He needed to retreat. He needed to go where it was quiet and he could think and figure things out, if he could after all, that is, figure things out. He already had the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that even out there on the boat, alone with his thoughts and the water, he wouldn't be able to make any sense of this situation. And he was right. Usually the time he spent out there provided him with some semblance of peace and quiet. Not so this time. This time his thoughts seemed to become even more muddled up. He had even forgot to bring his fishing rod.

He let out a groan out there in his boat and clutched his temples. "Fuck!" he swore loudly. No amount of thinking would tell him whether he would be able to face something as life changing as a pregnancy with his girlfriend of little under a half year. No amount of thinking could tell him whether their relationship was solid enough to stand that sort of test and there was no way he could predict whether he was cut out to be a dad. He didn't have a lot of experience with kids. Mostly they were small, noisy, sometimes a bit smelly and fussy, particularly when they were little.

Some of his colleagues had kids. Joe, Jack… They sometimes brought them to work, but during those times they were just at the edge of Stuart's perception. If they were there, he'd acknowledge them with a nod of his head or force a grin on his face, instead of an impassive look, because for some reason society expected you to grin at children and sometimes it was good to go with those conventions in order to avoid difficulties. God forbid anyone thought he didn't like children.

He vaguely remembered Joe sometimes bemoaning the fact that he and his girlfriend got to spend very little alone time together since the birth of their little one. That had to be taxing what with all the travelling they did. On top of everything Joe was occasionally and rather desperately looking for a babysitter for his little girl. Stuart had forgotten her name, so he had to resign himself to that generic label. Did wanting to spend time alone with his girlfriend make Joe a bad father? Stuart couldn't be the judge of that, he decided. He wasn't exactly in his shoes, but could be soon enough.

In his desperation an odd idea formed inside his head. Maybe he should give this 'dad-idea' a test run before he decided on anything. Maybe he should volunteer for baby-sitting duties the next time Joe went looking? No, he couldn't really do that, could he? That sounded crazy, even too crazy for him. Like Joe would accept! Even if the guy earned his money by catapulting himself across the ring with flying fists, he would probably not trust Stuart to take care of his little daughter of five years. He scowled to himself, all there alone in his little boat out on the bay. But what options did he really have? There were none. The situation was desperate, he had his back against the wall and he didn't have forever to figure this out. Sooner or later Natalie would want to talk. She had the patience of a saint, but they were sort of operating under a limited time frame here. Nine months and all that crap. "Fuck!"

He whipped out his phone and called Joe, which resulted in one of the strangest conversation of his life, especially since the two of them weren't that close. In between starts and stops Stuart inquired how Joe was doing, whether he would be home during the weekend, his colleague replied that he would be and Stuart laid out the bait for him. "So any plans this weekend?" Joe talked about wanting to go to a nice dinner with his girlfriend, predictably bemoaning again the fact that he wouldn't be able to find a baby-sitter on such a short notice. Stuart had never been suave in all his life, but for once he tried to be. He attempted stretching the truth a little, something he didn't have much experience with, and told Joe that Natalie was crazy about children and wouldn't mind taking care of Joe's little girl, who he learned was called Jessica, or rather Jessie.

Joe accepted Stuart's proposal rather hesitantly and only under certain conditions. Just about anyone would probably have accepted Stuart's babysitting offer rather hesitantly. Particularly because he just wasn't the type. The one and only reason that spoke in his favour was Natalie. Joe and her had met before, at Stephen's little barbecue and he had afterwards complimented Stuart on his surprisingly nice and likeable girlfriend.

So a day later Natalie and he stood opposite one smiling Joe and one rather unconvinced looking girlfriend, plus one pouting little girl with brown hair and brown eyes. The agreement had been that they would come over for a while first and see how Jessie and they would get along. If Jessie felt uncomfortable staying with them for a few hours, dinner was cancelled, which was fine with Stuart. He didn't know how to deal with an irritable five-year-old nor did he have any desire to learn how to at this point.

Natalie almost immediately scooted down to the little girls level when introductions were made. At that Joe's girlfriend looked slightly more relieved already.

Jessie was wearing a pastel pink T-shirt with Flounder the cartoon fish from Disney's The Little Mermaid on it. Natalie looked at her and smiled. "Nice to meet you, Jessie." She didn't extend her hand to the little girl yet, probably because Jessie was swaying from side to side and practically hiding behind her daddy's legs. "I'm Natalie. This is Stu," she indicated the tall man standing next to her who was scowling once again, but this time probably out of desperation. Jessie regarded him with suspicion. "Don't worry. He's not as much of a meanie as he looks. Right, Stu?"

