May 2006
Standing in stateroom of her mother's yatch, Kendall took Zach's hand as the justice of the peace started the ceremony.
She was shaking, as her body betrayed her mind and fought with her stubborn will. She couldn't really hear what the man was saying, something about love and honor and till death.
Till the end of your life will you love this man? went through her mind.
Instead of yes, she told herself I can, I can, I can, I can...
Her vision started to cloud and then the image of the one man she could not think about today, not if she hoped to do this, shot into her mind.
He does not love you! she screamed silently Stop loving Ryan! Just stop! Don't cry for him anymore. Never again.
But the tears started to fall anyway. Zach squeezed her hand.
Then a pain shot through her stomach. "Ohh...oh!"
Kendall clutched her waist. Zach's features turned from adoration to worried. "The baby?"
Then she was sinking to the ground, with her ex-husband holding her. Kendall moaned in pain and then murmured, "No, no, no, Spike...don't come yet."
"Call for a doctor!" Zach ordered the justice of the peace.
Another pain pierced Kendall and she started to cry. Zach smoothed her hair and whispered, "I'm here. I'm going to get you some help."
She looked into his eyes and spoke her heart, knowing it was a betrayal and simply not caring. She whimpered out, as another contraction came fast and furious, "I need Ryan."
XXXXXXXXX
LATER THAT DAY
Ryan ran from his car and into the hospital. He had driven ninety miles an hour down the highway, racing back here from a business meeting in Philadelphia.
His heart was in his mouth, causing him to not be able to breath, to think, to do anything but run. He had to get to Kendall and be there to hold her hand as their child was born.
(Pray God, you can cope.
I stand outside
this woman's work-
this woman's world.
Oh, it's hard on the man
now his part is over.
Now starts the craft of the father) ( Maxwell)
Bianca had called Ryan a few hours earlier.
He was working, on a seemingly normal day- the first one in awhile. Before today his mind had been consumed with where his missing...ex- fiancee, friend, love, everything...was.
She had been whisked off to an island to be the guest of a mad man, Dr. Greg Madden. And until Ryan heard from Zach that Kendall had been found, and was safe, he hadn't been able to focus on anything else.
He told himself it was because she was carrying his child. But it was more than that. It was because she was Kendall. If there was one person in this world he didn't go a day without thinking about, it was her. Even when she was the last person he wanted on his mind, there she was.
If only he could blame that on her looks- for she was lovely, and certainly the most gorgeous woman ever to give him a second glance, let alone loved him like it was the very thing that gave her a reason to live. But it wasn't how she looked that kept her in his mind. And it wasn't even how she loved him. It was...what she was to him.
There seemed to be a thread that linked Kendall to Ryan. Sometimes he hated that fact. She was inside of him and linked to him and, even without the child they shared, she would always be the one he could never forget about.
XXXX
Ryan was breathing hard when he skidded into the emergency room. The first person he saw was Nurse Julia Santos. The look on her face stopped him dead in his tracks.
The baby was early, he knew that. But surely the doctors could save the baby and Kendall. They had to. Ryan's own life and sanity and next breath depended on it. He honestly worried his heart would just give up, stop, call it quits for good, if Julia said Kendall was gone already.
"How is she?" he asked, his voice louder than he intended, and shaky, giving his fears away to everyone who crowded the waiting area.
Erica, Jackson, Reggie, Bianca, Maggie, Lily, Simone, Erin, Zach...he knew they were there and yet he couldn't see them. He could only see Julia.
"They had to do an emergency C-section because her blood pressure dropped," she said. "Kendall is still in surgery."
Bianca came over and put her hand Ryan's arm. Then she said something meant to be comforting. He couldn't hear her though.
Fight, Kendall, fight. Come on, baby boy, hang out. Live, live...don't leave me ...I love you...Oh God, Kendall...I'm sorry...you'll never know how much...fight, please...don't leave me here alone......he thought.
His head fell back and he looked up towards God. Don't take Kendall from me, don't take our baby, I am begging you, he prayed.
Ryan felt the tears hit him then, and he squeezed his eyes closed, Oh, Kendall, hold on.
