A/N: How did this get to be my longest running story? I don't even know.
Patty stared at her reflection in the mirror above her bathroom sink. She mouthed the words 'fuck' and 'no' in no particular order
Her eyes glanced down to the sink every few moments where she'd simply stare before looking back in the mirror and repeating those two words back to herself again.
This hadn't been her plan, not by a long shot. It was all wrong and none of it was going to end up working out right.
Once she left the bathroom she laid down on her bed face first burying in her pillows. It wasn't supposed to be like this, not like this.
At the moment Nero wasn't home, he had told her where he was going and when he would be back but her muddled thought process wouldn't allow her access to that information currently.
After she had been home for a while doing this or that was when she realized what the date was. It was nearly the end of the month. It set off some alarm bells and her worry apparently was justified.
She decided the best way to break the news to Nero was to get to his stomach first. If he was full and complacent then maybe he wouldn't be so apt to run out the door or at least not so quickly.
Patty generally didn't cook, she knew how she just didn't really enjoy it very much, but decided to go all out. She put together a dish of lamb with mint sauce over a bed of roasted potatoes.
Nero walked in as she was plating their food. He stopped in the kitchen watching her curiously.
"Hi Nero." She greeted smiling and handing him his plate.
"Hi." He said back staring at her somewhat reproachfully.
"I set the table, let's eat." Patty offered moving past him to her small dining room.
Nero sat across from her at the table staring at the food, it seemed alright and smelled amazing but Patty had yet to cook so why now? "Aren't you going to at least try it?"
"Are you trying to poison me?" He asked only half joking. "Because I can't for the life of me figure out why you decided to go out of your way and make something let alone something like this."
"You're my boyfriend!" She quipped. "Think I'm trying to poison you, geez. See if I ever cook for you again."
Nero did eat and it was quite tasty however even after his plate was cleaned he waited for the crushing pain that might follow but received nothing.
Patty poured him another glass of wine as she made small talk making him feel somewhat uneasy. She was not acting like herself. She was acting as if she were put on the spot or something was bothering her.
"So are you going to tell me what's up?" Nero asked looking at her squarely. Patty swallowed and fidgeted somewhat in her seat.
"Nero...um, there is something I have to tell you." She began. "It's just hard and I thought that this would make it easier but..."
"It's okay Patty. Just say it." He prodded gently.
"I'm pregnant." She blurted out putting her eyes to the floor. Nero swallowed down his drink hard causing him to cough a bit as it slid down his windpipe.
"Are you sure?" He asked once he had cleared his throat.
"Yeah." Patty said simply.
"So, guess the condoms didn't work." He offered grinning. Patty brought her eyes back to Nero not finding the humor in it. "Come on, lighten up brat. It's not the end of the world."
"Nero I wasn't planning on having a kid." She stated briskly.
"Neither was I but here we are." He replied.
"You're happy about this?" She wondered. "Why?"
"Is that wrong to be happy about it?" He asked back. "You're having my baby, you're my girl...I'm thrilled. I didn't think I'd ever find anyone else, I thought I lost my chance."
"I need to talk to Kyrie." Patty said suddenly standing up.
"Why?" Nero asked. "Now? It's already late."
"Because she's my friend and I need to talk to her, that's why Nero." She quipped.
"Okay, okay." Nero relented draining the wine from his glass. "Let's go."
Dante cracked open a lid from his chair when he heard the door open. He glanced at the large windows noting it was still night.
"What's the problem kids?" He asked casually but worrying something serious had gone down to illicit a visit from them.
"I need Kyrie." Patty said already making her way up the stairs.
"She's probably sleeping." Dante said frowning. "We've been working for seventy two hours straight on a job, we haven't even been home for three hours."
His words however were lost on Patty as she walked into the apartment and closed the door. Nero crashed down in his usual corner of the couch running his human hand down his face.
"What the hell's going on Nero?" Dante asked aggravated. He had sent Kyrie to bed promising to follow her up after, he just had some bills to settle out on paper since the pay had been decent, and promptly fell asleep.
"I should have listened to you old man." He said receiving a brow cocked at him in question. "Your method."
"What?" Dante asked even more confused than before. Nero let out groan before sighing.
"Patty's pregnant." He said. "The condom didn't work and now she's pregnant."
Nero heard Dante clicking his tongue a few times as if chastising him. "Told ya kid, tried and true."
Patty walked into the bedroom seeing Kyrie's sleeping form huddled under a blanket. She sat on the edge of the bed placing her hand on what she presumed to be a shoulder and shook her.
Kyrie sat up straight as a shot grabbing under her pillow fluidly cocking Red Rose and aiming it at the other woman. Patty fell off the bed with a screech landing on her rear.
"Patty?" Kyrie asked sleepily turning on the bed side lamp.
"Geez!" Patty whined. "You sleep with your gun under your pillow?"
"Well...yeah." She said placing her pistol on the night stand and straightened herself out. "What's the matter?"
"I needed to talk to you." Patty said climbing back onto the bed.
"Is everything alright?" She asked trying to clear the sleep from her head.
"I found out today that I'm pregnant." Patty stated softly.
"I haven't slept in a few days...I'm sorry, what?" She questioned rubbing at her eyes.
