This honestly was meant to be a lot shorter :-/ but yeah. It's spoilery up until tonights (17th September 2013) episode.
She shivers beneath the grey Holby hoodie. She's no longer able to wear her own, it doesn't fit over the mound that now constitutes her abdomen but this matters little now. The clothes which do and do not fit are no longer playing on her mind, no longer a source of quiet distress as yet another garment fails to do up. Now, this is trivial.
It's not a cold night, but still her body shakes slightly and she tries to nestle further in to the jackets confines. She knows it is not a chill she feels, but rather the reality of the last few days settling over her. She has tried to push it away, to keep her mind focused, to prevent her emotions from escaping and she has been, she feels, relatively successful in this venture. Only now it has caught up with her, and try as she might she cannot prevent her body from shivering.
She forces her eyes to focus, to try to prevent any more liquid building there. She glances about her surroundings, not quite able to remember why she had even come here or even how she had gotten to this point. She can just make out the little playhouse, the one whose door he had thrown open as he'd asked her to move in with him, a strange gesture and yet somehow the memory drags up the corners of her lips. She closes her eyes for a second, trying to forget it but now it's in her head and so is he.
She doesn't want to think of him. Not now. In the black of her eyelids, she can see his face, how he had looked at her. She sees the shift from the man who had looked at her so hopefully when he had asked her to move in, the man who had loved her to the man who she had seen today. The man who had realised her intention, the hardened face that told her his feelings towards her had changed. They were no longer feelings of love, he wanted her purely for what they shared; the combination of their gametes to create a foetus that was genetically half hers, and half his.
50 / 50. Ironic, given those were the odds of her child's survival, the odds given to her of having a child who was evil. Was it the 50% that she had given to the foetus that had caused it to develop the condition that lead to those survival odds? She was near certain the answer was the positive, no good could come from her genetic make-up. It was after all her 50% contribution that would lead to any child becoming the antichrist – a comment which still smarts as it echoes in her mind. No child is fundamentally evil, though she had once believed it of herself, in some ways still felt it especially when faced with the knowledge that , that which damaged her could seep in to and infect the innocent life that had been created. His own DNA was unaffected, his genetic material untainted. He is a good man, but even that was not enough to override that which resides in her.
Her eyes flick open and she sees the shadow of people around her. A memory of a cold night standing, watching as a couple declared their love and exchanged rings – all the while knowing that married life could be brief; a reality that came to be when she had not survived surgery. That was the night that had brought them together following the destruction of their relationship. One night was all it had taken, a night when they had needed comfort. A night on which they had beaten the odds, and created a life.
One night was all it had taken, despite her lowered odds of conceiving. She'd been told her body was scarred and damaged, a physical embodiment of what she had always felt. It was the fates way of telling her that she was not a natural mother, preventing her from inflicting herself on an innocent child. She had always done it for herself; the pill, condoms, methods of contraception to protect herself. She was not meant to be a mother, didn't want to be either or so she had told herself. And yet as she had listened to those words, she had felt the urge, the want for a child though she had tried to squander it, to pretend it didn't hurt. And that had destroyed their relationship in the end, because the pain had come out but not as it should have and she had belittled him, tried to destroy him as this was destroying her; only he had twisted that knife that little bit harder.
A rise of bile in her throat, causes her to shut her eyes once more. She forces a change in her breathing, trying to push away the feeling that is now plaguing her. She shouldn't have allowed herself to think, she should have sought noise and distraction rather than ending up here. She couldn't face home – she doesn't even really know where that is, the place in which she dwells may not deserve that title. Home perhaps is the office she shares, and that is a thought that saddens her. Still she hadn't wanted to return to that place, to the dark and her thoughts, to be alone. Only she has found herself alone regardless, but at least here is open, no walls to close in on her, to suffocate her.
She swallows hard and pushes the palm of her hand flat against the wooden surface on which she sits. Trying to push away those feelings, to force them out of her body. She shivers once again. It runs through her body, and she tenses afterwards. Her spine chilled, and leans slightly forward.
