Stealth.
Ok, she could do that. Be stealthy, quiet, unseen.
"Don't even think about it Megan." Her prey, Altair, says looking over in her general direction.
Err, maybe not…
She comes out of the ferns that help line the trees in the warmer weather. It was summer time once more. Time for short skirts, shorts, and tank tops. Connor nearly had a heart attack this morning when she came down the stairs wearing the outfit for the day, which consisted of a gray spaghetti strap tank, cargo shorts and some black socks with black athletic sketchers. Ezio was going to teach her about stealth today, hence why she was hunting Altair. The score so far was:
Altair: 17
Megan: 0
And it was only 3 in the afternoon. She plops down on the grass just shy of the Arabian man and pulls out a few blades which she makes scream, catching said man flinching at the sound. She raises an eyebrow and sets the foliage back down on the ground after soundly shredding it. He walks the short distance to her and crosses his arms over his chest, waiting on her to stand up. She sighs and clambers to her feet, dusting off her rear and legs.
"Watch, it takes time to learn how to be silent."
Megan was tired and sore and annoyed. She was going to pay back Ezio for making her use Altair as bait. The Master had rather enjoyed it, much to her irritation, and she didn't know if he was happy to have someone to teach or if he was enjoying it because of the fact it was irritating her. Ezio she knew was doing some of the things out of the need to make her miserable, if only a little. She had to admit that the three men, Ezio and Altair and Desmond, felt like brothers to her with how they treated her. Leo was like the loveable best friend, Malik was the wise uncle or father like figure, Shaun the smartass best friend. But Connor, where did Connor fit in with this brood of men-children she had acquired?
"Megan, Altair; how did it go?" Ezio questions, turning around on the two of them. Megan flops down into the plush chair and groans.
"I suck at this."
"It couldn't have been that bad." Desmond says as he takes a swig of beer from the bottle in his hands.
Megan sits up in the chair with a rather flat look on her face. "I couldn't get him once." She says, pointing at the oldest Assassin who chuckles while getting out a beer for himself and a glass of tea for the girl. He walks over to her and hands her the drink then sits down on the couch.
"You sound like the novice. When he first started he could not keep quiet ever." Altair gives the other Arab a dirty look while Malik smirks as he continues making scrambled eggs. She had been teaching them all to make different kinds of food so she wouldn't be the only one cooking around the house. Malik had found the breakfast foods the easiest to make and particularly found that he enjoyed making eggs. So tonight was going to be breakfast for dinner. He already had toast and biscuits sitting out and coffee was in the pot waiting. Leonardo stood off to the side of him; he was going to be the one who made bacon. Both of the older Assassins still refused to eat bacon and hot dogs. That little tidbit of info she didn't want them to find out was thanks to Desmond opening his big mouth one day when they were having a bbq and the man in question having had one to many beers.
Megan takes a swig of her drink, lumbers back to her feet and goes into her study. The boxes that held onto her axed manuscripts were lying on the floor of the room, the lids to the respective owning box lying beside or against it. She filters through a couple of them, an idea of what she wanted to give to her publisher rising up in her mind. Every so often she would stop and take another drink of her tea, finishing the glass before she realized it. She stares at it for a moment, shrugs, and continues on pulling boxes over to her and setting aside different stacks of paper beside her to send off to her publisher.
Connor watches the girl, small and quiet yet feisty and strong. He had a respect for her he hadn't had for any woman of any race since his mother.
Granted the girl would chide him as a mother does but only when she would get very worried. And he had a new found respect to the world around him after watching the moving paintings she called Law and Order; it was a dangerous world they were now in and he had to admit that even he would not survive if anything had happened to him on his little excursion in New York. He wished for simpler times like he had been in before coming to this time. But then again he couldn't say that he didn't enjoy being here, just didn't understand most of what happened.
He watches as she puts away the boxes and sets the papers out on her desk, putting on her glasses and delving into the make believe world she created with words. She easily got lost in it, he finds out when Alex sticks his head in the front door and calls her name a few times. Dinner was done and Malik had brought her a plate of food that she absently was eating, gnawing on a piece of bacon. Alex, rolling his eyes, comes inside looks around the corner of the hall to find her study door open and he walks into the doorway and stands there, waiting…
"Meg."
She squeaks, the plate clattering to the floor. Alex was shaking from holding in his laughter though the rest, excluding Connor, were howling with laughter. "I hate when you do that."
