Dollhouse Fic: "What to Expect When (Nothing is Expected)" (DeWitt/Dominic, PG-13)
Title: What to Expect When (Nothing is Expected)
Characters/Pairings: DeWitt, Dominic, Caroline, Paul, Topher, Anthony, Priya, Claire, other Actives, DeWitt/Dominic and Priya/Anthony
Rating: PG-13 for adult themes, sex, implied violence, drinking, some language
Length: 7,135 words
Spoilers: for every episode aired, "Epitaph One", and some minor references to promo images from "Epitaph Two"
Notes: The title is a play on What to Expect When You're Expecting so...that tells you all you need to know right there, probably. I was seriously rushed when I wrote this, so sorry if it sucks. But I wanted to contribute at least something to the party at dewitt_dominic, not to mention get my one last gasp in at pre-emptive fix-it fic before tonight's finale airs. Some people from my flist may recognize something in this from a long-ago conversation. Funny how every time I talk to you people with "I'm not going to write this, but..." it almost always seems like it ends up that I do.
She blames perhaps more than she should on the alcohol.
Even with the world raining in pieces down all around her she’d attempted to maintain control without that crutch, too conscious of past shames, what it had previously cost her. But the instant Laurence Dominic stumbled into her office aiming a gun and recriminations, like instinct she was on her feet, swiftly, reaching for the bottle.
For all his mockeries and the anger that seems to blow out of him like shrapnel, he does not comment on this. Perhaps even for him, even after all the blows they’ve exchanged, this one is too low.
Or perhaps, she thinks grimly, such a thing as it could be related to her wellbeing is now past his caring.
She supposes it wouldn’t surprise her. After all, she has shown, on the surface, staggeringly little regard for his.
Time is of the essence, and there’s no room to work through tangled webs of deceit and deserving grudges and emotion. They need him, and there is work to be done, and once he runs out of bile and spit she suspects he hasn’t enough left to him underneath it to refuse.
(He’s been outside. He knows that the symbol of turning his back on her and walking away is rendered rather unimpressive when he has nowhere to walk to.)
But she is left somewhat surprised, almost to the point of being awed, by the amount of bile and spit he has in stock, first.
She has finished explaining the situation and the mission and its details to him, and still he is incapable of looking at her without a sneer on his face. It makes her tired, far more than she even already is, so she fills her glass again.
In spite of her smart remarks, she is truly glad in the midst of his turning her office into an impromptu shooting range he managed to miss the majority of the bottles. She may just need them after all.
She pours him a glass almost as a dare, and when he takes it the action reads as the same.
What happens next is almost tediously predictable. They drink until the burning on her tongue moves into her body, a once pleasurable sensation turned into a sullied one, a flame burning on in the emptiness of an already hollowed shell.
She wonders if he can feel half as empty as she does, when she kisses him and he puts his hands on her shoulders like at the last possible second he made up his mind whether to hold her or wrap his fingers around her neck. If this sudden need for rough and ready action makes him feel as sick and resentful even as it’s welcomed as a way to let the pressure off, a way to make this moment, as painful and unwanted as every will be from now on in this world they are in, pass by.
The have passionate and destructive sex on her couch, and somewhere in the white moments in the haze of liquor and self-degradation and pheromones she allows herself a few seconds to wonder if this is a more brutal portrait of what could’ve been if only they’d succumbed to temptation before, when everything was different and still bound by beautiful lies, and goes into mourning over the potential lost.
But it comes and goes quickly in between the bruises and his teeth and tongue and her fingernails in his skin. They are trying to take all their hatred at one another out through fucking, and no surprise that they pass out before the well is drained.
In the morning she is so sore she cannot stand, and they exchange no words and only one inconsequential, curt look as he dresses himself again and takes his gun and leaves.
She knows that she talked to him again before he left the House and went out into potential death on her marching orders, but she cannot remember what she said.
*
Almost two weeks to the day after he’s gone she finds herself on the bathroom floor, stomach rolling and tile cold on her knees, and she curses him as much as she curses her own foolish weakness in the spaces between gasps as she vomits.
And even though she knows, somehow she knows with certainty, if only because it is the worst possible thing that could happen, in secret she uses what few chemicals are left among Dr. Saunders’ medical supplies to assemble a pregnancy test, because for all the use she’s given it these past few years her advanced degree in the sciences did not print itself on its gilded graduation paper.
It is another week to the day that she got her positive result, and she still doesn’t quite know what it is she wants to do.
The first and most obvious answer is ‘I can’t, I can’t possibly’, for a hundred reasons she chokes on to even begin to name. She does not want this, and she does not need this, and it would be a staggering inconvenience to everybody. And the solution is simple enough.
Yet she lingers. She thinks it may be strongly because she knows she’d have to tell someone, most likely Saunders, or one of the former Actives that happen to hold vestiges of medical training.
Because obviously she can’t take care of it herself - she’s not about to fling herself down a flight of stairs. She is not a dramatic enough woman for that.
Even though she knows they would be discreet and could be depended on to hold her secret - even so the thought of having to tell anyone, of having to explain and feel that humiliation as the words fell from her mouth freezes her steps and paralyzes her with uncertainty.
The days tick by and she is aware of every one, a heavy pebble dropping into an increasingly full jar, sand streaming into an hourglass that once emptied can never be turned over again.
She lies awake with her hands pressed to her stomach as she stares up at the ceiling, and she tries to make up her mind. She turns over the reasons again and again in her head, listing and arguing and arranging them every possible way to try and turn the mess she has become into an answer.
She does not think of Laurence, of what he might say or how he might feel, even once, because to bring him into the equation of her consideration would be to tip the scales too far past what she could bear.
In the end, she finds herself thinking there are far too many lives being lost in this world, and more than a fair few are on her hands.
She still tells no one. In the dead of the night she goes to the bathroom and one by one pours all of her liquor bottles down the drain, and she realizes she is grateful for the excuse.
She kept meaning to dispose of them eventually, because she is too needed and it’s too easy and risky to keep having them there. But somehow she never got around to it.
Far simpler, it seems, to rein herself in with the practicality of it being for reasons of health.
*
It takes him over a month to come back to the House. In the time between she has felt angry and worried and frightened and anxious enough times without realizing it to almost make her hate him even more.
Or, hate him all over again. She can’t tell anymore. She thinks, distantly, that it seems to fluctuate by the hour.
Judging by his behavior, the way he looks at her, the time and release of action has at least allowed him to let go of the black fury that could not be successfully bottled, that had him lashing out at her at every turn and with every other word. His temper has cooled to what appears to be a distant, icy disdain.
He still calls her “ma’am”, although now it sounds like he is gibing her with the word, using the ghosts of what was it brings up to get at her.
She debriefs him alone, of course. Not in her office; it’s no longer safe to go up that far. But they retreat to a private corner of the House far away from any prying ears and eyes, and she asks him clipped, sharp questions that seem to boil down to “And where the hell have you been?”
She stands a good distance away from him, arms folded and bristling with impatience and something that cannot be named to the point where she’s all but driven to tapping her foot. If he sees it, he doesn’t give her anything but cool, almost empty eyes.
He was not able to find Caroline. He is confident, however, that if she’s still out there (“Of course she still is.”) she will find her way back to them eventually; he did everything he could to get the message passed on to her, talking to everyone he met (“That wasn’t a good idea at all.”) but in a way where he claims with certainty only Caroline will understand, only Caroline will know it means they’re here and waiting.
“I made sure to mention that we’ve got Priya and Anthony here.” He adds, as if thinking she needs clarification, “Sierra and Victor.”
“I know who you meant,” she snaps.
“Of course. Ma’am.”
He is sneering at her somehow despite the fact that his face is a complete blank. She isn’t sure how he does it. Something in his voice, or perhaps his eyes.
She swallows, staring briefly at the ground, only a flicker of her gaze before she’s looking at him resolutely again.
“We need to talk.”
He frowns instantly, a tight unwelcoming thing. “I don’t really see why,” he says, knowing without her specifying that she is being personal now, following the flow in conversation perfectly as he always does with her, and it gives her the sudden alarming urge to sob.
Against her will she allows the silence to linger and him to glower at her challengingly for too long.
The words drop from her lips, all but spat out because she feels a sense of despondency to think that this has actually become her life.
