Author: Regency
Title: The Beat Goes On
Pairing: Mark Darcy/Bridget Jones
Rating: Everyone/G
Warnings: None
Summary: (Spoilers for BJB.) AU during Bridget Jones's Baby. Mark shows up at Bridget's after his fight with Jack. Of course Baby Jones decides now is the perfect time to kick. (And Mark keeps talking despite all advice to do otherwise.) Maybe this is their sign to start again.
Prompt: Multiple requests for Mark and Bridget having moments with their unborn child despite all the tension.
Author's Notes: Come flail with me on Tumblr at sententiousandbellicose. You can prompt me things!
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from any incarnation of the Bridget Jones series. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
Mark glared at her stomach as if her baby was trying to be disagreeable. Him, of all people, talking about disagreeable!
"I can't feel it. Are you sure it's not indigestion?"
Bridget's eyebrows flew toward her hairline. "Are you implying I can't tell my child moving apart from indigestion?"
"Not at all. But your trapped wind is pretty legendary at this stage."
She covered her eyes to keep them from falling out due to all the rolling. And to think she used to find that cluelessness charming!
"I know you have difficulty figuring out the right thing to say because this is all very awkward and you are very awkward, but that was not the right thing to say."
He pursed his lips, looking appropriately contrite. She wasn't of a mind to help him dig himself out of the conversational pit he'd dropped into. "Wasn't it?"
She shook her head slowly in the universal feminine gesture of 'you've made a prat of yourself and should get on with fixing it immediately.'
"Right. Shit."
Too right. Arse.
"I think you're incredibly beautiful."
"Thank you?"
Puzzled instead of flattered, he rightly concluded. Time try another tac, she thought mercilessly. She couldn't wait to see how he put his foot in it next. She hadn't forgiven him for leaving her at the hospital without a word earlier. Jack hadn't been all that forthcoming, but she'd read enough of their body language to conclude they'd had a fight. The Mark she used to know couldn't resist a scrap. But not anymore, not for me. It wasn't even that she wanted Mark to engage in pointless male displays of physical dominance to win her favor, though that would be entertaining; it was that she wanted him to make an effort. This many months in, she often found she still felt like an afterthought, a post-script scribbled at the foot of his itinerary. Could she expect their child, if her son was indeed his, to fare any better?
Mark's fingers twitched as though in want of a cigarette.
"I'm glad you may be the mother of my child. I gave up on becoming a father because I couldn't envision raising a family with anybody else. So I'm glad it could be you."
Bridget leaned forward awkwardly in her comfortable squishy armchair. "Beg pardon?"
"Was that also the wrong thing? I could do with a hint here, Bridget. Am I hot or cold?" He began making his inwardly reeling face. She let him reel. He'd survive.
"Is that true?"
"About not having children?" She nodded. "Yes."
"What about Camilla?"
"Camilla and I were a match of mind and conventionality. Each of us upwardly mobile and successful, of a certain age and set, forward-thinking with some traditionalist bents left by our upbringing."
Bridget cocked her head in confusion. She'd been trying to reconcile what she knew about Mark with the sort of woman he'd married for a long time. Camilla was another Natasha, the upper-crust, well-bred daughter of an MP. She was also Bridget's polar opposite. It was like Mark's personality had reset to the man he'd been before their relationship, and so had his taste in women.
"We got together because at our age, that's what you do."
"You didn't love her," she concluded in a rush that made her feel slightly sick. Yes, she had ended things, and she still believed she was right to do so, but she hadn't expected Mark to marry somebody else within a year of her leaving. He had and they had seemed content for all the years that followed. To think he could have remained in an unhappy marriage rather than to try winning her back...she was upset about that on a level she couldn't identify.
Mark took a steadying breath and stood to pace. He had only just arrived when she started feeling those unusual internal pushes she was sure was her son making himself felt for the first time. Mark hadn't even taken off his coat and scarf.
"I cared about her enough to spend a time with her. We could talk about things. She understood my work and my passion for it, perhaps even the degree to which I feel like I have to do work that gives back because I have been so privileged in my life. I also understood that compulsion in her, and I understand her ambition. I haven't always been so well understood and I think I mistook that camaraderie for love." He halted near her fireplace to brace himself. There was guilt written all over his face. It was discomfiting sight. "I believe she thought my feelings for her would grow beyond the bounds I had set for them after my relationship with you, but I knew better. For my part, I believed very sincerely that I could live with a relationship where there was a wall between myself and my wife."
"What kind of wall?"
