Early Warning

Dawn, and she woke with cramps.  Mason moaned softly, slid off the bed,
and hurried to the bathroom.  She sat for a while; the cramps waxed,
then waned.  She turned on the fan, thinking it might keep the toilet's
flush from waking Nick or Constance.  Not that such a thing would ever
wake the deep-sleeping Constance.  And Nick would already be awake,
pretending to sleep, probably at the moment she got up.  Not much use,
but habit of consideration.  She flushed and washed her hands carefully,
feeling the cramping start up again.

Mason dried her hands then rested them supportively below the child
inside her.  At the lower curve of her distended belly, the skin had
stretched redly - marks that would turn white when they healed, she
thought.  Unless on her return to ghouldom they simply healed away
entirely - she was not sure if that would happen.  Depended if they were
"wounds", she thought, or "scars"... that seemed to be the division that
affected such things in her experiments on mice.  She was not sure
which, though she did not think she would mind either way.  She wondered
for a moment whether seeing the marks as they made love would make
things more difficult with Constance.  No way to tell, though, till the
time came.

She looked at her sleeping mates, felt a desire to touch them, a
reassuring motion, but decided it was too likely to disturb their sleep
and made her way to her own room.  She lay down on her side with a
pillow tucked under her belly, supporting the child's weight, and tried
to relax, hoping the cramping would stop.

After an hour, it had not stopped, and she was starting to worry.  So
Mason called her obstetrician's all night phone service, explaining what
she was feeling.  A few minutes later a nurse returned the call, and the
two of them discussed the strength and timing of the pre-labor
contractions, which is what the nurse though the cramps were.  They were
about fifteen minutes apart, more or less, and so the nurse told Mason
that if they got as close as every ten minutes, she should go to the
hospital - otherwise, try to rest, and call back if she felt something
indicative such as her water breaking.  Mason felt unsure that she would
know, as she did urinate very frequently, but the nurse assured her that
there was a difference, and she had some strips that supposedly would
turn purple only in the presence of amniotic fluid.  So she lay, unable
to return to sleep, and watched the clock.

An hour later, the sun fully shining over Dallas, the cramps had
stopped.  Though the door to her room was open, Nick knocked on it
rather than simply walking in.  "Mason?" he said softly.  She patted the
bed beside her, and he came in and sat down, one hand reaching to her
cheek.  "I felt," he hesitated, seeming unsure how to continue, "...
that something might be wrong.  May I..." she put a finger to his lips,
quieting him.

Mason shook her head "no" silently.  "I'm ok," she told him softly.  "I
just had some cramps... they've gone now, though."  She thought Nick
looked worried for a moment, before his face cleared with what she
thought of as his mask... the way he covered his visible emotions, an
expressionless expression on his face.  She tried to smile at him
reassuringly.  She hoped it worked... she wanted to reassure them both.