Chapter 5 - Loopholes

"Nothing?" Joey stared at Leda in disbelief as she chucked yet another pregnancy test. "You're serious? You're still not pregnant."

"These things take time, Joey-"

"Don't tell me that! I got you pregnant our first night in this house. I must have like...mutant sperm or something!"

Leda rubbed her temples for a moment, taking in a deep breath, before she shook her head. "It's only been a few weeks, all right? It doesn't mean anything. For all we know, it could just...be something with our bodies, or something."

"With our bodies?"

"Yeah. Maybe I've got really...not-good-eggs or something."

Joey stared at her, his voice turning deadpan. "I got you pregnant our first night in this house. How many times do I have to say that?"

"I remember, actually."

Leda sighed. "I want children just as much as you do, Joey. And the fact is that we're not getting any younger. We'll have a birthday in just four days." A joint celebration for their mutual birthday called for a party, of course, but Joey had been running himself so ragged with work that he hadn't even suggested it. Leda was so scared of setting him off again that she kept her thoughts about it to herself. As long as he wouldn't regret it, a quiet celebration worked just fine for her.

"So what are you saying?"

"So maybe we go to the doctor tomorrow on your day off, while Jarred's at school. Maybe we see if...something's wrong, okay?"

He stared at her for a long moment before he nodded with his own soft sigh.

"Listen...if it comes right down to it...what do you think of adoption?" he asked softly, looking far more tentative than she'd seen him since their last serious encounter in the kitchen.

Leda smiled softly, touching his arm. "Adoption would be wonderful, sweetheart, but it's also...incredibly expensive, you know that."

She knew she'd said the wrong thing when his face closed off again, but he nodded regardless. "I...need to go work out. We'll head to the doctor tomorrow, all right?" As he walked down the stairs, Leda wondered when she'd ever learn to say the right thing.

Jarred has taken to painting like a moth to a flame. It seems he has artistic blood running through his veins. The fact that he's taken to whistling WHILE he paints suggests perhaps a touch of virtuoso within him as well. One will have to wait and see when he grows into a teenager.

The next evening, with Jarred safely at a friend's house for the night, Joey and Leda went to a local cheap restaurant to discuss their doctor's visit that day.

"It doesn't make you any less of a man, sweetheart-"

"Dammit, Leda, not in public." Joey sulked inside of the boxcar like a wounded animal, pouting all over the place.

Leda bit her bottom lip as they tucked themselves into a booth and dropped her voice to a whisper. "Sweetie, it's just your sperm. The doctors say we can keep trying. We just...have to make sure my body's in prime condition, that we try the right positions-" When Joey flashed her a glare she bit her tongue and leaned back in the booth with a faint sigh.

The waitress delivered them two cups of coffee, and they were silent as they drank. When Joey pressed his into the table, he began to speak again. "I'm not gonna let something like this keep us from having a family."

"Joey..."

"There's other things we can try, all right? Look, Marc was telling me about this thing they've got downtown. It's like some...fertilization clinic or something." He looked around at the nearby tables, ignoring the shock that crossed his wife's face. When he was confident that no one was listening in, he leaned in close and dropped his voice. "Look, for a lot cheaper than to adopt a kid, we could fertilize your eggs and-"

"And let me have another man's baby?"

"It wouldn't have to be like that." Joey grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "It'd still be my kid. It would."

Leda tugged her hand out of his grasp, staring down at the table like a woman haunted. Joey stared for a moment longer before he sat back in his seat and flagged a waitress down. The two didn't speak for the rest of the meal.

Joey's dreams that night bordered on manic, filled with baby upon baby falling from the sky in a storm. He ran outside with a bucket, holding it above his head to catch as many as he could, but every time he looked inside of it there wasn't a single child within.

He looked around quickly and saw everyone else catching a baby or a toddler, some even catching two or three at a time. But Leda just lingered near the door of their house, sad and lonely. "I'm sorry, love," he told her. "I tried."

He sat up in bed and looked around in a panic.

Something had to be done.

Leda sat home most of the day, her mind absolutely void of any and all inspiration. A novel was sitting on her computer, half-finished, and yet she couldn't bring herself to get up off the couch.

She couldn't get that idea out of her head, that half-brained one that Joey had come up with. Honestly, going to a sperm clinic to get the job done? Letting some stranger insert a turkey baster in her vagina and fertilizing her? Where no one other than Joey had ever gone?

No. She had to tell him tonight. She couldn't do it. It was too terrifying, and she couldn't handle anyone being near her in that way.

He came through the door right on time, in his civilian clothes, and Leda came to her feet. "Joey...look, about last night."

His eyes lit up. He thought she'd reconsidered. Her heart froze.

"Joey, I can't. I can't do something like that. I just can't."

He looked crestfallen for all of two seconds before he suddenly lunged forward, eyes flaming. "What the hell are you saying? You don't want to have a family with me, is that it?"

Leda leaned back, feeling more angry than scared at the moment. "That's not what I'm saying at all. If you'd just listen to me-"

"Leda, that's EXACTLY what you're saying!" There were deep, heavy lines forming in his forehead, and for the first time she read the true effects that constant stress was having on him, from him working so late and working so hard every day. "I'm doing everything I can! WE'VE done everything we can, and we sure as hell aren't gonna have a baby on our own, all right? The doctor made that BEYOND clear."

"But we can keep trying! We can-"

"YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING TO TRY. I gave you ONE suggestion, and-"

Joey became suddenly aware of Jarred's presence in the house, where he'd exited the bathroom and now stood staring at the corner like he'd rather pretend he wasn't there. Joey deflated.

This wasn't like him. For goodness sake, he was the friendliest guy on the block back home. He never had a wrong word to say about anyone. All he ever did was make people laugh, make them smile, anything he could. That was why Leda fell for him in the first place, wasn't it?

