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Eight Weeks.
In hindsight, she should’ve known something was amiss; no, it wasn’t her being late, either. Grace had dealt with irregular periods since she was thirteen. After the first month of nothing, she didn’t think much about it. She was too busy settling into a flat in Mumbai and chalked it up to her body working like it usually did—coffee and those powdery doughnuts convenient stores like to sell—to pay too much attention. Then the second month went by, and Grace said, “Well, might be stress,” because she was once again going halfway around the world trying to be a Big Damn Hero.
Better reasons this time around, but the same story.
Her jeans fit a little too tightly. Her breasts were sore, tender really. It was the heartburn— Christ . She was thirty. Surely, thirty was too young to worry about heartburn? Especially after eating a jalapeno, when she grew up eating spices that were way warmer—that made her suspicious. Maybe she was sick; maybe it was some sort of stress of moving across the world, with only a letter to a man she would always love more than he’d love her, and a short phone call to her parents in New York.
Sometimes she thought about e-mailing Gabriel.
She never did. Not because she hated him, but because she was afraid he hated her.
I wouldn’t blame him if he did , was what she told herself, because, for all his faults, she wasn’t always innocent either.
“You’re young,” Gerde had told her when Grace chalked up the courage to give her a real, sincere apology. Grace had bristled at that at first—twenty-four wasn’t young; she was a grown woman—but Gerde just gave her a knowing look that said, see? Then they shared a beer and spent most of the night talking about history, about philosophy, and for a rare time she saw how Gerde spoke about the late Wolfgang without hedging on sadness, but a sort of fondness, and Grace remembered thinking, wow, I hope I love someone like that one day .
She had a photo of him, of Gabriel, in her wallet. Of course, it wasn’t only him, but Mosley was there, too. Gabriel had his arm around his best friend while looking into the camera with a smug grin.
Out of all the things she missed about Gabriel Knight, it was that smug grin of his.
Miles away and she still had it bad.
Eight weeks. Eight weeks passed and she spent it making her small flat livable while pouring herself in whatever Chadrel threw at her. Mostly, it was meditation—apparently, she had trouble centering herself and opening her mind, ergo, s he was stubborn —and research. Which was fine. Learn how to count before you can add or subtract. Didn’t stop her from being restless and wanting to advance when she was four, and it was still the same at thirty.
What gave it away, what finally made her think, huh, my body has been acting weird so I should investigate it, was the smell of incense. It was during a meditation with the other initiates when something when she got a whiff of something so foul, so unimaginably rancid, she shot up from the pillow she sat on to throw up her breakfast in a potted plant.
“Meditation isn’t for everyone,” a Nigerian undergrad named Aretta joked, but her brown eyes were sympathetic when another wave of nausea hit.
That day she purchased three pregnancy texts. She realized a little too late where she purchased from did not have an English translation so, after swallowing her pride and humiliation, and because she felt she needed to apologize for what happened earlier, she handed the sticks to a baffled Chadrel who was outside, trimming the weeds on his knees.
“Sorry about...” she trailed off, not wanting to allow the word ‘vomit’ to escape her mouth, ‘else if she thought about it too much, she might repeat it. Chadrel was proud of his garden, and he had been nothing but a good friend; he didn’t deserve that. “Um. I don’t... I know a few words in Hindi, but I don’t know if this is Tamil, or...”
“Marathi,” Chadrel said with bemusement. Sometimes, when he spoke to her, it felt like he was speaking to a child, and while a part of her wanted to bristle like she did when Gerde called her young, a larger part of her allowed herself to be humbled. Maybe the meditation thing was working, or maybe she was simply growing up. He took the tests—a brow quirked knowingly—with brown eyes staring at the results for a moment, before handing them back to her. “Congratulations are in order, I assume. Or condolences.”
Whoops.
Twelve weeks.
She had typed out an e-mail to Gabriel about, oh , five thousand and twenty-two times. Sometimes she just ranted at him, blamed him, as if she wasn’t a willing participant; as if she hadn’t thought about what happened—although maybe she would’ve wanted the situation to be a bit different —a thousand times before it did. Sometimes she gave into self-flagellation and apologized to him. For envying him. For wanting to be him at some point, even if half of that want was merely her doing her best to ignore the growing unrequited feelings that blossomed without her saying so. For leaving without a proper goodbye because, despite it all, he changed her life for the better.
She went to New Orleans to grow up, to make her own choices, and applying for that job at Saint George’s did exactly that.
The ones that she’d never send were the ones to which she told him she loved him. That it was fine that he didn’t feel the same, she heard him tell Mosely as much, and what happened, while it meant a great deal to her, probably wasn’t the wisest idea for either of them. That wouldn’t change how she felt and maybe, someday , they could continue being friends. Just friends with a Whoops in their lives.
Sometimes she wrote letters, actual handwritten letters, even if the new millennium was dawning and no one wrote letters anymore. Hell, it took Grace weeks to convince him to entertain the thought of using a computer rather than a typewriter.
She knew she could call. At least, she could call Gerde, who was a good friend and had been a supportive friend even if their initial meeting was awful if only to reassure her that she was fine. She hadn’t spoken to her since returning briefly to Rittersburg to collect her things. They had hugged, Gerde had wished her well, and while the woman wanted to pry, she had the grace to keep any questions to herself.
Every e-mail was deleted; every written letter was crumbled up and tossed in the bin.
“I have bigger fish to fry,” she had told herself, unconsciously rubbing the small bump. Most women don’t show their first time around, or not really, but Grace found herself rubbing that spot where the smallest of bulges formed more and more as of late. “I still have to tell my parents.”
Thinking about telling Gabriel made her heart hurt; telling her parents made her heart go into overdrive into a flat-out panic attack. Not good for Whoops, the books had said, so she decided not to tell them. At least, not yet . Maybe when she could look her very, very traditionalist parents, who came to America when she was three so she could have the best life possible, in the eye and say, “Well, you always wanted to be grandparents!” without dying from sheer terror.
