Is This Real? - PP&F (Will)

[Natalie Blake]

Another day, another early-morning wake-up call. Not that there was anything wrong with that--going straight to work gave Natalie something to do, a way to keep her hands and mind busy. She was feeling a fair bit better now, and she felt she owed it to everyone in engineering to try and take up some of the slack by working harder after being so slow for the last few weeks.

However, she hadn't thought that "taking up the slack" would involve arriving at five in the morning. At least she wasn't the only one--a few others were there already when she came in, and she greeted them as naturally as she could when she was still half-asleep. Will was among them, and for him she managed a warm smile and a wave before she wandered over to her current work-station.

Why was it always this panel that malfunctioned on her? She'd repaired it at least a dozen times all ready, but it always managed to destroy her work and go on the fritz again. After considering for a moment, she decided she'd try again, and if that didn't work she'd talk to Will about ordering the needed parts for it to be fixed properly.

With a sigh she dropped to her knees before rolling underneath the panel to study it from below. Normally it didn't help much, but maybe there was something down there that was interfering with her repairs. It had happened before, after all. Smirking a little, she remembered the last time she'd been under a panel like this--it had been her first time really meeting Will.

Closing her eyes, Natalie allowed herself to reminisce for a moment. It seemed like it had happened quite a while ago, but in reality it hadn't been little more than a few months--and in that time, the two of them had fallen in love. She grinned a little foolishly at the thought, repressing a giggle. Falling in love had seemed so unlikely in her life, and yet it had happened.

As amazing as knowing that Will loved her made her feel, she really did have to get to work, and so heaving another sigh she re-opened her eyes--only to find that instead of looking at the underside of a panel, she was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. "What the...?" Was she lying on a bed? She was! But when had she moved to a bed? What was going on?

The comforter that covered her pooled around her waist as she sat up. Apparently she'd done so too quickly, as the motion made her stomach lurch and the next she knew she'd bolted from the bed and through a door she didn't recognize to be violently sick into the toilet she found there. Somehow, she'd known that the door hid a bathroom, but she wasn't sure how.

As she rinsed out her mouth at the sink, Natalie studied her appearance in the mirror. She looked different, somehow. Older, almost. But how was that possible? Shaking her head, she turned her thoughts onto her still unsettled stomach, wondering why it was acting up as it was. Maybe she'd passed out or something, and she'd been brought here? It was possible that she'd gotten that flu from Ally.

But that didn't answer where she was. Everything was distantly familiar, almost as if she'd been here before when she'd been very little and could only remember bits and pieces of it, though she knew she hadn't. She couldn't think on that for long when her stomach pitched again, and she brought a hand up to place over it as if that would calm it back down. Her brow furrowed. Had she gained weight?

Looking down, she realized that her stomach was indeed sticking out further than usual. She hadn't noticed it before, due to the over-sized t-shirt she was inexplicably wearing. What sort of flu bug left you bloated? None that she knew of off the top of her head. In fact, if she didn't know better, she'd say she looked almost...

"No..." Natalie gasped, her eyes growing wide with shock, "Oh no, there is no freaking way..." Pulling up the bottom of the shirt, she eyed her distended abdomen with both horror and fascination. Was she... pregnant? But... how was that even possible?! Timidly she brought a shaking hand up to touch her stomach again, swallowing hard and trying to comprehend what was happening.

Natalie let the shirt drop to cover her again when she heard approaching footsteps, and it occurred to her then that it would have taken two for her to end up this way. She stepped back into the bedroom apprehensively, almost afraid to see who'd be coming down the hall toward her. Seeing who it was, she sucked in a sharp breath and tried desperately not to freak out. Oh. My. God.

[William Blake]

Engineering was pretty much Will's home. If people wondered why his bedroom was oddly neat, it was because he barely spent any time in there. The vast majority of the time, when he wasn't completely the necessities of eating, showering and such, he could be found here, or fixing things around the ship if need be. It was partly because he needed to be, but also because he simply didn't trust people to do as good a job as he could do.

