Come on, baby, the laugh's on me

Carly was overwhelmed with gratitude towards Dani for what she did. “I can’t believe it!” She hugged her girlfriend with all her heart. “Dani! You were amazing! Thank you so much!”

“Hey!” Dani beamed from ear to ear, and her cheeks dimpled. “Come on, it wasn’t that much!” She said, trying to downplay what she did. But she still appreciated the gesture of affection, and all of Carly’s overflowing gratitude.

“It really was a sweet gesture, Dani,” Marley replied, refusing to let the other woman downplay what she had done. “And it worked, too, which is the best part!”

Carly laughed. “So, with your awesome generosity established, Dani, it’s time to address the elephant in the room. And I’m not talking about my sister’s thighs.”

Marley shot her sister a dirty look. That comment was uncalled for.

“Obviously, I’m talking about this adorable outfit,” Carley said, poking her girlfriend in the side. “Quite a worthwhile outfit! I’d say it’s definitely a bounty worth claiming.”

Dani rolled her eyes. She appreciated that Carly liked what she was wearing, but Carly also knew her position on frilly outfits like this. “Come on,” she scoffed. “It’s not my style in the slightest, you know that,” she pointed out.

“I know,” Carly admitted. “But believe me, I think it’s cute!”

“Carly, stop teasing her,” Marley said. “Now that you’re back, I’m going to change into something a little less… exposed.”

She looked down at the pajamas and blushed. While she’d definitely worn skimpier outfits, the way this costume clung to her figure and squeezed down on her curves was definitely embarrassing. She couldn’t wait to change into something that covered her.

“Oh, Dani…” Carly turned serious as her sister went to the bathroom to change. She scooted over to the door to make sure Marley wouldn’t turn into a puddle when she changed out of her pajamas. “There’s something important we need to talk about.”

Dani blinked. That was a surprise.

Something serious?

Carly hardly ever did serious. This was a worrying sign.

“What is it?” She asked, concerned. “Did something happen last night?”

The way Carly bit her lip and the flush on her cheeks answered that question readily. Concern welled up in Dani’s chest even more.

“Something… did happen,” she admitted with a worried nod. “It’s not a huge issue… it’s not… a PROBLEM or anything, and Nick was fine! Before you ask that. He didn’t do anything to me, if that’s what you’re thinking!”

“It’s not,” Dani said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I know full well that Nick isn’t the kind of man who would do anything to you, Carly.”

“…I know.” Carly smiled again, but Dani could see that, behind her smile, she was really bothered by the situation.

“Just be honest with me,” Dani said, reaching out to touch Carly’s hand. But she quickly jerked her hand back before she could. She’d almost forgotten, due to the nun costume that Carly was wearing that covered almost all of her body, but her girlfriend was still facing that transformation of hers, that would make her copy one of Dani’s fetishes. That absolutely wasn’t what either of them wanted to happen in the middle of a tense conversation like this.

They looked hotly at each other.

“…Last night, I got a little… out of control,” Carly admitted. “It was mainly because of my… most recent transformation.”

Her eyes dropped to Dani’s hand, and Dani winced. “Yeah… that one… …Go on, Carly,” she said, lifting her hand and placing it gently on Carly’s shoulder, giving her a reassuring squeeze to let her know that everything was fine. She didn’t need to make skin contact to comfort her girlfriend, after all, she could do that just fine like this!

Carly took a deep breath. This was hard to admit, but she had to.

“I copied… one of Mary’s fetishes,” she finally said. “I don’t think I need to tell you which one it was, right?”

Dani stared at her. Then her face reddened. “Wait!” She gasped. “You mean… last night, you were… when you were with Nick…?”

“It was just a kiss,” Carly quickly clarified. “I didn’t even use tongue, I just gave her a quick, hot peck on the lips!”

She doubted that Dani would get jealous, but she still wanted to explain herself, just in case.

