FINALLY I can move on with the new chapters and thus the rest of the story. I'm glad you're still liking this and be assured this won't turn into another "One Normal Evening" for the simple reason that I just don't have the energy or will or patience for another behemoth.
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Seeing a woman holding a newborn in her arms, sitting up in the hospital bed, Mattie stopped and back-tracked, murmuring apologetically "Ah. Sorry, ma'am, wrong room."
Backing out of the room she gently closed the door and headed to the next one, bemused. For some reason the woman had seemed familiar to her... But no... Mattie shook her head... it was just her imagination since she didn't know anyone who'd been recently pregnant, she knew that with absolute certainty.
"Mattie!" Harm called out after her.
"What?"
"Where are you going?"
He looked confused.
"To the right room."
"This is the right room..."
"No, it's not, Harm."
"It is, trust me."
Walking warily back to him she watched as he opened the door and waved her ahead.
Looking at him suspiciously again she followed his direction.
As soon as she was inside and fully took in the scene Mattie stopped in her tracks and blinked. Then blinked again. Still the same. Closing her eyes she rubbed them and checked again.
The hallucination was still there, though.
There was Jen... Jen in a hospital bed on the maternity ward...
Okay, so that could be explained with Bethesda running out of rooms and beds on the ward for whatever Jen had been admitted into the hospital... However unlikely that was...
But the other thing was a little harder to find a believable reason...
IT was namely where IT wasn't supposed to be.
The baby in Jen's arms.
There was no way this was what it looked like, NO FREAKING WAY, so Mattie decided that in this case 2+2 didn't equal 4, but 7.
"Mattie?"
Jen's tentative voice brought Mattie's bewildered gaze from the small baby in her room-mate's arms to the young woman herself.
"Jen?" she asked unsurely.
Jen nodded, apprehensive, not really knowing how to take Mattie's reaction.
"What's that?" Mattie asked, pointing at the tiny human.
"It's a baby." Jen answered, not in a patronizing tone of voice, but more in the 'Are you alright?' way.
Mattie nodded a little hysterically "Aha. But, what are you doing holding it?"
Harm and Jen's eyes mes. Had Mattie short-circuited somehow?
"I mean, where's it's mother? Won't she mind you holding her baby?"
Mattie frowned at the looks they were giving her. It wasn't as if her questions were without merit!
How did they have the nerve to think she was the unreasonable one? After all, it wasn't she who was lying in bed on the maternity ward, the place she had no reason being, holding someone else's child...
"Um... Mattie..." Jen bit her lip, clueless how to best break it to the young girl. Looking up at Harm, he only shrugged helplessly, out of his own depth as well.
"I'm not holding this baby for anyone, Mattie. This is my son."
That engaged Mattie's brain "You adopted him?"
Then she frowned, thinking feverishly "But why are you in the hospital if you adopted the baby?"
Jen shook her head, her tone gentle "No, Mattie, I didn't adopt him. I gave birth to him today..."
Even though she felt sorry for Mattie, Jen couldn't help but find the teenager's fish-like-gaping amusing.
"But... but..." Mattie finally managed to stammer "I saw you today... you didn't look pregnant... and you didn't say anything... Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't know I was pregnant myself, Mattie."
Mattie snorted "Right... You didn't know you were pregnant..."
The disbelief was clear in her voice, expression and stance. Jen was all-too-aware of how ridiculous and unbelievable it all sounded, even to herself.
"See... from what I know it's fairly easy to know whether you're pregnant." Mattie continued sarcastically, still reeling from the revelation "There's this thing called period that's missing for, say, 9 months and then there's the morning puking..."
"Mattie..." Jen tried to cut in, but Mattie just went on.
"... and getting fat and..."
"Mattie, stop for a second."
"... feeling the kid moving and..."
"MATHILDA GRACE!"
Harm's thunderous voice finally brought the end to Mattie's rambling, causing her to look at him a little pissed off, hurt and chastened all at the same time. Nevertheless, she subsided.