“I’m pregnant.”
His face shifts, but she cannot tell to what. But his eyes do widen, enough that not only she would notice were anyone else here.
She allows a little acid and something like humor to slip in as she adds, “And any disparaging remarks you would care to make as to the possibility of my promiscuity notwithstanding, I can assure you you’re the only possible candidate for the father. For quite some time now.”
There is a long enough pause that she begins to wonder what on earth he could possibly be thinking.
Finally he goes, and of course his words are blunt, “Aren’t you a little old?”
She almost wants to laugh. “Out of the expected age range, perhaps.” Her smile is not a smile at all. “But still fertile. Evidently.”
He is silent for some time again before he says, “Circumstances being what they are, I would’ve thought you’d…take care of it.”
She cannot decide whether to be gratified he is maintaining some amount of restrained civility around her, or disgusted that like every other man he is apparently incapable of saying the word 'abortion'.
Perhaps some of it shows in her face, because he quickly goes, “I’m not saying that you have to, of course. I just would’ve assumed-”
“I know.”
“But…you’re not?” She sees his Adam’s apple bob almost imperceptibly. “You’re keeping it?”
She doesn’t say anything, allowing her lack of response to stand by itself.
His eyes narrow, and without him speaking she can hear his voice incredulously asking how she could possibly want to bring a child into the shreds of a world she has helped to destroy; and she’s glad he doesn’t say it aloud, not because she doesn’t have an answer but because she knows it would be in the exact same voice he demanded that she should do something about Alpha, that there was something wrong with Echo, that the technology was moving too far and too fast and everything he ever was absolutely right about.
But there is still lack of comprehension and a noted trace of hostility in him when he asks, “What exactly do you want from me?”
I don’t know, is the answer.
Instead she merely says, curtly, “Nothing. There is nothing that I need from you.” She forces herself to tilt her chin. “I told you because you have a right to know.”
His eyes narrow.
“Good,” he spits. “Fine, then.”
Without waiting for her dismissal he storms away.
Alone again she sits down, and thinks that she has made a mistake. And of course she has, she’s made dozens of them - but right now she can’t think as to specifically what this one is.
*
Another month passes, and another one begins. She has already switched to wearing looser clothing for functional reasons, and anyway her body has not begun to really change. No one finds anything about her amiss.
She tries not to look at Juliet’s rapidly expanding stomach, the way the former Active pats her belly and glows. She tries not to think of inevitability.
She notices that Laurence too cuts Juliet a wide berth, that often he will not even look in her direction if it can at all be avoided.
With her, he is civil, gruff without being impolite. He follows her commands and rarely argues with her unless he has very strong reasoning, and even then it is phrased as more of an objection.
He’s retreated to professionalism but with none of what she would call warmth that used to linger, once when they walked the halls of this building side by side.
She cannot explain why it makes her long almost for his anger.
Since the day she told him, they have not had a single conversation alone; haven’t been in a room together for so much as an instant without another person around. This is not accidental either, but purposeful manipulation, and on his part, not hers. She supposes she is glad for it. It keeps things something approaching simple.
She oversees the rationing of food, the careful maintenance of the water supplies. She counts out Topher’s pills and sits by him and holds his hand on the days when he is aware enough to be emotionally ravaged by the sight of his own unraveling mind.
He barely trusts Saunders, even on good days. There is a shirking in his eyes every time he looks at her, a deep-rooted unconscious flinch. She imagines he can still hear the sound of a bullet being fired. And on his bad days, he is reduced to hysteria if Saunders even comes near, shrieking and cowering and begging for salvation from the threat.
She does not know what reaction he has to Laurence, if any. She cannot recall having ever seen the two of them together.
She tries not to think that Topher is getting worse, because he can still be completely lucid when he tries - it’s just that he doesn’t want to. But the bad days are worse, and more and more frequent, and she often finds herself reading aloud to him in a soothing, quiet voice or helping him count small things for the distraction or hugging him to her when he cries. She tries never to let the word maternal cross her mind.
It is Topher that she’s with when she hears the explosion, the sound of concrete caving in: the sound of their sanctuary breached.
Hours later she sits on the floor as Caroline points a gun at her and she waits composedly for a conclusion, of either sort, to come.
She will not beg, and she can’t recall when she became so unconcerned about which way destiny decided to swing, anyway. Possibly because she can’t weigh the choices when there’s nothing of value she can see on either side.
She is startled, however, by the sound of a second gun being cocked.
“Get away from her,” Laurence orders, fingers tight around the grip, sight set steadily on the back of Caroline’s head.
Ballard tries to come closer, eyes growing wide, and Victor (sorry, she means Anthony) is on his feet, and everyone present is quickly shifting into an alarmed tableau. More weapons are being drawn and this is on the verge of going very, very badly for just about all of them.
Caroline stares at Laurence, scowling. “Why should I?” she demands, sounding more like a snotty teenager asking the question just because she can. “What’s it to you?”
Laurence doesn’t even hesitate.
“Because she is pregnant with my child,” he snaps. “That’s what’s in it for me.”
Everyone, all of them starting to move or yell or shout, goes completely still, frozen - the transition is so abrupt and dramatic as to almost be considered comical.
Ballard’s arm falls loosely from where it was held in Anthony’s grasp, and Saunders’ tragic brown eyes grow big, and Priya moves away with palpable disbelief from where she was hugging the wall, and several others are simply gaping.
There is a punctuating crash in the silence, as whatever pointless thing Topher was carrying in his arms because they hadn’t yet persuaded him to leave it is dropped to the floor, forgotten. “What?”
Caroline’s expression is so caught off-guard and incredulous she seems almost angry, as if they’re running a play and Laurence has burst onto stage to deliver a line from a completely different production. It strikes her that the metaphor is actually very apt for Caroline: that she seems to live her life as if she’s already decided the roles everyone is meant for, and she doesn’t know what to do with them when they go outside them.
But she barely spares a thought for Caroline. This moment does not belong to her.
And it occurs to her that she is going to hate Laurence again for this, at least for a little while, because of what he has taken from her, rudely, by forcing her out into the open this way. Because now there really is no going back.
Caroline later protests that she was never planning on shooting her, that she only wanted to use some of her memories for the instructions she was leaving and she wanted to ensure her cooperation.
But she doesn’t care.
*
In regards to her body, she has picked the worst possible time to be in a situation where she needs to travel, where she needs to be walking miles every day.
Her stomach swells, as do her breasts and just about, it feels at times, every other part of her. Her back aches and her feet hurt, it’s harder to ignore the weariness, and the morning sickness mostly stops only to be replaced by dozens of other nuisances.
She does not complain, not once. On occasion she catches Caroline or Ballard glancing at her (though when it’s not her, it’s Juliet - Caroline has asked disbelievingly just what the hell they were all doing down there) before, begrudgingly, announcing they can slow down for a bit, but she never asks for anything. That’s not the kind of woman she is, even now. Perhaps more so.
The group still defers to her, out of practice, but in truth she is more than happy to push the burden of supposed leadership onto Caroline. They still ask her opinion at times but other than that they are silent around her. No one knows what to say to her, and it’s to be expected. None of them were hardly ever friends.
Topher has grown very quiet, rarely speaking, which is frightening enough for Topher. But other than that he seems to actually be functioning quite well these days, more coherent, more aware. She doesn’t know if it has anything to do with what’s happening to her, or if it’s simply the change in scenery. She does not care to speculate.
Saunders did not come with them. She did not even pretend to be surprised.
There was a very brief period in time when Juliet tried to befriend her, supposing it was only natural as they had something in common, but she was able to dissuade her of that notion quite quickly.
Laurence still does not talk to her. But when they walk he always follows close behind her, keeping a wary eye as they cross rough terrain, prepared to intervene should she need it. And when they stop to rest he always remains nearby her, watching. Hovering.
She doesn’t need a protector. But she’s in no state to dismiss one so readily available, either.
Still she corners him alone at one point and demands, “What are you looking out for, exactly? Is it me?” She presses the flat of both hands against her stomach. “Or are you merely the type of man that feels a vested interest in preserving his own genetics?”
“Does it matter?” he responds, curtly.
Meaning ‘I don’t know’. Meaning try as he might he is incapable of deciphering the tangled layers of his feelings and all that has happened between them.
