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"I think you should just step away from the kitchen." Peter said, holding the remote control in one hand while Cassandra furiously tried to stop over flows or whatever else she wasn't able to stay in control of.

Okay, so the kitchen wasn't necessarily the best of domains for her. Unfortunately, she would never tell Pete that, so sucka could just shut up.

"Peter, you'd be so much smarter if you never talked." He got up off of the couch and walked towards her. She was all too frustrated to notice at that moment, so she kept stirring and pouring and burning away.

"They'll be here in 6 hours. Why are you cooking already?" Cassandra grabbed the wooden spoon placed next to her on the counter that, unfortunately for Pete, was covered in batter, and rubbed it down the front of his shirt.

"Never mind. I'm going to go change. I'll remember to never mess with you while you're cooking."

"I'd advise it." Cassi wasn't a culinary chef, and she definitely wasn't pretending to be, but she couldn't be more frustrated that recipes that she's worked so hard on were turning out all wrong. Peter emerged from the bedroom about 20 minutes later looking as good as new.

"Did you shower?" He looked at her and smiled.

"Maybe it's something you should try before the week is out." She smiled, and set the spoon down, turning off the oven.

"I quit. Will you trash all of that and call somewhere that has good food? I can't do this. I'm probably the most undomesticated person in the world." She paused and looked at him. "So I suppose you were right." He patted her on the head.

"I feel so much better when I hear that." She jabbed him in the stomach with her fist and took off down the hallway.

"Cute. Real cute, Cass." He said one arm around his stomach, as he followed her down the hall. She turned into the bathroom and locked the door, laughing harder than she'd laughed in awhile.

"I'll be right out, dearest. Make yourself comfy while I do my best to avoid revenge." He smiled, and went into the living room. No sense in waiting for her. She wasn't going to simply cave and walk out of the bathroom anytime soon.

Cassandra saw this as a better opportunity than never to shower and get cleaned up. Sure, their guests were hours away from arriving, but she liked to be prepared. After showering and primping and blow-drying and straightening, she walked out of the bathroom, and ran right into a not-so-happy Peter.

"When were you planning on telling me this?" She looked down, and there in his hands, was a box of pregnancy tests. She smiled.

"Telling you what? That I'm pregnant? Probably when I actually am, Peter. Chill. I bought them because I had a scare last month but now everything is fine. When I'm pregnant, you'll be the first to know. Maybe the last...mostly depending on how I think you'll take it." He looked at her, and put the box down, kissing her gently.

"You're not funny. And I want you to always tell me if you think you even maybe might be pregnant. Okay?" She leaned back laughing, her forehead against his.

"For a writer, your sentence structure really needs some work." He kissed her again, and walked into the kitchen to resume cleaning up the mess Cassandra had made.

"Did you call for food?" He started loading the dishwasher.

"Yeah, and it'll be ready to pick up in a couple of hours. I'm spending quite a bit of money to have us fresh, holiday-like food prepared, so tell your incredible boyfriend thank-you." She looked at him, shrugged, and sat down on the couch. He laughed, and turned the water off, having completed cleaning Cass's mess.

"I'm excited about tonight, Cass. It's our 19th Christmas together."

"Thank you. That made me feel a lot older than I really am." He smiled, lips against her cheek.

"What time are we going to your parents' house tomorrow?" Cassandra asked, as she found the clay-mation version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town on television. She stopped and smiled. She'd loved watching that movie when she was a kid. Peter had never really liked it much.

"About 9. Get that off of the TV, please." She shook her head.

"You can't steal my Christmas spirit, Peter Wentz. You may try, but you just can't." He shook his head, resigning himself to the fact that if he wanted to spend time with Cassandra right now, he was just going to have to watch this movie, unless....

"Pete, what are you doing?" Cassandra cocked her head to one side as Pete slowly kissed her neck, and down to her collar bone.

"Playing football. Care to join me?" She smiled and pushed him away, kissing his cheek.

"I already showered. So did you. We've got food to pick up in less than an hour, and unless you and I can both shower and be completely ready to go in that time, I think we're going to have to save football for later. Sorry." He laid his head on her shoulder. Movie it is.

The next few hours passed by quickly, and soon the table was set, the food, which was delicious, had been prepared, and Patrick, C.J., Joe, and Andy were arriving.

The night previous, Peter and Cassandra had put up a Christmas tree consisting of all of the ornaments that had been on Cassandra's tree growing up. It made Christmas feel worthy of celebrating to Cassandra again, so Pete was happy to help her put it up, and happy to exclude his own ornaments from it. In fact, he didn't even mention that he'd brought over a box of his own that he'd collected growing up when he saw how ecstatic Cassandra had looked upon the completion of the tree. He loved seeing her smile, because given the events of the past few months, she had quite a few reasons not to be.

Tonight, Cassandra decided, would be the night everyone got the news. Although she had sworn up and down to Peter earlier that she was absolutely not pregnant, she had a bit of truth-telling to do regarding the subject. She was in fact, pregnant, and she had been since she found out about C.J. Coincidentally enough, her baby was due the day after C.J.'s. She wasn't interested in stealing their thunder though, so she had kept the news to herself until everyone found out about baby Stump. Now, there was a baby Wentz/Combs on the way, and she wasn't sure just how Pete was going to take it. Considering first of all, they had only been officially together again for about a month, and second of all, she had already lied to him about her pregnancy...on the same day she was going to tell him she was pregnant. Merry Christmas.

