She was late.

She.

Was.

Late.

She thought her tiredness Saturday was just due to sleeplessness worrying about Rachel the night before. When the feeling of being hit by a truck lasted over Sunday and now today, and her breasts felt increasingly heavy and tender, she ran to her calendar and flipped to the previous month to see when her last period was, then flipped ahead to today's date.

Period lengths varied. She wasn't the most regular woman, who could time them to the day, but she thought it probably should have started by now. The cramping, at least.

Maybe she was hitting menopause early. She was in her forties, it wasn't that uncommon. She should ask her mother when she went through the change, to know when she should expect it. It wasn't something she was looking forward to, but at least she wouldn't have to deal with the bleeding every month.

She wasn't bleeding yet.

She'd felt exactly like this both times she was...

No. She was on the pill. It was 99% effective if she took it at the same time every day, and she did.

99% wasn't 100%. And wasn't there one day she thought she had food poisoning after eating at a sketchy diner with an informant giving her a tip on a case she was working? She'd actually stayed home from work for a day. Didn't that reduce the effectiveness of the pill? She thought she'd read that somewhere.

She spent the entire day worrying about it, and she wasn't entirely sure she presented her best self when she met with Jack Barnes, Manager of Security at VPL, to have a check in and see how her staff was doing at the new site, reviewing the incidents they'd dealt with and assessing where they could make improvements in teamwork and communication. Most of the work was logistical, and she could do that thinking in her sleep.

It was near the end of the meeting that Jack cleared his throat and said, "I should let you know that..."

She didn't hear the rest of what he said. All she could think of was the fact that if what she feared was true, then she was in a lot of trouble...

"Ms. Hasegawa? Lauren?"

She blinked out of her reverie and said, "Sorry, sorry, I don't think I'm feeling too well today. Could you repeat that last part?"

"Oh, sorry to hear that. We could have rescheduled."

"It just came on, I don't think it's serious. What was it you said?"

"Well, the guards interact a lot with the library staff, of course. They talk."

"Okay. Is this something you frown on?"

"Not necessarily, as long as it doesn't affect their work. What I thought I would bring to your attention is that the library staff is unionized."

"Uh-huh." She knew this already. Al mentioned he went to union meetings every couple of months.

"They've been encouraging your guards to look into organizing."

Lauren stared at Jack for a few seconds, unable to process what he was saying.

Jack cleared his throat and said, "Was that clear?"

She blinked as it finally clicked. "Yes, of course. Justiciar guards don't belong to a union. Library staff do. Having them both adjacent to each other, it's only natural for them to compare notes on their working conditions."

Jack nodded and said, "Just so you're aware, as a municipal body, we don't work to actively discourage that kind of activity. We take a neutral position out of respect for the other staff we employ."

"I understand. So... if they organize, and we negotiate a collective agreement, will VPL cover the extra costs associated with higher wages and benefits?"

Jack winced and said, "Those decisions are above my pay grade. It would certainly be discussed by the Board and the directors."

Fuck. Already the contract was in jeopardy. "I understand. Well, thanks for letting me know."

After she left, she found the nearest drug store.

Back at Justiciar headquarters, she peed on the stick in the ladies' bathroom, behind a locked stall door.

She saw the plus sign and burst into tears.

Ten minutes later, she was still sitting on the toilet when the door to the bathroom opened and someone walked in. She stayed as still as she could, but her wet breathing must have alerted the person outside, because she heard a knock on the stall door.

"Lauren?"

It was Rachel. Fuck. Just what she needed.

"Lauren, are you okay?"

"No!" she wailed.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't want to tell you. You're going to hate me."

Rachel sighed. "Look, about Friday: yeah, I was mad, but I've cooled down. You were just lashing out irrationally about something completely irrelevant to your more pressing problems. I was just a convenient punching bag."

Lauren sniffled and said, "It's not that. I'm so sorry I accused you of all that. You're right. I had no right to say anything. You're the innocent party here. You're the good one, Rachel, I want you to know that. I'm so sorry!"

Now she was sobbing, and Rachel was knocking hard on the door. "Babe, come on, let me help you. You're my best friend. I fucking love you, okay? There's nothing so awful that we can't work it out together."

Lauren cleaned herself, pulled up her pants, wiped her eyes with the hand not holding the stick, then opened the stall door.

Rachel's sympathetic expression made her feel wretched, but when she saw what was in her hand, her face fell, and she pulled it towards her and looked at it.

