Warnings: Pregnancy, calling a fetus an "it", male pregnancy, giving up search for a kidnapped person, thinking some's dead, rule breaking, death description, bruising description, and brief mentions of puking.

He couldn't hide it anymore.

Roman shifts awkwardly, adjusting the blanket that was covering his stomach. Over the months since Jason, it had gotten bigger, but now that Logan was gone he could no longer hide it and pretend nothing was there with baggy sweatshirts.

Even looking at himself made him feel disgusting.

The cold hard truth was finally starting to set in, taking over the denial.

He was eight months pregnant.

He could only have the small satisfaction that he wasn't too big, after all this was his first and only time getting pregnant, and normally people were always smaller for that first baby. It was a small comfort.

Small, but still.

At any day this thing inside him could just decide to, what? Fall out? He knew it wouldn't be that easy.

It wasn't even here yet, and already it had taken so much from him. Roman had puked more than once after smelling even the slightest hint of peanut butter. The taste of carrots made him orange in the face. Even the wet-dog smell that Sela carried after playing with Virgil in the rain was enough to send him racing pathetically to the bathroom.

And worse was the feeling. He could feel it moving inside him, like an alien that was ready to burst out and kill him. While he had stomached his pride once or twice and let Virgil feel the thing inside him, if only to see the look of pure wonder on the boy's face, he just wished it would stop.

Stop moving, stop making him sick and agitated. Stop making him crave food.

He ignored every single craving he got, like his own version of a punishment. Shockingly, they were nothing too bizarre, he'd heard of women eating pickles dipped in chocolate when they were pregnant, but more than anything he just wanted grapes.

But he refused to even touch the absolutely delicious looking ones in the fridge.

And of course he knew, he knew that he should stop calling it "it" and "thing" there was no denying at this stage it was a little person, even if he didn't know the gender.

Why did he have to be so late?

Roman could barely look at Remy, let alone speak too him, after Remy and Damien had found out exactly what Remy hadn't put in Roman's drink at the Gala.

An abortive.

It would have worked just in time then, but of course by the time they found out there was no hope for that.

Of course it wasn't Remy's fault, he hadn't known.

But it still tore at Roman's insides.

The door opened and Patton silently came in, crying behind his hands.

No Logan.

"Some of them are giving up." Patton sobs, referencing the men in town that had been helping him search. "They say it's been too long, so he must be...He must be d-dead."

"I'm sorry, Patton." Roman sighs. He wasn't really sorry for Patton.

For Logan? Of course, if he was still out there. For Remus and Thomas? Obviously, they were missing their other halves, even if Remus had only cried once since Logan had been taken. The kids? Of course Roman felt sorry for them, Virgil was so attached and Damien cared for Logan, even if sometimes he couldn't show it.

Sighing, Patton does his best to wipe away his tears. "He must be so scared, my poor little bunny. What a horrible way to spend Christmas."

Roman looks over at the half-heartedly decorated tree in the corner. Soon it would be Christmas day, and then Logan's birthday.

If he was being honest, Roman thought he died a while ago.

There was just no sign of Blaine.

Christmas Day came faster than anyone expected, and Remus watched silently as Roman helped Thomas open one of his presents, a small kids book.

After the gifts had all been opened and breakfast was done, Roman hurriedly excused himself to the bathroom and Virgil went into the backyard to play with Sela and one of the ghosts that had often hung around the house, Potter. Potter seemingly had no physical injuries, minus the long purple bruise that wrapped around their throat, partially hidden by the Christmas lights that were tangled all over his body.

Today, Potter was more visible than the other ghosts, showing their full form instead of just the normal wisps of being, because it was his death day. Just like days when the moon was full, death days for the ghosts gave a bit of an extra boost.

Remus stood up without prompting, leaving the dining room and moving upstairs to the room he shared with Roman.

Looking around for a moment, he moved over to the typewriter Roman had gotten when they first moved in.

Next to it was piles of papers brimming with promising words and flowing sentences. If Remus had known to look under Roman's bed, he'd see a small stack of papers for the sequel to the novel Roman had written the first time they'd been taken.

Roman worked on it late at night, careful not to be caught.

Remus looks over the paper that was currently in the typewriter, a page for his novel about superheroes that Roman had been writing for some time.

Gently, Remus presses down on a key. A pristine S marks itself on the paper neatly. Remus moves his hand and presses down again, and a t joins the s with a small clack.

Remus continues and then heads back downstairs, the word "Starshine" drying on the page.

After awhile, Virgil and Sela were forced to retreat back inside, Virgil's nose and fingers bright red, and his ears stung with how cold they were. Sela settled down for a nap by the big fireplace, one ear sticking up, alert, as Virgil and Thomas played.

Virgil giggles as Thomas grabs the block out of his hands again, using it to knock down the tower Virgil had been helping him building.

"Careful Virgil, don't let him hit himself." Kai warns, peeking over the corner to look into the kitchen.

There was no sign of Patton. He must have left to go look for Logan again.

"C'mere, squirt." Kai beckons to Virgil.

Virgil obediently jumps up and bounces over to his older sibling.

"Jeez, your hair is getting long." Kai mutters as she leads the boy into the upstairs bathroom.

Virgil giggles and shakes his head so his bangs fall over his eyes. Kai smiles and ruffles his head, opening the cabinet below the sink and pulling out the razor. "Hold still."

Virgil stills as Kai plugs in the razor and gathers Virgil's bangs into a ponytail, sectioning it off so they wouldn't get accidentally cut. The razor turns on with a buzz and Kai adjusts the settings from Roman's cut to Virgil's, carefully beginning to run it through his hair.

"You wanna do something fun?" Kai asks when the cut is finished, taking Virgil's bangs out and wetting them to give them a small, even trim.

"What?" Virgil asks, looking at himself in the mirror out of the corner of his eyes.

"Look." Kai grabs the box of hair dye they had gotten for Virgil out of their hiding place, showing it to him with a flourish.

"I dunno..." Virgil says nervously. "Won't dad be mad?"

"Nah." Kai says casually. "We won't dye your whole head, just your bangs. I'll do it with you.

Virgil's eyes shone as he looked up at him with wonder. "You're gonna dye your hair too? Okay!"

Roman sighs as he carefully walks up the stairs back to his room, stopping in confusion when he heard giggling and running water, before shifting Thomas on his hip and carrying the one year old into his room.

"Okay Tommy." He says quietly. "You sit here for a second." Placing the boy down on the floor, he watches as the toddler begins to babble contently to his stuffed frog before turning to grab a change of clothes.

Until something caught his eye.

On his desk, the papers had been moved around.

His eyes widening, Roman hurriedly looks under his bed, sighing in relief when he sees those papers hadn't been disturbed. Turning back to his desk, Roman checks to make sure all the papers were still there, before noticing a new line on his paper with a single word.

"Starshine?" Roman whispers to himself, gently running his fingers over the letters, his eyes widening.

There was only one person that called Logan Starshine.

"Remus!"

Words: 1,423