bakerstreet | BABIES! BABIES EVERYWHERE. [THE MEME]

BABIES! BABIES EVERYWHERE. [THE MEME]

photo happy_baby_picture1_zpsbfb551fa.jpg

Ah spring. The time for flowers, grass, baby animals, and babies. Yes, with the end of winter comes new creatures including babies.

GUESS WHO JUST GOT ONE.

You and your partner have a baby. Suddenly. Out of the blue. What does it look like? What does it's future look like? You can either plan out this hellspawn hellion child or you can hit the RNG below for things you can do with your new bundle of joy.

IN SUMMARY
1. YOU HAVE A BABY CONGRATS.
2. Figure out where/how you got it what it looks like and some basic traits.
3. Either take it away with you ...
4. ... Or hit the RNG below.

1. BABY I ADORE YOU You've got the little critter home and are adjusting to the schedule of a newborn creature. Basically ... you're living on it's schedule. Good luck.

2. TOYS! Are you spoiling the kid? Is the kid spoiling you? Babies need to be played with. It's like the sims. Otherwise they're not interesting like at all.

3. FOOD AND DRINK Just like with pets, houseplants, and cars - babies need to be fed and taken care of. enjoy the perils of something that doesn't particularly have a lot of control over itself yet.

4. THE GREAT WIDE WORLD Take the baby outside! Introduce it to others! Show it grass! flowers! taunt it with things it cannot do yet! (That's right kiddo, one day you will be able to walk BUT FOR NOW...)

5. GROWING UP IS HARD TO DO Toddler/Child/Teenager option. It's not a baby anymore it's another person that owes you it's life. Granted most of us don't realize we owe our parents that much until we're out of the nest. What did it do? Take the car? Smear paint on the walls? eat a pan full of half baked brownies?

What's that? Looking for something a little more serious? These are more to your liking then.

6. HEIR TO DESTINY IF WE CAN GET YOU THERE. Congratulations your child is the heir to incredible skill, a fortune, a family curse, or something else entirely. Holding it in your arms you are confronted with the possibility it might be a hard road to get this child to their birth right. Are you prepared to do what it takes?

7. YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN A - Deal with disappointment. Procreation is a hard business. You were hoping for a [INSERT GOAL HERE] but it's a [INSERT BABY HERE]. How do you cope?

8. BABY ON THE RUN You gave birth in hiding and secret, you're running FROM someone. How do you cope with the challenges of a child while living in hiding? Is this child an heir to Destiny?

9. ROSEMARY'S BABY This baby is not yours. It was put there by an entity or by someone else - this child's very presence however will change everything in your universe. How does it feel to have roving bands of cults worshiping it?

10. WILDCARD Take your new baby and do what you will with it. Just remember it's a child and a baby. Don't eat it or hurt it for the sake of the meme (because the meme maker was unsure if a content warning would be needed.)

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Only on Wednesdays, [ Lydia explains, tugging the shorter hairs at the back of his neck. ] I'm not his mom, so I don't get final say, and Allison is pretty big on grandparents being in the picture.

[ So Grandma position goes to Melissa. Allison is actually pretty sensitive on the topic, too; her mother is dead and she hasn't quiet gotten over the guilt of being distantly involved. Chris Argent gets the honorable title of Grandpa, which Scott Sr. is actually pretty sensitive about, too, from what Stiles tells him, because Mr. McCall doesn't even know he has a grandson and probably won't for a long, long time. The happy parents are rather big on family time in general, but Lydia's considered family and wheedles enough that she gets a couple hours a week all to herself. Mr. Argent and Ms. McCall got antsy about having the baby around the full moon anyway, which loops back to the scared teenager theory, only with some biased on Grandpa's part and a bit of PTSD on Grandma's part considering how she found out about the whole werewolf thing.

But Lydia's immune. That hadn't come into play yet, because Scottie was literally the sweetest baby ever and wasn't an alpha or anything influential like that, but it had been included in her line of reasoning as to why Scott and Allison should take the evening to themselves and go out.

