[[OOC: Based on the song Small Bump by Ed Sheeran. Timeline is just after Christmas, about 5ish months into her pregnancy.]]


 
The Muggle scan they did had proven Brooke’s suspicions right; it was to be a boy. Why, of all things, they decided to do things the Muggle way was beyond some of their friends, but somehow it just felt right, especially considering that her in-laws were, well, Muggles. How many of his relatives were actually in the know, she wasn’t sure, but having some Muggle scans to show them was something Brooke definitely wanted to do. Besides, it was fun to see how Muggle did things, and it was like an adventure, going to the hospital and having that machine scan her stomach, and to see the foetus moving on the screen.
 
She would have never admitted it to anyone except her mother – and, of course, her husband – but the first time she saw the baby move, the first time she actually saw the heart beat and not just felt it, she teared. And when the technician on duty, a kindly middle aged woman with bright eyes and a wide smile, pointed to a tiny blip on the screen and announced that it was to be a boy… Well, there were no words to describe her joy in that very moment.
 
“I wonder who he’ll look like,” she mused, staring at the black and white moving image. “You, most likely, because… Well… How would that work?”
 
The technician had misunderstood, answering with a gentle, “Well, dear, he might have your eyes. You have beautiful eyes.”
 
Not bothering to hide the blush – she definitely didn’t want to have to explain freckles appearing – she murmured a ‘thank you’, grinning sincerely. The red on her cheeks only deepened when Joe agreed.



 
This was not something that either Joe or Brooke had been expecting. It was, without a doubt, one of the biggest surprises of Brooke’s entire life. To be specific, it was the second biggest – the first has always been how Joe Astrid picked her out of all the females in the world. But there had been one, large problem with the timing of it all: she was in her second year of University. If it had been any other course, she wouldn’t have minded as much, but of course the one she was in was also one of the most demanding, in terms of physical demand.
 
Four months with child, there was no way Brooke would – or could – do anything as strenuous as a 2 day camp and hike in the forest or go through any obstacle course. While her bump was not exactly gigantic, the baby inside was just over four months old, and was only growing by the minute. As such, she had to be content with theory, reading text books and writing essays while she watched the other student actually participate. It was hard, because she truly did enjoy the physical aspects of her course, but at the same time, her baby – Baby Joe, as she took to calling it – was way more important to her.
 
Nine months was a horribly long time for someone as impatient as her to wait, because every time she looked at the scans, or felt a kick, or even just thought of Baby Joe, everything in her ached to hold him, to cuddle him close. Most of all, she longed to be able to look at him in the flesh and know that he was real, that this wasn’t a dream, and to feel his soft skin beneath her bare flesh.
 


With her mother’s advice, Brooke began reading to Baby Joe whenever she could. As a bookworm herself, she wanted her child to grow up loving books, as well. In the Muggle world, Brooke knew, technology was taking over and Muggle children were losing their appreciation for the norms of the past. While, having a Muggle in-laws and grandparents, she was exposed to things like the internet, and phones, and tablets, Brooke had come to appreciate those sorts of things – she did, after all, have an iPod and a laptop – she definitely did not want to replace any of her books with electronic counterparts.
 
As such, she began reading to Baby Joe. What she read depended on her mood; sometimes it was Dr. Seuss books, others, Enid Blyton, and, if she felt like it, even classics like Anne of Green Gables. Usually it was at night, before she went to bed, but she did it on the weekends, too. She had gone so far as to get Joe in on it, although she was quite sure he enjoyed doing it, as silly as it may seem, to read to a bump on a stomach. “I will do this every night until the day you ask me to stop,” she whispered after one such reading session, believing with all she had in her that Baby Joe could not only hear, but understand her words.
 


The irony had not escaped her that Joe had been given a baby in one of his classes, almost as though Someone had known Brooke was going to be pregnant mere months after their wedding, and was preparing the two. The day that she saw Joe carrying that doll was the day she discovered that her motherly instincts were strong. While it had been his assignment, Brooke had taken it rather seriously and made it a point to help her then boyfriend in whatever way she could, going so far as to help him set up a cot and form a feeding schedule for him – or rather, assisted him in making one.
 
