It was two more weeks, exactly when Rogue ran out of chocolate, before Sting decided that the baby was definitely there to stay. A permanent resident, he called it. Having endured nine months of pregnancy himself, Rogue fond the idea of an unborn child taking up permanent residence to be horrifying, but Sting seemed to be oblivious to this.

Since Sting now felt confident about the baby's odds of survival, he declared that he was ready to graduate from helping out around the house to actually walking from home to the guild. All three blocks. It was close enough for them to tell by sent who showed up on any given day.

It was also close enough that Natsu could no doubt smell them whenever he went to the guild. Rogue had almost turned down the apartment when he realized that, but it was such an ideal size. And when they'd first moved in, Sting was still recovering from being hit by a magic four-wheeler. An apartment that wouldn't require him to travel far had seemed ideal.

One nice thing about Fairy Tail that Rogue couldn't say for his old guild was that they were a much more laid back place. If he'd brought Alex to Sabertooth, Genma would have chased him off the premise, but she was always well received at Fairy Tail.

Their trip to the guild was delayed slightly. Sting attempted eating breakfast first. When that didn't go over well, Rogue had him wait a bit, then drink orange juice for the sake of getting something into him before he was up an about. Once the blond had kind of had something to start his day, they set out.

Sting having not left the house in six weeks, Rogue was unsurprised to see the guild pause when they walked in. After the guild's collective hesitation, Gray called out, "Yo! Sting! It's been a while. I was starting to think you finally pushed Rogue too far and he stuffed your body into a closet."

Sting smiled back and tried to say something funny in response, but instead gagged on the smell of alcohol everywhere. So Rogue took over for him.

"I would never do that. I'd leave the body somewhere where I won't have to smell it."

That got a few chuckles, but a fair few people were now watching Sting with concern. Rogue glanced back at him too, gaging how capable of answering questions without vomiting the blond looked. Not very. Dammit. If it ended up falling to Rogue, then everyone in the guild would end up focused specifically on him.

He glanced down to Lector for help, and the cat nodded and flew up to Sting's shoulder, ready to take any questions.

"Is he alright?"

"Sting's stomach is bothering him," Lector explained. "And there's probably a smell somewhere around here that isn't helping."

"Alcohol," Rogue suggested. "Sting, do you want to come back later?"

Sting shook his head. "It's fine. I…" He pause, and had to take a deep breath to keep his juice from coming back up "I want to do this today."

"Um… If Sting isn't feeling well, maybe I can help," Wendy piped up, and Rogue grabbed Sting's arm and led the blond over to her.

Gray and Mira, the two members who had taken Sting's side in the fight over Rogue, came to sit beside them while Wendy worked on him. It wasn't that they were the only ones who cared. Being Fairy Tail, the whole guild respected and cared for its members. But there was a sort of rule that most everyone obeyed when Sting, Rogue, and Natsu were all present. Just like Sting and Rogue avoided Natsu if they could help it, the other guild members avoided looking too encouraging of their relationship when Natsu was around. Only Gray and Mira, who had been known to support Rogue and Sting together even before they reunited, and for whom it would have been too obvious that they were being sensitive to Natsu if they stopped doing so, were not required to act under this rule. Them and Erza, who they'd made too many babysitting deals with for her to care about their melodrama with Natsu, but she seemed not to be there.

After two years it seemed to Rogue like that ought to have changed. But then he and Sting were no keener on addressing the elephant in the room with Natsu, so if the rest of the guild was trying to avoid a confrontation on that subject too, who was he to complain?

"Have you been sick for a while?" Gray asked. "It really isn't like you to go so long without showing up, and Rogue's been around, so it couldn't be that the two of you went off on a long job or a third honeymoon or something. I always figured you would shrivel up from lack of attention if you went too long without coming here and making a spectacle of yourself."

"Third honeymoon?" Rogue asked, suddenly realizing that in the chaos that had followed Sting's accident with the four-wheeler, they'd forgotten about the option of marriage entirely.

"Sting's sick," Fro explained, since neither slayer seemed concerned with answering Gray's questions. "He's been throwing up for weeks."

