Author's Note: So, this is the fourth installment of the Someone Like You verse, set after Couldn't Stay Away, Couldn't Fight It. Just a warning, it's pretty angsty, and the subject matter is tough (and possibly triggering, it does deal with miscarriage), but it does have a happy ending. Thanks for reading!
If someone had told me at twenty-five, three years after I'd married the love of my life, three years after I'd began to feel total and complete happiness, that everything happens for a reason, there's a very real possibility that I would have gotten violent with them- and I'm fundamentally against that. But I had heard those five words, everything happens for a reason, more times than I could even fathom to count- and I have a doctorate in quantum physics. And I'll say this much, I really didn't care what the reason was, not when I lay blotchy faced and swollen eyed, holding my wife so tight to my chest all through the night, after she'd cried herself to sleep for the thirteenth night in a row, after her miscarriage, after a combined five attempts at IVF between the two of us had failed, after the umpteenth time someone had made some offhanded quip about two uteruses and no baby, after she'd dropped out of the movie she was filming, because she couldn't bring herself to get out of bed, and after I'd taken a leave of absence from work, because my whole being ached, and because I feared leaving her alone. All I'd really wanted, in those dark, painful moments, the moments I felt like my marriage might implode, because the emotional stress was just too high, was for that reason to go away, to go somewhere far away from us, for the crushing blow that pervaded our entire beings from the very first instant we heard those crushing words I'm no longer detecting a heartbeat to be exorcized from our lives.
Seven weeks after the day that changed everything for us, when my wife was rail thin, when we both had dark circles under our eyes, when there was no medical reason why either of us were having difficulty conceiving, when I watched the woman I love cradle a non-existent belly and murmur in her sleep to a fetus that was no longer there, I'd grown tired of hearing people tell me that everything was going to be okay, even after we'd stopped hiding in our apartment and started putting on a faux happy faces for the rest of the world, especially when shit just kept hitting the fan, at the worst possible times. Somehow, all those weeks later, just after we'd finally stopped crying on a daily basis, just after I'd begun to believe that maybe we'd stopped falling apart, we were on a Sunday morning run to the grocery store, and as we prepared to check out, tossing cereal and ice cream on the conveyor belt, I watched my wife's face turn ashen, and when I looked up, I saw the words Santana's Baby Heartbreak leaping out from the glossy covers of multiple magazines.
I didn't have to be a genius to know that someone in our doctor's office had leaked the information to the press, (why they would do such a thing, I would never know) and I didn't have to be a genius to know that for the ten steps forward we'd made in those long months, those words, that public display of our most private affairs, had set us about five hundred steps back. When I tried to put my arm around her, tried to shelter her from what I knew were a million eyes upon us, I'd physically felt her recoil from my touch, the barely healed wounds ripped back open and bleeding all over the floor of the Food Emporium. Forgetting our purchases, we left the store, we hurried home, ducking the reporters that often hung out across from our building. For the remainder of the day, she lied in bed, not crying, just staring into space, not speaking to me, not speaking at all, maybe not capable of speaking.
I never would have believed it beforehand, that I'd ever let her go, that I'd ever let the woman I had been loving for half of my life get on a plane alone, in an emotionally distraught state, never would have believed that I'd give her a quick kiss on the lips and say goodbye to her for an indefinite period of time. But late that night, after she told me that she needed to go Ohio to stay with her parents temporarily, to escape from the city, and the hounding reporters, after she'd asked me to stay in New York and teach my classes, to let us both have space to breathe, to grieve, I got in our bed alone. I cried to my mother then, for an hour on the phone, cried about the lost baby, cried about Santana's pain, cried about my inability to help myself feel better, my inability to help her feel better. That night, for the first time, I was convinced that our marriage might not survive the crushing blow we'd been dealt, I was convinced that we'd never be okay again.
For three weeks I stewed in it, for three weeks, I hoped, I begged, I even prayed for the strength I needed. For three weeks, I moved about, in and out of our apartment, in and out of my classes, in and out of the subway, permanently in a daze, unsure of what I was supposed to do, unsure of where we were to go next. On the first day of the fourth week after she'd gone, after only a handful of phone conversations, and a few tired I love you's exchanged, I couldn't take it anymore, couldn't take being apart from her, when I truly believed that being near each other was what we needed most. So I booked a flight, called a cab, and went to the airport. While I checked in, I ignored the reporters hounding me, asking questions about my marriage, asking questions about the baby that wasn't, asking over and over again, how are you? how is she? the two questions that I really was incapable of even knowing the answers to, had I any desire to give them. It was even worse while I bought a bottle of water and a bag of Skittles from the kiosk near my gate, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut to block out more magazine covers, this time, with the words Trouble in Paradise? Where's Brittany? splashed across them, pictures of Santana alone, sitting at the Lima Bean, dressed in black, her face covered in dark glasses (glasses that still couldn't hide the pain in her features, the tightness of her jaw, the puffiness of her cheeks, the sallow of her skin) beneath them.
