Beating For Two

Chapter 35

Saturday, May 7th

Thirty-seven weeks and five days

I woke up on Saturday morning to the sounds of... people yelling? Feeling rather confused, I sat up, groaning miserably at how sore my back felt, and looked down, pushing the covers off my stomach.

“Nice way to be woken up, don't you think, baby?” I asked tiredly, rubbing my stomach and absentmindedly and trying to figure out who it was that was yelling. A minute or so later I was able to conclude that it was Anne and Harry, something that surprised me a little; since when did Anne yell? And since when did Harry fight with his mother? I'd been here for a month now, and this was the first time I heard Anne yell. And it was the first time I heard Harry yell at anyone other than me.

Well, that was a bit sad, wasn't it?

Not wanting to interfere on whatever it was that was going on, I stayed in bed, rubbing at my stomach and doing my best to pick up any of the words that were being said. It made me feel a little guilty – whatever they were fighting about wasn't really any of my business –, but hey, no one had to know.

It took quite a while longer than expected for the shouting to die down, but eventually it did and a couple of seconds later, I heard the door to Harry's room slam shut.

“Never a dull moment,” I said to the room as I lifted my legs over the edge of the bed and stretched them out as much as I could, making my knees crack deliciously. I stood up on my feet, having to used the bed as support, and pulled my t-shirt down a little where it had ridden up to expose a small part of my lower stomach.

“Good thing you're soon big enough to get out of there,” I commented, “otherwise I'd have to find bigger clothes.”

Without bothering to put on any actual clothes, I exited my room and headed over to Harry's instead. I hesitated when I stood in front of the door, not quite sure if he would want to talk to me. Or if he would want to talk to anyone, for that matter. I wasn't about to sit around in my room, alone, doing nothing all day either, though, and I knocked a couple of times.

The response came immediately in form of a loud and snappy “I know, okay? Now get lost!”

I frowned slightly, but supposed that he thought it was Anne who was knocking, and opted to try again and add a quick “it's me” just in case. This time there was no response, not even when it had been a good twenty seconds. A brief thought ran through my head, that maybe the fight that had occurred had been about me, and my heart did a double take at the thought. What if I had to move out? What if they found it best for me to leave? If that was the case, I was royally screwed, because I didn't have any other places to go, and I was so far along now that if something was to happen and I didn't have a place to stay, things would get seriously-

“Sorry.” I'd been so lost in my pile of suddenly frightened thoughts that I hadn't noticed that Harry had opened the door and now stood there leaned against the door in a pair of old jeans and an even older t-shirt. “Did we wake you?” he added.

“No,” I said quickly. He raised his eyebrows, clearly not believing me. “Well, yeah,” I admitted, “but it's okay. What's going on? Everything okay? Is it me? Do I need to move out?”

“Yeah, right,” he said, looking and sounding as if just the idea was preposterous, “mum would kick me out before you. No, it doesn't have anything to do with you, don't worry.”

“Oh, okay, good,” I said with a sigh of relief. A tick of silence passed, and I bit my lip. “So... if it wasn't me, what was it? You don't have to tell me, just, you know, if you want to. Or feel like it. You know. It's good to talk when you're upset.”