Title: Pregnant Pauses
Disclaimer: Not mine. They're doing a very good job, though, aren't they?
Spoilers: F.P.S. – 3x10. Just for the last minute or so.
A/N: The 10th chapter! Hooray! To all those who've stuck with this, I thank you – in honour of your steadfastness I present to you the longest chapter yet. This kind of stands as a story in its own right, but I'm going to use it for F.P.S. Oh, F.P.S, shall I list the many ways in which I love thee? I can't. I'd have to write an essay on it, and no-one wants to read that. Instead, here's our boy Bobby at the hospital. Enjoy!
Bobby flips his cell phone open – then closed.
Open – closed.
He's standing in an elevator, on his way up to the maternity ward.
At first, he had fully intended on taking Bishop's advice. Phone in hand as he stepped out of the courthouse, his fingers were already finding Eames' number on his speed-dial. Until he realised he was moving towards the car. Until he got in, and found himself here. It seemed his own body had betrayed him.
He had tried to reason it away as he slunk into the shadow of the hospital. Even if he did call her, what would he say? Congratulations on the baby? Glad it was a healthy delivery? All the best for the future?
(Please come back soon because nothing seems right without you?)
Definitely not that.
No, better just to see her.
There's a young couple in the elevator with him. They're missing the obligatory infant, and he wonders why. The woman looks tired, the man keeping a steadying arm around her shoulders as the lights announce floor after floor. He wonders what they are doing here.
He wonders what he's doing here.
A nurse in pink scrubs mans the desk on the way in. He straightens as he approaches her, abruptly self-conscious and unsure as to why. She looks at him, a trace of annoyance on her face. First things first, I suppose. "Uh...I'm looking for a p-patient. E-Alex-Alexandra Eames? She was brought in earlier today?"
He fixes a smile as she clicks industriously on the computer in front of her. Seconds pass. Bobby can feel himself starting to sweat. Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea.
Too late. She alights on a name and pauses, eyeing him speculatively.
"And are you a relative?"
A pause as Bobby considers what to say.
"Uh...no. I'm her" –friend, colleage – something that doesn't imply intimacy- "partner."
He sees a misplaced understanding in her eyes.
Great.
"Room 23. Just down the hall, to your left."
He thanks her, moving as quickly as possible through the ward. It smells of cleaning products and old carpet. The crying of new lungs forms a shrill counterpoint to the low hum of machinery. It distracts him, banishing a little the unease he has always felt in hospitals. The floor squeaks beneath his shoes. His mouth is dry. He swallows. Don't be silly, Bobby. It's maternity, not psych.
He pauses in front of the door. Her door. Suddenly, he can't breathe - for completely different reasons.
Come on, Bobby. You know the drill. Flat palm, curled fingers, push.
He steps slowly into the hospital room.
She's lying there, eyes half open and face flushed, a lingering smile of what looks like triumph about her face. She's breathing deeply, her hair is stuck to her forehead with perspiration, and she looks...
Beautiful.
He squashes the word, fast.
She sees him.
"Bobby..." her voice is weak, but has all the markers of a very happy Eames – lightened tone, higher pitch, softer words.
Ah.
There: a loosening in his chest, an expansion of the throat, a lightness in his shoulders...it was almost medicinal, what she did for him. He pauses, basking in it. No more panic. He breathes in, deep and strong, for what feels like the first time all day.
"Hey," he says.
He doesn't know how to say anything else.
Eames, used to such long pauses, notices nothing unusual.
"H-How are you feeling?"
She huffs out a laugh. "Honestly? Like I just got kicked in the head. My sister is with the kid as we speak. She was worse than the baby - crying and cooing all over the place." She grins at him.
"Well, he's their problem now."
"H-he?"
"Yeah," she says, rolling her eyes. "Guess the kid kicking me upside the lungs for months was a guy. Figures."
She pauses, and he finds himself noting with concern the foggy look in her eyes. She's having trouble focusing on him. He has decency to feel a little ashamed. She must be exhausted. He should have called. He shouldn't be bothering her now, not today of all days. Not when she has already done so much.
But he can't help it. This need, "juvenile", "primal", call it what you will, is so strong in him that it overtakes even the most basic forms of politeness. He needed to know she was here. He needed to see her.
And now that he has, he should really leave. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do.
Yet when she gestures feebly at the chair next to the bed, he takes it.
He can't help himself.
"How did the case go?"
He shrugs, tries to keep it simple. Downplay the fact that it was way too close to home. "We got the guy. He was clever. B-Brought up Wallace..."
She looks at him. She must see something there, because she reaches out her hand to touch his shoulder, once, briefly. "I'm sorry, Bobby." A thought strikes her, and she levers herself up from the pillow to fix him with tired eyes.
"Did you fill Bishop in?"
He feels another stab of guilt as silence stretches between them.
Eames glares at him. "You-" the sentence is interrupted by a huge yawn "-need to give her a chance, Bobby. She's good, you know. Clever. Brave..."
"I know", he says, hoping to quieten her.
She nods, leaning back against the pillows as her eyes slip close.
He finally says what he's been skirting around; what it has taken her leaving him to realise.
"But she's just not you."
Too late. Again. Eames is already asleep.
Bobby smiles; makes himself comfortable for the evening. Hunkering down awkwardly in the creaking chair, he laughs at his own discomfort. He's slept in worse places.
The room slowly fills with the sound of Eames' quiet breathing, and Bobby has to fight the urge to reach out and hold her hand.
Being here is enough.
A/N: Thanks for reading.