Lewis used his fork to poke curiously at the tray of food on the little table that hovered over his bed. He wasn't exactly sure what they were feeding him, but it didn't look particularly edible. He grumbled something inaudible to himself and set down the fork. He'd been in the hospital for three weeks now and he was counting down the days to his release. The cast on his ankle had been replaced with a softer one, and he was allowed to get up and walk as long as he wore the thick walking boot. Most of his cuts had healed and the stitches had been removed from all of the deeper ones except for the one above his eye.

A quiet knock on the door gave him an excuse to turn his attention away from his meal. A smile touched his face when he saw who was standing in the doorway.

"Kate," he said brightly. Kate shuffled into the room and sat down carefully in the chair beside his bed. "I hadn't expected you to come visit anymore; you've got less than a month until you're due."

"Well being home on maternity leave is pretty boring," Kate replied. "And I figured you were fairly bored too, so I thought we might as well be bored together. Right?"

"Sounds good enough to me," Lewis said. "You give me an excuse not to have to eat this…whatever it is."

Kate glanced at the tray and grimaced. "Looks – appetizing," she said, not disguising her disgust. "Oh which reminds me, I brought something for you."

"Please tell me it's a beer," Lewis said, watching her reach into her bag.

Kate looked up at him and laughed. "Not holding up to being sober so well, are you?" she said jokingly. "If I don't get a beer, you don't get a beer."

"Then I hope that baby comes soon," Lewis said, glancing at her bulging stomach.

"You and me both," Kate agreed. She reached into her bag again and then handed something to Lewis. "A little something to combat the boredom when there's no one here to distract you."

Lewis reached across with his right hand and took the book from her. "Huck Finn," he said with a smile. "I'd just started reading this –" He caught sight of the bookmark sticking from between two pages. "Wait, this is my copy. How'd you get this?"

"It wasn't too hard to get it from your room," Kate said with a mischievous smile. "Eugene and I had gone up to visit Oswald. While I was distracting Oswald, Eugene went into your room and he grabbed the first book he could find out of the box under the bed. I'm glad it was the right one."

"Quite the plan," Lewis said, still looking from the book to Kate with surprise. "Why all the secrecy?"

"You said you didn't want Oswald to find out," Kate answered. "I don't want to make Oswald feel uncomfortable anymore than you do."

"Thanks," Lewis said and smiled up at her. He set the book carefully on the bedside table and continued to stare at it for a moment before he turned back to Kate. "Thanks," he said again.

"You're welcome, you're welcome," Kate replied with a sarcastic grin. Lewis laughed. He was grateful that Kate had learned to take his sincere moment in stride. At first they had always surprised her and often resulted in awkward pauses, but as she'd grown used to them it had been less uncomfortable and Lewis didn't mind saying them as much. She would silently acknowledge the sincerity and then return the conversation to a casual tone.

"So have you decided what you're going to name her yet?" Lewis asked.

"I may have," Kate said slyly, "but even if I have, I'm not saying. I've told you that a hundred times already."

"Oh c'mon, why not?" Lewis whined.

"Because I'm not sure yet," Kate said. "I won't be sure what I want to call her until I see her."

"See her?"

"Yes, see her," Kate agreed with a nod. "Names just fit people. Could you imagine me being called anything but Kate? Or Oswald being called anything but Oswald? Or even yourself being anything but Lewis? Names just fit people."

Lewis contemplated this a moment. "I suppose that makes sense," he admitted. "But how will you be able to tell? You won't know her personality, and all babies just look like, well, like babies."

"I don't know," Kate said with a calm shrug, seemingly unconcerned by the whole prospect. "I guess I'll just know."

"Oh, right," Lewis said to placate her. He really had no idea what she meant by that, but he was passing it off as more of her 'pregnant logic,' as he and the other guys had started to call it. She seemed to come up with lots of strange theories and understandings that the men couldn't grasp, and that truthfully wouldn't make sense to almost anyone, so they blamed it on the pregnancy.

Kate was completely oblivious to his weak answer as she stared vaguely at the wall, lost in thought. This was also an occurrence that had been picked up during her pregnancy, and always left the men curious to what had her attention. She dismissed their questions with a blank response that it was nothing.

She suddenly stirred and turned her gaze back to Lewis. "So when are you supposed to be released?"

