Your Beauty Never, Ever Scared Me - Wintumn Stories

What's Past is Prologue

It took less than twenty minutes after learning she was expecting for Winter to become incredibly protective of Autumn. He was attending to anything he thought Autumn might possibly want. That morning he had brought her a coffee, made her breakfast, and tidied up the house before Autumn had even had time to say good morning. She had to physically grab him and plead with him just to lay with her and not rush off to do more chores. Those could wait, for now she just wanted him to hold her. Once he finally settled he was more than happy to just hold her close, his hand on top of her's, resting gently on her stomach.

They laid in a comfortable silence, holding their baby together. It was too early to feel anything but the gesture brought them both so much comfort. After everything happened, they both expressed that they wished they'd spent more time like this, laying together and soaking up the moments where everything was okay. Autumn and Winter barely left each other's side all of Sunday. Any time they weren't actively cuddling, Winter had a hand on Autumn. But as they laid together again in these early morning hours, even Winter's embrace couldn't help her racing thoughts.

"Winter, what if I can't keep this one safe either."

Her words were like a dagger through Winter's heart.

"Autumn, darling, there was nothing you could have done to keep our baby any safer."

"I just want this one to be okay..."

"Me too, my love."

They laid in silence, the weight of their words hanging in the air. They both wanted to be parents so badly. The thought of something going wrong again was never going to leave their heads. Autumn turned around and looked Winter in the eyes. Neither had to say a word, their eyes did all the talking. He didn't blame her and he never would. They'd been through the worst and it had only made their relationship stronger. Should it happen again, they'd would survive because of each other. But they couldn't think about the past right now. They had to let themselves enjoy the happiness they were feeling. They were already parents, nothing could change that.  Winter pulled Autumn in for a long kiss.

"My sweet," Autumn laughed as they pulled apart. Winter's kiss had changed her mood for the better as it always did. "Do you think we can actually keep this a secret this time?"

"Honestly, my love, I don't think anything we could do would keep them from finding out."

Almost everyone in the nursery had noticed the signs last time. Charlotte knew before anyone else. She didn't tell anyone, out of respect for the couple, but she shared that she'd noticed the changes in Autumn pretty much immediately. Reece was also sure to start questioning Autumn being sick. And there was no way if he asked Marjorie she'd be able to lie to him. Her emotions would give her away immediately.

To make things harder, the staff holiday party was coming up and when Autumn wasn't drinking, people would be suspicious right away. Then there would be the lack of physical violence and, of course, the instinctual hand placement. Anytime she wasn't actively thinking about her, her hand floated to her stomach. There was no way she wouldn't slip up at work. They were going to try as hard as they could to keep this a secret, but they were also prepared for that to not be an option.

Both Autumn and Winter were able to take the day off for their first appointment. Since Marjorie already knew they didn't even have to come up with any excuses for their last minute absence. She was incredibly supportive to both of them and was more than willing to cover for both of them. Marjorie hated working in the rooms, so the couple knew how much she cared about them to be willing to work in Winter's place.

Autumn was sure she couldn't be very far along yet. She was a little nauseous throughout the day, but it had been nowhere near as bad as last time. Mostly she was just incredibly tired all the time. She couldn't remember the last time it wasn't a fight to get out of bed for work. Even today, when their appointment wasn't until noon, she found that she didn't want to move. It was seeing Winter's excitement for the appointment that finally coaxed her out of bed. He'd been dressed and ready for hours.

He offered to help Autumn get ready but she assured him she was more than capable of getting ready herself. She appreciated his concern and attempts to dote on her, but she was still Autumn. So instead he went downstairs and gathered everything they were needing to take with them and make Autumn a tea. Winter was determined to be as much help as he could through this process. During her last pregnancy, Winter hated watching her suffer through the morning sickness. There was going to be so much she had to go through he couldn't help with, the least he could do was make anything he could control as easy for her as possible.

Autumn's nerves were incredibly high when they finally arrived at the clinic. She wasn't sure why she was so nervous. She'd been through this exact appointment before, but because of her past pregnancy they told her to prepare for some extra tests. They were shown to a room pretty quickly and got through everything with no issues. The last thing they did was an ultrasound. She was sure this was when they would tell her something was wrong and that the pregnancy wasn't going to stick. Autumn couldn't imagine having to hear that again. But everything looked great. The doctor told them that she would place Autumn at about 8 weeks along so they'd schedule another scan in about a month just to confirm everything.

Autumn didn't realize just how long she'd put off taking the test. Her periods were pretty irregular so she wouldn't have noticed if she'd missed more than one and she had been feeling sick for quite some time. But last time she'd found out around 5 weeks. She didn't even think they'd discussed trying again eight weeks ago. Once she was back in the car she took out her phone to count weeks to see her due date. They wouldn't get an official one until the next scan but she could guess. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized she would hit 40 weeks in August. The same week as her birthday. She decided to count back eight weeks as well, just to see, and she couldn't help but laugh when she landed on that date. Winter's birthday.

"My sweet, it seems like your birthday was more eventful than we thought..." she recounted just to make sure she landed in August again before continuing "And mine might be as well."