"Say Ni?"

Connie rested her head on his shoulder and sighed heavily. "What's up?"

The man shifted apprehensively and glanced toward the doctors office door. "They've been gone a really long time. I'm starting to feel panicky. What if something's wrong?"

"I'm okay, Steven. I'm okay and nothing is going to take me away." She slipped her hand in his, nearly feeling the buzz of liquid light threatening to break through his skin. "In for four, out for eight."

They took deep breaths together, trying to calm their nerves. They had been waiting a long time. It was just a bunch of annual blood testing and Connie's complaint of feeling lightheaded and constantly using the bathroom. It wasn't detrimental, but it was certainly annoying. But after they'd taken urine and blood, the couple were now nearing 30 minutes of radio silence from anyone.

"Hey, let's talk wedding stuff," Connie suggested. Steven grimaced, his anxiety feeling far too big to hold. "Come on, Steven. Focus. What colors are we going with?"

He hesitated to try and rearrange his brain. "We discussed... pink. Of course."

"What else?"

"Lilac?" He turned to face her, pale but slightly more aware.

She giggled and nodded. "At first you said they'd never work and then..."

"I was totally wrong. Beautiful. Like you." He pecked her and smiled a tiny bit. There was nothing that made him feel as weak as his Anxiety and Panic Disorder did, but like everything else that was terrible, Connie was making it a little better.

In for four, out for eight.

Connie made a thinking face, gripping his bicep with both hands. "Do you remember what song I'm walking down the aisle to?" Her fingers twitched the very slightest and he felt his heartbeat slowing back down again.

"Canon in D."

She grinned. "Violin heavy of course. Can't forget my roots." She squeezed a bit harder and was trying to keep a straight face he flexed the tiniest bit to watch her flush.

In for four, out for eight.

"What else?" The distraction was more than welcome, especially with her trying to secretly fawn over him like it wasn't painfully obvious.

"What's going to be our first dance?"

Steven took a deep breath and smiled largely. "We can't decide between two." He flexed a little harder and she bit her lip. This time a full grin made itself known and brightened her face.

"Which two?" Had she ever been quite this enamored with his muscles? It was almost weird, but in a vastly and very femininely cute way. He tipped his head against the wall and watched her drop a chaste kiss. "Which two, Starboy?"

"A Thousand Years and..." Would she even notice if he flexed full on? She hardly ever mentioned it past "hidden muscle" under her breath, he wondered what was so interesting that she couldn't keep her hands off of him in the last week or so. She giggled softly when he flexed full on, his natural softness turning unyielding and firm. "Ni."

"Hmmm~?"

"Are you trying to distract me with wedding talk so you can feel my muscles?" He mumbled humorously.

The caught look on her face, the blushing, said more than enough. "No!"

"Liar, liar, pants on fire. You've been feeling me up for at least five minutes," He accused playfully. "What, you want an autograph?" 

She grinned. While she definitely enjoyed indulging in feeling him up, she also knew it would give him an ego boost. He was sexy. He often felt better knowing she adored him even in his panic. "Something like that."

He opened his mouth to respond but the door swung open.

"Hello, you two. I am so sorry about the wait but we had a code blue in ICU and when duty calls..." She gave them an apologetic smile. "Well, onto your things. Connie, when was your last period?"

"Oh, it was..." When was her last period? She tried to think of a time recently, but as far as she could remember she hadn't touched a tampon in a few weeks or so. "I'm blanking out. Steven?"

"Seven weeks and four and a half days ago." It was completely senseless to even ask with the starry look in his eyes and the tight squeeze of her hand. He finally broke eye contact with her and looked over at the doctor, who was trying to keep from smiling.

"I grabbed the results for your standard pregnancy test, and it did come up positive."

A great amount of effort did it take to keep Steven at baseline after that. He burst into tears and hugged her to him so tight she almost broke a rib. It was remembered that his shouts of joy could cause as much if not more damage than an angry one, so he had to take extra care to keep his voice level and ask a trillion questions. She was pretty sure they fused at some point to help which scared the hell out of the doctor until they realized what had happened was not the beginning of an explosion.

Soon after, Connie's foot was pressed to the gas to get home as fast as possible even if she was using the backroads.

Where was Steven? Legitimately running on the side of the road, just a few feet in front of her glowing at full brightness, whooping and hollering at the top of his lungs. It was the sweetest thing in the world to see him half crying, half laughing.

Though it was quite difficult to see it through her own.

He pulled ahead as their house appeared in front of them and skidded to a stop. Connie clutched the stick shift, leaning forward as she prepared to stop.

The second she got close enough, she slammed on the breaks, turned it off and Steven caught her as she all flew out of it to him. Their emotions were at the very highest peak they could've ever possibly hoped for, so much it felt like they were made of rays of sunshine.

"Our baby!" She cupped his cheeks and beamed at him.

"Our baby!" He fought the urge to crush them with a hug and lifted her high enough he could kiss her stomach. "Our first baby..." He held her on his hip like he loved to do and brought her to the bed just to snuggle the hell out of her.

She sighed peacefully as he littered kisses down her neck, but the hybrid was almost too impatient for her to really feel them. "Someone's eager."

He pulled up her shirt and stared in wonderment at her stomach. "You're pregnant. You're actually pregnant."

"That is what the doctor said," She chuckled.

He leaned down and placed kisses that sparkled against her skin, over every inch of her stomach. His hand held her waist in place while his thumb rubbed against it.

She wasn't exactly sure how long he'd been at it, absolutely worshipping her tummy and the baby inside it before the array of affection slowed to a stop. It wasn't quite a normal, 'okay I'm done now' stop, she could feel the epiphany behind it.

