Who: Caden and Estella Flint
What: Making Valentine's day miserable...
Where: Their house
When: Friday, 8:00 pm
Valentine’s Day.
It was one day of the year Caden wished didn’t exist. Or, he did for the longest time. He didn’t ever think of it as a
holiday. It was just a gimmick, another reason for people to give and receive gifts for no reason at all. It was the holiday of love…but really, the only people who got to enjoy it were people who were in love, or in some sort of relationship that had an
idea of love. He used to despise it. Caden never treated it as anything more than the 14th of February, another cold day that just happened to be draped in pinks, whites and reds. For almost 3 years he had wandered around, wanting to just grab the chocolate or any other gift someone had gotten, and just smash it into a million pieces, and tell them how absolutely stupid the ‘holiday’ really was. It wasn’t a holiday, if not everyone could celebrate.
Long story short, it wasn’t his favorite thing in the world. It was just…a lot more tolerable, and maybe even
enjoyable now that he had a reason to actually take part in it. If it were up to him, it would just be another day, but he knew that it meant something to Estella. Most women seemed to like it. It was very feminine, what with the flowers, and the jewelry and everything. He thought back to what they had done on that day last year. It was the first Valentine’s Day they had spent together, and they had spent it at his apartment. They had both talked their parents into watching their sons, and had enjoyed a quiet dinner with some champagne. The rest of the night…well, it wouldn’t be very gentlemanly to go into any details.
This year, wasn’t very much different…only it was. The boys were at her parent’s house (something he still needed to get used to; not having to get separate sitters), and he had taken her out to dinner. It was a nice restaurant, and he had even worn a tie. There was also a violinist and a pianist playing music nearby, just for them…since he had arranged for them to be the only couple there. Just because Caden hated Valentine’s Day, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a romantic at heart. No one would ever think it about him, because…well, he didn’t seem like the type to put much thought into those things, but he did. He knew it made
her happy. They had even shared a few dances on the empty dance floor…once again, for her enjoyment.
Coming back to their house, he removed his suit jacket, laying it across the back of the couch before making his way into the kitchen, unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt so he could roll them up. He grabbed the bottle of champagne that he had cast a charm on to keep at a good temperature, and reached into the cabinet to grab two glasses. He poured the beige liquid into the glasses, walking back into the living room where Estella was still waiting. He gave her a small smirk that even bordered in a
smile, and extended the glass out to her. Once she took it, he lifted his glass to her. “Happy Valentine’s.” He tilted his glass to meet with hers, and then took a sip, leaning back against the wall as he looked around.
“I think this is the first time the house has been quiet since we’ve moved in…”
Estella was pregnant, and she hadn't told her husband.
She'd been waiting for today, to be honest; she'd only known for a few days, it wasn't as if she had been with holding the secret with him for months, or until it was beyond obvious that she was carrying their child.
That would probably be easier to deal with then just being up front and honest about it, because who could scream and fight with a whale of a pregnant woman? Really! She should've waited until looked like she had a quaffle under her shirt, but Estella had what you called a
guilty-conscience. Even when she wasn't entirely at fault. It was
hard to resist sex when your husband was Caden Flint, Merlin!
But--this was terrible, terrible timing. They had
just decided (or, well, Caden had decided, but that was for...well, right now, she supposed) that they weren't going to have any more children, and less than a month later she was pregnant. She didn't even know how it had happened! Well--well she
knew, but Estella was religiously on the contraceptive potion! She had been regular since before Jacob was born, the one time she
wasn't was when she became pregnant for the first time, which was what had shot off the warning signs.
Estella took her glass, smiling and pressing the side of it to her lips. No, no, she hadn't had anything to drink, tonight. She knew the rules already, and wasn't going to mess anything up, even if they decided to not go through with things. Which! Which they would not decide, because Caden was going find out the news, and instead of being upset about another child, he was going to realize that this was a gift and---yes. Yes, she was definitely setting herself up for a bit of delusions, tonight.
"My mother was very excited to take Marcus in," Estella said with a smile, swirling the glass a bit before putting it down. Her hands dropped to her lap and she smoothed out her skirt. Deep breaths, they were married, this was something they should be able to deal with, "It's also good, because--I have to tell you something, and--it's better that the boys are out for the night, so that we can...talk!" Estella ended this with a smile and a bit of an exclamation, to start it off on a good foot. No need to have him dreading something already!
