Anxiety

POV: Leo

The car sped along the roads, kicking up all the dust from the ground, Leo never once taking his foot off the gas pedal. His right hand was continuously on the skin of the unconscious Christopher, allowing his ability to flow through his arm to him, supporting Christopher's healing ability to keep him stable throughout the journey. Under the stress, he suppressed his nausea and finally arrived at the barracks after several hours of driving, totally exhausted. 

He drove at full speed towards the gate and the guards standing in front of it, who immediately drew their weapons - after all, a strange vehicle was coming towards them. Leo opened the window of the car and shouted out: "Leonard Neumann, Lieutenant, I have a critically injured man here!" The two lowered their weapons when they recognized him and opened the gate. "Drive through to the medical center quickly, Lieutenant." "Thank you very much." His voice trembled, but he drove on without hesitation.

The guards had apparently relayed the situation over the radio, because the Omega Squad was waiting for them at the camp with a stretcher and pulled the injured Christopher out of the car, Leo himself also jumped up and accompanied him a few meters into the tent, but was then stopped: "You can't go any further here, calm down first. He needs an operation now to remove the bullets." Leo bit his lower lip, but only nodded in response and walked back out of the tent to the car to take a deep breath. When he did, at least he felt a little calm, he thought briefly, but the nausea returned and he threw up once. Fortunately, everyone else was busy with Christopher's operation, so no one noticed. 

Exhausted and annoyed with his own body, he made his way to the supervisor's tent. He would do that today before he went home on his well-deserved vacation. Until then, he didn't have time to think about other things. He announced his name and his stand in front of the tent and was invited in shortly afterwards, he had a queasy feeling about the whole thing from the start. His wear and tear on his comrades would probably be addressed now more than ever, especially as Christopher was the son of General Wollseif and therefore a valuable member of the military. 

The atmosphere was tense, his stomach continued to grumble, he was hungry, but he knew he wouldn't be able to get anything down. "Lieutenant Neumann reporting for mission completion." He handed the mission booklet to his superior. He just leafed through it quickly and then turned to him. "Well done, you have mastered the mission with flying colors." There was a brief, uncomfortable pause and the superior's gaze became serious. "But you managed to bring a comrade back from the mission injured again." It wasn't as if the situation was bothering him enough. "And a Wollseif at that." Leo took a deep breath and exhaled again. He tried not to make a face. After all, Christopher was the first comrade he had ever gotten this close to on an emotional level, of course he felt like shit at that moment, but he couldn't and wouldn't show it, his pride was getting in the way. 

"I'm sorry," he tried to say in a voice that didn't tremble, it would be a lie to say he wasn't afraid that something worse would happen to Christopher, that he wouldn't survive the operation, although the chances of that were pretty slim with his ability to hyper-regenerate. His superior sighed. "Take some time off now, that's what we agreed. We'll talk about your future career when you're back from your leave, I can promise you that there will be consequences." Leo closed his eyes briefly, tried to calm down a little and then spoke matter-of-factually: "Understood." 

Leo saluted and said goodbye to his superior. He glanced to the right in front of the tent in the direction of the medical tent, briefly considering whether he should stop by there before he set off, but he decided against it. On the one hand, it would only put him under even more strain, and on the other, it would make it seem as if they were closer than they were. They weren't a couple or anything, and they hadn't known each other for long. Nobody needed to know that they were getting a little too close after all. 

So he went strictly to the barracks, packed his necessary things in his room, used clothes and everything he needed for home and threw it all into a rucksack and then into the trunk of his car, which was parked in the barracks parking lot. He stubbornly kept his mind clear and got into the car. Before he could close the driver's door, he was seized by nausea again and vomited once more.

After throwing up, he leaned back in his seat. To be on the safe side, maybe I should get a pregnancy test on the way home where nobody knows me - he thought to himself with a tense feeling in his stomach - Even if it's impossible that I'm pregnant - he told himself and started the car. He had about an hour's drive ahead of him. 

Beforehand, he had entered a drugstore in the middle of the road into the navigation system, he had to be careful where he bought this pregnancy test. 

