"Hey kids", I said, walking over to Ash, Blue Eyes, Holly and Mia. They all stopped what they were doing and turned to greet me. They looked to be in some sort of argument before I'd interrupted.
"What's up?", I asked, noticing the frustration on all their faces.
"Blue and Ash think because they're boys that they're stronger than us. And they won't even fight us to prove them wrong", Mia explained, looking very annoyed.
"We won't fight girls", Ash signed, shaking his head.
"Father said to never lay a hand on a female", Blue signed.
"Your dad needs to let loose, kid", I said grinning.
"You should've seen the way we fought as kids. We fought once when we woke up, and then once before bed. Like clockwork. Sure, under different circumstances it's not right to hit people, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of play fighting."
Sure, Caesar did usually win them fights. But that was besides the point.
I watched as both Holly and Mia crossed their arms and turned to face the boys, sizing them up with their eyes. The boys began to look slightly uncomfortable.
"Alright. How about you fight me instead?", I suggested, all four pairs of eyes snapping towards me. I wasn't too keen on Mia and Holly getting hurt anyways, even though I knew they were more than capable of taking care of themselves.
"Don't worry. I'll go easy on you both", I smirked. They shook their heads immediately.
"Come on. Think of it as training. If I can take your dad, I can definitely take you both. I'm not even fully human either", I said, crouching slightly and putting my hands up in a defensive position.
"Ivy!", someone yelled from behind me. I sighed, closing my eyes and standing straight again. I opened my eyes and turned around with a smile on my face.
"Yes?", I said innocently.
"What are you doing?", Caeser signed, shaking his head at me in disappointment.
"Just a bit of training with the kids", I said, shrugging my shoulders. He sighed, looking down at my stomach and then back up at me.
"You should be taking it easy, Ivy", he signed.
Oh yeah. I was pregnant. How could I forget.
"I'm fine, C. Don't worry about it", I smiled, turning back around and starting to get back into fighting position.
A hand lay on my shoulder, forcing me to turn around. He gave me a pointed look.
"Alright. How about an old fashioned race instead?", I suggested, trying to hide my smug smile.
"I won every race we had all those years back C. You think you can win or are you ready to get your ass kicked by a girl again?", I grinned.
I heard the young apes start hooting, Mia and Holly encouraging me. Caesar shook his head, a faint smile on his lips.
"How about you and your girls, and me and my boys?", he suggested. I nodded, my smile getting bigger.
"First one to the road wins. Winners get a free ride back", I stated, stretching my limbs a bit.
"This is going to be easy", Blue signed, looking pretty confident. Ash agreed with him.
"You don't know what you're in for boys", Holly signed, winking at Blue. I watched as he shied away, and my mouth dropped in shock. Looks like me and Holly are in need of a bit of a talk.
"Ready?", Caesar asked, standing next to me. Blue Eyes and Ash joined him on his side, and Holly and Mia on mine.
"Set!", I grinned, crouching down and waiting.
"Go!"
"You seem tired, C", I said, trying not to laugh. I readjusted myself on his back as he carried me back through the woods. He grunted in response.
I looked across at Holly as she was being carried on the back of a defeated Blue Eyes. He seemed pretty upset when we first won, but seemed suspiciously happier when he realised he'd be carrying Holly back to camp. I'm beginning to see a trend here. And I'm not ecstatic about it either.
I looked to my left and saw Mia on the back of a very annoyed Ash. She turned and saw I was watching.
"Woooo!", she yelled, throwing her hands up in the air. I laughed, shaking my head.
As we got closer to camp, I jumped off Caesar's back and decided to walk beside him instead. I realised he had a reputation to uphold, and me being carried on his back didn't exactly help. I knew he wouldn't have said anything, but he didn't have to.
"You've gotten faster", Caesar signed, seeming impressed.
"So have you", I replied honestly. It was a pretty close race.
"Your girls. They're a lot faster than my boys", he stated. I nodded.
"Running is all the girls have known. We've been running since all this started. This is probably the longest we've stayed at one place", I admitted.
"I want you to live here. You, Jace, and the girls", he signed. I sighed, knowing this was coming.
"I can't. We don't really fit-"
"It's...your...home. You are...family", he said, turning to look at me.
"I want you to stay. Raise your baby here with my own children", he signed, putting a hand on my stomach. I put my hands on his, pulling it away to hold his hand in both of my own. It was so big compared to when I last saw him. He was so much bigger than I last saw him.
"You've grown so much Caesar", I whispered, holding my hand against his face. Tears sprung up in my eyes.
"Why..are you..crying", he spoke, wiping my tears.
"I missed you", I whispered.
Caesar pulled me in for a hug. I buried my face into his fur and cried.
"I thought I lost you forever", I cried.
"So did...I", he whispered, holding me tighter. We stood like that for a few more minutes before I pulled away, wiping my tears.
