A/N:
I decided to continue the original Misadventures of A & L and turn it into its own little mini-fic. This story has nothing to do with the continuity of the Misadventures series. It's just a little side story where I will be exploring what would have happened if I decided to continue with Addie being dead. I also figure this will be good writing practice.
*In the regular series Addie does not die.
**Again, I am aware that Lauren as an intersex person can't have biological kids. This is just a continuation of a story set I started in June long before the Lauren being intersex was revealed.
***This mini-fic will not be long probably 2-3 chapters.
Disclaimer: I do not own Faking It or any of the characters.
"It was a mistake Lauren, a mistake."
Amy was damn sure that that was the fiftieth time she had uttered that phrase to Lauren. And just like the first time Amy had said it, it had done nothing to calm Lauren down.
Lauren had left the baby home.
Lauren got up at 5 that morning. She dressed, shared breakfast with her husband Nick and then said goodbye to Nick at 7 when he left to open the Joint, a restaurant he and a college buddy owned in downtown Austin. By 8 a.m. Lauren was driving down the highway in her BMW heading toward the law firm she worked at. At 9 a.m. she was seated behind her desk going over business contracts.
When 10 a.m. rolled around Lauren flipped the fuck out.
Amy got the call at 10:15 when she had been in the middle of a session with her long time patient Julia, an anxious woman who didn't like change much. Amy felt kind of bad when she had to explain to the woman that she had to reschedule her session again…for the 5th time in 7 weeks. After that business was done, Amy hopped in her Mercedes and was soon racing down the highway.
Less than an half an hour later she was running through Lauren's front door and bolting up the steps of her two-story home while trying to console a frantic Lauren on the phone.
Amy could hear Lauren yelling and screaming incoherently in the background. The sound makes Amy nervous and sweaty because it's that frantic, panicked kind of yelling; a sad, hiding thing that only Lauren can pull off.
When Amy reaches the crib, Lauren is mostly quiet. The only sound Amy can make out is her deep, nearly hyperventilating, breathing.
"A mistake." Amy stated again softly, gently as she glanced over the crib bars.
Amy sighed with relief when she spotted the sleeping infant; she was almost smiling.
She looked down at the tiny baby sleeping in the cherry wood crib before her. The baby girl was dressed in a yellow onsie with a sprinkled donut in the center. Her eyes were closed; the child's long, black eye lashes contrasted strikingly against her cream colored skin and her plump pink lips were parted slightly. Her little hands were curled into fists at her sides and her tiny feet were stretched out so that the tiny pink circles that made up her toes faced upward. The mop of golden curls on her head fell across her cheeks like rays of sunshine on the warmest of summer days.
The baby lay quiet; she looked the perfect picture of peace.
A sweet sleepy baby.
But she wasn't and it didn't take long for Amy to notice that the baby's chest did not rise or fall. She was still.
So very, very still.
Amy tentatively placed a hand gently on the baby's back. "Addie…" she whispered quietly when she felt no movement. The realization set in even further when she realized how cold she was.
For a moment there was nothing but silence, Amy tuned everything out as she hovered over the very dead infant. She could already see Lauren's face when she told her, could see her crumple up at her desk as she broke down. All alone.
"Amy! Amy!" Lauren called over the phone frantically, her voice finally breaking through Amy's haze. "Fucking answer me, Amy!"
Amy could hear Lauren begin to breath heavily again. She heard the sounds of papers being shoved; of them fluttered around as they floated away from Lauren's desk and to the ground.
"AMY!" Lauren yelled.
Glass shattering. Amy could only imagine the sound being the framed pictures on Lauren's desk or the vase of flowers that Amy's brother-in-law Nick had brought in Lauren three days earlier.
"FUCKING ANSWER ME, AMY!"
Fist against a wooden desk. Amy was sure Lauren's hand was broken.
"Please…" Lauren begged, damn near sobbing.
"She's sleeping." Amy stated quietly. What the fuck else was she going to say? How the hell do you tell someone that their baby is dead? How? Amy sure as fuck didn't know that answer to that question was.
Amy was doing her best. At least that's what she told herself.
"What?"
