Once again, Aura requested that Ilian let her figure out how to deliver Adan the news of what had happened. Though she honestly had no clue how she would manage to do that. It was true that there was a very real chance that it had been his baby, and she would not deny that he had the right to know of its fate. However, every fiber of her being was completely terrified that the second he did know what had happened, he would swear off all affection with her ever again, for fear of another pregnancy occurring.

Aura had spent her entire life longing for Adan’s affection. To willfully do anything that might cost her it was like willfully choosing not to breathe. At least to her it was. And therein lay the problem. Telling him about the child would be sure to make him pull away. Keeping it a secret would drive a wedge between them anyway. There was literally no good option. Even if she had been emotionally equipped to deal with either.

She supposed he might still choose to remain partially affectionate with her. After all, their nights of ‘everything but’ were still way more common than the nights that child may have been conceived. And she supposed she could try and make herself settle for only that partial affection with Adan. But it still tore at her. After spending nearly two decades believing that she would never have that kind of connection with him, only to lose it merely two months later?

And none of that was even taking into account that there were only two souls left in their world that even could have a sexual relationship with Adan at all anymore, or any other kind of relationship for that matter. And the one of those two that wasn’t even human, he was honestly the safer choice for Adan. There was no denying that, no matter how much she wished it weren’t true.

Then there was the other major fear gnawing at her. There were hundreds of those fears at any given moment, but some, like this one, were much more pronounced: If Ilian were to test his resistance with even more disastrous results this time around, then they would lose more than she was sure they could survive losing at all. Of course, Adan would then only be left with Aura once again. But more importantly, they would lose Ilian’s protection as well as his ability to help her through any possible recurrences of the ordeal she had experienced that morning. They just couldn’t lose him. That was an undeniable fact.

After finishing with his shower, Adan headed for the kitchen to decide on one of their limited options for breakfast. Upon returning to the dining area, his dark eyes moved to the table. Atop it were the still full glass of water, the open Ibuprofen bottle, and the six pills sitting next to it. Adan narrowed his eyes as he sat down to begin his breakfast.

It was only a few moments later, when Ilian somberly moved past the dining room to head to the gardens to make any last minute adjustments or preparations for his next resistance test.

“Hey Il’,” Adan called to him as he passed.

Ilian sucked in a breath as he turned equally dark eyes back toward his other lover. “Hey, morning” he replied in a mumble.

That greeting caused Adan’s puzzled look to deepen. “Any idea why Aura just left her pills out like this, instead of taking em?”

“Guess you should ask her” Ilian said quickly before heading on his way back toward the gardens and his makeshift lab.

“Kay then” Adan stated more to himself as he took a bite of food.

It was only a few more bites of his breakfast before he heard Aura’s feet shuffling down the hall from the bedrooms as well. When she moved into view, two things were immediately apparent. One was that she looked even more somber than Ilian. The other was that she was moving slowly, awkwardly, as though too exhausted then to even make that short walk down the hall.

In the face of her apparent upset, Adan attempted humor as he so often did. “Wow, I guess if you’re this tired, our alien boy has even more stamina than I thought, considering my night with him” he managed a smirk to hide his worry over whatever it was that had her looking quite that bedraggled.

“I haven’t been with Ilian, like that, for a few days” was her barely audible response as she leaned against the wall of the dining area with a slight sniffle.

“Maybe we need to find something in the medications that’ll actually help you get some sleep once in a while then. Cause you’re obviously exhausted, even without having a pleasant reason for being so” Adan offered as he finished off another bite of his food.

“I doubt Valium was on the list when stocking meds for the apocalypse” she mumbled, not able to look directly at him.

“Speaking of meds” Adan dared, his eyes moving back to the forgotten pills on the table. “How come you didn’t take your pills this morning?” Aura’s only response was biting back a sob. “OK, I didn’t think it was that hard of a question” he stated warily as he got to his feet and moved toward her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Aura?”

“God I hate this” her voice broke, as she continued to keep her head down, still not able to look directly at his beautiful, questioning face.

“Hate what?” he asked warily, not moving back from her as he awaited her explanation.

“Knowing I have to tell you something. Something that will just... mess up everything” she sniffled again.

“Well, good thing I’ve had over two months to get used to everything being messed up then, right?” he coaxed gently.

“You know that being with you, the way I am now, it is literally the most important thing in the world to me. You know that, right?” she asked desperately.

“Yeah, I had that suspicion” he teased as he tried another smile to get one out of her, to no avail.

“And telling you something that’ll make you not want to be with me anymore? May as well just stick a knife in my heart. Same effect” she whispered, her voice breaking again.

“What on earth do you think could possibly make me not wanna---” then his voice trailed off mid-sentence. He tossed a quick glance back at the table, then back at her. He tightened his grip on her shoulders and took a deep breath. “It’s happened then?” his voice was now a whisper too.

“Happened?” she whispered back, finally daring the tiniest look up at him.

“You didn’t take the pills today, Aura. Is it because you’re--” instead of finishing, his eyes just moved to her stomach.

Rather than answering, Aura just let out a heavy sob and crumbled into his arms. Adan took a deep, shaky breath as he hugged her tightly against him, his eyes moving to the ceiling, desperately searching for whatever could even come close to being the proper response in this situation.

“It’s OK, we’ll get through it, somehow” he whispered as he kissed her hair.

“You don’t...” she began as she looked up at him again. The words escaped her though.

“I mean, look at it this way. If you already are, then we just have to wait to see if the pills work. And while we wait, there’s at least one activity between us that’ll be a lot less stressful for a bit, right? We can make up for lost time or something, right?” He attempted to find the one positive in all of it, as trivial as that positive was compared to her impending miscarriage.

“You don’t understand, Adan” she forced the words to her lips as she stepped back slightly.