"I'm pregnant, it's Nero's...obviously." She said again. "I'm worried. I didn't want a child and Nero's so damn happy about it and I just don't know what to do."
Kyrie took a deep breath holding it for a moment before exhaling. She sat up straighter and cleared her throat a few times.
"You can't get rid of this baby." She said matter of fact. "You can't do that to Nero."
"I never really understood why my mother left me at the orphanage." Patty said. "I understood but I didn't get it, I do now. It's scary to think that I'm going to be responsible for a baby. With all of the crazy shit that goes on in my life...how can I do that to a kid?"
"You won't be alone. You have Nero and us." Kyrie offered leaving Patty only shaking her head.
"You don't have kids." She quipped. "You wouldn't understand."
"I had a baby once." Kyrie replied with an edge to her voice. "It died."
"I'm sorry...I...Nero's never said..." Patty fumbled hearing the frustration in her friends voice.
"Nero and I just referred to it as always a miscarriage but it really wasn't." She continued. "I was already in my fifth month when the baby died. The doctors put me into labor and I had to deliver. I prayed that some miracle would happen and the baby would be alive."
"I kept praying when I saw him and held him. I still prayed even when they took him away from us. Right up until we buried our son I prayed that he'd just wake up but of course he never did. Nero took apart the cradle he made and turned it into a coffin."
Patty held her breath releasing it in small gasps. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears and felt sick to her stomach. "You can't take this baby away from Nero."
"I won't." Patty said automatically. Kyrie nodded her head once. With out another word spoken the two women made their way downstairs. "Ready?"
"Are you?" Nero asked. Kyrie padded over to the couch as Nero stood taking him in an embrace.
"Congratulations Nero." She said softly.
"Thanks Kyrie." He said with a smirk. The couple left leaving the office nearly quiet save for the whirring of the ceiling fan.
Kyrie sunk into the sofa bringing her knees up to her chest sobbing, uncaring that she was doing so.
"You okay over there?" Dante asked concerned but weary from the lack of sleep. The only reply he got was more sobs. "Well let me know when you're ready to talk."
Her eyes burned and her tears made them burn even more. Her body was sore and over worked as she shuddered trying to breathe through her crying.
"I can't...I just...I can't." She said. Dante walked over to her sitting beside her wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "He's gone...gone..."
"Who's gone?" Dante questioned curiously.
"Nero." Kyrie replied. "It was okay when you and I were together and he was here because in a way he was still mine...he still was in some twisted way. I didn't mind he was with Patty...why would I? But now...with this...he's not...he's not mine anymore. Oh my god. Why do I feel this way, have I felt this way all along? It's sick and it's selfish."
"Hm, sounds like you're human to me." Dante said. "Humans are generally selfish creatures. It doesn't matter how good you are or how nice, we just are. We have wants and needs that sometimes are out of our control."
"So how are you selfish?" She asked leaning into her mate.
"I didn't let myself be happy for a long time. By doing that I've hurt people who wanted to care for me but I didn't let them, I kept them at arms length." He said.
"Then what made me so special?" She questioned.
"You didn't leave." He said. "No matter how hard I tried to push you away, you stayed."
"The others...left then?" Kyrie wondered gently prodding.
"In my life there have been four women before you that I could have been happy with, I could have been in love with them but I just couldn't for one reason or another." He replied. "Three of them got tired of it and went off to do their own things, lead their lives. The first one though...well she's the reason why I wouldn't let it happen again."
"When I was a teenager I worked as a gun for hire." Dante began as Kyrie pressed herself reassuringly closer to him. "One of the guys that I was friendly with had a family. His wife had died and the oldest girl went to school and took care of her younger sisters, she had so much on her plate and she never complained, never griped."
"She was a couple years younger than me and I knew she liked me, I liked her too." He continued on. "My buddy was always telling me I should take her out on a date, that I was the only guy he'd trust with her but I never did. I chickened out every time or when I did get the nerve she'd get so shy that she'd run off to her room."
"Jessica was a nice person, a real good girl that cared about people. She was picked on at her school because she was a little overweight and didn't get to go out like the other kids did but it didn't make her cruel or hateful, she just stayed sweet."
"What happened to her?" Kyrie asked sleepily next to him.
"Her father went missing and then she did." He said. "I found out that she had been hospitalized but by the time I got there it was over run by devils. She was being used as a sacrifice in order to keep the place an open portal to hell."
"That's just awful." She replied. "What did you do?"
"The only thing I could do. I put her out of her misery." Dante stated. "I couldn't save her so I ended her suffering."
"Dante..." She offered taking his hand in hers squeezing gently as he interlocked their fingers together.
"They were targeted because they knew me." He said. "If I got involved with someone else what would happen to them? I couldn't risk anyone else."
"Who were the others?" Kyrie asked.
"A woman named Lucia, she was like me...half human and devil but eventually she left to go home." He explained. "Trish stayed for a while but eventually decided to go her own way and then there's Lady, I've known her the longest. Early on we could have had something but I squashed that pretty quick."
"That's sad." Kyrie said.
"Yeah." He agreed. "Worked out though."
"Mhmm...worked out great for me." She said resting against him as she felt herself drifting. Dante dragged her down onto the couch with her holding her close as they both fell asleep.