Part Ten
Prompt #58: It's September 24th, I'm Liz Parker, and five days ago I died. But then the really amazing thing happened. I came to life." ~ Liz Parker, Roswell (1.01)
"I think Kelly for a girl has a nice ring to it, Lee for a boy."
Since her appointment had started, Elizabeth had been stuck on the facts she had read that morning in the waiting room – facts from her favorite baby book, facts about her child's latest developments. Hiccuping. Yawning. Taste buds. And she wondered if the emergence of her cravings was due to the fact that her little girl or boy could now distinguish between sweet and salty, spicy and bland. It was all so... fascinating.
As a nursing student, she was aware of the basic facts, but everything was so much more... real now. Bold. And sometimes it all just caught up with her, took her breath away. She'd get so distracted by the wonder of being pregnant that she would lose track of time and place... that was until something equally as startling captured her attention.
"Huh?"
Doctor Lee laughed at Elizabeth's cluelessness, humoring her with a roll of the eyes as she motioned for the expectant mother to step down from the scale. "I was just making some baby name suggestions. After all, I think I should take a lot of credit for this."
Elizabeth still had no idea what the OB-GYN was getting at. "For what?"
"This," Kelly motioned towards Elizabeth's now obvious pregnancy, the scale behind her. "You. The baby. The fact that, for the first time since you discovered you were pregnant, your weight is now on track." Further explaining, she added, "you gained another four pounds, bringing your total up to nine so far. Congratulations, mom."
"Thanks... I guess." Although she wasn't one of those women who fussed about her appearance, who worried about what having a child would do to her figure, it was still strange to accept a compliment about gaining weight. "But, seeing as how I'm the one who has been eating for two, just how exactly does that translate into your achievement?"
They entered the exam room together, Elizabeth immediately heading towards the table and taking a seat while Kelly sat at the desk and made some notations on her chart. "You're gaining weight, because your appetite is back. Your appetite is back, because you feel safe once again. You feel safe once again, because you're engaged to that smoking hot bad boy Jason Morgan. Those eyes, that chest, that ass...," the doctor finished her listing with a lusty sigh.
And, for just a minute, Elizabeth found herself picturing each and every body part her friend had mentioned... and others. They were officially living together now – out in a cute house in the suburbs of all places. It had a yard, a couple fireplaces. It even had a claw foot tub in her bathroom. That also meant, though, that the entire town was now aware of their relationship... including her grandmother who was unhappy about the engagement to say the least, something Elizabeth would no doubt hear about later that week when they had lunch together. However, what was odd was that, of all the people she had heard from concerning her plans to marry Jason, Ric had not been one of them. Everything had been radio-silent on her soon-to-be ex-husband's front. While she certainly didn't miss his presence in her life, the quiet unnerved her, made her anxious.
"And then we can't forget about those arms either." Kelly moaned in feigned pleasure, and the fact that Elizabeth had on more than one occasion found her own eyes straying to that particular portion of Jason's anatomy had her cheeks flaming in embarrassment. She told herself that it was only natural. Jason was an attractive man, and she was five months pregnant, not dead. But, when Doctor Lee made such blatantly sexual comments about the man Elizabeth now found herself living with, it made her just that much more aware. Of everything. "He's a fighter, right?" Kelly's question brought Elizabeth back to the conversation. "Yeah, just the thought of working thatout for the rest of my life makes me reconsider my stance on monogamy."
"Okay...?" Really, though. How the hell was she supposed to respond to that?
"Just don't go too wild and crazy on me now," the OB-GYN cautioned. "You're finally gaining weight... thanks to yours truly for encouraging you to get back on that saddle, but that doesn't mean that I want you having sex so much that you burn off all the calories you consume."
Sex. With Jason. Even implied... Heat flared in Elizabeth's belly, her hands clenched into fists, and she had to force her gaze away from her friend's as she tried to reign in her hormones. "That, uh, that won't be a problem," she responded brokenly, biting her bottom lip.
Kelly chuckled. "Yeah. Okay. Whatever you say, Liz. It's not like you're already halfway to orgasm right here, right now just thinking about what that incredibly sexy and bigfiance of yours can to do you with his..."
"Alright, okay," she interrupted Doctor Lee, flinching when she realized how high pitched and raspy her voice sounded. "I get it. You've made your point."
"Good."
"But you don't have to worry. Jason... he... well, he keeps me safe. He protects me."
And he did. After all, that was the point of their future marriage... or half of it at least. She wasn't lying to Kelly when she reassured her friend. So, then, why did it suddenly feel like she was lying to herself?
! & !
She didn't recognize her own body.
Between work both at Kelly's and at the hospital, moving into the new house, and studying, Elizabeth hadn't taken the time to really look at herself in weeks. Oh, she caught the cursory glances in the mirror when she brushed her teeth in the morning or washed her face at night before bed, but those glimpses were born from habit. They were rote. They had nothing to do with actually lookingat herself, studying the changes which were rapidly sweeping over her form due to her advancing pregnancy. But, on that particular day, she just couldn't... not look.
