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Story Notes:
This story is a part of the Dogface series.
Chapter One: Morning Sickness


Nick

Ashley and I got married on January 31st, as you probably already know. I think everyone does. It was on every newspaper from here to kingdom come just because of all the drama that went with it. Like with Chris and all.

It was just ten days later that I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of Ashley puking her guts out in the master bathroom. I rubbed my eyes and rolled out of bed, stumbling into the bathroom in a way that would've made anyone swear I was a drunken sailor instead of just massively sleepy. Ashley was on her knees praising the porcelain gods, her face red, tears in her eyes. I scooped up her hair in my fist and held it behind her neck, dropping my ass onto the edge of the bathtub beside her as she leaned in for round whatever-number-she-was-on of the hurlfest. This was the beauty that was morning sickness. Just the sound of it made my sleepy belly nauseated. But this is what I am for, as the husband of a pregnant woman. Holding the hair.

It's the least I could do. After all, it was my sperms that made her this way.

Is it sperms? Is sperm plural? I dunno. Science is a bitch.

Or spelling. Whatever that would be. Grammar, maybe?

Fuck I'm too tired for this shit.

Ashley struggled to pull away from the toilet, looking up at me with a hiccough and a miserable expression. "You didn't hafta get up," she mumbled, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She sounded as miserable as she looked.

I let her hair loose as she attempted to struggle to her feet, and I stood up and helped her instead. "I wanted to," I lied. I wanted to sleep, but I also wanted her to know I cared about her and I'd spent enough of my life treating her like crap. I didn't need to do it any longer. She turned on the faucet and cupped her hand under the stream, swishing water around in her mouth before spitting into the sink, rinsing away the sick. I pulled the Listerine out of the cupboard and handed it to her and she swished that about, too. "Feelin' better?" I asked her gently.

"I think so," she answered. "Thank you," she added.

I nodded and herded her back to the bed.

"Zoey didn't make me this sick," she groaned.

"Maybe it's a sign this one's a boy?" I suggested hopefully. I so wanted it to be a boy. Ever since Ashley had told me she was pregnant - as my birthday present a week and a half before - I'd been begging whatever gods there may be out there in the universe to please give this one a penis so I had someone to pass on my man-wisdom to. That's all I wanted.

Ashley sighed as she hit the mattress. I laid next to her and wrapped my arms around her. She wasn't showing yet, but my hand still rested on her stomach, like if it was there I had some connection with the baby inside. It really wasn't that long ago that I would've run screaming from something like this, really, but yet it felt a hundred thousand lightyears past for all the excitement I felt inside me every time I imagined a little human being growing inside Ashley. A little me-and-her cyborg thing. I thought of what pre-plane-crash me would've thought of the idea of me laying in bed with one baby in the next room and another one on the way. Pre-plane-crash me would've scoffed at the concept, never would've believed that I could possible be not only okay with it but really excited about it. Pre-plane-crash me would've been freaked out by the fact that I was laying in bed with Dogface at all, as I would've called her then, let alone having caused her current delicate state.

But now...

I nestled my face against her arm, perfectly content. More than that. Completely happy for the first time in my life.

"We should do something nice... on Saturday," Ashley mumbled into the darkness just before I fell asleep.

"What's Saturday?" I mumbled into her skin.

She was quiet a moment. Then, "It's not important, really, I just -- I thought maybe it'd be nice to -- because -- nevermind."

I opened my eyes at the disappointment in her voice. I didn't wanna disappoint her this soon in our marriage - no way. So I did a quick mental evaluation. Not an anniversary, we just got married like eleven days ago... her birthday wasn't yet, either... not Zoey's... a holiday? I ran through a list of them in my head. It took me going over the list twice in my mind before I realized what it was.

Valentine's Day.

"No, no," I said, "It is important. I just - I'm half asleep."

"I know you don't like the whole Valentiney holiday-y thing," Ashley said.

"Who says I don't like Valentine's Day?" I asked defensively. I dunno why I got all defensive about it. It's not like I do like Valentine's Day or anything. At least I never had. Maybe it'd be different with an actual girl that I actually cared about instead of an obligation to give flowers and stuff to one of the current flavors of the week as the previous years had called for.

