A Mighty Need

Following Audrey’s first ever Emmy win, the statuette she was given on stage was taken away since it was a fake used for the ceremony. She was given the real thing with her name engraved on it and then went through the interviews with the press backstage in the press tent for a while. Shortly thereafter, she snuck into the Green Room where Juliette flagged her down and hugged her. Juliette pulled her cell phone from where she’d had it hidden in the bust of her dress and took a selfie with Audrey and tweeted it. Both women chatted animatedly about their wins and watched some of the ceremony continuing on from the screens set up and were passed drinks by a waiter. Audrey had no idea this kind of thing was going on during awards shows; little mini parties, so to speak, where presenters and winners were just lounging around. During the next commercial break, both women were shown back to their seats where Audrey had joined Noel once more and let him hold the statuette as she took back her clutch to pull her cell phone and answering the explosion of texts she’d received.

Later on in the show the nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series were read off and What Girls Do won, beating out shows like Modern Family and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Audrey was up again to accept the award as Co-Creator and Executive Producer, but this time also with Eric who was also Co-Creator and Producer, as well as with the other producers. The cast and other writers joined the stage as well. Audrey had taken to the mic first but only to say that she’d already said her peace early and gestured for Eric and the other producers to say a little something instead. Again, backstage, the fake statuettes were replaced with the real ones and they all headed to the press tent to be photographed and interviewed.

Audrey’s writing Emmy, the show’s overall Emmy and Juliette’s supporting actress Emmy were the only awards the show received that night. Two others had been won the week before at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards which had been taped and aired the night before the Primetime Emmys. What Girls Do had won then for Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series as well as Outstanding Main Title Theme Music.

After the ceremony, now with two golden statuettes in her hands, Audrey and Noel filed out of the Nokia Theater, with him carrying her clutch for her. Eventually they had made it to a limo, which they decided to share with Juliette, Juliette’s brother and several of the cast, to the Los Angeles Convention Center where the Governor’s Ball was held.

Another block away.

Audrey was photographed arriving, fist pumping her awards with Juliette beside her, and another with Eric joining in. Audrey and Noel sat at one of the decadent tables and enjoyed a fancy dinner with some expensive wine from Napa Valley. There was even a signature bottle awaiting each winner of the night, so Audrey got to take one home. There were also photographers going around, getting pictures of the attendees and winners; the latter again posing with their awards. After a lovely evening of food, drinks, mingling with an array of celebrities and some dancing, Audrey and Noel chose not to continue on to any of the other post-award show parties around town and instead hightailed it back to the Ritz-Carlton for their own party for two.

Instead of finding a way to mail the bottle of wine home, Audrey opened the bottle and they both drank straight from it, not worrying about glasses. They danced around their hotel suite, getting plenty drunk making love into the night.

They slept in the next morning, which wasn’t strange for them, and once they were showered and dressed for the day, they went out for lunch and shopping along Rodeo Drive. That evening, Juliette was hosting a Post-Emmys Dinner Party at her house up in Laurel Canyon for the entire cast and crew who had attended the show the night before. It was a nice evening with good food and plenty of wine.

The next day, Audrey and Noel were headed home to London, and making their way through LAX with their only carry-on luggage being Audrey’s purse and her two Emmy statuettes in a cloth shopping bag. She had seen pictures online of Julianne Moore do it a few years ago and thought it would be funny to do the same thing. Initially she thought airport’s TSA agents and the American Airlines flight that Audrey and Noel would be boarding would have something to say about it, but they just smiled and congratulated Audrey. Upon arriving to their layover at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, she got plenty of stares of people wondering who she was and why she was carrying Emmy statuettes. Before their transfer flight back to London two and a half hours later, a few people must’ve looked her up online and approached her, asking for an autograph or photograph, which she happily obliged them with.

A nine hour flight later, Audrey and Noel arrived home to England, where it was just after eleven in the morning, having flown through the night, though they were still on LA time, so it felt like it was just after three in the morning. They hadn’t slept well on the plane so by the time they got home they crashed right in the living room on the couch and not bothering to wake up until late afternoon.

