Begin ze angst! (And a few moments of hilarity to break it all up.)

"And thus does the world end..." –Asch

"'Angelic' is not a word I would use to describe myself, and what does that have to do with not pissing Cantabile off?" -Jade

Chapter 5.6 – Lady of the Lake
Part 37

"...You're hovering."

I didn't turn around at Asch's soft voice. Didn't acknowledge him when he stepped up just behind me. Because I couldn't tear my eyes away from the still form on the bed, buried under the blankets in the already-warm room.

If it weren't for the slightest movements of the blankets, for the movement of the Energies around him, for the weak but steady glow of his soul...

I'd have thought Reighn was dead.

"Kairi?"

"I don't know why I keep wondering how we end up in these situations," I whispered, eyes not really focusing on anything anymore, just half-watching the blurry glows that indicated Energies moving around Reighn. "I think... part of me still thinks this is Tales of the Abyss... still thinks this is just a game..." I dared to look at Asch's solemn expression just behind me. He didn't say anything, so I shook my head, eyes drifting back to Reighn. "And then someone gets hurt, someone dies..." I stop again, eyes closed and head shaking back and forth. Why? Why do I always feel like such a gods-damned idiot when things like this happen...?

Asch puts his right hand on my shoulder. "We've made it this far. Don't go breaking on me now when I need you the most."

I could tell, from the waver in his voice and the grip he had on my shoulder, he wasn't just talking about his mother's death.

"So, the Council delivered their ultimatum." I took a deep breath. "How did Natalia take it?"

"Not well. And after everything she's been through...This isn't fair to her, to force her to make this choice, especially so quickly after Uncle's death," Asch murmured back.

I hummed. "And where is she now?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. Dark put her up on Sorylle and Sorylle took off running."

"Dark didn't go with them?"

Asch let out a half-hearted chuckle. "You know, I've only seen him truly pissed off twice. When Danté first showed up at the Monolith of Syal, and when he sent Sorylle and Natalia off an hour ago. I'm sure by now he's finished ripping the Council a new hole and has gone after Natalia."

I hummed. "I do hope he didn't use the White Lotus chakrams to do it."

Asch's chuckle was a little more genuine this time. "It'd save us all a lot of trouble, wouldn't it?"

I elbowed him, gently so as not to aggravate his injuries. He just chuckled a bit more.

My eyes drifted over to Reighn again, and I took a deep breath. Asch noticed.

"Kairi? ...Why don't we go for a walk?"

I turned and smiled slightly, but it faded quickly, too quickly. Still, following Asch gave me something to do other than stand around and brood over Reighn.

We weren't headed anywhere in particular. Because we were both out of it, we just wandered, my left hand holding onto his right.

Which felt odd, because previously, we'd always held the other hand.

I was left-handed. Asch was right-handed. So holding his left hand in my right left our sword arms free. I wasn't sure whether to be amused or worried by the fact that we seemed to find a way to look relaxed while still being prepared to fight at a second's notice.

We ended up finding one of the temples around Eldrant. This one hadn't been repurposed as living space yet, nor was it really in disrepair. A quiet retreat...

But voices drifted out of it, and I paused, glancing inside.

Ah. So that was where Myre had disappeared to.

"It was so funny," Myre was saying, her voice soft. She was knelt in front of what looked like an altar, Selenia standing next to her and looking at something in her cupped hands. "And he told me, when he got back, we'd make it official."

Myre stopped there, and I nudged Asch, indicating that we should leave them alone. Because I'd heard that waver in Myre's voice... This wasn't our place to be intruding.

"He never made it back, did he?" Selenia asked, sounding just as upset.

"No."

We finally left hearing range, and again started wandering. This time, my eyes drifted around, looking for our friends, wondering who was where. I didn't see Dark or Natalia or Sorylle, but I hadn't been expecting to see them.

We passed by one of the larger springs, and there was Nephry, sitting next to Emperor Peony, both of them wearing bright smiles despite the dark times.

The scene brought a small smile to my own face. I'd seen the way Nephry and Peony had been dancing around each other, especially at the Blue Lights Festival just before Ifrit had shown up. It looked like they were finally starting to admit that there really was something there.

Asch's hand slipped from mine, and I glanced at him just as his freed arm slipped around my waist. "We're not going to find privacy, are we?" he asked, not really meaning the question.

