"There," the doctor announced with a laugh, "she's got her thumb in her mouth!"

"Really?" Terry exclaimed, leaning forward to see better, blocking everyone else's view of the screen.

"Thorne, move your big, fat head," Val griped at him. When she would have sat up to emphasize her command, however, the doctor firmly held her down with one hand and cleared his throat loudly.

"What?" Terry said, realizing someone had said something. Then he realized what he was doing and sat back, "Sorry - I lost my head there for a moment."

"I could only wish," Val commented in a low voice. The doctor gave her a startled look, but she was grinning, so he realized she was joking - at least half-joking, anyway. "She really does have her thumb in her mouth! How sweet." She lay back. Somehow the image of the tiny person inside her doing something so ordinary made the baby all that more real.

Terry wasn't sure what he was feeling - it was a definite deep, almost painful throbbing somewhere near his mid-section, though. Later he would know, but right then, it was more than he wanted to think about, so he sat back in his chair and simply observed without getting so involved in the rest of the visit. When Valerie was done, re-dressed and ready to leave, he drove her home. He didn't say much - didn't feel like it - he was still assessing that unusual feeling.

Val eyed him covertly. He was being awfully quiet for the overbearingly bossy Terry Thorne, she thought. No doubt he was up to something. "Okay, I'll bite," she finally said into the silence as they sat waiting at a long traffic light.

"Hmm?" Terry asked, bemused. "What's that?"

"That was me saying 'I'll bite'," she repeated herself. "Why so contemplative?" She glanced outside, "The light's green, Terry - people are honking."

He shifted gears and pulled away from the intersection, heading for the next corner and the turn off to her apartment. "She was sucking her thumb," he finally answered. He said it with all the awe one would attach to a phrase more grandiose, like, "She's discovered the cure for EVERYTHING".

Val hid a grin by opening her handbag and searching for her keys. "Yes, well, babies do things like that - she probably even pees in there."

Terry almost slammed on the brakes in shock, "Pees in there!"

Val looked up, gesturing for him to keep going and pull into the parking area. "No doubt - poos, even."

"God," Terry commented, annoyance in every syllable, "take the magic out of it all, why don't you?" He parked the car and got out, walking around to help her get out. To Val's credit, she no longer bounded out on her own, but let him do it. He took her hand, assisted her out, and shut the door after her. "Poos in there, jeeze, Val."

She giggled and led the way to the elevator, Terry following in her wake looking aggrieved. "They do, they have almost all the same normal bodily functions in there as when they're out here." She pressed the button, "Baby boys even get erections in the womb."

He gaped at her, then grinned, "I'm sure mine would."

Val poked him in the middle of the chest, "Insufferable male creature - it figures you'd be proud of something like that." The lift doors opened and they stepped inside. "It's probably just as well we're having a girl." The doors shut.

They rode up in silence, each contemplating oncoming parenthood. When the elevator doors opened, they walked to her front door in continued silence, then inside as Val shut the door behind them. "I'm starved - want lunch?" She flung purse and keys on the entry hall table.

"Sure," Terry agreed - he was suddenly famished. "Can I help?"

"Okay, if you promise to clean up your own mess," she warned him. As it turned out, however, he didn't make a mess at all. He was almost as neat in the kitchen as she was. She heated marinara sauce she had made the night before while Terry cooked angel hair pasta and spread a loaf of Italian bread with garlic butter and herbs. She put it in the oven to warm and threw salad greens into a bowl, directing Terry to where the balsamic vinegar and olive oil were kept. "That grand enough for your salad?"

"Sure," he said agreeably, and began putting out plates and silverware after she pointed out where each was kept. They shortly perched on kitchen stools and ate right there at the island. "This is nice - homey," he commented after assuaging the sharp edge of his hunger. He put more of everything on his plate. "Cheese?" he offered the shaker of freshly grated mozarella to Val.

"Of course," she took it from him and liberally sprinkled her second helping of angel hair and marinara. "Did you get enough? There are portabella mushrooms in this." She loved those large mushrooms - sometimes made a sandwich of the very large sliced ones with melted cheese on French bread - delicious! She forked pasta and sauce into her mouth, happy to be filling her hungry spot.

Terry liked watching her eat. She had a healthy appetite and seemed to be over her delicate stomach from the first few months of her pregnancy. "Yes, I have plenty, and yes, I found the mushrooms." He grinned at her.

"What?" she wanted to know, wiping her mouth with a big paper napkin. "Do I have sauce all over my face or something?"

He shook his head, "No - I was just thinking how beautiful you look - and how I was glad you're not sick and throwing up any longer."

She blinked. "Oh." He thought she was beautiful? She wasn't sure she was ready to think about the ramifications of that - if there were any ramifications. She changed the subject. "The furniture came for the nursery - you can go look after you're done eating."

Terry had put his fork down and was going to go look right then but her words sank in and he laughed, "Oh - I see - I can't go now because you're afraid I'd drip sauce on your pristine floor?"

"Something like that," she agreed, finishing off her third plate of pasta and sitting back with a happy sigh. "God, I was starving!"

"Full now?" Terry asked, offering her the bowl just in case.

Val shook her head, "Can't stuff another bite down - for now. In an hour, I'll be ravenous again. I'm probably going to gain a ton of weight now. I'll be the size of a Range Rover when I'm at nine months. They'll have to trundle me around on one of those forklift thingies."

"You'll still be beautiful," Terry commented, then disappeared in the direction of the nursery, leaving Val staring after him.

"That's the second time you used that word," she said, catching up to him inside the room.

"What word?" he wanted to know, smiling at the stuffed bears, bunnies and other critters in several large baskets set around the room. "I like that," he approved, turning to smile at her. "What word?" he asked again.

"Beautiful." She stood in the doorway with a questioning look on her face.

Terry walked over to her, took her by the hand and led her into the living room where he firmly sat her down on the sofa and sat himself beside her. "You are beautiful - surely you know that."

"I'm just me," she insisted, "and I wasn't beautiful the first three months - I was pale, puny and had dark circles under my eyes."

"But not now," Terry insisted, "you're over all that now. Now - well - you're blooming." She was. She almost glowed with health and incipient motherhood. And she was much more pleasant to be around - probably hormones, he told himself.

"Blooming," she scoffed, then, "You really think so?"

"I do," he insisted, then reached over and cupped her cheek in his large hand. "Blooming and beautiful. Very beautiful," he said softly, then he leaned toward her and took her mouth with his in a long, soft but very warm kiss.

Startled, surprised by the gesture, Val nonetheless enjoyed that kiss thoroughly. When he lifted his mouth off hers, she blinked herself back to reality, frowned and put her hands on his shoulders. "Do that again," she ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," Terry said, snapping her a precise, military salute. "Come here and let's do this properly, though," he ordered, and pulled her onto his lap, laid her back over his arm, and kissed her again - with a lot more warmth and a lot less reverence.

When he lifted his mouth off hers this time, Val simply breathed, "Holy shit."

Terry grinned, looking into her pretty eyes. "That's not the half of it," he told her, and proceeded to demonstrate further.

"Holy shit, Thorne!" Val exclaimed some moments later.

"Exactly," came his reply, then he got to his feet, picked her up like she weighed nothing at all, and proceeded to carry her off to the bedroom. "Now I'm going to show you the third half," he joked, and kicked the door shut behind them.

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