Unnamed (CH 3 added)

"What?" she asks you, removing all warmth in the air in one fell swoop from her concerned tone.

You feel your heart flutter and mind begin to strain as you flinch at her response, such feelings which refused to leave as you eventually repeated "I think it broke."

The raccoon quickly pushes you off of her, using her well-built stature to move you without any issue. Your still hard member pulls free from her vagina, revealing the slick condom wrapped around it, and more importantly, the tear at the very end. Your previous concerns of it's quality from it's time spent buried in your bedside nightstand now come back to haunt you as your wife looks at you with unease.

"Oh god, Kenneth... You didn't- Oh god...," she trails off, running a hand up her groin to her lower abdomen.

"You didn't take the pill?" you ask, breaking the momentarily silence as you pry off the broken condom and toss it aside to the nightstand. Your expression is beginning to match hers as she worriedly holds her hand to her abs.

"No! I- I ran out a few days ago; I was hoping to get more tomorrow and- Oh god, oh god...," she trails off again, her face now beginning to contort into pure panic. She holds a hand up to her face and she starts to shift herself off the bed.

"Kate, Kate!" you state, grabbing onto her other hand and holding onto her shoulder. "Look, it'll be OK. It'll be-"

"No, no, no it wont," she interrupts in a nervous prater, forcing her hand out of yours as she comes to a stand. She approaches the dresser, still decorated with burning candles, and fetches a bathrobe from a drawer to cover herself with. She drapes the one-size-too-big bathrobe over herself, covering her short form and hiding her defined grey furred back behind a soft, fuzzy cloth.

Feeling no such need to put something on yourself yet, you stand up. "Kate, look, it'll be fine," you repeat, trying anything to calm her quickly worsening mood. "We can- I..." You sigh and run a hand through your hair, scrambling your mind for something to say. "You did want to become a mother, right? Why not now?"

Kate turns to look at you. Her green eyes glisten with the reflection of gently flickering flames as tears start to build up in her terrified eyes. "I'm not ready. I can't raise a kid. I can't." She begins to hyperventilate as tears stream down her cheeks.

You slowly approach her. She makes no effort to back away as you near her, allowing you hold her soft, black furred hands. "Kate... You'll be fine," you gently reiterate. "I'll be here. We'll make this work. I promise."

Kate hugs you close and presses her face against your chest. Your bare skin feels the cool, damp fur of where her tears have dripped, as well as the warmth of those newly shed as she cries onto you. Her body shudders as she tries to calm herself. Her panic is easily infectious, causing you to doubt yourself as well, though you soldier through any signs of such to better comfort your wife.

For a few minutes, it was almost silence as you and Kate held one another close, made so by her shuddering breath as she quietly sobs. You avoid saying anything. You'll wait until she finds herself ready. Finally, she brings her head back from your now wet chest.

"OK... OK," she sniffs, bringing a hand up to her eyes to wipe away any remaining tears as she looks up at you. "We'll... We'll make this work. Thank you, honey."

You smile warmly and gently rub the back of her grey furred ears with your thumb and brush her long, onyx hair past her shoulder, managing to coax a small smile from her as you touch her sensitive spot. Hidden behind the facade you've successfully managed to create, you feel ready to collapse. A flurry of questions fly through your mind. Would she be a good mother? Would you be a good father? How would schedules work now? Would you or her need to get a different job, or abandon one altogether?

You calmly breathe through your nose and push the mind straining thoughts aside for now. Those will come later. For now, you're going to be with your wife. And no matter what horrible thoughts or presumptions you may have, they will never stop you from being there with her. You've been with her for years, vowed to continue to until death, and will continue to now.

Time passed by slowly for you both. Kate continued to stay on edge in the few days she had to wait until it was the best time to use the tester. Even though you didn't need to ask, you could tell that she was silently hoping to see a single line on that little plastic stick. Every night she slept beside you, you would see that it takes longer than normal for her to fall asleep. It was only when you held her close that she would eventually relax enough to soon fall asleep. Eventually, the time to check had come. With quiet nervousness, Kate took the tester and patiently awaited the results after locking herself away in the bathroom.

