Too Late

Summary: A pseudo-canon conversation between Martha and Clive about the fact they left it too late to have kids. Optional "happily ever after" epilogue.

Disclaimer: Still don't own Silk. Working on it!

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A.N. You might not believe it but I am doing quite a bit of writing. Unfortunately I keep skipping ahead in 'Conversations' so don't have the next chapter sorted yet. This just appeared in my head and randomly wrote itself in its entirety in about 24 hours! You all know I like angst and sticking as closely to canon as possible even as I create my own. Consequently I'm not quite sure where this fits. Bar the epilogue it's pretty canon ifyou discount the end of season 3. It could kind of be somewhere post 'Conversations' except the timings are all wrong (and I want the freedom to possibly approach it differently in that fic). M & C having children is totally AU to me and this fic reflects that. I feel they would of course have regrets over what they lost but have a very happy, fulfilled life together, (if they could just damn well sort things out!) a life and happiness that isn't, and shouldn't be, dependent on having children. However, there is an epilogue for those who want the full fairytale ending *cough* Alice *cough*!
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There'd been a touting party in chambers earlier that evening; solicitors new and old to suck up to, judges to flatter and awkward questions to dodge. They were certainly not the only couple at the Bar, couldn't possibly be the only ones in chambers together, but it still seemed to get a lot of attention. They were used to the questions, usually professional; checking they were alright to work together, or against each other, more often than not, and the personal; queries and cheeky comments about their life together. Tonight there'd been a new solicitor more than a little curious to meet the 'power couple' there was so much talk about on the London circuit. She'd been polite, earnest and interested and certainly never intended to cause offence or upset but it was just a case of bad timing.

Martha kept things close to her chest. Few people could read her; Billy, Clive on a good day, that was about it, and the latter had the added advantage of knowing her better than anyone these days and of knowing somewhere close how she felt in this instance, on this day. So he knew, even as the questions started, that this wasn't a good day for such a conversation.

'So you two are married?' the young solicitor had said and he and Martha shared a smile, silently communicating who would field the questions this time.

'No, not married, just cohabiting; same office, same house,' Martha explained lightly.

'Oh, right, it's just someone referred to you as an old married couple so I…'

'Clerk's humour, don't worry about it,' Clive reassured her. 'I've been asking her for years but the answer's always no!' He added, winking at Martha.

'How long have you been together?'

'Professionally about twenty years,' he said, knowing full well it wasn't the answer anyone was ever looking for but Martha was intensely private and while he didn't see why it mattered he knew she didn't like him sharing the particulars of their relationship so freely. 'We were pupils together.'

'Oh wow. That's some history. Do you have children?'

There was that split second of hesitation from the both of them, foolish really, when the answer was obvious, but it still happened, every time, and especially today, when the back of their minds were caught on a fateful day three years before when the answer to that question had been changed for a second time.

'No,' he said simply, hand moving to linger at Martha's back, the slightest of pressures to let her know he was there. He could feel the tension in her body, even as she stood immobile beside him. Such an innocuous question but it never failed to blindside them somehow.

The woman frowned, clearly trying to reconcile something in her head. Clive wondered what she knew or had heard. Not many people had known at the time but it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility that this woman had seen or heard something; the criminal Bar was famous for its gossip. Perhaps she'd even met Martha at the time, been a shadowing trainee or a solicitor's rep before she qualified, forgotten in the sheer number of faceless, nameless reps they had met since. Nick and Niamh had known, certainly, and neither had been told to keep it quiet. Billy's discretion he trusted implicitly but many in chambers had found out afterwards and the steps of the RCJ hadn't exactly been an inconspicuous place. Whatever the answer was he clearly couldn't ask and as it was the woman was backtracking, registering the change in atmosphere and stammering an apology.

'I'm sorry, my mistake,' she had blundered, but the damage was done. Martha had stood smiling and nodding politely for another sixty seconds before she excused herself and when Clive followed a few moments later no one remonstrated; it wasn't as though they really needed to impress anyone anymore anyway.

