Chapter : Year #1. Month 3

Synopsis: Kane asks Indra a very important question.

Abby shifted on the narrow bunk and huffed when a large hand slid around her hip to gently rub her swollen belly. He'd taken to doing it a lot more since she started showing. Normally, she would relish his large hands protectively covering that little life they'd created, but not this morning. Instead of feeling comforted by the gesture, she was instantly annoyed. She was hot, there wasn't enough room for them in the same bed and she wasn't at all in the mood to feel his morning erection pressed against her lower back.

"Marcus."

His hand stilled.

She found herself unreasonably infuriated when she felt his entire body tense. She was not in the mood to deal with him fretting over every little thing regarding her condition. He didn't have to do any of the work. He got to move around the claustrophobic bunker without the burden of swollen ankles and the inability to bend over and pick up something her clumsy fingers had dropped. And she'd lost two patients in the last month. Her nerves were frayed and there was nothing to be done about it. Who healed the healers? Normally, their partners. She just wasn't in the mood for him right now.

"What do you need?" he asked slowly, tentatively, in that protectively concerned tone he reserved only for her.

She shoved herself off the bed. "There's nothing to do but bear it."

"I'm sorry."

If she hadn't been forced to use his solid body as leverage to get herself off the bed, she'd have missed his quickly masked frown.

She heaved an exasperated breath, readying herself to placate his bruised feelings but he saved her the trouble when he helped her stand and then slid out from behind her.

She wrestled with her annoyance in guilty silence as she watched him quickly dress, something she was finding harder and harder to do, until he turned ready for the day.

"Can I get you anything?"

It took a few extra seconds for her to answer and even then the response was a quiet, "No."

Gentle hands came up to cup her cheeks and she found herself leaning into the brief kiss he dropped against her lips. "I love you."

Her heart thudded sharply against her ribcage as he turned away, but she gripped his fingers and pulled herself into his space. No words were needed as she sank into him, never more grateful for his unending patience when it came to her growing mood swings.

Indra watched proudly as a Trikru warrior easily flipped a Skaikru weakling onto the mat. While she knew she should be more objective now that all twelve clans were living, training in this tiny bunker, she would always feel pride in the success of her own birth clan.

She barked instructions and beamed with pride as the Trikru warrior flipped his Skaikru opponent again.

"Any chance you could give Abby a break today?"

Indra would have bristled at the request if it had been made by anyone other than her unlikely friend and Skaikru Ambassador.

"If they don't learn, they hurt. Until they remember. Then they don't hurt."

Kane had the temerity to look amused. "The Trikru motto?"

"No warrior who trains under me forgets."

They watched in silence for a few moments and just as the Skaikru man landed on his back for the third time in a row, he said, "Teach me."

Indra shot him a sideways glance meant to intimidate and discourage. "I believe you asked me to go easy on Doctor Griffin today."

He didn't look her way. Simply continued watching the rough combat unfolding in front of him. "I'd like to learn more about your training methods."

"Then watch me train."

"Watching is less effective than doing."

Something in his unrelenting tone stopped her from instantly denying his request. There was something more to this and she would uncover it before she gave him her final answer.

"Your injury-"

"Healed."

She scrutinized him with the gaze of a warrior accustomed to exposing and exploiting weakness but all she found was an anxious determination for her to agree to his request.

The silence drew on until he turned fully toward her and asked, "Indra. Please."

There was a hint of desperation in the plea and it was suddenly very clear why he'd come to her now when he'd never shown an interest in participating in the usually violent and bloody matches. He was going to be a father. It was natural to feel a fierce protectiveness for ones child.

She faced him fully, eyes firm and demeanor immoveable. "Inside this room, you will do as I command."

"Is that a yes?"

Indra whipped around to address her students. "Yu're odon!" The Trikru warrior pulled up instantly but the Skaikru man didn't understand and remained in a defensive crouch.

Kane translated. "Lesson over, Maxwell."

Maxwell cautiously stood and gave a curt nod. "Yes, Sir."

Indra escorted them out of the room then shut and locked the door.

"No bystanders allowed?"

Indra strode toward him, eager to wipe the amused smirk off his face. "Saving your pride."

"So that's a yes."

"I won't pull punches."

"I would despair if you did."

Her hand darted out and collided with his sternum sending him hard to the mat. He blinked up at her in surprise as he rubbed at the stinging pain and gulped a few deep breaths.

"First lesson."

He grunted and determinedly pushed himself to his feet. "Never let your guard down?"

Indra cocked her head. Perhaps he would be an interesting challenge after all. And she would have many an amusing story to tell his offspring.

He set his stance in what she could only assume was what passed for hand-to-hand combat in his world. "Close quarters combat was required training for a Guard on the Ark."

He blocked her next punch but missed the even quicker sweep of her leg. He went down again with an annoyed grunt.

He stubbornly stood and mimicked her stance. He impressively blocked the first punch and the second, but missed the leg sweep again. He went down and glared exasperatedly up at her. No mercy, she'd told him. But perhaps she would go easy on his recently injured leg.

