I'm still honestly a little in shock at how long this has ended up - it was originally a much shorter one shot but got a lot longer :D Part of me thinks that it would have been better as different chapters (and I may edit it that way eventually) but I also quite like it as a one part thing. It is divided in to sort of segments which I guess breaks it up a little.
It's set around the episode Divided We Fall (21.5.2013) :) I hope it's ok.
Perhaps
Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad being a mother. It was thought that struck her as she drove herself to work. She presumed it was simply her still half asleep brain musing; though she couldn't quite shift the idea from her mind. It had plagued her for the rest of the drive. The idea that in eight months she would hold in her arms a mewling infant who she could call her own.
It was a strange consideration; that this would be a person who would be hers. Someone who she could, perhaps, rely on to stick around. It seemed to her, as she pondered parenthood behind the wheel of her car that it was herself she should worry about. The child would rely on her and would for a time at least be dependent on her – and as such she would assume a sort of permanent responsibility. This it seemed to her meant that she too would be required to stick around – a fact that seemed to have slipped the mind of her own mother.
There was a worry then, that she wouldn't be able to cope and that, she too, would end up abandoning the child in some way. Perhaps not the physical abandonment she had suffered, but emotional. Though she hoped she could do a better job. That perhaps she could prove herself; prove that she is indeed capable of loving someone and sustaining that love.
In the same vein it had struck her that this being is perhaps something of a miracle. That it could very well be her only chance to be pregnant, to be a mum. She had thought very occasionally that she might like to be a mother. In those moments when she had held a baby in her arms, and watched as they settled against her, contented. Babies like Freya and William; who had for a second gripped at her heart and caused the aching in her womb, the quiet desire for the baby to be hers.
There is something about babies. They don't seem to react to her as grown people do. They are not frightened of her, they do not stiffen and become tense in her presence but instead they seem to sense something different. They seem to sense something in her that makes them relax and settle. Contented little beings, who are so very hard to resist.
Maybe because they are so very new, so undamaged by the world around them, they are able to see through her guise. The tough exterior, the front. They are able to sense the maternal side of her, the softer side that stays hidden. The side that many would presume didn't exist, the one she choices not to let them see.
She is in the hospital now. She is climbing the stairs, though she is still tired and should have chosen the lift. The little womb raider is cruelly snatching at her energy levels yet already she feels it has caused her to gain a few pounds – which she feels the need to combat by not taking the easy option. She knows she will have to give in to it soon, that the growth will cause her shape to change but for now she isn't quite ready for that. For her body to give her away.
She needs to tell him first, the father. She can see him. He's walking ahead of her alongside his best friend. She cannot hear the words they are saying but she hears the occasional laugh. She cannot quite understand their relationship though a small part of her is a little envious. She isn't sure she has ever felt that close to another person; to know without words what they are thinking and feeling. She doesn't know that she has ever had that. Though maybe it is because she automatically assumes the negative, the worst particularly when things are directed at her.
She knows that she has been in denial. She has been in denial about the conditions for which she has diagnoses; the endometriosis and the pregnancy. The endo had come first, and she had seen the vague dream of a child slip away from her. The hope of one day, of maybe, leaving her. But it had also awakened the desire or at least made her more keenly aware of it. She was certain she had never, more acutely, felt the barren state of her uterus. That was when she had pushed him away. Fearing rejection, once again from a person who she had foolishly come to love. In her world, it was foolish to love; for love lead to rejection and pain. And then the second diagnosis; a pregnancy. Cells dividing in her womb to form an embryo that would develop in to a baby; her baby. She had seen the dream die and now it was real and she had been scared. Scared that it would turn out to be just a dream; a cruel trick. The door on motherhood once again slamming shut when she awoke. So she tried not to think of it, of the reality that she would be a mum and that in turn he would be a father.
She had pushed him away, and now she would need him – or at least the child would. There was denial there too in relation to how she felt about it though she was loathed to admit it even to herself. Perhaps one day she would tell him, that she would open up with the truth though that seemed to her, unlikely. It was not her way. Though she would have to open up and tell him of the child.
It struck her as she climbed the stairs, that she knew what she was going to do. She was going to keep the baby regardless of what he said though she dared to hope that perhaps he would be supportive. Though she knew every action she had taken over the last two months had done little to aid that. She was scared of doing it without him, but she was scared of needing him. Scared that potentially he would reject them both, or that he would want only the child – when still she harboured those feelings for him.
She wasn't sure what she wanted from this, other than her chance at motherhood. Perhaps there was the potential for a family; a life like she had never known – a mother, a father and a baby. A house with roses and a dog. A place called home filled with love and laughter. Though that was a fallacy; an impossible dream that existed only within the happily ever after world of fairy stories. It wasn't Jac's reality but there was a slight aching within her chest at the thought of it. Of the impossible dream awakening; the thought that the baby had been an impossibility.
The two people ahead of her had come to a halt at the top of the stairs, they had paused and seemed to her to be deeply engrossed in conversation, the occasional bubble of laughter having ceased a while back. She felt her heart rate quicken as an idea started to take shape in her mind; that the registrar was betraying her to the nurse. She had said she wouldn't, that she would give her time to tell him, but perhaps time had run out. Perhaps she could no longer lie to the man she considered her best friend; not in favour of the flame haired ice maiden at least.
She hated that she had to trust her inferior, that there was someone else who knew but it hadn't been by choice and she had hoped, against hope, that perhaps the registrar would be able to keep quiet for now; would help to protect her secret until she was ready. But she should have known, you can't trust other people. She had learnt that the hard way.
She was getting closer to them now, though still she couldn't quite make out the words they spoke. She closed her eyes for a second, feeling a slight tugging in her abdomen, an ache she hadn't noticed before. She moved slower, some strange instinct perhaps.
"You alright Jac?" it was a loaded question, a slight hint of concern on the registrar's lips and a confused look from the nurse. It was not like Mo to be concerned for the consultant, though in the last few weeks perhaps there had been something different. It weighed a little on his mind. Though he could not think what was going on.