As you waited in silence, hearing nothing from Kate as you sat on the bed, your mind wandered back to those questions, specifically on the thought of you becoming a father. What if she was pregnant? Would the child be a human or a raccoon? A daughter or a son? Despite such thoughts being thrust into your mind so quickly, you can't help but feel some part of yourself being excited at the thought of having a child to care for and love with Kate. Of course, fear still swamped your mind, but you couldn't deny that tingle of energy coursing through your body. However, such eager thoughts were most likely not mutual with Kate.

You had decided against asking her about her fears in motherhood in the previous days, knowing that it would only cause her panic to resurface, while also accepting that some fears don't always have a reason for existing. You had hoped that you had helped calm her down, though already you begin to fear for when, or rather if, be it she were to be pregnant; her hormones were to flare up. Regardless, you still promised yourself that you would be there for her and help her every step of the way, no matter what.

Interrupting your silent pondering of the future, the bathroom door creaked opened. Your wife slowly stepped out with the tester in hand. From her tense expression, you could tell what the result was. Your heartbeat picked up in speed in quiet excitement, but you held back your joy as Kate silently took a seat beside you on the bed. As you tried to collect your thoughts, you noticed that she was shaking.

"Hey...," you whispered as you placed your hand on her thigh. She looks up at you, though her shivering refused to stop. "We'll make this work." you state, repeating her words from before.

"But what if we don't?" she asks, her shaking only intensifying. "What if I don't?" Your worry picks up as she looks down at the ground and continues her frightened rambling. "What if something goes wrong? What if the child dies because I can't take care of it?"

You firmly grasp her shoulder and calmly state, "You wont hurt the child, Kate."

"No, no- What if I can't feed it- him, or her? What if- What if something goes wrong during birth? What if I do something wrong and I do hurt it- Oh god, what if I had a misc-" she lists off, continuing into her downward spiral of anxiety. As she continues, her body shudders more violently and the white in her eyes start to redden as tears begin to flow once more. You forcefully prevent her from completing her current thought by gripping and lightly shaking her shoulder while repeating to her, "Kate, Kate!"

Without another word, you hold her close as her crying turns to sobbing. Over time, she began to relax as she breathed in deeply through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. Her trembling had reduced in intensity, though you could still sense her tensed muscles reverberating ever so slightly through her body. She rests her head against your shoulder, pressing her fuzzy, triangular ear flat against her head. She remained silent, though her breathing started to heighten in pitch as she laid against you. You wrap another arm around her to hold her closer and quietly shush her, continuing to calmly repeat that everything will be fine for nearly an hour until she finally began to compose herself. It was with that that you decided to then ask about dinner, suggesting her favorite restaurant as means of celebration and another method to calm her, and then consider how to break the news to your parents.

Thankfully, the ride out to the Fish Shack was calm. After you both take your seats and order your meal, you try to make small talk to help keep her mind off of things. She seems receptive, but doesn't answer beyond simple responses as she studies the ice in her drink. Within minutes, your meals arrive. Before digging in, you decide to ask, "So... Are you going to tell your parents?"

Her eyes still don't meet yours, now focused on quietly picking at small pieces of her fried fish and rolling the crumbs between her thumb and finger. "I don't know." she quietly responds as she flicks away the crumb to the side of her plate and picks at another.

You want to ask more or push for her telling the news, but you can tell that trying to do such will yield no results, if not cause her to break down again from her unsettling calm.

You turn back to your meal, finishing it long before she had even reached halfway. She states that she's full, so you decide to pay for the meal and keep her remaining food in a to-go box before leaving. Her silence continued all the way back home, up to when you had retired to bed with her. It was only broken as she began to gag. She stood up from her bed and rushed for the bathroom, where her sounds of unpleasant illness echoed back to the bedroom. Though you hold limited knowledge regarding pregnancy, you knew that such illness shouldn't have happened this early, and that something else has caused her affliction. Through this implication alone, it was clear that the oncoming months would be equally as stressful for you as it would be for her.

