Chapter Text
Sometimes, three minutes feels like an eternity.
On the court, with three minutes on the clock, anything can happen — shots can be taken, passes can be completed. The girls can turn an entire game upside down.
And as Holly anxiously waits for the timer to go off on her phone, she recognizes that in three minutes, her entire life could be turned upside down.
She told Marvyn she’d sit and wait for the results with him, but she finds herself standing at the bathroom sink, the three intimidating pregnancy tests on the counter staring her down and keeping her frozen. Her heart rate picks up speed and the blood rushes to her head and she knows she has to stop watching them or she will quite literally lose her mind. With 2:13 left on the clock, she regains control of her thoughts and throws the bathroom door open.
Marvyn stands as soon as he sees her. He’s nervous; Holly can see the nervousness rolling off of him in waves, even if the absentminded way he fidgets with his rings didn’t give him away.
“Good?” he asks. She exhales, jerking her head in a nod. Suddenly, she desperately needs to be near him. She needs to touch him, to feel him solidly against her, anchoring her to this room, this moment. Quickly closing the distance between them, Holly nestles herself into Marvyn’s body, her cheek and hands coming to rest against his chest. His arms instinctively come around her. They stay like that, with Marvyn eventually rubbing firm, repetitive strokes up and down Holly’s back, until a shrill sound spills from the bathroom.
The alarm rings out for what feels like another three minutes before Holly reluctantly pulls away from Marvyn’s chest. She looks up at him, her blue eyes big and wet, and he can’t help but press his lips to her forehead.
“We’ll be okay,” he reassures her. “No matter what happens, we’ll be okay.”
Holly nods again, her ability to speak impaired by the feeling that her heart is sitting in her throat, making it impossible for her to breathe adequately. She takes his hand in hers and leads him into the bathroom.
Marvyn is the first one to look at the tests. They all have the same result, but he realizes he hasn’t a clue what that result is.
“Holly, I don’t know what this means,” he says, eyes darting around the bathroom as if the answer is written somewhere on the walls. “What does two lines mean?”
Holly gasps involuntarily.
She knows exactly what the two lines mean, doesn’t need to reference the cardboard packaging sitting in the trash to tell her what her future holds.
She knows what the two lines mean, because she spent years only seeing a single line reflected back at her.
“Marvyn,” she says, because it’s really the only thing she can say, and he spins to face her, waiting to be clued in on what he guesses she already figured out. She faces him but looks past him, doesn’t meet his questioning gaze, and nearly whispers the words to herself.
“I’m pregnant.”
A baby. With Holly. Never in a million years would he have guessed that this is where he’d be at this stage of his life, but he’s certainly not opposed. As unexpected as this is, he doesn’t feel the urge to run. In another life, another relationship, there’s no doubt in his mind that he would be petrified. He adores Emma, would do anything and everything for her, but the prospect of having another child—especially with someone he’s only been seeing officially for a few months—should have him running for the hills. Or, at the very least, he should be ready to spin out of control in a panic.
But he and Holly are a good team. A really good team. So when he really considers what it might be like to be a parent with her by his side, the thought isn’t entirely unwelcome. Following that thought, an image pops into his head of an impossibly tiny human, one that has Holly’s eyes and his smile, and his heart aches in his chest.
He comes back to the present when he realizes Holly is still frozen in front of him, her hand gripping his hard enough for his bones to throb from the pain. She hasn’t said anything, and with her face blank and eyes unfocused, he can’t even guess what might be going on in her head.
Which, unsurprisingly, is a lot. She’s terrified. She can feel her heartbeat in her chest, the thunderous sound reverberating against her ribcage. This is what she’s always wanted, isn’t it? Something she yearned for and dreamed about for years– decades, even. And yet, fear grips her, twisting in her belly like a python. There are a million things that could go wrong from here, and she’s confident that all of them just sprinted to the front of her mind.
Oh, and there’s also the fact that this certainly was not something Marvyn Korn had in mind for their relationship when they started it.
