill x OC #henry cavill x author #fluff #romcom #london #busy life #jerriais #london bites #the marriage pact

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myownsuperintendent · 4 years

Text

New Fic: “All A Family”

At the beginning of season five, Mulder and Scully successfully attempt the IVF. When they then discover Emily, they must all work towards being a family. Rated M for sexual content. AU, fluff, lots of tropes. Also here at Ao3.

...

Mulder tells Scully on the first day, when she comes home from the hospital. He has to, because she’s smiling and alive and full of plans. “I should get a new comforter,” she says, when she’s set her things down in her room; he’s hovering in the doorway. “And I was thinking—maybe I’ll take a trip soon. Somewhere I haven’t been.” And later, when they’re having coffee at her kitchen table, “Do you think I could learn to dance?” So he tells her about the eggs.

He’s almost sorry he’s done it, at first, because she’s not smiling anymore; she looks hurt, pained, in a way he hates seeing on her face. But there’s determination in her voice when she says, “I want a second opinion,” and then he’s not sorry. She’s still making plans.

And then he’s a part of those plans, in a way he didn’t expect but maybe should have, considering how long it’s been since they had anything even vaguely resembling a normal relationship between co-workers. Which is overrated anyway. When she asks him to be her donor, he asks for some time to think about it, but that’s mostly because he doesn’t want to come on too strong. He wants to do this for her, and he tells her that, and he tries not to think about what it might mean for him.

He waits for Scully to come back after her appointment, trying not to pace a hole in her apartment floor. He tries to gauge her face when she comes in, but he can’t read it, can’t figure out if it’s yes or no, and then he admits to himself how much he’s invested in this, how maybe he should have actually used that time to think. But it’s too late to take things back now.

“Scully?” he says cautiously, tentatively. They should have made more plans, together.

She looks at him. “I’m pregnant,” she says. She’s smiling and she has tears in her eyes, and it really is too late to take things back, and that’s even before he steps forward and kisses her. What should I say now? he thinks, frantically, but that’s before she kisses him back, slowly and sweetly and more than once.

He sleeps next to her that night, under that new comforter (it’s light blue, with darker blue dots), holding her close. They don’t do anything beyond the kissing and lying next to each other, and they don’t talk about it. But it feels different from the other times they haven’t talked about things. They’re savoring being on the same page at last.

Over the next couple of weeks, they start a new routine. They almost always have dinner together—Mulder puts himself in charge of finding things that Scully will like and that won’t make her feel sick—and he usually spends the night at her place after that, although they still haven’t taken things very far. There’s been a lot of cuddling, a lot of kissing. And they’re going to have a baby together. That too.

They talk about plans, now, but they’re usually for the immediate future, things like him coming to her doctor’s appointments with her. She showed him some pictures of car seats and went through a rundown of the safety features, and he helped her narrow down the list. Mulder wonders if he’s going to be here when the baby comes (at the end of August, which simultaneously feels very close and very far off), if he’ll consider this their apartment instead of hers. From the way she’s been looking at him, kissing him, smiling when he wraps his hands around her middle, he thinks he will, and he really hopes he’s not reading things wrong. But somehow he doesn’t want to ask. He likes what they have now, uncomplicatedly happy, feeling like things have fallen into place for once. When it’s something that just is, rather than something they have to think about, something they have to decide.

“I’m going out to California for Christmas,” Scully reminds him in mid-December, as they’re looking through some files in the office.

“Oh, right,” he says. “Are you…is that good? For you to fly?” He’s been reading some books, but it seems like there are a truly dizzying array of things that might be dangerous for pregnant women and that no one can agree on what they are.

“It’s fine. It’s still so early,” Scully says, but she smiles, like she does whenever they bring up anything related to the baby. Their baby. She pauses then, rearranging the pens on the desk. “I was thinking…would you like to come with me?”

Of course he would. He’s never liked being apart from her, and right now, he likes it even less. “That sounds…that would be great,” he says. “Are you sure it’s all right, though? I don’t want to get in the way of things with your family.” He knows she hasn’t told her mom about the baby yet. He wonders if she’s planning on doing it over Christmas.

“You wouldn’t be in the way, Mulder,” Scully says. “Of course it’s all right. You’re my…” He watches as she searches for a word; he can’t blame her, not sure what word he’d pick himself. She finally comes out with “my friend-person.”

“Your friend-person?” he asks. “Did you just make that up?”

“I mean…you’re a person who’s important to me,” Scully says; her voice is soft, and she’s fiddling with the pens again. “And I’d like it if you’d come.”

“I’d like it too,” he says. He touches her hand, stills it.

...

“I hate this,” Scully informs him, sitting back down next to him on the plane; she’s just returned from the bathroom, where he assumes, based on the expression on her face when she leapt up from her seat, she threw up. “I never got sick on planes before. Never in my life.”

“It’s the first trimester,” Mulder says. “It should stop by late February.” He realizes he doesn’t sound very comforting.

Scully doesn’t seem to think so either. “Don’t give me that shit,” she says. “Just because you’ve been reading some books, you think you know everything.”

“Do you not want me to read books?” Mulder asks.

“No. No, that’s good, that you’re reading books,” Scully says. “It’s the least you can do. After you impregnated me.”

He loves the way she words it, so carefully clinical, and he loves that it’s true. “You asked me to.”

“I know,” Scully says; she settles back in her seat and takes out a mint to suck on. “And really—I can’t tell you how much that means. That you said yes. I’m just mad because I can’t keep anything down and that bathroom looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the Carter administration.”

“Understood,” he says. “You’re entitled to be.”

She manages a smile. “There’s another thing,” she says, after a moment. “I thought I’d tell my mom about the baby this week. How does that sound to you?”

“It sounds fine,” he says. “It’s really up to you, though.”

“Not just me,” Scully says. “You’re a part of this too.”

He doesn’t know what that means, exactly, and this is one of those moments where he doesn’t like the uncertainty. But he doesn’t want to push her, here in the airplane where they can’t just leave if the conversation doesn’t go according to plan. Instead he says, “Well, she’s your mom.”

“Still,” Scully says.

“Well, it’s fine with me,” he says again. “You’re going to tell her how it happened?”

“I don’t think I could get away with not telling her,” Scully says. “But don’t worry. I don’t think she’ll bug you about it.”

“I wasn’t worried about that,” Mulder says. “Just wondering.” He wonders if he should tell his mom. He wonders if he should ask Scully about that. Maybe if he did ask her, they’d wind up talking about what exactly their plans are.

They don’t talk about it that night, at her brother’s house, but they sit next to each other on the couch. They don’t share a bed either, but when they part for the night, she says softly, “I thought I’d tell my mom tomorrow,” and he nods.

He doesn’t know how she planned the conversation to go, because by the next afternoon things have changed. That’s when they find out about Emily.

...

The next couple of weeks are a blur. Mulder’s worried about Emily, and he knows Scully is too, and he’s worried about Scully worrying, about her running around nonstop. And he’s worried that if he tells her that, she’ll punch him. He tries to concentrate on what they can do to help Emily, on taking as much as he can off Scully’s shoulders. And it’s not just for Scully’s sake. Emily’s a sweet kid, shy with them, but he can tell she’s got a big mind like her mom’s. And eyes like hers too. He doesn’t like to think about her being sick, being scared. He thinks a lot about the baby when he’s with her. He wants them all to be all right.

But the drugs they find seem to have an effect: Emily gets better, after they try them, in a way that surprises her doctors, who Mulder would guess haven’t seen half of the things that he and Scully have. They go to visit her in the hospital, bringing coloring books and crayons, and the doctors say she’ll be discharged tomorrow. When she starts to fall asleep Scully kisses her forehead and smooths her hair. Then they go.

“What are you thinking?” he asks, as they walk back to the car.

“I’m going to get to work,” Scully says, “on the adoption case. I haven’t been able to think about anything but whether she’s going to be okay…but now that she is, I really need to get everything together.”

He should tell her he’ll help her. Whatever she needs. Instead, he says, “What about the baby?”

“What do you mean?” Scully asks. “I know…this isn’t what I envisioned, in terms of timing.” She says I, not we. He wonders if she’s sorry now that she asked him, that they started the IVF, that they got involved in this way. The kind of way they usually try to avoid. “But I’m going to make this work. They’ll be close in age, and that’ll be a good thing—”

“You’re going to make this work?” he asks. “By yourself?”

She’s quiet for a minute, and now he really wishes they had actually talked, in those couple of weeks before they came out to California. He wonders if she’s trying to work out how to let him down easy, if this is just too much too fast without adding him to the family. “I didn’t…I wasn’t thinking it would be by myself,” she says finally, softly. “But I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything.”

“I don’t feel like that,” Mulder says.

“Because I know we haven’t talked about it, with the baby,” she says, barreling on, “and that was before Emily, too. I’m not trying to make you move in with me and get a white picket fence. You don’t have to—”

“I said I didn’t feel like I had to,” Mulder says. “And I think we should get one of those thick hedges. They’re more imposing.”

She stares at him. “Mulder, I’m trying to be serious here. And you’re talking about thick hedges?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not sure what I should talk about.”

Scully shakes her head. “It’s okay. I’m not sure either.” She pauses. “But we don’t have a lot of time to figure things out. Emily’s here right now, and there’s not even that much time until the baby. So, if you have any ideas…”

“We could get married,” he says. He’s not sure that he planned to say it, but it makes sense, once it’s out of his mouth. He knows he loves her, has known it for a long time. And if they’re going to be a family now, why should they wait?

Another pause. “That is an idea.”

“We don’t have to,” he says, quickly, wondering why this conversation is so full of qualifiers. “But I would. If you would.”

“I just don’t want you to feel—”

“Scully, I don’t know what I have to say to get you to believe that I don’t,” he says. “I want to do this.” She says something, very quietly. “What?”

“I want to, too,” she says.

...

They get married at the courthouse. They bring her mom, who asks a series of “You’re doing what?”, “The two of you did what?”, and “You were planning to tell me when?” questions when they fill her in on the IVF, the baby, the plans for a fast wedding. But she smiles during the ceremony, at least, and Scully does too, a little shyly, and Mulder knows he does, in a way he can’t contain.

They spend the afternoon visiting Emily and talking to her case worker and the night kneeling on the bathroom floor while Scully throws up; her morning sickness is unpredictable in its timing. She looks incredibly pissed off when she lifts her head. “Ugh.”

“Anything I can get you?” he asks, brushing her hair back from her sweaty forehead. “I could run downstairs and hunt for crackers or tea or something.”

She shakes her head. “No thanks. I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because we got married today,” Scully says, as if he’s missing something very obvious, “and now I feel disgusting and I look disgusting and you’re not going to want to fool around with me.”

“First of all,” he says, “it’s a little weird that you describe it as fooling around. Since, as you point out, we are married.”

“I just emptied out the entire contents of my stomach,” Scully says, “and you are going to fight me on my word choice?”

“Well, that’s what I mean,” Mulder says. “I don’t know what to say. If I say I do want to fool around, I look like an asshole who doesn’t care that you’re sick. And if I say I don’t, I look like an asshole who cares too much.” He does want to, of course, but then he has for so long; one more night won’t make a difference, if she feels that sick. “It’s really your call.” He squeezes her hand, next to his on the bathroom floor. Looks at their matching rings.

“I want to in theory,” Scully says, “but I feel like crap.”

“That’s okay, then,” he says. “We…we probably don’t want to do this here, anyway. Your whole family is down the hall.”

“Yeah,” she says after a moment. “Good point.”

He helps her to their bedroom, but only to sleep. They lie against each other. He wonders what she’s thinking. What she’d do if he told her he loved her.

They’re very busy over the next month, working on the adoption. They go to see Emily every day, and they sit on the floor and draw pictures together. They tell her a little bit about Washington, but not too much. (“Just in case,” Scully says to him. “I don’t want to make this harder for her if…” He thinks she doesn’t want to make it harder for herself either. He tells her the adoption will go through, and she squeezes his hand.) Emily still doesn’t talk a lot—mostly in response to direct questions—but recently she’s started smiling and running over to them when they arrive, which Mulder takes as a good sign.

What’s less of a good sign is that he and Scully still haven’t fooled around, to use her term, and he’s starting to wonder if it would even be possible to bring it up. He thinks maybe she took him too seriously when he said they didn’t want to do it with her family down the hall. It would be a little awkward, but he wouldn’t mind, really. But it’s not just that, anyway. It’s a lot of things, but mainly that they’re both so tired, especially Scully. They’re working hard during the day, and now that Tara’s had the baby, they don’t always get a good night’s sleep. “Do you think we should go?” he asks Scully, one night when they’re awakened. “We could get a hotel. Aren’t we kind of in the way?”

“That’s what I thought!” Scully says, eagerly. “I was even looking for places. But then my mom and Bill said we should stay. Because we’re family, and we can help out with Matthew, and they can help us out with Emily.”

“Wait, are we supposed to be helping out with him?” Mulder asks. “I haven’t been.”

“Just if anyone needs anything, my mom says she’d feel better,” Scully says. Another wail from Matthew; she sighs and burrows her head into the pillow. “I guess this is good practice for us.”

“You’re not supposed to be practicing when you’re pregnant,” Mulder says. “You’re supposed to be getting sleep.”

“I’m okay,” Scully says, yawning. “It’s not for too much longer.” But she looks exhausted, circles under her eyes. He’s seen her taking extra care with her makeup, before they go to meet with the caseworker.

“Here,” he says, “I’ll cover your ears for you.” She gives him a look, half-amused, half-tired, but she leans against him, one ear pressed to the pillow, the other under his hand. He puts his other hand on her stomach. He thinks she sleeps. In the morning, when they’re driving to see Emily, he pulls over at a drugstore and buys them both the strongest earplugs he can find.

And then, the next week, they have their hearing. And then they are parents. He knew they were going to be, but somehow, he’s still surprised.

...

Emily’s quiet as they approach Scully’s building—well, their building, now. Mulder’s in the process of working on his move; he’s given notice to his landlord, and he’s planning to go this weekend to see about his stuff. “Are you excited to see your room, sweetie?” Scully asks Emily. They ordered things from a catalogue—Emily picked a bright yellow comforter and a nightlight covered in stars—and had them delivered; Scully had her friend Ellen help out.

“I think so,” Emily says.

“All the things we picked out will be there,” Scully says. “Remember?”

Emily nods. “And can Elinor live in there with me?” Elinor is a very ratty stuffed rabbit; they rescued her from Emily’s old room, and since then she’s rarely left Emily’s arms.

“Of course Elinor can live there,” Scully says.

“We wouldn’t want her to live anywhere else,” Mulder says.

“Okay,” Emily says, softly. They’ve pulled into the parking lot now. She squares her small shoulders, looking very much like Scully, as Mulder unfastens the buckles on her car seat and helps her out of the car.

The place looks clean—Ellen must have helped with that too—and they go down the hall to Emily’s room. She looks around at everything. Goes over to the bed and leans Elinor against the pillows, carefully.

“Are you tired, Emily?” Scully asks.

“A little,” Emily says.

“Maybe you and Elinor would like to rest for a little bit before we have supper,” Scully says. “And Mulder and I could read you a book.”

“Okay,” Emily says. “Goodnight Moon, please.” That’s not a surprise, since it’s one of Emily’s favorites; they even brought it with them on the plane, just in case. They all settle onto the small bed—Mulder, Scully, Emily, and Elinor—and they read Goodnight Moon, Mulder and Scully taking turns with the pages.

They make spaghetti for supper. Elinor sits at the table beside Emily; one of her ears is trailing in the sauce, and Scully gently moves it aside. “Careful, sweetie,” she says, and Mulder watches them.

After supper, they get Emily ready for bed and read another book. This one is Madeline, Emily’s other favorite. She sits and listens while Mulder reads to her, an expression of concentration on her face. He wishes they could make her smile, but it doesn’t seem to be happening today. It makes sense, he knows, since she’s in a new place, one that’s bound to be a big adjustment. The whole situation is a big adjustment for him, and he’s not a three-year-old. But he hopes she’ll be happy.

“We’ll be right across the hall,” Scully tells Emily. “And we’ll leave the door open, in case you need anything.” That also makes sense, under the circumstances, although it means a continuation of the status quo for the two of them. Married, parents, with another baby on the way, without doing much more than kissing.

But it’s the right thing to do. “We love you, Emily,” he says. “Good night.” They each kiss her on the cheek, and then she asks them to kiss Elinor, which they do. They say good night again and go.

“Do you think Elinor could make it through the laundry machine in one piece?” Scully asks him, as soon as they’re out of earshot. “She is not clean.”

“That’s your number one question right now?” he asks. She does have a point, though; Elinor has a distinct smell, if you’re within kissing distance.

“Well, we need to take things day by day,” she says, defensively. “So yes. Right now, that’s my immediate concern.”

“Maybe we could hand wash her?” Mulder says. He’s not exactly an expert in the care of stuffed animals. Although maybe it’s a field he should start getting better acquainted with.

“Worth trying,” Scully says. “Or see if we could find a backup. I had two teddy bears who were the same, when I was her age. Brownie and Brownie Two.” She smiles. “Very creative, I know.” He tries to imagine three-year-old Scully with her two bears. He wonders if she looked like Emily. He wonders if their baby will look like that too.

They see Emily twice more that night. The first time she comes padding into the living room in her bare feet, Elinor in hand. “I couldn’t sleep,” she says. “And Elinor couldn’t sleep.” They take her back to bed, and Scully strokes her hair while he sings— “Yellow Submarine,” because he can’t think of any lullabies, but Emily’s eyes close, anyway. The second time is just as they’re getting into bed, when they hear her crying.

“I don’t want to be by myself,” she sobs, when they rush into her room. “And Elinor doesn’t.”

“You don’t have to be by yourselves,” Scully says. “I can stay with you for tonight. Okay?” But she looks so tired herself, and Mulder doesn’t want her to have to squeeze into a three-year-old-sized bed.

“Or maybe the two of you could come in with us,” Mulder says. “How does that sound?”

Emily seems to like the idea. She gets out of bed and takes his hand when he holds it out. They make their way across the hall and settle in together, Emily’s little feet cold against his leg.

He knows this isn’t a permanent solution, that it will be better for Emily if they get her comfortable sleeping in her own room. But for right now, this makes sense too.

...

They’re busy in a way Mulder’s never experienced over the next couple of weeks, and that’s with taking time off work. This must be why they usually give you nine months to get ready for a kid, he thinks: because once the kid is present, things never stop.

Emily’s still pretty quiet with them. She likes when they read her books, likes coloring together. Elinor’s always at her side, and Elinor has a lot of anxieties. She misses Emily’s old room. She doesn’t know if she’s going to like the playground near their apartment. She misses the Sims, but she doesn’t want Mulder and Scully to leave her alone, either. Emily tells them all of this in a matter-of-fact voice.

Mulder knows it’s very normal for a kid this age—especially a kid who’s been through what Emily’s been through—to vocalize her feelings through someone else, whether it be an imaginary friend or an increasingly dirty stuffed rabbit who, Emily tells them, does not want to be washed. He goes along with the Elinor stories, hoping that he can reassure Emily through her. He feels silly at first, though, and it’s a little disconcerting. He wants to tell Emily that she can tell them how she feels herself, that they’ll always be there to listen. But when he tries telling her it’s okay to be scared of new places, she says, “I’m not scared, but Elinor is.” She’s very stubborn like that. He doesn’t have to wonder where she gets it from.

It's worse at night. They’re having her stay in her own bed now, but that means one or both of them sitting with her until she falls asleep and going to her when she starts awake most nights, when they hear her crying. He wishes he could make things better for her right away. He wishes he knew the right way to take care of her.

