Chapter 47
Mortality
"In My Place"- Coldplay
Kyle (POV)
I flipped through a journal of Adam's. I had been reading one of the personal journals Adam kept from the early stages of the experiment. I had been lucky that the journals I had burned years ago were actually copies that Foss had given me. The ones I had been reading now are the original journals Adam kept. I had been comparing Adam's notes on the experiment with the Latnok notes that had been taken of Nathan. There was a great contrast between Adam's view of the experiment and that of the head scientist, Ethan Pratt, in charge of Nathan. In Adam's notes I was referred to as a child, in Ethan's notes Nathan was a subject or 781230.
I had begun my own journals, just in case something was to happen to me, and Nathan was to need them. I guess I was following in Adam's footsteps by preparing for these things. Foss and I didn't talk about my mortality much, but we both knew it was a concern. That's exactly why we train as often and as hard as we do.
From what Adam had written, his symptoms of system failure became prevalent three years before his death. He experienced frequent headaches, nose bleeds and soon his immune system weakened and it became harder and harder to fight off illnesses.
"What are you doing?" Amanda asked from behind me. She rubbed my shoulders lovingly.
"Just going over Adam's notes," I mumbled, closing the worn brown leather book and setting it on the stack of papers on the coffee table.
"Again? You've been going over them every night this week," she pointed out. "What are you looking for anyway?"
"I'm not quite sure." That was a lie. The truth was I had, had a nose bleed the other day at work and it had been worrying me.
"Kyle, are you okay?" she asked, shifting to sit on the arm of the couch. "You've been kind of distant."
"I've just had a lot on my mind." I knew it was terrible to lie, but I didn't want to worry her if there wasn't anything to worry about.
"You can talk to me," she said, lifting my chin.
"I know," I said back. "Actually there's something I want to show you."
I got up and went to my coat and dug in the pocket for the set of house keys I received from the contractor yesterday afternoon.
"You have to show me something?" she questioned, and I knew she knew I was only trying to avoid telling her something but she didn't push it.
"Yeah, Brice is still at Anthony's house, right?" I called from the hallway.
"Yeah, Anthony's mom just called and offered for Brice to stay the night," she said, kind of confused by my sudden need to show her something. "What do you have to show me?"
"This," I smiled, holding out a single golden key.
"A key?" she questioned, taking it from me. "To what?"
"That's the surprise," I grinned.
"Kyle, you know I don't like surprises," she protested.
"Trust me, you'll love this," I assured her, holding out her coat.
She bit her lower lip as if she was contemplating what I was up to. Then she reluctantly took her coat and slipped on her shoes.
"Okay, don't think that this gets you off the hook though," she warned.
"Wouldn't dream of it," I mumbled to myself as we left the apartment.
I drove the long way to get to the property by car. It was almost an hour outside of the city by car and 20 minutes by the ferry boat. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw her playing with the key in her hands. I reached over and took one of her hands in mine to ease her nerves.
"You're really not going to tell me where we are going?" she pleaded.
"Nope, I've already given you a big hint," I reminded her.
"A key is hardly a hint," she retorted.
"Well it's the only one you're getting," I teased.
She sighed in frustration, and looked out the window as if she was trying to figure out the surprise by using land marks. It probably wasn't working so well considering all we were passing were trees.
"We're almost there, don't worry," I assured her, kissing her hand.
Once we were about to turn down the road that led to the land I pulled the car over.
"Why are we stopping?" she questioned, scanning around.
"Don't worry; I just need you to put this on," I said, reaching in back for a scarf. "I don't want any peeking."
"Seriously?" She raised an eyebrow at me.
I nodded, holding the black knit scarf out to her.
"Okay," she sighed, wrapping it over her eyes. "You better not be kidnapping me, Mr. Trager."
"We're already married, why would I have to kidnap you?" I joked.
We pulled into the long driveway that led to the house and I parked right out front.
"Okay I'm going to get out; I don't want you to peek so wait until I've come around to get you," I ordered, climbing out of the car.
I hopped around the car and over to her door and opened it for her. I led her to the middle of the yard. It was strange to consider it a yard because of how massive the land was.
"Okay, you can look now," I said, standing directly beside her.
The front of the house had stone steps that led to the wooden doors and giant glass windows on either side. Stone support beams held up part of what would be the second floor. Seeder wood was used to panel most of the house where there weren't windows.
"Kyle…" she trailed off. "It's beautiful…"
"You like it?" I gathered.
"I love it! This is ours?" she questioned, her mouth still dangling open in shock.
"Yep, this whole property is ours," I explained.
"This must have cost a fortune. We can't afford this," she said, turning to me.
"The land was left to me by Adam, I didn't pay for it," I said. "As far as the house goes, building it cost around five hundred thousand."
"Five hundred thousand?" Her eyes bulged.
"That's probably something else I should explain," I smiled sheepishly.
"Please do," she said, folding her arms over her chest.
"Once Foss found out about the blue prints I had made, the ones I showed to you, he informed me that Adam left me 16.3 million dollars," I shrugged.
"16.3 million dollars?" she cut me off.
