Chapter 37: Test

"How do I look?"

Joss smiled up at Taylor from the depths of the couch. "You look great, sweetheart. You excited?"

Taylor bounced a little on the balls of his feet as he adjusted the suit jacket over his shoulders—again. "Lia's excited too. First time we've been able to do something nice together in a while." His face darkened. "I just hope no one says anything mean and ruins the evening. She hasn't been this happy about anything since…before the incident with Steve and Kylie."

The front door opened, and Taylor's eyes lit up at the sight of the florist's bag in John's hands. "Are those the flowers for Lia and me?" Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed the bag from John's hand as the taller man turned to close the front door. "Oh, that's pretty. Is this what color her dress is?"

John took one of the box from Taylor and opened it, taking out the boutonniere. "Hold still or this will get pinned crooked," he said firmly, and Taylor controlled his bouncing just long enough for John to pin the purplish-blue carnation to his jacket lapel. Then he turned to his mother again. "How do I look?"

Joss giggled a little. "Just as good as you did when you asked two seconds ago," she teased, then got up off the couch and gave him a hug. "You enjoy yourself, okay?"

"I will. Hey lemme go text Lia, find out when she's gonna be ready."

As he raced out of the living room back to his bedroom, Joss smiled at John, rose up on tiptoe to give him a kiss. "Are you sure you're okay with taking Taylor and Lia to prom? I can get dressed and take them if you change your mind."

"No, no, stay here and rest," John said gently as he cupped the side of her face and leaned down to kiss her. "I know this stomach bug you got is making you miserable, so stay here and rest. I'm perfectly capable of taking Taylor and his girlfriend to a school dance. And after I drop them off I can come back here and we can spend the rest of the evening together." He couldn't wait. Okay, they wouldn't be spending it in bed—he couldn't imagine Joss wanting to do anything physical while she was throwing up from this stomach flu she had—but any chance to spend some time with her was precious. He'd already decided to stop at their favorite deli on the way back so neither of them would have to cook and so that he could focus on pampering her—something he was sure she needed since she looked as miserable as she probably felt.

And he enjoyed fussing over her. Usually she'd put up with it, if only up to a point; it was rare that she simply gave him free rein to do whatever he wanted, and he would seize this opportunity. Deli for some subs, since she seems to be able to keep down sandwiches. Nothing too greasy or oily. And some of that chicken soup she likes. And there's that movie she's been wanting to see, I'll pick that up tonight and we'll watch that this evening while Taylor's at his prom.

Plans for the evening settled, he headed down the hallway to slip into a jacket. He'd take the GTO for this, since Lia liked the big purple car, and there was plenty of room in the back seat for John to put his purchases when he was done shopping. He ran a comb through his hair quickly and left his room at the same time Taylor was coming out of his. The boy was nervously running his hand over his hair again, and John smiled, remembering how anxious he'd been when he'd taken Joss on their first date.

"Lia's aunt and Uncle want her back at eleven," Taylor grumped. "So I know you and Mom said I can be back at midnight but Lia has to be back sooner."

John thought. "Tell you what, I'll be at the school at ten-thirty. If you're both ready to go I'll pick you both up, but if you want to stay a little later and hang with your friends I'll make sure Lia gets home safely." Nothing was going to happen to her on John's watch.

"I'll check with Lia. If they're being really horrible to her during the dance then I'm probably not gonna want to stay. I mean, Manny and Angela are gonna be there and they like Lia, but everybody else at school is being just horrible." He thought. "Except for Trinity. She's being really nice—I think Mom said she feels guilty about what happened and she's tried to apologize to Lia about it but Lia's not talking to her yet. And neither am I." He frowned. "John, you and Mom taught me that no matter what people around me are doing, to follow my conscience and my heart and do what's right. Trinity should have done that instead of listening to Kylie."

John was torn between disgust at the mere mention of Trinity and Kylie and being proud of the young man standing in front of him. He settled for pushing unpleasant thoughts aside and reaching out to lay a hand on Taylor's shoulder. "I'm proud of you. Always follow your heart instead of what others tell you, and you'll never have to be ashamed of the person looking back at you from the mirror." Something that his own life had taught him—though there were times when he didn't like the person he saw in the mirror in the morning, those had been because of the times when he hadn't listened to himself.