"Right," he replied, trying to make his voice not quite as gravelly for the benefit of the little girl. He even attempted to force a half-smile on his face for her sake.

"And you gotta know one big secret about Stu…" The little girl actually stopped hiding behind her dad's legs now, looking between Natalie and Stuart with somewhat akin to curiosity. "He's an expert on fish," Natalie indicated little Jessie's T-shirt.

"Really?" the girl piped and stared up at him all curious and wide-eyed now.

Natalie shot Stuart a look of her own that said something like "You better say 'yes' now".

"Really," he replied dutifully.

"He's a fish, too," Jessie said indicating her shirt.

Stuart kneeled down in front of the little girl, having a closer look at her shirt. "I know. He's called Flounder, right?" the shirt said as much and the girl nodded at him enthusiastically.

"Flounder's my favourite. He's funny."

Stuart frowned. "Odd name."

"Why?" a tiny voice asked curiously.

"Well, he isn't a flounder. That colouring right there is typically for tropical fish. Real flounders are not quite as…" he thought about the right word. "Aesthetically-pleasing" wasn't it. Jessie wouldn't understand. "Nice to look at. They are flat and brown."

The little girl gaped at him in surprise. "How do you know all that? Are you working at SeaWorld? Daddy took me to SeaWorld last month…"

Despite himself Stuart had to grin a little. Just the tiniest little bit. "Before I took up wrestling like your dad, I was a marine biologist…"

"Marline biology?" Jessie repeated, stumbling over the big word.

"Marine biologist… Like a scientist who tries to learn everything about sea creatures," Natalie decided to help him.

Jessie nodded. The crisis seemed to be averted for the time being. At least Jessie seemed to find him less intimidating from now on. In the meantime Natalie presented herself to the adults and politely asked them in. She thought she heard Joe's girlfriend, Sara, mutter something along the lines of "Wow! She's really super-nice. How did she end up with him?" to Joe when Natalie briefly went to the kitchen to get everyone something to drink: water for Joe and Sara and orange juice for Jessie.

Natalie had to smile quietly to herself when she had her back turned to them and was rummaging around in the freezer. Her smile broadened when she heard Stuart clumsily make small talk. He was really making an effort and it made her happy in a way, because she had already guessed what this whole thing was about. Well, it wasn't particularly hard guessing what Stuart's sudden eagerness of babysitting a colleague's child meant. He was trying to come to terms with her being pregnant and she interpreted that as a good sign, despite the fact that he hadn't talked to her yet.

She came back with the drinks. Jessie timidly started talking about The Little Mermaid, which was apparently her favourite film next to Finding Nemo, which Natalie had seen, but that was ages ago, so she couldn't remember much about it. Jessie was more than happy to fill her in in detail about the movie's action, dramatic hand gestures and altered voices included.

"Oh, really? There were sharks?" Natalie asked at one point of Jessie's one-girl-rendition of Finding Nemo. "I didn't remember about the sharks. I really like sharks."

The little girl made a face. "Really? You like sharks?" she asked as if that was crime in her book. "I don't. They are scary. Daddy, tell her about the time we went to the SeaWorld and there were those sharks you got scared of and Mommy had to protect you…"

"Yeah, well," Joe grinned embarrassedly and rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly sensing everybody's eyes on him, including those of Stuart, whose gaze quite inevitably was accompanied by a mocking sneer. "Sharks are scary. And it wasn't like I was hiding behind her or anything…" Joe tried to justify himself.

Stuart made a dismissive 'pfff' noise and Jessie started at him in awe, particularly after he uttered the next couple of words. "They're only scary when you don't know anything about them. I mean they are impressive creatures. Dangerous predators and all, but they're beautiful up close."

Jessie hadn't understood all those big words like 'impressive' and 'predator', but she sure got the gist of Stuart's comment. "You saw a shark up close?!" Jessie's little voice squeaked, tinged with utter amazement, as if the look on her face didn't already say it. Her jaw was sort of slack and her mouth hanging slightly open and her cute brown eyes widened in shock.

