Questionable Choices

by IronWoman359

Summary:

Jemima knew what she should want. And it was easy to look at the future and see the path her mother saw: uni just in case, then marriage, then kids. She’d have a husband with a good job and a house with a garden and make biscuits for the school bake sale and take a holiday by the sea once a year.

She could see herself slotting into that life so easily that there were days she could even convince herself that it was what she wanted.

Notes:

I am obsessed with this longform, and I couldn't stop thinking about how Jemima, David, and (Jim) Steven ended up where they did, and before I knew it this fic was born. It's basically a novelization of my headcanons surrounding each of the characters, but with a particular focus on Jemima and the consequences of compulsory heterosexuality/amatanormativity.

Chapter 1: Listen to Your Mother

“Mum, I’m home!” Jemima called, her voice echoing down the hall. 

She dropped her keys into the bowl they kept by the door and toed off her shoes, making sure to position them next to the others that lined the wall like a row of tin soldiers.  

“I’m in here, darling!” her mother called back.

Jemima followed the sound of her voice until she reached the kitchen where her mother already had a plate of biscuits waiting for her at their kitchen table. The kettle whistled loudly, and by the time Jemima took her seat her mother had set a steaming mug of tea down at her place. 

“How was your day, then?” her mother asked as Jemima stirred sugar into her mug. 

“Fine,” Jemima answered with a sigh. “Just fine. Though I can’t wait to have these exams over and done with.” 

“Ah, that’s understandable,” her mother said. “And how’s that boy of yours, young Mr. Steven?” 

Jemima fought the urge to roll her eyes. 

“His name is Jim, mum. Why do you call him by his last name all the time? It’s so impersonal.”

“Jim then, how is he?”

“He’s fine too,” Jemima said, stirring her tea absently. “We’re always just fine. ” 

“Don’t say that like it’s such a bad thing, Jemima,” her mother scolded. “You’re very fortunate, you know, to be your age and already have such a stable future ahead of you. As long as you play your cards right, of course.”

“I know, I know,” Jemima sighed again, looking away from her mother’s disapproving expression. “As you’ve said many times before.” 

“I’ll say it as often as I need to,” her mother snapped. “You can be so ungrateful at times, Jemima dear, and it’s not becoming of a young lady.” 

Jemima felt her temper flare in her chest, and before she could stop herself, she was snapping back. 

“Oh right, I forgot. I should be grateful that a boy has deemed me worthy of his notice, because I’m such an ugly, uninteresting hag who doesn’t have anything else going for me . Thank god Jim is so benevolent as to give me the time of day, I had better plan my entire future around him so that I don’t become a miserable old spinster with no reason for living!” 

“Well!” her mother exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. “If you would sort out your life and start taking your future seriously, then maybe I wouldn’t have to nag you so much!”

“Jesus mum, I’m only seventeen! It’s not like the world will end if I don’t know what I want to do yet!” 

“You can say that now, but what’s going to happen when you’re twenty-five and still chasing your foolish dreams? You know your father won’t tolerate any freeloading, so you’ve got a limited amount of time to sort your life out!” 

Jemima buried her face in her hands with a groan of frustration, rubbing her eyes so hard that colored sparks danced across her vision. 

“Mum, I–”

“Listen dear, I know you’re young, and when you’re young it’s normal to have your head be full of fantasies–” 

“My head is not full of fantasies, mum–”

“BUT, I’m just trying to prepare you for the future. It’s all good and well to dream, but you’ve got to make sure you’re taken care of at the end of the day.” 

“I know , alright?” Jemima said, getting to her feet.

“Where do you think you’re going?” her mother demanded, and this time Jemima did roll her eyes. 

“Up to my room. I’ve still got a lot of revising to do so I can prepare for my oh-so-precious future.” 

She pushed her chair away from the table without waiting for a reply and left the room in a huff, taking the stairs up to her room two at a time. As soon as the door was shut behind her, she flopped down on her bed, burying her face in her pillow. 

Jemima couldn’t help but feel cliche, a teenager moping in her room about how her mum didn’t understand her, but wasn’t there a reason that it was such a cliche? Her mother meant well, but she was so old fashioned sometimes and it drove Jemima crazy. On and on about the future, and it didn’t even occur to her that her daughter might not know what she wanted out of life. 

She lifted her head and glanced at the sketchbook sitting on her desk. It had been a gift from her old art teacher and it was starting to get full, but she didn’t want to ask her mum for a new one. It’s not like her silly doodles were good enough for the nice paper anyway, she should really just go back to using the back of old school notebooks. 

