Author's Notes: Forget what you thought you knew of this story. "Days of Change" has been completely re-written/edited from top to bottom and nothing is as it was in the original, so much in fact that I deleted the original version to make way for this remastered version. While you guys might be asking why I took the original down, I can only tell you it's because I wasn't truly happy with a lot of its aspects. That is the honest truth. I can't explain it any better than that. That said, I do hope you, the reader, find this new version to be a fulfilling experience. I certainly enjoyed rewriting it. Sit back and enjoy the ride!

By the way, since this is the second fic in my "Destiny Interrupted: Remastered" series, the first having been The Bottle Ship Incident, it would be a good idea to read that one first, just so you're familiar.

I'd also like to dedicate this work to my lovely and supportive Lady (you know who you are ;)) and fellow Adamus shippers Legendary Swordsman, JayRain and theeternalrival1.

Chapter I: Chaos and The Aftermath (Part 1) (Day 63)

To call the main room of the apartment chaos was an understatement. Documents, speckled with blood and torn to shreds, lay scattered about the gray carpeted floor like bits of white confetti. Simple knick-knacks and other useless, purely decorative, trinkets lay scattered into a million, tiny pieces. A hole the size of a woman's fist pierced the wall behind the sectional sofa. Sectional pillows had been tossed about the room with reckless abandon... The living room had become a mirror image of the emotions that raged within her - anger overlapped anxiety, happiness broke into sadness. Speckles of blood, much like tiny breadcrumbs in a forest, dotted the hole in the wall and traveled downward to the floor behind the sectional, right next to where bounty hunter and mercenary, Samus Aran had been sitting, with her knees to her chest, for nearly an hour now.

The blond woman panted heavily, feeling like she would be sick at any moment. Her blue-green eyes shut tight, ocular patterns dancing in the darkness. The knuckles of her right hand, bleeding and painted with purple and blue bruises, throbbed in pain and had no doubt already begun to swell. It was a pain she welcomed, however. Anything to keep her mind from re-focusing on what had caused her to explode in the first place. Drawing a shaky breath, Samus opened her eyes and greeted reality once more. Next to her on the floor where her bruised hand lay in defeat, was that which had caused her to fly into a rage a mere sixty minutes earlier.

A positive pregnancy test.

As she lifted her head from her knees, Samus shot the little stick a venomous glare. The little plus sign, the bastard that it was, was mocking her: "Congratulations!" it seemed to say with a smile that made her want to puke, or "redecorate" the bedroom.

Irritated, she angrily reached over her crumpled form with her left hand and clutched the stick in her grasp, only to throw the notion of impending motherhood across the room with enough force to create another hole in the wall. At least, that's what she wished would happen. Unfortunately, she wasn't so lucky, and the stick merely bounced off the wall and landed on the floor near the door to the apartment.

She gave the stick another glare as it lay there on the floor. It still smiled at her. Her eyebrows furrowed together, anger – not at the one partially responsible for this...thing inside her, but at herself – flared once again at a near fever pitch. A moment of weakness, of letting her walls down, had created this...thing, this cursed parasite that was now calling her body home. It's called a condom, Sammy, she told herself. Hell, even the Chozo knew about protection. Abstinence, in this case, but protection nonetheless. How could you let this happen? You, of all people.

To be fair, however, seeing that little plus sign for the first time had been just as much a shock to Samus as it would no doubt be to Adam as well. After her lengthy and dangerous Phazon corruption some years ago, she'd just assumed the exposure had rendered her sterile. When the nausea and vomiting came on some weeks after her intimate encounter with Adam aboard her Gunship, Samus initially thought nothing of it, believing it was just a virus and would pass with a good night's sleep, odd as it was; Samus rarely, if ever, fell ill thanks in part to her modified DNA. Even as odd as it was for her to get sick, however, Samus never once thought there was a possibility she could be pregnant.