"Make it up to you later but I need you to come help with something though." He hears a sigh and the chair moving and the girl follows Alex out of the house. The rest of them relax after the meal, waiting for them to enter back into the house.
The two didn't.
Surprised, all the Assassins converge and go out the front door; instincts on high alert. They look around, finding the girl's vehicles are in their spots but neither person is anywhere near.
All of a sudden, water bombards the unsuspecting crowd. They scramble for safety, all diving in different directions. Megan's raucous laughter causes them to look to the roof and finds the two of them sitting there with a trash bag full of water balloons and other toys of doom. She continues to bombards them with the water filled plastic until there were no more. She pulls out a large water gun, pumping it up to shoot. "Alrighty boys. There are various super soakers hidden in the front lawn. You find it you can use it on anyone." And then she aims at Connor, who was frowning up at her from behind the lonely little tree in her front yard, and fires at him. Alex takes hold of her and jumps off the roof, landing gently on the ground, and setting her on his shoulders. The two of them were working together against the rest, and laughter, loud and exuberant and a whole heartedly enjoyed sound, rang in the man-made clearing.
When the water war was over with all parties involved were still trying to force water out of the empty toys but they were all happy. Megan climbs off Alex's shoulders and gives him a quick peck on the cheek. "That was so much fun."
Malik, Ezio, and Altair grin. "That is how you catch someone off guard." Connor says a small smile on his own face. The girl's lights up and she bounces around happily, giving each man a hug.
"Ya know if you taught stuff like this, it would be so much fun." She says to Ezio who in turn pretends to have a coronary. She rolls her eyes and ushers the men inside, all of them peeling off their wet clothes as they head upstairs. Megan stands and watches the procession, silently admiring the view. 'It's times like these that I am wonder how the hell I got so lucky to have some of the best male specimens live with me. And wonder where the fuck were the people who looked like them when I was in High School?'
'Ok, Alex is downstairs with the rest of the guys.' Megan thinks, locking the door to her bathroom and setting the little stick sitting in the sink after pouring out the liquid and throwing the paper cup in the trash. She waits anxiously for the results. She had been feeling off, if only slightly but didn't say anything about it. That is until she realized that she had missed her cycle since a month after they had returned home from New York. Now she was worried.
She sat on the toilet, worrying her bottom lip, waiting for two minutes to be over. Finally it was and she closes her eyes, takes a deep breathe, and looks at it.
Two pink lines.
Megan thought she was going to faint. It was the EPT brand and they were spot on from what she could tell. She looks up at herself in the mirror, reading the shock in her own eyes, before the orbs travel down to her belly. She stands straight and turns to her side, examining herself. She didn't look any different than normal; she was still skinny, still a stick. But then she thinks of Alex and the rest of the men in her home. She wishes they could tell her how far along she was.
Would they be able to handle it? She knew she could, her track record with her nieces and nephews had spoken volumes about it. She could be a mother; she was with the men at times. But could they handle a small crying child? It wasn't like they could make it stay quiet and it was absolutely helpless. It would need to be taken care of and loved and coddled. Would Alex be able to do that? Could he? He was gentle with her, so much so now that the thought of him having broken her arm so long ago seemed foreign and strange to her.
Someone knocks on the bathroom door after jiggling the handle. "Megan, you ok in there?"
She wipes away a few escaped tears that were crawling slowly down her face. "Yeah, yeah I'm alright. Just give me a minute." She answers Shaun, picking up the dry end of the stick and throwing it in the trash face down. Maybe Alex wouldn't notice it. She takes a deep breath, puts on a smile, unlocks the door, and opens it. Shaun was sitting on the bed and raises a coppery-red eyebrow.
"What's wrong?" He questions, taking note of the way her entire posture had changed. Something was different or he wasn't British.
"Not a thing."
"Something is going on." Leo says watching as Megan was humming happily while surfing the net. This had been going on for nearly two months. It was August now and they were staying more indoors. The weather had changed suddenly and with brutality. It felt like late autumn instead of the beginning of it. Currently the Assassins were gathered in the kitchen after a more dangerous training day that the girl would normally have watched but didn't. In fact, they had noticed she had skipped out of several of her training sessions. It was worrying them.
"She's too… happy." Altair says after making motions with his hands before he found a word he could use. It didn't adequately cover what he was trying to say but it would do.
