A Sibling Is A Lifelong Best Friend

hello i had this idea two nights ago and whipped it all up yesterday!! the duffers like me to suffer so i had to give myself some wheeler family feels since they won't do it :)

hope you guys enjoy and please!!! comments feed me!!!! thank you!!!!!

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Before her second child is even born, Karen Wheeler knows that Nancy will love her sibling with all her heart. It's obvious one night when the family of three-soon-to-be-four is in the living room watching TV. Really, Karen is the only one watching it, and then afterwards she stops too. Her husband is asleep, and she thinks her daughter might be as well. After all, the girl is only just past three years old and she usually falls asleep before nine. Except when Karen looks down at her bulging stomach, she sees Nancy's face right next to it with her big blue eyes steadfastly trained on it.

"What are you looking at, sweetie?"

Nancy doesn't move her gaze. "Th' baby," she mumbles. "When does it come out?"

Karen smooths a hand down her dress. "Soon, honey," she says. "The doctor said close to the end of August. That's only in a little less than two months. Are you excited?"

Nancy nods, sitting back and leaning her little head on her mom's arm. "It's a boy. I want a sister, but a brother is okay."

Karen laughs quietly. "Well, we don't know if it's a boy. We'll have to wait and see when it's born."

"It's a boy," Nancy insists. "I know."

"Okay," her mother humours her. "What do you think we should name him?"

Nancy is silent for a little while, and Karen almost thinks she's fallen asleep, but then her tiny, quiet voice pipes up. "Can we name him Marshmallow? I like marshmallows."

Karen snorts. "We can't name him Marshmallow, that's not a person's name. Maybe you can think about it tomorrow, Nancy. You're tired."

Nancy stares at the TV blankly for a moment, letting it sink in that they will not, in fact, be naming her baby sibling Marshmallow. She turns her head to look up at her mother. "Can I feel him?"

As if in response to its sister's words, the baby kicks Karen's right side, where Nancy is sitting. "Well, it just kicked me right here," she answers, putting her hand where the baby kicked. "Maybe you can feel."

Nancy excitedly puts her left ear to her mother's stomach, lying in wait. The baby kicks on the other side, but Nancy gasps. "I feel it!"

Karen smiles. She hopes that her children will get along when they're older. It'll be nice for them to have a sibling to count on. A second later, the baby kicks on the right side again and Nancy's head jerks up. "He kicked my ear!"

She angrily crosses her little arms and scoots away from her mother's stomach. She stays that way until she falls asleep, but in the morning she's forgiven the baby and is just excited for it to come out so she can meet it.

When Nancy is five, she starts going to kindergarten. Karen drives her to school the first morning and after she goes into the building and her brother can't see her anymore, he puts a chubby little hand on the window and cries. When the two of them get home, Mike stubbornly refuses to get out of the car for fifteen minutes as if by sitting in there Nancy is going to magically reappear by his side. It's sweet how attached he is to his sister, but it's also a pain when Karen has more important things to do than convince her son to come into the house.

He does eventually come inside when he calms down, but spends the morning upset. He retreats under the dining table where he makes a nest of blankets, taking with him a stray doll of Nancy's that was on the couch. His mother leaves him be because by this point she's learned that Mike is the more stubborn of her two children and will throw a fit if she disturbs anything he's created.