Her mind drifted back to the less complicated period in her life as a bounty hunter and mercenary. At least things had been simpler back then. Sign a contract. Finish the mission. Get paid. Move on to the next one. Slowly rid the galaxy of the shit and help create (and maintain) a peaceful universe. Yep, things had been a hell of a lot simpler back then. But she'd been through hell and back countless times throughout the course of the war, and was frankly running on fumes by the time she'd been commissioned to help investigate the Bottle Ship with General Malkovich and his men. And after the horrors aboard the Bottle Ship, she'd decided – with some reserve – to take Adam up on his offer and live with him for a while, or at least until the cocktail of anti-depressants she'd been prescribed kicked in and started putting her in a more stable frame of mind. Judging by the chaotic nature of the living room, however, Samus was less than optimistic of the chances of the medications working, to say the least.

And now, of all the bat shit crazy things to have happened to her in her life and career, finding out she was pregnant had to be by far the craziest thing to have happened to her yet.

Her heart skipped a beat suddenly as thoughts of the future invaded her mind: And just how the hell are you going to go on missions when you're as big as a planet and having to waddle everywhere you go? What's gonna happen if you have to birth the kid while in space, in that ship of yours – or on some god-forsaken planet?

This and more gnawed ceaselessly at her brain, filling her with a sense of unease that bordered on sheer panic.

"Get a grip, damn it." she mused out loud in the silence of the living room. From her place on the floor, she noted the time on the device she wore around her wrist. Ten till three. He'd be home any minute now, back from the errands he had gone off to run regarding his new position as an instructor at the Federation Army Academy. Suddenly, she could feel her heart resume its sickening thud. How would she explain this to him?

A darkness soon filled her, born from the depths of her fear and desperation. "You're a killer, Sammy. This should be no problem for you to... handle..." the dark voice told her from somewhere deep within the pit of her soul.

The devil on her shoulder ceaselessly reminded her that bounty hunters - especially ones of such a savage caliber as herself - didn't bring life into this world, they eliminated it from the world. They ruined families and civilizations. They formed no attachment. Only the results mattered; though the pay didn't hurt, either.

"Just get rid of it and move on with your life. He doesn't even have to know... You wouldn't exactly be Mother of the Year, anyway..."

The voice gnawed at her, fed on her doubt and fear, and only grew in relentlessness until all she could think about was that one word that, for all intents and purposes, had come to define her: killer. Throughout her career, she'd killed hundreds, possibly thousands, and single-handedly brought vile organizations to their knees. She had even destroyed entire planets. Soon, bile rose in her esophagus - had she really become such a vile thing as a killer, a Goddess of Death clad in Chozo armor?

Horrified, Samus shook her head and began to rationalize with the devil on her shoulder. She didn't kill because she wanted to, or because she gained pleasure from it or seen it as some kind of twisted sport or amusement. She killed because she had to, because there simply was no one else able enough to do it. It's what she had been built for all those years ago on Zebes when she was a mere child. And that would never change.

Even with this reasoning, the devil on her shoulder remained as cunning and persistent as ever: "Call it what you wish, Sammy. The fact remains that you are still the most trusted soldier of those flightless turkeys that took you in. They sure as hell didn't take you in to coddle you and raise you as their own - they did it because they needed a new experiment! And what better than to experiment on something unable to give consent! You are their Magnum Opus, Aran!"

"Shut up!" Samus yelled, her voice falling on deaf ears in the silence. She pinched her eyes shut again, hoping that her doubt would eventually ebb off into hell with the rest of her victims. But just as she was about to scream in frustration, Samus suddenly heard the hissing of the front door sliding open and quickly looked up, her vision trained on the open door.

"Who's there?!" she said aloud, but quickly relaxed at the sight of a familiar face.

Adam Malkovich. Her Adam. One of the most revered Generals of the Federation Army and her proverbial rock. A ruggedly handsome man, Adam stood just an inch taller than Samus, dressed in a navy blue dress shirt, black slacks and black leather loafers. His midnight black hair glowed softly beneath the overhead lights. His gray eyes were clear and calm, quietly observing the chaos around him.