"For weeks?" Wendy gasped. "Sting, you should have come earlier! I was only decreasing you nausea. If you let me look for the source of the infections—"

"It's fine," Sting cut in. "Thanks. I feel a lot better."

"But… But if you don't let me tackle the cause, you're probably going to feel bad again in a few hours…"

"I can live with that."

Climbing onto the table and standing up so that everyone in the guild could get a good look at him, Sting grinned down at Gray. "Ready to watch me make a spectacle of myself?"

"Do I have to?"

"Yes." Sting cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled, "Hey! Everybody! I'm pregnant!"

Rogue cringed and looked away. It was different for Sting, who had sought out the condition, and who had a loving, mostly supportive significant other with him, but Rogue remembered how humiliating the situation had been for him. The first pregnant male he'd ever heard of, cast aside by his lover and appealing to people's pity for work and shelter. He imagined himself broadcasting that situation as brazenly as Sting just had and turned bright red.

There was another pause from the guild as this message sank in and they realized why Sting had looked so green before, followed by a mix of laughs and congratulations.

They all knew about the first attempt. Sting had gone around sharing word of it on day one. They all knew how that attempt ended too. The second hadn't lasted long enough for Sting to work up the nerve to tell everyone, but everyone had seen him down after the second miscarriage, and a few might have guessed what happened. In either case, it wasn't such unexpected news that the guild didn't know how to take it, nor did most of them realize how likely this was, in Rogue's mind, to end badly.

When Sting climbed back down from the table and sat between Rogue and Wendy, Mira reached across the younger girl to put a reassuring hand on his knee.

"I hope it goes well this time. But if not, we're all here for you."

It took a special person to say that when most of the guild had been avoiding him a second earlier. Of course, now that Sting made that declaration, they had an excuse to ignore the unofficial 'no being nice while Natsu is around' rule.

Rogue looked around at them. Several had also taken it as an excuse for more beer, shouting out toasts. It was, by and large, a pretty positive reception, although he hoped Sting couldn't hear that Mira wasn't the only one worried that he might lose the child again.

Silly. Sting's hearing was as good as his own. Of course he heard. And he lowered his chin a little, still smiling, but no longer as happy.

At least he didn't see what Rogue did.

Cana bent down to pick up another barrel of wine, and in the gap she created Rogue caught a glimpse of Natsu, grimacing back at him. He froze, unable to look away.

Natsu seemed frozen too, jolting when Lucy took his hand and whispered something so softly it was lost in the din of everyone else's cheers. Natsu glanced at her, looked back at Rogue, and then Cana straightened, holding the barrel above her to chug it, and Rogue looked away.

"H-hey… alcohol fumes aren't bad for me, are they?" Sting asked.

"I served that alcohol while Alex was on the way, and she came out alright," Rogue assured him. Sting laughed at that, but to Rogue it sounded forced. All those people whispering had made Sting paranoid about a miscarriage again. "They serve plenty of items here without alcohol in them. Want to get something while we have Wendy around to make sure it stays down?"

Sting nodded.

Seeing that it was her time to shine, Mira took her hand from his knee and stood. She reached down the front of her dress and pulled out a notepad, and recent quirk she'd added to her table waiting services that Rogue was sure increased her tips, and he out a pen. "You know the breakfast menu, right?"

"Yeah. Maybe an omellet?"

"With anything in it?" she asked, and all of the conversation immediately around them dropped.

This was the point, in Rogue's pregnancy, where he would have glared at anyone who expected him to order something crazy. Like pickles and peaches with whipped cream on top. Sure, there had been times where he'd really wanted something that wasn't to his usual tastes, but never anything that no sane person would ask for.

"Cheese and green pepper," Sting said, not caring about everyone watching. "Oh! And garlic."

Mira's pen stopped.

"Garlic?"

"Garlic."

"We can do that… Powder or chopped?"

"Chopped."

Then again, Rogue's morning sickness has never troubled him so badly as Sting's did. Rogue bit his lip to keep from smirking. He needed to not compare the two of them so much.

-o-

Sting's garlic omelet came, and Rogue thanked the stars that his pregnant lover hadn't ordered it with onion to boot. He could only stand so many clashing smells. But Sting devoured it. And if he got a full meal without the toilet getting it five minutes later, then Rogue was happy with that.

