"You're going to make me wait out here?" George asked in disbelief.

"You want to watch me pee on a stick?" Scout asked, equally disbelieving.

"Come on, Scout, surely we're past this?" George replied, talking to the door of the bathroom.

"George, no!" she responded, laughing. "I'll let you in when I'm finished, okay?"

"Fine," he replied, leaning against the wall in defeat.

They were at the upstairs bathroom, but the guest bathroom, not the master en suite, because George had hilariously told Scout that "the light was better" for reading the results of the test. She just stared at him and willed herself not to laugh.

Jess and Bandit hovered around George restlessly. He looked at them, murmuring, "I know, I can't believe she didn't let us in."

"I heard that," Scout called from behind the door.

"I meant you to," he called back.

Scout made a sound of impatience. "George! Be quiet! I can't do this while you're talking to me! I need to concentrate!"

"You need to concentrate to wee on a stick?" George asked, laughing.

"GEORGE!"

"Okay, okay!"

After a minute, George heard the door click, and he turned the knob and entered the sunny guest bathroom.

Scout sat on the counter, skinny legs swinging. The stick lay next to her. Her brown hair was in a pony tail which lay on her shoulder. She looked very fetching to George.

He smiled at her and leaned against the wall.

"How long do we wait?" he asked.

"Um, about two minutes?" Scout looked at her watch. "We have about a minute left," she informed him.

"Oh. Okay." George said casually. He swallowed. "Um, no pressure or anything, but you should know that Alfred and Sunil are sitting at the bottom of the stairs."

Scout grinned. "Really?"

George nodded. "Those boys worship you, you know? Starting with that first day, when they thought I was going to sack them? And you came along like some glorious beautiful angel and saved them, you know?" He came and stood between her legs, putting his arms around her. "I think they're the founding members of the 'Scout Lawson Fan Club'," he concluded softly.

Scout snorted.

She picked up the stick and looked at it over George's shoulder. She could feel him tense up as he held her, waiting for the news.

"Well, let's go tell Alfred and Sunil that they're going be honorary uncles in about seven months, shall we?" she said with her lovely, musical laugh, the laugh that always sounded like chimes to George. He closed his eyes as he hugged her even tighter, lifting her off the counter as she wrapped her legs around him.

"And then, George?" she continued.

"Yeah?"

"I want to fuck, okay?" she whispered, and her words, her warm breath in his ear, made George shiver and start to get hard.

He lowered her to the floor and they exited the bathroom hand in hand. Alfred and Sunil, who were indeed sitting at the bottom of the staircase, stood when they heard Scout and George, looking up, their faces one huge question mark.

"It's a go, boys," George said, unable to keep the smile off his face, the joy out of his voice. "But please keep it quiet for a bit, if you could? It's early days yet, and things could still go wrong, you know?"

They both nodded vigorously, grinning, their happiness palpable.

"And now Miss Scout wants to rest for a bit, so just take the rest of the afternoon off, okay? And we'll see you first thing Friday, how's that sound?"

"Sure thing, Mr. Wilder, and congratulations," they said, waving good bye as they left.

George went into the bedroom, where Scout was waiting for him. He lay down with her, taking her in his arms, pulling her close to kiss her, over and over, but he sensed some reticence and finally pulled away.

"What? Changed your mind?"

She shook her head. "Not exactly, no."

"Okay, well, what, then, exactly?"

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"What? What do you mean?" His brows were drawn together.

"I find out I'm pregnant and the first thing I want to do is make love. No, that's not right, I didn't even say 'make love'; my exact word was 'fuck'. I mean, that's pretty vulgar, isn't it? You didn't find that a little, um, unseemly?" Scout asked, looking at him carefully.

"Unseemly?" George repeated. "No, not particularly. I believe it's fairly common, actually. For pregnant women to be horny, I mean." He grinned at her. "I was really looking forward to that aspect of things, if I'm being honest. I remember it being a storyline on a comedy show I watched once. That the pregnant wife wanted sex constantly, really wore her husband out, you know?" He leaned in and dropped a kiss on Scout's nose. "Reckoned I was going to have to double up on my vitamin consumption."

Scout turned on her back, looking up at the ceiling, giving a big sigh. "Look, this is kind of a thing with me. I wasn't going to say anything. I was hoping to just turn over a new leaf with you, leave all these old neuroses and problems that I had with Will behind. But I guess that's not really fair to you." She turned her head so she could look at George.