During the drive, he nibbled on the thought of what would happen if he really was pregnant. It wouldn't work with his current job, but he could hardly quit, after all, he had made a deal with a senior member of the government. He was working for them, taking people out, in return they had his file highly encrypted so that his "family" couldn't find him. So if he was actually pregnant, he had to think of something. But that was impossible, wasn't it? 

He now stood nervously in front of the drugstore. His whole body trembled as he entered the store and searched for the pregnancy tests. When he stood in front of them, he hesitated briefly. Many "what ifs" flashed through his mind, but he couldn't avoid buying one. So he grabbed one and went to the checkout. Leo wanted to finish as quickly as possible, but the cashier spoke to him: "Ah, it must be nice to be such a handsome alpha. Is your girlfriend pregnant? I wish I had a girlfriend, but as a beta, you're just not that popular," his words were chosen with a straight face. Leo was all the more depressed by this comment. He laughed slightly sarcastically: "Hah, yes, Alpha." He took the test and got back into his car. "If I really were an Alpha, I'd have fewer problems," he grumbled, fastened his seat belt and drove home. 

The nervousness didn't subside, even when he arrived home and carried all his things upstairs to his one-bedroom apartment. He just threw his things in the corner and went straight to the toilet. He wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible and hadn't been to the toilet once since the trip. He carefully read through the instructions for the pregnancy test and followed the instructions while still shaking. He set a timer on his cell phone for the specified 10 minutes. Tense, he paced up and down his apartment, biting his fingernails and glancing at the timer again and again. The 10 minutes felt like half an eternity. But when the timer finally rang, it took him a lot of effort to look at the pregnancy test. He turned it over and squinted, taking a deep breath before looking at the result. 

Two lines. Pregnant. 

Leo's heart dropped and he broke out in a sweat. "Fuck," he grumbled quietly, but he was screaming inside. "How can this be?" He flopped down on his couch. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." His head was empty and full at the same time. "I have to find a new apartment, a bigger one and I have to quit the military somehow...," he faltered, not once did it cross his mind to abort this child. That meant that even if he thought about it for a moment now, his whole body tightened. He simply couldn't do it. Leo didn't have a family, but had always secretly wanted one. Not in this way, but that was the way it was now. There had to be a solution for this situation too.

"Jasper," he muttered and reached for his cell phone. Jasper was an old acquaintance and a slightly shady doctor he had met in his youth. Then and now, he needed someone who would look after him medically and never give his details to anyone, whether it was the police or someone from the government. 

So he dialed Jasper's phone number, it rang twice until he heard a voice on the other end. "What's the pleasure of you getting in touch with me? Do you need a prescription? I could have sent it to you again." Leo had to collect himself for a moment, his voice was as shaky as his body. "What's wrong?" Jasper asked before Leo had a chance to answer. "I need to see you. Urgently." "Do you need me as a friend or as a doctor?" "Both." "Okay, come over, you know where." The two men never wasted unnecessary words on the phone, you never knew who was listening. 

So Leo took the pregnancy test, put it in his small backpack, in which he also put his cell phone, and sat down in the car. His stomach felt queasy and he was still sweaty. By the time he got to Jasper's, the pregnancy would be confirmed or not. The trembling in his body was still there and remained until he entered Jasper's small practice in the worst part of town. The building looked really miserable from the outside, but inside it was very neat and looked like a normal practice, which was appropriate because Jasper didn't accept every patient. 

Leo sat down in the waiting room after signing in at the registration desk and waited for Jasper to call him in. It was like a flying change when the patient who had left the doctor's office earlier Jasper waved Leo in immediately. The door closed behind him. "Go on say. What's the matter? Are you sick?" Leo just pulled the pregnancy test out of his backpack and placed it on the table in front of Jasper. He looked at the pregnancy test. "What the?!" Jasper looked shocked. "You, pregnant? How did that happen? You, who had never gotten involved with anyone. You, who doesn't have a HEAT? You, who can't actually get pregnant? That's your test, isn't it?" Leo nodded, still shaking. "Yeah, I don't know either. I thought you could explain it to me?" "Mhm. Let's see if it's true first, then I'll make further statements." Leo nodded again and lay down on the doctor's couch while Jasper prepared the ultrasound. He pulled up his T-shirt and the cold gel from the ultrasound was applied to his stomach. There was a brief silence as the device passed over his stomach. Leo was tense. "Yup. Congratulations. YOU ARE pregnant. 5 weeks around. The baby is perfectly healthy."

