I Love You Love Me More (1/1)
Title: I Love You Love Me More
Author: office_bluth
Rating/Warnings: PG. There's one mention of the very bad A-word.
Word Count: 7316
Disclaimer: I do not own Community or anything else I might mention in this fic. Unfortunately.
Summary: The trials and tribulations leading up to the birth of Jeff and Annie's second child.
Author's Note: As always, I must thank my wonderful and beautiful beta/BFF/constant texting partner jennynoname for generally being awesome. This fic is a follow-up to my earlier story Feels Like I'm in Love, which isn't totally necessary to understand this, but it may help in terms of Jeff and Annie's relationship and knowing who Charlie is.
When Jeff wakes up the morning of their Abed-mandated two-year study group reunion (which is a bit pointless, despite having left Greendale two years ago, because the seven of them see each other literally every single weekend), there’s a Charlie-sized weight on his chest. He squints at her with his one open eye. “Morning, princess.”
“Mommy has a baby in her tummy,” the two-year-old says, her almost-baby talk causing her to inflect her sentences in ways that are just a bit off. “How’d it get there? She said to ask Daddy.”
Jeff’s eyebrows shoot up. “Mommy has a baby in her tummy?”
“Uh-huh,” Charlotte says, sounding completely unconcerned with this news. “And she said you’re a dummy. I said that was mean.” She pauses. “How’d the baby get in her tummy?”
#
They don’t really discuss it again until her program’s over. It’s mentioned casually here and there, like, “Annie, I swear to God, our next kid’s going to appreciate my hair, because Charlie just plays entirely too roughly with all my products,” or, “Jeffrey Tobias Winger, if our children are forty and leaving cabinet doors open, I want you to know that it’s because you psychologically damaged them and made them think it was an acceptable practice,” but they never sit down and discuss when their hypothetical future children should start coming into existence.
But then Jeff looks over at Annie at her graduation ceremony, with her knee-length pink dress and curls gently bouncing against her shoulders, and her wide, wide smile as she proudly accepts her diploma, officially declaring her the recipient of a Master’s degree. And then there’s Charlie, her hair tied in two pigtails with yellow ribbons and her cheeks red from the cold, burrowed tight against her father in an attempt to stay warm, despite the negative-number temperature of the school’s auditorium. And then Jeff glances to his right, the red padded seat still folded up, completely empty. And he panics. It’s as if he just recalled leaving the stove on, or leaving the front door unlocked. It feels exactly like that time Annie left a note for a then-sleeping Jeff saying that she was going to the library to finish up a paper. She left the Post-It on their fridge, in a sea of similar reminders of upcoming exams, court dates, and plans with their former study group. It went completely unnoticed. So when Jeff woke up and saw the time, he assumed that, as usual, Annie had taken Charlie for their customary morning walk around the neighborhood. He got dressed and drove two blocks toward the gym when Annie called, informing him that he finished a lot earlier than she expected and could he ask Charlie if she wanted a doughnut? The blood drained from his face, and he immediately made a U-turn back toward their apartment.
As he watches his girlfriend receive her diploma, he feels like he’s forgotten his child somewhere. But he knows that’s stupid - she’s sitting right there on his lap, her face buried in his chest. And then Annie looks out into the audience, her smile radiating joy as she locks eyes with him and waves enthusiastically, her eternal childlike joy infectious. And that’s when Jeff realizes he wants another baby.
#
Jeff slides his finger on his phone’s screen to answer the call, then brings it up to his ear. “Hey, babe.”
“Jeff?” Annie’s voice sounds mildly panicked. “Um, you might want to leave work now. And maybe meet me at the hospital. Cause I’m in labor. Also, pick up Charlie from Shirley’s. Okay, thank you. Love you. See you soon.”
She disconnects, leaving her boyfriend very, very confused. Naturally, he cries the entire way to Shirley’s house, and then doesn’t stop until he and his daughter get to the hospital and meet Annie in the waiting room.
#
They’ve talked about it, of course. Never in any real terms, and never trying to set some sort of timeline. But they both sort of expect that they’ll get married at some point and have more kids because, well, that’s just what people do, isn’t it? They’re in love, they’re just starting their lives together, they have the foundation to begin a real family, or at least turn their unconventional three-person household into something resembling tradition. But it’s just never really at the top of their to-do list.
Annie starts grad school in Denver the winter after they graduate from Greendale. It’s a two-year program for health care management, and what’s more, the school has a daycare program for the children of faculty and students. Neither of them are totally in love with the idea of their one-year-old spending her day with strangers, but it’s either this or she goes to work with Jeff and spends her days strapped into her car seat while her father tries to distract her from Alan’s loud stories that always seem to involve strippers and alcohol. Besides, Annie only has three hours of class a day at the most, so it’s not totally unbearable.
But still, things aren’t easy. Jeff works long hours, mainly because he’s starting over and trying to regain the trust of Ted and the other partners. But it’s more than just that, though he’d never admit it to Annie. He’s missed being a lawyer. Sure, he grew to love Greendale and the friends he made there, but that four-year interruption in his career was tough. He had faked his degree out of laziness, yes, but he always viewed it much like a kid cheating and bumping their token up a few places while playing Candyland. The thrill wasn’t the journey; it was the destination. Why spend four-plus years learning things he could teach himself in eight months? Why wait in line when you could conjure up your own ticket?
He had absolutely loved being a lawyer, and he sort of wants to make up for that lost time. So he often offers to stay late, to assist on research or filing motions that aren’t exactly required of him specifically. There are more than a few times when he comes back after Charlie’s already gone to sleep, her beautiful face blank and completely unaware that she’s gone to bed yet another time without a kiss and goodnight from her father.
The worst times are when he comes home and encounters his girlfriend and daughter not snuggling peacefully in front of the television, the infant greedily suckling her last meal of the day before bedtime, or when he opens the door to see Annie’s horrified face as she changes Charlie’s diaper. The worst is when he comes home and Annie’s pacing back and forth, the screaming, wiggling baby in her arms redfaced from fighting sleep and all of her mother’s attempts at consolation. Those nights hit Jeff like a knife in the gut. Annie shouldn’t have to deal with Charlie’s bad moods all by herself. Jeff spends every morning with Charlie, feeding her and playing together while Annie gets ready for school, and on weekends, the two are absolutely inseparable. He knows it’s not fair of him to work twelve, usually more, hours a day and leave his family, but he’s slowly regaining his co-workers’ respect, and, besides, it doesn’t seem to actually be alienating him from his family. So he leaves it alone, deciding it’s best not to fix what doesn’t seem to be broken.
#
Annie squeals, running full-force toward Jeff. Her white gown billows behind her as she moves, the unseasonably cool weather making all their graduation robes more comfortable than they had expected. Jeff shifts Charlie to his right arm, preparing to catch Annie with his left.
“We did it!” she squeals, running right into her boyfriend’s embrace. “Can you believe it? We actually did it. We’re done with Greendale. And we did it with a freaking baby.”
“Because we’re awesome,” Jeff says, pressing a kiss to the top of Annie’s head. “Aren’t we awesome, Charlie? You’re lucky. Your parents are pretty kickass.”
The other parent in question scowls. “Don’t say the A-word in front of her. Then she’ll grow up hostile. And she’ll probably get her nose pierced, or something.”
Jeff fights the urge to roll his eyes, wondering if she remembers that their daughter isn’t even a year old yet, and just mastered the basics of standing up; it’ll probably take at least six more months before she gets an unnatural hole in her body. Annie holds out her arms to her daughter; the little girl coos happily and reaches for her mother, snuggling tight against her chest. Charlie’s wearing a black-and-white polka dot dress to match her parents. All the male graduates are in black, while the females are all in white. Naturally, Britta caused quite the ruckus when she learned of the “gender-based segregation” and “inequality due to forced color perspective,” but no one really listened to her complaints. The petition she spent four months passing around campus is still sitting at the bottom of a large pile of papers on the dean’s desk.
They had worried before the ceremony, not totally sure what they were going to do with Charlotte. They were close with Jeff’s mother, so theoretically she could have sat with her granddaughter, but Jeff felt a little too weird about inviting his mom to come watch her thirty-six-year-old son graduate from college; they couldn’t exactly hold Charlie from their seats among the graduates, either. At one point, Annie suggested wearing a Baby Bjorn under her gown and sneaking Charlie under there, but this was quickly vetoed on grounds of questionable oxygen exposure.
Their best option, they decided, was to pay off one of the professors who would be in attendance. Of course, finding a competent person who wouldn’t drop or in some way mentally disturb their nine-month-old daughter was sort of a tall order at Greendale. Duncan was immediately ruled out of the question, as was Chang, both because of his complete mental instability and because he would be working during the ceremony, scowling and shoving his flashlight in the face of any graduate who accidentally stepped out of line during their processional onto the lawn. It didn’t take long for Jeff and Annie to realize there was only one person to whom their baby could be entrusted: Michelle Slater, just a few months back from her two-year research project in New York. Suffice it to say, things were awkward. But she handed Charlie over to Jeff just after the ceremony while Annie headed inside to pick up their diplomas, and as far as Jeff could tell, his perfect little girl was still in one piece.