She understands all too well. But at the moment this is frustrating and exhausting.
“How involved in this do you want to be?” Because god help them, the question needs asking at some point and it might as well be now.
He inhales sharply. “I don’t…I…” For a moment he looks nervous, confused, and in that moment she can actually see him as a man who is about to become a father. “What do you want?”
“I am positively indifferent on the subject,” she tells him, toneless.
She hopes it would be obvious that she couldn’t cut him out completely, even if she wanted to. They are, after all, currently living together in a very small group.
“If you would prefer to be, I could use the help. But if you want nothing to do with this, I certainly won’t force myself on you. I am not fragile, Mr. Dominic. And if you’ll forgive the truly unfortunate pun I do not need to be babied.”
He gives her a disbelieving look. “What did you just call me?”
Without responding she holds her head high and strides off past him, never mind that her body is slowly shifting to begin forcing her gait to a waddle.
*
Juliet goes into labor almost a month early. It’s difficult to begin with, she’s a very narrow woman. Girl.
But it seems this one is more fraught with complications, and Caroline is wracking herself for an old midwife imprint while two of the other women are gathering towels to soak up the bleeding. Juliet’s screams rend the entire camp.
She seizes a gun almost as an afterthought and goes for a walk, as far as she needs to go to get away from the sound.
She is not sure how much later it is when Laurence comes and finds her sitting under a tree. The gun lies, impractically discarded, by her side but she couldn’t keep it in her grip. Her hands were shaking.
She doesn’t glance up, not fully, when she senses him. “Is it over yet?”
She can tell by his voice that he shakes his head. “No. She’s still in labor.”
When she nods and doesn’t speak, he adds in that quiet practical tone of his, “They’re saying that they still both could make it. Fifty-fifty. It can go either way.”
“Thank you, yes,” she murmurs. “I know what the saying means.”
His tone sharpens, prelude to an argument. “That wasn’t what I-”
“Let’s just stop, shall we?” She closes her eyes and drops her head forward into the palm of one hand. “Please. I’d rather not. Not now.”
He falls obediently silent, anger dissipating.
“That isn’t going to happen to you.” His voice is completely different when next he speaks. “You’re going to be fine.”
She doesn’t know anymore how she feels about the fact that he is trying so hard to reassure her.
“Yes. That’s what the odds would say. But I’m beginning to think I’m destined to never do very well in games of chance.”
He draws a breath, and then swallows back whatever it is he wants to say. He appears to decide he can’t talk to her when she’s like this without hostility, so rather than try to continue he just leaves.
Before he goes, he makes one small gesture: he picks her gun up and very pointedly lays it across her feet.
In his absence she compromises to resting one hand over the barrel.
The sky is beginning to turn sunset colors when she hears footsteps again, but this time it is Priya.
“You should come back. It’s getting dark soon.” She sits down beside her. “Juliet’s contractions are getting bigger, or closer, or whatever it is. They say she’ll be done soon.”
“I do believe you mean ‘Cynthia’,” she corrects wryly.
Priya makes a careless sound. “Whatever.”
It’s funny, she thinks musingly, how some of the others find it so cold and wrong of her to continue referring to many of her former Dolls by their Active names, when they themselves do it all the time without distinction.
She doesn’t look at Priya as she murmurs, quietly, “I just couldn’t be around there, listening to that. Not when…not knowing it’s possibly a glimpse of my own future.”
“Believe me,” Priya says, wooden, “I know the feeling.”
There is a beat as she turns her head and looks, and Priya gives her a very bitter smile.
But, of course. Because for all their arguments she and Anthony still are constantly together, and if they’re not happy it’s clear nonetheless they find in each other’s presence something like solace.
“Yeah,” Priya deadpans, unnecessarily, “seems it’s going around.”
They exchange a resigned, understanding smile at the joke.
She would remark how it seems the apocalypse apparently brings out the desire in people to reproduce, but she doesn’t. Because Priya is a practical girl and she knows what she would say: how they both know that isn’t true - what the apocalypse actually brings out in people is the desire to screw like rabbits, while having the unfortunate side-effect of limiting access to contraception.
Instead she reaches out and gently places a hand across hers. “What can I do for you?”
“I don’t want you to tell me how it’s all going to be okay, how I’ve got nothing to worry out. I’m sick of hearing that.” Priya draws a breath. “I want you to tell me exactly how miserable it’s going to be. The morning sickness, the cramping, all of it, and no sugarcoating excoriating details. I want you to tell me everything.”
She laughs a little. And then she does.
She realizes she’s actually grateful to have someone to vent to.
After sixteen hours of labor, Juliet (or Cynthia, if you prefer) gives birth to a relatively healthy baby girl. By some miracle or just fortunate chance, neither dies in the attempt after all.
Juliet names the girl ‘Blessing’.
“Kind of makes you want to smack her in the back of the head, doesn’t it?” remarks Priya.
*
They are well into the quickening now. Despite how she loathes becoming a cliché she finds herself resting her hands atop her stomach quite often, gazing down as she feels her baby move.
Priya misses toast, and jam, and scrambled eggs: her cravings tend to run the gamut toward breakfast foods. She holds the younger woman’s hair back for her patiently while she vomits.
Anthony hovers, and is not nearly as good at doing it unobtrusively. Priya tells him to knock it off before she tells him to go start boiling water.
And then she changes her mind, and calls him back with a request: “Get her,” she stabs a finger toward where Juliet rocks a blanketed bundle in her arms, cooing, “out of my sight before I start screaming.”
“I didn’t realize we were playing frakking ‘Oregon Trail’,” Topher mutters out of the side of his mouth one morning.
“Yeah,” Laurence snips. “We’re out of bullets until we make it to Fort Laramie. And I’m trading you for a wagon wheel and some oxen.”
Topher stops, and he turns his head, and for a moment the two of them just stare at each other. Like each man just realized for the first time that the other was actually there.
It’s three days later when Topher has a sudden relapse and has to be held down and force-fed his medication that she finds Laurence sitting alone, staring at his own tightly laced fingers.
She sits down beside him, close enough that were she to lean just a little she would be brushing against his shoulder.
She waits. His voice is rough when he says, “I never should’ve said…I didn’t mean it. Not like that. Not like,” he flinches, “this.”
“I know,” she tells him.
“I just meant I thought it would be nice if he was actually paying attention for once, that as annoying and arrogant as he was, yeah, it made me happy to see him taken down a peg; to maybe show some regard for anyone besides himself.”
“I know.”
He trails off. “I didn’t realize just how…damaged he’d gotten.”
“He has his better days,” she says mildly, stretching out her feet, because it’s all she can bear to focus on when it comes to Topher: Some days, he’s fine. Some days, you’d swear he was himself again.
He clenches his hands tighter. “Yeah.”
For a moment they sit in silence, but then of course, “Oh,” she goes, air knocked out of her, as the baby gives a rather hard kick.
She rubs a hand over her stomach, frowning with disapproval, “Enough now.”
Laurence is gazing at her, then her belly, with a complex expression. She looks up and meets his eyes.
After a moment he goes, hesitatingly, “Can I…?”
On the one hand, she is tempted to say something very sarcastic; this tentativeness he is expressing about touching her now, considering how he is the one that put it there.
On the other, there is a gentle respect in his tone as he asks, that seems to momentarily hearken back to the days when they both wore formalwear and could cover everything that needed saying only in glances. (Days she misses more than she’d like to.)
Now they never can - his eyes are too full of complications. As are hers.
She leans her upper body back, presenting her stomach. His hands falters enough times getting there that she reaches out and grabs it in hers, gently but firmly placing it down on the curve of her body.
The baby is not moving at the moment but he doesn’t seem to notice; he strokes a small circle in her side as he stares at the swell that they both seem very aware, in this instant, is not going to stay there forever.
He pulls his hand back, curling it into a fist.
“I don’t want nothing to do with you, after this,” he states. “I know that much. There’s no way I could just…I’m not even gonna try.”
“Yes,” she muses. “I thought as much.” She touches her belly because it seems impossible not to. “So what?”
“I don’t…you know how, in all those stories, there’s always the part where the guy freaks out and says ‘I can’t do this’? I’ve always thought: that’s bullshit. You be there, you show up on time, it’s simple, easy. And that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. It’s not even the kid I’m thinking about anymore. As far as I’m considered, that’s handled. The problem is I just don’t know what to do about you.”
