This oneshot just popped into my head. At the moment I have no plans to write more but you never know. I really like these two together, I had an idea and ran with it. I hope you enjoy!
Sylvie Brett gets some news and struggles with how to tell the one other person whose life will be changed by it.
A Million Possible Futures
"Son of a bitch!" Sylvie kicked the door of the bathroom stall open and was surprised to see Gabby standing by the wash basin. She thought she was alone.
"That's no way to talk about my mother" Gabby quipped, turning on the faucet and washing her hands. She knew Sylvie and Antonio's breakup was still fresh, she'd been having to deal with both of them these past three weeks and the only way she could keep from going nuts was to make jokes. She turned off the water and reached for a paper towel, but stopped when she saw her partner standing there looking shocked.
"Hey, what's wrong?" She hurried to dry her hands and went to the younger paramedic. "What's my stupid brother done now?"
Brett burst into tears. Now it was Gabby's turn to be shocked. She couldn't believe Antonio would do anything to intentionally hurt anyone, least of all Sylvie. He was a wreck over their break up too and he blamed himself for it. But at the same time, she knew he could be a little thoughtless, not always realising how his actions affected others.
Gabby put her arm around Sylvie's shoulder. Sylvie sniffed and wiped her eyes furiously with the sleeve of her sweater. "He knocked me up" she replied plainly and looked Gabby in the eye. She held up the pregnancy test.
Gabby took it from her, staring down at the faint but unmistakable blue cross that was appearing. "Wow."
Sylvie laughed an exasperated and ironic laugh. "Yeah." She went to the sink and washed her hands, then splashed water on her face. She stared at her reflection in the mirror. She spoke to Gabby, but was really speaking to herself, trying to make sense of the situation. "It was a fling!" Brett said, then lowered her voice in case someone overheard and came in to see what was wrong. "We were a thing for a couple of months, I thought maybe it could have been more but..." she trailed off. "We were safe, I'm on the pill and we used condoms." She turned to look at Gabby finally. "I'm sorry, you don't need to know that."
Gabby smiled. "No, I really don't." Sylvie laughed, although there were still tears on her face. "But listen" Gabby continued, "these things happen."
"Just my luck."
"Have you told him?" Gabby asked, but the moment she said it she knew it was stupid.
"I literally just found out."
Gabby was still holding the test. Sylvie took it and looked at it. Yep, definitely pregnant. Or at least, that's what the test said. "These things can be wrong, right?" She fished the box out of her pocket and began reading the instructions.
"Sometimes."
Sylvie stopped reading and looked up. "God, I sound like a teenager. I'm an adult, these things are not supposed to happen."
"What are you going to do?" Gabby didn't really know what to say, torn as she was between the person she spent all day working alongside and cared for as a friend and her big brother. She hadn't wanted to get caught up in their relationship when they first started seeing each other, she definitely didn't want to now. But she also wasn't about to leave Brett alone when she needed someone to lean on.
"Go see a doctor, I guess." Brett sighed.
The tannoy blared and Gabby's ears perked up. "Ambulance 61, auto versus pedestrian, West 31st Street."
"We've got to go" Gabby said, but Sylvie didn't move. "Brett." Forcefully she called her colleague's name.
Sylvie snapped out of her thoughts. "Sorry, I'm coming."
"Will you be ok?" Gabby asked, and Sylvie knew she was asking now as her superior and not her friend.
"Absolutely" Sylvie returned the pregnancy test to its box and followed Gabby out through the locker room. She threw it in her locker on the way past and slammed the door.
"April." The nurse looked up from the computer screen and smiled warmly when she saw who had called her name. Sylvie was nervous, she could tell, and her suspicion was confirmed in the way the paramedic lowered her voice when she continued speaking. "Can I ask a favour from you?"
"Sure" April said, concern on her face.
"Is there a room free?"
April glanced at the board then stood up. "This way."
In an empty treatment room, Sylvie sat down on the bed and April closed the door. "I need you to do something for me" Sylvie said. "I think I'm pregnant, I took a home test and it was positive, but I need to know for sure."
"Of course." April calmly took Sylvie's admission in her stride. She touched Brett's arm reassuringly. "I'll be right back. I'll go and get the kit for a blood draw." She left the room, leaving Sylvie alone with her thoughts.
