The 26-week checkup was on a Tuesday, and Edith was all smiles and giddy excitement.

"What is it about this appointment specifically that has you so worked up?" Anthony asked with a laugh, picking up on her contagious joy as they sat in the waiting room at Dr. Clarkson's office.

"You'll see."

Anthony frowned, running a hand over her chin as he thought. "Twenty-six weeks," he muttered, "Twenty-six." And then the number triggered his memory and he knew. "Oh! The sex!" he practically shouted, earning a few strange glances from other patients.

Edith just laughed gently at him. "Someone's been reading my baby books."

"Today we get to learn the sex of the baby," Anthony repeated, looking rather less like his dignified self and more like a young boy at Christmas.

Edith laughed again, and nodded to put the dear man out of his misery. As he settled into his chair again, deep in some train of thought, Edith took a steadying breath.

It was difficult, in these moments, to remember that it wasn't real—not all of it, at any rate. The morning after her nightmare she had woken to find him already out of bed and making their usual breakfast of toast and juice. They had pretended like nothing happened, but that night there had been an awkward moment of silent questioning and wordless invitation, and she had fallen asleep with him again.

It didn't happen all the time, but regularly, and usually when Edith was feeling particularly emotional or alone. But for two such verbal people, they never talked about it. Sharing a bed was something that blatantly did not fit into the category of friends, but then little of what they were did anymore. And what they were was completely indefinable. Edith could only churn it over for so long before she would drive herself mad, and so she worked hard not to dwell on anything beside the moment.

And in the current moment, the nurse was calling her and Anthony back to find out the sex of their child. Well, her child, though Edith allowed herself a half moment to wish that Anthony would ask for more.

"Well we can never be one hundred percent certain with the ultrasound, but would you like to know the sex?" the technician asked.

Edith and Anthony, holding hands as they looked at the image on the screen, nodded together.

"You're going to have a daughter," the tech informed with a warm smile. Replacing the camera and handing Edith a towel for her belly, she added, "I'll print the best images out for you to show off, and when you're all cleaned up you can meet Dr. Clarkson through that door there. He'll go over the usual with you."

"Thank you," Edith and Anthony both muttered as Anthony helped Edith down from the table. Both of them were avoiding eye contact for the sole purpose of containing their individual glee.

"Congratulations, Mum and Dad," the tech offered, slipping away before she could see the intense and awkward fit of blushes and stuttering from the pair.

"It's no matter, I mean," Edith offered just as Anthony stammered, "I wouldn't presume, that is to say," and then silence fell between them.

Waiting in Dr. Clarkson's office, Anthony finally broke the tension. "A girl is good news, yes?"

"Oh, I think it's perfect. I've only had sisters. I'm not sure I'd know what to do with a boy."

"Oh, you'd have done beautifully either way. Of that I'm sure," Anthony said softly. Just as Edith turned to him, mouth open with a pending question, the good doctor came in with Edith's chart and latest blood tests.

Twenty minutes later, Edith and Anthony were walking down the street on a perfect Spring evening.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm famished," Anthony offered, clapping his hands together brightly.

"Anthony, I'm quite pregnant and therefore almost always famished." Edith was not shy about her symptoms—hunger, sore breasts, bouts of energy and then fatigue, cravings for pistachio ice cream and shortbread cookies.

However, there was one particular hunger that had grown increasingly intense and continued to go unsatisfied. She couldn't even bring herself to talk to Clarkson about the fact she was experiencing the almost constant urge to, frankly, attack Anthony at any given moment. Her baby books mentioned hormones, but hers seemed relatively focused on the quiet, bumbling man who was currently walking beside her. Just watching him now, lit by the low-hanging sun, hands clasped happily behind his back, she felt her pulse race and chewed her bottom lip hungrily.

"Very well, what would you say to Le Gavroche?"

"Really?!" she grinned, unable to hide her girlish delight.

"I think a daughter is news worth celebrating," Anthony suggested, causing Edith to go a bit weak in the knees.

"Yes, but we haven't a reservation."

"Will you think me a terrible lout if I said 'I know people' and flashed a bit of money?" Edith shook her head. The poor man had more money than he knew what to do with and it made him genuinely uncomfortable.

"No. Special occasion and all," she managed, biting back a squeal as he hailed a cab.

And it was a special occasion. Or it turned out to be at least. For Edith it felt different. Something, over the course of an exquisite and indulgent French meal, shifted between them. It felt, she realized with delight, like a first date. She quickly admonished the notion. They had known each other a good while, and had eaten together a thousand times. They had recently taken to each other's beds two or three times a week, for christ's sake, she reminded herself.

