Author's Note: Post-finale, another installment in my series of Wash/Taylor fics, though all that's really needed to be known from those is that Wash is alive and now married to Taylor. Builds off of certain plot points of A Phoenix By Any Other Name, specifically as they relate to how Wash escaped death and later escaped the Phoenix Group. Story is already complete, was previously published on LiveJournal.

Disclaimer wise, I just wrote this because I enjoy writing, no copyright infringement intended, and I certainly do not own Terra Nova.

Twenty Weeks

"Damn it." Alicia's voice is muffled as she roots through the clothes in the closet. "Damn it, damn it, damn it."

She hears a low chuckle, and she looks up to glare at Nathaniel. He's in the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms crossed and an amused smirk on his face. "Having trouble this morning, Alicia?"

She huffs out a frustrated breath. "None of my bras that fit are clean. I'm looking for my sports bra."

He reaches above her head and grabs something. "This sports bra?" He continues to smirk at her.

Nearly growling at him, she takes it and stalks past him out of the closet. She gets to the bed where she has her other clothes set out and tosses her bra onto the pile. She whips off the t-shirt she's taken to sleeping in, one of his because nothing else fits properly, over her head. She knows he's watching her now as she stands there in nothing but her panties.

Turning to look at him, she raises an eyebrow at him when she catches him staring. "Can I help you, Nathaniel?" He blinks a few times, and she can't help but smile at his obvious distraction. She finds his fascination with her body these days to be highly entertaining and also endearing and bittersweet after his explanation that he missed so much of Ayani's pregnancy because he was off at various military actions for most of it. "Nathaniel?"

He shakes his head and crosses the room in a few steps, his arms wrapping around her from behind. He pulls her back against his chest and drops a kiss on the side of her neck, one arm coming to rest across her breasts – which, no longer sore, he's once again allowed to touch – and the other across her still relatively small but obviously pregnant stomach. He smiles against her neck. "No, I'm good."

She turns in his arms and leans up to press a kiss to his lips before giving him a gentle shove away from her. "Hands to yourself. I need to get dressed, or we won't get out of here before the sun comes up."

He chuckles. "Yes ma'am. I'll be waiting in the living room, because if I stay here, I won't be able to keep my hands off of you."

She rolls her eyes and turns back to the bed. After putting on her bra, she pulls on the new maternity fatigues and t-shirt made for her by one of the women who work in the market. They'd worked together to come up with clothes that fit her and still looked like a uniform. She was the first member of the military here to become pregnant, so they didn't have any former uniforms from the future to go on.

Her only real complaint is that she can no longer comfortably tuck her shirts in. The compromise they came up with was t-shirts that had room for her growing belly but still were relatively fitted. As her pregnancy continues, she knows she might eventually need to wear looser tops, but for now, she's good with her longer, fitted t-shirt. The fatigues had been simpler. They'd just taken some regular fatigues, a size larger than she usually wears, and added a stretchy material at the waistline.

She straps on her thigh holster, which amazingly still fits perfectly, and pulls her hair into a ponytail. After she slips her gun into the holster, she turns to check herself in the mirror. She only has admitted to Elisabeth how much she enjoys her rather odd appearance, the armed pregnant woman. The looks she tends to get in the market and other public areas never fail to give her a small laugh.

After running a quick hand over her belly, she nods at her appearance and heads to the living room to find Nathaniel. He's there on the sofa, reading reports on a plex, her boots sitting on the floor next to his feet. She drops down next to him and leans down to pull her boots on, emitting a small, "Oof," as she bends over her stomach.

Next to her, she hears him laugh. "So, how long before I have to do that for you?"

She finishes tying her boot laces before she sits back up and takes a deep breath. "I really hate to admit it, but it may not be that long at all." There are some things she still fights him on, including the perimeter walk they're about to take, but on other things, she has definitely decided that pride is overrated.

He stands up from the sofa and extends a hand to her. She makes a disapproving noise, but she still takes his hand and lets him pull her to her feet. He laughs at that, and they head for the door.

About halfway around the perimeter, they pause for her to drink some water. Her willingness to take one short break during their walk is the one condition that both Elisabeth and Nathaniel demanded of her as she gets further into her pregnancy. She begrudgingly agreed to it.

As she takes a drink of water from the bottle she now carries with her, he says, "So, next week, we're going to start having someone else walk with us every morning."

She swallows the water, almost choking on it. "What?"

He cringes a little at her tone, and she takes more pleasure than she should in knowing that he's a little bit afraid of her these days. "Alicia, if something happens while we're out here, as your mobility decreases, we might need help holding off whatever it is. You may not want to admit it, but you've already slowed down a little."