"Stay", he asked, looking me in the eyes. I smiled, nodding.
"Okay", I whispered, taking a hold of his hand again. We began to walk back to the camp, realising the kids had gone on without us. It had started to get dark. We talked between ourselves about before and after the outbreak. We had too much to catch up on, it seemed.
"I'm going to go check up on Jace", I told Caesar as we returned to the camp. He nodded.
"Meeting is in an hour", he signed, smiling one last time before walking off towards his own home.
I walked back to our tent, smiling to myself as I thought over the events of today.
"Good day?"
"Great", I grinned, sitting down next to Jace on the bed.
I looked at Jace and he looked at me and smiled, pulling me to his side. I lay my head on his shoulder and wrapped my arms around his waist as he did the same and lay his own head on top of mine.
It had been a few days since Jace got shot, and he was doing surprisingly well. He seemed to be in a lot less pain and could walk around with relative ease. I could actually hug him and not feel guilty about hurting him at the same time.
"Are you asleep?", Jace chuckled.
"Almost", I smiled, shuffling in closer to him and closing my eyes.
"How can you be tired already, Ivy. You only woke up like 3 hours ago", he laughed.
"Shush", I silenced him. Or at least tried to.
"Shush? Don't shush me, woman", he grinned, moving his hands and starting to tickle me.
"Jace. No!", I warned, giggling and trying to pull away. He grip tightened and he straddled me, continuing to tickle me relentlessly. I laughed, trying to get him to stop.
"Jace! Stop! Please", I giggled. He laughed, stopping and leaning down to kiss me on the nose.
"Hey! What was that supposed to be", I complained, grabbing his head and pulling his head in for an actual kiss.
He smiled down at me, making me all nervous and giddy.
Damn butterflies.
"I have to tell you something", I mumbled, looking away. Jace noticed the change in tone, readjusting himself next to me. He didn't say anything, waiting patiently.
I looked into his eyes, seeing a worried look in his eyes. I took a deep breath, my palms now unusually sweaty.
"I'm pregnant", I whispered. I watched as his eyes widened.
"...what?", he asked, tears forming in his eyes. He had a small smile on his lips.
"I'm having your baby, Jace", I said.
"My baby...", he whispered.
"Our..baby", he said, a smile breaking out on his face.
"You're pregnant!", he yelled, grinning from ear to ear. I nodded, smiling widely. The tears in his eyes began to fall now, and he wiped them with the back of his hand.
"Don't cry", I laughed, my own tears springing up in my eyes at the sight of my man crying.
He looked down at my stomach and lifted my shirt slowly. He looked back up at me as if to ask permission if he could touch it. I rolled my eyes at him.
"It's your kid too, moron", I said, sitting up now. I grabbed one of his hands in my own and held it against my stomach. It seemed that set him off once again, tears welling in his eyes.
"You're amazing, Ivy", he whispered, letting go of my stomach to hold my face.
"You're amazing, and I love you so goddamn much", he whispered, kissing me. I held his head in my own hands, kissing him back.
"I love you too", I smiled, kissing him once more. We sat with each other for a while, until I had to leave for the meeting.
"Get some rest. I'll see you in a bit", I said to Jace, getting up to leave. He pulled me back to kiss me on the cheek before letting me go. I had a smile on my face as I left the tent, my mood better than ever.
I met up with Caesar as I walked to the meeting, the smile still on my face.
"You told him", he signed. I nodded happily, and Caeser smiled back.
"I'm happy for you both. You'll make perfect parents", he signed.
"Thanks C. I hope so", I said, smiling at him.
10 minutes later and the meeting had started to become pretty heated as we began to talk about the other humans that shot Ash and Jace, and what was to be done about them.
"Must attack them now! Before they attack us!", Koba signed angrily. I shook my head, disagreeing.
"We dont know how many they are, how many guns they have, or why they came up here?", Maurice.
"I've known of that group for a while. They've got around 150 people, but only about a third of that can fight. Saying that, I don't know about the firepower. Or if they're in contact with others", I told them.
"They shot your son, Rocket. They shot Jace, Ivy. Don't you want to fight?", Koba huffed in frustration. He seemed to want a very radical response to all of this. I mean, I wouldn't mind killing the guy who shot Jace either, but I don't see the humans taking that very well. It would end in too much bloodshed on both sides.
"I follow Caesar", Rocket signed, loyal to his leader. They all looked to me for my response.
"I follow him too", I said, looking to Caesar. He nodded in agreement.
"Koba's right", Blue Eyes spoke up. "They almost killed you, Ash!"
This seemed to get Caeser annoyed as he began to roll his eyes and huff. Everyone began shouting over each other, only riling him up more.
"No!", Caeser yelled, silencing everyone.