He wishes he could take care of Scully, too, but that’s a tricky path to navigate; she tells him she’s fine, that she has to get up with Emily too and that it’s not right for it to only be him. “She needs to know we’re both there,” Scully says, “so she can feel safe with us.” He knows she has a point, but he’s worried about her not getting the rest she needs. He does everything he can, sometimes in a sneaky way, going out to do the grocery shopping before she has a chance to, not waking her up when it’s time to get Emily’s teeth brushed in the morning. He reads the nutrition chapters in the pregnancy books and makes dinner for her. He watches her a lot, trying not to let her catch him staring. She’s still not showing a lot, but she looks different, somehow. He’s not sure if he should tell her that, even though it’s a good kind of different. She’s always been beautiful, but there’s something about her now that makes it hard for him to look away, even when she turns her head and sees him.

Mostly he tries to be there for them both—to navigate on the fly, which at least is something he has experience with. When Scully falls asleep on the couch after dinner, he whispers to Emily that they have to be quiet. “Even Elinor,” he adds. “Can you ask her? I know she’ll listen to you.”

Emily giggles. “We have to be quiet, Elinor,” she whispers, holding one of the rabbit’s long ears against her mouth. “Dana’s asleep.” She looks at Mulder. “Why is she asleep so early?” she asks. “I’m not even asleep yet.”

They haven’t told her about the baby yet, since it’s early. “I think she’s just tired,” he says. “How about you? Are you tired?”

Emily shrugs. “Not really.”

“How about we go in your room and I read to you for a while, then?” he asks. “You and Elinor.” Emily nods—she makes Elinor nod too, by pulling on her ear—and they go.

He reads her Madeline, then Goodnight Moon, then Madeline again. It helps that the books are short. He gets her ready for bed, tucks her in, and turns off the light. “Will you stay with us, Mulder?” Emily asks.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I’ll stay.”

It doesn’t take her too long to fall asleep, and he tiptoes out of the room, hoping it’ll stick. When he gets back to the living room, Scully is still asleep, but she stirs when he sits down next to her. “I’m not asleep,” she mumbles.

“Yes, you are,” he says. “But it’s okay.”

“Where’s Emily?”

“She’s asleep too,” he says. “With Elinor. I read them a bunch of books.”

“Thank you,” she says. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “You need your rest. Both of you.” He puts a hand on her belly, lightly, and leans down and kisses her cheek.

She doesn’t say anything, so he’s pretty sure she’s asleep again. But she’s smiling.

...

He should call his mom, Mulder realizes. They’ve been so busy that he’s forgotten, but he’s married and a family man now, which seems like something you should tell your mom about.

He calls her one evening while Scully’s giving Emily a bath. “Fox!” she says when she answers. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” he says. “There’s been…well, a lot going on, to put it mildly.”

“With work?” she asks.

“Not work, actually,” he says. “It’s…well, first of all, I got married.”

He’s not sure how she’s going to take it, and her voice doesn’t give him much of a clue. “You got married,” she says. “Anyone I know?”

“Yes, actually,” he says. “You know Scully. My partner, Scully.” He sounds idiotic, he thinks. He’s married to her, she means more to him than anyone in the world, and he’s calling her my partner, Scully.

“Yes, of course I know her,” she says. “Well, this is new. But she seems nice.”

She’s still not giving him much, but he grasps at what he gets. “She is. She’s great,” he says. More idiocy. Time to move on to the next announcement. “And we have a little girl. Emily. She’s three.”

A pause. “Well, that’s new too.” Another. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he says. “Well, we found out about her at Christmas. She’s Scully’s…she’s ours now…well, we adopted her…it’s complicated.”

“Sounds like it,” his mother says. “I’ll be honest—none of this is something I imagined you doing.” He can’t tell if it’s a criticism or just an observation. “But it’s nice to hear,” she says, after a moment. “It’s not good for you to be alone all the time, you know.”

He thinks about pointing out that he wasn’t alone all the time before, either, or that there are a lot of reasons he didn’t have much of a family, and that she was involved in some of them. But he doesn’t. “Well, I’m far from alone now, anyway,” he says. “Never a dull moment with a kid around.” He wonders when he started talking only in trite phrases. “And we’ll be even busier soon. We’re…we’re going to have a baby. In August. Scully’s pregnant,” he adds, even though that was probably obvious, from the rest of what he said.

Another pause, a longer one. “Oh,” she says. “Is that why you got married? So suddenly?”

“Mom, no. No,” he says. And then he’s barreling on—he might as well put it all out there with her. He doesn’t have anything to lose. “That’s not why. I married Scully because I love her. That’s the reason.”

“Well, that’s good,” she says. “There’s no need to get upset.”

“I’m not upset, Mom,” he says. “I just want you to understand. Emily, too. And the baby, already. I’m…I know you’re surprised. But I love her.” A noise behind him; he turns. Scully in the doorway of the living room, staring at him. Somehow this doesn’t surprise him. Somehow it feels right, that it should happen this way. But he wants to make sure there’s no room for error, no lack of clarity now, so he says, “I love Scully,” again, into the phone.

“I understand, Fox,” his mom says. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“You didn’t. It’s all right,” he says, as nicely as he can, because Scully is still staring at him, and he really wants to get off the phone. “So that’s what’s been going on here, anyway. How have you been?”

“No news to match yours, I’m afraid,” she says. “I’ve been reading. Taking walks.”

“That sounds great,” he says. “I should…I have to go, Mom. Scully needs my help with something.” She smiles at him, from the other side of the room.

“Yes, I’m sure you’ll be very busy,” his mom says. “But call again, Fox, won’t you? If you have time.”

“Of course,” he says. “Goodbye, Mom. Take care of yourself.”

“You too,” she says, and then they hang up.

And then he turns to Scully, feeling a little shy. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” she says, and she sounds shy too; she’s looking down at her feet, clad in her old slippers. She should have new ones, he thinks, soft and fluffy and comfortable for when her feet hurt. He should get some for her. He can do that, now.

“You heard that?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says. She walks over then and sits down next to him on the couch. “I heard.”

“It’s true, you know,” he says. “I do love you, Dana Scully. So much.” That’s all he can say.

She reaches out to take his hand; he can see tears in her eyes. “I love you too,” she says. “Mulder, I love you too, and I have for a long time…” She stops, then, because she’s really starting to cry, but she smiles at him too, and he knows there’s never been anyone more beautiful.

“Good tears?” he says. “Right?”

“Good tears,” she confirms. “And it’s not the hormones, either. It’s us.”

“It’s us,” he echoes, and he leans in and kisses her. And kisses her. There’s no reason to stop.

She sniffles and wipes her eyes. “I want to make love with you,” she says. “Finally. After we’ve put Emily to bed.”

He loves her for her mixture of romance and practicality, even if he wishes at this moment that they’d already put Emily to bed. “Where is Emily?” he asks. “Sorry. I got a little distracted.”

“It’s okay. So did I,” Scully says. “She’s in her room. I told her I’d come get you so we could both read to her.”

As if on cue, Emily appears in the doorway too, wearing her pink pajamas. “Dana?” she says. “You said you and Mulder would come read me a book.”

“We will, sweetheart,” Scully says. “Mulder was just talking on the phone.”

“Here we come,” Mulder adds, getting up from the couch, extending a hand to Scully to help pull her up too.

Emily picks Madeline that night, and they read it to her, this story of a brave little girl with red hair who has to go to the hospital but is okay in the end. It doesn’t take an advanced degree to figure out why Emily might like it, why Mulder’s already lost count of how many times they’ve read it. He’s glad of that now, though, because he can’t fully concentrate on reading. Not when Scully’s smiling at him like that.

They tuck Emily in, kiss her and Elinor, say good night. It’s all the same as yesterday, but everything feels completely different. They turn out the light, and then they’re crossing the hall to their own room. Scully closes the door, carefully, deliberately.

And then she’s kissing him again, like she’s never kissed him before. He’s breathless with it. “Bed?” he manages, and she nods, and they fall back together, still kissing, their hands all over each other. He cups her breast through her shirt. “Is it okay if I…?”

“Yes,” she says. “Just not too hard.” He caresses her, just lightly, but her eyes flutter closed, and the sounds she’s making are frankly erotic. “Mmmmm…. everything’s more sensitive now.”

“You’ll have to show me what you like,” he says.

“You too,” she says.

“You’re what I like,” he says, and she flushes, and it’s beautiful, and he wants to see it happen a lot more. She starts to unbutton her shirt then, but she stills when she’s halfway down, and her face looks more serious all of a sudden. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “I just thought…when I imagined this, us, I didn’t think I’d be pregnant the first time.” Her hands are folded in front of her, over her stomach.

It takes him a moment to figure out what she’s worried about, maybe because he’s so caught up in everything, but then he gets it. “Hey,” he says. “You are absolutely beautiful, you know. All the time. But now especially.” She looks like she might be about to protest, so he goes on. “I mean it,” he says. “Looking at you and knowing you’re going to have our baby…” He kisses her again. “I’m a lucky guy.”

She lets him help her take her shirt the rest of the way off then, and her bra, and he kisses, caresses, her full breasts, the swell of her belly. He whispers that she’s beautiful again. He watches her face and listens to her breathing.

When they’re making love, finally, after years of longing and working their way towards each other, he looks up at her face, concentrates on her eyes to reassure himself that this is real. “Scully,” he says, “Scully, Scully,” and she gasps out his name when she comes. He’s found something so extraordinary, and in that moment, he believes.

They hold each other close afterwards, for what might be seconds or minutes or hours, and then she says that they should get dressed, in case Emily wakes up and comes looking for them. He stands behind her while she brushes her teeth, one hand on her abomen, the other holding his own toothbrush.

“Next week will officially be the second trimester,” Scully says. “Do you know what that means?”

He’s been reading the books, but he still thinks it’s a little unfair to give him a quiz now, in the midst of postcoital bliss. He tries his best. “Reduced risk of miscarriage,” he says. “Right?”

“That’s one thing,” Scully says. “And it’s a very good one. But what else?”

“Um…we can find out if it’s a boy or girl,” he says. “If you want to. Do you think you want to? We haven’t really talked about it yet.”

“I’m not sure,” Scully says. “It might be nice to be surprised. But I wonder if it would be easier for Emily to know whether she’s getting a brother or sister.”

“Do you think that makes a difference?” he asks. “It’s a newer thing, finding out, after all.”

“True,” Scully says. “I just thought it might be easier to talk about it with her that way.”

“You still want to wait a while, though,” Mulder says. “Right?”

“Right,” Scully says. “I think we should hold off with Emily for as long as possible. Until I’m really starting to show. There are still some risks, even now, and I don’t want to have to explain to her…” She trails off, and he holds her close.

“Baby will be fine,” he says. “We’ve got good luck.”

She laughs. “Since when?”

“Since we found out we were having a baby together,” he says. “Since we found Emily. Since I asked you to marry me. Since tonight. Since all those things.” He’s not usually one to trust in luck. But after hearing Scully say she loved him, he can’t help trusting just a little.

“Maybe you’re right,” she says, squeezing his hand. “You made me feel lucky tonight, anyway.” She smirks at him in the mirror. “Which reminds me. You still didn’t say what I was thinking of. For the second trimester.”

“Um…I give up,” he says. “Just tell me.”

“I’m probably going to want sex a lot,” she says; her voice is matter of fact, and her face is absolutely wicked. “That’s one of the effects. You think you can help with that?”

He spins her around and kisses her again, which seems to be enough of an answer.

...

It seems like the right time to tell Emily about the baby, the most propitious. She’s seemed much more settled in the past few weeks: she hasn’t been waking up in the night anymore, and she’s stopped saying that Elinor misses California. In fact, she goes so far as to tell them that Elinor likes it here, now. “She likes the playground,” Emily says, “and my room. And she likes when you read to us. And when you make French toast.”

“How about you?” Mulder asks her. “Do you like those things too? Or just Elinor?”

Emily gives him a look. “Me too. Of course.” And she starts to go back to her coloring then, but Mulder and Scully both have to hug her first.

So she’s doing better at home with them, and she’s doing all right in preschool too; they have her in one for children of government employees, in the mornings. Of course they’ll be on leave again in a few months, but they thought they should get Emily started now so that she’d have a chance to get used to it. She says she likes all the books they have there, and playing with the other kids, and doing art. Art seems to be the main thing they do at preschool, and dried macaroni glued to paper seems to be their main medium. At the moment it’s taking up a lot of real estate on the fridge.

Mulder knows that Scully’s still worried about how Emily’s going to take their announcement, afraid it will set back her sense of security and leave them where they were before. But they can’t really wait any longer, even if they wanted to; Scully’s starting to show too much to hide, no matter what she wears, and if they don’t tell Emily themselves someone else is bound to blurt it out. So they go over their plans when they’re in the office in the morning, before they pick Emily up. “I think she’ll be fine,” Mulder says. “Lots of kids get younger siblings.”

“I know,” Scully says. “I wouldn’t be worried if that was the only thing. It’s just with everything else…” She shakes her head. “But you’re right. And we can’t just never tell her. It’s better to do it now.”

“I don’t remember my parents telling me much of anything,” Mulder says, trying to think back to the years when they were a seemingly normal family. “Before Samantha was born, I mean. I remember sulking about it at first. But after that I liked her.”

Scully squeezes his hand. “I bet you were cute together,” she says.

“We were damn cute,” he says. “How about you and Charlie?”

“I barely remember him being born,” Scully says. “And I was the same age as Emily. But we did okay. We’d play together a lot.”

“See, she’ll be fine,” Mulder says. “Great, even.”

“I hope you’re right,” Scully says. “I just want her to—” Her eyes widen. “Mulder, quick!”

He moves to put a hand on her belly, knowing what she means. In the past week or so, she’s felt the baby moving a couple of times, but it’s always been light, and he’s never been able to catch it before it stops. He doesn’t feel anything this time, either. “Did it stop?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Scully says, shaking her head. “It’s still really light. Next time, I hope.” She rests her hand on top of his for a minute, before they straighten up, gather their things, and head out.

They wait until they’ve gotten Emily home and given her a snack before they break the news. “Emily, honey,” Scully says, “Mulder and I want to tell you something.”

Emily eats the last bite of her graham cracker. “Okay. What?”

“In a few months,” Scully says, “you’re going to be a big sister. We’re going to have a new baby.” Her voice is calm, but Mulder can tell how hard she’s trying to do this the right way.

Emily stares at them. “Where will you get the baby?”

“Well, right now,” Scully says, “the baby’s growing inside of me. Right here.” She pats the bump. “Until the baby’s big enough to be born.”

Emily’s still staring. “But I wasn’t inside there,” she says, after a minute. “Right?”

Scully shakes her head. “No, you weren’t,” she says. He knows it takes an effort for her to say that calmly, to not let Emily pick up on how she feels about what was done to the two of them. “There are lots of different ways to make a family. This is just one way.”

“Why?” Emily asks.

Scully looks a little flummoxed at that, and Mulder can’t blame her. He tries to step in instead. “Because what matters is wanting to be a family,” he says. “Dana and I wanted to be your mom and dad, and we want to be this baby’s mom and dad too.” He stoops to give Emily a hug, and from the look on Scully’s face, he guesses he’s said something right.

“Will the baby live here?” Emily asks.

“Yes,” Mulder says. “The baby will be very small at first, but later you can play together.”

“That’ll be fun for you,” Scully says. “And next week, we’re going to find out whether the baby’s a boy or a girl. So you’ll know if you’re getting a brother or a sister.”

“How do you find out?” Emily asks.

“From my doctor,” Scully says.

“Do you have to be in the hospital?” There’s a quaver in Emily’s voice. Mulder hadn’t thought about this part.

But Scully keeps her own voice cheerful. “Not to find out. But when it’s time for the baby to be born, I will go to the hospital for a little bit. But it’s for a really good reason, so the doctors can help keep me safe and we can all meet the baby.”

“So is having a baby like being sick?” Emily still sounds unsure.

“No, it’s not like that,” Scully says. “It’s a very natural thing.” Of course, it hasn’t exactly been that for them so far, but Emily nods and seems to accept it.

“Will you read to me?” she asks, after a minute, and Mulder tells her that they will. And they start in with Madeline, and she doesn’t ask anything more about the baby right then.

“That went okay,” he says to Scully in an undertone, while they’re making dinner and Emily is playing in the living room.

Scully nods. “She doesn’t seem too upset. Maybe next time we go to the library,” she says, “we can get her some books about being a sister.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he says.

They put Emily to bed that night, and once they’re out in the hallway Scully’s lips are on his. “Bed,” she murmurs. “I’ve wanted you all day…. I can’t believe my self-control.”

He chuckles against her as they make their way to their bedroom. “Good things come to her who waits.”

“What I was thinking,” Scully says; she’s already in the process of undressing. “Come being the operative word. I want your mouth on me. And after that I want you inside me.”

“I want that too.” He has to stop and kiss her first though, maybe just to steady himself. Hearing her tell him so openly what she wants—and that what she wants is him—still feels like it might be a fantasy sometimes.

Even looking at her feels like a fantasy. Especially in moments like this one, where she’s leaning back against the pillows with lust in her eyes and absolutely nothing on. He loves seeing the changes in her body—maybe he’s just being a typical guy, because her breasts are definitely getting bigger and it’s breathtaking to say the least, but he’d like to think there’s more to it than that. He likes knowing that it’s because of the baby, their baby who they created together, who they’re going to meet in a few short months.

“I love you,” he tells her.

“I love you too. Now get moving,” she says.

He doesn’t dawdle with the foreplay, because he can tell that wouldn’t go over well, but he does kiss his way down from her mouth. His head is between her thighs when he feels her start. “Wait,” she says, and she presses his cheek to her belly.

And he feels it this time—a little flutter, barely anything, but it’s there. That’s their baby moving.

“Oh my god,” he says. “Oh my god, Scully.”

“I know,” she says, almost laughing. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

“Completely crazy,” he agrees, pressing a kiss to the spot where he felt the baby move. “There’s a person in there!”

“Our baby,” she says. “It feels so funny, doesn’t it?”

He nods. “Hi, baby,” he says, his face still against the bump. “It’s your dad here.” Mere months ago, he couldn’t have imagined himself saying anything like this. “You know we’re so excited about you?”

“So excited,” Scully says. “We can’t wait to meet you.” They lie like that for a minute, taking it in. Then she says, “Mulder?”

“You want me to get on with things,” he says.

“You know me so well.”

He’ll do anything she needs to take care of her now—rub her back or bring her extra pillows or make a run to the store for whatever she’s craving—but none of it is as pleasurable as taking care of her like this. She tastes amazing, and she’s so responsive, and he makes her come twice with his mouth in quick succession. She comes again when he’s inside her, his hands on her hips, looking up at her as she moves, and he follows her, moaning her name.

“I’m not sure whether to chalk it up to the pregnancy or the amazing guy I’m with,” Scully says afterwards, when they’re lying there with her head against his chest, “but I’ve never come as much as I have these past few weeks.”

That does things for his ego, he won’t lie. “Maybe you could chalk the pregnancy up to the guy you’re with,” he suggests. “Kill two birds with one stone.”

“Good idea,” Scully says. “You get all the credit, and I get my eyes rolling back in my head. Not a bad bargain.”

“Credit’s not all I get,” he says. “God, Scully, you were amazing.”

She flushes, and she’s leaning in to kiss him when they hear a voice. “Dana? Mulder?”

Scully yanks the sheet up with a speed he wouldn’t have believed humanly possible but for which he’s very grateful and turns to look at Emily, who is standing by the bed, clutching Elinor, with an anxious look on her face. “What is it, sweetheart? Do you need something?”

Emily looks at them for a minute, and Mulder hopes she didn’t see too much. But her question, when it comes, has nothing to do with their state of undress. “When is the baby coming?”

“In August,” Scully says. “That’s four months from now.” She’s managing to sound remarkably unflustered.

Emily pulls at one of Elinor’s ears. “When the baby comes,” she asks, “will I go away?” Her lip is trembling.