“What are you going to do about Whoops?” Aretta had asked, braids placed in a bun on top of her head as she walked with Grace arm and arm toward some hole-in-the-wall food joint that Grace had been constantly craving, regardless of heartburn. While low-rise jeans were becoming a style, Grace enjoyed the high-rise variety, especially when she knew soon most of her blouses would not fit. They were already snug at the bust area, much to both her horror and slight amazement. “Have you considered—”
“ Everything ,” she told the younger woman with a great big sigh. “I even started to make an appointment at the clinic like you suggested, but...”
Aretta did not, nor would she ever, judge, and merely offered a small smile. She and Gerde would’ve gotten along a lot quicker than she and Gerde did. Then again, that was Grace’s own blunder, not Gerde’s. “It was only a suggestion, Grace,” Aretta soothed, “the choice is yours alone. It is your body, after all, not mine.”
Grace nodded and offered a small smile.
Having their fill of Samosas with Chola, they spent the rest of their time going over the bestiary sitting crisscross-applesauce in the middle of her flat, that still had yet to be fully unboxed, scribbling their own experiences—well, Grace’s, anyway, since all Aretta knew was what her mother had taught her—in the margin of their notebooks.
Whoops still hovered in the background. Hard not to when all she felt was bloated, gassy, or rarely—and she counted herself grateful since her mother had often said that carrying Grace meant she was spending more time over the toilet than having any sort of pregnancy glow—throwing up. Tucking her raven hair behind her ear, thinking she ought to give it a trim because it was growing too long, she blurted out, “What if I keep it? Whoops? I mean, it shouldn’t be too hard, right? Women have kids alone all the time.”
Aretta made a noncommittal sound, and Grace continued, “I don’t need Gabriel. He always said he was terrified of settling down, anyway, so, me not telling him is just honoring his wishes.” Another noncommittal sound came from Aretta who, if Grace was anywhere but her head, would think it almost sounded amused . “He compared me to a chastity belt, anyway, so there’s no loss there. Really . Also, my parents? Well, they can’t kill me if I show up in Manhattan a year from now just, you know, shoving a baby at them and say surprise! I can say I adopted it!”
“Mmm,” and for being younger than Grace, with those dark discerning eyes and a patient grin. “It is your choice like I said,” and this would be when she finally would take her eyes from the notebook she had been scribbling on, a toothy grin that showcased the gapped teeth she wore proudly. Not like Grace. Grace begged for braces to correct hers. “You do not need to convince me, Grace, but I think you need to convince yourself.”
Which, when Grace came down from the neurotic burst, she had to release it like the gas that kept her up all night, she allowed. After a long moment, after deliberating every pro and con, imagining every sort of scenario, Grace was left with this. “I want to keep Whoops.”
Aretta snorted, “You might need to figure out a name other than Whoops , then.”
Twenty-five weeks.
It was closing in at the cut off where she could travel internationally. The midwife she had been seeing so far had told her she was pushing it, but since her pregnancy was going on without a hitch, then it should be fine. The old woman even gave her a doctor’s note in case there was any trouble.
Aretta drove her to the airport. Chadrel had to run the academy but gave her his blessing. “The both of you are always welcome back, Grace,” he had told her.
“It’s not forever,” she reassured him with a laugh. She never got to get her hair trimmed, decided to wear it in a braid because it was the easiest thing she could do in the mornings. “We’ll be back soon. Just need to tie up some loose ends.”
A knowing look, “I take it you aren’t going to the States?”
“Not until Whoops is born and I can hide behind her because I’m pretty sure my mother won’t kill me if I’m holding a baby.” It was the only thing that kept her nerves at bay, really, when it came to telling her parents. They were traditional, yes, but Grace knew they loved her more than life itself. She was their only one, after all. They never understood her wanting to go to New Orleans, or wanting to go to Germany or even India, but they had supported her, nonetheless.
Mostly, she just didn’t want to disappoint them.
Just like she hoped her daughter, her Whoops, wouldn’t be disappointed by her.
Funny. For a while, she had thought she was carrying a boy; she had assumed that most of the Ritters were males, anyway. Prepared to raise a mini-Gabriel who would be more obsessed about his hair than anything else. When she was told that she was carrying a girl, she suddenly saw a miniature version of her, trying her best to be perfect at everything she did to the point she missed the point of living.
She had written to Gerde a week before she bought her ticket. She hadn’t told her about Whoops, yet—which was a bit mean, really, just showing up pregnant, but for all Grace wanted to be a big damn hero she was mostly a big damn coward—but did ask if she could stop by. This sort of thing was a conversation one had in person, not by phone or e-mail or letter.
Of course, Gerde had written back.
We left your room the same. I do not live there myself, anymore—I’m married now, Grace! I can’t wait for you to meet him! —I but I know Gabriel would be happy to see you.
“You’ll call, or write when you get there.” No questions, but straight facts as Aretta pulled her into a hug, which she returned as best as her bump allowed. Although small, it still made moving around difficult. “You gave me the address to that big fancy castle. If you don’t write, you bet your ass I will.”
And with that, Grace boarded the plane.
While Mumbai wasn’t as cold as Germany, and she would spend a great deal of the flight burning up, she dressed in her warm maternity clothes. Schloss Ritter was in the mountains and while she remembered it being picturesque and almost something out of a fairytale, she also remembered how cold the castle was even with heating installed, and how she spent more nights next to a fire than not. New Orleans spoiled her. She grew up with the cold. Now she couldn’t stand anything below fifty degrees.
Two things were fortuitous when Grace Nakimura made it to Schloss Ritter: one, light snow which made finding a cab to take her to her destination rather easy; two, when she arrived, Gabriel wasn’t there, which would give her even more time to explain herself.
She used that time to explain to Gerde who, when she opened the door to greet her, noticed her bump as soon as Grace walked inside.
“You’ve been busy.”
Grace smirked, “you have no idea.”
And that was how she spent the first night in Rittersberg after many months; sipping hot cocoa, sitting on the couch beside Gerde, telling her everything that happened. Gerde spoke about her husband, Wilhelm, a school teacher; and Grace told Gerde everything from Chadrel, to what happened in France, telling her about Aretta, and then to Whoops. Gerde snorted into her own cup of cocoa at the nickname. “Whoops?”
