old bachelor." Tommy's eyes dropped to her thickened waist. He spun away, ran his hands through his hair. "Oh ... shit... this is too fuckin' weird."
"You ought to try it from my side." For a long moment, they stood in silence. It soon became uncomfortable. Tommy was staring at her so oddly.
"What?" Tach finally demanded. "You really are beautiful."
Her hands flew to her cheeks, covering the betraying flush. "Don't be an idiot," she said gruffly. She then peeked at him through the curtain of her hair. "Tommy, do you have a mirror?"
"Why?"
"I ... I have never seen myself. I have lived in this skin for seven months, but I have never seen myself."
Pity flared in his eyes. Gruffly he said, "Come on." She followed him down the hall and into the small bedroom. A full-length mirror hung on the closet door. Tommy reached out and snapped on the ceiling light. The wallpaper was an elegant stripe design known as Versailles. Tach had used it in one of her apartments. The room was dominated by a big-screen TV, but that would be logicalTommy had owned a TV repair shop. Atop the television was the head of an incredibly handsome man. In place of hair, a clear radar dome covered the top of the skull.
"Modular Man?"
"It's all I've got, just the head. I'm going to get it working sometime."
"You're very strange." She resumed her scrutiny of the room. Framed prints and posters on the walls, tumbled pile of books on the bedside table. The bed itself was a canopied dream, a bed for a Renaissance prince.
"You're a romantic," said Tachyon as she crossed the room. "And a very bad sleeper," she added with a glance at the bedclothes, which were humped and twisted like cloth' mountains riven by an earthquake.
But the moment had come, and she forced her attention to the mirror. It was a little figure, a defiant urchin in her faded denim coveralls. The shoulder straps crisscrossed the thin white T-shirt. The breasts were swollen; her body preparing itself for motherhood. The thrust of her belly was greater than she had expected, and she found it embarrassingparticularly with Turtle watching.
She moved in closer, inspected the silver gilt hair cascading over her shoulders and reaching to her hips. The shape of the face was actually familiar. Like her own, it tapered to a pointed little chin, but it was soft and innocent. No wrinkles formed a net of years about the eyes; no deep gouges marred the vulnerable mouth. Tachyon noticed she had a rather short upper lip, which left her with a constant and quizzical little porpoise smile. Only in the eyes did her ordeal, and the years that burdened her soul, reveal themselves. They were a deep smoky gray with a darker circle around the iris, and they were haunted and very sad.
She turned back to Tommy. "Ideal, it's so ... young." Tach turned back to the mirror. Noted the bones of her clavicle etched beneath the white skin. She was painfully thin, which made the distended belly look more like a victim of starvation than pregnancy.
"What do you need, Tachy?" asked Turtle.
"A bath-I'm sticky with salt. A meal. And sleep."
"Bathroom's through there. I'll fix you some food, and the bed." He pointed.
An hour later, she was clean, sated, and exhausted. Tach climbed into the big canopied bed wearing a soft flannel shirt of Tommy's. Her hair was still damp, and she could almost feel the tangles forming, but she didn't care.
With his feet planted well apart and his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his bathrobe, Tommy was a pudgy Colossus of Rhodes standing guard at the door. "Could I..."
"What?"
"Nah, never mind."
"What?"
"It's nothing."
"What?" repeated Tachyon with rising irritation.
He sucked in a bushel's worth of air and let it out in a long breath. "Could I ... brush your hair?"
Tach smiled, and for the first time she saw the effect a lovely woman could have on a man. The Ideal knew she had felt it often enough. But what power.
"I'd like that, Tommy."
She held out her hand, and as he crossed to her, he plucked a silver-backed brush from the dresser. It was such an oddly elegant thing to see in Tommy's broad soft hand. He settled cross-legged on the bed behind her. Tach fidgeted for several seconds until she found a position that would accommodate her belly and not cramp Illyana. Waves of sleepy contentment were washing off the baby, and it was about to put Tach