Reason To Be (A Zouis Family AU)

Interlude Three, Chapter One

Liam stares at Emily with wide eyes from the doorway of the bathroom. He'd only gotten home some ten minutes earlier after a full day of work at the journalist firm he used to do his apprenticeship at before his girlfriend had called him into the small bathroom.

"You're - you're sure?" He asks quietly, heart hammering in his chest so hard he's sure it might burst through his ribs at any given moment.

Emily puts the stick by the sick and pulls a handful more of them out of the back pocket of her jeans, holding them out. All of them show the same symbol. Positive.

He looks up at her with watery eyes as his lips tug up into a smile. She already has tears on her cheeks, lips pressed together, dark hair in a mess atop of her head with a few wisps falling to frame her face.

"We're pregnant?" He whispers, and Emily lets out a wet laugh.

"Yeah, Li. We're pregnant," she confirms.

Liam lets out a small laugh of his own at that, feeling a mixture of pure happiness and surprise and a hell of a lot of fear washing over him as he steps forwards to hold a hand to either side of the woman's face, peppering it with kisses as she laughs.

He's going to be a Dad.
He's going to be a Dad.

Oh my God, he's going to be a Dad and he's only twenty-one, isn't that too young? What if he doesn't know how to hold it? Or feed it? Or what if it's ugly and he has to pretend it isn't?

"I'm gonna be a Dad?" He asks once more, pulling back as Emily laughs at him.

"Unless you want him or her to call you Mom?" She teases, before leaning up to seal their lips together.

And his fear dissipates for a while as he kisses the girl that he has loved since they were just kids back with equal force. They're going to be parents; they're going to have a little boy or girl and they're going to love it with everything in them.

And maybe Em has only just finished her degree, and he's barely settled into his full time job, but they can make this work. Their apartment is small but there's room for a baby. Babies don't take up too much space, do they? And there's a nursery just around the corner and - and -

"Your brain is whirring again," she says softly, pulling away to smile up at him, keeping her hands hooked together behind his neck. "Hey. We have at least like, eight months until they're here. There's plenty of time to overthink."

He swallows down the lump in his throat at that, nodding. Emily has always been able to read him like an open book.

They're having a baby.
He can't - can't wrap his head around the idea of a little piece of him crawling around their poxy flat. A mixture of the two of them.

He smiles at the thought. "I - do we go to the hospital? You have to have scans and stuff, don't you?" He questions, making the young woman laugh again.

"Li. Breathe. I freaked out when I took the first test and called my mother. She's going to book an appointment for soon, and we can just take it from there," she says reassuringly.

He nods, then feels his eyes widen. "Oh God. My dads. We have to tell them. Do we - do we wait?" He asks.

Emily hesitates, biting on her bottom lip as she looks up at him. "I mean...I don't think we should tell anyone else until we're sure - just, I know miscarriages are common in the first stages and I wouldn't want everyone knowing just to -"

Liam nods again. "Yeah. No, you're right. My parents would go overboard. I mean, they wouldn't talk about anything else until the baby gets here," he says, and Emily lets out another laugh before she looks up at him with shining eyes.