“No,” Scully says. “No, of course not.”

“We’ll all live together,” Mulder says. “We’d never want you to go away. We’re a family.”

“Is there something that made you think you’d have to go away, sweetheart?” Scully asks. She’s still got the sheet pulled up to her chin, but she reaches out with one hand to touch Emily’s cheek.

“I don’t know,” Emily says. “Will the baby sleep in my room instead of me?”

“That’s your room,” Scully says. “The baby will probably sleep in here with me and Mulder for a little bit. And then she’ll have the room at the end of the hall. But no one is going to take away your room.”

“But you got me,” Emily says, “and now you’re getting the baby instead.”

“Not instead,” Mulder says. “The baby’s just another person. Like I’m one person, and so are you, and so is Dana. There’s no instead.” He feels terrible, looking at her sad little face.

“We love you so much because you’re you,” Scully says, “and we’ll love the baby a lot too, but in a different way. Because the baby will be a different person. And that will never, never mean that we love you any less.”

“Dana’s right,” Mulder says, but Emily still looks so sad.

“Do you want us to come and sit with you?” Scully asks, and Emily nods. “Okay, sweetheart. Will you go back to your room and wait for us? We’ll come in a minute.”

“Why aren’t you wearing shirts?” Emily asks.

“We were doing something private,” Scully says, and Mulder can’t believe how quickly she had that one ready. He salutes her. “Go and wait for us, okay? We’ll be right there.”

When Emily nods and goes, they hurry into their clothes and follow her. She’s sitting on her bed, her arms wrapped around Elinor. “Want us to tuck you in?” Mulder asks. She nods again, and he wraps the blankets around her, gently. “You don’t have to worry about anything,” he tells her. “We love you and we always will.”

“That’s a promise,” Scully says, kissing Emily’s cheek.

She clings to their hands. “Stay,” she says, and they do.

...

There’s still so much to get done, and today they’re packing it in: first they went to a childbirth class, and next they’re going to the doctor’s office, for Scully’s check-up. They’re going to find out if they’re having a boy or a girl today, and when they left the house Mulder was excited about that. Now, as they leave the class, he has other things on his mind.

“You look green,” Scully informs him as they get into the car.

“I feel green,” Mulder says. “Do you think that video was completely necessary?”

“It’s a childbirth class, so yes,” Scully says. She looks remarkably unfazed. He guesses autopsies will do this to you. But at least autopsies don’t involve that much screaming.

“It was…intense,” he says, unable to come up with a better word.

“That’s what it’s like,” Scully says. “Are you going to be okay with this? Because I’m going to need you there. And after all, you won’t be the one who’s—”

“That’s the point,” he says. “I don’t like to think of you hurting.”

“Oh, Mulder,” she says. She’s smiling, though, when she squeezes his hand. “I’m sure it’s not going to be fun. But it’s normal. And we’ll have a baby at the end of it. You don’t need to worry about me.”

He squeezes her hand back. “Well, I’ll do my best to not be squeamish,” he says. “And I will be there for the whole thing. You can count on that.”

“I know it,” she says, and she’s still smiling as they drive to the doctor’s office.

She’s smiling again when they leave the doctor’s office, on their way to pick up Emily. They got copies of the ultrasound, and she’s holding them in her hand, looking down at them every few seconds. The baby still looks like a blur to Mulder, but their blur, which is enough. “Hey, little girl,” Scully says softly, one hand on her bump, the other on the picture. “You’re awake, huh?”

“A girl,” Mulder says, savoring it. He really didn’t have a preference until the doctor told them they were having a daughter, when he became convinced that had been his preference all along.

“Are you excited?” Scully asks.

“Of course,” Mulder says. “Two daughters.”

“We should start thinking about names now,” Scully says. “Do you have any ideas?” And then, softly, while he’s thinking, “Do you want to name her after Samantha?”

He hadn’t thought about that either, but he knows the answer. “No,” he says quickly. “Thank you for asking, Scully. I mean it. But it would be too much…it would mean she was gone.”

Scully nods. “I understand,” she says, and he knows she does.

When they pick up Emily, she shows them a picture she drew. “It’s the three of us,” she says, thrusting it at them. “It’s for you.”

“Thank you, Emily,” Mulder says. “It’s beautiful.” He notices she doesn’t make any mention of the baby, which doesn’t surprise him. She’s been clingier than usual since they told her last week; he supposes it’s a good thing, in a way, since it means she’s grown attached to them, but he wishes they were able to reassure her better. When they try talking about the baby casually, about the things that all four of them will do together, Emily looks upset still; she’s been asking them a lot of questions like, “Will we still go to the park when the baby’s here?” and “Will I have to share Elinor?” and “Do we have to have the baby?” They do their best to answer her (yes, no, yes but we think you’ll like the baby), but they can tell she’s not yet on board with the idea.

They let Emily tell them all about her morning before sharing the news. “Guess what we found out today, Emily?” Scully says. “We found out that the baby is going to be a girl. A little sister for you.”

“Oh,” Emily says. “Okay.”

“Do you think you’ll like that?” Mulder asks.

Emily shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Do any of the kids you go to school with have sisters?” he asks her. “Any of your friends?”

She appears to be deep in thought for a minute. “Sarah and Hannah are sisters,” she says, eventually.

“And do they like to play together?” Mulder asks.

“Yes,” Emily says. “They’re twins,” she adds, which puts a bit of a damper on things. No getting used to a new baby there.

“Would you like to see a picture of your sister, Emily?” Scully asks. “We got some pictures at the doctor’s today.”

“I thought we couldn’t see the baby yet,” Emily says.

“We can’t see her just looking at me,” Scully says, “but they have special tools at the doctor’s.” She holds out one of the ultrasound pictures, and after a minute Emily goes over to look.

“That doesn’t look like a baby,” she says. “I don’t see anything.”

“It does look a little funny at first,” Scully says. “But see, there’s her head…”

Emily looks worried. “Will she be funny-looking?”

“No,” Scully says, kissing the top of Emily’s own head. “Don’t worry about that. It’s just the kind of picture they take. And she’s not done growing yet. But when she’s here, she’ll look just like any baby.” She looks thoughtful for a moment, and then she says, “Emily, do you know what you looked like when you were a baby?” Emily shakes her head. “Would you like to see?”

They found the photographs when they were going through things at the Sims’ house; they’d been placed in albums with clear care. There weren’t any of Emily as a newborn, but they started pretty far back. “She must be around two months here,” Scully said, staring at one photograph with an unreadable expression. She had to be feeling a lot of things all at once, Mulder knew, and he didn’t know what to say about it. So he just sat there beside her while she turned the pages of the albums, putting them all into the pile of things that they planned to take with them.

Scully gets the first album now, and she sits back down next to Emily on the couch, opening it to the first page. “See?” she says. “That’s you. Look how tiny you were.”

“Really?” Emily asks softly.

“Really,” Scully says; she pulls Emily close with her free arm and gives her another kiss. Mulder sits down on the other side of Emily, to look at the pictures with them. He knows Scully’s sometimes angry that she missed seeing these moments in person, and so is he; like he told her this morning, he doesn’t want her to hurt. But he can tell, from the tone of her voice and the look on her face, that she’s also grateful to be sharing today with Emily.

...

Scully ordered several name books, and they look through them during their spare moments, which aren’t many. There are so many names that it’s kind of fascinating, but it’s hard to know which is the right one. “Maybe she’ll go by her last name,” Mulder suggests. “A lot of people like that, I hear.”

Scully makes a face at him. “She doesn’t think that’s very funny,” she says, rubbing her belly.

“Moving around again?” Mulder asks, and when Scully nods he moves closer to her, putting his hand there too. Their daughter’s movements seem to be getting stronger by the day; he doesn’t have to strain to feel them anymore, but it’s still the strangest, most miraculous thing. “What do you want your name to be?” he asks, and even though he doesn’t get an answer, he listens.

“Hey, Emily,” he says one Saturday afternoon, when they’re all sitting around the kitchen table, “do you have any ideas for what your sister’s name should be?” The look Scully is giving him now suggests that she’s simultaneously pleased that he asked and unsure whether this is a decision best made by a three-year-old.

Emily looks up from her coloring. “Why?”

“We’re trying to pick a name for her,” he says. “I wondered if you knew any good ones.”

“She doesn’t have a name yet?”

“Nope,” he says. “We get to choose that ourselves. Pretty neat, huh?” Emily shrugs. “Are there any names you like?”

Emily colors in the sun in her picture, the expression on her face showing that she’s concentrating. “I like Madeline,” she says.

“That’s pretty,” Scully says.

“Like in the book,” Emily says, as if there might be some doubt.

“It’s a good name,” Mulder agrees.

“So will that be her name?” Emily asks.

“We’ll put in on our list,” Mulder says. “We probably won’t decide for sure until closer to when she gets here.”

But he likes the sound of it, Madeline Mulder, and he thinks Scully might too. And Emily is smiling, which she doesn’t usually do when they talk about the baby. When Scully says, “Oh, she’s moving. Do you want to feel her kick?” she puts her hand on Scully’s belly and laughs.

...

“Are you feeling okay?” Mulder asks Scully. They were out at the park all morning, pushing Emily on the swings, and it’s a pretty hot day, and she looks tired.

“I’m all right,” she says. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Want to rest for a little bit before lunch?” he asks. “I’ll get everything ready. Emily can help me. Can’t you, Emily?” She nods enthusiastically.

“That sounds good,” Scully says. “Thanks.” He kisses her cheek before she walks slowly in the direction of the bedroom.

Emily is putting their plates on the table when she says, “What will the baby call you and Dana?”

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“When the baby is here,” Emily says, “will she call you Mulder and Dana? Or Daddy and Mommy?”

He can tell this is a big question, and he wants to give Emily the right answer. “Well, when she first gets here, she won’t call us anything,” he says. “Because she won’t be able to talk yet. But when she gets a little bigger…she’ll probably call us Daddy and Mommy. But—”

“Oh,” Emily says. “Do I call you that too?”

“That’s up to you,” he says. He doesn’t want to pressure her, even though he would love that, and he knows Scully would.

“You said me and the baby would be the same,” Emily says. “And you would love us the same.”

“And that’s true,” Mulder says. “Of course we will.”

“Then we should call you the same,” Emily says. Her lips are pursed, as if she’s thinking very hard.

He stoops down so he can look her in the eye. “Dana and I would like it a lot if you wanted to call us that,” he says. “But nothing will make any difference to how much we love you. Okay?”

“But I want to call you that,” Emily says. “Because you are my daddy and my mommy. Right?”

“Of course we are,” he says, and he hugs her then, and she hugs him back, clinging to his legs. “So that’s all settled then.”

“All settled,” she repeats, nodding vigorously. “All settled, Daddy.”

Scully almost chokes on her sandwich when Emily calls her Mommy during lunch, and then she stops eating to hug her too. The smile on her face that afternoon is a beautiful thing.

“I’m so glad she feels…she feels that way about us,” she says to Mulder that night; they’re lying in bed, his arms around her.

“Me too,” he says. “And just in time, too.”

“Mmm,” Scully says. “One more month.”

“One more month,” he agrees, pressing a kiss behind her ear, holding her while she drifts off to sleep.

...

They’ve planned for Maggie to stay with Emily while the baby is born; as Scully’s due date approaches, she assures them she’ll be on call. One Saturday morning, Emily’s flipping through picture books on the living room rug when Scully beckons to Mulder from the bedroom and hisses, “I think it’s time,” into his ear.

“For the baby?” he says.

“Yes, for the baby. What do you think?” She sounds a little irritated, but he probably would be too, if he were about to push a person out of his body.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“The contractions are still pretty far apart,” she says. “But I’m going to call my doctor. And you call my mom, okay? We don’t want to be in a rush.”

They make the calls. They pick up the bag that Scully has painstakingly packed. They kiss Emily, tell her they love her, and let her know they’ll see her tomorrow. And then they go.

They’ve been in hospitals many times together, but this one feels different. Nothing’s wrong. After everything, it’s something good.

He gets Scully ice chips, strokes her hair back from her face, holds her as she braces herself against him. “You’re doing so well,” he murmurs to her. “Almost there.” She doesn’t answer him in words, but her hand finds his, squeezes it tight.

They lose time. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been there when he finally hears it. Their daughter’s cry, full-throated and her own. “Let me hold her,” Scully demands, and then they’re both bending over their baby. She’s tiny and she’s perfect and she has wisps of red hair on her head. “Hello,” Scully whispers to her. “You don’t know how happy we are to see you.”

“So happy,” Mulder adds, touching one of her tiny hands. He can’t believe this has happened, that this is what has come of what they did together nine months ago, before they even knew…

“Madeline?” Scully says, turning to him, when the nurse asks if they’ve picked out a name yet.

“Madeline,” he confirms. It’s the right name for their second daughter, for another brave red-headed girl.

“She’s amazing,” he tells Scully, when it’s just the three of them. “And so are you.”

Scully smiles. “I think she’s pretty perfect too,” she says. “God, Mulder, I can’t believe she’s here.”

“I know,” he says, holding them both close.

“Will you call my mom?” she asks him, when Madeline is asleep and she’s close to following. “Tell her to bring Emily in the morning?”

“Of course,” he says, kissing her cheek as she settles deeper into the hospital bed.

They’re there as soon as visiting hours start the next day. When Emily steps into the room, she looks a little shy. “Hi, sweetheart,” Scully says. “We missed you.”

Emily’s staring at the bundle in Scully’s arms. “Is that her?”

“That’s her,” Scully says. “Did Grandma tell you what name we picked?”

Emily nods. “Madeline,” she says, sounding very satisfied that her choice was accepted.

“Do you want to come over here and meet her?” Scully asks. Emily shrugs.

“Well, I think she’d like to meet you,” Mulder says. “She’s been talking and talking about it.”

Emily gives him a look. “She has not. You told me she couldn’t talk yet.”

“Okay, you got me,” Mulder says, grinning at her. “But I think she’d like to meet you anyway. And your mom and I would like to give you a hug.” Emily finally makes her way across the room at that, settling onto the bed next to Scully. He hugs her tight.

“Emily,” Scully says softly, “this is Madeline. Madeline, this is your big sister, Emily.” Mulder watches Emily a little nervously. While she’s seemed to accept the idea of a baby sister more recently, she still hasn’t been over the moon about it.

But she looks fascinated by Madeline. “She’s so little,” she says. “Can we talk to her? Even if she can’t talk?”

“Sure you can,” Scully says. “Why don’t you say hi?”

“Hi, Madeline,” Emily says. “You’re so little.” She touches Madeline’s forehead gently. “You’re my little sister,” she says. “And we’re all a family.”

“That’s very sweet, Emily,” Scully says. “You’re going to be a great big sister. I can already tell.”

He wants to say something similar, but he can’t speak for the moment; there’s a lump in his throat. So instead he watches the three of them together, and he’s glad.

#my fic #the x files #msr #emily sim #alternate universe #fluff

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ourplaceinthecosmosphff · 4 years

Text

Chapter 4. Him

‘be gentle my little thunderstorm, the world is just not ready.’ a.j. lawless

The day we had tea with the Cambridges ended the same way many before: with Lourdes sending a video of her ice skating routine asking for my opinion; that time I didn’t even pretend to see it. I ignored the text and tried to sleep.

Louis barged into the room soon after.

“Will you stop ignoring our sister?”, he asked, rudely. “She notices, Maggie. And it’s really unfair.”

“Okay.” I said. “Goodnight.”

I heard him sigh, and nothing else. No steps out of the room, no creaky Clarence House door closing, no light down. Finally, I pushed away the cover and sat up.

“I can’t do this now, Louis. I have a headache.”

I’d come up with the headache excuse in order to skip dinner with the Prince of Wales and his wife, but my brother knew that excuse better than anyone.

After leaving the Cambridges, we had gone back to Clarence House, where we were hosted for the trip, and changed into black attire for a military ceremony in town where I managed to avoid my brother to try and focus on being less upset. He wasn’t about to make it easy for me, though.

At one point, Harry came to stay in line with us as my father and Prince Charles received the compliments from the officials. He gave me that look of his I was now coming to identify as a signature look, one with more intentions than verbalized; one with more feeling than was allowed.

“Nice dress.” He said. Leaning in close enough that only I could hear him, close enough that his lips brushed my hair and couldn’t be read by prying reporters, he added, “The person wearing it is prettier.”

It took all in me to contain an eyeroll, but the amused smile in my lips was impossible to hold back. Just as I felt my cheeks redden, Louis joined in.

“It’s probably our mother’s. The shoes definitely are.”

It wasn’t a dig for the untrained ears. My mother, in all ways, was more stylish and beautiful than a woman her age should be allowed to be. But knowing my brother for all the twenty-two years he’d been on this earth, I knew very well how to distinguish his honest compliments to his sarcastic ones.

Still, the moment passed, and I maintained the posture expected of me. Coming home, however, I had to tell my father I had a headache so I could come right upstairs before dinner, or else I might lose it in public.

I had a nice, warm shower, put on my softest fleece pajamas, and brushed my hair while talking to my friend Constance on the phone about our other friend Stella and her terrible taste in men, allowing it to distract me from my brother and wild, unruly thoughts of Harry.

After that, I got under the blankets and prepared to stare at funny pictures on pinterest - an app I had a fake, incognito account on - until sleep took over. I promptly ignored my sister’s text, as I was known to do, and not ten minutes later Louis barged into the room.

I finally heard the door close, and was overtaken by a familiar struggle against tears, but before I could decide if I should succumb to it, the mattress dipped as my brother climbed onto bed with me. A few seconds went by in silence before he finally broke it.

“Look. Maggie. I… I was talking to Will earlier.”

“Prince William?”

“Oui. I guess I just… I didn’t realize- of course I knew you were helping a lot back home. I just didn’t think it bothered you so much.”

I took it in; he was… almost apologizing.

“Well, now you know.”

“Yes, I do. And, I don’t know, I just…”

I pushed the blankets down and sat up, still not looking over at him, but allowing myself to be in the moment as well.

“I don’t want to be the reason you’re unhappy.”

I sighed, and finally looked over at him.

My brother didn’t look too young or old, he had that odd quality of looking precisely his age. He had a light stubble growing around his thin, pointy jaw; it was the same color as his hair, blonde, which was now growing almost to his ears. It waved about, framing his eyes, a nice, dark blue shade just like mine - Lourdes had them too, all three of us had inherited them from our mother. The blonde hair we got from dad’s side of the family, as well as an unwavering determination.

“I’m not unhappy, Lou. I just… I could be happier, I suppose.”

He nodded. “And I want you to be.”

Letting out a long breath, I attempted to also let go of the anger, and focus on what I knew for sure about Louis.

He had the biggest heart of anyone I knew. No matter the signs, or how often he was told of the contrary, Louis was always decided to give people the benefit of the doubt. It was a trait we got from our mother, too, and I wasn’t sure what had made me slightly more cynical than him in this aspect, but I suspected it happened somewhere in Law School.

Louis wanted people to be happy, to excel. He wanted laughter and adventure and success for every person that crossed his path. I knew for a fact there was no way he would ever really wish the contrary, on anyone. I knew something else, too, something much more important.

I knew exactly why he was afraid to come home.

“I know you’re trying to figure things out.” I told him. “I don’t blame you. I know it’s tough.”

He nodded, slowly, and took in a deep breath. When he spoke, his voice was wavering; barely a whisper.

“I’m not, though. Not anymore. I think you know that. I haven’t been figuring things out anymore. I’ve known, really known, for a while now.”

All thoughts of the fight forgotten, I felt my heart tighten on my chest. I looked at my little brother, shrunk down and resolute, sitting by my side in bed. He was staring off into the room, but I knew, somehow, he was perfectly aware of my every move.

“You’re sure?” My whisper matched his. I presumed my fear did too.

