Pregnancy

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"...Sorrow waited, sorrow won..."
~ "Sorrow", The National

... ...

The boys were waiting worriedly in the hallway.

"Are you alright, Professor?" Hank asked nervously. "Was Cerebro—"

Charlotte shook her head and smiled proudly. "No, Cerebro worked beautifully, Hank. I could reach all over the world, literally. Everywhere. It was a dizzying experience; that's all. A little overwhelming. I will need practice to get used to it."

"Alright, Professor." Alex said reluctantly. "Maybe you should rest for a bit. You're looking kinda pale."

Charlotte was reluctant. "Are you sure? We were going to work on your aim on moving targets..."

Sean shrugged. "I'll help him, Prof. You take a break—we'll be back in before dinner." He said and they rushed off.

Charlotte then turned to Hank. "Hank, can I speak with you in my study? It is a...sensitive matter."

"Of course." Hank replied, slightly baffled, but wheeled her into the privacy of her study. (Both ignored the still-abandoned chess game in one corner of the room.) "What is it?"

Charlotte sucked in a breath. "I'm pregnant."

Emotions waged war within Hank for control for a long minute of tense silence. Disbelief, anger, awe, fear, hope...

Finally Hank sighed. "I don't need to ask about the father, do I?" He asked with reasonable calm.

Charlotte winced. "I...no." She replied softly, eyes cast downward in sad recollections.

Hank nodded to himself. "And I assume you are keeping it." His tone was certain and asked for no confirmation but she gave it anyway.

"Yes, I...I will." Charlotte replied.

"How far along?" Hank asked, looking at her flat stomach curiously. "How did you know?"

Charlotte laid a small hand over the approximate area that the fetus was. "Little more than two months. It was...it was in the period that we were recruiting. I never even suspected it until I tested Cerebro. I was focusing on the room itself and realized I felt four minds instead of three that I realized."

Hank studied Charlotte for a long moment. "Are you going to tell him?" His voice was gently soft like his fur.

At this, Charlotte bit her lip. "I don't—I don't know. What would I say? 'I know you betrayed us and we're now enemies, but I'm pregnant with your child, Erik'?"

...

Charlotte had always adored children and had planned on having a couple of her own, but she had forced herself to let go of that idea after waking up in a hospital, paralyzed, after Cuba. She had been lucky with the bullet—far luckier than anyone had initially assumed. Charlotte was unsure of how the fetus was untouched by the surgery, blood loss, and paralysis at all and still alive and well, but she was grateful. Perhaps, her mind wondered, mutation had something to do with the fetus's resilience. After all, not all mutations presented themselves during puberty of high-stress situations. Her own had been since she was a toddler at least and Raven was naturally blue.

Pregnancy with paralysis was an uncommon thing, admittedly, but she was not the first to do it.

Charlotte knew how he or she had been conceived.

When they had been out searching for and recruiting mutants, there had been a night at the hotel when Charlotte had inquired if Erik played chess and he had eagerly accepted the invitation. Erik had produced a bottle of scotch and...

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