That Was When He Saw Her Chapter 36, a 7th heaven fanfic

Wilson stayed holed up in his room with Billy for a day and half before Billy finally fell asleep. Once Wilson emerged to ask his mother to watch Billy so that he could grab a bite to eat and take a shower, acts that would only take fifteen minutes total together, he wished he hadn't. When he came out of the room, he had thought that he had heard yelling, but he wasn't exactly sure. He was still in a daze from having a new baby and losing his wife.

He walked into the living room, where he thought his mother was, and stopped dead in his tracks. There in the living room were John Tanny and, surprisingly enough, a woman that had to be Becca's mother, Susan.

"You, son, you have a lot of explaining to do!"

"Excuse me?" Wilson asked.

John charged at the teen, and Wilson stepped back. "You killed my daughter!"

"No, I didn't."

"Yes you did. If you kept your pants on Rebecca would still be alive right now! You killed her!"

"Her preeclampsia killed her, the one I told you about when you hunted me down at school."

"You threatened him at school?" Geoffrey asked.

"No, he didn't threaten me."

"You killed my daughter!" Mr. Tanny yelled out of nowhere.

"No, I didn't!" Wilson screamed. As if to echo, Billy yelled in the other room. "Excuse me, your grandson is calling."

"Don't even think about playing the pity card and asking if we want to see him. We don't."

"Fine." Wilson said and walked away. "Have it your way."

"And don't think about doing the funeral arrangements, either! We're doing that."

"Go ahead!" Wilson walked into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him. Good grief.

Wilson didn't go to school for the next week. He didn't know what to do with himself. In fact, he didn't leave the house at all. He didn't attend Becca's funeral, not only because he wasn't invited, but because he had already said goodbye. He did not need to be at a remembrance with a bunch of people who had no idea who she was. He could do it all on his own terms, the way Becca had lived her life.

School, which had been so important to him in the past, now took a backseat to everything else. Billy was needy. He, himself, was needy. Everything was falling apart, and he still had to act like he had it all together. It was a tough job for anyone, much less for a fifteen year old widowed father. He completely forgot about all things pertaining to his outside life. Everything had lost all meaning and he fell into this warp of self-despair and heartache. When the doorbell rang one afternoon, it didn't even register to answer the door. Nothing made sense.

Martha came into Wilson's room, where he was rocking a crying Billy, and smiled sympathetically at her son and grandson.

"Yes?"

"There's someone here to see you."

"Who is it?"

"Some boy from school."

Great, Wilson thought. That eliminated no one. "OK, I'll be right there."

She nodded. "He's in the living room."

Wilson stood up and Billy quieted. He was going to leave him with his mother, but then decided against it. There was no point at hiding it now. He just hoped that it wasn't Richie who had come to bother him; that would be a total disaster. He turned the corner into the living room and was relieved when he saw only Tyler sitting on his couch.

"Whoa," the boy said when he laid eyes on his friend and his child.

"Yeah," Wilson mumbled and sat.

"No wonder you weren't in school." Wilson nodded. "So what's his name?"

"Billy, Wilson Junior actually."

"You named him after yourself? How narcissistic of you."

Wilson sighed heavily. "I didn't know what else to name him, OK?"

Tyler was taken aback at Wilson's apparent belligerency. "OK, sorry. I didn't mean to offend you." He paused and looked around the room before speaking again. "Didn't Becca have any names in mind for her son?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

Wilson sucked in his lips and looked down at Billy, averting his eyes form Tyler's. "Becca died Tyler. She died giving birth to Billy. She bled to death and they couldn't save her."

"What?" Tyler asked quietly. "No."

"Yes. She's gone and now I have to raise him all by myself."

"But- but your parents will help you, right?"

"Yeah, but they're not going to do it all for me."

"What about school? How-?"

Wilson shrugged. "No one is really talking to me- my mom and dad that is. I think they're trying not to upset me. But you know, they wouldn't, as long as they don't disrespect her. I can see it in their eyes. They're thinking, at least a little part of them, that she brought this on herself. That she got what she deserved for living the way she did." He shook his head. "She was only sixteen. No one deserves to die at sixteen, no matter what they did. She didn't know any better. No one cared about her. I was the only one. It's- it's not so much that she was taken from me. It's that I was taken from her."

"I-I don't know what to say man." Tyler was noticeably upset.

"You don't have to say anything."

"I'm sorry this happened, to both of you."

For the first time, someone actually seemed like they meant it. "Thank you."

"Do you need any help from me?"