"Agree. Something has changed for her." Connor says and sits down his glass of tea. He really liked how tea was made nowadays compared to the 1700's. Now it was just a drink, like it should be, and not something that causes so much pain. And, he had to admit, so many much more enjoyable flavors making the stuff the British had sent seem like saw dust.
"Has anyone tried talking to her?" Malik questions, watching as she giggles and clicks a few buttons before mouthing the words 'so cute'.
"After the mystery doctor appointment, she hasn't said a thing." Desmond grumbles. After the water war they had, the very next day Megan had called in and got an appointment with some doctor that day. She had repeated the process every three weeks. She would come home happy and slightly tired. Even Alex didn't know what was going on.
"She obviously has a secret. But she's gotten good at hiding it." Shaun says and Ezio nods.
"This is one of the things I wish she hadn't picked up on so well." Was Ezio's retort.
Alex sets down his beer and goes around the bar, then up the stairs. Megan stops what she was doing to watch him, brows furrowed in confusion and looks over to the rest of them. "What's wrong with him?" She questions. Desmond lets his head drop to the counter with a 'thunk' and shakes with laughter.
"You." Was the response from the rest of the men which causes her eyebrows to shoot up to her hairline and her eyes to widen and to go to the stairs. She closes the lid on the laptop, puts it aside, and follows after the man. Desmond picks his head up off the counter.
"Maybe now we'll find out."
"Alex?" Megan questions as she comes into their room and finds the man in question sitting on his side of the bed. He was hunched up and she could tell he was on edge by the way his head snapped up to look at her.
"Did I do something wrong?" Megan blinks at him and then smiles.
"No, why would you think that?"
"You're being secretive. Something has changed." He answers and she comes into the room to sit beside him. She takes one of his hands in hers, looking at the palm and tracing the lines on it.
"Something has." She answers and releases the appendage to stand and grab something out of her purse before returning to her spot on the bed. It was a tri-folded, glossy piece of paper. She takes a breath before handing to him and he takes it, unfolding the paper to find three pictures. They were grainy and in black and white. At first he didn't understand what he was looking at until something jumps out at him on the first picture.
He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him when he realized what it was. "Is-" he swallows the lump that rises in his throat. "Is that a … head?"
Megan nods yes and scoots closer to him, looking over his shoulder at the pictures. "And that's a forming hand." She says, pointing it out to him. He could see it, just not believe it.
Megan thought the man was going to pass out.
"Uh, how… how far along?"
"Four months." 5 months, he had 5 months. Suddenly a huge smile breaks out over Alex's face and he turns to her, grabbing her so gently she barely felt it, and planting a hard kiss on her lips. When the kiss ends Megan was breathless. "Wow, ok. You're happy."
"You have no idea."
It had been a week since Megan had told Alex, and now the two of them were acting strange. Alex had become more protective, growling and bristling and shoving the men away from her when they began to roughhouse. And now the both of them could be found at the computer in the study, pointing and talking about something in hushed tones.
It was driving the Assassins crazy.
Ezio, Desmond, and Leo finally got to the end of their rope and literally crawled on the living room floor to the girl curled up, half asleep, against Alex on the couch with her favorite blanket.
"Please!" Ezio begs.
"Tell us what is going on!" Desmond had his chin resting on Megan's leg.
"We must know!" Leo says, hanging off the opposite side of the couch's arm with his hands clasped together.
Megan just blinks at them then looks at the rest of the men piled in the kitchen, waiting for the answer. She then looks at Alex who shrugs and gets more comfortable. She rolls her eyes at him. She waves all the men over to infront of the couch.
"Sit down please." She asks and, despite they all feeling like small children, do as told. Megan fishes something out of her pajama pants and hands it to Ezio since he was the nearest. It was a glossy, tri-folded paper and it was passed around. Desmond and Shaun realize near immediately once they look at it what it was. Megan puts her forefinger to her lips and both men bite their tongues and passes the paper to Altair and Malik. None of the older Assassins knew what it was.
"I do not understand." Connor says as he hands the paper back to Megan. She rolls her eyes again after taking the paper. She holds it out and points to the top most picture.
"What does this resemble?"
"A head…" Connor answers slowly, looking carefully at it before turning back to her the confused look still on his face. Suddenly the four other Assassins realize what she was getting at and Shaun and Desmond get them to remain quiet, each fighting the smile that wanted to break out over their faces.
"Uh huh, does it look like an animal's head?" Connor gives her a flat look.
