'Cause I'm a hazard to myself

[mortemscintilla]

WHO: Korra and Hei
WHAT: A series of mildly unfortunate events.

[ Another family visit, Hei thinks acidly, faking a gentle smile and general pleasantries as Tonraq and Senna feign to depart. Their fourth drop-in this month. Ostensibly because they were 'in the neighborhood' -- and not, in fact, because they're here to pressure 'Li' to stop cohabiting with their darling daughter, and man up and put a ring on her finger. Or, in this case, a necklace around her pretty neck. ]

[ Too bad it means a noose around his. ]

[ While Korra prattles with her parents at the doorway, he clears the remnants of dinner (roasted duck stuffed with mushrooms and chilis and pickled carrots) from the table. Calm, cheerful -- but inwardly steeped in the foulness of his mood. Asami has dropped by too: he can hear her giggling at something Tonraq says, hers and Korra's murmurs braiding together in a lilting weave. The whole house is filled with girlish sweetness and family-friendly light, and it is making him unbearably disgusted. ]

[ Stewing, he rinses the dishes with sudsy fingers, watching the briskness of his own hands. They seem so unnatural cradling crockery. They always do. But lately everything else feels like a big pile of unnatural too: the factory-work too tedious, the Beach House's walls too close, the number of guests that drop by every evening too smothering, Asami buzzing around as if she lives here, Tonraq always blustering at Hei's elbow, brimful with manly advice and carefully-worded questions on Hei's future plans, while Senna pokes at every nook and cranny of the kitchen like some creepily Korra-shaped domestic!cop. ]

[ And here is the question: why doesn't he put his foot down? Tell Korra to stop letting Asami over so often? Demand that the 'in-laws' limit their pestering? It's his house too, and who would dare to argue it? It would be reclaiming his life along with it, because it is -- it is like a symbol of something. Of everything. No third wheels, no nosy parents. Why hasn't he? ]

[ Because Tonraq and Senna are nice and unfussy and down-to-earth. Because you don't mind having them around -- in limited doses. Because the same goes for Asami. She's a damn sight better than having Mako or Bolin or those obnoxious Air-Babies over. Also because they're Korra's family, and after all the ways she's accepted you, it's high time you return the favor. ]

[ A twinge of guilt flares. Hei deals with it the only way he knows how. He turns the radio on to the Jazz station, and cranks it up just high enough to cut into conversation. He can feel the others eyeballing him, and looks up winningly, wrist-deep in dishwater. ]

Have a safe trip back.

[ More farewells, more yadda yadda, and then Tonraq, Senna, and finally Asami are out the door, Korra closing it behind them. Hei snaps off the radio at once. Wiping his wet hands on a dishtowel, he mutters, to preempt Korra's prospective scolding, ]

Nice people. But after four hours, I prefer them off the premises.

Comments

[anatural]

[Normally we don’t do examinations this early in the pregnancy, the doctor admits. Most women don’t even suspect they’re pregnant this soon. But the nurse, a good solid Northern Water tribe healer, had confirmed it. Once the standard questions are out of the way, Dr. Fan starts asking Korra for details about the miscarriage — had it been triggered by anything, was there a family history, etc.

Korra does her best to listen and answer, but it's hard not to notice how Hei has completely tuned out. He's focused on some girl crying outside in the lobby. Dr. Fan notices this as well, and while asking Korra yet another question, quietly closes the door.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The door clicks shut, and Hei blinks, the hypnotic zone of detachment sliced in half. He glares at the doctor with baleful eyes from under his unruly bangs, before flicking them out of the way to focus on Korra. The questions the doctor asks her are perfunctory but hardly painless. In a brief moment of revulsion, he thinks: People do this routinely? Subject themselves to this intrusive madness -- actually pay money for it? Except it's a ridiculous thought. Of course this is normal. The doctor, the questions, the examinations, the clinic's atmosphere. What's unnatural is Hei -- wrong-shaped by virtue of his history and lifestyle. Warped inside-out so that if someone says white, it has therefore to be black. ]

[ Fuck. His knuckles wedge tighter through Korra's. This is a terrible idea. A baby -- what the hell will he do with one? ]

[ Then the doctor's gaze settles on him. She offers him a tepid professional smile. Her pen scritches softly at the notepad as she peppers him with her gentle questions next. First harmless ones, like his age and occupation. Then, in a benignly roundabout manner he trusts not at all, asking about genetic or birth defects in his family, a history of drug abuse, exposure to toxic elements. He answers obliquely, struggling with that truth-hoarding, secret-keeping bastard in his nature -- and failing. ]

