Triangle

by Sara L Daigle

  Tamara’s color heightened as he spoke, and she pulled herself away from him, cupping her hands over her abdomen. “Just get out of here,” she said with a coldness in her voice he’d never heard before. “Alarin and I will deal with it. You don’t have to do a damned thing. We don’t need anything from you.” She stared at her hands. “Your precious life doesn’t have to be changed at all.”

  Fear that she might keep him away stirred something within him. “Tamara, don’t. I do want to be a part of her life, as much as I can be.” He tried to maintain calm.

  Tamara lifted her blue eyes to meet his, the expression in them as cold as the glacier he’d hiked in the mountains last summer. “Ha! You aren’t willing to give up one portion of your precious life for me. You aren’t willing to change for her. So fine. Don’t. You don’t want to participate, you don’t have to. Leave us the fuck alone. We’ll do it on our own. I don’t need you. We don’t need you.” Venom poured out with her next words. “It’s always on your terms, isn’t it, Merran? You want me, but you don’t want to commit to me. You get me pregnant and you’ll support me monetarily, but you won’t acknowledge that you had anything to do with it. Someone else always cleans up your messes, don’t they? What would you do if Alarin weren’t here?” She made a sound. “Scratch that. I know exactly what you’d do. You’d do the same damned thing. Cut me … cut us out of your life. Well the baby doesn’t need you doing that to her. You’ll play with her emotions the way you did with mine and walk away like you did to me. She doesn’t need that. She’ll have a father,” Tamara sliced her hand through the air. “Just not the one who biologically produced her.”

  That angered him. As a matter of fact, he was abruptly so furious he could hardly speak. He got to his feet and leaned over the bed. “I walked away? I walked away? Excuse me, who ended our relationship?” He spat the words at her. She stared at him, eyes wide, huddled against herself as far away as she could get. “Have you forgotten? The last months of our relationship you turned down just about every offer I made to spend time together. I’m surprised you agreed to the one that got you pregnant!” He took a deep breath, fighting to control the urge to throttle her. That would definitely be harmful to the baby, and though right now he didn’t like her mother too much, the baby still brought out a protective urge in him he didn’t know he had. “Because I care about you and Alarin so much, more than I care about my own happiness, I chose to walk away rather than rip you two up. Now to hear you say I’m running away? That I ran away from you?” He clenched his jaw tightly. “That I play with your emotions with no consideration for them? Who just spent time away trying to put himself back together after our breakup? Who is determined that no matter how selfish and outrageous you are being, that he is going to do everything he can to contribute to his daughter’s life, as far as he is able?” His hands trembled and he stood up, pacing away from the side of the bed. “You know what you are?” he demanded, twirling to face her again. “You’re nothing but a selfish child, Tamara. Would you prefer I acknowledge her, then take her away from you, to send her to live on Azelle? I can do that, you know. She’d be raised normally, away from the public eye, on Azelle. My sister would be thrilled to raise her niece for me.” He made the threat quite deliberately, trying to hurt her the way she’d hurt him.

  “That’s enough,” Alarin’s voice cut through the tension between them, forestalling Tamara’s response. Merran twitched. He hadn’t sensed the young man’s approach, much less heard him come in. How long had he been standing there? “Long enough,” Alarin said, answering his unspoken question, coming further into the room. “Neither of you mean it, so let’s not say anything more damaging until we’ve all cooled off enough to talk about it rationally.” The force of his will gripped both of them, holding them immobile. Merran could feel Tamara fight it, but he let Alarin take control, his surge of temper abruptly draining away, leaving that horrible ache that had driven him to the mountains in the first place. Alarin turned to Merran. “Just go, Mer. We can discuss what our next step is later, after she’s had some rest and she and I have had some time to talk about things.”

  Tamara twitched at that, but Alarin did not release her, making it impossible for her to say anything. Merran pulled his shielding around himself, rebuilding what the force of his anger and hurt had shattered, and gave Alarin a formal, polite bow. “I’ll be at my apartment.”

  Alarin’s mind touched his on his private level. I’ll talk her into letting you have some say in all this, Mer, he said mentally, letting a surge of reassurance in. She’s just frightened and scared of the future.

  You think the baby’s mine, too, don’t you?

  Chances are, Alarin replied. It’s very likely, since I don’t remember any times when I was so distracted I forgot to make sure I wouldn’t get her pregnant.

  I thought Greg taught her how to take control herself, Merran said, feeling somewhat calmer, but still not happy. It was a comment he had been intending to throw at her, but had never managed to get into the argument. Why was it all his fault? It wasn’t really. She had the ability to make sure nothing resulted from their activities together, too.

  He did, but it makes her queasy, so she doesn’t like to do it, and she got out of the habit with the two of us because she thought we handled it.

  Why the hell didn’t she tell me that? Merran demanded hotly. It would have saved us a whole lot of headache.

