momslilassassin | Rotterdam, the Netherlands [April 13th in Enderverse]

Bean had called them as soon as the doctors had told them Petra was nearly finished with the in-vitro treatment, and told them to meet him by the doors. He hadn't asked for anything else, had instead disposed of the phone, and then waited.

He was waiting for her with balloons.

They wheeled her out into the reception area. At first she didn’t notice him, because she was busy talking with the doctor. Which was fine with him. He wanted to look at her.

[OOC: NFB, NFI, preplayed with the stunning

glacial_witch and the sparkling

endsthegame. Random obsession with teenage pregnancy is alllllll Orson Scott Card, kthx.]

	Ben was ~~casing the joint~~ glancing around the room, noticing entrances and exits and trying not to let his amusement about Bean's balloons show too obviously. But really, balloons. If Bean had wandered in dressed as a clown, Ben would have been less surprised.
	Okay, Karla was wearing a kind of 'awww...how sweet' expression. But witches weren't very fertile--something about Craft made it hard for them to carry children. It was rare a short-lived witch bore more than a single child. It was still odd for her that a female as young as Petra would want to bear a child, but knowing that the egg had almost certainly attached itself to the uterine wall filled her with the happiness that any Kaeleeran witch would feel when a Sister found herself with child.
	Petra, for what it might be worth to Ben, had no weird ideas about containing her laugh when she spotted Bean. He laughed, too, and passed them to her. "Husbands don’t usually give their wives balloons," she said. "I thought having a baby implanted was a special occasion." "I suppose so," she said, "when it’s professionally done. Most babies are implanted at home by amateurs, and the wives don’t get balloons." Bean smiled, reaching into his jacket to produce-- yet another envelope. He gestured towards Karla and Ben to come closer.
	Ben tried--and failed, utterly--to look Completely Okay with banter about sex as he came closer. "If this is a poem you've composed for the occasion, I'm not reading it," he said.
	"Spoilsport," Karla snorted, pacing him. "Besides, maybe it's just a card we should sign. A 'Happy Baby Implantation' card." She grinned at Petra. "I can't wait to see the cover art."
	Petra grinned back, for once. "You should listen to her," she told Bean, "She knows how to make a knocked-up girl feel special." "I'll draw you roses," he said. "Do you think the baby hooked itself in?" Petra pulled a face at him. "I’m not equipped with an internal camera. and I lack the pertinent nerves to be able to feel microscopically small fetuses implant and start to grow a placenta." Her eyes flicked to the envelope in his hands. "So where are we headed?" "I have two different tickets for all of you," Bean said, glancing up at them. "If one doesn't feel right, take the other."
	Ben nodded, then closed his eyes and reached for one packet.
	"I can tell," Karla murmured to Petra. "With a bit of time--and minimal contact." That seemed important to point out. "But if you want to know, I can check for you." She turned towards Bean. "Are Ben and I going together, or do I choose my own as well?"
	"I'm hoping all of us are going to wind up in the same spot eventually," Bean said, idly. "Some of them are the same flights." He held out two envelopes to Karla, too. "I need someone to watch over her." Petra rolled her eyes. "I'm not an invalid yet."
	"My aunt was participating in firefights when she was six months pregnant with twins," Ben told her helpfully as he flipped though the papers.
	"Your entire family is crazy," Karla pointed out--also helpfully--as she took the packets from Bean. "For us, it's kind of the other way around. Being pregnant means no Craft." Karla shuddered. "It makes for very grumpy wit--women." She examined the two tickets carefully before nodding at one and tucking the other away. Anyone looking very closely would notice that her pocket looked just as empty afterward. "I'm sure it'll be fine," she told Petra dryly. "We'll sit back and giggle and talk about possible baby names and the color you'll paint the nursery. It'll be nonstop funtimes."
	The attendant started to push Petra towards the doors, and the line of cabs waiting outside. Bean followed while Petra toyed with her balloons. "I was thinking about a good pink," she told Karla, dryly. "I think that might be amazing target practice for my babies."
	Ben slowed down as he got to the first cab, his hair standing up on the back of his neck. "I have a bad feeling about this," he murmured, just loud enough for Bean and Karla to hear.
	Karla glanced at the first cab, probed the man's psychic scent and nearly recoiled. "He's plotting something." She slid her gaze over to the second cab in line. "Him, too. They're connected."
	Bean didn't say anything. He just grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, pushing the attendant out of the way, and pushed Petra towards the third cab, with the Indonesian driver who smiled like it was a reflex. "Get in," he said, after he'd inquired and found out that the driver was, indeed, from Jakarta. "Now."
	Ben's hand fumbled for the lightsaber he had stuffed on the side of his backpack as he got into the cab, eyes watching everything. There was nothing of the slightly dorky boy now--Ben was Jedi-ing it for all that he was worth.
	Karla slipped inside the car as soon as Petra was in it. "Be safe," she said out the window. And keep in contact, she sent to Ben. Tell Bean I'm putting up my strongest shields. It'll take some heavy firepower to break through those. Triela's been testing them. No matter what happens, I'll get her out. Sitting close to Petra, she called in a knife, keeping it between their bodies so the driver wouldn't see. "Can you use one of these?" she asked quietly. She didn't call in a weapon for herself. She didn't need one.
