Chapter 7 A Lack of Concentration
Nick had spent the last hour watching his colleagues work and getting very little of his own work done. He knew there was no use even trying though anyway. As if he could think about anything other than Jennifer today!
Just before lunch Nick finally gave in and put his phone right in the middle of the desk so that he couldn't possibly miss her call. For half an hour he kept one eye on his work and one eye on the phone, completely incapable of doing anything constructive until she called.
Suddenly he felt a shove at his shoulder and looked up in alarm. It was Lee, smiling stupidly at him. "Is that who you've been looking round the office for for the last two hours?" He cocked his head in the direction of the Drug Squad's entrance where Jennifer stood, leaning against the door frame, her arms folded across her chest, looking over at the pair.
Nick pushed out his chair in a hurry and walked over to her, covering the distance in record time, Lee looking on, bemused. As soon as he was close enough she reached for his hand and together they walked outside, away from the prying eyes of Nick's colleagues.
Nick walked at a quick pace with Jennifer, hoping to find a quiet little place that they could be alone, but she couldn't stand it any longer, and pulled at his hand to slow him down on the sidewalk not far from the entrance to the Drug Squad building.
"Nick! Nick!" she exclaimed, shaking. "Slow down!"
He halted immediately and turned to face her, holding both her hands in his, feeling the coolness of her wedding and engagement rings against his right palm. "So?" he asked eagerly, trying not to get his hopes up.
Her face transformed into a tentative, unsure grin. "We're going to have a baby," she told him, almost breathless. She bit her lip, never feeling as unsure about something as she did right then. It was suddenly so real.
But Nick was ecstatic and picked her up, spinning her round in a glorious moment of unrestrained happiness. She held onto his neck tightly as she laughed and shared in the moment with him, relieved and disbelieving. No longer something she was doing just to please Nick, Jennifer now wanted a family too, just as much, and her entire body reverberated with the joyous news.
Just six weeks later her body reverberated again as their world came crashing down as it quickly became apparent that they had lost their baby. Jennifer lay huddled miserably in a hospital bed, Nick by her side, holding her hand, as they both tried to accept the crushing blow of Jennifer's miscarriage.
She had been pregnant just eight weeks.
"Don't even think about moving," he whispered.
Ignoring the order, Nick reached out and struck the shoulder of the balaclava wearing intruder, knocking him back into the bench behind Angela. He stumbled and lost his footing for a moment before regaining his balance and brandishing his gun menacingly in their direction.
Nick's body jolted so violently that he woke himself up. He couldn't breathe, nor move.
That hadn't been how it had happened that day. He hadn't struck the intruder.
What's going on? Nick's sub conscious screamed at him silently. Has life reversed a few years? Do I have another chance? A chance to do what I should've done that day? His thoughts raced. Darkness surrounded him and he felt disorientated for seconds, minutes on end. He moved his eyes from side to side, not daring to move his head, nor any other part of his body.
Is this Angela's kitchen?
Next to him, Jennifer stirred awake. She'd been in a heavy sleep, just like the previous two nights. Their loss was still understandably heavy on her mind, and not having returned to work yet, she had spent much of her recovery time sleeping. She couldn't seem to get enough – always just wanting to close her eyes and sleep it all away.
But Nick's jolt had woken her – so violent was it. She turned over in the sheets and reached out to touch his arm that she couldn't see in the darkness was ramrod straight by his side, tensed and ready to strike.
She lay a few fingers on the space just below his elbow but upon the feeling he shook her off, disorientated and confused, and almost struck her in the face, not realising it was her beside him and they were in their own bed, in their own house, safe. Jennifer reeled back in shocked surprise and retreated into her pillow, hurt and rejected. "Nick!" she whispered in astonishment, keeping her distance.
He turned his head towards her with a vacant look in his eyes. As he stared at her the look quickly changed to one of relieved recognition. "Oh Jen…" he breathed hard, the terrified look on his face identical to the one he wore the day SIS burst into their bedroom at number eleven and mock held them at gun point.
It had never happened before, but Jennifer guessed correctly that his nightmare was about one thing in particular. What else would he be having a nightmare about? Apart from the fact they'd just lost a baby they'd longed for, there was nothing else wrong in their lives that would be the source of bad dreams. There was just one black mark in their past that had the power to do it – their time undercover. She crawled back over to him in the bed, and lifted up the doona to spread over his shoulder, bringing him in close to her underneath it. "It's ok," she whispered, feeling anything but. She soothed him like she knew a wife should, but she knew he'd have trouble falling back asleep.
An hour later as he finally began to release his muscles and let sleep take him over again, Jennifer whispered once more into the darkness. "We're never going back to that again," she stated, determined never again to be put in the danger undercover work entailed. Ever.
She looked at Nick across their pillows and couldn't help but notice when he didn't respond.
Hours later when the sun pierced Nick square in the eye through the bedroom curtains and forced him to wake up, he stretched gratefully, feeling a kind of soreness in his body that he'd never experienced before. Then he remembered the nightmare and knew it had caused the dull ache in his muscles. He looked over at Jennifer and noted with guilt the way her face was scrunched up sadly as she lay in a tight curled up ball of arms and legs, the doona only half covering her. Had he caused that in his terrified moments of confusion the night before, when he had been unable to tell the difference between reality and a dream? Or was it the loss they had just suffered, compounded by his own out of character actions as she slept beside him?
Two months later when Jennifer fell pregnant again, she and Nick were not so quick to let themselves get carried away with excitement. They agreed without discussing it that they should do nothing and say nothing until they had reached the three month mark. It seemed the sensible, safe thing to do.
So it wasn't until half way through the thirteenth week that they finally let themselves discuss their future. In bed late on a Wednesday, they each rested a hand on Jennifer's stomach and allowed themselves to let out the breath they had been apprehensively holding for three months.
"This is our next step Nick," Jennifer whispered into the dark to him.
He nodded back, overcome by the moment. It finally felt real, and he couldn't wait to start telling his friends and family. He wanted the whole world to share in their joy.
But like a sickening repeat of history, at sixteen weeks they found themselves again struggling to cope with the grief that was hurled upon them following the loss of another baby. Jennifer found herself barely able to hang on to any sense of normalcy in their lives as the grief crippled her from head to foot.
She and Nick struggled through Christmas, devastated by the knowledge that just twelve months earlier they had been so sure that Christmas 2013 would be spent with a new baby. The season was less than festive as they numbly went through the motions of visiting friends and family, shopping for gifts, attending end of year break ups and decorating their house. It didn't seem worth the effort to Nick as he once again hacked at the trunk of a gorgeous pine tree that Jennifer usually so eagerly looked forward to decorating.
This year was different.