[ But then the doctor asks about the number of sexual partners he'd had, their genders, what kinds of sexual practices he engaged in, whether he always used a condom, whether he had a history of sexually transmitted diseases. The more Hei answers, the more he can't say. He wonders if the doctor, if Korra, are honing in on his tactful evasions and equivocations. ]

[ How long will this last? The faster they finish, the better. ]

[anatural]

[Surprisingly, Hei takes the doctor's questioning of him with more grace that Korra does. Why on earth does she need to know about his past sexual partners? That's something Korra's never wanted to know, even now that she's had a few other sexual partners herself and they're more-or-less monogamous.]

Excuse me. [She interrupts yet another question about his sexual history.] Is this really necessary? Surely you can check the baby's health without knowing every last detail of our lives.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Another professional smile, paired with that calm, interested perusal. Do they teach that at medical school, Hei wonders? ]

Of course it's not strictly necessary. We can always go for a genetic screening afterward.

[ As she speaks, she scribbles into her notepad. Hei wonders what she's writing, then tells himself viciously it's nothing important. His face is impassive, yet his skin feels hot, and there's a creeping boil of shame, as if all the carelessness in his youth is being judged and damned, as if it's another stamp of unfitness, as if he's personally responsible for putting the baby at risk. ]

This is simply an overview. We need to ensure there is no history of genetic disorders. Or possible infections between you and your husband. [ Husband. The word scratches through the bone of his skull, claws at the soft meat of his brain. Without thinking, he tugs his cold fingers free of Korra's. If the doctor notices, she doesn't remark on it. ]

[ Gently, to Korra, ]

Think of it as a precaution. The more comprehensive the risks, the more unhealthy the baby could be.

[ Risks. Unhealthy. Hei glances away. Catches his reflection in the glass paneling of the sliding door. No fear or dismay in his eyes, for which he's grateful. But inside something swoons with an ever-present doubt, his belly packed in cold lead. ]

[anatural]

[Well. This took a turn for the even more unpleasant. It's impossible for Korra to miss how Hei yanks his hand away the moment the doctor says Husband. Korra briefly considers telling the doctor they're not married, wondering if that would make him more comfortable, but decides that drawing attention to it would only make things more awkward. There's no reason to give this woman even more stuff to question.

She is going to have words with Asami about her choice of doctor.]

I don't think you need all this information to tell if the baby is at risk or not. [A proper Water Tribe midwife certainly wouldn't need to ask such meddling questions.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ By way of apology, (which isn't exactly apology but elaboration in good grace,) the doctor murmurs, ]

I am sorry if this is uncomfortable. But some questions are necessary -- especially because there are diseases that can be transmitted directly to the baby. Of course if you'd prefer a different approach, we'll schedule bloodwork when you're between nine to twelve weeks. For now what we'll conduct is a full physical and pelvic exam...

[ And blah blah blah. Hei's brainwaves have been lulled into the comforting blur of white-noise. His gaze drifts across the room, settling on the red sharps disposal. Why are those always so fascinating to him? Every time he's near one, during a routine check-up, he fights an almost irresistible itch to plunge his hand through the fluted hole and grab at all those dirty blades and needles, squeeze them tight in his fist until the blood oozes through his fingers. Why? How sick and weird is that? ]

[ He still feels it now, that repulsive desire, and jerks his eyes away from it. The desire to bolt out of the clinic, to plead with Korra to terminate the pregnancy, is there too. But that doesn't mean he's allowed to act on it either. There is nothing unnatural about this visit, the doctor's concerns, the pregnancy itself. He knows that. ]

[ What's unnatural is him being connected to it in any way. ]

[anatural]

Some. Not all. [Korra is hardly mollified by the doctor's words. Hei's discomfort is palpable, and while normally she's able to take it with some measure of grace, this is the kind of visit that would be stressful even with a happy, invested partner. She's irritated with Hei for making a happy event so emotionally fraught; she's irritated with the doctor for upsetting him, and bringing up issues she doesn't want to talk about, and for doing things differently than Master Katara or any of the other healers she's seen would have done them.

But Asami insisted, so Korra's at least going to see this visit through.]

All right then. Let's do this.

