Insightful, a future fic (Part 2B)

[One Month Later]

The market wasn’t as crowded as it normally was in the mid-afternoon, which the two men took as a good sign for things to come. “Guess this means less of a chance of losing Justine if she runs off,” Kody said, holding his daughter tightly to him while he and Green walked past different vendors who were watching them as they went. “That’s good, honestly. The last time I came here with her she virtually disappeared from my sight and I had to stop what I was doing early to make sure she didn’t have the chance to do it again.”

“I don’t understand how you would allow for her to run off at any point, but I’m sure you had a good reason for why you let her out of your sight.” Green was noticing how the vendors were tracking them with their eyes, but he didn’t want to call attention to it in case something bad were to happen if he did. “Was it a decent sale on something? Maybe an old friend that walked by?”

“She got distracted by another small child and chased them down so that she could play with him. It was lucky that we happened to know the child and the parent he was with, but at the same time, I’m still not sure how she remembered him. He’d grown a lot in the time since we’d last seen him before that.” Smiling at his daughter, who was nestling herself in his neck, Kody laughed. “Hopefully nothing like that happens today, though. We’re on a mission of sorts and we can’t fail it.”

His attention going back to the way they were being watched by everyone around, Green nodded but held his tongue on what he was really thinking: it felt almost like they weren’t going to be able to do what they had been asked to do. After all, how were they going to pick up incredibly specific items if everyone who was selling anything looked like they were going to deny them service? “I don’t want to think about what will happen if we manage to fail this,” he finally said, “or, rather, I don’t want to think about what will happen to *me* if we fail. You’ll get off fine, possibly with a threat that you’ll lose Justine, but nothing serious.”

“That’s right, I’m not the one who would have to return home knowing that I didn’t accomplish what my spouse asked me to do.” Kody was still smiling at Justine for a moment, before looking past her towards Green. “But that’s no way to talk at all, we’re going to get exactly what she wants and get this over with, no issues whatsoever. Let’s be thankful that she hasn’t sent us on an impossible quest, shall we?”

It really was something to be thankful for, even as they got to the part of the market that they had been aiming for, only to find that everyone seemed to have cleared from it before their arrival. Choosing to not take that as a bad sign, but rather as a sign that they’d gotten lucky at coming when no one was around, they stepped inside the boundaries of the shop, Kody setting Justine down so that she could explore as she wished while they both started looking for what they’d been sent to get: a simple sewing kit with enough thread to re-stitch an entire wardrobe worth of clothing if needed.

The different collections of fabric and material meant for crafting were tempting to look at, but the idea of taking something into the house that wasn’t explicitly asked for was quite terrifying at that point. It wasn’t so much that it wouldn’t be appreciated, because Amanda did always have a fondness for gifts, but rather that if it wasn’t deemed immediately necessary there was the chance that she would get frustrated by it and start freaking out over what to do with it.  Even though she was a rather crafty person, it might have been best to let her decide what crafts she wanted to make before anything was purchased for her.

Before either of them were able to find what they were looking for, a loud laugh coming from Justine pulled them both from their search to see what had gotten her so excited. It was a woman standing right outside the makeshift walls of the shop, in their arms a young boy that was happily waving his arms at the noise of the girl’s laughter. “What a surprise that I see you three here,” the woman said, smiling at them. “You doing some shopping for the loves in your lives? They both seem to be the kinds of people who’d appreciate the things this vendor sells.”

“You could say that, yes,” Kody replied, gesturing for the woman to step inside for Justine’s sake, because he didn’t want her running out to get any closer to the other child. “What brings you around here, Angel? Your husband isn’t in the same creative boat as Chase, nor does he share any interests with Amanda, so are you here for yourself?”

“This shop wasn’t actually my destination, but when I saw familiar faces I couldn’t resist but stopping by for a bit.” Angel leaned down to let the child she was holding get a good look at Justine, who had come up to them the moment she could. “You have a real social butterfly daughter, I bet you wish she’ll never grow out of that trait. She sure loves getting to say hello to Ash whenever she gets the chance!”

Scratching at the back of his neck, Kody watched how his daughter was behaving around the young boy, before stepping forward to pull her away. “Right now she’s young enough to do that sort of thing without any kind of backlash. Once she’s older, in this world…I think we could do with her having a bit more restraint around others.”

“You might regret ever saying that, but who am I to tell you how to raise your child?” Standing back up straight, Angel looked towards Green, who had gone back to looking for what he’d been sent to get. Her face scrunched for a second as she tried to get a read on what he was doing, but when she couldn’t tell because he wasn’t looking towards her, she said, “As for you, it’s strange seeing you out here without your wife at your side. How is she? Everything going well between you two?”

“About as well as it could be, I suppose,” he replied, not looking from the shelf he was browsing. “She’s just spending some time at home right now, not exactly feeling up to coming out with me today. Don’t worry about her, though, because everything’s fine.” He hoped he wasn’t sounding as dismissive as he thought he was, as that would lead to nothing but questions that he’d have to dance around, but when he finally looked back towards her and she had narrowed her eyes at him, he knew that she was moments away from bringing what he’d said to questioning. “Seriously, it’s fine. She’s fine. You don’t need to worry.”

Her mouth opened, fully prepared to ask him a follow-up, but Kody jumped in exactly as needed. “I can confirm, I saw her earlier before we came to the market, she’s just as she always is. A bit more stubborn than usual, but we can chalk that up to her not wanting to come out and being set in that decision.”

“Huh, well if you two insist she’s fine, who am I to think otherwise? It’s just, well, rather suspicious when I haven’t ever seen her anywhere but at Green’s side in the longest time, only to find that she’s been replaced with Kody this time.” Angel came closer to where the two men were, a collection of fabric the only thing between her and them, and Ash started reaching out to play with the different-textured pieces now within his grasp. “You two know that you don’t have to keep secrets from me if you’re hiding something. I won’t jump to conclusions, but leaving it so hush-hush might make someone else do the same.”