The question 'how did I end up in this mess?' entered Sylvie's mind and she laughed at the stupidity of the question. She knew exactly how. She was the one who made the first move, showing up at Antonio's apartment wearing nothing but a rain coat and lingerie. She had never been this daring with guys before, she didn't know what had come over her. But Antonio was hot, it was pure animal attraction at first. But then she got to know him a little bit and had started to believe there could be more to their relationship than sex.
And then his ex-wife had showed up at the firehouse and she realised how much baggage Antonio still had to deal with. He wasn't in the same place she was, and she had too much self-respect to put up with any crap. But she still cared about him, and hoped he was OK. She knew she was driving Gabby crazy asking after him all the time, but she needed to know if he was doing alright. If he was feeling anything like Sylvie was feeling about their break up, the answer would be negative.
But now she would have to go and see him herself. This was not the kind of news you should hear from a messenger, even if that messenger was your sister. But Sylvie was realistic. She knew all the problems, the reasons why their relationship didn't work out, would not be magically fixed because there was a baby involved.
There was no question in Sylvie's mind that she wouldn't go through with this pregnancy, if indeed there was a pregnancy. She absolutely supported a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body, but for her personally, she couldn't do it. She didn't know all the details about her own birth, but if her birth mother had made a different decision, she wouldn't exist. The only question in her mind was, was she strong enough to be a single mother? She'd watched Antonio with Eva and Diego, she knew what a great father he was. She was sure he'd want to be involved in their child's life but didn't for a moment assume he would want to be involved in hers.
April returned with a tray and set it down on the side. She snapped on a pair of gloves. "Ok, are you ready?"
Sylvie nodded and took off her jacket. April swabbed her forearm with an alcohol swab.
"I take it this wasn't planned?" April asked tentatively.
"No" was Sylvie's simple reply. "It wasn't."
"Antonio Dawson?"
Sylvie nodded. April saw her discomfort and didn't ask any more questions. She inserted the needle into Sylvie's arm and drew a blood sample. "The results should take a couple of hours" she said, labelling the sample. Sylvie pressed a cotton ball to her arm to stop the small trickle of blood. "I can wait for you guys to come back on another run to give you the results in person if you want?"
"No, my shift's almost over. You can call me, it's alright."
"You got it." April smiled. "It will be ok, you know. No matter what the result is."
"I hope you're right."
"I've got to go to work at Molly's, are you sure you'll be ok?"
Gabby put her jacket on and picked up her purse from the bench in the locker room. She'd changed quickly after they'd clocked out and was on her way out the door. Sylvie was still in her uniform, standing in front of her open locker door in her own world. She turned to Gabby. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Thank you. I'm just waiting for April to call. Once I know for sure I can deal with it."
"Call me if you need anything" Gabby said, and she was gone.
Sylvie pulled her jeans, shirt and boots out of the locker and placed them on the bench. She wasn't quite sure why she was so reluctant to leave work, perhaps it was because concentrating on saving lives was preferable to staring at her cell phone waiting for it to ring. She dressed slowly, then touched up the make-up that she had cried off earlier. When she reached for her necklace from the top shelf of her locker, she spotted the pregnancy test that she had hastily thrown in there earlier. She looked at it for a minute, then grabbed her coat and closed the door. She'd like to ignore reality for just a little longer.
She decided she needed to walk. It wasn't that cold and she needed the fresh air. The afternoon sun and slight breeze made for pleasant weather and Sylvie found herself in the park not far from the firehouse. She leant on a railing and closed her eyes, enjoying the peacefulness of the mostly deserted open space. When she opened her eyes again, she saw a woman with a stroller had stopped close by and was bending down to tie her shoe. Sylvie watched. The baby, a little girl about a year old, was sat up in the stroller alert and happy. The child saw her and let out a squeaky laugh. Sylvie smiled. The woman looked up to see what her baby was reacting to and smiled at Sylvie as well. "Good afternoon" she said, cheerily.
"Hi" Brett said. "Cute baby."
The woman smiled, pride written all over her face. "Thanks."
Sylvie blinked. "Enjoy your walk." The woman nodded her thanks and walked away.
Sylvie returned to staring over the railing at the trees beyond. Just for a moment she pictured herself in the woman's shoes, pushing her own child through the park on a beautiful afternoon like this. A swell of complex emotions surged through her body when she lingered on that image, but the emotion that stood out above all the others, the anxiety and worry, was happiness, and she knew that she had it in her to be a mother after all.
She'd grown up in a happy family, with openly loving and nurturing parents. The fact that she wasn't their biological daughter did not matter one bit, she had never felt for a moment growing up that she didn't belong. If she could take a fraction of what she'd learnt from them about how to raise a kid, she'd be okay. She smiled to herself, feeling calmer than she had for days, ever since she'd realised she was late.
