B for Babies

18

Alex closed the trunk of Meredith's car and wiped the sweat from his brow. He didn't know why they were doing this, why Meredith was even allowing this to happen either. Usually none of them listened to Maggie's attempt at a bonding experience, especially when the experience included them going away for a weekend together. Alex wondered if this was some pregnancy guilt she was feeling, or if she had really just lost her damn mind.

As Meredith rattled off a list of things they needed to have packed and Alex assured her he had everything, his temper flaring and her eyes rolling as per usual. "We have to be prepared, if we're not prepared we die." She told him and now it was his turn for an eye roll. "Nobody is going to die." He snapped and Meredith gave him a displeased look. "They could. Anything can happen if you're not prepared for the worst."

Alex almost jumped for joy when Arizona's car pulled up. She was spending the weekend with Meredith's kids, thinking this was the last time Meredith and Alex would have away together before the baby came. Neither of them complained when she made the offer, although Alex complained about several other things regarding this trip, especially when he learned Nathan was going to be in attendance. After arguing back and forth between the pair, they both decided that it didn't matter whether they thought Maggie and Nathan were over, they were going to grin and bear it, since they didn't have to pay for this trip, and neither one of them planned on spending any time with Nathan anyway.

Arizona walked up to the front door with a big smile on her face. "You two all set to go?" She asked, looking towards the car that was all packed up. Meredith tried to reciprocate her cheery smile but hers just came off as cheesy. "We're all set." She said in a faux cheerful tone, which made Alex shake his head at her.

The two women walked inside together where Meredith explained the kids usual routine, and where to find everything, this left Alex sitting out on the front porch, praying for rain or something that stopped this trip from happening. No such luck came for him as the sun only got brighter, and the day was as perfect as it could get for a weekend away. He sat up when another car pulled up, Amelia emerged from the passenger side door. "Hey!" She called out, and Owen gave Alex a little wave too. "You ready to go too?" Amelia shouted out and Alex realised then that this weekend was going to get a lot louder than he originally planned.

Meredith walked outside carrying her handbag and the bag of cheetos she had been snacking on. She nearly let go of the packet when she noticed who was parked out front. When she turned to Alex, he shrugged his shoulders, and she started shaking her head. "All of a sudden I'm not feeling very well. I think I might have a fever." She told him, placing the back of her rest against her forehead. Alex rolled his eyes and walked over to the driver's side of the car. "This was your idea in the first place, we didn't have to say yes but you wanted to make your sister happy." He reminded her as she slipped into the passenger side.

"She talks too much, she gets in my face, asks too many questions and did I mention the fact that she never shuts up?" She asked as she pulled her seatbelt over her body, clipping it into the buckle. Alex reversed out of the driveway, signally to Owen to follow him on the road. He didn't need to be reminded of Meredith's dislike of spending too much time with Amelia, she'd only told him a million and one times.

Meredith fiddled with the radio, needing a station to fit her mood for the rest of the drive. She wasn't going to spend the journey listening to whatever Alex had tuned in to. It made her skin crawl knowing that she was going to be spending a weekend with a few too many people she really didn't want to be around. She closed her eyes and slipped her sunglasses on over her eyes and tried to relax to the new sound filling her ears. She wrapped her arms over her belly, wishing for a second that she didn't have one, maybe then she would have had the balls to say no to Maggie, if she had of just kept it in her pants none of this would have been happening.

"You okay?" Alex asked, glancing over at her with concern in his voice. He knew that she was only going to this thing because she felt guilty, and that wasn't her, she wasn't the kind of person who let her guilt drive her to do anything, he was worried.

"I'm fine just keep driving, that's your job." She told him without looking up.

"I'm just worried about you." Alex said, shaking his head at how quick she was to jump down his throat over this. "You don't even have to go to this thing you know? Maggie will probably give you a free pass if you asked her to."

"I don't want to ask her for a free pass, that's not what we do. We suck it up and do things we don't want to do." She told him, opening her eyes to take a look at him again. She knew he was right, she had the power to just stay at home.

He reached over to place a hand on her knee, squeezing it gently to show that he understood that this was harder than she wanted to admit. "We'll just pretend we need to have a lot of sex, or that you're feeling sick. You won't even have to spend any time with any of them."

Meredith couldn't help herself, she just let out a laugh and stared straight out the front windscreen again.