16. Why are you crying?

18. Tell me what's wrong.

They're into their ninth month of pregnancy as a couple when Lorna's pregnancy hormones kick in and Marcos freaks.

He's just finished buying the pizza for their regular meeting at Clarisse and John's place, while Lorna sat back at the sofa in John's house waiting for their daughter to grace the world, resting her swollen feet and taming her food cravings.

In fact, she'd called just two hours ago, asking for a pizza, extra cheese, large with crusts, no anchovies, and lots of…mustard. Marcos gags at the choking smell of the mustard filling the car that they're in, and sticks his head out of the car occasionally to breathe. Ever since Lorna's hormones had taken on a machete swing in her late stages of pregnancy, her appetite for weird, odd food cravings also increased. Not that he had anything against mustard and pizza, of course. A little bit of it was good. But Lorna liked to lump a whole dollop of the sauce onto the pizza, till he doubted that she was eating almost anything save for mustard at all. He sighed gently, cradling the still warm pizza in his hands as he got out of the car, nodding to Pedro with a wry grin.

He yelped as the main doors nearly slammed on him, wobbling as he tries to balance the three stacks of pizza Lorna had ordered.

"What's this? Pizza delivery?" John grins, before getting a whiff of the boxes and gagging. "I hope you got something normal in there."

"It's masked by the mustard. It's all the way at the bottom." Marcos grumbles at his friend. "And don't let Lorna hear you going on about that. The last time she heard me say something about her mustard addiction, we had a debate on it for three hours."

"Ugh, god. What's that smell?" John shushes Clarisse with a kiss that has Marcos gagging as he slams the main doors shut with his leg. "Hey Marcos."

"Hey to you too, Mr and Mrs I-like-making-PDA-obvious." Clarisse detaches herself from her boyfriend, breaking away from their kiss to growl in his face.

"Oh yeah? Not as obvious as Horny 1 and Horny 2. As if the light show that happens Everytime you two get your sexy times or affection on isn't explicitly PDA enough." She flicks her head in the direction of the television, where three of them could see Lorna's propped up swollen feet.

"Shhhh!"

"Do you wanna die a really painful death?"

"What?!" Clarisse almost huffs, throwing off John's firm clasp on her. "Oh my God. Don't tell me she's also gotten sensitive about that!"

Marcos rolls his eyes.

"Well. Duh." He deadpans. "The last time she almost cried. Then flew into a rage because she almost cried. Sometimes I don't know if I hate or love my kid more."

"You love her." Clarisse pats his shoulder comfortingly, with an annoyingly smug smile on her face. "You'll go so Gaga over her the moment she pops out of Lorna's belly."

A sudden screaming wail rushes out from the living room, and Marcos immediately thrusts the boxes of mustard smelling pizza at John, abandoning everything to flee in the direction where the cry came from.

"Lorna!" He gasps, chest heaving as he skids into the living room, where she's cuddled up with the pillow fort that Norah and the rest of the children had built around her (it pillowed around her belly and made her feel warm and snug), the children staring wide eyed at him at the end of her swollen feet. "Lorna!" He tries to get his breath back into his chest, nearly collapsing at the side of her chair. "Tell me what's wrong?" He checks her visually everywhere with his eyes.

Okay.

Hands intact.

Feet intact.

Belly is still swollen.

Doesn't seem like she's in pain.

Oh thank God. She's fine. Just fine.

He stops for a moment, relief assaulting his senses as she turns her tear stained face to him, still half crying.

"Oh babe." His heart automatically goes out to her like a reaction to her tears. "Why are you crying?"

"Because–because Jack let go of Roseeeeee!" She blubbers, the tears running a sopping mess over her face. "He coulda hanged on, and he let goooo! Then DiCaprio dropped into the waaaterrrr!" Marcos stops his pity streak Midway to turn slowly towards the television, where the Titanic was playing on full blast.

"Babe, did you just cry because of Titanic?" He almost deadpans, caught between the hilarity of the situation (because his usually stoic girlfriend would never ever be caught crying over romance) and trying to calm Lorna down. He struggles, facial muscles twitching constantly between his regular smirk and a stoic expression.

"What?" Lorna wails. "It's a classic! I was thinking of watching The Notebook next." She sniffles, then blows her nose into a wad of tissue, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I hate pregnancy hormones." She wiggles her toes sullenly. "Did you bring my pizza?" Marcos snaps to attention immediately, back stiffening as he snatches the three pizzas from John's hands, turning his nose up to his highly amused face, before thrusting the mustard covered pizzas at Lorna with pride.

"Extra cheese, extra mustard. With crust. Just like you ordered."

"Hm." He watches nervously as she stretches with the effort of putting the three stacks of pizzas to her side, balancing the one she opened on her burgeoning belly.

"I did good, didn't I?" John sniggers as Marcos almost pleads.