"A wall of feelings for you." He rolled his shoulders uneasily. He refused to look at her and she thought it probably for the best. She hadn't the first idea what her expression would have conveyed. "I'm not proud of it. I pride myself on my fidelity, emotional and physical. I was never physically unfaithful to her, I wouldn't do that, having been through it myself, but she didn't have my heart, and she knew that. Ultimately, I believe that was what made it so easy for her to choose The Hague over me. Nobody chooses to be second in someone's life. You're living proof and instead of learning my lesson, I repeated history and hurt another woman who gave me countless chances to improve."
"So the 'no children' decision was about me or was it about your relationship with her?" She had learned that finding out anything from Mark required asking; he wasn't one to volunteer personal information-until today.
"A bit of this, a bit of that," he conceded. "Once I realized my feelings for her would never reach the level of a love match, it didn't seem fair to bring a child into that environment. Children are incredibly perceptive, you know; they would grow up constantly wondering if I loved them that much less because my love for their mother was half of what it should have been. No child deserves that. And, at the end of the day, the family I dreamed about didn't include her, and my reality no longer included you, so I made it known that I would like to focus on my career instead of building a family. She was amenable-still is so far as I understand. Nevertheless, a home filled with neither laughing children nor passionate companionship isn't a very happy home at all." He looked awfully sad of a sudden, more so than she could bear. It gave away how easily the lines on his face yielded to grief; those weren't laugh lines. She'd managed to escape her 40′s with a few.
I hope she got out with her heart intact, Bridget wished on the other woman's behalf. Mark had a way of snaring even the most self-aware of women, because he meant well. Who could fail to love a man who tried? At least neither of them had squandered a lifetime wishing things would change.
"Did you practice telling me that?" she teased in a lighter tone, wanting to shift the mood for the better. Upwards and onwards. No more dwelling on the past.
"No," he replied, frowning, "why?"
She rubbed her stomach absently, soothing her unborn son who was playing an enthusiastic xylophone concert on her hanging ribs. "That's more than I've been able to pry out of you since we met."
"Then, I failed you in more ways than I can count." He laughed halfheartedly. It made her want to reach for his hand. "Do you know how many times I've found myself wanting to tell you things only to realize I couldn't? How many non sequiturs nobody else would understand I've swallowed, how many bits of celebrity humanitarian gossip have passed through my hands that have gone to waste without you to gasp over them? You're in my thoughts and your leaving didn't exorcise you from them."
Christ, you do know how to make a love confession. Mark was an expert at being tortured in love; he was less successful at loving. No, that wasn't fair. He loved just fine. Balancing the interests of rest of the world with love was his grand failing. He could never decide love came first.
Annoyed and emotional and annoyed at how emotional she was becoming, Bridget pulled another face and hugged her stomach. Mark came to hover over her wearing a pensive expression.
"Bridget, is everything all right?"
She nodded. "It's fine. I know what this is. Baby's kicking. I think he likes your voice," she giggled, her voice a bit garbled inside a throat tight with tears. She was going to become immune to the Darcy earnestness one of these days. "It could just be gas, though."
He kneeled in front of her chair. "I'm going to love it either way."
She snorted. "Truly the most romantic stuffy man I've ever met. Also slightly odd."
"I defy you to find a stuffier, odder, more romantic man than me." God save her from his devastating hope-filled smiles.
She took one of his hands and placed it on a strangely-shaped lump on her stomach. Said lump moved a bit, pushing against his palm. The forlorn darkness in his eyes faded to blinking wonder. He shifted his hand carefully, as if he thought he might hurt the two of them were he too heavy-handed. The little kicks, and she was nearly sure they were kicks, followed his gentle prodding.
"Oh! That's-what part is that?" He was brimming with enchanted fascination. He tapped a bit of Morse code just under her navel and she jumped afterward, having been swiftly knocked in the rapid response. A smart arse from the womb. Must be a Jones...Must be a Darcy. Either way, she loved him already.
"I think it's a...foot?" she ventured. "I don't know, there isn't a window for me to check inside, so you'll have to live with the uncertainty. I think he's trying to say hello."
Mark covered the breadth of her bump with both hands. "Hello, baby. I'm...Mark." He glanced at her with uncertainty before directing his attention to the active baby below. "I hope I'm your dad, but I'm very eager to meet you regardless. We have a lot to talk about."
"Like what?" she asked, lowering her voice to be a part of the dear conversation happening in their corner of the universe.
He looked at her with his heart in his eyes. Only a fool would mistake him for unfeeling when he was capable of the world of love she could see in them. "How lovely mummy is," he answered at last, "and how lucky we are to have her."
"I like that topic."
"It's one I hold quite dear to my heart. I've made charts and graphics on the subject. Very detailed ones."
She slapped his shoulder in disbelief. "You have not!"
"I've thought about it. I even drew a pie chart on a legal brief during a deposition once: Things I love about Bridget, a chart by Mark Darcy, Barrister."
