http://www.asstr.org/~srb
Don't read if under 18 or illegal in your little corner of the world, like you'll listen. This 
should appear only on my site http://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/srb/www/ F3, Futanari 
Palace, and basically should be wherever Pal's stuff is. Also at the Grey Archive, and 
some other places they might end up, they know who they are. Any websites that want to 
host my story must have expressed electronic consent to do so. I will list all websites that 
I have granted permission to list my stories there. If you are reading this now and find 
this on a new website, then please email me at somerandombastard (at) yahoo (dot) com

This is copyright me, so don't call it yours. Feedback can be left here. I created all the 
characters, they are all fictional, and any relevance to anyone living or dead, is incidental. 
I created the entire fictional universe in which they inhabit, if you're interested in writing 
in this world than feel free to email me. I've pretty willing. 

This is my second story following the lives of the Brown family, the first is Jamie and 
Phillip; Pwomises. While it is not necessary to read it, you may find it beneficial. It and 
all of my stories can be read on my website.

This story contains futanari, and pregnancy. No sex.


What You Need
Joan's Baby


William Brown hurried his way through the government building. He nodded at the 
receptionist, Gary, who was evidently forced to work a late night because of him. Will 
didn't know why. He should have been the only one coming in late, and Gary shouldn't 
need to be there, except perhaps to open the door, which he did not. William didn't know 
what coffee he liked, so he dropped off a cup of Arabian blend on his desk with an 
apologetic smile. It wasn't that late, only six thirty, but like all government buildings six 
was supposed to be quitting time. It was a very rare circumstance when that rule was 
broken. 

He walked straight towards Alexandra's cramped office, nearly losing the coffee as he 
ducked to miss the low ceiling. He couldn't count how many times he had forgotten 
about the low ceiling in the years he had frequented child services. Enough so that he 
remembered to duck. Most of the time.

He could feel her steely glare watching him before even looking up. Her disapproval was 
unquestionable. In the seventeen years since he had been in and out of this building, he 
couldn't recall her so upset. Not even when he was an overweight alcoholic living a life 
of indulgence off of his father's dime. And while she almost despised him then, he knew 
that she had good reason to. 

But now, now she knew him well. She respected him, expected more from him. And he 
had given her good reason. He had never given her much cause to be angry, or worried. 
He was adept in raising children, from the first child Karen to the latest one, at least for 
now, Jamie. With what he had done now, he had given her more than enough reason to be 
livid with ire.

William dropped off a peace offering, a cup of Alexandra's favorite coffee, a mocha 
cappuccino, with cinnamon and both organic sugar and milk, half foam and half whipped 
cream on top. He even remembered to put a napkin under it to protect it from ruining the 
desk. Although it was more a token gesture than anything else, her desk had shown 
plenty of battle scars over the years. The coffee was from her favorite gourmet shop 
down the street, which was packed with the post work crowd grabbing some caffeine 
before making their way home for dinner. Despite being busy they were well staffed, a 
rarity these days unless they were machine automated. But really, having real people 
made for a more nostalgic time. It was one reason why he had been late, but not the only 
one.

Alex glanced at it. She knew what it was. He only got her that kind of coffee when he had 
done something to piss her off. It was a peace offering, a sign of good faith. But she was 
beyond pissed, she wanted to shout and scream. She had seen just about everything in her 
sixty years of working in child services. She had dealt with everything, from abuse to 
molestation to even suicide. This wasn't as bad certainly, but it was a new one, even for 
her. She hadn't even shown this to her boss yet, and she knew that he was going to 
bounce off the walls when he heard. 

"Close the door," She said. The first words escaping her lips maintained a professional 
calmness, her voice was steady and terse. She watched him close it and sit down on the 
open chair. Her desk, usually littered with various pads, was clean now, save for her 
computer, one coffee, and one pad. 

The latest pad contained on it the latest medical report of a certain adopted futanari under 
William's care. Anytime any futa under his care who received any kind of medical or 
legal attention, it was required by law to have those medical reports sent to the 
caseworker in charge of said futanari's case. This was a natural safeguard, to prevent 
parents from hiding evidence of possible abuse, whether mental, physical, or sexual; or 
from hiding other illegal activities. In this case the futanari in question was the sixteen-
year-old Joan, and in the case of all of his futanari under William's care the caseworker 
was Alexandra.

She continued to glare at him, making him feel more and more uneasy by the moment. 
He would rather her shout and scream at him. Just to be saying something, to be 
defending himself. Instead he just sat there and tried to return her stare, albeit weakly. He 
felt like a child back in school, waiting for his obviously upset teacher to just call on him 
to do his report that he had half assed. He didn't even feel guilty. He did feel like he had 
done the right thing, even if it wasn't the appropriate thing.

Alex reached her hand out, the bright yellow arm of her dress suit was short, and pulled 
up the dark and wrinkled ebony skin of her forearm as she grabbed the coffee. Almost 
every other place in the city managed to screw it up. She sipped it, and it was good. She 
didn't treat herself often with this kind of thing too often. She had been trying to cut 
down on her caffeine, and trying to keep a healthier diet. She savored the flavor, letting 
the coffee linger in her mouth for a moment. It was delicious.

But she was still pissed.

"Bill…" she started to say, catching herself.

"Yes?" he was slightly relieved to begin a dialogue. Even if it wasn't going to be 
pleasant, it was a means to an end. 

"What the hell is wrong with you? What the hell?" she shot at him, her eyes flaring as her 
hands flew up.

"Look, you have to understand," William tried to explain.

"Understand what William Charles Brown?" she asked, like an upset parent. "Do you 
have any idea the kind of shit you're in right now?"

"Yes, I do," he said slowly.

"No I don't think you do. We'll forget for now the shit that I'm in. You know I've spent a 
lot of time and effort keeping the heat off of your back. But I know if I can do it this time. 
What the hell was going through your mind?" she shouted.

"Look, I had to do what was right," he didn't want to split hairs over that. He had done 
what he had believed to be morally correct. "Not just for me but for Joan as well."

"But you couldn't have told me anything?" she was hurt that he had kept her in the dark 
throughout the whole affair. They had been more than simple caseworker and adopted 
guardian. She had valued him as a friend as well as a client. 

"Look, I mean…ever since those nanobots were released into the general populace these 
futanari have been struggling for their rights. And a lot of these people who think they're 
'normal' just because they are male or female and haven't met any futanari that they 
know of just think that these futas are freaks. Maybe it's just because they're only one in 
ten of the populace. But they still think they're mutants or something equally stupid. 
That's why they end up here and have to be adopted," William started, taking a deep 
breath. "But some don't get the option. They don't get to be adopted because they aren't 
born. Just because they're the product of a futanari and a woman."

"Don't you think I know that?" Alex leaned back in her chair. "You think you have an 
idea about how this works. You have no clue about all of the children that come in 
through here. Yes you adopt more than anyone ever has. Maybe more than anyone ever 
should, and you've managed to make it work. But for every child that you adopt there are 
easily a couple of dozen that you can't. And there are plenty of those that are futanaris."

"I know that you are in the trenches fighting the good fight, and I'm doing my part as 
well. What I have done I did because I had to. There was no other way," William knew 
he was running around in circles with his logic but didn't know where else to go. 

"Maybe not, but you can't expect that this kind of thing is going to be taken lightly. Not 
from these folks in the government who think that boys and girls and futas shouldn't slow 
dance with each other, let alone a peck on the cheek," Alex had to deal with curmudgeons 
that made Catholic nuns appear liberal in their thinking. "Hell you'd catch less shit if she 
got a tit job!"

"Alex, you know I do the best that I can, to provide for the kids" he tried to argue weakly. 
"And I did what I thought was best for her."

"You keep saying the same thing Will. I know you do the best you can, hell I know that 
you do better than most people. But did it ever occur to you that the powers that be aren't 
exactly in love with you having so many kids William. Did you ever stop to think that 
you could jeopardize everything with this? Not just Joan, but Karen, Jamie, Casey, 
Lindsay and Samantha, and everyone else?" she wouldn't back down. She wanted to pour 
it on even more but held her emotions in check to where she knew she had to stay, at least 
for now. She couldn't let her hurt emotions pour onto this. She had to fight it strictly on a 
business sense. She would bitch about him on her behalf later. Now she had to bitch 
about him on the state's behalf.

"I understand that, but if you just knew her side then you'd realize-" William tried to 
defend.

"I think I know her story well enough Will," she raised the pad. She wasn't in the mood 
for any nonsense. 

"You know better than anyone that everyone has their own story. Just because you may 
have dealt with someone else doing something similar, it's not what happened there." 
William was hoping he could play enough of her heartstrings to buy a proper explanation. 

"I haven't ever dealt with someone doing anything much like this in the past. All right, if 
you feel you must," she allowed, checking the clock. She didn't expect to be home 
anytime soon, with Will's long-winded stories. She was usually entertained with a cute or 
amusing piece, but this time she didn't expect anything nearly so heartwarming. 'I should 
make him buy dinner' she mused.

"Well it started a about a week ago…" William leaned back in the beat up old worn chair. 
He took a sip of coffee, he honestly didn't understand what she saw in the drink, but the 
caffeine would help.

*

William Brown walked through the house, picking up things here and there. There was 
never a shortage of mess. No matter how much he dogged after his adopted futanari 
children, there was always something else to clean. Be it dishes or clothes or a mess on 
the floor, or just toys or makeup scattered about the house, he always had his hands full. 
Especially now that the days were getting short and the winter chill filled the air. With it 
came every fashionable warm garment his children could find. Every futa had their 
chores but if there were six socks, gloves, hats, or scarves, who could tell who's apart? 
Nobody, and they just went into the communal wardrobe. Probably to never be worn 
again, or for a couple years until one futa found a it particularly striking one day. Or if 
they wanted to play dress up.

He hummed a song, an old rock and roll song that had played well in the early twenty 
sixth century. He didn't like the oldies so much but he had seen that on a three 
dimensional holograph commercial and it had just gotten stuck in his head. It had a nice 
beat to it and he thought the singer was cute, even if the song wasn't anything special. 
Her face was probably the only reason that he had bothered paying attention in the first 
place. 

He stopped when he looked over at the sight of his daughter Joan. At sixteen years of age 
she was a pretty young thing. A little skinnier than he would have liked, she had bright 
natural blond hair. She was a popular girl, if not especially studious. She had always kept 
a B average, although she was usually treading in B minus territory. Lately her attention 
had seemed focused entirely on "what was important"; namely her girlfriend, clothing, 
and being popular in school. That entailed having the most numbers on her 
communicator, using the most minutes on it, going to the most dances, having the largest 
wardrobe of the skimpiest clothes, and generally being the biggest drama queen. Being 
well endowed and skinny helped in that department, as did her temperament.

But it wasn't Joan that had stopped him as much as it was her girlfriend Rose resting in 
her arms. An auburn haired beauty, she seemed to be the moon and the stars to his little 
Joan. He was secretly happy that she was only enamored with one girl. It was easier for 
him, he didn't trust his eldest daughter's boyfriend and girlfriend for some time until he 
had gotten to know them better. And Casey had given him fits with her revolving 
romantic interests, boys, girls, and futas. He was thankful none of them had seemed 
serious. That he knew of.

But Rose was weeping. Not just crying, she was weeping, her face was sullen, her eyes 
bloodshot, and her nose running. Will instantly became afraid of what was wrong. He had 
no idea what it was, and how wrong it would be. In retrospect he probably should have 
been more concerned than he was.

"What's the matter?" he asked, kneeling next to the two of them, who were holding each 
other closely as Rose wept in Joan's arms on the comfortable blue loveseat.

Rose looked at Bill's face before returning to her uncontrollable sobs. William strode to 
the adjoining bathroom, grabbed the facial tissues, and brought them back. Joan took 
them and dabbed on Rose's tearstained face, cleaning up the running makeup.

"What happened?" he tried again. He had seen more women and futanari than he could 
remember cry for trivial matters. Or at least in the end they seemed trivial, even to the 
one who had been so distraught. Being dumped, having an untimely pimple, missing a 
call, losing a piece of clothing, or any other everyday embarrassing moments seemed to 
be the end of the world to the futanaris in his house. Especially during their time of the 
month, when he wanted to lock himself alone in the house.

"I'm…I'm pre-he-heg-nant!" Rose shouted, breaking into sobs once more. Her and 
Joan's hands rested on her stomach.

Bill kneeled there, stunned. He was completely unequipped to deal with this kind of 
situation. With his first child Karen he had grown up learning how to raise children, and 
with each instance he had gained experience and knowledge that had allowed him to be 
able to better cope with future instances. Things such as the talk of the birds and the bees, 
or about the monthly cycle, discrimination, or just curfews, privileges, and chores each 
became easier with each time he had to do it. Every futa had their own new issue that he 
learned from, and in their own way it made raising each child new and different. Each 
child was a different person and he learned new ways of dealing with their problems. But 
this was the first pregnancy scare. 

His natural reaction was anger. While he wasn't stupid enough to believe that his futas 
were entirely chaste, he had expected them to at least be safe with their sexual practices. 
While most children had some kind of sexual activity by age fifteen, he had hoped that he 
had beat in the idea of safe sex into their noggins. Not just because of the potential 
diseases, which were largely curable, but for the very same situation at hand, the scare of 
pregnancy. He had even encouraged Joan, Casey, and Karen to use the futanari 
conception pill, designed to prevent both becoming pregnant and impregnation of women 
or other futanari. He made sure that condoms were available, just hidden well from the 
eyes of the younger futas. 

But looking at this girl weeping before him, he knew that his anger, although possibly 
well placed, would only exacerbate the situation. He had to calm himself back down and 
be supportive.

"Well, congratulations," He said, hugging her in an attempt to stay her emotions. "It's 
going to be okay, don't worry about it."

"No it's not going to be okay!" Rose shouted, her voice hoarse and wavering. 

"R, Rose's mom is gonna make her get rid of the child," Joan finally broke her silence, 
tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

"I'll adopt it then," Bill said instinctively. "I'm sure I can gain custody of your child, sure 
it might be hard but I know it's possible, all we have to do is…"

"NO!" Rose screamed. "She's wants, she's gonna, she's gon-na."

"Her mom is going to make her get an abortion," Joan said, tears now streaming down 
her own face as well. 

"What?" William blinked. 

"My mom wants me to get an abortion. She doesn't want me to have a kid so young," 
Rose blubbered.

"Why?" The idea seemed alien to him.

"She thinks that I'm too young, and she doesn't want a child to ruin my life, just like it 
ruined hers," Rose answered with no air of privacy or need of protect her parent's.

"How is she going to make her get an abortion? She can't make her do that!" William 
wanted to argue but he lacked an opponent. 

"She's going to disown me," she sobbed. "If I don't give up the baby."

"Then be disowned, I'll take you in and adopt it," he tried to reason.

"I, I can't mess up the family," Rose said, struggling to fight back the tears.

"I'll fight this," William said, deciding now that with every bit of strength in his body 
that he would let his grandchild be born. "I'll fight this."

William didn't know what else to say to this. He just hugged the two of them as they both 
wept, at a loss for words. He wanted to cry too, but for now he had to be strong, not just 
for his daughter or the mother of her child, but for his grandchild as well. None of this 
made sense. It wasn't moral, it wasn't legal, it should be happening. Right now he pined 
for ten minutes ago when he was humming a commercial song.

*
2

Joan sat on the doorstep with her paramour, who had managed to dry her tears. She held 
her hand, savoring the all too brief moment of her nearness. She knew her father, 
standing just to the side of her was sympathetic to her cause, but she felt the battle was 
hers and hers alone. But her baby needed allies, and she knew that they would be few and 
far between.

Rose's mother, Ms. Amanda Cole, or as Joan preferred to call her behind her lover's 
back, 'That cunt who wants to kill my baby' drove up in her small family sedan, with her 
son Matt in the back. Joan watched her father step up forward to the car. She helped her 
baby's mama up and followed after her father.

"Good evening Ms. Cole," William said, stretching out a hand.

"Evening Mister Brown," she nearly spat out, ignoring his gesture. The venom in her 
voice was unmistakable. "Rose, get in the car."

"Okay mom," Rose said, almost breaking down again. Joan admired her strength as she 
walked to the passenger side door.

"Mrs. Cole I'd like to discuss this with you, if you'll," William tried to say.

"I bet you would. It is not open for discussion. I will not allow my daughter to enter this 
house again nor will I allow your daughter in mine! You should be ashamed to allow 
young children to use your house as a den of perversions. Good day sir!" she didn't give 
him a chance to respond, she simply accelerated out of the circular driveway.

"Okay then," William rubbed his tongue across the front of his teeth, stopping for a 
moment on the hole in his front incisor. He had kept putting that off for longer than he 
could recall. The microseal on his teeth has worn out, and now he had to deal with 
cavities again. At least until he got them drilled and had another microseal put on."Now, 
it's time for some answers."

Joan didn't say a word as she opened the front door. She turned and walked into her 
father's study, feeling like a criminal on her way towards interrogation. Her father rarely 
used his study. While William's father had left him a very sizeable inheritance, both in 
hard money and in stock for his business, William had chosen a family life. But he 
needed a desk, and a place where he could pay bills and keep an eye on the 'trusted' 
people whom he had put in charge of his deceased father's companies. While they were 
technically his, he had never felt that way. But he didn't want to become so far removed 
from the companies that they ceased to be his entirely. Or to allow the 'trusted' to believe 
they were in charge.

In function his study had been more a room where important things were discussed 
between his children, in private. This had ranged from sexual problems to drug use and 
such innocuous things as Jamie explaining her first kiss or Casey relating her baseball 
dreams. Many of the girls had a small phobia of the room, which was strange considering 
William's original intentions. He had wanted to create a haven where he could discuss 
things without the other futas in his house knowing about it. Not that it was easy to keep 
a secret in such a large house. To them it felt more a room of judgment and doling out 
punishment.

The office wasn't especially large, just a simple desk and a computer sitting on the 
desktop, a few chairs and a window that looked out at the driveway. Thanks to the 
controlled air filtration system that ran through the house, it was free of dust that would 
normally appear during such a prolonged absence. Joan sat on the chair, it was made of 
comfortable fake black leather. Its comfort belied her wretchedness. 

