In July, when all of Sebastian's doctors had conspired to tell him that it would be way too much work to find another set of medical providers in a different city, sticking around in Cliffshore had seemed like the most reasonable choice of action. Especially when Logan had nodded earnestly and the doctor had beamed at the both of them, completely failing to conceal her approval that Sebastian had finally managed to bring along the other father of his child. He shuddered to think about how disappointed she would have looked if he hadn't reconciled with Logan. Maybe better not to think about that, and to agree with everything she said about the birth plan and post-natal care.

In August, lying in front of a fan with the baby kicking his bladder at intervals, Sebastian felt less certain. He was bored and uncomfortable and unpleasantly aware of just how little he'd been doing lately. He'd planned to be out there by now, in the big wide world. but, as everyone kept reminding him, it was pretty hard to do job interviews when you were as heavily pregnant as he was now. Besides, every time he suggested going more than thirty minutes drive away from the hospital, Logan started to look a touch panicked, which made it hard for Sebastian to insist. The baby wasn't due for another two weeks at least, and his obstetrician thought it might be more like three, but Logan kept acting as though he was going to pop at any moment.

Not that Sebastian's poor squished organs wouldn't be relieved. He wanted the baby to be healthy, but when even getting up from the couch made him feel like he was lifting weights, he was ready to have a baby in his arms instead.

At least he'd have something to do all day.

Logan seemed to think that Sebastian was suddenly made of glass and kept telling him to relax, but Sebastian had never been a relaxed guy in his life, and he didn't think he could start now. He needed a plan, one that hadn't been swamped by the needs and inconveniences of having a baby, as his previous one had been. Sebastian still thought of it longingly from time to time, but he didn't know how to get it back on track.

Moving away wasn't an option until after the baby was born, and even then, who knew how long it would take? Sebastian was slowly realizing that he needed Logan's help – and that dependency would only get worse once the baby was born – which meant that he couldn't take off with a baby on his hip. They needed to plan together. But Logan seemed so settled in Cliffshore. He worked – long hours too, which Sebastian privately sighed over, even though he was glad that Logan liked his job – and seemed perfectly content to come home to Sebastian and the slow steady work of making the apartment fit for a baby.

He was already asking so much of Logan. It didn't seem right to ask for more. Logan had always been there for him, but that didn't mean his patience would never run out. The last thing that Sebastian wanted was to make Logan resent him more than he already probably was.

It was just a little hard to let all of his youthful fantasies go. But that was Sebastian's problem. He leaned his head back against the cushions and repositioned his icepack over his forehead. It would happen eventually, right?

He had, granted, spent the last four years imagining that life – real life, a life that he knew he wanted, rather than one defined for him by his birth – would start after graduation. It wasn't as if he'd been an idiot about it. He knew it would require planning to get him out of his hometown and into something new, something different. He hadn't even cared that much about what that would look like, only that it not be too much like this. But his plans had slid gently to a halt as he'd come to terms with his pregnancy, and didn't show any signs of starting up again on their own.

People – right down to random grandmothers in the street who Sebastian barely knew – kept telling him that he'd better not try to plan anything for the next two decades of his kid's life. They had to know what they were talking about, but how the hell was he supposed to get anything done if he wasn't supposed to plan it out.

On the other hand, it was equally mysterious how he was supposed to plan everything out when his back started to hurt the second he sat down at the kitchen table with his laptop. At least that would definitely change once the baby was born. There'd be other inconveniences, of course, but right now it felt to Sebastian like he was being prevented from doing the thing he did best: sit down and push his way bullheadedly through until he figured something out or finished a task.

That wasn't the kind of personality trait that went away when you had a baby, Sebastian was fairly sure of that. So once the baby was born and he could sit up, he could get right down to the business of figuring out where the hell he and Logan were going to go after this. He and Logan and the baby. That's what he meant. It was sometimes hard to picture the three of them together. The thought of a child in his arms still filled Sebastian with a secret warmth he'd never expected, but introducing that picture into his current life was trickier than he thought.

Maybe it was just another symptom of baby brain. The first time he'd read all those guides for first-time parents, he'd scoffed at their certainty that pregnancy would do something to his head, but six months later, he had to admit that it was a lot harder to keep a logical train of thought going when someone might start kicking his internal organs in the middle of it, derailing it instantly.

He took a deep breath. That would change too after the baby was born. It could hardly kick him from behind the bladder once it was outside of his body. He just had to wait it out, and it wasn't too long now, not if the doctor's predictions were anywhere near accurate. That was all he had to do right now: keep breathing, keep growing a kid, and wait.