She should be angry. Part of her was angry—a hot, steady flame that burned beneath her fear and exhaustion. But a larger part ofher understood what he was saying, even if she couldn’t accept it. If Robbie was dying, if there was no other way to save him, what wouldn’t she do?
“The worst part was the ones who made it out of the artificial wombs. Who almost lived. There was one. Three years ago. She made it further than any of the others—five months. Our first female.” His tail twitched against the floor. “Her heart beat so strongly. We thought… we all thought…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it.
“So am I.”
Robbie stirred against her chest, making a small sound that was somewhere between a whimper and a sigh. She pressed her hand to his forehead and breathed a sigh of relief.
“He’s cooler.”
Becsul sat up straighter. “How much?”
“Still warm, but not—” She closed her eyes, focusing on the feel of his skin. “Not as hot as before. I think it’s working.”
“Good.” The relief in his voice was palpable. “That’s good.”
They sat in silence for a while longer, watching Robbie’s breathing slow and deepen into something closer to normal sleep. The tension in her shoulders began to ease, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion that made her eyelids heavy.
“You should rest,” Becsul said.
“I can’t. What if his fever comes back? What if?—”
“I’ll watch him. I’ll wake you if anything changes.”
She wanted to argue. Every maternal instinct she had screamed that she should stay vigilant, that she couldn’t trust anyone else to care for her son as well as she could.
But she was so tired. And he was looking at her with those solid black eyes, steady and calm, and some small, fragile part of her that she had kept locked away for years believed him.
“Just for a little while,” she heard herself say.
She meant to lie down on the bed, to put some distance between them. But her body had other ideas. She found herself sliding down the wall to sit beside him, Robbie still cradled against her chest. Her head came to rest against the firm muscles of his shoulder, warmer than she had expected, and her eyes drifted closed before she could stop them.
She felt him pick her up and set her on his lap, careful not to jostle the baby. Felt his tail curl protectively around both of them, a gentle pressure that should have felt constraining but instead felt safe.
This is a terrible idea,she thought hazily.
And then she was asleep.
She woke to the sound of Robbie’s normal, healthy cry. For a moment, she didn’t understand where she was. The surface beneath her was warm and solid—not the thin mattress of the bed, but something that rose and fell with a steady rhythm. She was half-lying across…
Becsul.
She sat up so quickly that she nearly dropped the baby. Robbie protested loudly, his cry shifting from “hungry” to “what are you doing, Mama?” She gathered him close, her heart pounding, and looked down at the alien male she had apparently spent the entire night sleeping on.
He blinked up at her, and for a moment, his expression was unguarded, soft and warm and achingly tender. Then it smoothed into something more controlled, though his tail stayed curled around her waist.
“Good morning.”
“I—” She felt heat rising in her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you like that.”
“I didn’t mind.”
Of course he didn’t.She could see it in the way he was looking at her, in the gentle pressure of his tail, in the careful way he had positioned himself to support her weight without crowding her. He had stayed awake all night, watching over her and her son, and he didn’t even seem tired.
“Robbie’s fever?” she asked.