“So we’re college graduates,” Jeff muses, naturally falling into step beside Annie as they make their way over to their study group - er, former study group. “Now what?”
“I don’t know,” Annie says thoughtfully. Then she scrunches up her nose. “Oh, God. Now we find a bathroom, that’s what, because your daughter smells terrible.”
#
Annie’s baby shower isn’t quite as well-planned this time around. Shirley and Britta do their best, but it’s a lot harder to coordinate now that they’re in the real world and working, instead of just juggling their class schedules. They wind up having a group dinner at Andre and Shirley’s, entrusting their boys to look after Charlie. The children are immediately sent to the basement, while the adults open a bottle of sparkling apple cider and toast Jeff and Annie.
“Okay, everyone,” Shirley chirps after Andre returns from the kitchen, having put the three empty cider bottles in with their recycling. “Now, Annie, you get to pick. What should we do first: shower games, presents, or dinner?”
“Presents,” Annie and Jeff say simultaneously. The group forms a quasi-circle, putting all their gifts on the floor in front of the guests of honor.
Jeff selects the first gift, a hastily-wrapped gift with a haphazard bow. It’s very obvious who it’s from. Britta preens with pride, leaning forward and beaming at her friends. “That’s mine. That’s from me.” She turns her head, meeting Troy’s eyes. “That one’s mine,” she mouths, pointing at the box.
Annie slides her finger under a flap on the side and rips the paper, throwing it into Jeff’s lap as she pulls it off in long strips. The lack of wrapping paper reveals a plain brown box.
Troy shakes his head. “Dude. You did not get them a box.” Abed meets his best friend’s eyes and shakes his head.
Annie lifts the lid, then pulls out its contents: a blue blanket that their friend must have knitted. The sentimentality touches the expectant mother, her eyes brimming with tears as she looks up at Britta. “This is so sweet! Britta, I love it. Thank you so much. This is going in her crib.”
“Uh, on that note,” Jeff says, eyeing the blanket, “I know you don’t check your email often in an attempt to stick it to the man, but did you get the announcement we sent out? We’re having a girl.”
“Yeah, I got it,” Britta says with a snort. “That was months ago, Jeff.”
“…Well, yeah,” he says. “I just mean because, um, this is blue. Which is usually a boy color.”
The blonde’s eyes widen - Jeff’s not totally sure, but he thinks she may be about to kill him. “And that’s exactly why I used blue,” she says. “Who are we to force gender stereotypes down the throats of innocent newborn babies? Why should baby girls have to live in a world of pink and purple? I thought that by making your daughter a blue blanket, we would be taking the first steps toward gender equality together.”
Jeff opens his mouth to retort, but Annie places her hand on top of his, signaling for him to stay quiet. “That’s brilliant, Britta,” the brunette says. “Thank you for making our child, er -”
“A lesbian?” Pierce supplies.
The group sits in contemplative silence, Troy and Abed nodding along as if they understood a word Britta said.
#
This time around, the thought of telling their group of friends isn’t so threatening. Maybe it’s because they’re not still in school, maybe it’s because the group now recognizes their relationship status, or maybe it’s simply because they’ve done it once before. They tell them at their monthly Friday night dinner, their fingers threaded together on top of the table as they share their news. Pierce immediately calls for a round for the table, which Shirley suggests should be a pitcher of Shirley Temples. Troy tears up, his voice thick as he tells his former roommate, “I’m so excited that I’m gonna be an uncle again, seriously, I’d be so honored if you’d name him Troy or Troy Jr. or whatever, whichever one you pick is totally your call,” and captures Jeff in the longest man-hug ever recorded in human history.
Even Britta looks pleased, her eyes shining (from either excitement or wine, Jeff can’t tell) as she congratulates them, and she just loves that Annie doesn’t feel she needs to subscribe to patriarchal ideals about needing to get married and having a traditional nuclear family and ugh, she’d rather face a nuclear bomb, and she’s very quickly tuned out by the rest of the table.
Only Abed looks pensive. After taking a sip of his celebratory Shirley Temple, he muses, “Don’t forget to take pictures of the baby. Parents often don’t take as many pictures of their second child as they do the first.”
Jeff smiles humorlessly at his friend. “And what movie is that from, Abed?”
The filmmaker manages to look surprised. Naturally, this emotion is expressed with a simple quirk of his eyebrow. “No movie. Just some general advice.” Then he leans forward and refills his glass.
#
It’s not easy to get used to, of course. It’s hard balancing a newborn baby and a full class schedule and work and all of their other responsibilities. Luckily for them, they still have a month after Charlie’s born before classes start again, which gives them time to work out a schedule. They’d already picked their classes, purposely choosing schedules that didn’t interfere with the other’s.
The only exception is their class with the study group. That and a ten-minute period on Tuesdays in which Annie’s health class overlaps with Jeff’s meditation class (voted the ultimate blowoff class for the Fall 2012 semester) are the only times the two are mutually unavailable. This problem is quickly resolved after Jeff pays Professor Whitman $100 to let him and Annie sit in the back of their psychology class, strap Charlie into her bouncy vibrating chair, and bounce her up and down with their feet until she falls asleep. And Shirley’s free during that ten-minute overlap on Tuesdays, so it all works out for them.
It does still take some adjustment. They get almost no sleep, and Annie’s more high-strung than ever. But every night, she’ll see Charlie and Jeff asleep in the oak rocking chair, his hand placed protectively on her head as he holds her tight against his chest. That’s when Annie smiles, puts away her textbooks, and remembers how to relax.
#
Of course, despite their promise to Abed, the second pregnancy just isn’t as nerve-wracking or emotional. Jeff doesn’t feel like a failure when he can’t feel the baby kicking; now he knows that the baby’s probably sleeping or just awake and the barriers of Annie’s body and uterus prevent him/her from understanding that his/her father wants to feel her move. Even Annie, neurotic and overanalyzing Annie, is calmer; with Charlie, she was convinced everything was always going wrong and that they’d be completely unprepared. She begged for Jeff to start painting the nursery purple the day they returned from the doctor with the ultrasound revealing they were having a girl.
But the second time around, they both know that they can relax. So when they go for an ultrasound and the technician informs them that she can reveal the sex if they’re ready, Jeff and Annie just sort of blink at each other.
“Oh,” Jeff says after a moment. “Um.”
The technician smiles pleasantly. “If you don’t want to know, that’s your decision. A lot of couples choose not to know, even when it’s not their first child. I think it’s to keep the pregnancy exciting, since you sort of know all the twists and turns that are coming up.”
“Yeahhhhhh,” Annie says, plastering on a fake smile. “Um.” She glances at Jeff. “I don’t know. I guess we should find out now?”
“Charlie would want to know,” Jeff says. “Uh, okay. You can tell us, I guess.”
On their way home, they have to stop by CVS to pick up tissues because of how hard Jeff’s crying over his soon-to-be two daughters. Maybe he’s a bit more emotional about this pregnancy than he thought.
#
“It’s me,” he groans, dramatically flinging his arm over his eyes. “It’s me. It has to be me.”
Annie scoots closer to him. “Don’t say that. We’ve only been trying for two months. That’s literally nothing. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with either of us. Planning to have a baby just…takes some time.”
“Some time,” Jeff repeats miserably. “Easy to say when your fertility’s already been proven. Come on, Annie. You -” He looks cautiously at Charlie’s bedroom door, ensuring it’s still closed and the little girl hasn’t woken up from her nap. Just in case, he lowers his voice. “You got pregnant after a one night stand, but we’ve been trying for two months and nothing. Of course there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Would you stop talking like that?” she asks, barely suppressing a sigh. “Jeff, some couples have no problems whatsoever and it still takes them years to get pregnant. If you’re really worried about it, we can get fertility tests done in a few months, but honestly, I think it would be a waste. We don’t have any real reason to think that’s something’s wrong. I literally cannot stress enough that two failed attempts is nothing.”
Jeff lowers his arm, his melancholy expression unchanging as he ignores the last part of her statement. “You mean you don’t have any reason to think something’s wrong with you. You’re, like, hyper-fertile. And if you’re hyper-fertile and haven’t gotten pregnant, that means that I’m, like, un-hyper-fertile. Hypra-fertile, or something. Is that a thing?”
“No.”
#
Annie pauses in front of their full-length mirror, her mouth immediately setting into a frown as she studies her reflection. “Okay, is it just me, or did I balloon up overnight?”
“You know I’m not answering that question,” Jeff mumbles from his place on their bed, his mouth mostly obscured by his pillow. Just barely into her sixth month of pregnancy, Annie has to pee about every five seconds. This includes at 5:15 in the morning, much to Jeff’s chagrin. She has gotten noticeably bigger lately, her pregnancy much more pronounced at the end of her second trimester than it was with Charlie.
