A/N: Quick review if anyone is starting in Gen 4: Mike and Darrin date then break up because Darrin was a cop and Mike had murdered Malcolm Landgraab. It gets covered up at a great price (long story). When Darrin finds it out, he breaks up with Mike. Then, Mike dates Ivy, and she later gets pregnant. They get engaged. Then, Ivy fakes a miscarriage and disappears. Eventually, Darrin and Mike get back together (years later), Mike has a traumatic “accident,” and they get married. Then, someone sees Ivy holding a toddler Brent who looks A LOT like Mike. Mike finds out and tries to sue for custody. Eventually, they just have Ivy move in with them, even though Ivy and Darrin hate each other. Brent gets kidnapped, and Darrin shoots the kidnapper, becoming Ivy’s hero overnight. After that, the three of them (not Brent) get drunk and wind up having a threesome that sticks.
Theo is the result of Mike’s sister Charlotte being a surrogate for Darrin, making them have a child as-close-as-they-can-get to being Mike and Darrin’s child.
Darrin
“Could I speak to you for a few minutes?” Ivy asks me. I’m kind of in the middle of my workout, but the tone of her voice tells me that if I tell her to wait a minute, she’ll freak out on me.
I turn off the treadmill. “Sure.” When I take a step towards her, I notice she looks like she might’ve been crying. There are faint traces on her cheeks where tears looked to have run through her makeup, and her eyes are a little red.
“Everything okay?” I ask her, hoping to put her at ease with a smile and not make her start crying again.
“Just… Just come with me into the living room. Mike is already in there.”
“But is everything okay?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute!” she snaps. Yikes.
Brent is upstairs playing with Theo, so we have the living room to ourselves.
“So do we get to hear what this is about now, Ivy?” Mike asks. He’s reading Ivy’s tense stance and not liking it.
She doesn’t answer. Not really. “This is insane! This is all insane! And I don’t know for sure which one of you is the father! Don’t you see how crazy this is?”
“Uh, what?” I manage to get out when I can get my jaw to work.
She rounds on me. “I’m pregnant, Darrin! My IUD failed.”
Mike smiles, obviously not seeing her expression. “We’re going to have a baby?” He says it so happily.
Why is she wondering who the father is? Mike was told he couldn’t.
She puts her hands over her face. “Maker, Mike. This isn’t a good thing!” Her shoulders start shaking, and I reach over to comfort her. “Don’t touch me!” Shit! Mike’s face falls.
Carefully, I reply, “Well, it isn’t a bad thing, either.”
She removes her hands and glares at me. “I’m thirty-six, Darrin! THIRTY-SIX! Don’t you know what that means? The doctor told me I’m immediately put in the ‘high risk’ category just because of my age! And Brent’s going to be -what- eleven years older than his youngest sibling? And don’t you know what this will do to me? What about my career? The producers are going to want to tar and feather me!”
I keep my voice calm, and I catch her eyes with mine. “It’s going to be okay, Ivy.”
“Oh yeah? How do you know?”
“Because I just do. You’re not the first actress ever to get pregnant in the middle of filming. They’ll know what to do.”
Mike cuts in. “Yeah. Camera angles and wardrobe tricks. Creative cropping. VFX.”
I give him a ‘you’re not helping’ look. Then I return my eyes to her. “We’re all going to get through this. You’ll be fine. Your career will be fine. And Mike and I are here for you.” It has to be mine, right? But what a wonderful miracle it would be if it were Mike’s! Ivy has obviously considered the possibility.
She gets back on her rant. “This is insane! Why does this have to happen to me? And let’s not forget I don’t know which one of you it could be.”
Mike clears his throat. “Well, I can answer that one. It’s Darrin’s.”
She turns to him. “You don’t know that, Mike.”
He snorts. “Yeah, I do.”
Now she’s all about trying to make Mike feel better, totally switching her mood. I smile. That’s exactly what she needed. I listen as she and he discuss/argue back and forth whether or not the baby could be his with her insisting that the doctors could have it all wrong, the body can repair itself, etc.