And Lydia also had Derek at her (every) beck and call, be it werewolf based or diaper themed. ]

They might let you babysit by yourself, too, you know. If you asked. [ There's a praising, you're good at this heavily implied here. ] You could take him to the zoo and frighten all the zebras.

I guess that makes sense. [He tilts his head slightly to make it easier for her — no matter how much teasing he gets about practically rolling over and showing her his belly every time she touches his hair, he still thinks it's awesome and is quite happy to encourage petting as much as possible. It's not his fault it just feels good, okay.

He hums a little, considering.] Is he still too young for those baby-sling things like Zach Galifianakis wore in The Hangover? Because those look like fun. [They have the added benefit of leaving both hands free, either to tickle little baby feet or to do other things like hold food or deal with money or just generally be hands and do hand-type things.

Turning his head, he looks up at her, smiling in the blue light from the television, reaching up to brush his fingers along the length of her arm.] You want kids, right babe? How many?

No soft structured carriers if they face out. Facing out can arch the babies back and makes the baby dangle from the pubic bone. The frog-leg position of the other carriers is beneficial to the hip development. [ It's not like she read a bunch of What To Expect If You're Expecting-esque books during Allison's pregnancy, what, no. ] So you could use a Ring Sling or Mei Tai carrier. Allison and Scott have a Mei Tai.

[ She'd been with them when they'd picked it out. There's a part of Lydia that is convinced that, without her, this baby would be doomed. Hence she'll be the best god mom ever, and protect his delicate spinal chord and pubic bones from mommy, daddy, and Uncle Derek.

Uncle Derek who is touching her, leaving goose bumps in the wake of his fingertips, and talking about considerably more commitment than just god motherhood and uncle-ship. ]

Eventually, [ Lydia huffs, stressing that she might — might — want kids, and only in the future. The far off future. And while Lydia has her future mapped out, sometimes she gets a little evasive discussing it. ] I come from a two child family, so most psychological journals imply I'll either want no kids, exactly two, or more.

[He stares at her in silence for a second before laughing, shaking his head fondly as he chuckles.] Oh Lydia. [Of course she would be a walking wikipedia of baby slings, he should know better than to be surprised. It's so her. And yet here he is, once again faced with her fierce brain, sucking in knowledge like a plan starved of water. He knew she went equipment shopping with Scott and Allison before the baby was due, he's seen the playpen/crib in her bedroom, but he didn't figure she was the resident expert. Though, knowing those two, someone has to be.] What the hell is a Mei Tai anyway? Sounds like a drink with an umbrella in it.

[Okay, now he's just being stupid on purpose. Whatever.

He lifts his eyebrows at her, continuing to rub his knuckles along the line of her tricep.] None, two, or more kind of leaves a huge field open there, Lydia. And screw what psychological journals think, I want to know what you think.

Don't laugh at me, [ she scolds and pulls her hand away from his head in punishment. This serves so she can reach between the cushions and rescue her cell phone with the intent of searching Mei Tai baby carriers to show him, because the difference between a soft structured sling and a Mei Tai was very hard to explain and — wow, she's really wasn't helping the whole don't laugh at me, I'm not ridiculous case, even with her internal monologue.

But he's prying, and she's making a bit of a face because this is a bit close to a should we start trying? when's your ovulation cycle? conversation. It's also forcing her to think about something she's put off thinking about for a long time, and she isn't sure it's an internal conversation she wants to have just yet.

Lydia makes a face. ] I don't know, [ she preface, nose wrinkled and not meeting his gaze. ] Maybe three...

I'm not! [he protests, already mourning the loss of her hand in his hair. When it becomes clear she's not just punishing him but actually taking the time to google something on her phone, presumably this weird baby carrier, he turns and clambers up onto his knees, settling down beside her and slinging his arm over her stomach so he can see when she pulls up the appropriate page. He may laugh when she starts reciting the pros and cons of carriers versus slings, but Derek wants to know about this stuff too. Scottie's health is important to him, okay, and he's going to have to know this eventually when he starts having his own kids.

She's making a face at him, and he doesn't have to be psychic to be able to tell what she's thinking.