"You always say that you don't like Valentine's Day," she said.

"When?"

"Every year?" She laughed.

"Every year before you," I said with emphasis.

Ashley laughed again. Like she thought maybe I was joking or maybe she couldn't believe I was serious. And because I had this feeling that she didn't believe me, I said. "You'll see. You'll be amazed what I have planned."

"You have a plan?" she asked, laughter dying, replaced by surprise. "You?"

"Is that so shocking?" I asked.

"Uh. Yeah. Do you really?"

"Really."

Ashley hummed in a way that told me she was surprised, intrigued, and maybe even excited. "You never will cease to surprise me, Mr. Carter," she commented.

I leaned over and kissed her cheek, "I don't plan to any time soon, Mrs. Carter," I replied, and I rolled back down and pressed my face back against her arm, hugging her, my hand still splayed across her belly, trying as hard as I could not to let her feel the tension going through my veins, electrifying my body.

I didn't have anything planned.

But now I had to get something planned. And something amazing, no less.

The shit I get myself into.




Ashley

I knew Nick didn't have anything planned - or at least I strongly suspected it. He felt twitchy and nervous laying there beside me in the dark. But that was okay by me because I hadn't really planned anything, either. I'd been too busy puking every five minutes.

Which, whatever Nick had to say about boys versus girls, I was still nervous about all of the puking because I truly didn't remember feeling this shitty when I was pregnant with Zoey. Was there something extra volatile about being pregnant with Nick's baby versus being pregnant with Chris's that was making my uterus flip the hell out? Was it because I'd been through so much bullshit when I was carrying Zoey that my body was just like oh fuck no not this again? Was the universe really so evil to Nick and I that something terrible could be happening? What would I do if I lost this baby? My hand slid to my stomach nervously at just the thought, like I had to protect my baby from the elements of the horribly nasty universe that was clearly out against Nick and I.

Speaking of Nick.

Valentine's Day.

I glanced down at Nick to make sure he was definitely asleep before I slid out of the bed again and pulled the shoebox from under the bed. I glanced up at him, now smooshed into the mattress, a little bit of drool coming out of the corner of his mouth, his mostly-naked body pale in the moonlight. The sheet only just covered him. He was almost too perfect to tear my eyes away from but finally, after a good long look at the curve of his legs and the dip in his spine and the way his arm curved aroun his muscles, I grabbed the box to my chest and snuck out of the room, being careful not to step too heavy on the carpet and wake him up again.

In Zoey's room I looked down at her in her crib before sitting down on the floor and pulling the lid off the shoebox. It was a collection of random crap that I'd saved over the years. I needed inspiration for Valentine's Day and I knew exactly what I needed to see to get it. I shifted through letters from Patrick (my sort of honorary father), and the letter from my actual, biological father, and pictures of Zoey and pictures of Nick and I growing up until I came to the one thing I'd been looking for to begin with.

I put one hand on my belly as I stared at the crinkled up, ratty old Valentine... a relic from 1987.


I'd kept it tacked to my bedroom wall for over twelve years. It was jut a cheesy Ninja Turtles valentine - one of those stupid cartoony things that elementary school kids give to each other in little paper mailboxes they make and hang up on their desks the week leading up to February 14th. Nick's was the only Valentine I received that year, since I was an outcast because I lived at the group home (like being an orphan was a disease the other kids could catch from being in close proximity to me); but that was okay because Nick's also happened to be the only one that I wanted to get.

Cowabunga! Be my Valentine? To Dogface, from Nick.

I remember laying on my bed after school at the home I lived at, certain that I would marry Nick Carter someday. After all, I was his valentine. Isn't that how it starts? You meet a boy, you maybe play some kick ball after school, when it's time to play kissing tag on the playground you always go after him, and then he gives you a scratch and sniff Ninja Turtle valentine and you're pretty much engaged from there. We'd get married and I'd finally have a real home, some place that I really belonged in. At the time, that was something I'd never had. And someday we'd have kids and name them Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo, and... whatever the hell the fourth turtle is named. And they'd all have a home.

