that's what the water gave us, Palodir

Outttttfit!

Sunday, July 29th, 2 PM

Joan wondered if she could have picked a worse time to come to the park. Of course there'd be kids all around. She was so stupid.

It was different, though. From the moment he'd said he'd take it - whatever it would be - she had ceased to see the unborn child in her stomach as a life-sucking monster. That didn't mean that having an accident didn't have its disadvantages, though.

"This is an archaic symbol of peace, Joan. The peace you are going to make with yourself, staring today. Wear it always."

As she thought of that day, the first day that she had met Kallie, Joan fingered the necklace her doctor had given her. It did help, sometimes. Knowing that she wasn't the only one relying on herself to make thoughtful choices from now on. She had a child who was now eating everything she was eating, and a doctor who looked at her with such compassion that Joan knew she would have a terrible time disappointing her. And though her hands shook and she was awake every night with the cravings, she had been sober for almost a month now, nearly the longest she'd ever been on her own. Though she wasn't on her own now.

It was partly Kallie's fault that she was here today, mostly her own. Naturally, giving Palodir the sonogram was the perfect excuse, but she had to tell him all that she had revealed to Kallie, all that she had revealed to the White Regime about the Alliance. He was taking her child, after all. He had promised to love the child with a lot more depth of the word than Joan herself could ever muster. She owed him the truth, at least. In exchange for all he was doing for her and the child she was carrying.

She stared out into the brightness of the day, her left hand tapping the rhythm of a minuet on the bench as she waited. She only hoped that he wouldn't hate her utterly after this.

Not even three weeks ago, the course of his life had changed forever. That series of events that left him with the promise of fatherhood, and everything that came with it, had panned out impossibly quickly. There had been a crying colleague on his doorstep, the announcement of an unwanted pregnancy, and before he knew it, he was looking at being a daddy.

And not five or ten years from now. In a few months. That sort of immediate was what he was dealing with here. He was going to be responsible for the well-being of a child, for at least the next eighteen years, when just a month ago, he had not believed he'd ever be a father.

As he was a member of a race he was desperately trying to keep secret above the water, it seemed inconceivable to him that the stars would ever align in such a way for him to have a family. That would require being intimate with a woman, and then one or more children, all people who would love him. People who would want and need to know the truth about who he was as a person.

And a lot of that truth was wrapped up in things that needed to be kept secret for the foreseeable future. Yet here he was, poised to take on the ultimate responsibility, amidst all these other things he was already responsible for.

Like the Neptunian Alliance.

Joan had called him up earlier that day and asked for a meeting, so he had found himself strolling into the park, dressed casually in slacks, a button-down, and his usual gloves, somewhere in the middle of the afternoon. She hadn't said anything about what she wanted to discuss, but she didn't need to. He was there, as promised.

It didn't take long to find her, perched on a bench, nestled into a small crook of trees, towards the outer edge of the park. He offered her a smile as he approached. "Joan, how are you?"

It seemed that she had never had anything other than bad news to tell Palodir. First, that she was pregnant, and now that she was a double agent. How highly he must think of her. Nevertheless, Joan decided that it was for the best. After all, she owed him the truth. She owed it to him to let him be prepared about it, to prepare the rest of the Alliance about it.

Her acting skills, while generally unremarkable in the Neptunian circuit, were relatively decent. After all, they kind of had to be, for her to carry on her mission for so long. So when he greeted her, surprising her out of her thoughts as usual, she was calm and put together, at least outwardly. Nothing in her movements or facial expressions gave any hint of the nervousness that she felt inside.

"I'm well," Joan replied as she stood up. "And you? How is your day going?"

Before he could open his mouth to answer, Joan reached into her bag, producing the sonogram that had been taken about a week or so before. "That's... it. Whatever you want to name it. They're almost positive it's going to be a girl, but they said it would take a few weeks to be entirely accurate." She shrugged.

There was a beat. Joan studied him closely, wondering if now was the time. She swallowed. "And... there's something else I have to tell you."

There was something mysterious about Joan. Outwardly, she was a bit icy. This was the image of her that most of their colleagues had settled on. Of course, that she was supposedly a cold, calculating sort of woman was to no one's disadvantage. Their most highly-ranked officers knew the value of decision-making devoid of emotional weight.

But Palodir saw in her something more than that. He had known few who had come by her most ostensible personality traits without a painful past; his suspicions were only reinforced by the revelation of the addictions she fought so hard against, even while with child.

In short, there was more to her than met the eye. But he had had little time to discover it, and had decided she'd probably allow the information to slip, and not unintentionally, when she was tired of being alone. Few people were able to carry out a life of solitude, unwavering, for an entire lifetime.

And then the sonogram was thrust into his hands, without another word. He was drawn out of his thoughts on the woman before him, only to be stunned now by the weight of what he was holding. Seeing the developing baby, though it was still so undeveloped as to make its gender indeterminate, somehow made everything all the more real... and immediate.

His gaze shifted back up to her, tearing itself away from the most important image he'd ever held in his hands. "Yes?" he probed, waiting for the worst. That there was something wrong with the child, that he'd damaged it - her - with alcohol or drugs.

It was obvious in the way that he held the black and white image of the organism who was no bigger than her fist that Palodir obviously loved the child. It touched Joan in a way that nothing else probably could have. Soon, the telltale pregnant woman's tears were striking her eyes, and she flicked them away almost as if she didn't notice them. The kid would be happy with him. Of that she was entirely sure, and that was enough.

At least she didn't get a whiff of anything the air that made her feel sick again. The image of Palodir's shoes caked with her vomit was too clear from the last time they'd met like this.

The topic fell back to what else she had called him here for, and Joan sighed. She shifted in her high-heeled shoes, trying to gather the courage. It wasn't really something she had ever revealed to anyone before, other than her father and the various people they had her reporting to in the White Regime, so she wasn't really sure how to start. And it wasn't as if she could exactly go all weepy and gesture to a part of her body so that he'd get the hint - she'd have to tell him in no uncertain terms. Kallie had made her promise this. She had to do this.

After a beat, Joan sat down on the bench again, her hands straightening out the folds in her dress that had cropped up from the sudden change of position. She chewed on her lip, but as the time stretched on, she knew it was now or never. If she didn't say anything, she never would, and then she would always look down on herself for this moment. She did owe it to him, after all. He was taking this child she was carrying. She owed him the truth, at least, so that he could be prepared and let the rest of the Alliance be prepared.

"I am - was - am? - no, was - no, am. It doesn't matter. I'm a double agent." She looked at him, suddenly afraid. She had no idea what he would do, specifically, but Joan had heard of the other areas of the Alliance using death as a punishment for this. Nevertheless, she braced herself, as waiting for a strike.