---

It was sweltering. You hadn't expected the heat to hit so hard in just a couple of days. You had opted against turning on the AC as you waited for Kate at the parking lot, since for some odd reason it only ever emits the coldest of air that chills you to the core, instead choosing to wait with the car windows down. However, the summer heat proved to be nearly equally as bad as freezing inside of the car, if not somewhat worse as you feel beads of sweat beginning to line your forehead and potentially begin to wet your clothes. You had always intended to fix the problem, but kept putting it off for "some other weekend." However, today's high temperature and cloudless skies make a convincing argument to fix it soon, if not after returning home with Kate.

You briefly consider ditching your heat sink of a car and finding shelter inside the tall, multi-windowed office building to wait for her in the lobby. You could never remember what the company was called, even after several years of being with Kate in marriage and the two or so years before that of dating. Each time, you and Kate always refer to it as just "the office", never finding much reason in asking her what exactly they're called or what it is they do a second time. You're certain she told you both at one point, most likely around the second or third date, but it slipped your mind around the time you started driving her to work.

Still, you're always impressed with it's imposing stature and how Kate got the job there. You always did consider Kate to be brighter than you for nabbing a spot there. She's far more calculating and methodical in how she approaches things than you are, even in romance you found. Of course, it made it all the sweeter to break past the shell she kept around herself and watch her smile or laugh, especially blush as you surprise her. You would reminiscence more, but you can feel the back of your shirt start to get wet with perspiration. Before you could leave to find chilled relief, you saw Kate leave the glass doors of the entrance and slowly make her way towards the car.

"Hey honey," you say as she nears the car, taking a brief moment to run your hand along your forehead and pull on your work shirt to bring air to your flushed skin. "How was work?"

She quietly opens the passenger door and takes her seat, her eyes somewhat distant and focusing on the dash. "It was fine," she mumbles halfheartedly before fastening her seat belt with a click.

You start up the car, but her response worried you. "Did something happen?" you ask as you pull out of the parking lot, taking brief moments to look over at her.

She turns her attention past the open window of the car, idly watching the buildings pass by. "Just... It was nothing."

"Kate, please," you plead, focus switching between her and the road when you could afford it. "If something's up, you can tell me."

You hear her inhale deeply through her nose as you stop at an intersection, but the sound you could hear was the idle running of the car and others around you. You never intend to rush her regarding things that stress her out, instead waiting for her to eventually speak. "My co-workers came to me to celebrate the pregnancy." she responds once the light turns green. You wait for her to follow up with more; you've found in the past that forcing answers out from her only instills further panic.

"I... I told one of my friends. I just wanted her to know, but she told someone and then everybody I knew came to speak to me." she continues, looking back to you as she rubs at an end of a strand of her long, black hair between her thumb and index finger. "All of them came up and congratulated me, and then started asking me questions."

She breathes in deeply again and releases her hair from her fingers, instead resting her hand alongside her other on her lap. "They... asked if it was legitimate, how soon I found out, if I figured out a name yet... Sally asked if either you or I would take care of it at home."

It was time for you to speak. "You're worried about one of us giving up our job?"

"Kenneth, dear, we nearly ran into problems affording the house last year." she states, concern easily discernible in her voice.

"And we got through that OK, Kate. It was my fault anyway for skirting near that line."

"That's not what I mean," Kate pushes, her black furred hands clenching the fabric of her pants tightly. "One of us will need to drop our job to watch the kid, and we'll lose a lot of income if either one of us quits."

"We'll make it work."

"How can you be so sure?" she asks immediately, anger mixing with the concern in her voice.

You honestly didn't know. You weren't sure at all how you'd be able to pull through this OK. You could always try for loans or find some way to work out of home, maybe even beg your folks for some money if times get tough and pay them back later on if you were particularly desperate, but it wasn't a guarantee.

Breaking you from your train of thought, you hear her angrily state "Are you kidding me?" You can see her furious expression from the corner of your eye, her own gaze boring into your face as she glares. "Have you put no thought into how we're going to raise it? If you can't even think about how to cover costs, then how the fuck do you plan to be a good fath-" She cuts herself off. You can see her return her focus to the dashboard, the background noise of wind and cars driving by returning to the car in her silence.

