Author's notes:

Ages and ages of writer's block got in the way of this chapter's completion. Half of this chapter has been written in England, the second half over the last few days. There was a huge change of mood from last chapter to this that I tried to balance out once I noticed (the long time between chapters is not that good, neither for you as readers nor for the story quality I fear).

Just to give you some orientation; it's now the beginning of May, Ellen is in her sixth month of pregnancy. As discussed last chapter, Bak has asked for her to take is slower to not endanger herself any more than absolutely necessary. Also Lady Bermont disclosed her plan to adopt the child and make it the heir of the title should it be a boy. And now, let's see what changed from then to now (about three weeks later).

Kapitel 62: Unrest

Silently and unceremoniously a vibrant and warm spring blended into the beginning of a lush and radiating Summer. As Ellen watched the scenery around the castle change from blooming flowers on the castle grounds and on the moor to a yellowing green, she found it hard to not be very aware of the change she was undergoing as well. She had preferred not to dwell on it too much, but with the lack of missions she received from Komui (Central had agreed to reduce the number of missions drastically), she had nothing much to do during the long summer days and nights. The changes happening to her were two-fold, one obvious the other more subtle. On one hand Ellen was growing up. Barely in the delicate state where her body matured she had been brought into the order and now she was entirely changed. From a girl to a young woman, both in body and in mind. And this all in not much more than half a year. While nobody that had known her from the start could deny that this change had taken place, it became rather insignificant to the other, even more visible alterations of her body. She was pregnant, and no matter how much she tried to hide it, she found that she no longer could achieve secrecy.

And with that realisation, she finally decided not to run from it any more and pay close attention to what was happening to her body. Because, so Ellen thought, chances were that she was only going to be pregnant once in her life-time. So she watched what happened (sometimes with fear, sometimes with odd curiosity, but mostly fear), what changed about her, about her relationship and about her place within the Black Order.

-o-o-o-

When the lack of missions allowed her to, Ellen took long walks in the morning, rising before Kanda who usually left to train in the early hours. In a loose, informal dress (anything else she felt to be inappropriate) she would meet Link in the hallway and proceed to follow a seemingly random trail through the gardens, fields and up the hill behind the castle where she would then wait for the sunrise in the shade of some rosebushes.

"I take this time before the Order awakes for myself. I like to come here to think," she told Link after he had silently followed her on these walks for a few days. He looked up at her, but before he caught her eyes Ellen squeezed hers shut and lifted her hand. The sun was slowly rising, sending honey coloured rays over the land. Ellen let the rays shine through her finger, the light making her face glow.

"What do you like to think about?" Link wondered after Ellen had turned from the sunrise. She rubbed her eyes before she answered him. Her gentle smile was almost startling.

"What? Now you want to know my secret thoughts as well?" she teased and Link rolled his eyes. She was getting more familiar with him and he was not sure he liked the new intimacy of these morning walks. She made her way down the slope and slipped her arm into his, keeping her head close to his to talk. For some reason Link could not shake off the thought that she was treating him like she treated Linali or Miranda – it was the intimacy that girls shared between them. Why he had become a member of that usually impenetrable circle was quite beyond Link, but if it helped him in his observations of the future Noah, then so be it. He would refrain from complaining, at least not to Inspector Leverrier.

"I do not mean to pry. I am just asking for the sake of conversation," he told her and Ellen laughed silently.

"Well. I could also talk to my furniture then if that is how much my conversation is worth to you," she joked and Link snorted.

"I appreciate your conversations, Ellen," he told her, to get that cheeky smile off her face, but it stayed. "Seeing as we will still be spending quite a lot of time in each other's company it would be to our mutual interest to maintain a friendly relationship."

"Friendly and proper of course," she said with mock severity and Link sighed, shaking his head. Ellen grinned at him as he led her back towards the castle.

"I am just teasing you, do not get cross at me," she laughed and Link looked at her from the corner of his eyes.