“You don’t think us having lots of sex in the meantime might trigger it, do you?” he asked warily, as he was hardly an expert on the subject of pregnancy. After all, before the world ended, he had never even experienced sex without a condom. So he had a first that night with Aura as well.

“You don’t understand” she made herself say once more.

“So, you’re not then?” he asked with further confusion as he looked back down at her.

“And this, this is the part I was talking about” she sniffled again as she turned away from him.

“I’m very confused, Aura. Are you pregnant or aren’t you?”

With the only courage she had left in her being, she plunged that knife into her heart with her answer, “I was.”

Adan was shocked into silence for a long moment before finding his voice again, “you had a...” he swallowed. “You lost it?”

“Pretty much” she whispered, still not able to look back.

Another shocked silence before he spoke, “are you OK, though?”

Aura just shook her head sadly, “physically, I guess” she shrugged, as she had hardly had a check up to confirm her current physical health, all things considered.

Adan took a seat at the foot of the table, heavily dropping his body into the chair. His eyes stayed on the metallic floor as he searched for any kind of further response. “OK, so no baby then. Anymore.” He took another deep breath, “but that’s what we wanted, right?”

“Well, I definitely didn’t want a baby” she confirmed, finally making herself look back at where his eyes remained down in thought.

“I hear a but” Adan asked as he cast her a wary glance.

“Did you hear any of what I said earlier?” she asked, though her voice was too weak to sound very accusatory.

“Pretty much forgot everything before ‘baby’” he admitted.

Aura just let out a soft scoff, “now that this happened, I know you’re never gonna wanna touch me again, Adan. And that is what’s killing me. That is the reason I was so scared to even tell you about the miscarriage at all” she told him, the tears returning at once. “But Ilian was there, and expecting him to keep it a secret too... And I just...” At this point she was too upset to even try to explain.

“The thing that you’re the most upset about is the idea that I may not wanna be your lover any more?” Adan summarized as he looked back at her.

“Well, and a million other things. But that’s the main one right this second.”

Aura then moved to take a seat at the table as well, wiping at her eyes with futility, just waiting for him to confirm her fears. After all, discontinuing their physical relationship was the most logical and safest option. But for her, this was a lot more about love than logic. The two things were practically polar opposites.

* * *

Adan did his best to convince Aura that her fears were unfounded. Though perhaps his acting skills were already getting rusty, as neither of them seemed very convinced that everything would remain the same between them, physically. How could it? She still had tears in her eyes when she finally gave in to that exhaustion and went to make another fruitless attempt at getting some rest that morning. Adan sighed as he watched her slowly move down the hall and back toward their bedroom.

Adan tried in vain to distract himself with the phone or the TV for the next couple of hours. But it seemed her anxiety was contagious that morning, understandably so. He eventually pushed himself up from the sofa and headed off toward the only other living soul that was part of this very complicated equation. After all, the baby that had ceased to exist now could have just as easily been Ilian’s child, assuming he and she even could make a child together. Which it seemed was still a bit of a mystery. It’s not like his kind had ever had intimate relationships with their own species, let alone a human.

He found Ilian in the garden hunched over his makeshift lab table with his notes in front of him. Once more, he was running a hand through his hair in that mannerism he had also adopted from his human lovers. “Morning?” Adan greeted him warily as he moved to reach for another chair and pulled it over to the one Ilian now sat in.

“Morning” Ilian answered, his eyes moving over Adan with wariness.

“So, what do you think?” Adan stated as though the words couldn’t be kept inside another moment.

“What do I think?” Ilian narrowed his eyes, continuing to watch Adan nervously.

“About what happened with Aura” Adan supplied, though his volume dropped on the question.

Ilian looked only very slightly relieved then. “So, she told you then. What happened?”

“That she lost, well, a baby” Adan admitted, though he wasn’t sure what word choice to use, as the child could have been created by either of the two of them.

“She did” Ilian said as he looked away again, trying to seem as though he were still concentrating on his notes rather than the trauma of the morning.

“Could you tell?”

“Tell what?” Ilian asked, casting him a sideways glance.

“Well, firstly, that she even was pregnant?” Adan began with the easier question.

Ilian sighed slightly, “I’m the one who told her” he admitted.

Adan let out a breath as he tried to make himself ask his original question, “could you tell what...” he then quickly corrected himself, “whose it even was?”

Ilian’s sigh was heavier then. He finally turned in his seat to meet those nearly identical eyes of Adan’s. “Would you really want to know if I could?”

“Ilian” Adan pressed. Once again he wanted to know and didn’t want to know. He wanted to be with her still, and was afraid to be with her now. It was an endless series of fights in his head. And he could only imagine how much worse it had to be for Aura.

“It was a bloody mess, Adan” Ilian answered, which just caused Adan to choke on his next breath as his eyes flew to the floor. Ilian softened his tone sadly then, “I could test... and find out for sure if you really want me to.”

“Test?” Adan asked, eyes widened back over at Ilian again.

“The... remains?” Ilian offered, not even sure if that was the proper term, considering the aforementioned mess, and how early on she even was in the pregnancy.

“God” Adan just looked away again.

“So, is that what you want, really?”

“I don’t fucking want any of this, Ilian” Adan exclaimed. “I never wanted to put her through anything like this. Or put myself, or even you through it. But here we are. Do we just shut her out, cut off all affection to save her from dealing with it again? Even though we know it would kill her to lose the only thing any of us even have left in this life? I mean, what the fuck do we do?”

Ilian looked down sadly before answering, “I think that’s something none of us have the answer to.”

“The logical answer would be to just never risk her getting pregnant again. But I somehow don’t think logic has anything to do with any of this. And certainly not with how Aura is feeling right now” Adan admitted, proving again just how well he did know the girl.