You're not certain if she regrets what she's said, but you feel like a knife has been stuck into your guts. Her stress spreads to you like an infectious disease, making you aware of just how little you know or are prepared to carry through with being a parent, and how every reassurance you've given her was just fluff and lies to try to calm her down. Your fingernails dig into the plastic of the steering wheel and a slight burning sensation just under your eyes begins to flare. Just how would things "work out"? Who are you to assume such things regarding raising not just a living being, but your own baby, would turn out OK just from being optimistic? The weight of the silence was becoming too heavy to bear.  You want to say anything to refute her, but you don't have the slightest of ideas of what to do.

"Honey," Kate says in a soft tone. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said. I'm just... I just don't want things to get tough for us. Or the kid."

"It's OK," you respond quietly. Her message was clear to you, regardless of whether she intended for her wake up call to sting as badly as it did. You needed to change and prepare.

Kate rests back into her seat, one hand resting on her abdomen as she looks back out at the passing sights. It was another minute of silence until she broke it once again. "Which one of us should have to stay at home?"

"I'm fine with it, Kate. You make more anyway." you respond.

"I know, but... I don't want you to lose your job because of that." She brings her hand back up to her long hair to twirl around and run between her fingers as she thinks. "Don't you think that... Maybe we could put the kid in a daycare?"

"No, no Kate. It's fine." you reassure. "You said it yourself: it's not going to be cheap. Using a daycare won't do us any good." You take a brief glance at Kate, who now bites at the skin around the black claw of her index finger as she looks at you in concern. "And...," you start, pausing to breathe and sigh. "I don't want the baby growing up without us being there. I want to be a good father for him... or her."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," you repeat, taking your hand off of the steering wheel to pat at her leg. "It's no trouble."

Kate stops biting at the side of her finger and rests her hand atop yours. "OK." she mumbles, interlocking her fingers with your own.

Her warm hand wrapping around yours helps sooth the earlier panic you were in, but does little to stop the niggling feeling of irritation and disappointment buried deep in your mind at the thought of losing the countless hours you've spent toiling to rise through the ranks at your own job. However, you're quick to berate yourself, knowing that she would very much feel the same if she were to decide to stay at home instead of you, coupled with the thought of not wanting to pass on your irritation of losing such progress onto her with her own job; especially with the ever-accumulating stress from her vivid fears of child rearing.

Before you knew it, you were turning into the serene and familiar view of houses and green lawns of your neighborhood. A few more turns and you finally reached the driveway of the house the two of you worked so hard to get and maintain. After rolling up the windows and locking the car, the two of you retreat from the summer heat into the cool AC of the house. Leftovers for dinner was unconsciously agreed upon between you and Kate, but you offered to set up her own plate for her while she waits on the couch. As the meal slowly spun under the yellow light of the metal box like a dancer at a show, you shift your attention to your wife in the living room.

She positions the pillows around herself in an orderly manner, one behind herself and a few between her side and the armrest of the couch. After everything is in order, she takes the remote and calmly begins to flip through the channels as herself and the dimly lit room light up in the various colors shown on screen. As if she somehow senses your gaze, she turns her head to look at you before giving you a comforting, small smile, which you return in earnest. The shrill beeps of the microwave return your attention to the hopefully hot meals. Retrieving a second plate to separate your meal from hers, you join Kate on the couch and hand her her own plate with a metal fork, to which she quietly mumbles out a thanks. As you focus on your meal, your mind wanders back to thoughts of the future and your job. That small pit of aggravation burns through your mind as you think about what you wanted to be now becoming potentially unavailable forever.

"Ken? Are you OK?"

"Huh? What?" you ask, looking to Kate who returns her worried expression from the ride home.

"You were just staring at your food for a few minutes."