She thinks she senses something, and her tension increases. Her heart rate increases slightly, and she forces herself more upright, eyes opened to see the nothing around her has changed. And then she turns her head slightly, and with a shuddering breath she sees a ghost before her. A shimmering mirage, eyes which watch her and a face stilled.
Only it is no ghost. Her body has reacted as it normally does, a change in her physiology that is primitive. She doesn't know if he's aware of it, though she is certain his own body no longer does the same. Eyes focusing more, she can see the slight flare of his nostrils as he breathes, trying to control himself. There's the slight flicker, a flame, in his eyes and part of her wants to draw back from him. She had seen it before, as his fist had come in to contact with a vending machine. She had never been frightened of him. Even in the moment when her hand had connected with his cheek, a sickening sound accompanying it, even then she had known that he would not retaliate. She had known she would not feel the sting in her own cheek, though she would have deserved it. Perhaps it would've been easier, a physical pain she could have dealt with unlike the emotional one. But in that moment, she had seen the raw emotion in him, and that had scared her.
She wills for him to speak. She cannot be the one to speak first, for she doesn't know what to say to him. All of the words she possesses, not one of them seems right nor is she certain of how he will react to her, not now. Whatever she says, she fears it'll be wrong somehow because nothing she can do is right. Not anymore, perhaps not ever.
His eyes do not stray from her face, they bore in to her own, and she shifts uncomfortable. He can see things beneath their surface, only she is not sure he is seeing the truth. Maybe he is losing it, the ability to read her, to see her. She should be relieved, only it saddens her all the more. The loss of a connection, she had feared. With it, he came too close to understanding her, to knowing the things she keeps hidden. Letting people that near leaves you vulnerable and open, and she cannot do weakness. And yet without it, she knows he is lost to her, and that weakens her all the more.
"It's my fault" she doesn't even know she's spoken until she hears the echo of her words. They seem to hang in the air, repeating themselves over and over until they are distorted and fuzzy. They no longer seem to make sense in her head, "everything's all my fault" she adds to the noise, but he doesn't appear to be hearing her. She looks away from him, takes in his tense body, the single balled fist, the other hand swollen and battered.
She needs him to do or say something. If he were to get up and walk away that might be easier to bear, than this. It would kill her to see his retreating back, but this is killing her as well. He is physically close, and yet so distant. This isn't the man she knows, the one she loves and yet he is there, only he is inaccessible to her.
"I thought" she pauses, a hand brought to her head as she pushes away a strand of hair that she fallen free of her ponytail. She doesn't want to continue, to open up to him and yet she has to fill the silence somehow. Silence breeds the thoughts that threaten to consume her and she cannot afford to break before him. She could slip away, allow the silence to get her elsewhere but her body is unable to move, pinned by his gaze. He could get up and leave her, but he makes no move to go.
"I didn't know if I could do it" she says the words, and sees how his eyes change. A flash of something she cannot name, but she knows it isn't good. She watches as his breathing alters, it's deeper, slower and she understands then. He is trying to force himself to remain calm; a battle he is slowly losing.
"I was 12 when my mum left" she doesn't know what possesses her to say those words, it was never her intention to tread this path, not with him and certainly not today and yet that is the sentence which falls from her mouth. He doesn't react, there is no sympathy or pity for the young girl she had once been nor is there shock at the actions of her mother. Perhaps that is understandable, when he knows her. Like mother, like daughter.
"She abandoned me, I had nothing and no-one" she draws in her lower lip, biting it slightly as she remembers. She twists her hands together, trying to still her restlessness as the memories force themselves upon her. The feelings so close, threatening her. She hates that so much of who she is, is still so heavily related to that event.
"She returned once, returned to take my kidney before she abandoned me again" she swallows hard, and thinks of the scar. How the change in her shape had distorted it. She has avoided looking at it, the physical reminder that all she was good for – all she was wanted for – was spare parts. She mattered purely for what she could give, she was not wanted, not loved. And now she find herself resting her fingers on that point, feeling the scar as the baby moves against that point. A reminder of everything, of the fears she has and why.
