A/N: I don't own, never said I did. Sorry it's taken me a little longer than usual to update, but I had trouble imagining how I wanted this chapter to pan out. Please read, review, and enjoy!
Chapter 6
Elizabeth was at an early morning softball practice on a Saturday morning when it happened again. Unable to control herself, she sprinted as far away from her shortstop position as she possibly could before she began to vomit. "Time out!" her coach called, running towards her to see if she was okay. "Bennet? Are you okay?"
She wiped her mouth as the last of her breakfast left her stomach and nodded. "I'm fine," she muttered.
Shaking her head, her coach said, "I don't believe you, Bennet. Go get showered up. You're done for today."
Feeling too crappy to argue, Elizabeth merely nodded her head and made her way up towards the school again. Will, who had been in the stands watching her practice, anxiously made his way towards her. "Elizabeth, what's wrong?" he asked, taking one of her hands in his and placing his other hand at the small of her back.
"I just… I threw up," she said lamely, hiding the fact that she had been sick every morning for the past four days. "It was an intense practice."
He looked at her doubtfully, but remained silent. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked, leading her into the building and towards the girls' locker room.
"Yeah, I'll be fine, Will," she said softly, pushing open the door to the locker room. "Just let me shower up and then we can leave, okay?"
He nodded as he watched her retreat into the room and he couldn't help but feel that there was something she was keeping from him.
CLMCLMCLM
Elizabeth felt the icy fingers of guilt clutching at the base of her spine as she rummaged around in her duffel bag for fresh clothes. She hated lying to Will, but, in this case, she felt it had to be done. Why worry him if it was for nothing? Maybe she just had a stomach virus.
Biting her lip, she pulled out the drug store pregnancy test she had purchased the previous day. How she wished Jane were still with her. At least she would have someone to confide in, someone to talk to it about. Not that she didn't trust Will or Charley, but this seemed to be more a girl-to-girl talk. Walking toward the nearest stall, she prayed she wouldn't regret whatever she found out.
CLMCLMCLM
She stared numbly at the pregnancy test she held in her hand. How could it be…? A little pink plus sign stared back at her, as if trying to intimidate her. A single tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto the linoleum floor of the locker room. She wasn't ready for this. She wasn't ready for a baby. She wasn't ready to give birth. She wasn't ready to be a mother. She simply didn't feel mature enough. But there wasn't much she could do about it.
CLMCLMCLM
Throughout the course of the day, Will noticed that Elizabeth was unusually silent. Though this worried him greatly, he decided it was best not to pry. However, when she turned down an offer of playing Halo, he changed his mind. "What's wrong?" he asked, looking at her, his concern written all over his face, as plain as could be. She remained silent, staring determinedly down at her shoes and wringing her hands anxiously. After a few moments passed with no reply from Elizabeth, he repeated, "What's wrong?"
Still she said nothing. "Lizzy… Elizabeth…" he said slowly, softly, "you're scaring me. You've been really off ever since this morning, and I'd like to know why."
Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet his, her face burning a bright red hue. "Fitzwilliam," she said quietly, "how do you feel about being a father?"
Taken aback, he blinked rapidly and said, "Well… I don't really understand you. You mean… in the future?"
She shook her head. "No, William. Not in the future. I mean, how do you feel about becoming a father now?"
"It's not that I don't want to ever be a father," he replied, "but at this point, I just don't think I'm ready for it."
"That makes two of us," she muttered, squeezing her eyes shut tightly in order to prevent the tears that were threatening to spill from her eyes from fulfilling their promise.
"Elizabeth?" he said, sounding surprised as he hooked a finger under her chin and forced her to look at him. "Are you…?"
She nodded, knowing what he was going to say without him needing to finish the sentence. "Fitzwilliam… I'm pregnant."
A long pause followed her confession. "When did you find out?"
He felt numb, but he was certainly not displeased. Was he shocked? Yes. Did he feel that this was ill-timed? Of course. But did he wish it to be false? Certainly not.
"Just this morning," she replied. "In the locker room, I took a test, and it came up positive. I wanted to be sure, so I took three more. All of them came up positive." Tears shining in her eyes, she looked at him and said, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," he told her, his voice coming out harsher than he had intended. Wrapping his arms around her, he said, "Don't be sorry. There's no one else I'd rather have a baby with. Even if I would rather wait until we were married… and had jobs… nonetheless, you shouldn't be sorry."
She buried her face in his chest, thinking of how lucky she was that he was as sweet as he was. "I love you," she said, finally looking up after a few moments of crying silently into his shirt.
A pleasantly surprised smile spread across his face. "I love you, too," he said. He tentatively placed a hand on her stomach. "And I love our baby, too."
She placed a small hand over his on her abdomen. "Me too, Fitzwilliam. Me too."