Unexpected

Author's Notes: For Day 7 of Rosegarden Week 2018. The prompt was 'Cultivate.'

The longer you spent around Ruby Rose, Oscar had discovered, the more you learned to expect the unexpected.

Her Semblance meant that she tended to show up out of nowhere, unannounced, and more than once, with an angry Grimm in pursuit. You learned to roll with it.

That was the way of things when you married a Huntress.

So when his afternoon was rudely interrupted by the blur of red and black that swept into the barn, picked him up, and dropped him roughly into the pile of hay he'd just finished tidying, Oscar knew exactly what was up.

He had just enough presence of mind to toss his pitchfork well out of reach before her lips crashed into his, the weight of her body pressing him down into the hay, and then all other traces of thought vanished from his mind as she flooded his senses. The heat of her body, the taste of her lips, the way her hair felt when he threaded his fingers through it.. every cell in his body came alive with the feel of her.

It was several long, glorious minutes before she finally released him, smiling down at her breathless husband with that impish grin he loved so much.

"You're home early," he managed after a beat. "I wasn't expecting you until tonight."

She stood, flicking off a few pieces of hay that clung to her stockings. "We finished so early that I was able to catch the morning train." She offered a hand to pull him up, and he accepted.

"You know, I spent ten minutes sweeping all this up, and now I have to start over," he chided her, but she just grinned, hearing the lilt of amusement in his voice. No one could stay mad at Ruby Rose for long. Certainly not after she'd kissed the absolute daylights out of them.

"Look at you, you're covered in hay," she said, ignoring his admonishment completely.

"Gee, wonder why," he muttered as she stepped around him to brush vigorously at the back of his clothes, knocking away the prickly strands that were poking through into his shirt. He raised an eyebrow as her hands lingered a touch too long across the seat of his pants.

"Ruby Rose," he mused, "are you copping a feel?"

"Whenever possible," she trilled in his ear, sending a shiver up his spine.

"You brazen woman," he scoffed with mock indignation. "Get thee gone." She giggled, dancing a few steps away.

As he bent to retrieve his hastily discarded pitchfork, he spotted her suitcase by the door of the barn, her red scythe leaning casually against it in its compact, travel-friendly form. "You didn't even take your bags in yet?"

"I saw you were in the barn, I wanted to say hi first." She smiled coquettishly.

"Oh, you mean when you ravished me in a haystack? That was 'hi?'" Even when trying to sound fake-annoyed, he couldn't keep the laughter out of his voice. It had been a two week mission, and gods, he'd missed her.

"Mmm... it was a start," she said thoughtfully, her eyes trailing over him, and that heat from before was threatening to flood his senses again. By the twinkle in her eye, she knew exactly what she was doing to him, too.

"Oh, go on, get out of here," he said, shooing her with his pitchfork. "I've got work to do."

She laughed musically as she sauntered to the door, and he allowed himself a moment to watch the swing of her skirt.

"I'll join you at the house soon!" he called after her as she blurred into rose petals and disappeared across the yard.

Well. This is going to entail some rearranging of the afternoon duties, he thought to himself as he stared contemplatively around the farm, mentally sorting his intended chores into 'things that absolutely have to be done today' and 'things that can wait until tomorrow.'

The thought of Remnant's prettiest wife waiting at home had a way of helping one sort out their priorities.

The tire change on the tractor could wait, but the broken fence on the south pasture was definitely in the 'today' pile. He'd do that, and then head up to the house for an early night. Far from being annoyed at the thought of lost productivity, though, he was positively giddy.

Oh sure, he'd figured the evening might end up being full of... activities... but after that moment in the barn earlier, it was hard not to think of starting his evening plans a little early. After all, Ruby certainly seemed to be in a frisky mood.

Her missions didn't usually last this long, and it would seem she'd missed him just as much as he'd missed her. He wasn't complaining.

Well... maybe he was complaining a little. He hated being apart from her so much, but she loved being a Huntress, and he wouldn't take that away from her for anything. And of course, he felt an immense sort of pride that his wife was one of the strongest warriors in all of Remnant.

But he did wonder what she would do when the Grimm died out.

It had been six years since they'd defeated Salem. Six years since the Grimm stopped crawling out of those pools of dark ooze that had surrounded her castle. They still roamed the wilds, but their numbers were starting to dwindle.

What would it even be like to live in a world without Grimm? As a child, he'd never imagined that such a thing would be possible. He wondered what humanity would be able to achieve now, in a world where they didn't have to look over their shoulder for red eyes gleaming in the dark.

A world that he and Ruby had helped create... although, not alone.

Six years since he'd stopped hearing the voice in his head.

He missed him sometimes. Ozpin had only been part of him for two years – a mere fraction of his life – but it had felt like so much longer. There'd been a time when he'd had thousands of years of knowledge and memory in his head, but they were gone now, along with the old wizard.