She lifts up her shirt, peering at her hip. Suddenly, all the color drains from her face. “Look! Jeff, look! I have stretch marks! I didn’t get any stretch marks with Charlie! I definitely exploded last night. There was no way my belly was this big. Oh my God. I think our baby is a mutant.”
“Oh. My. God,” Jeff breathes into the pillow, shutting his eyes and attempting to drown out the sounds of his very panicked girlfriend.
“But I was younger last time,” she muses, her eyes still on the pale lines radiating over her hip bone. “I was only twenty-one, and my skin was nice and stretchy and I bounced right back after Charlie was born. And that’s the thing too, you know. First pregnancy, if you’re young enough, you can leave the hospital looking like you didn’t just deliver a seven-pound baby. But now I’m old. I’m old and my skin sags and everyone’s going to be able to tell as soon as they see my butt that I’ve had two kids. I might as well go buy myself a pair of mom jeans right now and just give up completely.”
The end of her rant is punctuated by a loud sob. Jeff rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling as if it’s going to give him the patience to get through this conversation. Two hours before he needs to be awake. “Annie,” he says as calmly as possible, “you are twenty-four. You are not old. You’re young. Young and beautiful and please shut up about your weird elastic skin. We all know who the old one is in this relationship, and right now, Grandpa needs to get back to sleep.”
Then he grabs his pillow, slams his head back down on the now-bare mattress, and covers his ear with the fluffy object, trying to block out any other sound she might make. Annie pouts for a moment, then stomps over to the bed and pulls off the covers, leaving Jeff exposed to their air-conditioned room. He mutters a few choice words under his breath. Annie saunters over to the dresser and picks up his wallet, making a big show out of placing a few dollars in the swear jar that sits on top of her desk.
#
Jeff props himself up on his arm, gently tracing the curve of Annie’s stomach with his other hand. She’s barely showing at this point in her pregnancy, her baby bump minutely perceptible to Jeff, who spends most of his days studying her. “Does it feel different this time? Now that you know what to expect and everything.”
“Not really.” She glances down at his hand, grinning as her eyes fall on her stomach. “It’s still weird to think that there’s a living thing in there. It’s too early to feel the baby moving around, but that’s definitely gonna freak me out.”
He chuckles before lightly running his fingers over her skin. “I can’t wait until we can feel her kick,” he says.
Annie looks surprised. “Oh, it’s a her, is it? You were so sure Charlie was a boy. Now you’re convinced this one is a girl?”
“Maybe I like having girls,” he murmurs, his gaze bashfully low. Despite the flush in his cheeks, he can’t help but smile. “I mean, not that I’d be opposed to a boy. But you know. Three girls wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Awww.” Annie runs her fingers through his hair, curling the ends around and completely messing up his bedhead. Jeff can never bring himself to care when she ruins his hairstyle. She bites her lip, steadying herself to ask the question she’s been pondering ever since she found out about the baby. “So do you - does it feel different for you?”
Jeff looks surprised by the question. “Well, you’re not crying as much this time, and your cravings aren’t weird yet, so yeah, I guess it’s a little different.”
“No, I mean -” She stops herself, trying not to say something that might insult him. “I mean, things are obviously…different this time. With this baby. So does that - aspect make you feel different? More excited or scared or whatever?”
He blinks. Slowly, he sits up, the confusion evident on his face as he addresses her. “Oh. No. Um, no, not really. I mean, yeah, obviously, there’s sort of a different factor, but - you know how I feel about Charlie. I’ve always felt that way.”
“I know,” Annie says, sitting up and reaching for his hand. “I wasn’t trying to - you’ve always been her dad. And I love you for that.”
Her boyfriend smiles, his head bowed. “So - do you feel differently this time? About that?” He glances up at her, suddenly feeling a tug low in his stomach as he waits for her answer.
“Not at all,” she says, reaching for him to signal she wants him closer. He crawls up to her, hovering just inches from her face. “When I was pregnant with Charlie, I always felt like it was your baby. Because she is.”
He closes the distance between them, capturing her lips with his own. Annie eventually lays back, letting her back hit their mattress. Jeff pecks her one last time before pulling away, his body hovering over hers. Then he sighs, his shoulders drooping. “God, having kids has made us so disgustingly cheesy.”
#
They bring Olivia home in her blue blanket. She sleeps the entire car ride back, despite Charlie eagerly trying to talk to her and engage her in various games.
Annie manages to distract Charlie by putting on Beauty and the Beast in her bedroom and taking out a few of the little girl’s dresses, telling her to play dress-up for a while. Jeff picks up Olivia, careful not to wake her, and places her into her crib for the first time. Their two-room apartment means that, for the time being, he and Annie are sharing a room with the newborn. Once she’s old enough, she and Charlie will start sharing. Until then, he and Annie will be just a few steps away from Olivia’s cries and nighttime bursts of energy. But he shakes his head. He’s too tired to think about that now. Right now, Olivia’s asleep and Charlie’s happily playing by herself.
He walks back into the living room and, within moments, he and Annie collapse on the couch, their limbs intertwined as they snore, their children content and quiet in the adjoining rooms.
#
“Annie!” Britta squeals, awkwardly hugging her friend and keeping her hips as far back as possible to accommodate the other woman’s swollen stomach. “Look at you! You’re huge!”
The brunette forces a smile. “Oh, thanks, Britta.” She meets Jeff’s eye over the blonde’s shoulder and scowls.
Shirley hugs her next, kissing her on the cheek and whispering, “Don’t listen to Britta. She’s childless and godless. She doesn’t understand. You look beautiful.” Then she straightens and pats her friend’s stomach before taking her seat at the table.
Pierce pulls out Annie’s chair for her, letting her sit before gently scooting her closer to the table. He stops when there’s about six inches between the ledge and Annie’s belly. “There you go.” The older man takes his own seat, oblivious to everyone’s confused faces.
“Um.” Troy’s the first to find his voice. “You know, I’m not really an expert, but I feel like you did that wrong.”
“Hm?” Pierce raises his eyebrows. “Oh! Well. I didn’t want to get her too close. Wouldn’t want the baby’s forehead to bump the table.”
Jeff bangs his head against the edge, careful not to disturb his plate. “Pierce, I swear to God, if you say what I think you’re about to say -”
Abed smirks. “I love our dysfunctional family dinners.”
Britta and Annie glare at Pierce; he, of course, remains oblivious. “I just meant that this being Jeff’s baby and all, the forehead will probably be gigantic.” He claps Jeff on the shoulder. “You should feel proud. That’s the only way anyone could ever figure out that Charlotte isn’t biologically yours. Her forehead is all Annie.” He pauses, musing over something. “And maybe a little Greek.”
#
Annie manages to make it about a year before she explodes. She begins planning Charlie’s second birthday party at the end of June, beside herself with joy because, as she keeps explaining to Jeff, this is the first time Charlie will be able to interact with her party and actually enjoy herself. So she goes crazy with invitations and decorations and entertainment, trying to take full advantage of the space available in Pierce’s backyard, which he graciously offered to the birthday girl’s parents.
Jeff comes home from work one particularly humid night in July to find Annie sitting stone-faced on the couch, their wailing daughter perched on her knee and a huge binder open on the coffee table. He looks at it quizzically before setting down his briefcase, kissing his girlfriend on the top of her head, and asking if she’d like him to try to get Charlie back to sleep.
Annie blinks slowly, her eyes beginning to focus again. “Do I want you to - no, Jeff, I do not want you to try to get her to sleep. She’s been in a bad mood all day, not that you’re ever around to notice. And then I look like the jerk, because I have to keep telling her over and over that Daddy’s at work, and he might be in a meeting, so we can’t even call for two minutes just so she can hear your voice.”
He’s shocked silent for a moment. “Annie, I know I work a lot, but you can always call me at work. I don’t care what I’m doing. You two always come first.”
“Do we?” She snorts. The noise just makes Charlie cry even louder. Annie raises her voice to be heard over the sniffles and screams. “And yet, instead of taking even one day a week to come home early and be here for dinner and read Charlie a bedtime story, you’re working until at least ten every single night. I’m always the one who has to deal with this, Jeff. Waking up with her at four AM when she cries because she kicked off her blanket is not the same thing as dealing with actually putting her to sleep and being here every single time she gets in a mood like this.”
“I know that. I’m not -”
“And if we really came first,” Annie continues, trying to turn around as much as possible without setting Charlie off even more, “then you’d care more about her birthday than whatever stupid case you’re working on for twelve hours a day. You could, I don’t know, ask me what we’re going to do about the bakery who’s suddenly refusing to make a Winnie-the-Pooh cake, or the clown and magician who suddenly backed out. But no. You just come home and expect us to be satisfied that, what, you came home another night? That you’d rather sleep in your own bed than in your office?”
Jeff’s silent for a moment. He’d always had his doubts about this, of course. But it had seemed to work before; Annie had never seemed terribly bothered by his late nights at the office. “You’re right,” he says, scooping up Charlie and gently swaying his upper half back and forth. The little girl sticks out her lower lip, clinging to her daddy’s shirt. He sits next to Annie, trying to sound as calm and non-confrontational as possible. “It’s not fair of me at all. I’ve been feeling guilty about it for a while, and I don’t like spending so much time away from you.”
