Reconnaissance

His face is red. "Yeah?"

I shake my head almost imperceptibly, my head ready to burst with more unshed tears. "You have a beautiful son. I don't wish ill-will on you at all... please have a wonderful life with him. You can keep in touch."

He stands there, silently, and slowly controls himself. Without Kody standing not ten feet from us, I know for a fact that we both would've lost it.

Micah walks slowly to me, reaching out a hand. I offer his son's, and he takes it, but he also reaches out an arm to wrap around my waist, drawing me into a hug. My tight stomach presses hard and sure against him, confirming what he saw. He leans away, brushing my stomach through my shirt with condemning fingers, and then my face. "Of course," he says, backing away with his son. "Of course."

. . .

"Why are you pregnant."

"Prissy," I mumble, caught in my oldest sister's crushing embrace. "I missed you so, so much."

"Janelle, why are you pregnant?" She repeats, shaking my arms in her hands as she pulls back. She's the first one out, but the entirety of my family is approaching fast, flying through the living room and spilling over the wraparound porch.

"I'm fine, I promise, just let me say hello to everybody. It's been two years," I plead. She steps back and looks at me, hard. "I'm fine," I repeat.

"We're gonna talk later."

"Of course, you, me, Iris, Maya, and Naomi."

"And the guys."

"Priscilla." She glares at me, but I stand firm. The last thing I need is an even bigger audience for when I go over the travesty of my situation.

"Auntie J!" That's all I hear for the next half hour, and I can finally let tears go. I'm halfway dragged to the house, after being hugged around the neck and shoulders and arms and legs by my sisters, my brothers, my little nieces and nephews of varying heights, and even a few friends of the family. All of the adults and a few of the teens - three of them are taller than me now! - detect the rigid bump under my hoodie, and I see them whispering worriedly as the procession moves on.

I'm asked if I faked my death, if I was in any explosions, if I defused any bombs. Did the hacker keep me locked up in a dungeon? Did he feed me? Was it like the unabombers during the Digital Age?

Prissy eventually gets up and leaves the room, and Maya strides after her, calling soft and concerned. I can't possibly be responsible for my big sister's feelings right now, so instead I tell my family, sitting around me, the official version of the past two years' events through my perspective. The PG version.

Halfway through I see my two oldest sisters have crept back into the doorway and are quietly listening. I finish my tale and answer countless more questions, until Maya claps her hands. "Alright, lords, ladies, and majesties, we've prescribed our littlest spy here a full weekend of rest away from your prying eyes!" I grin tiredly in my seat, and one by one the horde comes to say good night to me. I missed these faces.

My brothers take the children to Maya's house, where I assume they all have the time of their lives in a cousins' sleepover to end all sleepovers. I'm left alone in Priscilla's living room with a set of investigators more thorough and effective than the agency could ever hope to recruit.

They don't have to try hard to extract the truth, though. "What happened, J?" Prissy says carefully. Maya sits down next to me and Iris puts on a pot for hot water in the kitchen. Naomi claims her favorite spot, stretched out on the thick carpet in front of us where she can still see me. It was relatively new when I went missing; now it has noticeable wear in it, from the many gatherings I'm sure they've had over the past two years. One of them being my funeral, possibly. I should ask if my status was missing in action or deceased, another time.

I tell them about my duties for that day, happening upon Micah in the empty warehouse and almost dying. I tell them about the "arrangement," about catching feelings, about things getting physical. About our goodbye, about my road trip with Noah and finding out I was pregnant. And finally about Micah getting caught, and about the last time I saw him.

They're quiet for a beat, and Priscilla pulls me in for a long hug.

"So what now?" asks Iris, leaned up in the loveseat across from me and Prissy, legs thrown over one of the arms. "Because you know what it looks like, right?"

I undo my bun and massage my fingers through my scalp, braids swinging around my face. I don't have words to say.

Naomi takes up the gauntlet. "You were vulnerable: physically, emotionally, mentally, and all you had was the seemingly cutest child in the world and a good-looking jailer to turn to."

I nod, leaning forward with my hands clenched at my knees, legs parted under my paunch of a belly, like I'm getting ready for multiple rounds in the ring.

"Isolation with restricted access to limited forms of socialisation," from Priscilla beside me.

"Yeah." I nod.

