Insightful, a future fic (Part 2A)

To no one’s actual surprise, there were a whole list of things that could stop this whole “having a baby” thing, and Chase had managed to procure and bring information to use to point those things out the next time stopped by to check on the couple. “It took a lot of digging, and crossed fingers at all times, but I managed to find something that could be of some serious use here,” he explained after being let in the front door, holding in his hand a folder that looked slightly singed. “How they didn’t get around to properly burning these, I have no clue, but here we are.”

“You’re going to tell us what those are, aren’t you?” Amanda asked, once again annoyed that Chase was hounding her about something she still really believed was impossible. It had been almost a week since they’d found out, and she hadn’t once felt like she was truly pregnant in that time. She was honestly expecting to find out that this was all a prank that was going a bit too far, but with how insistent Chase seemed to be about things the likelihood of that was slim to none.

“Yes, actually. These are your medical records, or, in specific, the records detailing the immediate aftercare you went through when you were stabbed.” Just the mention of that incident brought a weight to her chest, as she was certain this meant that they were now going to dive right into what had happened to her, and she looked to Green to see if he had any reaction to what Chase had said. All he did was give her a shrug, as if he wanted to see where this was going, and she knew they had no choice but to let him talk.

And talk he did, once he was able to lay the contents of the folder out on a table. The papers were old, some of them starting to fade, and there were corners and edges that looked as charred as the outside of the folder did. “When I found these, I started doing some reading through them myself, in case someone caught me before I could bring them to you to go over them with you. It looks like there was gross negligence in regards to passing along the full truth to you after what had happened, if I understand everything correctly.”

“Okay, what’s that supposed to mean?” Of course she hadn’t been told everything, that had to be the only answer if she was possibly with child after having lived half her life thinking she couldn’t be. “Come on, Chase, just throw it out there and tell me it like it is.”

He nodded, picking up one of the papers that was simply covered in notations. “First of all, were you aware that you were actually stabbed twice? There’s no way that a single strike of a sword could have damaged all these organs and gone through both sides of your abdomen like it did.” Instinctively, she reached towards her right hip, the top of her pelvic bone having a small notch in it from where it had been hit with the sword, and seeing her reaction let him know that she did, in fact, know that. “Okay, well, if that’s not news to you, how about all the other internal damage that was done? Were you aware of that?”

“I had a sword run through me, I’d be stupid to think I wasn’t hurt in any other ways.” Her hand moving up her side to find the impalement scars, Amanda absentmindedly started rubbing at the uppermost part of the scar, which had always been the ugliest part of it. “They had to do some serious healing work and make some quick decisions to keep me from dying there. It wasn’t a fun time.”

“From reading through this stuff, it doesn’t look like it,” Green commented, having been handed the paper Chase had been reading, while Chase himself had grabbed another one. “You’ve never gotten into how bad everything was before.”

She shrugged, hand still rubbing at the scar. “Once I say that I got stabbed by a sword and lost the ability to have kids, I don’t really talk much about this. Not like I remember anything beyond running around with a sword in my side, trying to find help.”

“Running with it in there would explain how it managed to do as much damage as it did, but I still don’t see where anyone got the idea that this damage would render you sterile.” Reaching for a small stack of diagrams, Chase’s breath caught in his throat once he got through the first few pictures. “O-oh, that’d cause it, I suppose. Might make all of this more complicated than you’d expect, and would explain why they chose to tell you that you can’t have kids rather than that you shouldn’t…”

Waiting for him to follow that up with an explanation of his own, Amanda looked towards Green, who had set his own paper down and was staring at Chase with narrowing eyes. “Hey, how much you want to bet he’s going to say I’m going to die?” she asked him in a whisper, which earned her a punch in the leg followed by silence. “I’m going to take that as no bet, got it.”

“I’d rather not hear you talk about dying right now, thank you very much,” he replied, spitting his hushed words out without so much as a glance towards her. “There’s so much for us to live for that I don’t want to consider you dying.”

“Don’t worry, I think the chances of death here are rather low. Well, of maternal death, that is. I can’t say the same for the child, but I don’t think there’s a high chance of death there either, unless something…you know what, I can explain this better a different way.” Chase laid down a couple of the pictures he had been looking at, each one a slightly similar image of heavily-damaged internal organs. “It all depends on how some of these slices in here healed after these diagrams were drawn. If everything healed up correctly, there shouldn’t be any issue at all, but that’s a big ‘if’.”

“Why does it have to be you who knows all the female anatomy stuff?” Her eyes were focusing on the pictures, but her mind was racing with what he was saying to them. Chase had such a way with words that made her feel uneasy at best with how casual he sounded with the important news. “Can’t you just explain this in simple words?”

