She still liked to travel where she could, but she was slower, for her, and had to be much more careful, or so James told her, and this made her feel uncomfortable, vulnerable. Her own body was becoming a stranger to herself, and she's confused about what to feel. She felt more comfortable with her spear now more than ever, as both a defense and a walking stick, had taken to tying back her hair completely, and felt even more comfortable with less clothing, now just in her loincloth again, and making promises to James and Porter-Mum to go nowhere near the port or other people. It was almost like before James.
She looked down at herself and gave a slight grimace-laugh. Almost.
She climbed, feeling heavy, and clumsy, though not as tired as she had been, and sat down to rest and to think.
She thought a lot, lately.
She shifted slightly on the branch, frowned, and tossed the loincloth entirely. Hah.
She sat back again, putting her hand on the growing swell of her belly.
She wasn't too heavy yet, but where there'd usually been flatness was now this strange bump that startled her sometimes.
It's not like she was unfamiliar with pregnancy, had seen all stages of it while living with the troop.
But seeing it with the mothers and to-be mothers with their still-sort-of-strength and slowness and long-time nesting and the sweet fur was different from suddenly being or becoming one, and she was feeling much more naked, much more fur-less, much more...uncertain.
For one thing she had to walk differently, more on her two feet instead of her four.
She was going to be a mother.
She stared at her stomach, and at the little stranger growing in it, and was caught again by bad thoughts.
She'd had these bad thoughts for a while, but hadn't really told them to James. She was afraid to.
. . . Before she was too far along, and was too unsure, she had to find Porter-Mum. Kala was her gorilla mother and teacher.
Porter-Mum would be her human one.
She moved carefully through the trees and branches towards the nest-house-home.
"What if she's unhappy now because of me?!" James groaned, staring into the dregs of his teacup, as if wishing for the gift of divination, or more tea, or for perhaps something other than tea. "What if I'm a terrible father? Or-or what if there are more Claytons or bloody Philanders or Staquaits or—aargh, I'm taking her life away! We were both of us too young for this, and she didn't know! I should've known, I should've—!"
Decency and the remembering of his present company shut him up.
"Well, you don't have to shout at your tea for it," his mother said primly, "And it's rather, er, late for second thoughts, isn't it?"
Her son's forehead hit the table, and she smiled slyly to herself. He was a good boy, really, if somewhat excitable.
"She looks beautiful, doesn't she?" she continued.
". . . Yeff. . ."
And she really was.
She was in the later part of the second trimester, at the 'cute' stage, where enough of her stomach had grown without appearing gigantic. While pregnancies in this state were admirable in the women of England, on Tarzan it bespoke something...sweetly primordial, as things involving Tarzan would...
She'd long forgone most pretenses of clothing once her physiology began to change, and honestly Mum hadn't blamed or minded.
James hadn't minded either, though he was understandably...agitated.
Tarzan was obviously influencing him, because he'd felt many 'instincts' lately about his wife, which made for interesting think-studies relating the drives of base humanity compared to the norms of civilisation, but...his wife...
With her dark skin, pulled-back hair, straighter posture, and that cute little slight waddle she'd been getting that stirred him strangely...
He wanted to keep her in sight more, and out of sight of others, feed her more, protect her more, feel her more...
He flushed, thankful his expressions (and other indicators) were kept in the privacy of his arms and the table.
Where soon-to-be mothers he'd seen before he simply labeled as soon-to-be mothers, Tarzan was...honestly she was a veritable fertility idol.
Beautiful, sensual, adorable, strong, vulnerable, and she was his, and that way because of him, for him...
And then the other side of the coin showed its judgmental face.
She was that way because of him. How could he have changed her so much? How dare he?
The scientist in him chastised him constantly for 'tainting' the perfect specimen that was Tarzan, for tainting her with the outside world and bringing her into conflict with it. How would they raise the child? How could he ask her to? Would it be another 'Tarzan'? Would she be able to truly love it while it slowly became an alien to her? Would he be able to let their child become an alien to either world? If it came to it, could he let them both go?
