“I don’t know if I can do this again,” he admitted quietly, his hand slowly resuming to pull the comb through her hair. His face was burning, because that admission, it came with so many different layers and possibilities, and Isaac found himself hoping that she meant it in ways that he really shouldn’t hope she meant it in. “It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted all the time. And I’m scared. I feel like I never get sleep. Probably because I don’t.” Isaac wet his lips and he glanced over at the side of her face where it was barely visible from his position, and the words sounded a little rasped when he managed to force them out.
“I would, though. If it was you. I would if it was with you.”
The quiet seemed to settle for a little too long and Lydia started to worry that she shouldn’t have said it at all. Her face started to heat up with the flush of embarrassment and her eyes closed; it took a conscious effort not to move away from him just because she felt so stupid for having said it out loud because it was too quiet now. ...but then he finally spoke and she took a deep breath, letting it out softly.
He didn’t want to do it again. Well, quite frankly, neither did she. Lydia didn’t want to go through all the changes with her body and, for that matter, her body image. She didn’t want people judging her based on whether she was fucking strangers or carrying a child. She didn’t want to feel fat and disgusting and crazy anymore, because one minute she was laughing, the next she was crying, and the next, sometimes, she was throwing up. And she was doing it largely alone. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. She opened her mouth to agree with him and then stopped herself when he continued.
Now it was her turn to force the pause between them. She wouldn’t be as much of a nightmare, she thought, as Malia had to have been. Between the hormones and the morning sickness and then on top of it still trying to figure out how to act like a human; Lydia had thought out her pregnancy and it just hadn’t panned out. Malia got herself knocked up on an impulse and Lydia wasn’t going to ever suggest she should have waited, but Lydia also thought...if she was in Malia’s shoes, she probably would have. At least until she’d crossed one bridge before taking on another. Lydia wouldn’t have wanted the bullshit that came with that kind of a struggle. Maybe that made her a weaker person than Malia or maybe it just made her smarter, she wasn’t sure. Maybe it was both.
...but Isaac was going through so much right now and how he was keeping his head screwed on was beyond her. How he continued to even function was nothing short of a miracle. And he’d do it again...if it was Lydia.