In the days that followed, life got a bit surreal for Audrey.

She was getting emails and phone calls from a few Hollywood producers, asking if she’d be interested in penning scripts for whatever television show or movie they were shopping around. She told each one to send her the premise for each show or movie and she would mull it over, but she was doubtful she would want to bother with such a task.

Noel was back to taping Never Mind The Buzzcocks the following week and the show’s producer asked if Audrey would like to come back later on in the series to tape another episode as a guest. She had a feeling her recent Emmy wins were giving her serious clout, so she said yes, but only under the condition she was on Noel’s team. It just wouldn’t have felt right to not be.

The pair also went out to a belated birthday dinner for her with his parents, Austin (who was also returned to London from his stay in Philly by then), Mike and Lauren, and also Julian and Julia. She had received lovely gifts but the funniest moment was when Julian even gave Noel a present which turned out to be a T-shirt he had made up for his younger friend that said My Fiancée Won Two Emmy Awards And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.

Audrey laughed but she was starting to feel awkward about the attention her wins were giving her. She feared that her writing success might throw a shadow over Noel and she worried there would be a repeat of her relationship with her last ex-boyfriend who couldn’t deal with her success and how she was making more money than him. When she broached the subject with Noel days later, he laughed it off quite heartily; assuring her he had no qualms. He was, in fact, very proud of her and claimed he would be honored to be her kept man.

Watching him smile at her and how he squeezed her hand, Audrey sighed a sigh of relief, knowing she definitely was a winner, because Noel was the ultimate award.



In early October, Audrey had finally decided upon the typography and cover design for her novel and was excited by how the finished product would look like. Her publishing company’s headquarters just so happened to be in the London Borough of Camden at Bedford Square, of all places, with publishing offices also in New York and Sydney. Since she had been living in the States when her first and second books got published, she had worked with the New York office and had been continuing to do so until recently because her editor worked from the New York office. But now she had the London office that she was able to go to in order to physically be present in the design process so she didn’t have to somehow rely on Skype or emails or flying to New York City. Since she was living full time in London and was going to base her career as a writer out of London, it only made sense to now make the switch. She liked her editor a lot, he was a great guy who had worked hard with her in the last few years, but she needed something closer to her new home. He was good about the change and transferring his duties over to another editor at the London office, and she had told him that if he ever decided to move to England and work in London instead, she wouldn’t think twice about having him take the reins again.

On the 12th of October, Audrey and Noel had gone out to dinner with Serge and his wife to a nice little restaurant in Fitzrovia called Archipelago that served some exotic, global cuisine. Audrey wasn’t feeling so daring to try the food as she felt like been feeling like she was coming down with a stomach bug over the last couple of days, but she was completely enamored with the interior. It was just as exotic as the food; breathtakingly beautiful, in her opinion and told Noel as much that she would love to redo their bedroom in a similar taste.

Her meal dish which was called the Peruvian Jumper and consisted of jerked alpaca, cornmeal slice, buttermilk jelly and patecones. It sounded nauseating but was surprisingly good. Serge was the most daring one, eating some sort of starter salad that contained pan fried crickets that had turned Audrey’s stomach even more sour than it already was. Halfway through her meal, Serge had one of the crickets left over and was playing with it on the table, and Audrey could feel the rumbling in her stomach rise like bile in her throat. With a hand to her chest, she had to jump up and dart to the ladies room.

“You made her sick,” Noel faux-complained, tossing a caramelized fig at his friend, but he missed and it bounced off a vase in the center of the table.

Serge smacked her lips. “She already looked like death warmed over before the food arrived. Maybe she’s gotta throw up because she’s preggers.”

“She can’t get pregnant,” Noel spoke. “She’s got an IUD. It prevents her getting pregnant and, like, stops her period.”

Amy set down her fork and stared at Noel. “Where do I sign up?”

“What’s an IUD?” Serge asked, unawares.

“Intrauterine device,” Noel replied. “It’s a contraceptive. It goes up the uterus and releases hormones or something.”

“Wait,” Serge held his hand up. “So, she doesn’t get her period at all? So, you don’t have one week a month where the home office is closed for business?”