It is, she thinks, easily the most he’s said to her at once since the night he yelled at her, drank her alcohol and got her pregnant.
“You mean, whether we should be parents with separate lives who can cohabitate peaceably in the same environment, or whether we should try and be…something more?”
He gazes at her, and something in his eyes is so raw it makes her think of wounds. “We had something, once. I think it’s pointless to even try and pretend we didn’t. But after what we did to each other, it got wrecked and I…” He swallows, looking at her belly despondently. “I don’t know if we should try and get back together over this. I don’t know if this is the right kind of thing.”
She goes, very softly, “You think that I would know the answer to that better than you would?”
She hates it when he says things she doesn’t want to hear and makes so much sense while doing it.
Because they need to figure this out, and soon, because there is another life that stands to be wrecked by their decisions.
“What do you want from me, Adelle?” he demands. He sounds so lost. “I mean in this moment. I mean right now.”
“I want you to kiss me,” she decides, voice still subdued, “and then tell me whether or not you hate it.”
His mouth twists a moment like he is considering laughing. But he does as she asks.
It’s a real kiss, not the angry violent thing they did with their mouths the night lust and agony overcame their common sense. She closes her eyes and breaths slow to better enjoy it, in case it is the last one from him she ever gets.
When he pulls away from her lips he doesn’t move very far, and he’s looking at her face now, not her stomach, as he lifts a hand to grasp her cheek.
“We could be good together,” he murmurs. “I know we could. I just don’t know if I want to try.”
She should either push him away or pull him closer and help him decide in the action, but the damnedest thing is, she doesn’t know either. It makes her feel desperate and wanton.
She doesn’t kiss him again, but she doesn’t let him leave either. He falls asleep with her cradled in his arms, not precisely a lover’s embrace but a caring one, designed for her comfort.
In the days after, they speak more. They try to navigate whatever this is with slow steps, testing the waters without really moving any further.
They could at least be friends, she thinks. They could be fond of each other. She thinks that she could stand that. It’s honestly better than what she’d expected.
The next time Topher has one of his bad spells, she sees Laurence sitting next to the burrow of blankets and junk the other man has made for himself, quietly trying to talk to him.
*
They are pinned down behind the remains of a wall, waiting for the noises and yells outside to die down, so they can try and get out of here in one piece and reunite with the group.
She looks at the three men in front of her, each crouched down with weapon at the ready. Then she looks back at where Laurence kneels beside her, reloading his gun.
She tugs his sleeve. “I wanted to make a deal with you,” she whispers.
“Don’t talk,” he grunts, not looking at her. She knows he is thinking she’s trying to turn this into the moment where she confesses her feelings for him because she thinks they’re both going to die, or that she wants to make some kind of conditional declaration; “if we get out of here alive”. Does he know nothing about her by now at all, she ponders.
“I just wanted to say,” she indicates her stomach, “that if it’s a boy, you get to name it, and if it’s a girl, I will. Sound fair?”
He only allows himself to look visibly surprised for a moment.
“Actually, I’d rather do it the other way instead,” he tells her, chuckling wryly. “I think I’d do better with girls’ names.”
There is a mixture of sweat which is his and blood which is not coating the side of his face, thick above the shadows under his eyes and about a week’s worth of untrimmed stubble. She ignores all of it.
“Alright,” she decides. “I can live with that.”
One of the other men nods and they shift into position, going on alert because any second now is going to be their moment. Her finger readies on her trigger and she doesn’t look at him any more because she can’t afford to, but she is still very present of him at her side.
“Just promise me one thing,” he adds, breathing shallowly. “If it is a boy, you won’t be naming him after his father.”
“Did you really think I would be so uncreative?” She chuckles. “Why, you don’t like ‘Laurence’?”
“I never really knew what to think of it, to tell the truth. It’s kind of old-fashioned.”
“Well, I like it. But don’t worry-”
She cuts off speaking as there’s the whistle of a grenade, and then the earth-shattering blast of the explosion. No more time for talking, now. They run.
*
They are less than a day away from their so-called, promised “safe haven”, literally as good as crouching on its front doorstep, so of course catastrophe strikes.
The others are forming a circle, shouting to one another, firing their guns as they try to draw in and set up a defense.
But she has dropped her weapon and fallen to her knees. Not very helpful of her, she knows. But at the moment she doesn’t care.
She leans forward pressing both hands with all her weight on the blood oozing from Laurence’s shoulder. “Stay with me,” she says. “You’re going to be fine.”
“You should get out of here.” He stares up at her, half-focused, from where he lies in the refuse and dirt. “Leave me-”
“Shut up,” she snaps. Turning her head she spots one of the others crouching behind a pillar, hiding, and more importantly the satchel they are holding. “Morgan, the medical kit. Quickly!”
Her voice snaps the other out of their shell-shocked reverie. They scramble over, pushing the bag towards her across the ground.
She rips open Laurence’s shirt and begins pulling out gauze to pack his injury with.
“Adelle.”
“Save your strength. I suspect you’re going to need it.”
“Adelle, I’m sorry-”
“You aren’t going anywhere. I won’t let you.”
He swallows thickly, and it looks like it’s hard for him to keep open his eyes. He will lose consciousness soon, she knows, from the blood loss if nothing else.
“You’re beautiful when you’re angry, you know. Did I ever tell you that?” He reaches a hand toward her but can’t make it. “Don’t deny me the chance to say goodbye to you.”
Her lips quiver and her eyes and throat are burning. She drops what she is doing, leans forward and grabs him by his jacket collar, leaning over him so she is right in his face.
“I will not lose you, do you understand me? I refuse to let that happen.” Her voice breaks with rage and desperation and sheer determination. She is aware that she sounds frightening, near hysterical. “I refuse to become the woman who is left behind by a dead man with nothing but his child to remember him by.”
Her teeth are clenched as she stares deep into his eyes, unyielding. “Either you are going to pull yourself together and survive, or I am going to find an imprinting chair, somewhere, and drag you to it and make a copy and bring you back in another body! Do you understand me?”
He doesn’t answer, and within less than a minute he passes out anyway. But she packs his shoulder tight with gauze and binds it with strips from his shirt, and stays beside him squeezing his hand in a death-grip until two of the men appear and help her lift him.
They carry him the rest of the way to their new home. Priya forces her to come away and have a piece of bread and something warm to drink while the ones with training tend to him.
“Sit down,” Priya says, guiding her. “You’ve been on your feet all day. It isn’t good for the baby.”
Priya’s stomach is not as prominent as hers but it’s getting there. She stares down, resting a hand on her own belly.
“I hope it’s a girl,” she murmurs.
Priya grins crookedly.
“That’s right,” she says. “Men suck anyway.”
She laughs along with her tiredly, rather than try explaining it to her.
*
Laurence lives, as of course he must.
It really wasn’t that bad an injury to begin with, so she doesn’t know whether or not to think she successfully threatened him into hanging on for her.
But she doesn’t need to wonder if he knows she meant every word. He knows her. There can’t be any doubt.
There’s a bandage tied to his shoulder when he comes looking for her.
“Shouldn’t you be resting?” she asks.
“Shouldn’t you?” he returns, pointedly. She scowls.
“I am more than a walking incubation chamber, thank you.”
He laughs louder than she has ever heard him before, startling her.
“Oh god, yes. You think I don’t know that?” He stares at her, smirking as he shakes his head in something like wonderment. “Yeah, you are so, so much more.”
His voice goes soft and low as he says it. She’s struck by the sudden pang to reach out for him, but her hands are paralyzed by her side.
He moves so they’re standing face to face, noses practically touching, and he puts his hands on her cheeks, thumbs brushing over her skin as he holds her firmly in place. He stares deep into her eyes.
“What do you want from me, Adelle?” he asks her for the third time since they started this particular journey together.
“I want you,” she breathes. This time there is no hesitation or doubt.
He smiles. “Good. Because you’ve got me. And we’re going to give this thing a chance.”
She doesn’t wait for him: she pulls him closer and they kiss.
There is still, she knows, no guarantee of anything. There are still, if she thinks about it, at least a hundred things that could go wrong.
