Chapter 49 - Wedding Sickness

— Tobias

Tris sighs, flopping on the couch when we both enter the apartment. Indy wags his tail, stretching from his bed and trotting over to greet me as I slip off my shoes.

"You alright?" I laugh peering over to see my wife sprawled out on the couch, her blonde hair covering half of her face. The red Christmas hat that was on her head is now somewhere under her head, only the white puff ball sticking out and dangling off the couch.

She groans lightly and I laugh.

"That was the easier family to tell," I laugh as I walk in the other room, switching out my nice jeans for pajama pants. "Our friends are going to be going insane." I mentally attempt to predict each person's reaction.

She's gonna have to be careful. Only one hug and Cara had figured her out.

"Have you eaten?" I look at Indy when I leave the bedroom. His tail thumps on the wood floor, obviously not knowing what I'm saying.

As I put his kibble in his bowl, I notice the pile of wedding presents still in the corner of the hallway.

I yawn, stretching my arms back as my back pops. Indy excitedly eats his food and I notice I haven't heard Tris moving around.

If you shut up and listen once and a while, I hear her voice in my head. You can find out a lot about a situation.

She spent a lot of her life listening after she was forced to leave me.
She spent so much time listening that she didn't speak the first few months she returned to me.

I sigh, a flood of memories from those rough years that still haunt her.
They still do.

I hear her breathing heavily, but also steadily.
Pregnancy has made her able to sleep almost whenever.

I smile when I notice she has made herself comfortable on the sofa, her shoes still on her feet as she snores softly.

I kneel by her feet, zipping the zippers down on her boots and slipping them from her feet.

She use to always been on edge, even around me.
She wouldn't sleep, even in my arms.
She wouldn't relax, even on the most easy going days.

Not even at the beginning of this year would I have been able to take her shoes off without her waking from her sleep. Hell, me walking over towards the couch would have made her wake instantly.

I set her boots by the door and turn to notice that she hasn't moved an inch.

I bend down and manage to get my arm under her legs, slowly lifting her with my other arm around her back.

I feel an uncomfortable stretch in my shoulder.
You shouldn't be doing this, Tobias, I remember my still healing injury.

Her head lies on my chest, and I notice her slightly wake.

"Merry Christmas, Beatrice," I whisper, turning and pushing our bedroom door shut with my heel.

I lie her under the covers and crawl in next to her. She curls onto me with her head on my chest before I even shift to grab the covers.

"Merry Christmas, Tobias," her voice is small.

I cozy myself with her, my arm rubbing her small bump before resting on her side. I press my lips to her head, inhaling her scent.

I associate her with comfort.
When she is here, I know all is okay.

+ + +

I wished that the morning following was as peaceful as the night before.
But Tris had fallen asleep without taking her nausea medication.

She wriggles herself from my arms at nearly half past three in the morning. At first I panic, forgetting about how bad her morning sickness is when she isn't on the meds.

She's sobbing as she hurls into the toilet.
I feel guilty.

I caused this.
Not only impregnating her, but I should've remembered her medication.
I was the one awake last night.

I rub her back up and down, attempting to hold her still loose hair back as it threatens to fall in her line of vomit.

Noticing a hair tie on the counter, I stand and go to get it.

"Tobias?" She notices my absence, and her voice sounds fragile.

"I'm here," I manage to cup her cheek for only a second before she is back over the toilet.

Doing my best, I pull her hair into a ponytail like I have watched her do many times and twist the tie into her hair.

I worry that I'm hurting her, but I also know she would've at least taken a free hand to swat at me if it was that bad.

"I'm sorry," I say quietly, resuming rubbing her back. She flushes the toilet after a little while longer and practically falls against the wall next to the toilet. She presses her palms to her knees and her eyes are shut as her head falls against the wall. I put my hands on top of hers on her knees as she obviously tries to slow her breathing. I move to reach her, my thumb wiping a tear from her paled cheek.

