Waiting For Spring

by Cascade

Her parka didn't quite fit.

He grinned quietly to himself, but said nothing as he shrugged into his own.

Her parka didn't quite fit.

It was all he could think of. Not because her parka not fitting was anything special in itself-- it was what it meant. Intellectually, he'd known, but to finally be presented with visual conformation-- well, he couldn't believe it. He couldn't really even wrap his mind around it-- it was just too big. Which was why he could only think that her parka didn't quite fit.

She left it open, instead, and wrapped a scarf around her neck, and slipped her hands into gloves, and put the hood of the parka up over her hair. He opened the door for her and she stepped out onto the porch, waiting for him to close the door and follow her. Hands shoved into pockets, but elbows linked, they stepped out into the gently swirling snow.

She turned her head to look at him as they walked. Already, her nose and cheeks were starting to turn pink from the cold, and but her brown/green eyes sparkled warmly-- knowingly.

"What are you thinking about, Sam?" She smiled when she said it.

"Your parka didn't quite fit." It was out before he even could stop it, and he dropped his head and shook it in embarassment, but he knew she was smiling even broader.

She laughed. "It's that obvious?" She looked down at her rounded stomach, and the new jeans from *that* section of the women's clothing store. She shrugged her shoulders. "Can't be helped, I guess, and there's no reason to go out and buy a new one just for this winter."

He started to shrug off his own jacket. "You could have mine..."

"I'm fine, really." She freed a hand from her jacket and patted her stomach. "Extra insulation." She smiled.

He smiled back. "You look beautiful, Dana." He leaned over and kissed her cheek.

She scrunched up her nose. "You have to say that. It's in the Expecting Father's Handbook."

"Ah say it because it's true. And there is no 'Expecting Father's Handbook'-- trust me. Maybe if there was Ah'd be more of a help."

She hit him lightly on the shoulder with her free hand. "You're a huge help. Besides, you had the experience of your little brothers and sisters. I've got my little brother, who I was too little to remember being born, really... and who turned out to be a bastard, so let's not listen to *anything* I have to say about child rearing, okay?"

"Stop that. You're going to be a wonderful mother..."

"I'm going to be a terrified mother." She looked up at him. He noticed the snowflakes on her eyelashes. "I'm counting on you not to let me totally screw this kid up."

"Good genes, Dana. Ah don't think anything that's half you and half me can be screwed up."

She smiled. "And that's why I love you. You say the best-timed, sweetest things." She kissed his cheek this time.

They walked on in silence, touring the grounds they knew so well-- that had framed this most cherished section of their lives-- in the falling snow, appreciating the hush that had settled over everything. He listened to her breathe.

He glanced down at her slightly rounded stomach and then looked forward again, and he *saw* himself walking, in this same parka in the same swirling snow, with his wife, in the same parka she was wearing now, except it fit, but there was a little parka between them-- a little person with tiny legs toddling along in the snow and tiny arms reaching up to hold one of his hands and one of Dana's.

He blinked, the swirling snow making his eyes tear-- maybe-- and the vision disappeared, but his body felt warmer somehow, and he took his hand out of his pocket and put an arm around Dana's shoulders in order to hold her closer to him.

They walked past the pond, encrusted with ice, and into the trees, naked branches heavy with snow. The flakes didn't fall as heavily here, and Dana pushed her hood back as they walked on brown leaves, the crunch of their footsteps sounding suddenly loud compared to the snow.

He had another bout of double vision, only this time it was an image from the past, not the future, and he smiled. He moved his hand from around her shoulders and instead took her gloved hand.

She looked up at him strangely for a moment, and then took in their surroundings. "The maple trees," she whispered, smiling.

"Ah'm getting the strangest feeling that we've been here before... Ah wonder why?"

She rolled her eyes. "Like you don't know. You can't lie to me, remember?"

They both stopped their walk and looked at the trees surrounding them. "That was the tree, right?" He pointed with their clasped hands.

"Where we sat afterwards?" She smiled. "Yeah, I think so."

"That would make The Spot..." He moved back a few steps, and then pulled her towards him,  "right about here." He put his arms around her, mindful that the first time they'd been here there had not been another person growing inside of her that was now between them, and looked into her eyes.

"First kiss." She looked around herself. "I can't believe you found the same spot."

It was one of those Moments in his mind-- as if frozen in amber he could pull it out and look at it even now and it all came back to him, that perfect fall day, just the two of them, here on this spot-- how happy and content and excited and scared he was, all in one moment. The way her lips felt against his, the way her body felt against his, trembling at first and then more sure--

He smiled. "We should mark it."

"Oh, yes," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Let's put a great big plaque here. That won't embarrass our poor kid too much."

He made a face. "Ah didn't mean a plaque. Something small-- just planting something maybe-- or a nice big river rock. Something nobody will notice but us."

"We'll have to wait until spring to plant something-- and no way am I diving into the pond, or letting you dive into the pond, to get the perfect rock." She smiled and nodded slowly. "Yeah. Let's wait 'till spring. We can do it after..." she trailed off and patted her stomach.