[mortemscintilla]

[ He can't help it. It is aberrant, too aberrant -- and the longer they remain in this well-lit building with its floral paintings and lemony carbolic scent and all those big-bellied pregnant women in the waiting room that make Korra look like just one more pod among pods, existing merely to split open some day and deposit a ripe, messy lump of life on the ground -- the more that knot of wrongness in his belly tightens. Surrounded on all sides by the ordinary, the human, he feels sure that everyone who looks at them together knows what he is; what a disaster Korra is courting by being with him. He stews, blank-faced, sere, and he knows Korra senses his discomfort. Knows she hears him carefully saying nothing, yet expressing everything in his broody silence. ]

[ Then Korra says, Let's do this -- and he nearly bites off: Let's not. The bright-blue burn of her gaze is excruciating, as if she's piling up a list of complaints to lodge, grievances to blame him for later. He can't fault her. But he also can't stand to be in here anymore, either. ]

[ Rising jerkily, he ignores the doctor's curious gaze. ]

I'll be outside.

[ Muttered between tight-pressed lips, his eyes flicking across the periphery as if he's expecting an ambush or wishing he could deliver one. He doesn't wait for the women to protest. He shoulders through the door, strides past the underage girl with her red-rimmed eyes, and away from the hellishly artificial cheeriness of the clinic. The air in there is too thick, unnourishing: he needs to be out in clean sane natural daylight, as if that will dispel the ugly clamor in his skull. Wash his mind out with sun-lit soap. ]

[anatural]

[She wasn't even looking at you, Hei. Though she's certainly looking at him now as he storms off. It should make the rest of the visit easier, not having him around, but instead it's the last straw. Korra thanks the doctor, says she'll come back another time, and leaves without listening to a word the woman says. She doesn't care about this nosy woman and her invasive questions. (Never trusting Asami's judgement on doctors again, ugh.)

She rushes outside, a little afraid that he'd just start walking and not stop. Which is why she reaches out to grab his arm.] Hei!

[mortemscintilla]

[ He doesn't want to stop. He wants to keep moving, in effortless flux, a blur through the city; its constellation of glittering lights, its chaos and clamor, its stench of salt water and rotten durian, garbage and car exhaust. He wishes he could keep walking right out of it, pictures himself taking a ship, sailing away to the Earth Kingdom's remote green territories. Living under the open curve of sky and stars, drifting from city to city, untethered, unblocked. His fantasy has a pure-blue vista, the same color as Korra's eyes -- but it does nothing but ignite a quiet homesickness. ]

[ Because home is where Korra is -- even with that unwelcome life inside her, building itself, feeding like a parasite on the coursing of her blood. ]

[ A child of his is a parasite. A worrisome freak that perfectly apes the intellect and abilities of a regular person -- but is a step outside of humankind, looking in. And loathing what it sees. ]

[ He's almost crossed the busy street before his arm is grabbed. He tries not to turn, tries to just jerk away and get to the tea-shop on the other side. But she is the Avatar, and when she grabs hold of you -- she grabs hold. He doesn't look at her. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, fixed on the drifting glints of satomobiles. ]

[ Tonelessly, ]

I don't think I can do this.

[anatural]

Then we don't do this. [It's really not as dramatic or complicated as he makes it out to be, and a part of her wants to strangle him, but another part of her is just desperately sad. She doesn't like watching him struggle with things that should bring him at least some measure of happiness.]

I'm not trying to push you into something you don't want to do. If you don't want this, I'll go back to that doctor and we can end it right now. I just need you to tell me what you want. Listing the reasons something's a bad idea is not the same thing as not wanting it.

[She wants to be a mother, but it's not central to her happiness. She can give it up without feeling deprived or resentful... as long as it's not just because he's afraid.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ I don't know what I want. He doesn't know how to say that. Is afraid that once spoken, his terror will crystallize into a hot barbed nut in his brain, jamming a system that otherwise functions with such calm efficiency. Shit -- it's already jammed. He doesn't want to look at Korra either. Just the sound of her voice, the gentle effort in those words, makes the rims of his eyes sting. He wishes he could tackle this situation like a normal man. With a panic that falls within an acceptable range of responses -- tremulous babble, hiding under a piece of furniture -- and then become overly protective and giddy, a trend he's observed among a handful of beaming dad-to-be's. ]

[ Not -- this. Unhinged and over-dialed, bristling with a paranoia that verges on cowardice. The implication that he is a coward ... surely it's a sign that he's not the same person anymore? Except he is. The man he'd been before -- the same man he is now -- is afraid. Always afraid. It is fear that made him so ruthless, so unbeatable, a shadowy legend in the espionage world, because he'd learnt to channel the emotion away from his mind and into his words and fists. It is fear that made him crawl into whiskey bottles during his lowest moments, to court his own death, a flirtation neither of them took seriously. ]

[ It is fear driving him now -- a cold, deep-seated prickle at the edges of his thoughts. ]

I'm -- scared.