Sylvie felt her cell phone vibrate in her back pocket and took it out, preparing to hear the news that she knew in her heart to be true.
Sylvie stood on the sidewalk across the street from the boxing gym and took a deep breath. She had no idea how this was going to go, but decided as she drove over here that she just had to get it over with. Clean and quick, then she would deal with the fall out.
In the four hours since she'd watched her future change before her eyes, she had done nothing but imagine a million different scenarios of what that future might be. Ranging from her not being pregnant at all to watching her hypothetical future kid leave for college. Some of those possible futures included Antonio by her side, some of them didn't. Sylvie had realised this afternoon that she didn't need him with her to do this. Whatever path her life took from now she would be able to navigate it alone. But just because she didn't need him, didn't mean she didn't want him.
She hadn't wanted to break up, not really, but too many signs were pointing to this not working right now for her to fight against it. The split had been amicable in the end, but that didn't mean it wasn't painful. She had left the door open, told him that when things settled down there was a possibility of them trying again, but they were not there yet. Nothing had changed for Antonio, not really. His job was still new and his ex was still and issue, and now things were about to get a whole more unsettled.
Sylvie didn't want to trap him, she had to make it clear that she didn't expect anything from him, but if she knew Antonio at all she knew he wouldn't hide from his responsibilities, he was too loyal for that. He'd step up and be there for her, but how much she would let him in she didn't know. She took a deep breath and crossed the street with purpose.
When she entered the gym, there was no one at the front desk. It was quiet, and she didn't see anyone around at first. She walked further into the building and stopped in the doorway to the main workout area when she saw Antonio.
He had his back to her, his broad muscled shoulders glistened with sweat as he pounded his fists on a punch bag. Sylvie felt butterflies in her stomach, although she wasn't sure whether that was due to nerves at telling him the news or because seeing him still had that effect on her. She pushed the second thought away, things would be complicated enough in five minute's time, she didn't need to complicate things further by letting her heart do the talking.
Antonio punched the bag with force, grunting with the effort of putting all his energy behind his punches. Sylvie watched him while she found the courage to say what she needed to say. Eventually he stopped, breathless, and rested his forehead on the swinging bag.
"That bag sure took a beating" Sylvie said, attempting small talk to ease into the conversation that was about to change Antonio's life.
"Sylvie." Antonio looked up as she walked towards him. He didn't look angry, or upset, just surprised to see her. "What are you doing here?"
Sylvie faltered, stopping several feet away. Antonio undid the Velcro on his gloves and threw them aside, picking up a towel and a water bottle. He took a swig, patiently waiting for Sylvie to speak. He mopped the sweat from the back of his neck and looked at her expectantly.
"There's no easy way to tell you this" Sylvie began, and she saw Antonio's brow furrow. "I just got my results from the hospital and came straight over here. I'm pregnant. And it's definitely yours."
Antonio stopped what he was doing and let his arms fall to his side. He looked away, staring into space as he processed what Sylvie was telling him. "Wow. Ok."
Sylvie shrank into herself, her earlier burst of confidence withering away. She didn't speak, trying to gauge what Antonio was thinking, allowing him at first to make the next move without being forced. But when he didn't say anything more for what felt like an eternity, Sylvie got jittery. "Antonio" she said. "Please say something."
Antonio blinked and turned his head back to face her, but was still silent. The blank look on his face did not give anything away about how he was feeling. When he saw the look on Sylvie's face, saw the tears in her eyes threatening to fall, he snapped out of it and stepped towards her.
"I'm sorry" she said, a tear sliding down her cheek.
Antonio shook his head. "Stop it" he said, kindly. "You've got nothing to be sorry about."
"Listen, I just thought you should know, I'm not expecting anything from you, but I am keeping this baby." The look in her eyes was filled with remorse and Antonio hated to see her like that. Even though they hadn't worked out as a couple, it didn't mean he had stopped caring for her.
He reached out and took her hand. "I'll be here" he said. "Or not, whatever you want. I'll be here for you if you want me to be."
Sylvie nodded. "I do. But it doesn't mean we have to get back together, nothing's changed, it's just too complicated right now."
"Absolutely." The truth was that's exactly what Antonio wanted. He had been an idiot, had let too much get in the way of what had promised to be the start of something special. He had put too much ahead of Sylvie's feelings and it had not been fair. She deserved so much better than what he had given her. He had clung to her vague promise that they would try again, but he would stand back, let her take the lead. But now, she needed comfort and reassurance and he would give it to her. "I want to give you a hug but I'm all sweaty" he said.
