A/N: Your reviews were quite unexpected. I thought it was rather obvious that Kanda isn't actually sterile, and I didn't think you'd get hung up on that like you did. I kinda feel bad for ending the last chapter there now. Oh well, I guess that means you'll all understand how Allen's feeling at the start of this chapter...
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I sat anxiously on the edge of the bed in my new bedroom, clutching the blankets so hard that my knuckles were white. We had finished moving everything, and Lenalee had stayed and helped me unpack and arrange the nursery. She and Lavi had questioned me incessantly about my pregnancy and my relationship with Kanda while we worked; the subject of the experiments done on Kanda was carefully avoided, only brought up once when Lenalee asked whether or not I had already known about them. But now everything was done and there was nothing to distract me from the fact that Addie and Kanda were still with Komui.
Butterflies swarmed in my stomach whenever I thought about what Komui had said. Kanda was the only person I had ever had sex with. If he's sterile, then how had I gotten pregnant? Who is Adeline's real father? Will Kanda still want me if it turns out that Addie isn't his daughter? Will he-? No. I couldn't think like that. Kanda was Addie's biological father. I was sure of it. Komui had to be wrong.
I wanted to go down to the infirmary and find my boyfriend and child, but some instinct told me that it was better to wait where I was. I would just be in the way of whatever tests Komui was doing.
I don't know how long I sat there with my nerves going crazy, but then I heard a very familiar crying coming from the hallway. Addie. I flew through the lounge and yanked open the door just as Kanda arrived at my room. He stopped his attempts to soothe the fussy baby and instead gave her to me. "Addie did not like Komui."
I laughed lightly as I calmed Addie by letting her suck on my pinkie. "Not surprising. I didn't like Komui after my first exam either."
Kanda didn't join in with my laughter, and that put me on edge. Even more on edge than I already was. "What happened?"
He sighed heavily as he stepped past me into the room and sat down on the couch. Sensing that he wanted to talk in private, I closed and locked the door before I joined him. Kanda sighed again as he leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. "Where should I start?"
I let the rhetorical question go unanswered. He sighed again. "Well, to put your mind at ease, Addie is definitely my daughter."
I breathed a huge sigh of relief at hearing that. It was a little ironic that that was good news now, while the idea of Kanda fathering my baby had stressed me out for a good chunk of my pregnancy.
Kanda ignored my reaction and kept talking. "Komui did some sort of genetic test that proved it, but it was moot by the time we got the results. Addie- she-"
Oh god. Is Kanda crying? There were a couple stray tears running down his face, but then I blinked and he had composed himself. But I hadn't imagined it. Whatever had happened was so bad that it made Kanda express fear. And that scared me to the core. "Yuu? What happened? What's wrong with Addie? Is there something wrong with her Innocence?"
Kanda gave me a confused look for a moment before he understood. "Nothing's wrong, at least not in the sense that you're thinking of. She's perfectly healthy and exactly where she should be developmentally. Her Innocence is just fine too; it's not harming her in any way."
While that was good to hear, it didn't ease my panic. "Then why are you so freaked out?"
He sighed again and went back to staring at the ceiling. "... She inherited everything from the Second Exorcist Project. The strength, the accelerated healing, everything."
I was stunned speechless. It took some time to process my thoughts on that. My daughter was going to be as indestructible as her father was. I could see why Kanda thought it was a bad thing, I had seen his memories of the project after all, but from my perspective, it was good.
Moving from beside Kanda, I placed Addie in her bassinet and then positioned myself on Kanda's lap. I had figured out recently that contrary to what I expected, Kanda actually liked physical contact, and while I was still unsure of letting him touch me, this was the easiest way to get him to calm down. "Those things you're worrying about happening to Addie are things I've been worrying about since I learned I was pregnant. The possibility that the Order will experiment on her has always been there. Addie inheriting those things from you doesn't make that any more likely than it already was. If anything, it'll help me worry less. She won't get sick and she'll recover from any injuries she may get."
Kanda wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer to him. I unconsciously stiffened at the contact, and I had to remind myself that Kanda was my boyfriend now and he wasn't going to hurt me. Kanda buried his face in my neck, and I could feel how distraught he was. "Moyashi. No, Allen, how can you be so accepting of this? Shouldn't you be pissed at me? I ruined your daughter."
He thinks he ruined Addie? Even now that we were dating, I still couldn't hope to understand Kanda. "You didn't ruin her, Yuu. This doesn't change who she is. Besides, I've known for years that your body is artificial, and that doesn't make me love you any less, so why would learning that Addie takes after you make me love her less?"
"You ... love me?" Kanda's words were hesitant and they caught me off guard.
I froze as I realized that I had let something slip that I wasn't ready to say out loud. "Not like that! I meant it like I do with Lenalee and Lavi! That's all!"
My attempt to backtrack did not convince Kanda, and he tightened his arms before I could escape. "No. You meant it the same way I do when I say it to you."
I blushed and tried to deny it, but Kanda's lips on mine prevented any words from coming out. Despite my mind screaming at me to resist, I melted into the kiss, and that was game over. By giving into the kiss I was telling Kanda that he was right. And while he was right, I didn't want to admit to it. I wasn't ready for Kanda to know that he had succeeded at getting me to fall in love with him so quickly.
By the time we broke apart for air, his earlier distress was gone. That's when I realized that it was losing me that he had been afraid of. He could relax now that he knew I wanted him to stay. His fingers brushed through my hair and he kissed me once more. "What changed?"
I blushed and tried to move away, but Kanda's hold on me was strong. "I don't want to tell you. It's too embarrassing."