Amy rolled her eyes at her husband while Noel just nodded.

“She might get a teeny bit of something, but yeah; she’s like a 24/7 Tesco,” Noel snickered.

“You two are absolutely incorrigible,” Amy admonished.

Audrey returned shortly after but declined to finish anymore of her meal. She couldn’t even be bothered with finishing her glass of wine or ordering a dessert. Just the thought of food at the moment wanted to make her vomit every last morsel left in her stomach.

When they got home later on, Audrey and Noel lounged in the living room, watching the episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks that Noel had filmed two weeks prior, after they had returned from Los Angeles. Her stomach still felt wonky, so she had gone into the kitchen for a bottle of water and some crackers to help, which they did, thankfully.

The afternoon, the sourness had returned, so Audrey took some Pepto-Bismol which temporarily sated her digestive system. The temporary relief was much welcomed because Audrey was going with Noel to his new taping of Never Mind The Buzzcocks and didn’t feel like getting sick around a bunch of people. Before the taping, while Noel sat in the makeup chair, she joked around with him and Phill came by, as well, to Noel’s dressing room. Mostly, he was just saying hello, because he hadn’t seen Audrey since the year prior at the taping of the Christmas special. He looked well, too, which Audrey commented on and he informed he had been trying to keep to a better diet as of late and had, in fact, shed a few pounds which he was quite proud of.

While the taping was going on, Audrey sat in the front section of the audience on Noel’s side. Occasionally he looked over at her, either while the cameras were rolling or when they were stopped for some technical issue or other. At one point, however, Noel looked over and found Audrey’s seat empty. He cunningly craned his neck and looked around for her, thinking maybe she was up standing somewhere, but she was nowhere to be found. A short time later, he noticed she had returned but looked a bit worse for wear and deduced her stomach ache was probably back, and he would be correct.

Audrey had darted out of the studio and had just barely made it into the bathroom before throwing up in the sink. She couldn’t even make it to the toilet. She had to lock the bathroom door to make sure no one else came in while she splashed water around the sink to force her vomit down the drain, which only made her want to throw up again; which she did, but this time in the toilet. After rinsing her mouth with water from the faucet, she popped an Altoid and returned back into the studio, where she found Noel eventually looking over at her with quiet concern. She simply smiled a small smile at him, to assure him that she was fine.

For now.

She made a mental note to schedule a doctor appointment in hopes he or she could prescribe her some medication for whatever bug she’d caught.

After the taping, Audrey wanted to go straight home. She felt drained and just wanted their bed. Noel readily obliged her and the pair took their hired car back to Highgate, where Audrey stalked up the stairs like a zombie. She passed Austin who was stepping out of the second floor bathroom and asked if she was okay. She just mumbled something inaudible before walking into her and Noel’s bedroom and flinging herself tiredly down onto the bed.

She was asleep in a matter of minutes, which Noel coming in to pull her shoes off and bring the covers up over her. He hadn’t been tired, so he went upstairs to his studio, which was considerably barer than it had been in the earlier part of the year. He still kept enough canvases and paint supplies around when the mood struck him later at night or earlier in the day before he would head out into the world. Turning on some music, he went to town until quite late. It was somewhere after two in the morning when he finally came back downstairs to head into bed. He brushed his teeth first, staring at his reflection in the mirror while his mouth foamed up with toothpaste. After he was done, and rinsing his mouth out with a cup of water, he heard the bed squeak as Audrey got up and walked into the bathroom. She jumped in surprise, not realizing he was there, and then continued on to lift up the toilet seat.

At first, Noel thought she was just going to take a piss, which the two of them had long since gotten comfortable doing around each other. Shitting, on the other hand; not so much. Instead, Audrey lifted the lid and knelt down in front of the bowl while holding her hair back and leaning forward. Noel watched as she hesitated for a moment. After a few moments, she leaned her face into the bowl and proceeded to vomit.

“You alright?” he asked.

Audrey held up a hand to signal him to hold on. In response, Noel knelt down beside her and took her hair from her and held it back for her. The last time he had done this was the day after his forty-first birthday, just hours before their big blow up, when she was terribly hungover.

