Lady Jaye decided the matter was hopeless. No amount of tugging was going to make her pants fit. She couldn't believe how quickly her stomach expanded in the last couple of days. She had tried the jeans on before she left for Scotland, and while they had been tight, they had still buttoned.
She headed down to the front desk, and asked for a couple of safety pins. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Beachhead come down the elevator, so instead of going back to her room, she went to the lobby rest room. In there she fastened her pants as best as she could. Luckily, since it was undercover work, she could use the excuse of wanting to seem casual, so she untucked her shirt.
She went back out into the lobby, where Beachhead was in deep conversation with the girl behind the reception desk. Lady Jaye took advantage of the full length mirror on the opposite end of the lobby to take a good look at herself. She flattened her shirt over her growing belly. It was small, and probably still not noticeable to anyone else, but she could tell that she had a baby bump.
"Are you actually preening and primping yourself in the mirror?" Beachhead asked, breaking her from her revelry.
Lady Jaye quickly composed herself. "Sorry, I just wanted to make myself look the part."
Beachhead shook his head. "You let yourself get soft these last few months. Don't think I haven't noticed. But don't worry, a couple weeks on Beach's PT and I'll have you back in shape." He then turned his attention to Ripcord and Gung-Ho who joined them in the lobby. "Lady Jaye, you and Ripcord stay in town and see if you can get any of the locals talking about the castle. Gung-Ho and I are going for a hike to the construction site. If we're not back in four hours, come look for us."
Later that morning, Lady Jaye casually scanned the pub while she half listened to the conversation Ripcord was having with his new friend Dougal. She felt it was about time that someone bonded with one of the locals. A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. A strangely dressed, hunched over old woman made a quick exit from the pub. Patting Ripcord on the shoulder she told him that she was going to step outside for a moment.
Lady Jaye caught a glimpse again of the woman as she made her way down the street. The woman had a pronounced hobble, so it was easy to give her chase. As Lady Jaye neared her, she decided that either the woman was much older than she first appeared, or had suffered some kind of debilitating injury. Either way, Lady Jaye began to suspect that she was on a wild goose chase. But her gut instinct was telling her there was something off about the woman.
Lady Jaye got within arm's reach, when the woman suddenly stopped and spun around with a surprising quickness. The woman looked her up and down, and then her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Lady Jaye let out a gasp as she suspected that the woman was having some kind of stroke. She went towards her, and the old woman grabbed a hold of her arm with an amazing amount of strength. "You will give birth to a girl."
Lady Jaye startled at the comment. "What?" she asked dumbly.
The woman nodded. "Yes, I see it clearly. Many changes are in your future, but your daughter will bring great joy to you and your husband."
"How… how do you know," Lady Jaye began to stammer but the woman continued her prophecy.
"Enjoy what times you have together, for there won't be many. There will be sadness and misfortune once the evil in the shadows is known."
Despite herself, Lady Jaye became shaken up over the cryptic messages. She again was going to ask the woman what she was talking about when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She whipped around as she reached for the javelins that weren't at her back. Luckily, she didn't need them as she came face to face with Beachhead.
"You okay? Ripcord said you went running out of the pub."
"Yes. I was just chasing after," she began to explain as she turned back around. But the woman was gone. Lady Jaye scanned the mostly empty street but it seemed like the woman vanished. "There was an old woman I started talking to. I thought maybe it was the Baroness or Zarana in disguise."
"Was it?" Beachhead asked.
"I don't know. She acted like a fortune-teller with messages about my future."
Beachhead laughed. "You don't actually believe that stuff, do you?"
"Beach, after some of the stuff I've experienced the last few years, I don't discredit anything."
"Okay, but I'm going to bet this was a local woman looking to prey on tourists. I bet she pops up again and tells you she can give you more details for a price."
Lady Jaye nodded. "You're probably right." However, as they went back into the pub she dwelled on what the woman said. Maybe the old woman was just using a set of vague statements to lure Lady Jaye back for a more in-depth reading. But deep down, Lady Jaye had a hard time believing that. She knew for a fact that changes were coming in the very near future. And while the woman had a fifty percent chance of being correct about the sex of the baby she intuitively knew about, Lady Jaye strongly suspected that she was in fact, having a girl. Which was why her last statement left Lady Jaye so shaken.
She entered the pub, and sat at the table with the fellow Joes. While she listened to Ripcord and Beachhead recap their morning, the old woman's words began to fade and she calmed down. But then a greater sense of sadness overcame her as she looked around the table at her friends and teammates, and began to feel a sense of loss. She knew that was silly, and she was just being dramatic, but she couldn't help it. It was more than just her hormones running wild, she felt like that this was the last time she was going to be out on a mission. Even if she and Flint managed to dodge the very real possibility of a dishonorable discharge, she knew her life was going to change dramatically once the baby arrived. She couldn't see how she could juggle her Joe lifestyle with motherhood, especially if she was going to be a single mother in the eyes of the army.
If she kept quiet about the baby's paternity, she wouldn't have someone to designate as a caregiver in case she was sent in the field or deployed. Her parents had died when she was a teenager, as well as her grandmother who raised her. She had no siblings, or aunts and uncles. She probably had a distant cousin somewhere in her family line, but she had no idea who they were. Over the years she had made good friends, but no one was still close enough to her that she would burden with the task of being a stand-in parent.
And even if she did, she doubted Flint would just stand idly by while she shipped his child off to a stranger. She had briefly considered designating him in her family plan, and coming up with a convoluted series of lies to the effect of him not being the father, but being concerned enough for the child's well being that he wanted to be a father figure. But not only did she think General Bradshaw wouldn't believe the story, she decided it crossed too far over the line.
