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“Hey. Thanks for coming,” Elisa said as she let Matt into her apartment.
“Not at all.” He hung up the light jacket he was wearing. “I’m just surprised you invited me for lunch. I’d have thought you would spend the weekend at the Eyrie and we’ll see each other tomorrow.”
“I just wanted to keep you informed.” Elisa took a sip of her water, wishing it was something alcoholic. “I’m telling Captain Chavez about the clan tomorrow.”
Matt watched her. He knew his partner well enough by now to understand that this was not a spontaneous decision, this was part of something bigger. “Why now? Not that I think it’s a bad idea but why so suddenly?” During the Unseelie War, it would have made sense. But now, with no looming threat?
Elisa took a deep breath. “Because I need to tell her that I have to be on desk duty and then early maternity leave due to a high-risk pregnancy. In the sense that no one knows how a pregnancy with a half-gargoyle child is going to develop.”
Matt stared at her, then down at her belly. “How? I mean, I can guess how but didn’t you say your genetically not compatible? Because gargoyles lay eggs?”
She shook her head. “Coyote decided to... ‘help’.”
“The robot or the trickster?”
It said a lot about their lives that the question not only made sense but that he asked it to matter of fact. “The trickster. He somehow knew that my father mentioned wanting grandchildren, so...” She motioned down at herself. “Only he did not plan for anything further than conception so we’re flying blind now. We have no idea if an egg will form around the embryo or how my body will deal with the wings.”
“At least Goliath has no beak or horns,” Matt pointed out.
“Thank you very much for that reminder.” Elisa shook her head. At least all the tricksters at the Eyrie had been kind enough not to point that out Friday night. Then again the conversation had soon turned into a lesson about the trickster version of ethics and the necessity of thinking the consequences of a spell through. And hadn’t that been a strange experience.
“But it sounds as if you managed to talk to a doctor who knows about gargoyles. No offence to Sata, but she is probably not very familiar with human pregnancy.”
“Well, turns out Burnett arranged for Fox to have a halfling as gynaecologist before she even learned of her heritage.” Elisa did not want to know the details about the relationship between the two Xanatoses and Owen and had been all too happy to ignore the looks they’d exchanged after learning that he had arranged for her to get the medical care she needed. She was just happy to benefit from Owen’s pretty much doting on them by having someone who could at least make an educated guess about how her pregnancy might go and was ready to monitor her during it all. “Doctor Moss went over my options with me.”
Matt did not like the look in her eyes. “Which are?”
“They’re certain that the pregnancy will not be viable without intervention. Not long enough for the child to develop enough. Not that we know how long that is. Gargoyles are pregnant for 6 months, then lay an egg that takes ten years to hatch. So that means that either I am turned into the gargoyle along with the child or the child is changed into a human child. Or it’s put in a tank to grow, like the clones were.” She paused before mentioning the last option. “Or I can terminate the pregnancy now.”
“Have you made your decision yet?”
“No. That’s another reason I asked you to come.”
“Okay then. Let’s figure it out. We managed robots, terrorists, clones and a magical war that began millennia ago. We should be able to figure out a pregnancy.”
“Don’t forget your suspicions about the Illuminati turning out to be true.”
“See?” He was relieved to note that she seemed a bit more relaxed. “First things first. Do you want a child?”
“I don’t know. I had made my peace with not being able to have children with Goliath. And I mean, the clan is so small, only two eggs in the next rookery.”
“That’s not what I asked. Do you want a child now?”
It was the one question she had not been able to formulate yesterday, not out loud. Did she want a child? This child? How would that even work? She was 41, almost 42. If the child lived as a gargoyle, she would be over 80 by the time it reached adulthood. If she lived that long. Could she live with that? With being able to only have her child at night? And yet. “I want that. A child with him.”
“Okay.” His lips twitched. “And you have to admit, things have come full circle then, after all you both already have a daughter with Demona. So a son might be nice.”
Elisa let out a startled laugh. “True. We’ll figure out how to raise it, even if I’ll only see it at night.”
“You can ask someone at the castle to turn him human during the day,” Matt pointed out. “Coyote as apology, for example. And didn’t Alex turn some of the clan into humans a few years ago? Or Angela when she spend a day with her mother?”
“They might agree to a remedial lesson. And they’re easier to reach than Coyote on Avalon.”
“And the fewer people who know the incantation to get to Avalon, the better.” Matt remembered all too well how the Unseelies had kidnapped him, thinking he could tell them the incantation. When he had been assigned as Elisa’s partner, he had never expected all this, gargoyles and clones and mutants and magic and fay. Fighting and being taken prisoner in a war between a faction of the fay and mortals.
And yet if someone offered to take him back – because time travel was a thing, of course it was – he would not change a thing.
But the memories and the plans for who to ask for help had time. From what Elisa had said, there was another decision she had to make first. Even if it was not a topic he had ever expected or wanted to talk about. “How do you want to go along with your pregnancy?”
“They’ll ask questions if I’m obviously pregnant.”
The precinct would sooner or later notice the pregnancy, he agreed with Elisa there. And none of them knew of her marriage or rather mating, so they would try to figure out who the father was. “I’m not exactly eager for rumours that I knocked you up.”
“I’m not interested in rumours I was stupid enough to get pregnant from a random hook-up,” Elisa shot back. She pushed her glass back and forth on the table. “This child will likely be my only child.” She glanced at Matt, remembering his comment from earlier. “The only one where I was involved in the conception.” She paused. “I will ask them to turn me into a gargoyle for the next months.”
Matt nodded. “All the more reason for you to talk to the Captain tomorrow.”
“And who knows, you might get lucky and have Sara as partner.”
“Oh, shut up. I fully expect to be named godfather, you know?”
“I don’t think gargoyles have baptisms.”
“Naming day, whatever.” He grew more serious. “But I mean it. You’re my partner. If you or the child need anything...”
“Thanks, partner.”