Run, Girl (If You Can)

May 2019

Keeley sat on the couch with her swollen feet propped up as she diligently finished up her research paper on her successful clinical trials with the rabbits. It was nearly ready to be published in DOMA's medical journal.

Just in time, too. She was eight months pregnant with their third child and Aaron had been fussing about her going to work ever since she hit the five month mark. Honestly, she couldn't have chosen a better stopping point.

Once their new son was a bit older she would be able to go back and get started on the clinical trials with dogs. Dr. Butler didn't care if she took time off considering Aaron's ongoing generous donations.

In the meantime Shawn would be working as a research assistant for Erica's own research. She was a doctor after all; technically she had more school under her belt than Keeley did because of her post doc work. Things had worked out perfectly for everyone.

Funnily enough, Keeley's child would have several friends close in age. Nova had already given birth to her and Aiden's first child six months ago, a boy they named Liam. Jennica's second son Logan was now two months old. Alice was four months along with her second child with Roger too.

Despite her rosy outlook on things, Aaron had been paranoid lately. The date she had died in their first life was coming up and he kept saying he had a bad feeling something was going to happen.

She wanted to dismiss his worries but couldn't deny it was unsettling to hear him talk like that. Why did he have to invite trouble?!

Life had never been better. They had two, nearly three, lovely children, both of their careers were going well, and they had awesome friends. Why worry about something that probably wouldn't happen?

After all, Keeley's father had lived through his original death date perfectly fine. Lacy wasn't alive to orchestrate his accident. Gray was in prison. And Max had married a socialite from Boston over a year ago and moved to Massachusetts away from all of his memories in New York.

All of the players involved in both of those car accidents were no longer around. Aaron had nothing to worry about. But she had to admit, his stress was totally stressing her out.

She sighed and heaved herself to her feet, placing a hand on her stomach to steady herself. This baby hadn't kicked nearly as much as the twins had. Although if she had to guess, knowing their personalities now, it was probably mostly Kaleb's doing.

Speaking of Kaleb, it was time to pick the twins up from preschool. There were only a few weeks left of the school year before she would have to entertain them full time and she was dreading it. How was she supposed to entertain two five year olds and take care of a newborn at the same time?

At least both of the kids were excited about having a new baby brother. Kaleb had been excited from the start about having another boy in the house he could play sports with because Violet didn't like them. She had been more apprehensive about sharing her family's love with someone else but eventually was won over by everyone else's excitement.

Keeley wanted them both to feel like it was their baby too so she allowed them to have a vote on which name she and Aaron would pick. In the end they settled on Oliver. She thought Oliver Hale had a nice ring to it.

When she picked up the twins, they (but mostly Kaleb) chattered on about how they had brought their mouse ear hats in for show and tell and talked about the trip the Hales took to Disney World for their fifth birthday earlier that year. She smiled remembering how much they had loved that trip.

It had taken months of begging for them to convince Aaron to take them for their birthday. They argued that five was an important number and that because Kaleb's friend Andrew had gone for his fifth birthday that they should be able to as well.

In the end he caved but he hated every moment of it. It was actually pretty hilarious seeing the obvious shock and disgust on his face. He had never been to any Disney parks in either of his lives so he wasn't prepared for the ambiance.

Keeley spent most of the trip laughing at him. It was how she was able to enjoy herself despite not being able to ride most of the rides since she was pregnant. It wasn't so terrible though; the twins were too little for her to take on any rollercoasters anyway. She went on things like It's A Small World with them without any trouble.

Oh, Aaron had hated that ride! He said the song still got stuck in his head sometimes. She felt a little sorry for him but it really was too funny not to laugh at. He was so out of his element the entire time they were there.

Keeley even got them all matching tee shirts and mouse ears with their last name custom embroidered on the back of the hats as souvenirs. They took tons of pictures.

As much as he claimed to hate everything, she did notice a soft expression appear on his face when he saw how much fun the kids were having. The trip wasn't a complete waste of time for him. She knew better than anybody that his family was his soft spot and he would do anything for them.

At least on the last day they all went to the beach and Aaron seemed to enjoy that better than their three days at Disney World. There was no rule preventing a pregnant woman from going swimming (unlike those rides) so she had fun too.

"I wanna go to Disney World again. Can we Mommy?" Violet pleaded. She had really loved seeing all of the princesses and getting pictures with Elsa and Anna.

Another trip this soon might kill her poor husband. "Why don't we wait until Oliver is old enough to enjoy it?" Keeley suggested. "There are other fun places we can go on vacation too after he's a few months old."

Her daughter pouted. "I hate waiting. I wanna go do fun things now."

Five was such an impatient age. Unfortunately for Violet, they wouldn't be going anywhere for a while because her mother was too far along in her pregnancy to travel. And then the baby would be too young for a little while. This summer vacation was going to be rough for everyone involved.