Growing Up - Part Two


July 2024 

Roman Bonacorrd is 29; Remus Bonacorrd is 32; Kyla Bonacorrd is 32; Helen Green is 34; Leo Deppiesse is 25; Dee Ottomas is 31; Samantha Bradshaw is 25; AJ Pitts is 35

Warning: Long! :)  I really should have split it in two, but I couldn't find a natural place for the break.  R/L stuff means I might not post another update for a week, so you could always read it in bits :)




Helen Green slammed her front door behind her.  It was not going to be a good day, she she thought, as she walked out to the mailbox.  No, forget that.  She didn't walk anymore, she waddled.  Her shower was broken, her clothes didn't fit, and she was waddling like a duck.  Whoever said that pregnant women glowed was clearly out of their mind.

"Damn you, Roman," she muttered, for about the hundredth time that morning.  Damn him for getting her pregnant in the first place, and damn him for thinking he could just drift in and out of this as he pleased, and she'd be ok with that. 

It was bad enough that he'd completely missed her appointment at the clinic, charging into the waiting room as she was leaving,


But on top of that, he'd made her so angry that she’d made a complete fool of herself in front of everyone there.



Ok, so maybe the situation wasn’t completely his fault. Maybe, in all honesty, she was as angry at herself as she was at him. It takes two to get pregnant, after all. But why did the father have to be someone with the sense of responsibility of a four year old?  And why, after all that, had it taken him almost a week to even call her?  Helen knew that, realistically, she couldn't hide from him forever... but Samantha had made it clear to him this morning that she wasn't ready to talk to him, and she probably wouldn't be for some time.


And on top of all that, the creepy gardener was still there.  Here landlord had hired him, and he stared at her every time she left the house. It was starting to unnerve her.  She tried to ignore him as she walked past, but this time he stopped her. 
“Excuse me, ” he asked, “but I’ve been trying to work out, do I know you from somewhere?”
“I doubt it,” she snapped as she waddled back into the house.  “And I’d expect that if the the hired help are going to hit on me, they’d come up with something a little more original than that!”  she yelled back as she slammed her door.

Not a good day at all.
----

“I’m so dead,” Roman groaned, flopping down at the kitchen table.
“What do you mean?”


“Helen’s still furious with me,” he said.  “It's been almost a week, she’s still furious with me and she has six brothers.  I’m so dead.”
"Have you contacted her at all during the week?"  Dee asked.
Roman shook his head.  "I was waiting for her to get over it a bit."
“Yeah, you’re dead,”  Dee said.  "And, by the way, nice to see you again.  Where have you been, anyway?"
"At Remus and Kyla's place.  She needs help with the kids while he's in hospital."
"Oh... how is he, anyway?"


Roman shrugged.  "He seems better... they still don't know what's wrong with him, but he does look better."  He suddenly brightened.  "Hey, do you think Helen might feel sorry for me if I tell her my brother's in hospital?"
"I doubt it," Dee said dryly. "Helen's not the only one who's mad at you for not calling, and it didn't work on me... but I'm sure that won't stop you from trying."
"I didn't know I had to call you!  I thought we were free to do what we pleased, remember... no obligations and all that stuff?"
"Yeah, we are... but I still wondered where you were.  How would you feel if I suddenly disappeared for days and never called?"
"That would be different,"  Roman said.  "If you disappeared, I'd be left with your kid."
"Hey, that's not a bad idea!". 

Dee had never imagined herself as a full-time mother, and she'd been happy to let her ex-boyfriend Adam take primary custody of their daughter, an arrangement that had worked well, until recently.  Now Adam was working out of town, travelling a lot, and it was better that Dayle live with Dee.  As much as she'd recognised that she'd have to make some changes as a full time parent, it was still turning out to be harder than she'd imagined.  Roman had moved in, babysitting in exchange for cheap rent to give her a bit of free time, but she was still looking forward to seeing Dayle go back to school after the summer.


Roman looked at her suspiciously.  "Don't even think you can - "
Dee laughed.  "It's way to easy to get a rise out of you!"
"Not as easy as Remus!" he said, relaxing again. "He falls for it every time...  Anyway, what are we going to do about Helen?"
"We?"
"Yeah. You’ve done this whole baby thing. You know more about where she’s coming from than I do.”

“Just talk to her. Tell her you screwed up, tell her you care about the baby – and I know you care about the baby - just tell her that.”
"I would if she'd listen.  She's got her room-mate playing bodyguard... "
"Her room-mate works, doesn't she?"
"Well, yes, but - "
"So go around there now."
"What, go to her house?"
"Yeah... at least she can't hang up on you that way."
"Uh... I don't know.  I mean... I've got to go to the hospital with Kyla in an hour or so, and - "
"And that gives you plenty of time... unless... "  She looked at him thoughtfully.  "You're not scared of her, are you?"
"No!"  Roman pulled himself up to his full height.  "No, of course not!  Why on earth would I be scared of her?"


