stumbling into line (sidemen ff)

Chapter 27: 'She had been an absolute wreck'

Freya is woken on a dreary, mid-spring Sunday to the sound of loud knocking.  No one should be making that much noise in the morning. 

After a while of realising that no one else is going to go and answer the door, she sits up groaning and cursing loudly hoping that she'll wake Josh up.  Just so she isn't the only grumpy one, if she has to get up so does he.  He murmurs something about his bed and getting out of it before rolling over and pressing his face into the pillow.

Freya waddles down the stairs, cursing the guys for having so many deliveries come to their house and none of them being awake to even answer the door but she is surprised to see the same red head that she met in the cafe with the same child balanced on her hip.  She has a nappy bag slung on her shoulder and a tall bag the could be mistaken for a large camping chair.

The even more surprised look on Suzie's face makes Freya realise that she is wearing absolutely nothing other than one of Josh's shirts, which luckily is big enough to cover her modesty.

"Uh, Hi?" Freya questions, wondering why she is here and what she wants but she is interrupted by the crashing noise of feet rapidly descending down the stairs.  Simon comes to a skidding halt and looks Freya up and down once, apparently not thinking anything of it, before he takes the child from Suzie and she grabs the tall bag with her now spare hands and follows Simon in.

"Is someone going to explain this to me?" Simon turns at the sound of Freya's voice but is interrupted, rudely, by Ethan shouting.

"Is he here?  Oh my God, Vikk, get up, he's here." And he comes rushing down the stairs and snatching the confused baby from Simon, immediately cooing at it and giving the small, gurgling infant all his attention.

"What is happening?  Why is Ethan here?  He doesn't live here." Freya retorts, her eyebrows knitting together and her confusion growing immensely by the second.

"You don't live here!" Simon defends.

"Yeah, but my boyf-" Simon raises an eyebrow, an amused smile on his face, "Oh, shut up and explain."

"Okay.  Um, this is Caleb," Simon puts one finger under the little ones tiny fingers, bouncing them up and down a little, "or Simon Jr. and he is my son.  He's going to be staying with us Monday to Friday.  Aren't you?  Yes, you are!  Yes!" Simon explains then begins to coo and the baby, Caleb, giggles and smiles, which, in turn, causes Ethan to laugh and squeal about how adorable he is.

"I'm sorry, what?!" Freya exclaims in a cry, hardly able to believe her ears.  Simon Minter, the guy who has been in a secret relationship with another guy for almost a year, the guy who was probably one of the most reasonable and sensible people she had met, and he had a child.  Of course he did.

Freya wondered how long he had known, whether he was ever planning on telling anyone, which was stupid because apparently this kid lived with them most of the time now.  Why did Ethan know?  Was he okay with at the start or did he freak out like Freya is right now?

Then she thinks of her baby.  The one she killed and she felt as if, God, if he did exist, was punishing her for not believing he was 'all loving' and 'all powerful', which to her proved that he was an even bigger dick than before.  Why on earth was Simon finding it so easy to cope finding out he had a child?  She had been an absolute wreck and hadn't been able to handle it, hence the abortion.

So many questions rushed through her head and she took another look at the child and wondered how she hasn't noticed before when she looked.  He was the spitting image of Simon.  From the dirty blonde hair, to the nose, the curious blue eyes, he even had the same shaped lips.

Instinctively, she sticks her hand out towards the baby and actually expects him to shake it, which causes an 'oh my God' to rise from Simon and she immediately drops her hand.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She asks, pretending to be hurt though the reasons behind his secretiveness were quite obvious.

"Why would I tell you?" He returns and then turns to Suzie, "I have space for the travel cot in my room or you can set it up in the spare room.  It's probably best in the spare room though, my computer makes quite a racket and Ethan snores really loud."

Simon smirks across at Ethan, who whispers something in Caleb's ear all the while keeping his eyes glaring at Simon.

"Okay." Suzie says, laughing a little and Freya takes it upon her self to be a polite host in a house that isn't even hers.

"Here, I'll show you where it is." Suzie nods and follows Freya up the stairs.

On the way up, she goes the long way round to the second set of stairs just to crash open Josh's door and shout for him to get out of bed and to grab a pair of his sweatpants to slip on.

"No!  You come back to bed!" Josh shouts in protest but Freya ignores him and carries on to the second set of stairs, Suzie following close behind.  She quickly checks if JJ is present at the house, he isn't, before ascending the stairs and opening the spare room door.

She helps Suzie lug the travel cot out of the bag and put it up after some smart thinking and brute force.

They head back down the stairs to find everyone currently present in the house in the living room, which is a rare site.  Apparently, they told Josh and he wasn't that surprised and so he is now sat on the arm of a sofa watching as Caleb, who is lying on his stomach on the wooden floor, attempts to claw his way over to a waiting Simon sat a couple feet away.

"No, dude, you gotta crawl!" Simon exclaims, reaching over and attempting and failing at putting him in a crawling position, instead he just reverts to laying on his stomach and he uses the wooden floor to slide around a little and Freya would be lying if it wasn't the cutest thing she had ever seen.  It made her excited about having her own baby. 

She walks over to Josh and wraps her arms around his neck from behind before pressing a kiss to just behind his ear.  She can feel Suzie's eyes on them but she doesn't care.

"This is us soon, babe." She whispers into his neck, smiling.

"Yep." Is all Josh can reply.

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Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy!!!

Who watches 'being human'?????  Or watched? Haha, I've been rewatching it lately and I forgot how good it was....

But then, people die and I cry and then other people come and I squeal... it's a love hate relationship...  mainly love, lotsa love.

What was you favourite part?

Plus, I just wrote chapter 34 and I loved it...  It's very Emon and it's early Emon so I'm gonna give you a sneak peek for that too.

Chapter 28 sneak peek:

‘Breathing in the smell of salt water, he remembers when he would come here as a kid.  It was mostly in the summer and it was warmer and less windy than it was now, there was no need for a jacket.  He would run up and down the beach looking and searching for interesting rocks and shells and pulling tiny little crabs, that had been stranded by the high tide, from rock pools and throwing them into the ocean only to have his parents inform him that the crabs lived in the rock pools.  When he was nine, his litter brother was one and he finally had someone to help him with his constant searches as his parents had long left him to do it on his own.  Probably getting bored.'

Chapter 34 sneak peek:

‘He's being snarky now and Simon isn't sure if he likes it but to be completely honest, he isn't sure of much. 

He hasn't been for a while now.  Every single day, he questions something new about himself.  Seriously, since when has he loved chicken nuggets so much?  Since when has he found his male friend attractive?  It just wasn't him and he didn't like it one bit.

Nobody speaks, it's slightly awkward as they just stare at each other and Simon gives off a lopsided, effortless smile, which causes Ethan to gulp and try not to melt into a puddle.'