#i just feel like it might be destiny for rebecca to eventually somehow join the baking game | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

anthropologicalhands · 5 years

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ceg fic: a pattern cutting

title: a pattern cutting summary: new babies mean new routines, but also new beginnings notes: you knew this was going to happen post-finale. my feelings on rebecca/nathaniel having children are all over the place, but there are aspects of them choosing to become parents that I honestly really enjoy, and I think will be fun to explore in at least some future scenarios. blame the baby gator for the investment.

EDIT: Ao3 link here

Lately, Rebecca feels like she has discovered that her brain, far from being the organ that processes sensory information, is susceptible to earworms, and has helped her make sense of the world if not always in the most sensible of ways, in fact has more in common with a bowl of Jell-O. In particular, a hallucinating bowl of Jell-O that has been in a state of high alert ever since the squalling amalgamation of her and Nathaniel’s chromosomes was expelled from her birth canal to make her dramatic debut in the world.

She isn’t sure if that realization is a sign of enlightenment or merely a consequence of sleep-deprivation. Still, Rebecca thinks things are going all right. Two months in, Evie is only waking up a few times a night, and her and Nathaniel have settled into something almost like a routine—when she is roused for the third time that night by their daughter’s whimpers, she is already sitting up, when Nathaniel’s hand brushes her shoulder, with a weary but firm ‘I got it’. It’s not his turn, but Rebecca isn’t exactly going to object for a little more time in bed and collapses gratefully back into the pillows, willing herself to slumber.

However, even with her eyes shut she still lies awake, waiting for him to come back to bed. Evie (full name Evelyn and on hold until she is big enough for it) quiets eventually, but he still doesn’t return. Rebecca sits up and peers out into the dark of their apartment, eyes still scrunched half-closed for better focus. The lamp by the crib has been switched on in the far corner of the room, casting a soft yellow glow, and outlines where Nathaniel is stretched out on the couch. His posture is disarmingly casual—one leg drawn up, resting his head on the armrest, and the baby curled up on his chest. She’s grown exponentially since they first brought her home, but Rebecca can only marvel at how Evie still looks so tiny, cradled protectively under Nathaniel’s hands.

Idly, she thinks about how if someone had asked her when she first met him what kind of a father Nathaniel Plimpton III would be, it would not have been a kind answer.

(Granted, if they had asked her what kind of mother she would have been, it would not have been much of an improvement.)

Forgoing the appealing lure of sleep, Rebecca shuffles out of bed, past the stroller, picking her path through the toys and beyond the crib and adjacent changing table on her way over to rejoin the rest of their family unit.

Nathaniel’s focus on the baby doesn’t waver, but he shifts minutely as she approaches, automatically attuning himself to her presence.

“Isn’t the point of a night routine that we can get eight hours of sleep collectively, given that we can’t get it individually?” He murmurs, still not looking up even when she comes to stand in front of him.

“Hm, yes, but we were trying for a fifty-fifty ratio and you’re voluntarily shortchanging yourself. Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine,” says Nathaniel with a slight smile, flicking his eyes up to meet hers. He shifts a little further, adjusting his position. “I usually wait a few minutes before putting her back in the crib, otherwise she wakes up and the whole cycle just repeats itself. We might want to consider changing her blanket—I’m not convinced she likes it very much.”

Maybe it’s the hour, but Rebecca can’t help but giggle at his earnestness.

“Or, maybe, she just wants to spend time with her daddy a little longer,” she says softly.

Nathaniel ducks his head and were it not for the darkness of the room she would bet that she could see the flush across the back of his neck, running up the tips of his ears.

“I don’t think she even knows who I am yet,” he protests, embarrassed. She gets it—it still feels new, labelling themselves in this way. She still twitches when Paula teasingly calls her mama or mommy when addressing Evie. Somehow, those titles sound both too silly and too responsible at the same time, and still don’t quite fit. But the titles are also unmistakably theirs, now.

“Well, I don’t know what she thinks of me beyond being a mobile milk factory either, so we’re pretty much on the same page there.” Nathaniel raises her eyebrows at her in disbelief; she holds up her hands in mock defense. “Hey, it’s not a slight against Evie—why should she think that other beings exist outside of her? That’s asking a lot of someone whose brain is still developing.”