"Then go,"  Dee said, wrapping her arms around him.  "Go, work it out... then go to the hospital.  I'll see you back here later tonight, right?" she added suggestively.

Roman nodded, kissing her before he left.  After he had gone, Dee shook her head in disbelief.  "Falls for it every time... ".
----

Helen had barely had time to make coffee before the knock on the door.  “What do you want this time?” she asked, surprised to see the gardener there.
“I just wanted to tell you that I’ve realised where I’ve seen you before,” he said.  “At Serder Green’s house.  I do his gardens as well.”


“Of course!” Helen said, looking at him closely for the first time.  “Serder is my father.  I didn’t recognise you.”
“Well, maybe all the hired help look the same to someone like you.”
Oh, no, they don’t, Helen thought.  She’d pay more attention if there were more people around who looked like him.  She’d -
She gave herself a little mental shake, realising, with some horror, what he’d meant.  “Look... uh...., I’m really sorry I said that,” she said.  “I had no right… I was having a bad day, but that wasn’t your fault. I just made coffee, why don’t you come in?”
“It’s ok, you don’t need to – “


“No… really, I want you to.  I really want you to… “.  She shook herself again.  “I mean, you’ve been working out there all day… please, come in.  I’m not that terrible a person, really.”
“I’m sure you’re not,” he said, with a grin.  “Ok, fine, but I only have a few minutes to spare.”

----

Roman knocked tentatively on Helen’s door.  He could hear laughter from inside.  Well, hopefully that meant she wasn’t angry any more.  She looked a bit distracted as she answered the door, but she invited him in.  That had to be a good sign…


“Roman, this is Leo,” she said, gesturing to the man sitting on the couch.  “I’ve been telling him about you.”


“About… me?”  This couldn't be good right now.
“About how you’re the father of my baby… but we’re not together any more,” Helen said.



“Yeah, that’s right,” said Roman, looking at Helen, then back at Leo, suddenly understanding....  “But there’s nothing between us any more, really," he went on.  "Not that it’s Helen’s fault, of course.  Not her fault at all.  She’s an awesome woman.  Really awesome.  She’ll be a real catch for some guy… but not for me.  Really.  Nothing between us any more.”


“Uh… ok,” said Leo.  “I really should leave you guys to talk…”  He backed quickly towards the door.
“Wait,” Helen called.  “You don’t have to go, really”
"No, please stay," said Roman, but he was already on his way out the door.
“I’ll be back here to finish the garden tomorrow… I’ll see you then.” he said as he left.
“That’s great,” Roman yelled after him.  “Don’t forget to come back.”


“You laid that on a bit thick, didn’t you?” Helen said, when she was sure Leo had gone.
“Well, I wanted to be sure he knew that you’re fair game.”
“Gee, thanks,” said Helen dryly.  “Do you think if you fix me up with someone else you won’t have to take responsibility for the baby any more?”
“No… no… its not that.  This baby’s mine, nothing changes that.”  He shook his head.  “ I look at my brother’s kids… I’m gonna have one of those little things of my own, and that’s awesome.  I can’t wait for it.  But for you… I screwed up the other day and I’ll screw up again.  Its just what I do.  You need someone you can count on.”


“I only just met him today!”
“Yeah, but I saw the way you were looking at him.  I know that look.  We’ve got to get to know him a little better, though… “
We?”
“You don’t think I’m going to let just any guy around my kid, do you?  I’ve got to be ok with him, you know.  So does she,” he said.
“What makes you think its a she?” Helen said, trying to shake the frightening thought of Roman screening her love life.
“Do you know?” he asked.  “Did you find out?”
“No,” she said.  “I want it to be a surprise.”
 

“Me too, although I still think its a she,” he grinned.  “And is everything else ok?  Because the other thing I screwed up, is that I forgot to even ask.”
“Everything’s fine so far.  The baby’s perfect."  Then she frowned.  "How come it took you this long to ask, anyway?"
"Yeah, about that... I'm sorry, I really am... I got sidetracked... family stuff.  My brother got sick, he's in hospital."
"Oh?  Is he ok?"
"I don't know..." he said sombrely.  "I mean, they don't even know why he's sick yet..." He sighed deeply.
"That's too bad, but - "

The door opened and Samantha walked in.  She seemed momentarily confused, looking from Roman to Helen and back again.


"It's ok," said Helen.  "We've talked."
"Yeah, and I have to get going," added Roman.  "Got to go visit my brother at the hospital."  He finished with another deep sigh, before saying goodbye to the two women.   "Nice to see you again," he added, to Samantha.  "Very nice..."