 "Shit." Jasper wiped the gel off and Leo put his hand on his abdomen. "How can that be? I thought I couldn't have children with my physical condition?" "I thought so too," Jasper explained, sitting down in his chair. "There's only one thing I could think of." "What is it?" "You slept with someone with whom you have a very high physical compatibility, higher than what we know. Did you measure his levels?" In this world, there were three compatibility rates: Physical, Mental and Skills. They showed how well people fit together and can work together. The ability rates in particular were often measured in any teamwork or even in the military, but most people got very lax with the measurements over the years, just like Leo. Everyone who wasn't a Beta had a watch that took these measurements. Leo's watch had been sitting in his closet in his apartment for years, he hadn't used it once until now. 

"What are you going to do now?" Jasper asked calmly. "Do you want to keep the child?" "Yes," Leo replied as if shot from a pistol. "Okay, I didn't expect anything else, I know you. But you know it's not going to be easy, right?" Leo nodded: "That's why I need your help." "You need a note from me that releases you from the military without saying you're having a baby, right?" "Exactly." "What are you doing against the government? After all, they're blackmailing you." "I've already thought about that. I've now saved up enough money from my almost permanent stay in the barracks. I'm planning to hire a hacker to delete my documents." "You've thought about it. I think that's good. But I would ask you to do one thing in return." "Hm?" "I'm primarily a researcher, so I'd like you to measure the values of you and the child's father in return. If my suspicions are confirmed, it will be a revolutionary breakthrough in my research." 

Leo sighed. It was a fair deal, on the one hand he didn't want to run into Christopher in this situation, but on the other hand he would still be interested to know how Christopher had fared after the attack, whether he had come through the operation okay. "All right." "You're not going to tell me who the father is, are you?" Leo just kept quiet and shook his head. "Okay. We'll keep in touch, though." Leo packed up the pregnancy test again and was just about to leave the door when Jasper added something serious: "But remember, if the results are really as high as I think they are, destroy the watch immediately. The values will be forwarded to the government's research department immediately after the measurement. If you don't do that, you'll have even more problems with them." "Okay." Leo replied and opened the door. "I'll be in touch." "See you then." 

Later that day, Jasper sent him a certificate stating that Leo supposedly had stomach cancer, which was why he no longer had to work in the military and be in therapy. Leo sent this certificate with his resignation along with his direct superior in the military. It took less than 20 minutes before he received the expected call from the very top, but he ignored all the calls he received over the next few weeks. There was one more thing he had to do before he would leave here and look for a job and an apartment in a small village somewhere. He just had to keep his agreement with Jasper and he already had a detailed plan of how he was going to do that. His health was also improving, he no longer had morning sickness, instead he was eating almost anything that came his way - better than all the puking - he thought, even if his abdomen had gained some weight in the meantime. 

His plan now was to sneak into the big military and government event that took place every year and he had actually gotten an invitation to it. Fortunately, he didn't even need to talk to Christopher to test the values, just getting close to him was enough, after all, the device calculated the values through the pheromones and especially because Christopher was a dominant alpha, he had a lot of dense pheromones, which made the task easier. 

His old dress uniform was now a little tight around the stomach, but he still felt comfortable in it. He had previously asked Jasper to accompany him today if he had the opportunity to bring someone with him. Besides, Leo was still pregnant and you never knew what would happen. After all, some of his old comrades were also invited here, who weren't on his good side, and there was no way anyone was going to find out that he was pregnant.

With these thoughts in mind, he entered the great hall together with Jasper, who was also a tall, handsome guy with brown hair and green eyes, dressed in a suit, after their invitation had been checked. The two had agreed beforehand that once they were inside, they would split up, as Leo had made it clear to Jasper that there was no way he wanted Jasper to know who the father of his child was and to be honest, Jasper didn't care either, his interest lay more with the Omega Squad that Leo had told him about, as he wanted to get his hands on one of those Omegas, that was his absolute bag, he said anyway. 

