Cold Visions of Future's Past

Chapter Six

Unedited. 

Chapter Six

"Am I fat?"

Michael froze in the bathroom doorway, a little unsure of what was going on and how to handle it. I stood there in all my glory, only donning underwear, staring at myself in the mirror because I had no idea what to do with myself. He had one of those toiletry bags in his hands that could be used for just about anything and apparently had no idea what to do with me either.

A couple days ago I'd googled what other five-month baby bellys looked like so I could compare.

So I would know if there was a difference.

There wasn't much of one, surprisingly. I had the stretch marks, though mine were silvery instead of red or brown, my belly button was on its way to becoming an outie, and sometimes I swore my skin appeared translucent because of the amount of veins I or anyone else could see that I swore weren't there before. But my illness gave my skin a pallor I didn't normally have and bruises that would've healed in hours took days to yellow and disappear. All of that tempered the little bit of pregnancy glow I managed to pull off and I didn't appreciate it.

My brain ricocheted to the moment in the school infirmary, when they told me I was basically sterile. How they had to take an ovary after Jason stabbed me and they discovered only half of my eggs had even a smidgen of viable DNA—then Raphael with his "flood of DNA" comment and how sometimes this possibility still didn't make sense—

"You ok?" Michael asked, concern filling his tone.

I continued to frown at myself in the mirror. "Yeah, just—thinking, remembering really. But, seriously, do I look fat? Or rather, do I look weird to you? Different?" I looked back at myself. "I think I look different."

Something lit in his eyes, close to recognition, before he became unfrozen and walked further in, placing the bag on the counter. His eyes darted over me, nothing he hadn't seen thousands of times before, but he did so with a clinical eye just in case he might spot something wrong. After all, I'd just spent some time in the Guild infirmary where he couldn't reach me and had to monitor my situation from afar.

"You look like you."

A very neutral response. I eyed the scar on my stomach, traced it before running my hand over my baby bump. I did look like me but—I don't know. Maybe it was because up until now, I hadn't bothered looking at myself. What I saw wasn't abnormal, just different. I didn't know how to process that.

"It's just weird, you know? I keep thinking something should be different from everyone else because of how impossible this is supposed to be but—it's all the same, isn't it?"

He sighed in relief, that recognition turning into understanding of what was going on with me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and smoothed his other hand over my belly. "Are you trying to tell me being pregnant is anticlimactic?"

I elbowed him in the side and he sidestepped with a grin, burying his face against my neck before giving my cheek a quick kiss.

"You're supposed to be packing," he chided, changing the subject, "not staring in the mirror while going down memory lane and contemplating impossibilities that have come to pass. You're supposed to look a bit different for obvious reasons and you're not fat. You're beautiful. Pregnancy looks good on you."

Now that was way less neutral. I reached up and gripped his arm, settling against him with a sigh.

"It would look better if I wasn't dying."