The men looked at each other, before both turning back to face her with her smug and knowing smile on her lips. “You’ve spoken to Shed recently, haven’t you?” Green asked her, to which she gave a nod. “R-right. And I’m sure he told you some crazy story that you had to come get an answer about for yourself, didn’t he?” Another nod, this one more forceful than the first. “That story’s made you think that something weird’s going on, hasn’t it?”

“Something weird? All he mentioned was that you’d told him she was back to training, but when he saw her for himself you backtracked and told him that she wasn’t fully back to fighting, just to healing. I just wanted to know if that was still the case, and if it was, if you think she’d be interested in getting back into it anytime soon.” That wasn’t the explanation he’d been expecting to hear, and it made him thankful that Shed hadn’t had any reason to not believe what he’d been told. If he’d jumped to any (possibly correct) conclusions on his own, this conversation would have gone in a direction that would have been impossible to correct without serious lies.

“I don’t think I can answer that question on her behalf, sorry,” he answered after giving it a moment of thought, considering telling Angel a straight no but deciding that dodging an answer was better than giving one. “I’ve tried getting her to go back to proper training, Kody’s tried, Chase has tried, it’s not going to work until she’s ready for it, but I can’t say if she is or not right now.”

To assist in the vague answer, Kody threw in, “I’m sure if she was ready for it, she’d accept your offer in a heartbeat, but as she hasn’t accepted mine, I don’t think now’s the time.” It was great, having someone who was in on the secret there to help with keeping it a secret, and Green had to make a mental note to thank Kody for his addition the moment they were alone again. “But we’ll keep you posted for when she is ready, don’t worry.”

“Thanks for that, it’s always nice to be able to help an old teammate out when I have the chance, and since I know how damaging to her that injury was, I figured being available to work her through it was the right thing to do. Of course, since she might not be ready for that, do you think she’d be interested in doing some babysitting for me?” That was when Angel pulled Ash back from the fabric, his little hands having put several piles into disarray all on his own. “I know she isn’t the biggest fan of children, but maybe it’d be a good reminder of what she’s avoiding when she’s on the battlefield.”

Coming up behind her, out of breath from having just ran from who-knows-where, Chase only managed to heard the last sentence Angel had said, and the look of confusion on his face as he tried to make sense of it was worrisome to both Kody and Green, who were watching him to see what he was going to do. “I don’t know why you two thought it’d be funny to leave me there with Amanda, but I’m not letting you do that again. One of you, or Justine, with me at all times if I’m in that house from here on out.”

“Oh, hello Chase,” Angel said, turning to face the person that joined them, and following him with her body as he came into the shop area. “What a pleasant surprise to see you here. Although, I’m a bit confused about why you’re acting like they’ve left you somewhere you didn’t want to be. I thought they,” she gestured towards Green in specific, but meant the two men, “said that she had chosen to stay home on her own today.”

“Did they now? That’s funny, because that wasn’t what I had to hear over and over again while I was stuck with her. ‘Why’d they go out without me? Why can’t they let me go with them when they’re going to the market, they know exactly what I want but I know it better than they ever could!’” Chase gave a drawn-out sigh, shaking his head as he came to Kody’s side and leaned to rest his head on his shoulder. “I didn’t think she’d manage to get to be this annoying, but here we are, she’s gotten to the point that I can’t handle her anymore.”

“You’re acting awfully suspicious, storming in here like this,” Kody said, pushing Chase off of him so that he could look him directly in the face. “Let me guess, she sent you here to check on us, didn’t she?”

“I, er, can’t say that she did, nope. I left because I got tired of being stuck with her, not a single other reason.” Seeing that Kody wasn’t buying what he was saying, Chase looked over to Green, who was trying his best to avoid the side-eye Angel was giving now that she had new information to mull over. “I bet you know what that’s like, don’t you? Except you can’t just walk out whenever you want, she’ll always follow you wherever you go.”

“If you’re trying to get me to say something in response to you, this isn’t the time or place for it.” Even giving that answer was risky, because he knew that Angel was a smart woman who would start putting pieces together if she was given enough of them, but Green felt like he didn’t have a choice. “You should head back now, before she gets the idea to follow *you* for walking out on her.”

Chase stared at him for a second, clearly impressed with the answer he’d been given. “I’ll admit, I didn’t think you’d be that insistent that I go back, but I knew you’d try to play things off like this. Even told her that she would, but she was so certain that you’d run your mouth and say something you shouldn’t have.” He coughed once he heard the inquisitive sound Angel made at what he’d just said. “I mean, what’s all this about running mouths? What are you all doing here?”

“And for the first time in a long while, Chase seems to have dug himself into a hole he’s going to have a hard time coming out of,” Kody remarked, giving his husband a disapproving head-shake. “You’ve completely forgotten that, in making sure he doesn’t say anything, you shouldn’t be saying anything either.”

“Hey, don’t worry about me knowing anything, I get that this is all hush-hush secretive stuff and I’m not supposed to know a word.” Laughing, Angel started trying to reorganize the fabric her son had messed up while still restraining him from causing a larger mess. “You three just keep gossiping like children, I’ll stand right here and wait until one of you faces me like a man to tell me as it is before I say anything.”

They were all fairly certain that her offer wasn’t anything more than a trap to get someone to slip up and share what they’d been hiding, yet her way of telling them they were handling this like kids was a blow to each of them. “It’s not my secret to share,” Chase said, nodding towards Green who shook his head rapidly at what that motion implied. “No, seriously, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to go ahead and tell someone else who might be of use here about this. She’s got experience, you know.”