But she doesn’t care, anymore. Because all she needs is for one perfect thing to go right.
Characters/Pairings: DeWitt, Dominic, Caroline, Paul, Topher, Anthony, Priya, Claire, other Actives, DeWitt/Dominic and Priya/Anthony
Rating: PG-13 for adult themes, sex, implied violence, drinking, some language
Length: 7,135 words
Spoilers: for every episode aired, "Epitaph One", and some minor references to promo images from "Epitaph Two"
Notes: The title is a play on What to Expect When You're Expecting so...that tells you all you need to know right there, probably. I was seriously rushed when I wrote this, so sorry if it sucks. But I wanted to contribute at least something to the party at dewitt_dominic, not to mention get my one last gasp in at pre-emptive fix-it fic before tonight's finale airs. Some people from my flist may recognize something in this from a long-ago conversation. Funny how every time I talk to you people with "I'm not going to write this, but..." it almost always seems like it ends up that I do.
She blames perhaps more than she should on the alcohol.
Even with the world raining in pieces down all around her she’d attempted to maintain control without that crutch, too conscious of past shames, what it had previously cost her. But the instant Laurence Dominic stumbled into her office aiming a gun and recriminations, like instinct she was on her feet, swiftly, reaching for the bottle.
For all his mockeries and the anger that seems to blow out of him like shrapnel, he does not comment on this. Perhaps even for him, even after all the blows they’ve exchanged, this one is too low.
Or perhaps, she thinks grimly, such a thing as it could be related to her wellbeing is now past his caring.
She supposes it wouldn’t surprise her. After all, she has shown, on the surface, staggeringly little regard for his.
Time is of the essence, and there’s no room to work through tangled webs of deceit and deserving grudges and emotion. They need him, and there is work to be done, and once he runs out of bile and spit she suspects he hasn’t enough left to him underneath it to refuse.
(He’s been outside. He knows that the symbol of turning his back on her and walking away is rendered rather unimpressive when he has nowhere to walk to.)
But she is left somewhat surprised, almost to the point of being awed, by the amount of bile and spit he has in stock, first.
She has finished explaining the situation and the mission and its details to him, and still he is incapable of looking at her without a sneer on his face. It makes her tired, far more than she even already is, so she fills her glass again.
In spite of her smart remarks, she is truly glad in the midst of his turning her office into an impromptu shooting range he managed to miss the majority of the bottles. She may just need them after all.
She pours him a glass almost as a dare, and when he takes it the action reads as the same.
What happens next is almost tediously predictable. They drink until the burning on her tongue moves into her body, a once pleasurable sensation turned into a sullied one, a flame burning on in the emptiness of an already hollowed shell.
She wonders if he can feel half as empty as she does, when she kisses him and he puts his hands on her shoulders like at the last possible second he made up his mind whether to hold her or wrap his fingers around her neck. If this sudden need for rough and ready action makes him feel as sick and resentful even as it’s welcomed as a way to let the pressure off, a way to make this moment, as painful and unwanted as every will be from now on in this world they are in, pass by.
The have passionate and destructive sex on her couch, and somewhere in the white moments in the haze of liquor and self-degradation and pheromones she allows herself a few seconds to wonder if this is a more brutal portrait of what could’ve been if only they’d succumbed to temptation before, when everything was different and still bound by beautiful lies, and goes into mourning over the potential lost.
But it comes and goes quickly in between the bruises and his teeth and tongue and her fingernails in his skin. They are trying to take all their hatred at one another out through fucking, and no surprise that they pass out before the well is drained.
In the morning she is so sore she cannot stand, and they exchange no words and only one inconsequential, curt look as he dresses himself again and takes his gun and leaves.
She knows that she talked to him again before he left the House and went out into potential death on her marching orders, but she cannot remember what she said.
*
Almost two weeks to the day after he’s gone she finds herself on the bathroom floor, stomach rolling and tile cold on her knees, and she curses him as much as she curses her own foolish weakness in the spaces between gasps as she vomits.
And even though she knows, somehow she knows with certainty, if only because it is the worst possible thing that could happen, in secret she uses what few chemicals are left among Dr. Saunders’ medical supplies to assemble a pregnancy test, because for all the use she’s given it these past few years her advanced degree in the sciences did not print itself on its gilded graduation paper.
It is another week to the day that she got her positive result, and she still doesn’t quite know what it is she wants to do.
The first and most obvious answer is ‘I can’t, I can’t possibly’, for a hundred reasons she chokes on to even begin to name. She does not want this, and she does not need this, and it would be a staggering inconvenience to everybody. And the solution is simple enough.
Yet she lingers. She thinks it may be strongly because she knows she’d have to tell someone, most likely Saunders, or one of the former Actives that happen to hold vestiges of medical training.
Because obviously she can’t take care of it herself - she’s not about to fling herself down a flight of stairs. She is not a dramatic enough woman for that.
Even though she knows they would be discreet and could be depended on to hold her secret - even so the thought of having to tell anyone, of having to explain and feel that humiliation as the words fell from her mouth freezes her steps and paralyzes her with uncertainty.
The days tick by and she is aware of every one, a heavy pebble dropping into an increasingly full jar, sand streaming into an hourglass that once emptied can never be turned over again.
She lies awake with her hands pressed to her stomach as she stares up at the ceiling, and she tries to make up her mind. She turns over the reasons again and again in her head, listing and arguing and arranging them every possible way to try and turn the mess she has become into an answer.
She does not think of Laurence, of what he might say or how he might feel, even once, because to bring him into the equation of her consideration would be to tip the scales too far past what she could bear.
In the end, she finds herself thinking there are far too many lives being lost in this world, and more than a fair few are on her hands.
She still tells no one. In the dead of the night she goes to the bathroom and one by one pours all of her liquor bottles down the drain, and she realizes she is grateful for the excuse.
She kept meaning to dispose of them eventually, because she is too needed and it’s too easy and risky to keep having them there. But somehow she never got around to it.
Far simpler, it seems, to rein herself in with the practicality of it being for reasons of health.
*
It takes him over a month to come back to the House. In the time between she has felt angry and worried and frightened and anxious enough times without realizing it to almost make her hate him even more.
Or, hate him all over again. She can’t tell anymore. She thinks, distantly, that it seems to fluctuate by the hour.
Judging by his behavior, the way he looks at her, the time and release of action has at least allowed him to let go of the black fury that could not be successfully bottled, that had him lashing out at her at every turn and with every other word. His temper has cooled to what appears to be a distant, icy disdain.
He still calls her “ma’am”, although now it sounds like he is gibing her with the word, using the ghosts of what was it brings up to get at her.
She debriefs him alone, of course. Not in her office; it’s no longer safe to go up that far. But they retreat to a private corner of the House far away from any prying ears and eyes, and she asks him clipped, sharp questions that seem to boil down to “And where the hell have you been?”
She stands a good distance away from him, arms folded and bristling with impatience and something that cannot be named to the point where she’s all but driven to tapping her foot. If he sees it, he doesn’t give her anything but cool, almost empty eyes.
He was not able to find Caroline. He is confident, however, that if she’s still out there (“Of course she still is.”) she will find her way back to them eventually; he did everything he could to get the message passed on to her, talking to everyone he met (“That wasn’t a good idea at all.”) but in a way where he claims with certainty only Caroline will understand, only Caroline will know it means they’re here and waiting.
“I made sure to mention that we’ve got Priya and Anthony here.” He adds, as if thinking she needs clarification, “Sierra and Victor.”
“I know who you meant,” she snaps.
“Of course. Ma’am.”
He is sneering at her somehow despite the fact that his face is a complete blank. She isn’t sure how he does it. Something in his voice, or perhaps his eyes.
She swallows, staring briefly at the ground, only a flicker of her gaze before she’s looking at him resolutely again.
“We need to talk.”
He frowns instantly, a tight unwelcoming thing. “I don’t really see why,” he says, knowing without her specifying that she is being personal now, following the flow in conversation perfectly as he always does with her, and it gives her the sudden alarming urge to sob.
Against her will she allows the silence to linger and him to glower at her challengingly for too long.
The words drop from her lips, all but spat out because she feels a sense of despondency to think that this has actually become her life.
“I’m pregnant.”
