Jerrie Oneshot Book

Family Additions

Summary: Engaged and moved into their new home with more space than they probably need, Perrie decides it's time to expand the family. She probably should have asked Jade first, but better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, right?

Perrie sat up at the jingle of keys in the door, then stood, twisting the ring on her left hand as she planted herself in the foyer – which was way too fancy a term for the little tiled area in front of the door before it bled into the living room or kitchen, depending on whether you walked straight ahead or turned right.

"Jade! You're home!" she said too brightly as Jade stepped through, wrestling her key back out of the lock. Perrie grimaced and tried to tone it down. "How was your day?" Still a little too cheerful, and half an octave higher than her usual speaking voice, but Jade gave no signs of noticing.

"Fine, good," Jade said absently, brushing her lips across Perrie's cheek. "I just need to-" She didn't finish, just turned left, striding down the hall purposefully, headed exactly where Perrie didn't want her to go.

"Wait!" Perrie called after her. "You can use-"

The yelp from the bathroom told her it was too late. Her hope that she would be able to butter Jade up and soften the battlefield before needing to explain herself had been in vain.

She was given a momentary reprieve, a minute or two to gather herself, before the toilet flushed, the sink ran, and Jade stepped back out into the hall, wide-eyed and pointing toward the room she'd just exited. "What. The fuck. Is that?"

"A baby goat?" Perrie said, flashing Jade an apologetic but hopeful smile.

Jade didn't smile back. "Why is there a baby goat in our bathroom?"

"If you want to get technical, it's not in our bathroom," Perrie hedged. "It's in the guest bathroom, which we-"

Jade's flat stare stopped her in her tracks. "Why is there a baby goat in any bathroom?" she asked.

"It's kind of a funny story," Perrie said, slipping her ring up to her knuckle and pushing it back down again.

"And yet I'm not laughing," Jade deadpanned.

Perrie sighed. So much for Jade surprising her by welcoming their newly acquired kid with open arms. The brunette's arms were definitely not open. They were as closed as a set of arms could get, crossed over her chest.

"Why don't we sit down?" Perrie suggested.

Jade glanced back at the bathroom, then closed the door tightly and followed Perrie back to the living room, taking the corner of the couch she'd claimed as hers even before its delivery a few weeks ago. Perrie sat in the center, tucking one leg under herself so she could face her fiancée. Jade raised an eyebrow as if to say, 'Well?'

"You know our neighbors down the street?" Perrie asked. "The ones with all the animals and all the kids?" Jade nodded her assent. "I went for a walk earlier and the kids were out playing in the yard, and one of them ran over to tell me that they had baby goats, asking if I wanted to see them. And you know I can't resist a baby goat."

That almost got a smile. Almost. Perrie was pretty sure she saw the corner of Jade's mouth twitch. She soldiered on. "After confirming with their mom... what's her name?"

"Carol," Jade supplied.

"Right, Carol," Perrie said. "After confirming with her it was okay, I went to see the baby goats. And one of them was so tiny. So, so tiny. They were already almost 24 hours old, and this little one still hadn't gotten up. Usually they're up within a few minutes. The mama goat had basically rejected it. She'd had three kids, so she was busy dealing with the other two, who were twice the size of the tiny one. And it didn't look like Carol knew what to do. She wasn't prepared to take care of a sickly little goat. Not with everything else she had to deal with. Like the fact that there was another goat in labor at that very moment. Which was born while I was there, and it was fine and healthy and huge, at least comparatively speaking. It was an only goat, so it got all the room to grow, I guess." Perrie paused to take a breath, hoping Jade might see where all of this was going and absolve her without further explanation.