She snuck a glance at him out of the corner of her eye as she preceded him out of the office, leaving all of the happily fecund or desperately trying to be fecund women behind.  She eyed him again in the elevator and decided first aid was in order.  On the street she hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address for the Four Season's Hotel.  Then she sat back in the cab and angled herself so she could see him.  "Scotch, I think, in copious quantities."

"Thank you. Yes. Is that sort of place... common?"

"Fertility clinics?  Specialists?  That sort of thing?" she asked.

"I suppose. When did it become clinical, rather than natural?"

"When non-abstinence based birth control became the norm, I suppose," she said. 

He sighed and shook his head, obviously lost in thought. The cab pulled up in front of the hotel and he paid the cabbie, making said cabbie smile at the tip, and they walked into the hotel.  Ian seemed distracted still so it was a good thing Betty Jo was leading.

She eventually got him seated at a table in the garden lounge with a view of the C&O Canal and screened from the other patrons by the foliage.  She sat and got comfortable, ordering scotch for him and tea for her.  Then she waited.

He fortified himself with scotch and then asked, "And what did all that mean to you?"

"Which?  The considered opinion?  Or the existence of such places?"

He shook his head. "Since so far as I know, you haven't had anything to do with the creation of such places, I'd think the only meaning you could offer me was your understanding of the expert's findings."

"Ah.  Well.  He doesn't know.  He's not willing to make a guess or supply odds.  He admires the repair work and wishes he were capable of the same sort of thing.  But even with that, he can't say.  The body's a funny thing with a mind of its own.  I might be able to and I might not and the only way to really know is to quit worrying about it, have a lot of sex and see what happens," she said.

"And how do you feel about that? You told me you wish to have children, did you not? I suppose I'm asking you if you want to take your chances with things or arrange them so the issue will not come up."

She was the one who needed fortification now.  So she took a large swallow of tea, eying him closely.  Then she set the cup down and leaned back in her chair.  "To contracept or not to contracept, that is the question," she said, wondering if she should order him another scotch.  "Let me answer you this way.  I want children.  I want to have your children.  But unless you can tell me you want that too then I would prefer the issue didn't come up."

"Haven't you wondered with regard to how few children the talented have?  It is because time for us is not an issue to consider. Were we to reproduce like normal couples we'd have hundreds of children, and tens of thousands of grandchildren. And yet... There have always been ways to ensure pregnancy was not an issue, or at least a rare worry. Spells, potions, manipulation of the bodily functions... We've used all of them. And with the longevity comes a .. a disconnect, perhaps, with the rhythms of the world, with the rhythms of the body even. If you are not aging, but the world is, you keep the world at a distance. It is why so few of us are willing to begin a relationship with someone we will watch grow old and die. It is .. painful. Maddening. Soul destroying. I don't know whether to consider your father a saint or a madman for choosing to go through it."  His voice died away and he finished his scotch, at the same moment signaling for another.  "I'm sorry. All of that hardly has to do with us."

She waited until the waiter brought the scotch and left again before saying anything.  "It probably does have to do with us but I'm too dim to understand it.  Or is it that longevity is just too new to me?"

"It hasn't changed you yet. You still hold all the assumptions of a woman who has a clock ticking and a limited length of time in which to do certain kinds of things. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but..." he reached out to take her hand. "But it might help you to ..."  His voice died away and he looked away, out at the garden, and a child sitting there with her parents.

"Help me to take a longer view of things?  Or to hear the answer you're reluctant to give me?"

He met her eyes and said, "Help you to understand why it is a difficult thing for me to even consider. Why I think it is your choice rather than mine. And why thinking that yes, I can imagine having children with you, but that at the same time it seems... premature to me, whereas it seems a natural progression given our relationship to you. Am I making any sense at all?" he asked, staring into her face as if trying to see what she was keeping hidden from him."And I'm most desperately hoping I am not offending you or hurting you by speaking about this personal thing for you in such a ... clinical way."