So she would have to convince General Bradshaw to keep her on the Joe team without sending her into the field. And she would have to hire some kind of on-call nanny that would be flexible with her schedule. All while forcing Flint to see and raise the baby on the sly while he publicly denied his role in fathering him or her.
Laying it on the line like that made her question if staying on the Joe team was worth it. It wasn't going to be easy to walk away from the life she loved, but she didn't see any other option. She was going to be bringing a baby into the world, and he or she deserved a stable family life. She thought back to the old woman's words, about the baby bringing the two of them great joy. That wasn't going to happen in the scenario she had just laid out in her mind. So she had to make the tough call.
She hoped Flint would be on board with her plan, as she would expect him to also quit the Joe team. They entered the illegal relationship together, conceived the child together, so she would expect that they should also reap the repercussions together as well. He had told her several times over the last few weeks that he would do anything to stay with her, so she hoped that wasn't just lip service on his part.
Gung-Ho let out a raucous laugh which brought her back to the present, and she realized she had paid no attention to the conversation at the table. She decided she needed some air. Her thoughts, combined with the smoke and loud noise inside the pub was starting suffocate her. She made an excuse as she stood from the table and left. Once outside in the cooler air, she forced herself to calm down. She decided it was definitely time to come clean. She was tired of hiding and lying to everyone. Whatever consequences came from her admission, she was finally ready to accept them.
"Jaye, are you okay?" Ripcord asked as he walked towards her.
"I'm fine," Lady Jaye replied.
Ripcord put a hand on her shoulder. "You don't look fine. What's going on?"
Lady Jaye looked at him. She knew he meant well, and that he was truly concerned about her well-being. But as much as she needed to confide in a friend, this was neither the time nor the place. Luckily, there was enough going on with the Joe team that she could talk about her fears in a general sense. "Thank you for your concern, I really do appreciate it. But I'm just being overly sensitive. With all the changes going on with the Joes, I guess I got choked up in there thinking this might be our last mission together."
Ripcord nodded. "I know what you mean. Ace came to me the other day, all worked up about the possibility of mass transfers. I try not to let the rumors get to me, but sometimes it's hard."
"Guilty as charged," Lady Jaye said with a smile.
Ripcord squeezed her shoulder and then turned to walk away. Lady Jaye figured she dodged a bullet but then he stopped and turned to face her again. "No matter what you have going on, if you ever need to talk, I'm here for you."
It was a sweet sentiment, and she appreciated Ripcord's friendship even more. She again wished she was able to speak freely, instead she just nodded. She hoped that Ripcord would leave her alone, but he didn't. Instead he took a step closer. "Alison, I mean it." Lady Jaye bristled at the use of her real name. She didn't think he even knew what it was. Her heart started to pound as she realized she was entering a very awkward situation, but she was at a loss as to how to stop it.
Ripcord continued. He put his hand against her cheek. "I know you've been through a lot recently. And you're probably looking for a friend, or maybe more."
Lady Jaye put her hand on Ripcord's and gently moved it away. "Ripcord, Wally, this means more to me than you could ever know. But," she paused as she debated how to finish the sentence. Her earlier thoughts influenced her action. She was going to start telling the truth. "I can't do this. I'm pregnant."
Shock ran over Ripcord's face and he took a step back. "Oh my God. Is it Flint's?"
After weeks of telling lies and half-truths it should have been easy to call up another fib. But now that she started down the road, she wasn't going to go back. "Yes," she said quietly.
"Does he know?" Ripcord asked and she nodded.
Ripcord's shock was replaced by a vicious anger. "That son of a bitch. Wait until I get back to Headquarters. I don't care if he outranks me, he's going to learn he can't treat you like he has been."
Lady Jaye grabbed his arm. "Again, Wally, I really appreciate that you want to protect me, but you don't understand."
"Understand what? He's treated you like garbage. Plus, he's been strutting around base talking about the new girlfriend he picked up minutes after you two broke up. And he's been doing it while he knows you're carrying his child?"
Lady Jaye shook her head. "No, that's the part you don't get. We never broke up and there is no other woman. Everything has been an act since General Bradshaw arrived. We knew we couldn't let him find out about us, so we put on the show of our break-up and tried to keep our distance on base. But then I learned I was pregnant, and the stakes were raised. We put more effort into the act. We got a place together off base. So all those nights he claimed he was with his girlfriend, he was with me. We figured it was only a temporary deception until Hawk came back and we could throw ourselves on his mercy.
"But I found out Hawk's not coming back. Then this mission came up, and I figured it was my last hurrah. I can't hide anymore, and honestly, I'm sick of the lying. Tomorrow when I get back, I'm going to talk to Flint to tell him we have to tell the general the truth." Lady Jaye wiped away a tear that started to fall. "So basically, Ripcord, I think this is our last day together as teammates."
Ripcord opened his arms and she fell against his chest. "Alison, I'm so sorry."
"Thank you for that, but don't be." She pulled out of his grasp. "I'm going to miss the team, and you, and the other guys that have become my family the last few years. But at least it's all for a good cause. I know you have issue with Flint, but you have to believe that he loves me as much as I do him." She rubbed at her abdomen. "And now we're going to have a chance to focus on the new family we're creating."
Ripcord stayed quiet for a few moments. "So you don't need me to kick his ass tomorrow?"
Lady Jaye let out a laugh as she wiped at her face. "No. But I thank you for offering. And listening to my confession just now. You're a good guy Wallace Weems. Some girl is going to be really lucky to have you."