Chapter 53 - Getting Ready

— Tris

"Three Jacob's?" I laugh as Josh hands me the list of newly hired ambassadors.

"Jacob I., Jacob A., and Jacob D., according to their last names, I guess. You could number them, but then you might confuse Jacob 1 with your son One and that would be bad," he jokes.

I scan down the list and notice that all of the other hired ambassadors are female. Out of the eight, 3 are named Jacob, and the rest are all women which Rose is one of.

"When do they start?"

"Here's their office keys," he says. "They're all in the meeting room waiting for you."

"Seriously?" I roll my eyes at him and he laughs. I turn and walk out of the room, yawning.

I trained with Chris at three o'clock this morning, and she's getting pretty good with maneuvering the staff in her hands fluidly. It's getting harder for me to work with the staffs though, because my bump is so large.

Today's thirty weeks. Seven months of this already.

"Okay, so I was just informed you all were in here oh," I look at my watch. "About two minutes ago." I say walking into the meeting room and the eight people I face laugh. "If I had been more prepared I would've made the other seven of us ambassadors actually show up on time this morning and give you a proper greeting, but I'll be honest and say it's probably better this way anyways." My mind flashes to a memory of when I was first deemed an ambassador and everyone was rowdy and crazy or old and crabby.

All of the old and crabby's quit once we switched leadership of the ambassadors to me.
How lovely that all the crazies decided to stick around and piss me off.

"Josh handed me these keys a minute ago. Our offices are in this hall," I motion with my hand towards our hallway outside of this meeting room. "And it looks like they all have your names on them."

"Well shit," I comment at the topic of name. I'm really not that good at my job. "I'm Tris, by the way. Head ambassador, and well there's other nicknames that the other ambassadors have, but you'll catch on eventually. Now the keys..."

I call each person's name and slide the key along the table to them, all of us laughing as I call each Jacob.
One's blonde, two are brunette, but the one brunette has glasses.

"Visiting week is a big part of our job," I decide to give a brief description of what they should expect here. "And the other part is going to other faction's visiting weeks and having fun. As we get going on our next projects you each will have more specific jobs, but for now just get comfy and don't let the others scare you. They're only slightly insane... now let's go find your offices. Or, wait, any questions?"

One of the girls in the back raises her hand slightly, almost if she's too lazy to raise it all the way. She has bleach blonde hair and dark lipstick which contradict her soft kind eyes. I acknowledge her by nodding.

"Are you having a boy or girl?" She asks smiling.

"Boy," I smile back at her, automatically liking her. She sits next to Rose, and I hope that the two of them our friends.

"Anything else?" I look around and laugh at the surplus of women around the three Jacobs.

"There's three other guys, Amar, Uriah and Ben. Out of the fifteen of us, there's six guys, and half of those guys are named Jacob. Yes, we run a shit-show here," I laugh as they all follow me out of the meeting room and down the hall. Each person finds their numbered door with a key and I show them where my office is if they have questions.

I dig into my desk and find a roll of beige masking tape. Going around to all of the doors, I stick the tape on the door and ask the person to put their name on the tape if they're there. Those showing up later will understand, I hope.

The girl with the bleach blonde hair's name is Sarah, according to the tape on her door. Rose's office ends up directly across from mine, and Sara is two doors down to my right.

+    +    +

We all grow close really quickly. Too quickly.

Two of the Jacob's have become a mutual irritation for me, each being individually a pain in their own way.

They're almost like two extra Uriah's, except, in a way almost worse.

With the exception of Kaylee who refuses to deal with me, all of us have gotten along super well with the addition to our team. The games have resumed in the hallway and more have been added.

It never is quiet, that's for sure. There's always people joking or laughing and it's never a dull moment in the hallway.

Things will never be the same, but this is better than the hallway being quiet.

I sit down at my desk and look at the clock on my computer, it's barely noon on May 5th and the hall has been oddly quiet today.

Yesterday was May 4, and we celebrated both Tobias's and Indy's birthday. For Tobias, our friends themed their gifts around dumb Dad themed shirts and nicknacks, while Indy got his usual treats and toys.

I was hoping for Tobias and I to get some fun time to ourselves yesterday, but I'm getting more and more exhausted as I enter my eighth month of pregnancy.

One kicks me hard as I stand, holding my thirty-four week bump.

I'm sick of being pregnant.

"Where is everyone?" I find Tobias in my doorway as I stand, holding my back.

"I was just going to find out. They're like a bunch of small children— silence is never a good thing," I say and he laughs. He kisses me lightly on my forehead and I smile, his hands holding my bump as One kicks like crazy.

"I was going to head home and walk Indy. Zeke is coming over and possibly Amar to help put together the furniture for One tonight."

"Finally," I sigh. I've been bugging him to put together the contents in the massive boxes we got for the past month since we got them.

"I'll see you later, love," he presses his lips to mine softly, then rubs my bulging stomach one last time before he leaves the Main Building.

"Hey, Six!" I turn around and see Amar standing there.

He won't accept the fact that he, of all people, couldn't get a nickname to catch on for the first time in his life.