Indra's smug smile was unmistakable as she stood over a prone Kane. "I will apologize to Doctor Griffin on your behalf."

Abby glanced up from her data pad as Indra strode confidently into the infirmary sporting a thin cut above her left eye. A disheveled Marcus limped in behind her but veered into the washroom; a convenience Abby had been grateful to have when bloodied patients needed to be cleaned.

Torn between going after the man she loved or grilling Indra, she chose the easier option. "What happened?"

"He got lucky."

"Marcus was the one limping."

Abby gathered the supplies to treat Indra's injury but when she got close, the warrior waved her off.

"He needs this."

Abby eyed the woman with skepticism born of far too much experience. "To get his ass kicked?"

"To be strong."

Abby recoiled as if she'd been struck and was immediately offended on Marcus' behalf. "He's the strongest man I know."

"With the weight of hundreds of deaths on his shoulders."

Abby gaped. No. They'd talked about this. Cried over it, even. "That's not – he shouldn't be– He saved our people."

"He did."

Abby swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat and could only blink in stunned silence as Indra reached out to place a hand on her swollen belly.

"Your child is a new beginning."

Abby bit her lip and could only nod as Indra continued.

"For all of us."

After taking a moment to force down the annoyance at Marcus willingly putting himself in harms way by sparing with Indra, Abby slipped into the small bathroom and reluctantly appreciated how the athletic shadow behind the shower stood unmoving under the hot torrent. This was the only room in the bunker that didn't contain a water rationing valve set at precisely two minutes.

With only a moment's hesitation, she pulled off her clothing and slipped in behind him. It wasn't a surprise that he didn't register her arrival as he rested his forehead on the cool tile under the shower-head. He clearly felt as bad as he looked.

Abby's fingers twitched as her expert eyes scanned the multiple purpling bruises on his shoulders and back.

She leveled a hard gaze at the back of his head as he breathed a resigned, "I can hear you thinking."

She stepped forward and pressed gentle fingers to the bruises. "I can't waste resources on voluntary injuries."

"Nothing's broken."

"I see."

He turned gingerly and regarded her with a sheepish look. "Nothing that twelve straight hours of sleep won't cure."

She rolled her eyes and pushed herself into his embrace, "You idiot."

He huffed a laugh as she rested her cheek against his chest and she felt mildly comforted as his arms came gingerly around her.

"What hurts?" Her voice was muffled but she knew he heard her.

When she pulled away to look up into his shadowed eyes, she nearly had a shred of pity for the pain to which he'd voluntarily subjected himself. Nearly.

"Everything?"

She bit her lip and quickly lowered her forehead to his chest so he wouldn't see the amusement dancing in her eyes.

Once she'd schooled her emotions, she glanced up at him from beneath her eyelashes and as seductively as she could manage with her growing belly between them, whispered, "So – not in the mood tonight, hmm?"

His fingers tangled in her wet hair as he pulled her close and kissed her with all the passion of an exhausted man who had been practically beaten half to death. When they parted, she almost laughed at the regret reflected in his eyes. "The mind is willing…"

Abby did her best but couldn't hold back the laugh and leaned against him again, marveling at just how exhausted and in pain he must be to turn down sex. It didn't matter how exhausted they'd been in Polis. They made the time. She decided not to question just why she was suddenly horny when this morning all she had wanted to do was take his head off for the most minor of things.

Abby glanced up from her book as the door swung open and an agitated Marcus stomped through. She'd barely had time to stand from her seat by the window before he'd pulled her into his arms and kissed her, tongue sweeping into her mouth with such passion that she could do nothing but hold on for the ride. The book fell unnoticed to the floor, followed by every stitch of clothing, until Abby happily sank into the soft bed beneath him.

She wanted to ask what had happened but then his lips landed at That Spot on her neck and his long, talented fingers slipped between her thighs and any further coherent thought vanished in a haze of urgent, eager pleasure.

Brought to brink of overwhelming pleasure, she clung to his shoulders as he settled into the cradle of her thighs and thrust home in one long, single stroke. Her eyes fluttered closed and she gasped with each sharp snap of his hips, relishing his own breathless groans. She went along for the incredibly pleasurable ride, unable to believe they'd come so far. That at this point a year ago, they'd been at one another's throats in a far, far different way.

But now they were on the ground. Life had chosen a new path for their lives.

How times had changed.

Now settled in bed for the evening, Abby smiled contentedly as she pulled a deeply sleeping Marcus' arm around her belly and rested her hand over his.

How times had changed, indeed.

Their struggle to keep their people alive had been emotionally devastating.

But some good had come out of all the pain. Like the little life sleeping contentedly beneath their entwined hands.

They'd made their baby that night in Polis and if he wanted to learn how better to defend his child from unexpected threats, she wasn't going to stop him.

END

Notes: Much thanks to Amy for beta reading this chapter!