making memories

August 2083 - Cameron Gibson is 32, Bella is 27.

* long, but mostly picture-heavy *

When Bella and Cameron step into their seaside bungalow on Twikki Island, they discover that it looks nothing like the pictures in the brochure. "Ugh, what a color," Bella says. "It's like vomit in here."

"I know," Cameron says. "A sea foam green would have been better, against a more calming shade of yellow, like wheat."

So they quickly get out onto the open beach, to stave off getting headaches from the clashing paint colors. Cameron oils himself up for some tanning, while Bella digs in the sand.

Because she always heard you could find pretty things in the sand, (for free!), if you look hard enough. She's not having much luck though.

Not much luck at all! But she is having a shocking sense of déjà vu, because she swears she's learned this lesson once before.

Cameron turns to start turn then, keeping careful tabs on the time to ensure equal distribution of tan. "Hey, Bell, you okay?" he says. "Can you pass me that tanning oil?"

She's okay. It hurt like a bitch, but didn't break the skin.

Then they have some drinks at the tiki bar, fruity concoctions with rum and juice and pretty umbrellas sticking out of their tops. "Hey," she says to him as she's getting up from her chair.

"Huh?" he says, as she eases herself closer to him. He thinks he might get a kiss or something.

But no kiss. She just starts to walk off, mumbling something about how they need to eat. And now!

They eat. They share some champagne, and then instead of dessert, she orders a lobster. She's hungry! "It's this stupid island food," she says. "Like it's made out of paper or something."

The ocean breeze flows in to cool off the night, and there are fireflies out on the patio as they dance. This is fun, but they have other things in mind. More private things.

She bought something special for their honeymoon. Cameron has seen her in and out of a lot of things, but he doesn't know if he's ever seen her in white.

Exciting as this is though, he only gets one round out of her. It's a good round, but just one round the same.

Because as soon as they're finished, she's passed out cold on the sofa. "I just want to close my eyes for a minute," she says, and half an hour later, she's still snoring.

He tries to see what's on TV, but there's no cable out here. It's only 9 pm, so he figures he'll kill some time before bed. He's heard people talk about beach reads before, but he doesn't figure they usually read books on electrical wiring. He didn't bring any books of his own, and this was here, so he picks it up. It's actually fascinating stuff, and he makes it through two whole chapters, which just might be the most of anything he's read since college.

But two whole chapters is about enough to make his brain feel strained, so he steps outside for some fresh air. Bella is still sleeping, and seems to have no intentions of waking up very soon.

He has no idea what she was looking for that morning, but he figures maybe he could help out.

He doesn't know what it is, but he found a few shells, something sparkly and possibly even real gold, and he thinks it might make a good pair of earrings. She probably won't want to wear them since they look kind of tacky, but hey, free shiny things!

He also thinks he might have figured out why she was making all that fuss earlier!

***

The last time she got herself into this situation, her agent told her, "Learn to use your damn birth control or keep your fucking legs closed." And when she got married, he told her, "If he knocks you up again, I'm gonna cut his balls off."

Okay, so maybe her agent is an asshole.

But the next morning, when she greets the toilet before she's even had a chance to greet the morning light, she quickly feels the hard, ugly truth of the situation. Naomi is only six months old, and our dear, dear Bella, goddess of fertility, she doesn't even need a test to know she's pregnant yet again.

Well, at least she'll be married this time, she thinks. Bonus points for having babies in wedlock?

He doesn't know yet. He wouldn't. And once she does manage to tell him, he'll still probably forget for a good few weeks. She wants them to enjoy their honeymoon a little bit longer first. She wants them to do vacation stuff... honeymoon stuff.

They've done it in a lot of places, but never looking out over the ocean through floor-to-ceiling windows.

They've never done it at the ruins of an ancient tomb either. Hey, they're making memories here, people!

But as good as it sounds in theory, there's just too much traffic. It seems they picked the only bench next to a wishing fountain, and every few minutes there would be somebody there tossing pennies into it, closing their eyes and spilling out their hopes and dreams into the water.

