The following is dark, and sad, and is rated M for a reason. Reader discretion is advised.
If I continue this, which is a very distinct possibility, it'll only get darker and will contain adult storylines, such as drugs, sex, and betrayal, so…get ready for that.
Or not. This is only the beginning; so, if this isn't your type of story, click the Back button.
She's told to push. She's told to help guide her daughter into the world, but what these people don't understand, can't understand, is that she's exhausted. Her eyes sting from sweat and tears and the searing pain is unbearable and she just wants it to end.
Adrian's nails bite into Ben's soft flesh, but she doesn't really care. What concerns her is the eerily calm look on her mother's face, slowing urging her on. Everyone's talkingscreamingyelling and all she longs for is silence. She lets out a guttural groan and clamps her eyes shut, feeling as if her world's been set on fire.
And then, that's when it happens:
"Doctor, there's something wrong with this baby!"
And the world tilts into darkness.
Her eyes burst open after that declaration, demanding answers. "My baby? What's wrong with my baby?" She asks shrilly, her voice growing with hysteria.
Dr. Zano's face lifts from behind the sheet he is working over; handsome face gaunt and unsettled. "Adrian, the baby is almost out, I just need one more push, just one more push, for you to see her."
She can't really form words at the moment but she registers Ben's hand squeezing hers reassuringly and she looks over at her parents and his parents and she just closes her eyes once more and pushes as if her life depended on it. She's terrified and tired and hopeful and she just wants to finally hold her little girl in her arms. A bead of sweat rolls down her beaten brow and she gasps when she feels the release of pressure from between her legs. Her eyes close in satisfaction and she waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Her eyes open wearily. "Why isn't she crying?" No one answers. She looks over at Ben, whose face is the epitome of fear and devastation. "Ben, why isn't our baby crying?"
"Adrian," Doctor Zano begins consolingly. "The baby is-"
"Why isn't she crying?" Adrian shrieks hysterically. "What's wrong with my daughter?"
A nurse behind Doctor Zano urges the man in front of her to call it. To call the time. 10:23 A.M.
Adrian Lee will never, ever, forget that time. The time of her daughter's death.
Stillborn.
Something about that is unequivocally wrong. Because the baby was alive, the baby was moving, pliable flesh with a mind and heart, and the moment it entered the world, it just wasn't that anymore. It wasn't moving, it's feather light heart wasn't beating, and God didn't exist anymore.
Because what type of a God bore a nonliving child into the world?
Doctor Zano holds the child guardedly, as if it were something that could've still been broken. Adrian doesn't take into account the fact that her parents and Ben's parents are in the room, crying helpless tears. Or that their friends were out in the waiting room, waiting to see what had gathered them all there. Her determinate eyes focus on the bundle held in front of her.
"I want to hold her," Adrian says, eyes unseeing and faded. "I want to hold my child."
No one breathes.
"In your condition, I'm not sure that that's the best, Adrian." Doctor Zano says calmly, brow worried and concerned.
"I want to hold my daughter!" Adrian roars at the top of her lungs. "I don't care what's best for me right now, I need to hold her in my arms. I need to see her for myself!" She looks to her right, to the father of her child. "Ben, please get me my daughter. I have to see her, please." Tears stream down the distraught mother's face and Ben nods, crossing the side of the bed to stand in front of the doctor. After a moment of uncertainty, the doctor gently lays the little bundle in Ben's arms and Ben takes a saddened look for himself before walking back to his prior position next to Adrian. He sets their daughter into her waiting arms and Adrian's eyes fill with stinging salt as she stares down at this beautiful soft mold of flesh in her arms.
"Mom, Dad, can we just-"Adrian chokes out in a strangled voice. "Can we just be left alone for a few minutes?"
Cindy brushes back Adrian's fallen curl behind her ear lovingly and looks to Rueben, who nods perceptively. Leo follows suit and ushers a sobbing Betty out of the room on the low of her back, while the doctor and accompanying nurses file out. Soon, it's only Ben, Adrian, and the unmoving infant in her arms that inhabitant the surroundings and Adrian truly breaks down, curling her face over her daughter's small form. Ben cradles them both in his embrace as Adrian's broken sobs fill the room and he doesn't know why- how- this could happen them. To her. To his innocent baby girl. And to his friend that he grown to know more than anyone else. How could they have managed to have lost everything in a matter of moments?
He strokes the baby's divinely soft cheek with the pad of his thumb and notes her closed eyes, and if he didn't know any better, he would've thought she was just sleeping. Sleeping!
Except her eyes never open, and she never breathes to cry.
His own eyes become glassy with despair and he breathes through his mouth before speaking gently. "Adrian…we have to name her." The young mother in front of him never raises her head, just shakes it, her mussed locks following the motion and Ben nods in opposition. "We do. She has to have a name."
Adrian's tears fall on the still baby's cheek. "I-I can't think of anything good enough. You name her," She suggests lowly.
"Alexandria," Ben breathes.
Adrian's fingers sink lightly into her daughter's dark downy hair, sniffling her approval. She finally bestows the name with a kiss to the small forehead in front of her.
The time is now 10:32 A.M.