Looking back to your meal, you rest your fork down on the plate and realize that you could no longer sense the heat emanating off of the food as your fingers came close. "Yeah. Don't worry, I'm fine," you answer her, not wanting to reintroduce her concerns regarding jobs. You were about to return to your now colder meal before you feel the tight embrace of Kate's arms wrap around you. Her muscled arms gently bring you close to her as she hugs you and rests her head on your shoulder.

"Like you said, it'll be fine, Ken... I'm sure you'll be a great father," she consoled.

You didn't have the heart to tell her you had other concerns at the moment. But you return the hug, bringing her closer to yourself and resting your hands along the back of her firm shoulders. A comforting warmth fills you to the core from her hug, which thankfully dispel the beginnings of a sour mood. "Thanks, honey," you whispered.

As much as you wished to remain in this embrace, she eventually breaks away and gives you a short kiss on the lips, briefly giving you a taste of her own meal. Without another word, you both resumed eating and watching TV until eventually the call for sleep arises. Then, with the pre-bedtime rituals completed, shifting out of your and her respective work clothes, you both finally climb into bed. Being the first, after she lays herself down on the mattress you help pull the covers over her and then yourself. Finally, before you start to settle in, you lean over to give her one last kiss and whisper out, "Goodnight." Even in the dark, you could see her smile from your kiss, and she quietly returns a goodnight before resting into her pillow. Not wanting to delay rest from coming to you, you soon followed suit, focusing on the silence of the room and occasional shuffling or gentle breathing from Kate. Before long, your consciousness faded.

---

"Are you sure you're OK?"

"Mhm," Kate replies simply with a quiet groan, walking slowly beside you back to the kitchen as you hold your hand on her shoulder in case she stumbles. Carefully, you lead her back to her previously abandoned seat, hearing suppressed groans from her as she slowly sits back down.

You see her weakly try to reach for her fork to continue eating the lasagna lunch, to which you respond by pressing your hand atop hers. "Hey, don't try and force it down. I'll make you something else," you console.

"Mnn...," she replies, showing no resistance as you take away her plate to wrap up and store later. She rests her head on her hands and closes her eyes, causing you to briefly worry that she will need to rush for the toilet and vomit again. You silently look through the cabinets, until you finally find an unopened box of fruit flavored oatmeal. Filling a bowl with the dry mixture, you add water then set it in the microwave for a few minutes. The loud hum of the microwave filled the silence of the kitchen as you waited, looking between Kate and the timer slowly counting down.

"We need to go the doctor soon."

"What?" you ask, speaking before your mind processes what she's said as you're brought out of your dull stupor.

"We need to...," Kate begins, trailing off as she closes her eyes and breathes in deeply through her nose. "... Get an appointment."

"You sure? It's just a bit of vomiting," you answer with a small smile, only to be met with her cold and tired glare.

"I'm serious, Ken. We need... to get a checkup."

"OK, alright. I'll set up an appointment later."

Satisfied with your answer, Kate rests her head upon her hands once again and you return your focus to the microwave. With just a few more seconds to go on the timer, you pull open the door early and bring the bowl of what you hope to be fully hot oatmeal to her. After fetching her a spoon, you sit back down to your now cold meal. You poke at your cold pasta and beef with your fork in disinterest, the appeal of a hot meal now lost and in it's place a less than pleasant cold and slimy feeling that leaves you wanting to take a sip of your drink with each bite you take. You decide to put your meal aside for the time being. You look up to see Kate treating her meal in the same manner as she slowly and quietly eats her meal.

"You don't need to force it down if you don't feel good enough to eat."

"No, just... Thinking about things," she murmurs before bringing another spoonful of oatmeal to her mouth.

"Don't want to talk about it?" you ask, receiving only a weak shaking of her head in response. You idly tap your fingers on the table, eyes wandering through the kitchen and eventually towards the living room. As your eyes settle on the television, you look back to Kate and say, "Hey, think I might know something to make you feel a bit better." You stand up from your seat and approach Kate to gently grasp her hand, then gingerly bring her to a stand. She grasps the bowl of oatmeal close with one hand as you bring her to a seat at the sofa. Finally, you turn on the TV and open the DVD player, then after a minute of fishing around the various disks you find the movie to put into the player. You skip past the various commercials as you take a seat beside Kate until the menu finally appears, as Kate watches you in confusion all the while. "You remember this movie?" you ask as the menu finally appeared, revealing the movie to be an older comedy and favorite of yours: "Ace in the Hole".

