Options, yet another cookie.
Nicholas was hunched over the toilet for the second time already this morning, but was semi-grateful to have Aideen there with him. At least she could ease some of the morning sickness, though he thought she could have been a bit nicer to him. He wanted Victor and Nina to be back, but they’d signed up for a mission east before the possibility of pregnancy. So now, he was left with rotational caregivers, currently, his twin sister.
She methodically got a washcloth and wet it for him to wipe his mouth while she got another cool one to put on the back of his neck.
“They’re being particularly rambunctious today,” Nicholas said with a smile as he stood. He was sore as hell, as the birth canal had broken through last night just as his father said it would. And as his dad had warned, he had inspected he still had all of the old parts as well as the new.
Aideen had been there for that; he’d woken her up with his screaming. He didn’t remember if he’d managed anything coherent at the time because he certainly hadn’t been capable of recalling that she was in his house at the moment and not his two partners. He’d been alone, frightened, and in agony.
There was no guessing why it had taken a month for the opening to finally appear, as his fathers recalled it only being a few weeks for his dad.
“Thanks for being here,” he said, trying to break the tension. “Victor and Nina had to go, so I’m glad you were here.”
Aideen only nodded, but it was stiff, formal.
“What?!” Nicholas demanded, standing to his feet slowly and carefully.
“You took pointless risks,” Aideen said.
Nicholas glared at her. “Will people stop saying that? I did what I had to in order for the twins to survive.”
“You took the selfish route, Nicholas. One where everyone in the family worries about your health, where everyone fears that something will go wrong, where Papa has to do some major cover-ups to keep your pregnancy under wraps.”
“There were no other options!” Nicholas yelled at her.
“I was an option!” she yelled back, glaring at him.
And there it was, the reason she had been so cold and angry at him. There was the truth he hadn’t realized, not while planning it, not while he was performing the transmutation, not even after.
“Nicholas this transmutation has to be done by someone who can do circleless transmutation, and wouldn’t it have made a hell of a lot more sense to ask your twin sister to carry the babies as opposed to doing it yourself? Are you really that blind? Do you think I’m that cruel that I’d tell you no? After everything you’ve done for me, including offer to carry Nikki when we thought my health would fail?”
Nicholas couldn’t answer aloud, he only shook his head, answering more the last question than the others.
“My body is designed for this. It’s done it three times already, and all of my children are perfectly healthy. No one would question me carrying the babies, for you to tell the world that I was a surrogate mother for them.” Her voice was quieter than before.
“Aideen, I didn’t think…”
“I know you didn’t,” she snapped. “If you had, I wouldn’t have had to come into the room to that, that noise and see you in a pool of blood. I wouldn’t have been comforting you as your body prepared to do something it just wasn’t designed to do.”
Nicholas looked down at his feet and thought he might cry. He was doing better, emotionally, than his dad had during his pregnancy, but at the moment, he really felt like he could break.
There was a sigh opposite him, and he looked up in time to see Aideen heading toward him, wrapping her arms around him. “You’re a dumbass who doesn’t think ahead and who thinks he can handle everything himself, family and lovers be damned.” Her hands rubbed his back. She didn’t say the words, but they were there, the “but I love you.”