“Oh yes, and I’d love to go home to face Amanda after this, having to tell her that I went ahead and told someone without talking to her about it first.” His words were said quietly, under his breath to try and keep Angel from hearing him, but when her eyes lit up at what she’d heard he knew that this hole was now getting deeper for him and Chase both. “This isn’t fair, we just came out today to pick up some things and now everything’s falling apart.”

“The last I heard, you were only here to get a sewing kit so that Amanda could keep up with fixing everything she gets her hands on, this is news that there’s other things you’re getting as well.” As Chase said that, Kody let out a long sigh, trying to drown out his words but to no avail. “What are you doing? I was saying something and—“

“You know what, why don’t we take this conversation somewhere else?” Green pointed towards Chase, who was surprised that action was being taken against him, but the two of them were able to step away from the little shop, leaving Kody and Angel, and the two kids they were with, there looking at each other with no clue of what to do. Finding somewhere that was nearby yet not able to be listened in on wasn’t that hard, given that the marketplace was relatively empty, and the moment Green knew they were safe he was staring straight at Chase and trying to put words to what he was feeling.

When nothing was said right away, Chase rolled his eyes. “You know, you didn’t have to make this such a big deal. Kody was right, I was sent to check on you to make sure you weren’t saying anything that you shouldn’t have been, but what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just walk in and ask if you’re telling everyone about the kid, could I?”

“I’m sure being that direct about it would have been much easier to explain than what you ended up doing. You know she knows what’s going on now, right? There is no way that someone like Angel didn’t hear what you were saying and immediately know what you were being vague about.” Green sighed, bringing his hands to the side of his head as he thought about what this meant for him. “If she tells anyone, and if that news somehow gets back to Amanda, I’m sure we’re all going to pay for this.”

“Angel’s not going to run her mouth about something she doesn’t know all the facts to, I can’t believe you’d consider her to be that kind of person.” Giving a shrug at what he’d just said, Chase leaned his head back and looked up towards the sky, giving a small laugh as he did. “The worst thing she’ll do is end up at your doorstep wanting to visit, and as long as neither of you act like she’s there because of this, Amanda will never know that you managed to ruin the secret.”

“That…*I* managed to ruin it? You’re the one who came in and started referencing it!” Now putting his fingers in his hair to have something to grab in frustration, Green had to hold back possibly yelling at Chase over what was happening. The last thing he needed was to cause a scene right then that would result in someone coming to check on them. “Listen, I don’t know why she still doesn’t trust me about this, but I don’t think she’ll be very happy that the person she did trust is the one who happened to ruin things.”

“You’re not going to accept that you’ve done something wrong here, and I get that. I suppose what we’ll have to do now is both own up to our roles in this and have her cast her judgment on us both, but…” Chase smiled, leaning his head back down to look at Green. “If we’re going to do that, I think we’ll need to explain everything to Angel before we go, so she’s not acting off of assumptions if, for some reason, she mentions this to someone else.”

“You expect me to just go back over there and tell her exactly what I wasn’t going to tell her until you showed up. Unbelievable. I don’t think you realize how bad this is for me, if I’m any part of her finding out.” Dropping his hands towards his sides, Green took in a few deep breaths before finally nodding in acceptance of what he now had to do. “But you’re right, it’s better that she knows the truth than we…” He trailed off as he saw Kody, with Justine under his arm, walking towards them completely nonchalantly. “Never mind, I guess? Kody! What are you doing?”

“Uh, looks like I’m finding you two so we can get out of here and back to your house,” he answered without missing a beat, as if he’d expected to be spoken to the way he had been. “Don’t worry, I think I threw enough doubt into Angel’s mind to cover everything, and if I didn’t, well, expect her to be dropping by sometime soon.”

“Well done, handling it for someone who wouldn’t have. I’m proud of you.” Chase approached Kody and opened his arms to take Justine from him, but he was walked right past, briskly and without explanation. “Hey, I was trying to help you out! Can’t you at least take the offer?”

Still not stopping, and still as if he knew this was coming, Kody answered, “As much as I’d love to, I can’t. I have a feeling that if I stop moving until we’re away from the market the shopkeeper will find me, and I can’t let her do that until I’m back here alone.” His reply was rather cryptic, and as he didn’t show any signs of relenting on his decision, Chase shrugged and started following him.

This left Green behind, and while he felt like he should also follow them for the sake of not being there any longer, at the same time he was aware that he had somehow managed to fail the task he’d been sent to do. Groaning, he glanced back towards the market and considered going and getting what he needed, but decided that since he was already going to get chewed out, he could use coming back to set things right as a way to escape that confrontation and try to get back onto his wife’s good side a bit faster. With that decision made, he quickly caught up to the others, surprised to see that they had slowed their pace and had exchanged who was holding Justine by the time he got there. “Oh, right, before I forget,” Kody said once he knew that Green was back with him, and he reached into a pocket and pulled out a small bag that he shoved towards him. “I snagged this for you, so you don’t have to go back.”

“I’d already figured out how I was going to deal with this, but—wait, you *stole* this for me?” The bag was already in Green’s hand when the words sank in, and he immediately shoved it back towards Kody, who nodded yet refused to take it. “I can’t give her something that’s stolen, even if you did it to help me out.”

“I’ll go back and pay for it once everything’s settled, I still have some things of my own to purchase but I didn’t have the time to do that.” Kody pushed the bag back at Green. “Keep it, give it to her, act like you’re the great husband you try to be, make her forget that her sending Chase to check on you completely backfired on her. Just don’t mention it’s stolen right now, got it?”

“Y-yeah, got it.” Inside, Green knew that this plan wasn’t going to work, that there wasn’t any hope for making her forget that their secret had been more or less compromised, but he didn’t want to be negative about it out loud. This was something relatively nice that Kody had done for him, and he was going to make the most out of it, even if it all fell apart immediately after doing anything with it.

