John was finding it a bit difficult to concentrate, as his mind was constantly circling around Olivia's proposition and the various questions it had spawned. First and foremost in his mind was why him? Weren't there other men in her life she could ask? He could understand her not asking Elliot. He already had four children he was responsible for, and she and Elliot already shared a special bond that could become too close if she were carrying his child. He supposed he could always ask her point blank, she did say she'd answer questions. The thing was that wasn't the question that was bothering him the most.
What was really bothering him, was why he didn't have a child of his own already. He'd been married enough times to make it a squad trivia question. And while his last marriage hadn't really lasted as long as some of his better vacations, his first three marriages had been long enough that they might have been expected to bear some fruit, especially considering he'd never done anything about contraception. Of course his lovely brides might have, and just never have told him. He wouldn't have put that past either Maria or Nancy, but he sort of doubted it in Gwen's case. She just wasn't that way. Gwen was his first wife, and he'd been married to her the longest. Their marriage was good up to the last 6 months or so, despite the fact that her mother loathed him, never thought he was good enough for her daughter, which when he thought back on it was probably true.
John sighed; he wasn't getting any work done. He needed to get this question settled, and then he could move on to the other issues and give Olivia an answer, one way or the other. Suddenly a name came to him, Jacob Cohen, a doctor he'd known since the guy was a med student and he was supposedly a journalist. Jake was now a specialist in what he called 'men's plumbing'. Jake had been practicing in New York for quite sometime now. John would give Jake a call and see if he couldn't fit him in his schedule today as a favor.
Olivia had been watching John all morning; she could tell he was preoccupied, probably trying to decide how to let her down easily. She should never have put him in this position, but he seemed like the perfect choice. He was intelligent, and despite his tendency to hypochondria, he was actually very healthy, and he was also one of her favorite people. She loved his sense of humor and both his passion and compassion. She truly thought he'd make the perfect sperm donor, and if he wanted to be a part of her child's life, she'd be OK with that, because she wasn't worried about the two of them becoming romantically involved, and then things getting messy. She knew he didn't have romantic feelings for her, and she didn't feel that way about him either. Oh she loved him all right, and she suspected he loved her too, but not in that manner.
John suddenly got up and headed toward the interrogation room. Olivia wasn't the only one startled by his sudden movement.
"What's up partner?" Fin asked.
"Huh, oh nothing much, just remembered a phone call I wanted to make, prefer to make it in private, that's all," Munch answered and he headed on into the interrogation room.
John impatiently waited for someone at Jake's office to answer.
"Dr Cohen's Office, how may I help you?" the receptionists voice said.
"Is Dr. Cohen in?" John asked.
"Yes he is, but he's very busy today, may I ask who's calling?" she asked.
"Tell him it's John Munch, if he's not sure who that is, tell him, I'm that skinny reporter he knew back when he was in med school, I think he'll remember," John said.
"Alright, please hold," she said.
John fidgeted as he waited for his old acquaintance to come on the line.
"John, you old pothead, how you doing?" a jolly male voice asked.
"Fine Jake," John answered with a laugh. It had been a while since anyone who really knew for fact that he'd been a heavy marijuana user had greeted him like that, and for some reason it amused him.
"So what can I do for you? Are you having 'plumbing' problems?" Jacob asked.
"Uh, no not really, but I could use your professional help on something," John answered.
"So what's going on?" Jacob asked.
John quickly explained about Olivia's proposition and his misgivings about his own fertility.
"So you want to make sure you aren't shooting blanks, is that it?" Jacob asked.
"Yeah, I mean if I agree to help Olivia out, I want to make sure I'm not making an empty promise," John answered.
"Well, it's easy enough to check. You have to abstain for 3 to 5 days and then you can just drop by my office, give a sample, and the lab will check your sperm count, motility and morphology. It won't take long, well, unless it takes you a long time to come up with the goods," his buddy teased.
"I'm sure it'll take me as long as it does most guys," John said, refusing to rise to the bait. "Uh, a little embarrassing to admit, but I could do this today, if you could fit me in."
