There was no hiding from it any more, Ruth thought grimly as she slipped into the bath. At twenty-two weeks gone, what had previously been no more than a little "bump" was a full-grown belly, preceding her everywhere she went, its shape and size and nature easily discernable beneath the bevy of new outfits she'd been forced to purchase. As the days passed it would only continue to grow, and she knew that in a few weeks' time this protrusion that seemed so enormous now would be laughably small in comparison, but she was still adjusting to this new reality. Her back had begun to ache, at the end of every day, her feet had begun to swell, and things would only get worse. How on earth was she going to manage it?

There had been times, over the last twenty-two weeks, when Ruth had been able to forget, however briefly, about the peanut. Times when she wasn't ill, and she'd still managed to squeeze into her favorite skirt, and thoughts of work, or Harry, or a particularly good book had distracted her, and all the apprehension she felt about becoming a mother began to fade. Those moments of blissful ignorance would be in short supply now; how could she forget, when the peanut was moving so much more now, when her stomach had grown so large, when her whole body seemed to whisper, in a thousand different ways, every minute of every day, change is coming?

I know you're in there, little one, Ruth thought as she tried to relax, to let the heat of the water soothe her aching muscles. Absently she dragged her fingertips across the swell of her stomach, feeling the smooth tautness of her own skin, so alien to the touch. It was hard to say which thought scared her more; that she still had almost four whole months of this left to endure, or that in only four months she'd be holding her child in her arms. Her current perception of time presented a strange dichotomy in which four months was simultaneously too much and not enough. It was too much time to spend in a state of increasing discomfort, feeling slightly disconnected from her own body, struggling to recognize it as her own. It was not enough time to sort out how she felt, to find a home, to prepare herself to take responsibility for another life.

Ruth had never spent much time around babies. She'd known other girls, growing up, who would babysit, earn themselves a little money on the side looking after the neighbors' children. As she grew older, she watched her friends go all moony over little babies in prams, watched them pair themselves off and gleefully start families of their own, pulling themselves away from their old lives as they drowned in the details of their new ones. Ruth herself had never been particularly bothered about babies; she'd never even held one, until she was almost twenty years old and her cousin had thrust a mewling little bundle at her during a Christmas party, saying Ruth, be a dear and hold him for me? I'm dying for a piss. Ruth had stared at the child in her arms, and the child had stared right back, his whimpers slowly dying as his face took on expression of confusion quite similar to her own. It was as if he'd sensed that she had no idea what she was doing, and, much like Ruth herself, was just desperately hoping she wouldn't drop him. The cousin had returned, the baby had changed hands, and Ruth had wandered away, thinking how grateful she was that she'd been able to give him back, that she had managed to avoid assuming such an awful burden in her own life.

Now, twenty years later, Ruth was about to take hold of a child she would never be able to hand back. The peanut would be hers, her responsibility, her flesh and blood, her greatest fear, realized. Well, she amended in her mind, the peanut would be hers, and Harry's.

Oh, Harry.

Your father loves you very much, she told the peanut. Sometimes he gets cross, and sometimes he doesn't know what to say, but no matter what, he loves you.

"He's not so bad," she said aloud. Beneath her skin she felt a little flutter, almost as if the baby had heard her, and she smiled. She'd read somewhere that there was some evidence that babies could hear, in the womb; perhaps she ought to speak to the peanut aloud more often, so her child could become accustomed to her voice. Beth wasn't home, to hear her talking to herself and begin to doubt her mental faculties, so now seemed as good a time as any to start.

"Your father is a good man," she continued, resting one hand against her stomach, cradling it almost, wondering if the warmth of her hand could penetrate all the layers of skin and muscle and tissue that separated her from the peanut. "We've seen a lot of scary things, he and I. We have done some things we're not proud of. We don't how to talk to one another, sometimes, but that doesn't mean we don't care."

Absurdly, she felt a little bit better about things after saying that out loud.