I love watching these two when they get into a heated debate. Mike isn’t stupid, but he’s so clueless when it comes to saying the right things because he says what’s on his mind, almost unfiltered. But Ivy needs that filter or she totally takes things the wrong way. They’re almost funny, and I’d love to let them keep at it just for my own entertainment. But I don’t want them to really be mad at the other one.
“Calm down, Ivy,” he says, and I tense. “I long ago came to terms with it. Can’t we just be happy about a new baby? This is a wonderful thing. Sure, we didn’t plan for it to happen, but it did happen, and I want to be happy about it.” Fuck, I love him.
“You… You really think it’s a good thing?” Her lower lip quivers.
“Of course I do!” He hugs her, and she doesn’t snap at him, instead crying into his shoulder.
Hoping she doesn’t snap at me, I scoot over and start running my fingers through her hair. “It is a good thing, Ivy. You’ll see. You’ll be fine, and you’ve got both of us here to take care of you if you need it.”
Mike grins at me. “Yeah. Who doesn’t want two hot male slaves to order around?”
I groan and bury my face in Ivy’s hair. “Mike, you would take what I said in that way.”
But Ivy starts giggling. I smile. Mike’s goofy randiness for the win here.
Life continues in a very happy way. Theo seems to be growing daily. He acquired Charlotte’s red hair. As a baby, his hair was dark, but as it started to turn, I got a little sad about it. I wanted/hoped he’d have more of whatever recessive ‘Michael’ trait that Charlotte may carry–making him look like a mix of the two of us, but those redhead genes must be strong. Mike thought I was silly for thinking what I thought. I guess I can’t blame him because Theo is one happy little dude, and I adore him.
And I’m glad that my parents got a chance to meet him. They die just as Ivy enters her second trimester. It’s strange. Dad goes first. He dies in his sleep. The doctors say his blood pressure dropped too much. There are worse ways to go. Then, a couple of weeks later, Mom goes the same way.
I’m an orphan again. (Well, technically my birth father is still in prison.) But I don’t feel adrift and alone. I have a huge family that’s just getting bigger. Even if the bun in Ivy’s oven isn’t mine, he or she is ours. All of ours, just like Brent and Theo.
Before we know it, that day arrives, and this is the best pic the Maker got of it. Ivy delivers at home.
We’d decided on Blaine if it were a boy, so little Blaine is born.
Mike is thrilled beyond measure to have another baby in the house.
“He’s yours,” he tells me one day.
I let out a huff. “He’s ours.”
“I mean genetically.”
“You don’t know that.” And I’ve adamantly convinced the other two not to get a paternity test done. That decision, apparently, doesn’t stop Mike from wondering, though.
“But he is. Look at him, Darrin. He’s darker than me or especially Ivy.”
“No he isn’t, and that doesn’t have anything to do with anything.”
“His eyes are getting darker. Mine are blue; Ivy’s are gray. Even if he were to somehow get my mom’s eyes, those were still hazel-brown.”
“He’s a baby. Babies change.”
Mike turns and hands Blaine to me. “You’re his biological father. Stop trying to convince me otherwise. I’m not upset.”
I take a breath and kiss the precious baby. I know Mike’s right, but I can’t stop the slight sadness that Blaine isn’t the miracle I’d hoped for. I still say it was possible for him to have conceived a child, but now we’ll probably never know.
I don’t love Blaine any less, though.
Is it wrong to have wanted a miracle?
Time passes as it often does, and Theo ages up to child. He likes playing with Mike’s SimTuber equipment, and he has a small channel going, mostly talking about toys.
He’s even learning to do his own editing. Mike makes extra careful to review anything before Theo publishes it to SimTube, and we made it clear that the second he uploads without parental approval, that’s the end of his channel.
He’s a good kiddo, though, and he’s really happy to have a baby brother. Brent, John, and the other kids often try to leave him out of things, so now, he has someone who will look up to him.
Before we know it, Blaine ages up.
And I must admit it: Mike was right.
A/N: Wow, what a family! For a review again: Mike + Ivy = Brent; Darrin + Charlotte (to simulate it being of Darrin and Mike since she’s his sister) = Theo; Darrin + Ivy = Blaine. So, even though they’re raised as brothers, in actuality, John and Theo are more closely related than Brent and Theo. Fun when things get complicated, huh? 🙂
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