“It felt appropriate,” Grace defended, “and nothing seems to fit her.”
Gerde’s blue eyes twinkled. “Her?”
Grace gave an almost shy smile, nodding. She felt ridiculous for being so bashful about Whoops. From the moment she felt her fluttering about inside her, letting Grace know that under no uncertain terms, she was there, to even showing everyone at the academy the sonogram photos she had taken. It was ridiculous. She knew this was ridiculous, entertaining raising a child, but as every single day went by, she couldn’t see a life without Whoops.
“You haven’t told Gabriel,” Gerde surmised. Grace nodded, causing the blonde woman to place her cup on the coffee table in front of them, and gave her a look that was far older than a woman of her age. Sometimes Grace forgot she was technically older than Gerde with how she carried herself. Just like Aretta. “I am going to be honest with you, Grace, he’s been—sad.” Gerde made a face as if saying, no, that wasn’t the right word for it, and began again. “Haunted, maybe? I do try to visit him when I can, or at least call, but when he isn’t being a Schattenjäger he is holing himself in his study.”
Well. Damn.
“You think Whoops would make him happy?” Grace asked, incredulously; easier to be obtuse than understand that, with how Gerde sounded so somber, Grace had to at least be partially the reason for his moods. Grace wasn’t arrogant enough to assume she broke his heart, but she knew that, while he’d never return her feelings, he still cared about her. That they were friends.
Gerde allowed Grace to take the easy way out, if not for now, with how she snorted once more. “For a man who swears he is terrified of the idea of family, he keeps his own close to his heart,” which was fair. Rebecca Knight all but raised Gabriel, after all; if Mosley and Grace were his friends, Rebecca was his best friend, his world at that. And the fact he did mourn Wolfgang, even if he only knew him a brief time, the reason why he began the journey was to honor him in some way. A sense of duty.
Well, that was how Grace saw it, anyway.
She also remembered how he would always make time to visit his grandfather’s and his parents’ tomb, too.
“I’m afraid,” Grace admitted, still sipping on her beverage. “Not...not just for me, you know, but her. I know Gabriel can be the world’s biggest ass, so can I, and I am not worried about him being an ass to her—” Damnit. Why was it so damn hard to articulate what she wanted to say? “I chose to be a Schattenjäger, or something like it. Gabriel had to become one.”
“And you are afraid that your daughter will not have a choice?” Gerde summed up effortlessly. “We all have a choice, Grace. That is one choice she will not have to make for many years yet. If I were you, I would focus on telling Gabriel —”
“Tellin’ me what?” A heavily accented voice accompanied by boots on the castle ground.
Grace began to choke on her cocoa, causing Gerde to move and pat her back.
Twenty-eight weeks.
Grace had expected a heated argument, or a noncommittal shrug, or even him telling her she was the worst sort of person to ever walk on the earth. Sometimes she felt that way. A lot of times she felt that way. Those were the times when she wished she had gone through with making an appointment for that clinic Aretta had told her about, or even taken more of an interest in the various adoption agencies she investigated. What happened was worse.
“Is it mine?” He had asked, staring at the bump known as Whoops for a good long while, and when Grace nodded, he started to nod, too. “Right. Well, damn, Gracie. You keepin’ it?”
“Her,” but there was no bite to Grace’s tone as they had stood in front of that roaring fire. Gerde had excused herself to give them privacy and they stood there, about five feet apart, both too insecure to meet each other’s eyes. “I wanted to tell you in person. I, um, I don’t want anything, or I don’t want to make you do anything...”
He nodded. He had been doing that a lot. “No, no, I get it,” even if Grace had a suspicion he might not. “I do .” He said again as if he could read her mind, and then, “Well, um, your room is still yours. Nice to see you, Grace.”
He was, in his own way, understanding.
And he left. He turned around and left.
Then Grace broke down in tears.
For the past few weeks, she had been crying over anything, and it didn’t help Gabriel spent more time in his room than around her. And when he was around her, he walked on eggshells and avoided her stomach as if it were the plague. As if her womb was a gorgon and if those green eyes of his so much looked at it, he would turn into stone.
“Have you told your parents yet?” Aretta had asked over the phone. Grace was an early riser and, while it was probably nightfall in Mumbai or later, Aretta still called as she promised. “Or are you really waiting for the baby to be born and then tell them?”
“It’s a good plan!” Grace defended.
“You’re going to be a mother,” Aretta scolded, “wouldn’t you want Whoops to be able to tell you anything?”
Fine, that was true, “I will tell them.” Aretta snorted. “I will! I told Gabriel, didn’t I?”
“Do you want a medal?”
“Shut up,” but Grace had to huff out a laugh regardless, reclining against the plush bed. It was true. Nothing changed. Cleaned, sure, and dusted, but everything was how she left it. “I think me telling him is kinda like his worst nightmare.”
“He’s only had, what? Four weeks? You’ve had six months, Grace.” Aretta reminded her, just like Gerde had reminded her, and just like Grace reminded herself when her hormones made her spend her night looking out the window to the expanse of snow-covered trees and sobbing like some heartbroken woman in an Opera. “ Are you going to give birth there?”
“Kinda have to,” Grace responded, placing a hand over her bump. Her Whoops. Her Whoops began to flutter as she always did when she heard her voice. “Gerde is helping me find an OBGYN. Probably travel to Munich for one.”
“No more midwives?”
Grace made a face, “The more I read about giving birth, the more from what I’ve learned in school, I keep hearing about things that could go wrong—” Not that midwives weren’t medical professionals themselves. The one she had seen in Mumbai had several certifications and degrees; she even gave Grace pamphlets and told her that no matter what choice she made, be it giving birth or even breastfeeding, all that mattered was the health and happiness of herself and her child. Her choice, now she was more visible, to forego a natural birth for a hospital stemmed from the book she was reading, showing graphic pictures of childbirth, bringing back memories of Health class where she had promised herself as a teenager she’d rather adopt.
