Page 57 of Intersect

He leans forward, hands braced on his thighs. “They visited her? How is that possible?”

The answer dawns on his face as I softly deliver it. “They time travel, Nick.”

“Fuck,” he says, staring straight ahead, his eyes empty. He rises and begins to pace with his hands on his head. “Jesus. I just…how are we going to keep them safe?”

He’s thinking of Rose, as am I. Rose the wild teen with the absent mother and a father who had no way to keep her in one place. She, at least, had a grandmother to guide her. If I live long enough to give birth, who will my daughters have to turn to? “Nick, the other thing you need to know is that when they visited, they didn’t know me. Which means either the brain tumor or the Rule of Threes is…”

“No,” he says harshly. “Just because you saw something from another life doesn’t mean it’s going to happen in this one too.”

I lean forward, pressing my fingers to my temples. “What I don’t understand is how Sarah figures into this. In the dream last night, it was my mother or someone I was close to trying to stop us. But in London, and here, it’s Sarah.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. But if only three of you can survive, maybe she’s just trying to make sure she’s one of the three.”

I bury my head in my hands. We’ve done this twice before, and the odds are stacked against us even more this time around. “We shouldn’t have done this,” I whisper. “We gave in and we shouldn’t—”

“I’m going to find her,” he says. “And this time I will stop her. If we don’t find her, we hide until they’re born.”

I don’t have the heart to tell him this, but I’m pretty sure we tried that strategy before too.

* * *

We both lie down, not saying much. Because what is there to say? All I can think about is how badly I want this life I’m not going to have. I want to meet this product of the two of us. I want to hold them and raise them and I’m never going to get the chance.

My mother calls again. It’s the middle of the night back home and I know I should answer but I just…can’t. Not just because of this news I can’t share with her, but because of what never occurred to me until just now: if she and Sarah and I all can time travel, and I’m having twins who can do it too, it’s a death sentence for two of us.

“We never ate,” Nick says. “I’m going to go downstairs and get you some food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

He pushes my hair away from my face. “It’s not just you anymore, remember?”

He puts his shirt on, all those abdominal muscles flexing as he does it. I watch appreciatively, wishing I hadn’t taken the test, wishing I’d just had one more day of enjoying this trip with him before we found out. I want to get us back where we were last night.

“You’re looking pretty good there, Dad. Why don’t you take that shirt off and come back to bed?”

A light flashes in his eyes, a half-second where he is considering the offer, and then he frowns. And continues to dress. “You need food.”

I groan. “Argh. So you’re going to be overprotective and turn me down for sex too. This is getting better and better.”

He laughs, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Believe me, once you’ve eaten I’ll accept any offer you want to make.”

He leaves and is back within minutes, carrying bread, cheese, jam, and juice. “It’s all I could find at the moment,” he says. “Eat this and then we’ll go get a real meal.”

It’s more than enough food for four. My smile is wistful. I want this version of Nick, the overprotective expectant father. I want us to relish this, but how can we, under the circumstances?

My phone buzzes on the nightstand. My mother again. We both glance at her name on the screen but make no move toward it. “There must be something going on,” I say, biting my lip. “It’s not like her to call back-to-back like that.”

“She’s probably wondering if she can talk you into marrying Jeff again.”

I close my eyes, wondering if Nick would be better off if I had. I’ve done nothing but cause him pain.

* * *

Eventually we make our way out of the room, but Paris is no longer the same. We head to the Louvre, taking the path along the Seine, and all I see are children. Babies in strollers, toddlers playing in the grass. Nick sees them too. Every time a little girl passes, his worried eyes follow her.

He’d be the best possible dad under different circumstances. Under these, I’m not sure. “You’ve got to promise me you won’t be like Rose’s father,” I say, squeezing his hand. “If I can stay pregnant long enough to have these babies, you can’t be weighed down by everything after I’m gone. You need to put them first.”

He comes to a stop in the middle of the path and presses his palms to his forehead. “Stop saying things like that,” he says quietly. “You are going to make it. We are going to figure this out.”