mother_confessor | for Richard

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for Richard

Dr. Zimmerman had scheduled her to come in this week for something she called an ultrasound. It would, among other things, show Richard and Kahlan the child growing within them and they might be able to tell if she were carrying a boy or girl. Kahlan had been impossibly nervous about this; if it were a boy, would she rather know and dread it all along or would she rather be blissfully ignorant? She couldn't say.

Dr. Zimmerman seemed to understand this nervousness, even if she didn't know the cause, and had been happy to let Richard stay in the room while the procedure was completed. It was like magic, in a way, getting to see deep within her to something she shouldn't be able to see until the child was born. She wasn't fully formed, of course, but she was a girl. That much was absolutely clear, according to Dr. Zimmerman, and Kahlan couldn't help but be elated at the prospect.

Once she was given the clean bill of health and instructions for the next few months as to what to eat and what signs needed to bring her back to the clinic for more than just a regular appointment, she and Richard were allowed to take their leave. Once they were on the path back home, hand in hand, Kahlan turned to him with a wide grin on her face.

"A girl. I knew it."

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Richard had done his best to hide it, but from the moment the possibility of a male Confessor being born to them had been brought up, he'd been worried. Even though he knew Kahlan had no powers here, and that their children wouldn't have those powers either, he'd been unable to wipe the image of the kind of world a male Confessor had created from his mind. He hadn't known what Kahlan would want to do, and hadn't been able to bring himself to ask her or talk about it.

Now that he knew they were having a girl--he hadn't been able to make heads nor tails of the image, but Dr. Zimmerman had been so certain and he believed her completely--he felt like he could breathe properly again. Already he was making adjustments in his head to the designs he'd worked up for a cradle and a toy box, as he'd really thought a hint of vines and roses on the lid of the box and the head of the cradle would look pretty and feminine yet still simple enough for his and Kahlan's taste. Now that he knew they would be used by a girl, he wanted to go ahead and use the design.

"I shouldn't have ever doubted you," Richard replied, grinning right back at Kahlan, his steps light and buoyant. Honestly, he felt like he was floating. "Everyone knows a woman's intuition never fails. A little girl, with freckles and big blue eyes. I just know it. We're so lucky, Kahlan."

"I think she'll have brown eyes," Kahlan said, grinning at him. She had been studying genetics in her spare time (what else was there to do on the island?) and she thought brown eyes were more prevalent. Only time would tell.

"I can't wait to tell Jane, Florence and Aphrodite the news. Sam, too," she said, realizing that there were a whole host of women she called friends here. It was very different from how isolated she'd been back home.

"Which would also be beautiful," Richard allowed, laughing. Naturally, he didn't think it was possible for any child born to Kahlan to be anything less than beautiful. Even the blurry and indistinct images on the pictures they'd seen today, Richard would forever swear were absolutely beautiful. Their little girl.

"I'll need to tell Jon, and Dave. I wish Zedd was here, can you imagine his reaction? Well, after he got done lecturing us. But, a great-granddaughter!"

"He would...I think his love of his family would override his anger that we fell to distraction," Kahlan said, giving him a sheepish smile.

"Zedd was never as straight and narrow as I was. I was so angry with him when I found out that you knew nothing about our mission. In hindsight, I see that it was the right choice. He thinks beyond the known."

"He's a good man," Richard agreed, leaning over to press a kiss to Kahlan's temple. Zedd had made many mistakes, but Richard would never think of his grandfather as anything less than a good man. "And he'll be a wonderful great-grandfather. I'm not gonna stop hoping we see him again someday, here or when we go back. Cara, too..."

Richard trailed off and laughed. "I can only imagine her face when she finds out we named the baby after her. She'll think us daft."

"Daft, maybe, but with our hearts in the right place. I don't miss home as much as I should," Kahlan admitted, "But it feels right to me to name our daughter after someone so important to you and, I guess, us, since you say I know her as well. It feels like she should have something of the Midlands, even if it's only a name."

Kahlan put great stock in tradition - something she felt she'd abandoned since coming to the island and embracing it so fully.

"It's a little difficult to miss home when we get to have so much here," Richard agreed, blushing just the tiniest bit with a foolish, happy grin on his face. They'd traveled so much and hadn't had much time for anything but the mission, and now they had friends, a home together, a life with each other. Richard missed Zedd and Cara, but he was ashamed to admit there was a very human part of him that would be perfectly happy not to have to leave.

"We get to have everything we always wanted here," Kahlan agreed. "I do feel guilty about leaving our work in the Midlands undone but I know, someday, we'll go back. I just think we deserve a chance to be happy together before we do."

Kahlan wasn't very concerned about it. Richard had already said a version of Kahlan was there in his world, later than when she came to the island, so who was to say there weren't versions of them both still in the Midlands now?