Even though he had known her for quite some time now and she actually made an effort to be real friends, he still could not understand her. She remained unpredictable. Link was tempted to attribute it to the fact that she was a woman, or even to her pregnancy, but he thought her changing moods were rather an indication to how torn she was inside by the still rather new situation she found herself in. This freshness and radiance of the morning walks, their friendly intimacy, her willingness to talk freely about any topic (apart from work related ones) contrasted strongly against how she behaved inside the awe-inspiring walls of Bermont castle and, to a lesser extent, how she worked on missions.

She had acquired enough fighting experience that most of the missions were routine by now. Of course, she was not as experienced as Kanda, but she was far more professional during her missions now that she had got used to them. Certainly, Link only knew her initial clumsiness and fear by reports. "Far too hot-headed and a danger to both herself and the success of the mission" had been Kanda's verdict on their very first joint mission, but he also had had kinder words for her before the conclusion of "mission accomplished". That Ellen was far too emotional during missions was not hard to imagine for Link, as she fought with her heart and instinct rather than with strategy and expertise.

However, during her everyday life at the order, Ellen displayed a minimal of her innermost feelings. She was polite and cordial to everyone, but, and Link made special notes of that in his letters to Leverrier, distant as well. Her uncle approved of a certain proper distance between the noble born Ellen and the other members of the Black Order, but Link was sure that this was not the reason for Ellen's reserved smile and her frequent afternoons in the almost solitude of her room. He guessed that it might be because she shied away from the other exorcists because she feared their scorn. Ever since the announcement of her being a Noah Ellen had had less contact with her friends. Of course, she still met them almost every day because it was really difficult to avoid someone here in their mutual home.

Even though Link was not wrong about his assumption, there were various reasons why Ellen loved the mornings and was shy as soon as the Order awoke. Actually, it also tied in with the reason why Ellen spent more time with Link now. It was a reason that she didn't want to admit to anybody.

She was shy and embarrassed, simple as that. Her body, always something Ellen thought was very private, was in almost plain display now and Ellen felt that everyone must be as bewildered and alienated by her state as she was. To put layers of clothing and closed doors between herself and anybody else was the only option she saw that still gave her at least a little bit of privacy. And 'anybody' also included her husband.

-o-o-o-

Ellen and Link returned to the Order to have breakfast. Kanda had already slipped out of the room, now used to Ellen being gone, even though his irritation at Link for being with her was still hard to keep at bay. No new mission had been announced yet and Ellen found it difficult to fill her time with anything meaningful to do. It was, so much was sure, entirely inconvenient and boring to be a woman six months pregnant. And it could only get worse, Ellen was almost sure of that.

"You've been eating less and less recently," Link commented, watching Ellen stare down at her food absent-mindedly, her spoon lying unused next to the plate. "You've only eaten the sandwiches and the salad. Are you not feeling well?" Ellen frowned, but looked up at Link. The man had already finished eating his chocolate cake (oooh, she would so love to eat that for breakfast!) and got up from the bench with a sigh.

"I would not say that I am unwell, but I seem to have some problems lately," she said, walking out of the dining area into the corridor. It was warm because the sun fully hit the many windows, slowly heating up the corridor. Ellen leant against the wall and sighed, hitting the back of her head against the tapestry. "My stomach is acting up. I am hungry. Really hungry, but it just spoils my appetite…" Link looked at her with a raised eyebrow and saw Ellen flinch. "Again! And I only had the sandwiches… And the salad… Oh… and the cookies that Linali gave me, but only a dozen of them! Not more… I will become a stick if I can't eat!"

"Pardon me, Ellen," Link said and extended his hand, putting it against Ellen's stomach. The girl looked down at his hand in surprise. "I just think that this is not a problem of your-" He took away his hand. "That's just your child kicking…"

"What?"

"As far as I know children move in their mother's wombs," he said calmly and saw colour creep into Ellen's face. "Why are you so flustered now? How can you not know that?"

"I didn't… It's just…!" She let out a deep groan, putting her face in the palms of her hands.

"Now that's even more off-putting than indigestion," she complained. Link snorted, shaking his head. "I will never eat again."

"Stop being so overly dramatic," the young man told her as they walked back to Ellen's room, the girl still walking as if dazed. "It's just for three more months. Women before you have managed."