William sighed and opened the mini fridge. He took out a bottle of water. It was so rare 
in his day to just get a clean bottle of water. "Do you want anything?"

"No," Joan shook her head. Her stomach was churning like she had never felt before. She 
hadn't eaten anything since she had learned of her child. She just stared at a spot on the 
floor she had seen since she was a youth. An old ice cream stain that was never quite 
cleaned up and never covered. Strange how the room had seemed so different then.

"Alright Joan. Why don't you tell me just what happened?" William wasn't the sternest 
of fathers by any means. He had been able to walk that fine line between the rod and 
spoiling the child. He knew that in a delicate situation such as this that he needed to be 
sympathetic to his child. He also knew that he would absolutely need to know everything 
that he could.

"I don't know what to say," Joan mumbled.

"Speak up, please honey. Just, start at the beginning," William opened the bottle and 
sipped from it.

"Well, I mean me and, and Rose," Joan took a deep gulp. Even saying her name was 
tough now. "We have been going out for a while."

"Yes, I know Joan, almost two years now," William nodded. 

"Yeah. I mean, it started out with just kid stuff, holding hands and stuff, but over the last 
year, I," Joan closed her eyes.

"Yes Joanne?" William

"I love her," Joan felt twin tears trickle down her cheeks. She hadn't revealed her love to 
anyone besides the object of her affection.

"I…does she know this?" William leaned back in his chair, taking a deep breath. "I mean, 
she consented to this, every bit of it?"

"Yes, she loves me too," Joan knew that answer from the bottom of her very soul. She 
knew how scared they had both been to admit it, to each other, to themselves.

"That's good," William reached for a facial tissue box he had in his desk drawer. He 
dropped it when he had realized that it was empty. He seemed to buy them by the case 
these days. "I know this is hard, but I have to know what happened to help you Joanne."

"I, I know," she took another gulp, her mouth felt dry. "May I have a water?"

"Of course," he reached into the fridge and handed her a cold bottled water. "Whenever 
your ready."

She took a couple of minutes. The silence felt like an unimaginable burden, but to 
actually say what must be said, to reveal the most private of details of her relationship, of 
the conception of her child was a heavier burden than she had yet borne. She knew that 
her onus was nothing compared to her sweet, lovely Rose's. She also knew that she 
would have few allies and her father needed to know that which only she could say.

"Remember when Jamie had that ear infection?" Joan asked, opening the eyes slightly. 
The tears hadn't poured forth; they had simply welled in the corner of her eyes, waiting 
to flood like water behind a dam.

"Yes, that was…about nine months or so ago," William thought aloud.

"It was ten months. February fourteenth. You had to spend most of the day in the 
hospital. Karen was running everything and was more concerned with the younger ones 
than me," Joan knew that she was telling him what he had already known. She was 
rambling but she didn't know what was important, or what was superfluous anymore. 
Just saying anything felt like she was accomplishing something.

"Go on," William nodded.

"Rose told her parents that she was going over our house and that you would be there. 
That was the day that, that I told her I loved her. That I wanted to be with her forever, and 
that, that her mom couldn't keep us apart," Joan stopped, taking a deep breath. 
Underneath her quiet voice lay a turbulent sea of emotions. All were negative, or once 
sweet memories tainted with bitterness she could not shake.

"Is that…?" William tried to measure his words. How to ask his daughter 'Is that the first 
time you two fucked?' is a delicate question, best avoided. 

"That was the first time we…" Joan wanted to find the appropriate words to describe 
what had happened. Just saying 'did it' or 'had sex' seemed to cheapen the memories.

"Expressed the love you two shared…physically?" William was hardly a poet but had 
learned more than a couple of lines. It was strange using that for her daughter's 
lovemaking after trying it as a pick up line.

"Yeah," she exhaled deeply. 

"I," he paused, marshalling his words. "I told you about protecting yourself, about safe 
sex."

"I, I know dad," Joan bit her bottom lip. "I, I used a condom that time. And almost every 
time after."

"Almost doesn't cut it Joanne," William didn't need any better example than this. 

"She, we," Joan wiped her eyes and her nose on her hand. "We never touched anyone 
else, I mean we were both virgins."

"Why did you stop practicing safe sex?" William queried, keeping his voice calm and 
low. He had kept condoms in the house ever since Karen had been sixteen, for almost two 
years. 

"I, I just...Her mom, she would freak if she took the pill. And it, I mean it just, it felt so 
much better," she almost broke then and there. She knew she had cheapened the depth of 
their love by articulating it in such a way.

"You could have taken the contraceptive pill. I know that it might feel better but it's not 
safe to-" her father started to lecture.

"No dad!" she said too quickly and too forcefully. "It's not just that it was better. It was 
but that's not what I mean. I mean that I wanted to touch her. I wanted to feel her, know 
her body that is for me and me only! It wasn't just sex, it was intimacy."

Her heavy words filled the air, and neither said anything for an awkward moment. She 
panted, her breathing was uneasy as she put herself out on the line. She was at a loss for 
words, and she knew that she had spoke to her father with too much venom. But she 
didn't know how to respond, how to apologize, how to act in these circumstances. 

"She isn't ten months pregnant," William said quietly, wanting to change the subject. He 
knew that a preachy sermon on safe sex would fall on deaf ears right now, and wouldn't 
do her the least bit of good. 

"Yes dad," she didn't know how to respond to it. 

"How often have you two been…together?" he inquired. His daughter didn't answer. 
"Joanne look at me."

She raised her eyes, looking at her father's brown eyes. She had lied to him. She had kept 
the truth from him. She had weaseled out of every engagement that she could, birthday 
parties, extracurriculars, and family outings, whatever. She had broken her promise, not 
of chastity but of making intelligent choices about her body and of safe sex. She had 
deceived her entire family. The cardinal rule of the household was family comes first, and 
she had broken that. 

But when she saw the compassion in his eyes, she broke down into tears. The sorrow that 
she had tried to keep subdued poured out from every recess of her soul. Her breathing 
was strained, her throat was dry, and her face was covered with a burning heat.

"Oh Joanne baby," William got up from his chair and hugged his child. "It's, it's ok. Just 
breath baby."

"I just don't know what to do anymore daddy!" she said between sobs. 

"I'm going to have to do some business, make some phone calls. It won't be easy. We 
might not win," he admitted, hearing her sob all the harder. "But we will fight this! We 
will fight this!"

"Th, thanks," she said, wiping her nose on the shoulder of his shirt.

"Now, go take a shower and wash yourself up. I'm going to have Karen order some pizza 
and have her tell the other girl's to not bother you tonight. I'll come in and talk to you 
when I can," he said as kindly as he could. 

Joan nodded her head, sniffling up the humor that didn't stain her father's shirt. She 
watched him pick up the phone as she left.

*

"Slick Willy, what is good my man?" Gregory White asked, stepping out of his living 
room. His lady friend didn't seem to mind the chance to powder her nose with a straw. 
He certainly hadn't expected him to call.

"Greg, I need to see you," William said solemnly. While he and Greg had been the best 
of friends, that was a long time ago. William had grown into a father, into an adult who 
no longer partied, used drugs, drank heavily, or had wild flings with strangers. Greg had 
not.

"Sure thing my man. How about Monday evening? Just call Eileen, and she'll book you 
whenever I have a free appointment," Greg said, looking out from the kitchen at his date.

"No, it can't wait. I need to see you at the earliest possible convenience," Bill looked at 
his watch, making note of the time he would need to set his clock. He was thankful that it 
was Friday and he could let the rest of the futas sleep in tomorrow morning. Most of them 
probably wouldn't even notice his absence, and he usually let them make their own 
breakfast in the morning.

"Alright you drive a hard bargain, first thing Monday morning, I'll even come in early, 
scout's honor," he said, mocking the action of crossing his heart.

"Not good enough," was William reply.

"Fine, fine. I tell you what; it's been forever since we spent any time together, how about 
we catch eighteen down at the country club? We'll have a couple of drinks and smack a 
few balls around, you could even bring the kids. Hell of a game golf is, good for the 
posture and keeps kids off of the same kind of shit we used to do eh?" Greg laughed, 
trying to lighten the mood as he poured himself an extra strong brandy.

"Greg, I need to see you as soon as I can," William said forcefully before sighing. "I've 
kept you on retainer for years, helping pay your country club fees and then some. If that 
hasn't bought me one of your Saturday mornings then I've wasted my money, and need 
to get someone else into the country club."

"Hey, hey, no need to get like that. What is the matter my man?" Greg took a sip, and 
shook his head from the sting. The first one always hit him like that. "I don't hear a word 
for half a year and now you come on the phone talking to me like it's life or death."

"I wouldn't have called you like this, at home, if it weren't important. I can't even begin 
to explain this all on the phone. I need to talk about it in person," William looked out his 
window, watching Karen and Casey taking in five large pizzas and a couple of bags of 
however many salads, mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers and god knows what else his 
futas had picked to eat. 

"All right. All right Will, just for you. Not because you pay me but because we've been 
friends from way back. Eight in the morning good for you?" Greg looked in the brandy 
glass, and glanced up at his date. She seemed to be having a good enough time, he 
wondered if it was even worth the effort to cook the fifty-dollar steaks that were sitting in 
his fridge.

"Yeah, eight o clock," William nodded, making the mental note.

"On the dot slick Willy. Eight on the dot," Greg made the notation in his day planner. 
"Whatever it is, bring it in."

"I will. Get to bed early," William said, hanging up.

"Not everyone is a choir boy there Willy," Greg hung up, shaking his head.

*

Joan had decided to dress up. She didn't exactly know why, but she felt like she should 
dress up. She had never seen her father's lawyer before. 'Or' she thought, 'I guess my 
lawyer.' 

She owned little in the way of formal dress clothes. Her definition of formal was showing 
the least amount of skin possible. That was antithetical to her general fashion sense. She 
had an old blue dress suit that she hadn't worn once. It felt itchy, and she had no idea 
where it had come from, or when she had gotten it. But she had some shoes and a coat 
that matched, and she had decided upon it. It was itchy and uncomfortable, but no article 
of clothing would seem soothing now.

It was ironic, in the silly and often misapplication of irony, that she would spend her time 
trying to find bad clothing. So much of her time and attention in her young life had been 
trying to find the nicest clothing. She usually drove her father fit with her requests of 
expensive garments, many of which would often be worn only once. She had a walk in 
closet filled to the rafters, and enough of a footwear collection that could shoe a small 
nation.

But it wasn't the price of the clothing, usually. Joan was smart enough to stay on the 
honor roll, and she was nice to her sisters. She was the one stuck with babysitting duties 
because of how busy Karen was and Casey's never ending athletic endeavors. With a bit 
of luck and a lot of effort she was able to exploit it to her benefit. She knew how to do 
everything she could to squeeze every penny possible into her clothing budget.

No what the problem was the selection of clothes. Like any sixteen year old, she wanted 
to look good. That usually meant the tightest and most revealing piece she could find, to 
get as many heads turning as possible. The more skin, the better. She had spent plenty of 
her time keeping her body in shape. She felt that it was her body, and she wasn't a slut 
and screwing every guy out there. She was the kind of woman that could only be with 
one girl. But she knew that it would help her be popular to show off her skin. Boys and 
futas would feign interest, and girls wouldn't talk because she was monogamous. 

And so with every purchase she had to argue with her dad over the length of her skirt, or 
how much of her new cleavage she was allowed to show, or whether she should wear a 
coat or not. It seemed such a silly and pointless series of arguments now.

She checked her purse for the tenth time during the car trip. Inside the expensive leather 
accessory was the electronic pad that she had gotten from her sweet Rose. It contained 
the details of her pregnancy, and the planned date of her next appointment. 

"Almost there," William said, turning onto Hope Avenue. He hoped wistfully it was a 
positive indicator. He knew that it was more realistically an attempt by the city to put a 
nice name on a bad part of the city. At least it was bad at night. 

"What, what is he going to do?" Joan looked up and asked the question she had been 
wondering for some time. "I, I mean, what can he do?"

"We're going to find out," William said, turning in front of the now empty office 
building. He stepped out and paid the parking meter, two dollars. 'What a rip off' he 
thought, looking at the building.

It was a very nice building, truly. Part of the initiative to rebuild the city had included 
trying to revive the downtown businesses, which had been of no small import when the 
city had thrived. So the city had fit the bill on a gigantic skyscraper that housed a hundred 
and twenty floors. Many of which had a half dozen smaller offices. The city was 
notorious for allowing smaller businesses to rent there, due in part to the lack of big 
businesses wanting to rent from the government for various reasons. Perception and 
location were two large ones. Bigger businesses wanted to have their own building, and 
didn't want to be in the neighborhood.

Will led his daughter to the entrance. He had forgotten what floor his lawyer Greg White 
was on, but the receptionist was nice enough pointing it out. William and Joan took the 
elevator, and dealt with the annoying muzak until they arrived at the forty-second floor.

William frowned immediately upon looking at the office. The door and wall were made 
of a thin layer of transparent plastic with wood paneling. It meant that the office was 
open to anyone passing by. Particularly the fact that it was empty, and all of the lights 
were off. He brought his hand to his face, massaging his temples for a moment. He 
sighed and hugged his daughter with one hand while fumbling about his pocket for his 
communicator with the other.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," came the hurried and hoarse voice of Greg White as he stepped 
out of the elevator. "I had a hell of a night but I'm here."

"It's about time Greg," William looked at him with unmistakable disapproval.

"Hey, come on now, we said eight sharp, and it's," Greg checked his watch, "Seven fifty 
eight." He took his keys and opened the door, turning on the lights. "Come in. Afraid I 
don't have any coffee made up but there should be some cold drinks in the fridge if you 
want."

"I'm good," William was used to waking up this early.

"No thanks," Joan said.

"You must be Joan, it's nice to meet you," he said, trying to be as warm as he could. He 
knew he looked pretty bad for his own standards. Unshaven, large black circles under his 
eyes, a dirty and wrinkly suit, and he smelt. His previous night didn't end until about five 
in the morning, and he didn't get much of a time to sleep.

"Yes sir. Nice to meet you as well," Joan's voice was sullen.

"Alright, I see you want to get down to business. Let's go to my office," he said, leading 
them to the back of the floor, past the reception area and the receptionist desk. He opened 
the door, it was quite an office. Large and extravagantly furnished, but in an old time 
fashion. Four large black leather chairs on one side of his desk with his own behind it. 
The desk itself was mahogany, an ultra rare and expensive wood, rarely seen in the 
twenty sixth century. Even by the old standards of a desk it was large, easily ten feet 
across. On it was a collapsible flat screen computer monitor, which he pushed down 
immediately.

"Give me one minute," he said, fumbling around with a pad. "Gregory White Esquire, 
with William and Joan Brown. December Fifth, eight oh one A.M. Open case." He 
looked at the two of them. "State your names for the record, and that you are aware of the 
conversation being recorded and consent to it. Just a formality."

"Joan Brown, I know this conversation is recorded and I allow it," she answered 
robotically.

"William Brown, I know and consent for this conversation to be recorded," William said, 
a bit louder than he had to.

"Alright, now that we got that over with, what is going on?" Greg asked, wishing Eileen 
was here to make him a strong pot of coffee.

William looked at Joan, her blonde hair hid her eyes that were fixed on the floor. "Tell 
him baby."

"I…" Joan eased her teeth that had been biting on her lip. 

"Take your time," Greg said sympathetically. 

"My girlfriend is pregnant," she blurted out. 

"I see. For the record you say that you are a futanari?" Greg asked.

"Yes," she answered, looking at the pad sitting in the middle of the table.

"And your pregnant girlfriend's name is?" he needed this kind of information. The pad 
had voice recognition software that allowed for it to sort all of this kind of information in 
a report that would not only make his job easier but it would also make the job of the 
police easier as well. Not that he especially cared much for the police.

"Rose Cole," she licked her lips.

"Well, what is the problem? Are you trying to get a paternity test to verify that it is or 
isn't yours?" he knew that came out a bit more flippant than he had intended.

"No. My, she…her mother is making her get an abortion," she said.

"Oh, I…" Greg hadn't expected that. "I understand the necessity of seeing me so soon." 
He coughed for a second, sitting up straight in his chair and straightening out his suit. He 
knew it was time to act like the able lawyer he was. 

"And I assume you object to this?" he needed to be sure. He watched her nod her head. 
"Out loud please, the pad needs to have you actually say it."

"Yes, I don't want her to have to have an abortion. She doesn't want to have an abortion 
either," Joan scratched the back of her neck. 
 
"Joan, I'm a lawyer. But more importantly, I'm YOUR lawyer. There are things that 
people will tell me that they won't tell their doctor, their children, or even their spouse. 
Now you can lie to whomever you want, but you have to tell me everything, and you 
have to tell me everything straight. I know we don't know each other but it's my job to 
protect you and your interests. So I have to ask you some undesirable questions. Do not 
misinterpret my motivation, but this is all necessary." He had noticed her uneasiness. 
Dealing with these kinds of things were always uncomfortable. 

"Okay," she still felt that this was going nowhere.

"I need to have the facts before I can get going on everything. How old is your 
girlfriend?" he asked plainly, starting with the least offensive type of question.

"She's sixteen, seventeen in a month," Joan answered.

"So she's within the legal age of abortion," he thought aloud. "You say that her parents 
want her to get an abortion?"

"No, her parents are divorced. She lives with her mom. Sole guardianship," Joan took a 
deep breath.

"When the two of you made love, are you sure that this was entirely consensual?" he 
asked, noticing William's silent glaring objection. "I have to ask this, okay Will?"

"Yes, she, I, we love each other," Joan bit back on her lip enough to taste blood.

"Okay, do you know that the child is yours?" he regretted this line of questioning but it 
was something that he had to ask.

"Yes," was her monosyllabic answer.

"Do you have any proof?" he had to ask. Unlike whether sex could or could not be 
considered consensual, paternity was at the center of this case. If there were in fact a 
case.

"Yes," Joan said, opening up her purse and handing over a pad.

"Who gave you this?" he asked, reaching to take it from her. Her grip on it was strong.

"Rose," she released her grasp.

"Let me see," he said, looking over the pad. "At this point in time, eight…thirteen, I'm 
going to introduce the following information to the case. Subject Rose will be age 
seventeen January eighth. She is pregnant and the…sire of the child has been verified as 
being one Joan Brown. The fetus is two months and two weeks old."