She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand.  "Neither actually.   I'm just wondering where it is I went so wrong with the English language."

"I beg your pardon?" Ian asked, squinting at her.

She smiled at him, her thumb making circles on his hand.  "Well I keep using words whose meaning I think are clear, and using them, moreover, in an unambiguous manner, but apparently not.  You asked me what I wanted to do.  I told you.  I can't divorce my desire for children from my feelings for you because I'm not talking about children in the generic sense, as if any father would do when the time came.  My desire for children, for your children, is a direct result of my desire for you.  But more than I want my own happiness I want yours because that is how I love you.  Ergo, having children I wanted but that you didn't wouldn't make me happy at all, leaving aside the whole issue of the impact on the child. 

"The other piece of it is your assumption, if I've understood you correctly, that I want to have babies immediately.  I don't.  All I wanted was to know if it was possible."  She looked down at his hand holding hers for a moment.   "I agree with you, though probably for radically different reasons, that having children now would be premature."

He was quiet for some time, staring down at her thumb on his hand. Finally, looking up at her face he asked, "And will you share with me those reasons?"

"For the same reason it seems so clear to me that my going to back to work doing what I was doing before was never just about what I wanted, that it was never just my decision, that it was always a decision we would make together because it impacts us both at a very basic level.  When I think about those things I think about them equally in terms of what is best for us, and in terms of what is best for me, or for you...each of us as individuals.   Pursuing my own happiness or fulfillment or whatever it might be independent of its impact on you would insure that in the end neither of us is happy because it, at least from my perspective, would destroy the very thing I value above all others."

She sighed and looked out at the canal.  "The other reason is that it seems to me there is a hesitancy for you, a question you haven't resolved about us."

He reached over and took his drink, sipping on it, and staring at the canal too. "Yes, and I'm no closer to resolving it now than I was the first day I met you. Further from resolution I would say, really." He paused, then added, "One of my problems is that I'm not very good at looking at things as you do.  I've never been good at approaching problems with the perspective of 'us.'  I'm terribly selfish, I suppose. I think in terms of what the best solution is to the problem I want to solve, not what 'we' might want to solve."

"If I asked you what the question was would you tell me?"

"I don't see how it would help and I can see where it might make things ... more difficult."

She nodded.  "Well, it might make things less lonely."

He frowned down at his drink. "I'm not sure I understand that."

"I don't imagine I can answer the question for you.  But what I could do is keep you company while you're working it out for yourself.  And the effort you make to hide even the fact of the question from me is effort that could then be directed towards other things, like making love to me."

"I've been alone for a very long time. I'm not very used to a partner. I'm .. I've been self-sufficient, alone, for quite a long time. Even when I was married I was alone. I'm sorry. You deserve to be with someone who isn't prone by force of habit to shut you out."

"Darling, on a couple of occasions in recent weeks you've told me not to be in a hurry, that we have the rest of our lives.  Was that figure of speech?" she asked.  "Because I've sort of taken it to heart, thinking that given the reality of the longevity we both enjoy there's lots of time for you to get comfortable with the idea of maybe someday trying it another way."

"You might be waiting a very long time for me to change."

She look at their hands, her fingers entwined with his.  "I'm as selfish as you are.  It's the best answer there is to the problem that I want to solve," she said.  "But I'm using a different scale than you seem to be, so when I weight the cost or potential cost of loving you against the joy and happiness it brings me...there is nothing to be afraid of, there's no longer a question of what I deserve, but only the knowledge that in you I've found more than I ever imagined existed."  She looked at him, searching his eyes.  "I hope that doesn't scare you."

"It scares the devil out of me," he replied.

"Yes well, then it's probably a judgment on us both because it scares the devil out of me too."

"So what do you say we go back to the apartments, pack up and go home. And make mad passionate love."

"It's the best plan I've heard all day," she said, touching his face softly.