A blurb taking place just after "Eyewitness", hope you enjoy it and thanks for reading and the feedback!
C.J. sat in the doctor's office waiting for the nurse to call her for her appointment. She had been waiting for over an hour since cutting short a meeting at work in order to hit the traffic on the freeway to make it on time and she had actually arrived early…which just left her more time to wait staring at the clock on the wall.
Twenty more minutes to go until she found out whether or not her life was going to be irrevocably changed by one spontaneous act. One that had involved her and a man who now sat inside a jail cell across town awaiting his fate. No doubt waiting to hear what indictments would be issued against him by the grand jury after sitting in jail for over a week. She didn't know why the District Attorney's office had been dragging its feet filing murder and kidnapping not to mention dozens of conspiracy charges against him, after all he clearly did all those crimes. After all, she had been the last person who had wanted to face the truth until it stared at her in the face.
That had been when he had so coolly explained to her that he could kill her as easily has he had snuffed out the life of her unscrupulous husband, believing she was the wife of that man who had been intent on blackmailing him. Of course that information had come to him courtesy of C.J. sealed with a final kiss as she along with Matt and Roy had engineered a sting to snare him in the act. After she had kissed him, she had looked at the man she had fallen in love with momentarily, wishing so much that Matt had been wrong, that she was wrong because how could the man they had both known over a decade turned out to be so callously evil?
But they had been right about him and when he had pulled a gun on her believing her to be someone else, the blood had chilled in her veins as C.J. thought quickly how to avoid her own death…with Matt and Roy standing only several yards away on the other side of what only looked like a mirror. The LAPD had kindly loaned them a motel room that had been rigged to serve as bait in narcotics and vice stings. She had been shot before and knew the intense pain that struck before the darkness came but this time it would hurt worse because of the man who pulled the trigger.
The man who had hugged her the night before on her patio, awaiting her answer to his marriage proposal but had read doubt on her face before she even knew what to say to him. Because she knew she was saying goodbye.
Not that any of that helped her now sitting in the waiting room waiting for the doctor to give her a much better test than the four she had brought over the counter which after careful reading of the herculean directions and anxious waiting only yielded inconclusive results, telling her nothing.
Was she pregnant or wasn't she, that's what she needed to know. She remembered back to that night roughly seven weeks ago when Robert had first breezed into town and had taken her to dinner telling her about his new job anchoring a newscast in L.A. His face had lit up and she had been happy for him, finally making it after the last 10 years spent traveling around the world frequenting every hotspot to get the news coverage, that exclusive breaking story that would elevate him to the next level in the hierarchal world of journalism.
They had talked for hours and then on a whim had gone out to do some dancing at a club. And then after that, back to her place where they had fallen into bed easily enough despite their years apart as if they had been waiting for that moment.
She supposed looking back that's when she had first believed herself to be in love with him, which had shocked her after having known him on and off since college, mostly through mishaps and near misses that he had gotten into on the way towards finding his vocation. Their romance had been whirlwind for her and she felt duly swept off her feet by his charming and often self-depreciating demeanor. She had needed his attention after having to work her way through the thorny labyrinth that had sprung up between her and Matt since she had told him that she had loved him. That had been only because they had just witnessed the shocking death of Andrea and dodging bullets, feeling as if their lives had been reduced to mere seconds, leaving them only that much time to be together.
Not that she would take those words back and she couldn't anyway. But for a while she felt as if they had stood between them and she didn't want to have to worry about that anymore which might be why she gravitated to Robert so readily.
"C.J…"
She looked up and smiled at him standing there, in his business suit having clearly rushed from some appointment.
"Houston you didn't have to…"
He looked back at her.
"I wanted to C.J…this isn't any time for you to be alone."
She nodded and he sat down beside her reaching for her hand, squeezing it.
"You okay?"
She thought about it and wondered how best to answer that question, knowing it hadn't been a polite gesture but because he really wanted to know.
"I'm…fine Houston…really I'm fine with whatever the doctor tells me."
Inside her feelings churned deeply because she really didn't know what she would do if the test results were positive, that she had conceived a child with the man who would likely be spending the rest of his years in state prison. A man who would never be able to see his child except through thick panes of class or from inside a metal cage, and she had no plans to ever see him again. But if she were having a baby that shared its DNA with him, then shouldn't she let him know that, to share in his child's life as much as he was able?