"What is the reason she is getting the abortion?" Greg wondered.

"Her mother thinks that it's going to ruin her life if she has a child this young," Joan felt 
wrong saying this behind her lover's back, especially to a stranger.

"Hmm, is that the only reason?" he asked, thumbing through the pad. Joan took it from 
her and opened a medical fact file, and had the pad select it for text to speech.

"While the numbers have yet to be compiled and established, it has been proven that on a 
biological level that a child resulting in the offspring of a female and a futanari will have 
an increased likelihood of a futanari, or female child," the pad said in a soothing, 
automated voice. It just hung in the air for a moment.

"So you believe she doesn't want to have a futanari grandchild," he stopped short of 
saying 'tough shit'.

"No, she, her husband divorced her to live with a futanari that he had fallen in love with," 
Joan mumbled.

"You say she doesn't want to abort the child, and that her mother is forcing her," Greg 
took a step back from an obviously painful point. "How did she find out and how is she 
making her go along with the abortion?" he asked, double-checking everything on the 
pad. 

"Her mom caught her being sick, I mean throwing up," Joan felt guilty about not 
planning on that. She had done so much research but it all didn't matter in the end. She 
wasn't thinking ahead enough to have considered morning sickness.

"And brought her daughter to the doctor? Why didn't Rose ask her doctor to withhold 
that information from her mother?" he asked.

"They have the same family doctor. Her doctor didn't know that she wanted to keep it 
secret. She had signed away her right to privacy to her mother a long time ago. It's, it's 
on the pad, with everything else," Joan pointed.

"Alright, and what about the reason behind her abortion in the first place? How is her 
mother, as you put it, 'forcing' her to undergo this medical procedure?" he had just about 
formed his professional opinion in his mind but needed to ask the last big question. 

"She has a little brother, Matt," Joan didn't know where to start.

"And?" he motioned with his hand. "Take your time."

"When her parents broke up her father lost his job. They, her parents have issues. Her 
mom really hates her dad. He lost his job almost at the same time, she insists that it's 
because he's a deadbeat and didn't want to pay child support. She and her brother had to 
live with her mom," Joan tried to explain.

"Ok, but that still doesn't explain it all," Greg pointed out.

"Well, her brother is twelve," she said.

"And he doesn't have the option of who to live with for another year. But what's the 
significance of that?" he had more than his fair share of divorce cases, usually on the 
'deadbeat' side.

"Her mom, she drinks a lot. She blames him for everything, at least until she found out 
that Rose was…pregnant," Joan said, licking the inner walls of her dry mouth.

"Can't she lose custody for that?" William butted in.

"Probably not. Everyone is allowed to drink, and parents are allowed to discipline their 
children. If she had a record of alcoholic abuse, maybe. Not unless he's being beaten but 
then we would need not just testimony but physical evidence to prove it. And that isn't 
my department anyway, that would be a child services issue. It wouldn't matter, 
according to this we have less than a week," he pointed at the pad. "Look I don't mean to 
sound unsympathetic, if she's an abusive mother it's bad. If she hits them then she might 
lose custody. If she berates them that's bad, but chances are she won't lose custody. As 
long as she takes care of them and provides them with what they need, and shows up to 
work on time. We can have an investigation started but it won't matter as much."

"She, she'll be worse to them if, if she has the, my child. She has threatened beating them 
in the past in front of me. I, I don't know if she has hit them before but…She, she's 
unbelievably mean to them. I've seen them break down in tears before when she yelled at 
them," Joan couldn't stand the notion of her beautiful flower being hurt.

"So…?" William asked impatiently.

"So what?" Greg opened his mini fridge and grabbed out three bottled waters. He slid 
two across the desk on coasters while he searched for an analgesic for his headache. 

"So what legal recourse do we have?" William asked.

"Not much," he answered plainly, finding the pill bottle. He popped four in his hand 
before downing them with a swig of water.

"What?" Joan hadn't held out the most hope for her situation, but if there were something 
she could do she wanted to do it. 

"Look, the feminists have fought for the right for a woman to choose to abort her fetus 
for over six centuries. Like it or not it's the law, okay? We can't write the laws." He said 
apologetically.

"Look Greg, don't pin me as some ultra conservative ok? It's one thing for people who 
choose abortion. Maybe I don't agree with it but that's their right and I believe they have 
the right, even if I disagree with the choice. But this isn't choice, she is being made to 
abort it," William was happy to finally be able to voice his opinion.

"How is she being made to do it? The evidence is slim at best. Ok, let me put it this way. 
If it were a man in this situation it would all be the same. It's a woman's choice over her 
body, and like it or not the paternal parent has no say over it, whether it's a man or a 
futanari," he shrugged.

"So is that all you can do for me?" William started to get up.

"Hey, hey. Now don't get all pissy. I said we couldn't write the laws. I didn't say we 
couldn't do anything about them. That's what I do for a living. And the thing here is that 
she can't force her child to have an abortion. The problem is actually creating the case. 
But it isn't the issue of proving it, it's finding enough evidence to start a case. Once we 
start it we can, delay it. If we can delay it for two weeks then the child will reach the first 
trimester and can't be aborted. If she so chooses. And this is all a moot point, for now at 
least. That is why I needed to know if it was consensual. Any child conceived from rape 
or incest can be aborted up until the second trimester." he sat forward. 

"But, she, she's making her," Joan tried to explain.

"No, you don't understand, she is not allowed to force her child to do anything about the 
unborn fetus. This is straight coercion. She cannot force Rose to do anything about her 
child. The feminists fought for the parent of the child to have the right to have it. It 
doesn't matter about her mom. If she is forcing her child that it's not just straight 
coercion, it's premeditated infanticide. That's murder, in the first degree, and can hold a 
possible life sentence in prison," Greg leaned back, he hadn't been this worked up in a 
legal fashion for a while.

"First thing we have to do is get testimony from the young Rose Cole," he thought aloud.

"She, needs to testify?" Joan asked. She didn't know about the legal system and wished 
that she wouldn't need to get her sweet flower involved.

"Her testimony would be just about the entire case," he hadn't even thought about this 
kind of stuff in a long time. He was usually on the other end, trying to disprove the 
evidence.

"She'll testify. She has to testify," Joan said forcefully.

"She had better," Greg noted.

"It won't be easy," William said. "I half expect her to file a restraining order."

"I can get a judge to look at our case, but you're right, this isn't going to be easy. This 
isn't something I shouldn't be doing really. This is something that should be taken care of 
by an assistant district attorney. But now that I've found out about it, I'm required to 
report it as an officer of the justice. If we make the case that a minor is being coerced into 
abortion…it won't hold up for long without evidence, but if we can get a shred of 
evidence it doesn't have to hold up for that long," Greg scratched the short stubble of his 
facial hair. "Just long enough for an investigation to start."

"What?" Joan wasn't sure what was he was talking about.

"I know I can find a judge to look at this. They're required to do this expeditiously. If 
they agree that there is enough evidence to warrant an investigation then the cops get 
involved. Then it would go to start an evidentiary judicature. That is where a group of 
judges look at information pertaining to a case, and determine whether or not it should go 
to a jury or not. That is a notoriously long process, and if we get that far you'll be 
bouncing your baby on your knee before they're anywhere near finished," he sighed.

"And what about Rose and Matt?" Joan asked.

"Hmm, they could possibly wind up in a foster family. And don't even think you could 
offer it Willy because it wouldn't fly," he held his hand up. 

"What about her dad? Could they live with him?" she asked.

"Depends," he pondered. "It's the judge's discretion, usually it goes to a grandparent, or 
aunt or uncle. Sometimes a brother or sister if they are of age. Unless she decides to 
expatriate herself. Of course if she was doing that none of this would be much of a 
problem."

"But her dad, he, he got a new job and he's even paid all the back child support!" Joan 
tried to reason.

"Hmm, it's possible. Can't say it's likely or it will happen but it's possible," he 
acknowledged.

"So what do we do now?" William asked. He looked at the clock, it was almost nine. But 
he felt a hell of a lot better now than he had an hour ago. Even if it was cautious 
optimism.

"We need a judge. Convince them to allow us to start an investigation. This will probably 
go to an assistant DA. I might be able to stay on and help, they should subpoena Rose 
Cole for her testimony, and get whatever evidence we can. Probably her whole family 
too, definitely her mother, but we need her first. We take that to court and hope that the 
testimony is enough to get a trial," he almost pushed the communicator on his desk that 
went to his secretary Eileen out of habit before realizing that she wasn't working today.

"What about Judge Hawthorne?" Joan looked with the first optimism that she had shown 
in some time. "I've known him since I was a kid, I used to play with his son. You've 
known him forever daddy!"

"Which is exactly why we can't use him," William said to his daughter. It pained him to 
watch that glimmer of hope in her eyes seem to dim.

"Your father is right, unfortunately because of the nature of his friendship with your 
father, he would have to recluse himself from any case involving your family," Greg 
agreed. It was a shame, he and Reginald Hawthorne had been friends in the past as well. 
Since their relationship had been professional in nature it was different than William's. It 
wasn't like every judge could never speak to nor preside over anything with their old 
acquaintances. Or drinking buddies.

"Reggie can still find someone who will be more…sympathetic to our cause," William 
thought aloud.

"And ensure that they will listen to our case, if nothing else," Greg looked out of his 
window. Part of him wished that he were in bed. But there was a big part of him that 
looked at this case as a chance to do something besides getting deadbeats and alcoholics 
off the hook. Maybe it was a chance to get his deadbeat alcoholic self off of the hook. But 
when he looked at Joan he was reminded of something important that he had forgotten to 
say.

"Joan, this is important. I can't guarantee you that I'll succeed. The state requires that I 
make this clear, but this is important for you to know as well. I may lose. I won't lie to 
you. But I'm your lawyer, and I'm here to do whatever I can," he said, watching her 
cautious optimism. "Now let's find us a judge who isn't playing golf on a Saturday 
morning. A rarer beast than a tyrannosaurus rex." He said with what he hoped was a 
reassuring grin.

*
3

Judge Julio LaGuardia thought that he had seen just about everything. He had spent over 
twenty years in private practice and was nearing the decade mark for his service as a 
judge. He was considered by many of his contemporaries to be a liberal judge, largely in 
part for his previous rulings upholding the rights of individuals as guaranteed by the 
Planetary Doctrine. As though the law was something that could truly be interpreted in 
this day and age. Futanaris were simply granted equal rights, it was written in the law, 
and just because he read the law as saying they would be guaranteed all rights that were 
established for any other gender he was considered a liberal. He felt he was more a 
moderate in any case. 

He was considered by some to be on the fast track to politics. A minority in the area, he 
was intelligent, charismatic, and handsome, even at fifty-five. He was well liked for his 
eloquence on turbulent political issues, even though he had no interest in any kind of high 
office. He was more interested in the Planetary Judicature, a higher office and an even 
more exclusive club.

As he looked at the court document being presented to him he wondered if this case was 
going to hurt or help him. He also wondered if being branded with the term 'liberal 
judge' had forced this case on his desk and not someone else's.

"Mr. White, what exactly are you trying to prove today?" he asked, lifting the pad.

"Your honor it is cut and dry. My client has had relations with Ms. Cole and the result of 
their relations was pregnancy. Now that child is going to be aborted, and we seek to 
prove that Rose Cole is being coerced by her mother to unwillingly terminate that 
pregnancy," he argued, thankful for the chance to get a coffee and shave. He needed to 
look the part, if nothing more than for his own confidence. 

"That's based on nothing but hearsay and conjecture," he pointed out. "Hardly cut and 
dry."

"Your honor my client is willing to testify," he started to say, motioning towards Joan 
with his arm.

"Your client is the one offering the hearsay and conjecture," he pointed out, cutting him 
off.

"She is a witness your honor," he retorted.

"This is very light on evidence, Mister White," he dropped the pad disappointedly on his 
desk. "Next to nothing."

"You are correct your honor, which is why we are seeking to subpoena the subject of the 
coercion, Ms. Rose Cole, along with her mother, the rest of her family, and all pertinent 
medical files," he said plainly.

"And why are you doing this, just based on a hunch?" he asked skeptically. 

"Your honor we have an obligation to discover whatever evidence her testimony may 
provide, to prevent a crime already in the making," he tried lawyer double speak, which 
amounted to 'We should do this because I think it's a good idea'.

"Abortion isn't a crime Mr. White," he noted the obvious with evident sarcasm.

"But coercion is Judge LaGuardia," he countered, with honest sincerity, or at least as 
close as lawyers come to it. "And as officers of justice we are bound not just by law but 
by our own honor to investigate this."

"And why should I believe this is anything but a jilted lover who is upset?" LaGuardia 
asked the devil's advocate question.

"Your honor, my client is far from a jilted lover. She is a concerned parent, and has 
presented this evidence for the court," he countered.

"And just why are we doing it this way? Why are you presenting the evidence like this? I 
know you and the police have no love lost, but this all needs to go to the police," he 
didn't like it when lawyers got inventive about how the legal system was supposed to 
operate.

"Your honor, I just received the news I am presenting to the court today. If I were to 
bring it to the police they would need to have to return here once Amanda and Rose Cole 
decline to come willingly. Considering the interests of my client and of justice, coupled 
with the constraints that time places upon this investigation, I acted in the best interests of 
both my client and justice," Greg knew that he was playing a little fast and loose with 
everything. But he didn't want this buried and he owed it to William to do what he could.

"I'm willing to allow for Ms. Cole to come in for questioning by the police. Considering 
the nature of this investigation, and the role that time plays as a factor, we will have to 
have Ms. Rose Cole summoned in at the earliest possible convenience. This is a grave 
accusation Mr. White, I hope that you haven't brought this to the court's attention 
erroneously. However, this is now a state investigation. I'm also assigning an assistant 
district attorney to the case, who will be running it Mr. White, not you. Everything will 
be done in accordance with the law, and I will not allow you to circumvent anything else 
Mr. White. You will be allowed to tag along if your client will pay you to do so, but only 
in and advisory role. Court is adjourned," he said, tapping his gavel.

"We won?" Joan asked, slightly confused from all of the court speech. 

"Not exactly. We just haven't lost this fight. We still haven't even fired the first shot of 
the war," Greg whispered into her ear. "But we just got permission to fire it."

*

Michael Vance sighed as he knocked on the door to the house. He hated serving 
summons and hated taking in children even more so. He didn't know the details really, he 
usually didn't. Somehow it was easier for him to not know about it. It seemed insensitive 
but he had a half dozen of these kinds of things a week, and most of them were pretty 
depressing. Domestic disturbances always were. Police work wasn't quite what he had 
expected. He had imagined being a hero. He preferred chasing after a petty thief or a 
carjacker, it was much more satisfying. His partner Denise in the car gave him a look 
from behind the wheel. It was his turn to go and get them. Next time was hers, and so on.

He waited, wishing that the prick of a lawyer Greg White wasn't next to him. He wasn't a 
fan of Mr. White's work, usually getting drunk drivers or drug users off the hook on a 
technicality. Essentially he was negating the tough part of his job. There were worse of 
course, he wasn't good or popular enough to get any of the big time drug pushers, 
although Michael wouldn't be surprised if he would try. 

'At least one of our guy's is in charge,' Michael thought, looking over at Steven Jackson, 
the DA behind him. He had known and trusted Steven for some time now. Sort of looked 
up to him, as a father type figure. He knew the legal system in and out, was willing to do 
what he had to, and didn't mind having another cup of coffee to stay up late, even at his 
age.

"Mrs. Amanda Cole?" he asked to the figure that opened the door.

"It's Ms. Cole, and what the hell are you doing here?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

"We have to take your daughter, Rose Cole, downtown for questioning" he said, holding 
up the paper to her face. "You have to come down too ma'am."

"Mom?" Rose asked, looking at the policeman through the crack between her mother and 
the wall.

"What the hell are you talking about?" her mother asked, putting her body between the 
policeman and her daughter. 

"It's all in the pad ma'am. I'm afraid that we have to have you come down to the court 
now," he knew this wasn't going well.

"The hell I am!" she said, infuriately as she read the line about 'coercion'.

"Ma'am, if you don't come along willingly, then we're going to have to force you two to 
come in. I'd suggest that you and your daughter come without resistance. It makes my 
job and your life easier," he said, glancing down at his sidearm. It was a standard issue 
neural disruptor. Ever since they had perfected the weapons they had replaced guns as the 
standard weapon for the police force. "Besides, resisting arrest or having to come in 
shackled only makes you look guilty in the long run ma'am."

"This is ridiculous! This is an outrage!" Amanda shouted furiously. 

"Mom, if we have to go, we have to go," Rose said, pushing her younger brother back. 
"But why?"

"And just what do you know about this young lady?" Amanda looked at her daughter 
suspiciously.

"I, I don't know anything mom, honest," Rose protested, albeit weakly. All eyes fell on 
her, expecting something.

"We will explain that to you on the way there," Greg said, stepping up behind the cop.

"And who the hell are you?" Amanda asked angrily.

"I'm Greg White. My client is the one who is bringing the charges against you," he said, 
offering his identification.

"And who the hell is your client?" spittle flew out her mouth as she asked, falling onto 
his suit.

"Joan Brown," he said, watching the anger on her face flare to an as of yet unseen level. 
He wondered if she was going to strike him for a moment. He had hoped she would, it 
would help make their case.

"That's more than enough Greg, I told you to keep it down here. My name is Steven 
Jackson, and I'm in charge of this case. And Joan Brown is the one who has brought the 
evidence forward, but it is the state that is running this investigation, and who will be the 
one to bring up charges," he said definitively. He bore no love for his 'partner' in this 
instance.

Rose looked at him, mouthing the name of her love, Joan. The black cloud that she had 
been under for the last few days seemed get even worse, if only just a little bit. When she 
looked at her brother, and her mother, she knew that whatever this appointment was 
going to be was useless. She couldn't fuck up her family.

*

The odd thing about the legal system in the late twenty sixth century is that they went 
quick, unlike their counterparts in the previous centuries and governments. A number of 
different factors had gone into that. First and foremost, people no longer wanted to wait 
to deal with these kinds of issues. People were used to instant gratification for so long 
that the kind of fast food in the twentieth century seemed archaic and slow. The food 
blenders were a great example of this, capable of making almost any kind of preset meal 
in just a couple of minutes. The government was forced to deal with this expected 
expediency, and with enough political pressure put on the government, the amount of 
judges were increased to almost ten times what they had been. This had the effect of 
thinning out the remaining lawyers, who were not as thorough or adept in their efforts, 
and helped to make cases quicker. 