Caden, up until now, hadn’t even paid much attention to what Estella had been drinking during dinner. It wasn’t completely out of the ordinary for her to not have something to drink with dinner, since neither of them usually did. He usually stuck with water, and tonight was no exception. He knew he had the champagne back at the house, and the last thing he needed was to overestimate how much alcohol he could consume on Valentine’s. He had a feeling that Estella wouldn’t necessarily enjoy having a drunken husband on a day that was supposed to be romantic and…well, frilly and girly, as stated before. Usually it was the guys and girls
without a significant other who got plastered. And, Caden wasn’t that, so there really wasn’t any need for excessive alcohol consumption.
But one glass of champagne never hurt anyone…and it usually wasn’t something she would turn down,
especially on Valentine’s. It was like…one of the things people
did on that day. Valentine’s and New Years came equipped with the bubbling alcohol, while holidays like…St.Patrick’s day (a holiday that Caden had absolutely
no problems with, mainly because of his Irish roots) came equipped with beer and liquor, and Christmas came with spiked eggnog. He knew it wasn’t because she didn’t like it, because they had it at their wedding, and had drank it in the past on quite a few occasions before that…like New Years and Valentine’s.
“…I’m sure she was.” He said, trying not to over think the whole thing. Really, he was just being stupid, trying to think of reasons why she wasn’t sipping something. Wasn’t he? There was probably nothing for him to be worried about.
But then she started to mess around with her skirt. It was something he had seen her do a few times in the past, when she had something on her mind. She adjusted things. Sometimes, it was a throw pillow that she would straighten out, or a figurine that was a centimeter out of place. This time, it was her clothes. His eyes focused down on the article clothing before meeting her eyes with his. He was still standing, looking down at her as he bit at the inside of his cheek, looking at her curiously.
“You…have to
tell me something...” He repeated the words, dropping his glass back down as he tried to think of what she could possibly tell him. Was something
wrong? No, no…she looked too happy for something to be wrong. “And that would be…?”
Ohhh, how had she managed to wait even a day to tell him this? As soon as Estella let out her first happy expression, she was nearly bouncing in her seat. A baby! There was a baby inside of her, an itty bitty tiny Estella and
Caden baby. It would be a lie to say that she hadn't
thought about getting pregnant again, and she'd never been a very good planner, things always just---happened. And this was definitely one of those things.
Estella popped up to her feet, feeling all of that nervousness and anxiety sweep away. They were married, this was a surprise, this was what came with the territory. If he hadn't thought about the possibility of this in their future then...then he needed to take a lesson in the human reproductive system, and learn that potions were not 100% effective. Everyone knew that, right?
She did, at least, and she had even gone back to check her supply to make sure that she
hadn't missed any. And--nope.
This baby was just meant to be, is all.
She pushed up on her heels in another brief moment of obvious excitement, and Estella pressed her hands to her husband's chest. Her grin couldn't be contained, and her shoulders scrunched up tightly, "I'm pregnant, I just found out!"
The sight of her being so happy caused the corners of his mouth to twitch upwards into an amused smirk…but this was, of course, before he knew what she was so happy about. Tonight had been a very good night, so it was no wonder he was in a good mood. Not that many people could
tell when he was in a good mood, but right now it was pretty obvious. He wasn’t scowling, and he didn’t look exhausted and/or miserable. There were other expressions he wore, but those were just the most common.
He also did
stunned very well.
Looking down at his wife as she pressed against his chest, his features dropped his eyes staying on hers as his brows stitched together. Was this really happening? Was she really…standing there, telling him this, as though this was
good news? She seemed
thrilled. He looked away from her, raising his free hand to rub at the back of his neck, which was becoming quite tense.
He remained where he was for a few more moments before carefully pushing away from the wall, causing his wife’s hands to fall back down to her sides as he turned and walked through the main entryway towards their kitchen once again, finishing off the rest of his champagne in a single swig while he walked towards the kitchen. He couldn’t even form
words at the moment. He couldn’t-…
What was he
supposed to say? Was he suddenly supposed to be
happy about this? Was his opinion about having another child supposed to
change now? She seemed to think so, seeing how
perky she was about the whole thing. Honestly, she was acting as though this was supposed to make him jump up and down, and start a fucking parade. But all he could focus on right now was pouring more champagne.
Why the hell should he let it go to waste, just because
she couldn’t drink it? No, Caden would make
good use of it. Hell, there was an entire
bottle there, just
waiting to be poured.
Fuck, if only he had picked up Whiskey…
Estella stared at the wall as Caden walked away, trying to find an answer in his reaction. Surprised, he was---surprised. Of course he was surprised,
she had been surprised, so why wouldn't he be? Right, right, that was it, that was---this was not good. Estella took in a deep breath and turned to follow Caden back into the kitchen, standing a bit behind him, trying to peer around his side to get a look at his expression.