There was so much between she and Harry, so many things left unsaid. There was grief, thick and strong and clingy as mud after a summer rain; there was a dock-side confession cut short, and a feeling never vocalized; there was the echo of a gunshot, and the sound of Ruth's hysterical cries; there was a question asked in haste, answered too cruelly; there were memories of kisses, of whispers, of needs satisfied in the dark of night, never acknowledged in the light of dawn; there was a duty, forever drawing them further into darkness.

And there were two offers, made in good faith, still to be considered.

"I don't know what to do, little one," Ruth said sadly. And she truly didn't.

Accept Harry's offer, move into his house, and then…what, exactly? Live as a lodger in his spare room until being alone with their child no longer terrified her, and she was strong enough to return to work? Live in Harry's house, but slowly cave to his obvious desire for closeness to her, and risk them falling apart, even more spectacularly than they had done before? Or reject his offer completely, and stumble through this alone, never knowing what would have happened, if she'd only given them a chance?

"Ruth? Are you home?" Beth called from the hallway.

"In the bath!" Ruth answered, giving herself a little shake. She'd been submerged in the water long enough for her fingertips to turn pruney and for the relaxing scent of the bath bomb Harry had given her to fade away completely.

"Time to get out," she declared softly, slowly dragging herself to her feet. She was growing more ungainly by the moment, it seemed, and soon even something as simple as climbing in and out of the bathtub would be beyond her. "You're not making this easy on me, you know," she muttered. The peanut did not deign to respond.


Beth had only been home a few minutes when Ruth came to join her in the kitchen, the ends of her hair slightly damp and a vague sent of lavender wafting all around her. Beth sipped her tea and smiled; apparently, the little errand Harry had sent her on a few weeks ago had been a success.

"Have a nice bath?" she asked.

Ruth gave her a wan little smile. "I'm trying to enjoy it while I can. One of these days I'm going to get into the bath, and you'll have to call the fire department to get me out again."

Beth chuckled at that, just a little, but her mirth faded away as she noticed just how sad Ruth looked. There was something about her eyes, like a shadow on a sunny day, and it made Beth worry for her flatmate. Things had been going rather well, Beth thought, and clearly Harry had found the time to give Ruth her birthday present; surely the woman should be happy, just now, and not falling back into the melancholy that had plagued her during the first few months of their acquaintance.

"Everything all right?" Beth asked, trying to sound reassuring, rather than nosey.

Ruth gave an almighty sigh, and slumped into a kitchen chair beside her.

"We're friends, aren't we?" Ruth asked.

What kind of question is that?

"I should think so," Beth responded. After the tearful night they'd spent together in the bathroom, Beth had felt a bond growing between them, only strengthening as the days wore on and they learned to lean on one another more and more. Ruth's trust was precious to her, and she was forever trying to prove that she deserved it.

"I've never been particularly good at sharing…things, with people. Problems. I like to face them on my own. I like to think I've done a pretty good job, so far."

Ruth had drawn her bathrobe tightly around her, like a child clutching her favorite blanket as a talisman against the terrors of the dark. Beth didn't know how she was supposed to respond to that sort of statement, and so she kept quiet. She knew that Ruth was a deeply private person, and she respected that boundary as much as she could. For people like them, people living on the periphery, cloaked in shadow, sharing too much was dangerous, and Beth understood that all too well. But why was Ruth bringing it up now? What problem was weighing on her mind? Would she trust Beth enough to ask for help?

"I just don't know what to do, any more. I thought the answer would come to me, in time, but I just can't seem to find it." Ruth seemed perturbed by this; an analyst by nature, she appeared to be completely dumbfounded by the notion that there might be a question that could not be answered by research and sheer intellectual brilliance.

"A problem shared is a problem halved, my gran used to say," Beth volunteered quietly. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know what was troubling Ruth so deeply, but she supposed that was what friends did for one another. Shoulder some of the burden, when the weight of life became too great.