“D’you want me to get you a glass of water or any digestives?”

“Water’s fine,” she muttered, spitting a bit of bile from her mouth.

Noel tucked her hair into the back of her shirt before standing back up to fill the glass at the sink up with some water from the tap. He handed it down to her, which she gingerly took.

“D’you think you got some sort of flu? Is your throat sore or anything?”

Audrey shook her head as she took a sip of water and swished it around her mouth. After spitting the remnants of vomit into the toilet bowl, she took a proper sip which she swallowed. “It’s only faintly sore from throwing up. It’s the acid in the bile. It burns a bit.” She passed him back the glass of water, which he set on the counter, and then she turned and sat down against the tub. “It doesn’t feel much like any stomach flu I’ve ever had in the past.”

“You should go into the doctor’s tomorrow. Call first thing and see if they can squeeze you in.”

“Yeah, I will.”

“Want me to go get you a bucket to put next to the bed so you don’t have to keep getting up to come in here?”

Audrey smirked up at him. “Should I start calling you Florence Nightingale?”

Noel snickered. “I dunno. Do you think I can pull off crinoline and pagoda sleeves?”

Laughing, Audrey nodded. “You could pull off a burlap sack and a parachute pants.” She held her hands up to him. “Help me up.” Noel obliged her. “You don’t need to get a bucket. The bathroom’s not far if I have to get in here real quick.”

“You sure.”

“I’m positive.”

Noel smiled at her and placed a kiss on her temple before they walked back into the bedroom. She sank down onto her side of the bed and swiveled to lift her legs up to lay back down. Noel walked around to his side and climbed in beside her. They laid down beside each other, face to face, while she reached out and took his hand in hers before closing her eyes.

“Goodnight.”

“’Night, love.”



Noel woke up early in the morning, just before the sun came up, to the sound of Audrey throwing up again in the bathroom. He didn’t bother to go in after her to check and see that she was okay because, by the time he was awake and registered what was going on, he could hear the toilet flushing, followed by the sound of the faucet.

Moments later, Audrey reentered the bedroom and found Noel peering at her as he pulled himself up, and propping his pillows behind him. He watched as she sauntered back over to the bed and sat down beside him, holding a hand to her stomach. She could sense he wanted to ask her once more if she was okay, but she could also sense he was holding back the question as not to come off as pestering. He just studied her with concern in his eyes.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Audrey gave him a knowing look. “I can hear you thinking it.”

Noel smirked. “I’m just worried. It’s what people do about someone they love.”

“I don’t think I have a stomach flu.”

“D’ya think that it’s food poisoning or something? It could be that shit you ate at Archipelago.” Then he shook his head. “Wait, no. You were feeling the same before then.”

“No, it’s not food poisoning,” she assured. “I had food poisoning in college before, and this is not it.”

Noel furrowed his brow, trying to think up other possibilities. “Maybe you got a tapeworm?”

Audrey made a face. “Ew. No.”

“Well, then, I’m all out of suggestions.”

“Except for probably the most obvious one,” she remarked with a raise of her eyebrow.

Noel wasn’t following. “Which would be?”

Audrey took one of his hands in her and gave a squeeze. She bit her lip and gave a shy shrug. “I think I might be pregnant.”

Noel deadpanned for a few solid moments. He was trying to figure out how it was possible and how to respond to such a possibility. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out so he shut his mouth back up.

“It’s not impossible,” Audrey said, as if reading his mind. “I’ve actually been up for the last half hour.” She turned and picked her phone up off the bedside table. “I was reading up on the hormonal IUD I’ve got and apparently there’s, like, a two percent chance of getting pregnant. Usually it happens to women after they first get it put in. Mine I’ve had just over four years and didn’t have a problem until now.”

“Alright,” Noel treaded carefully. “How then would you be pregnant with it? Do you think it stopped releasing that hormone or something?”