"You do have the absence of abuse, or active hostage status, potentially. Didn't you say you were free to leave after a while?" Naomi offers, to the sullen glares of Priscilla and Iris.

"A lot of victims of are, I already considered that one. And beyond the first altercation, no, I was never threatened or mistreated in any way. But that's present in a lot of cases too, it doesn't discount the possibility of the distortion of my judgement," I reason.

We fire back and forth for a while. This isn't an attack, and even if it was, I wouldn't defend Micah in any way. It happened, and I'm home safe, but now I have feelings and a child to deal with in the healthiest way possible.

"In any case," I summarize, "I'm not in any danger from loving him, and at least we understand where the emotion came from." I'm tired, and it shows. My sisters start wrapping up.

"Horrifically, I'm just happy our parents are at peace and gone to glory, so they ain't nowhere in this mess," Priscilla grumbles, holding out a hand to help me up, even though I won't need it for another four months.

"I never thought about that!" Iris exclaims. "What do y'all think Mommy and Daddy would say?"

"Probably kill him for trying to kill our little sister, Iris." Maya shrugs her shoulders while cornrowing her hair to pack under one of Prissy's bonnets. "The fond feelings you have for him will be good for the kid growing up, though," she adds.

There, it's done. All those residual feelings, analyzed and filed away with the help of my big sisters. In a few years, maybe I can take those memories out and relive them sometimes, without shame. Maybe if Micah sends me updates on Noah, I can respond with my own pictures. A weird, strange little crew, separated by the Atlantic. At least the oceans got to keep their names.

. . .

As it turns out, coming back from the dead is a lot harder than it looks. I am offered my old job back at the school in my region, but I don't take it. I don't have to work anymore, technically, since the family businesses have been doing so well in the past few years I've been gone. Not to mention, my apparent resurrection and very visible pregnancy make daily interactions more of a hassle than they're worth.

I work in the family apiary to keep myself busy, until my sisters won't let me do anything but try to support the growing child wreaking havoc on my back and legs. He's heavy and rowdy, and makes me crave milk and seltzer water throughout the nine and a HALF months I carry him. My doctor is setting up an appointment to induce the labor when it happens all at once on a mild June day, in less than two hours. My chubby baby boy; I half-expect him to come out as a miniature of Micah himself, and feel a little relieved to see thick, kinky hair on his head and warm brown eyes instead of sharp gray ones. I don't know if I could handle the questions, or even having to face him every day. I'm constantly worried about how my family truly feels about the way it all happened, but it seems they love him as their own.

Baby Jonah and I move to our own place as soon as I feel like I can handle him alone. It's an exhausting and thankless job, until the moments that I find myself looking at him like he's the only thing keeping me on this earth. I'm unrepentantly happy, though, with my family all around me (less than two miles away, I couldn't get away that easily), and starting to think about doing some vocal coaching from home.

"Nini?" A faint voice, and then a muffled knock.

No. I'm paying bills today, methodically stacking envelopes and humming to myself, and I don't feel like remembering them or their voices. Jonah's asleep for at least forty-five more minutes, and I think I have time to eat before he starts his sad little hungry song.

A knock, and "Nini?" again. "You busy?" I freeze, my favorite ballpoint pen making a widening wet black circle on a check, and raise my eyes to the hallway. Time to get up and open the door for an auditory hallucination.

Micah stands maybe half a head taller than when I last saw him, one small fist still on the door and the other pressed to his mouth. Unsure brown eyes flitting into the room behind me and occasionally landing on my face.

"Hi, sweetheart," I breathe. My baby's here. "Did you come to visit me?"

He nods, more responsive and coherent than the three, almost four year old he was when we were together last. "Me and Baba," he offers.

I crouch and hold my arms out, and Noah nestles into me, his fluffy head under my chin. "Nini, did you say hi?" I laugh, and I squeeze him tighter.

"Hi, baby," I whisper to him, and I can finally acknowledge Micah's melodramatic gaze emanating from across the hallway, where he's leaned up with his hands in his pockets like a goddamn main character.

"Figured I'd send the better man in first," Micah says, just as unsure of himself as his son before him.

"Wanna come say hi to your little brother, Noah?"

I lead the way into my bright little apartment, into my room, to the crib up against the far wall away from the window and housing one of the most precious people in the world to me. Micah closes the door behind him and I hear him following behind Noah and I like a dead man, stiff and slow. I haven't raised my eyes to his face since I heard his voice, only skimmed his body to note that he looks well-rested and well-fed, for once filling out his jeans and blazer with more than wiry muscle and a freedom fighter's vengeance.

