"What's in there?" Jax pointed at Cassidy's stomach from the balled-up safety of his corner.

Cassidy looked down at his belly. He looked at Jax and smiled. "A little Jax-baby."

Jax put his face in his hands, shook his head, and set his mop to swaying. "No way. No way, no way, no way."

"Come 'ere," Cassidy said, holding out his hand. "He's still kicking, come 'ere and feel him. You're gonna be a Daddy, Jax." He smiled. "We both are."

Jax dropped his hands and gaped at Cassidy's crazy-talking mouth, but made no move back toward the bed. "No way," he said again. "No way, no way, no way."

Cassidy started to heave himself up off the bed, but Jax pressed deeper into the back of the couch, and Cassidy plopped back down.

"You really are crazy," Jax cried. "What's in there?!"

Cassidy took a deep breath. It was kind of a lot, and Jax was skittish as a colt in a burning barn -- he figured he'd just dump out as much as he could and worry about tidying it up afterwards.

And so he did. Trying to sound as rational, calm, and not-deranged as possible, he laid out everything Wade had told him. About acting as Elvira's surrogate. About the propensity Scandinavian men had for extragastric epidemia. About the doctors in Oslo (who Wade had been begging him to contact). About the sac and the eggs and the mutated chromosomes and guys like Cassidy who take guys like Jax up the ass and make babies.

"There's a vote at the end of January on logging rights that I absolutely have to be in town for," he said, winding up, "or they'll vote me out on my ass so fast it'll bruise my tailbone. But right after that I'm going to Oslo. To have our baby, Jax," he said, rubbing his bloated belly with pride for once. "And I want you to come with me." Jax's face held its expression of horrified disbelief long enough that he felt compelled to add, "I mean, you know, if you want to."

Shortly Jax unfolded his legs; then he leapt about the room on them, gathering up his clothes. He moved towards the door without stopping to put anything on, covering his junk with his jeans.

Cassidy was aghast. "Jax? Please, dude, say something. Jax, you can't go. Please, Babe, not tonight. Of all nights."

Jax turned to look over his shoulder at Cassidy. His eyes softened, but his body was rigid and aimed right at the door. "It's a lot, okay, Pickle?" he said. "I can see that you believe what you're saying -- shit, I felt that kick, I'm pretty sure I believe what you're saying. But either you're telling me I'm about to be a Daddy for real -- because somehow I knocked up a dude, which is definitely not supposed to happen, and kind of a little bit unfair because it's a risk I had no way of ever knowing I was taking --"

"I didn't know either, babe ..."

Jax held up a hand. "I know, Pick. But I don't know if I'm ready for this level of crazy."

"Jax, I'm not crazy ..."

"You know what, though? You are. One of us has to be. Either you're straight-up unsafe insane, or you're really a dude I jizzed a baby into telling me you want us to go ahead and welcome nature's most fucked up miracle into our little family. And that would make us both crazy."

"I know it's a lot."

"It's a lot."

"I know it's a lot. I've just had some time with it, is all."

"Yeah, well, I think I might need a little time with it, too."

"But do you have to go?"

Jax turned in response and strode through the living room. Still naked, still clutching his balled-up jeans to his front, he opened the door and stepped into the hall. "I'll call you, okay?"

Fucking hormones. Cassidy cried until morning.