Reconnaissance

The ETA according to the GPS is eight days and nine hours, liable to change due to highway traffic. Over the next four days, all four tests come back positive. I can think about my pregnancy and how it's going to completely alter the course of my life once we settle down at the new place. Thankfully, riding with Noah is miraculously uneventful. He's plenty used to slow, quiet days with me and plays calmly in his seat most of the time or stares out the window enraptured by the view of the outdoors he seldom got to see, although he asks to watch cartoons on the portable tablet his father so thoughtfully bought sooner than he asks for his father. I wish I could tease Micah about that.

I make sure to stop at the riversides and landmarks that dot the route - release and restoration of several indigenous lands and waterways is possibly one of the only semi-decent things brought about by the UNA - and let Noah tumble in the grass a little. I don't think the agency's looking for a dead woman, and Noah technically doesn't exist, so I feel fairly comfortable traveling.

Still, I get tense with other people around, mutually bonding with them over my curly-headed ward but fully aware that a Black lady and a lily-white little boy are traveling alone together. I try to act as motherly as I can at every moment - the last thing I need is a roadside officer banging on my window over suspicions of kidnapping.

Can they track our plates? Micah had them registered to an unassuming region, but I'm still riding around with a forged identification card and papers, for me and Noah. What if somebody recognizes me from an obituary or something? I've gained weight both in my face and body with my unexpectedly sedentary lifestyle, but not nearly enough to look like a completely different person.

It'd attract too much attention to drive late at night, so we ebb and flow diurnally with the rest of the world. Noah's blissfully unaware of our fugitive status, and I make the best effort to make it to an inn each night so he can sleep in a bed. When I can't, I cradle him in the backseat and think about the long naps we used to take just like this. And then about the naptimes his father and I would spend doing anything but sleeping. Accidentally creating a whole fucking child.

In the evening and a day earlier than expected, I pull up to a house situated a bit out of the way, much like the one we left. Two stories, three bedrooms, two baths. I wander the house after laying Noah down to sleep in the first bedroom I find, finding out that the fridge is stocked, and so are all the other rooms. Micah was thorough in his planning. I wonder who he pulled to come out here. I wonder if he made it out okay, where he is now; when he's coming to meet us.

Noah and I wake up alone for the first six days, and I am okay with it. However, I become alone, scared, and wracked by full-on morning sickness during the next two weeks, and I have no idea if Micah made it past whatever blockade they put in place for him. At first I can't think about what steps to take after, but one late night over the toilet bowl, having exhausted myself keeping my haggard condition from Noah all day, I plan.

I won't leave this house. I'll get a job at the nearby department store until I have the baby; until I can get papers forged to work somewhere that requires a more solid background. Then I could work in the local pre-k that I'll enroll Noah in. We'll wait for Micah. All three of us. Even though, holy shit, how have I gone from zero to two children in such a short amount of time?

A month later, and I'm chopping up a melon for snacktime when I hear a knock. I squeeze my knife, shut the door to the tv room where Noah's sitting rapt watching Cars for the fiftieth time, and walk to the front door. Looking through the window, I see an agent. I place the knife on the drawer behind the front door before I crack it open and stick out my face.

"Janelle Wayne. Agent #570a, region 143, presumed dead in a reconnaissance mission twenty-two months ago." There's another agent behind the tall thin Hispanic man in front of me, and she crams her mass of dark wavy hair into a neat low bun before resting her hand on the baton in her belt.

"Yes. Hello."

"Are you alone?" The man tries to peer past me into the foyer, and I feel panic, and then the beginnings of tears pricking my eyes.

I blink. "No." The woman puts a hand on the man's shoulder.

"How many?"

"Just.... Not who you're looking for. Three-year-old boy." They both look down at me, and my hand loosens around the doorknob, defeated and relieved. "There is a serrated knife on the dresser in the hallway right next to me, I wasn't sure.... you know. Who was showing up. Are you searching?"

The woman nods and steps up. "We'll be coming in."

I back away and open the door wider, stepping to the side to let them through. The man introduces himself as Kody, the woman as Leah. He stands at the door next to me, silent, as she goes around the rooms.

He coughs, and I look up from my stupor. "You're... alright?"