If she could just draw every day for the rest of her life, she’d be happy, but she wasn’t an idiot. Somehow her mum thought that she didn’t know she was nowhere near good enough to do art for a living, but she knew all too well. She’d seen what some of her classmates were capable of, and knew that she’d never be on that level. Being an illustrator wasn’t even a dream, it was just a silly passing fancy. 

What she didn’t know was what else she was supposed to do. Her grades were decent enough, but none of her other subjects were particularly interesting to her. She’d applied to Durham’s english program only because Jim was applying there for business, and she didn’t have the faintest idea what sort of job she’d be able to get if she did end up on her own. 

Jemima knew what she should want. It was a hard thing to forget, when her mother reminded her of it at least once a week. And it was easy to look at the future and see the path her mother saw: uni just in case, then marriage, then kids. She’d have a husband with a good job and a house with a garden and make biscuits for the school bake sale and take a holiday by the sea once a year. 

She could see herself slotting into that life so easily that there were days that she could even convince herself it was what she wanted. After all, what else could she possibly hope for? 

Her phone dinged, interrupting her thoughts, and she flipped it open to find a text from Jim.

Dinner this Friday? 

Not for the first time, she considered not replying. Jim was sweet enough, and when he’d first asked her out she had been smitten by the attention, but that felt like ages ago now. She had never had a boyfriend before this, so she wasn’t sure what it was supposed to feel like, but surely it wasn’t meant to be so performative? Surely she was meant to feel something when she tentatively doodled the words “Jemima Steven” in the corner of her notebook? She felt more like an actor going through the motions of a play than like a girl in love. Surely that had to mean something?

Still, every time she thought about breaking up with him, she felt guilty. After all, he hadn’t done anything wrong . He was kind, clever, and dependable, and he was handsome to boot. Her mum was overbearing about the relationship, yes, but that was hardly Jim’s fault. Breaking up for no particular reason felt cruel, and more than that, it felt foolish. Her mother’s words echoed in her mind: 

“You’ve got to make sure you’re taken care of at the end of the day.” 

Sighing, she typed out a reply. 

Sure <3 

Jemima didn’t know what she wanted, but Jim knew what he wanted. He was going to go to uni, study business, and get a job that would support him and his future family. So maybe Jemima didn’t need to want anything for herself, she could just want him.  

She could do that…right?

Notes:

Thanks so much for reading! If you're one of my regular readers, then no, I don't know where this came from either, I've just learned to accept that I do not control the hyperfixations, they control me.
If you've found me for the first time from this fic, then hello! Lovely to meet you, and I'll probably have more SFTH fic coming shortly. If you're on tumblr, you can follow my main, @ironwoman359, or my newly minted SFTH sideblog @milk-is-stable. Hope to see you there, and stay tuned for more of this fic! I've got at least three more chapters planned, possibly more depending on how the outline shakes out in the end.

Chapter 2: Businessmen and Briefcases

Summary:

Jemima attends a Christmas party as Jim's plus one and finds everything about it incredibly dull...everything except a conversation she strikes up with a very interesting young man.

Jemima didn’t care much for large gatherings on the best of days. She preferred smaller, more intimate get-togethers with a few close friends. But when Jim had asked her to be his plus one to the Christmas party at his internship she had of course said yes, like the good, supportive girlfriend that she was. 

Now, standing at the edge of a circle of boring men having boring conversations about sales figures and future quarter projections, she was beginning to regret that decision. She’d been hovering in Jim’s shadow for most of the evening, smiling blankly as he introduced her to coworker after coworker. Jemima had little to contribute besides her presence, and so she sipped her wine and nodded as Jim explained to the group his plans for after graduation. 

“Then once I’ve finished this internship, if I don’t get a permanent position then I’m going to apply at the same company my dad worked at, which’ll be sure to open up more doors even if I decide that working there long term isn’t a good fit for me.” 

The men around them nodded approvingly, and Jemima fought to keep her smile plastered on her face. How Jim was able to stay so energetic in this environment, she had no idea. She’d mentally checked out what felt like hours ago.  

“That sounds great, mate,” said a young man with dark brown hair and thick glasses. He clapped Jim on the back affectionately, and Jim positively beamed. 

Jemima’s brow furrowed slightly as she watched the interaction. She was certain she’d been introduced to the dark haired man before, he was one of the only other people there who looked like he was their age. Was he the other intern who worked alongside Jim? That sounded right, but three glasses of wine deep, she couldn’t quite recall his name. Something starting with a D…Derek, maybe? Or Daniel?

“What about you then, Jeffrey?” asked one of the older employees (who Jemima was about forty percent certain was called something generic like John or James). “What are your big plans when this wraps up?”