“Simple words that the healers who patched you up probably danced around? Hm, if you insist.” He stacked the diagrams up, the clearest one remaining on top of the pile. “In the most basic terms, if everything goes exactly as it does in a woman who didn’t have stabbing trauma like this, as long as your scars healed properly then nothing’ll go wrong. But if any wounds didn’t heal properly, and by some chance the growing child rips them open—“

She loudly gasped, bringing her hands to cover her mouth. “It’s possible this…*thing* could rip part of me open?”

“—don’t take it like that, but yes, in that basic sense, it could. And it would most likely not survive if it did. But that’s not the thing we should worry about here, I don’t foresee your child ripping anything open that doesn’t rip in some healthy women.” After awkwardly laughing, noticing that the couple was now looking at him in almost horror, Chase gave a cough to clear his throat before continuing. “Anyway, I think the bigger issue would be the possibility of the child implanting elsewhere in your abdominal cavity, due to what your healers marked as a…oh, here, just read this on your own, you’re capable of it.” That was when he pushed the diagram stack towards Amanda, letting her take a look at the notes he was summarizing for herself.

“So basically I’m playing this baby-making thing with half the pieces and what I have not being entirely suitable for the job,” she said after giving it all a good read-through, and Chase nodded. “But I’ve always been able to do it, maybe? I just have this high risk of, uh, things going very wrong if they want to.”

“Essentially, yes, I’d say that’s a good way to look at it. I’d have to read through all these records or have someone who might understand the risks better do it for me, but I’d say you have a fairly decent chance of nothing going wrong at all.” He gave a shaky smile at the pair, which was not something they took very well. “And while I understand they didn’t want to freak a teenage girl out with this kind of information, I think it would have been better for them to tell you that children were a possibility, it just might not be easy.”

“You’re sounding an awful lot like you don’t believe what you’re telling us,” Green said, narrowing his eyes once more towards Chase. “Mind explaining why that might be?”

Before he had a chance to say anything, Amanda was standing up to stretch her legs and pace around the room. “He’s just trying to freak us out about something that isn’t happening,” she told them both, missing Chase rolling his eyes at her as she turned around to continue pacing. “I’ve got half the parts, we weren’t even trying to have a kid, there’s no way that anything’s going to come from any of this.”

“I’d really like you to rethink that, I get that your body’s a wreck because of all this,” Chase waved his arms to motion towards the expansive contents of that medical folder, “but magical tests don’t lie and I refuse to think they’ve made an exception for you. Just you wait, you’ll soon see that I’m right about this.”

“I think we have no reason to disregard what he’s saying. As hard as I know it is for you to accept that you’re wrong, you need to do it.” Green also stood up, not to walk around as his wife was but rather to grab her and hold her in place the next time she came by. Forcibly turning her so that she was facing Chase, he leaned down closer to her ear and said, “Go on, get it over with now so you can go back to what you were doing.”

She was confused about why she had to be held in one spot to say something, but she eventually managed to make herself say the words, “I’m sorry that I was lied to about my physical capabilities for half my life, and that I chose a team of healers’ word over the word of one.” Quickly, before she even gave Chase a chance to smugly reply, she added, “But don’t think this means I believe you. I’m not believing there’s a kid until it is in my arms.”

“Given the circumstances, I can’t fault you for that.” He was already putting papers back in the folder, cleaning up the mess he’d made. “I’d also advise that you not tell anyone about this until then, or, at least, until it’s glaringly obvious to everyone that something’s going on. Just in case anything goes wrong.”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” Green said, cutting Amanda off before she had the chance to make a pessimistic comment, “so don’t even dwell on him saying that, okay?” He waited until he got a reluctant nod as response before he went back to speaking to Chase. “And don’t worry, we’ll heed that advice. You seem to know more about what you’re talking about than either of us could guess.”

“Then I’ll see you two either the next time you come by trying to steal Justine, or the next time I feel I should check in on you. Whichever comes first.” Folder in hand, Chase rose from his seat and escorted himself out of the house, leaving the two standing together wondering what they were supposed to do with their time now.

The moment Green let go of her, Amanda was back to pacing around, now her hands running through her hair as she moved. “Oh gods what are we going to do about this? He really thinks that I’m pregnant and there’s no way I can be, there’s just no way! I’d rather be dead than have to go through with this, I’d rather roll over right now and never move again than deal with having a kid!”

“Don’t get so worked up over this, you’re being overdramatic as always.” With a laugh, Green went towards the front door, her curiously following him after he’d opened it and stepped outside. The sun was beginning to set over the horizon, the buildings surrounding them casting long shadows that darkened all the pathways home. “He came over rather late today, I wonder if he’s heading straight home or if he’ll find trouble on the way. Official records should keep him safe from trouble, but there’s still a chance of danger.”