"He's brown, Nini," Noah informs me. It catches me off guard and I giggle a little.

"Yeah, he's brown like me. And he can be very loud, just like you."

Noah peppers me with more questions, and as I stoop to lift him up for a better look over the crib gate Micah steps forward. "I, uh." he pulls one of my chairs over and places Noah on it. "You shouldn't be lifting anything yet, right?"

I shrug. "It's been two months, I'm fine. But thank you."

"Two... so you were three when we left," he calculates.

"Mmhmm." I'm watching Noah kneeling in the chair with his face as close to Jonah's as possible, and I can see a future with them together as clearly as I can feel Micah's eyes, on me and his sons.

"We can stay until he wakes up, then?" he asks.

"....You can both stay for our next meal, if you want," I tell him. "I think we're on second lunch, it was gonna be sandwiches and uh, milk." I glance down at my chest and snort. I should change out these pads to make sure I don't leak, although I don't think either of them would care.

A knock at the door, murmured words, and Maya's laughter, carrying across the empty apartment to the four of us in my room.

I close my eyes, dread filling me like a flash flood in a valley. "Crap."

Micah turns towards the noise. "You expecting company?"

"I'm never expecting company, company comes when it wants to," I mutter, rubbing at my temples and ducking my head out of the room to look at the door. Noah climbs down from his chair and starts playing with some of the stuffed toys in the bin by my bed. I want to start pacing.

"Your sisters," Micah guesses, running a hand over his hair. "Janelle, I'm not in hiding," he reasons carefully. "Me and Noah are back, officially. For a while. And I knew what I'd be walking into when I showed up at your door."

I look to him, and my phone starts ringing. I would apologize to him in advance, but thinking about it, they will be encountering the man who as far as they know, made an attempt on my life, kidnapped me, and left me with a child. Any lividity is excusable. To an extent. And a part of me doesn't think I can even make proper judgments anymore, if this is the man I fell in love with.

I screw my face up and gesture for him to follow me. He takes Noah's hand, and I pick up the phone on my way through the apartment.

"Nelle, wake up and open the door, me and Nay are outside," Maya says.

"I'm not sleep My, but I got company."

I point Micah to the kitchen table with his son and he files in to sit down while I hang up and whip open the door. Maya's still holding the phone to her ear, and Naomi's eyebrows have disappeared under the poof of her bangs.

"What kind of company?" Naomi smiles, adjusting the box of diapers in her hands. I move to take the box from her but she whips it out of reach.

"My baby daddy," I mumble.

Maya fumbles her phone and they both stare at and around me in alarm. "J, the fuck? How long? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine! I'm fine," I say, lowering my voice. "The baby's here, though, so please be calm. Please." I don't know what else I can say. "Maya, please stop texting Prissy, the last thing I need is for her to mobilize all of Santinio."

Maya stops tapping her thumbs against the screen and drops her phone into her pocket. "Fine. Let's meet him."

They look angry, but it's the honest curiosity in their eyes that calms me down a little. Here we go.

. . .

"Hey, handsome, are you Noah?" Naomi's pre-school teacher voice makes Noah's little head whip around. He nods from his father's lap, and Naomi smiles even brighter. "It's so nice to meet you and your dad, Janelle told me all about you. She said you're very nice."

Noah sits forward to resume playing with the orange he's somehow palmed from the bowl in the center of the table, in the basket of fruit that I told Priscilla I wasn't going to eat when she brought it over. "Nini said, Nini said very nice?"

They continue talking while Maya sets water to boil for tea. And when we're all seated around the table, Micah looks from face to face. "Noah, these are Janelle's sisters."

Noah fidgets in his lap a moment. "Okay," he says, before sliding down to run back into the room full of toys and his brother.

"He's gonna wake the baby up?" Naomi asks, and Micah is about to rise.

I run my hand over my forehead. "It's almost time for him to wake up anyway. Let's get this out of the way."

I gesture to Micah. "Nay, My, this is Micah, Jonah's father. Noah, these are my two sisters Naomi and Maya."

Micah smiles politely. "Nice to meet you both."

