Ancient Astronauts

We Suck

"I'm a little worried, Hans." Alyonna said as they lay down in bed together. The nurses had cleaned the sheets and laid one of the babies in a crib Hans had built. Another family had lent them another one for their daughter. The family had built it in preparation for their own expected child, but that was still many weeks away.

"What are you worried about, Aly?"

"The cryo chamber. I didn't tell them about the babies. They found out when we were halfway here. Could the cryo have hurt them?"

"Dr. Umeckwe checked for that, and Dr. Halberd will be monitoring them. Neither said anything was amiss. We have two healthy babies, Aly."

Alyonna sighed contentedly. She already knew what the doctors had said...She laughed at herself a little bit.

"What is it?"

"Here comes the mommysaur," Alyonna giggled, "worrying about everything!"

Hans laughed too, but choked it back. A deep throaty laugh in a room with two finally passed out newborns was a disaster in the awning.

"Why didn't we know?" Alyonna asked.

"Know what?"

"Know they were twins."

"Cause we suck," Hans grunted.

Alyonna giggled, "No really, Hans."

"Look, back in the old world we'd go to the doctor when we knew a baby was coming. And someone would always be on our backs for check ups and such, usually our parents," Hans paused there. Both his parents had died when New York was bombed by the Eastern States. Aly's father was still alive at 113 years old. Aly spoke to him every day. They'd simply been too old to be considered for the journey.

Collecting himself he continued, "This time round we had a dedicated obstetrician, granted an inexperienced one. Somehow, in all the mess of setting up a colony and me being out cold and fighting James Martin and lizard men of all things and negotiating a peace with Saldarix..."

"We never asked," Alyonna bopped her hand against her forehead, "The single most important thing we may ever do in our lives, and we fucking forgot to ask for a bloody ultrasound."

"Unbelievable," Hans agreed, sliding an arm under her head.

"We really do suck," Alyonna shoved her mouth into Hans' bicep to stifle another giggle.

"It wouldn't have mattered anyway," Hans sighed.

"Why's that?"

"Turns out some genius remembered to give us obstetricians and ultrasound machines. But the machines were disassembled into component parts for safe transport, just like everything else. What they forgot to send us was someone with intimate knowledge of how to build them. The engineers knew, but they had better things to worry about than ultrasound machines that wouldn't be put to use for another fifty of our weeks or so. In fact, the first one just got up and running yesterday."

"You know, I did ask Peter to check for twins, because I didn't remember anyone on Earth being quite that round...or hungry while pregnant. He used his hands, but didn't find anything."

"Newb," Hans mumbled sleepily.

"Wait, don't sleep yet!"

"What?"

"You know how we just had this whole conversation about how much we suck as parents?"

"Yeah," Hans grunted dozing off.

"We haven't named them yet."

Hans' eyes flicked wide open. This time he did give a big throaty laugh. Luckily, true to their nature, the babies slept through the whole thing.

"Well?" Alyonna said.

"You said you were having a boy. I believed you. We've already got his name picked out."

"Roland," Alyonna said in a voice full of love.

"But a girl is totally unexpected. Granted we'll never tell her that."

"Hmm," Alyonna sighed.

"You pick the name for her. I got the boy, you got the girl, just don't pick anything my great grandmother would've heard five thousand times in her life, and certainly nothing Richardsonian."

Alyonna let out a spitting little laugh, "Pff a huha." Hans quickly covered her mouth.

Silence. They both sighed with relief.

"Any other addendums, criteria, restrictions, or caveats, Mr. Governor?"

"None."

Alyonna thought about it for a long time then said, "Rowan."

"Like Robin Hood's daughter?" Hans asked, chuckling softly. He couldn't really see the similarity between him and the mythical Robin of Locksley. He figured Alyonna just liked the movie.

"Mhmm," Alyonna sighed, snuggling up to Hans and savoring the unburdened movement of her body.

"Rowan it is," Hans whispered, brushing a lock of hair out of Alyonna's eyes and kissing her forehead.