It was funny how her assumptions were proven right by a very timely assignment that came in the form of a doll; just days before, she had been daydreaming about the future and decided that Joe would be an amazing father. To see the way he was so gentle around his ‘baby’, the way he carried it and held it… She sometimes felt as though her heart was going to burst. And now, now they were to have one of their own – a real baby, in flesh and blood – and she just knew that Joe would make the best dad for him.
 
After she found out she was pregnant, Brooke wished she had given even more attention to the doll, even though she knew she couldn’t have done too much, if anything at all; it was, after all, Joe’s assignment. Most of the time, she was content with just holding it, building her own anticipation for when Joe and her had one of their own. How was she to know it would have been that very next year? Now she longed to reach into the cot, right down to where the enchanted doll lay, and slip her finger into its fist, smiling softly as she pictured doing that for the first time with their baby. She could hardly wait.



Brooke was quite, quite sure all her friends – and family – were fed up with her constant baby talk; but she just couldn’t help it. She was far too excited to keep it inside, and at every opportunity for the first month, all she could talk about was Baby Joe. Of course, back then it was just ‘our baby’, but it didn’t really matter. On and on and on she would go, from the topic of clothes to gender to appearance.
 
Would it be a he or a she?
Would he – or she – look more like me or Joe?
Would he – or she – have my abilities?
Do you think she or he will cry a lot?
Should we go shopping for baby clothes now? Or at a later date?
What colour hair do you think she’ll – or he’ll – have?
 
And the list continued. Eventually she realized how annoying it was, and kept her babbling to those she was sure wouldn’t mind – her mother, Joe, and Cassana. And then, Brooke discovered the gender of the baby, and it started all over again, except this time, she was smarter about it and waited till people actually asked before starting a rant, which, thankfully, she kept as brief as she could.
 
Despite knowing it wouldn’t be for at least another 5 months, Brooke and Joe had disappeared one afternoon and came back with a small selection of clothes. Hanging them up neatly in the closet, whenever a friend came over, Brooke found an excuse to show off. They had decided on an overall Disney theme, and all the outfits had some form of Disney character on it, from Stitch to Winnie the Pooh, and all the in-betweens. Her mother had warned her how quickly babies outgrow their clothes, and so they had only purchased seven sets; one for each day of the week. Baby Joe was definitely going to grow up appreciating Disney, that much she was sure.
 


 
There was one thing that Brooke could not get over in regards to babies: how adorably small everything was. When she was younger, in her Hogwarts days, her mother’s good friend had given birth and Aurelia had brought Brooke with her to visit. This was the first time she was allowed to hold a baby by herself, and to see one so close up was something she never forgot. In all honesty, she had not expected everything to be so perfect.
 
The way the fingers, smaller and thinner than a twig, had all the lines and creases that hers did; the way each toe curled inwards when touched; the way the eyes looked like marbles, and the nose, a button; the way that the mouth opened into a ring when looking for food. It was all just so miniature and at the same time, so beautifully perfect.
 
Now that she was expecting, Brooke reminisced about the time spent carrying that baby, and dreaming of the time when she could hold her own. Would he look like Joe? She hoped he would; to hold a miniature Joe was a secret wish she had ever since they found out the gender of their baby. Sometimes, when nobody was looking and she was sure she was alone, she would study her own hands, spending minutes just staring at them, picturing them tiny and small. Someday soon, she wouldn’t have to imagine it – and she would be able to stare at Baby Joe’s hands, and feet, and face: a handful of minute perfection.
 


As time went on, sleeping became harder for Brooke. Normally, she lay on her side, hugging a pillow or bolster. However, and the baby bump became bigger and more obvious, that was no longer an option. Lying on her back hurt after a while, and sometimes, Baby Joe would spend half the night kicking, keeping her up. But in her mind, it was all worth it. She had been through much, much worse. Besides, she was having a baby – their baby – and a few restless nights would be nothing in comparison to having a child with Joe.
 