Seeing him dressed in such a way, Samus suddenly remembered they were going to the local performance hall to catch a famous writer's latest masterpiece later tonight. Though much still weighed on her mind, Samus still couldn't help but smile gently at this. Adam was the cultured one, always reading or doing something cerebral. Always read the Federation Tribune in the morning. Rarely watched holo-vision, but did occasionally enjoy watching something along the lines of a mystery or crime drama. He also tended to always be thinking one step ahead of his Other Half.

Samus preferred watching or playing sports, reading of an occasional book, quiet meditation. Above all, she seemed to enjoy keeping herself moving, lest she stop and think about what she'd left behind. Her dangerous career, the fat paychecks, the thrill of hunting a bounty, the solitude. She left all of it and more behind her the night she'd made love with this man standing mere feet away from her.

Her slight smile soon faded as she watched him survey the room and the damage she'd caused, his face contorting into a look of mild concern. His voice, however, conveyed his usual calmness and wit. "I see you've had a busy day redecorating the place."

Despite her sullen mood, Samus felt a smile tug at her lips again. "Well, shit. I thought the place could use a little...something." she replied with a slight grin. "Gives the place a feeling of warmth, don't you think?"

Adam gave a half-hearted grin before making his way through the mess left behind by Hurricane Aran, tip-toeing over broken trinkets and sectional pillows before coming to a stop in front of her, only to take a knee. His dark eyes met Samus's own, then focused on the drops of crimson on the wall behind her. Realizing what he had spotted, Samus quickly tried to hide her self-induced injury behind her back, but it didn't take long for the throbbing pain in her digits to force her hand back to her side.

His eyes had smelled blood in the water, and immediately trained themselves on her hand. "What's wrong with your hand, Samus?"

"It's nothing, really." she replied in an almost shy tone that was atypical of her.

Adam's keen sense of observation reflected in his voice, his index finger pointing at the hole several feet above her head. "That hole in the wall and blood beg to differ, Lady. You can tell me."

Her gaze averted his, her tone nonchalant. "I just got angry, that's all. Better this stuff than a person, right?"

The confession was enough to tell him everything he needed to know. He was well aware of her temper and had been since the day their paths crossed all those years ago. But he also knew the reason for such a temper, something no one else knew about. "Yes, I suppose so, Lady." Adam gently took the bounty hunter's right hand and began to examine it intensely. After a few moments he spoke conclusively. "Looks like you may have broken or fractured it, Samus. The way the knuckles are swollen and your reluctance to move it are indicative of a broken hand. Does it hurt?"

Samus nearly felt like laughing. "So now you're a Medic, huh?" she teased. "And come on, Adam. You've known me how many cycles now? You know I have a high pain tolerance."

A slight smile crept across Adam's lips as he leaned in to kiss her. "Yes, I know, Lady. But still, somebody has to worry about you."

Samus swallowed the lump in her throat as her heartbeat quickened. This feeling welling up within her was not arousal, however, but trepidation. For nearly ninety minutes now, she had been wracking her brain trying to come up with a way to tell him - or ways to avoid telling him for that matter - the reason behind the chaos around them "...Adam." she began, her voice nearly shaking. Her palms began to sweat. Her stomach grew queasier. "I need to tell you something..."

Adam's rugged face turned attentive. "I'm all ears."

Samus took a deep breath and shook her head of the cobwebs. "The hole in the wall, the papers everywhere, my hand... It's because I lost my temper. Again."

As soon as she said this, Samus began to curse at herself - of course he knew how this mess had happened. She had merely stated the obvious. Real good job there, Sammy.

Samus sighed, combing her fingers through her straight blond tresses, frustrated that the words, though on her tongue, refused to come out right. "I mean - shit of course you already knew that. " her hand moved from her hair to cover one side of her head. She could feel the beginnings of a headache near her temple. "I... I just found out I'm pregnant, Adam. That's why I lost my temper."