	Bean shot them a look that made it clear they were currently guarding everything important in the world, and if they betrayed his trust, he'd find them. Then he pulled away, shutting the door behind Karla and walking down to the next cab. Their driver, in the meanwhile, pulled out of the line without another word. "The airport," Petra requested. "I have new tickets for you," the man replied. "Next stop, Damascus." Damascus. Alai. Ambul must have succeeded. Petra's fingers stopped crawling towards the knife.
	"Now we're getting somewhere," Ben said quietly to the two girls. "Who are you?" he asked the cab driver. "Or is that not important?"
	Karla didn't relax when the cab driver blithely announced their new destination, even if it was Damascus. She wasn't sanguine enough to assume that Ambul hadn't betrayed them, either by accident or design. Her shields were invisible but raised to their fullest. Calling in a notebook covered with a sight-shield, she hastily scribbled, You're sure we're safe on a piece of paper and handed it over.
	Petra eyed the note, then scribbled down, I trust his instincts. If not, I guess that's why you're here and shoved it back at Petra. The cab driver shrugged a shoulder. "I was just told to take you to the airport with these tickets." He didn't like to ask questions.
	"By who?" Ben asked, still focusing his attention in multiple directions. Jumping out of a moving car couldn't be much harder than leaping from a speeder, he decided.
	I'm not reading any ill-intent from him, Karla sent. Not that that means a damn. If it comes down to it, how many do you think you can handle on your own while I stash Petra somewhere safe?
	If it ends up being more than a dozen and a half, I might start getting a little worried, Ben replied, being absolutely honest. Less than that, if we're not overly worried about being noticed, and I'm fine.
	"A man," was the short answer. "It's my job to keep you safe until the airport." Petra seemed satisfied with that. Or at least less anxious.
	Karla had no such comfort. She just didn't trust the intentions of random males who changed their travel plans without their knowledge or consent, even if Petra did think it came from Ambul. Anything nasty happens to us and I'm not going to be all that concerned with keeping a low profile, she sent to Ben. Be as flashy as you like. Turning to Petra she asked in a low voice. "Before we get to that conversation about nursery colors, I should ask--would you like to know for sure if it took? I can find out." She shot a glance at the driver. "Unobtrusively."
	Ben divided his attention between watching out the window and watching the back of the cabdriver's head, mostly so he wouldn't appear to be listening to the conversation between Petra and Karla.
	Petra exhaled, stealing a look at Karla. "You can do that?" she asked, a little hint of hope in her voice.
	"Healer, remember?" Karla said lightly. "But yes. I can set something up that'll let me know when it implants in the uterine wall--it can take hours, as a warning, but..." She gave Petra a smile. "When it does, I'll know."
	"How close are we to the airport?" Ben asked, the closest he would ever come to an "are we there yet?" whine.
	"Fifteen minutes," the driver said, lazily. Petra nodded, catching Karla's eyes. "It won't be dangerous? If I'm letting you root around in me."
	Oh that's not true, Ben. Or have you forgotten the entire train ride through Poland? "I wouldn't offer if it was," Karla pointed out. "I wouldn't endanger you or it simply because we were impatient." There was a fair hint of 'give me credit for some sense' implicit in her tone. he brought her hand to Petra's stomach. "I won't even touch your bare flesh," she promised, extending a few delicate threads of Craft. Closing her eyes, she hummed a bit to focus the magic. Opening them again, she didn't see Petra or the cab or the city as it flew by, but the warm darkness of Petra's womb. And a tony speck of floating light. "There you are," she murmured absently. "Hello." It hadn't attached itself yet, but it was drifting ever closer to the wall. She could see the likely path of implantation--no guarantees yes, but odds were very high. With another light brush of Craft, she set up a little alarm system as it were, one that would inform her when it had settled and implanted properly. And, once that was done, she gently withdrew. Blinking several times, she turned to Petra and smiled. "I saw it. So tiny and yet brimming with possibility."
	And this was Ben, bright red and focusing way too much on whatever was going past the window. "Congratulations?" he said faintly. He'd heard vaguely about how much effort his mother had expended to keep her pregnancy viable but she'd been, in his mind, a grown up. Petra was only a few years older than he was and Ben really didn't feel like a grown up yet. So there was more than a little confusion about this entire process for him.
	"Thanks," Petra said, just as faint, but with clear edges of shell-shocked joy. "That's going to be my baby," she murmured. "Can you-- would you be able to tell--?" She shook her head once. "So tiny and it's already getting everything professionally done."
	"She--or he--isn't quite attached yet," Karla cautioned. "Though I have no reason to thing she won't. I've set up a little alarm that will let me know for sure when it happens." She smiled again and shook her head. "I can't tell much of anything yet. It's just a bunch of tiny little dividing cells. I can tell you that she's healthy and energetic. She glowed so brightly. If she'd been dim, I would be worried, but she wasn't. She's a little fighter, already."
	Ben looked completely weirded out. "Uh huh," he said.

Rotterdam, the Netherlands [April 13th in Enderverse]

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