"If we go to war, we could lose all we've built...", he signs, looking around at every single one of us slowly.
"Home", he said, looking at Rocket.
"Family", he said, looking at Blue and me.
"Future", he said, looking at Koba.
At that, Caesar rose up from his seat, with everyone bowing their heads in respect to their leader.
"I will decide by morning", he signed, before walking off towards his home. I watched as Koba stood up and followed him, stopping him to talk. I looked away, seeing that it had gotten dark and wanting to get back to Jace.
I decided to see the girls before I went to my own tent. We talked for a bit, catching up on things, telling them I was pregnant.
There was a lot of screaming. Enough screaming to have Blue Eyes and a few others rush over to see we weren't being murdered.
Once I was satisfied that both of them were happy and well, I began heading home.
However, Blue stopped me on my way, telling me Caesar wanted to see me and Jace before we went to sleep. And so here we were, walking up to his house, side by side and hand in hand.
"Knock knock", I spoke up, watching as Caesar poked his head out from a room and beckoned us over.
"Hey", I said to him, sitting down on one of the stools in the room.
"Hey Caesar", Jace said, greeted him with one of them man hugs before sitting down next to me.
"I wanted to let family know what I was planning to do tomorrow before I told the others", Caesar began. I nodded, staying silent to let him carry on.
"I want to show the humans our power. I want to scare them enough that they won't dare to come back. They will see how powerful we are, and leave us alone", he explained.
"How are you going to do that?", I asked.
"Every ape, male and female. Leaving out the mothers and children. We will arm ourselves and show up at the gates to their sanctuary. We will show power, but nothing else. A warning they can't ignore", he stated.
"I'm coming", I told him.
"No", both Caesar and Jace said in unison. I narrowed my eyes.
"Yes."
"No, Ivy", Jace retorted, gesturing towards my stomach.
"I'm pregnant, Jace. Not crippled", I said, rolling my eyes. He sighed, knowing I wasn't going to change my mind.
"If she's going, I'm going too", he told Caesar.
"What? No. You were shot. You are crippled", I said, making him sigh in frustration.
"I am not crippled. I am coming", he said, looking at Caesar.
"You can...both come. You will be...on horses. There will...be no...fighting tomorrow", he spoke calmly, standing up from his seat.
"Great", I mumbled, standing up from my seat. Jace did the same.
"How is Cornelia?", Jace asked. Caesar sighed, shaking his head. He lifted his hand, signalling for us to follow.
We walked into their bedroom, my eyes immediately falling onto Cornelia. She was asleep.
"She looks so weak", Jace whispered to me. I nodded, agreeing with him.
"I wish I could help", I told Caesar. He smiled sadly, walking towards the baby cot. He picked up his baby and walked towards us and handed him to me.
"Woah", I said, freezing where I stood. I held him in my hands awkwardly, looking to Jace for help. He looked just as awkward and he wasn't even holding him.
"Uhmm...Caesar", I said nervously.
"Congratulations on the new baby. This is a bit of practice for you both", he grinned, signing. Jace laughed a bit, thanking him.
"He knew already?", Jace asked me.
"He was here when I found out. Cornelia's doctors told me", I told him truthfully. I didn't want him to think I told Caesar before him.
I handed the baby to Jace who seemed to be much more relaxed with the baby than I was. I sat down on a stool and lay my head back against the wall, my eyes now drooping as I yawned.
"What's his name?", Jace asked Caesar, not taking his eyes off the baby. I couldn't help but feel some kind of way as I watched Jace with the baby in his arms. He was going to be an amazing dad, I thought, as I put my hands on my stomach.
"Cornelius", he signed. Taking a seat on his bed now.
"Mummy's boy", he chuckled, walking over to the baby cot and putting him back down.
"You need to start thinking of names too", Cornelia signed, chuckling as she woke up from her nap.
"How are you feeling Cornelia?", I asked her.
"Much better", she lied, a smile on her face. I smiled back, not understanding how she could be so positive in the state she was in. I could see it in her eyes. She was so weak.
"We'll let you rest", Jace spoke up, walking towards me. I looked up at him, yawning.
"You can stay for a bit", she signed.
"I think if we stay another minute, Ivy will have passed out on your floor", Jace laughed, helping me up from the stool. I slapped his chest, smiling tiredly.
"Goodnight", I said, smiling waving at them both as we walked out of their home. A few minutes later we were both in our own tent, and comfortably in bed.
"Night, Jace", I mumbled, laying my head on his chest as I listened to his heartbeat. Jace kissed my head.
"Night, Ivy", he whispered.
* * *
Lol that was longer than I'd expected. But I guess you deserve a long one after making you wait a year for it 😂
(Sorry)
But I am back 😎
Special appreciation to my reader Apiecake for showing so much support. And yes, I still want that hot chocolate. I am coming to have one with you one day ;)