Once inside the washroom, the door a protective barrier between her and the world, she stood for a moment just staring around like this was some alien place she didn’t recognize.  It wasn’t until Liho mewled and squirmed in her hand that Natasha shook herself out of that lost stupor. 

Two weeks.  She couldn’t take two full weeks, she would go crazy.  She had to decide, and she had to do so with eyes completely open. 

Removing the paper from her pocket she sat on the floor and crossed her legs, leaning her back against the side of the large tub.  Setting Liho in her lap, she watched the kitten a minute as it turned around, digging claws in here and there, before settling down.  If only everything was that easy. 

Natasha had seen many horrible things in her life and she had thought that the Hulk had been the most terrified but she was wrong.  This piece of paper, the image it contained, was worse.

“I know, I’m being silly,” she said when she looked down to find Liho watching her curiously.  “It’s too soon.  It won’t look like anything.”  Closing her eyes she took a deep breath and unfolded it.  “Just like a bandaid,” she said, trying to just do it quick and get it over with.  “It’s stupid.  Nothing.”

She opened her eyes.

The printout from the ultrasound was grainy and unclear, and while she couldn’t make out a lot, she could see the outline of a tiny head and body. 

The breath she sucked in was painful and sharp and she wanted to close her eyes, to crumple up the paper and throw it away, but she forced herself to keep looking, to study it.  She had so much blood on her hands, she was the harbinger of death, but there, in that picture, was life.  How many people had she taken out of the world in her short lifetime?  This was her chance to bring one into it, to give life instead of take it.

Staring at that creased and grainy picture she felt something inside of her break and finally she let herself cry.