Nathaniel doesn’t laugh, but he does press his lips tightly together and avert his eyes in a way that makes her suspect it’s taking some effort to avoid disturbing the baby.

Their baby.

A year of planning and discussion, nine months of growing a person, eight hours of intense pain to push her out, not to mention the weeks of postpartum lochia—somehow, she still sometimes can’t entirely believe that this is their new reality.

She watches as Nathaniel absently strokes Evie’s back; his expression clouded. Sleep deprivation aside, it isn’t a familiar look.

“Nathaniel? Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Hm? It’s nothing too important.” He looks down at Evie, his tone soft and even. “I was just thinking about a few things. Remember how everyone said we would understand our parents once we had kids of our own?”

“See, I only remember a bunch of strangers being weirdly personal and in my face about my choices,” says Rebecca. “I mean, sure, they meant well, but also they were completely talking out of their as—esophagus,” she hastily self-corrects, even before Nathaniel shoots her a warning look to watch her language around the baby and her highly-sensitive ears. “I said esophagus.”

“Hm, nice save.”

“I still say we’re only delaying the inevitable. We might as well get her used to my extensive vocabulary so she doesn’t waste time being scandalized later. Plus, she’ll learn so much about creative language use! Imagine the day she’s on the schoolyard and knows exactly the right words to send all the mean kids crying to the teacher. Tell me you wouldn’t love to get that phone call.”

Nathaniel lets out a disbelieving snort but concedes the point with a careless flick of his free hand. He tips his chin down to check on Evie, still sleeping peacefully despite the whispered conversation. Rebecca can see him turning over whatever point he has to make in his head, and slips down to join them on the couch, angling herself so that she can curl in to his side, absently bringing her hand up to trace Evie’s clenched fist, cooing when she shifts and reaches out to wrap Rebecca’s finger in a weak grip. Nathaniel’s free hand comes to rest on Rebecca’s shoulder—when she looks up at him his eyes are soft.

For a few moments, they let themselves stay like that, the only sound a faint rustling from the trees lining the boulevard outside the apartment as the rest of the world sleeps. Then Nathaniel exhales, and draws his hand away from her shoulder to card his fingers through his hair.

“I was just thinking that I still don’t understand my father,” he says at last, his voice quiet. “I thought I would have a better idea, after we had her. That he didn’t know how to react to the idea of having a kid, and maybe he just freaked out and funneled all of those feelings into some impossible ideal of excellence. I thought that maybe…he just didn’t know the best way to show how he felt, or something. Still a bad father but, you know, in a way that actually made sense.”

“And he doesn’t?”

Nathaniel gives a short, tight shake of his head. “Not in the least. He would never have bothered with any of this.” He gestures out at their apartment, every surface covered in toys and books and babyproofed down to the square inch. “What he did was allocate a room, passed me off to someone else and waited until I old enough to be trained for the family legacy to be worth his time.”

There is no anger in his words, only a weariness that Rebecca recognizes as something separate from their late nights.

“Sounds like something you kinda already knew,” she observes.

“Maybe.” Nathaniel looks back down at Evie. “It just didn’t used to be so obvious. What’s the point of having a kid if you don’t care from the start?”

“I don’t know,” says Rebecca honestly, thinking of Silas and then firmly brushing the thought away—it has been a long time since she’s allowed him any real estate in her mind, and she is not about to start again.

“If he felt like that, he never should have had me.”

He doesn’t sound especially self-pitying, but Rebecca feels her skin prickle uncomfortably at the thought of a world where Nathaniel never came into her life. There have been many times where she’s wished that their path together had been smoother, that they had done things differently and hurt fewer people, but it’s been years since she could imagine a life without him, and she doesn’t want to start now.

She clears her throat.

“I mean, I’m going to have to disagree with that sentiment, just on sheer principle. You should too, since this little poop machine—don’t look so scandalized, I say it with love—relies on your specific genetic mixture coming in contact with mine to exist as she currently does. Not to mention that I’d miss you. Like, not personally, because you would have never existed so I wouldn’t know what I was missing, and maybe not cosmically because there is no such thing as destiny. But I would, somehow.” A pause. “I’m sorry, that metaphor went absolutely nowhere.”