Well, Mr. and Mrs. Gibson had hopes too, which were to get a little bit freaky there at the top of this ancient ruin. But that's okay, they can improvise...

They hang around until after dark, and they find a quieter and more intimate corner of the ruins.

They do manage to enjoy the beautiful sights too, by the way.

***

By the second week of their vacation, Cameron is eager to get back to work. If you did work as easy as his, you'd probably be eager to get back to it too. Bella says, "You mean, you're eager to get back to flitting around town taking pictures of things for people?"

He nods.

She's worried about her own work, worried she won't have work to come back to once her little situation is disclosed.

"They're pretty good pictures," he adds.

"Cam, I didn't marry you for your pictures."

"No? Why did you marry me then?"

"There are a few other things," she says.

"Yeah?" he says, grinning. "Like what?"

"Now you're just fishing for compliments," she says. She pulls a folded up advertisement out of her pocket. "Why don't we go try to find this place then."

She doesn't know how they got here exactly. She just followed the directions, this map printed on plain white computer paper, left in the helicopter of an island tour they'd taken. So she followed the map, and he followed her, and they found it.

"We can't be too lost," she says. "Whoever this is, he still gets postal delivery."

"Hey," Cameron says. "Is that a hammock?" She looks in the direction where he'd nodded his head. It is a hammock. "You wanna?" he asks.

"We're lost in a weird strange place," she says. "And you wanna do it in the hammock?"

"Yeah, sure," he says.

"I don't know," she says. "Maybe a little bit later."

"Okay," she says to him as they walk up the long staircase. "Just don't say anything. I'll do the talking."

"Nothing? Can I say, Hi?"

"Umm, no," she says. "Don't say anything. I'll say hi for us."

"What if I need to pee?"

"Hold it," she says.

They reach the doorway of the small island hut, and Bella calls out, "Hello?"

When they peek inside, they see a man, holding a screwdriver stuck into a smoking microwave, and sparks flowing down from his hands through his feet.

"Umm, dude," Bella says cautiously. "We got your flyer."

The man turns, quickly moving past them and out of the hut, saying as he goes, "My stuff is all broken, I can't even make you a snack."

"We weren't hungry," Bella says. She's lying. She's famished. She's stuck out in the middle of freaking nowhere, four weeks pregnant and HUNGRY.

Cameron kneels down to look at the smoking dishwasher first.

"Don't do it if you're gonna get yourself killed or anything," Bella says. She crouches down beside him. "I just know you're going to get yourself killed."

"I'm not," he says.

"If it's hard, we'll just go. I've got my cell, I'll call for a repairman or something."

"It's okay," he says.

"If you die because of this asshole, I'm gonna be pissed, you hear me? Pissed!"

"I'm not going to die," he says.

Bella huffs and sighs, shifting her weight between feet. "Maybe don't stick your arm in so far," she says. "Maybe look where you're sticking your arm?"

"Bell, I need to think."

Oh God, she's thinking, he doesn't know how to think.

But then the smoke stops, and he stands. It's finished.

"Oh, is that it?"

"That's it," he says.

"I didn't know you were so handy," she says.

Cameron goes to fix the microwave next. Bella checks out the fridge. She's hungry, and it's the least they're owed for a free repair job.

"He said didn't have any snacks," Bella says. "The cheap bastard! What the hell does he call this?"

After the microwave, Cameron goes to fix the TV. It's harder than he thought, having only read two chapters of that electronics book. He's getting frustrated, and he's hungry too. But he just wants to show her he can do it. Because he can. He's not just a dumb pretty oaf. He can do a couple of things.

Bella says, "We can just go. I dont' know why you're so deadset on fixing this asshole's shit. He wasn't even polite about it. He didn't even say please! He didn't even offer us a glass of water! Does he know how long we've been walking?"

Cameron finishes the TV, though it takes him some time. He sits down to help her finish off the chips and pretzels, and it's dark outside by now. She's whining, "How are we going to get back?"

"I just wanted to show you I could do something," he says.

"Awww, Cam, I know you can do things."

"Yeah?"