Stuart hesitated to reply. For a moment all sorts of strange thoughts shot through his head. Was he supposed to tell the little girl about it at all? Would he encourage her to jump into a shark tank if he spoke too enthusiastically about the experience? He looked at her parents. They were looking back at him with expectant glances. Yeah, see how you'll get yourself out of this one, bigmouth. "Well, yes," he made a point out of lowering his voice somewhat, it was normally somewhat booming, even when he didn't intend it to be. Had to do something with its depth and its timbre probably. He looked at the palms of his hands for a moment. "We swam with them back when we were in Africa." Jessie shuddered. "There was a very big cage and a lot of shark experts around. Sharks are very dangerous and unpredictable, but they're also very clever and very beautiful animals."

"They still wanted to eat Nemo's daddy and Dory. They can't eat Dory. Dory is funny," Jessie pouted, still talking about that favourite Disney movie of hers. Stuart suppressed the urge to tell her that a little clownfish like Nemo were nature's little sissies, hiding in anemone for the better part of her life and not at all brave.

Instead he raised his hands defensively. "Can't argue with that."

"You have to watch the movie to see how mean they are. Then you'll change your mind about mean, old sharks…" Jessie said darkly, as if Stuart was the child and she the adult, trying to make him aware of the proper way of seeing the world.

"We've have the movie in her bag," Sara stage-whispered to Natalie. "We've seen it like 50 times. Feel free to watch it with her if she gets bored."

After one more hour spent together, Joe and Sara decided it was safe to leave Jessie with Stuart and Natalie. She seemed happy enough sitting there on her favourite blanket, showing Natalie all her toys and picture books. Occasionally the little girl would shoot shy glances at Stuart who was sitting close to them on the couch, but not on the blanket with them.

The little girl was sitting in Natalie's lap while they leaved through a storybook about the zoo, including some pages over which you could run your fingers to feel, for example, the supposed fur of a baby lion or of a gorilla. Stuart 'supposed' applied because Greenpeace would have had to say a word or two about it if it had been real fur. Natalie was 'oh'-ing and 'ah'-ing about those pages enthusiastically while she and Jessie ran their hands over them.

"All right," he said, slapping his hands on his knees eventually, feeling somewhat useless just sitting there, "you ladies up for a cuppa?" His accent was quite pronounced for once, thanks to his discomfort and the familiarity of a sentence that had been uttered countless times in the Bennett household back in Britain.

Jessie looked at him as if he had just sprouted a second head, then giggled. "He talks funny," she whispered to Natalie loud enough for Stuart to hear. "Stuart talks funny."

Stuart raised his eyebrows, pointing at his chest. "I talk funny?" Jessie nodded emphatically at that. He lowered himself to his knees, not liking how the little girl had to crane back her head when he was standing in front of her. "I'm English," he informed her trying to sound dignified. "That's the way we talk. From my perspective you…" he pointed his index finger towards Jessie's belly button, his tone rather benign "…talk funny, little American lady."

"Do not!" Jessie said and got up from Natalie's lap who was watching the exchange between Stuart and the little girl with a grin. "Do too," he told her smugly. He pointed at the flat screen behind him. "Let's see, shall we? What do you call that?" "TV," Jessie said predictable, there was a little childlike lisp on the word letting it sound like there was 'w' in it. "Sorry to tell you, kid, but it's a telly."

"Natalie, I think Stuart is silly. He's making up words," Jessie turned to Natalie, apparently thoroughly unconvinced by what Stuart was saying.

Natalie was smiling. "I agree that he's silly, sweetie."

"Oi," Stuart said softly, finally sitting down on that blanket, although with a soft groan.

"But," Natalie added, still looking at him with a smile from behind Jessie's head, "he's a good guy. And English people really talk differently than we Americans. He's not making this up."

There was a pensive look on Jessie's face now. "I once saw this old lady on TV that talked a little like you. Mommy said she was a queen. Do you know her?"

Stuart actually had to smile now too. "Do I know the Queen of England? You mean personally?"

Jessie nodded enthusiastically.

"No."

Her enthusiasm disappeared immediately.

"Do you know that other lady?"

"Which other lady?" Stuart asked with a frown.

"The nice lady who sings and dances. She can fly with her umbrella and do magic and she's a nanny in London. Her best friend is Bert. Bert can draw very well and he's funny," Jessie informed him as if she were talking about a real person.

"You mean Mary Poppins?" Natalie asked carefully.

"Yes! Mary Poppins. Do you know her?" she asked laying her tiny hands on Stuart's knee, looking at him expectantly.

"I'm afraid…"

"You don't know Mary Poppins?!" full on indignation now. "You have to know Mary Poppins. Natalie, can I watch the movie with Stuart? Please? Please!" she looked at Natalie with big round eyes. It was hard resisting the little girl. She smiled and cast a quick glance at her watch. "All right. But after that it's dinner and then you go to bed or your mommy will get mad, okay?"

