Oops, almost forgot the A/N! Thanks for the shitload of reviews for the last chapter. Maybe I need to start throwing cliffies in more often. Keep the feedback coming, I still have a bit of story left in me!
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Eric
Earlier that morning, after three days of gail force winds on the north Atlantic, things finally calmed down a bit. We went to haul in a net, when something high above, that was holding everything together snapped, and came crashing down onto the deck, knocking me over and, as I found out at the hospital later that day, breaking my arm in two places. I wish that had been the worst part of my day. The larger piece of machinery, that narrowly avoided me, hit Anders, who I'd known since my first fishing trip, when I was 18. He had made his way from deckhand to captain over the years, and was someone I liked a great deal, and had a great amount of respect for. Anders was flung into the sea, and despite our best attempts, did not survive. We managed to get him out of the sea, but it was too late. A combination of his head injury and the cold hadn't given him much of a chance. We headed for shore immediately, after that, and 8 hours later, I finally got my arm set. I didn't remember much about the trip back.
I'd spent a few hours in emergency care, not really caring much about my arm, but thinking of how lucky I was not to have been standing two feet over. I'd stood two feet over a million times. I couldn't call Sookie, or Mom. Dad already knew about Anders, he'd been notified, but I'd asked them to leave my arm out of the report. I didn't want to overshadow his death in any way. I was devastated. Two feet had been my key to survival and meant his premature end. He had a lovely wife, two daughters, I'd met them all.
An ambulance waited for me, at the dock, and when my arm was fixed up, I got a cab home. I just wanted to be with her, I didn't want to tell her what I'd seen, I just wanted to lay down beside my wife and have her know what I needed, which was just to be with her.
I opened the front door, and took off my bloody top. Anders' blood covered most of it. He'd been in bad shape when we hauled him out. I couldn't even think about it, without wanting to be ill. When I walked in the bedroom door, and saw Sookie, Pam, and Jake there, my first thought was that I was going to kill Pam, and that I really needed to stop coming home early from things, because it really wasn't working out very well for me. I randomly thought back to a mythology course I'd taken in university, and the Hercules myth, when he'd been driven mad and killed his wife and children, only to terribly regret it later. I wasn't at that point, but the rage I felt was unlike anything I could ever remember feeling.
I took a deep breath and looked again. Sookie was under the covers, and Pam was on top, fully clothed, with one arm around her waist. Maybe they just had some sort of sleepover. Was Jake ok? I checked him and he was fine, sleeping away. I could wait and hear what happened before jumping to any radical conclusions. Its not like Pam was going down on her or anything, which probably would have led me to snap. I guess being two feet from dying earlier in the day really put things into perspective. Last week, I think I would have been a lot more angry.
"Eric, are you really here?" Sookie looked at me with one eye.
"I am. What's she doing here?" I tried to keep my voice calm and not let on that I was the slightest bit concerned that anything went on, even though my heart ached at the idea of what I'd encountered almost a year ago to the day repeating itself, with Sookie, who I cared for even more than Pam, which I hadn't thought possible a year ago. I'm sure I didn't sound like everything was fine.
"Her Dad had a stroke. She was really upset and she didn't have anyone else." I let out a huge sigh. Good answer. "What happened to your arm?"
"Its broken. I'll explain tomorrow." I stripped down to my boxers and crawled in beside her. "Pam, why don't you go sleep in the guest room. I know most men would love to be in this position right now, but not this one. We'll talk in the morning."
She mumbled and pulled herself up. "Night."
"Night."
"Are you ok?" Sookie looked at me with concern.
"I don't want to talk about it. Is that ok?" She searched my face and sighed.
"Yea, of course." I moved over to take Pam's place in the bed. "Eric?"
"Yea?"
"I love you."
I smiled, as hard as it was to do. "I love you too. See you in the morning."
I awoke the next morning to the sound of Sookie throwing up in the toilet. I pulled myself out of bed, and went to sit beside her on the floor. "Are you ok?"
"Yea, fine, just give me a few minutes." I sat beside her and rubbed her back. "Were you mad that Pam was here?"
"For about a half a second, which almost led to a murderous rage. Then I saw that she was fully clothed and I was fine."
"Pam's not my type." She weakly smiled. "I'm more into Vikings. One in particular."
"Good answer. Did you two get into the wine last night?"
I could see her thinking about her answer. "No. I don't know how to tell you this. Perhaps you could go to the garbage over there and pull out one of the boxes."
Strange request, but fine. "There are several pregnancy tests in here."
"Check one, any one."
I pulled out the first one I came to. "Oh. I'm guessing a check means, what I think it means?"
"Yes. I was going to call, but it didn't seem like something you tell someone on the phone."
I understood that well. Just like you don't tell someone that the blood all over your shirt is from someone who died standing two feet away from you on the phone. "Oh. But I was with you, when you got birth control a couple of months ago."
"It only works if you remember to take it, which I didn't the night we told your parents we got married, or the following night when I was so hungover I thought I was going to die."
"The day I planted those trees."
"I hadn't thought of that, but yes. Eric, I'm so sorry. I never forget to take them. I know this wasn't part of the plan."
"Please don't be sorry." I searched her face and gave her my best smile, well the best one I could muster. "Our plan seems to be changing all the time." And it did. It would be impossible for me to be anything but happy at the thought of Sookie carrying my child. Even thought I loved Jake with all my heart, the situation hadn't been ideal. This one really was.
She was sick for about 20 more minutes when Pam walked in with Jake. "Feeling ok?"
Sookie looked up from the bowl. "I already told Pam. She was here." And I wasn't.