She didn't believe that for a moment, but the image was enough to shock a belly laugh from her. Baby Jones wiggled in empathetic amusement.
"And what were your findings, exactly?"
"Let's see if I can recall. I think it was 43% how you feel in my arms. 21% your laugh. 18% your mind. 11% your body. 9% your perfume. "
"My laugh and my cuddliness outweigh my mind, do they? And don't think I haven't noticed that we've exceeded 100%, Mr. Darcy."
Mark's answering grin was terribly impish. How was she ever to evict him from her heart a second time? "My feelings for you could never be contained by rational boundaries like percentages, so why should my charts?"
She laughed, though it was a little bittersweet. "Then why didn't you try?" For me, at least, if you love me so much?
He traced nonsense symbols on her stomach. "Because I'm a fool. Because my pride was offended. Because deep down I never thought it would work and our failure proved me right. Take your pick. None of those excuses reflect very well on me, but they're all true in their own ways."
"Are they still true?"
"Loving you? Obviously. Being a fool? Very possibly. But my pride has no place here and I'm determined not to fail, whatever the outcome, whatever the risk. Because that's what you deserve, and what we have always deserved. I've been getting it wrong."
"And how will this time be different?" So many failures. Even if she accepted that Mark was the great love of her life, her current passenger excepted naturally, how could she reconcile that great love with all the heartache it had caused?
"This time, I know who matters and what matters. And that's you and the life we can build together. Not to mention this little one." He gestured to her, ehem, girth. "To borrow a line from television, I could save the world but lose you. That's not a trade-off I can live with anymore."
Disregarding the fact Mark had cribbed a line from Doctor Who, Bridget was unspeakably touched. But there were ground rules. There had to be or she'd give him everything and be left picking up the pieces when she was forced to walk away again. Her happiness wasn't all that was at stake anymore.
"We're a package deal, even if he's not yours. If you want me, you have to love him, because I can't settle for anything less than that." That was the dealbreaker. She'd be fine on her own, heartbroken and resilient and fine. There'd be other men, but her child was her priority. Unlike Mark in the past, Bridget knew that love came first.
"It's fortunate, then, that I already love him." He walked middle finger and forefinger over the curve of her belly, smiling tenderly at the corresponding nudges under her skin. "He's a bit of you, all chaos in there and knocking me for a loop, and I love him, just as I love all of you."
Her lips trembled. Hormones, of course, and an insatiable heart. She would hate him for the hold he had on her were it not so evident the ties bound them both.
"Even my newly wobbly bits?" she joked for old time's sake.
"Especially those. And any future 'wobbly bits' that may occur."
"Don't get ahead of yourself! Let's get through this one first."
He shrugged shamelessly. "I like to call that the power of positive thinking."
"Are you saying you're sending me positive thought vibes in the hopes of me taking you back?"
Mark shifted on his knees, some of his innate awkwardness manifesting in the moment. "I wouldn't put it in quite those terms."
She gave him a look. He acquiesced.
"Yes, all right, I may be 'vibing'in your direction at present."
She chortled with good humor. "That is the best thing I've ever heard." She cupped his jaw. "I don't know what the future holds for us, but I'm not saying no, all right? I'm just saying, give me time?" To trust that he was still as good as his word. To see how he shifted his life to prioritize what their family was going to need. The love remained, now the effort would have to come.
"I accept those terms. As for the time duration in question, how does the rest of my life sound?" It sounded very over-the-top. In other words, very Mark at his most romantic. How that would translate to the role of father and...partner (best to start small), only time would tell.
"You're putting an awful lot on the table, counselor."
"There's an awful lot for me to gain."
She conceded, "I'll allow it." She angled around her stomach to kiss the profound relief off his face. Darcy kisses, she had missed those. He cradled her shoulder and the side of her neck, nibbled softly on her lower lip, presuming nothing yet handily reminding her what good boys kissed like in his world.
"Compelling case, counselor. I may call on you to present more evidence in the future."
"I'll make myself available for further discovery at your convenience." He kissed her twice again. She melted more each time. Their relationship had never lacked for heart-stopping kisses. "Now, please, for the love of God, can I get off this floor? I'm not thirty anymore."
Bridget tutted without sympathy for his poor, embattled knees. "You had chairs to choose from. The floor was your judgment call."
"I was distracted," he contended as diplomatically as a man could when he couldn't stop kissing his ex-fiancee.
"Was it a very good distraction?" she teased.
He leaned in to kiss her once more. They were terribly addictive; she was just remembering that. "The best distraction."
Baby gave a deliberate and timely thump that they both felt. "One of the best distractions," he corrected. "You're going to be trouble, just like your mum. I can't wait."
Bridget kissed him this time, a grin on her face. She couldn't wait either.