Additionally, judges had been granted more power over deciding the outcome of cases, 
particularly minor felonies, and misdemeanors. Less juries made for quicker trials, even 
when there was more crimes, statistically. Advances in criminal identification technology 
had been advanced to the point where even the most basic of crimes were almost 
impossible, and there were so many cameras and general information tools utilized by 
most houses and business that there always seemed to be a plethora of information. It 
made crimes almost not worth it. Almost.

Steven Jackson sighed, looking at the police office. He wondered who was giving up 
their office right now. He didn't spend a lot of time down at police headquarters. While 
he had helped during police investigations, it was rarely done in an office chair, with 
someone so young. It was more often in a holding cell, something he much rather 
preferred. He scratched the white hair atop his head. 

"How is she holding up?" Steve asked the policeman who picked her up, Michael Vance.

"Well enough I guess. She's scared, afraid of something but won't say what. We checked 
her file, and everything is clean. Never had a bruise on her body that didn't have half a 
dozen witnesses. This isn't the turn of the millennium here, people keep a much closer 
eye on child abuse. The mother has had one OUI, that's it," he said disappointedly. One 
'Operating Under the Influence' didn't make for much of a case of alcohol abuse. It 
might if she was drunk at the time, but no such luck.

"Not too many bruises though?" Steven knew that he would bring it up if it were true, but 
he had to ask.

"Nothing out of the realm of a normal girl growing up," Mike knew the question was 
coming but had to answer it regardless.

"Her brother?" he thought aloud.

"He has a broken arm on file, said on the medical report that it was from falling out a 
tree, not too much there though," Mike said, knowing it wouldn't be enough. But he had 
done his due diligence in the case, as he always did.

"What about the father?" Steven asked, never one to give up quickly.

"He's had a bit of a file. Cheated on his wife with a futanari, one Ellen Deossie. When his 
wife found out she was pissed. I guess they always are, aren't they?" Mike chuckled a bit 
to himself.

"Not unless he's got a few billion she can take as a consolation prize. Wouldn't say I 
blame them much, I was pretty pissed when my wife cheated on me," Steve stared out 
into space for a moment. His wife had divorced him ten year ago, but it still hurt, just like 
his bum leg. He knew that with some nanobots treatment they could fix it in a jiffy, but 
he kept it, for some reason. Probably his own foolish pride.

"Divorced him, took full custody of the kids. The mother has had expressed some anti-
futanari sentiments in her court case, but hell just about anyone would be bitter. Anyway, 
he lost his job just after their divorce, and moved in with Ms. Deossie. He wasn't 
required to pay child support, so he didn't pay for over six months. Ms. Cole has said in 
court that she believed he was working under the table and denying the assistance. A 
tough thing to accomplish these days, but still possible if he's inventive with the way he 
files his taxes. He got a job, and from his income statement he paid almost a hundred 
percent of his wages voluntarily in back child support until he paid it in full. Hasn't 
missed a payment since. He's petitioned for joint custody now that his life's in order, but 
the case is pending," Mike had a particularly good memory, a boon for a police officer. 
He relied more on his partner Denise to keep track of the intuitive side of the job.

"Got my work cut out for me huh?" Steven thought aloud.

"Maybe, maybe not. Just keep an eye out, we got nothing on her mom and if she decides 
to stop cooperating, then this case is as dead as Josiah Smith," Mike thought aloud. "And 
she looks like she's about to cry for a lawyer any minute."

"Thanks for the support," Steve said, finishing the cup of coffee before he tossed it into 
the recycling bin. He shouldn't have been drinking this much coffee, or working 
Saturdays at his age, but he didn't really care too much for what he should be doing. He 
had gotten along fine for sixty years at doing what he wanted, and he wasn't going to let 
his retirement fund take too much of a hit by taking short weeks. He was one of the few 
old school people who worked that remembered M-day and the hell that happened after 
that. If nuclear holocaust couldn't stop him from getting out of bed, then he wasn't about 
to let old age slow him down.

He sighed and opened the door, trying to put on the 'nice grandfatherly' look that worked 
well, from what he had been told. He had remembered when he was putting on the 'suave 
handsome young lawyer' act to convince the lookers. But now he resembled more a 
duteous and jolly grandfather. For him duteous read as old and jolly read as fat. He 
flashed a smile and closed the door, and hobbled towards the coat rack.

"Afternoon Miss Cole, may I call you Rose?" he asked, hanging his clothes up.

"Yeah. I mean, it's my name," she said. "What is this all about?"

"Well, I'll get into that in just a moment. But first things are first. Everything we say is 
being recorded for legal purposes. You have the right to have an attorney here at any 
time, if you want. You can ask for one now and I don't have anything to do but wait until 
he shows up. I can't ask you a thing. Or if you'd like, we can save a whole lot of time and 
trouble, and you can just talk to me and we can try to settle everything out, without 
involving a whole bunch of lawyers or cops, just you and me. And if you don't want to 
talk anymore, just ask for a lawyer, and I'll have one come in just as soon as I can flash 
on the ambulance lights. Does that sound okay?" Steve smiled warmly.

"I, I'll talk to you. I mean, I don't need a lawyer," Rose thought for a moment and added 
"But I don't have anything to say."

"That's fine, that's fine. You hungry? Thirsty? Need something to drink?" he asked, a 
classical move to establish some emotional bond of trust between them. "I can't 
guarantee that the coffee is any good, but the vending machine stuff is alright. They can't 
manage to bungle up soda or candy bar."

"No thanks," she glanced out at the window. She had expected a two way mirror, but it 
was right out into the police department, with people filing in and out.

"You sure? I hear you're eating for two now," he gestured towards the door before giving 
that up. "Well if you change your mind just let me know. Now anyway, what can you tell 
me about your mom?"

"She's…my mom. That's it," she said defensively.

"Whoa, hey, I'm not trying to say anything about her, she seems like a fine woman, and I 
admired the way that she defended her children back there," he said, pretending to be 
hurt. He hobbled towards the chair and sat down across from her.

"Yeah," she squinted her eyes, trying to understand what his game was.

"I guess it won't get a chance to run in the family, at least this early," he said, a little 
pensively.

"Is that what this is about?" she wanted to get through this.

"You want to know what this is about? This is about some pain in the keister lawyer 
coming in and trying to tell me how to do my job. And now I have to come in and clean 
up the mess he's making," Steve shook his head. He hated vilifying people, especially 
since this was the one rare case that he knew about when Greg White was actually doing 
something useful for society. But he still owed society a couple hundred, and he wanted 
to sound like he was on her side. 

"I don't know what you mean," she said, rubbing her bare arms. She felt exposed being 
questioned. 

"Well let me put it this way, you're pregnant, right?" he asked, not really waiting for the 
answer. "And the fraternal parent is?" he asked.

"Joan Brown," she said dejectedly, as though she was reporting she hadn't done her 
homework.

"Now Ms. Brown has come in and is making some pretty strong claims," he tried to lull 
her into a trick.

"Oh," Rose bit her bottom lip a little. 'Did she tell them what I told her?' she wondered to 
herself.

"Now, I have to go around and do all of this stuff just to clean up the mess they're 
making. Okay, let's just start taking care of business, shall we? It says here that you're 
going to get an abortion. So your mom, she is encouraging you to have this abortion?" he 
asked, trying to make it sound as harmless as possible.

"Yes. I mean, she's not making me," Rose added quickly, recalling what she had told 
Joan. 'Why is she doing this to me?' she wondered bleakly to herself.

"I never said anything of the like," he replied, thinking 'Bingo!' "Why do you want to 
have an abortion?"

"I do, I just do is all. I'm not ready for a child," she searched her mind for a reason. She 
hadn't actually expected to be questioned for this decision. She neither wanted to admit 
to the reason she had given Joan, nor the real reason. 

"I see, and just out of curiosity, why not put it up for adoption?" he asked aloud.

"I, I just," Rose stuttered, lacking for anything to say.

"Would your mother want you to go through it all? Even to put it up for adoption?" he 
wondered aloud. She didn't bother saying anything, and he left it at that. He didn't want 
to press her. She was close and it wouldn't have meant a hill of beans to get the answer to 
that specific question. "Anyway, how about your girlfriend."

"What about Joan?" Rose asked, her lip quivering ever so slightly. Most people wouldn't 
pick up on it, but Steve did.

"How did you two end it?" he asked, knowing the answer.

"We, we didn't break up," she glanced out the window.

"Oh, well I just assumed. You know, jilted lover comes in and wants to stop her ex from 
doing something. Happens all the time, usually involves kids. Or money. Or both." he 
knew well enough from experience.

"No, I, me and Joan, we," Rose didn't know how to explain her relationship.

"How does she feel about the abortion? I mean, I guess it's pretty obvious, she doesn't 
want it to happen right?" he thought aloud.

"I, I mean she wants me to keep my, our baby," Rose felt a wave of guilt come over her 
by admitting that it was their baby. As opposed to just an unborn fetus.

"Oh, that's got to drive a wedge between the two of you," he noted.

"I, I mean, we, we both love each other," Rose mumbled.

"Oh never said you didn't. I just meant, abortion, that's got to be a hell of a thing to get in 
the middle of a relationship," he noted. "Worse than kids."

"I, I have the right t, to," she tried to defend herself.

"I never said you didn't. Abortion is your legal right and there is nothing stopping you 
from making that decision. I'm not even going to judge you. A woman has a right to 
make decisions about her own body. I'm not a woman and I can't even begin to tell one 
what to do with her own body. Maybe some thickheaded guys who don't even know how 
to take care of their own body think they know better than you do about your body. 
That's not me. I guess my main point was that it is a big decision for your relationship," 
he added quickly. Whether it was true or not was regardless, women and futanari simply 
had the right. It was like telling someone that they couldn't vote. He personally did 
believe in the right to choose in any case. 

"Ms. Cole, has your mom ever been mean to you?" he knew she was close to the edge, 
and he couldn't push her much. But he had to push her a little.

"I, I mean she's my mom, she gets upset sometimes," Rose admitted. "But she never hit 
me or my brother."

"Never said she did. Has she ever verbally assaulted you?" he asked plainly, like he was 
asking if she wanted fries with it.

"N-no," she answered.

"She's never yelled at you? Maybe had a bad day and expected a little too much from 
you, nothing like that?" he asked.

"Not really. She's just my mom, when I do something wrong she tells me," she mumbled.

"So she doesn't yell? Not at all, not even if you stay out late, or flunk a test?" he asked, 
pausing for dramatic effect, "Or come home pregnant?"

Rose winced at the last question, and decided to ignore it. "Well, she's my mom. She 
expects a lot from me, and I don't always live up to it."

"Ok, has she ever threatened to do something?" he asked. Silence. "Has your mom ever 
threatened to do anything else to you, anything extraordinary?" Again there was silence. 
He sighed.

'She's not going to cooperate.' He realized. 'She's afraid.' He lamented the situation. He 
knew that he couldn't do anything right now. She was going to defend her mother 
because she was scared. But he didn't know what it was she was scared of. Was it fear of 
her girlfriend, her mom, getting an abortion, or just being picked up by the police? Or 
was it something else?

Rose was scared, and she wasn't willing to tell the police officer much of anything. What 
she was scared of the most was herself, and the tangled mess she had caught herself in. 
And what she would have to do, have to say, have to act, to try to get herself out of that 
mess, and try to keep her family and her love intact.

"How is your brother doing?" he asked, trying to change the subject. Rose thought of her 
brother Matt. She remembered the scared eyes of her little brother, he didn't know what 
was happening, and he was stuck, caught in the middle with no choices. She loved Joan 
with all of her heart, but couldn't bear to be the cause of pain to her brother, emotional or 
otherwise, even if it was at the sake of her child. She knew that she could always have 
another child, but she would never have another brother. The decision was certainly not 
an easy one, and she felt that she was trading the potential of life for that of her brother, 
and her love, as well as her mother. But there was nothing she felt she could do. She had 
already written this child off. 

"He's, he's good," she mumbled, not really paying much attention to him.

"You care for him?" he asked, nodding in agreement to his own question.

"Of course, he's my brother," she answered.

"You know, I never want something bad to happen to children. Unfortunately, I have to 
deal with this kind of stuff all the time. Kids like him don't deserve bad things," he tried 
to lead her, see if he could pull her back off of the edge.

"H, huh?" she said.

"A kid like that should be worried about girls and the high score on three dimensional 
holo-games. They shouldn't have to worry about bad stuff. About being yelled at for no 
reason, or punished without cause," he paused for dramatic effect. "He shouldn't have to 
be beaten."

"He, my mom never, never beat him! I, I think I want," Rose almost asked for her 
attorney, but was interrupted just in time.

"Do you want to keep the child?" he asked plainly. 

"What?" she asked, surprised.

"Do you want to have that child, do you want it to be born?" he wondered aloud.

"I can't have the child," she said.

"That's not what I asked. Do you want to bear that child? Or is someone trying to stop 
you from having that child?"

 "I," Rose said, thinking of the scared face of her brother, and the dour face of her lover. 

"It's ok, listen to me. You can expatriate yourself, it means that you leave your mother's 
care," he tried to give her that glimmer of hope, that rope to grab out of the darkness. 
"And not just you. We can help you, but we can protect your brother also. Your father 
has been contacted, and from his past interest in joint custody, he can become the 
guardian of you, and your brother. If you testify anything, we can protect you two, and 
your child," he said softly. He looked into her eyes, she was about to break, one way or 
the other.

"I, I just can't," she said, bursting into tears. She had been crying for almost four straight 
days now, with all of the stress and emotions and hormones running through her body. 
What was worse is that he couldn't understand, and she couldn't explain it to him. she did 
the only thing that she had left to do. "I want a lawyer!"

"I understand," he said, wishing he had a handkerchief to console her. Or a get out of jail 
free card so that he could yell her out. "One last thing."

"You, you said, you, you would stop asking, me questions," Rose said between sobs.

"I did, and I will," he said. "But I can still tell you something. Listen to me, the 
investigation on your mother is going to be ongoing. I don't know if there is something 
there or not, but believe me when I say that I want to help you, and your brother. If you 
ever find anything out and can tell me I can have you with your father faster than you can 
say nine-one-one. Your mother can't stop us, we are the supreme protectors of the land. 
With even the smallest peep we can take care of everything. Don't forget that. People 
want to help. Me, those police officers out there, and your girlfriend. Don't forget."

*
4

"The investigation is all but dead," Steven Jackson sighed, walking onto the steps of the 
police department. His trusty cane helped him down the steps, he wouldn't admit defeat 
enough to actually use the ramp or the lift.

"And as a bonus I'm really going to hear it, plenty of judges wouldn't mind if I were 
disbarred." Greg couldn't fake the depression he had. Fighting the good fight was nice for 
a change of pace, but he had forgotten that you sometimes lose the good fight too.

"What?" William asked bewildered. He hadn't been privy to the questioning and how 
poorly it had gone. He and Joan had just waited for the last three hours without as much 
as a peep from anyone, except to say that they had been safely brought in for questioning.

"Oh don't worry there's a good old boy's network I should be ok," Greg said 
sarcastically. 

"What did you think would happen? The entire case was centered around her testimony 
and she wouldn't speak!" Steven wasn't happy about losing, and he was unfairly taking 
his stress out on them.

"Nobody said a word. We've inspected every single piece of datum on file. Everything," 
Greg had lent a hand helping, doing 'grunt work', something he wasn't used to.

"We looked over everyone's medical and police record. Everything is clean. The only 
one left is the father, and he is apparently out of town right now. But unless he brings up 
something extraordinary, we have nothing to go on," Steve hated to admit it. 

"So, it's, over?" Joan asked.

"I'm afraid for now the chance for a court case is over," Steve knew in his heart that 
something was going on right now, but he couldn't fight it. "We couldn't get a single 
piece of testimony that said anything we could use. The brother wouldn't say a word, the 
mother only spoke through her lawyer, and the girl barely said anything."

"But this isn't over, not the investigation," Greg added.

"No, that is true. We're talking to every teacher, doctor, little league coach, neighbor, 
principle, friends, coworkers, and anyone else that we can get a hold of. Hell we'll talk to 
the pizza deliveryman if he has anything to add. They are going to start making monthly 
appointments to the office of child services, and they're going to put them under a 
microscope. But there isn't a thing we can do now. She says she wants to abort the child, 
and with only Joan's testimony, this case looks like a spurned lover trying desperately to 
affect something beyond her control," Steven knew the legal system in and out. You can't 
make a case without a shred of evidence. So did Greg, but he spent his time trying to 
shred that evidence.

"What about an appeal?" William thought aloud.

"You can't appeal a case that hasn't been filed in court. The investigation didn't even get 
to the point of a court date, let alone anywhere near a verdict which we could appeal. We 
could try to submit the case, but we can only submit it if there's new evidence. Or 
evidence to begin with. And the only new evidence we could get would be from Rose, or 
maybe her brother, and if they don't say it then we can't make them," he said, knowing 
he was taking a defeatist attitude. But he had to tell them straight.

"So it's over," Joan said, resigned. 

"Look, I'm sorry, I did what I could. And if there's anything else that I can do I will. 
We're having everyone we can down in the police department go over everything that 
they can about Amanda Cole and trying to see if there is anything I can use. Take my 
card, and call me if you find out anything new. If we can prove that she's beat her 
children she will lose custody still," Greg said, holding out his communicator. Unlike in 
the past, people no longer put out actual cards but images of cards, it was greener, 
cheaper, and easier on both ends. 

"Ok," she sighed, not having the emotional strength to lift her eyes from the floor. 
"Thanks." 

"Your welcome. And I am really, really sorry," he said, shaking William's hand. He 
couldn't even look his old friend in the eye.

*
 
Joan walked around her house like a zombie, aimless and emotionless. The day had 
drained her of every resource that she had. She was numb, physically, emotionally, and 
spiritually. Her sisters tried to engage her in conversation, but she didn't want to talk. 
They all made their efforts but ultimately knew that she needed her space. They didn't 
hesitate to check up on her, just to be safe.

