Change My Mind
For Loren – I love you, always remember that, ok? You're one of my best friends in the world, and I will always care about you, no matter what. Chapter Three"I'm pregnant."
Anita sat back and waited for Tom's response. She didn't expect him to be overjoyed – she didn't even expect him to have any real opinion yet. After all, she still didn't know what she herself thought. It was scary. She had nowhere to live and no job, she was single with no intention of taking Tom back, which certainly wasn't the best way to bring a child into the world. And then… well, she had never imagined herself as a mother. She had never imagined that she would have to think about something like this, not yet.
"Pregnant?" Tom repeated. His head was spinning. "Anita, you… I… What do you mean?"
Anita laughed. "Some doctor you are. I think you know what I mean, Tom." She kicked her legs out aimlessly. "I don't want anything from you, if that's what you're thinking. I just thought I'd better tell you."
"What, ah, what are you going to do?" he queried, as it suddenly dawned on him that she might not want to keep the baby.
She paused. "I don't know. I haven't quite thought that far ahead yet. But… it's my decision. Not yours." She had made no decisions about what to do about this baby, but when she did, she would make them by herself. "You gave up any rights to me or this baby when you walked out."
"I deserve that."
"You do," she agreed.
"But, look, Anita, that doesn't stop me being worried about you. Are you okay? After the flight?" he asked, concernedly.
"It's not your place to be worried about me – or this baby. You walked out, you left, you made your decision, now you have to live with it." She glared at him and kicked her legs out again.
"If I'd have known, I never would have left like that…" he began.
"Oh, so you'd have stayed for the baby and not me?" Her voice was slightly louder than normal. She wasn't shouting, not exactly, but she was certainly not speaking calmly.
"That's not what I said," he told her. "You're deliberately misunderstanding me here, Anita."
"It's not hard to understand," she retorted. "Let me see, you leave in the middle of the night without saying anything, you fly hundreds of miles to get away from me, and then you say that you'd have stayed if you'd known I was pregnant, how can I possibly misunderstand that?" She aimed a vicious kick in the direction of the chair, and Tom moved out of the way.
"Don't kick me." He looked at her. "Anita, I mean it. I don't want you to go through this by yourself."
"I'm not going through it with you," she replied. "Tom, you hurt me pretty badly, you know."
"I know, and I'm sorry, but please, hear me out." She shrugged, and he took that as consent. "Look, Anita, I'm sorry about what I did, I love you…"
"Funny way of showing it."
"Will you please let me speak?" he asked, frustrated. "I don't know whether you'll want my support or not…"
"I can answer that question right now." She accompanied her comment with another glare.
He ignored that. "If you want my support, I'll be there. Alright?"
"Fine. But I won't."
Tom took his hand in hers. "Anita, why are you doing this? Why did you come here just to tell me that I couldn't be involved?"
She snatched her hand free, and walked over to the door. Once there, she paused, her fingers on the handle. She smiled at him. "Call it payback."
*~*~*
"Coffee?" Ric offered, handing Diane a plastic cup.
"Oh. Thanks." She looked surprised, but sipped the hot drink comfortably. "You're being nice today."
"Aren't I always?" he teased, sitting next to her.
"Well, yes, but… so far, you've given me a lift to work, been all considerate about Tom, and now you're buying me coffee… do you want something?" she joked. But the smile she gave him showed that she was only joking, and showed how grateful she was.
"I'm just looking out for my friend." He extracted five ten-pound notes from his pocket. "There. I know you've been wanting it back."
She smiled. "It only took you seven weeks. Well done."
He laughed. "Well, I've been carrying it around for about a week, I kept forgetting to give it to you." He took a sip of his own drink. "Hot."
"Coffee normally is."
"I burnt my tongue," Ric commented. "Ouch, it hurts."
"Wimp!" she mocked, laughing.
"Thank you." He paused, growing serious. "Diane…"
"Yes?" she queried, looking towards him.
"I just want to thank you, for – for worrying about me." He smiled slightly. "The gambling. Zubin's helping me through it; I haven't done anything for nearly three weeks now. And it means a lot to me that you cared."
