Oh dear, well that hadn't helped. At the look Zelda gave her and Alfred's gesture rather than movement, Caroline stepped toward Zelda and linked her arm with her. They weren't intimately familiar, but Caroline hoped the gesture would help the other girl to know she was not alone. "It is a big change. Nothing needs to be decided right now." She tried to be soothing and conciliatory as possible as she looked right at Zelda. Marriage and everything up to it was like having sand under ones feet, Caroline had decided, and Zelda needed support on such a surface, all brides did. Especially ones like the two of them who had dreamed up such big adventures.

  

Zelda glanced towards Alfred again, but immediately regretted it — his hands were in his pockets in that way they sometimes were when he was unhappy. She wanted to explain herself but it was hard to find the words. She'd been caught off guard, although she should not have been, because this was what married people did. Caroline's arm in hers was a little reassuring, and Zelda settled into it, reassured by the physical contact. It was a big change. And she'd wanted it for so long, but it was still a big change and — children were a bigger one.

"It's not that I never want a nursery," she said softly, unsure which of them she was directing it at — what she wanted to say outright was does Evander want children right now? but that was too inappropriate for her to ask in front of Evander's brother.

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AMAZING set by MJ

Zelda's remark seemed more conciliatory than genuine, at least from his perspective. He felt as though Caroline and Zelda were teaming up to try and navigate their way out of this conversation as gracefully as possible — this conversation that he had thrust them all into without realizing that it was going to be a whole thing — and he felt rather humiliated by it. One thing that was clear was that none of them had made any progress towards the door, so his hopes of being left alone a minute to collect himself weren't likely to be realized. And he didn't know what to say. He didn't want Zelda to feel as though she had to explain herself or defend herself, so perhaps he could have said it's fine, except that his tongue felt too heavy to form the words properly. He'd already said it, anyway, and he hadn't sounded particularly convincing the first time. No reason to expect the second would be any better. He couldn't express any more complicated sentiment, though. Moving beyond the fact that he didn't feel physically capable of saying anything at all, he hadn't had enough time to untangle how he felt about this to have anything coherent to say. And Caroline was here, which meant he would have to censor anything that was too genuine. He liked her and so did Zelda, but that didn't mean she deserved to be thrust into the center of a conversation like this.

"I thought you'd be —" he started to say, but cut off when he realized this wasn't how he wanted to start at all. He didn't know how he did want to start, though, because he still didn't know what he was trying to actually say, and he had his hands in his pockets and he felt miserable and Zelda looked miserable.

"Nevermind." His cheeks were flushing. He decided abruptly that if they weren't going to leave the room he would, and headed back out into the hall without looking back at either woman.

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

As Zelda's weight leaned into her Caroline felt a moment of relief that her soon to be sister didn't mind, so when she softly said the words Caroline squeezed her arm lightly. But Alfred looked as off kilter as she had ever seen him. Caroline was just about to excuse herself or ask if the pair wanted a moment (she hardly doubted much harm could come from a moment without prying eyes, after all she didn't intend to leave them alone that long) when Alfred stalked from the room. "It'll be alright." She lowered her voice softly to Zelda trying to be reassuring. "Would you like me to leave you two to talk? I can stay here." She offered with as supportive of a smile as she could give.

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   Zelda Darrow

She just wanted to backtrack so that she wouldn't have to untangle this, but Zelda watched Alfred leave the room looking just as off-kilter as she felt. Caroline's next words were a bit of a relief, because obviously she needed to say something to Alfred, but Zelda didn't move to leave the room just yet. "Do you feel ready?" she said instead, "To have children? Now?"

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AMAZING set by MJ

She had definitely not expected that question so she shrugged. "I don't know." Caroline answered honestly. In this moment it didn't matter what the right answer was, she and Zelda were too alike for that, instead she wanted to be as honest as she could be for her friend. "I know it is expected but I had always...." Caroline blushed slightly, speaking the words in a low tone, "Hoped for some kind of adventure before that." She should have felt okay admitting this to Zelda, after all they were friends because of that desire. "Now," Caro bit her lip in thought, "I want them, but it is hard to give up old dreams for the new ones." Her gaze meet Zelda's with widened eyes and as unguarded of a look as she could manage.

  

Zelda listened to Caroline for a beat, then nodded. "Yeah," she said; that was close enough to her problem that it worked. She still didn't know what she was going to say to Alfred — anything to make him look less miserable than he had when he walked out. "I think we just need a minute?" she said. She was grateful that Caroline would give them space, because surely her family would not have — although most of them would have fought with her about this, too.

She stepped outside of the room and, once in the hallway, wasn't sure where to turn — she didn't know enough about this house yet. Zelda let the door to the nursery close behind her and said, "Alfred?"

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AMAZING set by MJ

At the quiet agreement in Zelda's tone Caroline gave her a soft smile. The word had been thoughtful as Zelda considered it. Caroline understood. One might always expect it, but when the time came.... it wasn't always easy.

"Of course." Caroline smiled and stepped back to indicate she wouldn't follow. The door closed behind Zelda and Caroline walked to the window to pass the time watching the waves. She'd step into the hall after they'd had enough time to talk, she decided. Not too long, but just long enough.