"No, I've got everything under control. But you can keep this a secret. Just forget we were ever married. Don't tell anyone I have a kid. Don't say anything."

"I won't. Don't worry."

"Thanks."

Dr. Zapata checked the attendance list for the day. Wilson was absent again, for the fifth day in a row. He needed to get in touch with him, and didn't think that he could get to talk to him if he just called his house. He needed to get over to his house and confront him face to face. Something was definitely going on. He hoped that everything was OK.

Dr. Zapata went into the guidance office, the office that his was an offshoot of, and went over to the filing cabinet.

"Can I help you with something Dr. Zapata?" the secretary asked.

"No, no. I can find it. Thanks anyway, though."

She smiled at him and went back to her work. W….W, he repeated to himself. S. T. U. V. W. Ah ha. He pulled out Wilson's folder and set it on top of the cabinet. Grabbing a piece of paper and taking the pen out of his pocket, he copied down Wilson's address. 75 Maple Lane; that was down off of Third Street.

Dr. Zapata went back over to the secretary. "Um, I'm going to be taking an early lunch now. I have something that I have to do, pertaining to a student. I should be back in about an hour or so."

"OK." She smiled politely, and he was off.

Dr. Zapata knocked on Wilson's front door. A disgruntled and disheveled Wilson opened the door. He was surprised when he saw his confidante in front of him, at his house no less.

"Dr. Zapata? What are you doing here?"

"I was worried about you. You haven't been in school all week. When I called before I was unsuccessful, so I figured I would try the face-to-face approach."

"Well, please, come in."

Dr. Zapata walked in and looked around. Baby stuff was everywhere, but besides that the house was empty. Wilson showed him into the living room and asked him if he wanted anything to eat or drink, but Dr. Zapata politely refused. He was still in awe over the clutter. "Don't tell me that baby was born," he said after a few moments.

"Yes, he was." Dr. Zapata picked up on Wilson's less than enthused attitude. "Billy West, no middle name."

"That's very nice. Congratulations." Wilson didn't respond with the regular "thank you" like a normal person would have. "Where is he?"

"Oh, he's sleeping, thank God."

He smiled. "Is Becca here? Can I meet her?"

"If you want to meet her, you'll have to do it through a picture."

Dr. Zapata wasn't following. "…Did she leave you?"

"No." Wilson sighed. "I guess I'll just tell you, stop beating around the bush." He took a deep breath, getting that déjà vu feeling. "Becca died. She bled to death; her blood wasn't clotting. She had a c-section and died before they could close her back up; she died giving birth to Billy."

"Wilson, that's horrible."

"I know."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"Me, too."

"Was there a funeral?"

Wilson didn't know how he knew. Maybe it was because he was a professional. "Yeah. I didn't go. Her parents came over here and blamed it all on me, so I had enough of them. And I'm sure it was full of people crying who didn't know Becca at all. I knew her. I said good-bye before she went into surgery. There isn't much I can do."

"Funerals are a good thing, though," Dr. Zapata began to explain. "They give you a time to let go of the person, and to let go of your feelings. When you don't go and say goodbye then, it's a lot easier to carry around the emotions of losing a loved one for a longer time than you would have if you went."

"OK, but it's too late now. It's over."

"You can always go to her grave."

"No, I can't. It's too far to walk and I don't have my license yet. And I am certainly not going to ask someone to drive me there."

"Forgive me if this offends you, but I think you have a problem showing weakness."

"I have tons of problems, but right now my biggest one is being a widow and a father at the age of fifteen."

Dr. Zapata sensed he wasn't finished. "And?"

"And that's what I'm dealing with right now. All the rest of my personality flaws have to wait. I have to take care of my son, and get past all of this"

"Fine," he said. "I understand." Dr. Zapata stood. "I really am sorry about Becca."

"I know." Wilson smiled reminiscently. "Do you want to see a picture of her?"

"I would love to."

Wilson got up and rummaged round the living room. Underneath a blanket, he found what he was looking for. A picture of Becca one afternoon when they were driving around. He took a picture of her when she was stopped at a red light. It was his favorite picture of her. The light shown through her hair just right, making her look like an angel. Now she really was one; it seemed befitting of the circumstances.

Wilson handed the picture to Dr. Zapata and he looked at it for a bit before looking up at Wilson. "She was very beautiful."

"Wasn't she?" He smiled. "I love how you could always see her insides on the outside. Sometimes you have to get through a lot of layers of a person to get to know them, and she was the same way, but at the same time she was so shallow, in the literal sense of the word. You could see right into her, at least I could. I loved it. I loved her." He ran his right hand through his hair. "This is awful."

