I'm sorry for any strange issues with paragraphing - I've tried to sort it out but it was typed on a train and went a bit haywire. I've had this fic idea for a while and it'll probably not be too many parts - I had hoped to get it all done by the standalone episode (7/1) but that isn't going to happen - but there are no spoilers here either. Hopefully this is ok as I think this part is a bit filler-y but I had no clue how to start it really.
For this I am sort of using Holby dates as it appears she's 37 weeks as of 7/1 (according to the CDH charity), so this fic is set around 2/12/13 (or around Fait Accompli)
She sits in her office, eyes trained on the computer screen in front of her though in truth she has absolutely no idea what is actually there. She'd barely taken anything in beyond somehow managing to type in her username and password, earning her access to her e-mails, but what any of them actually said was a mystery. Instead her attention lies firmly at her rounded abdomen. She feels the baby wriggle within her, and a small smile dances on her lips. She runs her fingers lightly over the spot where she had last felt the punch of a limb, laughing as her daughter responds by flicking an arm out against the walls of her uterine home.
"I've not forgotten you're there," she speaks softly, but the truth is sometimes she finds herself doing things to stir her child, to cause her to make more definite movements. It is one of the few things she can do to try to reassure herself that her daughter is still well, still alive. She had, had a doppler but it had gone missing a week or so previously when Elliot had found her in a blind panic having been unable to locate the baby's heart - claiming that the baby had to have died because even a 'god damn midwife' can find fetal heartbeats. The kindly professor had ended up dragging her off to a side room where he'd comandeered a portable ultrasound machine and with ease had the room filled with the beat of the baby's heart. In the hours following that the child have given her hell, with kicks and jabs aimed at every organ she could reach, but the still slightly panicked mother had forgiven it.
A roll inside alerts her to the baby shifting position, and she groans slightly as she finds it altogether more uncomfortable than the previous one. Her daughter is seemingly running out of space, and yet it seems to the mother that her bump is perfectly massive, definitely enough room for one little person, and yet her daughter didn't seem to agree with this. At 31+6 weeks pregnant, it seems inconcievable that her abdomen could get any bigger, and yet with 8 weeks until she hit her due date - and 6 weeks until her induction - it seemed like it would have to happen or her daughter would be bursting free.
And there is absolutely no chance of that happening. Her daughter is gonna stay safely inside her womb until the date of the induction when she'll be forced in to world. It seems almost unfair to serve the child a hormonal eviction notice before she's ready to arrive, but there is no doubt that it for the best. Everything had been studied, every piece of research she could get hands on analysed to within an inch of it's life until she had been left in no doubt that what the multi disciplinary team had planned was indeed the best option.
It wasn't that she especially enjoyed pregnancy. Indeed the near permanent ache in her back, and the seemingly constant need to micturate was getting to be a real inconvienience to her and her desire to carry on exactly as she once had. And she is determined to that, as much as she struggles, she doesn't want to let on. She doesn't want anyone to think that she is any less capable because she is pregnant, but she has to admit that it is becoming harder to carry on. Her body seems to tire so much more easily, just getting from her car to Darwin is enough to leave her requiring a period of rest before she can get on with her day, but she tries to fight past it. Instead she forces her body to carry on, until she can legitimately find a reason to escape to her office - like now. The ward had been relatively settled, and she had completed everything that she had too leaving the more basic tasks to F1, and the nursing staff.
Not that she had gotten any work done though. She knew it was a known fact that these trips to her office, were so that she could rest but still she tried to pretend that it wasn't. Indeed she even knew that Elliot had asked the rest of the staff to leave her alone here as much as possible, so that he could guarantee she would at least have a short period of rest, but while she could get lost in thoughts of her daughter, her eyes would wander occasionally to the clock and once the time she'd decided was reasonable for e-mail checking had passed she would return out on to the ward, no matter how much her body protested.
She could've given up work soon. Indeed Guy had been sending her e-mails asking for her to go and discuss the matter with her and even Elliot had been dropping little hints, but she had no plans to take up leave. She couldn't imagine what she would do, sitting at her flat all day every day. She imagines that she'd end up being eaten alive by the thoughts of her daughter and the reality of what was to come, and she cannot handle that. At least here there is distraction. Her baby is never far from her thoughts, but she doesn't consume them so totally as she does when she's alone, when there is no escape from them.
Besides she might need the leave after. If her daughter makes it. It's such a big if though that she hasn't even broached the subject of starting her leave the day of her induction and from there waiting until she had more of an idea of what was going to happen. She was certain she'd want to stay with her daughter, there seemed to be little question of that in her mind and yet there was the niggling doubt of whether when it came to it, if she could actually do it.
She has absolutely no doubt in her mind that she loves her daughter, but to be a mother? That is something she isn't so certain about. She wants to do it, with every fibre of her being she wants her daughter to have everything that she never did but imbedded in each of those fibres is the damaged strains of DNA that came from 'that woman' and because of that the fear has crept in to her.
