A Fearful Symmetry 17

When Shilo wakes, she is surprised to find him still beside her, one hand resting on her stomach and his eyes closed. They are stretched out flat beside each other; he has  the blanket tucked up over himself, but neither of them bothered to put any clothes on. It didn't seem worth it then, and it doesn't seem worth it now, but she can't help but pull the blanket up to her shoulders as she turns on her side to face him. "I know you're not sleeping," she murmurs.

He opens one eye and regards her with a wary caution that seems terribly out of place ater last night. She wants to be hurt—but it's only his way. She knew what she was getting, and she still wants it. He's only afraid because he wants this as bad as she does, after all. "I should be," he says, sliding his hand up to her ribs and letting it rest on the side of her breast. "It's too early for this nonsense."

"You're always up right now anyway," she points out. She hopes he can see in her eyes the thing she isn't asking about. She thinks things have changed—thinks he has changed…

But she doesn't know it until he slides closer so they touch all along their bodies. He shrugs. His voice is laconic, but she sees everything serious in his eyes. "Well, it's gonna change—unless you decide you want to take up selling Z. I bet you'd be good at it."

She shoves him, but she's laughing—more from relief than because she thought it was funny—and she presses her face into his chest. He runs his hand down her back in a way that, somehow, tells her more about his devotion than anything he might say.

***

Things are rough now. Marni is happy, but she cannot deny it. She's gotten worse as the pregnancy goes on: the medication Nathan gives her keeps her healthy, but it fills her with such nausea she cannot leave her bed most days.

Nathan is gone all the time, working in the labs. Marni knows what he's doing is important. Her condition is a relatively fresh disease, another symptom of the blighted world they live in, and Marni is one of many. If Nathan can fix things, it will change the world. She will survive, but so will hundreds of other pregnant women. The birth of children will become a normal part of life again, instead of a wonderment.

Yes, what he's doing is important. But she can't help but wish she could wake in the night and find him there. Isn't that the point of marriage? Not love. Not sex. The solid, comforting knowledge that you never have to sleep alone.

But he's a workaholic, and this is what he was made to do. And when he's home, he is brilliantly, vibrantly there: nothing sheds darkness on them when he's home.

And yet some days she walks out to her balcony and looks at the barren city below, and she wishes they had stayed a secret.