Everyone could hear the loud sound of something breaking the moment Pete left the room. Ae was pretty sure it was the vase that sat on the table in the hall. Pete was understandably pissed and, since it usually took him a long time to get this riled up, Ae was inclined to let him have his way freely.
Dali fidgeted under Ae's intense stare. She read death in his eyes and that wasn't an exaggeration. She found herself actually praying for the police to come quickly so she could have some relief. As usual they were a disappointment. It took them 15 minutes of her sweating and wringing her hands to knock on the door. Even worse, now that she knew they were here, they took their time coming up the stairs.
When the door did open, her parents were standing right behind them and to say they were pissed would be an understatement.
Her mother rushed forward and slapped her so hard she erased Pete's handprint and replaced it with her own. The police soon held her back but she wept and raged at her daughter. It wasn't an act either. Dali was their pride an joy and had always been a perfect role model. They took great pleasure in her even if they were disappointed in their own marriage. Now she not only harbored a known criminal and assisted in her escape but she also took the illegally gained DNA of Pete and attempted to impregnate herself.
"How stupid can you be, Dali!" Her father thundered as Ae slipped out of the room and followed the trail of ceramic carnage to his lover. Pete was crying harshly in an end room. When he had thought it was all over, here was another new horror.
"Baby." Ae pulled him in and Pete held him tight for a heartbeat before suddenly pushing away and spinning around to attack something else.
"How could she do this! What did she think she would benefit? That I would run to her with open arms because she is having my baby?! That I would accept this and be ok with it?! How was she going to hide this?! Run away and meet Kara? Ae! I can't deal with this anymore! Who else is going to turn up with my baby?!"
Finally. Ae had been waiting for Pete to reach this emotional turning point. He had had an entire trek and a secret base invasion to reconcile himself with the fact that there would be children. Quite a few of them, in fact.
"I don't think Kara will give anyone else from her stash. Dali was acceptable because she was Dali. She also loved you and Kara needed her help to get the things she required. I am sure that she plans to have more than one baby. I am sure that she already has things in place. She has been planning this for a long time. However, if she is desperate enough, she will contact the places I told her to. Once she does, we'll have her. No matter how long it takes. No matter how far away she goes, we will find her. I promise you this Pete."
"Ae. This is an impossible promise." Pete whispers through his tears.
"Pete. Nothing is impossible." Ae pulls him in again and this time he clutches Ae and weeps brokenly. Ae runs his hand through Pete's hair and the firm strokes manages to calm him eventually.
"Why aren't you more upset?" Pete hoarsely asks after a bit.
"Because I had days to talk and rail and curse about this. I killed bugs and dodged weight and motion sensors thinking about this. I crawled through mud and ate dirt, all because of this. I wanted to get to you sooner but at the same time I didn't want to make any mistakes. I literally made all the right choices except for coming to you in time. Maybe it was supposed to be that way. Maybe the universe felt there should be more little versions of you running around to bless the world with your awesomeness. I don't know."
He looks at Ae and for the longest minute until Ae begins to wonder what he's thinking when suddenly he says this.
"I want a little Ae too. Please. We can choose someone. I want a little you too." Something in Ae's chest quivers. A look flashes in his eyes and Pete smiles. He knows Ae wasn't even thinking about it. That the thought never occurred to him. Pete asking thought, is another story and Ae can never resist his lover.
"Ok. We can do that. Let's wait and see first ok? Once we know what's going on with Dali and Dani, we can go from there."
"Even if they aren't pregnant, can I still have my little Ae?" Pete asks softly and Ae feels his knees go weak.
"If that's what you want then, that's fine." And by then Pete would be much calmer and would have thought this thing through. Ae wasn't against it if Pete wanted it but he needed to be sure it was what Pete wanted and not just him coming from an emotional place.
"Hey you two. So the fun never ends huh."
"It seems not. Sorry to have to call you here so soon. I honestly thought we wouldn't have to see you for a while."