She smiled at him. "I always care about you, Ric. Just like you keep saying that you don't want me to be hurt, I don't want you to get hurt either. You mean a lot to me, you know that?"
*~*~*
The moment that Tom walked into theatre, Ed spoke eagerly. "Was that Anita I saw in your office earlier?"
"Yes." Tom didn't really want to talk about it.
"So she's come back?" Ed asked, curiously. "Are you back together?"
"Yes, and no." He looked confused, so Tom continued. "She's come back to Holby, and no, we're not together."
"Oh." Ed paused. "So… ah… why'd she come back? If you don't mind me asking…"
To argue with me, to tell me that I'm not allowed be involved in my child's life, to hurt me more than anyone has ever done before… "Oh, she had her reasons."
"Such as…?" prompted Zubin. Tom looked around; he hadn't noticed that Zubin was there.
"She lost her job in New York." That was simple enough. Anita surely wouldn't mind him telling people that. And, more importantly, he didn't mind telling people that. He would probably tell Ed about Anita's pregnancy later, but he certainly did not want to do it whilst Zubin was around. Whilst Tom had didn't actively dislike Zubin, the two were not exactly close. Tom was always slightly afraid of some of Zubin's comments, and Zubin took advantage of that.
"That was quick," Zubin commented. "How long was she there for?"
"I think we've got a patient to be seeing to?" Tom changed the subject. He wanted to forget about Anita for a while.
*~*~*
"You know that Anita Forbes is back?" Zubin asked Ric and Diane, as the three of them were in theatre after surgery.
Diane looked up. "You better be joking."
Zubin looked over at her. "I like my jokes to be funny."
"Why?" Ric queried.
"Tom said that she's lost her job." He picked up his book and prepared to leave theatre.
"Are you still reading that old book?" Diane asked, incredulously.
"'That old book' happened to be the most popular classic novel in the world," Zubin informed her.
Diane shrugged. "It's the word classic that puts me off."
"Yes, Diane restricts her reading matter to fashion magazines," Ric put in.
"That's not… entirely true," Diane faltered. She glanced at Zubin. "So, ah, what's happening in your book? Have they fallen in love yet?"
"I'm reading Sense And Sensibility now," Zubin told them.
Ric groaned dramatically. "And what's that about?" he queried.
"Falling in love… marriage…" Zubin shrugged. "The usual."
"And is this another one where they have to figure out that they're in love?" Diane asked, disgustedly.
"No," Zubin replied, smiling at the two of them. "In this book, the guy knows that he's in love with the girl, but the girl doesn't realise how much she loves him until he finds someone else."
*~*~*
Anita was pacing the grounds of the hospital, half-listening to the woman on the other end of the phone, and occasionally trying to defend herself. She knew that she was giving any passers-by a certain amount of amusement at the faces she kept pulling, but it was safer to do that than yell at her mother. As she hung up, after nearly twenty minutes of being told off as though she were a naughty child, she jabbed the 'off' button on her phone and kicked the wall, annoyed.
"I thought you psychiatrists were supposed to be able to control your rage," Tom teased, coming up behind her.
Anita whirled around. "God, don't sneak up on me like that!"
Tom smiled apologetically. "So… who were you shouting at? One of your poor patients?"
She sighed. "No. My mother, actually."
"And this from the woman who thought I had problems with my parents." Although Tom had never heard Anita talk about her family, he had always assumed that she got on well with them. After all, she spent her life telling other people how important their families were.
"I don't have problems with my parents," she corrected him. "Just my mother. And not all the time… only when I decide to tell her that I'm pregnant, single, and unemployed."
Tom looked sympathetic. "How did she take it?"
Anita looked away. "I'd really rather not talk about it."
"Well, don't worry. I think I can expect much the same when I break the news to my parents."
"I thought you and your father were getting along."
"I went for a meal with him, that's all. You of all people should know that one conversation doesn't exactly make up for a lifetime of arguments. You're a good psychiatrist, Anita, but you're not a miracle worker."
"I'll take that off my CV, then, shall I?" she teased, starting to walk back inside.
Tom followed her. "Look, Anita, we didn't really get a chance to talk before…"
"Didn't we?" Her tone had changed, and Tom could tell that he was skating on very thin ice.