I smiled and shook my head. "Probably not. But I'm glad everyone's taking a moment of down time. Well, almost everyone," I said, amending my statement as I spotted Luke helping the refugees get settled in. Still, seeing his pleased smile as they thanked him... "Then again, I don't think Luke can sit still if you tie him down to a chair."

Asch chuckled. "Yeah, I don't think so either..." He trailed off with a frown, then shook it off. I glanced over in the direction he'd been looking, spotting a few refugees.

"Something wrong?"

"Not really, just... Cantabile's had this... anomaly in her Energy Core for the last month or so, and one of those women has one too... I mean, it doesn't seem to be affecting her at all, so I haven't really been looking all that hard, I'm just curious," he said.

I hummed and glanced over at the refugees again, this time slipping partway onto the second plane to see what Asch had been looking at.

The moment I spotted the little bundle of Energies under the woman's Energy Core, I realized exactly what Asch was talking about... Then froze.

Chesedonia had been... a little over a month ago.

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

"Kairi?!"

"I wonder if Cantabile's noticed that Mother Nature decided not to send a calling card this month," I muttered.

"Um..."

I looked over at Asch and smirked. "So. Bets on how big Cantabile's going to get before Jade realizes what's happening?"

Asch, the poor dear, looked so completely confused...

Until he glanced at the woman among the refugees and finally had the location of the tiny Energy Core hit home, shock and then awe taking place of the confusion.

"She's pregnant..." Then the horror set in, and his already pale face got paler. "Cantabile's pregnant."

"'Bout a month in, yes."

Asch looked very much like he wanted to faint. "Cantabile's pregnant."

"Restating a fact doesn't make it any less true."

"That means... Jade's the father."

"Mm-hm."

Asch sat down rather abruptly. "And thus does the world end..." he muttered.

At which point, the only response I could give was laughter.

Which was how Jade and Saphir found us. Asch sitting stock still, pale as paper, and me still laughing my ass off.

"Good joke?" Jade asked. I grinned up at him, and from the way he immediately recoiled, it must not have been a nice grin.

"Oh yes. We'll explain it once Cantabile gets around to telling you, though. Gods, I hope I'm there to see your face!"

Asch groaned and curled into a ball. "We're all doomed."

Which just redoubled my laughter.

Jade's 'utterly baffled with a side of terrified' expression that tended to only come out when Cantabile was involved was just the icing on the cake.

Saphir just looked confused.

Asch finally uncurled out of his ball as my lungs started having trouble keeping up with my laughter, and he gave me a look. "You don't suppose giving it to someone else would help, do you?"

I sighed, still fighting back the laughter. "I'm not pissing Cantabile off," I said finally.

Asch sighed resignedly. "Hope someone's up to running damage control."

I smiled. "I don't know. Jade can be angelic when he feels like it."

"'Angelic' is not a word I would use to describe myself, and what does that have to do with not pissing Cantabile off?" Jade asked.

At which point, Asch chuckled. "Five months?"

"I'm gonna say two." Asch gave me an odd look, and I grinned back. "I'm banking on Cantabile figuring it out and trying to scalp him, or worse."

"You two are purposely leaving me in the dark about something," Jade realized.

Saphir looked amused. "If it's about what I think it's about, you're better off not knowing until Cantabile figures it out. Because I think Kairi might have gotten it right. Cantabile is not going to be pleased with you."

"What did I do?"

You know... I never realized just how funny a clueless Jade could be.

"Oh gods it hurts..." I managed to choke out between laughs. My cheeks were aching, my chest was heaving, and my lungs were on fire.

All in all, I was getting a very, very good laugh out of this whole thing.

And, now that he'd gotten over the 'horror' of finding out about their unborn child, Asch was taking great pleasure out of Jade's cluelessness himself.

Jade finally decided to spare what was left of his sanity and left, leaving a chuckling Saphir with us.

It wasn't much longer before Guy and Noelle walked past, and though they gave us odd looks, they didn't say anything and just kept going.

Since I was quite comfortable where I was laying on the ground under a tree, and Asch wasn't really in the mood to move around much, we ended up staying there for a bit, even after Saphir left—notably in the opposite direction Jade had gone in—and it was just the two of us again.

