Work Text:
Andy tells Haley she’s the most beautiful pregnant woman he’s ever seen in his whole life on a regular basis, and it’s frankly starting to bug her just a little bit.
Haley thinks of herself as a fully actionable, fully-formed, bright and incredibly functional career woman – in spite of what her parents might think of her slightly panicked reaction to the notion of bearing twins. But…was she not pretty before? Back when she and Andy could go wherever they wanted to go, back when she remembered what it was like to taste something other than vom in her mouth and had breasts that didn’t feel like they were twin lumps of fire?
***
Her parents had freaked out with the announcement – her father was thrilled, her mother a little horrified, but then again her mother had seemingly been stuck in a holding pattern of ‘horrified’ ever since Andy and Haley had their impulsive Las Vegas wedding without telling the family. Haley knew all the signs by now, but at least her mother wasn't shutting them out into the cold.
“I could be married to Dylan,” she points out. Her mother goes pale, and gets quiet, and starts stress-scrubbing the sink, which makes Haley feel guilty.
“Twins run in my family!” Andy had said with a big grin when she’d announced her pegnancy. And he’d squeezed her gently about the waist, knowing she was afraid – knowing it was all a lot for her. But in private he says, “you have a good job,” Andy reminded her, rubbing Haley’s shoulders when things felt a little too impossible to grit her teeth and bear through. “You’re a good person, you’ve done a lot. Enough. More than enough.
Remembering without saying a thing that she was human.
But as she hit her sixth month she really wanted to be seen as a person instead of a human being with a couple of kids juggling her kidneys. And her husband is already thinking of goofy teeshirts and rhyming names.
***
Haley is as big as a house.
Her feet are two huge, swollen meatloaves.
She bursts into tears whenever Andy told her she’s pretty – which, lately, has been all the time.
****
Andy takes her to LA Fashion Week a few weeks before her induction, and acts very enthusiastic about high heels, hats and make-up. He holds her hand as models strut down the runway in impossible frocks and ridiculous shoes.
She cries and he wipes her cheeks.
They’re happy tears.
She has, after all, it all.