"I will die of hunger." Link made an exasperated sound and Ellen opened the door to her bedroom.

"Shut up, Ellen."

"Have pity on me, Howard," she wailed and his annoyance even made him ignore her calling him by his first name, something she rarely did. Maybe when she wanted him to share his desserts with her, or if she wanted him to make her bed, or if she wanted him to write something nice to her uncle for her.

"You know, if you whinge like that I cannot take your agitation seriously," he informed her and Ellen closed the door behind her with a thud, shutting Link out. The young man glared at the closed door, but he just shook his head and went to his room to give her a few minutes to regain her composure.

Inside her room, Ellen let herself drop to her bed, face pressed into the covers. Of course she had had her suspicions that the uncomfortable tickling which had slowly become hard to describe rumblings within her could be caused by the child. But to know that it was kicking her was a scary feeling. As if the child wanted to force her to acknowledge its existence. Almost as irritating as the Noah…

"Oi, beansprout, what the heck are you doing?" Ellen lifted her head and saw Kanda coming into the room, his hair still slightly wet from taking a bath after training. "Link warned me that you were in a bad mood."

"I am not in a bad mood," Ellen said, sitting up with an insulted expression.

"I see," he just said, focusing his attention on getting something else to wear. Ellen looked at his back indecisively for a few moments, before she lowered her head with red cheeks.

"It's just that… the child…" Kanda stopped buttoning up his shirt to turn around. It made Ellen swallow the rest of the sentence in embarrassment.

"Did something happen?" he asked with slight alarm when nothing else came and he walked over to their bed. "Ellen?"

"No, nothing happened. Just, I've been having a strange stomach, or, in fact not. Link said it's just the child moving about and kicking." Kanda raised an eyebrow.

"He's kicking?"

"Apparently, Link felt it." Kanda's expression changed from surprised to disgruntled. "He was just making sure, no reason to put on that scary face." Kanda snorted and crossed his arms over his chest.

"So the first to feel my child beside you is him? Of course I put on a 'scary' face!" Ellen smiled up at him apologetically.

"That is not exactly something I expected you to be jealous about," she said and Kanda rolled his eyes. "And it's not exactly something I plan on sharing with other people."

"Well, I was not waiting for him to move about, but I knew that sooner or later he must make himself known." When Ellen looked at him in wonder, Kanda added: "It was written in the medical books after all." She laughed at this.

"Ah yes. You have become smart after all this time." Kanda was of course slightly offended at that remark.

"It would not do you any harm to read about pregnancy once in a while. At least then you would have known that he was bound to move about. Or did you think the child would just sleep within you for nine months without stirring one bit?"

"I did not think at all."

"So that means that while I am getting smart you are getting stupid," the young man said with a snort and Ellen lowered her eyebrows at him.

"I just chose to be ignorant about it because I did not want to know," she muttered and Kanda shook his head.

"Then you are a fool." Ellen grabbed her pillow and hit him with it, but she was not really angry at him. Kanda wanted to react to the pillow mistreatment, but the girl pulled the pillow away again, pressing it to her chest.

"I hate this feeling. Things moving around inside of me. It takes every illusion of control from me. This does not feel like my body anymore…," she said, lowering her face into the top of the pillow, hiding her paleness. "It's…" Kanda didn't quite catch the word she muttered into the pillow, but he was almost sure of what she had said.

Disgusting.

After a moment of silence Kanda reached out and put his hand on top of Ellen's head. He tousled her hair until she lifted her face again. There was a pout and thankfully no tears. It was kind of disquieting for him to know that she thought about her body in this way.

"That's going to pass… Once the problem with the Noah is settled and the child is… out… it will be fine…"

"But, yes… well one day the child will be born, but what then? That doesn't mean that my body will be mine again."