She softens - just barely, but it’s there. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he says, running his hand through Charlie’s hair, the sweat garnered from the humidity and her tantrum making his fingers catch near the bottom of her curls. “I’m gonna be on my way home by six every night. That’s still nine hours you’ll be with her, but at least it’ll be consistent and I’ll be home way before her bedtime.”
Annie’s jaw begins to unclench. “Nine hours is fine,” she says, her voice still a bit stiff with anger. “She’s usually hungry before six, though. Not that - I’m not saying you need to be present every moment of her life, just, you know -”
“I know,” he says quickly. “What about five? Is five good? She eats around five-thirty, right?”
She sighs, finally properly looking at him for the first time since he walked in. “You don’t have to be here for dinnertime, Jeff. I appreciate it, but all I need is for us to be involved equally.”
“But I want to,” he insists. “I want to be here to make her dinner and give her baths and spend time with my family. And Fridays - those are your busiest days, right? I can work from home. A few guys at the firm work half the week at home, so I’m sure there won’t be a problem getting Ted to let me take Fridays. I might have the occasional court appearance, but there’d be enough advance notice that -”
He stops himself out of necessity, as a very loose-limbed Annie Edison has just kissed him soundly on the lips. She smiles once she pulls away, resting her forehead against his.
“Thank you. I mean it. Thank you.”
“Of course,” Jeff murmurs, kissing her once more before turning his attention to Charlie, whose tears have subsided a bit since embracing her father. “All right, Charles Barkley. What do you think? Want to try laying down?”
She stubbornly shakes her head. Jeff sighs, turning back to Annie. “We might be up for a while. Okay. So we’ll figure out the party. Why did the clown and magician back out?”
“Something about a double booking,” Annie says. She leans forward and begins flipping through her huge binder. “I have the numbers of a few other agencies -”
“There are magician agencies?”
“- that a few of the mothers at school recommended, and yes, there are magician agencies, but they all seem a bit expensive. We need the entertainment, but I’m not sure we can stretch the budget that much.” She bites her bottom lip, her eyes tight as she reads over the information she color-coded and laminated before organizing in her binder.
“Oh, that’s easy,” Jeff says, bouncing Charlie up and down on one knee. “Troy and Abed. I’m sure they both know enough magic tricks to keep thirty two-year-olds happy, and as we both know from the Clown College Expo that one week junior year, Abed’s amazing at making balloon animals. Plus they’d do it for free.”
Annie’s quiet for a moment, her eyes flicking back and forth between all the information she’s recorded over the last few weeks. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that sooner,” she says. “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”
“Because you were dealing with the wonderful Charlotte Grace, whose screams are as loud as she is beautiful,” Jeff says. “I’m surprised you haven’t lost all mental capabilities with her screaming in your ear every night.”
She glances over at them, her gaze softening as it settles on her daughter. “It’s not every night,” she says, making a funny face when Charlie meets her eyes. Despite herself, the toddler giggles, her tears finally subsiding.
“Ha!” Jeff shouts victoriously. “See? I knew you couldn’t stay upset forever.” He pokes Charlie’s nose. His eyes still on the toddler, he addresses Annie. “You’ve been under a lot of stress lately, but from here on out, I’m going to be crazy involved. Co-parenting has never been this literal, baby doll. I’m gonna co- the crap out of her.”
“Okay, one,” Annie says, holding up a finger, “don’t say the C-word in front of her, or she’s gonna grow up listening to really loud music and getting her lips pierced together. Two, I thought we talked about baby doll. And three, you’re right. I have been really stressed lately.”
“I know,” Jeff says, settling his arm over her shoulders and pulling her against him. Annie rests her head on his shoulder, her eyes fluttering shut. “With school and Charlie and the party, it’s a lot. And I’m sure Britta’s still going on and on about the cake.”
“She wants me to find toppers that haven’t been tested on animals. I don’t even know how that’s possible, but apparently there’s a big illicit ring surrounding the manufacturing and testing of cake toppers, and there’s one specific company who makes toppers that are cruelty-free, and they’re only sold in Asia.”
Jeff snorts. “Okay, yeah, I know I said I’m gonna be more involved with everything, but you’re still handling that one. I’ll talk to Troy and Abed tomorrow, and you’ll be able to cross that off your list.”
“Thank you,” Annie murmurs, a tired smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “I really needed to hear that. There’s just so much going on. Plus I’m late.”
“I know, babe,” he says, pressing a kiss into her hair as her body goes slack against him, finally giving into her exhaustion. Then he replays her words in his head.
“Wait. What?”
(It turns out to be nothing. Thank God. Jeff loves Annie and Charlie, but God, he is so not ready to add another baby into the mix.
Still, a tiny part of him is a little disappointed that he’s not going to be a father again.)
#
Around when Charlie starts actually processing the fact that a baby’s coming and she’s going to be a big sister, they talk about telling her.
More accurately, Jeff rolls over in bed one night and asks, “Do you think we should tell Charlie?”
Annie casually turns the page in her book, completely oblivious to his meaning. “If you want to tell her where babies come from, go ahead, but personally, I think she’s digesting the stork story pretty well.”
“No, not that. I mean - you know.” He nervously runs his hand through his hair. “About me. That I’m not - you know.”
Annie glances at him, then carefully sets her book on her nightstand. “Oh,” she says carefully. “I mean, if you want her to know, then sure, that’s fine with me.” Annie clears her throat. “Why - why do you want her to know?”
Jeff shrugs, not quite meeting Annie’s gaze. “I don’t know,” he says as he traces his finger along the seams of their comforter. “It just seems like it’s time, with the baby coming, and all. It’s not like I think of this baby differently, or that I ever would, but what if she wonders why they don’t look alike, or something? She has to know eventually, right? I’ve always wanted her to know. I’m just worried that she’s too young to understand that, you know, I’m still her dad.”
Annie places her hand over her boyfriend’s. “Okay,” she says quietly. Then, with more confidence, “It’s up to you. Honestly, she might not be old enough for that, but if you want her to know, now or in a few years, then I think she should know. Do you want me to tell her? I feel like she’ll have more questions for me than she would for you. It might, I don’t know, make more sense from me.”
Jeff stills imperceptibly. “You think it won’t make sense coming from me?” he asks.
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Annie says. Jeff sits up, propping himself against the headboard. He looks at her, waiting for her to continue. She sighs. “I just mean - it’s not your fault that this happened. If it comes from you, of course it’ll make sense and everything, but I’m just worried she won’t exactly understand that it doesn’t change anything, if she understands it at all. If I tell her, I think I can make it…easier.”
Jeff’s silent for a moment. “Okay,” he says. “You tell her. You’re right - it would be better from you.” He squeezes her hand and offers her a tiny smile.
“Okay,” Annie says, returning his grin. “Do you want me to tell her soon?”
Jeff thinks. “Maybe,” he says. “I don’t know. Maybe three is too young. She doesn’t really need to know about a random guy her mother met in a bar.”
“Maybe not,” Annie says. “We will tell her, though. Whenever she’s old enough to understand.” She kisses his cheek, letting her fingers graze his jaw for a moment. “We’ll have this conversation again one day. Until then, your daughter’s kicking is wearing me out.”
She kisses him, murmuring an, “I love you,” against his lips. Jeff returns the sentiment, though he’s not quite focused on Annie as he says it. His girlfriend turns off the light and lies on her side, leaving Jeff alone in the dark with his thoughts.
#
“Hey, Charlie,” Jeff whispers, careful not to wake his sleeping girlfriend. “Do you want to hold your baby sister?”
The three-year-old grins and nods. Her father stands, mindful of the bundle in his arms, and carefully hands the newest addition to the Winger family to Charlie, helping the little girl properly arrange her arms to ensure the newborn’s comfort.
Charlie looks down at her sister in wonder. “Hi, Olivia. I’m your big sister.” She giggles. “You’re so cute. I’m gonna let you play with all my dolls. Even though you’re cuter than all my dolls.”
Jeff grins. “Really? Cuter than all of them? Even Shirley?”
His daughter considers that. Her doll Shirley has jagged brown hair, the result of a haircutting experiment. At the time, Charlie didn’t quite understand that a doll’s hair won’t grow back. “Yeah,” she says after some time. “She’s cuter than Shirley. And I can give her haircuts!”
Her father chuckles. “We’ll see about that. Maybe when she’s old enough to run away from you.”
Annie makes a noise, her voice caught in her throat. Jeff glances at her, worried that they’ve woken her up, but she just rolls onto her side, blissfully unaware of their presence in the room. He smiles, something warm spreading throughout his body. He glances at his girls - his daughters - and almost bursts out laughing. In just over four years, he’s gone from a stubbly college student/slacker who occasionally had sex with a friend to a father of two who with a long-term girlfriend and a law degree. It all seems so insane.
And then Charlie lets out a high-pitched noise that startles Jeff and makes Annie blearily open her eyes. “Daddy! I think Olivia’s pooping on me!”
