Parallel Universes 2

1

Just like the two other pregnancies he had gone through Harry treated him like a prince. He gave him foot massages, back massages, cuddles, and love. He followed him to every doctor's appointment and bought everything he had a craving for.

They waited until he was sixteen weeks pregnant to inform their families, starting with the children. Darcy and Tancred were excited. Tristan on the other hand made a face.
"What if it's a girl? I want a brother!"

"Well, we can't exactly choose and it doesn't matter Tristan. I hope you will help us take good care of your sibling no matter what." Louis replied.

"Fine." Tristan sighed.

Louis' family took the news with joy. A new baby was always welcomed. Louis' sister Lottie had a boy and a girl, Lucky and Faith. Fizzy had three sons, David, Henry, and Andrew. Phoebe had two girls named Olive and Poppy and Daisy had a boy named Charlie.

Harry's family were happy too but Harry could see that it hurt his mother too. Even if she talked with her grandchildren over the phone very often she had never been able to hug them. Harry's decision to live in a parallel universe took that away from her, and he knew that she was sad even if she fully supported him. He missed his mum so much.

He hadn't seen her in person in two years. He was just happy that those two years for him were a lot shorter for his family back home. The time difference was weird. One week at his universe was seven weeks here. That meant that seven years passed in one year at his place.

He aged way faster than he would have if he had still lived in his universe. That wasn't something he thought about. It wasn't weird. A year was a year. He only noticed the difference whenever he talked to his friends and family back home. To think that he would be much younger if he had still been in his universe was mindblowing and he understood how weird it must be for his family. His mother always said that her grandchildren were growing up too fast and from her point of view, they really did. They had aged a year in seven months for her, and so had he. Twenty years from now he would be closer in age to his mum than his big sister. He didn't want to think about that.

There wasn't anything he could do about that. He wished he could take Louis and the kids with him to visit his family but that was impossible and he had no idea how he would even explain something like that to the kids. He would, someday when they were older. Maybe, he didn't know what was best.

Time flew. Louis entered his fifth month of pregnancy and he was glowing. His baby bump popped and Harry caressed it with a delighted smile. Even if he had experienced Louis pregnant twice before he still had trouble comprehending that male pregnancies were possible in this universe. Being able to have kids that were a mix of both of their genes was so amazing!

Louis wasn't puking anymore and the baby had a normal growing curve. They were starting to prepare for the baby. They moved the twins out of the nursery next to them and the boys were excited to have a big boy room. Louis' mum helped them out and took the boys shopping for new things for their new room while Harry found one of the old cribs in the garage and set it up. Thankfully they hadn't gotten rid of all the baby stuff yet even if they had talked about it a lot lately. He found the changing table and a couple of boxes of clothes and brought them to the house so they could go through them.

Louis was sitting on the couch caressing his baby bump.
"We need to buy a new baby stroller. We only have a double one and it's old now." Harry said.

"Alright." Louis smiled.

Harry opened a box and picked up a pile of clothes. Louis patted the couch cushion next to him.
"I wanna see too."

Harry brought the clothes to the sofa and they went through them piece by piece, cooing and laughing at fond memories.
"Let's make an unisex pile." Louis suggested.

They started to divide the piles.
"What do you think we're having this time?" Harry wondered.

Louis cradled his tummy.
"I don't know. A girl maybe?"

"Really?" Harry smiled excitedly.

"I mean, I will be equally happy either way. Don't take this the wrong way but you're such a girl Dad, Harry." Louis smiled.

Harry was about to protest and Louis held up a hand.
"I know you love our children equally but you had so much fun with Darcy. You spent hours and hours playing princess tea party and I know how bummed you were when she quit ballet after just a couple of times. I'm not saying that you haven't spent quality time with the boys as well and that you didn't enjoy every second if that. You're a wonderful father, Hazza. I would just enjoy seeing you dressed as a princess ballerina again." Louis grinned.

"Me too." Harry sighed longingly. Then he hurried to say "But a boy would be lovely as well and even if Tancred and Tristan wanted to play football instead of taking ballet lessons this boy might want the opposite."

"We just have to wait and see. Maybe they want to dance ballet, maybe they want to do karate, or select stamps or play theater." Louis smiled.

"Yeah." Harry agreed. They tried to raise their kids without putting them in stereotypical boxes.

Jay returned with the kids and a lot more stuff than they had agreed on. She helped Tancred and Tristan to decorate their new room. Darcy had a couple of new things for her room as well.
"You're spoiling them, mum." Louis said.

"I'm their grandma. Of course, I do." Jay replied.

"Thank you, Jay. Their rooms look great." Harry smiled.