7

60,060 (Kurillian Calendar)

The design and construction of the first generation of manned orbitals was one of the most complicated tasks that Kurill's science and engineering communities had ever faced. As things turned out, it was not as simple as making a few extra modifications to an unmanned orbital, sticking a Vorta inside, and blasting it into orbit. The integration of the life support systems necessitated a complete overhaul of the basic orbital design, and once the rest of it was added in—a cockpit with flight controls, a sleeping area, Vorta interface for the advanced communications and navigational equipment—it was a completely different vehicle than the unmanned craft which had been going up for a century and a half.

The unmanned orbitals had consisted of a propulsion ring, at the center of which sat the command module, containing the computer. The manned orbitals bore a much closer resemblance to in-atmosphere shuttles, with a forward cockpit and stubby wings with the propulsion mounted beneath them. The interior was cramped, and calling it 'uncomfortable' would have been generous, but computer models showed them working, rather than crashing, exploding, burning up on atmospheric re-entry, or failing to get off the ground at all. Boarding an orbital and going into space on it wasn't a leisure activity, after all, it was a risk, and no one expected to be comfortable on them.

The manned orbital was built in pieces in Dessa, then shipped for assembly to Tira City. Weyoun made a point of going to the assembly site frequently—it was good politics to be seen there, for one thing. One day, having gone to the site together, Deimos showed Weyoun a mock-up of the cockpit that had been approved for construction and Weyoun, not claustrophobic by any stretch, shivered at the idea of being crammed inside, with only duraplastic walls between oneself and the vacuum.

"You still want to be on the first one?" Weyoun asked, once they'd stepped outside. Construction noise echoing around the cavernous space made for a less than pleasant environment, but the two of them had gotten used to it with all the time they spent in the factory.

"They can't finish it soon enough," Deimos replied, a gleam in his eye as the two of them walked towards the balcony overlooking the main floor. Deimos leaned against the rail while Weyoun wrapped his hands around it, and both of them stared downwards at the ongoing assembly of the orbital. Blowtorches flared and there was near-constant hammering and drilling. When a saw came on, filling the air with painful screeching, the two of them quickly made their retreat to the site manager's office, where they were filled in on the progress and estimated time to completion.

As they got into the hail-armored vehicle that they'd been allocated to drive them to and from the factory, Deimos couldn't keep the grin off his face. "Ahead of schedule!" he crowed. "I'll be up there in a few months at this rate!"

The driver looked back, amused, and Weyoun shared the sentiment. Deimos got more irrepressible every time they visited the factory; every time that they saw the orbital slowly but surely taking shape on the floor. Weyoun didn't think he'd really believe that Foros, Deimos, and he had accomplished such a monumental feat until the thrusters fired on the orbital's engines and it disappeared into the atmosphere. It hadn't seemed that real, at least, in all his visits to the factory, despite the fact that it was coming closer and closer to being finished. It already clearly looked like an orbital.

"You'll have to wait for Firstmonth, at least," Weyoun remarked. "Unless someone's come up with a way to cut through the monsoon interference."

"No," Deimos sighed. "Sadly, no." He shrugged. "I have to finish the training, anyway."

With a snort, Weyoun said, "Ah yes, the training, put together by Kurill's finest experts on orbital travel. It's imperative that you complete that. Do you have the world's best shuttle pilot signed on yet?"

"She's probably the most qualified to be teaching me anything," Deimos said, ignoring Weyoun's sarcasm. "We modeled the flight controls on a shuttle's, after all."

"Well, you may have a point there." Weyoun leaned back in his seat and addressed the driver, "If you don't mind, I'm going straight home today."

"Yes, Senator."

Deimos had pulled a padd from his briefcase and was scanning it. "Latest refinery reports," he said, waving it in the air when Weyoun looked at him questioningly. "We've got a supply to send five or six of these things up as of now."

Raising his eyebrows, Weyoun replied, "Assuming our mass to energy consumption ratios are correct."

The other man made a face and said, "I hope they are. I'm not too keen on getting up there and finding out I used three times the amount of fuel escaping the planet's gravity than we'd modeled."

Weyoun clapped him on the shoulder and grinned. "Pay attention in that training; you never know what you might learn."

Deimos just looked amused. "By the way," he said, "speaking of learning, I'll be at Eris's lecture tomorrow. Is she nervous?"