Once the men were outside the house, discussion as to how they were going to approach explaining what had happened picked up, all three of them unsure of how to best let it be known that the secret might have gotten out to someone else not in their ranks. No one wanted to take the blame onto their shoulders, even though there was a clear culprit in what had happened, but at the same time they didn’t want to push the blame onto the very person they were having to tell. “She, technically, is responsible for sending me to check on you, so that means we can easily blame her and call it a day,” Chase said, sounding not entirely convinced of what he was saying even as he gave his idea. “But doing that might make her think that it was being talked about anyway.”

“And it wasn’t, until you showed up and started referencing everything.” Looking towards Green to see if he had anything to add, finding that he was focused entirely on the bag in his hands, Kody shook his head and reached for the door. “It’s not every day you do something wrong, Chase, but you really did it today.”

“So I had to play the role of a spy or something like it on this one, it’s not like I’ve wrecked his marriage or anything. She’ll get over it when she realizes this only happened because of her own fears and lack of trust.” As Kody opened the door, it dawned on Chase that he was now going to have to explain what had happened because it was his fault, and he would have tried jumping to close the door, but holding Justine prevented him from being comfortable with doing that.

Even with them both present, one of them holding the door and one accepting that he had to be the one to explain things, it was still Green who went inside first, because this was his house and his wife they were dealing with. He froze mere steps inside the house, seeing that there was already someone there that he hadn’t been expecting. “You all took a while to get here, didn’t you?” Angel asked with a laugh as she noticed Green’s presence, followed by the other two filing in after. “I figured the least I could do was stop by and try and get things set straight for myself, since none of you were going to do it for me.”

“You know, for not wanting this to get out to anyone, I guess Angel being the first outside of us four to know isn’t so bad.” Poking her head out from the other side of where Angel was sitting, Amanda waved at the three men and the child, all of whom waved back with differing levels of excitement. “Plus, she brought a baby over for me! Why did I ever think babies were horrible?” To illustrate her point, she held Ash up to show the others, the boy giving them a huge, almost entirely toothless grin when he was raised. “He’s adorable, I want one just like him.”

The smile on Angel’s face when she heard the compliment her son received only grew when she looked first over towards the men, then back towards Amanda and her excited expression towards the boy she was holding. “Who knows, maybe that’s what you’ll end up with. That’d make you a happy woman, wouldn’t it?”

“The happiest, definitely!” Amanda laughed, knocking Ash backwards to get him giggling as well. “Especially since any little boy of mine would be just like his dad, and…” She laughed again, for a moment, before going silent and stopping playing with the child she was holding, him not sure why she had stopped but not crying because she was still smiling at him.

“Is something wrong, dear? He’s here in the room, do you need to talk things out with him right now?” Angel tilted her head to one side as she waited for an answer, but when Amanda only gave a small head-shake in response she took action, reaching over to take Ash back so that he wasn’t a distraction. “Go ahead, I can tell you want to talk to him about something, I won’t let us hold you back from it.”

Amanda’s grip on Ash tightened, making it impossible for him to get back into his mother’s arms without hurting him. “No, I don’t need to talk things out with him. I know I’ll have the time for that here soon enough, why waste a great time like this on that? You’re here, your cute kid is here, everyone who knows what’s going on is here in this room, we should spend this time doing something fun, not doing things that can happen later.”

If it was an attempt to push everyone past what she’d been saying, it wasn’t really working, but Angel and the others knew not to question her further. She wanted to keep her mouth shut about something, she wasn’t going to change her mind as easily on that as she did about the whole baby thing being a secret. Yet, after everyone else had gone home later that day, her reluctantly having to say goodbye to her new friend Ash and her old favorite child Justine, she seemed to still be lost in whatever thoughts had consumed her there when talking earlier, as evident by how she went right to bed after the house was empty, not explaining a word.

Rather than try and force her into talking, Green decided to let her handle things however she wanted to, and if that meant that she never spoke to him about it, he was okay with that. He still had something to give her, though, and her isolating herself made that next to impossible—not that he was going to let it stop him, because he knew not giving her what she’d asked for was far worse than giving it to her when she didn’t want it. Leaving it in the first place she’d see it when she woke up in the morning was the best he could do, but he was sure it would be enough.

And when the next morning came and he was woken up by her throwing a newly-fixed pile of clothing onto him without any concern that he’d been sleeping, he knew she appreciated that he’d gotten what she’d asked for after all. Them talking out what had distracted her could wait, right now what mattered was that she was happy.

[& the rest]

The next weeks went by slowly, time coming to a crawl at times when it would normally have flown by had there been their typical things to do. Most time was spent just around the house, still not venturing out together even though by that point there was little chance of losing the child, and therefore the reason for not letting everyone know was completely pointless. On the occasions that they did need to go out, it was always Green by himself, unless friends happened to be over at the time then they would go with to some capacity, but that was it. This made for every day to drag on, because going out alone wasn’t ever as fun as it was going with someone, and the times that others went with it was a very quick, to the place and back experience.

But after those weeks, time started to fly by, and while it wasn’t incredibly obvious at first what had happened to cause that change, it soon became common knowledge that things had only picked up their pace because *someone* had decided she wanted to try being a normal person again. “Come on, we should go out somewhere today!” Amanda excitedly said one morning, having woken up hours before her husband and having had to wait until he was awake to start trying to get him to do anything. “Maybe we could go out to the field, I’m sure you’re itching to get some training done right about now.”

“I am, but I wouldn’t take you with me if I was going to go.” Looking at her and seeing how she was pouting at his response, Green sighed as he sat up in the bed. “Sorry, you knew I would say that if you asked, yet you asked anyway. If you’re offering to let me go out training by myself, I would love to get to go, but if the offer requires you coming along, I’m going to say no. There’s too much of a risk of something going wrong.”