He'd found her in the sanctuary of their office. Not crying like he imagined others probably would, not angry, just sat at her desk staring listlessly into space, unseeing eyes settled on the middle distance. She'd been quiet in the cab on the way home too, not that he expected anything else, and picked at the Chinese they'd ordered. Clive knew he had a limited window of time before she withdrew to the solace and solitude of the shower and the topic would be closed for another year or until the next nosey colleague. She'd build her walls back up and emerge damp and rosy and apparently unconcerned by the troubles that had kept her quiet all day. He knew the drill, knew the date, knew it was probably best to leave the status quo in tact, but the thought of not broaching this conversation, of letting this day pass in silence year on year, filled him with dread, even as the thought of spending those years in her company, in her life, in her bed, or theirs as it was now, made him happy.

'Another beer?' He asked, clinking his empty bottle against hers, the tone letting him know that hers was low but not quite finished.

'Go on then.'

He turned for the fridge, letting his movements and apparent distraction act as a front for what was far from a casual conversation.

'Perhaps we should have chambers' website updated with our marital status,' he commented, apropos of nothing.

'What?' Martha asked; she'd clearly been miles away.

He repeated the suggestion. 'It seems to be all anyone's interested in lately at touting parties and such.'

'I didn't think you minded.'

'I don't but it would save time.'

'What exactly are you proposing?'

'I don't know. Answers to the most popular questions? No Martha and Clive are not married, no they are not engaged, yes they're still in a relationship, no they don't have kids, no they aren't planning on any…I mean, we haven't exactly talked about it but I presume we're not…?' He left the sentence hanging and held his breath. This entire conversation was a gamble.

'Bit late for that,' was all she said.

'Yeah I guess so.'

'Not for you though. You could sire god knows how many children right into your dotage, if you wanted.'

'It's not something I really considered.'

'So what's this about?' She fixed her eyes on him and he knew his rambling, apparently off the cuff conversation hadn't fooled her in the slightest.

'I guess that's not what I meant. It's more there's never really anyone I've considered having kids with… Except you.'

'And that wasn't exactly, considered,' Martha said, trying to cover the silence following his words, distract from what they might really mean. 'It just happened, or rather, didn't happen.'

'No. After that.'

'Since?'

'Yeah.'

'Now?'

He shrugged.

'You know I'm not the woman to have kids with. The woman to be with if you want kids. If that's what you want maybe we shouldn't be doing this.'

'I want you Marth.'

'And what else do you want Clive? I'm not being the one who stops you having everything. I can't be responsible for that.'

'What do you want?'

It was Martha's turn to shrug. 'Doesn't matter. It's too late. Wasn't part of the plan anyway.'

'But you were going to keep… Before…'

'Yeah, I was. Didn't intend to, mind, just…' she smiled softly, lost in thought, caught somewhere between happiness and heartbreak.

Clive studied her face, even now she could still be an enigma.

'So…why…why not? Since. Now?'

'It's too late. We're too old, too busy.'

'We?'

'You see anyone else round here trying to convince me to have a baby?'

'I'm not…'

She raised an eyebrow. 'Fine. See anyone else whose baby I would have kept? Why do you think I did it Clive? Or rather, didn't do it. Why I couldn't go through with it. I know we were at daggers half the time back then but come on, it was you. Why do you think it was so hard? Anyone else it would have been a simpler choice. Not easy, god no, but no one else's been in my life twenty years, any one else I wouldn't have to see every day…'

'I'm glad it was me.'

'Even though…?'

'God yes. A hundred times over.'

Her eyes met his again, softer now, and he held her gaze, unashamed of the moisture clouding his vision at the corners.

'Really?'

'I'd rather have been a father for ten weeks than not at all. Ten minutes even.'

Her forehead crumpled and she looked away. 'You can't say shit like that Clive,' she said and he could hear the tears in her voice.

'Why not?'

'Because I wasn't going to cry any more.'

'Did you ever? Really? After the first time, that day, on the steps…'

'Don't, Clive.'

