~Two and a Half Years Later~

There was no denying that Erika was Yuu's child. I wasn't the only one who saw it that way, but it was really only those few who were close to him - namely, Teidoll and Marie - that agreed with me. Most everyone else insisted that aside from her hair color, which proved that she was biologically his, she was a miniature version of me. And while it was true that her smile and vibrant facial expressions came from me, everything else came from Yuu. Her personality was everything I loved about my husband. She was simultaneously obedient and the most stubborn person in the world. Quiet and reserved, yet when you got her out of her shell, she was talkative and sweet.

My daughter was perfect. In every possible way. Even if she was a little ball of energy that never stopped moving. Keeping up with her was a full time job. But it was a job I didn't mind. Every second that I got to spend with my child was precious.

It was just as wonderful watching her interact with her father. Erika was definitely daddy's little girl; she could get Kanda to do anything she wanted. Fortunately for my sanity, what she wanted was his undivided attention, and he was all too happy to give it to her. It was a common sight to see Erika sitting on Kanda's lap while she played with her toys. Yuu may have told me once that he only wanted our baby out of obligation to me, but that was no longer true. He loved our daughter every bit as much as I did.

Between being an exorcist and taking care of Erika, there wasn't time to focus on my body. I had things to do that were much more important than dwelling on the awkward fact that I was stuck halfway between male and female. I had breasts and a vagina, and that was just how it was. There was no time for self-pity. Besides, my husband remained loving and supportive - two words which were not used to describe Kanda Yuu prior to our marriage - and with the love of my life around to give me strength, I couldn't bring myself to care that I wasn't completely male anymore.

But when I got pregnant for the second time, all of that changed.

Yuu took the news much better than I did, but given that I'd known since I was pregnant with Erika that he wanted to get me pregnant again, that wasn't really surprising. However, while he was thrilled to have knocked me up, I definitely had mixed feelings towards it. If our second child was anything like her older sister, she was going to be amazing and I couldn't wait to meet her. On the other hand, now that I actually was pregnant again, I knew that it was not what I wanted to be doing.

With every day of my pregnancy that passed, my body became more female. And between being on maternity leave and having nothing to do but take care of Erika, I was painfully aware of that fact. And I hated it with every fiber of my being.

So I used everything that I possibly could to distract myself. It really wasn't hard to keep myself busy when I was responsible for a rather rambunctious toddler. But spending all of my time chasing after Erika backfired.

When I was six months pregnant, Komui and the doctors decided that I was pushing myself too much physically, and I was placed on bed rest. It was just a precaution, so it was only for a few hours a day, but they didn't trust me to monitor my time correctly by myself, so I was forced into spending that time in the infirmary with nurses watching my every move.

To make what felt like a prison sentence even worse, Erika wasn't allowed to keep me company. The doctors didn't want her to distract me from resting - which I had to admit was completely justified - so when Yuu was away on missions and couldn't watch her himself, she was taken to the library to have preschool with Emilia and Bookman. And I couldn't complain about that either, because she liked it and I knew that learning to read was good for her.

And that was why I currently had no choice but to sit here and let Lenalee paint my toenails. It was terribly embarrassing, and I couldn't tell if it was better or worse than the day before, when she'd taken advantage of my forced rest and shaved my legs. At least the nail polish wasn't pink.

I knew why she was doing it. I'd have to be stupid not to. Her motives were as clear as day given that my husband had been gone for the last three weeks and we hadn't been intimate in months. I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that there would be a risqué piece of nightwear laid out on my bed when I returned to my room that night.

However, this went far beyond her primping me up for a night of steamy sex. Lenalee was trying to teach me how to be a woman.

She'd been doing it ever since my first period, which Komui had forced me into telling her I was having; it was definitely not my idea for anyone to know that that was happening to me. But in retrospect, I truly did need her help in dealing with the day to day side of having girl parts, so I couldn't be too mad about it.

Lenalee's lessons used to be sporadic, only once or twice a month, and they were always on easy to handle topics - things that I knew I needed to learn. But that had changed last week. And it was all my fault. I had made the mistake of telling her, in a fit of hormone-induced sobbing, that my body was completely female. Ever since then, her lectures got far more frequent and intimate. I tried to protest, but whenever I did, she'd start calling me "Allie-chan" and threaten to tell Lavi that I didn't have a dick anymore.

So here I was, with shaved legs and intricately braided hair, sitting unwillingly while my best friend painted my toenails and lectured me about the pros and cons of getting my ears pierced. "You're wasting your time, you know. I'm seven months pregnant. I'm a blimp. There's no point in trying to make me look pretty."

Lenalee rolled her eyes. Without looking up from her work, she rubbed a few circles on my heavily swollen belly, making the baby shift inside me. "Look on the bright side: being pregnant means you're not having your period."