"No, like that of a small child's..." His words slow down as he scrutinizes the picture once more, finding a body and hands and feet to go with the head. He suddenly jumps up, pointing at her. "Why would you allow someone to cut you open to film a growing child!?"
There was silence..
And then Megan began to howl with laughter, clutching at her ribs.
"Nobody cut her open. There's a technology that allows you to see a baby growing inside a person without causing harm." Shaun says, adjusting his glasses as he chuckles at the embarrassed look that comes over Connor's face. Megan gets up and gives him a hug, which he returns awkwardly.
"How about this, you can come with me and Alex to the OB/GYN next week so you can see what they do." She looks over at Alex who shrugs and nods in agreement. Connor gives her an unhappy look.
"I do not know.."
"To bad." She says and returns to the couch, getting comfortable once more.
"Why do I have to be here?" Connor questions, trying with all his might to sink into the hard plastic chair he was sitting in. Megan looks around and sees all the pregnant women around them talking to one another and pointing at not only Connor but Alex as well. Megan frowns, laces her arm with Alex's, and gives them a smug look which causes the divided attention to focus solely on Connor. He tries even harder to disappear.
"Ryan, Megan?" Calls a nurse who was holding open a door with her foot. Megan stands and motions for the two of them to follow. Once they get to the nurse, who give an appreciative cursory look at both males, and she takes the pen to beginning writing. "Hello Ms. Ryan, how are you today?"
"Fine." The nurse scribbles something down and motions for them to go into the hall then closes the door behind her.
"And who do we have with us today?"
"The father Alex and my cousin Connor. He's our ride today." Megan fibs to her easily, the nurse writing down something else.
"Excellent. You'll be in room 19. Just change and wait on the bed." She points to the door they were infront of and the nurse was gone down the hall.
"Alright Connor. Just stand out here for a minute and then we'll let you come in."
"I do not feel comfortable." Megan bites her tongue to keep from laughing at him.
"You'll be fine. Just stand by the door and keep your hands to yourself." Megan says after Alex goes into the room and she follows him, shutting the door quickly. She takes off her shirt and pants, slipping on the paper gown they give you to wear. Once settled, Alex opens the door and allows Connor inside the room. Connor takes the rolling chair to sit on while Alex sits on the only other chair in the room.
They wait.
Finally the door opens and in walks a short, round, balding man who freezes when he sees the two burly men in the room with the smaller woman.
"Hi Dr. Hewitt." Megan says as she gives him a short wave.
"Hello Ms. Ryan." He responds to her after looking at her chart. He looks at Alex. "Alex, I presume?" Alex nods yes. "Nice to meet you. Megan talks fondly of you." And somehow Alex was put at ease with the words. Dr. Hewitt nods over to Connor who returns the movement stiffly. "Ok, so we're going to listen to the baby's heart and get you some pictures. We also need to do some blood work and take weight."
"In that order?"
"In that order, yes."
"Look!" Megan holds up the sonogram to Connor who looks at it and then at her stomach.
"Extraordinary." He pokes a little at her stomach, which was starting to turn into a pudge. She slaps his hand away, rubbing her belly.
"The only thing I won't like is not being able to see my feet."
Alright everyone, I'm back! I have been really busy here lately, what with watching the runts and trying to find a job and my computer, phone, and nearly every other electronic I own deciding that now is the time to conspire against me, I've been having a wonderful time. -repeatedly bangs head on wall-
Anyways, I'm sorry this chapter took so long. I hope the next one wont take a month to write out. But on to the thankies!
I wanna thank Krenaya for adding me to her alert list!
And the reviews:
MoonlitMeeting: Thank you for your reviews from chapters 13, 14, 15, and 17! Unfortunately the only I ones I can answer is for 13 and 17. Yes, Alty is putting her through the ringer and is enjoying it way to much in her opinion. And Connor is just so adorkable and naive. And Megan says she is never drinking alcohol again. Connor said that he found several phone numbers stuffed into his pants from that night.
Raychaell Dionzeros: Always glad to see that you love my chapters!
Phoenix-164: Yosh, I did Alty not being able to swim! I have read others doing it and it being funny but I really didn't think it appropriate for my story. Though if you check out the outtakes I'll have some stuff in there in the next day or so.
Also, thank you for anyone who reads this and checks back on it to see if I've updated. I know that I should be updating more often but most of the plot bunnies have yet to return. But you can always reach me my pm, e-mail, twitter, tumblr, or skype. All my info is on my homepage.