"And I was frightened, that I would be like her" she is no longer even looking at him, instead she studies the wood, the pattern and tries to spot imperfections that exist there. She hasn't admitted it aloud, but the idea of it has haunted her from the moment she was told 'you're pregnant'. Like mother, like daughter. She heard those words, they echoed around her head.
"I decided that I didn't want children, because I didn't want them to ever feel like I did, because I couldn't trust myself not to cause a child to feel that way" the confession comes breathlessly as another of those things she has kept hidden is released in to the air, to be heard by somebody. Part of her wishes she could stop this, but something in her needs to release this. She needs him to understand, though she is not certain he is even listening. Perhaps that is why the words come.
"What child would want a mother like me? What man would want to father a child with a woman like me?" rhetorical questions, she already knows the answers. Indeed a similar version of one of those questions, she had once heard him say to her, before he had given her those odds. She had asked herself those questions too many times, and they had once lessened the ache in her – the one that was referred to as a biological clock. And yet he had seemed to want it with her. At one point it had seemed like a future they could have, one he wanted. It had seemed possible.
"When I found out I was pregnant, that was all I could think about" she recalls it, the fear in her heart as she had been faced with the reality of an embryo in her uterus. She had been in denial, refused to tell him until she had made a decision – or at least understood what she wanted to do. He looks back to his face, still he hasn't moved.
"I nearly did it before" she says it quietly, and for a moment his brow creases before he works out her meaning, and then the neutral expression returns and that causes a churning in her stomach. She had expected something, and yet still she is expected to talk with nothing in return.
"When I went to Devon" she adds, but she doesn't bother waiting for anything this time. The words have to come, "I booked an appointment, and I asked for holiday leave, something I've so rarely done that they must have known something was up but they didn't question it. It was a little seaside place, quiet due to the lack of sun but there were kids bunking off school and hanging out the arcades. Lots of bloody seagulls that made it near impossible to sleep, not that I could anyway and a bitter breeze that made it difficult to go out without having to dress like I was headed for the artic" she knows these details don't matter and yet they come because those words are easier. She doubts she'll ever be able to return to that place, though she is sure any child would love to ride donkeys on the green or to paddle in the sea, but to her the place haunts her dreams especially now.
"I couldn't do it, I sat there listening to them explaining the procedure. They even had the first pill ready for me, and a slot booked for the second appointment. I sat there, as they spoke and my stomach churned, and all I could think of was you and how you had held that test in your hand, and how frightened I had been when I had thought it was lost and yet still I had gone because all the while I was thinking that I couldn't do it, that I was being selfish to the child by inflicting myself on it," she forces herself to take a breath, as she is transported back to that room. She sees them before her, the two members of staff who had spoken to her, she can hear their voices so clearly. "I thought of how you wanted this, how this child would perhaps be alright because it would have you as a daddy. I thought of what I would be taking away from you, and how despite myself I wanted it too. I had something I thought I would never have, and yet I was sat there ready to get rid of it. I walked away from them, apologised to them though I don't know why. I spent two days locked in my room, sick with guilt" there's the flicker of something in his face, she thinks perhaps hope. The flame appears to be less bright, the anger.
"I've never stopped being scared, but the baby having you got me through. You saw me as cold, as uncaring, uncommitted to this but I was trying to protect myself. But to see it in you, to see how much the baby was wanted and loved already, when that is something I have never known .." she can't complete that sentence. A lump forming in her throat as she thinks of him and how he had been. She hated to admit it, but she had wished someone had felt that way about her. She had longed for his feelings to have been for her as well as for the baby. But she had contented herself that it was enough to know the baby would have someone who loved them; that even if she failed the baby would have a daddy who wouldn't.
"And then she wasn't perfect, and you didn't want her" the words kill her. To use the baby's gender, to make it more real. She hasn't said it aloud before, but it is this that has led her here. She sees the way he snaps to attention, alertness suddenly filling his features as he is dragged to the present.
"You thought I didn't want our baby?" his voice is hoarse, courser than she recalls it. It's dripping with emotions she cannot name, they tangle themselves to the point where they are no longer distinguishable. She knows the same bundle exists with her, though she thinks it is more hidden. She tries not to react to the fact he has finally spoken.