“It’s your choice,” Aretta reminded her as she always did, “but do not allow fear to ruin your joy. That’s what my mother told my sister when she gave birth.”
“And?”
“And my sister had to have a cesarian. Her baby boy was twelve pounds, and even worse than that,” Aretta snickered, “he was a Cancer.”
Grace got ready for the day, which was more like noon since Whoops kept her up all night deciding to make good use of the indoor plumbing Gabriel had installed. Sometimes she still had awful heartburn—told Gerde she might give her the middle name of Heartburn in honor of it—but that sort of passed. Still, she was lucky in the fact she hadn’t had to deal with nausea as much as other expectant mothers had to. A win was a win.
Teeth brushed, hair in another side braid because, yes, she had yet to get it cut, with a cozy sweater underneath her maternity overalls. The overalls covered her chest area, or at least diverted attention to her stomach area, because something else was changing even more drastically than her bump.
Her breast. Were. Huge.
Sore—Gerde bought her some cream to prevent irritation—but huge. And standing in the ensuite, she turned to the side and gave herself a moment to appreciate it. At first, during her earlier months, it was horrifying, but now?
She kind of enjoyed it. Mostly, because she knew they wouldn’t be there forever. Breasts aren’t everything, but if her out-of-whack hormones allowed her to feel giddy about something as silly as this, she was going to enjoy it for while it lasted.
Grace kept her high spirits as she made her way out of her room, even having a pep in her waddle— she was waddling now —until she ran smack into Gabriel.
“Shit,” he swore under his breath, glancing down at her bump and swearing again as if embarrassed for using crass language in front of her now that she was an expectant mother. “I mean, um, are you okay?”
He was treating her just like how he treated her after they slept together: fragile. Awkward.
It’s only been a few weeks for him, she reminded herself. Swallowing a lump in her throat, Grace decided today would be the day they would have a conversation.
Well, she really didn’t want today to be the day, but they ran into each other, and neither of them had anything to do...
“We need to talk.”
“Kinda are, Gracie.”
At her deadpan expression, he relented, and suddenly she was in his study where they stood six feet apart just like the night by the fire, staring anywhere but each other.
“Do you hate me?”
It came out without thinking, but as soon as it did, she found she needed to know.
“Where’d ya get an idea like that?” he asked, looking at her like she grew two heads.
She felt her eyes sting and, closing them tightly, she fought the urge not to burst into tears. “Do you?”
“Hell no,” and he almost sounded offended she’d think such a thing. “Hated that you left. Hated that I probably drove you to leave. Hated that I ruined our friendship ‘cause I wasn’t thinkin’, but I could never hate you , Grace.”
Oh, that did it, that made her fall on the chair in front of his desk, facing the back of his typewriter— he wasn’t fucking Hemingway; he could use a PC like the rest of the world! —and let out a loud sob. “You don’t want this,” and it came out, her free hands motioning to her bump. You don’t want me. You never wanted me, was another thought, but she pushed it away. That wasn’t the point of this discussion. This wasn’t about Grace’s feelings about an unrequited crush; it was about Whoops . “And I came here—I just wanted to tell you—I don’t expect anything— and you won’t look at me! ” An irritated huff, before she finally looked up at his face, her own crumbling, “Is it because I’m fat?”
At that, Gabriel laughed. He let out a joyful if not surprised, laugh where his whole body shook. There was no malice in that laugh. In fact, it sounded like he needed a good laugh for quite a while, and she gave it to him. “Oh, Gracie, you’re somethin’ else,” he said with a fondness that made her cheeks redden even more. He bent down, wincing as he did, to be eye-to-eye with her. “I don’t hate you, Grace. I missed you.”
There was something else, too, but Grace wasn’t going to push. They were talking and she didn’t want to jeopardize that.
Sniffling. “I missed you, too,” she may be stubborn and prideful, but she was also honest. Maybe not so much to herself, but she liked to think she was getting better at it. He raised his hand to wipe away a stray tear, which made her melt, despite her best efforts. “You didn’t make me leave. Not really , anyway,” she owed him that much. With the long sigh he let out, and how his body began to relax, even as he crouched to look at her, she had a feeling he let go of something somewhat significant. At least, when it came to her. “I wanted to...”
“Be a big damn hero,” he said, fondness in every syllable, and it made her heart skip a beat.
“Life told me I needed to wait,” Grace said dryly, indicating to her bump. “Whoops decided she needed to beat me to it.”
Gabriel made a face. “Don’t name her Whoops.”
“It’s a good name.”
“And what’s her middle name gonna be? Daisy? ”
“No,” Grace sat up, no longer sniffling, “Heartburn.”
This time, they laughed together.
Somehow, they made it on the floor, leaning against the wall, and they just talked. Bantered like they used to before everything. Before supernatural destinies, before romantic feelings, before... everything. Before Whoops.
“I don’t know if I’m the sorta guy she needs,” Gabriel confessed after a while. “Not exactly father material.”
Grace had nothing to say to that. She just sat there, listening.
And then, “Do you even want me in her life?”
“That’s up to you,” Grace said, “but it’d be nice not having to face my parents alone.” He made a face, but Grace continued. “It takes two, pal, and if I have to face my parents, then you’re coming along with me.”
“That reminds me,” realization dawned on him just then as his eyes widened, “I’ve gotta tell Gran.”
Another pause.
“We can always wait ‘til Whoops is born—”
“How ‘bout Gabirelle?”
“—and neither your Gran nor my parents can be mad at us if we hide behind a baby,” she continued over him, still proud of her sound reasoning. And then, “Not Gabrielle.”
“It’s better than callin’ her Whoops.” Gabriel defended.
Grace snorted. “Gerde and I are going into Munich tomorrow to meet with an OBGYN.” Self-consciously, she chewed her bottom lip. “You could come if you wanted?”
He nodded and pulled her into a side hug. She forgot how much she liked his hugs. Resting her head against his shoulder, she cuddled into him, or as much as her bump allowed. “I don’t think I’m what she needs, what you need, but I wanna at least try. Gran raised me better.”
Grace snorted.
“I said she raised me better,” he remarked playfully, “not that I always listened.”
