“What are you thinking?” Helena asked.
Most of the anger was gone from her voice by now, but the wake of tears were still evident on her lovely face, tears that caught me off guard. She really must have been worked up over this child to actually cry. Her reserved attitude over the past few weeks made sense all of a sudden… over the past year really. Had she wanted this all along? Was I really that blind?
I glanced up at her. “A baby?”
She smiled. “Yes, Jacob. A baby. Yours and mine.”
She reached out and placed my hand against her stomach. I didn’t feel anything. I suppose I wouldn’t this early on, but something told me she was right. My child was there.
“But how can we raise him here?” I asked. “Now? He doesn’t deserve to grow up in the ass end of civilization.”
“She won’t. We’ll find a way to get home.”
I pulled away from the future mother of my child, stood, and walked back towards the scene of our fight. I rubbed my chin and thought.
“What?” she asked as she slowly caught up to me.
“I… it’s… look, I just don’t know if we can responsibly raise him here. Not only that, but we also have no idea how a journey through the orb could affect him. Remember how painful it was? And what if we go when you’re still pregnant? Who knows what could happen. I just don’t see how we can do this.”
She stepped around to face me, her eyes narrow.
“You’re not suggesting that we…”
“What? Of course not. I just feel…”
“Jacob, stop. There’s something else I need to tell you.”
“We’re not having twins are we?”
She smiled. “You know I can’t know that, but there is something else you need to know. The reason I debated telling you for so long, and especially tonight, was because I have no idea what’s going to happen to us. If I die tomorrow, I wasn’t sure I wanted you knowing you lost your unborn child as well…”
“That’s not going to happ…”
“Let me finish,” she said, cutting me off with an upraised hand. “It was hard to tell you, yes, but I always knew deep down that you deserved to know. This child is as much yours as it is mine. You had to know. But, I didn’t want to you to know because of this exact conversation. I wasn’t sure what you would think. That’s what worried me most because, well… the fact is simply that I want this baby. More than you can possibly imagine.”
She turned her back on me and looked at the ground, her hands massaging her stomach. I stepped up behind her and wrapped my arms around her, gripping her wrists in my hands.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” she continued. “It was something I’ve wanted to talk to you about for months, but I didn’t think under Galba’s bed was the appropriate place to do it, even though it was relevant even then. You see, this child — our child — is something I’ve wanted ever since I was thirteen years old. A little girl of my own. Someone who I could play with, spoil, love, go shopping with. Everything. At the time, I suppose what I really wanted was a sister, but later I knew what I wanted was a child. But like all dreams, every day I had to wake up to the truth.”
“Your prearranged marriage,” I said softly.
She nodded. “I told you I never hated him. But I could never see him as the father of my child either. I knew that, like the marriage, children would inevitably be forced on me as well. It scared me. I didn’t know if I would love them or not. Half of each child would be his. Someone I didn’t love or even really like. How could I only love half a child?” She turned around. “Then I met you, Jacob. Yours is a child I could love.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “We have to do this. This may be our only chance.”
I gave it some thought before I cupped her chin with my thumb and index finger, tilting her face up, waiting as I mulled over her words. After a few moments deep in thought, everything pointed to only one conclusion.
“I want this too,” I said, before a smile grew on my face. “Looks like you won’t be going dancing as often as you’d hoped.”
She returned the smile and hugged me tightly. “I can live with that.”
Finally. This was the reaction I should have provided ten minutes ago. I held us there for what seemed like hours before the gravity of the situation dawned on me. I separated us and looked down at her.
“I forbid you from going on the mission tomorrow.”
“No.” She pulled away, surprise in her eyes. “No! You’re not going in there without me!”
“Helena, you can’t. It’s irresponsible.”
“Jacob, I’m pregnant, not crippled, and it’s too early for it to inhibit me in any way.”
“Nope. Not happening.”
“Yes, Jacob… it is.”
There was no hint of backing down in her voice. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
I met her stare. “You are the most frustratingly stubborn woman I have ever met!”
She smiled. “I know. It’s why you love me.”
I wanted to yell at her. Bay at the moon. Punch her in the face. Something. My emotions were all over the place. Happiness. Fear. Joy. Anger. Frustration. They were all there. This woman never ceased to amaze and confuse me. It was my turn to get angry.
In mock frustration, I gently pushed her away and kicked sand at her.
“Fine!” I yelled making my way back to the camp, “but you’d better not let me die, or your ass is haunted! Haunted!”
Her smile continued to enchant. “Just go back to the tent. I’ll meet up with you soon. I want to enjoy the moonlight for a few more minutes.” Then her smile turned coy. “At least now we don’t have to worry about getting pregnant anymore if you want to have some fun lat…”
“Bah!” I waved my hand at her, and with half of me actually frustrated, the other half joking, I stalked my way back to the camp with my own smile still beaming.
A baby!
I thought getting myself stuck in Rome was crazy enough. Now things were really starting to hit me. I knew nothing about raising a kid. What was I supposed to do when I had to go shoot someone? Let Uncle Wang and Uncle Santino watch him while Helena and I were off on a mission? The kid would be sarcastic jackass in a week!
My head started to swim and I felt like collapsing as adrenaline from both the news and the fight waned.
Somehow finding my way back to the tent, I started working on the zipper, only to have it stubbornly fight me back. Just as I finally yanked the thing open, I heard Santino call out from the small camp fire where he sat with Wang, Gaius, Marcus, and Titus.
“Congratulations, Hunter,” he said nonchalantly.
I turned awkwardly. “For what?”
He looked at his companions like I’d just asked the dumbest question of all time. “Helena’s pregnancy, of course.”
I stared dumbfounded. “What makes you think she’s pregnant?”
He cleared his throat. “Well, when a man comes stumbling back from a long talk with a woman where a brawl goes down, it means one of two things. By the way, she really kicked your ass back there.” He paused while Wang saluted me with some money he must have won from a bet. “You know… most couples just yell at each other, not throw down like that.”
My head started spinning again.
“Anyway,” Santino continued, “it means she’s either been lying to you this entire time and that she’s really some kind of transvestite or… an unexpected pregnancy. But I’ve seen her naked. She’s definitely not a man.”
“You’ve…” I mumbled, before catching on. “You what!?”
“Hey, don’t sweat it, buddy,” he said grabbing at his chest over his heart. “I’ll cherish the image forever.”
My swirling emotional storm wanted me to go down there and beat the shit out of him more than anything, but my lack of adrenaline was holding me back.
“I hope they name the kid after me,” Wang offered.
“Wang Hunter?” Santino asked, meeting Wang’s eye for a few seconds before the two of them burst into laughter. The three Romans were thoroughly confused until Santino translated what the slang word “wang” was as well as what a “hunter” was. The little English lesson barely lasted the time it took for a full translation because now all five of them were laughing hysterically. Even fucking Titus, who rarely showed any emotion, held his side as tears streamed from his eyes. Marcus even fell off his log.