Episode 241: Floating (Indigo)

Indigo dreamed.

It was probably a side effect of the magical happy drugs, that she felt magical and happy, but she embraced it.

She smiled up at Zero. Her Zero. The most perfectly perfect man she’d ever known. “I love you,” she told him.

“I love you,” he said. “His heart is beating again. It stopped for thirty seconds while he moved. Not even a full minute.”

Zero was a miracle of a man. He wasn’t even really human, he was something magnificent and more and…she kissed him. “You did it.”

“Spaden helped, too,” he told her.

Spaden. Her little boy, all grown up and learning medicine from his dad.

Indigo melted a little at the thought. He was going to be an amazing doctor. Smart and calm and careful, able to research options before committing to a care plan, empathetic enough to listen to his patients over his own ego…

Zero distracted her from her thoughts by pointing toward the nursery pod. “We have a backup power supply that automatically turns on if his fails, and a full guard to ensure anything is caught.”

That was a lot of words.

Indigo squinted at him. Hours. She had hours left with him before her voluntary separation, and she couldn’t think. She channeled her mind, forced it to focus. “He’ll be so different,” she mused. “He won’t have routines.”

Most growing babies were lulled to sleep by their mothers’ active periods and awake when their mothers were at rest. They learned sibling and parent voices by hearing them regularly.

“We have light control,” Zero assured her, “to simulate day and night. We have you, to talk to him so he knows your voice. It won’t be the same, but he will survive.”

But it wouldn’t be her, would it? It would be Jade, in her body.

She owed it to Gramm to do this. Her selfishness had ruined his life, cost him nearly twenty years of Camilla’s life. This little sacrifice would help see him established while Jade got some much-needed training and education so that she would be able to be his equal whatever he decided to do.

Zero was magnificent for putting up with it.

“Thank you,” she managed, through her tears.

She hated herself for crying, but of course he didn’t see a problem with it. He pulled her against him in an enveloping hug, full of warmth and his deliciously masculine scent. “I love you both,” he said against the side of her head. “I hope he’s the only child we ever have to do this with.”

She did too.

Somewhere, there was a world where this was so common that they had shops to sell these machines to families. “It’s hard to imagine a society where this is normal.”

“It is,” Zero agreed, “but I’m thankful for it too.” He stepped away from her, toward the machine. “Do you want to see him?”

She stood and crossed the room with him to the ovular pod with the little glass viewing screen. On one side, there was a mucousy pink lump about the size of a tube of chapstick.

Her baby. Her little Elliot.

“Is there a way to rock him, like he’d feel when I’m walking?” she asked Zero.

“You can take him for short walks if you want. We can attach a power supply that allows mobility.”

More for her to ask Jade to deal with. This time it was necessary: Anyone who knew Indigo would expect her to be a constant presence around Elliot, because she was like that with all her kids.

She kissed Zero. She would be home soon, and then- “He’ll know us both.”

“He will. I’ll be with him often,” Zero promised her. “While I work, in my free time.” He stepped around her towards a set of cabinets. “I made you something,” he said.

He handed her a shiny metallic disc.

“What is it?”

“While you were sedated, I recorded your heartbeat during the whole procedure. He’ll be able to hear it.”

She leaned against him, pressed the disc to her chest. There was no better man in all the world.

He kissed her. “This can be a good thing.”

“It’s a very good thing. He’s going to live, because of you and Spaden, and my brother and his husband.”

“While we’re on the subject,” Zero teased her, “I think Nell likes you.”

She laughed. Zero reached down to the pod and turned on a switch. The computer screen next to the pod came to life, displaying a more detailed video of Elliot.

“Your son. Any time you want to see him, he’s here.”

“Our son,” she corrected. She looked at him, needing intervention at such a young age because of unavoidable elements of her life… “He’ll be as bad as Sawyer, at this rate.”

Zero nuzzled her. “Or worse.”

“Impossible.”

She knew she was almost out of time, so she kissed him. It didn’t matter that she still felt vague and fuzzy or that she’d just had surgery: Zero was her miracle and she wanted this one last stolen moment with him before she had to go face the consequences of her past.

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