He wondered what had happened to him. Was there an afterlife where he was floating happily? He knew plenty of the old religions had such a belief. But he'd never thought to ask Oz if any of them were true. There were a lot of things Oscar wished he'd had time to ask.

Whatever awaited them at the end, he kinda hoped that Ozpin was drifting through the cosmos somewhere, content in the knowledge that he'd finally managed to save the world.

With the help of a few simple, honest souls.

He made short work of the fence, and the sun was still well above the horizon by the time he headed back across the pasture towards the farmhouse.

He hoped she hadn't tried to start dinner. He'd only just scrubbed the soot off the ceiling from the last time. Ruby was many wonderful things, but 'a good cook' was still not one of them.

He could trust his aunt to step in if she saw trouble brewing, though.

She still lived on the farm, though she insisted on calling it his now – something he wished she'd quit doing, since he and Ruby had been talking about finding a place of their own a little closer to Patch and her family. Maybe he could even join Ruby on her missions. She'd already offered to turn his pitchfork into a gun, and he was fairly certain she hadn't even been joking.

But that would have to wait until he'd gotten the farm all sorted out. It was too much work for just one person, and his aunt had been hard-pressed when he'd left to go on his epic quest to defeat evil. Things had fallen by the wayside, and as much as he wanted his own life with Ruby, he loved this place too much to just pass it off to the first greenhorn with a flannel shirt and a pair of pristine 'work' boots that had never seen a day of work in their lives. A new farmhand needed to be properly vetted.

He'd moved into the house proper when he and Ruby had gotten married two years ago, his old room above the barn nothing but a storage loft now. Aunt Ember had given them the master bedroom on the second floor, moving herself into the ground floor bedroom. Something about wanting to be 'as far away as possible from the newlyweds,' a sentiment which he found both deeply mortifying and highly thoughtful. At least they had some measure of privacy.

Oscar smiled to himself as he stepped into the house, his thoughts drifting to what that privacy could lead to, when he remembered with a start that he'd washed the sheets earlier today. He'd had every intention of remaking the bed before she got home. The mattress was totally bare.

Well, that just won't do at all. He detoured to the laundry room and thanked the gods that his aunt (or possibly Ruby) had run the dryer, sweeping up the freshly washed bedclothes and taking the stairs two at a time.

There was a light under the door of the master bath when he stepped into the bedroom, and Ruby's voice called out from behind it.

"You got sheets?" Evidently, she had noted the same problem.

"I got sheets!" he said triumphantly. "Your loving husband provides." He began the task of wrestling the pillows into their cases.

Now, for the part he hated. "How long have I got you for?" he asked, trying to keep his voice chipper. She could never stay for long before duty called again. But he always liked to know how much time he had, right off, so he could be sure not to waste a moment.

There was a clatter of something against the bathroom countertop, like she'd just dropped a toothbrush. He waited through the muffled swearing and brief noises of scrambling before she answered.

"Um, they said a week."

A week. Longer than most, but less than he'd hoped for. He snapped the blanket back over the bed, the sharp sound of the fabric against the air the only expression of his annoyance.

"But I think I'm going to cancel." Her voice through the door sounded strained, higher-pitched than normal.

"Hon, you getting sick again?" He hoped not. Three months ago, she'd brought home the Vale strain of the flu and they'd spent their brief time together shivering under the blankets, blowing their noses every five minutes. Not his idea of romance.

There was silence from the bathroom, so he moved towards the door, hoping he wouldn't find her with her head in the toilet.

To his surprise, it opened, and Ruby stood in the door, her eyes wide as they met his. She had something in her hands, a little piece of white plastic.

"I felt weird, and then I looked at the calendar and I realized," she was saying, as his brain tried to process what that little plastic stick was, and why it was making her look so worried.

"Is that..." he started dumbly.

"Yeah," she said.

"And it's..."

"Yeah," she said again, but with a hint of a squeak in her voice.

"You're pregnant," he said flatly.

"I'm pregnant," she echoed.

They stared mutely at each other for a moment, two brains struggling to process the life-altering information they had just received.

And then Oscar whooped with joy as he lifted her up and twirled her around, her shrieks mingling with his as they spun. He only stopped when her outstretched foot kicked his scroll off the dresser. They collapsed on the newly made bed, dizzy and laughing, arms wrapped tightly around each other.

Even stationary, he felt like his brain was still spinning. He was going to be a dad. Ruby was going to be a mom, and gods, he already knew she was gonna be great at it. They might have a kid who grew up never knowing what Grimm were, which sounded to him like the most wonderful thing he'd ever heard. He wanted to lay here and hold her forever, and yet, simultaneously, he wanted to climb on the roof and shout the good news to everyone.

Wait. There was a way to do both.

"Ruby!" he said, trying to disentangle their limbs so he could sit up. "Where's your scroll? We have to call everyone we've ever met."

Ruby chuckled, caught his arms, and rolled, and he found himself pinned under her for the second time today.

"Well, actually," she said, "I was hoping I could finish saying 'hi' before we bring the rest of the world into this."

He could work with that.