No, she couldn't, she knew it might be wrong but she didn't want to tell him, didn't want to be tied to him in any way…she had forced the memories of their relationship far away from her…because to do otherwise was to feel the reproach and shame that she had not been able to see through his façade. That she had been so blind to it that she had nearly thrown away the most important relationship in her life simply to avoid facing the truth.
And that man sat quietly with her now, allowing her to lean her head against his shoulder as she did right now still holding onto his hand.
He still waited for her when she left the doctor's office with instructions that she would be notified when the results came back from the lab. But she had been so tired lately, so worn out and not very hungry forcing herself to eat. She had buried herself in her work, in the office and out in the field, and most of the people around her who knew her gave her plenty of space.
At least until Matt had gone to her office yesterday and found her resting her head in her hands and had just asked her point blank what had been going on with her. She hadn't wanted to tell him but that way he had of just softly coaxing the truth out of people that had solved many cases for them just worked its magic on her.
She wondered how he'd react to the news that she might have slipped up when she had been with Robert, might have gotten pregnant. Would he judge her, would he even worse, pity her? But he didn't do either, he had just softly told her to come towards him and then he wrapped her up in one of his wonderful hugs telling her everything would be all right and that he would be there for her as long as she needed him.
As she had been for him a time or two as he had reminded her while stroking her back. And so he sat there waiting for her to return.
"Let's get out of here," was all she told him.
He nodded and they left the office.
They picked an outside restaurant and sat beneath the umbrella table dining on Italian, though she didn't eat very much. She hadn't been out much since the paparazzi had gotten wind that she had been romanced by Robert whose arrest turned out to be the hottest story of the month. She just hadn't wanted to deal with it at all and Chris and Roy had sent them packing on several occasions, Roy with some long monologue on a mission he had performed during his years as a covert operative.
Still, she knew that once Robert was arraigned and the prosecution had started, interest would wane in the year or so it would take for him to face trial that is if he didn't plead out first. She wondered if he would do that and then decided probably not, because he was not interested in spending the rest of his life in prison rather than taking that anchor job in New York City as had been planned. Not to forget that he had asked her to go with him…oh that could have been really bad given that she would be shacking up with a murderer on the opposite side of the coast instead of sitting here in a restaurant with her best friend awaiting word on whether she had been left with any permanent reminders of their time together.
"You're not very hungry?"
As much an observation as a question, she thought. She sipped her water carefully.
"Not much since the arrest," she said, "I guess I've just got too much on my mind."
Yeah like what would she do if she were pregnant, left to raise a child whose father had killed people to get where he wanted to go faster than hard work and ethical behavior would deliver. Most of the time it would be up to her to raise their child alone, weighing whether it should ever know its father, what a dilemma. She had spent most of her life missing her own father, now her child if there was one would be facing the same upbringing.
"C.J…you're not alone in this…I'm right here."
She smiled at that, wishing life weren't too damn complicated…but did he want to get dragged into what could be a sordid mess? The media would have a field day if Robert had gotten a woman pregnant before being led off in handcuffs to jail. How could she face that scrutiny, how could she expose a child to that?
"I know and thanks…"
He had sat in the office with her for hours until the light filtering in the window had faded away into darkness while she worked her way through this situation out loud, wondering how she would raise a child whose father would never see it outside of prison. How she would fare as a working mother raising a child on her own…but then Matt had said he would help and support her if she needed it.
Still she thought about that now in the restaurant as he sat there trying to cajole her to eat more of her lunch.
"C.J. that amount of food wouldn't feed an armadillo," he said, "Just a few more bites."
She smiled at him despite herself and picked up her pizza which really smelled delicious but her heart wasn't in it. It remained elsewhere because she couldn't turn off her emotions and her feelings for another person like switching off a light. As much as she wanted to shed all her feelings for her duplicitous murderous ex she couldn't do it easily enough.
Not if they had created a child together…
"I never thought my child would be growing up without a father…"
He heard the jaggedness in her voice, the one she tried to hide by sipping from her glass of water.
"C.J. you're not there yet…and if you are, you've got a lot of friends who will help you," he said, "You…your baby would never be alone."