  I don’t know. But she didn’t, and she feels guilty. It’s some of where her hostility is coming from, I think. She just needs to feel loved and assured that she hasn’t screwed up her whole life.

  How do you feel about it?

  It’s Tamara. I want to marry her no matter what happened or whose child she is carrying. I will be the father you can’t be, Mer. I’ve had quite a bit of time to think about this, and I mean it. I’ll raise your daughter as though she’s mine, combine her with the other children we have, and no one will know the difference. As soon as Tamara’s calmer, which may take until after the birth, she’ll agree that it’s the best thing, Alarin reassured him. There had been hostility a few hours ago from Alarin, but he must have heard more of the conversation than Merran had realized, or found some other reason for his sudden reconciliatory attitude. That anger was gone, and Alarin seemed quite calm about the whole thing—far calmer than he, Merran, was, as a matter of fact.

  I’m full-blooded Azellian, Merran reminded Alarin. We have to register her birth with the Temple, and we can’t lie on her Azellian birth records as to who her father is. If she’s my child, it will be obvious pretty quickly that she’s not a Raderth to any of us who can sense her, including the Keepers at the Temple, who are pretty good at this sort of thing.

  So we lie on the human birth records and not on the Azellian ones. Alawahea, Mer. Merran could clearly feel the warmth in his friend’s mind, the strength that he showed only his closest friends. Apparently, there was a silver lining to this—he and Alarin seemed to be on their way to repairing their damaged relationship. Odd that it would take an accidental pregnancy to do it, but Merran would take what he could get. Although right at the moment he was sorely tempted to walk out of Tamara’s life for good, he knew he’d regret it in the end, and he appreciated that Alarin was trying to prevent that from happening.

  He bowed to them both, still smarting from the words he and Tamara had exchanged. It took him a few minutes to collect himself after he’d closed the door—firmly, although he managed not to slam it—to thicken his screens around his internal turmoil enough that he could face the rest of the world with any kind of equanimity. He avoided Rory, the young Healer who was currently involved with talking to one of the pretty young nurses at the nurse’s station, and made his way out of the hospital to his car, trying to process the enormity of the change that had stormed into his life as he drove home.

  Tamara languished in the hospital, chafing at her enforced captivity. She felt distinctly sympathetic toward zoo animals, especially since the teaching hospi
tal had three or four groups of students in to discuss her case each day. Unable to keep down anything, the smell of any type of food nauseated her so badly she ended up with the dry heaves. It was just one more intolerable, infuriating part of her situation, and she raged against her body, the baby, her changing future, her gender, and even nature itself. In a tiny part of her mind that was still rational, she knew she was being ridiculous, that her behavior was stupid and counterproductive, but it was how she felt, and she was helpless against the force of her emotions.

  She had been in the hospital about a week, and the doctors still had not figured out how to help her keep down food—even Rory was stumped. Since she was about to enter her second trimester, everyone hoped her violent aversion to food would resolve itself. If she hadn’t treated Merran so badly, he might have been able to determine whether there was another reason for her inability to keep anything down, but he hadn’t spoken to her in days. Alarin could have, too, but she blocked him as well. As much as she knew she should be trying to help herself, she had to admit that she didn’t want to feel better. She just wanted it all to go away. Maybe if she lay there and just gave up, it would.

  She was doing just that, staring at the wall with unfocused eyes, when a familiar voice said in English, “Apparently, things have fallen apart in my absence. What has gotten you to the point you are trying to will yourself to death?”

  She jerked out of her reverie and turned her head to see Greg standing there with his hands on hips, his aura sending amber glints off his sandy hair. In the months he’d been away, he’d lost weight, although he looked pretty much the same as always otherwise, down to the affectionately irritated expression on his face. Tamara stared at him, a thousand different emotions leaping to her throat and damming up inside her. Then, to her faint horror, she burst into hysterical tears, her vision completely disappearing in the storm of her sobs.

  His warm arms enveloped her in a tight hug as he spoke to her softly in Azellian. She didn’t process what he said, just let the language flow over her soothingly. As he held her and spoke, her emotions drained away, pouring out and away from her body and his. She shared the memories of the past week with him—even though her short-term memory sucked right now, she remembered enough. Greg listened gravely, without judgment, and shifted the memories away, along with the guilt and self-pity. In their place welled delicious, warm peace. With peace came the awareness that she had been cruel to her unborn baby, to Merran, and to herself. Her sobs subsided, and she lifted teary eyes. “I’ve been ridiculous,” she murmured, hugging Greg tighter, feeling the strength in his stocky body. He shared it with her, as he always did.

  “Then it’s time to stop it, isn’t it?” Greg asked, releasing her as he leaned over and grabbed a tissue from the box beside her bed. With a look of compassion mixed with authority, he handed her the tissue.

  “How much do you know?” Tamara sniffed, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose.

  Greg shifted to perch himself on the edge of the bed next to her. “You just shared most of it with me.”

  “I mean about M-Merran’s side,” she said, wincing as she said his name.

