Title: The Other 'D' Word
Summary: SANA. Sequel to 'The Couple'.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters.
Author Notes: Okay, the C2 is up and running. Its called 'Love at First Fight', thanks for that Xhoelli, totally love it! So anyone who wants to join can...
This is kinda a tip of the hat to Missy from her review on the first 'D' word story that wasn't part of the series...
This is a product of staying up at 3 in the morning, thanks to insomnia, and finding myself drawn to write... Hope it didn't come out too weirdly. I was feeling very mean towards Jack, no idea why but its pretty clear so sorry about that. I think I may have some residual anger that I'm channelling at him, which is extremely weird within itself.
Sawyer filled up two glasses of water at the Hatch's sink. Taking a sip out of one of them he walked back around to where he'd left Ana. She still wasn't feeling one hundred percent, and he had willingly taken up the position of concerned, caring boyfriend. Sure, that voice in the back of his mind screaming 'Sissy!' at him was starting to get annoying, but he just ignored it.
This was the first good thing that had happened to him in years and he definitely wasn't going to let it slip out of his fingers. Even he wasn't that stupid.
"So everything's alright?" Ana's voice drifted from around the corner and Sawyer paused where he was, glasses of water in hand. She'd just been having a lot of headaches lately, and she'd started throwing up on a daily basis now. Sawyer was definitely worried, and considering asking Jack to take a look at her. But he had been delaying it as long as humanly possible because running to the Doc for help was not on his 'Top Ten Things to Do' list.
"Everything's fine." He heard Jack's voice reply and thanked his lucky stars that she had had the guts to go to him first.
"You don't think..." He heard Ana take in a breath and he frowned slightly. She sounded really worried and Sawyer leaned in closer to try to hear her clearer, "You don't think that anything's going to go wrong is it?" She sounded so damn scared that it took all of his self control to not charge round the corner, sweep her into his arms and hold her tight. But he was kinda curious as to what was driving Ana to ask the Doc all these serious questions, so he hung back.
"Well nothing's sure Ana." Jack replied in true doctor manner and Sawyer pretended that the air in front of him was Jack. Then he throttled it, his hands clenching around his 'neck' and squeezing, shaking it back and forth in frustration.
"Don't tell me that 'nothing's sure'!" Ana hissed back, her tone dangerous. Sawyer punched into the air, celebrating his girl's mettle.
"I don't know what to say Ana, it's not like we have the most advanced medical equipment here." Jack snapped, for once rising to the bait. Sawyer winced and made a small 'oosh' noise, knowing that that was possibly the dumbest thing the Doc had done. And he'd done a lot of dumb things.
"Don't you dare snap back at me Jack Shephard! I deserve to know what is going on here and you know it! It is my right, and don't you dare use that," She put on a mock voice that was exaggeratedly feminine, "'Aw buh-buh-but we don't have the equipment here and I'm such a sucky doctor that I can't use my own opinion because all those years in medical school did jack-all.'" Ana's voice got angrier and it dropped back to her normal (but slightly more pissed) tone.
And all Sawyer could do was smile like a jackass and wish that he could see Jack's face. Ana would so be getting congratulated later. Possibly with a distinct lack of clothes. Then he shook his mind out of the gutter and refocused back on what was going on around the corner.
"I'll do all I can Ana, I promise. But you have to realise that this isn't exactly the most opportune place for this to happen." Jack said, his voice kinda shaky which made Sawyer smirk heavily. A big congratulation for Ana.
"I don't care if this is the most 'opportune' place, Jack. It's happening. And I thank God for that, so how about you just be a good doctor and make promises you can't keep but will try oh-so-hard to keep." Ana ordered and Sawyer swore he heard Jack whimper.
"I will do everything I can." He replied in the most fake calm voice Sawyer had ever heard. Shaking his head and scoffing, he decided that this was his cue to round the corner and did so, cocky smile on his face and glasses in his hands.
"Doc," He nodded at Jack and then his gaze went to Ana. He leaned in to hand her a glass and kiss her gently, "Amante."
When Sawyer withdrew slowly Ana raised an eyebrow at him questioningly.