As he stared at her now, taking in the frightened look on her face and the way she held her hands, like she was trying to ward him off, all he felt was incredibly ashamed.

"I'm..." Jarred said softly, tugging out a notebook. "I'm gonna go do homework. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, Leda," Joey murmured before he could change his mind, leaning in closer. "Look, you're right. This is something I can't push you into. If you wanna wait until we can afford to adopt a kid, that's fine with me. I can't push you. This is a relationship, right? Teamwork? A unit. I know all about that now. Just...please forgive me."

"It's all right, Joey. Don't worry." As Leda drifted into the bedroom for the night, Joey had the distinct feeling that nothing could be any less all right than this.

That night, it was Leda's turn to dream about babies.

They were growing in test tubes all around a room, curled into fetal positions and looking as if there was no room for them at all. The very glass of each tube looked like it would shatter. She looked frantically around the room before wheeling around to a nurse. "Please, PLEASE, you've got to let them be free!"

"There's nothing we can do, my dear." The elderly lady stopped cleaning her glasses and perched them on the tip of her nose, frowning. "Not unless they have a home. They'll die."

"What home do they need? Why aren't they being adopted?"

"They can't be adopted, child. They need a place to grow first." When the woman's eyes flicked down to Leda's stomach, Leda doubled over suddenly at a great weight on her bladder. When Leda looked down as well, her stomach was far bigger than it had been when she was pregnant with Jarred. "Just three days. That's all we ask."

Leda woke up in a cold sweat, her heart pounding. Well. That dream definitely changed things.

A few days later, Leda dragged Joey into the bathroom after work for a touch of privacy. "Joey, I...I need to talk to you."

He was still wary after their last confrontation. He'd been lingering on the edges of her life, afraid to pass those boundaries that she'd set up while she made her decision, and for once, Leda understood that. "Yeah?"

"I went somewhere yesterday."

"Uh-huh?"

"I went...downtown."

He furrowed his brow. "To the...bookstore?"

"To the clinic, actually." A light of awareness came on in his eyes then, and he gaped at her as she looked away shyly. "And then to the drugstore today. And I'm...pregnant."

There was another long, overarching moment of silence before Joey reached toward her and pulled her in for a deep kiss.

"Leda, I didn't mean that you...I mean...Leda!"

She smiled, pressing her forehead against his. "It was my decision, sweetheart, not yours. I promise."

"Holy shit!" He held her tight against him. "I'm gonna be a father! Again!" He kissed her cheek, her hair, everything he could reach. "And I'm gonna do it right this time. I am. I promise." She felt so warm against him, and he realized he'd forgotten before just how much he loved her. "Are you okay? Did it hurt?"

"No. I'm not sore at all, actually. I'm...surprised. It was like magic."

"Not sore at all?"

"N-no, why do you as..." She trailed off when she looked up and caught the heat in his eyes, feeling her stomach flip-flop just before it shot down a rollercoaster. "...oh."

Jarred ran around his friend's yard, playing tag...

...and Leda and Joey celebrated this bit of news the only way that they knew how.

Joey stood true to his promise. Though the child wasn't his biologically, he did whatever he could to help Leda prepare for the pregnancy this time around. One of the sweetest moments she could remember was when they sat side by side, reading pregnancy books together.

When Joey's birthday came a few days later, however, Leda felt very strange, like she wasn't going to grow older. She wondered if the baby had anything to do with it.

Regardless, with Jarred away with another friend doing homework, she celebrated the birthday as enthusiastically as she knew how.

While Joey fancied he was now twice as sexy, Leda reflected that he hadn't changed a bit.

Leda decided that if she was ever pregnant again, she wouldn't be wearing high heels if she had to waddle about.

Inspiration always seemed to hit at the perfect time.

For example, right as she went into labor.

"OH MY GOD WHAT DO WE DO?! DO YOU NEED HELP?! DO I CARRY YOU?!"

"Don't worry about it, sweetheart. I'll be...right back."

Regardless of her pleas, Joey carried her to the taxi, which took her to the hospital, though for some strange reason felt no compulsion to come along.

The person who DID have a compulsion to come, however, made Leda's heart stop.

"..."

"..."

Marc was the first person to speak. "Look, I needed a little extra cash, they needed a little sperm..."

"We shall never speak of this again."

"Right."

Marc ran off before Leda gave birth...

...to a lovely baby girl named Freya.

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...I really hope I didn't break any rules for this chapter. xD To sum it up, I used the Master Controller mod to pollinate Leda by Marc. Why? Because I secretly have adored him ever since I got Ambitions in the first place. He's just so pretty. So if Freya gets any of his genes I'll be happy, and if she doesn't I might just give her his hair color anyway just because I can. Anyway, it means that Freya is Jarred's half-sibling, since Joey is officially her stepfather in her geneology, so I am satisfied.

BTW, Jarred's traits currently are Artistic, Virtuoso, and Easily Impressed, each having been randomized in. He hasn't shown up a lot, I know. OTL He's not really been doing anything interesting except having his first painting be worth $130-something.

Freya's traits are Loner and Genius, so one from Leda and one from Marc. I thought it was a pretty good trade-off. She got her name because Leda is from Greek mythology, and Freya is from Norse mythology. I might have a little female goddess/mythology name chain for a little while just to amuse myself.

For anyone who thought this might be getting a little too dramatic, I think that's finally over for now, so you can breathe easily. c: It's kind of strange. Joey really HAS been getting tons of opportunities to stay late, has been coming home super stressed because I make him Work Hard all day until he's about to get overworked, etc. Just worked out into the story that way. But now he can be Super Dad, so he can finally be happy.