Who: Izzie and Archie MacMillan! And Baby Bump MacMillan too!
What: Just idle cuteness chatter!
When: Tooooday?



Izzie was splayed about. That's the only way she could describe herself. It was hard to get up from any place she set herself down, so she'd taken to shuffling around a bit before deciding where she wanted to sit. She was splayed in the library's comfiest chair, the heels of her feet digging into the coffee table in front of her. Izzie had also given up wearing shoes, and settled for sandal or slipper like accessories to cover her feet. Not that she could even see if she had a matching pair when she was putting them on (which she was today she noticed, now that they were propped up in front of her), but it was a necessity if she didn't want to step on sharp objects and bleed to death.

She was also good at being very dramatic, lately.

With a happy sigh, she found herself pleased with her position and she folded her hands on top of her stomach. Izzie stared happily at her large bump, wondering what her baby was thinking about, if he or she (she!) could actually have thoughts, that is. All the baby knew was the world inside her belly, really. And her voice, she supposed. And Archie's! Oh, that was nice to think about.

"I can't believe you don't have a name yet," Izzie said to her stomach, planting her hands on her sides, "What are we supposed to call you?"

The house was a death trap. Archie had come to this horrific realization not more than two days ago, when he noticed a stray nail in a hallway, the silver coating glinting in the low lighting of the lamps. By "noticed," of course, he meant more "stepped on it and took a few minutes to realize what the stabbing pain in his foot was and why putting pressure on his foot whilst walking was agonizingly painful." It was only then that every sharp corner in the kitchen, every stair, every lighted lamp was a bloody accident waiting to happen for a pregnant woman whose stomach reduced visibility and maneuverability greatly,or a baby who escaped a parent's watchful eye (though that wouldn't be for some time!), or, the option he least wanted to admit, a clumsy grown-man.

So, with a bandage wrapped tightly around the nearly-healed wound, Archie set about seeing that the manor was thoroughly baby-proofed. Corners had cushioning charms, the walls had space charms, the fire burning in the lamps was now extracted jarred flames, which were expensive, but much safer, than simply lighting them the normal way. He had now worked his way into the library with the intention of safeguarding the books from falling out of the shelves, when he noticed with no small amount of panic that his beloved wife was sitting in the most hazardous area of the entire room.

"Isobel!" he hissed, hastening over to her, rolling up the sleeves of his robes and brandishing his wand. "Are you aware that at any moment, those painting might collapse upon your head? Or, with just the correct amount of jostling, these bookshelves could topple over and crush you and the baby? You must be careful, my darling!"

Archie had gotten better at over-acting, it would seem.

While he was half crouching protectively over Izzie and half casting various protective spells around the room, her question registered. "That's simple! If it's a boy, we can name him Archie, Jr. And if it's a girl... we can name her Izzie, Jr.!"

The paintings? Bookshelves? As Archie flailed about, Izzie's eyes traveled around the room, head tilting back and forth and to the side as she tried to take in all of her husband's words. Be careful, in her own home? What was he on about? Izzie opened her mouth to question his antics, but then she realized the reason for his wild display: he was Archie. That was what was wrong with him. She'd been counting her blessings, really, that he hadn't had his 'impending baby meltdown,' but Izzie supposed she should have known he'd have it at some point or another.

She'd kind of been hoping that the baby would be here when Archie panicked like the fool he was, but she couldn't win everything. Instead, she watched him go about and charm seemingly every centimeter of the library as if it were his duty. They should take some sort of precautions, of course, but she wasn't trying to bound up and down the stairs, definitely not. Izzie had finally given up on being an active pregnant woman and was happily resigned with lying around all day and sleeping. It's what her body was asking for, honestly; she had to finishing making this baby, after all, she needed all the energy she could get.

When he finally took a breath, Izzie's eyes blinked slowly up at her husband, not having moved an inch during it all, "Izzie Jr.?"

He took a break from his rampant spell-casting, kneeling beside the chair she was sprawled in and resting his chin in his hand. "Well, we wouldn't have to call her Izzie junior! We'd just call her Izzie."

