The first trimester was simple enough. Oh, certainly—morning sickness, vomiting here and there, and the cravings, of course. Not chocolate or strawberries or, God forbid, Nuka-Cola—Yumei had never really cared for sweetness—but smoked sardines, of all things. And the occasional Kalamata olive, albeit pitted, to her annoyance. Adam meant well, but he could overworry sometimes.

If it was bad for Yumei, Lascaux could commiserate—no smoking in the Smithson house, at his own behest. So whenever he was over there, which was quite often, he'd find himself chewing ice until his gums went numb.

Of course… there was the increased sex drive. It went unspoken, of course, for there's no need. Lascaux could see it in the way Yumei looks at Adam with a possessive pride, arrays herself archly in his presence like an odalisque. The way Adam is languid and smiling and his face smells of her—

Lascaux continued chipping away with the ice pick. The ice in his hand took shape.

0-0-0-0-0-0

When Adam had to leave for D. C. for unexpected advisory work, Lascaux slept on their couch (the comfortable one, not facing the window). He wasn't too concerned about Yumei, vomiting or not, she can take care of herself—but it's for Adam's peace of mind. And a happy Adam is a happy Yumei. So he stayed.

The Smithson house looks different at night, though. And in the quiet, in the dark, memories emerge.

"Treason against the federal government in a capital crime, Mr. Lascaux."

The pistol feels curiously light in his hand. He cocks the hammer.

He aims—right between the eyes—and fires three times.

The white room is now the red room.

His ears ring.

"Highly commendable, Mr. Lascaux."

Let freedom ring.

"Hey."

Lascaux jerked up violently, hand groping for a pistol that'd left him a long time ago.

Yumei was leaning against the threshold of the living room, arms crossed. Her eyes seemed to reflect light from nowhere. "Can't sleep either, I see."

"Evidently." Lascaux moved over on the couch to give her some space. Yumei didn't move.

"If…" The word hung until dead. She sighs, begins anew. "You can't sleep here, can you? Not—" She gestured to the room. "Like this."

Lascaux looked away. "I'm staying. I'm not leaving you."

Yumei crossed the carpet on bare feet and turned on one light. Then another. And another. With each light, she coalesced into view, clearer and clearer, her swollen belly somehow as natural a part of her as her ears or toenails.

"The neighbors will talk."

"Then let them choke on their tongues."

Lascaux surprised himself with his laugh.

0-0-0-0-0-0

Lascaux and Adam never really told each other about… what they were doing, out in the field.

It wasn't some adherence to confidentiality, or paranoia, or anything like that. They simply knew well enough what each other's work life was like—the blood and guts and gunsmoke and torture and taunts in broken English over a supposedly secure radio frequency—and they would talk about anything else.

Electricians don't talk about burns and plumbers don't talk about shit.

"So, now, just between you and me—"

There is no 'you and me,' Lascaux thought dimly as he retrieved his daily inoculation of advertisements and propaganda from his mailbox. He glances sidelong at Mr. Wagner, who was leaning on his white-picket fence (my fucking fence), his evening rum and Nuka-Cola in hand.

"I think something serious is going on in the upper brass," Wagner intoned with the assuredness of a civilian talking out of his ass. "Of course, you and Adam, you're close, you know this—but he's been gone more and more. Must be very serious," he declared to Lascaux's mailbox.

"Huh."

"It's a real shame. Lovely wife, baby on the way. Man can't enjoy the simple things in life." He drank. Smacked his lips. "That's the cost of being a patriot, though. He's a real American hero, to put his life on the line like that. Boy's got tricolor blood."

"Huh."

"It must have been something," Wagner said pensively, looking at the rim of his glass. "Going to West Point with the guy. Seeing him in action. They'll make movies about him, when this is all over."

Adam and Lascaux were never deployed together, but this neighborhood couldn't seem to remember that beyond a day. So Lascaux said nothing.

"I regret it, sometimes, going to Columbia. Going into the business. Part of me wanted to enlist, but…" Wagner moves his body in what Lascaux presumed was a guiltless shrug. "Plans. Family. Expectation. Reds are a plague, God damn them, but you can't throw all that tuition away, you know?"

"Huh."

Wagner clapped a hand on the fence. "See, this is why I like you, Victor, you talk sense. You try talking politics with Roger—" He made a spiral motion with a finger. "Like a broken record. Reds are already in the government, Reds are putting mind control dust in the water, Reds are putting Marx in the schoolbooks." He drank, again, and was perplexed to find his glass empty. "Well! That's enough talking shop for tonight. Have a good one, Victor!"

Silhouetted by the sunset, Mr. Wagner walked across his immaculate green lawn to his front door. In a practiced motion, Lascaux drew an invisible pistol and aligned the invisible sights with the man's balding head.

The 'BANG!' didn't ring out in Lascaux's mind. His arm dropped, clutched at his mail. He fucking despised Wagner, fine—but he was the first person in the neighborhood to greet Adam and Yumei when they moved in. The first one to share a pew in church. The first to induct them into the Neighborhood Communist Watch. The first to threaten Roger with a broken nose when, after a few drinks and halfway into a game of billiards, Roger pondered aloud if Yumei had a slanted cunt, too.

Had Wagner said nothing, Lascaux would be in prison for shoving a pool cue through Roger's skull, so in a way, he was in the fat bastard's debt.

Fuck him for it.