"Will always said that my sex drive was so strong that it was kind of, uh, unattractive. Unfeminine. Almost masculine? Yeah." She swallowed. "I was too demanding, I guess." Her voice got soft. "He said that someone who looked like me had no business asking for so much. And I want sex with you way more than I ever wanted it with him." Scout quickly wiped away a tear which was streaking down her cheek, but not before George saw it.

"So you were supposed to wait until he initiated sex," George said in a clipped voice.

Scout nodded.

"Then you were supposed to fellate him, or give him a hand job, usually while he watched porn, until he was hard enough for intercourse," he continued in the same, hard voice.

Scout nodded again.

"Then you were supposed to let him screw you, while you kept your body covered up, until he came."

Nod.

"And you never, ever came, because you weren't supposed to."

Nod.

"And he convinced you that this was all normal and your fault."

Nod.

"And the day he graduated, he broke up with you because you were unsatisfactory in bed, and would probably not be able to be a satisfactory breeder or mother," George concluded grimly.

Scout had never heard all of it articulated this way, though various friends, not to mention her siblings, had tried to talk to her about it before. She dissolved into tears, which tore at George's heart, and made him want to beat Will Frye into a bloody pulp with his bare hands. The sound of her crying made George feel physical pain, something he didn't know was possible. He pulled her into his arms again, and she grabbed him, burying her face in his shoulder. She wasn't really a cryer, and George was sure she'd never really cried over the wanker before.

"Oh George, it was so awful! The first time--the first time we were together--my first time ever, you know? It was so disappointing. I thought it was going to be so beautiful, and it wasn't, it wasn't! It was nasty and painful, and so depressing. And I couldn't tell anyone how terrible it was, because I didn't want anyone to make fun of me. I mean, I'm Scout, I'm the sensible, smart one, no one knew I was expecting it to be all romantic and wonderful, but I was, I was," she sobbed.

"And my mother wouldn't care. Everyone in the family is expecting me to marry Tibby Fordam, anyway, so no one thought anything I did in school mattered, you know?" she sniffed.

"Who's Tibby Fordham?" George asked. He'd never heard the name before. Did Scout have a fiancé lurking back home in Connecticut that he didn't know about?

"No one, just a family friend, we've known each other since we were children," Scout said sadly. "Our parents always expected us to marry each other, but it's never going to happen," she said with certainty.

"And why is that?" George asked, glad that she'd stopped crying about that knobhead Will, at least.

"I don't have a penis," Scout said with a small laugh.

George laughed, too.

"Okay, so, darling Scout," George said, pulling away so he could see her face, wiping away the last of her tears. "If the last few months of being with me have taught you anything, they should've taught you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with your body, and that pretty much everything Will told you is absolute bollocks." He nodded at her.

"You are an amazing woman, in every way. I can't keep my hands off you. I get excited thinking about you. You drive me to distraction." George leaned in to kiss her mouth, touching her tongue with his, feeling butterflies in his tummy, a clenching in his abdomen, just from the kiss. He moaned into her mouth.

"I love knowing that you want me, Scout. I think it's sexy as hell, if I'm honest." He grinned at her. "I don't want to think about other women, and I certainly don't want to look at pornography, okay? I only want to think about you."

Scout pulled her shirt off in one smooth motion and climbed on top of him. "Good," she said with a flirty little smile. "Because I'm going to ride you like you're a horse, okay?" And she unbuttoned his pants, pulling them down in one yank.

"Oh, Scout, you look so pretty," George murmured, admiring her in the sunlight. "You already look different to me, you know?"

And she did, even though he knew it wasn't possible. Her lovely tummy, with her adorable belly button, looked precious and valuable, soft and more important than before, and he laid her down on the bed so he could stroke it and kiss it and admire it for a while moving on to the rest of her body.

He took her from behind, lifting her leg backward over his hip, reaching over to stimulate her center as he pushed into her, watching her face go slack as her orgasm approached. Oh god, she was so beautiful.

"You coming soon, Scout?" he murmured encouragingly into her ear. "Come, darling, I want to feel you."

She nodded, eyes closed, and clenched down on him, muscles tensing, gripping him with her legs as her fingers closed strongly on his arms.

He followed right after, spasming into her warmth, sweat trickling down his temples as he gasped her name.

Then they slept, a glorious afternoon nap with the dogs at their feet, and George could already tell that Scout was different, the quality of her sleep was different. She was exhausted, her body changing as it began the arduous work of building another human being. Her breathing was very deep and even, her ribcage moving slowly.

She was so very, very dear to him.

He held her close, a palm spread protectively over her belly. Just as he was dropping off himself, he heard one of the bells hanging over the door ring. Both dogs lifted their heads and looked over at it.

It rang once more. Softly.

Like a warning.