He sighed, gulped, and shut his eyes tight, before opening them again and smiling at me, scared.

“I’m in love with him.”

The words were new, but the sentiment wasn’t; Louis was fifteen the first time he told me he thought he might be gay. I remembered the day as if I had been replaying it in my mind at least once a month ever since, because it was accurate.

It was summer; I was almost eighteen, fresh out of my secondary school graduation, but still a few weeks before my adult future. We had been spending summer with our grandparents at the place they lived after my grandfather abdicated as king, Haydell Castle, in the east coast of Savoy. The Castle sat on a hill overlooking the Atlantic, and Louis, myself and Lourdes would go to the beach most afternoons to play volleyball and tan. One late afternoon, Lourdes was applying finishing touches to a sandcastle she’d spent hours working on. Louis had been helping, but left her to get some water from the cooler near where I was laying, struggling to read a book on the darkening light of the fast approaching sunset.

He sat down by my side with a thud, drank half a bottle of water as I complained about the sand he’d inadvertently thrown my way, and then, without looking at me, said, “I think I have a crush on a classmate.”

Louis went to an all-boys boarding school. The boy in question was a very handsome senior, with kind eyes and handsome dimples. My brother spent a while telling me about how he liked sports and theater and wanted to backpack through South America after school. Then we spent the rest of the summer brainstorming what this could mean.

Monarchies weren’t built on diversity. The core of the system our family was built on was genetics and catholicism, two elements that were famously not very lenient. The Royal Family of Savoy had branched out from the French Royal Family many generations ago. Though we prided ourselves, then and now, that we were different, we still inherited some very big elements from them. A few tiaras, a few titles, and Catholicism. Though Savoy had freedom of religion, the monarchy’s official creed was still Catholicism. It was involved in most of our protocols and traditions, a king couldn’t even be crowned if he hadn’t been baptised in the church.

The idea of a gay, catholic King of Savoy was ludicrous even to us, no matter how much we wished it wasn’t.

And then, there was the issue of the line of succession. Say the church and country allowed my brother to reign as an out gay man, say they allowed him to marry a man in the Catholic church, say they allowed him to be crowned as king with a prince consort… It would be his duty to secure the line of succession; a king’s job is to produce a child to be the next king whose child will be next after him, and so on. Though it was the 21st century, there was no precedent to a king’s heir being anything other than his own, biologic child. And even as we tried to consider the idea of my brother having one with an egg donor, using a surrogate, we immediately knew what that would mean: whoever this woman was, her privacy would never be respected. People would want to know everything about her.

As to adopting, what were his options? In what world would the press not hunt down every possible information about the child’s biological family? Interview every distant relative for money? Come up with every way to embarrass them for clicks on an article? How could that child possibly be raised to be king with that kind of scrutiny surrounding them?

I thought of it as we sat in silence. He loved Peter. Peter loved him. And yes, they were young and that might change, but Louis being gay wouldn’t. Louis wanting to be a father was unlikely to change. But there was no precedent for a king to have an adopted child as an heir, and having a biological child through surrogate would be too hard on a surrogate and her family, being harassed and forever linked to us. If he sacrificed his own wishes and decided not to have children in order to spare them, then me or my children would have to inherit, which to me was simply unthinkable.

“They’re not going to cut you out.” I told him. “You know mom and dad, they love you. They love us. It might be hard dealing with everyone else, but they’ll always support you.”

He gulped. “The thing is… they might love me, but that’s not enough to change centuries of tradition just so I can-”

“Be who you are!”

He was silent, pulling on a lose thread on the blanket.

“I suppose I could just do what they did back in the day.” He considered. “Marry some poor, naive girl, sleep with her just enough to produce an heir and make Peter my secretary so we can carry out a scandalous and secret affair.”

I gave him a sarcastic look, and he rolled his eyes.

“I’m kidding.” He started biting a nail. “I could just… not have children.”

“You want children.”

“...yeah.”

“We’ll think of something.” I told him, confidently. “It’ll be easier once mom and dad know. They’ll figure something out. They’re good at this. They’re not going to make you keep this a secret, they love you too much.”

He sighed. “It would be easier for me to abdicate.”

“That’s not happening!”

“Why?! Because you can’t fathom the idea of having to inherit?! You think it’s okay to put me or my children through hell so you can hold on to your comfort? Who’s being selfish now?!”

I stared at him, mouth agape.

“That’s not fair.” I wasn’t even sure the words had come out, so low was my volume and so loud my shock.

He reached out and held my hand in his, leaning over to lay his head on my shoulder.

“I know, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I laid my cheek against his hair, holding his hand tightly.

The worst part was knowing he was right. As unfair as it was, the easiest path was for him to come out and simply not have kids. But I didn’t want the headache of figuring out how to raise children to inherit after him, or worse yet, to have to be the heir if he was made to abdicate. It was such a colossal thought I couldn’t even think of it too much without feeling a panic attack creeping in.

He was 22. My little brother shouldn’t even be concerned about children at this age. And yet, because of the backwards traditions we were embroiled in from birth, he had no choice, and all our lives depended on how accepting the world would be of who he was.

“Hey.” I called, and he raised his head to look at me. “We will figure it out. I promise.”

His smile was so small it broke my heart even more. He didn’t say anything, though. He just nodded, slowly, and stared at his hands.

“I love Peter.” I said, tentatively. I had said it before, but it carried a different weight now. Louis’ smile grew.

“I want to introduce him to Lou. She didn’t come that time you met him, I think they’ll get along.”

I bumped my shoulder to his. “Just tell him to compliment her skating, she’ll love him.”

He chuckled, then looked at me very seriously. “Speaking of our sister, you could be more patient with her, you know?”

I sighed. “I am.”

“No, you’re not. Patient would be watching her videos and offering useful advice.”

“You’re asking too much.”

“I can do it, so can you! You think I care about ice skating?”

“Kinda.”

“Well… okay, I do. But they wear really sparkly dresses. Honestly, Maggie, she just wants to make you proud.”

“I don’t…!” I sighed, “I don’t really know how to talk to her, sometimes. I only had a couple of years with her before going to boarding school, you at least got to see her more often.”

He fished into his pockets, found his phone and opened the messaging app. I watched him create a group, add both me and Lourdes to it, name it ‘Louis’ Girl Gang’, and send the message, ‘this way it’s easier to chat!’.

“This way you can just watch how I interact with her and mimic.” He said. “Just react like me and soon you’ll be able to do it yourself.”

I opened my phone and replied, ‘this chat name is ridiculous’.

“Ouch.” He said, emotionless.

I gave him a dirty look, and we laughed. Both our phones buzzed at the same time with Lourdes’ reply, the first of many.

‘yay i love this! miss u guys!’

I smiled. She was too sweet for her own good.

I had no idea what the future held for us, but I knew with one hundred percent certainty I loved every single atom of my siblings.

---- ---- ----

The drive to the polo club the following morning - our last one in Britain - wasn’t long, but we had to leave early enough that I had to do my makeup in the car. Did I need makeup to play polo? No. But would the press comment on how ‘tired’ I looked if I didn’t? Yes, so shaky hands on a tiny mirror it was.

Harry and William were already at the club when we got there; we were introduced to the horses we were using that morning, and the rest of the people who would be playing. There was a small breakfast laid out, with mimosas and champagne flutes, which we ate as we made some small talk and got to know everyone.

“So,” Harry started, finding me alone by the water jugs.

“So.” I replied.

“I’ve been doing some googling.”

“Yes?”

He sighed. “And I cannot, for the life of me, figure out when we may have met.”

“Oh.” I smiled.

I had started to think he’d forgotten it, or worse, simply didn’t care. But apparently he did. He cared enough to look it up.

The thought felt… oddly warm.

“I asked my people. And then I asked my people to ask your people, who weren’t able, or willing, to come up with an answer. So I do not know, for the life of me, when we may have met before two days ago.”

I nodded, smiling slightly. “Your efforts are noted.”

“Look, I feel like a jerk.” He sighed. “I’m sure I would remember you if we met before. You have a face a guy would remember.”

I swallowed the electric shock that line sent through me. “Apparently not.”

“Give me a hint. Was it here or in Savoy? Or another country? Day or night? Was it more than a year ago?”

I looked at him, brows raised. “It was in another country, during the day, more than a year ago.”

He nodded, attentive, scratching his beard. Then, he sighed dramatically. “God, I have no idea!”

“So you give up?”

He grinned. “Is that a challenge?”

“No. It’s a question.”

He stared into my eyes for a beat, as his smile grew.

“No, I don’t give up. I’ll figure it out.”

I nodded, silently, holding his stare.

I suddenly realized I didn’t have a plan. I hadn’t planned on making this a big deal, but now when I eventually had to tell him, we would both be faced with a story that wasn’t as interesting or sexy as we had made it sound.

“So, what are we thinking?!” My brother interrupted, joining us with William. “Heirs against spares?”

“What, and lose the chance to massacrate Harry on the field?” I challenged, as the ginger looked at me, mouth agape.

“Nice! I love the sentiment, Margueritte!” William cheered. “She’s on my team, dibs on Margueritte!”

“Excuse me, I believe I already have dibs on Mary.” Harry interjected, making his brother laugh.

The line was so unapologetically flirty I felt my jaw drop as I looked around. We were at a tent in the back, where the players were getting ready before being sorted into teams. There was no press around, but there was a lot of people who hadn’t signed NDAs or anything.

Louis was squinting at Harry with a mischievous grin on his lips. “Excuse me, are you flirting with my sister?”

I felt my stomach twirl in anxiety, and tried to give him a warning look, but before I could, Harry answered.

“I’ve been trying to, for the past three days.”

He was smiling at me now, again so unapologetically it felt as if I had lost all ability to function. William was watching the whole thing with an amused look on his eyes.

Louis’ grin grew into a smile, as he slowly moved his eyes from Harry to me, “Huh.”

“Is that a problem?”, Harry asked my brother.

“For me? No!” He assured him, “For you? Well…”

“She hasn’t exactly made it easy for me.”

“Sounds like her.”

“Louis-Adolphe!” I admonized, earning from him a roll of his eyes.

“Don’t use both my names as if you’re mom.”

William laughed.

“Any tips?” Harry asked Louis, very seriously, but looking at me as if studying an animal on the wild.

“Hm,” my brother considered him, “Patience. Her only relationship was with a family friend we’ve known all our lives, and that took forever.”

“Lou!” I warned, again.

“What?! It’s not like he can’t google you.” He shrugged.

“Okay.” I said, before turning on my heels to exit the tent.

I made myself busy elsewhere, but couldn’t keep my mind straight. My heart was racing and I couldn’t tell if the reason was Louis’ teasing or Harry’s unabashed flirting, or both. Before I knew it, though, we were stretching as a group, and getting our uniforms on; I did stay on William’s team, while Harry and Louis played together.

He found me as we made our way into the field, while I was busy trying to tie the upper half of my hair on a low ponytail.

“Have I told you you look fantastic today, Mary?”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll remedy that as soon as possible.”

“You look fantastic, Mary. White pants suit you.”

Harry’s eyes hovered down my body over my form-fitting white jeans under the black riding boots.

“Thank you.” I said, curt, and paced faster to my horse, starting to fasten the girth to adjust the saddle.

“...I’m sorry.”

I stopped, and looked back at him, only half surprised he was still there. A little more than half surprised by the genuine fear and sadness in his eyes.

“Oh. For?”

He grimaced. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable before, when I was talking to your brother. I was just… trying to lighten the mood. Be, you know, funny I guess.”

I gulped; funny?

“Right. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” I resumed my work on the horse’s saddle.

I even added a short smile to go with the lie, but it didn’t seem to convince him.

“Really, I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Why would I be upset?”

He took a quick step closer and wrapped my hand in his; I felt my breath caught in my throat as I noticed how big they were, his knuckles were protuberant, his veins popped against his pale skin. In a dark corner in my mind I wondered what hands like those might feel like on my body.

“Mary.” He whispered, softly; I gulped, not daring to meet his gaze.

“Marie.” I whispered back.

He sighed. “Marie. If you want me to stop, and just… be your friend, or even just a polite acquaintance…”

He allowed the end of his sentence to hang in the air, ominous; It felt horrifying, specially hearing him call me my actual name. It made me look back at him, meeting his eyes a lot closer than I thought they would be.

“...all you gotta do is say so.” He finished, finally.

The offer sounded awfully simple for a feat that sounded amazingly difficult, though I couldn’t understand why. He was being so annoying, so infuriating for the past three days. It would be so easy to tell him to back off, if only it weren’t for that little part of my heart that was trying to tell me he wasn’t that annoying. And really, wasn’t the only frustrating thing about it that we had had so little time together? After all, his hand was still on mine, and it did feel like my whole body was warmer than the British sun on that morning warranted.

“What’s this?” I asked.

As I looked back to his hands, I noticed once more that he had something written in them. He turned his palm towards me, while the back of his hand still rested in mine.

“This says ‘call Gil’, it’s the manager of my foundation in Lesotho. I have to get back to him about something. And this other line says ‘figure out trip’. It’s my mate’s birthday next month and the lads asked me to figure out how we can organize a hunting trip for him.”

As he explained his little reminder list on his palm, I traced it with the tips of my fingers lightly. After I ran out of the ink to trace, I started tracing the lines in his palm, very slowly.

“Bad memory?” I teased.

He sighed, “The worst. Well, not about important things. I remember important things. But names of people I met only a couple times, but should definitely know? Nope. And the deadline to things I have to do? Even worse. Hence the writing in hand.”

“Have you tried setting alarms on your phone?”

“I barely know how to make calls.” He rolled his eyes.

“Drama queen!”

“I’m serious! We’re not allowed to use social media, so really what’s there to do? I just don’t use it much.”

“God, it’s like you’re 80.”

He chuckled, and his hand closed on reflex over mine. Now it was almost as if we were holding hands. The thought, the warmth of his skin on mine, sent a shock wave through my body.

“Come on, Harry, no flirting with the competition!” Louis called out as he rode by.

We chuckled, timidly.

“Things seem better, with Louis.” He commented.

I smiled. “We talked.”

“Did he understand?”

I nodded. “Yes. He’s got a good heart. He’s young, but he’d never willingly do something to hurt anyone. It’s just…” I sighed, giving him a side glance. “He’s got… some stuff to figure out. And I wanna help as much as I can. I just… Can’t sacrifice myself for it. And I think he gets it.”

There was a pause, a more comfortable one this time, and next time he spoke, he had a whisper of a smile on his lips.

“You didn’t ask me to stop.” He whispered. I looked at him.

“I guess I didn’t.”

We exchanged a smile, and just as I felt my cheeks redden at the long pause, his brother rode by already on his horse.

“Stop flirting with my player, Harry, get to your horse!”

We jumped, startled, but chuckled timidly as he rode away.

“So, how confident are you that you’re going to beat me?”, he asked.

“Oh, only about 89%.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“Ninety-six, tops.”

He nodded, amused. “Care to make it interesting?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Loser buys dinner.”

I bit my inner lip to contain a smile. It almost sounded like he was asking me on a date. Was he asking me out on a date?

“I… I have to leave tomorrow morning.”

“Well, Savoy is, what? Four or five hours away by train?”

“Another one and a half to the city where I live.”

He nodded, then shrugged. “I can do that. What do you say?”

I placed a foot on the stirrup, and jumped up to take my seat on the saddle.

“Win first, Your Royal Highness. Then we’ll talk.”

“Game on, Mary.”

--- ---- ---

[A/N: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!!!! please let me know if you like it? I’m open to notes, suggestions, all of it =) just liking this chapter would really help me know!

I don’t know how to say this without spoiling a big plot point in the story, but to be fair it is sort of the main premise, so if you’d like not to be spoiled on plot points, maybe come back later? Cool. Let’s get to it.

When I first started writing this story, I hadn’t intended on Margueritte’s brother, Louis, to be such a big character. I expected his time with us would be… well, shorter, after all the main idea for this story starts with his - again, spoiler alert - death. But as I wrote a little of him, I I liked him so much, and I ended up writing more and more and soon it was really heartbreaking killing him. As you’ll soon find, Louis fits into a trope I didn’t intentionally set out to write: the kill your gays trope. I don’t want to go into details because that’s enough spoilers, but suffice to say mea culpa, and also I hope you’ll give me a chance to show I do have a bigger intention with this: one, monarchies are famously heteronormative. They essentially can’t survive otherwise, or so we are told. I have always wandered about this. We’ve all read the historical examples of homosexuality being swiftly repressed for the good of the succession line. As a modern royal, Margueritte will have to look this issue in the eyes, too. She’ll have to realize the role she plays in a system where for her family and its history to survive, some families cannot exist in their purest form, and she will struggle with not being able to tell the world the truth about her brother - since it is not her place - knowing this makes her an accomplice in rewriting history to fit her best purpose.

Which choices she makes and which path she decided to take in this issue are something I’m excited to explore, as I honestly believe monarchies will have to have a solution for this at one point or another.

TL/DR: though this story adds to the kill your gays trope, which I know it’s problematic, I want to write about the way monarchies perpetuate heteronormativity and how they will have to find a way for all their members, regardless of sexuality or gender identity, to feel at home in the institution, and I intend to add more non-straight characters so delve into this issue.]

#prince harry fanfic #prince harry fanfiction #princeharryfanfiction #princeharryfanfic #royalfanficcollection #brf #Prince Harry #princeharryff #chapters #OPITCphff #modern royalty au #modern royalty fanfic

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junionigiri · 5 years

Text

Just Another Secretary Story! Chapter 3 - What I Want

Chapter summary: Todoroki tries to understand what Uraraka wants (and sort of misses).

Rating: T

“So,” Midoriya Izuku begins, struggling to keep his face as serene as a Buddharupa, “she said no.”

Shouto hates that he ends up in Midoriya’s much smaller office in the morning that follows his proposal to Uraraka, yet here he is. To his astonishment, his subordinate was right and he was wrong. The shorter man’s efforts to not say any variation of I told you so makes this humbling ordeal a lot worse.

After some thoughtful silence regarding the look of utter defeat in Shouto, he asks, “What happened anyway? You drove to Uraraka-san’s house last night, right?”

The arduous journey took him forty-five minutes of driving in the opposite direction, ten minutes taking the wrong exit, and another ten minutes of driving at a snail’s pace in that tiny, tiny neighborhood where she lived. He only ran over a grand total of two ceramic pots, resulting in a brief confrontation and him leaving 20,000 yen per pot to the stunned owners. He was told to come back anytime, which was strange, but he wouldn’t have minded it if his travels were worth it.

They were not. After watching him cast his dignity aside and covering the sidewalk with raw eggs, Uraraka merely knelt beside him and touched his forehead to check for a fever. Followed by her asking him if he remembered who he is or where he was and how many fingers she was holding up.

“Yikes.” Midoriya physically winced at that. “And then what?”

Shouto exhales slowly. “And then she said she can’t… won’t marry me.”

Her exact words were, “Director, I can’t marry you, how can you even ask me that? And please get off the concrete right now, your suit will get ruined!!! ”

He supposed he can’t blame her for not immediately picking up on the flawless logic of his plan, so he explained things to her as concisely as he can. “You want to get married. I am the most suitable person for what you want--smart, wealthy, successful, handsome, established, and a fair man who won’t force you to quit your career. There’s no question. You should marry me as quickly as possible.”

He isn’t even bragging when he said those things about himself--they’re just objectively true. She stared at him in a number of ways--curiosity, shock, and an emotion he didn’t know that made her eyes flare. He thought she ended up getting the fever judging by the way her cheeks turned from pink to red and how her hands shook.

“Director… go home. I gotta… have to clean up the eggs.”

After that, she walked away from him without saying anything. She might have been shocked or she might have been just plain rude, which he didn’t deserve at all. Shouto went home feeling irritated.

