She didn't want to have this conversation, the last time they had a scare they almost broke up for good. But as usual for Mac and Lucy, when it rained it poured, bad news came in threes and she was waiting for number three. Her period was late, very late and that was not like her. The depo provera had made her regular as the sunrise and she was weeks late now.

Lucy understood, the chances of birth defects were high because of their close bloodline, and at 16 she didn't want any babies, she was 23 now, fast approaching 24 and not so sure anymore. After the movie and his confession it was time for her confession, they took a shower together because they always did and then got into bed.

"I feel like I should hate you and I can't," She started to cry and he wrapped his arms around her, and she felt safe again. This could be fixed, there wasn't anything they couldn't fix together. They would leave, and go far away, "I love you, I've never loved anyone but you and I don't know how to do this without you."

"You don't have to..." He pulled her head down on his shoulder and ran his hand through her hair, "Carina, we're gonna fix it, I'll ..."

"I think I'm pregnant." She whispered.

"How can that be? Lucy, you're on the shot. "

"I don't fucking know Mac."

She looked up at him and he rolled over so that they were face to face.

"Are you mad at me?" She asked.

"Ain't mad, scared."

He pulled her close.

"Me too." She whispered and cried some more.

/

Two days later she got her period and realized she had been so stressed out the past few weeks that it finally affected her that way. She had followed him six weeks ago and since then she had been holding it all inside, she had stopped eating regularly and Mac had thought she was sick like his mother had been. He was an observant man and he had noticed her weight loss, he didn't like it, he liked her curvy. At the time, at first he thought she was dieting, but then he watched her more and realized she wasn't eating at all.

He sat on the bed as she came out of the bathroom, relieved to know she wasn't sick, even if she was pregnant. They would figure it out like they had been figuring stuff out all their lives.

"I'm not..."

"Thank Christ!"

She sat down next to him and he pulled her close to him and ran his hands through her hair.

"Maybe we could..." Lucy said, "I'm kind of sad that I'm not."

"Are you fucking nuts?"

"Other people do it Mac... we could too we aren't special or unique. Just two people who love each other."

"But, the genetics...I'm a fuckin bad risk if you didn't already know that."

"I'm willing to chance it.' She sat up and looked at him with a huge smile on her face, "Imagine, a little boy like you were."

"That's a disaster waiting to happen," He laughed, but then he considered that for a minute and a little girl, with dark hair that looked just like her floated through his mind.

"You make me wanna be a better man Lucy, I didn't see it but you did, you always did." He said, " But I got a long way to go, and I don't want to let you down."

"Told ya I'm not going anywhere unless it's with you, you're my life good, bad and ugly."

He smiled at that.

"We can get Rings and wear them, we won't have to pretend." She whispered, "I can take your name."

Lucy Garcia, it had a certain ring to it he had to admit and he found that he liked the thought of her pregnant with his child... maybe they could leave. Maybe it was possible, it seemed so reachable all of the sudden.

/

The dream was so real that when he woke up he was surprised that they weren't in the little house by the ocean he had seen. The house with the white fence and new paint job. He had the feeling that it was he who painted it, although maybe they had done it together. It was dark blue with black shutters and there was a deck that wrapped around the entire thing. He and Lucy sat out on that deck every day, just talking and being together. Somehow he just knew it.

She had her perfume store and he had a straight job as a mechanic, he wasn't using and he wasn't fighting the demon anymore. They had a life. It had felt so real.

There were children playing in a yard, their children, two, a boy and a girl and Lucy was holding a baby with dark hair like hers. She sat on a glider rocker on the deck feeding the baby and singing softly. He had been working in the yard, raking leaves or something and listening to her, "I got sunshine on a cloudy day, when it's cold outside I got the month of May..." sometimes she sang Tupelo Honey, today it was My Girl.

In that town, they were just an ordinary married couple, a family. They were far away from the dark misery of Utah and the Canyon life.

As he sat up and looked around the room he knew with absolute certainty he wanted that, all of it. He wanted the children that he was so afraid to have, he wanted her to be able to wear his ring for the world to see instead of hiding from everyone. He wanted it all, could he have it? Could they really leave and start over where no one knew them? He believed maybe they could, maybe they had a chance.

As long as her mother was alive and the gossip mill of this small town existed it could never be if they stayed here in this shit hole place. Lucy would be vulnerable too if she was officially his woman. Too many people both friends and foes would try to get to him through her. It was too risky.

His own mother had pulled him aside before she passed away and told him she knew, that she had always known.

When he was two his mother had put Lucy in his care, and as she gripped his hand before taking her last breath she told him she was proud of him. She said that he and Lucy were a good thing, that what they had was nothing to be ashamed of, but also she understood why they kept it secret. She said he had done a good job.

It really was no secret, not really. More of a don't ask don't tell situation, they lived together, shared a bed but one knew they had snuck off and got married. Lucy had a room at the house, the room she always had since childhood but she never slept there now.

Mac still felt it was better for her if their relationship was ambiguous to the small world they lived in now. It was a necessary evil, to keep her safe.

But now he wanted the dream.

So let's go there
Let's make our escape.
So let's go there,
Let's ask if we can stay.

Higher by Creed

"Luce. I had the most amazing dream," He said to her as he ran his hands through his hair, "We had three kids. And a house by the ocean. "

He pulled her down next to him and wrapped his arms around her, laying a kiss on the side of her face.

"I want to. I want that dream, Luce, for me and you."