"No, don't delete it," said Jacob.
"But it's what's keeping you from returning to being male," countered Tim.
Jacob stared at the screen, unable to really divorce the sense that this baby, while unwanted, was still another person. "Yes, but, while I may not have really wanted it, and I assume you don't either, it doesn't change the fact that it now exists... and knowing what this machine can do--what if we had gotten that young? I wouldn't want to stop existing just because of this machine, and I won't condemn someone else to not exist because of it either."
"It wouldn't exist had we been more careful--" started Tim.
"Just age it up. If I have to give birth, then I have to give birth," said Jacob with a sigh.
"Are you sure?" asked Tim.
Jacob glowered at Tim. "If you're not going to age it up, then I will, move out of the way."
Reluctantly, Tim scooted over and allowed Jacob to take the mouse, and Jacob as Jenny selected Baby1 and entered 3 years old as the age.
"Three?! Why three?" asked Tim.
"Young enough not to cause any real problems, old enough to not need constant attention and care," answered Jacob as though it were the most obvious thing--but then he realized he was relying on Jenny's memories of babysitting. The sooner the baby was out of him, the better. And what to do with regards to securing a place for this new life, Jacob would decide that after it was out of Jenny's body and he was back into his own.
Another pop up appeared asking for them to name the baby boy before it could age it up.
"It wants us to name the boy."
"This is getting weird."
"Tim, give me a suggestion."
"Me? Why me?"
"Because it's your son, when you get down to it. Haven't you ever thought about what you'd name any of your kids?"
"Have you?"
"Jenny has. As Jacob... not so much," answered Jacob honestly.
"Well, Jenny's just as much the mother as I'm the father, so pick something she's thought of."
Jacob typed in Noah, satisfying the part of Jenny which still lingered on in him, and then setting the time for the acceleration to take place over 10 minutes. Giving Jacob enough time to experience the pregnancy but also to prepare for what he assumed was going to be a messy birth. And with the press of an enter, the timer counting down the time for the transformation to take place, began, and Jacob felt a gurgling inside Jenny as he knew Noah was now growing from conception to an older age. In some regard it felt like he was queasy with butterflies in his stomach. One hand clutching Jenny's stomach and the other, her mouth, Jacob felt overwhelmed by the immediacy of the experience. It was only with some effort that he kept whatever food Jenny had eaten down, and with a gulp, he managed to say what she needed.
"Go run the water in the bathtub, I'll give birth there."
"All right," said Tim, who at once seemed anxious and scared of what was occurring.
When the feeling of queasiness had passed, Jacob stood up, and felt the center of Jenny's body weight shift a bit, as her stomach stretched out with a few month's growth that had occurred while Jacob had fought off the onslaught of morning sickness. By Jacob's estimation, Jenny's belly was ballooning out like a blimp. Which meant that she had to get to the bathroom, now. And so Jacob hurried, as fast as Jenny's expanding belly would allow him to waddle. Oh, the pain in her lower back, his ankles felt dangerous to stand upon, but still, through grit, Jacob reached the bathroom, where Tim had barely begun to fill the tub, but already, Jacob could feel another onslaught of stretching as Jenny's belly button popped out, like a turkey basting thermometer, telling her that she was ready to pop.
"Help me in!" Jacob barked, and Tim did as he was told, helping Jacob/Jenny into the tub, where, ahh... at least the water was warm... and soothing. He laid back as he felt Jenny's belly stretch even further, to what seemed absurd proportions... when would this baby get out of her?
And just like that, Jacob felt a stab of pain shoot through Jenny's body, as though she were being ripped apart from either side. Tim, thankfully, took Jenny's hand and encouraged her to breathe.
"I am breathing!" yelled Jacob.
"Sorry! I'm... I'm just trying to--"
"Try less, do more!" shouted Jacob back, as he felt another wave of pain hit him suddenly and then felt something begin to emerge, and Tim moved down to where her legs were spread.
"The head's crowning... just another few pushes and it should be almost out of you."
"God dammit, this is all your fault--if you hadn't turned me into a girl, we wouldn't be in this mess!"
"Keep pushing!"
And then like that the pain eased, as Noah was pushed out into the water. Tim, scooped up the baby and brought his son into the air and suddenly the "baby" he had wanted to delete not that long ago was here, in his hand, squalling, and still connected to Jenny by an umbilical chord--and the afterbirth came out.
"He looks somewhat like I did as a baby," said Tim, recognizing some similarity between this baby and his own baby photos from the hospital.
"Great, he can be your little brother then, when all this is over," sighed Jacob as he continued to reel from the experience.
"Do you want to hold him?" asked Tim.
Jacob held out Jenny's arms and Tim placed the crying newborn into her arms, the baby, immediately quieting as he brought Noah close to Jenny's chest, leading to Noah to latch on to one of Jenny's breasts and begin to suckle.
