"Things are a lot as you say. I can appreciate that. Especially now that the baby is moving." She looked down at her belly and touched it. "It feels like butterfly wings fluttering."

He sat up a little. "That's marvelous!" he said more genuinely. "How long?"

"It started last night and it's what kept me awake. It fascinates me quite a lot and it makes me happy to feel," she said with a small laugh, a noise he'd probably not heard from her yet. It was a soft one, not an annoying one. It was warm. She smiled a wan smile and it actually reached her eyes. She was better. She had rid herself of the hallucinations of the man who caused her to be on the run for barely a year. Her grief no longer choked her. It was easy to see because her shoulders no longer drooped.

To think that the worst night of his life was the night new life stirred. It was strangely comforting. "I am happy for you. You deserve happiness."

"Is it normal?" She asked, then added, "To fall in love with a baby that hasn't been born yet?"

"Yes, from what I've seen," he said with a smile, that hurt his face, so he stopped. "It doesn't always happen, but I'm glad you feel that way."

She smiled more, her hand over the spot. "I am glad. It's the opposite of death. I think that's what means most to me. I am growing another person."

"You are," he said quietly. "So we must all take good care of you, for that is no small feat." He got up slowly and gasped at the pain in his side. "Finish packing. I will write some instructions for the Zimmermanns."

She only nodded. She got up and started for the trunk, but stopped. Her head bowed forward, she took a deep breath abd moved to her knees, sitting on her feet and folding the little nightgown she just finished for the baby, then the others.

He was about to turn when he noticed how she bent forward. He observed her for a few seconds, then asked: "Are you alright, Pippa?"