His face shifts, but she cannot tell to what. But his eyes do widen, enough that not only she would notice were anyone else here.
She allows a little acid and something like humor to slip in as she adds, “And any disparaging remarks you would care to make as to the possibility of my promiscuity notwithstanding, I can assure you you’re the only possible candidate for the father. For quite some time now.”
There is a long enough pause that she begins to wonder what on earth he could possibly be thinking.
Finally he goes, and of course his words are blunt, “Aren’t you a little old?”
She almost wants to laugh. “Out of the expected age range, perhaps.” Her smile is not a smile at all. “But still fertile. Evidently.”
He is silent for some time again before he says, “Circumstances being what they are, I would’ve thought you’d…take care of it.”
She cannot decide whether to be gratified he is maintaining some amount of restrained civility around her, or disgusted that like every other man he is apparently incapable of saying the word 'abortion'.
Perhaps some of it shows in her face, because he quickly goes, “I’m not saying that you have to, of course. I just would’ve assumed-”
“I know.”
“But…you’re not?” She sees his Adam’s apple bob almost imperceptibly. “You’re keeping it?”
She doesn’t say anything, allowing her lack of response to stand by itself.
His eyes narrow, and without him speaking she can hear his voice incredulously asking how she could possibly want to bring a child into the shreds of a world she has helped to destroy; and she’s glad he doesn’t say it aloud, not because she doesn’t have an answer but because she knows it would be in the exact same voice he demanded that she should do something about Alpha, that there was something wrong with Echo, that the technology was moving too far and too fast and everything he ever was absolutely right about.
But there is still lack of comprehension and a noted trace of hostility in him when he asks, “What exactly do you want from me?”
I don’t know, is the answer.
Instead she merely says, curtly, “Nothing. There is nothing that I need from you.” She forces herself to tilt her chin. “I told you because you have a right to know.”
His eyes narrow.
“Good,” he spits. “Fine, then.”
Without waiting for her dismissal he storms away.
Alone again she sits down, and thinks that she has made a mistake. And of course she has, she’s made dozens of them - but right now she can’t think as to specifically what this one is.
*
Another month passes, and another one begins. She has already switched to wearing looser clothing for functional reasons, and anyway her body has not begun to really change. No one finds anything about her amiss.
She tries not to look at Juliet’s rapidly expanding stomach, the way the former Active pats her belly and glows. She tries not to think of inevitability.
She notices that Laurence too cuts Juliet a wide berth, that often he will not even look in her direction if it can at all be avoided.
With her, he is civil, gruff without being impolite. He follows her commands and rarely argues with her unless he has very strong reasoning, and even then it is phrased as more of an objection.
He’s retreated to professionalism but with none of what she would call warmth that used to linger, once when they walked the halls of this building side by side.
She cannot explain why it makes her long almost for his anger.
Since the day she told him, they have not had a single conversation alone; haven’t been in a room together for so much as an instant without another person around. This is not accidental either, but purposeful manipulation, and on his part, not hers. She supposes she is glad for it. It keeps things something approaching simple.
She oversees the rationing of food, the careful maintenance of the water supplies. She counts out Topher’s pills and sits by him and holds his hand on the days when he is aware enough to be emotionally ravaged by the sight of his own unraveling mind.
He barely trusts Saunders, even on good days. There is a shirking in his eyes every time he looks at her, a deep-rooted unconscious flinch. She imagines he can still hear the sound of a bullet being fired. And on his bad days, he is reduced to hysteria if Saunders even comes near, shrieking and cowering and begging for salvation from the threat.
She does not know what reaction he has to Laurence, if any. She cannot recall having ever seen the two of them together.
She tries not to think that Topher is getting worse, because he can still be completely lucid when he tries - it’s just that he doesn’t want to. But the bad days are worse, and more and more frequent, and she often finds herself reading aloud to him in a soothing, quiet voice or helping him count small things for the distraction or hugging him to her when he cries. She tries never to let the word maternal cross her mind.
It is Topher that she’s with when she hears the explosion, the sound of concrete caving in: the sound of their sanctuary breached.
Hours later she sits on the floor as Caroline points a gun at her and she waits composedly for a conclusion, of either sort, to come.
She will not beg, and she can’t recall when she became so unconcerned about which way destiny decided to swing, anyway. Possibly because she can’t weigh the choices when there’s nothing of value she can see on either side.
She is startled, however, by the sound of a second gun being cocked.
“Get away from her,” Laurence orders, fingers tight around the grip, sight set steadily on the back of Caroline’s head.
Ballard tries to come closer, eyes growing wide, and Victor (sorry, she means Anthony) is on his feet, and everyone present is quickly shifting into an alarmed tableau. More weapons are being drawn and this is on the verge of going very, very badly for just about all of them.
Caroline stares at Laurence, scowling. “Why should I?” she demands, sounding more like a snotty teenager asking the question just because she can. “What’s it to you?”
Laurence doesn’t even hesitate.
“Because she is pregnant with my child,” he snaps. “That’s what’s in it for me.”
Everyone, all of them starting to move or yell or shout, goes completely still, frozen - the transition is so abrupt and dramatic as to almost be considered comical.
Ballard’s arm falls loosely from where it was held in Anthony’s grasp, and Saunders’ tragic brown eyes grow big, and Priya moves away with palpable disbelief from where she was hugging the wall, and several others are simply gaping.
There is a punctuating crash in the silence, as whatever pointless thing Topher was carrying in his arms because they hadn’t yet persuaded him to leave it is dropped to the floor, forgotten. “What?”
Caroline’s expression is so caught off-guard and incredulous she seems almost angry, as if they’re running a play and Laurence has burst onto stage to deliver a line from a completely different production. It strikes her that the metaphor is actually very apt for Caroline: that she seems to live her life as if she’s already decided the roles everyone is meant for, and she doesn’t know what to do with them when they go outside them.
But she barely spares a thought for Caroline. This moment does not belong to her.
And it occurs to her that she is going to hate Laurence again for this, at least for a little while, because of what he has taken from her, rudely, by forcing her out into the open this way. Because now there really is no going back.
Caroline later protests that she was never planning on shooting her, that she only wanted to use some of her memories for the instructions she was leaving and she wanted to ensure her cooperation.
But she doesn’t care.
*
In regards to her body, she has picked the worst possible time to be in a situation where she needs to travel, where she needs to be walking miles every day.
Her stomach swells, as do her breasts and just about, it feels at times, every other part of her. Her back aches and her feet hurt, it’s harder to ignore the weariness, and the morning sickness mostly stops only to be replaced by dozens of other nuisances.
She does not complain, not once. On occasion she catches Caroline or Ballard glancing at her (though when it’s not her, it’s Juliet - Caroline has asked disbelievingly just what the hell they were all doing down there) before, begrudgingly, announcing they can slow down for a bit, but she never asks for anything. That’s not the kind of woman she is, even now. Perhaps more so.
The group still defers to her, out of practice, but in truth she is more than happy to push the burden of supposed leadership onto Caroline. They still ask her opinion at times but other than that they are silent around her. No one knows what to say to her, and it’s to be expected. None of them were hardly ever friends.
Topher has grown very quiet, rarely speaking, which is frightening enough for Topher. But other than that he seems to actually be functioning quite well these days, more coherent, more aware. She doesn’t know if it has anything to do with what’s happening to her, or if it’s simply the change in scenery. She does not care to speculate.
Saunders did not come with them. She did not even pretend to be surprised.
There was a very brief period in time when Juliet tried to befriend her, supposing it was only natural as they had something in common, but she was able to dissuade her of that notion quite quickly.
Laurence still does not talk to her. But when they walk he always follows close behind her, keeping a wary eye as they cross rough terrain, prepared to intervene should she need it. And when they stop to rest he always remains nearby her, watching. Hovering.
She doesn’t need a protector. But she’s in no state to dismiss one so readily available, either.
Still she corners him alone at one point and demands, “What are you looking out for, exactly? Is it me?” She presses the flat of both hands against her stomach. “Or are you merely the type of man that feels a vested interest in preserving his own genetics?”
“Does it matter?” he responds, curtly.
Meaning ‘I don’t know’. Meaning try as he might he is incapable of deciphering the tangled layers of his feelings and all that has happened between them.
She understands all too well. But at the moment this is frustrating and exhausting.