Figuring he better head this off at the fore, he nods once and bends to kiss her shoulder.] Three sounds good. There were five of us, which felt like way too much sometimes. Three is a pretty reasonable number. But not for a while, though. I'm happy being the cool uncle for now, I don't need to start having my own kids for at least a few more years. [He'd like to get married first, for one. Or at least be at a point where marriage is more of a given than just an idea.]

[ His words don't sooth her, even when she nods to his declaration of just being the cool uncle. It suited them. They could handle the baby when he cried, but didn't have to keep him all day every day; she wasn't the one with bags under her eyes from late night feedings, and he wasn't the one with spit up on the shoulder of literally every shirt he owns. They did cool things: Thomas The Tank Engines, the zoo, the aquarium, and utterly spoiling him in clothes and toys. Years down the road, they'd do cool things like Disneyland and buy handheld Nintendo games for him, but they wouldn't be the one to punish him when he got his first girlfriend and stayed out late and — oh. Oh. Oh no, she's not thinking about that because by the time Scott's sixteen, she's going to be so old.

She'd definitely have kids by then, Lydia thinks. She'd have to somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties if she wanted to have healthy kids and have them safely, fields medal or no. And when she thinks of these babies she'd be allowing to ruin her figure five to six years down the line all have dark hair, blue-green (bright blue) or hazel eyes, defined eyebrows, and fangs.

But when they're talking about this? About when they would want to start reproducing, they're purposefully separating themselves. My kids, I'd want three, how many kids do you want. It's comforting and disheartening at the same time. Hey, if they had dividing views, they weren't planning their future just to be disappointed. But she'd been sixteen when they'd started loosely "dating", and while she'd decided they'd call it quits when she went away to college, when she'd come back they'd fallen right back into an easy routine and she couldn't quite fathom it any other way.

...Shit. ]

So, [ Lydia drawls, making a quick attempt at deterring their conversation. ] If you had a daughter and she dated Scottie, would that technically be incestuous? They wouldn't be actual cousins.

[Lydia is famously touchy about some things, and Derek is always hesitant to set her off when there's no need for it. He's never one to back down from a fight, but this... Well, they had never officially decided anything. Back when she was still in high school, he had been well aware he was basically a rebound from Jackson leaving. A rebound that lasted until her graduation, but still. They'd never been a real couple, not like Scott and Allison. They went out to the movies, sure, made out on his couch, fucked in her bed, whatever. But he always knew it was going to end. And then when she came back from college with a shiny degree in her hand, things had just...gone back to that. He still hasn't properly asked her out. If he even had a Facebook they probably wouldn't be Facebook-official. (Well, they'd maybe be It's Complicated, but that's if they'd acknowledge it at all.)

So if he, like her, imagines his future kids being dark-haired little geniuses with fiery tempers and a stubborn streak a mile wide, he doesn't mention it. Doesn't mention how much he'd like to see her swell with his pups, how much he'd like to watch her cradling them in her arms and know that this is his, how much he'd like to curl around her at night and smell mate and family and happiness as little lungs breathe quietly down the hall.

But he wants to.]

I'd threaten to rip his arms off, because he'd be too old for her.

[ Well, so long as he was keeping dutifully silent about what he imagined his future kids to be like, she would keep quiet about hers — just in case saying something jinxed it. Because they have luck like that. Bad luck that had oh so kindly looked the other way for a few years but was waiting to crouch, pounce, and maim them (on a lacrosse field).

In high school, Lydia'd been content with movies and turning her nose up when her classmates pried about why she was still single. And now, Lydia is content with her degree and diaper runs. Could be for a long time, though maybe with some additional degrees and a few awards. But for that she'd need to leave again, and was doing an excellent job stalling that out so far. Just like she was doing an excellent job avoiding further questions. ]

Oh, wow, that's really funny — I could swear that would be the exact same argument my dad would have used if he knew I was sleeping with you when I was sixteen. But he probably would have borrowed a gun from Mr. Argent instead of tearing you apart with brute force.