'No Marth. Did you?'

'I don't know. There was stuff to do, a boy to get off a murder charge…'

'The answer is no then, isn't it? Jesus Marth…'

'I'm not really the crying type,' she said, face making a liar of her.

'Come here.'

She shook her head. 'We can't. We can't do this.'

'What?'

'Grieve, together, belatedly. Get over it. I don't want to.'

Clive frowned. 'Don't want to what? Which one? Grieve, grieve with me or get over it?'

'All of it,' she said and her voice was pitched higher than normal, panicky. She pushed back from the table. 'I can't do this.'

'Marth, Marth! Hang on! Come on love…' His reflexes were fast; he was on his feet even as she was, crossing the distance between them in two large strides, crowding and comforting and she wanted to run, wanted to break away but she didn't. She let him pull her close, hushing and kissing and rocking her, and she thought, painfully, of how good a father he would have been, despite all his faults, how he still could be, with someone else.

She didn't like that that tipped her over the edge and she was crying, sobbing, soaking his shirt, one of the blue ones she liked him in so much. Clive shuffled them both over to the sofa, still attached, gently sitting them both down before gathering her in his arms again. Martha pressed herself against him, the pain in her chest felt as raw as an open wound and the only thing that seemed to soothe it even a fraction was physical contact, pressing her heart against where she knew his was hurting too. He cradled her, intermittently quiet or mumbling nonsense against her temple. As the deluge waned she was aware of his hand stroking her hair, warm and firm but oh so gentle, tender and like it was the most natural gesture in the world. She let the repetition calm her, focused on it as her tears ran dry and breathing evened out. She felt drained and drowsy, wrung out like a cloth and realised she must look a state but didn't really have it in her to care. She'd been in court today and while she didn't go in for much make up anyway, what she did wear was no doubt smeared across her face. Her eyes felt swollen and she could feel the beginnings of a sinus headache as well as the unpleasant evidence around her nose. As if reading her mind, Clive detached himself enough to reach over for the box of Kleenex on the side table and quietly let her her blot and blow as if he was quite unaware of how unattractive it all was or the fact that his shirt was damp and most likely ruined.

'How do you feel?' He asked at last, when she was cleaned up and sat curled against his dry shoulder.

'Like I know why I'm not the crying type.'

'You don't feel any better?'

'Maybe, yeah.'

There was silence for a moment and Martha avoided his eyes, worrying at a hangnail at the edge of her thumb before Clive closed his hand over hers.

'What about you?' she asked him.

'Me? I'm alright. I wish we could have dealt with it together, at the time, but we weren't in the place we are now back then. I'd rather have this, have ended up here.'

'You wouldn't change it?'

'I'd change a thousand things if I could Marth but thinking like that just sends you down the rabbit hole.'

'Yeah, you're right. It's not even the what ifs any more though. It's reconciling wanting something that I didn't even want until it…until I did.'

'We still could. If you wanted. It's not that late Marth.'

She raised her head to look at him at that, eyes piercing and bluer than ever.

'It's been three years, Clive. I'm three years older, it's riskier… I already had one miscarriage…'

'I know. I understand, I do, but plenty of women go on to have a perfectly, healthy, normal baby the second time around.'

'And plenty of women go on to have another miscarriage and another, two, three, four… Where do you stop? Where does the heartbreak stop? How do you ever…?' She trailed off, not sure she had tears left to cry but her voice cracking all the same.

'I get it. I'm sorry.'

Martha shook her head. 'It's okay. It's just, I'm a woman in my forties Clive, we have to face facts. We took too long, getting to this point.'

She laced their fingers together and Clive smiled at the gesture, squeezing her hand.

'Maybe we did but I don't mind. We have a good life, don't we?'

Martha thought then, thought of evenings like tonight; talking until all hours over bottles of beer at the kitchen table, of waking up together and two toothbrushes on the shelf, of late nights working in company; no more falling asleep alone over a brief, their home an extension of their office, the twenty years of camaraderie and courtship they'd already spent there smoothing the way into living with each other full time, hurried breakfasts and walking home after work, of lazy weekends and the occasional Sunday pub lunch, of having the kind of sex most people weren't having.