“Ah, well…” the young man smiled and adjusted his glasses, but the expression didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I s’pose we’ll see what happens, won’t we?”  

“Oh come on mate, you’ve got to plan ahead! You don’t want to be stuck delivering milk or something for the rest of your life!” John/James said with a chuckle.

The group laughed, but the man, Jeffrey (where had she gotten ‘D’ from?), just frowned.

“What’s wrong with delivering milk?” he asked coldly. 

There was a smattering of laughter, but as Jeffrey kept on glaring at the group, it died away and an uncomfortable silence fell in its place. 

“Well, you know,” John/James said, a bit of hesitancy creeping into his voice as he fought to maintain his bluster. “Milkman, it’s not the most prestigious gig in the world. Besides, it’s a bit old fashioned, isn’t it?” 

Jeffrey clenched a fist at his side, and Jemima suddenly found herself speaking up. 

“Ah yes, because you’ve really broken the mould of tradition,” she said, arching one eyebrow. “Look at you, a typical businessman with a wife and a car and a briefcase. Don’t tell me, you also go to a series of conferences in a series of cities?” 

John/James’s face turned beetroot red, and the rest of the group snickered at his expression. 

“Now, see here—” he began, but Jim cut him off with a nervous laugh. 

“Alright, now that we’ve had our battle of wits, anyone want a refill?” 

He began steering John/James towards the bar, even as Jemima shook her head. The rest of the group followed, and before Jemima knew it, it was just her and Jeffrey standing alone at the edge of the party. Some of the tension went out of Jeffrey’s shoulders, and he shot her a small smile. 

“That was quite nice of you, Miss Jemima,” he said. 

“Oh, it was nothing–”Jemima began, but Jeffery interrupted.

“It wasn’t though. Standing up to these bigwig business types, it’s no small thing. They can be pretty overbearing, and I appreciate your effort.”

Jemima smiled, and gave a little shrug. 

“Really, don’t worry about it…Jeffery, was it? I’m sorry, I must have heard your name wrong earlier–”

“It’s David, actually. David Jeffery is my full name; a lot of the guys like using last names around here. They call me Jeffrey and they call Jim Steven .” 

“So impersonal,” Jemima murmured. So his name had begun with D after all. “You’re an intern like Jim then, are you also studying at Durham?”

“Aye, I am,” David replied. “I’ve got quite a few classes with Jim, and he’s mentioned you once or twice. What is it that you study?”

Jemima felt her smile freeze on her face at the familiar question. 

“English literature,” she said, and waited for the inevitable follow ups. 

What are you going to do with that? What’s your plan once you graduate? What do you want your life to look like?

She hated that typical uni small talk, especially since she could never quite figure out how to answer. She’d only majored in English because it was her best subject, not because she particularly loved it, and she’d only come to Durham because of Jim, not because she particularly wanted to. 

Three years later she still wasn’t sure if it had been the right choice. Her classes were fine, she’d made some fine friends, and she and Jim were fine as ever…but she could never shake that feeling that she was missing something, that even though she was doing everything she was supposed to, she was doing something wrong. 

“If you won the lottery tonight, what would you spend the rest of your life doing?” David asked. 

Jemima blinked. 

“ What? ” she asked, unsure if she’d heard him correctly. 

“Sorry if that’s a weird question,” he said, his smile turning a bit sheepish. “It’s just, I feel like everyone asks the same old questions of uni students. Why’d you pick your major, what job will you do, all that. I figure this is a better way to actually get to know someone. At the very least it’s more interesting. So…what would you do?”

Jemima just stared at him. She couldn’t recall being asked anything like that in her life before, and was entirely unsure of how to answer. If money didn’t matter, what would she do with her time? She thought for a moment, and when she came up with her answer she almost didn’t say it. It felt impossibly childish, not the sort of thing you brought up with business students who had their whole lives figured out. She could practically hear her mother’s scoff of disapproval in the back of her mind. 

Still, maybe because of the earnestness of the question, maybe because of the expression on David’s face, or maybe because of the third glass of wine, she found herself answering honestly. 

“I would buy a bunch of nice sketchbooks and spend all day drawing and watching old musicals,” she said. 

She felt her cheeks flush, and she waited for the inevitable laughter, the inevitable judgment.  But to her surprise, David just nodded, as though she’d suggested that she’d spend all her time going to fancy museums and reading great literature. 

“Ah, my mum loves musicals too. Which is your favorite?”

“Oh, I could never choose…” Jemima said, shaking her head. “But if you asked me which I’ve seen the most, it’s probably Annie . I rewatched that one so many times as a kid that I wore the VHS out.”

