"Michael," Rick stated, tossing names from his list at Kate.
"No," she said with a crinkled nose.
"Dustin."
"No."
"Reid."
"Ooo," Kate perked up, thinking about it for a moment as she stroked her stomach on the opposite end of the couch from her writer. She then compared it to their name, and shook her head, "No. Rick, I really like Henry Chase. It's a really cute name that the baby can grow up with, and you lit up the second you heard it."
Rick then agreed, "It is really cute, but what if he hates it? I mean, what if he's a jock. Henry isn't really masculine."
"No, but Chase is. If he wanted to use his middle name, he could. Plus, you said your friends all called you Rodgers in high school and college anyway."
"Kate, I love that name, I just- I don't think we should make it absolute yet. I don't think we should tell anyone else yet, just in case we change it."
"Rick, why would change the name? I thought we both loved it."
"I don't know. Maybe the day he's born, we'll see him, hold him for the first time and decide he looks like a Phillip or a Kyle or something."
Kate sighed. "First of all, I veto Phillip now if that's on your list." Rick huffed a moment and scratched his pen over the pad of paper he was holding. "Second, Rick, I love that name. And every time I hear it, I can feel how- right it is and the baby even moves around and- it's the right name, Rick. Unless you really don't like it."
"No, no, I love it. I just-...," he didn't know what it was exactly. He just told her, "I don't want to mess this up."
Kate lightly smiled to her lover, sighing, and then telling him softly, "Rick, if you really don't want me to broadcast the name to my father and your mother and everyone else, I won't. But you at least have to let me tell Maddie it's in our top five. She's dying to know."
Rick smiled. "Of course."
Alexis then cooed from the stairs, "Daddy? Kate?"
The adults turned. Together, they both saw her teary eyes and knew what had happened. Rick asked anyway, "Alexis, why are you up, pumpkin? It's almost midnight."
"I had a nightmare," the girl said softly. The adults together sighed and Rick got up as Kate watched him.
When he got to his little girl on the steps, he lifted her off the floor and gently stroked her back. "Come here, pumpkin," he said softly, "Let's come sit right down here, alright?" The child nodded, resting her head in the crook of her father's neck. The two then sat close to Kate whose hold Alexis shifted into the moment she could. As the writer and his girlfriend softly soothed the child's fears as much as they could, eventually getting her to fall asleep, they watched each other and their little pumpkin closely.
Eventually, Kate handed Alexis off after Rick stood. He then spared a hand to help her up as her now fairly pregnant stomach made it somewhat hard to do so. She didn't quite look full term yet. In fact, she didn't really look like she was a full six and a half months pregnant, but she was big enough now that there would have been no way to hide it. When they got to bed, as Alexis would have likely woken up and come back down stairs to their bed anyway, Kate and Rick allowed the girl to sleep between them. As Kate ran her fingers through the young girls hair as her father cradled his daughter in his arms, she whispered softly, "I hope he's just like his sister when he's this age."
Rick smiled, whispering back, "I hope he plays a better game of catch and doesn't play dress up as much."
Kate's gaze then flashed up to his. "I just hope he's happy."
"He will be. I know it," Rick stated. He then stole her hand from his daughter's hair, lacing his fingers with hers as their hands fell beneath Alexis' feet. "He will be happy and healthy and nothing will ever go wrong for him. I promise."
"You can't promise that, Rick. No one can. Life's not that perfect."
"Alright, fair enough, but I swear he will be just as happy as Alexis, if not more so because he'll have an awesome big sister to add to having you and me, the two coolest parents in the world."
Kate chuckled. "Wow, the modesty in that declaration was astounding."
"Thank you," he said with a child's grin.
"Good night," Kate then insisted.
"I love you."
"Love you too."
-❤️-❤️-❤️-❤️-
The next morning, as Kate and Alexis sat at the table, Rick grabbing orange juice for his girls, Kate threw out the name, "Samuel?"
Rick tossed it about for a moment before saying, "Pass."