"I'm fine" an equally loaded response with a darting glance between her colleagues, signifying something to the registrar that was lost on the nurse. It was a warning, a signal that she couldn't do this. She felt the tugging again, more acutely. She was certain she knew what it was, the invader playing games with her bladder once more. It seemed to enjoy that despite its lack of development. She pushed passed them, and made her way to the ladies, a chill washing over her though she wasn't quite sure why.
Blood
She slipped quietly in to the toilet cubicle, and slowly slipped down her trousers and underwear. She felt her heart rate increase at the sight of it. The red stain on her underwear. The sight of it made her feel sick, and she wished that she could erase it from her memory; that she could forget she had ever seen it there but now the entire world seemed to glow red before her eyes. There was more of it on the paper when she wiped and as she hastily stuck a pad in her underwear, the emergency one that she kept hidden within the confines of her bag, she tried to push the fear that had engulfed her away.
She should have expected it, she should have known what she was coming here to be confronted with and yet her mind had been hopeful. She was aware of her own body, of the realities of her condition. She should have known that the fates wouldn't smile kindly on her but would rather sit in wait until she felt that maybe things would turn out right before they once again pulled the rug out from under her.
She pulled up her lower garments, and for a second her hand came to rest over the point where she thought the being had been. It was maybe even still there, still clinging on before it would slip away later. More blood staining the white pad that she'd just placed.
She felt a sob rise in her throat though determinedly she tried to push it away. She couldn't do this. She couldn't afford to be emotional over this, it was barely even anything really. Little more than a three layered embryonic disc and yet it's brain, spinal cord and heart are beginning to form. It would soon have had a quickly beating heart far faster than her own; though at this moment in time she felt that maybe she could have challenged it. It was so very tiny – and now it seemed it wouldn't be given the chance to grow bigger.
It was her own fault. She was sure of it, her own cursed existence cursing that of the innocent unborn. Good came from good, and bad came from bad; and she was bad, as bad as they came by her reckoning and a baby was good. Pure and innocent until it was subject to the world outside of the womb.
But she had hoped that maybe for once in her cursed life that something good could come. That perhaps the goodness from someone else would override the badness in her; or that perhaps she wasn't so utterly damaged as she had always assumed; that a modicum of good still existed somewhere within her.
She wasn't sure that she had ever done anything so wrong as to deserve this, she couldn't pinpoint the first moment that she had known that she was bad, and damaged. That she was a wrong 'un. Perhaps it was something inbuilt in her, that it had always been a part of her DNA – a mutation of some form. Perhaps, unlike most, she had never been pure and innocent and that was why her own mother had never been able to love her. Perhaps it wasn't her mother who had broken her, but she who had broken her mother. And maybe this was fates way of protecting the child from being broken in the same way – from protecting him, the nurse, as well.
She felt the bile rise up in her throat and she spun herself round before the contents of her stomach emptied themselves. The small amount she had been able to force down that morning. She felt the tears welling in her eyes though she longed for them to slip away. She shouldn't cry. Not for something she had never really had. And she hadn't had it, not really.
She had been denying it for weeks. Trying to push it from her mind and now it was over. Acceptance and loss coming in quick succession. Maybe if she had done things differently, but she wasn't sure what. Despite the denial, she had had the strange seemingly natural urge to protect and nurture the being. She had eaten things that it had craved despite the fact the foods were ones that normally she wouldn't have touched – and which combined sounded repulsive and yet she had eaten them for it. They were little things, the things she had done but she had done them.
Perhaps she had been more accepting than she had realised. Perhaps she had tried to fool herself in to denial, without realising what she was doing. Though none of it would even matter now. In a few hours, it would be over and she would try to carry on as normal, because that was what she did. That was the way things were for her.
She left the quiet of the stall and tried to sort herself out. She could see from her reflection that she was too pale, that there was an unnatural glisten to her eyes; the sheen of tears unshed. But she had to hope that no one would notice, that they would keep their distance from her because she was, after all, Jac Naylor.
She slipped from the ladies and walked back out to the ward, determined to get to her office, to have a moment to collect herself before she went about her work. She would perhaps take a couple of her painkillers in the hope of combating the cramps before they came. She would try to carry on as normal, because nothing had changed in the eyes of most of the ward. It was a normal day.
"Jac" she heard her name, the tones of Mo. She had been spotted though she hoped she could slip away. She increased her pace slightly though she heard her name being repeated, she knew she was expected to stop, to engage. But she couldn't. She didn't want to talk, to have to acknowledge it out loud. She knew what was happening, her head told her that it was over but she didn't want to have to say it. She slammed her office door shut and walked determinedly towards her chair. She would sit and close her eyes, collect herself. The door opened and her colleague walked in, drink in one hand and a stethoscope draped over her arm.
"Y'know it's polite to knock" she says, not wanting the woman with her. She doesn't want her to see, to see the emotion in her face. She doesn't want sympathy and pity for Mo understands more than she should. Mo knows too many of her secrets.
"I can't believe a woman in your condition can still out run me" There's amusement in the voice of the registrar but the word hurts. That she still believes her to be in that condition when her head is telling her that she no longer is, that it is over. She can still see the red before her eyes, tormenting her. She knows that soon there will be more. She tries to get rid of the registrar, tries to claim that she doesn't know what is going to happen. When she already knows for certain. Perhaps the registrar will see it as being undecided about which option she will take but she already knows the time for decisions has passed. It's out of her hands now, and it isn't the option she wanted. Not now.
"Here I'll draw you a picture" The registrar isn't getting the hint and instead she places down her drink and grabs a notepad and pen from the desk. She scribbles quickly before she turns her masterpiece round clearly proud of herself. It's supposed to her, with a large rounded stomach; an abdomen which has swelled with her growing child. Only her child won't be growing larger inside of her, it'll forever remain little bigger than a pen tip. She wonders for a second what it would have been like, to have been in that state but the idea of it breaks her heart a little more and she can't afford to break. "How long do you think you'll be able to keep this a secret Jac?" is the question she's asked. She breathes slowly before she turns from the registrar not wanting her to see her face.
