It's morning, and Mason is lying in bed. She's not sleeping where she usually sleeps, but in her own room, on the other side of the apartment from the bed she usually shares with Nick and Constance. She's there because she keeps waking up at night, sick to her stomach, needing to get to the bathroom really fast, and she was feeling bad about waking Nick up every time she did so, even though he claimed (as she knew he would) that he did not mind. She wasn't sure if she'd ever wakened Constance - Constance tended to sleep more deeply. She didn't really know, deep down, whether Nick really minded or not; she thought probably he didn't; it was she herself who minded, she didn't like disturbing people with her weakness. Was that it? It was all twisted up in her mind, and as she lay in bed struggling to rise, then heaving twice into the toilet, then wiping her mouth clean with a damp paper towel, she remembered to stop, and when her mouth was clean and she'd swallowed a few sips of water, she paused and listened to her heart's whispers. I love you, came the voice from inside, and I want to protect you, and I don't want you to see me suffering because I brought this on myself, and I feel guilty for putting you through seeing me like this, and it's easier when I can hide it from you. She splashed some cool water on her face to clean away the way those whispers made her feel. Am I being selfish? she thought. I don't want to be selfish. Is it ... I didnt give him a choice. I should have... and I know this ... do I know? I think? I didn't think.... I didn't ask, I decided without asking... I... tears started to flow down both cheeks, not with sobs, but silently, and she washed her face again, this time with soap, the smell of the soap giving her some relief, it made her feel clean again. No going back, she said sternly and silently to her reflection in the mirror. Onward is the only way. My body, my decision.... she nodded, having framed the question in a way that let her feel it really was hers alone. What had all those advocates for choice been fighting for? Surely the choice to keep the baby, was as much her right as the choice not to. It was, she had chosen, she would do what had to be done. Nick would... did... back her on this now. He understood... he wanted the baby... they would be a family. Two mothers and a father... a cherished miracle child.... doting godparents too, no doubt. Firmly in her mind Mason set - this will happen. The future was not in question.

Waking from fitful, unremembered nightmares, Mason thought that this morning she was actually too sick to get out of bed. That never happened to her - Mason was never that sick. Maybe she really wasn't, but she was, anyway. She lay in her bed and turned on the television using the remote on the nightstand. The mute button made it nice and quiet while she picked up the phone and called the shelter, telling them she was too sick to come to work today. They told her not to worry, they'd muddle through for one Friday without her, and she could come in on Monday and set things straight, and to feel better. Slightly guilty, but even more relieved, Mason hung up the phone and pressed the mute button again, letting the sound from the television fill the room. She flickered through the channels waiting until something caught her eye. A woman standing with a case of vodka in the door of a conference room, explaining why she'd taken it over the weekend... losing her job over the circumstance. The former ghoul felt herself caught up in the woman's story, following it as the filmmakers took a creative spin by following two lines of action - one if she had made the train home, the other if she had missed it and hailed a cab.

She escaped for an hour or two into the world of the story, relaxing muscles both physical and mental she had not known were so tense. Though it was a silly story in many ways, and annoyingly conventional in others, the drama was intriguing and the puzzle format of the narrative structure was enticing and absorbing enough to pull her out of herself into another world, something she had desperately needed, though she had not known it. She found herself even giggling over the coincidences the writers had woven into the plot, of the two alternate heroines being pregnant at the same moment, and being in life-threatening accidents at the same moment as well. The ending, where they merged into one timestream, was silly yet oddly satisfying. Yes, it was nice to think, that the unlucky became lucky, that fortune's favor was fickle but fair. Very sweet indeed, that fantasy... Mason drifted back into dreamless sleep, her mind resting at last.