Joan tried to eat, tried to watch television, and to play games. She tried to talk to her 
friends and go through her wardrobe. She even tried to do homework. But her heart 
simply wasn't in anything. She felt like it had been terminated.

So instead she just went to her bed and clutched the soft crimson body pillow, seizing 
onto it for some feeling of attachment. The radio was playing but she didn't really hear it. 
It just provided some background noise, something that filled the air. If she had the 
forethought she might have put on melancholy music, or a depressing film. Were she 
truly of the mind she may perchance have read a play most somber. Instead it was the 
normal brand of bubble pop that she was accustomed to listening to. It seemed in and of 
itself sadder, a perfect idea of happiness and satisfaction that she wouldn't be able to 
achieve, all wrapped up in a two minute and thirty second jingle to sell clothing 
accessories.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she could hear the loud thudding of footsteps running 
up the stairs. It was more the vibrations of the footsteps than the actual sound of the steps. 
There was only one of her sisters who ever scaled the stairway so, her sister with the 
speech impediment, Jamie. She looked towards the door, noticing that she hadn't closed 
it. Her little sister's body ran in front, almost skidding past it. 

"Joan!" Jamie shouted, out of breath. "I got a phone cawl for you!"

Joan looked at Jamie, blankly, emotionlessly.

"It's Wose!" Jamie held the family phone up to her, like she was presenting a gift.

"Wh," Joan coughed, she hadn't spoke in some time. "What?"

"It's Wose, she wants to tawk to you!" she said, thrusting the phone in her hand.

"R, Rose?" Joan said, unsure of how to act.

"Joan, I, I can't talk for long," she said, taking a deep breath to say what she felt she 
needed to be said.

"Why, why didn't you tell them the truth?" Joan asked, unable to comprehend her 
actions.

"I, please understand Joan. I love my mom, and my brother. My mom, she, she's just had 
a hard time of it, ok? I mean my dad, well, he was never there for me, never there for any 
of us. When I was growing up, I just thought it was normal, you know? He was out all 
day, and mom stayed at home the whole time, it was just how things were supposed to be. 
One parent earns the bread, one takes care of the family," Rose tried to phrase her 
explanation in the best possible light.

"And when we found out he had cheated on mom, she, we couldn't stand it. That's why I 
hid you from her, because of the affair. Dad cheated on her, on us, with a futanari. Ellen," 
she said, the spite in her voice was unmistakable about the person who had broken up her 
family. 

"Mom hasn't been the same since. She became more strict. She was worried about us, 
worried that we, that we would leave her too. That we would betray her too. Mom has 
been the only one there for me. Even when dad was there, he wasn't really there, not like 
mom was. I can't let her get in trouble, or go to jail. And I don't trust my dad, I hardly 
know him." Rose stopped short of explaining everything. She had rehearsed this before, 
and it was going about as poorly as she expected.

"And it's ok, really it's ok. I mean, I talked to my mom. She's gonna let me keep seeing 
you! She's just gonna put me on the pill. We can still be together, but I just, I have to do 
this. Please don't hate me Joan, I couldn't stand it if you hated me," she blurted out as 
quickly as she could. She was trying to spare everyone's feelings at the same time. 

"I, I don't hate you," Joan said, trying to absorb all of the information. "I, I love you."

"I love you too Joanne. I love you with all of my heart and my soul. This, it's not as 
important as us. We can always be together, and we can always be with each other, and 
have another one later in our lives. When we're ready, when we can have a dozen kids. I 
swear it. But not now. Please, just, just let me do this. Just let me do what I have to do, to 
take care of what I have to do. And we can be together! We can still be together!" Rose 
choked, trying to stifle the tears. She wanted, she needed to be brave now, to get through 
the toughest of times.

"We can be together, but only if you, if our baby is, is," Joan bit her lip hard. She could 
taste blood but she didn't care. She was numb to physical pain right now, and the mental 
anguish was worse than any physical blow.

"Please, just, please understand me. I love you, and nothing will ever change that. 
Nothing. I'll love you with every breath in my lungs and every beat of my heart." She 
paused for a moment, to let the weight of those words fill the air. "But I love my mom 
too. I care about her and my brother. I have to put them ahead of myself. This baby inside 
of me isn't as important to me right now as the rest of the people I care about in my life," 
Rose tried desperately to explain how she felt, without explaining everything away. 

"But it means so much to me," Joan said quietly, barely louder than a whisper. "It means 
so much to me."

"I, I'm sorry Joan. I love you, I love you so much and I can't stand to be without you. If I 
do this I can be with you, can't you see?" Rose tried to paint the nicest picture she could. 
She was near her wit's end.

"Are, are you still going to do it? I mean, are you still going to have the abortion, at the 
same time that you said that you would?" Joan asked, feeling striped of her emotions.

"Yes," Rose didn't know what else to say. She didn't know if there would be something 
else to say.

"Can I be there?" Joan wanted to be there, in case there was a chance that she could do 
something. 

Rose was silent for a moment. She knew that having her there would only make it all the 
harder. Talking to her now was difficult, with the distance of a suburb keeping the two 
separated. Together, in person, she felt would be almost impossible. Her futafriend was 
very persuasive without being forceful. 

But, on the other hand, she also knew that her love had the right. And as much as it 
pained her to do so, she knew that she should allow her to be there. She wished that she 
could just take the easy way out, that she could just be done with the entire thing and let 
their relationship just return to what it was before her unplanned parenthood.

"Yes, if, if you want to be there you can. But no matter what, I have to get this child out 
of me. I can't let you stop me for that. Please believe me Joan, I'm doing what I think is 
best for everyone," Rose rested her head in her hand.

"I, I just think that there is something else that we can do," Joan stared at the calendar. 
The abortion was planned for two days from now, Monday. Less than forty-eight more 
hours until her child's life became a dream. Or her nightmare.

"I, I have to go now," she said, looking over her shoulder. "I love you."

"I love you too," Joan said. "I'll see you the day after tomorrow."

"Yeah. Goodbye," Rose nodded and turned the communicator off. 

Joan looked at the phone, and threw it outside of her still open door. It smashed against 
the wall, landing in one piece. She would have rather it exploded in a million exploding 
bits. That would have felt nicer to her. She didn't bother to watch Jamie, who had been 
watching the entire conversation, bring the phone back downstairs,

*

Joan lulled the depths of despair, sadness filling her every thought. She grasped onto her 
body pillow as she lay in bed. She would be weeping but her eyes held no more tears. As 
dry as her eyes were, her soul felt more scorched. She still felt numb inside, like she had 
experienced all the love she would, and all of the sorrow that she ever could. Everything 
she had cared about before had seemed so childish, so unimportant, and foolhardy. 
Scanty clothes, popularity, and dances. So much of her time and energy had been spent 
and invested in something that was so meaningless, so trivial, and fleeting.

Now she realized that she had spent a lifetime of being pampered, and had become 
spoiled due to it. She had grown up getting just about everything she wanted to, because 
life was fair to her. Put in the time and the effort, and reap the rewards, no matter how 
hard the task was, or how great the reward was to be. 

She had professed her love, but had taken her nearness for granted. Not just the sex that 
they had, which was fantastic for her, but the closeness of her body. The small of her 
back, the nape of her neck, her well toned calves, that little birth mark on the side of her 
thigh, all just pieces, part of her body that she had expected to always be there. She had 
simply put in the time and effort, and the body of her love was her reward.

Now that her sweet Rose had been plucked so far away from her she didn't know how to 
react. Her seed had blown so far away, to be plucked before ripe, and perish a short and 
fallow life.

She had considered suicide. The temptation wasn't strong, but it was there. She had cared 
so much for someone whom she had only seen a sonogram of. To see that life snuffed out 
before it had a chance to flourish gave her pause to consider taking the knife to her own 
body. 

But she knew that she couldn't. More than anything she was sad, and it was a means of 
expressing her own emotional depression. She knew that giving up wasn't the way to 
succeed. It was just the way to give up and the way to lose everything. She had to be 
strong for her love. But her heart ached that her beautiful flower would allow this all to 
happen. She didn't know how she could stay with her. How she could stare into the eyes 
of the woman that let her child be aborted. How she could live everyday knowing that 
Rose had allowed for her baby to be terminated. But she had to, because she loved her. 
She just didn't know how. 

"Joan?" came the innocent, impeded voice of her little sister Jamie from behind the door 
that Joan had remembered to close, finally. She hadn't heard Jamie's usually loud 
footsteps barging up the stairs, she had came up slowly with good reason.

"…don't feel like talking," Joan said, turning away from the closed door.

"Can I come in?" she asked politely. "Pwease?"

Jamie looked at the door, her arms full. She had spent a lot of time and forethought 
figuring this out, and had even sacrificed her nightly call to her boyfriend Phillip. But she 
couldn't stand her sister being in such misery. Still, on that note she knew that she 
couldn't force her sister to accept her, not yet. 

She almost resigned to leave her sister in peace, before hearing Joan say "Yes." Before a 
deep sigh.

"How awe you doing?" Jamie said quietly, carrying a bright and colorful plastic Easter 
basket of things she had assembled to try to make her sister feel better.

"I…" Joan turned back towards her sister. "Bad."

"I'm sowwy to heaw that Joan," Jamie was just a ten year old kid. She didn't understand 
everything. But she wanted more than anything with her heart to be useful. So often her 
sisters had helped her, be it with homework or romantic advice. She wanted to be the one 
to help this time.

"There's nothing I can do," Joan finally admitted defeat. 

"I'm sowwy," Jamie looked around the room, trying to find some kind of distraction. The 
poor girl couldn't pronounce Ls or Rs correctly, and spoke both as soft W sounds. 
Normally Joan found her sister's speech impediment endearing. But now wasn't the time 
for laughter, or cutesy childish concerns.

"What do you have there?" Joan asked, nodding towards the basket in Jamie's hands.

"Oh, I, I thought maybe you wouwd want to, uh, I mean I wanted to twy to cheew you 
up," Jamie said, placing the basket on the ground. "I bwought you some tissues," she 
handed them to Joan.

"It's ok, I, I can't seem to cry anymore," Joan said glumly, placing them on her 
nightstand.

"I bwought you a pad, umm, it has a game I thought you might wike on it," she showed 
her the game on the pad. It was a clothing simulator where one could create and then 
dress up their avatar in whatever clothing they liked, based on what was actually in their 
wardrobe. It was a simple child's game, but Joan would sometimes play around with 
games that simple if they were amusing enough, or if her homework was dull enough.

"Thanks," Joan said distantly, like someone might say to a cashier.

"Oh, I…I also bwought you some chocowates, I wewwy wike these ones," she said, 
offering the peanut butter cups to her sister.

"I don't think I can eat right now," Joan looked at the candies in her sister's hand.

"Oh, wewl that's ok, I just wike them especialwy when they'we cowd, but they'we good 
no matter what," she said, putting them back down in the basket. 

"Ok, wewl, I just…I also did your waundwy for you, when, I mean befowe," Jamie 
turned around and went to the doorway, and grabbed the laundry basket from the floor. 
She brought it to her closet and dropped it off in front. She had even gone to the trouble 
of sorting the foldable clothes and putting the others on hangers. But she wasn't tall 
enough to hang them up.

"That's thoughtful," Joan said distantly.

"Oh, you'we wewlcome. I, I guess I'wl weave you," Jamie nodded, and stepped towards 
the door. Her sister seemed as morose as ever, and she was physically pained to see it. 
She left the room and slowly started to close the door, before looking back at her sister. 
She had wished that she could have done something. Joan was usually too busy for her, 
and she understood. She was usually pretty busy with her own things too, and she hadn't 
really given her the attention that she could have. But family had to stick together. And 
she had tried, that was important to her. It was disappointing to have failed.

But she had tried. And succeeded more than she expected. She had done something back 
to her sister, who saw the look in her eyes. It sharpened her senses slightly. It brought her 
back from the numbness, even if only for a short time. "Jamie, wait."

"What is it?" Jamie asked, wondering if she had done something wrong. She had spent 
almost an hour making sure that she had done the laundry perfectly. She started to open 
the door again to hear her sister.

"Come in for a minute," she said, waving her in. "I'm, I'm sorry."

"Why?" the ten year old asked, not really sure of how to act, or how to react. 

"You tried to help me out, and I was being rude. I'm, it's just hard for me, but I'm sorry. 
It's not your fault, just, know that I'm not upset with you. And, will you have a peanut 
butter cup with me?" she asked, picking up two of the plastic wrapped candies.

"Oh, suwe thing," Jamie said, slowly picking up one from her sister's hand and quickly 
unwrapping the treat. 

"I, thank you Jamie for trying," she sighed. She pealed off the plastic and took a bite. She 
smiled for a second, some small happiness shining through the seemingly impenetrable 
wall of despair. The chocolate was good. Everything else in her life seemed to be shit 
right now, but the chocolate was good. Or perhaps it was the peanut butter. Or both. But 
it was good.

"We awl want to tawk to you, but evewyone is afwaid you don't want to tawl. We awl 
wish you wouwd have won," Jamie wasn't lying with that either. Every one of her sisters 
had tried to come up with something, anything to help. And that included Casey's plan of 
walking over and beating Amanda Cole within an inch of her life.

"I, I appreciate that," Joan knew that her family would be for her. They always were. It 
just wasn't the problem, and it didn't help. "But it doesn't matter now."

"I'm sowwy about that. I know you'wl make a gweat siwe sometime," Jamie had only 
known of the given name of patriarchal futanaris, dubbed sire. She hadn't met one yet, 
other than her sister. They were fairly rare now, although the numbers were rising.

"Yeah, maybe…but thanks," she sighed. She knew that her sister was trying, and it did 
mean something to her. It would mean more later. Right now she needed to deal with her 
sorrow.

"I know its twue! And I bet you'd even make a gweat mommy too, if you ever meet a 
futanawi ow a boy you wike," Jamie tried to be as encouraging as possible as she nibbled 
on the chocolate. "Even though you'd gain weight if you got pwegnant."

"Yeah, but I, I I just love my sweet Rose so much, but, but," Tears began to trickle down 
her face again, but with great physical and emotional strength she stopped herself. She 
looked up at the sun, setting in the window. She just thought of something. Something so 
profound that it shook the very foundation of her sadness.

Jamie reached for the tissues, but Joan waved them off. 

 "Wait," Joan said aloud, while she paused to think for a second. It had been some time 
since she had been in general health class. She didn't remember the particulars. She stood 
up, looking around her room with a purpose. Her body had shifted from her near 
catatonic state to a crisp and vivid state of action.

"What?" Jamie didn't know what her sister had meant. She had seen her appear to tear 
up, but put the tissues down when she rebuffed them. 

"Nothing, I, I could be a mommy. I've got to make a phone call, thanks Jamie, you've 
helped me more than I can explain," Joan said, fumbling around for her communicator. 
"I'll talk to you later."

"Oh, okay," Jamie confusedly walked out of the door, wondering just what it was she had 
done. And hoping she had really helped Joan out as her sister had said.

*

Greg looked at the ringing phone, wondering if he should bother picking it up. His 
secretary didn't come in all day. He didn't want to pay her overtime for working 
Saturday. All of the calls were just forwarded to the phone on his desk. He had been 
poring over everything that he could to find anything, and came up with nothing. A 
combination of exhaustion and failure made him wary of answering the ring. He was just 
getting ready to head home, and perhaps ring one of his lady friends for some late night 
engagement.

But then he recognized the prefix number as being from William Brown's line. The 
specific number was different, but the prefix and the last name were the same. He 
wondered what, if anything, was up. Even knowing who it was he hesitated, before 
resigning himself that it was his duty to do it, regardless of whether he wanted to or not, 
and he answered it.

"Hello?" Greg asked, looking at the clock. Five minutes difference and he would be 
driving home. What a big difference a small amount of time made.

"Mr. White?" Joan asked. He noted her usually unsure nature was emboldened with a 
clear-cut purpose.

"Yes, Joan? What is it?" he asked, starting to get concerned. While he had given her his 
phone number, he hadn't expected that she would call him. It was more of a gesture than 
anything. He would have assumed that her father would have called him in her stead.

"I need to talk to you, it's important," she said.

"Ok, is there something wrong?" after everything that had already happened, he started to 
wonder about her state of mind. Desperate people tried desperate things in especially 
trying times.

"No, something might be right after all. I can take the bus in and meet you but I'd have to 
transfer downtown and-" Joan looked at her planned trip on her pad.

"No, that's ok, I'll come and get you. I'm your lawyer, I owe you that much," he 
wondered in the back of his head why she was calling him directly. And why her father 
wasn't driving her.

"Ok, I'm sending you where I'll be, it's right down the road from my dad's," she said, 
sending him the address of the corner store. She was already donning her coat as she 
spoke to him.

"Alright," he checked the location to make sure he knew where to find her. It wasn't too 
far out of the way for him. "I shouldn't be too long."

"Oh and Mr. White?" she said, waiting for the kicker.

"Yes?" he said, the communicator resting between his shoulder and ear as he tried to put 
his coat on one handedly. 

"Forget the pad at home," she said, hanging up.

He was left with a dial tone to wonder about that. Not that it was a real dial tone, they had 
been eliminated hundred of years ago. He didn't have much time to listen to it and 
wonder in any case. He would have to find out when he got there.

*

"Wow," Greg said, lighting a cigarette. He cracked the window open to vent the smoke as 
he circled the neighborhood. He hadn't expected something so unique to come from Joan. 
It was almost the perfect solution, in and of it's own way. "That's…that's a hell of a 
thing."

"Is it possible?" she asked, naively. "I mean, is it legal?"

"Yeah, it is. I mean it can be. We'd need to get her to sign away a consent form, it's like 
a legal waiver for the hospital," he thought aloud.

"What about her mom, or her dad?" she had hoped to avoid subterfuge. 

"They can't interfere, and they don't need to sign off their consent. It's still her child, 
regardless. But will she do it?" he asked taking a deep drag, feeling the burn in his lungs.  
He had been quitting smoking for almost two years now. 

"What about, I mean, if she does, change her mind, then it's doable?" her eyes grew wide 
with something that had been so rare and fleeting for her as of late; hope.

