He'd be lying if he said that part of him was glad it happened the way it did. It didn't mean that it hurt any less, but the decision was made for them.
It was months ago that they lost the baby, but it seemed like it was still so fresh in their heads and in their hearts. She wasn't talking about it to anyone, and he figured that if she wasn't talking he didn't have to. Peyton was his sounding board, the one he always went to with anything that he was feeling. But this… this was a Haley problem, which is exactly where he took it.
"Okay, Hales… you've got to help me on this, cause you know me, and you know how I deal with things. I can't help her." He says, looking up to the sky as if his best friend was going to materialize in front of him to fix all of his problems.
"When the doctors said that there was a chance of losing her or losing the baby anyways, I thought about it… ending it. Then I wouldn't have to worry about any of it. More importantly, I wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of losing her. Can you believe that I was actually that selfish?... Yeah, I know, Peyton said that I was being a dick too. I just can't seem to shake it now. Peyton isn't back to her normal self, and we lost the baby months ago. I just can't talk to her about it anymore. Well, not even anymore, because I think that we never did talk about it. God, Haley, we were so excited for another baby. Jamie is amazing as a big brother, and Baley is… well, Baley is living up to her namesakes, because I swear that she is a little mom, just like you were, but she's got the bite of attitude that Brooke has too. I think that Peyton knew it right off the bat when we had her, but I'm grateful for that. But now… I know that we want another baby. I know that we do, but we can't even be in the same room together without it being awkward. And it's me and Peyton… you know us… we could sit without a word for hours. I just… I need some help."
With a final look to the sky, and a gentle hand to the headstone in front of him and the one next to it, he got back into his car and headed back home.
It was just as he left it earlier that morning, quiet and peaceful, but he could hear Jamie in Baley's room whispering while he kept her entertained until either Peyton or I woke up.
"You are the best big brother in the entire world, you know that?"
He just smiles, looking over at Lucas with a flash of pride in his eyes, then turning his attention back to Baley, who was holding her hands out for her father.
"Is Peyton up?" he asks, picking up the little girl.
"No, I think she's still sleeping… do you think she'd like us to make her breakfast?"
"I think that is a great idea Jamie Scott." He says, high fiving his nephew and walking quietly down the hall to prepare the breakfast.
"Can I go wake her up?" he asks, after setting the table.
"Be nice about it…" he says with a warning tone, knowing that Jamie's preferred method of waking him up when he is told is to jump up and down on the bed next to him.
He nods, knowing exactly how he wakes up his Aunt… their own secret.
Climbing up into the bed with her, he moves so he is facing her, and whispers out to her softly, "Mom…"
She scrunches her face up, not opening her eyes or moving an inch from her comfortable spot in the bed, so he calls out to her again, "Mom? We made breakfast…"
A small smile forms on her face then, and she lets one eye slip open, taking in the face before her. "Waffles?"
"French Toast AND pancakes…"
"Good mix." She says with an impressed tone.
"Good cooks." He says back to her with satisfaction.
"Where did your Uncle Lucas go this morning?"
"I think he went to see Momma… but he didn't tell me."
"Is your sister up?"
"Yeah, I was playing with her this morning while you were asleep."
She reaches out to caress his cheek in a gesture that tells him that she appreciates how good he is to the little girl.
"I suppose that I have to get up now don't I?" she says, sitting up in the bed.
"Only if you want food…"
"Well, I do want some food, but I need to freshen up a bit. Can I join you in a minute?"
He looks at her for a few seconds, taking in her morning appearance, just awoken and smiling at him. "I think you're fine, but we'll wait for you."
She smiles at him again, knowing that he is the only person who can get her to really smile anymore aside from her little girl. "What am I going to do with you?"
"Love me forever?"
"Already livin' it, kid."
He laughs and gets out of the bed, leaving her there to collect herself, before turning back to watch her for a minute. She takes a little bit each morning now, just sitting up in bed and letting things process for a bit. She looks up first and then rubs a hand across still sleepy eyes before allowing the same hand to fall to her stomach for a lingering beat. He noticed it before, but never said anything, knowing that it was something that he wasn't really supposed to talk about. They told him what had happened in the simplest of terms, and he had been upset at the loss of his new baby brother or sister, but after all he had lost before, he knew that it would be okay.
"Hey, Mom?" he asks, quietly, startling her a bit.
"Yeah, Jamie…"
"It's going to be okay." He says with a wisdom far beyond his nearly eleven year existence.
She cocks her head toward the door in a gesture that tells him to hurry up and go get his breakfast, but it's with a smile on her face, so he knows that it's okay.
Then she processes for a little bit more before getting up and joining her family.