"I've put half away for Nathan, since he is Adam's son too. Even if Adam didn't know about Nathan, it's what he would have wanted." I paused for her to say something but she didn't. "Anyway, I gave one million of my share to Stephen and Nicole and another million each to Josh and Lori."
"Why didn't you tell me about this sooner?" She said still recovering from the shock.
"If you knew we had that kind of money, than you would have wanted to start looking for a house. I wanted to surprise you with this one," I said, gesturing to the house before us.
"You've certainly accomplished that," she mumbled, gazing up at the house.
"Come on, you haven't even seen the inside," I smiled, wrapping my arm around her and leading her into the house.
"Now, it's not furnished because I thought you would like to do that," I warned as I opened the door.
We stepped into the house and slipped off our shoes, afraid to dirty the wooden floors.
"This would be the family room," I said, taking a step off of the landing. "We'd probably put a couch here and mount the T.V above the fire place here."
I could tell she was a little overwhelmed.
"Then over here is the kitchen slash dining room," I said before walking a few feet from the family room; there weren't any walls to divide these rooms. "I figured we would put the dining table here. I did have to make the decision on what to put in the kitchen and bathrooms so I tried to pick what you would like." I had chosen a darker wood for the cabinets along with a black stone counter top.
If you were to face the kitchen with your back to the front door, glass windows with wooden frames lined the wall you were facing. It made for a spectacular view of the trees and the harbor that over looked the city. I had also made sure that there was a porch built out from this room just for the view, so there was a door off of the kitchen that led out there.
"What do you think?" I asked, hoping she would say something.
"It's…It's all so…I don't even know...but I love it!" she beamed and I laughed. "This is what has been on your mind lately?"
I smiled sheepishly and nodded, just going with it.
"Come on, there's more to see," I said as I walked through the little hall off of the kitchen and into one of the rooms.
"This is just a spare room; I figured we could make it a guest room or something." The room was pretty basic, wood floors, a closet and a window.
The next room we went into was adjacent to this one. "However, I figured you could use this room as your office," I explained opening the door.
She walked in and glanced around, it was pretty empty like the last room. The only difference was that there wasn't a closet and the window in this room was fairly large considering it was on the back wall that gave a really great view.
"My office…" she trailed off.
"Your office," I smiled, "No more having to used the kitchen table."
She looked around for a moment longer before I showed her the bathroom on this level of the house. From there I went to the hall to the right of the front door. The first room I went into had a bathroom of its own as well as a fairly large closet.
"I was planning on this being Nathan's room, he would have his own bathroom. Just so he would have a little more privacy," I explained.
"I'm sure he'll appreciate that," she said and we continued onto the room across the hall from Nathan's.
"This is going to be my office," I said, opening the door. It was similar to Amanda's only hers was more long and narrow as were mine was wider in length. It did, however, have another set of giant windows for the view.
"Well, that's it for down stairs," I announced. "Would you like to see the upstairs?"
"Do you even have to ask?" she grinned.
I led her up the stairs that was to the left of the front door.
"This area here, I figured could be used as a play area or whatever for Brice," I said, gesturing to the open area that over looked the first floor and had four doors leading off of it.
We went into the biggest of the four bedrooms. "This is the master bedroom."
"This is like three times the size of our room at the apartment," she commented.
With the build of the house the ceilings weren't very high but they did come to a very high arch. There were two sky lights on either side of the ceiling for light, and a bathroom as well as a fairly large closet that we would have to share.
From there I showed her Brice's room which was to the left of our room.
"I figured that since there will be a bit of an age difference between Brice and our next child that he should have his own room and bathroom," I clarified as she looked around, then we continued onto the next rooms.
"Now these two rooms have a joining bathroom," I explained as she looked around. "I figured this room could be used for our little girl and the next one over could be our little boy's room."
"We're having a boy and a girl?" she asked.
"I don't know, hopefully someday," I shrugged.
She was quiet and turned to look out the window that, to me, had the best view. Her back was too me, but I could tell she was just processing it all.
"Kyle?" she finally spoke.
"Hmm?" I inquired, slipping my hands into my jean pockets.
"What if I told you, that 'someday' was sooner than you thought?" she caught me a little off guard.
"What do you mean?" I asked, stepping forward.
She sighed, "What if I told you that we may be using this room sooner than we planned?" she said, turning to me.
I still wasn't one hundred percent sure as to what she meant.
"Kyle, I'm pregnant," she finally clarified.
"You're what?" I wanted to make sure that I had heard her correctly.
"I'm pregnant, Kyle, we're going to have a baby." She had tears in her eyes but she was smiling.
"We're going to have a baby!" I felt the grin spread across my face as I pulled her into my arms and kissed her tenderly.
I pulled back slightly and rested my hand over her stomach, "A baby,"
She placed her hands over mine. "Our baby."
AN: So here is another chapter, and I hope you all enjoyed it! I have to admit that I've been looking forward to writing this chapter for a while. As an author I'm glad to see Kyle and Amanda's relationship and family mature. I've also begun treading water on the topic of Kyle's mortality. It's something that I've always wanted to explore and I feel that it fits in with what I have planned for the story.
One thing that you all can help me with is, (And I know it might be early to ask but…) should they have a boy? Or a girl? And what are your thoughts one names?