Chapter 2: Loss & Opportunity

Year 2151 – Earth, Ireland

It's been a few months since that disastrous Manningham fight. Will had kept his promised to Hannah and not had a match since then, albeit not through trying. He'd been having several meetings with his manager, Brenden, about finding him just one more match that could give him a good pay-out for the of the three of them to live comfortably, but apparently he just wasn't demand lately. Hannah was far into the pregnancy now, their boy was actually due to arrive in a few weeks. They had just agreed on a name too…Michael.

So, with no matches lined up and no job, that left William with nothing to do but lounge on their apartment couch, streaming his favorite crime dramas. Hannah was currently working in her "agricultural lab" as she called it in the other room, studying for her classes. Will just called it a "garden" whenever it was brought up. Still, she was way smarter than he could hope to be. There was no way he was getting into college with his background, let alone working on a master's degree in Agriculture.

"Why did she agree to marrying a meathead like me again?" He wondered to himself.

All this laying around was making him stir-crazy so he decided to get up and go retrieve some mail from their box. He reached in and stared sorting through the letters.

"Junk…Junk…Bill…Bill…St. Paul's Hospital? Shit, hope it's not more bad news about Lauren."

Just then he felt a vibration in his pocket. His phone. He received a text message from Brenden.

"Hey, come down to the office tomorrow afternoon. I think I got something for ya."

"Oh sweet! Finally something good hopefully. I'll be there. See ya tomorrow!"

Returning to the pile of letters, Will noticed a blue envelope at the bottom. In the corner was an "A" shaped emblem with a globe in it's center. Will recognized this symbol as that of the Systems Alliance organization that formed a couple years ago. It was addressed to Hannah.

"What could those people want from her?"

Will didn't pay all that much attention to the news, but even he knew that human society had changed drastically in the last few years. They were living in a new Golden Age of space travel & exploration. The Alliance was the spearhead of that exploration. Ever since they found ruins on Mars and discovered that Pluto's moon is actually a giant slingshot to anywhere in the galaxy, the entire human race got thrown into a tizzy over the possibility of finding Alien life and colonizing new planets. It was an exciting new age in science, we even finally figured out how to make flying cars work!

"Maybe it's some sort of job offer."

He returned up to the apartment and knocked on Hannah's door.

"Hey darlin'! I got some mail for ya!"

She swiftly opened the door, but not leaving the room. "What mail?"

"Well you got one from Saint Paul's…" Hearing that made her eyebrows sag in concern just a bit. "and one from I think the Systems Alliance." That made her brow shoot all the back up.

"WHAT!? Really?"

"Well I mean, I'm pretty sure this is their symbol on it." He said, holding up the blue letter. "And it says 'Systems Alliance' right on the front, so my guess is that's who they are."

Hannah quickly lifted her hands to reach for the letter, only to stop midway to look at her dirt-covered hands.

"Do you mind opening them for me? My hands are filthy right now."

"Sure." He started digging his finger through the crease while Hannah ran off to the bathroom to wash her hands.

"Could you actually open the one from St. Paul's first. I wanna know how mum is doing."

"Yeah, alright." He sat back down on the couch, open and read the letter:

"Dear Mrs. Hannah Shepard,

It is with great sorrow we must inform you that your mother, Lauren Rivers, has not been responding well to treatment and the brain tumors have started to spread throughout her body. She is now in stage 4 cancer. We will still be providing treatment to her, but you should know survival rates at this stage are very low, and as her only next of kin, we will need you sign her over to hospice care should the worst come to pass.

Signed,

Dr. Richard Grover"

"Jesus Wept." Will whispered.

"What's it say?" Hannah yelled from the bathroom. Will said nothing and just got up with the letter walking toward, the blue letter laying forgotten on the coffee table.

He could she her by the sink, her hands now washed clean. He did his best not to let the look of despair across his face portray the meaning of the letter "Umm…I think you should look at it yourself darlin'." If the look on her face was any indication, he failed miserably. Her frown matched his own once she saw it.

At a much slower speed than when she reached for the blue letter from earlier, her hands were now trembling as she grabbed from Will's hand and began to read. As her eyes darted across the paper, they began to fill quickly with tears.

