Proof

Alex is a doctor. Went to Med school and everything. He's had the same job at the pediatric care facility, ten minutes away from the house John shares with him, for the past four years. He graduated at the top of his class, too. His professors told John countless times at the graduation how bright Alex is and how lucky the world is to have him as a doctor and John believed them back then. He's kind of questioning it now, though. If Alex is so bright and smart and all that, how the hell has he not figured out the tiny little fact that John is pregnant?

It makes no sense to John at all. He himself found out three weeks ago when his doctor called him back with his test results. It wasn't shocking, because John had analyzed his symptoms and done his research and basically came up with that conclusion himself. So how is it possible that Alex, who sees him every day and analyzes his every move and dissects it, can't figure out his boyfriend/husband/life partner whatever the hell you want to call it, is completely in the dark with this?

Whatever the reason, it's baffling John. And John isn't sure how exactly to go about telling Alex the news. He should have done it when he found out, but he kind of wanted to see if Alex would catch on. But obviously he didn't and now it's kind of too late for John to tell him and not make Alex pissed.

So that's why he finds himself at Party City, looking at the large selection of balloons on the wall. He isn't a very creative guy as far as surprising people goes. To be honest, he normally can't keep a surprise to himself for longer than an hour. So trying to figure out how to tell Alex the news without having Alex get pissed off at him is going to be a challenge. He needs to be delicate about this.

So maybe balloons aren't the best idea. He does think there's no better way to say "I'm having your baby!" than a bouquet of colorful balloons, but Alex may not agree. So. Moving on. He buys the coloring books for his pre-k class that he came in for and then leaves, ignoring the "create your own banner" kits that are calling his name. He needs to do this in a classy manner. John's classy. Just not when he's nervous like this.

Alex got called in by a parent whose one-month old developed a fever overnight, so John thinks he has about another half hour to figure out what to do. When he gets home, he digs the sonogram picture out of his jacket pocket and lays it on the kitchen table. He got two copies. He sent the other one to his mom. Or, he's going to. It's sitting in an envelope in his desk waiting for John to tell his boyfriend he's pregnant. John may be an asshole for not telling him yet but at least he's not going around telling everyone but him. That would be rude. And inconsiderate.

John stares at the tiny picture on the kitchen table for a few moments. He wouldn't be able to point the baby out to you if his life depended on it. The doctor told him it's small- he's only 14 weeks along and the baby is about three inches long, so he doesn't feel too bad about the fact he can't tell his baby apart from some random little squiggle. Plus, it was three weeks ago. John can barely remember where he puts his keys half the time.

Alex will be able to find it instantly. He's kind of trained for it. Every time one of their friends show them a sonogram of their baby, he finds it without being told while John just sort of nods and pretends he sees it until Alex points it out for him. Just last month Alex was going on about how excited he'd be to see his own baby's sonogram one day. They've been together for seven years so it's not like it came out of the blue or anything.

But really. John should have known the first time they stop using protection is the time he's going to get knocked up.

In an attempt to make the sonogram look cute, John takes a red pen and studies the paper for a long time before finally deciding that yes, that little blob squiggle thing is definitely the baby. He draws a sloppy heart around it just as the front door opens and Alex is announcing that he's home. John puts the newly decorated picture in front of Alex's seat at the table and he waits. His stomach feels like butterflies are having a wrestling match in there but then he realizes no, there's actually a baby in there probably doing some sort of acrobatics.

"Hey," Alex says when he sees John at the table. He's in the process of taking his tie off and his eyebrows are scrunched up in the way that John knows means he had a bad day. "Were you waiting for me?"

"Sort of?" John asks, instantly regretting sounding so nervous. "I have something to tell you."

Alex sighs, finally getting the tie unknotted and crumpling it up into a ball in his hands. "Too bad your doctor already spilled the beans."

"Oh."

The words sound weird coming from Alex. They are definitely not the ones John was expecting him to say. How did that even happen? Whatever happened to that doctor-patient confidentiality thing? Does it not count when your boyfriend is a doctor? What the hell?

"Oh? That's all?"

Alex doesn't seem mad, exactly. Just...Frustrated.

"How did he tell you? Is that even legal?"

"It was an accident," Alex explains, sitting down in his usual seat at the table. He doesn't look at the picture. Maybe he doesn't see it. "He called asking me if I'd be at the next appointment because he assumed you'd already told me, considering you found out almost a month ago."