"You shot my sister," Maya says. Naomi's eyebrows are gone again as she sips on her tea. Evidently she didn't figure Maya was going to dive straight in. Maya leans back in her chair, hands idly twiddling in her lap under the table. Probably envisioning a much more physical confrontation. "Twice," she adds.

"I did." Micah looks.... not calm, but not worried, either. He looks ready.

"Why?"

"To incapacitate her to the extent that she wouldn't pose a threat to my mission."

"She was running away, presumably unarmed."

"Yes." His hands twitch almost imperceptibly, and I know he wants to run them through his hair.

"And you still took it to that level."

Radio silence across the table. Micah doesn't look to me, just meets Maya's eyes and nods, tight-lipped. Finally, he utters: "And that was my mistake."

"Hmm." The air is still and tense until I hear the beginnings of the fussing of a hungry baby.

I hear little feet hitting the floor. "Nini," Noah says, grabbing my arm with both hands. "The baby is awake."

"Thanks for telling me, sweetheart. Wanna come with me to go get him?" I'm practically dragged from the table. "Five minutes, guys," I say meaningfully back at the disgruntled crew still sitting in the kitchen. Hopefully an understanding can be hammered out if I take myself out of the equation.

Jonah's fussing rather than crying, on his stomach and holding his wobbly head up to better express his displeasure at being left alone.

"He pretty, Nini," Noah whispers at my side. I bend to kiss the top of his head.

"Thank you, baby. You are two beautiful brothers." I grab my breastfeeding pillow and a receiving blanket and head back to the front of the house to settle on the couch in the living room. I hear furious whispers coming from the kitchen, but I can't make out the words. My emotions are so fried that I find I don't care; I let Jonah suckle noisily at my breast and half-doze, watching Noah play with a Lego set one of the kids left over from a past visit.

I wake in the darkened living room, a blanket draped over my legs and the kids nowhere to be seen. I remember changing Jonah after his feeding and watching Noah listening, delighted, to his babbling. I laid him across my chest for another nap...

Micah strolls in, Jonah sleeping in his arms. "Awake? Your sisters left, they said to give them a call when you wake up."

"Ah. Gotcha." I rub my hand over the back of my stiff neck and watch Jonah's little fist curl at Micah's collar. "Where's Noah?"

"I hope you don't mind, he's asleep on your bed. I laid a blanket out before I put him down."

I nod. And pat the cushion next to me. "How'd it go?"

He eases down onto the couch, Jonah fussing in his arms before settling. "Well, I'm still here, so not too bad. I made dinner, spaghetti."

"Thanks." I sit back and study the two of them. "Those two are relatively easy. I'd get answers ready for Priscilla and Iris, if you're gonna stick around to meet the family."

"That's the thing, Janelle, I do plan to stick around. I want to be in Jonah's life. I'm here." He pats our son's back, a worry line creasing in his forehead. "I just... I know what it looks like, for you and me. I don't know what it feels like now that you're out. If it makes you uncomfortable, I can go, and just support the two of you in other ways."

I fiddle with the hem of my t-shirt, trying to figure out the right words to say what I'm feeling. "Micah, I never expected you to be able to come back, much less offer to be a regular fixture in our lives. I couldn't tell you whether or not I wanted you to come back, either. I just threw myself into birthing and caring for Jonah, and I sorta set everything else to the side, to be dealt with when I wasn't trying to keep it all together."

I've been staring at Jonah this whole time, unwilling to meet his father's eyes. I wrap my knuckles in the stretched out bottom of my shirt and continue. "I'd never deny you the chance to be in Jonah's life; I don't have any bad feelings towards you. I'm just really unsure of the good ones, if that makes sense."

I peek up at his face, and he smiles at me reassuringly. "No, it does. And thank you." He stops me from brushing his gratitude off. "Really. You didn't have to do what you did for me, these past two, three years. And you didn't have to let me in today."

I feel my face get hot and rock myself off the couch, lifting Jonah from Micah's arms. "Well, I'm glad I did. We made a pretty little boy." Ugh, Janelle. "Do you and Noah have a place for the night?"

Micah follows me back to my room. "Yeah, of course. I wasn't expecting- you know. To go back like we were." I place Jonah in the crib, and turn to face him. "Not that I wouldn't want that. The, uh, relationship part, not the captivity and constant endangerment and seclusion. But only if you'd want it, which you said, you're not sure, so." He crosses his arms over his chest, flustered. "I should've ended with 'of course.'"