In an impassioned text she sent him after he demanded an explanation, she tells him, What I want is an ordinary marriage with an ordinary person. Nothing more, nothing less. Goodnight, Director Todoroki.

“Oh no,” Midoriya groans. “Of course it’ll end up like this, Todoroki-kun—I mean, Director. I’m surprised you thought this would work at all.”

His fingers tap against his desk in irritation. “You made that abundantly clear, Midoriya. But tell me why I was set to fail.”

“Well, there are lots of reasons why it wasn’t going to work… I mean, you went there without a plan, you didn’t call her or text her that you needed to see her, you didn’t check if the venue was appropriate for the proposal, your proposal was obviously rushed, you didn’t even have a ring, you caused her to break all those eggs, ruined her dinner, made a big mess in the neighborhood...”

Each point Midoriya stabs him right in the ego until Shouto feels about as alive as the hideous tiger rug his father keeps in their summer home.

“But most important of all… Director.” He pauses to take a deep breath, both to give his superior time to ruminate over his words, and also because he’s already turning blue from talking so much without breathing. “The biggest flaw in your plan was you asked to marry her with no consideration for her whatsoever. You just assumed that she’d marry you just because you said so! That’s not how marriage works! For a marriage proposal like that, no is the only correct answer!”

How is he supposed to know how marriages worked? He didn’t learn anything witnessing the sham of a marriage between his parents. It’s already baffling enough that anyone would want anything as fragile as that. Still,

“I did it for her. I wouldn’t have asked if she didn’t want it.”

Midoriya is wrong. This isn’t about what he wanted. Uraraka is the one who wants marriage, not him. He’s never even considered it at all before her.

His best friend looks more frustrated than ever. “No, you wouldn’t have asked if you weren’t going to lose an assistant. You wouldn’t have asked her anything if she didn’t tell you that she wanted to leave! And I get that you’re panicking because you’re afraid to lose her, but I think you need to take time to understand her better!”

Realizing too late how passionately he nagged Shouto like a disappointed mother, Midoriya blushes furiously and clamps his mouth shut.

“You seem to understand relationships better than I do, Midoriya. I’m surprised. You definitely don’t look experienced.”

Midoriya continues to make an impressive impression of a tomato and stammers in protest. “Nghh, it’s not that--I mean--no, you know what, my experience doesn’t matter.” Shaking the red from his freckled cheeks, he points an accusing finger at him. “What matters now is you! Make an effort to understand what Uraraka-san wants and give her what she needs from you!”

“Make an effort to understand what Secretary Uraraka wants,” he repeats.

Midoriya hums affirmatively.

“And give her what she needs.”

The other man nods brightly. “Yeah, you get it now, right Director? The thing you have to do now is to--”

“--understand who her ideal marriage partner is and become that person.”

“--give her some space and-- TODOROKI-KUN, SERIOUSLY. ”

Midoriya isn’t prone to many outbursts, so anytime he has one people have to be concerned. But the gears in Shouto’s head are too busy turning for him to notice.

Of course he was set to fail from the start, because the manner of his approach was wrong. There was meaning to Uraraka mentioning her ordinariness--how could he have missed it? He didn’t think being extraordinary would give him any disadvantages ever in his life. But now that he understands the situation better, he knows what to do next.

“She wants an ordinary person and an ordinary marriage. So, if she were an ordinary person from her age group, what she would be looking for is romance. That’s a statistically sound assumption based on solid marketing research. So if I am able to successfully woo her as an ordinary man--”

“Oh no,” Midoriya whispers.

Oh yes. It’ll be tough to become the ordinary person she wants, but he can make it work. He’ll face the challenges head-on for the sake of her future-- their future. A stable marriage with a smart, wealthy, successful, handsome, established man, and a stable job working for a smart, wealthy, successful… well, you get the idea. She should count herself lucky.

By that time, the green-haired chief looks pretty much done with everything. “I know that look in your eyes, Director, and I know nothing’s gonna stop you whatever I say. So let me know how it goes, yeah? I’ll get to work now, so...”

Gathering his things, Midoriya turns to leave his own office. Unfortunately for him, Shouto isn’t done with him yet. One searing hot hand makes it to the shorter man’s shoulder, making him yelp.

“But Chief Midoriya, I need your expertise in this. Kindly put your bag down and help me strategize.”

“... oh no,” Midoriya repeats helplessly.

Ochako hesitates a little as she opens the door to the Office of the Executive Director. Due to her errands the day before, she hasn’t had a chance to sit with her officemates since the announcement of her resignation. In her groupchat with Tooru-chan and Tsuyu-chan from Marketing, she was told that she’s the topic of widespread gossip all over the corporation. So she’s worried--how is the rest of the office going to react about her leaving?

The moment she enters, Monoma Neito, the unit manager, twirls with a fox-like smile. “Well, well, well! And here we have the quitter herself! Welcome to the end, Uraraka!”

The rest of the five-man team--Senior Officer Iida Tenya and his two assistants Ashido Mina and Kirishima Eijirou--let their things clatter noisily on the table upon her entrance.

“G’morning guys-- gah-- ”

Everyone is already around her before she can breathe. Predictably, it’s Iida who reaches her first by stomping across the room at the speed of light. “Uraraka-kun, tell me it isn’t true! Are you truly abandoning the Executive Director in favor of a different company in Korea?”

“No, Iida, you got that wrong!” Mina says, shoving him away from her face. “Ochako-chan, I heard you’re quitting ‘cause you’re getting married to a childhood friend from Mie-ken! That’s it, right? Right?”

“No way, Mina!” Kirishima shoves her face with his own so he can look at Ochako in the eye. “It’s medical, right? Uraraka, if you need a blood or organ donor, you know you can just come to me, right? I’ll give you my kidney and I won’t even say ouch , so--”

So they’re not mad at her for leaving. She’s hardly able to get even an awkward laughter in when Monoma shoves the enthusiastic group away from her with a snooty tsk, tsk, tsk.

“Now now, you lot. We all know what this is about.” With his usual flourish and spread of the fingers, he deems himself to explain. “Uraraka has been the most faithful aide to the Director for the past nine years. No other secretary is able to achieve the feats that she has. Therefore we owe her the courtesy of her privacy when it comes to the personal reasons of her leaving work.”

Ochako stares at the usually prickly manager in awe. “Wow, Monoma-kun, that’s awful decent of you.”

“Can’t be helped. I am an extraordinarily decent person, after all. So when you marry that Mie-ken guy and move to Korea within the next three and a half months for work and treatments, it’s really none of our business~”

So he’s still the same snake. She wonders why anyone would still believe anything this guy has to say.

“That said, Uraraka,” Monoma continues, batting his eyelashes innocently, “if you’re looking for a new chief secretary to replace you, look no further, for I--”

“Ah! That’s right!” Iida interrupts them with a swift karate chop in front of the blonde’s face. “Uraraka-kun, if it is so, we must create a task force to find your replacement! As such, I would like to verify the imminence of your resignation, so that I can act accordingly!”

Ignoring Monoma’s offended scoff, Ochako beams at Iida like a lightbulb. “It’s true, Iida-kun! Like I told the Director, I’m gonna start turnover of duties as soon as we find a replacement. So I’ll only be here for another month!”

“Oh my god, Ochako-chan! You’re really leaving us! I can’t believe it!” Mina says tearily, “Oh, but you’re not dying from an illness or anything like that, are you?”

She smiles. “Nope, I’m not dying! Don’t worry!”

“OMG! How about marriage then?!”

Ochako tries not to cough remembering the whole debacle from last night. “... nope… not yet...”

The entire office sighs in relief (except for the snickering Monoma, the obvious source of all gossip). “But this is great, Uraraka! You work the hardest out of all of us, but now that you’re resigning, it means you’re finally going to have some time for yourself, huh?” Kirishima says.

“Well… yeah, there’s that too,” she answers coolly. When she beams again, the four other executives had to literally shield their eyes from her.

“Gah, my eyes,” Monoma mutters, wiping his eyes. “Is this the smile of a woman who’s finally going to have time for dates? I’m ~thrilled~ for you, Uraraka.”

The spring of her youth came late, but boy is she going to enjoy it. The vision of holding a special someone’s hands as they walk under the cherry blossoms seems a little less impossible now.

Mina gasps.”That’s right, Kiri! Ochako-chan can go on dates now!” When the redhead only stares at her blankly, she rolls her eyes. “You know! That time we went to the barbecue place in Wookiess, he asked you about Ochako after seeing our pictures?”

Kirishima gasps. “Yeah… yeah, yeah! Hey, Uraraka, if you’re up for a blind date, there’s a good buddy of mine who--”

Before any of them can process what the boisterous couple is actually trying to say, a flash of red and white enters their peripheral vision. As a conditioned reflex, they all shut their mouths, turn to the entrance and simultaneously do a half-bow. “Executive Director,” they greet in unison.

Todoroki Shouto glares at them more severely than usual. “Secretary Uraraka,” is all he needs to say before Ochako is on his heels the next second.

She hears a soft and scared bye from the rest of the team. It’s the same air of villagers watching the human sacrifice get thrown into the gaping maw of a volcano. The difference is, the villagers only have to do this once per season, whereas the Office of the Executive Director does this every single day.

Just a month longer, Ochako, she tells herself before going over the day’s agenda with the Director.

The Director’s mood is in a different level of hell than any of them had imagined. Oddly it was Kirishima who ended up with the bulk of the workload that day. No-one dared to question why.

So much for talking to him about the blind date. Ochako’s definitely interested in learning more about the guy they had in mind. Even though it isn’t very likely that this random guy will be ~The One~, it’s still a great chance to test the waters.

I wonder if he’s a nice guy. There’s a good chance that he is, right? Kirishima’s one of the nicest guys in the universe, and it makes sense to have a ‘good buddy’ who’s as nice as he is. Oh, maybe he’ll have puppy dog eyes. Like a Pomeranian. Gosh, it’ll be cute if he were just like a Pomeranian.

Wait. I’m at work. I shouldn’t be thinking of dates with guys I haven’t met yet. She shakes her head and continues typing up a letter to HR for her replacement. Okay, qualifications, qualifications...

A nice guy, nice hair, stable job, intelligent. He definitely has to be tall. Muscles are good. Sharp eyes? Red is a nice eye color, but that might be too intense. Purple is good too. And blue. Oh, grey. Blue and grey…?

A muscle involuntary twitches on her face.

Sneakily, Ochako peers over to where Director Todoroki is speaking in rapid French to a client from a different continent. The awkward encounter of last night flashes back in front of her eyes. Did the worst marriage proposal ever to have happened really happened? The Director didn’t mention it or even gave any indication that it happened at all, so she seriously wondered if she just dreamt the whole thing.

But she really sent him that message last night didn’t she??? What I want is an ordinary marriage with an ordinary person --she didn’t think she’d be so angry that she can snap at the Director like this through text. But he came at her with that ridiculous proposal of his just so she can keep being his secretary forever and ever, of course she’s going to snap!

Plus, as clueless as the Director is it’s so infuriating that he said something as borderline romantic as I want you by my side forever. Now that Ochako knows exactly what he meant by that, she really hated how fast her heart started beating when he said that while holding her hand. Universe, isn’t it unfair that the guy you sent to make her heart skip a beat for the first time in a long time is the clueless demon Director who just doesn’t want her to quit?

Oof, double oof. Well… if he acts like it didn’t happen, she’s more than happy to comply. It’s better this way so they can work together efficiently. It’ll only be for another month. One more month, Ochako!

Well... the eye color doesn’t matter, as long as he feeds me mochi until I explode. Must like dogs and babies. Cats…? Shelter cats should be okay. If it’s a British Shorthair...

Why is she thinking of British Shorthairs. Why is she thinking of snooty ol’ Victoria running around her dream house with her dream guy. It’s thanks to that proposal that she’s weird today. Stupid Director, messing with her good time like this!

“Uraraka-san?”

Blinking out of her reverie, she shifts into work mode and gives a half-bow to her unlikely visitor. “Chief Midoriya,” she greets respectfully. “I’m sorry, were you standing there for long?”

Midoriya Izuku shakes his head. “You were really enjoying what you were doing, so I didn’t want to disturb you.”

He gives one hecking bright smile which leaves her partially blind. Is this guy really Director Todoroki’s best friend? He must be a saint. “The Director is in the middle of a teleconference now so he can’t be disturbed. If you can come back after half an hour…”

“No, it’s okay! I was actually looking for you.”

Midoriya pulls out a floppy folder from under his arm. There are papers there filled with what look like detailed scribbles and anime doodles. To the intrigued Ochako he hands a form.

“Oh… a survey?”

“Yup!” Midoriya shows her the entire questionnaire, which is just one page. “We’re working on booking services that target women working at corporate. You know, usual things, nothing different from the normal things my department works on, not like this survey is weird or anything. Anyhow, since you’re part of our target market, I was hoping you’d help us out…”

Strange, since when did Chief Midoriya hand out surveys personally? If the employees in Endeavor needed to answer surveys, he usually gets Tooru-chan to send the forms via email. So has he been giving this to all the girls in the building? Is that why he’s sweating and murmuring more than usual?

It doesn’t look like Midoriya’s having an easy time with this survey, so she decides to help him out. “No problem, Chief. I’ll work on this one during my break,” she says with a smile. “I’ll give my form to Secretary Hagakure when I’m done.”

“Oh no! No need! Please don’t--” Midoriya coughs so hard he gags. Ochako moves to help him, but he stops her by holding a shaky hand up. “This…. I mean, Secretary Hagakure’s got other important, er, things going on. Uh, so when you’re done, I’ll just come by to pick up your form, okay?”

He’s so stressed Ochako‘s half expecting him to throw up right there and then. “Oh… kay then.”

“Okay that’s settled! Thanks for helping me, er, us out. Bye~~~”

Heaving an oddly relieved sigh, the haggard chief of marketing speedwalks out of the office without sparing a second glance. It’s well known in the company that Midoriya is very bad at talking to women, but this was worse than usual. Must be extra pressure from above...

She browses the survey briefly. There are three questions on it with plenty of space underneath to write her answers:

Describe your ideal partner. (A complete description by physical attributes and behavioral traits are considered optimal).

Describe an ideal excursion with your ideal partner. (Provide as much detail on the location, ideal time, and weather conditions of said excursion).

Describe an ideal product that you would like to receive from your ideal partner. (Dimensions, color options, and other details are required).

Weird. Really weird. She can’t put her finger on it, but the blunt and commanding style of writing reads so familiarly. She’s sure that it isn’t Midoriya or his assistant Tsuyu-chan or Tooru-chan who did this one. Maybe they hired someone new?

Oh well. The questions are pretty interesting, so she’ll give herself time to think about them. Maybe once Kirishima sets her up with her blind date, she can actually claim some of her answers for real.

As promised, Midoriya runs right into their office when she tells him she finished the survey. The executive bows to her about half a hundred times before running off and disappearing without any further explanation.

“I wonder if he’s okay,” she asks worriedly as Midoriya almost bulldozes Monoma on the way out.

“Don’t mind him,” Director Todoroki replies coldly. As that guy’s best friend, he sure seems to make an effort to disregard his existence. “You were going to show me those files from HR.”

“Yes, Director.” Ochako places an armful of files over his left, a short summarized list on his right. “These are the candidates for the secretary position. We coordinated with the department head for the interview schedules. The earliest batch will be interviewed next week.”

Todoroki taps his fingers thoughtfully over the desk. “Next week.”

“Yes, Director.”

There’s an anxious moment where Ochako expects him to push back the dates further to keep her working there for longer. But instead of that, the director takes one glance at the list of candidates and points to a name smack in the middle.

“You want to finish the turnover of duties as quickly as possible, right?” His right eye disconcertingly dark, he taps the list menacingly. “Let’s interview the first batch tomorrow. Starting with this one.”

Utsushimi Camie. Ochako raises her eyebrows at the choice. She isn’t a bad candidate at all--she finished university in the prestigious Shiketsu, she has prior experience at a respectable law firm, and she speaks English, German, and Russian fluently.

She also had a long, detailed list of her interests and hobbies that filled up half her resume, which was odd, but it only made her seem more interesting. She’d be a great replacement for Ochako. “Understood, sir.”

Director Todoroki drops the subject and continues with the rest of their daily report. Ochako keeps up with him without much problems, although with the excitement of the things to come it’s more difficult to keep her face carefully neutral.

Things are falling into place for her, aren’t they?

It’s nighttime when she’s able to leave the office, but thankfully she’s only an hour late for her next meeting. At an eatery not far from her apartment, she easily spots her dates for the evening.

It’s easy to find them in a dingy diner like this. There are two beauties sitting with half-finished plates of dumplings and Chinese-style fried rice on them: one with dark hair, dark eyes and a gracefulness that makes her stand out, and one with pale skin, pale hair, an exquisite fashion sense and a different charisma that would make anyone do a double-take.

“Yui-chan!” Ochako rushes over to her and gives her a big, warm hug. “And Reiko-chan, oh my gosh, it’s been so long!”

“Yeah, well who’s the idiot who hasn’t taken a single day off for the last nine years?” Reiko gives her a fond smile and another bear hug. “Yui, come on, guilt-trip your cousin a more, she deserves it!”

Yui gives her a sharp look.

“I know, I know, sorry, but I’m here now, right?” Ochako takes a seat and munches on a dumpling. “Oh my gosh, I’m starving, I’m glad you ordered ahead.”

“We’ve been doing this for a long time. Give us some credit.” Reiko tells her flatly.

Kodai Yui is her quiet cousin from her mother’s side, practically a sister from how they were raised. Yanagi Reiko is their closest, snarkiest childhood friend who is also close enough to be their sister. Throughout high school and beyond they made it a point to eat at this diner once a week. Needless to say, their weekly meetings were more difficult to keep once Ochako started working at Endeavor Inc.

“Anyway, enough about that.” Ochako takes some beer and raises it to them. “This is the first time you’re meeting me without owing a single yen to the banks, so… yay me!”

“Yay, Ochako!” The glasses clink and they down their respective drinks, followed by a satisfied ahh~ in unison. As they set their glasses down, all Ochako could think about is how great it felt to know that she’d be able to do this more often.

Reiko squints her exposed eye to her, full lips pursed. “Yesterday, Yui here called me about the thing you told her about. She was so excited she said five full sentences to me. So is it true?”

“Yui-chan, you were that happy for me?” Ochako smiles at Yui brightly, who nods. “And yes it’s true, Reiko-chan! I’m leaving Endeavor Inc!”

“Oh my god, finally? I think I’ll congratulate you more for finally quitting and leaving that brat!”

Ochako giggles at the simultaneous flash of irritation on the girls’ faces. “Wow you guys really hate Director Todoroki that much, huh? ”

“And you don’t?” Reiko looks insulted. “Ochako, your nine-to-five was actually five-to-nine or worse. He forced you into a lot of his stupid business ideas, hung up on you constantly, woke you up in the middle of the night at least three times a week for new deadlines, made you wait on his girlfriends hand and foot, made you take care of his snooty cat--”

“Victoria-chan’s good,” Yui mumbles over her beer, “but, yup.”

“--and worse of all, he expected you to treat him like a prince while he treated you like shit. ” Reiko chugs down the rest of her beer in one go, she was that irritated. “And he did that for nine years. Nine years, Ochako!”

“I know,” Ochako smiles serenely. “No regrets for me though! Ma and Pa are okay in Mie, and look, Yui-chan’s an engineer now! Isn’t that great? Plus now I can do what I want, so--”

Suddenly, tears are falling quietly from Yui’s eyes. Ochako yelps in shock while Reiko scrambles for tissues.

“Yui-chan, come on, you promised not to cry over this anymore.” Ochako pats her silent cousin at the back as she pats her eyes dry gracefully. “You didn’t force me to pay for your tuition, you know? It was something that I wanted to do ‘cause I know it’ll make you happy.”

“Mhm.”