[ And given up when regular bullets didn't work because her father was a bit of a quitter and she resented him for it. At least Mr. Argent had tracked Scott and Allison to the middle of a field in the preserve and dragged Scott out of the car, and at least Mrs. Argent had tried to kill him and make it look like an accident. That took premeditation and drive, where as her mother had slept soundly while she'd ridden him like a show pony in the room over. ]

And I feel like you'd threaten to rip off the arms of any of the boys who pull her hair in kindergarten. Reusing the same threat? Not so effective.

[He scowls, but really it's all for show. Sometimes when he looks back on the way he acted those first few years after he came back to Beacon Hills, after he found Laura dead, after Peter was resurrected...well, frankly, he's appalled. Turning teenagers is one thing, he was a lone Alpha who needed a pack to become stronger and teenagers are easily convinced little creatures, but the rest of it? He took looking tortured and ran with it, like he was on some terrible teen drama on television and had to be the requisite brooding bad boy. As if the whole leather jacket and sports car melodrama wasn't bad enough, he'd practically turned into what he told himself he'd never be: Kate.

Though, admittedly, he'd never tried to murder Lydia's whole family. Never even felt the urge to. But still, he was twenty two, sleeping with a sixteen year old. Talk about highly illegal. At least things are better now, though he's sure people still frown on them being together, not like he gives a shit. So he's nearing thirty, so what. He's pretty stable now, got his own house (a new one, not the burnt-out husk he used to live in, not the loft he settled for a year later), a job, friends that aren't related to the pack. And, apparently, a not-girlfriend with whom he wants to settle down and have little werewolf babies.

Life is complicated.]

That's different, [he mutters, back to scowling.] And besides, hair as pretty as yours doesn't deserve to be tugged. They'd be asking for it.

[ For what it was worth, Lydia retains to this day that it was she who initiated everything. She'd been the one to bully him into watching movies with her, had driven out of her way to do so, had bought kettle corn and popcorn for him (even though it turned out he hadn't had a microwave), and eventually —after a few dubious evenings of rom coms — she'd been the one to smile sweetly, cock an eyebrow, and ask, do you want to sleep with me? He may have been the one to wall her against her car, but she'd been the one to declare they were going on a date and left with a smug smirk gracing her kiss flushed lips.

The movies had been the only dubious aspect, too, because when they had started having sex, she'd planned it carefully, had everything they'd needed on hand and assured her mother had been out (though apparently hadn't counted on him staying past 3 am; a gross oversight on her part but, hey, at least it hadn't just been a booty call..)

When she reflects on that messy, messy time in their lives, Lydia doesn't feel remotely taken advantage of, doesn't begrudge him anything — except maybe that there was no valiant offer to move to Massachusetts, but that was an unrealistic ideal born out of that habit of watching romantic comedies, impossible when he (they) had so many ties to Beacon Hills. (Strong, too; those ties were the only real reason she'd come back.)

She's pretty sure he's making some allusions to his daughters having her hair, and shakes it off quickly. ] Red hair is usually recessive. Now what's your excuse?

[If she ever brings it up, Derek will probably reluctantly divulge that he would have been happy to pack up and move to Boston with her, rent a shitty little apartment near Harvard so she could go to school and he could stay with her as her not-boyfriend. It would have been fun, Derek likes Boston, but he'd been there at a different point in his life, when he wasn't an Alpha and didn't have a pack to control and a territory to look after. If Laura had still been alive, he would have made every effort to follow her across the country.

But Laura wasn't alive, and Derek had far too many responsibilities to leave town like that, so he sent her off on her way with a myriad of strawberry-shaped hickeys littering her skin and a copy of El Camino tucked into her suitcase. He was pretty sure teenagers don't use CDs anymore, but Derek wasn't big on personal possessions — he certainly wasn't going to give her his jacket, sorry honey — and The Black Keys were his favorite band back then. Maybe she'd have looked at it and thought of him, even if she never played it.

That was all the sentimentality he had allowed himself back then, but now is a different story. Now he's settled on his knees by her couch, his arm around her waist, head shifting to lean on her stomach after he plucked her arm up and draped it over his shoulders. It's time to cuddle, dammit.]