Still, as they leaned close over the white linens in the low light of the finest restaurant in London, laughing and talking endlessly, Edith couldn't help but feel this was a significant first.

By the time Edith and Anthony got home and were relaxing on the couch, their conversation had found its way to a rather sensitive subject, one they had both been careful to avoid for a while.

"That's all there is to say about it, really," Anthony said, honestly believing the story of his marriage to be dull. "We met at uni, married too soon, grew bored early on and lived companionably if not listlessly for too many years."

"Where is Maud now?" Edith asked, dropping her head to one side in that way that made Anthony's palms itch to touch her white neck.

"Living in America, New York, with her new husband who is ten years younger than her and climbs rocks for fun. I'm glad for her, immensely so. Maud's a frightfully good woman."

"It's sweet that you feel so fondly about her," Edith said with a smile. Then her face sort of froze as she wandered some train of thought, and Anthony had to stop himself from eagerly asking every single thing she was thinking.

"And you, old girl? You've known about Maud all along. I've never once heard you talk about some strapping footballer with a tan and muscular thighs," Anthony teased, half hoping she'd refute his assumptions.

"Oh god, that is so not me, and you know it. Mary on the other hand, Mary had a whole litany of athletes falling at her heels."

"I don't care about Mary," Anthony said too quickly, kicking himself for sounding so interested.

"There was one," Edith said, leaning back into the sofa and twiddling her thumbs. "Only one, and it was a very long time ago."

"Turn around's fair play, old girl," Anthony said warmly, urging her on.

"His name was John Drake," Edith began. "We met when I was nineteen, and he was thirty-three. And," she risked a glance up at Anthony, "he was married."

"Oh?" Anthony said, doing his best to sound neutral and unaffected. Inwardly he wanted to hunt the man down for exploiting his Edith. A distinct urge to protect her and make her feel better about it all at once gripped at him, but Anthony fought it down.

"Oh, I feel so wildly ashamed when I look back on it," Edith sighed, running her hands over her face as though she were weary with life.

"You shouldn't feel ashamed," Anthony said, wishing he could help. "You're only human, plenty of people have fallen into the same trap. And you were practically a girl anyway."

She looked sidelong at him and smiled skeptically. "You're doing an awful lot of rationalizing there, Strallan. Anyway, you know me. I'm practical and level-headed, and I was back then too." She looked away again, down at her lap. "No. I knew it was wrong, I knew it would end badly, and I knew I was hurting someone, and I did it anyway."

Edith was beginning to tear up, and her cheeks were growing redder. Feeling it was acceptable, Anthony took her hand in his and encouraged gently, "What happened?"

When she replied her voice was small, but had a forced casual tone. "I met him at one of Papa's parties. They worked together. We carried on for three years, meeting when we could, sneaking around when I was home from Uni. We even went away together once, for two days to Cornwall." She took a deep breath and continued. "But then the inevitable happened. His wife and I both suspected we were pregnant at the same time. Which is how I found out things were not so broken between them as he led me to believe."

Anthony balked, really and truly gaped, and didn't try to hide it. He had not expected Edith to come out of this story pregnant. Something white hot and foreign flashed through him, and he was terrified to realize it was jealousy. Jealous that another man had done what Anthony was currently doing, well sort of doing. But that was his baby in Edith and he loathed the idea of another man being in there first.

Edith let out a bitter laugh. "Oh, not to worry, the irony of that situation does not escape me. It turns out I was wrong, obviously, but she was not. So John did the right thing and recommitted himself, I suppose, and that was it."

"She took him back?" Anthony asked incredulously.

"She did. Margery Drake is a kind, patient, resilient, and noble woman. All the things I'm not. She hates me, of course, and has the right. But I think they're genuinely happy now. Of course, my father found out and the whole family was horrified and I don't think my parents have looked at me the same ever since. But they've moved on, as have the Drakes, and most of the damage has been healed."

Only then did her family's reaction to her pregnancy make sense. They had responded with something akin to disgust, mask it though they tried, as though they expected her news to be unplanned, accidental, and somewhat unsavory. It made sense too that she had hardly spoken with anyone but Sybil since Christmas, and they never made any attempt to come see her.

Knowing Edith, her innate goodness and her willingness to love and nurture those around her, Anthony's heart broke. All at once, he understood so much of the shy doubt and self-deprecation she had always exhibited. The poor thing had been wretchedly deprived of compassion, and for far too long.

"And you?" Anthony asked quietly, still holding her hand.

