“You just can’t pull any more stunts like that,” warned Hunter sitting on the sofa with his knees pulled up to his chest.

It had been over a week and a half since his encounter with Luke. He’d stayed locked up in his apartment, only venturing out when Allen forced him to leave for more training and preparation. If he’d had his way, he would have given up on it altogether, but Allen wouldn’t take no for answer.

“I understand,” said Vincent as he sat across from him. “I get it. I went too far. I’m sorry. I wanted to try and prove a point, but I messed up and that’s on me.”

Hunter very seriously doubted hanging out with Vincent was a good idea. Despite his falling out with Luke, he still believed what he had said about Vincent’s manipulative nature. The stunt outside had been more than enough evidence for Hunter to believe.

The only reason he’d said yes when Vincent asked to come over was because of how lonely he felt. He hadn’t been sleeping well. All this time alone with his thoughts, trying to figure out how he felt and what everything meant had only led to him being more confused and unsettled than he had been before. He needed a distraction and someone to cheer him up. Vincent might not have been the best option for that, but he was better than nothing.

“Are you hungry?” asked Vincent. “We could go get breakfast. There’s this nice little breakfast place that opened up down the street. They serve the most amazing waffles with whipped cream.”

Hunter’s stomach churned.

“I went there the other day with some co-workers,” continued Vincent. “They serve this maple wood smoked bacon that is just melt in your mouth delicious.”

Nausea instantly quashed any appetite Hunter may have had. He knew he should’ve been hungry, he hadn’t eaten since lunch the previous day, but his only saving grace at the moment was that his stomach was empty. Otherwise, he knew he would be running for the bathroom.

“Are you okay? You don’t look very good,” said Vincent, finally noticing the look of discomfort on Hunter’s face.

Hunter looked up at him. It had been almost three weeks since the nausea had started. Some days it was better than others. He could usually keep down a little bit of food, but he’d long since eaten the last of Luke’s chicken soup. He’d managed to keep it a secret from Allen because he knew he would tell Luke about it.

Still, he was tired of feeling sick all the time. And there was something else troubling him. He’d been putting on weight. His clothes weren’t fitting well, his belly had started to become bloated and was getting uncomfortable.

He’d been reduced to wearing sweatpants and slightly baggy t-shirts because they were the only things that fit in his entire wardrobe.

“I think...I need to go to the hospital.”

***

IT WAS FRUSTRATING how little anyone at the hospital was willing to actually tell him about anything. They took some blood and a urine sample and shoved him in a bed. Then he and Vincent just sat there waiting. Neither of them said anything for a long time.

“I need you to know,” began Vincent at last. “Whatever anyone else said about me, I really did love you back then.”

Hunter sighed. He really didn’t want to get into this now, in a hospital of all places. He looked over at Vincent, sitting beside him, and tried to smile.

“I’m sure you did,” said Hunter. “The problem is I’m not that person anymore. I explained that to you before.”

“I know,” said Vincent. “You’re better now. Before you would have just given in. You would have taken my hand without a second thought. Now you’re stronger and more independent. You’ve got this fire in your eyes I didn’t notice before. I feel like, if anything, I’m falling harder for you now than I did back then.”

Hunter frowned, unsure of how to process that confession. “Can we just be friends for now?” he asked, hoping to dissuade any further attempts to sway his love. He was done with games of the heart.

“Y-yeah, sure.” Vincent seemed slightly upset, but kept any complaints to himself. For that, at least, Hunter was grateful.

“Hunter Kilder?” a doctor asked as he entered the small room where they were waiting.

“Yes?”

“We’ve gotten your results back from the lab. Now we’ll want to do an ultrasound to confirm, but it looks like you’re pregnant.” The doctor looked up from the clipboard in his hands and clicked his pen for emphasis.

“Pregnant?” Hunter’s mouth felt dry as he spoke.

“How long?” asked Vincent, interjecting before Hunter could speak.

“Difficult to say for sure without an ultrasound. We usually see morning sickness starting around week 12, but it can be earlier or later for different individuals. We’ll know more once we take a look.” The doctor seemed oblivious to the tension that had suddenly descended upon the room.

“Twelve weeks...” Hunter’s voice trailed off.

“How is that even possible?” asked Vincent, immediately taking the lead on the questions. “He was in a coma three months ago, wouldn’t you have found something?”

The doctor looked back over his notes before answering. “Depending on when the baby was conceived, it’s not out of the question for something like this to be missed. Yes, he was in the hospital, and we did plenty of blood tests at the time and none showed signs of pregnancy. Which can only mean the fertilized egg had not yet been implanted. Implantation generally takes about a week from conception. Since you were discharged to your parents’ care in less than a week, then it’s entirely plausible for us to have missed this since it was so early in the pregnancy.”

“I’m gonna go ahead and order that ultrasound for you. Once the tech is ready they’ll take you over and take a look. We should be able to tell pretty quickly how far along you are.” Without another word, the doctor turned and left the room.

