She was beautiful. She was feisty. She was his. Sousuke Sagara watched over his wife as she spooned ice cream into her mouth as if it were going to be stolen from her. It had been several months since she had told him the wonderful news. In that time, things had already started to change. Not that he minded. Change was to be expected for someone in her condition.

Today, Kaname Sagara had developed a taste for chocolate cherry ice cream, which was exceedingly odd for her because she despised cherries. That was something that he had been told by others to prepare for. The odd cravings would come at odd times of the day, this one at two in the morning. Thank god for twenty-four hour convenience stores. He wasn't sure if he would have survived the night if there had been none.

As she continued to shovel the confection, he mused to himself. Even though she had not done anything to prep for the day, she still looked radiant. "It's almost as if you are glowing," he comments to himself.

Kaname stopped for a moment and gave him a knowing look. "That's what happens when you're pregnant!" Without preamble, she dove back into her ice cream. As she did so, she lost control over her spoon. Sousuke watched as it seemingly fell in slow motion. When it hit the floor, the whole house shook.

XXX

Sitting straight up in bed, Sousuke instantly realized that the memory he was recalling previously had come to him in a dream. He also instantly recognized the sound that had shook him out of his sleep and into an instant state of readiness. "Oh shit!" exclaimed the former Mithril soldier as he threw the covers off and slid out of bed.

As he stood, he did not bother to grab his slippers. In a flash, he was out of the room and into the hall. In a move that was very uncharacteristic for someone of his former profession, he burst through the door on the other side without preamble. Looking around frantically, his eyes fell onto a crib with the small, sleeping form inside. Sousuke furrowed his brow in confusion. He could have sworn he heard a crash. Not wanting to wake the baby, he quietly turned and head back to his room.

When he arrived back at his bed, Sousuke sat down on the edge and rubbed his temples. He knew what he had heard, but could not comprehend yet what was going on.

"What the hell was that all about?"

Sousuke turned to the sound of the voice and sees his wife looking back at him expectedly in the darkness. "I heard a crash, and the first thing I thought of was that Shizuko had fallen out of bed," he replies tiredly.

Kaname smiled at him as she flipped a stand of blue hair out of her face. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she slammed her harisen into the side of his head. "You idiot, that was thunder!" To punctuate her admonition, the whole room momentarily flashed as lightning lit up the window on the other side of the room. The rumble that followed shook the entire room.

"Now go back to sleep!"


A/N: Hopefully this will break me out of my block. I have 2 stories I am stuck (not for FMP). I recently read CRYSTALOKAMINO's (soon to be FeistyDreams) latest chapter of her Boy Meets Girl collection, and it reminded me of a time, quite a long time ago, when the exact same thing happened to me. Damn thunder. My son was at that age, and let me tell you, I went from dead asleep and snoring to wide awake and standing in no time flat. I have no clue why that last chapter about Shizuko reminded me of that incident. It did, and I was able to bang this out in a couple of minutes. I hope you enjoy. FeistyDreams gave me permission to publish this with Shizuko in it.