Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Chapter 10: burying the lede

Harper slept for the rest of the morning, waking with a groan when his alarm went off. He knew that Cameron would let him sleep, but he wanted to talk to her about the transfer process. He had attempted it with Cameron's old tablet, and had been distracted by the various pictures she had taken. Younger Cameron had smiled more than his Cameron did. She had long blonde hair that had been pulled back into intricate braids and loops and she had seemed to have friends, real friends that she cared about. He wanted Cameron to reconnect with these people, if at all possible. He wondered if they had died in the crash, and if that was why Cameron was the way she was today. Harper was a little afraid to ask.

So he started lunch for her, pulling out the leftover zucchini to add to noodles from lunch before. He wasn't a very creative cook, but neither he nor Cameron cared very much for cooking. Cameron was home a short while later.

"You're going to gain all that weight back if you keep cooking like this," she teased.

"Babe," he complained. "I'm not fat."

"No, you're not," she conceded. "You are sensitive about it though. Makes it easy to tease you."

"I wish you wouldn't," he grumbled. "How was work?"

"Libba and Matisse wanted to go to the Canary and hunt for a transmitter," she said. "She was so insistent this morning, but now I think that it was a bad idea. If the earthstorm gets here early then they could be stuck out there. How was your morning?"

"I slept through most of it," he replied. "The blueprint is ready whenever Lincoln comes over. I just wish we could invite him over and just kill him then instead of this whole subterfuge."

"If it was so simple," Cameron agreed. "Oh, I had a meeting with Madison today. She confirmed I'm pregnant. I have a follow up next week."

Harper whirled around, throwing sauce everywhere. He got some on Cameron, who reached over to grab a towel, dabbing at her shirt.

"What?" he demanded. "Cameron! Let's try this again. I'm going to ask how your day went and you're going to start with you're pregnant! Did we agree to have a child? I feel like I would have remembered that conversation. Had I been drinking?"

"I'm the one carrying it," she told him calmly. "And we've slept together, I would assume that meant you were all right with having children."

"S...someday," he sputtered. "In the future. Of five years from now. And..."

"Lunch is about to burn," she noted.

Harper glanced to the stovetop and turned the burner off. He could worry about food in a moment.

"Babe, you're doing that thing where you make assumptions about my feelings and forget to care I might thinking differently," he told her. "Why didn't we talk about this?"

Cameron shrugged. "Those from the Aeneid don't trust me because I'm from the Canary. Those from the Canary don't trust me because I'm partners with you, from the Aeneid. I want a child who fits neither category and forces people to treat me, treat us differently. I'm tired of congress being gridlocked."

"You got pregnant..." Harper said slowly; "to get congress to vote?"

Cameron nodded. "Exactly."

He stared at her for a long moment, uncertain how to cross this large divide in belief.

"I'm not asking for your blessing," she continued. "I know we're not 'in love'. It'll be my child, my responsibility."

"Our child," Harper insisted, finally gathering his wits about him. "You promised. We are in this together. If you think that we need a child, then I support you. I wish we would have talked about this before, because I'm a little hurt you didn't ask, but if you're having a baby, then we're having a baby."

She smiled. "Thank you."

"And don't give me this venting nonsense about us not being in love," he scoffed. "You clearly love me enough to sleep with me. Unless you've cheated on me."

He mock gasped. Cameron laughed.

"I would if I could only find the time," she teased.

"What are we going to do about the bedroom?" Harper asked. "He'll need a place to sleep eventually."

"Why is it the moment you've decided it's our child, it's a boy?" she countered, ignoring the question. "We could have a girl."

"Bedroom?" he repeated.

"We'll move the tekcom into our bedroom to clear that one out," she said. "Which we won't have to worry about for years, frankly. A toddler doesn't need their own room. Oh, and I want to make sure Dashiell finds out at our dinner today. People have been waiting for me to get pregnant."

Harper opened his mouth but couldn't think of the right words to say. He wanted to be excited, but he felt a little cut out of the conversation. Cameron had to have removed her birth control without telling him and decided all of this over a cycle ago. Being partners with Cameron was like being partners with a spaceship hurtling through the cosmos.

"Can I tell the others?" Harper inquired finally. "Or do you want to?"

"Non, you can tell anyone you like," she shrugged. "It's not like the baby is vanishing any time soon. In six cycles you'll be a father."

"Oh, don't remind me," he grumbled. 

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This is one of my favorite sections to write. Cameron is...single minded to say the least. And poor Harper, definitely wasn't prepared, was he? Thanks for reading!

A bit of a short chapter. I might post one on Saturday to make up for it. I have been working on tweaked covers, you may have noticed. It's probably not the final design, but I'm trying things out. I get set on one idea and it takes me a while to fully realize it. Also Wattpad does weird things to the color schemes that I have.