She opens her eyes for a moment and I notice how red they are.
I wish I could take all this pain away from her.

She closes her eyes again, her head facing the ceiling.

"It's worth it," she says quietly.

For a moment I consider calling her crazy, but then I remember hearing our baby's heartbeat just three weeks ago while in Erudite.

I help her up after a while of sitting on the bathroom floor. I don't leave her side, suddenly finding myself extremely worried that she may grow dizzy or faint and fall over.

"Tobias I'm fine," she says, her voice muffled from toothpaste. "Get some coffee for yourself, we never got to these wedding gifts last night and people keep asking if they like what they gave us and I don't want to keep lying."

"Tris you need rest, it's four in the morning."

"Puking my guts out has kind of woken me up for the moment," she spits into the sink. "So can we just do a few?" Her eyes are still slightly red from crying and I cup her cheek in my hand. She closes her eyes, pressing her face into my hand slightly.

How did I get so lucky with this woman?

"Only for you, my love." I head to the kitchen and start a single cup of coffee for myself.

Good thing neither of us has to work today, I notice the time on the clock— 4:17am.

She's lucky I love her.

"How do you go from so painfully puking to being so excited about two dozen presents?" I laugh as I notice her moving the gifts from the hallway to the living room. Indy follows her in each direction, smelling the bags when she places them down on the ground, the trotting over to her again in the hallway to smell the next round.

"Don't question it, love. Just blame it on the pregnancy and move on!" She laughs and I roll my eyes, my cup of coffee not filling quick enough.

She comes to the fridge, Indy still at her heels, and pours herself a glass of orange juice.

I remember when she once tried the stuff at Marlene's and deemed it nasty.

'Blame it on the pregnancy and move on!' I hear her voice in my head and I chuckle. She raises an eyebrow at me from behind her glass and I shake my head as if to say to ignore it, returning my attention to my coffee.

"I still think it's disgusting," she says as she leaves the kitchen.

I swear she has some kind of superpowers and can read my mind.

"Come on, hun!" She urges. "Half the compound hasn't even gone to bed yet from Christmas parties, so it's not that early." I sit down on the couch and stretch my legs out on the other side of hers facing me. However, while my feet make it to her butt on the other side of the couch, her toes end just after my knees.

"How did we end up with this many gifts?" I genuinely ask.

"How did our friends know we were getting married when we did?" She shoots back slyly.

It was me who told Christina.

To avoid the topic of being wrong, I lean over and take a gift off the ground and put it in her lap.

I'm selfishly glad she drops the topic and busies herself with untying the ribbon on the gift.

We open nicknack after nicknack, and Tris coos over each one for moments before moving on.

She also insists on reading each individual card out loud and makes me read some as well.

I can tell her favorite gifts so far are a kitchen knife set from Lynn and this set of bowls from her brother's family.

I don't know what we're going to use all this stuff for.

"Where does she find the time to do all of this?" I look over Tris's shoulder as she flips through an intricate scrapbook that Christina made of pictures of Tris and I.

Guess the bowls and knife set have a competition now for best gift.

"Where did she get all of these pictures?" Tris awes over one of her and I playing catch with Indy, her arm braced on one of her crutches in the picture.

"Your best friend is a stalker, Tris."

She turns and smacks my arm and turns her attention back to the scrapbook.

It really is a nice gift.

After getting through each individual picture and harping on how much of it is still empty to be filled at the back, Tris moves on to a huge box from Zeke and Shauna. I lift it onto the couch between us and help her rip the wrapping off of the outside.

I laugh when inside I find two separate gifts, one clearly marked for Tris with neat handwriting, the other clearly marked for me in the form of writing Zeke claims to be English.

Tris reads a long letter from Shauna all about how she's grateful to have someone like her in her life who acts more like a sister than her actual sister. And she ends off the note with some inside joke between the two about how, on a good day, together they make up about two working legs.