“Not really,” she replied, gesturing to him with her phone. “It says sometimes the IUD can become dislodged or something. Again, usually it’s within the first year of insertion. I mean, I can’t be one hundred percent positive that’s what happened or that I’m even pregnant, but it’s a good possibility and I think I want to take a pregnancy test.”

Noel nodded slowly. “Okay.”

Audrey frowned. “You look like you just walked in on your parents having sex.”

“No, it’s not…I’m just confused, is all. Maybe a bit surprised.”

“You’re surprised? How do you think I feel?”

Noel looked up at her and smirked. “We weren’t planning on starting a family yet.”

“Are you mad?” she wondered. “I mean, if I am.”

“No, of course not,” he assured, adamantly. He twisted his body a bit, bringing his legs up underneath him. “This is one of the conversations we had almost two years ago when we first got together, remember? We talked about what would happen if your IUD stopped working then and how we would react.”

“That was a different time, though. We had literally just made it official that we were a couple. We’re engaged to be married now,” Audrey commented with a smirk. “The worry of an unplanned pregnancy isn’t daunting now, even if we would’ve accepted it then. Now it’s more acceptable, because we’ve already agreed we want to be together for the rest of our lives. The wedding is quite literally just the icing on the cake.”

Noel bit his lips together. “And let’s say you are pregnant, then what?”

Audrey shrugged. “Then we end up becoming parents before we get married and have a bastard child,” she smirked in reply. “My parents weren’t married when I was born. They were engaged and I was a surprise, kind of like us right now. They ended up pushing their wedding date back a few months so my mom could fit into the wedding dress she had bought. They were originally supposed to get married in July of ’81, two months before I was born but waited until March of ’82 and by then my mom was already about two months pregnant again with my sister. She was a fertile Myrtle.”

“I didn’t know that. I thought your parents were married, like, the year before you were born or something.”

Audrey shook her head. “Nope.”

“My parents got married just after I was born, too,” he remarked. “They had just turned eighteen a few months before so they waited a bit.”

“So, we’d be continuing the tradition of the firstborns being bastards,” Audrey laughed.

“Seems like it. That is, if you are pregnant.” He took her hand in his. “I guess you’ll need to make a different kind of doctor appointment.”

“Yeah, but I want to take those in-home pregnancy tests first. I don’t want to go out and buy them though, because I don’t want someone to see me and then tell someone else and have it spread before we would be ready to tell anyone else.”

“So, we get someone who no one would give a second glance to, and then have them pick up some tests for us.”

Audrey snickered mischievously. “Like Austin.”

“You’d have your brother buy pregnancy tests for you?”

“He’ll really be earning his keep.”

Noel shook his head at her with a smile. “You’re terrible.”

“No, just being practical.” She stared off for a moment and then smirked. “You know what else my parents did?”

“Hmm?”

“I was six months old when my parents got married, and instead of carrying a bouquet down the aisle and worrying about someone else holding onto me during the service, my mom carried me down the aisle instead. She said I slept through the entire thing and drooled on her dress,” Audrey said, laughing at the image in her head.

“That’s well adorable.”

“We should do the same thing. If I’m pregnant, I’d have the baby by next summer, I suppose. I mean, I don’t know how far along I am, if I am. But that’s my guess, anyway. I’d have a few months to lose some if not all of the baby weight and fit back into whatever dress I’d pick. Or, I can just get a dress at the last minute and fit it to my post-baby body. But the baby would be a few months old. I could totally carry it down the aisle or whatever like my mom did with me.” Audrey shrugged. “It’s an idea.”

“I like that idea.” Noel removed his hand from hers and placed it on her stomach. “Hello?” He rubbed her belly a bit. “Anyone home in there?”

Audrey rolled her eyes. “If it really is just some sort of stomach bug, we’re gonna look back at this and laugh.”

Noel looked up at her and held her gaze. “I hope you are pregnant.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “A little half you, half me toddling around; that’s something I’ve been looking forward to for the last nearly two years.”

“With your eyes…”

“Your nose,” Noel winced, hoping like hell no child of his wound up with his nose.

“Your thicker hair.”

“Your lips.”

Audrey smiled. “Your brain.”

“My brain?”

“Yeah, I like how it works.”

