Enders

Enders (Epilogue)

Six Years Later...

I never expected pregnancy cravings to be anything too crazy, but there I was eating a tuna fish and peanut butter sandwich.

And it was good.

Lena just watched me eat it, looking more and more disgusted with every bite I took. I completely ignored her as I focused on whatever television show had peaked my interest that week.

Being out of work was definitely not something that I enjoyed. All I'd done since finding out I was pregnant was binge watch movies or television shows I normally wouldn't have had the time to watch if I was regularly going on missions. But because my line of work wasn't exactly the safest, I was out the moment the pregnancy test said positive.

Dex and I had hardly been married for a year at that point, and both of us were terrified by the fact that we could be parents. After everything that had happened with our parents, the last thing we wanted to do was rush into it. But when you're young and in love, sometimes accidents happen.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you're pregnant," Lena had said to me when we'd went to get a test. "With how much you two go at it, it was just a matter of time."

Her nonchalant way of saying this horrified me, but I didn't even try to deny it.

Lena was in the bathroom with me as I took the test, Dex right outside the door, pacing back and forth. He would have been in there with me too if I hadn't forced him out so he wouldn't see me peeing on a stick.

I opened the door and the three of us waited together for the results. Dex usually wasn't very restless when he was worried about something, but at that moment he could keep still, walking back and forth as his hands shook.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't even know how to feel. A baby changed everything... It changed everything for our career, and our relationship. It would not longer be about just Dex and me. We were going to have a family to worry about now...

"This is good, isn't it?" Lena was trying to hide her own excitement as she asked.

Dex and I just looked at each other, neither of us saying anything right away. This was good, wasn't it? We were married, and older than our parents when they had had us... This was a good thing, right?

I felt terrified, and it was obvious that Dex felt the same way. But even so, even though I felt so scared, there was still apart of me that was... happy. And excited. I felt completely unprepared, but ready to face it at the same time.

"This is good." Dex answered before I could. I just smiled at him.

He wrapped his arms around me and just held me for what felt like hours, dropping down to his knees so he could be face-to-face with where the baby would be. Lena made a gagging voice as he kissed my stomach.

But that had been nearly eight months before, and now there I was, as big as a whale and hardly able to even walk. I was three weeks away from my due date, and it could not have gotten there any faster.

The only problem was the fact that Dex was gone.

With me out of commission, Team VALAD had the choice to either continue taking on missions together, or to individually take missions when they came up. With Aiden's wedding coming up, he had decided that it would probably be best if everyone took individual missions when they wanted to, as these would be by choice rather than mandatory. It was a decision that shocked all of us, but the entire team agreed that taking a step back for the time being would be the best idea.

All four of my teammates did their own individual missions as I just sat at home, getting fatter and fatter. And unfortunately, that included Dex as well.