The table was set with blue and white plates and tall glasses filled with freshly-squeezed orange juice. There was even a small vase with a few wild flowers in the center. But the sight that made Jemma smile the most was her husband, dressed in jeans and white undershirt as he moved around energetically in the kitchen turning pancakes on the griddle and cutting up strawberries.
The simple domesticity of a morning like this made her well up with tears of joys. Well, the hormones may have had something to do with it too. But still, after the shock of returning from space, struggling with their demons, their nightmares, their loss, there were many painful months when such ordinary pleasures seemed forever out of reach. She remembered the haunted look in Fitz's eyes and his broken voice when he told her that he decided to check himself into a clinic to make sure he could not hurt anyone anymore. She recalled holding his hand when she went to pick him up after months of therapy, as they cried together finally saying out loud something that apparently was both on their minds for some time: the price was too high – for their sanity, for the sake of the family they were trying to build, it was time to leave behind the only family they had known since they were 16. It was a jump in the dark; scary but liberating.
Once the decision was made though, everything else started to fall into place strangely easily, as if the universe were trying to tell them that finally they had made the right choice. Jemma got an unexpected call from her old PhD advisor, that landed her in a lab, researching rare diseases affecting children, while Fitz bumped into an old university buddy from Glasgow and found himself within weeks in a new start-up working on renewable energy solutions. It was odd not working together, but it was meant to be temporary; just until they had enough money to set up their own lab together.
This is how they had wound up in a small house in a quaint, green village in the English countryside. The first few weeks were disorienting - the quiet, the horizon, the slow pace - it all felt surreal after years of living on airplanes and underground bunkers, being constantly on the run. But they soon fell into a new rhythm and Fitz's bright smile as they watched from the patio a hedgehog mother taking her four little hoglets on their first foraging trip confirmed Jemma's feeling that they had done the right thing.
"Good morning sunshine." his voice broke her reverie.
She smiled at him. "Oh, Fitz. You shouldn't have gone into all this trouble." she said. "but it does look lovely."
"I have to make sure you're eating properly." he said pointedly as he embraced her tightly, not caring about the big, wet spot her moist hair made on his T-shirt. "Can't make something out of nothing." Jemma bit her tongue to remind him that the first law of thermodynamics had been broken before - any mention of the past was a sure way to bring to the surface the shadows of the past.
Instead, she swallowed her nausea and sat down at the table. She nibbled on a piece of pancake, foregoing the strawberries. She looked longingly at the steaming cup of tea, but at the same time she knew it was a sure way to end up with her arms wrapped around the toilet bowl. She carefully sipped some orange juice instead, suppressing a yawn.
Fitz's expression was troubled. "I'm so sorry I won't make the appointment today, but I couldn't get away from the live testing." One of the first big-time orders of a new tidal wave system his company was developing had been recently installed and Fitz needed to be there to make sure everything worked without a hitch.
"Oh, don't worry about it – it's just a routine appointment." she smiled weakly. The truth was that after two miscarriages even routine appointments troubled them. Fitz reached out to her and they held hands silently. It seemed unfair that after everything they had been through, even starting a family was overshadowed by painful loss. But their bodies were out of whack between jumping through portals, travelling through time and space, not to mention Fitz spending time in a frozen coffin for months. Jemma's rational mind gave her a thousand reasons for the lost embryos, but her heart was not soothed by any of it.
"Just call me, OK?" Fitz said, his voice tense with worry. "Anytime, if anything happens."
"Fitz, it will be OK. And my parents can be here in two hours if anything happens."
"And keep away from all the bad stuff in the lab." Fitz said sternly. Jemma knew if it was up to him, he would have kept her in the house for the entire pregnancy to make sure nothing went wrong.
"Of course." she smiled at him reassuringly as she watched him button his shirt. He grabbed his bag and knelt down next to her chair. "Jemma…I love you. Take care of yourself and of the little bean." He kissed her lips softly, leisurely then lowered his head and kissed her belly which showed no signs yet of the life growing inside. He rested his head in her lap for a long moment.
"It's more like a pea-pod now." Jemma giggled and caressed his curls. "I love you too… Have a good trip."
"I'll see you on Thursday." Fitz said as he stood up with a sigh and headed towards the door.