With a smile, Weyoun replied, "Eris doesn't get nervous. Even when huge amounts of grant money are at stake."

"Well, not that she should be. I maintain that it's unfathomable how such a brilliant woman ended up with you."

"And luckily, my ego isn't easily wounded."

Deimos laughed. "Honestly, though, I'm looking forward to it. I've been so focused on my own work lately. It'll be nice to get some perspective on another discipline."

The armored vehicle picked up speed and the sound of the rain and hail pounding on it became correspondingly louder. This mode of transportation would have been unthinkable for him while he'd worked for Soltoi—she never would have used it for business involving her aides. Now he didn't think twice about ordering one, even when he could have gone somewhere by train. The armored vehicle was simply faster in many cases.

Before long, the vehicle entered the Athoun district, and Weyoun's home, with its duraplastic shielded walkway, came into view. Weyoun and Eris had moved to their house on a bluff outside Tira City in the past year, in a neighborhood that was home to many of the city's political and intellectual elite and had large, private lots that hid the houses from each other, as well as heavily-shielded walkways so it was possible to live there during the monsoon. It was also, of course, serviced by a monsoon-ready metro. Weyoun and Eris's house was one level and sprawling, with an open kitchen and living room and a verandah that overlooked a lake and forest that lay to one side of the property.

As the vehicle pulled up to the shelter, an awning extended out to provide protection from the rain and hail as he opened the door, thanked the driver, and bid good-bye to Deimos until the following day. Then he walked briskly up the half-kilometer covered pathway, looking up every now and then at the bare branches of the trees. A few dead limbs had been broken off by hail and were plastered to the top of the covering by the rain, but for the most part, the flexible branches stood up to the monsoon's abuse. The trees were one of many reasons they'd moved to this particular house—in the dry season they bloomed; tiny white damas flowers opening by day on every limb. Eris had said they were just like the trees outside her childhood home. They had a sweet, thick odor that somehow wasn't cloying, and during the dry season the house had been filled with it. It had been the transported look on Eris's face that had made up Weyoun's mind to buy the house, actually; the way she clearly had been filled with a happy nostalgia for her childhood. He wasn't—how could he be?—but he wanted any future children that he might have to look back on their childhoods with the same joy that his wife did.

At the door, he waved his ID disc over the entry panel and entered the house. He'd expected it empty and wasn't disappointed. For a moment or two, he listened to rain and hail on the reinforced roof, trying to guess the size of the hail chunks by the sound they made. The wind had died down earlier in the day and without the deep gusts, the rain was soothing and rhythmic. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply, before going to their house shrine and lighting a candle. Then he checked the time. Enough for him to get some more work done before starting dinner.

It was dinner that he was preparing when the door opened and Eris came in, looking deeply preoccupied until she saw him. "You're home early," she said, sounding surprised.

"You're home late," he countered, measuring out a portion of wine and pouring it into the skillet.

"Still early enough to have beaten you back under normal circumstances," she said with a smile.

He shrugged. "You looked tired this morning. I wanted to make sure you could relax and finish preparing your lecture when you got home."

"That's something of a contradiction in terms." For a moment, she stood in the door, her briefcase still in her hands. Then, she put it down slowly and took another step inside, though she stopped again. Weyoun gave her a bemused look. She wasn't acting as though something was wrong, precisely, but it was obvious that something was on her mind.

"Is everything all right?" he asked. "There isn't a problem with the grant, is there?"

"What?" That seemed to startle her, as though she'd forgotten all about the fact that she was shortlisted for one of the most major grants on the planet. "No, no, that's all fine. It's—" She paused, and for the first time Weyoun started genuinely to worry. Finally, she said, "I'm pregnant."

The cup in his hand seemed to drop to the counter of its own accord as, for a second, all he could do was stare at her. "You—really?" he said, at a loss for words for maybe the second time in his life. Of course they'd been trying, but—well, Vorta reproduction being what it was, he'd thought it would take longer—though they did try a lot—

Eris nodded, stepping into the kitchen, a smile growing on her face. "Eight weeks," she said, taking a deep breath. "I've been so tired and achy, and this morning I just thought, 'what if?' and, well—the doctor confirmed it."