  “Very good, you remember that he has a perspective,” Greg said gently, reaching over to brush a lock of hair out of her face. It had gotten stuck to her cheek during her crying jag.

  “Don’t tease me,” Tamara frowned at him, but the expression lacked ferocity. She was too relaxed for that.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re starting to realize this isn’t just about you,” Greg replied, shifting a little. “Now if we can just get you beyond this little passive self-destructive urge you’ve got going. Your body is going to feed your baby before it does you, you know. Right now, you’re doing yourself more harm than her.” He continued without giving her a chance to answer. “As for Merran, he’s the one who called me. I know all about his reactions to this.”

  Tamara took a deep breath as guilt washed over her. “He’s the one who got me into this.”

  “And if you’d taken the precautions I showed you how to do, then you wouldn’t be here. There are two sides to this story, my dear. It took both of you to land you where you are.”

  Tamara choked as another wave of guilt washed through her.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter who contributed to this situation. It’s done. And now you get to deal with the consequences. You can give her up for adoption … there are plenty of Azellian families that will take her. Or you can raise her yourself, considering Alarin’s willing to help and so is Merran. He can’t help you the way you think you want him to,” he said, raising a hand to forestall her protest, “but he can do what he can to help ensure that your life won’t be negatively impacted by her arrival. You can still have a life, Tamara. It may not be the one you thought you were going to have, but you can have one … and one that is quite fulfilling.”

  As always, Greg’s clear-sighted calmness ripped away the emotional roadblocks Tamara had been building in front of herself. Even as she teared up again—Greg seemed quite unmoved by her emotionality—she was grateful for his calm strength. “Not all Healers can do what you do,” she sniffed, blowing her nose and struggling to control the new tears. “How can you always tell exactly what’s bothering me so immediately?”

  Greg smiled at her. “I’m your friend as much as your Healer, Tam,” he said, getting off the bed. “I trained you, and I’m a Tenricth. It makes a difference. To say nothing of the fact that Rory is more squeamish than I am about emotional issues. As a Memaxthal, he’s not a therapist by preference.”

  “How did you know that I was talking about Rory?”

  Greg grinned. “Because he’s the only other Healer that I know who has worked on you.” He touched her head, and she could feel him brush his mind across hers. “He did a good job of shielding you from both the baby’s pushes and from your own ability to project your emotions on others, though. A very good job. Excellent, in fact, considering he doesn’t have your projection ability. And your daughter is going to be one hell of a projector, too, for it to be showing up this early. Hmmm, he’s got more talent than I thought,” he said almost to himself.

  “What do you mean?” Tamara asked. She could feel a slight push against her shielding.

  “Your own shields are in tatters,” Greg replied, withdrawing his hand and not answering her question. He leaned against the edge of the bed. “That’s very normal when your baby first starts to tug at them.” He frowned at her. “However, for them to remain in tatters means you have let them stay in tatters. You haven’t been doing the exercises I taught you, have you?”

  Tamara flushed and looked at the covers. “I’ve been too upset and sick to do anything.”

  “No excuse. We talked about this before I left, Tam. You and I have spent considerable hours training you to shield from everyone around you, so you don’t get overwhelmed by their emotions and don’t overwhelm everyone with yours. Breathing exercises, focusing exercises, meditation. Have you done any of them?”

  Tamara’s cheeks burned. “I was depressed, too,” she said, somewhat sullenly, although she knew Greg was right.

  Greg raised an eyebrow.

  “Fine. I’ll start the focusing exercises right now.”

  “Good.” Greg walked toward the door. “While you do those, I’m going to get you something to eat.”

  Given her current relationship with food, she felt a vague sense of panic at the thought, but a look from Greg was enough to get her to focus on the repetitive, intense focusing and breathing exercises he’d made her do when he first started to train her after her Awakening.

  By the time he came back, she was too focused to feel nausea, and Greg helped her block out its return as she started to eat. The food didn’t taste the same, but it wasn’t nauseating. Without the nausea, she was hungrier than she expected, but, because it had been a while since she’d eaten solid food, Greg limited her intake. Then he sat on the edge of her bed and forced her to look at him. “Now that you’ve eate
n and things don’t seem quite so bleak, we need to talk about Merran.”

  Tamara flushed again. “I know I was overreacting when I said he couldn’t have anything to do with her. I was angry and I wanted to hurt him. He said … he said he could take her away. He won’t do that, will he?”

  Greg shook his head. “Of course not. Merran cares about you and this baby. He can’t contribute the same way Alarin can, but he can be a part of his daughter’s life, if you let him.”

  Tamara took a deep breath. “We know for sure then?”

  Greg shrugged. “Both he and Alarin made a pretty good case for it being his. You corroborated that when you gave me your memories. Alarin, however, is willing to be the overt father, to protect you and the baby from those people who would want to force themselves into her life. She doesn’t need to be in the public eye constantly, and as Merran’s daughter, she would be, and so would you.”