Author: office_bluth
Rating/Warnings: PG. There's one mention of the very bad A-word.
Word Count: 7316
Disclaimer: I do not own Community or anything else I might mention in this fic. Unfortunately.
Summary: The trials and tribulations leading up to the birth of Jeff and Annie's second child.
Author's Note: As always, I must thank my wonderful and beautiful beta/BFF/constant texting partner jennynoname for generally being awesome. This fic is a follow-up to my earlier story Feels Like I'm in Love, which isn't totally necessary to understand this, but it may help in terms of Jeff and Annie's relationship and knowing who Charlie is.
When Jeff wakes up the morning of their Abed-mandated two-year study group reunion (which is a bit pointless, despite having left Greendale two years ago, because the seven of them see each other literally every single weekend), there’s a Charlie-sized weight on his chest. He squints at her with his one open eye. “Morning, princess.”
“Mommy has a baby in her tummy,” the two-year-old says, her almost-baby talk causing her to inflect her sentences in ways that are just a bit off. “How’d it get there? She said to ask Daddy.”
Jeff’s eyebrows shoot up. “Mommy has a baby in her tummy?”
“Uh-huh,” Charlotte says, sounding completely unconcerned with this news. “And she said you’re a dummy. I said that was mean.” She pauses. “How’d the baby get in her tummy?”
#
They don’t really discuss it again until her program’s over. It’s mentioned casually here and there, like, “Annie, I swear to God, our next kid’s going to appreciate my hair, because Charlie just plays entirely too roughly with all my products,” or, “Jeffrey Tobias Winger, if our children are forty and leaving cabinet doors open, I want you to know that it’s because you psychologically damaged them and made them think it was an acceptable practice,” but they never sit down and discuss when their hypothetical future children should start coming into existence.
But then Jeff looks over at Annie at her graduation ceremony, with her knee-length pink dress and curls gently bouncing against her shoulders, and her wide, wide smile as she proudly accepts her diploma, officially declaring her the recipient of a Master’s degree. And then there’s Charlie, her hair tied in two pigtails with yellow ribbons and her cheeks red from the cold, burrowed tight against her father in an attempt to stay warm, despite the negative-number temperature of the school’s auditorium. And then Jeff glances to his right, the red padded seat still folded up, completely empty. And he panics. It’s as if he just recalled leaving the stove on, or leaving the front door unlocked. It feels exactly like that time Annie left a note for a then-sleeping Jeff saying that she was going to the library to finish up a paper. She left the Post-It on their fridge, in a sea of similar reminders of upcoming exams, court dates, and plans with their former study group. It went completely unnoticed. So when Jeff woke up and saw the time, he assumed that, as usual, Annie had taken Charlie for their customary morning walk around the neighborhood. He got dressed and drove two blocks toward the gym when Annie called, informing him that he finished a lot earlier than she expected and could he ask Charlie if she wanted a doughnut? The blood drained from his face, and he immediately made a U-turn back toward their apartment.
As he watches his girlfriend receive her diploma, he feels like he’s forgotten his child somewhere. But he knows that’s stupid - she’s sitting right there on his lap, her face buried in his chest. And then Annie looks out into the audience, her smile radiating joy as she locks eyes with him and waves enthusiastically, her eternal childlike joy infectious. And that’s when Jeff realizes he wants another baby.
#
Jeff slides his finger on his phone’s screen to answer the call, then brings it up to his ear. “Hey, babe.”
“Jeff?” Annie’s voice sounds mildly panicked. “Um, you might want to leave work now. And maybe meet me at the hospital. Cause I’m in labor. Also, pick up Charlie from Shirley’s. Okay, thank you. Love you. See you soon.”
She disconnects, leaving her boyfriend very, very confused. Naturally, he cries the entire way to Shirley’s house, and then doesn’t stop until he and his daughter get to the hospital and meet Annie in the waiting room.
#
They’ve talked about it, of course. Never in any real terms, and never trying to set some sort of timeline. But they both sort of expect that they’ll get married at some point and have more kids because, well, that’s just what people do, isn’t it? They’re in love, they’re just starting their lives together, they have the foundation to begin a real family, or at least turn their unconventional three-person household into something resembling tradition. But it’s just never really at the top of their to-do list.
Annie starts grad school in Denver the winter after they graduate from Greendale. It’s a two-year program for health care management, and what’s more, the school has a daycare program for the children of faculty and students. Neither of them are totally in love with the idea of their one-year-old spending her day with strangers, but it’s either this or she goes to work with Jeff and spends her days strapped into her car seat while her father tries to distract her from Alan’s loud stories that always seem to involve strippers and alcohol. Besides, Annie only has three hours of class a day at the most, so it’s not totally unbearable.
But still, things aren’t easy. Jeff works long hours, mainly because he’s starting over and trying to regain the trust of Ted and the other partners. But it’s more than just that, though he’d never admit it to Annie. He’s missed being a lawyer. Sure, he grew to love Greendale and the friends he made there, but that four-year interruption in his career was tough. He had faked his degree out of laziness, yes, but he always viewed it much like a kid cheating and bumping their token up a few places while playing Candyland. The thrill wasn’t the journey; it was the destination. Why spend four-plus years learning things he could teach himself in eight months? Why wait in line when you could conjure up your own ticket?
He had absolutely loved being a lawyer, and he sort of wants to make up for that lost time. So he often offers to stay late, to assist on research or filing motions that aren’t exactly required of him specifically. There are more than a few times when he comes back after Charlie’s already gone to sleep, her beautiful face blank and completely unaware that she’s gone to bed yet another time without a kiss and goodnight from her father.
The worst times are when he comes home and encounters his girlfriend and daughter not snuggling peacefully in front of the television, the infant greedily suckling her last meal of the day before bedtime, or when he opens the door to see Annie’s horrified face as she changes Charlie’s diaper. The worst is when he comes home and Annie’s pacing back and forth, the screaming, wiggling baby in her arms redfaced from fighting sleep and all of her mother’s attempts at consolation. Those nights hit Jeff like a knife in the gut. Annie shouldn’t have to deal with Charlie’s bad moods all by herself. Jeff spends every morning with Charlie, feeding her and playing together while Annie gets ready for school, and on weekends, the two are absolutely inseparable. He knows it’s not fair of him to work twelve, usually more, hours a day and leave his family, but he’s slowly regaining his co-workers’ respect, and, besides, it doesn’t seem to actually be alienating him from his family. So he leaves it alone, deciding it’s best not to fix what doesn’t seem to be broken.
#
Annie squeals, running full-force toward Jeff. Her white gown billows behind her as she moves, the unseasonably cool weather making all their graduation robes more comfortable than they had expected. Jeff shifts Charlie to his right arm, preparing to catch Annie with his left.
“We did it!” she squeals, running right into her boyfriend’s embrace. “Can you believe it? We actually did it. We’re done with Greendale. And we did it with a freaking baby.”
“Because we’re awesome,” Jeff says, pressing a kiss to the top of Annie’s head. “Aren’t we awesome, Charlie? You’re lucky. Your parents are pretty kickass.”
The other parent in question scowls. “Don’t say the A-word in front of her. Then she’ll grow up hostile. And she’ll probably get her nose pierced, or something.”
Jeff fights the urge to roll his eyes, wondering if she remembers that their daughter isn’t even a year old yet, and just mastered the basics of standing up; it’ll probably take at least six more months before she gets an unnatural hole in her body. Annie holds out her arms to her daughter; the little girl coos happily and reaches for her mother, snuggling tight against her chest. Charlie’s wearing a black-and-white polka dot dress to match her parents. All the male graduates are in black, while the females are all in white. Naturally, Britta caused quite the ruckus when she learned of the “gender-based segregation” and “inequality due to forced color perspective,” but no one really listened to her complaints. The petition she spent four months passing around campus is still sitting at the bottom of a large pile of papers on the dean’s desk.
They had worried before the ceremony, not totally sure what they were going to do with Charlotte. They were close with Jeff’s mother, so theoretically she could have sat with her granddaughter, but Jeff felt a little too weird about inviting his mom to come watch her thirty-six-year-old son graduate from college; they couldn’t exactly hold Charlie from their seats among the graduates, either. At one point, Annie suggested wearing a Baby Bjorn under her gown and sneaking Charlie under there, but this was quickly vetoed on grounds of questionable oxygen exposure.
Their best option, they decided, was to pay off one of the professors who would be in attendance. Of course, finding a competent person who wouldn’t drop or in some way mentally disturb their nine-month-old daughter was sort of a tall order at Greendale. Duncan was immediately ruled out of the question, as was Chang, both because of his complete mental instability and because he would be working during the ceremony, scowling and shoving his flashlight in the face of any graduate who accidentally stepped out of line during their processional onto the lawn. It didn’t take long for Jeff and Annie to realize there was only one person to whom their baby could be entrusted: Michelle Slater, just a few months back from her two-year research project in New York. Suffice it to say, things were awkward. But she handed Charlie over to Jeff just after the ceremony while Annie headed inside to pick up their diplomas, and as far as Jeff could tell, his perfect little girl was still in one piece.
