Note: Flashbacks are presented in italics.

"Well, you and I can rest easy."

"You mean...?"

She dealt out a swift, composed nod. "False positive," she confirmed. As Valon tried to keep his reaction in check, Mai added, "You and I are in the clear."

He was aware of how she was eyeing him, and Valon, releasing a cool stream of air through his lips, rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to plan out his next move. There was little to no room for impulse and a brash, devil-may-care attitude in this situation. His and Mai's relationship with one another had lately turned into a precarious balancing act, and he did not want to say or do the wrong thing in that moment. "That's..." he said, uncharacteristically cautious about it. He threw her a helpless look, silently asking her to tell him how to react, as he knew how easily minds could be changed. This was all so new to Valon. He'd never been faced with possible parenthood before, and now he and Mai had miraculously sidestepped the whole thing. "That's..."

"Great," she finished for him. Finally looking at peace for the first time in a while, Mai exhaled and placed a hand on her hip. "It's great."

Valon nervously chuckled his agreement and nodded as he sank down onto his couch. They just dodged a bullet, didn't they? He knew that he should feel relieved—jubilant, even—but with all that had happened in a relatively short span of time, it left the biker groping for a way to process everything. So much had happened since Mai had returned.

/

A little over a year since Mai had left her beloved card with Valon, she had popped up on his front doorstep on an otherwise unremarkable day. He had recently returned from his own travels and so was trying to adapt to a life that was considerably quieter and slower than what he was accustomed to. However, with no one to challenge or be challenged by, Valon found adapting to this new life somewhat taxing and dull. But just when he was about to bust out of his skin from boredom, Mai had shown up, and that was when things had started happening.

Not much talking had been done in the very beginning. Although, that was not to say that Valon had not tried. "Mai," he'd said, eyes widening slightly as she calmly regarded him from her spot on the porch. Putting on a more relaxed version of his usual smile, Valon continued with, "You're back. Huh. Well, I've got your—"

Mai had shaken her head, and she threw a well-manicured hand up, telling him to forget about it. "That's not why I'm here," she said deliberately. She cocked her head to the side and, violet eyes gleaming in a way that Valon had never seen coming from her before, she added, "Now why don't you let me in so I can show you why?"

Just about like everything else that had happened in his young life, things had taken off at a breakneck pace with them once Mai had asked for entry into his house. Valon had barely shut the door when she started kissing him, capturing his lips with hers and holding the neck of his red t-shirt in her tight grasp.

That was when the remainder of that afternoon simply disappeared into this surreal blur where time had neither definition nor significance to the two, and the sky traded its bright blue daytime coat for its bluish-black cloak of the night without notice from the occupants of that house on the beach. And as they allowed themselves a breather from all of the excitement, the two young people stared up disbelievingly at the ceiling in Valon's bedroom, fingers and legs entwined as they muttered about what they had experienced since they had last seen each other. Somewhere during that first night of getting reacquainted, amidst the kissing, the God-this-can't-really-be-happening-can-it contact, and the earnest glances that communicated what it was that needed to be said, apologies and confessions were eventually made.

With the way Mai whispered her thanks in his ear, telling him how grateful she was that he had waited, Valon smiled as he started drifting off into that peculiar place of awareness where the mind wandered into a dreamlike state but still had somewhat of a grip on consciousness. He felt that he could fall asleep knowing that Mai would be there in the morning, and he was not disappointed when he woke up.

/

Then the scare eventually came along. A few weeks after their reunion, the news slipped out that Mai might, just might be pregnant. "Because, you know, I'm late. Virgins and celibate people, I tell you—they don't have to put up with this goddamn uncertainty." However, they both tried to play it off. Mai had laughed and tossed her hair over shoulder, as if she could brush the possible pregnancy off along with it; Valon had laughed along with her, which of course was usually how he tried approaching most problems he came across. Laughing in the face of danger made it seem less frightening.

Then that cheap drugstore test had come around, and that was when Mai had admitted that, okay, maybe she really was pregnant. "I mean, maybe," she said, a lovely vision of tranquility aside from the tattoo she was beating onto the tabletop with her fingernails. "It could be wrong, right? These things aren't a hundred percent."

All Valon could do during that apprehensive time was try to turn queasy grimaces into reassuring smiles and at the very most offer to help her out. "I-I'll be there, you know," he'd told her, reaching his hand across the table so he could put it on hers, trying to comfort her. "Takes two to tango, am I right? So if—"

Mai's palm uniting with the tabletop cut Valon off, and she pulled back and glared at him while he stared at her, dumbfounded. "Don't talk like that," she spat. Getting to her feet and shouldering her bag, she added, "This could be nothing."

"And it could be someth—"

"Don't," Mai said tersely. Her head was turned away from him and pointed down, and the blonde tresses that he had run his fingers through so many times before fell forward and curtained off that pretty face of hers, cutting her off from reality and the rest of the world. Refusing to meet his gaze, she muttered, "I'll get back to you later. We can celebrate or freak out then."

/

Valon looked at Mai when she sat down next to him and let out a sigh of a relief. She kept her eyes on the opposite wall as she reached over for his hand and grabbed hold of it, and Valon swallowed and managed a small smile. "Funny," he said, "but out of all the things you and I've seen and done, you'd think that..."

Mai tittered softly and said, "I know. Still ranks pretty high on the list of scares, though. Imagine if we were parents."

Valon laughed and shook his head, saying, "That'd be a sight to see, wouldn't it?"

"That poor kid," Mai added, smiling around him for the first time in days.

Held in sighs were released and tense shoulders relaxed as the two laughed quietly at how worried they had been over the situation. Keeping the mood light with his smile, Valon asked the air, "What would we go by, parenting-wise? The only actual parenting I ever received was..." Valon stopped himself and let out a cathartic sigh that was not one of sadness, but one of old memories that still plagued his nights once in a while. Although he had already told Mai about his past, Valon still added, "What I mean is—"

"You didn't really have much of a role model growing up," Mai supplied, sounding like she knew all too well where he was coming from. She stared pensively at the opposite wall for a few moments before she said deliberately, "Maybe one day I'll have a kid. In the distant future. But the thing is, I've never really thought about it before."

Valon shrugged his agreement and muttered, "There was always this part of me that was convinced that I'd die young, certainly before I could ever think about settling down."

"And what about now?" Mai asked.

Valon inhaled and shrugged again. C'mon, how was he supposed to answer that? This mundane life of his already left a bad taste in his mouth; how could he actually think about adding diapers and a screaming infant to the equation anytime soon? "S'pose I'm not as likely to die in the near future as I was a year ago. I dunno. Like you said, maybe someday."

"Maybe," Mai agreed. "Just—just not right now."

The biker chuckled and said, "Most certainly not, Mai. But I do know one thing."

She smiled at him fondly and asked, "What's that?"

"Your company is all I need right now."

The blonde woman chuckled and said, "Yeah, I think we're more than enough to handle at the present moment."

Valon brought Mai closer, burying his face in her soft blonde locks as they both shared a laugh. Maybe someday news of that nature would not be so alarming. Maybe someday Valon would consider himself capable of actually raising a child that wouldn't be a monumental screw up in life. Maybe someday. But in the present day, Valon preferred to enjoy his time with Mai. In the meantime he would continue to learn how to adapt to this quieter life. After all, he would need to get a handle on his own life before helping shape another one, right?