TITLE: She's Having a Baby
AUTHOR: Em
EMAIL: zjle137@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: JC/AL Romance/General/Humour (I hope!)
RATING: PG at the moment. Doubt it will get any higher than that.
SPOILERS: None. This is all just a product of my fertile imagination.
ARCHIVE: Just ask first.
DISCLAIMER: I own none of the characters of ER.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a sequel to my fic "The Dress". If any of you have seen the Kevin Bacon film "She's Having a Baby" then you might be able to see where I've drawn some inspiration from.
SUMMARY: Carter and Abby, still happily married after a year, are trying for a baby with little success.
Part 1
It had been a busy shift: three major traumas in the space of two hours, coupled with a temporary staff shortage and the usual assortment of minor ailments, meant that the remaining Doctors were feeling especially tired. Dr John Carter, the newest attending at Cook County General's Emergency Department, was standing behind the admit desk, hoping against hope that he had cleared the last of his patients and that he could finish off the last part of his shift in relative peace and quiet. He shouldn't have spoken so soon. Just as he was about to duck into the lounge to grab some sleep on the couch a petite, brunette nurse came towards him and started loading him up with patient files, giving him a rundown on each of them as she did so.
"Labs are back on that kid with Strep in two, you have an abscess that needs draining in four, there's a minor MVA pulling up in 10 minutes, and Dr Lewis had to run out for an hour and asked if you could cover her patients for her."
He stared at her over the top of the massive pile of files that he was now carrying and sighed with a mixture of frustration and disbelief. He had been *that* close to getting away.
"Anything else?" he asked sarcastically.
"Yeah, you're really cute when you're flustered." Abby stood up her tiptoes and gave him a quick peck on the lips. "Okay, I'm off now. I'll try to have dinner ready when you come home." Saying this she gave him another quick kiss and then turned to enter the lounge.
"Hey, where are you going?" Carter put the stack of files on the admit desk and followed her into the lounge, where she was standing by her locker and putting her coat on. "You can't just dump me with the Everest of patient files and then walk off!"
"Oh yes I can!" she answered in a singsong voice as she stood up on her toes to whisper in his ear. "Did somebody forget that I have an appointment with Dr Infante today?"
Carter seemed a little taken aback by this news. "That's today? I thought you were going to make it next week so that we could go together?"
"I was planning on that, but she had a last-minute cancellation yesterday and her office phoned to ask if I wanted it, so I said 'yes.' Don't get all mopey about it!" she said, noticing the fake-pout look he always gave her when he wasn't getting his own way. "I'll come right home and I won't tell anybody else until I've told you. Okay?"
"It's not that. I just wanted to be there when she…you know, when we find out. So I can say that I was with you from the very beginning." He pulled her closer to him in a hug, wrapping his arms tightly around her slight waist and nuzzling her neck.
"John! People are watching!" She looked through the window in the lounge door to see a few smiling faces peering at them from the admit desk. She tried to pull free of his arms, although not very hard, so he just continued with his ministrations.
"I don't care!" His voice sounded muffled against her neck. "If I'm going to have to spend another two hours in this place without you then I'm going to have to have some happy thoughts to keep me going."
"Well," she said quietly in her most seductive voice so that only he could hear, "if you want happy thoughts why don't you try to imagine me…at home…in the shower…warm soapy bubbles running down my body…"
Carter immediately stopped kissing her and pulled back, the image of her naked in the shower causing him to stand frozen to the spot for a moment. Abby laughed and waved her hand in front of his eyes, trying to wake him out of the trance he seemed to be in, and seeing that it looked to last a while she kissed his cheek and left the lounge.
This seemed to have an immediate effect of Carter. He shook himself out of his daydream and chased out after her. He caught up with her in the ambulance bay, just as she was about to turn the corner to the El station.
"No no no no NO!" he called out to her. "You are not going to do this to me and then leave. How am I supposed to concentrate for the rest of the shift thinking about that?"
She turned around and walked backwards for a few steps as she gave him a little wave. "Bye Honey!!" she shouted. He could have sworn he saw an evil grin on her face as she said this; she knew the effect she had on him and it gave her some sort of perverse pleasure to see him suffer like this! He continued watching the ambulance bay for a long while after she had left, trying to think about other things than Abby in the shower, so he didn't notice at first when Malik came up to him and handed him a disposable trauma gown and a pair of gloves.
"Hey man, what's up?" Malik asked when Carter took the things from him absently, probably not even noticing that he held them.
"My wife is a sadist," Carter deadpanned.
"Huh?"
"Nothing." He shook his head and laughed quietly to himself before turning to face Malik. "Come on, we've got an MVA pulling up. Could you give me a hand with my gown?"