“For me, that was The Lion King; I couldn’t get enough of it. I used to beg my dad to lift me up over his head while I sang the circle of life.” David chuckled, his expression turning wistful. “Of course, it was more like screaming than singing, but my dad never minded. Even when I was getting too big to be carried, he’d still hoist me up on his shoulders.” 

“He sounds lovely,” Jemima said, smiling. “Is he in business too, then? Following in his footsteps?” 

“Well actually, no, but in a way, yes,” David said.

“Oh, well that clarifies things,” said Jemima before she could stop herself

She immediately winced, her mother’s voice scolding her for being rude ringing in the back of her mind, but David just laughed. 

“You’ve got a sharp tongue in your head, haven’t you? Aye, I suppose that didn’t make the most sense in the world. My dad’s not a businessman, at least not in the same way the folks in here are. But I am looking to follow in his footsteps, in a way.” 

“What do you mean?” Jemima asked, intrigued. 

“Well…he’s a milkman, see,” David said. “Actually, he’s an owning partner of our local dairy, but he’s not very attuned to the business side of the operation. He still takes a float out on its route every morning, just like clockwork.” 

Jemima had half a mind to turn back to the crowd of party-goers, just so she could find John or James or whatever his name was and give him another piece of her mind for insulting what she now realized was David’s father and his life’s work. But David was still talking, and she found herself engrossed in what he had to say.

“I’ll inherit his half of the business when he retires, and I’d like to know what I’m doing when the time comes,” he continued. “Maybe even buy the other half of the dairy some day. But that’s why I’m here now, so I can get the degree and experience I need to properly run things.” 

“That’s wonderful,” said Jemima, and she was startled to find that she meant it. She'd heard story after story all night long from boring businessmen about their boring lives, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to care about any of them, until now.

Perhaps that made her a bad person, or at the very least a bad listener. It certainly wasn’t very becoming of a young lady to have a dozen conversations and hardly retain a thing. But there was something about the way that David looked at her, as though she was her own person worth listening to, wholly unique and interesting because of who she was, not because of her relationship to Jim, that made her want to listen to him, that made her want to remember that he would inherit a local dairy and that his father had carried him on his shoulders and that he loved The Lion King. 

“What about you, then?” David asked. “What’s brought you here?”

For a moment, Jemima considered answering with the whole, blunt truth of it. That she had no idea what she was doing here and that she had no idea what she would do when she graduated. That her life had a wide, obvious path leading towards the future, but that future seemed unbearably dull. That every time she tried to look further beyond that clear path, she couldn’t see anything at all, and that terrified her.

“Well,” she began slowly. “I just–”

“Ah, there you are!” Jemima jumped as Jim’s arm snaked around her shoulders and pulled her into his side. “Whoa, easy love, it’s just me,” he said with a laugh. “I was looking for you, what were you and Jeffrey talking about?”

Jemima glanced up at him, then looked back at David. His brow furrowed so slightly that she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it or not before his face broke into an easy smile. 

“Oh, I was just asking Miss Jemima here why she came to study at Durham,” he said. 

His words were directed at Jim, but he looked right at Jemima as he spoke, and she nearly told him then and there everything that was swirling around in her mind. But Jim’s arm on her shoulder was a heavy reminder of his presence, and she didn’t want to unload all of this on him. He would be confused, he would ask questions and get defensive and it was more than she wanted to deal with when they were both tired and tipsy and not prepared to have a life altering conversation. 

“It’s simple, really,” she said, forcing her face to adopt a serene smile as she looked back up at Jim. “I’m here because of this one.”

Notes:

"At least three more chapters" I said. Yeah, it's definitely going to be more than that, oops. But hey, I won't complain if you don't!

Chapter 3: A Stable Home

Summary:

David helps Jemima and Jim move into their new flat, and Jemima tries to ignore the whisper of attraction she feels for him.

“Jemima darling, come and take a look before we set this down!” Jim called from the living room. 

“Just a minute!” Jemima answered. 

She set the stack of plates she’d just pulled from a box down on the counter, then hurried out of the kitchen. She was treated to the sight of Jim and David balancing a sofa between them, their muscles straining under the weight. Jim was wearing just a vest and David’s shirtsleeves were pushed up above his elbows exposing his forearms, and for a moment Jemima forgot what she was supposed to be looking at. 

“Is this the right spot, darling?” Jim asked, and she shook herself. She tilted her head, scanning the room and assessing the position of the other furniture. 

“Just to the left a bit…more…more…perfect!” Jemima said, clapping her hands together as the boys let the sofa drop to the floor. 

“Right then,” Jim said, brushing off his hands. “There’s one or two more boxes to bring upstairs, then we can send the truck on its way."

"Want me to come down and give you a hand then?" David asked, but Jim shook his head.