He laughs softly.

“I think I get what you’re saying. Thank you,” he adds, somehow both wry and sincere and sending warm tingles through her, even despite the exhaustion and the late hour.

Rebecca bats her eyelashes in response, provoking another reluctant smile, and props her elbow against the back of the couch, resting her chin in her hand as she watches him. She likes the way Nathaniel holds Evie, she thinks idly. Always has, even those first few times when he was nearly bent double in the chair they’d pulled up by her hospital bed, cradling Evie in the crook of his arm, his hold awkward but careful.

“If it’s any consolation,” she says eventually, “Understanding doesn’t make things that much easier. I’m still confused about how I feel about my mom these days. She used to always tell me to put myself in her shoes, and now I am, like, literally wearing the same brand, and I still don’t understand her methods.”

“But you know where she’s coming from?”

“Eh, ish. I do think I recognize what she was trying to do a little better,” Rebecca admits. “Again, I agree with basically none of her methods. I just…might have a better idea about what emotional place she was coming from. I get the desire to protect someone with everything you have.”

Nathaniel nods his agreement, absently bringing up his fingers to brush Evie’s cheek, whisper-light. “At least there’s that.”

“I guess.”

“Do you think it will help when she comes out to visit next month?”

“Oh, no. I definitely wouldn’t say that,” Rebecca grumbles, rubbing hard at her eyes. “We’ve been doing okay with boundaries, but I honestly have no idea what to expect this time. She might evoke some grandmother clause or something as an excuse to say whatever the hell she wants. She used to do the exact same thing to my dolls.”

“What?”

“Yeah—she would say I was cossetting them too much and that they would die of exposure otherwise. Who knows what she’s going to say about our parenting. She’ll say that she has a ‘just a couple of points’ and then bring out the whole machete. Like, at least your dad knows he was a sucky father and keeps his mouth shut.”

He snorts, hitching Evie up a little higher up on his chest. “My dad? Keep his mouth shut? What alternate universe have you been visiting?”

“Well, okay, you’re right, he’s still kind of bitchy—yes, language, sorry, don’t give me that look—but your mom is always lovely, so I can just tune him out.”

“I see,” says Nathaniel, smirking a little, clearly pleased at the image. “That’s good to know.”

“And I know I don’t have to take it from her, but I need to like, talk to Dr Akopian for a refresher in case she gets nasty and I need to reinforce boundaries. And it makes me so mad that I need to do that, because, as parents, you and I are definitely raising the bar compared to their methods.”

“I mean, they just left the bar on the ground.”

“Exactly. And you know, Paula told me the other day that she thought we were doing just fine—and okay, you know what, maybe that’s not quite the ringing endorsement I was gunning for,” Rebecca backtracks when Nathaniel’s eyebrows shoot high up on his forehead in disbelief. “You are absolutely correct. I should have led with Darryl—Darryl also said we’re doing really well, in the same conversation. And April agreed! I think that totally counts in our favor.”

Nathaniel looks down at Evie, as if to check that she has not stirred, but not so quickly that Rebecca doesn’t catch his pleased smile.

“I think so,” he says softly. His gaze comes up to meet hers, and she’s gratified to see the cloud in his expression has cleared. “Anything else on your mind?”

“Nothing urgent. But I think we do need a bigger space—I think we were overly optimistic about how much square footage a baby needs. Can you imagine how cramped this place is going to feel once she starts crawling?”

“No, but I still can’t picture her sleeping through the night right now, either,” says Nathaniel. “Besides, if we had a spare room, we’d be obligated to offer it to your mother.”

“Good point. On the other hand, having a spare room means we would have a designated place for sex again.”

Nathaniel blanches.

“Rebecca!” he hisses under his breath, retracting his hand from her hair and cupping it protectively around Evie’s exposed ear.

“What?” Rebecca asks innocently, biting her lip to keep from grinning. “She doesn’t understand words yet. And it wasn’t an invitation, dude. More like a notion, if you will. A notion we should consider, because practically speaking, at some point we are going to want to…” she trails off, fumbling for an appropriate euphemism.

