The breeze carried something sweet and herbal, like mint that had never grown on Earth. Trees curved their white-limbed branches overhead in woven arches, their leaves iridescent in the twin moons' light. Beneath them, the pregnant women of Solace had gathered again, wearing dresses woven from alien silk that seemed to glow brighter against pregnant skin.

  They didn't hide here. They shined.

  Mara glowed brightest. Not from the fabric alone, though it clung to her eight-month belly like captured starlight, but from her laugh. Bright. Full. Alive.

  "I swear to god," she said, rubbing her stomach, "if this baby kicks me in the bladder one more time, I'm naming them Usurper. Or after an apocalypse horseman.”

  "You already picked names?" Elara said, gently bumping her shoulder against Mara's. "Ones we're sticking to?"

  "Oh, so now we're pretending I'm consistent?" Mara grinned. "You think this is a one-name pregnancy?"

  They were curled together in the grass, half-lounging, half-intertwined. Elara's hand rested lightly on Mara's calf, absently tracing patterns through the silk. Their dresses rippled in the breeze, crafted for beauty, not modesty. The Nexus had insisted these fabrics were ceremonial. The mothers of the new world deserved to feel like miracles.

  "I'm still going with Selena," Mara said suddenly. "If it's a girl. Selena Grant. My abuela's name. And if it's a boy… Alan. Alan Grant."

  Elara raised an eyebrow. "Alan Grant?"

  Mara grinned, eyes dancing. "Life finds a way."

  Elara didn't laugh. Not right away. She just watched Mara's face, the softness in it when she spoke her grandmother's name. She'd lost a three-month-old when the Earth fell. Mara said it without bitterness now, but Elara had been there for the nights when it was just sobs into a borrowed pillow. She'd held her through those. Still did.

  Until her gaze caught his silhouette in the distance. He was stripped to the waist, driving a spike into timber. Real housing. Practical housing. Not the perfect, sterile pods the Nexus built, but things with porches and windows and flaws.

  Mara caught her staring. "You're watching him again."

  She followed Elara's gaze to Nathan, down near the treeline. Her smile sharpened. "Yup. The Broody Builder."

  "We would scare him away," Elara whispered.

  "Oh, he'd definitely say yes," Mara murmured, brushing her nose against Elara's cheek. "He's the polite type. Follows the rules."

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Elara closed her eyes at the touch, just for a second. Let it anchor her. Mara always smelled like wild citrus and something warm.

  Nathan wiped sweat from his brow. His shoulders rolled with quiet effort. His limp was obvious… a gift from the teleportation… but it didn't slow him.

  "I don't usually go for men," Elara said, “but he intrigues me.”

  Mara shifted beside her, amused. "You don't usually go for anyone except the person currently rubbing your thigh."

  Elara flushed but didn't pull away. "I know."

  "He's hot," Mara admitted, almost clinical. "In that quiet, tortured, 'I-built-a-house-with-my-feelings' kind of way." She paused. "You have a type, apparently."

  "It's not just that." Elara sat up a little, suddenly needing distance from Mara's knowing eyes. "He doesn't perform. He just works. Like if he stops moving, he'll remember something that'll break him." She looked at Mara. "Whoever he lost, he loved her right."

  Mara's expression softened. "And you want someone who'll love you like that."

  "To love my baby and me like that," Elara said quietly. "And I'd like my baby to… know who the father is."

  Elara smiled and reached out to cup Mara's face. "You know I love you."

  "I do." Mara turned her head and kissed Elara's palm. "And… you're allowed to love more than me. That's the whole point of this weird new world." She grinned. "Just make sure he knows I come with the package. I'm not moving out just because you find a man with good arms."

  Mara reached up and tucked a strand of Elara's hair behind her ear, her fingers lingering on Elara's cheek in a gesture that said mine without needing words.

  "To share him?" Mara murmured. Then her eyes sparked with sudden, wicked delight. "Oh, I could do sharing. Imagine the torture we'd put the poor man through." She squeezed Elara's thigh. "Two of us, one of him? He wouldn't stand a chance."

  Nearby, the mood shifted. Voices rising. Laughter tightening into something else.

  Kim stood, wobbling, one hand braced on her lower back. "Gonna lie down," she said, breathless. "Back's killing me…"

  She froze.

  Her eyes went wide.

  "Oh." Her hands flew to her stomach. "Oh my god."

  Silence dropped like a curtain.

  Then Kim laughed, high and panicked. "Elara. My water just broke."

  The garden exploded. Cheers, squeals, silk swishing as bodies moved in celebration. The first labor of the colony.

  "Somebody get Jason!"

  "Let's go," Elara said, already on her feet, offering her hands to Kim. “Today’s the day, Kim. You’re gonna meet your baby.”

  As they walked, stopping to let Kim breathe through a contraction, Elara glanced back.

  Nathan had paused. Watching them. Watching her.

  Slowly, deliberately, he lowered his hammer. He rested it against the unfinished frame and started walking toward the birthing huts, joining the small crowd gathering to witness what everyone hoped was the beginning.

  They reached the Birthing Hut. A circle of women gathered, glowing silk and wide eyes. The hut smelled of herbs and clean linen and purpose.

  As Kim stepped inside, groaning through a fresh wave of pain, Elara looked up at the shimmer of the dome.

  The whole colony was holding its breath. This was the moment. The proof. That teleportation hadn't broken them. That their bodies still worked. That the species could continue.

  Mara's hand found Elara's. No words. Just warmth.

  This was what survival looked like. Messy. Sacred. Lit from within.

  As the first mother stepped into the hut, the world held its breath. And somewhere deep in her chest, Elara felt a spark of something like readiness.

  Not just for a child. But for a family.

  She squeezed Mara's hand, her eyes drifting one last time toward the man walking through the gathering crowd.

  Maybe... someday soon.