So she has kept it open. If she doesn't take leave, then if she has too, she can come back here. She can work and be distracted and she knows that her daughter won't be alone. Because her daughter has something she never did, a father who loves her more than life itself and she knows that he will sit by her side day and night for however long he has too.
But then if it comes to pass that their daughter should come home, she doesn't quite know what'll happen because he will want that same level of access and yet he had chosen not to have her house as his. And now he was shacked up with that other woman, and she would be damned if it was going to have any access to her precious daughter. And yet if she is here working, and he has been with their daughter, he will know the baby better than she even though it is within her body that the child has grown, it will be his love that she will know and not hers and at home when it is just them, and she has to do all the caring tasks, how will it work?
Her daughter wriggles again, and it's enough to stir her. She looks to her clock and feels her eyebrows raise as she notes that time, and how she has spent longer here than she had intended. With a sigh, she removes her hands from her bump and uses them as a lever against the chair and desk in order to heave herself to her feet.
Once her balance is gained, she tries to stifle a moan as the ache in her back comes to a head, evidently unimpressed with her having decided to move. She shakes her head slightly, as she places a hand to the spot which is giving her to most problems and arches out her spine, trying to get it to shift a little. When that seems to fail, she frowns and decides to just get on with it. Slowly she started to walk from her office, trying as hard as she could to control her waddling gait though she is slowly coming to realise that there is little point in doing so.
"You alright Jac?" before she has even reached the desk to check if anything needs doing she is accosted by the registrar who had been rather half heartedly flicking through a set of notes. Standing there, she could just make out two laughing voices, and with a shudder twigged that it was the two nurses probably hiding out in his office, and not working like they were supposed too.
"Just fine," but she cannot quite hide the wearied tone with which she answers. She isn't even sure just what the issue is, whether it's the fact that her body aches and there is nothing she can do about it, or because all she can hear is him being carefree and she wishes she could have that - or that he was there with her sharing in these problems she had. The registrar raised an eyebrow,.
"Are you sure?" she tries again, offering a very small smile, "you know I've been there, Jac" she adds softly. She isn't really one to discuss her pregnancy, it was something that in general she tried not to think about, but sometimes the situation warranted it. Slowly, Jac made her way to a free chair and settled herself down.
"It's just normal pregnancy stuff," she responds finally, not quite allowing herself to meet the registrars gaze. So little with her pregnancy seems normal, that it seems strange to say such a sentence. It seems cruel that with all these extra things she has to cope with, that still these other little normal problems have to plague her as well.
"You could always talk to him," the consultant raised her eyes and the comment, not wanting to take this path of conversation and yet she cannot quite see an escape route. For once her daughter isn't battering her bladder, so even that excuse is out.
"Talk to who?" She knows it's stupid to try to play ignorant but she tries it all at the same, "Guy knows what I want to do, and so does Elliot" the lie comes much more easily than it should just as every lie does. The registrar twists her lips together as she considers this answer, before she shakes her head.
"So that'll be why Elliot was just saying earlier that you need to start taking things more lightly and that you'll be needing to actually book your leave soon," the registrars voice is soft and that is almost harder to take, "Besides you know I meant Jonny" and so much for playing dumb too.
"Why would I talk to the nurse?" her voice is bitter as she says the words. Part of her wishes that she could talk to him, but talking has never been her strong point and chances are if she tried she end up faltering and failing. She had come close to being able to talk to him, but somehow something always seemed to stop her and she just didn't seem to be able to get passed that, "he seems perfectly content in the company of the sunshine princess"
"He's concerned about you" she scoffs at that, and a hand slips behind her back to press against her still aching spine. She can't help but wonder what her daughter is actually using it for to cause it to hurt this way, because surely it cannot simply be the extra weight she is carrying for it seems like she has been carrying it forever and it has only been in the two weeks or so that her back has gotten so bad.
"He's concerned about the baby," It seems to be the truth. The baby is lucky in that respect, from her father she has enough love to last her a lifetime. She had doubted him following the terrible diagnosis they had been given but now she knew, he had been thinking it would save the baby the pain of having to go through what she would, and she could understand that in a way but she also knew her daughter deserved a chance at life.
"And you too," Mo again shakes her head ever so slightly but for Jac, this makes little sense. Yes, she carries the baby and in that respect he cares because the baby is dependent on her but beyond that she doubts she matters to him at all. Too much has happened, and he has made it clear that he has given up on her.
"Not anymore," the words slip free before she has quite realised they'd made their way on to her tongue. She says them so quietly, and hates the sad admission. The registrar reaches over, and daringly pats her hand for the briefest of seconds before thinking better of continuing.
"You'll see," the registrar offers another smile, before standing up and walking in to one of the bays, leaving the consultant trying to consider what had just been said. Biting her lower lip slightly, she twisted her fingers together wishing she could unhear those words.