Dear Readers: Thank you. I love to read your reactions to my story, to include reading that you laugh aloud at work! To my reviewer, who, after laughing, decided to read poetry to help fall asleep (like boring Elizabeth) – I had forgotten about that! : ) Sometimes, I forget what I've written and which story for which I've written it! Loved your mention of it.

To my French reader : Merci pour votre avis. Ma mère me l'a traduit. J'ai essayé d'apprendre le français avant de visiter le Canada l'année dernière, mais j'ai très peu appris. Je vais devoir réessayer!

CHAPTER 66 – ADMISSION

Jack gently maneuvered Aaron's last limb into his suit, velcro-ed it closed, and looked around the waiting area, scanning it for Elizabeth, who had been gone longer than he had expected. He had messaged her after hearing the announcement that the flight would be boarding, but she hadn't responded.

His face showed his relief at seeing her approach.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah."

"You seem kind of frazzled."

"I'm fine. Just worried about the trip. Silly stuff. You know that I don't like take-offs. How's he doing in that thing?" she asked with a nod towards their son.

"Fine. He's still half a sleep. Grab the helmet, and let's get in line." Jack touched his hand to her back for a fleeting but tender moment. "Don't worry. Everything will be fine."

Boarding the transport was efficient and the family was quickly settled into their assigned grey bucket-seats in a row to themselves.

Jack, who was in the aisle seat, proudly smiled and returned pleasantries as passengers walking past them to their own seats grinned and remarked at how adorable the littlest space passenger looked.

From what Elizabeth remembered, the pre-flight check would take about an hour. Then would come the loud sounds as the engine prepared for lift off, the thumping of the valves, the rumbling of the engine fires, and then the movement. Going from zero to seventeen thousand miles per hour in eight and a half minutes. G-Forces would be pressing her against her seat as if she had four hundred pounds sitting on her chest. And the lack of gravity until the ship turned on the artificial version.

Elizabeth felt Jack's eyes on her but she avoided looking at him and pretended to be concentrating on the information pamphlet in the seat pocket.

How does he always know when somethings bothering me?! I should have chosen a less attentive husband.

Okay, that's just stupid. I love Jack. I don't want another husband. I just need him to be less attentive!

Less attentive. That's it. I have to hold off on romance with him.

Make it a once- a- month kind of thing. That's normal, right? Once a month.

How am I going to do that?

I'll just be cold and unfeeling. . . . while still be loving.

Obviously, I want him to know that I love him. I just won't want to actually MAKE love to him.

I'll use Aaron as an excuse. That he makes me so tired I can't even think of romance.

Having a baby comes in handy!

. . . . . I just don't want another one soon.

"You sure you're okay?" Jack looked over at Elizabeth who was sitting two seats away and interrupted her thoughts. The baby, who had woken up, was strapped into the seat between them and busily smashing the rattle side of Julie's face into one of his arm rests.

Oh, this is stupid. Jack's always going to be attentive and I can't pretend to be tired twenty- nine days out of every month.

Or can I?

"I'm just tired," Elizabeth piped up a little too eagerly.

"Really? I thought you slept pretty well last night." He gave her an odd look. "You don't seem tired at all."

"Oh I am." She sighed deeply for emphasis.

Jack looked as if he was going to say something, but then decided instead to concentrate on Aaron who had slumped forward and was now chewing on one of the seat's armrests which he had quickly covered in baby drool.

"Let's just lean back and relax until lift-off", Elizabeth added with an exaggerated yawn before closing her eyes and settling against her seat back.

That wasn't so hard. I just have to do that over the next seven hundred and thirty days, she reasoned.

I bet he wants a break from romance anyway.

He'll probably appreciate that we won't be having sex that often. Too much of a good thing can be a turn-off.

With her eyes closed, Elizabeth didn't notice when Jack unbuckled his harness and leaned against the middle seat, but she heard him speaking softly in her ear.

"I love you. Don't worry about the lift-off. In an hour, we'll be in our quarters. Where we will spend the next four months in privacy enjoying our time together. Think about that instead of the lift-off", he said suggestively.

Jack gave her a quick kiss on the lips and then returned his attention to Aaron who had moved from tasting the seat arm to trying to eat his harness. "Hey, little fella', what happened to your rattle?"