He realized he was still gripping the cup tightly and released it. Eris's smile was bright and happy, but beneath it her nerves were obvious. Going to her side and taking her arms in his hands, he began, "Eris—"

She placed her hands on his chest and gave him a cautionary look. "You know the chances aren't good."

Weyoun kissed her, probability not seeming all that important at the moment. She was pregnant. The possibility of him becoming a father was suddenly very real. "I know. Twelve percent."

"It's probably better to think of it as an eighty-eight percent chance that I won't carry to term," she said, but then she put her arms around his neck, some of the anxiety slipping away and her smile lighting her face. "It's exciting though, isn't it?"

"I can't think of anything more exciting," he replied, wrapping his arms carefully around her, already feeling a tendency to treat her like glass.

It didn't get past her either, and she laughed. "You're not going to break anything," she said, and he smiled sheepishly, holding her more tightly. Then, resting her head against his, she said in a quiet, pragmatic tone, "I understand that the miscarriage isn't very painful. Not as painful as the last few months of the pregnancy, anyway." She pulled back to meet his eyes and smiled sardonically. "The price of the continuation of the species, I suppose."

Weyoun could remember his mother's constant state of pregnancy, even vaguely the pregnancy-miscarriage-pregnancy cycle, though he couldn't have said whether or not she'd been in much pain. Maybe he hadn't noticed. He'd been young. And his earliest memories were of looking for an escape—he hadn't been particularly attuned to the minutiae of his parents' lives. Or anything about his parents' lives. Still, maybe gutter-scum women just got used to it. He supposed given enough time, one could get used to anything. "Well," he said, "are we celebrating or preparing ourselves for the worst?"

She gave him an impish smile and kissed him quickly. "Celebrating. We're one step closer, after all." Her smile widened, and she grabbed his hands. "And who knows? In a few years that spare bedroom might be a nursery."

He couldn't help laughing and hugging her again. Had it been a mere two hours ago that he'd thought the most momentous thing in his life was a manned orbital? He was filled simultaneously with a feeling both of his own significance and insignificance—Eris and him were genetically viable together; they could create a new life; and it was the same thing that Vorta had been doing, with varying success, for tens of millennia, and that they'd continue to do, Founders willing, for many more. The world felt huge and small at the same time, but more importantly, full of nascent possibility. Regardless of whether this pregnancy was viable or not, things were different now.

Months passed; the monsoon continued as it always did. The grant, to no one's surprise, was awarded to Eris. The manned orbital's construction stayed ahead of schedule and parts for a second and third were built and shipped to Tira City. A launch date was set for halfway through Firstmonth. The launch pad had been retrofitted for the manned orbitals during the previous dry season and one day Weyoun took an armored vehicle out to the site alone—except for the silent driver—staring through the rivulets of water running down the windshield at the rain-lashed service tower.

Eris's pregnancy progressed, her stomach swelling over the months until, towards the end of the monsoon, she started wincing at the pressure and rubbing her back. Weyoun didn't tell her, but he wasn't entirely sorry for her discomfort, not when frequent massages led almost as frequently into other, more intimate, activities.

She kept lecturing at Tira University, of course—she'd lecture until the moment she went into labor, such was her dedication to her job—remarking wryly once that seeing a pregnant teacher was almost as important a part of their education for some of her students as the course itself.

The two of them had one of their quietest Effulgence Festivals; with Eris approaching ten months, she was too tired to stay out late, and too plagued with hyper-sensitive hearing and smell to want to be out on the streets for long, anyway. After services, they stood out on the verandah in the dark and sent two sky lanterns aloft, then went back inside and lit candles, lying in bed together and watching the flickering light playing on the walls.

Then, in no time at all, the launch date was upon the planet. Deimos, who had spent the last month of the monsoon in a heightened state of excitement, became cooler and calmer as the countdown went from weeks to days, going so far as to sequester himself in his office for the two days prior to liftoff. The well-wishers, he'd said aggrievedly over an internal interface call to Weyoun, while well-meaning, were destroying his concentration. He, of course, would be required to board the orbital fifteen hours in advance for the long pre-flight checklist, which meant he was leaving for the launch site mid-afternoon the day before.

Not that the idea of breaking Deimos's concentration was going to stop Weyoun from being a well-wisher himself, and so, around the time he thought Deimos might be getting ready to leave the Complex, he stood up, told his personal assistant and Leto where he was going, and opened the office door.