When he'd gone, Helen sat down heavily, but she was laughing.  "I don't believe him!"
"What?"
"He tried to tell me he hadn't called because his brother was sick."
 "Well, he did sound worried... "  Samantha said, sitting down.
"His brother is going to be fine!"  Helen said.  "He's forgotten that my brother is married to his brother's wife's sister!"
Samantha had to think about that for a moment.  Of course... Rose... and Rose had left the shop early to look after her sister's kids while she visited her husband at the hospital.
"I was going to remind him,"  Helen went on, "but you came in at the wrong moment."
"You don't seem too angry at him any more," Samantha said.


Helen shook her head.  "I figured that if he cares enough to try to pull the sympathy card, then he cares enough to get another chance."  She laughed again.  "This whole mess is so typical of my family!  We always have to do things the difficult way."
"Yeah, that was the impression I got from Cory,"  Samantha said.
"So he really told you everything?"  Helen asked.   "About his past, I mean?"

"I guess,"  said Samantha, "although I still can't understand why he expected me to know about it already."
"Well, pretty much everyone else in town does.  You know, with it being in the newspaper and everything..."
"In the newspaper?!?"
"Yeah, of course.  The fire was in the paper... "
"The - the fire?"
"Yeah, you know... when he almost burned our brother's house down."
Samantha felt her jaw drop.  "He didn't tell me that part," she said.
"Oops," said Helen, her face reddening.  "I'll just shut up now."


"But - "
"I have to go," Helen said, jumping up from her chair.  "Stuff to do... "  and she almost ran up the stairs.

Samantha thought of following her, but decided against it.  Helen wasn't going to tell her any more, but it really didn't matter anyway.  She'd already given Samantha the most important piece of information - 'with it being in the newspaper... '.  

Samantha glanced up at the clock.  Too late for the library today.  It would have to be tomorrow.   Well, maybe that was a good thing.  Maybe she needed to think about this.  Cory must have had a reason to only tell her part of what had happened - part of her wondered if maybe she should just leave it at that.  But really, she knew that she wouldn't be satisfied until she'd found out exactly what Helen had been talking about.
---

From the bathroom of his hospital room, Remus hadn't heard Roman come in.  "What are you doing..." he said as he came out.  "Get off, you're not supposed to be on there."


"It's a bed, isn't it?" Roman replied.  "It's made to lie on.  And I thought these hospital beds were supposed to be uncomfortable, anyway. This is great, its better than the spare bed in Brandon's room.""
"It's not for you to - wait, what do you know about the spare bed in Brandon's room?"
"Uh..." Roman started, but Remus cut him off.


"Are you living in my house?"
"I kind of had to," said Roman.  "With you away, Kyla needed help with the kids... "
"I don't believe it! I'm gone for less than a week and you move back into my house!"
"Well, Kyla needed someone to watch the kids while she was visiting you."
"You're both here now," he said, "Aren't you?".  He looked around, realising for the first time that Kyla wasn't there.  "Kyla said you were both coming this afternoon."



"Yeah, she's here," said Roman, "but some doctor stopped her in the hallway and took her away to talk to her."
"Probably to tell her the good news," Remus said.  "They're letting me go home tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?!" Roman said, "Uh... isn't that a little soon?  I mean... shouldn't you wait a little longer, you know, to be safe... like maybe until after the weekend or something..."

Remus glared at his brother.  "And what exactly do you have planned for the weekend?"
"Nothing!"  He couldn't look Remus in the eye.
"Nothing?" Remus repeated sceptically.






"Ok... maybe not nothing.. but I just invited a couple of friends over... you know, you've got that great pool just sitting there and - "
"I don't believe you sometimes!!" Remus roared at his brother.  "I'm sick, for crying out loud, I'm in hospital, and you're taking advantage of it to - "
"Hey, calm down!" Roman said.  "You'll give yourself a relapse or something..."
"Why would you care!  It'd give you more time to party at my house!"
"That's not fair," Roman said.  "I'm glad you're ok, really, I am. I was worried about you."



"Well, you should be," Remus said slyly,  "You know, if anything happened to me, in some cultures a single man would be expected to marry his brother's widow."
"Don't even joke about that!"  Roman said.
"What, about dying?"


"No.  About marriage.  That's the really scary part!"
Remus looked at his brother.  Roman grinned.  Remus wasn't sure if it was because he'd been joking, or just because he took pleasure in his brother's uneasiness.  Times like this, he really couldn't tell.  He decided not to ask.  It was probably better not to know.
-----


Kyla sat down at the desk opposite AJ.  She'd been surprised and pleased to have him as Remus's doctor.  With fathers who were both cousins and close friends, they'd grown up together, but they'd barely seen each other since college.