One person he did trust to be on top form was Natalie. She'd needed time off recently because of her father's passing, and he given it to her no questions asked. If she wanted to come in and work, she could, and if she'd rather just rest, then that was fine by him too. He hadn't known how doting he was until Natalie had come along. She'd brought out the romantic inside of him, and he was grateful for that, as long as it was just when she was around. It didn't make him any more forthcoming to the other crew or engineers. He was their boss, he had to be professional.

Will had been doing his work and hers for the most the part these past few weeks, and was surviving on around three or four hours of sleep a night, with maybe a sneaky nap in the middle of the day instead of lunch. He could eat while he worked. When Natalie entered and offered her a smile, he returned it, albeit tiredly, rubbing his eyes a little. He hadn't slept at all in around 48 hours now, and was in dire need of some shut eye.

He disappeared round the back of a large piece of machinery that needed examining and eyed it for a moment before deciding he couldn't hold out any longer. He'd just shut his eyes for five minutes, get some coffee, and he'd be on the go again, it would be as simple as that. His arse had barely touched the floor before his head found his knees and he drifted off to the land of zed.

Opening one eye, Will moaned. He was sitting at a wooden table, his face smushed against a pile of papers strewn across the surface. Lifting his head he snorted, brushing a piece of paper that was stuck to his face away from him and let it float to the floor. Where was he? He felt oddly awake considering how exhausted he'd been only a moment ago, and he certainly wasn't in engineering any more.

Looking around, it appeared that he was in an apartment, a fairly flashy one at that, in a sky scraper - the view outside the window was of other tall buildings and the sun rising in the distance. How strange. It was like the sort of place he'd imagined getting if he ever settled down. He was probably dreaming, that would explain a lot.

Rubbing a hand over his face - where he found a shallow layer of stubble - he rose from his chair, and wandered through a door into the kitchen, like on autopilot. His hand found the coffee pot, but it was empty. This dream wasn't exactly off to the best of starts. Although, how had he known exactly which door was the one to the kitchen? There had been several other options and a corridor, and yet he had walked straight in here. Strange.

Walking back out again, he pursed his lips, scratching his head. His hair was fairly long for him, and messy, probably from sleeping at the desk. He hadn't had a hair cut in a while it seemed in this dream. After thinking for a moment, he chose to walk down the corridor in the hope of finding the bedroom. He wasn't sure why, maybe if he went to sleep in his dream he would wake up in reality? Crazy idea, might work.

He stepped through the door to find Natalie staring at him, her mouth agog. "What?" he said reflexively, stopping in his tracks. Hang on, what was Natalie doing in his dream looking at him like that. His eyes caught sight of the fact that he was wearing one of his old t-shirts then focused in on the... bump. A bump?

A bump.

"Oh holy Jesus," he said before he could stop himself, his large blue eyes going wide, "are you pregnant?!"

[Natalie Blake]

Will. Natalie was unable to do more than stare at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, as her frantically spinning brain processed what this might mean. He looked older, too, and for a brief moment she thought that maybe she was having some sort of dream--and a very strange and admittedly rather frightening dream at that. But Will's reaction on seeing her didn't fit.

If this were a dream, surely he would have known already? She had to be a few months in, to have a bump as she did. Which left her with two alternatives: either Will wasn't the father in this dream, which seemed highly unlikely considering his presence, or, scary version, this wasn't a dream.

But it wasn't real, either. It couldn't be. There was no way she could have skipped who knew how many years, and gotten pregnant, without remembering a thing. You would have remembered getting married, too, a small part of her mind piped up when she spied the ring on Will's finger, only then realizing that she was wearing one to match.

When he spoke--well, more like shouted, though she was fairly sure he hadn't meant to be so loud--Natalie jumped a little, her eyes shooting back up to his face. His eyes were just as wide as hers no doubt were, stunned and disbelieving. It took her a moment to understand what he'd asked, and another to remember how to speak in order to answer him.

"I... what? No. No! No, of course not. It's... um... well..." Her knees were starting to shake, and she hastily made over to the bed to sit down before she fell to the floor. "M-maybe?" she got out weakly, looking up at him frightfully before down at her undeniable baby-bump. "But... how? When? I don't..."