Her glare at that is deadly. "Really. I've slowed down, have I? If you don't trust me to handle myself…"

"Alicia," he cuts her off, "You know that's not it. You know I trust you implicitly. But you also know that your body is going to react a little more slowly than it usually does. That's not a criticism, it's just a fact. And if something happened to you or the baby while we were out here, I'd never forgive myself."

She sighs. "You really are the king of playing dirty, Nathaniel."

He grins. "Just one of the many things you love about me, I'm sure." At her snort and eye roll, he turns serious again, cupping her cheek with his hand, his eyes pleading with her to go along with him on this. "I just need you safe, Alicia. I know you hate the way people have been so solicitous since we went public with your pregnancy, but it's not out of disrespect. You know it's because they care. It's a testament to you and what you mean to the colony, not a question as to your capability."

She blinks and looks down, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes. When she sniffles a little, he uses his hand, still on her face, to force her to look at him. His expression is chagrined at the sight of her tears, but she just shakes her head, not wanting him to think she's upset with him. "God, I've turned into such a damned girl. All it takes is you saying something nice, and I become a weepy mess." She gives him a watery smile. "And OK on adding someone to the perimeter walk, but only if it's Reynolds, Reilly, Guz or Shannon. Anyone else would bug me."

He nods and uses his thumb to wipe away the few tears that escaped from her eyes. "I figured that. Those are the folks I had in mind to assign. Well, I hadn't thought of Shannon. Doesn't he annoy you most of the time?"

She shrugs. "For whatever reason, his irritating personality has become more palatable to me. Must be the hormones."

He laughs, and they start walking again. As often happens, they drop into a companionable, comfortable silence, keenly aware of each other and their surroundings, but still lost in their own thoughts. Her mind wanders to the day they'd gone public with her pregnancy, five weeks ago.

Nathaniel, in his usual style, wanted to call a meeting, go up on the balcony and announce it to the assembled colonists. She vetoed that idea immediately, as the very thought of it made her uncomfortable. One of their biggest differences in personality is her low-key nature versus his love of a big splash.

In this case, he had let her take the lead. They told a handful of people, all from various walks of life within the colony. In large measure, they were the same people who had known about her relationship with Nathaniel prior to it being common knowledge. Between telling Guz, Reynolds, Reilly and Malcolm and turning Boylan and Shannon loose with the news, word spread throughout the colony like a wildfire.

Within days, Alicia was sure she'd been congratulated by everyone in the colony, and, much to her dismay, hugged by many. Nathaniel had clearly gotten a small amount of perverse pleasure from her discomfort with some of the colonists' more enthusiastic displays, openly laughing when she was cornered by Maddy Shannon and Skye and Deborah Tate to discuss the damned theme for the baby shower. For his clear enjoyment of her facial expressions during that conversation, he spent a night banished to the sofa.

The reaction that surprised her the most, though, came from Mira. At the same time they went public with the news, the Sixers, just returned to the colony from the Phoenix Group camp, were just getting settled into things here.

Mira sought her out after hearing the news from Boylan. Nathaniel was OTG on an emergency supply run to an outpost, so Alicia was in his office going over construction requests from various colonists. At the light knock on the door frame, Alicia looked up, surprised to see Mira standing there. "Mira, come in."

She nodded and entered the office. "Wash, just heard your news, from Tom. Was he telling the truth?"

Alicia cleared her throat. "If he told you I'm pregnant, then yes. He told you the truth."

Grabbing a chair from the conference table and dragging it over, Mira parked herself in front of the desk. "Tom said you're fifteen weeks." At Alicia's nod of confirmation, Mira continued, "Guess you got busy not long after your return from the dead. You know this would make Lucas even more batshit crazy, right?"

"Mira, it's not like it was planned. Not that it's any of your business, but I just forgot to get my birth control injection after I got back. And, I honestly didn't think I'd ever get pregnant either way, because of injuries I sustained during the war in Somalia." Not knowing why, Mira's questioning made Alicia feel defensive. "As for Lucas, well, yes, we know it will make him nuts if and when he finds out. But there's nothing to be done about that, now is there?"

Mira held her hands up in a conciliatory manner. "I'm not criticizing. If anything, I'm jealous as hell. I miss my daughter more than I ever thought possible. I was just coming up to see if there's anything I can help you with." Alicia must have looked puzzled, because Mira explained, "I imagine it's not easy to be so visible and to have to appear to be so tough and unruffled when you're pregnant. I've just been trying to sort out a role for myself here, and I was wondering if there is anything military that I can assist with, and in particular, anything I could do that would occupy me and help you out at the same time."

"Mira, I really do appreciate it, but I don't know. Military?"

She looked down at her hands, her shoulders dropping. "Wash, at this point, there aren't many ways I can be useful. I've been a guerilla, a fighter for so damned long that I don't really know how to be anything else. I know you and Taylor are wary, but I can be of use. What else can I do? Tend bar for Boylan? How long do you think I'd last before beating the hell out of some drunken piece of shit for trying to cop a feel?"