He raised an eyebrow at me. "More embarrassing than telling Lenalee and Lavi that you gave birth to my baby?"
"Yes." I pouted at him, but that didn't make his curiosity fade. "Fine. I'll tell you. But you have to promise that you won't tease me for being a girl."
Kanda laughed and kissed me. "I promise."
I sighed and placed my head against his chest so that I wouldn't have to see his face. "... While I was making the bed earlier, I was imagining what it would be like to spend our wedding night in it. And that got me thinking about having a wedding, and how it would feel to stand up in front of our friends and be bound to each other forever. And that's when I realized that I had fallen for you."
I braced myself for laughter, but it never came. Instead, Kanda's fingers wound into my hair as he guided me into looking at him. There was no teasing, yet the completely sincere words still made my heart stop. "Will you marry me, Allen?"
My eyes went wide with panic and shock. I could not believe that Kanda had actually said those words. "What?! No! We've only been dating for a month! It's way too soon!"
My rejection clearly confused Kanda; he blinked several times before he argued back. "Too soon? We've known each other for almost four years, Moyashi."
I sighed sharply, trying and failing to keep my voice level. "And we spent most of that time trying to kill each other! We haven't even had sex yet!"
"We have had sex; you just don't remember it." That argument was expected, but the one that followed it was not. Neither was how calm and rational he was being. "And I hate to break it to you, but, technically, we had sex last night, Moyashi. And you initiated it."
Kanda paused to let me argue with him, but I was too stunned to speak, so he continued. "I don't see what the problem is. It can't be that you don't want to get married, you've already admitted to planning our wedding. We love each other, we have a baby, and we live together. What's the problem?"
I pushed myself off his lap. It was irritating how level headed he was being and that just made me more upset. "I just told you: it's too soon! I need more time. And since when do we live together?"
Kanda didn't move from his seat, he just raised an eyebrow at me. "We've shared a bedroom for the last three weeks, Moyashi. That's living together. Are you saying that you don't want me to move in here with you and Addie? Is that why you're surprised?"
"No!" His question killed my near hysterics in an instant. It was scary that he just assumed that I wanted him to move in, but then again, I hadn't asked because I had assumed he would say no. "I want that, I just... I didn't think you would want to. I thought you'd want to go back to your own bed."
"My bed is whichever bed you are in, Allen." He stood up and wrapped his arms around my waist as he spoke. I was stunned by the words; I was so used to the self-centered side of Kanda from the past four years that hearing him choose me over his routine was completely unexpected.
We stayed like that for a moment as the tension from our fight dissipated. When Kanda spoke, his voice was soothing. "If you need time, I'm willing to give it to you. But can you at least give me an idea of how long I'm going to have to wait before I can propose to you again?"
The question made me think, there were so many different ways that I could answer it. But as I recalled how angry I'd been just minutes earlier, I knew what the right one was. "... I need you to wait until after Addie has been weaned. I want to be completely free of pregnancy hormones when you propose to me for real. I don't want to risk going off on you because I'm hormonal when it happens."
That made Kanda laugh. "If I have to wait until you're not hormonal then I may never get to propose to you, Moyashi."
I stuck my tongue out at him as I tugged on his braid. But before I could yell at him for teasing me, he had pulled me into a deep kiss. We probably could have stayed like that for hours, but we had to break apart when Adeline got fussy.
I leaned over the bassinet, and one look at Addie's scrunched up face told me exactly what she needed. I carefully lifted her out of the bassinet and took her over to the couch. It took a moment to get situated comfortably on the unfamiliar piece of furniture, which felt like forever with my baby crying, but once I was settled, I unbuttoned my shirt, and Addie's tears ceased as she latched on.
While I nursed our daughter, Kanda sat beside me and watched in silence for a bit. When he spoke again I was expecting more teasing, but he was back to treating the situation with seriousness. "You want me to wait until after Addie is weaned, I can do that. That's only like four or five months from now, I can wait that long. And since that's probably when your maternity leave will end, which will make timing a proposal difficult, let's just go with six months to be on the safe side. Does that work, Moyashi?"
I wasn't really sure that that would be enough time, but I was tired of this conversation, so I agreed. "Yes."
Kanda's hand on my chin made me move my gaze from watching Adeline nurse to staring into his cobalt eyes. "There's just one thing I need from you before I agree to this. You've told me that you've fallen for me, but I need you to say the words. I need you to say that you love me."
I blinked at Kanda and turned my head away, slightly surprised that he let me break the stare. I wasn't ready to do this. "I don't see why I have to say them if you already know that I feel that way..."
"Why not? Aren't you the one who will say anything if it's what people want to hear? Well, I want to hear them." His tone was derisive and he smirked when I stuck my tongue out at him, but then the look softened. He placed a gentle kiss on my forehead. "Please, Allen? I love you. I just want to hear you say it back."
I had to pull away because Addie had finished eating, giving me time to think as I burped her and checked her diaper. I had heard Kanda say the word 'please' sincerely before, but only to Jerry and Marie. I didn't know what to make of him saying it to me like that. But if I put myself in his shoes, I knew what I had to do. Kanda had told me he loves me countless times over the last month, without me saying it back or even returning his feelings. It was only fair that I actually say it now that I did feel that way about him.
After I finished rewrapping Addie in her blanket, I moved so that I was sitting on Kanda's lap. He raised an eyebrow at me, curious over what I was doing, but he remained silent, and instead of protesting, he wrapped his arms around mine as if to help me support the baby. I sighed and leaned back against his chest. "We've been through a lot these past few years, haven't we, Yuu? The ark, headquarters getting attacked, that thing with Alma... And now we have a baby together. I never thought we would end up like this. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love you, Yuu."