  

Alfred made his way halfway down the hall before he let out a long, heavy breath. He was trying to avoid being overheard by the two women in the room he'd just left, because he didn't want to make this a thing — any more than he already had, anyway. He ran his hands through his hair and paced down to the kitchen, just to put more distance between himself and the room. It wasn't even the hypothetical children, he realized. It wasn't as though he'd decided to marry her in order to start a family, or that he had a compelling, pressing desire to be a father. If there were some reason the two of them couldn't have children, it wouldn't have changed his resolve to spend the rest of his life with Zelda. The disorienting thing was the realization, sudden and unexpected, that they weren't on the same page about something. He'd taken a step on what he thought was solid ground, only to feel it shift a bit beneath his feet, and now he didn't know what to do next.

Why didn't she want children? Was it something about him? Did she think he'd be a bad father, or that he wouldn't be capable of providing for a family? Was she worried that adding children to the mix would somehow change the way things were between the two of them? Maybe that the Fisks would focus in on the pair of them with a hypercritical gaze? The idea that she might be embarrassed by him, or preemptively exhausted by the notion of having to constantly defend him, was jarring. Zelda loved him. He knew she did. But maybe beneath that love, there was room for a much more complex collection of feelings.

The children didn't matter. If she didn't want to have any, he could live with that (well, he would have to — they were already married, after all, even if no one knew that). That part was fine. All of the uncertainty that lay behind it — the why, and all of the potential negative feelings that drove the why — was much harder for him to grapple with. He hadn't finished untangling it before Zelda called out his name, and had (stupidly) leaned back into the hallway before he had a chance to get the disappointment and insecurity off of his face.

"Yeah," he said. He swallowed, and intended to leave it at that and let her say whatever she wanted, but couldn't quite manage it. Instead he said in a rush, "It's fine. I'm not — I'm fine. It's fine." What he meant by that was anyone's guess, but he regretted saying it right away. Perhaps he'd been trying to ward off the conversation she was probably trying to start, because he wasn't ready to talk about all of this just yet. If he'd been trying to be reassuring with his words, though, his tone would have undercut the efforts immediately. He didn't sound fine, even to his own ears.

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The following 1 user Likes J. Alfred Darrow's post:1 user Likes J. Alfred Darrow's post
   Zelda Darrow

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda bit her lip, because Alfred's face still looked like that, and his tone was not fine, and she didn't know what to do. She was not even entirely sure how to begin to explain herself — she had told him a few months ago, in a letter, that she wanted children. Just not ten, and — she was not even convinced this had consciously occurred to her until he mentioned the nursery — maybe not right away.

But she didn't know how to verbalize any of this, because it was so new. She swallowed. "Okay," Zelda said — they would have to talk about this, and probably soon, but maybe they didn't have to talk about it right now?

She took a few steps forward, reached out to touch his wrist.

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AMAZING set by MJ

What Zelda had probably intended as a comforting gesture as she reached to touch his wrist caused a small surge of panic in him, precisely because he recognized it as a comforting gesture. He was making a fool of himself by overreacting, and now Zelda was trying to calm him down when this ought not to even be a problem at all. It didn't matter if they had children. Really, it didn't. Now she was going to think that it did, and that he was particularly invested in children and was going to be disappointed forever if she didn't want to have any, and he didn't know what to say to dissuade her of the notion when his chest felt tight with unchecked emotion. It wasn't as though he could get a hold on himself, either, because that would require thinking about the idea that maybe she was embarrassed by him or didn't think he was capable or suited for family life, and — maybe things like that did matter, but he didn't know. More than anything he wanted to deescalate the situation now so that they didn't have to talk about anything, so that he could take time to think things through first, but he didn't know how to do it.

"It's fine," he said again, and pulled away from her touch in order to run his hand through his hair again. Just shut up, he thought, because he still didn't sound fine and neither his words nor his nervous gestures were helping. "I love you," he said a little desperately, meeting her eyes. That was really just another way of saying it's fine, and it still didn't come across as calm and collected as he wished he was, but it was the best he could manage at the moment.

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Alfred pulled his wrist away and Zelda pressed her other hand into the side of her dress, because her first instinct was to reach out to try to touch him again, but she didn't want to do anything he didn't want. Especially not in this moment, when — they would be fine, if she had not said anything weird about the nursery, they could have talked about it later when she'd thought about it more, or when they were officially married and expecting children.

She held his gaze. "I love you too," Zelda said, her tone earnest.

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The following 1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post:1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post
   J. Alfred Darrow

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AMAZING set by MJ

Maybe I love you had been a slightly more productive thing to say than it's fine, because her response was encouraging. It wasn't the words so much as the way she held his gaze. He believed her. Not that he had ever stopped believing that she loved him, but there was something different in knowing it from all their previous interactions and feeling it in the way she looked at him, and he thought — maybe whatever else was there, if she was hesitant about him or embarrassed at the prospect of having to defend him to her family, was something that they could handle.

He took a deep breath and let it out. "Okay," he said with a nod. "Let's just see the rest of the house, yeah? You want to see it all?"

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

This was the first time in several minutes that Zelda felt like she'd said the right thing; the relief settled in her shoulders at the sound of Alfred's exhale. She smiled at him. "Yes," she said brightly, "Let's see the rest of the house. And — retrieve Caroline."

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred winced at the mention of Caroline. "Oh, Caroline," he said, under his breath. "I s'pose we ought to apologize to her."

Well, by we he really meant that he ought to apologize to her, since he had accidentally started this whole thing to begin with.

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda frowned; there really was no way around it, and she supposed she ought to simply be grateful that Caroline was chaperoning today and not anyone else. "I can lead the way," she offered.

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AMAZING set by MJ