[ He lets off a hissing sound. Almost a laugh, except it's thick with self-loathing. How seldom he ever admits such a thing. How aware he is that he sounds like a whiny little bitch. ]

This ... thing growing inside you. I don't even know if it's good, Korra. It might turn into a monster.

[ A Contractor. Or some freakish mistake in between. Like me. He doesn't need to say it. ]

[anatural]

Of course it's good. [Korra wishes she could understand his fear — not feel it herself, but at least be able to wrap her mind around it so it doesn't sound like complete madness. Does he think it's going to burst out of her stomach like some twisted trickster spirit? It's a baby. Babies aren't born good or bad... they start with their own temperament, but it's life that molds them into heroes or villains.

She reaches for his hand, intending to tug him — or at least get him to follow her — to somewhere a little more private. There's a park with a bench nearby that is nice & empty.]

Why do you think it'll turn into a monster?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei is silent. A stymied silence, frustration, incoherence, impasse. Without quite meaning to, he lets himself be tugged away from the street. Feeling like an escaped convict, handcuffed and in her custody. The park is bright-green and warm, shot through with dazzling light. The tree shading the bench has branches weighed with thousands of nesting green silkwoms, their fine webs like shivery white icicles. ]

[ He ignores everything -- the greenery, the brightness, the picture-perfection of the day. Settles heavily on the bench, bent forward, his head knocking at itself roughly. He doesn't look at Korra. But he can see her at the edge of his vision: the slightly-unfocused angles of her body, sculpted into a landscape of cliffs and hills. The fritzing aurora of warmth she gives off, so intense he can imagine reaching out and touching it, feeling its singe like hot coals across his palms. ]

[ He does no such thing. Elbows on knees, he rubs at his pounding temples. Tries to get a grip. ]

I -- I don't know. Never mind. I should've let you make the trip alone.

[ Even as he backpedals, he is faced again with what he is so reluctant to do -- stay with her while that burgeoning blob of cells in her belly gains definition and reality. Pretend as if it is nothing. Say nothing, because nothing is all that can be said. He loves her -- and she's never been anything less than lovable. Surely her genetics -- whatever indefinable ingredients make her Korra -- will cancel out the threat of his faulty Contractorliness, his cruelty, his callous indifference which is a direct upshot of his parents'. ]

[anatural]

No you shouldn't. We only have a few weeks to decide what to do. [Once there's a heartbeat, there's no going back for Korra. They need to actually use this time to figure out what they want and what they're going to do.

She slides her hand onto the bench, almost touching his thigh, but still leaving some space — a silent offer of comfort, if he wants it. Sometimes it's obvious when he doesn't want to be touched, and other times — like now — she really can't tell. He's been trained to make himself unreadable. Part of that nightmarish childhood she's only heard a little about, that she can hardly imagine. Does he think that his childhood is going to infect the baby somehow?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The crunch-time between inanimate and exanimate -- as dictated by a heartbeat -- makes it worse. As if he's caught in a high-risk mission, the digits of the clock melting away, the time-bomb ticking steadily, nothing to stop the ferocious end-it-all explosion. ]

[ He can feel Korra's arm, barely a breath away from his thigh. His skin burns beneath the denim, warmth flooding up his muscles. But he doesn't react to her unvoiced offer. If he gives in to it, he'll go like melting, unable to articulate what's brewing inside his skull, to avert this Cuban missile crisis born from the combined emergency of premonition and fear. He wishes he could wrangle and subdue it. Squash it flat, the way he's done with innumerable enemies. He is pissed at his ambivalence, pissed at himself, pissed at this situation. ]

[ Nothing shows on his face. His eyes have taken on that inky blackness, as if he's hung up a vacancy sign in his skull and left no forwarding address. ]

[ A beat, then two. Finally: ]

You love your parents, right?

[ It's a rhetorical question. Of course she does. Most decent, well-raised children do. But when he speaks next, it's slow, the words clogged at the edges. What does he think he's up to? Something has gone awry inside his brain, where such decisions are made; a valve of self-control has failed, and he feels himself caught on a spillage of unfiltered honesty. ]

I killed mine.