"How'd you sleep?" Lucas asks, putting a hand on her back as he leaned over to give her a plate full of food.
"Good… you were gone this morning."
"Did I wake you up?"
"Not really, I just felt you leave."
"I went for a walk."
"Oh." She says, not inquiring more than that… leaving it on the table but obviously not wanting to talk about anything else.
"So, what should we plan to do today?"
"Can we go to the park for a little while? The one that's by Aunt Brooke's house with the skate park?"
"That sounds like a good plan! We can go after Baley's nap and bring some lunch." Lucas says, trying to make a day out of the suggestion. "Peyton?"
"Yeah… that sounds like a good idea." She says softly, seemingly not convinced.
"Sweet!" Jamie says, jumping up out of his seat to clear off his plate.
So the day went on as the small family made their way to the park down the street. It was Jamie's favorite place, and was immediately found right after they moved into the new house.
Jamie skated while Lucas took Baley over to the swings for a while.
Peyton sat. Always an observer of people, she sat, watching her family members go on with everything. If she was lying, she would say that she was fine, that she was totally over it. If she was being honest, she let her mind drift every time she processed what day it was. Beating herself up, she would mentally calculate how long she would have had until that baby would be born.
She knew that it wasn't what she should be doing, and it killed her every time, but she still did it anyway, feeling the pang of emptiness as she thought of the child that only lasted four months inside of her before finding its way somewhere else.
Then she heard it. The unmistakable sound of bone cracking, and then the blood curtling scream of her child.
"MOM!"
That was all it took for her to snap out of it, as she sprinted towards the screaming boy, and looked back to see Lucas also running towards them with Baley.
"Jamie, honey, what's wrong?" she says, reaching him and trying to figure out what hurt and what they needed to do.
He rolled over and she saw the awkward angle of his arm and knew that he had broken it.
"Luke!" she calls her husband over, "We've got to get him to the hospital. I'm pretty sure that it's broken."
Handing his daughter over, he picks the young boy up, walking as quickly as he can to the SUV that they had just bought this past year in anticipation of a bigger family. Laying him down in the back seat, he moves to the driver's side door as Peyton is strapping Baley into her car seat and then going into the back with Jamie, whose cries are still hiccupping sobs.
"It's okay, baby, I'm here… I've got you." She says, stroking his hair in a comforting gesture.
"You ready?" Lucas calls from the front and she nods.
They make their way to the hospital in record time, probably faster than the day she went into labor, but it still didn't seem fast enough.
When they pulled into the hospital drive, Lucas got out to get him out of the car and they were met by a nurse with a wheelchair. After placing him in the wheelchair, Peyton got out, claiming that she would got park the car and bring Baley in.
"No!" Jamie says through his tears.
"Okay, I'm coming." She says, not blinking once.
"I'll park and I'll call mom, and see if she can come get the baby." He says quickly as she nods while walking away with the little boy.
Hours later, sitting in the hospital after his bone was set and the pain had subsided, she waits with him.
"You can't ever do something like that to me again."
"I don't think I ever want to." He says, shaking his head as she lets a small smile curve at her lips at the boy's innocent honesty over the situation.
"I mean you scared me Jamie! I can't lose you…"
"I won't skateboard ever again… I promise." He says with the most serious tone he can muster.
She chuckles a bit to herself and strokes his hair before planting a kiss on his forehead. Then she holds onto him, for reasons purely selfish on her part.
She meant what she said about losing him. After the year they had, she knew that something so tragic would have made her come undone. She also knew that she might be being a tad over dramatic at having those thoughts, but she figured that she had the right. So she held onto him a little tighter than she needed to, and he completely understood every second of the gesture.
"Mom?"
"Yeah?" she says, pulling back from him.
"You aren't going to lose me."
"Jamie, I know that honey, you just scared me."
"I know…" he says, thinking for a minute about the situation, "Can I tell you something?"
"Anything."
"Do you know why I call you Mom?" he asks, seemingly out of the blue.
She has actually never questioned the endearment. It was never spoken of after that Mother's Day nearly four years ago. He always referred to her as Mom when talking to Baley, and in the moments when it Is just them. She never thought to question it, even though it meant the world to her.
"Why?"
"After Momma and Daddy died, you and Uncle Lucas came in to take care of me, and it made it all easier. I knew that you guys loved me and I knew that you loved them. Uncle Lucas is a lot like Daddy, probably because they're brothers, but you've always reminded me of Momma. You're silly all the time, and you're happy, but you can be serious when I need you to be, and I can tell how much you love me. Even when Baley was born, you made me feel like I was important to you and that you loved me."
"I do love you, Jamie."