“You’re worrying about Chase right now, instead of me?” She was still pulling at her hair, looking visibly panicked as all possibilities, both good and bad, relating to her situation ran through her mind. “If you care about him so much, you should leave me and go follow him home! What kind of husband thinks about a friend over his wife?”

“The kind of husband who thinks his wife is getting rather over-the-top with her behavior, that’s what kind. You need to calm down, all of this worrying’s not going to do anyone a bit of good in the end.” Green pulled the door closed behind them once she stepped outside, and he gently wrapped an arm around her, letting his hand rest on her side. “Look, I know this is all really terrifying to think about, but at least we have someone like Chase around to tell us what's what. Can you imagine having to go into this blind?”

Amanda thought for a second, pressing her lips together tightly, before shaking her head. “I’d really rather not have to do that, thanks for the suggestion though. I guess, if he's right, this means that we've been given some kind of warning, which is great if he's actually right. Which he's not.”

“You're only saying that for now, I'm sure there'll come a day soon where you change your mind about that.” He looked down at her and smiled, before reaching over with his free hand to start fixing her hair that she’d mussed in her panic. “It's still a lot to take in, and I'm honestly surprised I'm handling it this well so far. Because of you, I never figured we'd be in this position, yet here we are. Exciting, isn't it?”

“If you think having to mentally train yourself to not believe something you've believed for most of your life is ‘exciting’, then yeah, sure.” She tilted her head down slightly, so that she was looking down at herself, her head shaking as she did. “I just can't bring myself to accept that something might actually have managed to start growing in there. I can't have kids, my physical state won't allow it.”

“You know, accepting this might go over a little easier if you didn't choose to wear corsets all the time,” Green said teasingly, still trying to fix her hair. “Did you ever stop to think that doing that might help?”

Her eyes shifted in his direction, but she could barely see him due to how they were positioned. “If I stopped wearing a corset every day, people would immediately assume something's up, and I don't want to talk to anyone who isn't you or Chase, and maybe Kody, about any of this until I absolutely have to. I'm not giving up what I love just because it *might* help me accept something.”

“So what happens when you do stop, hm?” He didn't expect her to glare at him for the question, and when she got herself out from his arm and went back inside, he figured he'd offended her and that she was just working through that. But when he followed her in and saw her having no interest in explaining herself to him until she'd gone into their bedroom and buried herself in their bed, things had started to make sense. “You're going to hide yourself in here, aren't you?”

“Is there any other option?” she asked in return, sounding deathly serious. “I don't want to face questions until I feel it's appropriate for it, and if that means I don't leave this bedroom for months, that's something I'm willing to do.”

She was going to be held to those words, whether she liked it or not, and the time for paying up for what she said came much sooner than she thought it would. There had been a day where they'd gone out to the training field together, her not wanting to put aside weapon practice just because of something that might not have been happening, where she spent the entire time complaining about how her corset wasn't fitting her comfortably anymore and how she needed to do something about that. He nodded as he listened to her every complaint, knowing what this meant, and while he was happy to see her getting rather immediate payback for what she'd said, it was terrifying to him at the same time. This meant that, unless weird things were happening, this was all to do with her being with child, and that thought was still daunting to him.

It was like he’d said before, he'd accepted that this wouldn't happen due to her physical limitations, so this was exciting but at the same time it was one of the more terrifying things in life. All he could hope at this point was that she'd soon start to see things the way he was, and that she'd make this more bearable for them both.

Naturally, after they finished up practicing and headed home, he stepped back out to cross town on his own, the sword at his hip his only companion. “I'll be home before late, stay safe in here and don't endanger yourself or the baby,” he had warned her before he left, noticing that she'd already taken off her corset and was pacing around in panic once more in the little time they'd been home. Whether she heard him or not, he wasn't sure, but he felt that getting what he was going to do over with was more important than making sure she understood his every word.

He showed up on the doorstep of Chase and Kody's house with one intention in mind: to talk this through with the one person who really knew what was going on. So when it was Kody who answered the door, confused as to why it was just Green standing there alone, things were instantly going to go differently from the plan. “I don't seem to see your wife with you, did the two of you have a fight or something?” Kody asked, not letting his friend inside right away. “Normally she's the one leading the charge over here.”

“Nope, today it's just me, and don't worry about me being here to take Justine, we haven't even discussed when we'd want her back.” Green tried looking past Kody into the house, but he couldn't see anything. “Is Chase home? He's the one I've come to speak with.”

“So you've fought with your wife and now you're here to steal my man, I see how it is.” Giving a laugh, Kody opened the door so Green could come inside. “No, but he's told me a thing or two about what's happening in your life right now, told me that you appearing at any time could be expected. Did she choose to not come with you?”