"I didn't give him your number-"

"You picked the one obstetrician in this city that I'm friends with and know from graduate school."

"Fuck."

"Basically."

John taps his fingers on the table, trying to figure out exactly how he's supposed to handle this now. He didn't want Alex finding out on his own but here he is. "So...how did you respond?" He asks, avoiding Alex's gaze, "Did you-"

"I told him I had no idea what he was talking about and he apologized about a million times. Don't be supposed if he calls you Monday to apologize to you, too."

"I deserve a free appointment," John mumbles, trying to slide the sonogram away from Alex without him noticing. He hasn't given any indication that he even knows it's there yet so maybe-

His hands slam down on the picture before John can even get it halfway across the table. "Is this the sonogram?" He asks, pushing John's hand away and taking it into his own.

"Well yeah," John tells him, sinking down in his seat, "I had it waiting for you because I was going to tell you today. But you beat me to that."

Alex is silent, eyes focused on the sonogram and John has his fingers crossed, praying he put that stupid heart in the right place. He doesn't want Alex to think he's dumb and he doesn't want the kid stumbling upon it in the future and asking why his or her dad couldn't even put the heart in the right spot.

"Well...I'm not really sure why you drew a heart in the middle of it, but this is pretty cool," Alex admits finally, giving John the smile he's been waiting for. "The baby's over here," he explains, putting the photo down and pointing to a spot the bottom left of the heart. "But I guess the heart adds a sentimental touch?"

"I was trying to be sensitive and romantic," John explains, letting out the breath he'd been holding. "I only kept it from you for this long because I was waiting for you to figure it out on your own."

"You were expecting me to figure out that you're pregnant... How?"

"You're a fuckin' doctor, man," John tries to explain, "You should be able to take all the symptoms I had and make them equal pregnancy."

"Your symptoms were nausea for a week, crankiness and irritability. Those are a lot of things that you kind of do a lot."

"I threw up twice," John points out. "Remember?"

"Babe, I thought you just ate too many cheese balls. Sorry if I didn't take two instances of vomiting to equal pregnancy."

"Whatever. I'm pregnant. Now you know."

"And how do you feel about it?"

There's the therapist in Alex trying to shine through. It happens a lot. John doesn't mind it. So he shrugs and says, "I feel fine. Excited. Nervous. Nauseous."

"The nausea is because of-"

"Don't need to know details, thanks. Your turn. How do you feel about it?"

"Honestly?" Alex says, looking back to the sonogram on the table. He taps his fingers on it a few times, lips barely able to hide his smile. Finally he gives in and grins at John and says, "I'm excited. Definitely excited."

And that's good, John thinks as Alex leans across the table to kiss him. There was no way in hell he was going to go through this alone and make it out with his sanity. Not that he even thought once that he might have to.



“Are you sure this is okay?”

Alex gives John the same response he’s given him the last four times John has asked that question. “Of course it’s okay. Why wouldn’t it be?” But this time he sounds a little more irritated than the last and John sighs.

They’re in the exam room at the OBGYN, way after the office’s normal operating hours. John’s doctor, who just so magically happened to be one of Alex’s good friends from college, trusts Alex enough to let him use the sonogram machine himself and to lock up the place after he’s done. And since Alex is technically qualified to do these kinds of exams, John agreed to it. He trusts Alex with his health every other day of the week, why not with the baby’s health too? John just hopes he doesn’t live to regret this when Alex starts getting all mother hen on him later on down the road.

“I’m still confused as to how you just so happen to be BFF with the one doctor I pick and I had no idea,” John says, and he’s pretty sure this is like, the twelfth time he’s said this. “How come I’ve never heard of him? And how come he trusts you so much that - Hey!” John winces as Alex squirts the blue gel on his exposed stomach. “A little warning next time, dude! That’s fucking cold.”

“Yeah, yeah. You were talking too much,” Alex rolls his eyes, clearly not trying to be tolerant of John’s repetitive questions. “Had to shut you up somehow. Also, stop cursing so much.”

“The fetus can’t hear me.”

“The baby will be able to hear you eventually so you may as well start practicing to be a little less obnoxious.”

John laughs, opens his mouth to respond, but Alex knows what he’s going to say before he even gets a chance to say it and he sighs dramatically and pinches the bridge of John’s nose as he says, “Do not quote Finding Nemo,” a little too threateningly.

