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Kevin contemplates many things on learning that he will be a father. He is happy, but then things are suddenly very strange. His apple seed, the one he had flippantly created and planted while he reminisced on his time expanding his abilities with Fritz Parsons for the CIA, had grown up in his backyard extremely fast. And he had been very disappointed after getting his hopes up when he saw Alia’s false positives on the pregnancy tests. Maybe he had unknowingly planted a seed inside of Alia with his preternatural ability and the thing inside of her wasn’t a person at all. But then, maybe Alia had lied about the false positives, though, why would she? Or maybe Ivan is mistaken and she is not pregnant.
It’s all terribly confusing for Kevin in the moments when he and Alia stare at one another after Ivan questions Alia for drinking while pregnant.
“Did you not know?” Ivan asks, judging from the couple’s reaction that they are surprised at the news. “I think it’s still really early on.”
Alia shakes her head in silence.
“Are you sure they were false positives?” Kevin asks.
“I went to a doctor and I know when I left I wasn’t pregnant.” Alia says, obviously distraught. Brittany tries to console her.
“What does that mean?” Kevin asks.
“It means that I lied.” Alia confesses. “I was pregnant before and I terminated it.”
Kevin is stunned by the news. It’s a hard realization that Alia is not interested in having a family with him and it hurts. He realizes that he had assumed a lot about their interaction, that they both wanted a real future together, but maybe her futures had made that impossible.
“You don’t want to have a baby with me?” Kevin asks.
“Kevin, we can talk about this later…” Alia says, realizing Kevin’s pain and the awkwardness of their conversation in front of their guests.
Kevin leaves the group and Ivan follows him. They sit on the front porch and Kevin watches cars moving slowly through the neighborhood, kids enjoying the remainder of the daylight. His fantasy was never going to be a reality. It didn’t matter how hard he worked to make things right, the damage was already done and fate had already judged him. He would never know simple and happy.
“I just…” Kevin starts and Ivan sees tears well up in his eyes. “I don’t know, I thought we had something real. But if she would lie to me about this… I had a feeling she didn’t care about me as much as I care about her.”
Ivan doesn’t know what to say. He wonders if a distraction is the best thing.
“Let’s go fire up some zombies. There’s maybe a handful left. That’ll clear your mind.”
Kevin shrugs and the two stand, then lifts off.
In the backyard, Alia is confessing everything to Brittany.
“Superpowers ruin everything. It seems like fun when you see it in a movie, but it’s just one more thing to complicate your life.”
“You don’t want to have a baby?” Brittany asks sympathetically.
“It’s not that. I’ve just seen it. I’ve seen the problems that we have because I get pregnant, and it always makes him hate me. I thought I was doing us a favor. I thought this would give us more time together.”
“You should talk to him.” Brittany says. “How can you make decisions to benefit both of you when you don’t talk?”
Alia knows that she is right, but practically, it had all felt so impossible. Kevin wasn’t interested in dwelling on those possible futures, and it had made sense to her to handle it on her own. But how can they be happy if they can’t talk?
“Well, there’s definitely gonna be a conversation now.”
Ivan and Kevin go zombie hunting late into the night. They find one man in a rural home and he had killed the people who lived with him. He wasn’t eating their bodies, but he seemed to derive pleasure from dismembering them. Kevin set the entire home on fire just to be sure.
“We should get back. You should talk to Alia.” Ivan says when the moon is bright in the sky and the two move easily through clouds.
“What do I say?” Kevin asks. “I don’t want her to have a baby she doesn’t want.”
“Tell her that.”
The two land in the backyard and when they go inside the house, Brittany is already asleep and Alia is sitting at the dining room table sipping tea. Ivan leaves them alone in the dim light of the kitchen.
“You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.” Kevin says and he holds Alia’s hands in his own.
“What if this is you?” Alia asks him. “I wasn’t pregnant when I left the doctor’s office. Did you make this happen somehow?”
Kevin shrugs. “I can’t imagine that it is me, but I guess I am capable. I did a lot of work with the CIA, but my understanding was that I can’t make things unless I consciously do it. It’s not enough to want it. But I wanted this really bad. I dreamed about it. Maybe I’ve never wanted anything more than this.” Kevin’s voice cracks and he can’t help but cry.
“If you want to have a baby, we can talk about that. But if this is you, you need to stop it before it gets out of hand. You saw how fast that tree grew.”
Kevin nods. “But if I don’t know how I put it there, how can I take it away?”
“Close your eyes,” Alia says softly.
The next day, Ivan and Brittany head back home.
Ivan hugged Kevin close and said to him, “I’m always here if you need me.”
When they were alone Kevin looks to Alia and the couple stands together in the living room.
“You sure it’s gone?” Kevin asked.
Alia put a hand on her stomach and nodded. “It is.”
“And you’re sure you want to leave?”
Alia nods. “No, but I can always find you if I change my mind.”
Alia moves close and kisses Kevin deeply.
“This is really it?” Kevin is crying.
They stand for a few more minutes.
“Where will you go?”
Alia can’t tell him.
“You know me, I’ll find a place to be.”
This is the last thing she says to him. She walks away from the house and Kevin watches her. She doesn’t have any mode of transportation, no cell phone. But Kevin doesn’t worry about her. It’s a waste of mental energy to worry about the Alia.
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