"Yeah well. It seems the devil isn't done dancing on your fate. It seems that Dali thinks she can have this baby and keep it but considering the situation and the manner of which_"
"She can't have our baby! I don't care what I have to do! What it takes! After she gives birth to it, they belong to us." Pete's mouth is now set in stubborn lines and Ae knows what this means. He's seen this look a million times.
"Are Dali's parents willing to support us?"
"We are." Aunty Mint opened the door wider and walks in. She walks up to the couple and wai respectfully, throwing them into shock.
"Aunty no! Please. You don't have to do this." Pete reached new heights of emotional distress. Even Ae shifts uncomfortably.
"But I feel that I have to. We have raised her to be a better person than this. What she has done goes far beyond anything we could ever support despite what she might think. We have asked her to pack her things and find a place, live within her means. Maybe then she might get a dose of reality. That is, if she doesn't get arrested."
"I'm sor_"
"No Pete. We are sorry. We should have paid better attention. The fact that she has been working so hard to destroy your relationship was already unacceptable to us. Now that she had done this, we can no longer shield her. She is grown. She needs to learn to face the consequences."
"I understand. Ae. Can you please contact your lawyer? We need to do this quickly." Pete looks at Ae who is already firing off messages, already resigned to this new development.
"Don't worry babe. I have us covered. Pinnie doesn't handle adoptions so he's going to work with a friend of his and handle all aspects of this."
Pete heaves a huge sigh and suddenly sits down. All the energy drains out of him in one go and he feels weak and sleepy. It's so rare for Pete to be this angry that he doesn't adapt well to it at all. Ae looks over at Mint and wai to her as well.
"I'm sorry about the damage."
"They are just things, Ae. Just things. I tried speaking to her when I found out that she was attempting to get between the two of you. She acted out but the she came to apologize and said she would do better. I trusted her. I believed her because I knew how I raised her and it was not like this."
"I believe you. I think that the fault is not with you. I think that these girls simply twisted what was instilled in them and came up with their own idea of what is appropriate behaviours."
"Maybe your right but I am still so very disappointed in her."
Ae and Mint talked for a while longer before the police came and questioned Ae for their records. He actually pulled out a little device and told them the entire conversation was on it. He admitted that he didn't trust Dali and so had used it just in case she twisted her story later on. She had been known to do that to Ae before.
Once they were finished, Dali was escorted away in tears and Ae carried a sleeping Pete out to the car. They arrived home to find Mom waiting, looking strained, and Mitchell by her side. Even his new wife and Pete's little brother were here thought the boy was sleeping.
"Ae. How is he?"
"He was very upset and destroyed a few things. He's exhausted himself so I let him rest. Just let my get him upstairs and then I'll explain it to you all."
He put Pete int he bed and went back down. He sat with them and explained why they had gone to see Dali after the talk they had had in the hospital. Ae explained that her words had struck him the wrong way and he had made a guess that turned out to be true.
"I thought I understood the dynamic between these girls but I think I underestimated Kara the most. Despite Dani and Hana being so capable, they don't have patience or the ability to act things out as she does. She appeared the most fragile and she may very well be but she is the biggest schemer and I wouldn't be surprised if this was all her idea and she just managed to manipulate the others to the point where they now think they approached her and talked her into helping them.
"I think that we will need to do some paternity tests if Dani gets pregnant. I do believe that Kara and the doctor or at least one of the men on the team, maybe even Nick, could have done some manipulating. I can't trust any of them. It may sound selfish but I'm not interested in kids and even less interested if they don't belong to Pete."
"No, that's fine. That's a natural reaction. I was never expecting much in that area and I had actually already resigned myself to the fact that you two were not interested in kids despite our teasing. Your Mae and I were already discussing possibly leaving the hotels to Yim if she was interested in the future."
Mitchell frowned but didn't say anything. Mom ignored him and so did Ae.
"That's up to you and Pete to decide. I think we should just wait and see what happens before we make these kind of decisions. There is still some time."
