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Sarah called Wren early the next morning.

"Yeah?" Wren answered groggily.

"Wake up, sunshine, I have news." Sarah sang out.

"Ugh, you do realize it only 7am, right?" Wren groused.

"Well this can't wait, meet me for coffee at Starbucks in an hour." Sarah said. "Trust me, it's worth it."

"Okay, but only 'cause I'm gonna make you buy." Wren said.

"No problem, just hurry!" Sarah hung up.

Forty-five minutes later, Wren joined Sarah at Starbucks, grousing about traffic and the hour.

"Oh hushup and listen, I went the doctor yesterday." Sarah's smile widened into a full out grin. "I'm pregnant."

"Sass... oh my Lord." Wren's squeal turned heads throughout the room. "How far along? What did Garret say? I guess you're on the bench for the rest of the season, huh? Or is Garret gonna let you try to work a little longer?" At the last question Sarah's smile faltered.

"Benched, huh?" Sarah shook her head.

"Wren, I .. uh, I haven't told Garret about the miscarriages yet." At the look on Wren's face Sarah continued. "I started to when I told him I might be pregnant, but we were interrupted and last night he was so happy, I didn't want to bring him down."

"Sarah Anne Hamilton, you are trying my patience with this. You need to tell him now!" Wren leaned forward.

"I know and I will, I just... I don't know how."

"Well figure it out, Sarah, if you don't tell him I will. The very idea! You can't withhold this, Sarah. If you wait too long, he'll be furious."

"Wren, what if he tries to talk me into an abortion. I just couldn't do it."

"I don't think he will if he knows how much this baby means to you, but Sarah, he has every right to know the risks you're taking. He's your husband."

"Just give me some time, okay?" Sarah asked. "I just need to work it out in my head."

"How far along are you?" Wren's question this time was not filled with excitement.

"Four weeks."

"And you miscarried when the other times?"

"All between 10 and 14 weeks." Sarah answered.

"I'll give you four weeks and then I'll do it for you." Sarah knew Wren would follow through on her promise.

"I'll do it." Sarah said resignedly.

A Month Later

Four weeks passed with no indication that Sarah had followed through, Wren, knowing Sarah was going to be off work, went to the morgue to talk to Garret. As she walked down the hall to Garret's office, Wren crossed her fingers and hoped she was doing the right thing. Telling Garret the whole story was bound to make Sarah angry, but she had warned her. The only question was how angry she was likely to be.

Wren had held her tongue until she was positive that Sarah was actually not going to tell Garret anything about the hazards that she faced by continuing the pregnancy. She wanted to be certain before she betrayed Sarah's confidence.

When Nigel had told her that Sarah was still on the rotation for trace, she had known that Garret was still in the dark. If he had been told about the possible complications, Sarah would have been lucky to be riding a desk for the next several months instead of sitting at home with her feet up.

Just as she had got up the nerve to go knock on Garret's door, a familiar pair of lips kissed her neck. "What is my favorite bird up to this morning?" Nigel whispered.

Gratefully, Wren turned and wrapped her arms around him. "Darlin', I'm glad to see you."

Nigel couldn't help but notice the worried look in her eyes. "What is it, luv? Is it Sarah?"

Reluctantly she nodded. "Nigel, she didn't tell Garret about…oh, it's awful…I have to tell him, but she'll be so angry." Wren bit her lip.

"Wren, if it's something that will hurt Sarah, then it's important that he knows." Nigel spoke carefully, knowing how much Wren's word meant to her.

Wren managed a smile, then reached up and kissed her fiance. "Darlin', I knew you'd understand. Thank you for being there for me."

Nigel flushed under her gaze. "Always, Wren. Meet me for lunch after I go to the computer store?"

"One o'clock in the lobby, I'll be the one with the smile." She purred, dropping another kiss on his lips. As he watched her go down the hall, Nigel grinned.

"Mate, you're a lucky man." He thought.

When she reached Garret's office, Wren knocked on his door and went in.

"Wren, what brings you in, I thought you and Nigel were working on wedding stuff today?"

"We're going after lunch, but he wants to check out that new computer store around the corner first. We may not see him for weeks." Wren tried to keep her voice light, but Garret was very good at reading people.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"I need to talk to you about Sarah." She sat on the sofa.

"What?" Garret sat beside her.