"I was reeling, reeling from that fact I'd been told the baby had a condition that meant only a 50/50 chance of survival. I was devastated, because despite everything I loved this baby and I wanted to be a mother to this baby, and for you to be its father. To be told that everything I'd hoped – and tried to deny wanting – may no longer happen, I didn't know what to do or think and yet even then, I didn't think of that, not really" she is breathing harder now, trying to contain emotions that are breaking free of their confines. They can't, she has to stay in control but the resolve is breaking. The barriers cracking, as the dam nears its peak.
"You thought I didn't want our baby?" He speaks the same words, an edge of disbelief colouring them now. She shivers once more beneath her hoodie, but she sees no concern in his face. She'd wrap her arms around her body, but she cannot bring herself to do so. It is not her own embrace she requires.
"You were the first one the mention termination, in that MDT meeting" she isn't sure whether her words are in answer to his question or merely a continuation of what she had been trying to say all along. All she can think of now is how it had felt to sit in that room, the desperation she'd felt and the need for something to keep her going. It had been her baby that had given it to her, the knowledge that nestled within her was a little girl. The brief sense of something good, and how his hand had come to hold hers, a moment of togetherness for their daughter, for them.
"Jac, I" he starts a sentence and leaves it. She blinks, wondering if she'd even heard the words or if she'd imagined them along with the movement of his lips. She bites her lip slightly.
"You were the first one to consider that option, and it brought it all back to me. How I had sat in that clinic room and how close I had come. I thought of how even without being there, you had made me see and how in so many ways I owed you for the fact that this baby was still inside of me and then termination seemed to be at the forefront of your mind, it seemed to be what you wanted" she closes her eyes as she tries to force away the memory of that day, of how she had seen it in him.
"You know me, Jonny, I'm not religious, I don't believe in higher powers or the like, but that day I prayed. I prayed for the baby girl I carried because I didn't know what else to do" her voice cracks, finally the emotions break through and she curses them. She knows she has changed tracks once again, but her mind cannot keep on track any longer.
"I didn't" he sounds confused. He wouldn't have known, nobody knew of how she had stood alone in the ladies – not quite a traditional place of sanctuary but one in which she could at least guarantee a degree of privacy – of how she had stood with her hands clasped together in a silent prayer to a god she didn't believe in, in the vain hope that if perhaps there was something or someone out there, they might be listening.
"But why would they listen to me, not when I am so evil it could infect the unborn, and indeed it went unanswered and instead I was faced with you and once again the knowledge that you wanted me to terminate this pregnancy" that had been the final nail. How he had come to be in the locker room with her, and how she had left that room, her heart sinking in her chest. That night with shaking fingers, she had searched for clinics. Her stomach had churned, and within the confines of her uterus, her baby had rolled and moved – a reminder that she was alive, which made reading those pages all the harder.
"You've got it wrong" he sounds desperate, she can tell that at least.
"I felt her move, when they did the scan she rolled and I felt it, the first movements I knew for certain were the baby and not just wind or my imagination" her hands itch to find their way to her abdomen, to the place they have rested so often in the past week though she had quickly snatched them away each time she'd realised.
"You didn't say" there's a hint of hurt, and she wonders at which point she was meant to reveal this information. There were no appropriate points after that day, no moment to grab his hand and press it against her so that he too could feel a kick or a roll. She'd wondered before, how she would do it, whether she'd allow him such an intimate connection with her body in order for him to bond with their unborn child.
"How could I?" finally she responds to him directly, no other words come though she knows what she needs to stay is far from complete.
"I never wanted to pressure you in to anything" this time it is he who doesn't not answer, and she feels a slight frustration. Had he felt the same way as she had failed to directly answer his statements, she cannot be certain but they are alike enough that she has a suspicion he would have.
"I thought you didn't want her" he had led her to think that way, or perhaps her twisted and battered mind had tricked her in to hearing it that way.
"I wanted her, Jac, I've always wanted her" his voice cracks slightly, "I just, I said it for you" the rawness of his emotions are back and it is enough to break her, but she cannot let it. Her own voice is no longer so strong but she cannot give in completely.
