Smoke and Mirrors

Different Paths

Miguel was startled out of sleep when Nero pounced on his foot. Bending down he picked the kitten up.

'Why did you do that?'

Nero meowed at him.

After stretching, Miguel went into the kitchen and fed Nero, put on the jug for coffee, and pulled ingredients out of the fridge for breakfast.

Clara woke to the smell of breakfast cooking and went to help Miguel. It wasn't long until the smell also brought Keith and Lance out of their room.

'Good morning,' said Clara. 'Come and sit at the table.'

Food and coffee were brought to the table, and they started to eat in silence.

'Thanks for staying last night,' Lance finally said.

'No problem, love,' said Clara. 'If there's anything else we can do, you only have to ask.'

'You've done so much already,' said Keith, 'and that helped us deal with what happened. It's now time to pull ourselves together and get on with our life.'

'At least we don't have to worry about going off-world for the moment,' said Lance. 'We got an email from Mitchell approving medical leave until September 14th.'

'Okay, good,' said Miguel. 'Has the midwife given you a due date?'

'July 30th is ninety days,' Keith said.

'Melissa sent through an appointment for Monday at 11am,' said Lance. 'It's a bit longer than normal because she wants to monitor the baby for half an hour.'

'Excellent, I'm relieved to hear that,' said Clara. 'Let us know what happens when you get home.'

Lance nodded. 'We will, Mama.'

When Nero came running over Keith picked him up for a cuddle. 'He's not growing at all.'

'Well, we could take him to the vet and ask,' said Lance. 'But in all honesty, he's healthy so maybe he's just small.'

'I actually like that he's so tiny,' said Keith. 'I don't think he needs to go either.' He fed Nero a small piece of bacon.

'Is there anything you need to get for the baby?' asked Miguel.

'No, you gave us everything we need,' said Lance. 'That was a huge help, thank you.' He frowned. 'What's happening with Marco?'

'He's adamant he's not marrying her,' said Miguel. 'He's not paying for the baby unless she proves it's his. Donna's parents have been hounding us to make Marco do the right thing because there's no way the baby is anyone else's.'

'Then she just needs to have the paternity test done and prove it,' Lance said.

'In a logical world, yes,' Miguel sighed.

'Her parents are coming over this afternoon so we can all sit down and discuss what's going on,' said Clara. 'It's not going to be pretty.'

'Yeah, good luck with that,' Lance said.

They finished eating and cleaned up. Miguel and Clara hugged them and left them to get on with their day, happy in the knowledge they were now coping with what happened.

Winter announced its arrival with a temperature drop and drizzly rain, so they flopped down on the lounge and finally went through the bags of clothes Clara and Miguel had brought over. It had everything the baby would need in it.

'Sweetheart, are you okay with all of this?' asked Lance. 'I mean, you haven't been able to go shopping for anything you want to get.'

'I have no idea what a baby needs,' said Keith. 'This is great, and I love that your parents want to be so involved. It makes me happy. Besides, we can sit here and shop online for some toys.' He looked at Lance hopefully.