I do not own Me Before You.
Still not pregnant, whee! Trust me, there's a story.
What Makes a Man a Man
Through the Wall
Time went on much as it had before.
A routine of waking, sleeping, eating the bland, tasteless foods provided them on metal trays.
Bolivar Trask was still searching for the proper mesh of mutant abilities.
And experimenting on Sean to figure them out.
His body was slowly beginning to break down.
He had lost vision in his left eye.
Several toes on his right foot were numb and discolored.
And his hands cramped up now without warning. Clenching up into crow's claws, the veins and tendons standing out in painful relief.
But for all the pain and fear and anxiety he suffered at the hands of science and advancement, Sean shoved them aside as much as possible.
And focused in.
On the pinhole.
And her.
Angela.
The faceless girl on the other side of the blank wall.
The one carrying his baby.
The baby neither of them had asked for or actively attempted to create.
But that was slowly coming into being nevertheless.
It had only been a few weeks.
But to Sean it had been a lifetime.
And the focus of their conversations had turned.
To outright lies and fantasies.
"When we get out of here, we'll find a cabin next to a lake."
"I'm not having sex with you, Sean."
He fleeted a wan smile.
"No, no. A place where you can sit out on the porch and watch the sun rise over the water in the morning."
"That sounds nice."
"Yeah."
"What about an apartment?"
"On a lake?"
"No, stupid. In the middle of a city. People all around, all the time. All you have to do is shout and they'll come a-running."
"Yeah. Is there a park?"
"Huge park. Massive."
"And an arcade?"
"Yeah."
"A movie theater?"
"Yeah."
"Pizza delivery?"
"Sean, it's a city. I'm pretty sure cities have all those things."
"Cool."
As much as he tried to keep it light and easy, sometimes he couldn't help himself.
"Angela?"
"Yeah?"
"What does he do to you? Trask? What does he do when they take you to him?"
They took her on a regular basis. Sean thought it might be daily.
Her voice came back, calm and casual.
Reassuring.
"Nothing much. Mostly check-ups. Vital signs, weight. Blood tests. Questions about how I feel. He doesn't do much else. I think he's afraid of hurting the development of the baby. He doesn't even try to make me find other mutants anymore. I think he thinks it'll stress me out too much and I'll miscarry or something."
She paused, huffing out her breath through her nose in derision.
"They're even giving me a little bit of extra food at meals. So I'll grow a big healthy mutant baby for them, I guess."
He closed his eyes in relief, quietly releasing pent-up breath.
Hoping she was telling the truth.
"Is it . . . is it . . ."
He rubbed the pulsating blisters on his palms, his latest souvenir from the Bolivar Trask Mutant Experimentation Rodeo of Hell.
" . . . do you think it's okay?"
"What?"
"The baby."
"Oh. Uh, I guess. I'm not sure."
"What do you mean?"
She was quiet for a minute,
"Well, it's kind of small right now, I think. I don't feel it. I don't even know it's there."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Unless I get sick or my boobs start aching and swelling up, it's not really a big deal at the moment."
Boobs. Boobs.
He tried to think of boobs.
Found he couldn't.
And realized he missed the concept. It was something he used to like very much.
"So, you don't think about it much? The baby?"
"Sean?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't be a dumbass."
"Sorry."
"It's okay."
She suddenly sounded weary. Tired. Exhausted. Used up.
He knew the feeling.
"Of course I think about it. I think about it all the time. It's the only thing I think about."
A blister popped. Viscious fluid swelled out of the opening.
And began trailing down his skin.
He watched it morosely.
"If we were on the outside . . . if this was different . . . what would you do with it?"
She didn't answer right away.
Sean waited. He had gotten better at it.
"I'm not sure. I can't even imagine the outside much anymore."
He could commiserate.
"Yeah."
They sat together for a while, on their respective sides of the wall.
"Sean?"
"Yeah?"
"Growing this kid's making me tired. I think I'll go to sleep now."
"Okay."
And he went back to being quiet.
Watchful and quiet.
Hats off to the tough K.J. Bollinger, DinahRay, and brigid1318, and GladerTributeCamper for managing these last few rough chapters. :)