Billie twisted her fingers anxiously as she paced back and forth across the width of the stadium where she had shed both sweat and blood over the last year. Her eyes scanned her surroundings, taking it in like she had the first time she had stepped foot on the pitch, decked out in black and white. She hadn’t known a single person when she had first joined the league – she felt like something of an outcast, a feeling she had hoped would subside over time, but never did. She wasn’t necessarily an assertive person – she wasn’t the type to try and make a lot of friends, because she was just so awkward about just about everything. It was like she didn’t know how to just be normal around people. Every now and then she managed to fool people into believing she wasn’t as messed up as she actually was, and Thomas McCormack was one of the people she had managed to befriend.

True, their friendship had been based on a mutual physical need, but he was her teammate, and probably the only Magpie who she had made a true connection with. She had tried to talk to the others, but she just…she never knew what to say to them, or how to act.

She started gnawing on the corner of her thumbnail, now walking with one foot in front of the other as she balanced on the thin white line that surrounded the pitch, marking its parameters. She had arrived about 5 minutes after she had written to Thomas, knowing she would have to wait for him to arrive. She needed some time to clear her head. She wondered if he would even care, when she told him, but tried to push her pessimism to the side, and closed her eyes as she let the cool spring breeze brush across her face.

She breathed in, and then out, wondering if maybe she should have just let him find out when everyone else did instead of wasting his time….

He had not had the desire to hold a baby in years. His nephew and niece, they got stared at by Elliot from a distance, a smile and a wave. His sister was always trying to push them into his arms, in her subtle but ineffective ways. Elliot had even found himself becoming distant with his own son, even though he and Liam had never been a hands-on pair. Liam was much more confident than Elliot had ever been, and often found pleasure in just sitting in the same room, on the same couch, at the same table as his dad.

But it was this strange pull towards the nursery, as if he had some sort of invisible rope wrapped around his waist that would only stretch to their front door before snapping him back. Elliot had spent the last nine months racked with guilt, sick with worry, and to have the relief of this wonderful, lovely, beautiful baby girl! He just never wanted to leave her side.

"Is that right?" he said softly as Elysia let out some sounds. Elliot still was keeping his distance, if sitting at the end of her crib and peering over showed. While he knew that his daughter was healthy and not a monster like he was, Elliot was still cautious---he still didn't trust the healers and who knew what infants could be infected with. He pushed himself a little closer, chin resting on the bars of the crib, "I believe you're correct, Miss."