Chapter 10 - Adalie and the miscarriage

A/N: Trigger warning. This chapter discusses a miscarriage in the past. All credit and inspiration for this particular storyline goes to the incredible Bonesbird/Meredith Brody who first wrote about this in her incredible story "The First Missions." If you haven't read it, go read it. It is incredible.

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Jon watched as Adalie looked over the plans. Years of looking over plans with her father had taught her to recognize the important parts of the ship; the nacelles, the engine, the bridge, the crew quarters. Now she examined the plans closely, reading the drafters notes carefully and slowly as only a nine-year-old could.

Adalie would always be special in her father's eye. It wasn't just because she was the oldest, but that certainly helped. Everything she did was new and exciting to Jon. When she took her first steps, it was the first time he had seen a baby learn to walk. When she had started school, it was his first time being that nervous parent who hoped that their child would make friends. And when she began to read, he eagerly gave her book after book that his mother had gave him when he was her age.

His excitement over each milestone that Adalie hit did nothing to diminish his excitement when Frankie or Ben reached the same point, but there was something special about Addie. She had been conceived while her parents were serving as starship captains, something that was still unheard of all these years later. She was smart, so smart that it was almost frightening, Jon mused, like her mother. She was a natural leader, organizing her sister and brother to play whatever game she had determined that they should play that day. She was compassionate and kind and understood more of what her parents discussed in hushed tones than either of them was ready to admit.

There had been a child before Adalie, one that they lost and one that they hadn't talked about with their other children.

They hadn't been married long when Erika first began to feel sick in the mornings. Even the simplest act of rolling over in bed was enough to make her wince as the nausea swept over her. They both recognized what it was immediately.

They went in for a scan right away, but they already knew what the diagnosis was. She was pregnant, about six weeks along. Jon remembered how he felt his heart swell with emotion as he watched his wife talking with the duty physician about her condition. Erika had looked so beautiful and so calm in that moment, quite the contrast to his own state of mind. He was nervous and terrified. They had talked about this, late at night when they were both half asleep and he had whispered to her that he wanted to start a family. They hadn't even been married then. Erika had nodded and told him to go back to sleep.

They talked about it when they were both awake too. This time Erika had been scared. She wasn't sure how she would be able to balance a baby and her career. At that point, there were very few officers in the fleet who were married, let alone parents and it left them both feeling as though they were venturing into uncharted territory. They both wanted kids, eventually but Jon had wanted them sooner and Erika had wanted them later. After they became engaged and after many late night talks, they had decided that they would try for a baby. Enterprise was a ways away from completion and they were both content with their shore assignments. Neither of them was surprised when Erika got pregnant so quickly.

They had kept it to themselves for the first few weeks and after that only telling their closest friends and family. Erika's morning sickness had been horrendous and she had had to take a few days off from work just to rest. That was when Sam Gardner figured it out. He had covered for her in the control room during a test launch before pulling Jon aside to ask what was going on. Jon had been worried about what their colleagues would think but Sam had been just as excited as they were. It had made it all the more heartbreaking when Erika had had the miscarriage.

It wasn't something they talked about. None of the children knew that there had been a baby before them. Adalie had been born a few years later. Careers and long distance relationships had become their entire lives as they each grieved in their own way. Jon got Enterprise and Erika got Columbia and for a while they stopped talking about starting a family.

Jon had been willing to give it another try. Nothing the doctors said had precluded them from trying again for a healthy pregnancy. But Erika was scared. The loss had hit her tremendously hard and as much as Jon knew the chances of it happening again were slim, Erika was too afraid to take the risk. So he left it in her hands. He knew they would start a family eventually; he just had to give his wife some time. He knew she wanted children. He had seen her with her nieces, two beautiful girls that they both had loved since birth and he knew that she wanted to be a mother. So he sat back and waited until she was ready again.

It came sooner than either of them could have ever anticipated. As Enterprise and Columbia settled into regular patrol patterns, their captains found themselves spending more and more time operating their ships together. Erika stayed on Enterprise more often than not, and late one night she whispered to her half asleep husband that she was ready. It wasn't long before she found herself so dizzy that she could barely stand without leaning heavily against the bulkhead.

That first miscarriage affected them both throughout each of their successive healthy pregnancies. With Adalie, Erika had been terrified to tell her crew because she worried it would happen again. With Frankie, she had held off on telling her boss because Sam had been one of the people who quietly held her hand in support before. And with Ben, she had been too scared to even find out if she was pregnant in the first place. But she had carried all three of her children safely and healthily. They were beautiful in a way that was a perfect combination of their parents. They were each different and unique in a way that made Jon thank the stars every day. They were perfect.

And one day, they would wonder why there was one day a year when their father would find their mother softly crying in the bedroom. Maybe they would wonder like he did how it was possible to feel such joy and completeness in his life, yet still grieve for something they had lost so many years ago. They would ask questions he probably didn't have the answers to, questions he was sure he didn't want to have answers to. He knew his children and he knew that all three of them would ask "will that happen to me?" He hoped not. He hoped that they wouldn't have to go through something like that in their lives, but he prayed that they would have someone like he did, someone to walk through it with them.

It wasn't something they dwelled on, or even something he thought about every day. It was a part of their lives in the past, something to be looked at but not stared at.

He turned back to his eldest daughter as her fingers traced the schematic plans in her hands. He hoped she knew how special she was to him, how she would never have to do anything ever to prove herself to him. She was nine years old and already she could do things neither of her parents thought possible.

He saw her fingers linger on one of the nacelles as if by touching it she could absorb its information. She looked up at him and smiled.

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