"When did you learn Spanish, Cowboy?" She asked and he just grinned at her mysteriously.
"So what are we talking 'bout here?" He asked, leaving her question unanswered, causing her to regard his curiously for a few more moments before dropping it. Then she shared a look with Jack, a look that usually would have annoyed Sawyer, but he didn't mind now. Because he knew that he could extract the information very easily from Jacky-boy. Easier than from Ana anyway, she could be incredibly stubborn when she wanted to.
"Ping pong," Was Jack's answer. Sawyer just looked over at him, blinking at him as he studied him. Jack shifted around uncomfortably, looking like he was being put under spot light and not coping very well with it. Weird.
"Okay, so while we're on the subject of, er, Ping Pong... How about a round, Doc?" Sawyer asked with a glint in his eyes. Sawyer's eyes flicked over to Ana for a second to see that they were also full of amusement, and the two watched the doctor as he squirmed for a few minutes.
"Well I really have to get going, I mean Kate and I..." He trailed off and Sawyer raised an eyebrow. So Jack, who was strangely flustered (thanks to the run in with Ana the Psychotic Angry Woman, or PAW as Sawyer liked to refer to her) decided to just offer them an unsure smile and just walk in the opposite direction as fast as humanly possible without flying.
"So, he was..." Sawyer started and trailed off as he tried to find the right word to describe Jack's current state of mind.
"Frightened like a little bunny rabbit?" Ana offered and Sawyer tilted his head, considering it before offering his own words.
"I was gonna say something along the lines of 'flustered' but 'bunny rabbit' works too." Then he regarded her carefully. She was sitting on the back of the chair, with her eyes darting every which way her leg bouncing up and down, and looking like a druggie who had gone too long without a fix. So he decided to go out on a limb and hope she didn't bite his arm off for it.
"Are you okay?" He asked, and he tried to say it in such a way that she knew that he was talking about much more serious things than the question usually referred to. She didn't. She looked at him suddenly, her eyes wide and nodded her head, looking like she had been caught doing something she shouldn't be doing. Taking cookies from a cookie jar for example.
"Fine." She responded quickly, which of course sent Sawyer's alarm mode deep into the red zone.
"You'd tell me if somethin' was wrong, right Muchacha?" He asked and Ana looked at him and for a moment he could've sworn that she was going to say something. Then she looked away and it was gone, he sighed but decided to wait for her to be ready to tell him when she wanted to. After all, knowing how stubborn she was she wasn't about to give it up.
Then a thought occurred to him. Doc. It may take a little bit of convincing at first, since he had 'morals' stamped into his brain so hard Sawyer was surprised they didn't protrude out of his forehead. But surely Sawyer would be able to sway him into giving it up. Sawyer had his ways. So he put down his glass and turned back to Ana, wondering how to make a non-suspicious get away. Realising that this probably wasn't possible, he decided to tell the truth.
"Hey, I'm gonna go pester the Doc, it really is just too much fun." He said with a smirk and a chuckle. She grimaced and received his peck on the lips with no argument.
"I'll be right back." He promised and jogged off after the Doc.
Well, it was kinda the truth.
----
"Wow, you look real busy there Doc." Sawyer drawled as he watched Jack sit on the sand and stare out to sea. Jack leaped up as if he'd been bitten on the ass by fire ants, which may well have been true. Well not really, but Sawyer could dream couldn't he?
"Sawyer." Jack replied. Damn, when did he get this jumpy? Sawyer remembered him being less awkward and anxious and more thinking that he was in control. That was definitely something to look into. Maybe later, right now he wanted to know what was going on with his girl.
"So, you wanna tell me what you two were really talking about back there?" Sawyer asked and Jack looked at him suddenly, surprised.
"She-she didn't tell you?" He asked and Sawyer shook his head. Jack seemed to take in a breath, relaxing for the first time since Sawyer had turned the corner in the Hatch. But not for long.
"That's why I asked you Doc, so you could tell me." Sawyer prompted him and he looked up at Sawyer, knowing by the look on his face that it was not the time to mess with him.
"I can't, Sawyer." Well, Jack seemed to grow a backbone. Apparently he was a lot more scared of Ana than he was of Sawyer. Weird.