“That's a long story that I'd rather not get into, sorry.” It wasn't actually long and he'd have been able to explain it in a minute, but something about sharing a somewhat intimate detail about his wife to the person she didn't want knowing these things didn't sit right with him. “Just know that I think she's finally starting to realize what's going on, and it's hitting her rather hard.”

By this point they were in the same room as Chase, who had heard the last few words and was predictably smiling at them. “It only took long enough for her to finally catch on that I'm not a liar,” he said, rising from his seat to greet Green with a respectful handshake. “It's been a couple weeks now since we last spoke, it's only moderately surprising it's taken things this long.”

“Moderately surprising? Were you expecting me here sooner? Later?” Returning the handshake but looking at Chase with hesitation in his eyes, Green knew what he needed to say when he was given a one-shouldered shrug. “You could have always come by to check on things for yourself, you know, rather than leaving it to this vague surprise I've caused it to become by showing up unannounced.”

Chase gave a full shrug this time. “I didn't want to intrude when I didn't have anything to say to either of you. Now that I know we're starting to get places, maybe I'll come by more.” He motioned towards an empty chair for Green to take while he sat back down at his own, but the offer was respectfully declined. “Don't you want to sit and talk about this? Why did you come by if you don't?”

“Trust me, I am here because I want to talk to you, I just would rather not get comfortable and lose track of time while speaking with you.” It was an answer he came up with on the spot, as he wasn't really sure why he didn't actually take the offered chair. “I'd rather not learn what it's like to face Amanda when she's like this and she feels I should have been home before I get there.”

“Oh, you shouldn't have to worry about her coming into a mood swing, she's past the point where that would typically happen.” Getting back up, Chase excused himself from the room for a moment, allowing for Green and Kody to look at each other, unsure of what was coming. When he came back and saw the two locking eyes, he laughed. “What, did you think I'd gotten distracted in the middle of the conversation? I was just getting a chart I made for this exact situation, being approached by someone in regards to her and her baby.”

“A...chart.” Green repeated, not even questioning what he’d heard. “Let me guess, you're about to explain exactly what this chart’s for, aren't you?”

Nodding, Chase unfolded the paper he’d brought out with him, showing a lot of careful detail and notation that was clearly thought out. “Seeing as no one here was really prepared for when this happened, I took the liberty of making sure I could provide you with all the information you could ever need at a simple glance. Here, let me show you what I mean,” he said, seeing that Green was looking at him rather confused. “Come here, let's look at this together. It’s quite easy to understand once we get into it.”

“I’m not sure if I should be impressed you’ve put this much time and effort into making a chart for us to use, or if I should be worried about it,” Green replied, as Chase laid out the chart on the table and they both started to look over it. He was able to make a proper judgment within seconds, when he saw the level of detail that had gone into what he was looking at. “Er, I’m going to go with ‘worried’ on this one. How much time have you spent working on this?”

“It was just a couple hours’ worth of work.” Chase shrugged. “A lot of this came from just what I’ve heard from some of the women I’ve had to deal with, but some of it required some research that I was more than willing to do on your behalf. Trust me, I’m sure that if I were in your shoes, I’d want someone like me around to help me through things.”

“That’s awfully boastful of you, but…I suppose you’re being helpful, so I’ll let it slide. For now.” His hand touching different parts of the chart as he read over them, Green could feel the gravity of what he was looking at even though it wasn’t actually a tangible thing, and he didn’t want to drop his normal demeanor to admit that what he was looking at was a tad overwhelming, given how Chase had just dropped it in front of him with no explanation. It was almost like he was being expected to say something, based on the thoughtful noises Chase was making as he watched him look at the chart. “You *are* explaining this, right?”

“Wanted to let you get acquainted with things before I got started, that’s all. Now where to actually start, now that we’re here? I doubt I need to get into the early details, so let’s begin at the current day. Or, er, roughly the current day.” Gesturing towards an entry closer to the beginning of the chart, Chase drew in a deep breath before speaking further. “What I’m going to tell you is nothing more than a generalized experience I’ve gathered, and by no means do I think that my word’s completely correct on any of this, but it’s somewhere to start making judgments from. And so, with that in mind, this is what you should be expecting from here on out…”

It was going to be a long afternoon, judging by how much chart there was to cover, and even if he only touched on the currently relevant parts, it was still going to be a long explanation. A perfect time to settle in and get comfortable, because there was a lot to be said.

[Three Weeks Later]

Going out and trying to maintain some semblance of normal life while bearing such a heavy secret was difficult, but there was no way that Green was going to give up what he liked doing simply because he needed to stay away from anyone who might get him to accidentally say what was on his mind. He hadn’t given up training at any point since the immediate aftermath of the defeat that had allowed for their home to turn into the pseudo-warzone it had become, and he wasn’t going to give it up now. Even if it meant having to repeat the promise that he wouldn’t tell a soul about what was going on just to leave the house, it was still nice to get out and away from his wife sometimes.