But that was the furthest thing from Dani’s mind at the moment. “I don’t care about a kiss,” she groaned, rolling her eyes. “Carly, I care about you copying Mary’s… breeding fetish!”

She couldn’t even say the words without her face turning scarlet.

Carly looked sheepishly at her girlfriend, and began blushing just as much as she was. An awkward atmosphere hung over the Arcade Suite, and neither girl knew how to continue from here. Things were too weird between them.

For a moment, anyway.

But the moment couldn’t last- Carly wouldn’t let it. She needed to explain everything that happened to her girlfriend, so Dani would understand how things got to this point.

“After I kissed Mary, I was really obsessed with getting pregnant, as you can probably imagine,” Carly said, reaching down and rubbing her belly.

Dani couldn’t miss the look of melancholy that flickered across her girlfriend’s face. And she knew why Carly felt that way. She knew what her girlfriend was doubtlessly going through. She’d experienced this situation before.

“I know that you’re bothered by this sort of thing,” Dani continued, looking at her and squeezing her shoulder again. “After… what happened. I know that having babies, and getting pregnant, for you, that’s…”

She could only imagine how Carly must have been triggered last night, going through something like that. It would be like… if Dani was suddenly struck by the desire to be all submissive for a man, or something like that! The sort of feeling that seemed so anathema to who you were as a person that you recoiled from the idea!

Poor Carly. She couldn’t feel worse for her friend if she tried.

Carly looked at Dani in shock. Wait, does Dani still think I…? …Oh! Of course, obviously! She couldn’t believe how big of an idiot she was.

“No, Dani, you’ve totally misunderstood!” She assured her girlfriend, shaking her head. “This isn’t like last time.”

After her breakdown in the Master’s Suite with Gina, she had sought comfort in Dani’s arms, desperate for her girlfriend to help her feel better about everything that had happened to her. And Dani had obliged her, of course, because she was the loveliest girlfriend in the world- of course she would oblige Carly and make her feel better! It was one of the reasons Carly loved her so dearly, how much she cared about her like this.

“What do you mean?” Dani was doing it even now. She was looking at Carly with the biggest eyes Carly had ever seen, oozing with worry and concern for her girlfriend’s wellbeing, and Carly couldn’t love her enough for it.

“I mean… I didn’t get upset, or freak out, or anything like that,” Carly assured her girlfriend, shaking her head. “I just… had a bad experience, that’s all.”

Carly kept saying that. But Dani was picking up on the fact that her girlfriend kept dancing around what exactly a “bad experience” was supposed to mean in this specific context.

It was kind of hard to miss.

“Carly… you can tell me anything,” Dani reminded her girlfriend. “You know that, don’t you?” She asked. “You trust me, right?”

Carly bit her lip. What else could she say to such an earnest question like that?

“…Of course I trust you,” she said. “That isn’t my issue.”

She shook her head.

“I’m just… embarrassed, that’s all!” Carly was split between two sides. One part of her knew that she needed to tell her girlfriend the truth, because this was a serious conversation that needed to happen between the two of them. But another part of her was still overpowered by her embarrassment, and it wasn’t exactly unreasonable for her to feel that way.

The way Dani was looking at her, though, like she would accept anything Carly had to tell her… it made her feel better.

“…Okay, I’ll tell you the truth,” Carly said, letting out the breath that she was holding. “Last night, I went… kind of baby-crazy. In a ‘pin me down, Nick, and put a baby in me, breed me, breed me, breed meeeee!’ sort of way.”

Dani rubbed her forehead and sighed. “Could you, uh… not put it like that, please?” She asked, shaking her head. “I get what you’re trying to say, Carly, really, I do, but…”

There had to be a better way to put it. Even still- Dani got the message. She flashed her girlfriend a sheepish expression.

“So… you really got into it? I mean… that’s… not the worst thing in the world.” Dani much preferred to hear that over hearing that her girlfriend had a mental breakdown and bawled her eyes out like a baby. The idea of Carly’s trauma reopening made Dani feel sick to her stomach.