It was late when I got in, rain had held up my connection in Chicago, and the car service I'd arranged from the airport to the my in-law's house was late, but I'd texted my her mother, texted her to tell her that I was coming, and when she'd responded with heartfelt words, please don't lose each other, not when you need each other most, my heart throbbed in my chest, and for the first time since the night my wife had gone, sitting in the backseat of a black car, I let myself cry. Knowing that everyone would be asleep when I finally got in, not even sure if the love of my life, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health (and sick we both were, the worst kind of sick, that heartsick without a cure), knew if I was coming, I used my keys to let myself in, tucked my shoes into the hall closet, and I crept up the stairs to her childhood bedroom, crept up to the place that held so many memories for me. My heart pounded as I turned the knob, and I couldn't believe I was so terrified to see Santana, couldn't believe that we were where we were, separated by a mutual pain as wide as the ocean, bigger than a Steinhaus-Moser notation, the same notation that I'd once told her I needed to tell her how much I loved her, could express, but when I slowly pushed the door open, when she was revealed to me, curled up on her side, dark hair splayed across the pillow, her face as puffy and red as it had been the day she left, all of my trepidations melted away, and I knew that what I needed, what I thought we both needed, was to hold her in my arms again.
It was the longest ten steps of my life, that distance between the doorway and her bed, and I held my breath as I took them. She didn't even move when I finally lied down with her, when I pressed the front of my body to her back, when I pulled her into me, cradling her form, even thinner than I'd remembered, into me, holding her up, needing her to hold me up, but when I ghosted the most featherlight of kisses on her temple, I felt her stir. She didn't say anything, neither of us said anything, not for a long while, but her hand found mine, fingers tangled with fingers, and just when I thought she'd fallen back to sleep again, I felt the sobs begin to wrack her body, and I felt her turn in my arms, pressing her face to mine, and wetting my cheeks with her tears.
"Please. Please. Please." She'd begged, but I couldn't understand what she was asking for. "Please don't give up on me, please, I thought I could handle it better alone, for a little while, but I can't."
"Oh, sweetheart." I'd choked, my own tears starting up again, and everything aching, as we clung to each other more desperately than we ever had before. "It's okay, it's okay, we're going to be okay. I'm here now, I'm here for you, I'm here for us. We don't give up on each other, we never give up on each other."
"I love you, baby, I need you, and I love you, and I love you."
"I know. I know. I need you too, I need you, and I love you, so much."
The next morning, we weren't sure what to do, weren't sure exactly how to pick up the pieces of our life that seemed to be scattered everywhere, in a devastatingly public way, weren't sure how to get back to us, when we felt so far apart. Unable to think of a better plan, I picked up the phone, I made a few calls, and by five o'clock that night, we were on another plane, together, a plane to a private little bungalow in Bora Bora. I knew a vacation wouldn't solve anything, she knew a vacation wouldn't solve anything, but we both were well aware of the need, at least, for some privacy while we attempted the beginnings of figuring it all out. So for two weeks, we cried, we laughed (I saw her truly smile again for the first time since the morning before I'd rushed to meet her at the hospital, ten weeks earlier), we held each other, and we talked, we talked a lot, more than we had in the two months since it happened, and we'd come to the conclusion that we'd see a therapist together, that we'd make sure we were fixed, before we even reopened the discussion of trying again.
We were devout in our commitment to getting back on track, especially Santana, who slowly began to gain some of her lost weight back (she didn't speak it out loud, but I knew that she understood how necessary it was), and we sat once a week with a grief counselor, discussing our sadness, our hopes, our fears in a safe setting. It wasn't until six months later, after I finished another semester of classes, and Santana wrapped filming a television mini-series, while we lie naked, limbs tangled, in bed together, that the mention of starting the journey again came up. It was Santana who'd asked, in a whisper against my skin if I would be okay with trying again. I want a baby, so bad, she'd pleaded, I know you do too. In all honesty, it was the most terrifying request of my life, and even when she pressed her forehead to mine, let me search deep within her eyes, and promised me that it would be okay, that we wouldn't break again, my stomach roiled, fearing that deep, unshakable sadness, fearing that we'd face irreparable damage. But somehow, buried deep beneath all of that, I also felt this tiny glimmer of hope, the hope that maybe, just maybe we'd somehow end up with the happy ending that we'd banked three long years on.
