Twelve Months

November

Sara stared beyond the darkness before her to where she was sure the ceiling was. Beside her on a short solid pine table the alarm clock's red digital numbers blared into the night. It was 3:27 AM and she sighed. So far pregnancy was everything people had warned her about. Her back ached, people had mistaken her for fat when she was under showing and now, at the most ungodly of hours, she was hungry.

Michael was asleep beside her, his back to her and his torso slowly rising and falling with every inhaled breath that fuelled his dreams. He always slept in just pyjamas bottoms, never feeling the need to keep any warmer in their apartment. Sleeping with two people in the same bed was so different from prison and any extra layers would often keep him awake all night sweating, Sara often waking to find him cooling down on their balcony.

Sara rolled sideways and ran a hand over his coloured shoulders bringing it to a rest or his bare bicep. Michael inhaled hard as he was suddenly awake; his groggy face full of worry and his heart skipping a few beats in his chest. He rolled onto his back and his elbow collided with Sara's protruding belly. He immediately pressed a protective hand to her abdomen and apologised with a raspy voice.

"Sara, what's wrong?" he whispered quickly as he rubbed his eyes open even further. "Are you ok?" he mumbled incoherently into the darkness as he sat up propped on one elbow. It was a new moon and there was no welcoming silvery light illuminating their bedroom tonight.

"I'm fine," Sara, told him resting a warm hand over his on their unborn child's maternal chamber. Sara felt Michael relax under her hand and he audibly breathed into the darkness before flopping back onto the warm cotton sheets. Sara smiled and shuffling closer to him, pressing herself as close to Michael as her belly would allow and resting her head onto his tattooed arm.

"Why did you wake me?" Michael asked her while he rubbed his loose gripping hand over the fabric of her pyjamas. Sara pressed her hand to his naked chest and drew lazy circles across the ink she recognised so well, even in the shadows of early morning. Sara immediately felt guilty before she revealed her reasons for waking him. Michael was genuinely tired and his eyes had already pulled themselves closed once more once he knew Sara was all right.

Sara paused for a while, childlike in her approach for her prize. "I'm hungry," she admitted with a pout that she turned into a soft kiss against Michael's side. His skin prickled to life and the hairs on his arms reached up into the air, waiting for more.

Michael let out a light laugh, his body to tired to manage much else. "I'll get you whatever you want," he told her, turning to her in the darkness. Sara's eyes were adjusted now and she could make out the shadowed outline of Michael's features inches from hers. Michael reached up a hand and plucked Sara's from his chest, pulled it to his lips and planted a kiss against the smooth skin of her hand.

Sara's face wrinkled when her remorse hit her once more. "We don't have any of what I want," she confessed with a shy voice. Michael sighed and dropped their hands back to his chest where his left hers and rubbed against his forehead.

"What time is it?" he prodded with a whine. Sara rolled backwards and the burning red numbers invaded her eyes. When Sara rolled from his arm Michael threw his legs off the edge of the bed and sat up, his body still half asleep and lacking strength in its relaxed state.

"It's 3:40," Sara confessed with a grimace when Michael groaned softly. Sara crawled across their bed and wrapped her arms around Michael's broad shoulders, pressing her rounded belly to his back. "I'm sorry," she chimed nuzzling her head under his chin. Michael laid a flat palm over her arms and held her to him for a second before he patted her reassuringly.

"It's ok," he grunted in a drained voice. Sara pressed a kiss to his temple and he smiled when she clambered back under the covers on her side of the bed. With his eyes still half closed Michael pushed himself from the bed and reached for a pair of slacks hanging over a wicker chair. Sara squealed with joy into the room while he pulled them up and over his pyjama bottoms and then slid his sock less feet into a pair of sneakers. "What do you want?" he asked as he dressed himself.