"Yes, but... What does this have to do with anything?" she asks back, setting the bowl of oatmeal aside on the end table beside the couch as she questions you.

You feign shock with an over-dramatic gasp and hand brought to your chest as you bend yourself back away from Kate. "You're telling me you don't remember? This is the first movie we watched together."

"Oh," she responds simply as she rests her hands on her lap and puts her focus on the television.

You give a small smirk and ask in a playful manner, "Do you want me to help remind you?"

You see the corner of her lips twitch ever so slightly from their neutral position, but she remains solemn as your smirk grows into a grin. Though she doesn't give a response, you decide to continue.

"You had your hands resting on your lap, like you do now," you say, motioning your hand to her own resting down on her thighs, "Like you were sitting at a job interview." You place your hand on top of hers and slowly fish out her right hand to hold. "So I grabbed your hand like this... And you turned from the movie to look at me."

This time, the slight twitch of her lips becomes a quick smile, but she quickly regains composure as she turns from the TV to look at your smiling face.

"You looked confused and tense, so I tried to help you calm down," you continued, looking deep into her eyes as the sounds of the movie continued on in the background. "I said you looked way too pretty to be as tense as you were."

Kate looks down at your hand still holding onto her own soft and thinly furred hand. "You were just saying that...," she mutters, keeping off eye contact.

"If I was just saying stuff, then I would say you were the prettiest girl in the world," you say, bending down to look up at her and try to continue eye contact. "But, I think you're only second prettiest." You pause as she finally returns eye contact, her expression exuding an air of knowing you would add on to that, but failing to know exactly as to what you would say. Finally, you clue her in, "You're first though whenever you smile."

"Oh god," she whispers to herself, a smile finally cracking across her face as she grimaces from your line.

You return her smile with your own and kiss her on the cheek, only to pull away and exclaim, "Oh! No, the kiss comes later!" You quickly return back to your spot, all the while Kate still has her relaxed smile. "So... What I did next was reeeeaaach across to your shoulder," you continue, drawing out your word as you stretch your arm across her back to grasp her shoulder. "Then I brought you a little close, like this," you say, bringing her shoulder against your own. Her attention is still on you as you got closer to her and gently feel around her toned arms, experiencing the contrast of strong muscle slowly loosening up with a layer of soft fur atop. "I said something nice about your arms; probably something I said on our second date before then... But then we started watching the movie for a while, and you laughed at a joke in the movie." The movie became a blur in the background and the sounds as nothing but ambiance as you and Kate looked at one another. "It was the first time I saw you laugh. You closed your eyes and brought your hand up to your mouth as you giggled, and I didn't know what to say. It was like you were a completely different woman." You inch ever so closer as you recall the moment to her, "We kissed before, but seeing you like that made me want to do nothing but show you how much I appreciated you. So I gripped your hand a little tighter so you'd look at me, just like this..."

You weren't able to finish up as Kate slowly closed the distance before you could speak, meeting her lips to yours to embrace you in a loving kiss. The soft fuzz above the thin, black line of her smooth lips gently pressed against your skin as she continued her long kiss. Until finally, she broke away and backed off ever so slightly, a smile still decorating her once calm face. "I remember now, Ken," she coos, "I also remember you getting sick the next day."

"Well, I don't know why you'd want to remember that," you respond, coaxing a giggle from her.

"Well... I bought you some lunch when you texted me, said you weren't feeling well," she says, watching the movie as she speaks to you. "You said you wanted to come with me to the gym and try working out, but you were too sick to come with me that day."

"Oh yeah...," you mumble, "Did I ever take you up on that?"

"No, you only ever come by to watch or pick me up," she answers.

"Should probably go there with you some time to make up for it."

"If we'll be able to," Kate chimes in with a regretful tone, her smile slowly creeping away into a cold, neutral line.