It wasn't a blind leap, after I'd agreed that we could definitely try, that I wanted to try, that I still wanted us to have a child together, even after all of the heartache. The journey that second time was a series of long talks, a series of promises. We were giving it one final shot, with Santana asking me if I was okay with her trying to carry again, something I would never deny her, something that I thought maybe, just maybe might help to heal some of the pain inside, help alleviate her feelings of failure, feelings so deep-rooted that no words I spoke could fully take away. Perhaps more importantly, we were in agreement that if it didn't take on that last shot (or worse, but I couldn't think about that), we wouldn't suffer through it time and again like the last time, we would start looking into adoption, we would get our baby one way or another. It was a difficult two months, with temperature taking, with shots, with me, on more than one occasion, catching the love of my life kneeling at our bedside, deep in prayer- and I'd never seen her pray before-, with holding each other at night, whispering reassurances and love, and with all kinds of doctor visits. The stress didn't ease up with a positive pregnancy test, not in the slightest, though it was a different kind of stress than we'd experienced after the miscarriage, it didn't push us apart, but it drew us closer together, and I doted on Santana like never before.
She was so careful, I was so careful with her, and when her belly began to swell, when her feet began to ache and her back throbbed at night, I worshipped her, kissing every inch of skin, telling her how much I loved her, and racing out of our apartment in the middle of the night on instinct alone, even when she didn't ask for what I could tell she was craving, wanting to be as fully involved in the pregnancy as I could, wanting her to know that I was there for her, no matter what she was feeling. The thing was, we didn't talk about the growing life inside of her, we couldn't talk about it, fearful that in saying things aloud, we'd be tempting fate. We tucked sonogram photos into our desk drawer without looking at them, because we couldn't handle falling in love with someone that could be taken away (but we did, oh, we did fall in love, even if we didn't admit it, with each kick against her skin, each kick that would both make out hearts ache, and make us smile all at once). And even when she became too big to hide it from the public, even when her publicist had no choice but to release a statement confirming the news, after someone had captured a rare photo of the two of us in Central Park, my lips pressed to her temple, and her arm cradling the weight she carried, we were still wary of everything.
It was a miserable August night when her water broke, four days before her due date, and I held her tightly as we waited for the midwife to arrive (the one thing we'd prepared for, there wasn't a baby item in the house, or even a coat of paint on the walls of what was meant to be the nursery, but there was someone coming to assist with the birth), murmuring promises and love against her clammy skin, and holding her belly for her, holding my breath for me. I had almost gone into shock, and I think she had too, crying inconsolably, terrified that it was really happening, that she was truly about the give birth to the child that we'd been waiting so long for.
It was a quick labor, faster than anyone had expected, considering it was her first, and I held her through the entire thing, kissing away her pain, crying when she cried, loving her with the entire ferocity of my heart. When it was over, she leaned back into me, on the same bed where we'd christened our engagement, the same bed where we'd christened our marriage, the same bed where we'd made love for the first time after we'd almost fallen apart, nearly a month after we'd returned from Bora Bora, fully spent. Together, we waited, and as our naked gift was pressed, whimpering and crying, into her arms, as the newborn's cries soothed at my wife's tender words of affection, a jumble of English and Spanish, I began crying inconsolably, having everything that mattered to me, right there, close to my heart.
"We have a baby." She sniffled, dropping her tears on the face of the tiny boy in her arms. "Brittany. We have a baby. We have a son. Look at him, look at our boy."
"He's perfect. He's the most perfect baby I've ever seen in my life." I cried, cradling his scrunched up face in my palm, before cradling her face, and catching her lips with mine, offering her all of the love, gratitude, and wonderment that I didn't find myself capable of making words for. "You made him, you made him, sweetheart, and he's just…wow."
"We. We made him. He might have grown inside of me, but you and I did this together. We've been making him for as long as there has been a we, I think. All of it, all the hurt, and the heartbreak, all of our love, and our work, and our everything, has been leading up to this, this boy of ours."
"You're amazing, you're both so incredible. I really, really don't think I can feel any more love than I do right now."
We'd named him Nicolas Stephen Pierce-Lopez (though my beautiful wife, in her dazed, emotional post-labor haze had really been pushing for Stephen Nicks Pierce-Lopez, I'd managed to convince her that come morning, she might change her mind on that), and though we didn't have so much as a diaper in the house for our son, in those first hours, we managed just fine with the few that the midwife had brought in her bag. We all slept together that night, or rather, they slept, and I stayed awake, cradling Nicolas, or Cole, as he'd come to be called, almost immediately, in my arms, kissing my wife each time she stirred from sleep to nurse him, and just watching the two of them, watching every single move they made. In the morning, I'd have to leave them for a bit, I'd have to run to the store and do a supermarket sweep style grab of anything we couldn't live without until Santana was able to come and do a real shopping trip with me. In the morning, we'd have to call our families, our friends, and more likely than not, deal with a media firestorm. In the morning, the real world would still be there, and we'd have to face it, we three would have to face it. But for just one night, it would be only the two of us, only Santana and I (and the midwife, who'd signed a forty page confidentiality agreement, for our protection, for our son's protection) who knew that our perfect boy existed, and only us three, who mattered in those hours. In the dark of the night, I lie contented, contented in knowing that nothing, nothing, not my valedictorian speech at MIT, not my wedding day, not the day I became Dr. Pierce-Lopez, nothing could compare to the simple joy of lying there with the two people I loved more than anything else in the world.