It was even nicer when he was leaving at the same time that one of the others who were aware of the situation were coming over, but that wasn’t a luxury he received every time he went out. On this day in particular, it seemed that he wasn’t going to have someone home with Amanda, which was fine because she didn’t seem to be doing anything that would raise any kind of concern when he left. There had already been days that she’d gotten insistent on coming with him, just for him to assure her that it was best if she didn’t, and those were the ones where he really needed Kody or Chase to just happen to stop by.

“You’re going out, without me,” she said when he was heading for the door, her back turned to him as she spoke; he wasn’t even sure how she’d heard him, because he’d intentionally been trying to stay quiet to not bother her. His response was to stop moving, to glance around trying to find some kind of excuse in the thin air, and she sighed when he didn’t say anything back to her. “It’s really fine, I get it, me going out’ll lead to nothing but trouble and you just don’t want to stay trapped in this place with me.”

“I want to make sure I stay on top of my training, so that I can always be here to protect you and our child,” he finally replied, flicking the hilt of his sword where it was attached to his hip. She visibly bristled at the answer, turning to look at him over her shoulder. “You know it’s true, I’m just doing what I can to be supportive, while adhering to what you want.”

“And I’m trying to avoid the million questions anyone’ll ask if they see me, but I’d like it if I wasn’t stuck here alone because of it!” After rolling her eyes at him as she turned back around, Amanda then added, “But whatever, you do what you want, I’ll be here doing exactly what you’d expect me to. Even if I totally could go out without raising any red flags, I’m sure.”

Not wanting to fight this fight any longer, Green sighed and stepped closer to the door. “I don’t think you actually believe that, because if you did you’d be coming with me regardless of what I said. I won’t be out that long, it’s just going to be me training by myself, you don’t need to worry about anything.” Before he gave her a chance to retaliate, he was out the door, feeling a little bad about what he’d had to do to leave but recognizing that sometimes, the only way to get out was to just go without a proper conclusion. At any rate, he was sure she’d just keep to herself at home for the day, and when he came back later he’d get an earful from her about how unhappy she was that she’d been left alone, but he couldn’t be bothered to care more about it.

The training field was empty when he got there, a great sign that he was going to get to spend time by himself doing one of the things he loved. There wasn’t a single other person he knew that could spend as much time training as him, mostly due to the fact that they’d all started families and had other commitments to keep up with, but there were still times where he’d come out to practice his swordplay and find many others crowding his favorite spots. With life in town being the way it was currently, there weren’t many places that people could openly train—and he understood that—but it was still frustrating to come out and have to share a favorite place with someone else.

That didn’t seem like it was going to be an issue that day, and for that he was thankful. “Well, looks like it’s just me out here,” he loudly said, hoping that if anyone else was indeed around they’d reply to him, or make some kind of noise to blow their cover. When he got no response, he smiled. “Huh, guess it really is just me out here. Never thought I could get that lucky. A day where I know I won’t be followed, where I’m not being bothered by someone else wanting to train? Who would have guessed it could happen.”

He pulled his sword out of its carrier on his hip, the blade glistening as the sunlight struck it, and he smiled at how he didn’t see the reflection of his wife coming up behind him in it. She really hadn’t decided to follow him, even though he’d left on a sour note; an opportunity like this wasn’t going to come around every day, and Green knew that. Without wasting too much time on thinking about her, he went straight into training, finding a perfect practice opponent in every tree he could see, bark flying as he sliced and struck with his blade. This was peaceful, this was exactly what he’d been looking for with his time, this was only going to get better and nothing could change that.

“Yo, what’re you doing out here by yourself?” a voice said from behind him, one that made him nearly drop his sword when he heard it. The thought to let the truth spill out crossed his mind, but he recognized that the man speaking to him was not either of the men he was allowed to speak with on the matter, and so he simply said nothing to acknowledge the person who’d intruded on his training. “Eh, can’t be surprised you’re not talking to me, you’re probably out here clearing your mind about a bad fight or something, smh.”

“We’ll go with ‘something’ on that, sure,” Green replied, bending down to pick his sword up because he knew he was in no danger with this guy around. “It wasn’t so much a fight on my end, but who knows how she’ll have taken it.”

“And so you come out to the one place she won’t follow you.” His statement was hilarious, given that Amanda had, in fact, come out to the training field after fights *many* times, but this guy wasn’t ever around enough to know that. “Smart thinking there, no wonder you’ve always been a hit with the ladies. You’ve got a good head on those shoulders, it’d be a shame if someone were to whack it off on accident.”