“How about we just go with all our positives and none of our negatives?”

“That’s some high expectations for an embryo.”

“We gotta give it a head start so it can beat out the competition,” he teased.

“I’d be happy with a lovable loser.”

“An artistic type like its dear ol’ mum and dad?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright.”



A few hours later, Audrey had since fallen back to sleep and any further nausea seemed to be staying at bay, but Noel remained up. He couldn’t sleep anymore after the conversation he’d had with her. He’d gone downstairs and made a pot of coffee and then went to sit in the living room where her pretty much just stared off into space, thinking about how his immediate future could be changing. When he heard Austin come downstairs, he called him over.

“Hey, Austin, I got a favor to ask you.”

Austin came into the living room and sat opposite Noel on the couch. “What’s up?”

“I need you to pop into a pharmacy and pick up a few things for your sister.”

“What kind of things?”

“Things neither of us want to be found buying in case papers like the Daily Mail get wind of it.”

“Okay…like what?”

“Pregnancy tests,” Noel replied sheepishly.

“You knocked Audrey up?”

“It’s a possibility. I mean, we don’t really know. She has that IUD contraceptive that prevents her period and getting pregnant, but I guess sometimes it can dislodge or slip or whatever and when that happens, a pregnancy can happen. It would explain why she’s been throwing up these last few days.”

“Wow,” Austin commented.

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, if she is pregnant, I’ll move down to the basement bedroom or try and find my own place. The baby’s room should be on the same floor as you two.”

“That’s really thoughtful, but you don’t have to move out. We’d probably need you to give us a hand taking care of the baby, if there is one.” Noel leaned forward, clasping his hands together between his knees. “Actually, I’ve been thinking that if a baby is on the way that maybe we should move; buy a different house.”

“Where would you move?”

“Not far from here. Some place a bit bigger, a few more rooms for more children down the line and for friends and family to stay when they visit. I’ve just been thinking that maybe it would be better for a child to have a bigger back garden to play in, to run free a bit. A house that’s not so narrow like this. Maybe just two floors so there’s not a lot of walking up and down.”

“Yeah, four stories are a bit much.”

“The next neighborhood over, Hampstead, has a lot of nice, larger houses. They’re considerably more expensive, but it’d be worth it.”

“Does Audrey know you want to move?”

Noel shrugged. “We’d talked before about maybe buying a place together, down the line, after we got married. But now, with the prospect of a child on the horizon, I feel like that down the line should be sooner rather than later.” He unclasped his hands and looked over at his future brother-in-law. “So, will you go get those tests?”

Austin nodded. “Sure. How many?”

“A few. One of each brand to play it safe.” Noel ran his fingers through his hair and ruffled it a bit before standing up. “Let me get you some money.” He walked out of the living room to the front entrance hall where he had his ‘man purse’ sitting on the hall table. He opened it up and pulled out his wallet, taking out a fifty pound note and two twenties. “Here,” he said, as Austin joined him.

Austin took the cash in his hand and nodded. “Let me go upstairs and throw some clothes on and I’ll head out.”

“Thanks, Austin.”

“No problem.”



Noel was sitting in the master bedroom again, on the edge of the bed. The bathroom door was closed and he stared at it as if he could will it to open with his mind. His mind was racing and his heart was pounding and his stomach was churning with nerves. On the other side of that door, Audrey had seven different at-home pregnancy tests all lined up in a row on the edge of the bathtub. She had just utilized every single one of them but couldn’t bring herself to sit in the bathroom and wait for the results.

She abruptly opened the bathroom door and found Noel staring back at her. He stood up, waiting on any answer.

“I just finished taking them so I don’t know yet,” she informed. “I couldn’t wait in there.”

Audrey walked over to the bed and sat down, pulling Noel back down beside her. He took her hand in his and set them both on his lap as they stared toward the bathroom. Neither said anything for a few moments; just staring off while their thoughts got away from them.

Yeah, they said they were, but were they really prepared to be parents already?