"I've been bleeding" she says softly. She hates the sound of the words. The finality of them. But the registrar knows now and maybe she'll finally leave her alone. She'll stop pestering her to tell, because there is no longer anything to tell. No words need to be spoken.
"How long?" the registrar doesn't leave as she expected but instead choses to question her. She can't deal with concern or sympathy. So she tries to push it out of her mind, she states the words that swirl around in her head, that it's over. It kills her to say those words but she speaks them all the same. The registrar tries to reassure her that bleeding can be normal but she knows her body, she knows it's over. She knows it with every fibre of her being though she wishes it wasn't true, not now. But hadn't she thought that perhaps it would be easier, if it slipped quietly away before too many people knew. Before it became real to her. Before she felt the first beads of affection towards the being and began to develop small dreams of its future. But it had become real and now she was scared, and saddened. Saddened by the loss of a dream, of hope. She had thought she would feel relieved, but she didn't. She watched as the registrar walked away, made her way back on to the ward.
She turns her head to look at her computer, one hand snaking down on to her abdomen though she wishes it wouldn't. She doesn't want to think of the fact that this morning there had been a life there, a life that would soon slip away in blood. Her gaze falls on the picture, she can't bear to see it. The pregnant version of herself that is no longer to be. As a silent tear slips down her cheek she tears the page and crumbles it in her hand before she places in to her bin. A lost dream.
I Know
There's something strange about knowing, about going about your day and knowing that a little life within you is dying. A part of her wishes that she wasn't here. Perhaps it would have been better to be somewhere else, to be hidden away from prying eyes where she could cry. Where she could allow herself to break down and grieve, though she was still not sure what she was really wanting to grieve for. Grief was one of those emotions she struggled to understand, she had lost so many people and yet it still confused her; the way it affected people so differently and how she was never quite sure of how to cope with it.
There was a child on the ward; a beautiful little human, red haired and innocent with a bright smile and shining eyes. She looked the way she had imagined her own child. And it pained her. To see this flesh and blood child moving around, living and breathing.
It hurt her, that Mo had tried to push the child on her, to get her to interact with it. She had hoped that Mo would understand, that in her current state she didn't want to interact with the youngster. It was too raw and painful. But Mo seemed to be thinking differently, that perhaps it was simply her lack of maternal instinct and that time with the girl would awaken that. But it wasn't that her maternal instinct wasn't there, it wasn't because she was simply burying her head in the sand, it was because she couldn't bear to see something that she wouldn't have.
She didn't envy the teenager, the young girl who was a mother long before her time. But she had something that was special, in the shape of her little girl. A child who she seemed to love more than life and was determined to fight for and in return the child seemed to love her too. It can't have been an easy life, and yet the youngster seemed unaffected. She was bright and she seemed well cared for. The teenager seemed to be a better mother, than some of the adults Jac had seen.
But it didn't seem fair to her. That something she wanted was given to someone who couldn't provide what she could. She could have given the child – Eve – so much more. A life of comfort. The child would never want for anything in her care but she perhaps wouldn't have the same amount of love with her. But she would have tried. She would have found a way to give the child the life that she had never had.
The girl needed an operation though. She needed an operation and because of the love she had for the child, the urge to protect her she was refusing and that confused Jac. She couldn't imagine being in a position where she would refuse something because of someone else, but then she thought of the little being and how she had already started to make little changes to the foods she ate and the things she drank because she knew it was better for the life within her. Perhaps the concept wasn't so alien though it had been on a smaller scale.
She moved behind the desk on Darwin and saw the nurse, the would-be father standing writing on the whiteboard. He turned to her, talking of the girl's operation. He had managed to convince the girl, by finding someone to watch the child. He had used the charm to oozed from his very pores and the people skills he was famed for to get the right outcome. It was a skill she didn't have or not in the same way as him. She would go in guns blazing, while he was much softer. He was easier to relate too.
He smiled as he lifted the child in his arms, proclaiming himself as uncle as she clutched in her hand a blown up glove with a drawn on face. A staple for entertaining children. He looked so comfortable with her there and it tore at her heart a little. He would have been a good father, to their baby. She could see it in the way he interacted with her and the way she was so relaxed in his arms. She didn't want to see it, it made her feel all the more mournful for what she had lost. The chance to see him hold their child like that.
She had feared that he wouldn't want the child, that he wouldn't feel ready or able to be a father. Yet seeing him this way was strange. It was like his was ok with holding the child against him, he was relaxed and the experience wasn't something that he wanted to escape from but rather had volunteered for willingly. She knew that he would be able to return this child later to the care of her mother but there was a part of her that wondered now, if given the choice he would want a child that was his for a lifetime.
Only that child – at least with her – no longer existed though she thought, seeing him there, that one day he would be finding another woman; one capable of returning his love and not pushing him away who would give him the children he craved. They would live happily in the house with the roses and the dog and life would be easy because they would be two good people coming together.
But it wasn't just the sight of him with the child that tore at her. It was the knowledge that the surgery was scheduled for 4. The time of the appointment the registrar had booked for her to see Mr Thompson, to confirm what she already knew; that her pregnancy had been miscarried. But if she had it confirmed, then Mo would leave her alone.
She could stop with the pestering and leave her be. She could go back to her friendship with the nurse without having to lie about what she knew. She could forget that they had ever shared secrets, and that even the tenuous bonds of a frenemy-ship had ever existed between them. They could go back to indifference without pity and sympathy and a strange concern for the child of her best friend. A child she probably felt she was godmother too or something equally ridiculous.