Deimos was standing there, his hand outstretched to open the door, but he drew it back with a grin as Weyoun said, "Your timing is impeccable as always, Deimos. I was just coming to see you."

Still grinning, Deimos said, "I always rather got the impression that you thought my timing was abysmal."

"You used to have a certain tendency to insert yourself into situations where your presence wasn't required, but time seems to have cured you of the habit."

"Your dates back at university, you mean? It's possible that I was purposefully making a nuisance of myself."

"You don't say," Weyoun remarked in mock surprise. Deimos chuckled, and Weyoun clasped his hands behind his back, watching his friend. "So," he said. "Tomorrow, then."

Nodding, Deimos agreed, "Tomorrow."

The two friends stared at each other, words feeling unnecessary. They'd known each other since the tender ages of sixteen, entered the Complex at the same time, and followed separate paths that had led them to confluences again and again. Truth be told, fifteen years ago Weyoun never would have thought they'd work together the way they had on the spaceflight program; Deimos had joked at the time that they'd be lucky not to be on opposites sides of the Council chamber in every debate. And now here they were, the tangible result of their work together sitting on a launch pad one kilometer from the Ocean.

In contrast to the past week, excitement was now radiating off the other man—the air fairly thrummed with it. No need to ask if he was looking forward to the following day, when at long last, after so many years, the first manned orbital would fire its thrusters and leave Kurill's atmosphere.

Leto poked her head out of her office at the sound of Deimos's voice and said, "Good luck, Deimos—I'd come out and be more personal but I'm writing Weyoun's triumphant speech for the post-launch session tomorrow."

Looking affronted, Deimos said, "I see, the two of you wait until I'm two thousand kilometers above the planet's surface and then you take credit for my pioneering expedition."

"I'll make sure to pay glowing tribute to you," Weyoun avowed, his mouth twitching into a crooked smile.

When Leto disappeared back into her office, Deimos turned back to Weyoun and said, "You're going to have a good seat at the launch, I hope."

"Of course."

The two of them stared at each other again, then Deimos snorted and muttered something that sounded like, "Good manners be damned," and grabbed Weyoun into a hug. Weyoun, though surprised for a moment, returned it tightly. Eighteen years of friendship—no, words weren't necessary.

Then, with a slap on Weyoun's back, Deimos stepped away. "I'd better go. Don't want to be late for my own mission."

"No," Weyoun agreed with a smile. As the other man started to turn around, Weyoun said, "Just do me a favor, would you, Deimos?" When his friend raised his eyebrows, Weyoun smiled slightly and finished, "Bring that orbital back in one piece. You wouldn't believe how much it cost us."

It almost felt like the Effulgence Festival again on the day of the launch. Not many Vorta seemed to want to go to work—in point of fact, as a private skimmer took Weyoun and Eris to the launch site, train after full train passed them on the metro line that the road ran parallel to. Tira University had cancelled classes for the day and most of the schools in the city had as well. Once the skimmer dropped them off, the resemblance to the festival grew, as the typical food vendors had set up shop along the pathway to the viewing podium. Eris gritted her teeth at the smell of food frying in oil but otherwise looked quietly excited.

As they approached the podium that had been set up for VIPs to watch the launch—high-ranking senators, socialites, businessmen, a few celebrities here and there—Weyoun spotted Foros and his wife surrounded by people who hadn't given him the time of day seven years ago, before he'd held onto his seat for a second term. But now he was changing Kurill, and people wanted just a little bit of that glory reflected onto themselves.

Weyoun and Eris themselves were mobbed after they ascended the stairs, and Weyoun couldn't help thinking wryly as he accepted people's congratulations or, more often than not, fawning brown-nosing, that it was a bit ironic that Deimos, the one who really would have enjoyed all the attention, was the one person who couldn't be there.

Eventually, they were able to join Foros. Never one to stand on formality, he clapped an arm around Weyoun's shoulders and said with a jovial gleam in his eye, "You thought I was out of my mind the first time I said I wanted to send a Vorta to space, didn't you?"

"I've never viewed you with anything other than the deepest respect," Weyoun said with a grin. "Though, now that you mention it, I think it was the first ten or twelve times you said you wanted to send a Vorta to space."

With a laugh, Foros said, "I appreciate the honesty."

"We're not really in the business for it, but on occasion some slips past," Weyoun replied mildly, eliciting another chuckle from Foros.