So the two of them split up and Leo went looking for Christopher first. He wasn't really hard to find, as there were an incredible number of people milling around him, wanting to talk to him and flirt with him. For some reason, this made Leo a little disgruntled, but he shouldn't really care what Christopher did in his spare time. After all, he seemed to be fine and he had worried about him for nothing. 

Leo caught himself staring at him and shook his head. I still need to find an escape route, just in case - he thought to himself and turned his gaze away from Christopher to look around a little more. Fortunately, they were standing quite close to the stairwell that led down to the underground parking garage. After exploring this, he prepared his watch and stood behind a corner that was quite close to Christopher and started his watch. His eyes were already glued to Christopher again and he had to admit once more that this man was extremely attractive. Inwardly he felt a thrill at the memories of sex with him - damn hormones - he thought to himself and started the program on his watch. Luckily he was close enough to him, he could smell his pheromones well up to here, he would prefer to just sleep right now, that smell still calmed him - calmed and aroused - strange combination. 

With a beep, the program began to measure. He paid close attention to the numbers that appeared so that he could react in time in an emergency. He was right to do so, because when he saw the numbers appearing one after the other, he got a shock and ran into the stairwell, took the watch off and smashed it onto the floor with all his might. "Damn it." The clock shattered with a loud clang. "What was that?!" he wondered to himself in a panic. 

Physical value: 100 

Psychic value: 92 Potential value: 100

Skills value: 100 

Good thing he had destroyed the watch, those were stats that could start a war. "Holy shit," he continued cursing, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket to text Jasper. "Come here, stairwell. Quick." He typed into his cell phone and sent the message.

He suddenly heard footsteps behind him. "Jasper?" Leo turned around. "No, not Jasper. Who's Jasper?" A group of two strangers with a higher rank and one who looked a little familiar stood in front of him. 

"Leonard Neumann?" One of the strangers asked as he clenched his hands into a fist. "Yes?" Leo asked, irritated, while he thought about who this person was who looked familiar to him. "You almost killed my little brother and because of you he had to leave the military!" the tallest man of the three yelled at him. Slowly, Leo remembered who the man was. It was an old comrade who had been assigned to him as a scout and one of those who had resigned after the mission with him. "He's unable to work because of you!" The big man's voice grew louder. Leo looked around to find an escape route. He wasn't in a position to fight at the moment, his skills during the pregnancy left a lot to be desired and he couldn't allow himself to be injured. 

But the first fist flew just past his face. "Can't we sort this out another way?" Leo tried to respond, but the next fist was already flying and hit him directly in the stomach. A sharp pain shot through him and the next blows came. "You'll suffer the same as my brother, you weakling." In the past, Leo could have defended himself, but at the moment he couldn't. He was hit several times in the face and chest and sank to his knees, but instinctively tried to protect his abdomen. Finally, the men kicked him on the back and also on his arms, which were crossed over his stomach. A massive pain made itself felt in his abdomen and he sank to the floor in a curled-up position, a tear running down his face, but the men only laughed. "You've earned it." With these words, the men disappeared through the door from which they had come. 

Tears ran down Leo's cheeks. "My child... my child...," he stammered, his eyes blacking out slightly, but he tried to pull himself up by the door to the garage, his strength was low. Again and again he struggled with dizziness. The second he almost sank to the ground again, someone caught him. "Oh my God, what happened to you?" Jasper hissed, putting Leo over his shoulder. "My child...my child." "Yeah, I know Leo, I know. I'll take you to the car, through the underground parking garage, no one will see us. We'll go straight to my surgery and I'll look after your child...," Jasper's voice was calm, luckily he had come with us and was also a doctor. He knew what he was doing and with that thought, more tears ran down Leo's face. He hadn't cried for a very long time, but now the tears were streaming down his face. Leo was terrified at that moment, terrified of losing his child and with it his family and his hope.

Right, Hope, Hope - that's what I'll call you now while you're still in my belly, so please stay my hope too, my last hope - he thought to himself as he struggled painfully to the car.