"Sarah hasn't told you what her OB/GYN in Memphis told her, has she?" Wren began.

"She said he had told her that there was only a small chance she could get pregnant, why?"

"That's not the whole story, Garret." Wren took a deep breath and prayed Sarah would forgive her. "Sarah had three miscarriages while she was married to Harrison. Dr. Hanley told her that if she became pregnant again she would most likely miscarry and probably wouldn't survive."

Garret sat stunned for almost a minute. Wren felt like a first rate bitch for dumping this on him all at one time, but Sarah had no right to keep it secret.

"She never told me." He said almost to himself. "Why would she hide this from me?"

"The one thing Sarah has always wanted was a child, Garret. Each time she lost a baby it killed her soul a little." Wren tried to explain. "I think that may have been part of why she stayed with Harrison for so long. On some level she felt she deserved to be punished for what she saw as failing as a woman."

"Thanks, Wren. I need to be alone to think for a while." Garret opened the door for Wren to leave and sat at his desk for an hour staring into space and trying to reconcile what he'd just learned with the woman he thought he knew.

He reached and picked up the phone. "Jordan, I'm going out for the rest of the day. You're in charge." He hung up and grabbed his coat, taking the fire stairs to avoid dealing with the questions he knew Jordan would want to ask.

The Pogue

Two hours after he'd arrived at the Pogue and ordered a drink, Garret sat at the bar, still unable to believe that Sarah had actually kept this from him and that she was willing to risk her life in this way without any input from him. Never before in his life could Garret remember feeling this much anger at someone he loved. If Sarah had been standing in front of him, he'd have been tempted to wring her neck.

He sat on a stool at the end of the bar waiting for Max to refill his glass yet again.

"I'm not giving you another until you hand over your keys. Garret." Max said holding the bottle in one hand with the other one out to take his friend's keys.

Garret passed them over and motioned for the stocky ex-cop to refill the glass. He took it and ambled back to a booth near the fire exit. Slouching over the glass in front of him, he stared into space and tried to fathom why Sarah would withhold something this important. He knew it would only be a matter of time before Max would come and sit down across from him and ask what was up and he wasn't sure how to answer the question.

What was up? Sarah had become his world and now he wasn't sure where they actually stood. If she could keep this from him what else hadn't she told him. He needed to have it out with her, but had postponed going home because he was unsure of his ability to control his temper when he finally confronted her about it. The last thing he wanted was to have a knock down, drag out, war of words with his pregnant wife.

"What's got you hiding in my bar tonight, instead of going home to your wife?" Max asked genially as he slid into the seat across from Garret.

"Sarah." Garret answered tersely.

"Trouble in paradise?" Max asked, his voice laced with concern for his friend. "I thought things were perfect. Last week you two were walking on air over the baby."

"That was before I found out that Sarah's had three miscarriages and had been warned not get pregnant again." Garret knocked back the double scotch in his glass and Max refilled it and took a pull off his beer.

"And you're worried about her and angry at the same time and don't know which to react to first." One of the reasons Garret had come here was Max's ability to cut straight through to the heart of the matter and advise without judging.

"Pretty much covers it." Garret slurred his words slightly, beginning to feel the effects of the scotch.

"So are you happy about the baby?" Max asked.

"I didn't think I wanted to go through the parenthood thing again, but the more I thought about it, the happier I was. Now though?" He took another sip. "Max, I don't want to lose her. I can't lose her."

"You think Sarah's taking a foolish risk and you're scared." Max was not asking a question, he was stating a fact.

"Yeah, more scared than mad, or mad that I'm scared when I should be happy."

Garret tried to make sense of what he was saying. "I want her to have anything she wants, but if it's a choice between having her have what she wants and not surviving or having her not have what she wants and having her mad at me, I'd rather have her mad at me."

Max took a minute to process the slightly inebriated rambling statement. "I see. Have you talked to Sarah yet?"

"I was afraid to go straight home. I don't want to end up in WW 3 over this and I wasn't sure I could stay calm and rational."

"Well I don't think you're going there tonight. There's a cot in the office, you go stretch out and I'll call Sarah and tell her where you are."

"Thanks Max." Garret mumbled and rose to make his way to the office as Max planned what he was going to say to Sarah, that wouldn't have her grabbing the first cab down to check on Garret.


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