AN: Here we go. Very short time jump in this one that's explained in the chapter.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"OK, Daddy, you want to do this?" Alice asked.
Carol laughed to herself when she saw the slightly horrified expression cross Daryl's face at the thought of giving her the hormone injection. It was the first time he'd been invited to come to any kind of "appointment" with her and he'd been watching everything so closely that Carol thought he could probably handle any of her appointments himself from here out.
That was, as long as he didn't have to do anything that involved making Carol even the slightest bit uncomfortable for even the shortest amount of time.
"You uh...looks like you got it," Daryl said.
"It's really not hard," Alice said. "If you want to do it. It's a way to get involved."
"I think I'm good," Daryl insisted.
Rather than try to coax him to do it for her, Alice gave Carol the injection herself while Daryl hovered and asked a dozen or more questions about what the hormones were for, if they hurt, what the burning felt like, and finally, what would happen if they were to stop them.
"I'm not sure what'll happen when we stop them," Alice said. "We're lessening her dose already, and nothing's happening that we don't want to happen, so we'll go from there."
"And what if something does happen?" Daryl asked.
"Then we'll try to fix it," Alice said, straightening herself up to dispose of the syringe. "We're doing everything we can to make this a smooth and uneventful pregnancy. Carol? You can strip down and get on the table when you're ready."
Carol shimmied out of her pants and laughed to herself over the fact that Daryl was watching that too with the same interest he'd been watching everything else. When she'd been pregnant with Sophia, her husband hadn't bothered to come to any of her appointments. They weren't really about him, in his opinion, and they'd be boring. Daryl, however, didn't seem to find them boring at all. To throw him a bone, and let him do something he wouldn't find objectionable, Carol asked him to help her arrange the blanket over herself and he quickly obliged her, almost tucking her in like she was going to take a nap instead of submit herself for further examination.
"You want me to like just stand here?" Daryl asked. "Or I hold your hand or—how does it work? What do I do?"
Carol offered him her hand and puckered her lips at him quickly. She winked at him to try to relieve the concern on his features and for just a second he seemed to relax a little.
"You're doing just what you're supposed to do," she assured him. "Stand with me. Alice is going to explain everything when we get to see the baby."
"That I am," Alice said. "But—baby is very small and doesn't look a whole lot like a baby. And Alice is still not absolutely perfect at the pointing everything out. So forgive me a little if you don't see as much as you want to see. Scooch down for me, Carol?"
Carol turned her attention away from Daryl for a moment and focused on the ceiling, willing herself to relax as much as possible for Alice's examination. Daryl rubbed her hand in his, keeping a rhythm he set for himself, and waited.
"What are you doing now?" He asked Alice.
Alice laughed quietly to herself.
"I am checking everything out," Alice said. "I'm just checking to make sure it looks like her body is in this for the long haul. No signs that the baby wants to come soon."
"Did you find anything?" Daryl asked.
"Not a thing," Alice said. "And that's just the way I like it. Carol? Just relax. Take a deep breath? This might be a little uncomfortable, but you just let me know if it's too uncomfortable."
"What're you doing now?" Daryl asked. He looked at Carol and lowered his voice like he thought he might distract Alice. Carol didn't know how to tell him that she'd seen Alice do sonograms before and he wasn't going to break her concentration, at least not when she needed it. "What's she doin' now?"
"I'm not doing anything to worry about," Alice told Daryl. "I can hear you. This is how we're going to see the baby. At least until the baby gets a little bit bigger. Right now the baby's going to look a lot like a big jelly bean with some tiny little arms and legs and a heartbeat. Here—look at my screen."
Carol looked at the screen then, but she couldn't tell anything. It had been the same for her when she'd been pregnant with Sophia and it had been the same for her, even, when she'd been watching Alice perform the same procedures on Andrea. She knew what it was all supposed to mean, but she couldn't really see much.
Daryl leaned over her a little like getting closer to the screen might help him see something, but his furrowed brows and the quick look he gave her told her that he didn't see anything either.
"That's a baby?" Daryl asked.
"That—is actually her cervix," Alice said. She smiled at Daryl. "Don't worry, you don't have one. And hers looks just like I want it to look. And that—that is an ovary. And that? Right there? That's another one. She's only got two, so that checks out just right. I just have to get measurements."
"Take your time," Carol said quickly. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Where's the baby?" Daryl asked. "I mean, he's in there..."
Alice laughed.