"The Noah-," Kanda started but Ellen shook her head and Kanda sighed. "It is your body. It will always be. Don't worry that much about it even though you have to share it for a moment…"

"I do not want to share it," Ellen said with a sigh that Kanda replied with a sigh of his own. He had noticed…

"That's all right…," he said but both of them knew that he was not happy with how it was. Their relationship had changed quite a lot especially now that Ellen had started to identify herself with 'Mrs. Kanda'. They still didn't know how to behave as husband and wife, but they did know how to behave as people that felt great affection towards each other. Their relationship wasn't that physical, it never had been. Kanda was mostly fine with that, but now Ellen did not display more skin than absolutely necessary, she did not spend much time with him, neither did she allow him to touch her that much. It was difficult… He wasn't even that sure if he wanted to touch her belly and to feel for the child. It did confuse him to have the fact that he would be a father soon visualized by her body's condition. But he did not feel that disgust that Ellen seemed to feel. "It must be difficult," Kanda thought, "to be a woman six months pregnant."

-o-o-o-

When Ellen turned to her platonic friendship with Link for comfort, Kanda slipped off to meet Rabi. At first the young Bookman to be had been slightly surprised to have Kanda seek out his presence on his own account. But after a while he came to like their early evenings of doing what men their age might do under normal circumstances; talk about girls over a cup of tea after an afternoon of sparring.

The two of them used to meet in a dusty study Kanda had unlocked with the keys he took from Ellen. Here, sitting in the comfortable armchairs out of the sun that came in through the window, he would talk to his friend with a boyish delight. Their topics were mainly about Kanda's wife, Rabi's lack of one and generally of varying degrees of privacy. Rabi's favourite topic was still the shape and condition of women's bodies and Kanda provided him with detailed information only a lover could know.

"Her breasts aren't pink." Rabi looked at him with wonder and Kanda cleared his throat, his face not showing his slight embarrassment. "The tips of her breasts," he added, "they are not pink." Rabi was instantly interested in this turn in their conversation (both had already forgotten what exactly they had talked about before Kanda opened the door into this wonderful intimate realm of breasts), leaning towards Kanda to catch his silent talking. They were almost whispering. Heaven forbid Ellen or Linali ever finding out!

"Her skin is cream coloured. And they seem to be a shade darker." Rabi nodded his head, grinning about this bit of information. Well, he had seen Ellen partially naked before, but he had tried his best not to look too closely. However, even though he noticed it, he did not ask about the "seem to be" part of Kanda's revelation.

Truth to be told Kanda wasn't quite sure about it himself. If he and Ellen engaged in any night-time acts of passion (or something similar to that), it was always only a clumsy fumbling in the dark. And try as he might, Kanda's hands were rather colour-blind.

Rabi noticed the slight unease of Kanda's expression and sat back in his chair.

"What's wrong? Don't tell me that matters to you?"

"Don't be a dunce," Kanda said with a snort and Rabi grinned. "It's just that the beansprout's been more distant again. She prefers to hang out with the Vatican's lapdog."

"I think Link is rather harmless," Rabi replied and earned himself a sharp glare. "I am not on his side! I am just saying that I doubt Ellen has any interest in him."

"She does. Not of the romantic kind, I chose to completely trust in that, but there is still something that she does rather get from him than from me."

"Well, you too rather discuss some stuff with me than with her. That's just natural," Rabi argued, "I do doubt that she's discussing girl stuff with him though."

"I doubt she talks about that with anybody…" Kanda was silent for a while. "I have a theory," he finally said tentatively. Rabi blinked in surprise.

"Since when do you have theories?" Kanda gave him a warning glare and Rabi raised his hands in defence. "Okay. What's that theory?"

"Ellen is… feeling unwell in her body… She doesn't want to show it or to have it touched by me." On an afterthought he added, "it was actually Link who first felt the child moving in her belly."

"Oh, that's bitter." Rabi said with a sigh, shaking his head.

"At least you agree, she didn't think about that at all. She said she doesn't want to share her body and to some extend I can understand. But Ellen does like company, she does like being close to other people… So…"

"So she goes to Link," Rabi concluded, understanding what Kanda was getting at, "because he would not demand anything from her. It's his indifference she might appreciate…"

"But I cannot pretend to be indifferent…," Kanda said, shaking his head. Rabi crossed his arms over his chests, leaning back in his armchair.