Sylvie laughed. "I don't care." She closed the gap between them and felt his strong arms close around her. He kissed the top of her head and she allowed herself to relax, feeling safe in his arms. "I'm so relieved" she said in a whisper.
Antonio hugged her a bit tighter. "Did you think I'd be angry?"
Sylvie pulled away, embarrassed. "No. Maybe. My head is spinning, I didn't know what to think. I only found out this morning, I haven't even had an ultrasound yet."
Antonio placed his hands firmly on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. "I'm here for you" he said again, and hoped that she could see he was sincere. "Do you want to go someplace and talk?" Sylvie nodded. "We'll grab a bite to eat. Sit tight, I'll just take a quick shower."
Gabby was distracted. She had been polishing the same glass for five minutes and didn't even notice her husband enter the bar and sit down on the stool opposite. "Is everything alright?" Matt asked, and leaned over to give her a kiss.
She smiled. "Yes, just work and family stuff. Nothing to worry about." Casey looked concerned but let it go, trusting that if Gabby needed to talk to him she would. "Are you staying for a drink?"
"Yes, definitely" Matt said, relaxing. "I'll take a beer."
The bar was quiet enough that when the bell above the door jingled, both Matt and Gabby heard and looked towards the door to see who was entering. Gabby was surprised to see Sylvie enter, and a second later, Antonio. They both looked exhausted and a little shell shocked, but Gabby searched their expressions and body language for any signs of unrest and was relieved to find none.
She raised her eyebrows expectantly when she locked eyes with Sylvie, and the petit blonde inclined her head indicating the she wanted to talk in private. "I'll be right back" Gabby said to Matt, placing his beer on the bar and putting down her dish cloth.
In the store room out back, out of earshot of anyone, Sylvie spoke. "I told him" she said. She shoved her hands into her pockets.
"How did it go?" Gabby asked. "I'm guessing it was OK."
"Yes. It was actually surprisingly easy. We ate dinner and talked about everything, we sorted a lot of stuff out."
Gabby smiled. "So, what now?"
Sylvie shrugged, but a smile played on her lips. "Nothing. We're just taking it one day at a time, no pressure. But he's said he'll be there, whatever I need. I booked an appointment with the OBGYN tomorrow, Antonio's coming along."
"I knew it would be alright! Come here" Gabby pulled Sylvie into a hug. "Us Dawson's are a dependable bunch." Gabby winked, showing she meant herself as well as her big brother. "We better get back out there" Gabby said, after a minute. "Matt's probably wondering what the hell's going on."
"Can I get a drink here or what?" Antonio asked Gabby sarcastically as the two women walked back to the bar, but Herman appeared with a beer before Gabby could step back behind the bar. Antonio nodded with satisfaction and raised his bottle at Herman appreciatively. "It's good to see someone providing good service around here."
"No problem" Herman said, and walked away with a smile.
"Steady" warned Gabby, resuming her place behind the bar. "Don't think I won't kick you out just because we're related."
Antonio grinned, well used to his sister's teasing. "Hello" he said, and gave her a peck on the cheek.
"Can I get you a drink Brett?" Casey asked.
"Erm, just a soda and lime tonight." Matt clocked the uneasiness in her voice and looked between her, Gabby and Antonio with a questioning look on his face. The three of them were silent, trying to look anywhere but at Matt. They failed completely at feigning nonchalance. "What's going on?"
"You cannot say anything" Sylvie said in a hushed voice. "I mean it." She waited for Matt's nod of agreement before continuing. She glanced down the bar to where Herman, Mouch, Otis and Cruz were sharing a joke, and satisfied they were out of hearing range, she looked back at Casey. "I'm pregnant" she admitted. "But it's still super early days, I've not even been to the doctors yet."
Casey paused, his drink half way to his mouth, unsure how to react. "Are you two…" he started, looking at Antonio.
"No" Antonio jumped in. "We're not back together. But I am gonna be here for her." He looked at Sylvie and allowed himself to smile. "In the future, who knows what might happen."
"I'll drink to that" Matt said, raising his beer. "If I can do anything just let me know. And I promise to keep your secret."
"Thanks Matt" Sylvie said, and watched Matt clap Antonio on the back.
Sylvie took a sip of her soda and allowed herself to dream, only for a second. Who knows. Indeed.