They said good bye to Leo the night before, when he left to go back to the Cameron's house with Happy, Carol and Mike. Mouse's parents didn't mind leaving the reception early; they were too old to stay for the whole thing, anyway, they assured everyone.

"You gonna be okay?" Henry asked his son through the rolled down window.

"Yeah, I think so," Leo answered, his arm around his dog.

"Kiss me, Leo," Mouse interrupted, sniffing, as she stuck her head in the window.

"Don't cry, mommy," Leo said, putting his hands on her cheeks. "You'll be okay, it's only two weeks."

They waved to their son, and Henry planted a kiss on his new wife's temple as he laughed at her. "I love you so much," he murmured to her.

"I love you too, Henry, and stop laughing at me," Mouse said reproachfully. "I mean it," she said as his laughter grew. "Stop laughing, or no sex for you," she threatened.

They went back to their reception, drinking and dancing until they fell into bed around three in the morning, when it turned out that they were actually too drunk to even think about sex, let alone want it. Then they slept so late that they barely made their flight from Dulles, in Washington, D.C., to LAX. They spent most of that flight sleeping, as well, too hungover to do more than look dolefully at each other every time they opened bleary eyes. Then they actually had to run through the airport in Los Angeles to make their flight to Tahiti. Luckily, their luggage was ticketed straight through. And they did make it, just, and took off into the smoggy, LA evening, as their very kind flight attendant brought them even more champagne.

Henry and Mouse stared at the flutes full of the bubbling, amber liquid, then at the flight attendant.

"It is your honeymoon, isn't it?" he asked in a disgustingly perky voice.

"Yes," Mouse replied. "But could we maybe just get some orange juice?"

"Or, uh, coffee?" Henry added hopefully.

"Sure," the flight attendant answered. He sadly took the champagne away, and brought them the requested OJ and coffee, while Mouse produced some Exedrine for both of them.

"God, it's been, like, twelve hours since we had anything to drink, shouldn't we be feeling better by now?" she asked.

After some food, and some more coffee, both of them were indeed feeling better, and settled down for the nine hour, Pacific leg of their flight. They would arrive at their hotel near midnight, and would have a few more hours to sleep before the sun rose.

"Henry?" Mouse lifted the armrest that separated their seats so she could lean into him. He put an arm around her.

"Mm?"

"I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things," Mouse began. "I mean, unless you wanted to watch this movie?"

Henry shook his head, grasping his wife's hand. "No, I have no interest in this movie whatsoever," he assured her. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Well, first, um, about what I'm going to do when we get back," Mouse said, taking a deep breath.

"Yeah? I thought you didn't know what you wanted to do?" Henry said.

"No, I don't, but now that we're married, you can't keep paying me to be your nanny, right?" Mouse said, drawing her legs up and tucking them under her body. She leaned even farther into Henry, resting comfortably against him.

"Really?" Henry was surprised.

"Well, yeah," Mouse was even more surprised. "I mean, paying your wife to work for you as your nanny is just beyond bizarre, isn't it?"

"Mouse, you're going to continue doing everything you've been doing until now, right?" Henry asked. At her nod, he continued. "And on top of that you'll be doing other household things, I mean, until you're working, right? Like more of the cooking, errands, dealing with the super, all that stuff?"

She nodded again.

"So wouldn't it be 'beyond bizarre' for you to do even more than you did before and not get anything for it, just because you're wearing a piece of admittedly snazzy jewelry?" He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her ring finger. "I mean, come on, talk about oppression of women!" He laughed at his joke. "It would be so unfair for you to do more for less, just because we're married, don't you think?"

Mouse took another breath. "Okay, so all of this kind of leads into the other thing I wanted to talk about." She turned her hand over so she was clasping Henry's hand.

"I, um, didn't bring my pills with me," she said in a soft voice.

"What?" He leaned forward. "I didn't hear you, honey."

"I didn't bring my birth control pills with me," Mouse said, twisting her head to look up at Henry in the dim light of the cabin. He could see her chewing on her lip. "You know how I don't really know what I want to do with my life, right?" He nodded, looking at her with intense concentration. "Well, the truth is that I do know, it's just not something modern women are supposed to say." She shrugged uneasily.

"Mouse, are you saying that you want to have a--a baby?" Henry asked.

Mouse nodded. "It's not rational, I know, because it's not even that I want to have another baby, you know?" She put her other hand on Henry's arm, so she was grasping his forearm with both hands. "I feel like I'd be getting our other baby back." She stared at Henry, stricken. "I'm sorry, I know that doesn't make any sense, and it sounds so stupid, but that's just how I feel." She squeezed Henry's arm.

"I know I shouldn't even ask you this, after what you've been through, and talking about babies and reproduction on a honeymoon is, like, the least romantic thing, probably ever, but it's all I can think about." She gazed at her husband steadily. "We need to talk about our future, and this seemed like a good time. I don't really have a drive to be anything, I never have. All I've ever wanted is to be a parent, and since last year all I ever wanted was to be Leo's parent, you know?"

Henry nodded.