She would no longer have to worry about it being let slip, or the nurses reaction. She could go back to pretending there was nothing between them, because the link would be gone. The combining of their genes in to a life had gone. She could go back to kidding herself in to the fact that she no longer loved him; that perhaps she never had. And maybe then it wouldn't hurt quite so much when they were only capable of being civil to each other when she wanted more. Maybe without the extra hormones she could play pretend much more easily, that she could move on from him; though she wasn't sure she wanted too.
She needed to move on from him. She needed her body to stop reacting to him, to needing him. She had pushed him away to protect herself and in the process found herself needing him all the more. She ached for him, though after the words they had shouted at each other she didn't know why. She shouldn't want him, she shouldn't need him. And yet she is sat watching as he carries the child away, chatting to her and acting so natural. And the ache within her increases, for what she has lost – and what he will never know.
But she knows. She knows what she has lost, and it is slowly destroying her. She can't bear the thought of going to the ladies and so instead she is trying not to drink. She doesn't want to see more red staining the white. She just needs to get through this. To get the girl through the surgery so that her daughter can still have a mother, so that they can go home and the child will no longer torment her. So she won't see what she has lost. And most importantly she won't see him with the child, acting as he does with her. She won't have to see him and imagine what could have been. She can force herself to forget, to lock it away in the back of her mind with the other things she doesn't want to think about. She can pretend that she didn't know.
He Knows
The way he appears behind the glass is almost unnerving. He slips in without warning, an apparition only he is very much real. He is waiting for her, she knows that much but she cannot quite work out his expression. Perhaps because her eyes are a little bleary; for which she blames Sacha and the strange emotions coursing through her. She knows she spoke out of turn, she said the wrong things. The words breaking free of her in a rush that she couldn't quite control. But she hadn't known. She hadn't known the torment that her best friend was going through and she hadn't asked. She hadn't enquired about his daughter because her head had been in another place.
He was waiting for her outside of the theatre and she felt her heart rate increase. It was outside of the theatres they had spoken that day. When they had shouted words in anger, when she had been scared and in pain and struggling with an imaginary door slamming shut. They had stood and she had watched as the only good thing she had left in her life had slipped away. She had pushed it away, forced it though she had known it was wrong. She had wanted him to fight against it.
"So I assume it's mine?" he was pacing a little as he spoke, nervous. She didn't want to do this. Not now and not here. It was too public here and she was so close to her breaking point. She needed quiet, to get away from it. She tries to walk away from him, she has too. She can't do this, he doesn't need to know now, and yet he is persistent in his questioning as if he expects that she has some sort of plan to keep this hidden and away from him, like she already has things sorted in her head when in reality she is barely clinging on. There is no plan. There is nothing now.
"It's over, it was a false alarm" she speaks, carefully. She doesn't want him to realise how she is feeling though a false alarm doesn't really say what has happened. A false alarm implies that it never was, but she knows the being existed. That for a time it was alive within her but that now it is gone. But to him, it is over before it has even begun.
"How do you know?" he asks and she can understand why he needs to know but she doesn't want to talk about it. She doesn't want to think about it, though it is the only thing on her mind.
"I've been bleeding" she whispers the words, they don't get any easier to say. He is like the registrar and wants more information, he doesn't seem to understand that she knows her own body and the fact that it is gone, that it is over. She wishes people would accept that she knows her own body, that she understands it better than anybody else. The mechanics of it she can explain in perfect detail, the inner workings but she can also explain every scar – both the physical and the emotional. She knows her body, though she cannot trust it. She cannot even trust herself anymore because her body has failed in even it's most basic task.
She talks of the future she imagined, the what if this hadn't happened. The idea of what they could have had and she watches his face. He does not protest against it, and she doesn't understand. He hasn't thrown it back in her face and that almost causes the pain to strike her double. So she says words that almost kill her, that it is better this way. That that future isn't the one they are destined to have, that it shouldn't be. But there is still an ache for it.
He tells her to take a test and she's scared. It's almost like he has hope that she is wrong but she cannot afford that hope. She cannot afford the disappointment that will come if the test result is negative though she isn't sure how she will react if it is positive either. But it is the negative outcome that scares her the most. That she will have to accept that it is definitely gone. She knows that she probably wouldn't have gone to see Mr T. She would have found some excuse to get out of it. She would have trusted herself and what she already knew, because having it confirmed wouldn't make any difference. It wouldn't fix her womb and it wouldn't bring back the child. All it meant was more words written in her notes, probably a sticker added to alert future medical professionals that she had, had a miscarriage. She would be scanned, to see her empty womb, forced to confront it to ensure that everything had passed and that she wouldn't have to go in to surgery. She would rather deal with it herself, in private. Where she could mourn in her own way for the dream.
But he needs her to take a test, he needs it from her and she cannot help but feel that maybe she owes him a little. That he needs to see it for himself, to know that the tie to her has been severed even though he didn't know of its existence when it was there.
She is saved by Oliver. Saved by the grieving young doctor, and the young girl on the ward. She has been scornful of the girl though only because she has been able to relate to her far more than she should. Their lives so similar and yet so different; for the girl has someone, someone to love and to love her. But she has saved her and given her the chance to walk away from the conversation – because patients come first. Patients are her priority ; not taking a test when the answer is predetermined. And so she is able to walk away from him, for now. For now she can escape; though she knows it is a brief reprieve and that later she will be confronted again; but later is not now and she'll deal with it then.
Realisation
She is stood holding an unfamiliar instrument in her hand, it is not her tool of choice; the scalpel she usually wields with such confidence. Instead she holds within her hand the shaver, with which she will remove her best friend's hair. She tries to imagine him bald, but she can't. Her beautiful Sacha, the bear of a man; her best friend. He is doing this for his daughter. He is doing this in support of her and that is something that unnerves her, to be able to take such radical action for someone else. To change your appearance for them, because their own appearance will change. She can't imagine what she would do in his shoes, if she would be able to cut off her mane of fiery hair. The hair she occasionally hides behind, which she pulls tight to give her a sharper appearance. The hair which is so characteristic of her. She thinks that he would have been able to do it. That Jonny would have been able to do it for their child. She couldn't imagine him either without his curly brown hair that he sometimes struggled to control. She could see him now, waking up with his hair wild and out of control. She can't imagine him bald, any more than she can her best friend.