Ruth smiled a sad little smile. "My gran said the same thing."

For a long time the pair of them were quiet, Ruth musing, Beth waiting. Beth wasn't about to press; she'd learned months ago that Ruth was not the sort of woman who responded well to pressure in personal situations. Put her on the Grid, tell her the fate of the country rested on her slender shoulders, and she would throw herself into her work with relish, digging her way to the bottom of any crisis, and pulling them all back from the brink. Demand to know how she was feeling, and she would bolt like a startled rabbit, and never recover. So Beth sipped her tea, and waited.

"Harry asked me to move in with him."

There it is.

Beth had been wondering if that might come up, one of these days. It seemed to her that Harry wanted, very much, to be a part of Ruth's life, and he was obviously smitten with the peanut. And it made sense, that they share the responsibility of caring for their child, that they try to be a family, to build a home, together.

"But you're not sure?" Beth prompted gently. However obvious the answer might be to Beth, it was clear that Ruth was struggling with it.

Ruth shook her head. "It's not as if we're together-"

Beth couldn't stop the derisive little snort that escaped her. She looked at Ruth quickly, searching her friend's face for some sign that she had given offense.

Ruth looked sad, still, and a little troubled.

"You don't understand," Ruth sighed, shaking her head.

"I don't," Beth agreed. "But can I tell you how I see it?"

Ruth did not speak, did not move; she simply pinned Beth with her luminous gaze, and waited to hear what she had to say.

Easy now, Bailey.

"It's clear that you've had your problems, you and Harry. I can't even begin to imagine what you've been through, and I know that there is something that's keeping you from being…together, like you said. But I see the way you look at one another. You're both so in love with this baby, and you're both happier, when you're around one another. You can't say you're not together, when the first thing you do every morning is walk into his office, and the last thing he does every night is call you. You're about to have his child. You might not be a traditional couple, but you can't say you're not together."

It was rather a long speech, for Beth, and she felt both winded and a bit exposed at the end of it. She hadn't meant to say all that, and she worried that she'd gone too far. Ruth was such a private person; how would she respond to Beth's observations about all those quiet little moments between Ruth and Harry that she was never supposed to have seen? And she hadn't even mentioned her involvement in the purchase of Ruth's birthday present or the night she'd come home and found them having dinner together, with Harry's tie lying on the floor by the doorway for some unknown - and likely rather tawdry - reason.

Ruth looked completely flabbergasted.

"Wouldn't you like for the peanut to grow up with both her parents, in the same house?" Beth continued. "Wouldn't you like to have some help with her? Wouldn't you like to be able to see him-"

Ruth raised her hand to stop the flood of Beth's words, and, like a student who had been thoroughly chastised by a teacher, she immediately fell silent.

"I would like that, very much," Ruth said quietly.

"Then what's stopping you?" The atmosphere in the kitchen had shifted, somewhat; Beth got the feeling that Ruth was close to the answer, and her part in this particular little play was nearly done.

"Fear? Habit? Guilt? Yeah, let's say guilt." Her eyes had a far-away look to them, as if she were remembering something from another time, another life. "I've hurt him, Beth."

"I don't think he cares, Ruth."

That comment earned her a sad little laugh. "You may be right."

"You'll never know what could have been, if you don't try. It might be a disaster, or it might be wonderful." Beth had learned that lesson in her own life, had closed too many doors, lost too many friends, and she seized every opportunity that was afforded to her, now. She thought it was high time Ruth did the same.

"Something wonderful…." Ruth mused. Beth got the feeling that those words weren't really intended for her ears. Ruth's voice had trailed off, and she didn't look like she was going to speak again any time soon. It was difficult to say whether any actual decision had been made, but it seemed that for now the time for discussion had drawn to an end.

"I'll always be here, Ruth, if you need a friendly ear."

Ruth reached out and squeezed her hand in a gentle, motherly sort of way.

"Thank you," she said earnestly.