Turning to Eris, Foros said, "My dear, you look even lovelier than usual."

"I don't, Foros, but thank you." Eris put a hand to her back. "Pregnancy isn't for the vain."

Smiling and putting a hand on her shoulder, he said, "Nonsense. How far along are you?" There was a flicker of old pain in his eyes, the pain, Weyoun knew, of his wife's repeated inability to bring a pregnancy to full term.

Eris glanced down at her stomach. "Too far along. Ten months. It's fighting for every day."

Neither of them said much about her pregnancy out loud anymore, not to note that if the miscarriage didn't come soon, they might actually have a baby in five months, not to wonder about the sex of the fetus. It was always 'it' now, and somehow, the longer she remained pregnant, the more nervous the two of them got. Had she miscarried in the first few months, well, she was expected to. Now, despite the fact that neither of them said anything, they'd both started to hope that she'd be within that lucky twelve percent that carried a first pregnancy to term.

Weyoun gave himself a mental shake. Today wasn't the day to be thinking about it, and he met Eris's eyes for a moment. She smiled wryly, likely thinking the same thing he had been.

No doubt Foros noticed their wordless exchange, because he just smiled kindly and said, "I can't say that surprises me. The two of you are both fighters."

After a few more minutes' talk, they began circulating among the attendees again. Eris, well known in her field but also generally for her involvement with Hellad, was quickly drawn into her own conversations. She had a talent for determining who was interested in speaking with her solely because of her marriage and who was interested in her on her own merits, and an even greater talent in disentangling herself from conversations with the former. Weyoun left her to her own devices and chatted idly for a few minutes with the businessman, Gelnon Eron, that Foros had run against seven years ago.

Then, unexpectedly, he found himself with a quiet moment. Foros was holding the attention of a ring of industrialists and everyone else, Eris included, was clumped together in small groups. Weyoun seized the moment of silence and went to the rail at the edge of the podium, picking up threads of conversations as he went.

"Floating by yourself for a week up there—I don't think I could do it."

"What about the meteor shower?"

"The meteor shower doesn't begin for another two weeks; he'll be back before then."

"I hope I can see the landing next week; my filming schedule might conflict…"

Somehow he maintained his solitude as he stood there, staring out at the launch site. The podium had been set up about half a kilometer from it, and between the two was a sea of gently waving marsh grass and shore roses. In the distance, the Ocean was visible, its rolling, deep blue waves breaking on the rocky shoreline. And set in front of it was the poured concrete slab of the launchpad, the metal service tower jutting into the sky, and Kurill's pride—their first manned orbital, only a few short minutes from its first mission. Sun glinted off the service tower and the orbital's forward view port back into the periwinkle sky, and a wispy trail of steam rose from the coolant vents around the engines.

A shore bird picked its way through the grass, hunting for insects, and Weyoun watched for a second as its neck whipped out and it snapped its beak closed on something.

"It's beautiful, in its way, isn't it?" Eris's voice asked suddenly from his side. In a strange but compelling way, it was. Beauty in technology, perhaps. When Weyoun agreed with an inarticulate noise, she added, "I hope Deimos is happy."

"Oh, he is. The inevitable showers of accolades aside, Deimos has always been afflicted with…wanderlust."

Eris nodded, then said, "I hope even more that everything goes well up there."

Wrapping his hands around the railing, Weyoun replied, "That goes without saying."

The two of them stood there, shoulders close but not quite touching, waiting while steam continued to drift upwards around the orbital on the day's light breeze. Then, in the distance, over the launch site loudspeakers, a countdown began at one minute to liftoff. Everyone on the podium quieted, as though something had physically silenced them, and they all turned to face the launchpad. It was quiet enough that their breathing was audible, but no one made another sound.

As the countdown approached zero, the orbital's massive engines fired up, the roar of them rolling in waves across the landscape. It drowned out the countdown, but everyone knew that it had ended because suddenly, more slowly than seemed right, the orbital began lifting off the ground. As it cleared the service tower it gained speed, clawing its way upwards for momentum and sky. White clouds of steam and exhaust billowed behind it, the twin flames of its engines cutting through the plume in bright flares.

