AN: this chapter was quite hard to write because I couldn't find inspiration for quite a while, beside my RL.

I only found inspiration today, when I have write a research paper as a summary of a 170 pages long book shortened to 20 pages.

Letter to Santa will be updated later today for this same reason.

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His very strange reaction to the sight of her lounging on the bed in a T-shirt and sweat pants got him a concerned. "What is it, Harm?"

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't speak and he couldn't move. He wasn't even sure his heart was beating.

Loren rose from her bed, where she was waiting for him in order to make it easier and less awkward on both of them, and walked towards him.

His eyes were rivetted to the way her hips, her thighs, calfs, her delicate, bare ankles and feet moved as she walked. The way she moved, the way she looked, even in those ugly sweats, transfixed him completely. She had different sweats on tonight than yesterday, tighter, but not tight yet complimenting her figure enough for him to get a good idea of how strong her thighs were when she moved her legs and the sweats tightened and stretched across her thighs. He had never seen such attractive ankles, since he never paid much attention to that body part, but these just drew his eyes. His hands itched to take those delicate ankles and massage them, bringing moans of pleasure out of her.

She moved elegantly, pure poetry in motion, confidently, clearly comfortable in her own body, cat-like.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, Harm had one of those thoughts and images that flash across one's mind without any control over them. He suddenly had a thought accompanied by a mental video. Suddenly, watching her walk so elegantly towards him, he briefly wondered if she'd still be that comfortable in her own body and walking that elegantly when she was pregnant and large with their child. The video that accompanied that thought took his breath away.

In his mind he saw Loren 8 months pregnant with their child, walking over to him to greet him with a kiss as he returns home from work.

Though her walk is not as elegant as now, her cute waddle was not as pronounced as with some women, but still bringing a tender and loving smile to his lips and heart. And, as she hugs him and kisses him, her large, pregnant belly presses against his flat one and he feels their child kick against him.

Then the short video was over and another brief image flashed.

Loren, flushed, exhausted, sweaty, but infinitely, unimaginably and amazingly beautiful, is holding their baby in her arms, just seconds after she had given birth and the look of love and complete happiness with which she's looking at him makes Harm's heart ache with that some love and happiness.

And then suddenly it was over and he was back in Loren's bedroom in the VOQ and they were just partners, becoming friends, not in love, not married and not having a child together; and a wave of such loss, loneliness, pain and longing swept over him that he felt his heart break and tears came into his eyes.

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Loren grew even more concerned when she saw him suddenly unfocus and a sappy smile settled on his face at something only he saw in that place only he inhabited.

She had risen from her bed when she saw him suddenly stop in the doorway when he entered her bedroom and dropped his duffel.

She could've sworn he'd stopped breathing and she looked down at herself to find the cause, only seeing the T-shirt that a long-dead friend had given her all those years ago.

She couldn't understand why he'd reacted the way he did.

She was now standing before him, about to reach up and check if he was alright, check his breathing and pupils, when he came back to the present and the sudden heartbreak she saw settle in his eyes, accompanied by a telling sheen, almost made her cry herself.

Something terrible must've happened for him to suddenly feel such pain and defeat and her response surprised her.

Since when did she start feeling his pain as if it was her own, yet magnified in it's intensity?

When did she start feeling like this for him?

The pain then suddenly vanished and walls came down in his eyes.

High, strong walls, walls she instantly recognized, for she'd built the same ones over the years. The same walls that had been crumbling these past few days because of him, because of his caring and his tenderness. And she longed for his walls to disappear, to be the one to make them go away, but she didn't know how.

And this helplessness almost broke her heart.

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