She’s scared to look at him. She’s scared to see his thoughts written on his face, clearly enough as if they were a number on a jersey.
She cannot do this by herself.
And he won’t make her, right?
“Holly. Hey, Holly, look at me.”
He brings the hand not being crushed to a pulp to her cheek, thumb making a soothing motion against her soft skin, and gently turns her face toward him.
She sees a flash of something in his eyes, something good and bright and warm, before he realizes how distressed she is. A wall comes up immediately, and his features are unreadable. Whatever she saw, it disappeared quickly enough for her to doubt it was even there to begin with. The conclusion she comes to is that his guarded expression is proof that her worst fear is coming true—a fear she didn’t even realize she had.
“It’s going to be okay,” he says, clearly for her benefit. “Whatever you wanna do...we can do.”
Holly bristles. “Whatever I want to do?”
“Yeah.” He says it with conviction, but Holly doesn’t miss the way he startles at first, his surprise evident in the way he starts fumbling. “It’s—you know, it’s your body, your choice—that whole thing—with the...a woman’s right to choose, and all that.” He earnestly takes both of her hands and holds them to his chest.
“I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”
She huffs out a laugh that lacks any real humor, detangling herself from his hold. It’s a nice sentiment, to be sure, but right now, it feels a lot like Marvyn absolving himself of any and all responsibility. Suddenly, everything is up to her, as if he wasn’t equally involved in putting them in this situation.
It hurts. Holly never thought he’d abandon her.
“So, to reiterate, it’s all on me.” Against her will, she starts crying, hot tears trailing down her cheeks. “Just me, by myself, with this.”
It’s only then that it finally occurs to Marvyn that his misguided support is not helping.
And maybe he misread the signs.
And maybe Holly needs to hear something else entirely.
“I’m really fucking this up, huh?”
Holly sobs. “You think?”
He sighs before beckoning her closer. She comes willingly, still upset, but unable to resist the way she knows she’ll feel with her body pressed against his. Just as she folds herself against his chest, he brings his arms around her. He tries to calm her down, has to spend at least another three minutes rocking them side to side as they stand there, and eventually feels her erratic breathing regain a normal pace.
If there were ever a moment for him to have his shit together, it would be this one.
He pulls back and meets Holly’s eyes, hoping she can at least see some of what he’s feeling reflected back at her.
“I am with you in this 100%. I would even go so far as to say 110%,” he says, and she laughs for real this time. More importantly, she believes him. He clears his throat before continuing, clearly trying to convey how serious he is. “I am your partner in this. I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to prioritize what I want or don’t want."
She looks up at him, lashes still coated with tears. “And if I want to know what you want?”
His grin nearly goes from ear to ear, as he refuses to hide how he feels.
“Holly Barrett,” he starts, “I want to have this baby with you.”
She sighs in relief. The tension in her body dissipates, like air let out of a balloon, and she slumps against him. Knowing Marvyn as well as she knows him, she knows, deep down, that he would never just up and leave her – certainly not with something this life-altering. Still, hearing him say the words puts her at ease. It confirms that they’re on the same page with each other.
It means that they really are in it for the long haul.
He kisses the top of her head before leading her out of the bathroom and toward the couch in the living room. He sits first, then pulls her down toward him. She curls into his side like she was never meant to be anywhere else. It’s surreal, she thinks, that she’s sitting here, cuddled up with Marvyn, halfheartedly watching a baseball game that neither one of them are really paying attention to, pregnant with his kid
Suddenly, Holly sits up, steadying herself with a hand to Marvyn’s chest.
“I do too,” she says. On Marvyn’s lost look, she clarifies. “Want to have this baby with you. I do too.”
He nods, then mimes wiping sweat from his brow. “Thank God for that. Would’ve been pretty difficult to do without you.”
She swats at his chest, but he catches her hand, intertwining their fingers and bringing them to his lips. Holly falls back into his side. Marvyn twirls a lock of her hair. Together, they can do this.
Even if the hardest parts are still to come.