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Leonard loved nights like this. Between the missions and training, he got to spend so little time with Allison. She was always gone, saving the galaxy in some way while he studied further. While he minded being away from her so much, he realized that if she had been home, he would have been spending more time paying attention to his studies than her anyway. It gave him time to be able to take some time off and dote on her, or at least dote on her as much as she would allow. She wasn’t as difficult now as she was when they were in high school, cautiously dating in a world of gossip and annoyance. Now they had time to lay there in each other’s arms after taking the time to re-explore one another like they did each time she came home.
After their couplings that usually left them sweaty and exhausted, they filled the time basking in each other’s warmth. Some nights, they just lay there in silence as the world moved around them. Nights like tonight opened to conversation.
"Leonard, do you ever think about having kids?" His eyes shot open and pulled away from her chest to look her in the eye. His movement pulled at the sheet that had been covering the two of them, exposing her to the cool night air. She gave him a look of annoyance at the exposure, pulling at the blanket to no avail.
"Allison, we’ve talked about this before. You’re gone a lot. A kid would complicate so many things. Is there a point to discussing this again?" He laid his head back down on her chest, her arm curling back around his back again. His eyes closed. "Either way, he would never see you."
"He? What makes you think that we would have a boy?" she asked, her tone piercing as she scoffed, "Men."
"You seem to like this one," he replied, drawing circles on the skin between her breasts, "besides, wouldn’t you want to know whatever child you had? To be able to play with them and watch them grow? Wouldn’t you want to see those first steps, hear those first words? Allison, where we’re at right now, you would miss out on so much of that to the point that you would probably resent me and them just for existing and experiencing where you couldn’t. I don’t want to do that to you." His voice had softened at this point, taking in the thoughts of whatever children they may have in the future no matter how unlikely or irresponsible he thought it could be.
"You say that Leonard, but I do want a family. No matter what you think is best for me, I will always have my own opinions on what I want to,” Allison replied, leaving a kiss on the top of his head, “maybe I want kids. Maybe I want to get married. Maybe I want that normal fucking life that you think I can’t have just because I also want to help humanity win this damn war.”
Leonard sighed against her chest. “I just want what’s best for you Allison.”
“Leonard, stop thinking about what you think is best for me. We just need to do what’s best for us.” She reached across her stomach to grasp his hand resting there, lacing her fingers with his. “I don’t want us to fight about if we should have kids or not, but I do want to embrace the idea if it were to happen. I don’t think that we should actively try at this point, not with you still in college and me actively training, but I don’t think we should actively rule out the idea of us potentially building a life together.”
“I suppose,” Leonard mused, rubbing his thumb against the back of her hand, “we’re probably too young for children right now anyway.”
Allison coughed. “About that.”