I was watching the sky when Asch finally spoke up again. "You know... You always say you want kids... Probably a weird question, but..."

"How many?" I guessed. Asch turned a nice shade of pink, but nodded. I hummed. "Two or three. Growing up an only child... I lost track of how many times I asked my parents if I could have a little sister. They never outright said it until about a year before I got pulled to Auldrant, but they tried. Tried, but I still ended up growing up alone. So I guess it's always been a silent promise to myself, to my future firstborn, that they're not going to have to grow up with that feeling."

Odd... I was holding back tears thinking about it.

"You know... even with the miasma no longer affecting you..."

"I know," I whispered.

Even with my newfound immunity to miasma, I'd still be lucky to get through the first birth with both me and baby intact. Two children would probably not be possible.

We were both silent for a time, and though I don't know where Asch's thoughts were going, mine were still floating along the lines of 'children'.

Which probably explained why I found myself looking over at Asch. "What would you want?" I blurted out.

He looked over at me in surprise. "Huh?"

I smiled. "Boy or girl?"

He stared at me for a while before the blank expression faded to a smile. "Girl."

I smiled back, but didn't say anything else, just looked up at the clouds again for a few minutes. It was a beautiful day... Just like it had been in Baticul, before Undine unleashed her blizzard. I sighed as my mind drifted back to Reighn.

"Your mind's wandered back to depressing topics," Asch mused.

I smiled for a moment before it faded. "I don't know how long it's going to take Reighn to wake up."

"That tends to happen when people fall into comas." Asch paused before standing and walking over, holding out a hand. "There's nothing we can do except wait and hope."

I reluctantly let him haul me to my feet, looking around at Eldrant.

It looked... so different.

"You know... I think I'm starting to get the point."

Asch looked at me curiously.

"King Ingobert's dead. You and Sync are alive. Largo's alive. Keterburg was burnt to the ground... Life goes on. Maybe things were familiar, maybe I let that determine my path in the beginning..." I stopped and shook my head. "It's like throwing a rock into a pond. Every ripple distorts the surface. And Dark, Koran, Cantabile, Sync, Reighn, every life I've touched... Just another rock thrown in. We've made the waters turbulent, Asch. Muddied them up."

"That's not necessarily a bad thing. Stagnant water tends to attract mosquitoes," Asch muttered. It took a lot of self control not to giggle at the memory of Asch smacking himself in the face repeatedly trying to kill the mosquitoes that kept landing on the only bare skin they could find.

"Not necessarily a good thing, either," I added. "Muddy water's no good for drinking."

I was silent for a while, eyes locked on a stray cloud that looked vaguely like Sync's head.

"So wait for the mud to settle."

"We don't have that much time," I said. "And even if we did, it's far too late. We're far beyond the familiar now."

Asch hummed, nodded, and put a hand on my shoulder again. "So take what little is familiar with you."

I glanced at him, then back up at the sky.

"This isn't Tales of the Abyss. It's not a game," I muttered. "We can't just reload from our last save file if we screw up." I stopped and looked Asch in the eye. "So I guess we have to make the first try count."

Asch's smile was worth it.

"Stay here, finish healing. I need to go get our people in Daath," I said, starting to walk off, only to pause a moment later. "And Asch..." I glanced back at him. "No matter which choice Natalia takes, or where you'll be in ten years... I'll always be right beside you... In mind, if not in body."

Asch chuckled. "Yeah, let's be honest. If Cantabile gets her way, given the fact that she's now a soon-to-be mother, she's going to retire and hand off her position to you. If for no other reason than because she's cruel like that."

We both got a few laughs out of that, even as I headed off to find Lorelei.

Luke was busy getting the new arrivals settled in, and Myre was either still busy with Selenia, or MIA as usual.

Asch really didn't need to be running around, not with his left arm in a sling to keep him from moving it around.

So. Lorelei it was, then.

I had a mission to complete.

Fun Fact: So. I wrote out about a third of the chapter then got stuck. Took part of it, then decided to stick a conversation in between. I'd meant for them to talk about Midlight Crystals.

Instead, Asch and Kairi decided to drop the bomb that Cantabile's pregnant.

Yeah.

I give up. I obviously have no control whatsoever.

(Another note to anyone who's noticed me cross-posting to AO3: The lines I used for the Re:ARitA summary came from this chapter.)