This wasn't a bad thing, as much as Caden thought it was. She understood his concerns, of
course she did---the last time she'd given birth, her husband had been murdered, it--the thoughts
had crossed her mind on numerous occassions, but...but after finding Caden and going through all the steps of their relationship, she'd managed to become something of an optimist and she really, truly believed that they weren't going to have such misfortune anymore.
"Caden," she said softly, moving closer. She really, really believed he could see the good in this. Estella wanted to talk to him and tell him everything; she hadn't even found out the sex, they could do that
together and it could be the start of a brand new adventure for them, they'd done
so well with the past year and a half.
Estella didn’t really understand his
concerns as much as she thought she did. He knew that Jake had been murdered the night their son had been born, but that wasn’t related to the child at
all. She had told him the story. She had told him how he had gone to get her flowers, and something to eat, and had never returned. It was heartbreaking, it was, and he understood that in her mind his death would always be related to the birth of their son, to the birth of Jacob. But it wasn’t the
same. Mackenzie had died
because of childbirth. She wasn’t even able to
glance at Marcus. She hadn’t been able to hold him, or debate with Caden about what they were going to name him. They hadn’t been able to be
happy. Estella, she had…she had at least had
momentary bliss the night Jacob was born. Jake had seen him, he had
been there. He knew that it was a freak accident, what happened to his first wife, but…the chances of a woman dying during pregnancy were still much,
much higher than the chances of Caden being murdered.
And that was a chance Caden was not willing to take. Not again.
But, he didn’t really have a
choice anymore, now did he? She was already pregnant. Estella wasn’t the only one who had been taking potions to prevent this from happening. Or…he thought she
had been. He wasn’t so sure anymore. This wasn’t something that usually
happened when not one, but
two people were taking something to not get pregnant. There was like…a .01% chance of that happening. And they were either part of the
extremely small statistic, or they weren’t being as careful as he
thought they were.
“…what.” He said, his voice obviously tense as he poured another glass of champagne, downing that one just as quickly as he did the other, only pausing momentarily before he abandoned the bottle and reached up to the liquor cabinet, grabbing what he had been yearning for when he first heard the news; Whiskey. He twisted open the cap, and poured a champagne glass worth, not even bothering to turn around to face her. He was far too preoccupied with what he was doing, and he was just…
He didn’t
know. He didn’t know if he was
angry, or if he was
annoyed, or if he was
upset, or if he felt…
betrayed or something. He felt all of those things, and they were making his chest tight, and his vision hazy. Every muscle in his body was suddenly a giant knot. It was quite amazing, how that could happen to him instantaneously sometimes.
With each movement, with each clang of the glass, with--just
everything was making her head pound. This was going in the completely wrong direction and Estella was beginning to realize that she'd never been in anything
remotely like this with Caden. She fought with her sister, her brother, her mother-in-law, but she'd never had such a tense moment with her
husband! Why should she have wished for that! They were adults, they just didn't
fight about the stupid things younger couples did, and--
--she supposed this was a bit more important than anything a pair of teenagers might have to be concerned about.
"We--we should talk," she said calmly, trying to keep herself from overreacting just yet. Well--well no, she couldn't get herself crazy, because that would be bad for the baby and she was not going to allow herself to do that. Estella stepped forward and closed the liquor cabinet, more than a bit perturbed that Caden had immediately reached out for alcohol. Part of her said that she'd rather have had him start ranting about it than turning to the drink, because it was never a good addition to a situation. But then she
really didn't want to hear the ranting either, so if the firewhiskey calmed him down in the tiniest bit then she'd be thankful.
Seeing as she'd been pretty wrong about everything else in the last five minutes, Estella was going to bet on things getting worse before they got better, "We need to talk."
Somehow, the next set of words that came out of her mouth didn’t surprise him. Of
course she thought they needed to talk. That was always her solution for everything, to talk it out. Usually, it didn’t bother him as much as it did now, but then again he had never had to ‘talk it out’ about anything that involved
her. Usually he was pissed off about the press, or about the team, or about someone in his family…but never
her. Then again, she was part of his family now, so…maybe he should have expected their good record was going to be tainted shortly after they got married.
He placed both of his hands against the counter, leaning against it as she shut the cabinet, just staring down at the glass he had poured. There was a good amount of time that passed between her rephrasing of words before he even turned his head to look at her. His expression mirrored how he was feeling internally. In other words, it was indescribable. He was, without a doubt, not in a good mood though.
That much was obvious.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” His words were quiet, but they were not nearly as calm as hers had been. What was there to say? What the fuck could she have to say to him that would make any of this better, or make him change his mind? What did they need to
talk about?
He couldn’t do this right now. He still…needed to process this whole thing. Turning back to the glass, hr straightened up from the counter and downed the drink, barely even wincing as it slid down his throat. Those intense eyes of his focused down on the now empty flute that was still in his hands. His jaw shifted as he twisted the glass between his fingers.