So John swallows down the ‘I’m obnoxious!’ he was dying to say, knocks Alex’s hand off of him, and instead just rests his head against the chair cushion, staring up at the ceiling while Alex gets everything set up. He might not exactly show it, but he is happy that Alex is the one handling all of this baby stuff instead of the doctor John originally saw. If anyone cares about the baby and its health just as much as John does, it’s Alex. So this arrangement is really for the best.

It takes Alex five minutes to find the best possible picture of the baby on the screen. John just lets him do his thing, despite the fact that he’s had to go to the bathroom for the past hour and Alex pressing down on his stomach isn’t helping that fact at all. That morning, Alex had left a small index card with instructions to ‘drink 32oz of liquid one hour before appointment!' underneath the bottle of apple juice in the fridge, despite the fact that he spent the entire week leading up to the appointment reminding John about it.

“Everything looks fine,” Alex says, staring at the computer screen in front of him, writing down numbers that John will never really fully understand. John can tell he’s struggling to keep his excitement contained and act professional, but he doesn’t really get why.

“You realize I’m not an actual patient of yours, right?” John says, interrupting whatever his husband was writing down. “Like, I don’t care if you want to cry over the fact that that’s our baby on the screen.”

“I’m not going to cry,” Alex snaps, glaring up at him. But John can tell the words registered with him more than he’ll let on, because he visibly relaxes in his seat. “Sorry if I like to stay slightly professional.”

“Whatever. Just tell me what we’re looking at here. You know how hopeless I am when looking at sonograms.”

Alex smiles, points at in the middle of the screen. “You’re twenty weeks. The baby is much bigger than that first sonogram. If you can’t see it here…then there’s no hope for you.”

Now that he points that out, John totally sees it. “Right. Okay. Baby.”

And it’s weird. Weirder than that first sonogram all those weeks ago with the first doctor. He went to that appointment all on his own, still unsure how to tell Alex about the pregnancy. But now with Alex sitting right in front him, telling him their baby is fine and everything is as it should be, it feels different.

“He’s almost ten inches long,” Alex continues, reading off his chart in front of him. “Which is normal. And it weighs about three-quarters of a pound. Also normal,” he grins, reaching out and taking John’s hand in his own. “Everything’s good.”

“Can you like, tell what it is yet?” He doesn’t think he actually wants to know. He hasn’t even thought about it up until now. “Don’t tell me if you can.”

Alex laughs and turns off the machine, shaking his head. “I can’t tell yet. It wasn’t exactly in a cooperating position for me to be able to. Maybe next month. But if you don’t want to know then I can try my best to keep it to myself. Or if you think it’s weird that I know and you don’t, I don’t have to do the exams-”

“No, I want you to do them. I have to think about it but I don’t think I’m going to want to know.”

“Never usually hear that,” Alex states, still smiling as he turns to grab the roll of paper towels from behind him. “Everyone wants to know these days.”

“I like surprises,” John mumbles, taking the paper towel sheet that Alex hands him and wiping the gel off his stomach. He sits up and swings his legs over the side of the chair, moves to grab his t-shirt off the back of the chair, but Alex stops him and stands in his way. “Move-,” is all John can say before Alex leans in and kisses him, soft and slow and romantic and everything their kisses typically aren’t.

“Love you so much,” Alex tells him once they part again. His hands tighten on his hips, keeping him still. “Thanks for trusting me and letting me do this.”

“I trust you with our taxes; might as well trust you with our baby too, huh?”

Alex laughs, “Yeah, well. About those taxes…”

John elbows in the ribs and Alex finally moves away enough for him to grab his shirt. “You’re not funny, you know that?” He pulls the shirt on over his head and before he can even pull it down over his chest, Alex is leaning down, pressing a kiss to the barely there baby bump. John rolls his eyes. “Ugh, you’re so lame.” But he doesn’t really mean it.



They do eventually find out that they’re having a girl. John laughs at the reminder that he actually thought he’d be able to stay in the dark about it until the day she was born. There was no way Alex couldn’t know, and Alex can’t keep a secret for the life of him. Plus, it was a little weird having Alex knowing and having to sensor everything he said about the baby so that he wouldn’t give it away. John doesn’t mind anymore. It’s actually kind of nice knowing. It’s much easier picking out names when you only have one gender to choose from.