"No no, I can handle them just fine. I'll just be a moment." 

"Be careful, darling," Jemima called after him as he headed out the door.

"He'll manage," David said with a chuckle. "He's got a surprising amount of strength for a business type."

He pulled a handkerchief from the back pocket of his trousers and dabbed at the sweat that was beaded on his brow. Jemima watched him for a moment, then realized she was staring again and cleared her throat. 

"Can I get you anything to drink?" she asked, already turning towards the kitchen. "The two of you have been hauling things upstairs for hours, you must be exhausted."

"I wouldn't say no to a cup of tea," David answered.

"Let me see if I can find the kettle." 

Jemima bent down to rummage through the pile of boxes scattered around the kitchen. She’d already managed to get a few pantry staples and most of the dishes stacked on the counters, but the appliances had been packed more haphazardly and had yet to be unearthed. 

“Don’t worry about it if it’s trouble,” David began, but Jemima waved off his concern. 

“We’ve got to find it eventually anyway, may as well do it now.”

“At least let me help,” he insisted.

He knelt to the floor next to her before she could protest, and flashed one of those smiles of his that she had grown to love and hate in equal measure over the past few months. 

She had seen a fair bit more of David since the Christmas party, as Jim had decided it would be a good idea for a handful of his mates from some class of his called Strategy Formulation to get together every fortnight for drinks, so they could “build connections” with each other. He cajoled Jemima into coming along most of the time, and it was there that she found herself talking with David more and more. Sometimes they talked about normal uni things like classes and homework, other times they talked about anything from old TV shows to which Tesco meal deal they’d choose if it was the only thing they could eat for the rest of their lives. 

Jemima loved David’s smile because it was big and earnest and couldn’t help but draw her attention, and when it did, it made her want to smile too…in many ways, David’s smile was a microcosm of everything she liked about David.

And she hated it, because it made her realize that she wasn’t sure if Jim had ever smiled at her the way that David did. 

There was still nothing wrong with Jim. He was handsome and strong, polite and considerate, he bought her drinks and paid for dates and when they spent nights together he whispered in her ear that she was beautiful and she could let herself believe him. 

But his smile didn’t light her up inside the same way as David’s. 

That had to mean something, right? Something about their relationship? How were you supposed to know whether you were in love? How were you supposed to tell the difference between wanting to be with someone physically and be with them, to share your life with them? David was nice to talk to and nice to look at, but if he and Jim’s positions were reversed, would she feel just as stifled with him as she did with Jim? 

Maybe the problem was her, maybe she was just bad at being in a relationship and was better at low stakes flirting.  

Maybe her mother was right and she was just selfish. 

What else would you call someone who would consider breaking up with a partner who by every conceivable metric had been nothing but lovely? Jim had even helped her find a job, letting her know about a secretary opening at the company that had hired him after his internship. For the first time in her life, she knew what she was going to do– at least for a few months. How could she say no to his offer to move in together after that? 

Besides, living together would be romantic, she was sure of it. They’d wake up next to each other every morning and see each other at the end of every day. They’d try new recipes for dinner and bring each other tea when they were sick and stay up late on the weekends, making love or talking about life, and things would finally click into place the way they were supposed to. 

Jemima was looking forward to that. She wanted that. So the last thing she needed now was to be distracted by David and whatever traitorous thing was going on in her chest when he smiled at her. 

“Here we go!”

David’s voice yanked her back to the present and she looked up just as he pulled the elusive kettle up from a box. 

“About time!” she exclaimed, pushing herself to her feet and reaching out for it. 

She filled the kettle at the sink and busied herself preparing two cups of tea. A voice in her head screamed at her to fill the silence with something, anything, so she forced herself to turn back towards David. 

“It was awfully kind of you to help us get settled in here,” she said.

“Oh, don't mention it Miss Jemima, it's the least I could do,” said David. “After all, what’s the use in formulating a strategy and building connections if you don’t ever use them?” 

Jemima smiled despite herself. That was another thing she liked about David: he delighted in poking fun at all the business buzzwords and lingo just as much as she did. 

“Well, you’re apparently the only one who thought so,” she said, putting a hand on her hip. “Considering you’re the only one from Jim’s little business group that even showed up to help us move in.”

“Well, that’s because they’re all wankers,” David said, rolling his eyes, and Jemima snorted.  

“Don’t let Jim hear you say that,” she said. “He’ll get upset, and I still need you to help reach the curtain rods.” 

“And here I thought you kept me around for my sparkling personality,” chuckled David. 

“No,” Jemima said with a smirk. “Just your height. And your muscles, of course. Lots of heavy boxes to carry from room to room still.” 

