Pregnant and Soft
The clinic lobby smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and paper masks.
Outside, traffic murmured like water against a dock.
Azalea stood behind the front desk, half-tired, half-wired, flipping through intake charts with one hand and balancing a mug of barley tea in the other. Her shift was almost over. Just one more hour and she could sink back into her apartment’s quiet — the only place where grief didn’t breathe down her neck quite as loud.
The receptionist buzzed through the intercom.
“Walk-in. No appointment. Said his name’s Elias. No symptoms, no papers. Military look. Not pushy… just quiet.”
Azalea sighed and pulled on her coat.
“Send him to Room 3.”
When she pushed the door open to Exam Room 3, the man was already sitting there.
He didn’t glance up when she entered. Just sat — tall, composed, spine too straight for a civilian.
His hands were folded neatly on his knees. A faint scar ran along his temple, but it was clean. Surgical.
Azalea hesitated for half a second.
There was nothing wrong with him.
He looked like half the patients who’d come through here post-discharge: calm, disconnected, maybe a little too still.
But something about the air shifted when he turned toward her.
“Miss Azalea Prescott?”
His voice was low. Smooth. Not cold, but measured.
Azalea nodded, stepping inside, clipboard in hand.
“That’s me. Elias, right?”
He smiled — faintly.
“That’s what they say.”
That response made her frown.
She noted the linguistic deflection. Dissociative pattern? Possibly. Might signal identity instability or a rehearsed front.
“What brings you in today?”
“Mhmm…I had an accident and finally managed to be alive”, he held her gaze.
His girl.
Her eyes were soft green, mossy like.
“Well, let’s talk about it. Mr. Eldritch, tell me more on how you feel”
“How I feel?”
“No pressure… Mister you may talk on your pace. Sometimes feelings are hard to name after a major event. Just start wherever it makes sense for you”
“I feel good…happy”
Azalea was going to offer a smile; but it was half formed when she noticed his gaze on her stomach. She felt uncomfortable.
She looked around. He looked up and smiled.
“Miss Prescott, I’ve heard your name. Seen your work. I’ve been… trying to understand something. And I thought maybe you’d help.”
Azalea narrowed her eyes, not unkindly.
“You’re very calm.”
He smiled faintly.
“So are you.”
Something about the way he said it...
Too soft. Too knowing.
Like they were trading code.
She moved to close the file.
Detached affect. Possibly dissociation. He’s too steady for someone recently traumatized. But I’ve seen that before.
The real marker was the microdelay in his reactions. She’d been trained to catch that—the half-second dissonance between emotional stimulus and response. A coping relic.
The session was ending — at least on paper.
Still, Azalea’s hand lingered near the door, reluctant.
He was watching her. Not staring — just observing. Still. Quiet. Calm.
Like someone who had memorized every angle of her silhouette before ever seeing it in this life.
If it helps, "I can refer you to some colleagues who work specifically with post-reintegration cases. They’re trauma-informed, and trained for military backgrounds."
Trauma reprocessing wasn’t one-size-fits-all, and she’d long stopped pretending it was. Reintegration cases needed careful pacing—and trust earned, not assumed.
“I don’t need that, Miss.” He stared at her belly again. “By the way, we have talked…mostly on me…why don’t you speak on yourself too.”
Azalea wanted to put a boundary, to tell him she felt small whenever he looked at her belly in that way. But still she didn’t…because recently she was too happy to bother.
Boundaries were part of her training. To handle others’ trauma, she had to stay grounded in her own. But lately, with the pregnancy, her emotions sat closer to the surface. Some days, she worried it made her softer than she should be.
“I…I am expecting”
Elias looked up and raised a brow.
Clinic lights hit her soft skin. Her mossy eyes were heavy, lips shiny, breath slow. Copper hair hung messy around her cheeks. She looked up, half-lidded, voice thick.
“Got a little thing growing inside me... four months now.”
Her hand slid over her belly.
Elias smiled. This little girl…how will she be a mother if she is so soft herself?
