TITLE: When You Wake
AUTHOR: Clairisant
CLASSIFICATION: AJ/Mac
RATING: PG unless noted at the top of the chapter.
CREDITS: A special thanks to my beta reader Qupeydoll
Chapter 1
AJ Chegwidden arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital as he had every morning for the last six months…okay, well not as he had every morning…at first, the person he was there to see, had been in intensive care, and then, when she had stabilized enough, she had been transferred to a regular room. Then after weeks in a coma, with no sign that she was going to come around anytime soon, she had been transferred to Continuing Care. That was where he was heading that morning.
The nurses greeted him as usual when he came onto the floor. He knew them all by their first names now and they had been asked to call him AJ. They reported that his wife had a restful night and that there had been no change in her condition. Entering her room he smiled as he always did when he first saw her for the day, even though there had been no change in her condition, AJ wanted to greet her with a smile just in case she could somehow know.
He had been at her side everyday. He had pulled all of the accumulated leave time he had and the SECNAV had really no choice but to approve it. Sturgis had taken charge of things in his absence, and other than being short handed with both AJ and Mac out of the office, had handled things very well.
He still found it hard to believe that Sarah Mack…Chegwidden was his wife. AJ had been in love with her for so long, but regulations and duty had kept him from revealing his feelings for her, but now here they were married, and she didn't even know it!
The day that she had discovered that Clay was dead, Mac had run out of the JAG offices. She was so distraught she hadn't been watching what was going on around her and had hurried along the street, not really going anywhere, she just had to keep moving, so maybe that way it wouldn't be true. Mac had come around a corner and started across another street without looking. That was when the car that ran the red light had struck her and landed her in the hospital. AJ had been surprised to find that he was listed as Sarah's emergency contact. That meant he was the one responsible for signing for her medical care.
No matter how long and hard he had thought about it, there had been no other solution, than the one that Bud had offered, that would solve the problems he faced. Even though Harriett Roberts had assured him that it wouldn't happen, AJ was still sure that when she finally did wake up from the coma that she would be furious about the situation.
When they had moved Sarah to Continuing Care, they had done a completely new work up on her and that was when they discovered she was about ten weeks pregnant. Sure that the child was Webb's, since Sarah had been seeing no one else in the last year, AJ had gone to see Porter Webb to find out what she wanted to do about her grandchild. He was shocked at Porter's reaction to the news. With Clay being dead, AJ had thought she would be glad to have some part of her son still around in his child, but Porter told AJ that without a paternity test she would not believe that the child was Clayton's. Knowing the risks to Sarah and the baby of such a test, AJ chose not to have it done.
That was how he came to talk to Bud about the problem. Bud had stopped by Sarah's room to have some papers signed and noticed the worried look on the Admiral's face. Asking his CO what was wrong, he was told that Mac was pregnant and the AJ was trying to decide what to do.
"Why you, Sir? What about the baby's father?" Bud asked.
To Be Continued…