AJ turned on the computer in front of him and clicked at a few keys.  "Your husband's tests came back clear," he said, checking again from the screen.  "As far as we can tell, it was just a really bad case of food poisoning.  He's going to have to take it easy for a while to get over it completely, but there's no reason he can't go home tomorrow."
"That's great!" said Kyla excitedly.  Then she thought for a moment.  "But... " she started tentatively.
"What...?"


"If it was food poisening, then why didn't I get it at the same time?  We must have both eaten the same thing.  How come I got sick days after him?"
"That's something else I need to talk to you about,"  AJ said, clicking at the computer again.  "It seems that your symptoms were completely unrelated to what Remus had."


The night Remus had come into the hospital, when Kyla told him she was experiencing some of the same symptoms, AJ had arranged for her to have blood tests too.  He turned the computer around to show her the results.   "Bottom of the page," he said, pointing to a line of print. 
Kyla's jaw dropped.  "Is this for real?!"
AJ nodded.  "Uh-huh.  It's for real.  You're pregnant."

-----

I found out about Kyla's pregnancy in much the way it happened in the story - at first when she did the nausea thing I thought she had the same thing as Remus and I just missed the message... but then she vomited and the pacifier and question mark came up.  

I've worked out why I'm having this baby boom - these are the households I played around the time I was experimenting with moving my game between my laptop and my overhauled desktop, and at some stage I did something that reset all the ACR settings, including taking everyone off BC.  I eventually realised but these are the ones that happened before I fixed it, and I'm only just discovering the pregnancies now.

I'm not too worried about it in Kyla's case... she and Remus have both rolled wants for another baby off and on over the last few sim-years, they're reasonably well-off and, unlike her brother, they seem to be managing fine with all their kids (and the twins will be children, too, before the new one comes)... at least, usually they manage, when both of them are there.

With Remus in hospital, after finally moving him out, I had to almost immediately move Roman back in because Kyla (unsurprisingly!) couldn't cope with three toddlers, alone and with pregnancy-related needs drops every five minutes... Helpful as ever, the first want Roman rolled was to have a party!

In game, Helen met Leo the gardener at her father's house... they had one conversation and a bit of flirting, and I think by the time she went home, she wanted to marry him... lol...  she'll have to slow down a bit because I've made him playable and, so far, all he wants is a date :)

Comments

  1. I love Roman and Remus together, they are typical brothers!
    Yay another baby!
    I'm sure Kyla would have coped handling 3 toddlers if she wouldn't have been pregnant.
    I'm glad Remus is feeling much better, and I hope that next time he will see a doctor much sooner!

    Roman and Dee have a unique relationship. I like it :) If I understand it right, he moved in with her to look after her daughter, and still sees other women, right? Does he sleep with her too?

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  2. Who, those two brothers crack me up! Always picking at each other, but it's obvious that they love each other dearly. I'm glad that Roman and Kyla have a nice in-law relationship, I remember being suspicious about it at first, but I'm slowly getting over it now.

    Yay, a baby!

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  3. Wow, so much going on in this one!

    Roman and Dee are hilarious together! What an interesting relationship they have. And I saw Dayle in their family picture - when will we get to meet her for real? (Unless we have already and I missed it, lol!)

    LOL @ "brother's sister's wife"! That one hurt my brain too! :)

    Uh-oh, looks like Sam's about to dig herself into something new, lol! I can't wait to see what she finds out!

    And Kyla's preggy! I think you kind of hinted at that, maybe, in one of the previous ones, so I wondered ;)

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  4. Tanja, Dee and Roman are still sleeping together, and they both see other people, too... Roman called it keeping their options open :) It is an unusual relationship, but romance and pleasure sims don't seem to have many jealousy issues :)

    Apple, I could imagine Roman being genuinely worried about his brother, but as soon as he knew he was ok, it would be like, ok, so what's in this for me? :) As for Roman and Kyla, I think even he would have some boundries. Or, if he didn't, Kyla would!

    Laura, Dayle was in a picture at the end of a previous update, but it wasn't really part of the story... there was too much going on to fit her in this one, and I'm not sure when I'll get back to these guys at this point, but she'll put in an appearance eventually.

    And, yeah, 'brother's wife's sister'... lol... that was the most concise way I could explain the relationship! Helen and Cory are close enough that Helen would know Rose, and possibly hear what was going on in her (Rose's) family.

    I also worked out that Helen's father is the brother of Roman's brother's wife's grandmother... and that alone should explain why I usually just ignore these distant relationships! :)

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  5. I love how your characters interact with each other. There depth of the relationship comes out really well.

    Remus and Roman's conversation is hilarious. You really got the sibling convo down pact.

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  6. Oasis, thanks, I have so much fun writing Roman and Remus... I swear sometimes their conversations write themselves! :)

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