Her hands were shaking even worse now as she smoothed the fabric of the shirt she was wearing out over her stomach, almost as if she hoped that by doing so she'd make the bump disappear. It didn't, of course. There had to be some sort of explanation behind this, something that didn't sound completely insane.

But as to what that explanation was, Natalie didn't have the slightest clue. It frightened her. Impatiently rubbing away the tears that had sprung to her eyes, she collected herself enough to look up at Will again, though she wasn't sure what she hoped to find in doing so.

[William Blake]

"Bloody hell," Will said, a little quieter this time. He hadn't meant to let that exclaimation burst out of his mouth before at quite that decibel. Only, it had taken him a little by surprise. It wasn't often that he strolled into a room in his dream and found his girlfriend four months pregnant, give or take a couple of weeks. They hadn't even slept together yet, so the idea of her being pregnant made his brain flip.

Not that he was particularly able to calm down, but he began to notice other things that he hadn't seen upon entering the room. For one, Natalie's hair was about three inches too long, and she seemed to have aged a good few years since he'd seen her a few minutes ago. Also, the bedroom was definitely set up for two people, glasses of water on either side of the bed, two wardrobes. Apparently they had moved in together.

Then there was the wedding ring on Natalie's finger.

Will shook his head quickly to try get a grip for a moment. This was supposed to be his dream right? Then why was Natalie looking so flustered? If he was dreaming, then surely this would be normal for her, she'd been pregnant for a long while already, surely she would have known and accepted it. But she was just as stunned as he was. And, apparently his reaction hadn't done anything to help her state of shock.

She fumbled over her words before retreating to the bed, sitting down before she fell down. Tears began to stream down her cheeks, and seeing that seemed to sober Will up quite a bit. Instantly his overriding feeling changed to one of concern. After taking a breath, he managed to make his way over to the bed and took a seat beside her.

Reaching out to her with his hand, he noticed he was wearing a wedding ring too - sort of a given, but a relief to know that it was in fact him that she was married to. "I don't know what's going on," he said as calmly as he could, "a couple of minutes ago, I sat down behind the warp reactor to take a nap, and I woke up here, head down on the dining room table, with a sheet of A4 stuck to my face."

Looking around, clearly Natalie'd had a different experience. The bathroom door was gaping open and the light was on, she'd obviously dashed in there upon waking. The bump in her stomach was the explanation. "At first I thought this was some sort of dream, I mean," he gestured to the apartment, "this is like something from my dreams, but... you seem too aware for you to be a dream too. And, believe me, I have no idea why I'd dream something like this." No matter how sleep deprived he was.

[Natalie Blake]

Despite the fact that there was no comfort in Will's words, hearing him talk helped calm Natalie down and after closing her eyes for a moment she'd managed to get the tears to stop. If only doing so had made everything else go away as well. He told her what had happened to him, nodding a little before she informed him of her own experience.

"I was trying to fix that stupid console again. I closed my eyes for just a second, and I guess I must have dozed off or something. Next I knew I 'woke up' here." She didn't bother with going into detail about how she'd woken up--that would probably just be a little too much information. Of course, the open bathroom door was sort of a give-away, so it wasn't like he hadn't pieced it together already anyway.

"I came up with the dream theory too," Natalie sighed. Idly she ran a hand through her hair as she tried to think of some other conclusion, though she was too bewildered to really focus. "You've dreamed about an apartment like this before?" she asked. Despite how out of place the question was, it interested her to know such a thing.

What Will said after that made her glance down at her ballooned stomach again. "Yeah, I've never exactly dreamed about my own pregnancy either." However, they'd more or less ascertained that this wasn't a dream. They were both too conscious for that to be likely. Sucking in a breath determinedly, Natalie got to her feet and wandered out into the kitchen--somehow she'd known where to go.

There had to be something that could explain what had happened. Finding a pile of letters on the counter, she picked them up and began leafing through them avidly, finding that they all carried the surname "Blake". "Look around," she said without looking up when she heard Will's footsteps coming down the hall. "See if you can find anything that looks like it doesn't fit."

