I woke up the next morning completely disoriented, unsure of where I was or how I had gotten to be there. My last memory of the night before was Owen carrying me into Arizona's house, but anything beyond that could very easily have been a dream. I was tangled up in sheets and blankets, fully aware of Owen's body snuggled against mine. He was awake, but his arm was still wrapped tightly around me and his lips were just barely brushing against my hair.
He had really stayed all night.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," he murmured, leaning his head down and kissing my shoulder.
"You're still here?"
"Where else would I be?"
"I don't know…work? Your own house?"
He laughed. "Day off. And I asked Robbins if I could stay with you. She said I had to either leave or hide by the time Sofia got up for school, so that she wouldn't ask questions, but I was allowed to stay because you slept through all of that by…um…a bit."
I sat up, looking wildly around for my phone to check the time.
"It's almost ten," Owen said. "You slept for almost fourteen hours. I'm not going to lie, that's pretty impressive for you. Sometimes, I forget you even know how to sleep."
"The tiny human needs me to keep the caffeine to a minimum. Sleep is one of my greatest skills now."
"It is amazing," he said, starting to gently run his finger over my shoulder in small circles, "what wonderful things can happen when you don't have caffeine coursing through your veins."
I looked at him with one raised eyebrow—something that he had come to know as The Look over the years—and ran my fingers through my hair, cringing when I realized that the curls on one side of my head were crushed where I had slept on them.
"Stop." Owen tugged my hand back down. "You're beautiful. And I've got to say, it's cute watching you get all self-conscious about what your hair looks like in the morning, just because I spent the night. I've seen you in the morning before, Altman. Remember? In the desert?"
"Iraq doesn't count and you know it," I said, shoving him playfully. "And this is the first time you've spent the night for real that hasn't ended in us screaming at each other. I don't want to scare you away."
"If you're worried about scaring me away, I'd look at your face. You didn't take your makeup off last night and things shifted."
"What?"
I leapt out of bed and ran to the bathroom to get a good look in the mirror.
"Made you look," Owen called.
"I hate you so much."
"You love me. Now would you get dressed? I have plans for today that don't involve you wearing last night's clothes. No matter how gorgeous you look in them."
"You do, do you?"
"Robbins is at work. We can't just stay here and do nothing. We're going out." He paused. "Wait. How are you feeling?"
My hand unconsciously came to rest on my stomach.
"A little shaky, but I'm doing okay. Right?" I added to the baby, who, I remembered, still could not hear me.
"Good."
He opened my suitcase and put leggings and a sweater on my lap, turning to walk out of the room.
"Owen, wait," I called.
"Yeah?"
"Are you sure about this? I don't want to be a complete letdown if we go out to do something fun and it ends in you holding my hair back. The tiny human is a little unpredictable sometimes. It's why I haven't logged a lot of OR time the past couple weeks."
"You're not a letdown," he said, looking at me with a pitying expression that I'd seen him wear far too many times. "Besides, 'out' means my house. I just got a waffle iron."
"Congratulations, I think?" I teased. "Is that the most exciting thing to happen to you this month? Really?"
"If you stop making fun of me and for the love of God, get dressed, I'll tell you where the whipped cream is."
"Deal."
I slipped the purple dress off, and pulled on the leggings and sweater, conscious of Owen gazing at my stomach—he was absolutely looking for a bump, however tiny it might be. And even though he swore I wouldn't be a letdown, I pulled my half-crumpled curls into a ponytail, just in case.
I tried my hardest to get to the car door before Owen, but he somehow still beat me to it, and at this point, my face knew the drill.
"You're pretty damn cute when you're blushing," he said as I buckled my seatbelt.
"Matches your hair," I fired back.
"Cheap shot, Altman. What are you going to do if our kid's not blonde?"
"Relax, I'm messing with you. God, we are going to have the cutest kid. Blonde or not."
"Damn straight."
He absentmindedly took one hand off of the steering wheel and closed his fingers around mine. From an outsider's perspective, we probably looked like husband and wife, and for the first time since he had shown up at my door in Germany, I was okay with that.
"Get ready," Owen said as we pulled into his driveway, "for what might be the weirdest waffles you've ever had. I've never used this thing before."
"Only you would find a way to screw up putting batter in a waffle iron."
He held my hand as we walked through the door, and I tried to imagine myself living there with him. In a perfect world, a puppy would be running to meet us at the door. We would have a swing set in the backyard for when the tiny human got to be a little less tiny—but no way in hell would we have a mini-van. Family pictures would cover every single wall. California would be our usual vacation spot—for Disneyland and Megan.
But the farther into the house we walked, the more uneasy I got, until I froze just outside the kitchen.
"What? Are you okay?" Owen asked, setting the waffle iron on the counter and rushing back over to me. "Is this a baby thing or a you thing?"
"It's a me thing," I said softly. "I see her everywhere."
"Who? Are you pulling some Sixth Sense crap on me? Do you see dead people? Because if you see dead people, we're moving."
"If the person's not dead, can we still move?"
He took both of my hands in his and pulled me into a hug, resting his chin on my shoulder.
"Amelia?"
"I'm trying to ignore it. I promise. But all of these things that we have now—you wanted them with her at one point in your life, and I know you don't want it with her now. But that kind of thing just…it lingers, you know? I can picture her here with you. The image in my head right now…it's not pretty."
His lips came to rest on mine—the first time we had kissed like that since Germany.
"We'll move. We'll move anywhere you want. I said I would move across the world for you. That's still true. I have nothing attaching me to this house right now. You know what I'm attached to now?"
He pressed his hand flat against my stomach.
"You. And the baby. I'm attached to my family."
"Promise?"
"Promise." He laughed. "You look like you're about to cry. Come here, I want to show you something."
I followed him into the kitchen.
"Close your eyes."
"Owen, what the hell is so special about a waffle iron that I have to close my eyes for it?"
"Just do it. Trust me."
I made a point of rolling my eyes at him before I closed them, and for good reason—my eyes hadn't been closed longer than a couple seconds before he blasted me in the face with whipped cream
"OWEN!"
"I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. You're kind of an easy target," he said, handing me a paper towel.
"You said you'd tell me where it was, not start an attack with it."
"Same difference," he said with a shrug. "Hey, are you sure you're okay? Your whole face just went white as a sheet."
"I'm—just give me a second—I just need to take some deep breaths and I'll be okay. This happens—every day. I'm actually starting to get used to it."
"Is this a baby thing?"
I nodded and put one hand on the counter to steady myself—my legs felt weak and shaky, almost numb. Miracle baby or not, morning sickness was a bitch, and our tiny human wasn't exactly known for its great timing.
"Come here," he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. "I've got you, it's okay."
He half-carried me down the hall, setting me down gently on the bathroom floor and sitting on the edge of the bathtub next to me. I leaned against his leg, closing my eyes and fighting the urge to cry.
"This happens every day?"
"Every day. I have about six weeks of it left, according to the books I've read. In most cases it stops around week twelve."
"So you're like…Superwoman."
"Hunt. Wonder Woman. Supergirl. We've talked about this."
"Nerd."
I gave him the best smile that I could under the circumstances, and hugged his leg like a child.
"Don't you have a waffle iron to get back to?"
"Waffles can wait until you're feeling better."
"You don't have to stay with me for this, you know. My hair's in a ponytail, so it's not like you need to hold it for me or anything."
"I know it is," he said, bending down to kiss the top of my head. "I was going to rub your back instead."