“How...” Hunter’s voice trailed off. He stared towards his feet as his mind reeled. “Twelve weeks? So...I was already...when I lost my...” Even with the doctor’s explanation he couldn’t wrap his head around how it was possible or the implications.

“It doesn’t matter how,” said Vincent, folding his arms. “The only thing that matters is what are you going to do about it?”

Hunter looked over at him with a bewildered expression.

“If you want my opinion, you shouldn’t keep it. It’s another memory from a past you don’t have. You got pregnant in a different lifetime. You shouldn’t be held to a decision that you personally never actually made. You’re someone else now. It wouldn’t be fair for you to have to deal with a child for the rest of your life because of that.” Vincent eyed him with a cold glare that sent chills down Hunter’s spine.

“But...I mean, who...”

“That doesn’t matter either,” insisted Vincent. “All that matters is what you want. You’re the one that has to carry a baby to term. You’re the one that’s going to be stuck caring for it.”

Vincent’s intensity was overwhelming, but Hunter remained strong. He wasn’t about to make a decision just yet. Whatever choice he made was going to be life altering. It wasn’t something he could simply rush into. Not without figuring everything out first. There was so much he didn’t know.

“The longer you wait, the harder it is,” continued Vincent. “You can’t put it off.”

“Vincent, please stop. Just let me think,” blurted Hunter. “I’m not ready to decide yet. Please just let me figure this out.”

Vincent lapsed into silence, but it was clear he wasn’t pleased. His early proclamation of love for Hunter’s strong personality seemed to be unfounded. It was obvious he preferred the much weaker and more pliable Hunter.

If he wanted any sort of advice on this situation, he was going to have to go to someone else.

***

HUNTER DITCHED VINCENT at the hospital. He mumbled some sort of excuse about needing to be alone to figure things out and had gotten a taxi to take him home. The whole ride back he had debated on who to call. Who should he turn to for advice in a situation like this?

Part of him wanted to call Allen, but he wasn’t ready for Luke to learn about his pregnancy. The ultrasound had confirmed that he was roughly twelve weeks pregnant. There was no doubt in his mind Luke was the father if they’d been engaged and planning their wedding at the time.

His only other option was one he had tried to avoid at all costs. But he didn’t know who else to turn to. As he dropped onto the sofa in his apartment, he pulled up the number on his phone and made the call.

“Hunter?” Melinda sounded unsure of herself when she answered the phone. He didn’t blame her, he’d never called her first before. It was always the other way around.

He swallowed, trying to remove the dryness from his throat. “H-hi Mom,” he managed at last.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. “You don’t sound very good.”

Hunter’s voice broke and for a moment he found himself unable to speak at all. Tears of frustration welled in his eyes. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself, but just as he thought he’d gotten everything under control, another wave of tears spilled forth.

“Honey?” Melinda sounded worried. “Are you at home?”

“Y-yes.” Hunter’s voice cracked and the word came out as a half choked sob.

“Sit tight. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

True to her word, Melinda reached the apartment in half an hour. She let herself in with her own key and immediately went to Hunter’s side. He hadn’t moved from the sofa since he’d made the call. His eyes were fixed on the blank wall across from him.

Hunter looked over at his mother as she sat beside him, and for the first time he understood what family was. She hadn’t asked him anything, she was simply there for him. Just like she had been when he woke up from the hospital and for every step of the way through therapy. He didn’t remember every bump and scrape and birthday, but that didn’t matter.

All that mattered was she was there for him.

“I’m pregnant,” he sobbed as she sat beside him. He handed her the black and white ultrasound pictures. “They said it’s twelve weeks along.”

Without a word, Melinda sorted through the pictures. A moment later, she pulled him into her arms and held him.

The closeness, the support, and her love enveloped him. He buried his face in her arms and allowed himself to cry and vent all of his frustration and anguish. In between tears, he told her everything that had happened with Luke and Vincent. He explained his confusion and his constant battle to try and distinguish himself from whom he had been before.

Melinda said nothing until he was done and his tears had dried. She merely sat and listened as he shed the emotional weight that had been holding him down.

When he finally stopped talking and sat up again, she spoke. “There’s always a place for you if you want to come home,” she offered. “We can pack you into the car, and I can take you back home right now.”

Hunter was silent for a moment. He had struggled so hard to get out of his parents’ house and be on his own again. Now, not even a month later he was ready to jump on her offer. He’d been wrong, he wasn’t ready for any of this. He wasn’t ready to be on his own. He needed time, he needed space to figure out who he was and what he wanted.

“If you do that though,” continued Melinda, “you need to understand you’ll be giving up everything you have here.”

Hunter’s heart skipped a beat and he glanced over at her.