"You said what you had to say, and you left. You didn't give me a chance to say anything." Tom caught her arm as she began to move away. "Anita, don't just walk off. You can't just walk away when things get hard, you know."
"Can't I?"
"You need to think this through, Anita. Have you got any idea about what you're going to do?" he pressed.
"I am thinking it through," she informed him. "I only found out yesterday. It's not a decision I can make quickly. And I don't see what it is to you what I do or don't do."
"How can you say that?" he asked her, slightly shocked. "I care about you, I love you. You're pregnant with my baby, that… I feel responsible for you."
"Well, don't," she told him. "I'm not a child, Tom." She sighed. "If it'll keep you happy, then I'll tell you what I decide when I decide it. I can't do more than that."
He smiled. "Thank you." He paused. "Where are you staying?"
"In a hotel." She started walking again, and he followed her.
"A hotel?" he repeated.
"Until I get myself settled. Where am I supposed to go?" she asked, cursing herself the moment the words left her mouth.
Tom hesitated for a moment. "Do you want to stay with me?"
Anita shot him a look. "I hardly think that's a good idea."
He sighed. "Anita, I'm not suggesting it in a romantic sense. I just think that it would be better than you staying in a hotel."
"Tom, I don't think it's…"
"Listen. I don't want you to be by yourself. You've been through a lot, and I accept that it's my fault, so please let me try and make it up to you. Is that alright?" He looked hopefully at her.
She smiled at him. "Thank you for everything, but I really don't need your help." She kept quiet about the fact that she would have liked to take him up on his offer, that she would have liked nothing more than to move in with him and have everything be normal again.
"Anita, if you think that I can't be adult about this…"
"That's not what this is about." She sighed, knowing that she was about to pick a fight again, not wanting to, but knowing that it was almost inevitable. "It's about you thinking that you just have to say the word and you can have me back."
"At what point today have I said that I think that?"
"It's not what you say, it's your whole attitude. You're acting as though nothing's changed, as though it's the same as before we went to America, and it's not the same. Nothing is the same, and nothing you do or don't do can change that." And yet she liked his attitude being like that. It was easy to cope with, it was familiar. She wanted to immerse herself in yesterday and forget about everything.
"What do you want me to do? Ignore you? Act as though I hate you?" He sighed. "Anita, I wouldn't be able to do that. I know you don't think so, but I love you. I didn't leave you because I didn't love you; I left because I got scared. I thought that, ultimately, I would end up hurting you, and that it was best to go before… before something worse happened. I thought that leaving would be the best thing for you. I didn't want to hurt you, I thought that I was doing the best thing, leaving before anything happened." He paused, fiddling with a button on his jacket. "Looks like I misjudged that."
"You could have talked to me," she said, sadly. "I'd have listened."
"I was too scared."
She paused, about to reply. Suddenly she felt waves of nausea wash over her, and she was nearly sick. "I feel sick," she managed to whisper. She was cursing herself because Tom had seen her panic. He had seen her worry; he could see that she wasn't infallible.
He took her arm, and helped her towards a seat. "Sit down. Take some deep breaths." He smoothed her hair back as she gulped down the air as though it were water. As her breathing eased, he smiled. "Feel better?"
"A bit. I just… I felt…" She trailed off. "I hate feeling sick," she said, petulantly. It scared her. She had never been so scared in all her life. It proved that she really was pregnant – more so than a calendar, more so than a blue line. It scared her because she needed Tom there to make it better. He was offering his help, and she was saying no. Why? Because you're scared, she told herself. Because you always need to be in control, and this is something that he is offering, something that he is controlling, and you don't think you'll be able to cope.
"So…?" Tom prompted. "Do you want my help?"
She paused. Agreeing to this wouldn't be agreeing to forgive him. It wouldn't be agreeing to have a relationship with him again. It would just be agreeing to let him help her a little bit. He knew that, and she knew that. She needed somewhere to stay, and he was willing to provide a place. She didn't want to go through this alone, she really didn't, and he was willing to be there for her. And… she loved him. She couldn't deny that.
So she smiled at him. "Yes. Please."