"I know. I just thought that you deserved it. My real mom and dad are always going to be my Momma and my Daddy. You told me that you wouldn't replace them, but you and Uncle Lucas can be my Mom and my Dad, and I think that's okay."
"It is more than okay."
"You're the best Mom ever, Aunt Peyton. To me, and to Baley. I know you've been sad, and I know that you and Uncle Lucas wanted to have another baby…but even if you don't want to any more. You'll still be my Mom. Okay?" he says, ending his thought and looking at her for a reaction.
"You know what, Jamie?" she says finally, with a tear in her eye. "I think that you have a lot more of your Uncle Lucas in you than you think, because I don't think I've ever heard such perfect words."
He smiles back at her and they go back to sitting in silence, waiting for the casting and then discharging that comes with the broken arm that he now sported.
When Lucas came to get them, he noticed a change in her. A weight had been lifted, and when he placed the little boy in the car to drive him home, he just whispered in his ears, "She's okay now, Dad."
His eyebrows went up at the endearment, but he, like Peyton, didn't question it, and smiled down at the young boy who was so much more than just a nephew to him.
Lucas understood the meaning behind his words later that night, as he lay in bed with his wife, and she finally started talking.
"I think that I want to try again." She says, quietly after they had been laying there for a few minutes in the dark.
"For another baby?" he says, knowing full well that is what she meant.
"Yeah."
"Are we going to talk about this?"
She knew that he wasn't referring to the idea of trying again, but what had happened before, so she started with a sincere thought that broke him a little more than he expected, "I thought that it was my fault."
"Peyton…"
"I know now that it wasn't. It never was, and there was nothing that I could do about it, but I just felt like it was my fault that something happened. Even before we lost him, and the doctor said that there was a problem, I blamed myself. And then I didn't let you in…" she says, turning to face him and reaching across to touch his cheek in the most intimate gesture they had shared in months.
"I understood."
She shakes her head at that, "But, I still shouldn't have done it. I just thought that I was a bad mother. That I couldn't have that baby… I thought that maybe God had decided that I wasn't really cut out for this..."
"Peyton, you are the most amazing mother, and I don't think that Jamie or Baley could ask for a better woman to claim as their Mom."
"Jamie got it today…"
"He really is more insightful than he should be at this age." Lucas says, and feels the bed shake at her giggle in response. "But, he usually knows what he's talking about."
"That he does. You know what he said to me today?"
"Hmm?"
"He said that Nathan and Haley are always going to be his Momma and Daddy, but that we were a great Mom and Dad."
"Is that why he called me Dad in the car today?"
She nods, as she feels his arm come over her and pull her in closer to him.
"So, you want to try again?"
"I love being a Mom, Luke… I never knew that I would love it this much, and I just…" she starts and then pauses to think for a minute, "… yeah, I do."
"I would be more than okay with that…" he says in a suggestive tone reeking of innuendo.
"Well, I didn't think that you would complain about the process." She says laughing, "but really?"
"Peyton Scott, you have no idea how much I love that you want to make this family bigger, and I don't think that I could wish anything more than that for the two of us… I love you, and I can't think of something that would make me happier than having another baby with you."
She smiled at him through the darkness and it seemed like everything fell back into place.
So, of course, another four months later, nearly two months after their lost son would have been born, Lucas found his wife in tears in the bathroom.
"Peyton, we've got to stop meeting like this…" he says, sitting down next to her.
"Well, last time you found me like this, it led to us eloping."
"And now…"
"I'm pregnant." She says, smiling up at him.
"Really?" he says with wonderment.
"Yeah."
"Wow."
"Thoughts?"
"Honestly?"
She nods her head up and down.
"While I'm so unbelievably excited that I could run through the house screaming, I—"
"Which you will not do, because of our sleeping children."
"I am scared to death."
"What if I told you it scared me too?"
"That would make me feel a little bit better."
"Well, start feeling better, because I'm scared shitless." She says, laughing, and then sinking into his chest as he pulls her toward him in a hug.
"We can do this, you know that right?"
"Yeah, we can."
"I love you Peyton Scott."
"You know, I don't think I'm ever going to stop loving the way that sounds…"
"I hope you never do." He says, kissing her so sweetly that she knew that it was all going to be okay.
--
Okay, there is part three of the random little vignettes that are going to make up this story. Let me know what you're thinking about them, cause I like writing them. I think that the next one is going to flashforward a few years instead of just a few months, so get ready for it. And big props to one of the reviewers for the inspiration to write Jamie's little speech. So, thanks to StarlightSweetheart for the ideas!!
Keep reviewing, and I hope that you keep enjoying!!
