A/N: I'm going through my archives and brushing up some older drafts.
The Choice You Make
She feels like jumping out of her skin and down the throat of every witness, perp, and DA for the better part of a week before she thinks to look at the calendar.
Then it takes another ten days for her to break down and tell Mary Beth, who is supportive, but in that way that she has that makes her feel like a little girl.
"This isn't going away, Christine."
No shit.
At the sight of the pink liquid in the test tube, she makes some kind of noise that's not quite a laugh and not quite a cry.
The idea of having a baby feels like a punch to the gut and her 16th birthday, the moment she learned of her mother's death, and when she finally made detective. Ice-cold terror and a deep, inexplicable sense of joy wash through her in alternating waves and she doesn't know what to do.
It's seven a.m. on a Wednesday and she paces around the loft, eventually closing in on the phone. She knows she has to do it. Mary Beth will not let her live this one down.
These exams are awful under the best of circumstances, the horrible intimacy of being pried open by gloved hands and lukewarm metal.
She wills herself to relax, to just give in to the process.
Warm, suffocating darkness spreads everywhere. She stares at the monitor, at the fuzzy black and white universe that is at this moment unfolding inside of her, governed by the flickering star of a perfect, steady heartbeat.
Everything looks good, the doctor says.
Congratulations.
ooooooo
Before she knows what is happening, she is back out on the street with a bunch of brochures and prescriptions and another appointment for four weeks from now.
Sweat starts running down her back as she makes her way from the subway to the 14th. The air is thick and humid, just like when she and Neil went up to Vermont. It rained all weekend, there really wasn't much else to do besides ear, sleep, and – well.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter, of course. But she wonders. Maybe she took the stupid thing out too early or forgot to put it back in, or Neil managed to … dislodge it somehow.
There were generous amounts of good wine involved, anything is possible.
She weaves through the hubbub in the squad room and finally finds refuge behind her desk.
Mary Beth will be in late today, at least that. Something about a plumber, she doesn't quite remember.
It's completely surreal, sitting there, pretending that this is a day like any other, as if she didn't just find out that unless she does something about it, she will become a mother next spring.
Isbecki sidles up to her desk. "Hey, Cagney, you're a woman, right?"
Bless him. He has no idea. The ultrasound picture, burning a hole in the back pocket of her jeans.
When Victor sets out to regale her with the latest tale of Bon Bon, she flees to the Jane under the guise of a flimsy excuse, unable to take any more of his inane anecdotes and questions about 1980s dating.
ooooooo
Mary Beth finds her 20 minutes later, staring at her pale reflection in the dirty mirror. Pregnant glow, my ass.
Her partner's hackles are raised from the get-go, it's that kind of a morning.
She is quick to confess, because what's the point. Then she laments the unfairness of biology for a while, what with creepy old men starting families whenever they want, while she has to decide RIGHT NOW.
Mary Beth seems to understand what it is that they are really talking about here and never once asks about Neil.
They have to go talk to this guy on Riker's Island, and at first she is glad for the distraction. But the car ride through mid-morning traffic takes forever, and she hasn't had anything to eat yet.
When they finally get there, she has to sit in the passenger seat for a minute or ten, with the door open, her head in her hands, blood rushing in her ears and tears tingling at the back of her throat.
"If you're feeling sick, keep a couple of crackers next to the bed and eat some before you get up. Settles your stomach," Mary Beth suggests.
ooooooo
She sleepwalks through the next couple of days.
Mary Beth tries to talk to her a couple of times. In the car, in the Jane, but she doesn't know how to explain.
It feels like two armies are marching on each other, and she is standing right in the middle.
Sore breasts, stomach rolling, absurdly full of love for the tiny thing growing inside of her, but dead scared of what having this baby would do to her career. And her social life. Her everything. Of the kind of mother she would be.
Also, the sergeants' exam is coming up. They give the damn thing every four years. What are the fucking odds.
She can take it, alright. But by the time results and promotions will be announced, she would be out on maternity leave. And the powers that be at One Police Plaza are aware of such things.
Late at night, every night, she tries to imagine a future where she has a child and comes up blank.
Maybe this here, the exhaustion and morning sickness, the wild mood swings and backaches, maybe this is the easy part.
