The Heart of a Villain - Oneshots

Hip-Check

[Rose finds out something important, that will change everything, and has to tell Tom.]

Rose sits on Tom's lap, her bum on one thigh, both legs over the other and stretched out on the couch beyond, like a child. Tom has one arm firmly around her back, the other over her knees, his big palm against her thigh. She has looped her arms about his neck and is resting her head against his shoulder, waiting.

She just told him she is pregnant.

Not twenty minutes ago, they were standing side by side in the kitchen, cleaning the dishes. Will had just gone off to bed - exhausted from the celebration of his second birthday (not the real one, which was three months prior, but the one they set for him on his fake birth certificate), having run around the house like a wild creature unchecked for most of the day. Tom tried to keep up and nearly managed -- Will was a bit softer toward him these days, especially after the presents and the cake and pizza and the endless spins in the backyard until the cake and pizza nearly returned. It was very late but the dishes needed doing or else they were going to have to take a chisel to the hardened-after-melting ice cream and sugar-filled icing that lined the plates come morning.

She washed, he dried. He fussed over her putting her bare hands into the hot water and soap, and insisted she wear the silly rubber gloves that she really didn't like, but tolerated to humor him. Impulsively, she hip-checked him as she handed him one of the last dishes, and caught his puzzled look as he accepted the dish. A few more minutes passed, and she hip-checked him again, gently, after handing him the large cake dish. This time she did smirk at him, and he smiled a bit, although he didn't return her gaze. When they finished, and she shook the water off the gloves before settling them to dry over the edge of the sink, he hip-checked her, but reached around to catch her from the other side with his hand, and pulled her close to him.

"You're in a mood tonight," he murmured.

She looked up at him, pushing down the smile she'd been struggling with since the pregnancy test. "I have something to tell you."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Something important, I'm assuming?"

She nodded. "Let's go into the living room." She took his moist hand in her dry one and pulled him with her into the living room, seating him on the couch. Then, she gently knelt in front of him and showed him the test she'd been carrying around in her pocket.

His shocked look almost derailed her. He stared at the stick (which she couldn't help but think of as the stick she peed on and he was holding tightly) as if he didn't quite understand it, and then the brow furrowed as he looked at her again.

Now the smile wilted of its own accord. "Is it...it this okay?"

The old image of the sun appearing behind dark stormy clouds didn't quite do justice to the brilliance and joy of the smile that suddenly crept across his face. But in her nervous state she had stood up, and he grasped both her hands with his one free one and pulled her down.

"Okay? Are you...joking?" Now Rose saw the smile, and Tom pulled her toward him, onto his lap, and he kissed her several times and whispered how wonderful it was, how much he loved her, and now she sits on his lap, waiting for him to finish absorbing this news.

"Talk to me," she murmurs, giving him a little tug on his collar, dipping her fingers inside to trace them along his collarbone.

Tom's hands both tighten against her. "Just...thinking."

"About?"

"Keeping all of us safe," Tom sighs. "Having the few neighbors over today was a risk. And with you pregnant we'll probably have to interact with them more."