"We'd need your dad's consent as well. She doesn't have to get her parent's permission, 
but until it's done, you do. Does he know about this?" he looked out at the sky, the stars 
were starting to come out. 

"Not yet. I didn't want to involve him yet, until I knew if it was even possible. If it's just 
some half baked scheme then I don't want to involve my family. But yes, he'll sign it. I 
know that. " Joan knew in her heart that he would.

"Ok, I'll have the consent form sent to you first thing tomorrow. Hell I can get it to you 
tonight, so that he can fill it out. Then there will be the medical release waiver forms, 
which he'll also have to sign. You two will as well. But that's just the legal end of it. We 
have to get your doctor, or another one, to be willing to do it, and who knows how easy 
that will be?" he asked.

"I'm going to talk her into it tomorrow, the day before the abortion, but I think so. We 
have the same doctor and if we both want to, can the doctor say no?" Joan needed legal 
council now more than ever, if she was to accomplish what she needed. 

"Hmm, maybe. It depends, the doc can hold off on it," he noted. 

"Why would she say no?" Joan thought that it all had seemed so simple and perfect.

"Well usually this kind of procedure isn't done with people who are underage. Plus 
generally there's a hormone therapy to make your body more accepting for the 
operation," he hadn't thought too much about it, but he knew the basics of the operation. 

"But then, if she holds off long enough, wouldn't it push back the time anyway?" Joan 
had thought about that eventuality.

"Maybe, maybe not. I don't know the timetable. But any delay and her mom is going to 
grow suspicious. Also, your doctor won't be the one aborting the fetus. They have 
abortionists whose job is specifically to do that, a specialist like a podiatrist. So you'd 
have to convince not just Rose to allow for it to happen, but also the doctor to do it as 
well, or at least to send you to a specialist," he noted, taking another drag. While he had 
tried quitting smoking before, but he just plain liked it too much. Especially with coffee, 
while driving, and after sex. Anything that got his heart going went well with his nicotine 
addiction.

"I didn't think about that," she nodded. "Our doctor, she spent time as an OB/GYN and a 
pediatrician. She, she know all about this."

"When are you going to talk to her?" he asked, checking his own watch. He considered in 
the back of his mind whether or not he should opt for some prefabricated meal, go out for 
dinner, or whether he should wait to cook something at home.

"I'm going there seven thirty in the morning. I seem to have this sickness," Joan gave the 
best half grin she could considering the situation, as she faked a cough.

"You should really get that checked out," he rolled his eyes.

"Sound legal advice. But it is all doable?" Joan asked.

"If you can convince the doctor, and if Rose will agree, then yes, it is doable," he thought 
for a second. "But it will take time. And it can't be done in a day. It'll be hard to keep her 
mom from finding out too. Are you sure about this?"

"I've been sure about this for some time Mr. White," she sighed contently. She felt like 
all of the sadness, all of the trouble and turmoil in last days might be vindicated if this 
could work. It would be her reward for putting in the time and effort, the sweetest reward 
she could imagine.

"Call me Greg," he said. The only people who called him Mr. White were people that 
didn't care for him too much. 

"Ok," she nodded, waving her hands to blow some of the excess cigarette smoke away.

"But why did you call me?" he asked, turning the car's air filtration system on.

"I, I want you to be there, to help. If you can help me convince the doctor, and Joan, we 
can win," she smiled. Nothing worked to cheer someone up quite as well as hope. "I've 
heard you put on quite a show in court." 

"Once and a while I'm capable of earning my keep. It sounds like a plan. Give me a call 
as soon as you get out of the doctor's office. Take the next couple days off of school, and 
keep a low profile. Don't contact Rose about it at all. If there's some kind of 
communications then there's a chance that it's being monitored. Especially now that her 
mother is under investigation thanks to our buddies in child services. I'm sending you my 
personal comm line. You can reach me twenty four hours a day," his mind started racing 
to work everything out.

"Thanks Mr., I mean, Greg," she said, noticing that they had been waiting outside of her 
house for some time. "Good night."

"Good night kiddo. I trust we'll be in touch soon," he said, unlocking the door.

Joan stepped out of her lawyer's car, checking outside of her house. The air had a chill to 
it and the sky was all but dark now, but she was heated by an internal strength she had not 
felt for some time and was impervious to the cold. She smiled at the sky, watching a 
shooting star. Or maybe it was just a satellite whose orbit had decayed, it didn't matter 
right now. She still wished.

*
5
"Joan…Brown?" said the calm voice of the male nurse, reading the name off of the pad.

Joan squeezed her father's hand, thankful that he had not only willingly gone along with 
everything but had taken every step that he could to help. She got up, took her purse, and 
walked through the door of the office. Or the waiting room within a waiting room, as she 
had heard her father call it. 

While she went to a large medical hospital, the specific office itself was small. Each 
doctor had their own office, on varying floors and wings, and their own patients. It wasn't 
like the emergency rooms that were on the first level. It was just a small and clean 
waiting room, with an adjacent office and a door that led off to examination rooms in 
back. Her doctor was a OB/GYN, a doctor specializing in pregnancies originally before 
becoming a Neonatal Pediatrician, a doctor who specializes in babies. But she had 
changed almost a decade ago to regular medical practice, after seeing the rise in need for 
adequate futanari health care. She was highly recommended to her father, and wound up 
being the family's doctor. They liked her because she knew their gender completely, and 
had a warm and likeable beside manner.

"The doctor will be with you in a moment," he said, leading her to an empty examination 
room in back. "Now, I'm just going to take an initial scan of your body with this portable 
scanner, and see if we can't find out what's wrong with you."

Joan nodded as she felt that strange tingle on her body. It didn't hurt, it wasn't painful or 
even jarring, but it was a strange tingle she had trouble defining correctly. It was like all 
of her nerves were being tickled at once. 

"Hmm everything looks fine, all of your vitals are strong and there doesn't seem to be 
anything wrong with you, except, hmm, a bit of stress," he said, checking the information 
a second time. 

"Ok thanks, I'll just wait to talk to the doctor," she said, sitting down with her purse in 
her lap.

"Ok, but I have to ask, are you in a safe place?" he had almost forgotten the standard 
question that was policy at the hospital, as well as many others.

"Yeah I'm fine, I just want to see the doctor," she reiterated tersely. 

"I just mean your house, is everything okay there? Because we're showing that your 
stress is high and you are an adopted child and," he counted off the multiple factors that 
would lead to it, just like they had taught him in his specialized school.

"I said!" Joan started to yell before reeling herself back in, "I said that I'm fine. I just 
want to see the doctor. If you don't understand English then I'll say it in French, Je veux 
voir le docteur." She had taken French simply because she had to take a language and 
Rose had wanted to study French. But she did like showing off her education every now 
and again, especially considering how much her father made her work at it.

"The doctor will be with you shortly," he said, doing his best to put on a fake smile as he 
closed the door and walked away, managing to not call her a bitch. He didn't know why 
some women had to be bitchy to him when he was doing his job. He certainly hadn't 
been rude to her. But thanks to his boyfriend he was glad that he wouldn't have to figure 
it out.

Joan would have used any other word to describe the wait besides shortly. An eternity, a 
never ending delay, or forever were words that came to her mind. But she sat there on the 
chair with her purse in her lap, sitting as patiently as she could. Her fingers rapped 
against the brown leather, her feet tapped the floor, her eyes darted, looking for 
something to provide some kind of stimulation, some kind of distraction from the 
seemingly endless boredom. She was thankful beyond description to hear the knock on 
the door as the knob turned by the hand of her doc.

"Hello Joan," Dr. Denise Thomas said, opening the door. "How is everything today?"

"Oh, uh, good," Joan said, trying to calm herself. Maybe it was just the fact she was 
asking without Rose, but she couldn't shake the guilty feeling that she was asking for 
something that she shouldn't be. 

"Well you said that you weren't feeling well, but the basic scan shows everything to be 
good enough. What's the problem?" she asked, turning around as she sipped her coffee. 
No operations today meant that she could indulge in a little caffeine.

"Uh, doc, I, I got to talk to you about something," Joan said. The anxiety in her voice was 
unmistakable.

"What's wrong Joan?" she inquired, sitting down in the empty chair.

"First, I have to be honest, I'm not really sick," she said apologetically. She realized that 
she was meeting her under false pretenses, and that it was wrong. But she felt that it was 
important enough to warrant the falsehood.

"I see, all things considered that's a good thing. But it brings the question, why did you 
come in?" she asked kindly. She knew there was something there.

"Doctor, you, you know Rose Cole?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"Yes, she's one of my patients," Dr. Thomas nodded. She couldn't tell Joan but she had 
seen her a couple of times in the last week. 

"Well, you know that she's pregnant." Joan said it as a fact, not as a question. She didn't 
mean it to be a question, she just wanted to convey the point.

"I can't divulge a person's medical history like that," she said instinctively. She had 
mastered the polite way of saying it.

"I, it's ok doc. I'm the sire," Joan admitted, with apprehensive pride.

"Oh, I see," Denise nodded. She would make a notation about her possibly being the 
parent in her medical file, but now was not the time. People work then paperwork.

"She's scheduled to have an abortion tomorrow. It's ok, I, I know that it's going to 
happen. I'm not going to ask you anything that you can't tell me," Joan said as she pulled 
the pad out of her purse. She pushed her blond locks back to look at it. 

"Then what are you going to ask me?" Dr Thomas retorted. Many of her patients felt the 
need to build up these long stories. She would rather cut to the meat of the subject, and 
serve up the portions of advice they needed. 

"Doctor, I, god I wish I knew how to put this," Joan looked at the pad, seeing the topic 
title. It seemed like such an easy thing to suggest last night. 

"Put what? I'm your doctor Joan, I'm here to help. I can answer any kind of medical 
question that you have, but I can't talk about anyone else's medical condition," Denise 
didn't anticipate an ethical quandary. Not this early in the morning.	

"Doctor, my girlfriend is having an abortion. If she agrees to it, will you perform a fetal 
transplant?" Joan used up most of her bravery to say what she had wanted to say ever 
since last night.

"A…you want a fetal transplant?" Denise Thomas wasn't quite ready for that. She did 
her best to make the request sound reasonable.

"Yes, I know it's not something that happens a lot. But if my girlfriend agrees, will you 
perform the operation?" Joan's heart was racing, she was nervous with anticipation of 
what the answer may be.

"There is a reason that this doesn't happen very often. It is a dangerous procedure. 
Typically it's only done in instances where the pregnancy might endanger the life of the 
mother, or where the mother is ill enough that the chance for miscarriage if she were to 
give birth is high enough to warrant it." Denise paused for a second, asking the question 
she knew she must. "Joan, is, is this because you don't want her to get this abortion?" 
Denise asked, careful for the girl's emotions. She could only imagine the fragile state for 
such a young girl, and needed to be sensitive to her pain.

"Yes," Joan said with conviction. "But it is still a legitimate medical procedure."

"This isn't something to be taken lightly. Yes, it is possible for you to get a fetal 
transplant, but you can't just do it without giving it adequate forethought, and all of the 
necessary medical steps," she said cautiously.

"Doctor, I have thought this all out. I have been fighting for my baby, and I want this 
more than anything," she felt like she was on the edge, fighting to keep from getting over 
emotional. 

"Joan, this isn't all about you. What about the mother of your child, what does she think 
about this?" Dr. Thomas asked.

"I haven't talked to her yet," Joan admitted, feeling pangs of regret.

"How can you ask me this? Put yourself in my shoes Joan, you've come in without even 
asking the mother of your children for a fetal transplant, and she's due to terminate the 
fetus in just over twenty four hours," she said disapprovingly.

"Doctor, I realize that I'm asking a lot from you. I do. But I wouldn't be here if I didn't 
have to," Joan struggled to keep her lip straight.

"Joan, this isn't that simple of a surgery. This kind of operation is usually planned weeks 
ahead of time. It starts with an initial meeting to run various tests and establish a 
timetable for future check ups. The surrogate mother is given a constant hormone therapy 
to trick her body into thinking that it's pregnant. Even with nanobots this isn't like 
transplanting a kidney. In depth biological scans have to be done, not just from your body 
but also from the mother of your child's body, as well as your child's, to see if it is even 
compatible," Denise Thomas just scratched the surface of the difficulty behind the 
surgery.

"I, I know," Joan said. She had spent more time reading about it than sleeping last night. 

"And you just want the mother of your child to-" the doctor started to say.

"Rose, the mother of my child is Rose," Joan said with absolute certainty.

"But you want her to just come in and have us start a complicated medical procedure, as 
though this is an inoculation, or a broken arm. Please understand that I'm not trying to 
discourage you from some kind of moral standpoint. This is a dangerous surgery, and it 
can be life threatening," She said, touching Joan on the shoulder.

"Doctor, have, have you ever done this before?" she asked, putting her hand on the 
doctor's.

"Yes, yes I have. Seven times," she noted, with a little pride at her workmanship.

"Ever lose one?" Joan looked her straight in the eyes.

"No, no I haven't," she said honestly. She could feel Joan squeeze her hand. Not hard, 
but a squeeze nonetheless.

"That's good enough for me. I have all day to undergo whatever tests you have. Even if 
Rose doesn't agree to it tomorrow, I'll spend all day here doing whatever you want from 
me. If you agree, that is," Joan put herself out on the line.

Denise Thomas looked into the girl in front of her. She had enjoyed general practice; high 
risk and difficult operations like this didn't come across her desk anymore. They went to 
someone else, she felt that it was her turn to have a simple job. Leave the difficult jobs to 
someone else, she didn't want to lose anyone else on the table. Not that she had lost 
many, but the few she had…she didn't enjoy. Although it was never easy, there was 
something about a geriatric passing away that didn't hurt as much as a baby being 
miscarried, or passing away shortly after birth.

Denise could have said no because this was unprecedented. She had never heard of a 
sixteen year old having this operation, and chances were it didn't happen all that often. 
Although she had moved to general practice, she had nevertheless paid attention to the 
latest medical journals. She could have said no because there was a high risk of failure. 
The mortality risk was for child, not for the parent, but she didn't want to risk it. The 
chance for infection or short term injury would be high for both of them. And the amount 
of testing and planning was impossible to accomplish in one day, let alone what she 
would have to do for Rose tomorrow. She could have said no because the other parent 
hadn't come in. Rose hadn't agreed to this, and she should have the mother's consent 
before she even started. 

But she didn't say no.

"If you are sure that you want to go through with this operation, then yes, I will start the 
procedures to perform this operation. But only if the risk is minimized and if she 
consents. We will start running the tests today. They can not be completed today. Best 
case scenario is a week for the hormones and nanobots graft to take place. You are going 
to have to spend most of the day here while we administer and monitor you. I'm going to 
call Rose and let her know that her operation has been moved up by an hour," Denise ran 
through the plan of everything that was going to have to go on.

"Don't tell her mom," Joan said too quickly. 

"Pardon?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Please, don't tell Rose's mom about this. She doesn't have to know about this. Rose 
doesn't even know about it yet, so she can't know about it, it's not her daughter's medical 
history it's mine and I don't want her to know, I just think that she's going to try to stop 
her from doing this," Joan said excitedly, she was shaking from jubilation.

"If you don't want her to know then I won't tell her, you are correct that your medical 
history is your own," Denise Thomas answered.

"Oh thank you doc, thank you so much!" Joan jumped from her chair to the sitting doctor 
and hugged her with all her might.

"I have to tell you, you had better do some convincing job tomorrow with Rose," she 
said, realizing she had let the name slip. It didn't seem to matter much now. "If she says 
no, then she says no. I won't allow you to badger or barter her into agreeing to it. She has 
the right of refusal, and the right to say what she wants to do with her body. If she still 
wants to undergo the abortion then I'm going to allow her that option without hesitation. 
It's her right."

"I, I understand doc," Joan nodded.

"Very well, then we're going to have to get the tests started. I'm going to send you down 
to the in depth Heisenberg full body scanner. Then we're going to start with the hormone 
therapy while we prepare a nanobots graft. And we have to run many, many more scans," 
Denise Thomas looked at her coffee. It was cold by now, but she drank it anyway. Her 
male nurse made a lousy pot, but it was easier to drink free break room coffee than pay 
for it down the hall.

"Sure thing doc, I just have to tell someone," Joan fumbled through her purse.

"Your father?" she asked.

"No, my lawyer first. Then my father," Joan clicked furiously through her communicator 
to find the number.

*
6

Joan felt nervous. She was sick to her stomach, and very drowsy. Starting just after she 
had seen her doctor yesterday, she had to eat a special diet, which meant for no caffeine. 
That was an issue to someone like herself that had gotten accustomed to a strong cup to 
help her get out of bed for school. It also meant that she had eaten nothing but lousy 
calculated and prepared food ever since she had come in yesterday. The hormone therapy 
had made her feel all kinds of weird. She had noticed the changing mood swings 
especially, they were worse than her monthly. And even worse she was wearing sweat 
pants and a t-shirt, the worst kind of attire she could think of. She was dressed like she 
was in gym class, and felt like she had the flu.

Yesterday had been a gauntlet that she had to endure. Every step seemed to be mired with 
a new difficulty. If it wasn't taking a new hormone dose it was taking another Heisenberg 
scan, having another blood test, testing the nanobots graft, or taking an even more in 
depth scan of this area. And after all of that, the doctor had sent her home, to get as much 
rest as she could, and to eat the exact prescribed amount of food at exact times. 

She had an uneasy rest last night. She was exhausted but couldn't seem to sleep for any 
sizeable period of time. And then she awoke this morning, only to go right back to the 
hospital, and right back to the same waiting room, where she sat using up more patience 
than she ever felt that she had. And this was only day one of the weeklong gauntlet. Then 
best-case scenario she would undergo the operation, and she could look forward to 
another six months of pregnancy. But it was worth it. 

As she watched the love of her life walk into the hospital waiting room, she knew that it 
was worth it.

"Joan, thank you for coming," Rose said, walking over to hug her. She noticed the poor 
choice of clothing, but choose not to say anything about it. Her love had always been one 
of the best-dressed people she had known. Commenting on her clothes was just an 
unneeded aggravation, and she believed that Joan was no doubt having a hard enough 
time as is.

"Thanks for letting me come," Joan stood up, feeling her knees a bit shaky as she hugged 
her lover. "No mom?"

