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Author's Chapter Notes:

I can't believe how few chapters are left. It makes me a little sad but I'm thankful to have had you all along for the journey. Your reviews have been awesome!

 

If there was anything Nick knew it was that he couldn’t go home empty handed. If he walked in the door without some kind of peace offering he might as well sign himself up for a few days of the cold shoulder and no nookie to be found. He found it to be pivotal after a fight, especially if he had walked out in the middle of it, that flowers, candy or jewelry be purchased to smooth things over.

No matter what women said they most certainly could be bought.

Seeing a Target up ahead Nick decided he would likely find whatever he needed there and made his way to the store. As he walked through the parking lot he realized that jewelry was a bad idea. A good portion of their argument was about getting a ring so if he walked into the house with a ring box or even a necklace he was sure that Peggy would take it the wrong way. Finishing a fight about marriage with a proposal would be especially tacky and would do nothing to benefit him in the end so he didn’t want her to think that’s the route he was going.

There was a container full of colourful bouquets of flowers sitting outside the door the store and he picked the best looking one in there (which wasn’t saying much) before going on the hunt for candy. He and Peggy ate healthy most of the time but she had a weakness for sugar as much as the next person and he knew that if he walked through the door with chocolate and caramel she would be as happy as a clam.

He picked out a few kinds of chocolate and was about to head to the cash when a bunch of candy that reminded him of when he was a kid caught his eye. He grabbed a package that he had seen his sisters with a million times, adding it to the pile before going to pay. Nick was standing in line with his arms full of stuff when he heard an all-too-familiar gasp from behind him.

He didn’t dare turn around, knowing that if he looked whoever it was would get a good look at his face and then it would all be over. He only hoped that the person would assume he was just a guy who looked like Nick Carter and move on. If the past few days of his life had taught him anything though, it was that he wasn’t exactly having a run of good luck.

“Oh my god... are you Nick Carter?”

The voice was now directly beside him and Nick turned to see a chubby, petite girl staring up at him in awe, giving her a (very) tight lipped smile. He nodded and continued smiling, checking forward every few seconds to see if the line was moving.

“I’ve been a fan of yours for like, forever,” the girl gushed loudly, drawing attention from other customers who were milling around.

Nick thanked her genuinely for her support, being sure to tilt his chin down down so the girl couldn’t get a look at his mouth and what he was going to call a football injury should anyone ask about it. He tried to be patient while waiting for the girl to ask for an autograph or a photo but she simply continued to stare up at him as if she were waiting for him to prompt a conversation.

“Do you want a picture or something?” he finally asked, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He could never understand why some fans suddenly lost huge points off their IQ just by being in his presence. If they only knew how unglamorous he truly was they might not think the same way.

“Oh!” the girl exclaimed with a shrill squeal. “Yes, I would love one.”

Another person grabbed the girl’s cell phone and the two quickly posed for a typical photo, Nick having to crouch down nearly a foot just to be sure he would be in the shot. He expected at that point that the fan would go away but she continued to follow him as he moved forward in the line.

“What are you buying?” she asked, looking over all of the things that were in his arms.

He had just gotten up to the end of the conveyer and dropped his purchase onto the belt. “It’s a present for my girlfriend,” he explained. “She loves candy.”

“Aww that’s so sweet,” the girl smiled, taking another long look at everything Nick was getting.

He wanted to step in front of her and tell her to mind her own business, that maybe he was buying tampons and condoms (the average sized kind) or hemorrhoid cream so it wasn’t really of her concern what he was going to get.

“I thought the two of you were really health-conscious. I read that on Twitter,” the girl told him, still standing far too close as he handed over his credit card to the cashier and waited for the items to be bagged.

“We are,” Nick said, annoyance starting to be clear in his voice. “That’s why it’s a present because she doesn’t have it all the time. Look, it was really nice meeting you but I have to go.”

“Oh, okay,” the girl said, her voice laden with disappointment. “It was nice meeting you, too.”

Nick nodded and smiled, almost forgetting to keep his mouth closed before he rushed out of the store and back to the car as if he were being chased by wolves, constantly checking behind him.

~*~

The house was quiet when he walked in, almost too quiet. He held the Target bag tightly in one hand as he walked through the foyer into the living room, scanning for any signs of life. It was one thing not to see Peggy but something else entirely for the dogs to not have come running the second they heard the door.

The lack of activity in the house made him nervous. He cautiously made his way upstairs, half expecting to see Peggy’s bags packed or even gone from the house. Quite the contrary though, nothing really looked as though it had been touched since he left. The two mugs full of soup were gone from his desk and he later found them sitting empty and rinsed in the sink.

He was standing out on the back deck when he heard the security system beep to tell him that the front door had been opened and he quickly made his way back through the house. When he got to the foyer again Peggy was letting the dogs off their leashes and they scampered off towards the kitchen in expectation of a treat. He knew she saw him there when he walked in but she hadn’t said anything. Instead, she slowly took off her running shoes and put them away in the closet, hanging her jacket back up on a hanger.

“Where the hell were you?” he couldn’t keep himself from asking. “I was worried.”

“Where the hell was I?” Peggy repeated with a chirp of ironic laughter. “That’s rich coming from you. As far as I knew you weren’t coming home tonight so why would I need to tell you that I took your dogs for a walk because you weren’t here to do it?”

“Oh,” he muttered, his face flushing red with embarrassment. “Thank you for doing that.”

“No problem,” she replied, walking past him and into the kitchen without a glance in his direction. “I figured I might as well get used to taking care of them more since they’re the only children I’m ever going to have.”

