Chapter 48 - Baby's Baby

— Tris

"I can't believe I'm already showing," I laugh, looking at my small bump in the mirror.

"The doctor told you you would be. I mean, you're not a big person, Tris. You're tiny and fifteen weeks pregnant," Tobias wraps his arm around my waist, his arm warm around my exposed stomach.

"Two weeks ago we didn't even know the baby existed though. It's crazy when you think about it," I pull back down my shirt and snake my arms around my husband's waist.

"Merry Christmas, Tobias."

"Merry Christmas, Beatrice." He presses our lips together.

"And Merry Christmas to you too, baby," he gets on his knees, kissing my barely round abdomen.

I'm forever grateful for the medication my OB prescribed me for the nausea. Even though she said naturally my nausea should slow down as I reach seventeen weeks, the medicine I take before bed every night has done wonders.

"I can't wait to tell everyone," I say when he comes up from caressing my stomach and he nods in agreement.

"It begins today," our foreheads lean on each other's and we share the same air.

"I'm glad we told your mom," I think back to how we showed up at her door with the ultrasound picture last week. "I don't think I would have survived without telling anyone for this long."

Evelyn was absolutely astounded to find out she was going to be a grandmother. Quite honestly, I don't think I had ever seen her smile as much as she did when we showed her the picture. The same picture now hangs on her fridge, and it was one of the three copies we got from Erudite at the scan.

I wince as I put on my jeans, my leg reminding me that still is injured.

'Every hour you are on your feet, you need twenty minutes with it up. So you're out and about for three hours, you've got to keep it up for a hour once you get the chance.' I hear my conversation with Dr. Scott that I had yesterday when I called. We had not gotten the chance to talk much about my leg once we discovered the source of my nausea, and she wanted to be sure I understood what she was asking me to do.

"Tobias, we still have to open up all of those wedding gifts," I notice the pile on the table in the hallway towards our four extra rooms as I walk out of our master bedroom.

"When we get home later?" He responds asking. "Hey, let's get going to get Mom. The train will be here in twenty."

"Were you bringing spices or Mom?" He asks as I sit to put on my shoes. He is working on feeding Indy breakfast while he talks from the kitchen.

"I think Cara is, but I guess my mom said she does have some stuff too. Who knows," I finish tying my boots and stand to grab my coat. "Do you have the gifts?"

"Yeah, and the cake," he smiles boyishly. "Ready?"

We leave while Indy eats and go down the hall to Evelyn's apartment, then together we go to the Main Building to get on the train.

We make small talk, mainly about the baby, as we sit on the train to Abnegation.

"Now you can't slip up and talk about the baby anymore," I laugh as we walk through the sector of beige square houses. "No one except us knows yet."

We knock on the door once we get to my parent's house and my brother answers the door, his face lighting up when he sees us.

"Merry Christmas!" He smiles and wraps me in a hug.

I suddenly remember my tiny bump.
I hope it's not enough for them to notice.
I mean, I'm going to be hugging a lot of people in the next three minutes.

"Auntie T!" Bea runs up to hug me, and I mentally curse when I almost pick her up.

You're pregnant, stop!

I squat down and hug the six year old, wondering if by the time she is seven if she will be taller than me.

Her mother and father are both very tall, I contemplate. And you're short, Tris. It's a possibility.

When I stand my mother already has me in her arms, asking how I am. I hate that she doesn't know, but I tell her I'm much better.

I smile when I notice a small tree in the living room. It's odd to see in an abnegation home, but my mother has been acting less and less like her choice of faction each time I see her.

"Hey, sweetheart," my father greets me after greeting my husband who is spinning my niece in the living room in his arms. She is hysterically laughing as her blond braid flops in the air.

Good, do that before we eat, I mentally laugh.

"Did you all seriously lock Cara in the kitchen?" I joke as I make my way through my old home, finding my sister in-law messing with the stove.

"Hey, you lived here. How do you use these ancient things?" She presses buttons on the stove, one causing it to make a screeching beeping noise. I laugh, pressing some buttons and setting it to 350 degrees.

"I'm not even going to ask," she rolls her eyes. "Merry Christmas, Tris!" She quickly wraps me in a hug.

I had successfully gotten away with side hugs from everyone else in my family, but Cara has caught me off guard

I hug her back, holding my breath and hoping maybe she won't know. She pulls back quickly however, her face showing confusion, then excitement.

Damn Erudite born.

"Shush," is all I say and she laughs.

There's no sense denying it to her.
All she'll do is draw more attention to it.

She wraps me in her arms again, a giddy smile on her face. I playfully pinch her cheek and tell her to knock it off just before my mother enters the kitchen with Evelyn.

"No Indy? I thought you guys were going to bring him?" My mother asks.

"We figured he'd get in the way. He's probably happy sleeping at home anyways."

Cara busies herself with making some kind of gravy while I cut some vegetables. Evelyn and my mother catch up while setting the table and I notice my brother entertaining his daughter with the few lights on the tree. My father is sitting near, watching them.