(I know you've got a little life in you yet I should be crying but I just can't let it
I know you've got a lotta strength left
I know you've got a little life in you yet
I know you've got a lotta strength left
show
I should be hoping but I can't stop
thinking
For the things we should've said that we never said
All the things we should've done that we never did
All the things we should've given,
but I didn't
Ooohhh, darling, make it go
Make it go away!!!!)
Ryan pictured in his mind the first second he ever saw Kendall. He would have never known he could love anyone or anything as deep as he had loved her.
What he would give to go back to that moment and do it all over again. Just love her and hold on and never let go.
(Give me these moments
Give them back to me
Give me your little kiss
Give me your hand
Give me that pretty hand...) ( Maxwell)
You can not leave me, Kendall, Ryan silently told her as he sat down in a chair to wait. His eyes were unfocused, his mind was stuck in the past, and his heart was barley beating. It was waiting to see if it had a reason to go on.
XXXXXXXXXX
HOURS LATER
As Kendall woke up she started to speak before her eyes even opened, "My baby..."
"He's perfect," Zach said.
She let out a breath. Her body ached but that hardly mattered. All she could think about was her child and where his father was.
"Really?" she asked. It was her nature to doubt that something could work out right.
"Only five pounds but he'll bulk up in no time," Zach said.
Her dark eyes filled with happy tears and started to dart back and forth. Zach saw the unspoken question in their depths.
He said, "Ryan is right outside. Should I send him in? Or do you want to rest for a while first?"
She didn't want to admit how desperate she was to see him. Kendall swallowed and titled her head to the side, her mouth opened.
Zach spoke before she could, "I'll get him for you."
When Ryan filled the doorway, she felt her whole body flood with warmth. It was a rush of love and relief and the feeling that comes when you see your family after a disaster hits- they survived and so did you and now everything is right in the world.
He hung back a few steps but she could see how happy he was, and still more than a little worried.
"I'm fine," she assured him. "I know I look like hell but-"
"You look great, Kendall. Alive."
"Yeah," she agreed huskily.
Ryan added, as he walked over and took a seat,"And like a mom."
A teary smile burst out on her face. "Have you seen Spike?"
"Who?"
"Our son, Spike."
He chuckled. "Is that what we are calling him? Does he get a middle name?"
"You can pick it, I guess. I like Spike. It's tough and imperfect- like you and me and our boy."
Ryan just gazed at her for a long moment. Then he gently took her hand, "Spike it is then. How about Hart for his middle name. Spike Hart Lavery...that is...if you are giving him my last name? Or did you want Slater? I heard you remarried him...congratulations." He knew that the last word he spoke sounded fake as hell but it was the best he could manage at that moment.
"The arrival of our little guy," Kendall said "sort of put a halt to the ceremony so we aren't married...yet...though I suppose we will try it again when I am out of here."
Ryan nodded, his eyes left hers for the first time since he came into the room. Kendall saw this and felt the change in his energy.
She said, "I can't believe you would think I wouldn't give our child your last name. Idiot," she joked then her voice got softer, "he's our son. Yours and mine, Ryan. I know he was meant to be Greenlee's but she ditched him and us...and I might hate her for that and I might, also, wish she never left us all behind like that...but I owe her a big thank you, too. Because she let me have what I thought I never would- our baby."
He blinked back tears and brought his eyes back to hers.
At that moment, Ryan realized that for all his trying to get over her, he never had. For all his vowing to not love her, he still did. For all his running away, he had only run in a circle right back to her. And he was fine with that. Even if she never loved him again, he would keep her in a private corner of his heart, in the place where only he could ever feel her, and them, and all they would always be to each other.
His lips curved into a small smile. She saw it and let out a contented sigh. "Ryan..." her eyes asked him Can you believe this? That we came this far together?
He said, "Thank you, for my son, and for...thinking I was worth going through all this."
"To me," she said "you always will be. Even if you hate that fact..."
He chuckled, not hating it in the least.
Then the door opened and they both turned to see Zach. Kendall let her hand slide out of Ryan's grasp. She did her best to not feel let down that her moment with him was over.
Don't lie to yourself, she silently scolded her heart, You loving Ryan never made him love you back...at least not in a way that will ever make him stay by your side forever...Zach will. Love Zach.
She watched as Ryan nodded at Zach and then left the room. And Kendall tried with all her might to ignore the fact that she missed Ryan the minute he disappeared from her sight.
AN- This is a Rendall story.