"No," she breathed.

"Rachel, I'm so sorry."

"No," she growled.

"I don't know how this could have happened! I've never missed a day!"

"No!" she shrieked.

"I'll get rid of it."

"No!" Rachel squawked in surprise.

Lauren blinked at her in incredulity. "No?"

"I mean, hold on. I don't want you to do it just because you don't want me to be angry."

"Believe me, there are lots of other reasons."

"Uh, yeah."

"Joe."

"Yeah."

"There would be no coming back from this. He'd know right away I lied to him about being good."

"You lied about that? In the marriage counselling session? Where you're supposed to tell the truth?"

"Well, at the time it was true, but after I left the session it wasn't."

"Jesus, Lauren," Rachel hissed.

"I know!" she wailed. "What do I do?"

"First, you need to tell Al."

Lauren felt her heart sink. "Do I?"

"Yes. He needs to take responsibility for this. He at least needs to know. Then we can all decide together what to do."

"Should I tell Joe?"

Rachel sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I don't know. That's trickier."

"It will kill him, because he'll have to tell me not to get rid of it, because he's Catholic and against abortion. And then we'll be done for sure. And then my two other kids will hate me forever because I destroyed my family."

Rachel threw her arms around her and hugged her close. "Okay, we won't tell him yet, not until we figure out what we want to do."

"I can't keep it, though, can I?" Lauren wailed into her neck. "How would it fit into our situation? I can't say, hey Naomi and Tosh, you're going to have to make room for a new brother or sister. I can't give it to you, you already have two teenagers."

"I know, I know. This is... so fucked up. But we're adults, right? We have to act like adults. Don't make any decisions until we talk to Al."

She nodded and washed her face in the sink, and they didn't talk about it any further because another member of staff walked in at that moment. It was Meghan, who was now married to Tom, both of them in IT; it had been at their Jack and Jill party, hosted by Rachel, where Lauren had her first slip with Al under the influence of a sedative. How appropriate, then, that Meghan was unknowingly present for Lauren's final fall as well.

They didn't say anything about it until they clocked out and picked up Al from VPL on their way home. It was the perfect opportunity, as the three of them were alone together, but Lauren had a difficult time getting the words out, and surprised herself by saying instead, "I heard you guys are trying to unionize my guards."

"Sorry?" Al said, looking confused.

"I was chatting with your head of security today. Library staff like to chat with the guards, apparently, and one of the topics they bring up is organizing."

She saw him shrug in the rear view mirror. "It's a unique situation at that building. It probably started when the Central Branch opened in that location in the Nineties. Somehow the security staff has always been contracted out, even though the majority of its work happens in the library alongside staff in a bargaining unit. I'm sure your guards can't help noticing they're getting paid less than the people they're protecting, even though their work is by its very nature more perilous. It's only natural that they might inquire about how to improve their situation."

"Yeah, but you guys have degrees, right? You have more education."

"It varies. I have a college diploma in Library and Information Technology. The librarians have Masters degrees. The clerical staff don't have to have higher education, though."

Lauren concentrated on the road for a minute before asking, "Do you have a problem with my staff not being unionized? I never asked you this before, but it's never come up, either."

Al took a moment to think about it. "I'm not going to tell you how to run your firm; you've obviously been very successful with your staffing model up to now. I will say, though, that I've worked in both non-union and union workplaces and, without question, I prefer the latter, and I wouldn't ever discourage any group of workers from organizing, even if they work for you."

"Can I join their union if they organize?" Rachel asked half jokingly.

"No," Lauren snapped. Then she sighed in frustration and said, "If they do, and we have to negotiate an agreement, VPL might not want to pay the increased costs for higher wages and benefits."

"Did Jack say that?"

"Not in so many words."

Al shook his head in disgust. "I think he's bluffing. Our union would go to the Board if we got an inkling they were going to drop a contractor because its staff organized. They're supposed to be neutral about that sort of thing."

"What if your union isn't able to stop them? And what will this mean for my other contracts? I may lose business if my rates have to go up." She jabbed her thumb at Rachel and said, "I might have to let her go first."

"Fuck off!" Rachel said indignantly. "I'm indispensable and you know it. Now, quit beating around the bush and tell Al what you really need to tell him."

"Tell me what?" Al asked. "Are you okay, Lauren?"