Reiko hums. “You also lent me a lot of cash so I can finish fashion school. Now I’m pretty happy being Yaomomo’s stylist, but… you know we’re both going to feel guilty for making you suffer under that asshat for longer than necessary.”

“Mm.”

“Yeah, that reminds me, shit, the nerve of that guy breaking up with Yaomomo! Oh my god, I need more beer over here, please!”

Ochako pointedly does not tell them about how the break-up happened. She might end up with an angry drunk Reiko sleeping on her couch again. “But he isn’t a bad boss. I mean, even if he pushed me too hard, he always treated me fairly. He’s just clueless about a lot of things. Besides, I learned a lot from trying to keep up with him, so…”

Reiko and Yui give her mildly disappointed looks. “Ochako… he didn’t just push you too hard. He’s practically got you on a ball and chain!”

She scoffs. “You’re exaggerating.”

Out of nowhere, Yui snatches her handbag right from her grasp. Despite her protests, the taciturn girl opens the contents for all to see, which are just standard items in an OL’s handbag--phone, wallet, Suica card, keys to her apartment, keys to the penthouse, a spare handkerchief, Tylenol for the Director’s migraine, a pair of men’s Raybans, the Director’s favorite Waterman ivory fountain pen, peppermints, cat treats--

Reiko simmers a little more. “What are you, his wife? Why the hell is your bag full of his shit?”

She scowls at the meaningful glares directed at her and grabs her bag back. “You know how clueless he is, I have to be ready for everything… It’s part my job to take care of him!”

Yui gives her a pitying look. “Stockholm Syndrome,” she mutters darkly.

Ochako scoffs. “I told you a million times already, Yui-chan, it’s n-not that. He’s my infuriating boss, nothing more, nothing less.”

Reiko narrows her eyes at her. “Hey. You stuttered.”

Under the two accusing gazes, Ochako covers her face with a mug of beer. “No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did. Oh my god.” Reiko looks about ready to flip the table and cover the entire restaurant in dumpling sauce. “Ochako. Don’t you dare.”

“No, Reiko-chan, I swear!”

Yui tugs on her sleeve with a grim determination in her eyes. “Todoroki…?” she asks.

Ochako swallows nervously. Judging by the stares coming her way, this wasn’t going to be easy, and won’t become any easier if she prolongs the agony.

“... proposed,” she finally mutters.

The two girls look at her dumbly. “Proposed?”

Ochako nods. Reiko looks about ready to upend more furniture like an irate poltergeist. Ochako has to pick her next answers carefully. “And… you didn’t say yes, did you…?”

“N-no, of course not!” Ochako sputters. She feels her cheeks light up in protest. “It came out of nowhere! He did it so I won’t quit! Besides, even if he proposed to me better, (like, in a planetarium or something), I’ll never ever ever ever ever say yes to him!”

Yui crosses her arms over her chest. “... stutter,” she says accusingly.

Ochako makes a sound of frustration. She really doesn’t deserve all the judgmental looks coming her way. She mustered up all that courage to quit, didn’t she? And yeah Director Todoroki proposed to her just the night before and made her question his sanity, but she said no, right? Every single bone in her body told her that she couldn’t ever be with Todoroki Shouto, not in that way--

I want you by my side forever, he’d told her, with her hand in his--

“B-blind date,” she sputters forcefully. “I’m going on a blind date with someone! Someone else. Not Todoroki Shouto. So there! Stop ragging on me, ‘kay?”

She hates how hot her cheeks can get. She chugs her second beer a little faster than she’d like to try to cover it up, and thankfully it works. Yui and Reiko share a sigh of relief. “Details,” Reiko demands, to which she complies happily.

“He’s the best friend of one of my co-workers, Kirishima,” she begins, rifling through her chatlog with the redhead. It’s good that he snuck in some time to text her about it after all his work was done. “The guy’s a journalist! Neat, huh? Kirishima says he asked to meet me after seeing my face on Instagram.”

“Huh. Just your face? What a straightforward guy.” The two girls are mildly impressed. “So, what’s his name? And he’s not ugly or anything is he?”

Ochako laughs. “No, not ugly at all! So this is the guy I’m meeting next week. His name’s Baku--”

A lick of flame appears at the periphery of her vision. It’s small in reality, but in Ochako’s mind, it starts to spread. Suddenly, the whole diner is on fire. There’s ashes and debris falling over the exits, trapping them all. Someone with cold, white hands is telling her to leave and take… someone… out of there...

She can’t move. She’s about to die. They’re both about to die.

“...chako… Ochako…”

She blinks, and suddenly the fires are gone. Her body isn’t cold but she’s shaking all over. Yui is above her, cradling her and keeping her still. She hears Reiko yelling at someone in the kitchen for being too showy with their cooking.

“N… no fire?”

Yui shakes her head. “No fire.”

Reiko reappears next to Yui. “They hired someone new who didn’t know about your pyrophobia. But it’s okay now. I think we should take you home.”

Another night ruined. If it isn’t her schedule, it’s her paralyzing fear of fire. She hates that she has to ask the girls to take care of her again. She hates that the few times they meet, she has to become this broken little person again.

Yui’s too kind. Reiko’s too kind, and also badass. She really doesn’t deserve sisters like them.

“Don’t say that about yourself,” Yui tells her kindly. “You’re a great person, Ochako. One day you’ll see that. And one day, someone special will see that too. Just you wait.”

There’s nothing as comforting as Yui saying so many words while being tucked into bed. It’s good enough that she isn’t afraid to get to sleep and confront the nightmares again.

She dreams of many things, but what she remembers when she wakes up is red, white, and the smell of strawberries.

#bnha fic #todoroki shouto/uraraka ochako #todochako #todoroki shouto #uraraka ochako #midoriya izuku #monoma neito #iida tenya #kirishima eijirou #ashido mina #yanagi reiko #kodai yui #my writings #haha lol i forgot to post this here

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amneris-hermione-violet · 5 years

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I’ve been doing some thinking about Nia Nal and some of the implications of what the show has said about her. Disclaimers: This is my attempt at some science-y thoughts combined with storytelling thoughts, but I am not an expert or even particularly well-informed about genetics, so if anyone else has more or better info, please share! I am also not an expert on trans friendly language or attitudes, so while I am very supportive of trans people, I may make mistakes. Please correct me so I can learn! Thank you. I also hope this is in no way offensive to the idea of adoption, which I think is a beautiful thing. Long-winded rambling after the cut.

The show says that Nia’s mother’s family, from the planet Naltor, has a power that shows up once a generation in a woman, and is passed along the matrilineal line. They’re surprised when Nia, a trans woman, inherits the ability rather than her sister Maeve, a cis woman. They also say that sometimes the power skips a generation, for unknown reasons. My theory is that the family has assumed it is passed to women only, and men cannot inherit it, but that this is actually an incorrect assumption on their part. In humans, as well as in almost (but not all) other mammals on Earth, males and females receive half their DNA, including an X gene, from their mothers. Females receive half their DNA, including a second X gene, from their fathers, while males receive half their DNA, including a Y gene, from their fathers. I’m guessing the aliens from the planet Naltor follow the pattern of humans, since Nia and Maeve, whose father is human, already show that Naltorians and humans can reproduce together successfully. So similarities are more likely than differences in this process. Anything that can be passed down to a girl by her mother can be passed down to a boy by his mother: they both receive the same type of genetic material from their mothers. I think the family must have assumed that two X genes were required for the power to present (but not for the genes donated by the father to have the trait, since it is passed along the matrilineal line regardless, just for the second X gene to be present). But Nia shows that this is not the case: just one gene with the trait present is enough, and the X or Y from the father doesn’t matter. This would explain why sometimes the power skips a generation: these are the other times it was (unknown to the family) inherited by a boy. So why does Nia present with the power when no cis males in her family ever have? I have two theories. One, I think the family has failed to consider that perhaps hormone levels have an effect on the appearance of the power. Nia has received female hormone therapy, which is what has allowed the trait to be expressed, whereas other males in the family did not. Their male hormones, or their lack of female hormones, caused the trait to be suppressed. Second, it could be the other biological difference between Nia and Maeve and others in their family, that being half-human somehow affects this trait, and the Y gene from Nia’s father somehow acts like a second X gene from a father from Naltor. I’m leaning more towards the hormone theory, just because I think it’s more interesting. What none of this helps to explain, however, is why males in the family did not act as genetic carriers and pass this trait on to future generations as well, as can happen with many traits. I suspect the reason for this is related to the fact that the power is said to present in only one person per generation, rather than being passed on to all descendants each generation: something magic-y or science fiction-y would have to be involved to explain that. Perhaps some kind of dominance exhibited by one person that somehow suppresses the trait from presenting in others in their vicinity? Pheromones perhaps? This would be outside the realm of real world science.

The show says that in the 31st century, Brainy knows a descendant of Nia’s named Nura Nal. No other information about her is known, other than that she is part of the Legion. There is a lot of other information available about Nura in the comics, but since Nia doesn’t exist in the comics, it isn’t very helpful in reflecting on the relationship between Nia and Nura. Nura is known as Dream Girl and also has dream-based powers, but it is unknown how similar those powers are to Nia’s. Based on the assumptions of the family, Nura would have to be a matrilineal descendant of Nia, but as a trans woman Nia is not part of the matrilineal line. If we use one of my previous theories that anyone can inherit the power, but that expression of the trait relies on other factors, then it makes sense that Nura could have the power despite not being descended from Nia’s mother’s matrilineal line. I’m reluctant to assign a lot of importance to Nura’s last name being Nal. As modern members of western society, we are used to last names being patronymic: passed down through the patrilineal line, with children taking their father’s last name, with exceptions being made for unwed mothers or cases where the father’s name is unknown. That would make Nura a direct male-line descendant of Nia, with the exception of Nia passing on her last name to her child instead of the child’s father’s last name. This is possible, but it’s a pretty limiting theory. I think it’s more likely that aliens from the planet Naltor do not follow patronymic conventions. In the comics, the last name Nal is said to mean “from the planet Naltor” and actually does not function as a family name at all. On the show, we just do not know if Nia got her last name from her Naltorian mother or her human father. Western naming conventions suggest the latter, while the name itself suggests the former. So as I said I’m not putting a lot of importance on Nura’s last name to determine her relationship to Nia. We just know that Nura is Nia’s descendant. This has led me to wonder (in a nosy way that would be none of my business if Nia were a real person and not a fictional character) how Nia is going to go about having children. As a trans woman, she has several options. The first, adoption, is not likely because of Nura presenting with the power, unless Nia adopts from someone else in her family. The second option would be for Nia to find someone to be an egg donor and for her to donate the sperm. The sperm would have had to be collected and preserved before her gender confirmation surgery. This option is very possible. so long as Nia is able to pass on the half of her genes that come from her mother and contain the trait, rather than the half from her father that do not. The third option is for Nia’s sister Maeve to be the egg donor, and someone else other than Nia to be the sperm donor (to prevent the obvious complications of genetic siblings reproducing together). This would work better with the observed pattern of the trait only being passed on the matrilineal line, but it would mean that Nura is actually descended from Nia’s sister. That is totally possible, but personally I find it less satisfying (in a storytelling sense) than having Nia be the actual genetic ancestor. Nia herself has already defied convention by displaying the power, and I would like that pattern to continue and for her to defy convention by passing on the gene for the trait despite not being part of the matrilineal line. A fourth option, and my personal favorite (from a storytelling sense), isn’t possible yet with modern technology, as far as I know, but here goes. Nia is dating Brainy right now (I am a huge fan of this ship), so it is reasonable to guess (although I admit it is only a guess) that Nia will someday have children with Brainy as her partner. Brainy is from the 31st century and is a Coluan, an alien race that is part biological and part cybernetic (cyborg). He might have access to or know of technology more advanced than in reality. He could be the sperm donor for my third theory above, where the egg comes from Nia’s sister Maeve. Or in this fourth theory, he could be the sperm donor, the second half of genetic material could come from Nia by the DNA being extracted from her normal cells, separated in half, and then implanted in the egg along with Brainy’s contribution, and literally anyone could be the egg donor. Again, Nia would have to be passing on the half of her genes that come from her mother and contain the trait, rather than the half from her father that do not (in order for Nura to later inherit them, but also to prevent the possibility of a non-viable YY embryo). They would only use the outer structure of the egg itself and not the genetic material from the egg donor. This is sort of based on modern cloning technology, which I believe was first performed with sheep in the 1990s, in which the egg has its genetic material removed and is replaced by the complete genetic material of the mother, who is the sole parent. Using that idea of an egg for just its outer structure, and the genetic material inside replaced, both Nia and Brainy could be the parents of the child. This is what I think is the most interesting and emotionally satisfying theory from a storytelling perspective. Parents are parents of their children no matter what, of course, adopted or otherwise, but with Brainy’s knowledge of future science I think this would be a fun and romantic way for them to have children in the story.

Please, please let me know if I got something wrong or said anything offensive. I want to learn, and I am very open to being corrected.

#supergirl #nia nal #brainia #brainiac 5 #brainy x nia #trans #naltor #naltorians #nura nal #dreamer #dream girl #supergirl theories #supergirl speculation #genetics #science fiction #querl dox

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thebecomingofwe · 5 years

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Accepting Infertility

I was 17 when I began my journey with infertility. Well, sort of. Obviously, I wasn’t really thinking about having babies at 17 years old, so when my oncologist told me I had to have a hysterectomy to treat my cancer, I kind of just did a mental shrug.

They set me up with a fertility doctor, but when I saw him, I felt like he was speaking a foreign language. Eggs, embryos, sperm, surrogates? Okay...? At the time, freezing eggs was still experimental, and so my best option was to freeze embryos...which meant I was going to need some man juice from a donor to make it happen. Nope, not happening. So, that was that. It wasn’t a problem for me yet, so I didn’t deal with it. I just wrapped it up neatly, stuck it in a box, and put it in a dusty drawer in the back of my brain to deal with later down the road. But, as I got older, I found myself staring at the drawer, wondering if it was time to open it and deal with what was inside.

When I started dating seriously, I was dating with the intentions of marriage. That was about the time I started thinking seriously about everything. I started feeling a sense of shame that I couldn't give someone the “normal” experience of: trying, getting pregnant, and having biological children. It really bothered me, and I felt afraid to admit to someone that I could never carry their child. At the time, I didn’t even think egg retrieval would be an option for me because of other medical conditions I had.

When Rob and I began dating, I knew that a conversation about this was coming. Our first real date, we were stargazing at a park in Tupelo, MS. My stomach was in knots as I waited for an opportunity to bring it up. Finally, I spilled my guts, and probably shared more information than I needed to so early on in our relationship. On the surface, he accepted everything. But, I knew he was going to have to digest it.

Later on, I remember a night when Rob confessed that he was a little bit sad and concerned about it. I was so insecure about my infertility that I blew up on him. Selfishly, I made him feel like a horrible person for simply having normal human feelings about something he had probably not even thought about his entire life until now. He was processing things healthily, while I was harboring insecurity, worry, and jealousy because of my lack of processing.

Things got better over time as we grew and as our relationship strengthened. We saw my fertility doctor together for the first time a few years ago, and just asked questions, but didn't make any moves toward egg retrieval because of my other health conditions. We figured we should just wait until we felt ready to start our family. After that appointment, I began praying the same prayer over and over. I prayed that God would give us clarity when it was time to pursue having children, whether it be by surrogacy or adoption first. That was it. And, I’ve prayed it probably a thousand times since then.

A couple more years went by and suddenly everyone around me was getting pregnant, or so that’s what it felt like. And, it started to hurt. Though, in ways, I had processed my situation, there was a lingering pain that I felt deep inside of me. I am embarrassed to admit this next part, but I think that God is calling me into vulnerability in this season. He’s been writing my new story since I was 17 and had put him in charge of my life. And, now I want to share even my most difficult parts with you.

I started to truly feel sorry for myself in the last year. I started to long for the ability to carry my own children. So much so, that sometimes, I would pretend I was pregnant in my mind. Ever since I had my surgeries, my abdomen has been a little more bloated, especially at the end of the day. So, I have looked at my body in the mirror, and stared at my stomach, and just imagined what it would be like. No one tells you that you’ll long for the very PHYSICAL feeling of being pregnant. Everyone around me has always said I’m lucky that I don’t have to experience that part of it. But, there’s something heart wrenching about having no choice, no ability to do what you’re physically designed to do.

It’s hard to explain, but I had an overwhelming feeling of uselessness because of this. And, all the while, my faith had been waning. But, I continued to pray the same prayer. Around the time that my emotional struggle was starting to evolve, I was asked to share my testimony on video at church. Funny timing. I think God wanted to remind me of everything he had done in my life up to now, and that the story is still being written. As I wrote out my story before the video shoot, I remembered all the times as a little girl that I told my mom I never wanted give birth because it scared me and that I dreamed of adopting a child one day. It’s like God was saying “Helloooo! I am writing a story, and your infertility is just the BEGINNING.” It feels good to remember his faithfulness, and that He isn’t done yet.

Yes, my journey to being a mother doesn’t look like anyone else’s. But, the thing is, all of our journeys look a little different. The more I obsessed over my situation, the more people God began to reveal around me that were struggling with their own unique infertility struggles. I began to realize that maybe my story could help someone, if I would stop feeling sorry for myself and embrace it. And just because my story isn’t so “natural” and so simple, doesn’t make it any less beautiful and meaningful. Though it’s sad to me somedays, I wouldn't change my situation. Because, God has something in mind for me that only he could have come up with. And, that’s so much better than something I could have come up with. He knows the desires of my heart. He knows my longing to be a mother. He knit me together in my own mother’s womb, knowing that one day I’d be dreaming of my own child, that he could be knitting together right this very moment in someone else’s womb. And, that is okay with me. In fact, that’s the most beautiful thing I could ever even ask for. I am so excited for it.

That opportunity to share my testimony spurred me into thinking about sharing the next page of my story. So here we are. I don’t have a clue what God is putting together for me right now, but I do know that He’s working on my behalf, because just a couple months ago I received my first bit of clarity that I’d been praying for. But, more on that later.

youtube

#infertility #pregnancy #surrogacy #adoption

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Their Mothers Chose Donor Sperm. The Doctors Used Their Own. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/health/sperm-donors-fraud-doctors.html

Their Mothers Chose Donor Sperm. The Doctors Used Their Own.

Scores of children born through artificial insemination have learned from DNA tests that their biological fathers were the doctors who performed the procedure.

By Jacqueline Mroz | Published August 21, 2019 Updated 3:47 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted August 21, 2019 4:36 PM ET |

Growing up in Nacogdoches, Tex., Eve Wiley learned at age 16 that she had been conceived through artificial insemination with donor sperm.

Her mother, Margo Williams, now 65, had sought help from Dr. Kim McMorries, telling him that her husband was infertile. She asked the doctor to locate a sperm donor. He told Mrs. Williams that he had found one through a sperm bank in California.

Mrs. Williams gave birth to a daughter, Eve. Now 32, Mrs. Wiley is a stay-at-home mother in Dallas. In 2017 and 2018, like tens of millions of Americans, she took consumer DNA tests.

The results? Her biological father was not a sperm donor in California, as she had been told — Dr. McMorries was. The news left Ms. Wiley reeling.

“You build your whole life on your genetic identity, and that’s the foundation,” Ms. Wiley said. “But when those bottom bricks have been removed or altered, it can be devastating.”

Through his attorney and the staff at his office, Dr. McMorries declined to comment.

With the advent of widespread consumer DNA testing, instances in which fertility specialists decades ago secretly used their own sperm for artificial insemination have begun to surface with some regularity. Three states have now passed laws criminalizing this conduct, including Texas, which now defines it as a form of sexual assault.

Dr. Jody Madeira, a law professor at Indiana University, is following more than 20 cases in the United States and abroad. They have occurred in a dozen states, including Connecticut, Vermont, Idaho, Utah and Nevada, she said, as well as in England, South Africa, Germany and the Netherlands.