Edith was trying to sound cool and aloof, but Anthony knew the difference between her and her defenses. "Oh, well, you know that bit, really. I swore off men, devoted myself to my career, and work relatively hard to accept whatever acute or ongoing karmic punishment the universe has in store."

Anthony whispered her name as if to shush her, but Edith, feeling wholly undeserving of even the smallest touch from such a person as Anthony, pulled her hand away from him.

"Anthony, look," she said, explaining what she saw as obvious. She didn't need him trying to spare her feelings from what was evident fact. "I'm used up. I gave myself away to a fleeting and bad idea, and as punishment I've been left with this: a barely fertile body and a baby who will likely resent the hell out of her wasted, tired, single mother one day. And when she asks about my past, as she will inevitably do, she'll be as disappointed and ashamed of her mother as I am in myself."

She said this so resolutely that Anthony's first thought was How will I ever convince her she's wrong? His first instinctual action was to take her hand again, more firmly this time, and with purpose. "Do you think you're being punished, Eed? That your…fertility is something you've earned? You may have made a mistake sweetheart, but no one deserves to be alone."

"Oh? And what have I earned?" she managed before the sobs began breaking from her chest.

"A child," Anthony said simply, putting his free hand on her stomach, "Who will love you unreservedly. And any measure of happiness you allow yourself to discover."

With that, Edith couldn't hold back any longer. Burying her face into Anthony's chest, she cried—really cried—for the first time in many, many years.

Hours later, Anthony woke, disoriented and fuzzy. Edith was lying against him, her left arm draped across him, her head resting against his left breast. His left arm was around her, his right hand was locked with her left against his lower abdomen.

His body was slightly stiff from sleeping on the sofa, but there was another, more alarming sensation at the pit of his stomach. And when Edith shifted, her grip on his hand re-tightened and her forearm came to rest across his lap, and that unbearable tugging grew.

Anthony, for all intents and purposes, was indeed a man. Beyond the basics of biology he was a man who cared deeply for the precious and unusual woman who, at this very moment, was unwittingly touching a place no woman had touched in years—both figuratively and literally.

Every muscle in his body went tense with the silvery thrill of contact, and fight it though he did, his bodily reaction was immediate and quite evident, and rather uncomfortable against his trousers. That he had just been dreaming of his Edith in slightly similar circumstances before he woke did nothing to help the situation. He cursed himself, feeling like a bloody teenager.

Trying to ignore the throbbing, and the smell of Edith's hair, and the feel of her breasts against his ribs, Anthony weighed his bleak options. To stay would be unthinkably inappropriate and could end quite poorly indeed. To go would risk waking her, at which point he would have some rather awkward explaining to do.

Taking a deep breath, Anthony eased away from her with infinite care, replacing his body with a pillow as he slid off the couch an inch at a time. The transition was altogether successful and Edith ended up stretched across the sofa, mostly on her back, facing Anthony. He stood, watching her sleep for a moment. He told himself it was to ensure she was, in fact, asleep and comfortable. In truth, it was that she was striking—face relaxed, slightly flushed, lips parted, breathing steady.

Just as he was turning away, her expression suddenly changed. There was a queer little smile twitching at her lips, and her hips bucked slightly once or twice as her head tossed. "Mmm," she muttered, laughing through her nose.

Anthony turned his head to the side, thoroughly amused and equally intrigued. What could have her dreaming so… coquettishly? But then she let out another moan, deep from her throat, and muttered the last word he ever would have expected. "Anthony."

He froze, the metallic pang in his stomach and the tugging in his trousers taking on a new vigor, which he found embarrassing in the extreme.

"Anthony, please," she muttered again. And there was no mistaking what Dream Edith was asking Dream Anthony for exactly.

Hurrying to his room, Anthony willed himself to forget the curve of that smirk on her lips, or the way his name sounded in that particular tenor. He'd never heard her call to him in that voice before, and he quite liked it.

Looking down at the intense, delicious ache, Anthony knew he wasn't going to will this away. Not with that image of her hips shifting and the memory of her weight against him so boisterous and fresh on his mind.

With a growl of legitimate irritation, Anthony undressed and stalked off to his bathroom for a shower. Hot or cold he hadn't decided, but he knew he was going to have to get rid of this one way or another. A problem he hadn't had in a very, very long time.

A/N: My darlings! Your reviews have been so wonderful and generous. The moment I have time I want to respond to each, but in the interim please know how grateful I am and how each new review makes my day!

This is indeed a sort of slow burner, but our Edith and Anthony are fairly stubborn in any century and they're both suffering from a bit of self-doubt as well.

Thank you, always, for continuing to read and comment. Such love. :)

Eleanor