But then there’s the whole…other issue. It’s not bad, exactly. John always knew that Alex was going to spoil their kids rotten and be wrapped around his finger, but he also always kind of imagined them being born before that happened. However, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that their little girl is going to own more stuff than either of them combined before she even takes her first breath. And John hasn’t even entered his third trimester yet.

Alex's office is one of the two extra bedrooms in the house they bought barely a year ago. It's small, with barely enough room for his bookshelf full of medical textbooks and various other shit he's collected over his academic career, and his computer desk. There's an exercise bike too, sitting in the corner near the window, because at one point Alex tried to stick to a workout routine. But that didn't last very long and now the bike is just taking up space. Along with the dozen or so plastic bags from baby stores filled with clothes and toys and God knows what else that Alex has bought over the last few weeks.

It's getting a little overwhelming, if John is honest. He's standing in the office doorway, trying really, really hard not to cry out of frustration at the sight of the large pile of baby clothes folded on top of Alex's laptop, waiting to be washed. This pile is just the most recent addition to the room.

It's not that John doesn't appreciate everything that Alex is doing. It's just that they really barely have the room for all of this stuff. They haven't set up the crib or the dresser or the changing table in the nursery across the hall yet so everything has just been piling up in this office and the sight of it makes John's heart beat twice as fast. He read online that his last trimester was supposed to be relaxing and worry free. This is making it anything but.

It's barely noon and Alex's shift at the hospital still lasts another hour, so until then he might as well take advantage of being alone and try and forget about how much money and space Alex is wasting and instead tries to rearrange the entire room so it doesn't look quite so much like a disaster area.

"So much pink," he mumbles to himself as he folds another pair of leggings adorned with the word Princess in sparkles on the back. "What about yellow? Or green? Or purple?"

The kid is going to have enough clothes for every hour of every day for her first five years, John thinks, because with Alex buying every single thing he sets his eyes on and with all the uncles she's going to have fawning over her and spoiling her rotten, there's no way they'll ever have a shortage in neither clothing nor toys. She may not have a name yet, but she has everything a newborn could ever want.

By the time Alex gets home, it's almost two and John is in bed, trying to ignore the lower back ache and the fact that he's been awake since four this morning and still can’t quite manage to fall asleep. He knows before the bedroom door is even open that Alex went shopping after work. Jack probably convinced him to - Jack, the med school kid who's doing his clinical work under Alex's supervision. He’s nice – John has met him a dozen times by now and he has no problem with him – but he’s got no sense of self control when it comes to spending money and telling Alex to do the same. It’s not that they can’t afford it. They definitely can, especially with Alex’s last Christmas bonus, but it’s the point of it.

Alex is in the kitchen, John can tell that much. He’s doing something annoying, too, judging by the amount of noise he's making. He probably has three bags of baby stuff to unpack and is going to put it all in the office John just cleaned up and wonder why John is pissed in the morning. But John can't bring himself to get up and do anything about it because he's finally in a slightly comfortable position.

Ten minutes pass and Alex finally comes into the bedroom. He pushes he door open slowly, John can see him out of the corner of his eye, and smiles when he sees John looking asleep.

"You asleep babe?" He asks, and John rolls his eyes and ignores him, listening to him come in and start pulling off his shoes and socks and pants and dress shirt and tossing them all in the hamper by the door. "Good. Was hoping you would be."

He mumbles to himself in a low tone that John can't hear. He knows he puts the TV on but keeps it on mute, only by the light that's suddenly bathing the bed. The bed dips and Alex situates himself on his side, probably leaning back against the pillows and watching the news to see if anything has happened since he left the house at five this morning.

John closes his eyes, comforted by his presence alone and he feels like he can actually fall asleep now. He feels Alex move, feels his hand on his hip and he suddenly regrets being so pissed off earlier. Alex means well. That's all that matters in the end.

“No more baby clothes,” he hears himself say, and he hears Alex laugh in response, feels it vibrate through him and he knows that’s a definite ‘no’.



John doesn't like talking about his feelings all that much. He's always been more inclined to keep them to himself than express them and Alex knows that. So when his jeans don't fit two weeks later and Alex finds him crying into a pillow on their bed, he is completely baffled about what to do first.

"It doesn't matter, babe," he says, fingers tracing small shapes on his lower back, "You look gorgeous to me and-"

"Shut. Up."