Why hasn't the world ended yet?
Eventually, the nurses come back. The doctor comes back. Her parents come back. His parents come back.
Her daughter doesn't come back. Adrian now questions her sanity, questions if she was ever there in the first place.
The nurse cautiously holds the baby away from Adrian's weak grasp and the girl doesn't look up to ask why or where they're taking her. There's only one place where she could be going. Or at least, where her body could be going.
Ben stays throughout her side in all of this. In fact, its past visiting hours, and his pleas become demands. "I'm not moving."
By the time a night and a day pass, the entire room is filled with arrangements of life-filled flower arrangements, condolences.
They're keeping Adrian under observation. She's unstable, mentally depressed, and unable to properly function, she hears. "This is a traumatizing event in her life," Doctor Zano says.
"Don't talk about her as if she's not still in the room," Ben spits savagely, keeping a tight hold on Adrian's limp right hand. "She can still hear you."
Several pairs of eyes have snapped to him, but his eyes are trained on Adrian, who listlessly stares out the window. Her thumb traces over his still white knuckles periodically, whenever he becomes too upset, and he takes a noticeable breath.
Doctor Zano's eyes soften at the sight, and he turns back to both sets of parents; "Why don't we take this discussion outside?"
"Yeah," Ben mutters under his breath as the door opens. "Why don't you?"
The door clicks shut and Ben vents. "Can you believe that guy? I mean, for a doctor, he's kind of a jerk."
Her thumb runs over his knuckle.
"A huge jerk," Ben exaggerates, wanting to cause a reaction, any reaction, out of the generally lively soul beside him. She barely stirs.
It's been three days.
Then, the silence in the room is broken: "Can we just…go home, now?" Adrian says slowly, her voice struggling from disuse. She usually asks this question when they're alone, in hopes that he passes it along, which he does. Not that it helps because they always find some reason to "keep her under observation" for another night, another day.
"You don't seem to understand, Mr. Boykewich," A RN told him on a later occasion. "She is high risk for post-partum depression. We can't risk letting her out early-"
"And having her do something stupid, like suicide, right?" Ben states grippingly, anger growing within him with every passing moment in this office. The registered nurse in front of him visibly reacts and heaves a sigh. "I know Adrian Lee, okay? I know her. And she is the most alive person I've ever known. She just wants to go home, alright? She wants to be-" With me, he wants to say, but doesn't. "She wants to be away from all of this because this is where she last saw our daughter. Is that so much to ask?"
The distinguished woman in front of him doesn't say a word, seeming troubled herself.
His eyes become wide and frantic with glassy, unshed tears. "I'm begging you. I swear, I'll get down on all fours if I have to," Ben holds on to his last strand of hope, hoping to affect this woman, even in the slightest. He leans forward and links his hands together on the desk, as if preparing for prayer. "Let me take her home, at least for one night, and if I notice any signs of trouble, anything at all, I'll bring her back."
Maybe it was something in the affliction of his voice, or the sight of the young teenage mother so broken after losing her newborn. After a moment, the RN nods her consent, and Ben politely thanks her before rushing out of the room.
Adrian's temple leans on the warm glass of the passenger seat, eyes unfocusedly staring out the window. Ben's grasp on her left hand remains steady, rubbing circles into her soft hand; a grasp that keeps her from teetering over the edge.
He parks slowly in their driveway and quickly gets out of the car, jogging over to her side quickly to gather her up in his arms. Adrian is small and humble in his embrace, clutching onto his shirt, and her wide toffee eyes are set on him the entire time, even when he gives her a kiss on the forehead as they cross the threshold.
In lieu of everything, their condo, their home with which she loved with all of her heart because it was theirs, looks completely foreign, like a prison. She looks around, from their perfect kitchen, to their perfect living room with light streaming in from the patio, to their perfect hallway that Ben leads them through. Without pausing, he goes straight into their perfect bedroom and lays her down on their perfect comforter where she curls up into a ball. He settles in beside her, arm curling over her small form like a cocoon.
If it reminds them of that one night out of many that they spent in Ben's room, when they finally realized that they were to be parents, they don't mention it.
Her hand finds its way to his and rests atop of it, sapphire ring glittering in the early morning light.
The very next person both Adrian and Ben see after The Incident as it was named, is Grace.
She comes over a few hours later, with her pubescent grey-blue eyes and warm plate of assorted cookies. Adrian takes one look at her, and laughs. Leave it to Grace to think that hope and cookies will make everything better. She laughs so hard that her food deprived stomach protests in agony. She doubles over, clutching her midsection.
She wonders why Grace becomes a blurry frenzy of yellows and blues, until she realizes that tears are steadily streaming down her face, and Ben is holding her up.
"Oh sweetie," Grace murmurs, helping Ben usher Adrian onto the couch. Grace sits beside her best friend, towelette in hand to brush away the tears as Ben unwraps the Saran Wrap from the decorative plate. Adrian is still stubbornly grinning, watching Ben and Grace silently dote over her. She would love for them to see how silly they look right now.
"Adrian," Grace says softly, taking the brunette's face into her hands. Adrian's brow quickly wrinkles in aggravation.