[anatural]

[Korra doesn't know how to react to that. It should be horrifying — it is horrifying — and yet at the same time, it feels like just words. She can't imagine Hei having parents. If he had parents, he couldn't have had that childhood, filled with war and killing and brutality and horror. Parents protect their children from those things. The ones who don't — her mind flickers briefly to Yakone, who abuse had so twisted both Tarlok and Amon — don't deserve the title.]

You were a child soldier. [Did he kill his parents and then become a soldier? No, that doesn't make any sense. She's known him for too long to entertain that notion. However twisted and fucked up he is, he wasn't born that way. Experience made him the complicated, dangerous man she first met — and the complicated, less-dangerous man she's been bedding for almost ten years. If he killed his parents in cold blood, which she has no doubt he's capable of doing, then it had to be after they abandoned him to the nightmare that scarred him so. It's horrifying to imagine a child killing their parents... but Korra doesn't feel sorry for them.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He hasn't told Korra this to win her sympathy, or shock her into sobriety. He doesn't bother glancing sideways, to judge if his arrow was wide of the mark or not. As it is, he's not sure he could tolerate the compassion in her face. Or worse than that -- pity. The memory that he and Pai once had parents is meaningless now: no different than discovering he'd once had an extra organ. A tiny sac or bladder that contributed nothing to his health but threatened to bring about sickness. A surgeon had excised it, and he could quite happily exist without it. A simplistic way to look at it ... but then, it was Hei who had done the excising. ]

[ His expression doesn't twitch or shift. It is pale and dead and blank, shadows gathering to obscure whatever is behind his eyes. Yet nothing he tells her is glossed-over, twisted, or prevaricated in any way. Hei isn't religious; he doesn't believe in confession. Nor is he much interested in psychological legerdemain, as if catharsis is the cure-all for a lifetime of utter shit. ]

[ He's telling her this ... so she understands. His conflict, his fear, his unshakable belief that he's unfit to be around children. That any children of his will warp into homicidal savages. ]

By choice. Because they gave my sister away. To them, she was a monster. They didn't see what I did.

[ That Contractor or not, she was still a child. She waded through blood-drenched battles with the eerie equanimity of a schoolgirl skipping puddles. She could kill a battalion of enemies in a listless eyeblink. To her, people were things to be used, peeled back, opened up, roughly dissected and dismissed. All threats fell under the same cold scrutiny. ]

[ Yet, during cold nights, she'd curl up against him like a kitten needing warmth. When he was wounded she'd help with his bandages, two soft coins of curiosity and concern glinting in her eyes. With each victory, each kill, she'd tug his sleeve, serenely-smiling, a pale finger aimed to the sky, just as she'd done as a little girl. Look brother. I made the stars fall. ]

[anatural]

[Korra's wise enough now to connect the dots without neon clear instructions. Their parents, disturbed by Xing's admittedly creepy... everything, gave their daughter up to someone who put her into a war. Made her a weapon, and Hei followed because he is crazy protective. Korra never much liked Xing, even after living with her for months, but she can't imagine being so heartless as to send her off somewhere to suffer and die.]

If anyone's a monster, it's them. [Even the members of the White Lotus who saw her as a weapon to be molded and not a child to be nurtured treated her with more care and compassion than his own parents. In those circumstances... Korra might have killed them too.]

Hei, I saw how you parented her. [The parts that weren't creepy codependent were sweet.] And I remember how you were with me during those curses when I was young. You're good with kids. When you want to be. [He never took to the airbender babies, except for Jinora.] I think you're better equipped for this than you give yourself credit for.

[mortemscintilla]

In limited doses.

[ Exhaling, he lets his eyes drop shut. Korra's voice is so soft and intensely kind, but the kindness is simply in how matter-of-fact she is about the whole thing. A girl-Perseus gazing unflinchingly into the gorgon's eyes, refusing to crumble into stone. It makes Hei ache to believe her, to accept the heavy golden chains of trust she's bestowed him with, to bury himself in the warm delicious fold of her arms and absolution and whisper: I wish I could believe you. ]

[ But there's no way to be sure. No trial-runs. No reset buttons. Once the baby is there... it's there. ]

[ Except he can't make apologies, either, or excuses. Everyone has baggage, some lightweight, some crippling. One thing never changes: people don't admit their flaws. Always the rough childhood, the cold wife, the asshole husband, stress at the office, the same old piss and moan. Nobody ever stands up and says, Yes: the awful things I do come from a defect in my basic human character.]

