Chris Evans: The Collection (Imagines and Short Stories)

25 Days of CHRISmas Challenge (Day 3): A Little Patience

On the third day of Christmas, Katarwyn brings you an imagine about you and Chris in the City of Love as you spend time with your sweet but mischievous son Archer. Chris is at work. You decide to take your learning French fast son, Archie, to your favorite place on earth, the Louvre. What could go wrong?

You and Chris are in Europe as he's filming a new movie-- an indie film that's essentially a bucket list romance. You started in London, then went to Vienna, Lichtenstein, followed by Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Rome. You spent a short week in Santorini for a brief break in the middle of filming and now everything is concluding in Paris. It'll be another boring day on set and you might as well go sightseeing and walk around teaching Archer, your son, some French along the way-- which you studied as an Art History double major with a minor in English literature. Though he's a little young to appreciate it, you decide to take him to the Louvre. Archer's the perfect angel until you refuse to buy him any pastries after lunch as you said he can wait till dinner with daddy, all hell breaks loose.

I find a lot of my stories aren't the most inclusive and pretty hetereonormative, but this is the start. I may be using a more heternormaive narrative, but I'm trying to remedy that with acronyms such as R/S for relationship status meaning dating, engaged, or married, and Y/P/N/P for preferred name/nickname or pet name. There may be a Mommy thrown here and there, but please

"What do I do with a seven year old boy in París?" you place your elbow down on the table, so your hand could provide stability for the point of your chin-- on the verge of ripping your hair out down to the roots. Despite Archer being so young, he was an enigma-- a picky one at that. You continue to think out loud. "We already took him to the Eiffel Tower which he loved but screamed about in terror. The Catacombs would be too scary for him. We went to the Natural History Museum yesterday."

"You figured out what to do in Vienna and Liechtenstein," Chris notes. "You know this city better than anyone."

"Archie loves music, knights, and dragons," you tell him. "Being in the nation Mozart called daheim and having plenty of Medieval castles to spare helped."

"Why don't you take him to Versaille?"

"Chris, I'm twenty weeks pregnant now," you say first with an elevated tone that declines with reluctance, "This pregnancy has been nothing like the first few."

Chris nods. You both exchanged that all too familiar forlorn glance whenever "the first few" came up. Although they may have been only a ball of cells or had what looked like more human features, you both still see them as the children you will never fully know. The glance and acknowledgement shared between you and Chris honor those that were unlucky to not experience their first breath of life. It is also why you both are so grateful for the young ball of energy, Archie, and the little girl kicking around in your belly. While the silence could've gone on longer, so much so that you would both lose track of time, Chris tries to lighten the air-- which he could usually achieve, "I can't believe you were only ten weeks when we started traveling and filming. We didn't have any idea until our vacation weekend in Scotland."

"Don't remind me of Barfmoral and Loch Bleh," you chuckle then shift to all seriousness. "Let us never do a tour of Europe when I'm pregnant and wrangling a seven year old again."

"Why?" Chris asks, taking a sip of orange juice. "You've had fun. Remember Santorini?"

"Of course. It was unreal! The closest thing to a babymoon we're going to get," You sigh and tap your napkin against your lip to catch a stray spot of apricot jam, "I can't enjoy it the way I normally would. No espresso or alcohol. I can't have raw Brie for God's sake!"

"You sound like a rich housewife," Chris laughs into his champagne flute.

"Which I am," you tell him. "But I work when my husband isn't gone for long."