According to the Dutch Donor Child Foundation, DNA testing has confirmed that a fertility specialist, Dr. Jan Karbaat, fathered 56 children, born to women who visited his clinic outside Rotterdam. Dutch authorities closed his practice in 2009, and he died in April 2017 at age 89.

An attorney for Dr. Karbaat’s family said they had no comment on the allegations and emphasized that the cases are decades old.

“Thirty years ago, people looked at things in very different ways,” said J.P. Vandervoodt, a lawyer in Rotterdam. “Dr. Karbaat could have been an anonymous donor — we don’t know that. There was no registration system at the time.”

In June, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario revoked the license of a fertility specialist in Ottawa, Dr. Norman Barwin, 80, and reprimanded him for repeatedly using the wrong sperm — including his own — in artificial insemination procedures over decades.

The college found that he had inseminated at least 11 women with his own sperm. In addition, scores of donor children claim they were conceived with the wrong sperm at Dr. Barwin’s clinic, though not the doctor’s.

He told one woman that he had used his sperm to calibrate a clinic instrument and that this contamination explained her conception. The college called that unbelievable and his actions “beyond reprehensible.”

“His actions will continue to have repercussions for his patients and their families in perpetuity,” said Carolyn Silver, general counsel at the college.

Dr. Barwin and his lawyers did not return calls for comment.

In the past, patients had little reason to suspect fertility doctors to whom they had entrusted one of medicine’s most intimate tasks, said Dov Fox, a bioethicist at the University of San Diego and the author of “Birth Rights and Wrongs,” a book about technology and reproductive law.

“In a word, gross,” he said of the cases. “In a couple more: shocking, shameful. The number of doctors sounds less like a few bad apples and more like a generalized practice of deception, largely hidden until recently by a mix of low-tech and high stigma.”

Fertility fraud

Dr. Donald Cline, a fertility specialist in Indianapolis, used his own sperm to impregnate at least three dozen women in the 1970s and 1980s, according to state prosecutors. Based on DNA testing, 61 people now claim he is their biological father.

Dr. Cline, who retired in 2009, pleaded guilty to two felony obstruction of justice charges and admitted that he had lied to state investigators. He surrendered his medical license and was given a one-year suspended sentence.

Calls to Dr. Cline’s lawyer were not returned.

Prosecutors said they were not able to press for a tougher sentence for a simple reason: In Indiana, as in most states, there were no laws prohibiting this conduct.

In May, Indiana passed a law that makes using the wrong sperm a felony and gives victims the right to sue doctors for it. Patients may sidestep the statute of limitations in these cases, bringing legal action up to five years after the fraud is discovered, rather than after it took place.

That provision is significant to accusers, because those who discover the identity of their biological fathers in these cases are usually adults.

Cases of so-called fertility fraud have prompted other states to enact similar laws that allow patients and children to pursue legal remedies from so-called doctor daddies.

After discovering the identity of her biological father, Ms. Wiley pressed for a similar law in Texas, meeting with legislators to demand better accountability of what she saw to be a grossly unregulated industry.

In June, Texas passed its own fertility-fraud law, and it goes further than those in Indiana and California. If a health care provider uses human sperm, eggs or embryos from an unauthorized donor, the law identifies the crime as a sexual assault. Those found guilty must register as sex offenders.

The bill passed unanimously in the state Legislature.

“It was a very compelling story of deception, and we’re seeing more and more cases of assisted reproduction being used improperly,” Stephanie Klick, a Republican state representative and a sponsor of the bill, said of Ms. Wiley’s experience. “We need to make sure that what happened doesn’t happen again.”

Some experts believe the measure is extreme. “Sexual assault is a step too far,” said Judith Daar, dean of the Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University. “Using that language, and imposing the ramifications that assault imposes, is highly problematic and more harmful than helpful.”

The Texas law applies when a health care provider uses his own sperm or the sperm of a donor other than the one the patient selected. But could a doctor or clinic nurse be convicted of sexual assault if the wrong sperm were provided in a mix-up?

“If a physician is rushed and inattentive, and grabs the wrong vial, a jury might find that the physician knew or should have known that the material was not what the patient selected,” said Ms. Daar, who leads the ethics committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

If a simple mix-up could result in conviction as a sexual predator, she fears fertility doctors in Texas may stop practicing.

Ms. Klick, the Texas legislator and a nurse, believes that this form of deception does constitute assault.

“There’s a physical aspect to it — there is a medical device that is being used to penetrate these women to deliver the genetic material,” she said. “I equate it with rape, because there’s no consent.”

“It’s creepy,” she added. “It violates so many different boundaries on a professional level.”

Doctor knows best?

A few years ago, Marenda Tucker, 36, took a DNA test to find out more about her heritage.

Ms. Tucker, a mother of four, who lives in Oregon, knew that she had been born through sperm donation. According to her mother, the doctor said he had used an anonymous sperm donor from the South.

The DNA test matched her to relatives of the doctor himself. “Once I had the matches, I realized it was the doctor, and I was like, yuck, gross,” she said. “When I talked to my mom about it, she felt violated.”

“Until now, I’ve been able to handle what life has thrown at me,” she added. “But this was this weird identity crisis.”

Reached by phone by a reporter at his home in Little Rock, Ark., with questions about Ms. Tucker’s conception, the retired physician, Dr. Gary Don Davis, said: “Well, that’s surprising. Let me check on that. Goodbye.”

Further attempts to reach him were unsuccessful, and he died in June.

Why would doctors secretly substitute their sperm for that of a donor, or even a husband?

Dr. Madeira, the law professor who has been tracking many of these cases, said that some specialists may simply have thought it was smart business. Frozen sperm was not the recommended medical standard until the late 1980s, and many physicians may not have had ready access to sperm when patients sought help.

“They could have self-justified their malfeasance in an era of ‘doctor knows best,’” Dr. Madeira said. “In their minds, they may just have been helping their patients by increasing their chances of getting pregnant with fresh sperm for higher fertilization rates.”

But others, she speculated, may have had darker motivations. “I would bet a lot of these doctors had power reasons for doing this — mental health issues, narcissistic issues — or maybe they were attracted to certain women,” she said.

Confronted with the test results, Dr. McMorries acknowledged in a letter to Ms. Wiley that he had mixed his sperm with that of other donors in order to improve her mother’s chances of conception. Laws regarding “donor anonymity” prevented him from telling her, he wrote.

“The thinking at that time was that if the patient got pregnant, there was no way to know which sperm affected the conception,” he wrote.

Before the doctor’s confession, Ms. Wiley believed she had already found the man who donated the sperm from which she was conceived: Steve Scholl, now 65, a writer and publisher in Los Angeles.

“We started this beautiful father-daughter relationship — he officiated at my wedding,” she said. “My kids call him Poppa.”

After learning the truth, she told Mr. Scholl that she wasn’t his biological daughter. He was stunned.

“It took me a while to process,” he recalled in an interview. “We felt so much like we’d found each other. We didn’t know how the reproductive industry worked. But very quickly, we both decided not to let this change anything for us.”

Ms. Wiley still calls him Dad.

#women's rights #women's health #reproductive health #reproductive rights #reproductive justice #u.s. news #u.s. government #us politics #politics #politics and government #u.s. politics

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justanoutlawfic · 5 years

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Time Heals Wounds: An Outlaw Queen Ficlet

Summary: Regina is at a loss when Henry begins pushing her away in his search to find his biological family. On an online adoption forum, she finds a fellow adoptive parent, Robin.

For Day 7 (Sunday) of @oqpromptparty: #52 (Letters) and #123 (Robin consoles Regina after one of their kids yells “you’re not my real mom.”)

Also on AO3

Regina had never thought she was one to need support groups or anything of the sort. Despite her social worker warning her that it was a difficult process, she was determined to make it work on her own. Besides, she had her own support system. Even though she had no biological family to speak of anymore, there was Mary Margaret and David who were parents themselves, Liam Gold and Mal-respective single mother and father. Sure, neither of the latter had done it through adoption (Liam’s wife had left him for a sailor and Mal had chosen to get a sperm donor), but she had plenty of support. That’s what she clung to and it was enough, for the first 10 years anyway.

Yes, for the first 10 years of sleepless nights, dirty diapers, nightmares, lullabies, Goodnight Moon, action figures, homework and more, she had her support system to fall back on. They were all parents who got it. They had kids who were either Henry’s age or a bit older, so they understood what she was going through. It takes a village was a bit cliché for her taste, but they had developed a bit of a community between themselves. Playdates, sleepovers, holidays, soccer games and so much more were spent together, where they could all understand one another. Even Mary Margaret and David, the odd married couple, seemed to fit in and offered some kind of perspective when one of the singles would venture out and date. Plus, it meant that they were the go-to sitters for that time.

Then, Henry uttered the words that Regina hadn’t known she had been dreading.

“You’re not my real mom!”

She and Henry were going through a rough patch, that just seemed to start off by pre-teen angst. Everything was an argument and he was grunting a lot more, rather than smiling. Regina swore that she was supposed to have a few more years before she had this version of her son, but Mal assured her that this was normal. Lily had begun pulling away from her around the same age and there was nothing she could do but remind her daughter that she needed to respect her mother, while also being there to lend an ear. So, that was what Regina had done for Henry. Things didn’t get better, but they were manageable at first, or so she thought anyway.

Then Henry started digging into his biological history. He had always known that he was adopted, Regina had never wanted to keep it a secret. She found age appropriate ways to bring it up since he was a toddler. However, there wasn’t much she could share with him. Regina had started the process with her husband but Daniel passed away a year before she got that call. While the agency hadn’t minded the change, a lot of perspective mothers had. Regina and Daniel began looking for an open adoption, but it ended with a call from a woman who wanted a closed one and didn’t even want to meet Regina. Henry could reach out at 18, but that was about it. In Henry’s 10-year-old mind, that was all his mother’s fault.

After yet another failed called with the agency, Henry blew up yet again. Regina tried to get him to calm down, but it failed and ended with those dreaded five words. She was left standing stunned, while he looked angrier than she had ever seen.

“Well,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I certainly feel real.” Henry didn’t respond, he simply blinked. She knew he was angry and deep down, that he didn’t mean it, but if she didn’t send him away, that he’d say something worse that he couldn’t take back. “You need time to cool off. Go to your room.”

For once, she didn’t receive any back talk. He turned around and stormed up the stairs, heading straight for his room. The minute his door slammed shut, Regina allowed the tears to fall and she ran her fingers through her hair. He was only 10, she tried to remind herself. He didn’t mean it; he was going through a rough time and he needed some help adjusting. She could get him some therapy, yes, she knew a great therapist.

Once her plan for Henry was sorted, she allowed herself to fall apart. She sunk down onto the grey ottoman and let herself cry, burying her face into her hands. For the past 10 years, Henry had been her entire life. She hadn’t thought of anything much outside of him. Now, it seemed like he wanted anything but her. It wasn’t odd for a kid for his age range, but there was more there than just typical pre-teen angst, more than anyone in her friend group could help her with. Even Mal knew her sperm donor, Lily wrote him letters and saw him once or twice a year. He wasn’t a father by any means, but he was there. Liam could tell Bae anything he wanted to know about Milah. Mary Margaret and David didn’t even have to worry about this at all when it came to their kids. Adoption was a whole other ball game.

For the first time in a long time, Regina felt seriously alone in parenting.

She allowed herself to wallow in pity for a bit, before going into the kitchen and pouring some red wine. A glass and a half, along with two bars of the good Spanish dark chocolate in, and she was Googling about the situation at hand. She somehow found herself on a forum for adoption, with different parents discussing it. As she was reading through the responses, one stuck out to her in particular. It was a man, who also had adopted as a single parent.

Regina settled onto the bar stool, setting down her glass and staring at the screen. He explained that his son had said this to him and he had simply let the little kid come to him. It had only been about an hour since Henry had said those heart shattering words to her and she had been debating making his favorites. Clicking on his profile (arrowman301), she decided to make her own to contact him.

Robin finished up the last line of the book, glancing down at Roland as he did. A smile tugged across his lips when he realized that his son was fast asleep. He set the book down onto the nightstand, pressed a kiss to his forehead before carefully getting out bed and sneaking out of the bedroom, as to not wake him up. Roland slept a lot better since he had when he first came to live with him, but he was still cautious, the little boy was such a light sleeper.

He got that from his mother.

Robin could feel his smile growing sad, but fought it off. He walked into the living room and tidied up the various action figures, Legos and cars, doing his best not to accidentally step on anything that made noise. Today had been a good day, one of many lately. There had been more sunshine stickers vs. the raincloud ones, an improvement from the year before. A lot had certainly changed in what seemed like a short period of time now that things were better, but it hadn’t felt like it during the adjustment period.

Once the living room was tidied up, he headed into the kitchen. He settled into booth that surrounded the cozy breakfast nook and flipped open his laptop. As he scanned his e-mails, he realized he had an update from the adoption forum he hadn’t touched over the past few months. He would’ve just ignored it, if it hadn’t been in response to the topic so close to his heart.

Her username was applequeen815 and she had a standard avatar, the account made a mere hour prior. The message was carefully typed and clearly passionate, even from the start.

arrowman301,

I read your post with your advice towards the woman who’s daughter had told her that she wasn’t her “real mom”. I was wondering how you stayed that strong during all of that? My son just told me this tonight and it’s taking all I have to not rush up there and hug him tight and never let go. This is probably silly to admit to a stranger; I just can’t imagine opening up to anyone else like this. I don’t have anyone else in my “real world” that gets adoption.

-Regina

Robin’s heart warmed at this message. He could feel the plight of this mother and understood what it was like to have no one that really understood. He had John, Mulan, Merida and Will, but they weren’t kid people much less the type to know much about adoption. That forum had been his saving grace for last minute questions he had in between meetings with his social worker. From the green dot on her profile he knew that Regina was still online, so he decided to write her back.

Regina,

Don’t feel weird writing me at all. I totally get not having anyone in your “real world” to talk about this with. Despite adoption being so common worldwide, I’ve found it’s not so much in friend and family circles. I don’t frequent this forum as often as I did when I officially adopted my son, but I’ll be happy to help you through this.

First off, I’m sorry you had to hear this and that you’re going through it. I’m sure it had to hurt. Know he doesn’t mean it. He’ll tell you that, at some point. Whether it’s today or tomorrow or whenever. You’re his mom and he loves you. You’re the one that’s cared for him.

Second, the patience wasn’t easy, but I knew that anything else would’ve just angered him more. I let him stew in his feelings. In my son-Roland’s case-his mama had just died. Our case is a bit unique. His mama and I were always very good friends when she got sick. I agreed to adopt him when she passed. He was four at the time and struggled greatly. We found our footing.

I don’t know your situation with your son, but you will too.

-Robin

Regina woke up the next morning, Robin’s words washed over her. She kept in mind as she made breakfast and while she fixed some coffee. It wasn’t easy, but just as she had done everything over the past 10 years, it was for Henry. She made a call to Archie, not just for Henry, but for herself too.

The door opened halfway through the eggs frying in the pan and the coffee gurgling in the pot. Socks dragged down the stairs and into the kitchen. Regina didn’t turn around, remembering Robin’s words to let Henry come to her. She tended to the breakfast, watching out of the corner of her eye as Henry dropped into the chair at the table. He was watching her intently, his face showing that he hadn’t slept very much.

“Mom?”

Regina paused. “Yes?”

“I…I’m sorry. I still want to know more, but I shouldn’t have said that. You’re…you’re my mom.”

Regina shut off the stove and turned around. “Yes, I am. I always will be, no matter what.” She walked over and settled down beside him, taking hold of his hand. “We’re going to get through this, Henry. I promise”

Henry nodded. “I love you, Mom.”

Regina felt her heart crack open. “I love you too, my little prince. More than you’ll ever know.”

She wrapped him into her arms and kissed the top of his head, inhaling the top of his head as she did.

Once the hug was through, she finished up breakfast and got a ding on her phone. An e-mail from the adoption forum, indicating she had a message from Robin. He was asking how things were going. She grinned and clicked on his profile, noticing he put that he lived in New Glouster, Maine, which was only about 45 minutes away from Storybrooke.

Robin,

It’s going well. Maybe we could meet up for some coffee sometime to talk about this stuff, halfway?

-Regina

Only 5 minutes later, she got a reply.

I’d love to.

#outlaw queen #oq #oqpromptparty2019 #robin hood #regina mills #ouat #once upon a time

8 notes · View notes

patriotsnet · 3 years

Text

Do Republicans Or Democrats Give More To Charity

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/do-republicans-or-democrats-give-more-to-charity/

Do Republicans Or Democrats Give More To Charity

The Relationship Between Generosity And Political Affiliation And Gender

Who LIES More- Republicans or Democrats?

Most people tip their hair stylists, while only 27% tip their hotel housekeeper.

+1.63%

Tipping can be a social and cultural maelstrom. And social media doesnt always help.

A National Basketball Association player who has a $30 million contract drew internet ire last week after leaving a $13.97 tip on a $487.13 bill. Andre Roberson of the Oklahoma City Thunder made headlines for the paltry tip, and the strong reaction shows just how emotional the question of tipping can be.

But it wasnt quite as clear-cut as it seemed. Roberson released a statement on Twitter TWTR, +1.63% saying he was misrepresented, saying he bought one bottle of liquor for $487 at a bar, around five times the retail price and rounded it out to $500. Roberson said he also had a $100 tab on shots for which he left a $200 tip. I thought hed be grateful for the $200 tip, he wrote of the barman who served him.

Meanwhile, some restaurants have banned tipping while Uber is finally encouraging riders to open their wallets to drivers who go the extra mile.

See more:Meet the most generous tipper in America

Some of the findings seemed to play out in real life when three supporters of President Donald Trump left a $450 tip for a Washington, D.C. waitress in January, though they were from Texas, not the relatively more generous northeast.

Dont miss:How much to tip everyone

Also read: Is this the worst tipper in America?

Statistics On Us Generosity

In this section youll find charts and graphs laying out the most important numbers in American philanthropy. They document how much we give, how that has changed over time, what areas we give to, and what mechanisms we use to donate. There are figures here on where charities get their money, how many people offer volunteer labor, the demographic factors that influence generosity , and how various states and cities differ. The top foundations and donor-advised funds are ranked by their giving. We present surprising information on overseas aid, and statistics on how the U.S. compares to other countries when it comes to donating to charity.

Beto Orourke Other Democrats See The Downside Of Releasing Tax Returns

CHARLOTTESVILLE About 24 hours after presidential hopeful Beto ORourke released his tax returns from the past decade, a University of Virginia student asked him why he didnt donate more money to charities.

ORourke, a former congressman from El Paso, and his wife reported in their 2017 tax return that they donated $1,166 which was one-third of 1 percent of their $370,412 of income that year. ORourke told reporters on Wednesday that, over the years, he and his wife have donated thousands of dollars more that they did not itemize because it wasnt important for us to take the deduction. The campaign has yet to provide updated numbers.

Ive served in public office since 2005. I do my best to contribute to the success of my community, of my state and, now, of my country, ORourke said in responding to the student on Tuesday night. Im doing everything that I can right now, spending this time with you not with our kiddos, not back home in El Paso because I want to sacrifice everything to make sure that we meet this moment of truth with everything that weve got.

ORourke is not the only Democratic candidate who has had personal finances questioned at a time when many voters are frustrated by the ever-growing economic divide in the country. One by one, Democratic candidates have released their tax returns something that President Trump has refused to do in an attempt at transparency.

Also Check: How Many Presidents Have The Republicans Tried To Impeach

Charitable Giving By State: Are Republicans More Generous Than Democrats Or Just More Religious

It turns out that the old Bushism about compassionate conservatism may not be a myth after all. In a new analysis of Internal Revenue Service tax records, the Chronicle of Philanthropy on Monday ranked U.S. cities and states by how much money their residents give to charity. The bottom line? People in red states are more generous with their green.

