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Staring down at the two cheerful lines of pink, Rita beat back the inane urge to giggle over the fact that it was a salad that is going to make her fat. A store bought salad a few weeks ago had landed her with a nasty case of food poisoning and a prescription of antibiotics, with strict orders to take them twice a day until the box was empty, no matter if she started feeling better before then. Unfortunately, there had been no warning that the type of antibiotics she was taking would have an effect on her birth control pills and that they should have switched to condoms for a while instead.
So now she had a little bun in the oven. A little 8 week old baby bun bun.
A sudden rise of nausea had her lunging for the toilet, dropping the test onto the bathroom floor as she bent over the porcelain, heaving back up everything she had eaten that morning for breakfast. Oh God, she was pregnant.
Spitting out the last of the bile clinging to the back of her teeth, Rita rocked back onto her heels, before pushing herself up to wash out her mouth. Flushing the toilet, she padded over to the sink to clean up, mind a mile away. Rita wanted a family with Forest, and everything that came with it. They had talked about it, getting married down the line and having a few kids. But this soon? Were they ready to be parents?
She could always call Jill. The other woman had the day off, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jill would drop whatever she was doing just to drive her to the nearest clinic, hold her hand through the entire process, and buy her greasy food afterwards, never breathing a single word to Forest about it.
A baby simply wasn't practical right now. They lived in a one bedroom apartment, and sure they had been thinking about moving out to someplace bigger, but they had nothing concrete yet. And a baby would change everything about where they looked. There would be so many new things to consider; a second bedroom, close to a good school, having a yard or being nearby to a park.
And money wise, they were doing well now between her and Forest's incomes, but a baby would mean not only 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave, but maybe even Rita leaving her job altogether. Somebody would have to stay home to look after the baby, and neither of them had family in Raccoon City. Forest would have to cover their entire new family with just his pay, unless she went back to work and dropped the baby off at a daycare as soon as her maternity leave was up.
Scrubbing her mouth clean with toothpaste helped, the taste of mint bringing her thoughts back from the spiral her brain was caught in. A baby wasn't practical right now, they weren't ready yet to be parents. They hadn't planned this. But did she want to do this anyway? Did Forest want to do this with her? If they tried, could they make it work?
“Rita Bun? Oh , Bunny Bun?”
The crack of the front door to their apartment opening and the sing-song voice of Forest returning home had her finishing cleaning up, splashing water on her face to wash away any last traces of her earlier stress. Normally whoever was home for the day would make lunch for the other, having it ready to go quickly enough for them to share over the other's lunch break. Unfortunately for Forest's stomach, Rita hadn't had the chance to make something with everything that had happened this morning.
“In here.”
The answering call was quick to summon her boyfriend to her side in the now slightly cramped bathroom, the gentle crease of a frown settling between his eyebrows as he noticed the lingering scent of sick in the air. “What's wrong? You feeling okay? Did some salad make you sick again?” His voice was as warm as the hands that reached out for her, settling around her hips to draw her into a hug.
Would their baby have his eyes? A soft, warm brown that always made her feel safe and loved. His crooked grin that never failed to tease a smile from her own lips. Would they grow their hair out long like him, or crop it close like her. Would their first words be mama or dada, or something else that would make them laugh later at the memory.
“Rita?” Forest’s voice dropped in concern at her silence, studying her face in concern as he cradled her closer. “What’s wrong?”
The words clung to her lips, uncertain of their welcome. “We're gonna have a baby.” The birth control didn’t work, it was an accident, I don’t know what to do, I’m so young, we’re not ready, I want this baby, I want our little family, I love you-
“ What ?” His hands went lax on her hips as he stared at her, the shock on his face echoing how she had felt the first moment she had seen the results of the abandoned test still lying on the floor, purchased out of worry when her normally regular period had been weeks late.
“I'm pregnant. We're going to have a baby.”
It was then that it finally seemed to click for him. The soft little “ Oh, ” was painfully tender, almost as gentle as the hands that curved to cup her still flat belly. He was slow to sink to one knee, tearful adoration painted across his face as his forehead came to a rest against her stomach. “We’re going to be parents?” The sheer hope in his tone laid all her fears to rest, gentle as a kiss pressed against her skin.
“Yeah.” Rita’s voice was thick as she softly reached out to run her fingers through his long hair, petting his head as he quietly wept against her. “We’re gonna have a little baby.” There were things they had to do, people to inform and paperwork they would have to fill out for time off. Even talk about the possibility of going to a courthouse to get married. A baby was going to change everything. But they could make it work.