“You’re an ass,” she agreed, “but you’re a good guy deep down. Very deep down.”
Thirty-five weeks.
She still hadn’t told her parents yet.
He still hadn’t told his Gran yet.
No one was surprised. Annoyed, but not surprised.
While that was unchanged, everything else began to find some sort of flow; the two were rekindling their friendship, which was a huge step. She could dream of something more all she wanted, and often did, but the bigger she grew the more she remembered that this wasn’t about her. It was about Whoops. Regardless of her feelings for him, and regardless of his lack of feelings for her, it was about the future of Whoops.
Wow. Maybe she needed a name other than Whoops.
Nah.
While she never intended to stay in Germany, international travel was limited after twenty-eight weeks, somehow around her seventh month she found herself and Gerde taking on refurnishing the nursery. “We were going to turn it into another guest room, or even an armory,” Gerde confessed, huffing an errant strand of golden curls from her face as she looked at the instructions to assemble the crib. The old one, while quaint, didn’t seem very comfortable. There hadn’t been a child in the castle for more than a few decades, after all. “It’s a good thing we didn’t. Wait. I think that is supposed to go the other way.”
Grace made a face, kneeling on her knees, mostly because days of her being able to crouch, less stand without any help, were long gone. She had all but given up shaving. “That’s what it looked like in the photo?”
A small bassinet was already set up in her room. It was Gabriel’s suggestion, hidden as an off-handed comment, about the nursery. He was in Scotland for a job. While she wanted to join him this time, all things considered, he flat-out said no. “’Sides, no one will let you fly anyway.”
“Could drive,” but even as hard-headed as Grace was, that argument fell flat.
“When you gotta piss every five seconds?” Oh, he had to needle her because he won, and she knew it. “I’ll use my laptop and you can help research here. I mean it, Gracie. Not for me, but Whoops.” And then he made a face, “We gotta stop callin’ her Whoops.”
Gerde brought her back to the present when she tried to steady the legs of the crib, only for the half-assembled furniture to crumble like a house of cards. “Maybe we could hire someone?”
Grace considered it for a moment. She also considered the thought, and it was ridiculous, of watching Gabriel try to put a crib together. Hell, even Mosley and Gabriel, Dumb and Dumber, taking a hand at it. It made her laugh, which was an awful idea, because now she needed to pee.
“Gerde?”
“Hm?”
“Can you help me stand?” She had wet on herself a few times already, much to her embarrassment, but Gerde took it with a grace that, while she was named after it, Grace did not possess.
For the past few weeks since Gabriel had been gone been like this: wake up. Pee. Eat. Pee. Try to finish the nursery. Pee. Make the hour worth driving to Munich for her appointment. Pee. Drive back after eating somewhere. Pee at the restaurant. The bigger she became the more she had to pee. When she told Gabriel this when he called to check in, he only laughed. They made it to town, mostly to enjoy how nice the May weather felt compared to how cold March was.
They uploaded evidence on SIDNEY and exchanged e-mails back-to-back. Apparently, some Scottish locals have gone missing, which was a problem , but when a tourist child went missing it was a bigger problem, especially when that tourist was a prominent English politician.
A little girl, aged four, had been missing for three days when Gabriel arrived. Taken from a local park as if she vanished out of thin air.
_Never thought about kids before._ Gabriel had written. _Now *I’m* going to have a little girl. It kind of hits too close to home, Grace. Now it’s all I think about._
_Whoops is fine, Gabe. I get it, but that little girl isn’t going to be found if you spend all your time worrying about hypotheticals._
_Doesn’t stop me from thinking about it. Look, I uploaded a list of suspects, so just. Do your thing. Gotta go._
_Don’t be stupid._
Sent.
And then she regretted it.
Please don’t let him take that as a challenge, she asked the Universe.
And after eating dinner—peeing, too, of course, thanks Whoops—Gerde would sit with Grace and continue to scour tome after tome. Of course, Gerde didn’t spend her entire free time with Grace; sometimes her husband joined, and sometimes Grace would have dinner with them at their house, but with the sense of urgency this case held, she did opt to sleep in her old room from time to time. With a furrowed brow, and from all the notes she’d written on her notepad as well as the evidence uploaded on SIDNEY, she asked, “Could it be witches?”
Gerde bit her lip in consideration. “Maybe,” she allowed, “but they aren’t known to be violent, or even malicious. They are very, um, what is a good word for it—docile? And most of them are human, too.”
“Aren’t humans usually the worst kind of monsters?” Grace asked with a single raise of her brow.
“Don’t listen to her, Whoops,” Gerde snickered, placing a hand on the bump. Gerde was one of the few people who were allowed to touch her bump without asking. Not that it stopped strangers in town, or even in Munich, from doing so. “There are plenty of good humans in the world. Don’t be fatalistic like your parents.”
That night, lying on her bed and looking at the ceiling, she felt her daughter move around. Not kicking. No, not really, she was probably sleeping. Which meant she should be sleeping.
“Not all of us are bad, Whoops,” she eventually told the bump, “Take your dad for instance? He’s a good guy. A real jerk with a capital J, but a good guy.” He was walking on eggshells with the prospect of fatherhood, but she didn’t blame him. Don’t know how to be a daddy given I don’t remember my own, he had told her once, long ago, when he was just her annoying employer who lived solely on coffee and meaningless one-night stands in New Orleans.
“No matter what happens,” because Grace knew she had to be realistic. She wouldn’t live here and playhouse forever. She knew she had to tell her parents. Not only that, but she knew she had a life to live without him. Having a life with him would be wonderful and, if he wanted to be in their daughter’s life, they would make it work, but motherhood did not mean she had to ignore her own dreams. She could continue studying with Chadral, with Aretta, in Mumbai; she could go back to school and work for a Doctorate. It would be difficult, but so was anything worth it in life. One of the things her dad always drilled into her head: nothing that really mattered ever came easy . “I’m promising you this: you’re gonna have the best life. I know I’m bullheaded, that I’m unyielding, but regardless, I promise you that I’m gonna love the hell out of you. We’re gonna make this work, capishe? I’ll do right by you.”