“So we’re college graduates,” Jeff muses, naturally falling into step beside Annie as they make their way over to their study group - er, former study group. “Now what?”
“I don’t know,” Annie says thoughtfully. Then she scrunches up her nose. “Oh, God. Now we find a bathroom, that’s what, because your daughter smells terrible.”
#
Annie’s baby shower isn’t quite as well-planned this time around. Shirley and Britta do their best, but it’s a lot harder to coordinate now that they’re in the real world and working, instead of just juggling their class schedules. They wind up having a group dinner at Andre and Shirley’s, entrusting their boys to look after Charlie. The children are immediately sent to the basement, while the adults open a bottle of sparkling apple cider and toast Jeff and Annie.
“Okay, everyone,” Shirley chirps after Andre returns from the kitchen, having put the three empty cider bottles in with their recycling. “Now, Annie, you get to pick. What should we do first: shower games, presents, or dinner?”
“Presents,” Annie and Jeff say simultaneously. The group forms a quasi-circle, putting all their gifts on the floor in front of the guests of honor.
Jeff selects the first gift, a hastily-wrapped gift with a haphazard bow. It’s very obvious who it’s from. Britta preens with pride, leaning forward and beaming at her friends. “That’s mine. That’s from me.” She turns her head, meeting Troy’s eyes. “That one’s mine,” she mouths, pointing at the box.
Annie slides her finger under a flap on the side and rips the paper, throwing it into Jeff’s lap as she pulls it off in long strips. The lack of wrapping paper reveals a plain brown box.
Troy shakes his head. “Dude. You did not get them a box.” Abed meets his best friend’s eyes and shakes his head.
Annie lifts the lid, then pulls out its contents: a blue blanket that their friend must have knitted. The sentimentality touches the expectant mother, her eyes brimming with tears as she looks up at Britta. “This is so sweet! Britta, I love it. Thank you so much. This is going in her crib.”
“Uh, on that note,” Jeff says, eyeing the blanket, “I know you don’t check your email often in an attempt to stick it to the man, but did you get the announcement we sent out? We’re having a girl.”
“Yeah, I got it,” Britta says with a snort. “That was months ago, Jeff.”
“…Well, yeah,” he says. “I just mean because, um, this is blue. Which is usually a boy color.”
The blonde’s eyes widen - Jeff’s not totally sure, but he thinks she may be about to kill him. “And that’s exactly why I used blue,” she says. “Who are we to force gender stereotypes down the throats of innocent newborn babies? Why should baby girls have to live in a world of pink and purple? I thought that by making your daughter a blue blanket, we would be taking the first steps toward gender equality together.”
Jeff opens his mouth to retort, but Annie places her hand on top of his, signaling for him to stay quiet. “That’s brilliant, Britta,” the brunette says. “Thank you for making our child, er -”
“A lesbian?” Pierce supplies.
The group sits in contemplative silence, Troy and Abed nodding along as if they understood a word Britta said.
#
This time around, the thought of telling their group of friends isn’t so threatening. Maybe it’s because they’re not still in school, maybe it’s because the group now recognizes their relationship status, or maybe it’s simply because they’ve done it once before. They tell them at their monthly Friday night dinner, their fingers threaded together on top of the table as they share their news. Pierce immediately calls for a round for the table, which Shirley suggests should be a pitcher of Shirley Temples. Troy tears up, his voice thick as he tells his former roommate, “I’m so excited that I’m gonna be an uncle again, seriously, I’d be so honored if you’d name him Troy or Troy Jr. or whatever, whichever one you pick is totally your call,” and captures Jeff in the longest man-hug ever recorded in human history.
Even Britta looks pleased, her eyes shining (from either excitement or wine, Jeff can’t tell) as she congratulates them, and she just loves that Annie doesn’t feel she needs to subscribe to patriarchal ideals about needing to get married and having a traditional nuclear family and ugh, she’d rather face a nuclear bomb, and she’s very quickly tuned out by the rest of the table.
Only Abed looks pensive. After taking a sip of his celebratory Shirley Temple, he muses, “Don’t forget to take pictures of the baby. Parents often don’t take as many pictures of their second child as they do the first.”
Jeff smiles humorlessly at his friend. “And what movie is that from, Abed?”
The filmmaker manages to look surprised. Naturally, this emotion is expressed with a simple quirk of his eyebrow. “No movie. Just some general advice.” Then he leans forward and refills his glass.
#
It’s not easy to get used to, of course. It’s hard balancing a newborn baby and a full class schedule and work and all of their other responsibilities. Luckily for them, they still have a month after Charlie’s born before classes start again, which gives them time to work out a schedule. They’d already picked their classes, purposely choosing schedules that didn’t interfere with the other’s.
The only exception is their class with the study group. That and a ten-minute period on Tuesdays in which Annie’s health class overlaps with Jeff’s meditation class (voted the ultimate blowoff class for the Fall 2012 semester) are the only times the two are mutually unavailable. This problem is quickly resolved after Jeff pays Professor Whitman $100 to let him and Annie sit in the back of their psychology class, strap Charlie into her bouncy vibrating chair, and bounce her up and down with their feet until she falls asleep. And Shirley’s free during that ten-minute overlap on Tuesdays, so it all works out for them.
It does still take some adjustment. They get almost no sleep, and Annie’s more high-strung than ever. But every night, she’ll see Charlie and Jeff asleep in the oak rocking chair, his hand placed protectively on her head as he holds her tight against his chest. That’s when Annie smiles, puts away her textbooks, and remembers how to relax.
#
Of course, despite their promise to Abed, the second pregnancy just isn’t as nerve-wracking or emotional. Jeff doesn’t feel like a failure when he can’t feel the baby kicking; now he knows that the baby’s probably sleeping or just awake and the barriers of Annie’s body and uterus prevent him/her from understanding that his/her father wants to feel her move. Even Annie, neurotic and overanalyzing Annie, is calmer; with Charlie, she was convinced everything was always going wrong and that they’d be completely unprepared. She begged for Jeff to start painting the nursery purple the day they returned from the doctor with the ultrasound revealing they were having a girl.
But the second time around, they both know that they can relax. So when they go for an ultrasound and the technician informs them that she can reveal the sex if they’re ready, Jeff and Annie just sort of blink at each other.
“Oh,” Jeff says after a moment. “Um.”
The technician smiles pleasantly. “If you don’t want to know, that’s your decision. A lot of couples choose not to know, even when it’s not their first child. I think it’s to keep the pregnancy exciting, since you sort of know all the twists and turns that are coming up.”
“Yeahhhhhh,” Annie says, plastering on a fake smile. “Um.” She glances at Jeff. “I don’t know. I guess we should find out now?”
“Charlie would want to know,” Jeff says. “Uh, okay. You can tell us, I guess.”
On their way home, they have to stop by CVS to pick up tissues because of how hard Jeff’s crying over his soon-to-be two daughters. Maybe he’s a bit more emotional about this pregnancy than he thought.
#
“It’s me,” he groans, dramatically flinging his arm over his eyes. “It’s me. It has to be me.”
Annie scoots closer to him. “Don’t say that. We’ve only been trying for two months. That’s literally nothing. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with either of us. Planning to have a baby just…takes some time.”
“Some time,” Jeff repeats miserably. “Easy to say when your fertility’s already been proven. Come on, Annie. You -” He looks cautiously at Charlie’s bedroom door, ensuring it’s still closed and the little girl hasn’t woken up from her nap. Just in case, he lowers his voice. “You got pregnant after a one night stand, but we’ve been trying for two months and nothing. Of course there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Would you stop talking like that?” she asks, barely suppressing a sigh. “Jeff, some couples have no problems whatsoever and it still takes them years to get pregnant. If you’re really worried about it, we can get fertility tests done in a few months, but honestly, I think it would be a waste. We don’t have any real reason to think that’s something’s wrong. I literally cannot stress enough that two failed attempts is nothing.”
Jeff lowers his arm, his melancholy expression unchanging as he ignores the last part of her statement. “You mean you don’t have any reason to think something’s wrong with you. You’re, like, hyper-fertile. And if you’re hyper-fertile and haven’t gotten pregnant, that means that I’m, like, un-hyper-fertile. Hypra-fertile, or something. Is that a thing?”
“No.”
#
Annie pauses in front of their full-length mirror, her mouth immediately setting into a frown as she studies her reflection. “Okay, is it just me, or did I balloon up overnight?”
“You know I’m not answering that question,” Jeff mumbles from his place on their bed, his mouth mostly obscured by his pillow. Just barely into her sixth month of pregnancy, Annie has to pee about every five seconds. This includes at 5:15 in the morning, much to Jeff’s chagrin. She has gotten noticeably bigger lately, her pregnancy much more pronounced at the end of her second trimester than it was with Charlie.
She lifts up her shirt, peering at her hip. Suddenly, all the color drains from her face. “Look! Jeff, look! I have stretch marks! I didn’t get any stretch marks with Charlie! I definitely exploded last night. There was no way my belly was this big. Oh my God. I think our baby is a mutant.”