"I'm fine, Doctor Bowman. Really, I am."
"No, you're not," Grace says firmly. Her expression softens, "When was the last time you've eaten?"
"That's easy. When did Alexandria die?" Adrian mutters, and Grace's eyes become horrified pools.
She quickly reaches for the plate in Ben's hand and practically shoves a cookie towards her best friend's mouth, "Eat!" The blonde demands.
The Latin mother rolls her eyes. "Quit it with the drama. I've eaten since then."
"Not much, apparently," Grace argues, and the room fills with a low involuntary rumble. "Your stomach's growling! Eat this cookie, or so help me Adrian Lee, I'll-"
"You'll what?" Adrian fixes her with an annoyed glance. "Shove it down my throat?"
"I just may!" Grace says shrilly, pushing the cookie towards her, "Eat it!"
Adrian looks from Grace's stern face, to the cookie, then up to Ben's worried visage, until she huffs as if the action of taking the cookie out of her hand was far too much, and takes a bite much larger than what her mouth can hold, chewing it slowly and deliberately to satisfy the blonde next to her. Just to annoy her, Adrian gives her a bare tooth grin, marred with chocolate smears, which Grace rolls her eyes at. "Happy?"
"Very." Grace replies dryly. Without warning, the blonde embraces her friend. "Adrian, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," Grace says, shutting her eyes shut, restraining tears. Adrian stays in the same position, even as her best friend lets her go and Grace stands and gives Ben a hug as well. "I saw her, you know. Alexandria," Grace says, muffled against Ben's lean torso. "She was beautiful."
"Yeah," Ben agrees. "Just like her mother." As he says this, he's looking directly over Grace's shoulder at Adrian. Her eyes fill with tears and she directs her attention over to the patio window.
Grace releases Ben and wipes her eyes against her arm. "Have you- have you both decided what you're going to do? About her- her burial?"
"You have to make a decision, Adrian," Rueben says sternly. "This is a serious matter."
The young mother directs her gaze at her father, tilting her head to the side. "I'm sorry. Are you getting angry at me because I can't decide how I want to bury my daughter quick enough?" She says cuttingly, and the grandparents loitering the room wince. "How about we plasticize her? Keep her looking the way she does forever?" She continues spitefully. "Or stuff her like a doll, Betty would like that, right, Betty?" Adrian swerves her head to the busty blonde, who shrinks in her seat.
"Quit it, Adrian," Cindy says, eyes with darkening bags underneath from the lack of sleep. "We know this isn't easy, but it's been over a week and you haven't made a decision-"
"And excuse the Hell out of me for not being able to!" Adrian stands, dark eyes blazing. "You may have all been parents longer than Ben and I," Adrian states to all of the elders in the room. "But you have no idea what we're going through."
"You're right," Leo says calmly, wisely. "We don't know what it feels like to put a child in the ground, so you take as much time as you need," He says, stressing it to the other grandfather in the room, who fixes him with an annoyed stare, "And you make the right decision for Alexandria, alright?" He stands and Betty follows, giving Ben a hug and then giving Adrian one, smoothing out her curls gently.
"Lo siento, Betty," Adrian apologizes in Spanish, knowing that the blonde would understand.
Betty nods with a smile, and regards the young parents, "I love both of you, okay? So, you just make the best decision for that baby," She says carefully, and then she leaves, heels clacking in her wake.
Cindy looks to Rueben and, tentatively, he nods, standing as well. Cindy kisses her daughter on the cheek and holds Ben, whispering something inaudible in his ear, which he nods at, Rueben giving him a steady pat on the shoulder before facing his daughter. "Daddy, I-"
"Don't even worry about it," He says simply, and then kisses her forehead. "Take as much time as you need."
He exits, and Adrian immediately buries her head into Ben's chest, gripping his blue button down shirt in her hands as he holds her. Ben's chin lands on top of her hair and he closes his eyes. "I want her stone next to my mother's."
They both know that, as new parents, they shouldn't even be discussing this. In an ideal world, Adrian would be in bed, breastfeeding their daughter and Ben would be right there, video camera in hand. They should be discussing how adorable she looks when she yawns, and how peaceful she looks when she sleeps, not when they should hold her burial service.
The fact of the matter is that it's not an ideal world. It's the world they live in.
"Of course," Adrian says softly. "But…I don't want her buried." She can't stand the thought of maggots and other undesirables infesting her little coffin and destroying her beauty. It's enough to make her cringe.
"Then, what do we do?" He questions aloud, and Adrian's already going through the possibilities in her mind. They could embalm her, they could freeze her, and then her mind sets on one possibility and it makes her eyes well, but it's the only thing she can think of doing that would be right.
"Cremation." Adrian whispers, and she feels Ben nod above her in agreement.
The doctor was named after the guest star- the good looking one, not the guy with a unibrow, Nick Zano. I tried to give the Bendrian baby a different name –that failed epically. I'm pretty much set on Alexandria, which means "the defender of men."
More characters will be integrated next time, including Amy, Ricky, and a guidance counselor I think all fans want back on the show.
Review? Or flame?
DAC