"He's absolutely in there," Alice said. "And—there is his little hiding place." She stood up slightly from her stool and got closer to the screen before she sat down again.
"Something wrong?" Carol asked.
"Relax," Alice reminded her. "That's you moving the screen around. Nothing's wrong. We're at—about seven weeks. And there is the baby. See head and—arm and the other arm is hiding at this angle. Oh—arm. Leg and right there, you can barely see is the other little leg bud. And that—well—that's the sac that the baby's in and—that...well, that's the ummm...that's the other sac."
"Is he supposed to have two of 'em?" Daryl asked.
Alice raised her eyebrows at him and then shook her head gently.
"No, it's a one sac a piece deal," Alice said. "But—it looks like this pregnancy is a two for one deal. So it evens out."
Carol started to sit up, but she thought better of it and lowered herself back down against the table.
"What does that mean, exactly, Alice?" She asked.
Alice looked at her with the same expression that every child ever used to say that it feared it had made a mistake.
"You asked me to help you get pregnant," Alice said. "I guess—you could say I did my job pretty well because we've got two babies." She hesitated a second. "Congratulations!" She said, raising her eyebrows at Carol.
Carol wasn't sure how she felt and she glanced at Daryl like he might tell her how he felt—and by that she could gauge how she felt. He'd dropped her hand and he was gnawing at his thumb while he stared at the screen with a concerned expression.
"At the same time?" Daryl asked.
Carol bit her lip. Maybe he was feeling just exactly the same way she was. She didn't know how to take it all in and neither did he.
"At the same time," Alice confirmed. As if they might have missed it the first time, she pointed the sacs out to them again, their two babies appearing as really nothing more than dark and light contrasting circles to Carol. "That's—we'll call that baby one. And there's number two."
"There's two of 'em?" Daryl asked.
"Two," Alice confirmed.
"At the same time?" Daryl asked again.
"At the same time," Alice confirmed once more. "I believe that—we usually call that twins. Two of them, at the same time, I mean. I think the technical term is twins. Fraternal. These came from two different eggs. That means that they're not—they're not identical. One didn't split. They're siblings, born at the same time. Twins."
"Twins," Daryl said, repeating the word, his eyes not moving from the screen.
"Do you want to sit down, Daryl?" Alice asked. He glanced at her then. "Do you want to sit down? For a minute? You can pull that chair over here and you can sit down for a minute."
Daryl followed her indication to find the chair. Whether or not he wanted to sit down, he seemed to feel like he should since she'd pointed it out. He went for the chair and returned, carrying it with him. He sat down and returned his thumb to his mouth. Carol watched him, still not sure what she even felt besides concern for how he was processing things.
"Daryl?" Carol asked. He glanced at her before he returned his eyes to the screen like he was afraid of missing an important play in a game. "Are you OK?"
"Yeah," Daryl said quickly, though with little conviction. "Yeah," he repeated. This time with more conviction. "There's—uh—there's two of 'em, Carol. At the same time. In there."
Carol bit her lip. For at least a moment, Daryl seemed to forget that "in there" was inside her body. But as soon as she thought about it, she felt a little lightheaded and she was glad that she was already lying on the table. She stopped trying to hold even her head up and sucked in a breath to feel like she was getting a little more air into her lungs.
"Carol?" Alice asked. "Are you OK? I need some communication here from someone."
Carol closed her eyes. She knew that this wasn't something that she was going to come to terms with at this very moment. It wasn't even going to sink in for her right away. It was going to take time. She hadn't fully adjusted to the idea that she was even pregnant. She'd hoped that seeing the proof would help that sink in for her as something undeniable. She hadn't expected it to add a whole other level of things to be dealt with.
"Twins?" Carol asked.
"Twins," Alice said. "To be honest? I had some suspicions. Your HCG was pretty high and sometimes that can be an indication, but I couldn't be sure."
Carol nodded her head more to herself than to anyone else. She swallowed.
"Are you sure that's all?" Carol asked, her stomach suddenly lurching at the tabloid horrors she'd read on grocery store shelves that talked about things like octomom and her litter of children. "There's just two."
"There's only two," Alice said. "You can look again. I haven't changed the screen. Just taken some measurements and—I'll print a picture out for you. See? Arrows pointing to one and two."
Carol laughed to herself.
"Thing one and thing two," she said. "Sophia loved the Cat in the Hat." She breathed out. "Shit—shit...two?"
"Two of 'em," Daryl commented. Carol didn't look at him, but she imagined he was still bothering his poor thumb in an effort to soothe himself through the shock.