((If you can't think of anywhere interesting or pivotal to take this, we can just wrap it up, I think. Sound good to you?))

[William Blake]

"That console is the bane of your life," Will said, shaking his head a little. At least both their stories matched up. This didn't seem like a dream, but it was hard to believe that it was real as well. It was confusing Will, and he didn't like that feeling. He liked to be able to know what was going on at all times so he could fix it. This was something he couldn't 'fix'.

He arched his eyebrows upwards when she asked about the apartment. "Yeah," he said, "maybe not exactly like this one, but similar." He wasn't sure where the question had come from, but humoring with an answer wasn't going to hurt him, and she seemed interested. "This is the sort of place I always thought I'd buy someday." Mostly because it was the complete opposite of his father's house.

Will watched as Natalie rose to her feet, leaving the room in the direction of the kitchen. He got up not long after, playing with the ring on his finger as he walked back through to the lounge, looking out at the view. It was astounding, and so real. The ring felt a little strange, but oddly comfortable as well. It didn't feel wrong to be married to Natalie, it had just come as a surprise.

"All right," he called back, hesitating for a moment before checking the papers on the desk that he had been sleeping on. They were designs for a ship, something similar to the Venia but technology that was at least a few years more advanced, obviously he had been working on it, but the designs were beautiful, a little beyond his drawing skills.

He went over to the cabinets next, running his fingers over the books there, his eyes focusing in on the photos. He recognised a fair amount of the crew from the photos, others were of him and Natalie, one in particular caught his eye. "Natalie," he called to her, but before he could get a proper look, his eyes flew open and he found himself back in engineering.

Taking a breath, his hand went up to his hair, it was short and spikey once again, and the ring was gone from his finger. He still couldn't believe that it was just a dream, definitely not, but no doubt he would discover for himself what was going on soon enough.

((Yep, wrapping it up seems good to me =) ))

[Natalie Blake]

Among the letters were some from Natalie's mother, a couple from Anna--whose last name had apparently become Braun--and one or two from Joe, Fi and the girls. Pretty typical stuff, it looked like two. Skimming through one of the letters from her mother, Natalie found it was largely just Elaine gushing about the baby, and demanding that they come for a visit soon.

A small smile tugged at the blonde woman's lips as she read through the others. She and Will seemed to have it pretty good. A nice apartment, great friends, judging from the paychecks they'd received they also had decent jobs, and they had each other. She glanced down at her stomach, seeing what had come from all this happiness. It was like some wacky fairytale. There had to be some catch to all of this somewhere--it wasn't real, but it felt it.

Or, it had. For a moment she thought she heard Will call her name, but then within the space of a blink she'd gone from looking at the letters in her hand to looking at the underside of the console again. Instantly her hand flew to her stomach, finding it flat as it had been when she'd come underneath before. For a moment she just lay there, too stunned to move. Will!

Rolling out from under the console, she pushed herself to her feet and walked as fast as she could without sprinting toward the warp reactor, peering around it to find Will sitting there and looking bewildered. "Did--? Am I going mad, or did you--?" Funny. She couldn't seem to phrase the question, "Did you just have the same dream I just had?"

[William Blake]

Will took a breath, looking round and up at Natalie as she appeared behind the warp reactor trying to ask if that really had just happened. He was sort of relieved to see that she wasn't several months pregnant any more, but also, the thought of having a child with her hadn't been that terrible. Just not right now.

He nodded, "yeah, I think so," he said, rising onto his feet, dusting himself down before stepping towards her. Almost as if he just had to be sure, he reached out with his hand to touch her stomach and found it flat, just like it should be. "Wh.." was all he managed before he shook his head at himself. "That was so weird."

Will had to sit down and figure what the hell had just happened, just to put his mind at ease. So, he leaned forward to kiss Natalie on the forehead before saying, "I'll see you later," and heading off towards his office with the same bewildered expression on his face. It was going to be a little while before he felt really awake again.