TTWTB

Part 25

by Rhasa

Disclaimer in Part 1

"Max! Wait" Kyra called.

Max hadn't gotten very far. Alec had left the infirmary in a hurry after Logan had spoken to him. Max was determined to catch up with him.

"Max!" Kyra's voice called again.

"I need to go to him, Kyra," Max implored, her voice strained with emotion, her eyes full of yet more unshed tears.

"No. Max. He needs some time. He needs to be alone."

Alone? How could Kyra say that? The way Alec had held her just a few minutes ago told her that he wanted anything but to be alone right now. He had held her so tightly, so fiercely … it was if his own life depended upon keeping her with him. Max's emotions were swirling together in a kaleidoscope of feelings. Her heart was breaking for Jed … for Alec … but it was also rejoicing. The way Alec had held her …. Was it selfish of her to have enjoyed his embrace at a time like this? Was it wrong to want to rush after him and fall into his arms again? All she wanted was to comfort him and be comforted by him. It didn't seem possible that people could survive hurting as much as she did right now, and that must be nothing compared to what Alec was feeling. She felt as if someone was literally ripping her soul apart. Oh God, Alec …. Just his proximity had quenched some of the pain she was feeling.

How often had she dreamt about being with him again when she was up in Canada? But never had she imagined it would be under circumstances such as these. She had tried to put him behind her, she had tried to commit herself to the life she had promised Logan, but it didn't take long for her to realize that that was never really going to happen. She had fought against her feelings for so long. But she couldn't run away from them any longer. The truth that she had tried to deny for so long was that she needed Alec like she needed air. And she knew, from the way he had just held her as he said goodbye to his only son that lay cold and still before him, that he needed her too – perhaps now more than ever.

Kyra saw the hesitation in Max's demeanor. "Max, please. Let him go for now. You're not up to it yet. We need to get your blood pressure stabilized. Please come back to the infirmary, just for a little while."

The infirmary was the last place Max wanted to be. Max knew that the only thing that could help her right now was no medicine – it was to be with Alec, to be there for Alec. But just as she was about to protest against Kyra's suggestion, a warm flush of light-headedness swept over her - Kyra caught her before she hit the ground.

It had taken a good half hour to stabilize Max's condition. When at last Max was well enough to sit up in bed, she noticed just how tired Kyra looked. Max felt guilty. Caught up in her own grief, she had failed to notice just what the younger doctor must have gone through today. She had lost a patient – a child – and now she was fighting with another to keep her and an unborn child safe and healthy.

As Kyra fussed over her and took her blood pressure for what seemed the hundredth time, Max watched her carefully. Yes, she was tired, and she obviously feeling the sadness of losing Jed, but there was something else that showed on her features - a deeper worry. Suddenly a sickening feeling rose up in Max. Perhaps Kyra hadn't told her the whole story. Perhaps there was something else about her own condition that the doctor had been keeping back.

Swallowing a little, Max decided to ask, "Do I have progeria too? Is that's what wrong with me?"

"No, Max. As far as I can tell, you have a normal pregnancy so far. Your condition and Jed's illness just happened to coincide with each other."

Max felt another stab of pain in her heart. "Why? Why did this happen, Kyra?"

Kyra didn't answer right away. She sighed, removed the blood pressure cuff, and reached for a nearby stool, before admitting, "We don't know, Max. There's so much we don't know. We don't know what treatment Manticore gave the fetuses in utero. Maybe, Jed's mother didn't receive treatment. I don't know…."

Max closed her eyes. Her whole life seemed to have been about not knowing things. For her, there had always been uncertainty and unanswered questions. From the moment she could remember she hated not knowing what was on the other side of the Manticore fences. Then as a child she worried that she never knew if she would be one of the ones taken in the middle of the night when the tremors got too bad. It was only after her escape that she had learnt what 'mothers' were and from that time onwards she hated not knowing what happened to her mother. And then there was the never knowing if or when Lydecker and Manticore would catch up to her, capture her, and what they might do to her. Then, the when and if of the breeding cult's attacks. Hidden agendas, secret messages, and cryptic tattoos – yes, Max's life was full of uncertainty. But did life for a transgenic hold more uncertainty than the average ordinary's life? Max, thought so. It was true that no one, not transgenic or ordinary, knew what the future would bring, but there was no denying that when you were a transgenic there were more variables purely because you were experimental. The transhumans, or anomalies as they were called, were proof of the uncertainty of the Manticore genetics programme. At least with ordinaries hundreds of thousands or years of natural selection relatively limited the number of things that could go wrong. With transgenics it was a different story. Nothing was certain. There more chances for things to go wrong …. like they did with Jed.

And even though she already suspected the answer, Max had to ask, "What about my baby? Will my baby have progeria too?"

"Honestly? I don't know, Max," Kyra admitted. "The good news is that there have been seventeen births here since we've holed up in TC. Only Jed so far showed signs of progeria."

Max wasn't convinced. "But that could be only a matter of time, right? I mean, I saw sufferers of progeria when I was captured by Renfro. She showed me. Some only developed the symptoms when they reached adolescence. My baby, this baby, could still get it, could still have it, right?"

Kyra sighed. "Nothing is certain Max," she said, echoing Max's earlier thoughts. "Many of us, particularly the transhumans have conditions that we could never expect, never anticipate. Even Manticore was caught off guard by some of the conditions we were afflicted with. Messing with genetics as they did, well, I don't need to tell you how that can turn out. The bottom line is that we just don't know what's going to happen to us. As much as we're afraid to admit it, our future is uncertain."