And for the first time, ever, Grace didn’t just feel a flutter. She felt a pulse beneath her hands. Then another, and another, and a surprised laugh echoed across the bedroom causing an echo.
Of course, the moment ended when she ended up flailing out of bed to go pee.
Thirty-five weeks.
The child was never missing; she was intended to be sacrificed by the girl’s own father. Apparently, he felt the only way to be elected as Prime Minister was to offer up his daughter.
It was a Witch, but it also turned out it was Witches— White Witches —that saved the day, too.
“They have him in custody, ” Gabriel had told her over the phone, bitterly. “He should be six feet under.”
Grace agreed, personally, and yet, “You did the right thing.” Well, from the reports he had knocked the man out cold before calling Scotland Yard, but no one could really blame him. “Is the kid safe?”
A bone-weary sigh escapes from the other end of the receiver. While sometimes he had the same devil-may-care look on life, there were other times when it seemed like he was Atlas keeping the world afloat. “ She’s with her grandparents. The wife was killed when she found out...” A huff. “ I’m getting' real tired of all this death, Gracie.”
Whoops pressed her foot against her ribs as if saying, tell pops I agree! “I know,” because what else could she even offer him? It’s only gonna get worse, kid, so buck up? Hell no. “Come back soon, Knight. Please.”
“Later, Grace.”
That was days ago. As soon as Gabriel returned to Schloss Ritter, he holed himself up in his study. Grace had given him space—mostly on Gerde’s insistence in the guise of, think of the baby —and let him stew over what he needed to. She had only seen him this upset after Malia Gedde.
Well, Von Glower, too, if she remembered right.
He managed to bounce back, or he seemed to, or maybe she was just so focused on herself she didn’t pay much attention.
Malia was probably the first time Gabriel fell in love, and she died; Fredrich von Glower, from the bits and pieces she put together, could’ve been a great love, but Gabriel couldn’t live with the possibility of hurting innocent people, and the baron died for it. She was just an assistant-turned-unlikely-mother-of-the-Ritter-heir, but even she left him.
Grace didn’t really regret leaving him, but she only regretted not telling him she was, and at least offering a goodbye.
After six days of his self-imposed isolation, Grace came into his study to find him slouched over the typewriter— why couldn’t he just use the laptop? —with his head in his hands.
Grace sniffed the air and made a face, “Have you showered yet?”
“Go away, Grace.”
She ignored him and waddled into the study, carrying a tray of bread and cheese. “Too bad.” She set the tray down on his desk and, nudging him with her hand, pointed to the plate. “Eat.”
“Grace.”
His voice tried to be stern, but it came out more petulant than anything.
Well, good time as any to prepare for motherhood, she guessed, so with one hand on her hip and the other pointing to the food, “Eat, Knight.”
“Not hungry.”
“Didn’t ask if you were.”
“Jesus, do ya gotta—”
“—look like nice Ikea furniture that nags?” She finished for him smartly, “I guess I do.”
And she plopped on the sofa in the room, which meant she was staying, because there was no way, with how her center of gravity was nonexistent, she could pop up like she used to. He finally had taken his head from his hands to stare at her. She stared back, crossing her arms over her chest, glaring.
“Why are you here, Grace?”
Why do you care, Grace?
She wanted to scream, isn’t it obvious? She wanted to throw up her hands and remind him about their predicament, about how she cared about him, about how she loved him! And then she remembered—she never really said as much before. She remembered when it hit her like a ton of bricks, that she loved him more than she envied him, while he laid there in pain, fighting the wolf curse with every inch of his life. She remembered thinking, I never want to see him hurt like this again , as she stroked his hair.
Not the hair, Gracie.
He was an open wound; might as well even the field and be vulnerable too.
“I love you,” and it was the first time she ever said it. He hitched a breath, and it caused her to wince, but she barreled through. “I get it, you know , that I’m bad at showing it, and I haven’t been the best—I'm a work in progress, okay? I do. I love you. Not just because of,” her hands waved toward the large bump hidden under her sundress because even overalls were a bit too much hassle to put on as she went into her last two months, “ her , either. And I know you’ll never—I get it.”
His face began to soften, “Grace...”
But she raised her hand to stop him, “I get it, Gabe. I do. Look, what I’m saying is, that even if you will never feel that way about me, it won't stop me from caring about you. That’s why.”
“Oh.”
Grace lowered her eyes and shook her head, placing her hands on her stomach to stroke the large bump almost to self-soothe. It was better for it to be all out on the table. She just hoped he wouldn’t walk on eggshells around her anymore. If she had the ability to stand by herself and not immediately fall back on the couch—which happened far too often for her liking—she would’ve left it at that.
She didn’t notice him move from the chair to sit beside her until she felt the sofa dip, his calloused fingers tilting her head up to look him in the eye, “What are you—?”
“Hush,” and he pressed his lips to hers.
The kiss was languid, unhurried, and slow; the peaceful rising and falling of an ocean tide, or two puzzle pieces finally sliding perfectly in place. It was everything that Keats wrote about, and the Beatles sang about. She opened her mouth the smallest bit and he dived in greedily, swallowing her sharp gasp, and pressed her closer, or, as close as she could be.
He was tender that night, too. She remembered how he eased himself in her bed, waking her up, and it was almost as if the two were magnets being pulled toward one another. In her fantasies prior, she always assumed it would’ve been dirty, raw, fast with a lot of sweat and even the occasional filthy words passing his lips. It wasn’t . There was hunger and passion— desperation —but also a sense of worship. It was almost as if it wasn’t just sex.
Well, she had thought that, anyway, until he had woken up and everything shattered.
This was the same; when she broke the kiss to breathe, he began to pepper almost butterfly kisses toward her neck, breathing in her skin, as his hands began to wander downward.
She’s had...urges. Very, very vibrant urges for the past few months. She was perfectly fine taking care of the urges herself, but as soon as she struggled to bend down, she struggled to... well, that . Which was a shame, because the other times were probably the best she ever had.
Pregnancy orgasms? Were amazing.
