I was pregnant.

It hadn't been confirmed but I knew it to be true.

I didn't realise it straight away. My body hadn't begun altering for the new life and I felt no weaker nor did any nausea plague me. I was perfectly normal.

Yet I knew I was pregnant.

The thought had been jiggling at the back of my mind the moment I had glanced at my sickly pale skin. Cheeks gaunt and body waif like, pale stringy strands pushed back from my shoulders to give me a ghastly view of that thing.

His mark.

I had felt the dread sink into my being the moment I realised what the implications of me holding his mark where, especially after what we had done. The truth had glared me in the face but I hid from it.

Running to the furthest corners of my world all in avoidance of this moment.

Our truth.

He had let me run. Whispering soothing words of patience and understanding. What did he really understand though?

That I was still clinging onto the memory of my dead husband? That I was both excited and petrified of moving on. What did he really know?

Nothing.

As I stood back in the home I had made with my late husband, my daughter sleeping soundlessly in the room adjoined to the bathroom, I knew I could run no longer.

Reality was catching up to me and soon I would have to face the truths that made up my world.

The truth being that I was undeniably pregnant. No more than one month along but definitely pregnant. The missing of a cycle was what triggered me. I was intune to my body and though as of recently I had lost my way, I knew when my body was not "normal".

Small things that had been present in the early phases of my first pregnancy were now reminiscent in the present me. I carried a life inside me that was not my husbands.

It was too much to accept.

My hands shook as I leaned agasint my bathroom sink, I felt faint. My world spinning and my stomach churning.

Pale skin, deep bags under my red rimmed eyes, my hair was scruffy and my clothes hung off me. I looked dead but that was not what had my skin beading with sweat and my heart palaptating.

This couldn't be.

I felt sickened to my stomach, knowing that I had conceived with another male but even more so that I could not find the needed energy to despise this growth inside me. My emotions were conflicted. I felt nothing but pure love and joy at the life I harboured but his father, though a better and more deserving man now, was still not my late husband. Carson would never be my Meilan. How would I explain this to Winter?

How would I tell Carson?

These thoughts weighed me down daily, taking all the joy of this journey from me. Even now as I stared at my still flat stomach, I could not completely say I would be exited for the moment my stomach started growing as that would mean my days of hiding would be forced to an end.

I tried to maximise that time, spending days in my self induced prison. Only stepping outside my small home, to allow Winter to play in the grass. She had a love for nature, one that was not similar to mine. Where I softly touched the petals of a flower or slowly approached a robin perched in a tree, my little hellion ripped roots from the ground to examine them closer and charged at birds in order to clasp them.

She was wild and untamed. Bellowing at the top of her little lungs, laughing at the sun and clapping at anything and everything. She was young and free and watching my little girl made me even more exited to see this life that was growing inside my womb. At the same time, watching my daughter frolicking around under our willow tree had me thinking of my first child.

Even though he was adamant that I was not his mother, my love for Kai could only be described as maternal. He was the first child who had looked at me as if I knew the world but now he thought he knew the world better. It hurt.

It was life. Full of pain. Full of sorrow yet it kept moving on.

A month passed and my small bump was beginning to show. It was crazy how different this pregnancy was. Things I had felt in my fifth month with winter was happening in this second month. Soon my bump would proceed me. Now I could almost hide it. As long as I didn't sit crossed legged but that was how he found me.

His blonde hair whipping in the wind. Short curls loose and silky. From this distance I could see his long pale eyelashes covering his icy grey orbs. Eyes I had stared into as he had told me some story or another. He had such sharp features, maturity taking his chubby cheeks into a more chiselled jaw. Cheeks I had kissed and stroked as pink had tinged them in breathlessness.

His large hand swiped at his unruly hair and I could almost picture the small dimpled hands that had gripped mine with so much hope.

His full lips were pursed with what appeared to be nerves and I wanted to cry because all I could see was the way they had twisted when he had spat his venom at me.

I didn't climb to greet him as he approached me. I refused to move, mostly in fear that by moving I would bring his attention to my growing bump but also our of resentment. Resentment because he had been the one to hurt me the most and yet he walked into my sanctuary of solitude and disturbed it. Unknowingly, he was ripping the threads of this new existence I had forged, just by being here.

His feet crunching against the grass grabbed Winter's attention away from the willow tree and all the little insects that lived amongst it.

"Kai," she chortled, running towards her big brother.

He crouched down and swung her into his arms, pulling her tightly into his arms as if he genuinely loved and missed her. Perhaps he did. Maybe he still saw Winter in the same way even though he no longer viewed me the same.

"Look Kai." She was as drooling all over him as she stuck what could only be some kind of insect into his face.

"That's lovely Winnie, maybe we should put him down."

"Ma friend," she growled, pulling the blasted bug towards her chest possessively.

"I think your hurting him little love, we don't want to hurt the little guy do we now?"

"Nooo," she sighed, reluctantly placing the bug back in the tree she had found it in.

Her arms were still wrapped around her brother and I doubted she would be releasing him any time soon.

I loved how they interacted with each other. Winnie was a little aggressive and rough but Kaiser dealt with her harsh ways with a loving and gentle hand. Softly telling her no, or persuading her with his lilting voice that had my baby girl obeying his words. She was a sucker for Kai and I only hoped that their bond remained the same even as ours disintegrated into nothingness.

His wide spread smile wavered under my bland stare. His hands shook as he placed a reluctant Winter into my outstretched arms. I tried to soothe her, stroking at her hair and encouraging my raging little hellion to settle. My arms clasped her tightly to my body, conveniently covering the bulge of my small bump.

"Kai," she squealed, wiggling about on my lap to get to him.