. . . Whose eyes would it have?
Why was he such a despicable human being?
Blue or pink?
He'd been an irresponsible, foolish, selfish person to go into this without planning.
'Nest' or cradle?
What kind of environment was he bringing this child into?
Could he import a schooling packet?
Medical records, you didn't keep an exact tab on medical records, you dolt!
He blinked as a tea strainer was swinging gently in front of his face.
"Just checking." his mother laughed, and he flushed, when they heard a creak on the windowsill.
"Hello." he heard Tarzan say from the window.
He turned to her quickly, and then stared.
"Argl." James said eloquently.
"Hello, dear!" his mother said, admirably unfazed, "Good weather?"
Tarzan nodded, stepping in carefully while using her spear as a support, and James quietly continued on through his personal purgatory.
". . . I brought fruit, Porter-Mum." she continued after a moment, carefully offering up a pineapple.
James thought half-coherently that when he saw a pineapple from then on he'd have to take pause and quietly review his life.
"I would..." Tarzan began, and then looked uncomfortable, "I would like James to...take care of this fruit, and talk to Porter-Mum about..."
Tarzan glanced at the table, "Tea?"
Suddenly James was shoved out of his chair, "You heard your wife, James Archimedes Porter, go take care of the lovely pineapple!"
He dumbly walked towards his wife, painfully aware of her and of the fact that his own mother was in the room.
"Nice..." he began to comment, to just say something, and then found lack of things to comment besides everything.
"Tarzan looks nice." he finished, and quickly took the pineapple, heedless of its rather painful spines, and quickly left the room.
Clearly, there was more to this than pineapples and tea, though he honestly couldn't scavenge the brain cells to question it.
There were more immediate concerns to take care of that required his attention anyway.
"Well," Porter-Mum said after James left, "I appreciate your trying to use 'distraction and diversion', Tarzan, very good effort. Though in your current state of, er, undress, there was too much of the first and a rather lot of zip on the second.
We both know you know him enough by now to know that.
Here, at least wear a tablecloth before the poor boy comes in again and faints or something. New house-nest rule."
"It is good weather." Tarzan replied, smiling perhaps a bit more than she should have.
She made a spare tablecloth into a makeshift toga, and was about to sit down.
Porter-Mum raised a finger, "Where do spears go, darling?"
Tarzan hesitated, "Not at the table." she remembered, and propped it carefully beside the window.
"Good girl!" the older woman praised. "Now..."
She smiled, "Is this really about tea?"
Tarzan looked ashamed at the tabletop, ". . . No."
"I heard something about pineapple?" the window spoke again.
They both turned to it, and Tarzan smiled, "Mother!"
She got up, with maybe a little difficulty, and went to embrace Kala, who chuckled as she looked at her daughter.
"You look lovely," Kala told her, brushing her knuckles carefully over the bulge partly concealed and displayed by the tablecloth.
She looked to Porter-Mum, "She's healthy?"
"Yes, everything looks fine, so far." the woman told her, "We were just going to have some female-bonding and potential gossip over the pretense of discussing tea. Would you like to join? I could scavenge some more eats, but..."
"I'd love to," the gorilla replied, laughing, "And don't worry." she held up an impressive armful of other fruits, and everyone grinned.
After an impromptu bowl of fruit salad mess was on the table, everyone got comfortable, and Tarzan said what was on her mind.
"I don't know how to take care of a baby." Tarzan sighed.
When Kala frowned she corrected herself, "A human baby."
She scratched her head uncomfortably, one hand naturally placed on her swelling stomach.
"Gorilla babies, yes, but James' babies?" she looked sad, "I don't know, and worry I will be a bad mother to James' babies."
"Well, fortunately you're talking to some women who both have experience with that..." Porter-Mum laughed, and Kala smirked.