"Thanks, John." Joss got up off the couch as Taylor and John came back in the living room, then gave Taylor a quick peck on the cheek, fussed with his collar, gave the boutonniere a last twitch. "You behave, alright? And tell Lia I hope she has a great time."

John gave Joss a quick kiss as he followed Taylor out the front door. "I'll be right back as soon as I drop Taylor and Lia off, okay?"

"Okay," and she gave him a warm, if slightly tired-looking, smile. He smiled back, and carried that with him as he headed for the GTO parked at the front curb.

Joss sighed as she levered herself up off the couch as the muted roar of the GTOs engine faded down the block, and reached for her purse, hidden under the coffee table. She'd been worried that the white plastic bag from the pharmacy would be visible in her purse and one of her boys would get curious enough to ask her what was in it—a question she definitely didn't want to answer.

But inside that bag was going to be an answer to her own question, and she took the little cardboard box out of the bag now. "I can't believe I'm doing this. At my age." She was forty-two, for pity's sake, and she should be way past this. But her nausea, vomiting, and general fatigue of the past week said something else, and she'd told both her boys it was a stomach bug while not believing it herself. She'd gone through this before, and although it had been eighteen years ago, she remembered enough to be suspicious now.

She headed for the bathroom, closed the door. This wasn't going to take long at all, but she didn't want John or Taylor coming back and disturbing her if they forgot something. Better to close the door and lock it, although she knew that lock wouldn't keep John out if he thought he needed to get through it.

She opened the box, tucked the wrapping back into the plastic pharmacy bag. No way was this going into the wastebasket. She'd put it in the big outdoor trashbag herself, in the bottom where hopefully John wouldn't see it before the sanitation truck came by the next morning.

She sat on the toilet, held the end of the stick exactly where she was supposed to, then replaced the cap on the end as she cleaned up after herself. She moved slowly, deliberately not looking at the little stick of white plastic sitting on the counter, watching the hands tick off the seconds, the minutes, until the required time was up. And only then did she look down at the stick.

A bright pink plus sign stared up at her.

She stared at it for long moments, then reached out to pick it up in shaking hands. A little part of her wanted to deny it, rued the fact she'd only bought one pregnancy test at the pharmacy, wanted to do it again, but the rational side of her mind asserted itself. There was no point in doing it again—in fact, there'd been little reason to do it this time. She'd been through this before. She knew what being pregnant felt like. No need to do the test again, and no reason to deny something that, deep down, she'd already known.

She leaned against the counter, closed her eyes, barely feeling the hot tears that slipped from under her eyelids. She knew the statistics for women having children over forty. Knew there was most likely going to be complications from her prior difficult delivery with Taylor, as well as from the physical trauma Walker had inflicted on her the previous year. But as she laid a hand on her lower belly, she knew that there was no way she could put her own health considerations ahead of this baby. "Hey," she whispered, smiling even through her tears, even as her voice broke at the knowledge of what this could possibly cost her.

But she couldn't deny that she wanted this too. "After everything your father's given me, I can try to give him the one thing he wanted most, his whole life," she caressed her belly as she thought about the wistful tone in John's voice when he'd mentioned having children, a family, of his own. Yes, he had her and Taylor now, but it wasn't the same as having his own. And now she had a chance to give him that.

But that brought up a new worry, too. How was she going to tell him? He was going to worry that the only reason she was doing this was because he wanted it—and as much as she didn't care about this pregnancy's ramifications on her own health, she knew that would be the first thing on John's mind. He was going to be terrified for her. And his paranoia about not letting people close to him because those he was close to wound up dead, a paranoia that was slightly alleviated by the fact that Joss could kick ass as well as he could, was going to come back in full force, stronger than ever, if she had this baby. A child. A boy? Or a girl? Would he run from her, thinking that was the only way to keep them—Joss and the baby—safe? As much as she wanted to think he wouldn't, Joss also knew John was perfectly capable of making that sacrifice if he thought it was best.

"I have plenty of time to figure out how to tell him. I'm only a week along, at most," she comforted herself with that thought, then paused. When exactly had she gotten pregnant? How far along could she really be? She'd only started feeling nauseous in the last couple days, and she hadn't missed that many doses of her birth control pills—had she?