She brings the device to his hair and runs it along, watching as the clumps of hair come away, as they slip from his shoulders to the floor. As a child she probably would have enjoyed this, playing hairdresser. She was certain that she had once had a doll, with the most beautiful long hair which she had hacked away. Not realising that it wouldn't grow back, because the doll was not living. She had been sad then, for what she had done to that doll; for the loss of it's beauty.
She questions his motivates, of why he would do such a thing to himself. She doesn't quite understand it, and he talks of how pre-children, you could talk of throwing yourself under a bus for your child and of how he had questioned that statement himself. She thinks she understands. The fact that she isn't sure she would be able to do absolutely anything for a child; to protect it. To sacrifice yourself for another is a concept alien to her. In her world, self-preservation seems to be key but something in his words makes her wonder, if his own sentiment has changed. He tells her that now he would do it in a heartbeat but she can't believe it is a sentiment shared by the world, she thinks it's just him; because he is Sacha and his heart is pure gold – though she does wonder if there is some teddy bear stuffing in there as well. He talks of being a parent, of how it is impossible to imagine and she wonders how it can differ from her own imaginings; what else she has lost. He speaks of it so fondly, that it makes the longing hurt that little bit more.
She pauses, twirling strands of his shorn hair in her fingers. There is a brief moment of ease between them, of slight laughter as she tells him how he is looking. She feels at ease with him, and she loves him for it. He is one of the people who can make her smile, and make her feel and who she doesn't try to fight it with. She allows herself to be real with him, because somehow he draws it out of her.
She speaks out loud one of her biggest fears, though she poses it as a question not related to herself. The having of a child and discovering that you don't have it. Though she doesn't quite know what it is. It is what she had feared most with this pregnancy, with the idea of continuing with it. That she would discover that she was one of those people, as she suspected. That she would discover it too late, when the child was already here and would have to suffer a life with her.
She cannot see his face, and he cannot see hers and for that she is glad. He tells her that she has it. He lists her traits, things that she would perhaps have seen as negatives as positives in relation to it. Though maybe he does not know her as well as she thinks. He tells her she is scared of nothing and she knows the truth is far harder to swallow. She is scared of so very much. Scared of things which seem little and insignificant, and scared of those that are big and imposing. Scared of the internal and external. Though she doesn't show it. She doesn't show the fear. Still the idea of having it brings the smallest of smiles to her lips. The idea that perhaps one day she could do it, if the imaginary door doesn't swing totally shut.
He thinks she would be a brilliant parent and the idea startles her a little. She had thought that aiming for decent would be her best bet, anything more a bonus for her child. He has more faith in her than she does. He speaks of a tiny Naylor and she thinks that one was very nearly born. There very nearly was a tiny Naylor – though it would have had a sprinkling of Maconie as well. It would have been an interesting mix. And it saddens her that she won't get to see it.
She gently kisses the top of his head and pats his shoulder, a gesture of affection. Somewhat out of character but it feels right and she feels tears filling her eyes. She prepares herself, and she starts up again. Watching as she removes the rest of his hair from his head. She hates seeing the way it lines the floor, so much of it. So much of him, falling away. So much of her is coming away as well, slipping away as a tiny being becomes detached.
"How far gone are you?" He asks the question carefully, not sure if he expects her to answer him honestly but he knows. He can see the difference in her, in the way he felt her react behind him. The hand on his shoulder stills but she doesn't stop her task until she is finished. Until all of his hair is gone and she is certain that she has enough control to talk.
"I was 5 weeks and 3 days" she answers. She had known exactly and she had calculated in her own head the day her child would have been due. It would have been a new years day baby. A new year, a new start and a new life. It could have arrived earlier perhaps at Christmas. It would have been fitting with his anti-christ comment but now there doesn't need to be a due date.
"Was?" he questions her gently, wondering what she means by that. Whether she has done something that he thinks she'll regret, or the other – that the child had been lost.
"I've been bleeding" she repeats those words but they don't get any easier. As she speaks them, she still sees the shine of red before her eyes. She feels the bile rising in her throat again at the thought. He turns round now to look at her, and she sees his altered appearance. It breaks her heart a little, to see the physical change he was willing to undergo for his child.
"And you've been checked over?" The concern in his voice touches her and she feels a tear slip down her cheek as she shakes her head a little. This is her Sacha, and she needs to be strong for him because of what he is going through. He shouldn't be looking out for her now.
"I know it's over Sacha" she whispers, she doesn't need a test to confirm it. She doesn't need anything more than her own intuition. She is a doctor, she knows. "I have endometriosis, I knew it was highly likely but I hoped, or at least I think I hoped, that it would cling on" she speaks quickly and Sacha takes hold of her hand in his. "Jonny wants me to do a test, to be sure but I'm so scared. To see it for definite"
"You know some bleeding can be normal Jac – Helen had bleeding with both girls and you've seen the girls you know they're" he pauses he can't quite bring himself to say the word, to say that they are fine because his darling Rachael isn't fine, not now but he sees the gleam in Jac's eyes as she hears the unspoken word. She hadn't quite wanted to believe it when Mo had said the words, but there was something about Sacha that made her think, that cause a bud of hope, though part of her wanted to push it away.
"The endometriosis though, my risk is so high and good things, they don't happen to me" she felt the tears running down her cheeks but she couldn't bring herself to pull her hands away from her friend's grasp to wipe them away. She needed to feel. For once she needed to feel this. She felt Sacha squeezing her hand.
