Hail tapped on the door to the apartment she, Athena, and Storm shared. “Anybody here?” she called out, as she opened the door and stepped inside.
“You’re back!” Athena cried from the sofa.
Hail looked over into the living room and immediately pressed her lips tightly together to keep from laughing.
Athena was lying on the sofa, her arms and legs flailing as she tried to roll herself into a sitting position. She looked over at Hail and her expression immediately went hard. “Do not even laugh at me! I can still whip your ass!”
Hail closed her eyes and shook her head as she fought to suppress even a slight grin. “Not if you can’t get up off that sofa, you can’t.”
Athena growled. “Damn it! At least come over here and help me get up!”
Hail put down her duffel bag and hurried over to Athena, grabbing her hands and pulling to help get her upright. “You look like a turtle stuck on your back.”
“Bite me,” Athena snapped.
“Nah, I’ll leave that for Scorn. Speaking of, where is he? Shouldn’t he be here with you?”
“He’s with his team, they got word of some still captive Variant males. I told him to go, no use two of us sitting here miserable.”
“Oh, that must be the ones we found.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure, but you know how Lethal is about not letting a single word leak about whatever his mission is covering.”
Hail nodded. “Anything happen when I was gone?” she asked, walking back over to pick up her duffel as she carried it totheir tiny laundry room and started taking clothes out of it and loading up the washer.
“Not a thing. But you know for me to hear of it, I’d have to leave this apartment. And that’s not happening until the baby chooses to claw its way out of my damn body!” Athena snapped, looking down at the roundness of her belly. “I’ll never be skinny again. I’ll be fat, and look like a turtle when I get stuck on my back,” she said, as she started sniffling and blinking away tears again.
Hail started the washing machine and closed the folding doors to hide the washer and dryer, then walked back over to Athena. “You are aware that after the baby is born you won’t have a round belly anymore, right?”
“I’m hoping.”
“You’re in pristine shape. You’ll bounce back.”
“How do you know?” Athena asked weepily.
“I read it. The better shape you’re in when you get pregnant, the faster you’ll bounce back. And if you’re lucky, you’ll keep the boobs, too. But you do not want to breast feed. They’ll shrivel up and eventually hang to your navel.”
“Do you believe in God?” Athena asked.
“Huh? Where did that come from?”
“Because I’m pretty sure that when I die, if I meet Eve, I’m going to punch her right in the fucking face for pissing him off and making us suffer so much simply for being women. All the pain and the struggle and suffering! That’s because she just had to fucking eat an apple.”
“And the boob thing brought that on?” Hail asked.
“No. The immeasurable pain I’m anticipating with giving birth to this kid, and the pain in my ass periods that we have to deal with and all the struggles during and after a baby.”
“Well, we didn’t have periods for a long time, so, maybe it’s a good thing now that we do, or you wouldn’t be having yours and Scorn’s baby. But other than that, I’m with you.”
“Fine. That much is true.”
“He or she, is going to be beautiful and absolutely not to be fucked with,” Hail said.
“You just don’t even know how right you are,” Athena said, grinning at her.
Hail nodded, but didn’t fully jump in and start egging Athena on. Instead, she just smiled and sat beside her on the sofa.
“How was your mission with Frenzy?”
