"Maybe we should get another one." Nick blurted out as the results sunk in. He'd heard about false positives before; there could be false negatives too. Surely not every pregnancy test was perfect; wasn't that why women went to the doctor's office to make sure?
Sara looked up at him and arched a single brow. "Nick, we've done three of these now and I don't have to pee anymore." She let out a harrumph and flopped back onto the bed still clad in her wedding dress with a makeshift fan of three pregnancy tests clutched in her hand. She had been so excited at the prospect of being pregnant that the two minute wait to see whether there would be a plus or a minus on the strip seemed to take forever; at that moment she clearly understood the concept of time standing still.
"But they could be wrong." There was a part of him that was convinced that they'd just happened to buy three faulty tests; perhaps if he'd bought the fourth brand the drug store sold, they would have gotten different results. Of course the logical CSI part of his brain knew that these tests were pretty much all the same and it was quite likely that he was thinking faulty. Just because he wanted something so badly did not make it so.
"Nick they're the same brand they use in the morgue...I'm not pregnant." For some reason she was both relieved and disappointed. She very much wanted to have a baby with Nick, but nagging at her in the back of her mind was something she once asked Grissom. If there was a murder gene she certainly didn't want to pass it on to some unsuspecting bundle of joy; she just didn't want to tempt fate. She wanted to believe that she could be a good mother, but there was part of her that wasn't sure that someone that never saw an example of what a good mother was could actually be one.
Nick sprawled out next to her on the bed, his bow tie loosened a bit and his jacket long since shrugged off. As he glanced over at her he realized that this wasn't exactly the way he'd imagined his wedding night would be. They seemed to be more focused on whether or not Sara was pregnant than on what the more typical wedding night activities usually were. He rolled onto his side and slid his hand across her abdomen letting it come to rest on her hip. "Are you disappointed?"
Sara had to think about that for a minute as she reached up and trailed her fingers across his chin. "A little...I just wasn't expecting that quite this soon...I guess I don't have to worry about it now...at least for a while." The reality that she and Nick were actually married began to sink in.
Nick waggled his eyebrows suggestively and whispered conspiratorially. "You know...we could do something about that." This was their honeymoon and he had been rather distracted by her in that dress all day long and until she'd shared her little tidbit of news, he'd been imagining all the ways he could get her out of it once they were alone.
Sara giggled and then a more serious expression crossed her face as something occurred to her. "Do we want to do this..." Her cheeks reddened a bit as Nick raised a single eyebrow in amusement at her question. "I mean, do we want to start trying right away?" There was a very selfish part of her that just wanted to be with Nick for a while and just enjoy the fact that he was her husband. She wanted to be able to plan ahead for this the way she had for so many things in her life; but ironically as she thought more about it, most of the best things in her life had happened as a result of an impulsive decision.
Nick let out a deep breath and scooted a bit closer to Sara. "I want kids, you want kids...but I married you because I wanted to be with you; because I'm in love with you, Sara. We have plenty of time to think about a baby." He leaned over and brushed his lips softly against hers and then sort of hovered over her as he pulled back slightly. He wanted to remember this moment for the rest of his life; the way her hair fanned out against the bedspread, the way that dress of hers accentuated her in all the right ways, and the way her eyes looked back into his with such a love that he didn't know how he ever deserved it.
Sara brushed his lips with her fingertips and then started to ramble a bit. "I don't want you to be disappointed that I'm not pregnant...you seemed disappointed." For some reason, Sara felt like she needed him to reassure her that if they never had children that he wouldn't regret being with her. As much as she wanted a baby, she wanted to be loved by someone more.
"I'm not completely disappointed." Nick had a husky quality to his voice as a smile flitted across his face. "I was sort of looking forward to it being just you and me for a little while...but when you told me that you might be pregnant, I really wanted it to be true because I know how much you want a baby." He hoped that he was explaining himself ok. He wanted kids just as much as she did, but he didn't want her thinking that he was disappointed in her for something that was completely beyond her control.
Sara smiled at him. "You know a while back you told me that you thought I wanted the whole package; to find someone who loved me that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and that if I settled for anything less I'd be disappointed. I think I knew then that I wanted to be with you...that if I ever have a baby I wanted it to be with you. I never knew that I could love someone as much as I love you." Her voice was a whisper at the end.
Nick leaned in and softly kissed her and whispered against her lips. "I love you too." Whispers and kisses gave way to caresses and touches and ended up in bliss all tangled up in the sheets.
In the afterglow, Sara whispered in the darkness. "Would you ever consider adoption...if we found out we couldn't have kids?" For some reason her thoughts had drifted to Cassie McBride and others like her who woke up one day in their own personal hell completely alone in the world much like she had. There was a part of her that felt drawn to that kind of pain; there was a part of her that felt like she could help infuse hope in the midst of it because of the journey she'd been on.
"We'll have kids, Sar...I'm sure that with all the excitement of the wedding and everything that it just messed with your system." He planted a kiss on her shoulder and pulled her a little closer.
"But what if we don't...there aren't any guarantees in life; do you think you could ever love a child that wasn't yours?" Sara just couldn't let it go; she had been that child herself and after her mom had killed her dad, she just wanted to be part of a family that loved her. It had taken a really long time, but she'd finally found that with the Stokes.
Nick was quiet for a long moment. "I've thought about it...there are so many kids we've come across in the course of different investigations and I wonder to myself if there was anything I could do to make a difference, and then I remind myself that I can't help them all." People always thought that he wore his heart on his sleeve, but he knew that Sara was so much like him in that way. They were both victims; both survivors and it was part of what kept them going day after day into other peoples' hell.
"Maybe we could make a difference to one." Sara knew that Nick had formed a special connection with Cassie in particular and she wondered if they shouldn't look into where she was and who she was with.
"Maybe we could." Nick wasn't outright rejecting the idea, but he wanted her to know that he wasn't about to stop trying for a baby of their own yet; they'd been married less than 24 hours and in his mind at least they had plenty of time to keep trying.
"What would you have told your family if I had been pregnant?" A smile played at the corners of Sara's mouth.
"Well that was before...who says you're not pregnant now?" Nick sounded clearly amused. "In fact I think you should still go to the doctor just to make sure those pregnancy tests were working right."
Sara just smiled. "Maybe I will."
