Alpha Dom and His Human Surrogate - Season 5 Episode 87

Cora wipes her face with her palms. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just… went a little crazy.”

“The vision wasn’t bad,” I say, “I promise it wasn’t. And we get it: if you came out of the baptism ceremony looking like you’d jumped into a pool? I would have been scared, too!”

“Yeah, well,” he murmurs, looking at my stomach, “maybe I’ll do it out of spite in six months, see if you like it.”

Then I laugh, the noise startling me and Cora’s face breaks into a hesitant smile.

“There’s my girl,” Roger murmurs, raising a hand to wipe away the last of her tears.

“I think we need to hear everything,” Cora says, nodding at Sinclair and then at me. “Please. Just… maybe just for this baby, the first one.”

“Okay,” I whisper, nodding. And then Sinclair and I tell him everything, all the wonderful things we saw for Rafe as he grew up and his happiness with his cousins. And then we tell of the darkness we saw and the incredible way he moved through it – the challenge clearly posed for him in his future.

“Wow,” Roger says, a little bewildered as he looks at his baby. “I have no… I have no way of really understanding what all that means,” he mutters.

“It was hard to tell what we were looking at,” Sinclair replies, looking at me for confirmation. I nod. “Then Ella got really mad. That’s when she jumped in the pool.”

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“What?!” Cora gasps.

I shrug. “I wasn’t going to let her end the vision there. So… we got into a fight and then she gave me the last image: of Jesse old and happy, so I could leave.”

Cora then bursts out laughing, looking at her tiny baby. “We picked the right godmother for you, sweetheart,” she sighs. “Always getting her money’s worth.”

“Damn,” I say, looking at Sinclair with a very clear “I told you so” look on my face. “Just the full baptism experience for my baby nephew.”

“So what do you think it means?” Roger asks, looking between us.

“I don’t know,” I reply, resting my hand on my chin and looking at the baby, wondering about his very strange and interesting future. “He’s going to be very close to Rafe and the new baby. And the way he handled a dagger and the way he dressed, I think he’s going to be a warrior.”

“That fits,” Cora sighs, looking at me with a hint of guilt in her eyes. “We saw that Rafe was going to be a warrior too. At least then they’ll have each other.”

A little anxiety creeps over me at that, but I just nod, keeping the information to myself. I mean, considering who her father is? I can’t say I’m surprised. But I can think about how I feel about that another day.

“Though I think it’s more than that,” I mutter. “Something Mom said.”

“Wait for it?” Sinclair says, stepping in and moving away from me a little, looking at me. “Did she talk?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say, giving a small apologetic laugh and shrugging. “I forgot you didn’t hear it. My bad.”

“Are you bad!?” he says, horrified.

“Yeah, my bad!” I come back, rolling my eyes and waving a hand through the air at him, dismissively. I look back at Cora. ​​“Mom said Jesse’s mission will be his and he doesn’t know the outcome. But honestly, Cora, he seemed… very capable. And very powerful.”

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I look at Sinclair and wonder if he feels the same way. He sighs as he looks at me and then turns to greet his brother and my sister. “That was the impression I got, too. That whatever gift the Goddess gave him… it was powerful.”

Cora and Roger are silent for a long moment, looking away at their little boy. Sinclair and I sit in silence, letting them process their thoughts.

“You know,” Roger says quietly, thoughtfully. “If you’d asked me before he was born if I wanted him to have some weird, cool, powerful gift, I would have said yes. But now that he’s here? And he’s so…small?” Roger takes a deep breath which breaks my heart a little, shaking his head as he looks at his son. “I wish his gift was something stupid, like…being really, really good at bowling. Or just being magically great at Scrabble.”

“He’s going to get that from me anyway,” Cora murmurs, smiling a little, and I bite my lip to see the humor return to these two. Because if they’re joking about that… I think it means they’re strong enough to get through it.

“The last thing Mom told me,” I say quietly, and Cora’s eyes shift to me with a little fear, as if she doesn’t want any more information tonight.

I laugh and shake my head. “No, it’s okay!” I say, holding up a hand. “She said to trust them,” I continue, nodding. “Trust our children. And it seemed so true to me: I mean, we’re all aware that we’re not leading children into an easy life. They’re born with

responsibilities. We have to raise them to be strong, and then when they grow up? We have to trust that they will handle themselves in the world.”

Sinclair nods slowly, agreeing with me. “And I don’t think the Goddess would have given Jesse a powerful gift if she didn’t think he could handle it,” he says softly, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think she’s in the business of screwing her grandchildren.”

Cora sighs and nods as well. “I’m just giving your daughters extreme anxiety,” she mutters, sighing and running a hand over Jesse’s sleeping heads.

“I think they’re probably all moms,” I say, standing up and leaning against my partner, who presses me against him. “But… I mean, I think it’ll all work out.”

“Why do you say that?” Cora asks, looking at me again, I think hoping for another little clue from Mom, who of course knows more than us.

“I just have faith,” I say, letting my lips turn into a smile. “These kids will be good eggs and we will love them very much. If they end up with the fate of the world in their hands?” I look at my partner and shrug. “Then I think the world has a good chance.”

Sinclair smiles at me and leans in to give me a peck before we turn to Cora and Roger.

“Are you coming down?” I ask, nodding toward the door, eager to get to Rafe and give him a hug and whisper how loved he is if he can’t hear me.

“In a minute,” Cora replies, giving me a hesitant smile that has a lot of warmth behind it. Because even if she’s still a little scared, I know she agrees with me. Our kids are going to be fantastic; we just have to have faith in them.

“We’ll be waiting,” Sinclair says, nodding firmly, and together we let the new parents have a minute alone with their son.