The obstetrician's office was filled with pictures of radiant expectant mothers, holding their hands over their perfectly formed bumps and angelic looking smiling babies. Jemma tried to not imagine herself as one of them or to picture the baby she was carrying. She placed her hands on her stomach, still mostly flat, though uncomfortably bloated against the zip of her trousers. She closed her eyes and could almost feel the gentle fluttering against the wall of her stomach – like the wings of a butterfly. She was coming up on the 13-week mark – the time both her other pregnancies ended in blood and heartbreak.
"Ms Fitz-Simmons?" the assistant called her. Jemma bit back the urge to correct her - it didn't matter here whether she had two PhDs, in this place she was just another patient hoping for a happy outcome - and entered the office.
Dr Wilson shook her hand. "How are you feeling, Jemma?" she asked.
"Apart from the nausea, it's mostly good." Jemma smiled.
"Well, let's take a look." Jemma undressed and laid down on the examination table, She closed her eyes as the doctor spread cold gel on her belly. She heard the familiar whir of the ultrasound machine as Dr Wilson tried to locate the baby - then she heard the heartbeat. Jemma sighed in relief and opened her eyes, looking at the sharp contours of the embryo - an oversized head resting on a small body, with limbs like tiny twigs sticking out. Dr Wilson's looked at the monitor puzzled. Jemma's heart skipped a beat.
"What's wrong?" she asked almost in panic. "Is the nuchal translucency reading abnormal?"
The doctor shook her head. "No, the measurements are perfect. I'm just looking at the heart-rate. It's a little bit faster than I would expect and there seems to be an odd pattern."
"Do you think it's a sign of congenital heart failure?" Jemma felt her stomach tying in knots with worry.
"The baby appears completely normal and healthy, Jemma…But if you want to be sure, we can do an amniocentesis next week." Dr Wilson replied.
Jemma thought for a moment - the procedure itself had its own risks. "I'll talk to Fitz… eh..my husband about it." Then her mind started to sift through countless other possibilities until it zeroed in on a different option. What if her child was an inhuman? That would have been rather strange - as far as she knew, neither Fitz, nor herself carried any of the genetic markers. "Do you have the tissue samples from the last fetus?"
"We have run all the relevant genetic tests - they came back normal." Dr Wilson replied cautiously.
"Dr Wilson, if you still have some samples, I'd like to run some tests on my own." Jemma insisted.
The doctor looked at her with suspicion. "Jemma, if there is any other health-relevant information I should know about…"
Jemma had no idea how to explain to an outsider, even to a perfectly nice doctor things like time travel, alien viruses or travelling to another planet through an ancient portal. "I told you at the beginning, there are some aspects of our medical history we cannot share because of confidentiality reasons. I'd like to have the samples."
Dr Wilson just shook her head looking troubled. "It seems highly irregular."
Jemma realized that what she was asking must have been against hospital regulations, but maybe the good doctor could be persuaded to break some rules. "I assure you, it is only to do some further tests."
Dr Wilson sighed. "Even if I wanted to - I cannot give them to you - they are already at the downstairs test lab - I would need a reason."
Jemma realized she had all the information she needed. "I understand." she said, her voice all fake sing-songy acquiescence.
The doctor nodded with relief. "Jemma, I know that you are worried - but most people who go through multiple miscarriages, eventually end up carrying healthy babies to term. You should try to stay positive, it's the best thing you can do - also for the sake of your baby."
"Thank you." Jemma got dressed. On the way out she slipped into an abandoned nurses' station and pilfered a lab coat. She followed the signs to the lab of the hospital. Luckily, the badge pinned to the coat opened the door. It was lunchtime, so the entire lab area was empty except for an old, bored-looking lab assistant, who barely raised his head as she entered. Jemma nodded and marched with confidence to the back of the lab. She looked through the filing cabinet until she found what she was looking for. She opened the envelope labelled Fitz-Simmons. She took the samples inside and hid them in her pocket, while took pictures with her phone of the the written report.
"Hey, can I help you?" The bored lab assistant perked up as she passed by him.
"No, it's all good." Jemma waived at him. She hurried out of the lab - transferred the vials from the lab-coat pocket to her handbag. She hid the garment in a laundry basket and quickly headed over to her car. It felt strange carrying a piece of her unborn child in her bag - hoping that the tissue would help her shed some light on the mystery of the child growing inside her. But she was a scientist and she was determined to follow the evidence - wherever it may lead.