Where is my husband?

I feel a hand on the small of my back and I roll my eyes returning to my task of putting the vegetables in the pot.

Ever since we found out we were expecting, he almost has his hands on me. No, not sexually, but protectively.

His hand is always around my waist, on my stomach, on my back. It's like he's going to loose me or something if his hand is not near our baby.

I guess it's a dumb thing to be frustrated by, I mean, all he is doing is being protective.

"I put the gifts under the tree," he says, his head on my shoulder.

"And the cake?" I ask.

"I ate that already," he jokes and I scoff, laughing.

I don't know if it's the pregnancy or if it is the concept of no one knowing about my pregnancy that makes me grow anxious as we make small talk around the table for a late Christmas lunch. I find myself fiddling with my wedding ring as I eat, and occasionally my knee starts bouncing.

I did tell my family about the injury to my leg, and I am able to use it as an excusal from the table to go and rest it up on the couch where I had been sleeping just three months ago.

I feel bad not helping my family clear the table, but they all understand that I need to not have another surgery next year.
They'll understand even more once we open gifts.

Caleb comes and sits next to me on the couch and I adjust my shirt again to make sure it does not sit too tightly because of the odd angle I sit at with my leg out straight.

He doesn't say anything, but the silence is not awkward.
I think about all we have been through as siblings: how much we have put the other through, and how much we have worked past to get to where we are today.

I curse mentally at my hormones, my eyes growing misty for a few seconds.

"Are we doing gifts first or cake?" I hear Cara ask from the kitchen.

My husband and niece are the only two to answer, my husband yelling cake while my niece yells for gifts.

Caleb and I burst out laughing, as do everyone else in the house.

I look down to see how long it has been since I sat, but then I realize that my watch broke last week. Sighing, I squint to look at the small clock on the mantel and see that it's been fifteen minutes.

Good enough.

I stand and lean on the doorframe to the kitchen and I see my husband in a very intense argument with my niece and why they should or should not do gifts before cake.

What's going to happen when we have our own little one?

"Let's do gifts," my father suggests, and I'm surprised in his activism to give his opinion. I smile, glad about the slightest change in character.

My husband dramatically pouts when my niece sticks her tongue out at him and I find myself rolling my eyes again.

My parents refused gifts, as I expected, because of them hosting this year. However, the ultrasound picture wrapped in a red box is for them to keep, so I assume they will be upset to think that Tobias and I disregarded their denial for gifts.

Evelyn also refused gifts, and she sits closest to the tree helping distribute the few but leaving the red box.

Bea eagerly tears through the few gifts from her grandparents, and the board game that Tobias and I got her. She smiles and thanks everyone after she is done, with the reminder to do so from her mother.

"Keep the Prior's going. One of you go next." Tobias motions to Caleb and Cara and they both open their gifts from both my parents and us.

Tobias and I open our gifts at the same time and I laugh when I see a watch with a dark purple band in the box I open.

"How'd you know my watch broke last week?" I look to Caleb and Cara and they smile.

They got Tobias a sign that says something about German shepherds being the best type of dogs, or something like that. He seems to find it funny and can't wait to hang it in his office.

"Beatrice?"

"Yeah?" My niece and I both turn our heads to my mother.

"Who's is that?" She points to the red box under the tree, her eyes on mine as if I am in trouble.

"So it's for all of you, you two just get to keep it. You don't get to be mad because it's for everyone, technically."

"Technically," my father mocks me. "We said no gifts for us." He hands the box to my mother and I feel Cara's eyes on me.

Sitting close to me on the already small couch, Tobias has his hand laced with mine.

My mother takes the lid off the box while eying me skeptically. She returns to the box, digging around in the tissue I put on top to hid the picture. My father is looking over her shoulder as she does so.

"No," she gasps, her hand covering her mouth. My father takes the picture out of the box, his face glowing.

"Would you look at that," he smiles. My mother's hand has not left her mouth.

"What?" Caleb asks, being the only person in the room besides Bea who doesn't know what's going on. She looks at her father, suddenly interested in what's going on.

Everyone ignores him.

"How far?" She looks at the picture, as if in disbelief, then back at me.

"Fifteen weeks," I smile almost shyly.

"Wait—" Caleb begins to put two and two together. Cara laughs, punching his arm as he stares at her.

My mother is out of her seat, walking over to me barely keeping her tears in.

"You knew?!" Caleb gapes at Cara.

"Not until she hugged me today!" Cara gets defensive.

"My baby's having a baby!" My mom laughs, her hand on the back of my head when she wraps me in an embrace. Looking over her shoulder, I see that the ultrasound has made it to Caleb and I think he might have seen a ghost. Cara, on the other hand, is ecstatic, trying to explain to her daughter that she is going to be a cousin.

"Still mad about getting a gift?" I ask when my mother finally releases me from her arms. She's holding my hands, and I think my father is impatient with her not giving him a chance to hug me.

She shakes her head laughing.

"Of course not."