"If I don't have progeria, then why am I seizing?"

"As I said, we don't know much about pregnancy and X5s. We don't know what treatment Manticore gave the surrogates in the first trimester. In fact, X5s aren't really designed to be pregnant. Yes, our eggs were meant to be harvested, but we weren't designed to actually carry a baby to term. Your seizures may be the result of the extra stress your pregnancy is placing on your body. That or…."

"Or what?"

"Or it's some complication from cross breeding."

Max didn't understand. "Cross breeding? What do you mean?"

"I mean the seizures could be a complication of conception between an X5 and a human. I'm assuming Logan is the father?'"

"What? No!" Max couldn't help the emotion that crept into her voice indicating just how horrified she was with the thought. "Logan is not the father."

Kyra shrank back a little. "I'm sorry. I just thought…. I'm sorry."

"The father isn't an ordinary," Max said sadly. "I didn't sleep with Logan, I couldn't. Not after…." Max closed her eyes. She didn't want to think back to the time her and Alec spent together before she left. She had played it over and over in her mind enough times in the past few months. It was funny, she had thought that they had in fact been reckless back then, but for a whole lot of other reasons rather than the risks they had taken with no contraception. It wasn't as if she had been in heat so there was no reason to think that she would have fallen pregnant. Still, Alec had been the first X5 she had been with, not to mention that he was her perfect genetic match.

"The father's an X5," Max told Kyra.

Kyra nodded. "Does he know?"

Max shook her head. "Even I didn't know. No. He doesn't know."

Kyra stayed silent for a moment, trying to gauge Max's mood, before adding quietly, "There are other options besides continuing with the pregnancy."

Max looked up. "What are you saying?"

"I just want you to know all your options. It wouldn't be the first time we've terminated a pregnancy in Terminal City. You're not the only woman, transgenic or otherwise, that's faced a difficult choice."

"Tell me, how many?"

"Does that really matter? This choice is not the type to be making on the basis of status quo."

"Do these other women, did they terminate because they were afraid something would be wrong with their child?"

"The reasons for choosing termination are as varied as the women themselves. But yes, some terminate because they are afraid. Others have taken a chance and everything has turned out fine. Do you have any idea of how far along you are?"

"About three and a half months."

Kyra nodded. "Then you don't have to decide straight away. You can take some time to think it over."

Max shook her head. "I don't need any time. I'm not going to terminate."

"Max, are you sure? This pregnancy is already having an adverse effect on you. Your blood pressure has spiked. You're tryptophan levels aren't-"

Max stopped her. "I don't care about the risks."

"But a risk to you is also a risk to the baby. Worse case scenario: we could lose both you and the baby."

"I know," Max said, trying to get the other woman to understand. "And I guess that's a chance we'll both have to take. But I'm not terminating Kyra. I couldn't. I don't know about those other women you spoke about I'm not judging them, I haven't walked in their shoes, but to me termination goes against everything I and all of us in Terminal City stand for. We are fighting for the right to have our own place in society despite what we look like, despite our genetics. We want the right to be regarded as individuals, not freaks. We want acceptance. To terminate a pregnancy, well because of the risk that the child may not be normal… well how would that be acceptance? If that is the only reason to terminate, how could I live with myself if I threw away something because it wasn't perfect? None of us are perfect, some are less perfect than others."

"It's different when there are risks."

"There's a risk with every human pregnancy. Should we expect that it would be any different for transgenics?"

"Max, I'm not trying to sway you either way and I'll respect whatever you decide. I just want you to take some time. Think about your options. Think about telling the father. If it's who I think it is then he may have serious reservations about this issue given what he has just gone through…. given what he has just lost. Just think about it, and get some rest. I'll be here if you need me," she said with a small sad smile as she rose. "I mean it, anything you need, even if it's just to talk, I'll be here."

Kyra patted Max's arm and turned out the light before leaving the room. Despite wanting to get back to Alec, they had agreed that Max would rest up here tonight. Perhaps it was for the best; after all, she had a lot to think about. Max was grateful that Kyra had sent Logan away for the night. There was no way she would have time to think with him hovering around. In all honesty, Logan was the least of her worries; it was Alec that preoccupied her thoughts.

God, Alec.

Max could hardly believe it. She was pregnant, with Alec's child. She had never really given much thought as to whether there was a God or not, but she had to wonder if there was, were there reasons for why he or she would put them through a pregnancy so soon after the death of Alec's first son?

Kyra was right to think that Alec may have serious issues with this pregnancy. A part of Max felt how could he not? Would he see it the same way as Max did, or would he be set against it, not wanting to risk another child suffering like Jed did. Would it matter to Max what he felt? If he asked her to terminate because he couldn't stand losing another child, could she do it? Would she do it? Or would he, still love her and be grateful that they could be together again? Would they become a family, and if so what would be their future in Terminal City?

Max's head was spinning. Despite being extremely tired she kept running through these thoughts until the early hours of the morning. Nothing was certain. Both her and Kyra agreed on that. There were so many things that could happen … with the baby…. and with Alec. By the end of the night, the only thing that Max was certain about was that she couldn't tell Alec about the pregnancy – at least not just yet. It was not the right time. The time was for Alec and Jed. It was a time to mourn death. The time to discuss life would have to wait.

TBC

Please review – I would really appreciate it.

Til next time

Sarah