"Okay," Jessie nodded enthusiastically, "but Stu has to watch the movie!"

"Did you hear that?" Natalie asked Stu pointedly. "You've job to do now."

"I see. I've got no other choice then, do I?" Stuart replied and the little girl giggled. "So, Jess," he asked reaching for the bag with the little girl's playthings, ready to indulge her and get the movie out, "who's that Mary Poppins person you're talking about?" Of course he knew who bloody Mary Poppins was. He also knew who Bambi was. But that didn't mean, though, he had to admit knowing about them in public. The little girl started going on and on about Mary Poppins while he got out the DVD and switched on the TV.

They settled on the couch and Jessie sat next to him cross-legged. When the first song of countless others came along, the two little tykes in the movie were crooning a little ditty about what kind of nanny they wanted, Jessie sang along at the top of her little voice. It was kind of cute, he supposed, she didn't hit the notes right and she garbled up the words, but she made up for that with her enthusiasm, bouncing up and down on the couch beside him. He discretely reached out and caught her when she was threatening to fall off the couch and land on the coffee table.

Twenty minutes into the movie even he, the convinced misanthrope, had to smile occasionally and a little while later he was humming Chim Chim Cher-ee under his breath when he got up to get Jessie another glass of juice. Soon he arrived in the kitchen where Natalie was preparing fish fingers and mash. When he reached for a glass in the kitchen shelf, she pressed a little kiss to his cheek for no apparent reason.

After Joe and his girlfriend had stopped by and carried out a gently snoring Jessie, the mood inside the house suddenly changed. Stuart had been smiling before, but with the little girl gone, so was his good mood. He reverted to being pensive and morose more or less by the second the door had closed behind the little family. With a few mumbled excuses directed at Natalie he disappeared in his home office again where he submerged himself in depressing music and nursed a glass of scotch to be able to process the happenings of this day.

He had hoped that tonight would provide him with some answers regarding the dilemma Natalie and he were currently facing, but no such luck. The situation was still exactly as difficult to figure out as it had been in the beginning. The way things looked, he would be ready to step back into the ring by the end of December. That left him with roughly two more months he could spend with Natalie. Roughly two more months of something that resembled a normal life. After that he would be off on the road again and she would have to deal with everything on her own: pregnancy, childbirth, raising a kid. She would practically be a single mom. That was if they took this on, which they didn't have to.

He was ripped out of his thoughts by the door to his office bursting open. In stalked Natalie. She marched directly towards the stereo, which she turned off by japing her index finger at the power switch with something akin to aggression. When she turned around, he could tell she was angry. She was scowling. She never scowled. That was something he did.

"Enough of this bullshit!" she told him, glaring at him from across the room. "You've been back for three days. Three whole days, Stuart! I think I gave you enough time to mull this over and be all British and stiff-upper-lippy and strange… Now will you please have the decency to talk to me?"

He remained silent, his face sort of stuck on an expression of disbelief.

"I thought that after tonight things would somehow work out. Turns out I was wrong. You're back to locking me out, sitting around in some quiet corner thinking and thinking and thinking, but not talking to me. You need to talk to me! I get that you're scared. But has it ever, like just for a second, occurred to you that maybe I'm scared too?"

It was hard reading her body language. The way her hands were shaking one might think she was suppressing a bout of anger, but when you looked at her face you saw desperation and something akin to sadness there. At any rate those were not positive emotions. In fact seen from Stuart's perspective this situation was a complete catastrophe. He had wanted to sort his own thoughts and feelings out before he talked to her, but one look at her now told him that he had to act immediately. There was no more time for mulling things over. If he didn't do anything now, she would be gone. For good.

He felt cornered. He got up from his chair buying himself some time. What to tell her? What to tell her? God, what to tell her?

"What the hell are you doing in here anyway?" she asked, her voice sounding emotionally drained, as she let herself fall back on her couch that was standing against the wall opposite his desk.

He scoffed quietly and she looked at him sharply before she lowered her head and massaged her temples, her face hidden from view by a curtain of hair. "Gosh, I'm so tired," she groaned.

"You've got every right to feel tired," he stated and stared forlornly at the spines of some of the sports books that filled the shelves of his office.

"Gee, thanks," she quipped back ironically. "Now can we stop traipsing around the subject? I'm pregnant, Stu."