"Um... no." She cursed herself for tearing up. She didn't want to cry about this anymore.

"What's wrong?" he asked, and his concern made her tears flow faster, and she worried she'd have to pull over because she couldn't see well enough to drive.

She furiously wiped her eyes and took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "I'm pregnant."

She watched his reaction in the rearview mirror.

She didn't expect to see joy on his face.

Just as quickly, the joy was replaced by dismay. She saw him look at Rachel. Rachel turned to him and said, "Congratulations, husband of mine. You have a consequence."

His mouth opened and closed as he considered his next words. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, "I will respect whatever decision you make, Lauren. It's your body and your choice, but if you decide you want to keep it, you can live with us and raise it with us..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Lauren and Rachel cried together.

Al closed his mouth.

Lauren pulled over and stopped when it was safe. She closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. She felt sick, but this wasn't morning sickness, not yet. No, this was plain old anxiety twisting her insides.

"Lauren?" Rachel said. "Do you want me to drive?"

"Can we just sit here for a minute and talk?" she said. "The kids will be all right if we're a bit late. Oh, God, the kids..." She sighed. "I thought I was done having kids."

"Al, you're making an appointment to get snipped as soon as possible," Rachel said.

Al nodded dumbly.

Lauren sighed and said, "Al, as sweet as your offer is, it's just impossible. I know we all joke about being a throuple, but I couldn't leave my kids to start a new family with you and Rachel, and have you thought about Rachel's feelings about all this?"

"As in, would I like to be faced with an Apple two-point-oh?" Rachel asked. Apple was the daughter of Rachel's friend Allison, who'd had an affair with Rachel's ex, Mason, and gotten pregnant, triggering the divorce that had probably been years in coming.

"You're right," Al said. "You're absolutely right. I have no right to shove my indiscretion in your face."

Rachel sighed and said, "It's not quite the same, though. You've never hidden anything from me, or at least not for long, and if I'd never invited you in in the first place, I'm pretty sure you two wouldn't have ever started up."

Lauren met eyes with Al in the rearview mirror. She well remembered that Tuesday morning a couple of years ago, after Al had stayed the night in her bed, just sleeping next to her, comforting her after a fruitless night looking for Rachel and Joe. This, a couple of days after they'd woken up together, naked, in Al and Rachel's bed, with no memory of the previous night, confused and frantic to find their missing spouses. She remembered that Tuesday morning as one filled with potential, because, unlike the other morning, they'd both known exactly why they were there and what they wanted to do to each other, and if it hadn't been for Rachel's timely phone call letting them know she and Joe were at the hospital, they might have gone through with it. Luckily, they had the luxury of never having to test that hypothesis.

"Apple is cute, though," Rachel went on, not having seen the look they shared. "I can see more of Mason in her every day. I wonder what it would be like to see a mix of you and Lauren."

"Are you serious?" Lauren asked.

"I bet he'd look a bit like Tosh," Al said.

"You seem oddly sure it's a boy," Rachel said.

"Maybe she'd look like Lauren at twelve if she was a girl. We could give her the same bowl cut."

Lauren couldn't help it. She was crying again. "Stop it!" she wailed. "You're making this real for me, and I don't know if I want it to be real!"

"I'm sorry," Al said. "It's just, suddenly the idea of a baby with my genes isn't so implausible anymore, and I can't help thinking about the possibilities."

"But Rachel's your wife! She should be having your baby, not me!"

Rachel threw up her hands and said, "Whoa, not interested, sorry. Anyway, we have two adoptees at home. I don't think they'd appreciate a baby crying all hours of the day, taking all our attention, threatening their place in the family."

Al sighed and said, "You're right. And Naomi and Tosh will wonder where a baby came from if Daddy and Mommy haven't been together in months."

Lauren blinked and turned around to face him. "Wait. What if..."

Both of them were silent as they waited on her.

"What if I get together with him, very soon?"

"Joe?" Rachel said.

"Yeah. I sleep with my husband, and then I can say I'm pregnant, and then it will be like we're starting over!" Suddenly she was excited. "He might even stop seeing Joanie!"

"Or, he might resent the fact that you clearly entrapped him with a new baby to make him stop seeing Joanie. Do you think he has the energy for a new baby, anyway? Do you?"

"Plus, will he believe it's his?" Al asked. "He could take a look at it and see no resemblance to him at all, or he might demand a paternity test just in case."

Lauren pressed her palms against her eyes and groaned. "What do I do?"