I'm a month pregnant by the man you're looking for, I think. "No worse for the wear. Considering the past couple years." I gesture to the quiet house. "Did the agency contact my family once you tracked me down?"

He pauses and looks into my eyes, which are shiny with genuine tears. "Until we find out the whole story, I can't really tell you much," he apologizes.

I hear the door to the tv room open and hear Leah murmur to my baby, seconds before his frantic shout. "Nini?!"

"I'm in here, love, just hold Ms. Leah's hand down the stairs!" I call. I pretend not to notice Kody's eyes flickering to me every other second as I wipe away any trace of glistening from my eyes.

He comes down the steps slowly and carefully next to Leah, his striped socks making no sound on the wood. "Nini, Baba cone home yet?"

"Not yet, baby, can you say hi to Ms. Leah and Mr. Kody?" He shakes his head and shuffles over to me. It occurs to me he's never seen so many people before this month. The people in the hotels, at the gas stations, at the little roadside rest stops, and now the agents. It was only ever me and Micah in that safe little house.

"Well, I think they might be taking us somewhere, is that exciting?" He resolutely shakes his head again and reaches to be picked up, which I oblige. Leah completes her search of the house and motions for me to follow her, back to the TV room.

Cars is still playing onscreen, and I set Noah down.

She sits me back down at the kitchen table downstairs, and I rub my temples, looking at the sliced watermelon on the counter.

"We're not asking too many questions yet. But we need to figure out if we should leave you - and his son, I'm presuming - here to draw him out."

"I don't... if... that's not the best idea." I refrain from rubbing my little round stomach under the table and clasp my hands together instead.

"And what would be better?" She's casual and calm, and it helps. I'm dizzy.

"The child shouldn't be anywhere near a scuffle, I know that. He gets.... parentally volatile when Noah is in danger." A proven truth.

"Okay. We'll make sure he's off the premises, then." Shit. Leah cocks a strong eyebrow. "What's the nature of your relationship?"

I can handle this. "The day I went missing, I ended up obtaining life-threatening injuries in a scuffle with the suspect. I lost consciousness at the scene. I woke up in what I assume was the first safehouse?" She nods. Kody appears at the doorway and leans against the counter. "He arranged that I would care for the boy for the year and a half it took to complete his work, and in return I'd go back to my family."

"When's the last time you had contact with him?"

"About a month and a half ago, I believe." Exactly a month and sixteen days.

Kody pipes up. "Why didn't you try to leave?"

Leah whips around and he finds sudden interest in the half-full bowl of rinds next to him.

"Answer if you want, but you know all responses are reported back to the federation."

I nod, brows furrowed, as if to say, of course! I've got nothing to hide. Almost nothing.

"He told me my family's addresses, told me they thought I was dead. This would be safer than immediately trying to go back." I remember touching him that last day, kissing him furiously through the car window. "After that, I kind of pretended I was a live-in nanny, and that's how I got by. Except I couldn't get out; there was a keycode to every door, and every window was bolted with some kind of electric lock."

The questioning, because they do end up questioning me, is softer after that. I'm a victim.

"We're glad to see you alive and well, Janelle," Leah says. What if I had told them about my pregnancy? Everything else that happened?

Stockholme syndrome, I remember. I'd be even more of a victim then.

But I need to ask, as we go up the stairs to collect items of clothing and Noah. "Leah. You're going to take Noah?" I hide the slightest shudder of my breath.

She thinks for a moment before replying, "The boy?"

"Yes, sorry."

She looks at me, and I continue folding a shirt as I look up at her, before deciding to alleviate any doubt. "I've known him most of his life now, I have to admit I'm not impartial at all where he's concerned."

"He's three, correct?"

"Closer to four, yes." I zip up my duffel bag and pull out Noah's race car suitcase to fill with the bigger clothes I know he won't outgrow too soon.

She studies me. "More than likely, you won't be separated. The kid can't help his situation, and we don't want to cause... either of you... distress. But because we are taking you into custody, you'll be held in a surveilled and guarded location until this all plays out."

I breathe, and finally let myself relax a little bit. At the end of the day, no matter how much I'm worried for and in love with the man they're looking for, this is what's most important to the both of us, I know. Well, there's another something coming up fast, growing in my abdomen, but I honestly don't know if he'll ever get to meet that one. I don't even know if Micah's still alive and free. Another breath whooshes out of me.