'Yeah, we do,' she agreed.

'Can't that be enough? What we have. More than enough.'

She nodded.

'I love you.'

'I love you too.'

—

'This is mad,' Martha said, partly to herself and partly to Clive who was somewhere behind her, crashing about in the kitchen allegedly making supper; his word, not hers, and singing. 'Utterly mad.'

She stared at her stomach, the curve of her belly protruding where she'd undone the bottom half of the shirt she'd been wearing in court that day. 'I feel like I'm in Alien.'

'What's that?' Clive asked, appearing behind her and leaning over the sofa to press a kiss to her cheek.

'Look,' she said, indicating her bump. 'It's moving! Actually moving.'

'It is a baby, Marth.'

She twisted her head to look at him. 'Don't get smart with me mister,' she said, but her tone was tender, not threatening in the slightest.

'You'd have to get up first,' he commented cheekily, stepping back from the sofa to avoid the hand that flailed upwards and would have caught his face.

'I know it's a baby but it's moving me. Look at it!'

'I'm looking,' Clive said, chancing moving closer again and sliding his arms around her, chin resting on her shoulder. He reached out a hand to smooth over the bump, her flesh undulating in its wake.

'Hey baby,' he said, smiling at the movement.

'It likes you,' Martha said and Clive repressed a sigh at the pronoun but didn't comment. He'd like to think it was just her being practical; it was a bit of a mouthful to say 'he or she' every time and she was adamant about not finding out, but he knew that wasn't it.

'He or she likes attention,' he said, noting a firm kick beneath his palm as he spoke. 'Likes to hear our voices.'

Martha didn't respond and he knew she'd taken his words as a dig. Clive talked to the baby all the time but while he suspected she did, sometimes, he was yet to catch her in the act. She'd approached the pregnancy with something akin to the emotional detachment she attempted to apply to her cases. In reality she was probably equally poor at it, if not more so, in this circumstance but she was doing a good job of pretending otherwise. She rarely referred to her pregnancy, much less what came afterwards, and when she did she spoke about the baby in the abstract, intangible, uncertain. 'It' not 'he' or 'she', 'if' not 'when'. She hid behind statistics and medical terminology and developmental facts; no feelings, no pet names for the growing bump or its inhabitant, Martha seemingly intent on not connecting the creature she carried with the concept of a real baby, their baby. There was a room designated as the nursery but it was still full of general clutter, boxes and bits of furniture from when they'd combined homes. Clive had filled a bottom drawer with a couple of essentials in a kind of guilty secret that he knew he shouldn't have to hide but didn't want to upset her over. The baby book he had read and tabbed almost the moment she told him was gathering dust on her bedside table and they hadn't even really discussed names. The one concession she had made, and it was a big one considering she was Martha Costello, was to adjust her caseload. He knew she would do everything she could to make sure this baby arrived safely but she still didn't seem even the slightest bit convinced that it would actually happen. As her due date crept nearer they were in very real danger of being almost entirely unprepared.

He knew why of course and he understood but he was the optimist in the relationship so it was hard to reconcile her reticence with his desire to shout the news from the rooftops and celebrate every milestone. Tonight was unusual in that regard; more often than not he had to prise information from her, asking questions once the lights were out and they were spooned together in their bed. Under the cover of darkness she seemed more able to talk, more confident that she wouldn't jinx things simply by admitting the baby's existence or her own happiness. He just wished they could have more moments like tonight; Martha unguarded in her amazement and delight, sharing a moment as it happened.

He kissed her cheek again. 'I better finish up,' he said, drawing away. Perhaps Alien is hungry.'

'Perhaps she is.'

The words caught Clive unawares and he stumbled on his return to the kitchen even as his heart swelled and a grin stretched across his face. Maybe she was starting to believe what Clive felt so sure of. They were going to be a family, this time.

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