"That's not much of a silver lining." While I did appreciate that I was no longer spending five days a month bleeding, that did not make up for the downsides of being pregnant.

Her retort was bitter and full of discontent. "It's still better than having a period and knowing that you'll never get pregnant."

"Sorry."

She sighed heavily and finally put the god awful nail polish away. "No, I'm sorry. It's not your fault that my brother's psychotic. And my pain is nothing compared to yours. I would do practically anything to have a baby, but I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for you. You're literally giving up being a man for your children."

"Lena, I-"

My attempt to change the subject was completely ignored. "At least you've got a great guy. Kanda's really something special. And to be supporting you while you're going through this... I'm envious of the relationship you two have. You're so comfortable with each other that you can even talk about personal things. It must be great to be with a guy who loves you so much that he doesn't care that you've changed genders."

Her wistful sigh made me frown, and before I knew what I was doing, I had said something out loud that I hadn't meant to tell her. "...Yuu doesn't know..."

The words earned me a slap to the back of the head. "What the hell, Allen! How can you not have told him that you're a girl?!"

"First of all, my body may be female, but I am not a girl." I glowered at Lenalee, angry not only over her mistake but at the fact that no matter how often I corrected her, she continued to make it. "Second, Yuu's been gone since before that actually happened. The rest was easy. I told him that I didn't want sex because my pregnancy killed my libido, and he had no reason to suspect that I was lying."

I was slapped upside the head again. I glared at her, but being on bed rest meant that I couldn't fight back. "I can't tell him, Lena. I can't. This is life changing, and I have no clue how he's going to take it. What if he hates me? What if he-?"

This time I was slapped across the face. "Kanda's not going to leave you, Allen. He's your husband and he loves you. You have no choice. You have to tell him." Seeing that I was unconvinced, she tacked on, "Besides, he's been gone for the last three weeks. Given his pregnancy fetish and the fact that you're currently very pregnant with his child, he's going to be so turned on by you that he's probably not even going to notice."

I groaned and buried my face in my hands, once again wishing that I wasn't on bed rest so that I could get up and walk away; I hated it when my friends talked about my sex life. "That doesn't help, Lena."

She sighed and fell silent, but the quiet didn't last. "Alright, then think about it this way: when you two first started dating, Kanda thought you were a man. It has to be easier to tell your husband that you're female than it was to tell your boyfriend that you were a man with a vagina, right?"

"Maybe if that was actually how it happened." The words were grumbled under my breath, but Lenalee still heard them, forcing me to explain. "We didn't know that I had girl parts until after I got pregnant with Erika. Yuu was in bed with me the night my vagina opened."

I was slapped for the fourth time this conversation. Thankfully, I wasn't bruising like I did during my first pregnancy. "Would you knock that off?!"

The demand was answered by her flicking my ear. "Not until you stop being an idiot."

I blinked stupidly at my best friend. "How am I being an idiot?"

Lenalee sighed heavily and looked like she wanted to slap me again. "Allen. You dated Kanda for three years as a male. Then one day, out of the blue, he learns that you're a hermaphrodite and you're pregnant with his child. And his reaction to all this was to beg my brother to bend the rules and let him marry you. He is not going to care that you're female."

"What did you just say?" What I thought I heard had made my heart stop, yet I didn't believe that it was true; I must have heard her wrong.

Being my best friend, Lenalee knew exactly what it was that I was wanting her to clarify. She sat down on the edge of the bed and began rubbing my belly. "According to Komui, your marriage was all Kanda's idea."

I could only blink stupidly at her in response. Apparently, I had heard her right. And that was strange. I had known that Kanda had married me because he wanted to marry me, but it was stunning to learn that he had wanted to marry me so much that he had actually asked Komui to do it.

Lenalee moved her hand from my belly to my shoulder and fixed me with a level stare. "Look, I know this is going to be hard for you, but you have to do it. Kanda's going to take the news just fine. And if he doesn't, just tell me and I'll kick his ass for you."

I laughed, knowing that Lenalee was definitely capable of hurting Kanda if she wanted to. I wasn't really in the mood for humor though, so the laughter faded quickly. "Thanks, Lena, but I don't think I can do this."

She frowned at me, disappointment written all over her face. After a very tense silence, she said something that scared me to the core. "Fine, then if you don't tell him tonight, I'll tell him tomorrow. And you know exactly what Kanda's going to do to you if he hears this from someone else."

I swallowed hard at the threat, but before I could even think of trying to talk her out of it, Lenalee had left the room. I moved to follow her, but the second I'd swung my feet off the bed, a nurse was standing in the doorway and yelling at me to get back in bed. This whole thing sucked.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

A/N: I'm moving this story from a weekly posting schedule to a biweekly one. You'll see the next chapter in two weeks.