The prospect of being a mother and a father, of having a child, another human being they created in their lives was so much for them to comprehend. They were still having so much fun being able to come and go as they pleased. That was why Audrey had remained on the IUD and was going to wait until after the wedding before deciding if she would have it removed or not right away or wait a bit longer so they could enjoy each other as husband and wife before jumping onto the parenthood bandwagon.

Fate might have other plans for them now.

It was a waiting game while they sat there together.

“I’m gonna get fat again,” Audrey blurted.

“What?”

Audrey looked at him. “I was slightly overweight for most of high school until just a few years ago. Basically half my life. I got so excited when I saw those pounds shedding away and how I was able to now buy smaller sizes in clothes. But that’s all gonna go away. I’m gonna be Shamu. I’ll be wearing jeans with elastic stomachs.” Audrey frowned. “My feet will swell. After a while I won’t be able to shave my own legs or tie my shoes.”

“I can do that for you.”

“You’d shave my legs for me?” she smirked.

“I’d shave anything for you.”

Audrey let out a hearty laugh. “Well, there’s a visual.”

“We don’t even know for certain that you’re pregnant. Let’s not jump to any conclusions.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “And you would look amazing pregnant.”

“Suck up.”

“Also, I hear women get incredibly horny during pregnancy,” Noel remarked. “I’m looking forward to that when it happens.”

“If I’m pregnant.”

“If not now, eventually,” he added. He nudged her side with his elbow.

“I think it’s been enough time, don’t you?” Audrey questioned, gesturing toward the bathroom. Her nerves and his built back up again.

“Yeah.” He removed his hand from hers and offered a smile as they both stood up. “Do you want me to come in there with you?”

“Of course. This affects you the same as me. Well, I mean, you won’t be the one that may or may not have a fetus growing in you, but you catch my drift.” She gave him her hand again and they walked together into the bathroom; their eyes immediately focusing on all seven pregnancy tests. They read them from left to right.

Noel’s heart leapt into his throat. “They’re all positive.”

Audrey pointed to one that was second from the end. “That one is too faint. Maybe I didn’t get enough urine on it.”

“Well, six out of seven is pretty damn convincing.”

Audrey let out a shaky laugh as she looked from the tests to Noel. “Oh my fucking God, I’m pregnant.”

Noel began to grin from ear to ear like the Cheshire cat. “I’m gonna be a dad.”

“I’m gonna be a mom,” Audrey joined.

“Holy shit.” Noel really looked like he was on the verge of tears. Years of wondering if he’d ever become a father were put to rest. Gingerly, he sank down to his knees and placed his hands on Audrey’s hips before nuzzling his nose against her stomach. In response, Audrey placed a hand in his hair while he brought his lips to her stomach and muttered, “Hello, baby. Your ears aren’t developed yet and you probably look like a pink cashew at the moment, but I want you to know I’m your dad. My name’s Noel. The warm lady you’re growing in is your mum. Her name’s Audrey.”

Audrey chuckled. “Are you giving it our life story already?”

“Just the prologue.”

“I need to call the doctor and see how soon he can fit me in.”

“Yeah.” Noel looked up at her, resting his chin on her stomach before looking back down to kiss it. “I got a great story to tell you little one, but it’s far from over yet. It’s a work in progress.”



Two days later, Audrey was at her new gynecologist who she had only just seen for the first time for her initial visit back in June. She was sitting in nothing but her underwear and a dressing gown on the table with her legs dangling over the edge while Noel stood beside her in the room. The doctor had already taken his own test and was now returned into the room with Audrey’s charts and a smile on his face.

“Congratulations,” he spoke. “You are very much pregnant, with the culprit being a dislodged IUD.”

“Well, I like to think I had some help in the matter,” Noel joked. “Maybe the IUD is fine and I just have super soldiers for sperm.”

The doctor just continued to smile. “Nevertheless, that IUD needs to come out. If it stays in, you’re running the risk of a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy, for starters.”

“By all means, take it out,” Audrey agreed.

“There is also a risk in causing a miscarriage by taking the IUD out,” he informed, which created a look of fear on Audrey’s face. “But the risk of having a miscarriage with it left in is much, much higher.”

“Okay.”