"You're a good person, Jac; you just can't see it or you force yourself not too. You listen to the wrong people and believe them" She knows he is genuine, that he isn't just lying to make her feel better but still her head doesn't want her to believe. "I know it's hard, but Jonny's right. You need to know. With Helen, I remember sitting with her waiting for a scan, to know. We sat clutching each-others hands while a sonographer probed her abdomen and then we saw it the flickering heart of our daughter, and the knowledge that she was alive. I don't think I've ever been so relieved as I was in that moment"
"And if it's negative, if it is gone?" She asks, using if. Her words having slipped from the definite to the possibility. The idea that maybe she will be lucky for once. It is just a bit of spotting, it is normal. It isn't her being broken and damaged, her womb failing.
"I don't know" he answers honestly, but he can see it in her. He is almost sure of the results "But I know you, you'll find a way of coping, of dealing with it. But you need to let him in, Jac, you need to let him in" He thinks of his own wife, of the secrets between them and he is normally open. It'll be doubly hard for Jac but he knows she needs to do it. She nods and gives him just the smallest smile.
"Thank you" she whispers, her voice small and quiet. Sacha gives her a smile in return "Well Humpty Dumpty, you've got some kids to go scare and I've" she pauses and takes a deep breath, like a teenager before an exam "got a test to take"
Honest
She has the test stick in her pocket. It's not the one she would usually have gone for; one of the digital ones from the pharmacy or the supermarket but one slipped in to her pocket, borrowing it from the hospital supply cupboard. One of the ones with the little lines that appear, and not a word confirming your fate. It weighs heavily as she walks through the too quiet ward, even the child cannot be heard.
She spots her target. He's sitting in the charge nurse's office and she is relieved to see he appears to be alone. The child is obviously spending time with her mother before surgery, or maybe she's having a nap. She isn't quite sure what four – she thinks Eve is four at least – year olds do. She thinks she understands what babies need and toddlers but there's that strange age before they have started school but aren't quite toddlers anymore that is currently confusing here. But that is a long way off yet – and still may not even happen.
She walks towards the office, the weight of the stick makes each movement seem harder. It's a lead weight growing steadily heavier. She opens the door and he turns to her. She cannot quite read his expression, there is something strange about his eyes and she wonders if he has been planning his next move.
"I have a test" She tells him quietly. She is scared of doing this and she thinks he understands that. There is something like concern in his face, as if perhaps he cares about her – or maybe it is simply for the being who may or may not still be alive.
"And you've?" he questions her, he appears to be expecting her to answer and she shakes her head. She feels the shape of the stick through the material of her uniform, and tries to imagine herself viewing the result on the little window. She cannot bear to do it alone, she isn't sure she'll be able to bring herself to look when the time comes. There's a part of her that needs him there, that needs him to be strong for her.
"I thought maybe you" she trails off, not entirely sure what she wants to say, or how to phrase it. It's difficult to admit you need someone to be with you, that you can't quite do something alone. He raises an eyebrow, a look of disbelief and she isn't sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Is he surprised that she would want him there or is surprise at the fact she is weak? She isn't sure that she wants to know.
"You want me to come with you?" He sounds surprised and she watches as he swallows hard, "You mean in to the ladies?!" he adds with a slight exclamation and a part of her is tempted to smile. She hadn't quite thought that part through that he would have to enter somewhat 'forbidden' territory in order to be with her.
"You scared of getting caught?" she teases him a little, and she twists her lips. Her head tells her that this isn't right, that this should be awkward and yet it had felt so natural. A shadow passes over his face and she wonders for a second, if he has mistaken her words for something hurtful but then he rolls his eyes and he gives her a smile.
"No, not scared; okay maybe just a little" he laughs a little, at the idea of it. What people would think if they found him in thee, would they assume he had a girl in the cubicle, would they question him or simply walk away? He knew if got caught it would be around the hospital in minutes that Maconie had been loitering in the ladies toilets.
"It'll barely be four minutes, and" she blinks a little and looks away from him "I'm doing this for you so you should really be there" she hopes he can read more in to those words, that he knows she needs him there, that she wants him to be there. He nods, it's a short period of time. The chances of being caught are slim. And part of him knows that if she is asking, it's a good sign and he would be stupid to do anything to push her away.
They walk quietly together, he is slightly ahead of her and she watches him. She studies the way he holds himself and the way he moves easily. Despite his apprehension at being caught in the ladies, he doesn't seem to show reluctance now. His head his held high and his back straight. She knows that she is hunched, that she appears much less relaxed. She knows everything rests on the little stick in her pocket, on whether she'll see one line or two. That little stick has so much power of her life.
He holds the door open for her to walk in to the toilets and she is slightly touched by that, though she tries to push it away. She doesn't want to get emotional now, she needs to be strong and clear minded. She can react later, she can cry later. There is still such a large part of her that is expecting this to end badly, that there will only be one line.
She steps away from him and towards the first cubicle, pausing for a moment as a cold sensation washes over her. She may not even need to do the test. The proof could already be lying in wait, the red on the white. She had almost forgotten that she would need to confront that sight again. She steels herself and knows that she has to do this. She slips inside and bolts the door.
She lowers her clothing and looks for a second, spotting but nothing more and she dares for a second to hope. She does the test, and she rests it on the toilet roll dispenser for a moment as she readies herself to leave. She looks at the little window, the still blank window and wonders what outcome she wants to see. She tries to imagine the lines there. She picks it up and exits. She has to face this.
He is leaning nervously, expectantly waiting for her and he sounds like he wants an instantaneous result. She thinks he should know better. She washes her hands quickly and picks up the stick once again. He tries to give her the speech, the one that seems so common in soppy movies and the like but she doesn't want to hear it. She can't hear it. She can tell he's nervous and she wonders if he knows that she feels the same way. He doesn't know how much she has riding on this, the chance of a miracle. Her one shot. She taps the stick on the palm of her hand impatient, trying to speed up the process, as if the movement will make the line, or lines, appear quicker. So that it'll be over with quicker. Her heart is racing in her chest.
He snatches the stick away from her, holds it in his own hands. Without it, her hands feel restless and she isn't sure what to do with them. And yet perhaps it is for the best that he has taken control, he has taken charge. She won't have to look. He can do it for her.
