“You’re sure you’ll be okay?” Elena’s lips tugged down into an uncharacteristically unsure frown. “We could—”

“It’s fine.” It wasn’t. I forced a smile on my face anyway. “You’re at the Square today, right? We’ll come find you when we’re done.”

Blessedly, she didn’t need any further convincing. I doubt I could have kept up the facade for much longer. The door finally clicked shut behind her, and silence descended in her wake. Neither Klaus nor I uttered a single, solitary word for a solid five minutes. We just sat there together in uncomfortable silence on his beaten up couch, its cracked leather pressing uncomfortably against my legs. I didn’t even look at him, my attention completely fixated on his aged and battered coffee table.

More specifically, on the turkey baster and mason jar she had left behind.

Surrogacy. Who wouldn’t consider such a popular option for gay couples who wanted children? Especially when we had a readily available sperm donor? A familial sperm donor, no less. It made perfect sense that Elena would want to pursue this first. Had wanted in fact. The only reason we had attempted adoption first was because I had insisted on it.

“Why haven’t you told her?”

I licked my suddenly dry lips. I’d figured our unspoken agreement to not talk about things left unsaid might not make it through this. Nothing lasts forever, but I hoped I could salvage still it. “Because I’m not going to.”

Klaus coughed and turned to me with wide eyes, his expression quite clearly conveying what he thought of that. Didn’t stop him from hammering it home. “I beg your pardon?! You can’t just not tell her!”

I couldn’t quite resist the urge to point out, “You mean like I’ve clearly been doing?”

“That is my point!” He have me a hard look while gesticulating wildly at his coffee table. “I’ve been trying so hard to give you the space to tell her at your own pace, and look where that’s gotten us! It’s been years! The longer you wait, the worse the fallout will be when—when, not if!—Elena finds out.”

I wanted to debate his insistence that Elena would inevitably find out, but it was pointless. Klaus had already made up his mind how things were going to go, which meant it would take an act of god to convince him otherwise. No, I had a far more important goal to focus on. “Klaus, I’m… I’m trusting you to not tell her.”

He reared away as if struck, his eyes wide and confused. He had always worn his heart on his chest, a heart that had room in it for damn near everyone. The color of your skin, who you loved, the money in your bank account— fuck, if you even had a bank account, none of it mattered.

“You’re not…” Recognition settled in, confusion giving way to disbelief. “You’re serious. You really aren’t going to tell her?”

“It’s not fair of me, I know.” The words crawled out of my lips, so soft and vulnerable—so venomous. My eyes burned with tears I desperately tried to fight back even as they fell. Was it manipulation if I was telling the truth? If showing him how I felt about this would buy his silence? I definitely felt dirty. “I’m sorry, Klaus. I never meant for this to happen. Please believe me, I never knew.”

He almost shifted across the couch to my side. Any other day, any other moment, I would have poked fun at his blatant need to smother me in a hug and his shimmering eyes, one step shy of joining my crying. Today? I really wanted a hug. “Of course you didn’t! God, how could you? What are even the odds of us meeting again like this?”

That drew a laugh out of me, wet and self-deprecating. “I guess my superpower is being attractive to parahumans, huh?”

Klaus’ lips curled, caught halfway between amused and pained. “Getting powers isn’t… all it’s cracked up to be. But if you ever do? I promise, you will get a better power than that.”

“Wouldn’t that be a trip?” I pawed at my eyes, trying to scrub away the tears. “One sibling with a mom, dad, and aunt, the other with two moms and an uncle. Fuck, that’s making me go cross-eyed just thinking about it.”

“She’s… five now, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Do you ever…” He hesitated, seeming to mull over the words. “Do you ever regret it?”

I flopped back into his couch, letting myself sink into the aged leather. God, this stupid, stupid couch. The years had not been kind. “Yes and no. I wasn’t ready—neither of us was. Giving her to a better home was the best choice for her, no matter what I wanted. But I wish I could know her now, y’know? See what an awesome kid she’s become. Spoil her the way she deserves. Be a part of her life. But she’s got that already. I refuse to take her away from that just to make me happy.”

I eyed the shiny, emerald green boa wrapped around his TV’s antennae. It still amazed me that he’d held onto it after all these years. “You need something to jazz up this place without me around,” I’d told him, right after we agreed to take a break—right after I told him we’d fucked up and I was pregnant with his goddamn kid. God, what would our life be like now if he hadn’t lied to me about his last name? Could I have begged Elena to find somewhere else for us to stay? God, would I have left her, horrified at my life being an accidental soap opera?

My eyes fell to the mason jar and turkey baster, and I couldn’t quite stop the laugh that bubbled up out of me at the insanity of it all. That against unfathomable odds I would find myself here again, only this time I was trying to make a baby with his sister and he was the sperm donor. My life was clearly one big joke.

Klaus looked at me curiously then followed my gaze to the items on the table before exhaling. “You really love her, don’t you?”

“More than anything.”

“I’ve heard that can change when you have a kid. That you’ll love them so much that everything else becomes secondary.” His brows pinched, his lips pursing together into a deep frown. It wasn’t difficult to figure out what he was thinking.

I laid a hand over his and gave him a squeeze. “You aren’t your father.”

The corner of his frown twitched up a bit. “Thanks.”

“Mmm. You’re gonna be the world’s best uncle.”

“You think?”

“I know.”