"You have it though Yu." Kanda didn't comment on that, but he thought that probably Ellen had it much worse. But he too needed company, he too liked to be close to Ellen. Maybe he just had to try to make her see that.

"She could go to Linali, couldn't she?" Rabi wondered. Kanda shrugged.

"I don't know. She could turn to any of us, but I think Linali might make a fuss and sympathise with her and maybe wants to fell her stomach. Or whatever it is that girls do when confronted with pregnant women…" Rabi laughed.

"I think Ellen doesn't quite understand that it doesn't gross us out or anything like that…," he said, but Kanda remained quiet. Rabi raised an eyebrow.

"It is a strange feeling…," he said after a while, keeping his voice low and thoughtful. "To have something you cannot understand inside of your body…" Rabi lowered his head. He understood. Various conflicting identities, dangerous genes and memories, another human.

"Yeah… It's strange…" They were silent for a while, both contemplating, until Rabi looked at Kanda again. "So, what are you going to do?"

"There's nothing much I can do… But I am going to talk to her about it." If there was one thing he had learnt when dealing with Ellen, is that communication was vital. Even though it was difficult…

-o-o-o-

Ellen was in the flowerbeds stretching out in the courtyard between castle and mansion. After having spent a long time indoors, thinking, writing letters (she rarely sent off anymore) and reading, she felt the urge to go out again. She had borrowed some gardening tools and was digging in the soil rather aimlessly.

"Don't you ever get bored?" Ellen asked Link, who was working on the other side of the flowerbed.

"This is my job…" She rolled her eyes.

"Well, I can't do my job, so I am bored," she snorted, pulling out weed with merciless tugs.

"Patience, Ellen, is a virtue. You would do well to remember it," the young man reminded her and Ellen wrinkled her nose in annoyance. "Ah. Your husband." At Link's calm and disinterested announcement, Ellen looked up.

Kanda approached her, finding her sitting between the flowers. Kanda, with that look on his face Ellen knew so well. He wanted to say something, his gaze intent but still indecisive. He knew that she could read him well enough to tell that he had something heavy on his mind. Ellen looked up at him, calmly, but with doubt bubbling under the surface. What reproach now? She wondered to herself as he continued looking. Link, clipping roses, moved away slightly. He had no intentions to intervene, even though he could feel a tension of unspoken words between the two.

"I need to talk to you," Kanda started and, glancing at Link, he added: "in private." Ellen drew her lips into a line, but then she smiled. No point in trying to evade this.

"Can you excuse me for a second?" she asked, turning to Link.

"Only a second," Link answered without looking up. Ellen got up, wiping the dirt off her dress and let her shovel fall into the basket with some cut flowers.

"Why are you gardening?" Kanda asked while they were walking through the garden towards the orchard, a place Kanda new to be private enough.

"It's a nice day and I was bored." Kanda pushed the wooden door open, its hinges creaking slightly. The orchard behind was deserted, as expected. Ellen sat down on a stone bench in the shade of an apple tree.

"You could also spend it with me," he told her and Ellen looked up at him. "I don't have many missions. I have a lot of time for you." The white haired girl remained silent. "I even like gardening."

"I know, but-"

"I have been talking to Rabi," Kanda said, starting at the same time as she did. Ellen swallowed her words and let herself fall back against the tree.

"Oh dear," she muttered, knowing that something must come now. She was well aware that Rabi's gift for observation would probably legitimize anything Kanda thought to observe as well. They had similar values, Rabi sympathized with his friend, probably even more now that she and him talked this little. Kanda sat down next to her. His body, Ellen noticed, radiated warmth and he had a fragrance of… perfume? It must be the after-shave he used. Why did she take notice of it now?

"You are avoiding me. Not only me, but also your friends. Everyone but Link." Ellen gazed up at the sky she saw peeking through the apple tree's foliage. "Are you listening?"

"Of course I am…," she replied, turning her head towards him.

"Why? Do you feel so uncomfortable around us?"

"I feel…," Ellen started, but couldn't finish. She didn't know how to rely. She sighed instead. "I don't know what you want to hear from me…" Kanda looked at her wordlessly, then he directed his eyes to the ground.