"Hey, I just wanted to hold you, not give you a free... ohh... ohh, this feels odd," said Jacob, and Tim seemed to notice something weird was happening, Jenny's body was starting to lose some of the mass it had gained, her belly pulling back in and as her mass decreased, Noah seemed to grow and take it as mouthfuls of milk. Each suckle seeming to cause Noah to grow larger and older in Jenny's arms. Light brown hair started appearing on Noah's head, and by the time, Jenny seemed half-way back to how she had been, Noah had stopped suckling from one of Jenny's breasts, seemingly having drained it of all its milk, and he began to fuss. Noah looked to be somewhere between 1 and 2 years old, probably a year and six months, if Tim had to guess, knowing the target age that Noah was to become.
"What does he want? He's drained one breast dry as it is."
"I think to finish his transformation, you're going to have to let him drain the other dry as well," suggested Tim.
"Fine, but not in here, here hold him, while I get out of here and dry off. I'm turning into a prune the more I sit in here."
Jacob handed over the much larger baby to Tim and gave him the real opportunity to take a look at his son... his son. It really didn't hit Tim until this moment that this baby was partly his, and really looked like a fairer haired version of himself, with Jenny's green eyes instead of his brown.
Noah gurgled happily as Jacob lifted him up into the air and made pretend he was flying. As this was all happening, Jacob dried Jenny's body off and did everything in his power to not look at Tim as he bonded with his son. There was this sense of motherly pride that was swelling in Jenny whenever he looked towards Tim and Noah, and feeding that emotion would make what they had to do in order to make things "normal" once again much harder. Jacob wrapped himself in his father's oversized bathrobe and expertly wrapped Jenny's long hair into a towel before saying, "Come on, let's get back to the computer and fix everything."
Brought out of the newfound sense of fatherly pride, Tim brought Noah back down from the heights of his outstretched arms and balanced the naked little boy on his side before following Jacob/Jenny out of the bathroom. The afterbirth had already been thrown away and the trash bag it was in, tied up, and the bloodied water going down the drain. They would obviously have to clean up some more, but first things first.
Once settling into the room, Jacob positioned Jenny's body so that she could used the headboard of his bed, along with a lot of pillows to keep things comfortable and support her as she then motioned for Noah to be given back to her. Tim, obliged and watched as Jacob uncovered the non-drained breast for Noah, who happily babbled before latching himself onto the offered breast. Noah's growth, and Jenny's recovery continued and Noah grew older, bigger and more developed until he was a messy-haired toddler who was tired from all the feeding he had had, and with milk dribbled on the corner of his mouth, he fell asleep in Jenny's arms.
A ping from the computer indicated that the transformation was finished, and now Noah was an adorable three year old little boy, sleeping by Jenny's side.
"Now's the time to rearrange things."
"What do you mean, rearrange things?"
"Get me back to being Jacob, first off, and finding out what to do with Noah in our reality."
"Well, he can be my little brother, like you said. He looks enough like me that adding him to my family wouldn't cause too many issues as he grows up... and besides, I always wanted a sibling," argued Tim, a desire to not be separated from Noah, spurring him to volunteer Noah to be part of his family.
"Good, now let's get these transformations settled then," said Jacob, purposely not looking back at Noah, to keep Jenny's desire to protect her baby in check. It was harder than he was letting on, which is why he was so anxious to get it done and over with, because the longer he remained Jenny and mother to Noah, the more that was starting to feel like natural reality, when Jacob knew full well that wasn't the case.
Jacob sat down at the computer and first tried to change her gender back to being male--but it still wouldn't allow it to happen.
"Looks like we have to make Noah my brother first, then fix your gender."
"Fine," sighed Jacob, and he toggled over to Noah's profile and selected the "Set Family Relations" option. Jacob saw it listed Jenny as mother, and Tim as father, but with drop-down options available under each. Jacob opened the drop-down menu for Tim, and without a moment to second guess himself, selected Brother instead of Father for Tim, and error message popped up saying that Jenny's relationship to Noah would also need to be altered, and so Jacob clicked under Jenny's relationship with Noah and looked for one of the options that would sever the parental ties between them, eventually finding the "no relation" option at the very bottom of a long list of possible relations that Jenny could have with Noah. Jacob then forced the mouse to the save button, and suddenly a flash went out from the computer that blinded both Tim and Jacob for a moment, before everything came back into being clear. Noah was now clothed, though still asleep on Jenny's bed, and Tim no longer looked at Noah with the same sense of fatherly pride as he had felt a few moments ago, but instead when looking at Noah, now saw the irritating little pain that was his little brother. The attention hog who always wanted to tag along with him, and was Mom and Dad's "little accident" as they were fond of saying. Another few clicks could be heard as Tim adjusted to the new memories which were flooding him, and a few moments later, Tim turned to no longer see Jenny in a night robe, but instead Jacob returned to normal, though still in a night robe.
"Thank god all that's over!" sighed Jacob.
"Yeah, thank god it's all over," said Tim a little regretfully as he felt disappointed as he settled into this new reality where Noah was his little brother instead of his son.