It was just odd enough of a remark that it made Green wonder why it had been made, and as he stood back up, sword in hand, he heard the all-too-familiar sound of an axe being swung. His first instinct was to turn and raise his sword to defend himself, but he wasn’t going to be able to be fast enough, which made him question why he’d ever thought he was safe out here if he was disarmed. But then the axe struck the tree next to him, its wielder laughing as it got lodged in the trunk, and he sighed, realizing that he hadn’t been in danger at all. “I thought you were about to do the honors,” he admitted, actually turning to face the man. “Didn’t take you as a team-killer, Shed.”

“Didn’t take you for anything close to one either, but we both know what’s happened there, so…” Shed’s voice trailed off as he pulled his axe from the tree with a grunt, lifting it and bringing it to rest on his shoulder. “But why do I even bring that up? Times have changed, people have grown, y’know? We’re not the same people we were back when that happened, if ya know what I’m sayin’.”

There was a distinct change in what he’d said from the way Shed normally spoke, a lack of a friendly corruption that was rather prominent in how he usually conversed, and it was jarring enough to almost make Green want to bring it to attention. Being sure to hold his sword in a position that would make it easy to attack with if the need arose, he shrugged and took a step backwards, leaning against one of the trees. “Yeah, things have really changed since all that went down, can’t say that I’d get careless with a weapon like that again.”

“That’s good for you, given that someone’s got to be the responsible guy around here.” Shed laughed. “I’d ask you how things have been, but tbh I can’t see you answering me in any way that you haven’t answered before. Same old, same old, am I right?” He was far from right, but there was no way that Green was going to tell him that and lead their conversation down that path, so he merely gave a quick nod. “That’s what I like to see, at least someone can keep their life relatively stable and in check.”

One thought to how everything was neither stable nor in check later, and Green was forcing himself to smile at Shed to keep suspicion low. “That’s me, always the one keeping things as they should be. Like you said, someone’s got to be the responsible guy.”

“You’re the one stuck married to someone who we all know can’t fight, you’ve got to pick up her slack and save the rest of us if we need it.” When Shed laughed at that, it was enough of a close-to-correct guess as to what was going on that Green’s eyes went wide at it, but before he could possibly vocalize something to try and deter Shed from that thinking, he went ahead and cleared the air for himself. “She’s still healing from what happened to her, isn’t she? Someone’s not going to recover from something like that right away, doesn’t matter if it’s been nearly two years or not. Axes are heavy weapons, yo.”

He let that sink in for a moment, before shaking his head. “No, no, she’s back to training from that. We’ve come out here quite frequently, she’s healed just fine and could easily hold her own in battle if she needed to. I’m not training to protect her, I’m training because I enjoy training.” The words felt like lies on his tongue, as he knew she wasn’t going to be fighting anyone anytime soon, and he really was out on the field to better himself to protect her, but at the same time he knew she’d still be able to defend herself if she had to. “We might have changed, but that’s something that’s stayed the same.”

“Good to hear it, not everyone can get soft and start focusing on other things. Can’t say I miss the days of practice-practice-practice, but eh, it was nice to be expected to carry the weight of the country on our shoulders at times.” Speaking of his shoulders, Shed bounced his axe against one of them as he spoke, before swinging it at the tree he’d struck before once more, causing Green to jump out of its swing radius just in case it didn’t meet its mark. “You’re rather fidgety today, did something happen you’re not telling me about?”

“Am I expected to tell you everything that happens?” Green asked in return, catching his breath from that shock. “Pretty sure I don’t want to tell things to someone who keeps nearly chopping me in half!”

“So there is something then, hm?”

“No, there’s really not.” Now he knew he wasn’t telling half-truths, and the desire to come clean about his dishonesty was there, but Shed didn’t seem to catch on that he wasn’t being truthful. “As I said when you first showed up, I’m here to clear my mind about something, and I came to do it through training. It’s how I’ve always handled things, and you should know this.”

Shed was too busy getting his axe out from the tree again to be paying attention, and by the time he’d freed his weapon he seemed to have mentally moved on from what they were discussing. “Okay, well, mind if this guy trains with you? I promise to take things seriously and not spend the entire time cracking jokes, as long as you make sure you’re not going in for the kill if I make a few jokes anyway.”

The initial decision was to tell him no, to tell him that he’d come out to the field to be by himself and work through some issues while practicing with his sword, but then he looked at Shed and how genuine he seemed to be with his offer of toning down his jokes if he could be there with him. “I suppose you could stay, if you’re not just pulling my leg right now. I could use some company and some critique on my swing if you’re willing to give it.”

