Chapter 472 - 85 - A possible child

Chapter 472: Chapter 85 - A possible child

By late afternoon, the clear stretch of road Fan Xui’s soldiers had secured was far behind them.

They had made decent progress toward Haicheng, but traveling on foot with Lili meant Chen couldn’t push them as hard as he normally would.

The little girl stubbornly insisted she wasn’t tired every time he checked on her, even when her steps began to drag and she stumbled twice over cracks in the road. When Skyy finally crouched and offered to carry her, Chen stopped him before Lili could climb onto his back.

"You’re tired too."

"I can carry her."

"No. Come here, Lili."

Chen crouched instead, and Lili happily climbed onto his back without putting up an argument. That alone told him how exhausted she really was. Her arms wrapped loosely around his neck, and within twenty minutes her cheek was squashed against his shoulder, her breathing slow and even.

Skyy glanced over and immediately smiled. "She fell asleep."

"I noticed."

"She looks comfortable."

Chen gave him a sideways look. "Are you jealous?"

Skyy laughed and shook his head, but he moved closer anyway, walking almost shoulder to shoulder with him for the rest of the way.

As evening approached, the temperature began dropping quickly. They couldn’t risk continuing along an unfamiliar road after dark, especially now that they were outside the area Fan Xui’s soldiers regularly patrolled. Fortunately, Chen spotted a small house behind a row of overgrown trees not far from the highway. The windows were intact, and although the yard had disappeared beneath years of weeds, the building itself looked sturdy enough.

Chen made Skyy wait outside with Lili while he searched every room. There were no infected, no signs that anyone had occupied the place recently and, most importantly, the roof was intact. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was dry and defensible.

Lili barely stirred when Chen placed her on the old sofa. Skyy wiped away as much dust as he could before spreading a blanket beneath her and another over her small body. He tucked the edges around her carefully, then adjusted them again a few moments later when Lili moved in her sleep.

Chen had settled against the wall beside an old mattress they’d dragged into the living room. He watched Skyy fuss with the blanket for the third time before shaking his head.

"She isn’t going to disappear if you stop looking at her."

Skyy glanced back at him. "I know."

"Do you?"

That earned him a small glare, but Skyy finally left Lili alone and came over. He dropped onto the mattress beside Chen with a tired sigh and immediately leaned against his shoulder.

Chen smiled and shifted so Skyy could settle more comfortably against him.

The house was quiet. Wind occasionally brushed through the overgrown trees outside and rattled something loose near the roof, but there were no groans of infected or distant gunshots. Lili’s soft breathing was the only other sound in the room. After everything they’d gone through over the last several days, the silence felt almost strange.

Skyy’s hand found Chen’s between them. Their fingers intertwined naturally, and Chen looked down at their joined hands before turning his head and pressing a kiss against Skyy’s temple.

Skyy tilted his face toward him.

Chen kissed his cheek next.

A smile tugged at Skyy’s lips.

"What?" Chen asked.

"Nothing."

"That doesn’t look like nothing."

Skyy didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned in and kissed him.

Chen went quiet immediately.

The first kiss was soft, barely more than a warm press of lips, but when Skyy began to pull away, Chen followed him. His hand slipped around Skyy’s waist and drew him closer as he kissed him again, slower this time. Skyy’s fingers curled into the front of his shirt, and Chen felt him relax against him.

There was no desperation behind it. They weren’t hiding from infected or wondering whether they would survive until morning. For once Chen could simply sit there and kiss the person he loved without expecting the world to interrupt them.

When they finally parted, Skyy’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes had taken on that bright, slightly dazed look Chen had quickly grown fond of.

Chen brushed his thumb across his lower lip. "You’re pretty."

Skyy’s smile immediately widened. "You think I’m pretty?"

"You know I do."

"I like hearing you say it."

Chen laughed softly. "Greedy."

He pulled Skyy back against his chest, and Skyy settled there willingly. For a while they remained that way, Chen’s arm around his waist while Skyy played absently with the fabric of his shirt. Gradually, though, Chen noticed the movement of Skyy’s fingers becoming slower. He wasn’t sleepy. He was thinking.

Chen looked down at him. "What’s wrong?"

Skyy was silent for a moment before lifting his head.

"Chen... what if I’m pregnant?"

Chen stared at him.

For several seconds, his mind seemed to stop working entirely.

"What?"

Skyy’s expression became a little uncertain. "What if I’m pregnant?"

This time the words registered properly.

Chen’s eyes immediately dropped toward Skyy’s stomach.

The night they’d spent together flashed through his mind, followed closely by everything Skyy had told him about PW humans and why people like him had originally been created.

"Oh."

Skyy watched his expression carefully.

Chen blinked. "Oh, fuck."

"Chen."

"No, I’m not upset. I just..." He rubbed a hand over his face, suddenly feeling like an idiot. "I didn’t even think about it."