Grace felt those same urges bubbling up, especially when his hand softly traced her breast, causing her to let out a deep moan. Thank God for his experience, because she had been with too many men who thought grabbing her breast and squeezing them like a stress ball was sexy. Besides, if he did that, it would probably hurt.
“Don’t have to do much, huh?” She could feel his cocky smile as he snickered against her neck, now softly nipping, as his fingers gently caress her breast.
“Stuff it, Knight!”
“I thought I already did !”
Her brain knew he should stop. They should stop. Well, she wasn’t doing much, she only canted her head to the side to give him better access, and her hands were in fists by her sides as her chest heaved in a rapid staccato as his fingers teased her breasts, and soon softly, carefully, drawing circles around her nipples. She was about to say something, but as soon as his hand began to make its way down the large expanse of her stomach, Whoops beat her to it.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a firm kick underneath his palm. “Holy—,” but before he could pry it away, probably thinking it was faux pas for him to feel it, she kept his hand where it was. Again, Whoops kicked, fully awake, and bringing her parents back to a sobering reality.
“Well, hey there, sweetheart, you got my attention alright.” There was a sort of boyish amazement in those green eyes of his, his strawberry blond hair greasy—he really needed a shower—as it hung in his face, much like the jeans and crumpled shirt he wore that probably had stains on it. That smile, though, even throughout the smell of body odor and possibly Jack and Coke, made him even more handsome. Whoops kicked again, earning a bright and bubbling laugh from Gabriel, “ Jesus. Does that hurt?”
Grace shrugged. “Sometimes,” especially at night when she wanted to find a comfortable spot to sleep and Whoops decided to be a Gymnast instead. “I can’t be too mad at her. It’s probably starting to get a little cramped.”
He whistles through his teeth, “Gonna be here before we know it.”
“Mmm,” she agreed, suddenly too tired to do much. “You know what you need to do in the meantime?”
“Hmm?”
“Eat,” she said, nodding to the tray that still sat on his desk, and then, “also shower. First, eat.” A pause. “Actually, first, help me up. I need to pee.”
Thirty-seven weeks.
Grace felt awful.
Not just physically—which, yeah, she did; June decided to be especially stifling in Rittersberg, and all she had the energy for was, well, sleeping and eating—but mentally. Turned out, telling her very traditional, very proud—but loving—parents that their only daughter was unmarried and pregnant? That she was living with the father of said baby—they weren’t amused when she called her Whoops—when they weren’t official? Not good.
A slew of lectures in Uchinaguchi by her mother; nothing but stony silence by her father, who was normally far more loquacious of the two, only spoke of his deep displeasure.
The worst thing was, it wasn’t even her pregnancy that had them so disappointed—she wasn’t naïve to know it wasn’t the only thing, anyway—but because she waited so long to tell them.
“How would you feel if your child did this to you?” Her mother asked over the phone.
“ Ayaa , please—”
“Chu uyamee ru duu uyamee!” If you respect others, they will respect you. How can someone make her feel like a three-year-old when she was thirty-one? “Have we not respected you? Supported you? Why do you have to shut us out?”
And, according to Gabriel, the talk with his grandmother wasn’t as harsh, but it hit him where it hurt. After all, that was his girl.
“How’d it go?”
He made a face as if he were in pain. “Said that she was disappointed but loved me anyway. Misses me. She says you oughta’ call her, too.”
“Only if you call my parents.”
She had called, of course, but instead of a lecture she only got questions about—how she felt, how the baby was, if she thought of any names, but not once did she sound stern or even sad. Kind.
Which, of course , made her a sobbing mess.
A lot of things made her cry. She watched a commercial for adult diapers and felt like she was watching Titanic.
As for her and Gabriel? Complicated. New. Did everything backward, but neither of them was traditional. That was fine. It was nineteen-ninety-nine for Pete’s sake! They did have a talk that wasn’t in his study, but her room. Sometimes underneath the covers, sometimes on top. It was PG... somewhat. Well, if anything higher that happened—and it rarely did—they would have to improvise, which led to more laughter than getting off.
Most nights they just lay under her covers, staring at her, and they talk about...things. Not their feelings, or the future, but just things . Sometimes they reminisce about New Orleans. He missed it. She missed it. Missed it more than Manhattan. Honestly, New Orleans felt more like a home than Manhattan, and since she was only three when her parents took her to the States, she had no memory of Japan. She’d like to go back someday, sure, and she’d like to take Whoops with her, but when she thought of home, she thought of St. Geroge’s Books.
“I don’t wanna mess this up,” he confessed, his jaw tightening as he swallowed, resting against one of the pillows. Her back was to him, her body spooning the body pillow Gerde bought for her, but at a soft nudge, she craned her head around to acknowledge him. “No idea what I’m doin’, and I don’t know if I can be the man, the man you want me to be, or what she needs me to be, but I wanna discover what that means with you.”
When she told him she didn’t want him to be anyone else, just him, he gave a rueful smile. “Maybe I don’t know if I can be the man I wanna be?” He corrected.
“Think I don’t think the same thing about me?” She asked. “I’m not asking you to marry me, Gabriel.” Going backward, maybe, but while she loved him, she wasn’t quite ready to say I do just yet. The way he visibly relaxed, neither was he. “Do you love me, though?”
She had to know. He felt something for her, something that was just lust, but he never really told her, and Grace didn’t want to assume.
“If I didn’t,” he began to misquote, but the sentiment was there all the same. “I might be able to talk about it more.”
Rolling over with more energy than she had in weeks, the body pillow was ignored as she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. “Austen?” She teased during the playful nips, or how the fact his neck vibrated as he growled while she nipped at his jawline, his arms pulling her closer to him. "Could've sworn you were more of a Wuthering Heights guy.”
“Found out quickly in school, girls liked Jane Austen,” he snickered the possessive nip at his neck, all the while doing his best to situate his body to accommodate the bump between them. “Mean it, though,” he said, sobering a little bit as he reached for her hand to lay it on his chest. And then after a few moments, when they just laid there, he spoke: “Rebecca.”
“Hmm?”