I open Zeke's letter and struggle to decipher the writing, but eventually I figure out what he is saying.

"So, I guess Amar and I will never get the chance to end this feud on if he or I was going to be your best man. I mean, between you and me, we both knew it was going to be me," I laugh while reading the card. "I thought about writing out what I would have said when I stood up at your wedding reception, as your best man, but then I realized that both you and I are probably already loosing interest in this note. Enjoy your gift, and congrats to you and Tris. Your best man, Zeke."

Tris rests her head on the couch, her eyes reflecting the lights of the lit Christmas tree as she gazes at me. I smile at her, then resume to opening the small box with my name on it.

I laugh deeply when I get the wrapping off.

Of course he gave me condoms as a wedding gift.

"A little late for these, I guess." I laugh, showing Tris the box. She snorts, unwrapping a large box which reveals itself as a mixer when the wrapping is gone.

Seriously, what are we going to do with all this stuff?

Tris thinks the mixer is great and goes on reminiscing about how when she first used Shauna's when they were baking at her place and she made flour go all over the kitchen.

We continue opening gifts until almost six in the morning and I still feel as if I am asleep.

"Did you take your nausea medication after this morning?" I ask, noticing Tris grow slightly pale.

I find myself hoping it could be the fatigue of only sleeping five hours before waking up to open gifts.
I don't think I can watch her go through morning sickness again today.

She nods to answer my question and I feel concern in the look I give her.

It's only mere seconds before her legs are untangled from mine and she's on the move towards the bathroom in the hallway.

I sigh as I stand. Indy perks his ears from his bed as I hear Tris in the bathroom.

I hate watching her go through this.

I do all that I can: rub her back and be there for her.

I wish that there was more that I could do to help.

"Talk," she says when she gets a chance and comes up for air. "Just talk about something, please—" she is forced back down to the toilet as her stolen moment of air is up.

I think about harping on her friend's scrapbook gift and how much of a stalker she was to get those pictures.
But then I remember Tris's misty eyes when she flipped through the stalker-captured pictures.
I don't want to upset her while she's going through this, even if I don't mean it personally.

"I was searching the internet," I begin. "Because, well, I kind of don't know how to do this whole 'Dad' thing. Or for more current sake, this whole 'husband' thing. I especially don't know how to do this whole 'hey we got married almost a month ago my wife is sixteen weeks pregnant and I guess that means I'm going to be a dad' thing."

Tris continues violently hurling into the toilet and I hear her gasping for air between sobs and vomit.

I find a way to keep taking.
"So I looked up when you should go for your next ultrasound, and the ones following that. Hell, I didn't know you went for more than one of those, but I guess the internet said like twenty weeks, and then possibly we can find out the gender at twenty four weeks," I keep rubbing her back, her vomiting has yet to slow.

"I hate seeing you go through this, Tris," I decide to stop listing what I found online and go by what I feel. "I know it's absolutely absurd for me to say that while I'm here and you're there, but I wish I could trade with you."

"Me too," she gets a moment to breathe and I laugh lightly at her remark.

"Late June," I shake my head in disbelief. Tris flushes the toilet and wipes her mouth. She rests against the back of the bathtub in this bathroom, her hands gripping her knees in a similar style to earlier. I sit next to her, our hips touching and I breathe with her.

Inhaling and exhaling at a constant rate I notice that I had stopped talking to try and help calm her down.

"Late June sounds like so far away," I state the obvious. "But looking at ultrasound schedules and all the things a baby needs and all the things in our personal lives—" I loose my own thoughts and worry that what I'm saying might stress Tris out. I look down at her head on my shoulder and notice slight color returning to her face. There's still few tears slipping out of her eyes, but she is a lot calmer now than she was this morning.

"It's going to be here in a blink of our eyes. Like, one second we're here, the next, he or she will be in our arms."

"We haven't even told our friends yet," she barely whispers.

"I know," I say, disbelief still in my voice.