"That you'll stop turning inwards. I get that you're unsettled now, but everything depends entirely on you. WE depend on you." Ellen turned to him, only to see his piercing blue gaze from underneath his black fringe. The pleading demand she saw there as well as the hope and affection made her nervous.

"D… Don't push me Kanda…" Kanda narrowed his eyes. She always said the same thing.

"Why do you call me that?" he demanded and Ellen pressed her lips together, turning away from him.

"… Just… a habit…" Suddenly, she felt Kanda's arms wrapping around her.

"Beansprout… Don't shy away from me…" He lowered his hands after a moment of hesitating, lightly placing them over her middle. A jolt went through Ellen, but she fought to urge to wriggle out of his hold. His warmth, his scent, the gentle touch of his hands and his forehead pressing against her shoulder. There was so much comfort in Kanda, it almost forced tears to her eyes. Why, why did she still feel trapped by this gentleness? Where did this tension come from?

"I know you don't like me touching you… I know you feel unwell in your body now… But… Don't… Share these feelings with me too, Ellen."

"I…" There was silence between them, where they stayed exactly like this, just feeling the other against their bodies. She relaxed eventually, which caused Kanda to sigh in relief.

"I am afraid, Yu…" He let go of her which allowed her to turn to him, facing him directly. She was a bit pale in the shadows of the tree, but her frown turned into an insecure smile. "It's… I am into my sixth month now. Nothing happened, even Bak worried about the child and now everything seems like it's going forwards in a far too fast pace. As if… the child realized that it should hurry up."

"Well… You wear concealing clothes. I don't see much," Kanda said. Right now he wanted to touch her, to make sure that her belly was growing, but he was too shy. Ellen lifted her fingers, touching Kanda's shoulders.

"And that's exactly the point, isn't it? I don't want others to see. I do not want to make it visible on the outside. It is private. Coming to terms with my change is private. I can do this, I know, but I think it is something I need to do alone…"

"But I am your husband, don't forget this," Kanda argued, "I am interested in what happens to you. I want to be a part of this progress." Ellen sighed, squeezing Kanda's shoulders lightly.

"Yu…," Ellen said with a deep sigh, shaking her head, "let's be honest. We both did not want this child. It should not have happened in the first place. I don't know about you, but I am still not ready." Kanda remained silent for a while, pondering, then, when Ellen placed her hands on her own knees again, he shrugged.

"I don't know what I want, that's the truth. But you still have a few months. We'll be ready." Ellen graced him with a dry, hollow laugh. "I am trying to understand… I know that you are upset because you're pregnant. Isn't that normal?"

"I think it is, but it doesn't change the fact that I am upset." Kanda looked at her with an apologetic expression. "I cannot imagine myself as a mother… I can barely imagine myself as being pregnant, unless the child painfully reminds me of its existence. I'm trying to acknowledge it, but…" She sighed and looked at her fingers, placed on her knees. "And at the same time as the child wants me to take notice of it, the Noah too bothers me incessantly. If you'd be in my position, you'd be subdued as well…" Kanda watched her, not quite knowing how to respond and if a reply was even necessary. Of course he'd be. "But… I am sorry… I did not mean to give you the cold shoulder. I am just so busy with myself… And… And I did not want to burden you."

"Beansprout… Just talk to me. We are companions, we must support each other," Kanda told her, brushing his fingers through her silky hair. "I cannot help other than to talk to you or to hold you if you are upset. But just… take my offer for comfort then…" Ellen smiled, leaning against him.

"You're such a romantic at times, Yu." Kanda wrinkled his nose, but continued drawing his hand through her hair. Ellen closed her eyes, conveniently forgetting that Link was still waiting for her to return. But the warmth of Kanda, the nice breeze of the afternoon under the apple tree… She wanted to stay like this just a bit longer.

To be continued

Notes:

Okay, I first wanted to include another scene here, but as I want to move on to the Phantom Thief G arc I refrain from including other things for the moment. There's still enough time after we get the plot moving again *lol*

I'd be curious to hear what you think! Thanks again for your patience with me :3