“I know,” Carly said. “And to be honest… parts of last night? I really enjoyed them. It felt like I could finally move on from my trauma, you know? Move on from everything that I went through, all the pain and anguish from what happened with… with Emmy.”

Neither of them needed to say anything more than that. Their eyes met, and they were immediately on the same page.

Emmy coming back into Carly’s life, being brought back from the dead the way she was, had played more than a small part in Carly’s trauma beginning to heal. It wasn’t gone for good, of course, even though she had her daughter back, but…

She was starting to heal, and that was what mattered.

“I’m just glad you’re feeling better,” Dani said sincerely.

“Yup, feeling better,” Carly nodded. “A little too much better, honestly…”

That was why Dani was starting to get worried for her girlfriend. Because she recognized that Carly was in a rough position, and STILL not answering her.

This was getting kind of ridiculous, frankly.

“Carly.”

Carly jumped in surprise. “Y-yes?” She squeaked out with uncharacteristic meekness, wilting under Dani’s intense stare.

“Stop beating around the bush,” the tomboy ordered her girlfriend. “There’s something you’re not telling me, and it’s not about how much you enjoyed what you were doing with Nick and Morgana last night, and we both know it.”

“…And Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin,” Carly added.

The bathroom door behind her slammed open, and Carly jumped.

“Are you kidding me!?” Marley exclaimed. Both girls looked at the fully-dressed, irate woman in surprise. “I’ve been waiting in that bathroom for at least five minutes now for you two to wrap up your conversation so I could find the right time to leave, but you keep dragging it out, Carly! What’s wrong with you!?”

Carly chewed on her lip and looked sheepishly at her girlfriend, then at her sister. “I… I just, well…”

Her eyes flickered downwards, and she found herself trapped. Trapped by two women who cared about her and wanted what was best for her- it was a very strange position she found herself in. No matter where she looked, she found concern for her wellbeing.

It almost made it MORE difficult to admit what she needed to admit, as oddly as that was for her to think.

“…I really wanted to get pregnant, okay!?” She finally blurted out. “It wasn’t a fantasy, or a game, or even me being captured by Mary’s fetish and forced into something I didn’t want! Deep down, I really… I really wanted Nick to knock me up!”

Marley nearly fell over in surprise. She stared at her sister and her mouth dropped open. Dani’s eyes widened briefly and she shook her head.

“That’s… …Wow, I mean… …Are you serious?” She asked, not sure what sort of response she was supposed to have in a situation like this one, with her girlfriend admitting what she just admitted. But at least it was better than Marley’s response. Marley just flapped her mouth open and shut like a gasping fish.

…Still. Your girlfriend admitting that she wanted the guy she was sleeping with to get her pregnant wasn’t exactly the sort of situation that had an easy solution. Dani was at an absolute loss.

“I know, I feel awful about it,” Carly moaned in despair, shaking her head. “It’s not like I’m used to this sort of thing, alright?”

She looked desperately at Dani, hoping that her girlfriend wouldn’t be upset. But actually, Dani didn’t seem that bothered. Shaken, yes, but bothered?

“So… to be clear, you kissed Mary, and as a result of that kiss, you temporarily acquired her fetish for getting pregnant, is that right?” Dani asked her.

Carly paused briefly and then nodded. “Yeah, that… that’s basically what happened,” she confirmed for the other girl. “And not only that. I was really trying to… complete my goals,” she said, as delicately as she could muster. “I know how that sounds, but… it’s the truth. If Nick hadn’t had more self-control, then he really might have…”

She glanced down, and rubbed her belly again. Carly had always been vigilant about her cycle. Determined to make sure that she wouldn’t get pregnant again, no matter how much she had secretly wanted to, even before she got Emmy back. It was why Nick had actually cum inside her before a few times. She may have “thrown caution to the wind” but in the back of her mind, she’d known how incredibly low the odds were of his seed actually taking root inside her.

