Banded Reunion

Part 17

Leo let out a long and loud sigh as he collapsed onto the edge of bed. A few seconds later he could feel the bed sink in a tad more and looked beside him, stifling a laugh. Emma had done the same thing and now they were both staring up at the ceiling fan, exhaustion taking full effect.

"You should have warned me that your mom likes to play 20 questions around the dinner table." Emma muttered under her breath. "More like 50+ personal questions."

"Like your parents are any better." Leo retorted with a scoff.

"Touché." She shrugged off the comment with an eye roll.

"At least nobody is throwing dish plates or playing charades."

"You don't want to play charades with my dad."

"Your family actually plays charades? I was kidding!"

"Sure you still want to marry me?" She glanced up at him, eyes lit up in amusement.

"Well I've been stuck with you for all this time, what's a few more decades hmm?" He teased, grabbing a hold of her hand and giving it a soft kiss, before noticing the spaced off look that appeared in her brown eyes. "Hey what's up with you?"

"I just don't want to see my parents quite yet." She muttered, becoming quiet. Whenever Emma got upset, she got silent and usually held things in. Right about now would be the time where she would shut herself off and start building her walls up brick by brick. But she couldn't just pretend with Leo. He knew her too well. He was her better half after all. She didn't want to pretend and put on a facade anyway. It was tiring and she had wasted too many years simply pretending. Pretending to be happy, pretending to be normal, pretending to be healthy. Not anymore.

"Things with your mom aren't still 100%?" Worry started to crease into his eyebrows.

"They haven't been the same since I got sick. But it's been this way for a years or two. It's like every time I slipped up, she was there to remind me of it."

"And you think that if we tell her about the doctor appointment and trying to get pregnant," Leo paused, finally putting the pieces together in his brain. "that she'll bring up the relapses and your illness as being the reason why."

"Affirmative."

"Well I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen."

"You and your superpowers."

"I am just like superman." He remembered Mae saying the same thing years ago in the hospital. At the time he didn't believe it, but he had beaten his cancer for the second time and after that, well anything was possible. If he was destined to only be considered a superman in Emma's eyes, that was enough to to satisfy him.