“Oh. My. God,” Jeff breathes into the pillow, shutting his eyes and attempting to drown out the sounds of his very panicked girlfriend.
“But I was younger last time,” she muses, her eyes still on the pale lines radiating over her hip bone. “I was only twenty-one, and my skin was nice and stretchy and I bounced right back after Charlie was born. And that’s the thing too, you know. First pregnancy, if you’re young enough, you can leave the hospital looking like you didn’t just deliver a seven-pound baby. But now I’m old. I’m old and my skin sags and everyone’s going to be able to tell as soon as they see my butt that I’ve had two kids. I might as well go buy myself a pair of mom jeans right now and just give up completely.”
The end of her rant is punctuated by a loud sob. Jeff rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling as if it’s going to give him the patience to get through this conversation. Two hours before he needs to be awake. “Annie,” he says as calmly as possible, “you are twenty-four. You are not old. You’re young. Young and beautiful and please shut up about your weird elastic skin. We all know who the old one is in this relationship, and right now, Grandpa needs to get back to sleep.”
Then he grabs his pillow, slams his head back down on the now-bare mattress, and covers his ear with the fluffy object, trying to block out any other sound she might make. Annie pouts for a moment, then stomps over to the bed and pulls off the covers, leaving Jeff exposed to their air-conditioned room. He mutters a few choice words under his breath. Annie saunters over to the dresser and picks up his wallet, making a big show out of placing a few dollars in the swear jar that sits on top of her desk.
#
Jeff props himself up on his arm, gently tracing the curve of Annie’s stomach with his other hand. She’s barely showing at this point in her pregnancy, her baby bump minutely perceptible to Jeff, who spends most of his days studying her. “Does it feel different this time? Now that you know what to expect and everything.”
“Not really.” She glances down at his hand, grinning as her eyes fall on her stomach. “It’s still weird to think that there’s a living thing in there. It’s too early to feel the baby moving around, but that’s definitely gonna freak me out.”
He chuckles before lightly running his fingers over her skin. “I can’t wait until we can feel her kick,” he says.
Annie looks surprised. “Oh, it’s a her, is it? You were so sure Charlie was a boy. Now you’re convinced this one is a girl?”
“Maybe I like having girls,” he murmurs, his gaze bashfully low. Despite the flush in his cheeks, he can’t help but smile. “I mean, not that I’d be opposed to a boy. But you know. Three girls wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Awww.” Annie runs her fingers through his hair, curling the ends around and completely messing up his bedhead. Jeff can never bring himself to care when she ruins his hairstyle. She bites her lip, steadying herself to ask the question she’s been pondering ever since she found out about the baby. “So do you - does it feel different for you?”
Jeff looks surprised by the question. “Well, you’re not crying as much this time, and your cravings aren’t weird yet, so yeah, I guess it’s a little different.”
“No, I mean -” She stops herself, trying not to say something that might insult him. “I mean, things are obviously…different this time. With this baby. So does that - aspect make you feel different? More excited or scared or whatever?”
He blinks. Slowly, he sits up, the confusion evident on his face as he addresses her. “Oh. No. Um, no, not really. I mean, yeah, obviously, there’s sort of a different factor, but - you know how I feel about Charlie. I’ve always felt that way.”
“I know,” Annie says, sitting up and reaching for his hand. “I wasn’t trying to - you’ve always been her dad. And I love you for that.”
Her boyfriend smiles, his head bowed. “So - do you feel differently this time? About that?” He glances up at her, suddenly feeling a tug low in his stomach as he waits for her answer.
“Not at all,” she says, reaching for him to signal she wants him closer. He crawls up to her, hovering just inches from her face. “When I was pregnant with Charlie, I always felt like it was your baby. Because she is.”
He closes the distance between them, capturing her lips with his own. Annie eventually lays back, letting her back hit their mattress. Jeff pecks her one last time before pulling away, his body hovering over hers. Then he sighs, his shoulders drooping. “God, having kids has made us so disgustingly cheesy.”
#
They bring Olivia home in her blue blanket. She sleeps the entire car ride back, despite Charlie eagerly trying to talk to her and engage her in various games.
Annie manages to distract Charlie by putting on Beauty and the Beast in her bedroom and taking out a few of the little girl’s dresses, telling her to play dress-up for a while. Jeff picks up Olivia, careful not to wake her, and places her into her crib for the first time. Their two-room apartment means that, for the time being, he and Annie are sharing a room with the newborn. Once she’s old enough, she and Charlie will start sharing. Until then, he and Annie will be just a few steps away from Olivia’s cries and nighttime bursts of energy. But he shakes his head. He’s too tired to think about that now. Right now, Olivia’s asleep and Charlie’s happily playing by herself.
He walks back into the living room and, within moments, he and Annie collapse on the couch, their limbs intertwined as they snore, their children content and quiet in the adjoining rooms.
#
“Annie!” Britta squeals, awkwardly hugging her friend and keeping her hips as far back as possible to accommodate the other woman’s swollen stomach. “Look at you! You’re huge!”
The brunette forces a smile. “Oh, thanks, Britta.” She meets Jeff’s eye over the blonde’s shoulder and scowls.
Shirley hugs her next, kissing her on the cheek and whispering, “Don’t listen to Britta. She’s childless and godless. She doesn’t understand. You look beautiful.” Then she straightens and pats her friend’s stomach before taking her seat at the table.
Pierce pulls out Annie’s chair for her, letting her sit before gently scooting her closer to the table. He stops when there’s about six inches between the ledge and Annie’s belly. “There you go.” The older man takes his own seat, oblivious to everyone’s confused faces.
“Um.” Troy’s the first to find his voice. “You know, I’m not really an expert, but I feel like you did that wrong.”
“Hm?” Pierce raises his eyebrows. “Oh! Well. I didn’t want to get her too close. Wouldn’t want the baby’s forehead to bump the table.”
Jeff bangs his head against the edge, careful not to disturb his plate. “Pierce, I swear to God, if you say what I think you’re about to say -”
Abed smirks. “I love our dysfunctional family dinners.”
Britta and Annie glare at Pierce; he, of course, remains oblivious. “I just meant that this being Jeff’s baby and all, the forehead will probably be gigantic.” He claps Jeff on the shoulder. “You should feel proud. That’s the only way anyone could ever figure out that Charlotte isn’t biologically yours. Her forehead is all Annie.” He pauses, musing over something. “And maybe a little Greek.”
#
Annie manages to make it about a year before she explodes. She begins planning Charlie’s second birthday party at the end of June, beside herself with joy because, as she keeps explaining to Jeff, this is the first time Charlie will be able to interact with her party and actually enjoy herself. So she goes crazy with invitations and decorations and entertainment, trying to take full advantage of the space available in Pierce’s backyard, which he graciously offered to the birthday girl’s parents.
Jeff comes home from work one particularly humid night in July to find Annie sitting stone-faced on the couch, their wailing daughter perched on her knee and a huge binder open on the coffee table. He looks at it quizzically before setting down his briefcase, kissing his girlfriend on the top of her head, and asking if she’d like him to try to get Charlie back to sleep.
Annie blinks slowly, her eyes beginning to focus again. “Do I want you to - no, Jeff, I do not want you to try to get her to sleep. She’s been in a bad mood all day, not that you’re ever around to notice. And then I look like the jerk, because I have to keep telling her over and over that Daddy’s at work, and he might be in a meeting, so we can’t even call for two minutes just so she can hear your voice.”
He’s shocked silent for a moment. “Annie, I know I work a lot, but you can always call me at work. I don’t care what I’m doing. You two always come first.”
“Do we?” She snorts. The noise just makes Charlie cry even louder. Annie raises her voice to be heard over the sniffles and screams. “And yet, instead of taking even one day a week to come home early and be here for dinner and read Charlie a bedtime story, you’re working until at least ten every single night. I’m always the one who has to deal with this, Jeff. Waking up with her at four AM when she cries because she kicked off her blanket is not the same thing as dealing with actually putting her to sleep and being here every single time she gets in a mood like this.”
“I know that. I’m not -”
“And if we really came first,” Annie continues, trying to turn around as much as possible without setting Charlie off even more, “then you’d care more about her birthday than whatever stupid case you’re working on for twelve hours a day. You could, I don’t know, ask me what we’re going to do about the bakery who’s suddenly refusing to make a Winnie-the-Pooh cake, or the clown and magician who suddenly backed out. But no. You just come home and expect us to be satisfied that, what, you came home another night? That you’d rather sleep in your own bed than in your office?”
Jeff’s silent for a moment. He’d always had his doubts about this, of course. But it had seemed to work before; Annie had never seemed terribly bothered by his late nights at the office. “You’re right,” he says, scooping up Charlie and gently swaying his upper half back and forth. The little girl sticks out her lower lip, clinging to her daddy’s shirt. He sits next to Annie, trying to sound as calm and non-confrontational as possible. “It’s not fair of me at all. I’ve been feeling guilty about it for a while, and I don’t like spending so much time away from you.”