[ Hei has accepted that defect long ago. He's made a career out of spinning webs of delusions: it's dangerous to delude himself, too. Except he remembers what Amber once said ... about being defined by your choices, not your defects. Hei has been telling himself for so long he'd had no choice but to be a killer, that it was deeply rooted and inseparable from who he was, that his choice reflex had atrophied. But ... maybe he can reawaken it. Maybe he can make this work? ]

[ He doesn't look at Korra. Stares straight ahead, to where a young couple are swinging a giggling girl-toddler between them by both her chubby arms. They jaw amiably together, peachy and sun-scrubbed, voices overlapping with enthusiasm. ]

[ Quietly, ]

What if I try -- and fail? What if you resent me for it?

[anatural]

[They have had a trial run, actually — in the City, with Pai and Jinora. Not practice with a baby, sure, but with being responsible for two younger lives. As different as this would be, it wouldn't be completely alien to them. What he's feeling right now, he thinks of as admitting his defects; she would call it an excuse not to change. If it's inherent to you, you can't change it, it just has to be accepted.

She reaches out to squeeze his knee.]

I'm not going to. [She honestly can't imagine it. She can see the frustrations and disappointments easily, but nothing that would lead to resentment. They've come too far together.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei's thoughts are clotted around a few words: But. What if. I can't. A mistake. Sorry He tries to feel his way towards some reaction. Korra's warm certainty is like the allure of a drug, a spell: it takes nothing to succumb to it. But it's hard for him to do that, because for years he's had only himself to trust, because no one else can say for sure when his own lenience with errors stops being wise and starts putting him at risk. He's had to be a soldier and he's had to be a bastard. ]

[ That life is done. ]

[ Which is true, even as it isn't. His past will never disappear: ever-present reminders and spring-loaded traps lurk in every corner, and he knows he can't travel enough light years to escape them. It doesn't matter. He glances, hesitantly, at Korra, letting the full glow of her eyes shine on him. His pulse is still zinging behind the bars of his ribcage, and strange: that deathly fear is still there, but with it is a sharp-toothed clarity, the danger of failure, of not being able to meet the expectations Korra has. He knows he does need her, that without her he will just give up and surrender to the monster seething below his skin. It's an old habit: easy to want, easier to do. But there is something he wants more. His restlessness these past few months is a reminder of that. ]

[ And with Korra ... That is it. With Korra. ]

[ After a beat, he reaches out to palm her cheek. Feels her hot skin, her pulse. Then his fingers are in her hair, gently combing. ]

Okay.

[ Not If that's what you believe. Not I'm ready. Her beliefs for their future are complex, immeasurable, and he'll never be completely ready for them. But there's nothing to be done for that, now. There is only acceptance, and a hope that, in those slender moments separating what is from what may be, there might be breakthrough and understanding. ]

[anatural]

So... Does that mean you want it, or does that mean you're humoring me?

[The hand on her cheek is a good sign, but it could mean anything. Right now, she doesn't dare make any assumptions about what he's feeling.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei doesn't answer right away. Conflicted feelings express themselves on his face -- barely ripples, but the fact that they're visible hints at his state of psychic rawness. A blink, then two, before they resolve to ... not reassurance, but resignation. He's not sure he'll feel anything for the baby once it's here. But it will be hers -- and he knows he loves everything that is hers (except maybe Naga). But he loves her more. Most. Can't help that. She isn't a prize he's fought to win -- but a miraculous destination that he's arrived at after a storm of solitude, mourning, conflict and loss. He's ready to sacrifice his qualms and irrationalities, if that means keeping her happy. ]

[ His hands are dry and so cool on her hot skin. He's amazed she doesn't shudder as he slips them through her hair to draw her face towards his. His mouth too feels cold, dry against the sweet swelter of hers, as if made so by the chill recycled air in the clinic. He rests his forehead against hers for a long beat, while he tries to put all of himself into the contact, the reams and reams of things he would tell her if he could, if it would do any good. ]

[ Eventually, ]

I can't say it'll be easy. Or that I'll do everything right. But ... I'll never stop trying.

[anatural]

Still not answering my question. [She doesn't sound annoyed or pressuring, more amused. He can never just answer a question, particularly when it's emotional.]

Promise me you're not humoring me. I don't care if you're scared or uncertain or anything... I just don't want you to say yes just because you think that's what I want.