“How involved in this do you want to be?” Because god help them, the question needs asking at some point and it might as well be now.
He inhales sharply. “I don’t…I…” For a moment he looks nervous, confused, and in that moment she can actually see him as a man who is about to become a father. “What do you want?”
“I am positively indifferent on the subject,” she tells him, toneless.
She hopes it would be obvious that she couldn’t cut him out completely, even if she wanted to. They are, after all, currently living together in a very small group.
“If you would prefer to be, I could use the help. But if you want nothing to do with this, I certainly won’t force myself on you. I am not fragile, Mr. Dominic. And if you’ll forgive the truly unfortunate pun I do not need to be babied.”
He gives her a disbelieving look. “What did you just call me?”
Without responding she holds her head high and strides off past him, never mind that her body is slowly shifting to begin forcing her gait to a waddle.
*
Juliet goes into labor almost a month early. It’s difficult to begin with, she’s a very narrow woman. Girl.
But it seems this one is more fraught with complications, and Caroline is wracking herself for an old midwife imprint while two of the other women are gathering towels to soak up the bleeding. Juliet’s screams rend the entire camp.
She seizes a gun almost as an afterthought and goes for a walk, as far as she needs to go to get away from the sound.
She is not sure how much later it is when Laurence comes and finds her sitting under a tree. The gun lies, impractically discarded, by her side but she couldn’t keep it in her grip. Her hands were shaking.
She doesn’t glance up, not fully, when she senses him. “Is it over yet?”
She can tell by his voice that he shakes his head. “No. She’s still in labor.”
When she nods and doesn’t speak, he adds in that quiet practical tone of his, “They’re saying that they still both could make it. Fifty-fifty. It can go either way.”
“Thank you, yes,” she murmurs. “I know what the saying means.”
His tone sharpens, prelude to an argument. “That wasn’t what I-”
“Let’s just stop, shall we?” She closes her eyes and drops her head forward into the palm of one hand. “Please. I’d rather not. Not now.”
He falls obediently silent, anger dissipating.
“That isn’t going to happen to you.” His voice is completely different when next he speaks. “You’re going to be fine.”
She doesn’t know anymore how she feels about the fact that he is trying so hard to reassure her.
“Yes. That’s what the odds would say. But I’m beginning to think I’m destined to never do very well in games of chance.”
He draws a breath, and then swallows back whatever it is he wants to say. He appears to decide he can’t talk to her when she’s like this without hostility, so rather than try to continue he just leaves.
Before he goes, he makes one small gesture: he picks her gun up and very pointedly lays it across her feet.
In his absence she compromises to resting one hand over the barrel.
The sky is beginning to turn sunset colors when she hears footsteps again, but this time it is Priya.
“You should come back. It’s getting dark soon.” She sits down beside her. “Juliet’s contractions are getting bigger, or closer, or whatever it is. They say she’ll be done soon.”
“I do believe you mean ‘Cynthia’,” she corrects wryly.
Priya makes a careless sound. “Whatever.”
It’s funny, she thinks musingly, how some of the others find it so cold and wrong of her to continue referring to many of her former Dolls by their Active names, when they themselves do it all the time without distinction.
She doesn’t look at Priya as she murmurs, quietly, “I just couldn’t be around there, listening to that. Not when…not knowing it’s possibly a glimpse of my own future.”
“Believe me,” Priya says, wooden, “I know the feeling.”
There is a beat as she turns her head and looks, and Priya gives her a very bitter smile.
But, of course. Because for all their arguments she and Anthony still are constantly together, and if they’re not happy it’s clear nonetheless they find in each other’s presence something like solace.
“Yeah,” Priya deadpans, unnecessarily, “seems it’s going around.”
They exchange a resigned, understanding smile at the joke.
She would remark how it seems the apocalypse apparently brings out the desire in people to reproduce, but she doesn’t. Because Priya is a practical girl and she knows what she would say: how they both know that isn’t true - what the apocalypse actually brings out in people is the desire to screw like rabbits, while having the unfortunate side-effect of limiting access to contraception.
Instead she reaches out and gently places a hand across hers. “What can I do for you?”
“I don’t want you to tell me how it’s all going to be okay, how I’ve got nothing to worry out. I’m sick of hearing that.” Priya draws a breath. “I want you to tell me exactly how miserable it’s going to be. The morning sickness, the cramping, all of it, and no sugarcoating excoriating details. I want you to tell me everything.”
She laughs a little. And then she does.
She realizes she’s actually grateful to have someone to vent to.
After sixteen hours of labor, Juliet (or Cynthia, if you prefer) gives birth to a relatively healthy baby girl. By some miracle or just fortunate chance, neither dies in the attempt after all.
Juliet names the girl ‘Blessing’.
“Kind of makes you want to smack her in the back of the head, doesn’t it?” remarks Priya.
*
They are well into the quickening now. Despite how she loathes becoming a cliché she finds herself resting her hands atop her stomach quite often, gazing down as she feels her baby move.
Priya misses toast, and jam, and scrambled eggs: her cravings tend to run the gamut toward breakfast foods. She holds the younger woman’s hair back for her patiently while she vomits.
Anthony hovers, and is not nearly as good at doing it unobtrusively. Priya tells him to knock it off before she tells him to go start boiling water.
And then she changes her mind, and calls him back with a request: “Get her,” she stabs a finger toward where Juliet rocks a blanketed bundle in her arms, cooing, “out of my sight before I start screaming.”
“I didn’t realize we were playing frakking ‘Oregon Trail’,” Topher mutters out of the side of his mouth one morning.
“Yeah,” Laurence snips. “We’re out of bullets until we make it to Fort Laramie. And I’m trading you for a wagon wheel and some oxen.”
Topher stops, and he turns his head, and for a moment the two of them just stare at each other. Like each man just realized for the first time that the other was actually there.
It’s three days later when Topher has a sudden relapse and has to be held down and force-fed his medication that she finds Laurence sitting alone, staring at his own tightly laced fingers.
She sits down beside him, close enough that were she to lean just a little she would be brushing against his shoulder.
She waits. His voice is rough when he says, “I never should’ve said…I didn’t mean it. Not like that. Not like,” he flinches, “this.”
“I know,” she tells him.
“I just meant I thought it would be nice if he was actually paying attention for once, that as annoying and arrogant as he was, yeah, it made me happy to see him taken down a peg; to maybe show some regard for anyone besides himself.”
“I know.”
He trails off. “I didn’t realize just how…damaged he’d gotten.”
“He has his better days,” she says mildly, stretching out her feet, because it’s all she can bear to focus on when it comes to Topher: Some days, he’s fine. Some days, you’d swear he was himself again.
He clenches his hands tighter. “Yeah.”
For a moment they sit in silence, but then of course, “Oh,” she goes, air knocked out of her, as the baby gives a rather hard kick.
She rubs a hand over her stomach, frowning with disapproval, “Enough now.”
Laurence is gazing at her, then her belly, with a complex expression. She looks up and meets his eyes.
After a moment he goes, hesitatingly, “Can I…?”
On the one hand, she is tempted to say something very sarcastic; this tentativeness he is expressing about touching her now, considering how he is the one that put it there.
On the other, there is a gentle respect in his tone as he asks, that seems to momentarily hearken back to the days when they both wore formalwear and could cover everything that needed saying only in glances. (Days she misses more than she’d like to.)
Now they never can - his eyes are too full of complications. As are hers.
She leans her upper body back, presenting her stomach. His hands falters enough times getting there that she reaches out and grabs it in hers, gently but firmly placing it down on the curve of her body.
The baby is not moving at the moment but he doesn’t seem to notice; he strokes a small circle in her side as he stares at the swell that they both seem very aware, in this instant, is not going to stay there forever.
He pulls his hand back, curling it into a fist.
“I don’t want nothing to do with you, after this,” he states. “I know that much. There’s no way I could just…I’m not even gonna try.”
“Yes,” she muses. “I thought as much.” She touches her belly because it seems impossible not to. “So what?”
“I don’t…you know how, in all those stories, there’s always the part where the guy freaks out and says ‘I can’t do this’? I’ve always thought: that’s bullshit. You be there, you show up on time, it’s simple, easy. And that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. It’s not even the kid I’m thinking about anymore. As far as I’m considered, that’s handled. The problem is I just don’t know what to do about you.”