She knew he meant what he said and they had this talk already but she had held her hand up when he mentioned that he had plenty of space at the beach house if she wanted to stay for a while during the time she felt she needed to sort things out.
"I know…but I don't know if I'm ready for this Houston," she said, "I have to make all sorts of arrangements and plans…for the next 18 years."
"It's a long term commitment," Matt agreed, "though one of the best kind."
She knew what he meant and part of her..well part of her was almost happy because she had always wanted a family of her own, though on a much different timetable than this and with a different man? Well yeah, one who wasn't going to prison, someone very solid, very passionate about life and who showed great kindness to those around him, patience…but he…she, they were just two very different people.
"Yeah I know…and part of me feels like I can do it…"
"C.J. you can do it," he said, "You've done some amazing things, but that's not surprising considered how intelligent and determined you are and how you don't give up on something until it's finished."
"Some might call that stubborn instead Houston…"
"Well I'm not one of them," he said, "Any child would be lucky to have you as a mother."
She grabbed onto those words and the meaning behind him.
"I don't know about that," she said, "I never knew my parents for that long…I don't know what it's like to be a parent or to really have one."
Matt knew what it was like to have a father who loved him even though they had bumped heads on occasion, and he had made peace with that long before his father had died. His mother, he had known only in aged photographs, a smiling dark haired woman dressed for a cotillion in one photograph he kept framed on the wall of his beach house. But C.J. had lost her father tragically when she had been a little girl and not long after that her mother, spending most of her formative years with a guardian.
"You'll learn…and like I said there will be people there to help you…"
She smiled at him for that and she did try to eat more bites of the garlic bread dipped in butter and that melted in her mouth.
"I know…but its father is going to prison…what kind of life will my baby have with a father that did such atrocious crimes? "
Matt sighed, because there were no easy answers.
"And should the baby know its father…and if so, how…by looking at him through glass inside a visiting area in some prison," she continued, "I'm having a hard time accepting the depth of his crimes but I'm not a child Houston…what will it be like for him or her growing up?"
"That's something that you'll have to decide but you need to trust yourself to make the best decisions that you can…and your child would have people around it who loved and look out for him or her."
She nodded, knowing that Matt meant what he said, every word of it and that he would do that for her child without being asked. He would help her if that's what she wanted and she really did, she wanted…more than she could ask for because she knew the man sitting across from her would make an incredible father some day. She had wanted that for her with him for so long, without ever admitting it until she had thrown caution to the wind and while being shot at, she had told him she had loved him believing the chance would never arise again.
But they had both lived and life had gotten back to normal…at least after Matt had cleared his name. They had moved forward, Matt getting himself back in the dating game and her meeting Robert again. Maybe she had been vulnerable after sharing her feelings with Matt, maybe if that hadn't happened, she would have seen through the haze of infatuation that offered escape for her that something had been terrible wrong with Robert.
"I don't know Houston…I guess I'm a little scared of facing all this," she said, "I know that I have it within me to do it but it just seems so overwhelming right now.
And it did, judging by the look on her face, Matt thought. But she had to know she'd make a great mother…being loving, kind and very patient herself. Traits he hoped to find someday in the woman who would bear his children. In the meantime, he would be there for his best friend as long as she needed him and that included with her child.
They sat there in silence for a while, eating and just enjoying the day, ready for the phone call to come which could majorly change the fabric of it forever.
Finally the phone rang and C.J. picked it up, finding it to be the doctor's office. Matt watched her face as she focused intently on what was being said, unable to read the doctor's news through her. She finally clicked off the phone and then took a deep breath before looking at him. Matt watched her prepare her words to say to him, knowing that what was said could redefine both of their futures.
"It's negative…I'm not pregnant."
He could see the mixture of emotions on her face, relief mixed with a wistful smile because a part of her longed to be a mother someday. Matt knew that she would see that day when she would be surrounded by dark haired children who looked like her and well, maybe like the father as well though he couldn't imagine that part.
C.J. just knew that while she may have dodged a bullet of a different kind in a matter of speaking, that the future lay in front of her unwritten and that the next time she awaited this kind of news, in different circumstances it might have a different ending.
And looking at the man sitting across for her reaching for her hand, she thought that maybe he'd have a different role to play in it as well.