"I know," he swallowed.

"Wow, certainly a step up from your initial reaction…"

Stu screwed his eyes shut, feeling ashamed of himself as he recalled that initial verbal reaction quite vividly. He had said "Thank you for letting me know". It had made him seem calloused and impassive. He wasn't impassive. Far from it. He was terrified.

"Look, I'm sorry I said that. Okay? I'm sorry how it came out, but you know what kind of bloke I am. I don't deal in niceties…"

"No, you deal in truths," her eyes met his challengingly. "Uncomfortable ones, awkward ones, good ones… Why don't you do what you do best and just tell me the truth? By now I already know that you're not exactly overjoyed by the news…"

"No, that's not it…" the words slipped out of him, without him being able to control them. They just got away from him.

"Well, excuse me for misunderstanding. I was forced to guess what your reaction was, since you were hiding from me most of the time, that is when we didn't have denial sex."

"Denial sex?" he asked, cocking one eyebrow.

"Yeah, the one we had since you came back? It's different. I don't like it. It's more like fornication. You don't really look at me. Feels kind of empty…"

"God," he ran his hand over his face, feeling like a complete failure. How could he have bolloxed everything up so badly? He lightly bumped his forehead against the shelf a couple of times, his eyes shut until he eventually came to rest his head against the cool wooden surface. "I'm sorry, Nat," he finally said.

"That's nice. But sorry does not help us. Not if you retreat again or disappear in your little boat to brood out there alone for hours and hours and hours."

"So what? You want me to talk to you?"

"It's better than guessing what your thoughts are…"

"I don't know about that," he stepped away from the shelf and stood across from her, leaning against his desk. For a moment they just looked at each other. He could see the dark circles under her eyes. She hadn't been sleeping well. There was also the way she nervously picked at her fingers. His heart clenched uncomfortably at the realisation what the cause for all of this was. It was his fault. His alone.

"Just talk to me," she implored.

He tipped back his head for a second and let out a long exhale. "All right," he finally said, looking at her again. "But I'm not sure any of what I've got to say will make sense…"

"Doesn't matter. I just need something from you, so please…" she leaned back into the couch, looking fragile and tiny in the bulky piece of furniture.

"All right… Ever since… ever since you told me, I've been trying to understand this situation. Should we keep it? If we do, how will this work out? I mean," he scratched his beard, "I'll be back on the road in two months. And then what? You'll be here alone and you'll have to do everything on your own. And once the child is here… What will happen then?" She shrugged her shoulders and remained silent. For once the words were tumbling from his mouth and she wouldn't interrupt him. It seemed like he had bottled all of this up and now it was bursting out of him. "I mean, what kind of dad will I be? I don't want to be that nice chap that comes home once a month and tries to bribe his kid into loving him by buying expensive, over-sized stuffed animals… And apart from that…" he paused, hesitating to voice his biggest concern of all, "Apart from that, I'll make an atrocious father." Now she opened her mouth to protest, but he silenced her with a wave of his hand. "No, don't try to contradict me. I'm already doing a pretty pathetic job at being your boyfriend, but father to your child? Who would want that?"

She scooted closer to the edge of her seat, looked for a second at her sock clad feet, then finally at his face. "I guess I would."

"Excuse me?"

"I've had a lot of time to think in the last couple of days," she licked her lips. Strangely enough her words were not reproachful, just matter-of-factly. "So… concerning this child, I'm not quite sure where we are standing either, but I'm sure where I'm standing concerning you. I've just gotta know we're on the same page here…"

"I agree."

"So where are we standing?"

"You mean you and I?" She nodded. He let out a sigh, searching his feelings for a couple of seconds. Did he still feel the same about her? Did he still want to be with her? It was easy to answer those questions. "Nothing has changed," he concluded and saw her shoulders slump in relief.

"So we're in this together?" she asked, needing further confirmation from him.

He eventually nodded, which made her get out of her seat and take a step closer to him. He had his gaze lowered, his mind was still racing, when she grabbed his left hand and made him look at her. There was a timid smile on her face now and upon seeing it he was flooded with affection for her, suddenly remembering why he loved her so much, why he was a pathetic coward for acting like he had during the last couple of days.

"You do know that I love you, right?" he pulled her a fraction closer to him, eventually raising the back of her hand to his mouth. He kissed it slowly, pressing his lips to her skin while he tried to inhale her fragrance. Her eyes shone at him affectionately when he looked at her again.

"I remember now," she replied simply.

