ladyofshadow

Fox sat in the yard at the back of the building, sitting on a crate smoking a cigarette. A mug of coffee sat untouched beside him, long ago gone cold. A hundred worries circulated through his mind.

“Mind if I join you?” a voice said. Fox looked up and gave a weak smile when he saw that it was Snow.

He nodded and pulled up another crate. “Sure.”

Snow sat down and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Tyler said we’re leaving soon,” he said.

Fox nodded again. He sensed Snow’s anxiety. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “We’re not going far.”

“Fox, I need to… “ he paused. “Can I have one of your cigs? I left mine inside.”

Fox passed him a cigarette and his lighter.  “I get a sense that it’s not the evacuation you want to talk about.”

Snow sighed and nodded. “I… I need to tell you about Ardwick. I will understand if you don’t want anything more to do with me. If this makes you hate me, please be honest and say so.”

He took a deep breath and told Fox everything that happened, including how he’d felt about killing the human.  He didn’t mention the conversations he’d had with Becky and Morgan.  When he finished, tears were running down his cheeks.

Fox looked at him, a sorrowful expression on his face and tears in his eyes too. “Oh, Snow!” He leaned forward and threw his arms around Snow’s shoulders.  “No, I don’t hate you, and that’s the honest truth,” he said. “I’ve been so worried that you were going to tell me that you were leaving me, and I’ve been dreading it for the last three days.”

Snow pulled back with a frown. “You’re not upset because I killed someone? Because I enjoyed it?”

“Snow, you idiot. It was self-defence and you’ve been worrying about it ever since. That’s not the characteristics of someone who likes killing for fun. If you hadn’t killed him, he’d have killed you and that would have made me really upset.”  He shrugged. “Feeling good about it was probably just relief and the heightened stress of the situation.”

Snow hugged him again.  They stayed like that for several minutes, in each other’s arms, then they began kissing. Gentle at first, until Fox whispered, “I want you, Snow. I want you now, and for ever.”

Snow smiled a little. “For ever’s a long time,” he said back.

“I know. Let’s go inside.”

They headed back inside and went upstairs. It was quiet up there, the middle of the day, and they fell onto the nearest mattress, kissing passionately and pulling off each other’s clothes in their urgency. Fox lay back, inviting Snow inside him, and their lovemaking was urgent, ecstatic, full of passion and fire.

“For ever,” Fox repeated as they lay panting and sweating in each other’s arms as the fire began to dwindle. He remembered the dream he’d had of himself and Snow some time in the future, with a little red-haired child, and Snow’s comment that they had six, and the memory of that dream made him smile. He felt sure that it was something prophetic, something that would inevitably be true.

A warm feeling settled in his lower abdomen and he placed his hand there. His right arm wrapped around Snow’s shoulders and he closed his eyes, drifting into sleep.

The following morning, Fox awoke late. He’d dreamed of that child again, and now he knew that the child’s name was Willow. He rolled over, intending to tell Snow about it, but Snow wasn’t there. The only person remaining in the room was Louise, who sat on her mattress putting braids into her hair.

“Where’s Snow?” Fox asked.

Louise grinned. “He got up about three hours ago.”

Fox sat bold upright, and immediately regretted it as a wave of nausea came over him. He frowned. “What time is it?”

“About ten,” Louise replied.

“Damn, I should… oh shit,”  Fox slapped his hand over his mouth, no longer able to resist the urge to throw up. He scrambled to his feet, dashed into the bathroom and dropped to his knees in front of the toilet, puking until his stomach was empty.

Louise hovered over him, an anxious expression on her face. “Are you okay?”

Fox sighed, stood up and rinsed his mouth at the sink. “I thought Fae weren’t supposed to get sick,” he said.

 “We’re not. Go talk to Morgan.”

Fox nodded and got dressed, headed downstairs. He was too late for breakfast but didn’t feel like eating anyway. Everyone else was getting ready for moving out, packing the contents of the art studios into boxes and crates, carrying them out to the van.  Snow was there too, with Wallace and the Bruce close by, playing tug-of-war with an old paint-stained rag.

Snow looked at Fox and frowned. “You look pale,” he said. “Are you okay?”

Fox shook his head. “Just threw up,” he relied. “Got an upset stomach, must have eaten something yesterday that doesn’t agree with me.”

Snow stared at him in shock. “Shee don’t get sick,” he said. He stopped what he was doing and took hold of Fox’s arm, leading him towards the stairs. “Come on, you need to see Morgan.”

“It’s just a minor stomach bug, I’ll be fine,” Fox protested. But Snow would not take a refusal and marched Fox upstairs to Jay’s room, where Morgan and Sparrow were sitting with a still-unconscious Jay.

“Fox is sick,” Snow blurted out.

Morgan looked at him with a frown. “What’s wrong, Fox? What happened?”

Fox shrugged. “I threw up this morning, and now everyone thinks I’m dying.” Fox said. “It’s no big deal, I feel much better already.”

“Take your shirt off,” Morgan said. Fox did so and Morgan placed her hand on Fox’s abdomen. Over his stomach to begin with, and then lower. After a few moments she began to chuckle. “Let me guess,” she said. “Last night, you had some really mind-blowing sex, and afterwards, you were thinking about babies.”

Fox’s jaw dropped and he exchanged a glance with Snow. “Yesterday afternoon… and… yes.”

Snow groaned. “Oh, fuck,” he said.

“What?” Fox said. “What’s happening?”

Morgan smiled at him. “Congratulations, Fox,” she said. “You’re going to be a mother.”