I need an excuse for wanting little ginger daughters? [So apparently Derek has decided to force the issue after all. Huh.]

[ In her bedroom, she had a desk with a CD rack, and literally the only disk that was not some sort of programming software or a burned collection of pictures was the stupid CD she'd found hiding under her bras. Her roommate had owned a CD player but they hadn't gotten on well enough for her to trust the other girl not to scratch it on purpose. And while she didn't like his music, it was a reasonably precious possession.

Even if things have changed since she was a senior and scared of the extent of her independence, and that CD's value has significantly decreased in light that she actually has him again, she still keeps it. Lydia is far from a pack rat — except, it seems, where baby things are concerned — but a few sentimental possessions? Not even she was above those. She had her hospital bracelets, prom tickets, old birthday invitations, bowling score sheets, report cards, movie stubs, and various other haphazard paraphernalia that she'd only recently rescued from her old room when her mom had threatened to throw it out because she wanted to make Lydia's old bedroom into an office. She keeps most of it in a box in her closet, hangs some tangible photo prints in uniform frames and may or may not have her high school diploma and certificate of graduation framed on her desk to show off her achievements.

It's weird to think some day that family photos will join the diplomas as her great achievements. ]

No, [ she drawls defensively. They're talking about it now, and if they're talking about it she's going to be as practical as possible. Like, discussing eumelanin gene practical. ] I was saying your genetics would be the dominant ones, so you'd need another excuse for beating up little boys.

[ Or practically distracting once her phone finally loads the image she was searching for and Lydia elbows at his bicep (that counts as cuddling, right?) ] Here, look; this is a Mei Tai.

[ And she presents him with this lovely image, a proper smirk in place because, oh, yes, baby, you'd look really intimidating in one of these. ]

[Derek is looking forward to the day when he can start to hang up photos of his family again; right now he's got a few candids on his mantlepiece, but those are pretty much all gifts from the pack, things they'd taken of each other or of them bugging him and then framing so that they could present them to him with great fanfare, obviously expecting him to growl at them and hide the pictures somewhere. Fat chance. No, he growled at them but put the pictures up anyway. He likes having them around. There's a few of Erica, back in high school before she broke off to join that other pack in LA, some of Boyd and Isaac, one of the boys plus Stiles in their lacrosse uniforms with huge grins on their faces... And of course, a few of him and Lydia too. (Mostly those are of her torturing him one way or another, but he likes them just the same.)

He lifts his eyebrows at her when she stubbornly sticks to her gene theory — yes he knows it's not just a theory, he went through biology in school too — and huffs a little sigh through his nose.] I don't need an excuse for beating up people who are mean to our kids. [There, the gauntlet is thrown. It's hard to misunderstand that.

He lets her distract him with the Mei Tai, taking in the image she's presenting to him with a skeptical tilt to his brow. It looks ridiculous, but now that she's mentioned it, he's pretty sure he's seen Allison strolling through town with that strapped to her chest. But still, he's not going to let her get the last work (or smirk) in here, no sir.] ...You think if I wore a sweatshirt over it, people would think I was pregnant? Or just really fat.

They'd just think you were an excellent god father. [ ...and fat. Which would just encourage Stiles' Marlon Brando impersonations and jokes about planting orange trees with Jr. in the back yard. Lydia, on the other hand, has a few more quips about how responsible he would look (that were really just thinly veiled barbs at how ridiculous he would look) but now...

Well, she wasn't stupid — hadn't missed the insinuations, had actively resisted the implications, but had caught them all the same. And when so blatantly presented with the ideas, she couldn't just ignore that. So she stows her phone, twists in his arms to gaze at him down her front, and idly picks at the fabric of his shirt. Her eyes only just avoid his, and Lydia chews her lips and words carefully before speaking. ]

So we're having kids? [ She asks innocently, conversationally, as if they're discussing the weather; it's kind of foggy out, but which room are we turning into the nursery? ]

I am an excellent godfather. [Yeah, he knew she'd go with the fat thing. He may be slowly inching towards thirty but that doesn't mean there isn't still that immature idiot inside him that thinks wearing a baby in a sling under a sweatshirt is hilarious. Clearly he could only do it for a little while, didn't want Scottie to suffocate or anything, but it would make a good picture to add to his collection.

