Chapter 16:
"Well, the baby looks a good size Sue. A little big, but that's good – it means you're eating right. You are showing a bit more than most women at your stage of pregnancy but it will vary with every woman. Would you like to know the sex?" Sue looked at Jack and smiled.
"Jack's going to find out, but not me. I want it to be a surprise. He's getting the babies room ready though." Dr. Amelia nodded with a smile.
"No problem, let me just zoom in on the little guy or girl." Jack squeezed Sue's hand. She turned to look at him, tearing her eyes away from the baby.
"Why don't you close your eyes while she tells me, just to make sure you don't read her lips?" He said with a twinkle in his eye. Sue conceded and closed her eyes, until she felt Jack tap her on the shoulder. The smile on his face was unmistakable. Pure joy. Jack couldn't believe what the doctor had told him. He was thrilled. It made things easier, now that he knew. Operation Baby Hudson was going to go into full drive.
---
"Come on, tell me!" Sue said over dinner. Jack just smiled. He had caught her trying to get into the babies room again.
"Nope. You didn't want to know, I know you still don't deep down. We'll go shopping for girl and boy furniture, the paint colors and everything else. I'll pick up the one we need and finish up the room and you can take care of yourself and our little munchkin and find out in 5 months."
"I hope I can wait that long, and I hope you can go without telling anyone – especially Bobby." She said with a grin.
"Bobby doesn't know that I know and there is someone I can tell." Sue looked at him curiously "Well, Doug will have to know since he's helping me. And no going into the baby's room! The fumes aren't healthy for you anyways." Sue rolled her eyes. She definitely was starting to look pregnant. She could hardly imagine what she was going to look like at 9 months, if at 4 months she was already showing quite a bit. Levi sat on the floor happily. He had adjusted well to the move and to having Jack around all the time. They started to form a special bond, now that Jack was taking Levi out for walks in the morning because Sue would be too tired.
---
Sue loved being married. She would putz around the house, looking at all the pictures on the wall, doing the laundry, cleaning up the kitchen. Secretly she would try and dust or organize the bookshelf, but knew she would be in trouble if Jack caught her lifting anything or reaching too far. She was just into her 3rd trimester, and the baby was only 2 and half months away. The end of March was approaching; Jack and Sue were both very busy with work and the house. They could barely believe that they were celebrating already being married 3 months. Sue would barely even think about what had happened the previous September anymore. Anytime the thoughts popped into her head, she would realize that it was a good thing she went to the prison, and it always helped that she could snuggle up to Jack at night. It always kept the nightmares away.
---
Jack and Sue made their way into work, a cold early April morning. Sue waddled over to her chair and sat down, eager to relieve the stress from her semi-swollen feet. She was grateful the morning sickness had only lasted her first trimester and that the mood swings were a little more temperate, but the weight gain and huge stomach definitely took some getting used to. The cravings were strong, and she would sometimes accidentally wake up poor Jack while she tried to get out of bed to order Chinese food at 3 am. He never said he minded, but the boys would always laugh at him when he arrived at work with dark circles under his eyes from the late night drives.
Jack was finishing wrapping up a case, a drug bust involving 2 big dealers. Jack and Bobby had been able to stop them before the deal took place, Sue helping by having read their conversations on surveillance tapes. It was a pretty straightforward case, though it reminded Sue strongly of the last drug bust they had stopped. She put her hand on her stomach and just sighed. Those days were over, things were different now. She was married, they were having a baby. Things were good. Ted absolutely refused to let her out of the bullpen at one point, to help them read the lips of a conversation at a coffee shop. Sue was feeling a little cooped up in the office, never being aloud to leave and having basically everyone do everything for her. She would go over paperwork, transcribe videotapes and mostly help Lucy and Tara. She missed being out with Jack on the field, but knew it was for the best.
---
She had sat down with Ted a few weeks earlier to discuss what was going to happen once the baby came. Sue, who wanted to take care of the baby but also didn't want to leave her job, felt torn. She knew that it was important to her to be with her child as he or she grew up, but she couldn't imagine sitting at home doing nothing. She brought this up to Ted, who had an idea.