"So long as everything goes well, sometime next week," Lewis answered. He was all-too-eager to be out of the hospital. Even though he was allowed up to walk around every few hours, he was still getting stir-crazy and wanted to be out. "I can't wait to get back to the Warsaw."

"You know you can't drink beer until you're off of those medications, right?" Kate asked with an eyebrow cocked.

"Yes," Lewis answered huffily. "The atmosphere's just better than here. Maybe just the smell of the beer will make me feel better."

"Oh yes, I'm sure it will," Kate replied sarcastically.

Drew came into the kitchen and was completely unsurprised to see Oswald at the table, a beer bottle already in hand. "Hey, Oswald," Drew said, grabbing a beer from the fridge before dropping down opposite his friend at the table.

"Hey, Drew," Oswald replied. He was still dressed in his uniform and had apparently come straight from work. Drew was used to Oswald showing up by now; since Lewis had been hospitalized, Oswald had spent most of his time away from the apartment. Drew guessed that Oswald couldn't stand being there for long by himself and could understand his discomfort, so Drew had welcomed Oswald over as much as he pleased.

"You going to see Lewis later?" Drew asked.

"Yeah, just wanted to uncoil from work a bit and then I'll head over," Oswald said. There was something oddly detached about his gaze that made Drew concerned. Before Drew had the chance to ask, however, Oswald spoke up again. "Do you think Kate loves him?"

"Lewis?" Drew asked, although he already knew that was what Oswald had meant. "Well, yeah, Kate loves all of us in some way, I think. You can't be friends as long as we've been without loving each other."

"No, I meant loves him," Oswald repeated. "Like, has she fallen in love with him?"

"Oh." Drew thought over this question. He'd been wondering similar things for a while, but he hadn't wanted to say anything because of the delicate atmosphere since Lewis' accident. "I don't know. Why?"

"It just seems that way," Oswald said. "Ever since she got pregnant, they've been a lot closer. And since his accident she's gone up to the hospital almost as much as I have."

"She's just concerned," Drew defended. "She's worried about him, just like the rest of us. Besides, now that she's on maternity leave she probably goes to see him so she has something to do. Otherwise she'd just be home all day alone."

"I guess so," Oswald agreed grudgingly. "I still think there's something different between them."

"I think it's Lewis who's in love with Kate," Drew put in. "I know he used to like her when we were kids, but I think he's fallen for her again."

"I think so, too," Oswald nodded. "They won't get together though, will they?"

"I don't think so," Drew answered casually. "I mean, Kate's been turning him down for decades. Why would she change her mind now? And besides, Kate's a mom now. Lewis doesn't want to be a dad. He wouldn't want to get himself into that just to date Kate."

"Yeah, I never thought of that," Oswald said, a slight smile on his face. "I feel bad for Kate's kid, growing up not having a dad though."

"What are you talking about, that little girl's going to have four dads," Drew said with a laugh. "You and me, and Lewis and Eugene. We'll all be her dad. She'll be the luckiest kid in the world with that many dads to spoil her rotten."

Oswald laughed, a genuine smile coming to his face at the idea. Then his smile flickered for a moment and he asked, "You think Kate will find out who the father is? I mean, like have a test to find out who it is."

"I'm not sure," Drew said. He gazed down into his beer bottle thoughtfully. "I don't think she wants to know. Maybe she's afraid of losing the baby. For not really wanting to ever have kids, she seems to have grown to love it."

"I guess when something's growing inside of you, you get kind of attached to it," Oswald said with a shake of his head. "But have you ever thought…I mean, I know it's a silly thing to think…they've told us differently already, but…well, have you ever thought maybe Lewis really is the father?"

Drew choked on his mouthful of beer and had to force himself to swallow. "Lewis, the father?" he asked in shock. "No, I don't think I've ever really thought about that. I mean, the thought crossed my mind when he said something about it at the restaurant that one night but when I thought about it, I just couldn't get it to make sense in my head. It seems – impossible."

"I thought so, too," Oswald said with a grimace. "I still do, but at the same time it's about the only thing that makes sense. The timing is just too perfect to be coincidence. She got pregnant just after she'd broken up with that Robert guy and Lewis had just broken up with Sandra. What if they slept together to – I don't know – get over it? Every time we bring up the baby's father Kate glances at Lewis, although she tries to hide it, and then Lewis changes the topic. He's the only one who doesn't seem to be curious who the baby's father is. What if -?"

