December 10th
Leaving the loft is a treat now, has excitement welling within her despite the voices in the back of her head reminding her of all that could go wrong, all the bad news they could receive. It has a smile on her face from the moment she wakes up, curling at her cheeks even as fatigue draws at her mind, at her body, as her pulse thunders nervously in her throat.
Rick wakes her with presses of his lips to her head, drifting from her crown to her temple to the high arc of her cheekbone. Over and over again, gentle and playful until she's reaching back and knotting her fingers in his hair, drawing him towards her so she can catch his lips with hers. Breathe her strange comfort, her happiness, into his mouth even as her neck aches, her body protests her wakefulness.
"Excited to get out?" he acts, the words a puff of laughter against her cheek.
But she nods in response, doesn't even bother trying to hide it when she knows it's written across her face, alight in her eyes like it hasn't been for a week and half. Since the day she last stepped outside and stood on the roof of their building, wrapped in her husband's arms until he'd laid out the blanket on the cold cement surface, sat down and drawn her into her lap despite her protests that the pregnancy made her too heavy.
The hum slips back her lips instead of words, echoing even as he presses his lips to hers once again. A true response only comes when they part again. "Is it bad that I'm so excited to go to the doctor?"
He laughs again, just as quiet, just as benign. Happy and kind as he reaches over, spans a hand across her stomach, thumb tracing circles over the spot where their son's head is usually nestled, a solid weight against her skin. "Not bad," he promises. "You're not used to being holed up all the time. An escape is understandably appealing."
His hand still on her stomach, he pushes himself into a sitting position with the other one, leans down to press a kiss to her stomach, press his chuckle to her baby bump when their little boy stirs beneath his touch.
"Besides, don't forget the promise of Remy's milkshakes on the way home."
She moans at that, hand falling to land on his head once again, comb through the strands of his hair as he laughs once again. "Don't tease the baby like that, babe," she tells him. "You know how much he loves them."
"Yeah," breathes Rick. "How much he loves them, because it's not as though you loved them before you got pregnant."
"Not at all," she teases .
He presses one last kiss to her stomach before returning to her side. His hand curls at her neck, the other at her shoulder and he helps her sit up despite the aches in her bones, the longing that remains for the soft pressure of the mattress beneath her. She lets her head fall to his shoulder, smile pressed against the cotton of his t-shirt.
"You hungry?" he asks.
She hums, hiding her blush in the crook of his neck. "Baby's always hungry," she reminds him, grinning when she feels his jaw shift with his smile, able to picture the dramatic roll of his eyes at her attempts to pin everything on their unborn son. "He wants pancakes. His daddy's chocolate chip pancakes."
He presses a kiss to the top of her head at the request, grinning at he pulls away. His palm presses harder to her belly as he leans down, his cheek falling to rest against the swell of her stomach as he whispers. "I think your mom is trying to blame everything she doesn't want to admit on you," he tells their baby. "But don't worry. You're daddy knows that it's actually Mommy who wants strawberry milkshakes and chocolate chip pancakes."
Her hand swats at the back of his head, even as laughter tumbles from her chest, joyous and amused and further silencing the worried voices in the back of her head, the reminders of the threats these doctor's appointments pose to her choice to think she's healthy enough to support her son.
The insecurity that this is all her fault. That she's the one who went and got herself shot, which caused the scar tissue, which required the transplant and now has her body struggling to keep both her and the baby healthy.
Rick's hand is still a gentle pressure on her stomach when his words cut through her thoughts, shatter the returning threat of anxiety caught in her chest, clogging her throat.
"Do you want orange juice or milk with your pancakes?"
She smiles, soft and sweet, innocent with the flutter of her lashes as she leans forward, smudges her lips to his. "Baby wants milk," she tells him.
"Still blaming the baby, huh?"
Shrugging one shoulder, she kisses him again before allowing her head to return to its spot on his shoulder, her gaze to fall to the evidence of their child. "Not my fault you'll do anything for him."
His responding chuckle is soft, laced with undertone of severity that draw her gaze back to his, has her teeth digging into her lip to tamp the smile still blooming across her face.
"Like I won't do anything for you?" he says.
The bite of her lip fades, unnecessary in the face of the love written so obviously across his face. "Anything, huh?"
"Of course."
She hums again, knocking her forehead against his as she pretends to think, to not know what the aching parts of her body long for, what the heart that has missed her husband so impossibly much given his constant premise desires. "After breakfast, can you run me a bath?"
His nod is quick, without a second's hesitation just as she expected, enough to have her leaning forward to kiss him again, once, twice, three times.
"And you'll join me?" she asks.
He grins wide, happy. "Is that even a question?"