“Something? Like what? We’ve never been attacked out there by someone we didn’t know, why would that change today? You’re just being a huge worrier about me, aren’t you?” It wasn’t so much that he was worrying about her as he was worrying about a multitude of other things, but he wasn’t planning on reminding her of any of that. Instead, he gave a curt nod to tell her she was right, after which she let her bottom lip jut out further. “Aw, please don’t do this to me right now. I can still use some fighting practice!”

“My answer will not change no matter how much you beg.” He gave her a look that wordlessly told her to stop what she was doing, and she whined for a moment before accepting that there was no way she was going to get anywhere with what she was doing. Almost like she’d been putting on an act, she flipped right to being her normal self, telling him that she’d be around the house doing things and that he could do whatever he wanted, as long as he didn’t leave. “So this is what it’s come to, her refusing to let me go anywhere without her,” he said to himself, fully getting up so that he could try to make something of the day. “This isn’t going to work out forever, I hope she knows.”

Except, if she were to get her way, it would have definitely been how it was going to work, and he knew that. While it seemed that Amanda always wanted things to go her way and no other way at all, there was one thing that she preferred more than that: getting to be at her husband’s side at all times. Sometimes the two interests overlapped (such as all the time they’d been spending together at home), but that could only last for so long, and she wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of having people more or less babysitting her in her own home so that Green could go out without her, even though the idea of him needing to do that had been something she’d been super vocal about for so long.

He knew that a shift in how they were doing things was about to happen, it was a matter of when it would be, and he hoped that when it happened that he wasn’t somewhere that she shouldn’t have been going. But he was ready to accept it happening anywhere, at any time, all it needed was for him to be out of the house without her with him. And so, every time he went out over the next several weeks, he made sure that the offer was extended to her to come with him, so that she couldn’t pull any surprises on him, but she turned him down each and every time. “I don’t want to go out, can you imagine all the questions we’d get if I did?” she asked him, not even looking up from the blanket she was stitching together as she spoke. “I mean, there’s some we can get asked and answer easily, but others? Man, do you think I know *when* this happened?”

“Actually, yes, I think you do.” That got her to look up, her mouth slightly opened as she tried to come up with some response. “Well, when else would it have been but, ahem, when we celebrated our anniversary? Can you think of any other times?”

“N-no, but the fact that you remembered that is really weird.” Going back to her project, Amanda waited until she heard him walking away before she said anything else to him. “Just because I’m not going with you doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want while you’re out, I hope you know.”

“Trust me, I wasn’t planning on doing anything that you wouldn’t be welcome to join me in doing. Remember, you’re the one who turned this offer down today.” He waited to give her time to respond, but when she seemed to have started ignoring him he shrugged it off, grabbed his sword for protection, and left the house without another word. He hadn’t been lying when he said that she was welcome to come with, because he had no intentions of going anywhere that someone who might question her would have been. His single destination that day was the home belonging to a certain couple, and while he had no idea if they were going to be home or not, at least going by himself meant he could go elsewhere to find them if needed.

While on the walk over, thoughts about the whole situation kept crossing his mind. This shouldn’t have been happening to them, and it was still hard to accept that it was happening even though it was undeniable that it was. They’d gotten married after accepting that being together meant that they’d never have children, that it would just be a marriage built on how they felt for each other and no desire to start a family, only for everything that she’d known (and that he’d been taught) to be completely wrong. He remembered how much she’d tried to turn down his proposal because she felt she was too broken of a woman for someone like him to marry, but in hindsight the only kind of “broken” she really was at the time was the physical injury that had spurred him to propose to her anyway. It was impossible to forget that she spent all the time leading up to their wedding trying to heal her broken shoulders, so that she wouldn’t be in pain during the small ceremony they put on, while lamenting that she couldn’t fix the other problems she had.

The problems that ended up not be problems at all, he realized now, thinking about the scene he’d left at home, as well as the reason for why he was not there at the moment. This wasn’t anything either of them had prepared themselves to be part of, and while he knew that his feelings towards everything were less relevant than hers were, he was pretty sure that she was at least a little scared out of her mind as to what was happening to her. She would never admit to it, but he knew that part of why she didn’t want to come out with him was because she didn’t know how to talk about the fact that she had been so nasty and rude towards anyone who had an interest in children, only to end up having a child herself.

That was the thought that stopped him in his tracks, hitting him with the reminder that it wasn’t just her having a child—it was *them*. Their child. Someone that they would both have to work together to raise and keep safe and love and protect in a world that wasn’t exactly the safest place for people like them. His hand brushed against his sword, a reminder of what kind of measures he needed to take to ensure his safety while by himself, and just the touch of the hilt made him start to think about how much more protecting he’d need to do once he had a child around who’d need it.

It was, admittedly, a lot to take in while on a walk by himself, and so Green picked up his pace and got to where he’d been heading as fast as he could. There was still the chance that he would have made the trip over for nothing, but judging by how the door didn’t seem to be locked when he got to the house he was assuming that someone was home. It took one quick knock for the door to come flying open, Kody standing on the other side looking like he was just about to leave. “You showing up right now is rather unexpected,” he said, stepping aside to let Green in. “We were about to go out for the day, but is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything’s fine! I’ll be on my way in a matter of minutes, I just came by to see something that Chase has.” Using his hands to make a gesture of what could be interpreted as a sheet of some kind, he explained, “It’s not that anything’s gone wrong, I only need to make sure that I know what should be going right. It’s how we’ve operated this entire time so far.”

“Him and that damn chart, I understand.” Closing the door, Kody came to Green’s side before leading him into the heart of the house, where Chase was sitting with Justine on his lap, the girl pointing at words on a page of a book and her father reading them to her. “We have company, Chase.”

