Ethereal Love

The Ending Is The Best Part

It was only three days and a weekend before things went back to normal at school. Other than the odd 'How's Emilia doing?', people barely even mentioned the little girl anymore. Nini had a list as long as her arm of girls wanting to babysit for them, but she just didn't have the heart to tell them she wouldn't need it. They already had, Nini's parents, Kourt, Gina and even Ricky's parents. Though they weren't initially happy with the pregnancy, the minute they laid their eyes on their granddaughter, their hearts were filled with so much love and joy. They even made amends with Ricky and told him he could return home.

Emilia turned out to be almost the ideal baby. She only woke her parents up once or twice in the night, and during the day was always smiling and happy. She ate healthily and seemed to be developing slightly faster than average. She had hundreds of toys, gifts from her grandparents and her 'Auntie's' and also the odd few from Ricky and Nini's school friends. Miss Jenn had teared up when introduced to the little girl, pulling the young couple in to a hug and muttering something about growing up so fast. (She had known them since they started high school, over three years ago now, and couldn't help but feel almost motherly towards them.) She'd presented them with an expensive-looking plastic train set the next day, for which Ricky and Nini were incredibly grateful.

Nini started missing school once in a while after the first couple of weeks, when Emmy had been especially demanding the night before and she was too tired to concentrate, or sometimes Nini just couldn't put her down without her screaming bloody murder. Ricky felt bad for leaving her on her own on the nights when he slept at home, but he wanted to spend time re-bonding with his parents (Nini completely agreed and told him that he should be there at least three nights a week.)

When Nini met Lynne Bowen, they'd bonded instantly. It was probably mostly down to Emilia, but they seemed to just take to each other. Lynne remarked to her son, on more than one occasion, that he was a lucky man to have a girl like Nini. The women had already been shopping together more than once, for baby clothes of course, leaving Ricky to look after the baby.

The two of them, along with Kourtney and Gina, graduated high school a little after they turned eighteen and said goodbye to their classmates. There were a lot of tears, though mostly over Emmy rather than Ricky and Nini themselves. The couple were voted Prom King and Queen and 'Best Couple' in the Yearbook, in which they had an entire double page spread dedicated to themselves and Emmy. It wasn't strictly regulation to include the baby in the book, but nobody had any arguments.

Nini started taking classes at the local college, fitting them around Ricky's job at a restaurant. Nini felt bad, trying to convince him to take some classes too, but he just said he'd call this a gap year and apply to some colleges next year. He was smart enough, she knew, to go far, but as long as he was happy she wasn't going to try to make him do anything he didn't want to.

Emmy started talking at about ten months, and it was a subject of great debate but they finally agreed that her first word had, in fact, been 'momma'. (As Nini so convincingly argued, it was her that had pushed the girl out of her vagina, so it was only fair that it was her name she said first. Ricky didn't really stand a chance.)

It was 11 months, or just after, that she took her first steps and Nini sobbed into Ricky's shoulder for a good twenty minutes. They couldn't help but feel ridiculously proud, and despite all their unspoken worries, having Emmy around only made their relationship stronger.

Or so it seemed.

When Ricky and Nini's twentieth birthday came around, Kourt and Gina decided to stage an intervention, of sorts.

"You didn't celebrate your last two birthdays." Kourt pointed out, when they tried to refuse their offer to babysit for the night so they could go out. "You deserve to have some fun. Treat yourselves."