"Whatever happens here there is a way of making it work. Alright, we are not together and this is nobody's idea of an ideal situation but we're grownups, right? And, well in a lot of ways this might be exactly what we need" he speaks quickly and she tries to keep track of his words, to understand what exactly he is saying. She thinks it means he'll support her, that he isn't going to reject her or them – if there is another person involved in this. And yet there is something else, he said whatever happens there is a way of making it – does that mean that if the test gives a negative answer that there is still something between them? She isn't sure.
"This is the last thing we need" she tells him, though a part of her dies as she says those words. She knows that it is probably true of their situation, that it is so very far from perfect. But there is the part of her that wants this, that wants this child to still be with her.
"Stop; okay just stop fighting so hard, you have nothing to prove to me" he speaks again and she is certain that the words are genuine but she isn't sure they are right. She has so very much to prove to him, to prove that she isn't the person he sees her as and that perhaps she is worthy of loving, of good. She has to prove that she needs and wants him, that she needs and wants the child. There is so much she needs to prove, the words spin around her mind. He had already proved today that he was capable of being with children, of caring for them but he hadn't seen the same of her. He had seen her try to push the child away, to get rid of her. He would have seen her as lacking in maternal instinct, skills which should have come so naturally. He had seen her as a cold clinician and not a human. Though then he hadn't known her inner turmoil, the red glow of her world. Now though if this was too be, she would have to try all the harder to live up to the prospect of being a mother in order to match him.
She sees him look down, his gaze landing on the little window and she knows, that he knows the result. The lines have appeared before him and her fate is sealed. He looks up at her and she is expectant. She is sure of what he is going to say, the little bead of hope seems to be ebbing away from her and she is waiting to hear the word. To perhaps see sadness and regret in his eyes, maybe even concern for her. She hopes there won't be sympathy because she cannot face that.
"Alright, for once in your life be honest with me; what do you want this to say?" he is watching her, she thinks he is judging her and she pauses. She isn't sure of the answer she should give; the one which is honest, the one which she thinks he wants to hear, the one that she believes to be true. She isn't sure which answer should be spoken, whether they options are actually independent of each other or whether they are one and the same. She looks in to his eyes.
"I don't know" she says softly and she thinks that is perhaps the most honest answer she is capable of giving but his eyes are probing and she knows he needs more than that. He needs to understand her thinking and her reasoning. She thinks that she wants both outcomes, in some ways. If it were negative, it would in some ways splinter her heart leaving it more scarred but perhaps it would be for the best. The child wouldn't be born in to this mess of a situation and she would have to accept that she had indeed lost her child. But if it was positive, then she would be a mother in around eight months. She would have her chance. Both outcomes scare her.
"You don't have to be scared, Jac" She feels her eyes dart upwards and she realises that she must have spoken out loud. She isn't sure how much she has said, but it worries her that she was so lost in her mind that words had slipped from her mouth, "we'll do this together ok?"
"Do this?" she questions, not quite understanding, he has glanced down at the test in his hands again before his eyes return to hers and he gives her a very small, but very real smile.
"Be parents" he answers "it's positive Jac" he tells her realising that she needs to hear the word properly that her mind won't accept it otherwise. Be parents, she thinks about that. It sounds strange and alien and yet it's real. She's still pregnant. It's going to happen.
"It's definitely positive?" she knows she should just listen to him, but she is scared. "It's a proper line, not just a faint one?" she thinks maybe this is another cruel trick, a joke played on her. That maybe the second line is just a ghost line, perhaps caused by the traces of HCG still in her system; the number not quite having fallen below the level needed to register on the test because the miscarriage was still so recent. Or it could be a slight run of dye caused by the movement of her hands, the way she had drummed it. She is still so scared.
"Look at it Jac" He commands her, turning the stick in his hand so that she can see clearly the two lines, both very definitely in the viewing window. The line is thick and bold and she sees it blurring before her eyes, it is still there. Her baby is still inside of her. She closes her eyes, not wanting him to see her cry.
She is relieved. It surprises her, how overwhelming the relief is. She feels his hand take hold of hers and squeeze it gently. The other for a moment brushing over her abdomen before it falls away. She hears the bleep of her pager in her pocket and she knows she has to break the moment. That she has to push away the feelings, in order to save the girl. She opens her eyes and looks in to his face, and she thinks perhaps she sees relief there too.
The Best Thing?
They were going to do this. She was sat in the staff room, the girl's operation had gone well enough and they had confirmed to each other that they were going to do this; though to those in the theatre the two short sentences were, probably, presumed to be related to the surgery. Still she had felt the hint of a smile playing at her lips as she realised that he was ready and he wasn't going to reject her. Though he still didn't know everything. He still didn't know why she had pushed him away in the first place, and why even now she was terrified that she would lose everything. She hears the sound of footsteps and looks up to see him there, smiling.
"I'm gonna be a dad" he says as he steps closer to her, a slight twinkle in her eyes as he does so. She feels a tugging at her lips as she thinks of it, his realisation, "and you're gonna be a mum" he adds. She watches as he settles in to the seat next to her, not even bothering to make himself a drink.
"What if it goes wrong?" she asks softly, feeling the tears welling in her eyes again. She has been fighting them for so much of the day that she is certain it is only a matter of time before they burst free. He blinks, and takes hold of her hands in his.
"Don't think like that" he tells her. He doesn't want to think of the bad things now. It's not perfect, but he knows that very little is. Even a situation that looks that way has imperfections. This is a new start for them and maybe it'll only lead to them being friends; friends bonded together by a life they created together.
"What if I'm not a good enough mum?" she questions, looking out past him. She doesn't exactly have a good role model in that area, "what if I don't even get that chance?" she adds. And he blinks. He doesn't understand, sometimes, the way her mind works. There are so many demons in there and defences; a constant battle.
