“The baby’s fine. I tell you that much. Mercury is still pretty out of it, but I know he’s in there. I could touch his mind; he just wasn’t ready to talk to me yet. He’s hiding a little bit.” One way or the other, Talon felt better. He wasn’t so scared now.
“Hmmm.” The doctor nodded. “Monitor him when he wakes up. Make sure you give him something warm to drink and plenty of food. Contact me if he doesn’t start acting normally in about an hour. You—” she pointed at Kami again—“You rest. You understand?”
Kami nodded, his eyes shadowed with exhaustion and worry. “Aye, aye, no problem.”
Reno growled. “Don’t be flippant. He’s going to rest, and he will have warm drinks and food too.”
“Good deal. I’m going to go see to my other patient in the med bay, then.” She lifted a hand briefly, and then turned on her heel and strode out. She was quite the force of nature.
“What do we do with all his horde?” Boone kind of looked over everything with wide eyes, and shook his head. “There’s gotto be some way to contain it so that he can have it when he gets up.”
Durango nodded and went for Reno’s house phone. “I’ll call down for some boxes. That’s the least we can do to help box stuff up and store it. That seems only reasonable.”
Kami chuckled softly. “I wasn’t being selfish. I wasn’t being daring.” He met Talon’s eyes and pulled out a box from his clothing, handing it over.
Inside was a beautiful, perfect amethyst.
“This is for the baby—your baby. I didn’t know that he would slide. I didn’t know this would happen.”
“Of course you didn’t know.” Talon figured Kami had just made up with Mercury.
Reno growled softly. “It doesn’t matter now, you’re safe and home.”
Anemone stayed perched on the sofa, smiling at both of them, but there was a little worry in her expression. “We can figure this out. It’ll just take a little bit now that I know that we’re supposed to be working on.”
He smiled at her. “Thank you, sweetheart. You’ve been very good to us.”
She nodded and shrugged. “The world hasn’t been very good to Mercury. I’m glad that we get to be now.”
Yeah, no shit. “I think I should probably take Mercury home, get him cleaned up and wrapped up in his bed.” He looked around. “Where’s my goddaughter?”
Reno smiled. “Lake has her.”
“Oh, well, that’s good. This would probably be a little dramatic for a little one, right? Thank goodness she wasn’t here when they slid.”
Kami hid his head in Reno’s body. “I’m so sorry.”
Yes, and he imagined Mercury was too.
“There’s no reason to be sorry. You’re magical, the two of you together. You can go anywhere and find any stone and then come home, but Mercury has to be able to control it a little bit more. He has to get stronger physically so that he can do this without eating up all of his energy.” Anemone smiled gently, so much like Cain all of a sudden that he blinked with surprise.
“How do we do that?” Talon asked.
“Well, I will work with him. It’s really a matter of practice.”
Talon made a frustrated noise. “How can he practice if he can’t slide while he’s pregnant?”
Anemone shook her head slightly. “No, hepracticesnot sliding. Saying no, first to himself, and then someone else.”
“But—”
“I get it.” Kami nodded. “He’ll start in his own apartment, right? And with you, Tal. You tell him you want to go to the bedroom, and he says fuck off, you can walk there.”
Reno kinda scoffed. “Would that even work?”
Anemone gave Kami an approving smile. “It’s exactly the kind of baby step he needs to work on his resistance. And being pregnant will be a help, I think, as he’ll want to protect the baby, so it will be easier to say no.”
Talon pondered that, and it almost made sense. But cradling Mercury, limp and cold in his arms, he just wanted to take his hailee and hide. He really didn’t want Mercury to have to deal with anyone accidentally taking him off somewhere and then not being able to get back…
