To put it simply, this wasn’t happening. At least, whatever Asher seemed to think was happening, certainly was not possible. Ash himself had confirmed this one of the few times she woke up on a triage bed in the field after ash had operated on her, claiming there was no chance her body could bare a child after the blast she’d been in. It had meant her mood took a dark turn for a while, and she somehow more reckless than before, but there had been a silent knowledge of why among her team, a feeling none of them could truly understand.. And she’d worked through it eventually. In truth, she never pictured herself as a mother, especially with the things she did overseas, the memories of what she had been ordered to do. In her mind, it was a settled matter.
So, whatever was happening, whatever Ash thought was happening, simply could not be. No, the soldier had accepted the consequences of her actions, of running into a blast to save a life, and she stood by it. At the idea that this could be happening, ava felt her heart rate quicken and thoughts race. After accepting the loss so firmly before, the feelings of emptiness and failure began cropping up again– with a fresh dose of confusion thrown into the mix.
She didn’t mean to glare quite so much, but picking her head up from a toilet for the fourth day in a row could only hold so much affection, especially at his suggestion. She knew what he was thinking. Panic flared in her eyes at it, but instead of any helpful response, she simply shakes her head, “it’s a new allergy or something, because we both know I blew myself to hell and back in Marjah so whatever you’re thinking, isn’t happening.” She closes her eyes, presses her palms to her closed lids, and leans back into his touch, “it just can’t be,” but even as she said that, she thinks of all the other injuries she’s come back from, right as rain. This had all been very internal, and it’s not like they had a view of her insides in the months and years after the incident. She knew she was made to survive, her body made to thrive, and it had never terrified her so much as it did in this moment. After a long moment of silence, eyes still buried in her hands, she asks in a small voice that’s clearly showing her fear, a voice she hates showing but the growing blob of emotions in her chest made impossible to hide, “can it?”
frankly there was no way asher dent was father material, he had come close once, a life time ago and all that had done was managed to tare him inside out. it had taken him a long time to feel okay again, rationalising it with the fact that he really wasn’t in the place to raise a child and the only he would have been doing was continuing harvey’s cycle of being a shitty father. he was a ptsd having, borderline alcoholic, ex gang member. no sane person would want a child to be around that. still there’s a child’s name tattooed along his collarbone, a permanent reminder that he carried them with me no matter where he went and he knew even then that if what they were both trying so hard to ignore proved to be true he knew already that he was going to be there every single moment. he had to be.
still looking at ava, his chest hurt. he himself had been the one to give her news that had hurt her more than she had been willing to admit and if he was wrong about this then all he was doing was opening up the wound twice. still he had never known a body to heal like ava’s. so maybe that had something to do with it. such a thing happening would be a miracle, but not impossible given what had come before.
he’d like to think that given the years that the two of them have spent at each other’s presence that he would have been immune to looks like that, but it still cuts him to his cure. makes him want to nothing but wrap her up in his arms and take away whatever was hurting her, but something told her this was not about to be so easy to fix. “we both know allergies don’t present themselves like that,” his voice is colder, colder than he’d like. a clear sign of the discomfort he was feeling. still he can hold onto, be something strong for her while he presses a kiss to her temple. pushing whatever he was feeling with aside to be dealt with later. “i don’t know,” he replied. “i don’t know. you’ve come back from other stuff i-” he stopped himself there. rambling wasn’t going to help anything. ava was certainly stressed enough as it was. “i brought a test, yesterday after my shift,” he choked out, like it was some ugly secret, some betrayl of her trust. “that’s how we know for certain,”