"Then we--we--you know." Mouse swallowed and looked away. "And I didn't plan that, and I didn't know about it, but I want that baby back, Henry." And now she broke down, thought she was trying not to. "And I'm really sorry, because it's probably the last thing you want to think about--" Mouse stopped, unable to continue. "I'm sorry," she finally said again.

"Mouse, no," Henry said, pulling her onto his lap. He held her firmly. "You don't have to apologize for wanting what you want. It's the most natural thing in the world to want that. It's not your fault that you wound up with someone who went through the loss that I went through, it's not, it's not." He stroked her hair.

"Shh, shh," he soothed.

A worried flight attendant paused, but Henry waved her away.

"I want that, too," he admitted, speaking into the top of her head as he ran his hand down her back.

"You do?" Mouse lifted her head to look at his face, to gauge his mood.

Henry looked at her. "Of course I do. I love you, Mouse. I'm your husband. Of course I want to expand our family. I love being a father, and I love watching you be a mother. You have room in your heart for a dozen kids, don't you think I want to see that?" He leaned in and kissed her salty cheek before moving on to her soft and humble mouth.

"Does the idea scare me? You bet it does," he admitted. "I don't know if I could go through that again, the uncertainty, watching you possibly suffer, you know? And Leo's not a baby this time, he'd go through it, too."

"But probably everything would be fine," Mouse interjected. "Probably things would--"

"Probably doesn't mean shit," Henry said harshly. "I'm not saying no," he continued swiftly, seeing the look on her face. "Don't worry, I'm not. I'm just saying that the only thing you can depend on in this world is that you can't depend on anything, okay?" He kissed her again. "But we'll worry about that if it happens. We can't live our lives afraid of everything, can we? I mean, that's what you spent all of last summer teaching our son, right?" He smiled at his wife.

"So, what have we decided here? Let's see." He leaned back, holding Mouse comfortably in his arms. "You're not going to work, or worry about grad school, or a career, and you are going to take on the majority of the homemaking responsibilities, and we're going to start trying to get pregnant right away." He grinned at Mouse. "Did I cover everything?"

"Well, I'll have to work at something," Mouse corrected.

"Oh? Why?"

"I have my school loans," Mouse told him. "I mean, my parents are supposed to start paying them off, but I'm married now, I feel sort of ridiculous asking them to do that for me, you know? Besides, I happen to know from talking to my brother that money's really tight for them right now, and they're thinking about taking out another mortgage or something to pay them off." She shook her head. "I can't ask them to do that, I just can't."

"But wasn't that the plan?" Henry asked. "I remember when we talked about this last year, and you told me that your parents planned to put all of you guys through college, that 'that was the deal,' or something?"

Mouse nodded. "But they've already done so much, and they just threw me this kick ass wedding, too. I just can't take any more from them, no way."

Henry nodded. "I knew you'd say that. I've spoken to your parents about your loans, honey. I'm paying them back, okay?"

Mouse sat up so hard she hit the top of her head on Henry's chin, making him bite his tongue, rather hard.

"Ouch!" He stuck his tongue out, but it was too dark to see the damage.

"Oh shit, Henry, I'm sorry!" Mouse gasped. "But no! You can't pay off my college loans!"

"Why noth?" Henry's words sounded funny because of his tongue, and Mouse tried not to laugh.

"Because, you just can't!" Mouse sputtered. "Talk about bizarre! Then it just seems like I married you for your money or something--no, Henry, just no." She shook her head firmly.

"You didn'th marry me becauthe of my money?" Henry asked, his words still comically altered.

"What? No!" Mouse was beside herself.

Henry drank some water and patted at his tongue with a napkin.

"Okay, okay, look. We're married, we share, right?" he asked. "I mean, if the thituation were reverthed, you'd give me the money, wouldn't you?"

Mouse nodded, reluctantly.

"Okay then, whath the problem?" he asked.

"Stop, just stop," Mouse begged, leaning into him and closing her eyes. She opened them again after a minute. "And when did you talk to Mike and Carol about money, anyway, hm?"

"The night you and your thithterth went intho Alethandria and got plathtered," Henry replied humorously.

Mouse looked at him, uncomprehending.

"The night you and your sisters went into Alexandria and got plastered," Henry repeated, enunciating carefully. He winced, but his tongue seemed to have recovered.

"And before you get any stupid ideas about taking money that was intended for Leo," Henry continued, "You should know that Josie had plenty of money, and most of it is being held in trust for Leo, to cover his education and all that, okay? Plus, I make a pretty good living, and I'm saving plenty for him, too, plus any future children I might have," he finished with a charming grin.

He pulled Mouse close to his body in the darkness of the plane, holding her chin between his thumb and forefinger.

"You have the most beautiful mouth, Mouse Cameron," he murmured. "And the most gorgeous, voluptuous body," he continued. "And I can't wait until we get to where we're going so I can ravage both of them non-stop for the next two weeks."

He leaned in and kissed her, searching with his tongue, tasting her, hearing her moan as she grasped at the front of his shirt.

"I love you, Henry Gardener," she whispered back. "And this is going to be the best motherfucking honeymoon of all time, I think."

She nodded at him, and he nodded back.