Never Alone

Part 19

"Are you upset?" Lindsey asked, rolling over onto his side to scoot over closer to Stevie. They had already said, goodnight, a while ago, but neither of them could actually fall asleep.

"I'm... I'm not upset, I'm just..." Stevie shrugged, lacing her fingers through his when he draped his arm around her middle. "I just gave into the idea so quickly. Sure, there were some coincidences, but there wasn't just that one explanation. I should have just stopped Lori from talking and none of this would have happen. It was stupid. I was being stupid."

Earlier that night, they sat together after she'd taken the test for a long time. She repeated, she couldn't look, before eventually he did. Every test came back negative and it was obvious that she had hoped for a different result. So did he. 

"It's not stupid and neither are you." Lindsey assured, kissing her exposed shoulder. "I get it. I was excited for that short moment, too."

"That's what I was afraid of." Stevie admitted and he frowned. 

"What do you mean?" He asked, she stayed quiet. He propped himself up on his elbow and reached to turn her bedside lamp on. "Stevie?" He gently rolled her onto her back. "Talk to me."

"I don't want to." She shook her head, her voice sounded hoarse as if she was about to cry. 

"Hey..." He cupped her cheek and brushed his thumb over her skin. "Talk to me." He asked again and it took some time before she did.

"You have always wanted children." Stevie began. "You have always imagined yourself as a father and I would love nothing more than to give you that, but... I don't know if I still can. Age is one thing, but I've done just about everything possible to ruin my body, maybe I'm too damaged to-"

"Don't say that." Lindsey cut her off. "Do not say that you're damaged, my God. You don't have to be upset that this one time you've taken a pregnancy test and it turned out to be negative when we hadn't even discussed having children. The stuff you enjoy doing to me doesn't even produce children." That got a laugh from her and he smiled, he leaned in to kiss her. "This doesn't mean anything."

"You don't know that." She sighed, appreciative of how well he was taking it. "I understand that I'm at a point in my life where I can't just expect to get pregnant that easily, we have to be realistic, but we haven't been exactly careful either, so maybe it's a sign."

"Or maybe you're overthinking it." He pointed out, resting his chin on her chest, he circled his arm around her waist. "Neither of us have been taking very good care of ourselves. Well, not until recently anyway. It's not just you, you know. What if it's me? Have you ever thought about that?"

"Honestly, I've tried not to think about it at all." Stevie said, slipping her fingers into his much shorter curls than the ones she used to love so dearly. "We're thinking about it now, aren't we?"

Lindsey nodded with a shy smile on his face. "I think, we are. I don't really know how this works, but we can start by going to a doctor, get a bunch of tests down or something. Just so we know where we're at." He added. 

"That's sound like a logical thing to do." She agreed. "But what if-"

"There are other options." Lindsey said before she could finish her sentence. "If we want to become parents, there are other ways, Stevie. Thousands of small children are out there without anyone to love them."

"You'd-" She began and immediately paused as her eyes glazed over with tears. "You'd want to raise somebody else's child with me?"

"Give a young boy or a girl a life they'd always dreamed of? Give them a home and two loving parents?" He questioned and answered. "Yeah, absolutely."

"I love you so much." She smiled at him tearfully and responded to his lingering kiss. 

"I love you, too." He said and promised. "And if we really want this, we'll find a way."