David Weber - At All Costs

Emily looked at him. Then her eyes darted to Honor, opening very wide, and Honor nodded slowly.

"I'm pregnant, Emily," she said quietly. "Hamish and I never thought this was going to happen. Unfortunately, it has. And because it has, we-all three of us, not just Hamish and I-have to decide what we're going to do about it."

"Pregnant?" Emily repeated, and the sudden torrent of her emotions surged over Honor like an avalanche. "You're pregnant!"

"Yes." Honor crossed to Emily and sank to her knees, facing the older woman, and Nimitz and Samantha crooned softly, comfortingly. She started to say something more, then stopped, forcing herself to wait while Emily fought her way through her own emotional tumult.

"My God," Emily said after a moment. "Pregnant." She shook her head. "Somehow, this is one possibility that never occurred to me." Her voice quivered, and her working hand tightened on Hamish's left hand as she blinked hard. "How... how far along are you?"

"Only a few weeks," Honor said quietly. "And I'm third-generation prolong, so we're looking at a pregnancy almost eleven months long. Or we would be, at least, if I had the option of carrying the child to term normally."

"Oh, God." Emily tugged her hand out of Hamish's grasp and reached out to Honor. "Oh, no." She shook her head, green eyes welling with tears. "Honor, if something happens to you now-!"

"I'd like to say nothing will," Honor said gently, taking Emily's hand and pressing it to her own cheek as the confusion of Emily's initial response focused itself down into a single, overriding emotion. Concern. Concern not over the consequences of the pregnancy for her, or even for the three of them, but for Honor's safety, redoubled and concentrated by the fact of her pregnancy.

"I'd like to say nothing will," Honor repeated, "but I can't, because it could. A lot of people are going to be hurt or killed before this war is over, Emily. And a lot of babies are going to be born because of people's fears of what may happen to them, or to the people they love. All of which mixes into the concern Hamish and I feel over how you may feel about this."

The last sentence came out as a question, and Emily shook her head.

"I don't know how I feel about it," she said with an honesty which was almost physically painful for Honor. "I'd like to say that all I feel is happy for you-and for Hamish. But I'm only human." Her lower lip quivered ever so slightly. "Knowing you can give Hamish the physical intimacy I can't hurts badly enough sometimes all by itself, Honor. I don't blame you for it; I don't blame Hamish for it. I don't even blame God for it, very much, anymore. But it does hurt, and I'd be lying if I told you it didn't."

A tear trickled down Honor's cheek as she tasted Emily's determination to be totally candid, not just with Honor and Hamish, but with herself. Perhaps to be totally candid with herself for the very first time.

"I look at you, Honor," she said, green eyes glistening, "and I remember. I remember what it was like to have two legs that worked. To be able to stand on my own. To be able to move. To be able to feel anything-anything at all-below my shoulders. To be able to breathe by myself."

She looked away and drew a deep, shuddering breath.

"Did Hamish ever tell you just how bad the damage was, Honor?" she asked.

"We've discussed it... some," Honor said with an odd serenity, returning candor for candor, and reached out to wipe a tear from Emily's cheek with her thumb. "Not in great detail."

"It wasn't just my spine that was smashed in that accident," Emily said, still looking away from Honor. "They repaired everything they could, but there was an enormous amount of damage that couldn't be fixed. Or that there was no point in fixing, anyway, because I haven't felt anything except my right hand-anything at all, Honor-below my shoulders in sixty T-years. Nothing."

She looked back at Honor again.

"I can't survive outside this chair. Can't even breathe on my own. And there you are. So healthy, so fit. And so beautiful, though I doubt you actually realize it. Everything I once was, you are, and, oh, God, Honor, there are times I resent it so. When it hurts so much."

She stopped for a moment, blinking, then smiled tremulously.

"But you aren't me. You're someone else entirely. A rather wonderful someone else, actually. When I first realized-when you first told me-how you and Hamish truly felt about one another, it was hard. I realized, intellectually, at least, that it wasn't your fault, and I recognized how dreadfully the two of you had hurt yourselves in order to avoid hurting me. And because of that, and because of the political consequences if the world had believed the Opposition's smear campaign, I made the decision-the intellectual decision-to accept what couldn't be changed and try to minimize the consequences.

"It was only later, when I'd come to truly know you, that I realized emotionally, deep down inside, that you truly are a part of Hamish, and so a part of me, as well. But that still doesn't make you me. And the hurt I still feel sometimes when I look at you standing beside Hamish, where I used to be able to stand, or think about you in his bed, where I used to be, is so much less important than who you are and what you mean to Hamish... and to me.

"And now this." She shook her head. "Now, whether you meant to or not, you've moved still further beyond me. Moved to do something else I used to be able to see myself doing. A baby, Honor." She blinked again. "You're going to have a baby-Hamish's baby. And that hurts, hurts so terribly... and feels so wonderful."

A glow of joy flowed out of her, like sunlight through the chinks between thunderheads. It wasn't really happiness-not yet. There was too much jagged-edged hurt and a lingering resentment which knew it was both unreasonable and irrational. But it was joy, and within it Honor sensed the capacity to become happiness.

"Hamish and I have discussed this," Honor told her, meeting her gaze steadily. "We both want the child. But even more, we want to avoid hurting or distressing you. Among the philanthropies Willard is overseeing for me from Grayson I've got at least three orphanages and two adoption affiliates, one on Grayson, and one here in the Star Kingdom. We can place this child for adoption, Emily. We can guarantee that she-or he-will have loving, supportive parents."

"No, you can't," Emily said. "Can't place it for adoption, I mean. I know you could find loving parents. But I couldn't ask you to give up your child. And if something does happen to you, I couldn't ask Hamish to give up the only part of you that he-we-could keep."

"So," Honor paused and drew a deep breath. "So you want us to keep the baby?"

"Of course I do!" Emily looked at her. "I'm not saying I don't have mixed feelings, because I do. You know that, if anyone does. But mixed feelings can get themselves unmixed, and even if they couldn't, how could I possibly ask you to give up your child just to spare my feelings?

Honor closed her eyes, pressing Emily's hand more firmly against her cheek, and, to her surprise, Emily chuckled.

"Of course," she went on, her voice and the glow of her emotions both much closer to normal, "now that I've gotten past my initial surprise, I can see where this could pose a few problems. I don't suppose the two of you are hoping I can help solve them... again?"

"Actually," Honor said, raising her head and smiling a bit mistily at Emily, "that's exactly what we're hoping."

"All right, let's look at the problem and our options for dealing with it," Emily said much later that evening, after the supper dishes had been cleared away and the three humans and two treecats were alone once more. She'd regained most of her emotional balance, and Honor treasured the serenity flowing from her.