"Drake?"
Again he paused a moment, screwing off the lid to Alexis' sippy cup. "No, that's too... I don't know... rough, I guess."
"Okay, how about Carter or Sean?"
"Carter's out because the alliteration there would be hell, trust me. It's one of the many reasons I changed my name. But Sean might be kind of cute."
Kate shriveled her nose. "Really? That's the name you liked?"
Rick laughed, "You suggested it."
"Yeah, as a name to hold in contrast with these cute names you're shooting down. I didn't think you were going to like it."
"Well, I don't know whether to be insulted by that or half proud that I was able to foil your plot."
Kate rolled her eyes and then got back down to it. "Benjamin."
"That's cute," Rick said.
Alexis then interrupted, "I like Arthur."
"Lex, sweetheart, I told you we weren't naming your brother after a cartoon," Rick said and he set her juice down.
Alexis then looked at her dad and said, "I like Max too. And Tom and Jerry."
Rick sighed. "Thomas isn't actually bad," said Kate.
"I don't think it comes close to Henry, though."
"No, you're right. What about something more rugged but not too butch, like... Jackson or Paul?"
"Or something diverse, like... Tyler or Jake."
"Tyler's not bad, but I veto Jake."
"Why is Jake a no go?"
Kate looked at Rick, then Alexis, then Rick again, telling him, "Jake is the guy who first, um... rode this roller-coaster."
Rick let a rolling group of emotions fall over his face before he said, "No. Our son will not be named Jake."
"Didn't think so," Kate replied. "What about Josh?" The writer didn't respond. He continued to stare off into space. "Hello?" No response. "Hello? Earth to Rick," Kate said as she snapped her fingers before his face.
"He's so... handsy," Rick mumbled.
Finally, clapping loudly in front of Rick's face, she got him to jump nearly two feet off the ground by screaming, "Rick?!"
"What?!" Rick hollered, his voice raising an octave for a moment. He then regained his stature as Kate's hand rested over her mouth to cover her laughter. With his shirt replaced and his throat cleared, he again questioned, "What," in a more masculine, but still normal tone.
Removing her hand from over her mouth, holding back her laughter so as not to really hurt his feelings, she replied, "What about Josh?"
He swallowed and adjusted one final time, "I veto Josh. Sounds like the name of a desperate man trying to reclaim what was never his."
"Uhu," Kate replied, "Like you trying to reclaim your manly scream?"
"Josh is a no go."
She then asked, "What about Will?"
He tossed it about a bit and replied, "I still like Henry better. Will is too easy to put in a mocking chant, and anytime I think of Will, I think of that guy who tried to hit on you when you were clearly pregnant, with me, and trying to find out what the police academy requirements were."
"At least he had balls."
Rick agreed, "Yeah, it's better than Josh, but no where near as good as Henry."
"Daddy," Alexis then said, "Can I have more?"
"More what?"
"More fruit, please?" Rick looked at her plate. She had finished everything but the bacon, doing the same thing Kate did.
Rick leaned over to his girlfriend and whispered softly, "You know, she was never a health phonetic until you showed up with your fancy fruit salad and fluffy pancakes."
The woman smiled, looking at her writer, telling him, "Some day you'll be healthy too."
Rick then looked at her with a raised brow, then lifted his shirt, revealing his well sculpted body, saying, "Yeah, I think I'm good." As Kate rolled her eyes with an intrigued smile, the writer smoothly took his daughter's plate and put a few pieces of fruit on it while he gobbled down her bacon strips.
Kate called to him without having to look over her shoulders, "If you keep eating bacon like that, you're going to give yourself a heart attack."
The writer replied, "I'll be fine," in a jumbled mess of flying bacon bits.
She then looked at his daughter and said, "He'll have to eat fruit soon enough, right Lex." The girl smiled and sharply nodded with enthusiasm.
As the writer pulled up behind Kate, before laying a kiss on the back of her head, he whispered over her, "You wish."