"Yes, it is. I'm not going to lie to you or try to sugarcoat it. The only thing I can say, which is true whether you choose to believe me or not, is that it will get better. Out of this I am sure you will feel some better sense of understanding and what the purpose of life is. There's no way that you can't come out of this a changed man."

"I agree with the last part."

Dr. Zapata stood and put his hand on Wilson's shoulder. "If you need me, you can always contact me." He had given Wilson his home phone number a while ago.

The phone rang at 3:00 sharp that afternoon. Wilson was still the only one home, so with Billy in one hand, he reached for the phone with the other.

"Wilson, Coach Abrams."

Oh great. "Hey Coach." Inside Wilson was screaming.

"Are you OK? You haven't been in all week. Nationals are Wednesday you know."

Wilson had completely forgotten all about that. The school had paid for him, the coaches, and the six other boys to stay from Tuesday night until Friday morning in Maryland for the competition. All the work he had put in, the rest of the relay team that was counting on him, all the other guys swimming who didn't deserve to beat him, the school. And now he couldn't go. "About that…"

"Yes?"

"I can't go."

Coach Abrams nearly dropped the phone. "What?"

"I've had an extreme and unforeseen family emergency and I need to stay home for a while. I'm sorry Coach."

"I don't believe this. We worked so hard. I worked so hard with you. And know you're blowing it off? For what?" Wilson didn't answer. "See, I knew it wasn't anything. You're lying to me."

"You really want to know?"

"Yes, I think I deserve an explanation."

"I got a girl pregnant. She gave birth to the baby over the weekend and she died from complications."

"You're lying to me." The coach refused to believe it.

"No, I'm not, but if that's what you want to believe then I can't stop you. I'm sorry I let you down Coach." And with that Wilson hung up.

After being awake for over twenty hours, crying most of them, Billy had finally fallen asleep at two in the morning. Instead of going to sleep like a normal person would have done, Wilson went out into the living room. He picked up the picture of Becca that Dr. Zapata had left on the coffee table the day before. He stared into it and felt tears well up in his eyes.

He didn't want to cry. He was always taught to believe that men didn't cry. But he couldn't help it. Wilson waited a few minutes to see if either of his parents was going to get up before he let loose. Deciding that it was safe enough, Wilson let the first tear stream down his face. It slowly went down his cheek, ending underneath his chin and hanging there. When it eventually dropped off, it landed on Wilson's wrist.

As soon as the tear hit, Wilson just lost it. He cried harder than he had ever remembered crying in his entire life. He cried for himself. He couldn't stand to believe that, no matter how hard he tried to do the right thing, he had failed miserably. He couldn't fix it all, like Becca had told him, and it was tearing him up inside. The changing of that simple fact altered the way his whole mind worked. He would never look at another problem the same way. Maybe, he thought, he would never try to solve a problem again. Maybe problems had no solutions, just temporary fixes until the next problem. That seemed accurate, at least with his situation.

He cried for Billy, his son that he didn't even know what to name. He loved him with a love different than the way he loved Becca, but he knew it was love all the same. He cried because Billy would never know his mother, and what an amazing and beautiful person she was. He would grow up without getting any of those maternal instincts showered upon him. Billy would never know the unconditional and complete love Becca would have given him. Billy would have to grow up in a single parent household. He would only have a sap for a father, a father who was going to be trying to play both rolls while trying to still get through high school.

And, lastly, Wilson cried for Becca. Why did she have to suffer through a difficult pregnancy and then die in the end? It was so unfair. There was so many unanswered questions, so many things that he had never told her. If he had the chance, just ten more minutes with her, Wilson would have held her and made sure that she knew that he loved her like a husband was supposed to love a wife. Wilson cried because he was unsure if Becca had ever felt truly loved. Out of this he had learned something already. Love was everything. It was the only thing worth having.

THE END

A/N: Well, it's over. All 50,005 words of it. I want to thank all of my loyal readers for sticking with me through this- especially at the times when it was really awful. This was not, by far, my best story. I attribute most of that to writing it before I was posting it for the fanfic public at large. While that can be a good exercise in writing for yourself and not your audience, it turned out to be bad. The input from the readers really helps as you go along. I would have fixed a lot of the huge character flaws had I known everyone was going to despise Wilson and Becca so much.

But, all in all, I am proud of myself. I wrote it for me and in thirty days to boot. All things considered, it wasn't too shabby.

Thank you again everyone! Please review the final chapter.