It had been less than a minute since Elizabeth had closed her eyes and pretended to be settling her nerves. Pretend was the optimal word. Her nerves were the farthest thing from settled. Especially after Jack's comment and kiss.

Soooo, apparently I was wrong about thinking he would appreciate a break from romance.

I will just have to be indifferent to him. Remain cold. Unfeeling.

How can I be indifferent to him when we're sharing a ten-foot by ten-foot room?!

He's one-hundred and eighty-pounds of the most well-proportioned attractive man I have ever seen.

Especially when he takes his shirt off.

And his hair is messed up.

And he's lifting something so his arm muscles are really obvious.

And he's looking at me.

Or even when he's not looking at me. In fact, when he's not looking at me and doesn't even know I'm watching him, it's quite sexy.

The more Elizabeth thought about Jack, the more she realized that five packs of condoms – she never intended to use the free glow-in-the dark - wasn't going to be enough for the next two years.

I just have to tell him.

Stop being a ninny.

How bad can it be?

"You what?!" Jack bellowed.

Elizabeth immediately wondered if maybe she shouldn't have told him what had happened at her doctor's appointment a few days earlier.

"Shhhhh! Don't say anything! I'm not allowed on the flight without it."

"That's WHAT you forgot?! That's what you've been trying to remember?!" he asked without lowering his voice.

Elizabeth nodded guiltily and then looked around to make sure they didn't have unwanted attention. "Quiet," she mumbled and moved her hands to remind him to lower his voice.

"You said that you thought it had something to do with baking! What does this have to do with baking?!"

Elizabeth winced. "Because I didn't want a bun in the oven. That's what you called it once."

Jack slapped his hand over his face. "I can't believe this."

"Now don't get upset. It's not so bad."

Jack looked at her incredulously. "Not so bad? We've got to get off this flight. We can't risk you getting pregnant again in space. It's too dangerous. Especially because we're not heading in the right direction! We're going into deep space."

"We can't get off," she whispered hoarsely.

"Yes, we can."

"No, we can't."

"Of course we can," he said as he began to unbuckle. "The engines haven't started yet. We just have to tell them you're not medically cleared."

"We can't," she repeated emphatically and then paused to wait for a flight attendant to pass their row.

"Why not?"

"They'd make me get off, but not you and Aaron. Dr. Fletcher already listed him as a scientific pediatric study so I could get that extra weight allowance in cargo for his stuff," she reminded Jack. "He's on official orders now and so are you. You two can't just decide that you aren't going to go. I'm the only one of the three of us that's listed as an optional family member. You two are going to Coal Valley whether I go or not."

She saw by Jack's reaction, that he knew she was right. If he chose to get off the flight at this point, he'd be in violation of official orders. Which meant the end of his career. And possible jail time. She'd rather give up sex than have him in jail.

"How could you forget?"

"I've been on the bi-monthly pill and –"

"Wait. Did you bring them with you?" he interrupted hopefully.

Elizabeth shook her head. "No. Because the last one ran out next week anyway and I meant to get the birth control device implanted. I just got busy."

"She dropped it on the floor? The device?"

"Yes."

"Couldn't she just pick it up?"

"It's tiny! It's not like it's some huge thing getting implanted in me! You want her to have been scrounging around on the floor looking for it?"

"Why not?!" Jack blurted out. "You could have helped her look for it."

"Gotten down on the floor in my paper gown and crawled around on my hands and knees?"

"Yes. And then she could have popped it into your hip or whatever."

Elizabeth gave him a disagreeable look. "Only if you wanted me to be implanted with an unsterile chip that may have been damaged when it hit the floor."

"You probably had enough time to wait for her to get another one." Jack grumbled.

"I didn't think I did."

"How long would it have taken?"

"I don't know exactly," Elizabeth answered with a tone of disgust. She didn't like where this conversation was going. Or had been going.

"She just had to go down the hall or whatever. You could have been a bit late for Aaron's appointment. Why didn't you just wait?"

Elizabeth huffed. "I had a lot going on. I didn't want Aaron to be barred from the flight. He needed his appointment to be cleared. Stop interrogating me. I'm not a criminal and I didn't commit a crime."

"Technically, you did. You boarded this flight on false paperwork."

"What are you going to do? Arrest me?" she challenged.