She softens - just barely, but it’s there. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he says, running his hand through Charlie’s hair, the sweat garnered from the humidity and her tantrum making his fingers catch near the bottom of her curls. “I’m gonna be on my way home by six every night. That’s still nine hours you’ll be with her, but at least it’ll be consistent and I’ll be home way before her bedtime.”
Annie’s jaw begins to unclench. “Nine hours is fine,” she says, her voice still a bit stiff with anger. “She’s usually hungry before six, though. Not that - I’m not saying you need to be present every moment of her life, just, you know -”
“I know,” he says quickly. “What about five? Is five good? She eats around five-thirty, right?”
She sighs, finally properly looking at him for the first time since he walked in. “You don’t have to be here for dinnertime, Jeff. I appreciate it, but all I need is for us to be involved equally.”
“But I want to,” he insists. “I want to be here to make her dinner and give her baths and spend time with my family. And Fridays - those are your busiest days, right? I can work from home. A few guys at the firm work half the week at home, so I’m sure there won’t be a problem getting Ted to let me take Fridays. I might have the occasional court appearance, but there’d be enough advance notice that -”
He stops himself out of necessity, as a very loose-limbed Annie Edison has just kissed him soundly on the lips. She smiles once she pulls away, resting her forehead against his.
“Thank you. I mean it. Thank you.”
“Of course,” Jeff murmurs, kissing her once more before turning his attention to Charlie, whose tears have subsided a bit since embracing her father. “All right, Charles Barkley. What do you think? Want to try laying down?”
She stubbornly shakes her head. Jeff sighs, turning back to Annie. “We might be up for a while. Okay. So we’ll figure out the party. Why did the clown and magician back out?”
“Something about a double booking,” Annie says. She leans forward and begins flipping through her huge binder. “I have the numbers of a few other agencies -”
“There are magician agencies?”
“- that a few of the mothers at school recommended, and yes, there are magician agencies, but they all seem a bit expensive. We need the entertainment, but I’m not sure we can stretch the budget that much.” She bites her bottom lip, her eyes tight as she reads over the information she color-coded and laminated before organizing in her binder.
“Oh, that’s easy,” Jeff says, bouncing Charlie up and down on one knee. “Troy and Abed. I’m sure they both know enough magic tricks to keep thirty two-year-olds happy, and as we both know from the Clown College Expo that one week junior year, Abed’s amazing at making balloon animals. Plus they’d do it for free.”
Annie’s quiet for a moment, her eyes flicking back and forth between all the information she’s recorded over the last few weeks. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that sooner,” she says. “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”
“Because you were dealing with the wonderful Charlotte Grace, whose screams are as loud as she is beautiful,” Jeff says. “I’m surprised you haven’t lost all mental capabilities with her screaming in your ear every night.”
She glances over at them, her gaze softening as it settles on her daughter. “It’s not every night,” she says, making a funny face when Charlie meets her eyes. Despite herself, the toddler giggles, her tears finally subsiding.
“Ha!” Jeff shouts victoriously. “See? I knew you couldn’t stay upset forever.” He pokes Charlie’s nose. His eyes still on the toddler, he addresses Annie. “You’ve been under a lot of stress lately, but from here on out, I’m going to be crazy involved. Co-parenting has never been this literal, baby doll. I’m gonna co- the crap out of her.”
“Okay, one,” Annie says, holding up a finger, “don’t say the C-word in front of her, or she’s gonna grow up listening to really loud music and getting her lips pierced together. Two, I thought we talked about baby doll. And three, you’re right. I have been really stressed lately.”
“I know,” Jeff says, settling his arm over her shoulders and pulling her against him. Annie rests her head on his shoulder, her eyes fluttering shut. “With school and Charlie and the party, it’s a lot. And I’m sure Britta’s still going on and on about the cake.”
“She wants me to find toppers that haven’t been tested on animals. I don’t even know how that’s possible, but apparently there’s a big illicit ring surrounding the manufacturing and testing of cake toppers, and there’s one specific company who makes toppers that are cruelty-free, and they’re only sold in Asia.”
Jeff snorts. “Okay, yeah, I know I said I’m gonna be more involved with everything, but you’re still handling that one. I’ll talk to Troy and Abed tomorrow, and you’ll be able to cross that off your list.”
“Thank you,” Annie murmurs, a tired smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “I really needed to hear that. There’s just so much going on. Plus I’m late.”
“I know, babe,” he says, pressing a kiss into her hair as her body goes slack against him, finally giving into her exhaustion. Then he replays her words in his head.
“Wait. What?”
(It turns out to be nothing. Thank God. Jeff loves Annie and Charlie, but God, he is so not ready to add another baby into the mix.
Still, a tiny part of him is a little disappointed that he’s not going to be a father again.)
#
Around when Charlie starts actually processing the fact that a baby’s coming and she’s going to be a big sister, they talk about telling her.
More accurately, Jeff rolls over in bed one night and asks, “Do you think we should tell Charlie?”
Annie casually turns the page in her book, completely oblivious to his meaning. “If you want to tell her where babies come from, go ahead, but personally, I think she’s digesting the stork story pretty well.”
“No, not that. I mean - you know.” He nervously runs his hand through his hair. “About me. That I’m not - you know.”
Annie glances at him, then carefully sets her book on her nightstand. “Oh,” she says carefully. “I mean, if you want her to know, then sure, that’s fine with me.” Annie clears her throat. “Why - why do you want her to know?”
Jeff shrugs, not quite meeting Annie’s gaze. “I don’t know,” he says as he traces his finger along the seams of their comforter. “It just seems like it’s time, with the baby coming, and all. It’s not like I think of this baby differently, or that I ever would, but what if she wonders why they don’t look alike, or something? She has to know eventually, right? I’ve always wanted her to know. I’m just worried that she’s too young to understand that, you know, I’m still her dad.”
Annie places her hand over her boyfriend’s. “Okay,” she says quietly. Then, with more confidence, “It’s up to you. Honestly, she might not be old enough for that, but if you want her to know, now or in a few years, then I think she should know. Do you want me to tell her? I feel like she’ll have more questions for me than she would for you. It might, I don’t know, make more sense from me.”
Jeff stills imperceptibly. “You think it won’t make sense coming from me?” he asks.
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Annie says. Jeff sits up, propping himself against the headboard. He looks at her, waiting for her to continue. She sighs. “I just mean - it’s not your fault that this happened. If it comes from you, of course it’ll make sense and everything, but I’m just worried she won’t exactly understand that it doesn’t change anything, if she understands it at all. If I tell her, I think I can make it…easier.”
Jeff’s silent for a moment. “Okay,” he says. “You tell her. You’re right - it would be better from you.” He squeezes her hand and offers her a tiny smile.
“Okay,” Annie says, returning his grin. “Do you want me to tell her soon?”
Jeff thinks. “Maybe,” he says. “I don’t know. Maybe three is too young. She doesn’t really need to know about a random guy her mother met in a bar.”
“Maybe not,” Annie says. “We will tell her, though. Whenever she’s old enough to understand.” She kisses his cheek, letting her fingers graze his jaw for a moment. “We’ll have this conversation again one day. Until then, your daughter’s kicking is wearing me out.”
She kisses him, murmuring an, “I love you,” against his lips. Jeff returns the sentiment, though he’s not quite focused on Annie as he says it. His girlfriend turns off the light and lies on her side, leaving Jeff alone in the dark with his thoughts.
#
“Hey, Charlie,” Jeff whispers, careful not to wake his sleeping girlfriend. “Do you want to hold your baby sister?”
The three-year-old grins and nods. Her father stands, mindful of the bundle in his arms, and carefully hands the newest addition to the Winger family to Charlie, helping the little girl properly arrange her arms to ensure the newborn’s comfort.
Charlie looks down at her sister in wonder. “Hi, Olivia. I’m your big sister.” She giggles. “You’re so cute. I’m gonna let you play with all my dolls. Even though you’re cuter than all my dolls.”
Jeff grins. “Really? Cuter than all of them? Even Shirley?”
His daughter considers that. Her doll Shirley has jagged brown hair, the result of a haircutting experiment. At the time, Charlie didn’t quite understand that a doll’s hair won’t grow back. “Yeah,” she says after some time. “She’s cuter than Shirley. And I can give her haircuts!”
Her father chuckles. “We’ll see about that. Maybe when she’s old enough to run away from you.”
Annie makes a noise, her voice caught in her throat. Jeff glances at her, worried that they’ve woken her up, but she just rolls onto her side, blissfully unaware of their presence in the room. He smiles, something warm spreading throughout his body. He glances at his girls - his daughters - and almost bursts out laughing. In just over four years, he’s gone from a stubbly college student/slacker who occasionally had sex with a friend to a father of two who with a long-term girlfriend and a law degree. It all seems so insane.
And then Charlie lets out a high-pitched noise that startles Jeff and makes Annie blearily open her eyes. “Daddy! I think Olivia’s pooping on me!”