"But-"

"No."

"Why don't we go out? Get fresh air or someth-"

John shrugs his hand off of him, "You’re a moron. What part of 'my jeans don't fit' do you not comprehend?"

Alex winces, realizing maybe that was not the best of his suggestions. "Okay, okay, that was a dumb one. But why don't we watch a movie? Or we could try setting up the nursery - Jack helped put the crib together and the changing table just needs the drawers put in..."

And that...doesn't sound like an awful idea. To be honest, he has been meaning to start working on the nursery. He wipes his eyes and tries not to look too embarrassed about crying when he rolls over and faces Alex. "We can do that," he mumbles, "I just have to pee first."

He hears Alex laugh as he leaves the bedroom, feeling a little stupid for crying over something so inevitable, but a lot better about the whole thing overall. It's not like he has to leave the house much anymore. He's on leave from work and he has Alex to do things for him. By the time he makes it to the baby's room down the hall, Alex is already in there, sitting on the floor with one of the million piles of baby clothes from the office. He looks up when he sees John in the doorway, beams at him and says, "Come on, gorgeous. You're better at folding."

And that’s true, so John sits down on the floor opposite Alex, with a little help from him because he’s a little bit off balance thanks to being eight months pregnant and not being able to see his feet anymore. Alex hands him a pile of clothes and John starts picking out the newborn clothes, putting them in a tiny pile at his feet.

“Isn’t weird to think that she’s going to be this tiny?” Alex asks after a few silent seconds, holding up a purple onesie with small flowers on the front. “I feel like it should be impossible for anyone to be that tiny ever.”

“Yeah,” John agrees softly, “I forget she’s going to be that small, considering she’s currently making it impossible for me to see my feet when I look down.”

“I have a feeling you’ll forgive her for that when you meet her.”

John smiles down at the socks he has in his hands. They’re pink and frilly and too fancy for every day wear. He’s heard all about the whole ‘love at first sight’ thing that parents talk about. About how the second you see your baby for the first time, it’s like you’ve loved them your whole life. But John kind of already feels that way. He’s never seen her or met her or held her but he loves her more than anything.

“We really need a name,” he says, distracting himself from getting overemotional, “We have to pick a good one. She’s stuck with it for her whole life.”

“So, Ophelia is a no, then?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of Ava. Or maybe Evelyn.”

“I like those,” Alex says with a smile, pushing aside a large pile of leggings for 3-6 months. “I like Eva. So at least we’re kind of thinking of similar names.”

“Eva’s pretty…I like that a lot actually,” John muses, tossing the socks into a random pile. “So I guess Eva is the top contender.”

“Sweet.”

Alex looks so pleased about the fact that John approves of the name he’s picked out that John kind of almost wants to tell him it’s decided – that that’s what they’ll name her. But he knows that would be a little irrational and there’s a high chance that one or both of them will change their minds and find an even better name within the next four weeks.

“Oh, check this one out,” Alex says, grinning as he pulls a light yellow onesie from the pile. He holds it up in front of him for a second, admiring it, or something, and then turns it around and shows it off to John. “I picked this one out for you.”

John takes it, stretches it out in front of him so he can read the words better and he kind of feels like crying again, but this time for a good reason instead. “You’re so lame,” he mumbles, but his tone is lacking in cruelty. He reads the words on the outfit again – Cute like my daddy! – and he’s glad Alex didn’t listen to him when he told him to stop shopping.



“Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“I can make you toast, or something. Or make you some tea – decaf, but you know –”

“No.”

“You sure? You should try and eat something, it might make you feel better.”

“No.”

Alex sighs, clearly not satisfied with the answers he’s getting but John doesn’t really care. His back hurts, he hasn’t slept in two days and the false labor contractions are getting worse and worse and he’s pretty sure he has a reason to act like a little bitch. He feels Alex sit down next to him on the bed, put his hand on his lower back and God, he just wants to sleep. But he can’t. Because this baby is trying to kill him. He’s convinced.

“I know it sucks, babe,” Alex says, sighing again, “But it’ll be over soon and she’ll be here, crying her lungs out and-”

“And I’ll get even less sleep, I know, I know.” John opens his eyes, finding Alex leaning over him. “Stop staring at me. It’s creepy.”