“I, um,” he swallowed, causing his Adam's apple to bob, “I wanna—I would like—to name her Rebecca. After Gran.”
“Are you trying to earn brownie points when you see your grandma next?”
“Maybe,” but his smile was almost shy . “If you don’t like it, or if you wanna name her somethin’ else—long as it ain’t Whoops—then that’s fine, too, but...”
“I like it.”
And an hour later, Grace’s water broke.
Two days old.
She was here. On the ides of June, in the last year of the millennium, Whoops Heartburn Nakimura—or, legally, Rebecca Chiyo Knight , because that was the name of his parents, the name his grandmother took when she married his grandfather—decided the hour when she would be named something other than Whoops , would be the exact moment she would begin her journey to the outside of the womb. Ten hours. From the hour's drive to the Munich hospital to being wheeled back to a hospital room, to the six hours waiting to be fully dilated, to the three hours of pushing and somehow forgetting everything she learned in the Lamaze classes she had taken, Whoops was finally here.
And Whoops wasn’t very happy about the fact she wasn’t in a place that was warm, and dark, where she was fed whenever she wanted and got to do whatever she wanted; instead, all she saw were the bright overhead lights, felt the cold and sterile room, and the last thing she even thought about was food when she curled her fists in anger as the nurse laid the baby, all washed up, on her bare chest.
Didn’t notice the after-birth. After pushing something the size of a watermelon out of something the size of a lemon, well, nothing compared. She just held the angry infant close to her as her vision began to blur.
She wasn't crying; it was allergies . Gabriel, who was also misty-eyed and mystified, said the same.
Two days later they were discharged. They had used Gerde’s car, seeing as how a car seat wouldn’t be ideal on one of Gabriel’s bikes, and drove twenty below the limit the entire way. Grace would’ve teased him, if not for the fact she kept looking over her shoulder at the newborn who only snored softly, fists bunched up near her face, a baby cap to cover her full head of thick raven hair.
Something told Grace she’d still have Gabriel’s eyes.
When she mentioned it, Gabriel huffed out a laugh, “That’ll be somethin’. Gran says I get my eyes from my mama.” And then, with a sobering face as the light snoring abruptly stopped, panic set in. “Is she okay?”
Grace, just as panicked, checked behind her for the second time. The light snoring resumed, and both parents sighed with relief.
The anxiety didn’t stop there.
Whoops—or Bex , as Gabriel called her—slept most of the day. When she woke up, it was really to eat, shit or pee, stare, and sleep some more. Feeding was...eventful. Hurt. They had told her a bottle was fine, too, but Grace was nothing if not stubborn. “I feel like a cow,” she commented bitterly to herself.
It was at that moment, feeding the infant, Gabe had moseyed into her room. She had been propped up with a bunch of pillows and dressed in pajamas that made feeding easily accessible. He carried a tray of food: sausage, cheese, and bread—a delicacy , Grace thought bitterly, but with how her own stomach rumbled she wasn’t so ungrateful not to accept it.
“Might as well have a chance to eat,” he suggested with a shrug, “while our Bex here is eatin’.”
“Can you believe we’re actually parents?” And when she turned to notice how he snickered, shaking his head, she laughed too. When the suckling ended, Grace placed the baby carefully on her chest and she gently patted her back. “I’m happy, but...”
“Scared shitless?” He offered, sitting beside her as he popped a piece of bread in his mouth, swallowing. “Ain’t alone there, sweetheart. I thought vampires, voodoo spirits, and werewolves were hard. Raisin’ a human being probably is gonna make ‘em seem like a walk in the park.”
Grace snorted, both at his words and the loud burp Whoops let out, in agreement. “Mostly happy,” she added shyly, passing the infant to her father who, while not the most comfortable holding her, accepted her in his arms, nonetheless.
For a moment he cradled the sleeping infant to his chest, just looking at her, while Grace all but devoured her food. It may be bland for her tastes, but it was leagues better than what they served her at the hospital. “Are you goin’ back to India, or school?” he asked after a moment.
It was a fair question. She prepared to go, really, and even prepared a way for them to maybe co-parent even if they were in different countries or even continents, but...
That was before.
“I don’t want you to go,” he said, and it reminded Grace of how she had stood beside him on that bridge as she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I meant it, what I told you before, you know , how I felt. I also know...I also know you have your own life, I get it, be your own damn hero and all.” He shifted when Whoops, or Bex, began to whimper, placing the infant to lay on his chest instead. “What I’m tryin’ to say is, um, if you gotta go, I get it, but I don’t like it.”
They were still new. Old, but new. They had done everything backward—he hadn’t even taken her out on a date—but there was time enough for that later. She would be lying if she said she didn’t want to continue her training, or even go back to school, because she’d become too restless if she didn’t. Maybe even resentful .
That didn’t mean she couldn’t have those adventures with him, just like he shared his adventures with her.
The light snoring of the baby reminded her of another person, their joint adventure that was never planned, but obviously that neither regret.
“I’m in this if you are, Knight,” she commented with a sly grin as she scooted near him, noticing how his brows wiggled playfully, any sort of moroseness gone. And if it wasn’t gone, it was momentarily forgotten, or at least pushed down. He was more complex than the womanizer she pegged him as when she interviewed for the job so long ago. “Probably should finish the nursery before she outgrows the bassinette.”
It seemed as if all the tension, besides the nerves he got from holding the baby due to the fact he hadn’t held many in his life, seemed to ease out of him. Placing a kiss on the soft spot on the infant’s head, he began to rub circles on her back. He might not be comfortable yet holding her, or his— their —daughter, but that didn’t erase any sort of joy he felt doing so.
They might fizzle out like a pop that was left open, or they might not. One of them might go six feet under before their daughter hits double digits, or they might not. And Whoops—fine, Rebecca —might follow in the family business, even if she had mixed feelings about it and had a hunch Gabriel felt the same, or maybe not.
It didn’t matter. Not now.
“Could’ve named her Fuji,” came the sly tone after a moment, and Grace gave a low groan, which only goaded him further. “After all, both of you just melted—”
“Be glad you’re holding a baby, Knight, or so help me.”