“So you’re saying I’m basically superman?”

“You can’t deny that those glasses of yours make you look like Clark Kent.” 

“Ah, you’ve fallen for the disguise!” 

David whipped the glasses off in a quick motion and struck an exaggerated pose, and Jemima burst out laughing. 

“Ew, no!” she cried, reaching out and snatching his glasses from him. She held them up to her own face for a minute, and wrinkled her nose. “Jesus, you really can’t see, can you?”

“No,” David said, rolling his eyes. “If I could, I’d have been spared a lot of teasing in my youth. I tried contacts for a while, but they were too high maintenance.”  

“Well, I like the glasses,” Jemima said. “You don’t look like yourself without them.” 

She reached up and carefully slid the glasses back onto David’s face, then she froze, suddenly aware of how close together they were standing. David’s eyes were a deep, dark blue that threatened to swallow her whole if she would only let herself tip forward and fall into them…and what’s more, she found herself wanting to. 

The shriek of the kettle behind them saved her from her following that thought, and she quickly turned away to finish making their tea. 

“I hope you don’t mind it black,” she said as she held one cup out to David. “The sugar’s still boxed up somewhere, and we haven’t got anything in the fridge yet.” 

“You’re asking a milkman to take his tea black?” he asked, a playful smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, and Jemima answered before she could stop herself.

“If milk is what you wanted, then maybe you should have brought me some.”

“I’d bring you some every morning if the float would make it this far,” said David, and Jemima felt her cheeks go hot even as her mind raced. 

Stop it, stop it , talk about something normal, for Christ’s sake, you can’t do this now…  

“So…you really are moving back home then?” she asked, and David’s smile turned grim. 

“I am. Dad’s still not doing well after his stroke, and Mum can’t take care of him all by herself.” 

Jemima winced. She hadn’t meant to bring the mood that far down.

“What about work?” she asked. “Jim said that you were offered a permanent position after your internship; the one that he wanted, actually. You’re not going to take it?”

“I can’t commute here for work every day and take care of Dad. I’ve turned the offer down, and I’ll be starting full time at the dairy when I get back. Taking over Dad’s old route, as a matter of fact.” 

Jemima shook her head. 

“It’s too bad you can’t stay, we’ll miss you around here.”

David smiled again, and took a sip of his tea. 

“The feeling is mutual, Miss Jemima.” 

Jemima smiled shyly, feeling her cheeks go warm again. The flirting was fun, but somehow it was his sincerity that disarmed her the most. 

“I tell you what though, you’re a good son,” she said, looking up at him. “I couldn’t imagine moving back in with my parents right now.” 

“Really?” asked David, and she nodded. 

“It’s not that I don’t love them, I do, it’s just…I need some space to be out in the world on my own, you know? Find out what it means to make my own home.” 

“Our own home.” 

Jemima startled at Jim’s voice; she’d been so caught up in the conversation that she hadn’t heard him come back into the flat. 

“Yes, our home,” she conceded, looking up at him over her shoulder and raising an eyebrow. “But are you going to meaningfully weigh in on which drawer is for silverware and which is for tea towels?”  

“Does it make that much of a difference?” Jim asked, and David snorted. 

“My point exactly,” Jemima said, leaning back against the counter. 

“Well listen, if I know you then your ideas about it will be better than mine anyway,” said Jim, holding up his hands in surrender. 

“Should we get on with these boxes then?” David asked. “I’ve been told that my superior height is required to help hang things up.” 

Jim looked at Jemima and raised an eyebrow. 

“Is that so?”

“Don’t act like you’d be able to manage without a stepstool any better than me,” she said, laughing. 

“Hang on now–” Jim began, but David cut him off. 

“As entertaining as I’m sure this lover’s tiff would be, shall we get to work?” he asked. He set his tea on the counter, then bent down and picked up a box. “You’re the boss, Mis Jemima. Where shall we start?”  

For the next several hours, the three of them bickered playfully as they transformed the hollow shell of a cheap flat into a cozy space that Jemima could actually imagine herself living in. When they finally all collapsed on the sofa, the late afternoon sun streaming into the room through the newly hung curtains, she was so exhausted that she’d nearly forgotten the confusing swirl of emotions in her chest…but of course, the universe wasn’t kind enough to let that last. 

“Oh, I almost forgot!” David exclaimed, getting to his feet. He grabbed his backpack from where he’d left it in the corner of the room and pulled out two slightly crumpled gift bags. “A little housewarming gift for each of you. Congratulations!” 

“Oh my gosh mate, that’s so nice of you,” Jim said as he pulled a bottle of whisky out of his bag. “Let me grab us some glasses!”

