Chapter 5 – Testing Time
That night, all was peaceful in the professor's house. There wasn't a sound to be heard as Emmeline and Layton slept in the spare room, Hershel on a mattress on the living room floor and Alfendi on the sofa, while little Emmy and Leon stayed at Bronev's place. The professor smiled as Emmy lay fast asleep on top of him, exhausted from her stressful ordeal. His thoughts wandered to the pregnancy test that he and Bronev had acquired the previous day, and decided that they would get that out of the way first thing that morning before Bronev arrived.
The professor held Emmy tighter as she stirred and stroked her hair gently off of her face. He began to wonder what she really thought about having a baby with him. He realised that she and Bronev hadn't really had the chance to talk about it, what with there being so many unexpected turns of events yesterday. He wondered if Bronev approved of this pregnancy, what with he and Emmy being unmarried as of yet. After all, of what the professor knew of Bronev, he knew for sure that he was an old-fashioned man.
It wasn't that the professor didn't want to marry Emmy – quite the contrary, in fact – he would love to take her hand in marriage. And he supposed it was only right that he propose to Emmy at the very least, to prove his loyalty to her and that e would stand by her and the baby. But he didn't want to put even more pressure on Emmy. He sighed gently, so as not to disturb Emmy's sleep, unsure of what he should do. And the worst thing about it was that he really didn't have very long to decide what to do.
But then he realised something. There was another Layton, two doors down from him, who had experienced the exact same problem fifteen years prior. He could ask him. The professor didn't really see what the problem could be with this – after all, his older counterpart may have very well asked the same question to his older counterpart fifteen years ago. In fact, the more the professor thought about it, the likelier it seemed that that was the best course of action. He would do that, right after that pregnancy test. He sighed again, holding Emmy tight, and closed his eyes, trying to get some sleep. He had two lectures tomorrow which he had no little to no preparation for, and he would have to fish out some of last year's notes as soon as he got to the office. "Oh, the stresses of life," he thought to himself. "I suppose if everything was easy, it would be too boring, wouldn't it?"
"Hershel?" The faintest of whispers came from on top of him – Emmy was awake.
The professor smiled at her. "I'm sorry, my dear, did I wake you?" he whispered.
"No," she whispered in reply, "I've been having a bit of an off night."
"Me too," the professor replied. "Have you been thinking about the baby?"
Emmy nodded. "Amongst other things, yes."
The professor stroked her cheek. "Emmy, I really must ask you something."
"Yeah?"
The professor hesitated, clearing his throat. "What do you think about this pregnancy?"
Emmy frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well...do you want this baby?"
"... Why? Don't you?"
"Hmm? Well, of course I do, but that's not what I'm—"
"Good, because I do too." Emmy beamed at him. "I wanted us to have children, you know, one day, after we... er... got married, but this is..."
"Unexpected," the professor finished.
Emmy nodded. "The vast majority of unplanned pregnancies are, you know."
The professor smiled.
"But it's not bad, you know, it's not the end of the world—"
"— But the beginning of a new one," the professor finished. "This is the start of a whole new life for us, you me and Flora, but I was just saying that if you didn't want this—"
"But I do!" Emmy exclaimed. "I want this, I want a new start, and I want to keep Alfendi."
The professor smiled and held her tighter. "Good," he smiled, "because I want the same thing."
"And Flora seemed pretty excited about it when we heard," Emmy smiled. "But I don't know about Uncle Leon. He seemed very quiet."
"Well, yesterday in the car, he seemed very dubious about it," the professor said. "He made me stop off at a chemist and buy a pregnancy test, just to check if our older counterparts and Alfendi are indeed authentic. I think he's suspicious, but I can't say that I blame him, despite how much I believe that our older counterparts are real."
"And what about our younger ones? Are they real? Because, now, I don't know about you, but I certainly have no recollection of ever travelling to the future when I was fourteen."
"Yes, neither do I," the professor admitted. "Which raises the question – if neither of us remember it happening, and if there was no time machine in the past, then how on earth did they get here?"
"And our older selves are definitely keeping something from us. They say that we have to figure stuff out for ourselves. What does that even mean?" Emmy asked.
"There are definitely mysteries in this case that we have to figure out on our own, without help, in order for us to get the answers we need to make sense of all of this. And really, we can't do anything until Dimitri gets a look at that time machine."
"I still don't think it's a good idea for you and Uncle Leon to kidnap him, Hershel. You could both get into some serious trouble. And the fact that you're getting Bloom to do the dirty work is even worse. He may seem like the sneaky, cunning type, but really he's just a stuck-up braggart who thinks he's better than everyone else. He'll blow it, I know he will."
The professor frowned at her. He remembered how her older self winked at little Emmy, and how Emmy was so keen to change the subject.
"Er, Emmy... do you know D.I. Bloom from anywhere apart from Targent?"
"Er... yeah. Why?"
"Well, my dear, I'm simply curious as to why you dislike him so much."
"There are some things that you don't need to know, Hershel, and that is one of them." Emmy smiled and sat up. She looked at the clock, which read 3.30am. "I think we ought to do that pregnancy test now. I have a feeling that there's going to be a petty long queue to the bathroom this morning."
The professor smiled. "Considering the fact that Flora spends an hour in the bathroom every morning, and you spend a good half an hour, and there are two of you in this house now, along with two of me and a teenage boy, I think you may be spot on, my dear." He smiled at the thought of a mile-long queue outside his bathroom. "Let's go."
"Well, it says here that it turns pink for positive, if you're pregnant, and blue for negative," the professor said, squinting at the instructions.
"Well, we'll see now in a minute," Emmy replied, holding the test up so she could see. "Nothing yet." She turned to the professor. "What if it's negative? Or what if it's too early in the pregnancy for us to do the test? Your older self said that I'd be having the baby in about nine months, and... We... did it... a few weeks back, so it might be too early."
"I'm not sure, Emmy. I don't think so."
"Here we go." Emmy frowned.
"What is it? Pink for yes, or blue for no, now remember..."
"Yeah I know... but..."
"Yes?"
"It's purple."