Wanda holds out the little stick to me, worry casting an ugly shadow across her face.
"Are you happy?" She asks, one hand moving slowly to rest on her stomach, and all I can do is stare. No signs of life, but how can this stick lie when I can see that it's the sixth one she's taken. I take the latest, or perhaps first, or middle, or whichever one she hands me, looking at it hard like some hidden message will pop out. Why can't it appeal to the males too, like a 'congrats, dude, you are officially screwed. Or at least, she was.' I cough to cover a half laugh, because it's inappropriate at the time being.
Am I happy? Wanda's look is so careful, so unsure about it all, but what could she really do? Doc would never take it out, abortions are something we can no longer afford while human numbers are rapidly dwindling, and clearly the day after pill is out of the question. So, wether I like it or not, this baby is here to stay.
We didn't plan this, in case you haven't figured it out. Who knew that Wanda would be so fertile? Was it only the first, or the second? It could have been the third, or the fourth for that matter, as I remembered with an internally cheeky grin. We rutted like rabbits after the first time. Yeah, I'd used a condom and Wanda had told me the host's body was irregular, but clearly one of those two things hadn't pulled through. Probably both. That's what you get when you steal and dig around for condoms. In the host world, they try to keep their pleasure to a minimum, ignoring the urges. The only reason they're doing it is to procreate, so things like condoms are rarely used. Better forms are employed, usually, if need be. It's not like we keep those sorts of protection around the cave, though. Sex here is a real catch-twenty two.
One the one hand, you never know how much time you have left so if you're in love with someone, you may as well get it on as soon as possible, so you don't regret if that person were to die. But at the same time, it's not exactly the most ideal time to have children, so it's generally frowned upon if you're doing it to have children. This kid won't be the first to be born in the caves, and I know he won't be the last. Someday when we have more food, more freedom, more space, more of everything Mel and Jared will have a whole little hoard of Howe children. I can't help but let my face twitch upward at that thought, because it's not like I haven't imagined in a brief moment having children one day too.
Just not now.
I don't think that many men dream about their children one day, not like mothers do. Wanda never has, because host reproduction (for more souls) is a messy, self-sacrificing to the extreme sort of exchange, where the mother will never know her children. Ergo the natural response to want children in hosts is slim, few are born with the urge and will not hesitate to act on this if they choose. But the emotions that many life forms expel about children is strong, and I've heard earth is the strongest, so maybe she does want children. It's not like we've ever formally talked about it.
"Ian?" My name snaps me into focus, and I realize I've taken too long to answer.
"Of course." I lie even for the moment, because I'm not sure if I'm happy or upset at myself for not being more careful about the whole ordeal. I'm not even sure how to love this child, but if anything I will because it's her's. She hugs me, and it's dark outside, so we are getting ready for bed. Or, she had been when I'd walked in to find the room littered with the pregnancy tests.
Crawling into bed, I can't stop my racing mind.
I remember being eight and playing with the neighbor girl from my street. We had found a little lost puppy, with a broken leg, and thus became the parents of it. For the whole day, in the woods, we built our makeshift home and the girl pretend to cook at the stove while I came home from work. Then we'd sit to eat and she would tell me to play with the baby and then I would go and watch TV while she cleaned. At eight years old, this is what we thought adults did when they grew up. The dog found it's owner and we cried pretending our baby had grown up.
How illusions shift. To imagine I'd be living down in a dingy, dirty cave one day with an alien as a mate? I would have laughed and given you the number for the nearest mental institution. But that girl from the memory had ceased to exist when I was 16, and that's when I left. If anything from the new real world shifted, the most important is I'm alive and this is the new mom and dad of this-our-world.
Wanda is fast asleep, and I realize she has been hungrier and more tired and defiantly more emotional (she's digging back and using some of that sharp edged sarcasm that Melanie taught her) in the past few days. I assumed it was her period. Mother Nature is a cruel mistress, giving girls the gift of a period and pregnancy with the same symptoms.
I'll have to go out and find her some vitamins, if we're going to have a baby, then by gone it's going to be the healthiest baby there is.
My hand travels down to her stomach, and I reflect on the incredible fact that in this moment there is a microscopic human being created bit by bit inside her. How something our sized begins so tiny. Laying with my chin resting on her neck, I nuzzle into her dark hair.
It's a nice thought, admittedly, and perhaps I'm beginning to think like a girl but I like the idea of a son or a daughter half me, and half-
A thought hits me full on, and I want to cry for Wanda. This child won't be half her, it will be half, and half unknown. She will be it's mother, but genetically it will never be Wanda because Wanda carries no genes. Her personality won't appear in this child, other than what she can pick up by watching her. She won't look like Wanda, because Wanda is a beautiful silver creature, she will look like a mix of me and Pet. How utterly heartbreaking, and I hope Wanda never thinks about this.
Perhaps this child will even be afraid of it's own mother, because how can you explain to a small child how to love something that looks like a worm that crawls all over you? And Wanda will never understand this child like a mother should because she's never been so human as this child will be. I guess that means it's up to me, but that scares me. And it will hurt Wanda too, that there is this piece of them she will never understand, that she can never learn, that is gifted to every other female on the whole earth besides her. I'm sure normal souls don't worry about this, because I'd assume that most have another soul placed inside their child when it's born. But there was that one couple, at the swings that seems like eons and eons ago.
I can't believe I'm crying until I feel the tears run down my face, and I stare at Wanda. I don't want to hurt her, I don't want this baby to hurt her. I don't want her to think about what I've just realized, and it hurts me that one day she may realize this and there is absolute nothing I can do about it. My tears must have fallen on her exposed shoulder, which I press my lips against in an attempt to mask my sorrow, because she wakes. Silently, she turns around.
"What's wrong?" For the second time that night, I lie.
"I'm just so damn happy, just so happy."