She had his baby. It was as good as a full confession to him.
No matter what happened in the future, she wanted a tie between them.
She loves me, he thought, and it was the most revolting thing to ever happen.
She was beautiful and bright. She was a reckless, dangerous Amazon giantess stomping around with her big ol' feet.
He hadn't realized what he was pissing away the first time they dated. She'd been too intense and he'd done what he always did: Archer'd it up.
He'd regretted it almost immediately and he'd grown into it.
He'd grown into a lot of things over the last few years.
He felt like he'd grown up all around as a person. He'd tasted from the fruit of love, and at the end of the day Lana made him feel alive in a way he hadn't since lacrosse. She was his soulmate. She was his best friend.
She wasn't supposed to be suckling a baby and saying it was his.
Because when it was just him, obsessed and pining with it, it could be maintained. She could still have the life she deserved. And he could keep her as his best friend forever. The status would be quo. Oh so quo.
But if she loved him back, there was the chance that they could break up again. And it had hurt so much the first time. And he'd gone to the brink of death (cancer, whew!) and lingered there long enough that he'd had his great epiphanies.
And top of the list was one Lana Kane, the woman he definitely really did love and who was 100% too good for him.
She wasn't supposed to be saying her baby-the one he'd found himself beginning to love-had come from his questionable bloodline.
God knew he loved Mother, but she didn't have a maternal bone in her body toward anything vulnerable and needy. Even her dog had been raised through puppyhood by hired professionals.
He'd always had Woodhouse-apparently since birth-but finding out the man had a drug problem wasn't the surprise it could have been. It had actually explained way too much.
"This is Abbiejean. Your daughter." The words rang through his head in a rising squeal.
He would have rather faced 500 crocodiles and 500 alligators than this bit of reality.
The narcissist part of him was enthusiastic that she wanted him in her life forever. The rest of him was horrified.
She deserved so much more than the best he could be.
It should have surprised no one that he would disappear as soon as the plane touched ground. But he knew it surprised her. It always did.
He still ran as fast and far as he could. Telling himself the whole way that he needed time to process. Process time was what he needed.
But really he was running away from that baby. Abbiejean.
Because he wasn't good with vulnerable and needy things either.
=THE END=