Once she was done, she silently let the letter fall to the floor, locked Will into a tight hug, like he was a piece of flotsam in a deadly storm at sea and began sobbing uncontrollably into his shoulder. Will did his best to comfort her by holding her tightly and crying along with her.

Lauren was the only family Hannah had left, since her father died when she was still a teenager. William never even knew his own mother, he grew up in orphanages for most of his life, but Lauren was kind and courteous to him despite his background, and he was proud to consider her a mother. The possibility that she might not even live to see the birth of her grandson was devastating to the both of them.

They stood there crying together for several minutes before they moved over to the couch. They didn't feel like doing anything else for the rest of the day. They just stay in their flat, tending to their grief, well into the night, until they decided to go to bed and fall asleep in each other's arms.

The Next Day

William was the first to wake up. Sunlight poured into their room. Their pillow cases still stained their tears. He started caressing Hannah's swollen tummy, though his heart still ached for Lauren and what she was going through, he found hope for the future thinking about his wife and little baby Michael growing within her. There was a kind of morbid beauty to it. Where one life ends, another one begins.

His rubbing seemed to awoken Hannah, cause she was now stirring. "Good morning." She said in a hushed tone.

"Good morning" Gave her a customary good morning kiss. "Do you have classes today?"

"I don't feel like going in right now. I'm going to visit mum at the hospital and skip the day."

"I don't think anyone will blame you for that."

"You going to come with me?"

"I…can't. I…made an appointment with Brenden today." He said, aware of how bad it sounded.

"Really? I thought you were done with that. You can't just push it till later?" She asked with righteous indignation.

"It's just an afternoon meeting. We're just going to talk about an exit for me. We'll be done in like an hour and afterwards I'll meet you at the hospital." That wasn't a total lie. This meeting was going to be about them discuss his retirement from boxing. He just didn't tell her that retirement plan included a send-off match. She seemed to be placated all the same, breathing deeply.

"Ahhh…fine. But you better make it down there today…She's your mother too."

"I know darlin'. I know. I promise I'll be here." He gave her another kiss, got up, got dressed and headed out into their living room to prepare breakfast. He then noticed that the blue envelope was still sitting on the coffee table. Opened but unread.

"Oh that's right. The last letter was such a sucker-punch we never got to that one."

He picked it up and carried it over to the kitchen table. Preparing an omelet on the stove. Got his coffee ready. While he was waiting, he let curiosity overtake him and take a peek inside to read the letter. It looked really official, hard paper, border layout, almost like a diploma that was folded. What was in the letter was shocking though:

"Dear Mrs. Hannah Shepard,

We have the Systems Alliance have taken a keen interest in your biological & agricultural studies. As you may be aware, the Systems Alliance is at the forefront of leading a new age of discovering & exploration as humanity sets out to conquer the final frontier! As such, we require the minds of bright men & women like yourself to participate in our organization's Colonization Initiative to help put our best foot forward in settling the stars!

You will find more information in the included pamphlet. If you are interested in settling a new world and helping humanity reach the next stage of Civilization, don't hesitate to call your local Systems Alliance office to schedule an interview.

"Holy Shite!" William screamed in his head, nearly spilling his coffee cup on the floor.

"Hannah? Colonizing? In Fuckin' Space? That'd be like the mother of a dream jobs to her!" His thoughts were going a mile a minute. He looked at his watch and realized he was going to be late for his meeting at this rate. He needed to start driving to Dublin right now. He grabbed his things and started to bolt out the door.

"Shit! The omelet!" He raced backed over to shut off the stove. Stuffing the undercooked egg into his mouth. Just then Hannah emerged from the bedroom.

"Will?" He saw her.

"What's with all the stomping around? You're causing a ruckus."

"Mchn't tahlk hmonay! Gahtah run! Byph!" He raced back out the door, leaving behind a very confused Hannah Shepard.

A/N: I know right? It's the future and we still haven't cured cancer. Maybe the Asari or Salarians got so much for it but we haven't met them yet :(

Hope you all are getting as much joy reading this as I am writing it! Don't hesitate to bring any spelling or grammar mistakes to my attention, as I'm super paranoid of those.

Until next time, have a nice day!