When everyone had finally arrived, and had placed their presents under the tree that was so dear to Cassandra, she declared it time to eat, and everyone made their way over to the table.

"Cass, this looks really good. Props." She smiled, and so did Pete. "What?" Patrick had noticed and was looking back and forth at the two of them.

"This doesn't look good because of me. My meal was a disaster, and has since been destroyed before I let it destroy me, and all of you. This, is the work of Peter. Well, the work of Peter making a phone call. It's as authentic as we can be, considering how domestically challenged we both are." Patrick smiled, and resumed filling his plate.

"Andy. It's been ages since I've talked to you. What's new?" He looked up from his plate, which was filled with special-ordered food, because he probably wasn't going to appreciate the turkey that was the not-so-vegan friendly entrée.

"Nothing. Except for the tattoo on my right shoulder. It's been a really long time since I've seen you though. You're hair is shorter. You look a lot...healthier, I guess." Cassandra blushed. Andy was intuitive, and she knew he probably knew. To verify her suspicion, he pointed at his stomach and made a cradling motion when no one was looking. She smiled and nodded, and then put her finger to her mouth, signaling to keep it secret.

The conversation was hilarious, since Joe had been thrown in the mix, and Cassandra was glowing. Even Peter noticed it. Joe looked at Cassandra, and spoke, albeit, through a mouth full of food.

"Cass. What's up? You look weird." Her eyes widened as she looked up from her plate.

"You look weirder. Shut up." He swallowed and smiled.

"Good one. Seriously. Everyone is being really weird. What the hell is going on? Someone please tell me." Pete stood.

"I'll tell you." He pulled a box out of his pocket and set it under the tree. "Cassandra, will you come here for a second?" She went pale, realizing that now was probably a better time than later to tell him her news.

"No. I'll tell you. Peter. Go sit down." He looked down at the box, then up at Cassandra. Picking the box back up from under the tree, he went and joined the rest of them at the table. Cassandra took a nervous breath, and stood up at the end of the table, locking her fingers together. Peter recognized this as one of her nervous habits, and was intensely curious.

"Okay. Uh..." She scratched her head, causing her short brown hair to fluff up a little in the back. Peter smiled. Somehow, that calmed his nerves a bit. She was just as nervous as he was.

"I don't know really how to tell you all this. Mostly because I've already lied to my boyfriend about it, and I'm almost 2 months into this whole thing, meaning, I should have told you a long time ago, but it was C.J.'s turn to have fun and I really didn't want to steal that from her, but now that everyone knows about her and Patrick and their incredible life that they're going to undoubtedly have, I guess it's only fair that I really...I guess...just...tell you. I mean, I'm going to be honest, and I really hope you guys aren't mad at me for taking so long to tell you..." Cassandra was rambling, and talking so fast they almost couldn't understand her. Her nerves obviously had more control over the situation than she did, so Peter interrupted her.

"Cass, just tell us. We won't be mad." Cassandra took a deep breath and looked at Andy, who smiled sympathetically.

"Alright. I'll just tell you. I know it's pretty cool that there is about to be a baby Stump running around, and know that I don't mean to take away from your excitement by any means, but it's only fair to let you all know, that...uh...there's going to be a baby...well...Peter and I...running around. I'm pregnant...obviously." Everyone looked at her, as she opened her eyes, because she had closed them tight upon telling them the actual news. Peter stood up and walked to her, no expression on his face.

"You told me you weren't." She looked down as he came to a stop In front of her.

"I wanted to wait until tonight to tell everyone." She looked up at him, his face still unreadable. "Are you mad?"

Pete looked down, and he realized what was required of him: an answer. The only problem was, he didn't have one. He wasn't sure how he felt about this baby, no. He was unprepared in the worst way when it came to being a father, but then he looked over at Patrick and C.J. and realized how they must have felt, and how Cassandra must have been feeling. He loved Cassandra, there was no doubt about that, and he'd known forever that the only person in the world that he'd wanted to have children with was this woman, standing in front of him, anxiously awaiting his answer. He looked back at Cassandra and took her hand.

"What do you think?" And after saying this, he slowly placed a ring on her finger. She looked down at her hand and back up at him. He smiled nervously, and looked at her friends, who were all waiting to see how this incredibly unusual scene was going to play out. "So...?" She looked back at Peter. Duh.

"Yeah..." She whispered, nodding, and bringing her face closer to his, kissing him. C.J. squealed, and ran to Cassandra ripping her away from Peter.

"You've known for two months?" Cassandra nodded. "So, that means your baby is due..."

"The day after yours." Cassandra finished her sentence for her. C.J. smiled and hugged her friend, as everyone else got up to do the same.

After everyone had finished their congratulations, they all made a circle on the floor of Cassandra and Pete's living room for the gift exchange.

"Pete, I already gave you yours." He frowned.

"Really?" She winked.

"Yep. That's it." She said, smiling. Joe made a gagging noise, and Andy laughed. Joe spoke.

"I don't want to have anything to do with your guys' Christmas." Cassandra sighed.

"Good. We really weren't planning on inviting you." They laughed and exchanged their gifts.