“Wouldn’t have offered it if I wasn’t willing to dish it out, don’t worry. Now catch me up to speed on what exactly it is you’re doing out here by yourself if you wanted critique, you can’t criticize yourself on your attacking.” How he’d managed to accept that as something he really wanted, Green wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t going to question it. This wasn’t going to get to be time for him to work through what was going on in his personal life, but it was going to be something he didn’t always get otherwise: time spent with an old ally that wasn’t a super close friend.

If only things were meant to stay that way, and the fear that they weren’t lingered in the back of his mind the entire time it was him and Shed out there on the training field. There was always the chance that someone would come out looking specifically for him, and he didn’t want to have to get roped back into the mess that was what was going on at home until he was ready to go home for the night. He was fairly certain that it wouldn’t be Amanda coming out to find him, which was good—except it meant that she would be managing to get someone else looking for him instead, which could mean anything from someone going to visit her to her taking part in dangerous activities. He was hopeful she had the sense to stay in and not do anything reckless, but he knew better than to put anything past her.

So when, as he and Shed were finishing up with training, they heard footsteps coming towards their location, he wasn't sure if he needed to be on the defensive or not. In fact, he didn't even want to look to see, in case it was his wife coming to find him. “Looks like we've got company,” Shed said, turning to see who was joining them. “Pleasant company, thankfully, but company all the same. Shall I do to them what I did to you? A little roughing them up, ya dig?”

“By all means, go for it,” Green replied, still not looking to see who it was. Shed seemed to not be bothered by who had shown up, so it might have been someone dear to his heart, or maybe a close friend of his. But when he heard a cry he knew far too well—one belonging to little Justine—he knew that this wasn't quite what he was expecting. He pulled his eyes from his sword that he'd been checking for scuffs to see Kody and Chase both approaching them, weapons in hand, and a few paces behind them was Amanda, holding Justine on her hip while she carried an axe under her other arm.

Before he had a chance to question anything out loud, Shed was already doing the honors. “C’mon guys, joining us for a bro-bonding time is great and all, but did you have to bring your kid and your babysitter with you? I'm shaking my *damn* head at you for this one.” The two men came to a stop once they were in striking range, looking not at Shed but rather at Green for any sort of reply, which he wasn't giving them. “And now you're ignoring me over him? What's a guy got to do to get some respect around here?”

“She said you were out here alone,” Kody told Green, still not paying attention to Shed’s continued rambling about how he was being ignored. “Told us she was scared for your life and didn't want to come out here alone.”

“In retrospect we should have been suspicious from the beginning, but it was best to appease her fears without questioning her.” Chase looked to where Amanda was standing behind him and Kody, using them as a shield to block herself from being able to be fully seen by Shed. “Hey, now we know he's safe, do you want to go home now and act like this never happened, or do you want to stay here?”

“I’m already here, I’m staying here,” she replied, adjusting how she was holding Justine, while the girl screeched again before breaking into babbled words, only half of which resembled anything real. “And I’m keeping your daughter with me, she’s mine now.”

Chase gave a long sigh, turning his attention over to Kody, who was shaking his head at what he’d heard. “Something should have told me that you were going to answer that way, which makes all this rather complicated as—“

“Don’t say it. We’ll make this work out somehow.” Kody cut him off before he could give any suggestion, because he had one of his own in mind. “Justine’s getting to the point where I think she can be out for things like this, as long as she’s under strict supervision. So we’ll cut a deal here, someone has to watch her if everyone’s staying here, and whoever watches her isn’t allowed to take part in any training. Anyone willing to make that sacrifice?”

No one said a word as they all waited for the inevitable complaint that it wasn’t a fair decision, but when no complaints came they all looked towards Amanda, finding that she wasn’t paying any attention due to how she was still fiddling with how she was holding Justine. “You know what, I think I’ve had enough training today, as much as I would love to get to practice alongside more than just one person right now,” Green finally said, realizing that what Kody had tried to do wasn’t going to work. “You all came out here because of me, and I guess I’ll have to be the one to start getting people to leave.” He faced Shed, who was grumbling something about how he’d been ignored and now he was getting the shaft on doing anything else. “We’ll have to do this again sometime, you’re a lot more tolerable when you’re not spouting your nonsense.”

“Taking that one as a compliment, yo,” Shed said with a smile. “It was nice getting to see that you really are just as dedicated to your training now as you’ve always been, hope we really can do this again.”

They exchanged a thumbs-up to solidify the agreement, before Green’s attention was back towards his wife and the people she’d dragged out to the field with her. “Now, before we go, you’re giving Justine back. We are not taking her home with us.”

“Ugh, rude? I’m keeping her, I already said that, and I’m not giving her back just because you want me to.” Amanda gave an indignant hairflip, which made Justine burst out laughing. “Besides, she loves me and that’s more than I can say about you.”