Somehow, he genuinely hadn’t. There had been zombies, Liang Wei’s death, the railway tunnel, finding Lili, reaching City S, discovering he’d been thrown into another point in time and finally seeing his father again. The possibility of pregnancy had never once properly entered his mind.

But now that Skyy had said it aloud, Chen couldn’t understand how he’d missed something so obvious.

Skyy’s hand slowly moved over his stomach. "Would it be bad?"

Chen’s head snapped up. "What?"

"If I was pregnant."

The uncertainty in Skyy’s voice immediately wiped away the last of Chen’s shock.

Skyy looked down at his own hand. "I don’t know if I am. It’s probably too early to know. But I’ve been thinking about it for a while." He hesitated before continuing. "Where I came from, someone like me getting pregnant wasn’t something special. It was expected. PW humans were created for that. People cared whether our bodies were healthy enough and whether we were compatible with the ability user we were assigned to. Nobody really cared whether we wanted a child."

Chen’s expression changed.

Skyy’s fingers curled slightly against his shirt.

"But this wouldn’t be like that. That night was my choice. You were my choice." He finally looked at Chen again. "So I keep wondering what would happen if there really was a baby."

Chen felt something tighten painfully inside his chest.

His hand moved toward Skyy’s stomach, but he stopped before touching him. Suddenly even that simple gesture felt like something he should ask permission for.

"Can I?"

Skyy looked down at his hand and nodded.

Chen gently placed his palm over Skyy’s stomach.

There was nothing different about it. Skyy’s stomach was still completely flat beneath his shirt, and there was no movement or change Chen could possibly feel. Logically, he knew there might be nothing there at all.

Still, the moment his hand settled against him, the possibility became startlingly real.

Their child could be there.

Something made from both of them.

Chen stared at the place beneath his palm for so long that Skyy eventually whispered, "If I really am... what would we do?"

"We’d raise them."

The answer came so naturally that Chen didn’t even have to think about it.

Skyy’s eyes widened slightly. "Together?"

Chen immediately looked at him. "Of course together. What else would we do?"

Something fragile crossed Skyy’s face.

Chen shifted closer, keeping his palm against his stomach. "I don’t know what our lives are going to look like by then. Hell, I don’t even know what timeline we’re going to be living in. But if there’s really a baby here, you’re not dealing with that alone. We’ll raise our child together."

Skyy’s eyes began to shine.

Chen’s thumb moved slowly over the fabric beneath his palm as the thought settled more deeply into him. He couldn’t promise Skyy an easy life. Not in this world. There would always be infected, dangerous people and things outside Chen’s control. Promising that nothing bad would ever happen would be meaningless.

But there were things he could promise.

"I’ll protect both of you with everything I have," Chen said quietly. "I’ll find somewhere safe for us. I’ll make sure you have food, medicine, whatever you need. I can’t promise our kid will never have trouble. Nobody can. But they’ll never face it alone. They’ll never have to wonder whether someone is coming for them or whether they’re wanted."

A tear slipped down Skyy’s cheek.

Chen immediately wiped it away with his free hand, but another followed.

"They’d be wanted?" Skyy whispered.

That question hurt more than Chen expected.

He cupped Skyy’s cheek and gently turned his face toward him. "Skyy, they’d be ours."

Skyy’s expression crumpled.

He threw both arms around Chen and buried his face against his neck. Chen caught him without hesitation, wrapping his arms around him as Skyy’s shoulders began to shake. Warm tears soaked into the side of his neck, but Chen didn’t tell him to stop crying or try to make him talk. He simply held him, rubbing his back slowly and letting him get it out.

After a while, Skyy’s voice came muffled against his shoulder.

"I never thought I’d have something like this."

Chen closed his eyes and held him tighter.

He understood.

Skyy wasn’t only talking about a child. He was talking about having a family because he wanted one, not because someone had decided that was the purpose of his body. A child who wouldn’t be taken from him or treated as the result of some breeding arrangement. A life that belonged to him.

Chen turned his face and kissed Skyy’s hair.

"You have me."

Skyy’s arms tightened around him.

"And if there’s a little one in there," Chen murmured, his hand moving back to rest gently over Skyy’s stomach, "they have me too."

Skyy let out a wet, shaky laugh and pressed himself closer.

Chen held him against his chest, his palm remaining over that completely flat stomach. There might be nothing there. Weeks from now they might discover they’d spent this entire night getting emotional over a possibility that had never existed.

But strangely, Chen couldn’t think of it as nothing anymore.

The thought of a tiny life growing inside Skyy should have terrified him. Instead, beneath all the shock and uncertainty, there was something unexpectedly warm taking root in his chest.

Their child.

Chen lowered his head and kissed Skyy’s temple, keeping him tucked securely against his body.

For the first time, he allowed himself to imagine that it might be true.