Weyoun realized he was holding his breath for the first thirty seconds or so of the orbital's flight, and he slowly let it out as the ship climbed higher and higher into the sky. The orbital gained altitude and throttled its engines up, a bright, burning tail streaming out behind it as it arced upwards into the clear, curving sky. Sooner than seemed possible, it was nothing but a bright speck of firing thrusters and gleaming white light, and then that, too, became invisible. The roar of its liftoff persisted but slowly faded until it had subsided completely.

In the wake of the orbital's takeoff, a stillness held the marsh. Then, from the direction of the larger viewing area that had been set up for the general public, came the sound of cheering. That broke the spell on the podium, and someone began applauding exuberantly. The rest of the podium joined in, except Weyoun and Eris. Both of them continued staring upwards. There was something like an ache in his chest; a certainty that things were changing, and that none of them knew what the future held.

The mission was an incredible success. In a week, the orbital landed as planned and Deimos emerged, grinning so widely that it looked like his face might split. Dark purple shadows surrounded his eyes but he remained awake for what seemed like two straight days, answering questions for the media, posing for holoimages, doing interviews on the major interface outlets. Then he disappeared for four days, sending only a brief message to Weyoun—Recovering. Will stop by in a few days.

He hadn't finished compiling his reports yet when he stopped by Weyoun and Eris's house, which he was in the process of announcing before Eris, surprising both Deimos and Weyoun, hugged the other man. He patted her back and said, "You'll have to come up sometime, Eris. Leave the senator down here on solid ground."

Of course, they asked him what it had been like. He'd grown silent; uncharacteristically serious and subdued, and finally replied quietly, "Like nothing any of us has ever experienced." He paused, then tried, "I'd look down at Kurill and it was this perfect, beautiful marble, blue and green and purple, and then my orbital would cross the terminator and if I was on the Ocean side everything was black, and then I'd see the Marit oil fields like a lighthouse below me. Then—the first time I saw the sun rise over Kurill, it was…" Something stopped him from going on, and when he spoke again, all he said was, "I think—it was like looking into the faces of the Founders."

For a moment, none of them said anything, and finally, Eris remarked, "You're becoming a poet, Deimos."

With an easy grin that seemed to break whatever spell he was under, he replied, "It's easy to be a poet up there."

The data he'd collected was immediately put to use for planned future launches and the construction of the other two orbitals was accelerated, and several further missions planned for that dry season and beyond. Development on a new type of orbital—an extraorbital ship that could leave the confines of Kurill orbit—was also begun with some of the funding for the current generation, though without its own legislation, there wasn't much progress made.

Deimos himself resigned his position as the head of the astronomy division in the Capitol science lobby, instead taking on a job with Ground Control to train other astronauts full time and prepare for his next mission, which wouldn't be for a few months.

On Deimos's last day, Weyoun stayed at the Complex late, helping him clean out his office, and it was well after dark when he got home. The house was dark when he keyed the entry panel and opened the door—dark and heavy with an ominous silence. He put down his briefcase slowly, straining his ears to catch even the slightest sound that would indicate his wife's presence. If she was there, she'd normally at least call out a greeting to him, but there was nothing, only the faint background hum of appliances.

"Eris?" he asked into the silence. No answer. He couldn't remember her saying she'd be working late tonight, and she hadn't sent him a message saying so, but he went into the living room to check the interface anyway.

On the way, his gaze caught on the verandah door. It was open—just slightly—and he abruptly changed direction and walked towards it. The verandah faced out over the lake and forest to the side of their property and they kept several wooden chairs on it. It was completely dark outside but now that he was looking, his eyes began to pick out a still form in one of the chairs.

Eris was sitting there, hands clasped in her lap. When Weyoun turned the exterior lights on, stepped outside, and sat down next to her, she didn't seem surprised to see him, and she gave him a small, joyless smile. He stared at her, trying to discern what was wrong, because something clearly was. "How was your day?" he asked her carefully. He was good at reading his wife, but there was a haunted look in her eyes that he'd never seen before. "Did you open the new trench?"

For a second, she looked baffled, but then she blinked, and that appeared to ground her. "Oh. Yes. We did. Well—I had to ask Yuaris to do it."

Weyoun nodded, waiting for her to elaborate; perhaps to tell him what had happened without prompting. And that was when he glanced down and noticed blood spotted on the paving stones below the chair. As he stared, he saw another drop splatter the ground, and his eyes traced its path back up to her chair. "Eris," he said, trying to keep his voice even, "you're bleeding."