"The longer you take to decide, the less likely you'll be able to go through with a termination," Rachel said.

"And it has to be before Joe comes back," Lauren said, as if working it out aloud. "Otherwise I might not be able to credibly claim the baby is his."

Lauren pulled back into traffic and said, "I need to think about this some more."

"Just know that, if you do have the baby," Al said, "and Joe doesn't believe it's his, or doesn't want anything to do with it, you're going to need help raising a new baby with two grown kids in the house. I'll be there, because I'm going to want to be in this child's life, even at a distance, even if they never know I'm their father."

"Oh, yeah?" Rachel said, unimpressed. "And, what, I'll be left looking after Emma and Logan? Will it be so long to those two for you?"

"Of course not," Al said indignantly, which surprised Lauren only because he rarely got offended or angry. It was what she loved about him. Wait, not love. They never used the word love to define their relationship. They used the word consume. They consumed each other. A baby, though, required a whole different level of affection. Not that parents all over the world didn't threaten to consume their children every day because they were so adorable, but babies needed that resolute sacrifice of the self on the pyre of their needs in order to keep them fed, clothed and safe. That sacrifice was what love was.

As if Al had read her mind, he said, "I'd never leave Emma and Logan alone. I'd have enough love for all of them."

"You certainly had enough for Lauren and me, and that's why we're in this mess in the first place," Rachel remarked.

Al flinched as if slapped, but he didn't protest her verdict. It was a mess, and Lauren would have been the first to admit it, and the solution to this mess wasn't going to be as simple as Al's noble offers suggested.

Rachel looked like she had more to say (one of those things might have been, you stupid fuck, look at what you've done, how am I supposed to live with this?) She might have said it if Lauren's phone didn't ring on its hands free device just then. It was Sunny.

She answered with relief. This was the second time Sunny called just when she needed him most. "Hey, Sunny!" she said. "I have Rachel and Al with me."

"Oh, good!" Sunny said. "Have you and Rachel made up yet?"

Rachel turned to her and said, "You told him about our little fight?"

"What fight?" Al asked.

"Never mind," Lauren said, unwilling to go into last Friday's argument, because it might veer into her revealing her pregnancy by mistake. No one would know until she made a decision. "No big deal. All made up now."

Was it though? Rachel had to be pissed at her all over again for this, as pragmatic as she'd been about the ramifications. It had never been Rachel's intention to have a baby at her age, and now here was her best friend and lover leaving a flaming bag of dog shit on her front porch.

"Good," Sunny said. "I just wanted to call and let you know I got a visit from Birinder at the office first thing this morning."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, apparently the cops paid him a visit late Saturday night. He was shitting his pants. Oh, hey, Tori, say hello, here, let me put you on speakerphone."

After a second, Tori's voice piped in. "Hello!"

"Hi," Al and Rachel said together, a little uncertainly.

"Tori's his campaign manager," Lauren said. "You didn't meet her that night at the campaign opener, but she was there."

"Oh!" Rachel said. "Good work organizing that."

"Thanks," Tori said. "So, Sunny told me about your little club when you were kids."

"Did he, now," Rachel said flatly.

"So, were you the one who got kidnapped?"

Rachel flinched. "Uh, yeah, technically, I guess. It was a long time ago, and I don't like to talk about it."

"I hear you," Tori said knowingly.

This was getting weird. "So, Sunny," Lauren said, just to get them back on track, "do you think he was shitting his pants because he knew what happened to Jordan?"

"Actually no," Sunny said. "It's because he thinks the cops are going to charge him with something even though he's innocent. I gave him Manny's name, he'll make sure they don't run roughshod over him."

"Wait, so you think he's innocent now?" Al asked.

"I don't know. The way he was talking, I got the feeling he has no clue what's going on. Here's the thing: he admitted to being married to the other Naira, even said she was a cop; that was why they split up, incidentally, because her hours were so odd and she was really intense. She didn't get along with his parents. He said she lives in New West, and they meet yearly for alimony recalculations, but he hasn't seen her in months."

"So, we were right, then," Lauren said. "She would know where he lived, so she could pretend to Jordan that she was married... well, still married... to him. She shows him the house, only the outside, of course, and points to the room where she used to rest her head."

"But why?" Rachel asked. "Why pretend at all? Why lie about Birinder being dangerous when the two of them divorced and, so far, she's safe?"