That was the dream for me - having a home and having a family. A real family - with a mom and a dad and the babies all living together under one roof.

But of course as you know it didn't just turn out that way...

Nick became an international pop star and soared to unbelievable heights of fame seemingly overnight and instead of coming home to the girl next door, he slept with every girl that fell across his path. And sometimes they were so drunk they literally fell across his path. And desperate just to be something in his life I became his wingman, his assistant in hooking up. I was practically on staff the way the guy acted...

In all the years that I knew Nick I only received the one Valentine's Day card from him.

It took a lot of patience and heartache and a lot of waiting to get to a point that Nick Carter would fall asleep hugging me, that he would tell me he loved me, that we got married and now were working on that whole having kids thing. And sure, Zoey wasn't named after any of the turtles (Damn it, what is that fourth turtle's name? It's a painter, too, I know it is. Ugh!), but that was obviously only a child's pipedream anyways. Nobody really names their kids after TMNT when they grow up, whatever they may say when they're seven. My point is that even though it wasn't the way I'd expected it to be - we'd hit a lot of massive speed bumps along the way - it was worth every moment of blinding pain that I'd gone through to get here.

I scratched the Valentine gently. It still held just a bit of it's smell - pizza - even after all these years. I smiled to myself, remembering that horrible bowl cut mop of hair Nick had back then, and the goofy way his teeth kind of bumped into each other in the front and the way he had just a teeny bit of a speech impediment that he eventually grew out of naturally between just getting older and all his vocal lessons and stuff. That had been the Nick I'd originally fallen in love with - that little boy who gave everyone, even a leper like an orphan, a chance.

I knew it was important - this Valentine's Day - to show him how much I loved him then, how much I'd always loved him, how much I loved him now, and how much I always would love him. But how?

There came a little cry from the crib and gently I put the Valentine back into the box and closed it before pushing myself up to my feet and leaning over the crib to look at Zoey, who was kicking her little legs, making a face of disapproval as she shed her blanket away from her. "Oh Zozo," I whispered, reaching down and picking her up, "Don't worry, mummy's here," I pulled her to my chest and she thumped her hands against me, clutching my hair with one little fist.

I settled into the rocking chair and moved softly, rocking her, staring into her tightly squeezed shut eyes. She was doing a poo-poo. That's what that little grumpy face meant.

Nick waddled into the frame of the door, rubbing his eyes again, wearing the sweatpants he kept by the bed that he'd obviously just pulled on. His chest was still bare. He was still a specimen in the dim lamp light of the room. He stood out - the only starkly manly thing in a room full of pink. He stared across at me. "You got up fast," he mumbled.

"I was in here anyways," I answered. "I couldn't sleep. Didn't wanna wake you up."

He nodded. I could see the sleep in his eyes still. "She okay?" he asked in a rumbly, blurry sort of voice.

I smiled because he asked. Because he cared to ask. Because he was a good father like that. Because he'd answered the baby monitor so quickly.

"Yeah," I answered, "We're good."

He smiled back sleepily.

I needed to get him the perfect Valentine's gift -- nothing less would be enough.

"Oliver," I told him, a smirk on my face. Because we'd said I love you to each other this way almost every single day.

Nick's sleepy smile widened. "Oliver too," he said, his voice kinda running all together like a blurry mess. He walked over and knelt down at the arm of the chair, staring at Zoey as she grumped and pooped in my arms. "Oliver, too, Zoey-zo," he said. Then he caught a wiff of the odor emanating from her diaper. "Oh man, Zoey, that is a righteous deuce you're laying." He waved his hand over his nose and got up, pulling his t-shirt up to cover his nostrils.

I laughed.

"I don't care what AJ says," Nick muttered as he hightailed it from the room - probably afraid I'd ask him to change the diaper, "Shit does not smell like roses no matter who lays the poo."

"Coward!" I shouted as he disappeared into the hallway, but I was laughing. I looked down at Zoey, "Silly Daddy," I cooed, "Silly Daddy!"

Zoey shrieked with laughter.