Naked, she stood before the full-length mirror which graced the back of her bathroom door. She had just stepped out of the shower... or, at least, she had several minutes ago. Her body was still moist, soft, and flushed from the hot water, but everything else about her appearance was foreign. Two months ago, the only sign of the baby she carried inside of her had been her increased sense of smell, but, now, all that had changed. Swollen ankles, cravings, and back pain had set in. Her hips were widening, her breasts were filling out, and her stomach looked like it used to when she was a little girl and playing imaginary house, when she would suck in a large, deep breath and push her belly out to its fullest capacity, trying to pretend that she was the mommy who was having a baby. It was odd, and bewildering, and utterly... beautiful how accurate those childish games had become for her.
But all of those changes were on the surface; they were physical. What really amazed Elizabeth were the changes she saw when she looked into her own eyes. While it had been years since her innocence had been brutally ripped away from her on one cold, cruel night in the park, just because she had been forced to grow up long before she should have, that experience had not automatically made her an adult, a woman. Instead, for years, it had felt like she had been awkwardly trapped between what she was supposed to be and what she was supposed to become – no longer a child, yet unable to let her past go either. And maturity, she now knew, could not be marked by age or by milestones.
Loving Lucky, losing Lucky, moving out of her grandmother's home, getting Lucky back only to realize that he wasn't her Lucky anymore, having sex for the first time, meeting Ric, getting married, getting divorced – none of those things had put the look of self-awareness and contentment in her eyes that she now found herself staring at, unabashedly transfixed. No, that sense of peace came from, for the first time in her life, knowing what it was like to love something, someone unconditionally, from knowing that she was responsible for another life and finally, after five months of worry, feeling safe in that knowledge. No matter what happened, no matter what obstacles she'd have to face and overcome in the future, Elizabeth had faith that she would be able to do just that; she had faith in herself, and part of that confidence was thanks to...
"Elizabeth!"
The sudden intrusion of her grandmother's voice left her scrambling to return to the present.
"Are you ready, dear? Our reservation for lunch is in twenty minutes. I thought you said to pick you up at noon...?"
And it was now ten after she realized after glancing at a clock she kept positioned on her bathroom counter for just this precise reason. Without bothering to pick up a towel – after all, who knows how long she had been standing there, naked in self-contemplation, so she was already dry thanks to just the warm air coming up through the radiator, Elizabeth quickly threw open the door and moved into her bedroom, hastily attempting to find something to wear as she called down to her grandmother. "I'll be... just a second, Gram," she huffed and puffed as she hopped and jumped her way into her underwear, bra, and socks, never once sitting down or stopping her frantic movement. "I just... lost track of time, didn't realize... how late it... shit."
"What, Elizabeth," Audrey called upstairs, a note of worry entering her voice. "Is something wrong?"
"No, it's fine," she returned, lowering he voice to mutter to herself. "Everything is just... dandy," before tossing the only pair of jeans she owned that still fit her aside. Well, scratch that. They had beenthe only pair of jeans which still fit her. Now, she couldn't even start to zip them, let alone button them. When did that happen?
Sighing in frustration – the movement blowing fallen strands of hair off of her forehead, Elizabeth took in the sight before her: her closet. It was filled with pants she could no longer wear, long skirts which presented the same problem, fitted t-shirts which left the bulge of her stomach exposed, and scrubs. Lots and lots and lots of scrubs. And nothing else.
"Shit," she swore again, before slowly closing the door and turning around to face her bed... a bed which was piled high with clean yet unfolded laundry, a combination of her clothes and Jason's. "Screw it," she announced to herself, moving across the room to grab what she needed to finish getting dressed. Her grams wasn't going to like it, Elizabeth was going to look like an idiot, but it couldn't be helped. She was hungry, she didn't feel like trying to cook, and she was pregnant. Didn't that give her a license to be crazy or something?
Shoving her feet into her favorite pair of tennis shoes, she ran out of her room, down the hall, and only slowed down once she reached the stairs, because she was still adjusting to her ever-fluctuating weight and certainly did not need to take a header down the wooden risers. "Let's go," she announced once she reached the ground floor, quickly snatching her purse off the sideboard by the front door, only... Audrey didn't follow her when Elizabeth went to leave. In fact, she didn't even move.
"Elizabeth, dear, what in the world are you wearing?"
Blushing, she pushed her messy, wet, and still unbrushed – she was going to do that in the car – hair behind her ears, but still her chin lifted in a stubborn thrust. "They're Jason's," she said referring to the sweat pants that were rolled up at her ankles and the long sleeved t-shirt she had on. "None of my clothes fit me."
Her grandmother's eyes quickly jumped to the man in question who was ignoring them as he sat on the couch, newspapers and drop cloths spread around him while he worked on some part to his motorcycle. As if sensing Audrey's eyes upon him, he shrugged his shoulders, never once looking up from his task. "We're out of milk."
Elizabeth laughed, her grams sputtered, and, for the first time, she felt her baby move inside of her.