Nick sighed, this wasn’t as easy as he thought it was going to be. He had imagined himself swooping back into the house to Peggy’s sheer delight. He would give her the candy and flowers he bought her and she would fall into his arms accepting his apology and they’d have oodles of make-up sex. Instead she was giving him an incredible amount of attitude and she hadn’t made eye contact with him once since she walked back into the house.

“Hey, um,” Nick stuttered, glancing around for any sight of the now-missing Target bag. “I got you something. Stay right here okay?”

“Where would I go?” she asked before adding sarcastically, “I’m only here to serve you.”

He sighed a second time, this time heavily and motioned for her to stay put. He eventually found the bag upstairs and quickly ran back down to the kitchen only to discover that Peggy was gone again. After another quick search he found her sitting on the couch in the living room reading a magazine. He wanted to point out that she didn’t do a very good job of staying like he’d asked her but pushing his luck and her buttons, seemed like a dangerous activity at that point in time.

“I want to apologize,” he started off by saying, seeing her barely glance over the top of the magazine. “I was way out of line to make it seem like all of that stuff was a done deal. I shouldn’t have assumed that just because I didn’t want those things with someone else that I don’t want them with you because that’s not true. You’re different than the other women I’ve been with. You’re the first person that when I think about our relationship I can’t see it ending - I don’t want to be without you. I should have taken that as a sign that I was ready for something more but I’m stubborn and I let my silly beliefs get in the way and I’m sorry.”

Nick stuck out the pathetic looking bouquet of flowers and waited patiently for Peggy to put down the magazine and finally acknowledge him. Hesitantly she put the magazine aside and reached out, taking the flowers from his hands. She smelled them briefly then rested them down on the coffee table before motioning to the bag.

“What’s that?” she wondered, genuinely surprised that Nick would go into Target by himself in the middle of the day. He normally found stores like that to be overwhelming since there were so many people that usually ended up bugging him and would typically only go in the dead of night.

Nick grinned devilishly and started pulling goodies out of the bag, happy when he finally got her to laugh at the ridiculously wide selection of chocolate he had purchased. Once she was distracted by chocolate he pulled out the last piece of candy from the bag and tore open the packaging. Peggy was already breaking into one of the chocolate bars when he knelt down in front of her, putting a knee on each side of her feet. Bewildered, she looked up, a curious smile crossing her face.

“What is that?” she chuckled, her heart pumping a bit faster with the anticipation of what could possibly happen in the next minute.

Nick smiled in return and held out the candy proudly, “It’s a Ring Pop,” he explained though he assumed she knew that much. If Peggy had shared any similar childhood experiences to him it would be those suckers - his sisters had been obsessed with them.

“What’s it for?” she asked a little more seriously, not wanting him to tease her.

“This Ring Pop,” he explained, taking her hand so he could slide the plastic ring onto her index finger, the giant candy diamond sticking straight up off her hand, “symbolizes the fact that no matter what happens I will always be here to buy you candy.”

Peggy couldn’t stop herself from laughing at his attempt at being romantic. “What does that mean?” she wondered.

“It means I’m not going anywhere,” he said earnestly, kissing the back of her hand just above the candy jewelry. “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow let alone six months or six years from now. All I can tell you is that right now, in this moment, I’m not going anywhere. No matter what happens we’re going to be together.”

“No matter what happens?” she stressed, wanting to be absolutely certain that he meant those words.

Nick nodded and repeated the words again though he had a feeling he knew why they were so important to her. In the hours after their fight he’d had a lot of time to reflect back on the things that were said and he’d started putting the pieces together, like a puzzle. It was when he had been sitting in her sister’s garage talking to Allen that he realized why Peggy was so worried that he was going to walk away.

Taking a deep breath he kissed her hand again and looked up at her face, admiring her beauty for a moment. Finally, after speaking through glances alone, he spoke aloud, “You’re pregnant aren’t you?”

Peggy smiled slightly at his keen observation skills before shaking her head, “No, the test was negative.”

“But you took a test. You thought there was a chance.”

She confirmed his suspicions with a nod, reaching out with her free hand to run her fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp lightly with her nails. “I did think I was. I took the test and it came back negative but I still haven’t gotten my period so I don’t know what’s up with that.”

In that moment he wasn’t sure how to feel about the possibility that he could have an 'oops' baby much like he was to his parents. He was telling the truth when he told Allen that there was no way he would walk away, especially from someone he loved but he was neither excited nor disappointed by the news that Peggy had thought, even for a fleeting moment, that she might be carrying his child.

“If you haven’t gotten it in a few days maybe you should go see a doctor,” he recommended, though in the back of his mind he felt like he should be asking her whether she felt let down by the revelation. At the surface of his conscience he didn’t really want to know so he just let the moment pass.

“I will,” Peggy nodded then took a moment to admire her ring again. “What flavour is it?”

“I don’t know,” he told her, glancing around for the package for a split second before pulled her hand over so he could pop the candy into his mouth. Peggy squealed and pulled her hand away just as quickly, protectively holding the candy away from him.

“That’s mine!” she complained though he just smiled in response. Without hesitation she stuck the candy in her own mouth, grinning as she pulled away. “Mmm, grape. My favourite.”

“Cooties,” he warned her, managing to get her hand back so he could get another go at the sucker.

“I’m okay with your cooties,” she told him, brushing her hand along his cheek as he let her have the candy back. “In fact, I kind of like them.”

Nick smirked and leaned forward again, this time ignoring the candy and going straight for her lips.