XXXIV. NEXT CHAPTER

the world would soon change forever. they attempted to get pregnant for weeks, Natasha being unable, so Amara decided to do it. Weeks of doctor's appointments to test the fertility and find the best time to get pregnant. 

They chose a donor based on a piece of paper, good genetics for a healthy baby. 

Early December they gave it a shot. Amara got home, a smile on her face both were hopeful. hopeful for a baby, hopeful for a family to begin. 

Maddison was packing at home, the boxes full of her things scattered around the house. 

"How'd it go?" Maddison asks, from her spot on the couch. Amara sat next to her, taking popcorn from the bowl in her lap. 

"I could be pregnant," Amara says. "I also could not be pregnant." 

"How is packing going?" Natasha challenges. 

"Oh you know," Maddison says. 

They were going to miss Maddison, but they would be able to make her room a kids' room if they were pregnant, which was looking on the bright side of things. They would be missing a voice, a person, that had been so evident in their life over the past few months. 

Days and nights, carrying her through grief, they were a family, and that wouldn't change, no matter what happened. 

And a lot would happen. 

More on that later. 

The days passed, and Maddison was ready to move out, giving Amara and Natasha respectively a kiss before she left. Climbing into the U-haul and waving goodbye as she drove to her boyfriend's apartment. 

it was the end of an era and the beginning of one too. 

☾☼☽ 

the next morning was a whirlwind. Amara climbed out of bed, rubbing her face, she padded across the tile floors and into the bathroom, opening the door and pulling a pregnancy test out of the medicine cabinet. 

Peeing on a stick was fun. 

Natasha was still asleep between bedsheets,  her wedding ring rested on the side table. waiting for the results, Amara leaned against the doorframe, watching her. A moment of silence. 

Was it a silence before the storm?

or was it a silence that would be infinite, one that they could share forever? 

Resting a hand on her stomach just below her ribs, she walked back into the bathroom quietly padding along the cool tile and standing on a dark blue bathmat. She flicked on the light after closing the door to note wake, Natasha. 

There's a moment before you flip over the test, one of uncertainty. You don't know if the life, the path you took would change forever, or if it will just continue for a little while before you figure something else out. You go through your life for a moment, everything that led up to this point, before you flip it over, and there are two lines. 

You get to tell your wife, your best friend that you are pregnant. 

You wander into the bedroom where she's still asleep and with tears in your eyes you shake her awake. 

"Mmmm," Natasha says quietly, rolling over to face Amara. "What are you doing up so early?" Amara silently hands her the test, which Natasha sleepily takes in her hands. 

It took her almost too long to come to any realization, probably because it was only almost six, significantly earlier than they woke up usually.

But her face lit up, a gasp escaping her lips. 

"We're pregnant," Amara tells her quietly. Natasha claimed out of bed and wrapped her arms around Amara. 

"We're pregnant," Natasha repeats, her voice broken. "I love you so much."

"I love you too," Amara tells her. 

☾☼☽ 

they soon got to dinner, wrapping their arms around Clint and Laura, Lara about ready to pop. Amara picked up Cooper and greeted him, the boy getting so big, so fast. Amara silently wondered if it would feel like it when her baby grew up. 

(spoiler alert, it did.)

An announcement, shared over dinner gets Clint hugging them and Laura almost as excited as her husband. 

Not as excited as the moms of the baby, because they were going to be moms. 

Moms to their own baby. 

Sure, they had nine months to go, nine months of a hard pregnancy, that sometimes would leave Amara crying, from pain or annoyance.

But it was so worth it. 

So worth it for the next six years, they would get. 

END OF PART FOUR