“What is the patient’s prognosis, now?” she asked.
“Full recovery,” the mechanical voice replied with zero emotion.
A wall of feelings rushed through me, I swayed on my feet, nearly knocked over by relief, hope, and worry. All tubes were removed from him and disappeared back into the wall.
Wyck’s chest rose with a breath he took all on his own. His eyelids fluttered, then his eyes opened.
A loud sob tore from my throat at the sight of his luminous eyes—bright yellow with calming specs of green.
The transparent canopy lifted.
“Go to him.” Svetlana softly nudged me.
By “go to him” she might have meant a hug, hand holding, or maybe a kiss.
None of those seemed sufficient at the moment. I needed all of that and more. I wanted all of him, at once.
Sobbing, I climbed on the bed to him as Svetlana left the room, going to tell Vrateus the news.
A knee on each side of Wyck’s hips, I braced my legs to keep my weight entirely off him. I leaned over him, cupping his face.
“Wyck...” I gently kissed his lips. “My love...”
I couldn’t stop kissing his face, every touch of my lips against his warm skin being another reassurance of him finally coming back to me.
“Love?” He blinked in the bright light of the room and slid his hands up my hips to my waist. “I know exactly what that means, my sweet sugar. I love you.”
Tears streamed anew, and I didn’t bother to wipe them away. They dropped on his chin, getting lost in his stubble.
He lifted a finger to my face, tracing a tear from my eye down my cheek.
“Are those happy tears?” he asked.
“A new patient detected...” the system suddenly announced.
I paid it no attention, lost in the moment with Wyck.
“Happy tears,” I whispered, staring into his eyes. “Those are very happy tears, Wyck. My Wyck. I love you, too.”
He slid his hand behind my neck, then lowered my head down to his mouth for a kiss.
“Human female...” the system kept talking.
I raised my hand, blindly searching along the wall for the screen to shut it up. I was not going to break our kiss even if...
“Gestational age of the fetus is estimated at five weeks...”
I dropped my hand down, sitting upright abruptly.
“What is it saying?” I gaped at Wyck as if he had an explanation.
“Mixed species— errock and human. Gender male. Development normal for this stage of pregnancy...”
Shock rolled through me.
“A fetus?” Wyck sat up, too, shifting me into his lap.
“A baby?” I mumbled, and we both stared at my stomach area.
“Is that possible?” he asked me. “Are there babies of mixed species out there?”
“A few. To my knowledge, all of them have been created by artificial insemination. In a lab. Not like...this. And no human-errock ones yet.”
“Five weeks?” He looked just as utterly confused as I must have.
“They calculate the gestational age in a weird way. The fetus...” I touched my belly, with trembling fingers. “The baby has actually been there only for two or three weeks of that time.”
It must’ve been conceived shortly after Wyck and I moved here over three weeks ago.
“There is...” He covered my hand with his. “There is a baby in there?”
“That’s what the medical capsule says, and I have no other way of confirming it.” Other than my rather sudden aversion to the smell of coffee. “Could the system be malfunctioning?”
“Is it the same system that has just patched me up?”
I nodded, shaken and overwhelmed.
He rubbed the faint scar on his chest. “Seems to be functioning pretty good. I feel great.” He splayed one hand on my stomach, sinking the fingers of the other into the hair on the back of my head. “Are we starting our very own family, then?”
“I guess we are,” I breathed out, staring at his golden eyes full of life and love. “How do you feel about it?”
“Nadia.” He leaned his forehead to mine. “You are my kind. You and...he, the baby. I’d die for you.”
“You already have.” I took his face in my hands, finding his eyes with mine again. “You’ve already died once. You’ve just come back from the dead. No more dying, my darling. We need to live, now. All of us.”
His eyes shimmered, glistening brighter than ever. Then a tear rolled out, trembling on the end of an eyelash. I leaned closer, kissing it off. “Don’t cry, sweetheart,” I whispered, my heart overflowing with tenderness and love.