"Well, since you're so reluctant to leave, how's this for a thought. I talked to my boss, and he thinks it's a good plan. Once the baby comes, you take some time off to recover. Once you're ready, you can work from home as much as you can. If we have a big case, you can transcribe the tapes at home or here, give the information to Jack. We'll keep your desk here, you can come in every so often, with the kid to help out if need be – you can work on your own schedule, your own pace. Then we don't lose your skills and expertise and you're still working but taking care of the baby. How does that sound?" Sue was ecstatic, it was the perfect solution. She talked it over with Jack that evening and they both agreed that it would work great.
Knowing that she wasn't leaving in a few months made Sue feel better. It would've been hard for her to leave her friends and not see them everyday, and be left out of the loop. Not to mention Jack would've had to keep things from her, something they both didn't want.
---
"Jack, could I see you in my office please?" a stern looking Ted Garrett called from the doorway. Jack got up quickly, wondering if it was the case he had been hearing about. He gave his wife a quick smile and left. She, Tara and Lucy had been busy discussing names, with input occasionally from the guys. Bobby was lobbying for a boy to be named after him. Jack put his foot down, but Sue told him with a wink, once Jack was gone, that they were maybe considering Robert for a middle name, at Jacks suggestion, if the baby was a boy. Bobby had spent countless minutes staring at the 7 ultrasound pictures on his wall, trying to see any hints that would suggest what the sex of the baby was. Jack had managed to keep things secret that he knew, so everyone just figured that no one knew yet. Sue also didn't tell Bobby that Dr. Mireck had taken the ultrasound picture at an angle to make sure even she couldn't figure out whether it was a girl or boy. It was more fun watching him stare at the pictures, like a Where's Waldo? book.
Jack had managed to keep everyone out of the baby's room, except himself, Doug and any movers delivering furniture. Whenever they had friends over, they normally stayed on the main floor, but if they happened to go upstairs, Jack would just say that he couldn't open the door because the fumes would get out and harm Sue and the baby. Their guests seemed to be okay with that excuse, and would leave it at that. What they and Sue didn't know was that Jack was almost finished. The paint and the boarder were up, floorboards painted, floor finished, furniture in. Jack had even bought a special gift for Sue, a beautiful rocker in the corner that matched the room perfectly. Jack loved standing in the baby's room, only a few more touches needed, proud of the work he and Doug had accomplished. It was perfect – now all it needed was the baby.
---
"They want her undercover. I assume you've heard about what's happening." Ted said, with a frown.
"No way Ted. There is no way she's going undercover." Jack responded angrily. Ted sighed.
"I know Jack, that's what I said too. I don't want this anymore than you do. The problem is that they are pulling strings higher than I can reach. There is one way we can get out of it, though."
"Good, because there is no way my 7th month pregnant wife is going undercover on any case, let alone this one."
"Sue needs to tell them that she won't do it." Jack sat down and thought about it. Sue would want to help the team, he knew that she was feeling anxious about always sitting in the office and not being out and about anymore, but he also knew that she wouldn't want to put the baby in harms way. Even Dr. Mireck had told them that she shouldn't even be working much at a desk, let alone on the field. He wasn't too sure how she would react and what she would want to do. At this stage of her pregnancy, Sue had become slightly irrational and frustrated whenever someone tried to help her or take care of her.
"Ted, Sue can't do this. Look what happened last time." Jack said quietly.
"Talk to her, I don't want her to either but it's out of our hands. Get her to refuse and maybe we'll get her out of this." Jack nodded and left, angry with the superiors who even considered putting his wife and baby in danger. This serial killer had been kidnapping pregnant women and their husbands. He would kill the husbands, holding captive the wives until they had the baby, then would kill the new mother and take the baby and do who knows what. One baby was found drowned in the river, another up in a tree. There were still 2 babies missing. It made his stomach go in knots to think about. All they knew was that the victims all had something in common – they had all been staying at the Jefferson hotel. He knew Sue wanted to feel more useful, but this was too much. He had to convince her that she couldn't do this.