“Sorry. I just want to make sure you’re okay,” Alex tells him, biting his lip and finally laying down on the other side of the bed. “Your due date is in like two days. I can’t help but be a little nervous too.”

John can’t resist smiling a little at that. “Well, you’re not the one having a C-section and potentially losing so much blood you pass out. Does that make you feel any better?”

“Shut up.”

Alex doesn’t speak again and John goes back to focusing on breathing and ignoring the contractions and trying to sleep for a few minutes. The baby is kicking (although it feels more like she’s doing backflips and somersaults) and although that’s great and reassures him that she’s okay, he wishes she would just stop, for like, maybe an hour. Then he could sleep and she could get right back to it when he wasn’t feeling like death. But babies don’t exactly go by your time schedule so that’s a lost cause.

It’s a half hour later that he starts to realize maybe things are different here. He hadn’t been timing them, because Alex told him they were too far apart to be that concerned and weren’t anything to be paying attention to unless they changed, and now that he thinks about it, the contractions are too close together to not pay attention to them. His backache has gotten worse, but he’s been so used to backaches that he didn’t notice. But when the contraction ends, he decides to keep his eye on his phone, to track the time between now and the next one, because he’s got a funny feeling all of a sudden and he’s not going to just ignore it.

Alex turns the TV on, keeps the volume on low and it doesn’t distract John from keeping track of the time. He realizes maybe he should have opened the app on his phone, and turned the stopwatch on but he can’t be bothered now. His heart rate is up and he’s sweating and he’s pretty sure if he wanted to stand up, he’d just fall over because if another contraction comes in the next few minutes, he’s definitely going into labor. And he’ll have to tell Alex and Alex will start freaking out and John will have to try and stay calm himself and remind Alex that he’s a professional at the same time and it’s going to be a disaster. He knows it.

It comes barely a minute later, and he looks down at his phone and sees that only nine minutes have gone by. He drops the phone onto the bed and leans over to shake Alex’s arm, distracting him from the TV. “Alex, I think-”

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” Alex interrupts, fingers reaching up to run through his hair. “I’ll turn the TV off if-”

“No, I think I’m – my contractions were just nine minutes apart. Isn’t that-”

Alex looks alarmed at this information, “What? Nine? What happened to telling me when things change, John?”

“I wasn’t paying attention! I was trying to sleep and- I forgot, okay?”

“It’s okay, it’s fine. Nine minutes? That’s not – that’s not that bad,” Alex tells him, thumbs rubbing against his cheekbones, “I’m going to call the hospital – tell them it’s a lot closer than I thought. And when they get to five minutes apart, we’ll go, okay? Unless your water breaks before that. Okay?”

And John was convinced that Alex would be the one freaking out about this. But he should have known better, because Alex delivers babies all the time. Okay, not all the time, but a lot of the time. He’s trained for this and he knows what he’s doing and if there’s anyone John would trust right now it’s him. So the fact that Alex tells him to keep breathing, tells him he’ll be back in two minutes and tells him it’ll all be fine before leaving the bedroom to call the hospital should not surprise him at all.

By the time he gets back, the contraction is over and John is just waiting for the next one, trying hard to ignore the back pain and concentrate on sending a text to his mom, keeping her as up to date as he can with everything going on. Alex comes into the room grinning, with the black backpack he had packed three days ago with extra clothes, an outfit for the baby and whatever else he’ll need in the hospital. “Good thing I decided to put the car seat in this morning,” he says with a laugh, dropping the backpack onto the bed. “Are you positive about the outfit we packed for her?”

“Are you seriously asking me that right now?” John groans, shoving his head back into his pillow, “I’m dying and you’re asking me about our unborn baby’s fashion-”

“Just asking to be safe, babe. Who knows. Anyway. I called. They said they’d start getting a room ready for you and that Saporta is already there and he’ll probably do the delivery – are you positive you don’t want me doing it? I could do it – I mean I do it all the time-”

“No, you’re not doing it. You’re going to be holding my hand, not-”

“Right, right, okay. Okay so that’s basically set then. We’re good.”

John sighs. He sits up in the bed and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, breathing in and out like Alex told him to. “Can we just go now?” he asks, getting more and more tense as the seconds pass and the closer the next contraction gets. “I don’t want to just sit here waiting.”

“We can,” Alex tells him, “Or, we could go for a walk-”

“No.”

“Okay, okay, fine. We’ll go now.”