"For me?" she cannot understand that, and yet she can. A contradiction like the rest of her life. She is the one who had tried to terminate before – though he wasn't to know that, she is the one who has been disconnected to the life inside of her. Perhaps he had seen it as a way of giving her a get out clause, of starting again. No longer tied to him or a child he wasn't sure she really wanted. She had perhaps read him wrong, and yet still he had given up, and that is the part she cannot push passed. He has been the fighter, the driving force and yet in the end he had given in more easily than she.
"She was growing inside of you, Jac" he says it like it's an explanation, and the words pull her back to the locker room once more. He'd said something remarkably similar then, and yet still she doesn't fully understand it, why he had suddenly switched to that tact.
"And?" her brow furrows as she tries to puzzle out his meaning, to understand what lies beneath those words. It scares her that she has misread this, that she had failed to understand where he had been coming from but instead jumped to the conclusion she had. Rejection is all she has known, and so she had seen it in him, projected her own expectation on to him.
"I just thought, I didn't want you" he struggles to speak and she closes her eyes to block him out for a moment. She doesn't want to see him like this. She has tried to be distant with him, to make it easier once her decision had been made. She'd told him, because that was the fair thing to do and he had not protested – which was what she had expected. A small part of her had hoped, hoped he would try to change her mind, to convince her otherwise but she had tried desperately to ignore that hope. She had told herself that he wanted this and that no amount of hope would change that, it would only make it harder, "I thought, I just thought that this was going to be so much harder for you"
"I don't .." now she fails to complete her sentence, still not quite able to grasp what he is saying. She keeps her eyes closed, trying to gain control of herself. She doesn't need to see him, his face is engrained on the backs of her eyes, she cannot escape it but she cannot face seeing it in reality, not yet.
"You were carrying her, Jac, feeling every movement, you're body changed with her growth" each word, she can hear the pain in each word and how speaking it takes so much from him, "and all of this, every invasive test, the potential for in-utero surgery, the chance of you giving birth to our baby only for her to be still or for us to lose her soon after, I thought of how much harder that would've been for you because you were the one carrying her, the one who would have to go through those things with her. I couldn't put you through that, not if you didn't want it too. I didn't want you to go through the trauma of all those things just because of me, because you thought it would make me happy or because it was what you thought I wanted"
"But .." she pauses once more, trying to let the words sink in to her head, for her brain to make sense of them. She hears the change in his breathing, knows how close he is to cracking now so she squeezes her own eyes more tightly closed because the tears are welling.
"I wanted her, Jac, I never stopped wanting her for a moment" there's a plea to his words, like he needs her to know this. Her earlier accusation that he hadn't wanted their daughter has obviously gotten to him, and she feels a flash of guilt, "losing her is destroying me, but I just, I had to put you first" her eyes shoot open at that, a slight gasp escapes her lips without notice.
"Why?" she is breathing harder, trying to keep her cool but it's getting harder now. Now she can see him and how close he too is to breaking down. The strain now so evident in his face, the events catching up with him. A rise of his eyebrows shows his surprise.
"Because, I" there's a hitch in his breathing, he tries to mask it but it's all too evident to her overly alert ears, "because I care about you" the words come out in a breathless rush. She is doubtful that he even pauses between the words, but they reach her clearly, and she feels her own breathing hitch as she tries to make sense of that.
"You care about me?" she knows her voice comes out childlike, a confusion lacing a tone much more suited to someone so much younger. In truth she had barely considered this; he had been there for the baby and not for her. He couldn't care about her, not after everything but then perhaps having that little life in her uterus had slightly tempered those feelings he had, made them more neutral to the point where she had mattered though only as the mother of his child.
"I've never stopped caring about you, Jac" again his hitching tone, and the breathless delivery of words she has longed to hear, but never dreamed she would. She isn't sure she wants to hear them now, not when she isn't certain of what will happen next or whether he truly means them. She cannot face the prospect of this being a lie, and her splintered heart shattering beyond repair.
"Please don't" it's a whispered plea, but one he doesn't seem to hear. If he had meant it, she thinks he would have reached out, he would have taken her hand and squeezed it in his, a physical connection between them but he has made no attempts at doing so. No moves have been made to bridge that gap.