"One minute Winter, mummy wants some cuddles,"

Her almond shaped eyes automatically widened as she snuggled into me, cuddling my body and forgetting instantly about Kai. We sat there for a bit, me cuddling Winter, her head nestled into my chest as she took an impromptu nap in my lap, and Kai just watching us.

His stare unnerved me.

"Dad was not kidding when he said you were in hiding. You wouldn't believe the amount of people I have contacted. Just to find you." He chuckled lightly, breaking the charged silence.

"Why go to so much bother for someone who isn't your mother?"

He winced at the uncontainable bitterness that seeped from my lips. Even I winced at the sourness, my voice sounded vile. Full of anger and malice.

His head lowered as he plucked at the blades. Pulling them from the ground like Winter and her destructive ways.

"I- I actually wanted to speak to you about that" he mumbled, peering up at me before loading his head again.

I hummed my response, receptive to the energy my Kai was emitting. He was definitely nervous but also disappointed, in himself or maybe me? Perhaps it was both of us.

I found his behaviour puzzling, he stared down at the blades of grass as if it could give him the answers to life. I had never found the answer to life's riddles in plants but they had always soothed my mind and soul when answers evaded me.

"I was wrong to say what I did."

Huh. An apology.

It was something I had never expected to hear from him and with good reason. An apology was not enough. I need to hear his reasoning, understand why he had discarded me so I could assure myself it would never happen again.

"You weren't wrong, if that is how you truly feel."

I shrugged dismissively but my heart was not in it. No. My heart was beating a wild staccato with the wishful thinking that my boy was coming back to me. Did I really care what had sent him away if he was returning back? My heart screamed no, we didn't care as long as Kai still loved me and called me his mother. Having his love and acceptance was all I needed but my mind could not be quieted. It needed answers.

"That's not how I feel." He interjected ardently, twisting at his fingers.

"Then you were angry with me?"

My words were more a statement then a question and with good reason. I had seen the anger that had turned his pale grey eyes into dark storming pools. He had been angry and I was somehow at fault.

"Yes. I met my mother a few months ago."

My stomach churned at his use of that word that was meant only for me. I was his mother, not that woman. She couldn't have changed that much.

"She was nice to me. She seemed to genuinely care and at first she wouldn't mention you or dad but eventually, eventually she did."

Nelly. That woman was venomous and the years had not changed her cunning ways. She had wielded him in with her soft words until she had him caught, then she had filed his mind with all types of lies.

"What she said, about you taking me away from her, it made me angry. I had missed out on a relationship with my mother because of you! And dad had let you separate us. He had encouraged it even."

I tried not to hate. The energy used on hating someone could always be used to do more constructive things, like healing or reading. I had found overtime that she was one female that I could effortlessly dislike and pity at the same time. It was funny because I had only ever met her that one time. Just once and yet my emotions towards her were pure loathing. I didn't know what I hated most, the idea of her or the woman herself.

"I was so mad. I thought I hated you," his words broke my heart.

A sharp cry cracking through my lips as tears cascaded down my cheeks. I twisted my head away from his sight, hiding my stricken face from his watchful eyes.

"She made made me believe her words and forget your actions. She was so good, she had me discarding my true family and choosing her. A woman who had never shown me half the amount of caring you had."

He tried to soothe me by reciting my virtues but they fell on deaf ears because what good was being loving and caring if you were always the first person to be trampled on? I was forever at the bottom of the pile because I was loving and caring. People believed they could wrong me and I would forgive them, welcome them back into my arms.

They were right. I was so stupid.

"It doesn't matter anymore." I sniffled wiping at my dripping face and climbing to my feet.

He shot to his feet after me, following me through the grass.

"Of course it matters. You are the only mother I have ever known and I discarded you for a phoney." He shouted after me, his voice clogged with thick emotion.

I whipped around to face him, the wind churning around my face.

"What happened, Yavan? Did you realise how cruel she was and decide I was a good choice. Caring and forgiving Vanya." I spat thunderously.

His damp lashes flickered at me, those hazy grey orbs full of emotion I couldn't understand.

"I never went." He cried.

"You left and things weren't right. I realised that I didn't need to try and build a relationship with my biological parent because I already had a mother and she was hurting because of me."

I didn't want to hear what he had to say. I was still hurting.

I span on my feet marching away from him. Storming to my small home and forcing the door open. I headed to the living room, placing my daughter down on the soft cushions before bracing myself to face Kaiser.

He skunked into the house, his eyes dripping with shame.

"Mum," he whispered and my heart throbbed.

My nails dug into the back of the sofa as I tried to accept what he was giving me.

"I'm so sorry. I was mean. Cruel. Nothing like you taught me to be. I messed up. I'm so sorry."

I couldn't. I was so damn hurt but I was his mother. I would likely suffer a life time of I hate you's from his lips. Wasn't that part of motherhood? I didn't know but I knew that my weak heart couldn't take another blow.

I also couldn't not forgive him because Kai was my son and I would forgive him the world.

"Please don't shut me out," he whimpered when I didn't respond.

His shoulders were slumped in defeat as I slowly approached him. Gripping his chin, I forced him to look at me.

"What you said and the way you treated me really hurt me. But you are my son and I love you. I don't care if I gave birth to you or not, you are mine."

Tears gushed down his cheeks, tinging them pink and I swear I could almost see that little boy I had first met. With his chubby cheeks and little lisp. As Kai sunk into my hug, I felt as if my little boy was back.

I soothed his continuous sobs of apology, rubbing the short curls that he had decided to grow back. The golden strands grazing the underside of my jaw as he rested in the dip of my shoulder. My nails grazing at his scalp until his tears dried up and his hiccuping stopped.

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This isn't the end of the story, I have one more chapter left that I have started writing. It should be updated either tonight or tomorrow night.

Sorry for the mistakes, I finished this at work while on my lunch.