trueloveskid | (no subject)

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psl: neal

(no subject)

Her days have started to look mostly the same. She's still on the morning shift at the diner (which is fine, she likes being home with Neal in the evening), but she doesn't even really need to set an alarm anymore. It never fails, 6am rolls around and she's running for the bathroom. It doesn't matter what she ate the night before; every morning, like clockwork, she's making friends with the toilet.

She's so tired all the time too, and she can't even have coffee to wake up. Her one consolation right now is that she can eat whatever she wants.

The first thing she does when she gets home after work is go to take a shower. There are so many food smells clinging to her clothes, and to her skin, and she needs to be rid of them. She puts on something more comfortable – stretchy pants and one of Neal's t-shirts – and plops on the couch to wait for him to get home. Her belly is starting to grow larger and she's going to need to go shopping for some maternity clothes soon. How are they going to afford that?

She closes her eyes while waiting for him to get home. She's not even halfway through yet. It's going to be a long six more months.

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She heads for the section marked Maternity and then just stands for a moment, looking at the racks. Usually when she goes looking for clothes, it's more something more specific than 'clothes that will fit' and she's finding this a little overwhelming.

Neal stepped up behind her before picking up a light blue top. He thought she looked pretty in blue though he didn't remember ever telling her that before.

"What about this? Or would you rather look for pants first?" He figured pants might be easier to pick out and go through.

"What?" She's almost forgotten why they're there when he speaks and she turns to look at what he's holding. "Yeah, sure. It's nice." She reaches out for the rack in front of her to start going through the clothes.

Neal laughed and began to do his duty as the holder of clothing, starting with the shirt.

"Want to try these things on?"

"Yeah. I should do that." She takes a pair of pants off of the rack and squints at them. Does she even like clothes like this?

"Neal comes up behind her and lightly grabs her ass while whispering in her ear. Go on then."

"Neal!" she hisses over her shoulder as she grabs his wrist. "We're in public." But she smiles at him a little anyway before grabbing the clothes out of his arms and heading for the changing room.

Neal laughed and followed a yard or so behind her. He was going to wait outside of the changing rooms. He felt better knowing where Emma was. He couldn't help but feel a little over protective.

She goes into the room to try on a few things, and everything is going fine until she gets to the last pair of pants and they don't fit. Normally a pair of pants in the wrong size would be no big deal, but this time she finds herself holding back tears. The pants don't fit, and it's only going to get worse.

"Hey" Neal knocked lightly on the changing room door. "You okay in there? Emma?"

"Yes! I'm fine. It's okay. This pair just doesn't fit." She's not discussing it in the dressing room at Goodwill.

"Want me to get another?"

He can tell that she's distressed but he didn't know what else to do.

"No. I'll be fine. These other ones fit." She doesn't know that he could help her right now anyway.

"Okay." Neal went back to waiting with his back pressed against the wall. He felt the tension in his shoulders rise though he didn't want to tell Emma how worried he really was.

She changes back into her own clothes and gathers up the ones she's picked out before opening the door to find him. "These will do."

"Great." He flashed her a warm smile. "Let's go. Here I'll care them for you."

She nods and heads in the direction of the checkout. She'll be glad when they're back home.

Neal grabs the items and leads the way. He knows how stressful shopping could be so he pays, speaks to the woman at the cash register and then leads Emma out of the store and back down the street.

He holds her close while carrying the clothing bag beneath his arm. He didn't feel the need to speak until they were closer to the apartment. "Feel up for eating something? I can make some oatmeal if you want something light."

"Some oatmeal would be good." She should eat something, but she's been having so many problems with keeping food down lately that it's hard to find something that works. She hasn't had a problem with oatmeal yet.

Neal nodded his head and then dug into his pockets for his keys. The effort only lasted a few minutes before he's pushing open the door for Emma to walk in first. He then places their purchase down on the couch and peels off his jacket.

"I'll get that for you." He moved next to her and kissed her on the cheek before vanishing into the kitchen.

"Thank you."

She smiles at him and takes the bag of clothes into the bedroom to put them away while he makes her some food. He doesn't have to do everything, and they're her clothes and she knows where she wants them.

Neal had learned a long time ago that he was always wrong when it came to putting stuff away and as much as he wanted to help, he didn't want to make Emma feel like she couldn't do anything at all.

He stepped into the kitchen and quickly made oatmeal. It wasn't all that hard. With a bowl for both of them he called out into the rest of the apartment. "Do you want to eat in here or in there?"

She comes into the kitchen doorway and answers him from there. "In the kitchen is fine." She goes over to the fridge and opens it to get out the milk. "You don't have to have oatmeal. You an have other food."

Neal grinned at her as he took a seat at the table. "Yeah but I'm lazy. I would probably eat cereal every day if it wasn't for you." It was half true. He'd eat another snack if he was hungry later but he didn't want to fill the apartment with the smell of food.

He really didn't want to give Emma more reasons to feel sick.

"I think it's more like I'd be eating cereal every day if it weren't for you." They both know she's a disaster in the kitchen and he's the only reason they have anything resembling real food. "Do you want some milk?"