"Jac, I've lo" he starts the word, but she shakes her head.
"Don't say it, Jonny" her plea is more desperate this time. She had longed to hear those words, to hear him make that declaration but she cannot hear it now. She cannot let him do this.
"Why not?" he swallows hard, trying to push back to words he had wanted to say.
"I can't do this" she had said something similar only hours before, and yet those circumstances had been so very different. There's a flicker in his eyes, something unreadable. He shifts a little, flexes his tensed hand.
"I know Jac, so much has happened" his voice cracks slightly, "after everything, I shouldn't feel like this and yet I can't stop it"
"You don't mean it" her words are desperate, scared. She's shivering still as she sits there, she is becoming increasingly aware of the fall in temperature.
"I know you think I was only here for the baby, that the baby was all that mattered to me" she nods her head slightly though she doubts he noticed the movement, "and I tried to convince myself of that, but it was always a lie"
"Jonny" she tries to speak, but only his name comes.
"I love you Jac" he says it in a rush before she can stop him, before she can block her ears from hearing those words, "I want to hate you, I should hate you after everything but I can't do it. I hate that you think that the only reason I cared was because of the baby, that you think in the end I didn't want her, I hate that you think so little of me when all I have done, I've tried to do for you even when I wanted nothing more than to be selfish, to think only of myself and the baby because that was all that mattered"
"You didn't try" she clenches her hands together, balling them in to tight fists as she tries to ignore what has been said, her mind running once more at lightning speed as it plays over the events that have come to pass.
"Try?" she isn't sure she can trust him, the words he speaks or the meaning behind them. She wants too, needs to even but there is something blocking her from doing so. The memories, the voices, that little niggle at the back of her mind that has plagued her for so long.
"To stop me" the words are whispered, "all this week I've waited, hoped, that you would do anything to let me know that you wanted our baby, that you'd fight for her. I needed you Jonny, and you weren't there – all this time I've been pushing you away and you've been so damn supportive; my second shadow, and yet the one time I actually needed you to be there, you weren't" she's so close to cracking, she can hear the break in her voice as she says the words. She knows she normally wouldn't let him get this close, but her barriers are low. She doesn't have the strength to rebuild them, she's battered and torn, and so close to breaking point.
"I've already told you" he doesn't understand, or at least not in the way she wants him too. She feels it before she has time to stop it happening, a tear rolling down her cheek.
"I was so scared" an admission of further weakness, and it scares her that it has come so easily, "of having to do this on my own, of the baby knowing she was being rejected, of making the wrong choice. I was scared and I needed you, and you weren't there"
"It was killing me Jac, losing our daughter, knowing that I would never get to hold her or see her take her first steps or go to primary school. I couldn't face you because I knew if I did, I would try to stop you, I would make you go through with this for me – even if it wasn't what you wanted, regardless of what you would be put through because it was what I wanted" he swallows hard, a shaky breath exhaled as he tries so desperately to keep himself in control.
"Don't you see that it's what I wanted too?" her voice goes, the break now evident as she says those desperate words, "That I would put myself through those things, because our daughter deserves the chance, because I love and I want her – even if you don't"
"I'm sorry" his voice breaks, the tone no longer fully recognisable as his own.
"Jonny, I" she starts to talk.
"I realised too late" he sounds so broken, "I came after you, I found the name of the clinic and I came after you because I needed to tell you, I was going to tell you that I wanted her, that we'd give her the best possible chance"
"you, I" the world spins at a sickening pace as she tries to keep up with her racing thoughts and the words he says.
"I know, I probably shouldn't do this, that it'll make it worse but I couldn't let you do it on your own, not without letting you know that because of you, our daughter had the best chance" his eyes glisten, and she knows her own do too, "when they said you'd already gone, I didn't know what to do Jac, that I let you go through this on your own and all the while letting you think that I didn't want her when nothing could've been further from the truth"
"I couldn't do it" she doesn't know how loudly she says the words, she feels the tears roll unashamedly down her cheeks as she speaks them. He doesn't seem to react, "I couldn't do it" she says the words again and she sees the flicker of recognition in his face that he has at least heard her.