And, maybe… part of her had wanted that. For her cycle to be “off”, for those “low odds” to be met all the same.

Maybe that’s why she engaged in such risky sex with him.

But…

That wasn’t what it was like last night. Last night wasn’t about risk at all. Quite the opposite. No, last night… that had been about passion. That had been about Carly’s desperate need to have a baby, Nick’s baby, and her willingness to do whatever it took to acquire his seed.

It was twisted. It was wrong. But it was what Carly had wanted, and she couldn’t deny that to the two women who meant the most to her besides her daughter.

“What about now, then?” Marley asked, not sure if she wanted the answer to the question burning a hole in her stomach or not. “Do you… still want to have Nick’s baby, sis?” She asked.

Carly looked at her sister, stunned. “I… I don’t… …I’m not in that mindset I was in last night, don’t worry. Nick was a perfect gentleman and made sure things didn’t get out of control, and Mary’s fetish wore off!”

Marley frowned. “Okay, but that doesn’t answer my question,” she pressed, not letting Carly sneak out of this on a technicality.

Carly sulked. Why did her sister have to be the smart one?

“Carly…” Dani looked worriedly at her girlfriend. “If this is something serious, then…”

“It’s fine!” Carly assured her, shaking her head. “I… to tell you the truth… I don’t know,” she admitted, shaking her head.

It hurt to admit, but that’s where she was right now.

“I don’t know how I feel,” she continued. “I mean… I really care about Nick. And, if I was going to have another baby, it’s not like I’d go find some other guy to have it with. But… if Nick was willing, then I… I don’t know.”

She didn’t know if she was ready, or willing.

And that’s why this conversation was so important, for the both of them. She looked at her sister with desperation in her eyes.

“Tell me, sis… what do you think I should do?” She asked tensely, gazing at Marley. “Do you think I should have another baby?”

In the back of her mind, Carly was cursing herself. Cursing herself for her cowardice.

Because Marley wasn’t the person she should be asking that question to, and she knew it. She damn well knew it.

There was only one person that she should be discussing this topic with, besides Nick himself.

And that person was standing right in front of her, looking at her with a worried expression on her face.

Dani.

Marley prodded her sister with her stern gaze, and Carly gave in. She turned to Dani, and bit her lip.

“…I guess I should ask you that question,” she said. “Dani… I want more kids. Yes, I have Emmy, but… even before everything that happened with Emmy, one wasn’t enough. And then, when Emmy died, well… I shut that door, because I wasn’t ready. But I always thought, maybe someday… someday I could… be a mom, again.”

Still chewing on her lip, she looked at Dani. They were just girlfriends, there wasn’t any deeper commitment there yet. This was way too early in a relationship to be bringing up something like children, right?

But Carly needed to make her intentions clear.

She wanted more children. And, she wanted them with Nick.

“I want the chance to raise my baby,” Carly confessed, rubbing her stomach. “I want to carry them in my arms, I want… I want to watch them take their first steps. Read them bedtime stories, drop them off for their first day of school…”

There were so many things she’d wanted to share with her daughter. But Emmy’s complicated circumstances had robbed her of that chance.

She didn’t want to give up another chance at something like that.

But…

She also loved Dani dearly.

This was the real reason she’d been putting off this conversation up until now. Trying to come up with any excuse she could think of, to avoid confronting the situation.

Dani…

Dani might not want kids. She honestly didn’t know.

But now she was going to find out.

“I want to be a mom again,” Carly said, her words spinning her desires into reality. “If we’re going to be together, that’s going to be something we’ll face together. Is that alright with you, Dani? Is it?” She asked, desperate for an answer. “Not right now, but someday… will you… be willing to let me have Nick’s baby?”

Dani’s heart pounded in her chest. Her answer to Carly’s question was…