"I, I asked her to stay downstairs. She's going to go get breakfast, there isn't much she 
can do right now," Rose said, not knowing how ironic and true that statement was.

"That's helpful," Greg White said, putting down the pad that hid his face as he stood up.

"I, I know you," Rose's eyes grew wide. "You're the lawyer."

"No, I'm not the lawyer Rose, I'm your lawyer. And we have something to discuss with 
your doctor," Greg offered his hand. He wasn't too upset when she had rebuffed it.

"You're not my lawyer," Rose's eyes narrowed.

"I am today, if you'd like me to. It would be in your best interests. Today I'm offering a 
low time offer of zero dollars to offer my services. And a full money back guarantee to 
boot," he said, with a warm smile.

"Baby, I asked him to be here. I swear that there won't be any other lawyers or cops or 
judges or anything else. But please just let him come along, to help give some advice.

"If you want him to be there…I trust you Joan," she said calmly to her. Turning her head, 
she wasn't nearly as calm when she said "I, I'm getting rid of the baby. I can't keep it. I 
don't want you to get in the way."

"That's not why I'm here. But I'll explain everything when we get back, I don't think it's 
right or fair to air your own personal business in a public waiting room," Greg said, 
looking around the room for effect.

"Baby, I, I just, trust me when I say that I just want the best for us. And I'm not trying to 
deceive you," Joan said, holding Rose's hand.

"Joan, what's wrong with you? Are you sick? Your hand is all clammy, and you feel 
shaky," Rose hadn't noticed it at first. If anything she would have expected it to be 
because of her decision. But the lousy clothes were an indicator that something was 
amiss. And now her usually confident form was replaced with a shaky body only gave 
her more cause for concern.

"Don't worry about me," she smiled reassuringly. "Just, promise that you will listen to 
me in there?" Joan asked.

"What is it? Just tell me, what is it?" she asked quizzically. "You can tell me, what is it?"

"Rose…Cole," said the calm voice of the male nurse.

"That's us," Greg said, putting his pad under his arm. He walked over to the door and 
held it open.

"I'm sorry sir, but I said Rose Cole," he said, politely but forcefully, putting his hand up 
in the old fashioned stop motion.

"Oh, don't worry, the doctor is expecting all of us, in her office," Greg said, motioning 
for the two of them to move in. 

"I'll have to check about that," he said, standing in front of the door and putting on his 
most intimidating stance. He didn't do much of a job but he was trying as best he could, 
which was commendable, even if it was misplaced.

"No, you won't," Dr. Denise Thomas said from behind. "Let them in, now please."

"Of course doctor, as you wish," he said meekly, stepping aside. He had gotten his fake 
smile down pat.
 
"This way," Denise said, leading the three of them down the hallway to her private office. 
It was a nice office, smaller than she would have liked but it was in the corner and the 
window offered a nice view. It was the usual doctor's office, big windows, very clean, 
very bright 'clean' colors, and sparsely decorated.  She had her degrees on the wall, some 
of the few items actually written in ink and paper in this day and age. With herself and 
three others, it was a bit cramped. Her side behind the desk was comfortable, but on the 
other end, there wasn't much elbow room.

"What is this all about?" Rose asked, looking at the doctor and Joan. She intentionally 
ignored Greg for now.

"Rose, baby, I, I know that you don't want to have our child right now," Joan said as 
calmly as she could.

"I, I, just can't," she said, quietly. "I can't."

"I understand that you can't carry our child. But would, would you let me carry it? Would 
you let me carry the burden of our child?" Joan looked at the emerald eyes of her love.

"You…what?" Rose didn't understand what she was talking about.

"It's called a fetal transplant," Denise said calmly. "It is real, and it is a real option. But 
no one is here to pressure you. I'm here to explain things to you and give you medical 
advice."

"And I am here to give you legal advice," Greg chimed in. He did feel out of place here, 
there wasn't much legal that would be involved. It made for an interesting legal 
discussion, as it was transfer of ownership of a child from one person to another. But she 
could basically do whatever she wanted.

"I, I don't get it Joan," Rose said, biting her lip. She turned her head slightly towards the 
doctor, "What does this all mean?"

"Well, Joan here has offered to undergo a procedure to allow her body to carry the fetus 
inside of you. This is a very complex procedure, and one that is rare. In North America 
there are less than five thousand each year, a small number considering the almost one 
billion living in the region," Denise paused for a second, wishing there were a simpler 
way of breaching the next subject. 

"There is a high risk of mortality," she said, knowing that she had to.

"The risk of mortality lies solely with the fetus. The chance of injury to either the original 
donor or the surrogate is low," Greg added in quickly.

"Yes, I was going to get to that," Denise didn't like the lawyer here. She knew that he 
was going to argue with any negative thing she had to say, and to try to put it in the best 
light possible. But Joan had wanted him there, probably just for that reason. "The risk of 
injury to either one of you is low, five percent, and much less for mortality, roughly one 
in two million. The risk of injury is higher in Joan's case because of her age and the 
shorter amount of time given for her body to adjust."

"What, what about the, our baby?" Rose asked.

"The mortality rate is higher for it, the exact number can't be determined until we run all 
of the necessary tests," she didn't want to say the next part. "In all likelihood it will be 
less than a fifty percent chance that your child will survive the operation."

"What, what do you mean though, a fetal transplant, how does it work?" Rose hadn't 
done the same amount of research into it that Joan had. She didn't even know that they 
could transplant fetuses. She hadn't been paying attention that day in health class.

"It isn't just a fetal transplant per se. The fetus is transplanted, but it isn't just the fetus. 
It's the placenta really. But by now your placenta has become so interconnected with the 
lining of your uterus that it's incredibly difficult to successfully extract and transplant. 
That's where the risk comes in. We spoke earlier when you came in about what to expect 
with your pregnancy, but I didn't go into great detail about what is happening inside of 
you right now," 'Considering that you choose to get an abortion' she thought, as she 
pushed the buttons on the top of her desk, which was a large computer screen.

"When you became impregnated, your body created a reproductive graft from the genetic 
material from you and Joan. That graft now contains the fetus and the placenta, down the 
umbilicus along with the materials the child needs to grow. In order to transplant your 
child, we would need to remove the reproductive graft and the attached part of your 
uterus. This will then need to graft onto Joan's uterus. Right now she is on drugs to 
prevent rejection, and hormones to increase the likelihood of success, while a nanobots 
graft is being constructed to essentially trick her body into thinking that it is in fact 
pregnant," Denise pointed to an animated diagram on the desk that showed a clean 
version of the operation, without blood or infection.

"And this will work?" Rose didn't understand half of it. But it seemed straightforward 
enough to her, cut the baby out of her and put it in Joan.

"It may work," Dr. Thomas replied. "There isn't a guarantee, and the biggest issue is 
keeping the fetus alive. It will need a huge supply of blood and oxygen to stay alive. And 
moving a full reproductive graft of everything, the uterus, placenta, and gestational 
material is not an easy procedure. I've done it in the past. Those facts will be the biggest 
hurdles for a successful transplant. Afterwards will be making sure that Joan's body 
doesn't reject it," she moved the diagram on the desk again.

"Joanne, why are you doing this? Why can't you just let me do this, and let it go away?
It's not our child, not yet! It just isn't! Why can't you understand it? Why is it so hard to 
just let me do this, to just let me fix everything? Please just leave it alone! You got the 
police and the courts involved, and now you got my doctor too!" Rose said, with more 
emotion than she meant to. But it just poured out of her. She had tapped a raw and primal 
part of her psyche. "I, I just need to do this. This isn't our baby, not yet. Just because you 
put the stuff together to make a cake, it's not a cake until it's done. This isn't the way it 
has to be.  We don't have to worry about having a kid now. Shit Joan, I'm fucking 
sixteen! What the hell am I gonna do with the rest of my life? Stay at home with my 
baby? Not finish school, or go to university, or anything?"

"Just because you have a child doesn't mean that you have to give up on your life. Joan's 
father has offered to take care of the child, and post high school education is always an 
option to—" Greg started to say, before feeling his arm grabbed by Joan.

"Don't, don't you get it?" Joan asked. She struggled to contain her emotions as she 
looked at Rose. It was hard, with so much turmoil. The hormones did not help much 
either. She had hoped that this meeting would have her jumping for joy to get on an 
operating table.

"Get what?" she asked, feeling the clammy hand of her girlfriend touch the t-shirt just 
covering her slight baby bump. It wasn't that sizeable on her thin body, any passerby 
would simply think she could lose a few pounds on her already slim frame.

"That could be me!" Joan couldn't hold the tears back any longer. "I mean, my parents 
didn't want me either. What if they aborted me? Or Jamie or Casey or Karen or any of 
my sisters? None of us would be there. I can't imagine what it's like to not be alive Rose. 
And just because I'm a futanari? Maybe somewhere there was a sister of mine that never 
got to be adopted. Because she was never born." Joan slowly rubbed Rose's stomach as 
she caught her breath.

"Now I don't have the choice in front of me. I never knew my mom and dad, but they 
gave me the chance to be born, to be adopted, and to have a chance for life. That was all 
they did for me. How can I deny my own child that? How can I just stand by, how can I 
just let my own baby be aborted? When I can do something? When I can try, when I can 
make the difference? Where's my right, where's my choice?" Joan was virtually pleading 
with Rose.

"I, I never knew, I, I'm," Rose hugged her love, feeling the product of their union press 
between their bodies. She didn't know what to say now. She realized that they were 
laying everything out on the line. Everything. And she had one thing left to reveal. She 
just didn't know how she could, if she would.

"I, I never told you," Joan choked. The two of them just hugged for a while, swaying 
slightly as they enjoyed their nearness. It had been some time since either of them had 
savored each other's warm embrace. Greg and Denise shared a look, but didn't do 
anything to break the silence. 

"But, but you don't understand, my, my mom." Rose's body trembled with nervousness. 

"That's where I come in. As your lawyer, I am here to give you legal advice," Greg said, 
turning in his chair. "Your mother doesn't have to know about any of this. You don't 
have to lie to her. This is your body and you have the choice as to what to do with it. Joan 
needs her father's consent but you don't need any. All you have to do is sign away a 
medical waiver saying that you waive the right to sue if something should happen to your 
child, and that you understand the risks involved. If you get this operation, you don't 
have to tell her, it's as simple as that. The child will be out of your body, regardless of 
what happens. Your mom can't force you to abort the baby," he felt the need to reassure 
her from a legal point.

"You don't get it, you all don't get it! My mom isn't making me get rid of the baby. I 
want to get rid of the baby, to keep my family together!" Rose screamed so loud that she 
might have woken up babies in the maternity ward, four floors down. "I love my mom. 
Yes she yells at me sometimes, yes sometimes she's mean, but I love her. I love my 
brother. And I don't know my dad. I don't love him." Her words filled the air, breaking 
the atmosphere of hope that had previously permeated.

"He, when I was growing up, he wasn't there for me. My piano recitals, for summer 
break, career day, or whatever, it was always my mom. She, she loved him, but I never 
knew him. I just idolized what I saw from him, I was a kid. I didn't know any better, not 
really. I never saw what he was, what he really had done."

"Then he cheated on my mom, and, she had a really rough time. They broke up about a 
month after she found out. I never thought that I'd see her like that, she was always sad. 
She cried a lot. I didn't care as much as she did. I know that sounds bad but I didn't know 
him. I didn't really love him. The man I barely ever saw left. She, she only had me and 
Matt. So she wants the best for us, she does. She really does. She didn't want me out 
staying late with boys, she was afraid that I would end up the same way that she did. 
That's the only reason I could be so close to you Joan. She didn't know that I liked, that I 
loved, love you. I still love you. She just thought we were friends. I lied to her before. 
That hurt her. Not as bad as dad, but it hurt her, a lot. She had trusted me. I was all she 
had left and I lied to her," Rose had been holding it all in from Joan, trying to shield her 
love from how she had felt. She had tried to escape in a lie, but wound up hurting herself 
and everyone around her in it.

"Rose, I," Joan finally realized herself what the problem had been. The entire time, Rose 
had been doing the same thing that Joan had, trying to save her family. "You didn't have 
to do this."

"But, Joan, I, everyday that my mom looked at our child, it would be like a daily 
reminder of how I lied to her. I can't support our child. Just like my dad, I would have 
cheated on her, with a futanari. I would have lied to her and left her with a big mess to 
clean up. I couldn't live with my mom, leaving her with all the pain and embarrassment," 
Rose took a deep breath, and let it out.

"You, you didn't have to do this," tears flowed down Joan's face without her consent. 
"You didn't have to lie to me."

"That's why I didn't want to tell you. That's why I lied to you, even though it ate at me 
with every single minute I was awake. I didn't want it to be a burden to anyone. It was 
easy to just think about it as something I could just get rid of," she hadn't really thought 
about the fetus as a person, not yet. It was just a problem, one she thought she could take 
care of, and one she thought she could remove. She was sixteen, she wasn't ready for it 
yet, she just wanted to get rid of the problem and return to worrying about tests and 
dances.

"What did you tell your mom?" Joan asked quietly. Though the tears rolled down her 
face she didn't sob. She couldn't sob, not any longer.

"I, I lied to her. Again," Rose was breathing deep like she had just run a marathon, after 
confessing everything she had been holding in. "I told her that you were supposed to be 
on the pill."

"So, she never asked you to get rid of the child?" Joan's voice was detached, like a 
computer voice. She had never suspected that she would be the target of her delicate 
flower's deceit. It seemed that the old saying was more than appropriate. Every Rose had 
its thorns.

"No, I, I told her it was my choice. That I wanted to do it," Rose was upset, but did what 
she could to hold it back. She wasn't angry with Joan.

"C, can we talk to her?" Joan took her delicate flower's hand in her own. "Can we talk to 
her, explain what has happened. Explain what we were doing, what we did, and what we 
can do. And we can figure this out, figure this all out together," Joan tugged on her hand 
looking at Rose in the eyes, "As a family?"

"I, I, I," Rose choked up, she wasn't sure how to deal with all of the emotions she was 
feeling.

"If your mom doesn't want the baby, that's ok. I'll carry it if you agree to it. My dad will 
take care of everything," Joan said, hugging her baby closer. "You know he will. If your 
mom doesn't ever want to see it, she won't have to. If she's hurt, I understand. But if she 
wants to acknowledge our child it would make me happier than I could ever explain. I 
don't have a grandmother, or a grandfather. Our baby wouldn't have a grandmother 
otherwise, my dad never married. But if she won't, please, just give our baby the chance 
to grow up that way. I did a pretty good job of it so far."

The air of silence hung in the room. The pause was more pregnant than the girl in the 
seat, as she sought to reconcile what she wanted with what everyone else wanted. She 
was so confused now, she didn't even know what it is that she wanted anymore.

"Rose," Greg said, trying to use his calmest and sincerest voice he could fake. "I know 
that right now, things are difficult. There are so many things running through your mind, 
and so many people trying to get you to do one thing or the other, myself included. 
Before you make this decision, I think that it's in your best interest to remember two 
things. The first thing is that aborting this baby, which is completely in your purview to 
do," he put his hand up, to quell any potential objection from Dr. Thomas, "is a final 
solution. It can never be undone. This means that the abortion is not something to be 
taken lightly."

"The second thing, and perhaps the most important, is that right now you seem concerned 
about the people you love. You believe you will break up your family if you have this 
child, but your worried about breaking up with your futafriend, your lover if you don't." 
he paused for emphasis, more from reflex than actual necessity. "I'm not going to say 
that I know what you should do. I have been hired to look out initially for Joan's best 
interests, and now for yours. I understand that the two of them might not be the same. But 
I don't know if you understand that you have your own interests, and they aren't 
necessarily the same as your mom, or as Joan."

"To be perfectly blunt, the only way to understand everything is to be in the same room 
and air out all of the laundry. It will probably be painful, but it might be the only way that 
you'll ever figure out what it is that you want to do. And that is what this is about. It's 
about your choice. You don't have to make it now, in this room. But you do have to make 
it," he said, hoping that he had been as convincing as Joan needed him to be.

"I," Rose began to blubber, weeping like a scared little girl in the hands of her love. She 
looked into her big blue eyes, full of hope and compassion. After all of the pain she had 
put her Joan through, after all the lies to her, about her, Joan was still there holding her in 
her arms. She still loved her, and still wanted to be with her now in her hour of need. "I'll 
call her."

Greg White reached into his pocket and took out his facial tissues, watching as Denise 
did the same. It was almost laughable that each was prepared. They both chose a girl and 
handed them off. Greg stood up and motioned towards the door. Denise followed him 
out, leaving the two of them for a private moment.

"Well that was unexpected," Greg said, stretching his body out. It had been an 
uncomfortable seat, for more than one reason.

"Unexpected, but not as rare as you might think," she half smiled looking at the door. It 
was a modern day love story. She just hoped it had a happy ending.

"I'll take your word on it. So, who's side are you on?" he wondered aloud.

"Side? I'm on the patient's side," she said. Her voice made the question seem ridiculous.

"They're both your patient," Greg countered. "I meant, if you had it your way, which 
would you want? That she gets an abortion, or not?"

"I am on both of their side," Denise answered. "I've been an OB/GYN and a Neonatal 
Pediatrician. Who's side do you think I'm on?"

"Point taken. But you didn't seem too…enthusiastic to listen to what I had to say," Greg 
noted. She hadn't objected outright, but he had gotten accustomed to reading body 
language. 

"Mr. White, my job is to help my patients make their own medical decisions. I'm not 
supposed to influence it, I'm just here to help provide them with the information that they 
need. You're here specifically to influence her decision-making. Understand that while I 
may share your goal in wanting Rose to change her mind, I cannot allow myself or others 
to engage in any overt or covert attempts to sway her one way or the other," Denise 
didn't add that she had a healthy lack of trust for lawyers. 

"Is there somewhere private, some kind of meeting room or something that they can talk 
in?" Greg was thinking ahead to the next step. Whether it was in the legal arena or not, he 
still felt honor bound to complete the job he had set out to do.

"Yes, I'm sure there's a free conference room. I can arrange for them to have some 
privacy there. I hope you can understand that you won't be allowed in that meeting," she 
wanted to nip that in the bud, before Joan attempted to protest.

"I guess I can understand that," Greg knew that he could protest it, but he thought that for 
once, it might be in the best interests in his client for him to not be present.