"I think that would have the opposite effect of what we want to happen," he said coldly and with raised eyebrows. "You in handcuffs and under my authority? It would be a bit too provocative I think."

Elizabeth felt her cheeks redden as she pictured the image. "Oh, hush," she muttered.

Jack gently lifted Aaron's face off of the armrest. "Hand me his pacifier."

Elizabeth pulled the silicone soother out of her pocket and maneuvered it into her son's mouth before the boy could return to mauling the support between the seats which apparently tasted better than his harness.

"We are not having another one in space," Jack said under his breath.

"At the rate you're going, we're never having another one," she muttered back bitterly.

Jack ignored her retort and tried to think reasonably. Sensibly. Like a man who hadn't just been told that he was not going to be able to be intimate with the woman he loved for the next two years unless he was willing to risk having a baby in space.

"I can't believe you forgot. You remembered to sell the mini-transporter but this . .. THIS you forgot?!"

"Yes, I forgot. I forgot," she grumbled.

"You remembered my dry cleaning for Pete's sake!" he said in bafflement. "I could have done without a few shirts."

"Well you are anyway because I used some of your weight allowance and left some of your shirts behind," she shot back before she realized it probably wasn't a good idea to bring up that fact on top of the other larger problem.

"What are we going to do?"

"About your shirts?"

"No, not about my shirts," he replied in exasperation. "About the more pressing problem of how we are going to deal with not having another little Acorn for the next two years. Because as much as I love Acorn and am glad we have -–"

"Acorn?! Excuse me, did you say acorn?"" a man passing down the aisle stopped and interrupted Jack. "Because I have a nut allergy. I was assured that there would be no nuts on this transporter. I was specifically told that I didn't need to worry about nuts." The worried man swiveled his head and spoke loudly to the other passengers. "Does anyone know if acorns cause an allergic reaction? These people brought acorns aboard the transporter."

"We did not bring acorns," Jack protested but his voice was barely heard above the buzz of chatter which had now started due to the other man's exclamation.

"You should be okay," a man two rows back chimed out as he stood up. "I'm a botanist. Acorns have never caused an adverse reaction in humans."

"Don't eat green ones, "a woman with her hair piled high in a bun spoke out. "They have tannin. Too much has been known to cause squirrels to act crazy. I study rodents," she added when people stared at her. "Rodents. Like squirrels and chipmunks and rats. And tannin isn't good for the digestive system," she added for good measure before turning to talk to the man next to her who seemed suddenly interested in her.

"Can someone get a flight attendant over here? This needs to be addressed."

"Why would they bring acorns aboard?" a woman in front of them asked. "The transporter provides all our food."

"If I had known we could bring our own food, I would have brought my jerky," a burly man spoke out.

"I'm allergic to shellfish. Did they bring shellfish?" a petite woman called out.

"We do not have acorns or shellfish." Jack stood partially up in his seat and addressed the other passengers in a firm but impatient voice. "I was referring to our son."

"Your son is a nut?"

"No, our son is not a nut! His name is Aaron Daniel. We call him Acorn." Jack announced and then sat back down in a huff and clean indication that the discussion of the topic was over.

Elizabeth waited five seconds to allow the other passengers to stop staring in their direction and whispering about their son's "stupid" nickname, and for Jack to cool down before looking at him.

"As I was saying before we were interrupted", he told her. "I love you. And I love Aaron, but we have a problem. What are we going to do for the next two years? Or until we can get another transporter to bring us something. That's at least five or six months."

"I've got it handled."

"You handled it?" His eyes narrowed in confusion. "When?"

"While you were in the waiting area."

"You handled it while I was in the waiting area just now?"

"Yes."

"What?" he asked wryly. "Did you go to the ladies' restroom and perform a hysterectomy on yourself?"

"Don't be stupid," she hissed and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Take a DIY course on vasectomies? Because I'm telling you right now that I'm not going for that."

"Hush. Look." Elizabeth reached under her seat and pulled out her handbag. She held open the sides, so Jack could see the contents inside.

"A toothbrush and toothpaste?" he questioned in bafflement.

"No, not that," she said hastily. "Under that. Look." She moved aside her dental care regime and showed him the recently acquired packets.

Jack looked less than thrilled at the contents of her bag.

"I hope that's a magical bag and those things multiple."

Up Next: Chapter 67.