Looking up from the book, Chase smiled when he saw that it was Green that was being referred to, but the smile turned to a look of panic in an instant. “Nothing’s gone wrong, has it?” he asked, picking Justine up and putting her aside so that he could stand from his seat. “I don’t see you visibly worrying so I would assume not, but we know that assumptions could lead to disasters and I don’t want to take that risk.”

“No, nothing’s gone wrong at all. I only stopped by to see the chart you made and check on it.” It was nice that these two were so concerned about what could be going wrong, but Green didn’t want to be thinking about things being any way but how they were, because at least he knew that they were okay at the moment. “There’s a lot to take in every time I see it, and now it’s time to take the next part to heart and commit it to memory.”

“Or you could just keep it for yourself, if you really wanted to. It’s not perfect, nothing really is because there are so many variables in situations like this, but it’s more than what the two of you have currently.” Already Chase was walking to where he kept the chart perfectly folded and out of the reach of the little girl that was present, and when he grabbed it he immediately opened it to show it to Green. “So, do you want it for yourself or do you just want to look at it?”

He considered taking up the offer to have it for himself, but the fear in the back of his mind that a certain someone wouldn’t appreciate it kept him from making that move. “I’ll just memorize what I need to, thank you though,” he replied, coming close enough to see what words were on the second half of the chart’s timeline. “Now remind me again where we are in all of this? Your writing is absolutely tiny in some places.”

“Of course, but there was a lot I felt I needed to get down based on what’s written in the books on the subject.” Adjusting how he was holding the chart so that he was only supporting it with one hand, Chase pointed towards a column that was more than three-quarters of the way through the timeline. “Right here’s about where you should start, which is amazing given that she was insistent she’d never do this. How does someone who thinks she’s incapable of having children due to physical limitations make it this far into a pregnancy without any issues?”

“You’re the one who acts like he knows everything about this, maybe you should be answering your own question.” Ignoring how little there was left for him to commit to memory past where he was looking, Green was trying to focus on what he was reading, every word more daunting than the last. “Or, better yet, maybe you shouldn’t be asking me that while I’m looking at this. Are you trying to worry me?”

Chase laughed, his hand shaking the chart slightly and throwing off where Green was reading. “I’d never intentionally worry you about something unless I had a reason for it, and right now? I don’t think there’s anything close to a valid reason to make you worry, besides wanting to see you freak out. And I don’t want to see that, you’re armed and I’m currently not, it’d end bad for all of us.”

“Nice to see that you’re thinking of what’s best for everyone simply because I have my sword on me.” After figuring out where he’d been reading before and getting back to it, Green finished up with what he’d come for and pushed the chart back towards Chase, but let his hand linger on it. “Hm, you did say I could have this if I wanted it, didn’t you?”

“You turned the offer down immediately, don’t tell me you’ve reconsidered.” Chase was folding it back up to place it back in its safe place, taking it out of Green’s reach to do so. “I’d be willing to part with it the next time you come by, if you really want it.”

“Must you two bicker about this?” Kody asked, interrupting Green before he had a chance to give an answer. “I’d understand if Amanda was here and she was starting the arguing, but you two? Act like grown men for once and stop.”

From where she was still sitting, her attention half-drawn to her fathers and half still on the book she’d been looking at, Justine gave a mimicked “stop” that had all three men looking towards her to see her smiling at them. “’nd stop! Stop ‘top ‘top!”

“You know it’s gone on too long when Justine starts saying something on the issue.” Beaming with pride at how his daughter had involved herself, Kody glanced towards Green, who was still trying to come up with some answer to Chase’s previous statement. “Someday here soon you’re going to have a child that’ll interject like that, and you better hope they inherit your sensible nature or else I think you’re going to have one hard time keeping that kid quiet.”

“Now you’re actually worrying him,” Chase teased, stepping beside Kody to nudge him in the ribs. “How much do you want to bet that’s the first time someone’s reminded him that his child could be a disaster like its mother if it’s not like him?”

Justifying the statement before that would have required then justifying the following one, and Green really did not want to do that. Chase was wrong in that it wasn’t the first time this had been brought up, but he was right in that this was the first time someone bluntly explained issues that would arise if the child wasn’t like him. It wasn’t something he wanted to consider, he wanted to believe that this child would be perfect no matter what, but to hear people he thought of as friends say that if the child was more like his wife than him, it would raise issues bothered him in a way he wasn’t going to bring to words. Not there with them, not once he got home, never. That was something that he was going to keep inside of himself unless he absolutely had to bring it to light.

He needed to get out of there and get home before they managed to make him speak on the matter, but to do that respectfully was going to be hard. Would they really accept that he’d just come over to look at the chart, or would they know that he was trying to dodge a situation? If they knew that was the case, they didn’t act like they did, being very understanding when he told them that he had to leave and head back home, acting as if he was going back for the sake of his wife, not for himself. “Make sure that if anything happens anytime soon, you come right back here to get us,” Chase told him as they walked him to the door. “We’ll be over, no matter what time of day it is.”

“Thanks for that,” he replied, genuinely thankful for the reminder but not wanting to think about it right then. He had just talked negatively about things, and now he was trying to act like he hadn’t said anything at all; it didn’t sit right with Green, and he wasn’t going to put up with it. Getting out of that house was a relief, but the walk home gave him time to start thinking about what had been said all over again.

There was no way the child was going to end up being a disaster, it was going to be raised properly by two parents who were going to love it no matter how it behaved. The child was going to be cared for and taught right from wrong and given the chance to become like either of its parents, and while they both had some flaws that it could pick up, the chance of it inheriting only the worst of both of them was next to nothing. The worry that they were going to be just like their mother was unfounded and it hadn’t needed to be said—even though he was aware that if he was off playing the role of protector for the family, that meant the child would be spending most of its time with the mother that everyone seemed to find to be such a big problem.