And there it is, he can see her squaring her shoulders to meet this head-on. It's almost possible to watch the gears start to turn in her head as she tries to figure out how best to approach the subject. It's a thought that's been nagging at him for weeks now, and honestly, even though this conversation is a little scary, he's pretty relieved to be having it. Because there's only two options here: either she says no, I don't want kids with you, which would be a little devastating but at least would let him know where he and this whole relationship stands, or she could say yes, that sounds great, and then he'd know to start planning for additions to his family.

He reaches in and picks up her hand from his shirt, lifting her hand to his mouth so he can kiss her palm.] I'd like to. Obviously not for a few years, I know you've got plans for what you want to accomplish in your life, but yeah.

[ That's one of the things, though. Inching toward thirty is inching toward old, and while she doesn't doubt his physical capabilities (which went both with making babies and raising them, running around with them, cuddling with them on the floor, and playing baseball with them) something about his proffered patience has her raising her eyebrows. ]

And you'd really wait? For me to be done with them. [ Because she has a lot, but now that they're talking about this, a lot that include him as well. It's a tentative yes, and though he kisses her hand and she flushes, her eyes can't quite make it past his lips for fear they will start spewing 'no's. ]

Of course. [She's staring at his mouth, he's staring at her nose, they're both avoiding the issue for now.] Look, Lyds— we both know I'm not good with heartfelt declarations. But we've been together how many years, now? Six? Give or take? [He finally lifts his eyes to hers, reaching in and carefully brushing a piece of hair off her forehead, stroking it out of the way and tucking it behind her ear.] ...You're kind of it for me, babe.

[He gives her a tentative little smile, like he's not quite sure that she's on the same page he is.] I can't imagine having kids with anyone else. And if that means waiting for you to do your brilliant mathematics thing, then that's fine. I can wait until you've got a Fields Medal hanging on your wall.

[ He's blunt, and she gets that — accepts it, loves it? — but for all the romantic movies she'd made him watch, one'd think he'd have the romantic declaration formula down to a pat, or would at least have a few choice quotes to throw her way. I wrote you every day, Lydia, and you're going to go on and you're going to have babies and the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. She reasons she deserves at least one of those heart-wrenchingly beautiful moments, and begrudges him for not giving it to her.

Nay, begrudges her heart for jumping like he had, and her throat for going so dry she needs to actually cough to jump start her vocal chords. ] You're a sapiosexual, [ she croons, so content and bemused that it's taking everything not to start laughing at the both of them, and it feels like her chest might implode. She has to cough again, swallow thickly, and school her features into something a little more appropriately stern before continuing, because they kind of just skipped a bunch of steps here. ]

You know, you could have asked me to move in first. Or to marry you. We didn't need to jump straight to kids.

[Her expression slowly melts into something a lot more soft and open, almost mushy, and that right there is more than enough to let him know he hit the jackpot. So it's not a Notebook-worthy spiel, hardly even fits into any of the shitty romantic movie narratives she loves so much, but it's the best he can do, okay, and if she can't accept that then they really shouldn't be together anymore.

But it seems she can accept it, because her eyes are shining and she's putting off the scent of happiness so strongly that he feels himself grin in response, no hope at suppressing it.]

I'm a what? [he splutters, still grinning. He's long ago come to terms with the knowledge that Lydia is just smarter than he is, no contest. And he's okay with that, really. But then she'll pull out something like this — he totally googles this kind of shit when they're texting so he sounds smarter than he is — and he'll just sit back and wonder at her. What the hell is she doing with him, of all people, a guy who dropped out of high school and only ended up getting his GED because he couldn't get a good job without it? She could do so much better. Not that he's going to point that out to her, though, just in case she takes it to heart and leaves him. That would suck.