The white sterility of the hospital room has bile rising in her throat, memories haunting from the moment they step past sliding glass doors into an entryway of sleek tile and white walls and staircases sticking up and down in every direction. Her breath stutters from her chest, and Rick reaches between them, wraps his hand around hers.
His lips dust a quick kiss to the top of her head, whisper against the shell of her ear. "It'll be okay," he mumbles.
Her responding nod is slow, hesitant, tendrils of fear still laced within her chest, clutching at her heart as her husband leads her down all-too-familiar halls. White walls dotted with signs and arrows pointing people in every direction, towards every ward and specific doctors and it would be a maze if she hasn't long since known her way around sharp corners and constant motion.
Rick leads her to the elevator, the tug on her hand gentle because he knows she prefers taking the stairs. Protesting the weakness her body once held within the walls where all strength drained from her by doing what once seemed impossible. In her own little way that he'd always gone along with.
But with her on bed rest, she allows him to draw her past the open elevator doors, pulling her tight to his side to allow room for the orderly and patient in a wheelchair who join them on the lift. She sinks against him as his free hand lands on her belly, as he presses another kiss to her head, the affection she would normally refuse in public soothing some of the ache in her chest, the anxiety racing within.
Stepping onto the obstetrics word has her heart rate spiking again, nerves rattling her ribs with shaky breaths at the images of healthy women carrying healthy babies slathered across the walls. Women with wide smiles spread across their faces and hands splayed over their baby bumps, and hearts that probably aren't weak, blood pressures probably not on the rise, threatening their life and their baby's.
She stares for too long, swallowing against the churn of nausea in her stomach, the circle of fears in her mind, until Rick squeezes her hand, draws her attention to him instead,
"It'll be okay," he promises, smile curling at the corners of his lips.
His optimism is spread across his face, alight in his eyes and she wishes it was contagious, that she didn't have a mind that jumped to the bad possibilities rather than grasping to the good as his did. That she didn't see something terrible has to happen eventually where he sees look how much we've come through, the universe must be on our side.
They end up sitting side by side in chairs facing the doors to the rest of the hospital instead of walls lined with happy posters, his hand on her knee and her head on his shoulder. Fatigue draws at her after the movement of the day, as a reaction to the stress of not knowing what kind of news they'll receive, rooted in her gut, spiralling through her limbs.
"It'll be okay," he repeats, his hand tightening at her knee even as he continues to stare ahead, his gaze probably locked on the same frosted glass that catches hers.
Her hum is soft, more somber than agreeing. "I can't stop thinking about last time we were here."
"I know," he says.
It's with another soft squeeze of her knee that he pulls away, free hand pressing against her shoulder and forcing her to sit straighter, too. It falls to her baby bump afterwards, fingers skimming the swell of skin, pressing like a silent request for their son to move, reassure her with evidence of his life. The smile blooms slowly across Rick's face, hesitant but warm and loving and reassuring all the same.
"Don't think about last time," he tells her. "Think about all the times we've been in this hospital and got good news."
His lips press to the top of her head at that, to her cheek, gaze falling to her chest where they once sliced into her body and removed the most broken part of her, replaced it with the heart that keeps her alive today.
"The day we found out we were getting transplants," he says, "and every milestone after that. The first time we walked, our first kiss was in this very building, the day we decided to move in together too."
Her cheeks burn at the memories. Of the day they'd celebrated side by side, still weak and dying for a few hours longer, sitting in pre-op and holding hands for the first time. The day she'd been steady enough on her feet to walk over to his bed, sit down next to him as he was propped up on pillows, when her hand had landed on his jaw and he'd cradled the back of her head and her scar tugged only to be forgotten the moment his lips pressed to hers. The day he'd offered her a home where she could recover, live, love like she'd never quite had before.
"And then there's the day we got to see him for the first time," he continues, hand pressing harder against the swell of her stomach. "We were both so scared, but then he showed up on that screen, happy and healthy and his heartbeat strong, perfect. Remember that?"
She could never forget it, the relief that had flooded her system at the site, their little peanut-shaped baby in grainy black and white on a screen, the flutter of his heart visible only to be heard echoing through the room moments earlier.
Stronger than hers or Rick's had been when they'd met.
She nods slowly, finds herself leaning forward to press a kiss to his lips in thanks when the sharp syllables of her name fill the waiting room. Her forehead falls against his, laughter spilling from her lips as she turns towards the door leading to the hall of exam rooms.
The nurse standing there is grinning, teasing, knowing them both well enough to know it will make them laugh when she jokingly calls Kate's name again.
It's that same nurse that weighs her, leads her into a smaller room where she sits down again, has a blood pressure cuff slapped around her arm as she's asked about how bed rest is going. As Rick is asked about whether or not any new books are coming since he killed off Derrick Storm.