"Ok. I won't rub it in that you can do it so quickly. You drop by anytime today before 5, I'll tell my office staff to be expecting you, and they'll work you in," he paused a beat and then continued, "and John, no fair busting me for the videos and magazines in the room we have clients use for giving their samples, OK?"
"I'm Special Victims, not Vice," John answered pretending to take offense.
"OK, see you later," Dr. Cohen said before hanging up.
After Dr. Cohen hung up, he thought about his old friend John Munch. He wondered how much John had his heart set on fathering this friend's child, because knowing his area of specialization, and John's past as he did, he was afraid John might be in for some disappointment. He hoped the young lady had a back up plan, or that he was wrong in his suspicions.
John redialed Cohen's office number to ask the office staff if they were open over the lunch hour, they assured him they were, but that it was their busiest time for sample collection. John decided to arrange for an early lunch break because waiting was vexing him.
As John headed back to work he thought about his lunchtime errand. The embarrassment one felt about handing over a urine sample at the doctor's office was nothing compared to handing over a sperm sample. He hoped the flush had disappeared from his face by the time he got to the stationhouse.
Everyone looked at Munch as he entered the squad room, or at least it seemed that way to him.
"What? What's everyone looking at?" he asked in a challenging tone.
"Nothing," Elliot answered for everyone.
"You feeling guilty about something, partner?" Fin asked.
"No, of course not," Munch answered, but he glanced at Olivia.
John sat down and pretended to be very busy with paperwork. Thankfully, he got a phone call from Casey Novak; she wanted John to come over to One Hogan Place to go over some testimony for an upcoming trial. John was grateful for the excuse to get out of the squad room for a while, and if he was honest with himself, he was also grateful for the excuse to see Casey.
As he drove to One Hogan place John's mind played host to an internal debate. He'd like to talk to Casey about Olivia's proposition, though he wasn't sure he should. If the test results showed he could father a child for Olivia, and if he decided to do it, he still didn't know if Olivia would want the paternity of the child to be made public, that was one of those things he and Olivia hadn't discussed yet, but definitely needed to. He could talk to Casey about it in an anonymous sort of way, but eventually she'd put two and two together, and John felt uncomfortable about that, almost guilty.
His feelings for Casey disturbed him. He'd made up his mind that he was done with romantic entanglements, they always ended badly for him or the woman he got involved with, but then he met Casey. She was way too young for him, but …
One Hogan Place came into view, thankfully cutting off his internal debate. John pushed the thoughts away and made himself concentrate on the case, and keeping Casey from realizing anything was a miss.
br / After about an hour's worth of work on John's upcomig testimony covering every possible nuance he took his leave of the beautiful redheaded ADA, Casey got up and watched John walk down the corridor. When she could no longer see him, she closed the door. She wondered what was weighing on his mind. It hurt her to think anything was bothering John. She didn't know when it had happened, but she'd fallen in love with the lanky, cynical detective. She did know when she finally faced the fact, when she saw him risk his career for Amy Solwey. When she recognized that what she felt was jealousy towards the extremely ill woman that John was trying to help, she realized she had to be in love with him. Nothing else could explain such pettiness on her part.
Casey tried not to make her feelings for John too obvious, because she had picked up the distinct impression that he was off romance, and given his history who could blame him. She sighed and smiled to herself, no one would think she was giving up a great catch anyway; he was way older than her and divorced 4 times. She should probably concentrate on one of the young hotshot lawyers, but she found them deadly dull, especially when compared to an intellectual like John Munch.
Upon John's return to the squad, Fin waved a phone message at him. "Dr. Cohen's office called, said the doc wanted to see you at the office at 5:30. You having some health problems, bro?"
"Huh?" John asked distractedly as he took the message. "No, Dr. Cohen's an old friend from Baltimore, he relocated his practice up here a while back and I'm going meet him for drinks that's all," John answered, rationalizing that his answer wasn't quite a lie. He didn't have a health problem and he probably would take Jake out for a drink after they talked about the test results.
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It was going to seem like forever before 5:30 came.
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