Tarzan blinked in realization at her gorilla mother, who patted her hand, "Tarzan, first off, there is going to be some 'knowing'..." Kala told her, and smiled, "When I first found you, I tried to put you on my back. You couldn't grip, so I carried you in my arm. Feeding you was no problem, though, you'd eat pretty much everything I tried feeding you, especially when your teeth came in." She grinned, "And some things you learned yourself to not eat."
Tarzan made a face, remembering those lessons.
"You want to learn about human babies?" Porter-Mum asked, and both Tarzan and Kala looked interested.
She grinned, "I'll go get my scrapbook!"
"Babies will cry a lot," she warned them, setting the impressively thick book on the table.
"For food, or discomfort, or for reasons we don't really know. How did you deal with Tarzan, Kala?"
"She learned to cry properly quickly," Kala recalled, "But it was still for very much those reasons. But her cloth helped with her messes, since she didn't have fur," Tarzan blushed, picking at her tablecloth toga, "And then it seemed that the cloths would be Tarzan's fur."
"I'd wondered," Porter-Mum observed, "Why she'd worn anything in the first place. I guess it's because she always did."
"I got my own fur." Tarzan felt the need to point out, "Sort of, later on." she grumbled.
"Lullabies helped when she cried." Kala said with a smile.
"James was always good with Sleep, Baby, Sleep for a while," Porter-Mum commented, talking about Tarzan's husband, "Until it was his Father's turn to tuck him in, then he learned the singing version of the table of elements, so I stuck with that ever since."
She then noticed Tarzan and Kala's slightly misty smiles, and coughed to herself, "He was an owlish little boy, even as a baby. Here."
She gestured proudly to pictures of a chubby baby boy with impossibly huge eyes.
Tarzan and Kala both instinctively 'cooed' and 'awwed' and giggled at what was Tarzan's first observation of a human baby. And it was James.
She glanced at her stomach, and then at the picture. Would this picture one day be something that was hers?
Of course it would.
Then Porter-Mum told them the stories behind the pictures.
Everyone would laugh.
Then Kala told of Tarzan baby stories.
Then Porter-Mum and Kala would laugh and Tarzan would defiantly curl around her own stomach.
Then Porter-Mum found more photo albums.
James came back later to stacks of books taking over the tea table, and found Tarzan relatively clothed (both a relief and a disappointment) and Kala keeping the other two females company. Then he saw what was in the books they were perusing with such interest.
He coughed, and the women looked up at him.
"So, how goes the talking about..." he glanced pointedly at the picture books, "Tea?"
Tarzan's grin broke out first, and then a chuckle escaped, and then they all started laughing.
James gave a well put-upon sigh, "How did you get all these here from England, Mum?"
"I have my ways, dear. Ooh-ooh, I found the one of you in your Dad's cricket helmet! Oh, look at this! Aww, how old were you, two?"
He looked at the picture. It was the one where he wore only the cricket helmet.
Tarzan's husband's forehead met the tabletop with a solid thunk.
Kala patted him gently, still wiping mirthful tears from her eyes.
. . .
Tarzan was resting on her side, facing James as he got into bed.
"I will love your baby, James." she told him, before he'd blow the lamp out, and he looked at her.
She was smiling, "I will be a good mother."
"And I will love your baby," he replied tiredly, with a soft smile, and blew out the light before giving her a soft, lingering kiss to her lips, to her shoulder, her neck, small, sweet touches in the dark, before holding her to curl into him, sharing their subtle body heat, "Our baby." he continued, yawning in spite of himself, "And I hope to...to be a good father..."
"You will be." she told him, watching him as he fell asleep.
She looked down at her stomach, their baby, at the bulge of her body that rested between theirs, and noted how James' hand rested on it, instinctively, and put her hand over his own. She smiled, quietly, needing only to know, and let herself drift to sleep, imagining three hearts here in the nest-room...
Two worlds.
Three hearts.
One family...