“If you come back home,” she continued, “we’re more than willing to have you. But your father and I can’t afford to help you keep up your payments on this place. If you’re not living here, you’re going to have to let it go. You know we live out in the suburbs. It’s not a bad drive really, but any friends you’ve connected with here are going to have a hard time coming to see you. It’s going to be difficult for you to go see them since you don’t have a car or a license. Those friendships will suffer and you’ll grow apart.”

“But maybe that’s what you need. Some distance so you can clear your head and figure out who you are. Maybe you’ll realize that they don’t really mean anything to you at all.”

His growing friendship with Allen and the art dealer job he’d been training for would probably be lost. Not to mention that his chances of ever seeing Luke again were almost nil. Did all of that really mean nothing to him? Could he just run away from everything? Did he want to?

“How am I supposed to decide what to do?” he asked.

“How does anyone decide anything?” asked Melinda. “If you sit around waiting until you have all the information and all the pieces to the puzzle, you may find the opportunity has already passed you by. You can’t wait forever. You’ve got to do the best you can with the information you’ve got.”

“If I go home with you, I’m never going to progress beyond this point. Am I?” He looked over at Melinda and she shook her head slowly. “I’m always going to be stuck like this. I won’t be able to grow and become an actual functioning member of society if I let this beat me.”

“I’m not a magician. I don’t have a crystal ball that can see into the future. All I know is, whatever happens next is up to you.”

Hunter rose from the couch and took a deep breath. He tried to focus on what he wanted, on the future he saw for himself, but it was all a blurry mess. In the midst of all that blur, however, one face kept emerging. Luke.

His feelings about Luke were still confused. How was he supposed to know if Luke really wanted him or just the memory of him? Could he enter into a relationship with someone who was still in love with a ghost?

Hunter absently pressed his hand to his belly.

“You should at least give him a chance,” said Melinda softly, as if reading his mind. “Even if you don’t want to be with him anymore, that baby is only half yours. If you don’t want it, then you should at least give him the opportunity to care for his child.”

Vincent’s argument sprung to his mind.

“But I’ll still have to carry it and give birth,” said Hunter. Did any of that even matter to him?

“You do,” nodded Melinda. “But I think, if nothing else, you owe it to your past self to at least try and make sure this baby is born.”

“But I didn’t make the decision to get pregnant.” Hunter realized he was parroting Vincent, and he silently hated himself for it. That didn’t change the fact that on some level he shared all of the fears Vincent had pointed out to him.

“Neither did your past self,” stated Melinda, looking Hunter directly in the eye. “Think about it. You were an up and coming lawyer who would’ve made partner in less than a year. You were also less than a month from getting married. You were taking off, and the sky was the limit. You didn’t have time to be a dad. A baby would’ve put the brakes on everything you had in motion. So this isn’t something that your past self did to you. This is a situation you would have found yourself in no matter what.”

Hunter looked away from her. What she’d said made sense. It didn’t change the fact he didn’t remember the act of actually getting pregnant. Chances are his past self wouldn’t have remembered either. That didn’t mean he was any more comfortable with this than he had been before.

“Let me ask you something,” continued Melinda as Hunter returned to the sofa once more. “You said you slept with Luke, right?”

Hunter nodded slowly.

“Did you use protection?”

“No. But this baby—“

“Is still yours and Luke’s baby. This is no different than if you’d gotten pregnant from having sex with him last week. It’s just a little bit further along. That’s all.” Melinda seemed to think that was the end of the conversation because she rose from the couch and headed to the kitchen.

“But he doesn’t love me,” insisted Hunter as he followed after her.

“Bull,” spat Melinda. She stopped in the kitchen and turned to look at him. “There’s one thing both you and Luke need to get straight. You’re you. That’s it. There’s no past Hunter and current Hunter. You’re a single person. You might not remember anything about it, but you can’t change all the things you did before. Luke loved you before, he still loves you now, and that’ll never change. You two are punishing yourselves and everyone around you because you’re caught up in this notion that somehow you stopped being everything you were before.”

Hunter stopped short. It was as if he’d just been slapped across the face. His entire body quivered as he tried to wrap his head around what she’d said. No. She was wrong. He was different now. He was decidedly different. He was making new memories and it wasn’t fair of other people to hold him to his old thoughts and commitments.

Was it?

He swallowed. “Mom...I don’t...I’m not who I was.”

“Hunter,” she stepped towards him and took his hands in her own. “You are. Just because you don’t remember, doesn’t mean you’ve lost everything. Your quirks and mannerisms are all the same. You still have the same habits and preferences. You can’t remember them sometimes, but they’re there. I understand you’re confused and lost, but underneath all of that you’re still Hunter Kilder. And no, I’m not just projecting because I want my son and I want him to remain the same and never change. I’ve always been honest with you.”

“You’ve spent the last several months running from your past, fighting who you were, and trying to avoid anything that might make it seem like you’re following in your own footsteps. But I think that if you stopped running for just a minute, you’ll find that you didn’t have anything to run from after all. In fact, you might actually enjoy it.”