~~~
Carter trudged wearily up the stairs to his and Abby's apartment and began searching his pockets for the keys. The 'minor MVA' Abby had told him to expect had turned out to be a multiple pile-up on the expressway so his hopes of getting away on time that night had been well and truly scuppered. He turned the key in the lock but, as always, the door refused to budge. Abby seemed to be the only person capable of getting the door to open and he just couldn't get the knack: he had been planning on getting around to fixing a new door for well over a year now but somehow he and Abby had always found better things to do on their days off!
He started to bash his shoulder against it whilst jiggling the key in the lock but he couldn't seem to get it open. Luckily on the third attempt the door opened from the inside, revealing Abby wearing a pair of sweat-pants and one of his old college t-shirts. She smiled as she regarded the rather pathetic figure he presented: wrinkled scrubs, lank hair, large dark bags under his eyes, and a puppy-dog look on his face as he pouted and rubbed his shoulder.
"One day you're going to come crashing through this door and then where will we be!" she asked, standing aside to let him into the apartment and accepting the kiss he dropped on her cheek as he passed her.
"In an apartment where you have a chance of getting through the door without breaking a couple of bones?" he commented. He threw his keys onto the table in the hallway and started to walk towards the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. Her voice followed him at a distance:
"How many times have I told you? Kick the bottom twice before giving it a good hard nudge with your shoulder!"
"If you'd just let me call somebody in I could get a new door fixed and I wouldn't need to worry about how many times I have to kick the door before I dislocate my shoulder." This was a discussion they had had many times and he welcomed the return of their banter after a long day at work.
"Why do we need to call somebody in when I have a big strong man at home to handle these sort of jobs for me?" her voice was closer now, and he smiled as he felt her come up behind him and wrap her arms around his waist. "Hey Babe," she placed a kiss between his shoulder-blades and rested her cheek against his back. "Rough day?"
"You have no idea," he answered tiredly, turning in her arms to pull her into an embrace. "The only thing that has kept me going is the thought of seeing you and finding out whether we're finally going to be able to tell our parents that they can be proud grandparents." He felt Abby stiffen in his arms and pull away from him. He regarded her with puzzlement as the happy smile and demeanour she had met him with at the door had disappeared to be replaced by an awkward look, almost as if she had something important to tell him but she didn't know how to broach the subject.
"I'm not pregnant, John," she said sadly.
"Well, that could be for any number of reasons." Carter was a little disappointed at this news, but he quickly pushed his disappointment aside and smiled at Abby, trying to put a positive spin on the situation. "We both knew going into this it could take up to six months to get pregnant after you went off the pill."
"But we've been trying for nearly a year now…" She was trying to explain something to him, bring up a difficult subject, but he didn't seem to be catching on as quickly as he normally would.
"It's not a problem. This is just something we have to talk to Dr Infante next time we see her."
"I have talked to her. Today. We talked about it a little after…after she told me it was another false alarm," she rushed, not wanting to dwell on this sad news. "The good news is that she doesn't think we *can't* get pregnant by ourselves, so we're not talking about IVF or adoption or anything like that."
"That's good," he said reassuringly, but noting the sad look on her face he knew there was something else she was reluctant to tell him. "Okay, if that's the good news then what's the bad news?"
"She says it's probably just a problem with our…I don't know how to put this…one of us isn't quite up to speed the other one in the productivity department?" She looked down at her feet and bit her lower lip as she waited for his reaction. When she finally found the courage to look back to his eyes she was surprised by the look of tenderness and concern she saw there…this wasn't the reaction she had been expecting!
"Oh honey, its okay!" He put his arms around her waist and rocked her slowly, almost as if he were cradling a child. "Is that why you were so upset? You didn't have to be afraid to tell me about this. We'll deal. I'll be there to help you with the tests, and the appointments and anything else…"
Abby suddenly realised that he had not understood what she meant. She had to put him straight as soon as possible! "No, John, you don't understand!" she interrupted, pulling back slightly so that she could get a proper look at him. She took his face in her hands and stared into his eyes. "I already had the tests; Dr Infante rushed the results through for me…I'm fine. Everything's normal 'down there.'"
Carter began to look at her with a growing look of realisation, followed by a slight hint of terror. "So…if it's not you, then that must mean…"
Abby nodded and reached over to pick something up from the nearby table. Carter looked down at the little plastic specimen cup she had just handed to him and froze as the full implication hit him.
Abby continued, seeing that Carter was too shocked to ask any questions just yet. "Dr Infante says you should fill that and take it over to her office first thing in the morning."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Okay, first chapter. What do you think? Worth continuing? Just to clarify, I'm not saying that Carter is infertile so please don't hate me! To find out what the problem is you'll just have to stay tuned. I'll hopefully have some more chapters next week. Please review as you know I appreciate it. Thank you! Em)
AUTHOR: Em
EMAIL: zjle137@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: JC/AL Romance/General/Humour (I hope!)