"What's up, Stardad?" She did it just to get a rise out of him and it worked as tears started sliding down his cheeks of their own fruition, but his eyes were locked on her stomach. He brushed a finger across it intently. She was almost fairly certain she'd never seen him quite this... thoughtful. "Hey... are you okay?"

He licked his lips and inhaled to speak but paused a moment. "I just... this is really really stupid so– so bear with me here, okay?" He was kind of mumbling, as if the thoughts were so loud it was all he could muster. "I got you pregnant."

It was quite possibly the lowest his voice had gotten in... ever.

"Y-you sound surprised," She commented.

He tipped his head from side to side and narrowed his eyes. "Not really... more..." He lifted his eyes to search her face. "Proud. Really proud."

She wasn't going to be able to focus on the sweet moment if he kept that tone. "You should be. It's our baby in there."

"But... don't most couples not get pregnant on the first try?"

"That is very true actually." Her inner statistics nerd rifled through her mind until she found it. "Only 30% of couples conceive in their first month, let alone the first time. The conception rate drops to 5% by the end of the first year trying." She grinned at the smoldering hybrid. "So good job."

He snapped out of wherever his head had taken him and ran a hand through his hair several times, sitting on his haunches as he surveyed her stomach. "When will you get your bump?" There it was, a sweet grin she hoped their baby would gain.

"Ah, most start really showing around 4 months, but 15 weeks is when it "pops" for most. I'll just be walking along and you'll notice I'm bigger around the middle. By the time I'm almost ready to actually pop, I'll be big and round and my boobs will have to be out of commission for you so you don't spur on an early labor and–," She was cut off by him glancing back at her stomach and then grimacing in confusion. "There's still something you aren't telling me."

"I'm way too proud. I feel like..." He squinted. "I dunno. Can we just snuggle for as long as you'll tolerate me?"

She chuckled and raised her arms. "Well, better get it in before the baby comes."

"Do you think you conceived the day I purposefully bred you?"

"How many weeks have you been counting?" She replied knowingly.

"Seven weeks and nearly five days." He recited.

She moved away a tiny bit to look up at him and kissed his chin. "And how pregnant did they guess I was?"

"Seven weeks, probably a couple of days more." His hand drifted over her tummy and stayed protectively. "I already wanna do it again. This feeling, knowing I got you pregnant and it was barely an effort, is awesome."

Connie moved back to look up at him again suspiciously grinning. He kept his eyes closed as he traced a finger over the middle of her stomach and shifted a tiny bit away. "Uh oh."

His eyes flew open. "Are you gonna be sick?"

"Nope! I think there's medicinal benefits to you turning me into a chocolate eclair almost daily. But..." She lifted so their eyes were level and tsked at the change there. "I think proud is the wrong word to describe how you feel about it, though maybe it's close."

He flushed and pulled her in for a kiss, featuring his hand for what felt like the first time ever firmly holding her in place by the back of her head. When he pulled away, a faint glow could be found on his cheeks and tips of his ears. "Pleased. I'm absolutely thrilled in every definition of the word to know I got you pregnant. I don't even know what to do with the energy, I just want to have you close to me in every way possible." His hand pulled her shirt up to her shoulders and off before he rubbed at the skin there. "You're glowing, beautiful, and I fucking knew it. I knew I could if I really wanted to, so I fucking did. I got my best friend pregnant and it's awesome." Triumphant. That was the word. His hand gripped her a bit tighter now as his words got more intense. "I knew I got you pregnant. I did this to you." A cocky grin finally lit up his whole face as he rolled on top of her.

"You knew I was pregnant?" She cupped his cheeks and brought him in for a kiss. "Of course you did. Why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't want you to kill me," said Steven rather bluntly. "Something told me it was rude?"

Connie laughed at him until he growled and nipped at her neck. "I-I-I'm sorry! That's just–," She dissolved into more giggles, trying to tell him between breaths that he needed to stop taking his dad's advice on certain things.

"You're so cute," He crooned and kissed her nose. "I love my pregnant fiancé. Pregnant with my baby." His kisses were a bit more paced now as they traveled up and down her neck. "God that feels so good to say. Immediate dopamine rush with instant gratification. Drugs. You're a drug, and I'm an addict."

"Seems like you're looking for physical gratification too. You're all..." She scrunched her nose and leaned up to run her tongue over his bottom lip. "I dunno..."

His eyes shut for a moment and reopened to show her the pink becoming glowy. "I guess you got me," He sighed balefully. "I can't help but be excited. My sexy, pregnant fiancé and best friend in the world who, and I cannot stress this enough, is carrying my baby, is gorgeous. Plus with all of this experimenting we've been doing I'm on a trained schedule again."

Her smile grew wary and she brought his face up to look right into her eyes. "Hey, no training here. You're perfect the way you are."

"Not like Allison training silly. I didn't get her pregnant. I got you pregnant while we were doing kinky shit." He sucked in a breath and stared in amazement. "That was the best sentence I've ever spoken."

Connie relaxed and chortled at him. He was truly something else. "Well, do you want me then? I'm definitely not opposed to the idea."

He rumbled deep in his chest but hesitated. "I won't hurt the baby, right? Do I..." He winced and snorted at himself as his face turned crimson. "Do I need to be smaller?"

She cackled and shook her head. Only in this world, in this universe, would the father of her child be worried about hurting their first baby because he was too big. "No, Steven. Not yet anyways, we have plenty of time to fuck like we still want to."

His eyes drank her in sinfully. "Good, cause I suddenly have a lot of energy."