As friendship leaks into doctor's visits like she never imagined possible until she spent months living in a hospital with doctors and nurses and Rick and his family as her sole companions.
The nurses asks her if she smokes, about her caffeine ingestion, possible diabetes as the cuff tightens around her bicep, and she answers automatically, the no falling from her lips over and over again, her attention caught on the number steadily rising on the screen.
She feels the cuff loosen at her arm, and her teeth dig into her lip in anticipation, eyes drifting to her pulse and oxygen levels briefly before returning to the falling number representing her blood pressure.
There's a soft beep that echoes through the room when it's done, the number steady and staring back at her.
Her heart sinks.
It went up.
The first thing her mind registers is fingers combing through her hair, twirling the strands as they're tucked behind her ear. Then it's the hand cradling the back of her neck, warm and comforting and offering an anchor, she supposes, for when he leans forward and presses his lips to her forehead.
It's soft, a whisper of a touch that has her eyes fluttering open, the smallest of smiles tugging at the corners of her mouth, the haze of fatigue in her mind enough to quiet the worry swirling there.
"Hey, sleepy head," he breathes. "I thought I'd find you up here."
The hum she musters grates up her throat, aches as it escapes her chest, leaves absence lingering where words should be, so she just lets her head fall back against his neck, her gaze stay locked on his, still drawn with exhaustion.
"You okay?" he asks, thumb drifting across the base of her skull, soothing some of the tension there as though he doesn't know it's a loaded question, doesn't know the answer when he'd been the one holding her hand the entire ride home, wiping her tears at traffic lights. "You've been quiet since we got back."
She forces her lip to quirk upwards, even though tears are already stinging behind her eyes, worry still a painful pressure in her chest.
The doctor had assured them that the rise in her blood pressure was so slight it could merely be caused by exertion or nerves, had promised that her levels were still not quite high enough to require constant monitoring. Had confirmed that her preeclampsia test from the last appointment had turned back negative much like the others. But had ended the appointment with the reminders of the risks of high blood pressure, only increased by her cardiovascular history.
Had left them with a reminder that if they couldn't get it down, their son would likely be born early.
"Just worried," she mumbles. "I just wanna feel like I can so something for him."
The hand not curled at her neck falls to rest on the swell of her stomach. "You're giving him his life," he reminds her, the words a whisper against the crown of her head. "You're doing everything for him right now."
Her chest heaves with a sigh, her eyes falling closed to quell the burn of sadness there before cracking open again, catching the darkness of worry shining in his. "I want to do more," she tells him. "I don't want to feel like it's my fault that he might be born early, or sick, or–"
"Hey," breathes Rick, silencing the final word before it can fall, shattered from her lips. "He's going to be okay. He's going to be perfect. Even if he's born early, you're almost at thirty-two weeks and you heard the doctor say his chances of surviving without long term effects would be good." He leans forward, presses another kiss to her head when a tear rolls down her cheek at his words. "And if he's born early, it won't be your fault."
Her nod is slow and insincere, and she knows he doesn't trust her agreement. She can feel in it in the clench of his hand on her neck, the press of his hand to the spot where her belly pokes out beneath her rib cage, where baby feet can often be felt jabbing against her skin. In the press of his lips to hers, silently begging her to believe him, to trust that her weakened body isn't a result of anything she can take the blame for.
Even though she's the one who couldn't let her mother's case go. Who went and got herself shot. Who refused to see a doctor, no matter how glaring the signs of complications were, until her heart was so weak it needed replacing.
"It'll be okay."
She nods again, the upwards turn of her lip slightly sincere as she does so.
The words have been an echo throughout the day, spoken every time the worry became too strong to ignore, was written across her face, in her frown, dark in her eyes. The entire ride home from the hospital and when they'd curled up on the couch and he'd held her through her attempts not to cry, as she'd picked at her food over dinner before slipping into the nursery without him.
To fall asleep and dream, for a moment, that she was one of those healthy women with healthy babies in the posters at the hospital.
"And right now, you're still growing a human," he adds. "Which means you need sleep, so come on. Let's go downstairs."
She mouths a silent okay, ready to stand when a grin spreads across his face, his arms shifting beneath her so he can hook one under her legs, band the other around her back.
Protests die on the tip of her tongue when he lifts her into his arms, lulls her back to relaxation with the steady bounce of his steps down the stairs, into their bedroom, until he's setting her down on their bed and crawling in behind her.
He presses the words to the side of her neck one last time before she drifts off to sleep.
It'll be okay.
She wishes she could believe it.
Oops? Anyway, I huge thank you goes, as always, to Lindsey for all her help.