"This is your chance Jac" he tells her, guiding one of her hands to her abdomen. He holds it there and smiles at her "this is both of our chance Jac, to be parents and we'll learn together one step at a time" she feels the tears spill from her eyes, and she hears him gasp at her show of emotion. She turns her head a little, not quite wanting him to see but seeing no real point in hiding either. She feels his arms come around her, pulling her against his chest. She allows him to hold her, feeling safe in his arms.
"I'm at a higher risk of losing" she can't complete the sentence as she feels a sob escape from her lips. She nestles further against his body and feels his grasp around her tighten, "I have endometriosis. I might destroy it" the words tumble from her lips and she feels them filling the air. They hang heavy around her; pressing down on her, stealing her breath away.
"We can take precautions and I'll look after you, protect you" he whispers, trying to calm the sobbing woman in his arms. The words are almost too much for him, he thinks back over the weeks. His mind troubled as he realises when she found out, and what had happened following that. "That's my job now"
"I can look after myself; I've been doing it long enough" she speaks in to the material of his top, unable to pull away from him. She wishes the moment could last forever, him holding her but she knows that soon they will move apart and they will return to their separate lives. They will come together for things related to their child, but she fears they will remain apart; there is too much water under the bridge.
"Then maybe it's time you let someone else have a go" he responds, running his hands over her back, he wonders briefly just how long she has been these way; fiercely independent, looking out for herself. He thinks over the day, the patient. How she had fought against the idea of social services being involved. He thinks of how she reacted, the words spoken and how there had been so very much left unsaid. His mind races out of control as he realises that Jac understands the girl far too much, because she is the girl – the grown up version only without the love of the toddler. "You were abandoned weren't you like Lou?" he asks it so quietly and he expects the rebuff. He expects her to pull away and to disappear.
"I was 12, when she walked out on me" she tells him "when she left physically; emotionally I don't know that I ever had her, I don't remember her ever telling me she loved me" she sounds a little mournful and he feels tears fill his eyes for the younger version of the woman he holds, for the life she has lead. Her sobs have quietened now.
"Oh Jac" He says the words so quietly, his mind overcome by the shocks of the day, of what has made this woman the way she is and his overwhelming desire to keep her safe. To protect her from anything more. She shifts against him and she pulls back enough to be able to see his face. The glisten in his eyes. She knows she must look a state but she doesn't really care anymore. She needs to be open with him.
"I don't think anyone has said those words to me and meant them" she tilts her head a little as she studies his face "even you never said them but I meant it when I told you" she speaks honestly and she wonders when the last time she did this was. Even to herself she tries to keep up the lies, and half-truths.
"You think I didn't love you?" He asks, a little affronted by this, although as he thinks back he knows that she is right, he never said those words; or at least not in a serious way. He had once shouted Love You out of the car window when they had been keeping the relationship secret, just before she had been late but he hadn't told her properly that he loved her. He had assumed she'd known, that he didn't need to state them; that saying three little words wasn't of that much importance to her. Now he realised how scarce and precious those words would have been to her.
"I thought you loved me, but you never said and love it isn't something I'm well versed in so I could have mistaken it" she speaks so quickly and she sounds so much younger, so much more fragile. Knowing what it is to feel loved is something that she knows very little. Sacha loves her, she knows that much though it is a different type of love. He is probably one of the few people she has truly known it with and he trusts her. He trusts that she is able to do this. But Sacha doesn't know everything.
"I did love you" He says the words and he sees the flicker of sadness in her eyes, he has used the past tense. When there was love, he hadn't told her and now, now she didn't know how he felt. He squeezes her hands, "Jac I still love you" he tells her but she isn't sure if she quite believes him. She knows her own feelings but she is struggling to read his. She thinks that he is saying them only because of the baby, because he thinks it is the right things to do and not because he means them.
"If I screw this up Jonny" she pushes away from the topic of love, she can't handle that any longer. She wonders if he knows how much she had wanted to hear those words before, and she thinks that perhaps things could have been different if he had said them and meant them. Maybe she would have been able to trust him, perhaps she would have told him the truth instead of pushing him away.
"You won't, we won't" he tries to smile but he feels lost against the tide of her mind again. He wonders how she is able to swim against the riptide of her thoughts because he is struggling "We'll be doing it together, and if one of us slips the other is there to catch them. We'll take it one day, one moment at a time"
"I don't" she pauses, not sure where she is headed or what she even wants to say. Everything is blurred and confused and she is certain in this moment even the simplest of questions would probably fox her.
"Y'know I'm gonna stay right?" he asks though she knows he isn't expecting an answer "sweetheart, I'm gonna be so stuck you're gonna be sick o' the sight of me and I'm still no' gonna budge, no' even if you break every bone in my body, shout at me until your voice is hoarse and push me so hard that you see me teeter on the cliff face. Face it, Jac you're stuck with me now" he is grinning and a part of her wants to smile as well.
"We have to take it slowly, though" she tells him, and although she sees a flash of disappointment in his eyes, he nods in agreement, "daddy" , "daddy" she adds, smiling just a little at the sound of the word on her lips. Her baby already has something more than she did, and she is glad of that. Her child is already better off.
"Baby steps" he agrees, placing a palm flat against her abdomen and places a gently kiss on her forehead. Not quite the kisses that used to pass between them, but a sign of something more. The tenuous beginnings of a new relationship.
She hopes it'll work this time. That taking things slowly will allow them to grow together, as the child inside of her grows. She knows they have done things quickly in the past, too quickly and the relationship shattered, though the feelings had remained. She couldn't afford that to happen again. But then again, she had never taken time before to grow to trust the person; to learn their stories and secrets and to allow them to learn hers. Her relationships were usually built quickly and destroyed just as fast. She entered them in destruction mode but this time was different. This time needed to be different, because it was no longer just her. She had something worth fighting for, and someone she trusted alongside. She isn't quite sure how this is going to work, the logistics of how they will raise this child but there is a little bead of hope for the future between them. She places her hand over his, over their child. This isn't the ideal scenario, but maybe – perhaps even a strong maybe – this little being is going to be the best thing to happen to both of them.