The study, which compared IRS data from 2012 with data from 2006, showed that the 17 most generous states — as measured by the percentage of their income they donated to charity — voted for Mitt Romney in the last presidential election. The seven states at the bottom of the list, meanwhile, voted for Barack Obama.

Exactly why is a bit of a mystery. Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the data only showed how much money people gave away, not which types of organizations they gave to. But generally speaking, she said its fair to assume that political ideology aligns to some extent with ideas about charitable giving.

Not to be too simplistic about it, but if you believe that government should take care of basic social services, then youre going to go that way, Palmer told International Business Times. If you think charities should take care of things, and not government, then youre probably going to give more generously to charity.

Got a news tip? . Follow me on Twitter .

Volunteering In The Us

This data comes from detailed time logs that statisticians ask householders to keep. In less strict definitions like phone surveys, more like 45 percent of the U.S. population say they volunteered some time to a charitable cause within the last year.

Current estimates of the dollar value of volunteered time range from $179 billion per year to more than twice that, depending on how you count.Volunteering is closely associated with donating cash as well. One Harris study showed that Americans who volunteered gave 11 times as much money to charity in a year as those who did not volunteer.

An interesting pattern emerges if one studies giving by income level. As incomes rise, more and more of the people in that bracket make gifts to charity. The sizes of their gifts tend to rise as well. However: if you look at average donations as a fraction of funds available, they tend to level off at around 2-3 percent of income.

Religious faith is a central influence on giving. Religious people are much more likely than the non-religious to donate to charitable causesincluding secular causesand they give much more.

Among Democrats, Independents, and Republicans alike, almost exactly half of the group averaged $100-$999 in annual charitable donations at the time of this 2005 poll. There was virtually no difference among the parties in the size of that moderate-giving group, so those results were not included in the graph to the left.

Also Check: What Did Republicans Gain From The Compromise Of 1877

How Political Ideology Influences Charitable Giving

Many issues seem to divide Democrats and Republicans, and new research has found one more: philanthropy.

Red counties, which are overwhelmingly Republican, tend to report higher charitable contributions than Democratic-dominated blue counties, according to a new study on giving, although giving in blue counties is often bolstered by a combination of charitable donations and higher taxes.

But as red or blue counties become more politically competitive, charitable giving tends to fall.

Theres something about the like-mindedness where perhaps the comfort level rises, said one of the authors of the study, Robert K. Christensen, associate professor at the George W. Romney Institute of Public Service and Ethics at Brigham Young University. They feel safe redistributing their wealth voluntarily. It also matters for compulsory giving.

The study was conducted by four research professors who set out to explore how political differences affect charitable giving. It was published on Oct. 20 in the academic journal Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. The other authors were Laurie E. Paarlberg of Indiana UniversityPurdue University Indianapolis, Rebecca Nesbit of the University of Georgia and Richard M. Clerkin of North Carolina State University.

Dr. Christensen said the team had analyzed more than 3,000 counties, but it did not reveal the county-by-county breakdowns. Its hard to pull those counties out because of the control variables, he said.

Charitable Giving Does Not Match Government Aid

Those in favor of lower taxes have argued that individuals are more capable than the government of allocating money to important causes, including people in need of assistance. But the study found that was not true. Donations do not match government assistance, and without tax money, social services are not funded as robustly.

The evidence shows that private philanthropy cant compensate for the loss of government provision, Dr. Nesbit said. Its not equal. What government can put into these things is so much more than what we see through private philanthropy.

On the other hand, private philanthropy can do many things better than government aid, as in being responsive to a need and willing to fail without political fallout.

The studys authors make the case for a combination approach.

Theyre complementary means of redistribution of wealth rather than substitutions for each other, Dr. Christensen said. We cant put all of our eggs in one basket.

You May Like: Who Are The Republicans On The Ballot

Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals

Second, a much larger body of research has long demonstrated that, all things being equal, conservatives tend to be happier overall than their liberal neighbors are. This is truer for social conservatives than for fiscal conservatives, and the more conservative a conservative is, the happier he or she seems to be. Thats not nothing.

A massive study published earlier this year, involving five different data samples from 16 Western countries spanning more than four decades, adds more meat to this topic. These scholars from the University of Southern California found, as they put it, In sum, conservatives reported greater meaning in life and greater life satisfaction than liberals.

Of course, both qualities are much deeper and richer than happiness itself. This was the robust and consistent finding in the 16 distinct countries examined. It was generally truer for social conservatives than their fiscal brethren, and the greater-meaning-in-life slope spiked upward among individuals who were very conservative.

These scholars explain in their academic parlance that this was true for conservatives at all reporting periods . This is a significant finding. Conservatives experience greater meaning in life across their lives generally, but also daily and at most given moments throughout the day. The researchers conclude these findings are robust and that there is some unique aspect of political conservativism that provides people with meaning and purpose in life.

Conservatives Are Satisfied With Their Family Lives

Do NFL Teams Give More to Republicans or Democrats?

New research released by the Institute for Family Studies demonstrates that conservatives tend to be much more completely satisfied with their family lives compared to their liberal friends and neighbors. Forty-one percent of both liberals and moderates report being completely satisfied with their family lives, while 52 percent of conservatives do.

Conservatives are also vastly more likely than liberals to believe marriage is essential in creating and maintaining strong families. They are also much more likely to actually be married, 62 versus 39 percent, thus benefiting from all the ways marriage improves overall well-being and contentment, personal happiness, economic security, long-term employment, longevity, better physical and mental health, and more.

These scholars explain that regardless of other basic life characteristics such as family income, marital status, age, educational attainment, race/ethnicity, and church attendance, being a conservative increases the odds of being completely satisfied with family life by 23 percent, a considerable positive impact given the centrality of these other life factors. Married men and women who believe marriage is needed to create strong families have 67 percent greater odds of being completely content with their own family life than married couples who do not believe this.

You May Like: Who Are The 10 Republicans Who Voted For Impeachment

Poorer Conservatives More Generous Than Wealthy Liberals New Study

Respected non-government sector newspaper The Philanthropy Chronicle collated the itemized charity deductions on the tax returns of hundreds of millions of Americans between 2006 and 2012, the latest year available. While only about a third of all givers write off their charity expenses, the sums included about 80 percent of all donations in the country.

The Extreme Views Of The Donor Class

The main finding of the research is that the policy views of elite donors are more extreme than the views of partisan voters at large. They also vary widely by party.

If you look at Republican donors, explains Malhotra, they have much more extreme views than ordinary Republicans on economic issues, such as taxation, the redistribution of wealth, and spending on social programs. For example, a good number of Republican voters want universal health care, but very few Republican donors want that. On the other hand, Republican donors and voters have very similar views on social issues, such as abortion and gay marriage. They are not out of line in that arena.

Malhotra and Broockman found a similar pattern among Democratic donors and partisans, but in a mirror image. Democratic donors are, if anything, a little more liberal on economic issues than Democratic partisans, says Malhotra. But their social views are much more liberal than partisans, especially when you look at issues like the death penalty.

Don’t Miss: Who Won More Democrats Or Republicans

Who Gives More To Charity Democrats Or Republicans

About Patt Morrison

Patt Morrison

The ongoing calls for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to issue additional years of his tax returns havent ceased.

Romney has faced criticism for his reasoning that doing so would violate his religious freedom because it would reveal exactly how much money he has tithed to his Mormon church. Democrats continue to press the issue, but should they be so vocal about taking a look at charitable contributions?

According to philanthropy.com, a website that tracks charitable giving state-by-state, Utah tops the list of giving, with residents donating 10.2 percent of their discretionary income to charities. Utah is a solidly red state and went for John McCain 62 percent to 24 percent in 2008 and it has a large Mormon contingent.

Blue state New Hampshire is bringing up the rear with residents of the The Granite State donating only 2.5 percent of their discretionary income to philanthropic organizations. But if you tweak the numbers to remove donations to religious charities the giving evens out some.

Republican Donate More To Charity Than Democrats

8 comments:

Anonymoussaid…

Just this weekend, in an ongoing election year discussion with my sister, I stated my experience is and has been when Democrats see others money or wealth, they want it and/or want to tell them what to do with it… I was also informed that others are not like me. Yours being the very first site I checked regarding this subject, I would like to thank you for the confirmation that this happens elsewhere, just not in my “little” world. Bellyburke

Anonymoussaid…

Thanks, I try to leave informative bits of information that are skipped over in the drive by soundbites and stereotype attacks that are out there. Sorry I have’t posted more lately.To go beyond that, I think that Republicans- particularly religious republicans give a lot more than Democrats because we beleive we have a moral duty to give to charity. Democrats seem to want to government to control the “giving” even though that actually corrupts the ‘charity’ aspects of the gift when you ‘have to do it’ or the IRS will come knocking.

Read Also: Who Controls The Senate Republicans Or Democrats

Giving Under Different Governments

A change in government didnt seem to change peoples donations of money to charities, but there did seem to be an increase in time given to volunteering when the Coalition and Conservative governments were in power.

The exception to this came from the Greens. When Labour were in power from 1997-2010, Green Party supporters gave 182% more of their income to charity than Labour supporters did although this fell to 85% under the Coalition, and fell again when the Conservatives went into government on their own in 2015.

In terms of volunteering, under a Labour government, Green supporters gave no more of their time than did Labour supporters. After 2015, Greens increased their volunteering time by 56%.

Do Your Political Views Make You Charitable

24 Jul, 2019

Professor Sarah Brown,Professor Karl Taylor

A new working paper asks whether people on the left or right give more to charity

Student volunteers at the University of Essex

In 2017, people in the UK gave over £10 billion to charity, and ONS figures suggest that unpaid labour in the form of volunteering is worth over £20 billion.

But what motivates us to give our money or time? Theres existing research which shows that we give in order to feel good, or to look good to others, but we wanted to look at another motivation: our political leanings.

Also Check: Should Republicans Vote In Democratic Primary

Data Sources: Irs Forms 990

The Form 990 is a document that nonprofit organizations file with the IRS annually. We leverage finance and accountability data from it to form Encompass ratings. .

Impact & Results

This score estimates the actual impact a nonprofit has on the lives of those it serves, and determines whether it is making good use of donor resources to achieve that impact.

Impact & Results Score

Leftist Media And Academia Tell The Public The Opposite

12/29/10 – Stossel, Republicans donate much more than Democrats

Some liberals might argue that religious, conservative republicans are happier simply because they are mentally ill; they are disassociated with reality and just dont know any better. They claim this is even demonstrated in scientific research. In fact, one articles first line in reporting this research was quite blunt: Anyone whos wanted to dismiss Republican politics as straightforwardly mean now has some data to back them up. Lands sakes.

Some research did appear to show this, and it got a great deal of press. Retraction Watch, however, tells us it had some serious mistakes in its calculations, and an erratum was published by the American Journal of Political Science. In fact, Retraction Watch reports, The descriptive and preliminary analyses portion of the manuscript was exactly reversed. The data shows a strong correlation between liberalism and psychoticism, not conservatism. This correction was not widely reported for some curious reason.

Finally, if you had to guess who are more generous with their money and volunteering their time to help those in need, would you guess Democrats or Republicans? Of course, its Democrats. Republicans only care for themselves and their own pocketbook. In fact, dont they want to actually punish the poor for not working hard enough? Well, you would be right if stereotypes were the arbiter of truth. But what does objective research tell us?

Recommended Reading: What News Channel Do Republicans Watch

Percentage Of Us Donations Going Tovarious Causes

Nonprofits have grown faster than government and faster than the business sector over the last generation, even during boom periods.

The figures charted here actually underestimate the fraction of American manpower that goes into charitable workbecause they show only paid employment, while volunteers carry out a large share of the labor poured into these groups. Various calculations of the cash value of donated labor suggest that at least an additional 50 percent of output by charities takes place invisibly because it is produced by volunteers. Youll find more statistics on American volunteering in Graphs 8 and 9.

Charitable activity is becoming a bigger and bigger part of Americas total economy. For perspective, consider that annual U.S. defense spending totals 4.5 percent of GDP. The nonprofit sector surpassed the vaunted military-industrial complex in economic scope way back in 1993.

Real Rise In Us Giving

After adjusting for inflation, charitable giving by Americans was close to seven times as big in 2016 as it was 62 years earlier.

Of course, one reason total giving went up is because the U.S. population almost doubled. But if we recalculate inflation-adjusted charitable giving on a per capita basis, we see that has also soared: by 3½ times. Charitable causes are very lucky to have a remarkably expansive American economy behind them, and a standard of living that refuses to stagnate.

What if we calculate charitable giving as a proportion of all national production ? The math reveals that over the last 60 years, donations as a proportion of our total annual output increasedbut only very slightly. For most of the last lifetime, giving has hovered right around 2 percent of our total national treasure.

Two percent of GDP is a huge sum, particularly in comparison to other countries . But it’s interesting that even as we have become a much wealthier people in the post-WWII era, the fraction we give away hasn’t risen. There seems to be something stubborn about that 2 percent rate.

Keep in mind too that religious charities tend to have less access to supplemental funds than other nonprofits. Hospitals and colleges charge users fees to supplement their donated income; other nonprofits sell goods; many museums charge admission; some charities receive government grants. Churches and religious charities, however, operate mostly on their donated funds depicted in this graph.

Recommended Reading: What Cities Are Run By Republicans

What Elite Donors Want

Big-money donors, both Democrat and Republican, not only have more political influence than the average voter, they also have more extreme beliefs.

The outsize political influence of elite donors, whose views tend to be more extreme than that of mainstream voters, partly explains why political polarization is on the rise. | Illustration by Alvaro Dominguez

In November 2012, newly elected Democratic members of the United States Congress got about a week to savor their victories. Then, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee advised them to start hitting the phones for 3-4 hours per day. Who were they supposed to be calling? Mainly, elite donors the fewer than 1% of Americans who give candidates more than $200 in any given election cycle.

It isnt news that politicians court elite donors or that elite donors have greater political access and influence than the typical voter. But, as Stanford Graduate School of Business political economist Neil Malhotra points out in an article recently published in Public Opinion Quarterly, we know remarkably little about what they actually want from government.

This is a particularly relevant issue during the current, seemingly endless, election cycle, in which the battle for control of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government is unusually contentious and fraught with implications for the future of the nation.

Do Democrats Hate Charity

Another round of COVID-19 relief from Congress is on life support but not dead, as centrist Democrats have begun to pressure Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi toward compromise. That would mean finding some middle ground between the $3 trillion House HEROES Act, with its bailout for profligate blue-state governments, and the Republican $500 billion skinny bill. If serious negotiations do ensue, there is one provision on which Senate Republicans should not budge: a strong new form of tax relief for individual charitable giving. Its a provision both important in its own right and revealing of a larger philosophical difference between the parties when it comes to charity.

The latest skinny Senate bill would specifically have expanded the so-called above-the-line tax deduction included in the original CARES Act, which authorized a $300 deduction even for those who do not itemize their tax returns. The Senate bill proposed to double that amount for 2020 taxpayers, to $600 for individuals and $1,200 for those filing a joint return. The House bill included no such provision, or even an extension of a less-generous version included in the first COVID-19 relief bill.

The above-the-line deduction proposed by Republicans provides an incentive for all taxpayers, not just the wealthy, to give to charity.

This piece originally appeared at the Washington Examiner

______________________

Recommended Reading: How Many Republicans Are In The Us House

0 notes

statetalks · 3 years

Text

Do Republicans Or Democrats Give More To Charity

The Relationship Between Generosity And Political Affiliation And Gender

Who LIES More- Republicans or Democrats?

Most people tip their hair stylists, while only 27% tip their hotel housekeeper.

+1.63%

Tipping can be a social and cultural maelstrom. And social media doesnt always help.

Meanwhile, some restaurants have banned tipping while Uber is finally encouraging riders to open their wallets to drivers who go the extra mile.

See more:Meet the most generous tipper in America

Dont miss:How much to tip everyone

Also read: Is this the worst tipper in America?

Statistics On Us Generosity

Beto Orourke Other Democrats See The Downside Of Releasing Tax Returns

Also Check: How Many Presidents Have The Republicans Tried To Impeach

Charitable Giving By State: Are Republicans More Generous Than Democrats Or Just More Religious

Got a news tip? . Follow me on Twitter .

Volunteering In The Us

Religious faith is a central influence on giving. Religious people are much more likely than the non-religious to donate to charitable causesincluding secular causesand they give much more.

Also Check: What Did Republicans Gain From The Compromise Of 1877

How Political Ideology Influences Charitable Giving

Many issues seem to divide Democrats and Republicans, and new research has found one more: philanthropy.

But as red or blue counties become more politically competitive, charitable giving tends to fall.

Charitable Giving Does Not Match Government Aid

On the other hand, private philanthropy can do many things better than government aid, as in being responsive to a need and willing to fail without political fallout.

The studys authors make the case for a combination approach.

Theyre complementary means of redistribution of wealth rather than substitutions for each other, Dr. Christensen said. We cant put all of our eggs in one basket.

You May Like: Who Are The Republicans On The Ballot

Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals

Conservatives Are Satisfied With Their Family Lives

Do NFL Teams Give More to Republicans or Democrats?

You May Like: Who Are The 10 Republicans Who Voted For Impeachment

Poorer Conservatives More Generous Than Wealthy Liberals New Study

The Extreme Views Of The Donor Class

The main finding of the research is that the policy views of elite donors are more extreme than the views of partisan voters at large. They also vary widely by party.

Don’t Miss: Who Won More Democrats Or Republicans

Who Gives More To Charity Democrats Or Republicans

About Patt Morrison

Patt Morrison

The ongoing calls for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to issue additional years of his tax returns havent ceased.

Republican Donate More To Charity Than Democrats

8 comments:

Anonymoussaid…

Read Also: Who Controls The Senate Republicans Or Democrats

Giving Under Different Governments

In terms of volunteering, under a Labour government, Green supporters gave no more of their time than did Labour supporters. After 2015, Greens increased their volunteering time by 56%.

Do Your Political Views Make You Charitable

24 Jul, 2019

Professor Sarah Brown,Professor Karl Taylor

A new working paper asks whether people on the left or right give more to charity

Student volunteers at the University of Essex

In 2017, people in the UK gave over £10 billion to charity, and ONS figures suggest that unpaid labour in the form of volunteering is worth over £20 billion.

Also Check: Should Republicans Vote In Democratic Primary

Data Sources: Irs Forms 990

The Form 990 is a document that nonprofit organizations file with the IRS annually. We leverage finance and accountability data from it to form Encompass ratings. .

Impact & Results

This score estimates the actual impact a nonprofit has on the lives of those it serves, and determines whether it is making good use of donor resources to achieve that impact.

Impact & Results Score

Leftist Media And Academia Tell The Public The Opposite

12/29/10 – Stossel, Republicans donate much more than Democrats

Recommended Reading: What News Channel Do Republicans Watch

Percentage Of Us Donations Going Tovarious Causes

Nonprofits have grown faster than government and faster than the business sector over the last generation, even during boom periods.

Real Rise In Us Giving

After adjusting for inflation, charitable giving by Americans was close to seven times as big in 2016 as it was 62 years earlier.

Recommended Reading: What Cities Are Run By Republicans

What Elite Donors Want

Big-money donors, both Democrat and Republican, not only have more political influence than the average voter, they also have more extreme beliefs.

Do Democrats Hate Charity

The above-the-line deduction proposed by Republicans provides an incentive for all taxpayers, not just the wealthy, to give to charity.

This piece originally appeared at the Washington Examiner

______________________

Recommended Reading: How Many Republicans Are In The Us House

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/do-republicans-or-democrats-give-more-to-charity/

0 notes