Alex rolls his eyes as he grabs the backpack off the bed, but John knows he’s only making fun of him. But he can’t help himself. Sitting at home is only going to make him more stressed out and that’s probably not good for the baby and he would just really rather be where he needs to be as soon as possible. And considering Alex has volunteered a lot of his time to the pediatric floor at this hospital, John’s pretty sure they won’t mind him coming before he’s supposed to.

“Careful on the steps,” Alex warns him, gripping his elbow as they step down the one and only step into the garage. John would tell him off, but he knows Alex is only being careful. “Last thing I need is you slipping and hitting your head and I have an unconscious boyfriend in labor.”

There’s no traffic on the way to the hospital, so it takes them the usual half hour to get there. And towards the end of that half hour, John’s contractions get closer together and, unfortunately for Alex, his water breaks.

“It’s okay, it’s fine,” Alex assures him over and over as he tries and finds John a wheelchair in the emergency room, “Who cares about a car when you’re about to be a dad, right?”

John doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he doesn’t actually care about his car, and is much more concerned over the fact that he looks like he just peed all over himself. So he keeps quiet and nods and pretends the tears in his eyes are from the guilt over ruining his cars seats, and not from the excruciating pain of the ever increasing contractions.

The room he ends up in is nice – nicer than what he expected, anyway. He’s the only occupant and will be for the entirety of his stay and he’s pretty sure Alex has something to do with that but he won’t complain – it’s about time his relationship with a doctor got him perks.

Gabe Saporta tells him everything that’s going to happen, even though Alex has been telling him all of this for a week. Alex nods along with every word he says, squeezing John’s hand too tight but not at all unappreciated. Because he can barely focus on anything the doctor is saying anymore and he just really needs this over and done with.

“No more babies,” he mumbles, ignoring the nurses sticking the IV in his arm, fixing the oxygen tubing that he’s supposed to have in his nose, but he kind of ripped that out five minutes ago.

“Sure,” Alex says, but John knows he’s just humoring him. “No more babies.”



When John wakes up, he’s more than a little confused. His head feels heavy and he feels like he’s been asleep for days, but he knows that can’t be right. He’s in the hospital room, that much he knows for sure, but it’s dark and the only source of light is coming from the light coming in through the window in the door. Last thing he remembers, he heard his baby crying and Alex kissing him. But then it’s lights out from there and here he is, confused and exhausted.

He moves to sit up, to try and figure out what’s going on, but then there’s a hand pushing his shoulders back and Alex is whispering, “Don’t move, babe. Stay still. I’ll adjust the bed for you.”

“What’s going on?” he mumbles, voice scratchy and he needs water but he won’t ask for it. “Where’s…where is she?”

Alex finally comes into his line of sight, now that the bed is inclined, and he’s holding what he’s looking for. She’s wrapped in a pink blanket, held close to his chest and he’s grinning down at John. “She’s right here,” he says, “Perfectly fine.”

“What happened?”

“You uh. Well, you fainted. They said because of blood loss. I think it’s just because you saw your own blood. But whatever, I won’t tell anyone,” Alex promises, leaning down and pecking him on the lips.

John’s cheeks burn red at that. “Shut up. How long was I asleep?”

Alex sits down in the chair beside the bed again, “Only an hour. They told me I could hold her for a while and hopefully you’d wake up before they took her back to the nursery.”

He puts the baby in his arms before he even has a chance to ask for her. At first John’s hands feel clumsy, and he’s not sure if he’s even holding her the right way. But Alex doesn’t correct him, and Alex would know best, so he just goes with it, holding his daughter close to his chest and he’s never felt so in love with anyone ever. “She’s perfect,” he says softly, so not to wake her up. “Did you name her?”

“I wanted to wait for you. You still wanna go with what we agreed on? Eva?”

John just nods and Alex smiles. “I can’t believe I passed out,” he mumbles, shaking his head at himself. “Pretty lame.”

“I believe it,” Alex shrugs, reaching out and brushing his fingers across their daughter’s arm, “You’ve never been good with blood. But don’t worry. We can leave that little detail out of the baby book, huh?”

John decides to ignore that comment. "She's perfect," he says instead, leaning down and pressing his lips to the top of her head. "And beautiful. Probably taking after me."

Alex laughs, reaching out and pulling him closer so he can kiss him. "Yeah, probably."