"Yeah yeah." Lorna's far too occupied with sating her hunger to pay attention to her boyfriend.

"So please don't kiss me after eating those pizzas." Marcos squeaks, and Clarisse snorts, covering her mouth as Lorna stops mid chew to glare at both of them.

"Are you loathing my kisses, Marcos Diaz?" She swallows a mouthful of the mustard covered pizza to glare at Marcos, her voice low.

"No?"

"But you just asked her not to kiss you after eating pizza." Norah pointed out, the little blue skinned girl tucking her knees under her chin. "You loathe it." She sing songs, and Marcos half glares at her.

"Not helping, Norah." He holds his hands up in surrender as Lorna shifts with a groan, propping herself up further to glare at him. "Look babe. I don't loathe your kisses. I just hate mustard."

"But you love me, right?"

"You know I do." A shiver runs down his back.

"Fine." She flops back onto the sofa with a heavy sigh. "Prove it by kissing me now."

"But…you just ate your mustard pizza." He points out, mollified.

"And you love me." Lorna answers back as though that's the answer for everything. "Right?" John slaps his back, grinning way too widely for Marcos to be comfortable.

"Oh alright. Fine." He grumbles, before pulling Lorna up slightly to steal the breath from her lips.

"Woah woah woah." He pries away from Lorna's lips, grinning as Clarisse's glares at him, her hands covering Norah's eyes. "There are children here, Flashlight." Marcos licked his lips as Lorna blinked, slightly dazed.

"Oh that was hot." She sighed, positively satisfied.

He grinned widely at his friend's horrified faces.

"Anything else you need?" He grins as she pouts at him and holds out an empty Ben and Jerry's tub.

"More ice cream. Please." He chuckles.

"Really? Not afraid of getting fat?"

"Your kid needs it!" She hurls the tub at him huffily just as the opening scene of The Notebook begins to roll.

"Okay okay! Jeez." He's about to stride to the kitchen to get that infernal tub of ice cream when a jerk on his hand stops him in his tracks. "Hm?" He glances down almost affectionately at Lorna.

"I changed my mind. I wanna cuddle." She throws John a glare as he sniggers.

"You sure?" He eyes her a little worried as she shifts.

"Yeah. I'm a bit cold." He palms her hand slightly, noting the goosebumps on her skin.

"Alright." He slides his arms around her gently pulling Lorna's waist towards his own. She hums lightly, striving to be as close as her large belly allowed her to, nuzzling his shoulder, a sigh of soft appreciation escaping her lips as his palms smooth over her skin.

"You're warm." She mumbles into his skin, her attention taken off by the heat given off by Marcos just being next to her.

"Of course I am. You didn't forget that I absorb solar energy into my body before giving out, haven't you?" She wiggles her toes slightly as she glares at him with all her dignity.

"I so did not forget. I'm just cold all the time while pregnant."

"Right right." He traces circles on the back of her hand comfortingly. She turns surprisingly silent as the movie plays, and Marcos' eyes dart quietly in her direction.

"Hey Marcos?"

"Hm?"

"Will you ever get tired of me?" There's something in her eyes that betray her vulnerability as she peeks a look at him from beneath her eyelashes, barely grazing his eyes.

"What makes you think that?" He rubs her arms chidingly, knowing that she's rarely so vulnerable—its just difficult for Lorna sometimes to accept that he loves her for everything she is (because she definitely hates some parts of herself. The ugly ones. The horrible, terrified Lorna that's just selfishly afraid to be all alone. He doesn't tell her that he thinks its cute, because he's insecure as well.)

"I dunno." Her eyes are Faraway as they rub her belly, and somehow, Marcos understands.

"There's no one more perfect to me than you, Lorna Dane." His reassurance does little to comfort her stray thoughts. "Hey. Don't." He gives her arm a sudden jerk, drawing her from her reverie as he grips her chin gently and tilts her face up to his. There's something that flickers deep in his dark eyes, before a cheeky crooked smile crosses his face.

"You do know it's gonna take more than just a pretty face to shake me off you, right" He knocks her forehead lightly. "You're just that special to me."

"Yeah? Even though I look like a whale?" Marcos stared at her, amused.

"You're a very pretty whale, Lorna. You glow." He earns a smack on the back of his head because of that, and they stare at each other for a moment before they both collapse into laughter.

"You're ridiculous, you know." The smile on Lorna's face tells of the fondness she has for him.

"And you're perfect." She stares in utter surprise at him because of his words. There's a deep seriousness about him that tells her he's serious about this, and a soft smile crosses Lorna's lips.

"Mhm." It's his confidence in her that makes a part of who she is in life. He's her safe place, the haven of reassurance, if she needs it. "You're right about that." Her head tilts lightly, landing comfortably in his shoulder as they both turn their attentions to the playing movie, hearts and souls warmed.