“I…think we’re going to be going with you two,” Kody said, right as Chase added, “Something tells me we need to deal with this.” They looked at each other, as they had spoken simultaneously, before nodding in agreement with the other’s words. They then gave Shed their own kind of apologies for intruding on his training time (and he didn’t seem bothered by it at all, once he got past the part where he’d been ignored), before turning to start heading back.

The moment they walked past Amanda, she noticed that Green hadn’t started following them, and he was still standing exactly where he’d been when they’d approached him. “Uh, aren’t you coming with? Didn’t you say that you were heading back?”

“Oh, I did, don’t worry about that.” Yet he didn’t move from his spot, which only confused her further. What was he doing, making everyone else leave but not leaving himself? She would have called attention to that decision, but then she noticed that Shed was looking at her, sizing her up with her axe and how she was holding Justine and…*right.*

Shed raised his eyebrows at her, and she scrambled to turn and start following the other two, not saying a word at him. “I thought you said she’d been training since all that went down,” he remarked, letting his brows return to their normal position. “By ‘training’ did you mean mostly healing, ‘cause it looks a lot like she’s been—“

“Slacking? Not actually doing anything? Yes, I agree, I get what you’re saying and I see it. Now I’m going to, uh, follow them now.” It was obvious that Green was flustered and trying to come up with some answer that wasn’t going to raise suspicions more than they probably already had been, but he didn’t want to have to stick around longer. “We’ll get to do this again sometime soon, I promise, but I’m going now, so see you later!”

As he ran off to follow the others, that left Shed there trying to wrap his head around what had just transpired. “I have no idea what just happened, but I don’t think I want to know. What a strange group of people they are, thinking they run the show and all that, smh. And here I was, under the impression memes were too much for anyone to handle, then they come in acting like some secret service for a cool guy.”

“And what, exactly, did you think you were going to accomplish by coming out into a public training field?” Green asked the moment he’d caught up with Amanda, still a couple steps behind Kody and Chase. “Do you not listen to anything you say yourself? You wanted to avoid the questions, and you know what happened just now? He questioned it! At least he was able to believe that you just haven’t been training much and he didn’t suspect anything more than that, but you could have blown your own cover, and for what reason?”

“I got scared that you were in trouble since you said you said you were by yourself,” she replied, her voice sounding meek as she spoke. “I’m sorry that I didn’t trust that you’d be okay and that I risked ruining everything for us, but I wasn’t going to risk you dying. I would much rather ruin the secret than have you not come home.”

He took in a deep breath, trying to find the words he wanted to say to her to make her regret what she’d done, but seeing how she seemed to have started doing that on his own he figured that continuing to make her feel bad would only make it worse. “Okay, well, there was no need to worry about my safety, I wasn’t going to risk my life when you would be so negatively affected by it. But to get them involved?” He gestured towards the two men in front of them. “They could have spent their time doing something else, not staging a rescue for someone who doesn’t need it.”

“They weren’t doing anything important today, I went to them because I didn’t want to be alone and they had the idea to come check on you. It wasn’t my idea, I promise.” She was starting to hang her head now, her pace slowing down as they started to fall further behind the men. “They’re just trying to keep me happy, I know they are, and I’m sorry that my happiness this one time ruined your day.”

“Something tells me that you might have suggested doing this to them, but you know what? We’re not going to focus on that. We’re going to focus on the fact that we’re all fine, that nothing went wrong, and that no one outside of this group here knows what we know.” He reached out to her to grab her axe, then switched which hand it was in so he could then reach to her once more to hold her hand. “But if we’re going to keep things that way, you need to start holding yourself to higher standards. That means no freaking out and running to go find me whenever you get scared.”

She looked over at him, hesitantly smiling at him for a second before sighing. “I can’t help that I get scared easily and want to know where you are at all times. Maybe you could stay with me more often, that way we don’t need to worry about me having to find you ever.”

Giving up his freedoms like that wasn’t something he wanted to do, and he wasn’t going to agree to it, but on the walk back from the field wasn’t the place to settle that discussion. “We’ll work this out once we’re home,” he said, hating that he was putting it off but knowing that it was the best choice. “Who knows, maybe we’ll decide that what we’re doing is completely backwards and we should go about this a different way. Or maybe we’ll decide that some secrets are worth keeping as long as we can, hm?”

If she was going to give an answer, it was stopped by Justine laughing as she watched the two adults interacting, her laughter loud enough to attract her fathers’ attention up ahead. They stopped walking until everyone had caught back up, and from there they all walked close together until they were at the closer of the two homes, after which they split and went their separate ways for the day. It took a lot to get Amanda to part from Justine there, but the reminder that she was going to be spending time discussing her *own* child was enough to get her to agree to let go of the girl. Her accepting what was going on had happened, but now came the time for it to be taken seriously—and her definition of “seriously” was much, much different than her husband’s.

==> PART 2B