Oswald continued on but Drew was only half-listening. His mind was whirring as these ideas flowed through it and he came to the realization that they were all true. Each new theory slipped in and only built on this discovery, leaving Drew reeling under the intensity of this understanding. "You may be right," Drew said quietly, cutting across Oswald without even realizing it.

"Maybe," Oswald said with a solemn nod. "I mean, Lewis has excuses for everything but I don't know if I can ignore all of the coincidences. It just makes sense."

"Yeah," Drew murmured, still too deep in thought to take in much. A short knock on the back door startled both men, and seconds later it opened and Eugene stepped in.

"Hey guys," Eugene said with a slightly tense smile. "Is Kate here?"

"No," both of them answered at the same time. "She's probably up at the hospital with Lewis," Oswald added.

"Oh, okay," Eugene said with a short nod. "I was just wondering where she was. This close to the due date I wanted to make sure she was okay, and I got a little worried when she wasn't home. Well I'm going to go up to the hospital then. Either of you care to come with?"

"I will," Oswald said immediately.

"I'd love to but I can't," Drew said. "I have to get cleaned up. I'm taking Abi out to dinner tonight."

"Ah, so things are still going good with the lady friend?" Eugene asked with a mischievous smile.

"Yeah, they're going great," Drew answered with a proud grin.

"Good to hear," Eugene said. "She's a lucky lady." Drew blushed nervously and turned his attention back to his beer. Eugene shifted uncomfortably, aware that he had just made the situation awkward. "Well, Oswald, you ready to go?"

"Is it alright if we run back to the Warsaw so I can change first?" Oswald asked, standing up. Eugene nodded so Oswald followed him out. "Bye," Oswald called out to Drew at the door. "Good luck with the date." Outside the pair climbed into their respective cars and headed toward the tavern. Once there, Oswald scurried up to his apartment and hastily changed his clothes before going back down and hopping into the passenger seat of Eugene's car.

"Thanks for the ride," Oswald said as he made himself comfortable in the seat.

"No problem," Eugene said, shrugging. "I figured it was easiest since I was already headed up that way." They lapsed into silence for a moment as they cruised up the road to the hospital. "I hope I wasn't interrupting something when I came in at Drew's house. You both seemed to be concentrating on something."

"We were just talking," Oswald said. "About Kate and Lewis." He hesitated, unsure of how much more to tell Eugene. He trusted Eugene and they had become fast friends, but he knew how highly Eugene thought of Kate and didn't want to offend him by suggesting that she was lying. "Eugene, do you know anything about the father of Kate's baby?"

Eugene cast a quick glance at him before answering. "No, nothing more than anyone else," he said. "Why?"

"Well I know Kate really trusts you and she talks to you, so I thought maybe she might have told you," Oswald said, already feeling ashamed at the assumption. "I mean, she must have some idea, right? She had to have slept with the guy to have gotten pregnant."

"If she does know, she hasn't told me," Eugene said firmly. "Have you ever considered that maybe she slept with more than one man in that space of time that she got pregnant, and she isn't certain which one caused it?"

"Including Lewis?" Oswald suggested tentatively. Eugene shot him a surprised look before turning his eyes to the road again.

"Lewis? She told me that they've never slept together, and I'm fairly certain that Lewis has told you the same thing," Eugene said. "Is this because they have become such close friends recently?"

"Well, that's part of it," Oswald said and then in a rush he told Eugene every detail he had gathered that pointed to his conclusion. By the time he had finished, Eugene had pulled the car into a parking spot at the hospital. "It just seems to make sense, doesn't it?" he asked, almost pleading to hear the man agree with him.

Eugene was quiet for a long time as the pair sat there in the car together, staring at the dashboard as if trying to frame his response perfectly. Finally he looked up at Oswald and the two pairs of brown eyes met. "You know what I think, Oswald?" he asked. Oswald shook his head. "I think that you should trust him. You and Lewis have been friends for too many years to throw away over a silly theory. He is your best friend and you love him. Don't be so quick to forget that."

With this sobering statement, Eugene climbed out of the car and started towards the hospital doors, leaving Oswald sitting in stunned silence.