“Play Boggle?” Nathaniel suggests helpfully.

Rebecca rolls her eyes at him, fond. “I see what you did there. But yeah, we’re going to want to play Boggle regularly again, and it’ll be nice to have a separate room to set things up; I don’t want to have to send her away each time we plan a game night. And while the shower technically counts, given that we are not as young as we used to be, I don’t think it’s worth the risk.

“Oh, come on, we’re not that old,” Nathaniel objects, leaning forward, then freezes at a tiny squeak from the bundle on his chest—Rebecca would laugh at how his eyes pop in alarm if she wasn’t certain that hers were doing the exact same thing. They both hold their breath, watching, but she only whimpers a little and rubs at her face before falling silent again.

“Close one,” whispers Rebecca.

“That was on you,” he mutters. “All I’m just saying is that it shouldn’t be considered entirely off the table—”

“Oh, don’t get me started on the table. Not with the way your back is going.”

Nathaniel brings his hand up to cover his mouth but isn’t quite able to contain his snort of laughter completely. Rebecca grins, unrepentant, and he rolls his eyes at her.

“Fine, let’s look into getting a new place after your mom’s visit,” he says, letting his hand return to his side. “But I maintain that Evie doesn’t need to know anything about that aspect of our marriage, okay?”

Rebecca rolls her eyes. “I mean, point taken, I learned way too much about my mom’s love life way too early, but still—at the end of the day, intercourse is just a part of most people’s lives, dude. I don’t want her to grow up thinking it’s shameful or gross.”

“I know.”

“And besides, if we freak her out too much and she does need a therapist, we can always help her find a good one.”

Nathaniel nods. “Right.”

“And she won’t be afraid to ask us, because she’ll know it’s not shameful to need help.”

“Of course,” agrees Nathaniel, his forehead starting to crease.

“Because she’ll know she can rely on us if she ever needs help,” Rebecca continues fiercely, warming on her theme. “Because we’ll tell her that we love her no matter what, and that we’ll always be there for her no matter what. She won’t ever feel like we won’t be. She won’t ever know what that’s like.”

She stops abruptly, not because she doesn’t have more to say but because her heart has tightened her throat. She can’t quite look at Nathaniel, squeezing her eyes tightly closed to contain the surge of protectiveness that threatens to burst out of her.

“Of course,” he says, so quietly she almost can’t hear him over the throbbing of blood in her ears. “She’ll always have us.”

She feels his hand come up to cup her face, then slide down to the nape of her neck. but his thumb brushing over the muscles in firm circles, soothing the tension there, the gentle physicality of the motion grounding her in their present.

“We’ll help her get whatever she needs,” he echoes, his voice thick, but firm in his conviction.

Rebecca nods rapidly, not trusting herself to speak. She brings her hands to her eyes and takes a slow breath, expelling a shaky laugh.

“Wow, I’m sorry, I’m more tired than I thought for all of that to come, just, like, rushing out. It must be the baby brain,” she says. “Heather warned me that it could happen. Remember?”

“I remember,” says Nathaniel. Then, even more gently, “I only have a noon meeting tomorrow. Want me to pick you up from therapy? We can go to Il Cabino after; have some dinner, show off Evie and make everyone else jealous.”

She gives a tiny nod. “That would be nice.”

“It’s a date, then,” says Nathaniel, and Rebecca giggles again. She looks at the man with whom she has created this space, where they have created something that is entirely their own, where they can be vulnerable and fall to pieces and rebuild into something stronger and remembers all of the steps that led them there. It’s always been give and take between them. That was how they started, that was how they would keep going. They could do this.

“And it sounds wonderful. Thank you.” She leans over and kisses him, still mindful not to disturb the baby. “Now scoot over. I wanna put my head on your other shoulder.”

“Wouldn’t it be better just to go back to bed if you’re tired?” he asks, even as he shuffles over so that Rebecca can press even more tightly into his side, humming in contentment as his free hand curls gently into her hair.

“I’ll go when you go. It’s technically still my turn,” she murmurs. “And I don’t wanna miss anything.”

#crazy ex girlfriend #rebecca x nathaniel #ellie writes fic #naming the baby was the worst part hands down

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