Author's Note: This is set about twelve Earth years after Season 1, meaning all the younger Paladins are in their mid-twenties, and Shiro (BECAUSE HE SURVIVES AND RETURNS DAMMIT) is in his thirties. /Disclaimer.
It wasn't unusual to find Pidge in the lab, nor was it out of the ordinary to see her sitting perfectly still and staring into space. The shocked expression, however, was new.
"Pidge?" Allura asked, deliberately stepping into the Green Paladin's field of vision. "Pidge, is something the matter?"
Pidge started and shook off her trance. Allura waited patiently while the other woman reoriented. Clearly, there was something on her mind.
"Remember back when we threw the party for the Arturans and you said I could confide in you if I needed to?" Pidge began. "That I could talk to you about anything and it would just be between us girls?"
"Yes," Allura replied, wondering if she should be worried.
Pidge glanced at the implements laid out on the table: a small beaker full of yellowish liquid and an array of various strips of test paper on a tray, each strip stained a different color at one end.
"...I think I might be pregnant."
Allura blinked, feeling her eyebrows lift. "Pregnant?" she echoed.
"Well, it'd explain why my body's gone haywire," Pidge began. "Why even Hunk's cooking makes me nauseous and why I've been throwing up all the time. My boobs hurt, my skin's too tight, and I feel like I'm crying over the stupidest stuff. I tried to run a test myself but it's hard to do with non-earth elements."
"We can find out for sure," Allura offered. "Come this way."
Bemused, Pidge followed her over to the holographic scanner and stood on the exam platform.
"Now this might not be a perfect scan," Allura reminded her, booting up the equipment. "But Altean physiology isn't that far off from humans."
"Except for the part where you can shape shift," Pidge commented, smiling.
Allura smiled back. "Yes, well, our insides don't change. We do reproduce sexually, give birth to live young, and nurse them and all of that. How long do humans gestate?"
"Nine months, give or take."
"Then you're well on your way."
"Wait, what?!" Pidge blinked and shook her head at the brief flash of light as Allura saved the image.
"See for yourself."
Stepping down off the platform, Pidge watched as Allura fiddled with the projection. Reaching into the hologram's stomach, she opened her fingers, expanding the image and enlarging the area.
"There's your little bundle of joy," she said, pointing at a small knot of tissue nestled in the thick velvet of endometrium. Pidge felt light-headed. The embryo was already implanted, it wasn't even in her fallopian tube anymore. Allura enlarged the image even further, bringing up something that looked like a more adorable iteration of a tadpole.
"So that's what for a human?" Allura asked. "Six weeks? Eight?"
"I don't know," Pidge confessed, weakly. "I guess it makes sense I'm not showing yet if the kid's only the size of a grape."
"Pidge, are you alright?" the princess asked, worry crossing her face.
"Fine," Pidge said hollowly. "Can you turn it off?"
The image flickered and vanished.
"Come sit down," Allura said, gently taking Pidge's arm and leading her to a chair.
"Here, lean forward," she instructed, lightly pushing the smaller woman's shoulders forward until her head was dangling between her knees. Despite being upside-down, Pidge felt the world settle a bit. Allura was making soft circles on her back with one hand, smoothing away the panic still fluttering in her stomach.
"I'm sorry," Allura apologized. "I've shocked you. I didn't mean to."
"It's not your fault," Pidge mumbled. "I'm the one who got knocked up." Giving a frustrated sigh, she covered her head with her arms. "Oh man…" she groaned. "What am I gonna do? I can not be pregnant right now!"
"Why not?" Allura wanted to know. "I thought you and Hunk wanted children?"
"Well yeah, but not right now!" Pidge protested, jerking upright and nearly passing out. "That was going to happen later! Much later! Like after I turned thirty, or once we retired from being Paladins! I'm assuming people aren't Paladins for life, at least not in an active-duty sense. Maybe as reserves or diplomats. It's like professional sports or the military or something and once you hit like thirty or forty your body just can't keep up anymore so you transfer to Surveillance or Communications. I mean I guess I'd be okay so long as I didn't have to do any hand-to-hand fighting, but eventually I'm not even gonna fit in my uniform! I can't save the universe and be a mom! THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!"
"PIDGE! You're rambling."
"I'm sorry," Pidge quavered and burst into tears. Without a word, Allura pulled her close and held her.
"I'm sorry, Pidge," she said softly. "If this truly isn't what you want...it's still early. You could terminate-"
"No!" Pidge cut her off. "No I… I don't want to kill it. I just… I'm kind of freaking out right now." Removing her glasses, she wiped at her eyes. "Stupid hormones."
"Why don't you talk to Hunk?" Allura suggested. "I'm sure he'll be ecstatic."
"Yeah," Pidge agreed miserably. "But that still leaves you short a Paladin for like a year."
"Well," Allura began, "why don't we trade places? You've redesigned all the castle's defences anyway, and I'm a pretty good pilot. That way we can keep on saving the universe and nobody has to go on hiatus. That is, if you think Jade will accept me?"
Pidge threw her arms around Allura in a crushing hug. "Of course she will! Allura thank you! This'll be perfect!"
"Glad I could help," Allura said, hugging back. "Shall I forward the image to your computer?"
"Please," Pidge said. "Hunk will want to see it. He's gonna flip. We'll probably wait to tell the guys though, just in case something happens."
Allura looked amused. "Do you think Hunk can keep a secret that long?"
Pidge smiled mysteriously. "Oh you'd be surprised at the secrets he can keep."
"Remember the...slumber party?" Pidge asked.
Hunk stopped short, blushing briefly at the memory. All of them had spent the night on the ice planet crowded into a small cave, huddling together for warmth. She and Hunk had huddled a little closer than the others. It was the last time they'd had a chance to- as Hunk put it- get up close and personal. Before and after their impromptu camp out, they'd each been on separate missions that had only recently been completed.
"Yeah…" he drawled. "I still can't believe we got away with that. Bless Lance and his deviated septum. Long may he build log cabins in Canada."
"Indeed. Unless everyone else is too polite to say anything, or maybe they've rationalized it into a bad dream?" Pidge suggested. That made Hunk chuckle nervously.
"Maybe. Why d'you ask?"
Pidge had gone over this repeatedly in her head, but still had no idea how to break the news to him gracefully.
"Well," she began, pulling up the image on her laptop and sliding it over so he could see. "Allura figured out why I've been feeling so gross." She watched, barely breathing, as Hunk squinted at the little 3D polywog. "I'm pregnant."
Hunk just stared, eyes wide as dinner plates. Pidge shifted nervously as he continued to look at the screen. Admittedly it was quite a bombshell to drop on him, but she wished he'd say something.
"Seriously?" he asked, voice hushed as he pointed at the screen. "That's the baby? Our baby?"
"Yep," Pidge shrugged, still unable to gauge her husband's mood. "Congratulations, you're gonna be a dad."
She watched his expression soften from shock to tenderness, saw him swallow hard and his eyes mist over.
"Aw Pidge," he murmured, drawing her into a hug. The embrace was careful, delicate, as if he was afraid he might break her. It made her think of their first awkward kiss and the weeks it had taken him to remember that she was not made of spun glass.
"That's so great! This is awesome!" The hug tightened a little and he kissed her forehead.
"So you're okay with it?" she asked, relaxing into his arms.
"Okay?" he echoed. "I'm amazing!" A pause. "Are you okay?"
Pidge's held breath escaped in a sigh and she snuggled into Hunk's warm girth, a smile on her face. "I am now."