The butterflies that had taken up permanent residence in his stomach since she had told him she was pregnant in the fall took to wing again at the very thought she had voiced, and he felt the same way he did all those years ago-- scared and excited and so very, very happy.

She looked up at him again, he could feel her searching his eyes. "I was so scared the first time," she whispered, touching his face. "Your hand touched mine and I wanted to run just as much as I wanted to stay with you. That's all I remember-- your blue eyes and being scared. What did I have to be scared of?"

"Ah was scared, too." He smiled softly. "Ah'm glad you stayed."

"So am I."

He remembered this part. He touched her flushed cheek softly, then moved his hand under her chin, gently lifted it and kissed her. Her warm lips tasted like peppermint Chapstick. He moved his hand behind her head and ran his fingers through her long brown hair. The other hand trailed down the side of her body until it rested on her stomach. One of her hands came to rest upon his.

The kiss ended eventually, and when it did, she pressed her face into his shoulder, and he held her close. The odd snowflake drifted through the branches above him and settled around the two of them, and he had the odd feeling as if he were trapped in a snowglobe with her.

It had been what, nine, ten years, since he'd kissed her here the first time? That was under half their lives, and yet it seemed so long ago. She'd been eighteen-- she was practically a kid. She'd never seen a battle, or had blood on her hands. She'd never had to adopt that look of quiet strength that he so admired when she saw something no one should ever have to see. She'd been such an innocent, and at times he was sorry that that innocence had been taken from her. But it was that strength in her that he loved, and there were times, like at this moment, standing in the trees with her face pressed comfortingly into his shoulder, that he could still see that seventeen year old girl that had ever so slowly come out of her shell for him. So much had changed since then. So much had happened. A breakup. A reuinion. A marriage. Akkaba. And now with a child on the way. And yet here they were, both standing here in the woods like they were still kids-- except he loved her so much more now.

"So, should we go sit by the tree now and worry about what Marc will do when he finds out?" He whispered into her ear.

She laughed. It sounded like spring. The baby was due in spring. "It looks a little cold down there on the ground, Sam. I'd be numb from the waist down in minutes." She stretched a little in his arms and put her arms around his neck. "How 'bout we go back to the house, get some hot chocolate, and find some secluded bay window to cuddle in and look out at the snow."

"Sounds good to me. Especially the chocolate... and the cuddling." He kissed her on the cheek and put and arm around her again and they headed back to the house.

As they cleared the trees, they noticed a familiar figure heading out of the house. "Oh for the love of--" Dana started, and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Nathan, what are you doing out here?"

Nathan Summers, his teacher, his mentor, gave his wife a look that could have melted steel, and should have cleared a path through the snow for a good three feet at least. "Taking a stroll in the snow, same as you."

"Oh, you are not. You're out here because the cold makes your joints hurt and you're out here to show it who's boss."

"I happen to like the snow."

She snorted.

Nathan said something in Askani.

"Hey now. I'm going to be a mother-- I'm in a delicate condition."

This time it was Nathan's turn to snort. He turned his gaze to Sam. "No woman in this house has ever been in a *delicate* condition when they were pregnant. Kitty wasn't. Dom made her Six-Pack self look like a wilting flower, and Sulven..." He faded off. "Well, let's just say having twins seems to have enhanced the effect somewhat." He balanced himself, picked up his cane and pointed at Dana with it. "You are no different." He looked up at the grey sky a little and shook his head. "Remember the days when we used to think PMS in this house was hell on Earth?" he said wistfully. "I miss those days."

Sam chuckled. "How's Clare doing, sir?"

Nathan looked at him knowingly. Clare was a year old, now, and the prettiest little girl Sam thought he had ever seen, and he knew perfectly well how she was, but he asked anyway. He asked a lot. It was a father-to-be thing, he guessed.

"Clare's fine, Sam." He looked then at Dana. "And so am I."

Dana was looking at the clouds now. "Yeah, whatever."

Then she got hit in the face with a telekinetically thrown snowball.

"Oh, you did NOT just do that."

Cable looked unsuccessfully innocent.

"Sam! Avenge me!" She said, laughing.

"No way am Ah gettin' involved in this."

"I have to do everything myself..." she stage-muttered, bending down carefully because of her new, higher center of balance, and scooped up a lightly packed snowball and lobbed it at Nathan. It never hit him.

"There's no TK shields in snowball fights! That's so not fair!" Another pile of snow dropped on her head and she spluttered. "Hey!"

She scooped up another snowball and tried again. This one stopped and then went right back at her, hitting her in the chest.

"Who needs to go back inside now, Dana?" Nathan grinned at her. "Can't handle the cold?"

She picked up another pile of snow, walked over to him, and dropped it directly on his head.

Sam stood back, his arms crossed over his chest, just watching them both and their slow-motion snowball fight and laughing. There was the seventeen year old again, even more clear now. And Nathan seemed younger, too, somehow-- as if he might drop his cane at any moment and go tearing after Dana in the snow.

It was like the water from the fountain of youth had frozen and was falling from the sky.

Sam looked up at the grey clouds above his head and smiled.

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