Having a substantive amount of food in him without needing to depend on sugar did wonders. The occasional whisper of concern still hit their ears, but Sting was able to brush it off. This baby had made it to the six week mark. And he had eaten his whole omelet and not gotten sick. So he had a good feeling about this one's odds of making it all the way.

Rogue, on the other hand, had a bad feeling about the baby making it. Sure, the idea of this second child made Sting happy. So very happy. Seeing him laugh and smile as people wished him luck and offered to help with names, Rogue couldn't help but smile too. But a part of his still worried. Sting's body was by no means frail, but he'd been injured so badly before, and he knew that sometimes a fight would cause those old injuries to act up. Carrying a child to term was a tremendous physical stress. And Rogue didn't doubt that his experience in that aspect of pregnancy would be vastly different from Sting's too. Because he'd had no serious injuries that could flare back up with a vengeance when under that persistent stress.

He excused himself, going over to check out the jobs board. Now that Sting was back to taking care of Alex, Rogue needed to look for work more often. Way more often. He had a sinking feeling that he would probably be taking a lot of time off from work to help look after Sting in the near future.

Something he could do on his own… or maybe something he could do quickly with Erza. He would hate to saddle Sting with two toddlers, but if there was a high enough paying job, then he knew Sting would understand.

He reached out for one that looked promising, but his hand froze when he heard a voice he'd always felt some anxiety over.

"Rogue, congratulations."

He looked to his left, where Lucy stood, smiling at him, and forced himself to smile back.

"Are you excited to be the father for a change?"

"It will be a hassle, to try and teach two little kids that they have the same parents, but different moms and dads," Rogue said. "We might tell this new one that I'm his mother for simplicity's sake."

"I hadn't thought of that. Not that it will ever be a problem for me, but… well…"

"You have a boyfriend now?"

"Natsu," she told him. "Actually, for the past few months. I hadn't told anyone else yet. I thought… since the two of you… that maybe I should tell you first."

That didn't surprise him. Back when he and Natsu had dated—while living together—Rogue had regularly found himself jealous about how often Natsu went to hang out at Lucy's house. He'd even tried to use that behavior to defend his sneaking off to still see Sting, even though Natsu had been a far more loyal boyfriend to Rogue than Rogue had been to him.

"That's nice. I wish the two of you the best of luck."

"You're not upset?"

"I went back with Sting. Even if I was, I hardly have any right to fuss over Natsu seeing someone else."

She sighed in relief. "You two need to talk again, you know. We're happy to have you and Sting here, but so long as things are awkward between you and Natsu, it's awkward for all of us."

Rogue grabbed the job he wanted from the board before saying, "If Natsu wants to come and talk to me, I'm not going to turn him away."

"You're not going to hurt his feelings, Rogue. It's been two years. He's had time to heal."

Rogue looked past Lucy to Natsu, who grimaced again and looked away.

"Alright. Then let him know he's free to visit whenever he wants."

He sincerely hoped she didn't.

He registered the job and went to tell Sting, who had decided to stay for lunch, since Wendy was still there to help with his morning sickness.

"Alright. I should be back tomorrow. There's ginger tea in the fridge for you, if you start to feel sick when you get home. Lector knows how to heat it up."

"Rogue, I can reheat tea without blowing the kitchen up."

"I would prefer not to risk that. Lector knows how to heat it up. And there's beef in the freezer. Pull it out in the morning so it will be thawed when I get back, alright?"

"Can do. Anything else I need to know?"

Natsu might show up. He probably won't, but I just gave out an invite. Don't say anything to make things worse between us. Please don't. I'm not worried because I regret letting him go. I wish things were normal between us, but it's you that I love. Please, if he shows up, don't let things get any worse.

"No." Rogue forced himself to smile. "You know more about looking after Alex than me, so there's no sense in me giving instruction there."

Sting laughed. "Alright. You take care."

"You too. Don't try to handle the tea yourself. Really. I'd hate to come home and learn that you killed yourself in a house fire."

"Oh, go get yourself beaten up then, you jerk.

Grinning, Rogue bent over and kissed Sting.

"I'll miss you."

"I'll count the seconds until you're back."