"Sure about that, Jack-O-Lantern?" Sawyer asked, putting on the warning tone and look. Still Jack didn't waver, had to give him props for that. Of course it did hurt Sawyer's pride a little that the man who was so freaked out by Ana, was completely unflappable when it came to Sawyer. Maybe he was just used to him, but hearing Ana earlier, she was pretty damn psycho. Definitely in PAW mode. Like she was having goddamn PMS or somethin'. Even though it had been a while...
Wait a second.
Oh crap. How did he not see this before? Oh damn. He was so damn stupid.
"She's pregnant." He muttered to himself and this caused Jack to look up at him with a 'how did you know?' look on his face. But he ignored the doctor completely now, knowing what he needed to know without the damn doctor's help. Figured, the one thought that could make it through his mind was about how much he hated Jack. Well, he couldn't think about anything else right now.
Total brain shut down.
"I have to go." He muttered to Jack and left. He knew he should probably go back to Ana and try and talk this out, starting with why she had kept it from him but he couldn't. Not just yet. First he had to try and get his thoughts in order first. Or try and think first.
Shit, he was gonna be a daddy.
----
Ana wondered where Sawyer had gone. She knew that he wasn't going to go tease Jack, he wasn't the type to usually seek someone out to rub it in their face. He may be unnecessarily mean at times, but only if the person was within earshot, wasn't like he went out of his way. The only reason that he was so mean to people was either because he was in a bad mood, or they pissed him off. Jack was part of the latter. Still.
She was slightly worried. What if he'd overheard the conversation with Jack before? What if he knew that she was pregnant? It would definitely be time to duck and cover then. As much as she loved the man, she knew that he would not take the news well. Thank god he was a little slow, because he didn't quite get it yet.
If it had been Jack, he would've known before Ana had known, and that was not something that she could've dealt with. She had a hard enough time coping with it without Doctor Know-It-All trying to help her out by telling her to count to ten and take a deep breath.
Then she decided that there was no way he'd heard them, he wouldn't have been able to act normal after that, and he was acting totally normal when he'd rounded the corner. He even looked a little more cocky than normal, so that wasn't it. So what was he doing?
What else would he be going to Jack for?
Oh no.
Oh no. No no no no no.
She was really getting slow. So she tried to make up the lost time by sprinting out of the Hatch and going in the direction of the beach. Of course, he could have gone in the opposite direction, but the beach was the best guess, considering all their previous experiences.
All the way she was slapping herself mentally, how could she be so stupid? Of course he would do this, I mean it was Sawyer! The man who would go to no end to get to the bottom of everything. The man who would never willingly accept a suspect conversation with no explanation.
Damn him and his curiosity.
When she did reach the beach she didn't find Sawyer, instead she found Jack. Which wasn't as good, but at least she would know whether or not he'd ratted her out to Sawyer. She approached him slowly, but he heard her and turned around too meet her eyes. This made his own drop to the ground and he shook his head slightly, looking like he was telling her he'd just lost a loved one in surgery.
Oh that was not good for him.
"Did you tell him?" Ana demanded and Jack finally met her eyes again.
"No." He said and she took a big sigh of relief, but it was too soon, as she was to find out in a few moments when Jack cut in, "He figured it out for himself."
"How? How did he? How would he?" She asked, desperate and trying to somehow calm herself by venting questions that could not (and would not) be answered by Jack 'the Golden Boy' Shephard. So she took a deep breath and decided to ask a question that he might actually choose to answer, "Where did he go?"
Jack pointed down the beach and Ana breathed out, thanking god that he didn't go back into the jungle. Because then it would be really impossible to find him. So she started off in the direction Jack had pointed and hoped that Sawyer hadn't managed to get too far, or that he'd gone back into the jungle after continuing down the beach a little.
She just hoped that when she found him again, he wouldn't be furious. Or catatonic.
----
After a few minutes of complete shock, he started to ease into it a little. The shock, not the idea that he was going to be a father. That was still up in the air. Then an idea occurred to him and he wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. So he quickly made his way to the place where he might just find the answer to his questions.