Richard hated leaving his tasks undone, too, every bit as much as Kahlan, but she was right on both points. They'd denied themselves every happiness, and they shouldn't have to feel guilty for being happy while they had the chance.

"I think you're right. I mean, you were with me every step of the way, months upon months that you haven't lived yet. So we obviously go back some time."

He smiled broadly, taking Kahlan's hand and bringing it to his lips to kiss her knuckles. "And when we do, we'll take every step together, like always."

"It's been a long time since my concerns were so small. I have always had to think about anyone but myself," Kahlan said, fully aware that Richard probably felt similarly about his own burdens.

"It seems strange that here, it's really just the two of us and the child."

"It's not for lack of trying on our parts, of course," Richard pointed out with a laugh. Richard spent a good deal of his time trying to find ways to help people; they were small ways, certainly, more of what he'd done in Hartland. "I guess you can take the Seeker and the Mother Confessor out of the Midlands, but deep down they're still the Seeker and the Mother Confessor."

"Basically, yes. I don't think it would be right if we completely changed. It's part of who we are to help others," Kahlan said, grinning at him and laying a hand over her belly.

"It's something I want to teach her, too, when she's old enough."

"To help others?" Richard laid his hand over Kahlan's, rubbing back and forth gently. He hadn't felt the baby move yet, much to his chagrin. He was looking forward to that, and doing his best not to annoy Kahlan unnecessarily with his enthusiasm. "That goes without saying! She'll be as brilliant and kind as her mother."

"And as giving as her father. We hope, anyway. I think most of it is in how the child is reared more than anything that happens right now."

She hoped so, at any rate.

"It'll be interesting to see." Richard remarked, grinning even wider, if such a thing were possible. "What she's going to look like, the bits of personality she'll get from you and from me...though you're right, how we raise her will have the most to do with that."

Richard didn't believe such things were in the blood; Richard was who he was because he'd been raised by George and Mary Cypher, but because he had the same blood in him as Darken and Panis Rahl.

"I want her in school as early as they will take her," Kahlan said emphatically. "I want her to have all the knowledge that this island offers and then some, if at all possible. I think the opportunity should not be squandered."

She had been well-educated at Aydindril, certainly, but well-educated in the Midlands was still far behind the island's standard.

"You'll let her have a little fun, though right?" Richard laughed; he knew full well that Kahlan wouldn't be a taskmaster, though he was sure she'd be focused much, much more on education than Richard would. It would make for a good balance, he thought.

"I heard from a very wise man once that an important part of child rearing is letting them play in the dirt and catch worms," Kahlan said, unable to hide the smile in her voice even if the expression on her face was an attempt at being stern.

"So I guess she'll be doing plenty of that, won't she?"

"I hope so," Richard laughed. "Unless worms make her squeal. If they do, I'll do the catching, and the baiting of the hooks. She can just catch the fish."

"I would hope that a child of a Seeker and Confessor wouldn't be squeamish about something so commonplace as worms and dirt," Kahlan said, laughing at the mere thought of it. Of course, if she was, she had no doubt that Richard would ease those fears for her.

"I think this will be a grand adventure for both of us, having a daughter. I'm ready."

"I admit that I chased many an eight year old girl with earthworms in my wild days of youth," Richard snickered. "It was actually kinda fun when they squealed. Of course now I think if a boy did that to my daughter I'd have to have a nice long talk with him."

He grinned again, that big happy, somewhat dopey grin. "The best adventure of all, having a family. Probably the most dangerous, too."

"Probably. I just want to be sure that she's safe and sound no matter what," Kahlan said softly, a little more serious than before. "I want her to know that she can depend on us for anything, no matter how big or small, and that we'll be there. I didn't have that when I was growing up."

"I had it, but sometimes I worry that I took if for granted," Richard admitted. "But maybe that's how it should be. A safe and happy kid is supposed to take it for granted that their parents will always be there for them."

"I am glad that you did," Kahlan said quietly. "Just as I know your parents were glad for the chance to raise you and for all the years they spent with you. From what you've said, they're the most loving and generous people who could possibly have ever been entrusted with a child. I know that my purpose in life was very different but I cannot help but be envious of that upbringing."

"They were the best," Richard sighed. The grief had passed, but he would never really stop missing his parents. "I wish you could've met them. They would've loved you, Kahlan."

"We will just have to tell Cara about them instead," Kahlan decided, tugging Richard's hand down to the slight swell of her belly. "So she can learn about where she came from."

"They'd have loved her too," Richard sighed, giving Kahlan's belly a rub and bending down to kiss the little bump. "They'd have just been beside themselves, deliriously happy."

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