"I'm sorry I wasn't here. You must have been very upset. Pam, please don't let me find you in my bed again."
"I wasn't expecting you to come back or I would have thought about that." She shrugged. "I didn't even cop a feel, although with those breasts, it was hard. You should be proud." I glared at her.
Sookie joined me in my glare. "I'm glad you're here now." She smiled up at me weakly. I needed to tell her about yesterday, but I wanted Pam gone. I'd be nice to her later, but I didn't have it in me right now.
"Sorry, I know this isn't the best timing, but would it be a terribly inconvenient if I left Jake here while I went to the hospital? I just want to go sit with him."
"That's fine Pam. We'll be here." She smiled at me, and wrapped her arms around Sookie.
"Take care of her."
"I will."
I listened as Pam headed down the stairs and out the door. "Thank you for being here for her. A lot of people wouldn't be so kind."
"She's family, in an odd way."
"I suppose she is." I rubbed her back, and then got up to check on Jake, who was happily gurgling away in his bassinet. "Do you want anything?"
"Maybe some water?"
I went downstairs and got her a glass, throwing my coat out in the garage. I didn't even want think about that right now. My mind was completely conflicted. A part of me was very excited, even though the timing was a bit off, but I was still devastated by the events of yesterday. I knew I had to tell her, because Mom would be over here very shortly. She didn't need to call, but I knew she'd be over, because she knew I'd been there. I just hoped she had the sense to let me deal with it a bit on my own before she got all motherly on me. I got the glass of water and went back upstairs. Sookie was sitting on the bed.
"So are you going to tell me what happened with your arm?"
I sighed. "Yea, I guess I should, before you hear about it from someone else." I was sure Anders' death was probably all over the news. Things like that didn't happen very often, but when they did, everyone knew. "Yesterday morning, there was a bit of an accident on the boat. Something that held the big net in place snapped and hit my arm." I felt my voice waver a bit. "And Anders, who's been fishing since I started, was hit by a bigger piece of the net, and was knocked into the sea. We managed to retrieve him, but he didn't make it." I let out another sigh.
"Oh." She wrapped her arms around my waist. "I would have been a bit more discreet with my vomiting if I had of known. I could have waited a couple of days before putting that on you."
I had to tell her. "He was standing two feet away from me. Two feet."
"Oh Eric." She squeezed a little tighter. "All I kept thinking yesterday was what would happen if you didn't come back and I didn't get to tell you." She squeaked a bit at the end. I felt sick again, thinking of Anders' family.
"I'm back, and I'm fine, save for my arm. And you did get to tell me, and I'm happy. I know its not the time frame we talked about, but we'll figure it out." I kissed the top of her head, and I could hear her breathe out a sign of relief.
I sat with her until she was confident that the vomiting was over. "Eric, I think you should have a shower. I'll feed Jake."
"Do I smell that awful?" I didn't think I did.
"Its not that. You just have a little..." She pointed to my arm. The blood had soaked through my shirt and was dried on my arm. I hadn't noticed last night. "I'll wash the bedding, and your coat if you want."
"I'm throwing the coat out."
"Ok." She gave me a little squeeze and went downstairs.
I had my shower and scrubbed and scrubbed to get the blood off me, and even when it was gone, it still felt like it was there. I got out, towelled off and made my way downstairs.
"Your Dad called. He asked if you wanted him to keep your Mom away for the day, and I said it wasn't a bad idea."
"Thank you."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"I don't really think I'm ready yet. I'm going to need to go see his family, and I'll need to go to the funeral."
"I'll go with you."
I didn't know if that was a good idea. I was sure his wife would be devastated and seeing me with my lovely wife when she'd just lost her husband would probably be a bit of a slap in the face. "I would like you to come to the funeral, but I need to go see her alone."
"Ok."
"Can we talk about the baby? I need something a bit lighter to think about."
"You know things are bad when an unplanned pregnancy is lighter stuff." She smiled.
"Hey, we planned for you to get pregnant, maybe we weren't clear enough in our timeline. I did plant those trees."
"So maybe this is your fault. I've missed pills lots of times, and this is the first time this has ever happened." She smirked at me.
I wrapped my arms around her waist. "Maybe you should count yourself lucky, that it is the first time. You could have had Alcide's or, even worse, Bill's child."
"Doubtful."
"Oh?"
"Yea, let's just say that I let you take certain liberties that I never let them take."
"I think that's going to need some explaining."
"Well I never slept with Alcide without a condom, which was very smart in hindsight, and as soon as I agreed to give up condoms with Bill, I made him pull out. You are the only one I haven't doubled up my contraceptive with."
"Oh." Pulling out sucked, and our adventures with condoms hadn't gone so well.
"I thought of asking you to pull out the first time we had sex without a condom, but it just felt so damn good. You and your damn sexabilities."
"So I'm the only one who..."
"That's what I said."
"Nice." I had a stupid grin on my face, I'm sure. She handed me Jake and a bottle. I held him easily in my good arm.
"Will it be nice when you're balancing a one year old and an infant on either hip?"
"Jake's a good baby. I'm sure ours will be too." I smiled at him, as he happily drank away. "Besides, now we have 7 months of sex without any worries."
"That's one way to look at it. And, honestly, I've been horny as hell for the past month, so if that's any indication, then you have a lot to look forward to."
"And I missed a week and a half of that?"
"You did."
"Well we'll have some making up to do then." I smiled as Jake finished his bottle and started to go into his full belly sleep. "Care to join me upstairs?" I was never having sex on that damn couch again. Maybe I could sell it as some sort of fertility treatment to barren couples.
"Uh, yea."