“Do you still want me to remove it?”

Audrey looked up at Noel, and then nodded at the doctor. “Yes.”

“Alright, I’ll do that in a tick, but let’s take a look at your little one first, shall we?”

The doctor lifted the dressing gown to reveal Audrey’s otherwise flat stomach, which wouldn’t be flat for much longer, and squeezed some sort of cold jelly on it. She shuddered at the sensation while he turned on the sonogram machine and brought the wand down, moving the jelly around her stomach and searching for an image on the screen. Noel leaned forward, trying to get a better look as well while the doctor smirked and pointed with his free hand.

“There’s your baby.”

“I don’t see anything,” Audrey remarked, trying to look harder, despite the doctor pointing.

“The tadpole thing?” Noel questioned.

The doctor nodded. “Yes. Babies don’t really retain a human appearance just yet. You have a few more weeks before he or she takes shape. You’re only at about four weeks pregnant.” He set the wand down and wiped the jelly off Audrey’s stomach, and then pulling the gown back down. “Since you haven’t had a period, but judging by the size of the baby, I’d say conception date might’ve been around the 13th or 14th of last month.”

Audrey smirked. “The 12th. My birthday.”

“What a birthday present,” the doctor quipped.

“Only the best for my girl,” Noel joked further.

“I think you’re looking at a due date of around June 20th of next year. Give or take. We’ll known more by your next visit.”

“When are you going to take out the IUD? Do I have to schedule another appointment?”

“I can do it right now. I’d rather not have you wait and risk a miscarriage.”

“Neither do I.”

“Should I stay or go?” Noel wondered.

“That’s up to Audrey,” the doctor replied.

She looked at Noel and took his hand. “You can stay.”

The doctor nodded to the extra chair against the wall where Audrey’s clothes and purse were set. “You can pull the chair over if you want to sit and still be closer to her.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Noel did just that, draping her clothes and purse over his lap and then taking her hand again in support.

The doctor took a moment to leave the room to give Audrey the privacy to remove her underwear and then hop back up on the crinkly paper of the table. Moments later, the doctor returned and had Audrey lift her legs, spread-eagle, into stirrup footrests, which Noel found more uncomfortable than she did. Suddenly he wasn’t too keen on watching another guy placing his face anywhere near Audrey’s nether region and was cranking her insides wide open with what looked like and what Noel could imagine felt like a wildly uncomfortable medieval torture device.

Audrey closed her eyes and winced at the cold piece of hardware forcibly jammed into her vagina and squeezed Noel’s hand tighter. It didn’t actually hurt; it just gave her a dull ache similar to cramps and was just unpleasant.

“Okay, take a deep breath and then I want you to do a big cough for me.”

Audrey inhaled for a few seconds and then coughed dutifully on command. The doctor just sort of yanked it out in one smooth motion. Honestly, the worst part for her was beforehand when he’d been determining the shape and position of her uterus via a manual internal method that Audrey could only describe as “robust.” Plus, there was the mental discomfort of being all spread apart with a speculum.

But then it was all over. She showed no signs of bleeding; signaling a miscarriage and all looked good. Afterward, the doctor left again so Audrey could get redressed with Noel assisting her by handing her each item. When she was clothed once again, he kissed her sweetly.

“Your body’s about to go through a war for us.”

“Tell me about it,” she smirked and kissed him back.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Being the mother of my child.” Then he corrected, “Our child.”

Audrey smirked. “Yeah, now you’re really stuck with me.”

Noel chuckled and they exited the exam room, where Audrey set up another appointment for the following month. They called for a cab and took that home while they remained silent during the drive. Mostly because they didn’t feel like discussing the doctor appointment with the cabbie listening in. They agreed, when they got home, they were going to keep the pregnancy to themselves until around Christmas. By that time, she would be safely into her second trimester and no worry of jinxing herself too soon. The only other living souls that would know would be the doctor, obviously, and Austin, because he had bought the at home tests and in their excitement, blurted it out to him afterward. Austin was sworn to secrecy, though, until they were ready to let anyone else know.

They were certainly in for a crazy adventure.