I groan, feeling the baby kicking inside my belly. I turn to my other side and feel around the bed. When my fingers come up empty, I crack open an eye. "Spencer…" I groan into the darkness. I sit up in bed, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
The light to the bathroom glows underneath the closed door. I hear him shuffling around when he calls out to me. "Hold on, sweetie!"
I slide off the side of the bed and waddle over to the door. "Spencer? You okay in there?" I ask, idly running my hand over my stomach.
The door flies open under my fingertips and Spencer flicks off the light behind him. "Yeah. I'm fine." He takes a deep breath as he walks back to bed, wiping something away from his eyes. I slowly follow behind. "What are you doing up?"
"The baby was kicking and when I turned over, you weren't there."
"Sorry. I got up to use the bathroom." Spencer holds open his arms and pulls me onto the bed with him. He leans back against the pillows and I crawl onto him, resting my head on his chest. His long fingers stroke my belly, slowly lulling our baby to sleep again.
After a while, he stops running his fingers over me. I look up to find tears streaming down his face. "This was a mistake…" he murmurs before I can ask what's wrong.
"Don't say that!" I say, turning in his arms.
"It's true!"
"No, it's not!" I cry. "Why would you think that this is a mistake?"
"What if…what if our baby gets schizophrenia? What if I gave that to her? She'll blame me if she ever develops it and even if she doesn't, I'll blame myself because her kids might develop it and no one should ever have to deal with the fear and I'll know that I was the one who gave her those genes and it would be my fault if she develops it or her kids do or their kids and I-" Spencer stops mid-sentence, the tears flowing down his cheeks and his voice full of emotion. "I'm scared," he breathes.
"Oh, honey!" I pull him to me, feeling his arms constrict around me. He cries into my shoulder as I rub his back, whispering into his ear that everything will be okay. His shoulders shake with each ragged breath he takes. The tears rake his body and his fingers dig deeper into my back. I press gentle kisses to his neck in an attempt to calm him down, feeling the heat radiating off of him.
"I don't want to end up like my parents…" I hear him mumble into my neck after the tears finally subside.
"What's wrong with being like your parents? They raised you, didn't they? You turned out pretty good, no?" I ask, a tiny smile crawling onto my face.
Spencer scoffs. "My mother raised me. My dad left because of my mom's schizophrenia. I don't want the same thing to happen to us…"
"I won't let that happen. I love you, Spencer. You know that. No matter what happens, I will always be your wife," I coo. I lean back a bit and move his face to look at mine. "Always," I nod, wiping the remaining tears from his eyes. "I don't care if our baby has schizophrenia or not. She's ours. She'll be the little miracle we created together and there's nothing in the entire world that's going to make me leave that."
He smiles a watery smile. He takes my face in his hands and presses his lips to mine, drawing me to him. "I love you…" he says when we pull apart. "Both of you," he smiles, his hand running over my stomach.
"We love you, too."