He reaches out to touch her hand. He makes her feel squishy inside. "Yeah," she says.

When they stop looking at each other, they notice the weird masked hut dude has returned. And he's standing there in front of them, staring.

"Oh shit," Bella says. "Where'd you come from?"

Cameron gets up.

Bella says, "You said you didn't have any snacks, but you obviously did. If you didn't want to offer anything you just shouldn't have mentioned it.

Cameron says to her, "Shhh."

The man moves abruptly, and Cameron doesn't know if he's trying to dance or start a fight. Cameron can't really fight. He never could. He says, "Dude, I don't want to fight you. Look, we don't want your money or anything, could you just call us a cab or something."

"No," the man says. "Can't do it."

"That's really shitty," Bella says.

"Come on, Bell. Let's go."

There's no cell phone reception out here. Her feet hurt, and again, she's hungry. "He was such an asshole," she says.

"I know how we can get back at him," Cameron says.

He climbs onto the hammock. "Come on," he says. "This'll show him."

His balance is astounding. He isn't good at many things, but when he is good at something, he really, truly excels.

"Yeah," she says as they're walking off, a little more spring in her step. "That'll show him."

***

It's been a couple weeks since the wedding then, and their trip is drawing to a close. They accomplish all the usual things, buying chincy souvenirs and taking pictures on the boardwalk.

It's time to tell him, she thinks. He'd never figure it out on his own. She's not going to make him try.

It's not that they can't handle another. And she hoped they would some day, in the future, maybe even planned. Can he handle another one without the nanny and the housekeeper, and all the play money he's used to?

Most of all, she's worried about the new job, barely even held in her hands and already she thinks she's managed to blunder it away.

"I think I'm pregnant," she says. "I'm gonna get in so much trouble."

"He can't really cut off my balls, can he?"

She rolls her eyes at him. "No, Cam, he can't. But he can fire me."

He hugs her then. She figured he'd be okay with it, the big stupid child that he is himself. That wasn't what she was worried about. She knows he adores their kids just as much as he adores her. And that's why she married him. His adoration is all she ever needs from him. It's all she ever needed. And now married with three kids, they're like a proper little family. She had been too worried about her job to note that this is mostly a happy occasion.

"It's okay," he says. "We can handle another one. It'll be fun."

He's too dense to understand the consequences, to the point of being ridiculous. But at the same time, it's almost reassuring.

*******

(footnotes: knocked up with Delilah // knocked up with Naomi // Bella's last time in the islands)

notes: How does she manage it? I swear she's on the same risky rate all my others are on. I think after this one they'll probably go for some more permanent measures ;) Baby Gibson the third will arrive in the late spring. They'll each be about a year apart, lol!

*sigh* I don't want to, but she's going to have to face some consequences, I think. I swear I didn't know she was pregnant when I wrote that stuff at the bachelor party about her agent cutting off Cameron's balls, lol!

I have a post on my career rules coming up, which is all an effort to make the in-game careers more realistic. Some of the rules are purely interpretive though, like if she just scored herself a role in a movie and got knocked up, her director isn't going to be happy. Especially after she's been warned not to get knocked up, lol!

What do you think her punishment should be? If she were the lead in the film, they'd probably work it around her, but since this is only her first supporting role, I'm thinking they wouldn't. Especially since she just found out about the role, by the time they get to filming she'd be hugely pregnant. I'm thinking she's going to lose this job :(

Of course, all my research of the film industry comes from Entourage, so take that for what you will, lol! So, demotion back to cartoon acting, and I'll dock her two charisma points, for the scandal of it. Cameron gets to keep his balls? Fair enough?

Also, this is the first post since I've started using the AllMenus cheat. I've got far too much planned to do up a tutorial or anything, but Jaydee's instructions are very easy to follow, and from there, it's pretty much just dig in and try it out. It toggles on and off very easily and it's a lot of fun to play with. I highly recommend it! :)

Though I didn't get to use hardly anything in this update, except at the end, Cameron is using the business reward "perk up" on Bella. It's very handy to be able to have access to whatever interaction you want, regardless of relationship or situation.