"What can I do you for?" I let my hands rest on my bump as I smile. One calms down for the moment, only moving a little bit instead of kicking.

"I gotta show you something."

"Okay, let me pee first," I skeptically look at him before entering the bathroom. I return to see him standing in the same spot, looking at something on his phone.

"What did you need to show me?"

"Come on!" He waves me into the meeting room and I follow him, laughing as I enter.

"Surprise!" All the ambassadors smile at me in the baby blue-decorated room. The long meeting table has a good sized blue cake on it and there is presents almost everywhere.

We grew so close so quickly that just a month after we met they managed to pull together a surprise baby shower for me.

The afternoon is filled with laughs as we all hang around and eat cake. They insist that I open the presents with them there, so I do. It takes over an hour, but the amount of baby clothing and diapers I open makes it worth the time.

Tobias shows up once things are being cleaned up and laughs at me when I get mad upon discovering that he knew about this for over a week without telling me.

Amar and the Jacobs help bring some of the gifts back to the apartment, the Jacob's practically under the excuse that they wanted to see Indy. With their help, we don't have to take a second trip down to the Main Building because we manage to carry it all.

Indy goes nuts as Jacob, Jacob and Jacob excite him with their rowdiness. Zeke and Shauna emerge from the room down the hallway where the boxes are for the baby while Indy playfully snarls behind me in the living room.

"How was the shower?" Shauna asks hugging me from the side.

"You were in on it too?!" I hit her arm playfully and she laughs. I hear a bing sound and notice Amar looking at his phone.

"George isn't going to be able to come help. He has to work late tonight and is very disappointed," he looks sad and I tell him that it's alright.

"Show me what you got!" Shauna looks at all of the bags that were left in the living room once the Jacobs left and Amar, Zeke and Tobias went down to work on the furniture.

Indy smells the bags, tipping the one over to find a brown teddy bear that he must think is his. I laugh, telling him that's not his and putting it back in the bag.

I go through the gifts with Shauna, gushing over the blankets, toys and bibs that people gave for One. Indy continues to go between the nursery and the living room, making sure everything is in check and everyone is still there.

He's going to be so protective of the baby once he's here.

There is constant banging coming from the nursery as the guys put together the furniture, an occasional shout of annoyance or shout of harassment at one another breaking the usual banging of a hammer.

"Have you decided where you're going to have him yet?" Shauna asks, referring as to where I'm going to birth my child.

I sigh quietly, not ever enjoying the idea.

Most expectant mothers look forward to the "magical experience" of childbirth.
However, for me the topic only gives me anxiety.

"Here, probably. I really don't want to go over to Erudite and have them pump me with pain meds that either give me nasty reactions or simply don't work," I think back to the times where every week I was put on different pain medication and every week I would have a different reaction ranging from hives to my throat closing.

"They have the epidural though."

"It didn't work for me. They had tried to give me it for my third surgery one leg, hoping that they wouldn't have to do the usual nineteen shots of numbing stuff and worry about it wearing off, but it didn't do anything." I rest my head on my arm on the side of the couch, my stomach completely hiding my crossed legs under me. "When they gave me the injection in my spine for it, I started shaking uncontrollably, which I guess is a side affect of it. But the problem was was that I couldn't not shake my leg, and so they couldn't operate on me until the reaction stopped. My surgery ended up bumped two days, and they couldn't give me any painkiller that actually did work because of risk if the epidural reacting bad to it."

Shauna nods and I continue talking.

"The only way I might end up over at Erudite is if I start freaking out that something is or could go wrong. The infirmary here, so I hear, is practically pointless for childbirth since practically everyone does home births."

"My mom had me over in Erudite. She was freaking out because my father wanted her to have a home birth and she didn't, so she ended up going into labor early because of stress. I mean, I guess it worked in her favor, because she ended up having to go to the hospital then because I was so early, but she told me never again would she give birth at a hospital like that. They had her hooked up to so many machines that she was much calmer at home when she had Lynn."

I nod, agreeing with the idea of being more comfortable at home.

"What do they do at Abnegation? Like, with the whole birthing thing?"

"My brother's birth was a usual Abnegation one. Everyone in the general area around your house is close, like family. When a mother goes into labor, the father is not to be there or any siblings, and the women in the area come to help the mother. That was my brother's case, and my mother said, similarly to yours, that it was her preferred way to have a child. Me, however, was born at twenty-eight weeks, and was a mess. My mom was rushed over to Erudite when I was born and I had a real slim chance of making it."

"What made her go into labor so early?"

"Me," I laugh. "She did nothing wrong, I've just always been bad at decision making, before I even left the womb," I say laughing and Shauna laughs with me.

"Phew, it's a lot cooler out here," Zeke wipes his forehead with the bottom of his shirt, Amar and Tobias following him.

"How's it coming?" I ask.

"All done! Come see!" Amar seems eager for me to see the furniture.

I would've cried if they all weren't there when I walked into the nursery.

It still needed work, but the furniture was perfect.

"That looks great! I love the color," Shauna runs her hand along the crib.

"It's perfect," I smile.