Generation 1, Chapter 3

After that first kiss, Lee and I moved quickly. He officially introduced me to his son, Sam. Thankfully, Sam seemed to like me. He barely remembered his mother, so he didn’t resent me for taking her place. I was thrilled. I don't know what I would have done if he had blamed me for what happened to her.

Lee told me that he loved me only a few weeks into our official relationship, but I was quick to reciprocate. I’d loved him for years, I’d just never told him before.

It was only shortly after that when I asked him to move in. I could tell that it was chafing on him that he still lived with his mother, and I wanted him to be able to feel independent. I wanted to give him everything he needed.

Besides… I hated living alone. I still got nightmares almost every night, although they weren’t as severe as they had once been. I wanted someone to be there for me in the middle of the night, to eat breakfast with me in the morning, and to sit and watch TV with me in the evening.

Living with Lee was wonderful. It was everything I’d imagined and more. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was part of a real family. We lived a wonderfully domestic life. Lee and I slept in the same bed, and he was always there for me when I woke up in the middle of the night. In the morning, we all ate breakfast together before we sent Sam off to school. After we all got home in the evening, Lee would help Sam with his homework while I made dinner.

We were a real family, and I was thrilled to learn that we would be getting a new member. A little scared, but mostly thrilled. I was not expecting Lee’s reaction.

Oh, he was happy when I told him, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was what he did next.

“Nyx, I want us to be a real family when this baby comes. Will you marry me?”

“We already are a real family, Lee. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“What? Why not? Don’t you love me?”

“Of course I do! But Lee, I’m living under a false name. We can’t get married. It would be fraud, and that’s not a crime I’m comfortable committing.”

He seemed disappointed, but he knew I was right. My entire life was a secret. There was no way he could be permanently tied to someone who didn’t officially exist. The baby could be born at home, then taken to the hospital for a check-up and a birth certificate, on which we could easily put my false name. A marriage license was an entirely different story.

Lee remained distant for the rest of my pregnancy. I understood why he was upset, but I was a little bit mad at him for it. Why couldn’t he understand that we were already a family, a good family? A ring on my finger wouldn’t change our relationship or the way we interacted with the kids.

I only hoped that he wouldn’t take his irritation with me out on the baby.

It wasn’t long before the time came for the baby to be born. I knew what was happening, and I knew what to do. I’d spent the past few months doing extensive research on childbirth. Most of it had scared me out of my wits, but I wanted to be prepared.

It was a long, painful few hours, but I finally welcomed Dylan Doe into the world.

He was beautiful.

Author's Note: I know that I'm kind of rushing into the whole "babies" thing, but this is a legacy, after all. I didn't want them to be too far apart from Sam. Also, I changed my eye defaults about halfway through this chapter, but I ended up deciding that I didn't like them and changing them back. They made Nyx's eye color look really weird. You can really see it in the picture where she's telling Lee why she can't marry him. Dylan will already be a toddler at the beginning of the next chapter, because I hate the larva phase and age my babies out of it as soon as they're born.