He arrived at Claire's shelter shortly after and, like a sign from god, Sun also happened to be there as well. So he took a deep breath and approached them both, proverbial hat in hands and trying to look as innocent as possible.
"Sawyer." Claire said, sounding slightly surprised that he had turned up on her makeshift doorstep. He smiled at her, looking unsure of himself.
"Do you want something?" Claire asked, and Sawyer realised that it wasn't exactly a normal thing for him to be hanging around on the door stoop of the Australian, and she was right to be curious.
"I-uh... I wanted to ask you two something actually." He said and they both looked at him expectantly as he took a moment to ready himself to ask what was coming next, "Being pregnant. Is that... Is that something you enjoyed?" He asked, feeling like a complete dumbass. The two women traded looks and Claire raised an eyebrow.
"You thinking of getting pregnant Sawyer?" Claire asked, the amusement clear in her voice. Sawyer blushed slightly and looked down at the ground, training his eyes firmly on the sand.
"No, just..."
"Ana's pregnant." Sun rescued him from trying to explain it and he looked up at her briefly to thank her with his eyes. Then he went right back to examining the sand.
"Yeah." He muttered into his chest and he felt the attitude of the two ladies in front of him change. Claire stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder, causing him to finally look up at her.
"Ana's a very lucky woman. You are gonna make her so happy Sawyer." She said and Sawyer frowned slightly at that.
"It's not like I'm asking to marry the woman!" He said, slightly startled by that. Then he thought about it, "Should I ask her to marry me? I mean, we're having a kid. Shouldn't parents be married?" He asked, his state going from normal to overkill in two seconds. Claire shared another look with Sun, who now stepped forward as well.
"If you think you should get married, then do so. Otherwise it is not essential." Sun said, her wisdom showing through but it didn't help Sawyer.
"But I mean, I've been brought up my whole life knowin' that when you knock a girl up, you marry her. And I mean, I wouldn't hate marrying Ana. In fact, I'd love it. Even though we've been through a rough patch recently, we made it out the other side. And ain't that what's meant to count?" He asked the two women and they both just stared back at him, wide eyed. You could practically hear the wedding bells going off in their heads.
"Can I be a bridesmaid?" Were the first words out of Claire's mouth when she came back to Earth. Sawyer, not exactly sure what to do with that just stared at her.
----
Okay, not to panic. No panicking. She didn't have a reason to panic. Well, except for the fact that Sawyer now knew that she was pregnant, that she had failed to tell him, and now she couldn't find him to apologise, or even argue. No need to panic, she just needed to take a deep breath and relax. Ok, breathe in. Now. Oh god, she couldn't breathe.
She doubled over, trying to draw in a breath and realised that this was probably a panic attack. Great. She fell to her knees and dug her hands deep into the sand, closing her eyes and forcing herself to just concentrate on breathing steadily. Eventually she managed to regain her ability to breathe again and reopened her eyes. That was when she saw what was to the side of her.
Claire's shelter. Where Sawyer was now standing, flanked by Claire and Sun. It looked like they were attacking him with words and Ana's head tilted slightly at this. If she was a dog, one ear would've been bent over, whilst the other would be straight up. Ana shook this thought from her mind and decided to face the music, in a manner of speaking.
So she stood up, brushed her knees off and took a deep breath. Just don't forget to breathe.
She started to walk towards him, and after a few steps, he seemed to sense her and turned to see her walk towards him. When she saw the smile light up his face, she found that her own lit up as well. Sawyer moved away from the two women, who followed his gaze and also saw Ana. He moved past them and towards her and she felt her breath hitch. But not because she was panicking, because she was feeling that incredible feeling in her chest that let her know that no matter what happened, they would be fine. And because they would be fine, she would be great.
They met and Sawyer looked down at her his hand going to brush her cheek softly.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you-" She started but Sawyer hushed her.
Then something completely unexpected happened.
Sawyer kneeled down in front of her and took her hand in his.
Oh god. Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. Breathe dammit!
Ana wasn't the only one thinking that. Sawyer took in a deep breath, his cheeks puffing out slightly as he did. He tried to slow down his racing heart, but to no avail. So he just looked up into her eyes and dug deep to find the words that he needed to say.
"Ana Lucia Cortez..."