Leah seems to want to say more, but when I look up again, two bulging suitcases in hand, she grabs one and waves me ahead of her out the door.

. . .

"Nini, I want Baba."

"I know, baby boy. I'll let you know when he's coming back."

"Coming back?" He chews absent-mindedly on a soggy cracker while tossing around a toy xylophone one of the agents in the facility supplied. I walk over and run my hands over the two ram braids I've cornrowed his hair into, neon green rubber bands wrapped around the ends. He'd fit in with my sisters' kids, tumbling around the farm and causing trouble.

"Yep."

"Okay."

He's asking more and more, and I'm starting to get bigger. Most days I put on a baggy dark green sweater that hangs over my thighs, thankful that it's a cool 65 degrees in the facility. I can't say I miss the place I hesitantly called home for nearly two years. Here we're allowed to go outside, although my status as a held woman is unambiguous. Discouragingly absolute, in fact, but the other agents are very kind. However, I miss the man I shared that home with. Terribly.

I realize I've been captive, in some way, for over two years now. I wonder if Iris, Prissy, Maya, and Naomi know I've been "found" alive yet. I am interrogated weekly, and I skip over my personal tragedy and relations with Micah but do not omit anything else. Truthfully, Micah never told me anything big except the date he wanted to launch the last strike. They already know he was shooting for amnesty overseas, I think, and even though they're getting more desperate, the questioning is less and less urgent.

Especially since I'm getting ill. Well, "ill." Really, I'm tired out of my mind in my first trimester. This is what rich people called "fatigue," that they sent their daughters away to recuperate from in old lofty countryside clinics before coming back, right as rain and "fatigue"-free. I don't have any reservations against it, but I know for a fact I'm carrying the baby full-term. Even if I don't keep them, raise them, I won't regret it. I can't even deny that I wanted this at some point. Several points. One of which was the tip of Micah's dick. I was sent in for a physical the first day we came to the facility, and luckily - truthfully, fortune was shining down upon me - they didn't feel the need to take blood or urine samples. I don't need this particular can of worms opened, at least not yet.

I fear every day that I'll be released and taken away from Noah. That they'd find out our relationship was completely different, and that I'd be going for even more psych evals than I already am. I push those thoughts aside while I complete my resignation from the agency, with no pushback whatsoever. The more than sufficient captive situation I was in works wonders for the hurdles I would've had to jump through otherwise.

Three months into my pregnancy, I am released, and my family is finally notified of my recovery. The mission is categorized as a partial success. Micah Rennfield is detained ten miles away from the facility, frenzied and gaunt and asking for his son. The last base still stands, but Rennfield and his son have been granted full pardon by the International Council for destroying the first eight military bases constructed "in secret" by a "rogue and corrupt" neo-branch of the Unified Nation of the Americas, and for disclosing the location of the last. Publicly a hero. But off paper, he should probably get out of the country, preferably as fast as possible.

I am given the equivalent of an honourable discharge, you could say. A recon agent enduring two years of captivity at the hands of a presumed rogue, whistle-blowing hacker driven by his love and loyalty to the UNA. As Christmas time approaches fast, I wrap up the last presents I'll ever buy for Noah. He's taken everybody's heart at the facility, and will probably get many other gifts before being handed over to his father for a one-way flight to an undisclosed country in the U.K. Well, the Union of European Kingdoms, now, even as stuffy as everybody knows that name is.

I don't dare ask about him, not a single word. Leah and my psychologist keep informing me as the day gets closer that I won't need to be in contact with him at all, and that even though he's a hero in the Nations' eyes, he's still my captor.

I finally tell them all that it's fine. That he was only ever cordial after the first struggle, if a bit driven, and that I want Noah to go to his father with the impression that we were only ever friends.

Everything is going smoothly until we see him. Noah is bouncing and skipping with joy, beyond excited to see his father again. I am ready to give the performance of my life, holding his hand in that walk down the hall to the little meeting room I'd coldly say goodbye in. Kody is with me, but Leah is out on another case. He's been treating me like I might break if someone looks at me too hard, and honestly, today I might.