"I don't" his tone is almost enough to send her over the edge, a slight hope that she thinks he is trying not to let build, disbelief too colours the words. She feels a rolling within her, not the churn of her stomach for the first time since she had left the clinic but the movement of her baby girl shifting positions. She reaches out a shaking hand, and grabs his uninjured hand. She wonders what he'd made of the way she shakes, but he makes no comment. She places his hand against the still swollen swell of her abdomen, holding her own over the top. She looks down for a moment, feeling the movement once more before she shifts her gaze back up to his face and the watery smile that graces his lips.
"She's still there, Jonny" she curls her hand around his, "I don't know what's going to happen, but I just couldn't do it" the unknown is frightening, the statistics and the things she has read enough to put her off sleep for life.
"She's got you as her mum, Jac, that gives her the best chance there is" she rolls her eyes a little and she sees how he relaxes slightly, "it's true"
"You're an idiot Jonny" she scolds him lightly for his soppiness, "but we're going to need you too, I need to know you're going to be here Jonny, whatever happens" the what ifs, she doesn't want to have to think about them but they play so heavily on her mind. She knows herself, she knows how she acts and operates – and she has seen in this last week how that affects the pair of them, how it has led them to this moment and how differently this could have played out. She fears that should the worst happen, he will go as he had this time, and she will be alone.
"You're not going to get rid of me, Jac" he moves his other hand, the injured one to rest over her free one. He shuffles slightly closer to her, "you're stuck with me now" she groans a little but it's in jest.
"I'm sure I'll cope somehow" she shivers again and yawns, the day catching up with her. If she were honest, it's more than that, she's barely slept more than 2 hours at any one time since she'd been given the diagnosis that had shattered her world. She feels him pull away from her, and her heart sinks. And then he's moved, an arm is wrapped around her and her body is drawn against his. For the first time in months she allows her body to submit itself to his embrace.
"You know you're nothing like her right?" his holds her, one hand rested against her abdomen. She shakes her head against him, not quite trusting herself to talk, "You're not going to mess this up Jac, we're not going to mess this up "
"How can you know that?" she wants to believe him, she needs to believe him because the baby – her baby – deserves for her not to mess this up. But everything in her life leads her to believe otherwise, that once again she will destroy the good.
"Because we're going to do this together" she feels him lean down and place a kiss atop her head, she tilts her head upwards to look at him. Everything around her seems broken, shattered beyond repair and yet something in his face gives her hope.
"Together" she whispers the word, which sounds alien on her tongue. Hadn't she once tried to argue she could do this alone? She knew she had, she'd tried to convince herself of it though she had known it to be a lie all along. Nestled against him, her vulnerabilities play on her, the weakness she has shown and yet there is something about his embrace that gives her a strength she'd thought lost. There is something about his hold on her that, for the first time, makes her feel safe.
He lowers his head once more, a fleeting kiss placed delicately on her lips. The first in so many months. The night their daughter was conceived, the kisses had been frantic; a desperate need for something between them. This was the kiss like those he had woken her with, the ones that she had missed the most after the destruction of their relationship.
"I'm here for you, too, Jac" she rests her head back against him, their bodies still fitting easily together despite the addition of her rounded abdomen. She closes her eyes, her tense body relaxing in his arms, "my girls" she only just hears the words, just as she can only just feel the way his fingers gently stroke against her abdomen.
"Take us home, Jonny" she murmurs the words sleepily, not even certain that she speaks really. She thinks she feels weightless for a moment, drifting. Safe in his arms, she finally relaxes enough for her exhausted body to cave in to sleep. Her mind gradually slowing from its frantic pace until a stillness takes its place. She thinks she hears him whispering too her, at the very outer edge of mind something registers but not enough for her to distinguish words. But she knows, she knows in the flutter of her baby against the walls of her uterus, and the slightly lessened ache in chest, that he is there for her – for them – and in that moment that is all she can hope for. In so many ways, it is all that she had wished for. And in the dream that finally fills her head, she lets herself hope that when she wakes, he will be there with her as he will be for the rest of their lives.