He got up and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Jemima and David alone on the sofa. 

“Go on, open it,” David said, nudging Jemima’s knee with his own. 

Slowly, she reached into the bag and pulled out a pastel pink spiral bound notebook. She flipped it open and fanned through the beautifully blank pages, breathing in their fresh scent. 

“You may not have the time to draw all day,” David said quietly. “But I hope you like it anyway.”

“David, I…” Jemima shook her head, for once at a loss for words. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, Miss Jemima.”

“Alright, here we go!” Jim came back into the room and passed out glasses, then opened the whiskey and poured everyone a finger. "To a job well done!" he said, lifting his own drink.

David and Jemima lifted their drinks up as well and toasted Jim's, the bright clink of glass against glass echoing through the small room.

“Welcome home,” David added before they all took a sip. 

Jemima closed her eyes as the liquor slid down her throat, leaving a pleasant burn in its wake. 

Home, she thought. Where, supposedly, the heart was. 

So why was her heart still so uncertain?

Notes:

Thanks for being patient between updates! I'm going to keep working on this story, but I'm also going to start a few other SFTH fics as well now that this one's gotten off the ground a bit, so stay tuned for those! And thank you so much for your comments, they mean the world <3

Chapter 4: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Summary:

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage...

Date night was typically a casual affair. Maybe a trip to the cinema, or ice cream and a walk, a dinner at Zizzi's with dessert if they were really going all out. So Jemima knew immediately that something was amiss when Jim told her that he had made dinner reservations and to dress up nice. If that request hadn't tipped her off, his nervous behavior on the train ride would have. Jim was normally content to chat aimlessly to her about his day, his job, whatever new video game he was interested in but hesitant to spend money on, there was always something on his mind. Tonight though, he was quiet, hands fidgeting in his lap and occasionally drifting to his pocket as though to check that something was still there. 

Suffice it to say, when he got down on one knee at their table and pulled out a ring box, Jemima was not at all surprised. 

Time seemed to slow around her. Jim looked up at her expectantly, his suit neatly pressed and his smile sweet and a little shy. There were candles and flowers on the table, and the crowd of well dressed restaurant goers were gasping and pointing at them in excitement. It was all picture perfect, the ideal image of what a romantic moment should be. 

A moment that, according to all conventional wisdom, was something Jemima should have been looking forward to all her life. 

Sure, Jemima had never been the type of girl to plan her future wedding at ten years old or spend hours scrolling pinterest looking at dresses, but that didn’t mean she didn’t occasionally think about it. And ever since she and Jim had moved in together, she’d known it would be coming eventually. This was the next step of being in a relationship. First comes love, then comes marriage, right? And if dating faithfully since they were sixteen years old wasn’t love, then what was? 

Jemima would be lying if she said there wasn’t a part of her that still felt unsure. She’d hoped that proper adulthood would bring some much needed clarity to her mind, but it turned out that the day to day monotony of classes and schoolwork had just been replaced with the day to day monotony of employment and housework, with the added bonus of financial anxiety hanging over her head at all times. 

She found it nearly impossible to shake the feeling that she wasn’t a real adult, that she was just play-acting at something that everyone else had already figured out. Which was probably the source of her hesitation, and was something she just needed to get over. Besides, her life with Jim wasn’t a bad one. She had to assume that marriage would make it even better. 

“Jemima Roberts, will you marry me?” 

Jemima adopted what she hoped was a serene smile, and held out her left hand so that Jim could slip the ring onto her finger. 

“Of course I will.” 

Jim stood and pulled her into a kiss, and the restaurant burst into applause. 

---

If one more person asked Jemima how she felt now that she was a wife, she was going to start tearing her hair out. What was she supposed to say? 

Everything was supposed to be different now. 

Everything was exactly the same. 

The honeymoon had been as lovely as what you could expect, given their budget, but then as soon as they arrived back home things had gone right back to the way they were before. 

Jemima still got up nearly an hour before Jim did every morning, making breakfast for the two of them before taking her cup of tea into the bathroom to do her hair and makeup. She still went into the office every day and hated every mind numbing second of it, doodling aimlessly during especially boring meetings in the margins of her company planner. She still fixed the same small rotation of meals for dinner, still needled Jim about taking out the trash and not putting her nice knives in the dishwasher, and still went out on mediocre dates every other week or so. 

The only difference was her name; she was now Jemima Steven on every official document 

Everyone acted like this was supposed to be some kind of fairytale happily ever after, but it was just business as usual. Not necessarily bad, not always, just routinely and frustratingly mundane. 

She was almost glad when, a month or so after their first anniversary, the attention shifted from her marriage to motherhood. The question of whether she wanted children was far easier to answer than the question of how she was finding married life. 