RATING: PG at the moment. Doubt it will get any higher than that.
SPOILERS: None. This is all just a product of my fertile imagination.
ARCHIVE: Just ask first.
DISCLAIMER: I own none of the characters of ER.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a sequel to my fic "The Dress". If any of you have seen the Kevin Bacon film "She's Having a Baby" then you might be able to see where I've drawn some inspiration from.
SUMMARY: Carter and Abby, still happily married after a year, are trying for a baby with little success.
Part 1
It had been a busy shift: three major traumas in the space of two hours, coupled with a temporary staff shortage and the usual assortment of minor ailments, meant that the remaining Doctors were feeling especially tired. Dr John Carter, the newest attending at Cook County General's Emergency Department, was standing behind the admit desk, hoping against hope that he had cleared the last of his patients and that he could finish off the last part of his shift in relative peace and quiet. He shouldn't have spoken so soon. Just as he was about to duck into the lounge to grab some sleep on the couch a petite, brunette nurse came towards him and started loading him up with patient files, giving him a rundown on each of them as she did so.
"Labs are back on that kid with Strep in two, you have an abscess that needs draining in four, there's a minor MVA pulling up in 10 minutes, and Dr Lewis had to run out for an hour and asked if you could cover her patients for her."
He stared at her over the top of the massive pile of files that he was now carrying and sighed with a mixture of frustration and disbelief. He had been *that* close to getting away.
"Anything else?" he asked sarcastically.
"Yeah, you're really cute when you're flustered." Abby stood up her tiptoes and gave him a quick peck on the lips. "Okay, I'm off now. I'll try to have dinner ready when you come home." Saying this she gave him another quick kiss and then turned to enter the lounge.
"Hey, where are you going?" Carter put the stack of files on the admit desk and followed her into the lounge, where she was standing by her locker and putting her coat on. "You can't just dump me with the Everest of patient files and then walk off!"
"Oh yes I can!" she answered in a singsong voice as she stood up on her toes to whisper in his ear. "Did somebody forget that I have an appointment with Dr Infante today?"
Carter seemed a little taken aback by this news. "That's today? I thought you were going to make it next week so that we could go together?"
"I was planning on that, but she had a last-minute cancellation yesterday and her office phoned to ask if I wanted it, so I said 'yes.' Don't get all mopey about it!" she said, noticing the fake-pout look he always gave her when he wasn't getting his own way. "I'll come right home and I won't tell anybody else until I've told you. Okay?"
"It's not that. I just wanted to be there when she…you know, when we find out. So I can say that I was with you from the very beginning." He pulled her closer to him in a hug, wrapping his arms tightly around her slight waist and nuzzling her neck.
"John! People are watching!" She looked through the window in the lounge door to see a few smiling faces peering at them from the admit desk. She tried to pull free of his arms, although not very hard, so he just continued with his ministrations.
"I don't care!" His voice sounded muffled against her neck. "If I'm going to have to spend another two hours in this place without you then I'm going to have to have some happy thoughts to keep me going."
"Well," she said quietly in her most seductive voice so that only he could hear, "if you want happy thoughts why don't you try to imagine me…at home…in the shower…warm soapy bubbles running down my body…"
Carter immediately stopped kissing her and pulled back, the image of her naked in the shower causing him to stand frozen to the spot for a moment. Abby laughed and waved her hand in front of his eyes, trying to wake him out of the trance he seemed to be in, and seeing that it looked to last a while she kissed his cheek and left the lounge.
This seemed to have an immediate effect of Carter. He shook himself out of his daydream and chased out after her. He caught up with her in the ambulance bay, just as she was about to turn the corner to the El station.
"No no no no NO!" he called out to her. "You are not going to do this to me and then leave. How am I supposed to concentrate for the rest of the shift thinking about that?"
She turned around and walked backwards for a few steps as she gave him a little wave. "Bye Honey!!" she shouted. He could have sworn he saw an evil grin on her face as she said this; she knew the effect she had on him and it gave her some sort of perverse pleasure to see him suffer like this! He continued watching the ambulance bay for a long while after she had left, trying to think about other things than Abby in the shower, so he didn't notice at first when Malik came up to him and handed him a disposable trauma gown and a pair of gloves.
"Hey man, what's up?" Malik asked when Carter took the things from him absently, probably not even noticing that he held them.
"My wife is a sadist," Carter deadpanned.
"Huh?"
"Nothing." He shook his head and laughed quietly to himself before turning to face Malik. "Come on, we've got an MVA pulling up. Could you give me a hand with my gown?"