"Sorry." she muttered.
"It's okay, Mattie." Jen soothed gently "And it's true, none of the signs were there... just think back."
Now that she was calmed down Mattie had to admit Jen was right. She was living with the beautiful Petty Officer and could clearly remember there had been nothing to let onto the secret hiding deep in the other woman's womb. Sure, she had noticed Jen had grown a size or two in the waist a short while ago, which had caused Jen much chagrin as she'd had to buy new pants and skirts, but far from what pregnant women normally grow.
"How is it possible...?"
"I don't know." Jen shrugged with the sleeping baby in her arms "The doctors tell me it's possible, that it happens every so often."
Mattie looked like she didn't quite believe it, but was content to let it drop. But then she asked the question Jen and Harm had both been dreading.
"I didn't know you were seeing anyone and you never said something. Who's the father?"
Jen's guilty look didn't escape Mattie's notice and it made her wonder what Jen was feeling guilty about.
Then she got her answer.
"I am."
Mattie whirled around to look at Harm with wounded eyes "YOU?"
The baby stirred in it's sleep and let out a cry.
"Mattie!"
Looking back at Jen, doing her best to put her son back to sleep, Mattie went quiet. Just how extremely her life had changed had been made known in clearest, loudest, bombastic way possible.
She liked babies, but the babies you can give back to their mothers after a few minutes or when they get cranky/sleepy/loud/soiled/etc..
Now she would have to share living space with one, tip-toe around her own home unless she woke up the air raid siren.
But there was something more important to deal with just then.
"You've been seeing each other? Why didn't you tell me? Did you think I would rat you out?"
That was the crux of her heartbreak. Did they really think so little of her they thought she would betray them?
"Ah, Mattie. We haven't been seeing each other, there was nothing going on you didn't know about." Jen replied, then added "Well, except for the prengnancy, but we didn't know about it either."
"Really?" she asked skeptically, then pointed at the baby "Then how come you just gave birth and Harm's the father?"
This time Harm answered "It was only that one time..."
As soon as the words had left his mouth, he realized he'd just put his foot in again. Wincing, he looked at Jen who was only shaking her head in exasperation.
There was silence as only Mattie's astonished gasp was heard.
"You two..." Mattie pointed at each of her guardians, incredulous laugh bubbling to get out "had unprotected sex and got PREGNANT! And then YOU go and preach about SAFE SEX?"
"Mattie..." Harm warned, earning himself a dirty look.
Harm's and Jen's eyes met, their worry over Mattie's reaction escalating as the young girl still hadn't made her feelings on the whole matter clear.
Suddenly Mattie started twitching and the couple was starting to get worried... was she having seizures? Then Mattie did erupt into seizures, but of the laughing kind.
When the baby gave off a startled cry Mattie immeditealy quieted down, wincing as she apologized, but still chuckling "Sorry, forgot..."
"It's okay." Jen smiled "Look... it's not something we're proud of. We know we did something stupid and were just lucky we were stupid with each other and not somebody else. Neither of us has any STDs, something we were always aware, but we also knew each other at that time... That makes us a part of a very small minority, in both ways. That's not the case with most others and it probably wouldn't be for you either in the similar circumstances."
"And..." spoke Harm, bringing Mattie's attention to him "Since we're part of each other's everyday lives, unlike most cases, and know each other and what the other wants in life, our mistake didn't have such tragic consequences as it would've otherwise. As it most of the time has..."
Finally joining his family Harm perched on the edge of the bed, slipping an arm around Jen who leaned into him, as they looked at Mattie, hoping she would join them in completing the family circle.
"That means you're a real family?" checked Mattie "Father, mother and child? Where does that leave me?"
Jen and Harm both recognized that as the reason for Mattie's anxiety. What would happen to her now that Harm had the family he'd always wanted? Mattie feared that now that he had it he no longer needed or wanted her.
She couldn't have been more wrong.
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