Alicia snorted out a laugh at that. "OK, Mira. I can talk to Nathaniel and Guzman. Maybe we can figure out a place for you, but even if we do, you need to understand that you'll be subject to the chain of command, duty rosters and all of that. We won't bust you down to private or anything like that, but you'd likely have to report to me or to Guz. And I doubt seriously that you'd be commanding anyone else anytime soon. In particular, you know we feel the need to be very careful to not concentrate too many of your people in one area of the military, since several have already been folded into the units."

"I can live with that, Wash. And I haven't had the chance to thank you for that, for allowing them to join up. They just want to help defend this place. It's the closest thing we've all had to a real home in a while."

"Honestly, Mira, we see it as a bonus to us. We got to add to our military and security forces, and the people added have a knowledge of one of our most significant threats, not to mention reasons for not liking them at all. It was a no brainer." Alicia gave Mira a game smile at that point.

"Alicia? You OK?" Nathaniel's voice breaks through her reverie.

She blinks at him. "Yeah, sorry, Nathaniel. My mind was just wandering."

"You looked pretty serious." He raises an eyebrow at her. "What were you thinking about?"

"Mira and the rest of the Sixers. I still can't believe the kind of operation those Phoenix bastards are running."

He nods. "I admit I was surprised to hear about what happened before Mira pulled her people out of there."

"I know. I mean, I told you what I saw when I was there, that it was clear that the Sixers had been relegated to a sort of second class citizen status, but to allow a soldier to assault a young woman with no repercussions was unbelievable, even given the vibe I sensed there."

Alicia refers to the event that Mira and Carter had recounted to them back when the Sixers returned to the colony. Mira said that it had already become clear that Lucas was clearly having little to no luck on the portal and was slipping deeper and deeper into madness. They also were very uncomfortable with the structure of the camp. They were, on a good day, treated like the hired help, and both Mira and Carter had been chafing under it.

Then, one of the younger female Sixers was assaulted, almost raped, by a Phoenix Group soldier, and the leaders refused to even punish the son of a bitch. That same night, the Sixers simply packed up and left.

Mira and Carter told them that they'd considered trying to re-establish their camp in the woods, but they ended up recognizing that their diminished numbers could hurt them, along with their loss of some support from the future. Six weeks later, most of the Sixers have assimilated well into the colony, several into the military and security teams.

Carter refused to report directly to them, so he works with the construction crews. According to the man he reports to, he's actually quite good at the work. He has behaved thus far, but neither Alicia nor Shannon has forgotten the day when he nearly killed Nathaniel inside the colony gates. Until they both feel certain they can trust Carter, there will be a guard on him. Carter knows, and he's clearly entertained by it.

Nathaniel slips his hand into hers as they continue to walk. It's something he rarely does when they're on duty, but she finds herself enjoying it this morning. "So, how is Mira doing with having to report to you?"

She smirks. "So far, so good. And I have to admit, she makes valuable contributions. Making her a tactical consultant for security and for the military was a good idea. She's good at it. She's been able to give Malcolm some insight into what Lucas was doing, too, at least what she could follow."

He squeezes her hand. "Malcolm updated me on that yesterday. He seems to think that the chance of finding another portal that goes back to our own time stream is pretty close to zero."

"That's what Mira said when she and I met yesterday as well." She looks up at him and grins. "And, by the way, I think it's a good thing you have her reporting to me and not Guz."

He looks puzzled. "Why is that? Are they not getting along?"

She shakes her head, still grinning. "No, they're getting along. In fact, I think they're getting along really well."

He chuckles. "Ah. Well, that should keep things interesting around here. Maybe Shannon will even leave us alone if there's a new pair for him to gossip about."

As he speaks, they get back into the populated area, and he drops her hand. They certainly aren't hiding anything anymore, but they do try to maintain a professional appearance when on duty. Even so, his hand moves protectively to her lower back, something he only started doing when she became pregnant.

She secretly enjoys the light pressure of his hand. He guides her through the market area, just starting to get set up for the day, to the infirmary. It's the day for their weekly visit. Though they haven't talked about it, Alicia has finally decided that she's willing to find out what she's having.

She knows that Nathaniel is dying to find out. He hasn't pushed her on it, though. Early on, she told him she wanted to wait a while before finding out. The biobed scans can show the baby's gender very early, but she was already so attached to the baby from the start, she was worried that knowing what the baby is would make it even harder if she lost it.

These days, though she still worries about it, at least it isn't on her mind every minute of every day. As they enter the infirmary, though, she feels the familiar knot of anxiety forming in her chest. He must sense it, because his hand slides from her lower back to her hip, squeezing gently. They spot Elisabeth and head for her, and five minutes later, they're in their usual exam room.

