Title: Nursery Talk
Fandom: Up (Carl/Ellie)
Summary: Carl and Ellie talk baby names whilst finishing their nursery.
Dedicated to those involved in the event here about Ellie being barren or having lost her baby. It inspired this story at any rate so please enjoy and let me know if you like it!
‘I think want to name him Charlie. If he’s a boy. What do you think?’
The young man looked to his wife who had just spoken, she was atop a step ladder with a magenta bandanna across her head with a smile so wide she looked positively brighter than any star he’d ever seen. Carl Fredericksen put the last blimp above the crib he’d just put together and leant against the neutral coloured wall and watched her bright eyes shine at him as she waited for his response.
They’d been finding things for the baby’s room for the past few days, they had a little bit of money left over from their wedding which was planned for a holiday, but on the sudden spur of the moment family movement Carl knew that a holiday was the furthest thought from both of their minds.
She wanted a family, he wanted a family, a son or a daughter they weren’t fussy and honestly to his mind wouldn’t that be so swell?
A child to enchant with his balloons; perhaps their boy would have Ellie’s red hair, or a girl with oak coloured locks like Carl’s. Would they be creative and loud like Ellie? Or maybe they would be shy and considerate like their father? Would he have to watch out with the boys that come to the house to ask his beautiful daughter for dates? Would he watch his son go to College? That was becoming pretty normal thing now days after all. In eighteen years time they predicted lots more children would go to college than their generation did…
Would he watch them throw a graduation cap in the air? Would Ellie cry buckets when they moved out? Or held their first grandchild…
‘Carl?’
‘Yes, Sweetheart?’ Carl said with a dreamy expression on his face, and he suddenly saw that she was down the ladder and laughing at him.
‘You look like you’re stuck somewhere, I thought I’d pull you back to earth, just for a second’ she alerted him, her hand going to his cheek just like it always did, he thumbled for his own hand to go over the top and brushed it away with a squeeze so they were holding hands. Even now she could make him as bashful as an eight year old boy, it was just…Ellie.
‘Yeah, sorry, just…imagining’ he said shyly, not sure if he wanted to tell her about all the things he’d imagined about what their life could be, but he didn’t want to get her too excited, though she was excited enough on her own, she’d been bouncing around the house all week after all.
‘Imagining is good, Carl. I thought it’s what we do best don’t you think?’ she said grinning at him that grin that he fell for the moment she jumped out of his window when he was eight. ‘And decorating too! The room is finally finished, don’t you think?’ she asked him and he nodded to her in complete assurance, looking at their final work with triumph.
‘Yes ma’am and it’s playing the waiting game now, are you sure you don’t want to give up the job at the Zoo and–’
She quietened him with a deep kiss and Carl mumbled ‘I…guess not’ into her lips but she probably wasn’t listening. Carl stood in bliss for a few wonderful seconds before she pulled away.
‘You didn’t answer my question, Carl’
‘Question, dear?’ intoned the rendered speechless husband.
Ellie gave him a very motherly look of annoyance, but she was mocking him of course, because she could and always enjoyed doing so. ‘I asked you if Charlie was okay if we had a boy. The name that is like Charles. I thought it’d be pretty hip thing to do. Charlie Fredericksen sounds nice…’
Carl did consider it before smiling at her, ‘Ellie, do you think names are well…necessary yet? The room I can understand because we had the money and the time, but…well, I guess we could choose a couple of names.’
She pulled his hand and squeezed his fingers. ‘You’re always worrying about things, love.’ she said to him to which Carl retorted with a smirk, ‘You don’t worry about anything, Ellie! One of us has too!’
Mrs Fredericksen laughed gently at him, and to ignore that little ideal to which she knew was the truth, she went to put the ladder away; her husband took it from the wall instead eyeing her with mild concern, ‘You need to rest you know, supporting you and the baby is my responsibility.’
Now Ellie gave him a real scowl, crossing her arms. ‘Carl, be serious–’
‘I am being serious, I’m going to be a father, Ellie and a father’s job is is to well, make sure that you can eat, and–and there’s a roof over your head and…’
‘And you can do all that now, silly. Relax. We’ll be okay.’ she pulled him into a hug then, and closed her eyes, Carl laughed, but suddenly realized the hug was slightly less humorous than originally intended and he gave her a squeeze.
‘I’m sure it will’… he told her, and if he had known then of the horror to come, he would probably let the hug last longer, until he couldn’t feel his arms and squeezed her so tight that the world would disappear and leave them alone until they could recover. However, they did not know of the horror and so Ellie broke out of Carl’s hold and smiled.
‘Cross your heart?’ she asked him and to which he crossed his heart with a smile on his face and together they left the nursery, unaware that the room they’d just decorated would never be used the way they planned…
‘So you want to name our son after your first crush, do you? Okay, well…he was my hero too you know so I might let that one work…just this once.’