"Birinder said it wasn't an amicable divorce," Sunny said. "Maybe she wanted to stay married to him, and she's under some delusion that she still is, so she's stalking him."

"But why bring Jordan in at all? If she's stalking her ex, why involve someone else and risk arrest?"

"It's a mystery," Sunny said resignedly. "After Birinder left, I thought about other possible suspects in Jordan's disappearance and decided to check into his work. He works in IT for a company called Chimeronics that makes biomedical technology. It's pretty wild stuff, lots of human-machine symbiosis."

"Chimeronics, huh?" Lauren said. "I'll do some checking on it, see if there's anything I can find out about the CEO and the other higher ups."

"That device was a GPS locator Naira inserted into herself," Rachel said. "That's certainly a case of a machine touching a human, maybe symbiotically. What if she did that for some other reason, not because she was afraid Birinder would discover it? Maybe it was doing something else for her, or in addition to the location thing."

"That's what I was thinking," Sunny said.

"You're thinking the device was the reason both of them went missing?" Lauren asked.

"It's a good theory," Al said. "But the other Naira, the new one, seems to have stolen it, because she was the one on the footage. So, what did she do to it?"

"Okay, this is left field stuff," Rachel said, "but what if she returned it to the company? Maybe it was their property."

"So, Naira's more than just a real estate agent?" Lauren said. "She works for this company?"

"There's no Naira Sandhu in the company directory on LinkedIn. I imagine that would apply to both of them."

"Maybe not directly employed," Al said. "Maybe a private contractor."

"It's a possibility," Sunny said. "But it would be the the craziest coincidence for two women associated with this company to have been married to Birinder."

"I agree," Lauren said. "I think there are more pieces to this puzzle we haven't discovered yet and, once they're placed, the whole picture will be clear."

"Yeah," Sunny said, sighing. "Anyway, that's all I have."

"Thanks, Sunny," Lauren said. "Maybe now that the police are on it, they'll be able to find those two."

"We'll probably never know, though," Sunny said. "Not unless Jordan contacts me, but he'll have to turn up first."

"Yeah," Rachel said. "Too bad."

They hung up. Lauren sighed and said, "Well, that was a brief diversion."

"We now return to our regularly scheduled crisis," Rachel said. "Look, Lauren, I don't know what to tell you. I know none of us intended for this to happen, but whatever you decide, we'll be there for you."

Lauren nodded, feeling her face crumple again. "Thanks, guys. I think I need to sleep on this; maybe a solution will come to me in the morning."

They were silent the rest of the way home. They made dinner together and helped the kids with their homework. Later in the evening, Tej called Rachel, and Rachel announced that they had a deal. They had a new house. Lauren knew this was coming eventually and tried to be brave, but she felt exactly as Naomi and Emma felt when they realized they wouldn't be sharing a room anymore, hugging tearfully as they promised to always be in touch by phone. Even Rachel and Al didn't look overjoyed; maybe their earlier discussion had them thinking now might not be the best time to move out after all, if only to help Lauren in case she had the baby. Logan was the only one who looked happy, as he would finally be getting off the couch and into his own room.

In bed, Lauren lay on her stomach, feeling emotionally wrung out. She was pregnant, and Al and Rachel were moving out just when she needed them around most. She knew she should tell Joe the news, about the move, not the baby. Maybe he'd come back now. Joanie had her first day back at work today, so he didn't need to stick around to nurse her.

Suddenly her phone buzzed. She checked it and found a text from Regan.

Feel like telling me now?

Lauren smirked and typed: Tell you what?

The long story. Your husband and his lover.

Lauren chuckled to herself. It was surprising, but Regan's playful prying actually made her feel better. She typed: First, let me ask you, if you found out you were pregnant with your lover's baby, would you tell your husband?

Those three dots blinked for a very long time. Finally, Regan wrote back: You're the most interesting person I've ever met, have I told you that?

Thanks! So, what do you think?

Luckily I'm not married so I'll never be in that situation. My first instinct would be a hard no, but that would only be if I wasn't keeping it. If I was, I'd be praying the baby looked at least a little like him.

Then Regan wrote: I take it this has something to do with the story I'm about to hear?

Oh, boy, does it ever. Buckle up. This is going to take a while.

Thanks for reading this far! If you liked what you just read, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

To read about Sunny's text exchange with an unknown messenger who appears to know a little but more than he does, click on "Continue reading."