Of course, she was warned that once she gave birth, sleeping wouldn’t exactly become easier, because as the mother, she was expected to feed Baby Joe whenever he wanted milk. The very thought only made her smile. Sleep? Who needed that when a tiny human made up of half your DNA and half of the DNA of the man you loved needed you? At least, that was what Brooke told those who warned her, only for them to chuckle knowingly and pat her on the back with a, “You’ll see.” But she didn’t bother listening to them.
 
Already Joe and her had discussed things, what with her having University classes and all that. She was to take a gap year, until Baby Joe was old enough to be left with her parents. It would mean being held back by a year, but in her eyes, none of it mattered. While Brooke definitely wanted to still work and be an Auror, family was always first on her list of priorities. Now that she was pregnant, Baby Joe was added to the top of her list, alongside Joe, her brother, and her parents. Friends came second; work came third. Brooke knew she would do whatever it took to keep her family safe; she had proven that much once before.





People kept saying that they were sorry, as though it was their fault – as though their words could somehow make up for her loss or take away some of the pain she felt. But how could it? She had lost something that was growing inside her. One moment she could feel him – feel Baby Joe – kicking and the next, nothing. Just like that, he was gone.
 
And that was another thing: people were wishing her sympathies for her loss, as though it had been an object misplaced. It was so much more than that. Something had died inside her – someone. Her baby. Joe’s baby. Their baby. There were no words to describe the pain she felt, no way to communicate just how physically painful it was when the Healer had given them the news. When she came over, and with just one look Brooke knew. It was as though someone had crawled into her heart with a knife and began stabbing. This is what crucio must feel like, she had thought.
 
But the worst part of it all was that she just could not cry. For days all she did was stare blankly at faces, nodding at meaningless words, as people came and left. Through it all, Joe was by her side. But for once, his presence wasn’t enough. Her heart ached for her baby – their baby – and to feel him kicking, to be kept awake because he was moving too much, to feel his heart beating in rhythm to her own.
 
She knew that Joe was there for her, and that it hurt him as much as it hurt her, but at the same time, it wasn’t him Baby Joe was growing inside. It was her. She was the one who woke up to that horrible stabbing pain, and knew at once something was wrong. She was the one who lay awake at night, one hand on her belly, feeling the thud thud thud of Baby Joe’s legs against the wall of her uterus. She was the one who had carried him for just over 4 months. And now, now he was gone.
 


 
The Healers had done their best to explain it all, to explain what happened. That was not what Brooke needed to know. What she needed, what she ached for, what she cried for was why. And nobody could answer that. Nobody could explain why Baby Joe died, only how. Nobody could tell her why, when why was all that mattered. She didn’t care for hows, or whens, or wheres.
 
She was discharged after 3 days, during which they checked her health and made sure she was okay. But she wasn’t. How could she be when her future had just passed away? All the plans they had made, all the time spent day dreaming about holding Baby Joe, all the effort spent baby-proofing their home died when he did. And now, everything around her was a reminder of what could have been.
 
The baby clothes that hung in the closet waiting for somebody that would never come home now only served as a dust collector. All the books that sat patiently on the shelf no longer had a purpose. But Brooke still read them, out loud. Maybe wherever Baby Joe was, he could still hear her voice as she whispered the lines, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.” After all, she said she would not stop. How could she break that kind of promise?
 
9 months of waiting had seemed like such a long to her. 9 months before she could see her baby, hold him, kiss him. But now, 9 months seemed so little, because now, no matter how long she waited, no matter how many months or years passed, she would never get to touch Baby Joe, to look into his eyes. She would never know if he looked more like Joe, or herself, or if he had indeed inherited her abilities.
 
A nine month wait had turned into forever, and there would never be enough words to describe just how long forever was.