"I'm sorry," he said, feeling his emotions choke him. He pulled her close, mainly because the urge to do so was quite strong. A secondary motivation was because he didn't want her to see the raw emotions playing over his face.

They stood like that for a while, until she finally broke the silence. "So what do we do now?" she asked and he slightly pulled back to look down at her. "You and me against the world, Bennett. We're going to face this head on, right? As a team?"

"Yes," he confirmed with the tiniest of smirks.

She took another step away from him and came to stand next to him, mirroring his posture as she leaned back against the edge of his desk. The fingers of her left hand searched and found those of his right hand and gently squeezed them.

"So let's have a look at our options… The way I see it we have two… We could keep it…. And then… there's also the possibility of an abortion."

The room was silent for a couple of moments. The only sound to be heard was their respective breathing.

"Abortion is… Well, it sounds…" he stopped and started a couple of times, uncharacteristically struggling with words. "It sounds extreme."

"Extreme?" she cocked an eyebrow and looked at him.

"Doesn't sound right… Shouldn't be up to me to decide… I don't know..."

"You're right. You can't. We have to decide this together…" she replied.

"So your thoughts?" he could feel his heart rate speeding up and his palms go sweaty. There was a feeling of panic and finality constricting his windpipe making him cough a couple of times.

"Having an abortion does sound extreme…" she repeated his thoughts from earlier back at him. "And the doctor already showed me an ultrasound picture…"

His eyes widened at that information. "You've never said."

"I didn't really get the chance to. Remember how you pretty much didn't talk to me in the last couple of days?" she told him.

"Do you have it here?" he asked sort of urgently, suddenly a wild impression in his eyes. "Can I see it?" There was an overwhelming and rather masochistic urge to have a look at that ultrasound picture now, even if it probably only showed a tiny blurry dot.

She was in and out of the room in the blink of an eye, soon standing there in front of him with jittery hands, handing him something that almost looked like an old-fashioned Polaroid picture. He gently took it from her hands. "There," she indicated a tiny swirly circle and he could see his own hands slightly shaking as they brought the picture closer to his face. "When we zoomed in, we saw its heartbeat," she more or less whispered.

"It has a heartbeat," he repeated completely overwhelmed by that news. He closed and opened his eyes a couple of times, suddenly feeling lightheaded. He suddenly could feel her hand at his forearm and saw her look up at him tenderly.

"You all right?"

He ran his hands over his face, blowing out a shuddering breath. "I don't know. I… I can't be a dad."

"Why not?"

"Natalie, come now! You're seriously asking me this question? Dad's are like Joe. They take their daughters to SeaWorld. They have ridiculous little make-believe tea parties with their little daughters. They're patient and they laugh and their voices aren't raucous or booming. They're not rough. They can show their emotions…" He racked one of his hands through his hair, trying to distract her from the pained expression on his face. There was an ache in his chest like a gaping hole. It came from wanting something he couldn't possibly have. "I'm not meant to be a dad," he concluded.

"Well, this says you already are… in a way," she held the ultrasound picture under his nose one more time and he took it from her not able to keep the tiniest of smiles from his face. His thoughts were venturing in dangerous territory. He was imagining Sunday afternoon football games, kicking around a ball in the driveway with a little boy or girl, sharing his story's about Sir Tom with a kid with enthusiastic eyes that looked just like Natalie's.

"You mean we're…"

"If you want to…"

"I… I think I do," he actually chocked up there. "Fuck!" he swore. "So, we're bloody having a bloody baby…"

"Yeah," she smiled up at him beautifully.

"This is stupid," he pointed out, "And impossible. And it's going to be a disaster." In spite of uttering those pessimistic predictions, he was smiling a pretty watery smile at her. He crushed her to him and kissed her. She wisely didn't say anything about the warm and wet liquid she felt against her cheeks while they kissed.

Author's note: So, you guys, one more chapter to go. At least I think it will be one more chapter. Story-wise there is only one big thing left to tell. It's going to be hard letting this one go. I'm already attempting to console myself with the next story. If you're up for a little Dragon Age fic, I'll be able to welcome you on board rather soon...

As always I would like to thank UntilNeverDawns for her help of the beta-variety with this chapter. And you brilliant lot out there in front of those screens reading this story. Especially asprankle1, pepperlandgrl, Bharm, Tammy, nattiebroskette (With the still rather fabulous username, I might add), MetalMayhem (not a bad one either) and DevilRae. I hope you enjoyed this one as well.

Thoughts? Hit the review button.