But she wasn’t a problem, if she was he wouldn’t have ever fallen in love with her, made so many choices for her, gotten into this situation with her…

Well, the situation was actually a bit of a problem on its own, but that wasn’t anything that she could be blamed for because she hadn’t known. And they were going to make the best of everything, they were going to raise their baby to be the best they could given what parenting skills they shared between them. The only thing stopping them from that was the last couple months of the whole ordeal, but once they made it through those they’d be able to prove everyone wrong.

When he got home, the first thing he saw inside the door was his dearest wife holding up the blanket she’d been working on earlier, staring at the uneven stitches she’d put into some of the patches. Her eyes went wide when she heard him come in, her initial instinct to jump back a little as she feared there was an intruder, but when she saw who it was she visibly relaxed. “You weren’t out for very long,” she said, going right back to looking at her blanket. “I thought I’d have more time here without you to try getting more of this done.”

“How big are you planning on making that thing?” He didn’t want to give her the chance to ask where he’d gone or why he was back so soon, he wanted to be able to move on and get the entire situation out of his mind. “At this rate, that’s going to be big enough to cover our whole family and then some.”

“I’ll stop adding to it once I feel like it, I guess.” She shrugged. “I’m going to start working on adding designs to some of the patches soon, I’ve been practicing with lettering and I think I’m confident enough to at least get our names on it.” He opened his mouth to say something but she knowingly smiled and assured him, “Don’t worry, I’m going to make sure that it says Green and not any other name that may or may not be yours.”

He laughed, her having answered something he hadn’t been about to question but still a good point to make nonetheless. “Glad to see that you have our names figured out, but what are you going to do about…well, you know. Who you’re making that for. You can’t exactly stitch in a name we don’t have figured out.”

“I won’t worry with it until we *have* it figured it out, duh. And if that means I’m one-hand stitching with a fussy child in my other arm, that’s what it’s going to take, but I’m going to put their name on this blanket the moment I can.” Casting a glance at one of the open squares in the blanket that she was going to use for name space, Amanda then added, “I hope that we don’t have to go with a long name, I don’t know if I could make all those letters fit in that space…”

There wasn’t any way that she’d get an answer to that worry until the child was born, so it was best to leave it where it was and move on to other topics. But they kept going back to the name conversation over and over again, especially as she worked on adding their own names to the blanket as well as starting to make the overall product look like more of something that was meant for a child. One of the things they hadn’t ever considered before was possible baby names, because they had been under the impression they’d never need them, so putting potential ones that they liked together was rather difficult with the pressure they now had to deal with regarding them. They had it down to a few choices, but the ultimate decision would come once they got to see the child for themselves.

It was only a matter of time until that moment came, but that very concept of time had started to turn against them, ticking by slower and slower until it felt like days were dragging along as long as weeks used to. How could it physically take so long for them to finally get to meet their child?

There came a break in the drawn-out lifestyle when word arose of an extended training session of sorts, an overnight that was being put together by the members of the old team that wanted to get to spend time together practicing and roughing it like the old days. It was invitation-only, and the people who were invited were carefully chosen, so when Chase and Kody showed up at the front door with Justine in tow, asking for one person to watch her and the other to join them (as they had both been invited and had no reason to say no), it was clear that this had been carefully thought out.

“It’s for one night,” all three men had to say at different points: Kody when asking if Amanda would watch Justine for them, Chase when presenting the offer of the training to Green, and Green himself when having to make sure Amanda was going to be okay with things. One night wasn’t much, but in the particular spot they were in it could have been *too* much, and she was hesitant to watch the child or let her husband go, but she knew it was three against one and they all seemed to know what they were doing. It was for the best to let this happen.

Within an hour of being left alone with Justine in her care, she was regretting what she’d done. “What if this is when something goes wrong?” she asked the little girl, who was sitting on the floor playing with the far end of the blanket that was once again being worked on. “I can’t send you out to get someone to help if something happens, I’d have to go out by myself to do it! What are they thinking, making this training thing now? Do they not realize that I need more attention than any stupid training does?”

Justine looked up from the blanket, her face scrunched as she tried coming up with some answer that would be seen as helpful in this situation. Alas, she was just a child and didn’t have much wise insight to unleash. “Mana, it okay!” she said, clapping her hands together as if she’d said something useful.

“It’s okay, sure, for now.” Replying as if Justine was really part of the conversation, Amanda set the fabric she was stitching into the blanket down, her arms brushing against the swollen curve of her stomach as she did so. Something about that, about feeling something so unusual about herself (that she was still having a hard time accepting) made her eyes go wide, and she went back and brushed over it again and again, trying to tell herself that everything was okay and that there wasn’t anything weird happening. “Oh, I really hope that whatever’s in here decides to stay in here until tomorrow, I can’t have this happen when I’m alone.”

She knew that no amount of wanting things to go some way would guarantee them going that way, and although she tried distracting herself with both the blanket and with Justine, she couldn’t shake the feeling that being alone was a bad idea right then. An idea was starting to brew in her mind, and she knew that if she got worried enough she’d have to take it into consideration…

Out on the training field, the group of guys who had gathered was small, but it was enough of the members of what had been their task force to make it feel a bit like old times. “Once it starts getting dark, we’re going to have to make sure someone’s constantly on alert,” Kody told the others, brandishing his bow as he spoke. “I’ll call first watch, but beyond that it’s up to you all.”

“Guy really thinks we’re going to be in some kind of danger out here, huh?” Shed asked under his breath, just loud enough that the people right near him could hear. As Green was one of those people, he gave a small, almost hesitant shrug, as if the idea that there was possibly going to be danger hadn’t hit him before that. In all honesty, he’d been considering what could happen since the moment he’d left home, but he hadn’t wanted to bring it up with anyone. If they were doing watches all night, there was no chance that they’d be ambushed, and that meant his fears were unfounded.