She was pregnant. She was
pregnant, with his child and, she-…he couldn’t-…he didn’t-…
Fuck… "How can you---" Estella stopped short, pressing her lips together. Nothing to talk about?
Nothing to---this was their
baby and he was saying that there was
nothing to talk about? It was strange, normally this quick kind of anger, would send tears into her eyes and make her a ridiculous mess, but all it did was give her an urge to
move and yell and scream. Estella stepped forward quickly and grabbed the bottle of firewhiskey, clutching it closely to her chest, "First you're going to stop drowning your lack of
thoughts, and then you are going to talk to me!"
Deep down past her delusions of this being a happy occasion, Estella had seen this coming. Not as severe, as she was used to Caden yelling at people and had figured she would get the same, but the lack of enthusiasm had been something she'd feared but had ignored. Caden would was always happy with her, eventually. She could deal with this right now, because she did believe that his opinion on the matter
would turn and they'd be all right, but---but a baby took nine months to make, and seventeen years before you could let them go, so---if Caden waited
that long, then...then she didn't know what she would do.
"This is our--
baby, and I know it's a shock but you are not going to completely ignore that it's actually happening!" Estella let out, feeling much braver than she ever had. Maybe it was the baby giving her this extra boost, or maybe she was that scared that Caden really
wasn't going to deal with it. "We are going to
talk about this because I'm your wife and you are my husband and--we can sit down and
talk."
He probably shouldn’t have been so aggravated about her pulling the bottle away from him, since he knew it was bound to happen sooner or later, but some part of him wanted to just grab it back from her; grab the bottle, and leave, just to avoid having the conversation she was so eager to start. He didn’t understand why, since she had to know it was going to end badly, but she was so God damn
persistent. It was usually a quality he admired about her, but now that he was dealing with this situation, he wished she would just accept the fact that he didn’t want to stop drowning his lack of thoughts, because it was the only thing he could think of that could make this any better. Alcohol, while it was a deceptive friend, it was a
good friend for Caden…made all the bad shit go away, even if it was only for a few hours.
He had to be the worst person in the world, to think of a baby as ‘bad news’ when it was coming from his
wife. Single men weren’t nearly as thrilled about it, but…he should be
happy, and he was nothing but the exact opposite. His emotions were rarely publicized, but if there was one thing some knew about Caden, it was when he wasn’t in a good mood…which seemed to be all the time, to people who didn’t know him at all. They weren’t far off, since he usually was; but he wasn’t ever unhappy around Estella. Not until now. Not until the one moment where he should have been the happiest. Go figure.
He stared down at his wife, his gaze boring into her deep brown eyes, hardly letting her get a chance to finish before he spoke again. “What else is there to say, Stell? Why the
fuck did you even bother asking me what I thought of having more children, if you weren’t even going to take that into consideration? You know I didn’t want any more kids, Estella; I haven’t wanted them since Marcus, and that isn’t going to fucking change now, just because you're pregnant." He paused. “I thought we were being careful, but what the fuck did I know, right?”
She--she--she could not
properly explain to herself what was going on. Everything in her head was jumping harshly from one place to another, not giving her enough time to analyze the situation, to figure out what to say to Caden to make him not
look at her like that. Estella gaped helplessly up at Caden, his words puncturing, sharply, the delusional bubble that had
still been wrapped around this deep into the conversation. Or--encounter, they hadn't really done
any talking until now. And---and---
This was an accident, getting pregnant had been an
accident. He thought that--he thought that she--that she---Estella's hands flew to her mouth, completely shocked and nearly
appaled that he would believe, so
quickly, that she would do something this drastic to hurt him. How could he
ever think that she would totally disregard his feelings on such an important subject manner, when she could barely make dinner without his complete approval of what was on the menu? She never let the bloody insig
nificant decisions go by without Caden's word, and for him to---he thought that she---
Estella had no idea what to do, now. Stand there and cry? Yes, that would look terribly pathetic, wouldn't it? It wouldn't help her cause at all, it wouldn't make it look like she wanted to keep this baby, either. Well--well...she couldn't exactly keep a baby her husband wanted nothing to do with, could she?
That thought shot tears to her eyes, and Estella's hands left her face, throwing themselves up in defeat. She couldn't even think of defending herself, that there would be no reason to give her case if Caden was that adamant about his feelings.
"Fine---" she choked out, turning away to head up to the bedroom (where Caden was certainly getting locked out of), hands still high by the side of her head. Estella never thought she'd feel this kind of pain again, but---here it was. "
Fine, Caden."