He leans in and kisses the admirably-stern line of her mouth, still smiling.] I don't have a ring. And listen, I know you well enough to know that if I proposed to you without a ring, you'd kick my ass. So that's going to have to wait until I hack into your Pinterest and figure out what you deem an appropriate engagement ring.

But moving in sounds good. I've got plenty of space and my house feel pretty lonely when I'm in it by myself.

You love me because I'm smart, [ she explains briefly, restraining herself from launching into the Greek roots and Latin influence.

Lydia's smart, and she knows it. Has known it forever and a day, has had it reinforced by almost every single teacher she's had and takes great pride in her intelligence and inherent genius. So it wasn't like she'd date completely stupid boys, and it wasn't like smarts were always determined by degrees, so who was to say they were not compatible. Derek was hardly a pushover, even when she lorded her superior vocabulary over him, and she appreciated the stable backing, encouragement and challenges he provided more than his ability to solve differential equations.

He kisses her, and it takes just as much energy to resist chasing his lips as it does to pretend she's still peeved. A crack appears in her perfect pissed off facade, lips twitching in what's soon to be a grin.

Her Pinterest is mostly filled with tastefully edited pictures of influential, strong women and pastel summer dresses and chocolate, but every couple pins he's bound to find an picture of jewelry, and even if it was necklaces or earrings, one thing would become readily apparent (if not from the website, then from the dog-earred pages of the wedding magazines she was going to take out a subscription tomorrow); that, be it big or small, gaudy or classy, one quality ran through all of Lydia's stylistic choices:

Expensive. ]

I want a big ring. A really fancy proposal, too — a proper one, by the way; this doesn't count. I'm also going to wait until you actually ask me to move in. Like, with a house key or a puppy or something equally as monumental.

[ Besides, she has four more months on the apartment. Moving in the summer wouldn't be too bad, though, because then she could make him life all the boxes — shirtless. ]

I love you for a lot of reasons, Lydia. But being smart is just one of them. [Hopefully she appreciates him saying that because, as they'd been over earlier, Derek is not so great with expressing his feelings. He prefers actions to words, which is generally why he'll show up to fix things in her apartment or stay up late with her watching awful movies or drive her places when her car breaks down, but doesn't often stop her and say hey, I love you. He has gotten better about giving her little gifts, though, fresh flowers (not always roses, those are getting blase), little treats from some bakery or other, a pretty necklace... But he's still working on using his words like a grown-up.

He's well aware of Lydia's affinity for expensive things, and he's pretty glad he ended up putting a fair chunk of his inheritance money into investments, because he's only a deputy in the Sheriff's department, and while that gets him nice health benefits (that he doesn't need), the salary isn't really anything to write home about. Regardless, Derek has enough money in the bank that, combined with her parents' help, he'll be able to give her the extravagant wedding of her dreams.]

I know, babe. Trust me, I've been saving for it.

[He leans in and kisses her again because he can't not, she's basically said yes to living together and getting married and having kids, then rears back and stands, shuffling off to go find his jacket. After a brief moment of rifling through one of the inner pockets, he apparently finds what he's looking for and comes back to the couch, lowering himself down onto one knee and picking up her hand.]

Lydia, will you... [And he presses something into her hand; a solid brass key identical to the one hanging on his key ring.] Move in with me?

[ He needn't worry. Well, actually, he might need to, but she didn't, because if they're going to get married, eventually she'll have him write down every single thing he could think of that he loved about her — and then go through with a fine tooth comb and decide which were applicable (appropriate, too, because she's pretty sure he loved leaving hickeys across her chest, shoulders, and neck) to be discussed in their wedding vows. She has no doubt that, especially in front of a large audience, his would come out halting and stiffly, but given the nature of weddings, and the nature of what those declarations would mean when they're dressed up and holding hands under a decorative wedding arch, she'd still probably cry. Just a little bit. Just enough for him to see, because he'd be standing so close to her. (And the wedding photographer, because she wanted documentation of everything. You know, for their kids to look at.

(The really expensive wedding photographer.

(No seriously, he better mean it when he said he'd been saving it.)))