The group spent equal time practicing with their weapons as they did talking about their lives post-retreat and subsequent fall into their current situation. There was a lot of talk about marriage and families and what it was like to be raising a child, that last part the topic that would make Green find his way out of the conversation as fast as he could. He wasn’t going to stand there talking about watching someone else’s kid and act like he could use that as first-hand knowledge, because he hadn’t had to do a bit of actually raising Justine. Her fathers could take credit for what she’d become, he just helped babysit her at times. And from the sounds of it, it still wasn’t common knowledge that he was rather close to having a child of his own, because a few jokes about how he had to raise his wife instead of a baby were made, no one bothering to correct them.

Once night started to fall, true to his word Kody took on watching to make sure that no one could get the drop on the group, while everyone else slowly went from an half-and-half with training and talking to just talking. He sat up in a tree above the spot where they’d chosen to camp out for the overnight, his bow at the ready in case he needed to attack, and his vantage point gave him a clear view of everything in the surrounding area. His choice of being first watch meant that he wasn’t going to be getting much in the way of social interaction with the others at that point, but he had done that intentionally; between himself and Chase, he wasn’t the sociable one, and he wasn’t going to make someone suffer through talking to him when there were much better people present.

He was also the one who would fire arrows at anyone who he felt was intruding on their space without asking questions, protecting those who he cared for before considering what might have been going on. When it looked like someone was coming into their territory, he warned the men at the base of the tree, before adjusting his position so that he could fire the moment he needed to. But as he lined up his arrow with the target’s head, he happened to give them a second glance, and the gasp he gave when he recognized who it was alerted the others to something being amiss. “We’ve got company, and not in the bad way,” he announced, lowering his weapon but keeping an eye on the horizon behind the person. “At least, not in the ‘we are all about to die’ bad way. This is still bad, and she’s lucky I didn’t shoot her.”

Questions of who he was referring to were raised, but even without a name having been dropped Green knew exactly who it was. Who else would come out into a training field with a group of armed men at nightfall, except someone who was letting her fears dictate what she did? He looked up to where Kody was perched and said, “Let me guess, she’s holding your child with her, isn’t she?”

“I…completely forgot that she was the one in charge of Justine right now, that makes this worse than if we were being attacked. Just how many kids does she need to endanger at once?” Looking down at Green, who had closed his eyes and sighed at the reminder, he shook his head. “You need to go stop her and send her home, she’s not staying here with everyone, not in her condition and not with Justine with her.”

“And what if she doesn’t listen to me, hm? I agree with you but sometimes my word isn’t enough to get her to do something.” Already Green was getting up, dreading what he was about to have to do. “This is going to end with me having to escort her home, and if that’s what happens I don’t think I will be coming back.”

“We would rather her be safe than anything, I’m sure,” Kody replied, once again raising his bow as he went back to viewing the horizon. “Get her home safe and sound, she doesn’t need to be risking her life or the baby’s. Or Justine’s.”

What Kody had said had been overheard by everyone at the base of the tree, which led to a lot of surprised questioning about what baby he was talking about, something that Green chose to ignore for the sake of getting to approach his wife sooner. She had almost made it to the area they were camping at, visibly winded and looking like she was not enjoying herself on her trip. “And just what do you think you’re doing out here?” he asked, trying not to sound too confrontational. “This isn’t safe for you, you know.”

“I…had to do it, I couldn’t be home alone right now, I just couldn’t.” Clinging to the small axe she’d brought with her as protection in one hand, her other arm wrapped tightly around Justine as the girl was shoddily bound to her, Amanda gave Green a worried look. “Please, I can’t be alone, you need to come home with me.”

“Somehow I knew that this was what you were out here for, and somehow I knew this is what it’d come to.” He didn’t want to have to give up what he was doing to appease her, but he knew that it was for the best. He reached out towards her, to take hold of her arm so that she was more comfortable with having him physically and undeniably there, but while doing so he heard an arrow fly overhead, striking something in the distance.

Back at the tree, Kody could be heard yelling, “*Fuck off*, okay? We didn’t ask for more intruders here! Everyone, I think we have some unwanted company!”

“Yeah, no, we’re out of here, now!” Grabbing her arm and starting to pull her along, Green looked to where everyone he’d been out there with was taking up their weapons to start a fight, and as much as he wanted to be there fighting alongside his allies, he knew that making sure his wife was safe was more important. Running home wasn’t an option, not when she was already so tired and he didn’t want to force her to do anything, but getting away as fast as they could was imperative. Her footsteps were so heavy and unbalanced behind his, but he never let go of her until they were back into the town, the nightly guard walking around looking for troublemakers to punish. They didn’t look the part, not when someone actually got them in their sights, and they were able to make it home safely.

The next day, when Kody and Chase came back to pick Justine up, they explained that the entire issue came from some bandits who’d managed to get in somehow, not even a real problem for people who’d been through so much in battle. It was nice to hear that there wasn’t a struggle on their part, but at the same time, the fact that those bandits had been that close to someone who really could not defend herself was a reminder that maybe it was for the best that they spent most of their time at home from there on out.

With that mindset of safety and protection in mind, it was much easier to hang around the house at almost all hours over the next couple of weeks, except for at times where it was necessary to be out. And when the time to go out and bring others back was upon them, things were tense and terrifying and a bit stressful to handle, but Chase knew what he was doing and wasn’t going to let anything go wrong.

All of the worrying that had led up to that day was immediately worth it when they could hold a tiny, perfect little baby in their arms and stare not just at each other but at her small face and sleepy eyes and—she was theirs. She was real and theirs and now they had to step up their parenting game to make sure their baby Bridgette was given only the best in the world she’d been born into.

This was…going to be one of the biggest challenges of their lives, and it was only going to get bigger from there.

==> PART 3A