She had always loved children, even when she herself was still a child. As a girl she’d loved playing house, as a teen she’d loved babysitting, and she’d even briefly considered teaching primary school, until she spent a summer volunteering at a children’s center and found that trying to manage large groups overwhelmed her. 

Wanting to be a parent one day was the only thing in her entire life that Jemima had ever been certain of. So when coworkers and extended family began to prod at her, asking if she and Jim were planning on trying soon, for once she found she didn’t mind the weight of the expectation. 

Jim, to her disappointment, wasn’t as receptive to the idea as she was. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to have kids eventually, it’s that every time she asked, all he said was “well, let’s give it some time.” 

Eventually, Jemima was able to pry his concerns out of him, and unsurprisingly, they were almost entirely logistical. 

“Would you want to stay home after the baby’s born, or would you want to go back to work and use a nanny or daycare? Either way it’ll be expensive. Not to mention the space we’d need to raise a little one properly, a flat this size is hardly appropriate. Are the schools where we live right now up to snuff, or should we look into relocating?” 

After some discussion, they agreed that they would wait to start properly trying until Jim got a promotion that would help them afford to move into a house; preferably somewhere with a good school and plenty of other families in the area to connect with. 

Work was still dull and life was still mundane, but Jemima found that having such a clear goal to work towards made the day to day monotony much more bearable. There were even times, late in the evenings when the flat was clean and the sunset cast a hazy glow over their little home, when she caught herself feeling content.

It was in those fleeting moments that she would pull out her pink sketchbook and lose herself in its pages, and for just a little while, everything else fell away and she could just exist as herself...even if she wasn’t quite sure who that was supposed to be.

---

Jemima had decided that she hated moving. House hunting had sounded fun in theory, but in practice it was tedious and tiring and none of the places that they looked at ever managed to feel quite right. Then when they finally did pick a place, there were a seemingly endless amount of hoops to jump through to get through the closing process. By the time they were ready to sign the paperwork, Jemima had just about torn all her hair out, she was so stressed. 

Even once they had the new house secured, their troubles weren’t over. Packing up the flat took way longer than she’d expected it to, and when they finally finished there were twice as many boxes filling the rental truck as when they’d moved in. How they had managed to acquire so much extra junk in just two years of living, Jemima had no idea. 

It was strange, walking through the flat and seeing it completely stripped bare. Without their furniture and clutter filling it up, it was hard to recall any of the time they’d spent here. Only scant traces remained: the dust bunnies that had been hiding beneath their furniture, the chip in the paint from where Jim had dinged the wall with a new sofa, the wine stain she hadn’t quite been able to scrub out of the carpet. Soon even those tiny remnants would be smoothed out and painted over, and it would be as if the two of them had never existed in the space at all. 

Walking through their new house, Jemima had to wonder what traces of the family that’d lived here before them had been similarly sanded down and stripped away. What impressions had their furniture left on the carpet, what scratches had they left on the walls? Had they walked through the halls and regretted leaving their home as an empty shell for someone else to fill, like a notebook with all the used pages torn out?

“Ready to get this done?” 

Jim’s voice shook her out of her musing, and she turned to him and nodded, one of her perfect smiles clicking into place. 

“Absolutely.” 

The plan had been for them both to take a week off from work to get settled in, but some project deadline had come up for Jim’s team at the last minute and he’d agreed to go back to the office early. This meant that Jemima now had to spend a whole week alone in an empty house with piles of boxes to unpack in every room. Which was fine, it wasn’t disappointing or isolating or overwhelming at all, it was fine. 

Jim was at least there to help her push the furniture into place, and they’d specifically avoided a kitchen with cabinets out of her reach so she didn’t need him to help her with any high places (not that he’d have much better luck than her anyway). Having the rooms full of chairs and tables and shelves did at least make the house feel less barren, though Jemima would be lying if she said it felt like home yet. 

On the third day of unpacking alone, the unfamiliar sound of their new doorbell ringing echoed through the house. Jemima looked up from where she’d been sitting at the kitchen table with a cooling cup of tea. She was meant to be sorting through Jim’s video game collection, but hadn’t managed to muster up the motivation to start just yet. 

Sighing, she got to her feet and headed towards the front door. The last thing she wanted to deal with right now was a door to door salesman or some religious nut, but maybe telling of a stranger for bothering her would give her a much needed boost of energy. 

She pulled the door open, and her mouth fell open in surprise. 

“David?”  

Notes:

Thank you all for your patience on this fic! Turns out it's very difficult to write about the mundanity of everyday life in an interesting way. Hopefully Chapter 5 won't take as long to come out!