"What do you think the chances are that the boy is going to be born?" Denise asked, lost 
in thought.

"Boy?" Greg grinned, knowing she let something slip that she shouldn't. "Well, let's just 
say that ten minutes ago it was supposed to be terminated. So chances are looking pretty 
good right now."

*
7
The conference room was large, far too large for the intimate group. The room appeared 
that it could easily house fifty, and perhaps then some. Just as most rooms in a hospital, it 
was all painted white and kept immaculate. It was far easier for a room that was 
frequented by doctors in a meeting than the emergency room, after all. While there was a 
large table in the center of the room, the five sat at a smaller table that seated them more 
easily. William Brown and his daughter, at one side of the table, Amanda Cole and her 
daughter at the other side of the table, with Denise at the head made up the group. Greg 
White was left outside, getting his nicotine fix.

"What the hell is this all about?" Amanda asked indignantly. "My daughter called me and 
said that she needed to talk to me immediately. Then I was brought into this conference 
room with no explanation."

"I would like to know what is going on as well, I had expected to hear something 
different when I picked up my communicator," William stopped short of saying that he 
had expected to hear that his daughter was in surgery. 

"I believe that in this instance, sitting and listening to your children would be the best 
course of action," Denise said softly. 

"Of course," Will nodded, looking towards his daughter.

"What more is there to listen to?" Amanda asked defensively.

"While we are all aware of your daughter's pregnancy and that Joan is the sire, there are 
other facts that need to be made available to everyone present before we proceed with 
any kind of medical decisions," Denise motioned towards Rose as she tried to get a 
dialogue forming.

"Any kind of medical decisions? Like what? This was all supposed to have been wrapped 
up already." Amanda raised her eyebrow at the doctor.

"…fetal transplant…," Joan mumbled.

"What? What do you mean a fetal transplant?" Amanda asked accusatorily. 

"It is an option that is on the table, one that is worth proper consideration and debate. If it 
comes to it, Joan is willing to take the child. But, I believe that your daughter has 
something to say to you first," Denise touched Rose's shoulder.

"What is going on Rosetta Lynn Cole?" Amanda turned her head, listening with rapt 
attention.

"Mom, I, I lied to you," Rose said, avoiding her mother's face.

"What do you mean?" Amanda asked, looking across the table at Joan before staring at 
her daughter.

"Joan never lied to me about taking the pill. I knew that she wasn't on it. We didn't 
care…and I got pregnant," Rose spoke like a prisoner finally admitting her guilt after a 
long imprisonment and interrogation.

"You…why would you lie to me? About that of all things?" Amanda turned her chair 
towards her daughter. "Look at me, why did you lie?"

"Because I didn't want to hurt you!" Rose said quickly and loudly.

"Hurt me? Baby you said that you wanted to get the abortion," Amanda put her hand on 
Rose's legs, turning her daughters chair towards her. "Look at me when I'm talking to 
you!"

Rose lifted her eyes to her mother's unyielding gaze. "Mom, I know how hard it was 
since, since dad left you."

"What are you talking about, that has nothing to do with this," Amanda rebuffed, very 
defensively.

"No mom, it, it has everything to do with it. When he cheated on you, I know it hurt. But 
now I went and, and cheated on you too, with, with a futa too," Rose had mistakenly 
hoped she had dried her tears for the last time that day. 

"Oh Rose, you're not your father," Amanda took her baby by the hand. "I don't blame 
you for what he did."

"No, it's not about what he did, it's about what I did. When I was telling you we were 
going to study we were really together. I lied to you before and I lied again to cover it up. 
I just wanted to fix everything, to make everything right," Rose's voice was hoarse as she 
tried to explain it to her mother.

"Rosey, that's not your job to fix everything. That's my job, to fix everything for you," 
she said judgmentally. 

"I, I just never thought that I could live it. Live with my child there, a constant reminder 
to you about how I fucked up. About how I lied to you. About how I screwed up your life 
with another burden to deal with, another mouth to feed, another, another, another," Rose 
blubbered, too upset to even say words.

"You did fuck up!" Amanda looked at her daughter in the face.

"Ms. Cole, please, calm yourself down, this isn't going to help," Denise said softly, 
trying to return the room to a more level conversation.

"You will not tell me how to raise my child!" Amanda pointed her finger at the doctor. 
"And as for you young lady, you did fuck up. You went around having unprotected sex. 
You lied to me. You probably lied about me. You know how pissed off I got about being 
brought into a goddamned police department? Those child services goons are talking to 
everyone I know! Do you have any idea how embarrassing that is? To have them talk to 
my family, to my neighbors, to my own boss?"

"I, I didn't know that she was going to do that," Rose said, sucking up her nasal flow in 
an unladylike manner.

"And what did you tell her exactly?" the accusatory mother was livid with exposing her 
family's laundry out in the open like this.

"She said that you were making her have an abortion," Joan inched towards Rose in her 
chair. She had only opened her mouth, to try to stay Amanda's ire.

"Rosey, you stop the lies this instant!" Amanda said forcefully. "I never said for one 
minute that I didn't want you to have a child. While your father might have run out on all 
of us I knew that you never would. I didn't want you staying late with the boys because I 
was afraid that they would want to leave you. You told me that you want this abortion. 
You were the one that set this up. Do you want this abortion, or not?"

"Wh, what?" Rose said, not thinking anywhere near straight.

"Do you want to have the baby, yes or no?" Amanda asked forcefully. "I didn't raise you 
to be a liar, but your good for nothing father sure as hell did. You want to keep this kid or 
not?"

"I, I, I don't want to upset you, I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to," Rose 
blubbered.

"Rosetta Lynn Cole I did not ask you what you didn't want. I asked what you did want. I 
expect an answer, now young lady," Amanda put her hands on her daughter's shoulders.

"Ms. Cole, I think that perhaps you should consider easing up," Denise had known from 
experience that yelling at a girl, especially a pregnant sixteen year old girl trying to make 
a decision about abortion, wasn't the best option. She watched Joan rise to her feet out of 
the corner of her eyes.

"I said this once, do not tell me how to raise my child," Amanda looked at the doctor, not 
noticing the young futa creeping up on her. 

"First you lie to me, then you lie to her. After that you bring the police and lawyers 
involved into this, and cause all kind of hell for your brother and me. You say you don't 
want to hurt or upset people, well you've hurt and upset a lot. It's time to end these 
childish games and just end this. Now tell me this instance Rose, what do you want to 
do?"

"I, I, I want," Rose struggled despite herself to give the real answer. Not what she wanted 
to tell her mother, not what she wanted to tell her futafriend, not what anyone else wanted 
to hear. But the real answer, the right answer, to her, and her alone.

"Rose, tell me," Amanda shook her daughter lightly from her shoulders. The slight 
gesture was too much for Joan.

"Get your fucking hands off of my girlfriend!" Joan yelled. She had seen her beautiful 
Rose wilt under the oppressive verbal beating that her mother would subject her to. She 
could barely stand that, but she vowed that she would never allow the love of her life to 
ever suffer the indignity of abuse, no matter the level of physicality.
 
She pounced towards Amanda and grabbed her hands, freeing Rose. Taken by surprise 
her fingers unlatched easily, but that was the only easy part of it. Amanda was in better 
shape than Joan, and her hands pushed against the younger futa with more strength than 
her agitated body could muster. Joan had anger and emotions on her side, and even 
though her body was exhausted with an unnatural fatigue from the hormones. The two 
struggled in determined combat, fighting both literally and figuratively over Rose. 

While the battle seemed to go on for an eternity, it only took a moment for Denise and 
William to stand up quickly to break the two apart, barely able to tear the two from one 
another. William hadn't seen that ferocity in Joan before, but he knew that it was one of 
the most frightening things in this world; a mother trying to protect her young.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Amanda snarled, feeling the adrenaline rushing 
through her body.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Joan shot back, feeling a hot and burning passion in 
her very being. "You don't touch my girlfriend like that again!"

"Who the fuck are you to tell me how to raise my daughter?" Amanda wished that Dr. 
Thomas wasn't holding her back. She would show the insolent brat what she had coming.

"I'm the goddamned sire!" Joan met her steely glare. "And if you ever thought for a 
goddamned second maybe if you didn't yell and demand so much out of her all the 
damned time then maybe you wouldn't have her so upset like this."

Joan broke free from her father's light grasp and went to Rose, hugging the still sobbing 
girl.

"I had to raise her and Matt by myself," Amanda said, with a little less conviction. "I had 
to take care of them, be both mother and father. There, there wasn't an option of being 
the nice one or the mean one."

"You don't have to be a goddamned general, barking out orders," Joan said, wiping 
Rose's tears on the arms of her sweatshirt sleeve. It pained her like a knife in the gut to 
see her like this.

"Don't, don't fight," Rose said, looking at the two of them. "Please, don't fight."

"I won't, I promise," Joan looked at her love in the eyes. "I won't fight with your mother 
ever again. Just tell her, however you feel, whatever is in your heart. If you don't want 
the baby, I'll take it from you if you'll let me. Just say what it is that you want." Joan 
held her hand over Rose's left breast. "Just say what you feel in here."

"I, I," Rose sniffled. Her chest ached so badly it felt like she was going to have a heart 
attack. She looked at her mother, and then her lover, and then closed her eyes. She looked 
into herself, and tried to sort out all of the emotions, all of the pain and sadness she had 
dealt with. She couldn't ignore them, she couldn't even comprehend them all. But she 
just tried to sort them out of the way, and learn what it was that she wanted to do. She 
opened her eyes, and knew the answer. The real one that lay deep in her heart.

"I want to keep my baby," Rose said, smiling. Joan almost tipped the chair over from the 
force as she hugged her. 

"God Rose, why did you make us wait for so long?" Amanda asked, still judgmental. 
Freed from the grasp of Denise, she walked over to her daughter and hugged her, and 
Joan. 

"I, you aren't, upset?" Rose rested her head, it was aching terribly from all of the 
sobbing. 

"Why would I be upset?" Amanda tried to sound innocent. 

"I, I just, I," Rose sighed. "I don't know."

"It's ok honey, it's ok," Amanda said, hugging her tighter. "If you want to have this 
child, then I'll do whatever I can to help."

William just stared in admiration, he felt a tear well up in his eye. He wanted someone to 
hug, or at least to high five. But Dr. Thomas didn't seem the type. 

*

"I'm, I'm sorry for before," Joan said, as she held her delicate Rose's hand, helping her 
down the stairs of the hospital. "About grabbing you."

"It's ok, you showed some spirit girl. Futa, I mean," Amanda said, leading the three of 
them. "It's good, shows that you really care. Anyone who cares about my Rose that much 
has to want to fight for her. It showed me that you just might be worth my daughter after 
all. Maybe I was right to keep her from the boys."

"Thanks, I guess," Joan scratched her head with her free hand.

"It's a compliment," Rose acknowledged, without noting that it was just as backhanded 
as it seemed.

"It is a compliment. If anything, the fact that you were willing to have the baby 
transplanted showed a lot in you. A lot. Some little punk would have been jumping for 
the chance to get her to have an abortion. It's too easy, to just solve a 'problem' like that. 
A necessary evil, but it's still an evil. But you have something to you. Maybe I got a bad 
impression of you. I guess we'll have plenty of time to correct that," Amanda thought 
aloud.

"I guess we will," Joan looked back at her father, talking to Greg White. 

"I, I'm adopted. I never really had a grandparent before. My dad is the only parent I've 
ever had," Joan said, noticing the silence. She felt her hand tugged by her main squeeze. 
"What I'm trying to say, is that I really hope that you'll be a grandmother to our child. I 
don't really know what that means, but, I really hope that you'll be there. That you'll 
want to be there. Because I know how hard it can be, and I really want my child, our 
child, to have a grandmother," Joan let go of Rose's hand, and wrapped it around her 
shoulder.

"Where else would I be?" Amanda asked, making the question seem incredulous. "Of 
course I'm going to be there for my grandchild. Wouldn't have it any other way."

"Thanks, it, it means a lot to me," Joan smiled, wondering how much time that she was 
going to have with Rose. She wanted to live with her forever, she wanted to go to bed 
with her at night and wake up with her in the morning. She stopped for a second, and 
opened her purse up.

"I don't know how to say this exactly. I mean I had rehearsed it before, but that was 
weeks ago, and after everything, it, it all seems so silly, and stupid," Joan dug down to 
the bottom of her purse, it seemed to be a never ending bag of holding.

"What?" Rose asked, watching Joan.

"Well, I, I just don't want my son growing up as a bastard," Joan finally found what she 
was looking for. She had put it away almost a month ago, waiting for that cliché 'right 
time' that had never seemed to come. 

"What?" Rose stopped, turning towards her. Amanda took a step down and watched from 
a slight distance.

Joan took a small velvet bag, inside it was a small ring.

"Is, is that what, what I think it is?" Rose looked down.

"It's not like, a real ring. I mean it doesn't have a big diamond on it, but it is gold. It, it 
used to belong to my mom. I don't have a lot of stuff of hers, but my dad saved all of her 
jewelry and clothes, that kind of stuff. It never really felt right, it never belonged to me. 
But, maybe, maybe that's because it never did belong to me," Joan leaned down on her 
knee. "Maybe it belongs to you. Rose, will you marry me?" she raised the ring to her 
blooming flower.

"Yes, yes, a million times YES!" Rose grabbed the ring and tried it on, it was a little 
large for her finger but she didn't care. She pounced onto Joan, sending her flying back 
into her mother. Rose and Joan couldn't help but weep tears of joy.

*

"Well Slick Willy, looks like it's a happy story in the end, huh?" Greg said, watching the 
young couple walk down the stairs.

"Yeah, yeah it is. Thanks for what you did," William nodded.

"I didn't do that much, probably not even worth the retainer. But I tried, and we did well 
enough, eh?" Greg smiled.

"Yeah, we managed to pull it out of our asses again this time," William chortled.

"I know we're not exactly the best of friends now, but these last few days, well, it's been 
nice to see you. We grew so far apart, sometimes you need someone who was there since 
the beginning to remind you who you are, and where you're going," Greg thought aloud.

"I think I understand what you mean," William had thought about that too. About how 
much like Greg his life would have been if he hadn't adopted Karen, if he hadn't settled 
for a family life.

"Maybe I'm not the best guy, but if you have a free weekend, maybe you could bring the 
futas down and we could play some golf at the country club, or have a barbeque or 
something. You know, we don't have to wait until there's another lawsuit to get 
together," Greg offered his hand.

"Yeah, I'd like that, I really would. How about a week from Sunday?" William took 
Greg's hand.

"Can't think of anything else I'd rather do," he said, shaking hands on it.

*

"It's a very touching story," Alex said, still upset at the man sitting in her office. She had 
listened to the entire story with rapt anticipation. William was a great story teller, and he 
had gotten better with the ages. 'Probably from telling those futas bedtime stories' she 
thought. "But it doesn't change much."

"Well, now you know what's happened," William went to sip at his coffee but it was 
empty. His throat was parched after the long story.

"It doesn't change that much William Charlie Brown. You still hid from me your 
daughter's pregnancy, you tried to file a lawsuit, potentially filed a false police report to 
the police, and had your daughter prepped for an extremely risky surgery," Alex said 
disapprovingly. 

"Tell me where I did something wrong," William challenged. "Tell me where I failed to 
do the right thing. Please. I felt like I did everything I could have done, should have done, 
at each turn. Where did I mess up?"

"You didn't tell me," Alex said decidedly. "You didn't tell me."

"I'm sorry Alex. I am. I was busy, but I should have contacted you," William thought he 
had pegged it. She was hurt because he hadn't told her. He should have noticed it earlier. 
"I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say."

"Congratulations," she said begrudgingly. "You're really getting to be an old man now, 
gonna be a grandfather. Gets strange when your kids start having kids."

"I'm kind of looking forward to it, even though I plan on being more of a father figure 
than a grandfather. Although I don't look forward towards arguing for who keeps custody 
of the child. And I don't know how we're going to coordinate where the child, and both 
of them, are going to live," William knew there was a lot of planning. He expected to 
have to get a car for traveling at least. 

"Just count your lucky stars this is the first time," Alex grinned at William as he rolled 
his eyes.

"I've been considering if it might make more sense to provide the pill and condoms to the 
futas at a younger age. But I'm worried that I might be encouraging them to have sex," he 
knew that getting his children to make smart sexual decisions was going to be a difficult 
one. 

"I don't know that it would have mattered, it sounds like Joan had access to all of that," 
Alex sighed as she looked at the clock. Almost eight. "Sometimes people just have to 
make their own mistakes."

"I guess," William conceded.

"This is not going to be a good report tomorrow. I'm going to hear it for sure. They might 
want you in to talk to them. Now wouldn't be a good time to adopt another child, that's 
for sure," she stretched her legs, they were tired from sitting down all evening.

"What about custody?" he asked. "Is there any chance that I could lose custody of any of 
my daughters?"

"No, there shouldn't be. But this is going to be a black spot on your record Bill, 
understand that. It's going to hurt, come next time you're looking for another futa," she 
said, standing up.

"I know," he nodded.

"Not that you need another. Even if you did the 'right thing'" she took her coat off of the 
back of the chair. William helped her put it on.

"Well, how are the wedding plans coming?" she mused.

"Just as complicated as you can imagine. Expect an invitation in the upcoming weeks," 
he said glumly. He was excited about the wedding, but not at all of the hassle it involved, 
especially with the rigid timetable. The wedding had to happen before the birth.

"I look forward to it. I'll buy them a gross of diapers, lord knows they'll need it. So, any 
names come up for the little bundle of joy?" she asked, opening the door.

"Well Joan has been pushing it, but I don't know if her mom will accept it," he said, with 
a grin on his face.

"Why, what does she want to name him?" Alex led him out the door, entered her private 
pin number, and offered her DNA in the form of a flick of the finger to the scanner to 
lock it.

"Well it sounds kind of silly now," he started down the hallway.

"What is it already?" she asked impatiently.

"They want to name the baby, William," he said with a shit-eating grin. 

"Oh lord, can your ego take it? Good night, gramps," she shook her head in mock 
disapproval.

"Thanks. And I am sorry," he said, knowing that it was going to be another late night, 
and an early morning. But he wouldn't have it any other way, it was just what he needed.


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