She tucked the pregnancy test in the box, put that back in the bag, took it to the bedroom. There she shoved it deep into her laptop bag even as she reached for the top drawer of her nighttable and took out the little blue box that held her pills. She shook out the plastic blister pack, counted out the pills. She'd missed four doses since the last time she'd gotten a refill on them—at the end of last month. So there were four days this month she could have gotten pregnant, and of course she had to have been ovulating…

After some quick figuring in front of the calendar, she narrowed it down. I'm a week along. I must have gotten pregnant the night I asked John if he'd consider marrying me. We were in a rush the next morning, I went right out to talk to Taylor's classmates with Olivia and I didn't even have time for coffee. I'm positive I missed my pill then. And now a new worry intruded. I've taken a few of these since then. Are they going to hurt the baby? I'd better stop taking them now. And make an appointment to see my doctor, and maybe there's some anti-nausea medication I can get over-the counter so I can stop throwing up. Sooner or later John will get suspicious if it keeps up. He's not as dense as Paul was. A slight smile curved her lips. Nope, definitely not. I'd better figure out what to tell him soon, because he's definitely going to notice. But until then, I can use this stomach flu as an excuse to stay out of the gym. I can't lose this baby, I simply can't. It means too much to both of us. She smiled to herself again. John's baby. I'm going to have John's baby. A little bit of him and a little bit of me. And…even if he does decide that his presence in our lives places us at risk and he runs, I've raised a child alone before. I can do it again. And…this time it will be his child. The first man I've ever fallen in love with. She curled up in bed, thinking. I wonder what the baby's going to look like. I'd like to have a girl. With John's blue eyes, because she loved his eyes…

The apartment was quiet when John came back; a quick glance showed Joss wasn't on the couch where he'd last seen her. He put the bag from the deli and the bag from the video store on the kitchen counter, then headed down the hallway to see if she was in her room.

She was curled up on her bed, half-wrapped in the comforter, sleeping. There was a happy little half-smile hanging around the corners of her lips, and he smiled at that.

She stirred, woke, as he sat on the end of the bed. "Taylor at the prom with Lia?" she asked drowsily.

"Yes. They both seemed to be looking forward to it. Lia seemed a bit more like herself. Hopefully she's finally shaking off the depression she's been in since the incident." He'd been gratified to see a bit of an excited sparkle in Lia's eyes as Taylor had picked her up at the door and walked her to John's car, both children seemingly oblivious to the sour glares Lia's Aunt and Uncle had given them. John had ignored them as well. "I stopped at our favorite deli and picked up sandwiches and soup. And a movie. That action flick we both wanted to see."

"Oh!" Joss grinned in pleased surprise. "So we have a dinner and movie night."

"Yes. If you're up to it, that is." He paused. "You know, if you just don't really want to go see the doctor, I'm sure Sam would—"

"No, no, no, it's not necessary. I'll make an appointment to see the doctor if this stomach bug goes on too long." There was something unreadable in her tone, but he decided to ignore it as she pushed the covers back and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "I'm just pulling some late hours at the precinct, and the crime bosses jockeying for top spot now that HR's gone is spreading Homicide a bit thin. I'll be fine."

He decided to trust her. The last time she'd told him something and he hadn't listened to her had been when she'd told him she hadn't been raped by Walker, when he took her to the Catskills. John hadn't listened to her then—and she'd been annoyed with him. He decided he really didn't want Joss annoyed with him, so he'd just trust her when she said she was fine. They had promised never to lie to each other, after all, and she'd never broken that promise to him.

"All right. Go get comfortable on the couch and pop the movie in, by the time the opening credits scroll through I should have the sandwiches ready and the soup heated up."

It really hadn't been all that long since the soup had left the deli, so by the time the action hero had made it through his first car race, John was strolling into the living room with the results of his deli run.

"On paper plates so neither of us has to worry about dishes," he smiled at her raised eyebrow over the paper cups and plates.

She grinned at him as he put the food down, but when he started to reach for a plate, she laid a hand on his arm. "Not just yet."

He sat back, puzzled but willing to trust her, and was gratified by her sitting up, leaning against his shoulder and cuddling up next to him. She leaned her head on his shoulder with a sigh that he could only define as 'blissful', and he freed one arm to grab the throw over the back of the couch and wrap that around her shoulders. The food might feed his body, but her simple touch, her happy sigh, fed his soul as nothing and no one had in a very, very long time.

I love you, Joss.