"Addie." Amy breathed, letting the baby's nickname fall from her mouth slowly. "She's sleeping." Amy's hand was still pressed to the baby's cold, unmoving body. "She's sleeping."
"Sleeping?" Lauren questioned, relief coloring her tone. Her breathing was quickly coming back to normal.
Amy nodded to just herself as a tear rolled down her cheek. "Yeah, she's sleeping."
"Good. Can you pack her up and bring her to my office for me, please?"
Amy swallowed thickly. "Yeah, sure thing."
"Thanks. See you soon?"
"See ya."
As soon as Amy hears the call end she calls another number.
"Nick, the baby's dead." That's all Amy says, those four little words. No hi, no hey how's it going. That's it. Your baby's dead. Call it insensitive but that's what it was.
Nick didn't speak for a long time. Well, three minutes but to Amy it felt like forever.
"Does Lauren know?" He finally asked.
"No, I told her she was sleeping." Amy swallows again and then rubs away the wetness in her eyes. "I'm so, so sorry."
"Call 911, Amy." Amy could hear the sound of a car door slamming. "I'll be there soon."
Nick arrives shortly after the ambulance reaches the home that he and Lauren share. He's there when they wrap his daughter in a black sheet and carry her out of the house. The only words he says to Amy are: "Go to Lauren. Now."
Amy doesn't hesitate, she hops in her car and drives straight for the law firm where Lauren works. She runs in the building and straight to Lauren's office. She doesn't go in though. She stands in the doorway looking at her step-sister.
Lauren Cooper is a mess. Her white blouse and gray pencil skirt are terribly wrinkled and her eye liner is streaked black down her cheeks.
"Amy?" She asks when she spots her sister. She looks around Amy for a moment, noticing that she lacks the baby carrier and the baby bag. "Where's Addie?"
Amy flinches at the sound of the baby's name.
"Amy?" Lauren asks again.
"L-lauren…"
"Where's Addie? Where's my baby, Amy?"
Amy looks directly into Lauren's eyes. "I'm so, so sorry."
Lauren begins to sob. "No! NO!"
Amy shakes her head as tears begin to fall from her eyes again. "She's dead Lauren. The baby's dead."
Laruen collapses and Amy immediately runs to her, gathering her sister up in her arms in an attempt to console her.
Outside of the office, Lauren's coworkers are looking in confused.
"Sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS was identified as the cause of Madison's death."
Lauren and her husband Nick both flinch when the doctor says their daughter's name. It hasn't been spoken in the last two days.
The two are at Saint David South Austin Hospital. They are in a tiny meeting room, sitting in stiff, dark gray armchairs before a big oak desk. Talking to them with a file laid out before her is Dr. Rayford.
Dr. Nicole Rayford hates this part of her. She truly does but she elects to do it every time anyway.
"I want to stress that there is nothing either of you did or could have done. SIDS is something that just comes out of nowhere. No one expects it." Dr. Rayford states carefully, deliberately.
"I left her home." Lauren states bitterly. She doesn't make eye contact with anyone in the room.
"Tell me." Dr. Rayford begins. "How often did your daughter wake in the night?"
"Maybe 5 times or so." Nick answers, he knows Lauren is in no mood. He isn't really either. He hasn't slept, his black hair is unwashed and his beard is a thick patch of stubble. Even though he'd rather hole up with several six packs he knows that one of them has to feign being okay. Lauren, obviously, isn't up to the task.
"How many times did she wake before…before it happened?"
Both Lauren and Nick draw a blank, they can't remember.
Dr. Rayford doesn't wait for a response anyway. "Autopsy report says that Madison was dead for at least 9 hours. She died sometime at night. You were probably sleeping and you probably thought she was too."
Neither Lauren or Nick speak. Dr. Rayford sighs deeply.
"Look, I know at the moment I can't convince you that this is not your fault but really, really it isn't your fault. Sometimes this is what happens to babies. We put them to bed and they never wake up. I'm so, so sorry that this happened to you but it is not your fault."
Lauren and Nick still do not speak, they just let Dr. Rayford's words wash over them. When the doctor begins to read and explain the rest of the file they hardly hear her. Both drift off into another place, one where they are not here, where their baby is not dead.