The first thing I notice is that Micah's hair is trimmed into a much more manageable length around his head, but still billowing over his forehead, just like his son's. Kody's hand is at my back, and I'm thankful for it as Micah turns around when his son thunders into the room ahead of us.

"Baba! You back! Nini say you come back!" Noah struggles around the words with his childish voice, and his father bends down and scoops him up. I watch Micah hold his son tightly, and I remember how it felt to be a part of that embrace. He sees me, and I smile, weakly. Kody murmurs in my ear that he'll be right behind me and retreats to the wall nearest the door.

Micah looks a lot like he did the first day I saw him. Unfathomably exhausted, pale and shadowy. His eyes are glassy. I guess I look gray and shaky, too, but for entirely... different reasons. His eyes are ghostly and wary on mine, and he smiles politely as I display as much caution in my eyes as physically possible. I imagine rushing over to enfold myself into him, and never letting go. But Kody shuffles behind me, watching.

"Thank you, Janelle," Micah offers, awkwardly. "I know what the circumstances were, and you did the right thing by my son throughout it."

I take deep breaths, suddenly lightheaded. Great timing, exhaustion. I shrug. "At the end of the day, your cause was a good one. You saved a lot of people by inconveniencing one."

"Nini, have hug?" Noah questions from under his father's chin.

Ah, shit, I'm gonna cry. "Oh, baby. Um, I'm gonna go home now, to my house." Noah wriggles himself upright.

"We going back home now?" he asks innocently. Micah's eyes lock onto mine again, worry swimming through them. I raise a hand to the back of my head, suddenly swamped with all the emotion and tiredness I've been ignoring for my own sake.

"How 'bout we sit down? This is not an up kinda conversation," Kody suggests from the door.

"Yes," I breathe. I step closer, like I'm being pulled into orbit. Noah reaches out to me from his father's reluctant hands, piling into my arms. Gray eyes sear the top of my head as I walk to the low leather couch on the far side of the room.

Micah and Kody sit stiffly at the conference table while I try to explain to the three, almost four year old on my lap that I'm leaving him. "Noah, you know Nini's been taking care of you, right?"

"Yah," he nods, playing with my braids.

"Well, now that your Baba finished his job, I'm gonna go home now, back to my house."

"Gonna go home?" Big brown eyes on mine. I feel a bit of Noah's perpetual angst, and a horrible tightness in my chest.

"Yeah... no, baby, you're going away with your Baba. I'm going back to my own house, not with you."

He sits for a split second before the tears come, and my response is immediate. I cradle him to me, as he threatens to let loose a wail to shake the room.

"Hey, hey, don't you wanna go with Baba? You've been missing him, baby, remember?"

"Yeah," he cries, little fists at his eyes.

"Well, I miss my family too. I love you, but Baba is your family."

He's hunkered down and teary in my lap. I look up to see Kody completely turned to the opposite wall, shoulders rigid, and tears streaming openly down Micah's face. And I cry, too.

In the end it takes a good fifteen minutes to say a last goodbye to my baby. I stand in front of him and his father, with Kody outside the open door this time, facing the hallway. Probably distancing himself from all the emotion.

"So, this is it," I surmise, as haltingly as possible. My eyes are swollen and hot. Matter of fact, we all look an absolute mess now. Noah is pouting, holding his father's hand, looking like he'll start up again any minute.

Micah looks like he might burst. "Yeah. If you want, I can send you updates, if that's allowed."

"Probably fine," Kody calls from outside.

Micah chuckles dryly. "Thanks, man," he calls over his shoulder. He looks into my eyes. "Thank you."

I love you. I'll find you again. I'm pregnant with your child. So many words to choose from. It'd only take a few.

Micah turns to leave, but Noah wrenches his hand out of his father's, rushing to bowl into my legs. He hugs me at my knees, tightly, and something changes in his father's expression as his gaze lifts from his distraught son to my torso. My heart crawls up my throat and I look down to see that my sweater is drawn taut against the baby bump by Noah's head nestled into my thighs. Almost imperceptible, but probably protruding loud and clear to stormy gray eyes that now know every inch of my body.

"Okay, Noah, one more hug," I gasp, voice thick and low as I lift him up to hold him close. I can't look at his father. Maybe I can play it off. I set Noah down again and see Micah looking.... distressed, to say the least. He needs to keep it together. "Micah."