The Cosmic Law of French Toast by Meowser Hotchner
Tag to 4x5: Bloodline.
Your body didn't support the pregnancy.
Melinda knew, in her gut, that it was a technical term. That it wasn't supposed to mean...what she was taking it to mean.
She looked down at her stomach, at her hands, the hands that Jim used to be holding, the hand that hadn't wanted to let go of his.
She inhaled, as the nurse poked her head in. "Ooh, not dressed yet? I'll check back later."
She didn't even get a moment longer.
She felt Jim's absence keenly as she dressed, pulling on the black shirt and gray jumper she'd been wearing previously, knowing in her heart that she'd never want to wear this outfit again.
Never.
She whimpered a little, looking at a poster on the wall talking about baby development at 6, 8, 12 weeks.
Damn it. Everyone...everyone could talk about that but her, it suddenly seemed.
She hadn't even had a month, had she?
She remembered the tests...all ten of them. At first she and Jim had made a game of it, when the first test was negative. Of course it would be wrong. Laughing and flirting, she'd teased him into getting another one at the store.
For the third, she'd gone with him, and, unable to wait, she'd gone in the drugstore bathroom and tried it there.
Fuck.
The look on Jim's face as she exited the bathroom for the last time.
The look she knew had to have been on her face as she just crumpled into his arms, unable to hold herself up any longer.
This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.
She remembered the crisp feel of Jim's blue paramedic shirt, wilting under her tears. She remembered his arms around her, his hands soothing her, his voice talking her through it as he led her out to the car.
The silence on the way home. How neither of them had known what to say and Melinda hated it.
She'd give anything to be in those moments again instead of here in the hospital alone.
Her clothes were on, rumpled but on.
She stumbled out of the room, and Ned was one of the first people she saw.
Oh thank god.
Someone to lean on.
FFF
She got home after work, after an afternoon of hauling furniture with Delia. It had been a welcome distraction, but now...it had just been a distraction. It wasn't enough to pull her out of it permanently.
She ended up in the doorway to their planned nursery. To staring at the wallpaper.
And then she just crumpled, her legs giving way as she fell to the floor, curling herself into a ball.
She was done. She couldn't do this. It hurt too much.
The sobs were coming on, so fast and hard, constricting her lungs, making it hard to breathe as she clutched at her flat stomach. The stomach that wouldn't grow and expand. Not now.
She inhaled, or tried too.
Maybe not ever.
She wanted this. She wanted this so much. She wanted to carry a child.
She wanted to carry Jim's child.
Why the hell had they waited?
Why had they waited?
She managed to sit up, shoving herself to a seated position. She...she didn't want to still be like this when Jim got home.
No.
She stumbled to her own bedroom, pulling off her clothes, blindly looking for her pajamas, but she saw one of Jim's shirts in the laundry (it would smell like him) she pulled it on, close around her bare and barren body.
And then she sat down on the bed, only wearing Jim's shirt, tears streaming down her face.
He was going to be late. It was a late shift. A late shift.
He was going to be gone, almost all the night.
She whimpered, not wanting to let the sobs out, afraid that she'd never stop crying.
Her baby. Her own precious baby. She'd lost him or her. It was her fault.
The sound that came surprised her, especially when she realized it was coming from herself. She was shaking, and she finally gave fully into it, not recognizing anything around her.
All she could think of was the tests, of the sticks coming back without two squiggly lines. Of Jim's face.
Of behing told that she had, actually, been pregnant.
Or maybe not. She'd conceived.
Had she even been pregnant, truly, scientifically, medically?
Would she ever be pregnant?
Would Jim Clancy's baby ever be present in her womb?
Jim's baby. Carrying his child, someone who'd look like him, love her like he did, be so loved by his parents that...that they'd drive him or her crazy.
What if they couldn't have that?
Why had they waited?
Her sobs slowly stalled, grew silent. Arms still wrapped around herself, Melinda breathed out, loosening her hold.
The bed dipped. The bed dipped and Jim was there, arms coming around her immediately, without asking if this was what she needed right now because he knew that it was.
Jim was there, and he wasn't speaking. He just pulled her to him, between his legs, rested her head against his chest, one arm tight around her waist.
"This doesn't change things," he said, after they'd just sat there for a long, long moment. "It doesn't. We can try again. We'll make it, Mel."
"You came home early," she said, sniffing a little, and he handed her his handkerchief.
"I did," he whispered. "I told Bobby it was an emergency and I just left. I...I shouldn't have let you go home alone, Mel."
"I mean, I went to the shop first, so whatever," she said, pulling away.
His arms tightened. "No, not whatever. I'm sorry, Melinda. I wasn't...there."
"You were," she whispered. "You are now. I just...can't handle this."
"Can't handle what?" He asked. "Me feeling guilty? Are you the only one allowed that feeling right now?"
The words struck home with her.
"Do you think that I don't blame myself?" Jim asked, voice raw. "It was my sperm. It was me, who kept pressing you and pushing you, and who knows why you lost the baby but I really don't think our all night relay last week could have helped anything."
"Sex is totally safe," Melinda choked out. "It's always safe during pregnancy. I googled it...when I thought I was still pregnant."
Her voice broke.
"And you weren't pushing me anymore than I was pushing myself."
"I can't hurt you like this again." The words were flat, and they broke Melinda's heart all over again.
"It wasn't you," she whispered.
"It wasn't you either," he swore. "Oh god, Melinda."
She calmed. She was calm. She could breathe again. Jim was still holding tight and she managed to bring his hand to her lips, pressing a kiss to his fingers.
"You can hurt me again," she began. "If it comes to that. If...if having a baby means jumping through hoops and pain...I'm...I have to be ready, Jim. I'll do what it takes. I want...I want you. I want your baby."
She began to cry again, but now she was twisting in his arms, pressing kisses all over his face, clinging to him, to her husband, to the lifeline he was and always would be.
"I want to have your baby," she managed to say again. "No matter what it takes."
His eyes were so serious, so dark she almost couldn't see the blue. "Deal," he whispered.
A/N: I can so picture this conversation happening, esp because of their conversation at the end about adopting.