She looked away from him, and the smooth mask of her face cracked a little. "The doctor told me that's normal."

"Doctor?" Weyoun slid forward in the chair until he was balanced on the edge of it, and he closed his hand around her wrist. "Eris, what happened?"

There was a long silence. Weyoun's eyes couldn't help going back to that spot on the ground, dark with blood, and a sharp-edged fear was thrumming through him. Finally, Eris looked at him, and exhaustion and pain washed over her face. Her features looked abruptly sunken, pinched; her paleness was suddenly an unhealthy wan-ness, and she said quietly, her voice just barely cracking, "I miscarried."

He swallowed and drew a breath in sharply through his nose. "Eris," he breathed, but she just turned her head away. There shouldn't have been anything shocking in it. If she'd carried the baby to term—that would have been shocking. Beating the odds. Still, that knowledge didn't make the fact of it any easier. He hadn't really been thinking of it as a child yet, just…possibility. And the loss of that possibility hurt. Seeing the pain on Eris's face hurt.

After a moment of staring at her—her downcast eyes, lines around them, and her hands curled limply together in her lap, and how had he not noticed, her stomach markedly flatter—he moved his chair so that it abutted hers. She flicked her eyes in his direction but didn't look him in the face. An ache expanded in his chest.

Without a word, he sat back down and put an arm around her, drawing her to him gently. Soundlessly, she wrapped her own arms around him and leaned her head against his chest. "I know I shouldn't be so…emotional," she finally said in a quiet, but steady voice. "I know it's normal."

"You're entitled to be as emotional as you want," he replied, bending to kiss her forehead. She made a small noise but didn't say anything else, and for several minutes the two of them sat on the terrace, the light buzzing above them. A night heron rustled by and several blocks away, the metro passed by on its tracks. Eris was tracing patterns on his leg with a finger and he watched her do it. Finally, though, he asked quietly, "Why didn't anyone contact me?"

There was another long silence, but then she said, "I didn't want you there."

"Eris," he sighed, then pressed his lips to her forehead again. "Why not?"

He felt her shrug. "I didn't want you to see me like that."

Reaching up to stroke her ear, he murmured, "Like what?"

She pulled away from him slightly, bracing herself against his chest with her hands and looking into his eyes. "Weak," she told him. "And failing at something." When he opened his mouth to respond, she shook her head. "I know. I wasn't failing. I'm not weak. It happens to eighty-eight percent of women during their first pregnancies." She sighed and leaned against him once more. "But I didn't want anyone to call you." After another pause, she added, "Besides, I wasn't in any danger. And there was nothing you could do."

"That isn't the point," he said. "If—" He'd been about to say if it happens again but stopped himself, not wanting to admit that it could, though of course it was possible. Forty-nine percent possible. "I want to know if anything's happening to you," he said instead. "It doesn't matter what it is."

Eris exhaled slowly. "If it happens again," she said deliberately, voicing what he hadn't been able to, "I still won't want you there."

"Eris—"

"Weyoun," she interrupted him, "all it is is blood and painkillers and doctors telling you there's nothing you could have done. That it's just…genetics." Her voice tightened. "They're very good at being sympathetic. Every glance, every inflection—they know exactly what to say and do and just how to look for maximum compassion." Before he could think of the best way to respond, she said, "Why wouldn't they, when this happens to women every single day? They must forget how to act when they actually deliver a baby—" A hitch in her voice stopped her. Weyoun didn't say anything, and she took a deep breath before continuing, "You would think someone would have come up with a way to fix this by now."

Knowing that she wasn't looking for a response, he still remained silent. Finally, she shifted, sitting up and looking at him. "We can start trying again in a few weeks," she said. "I have an appointment with the obstetrician at the hospital to clear it."

"That's the last thing I'm thinking of—" he began.

"I'm thinking of it," she said fiercely. Then, her expression softening, she added, "I haven't suffered permanent psychological damage and I'm not trying to prove something. I just want to have your baby. It's never going to happen if we don't keep trying."

He exhaled slowly and touched her ear, and for a long moment, he didn't say anything. Then, he asked, "A few weeks?" Eris nodded, and Weyoun sat back, holding her hand loosely in his. Without speaking, the two of them sat in the dark, the quiet sounds of night enveloping them. It would be a long time before they went inside again.