Once Elisabeth has run all of the scans, she smiles. "Everything still looks good, Alicia. My only concern is that it looks like you're becoming a little anemic. We can adjust your vitamin supplement to address that. Have you been feeling more tired lately?"

Alicia shakes her head. "No, I feel fine, Elisabeth."

"OK, well, I need you to indulge me here. I know you're still doing resistance training four or five days per week in the evenings. I want you to cut that to no more than three days per week, especially since you're still doing the perimeter walk every morning." Elisabeth uses what is now a very familiar tone to deliver the message, and it's a tone Alicia knows better than to try to argue with.

She just nods. "I can do that, Elisabeth." She rolls her eyes a little as she feels Nathaniel give her shoulder an approving squeeze.

"Good. So, is this the week when you let me tell you what you're having?" Elisabeth raises a questioning eyebrow at them.

Nathaniel looks down at her, and she gives them both a hesitant nod. Elisabeth smiles. "Any thoughts as to what it is?"

Alicia is having a little trouble finding her voice. Nathaniel must sense it, because he answers for them. "Well, Doc, I think it's a girl and Alicia is convinced it's a boy."

"Hmm," Elisabeth hums and grins a little, looking at Alicia. "Well, my dear, he's going to be insufferable, because he's the one who's right."

Alicia blinks. She looks up at Nathaniel, whose face is a picture of pure happiness. She gives him a weak smile and turns back to Elisabeth. "A little girl?" Her voice is barely a whisper.

"A little girl, Alicia." Elisabeth smiles again, and despite usually respecting Alicia's boundaries, Elisabeth steps forward and gives Alicia a hug. "Congratulations." She squeezes Nathaniel's arm and leaves them alone in the small exam room.

"Alicia?" He sits down next to her on the bed. "Are you OK?"

She nods. "Yeah. I'm just, just…Nathaniel, who is going to teach her the girl stuff?"

He laughs at that and hugs her to him. "Whatever you can't sort out, I'm sure Elisabeth and her girls will help, Alicia."

She leans back from him, smiling. "We had a deal on naming her, didn't we?"

He grins. "Yep. I get to pick her first name, you her middle, would've been the opposite if she'd been a boy."

"But we both have veto power, right?"

"Right." He tips her face up to him. "I'm hoping you won't need it, though."

She gives him a questioning look. "You already have something in mind?"

His face turns serious. "I do. What do you think about calling her Grace?"

She freezes, stunned. "After my mom?" He just nods, and tears come to her eyes. She takes a deep breath. "I'd love that, Nathaniel. Thank you."

He leans down and presses a soft kiss to her lips. "You're welcome. So, what about her middle name? Have you thought about it at all?"

She nods timidly, a little nervous now. She has had something in mind for this since they agreed that she'd pick the middle name for a girl, but she isn't sure how he'll feel about it. "I have. I know what I'd like it to be, but I want you to know that I definitely want you to veto it if you are uncomfortable with it."

He furrows his brow at her. "I'm sure I'll love it, whatever it is, Alicia."

She shakes her head a little. "I'm serious, Nathaniel. I want you to tell me if it doesn't work for you." Finally, he gives her a quick nod. She bites her lip as she hesitates. He's clearly about to encourage her to tell him, so she just offers her choice quietly. "Nathaniel, I'd like her middle name to be Ayani."

This time, he freezes. She looks up into his eyes, and she can tell she shocked him. "I was serious, Nathaniel, if you aren't comfortable with it…"

He doesn't let her finish, instead leaning forward and kissing her. When he pulls back from her a moment later, his eyes are wet, something she hasn't seen from him in a very long time. "Are you sure, Alicia? You don't have to do that."

She nods. "I'm sure, and I know I don't have to do it. It just feels right to me, but I need to know if it feels right to you."

"Grace Ayani?" He gives her a tentative smile.

"Grace Ayani Taylor." She smiles back.

"Gracie?" He offers, his smile becoming a little wider and more certain.

She grins then, throwing her arms around him and tucking herself against his body. "Perfect."

A while later, they emerge from the infirmary, both grinning like fools. As they walk towards the command center, their euphoria is broken when both of their comms crackle to life. Simultaneously, they tap them, saying their names. It's Shannon, calling both of them.

"Wash, Taylor, we have a problem at the command center."

They look at each other, alarmed, and increase their pace heading towards Nathaniel's office. When they arrive, Jim and Guz are both there, but they are surprised to see Carter standing there too, his hand gripping the collar of a man dressed in what is clearly a Phoenix Group uniform.

When they look at him, Carter is wearing a scary looking smile, and he pushes the prisoner to his knees. "Hey Wash, hey Taylor. Brought you a present."