Her dreams left her restless, and she awakened before her eyes opened, thoughts of the future jumbled with continued disbelief and denial—surely she would find some error in all the symptoms and signs she was experiencing, and would be relieved to be able to tell everyone it had been a false alarm. There was no denying the symptoms themselves, however. She was sore, and she felt bloated. She brought her hands to her face and dragged them up along the planes of her cheekbones to her forehead and opened her eyes.
Leonard was facing her, lying on his side, and she looked over at him. "Have you been watching me?"
"You weren't awake yet," he said.
"That's creepy." She stretched and sighed before pushing herself up on the pillow.
He leaned in and kissed her. "How are you?"
She pressed her lips in a line. There was so much she could offer up about her fears and her doubts but instead she merely answered, "Okay."
"You sure?" He reached over to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear, then trailed the backs of his fingers down her cheek.
"Leonard, don't." She pushed his hand away. "We can talk about this without it being all…whatever it is you're acting like."
"I'm not acting like anything." He pushed back against his pillow to sit up halfway and put his glasses on.
"You're mooning over me, like I'm fragile. I'm not fragile." She sat up fully and crossed her arms over her abdomen, looking down at herself. She swallowed. This wasn't supposed to be happening. None of it.
"I know." He sat up as well and moved to put his arm around her shoulder. She took his hand and lowered it again.
He frowned. "What's your problem?"
"I told you." She crossed her legs and turned to face him. "We need to talk about this without being all sentimental about it. There are a lot of factors to think about."
"Factors," he repeated. "I don't understand that. You expect us to just ignore our emotions and just tick off the pros and cons?"
She rolled her eyes. "That's one of the factors, Leonard. How we feel about it is a big part."
He sighed. "Okay, well, what else is there?"
"Lots of things. Logistics. Money. How my career fits into it, yours too." He regarded her as she spoke, frowning. She waited for him to comment, but when he stayed quiet she prodded his leg. "What's wrong with you?"
"Your career," he said. "You'd stick it out in the Marines."
"Yes, I'd stick it out in the Marines. It's what I want to do, Leonard, why is that so hard for you to understand?"
He shook his head. "Just, with a baby involved…"
"Who do you think I am, Leonard?" she asked.
He rolled his eyes. "I know who you are. Forget I said it."
"You forget it too, then, because nothing about my career choice is going to change." She rubbed her cheek. "I don't know how motherly I'd be anyway."
"You'd be a mother," he said. "What that means is up to you. There's no right way to be a mom. I don't think anyway."
"All I've seen is the wrong way, though," she said. She swallowed and looked away, giving him a sideways glance. "You'd be the one in its daily life. I'll be gone most of the time."
He pushed his glasses up, clearing his throat. "Yeah, I…I realize that. So I have a lot of factors to consider just by myself." He slouched in place, thinking. "I wonder how much my dad would be willing to help out," he muttered.
"Your dad said he'd do whatever he could to support us," Allison said. "I don't think he was just saying that, either."
"No, he's sincere. He wouldn't just give lip service to something like that." He rubbed his chin. "I think I'm okay with it. Being the primary caregiver and all."
"You sure?" Allison asked. "You've still got school."
"We'd figure it out. It'll be okay." He reached for her hand.
She let him take it. Her other hand went to her throat and she rubbed at it. "How are we going to afford it?" she asked.
"It'll help if we combine our incomes."
She sighed. She guarded her money more closely than Leonard did. "I guess we'll have to. Since we'll both have to pay for things for it."
"We can get a joint account and both contribute the same amount to it," he suggested.
"Yeah," she said. "What are you going to do about school, though? You can't watch the baby when you're in class."
"You're talking like this is really going to happen," he said. "Is this really going to happen?"
"You act like you're afraid, all of a sudden," she said. "By the way you've been talking I thought you wanted it to."
"Is that what you're saying?" he demanded. "Is this happening?"
"Maybe," she said. "Maybe."
"Goddamn," he muttered. "Me as a dad. You as a mom."
"Yeah," she said. "Listen, we have a week before my leave is over. Let's talk about it more later."
"Okay," he said. He squeezed her hand and then let it go. "You want to go get breakfast?"
She nodded and got up out of bed to get dressed. As she pulled on her shirt and pants, she stayed wrapped up in her thoughts. There was a moment sticking in her mind, a moment she'd never forgotten, and it was that day that she'd offered up the chance for a relationship to Leonard. And he'd taken it, God had he taken it, he'd drawn her to himself and for whatever reason she'd felt more vulnerable than she ever had in her life. She knew that if she truly invested herself in him, in their relationship, he'd make a place for her. A place she could call home. And the concept of that had terrified her. She'd never submitted herself to it. In being a soldier she had found a place where she felt completely at home, a place she could almost consider to be her calling, and in doing that the pull toward Leonard had lessened. But this would create an indelible bond between them. No matter if they split, if things went wrong between them, they'd always have this child connecting them in a way they couldn't sever.
"Ready?" he asked, reaching for her hand.
She blinked back her thoughts and extended her hand to take his. "Yeah."
"I've got my new orders," Allison said.
Leonard was in the kitchen, helping his father make dinner; he wandered back in the living room when she said that. "What'd you say?"
"I said, I've got my new orders."
His eyebrows went up. "Wait. Why do you have new orders?"
She rubbed her arm with her opposite hand. "I told them I'm going to have the baby," she said.
"You didn't even tell me that," he said.
She straightened herself up a little. "We were pretty much there," she said. "It's not like you would have argued with me if I told you that was what I had decided."
"We've only been talking about it for one day, Allison," he said. "I mean, I'm not trying to talk you out of it, I just want you to be sure before you go telling everyone."
"How sure do I need to be, Leonard?" she said. "I mean, I keep going back and forth—moment by moment I go back and forth. But the fact that I keep leaning so hard in the direction of keeping it…I mean, I know this is horribly cliché but it's something we made. Half you, and half me. I want to see that through."
He remained rooted there, looking at her.
"Why aren't you saying anything?" she asked.
He shook his head slightly. "I don't know, I just…this doesn't feel real."
"It doesn't feel real to me either," she said. "But if I waited for it to feel real I think I wouldn't be making a decision for a long time."
"Okay," he said, moving closer to join her on the couch. "Everything's set then?"
"Yeah," she said. "Everything's set."
"So you can stay?" he asked hopefully.
"No, Leonard." She leaned in a bit once he was seated, resting her shoulder against his. "I'm assigned to an Earth base until after I give birth. Then I can come home—for as long as a year, before I have to go back."
"They'd make you work until you give birth?" he asked, frowning.
"No, Leonard, it's up to me how late I work," she said. "I can take leave a month early if I want."
"I don't want to miss any of it." He took her hand. "I wish I could come with you."
"Don't you dare try. You already tried to screw up your schooling once, I won't stand for it if you drop out for this."
He frowned and rubbed his chin.
"Yeah, I knew what you were thinking," she said. "You'll survive it."
"I'll survive," he said. He leaned his head on her. "But I'm going to be calling you all the time. You know that."
"Yeah," she said with a sigh. "Yeah, I do."