Ae expressed his worries to Pete the next day. Pete also wasn't interested in raising a child that wasn't his. A large contributing factor to this was the fact that children were never something they had planned as a part of their lives. That they would now have to possibly make those changes was something that they would mentally have to adapt to more than anything.
"Pete. I think I have an idea. Let's talk to some parents we know. How about we have a dinner and ask a few questions."
"We could invite P'Forth and his friends and maybe Tin and Can and Pond and Aim because Can says he's thinking of having Phu stay with them from now on. His mother doesn't seem that interested in her son now that she is trying to find a way out of the family."
"Then we'll plan something. A social or something like that with lots of food but one big table so we can all sit together and chat."
"We can do it at the hotel and I can ask P'Tar to try out some of his test work on us."
"Good then we'll plan it for a couple of weeks from now. That's good right?"
Despite having to wait for results, Ae decided to work on their new home earlier than planned. Forth was actually a bit excited and he sort of dragged everyone into his feeling. They also had some new people. A loud guy named June had joined the team and brought with him a couple named Pete and Kao, and another couple named Sandy and Thada. They were a great bunch even if this Pete was a bit of an ass. He actually got along with Ae right away thought especially when he walked in and saw Pete fully displayed on Ae's desk.
He told Ae he respected him for being so open and even volunteered his own history in a rare should of camaraderie. It also helped that Ae was one less person looking at his Kao.
Two months after the event and a month into building the house, the women's facility where Dani was being held confirmed that an official test was done and Dani was indeed pregnant. Previous tests had come up negative and she seemed to have a flow but then she suddenly started getting sick and they had had to admit her due to continued bleeding. She had required medical attention in order to stop it since this placed the baby in serious risk.
Not long after, Dali was also confirmed pregnant.
After some discussion, Ae and Pete decided to do a Non-invasive pregnancy test. It required a blood sample from Pete to be tested against Dani and Dali. Initially, they were unaware that this was an option without harming the baby but Pinnie's friend Lexi had sat them down and laid out their options. She even went so far as to offer them information about good medical doctors and inform them of Pete's rights as the baby's possible father.
Pete also talked with Beam, surprised that this hadn't come up in their dinner. Beam himself was sure he had mentioned it but then again with the amount of alcohol ingested and the loud volumes at which everyone spoke that night, he backtracked and admitted that he had intended to discuss the options. Even Pete admitted to himself that things had gotten chaotic and fast.
"So what do you want to do?" Ae asked softly as he ran his hands through Pete's hair and down his back.
"Honestly, run the hell away from everything and take us to some tropical place that's just perfect for us where no one else can find us. Realistically, I would prefer that we take this test so that we know what to expect. Ae..."
"Yes babe?" Ae husked out, pulling Pete flush against him. His blood was beginning to heat up again and he refused to be distracted.
"I really hope you have it right. If what you think is true then I think we can use that. I think we have hope."
"If we lose hope, then we can always find it again and if we reach a place where there is none then we make our own. That's what I believe. So make hope with me Pete, and love as well."
Heart quivering, Pete smiled and made love, and hope...
So, there is an epilogue and some special chapters I have planned. Did you want one of the crazy dinner? Actually I think I know the answer to that but I'll ask anyway. There wouldn't be that many special chapters. I plan to make one about Can's secret visitor that was supposed to go somewhere but didn't because of my own plot changing on me. A request to find out what happens between Kino and Tom. How Kara get's caught and the hidden truths that I still have lying around in the closet... :) Sorry I like to layer my madness under more madness. Muahahahahahahahahaha! :D
On another note, I know that Ae and Pete can do their own research but when your avoiding something, you tend to ignore important stuff. Additionally, these 2 are man and from my experiences with the species, it's rare to find one that actually does his research before he tries to piece together the damn bicycle like mine just did today. How hard is it to just read the damn instructions, or in this case, look it up? Lol blessed are you with the man that actually looks something up properly before he makes a move. Ok, rants over. Epilogue in the next few days.