"Two," Alice said. "Twins. Both of them. In there."
"Are they healthy?" Carol asked. "That's all I want to know. Are they healthy?"
"Everything looks perfect," Alice said. "Everything's just as it should be. You're handling the pregnancy well. They look—they both look great. I've got two arm buds for both. Two leg buds. And—we have a little movement here. There's been a little wiggling around. I think they might be trying to sleep though."
Carol nodded her head to herself again.
"Daryl?" She asked.
He hummed at her.
"Yeah?" He asked.
"We have two babies," Carol said. "And—both of them are healthy."
"I heard that part," he confirmed.
Carol reached a hand out in what she knew to be his direction and she was pleased when he took it and squeezed it warmly in his.
"You OK?" Carol asked.
He hummed again.
"You?" He asked.
"They're both healthy," Carol said. "We've got twins, and they're both healthy."
"And listen to this," Alice said. "This one is—this is the first one. That's the heartbeat. And the rate is right on point." Carol heard the sound of the heartbeat, strong and fast, and she closed her eyes for a moment to the feeling that flooded her chest at the sound. Daryl rubbed his fingers across her hand in response to the sound. She thought she might feel his hand shaking, but she wasn't going to point it out to him, especially not in front of Alice. "And this—is the second heartbeat. That's really nice. That sounds just beautiful."
Carol wiped at her face with her hand, surprising herself to find that her eyes were leaking tears.
"It does," she said, swallowing back the lump in her throat. "It does sound—pretty incredible."
Alice laughed quietly.
"Pretty incredible," she said. "I've got what I need here. And I got—a pretty good picture for you. Is there anything else you want to see? Mama? Daddy?"
"No," Carol said. "No—I think, for right now? I think I'm OK. Daryl?" He looked at her with some question. "Is there anything else you want to see?"
Daryl shook his head.
"No," he said, almost looking like he was waking from a dream. "No. I'm—I'm good." He seemed to realize that he should say something to Alice, so he nodded his head in her direction. "Thank you," he said. "Thanks for—thanks."
Alice snorted at him.
"Not a problem," she said. "I think that maybe both of you need to go home. I'm writing you passes for the rest of the day. Just—go home and let this sink in, maybe. But you don't have to worry. It all looks good."
Carol stayed in her position until Alice had washed her hands and come back. She offered Carol a hand and helped her get into a sitting position again, though Carol didn't actually need the help.
"Are you mad?" Alice asked. "That there's two?"
Carol shook her head.
"I honestly—I don't know what I am," Carol said. "But I'm not mad. But, Alice, what does this mean for the rest of the pregnancy?"
Alice nodded her understanding.
"We'll figure that out as we go along," Alice said. "The same as we said before. Right now? It doesn't mean anything. Maybe your symptoms are a little more severe. Maybe you need to rest a little more and watch your calorie intake a little more closely. But we'll figure everything else out as we go along." She squeezed Carol's shoulder. "You look wonderful and both the babies look wonderful. There's nothing to worry about here." Daryl got to his feet and moved the chair back to where he'd gotten it before he offered a hand out to Alice. She took it and shook it, smiling at him as she did. "How're you doing, Daddy?" She asked.
Daryl nodded his head at her quickly.
"Yeah," he said. He smiled. It was the first time he'd smiled since they got in there. "Yeah, I'm alright. I'm alright and—uh—what am I supposed to do? For—for Carol? For—you know..."
"Make sure she rests," Alice said. "When she's tired. Make sure she rests and she eats. Lots of fluids. And—a little TLC wouldn't hurt. I prescribe back rubs and foot rubs to everyone. Helps with circulation and soreness. And there's a lot to be said for touch therapy. Good for both parents."
"He takes care of me already," Carol offered. She saw Daryl puff up slightly. Praise, she had learned, went a long way with Daryl, and she had no problem praising him. He earned it and she was glad to freely give it.
"Go home," Alice said. "Relax. Let it sink in. If you want a pass to—go down to the warehouse? Just look around at some baby things? I'll write you one of those too. You just call and tell them you have a pass and they'll send an officer. It might help. It helps get some people—in the mood or something. Helps it all sink in."
"I think there's a lot of sinking in that needs to happen," Carol said, accepting her clothes when Daryl brought them to her to slip back into. "But—we might take you up on that. If Daryl feels like baby shopping. It sound like we're going to need a lot of things."