~~~
Carter trudged wearily up the stairs to his and Abby's apartment and began searching his pockets for the keys. The 'minor MVA' Abby had told him to expect had turned out to be a multiple pile-up on the expressway so his hopes of getting away on time that night had been well and truly scuppered. He turned the key in the lock but, as always, the door refused to budge. Abby seemed to be the only person capable of getting the door to open and he just couldn't get the knack: he had been planning on getting around to fixing a new door for well over a year now but somehow he and Abby had always found better things to do on their days off!
He started to bash his shoulder against it whilst jiggling the key in the lock but he couldn't seem to get it open. Luckily on the third attempt the door opened from the inside, revealing Abby wearing a pair of sweat-pants and one of his old college t-shirts. She smiled as she regarded the rather pathetic figure he presented: wrinkled scrubs, lank hair, large dark bags under his eyes, and a puppy-dog look on his face as he pouted and rubbed his shoulder.
"One day you're going to come crashing through this door and then where will we be!" she asked, standing aside to let him into the apartment and accepting the kiss he dropped on her cheek as he passed her.
"In an apartment where you have a chance of getting through the door without breaking a couple of bones?" he commented. He threw his keys onto the table in the hallway and started to walk towards the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. Her voice followed him at a distance:
"How many times have I told you? Kick the bottom twice before giving it a good hard nudge with your shoulder!"
"If you'd just let me call somebody in I could get a new door fixed and I wouldn't need to worry about how many times I have to kick the door before I dislocate my shoulder." This was a discussion they had had many times and he welcomed the return of their banter after a long day at work.
"Why do we need to call somebody in when I have a big strong man at home to handle these sort of jobs for me?" her voice was closer now, and he smiled as he felt her come up behind him and wrap her arms around his waist. "Hey Babe," she placed a kiss between his shoulder-blades and rested her cheek against his back. "Rough day?"
"You have no idea," he answered tiredly, turning in her arms to pull her into an embrace. "The only thing that has kept me going is the thought of seeing you and finding out whether we're finally going to be able to tell our parents that they can be proud grandparents." He felt Abby stiffen in his arms and pull away from him. He regarded her with puzzlement as the happy smile and demeanour she had met him with at the door had disappeared to be replaced by an awkward look, almost as if she had something important to tell him but she didn't know how to broach the subject.
"I'm not pregnant, John," she said sadly.
"Well, that could be for any number of reasons." Carter was a little disappointed at this news, but he quickly pushed his disappointment aside and smiled at Abby, trying to put a positive spin on the situation. "We both knew going into this it could take up to six months to get pregnant after you went off the pill."
"But we've been trying for nearly a year now…" She was trying to explain something to him, bring up a difficult subject, but he didn't seem to be catching on as quickly as he normally would.
"It's not a problem. This is just something we have to talk to Dr Infante next time we see her."
"I have talked to her. Today. We talked about it a little after…after she told me it was another false alarm," she rushed, not wanting to dwell on this sad news. "The good news is that she doesn't think we *can't* get pregnant by ourselves, so we're not talking about IVF or adoption or anything like that."
"That's good," he said reassuringly, but noting the sad look on her face he knew there was something else she was reluctant to tell him. "Okay, if that's the good news then what's the bad news?"
"She says it's probably just a problem with our…I don't know how to put this…one of us isn't quite up to speed the other one in the productivity department?" She looked down at her feet and bit her lower lip as she waited for his reaction. When she finally found the courage to look back to his eyes she was surprised by the look of tenderness and concern she saw there…this wasn't the reaction she had been expecting!
"Oh honey, its okay!" He put his arms around her waist and rocked her slowly, almost as if he were cradling a child. "Is that why you were so upset? You didn't have to be afraid to tell me about this. We'll deal. I'll be there to help you with the tests, and the appointments and anything else…"
Abby suddenly realised that he had not understood what she meant. She had to put him straight as soon as possible! "No, John, you don't understand!" she interrupted, pulling back slightly so that she could get a proper look at him. She took his face in her hands and stared into his eyes. "I already had the tests; Dr Infante rushed the results through for me…I'm fine. Everything's normal 'down there.'"
Carter began to look at her with a growing look of realisation, followed by a slight hint of terror. "So…if it's not you, then that must mean…"
Abby nodded and reached over to pick something up from the nearby table. Carter looked down at the little plastic specimen cup she had just handed to him and froze as the full implication hit him.
Abby continued, seeing that Carter was too shocked to ask any questions just yet. "Dr Infante says you should fill that and take it over to her office first thing in the morning."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Okay, first chapter. What do you think? Worth continuing? Just to clarify, I'm not saying that Carter is infertile so please don't hate me! To find out what the problem is you'll just have to stay tuned. I'll hopefully have some more chapters next week. Please review as you know I appreciate it. Thank you! Em)