"What do you mean?"

"Kenneth, we'll have a kid to take care of. I don't know if it will allow us to go out as often... Or be able to do stuff like this."

"Hey, come on, we'll still be able to do stuff. We could... hire a baby-sitter whenever we want to go out and do stuff," you try to console.

"Maybe...," she mutters, her eyes cast down towards the floor.

"Hey, I know you're probably sick of hearing me say it, but we'll make it work out."

"I know we'll try to make it work out, but what if it's not good enough?"

You pause as she retorts, trying to think about her question. "What do you think would happen if we weren't good enough?"

"Just... What if we raise it wrong? Or... We start to drift apart?"

You clench your jaw as her concerns are finally voiced. As before, you have no way to confirm that such things would never happen. All you could hope to do was calm her down. "I don't know if either of those things would happen, Kate... But, I promise I'll do everything I possibly can."

Kate remains silent to your answer, at the very least satisfied enough to not immediately refute it. Her eyes remain focused away from you as she takes in your answer, only finally looking back to speak. "I'm scared, Ken," she whispers out, her eyes beginning to glisten from the threat of oncoming tears.

The oncoming role of parenthood has already begun taking its toll on Kate, not only physically but mentally as she begins to sniffle. Every day a new fear springs up to haunt not only her, but you as well. From the very beginning, she was afraid of having a child, and in such a short passage of time this fear has only grown as the long timer slowly ticks down.

"What if... What if...," she starts, trailing off each time as she struggles to speak, then silently swallowing her spit before going into silence.

"What Kate? You can tell me," you calmly reassure, your hand still holding onto her own.

She swallows one more time before finally responding in a quiet tone as tears finally began to streak down her cheeks, "What if I don't want the child?"

You feel a sharp pain stab through your jaw as she speaks and begins to sob. "What do you mean?" you ask in concern.

"What if...," she starts, cutting herself off with a loud sniff as she blinks more tears out, "What if I give birth and I don't want the baby?"

You're stunned as your own fears have been confirmed, now unsure of what to say.

"Oh god... I'm an awful person for even considering this," she sobs.

"Kate, Kate, Kate," you quickly speak out, your other hand grabbing her own as you call her name. "You're not awful for thinking that; not at all." Her sobbing continues as she listens to you, but she once again doesn't speak to refuse. "Listen...," you begin, this time now finding your own difficulties in speaking your mind. "If... You don't want to go through with this... There's still time to-," you pause with a swallow, "We can still back out now." Your own eyes begin to burn and mind aches from stress as you speak.

"But I thought you-"

"No," you say bluntly, cutting her off. "It's- It's your decision, Kate."

She brings your hand away from yours, her voice rising as she snapped, "I don't know if I want to or not!"

"Kate, you still have time to think this through."

"No, I don't! I've been thinking of this ever since the condom broke, and I still don't know, Ken!"

You remain silent after she shouts at you, failing to come up with anything to say. Eventually, all you could ask was, "Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

Tears still falling down her face, she takes a deep, shaky breath and answers, "No."

Tension remained thick as you struggled to think of what to say, as the movie continues to play in the background and Kate slowly begins to calm herself down. Eventually, her sobbing comes to a stop. "Ken... I'll... I'll keep thinking about it," she says, breathing in as she pauses, "When we go to the doctor, I'll let you know then."

"Are you sure?" you ask, knowing that an appointment would be no more than a single weeks' worth of time.

"Yeah...," she sighs out, running an arm over her eyes and face to wipe away any stray tears. "... Can we just... Go back to watching the movie? Just for now?"

"Of course, Kate," you comforted, as looks back to the movie and returns to rest her head on your shoulder. You brush the black hair wrapped around her shoulder, wipe away at last few patches of wet fur around her eyes, and gently stroke at the back of her head as you try to force the terrible thoughts out of your head. "I just hope you know what whatever you decide, I will always love you."

Kate breathes in, silent for a few seconds, before finally saying in a quiet tone, "Thank you, Ken."

"I will always love you, too."

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