I really want to thank you guys for being so patient and waiting for my updates, I'm honestly never going to be able to thank you enough for endless support you guys give me :)
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Thing 1 & Thing 2.
He brought it up casually though the subject was anything but casual.
They're just finishing pouring the enormous amounts of candy they both insist on buying every year into the bowl when he says it, just like that.
He'd been thinking about it for a while- and Beth had noticed it sometimes.
She noticed how when shopping his eyes lingered on the little pink tutu's or the little blue onesies from across the store. She noticed how he looks at the pro's kids with a look on longing whenever he carried them. She noticed how he looks at the kids in their neighborhood, always a distant smile on his face.
They've talked about it plenty of times before, always talking about how many kids they wanted or debating names back and forth but lately the topic was reoccurring time and time again in their relationship.
Sometimes the mentions were subtle like just pointing out a onesie in the store and saying, "This would look adorable on a baby." Other times he would pick up one of the pro's kids and say, "I can't wait to have one of our own." Before it was only brought up when they were asked about having children by family, but lately they'd been more frequent.
Out of the dwts pros, Derek had always been seen as the one that would have 10 kids by the age of 40 and that was what made it so ironic that he was the only pro without at least one baby by now.
Beth knew it was probably time. She was 24 years old, Derek was 34, they'd been married for 3 years. It wouldn't be odd for them to have a baby (heavens knew the whole word was just waiting for the pregnancy announcement), but she was terrified and though she knew it was unfair for her to push her fears onto Derek, she couldn't get over them.
It wasn't about age, or how the world would take it (ever since marrying Derek, none of that mattered anymore), it was her own fears about being a bad mother. Her own mother had been incredible and she didn't want to fail her baby.
She already knew Derek would be the most amazing dad in the world. She could see that in the way he handled all the pro's kids. She could see it in the way he played soccer with all the boys, or danced around with all of the girls. She could see it in the way he smiled at them and tickled them and made them laugh, but what about her? She'd asked Julianne and Sharee and Katherine and Marabeth and Brittany just about every single question that came with being a mother and they'd all told her exactly what she feared: There was no practice for being a mother. You have to take it day by day.
All of them knew her fears and they knew why she froze everytime she and Derek were bugged about having a baby. They remembered the fear in her eyes the very first time that it had ever been brought up.
It had been Thanksgiving, right around 5 when Bethany and Derek arrived that the endless questioning started. Derek's mom had brought it up first with the simple question of "When's the first baby Hough coming?" Derek at the time had simply chuckled and answered with a quick 'I don't know' but Beth had stayed quiet, trying to hide her fears with a small smile that wasn't fooling anyone, especially not Derek.
So whenever Derek asked her about having a baby she stayed quiet or tiptoed around the question and it hurt her to see the disappointed look in Derek's eyes as he gave her a soft nod, pulling her to him and telling her that it was okay every single time it happened.
The mentions had died down a bit- until today.
The candy bowl was already filled when he asked, just like that, no introduction. He'd just blurted out "Can we have a baby?" and he looked at her with hopeful eyes. Beth just sighed, as she knew he would ask today. She'd seen the way he looked at the next door neighbor's daughter as she ran around in her princess costume and saw his longing smile.