The revelation exploded within his mind. For a moment, he had to tell himself that he had in fact heard her correctly the first time. Samus Aran was pregnant with his child. It nearly seemed impossible, given her exposure to highly corrosive agents during her travels, the most dangerous of which had been Phazon. He was well aware of its mutagenic properties during the war, having seen the effects it had had on Samus during the crisis on Phaaze. She'd been on the verge of total corruption at the time, her body and armor having taken on an almost blinding, radioactive blue glow. Somehow, however, she'd managed to survive the corruption while her fellow hunters succumbed to its effects.

"...Lady." Adam had a seat next to her on the floor and guided her body into his arms. He could feel her melt into his form, her head taking refuge on his broad shoulder...and her tears dotting the collar of his dress shirt. Even Adam was having a hard time putting his thoughts into words. "I'm not doubting you, but...are you sure? How many tests did you take?"

"Just the one. I threw it at the front door after I punched the wall." Samus replied while wiping her eyes with the hem of her gray long sleeve shirt. An admission soon pushed forth from her parched lips, "For the first time in my life, I think I'm actually terrified. I mean, I've been before but this...it's a different kind of terror, Adam."

Adam held her tighter. He could feel her athletic form melting further into his own, and her hand lightly trembling on his shoulder. His voice took on a supportive tone. "You don't have to go it alone anymore. We'll get through this together. Believe me, Samus. Whatever you decide, I'll support you one-hundred percent. You have my word."

But Samus remained skeptical. "But what makes you so certain we'll get through this? Have you forgotten what I did – and still do - for a living? Committing planetary genocide, being gone for extended periods of time? Losing my temper at the drop of a hat? Killing for money? That hardly qualifies me to be a mother. Besides, I can't have a kid. Not with all this blood on my hands."

"I'm not trying to influence your decision, Samus, but that's a completely misguided notion. Your profession does not dictate whether or not you will be a supportive and nurturing parent - your actions do. However, I'd also be lying if I didn't think there were some individuals who probably shouldn't have children, regardless of their profession. But I digress."

Samus regarded him seriously. "No argument there, but other people aren't the issue right now. I am. We are. And right now, I want you to tell me the unbiased truth – if you didn't know me, and you found out somebody like me – a semi-human bioweapon with a lengthy criminal record and mental health issues, a bounty hunter and mercenary – was pregnant, what would be your immediate thought?"

"People can change." Adam replied. "It's just a question of how much they're willing to do so."

"Fair enough. But what if they aren't able to change, no matter how much they try, due to something having been... hardwired into them when they were small and helpless?"

Adam regarded the building tears in her eyes, the memories of her past coming to haunt her once more. "Well...then they just do the best they can, and hope it's enough." he replied gently before pulling her close once more. "At least they can say they tried. And that's all any of us can do in our lives. Just try."

Samus felt her doubt and anxiety fade just a tad. "...Do you really think we can do this? I mean, with your new job at the academy and... my job? Babies can't be cheap, even I know that. And they aren't something you can just put in a corner and forget about."

Adam kissed the top of her head, "I do, Lady. Finances won't be a problem, either. And you're right, they're living creatures, not objects. But it's ultimately up to you how you want to proceed."

But the financial security wasn't the only thing she was concerned about, though there were so many it was hard to rank them according to importance. Paramount among them was the fact that she hadn't the slightest clue about pregnancy or child-rearing for that matter; she was still learning how to adapt to a human society herself. And doing it while pregnant? Well, that almost seemed impossible.

But then again, Samus was used to being able to do the impossible. One way or another.

"It's all so much to consider, Adam." Samus noted, sounding overwhelmed. "...And I'm not even sure I want this child, at least...not right now, anyway. I just can't think straight at the moment."

Adam nodded. "It is, I know. And this is perfectly fine. We'll just go about this cautiously, all right? Starting with getting you, and your hand, checked out."

Samus moved her hand from Adam's shoulder to his chest. "Do you... mind if we do that instead of going to the opera, Adam? Save that for another time? I'm sorry." Anything, even a trip to the doctor, was better than having to sit in a stuffy auditorium and be bored for two hours.

The opera could wait for as long as need be. What mattered most to Adam right now was making sure Samus, her hand, and their possible child were taken care of. "...No objections, Lady."