Archie was quite earnest in his suggestion. After all, "All respectable families keep the family names in circulation, anyway," he added with no small amount of primness. Had Archie any respect for his family in the slightest, he'd think about naming the baby after one of them. But since the MacMillan clan (save for himself--and now his wife, he supposed) could rot in a very dank, very dark dungeone for the rest of eternity, in his humble opinion. And he had always thought that Pyxis and Pyhrrus were ridiculous names at any rate. Besides, Archie thought he and Isobel's names were very lovely--very worth of being passed down to the next generation, indeed!

Turning his head to look at the rest of the library, Archie balked. "This room could kill a child, Isobel, I don't know how I let those workers renovate like this. Didn't we tell them we were expecting?!"

"I don't want an Izzie Jr.," she said with a sigh, barely holding back a laugh at his quite honest suggestion. That was more than silly, wasn't it? The girls never took their mum's name, and Isobel didn't sound good with Alice at all. Alice Isobel? No, no. She had been calling the baby Alice, whenever someone agreed with her that she was definitely having a girl, but then she'd come home and something would make her think that she had a boy in her belly. Izzie honestly could not believe that she and Archie had managed to go this long without finding the sex, but a part of her believed that not knowing what the baby was, and not being able to officially name it, is what had helped keep them from having complete and total freak outs about it.

Well, for the most part.

"I like Archie Jr., though," she said, hoping he would take his attention off of the bookcases and walls to pay her some attention. Izzie reached out with her foot and nudged Archie's knee, a smile playing on her lips. She was really, really too pregnant to have the energy to get riled up along with him.

"I think a little Izzie would be perfect," Archie argued, giving his wife an indignant look, but as soon as she mentioned an "Archie, Jr.," he had a brief little fantasy which involved teaching the ten Secrecy Statutes to a darling little boy who dutifully repeated them back, verbatim.

But, of course, Isobel said she thought they were having a girl, and if the woman carrying his child insisted upon the fact that they were having a girl, well, then! they must be! And Archie was perfectly content with having a little girl to pamper and spoiling running about the house, thoroughly enjoying thinking about how she and her mother would drive him up a wall. It would be nice to have something like a child's laughter filling the wide and lonely hallways. Not that he wasn't perfectly content with his beautiful wife, but Archie was a family man, through and through, and was eager to start the next chapter of their lives.

"I wonder if she'll like me," he mused, suddenly, holding his hand near her protruding stomach. "Or he. Whichever."

Oh. That was far too cute for her to handle in her delicate state. Izzie's lips twisted and she nodded a few times, her eyes welling up with tears. "Of course they'll like you!"

How could they not like Archie? There were times when Izzie herself thought she didn't like her husband, but that was only when he was rattling off on some Ministry rules she didn't agree with. And even then, it was admirable how much he cared about his job and his community, so really, after breaking it down to its very core, Izzie didn't find Archie's ways annoying at all. He just went slightly overboard with them, that was all. And got panicked when they didn't go right, but who was she to talk about remaining calm in unusual situations?

Izzie wiped at her eyes and choked out a laugh, trying to sit forward to latch onto her husband. "The baby already loves you," she said, grabbing his wrist and manuevering his hand around to the other side of her stomach. Izzie pressed down his palm and grinned at the nearly furious kicking, "Look how excited he---or she gets at your voice!"

The first time the baby had kicked, Archie had dropped everything at his wife's loud, overjoyed screaming, but the second he'd arrived, it had stopped. And no amount of coaxing for the next four hours that he made Isobel lay on the sofa and patiently allow her frantic husband to try and get their unborn child to acknowledge his presence seemed to work on the stubborn baby. It was, Archie had said (loudly, as he was speaking to the both of them), very typical that Isobel Egg's child would find him overbearing, but he'd grow on her (or him!) just as he'd grown on Isobel.

He'd felt the baby move since then, and it did sometimes feel like it was him, and the sound of his voice, that seemed to bring on these little reminders that the two of them had a child on the way. But to have her (or him!) kicking away to glory just when Archie was starting to doubt whether or not he'd be any use as a parent had to be some sort of divine sign telling him everything was doing to be all right.

A bright, joyful smile lit his features as he tried not to let the prickling of happiness in his eyes dissolve into tears. Too at a loss for words then, however, Archie leaned forward and grasped her face with his free hand and pulled it towards him gentle, kissing her as fiercely as he could to communicate with her just how blessed he was to be doing this with her, and how much he loved her, and how wonderful she was, and how they were starting out on the right foot, in spite of all the setbacks and flubs and nuisances that always seemed to plague them.

Everything about this was right.