It is, she thinks, easily the most he’s said to her at once since the night he yelled at her, drank her alcohol and got her pregnant.
“You mean, whether we should be parents with separate lives who can cohabitate peaceably in the same environment, or whether we should try and be…something more?”
He gazes at her, and something in his eyes is so raw it makes her think of wounds. “We had something, once. I think it’s pointless to even try and pretend we didn’t. But after what we did to each other, it got wrecked and I…” He swallows, looking at her belly despondently. “I don’t know if we should try and get back together over this. I don’t know if this is the right kind of thing.”
She goes, very softly, “You think that I would know the answer to that better than you would?”
She hates it when he says things she doesn’t want to hear and makes so much sense while doing it.
Because they need to figure this out, and soon, because there is another life that stands to be wrecked by their decisions.
“What do you want from me, Adelle?” he demands. He sounds so lost. “I mean in this moment. I mean right now.”
“I want you to kiss me,” she decides, voice still subdued, “and then tell me whether or not you hate it.”
His mouth twists a moment like he is considering laughing. But he does as she asks.
It’s a real kiss, not the angry violent thing they did with their mouths the night lust and agony overcame their common sense. She closes her eyes and breaths slow to better enjoy it, in case it is the last one from him she ever gets.
When he pulls away from her lips he doesn’t move very far, and he’s looking at her face now, not her stomach, as he lifts a hand to grasp her cheek.
“We could be good together,” he murmurs. “I know we could. I just don’t know if I want to try.”
She should either push him away or pull him closer and help him decide in the action, but the damnedest thing is, she doesn’t know either. It makes her feel desperate and wanton.
She doesn’t kiss him again, but she doesn’t let him leave either. He falls asleep with her cradled in his arms, not precisely a lover’s embrace but a caring one, designed for her comfort.
In the days after, they speak more. They try to navigate whatever this is with slow steps, testing the waters without really moving any further.
They could at least be friends, she thinks. They could be fond of each other. She thinks that she could stand that. It’s honestly better than what she’d expected.
The next time Topher has one of his bad spells, she sees Laurence sitting next to the burrow of blankets and junk the other man has made for himself, quietly trying to talk to him.
*
They are pinned down behind the remains of a wall, waiting for the noises and yells outside to die down, so they can try and get out of here in one piece and reunite with the group.
She looks at the three men in front of her, each crouched down with weapon at the ready. Then she looks back at where Laurence kneels beside her, reloading his gun.
She tugs his sleeve. “I wanted to make a deal with you,” she whispers.
“Don’t talk,” he grunts, not looking at her. She knows he is thinking she’s trying to turn this into the moment where she confesses her feelings for him because she thinks they’re both going to die, or that she wants to make some kind of conditional declaration; “if we get out of here alive”. Does he know nothing about her by now at all, she ponders.
“I just wanted to say,” she indicates her stomach, “that if it’s a boy, you get to name it, and if it’s a girl, I will. Sound fair?”
He only allows himself to look visibly surprised for a moment.
“Actually, I’d rather do it the other way instead,” he tells her, chuckling wryly. “I think I’d do better with girls’ names.”
There is a mixture of sweat which is his and blood which is not coating the side of his face, thick above the shadows under his eyes and about a week’s worth of untrimmed stubble. She ignores all of it.
“Alright,” she decides. “I can live with that.”
One of the other men nods and they shift into position, going on alert because any second now is going to be their moment. Her finger readies on her trigger and she doesn’t look at him any more because she can’t afford to, but she is still very present of him at her side.
“Just promise me one thing,” he adds, breathing shallowly. “If it is a boy, you won’t be naming him after his father.”
“Did you really think I would be so uncreative?” She chuckles. “Why, you don’t like ‘Laurence’?”
“I never really knew what to think of it, to tell the truth. It’s kind of old-fashioned.”
“Well, I like it. But don’t worry-”
She cuts off speaking as there’s the whistle of a grenade, and then the earth-shattering blast of the explosion. No more time for talking, now. They run.
*
They are less than a day away from their so-called, promised “safe haven”, literally as good as crouching on its front doorstep, so of course catastrophe strikes.
The others are forming a circle, shouting to one another, firing their guns as they try to draw in and set up a defense.
But she has dropped her weapon and fallen to her knees. Not very helpful of her, she knows. But at the moment she doesn’t care.
She leans forward pressing both hands with all her weight on the blood oozing from Laurence’s shoulder. “Stay with me,” she says. “You’re going to be fine.”
“You should get out of here.” He stares up at her, half-focused, from where he lies in the refuse and dirt. “Leave me-”
“Shut up,” she snaps. Turning her head she spots one of the others crouching behind a pillar, hiding, and more importantly the satchel they are holding. “Morgan, the medical kit. Quickly!”
Her voice snaps the other out of their shell-shocked reverie. They scramble over, pushing the bag towards her across the ground.
She rips open Laurence’s shirt and begins pulling out gauze to pack his injury with.
“Adelle.”
“Save your strength. I suspect you’re going to need it.”
“Adelle, I’m sorry-”
“You aren’t going anywhere. I won’t let you.”
He swallows thickly, and it looks like it’s hard for him to keep open his eyes. He will lose consciousness soon, she knows, from the blood loss if nothing else.
“You’re beautiful when you’re angry, you know. Did I ever tell you that?” He reaches a hand toward her but can’t make it. “Don’t deny me the chance to say goodbye to you.”
Her lips quiver and her eyes and throat are burning. She drops what she is doing, leans forward and grabs him by his jacket collar, leaning over him so she is right in his face.
“I will not lose you, do you understand me? I refuse to let that happen.” Her voice breaks with rage and desperation and sheer determination. She is aware that she sounds frightening, near hysterical. “I refuse to become the woman who is left behind by a dead man with nothing but his child to remember him by.”
Her teeth are clenched as she stares deep into his eyes, unyielding. “Either you are going to pull yourself together and survive, or I am going to find an imprinting chair, somewhere, and drag you to it and make a copy and bring you back in another body! Do you understand me?”
He doesn’t answer, and within less than a minute he passes out anyway. But she packs his shoulder tight with gauze and binds it with strips from his shirt, and stays beside him squeezing his hand in a death-grip until two of the men appear and help her lift him.
They carry him the rest of the way to their new home. Priya forces her to come away and have a piece of bread and something warm to drink while the ones with training tend to him.
“Sit down,” Priya says, guiding her. “You’ve been on your feet all day. It isn’t good for the baby.”
Priya’s stomach is not as prominent as hers but it’s getting there. She stares down, resting a hand on her own belly.
“I hope it’s a girl,” she murmurs.
Priya grins crookedly.
“That’s right,” she says. “Men suck anyway.”
She laughs along with her tiredly, rather than try explaining it to her.
*
Laurence lives, as of course he must.
It really wasn’t that bad an injury to begin with, so she doesn’t know whether or not to think she successfully threatened him into hanging on for her.
But she doesn’t need to wonder if he knows she meant every word. He knows her. There can’t be any doubt.
There’s a bandage tied to his shoulder when he comes looking for her.
“Shouldn’t you be resting?” she asks.
“Shouldn’t you?” he returns, pointedly. She scowls.
“I am more than a walking incubation chamber, thank you.”
He laughs louder than she has ever heard him before, startling her.
“Oh god, yes. You think I don’t know that?” He stares at her, smirking as he shakes his head in something like wonderment. “Yeah, you are so, so much more.”
His voice goes soft and low as he says it. She’s struck by the sudden pang to reach out for him, but her hands are paralyzed by her side.
He moves so they’re standing face to face, noses practically touching, and he puts his hands on her cheeks, thumbs brushing over her skin as he holds her firmly in place. He stares deep into her eyes.
“What do you want from me, Adelle?” he asks her for the third time since they started this particular journey together.
“I want you,” she breathes. This time there is no hesitation or doubt.
He smiles. “Good. Because you’ve got me. And we’re going to give this thing a chance.”
She doesn’t wait for him: she pulls him closer and they kiss.
There is still, she knows, no guarantee of anything. There are still, if she thinks about it, at least a hundred things that could go wrong.
But she doesn’t care, anymore. Because all she needs is for one perfect thing to go right.