He kisses her again, and Lydia has every intention of kissing back, including a little tongue and maybe the two of them could make out for a few minutes; it was only 7:30, so they had at least twenty minutes before they needed to start packing up Scottie Dog's things and wait for his mom and dad to ring the bell. But she's barely arched her neck and pushed her lips to his when he's springing back and shuffling to his coat. She's sitting up in careful anticipation, watches his back because, oh dear, what if he'd been lying about not having a ring; their proposal couldn't go down like this, she potentially had spit up on the back of her shirt.

He gives her a little bit of a heart attack when he gets down on one knee: a painfully excited flutter of the heart, a missed beat, and a lurch upward into her trachea. But it's safe; it's just a key, which she uncurls her fingers to stare at in wonder before holding it to her chest. She's not a sixteen year old and is far above wearing it on a chain around her neck now — no, this would go on her keyring, like a practical human being — but that didn't mean she wouldn't hold it in her heart anyway. She's nodding, eagerly so, and shuffles on the couch cushions in a poorly contained happy dance, but: ]

Now where's my puppy?

[Seriously, though, ever since he realized he'd been mentally planning the rest of his life to include red hair clogging his shower drain and nerdy mathematics journals littering his coffee table, Derek had started to put aside some money for the wedding. Because, it may sound cliche but he doesn't care, he wants to give her everything she ever dreamed of. Including a ridiculous, over-the-top, classy as fuck wedding. He's seen enough TLC to know that there is a lot that goes into weddings, far more than just getting up at the altar and promising not to get divorced. He has no idea what half of that stuff is, but he knows there's a lot of it, and knowing Lydia, it's going to cost an arm and a leg.

That's okay. He loves her. The insurance money has been quietly growing in his account these past few years, it should be enough to make her happy and then some.

The vows however... Well, he'll probably end up giving her a jumbled list of everything he feels about her and letting her make it make any kind of coherent sense. And if he needs a little cheat card to read off of up at the altar, well, that'll probably just be because she'll be so distracting, standing in front of him in her beautiful white dress.

He can tell by the look on her face that she's half-convinced he's going to propose and there's a part of him that almost feels bad for leading her on, but whatever, she'll get over it, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Besides, if he was proposing now, she'd kill him. This is not good enough and he knows it. No, he's just asking her to move in with him...officially. It seems that she's either at his house or he's at hers; they rarely sleep alone anymore. This is just making it permanently in his bed. Shuffling forward a little, he pushes between her knees and wraps his arms around her waist, smiling up at her.]

Pretty sure he's still asleep in the playpen.

[ Truthfully, if he couldn't afford her dream wedding, she would not have been angry.

If he hadn't bought her the biggest ring, she wouldn't have scoffed at it and returned it to him.

And if he couldn't write his vows, she'd conceal a small smile and edit them, but wouldn't laugh at him.

Because these were little hiccups in the grand scheme of things and she could get over it. She'd gotten over that dating Derek made her potential in-law her would-be-murderer a while ago, and while Peter never got an invitation from her to dinner, they'd spent tense evenings together and no blood had been shed — so those small problems? The ones that didn't threaten her life or future? Those she could get over no problem.

...Okay, small problem, mostly for her narcissistic consumer pride that wanted to show off to all her friends and family and the people she didn't consider either but still needed to have her good fortune shoved down her throat. She'd invite the girls from college who hadn't believed her when she'd shown them pictures of Derek and said he was her boyfriend, and the looks on their faces would make up for the lack of bite sized bits of gravlax. ]

No, I mean, an actual puppy. Where's my labrador retriever puppy? Or do I not get one because you would get all territorial when he tried to sleep in our bed? [ She lets him settle between her thighs, shifts forward so she's perched on the edge of the couch and can return the squeeze of his arms around her waist with the squeeze of her legs around his ribcage. Idle fingers find their way into his hair again, even as she taunts him about a pets, but he has a point about the baby in the other room and loath though she is, Lydia taps him on the shoulder. ] You should probably go get him up.

[ And really, she doesn't need a puppy, because Derek is just as cuddly as one, and long since house trained. ]

BABIES! BABIES EVERYWHERE. [THE MEME]

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