What if she just leaves it at that?
She has to make a decision, and finally schedules the appointment, trying not to think about what the nuns at Saint Brendan's taught her about the sanctity of all life.
It's the right thing to do, and it's only a week away.
ooooooo
Through it all, Mary Beth is great.
She covers for her when she comes in too late in the mornings, shields her with her coat so the uniforms won't see her throw up in an alleyway that reeks of garbage.
They catch a missing toddler case, a real career-builder if they can solve it. The mother is hysterical with fear, and there is no way in hell she can deal with that right now.
Mary Beth does something to get them out of it.
In one of the brochures from the doctor's office, it says that at almost ten weeks, the baby is about as big as a strawberry.
It's probably a fucked-up thing to do, but she keeps talking to the kid, spends a whole evening explaining about Charlie and her mother and Brian, about Mary Beth and the sergeants' exam and their game plan and why she has to do this.
The night before, it's impossible to get comfortable. Her breasts hurt like a bitch, and she doesn't sleep a wink.
In the morning, she is so bloated her pants won't zip all the way up. She picks a long sweater and uses the next hole in her belt, grabs her bag with the sweatpants and pads and enough cash for a taxi on the way home. They told her she has to have someone pick her up, but that's not going to happen.
Then she stands on the subway platform for twenty minutes, feeling her stomach churn and not getting on the train. When she finally does, she lets it rumble past her stop, only realizing what she is about to do after she has already knocked on the door.
"Cagney! Come in."
Stepping into the office, she clears her throat. "Lieutenant."
"I thought you took a personal day."
"As it happens, I need to speak to you about a personal matter."
ooooooo
That weekend, she lets Mary Beth take her shopping.
The one after that, she tells Charlie, because how else is she going to explain why she looks like shit all the time and never wants anything to drink.
The first thing he says is why doesn't she consider having Brian and his wife raise the kid in California. Because how is she going to become the first female police commissioner if she has a baby? By herself. At her age.
She leaves his apartment without a word and doesn't call him back for two weeks.
Eventually, he wears her down and they settle into an uneasy stalemate where she doesn't tell and he doesn't ask, and they watch baseball while he sips a beer and she nurses a ginger ale and she pops the top two buttons on her pants when he isn't looking.
ooooooo
One morning, a brown paper bag appears on her desk. It's from Mary Beth, this new book that has just come out: 'What to Expect When You're Expecting'. She shoves it into her desk drawer as if it were pornography.
For a while, she lives in two separate realities. One where she is still Charlie Cagney's officer daughter, resident hot dog at the 14th precinct and sergeants' exam hopeful. And another where she is a hot mess, muddling her way through early pregnancy with only her partner and Lieutenant Samuels in the know.
She tries to call Neil once, early on, but chickens out on telling him when the conversation takes a turn and he complains about his wife needs constant watering, like a fern. Thank God she – Cagney – doesn't require any attention at all.
Like a cactus.
The next couple of times Neil wants to get together, she makes up excuses. He finds out many weeks later when he shows up at her door unannounced. It goes as expected, and she's not proud of it.
When he's finally gone, she wants nothing more than a drink and decides she can have one. She's not proud of that, either.
ooooooo
The days pass, but the men in the squad room are still none the wiser. She hides the growing evidence under baggy sweaters, loosely cut blouses and blazers. And she could have gone on a while longer, probably.
But when a suspect makes a run for it down the fire escape from the seventh floor, she hesitates to go after him, only for a split-second, suddenly unsure of her balance and afraid of falling on the rickety stairs.
That's when she knows that being a good cop right now means making sure nobody will rely on her for anything she can't deliver.
Admitting to the whole squad room that she is expecting a baby in the spring is an out-of-body experience if she has ever had one.
After she stumbles through the announcement with cheeks ablaze, it goes so silent you could hear a pin drop. Until Isbecki finds his voice. "You're yanking our chains, right?"
But then Petrie walks up to her and shakes her hand, very earnestly and genuinely happy for her. "Congratulations, I wish you all the best, Chris."
The ice is broken. The others follow Petrie's example, and it's completely embarrassing and oddly moving at the same time. Then they can all settle into this new reality.
At last, she doesn't have to make up any more excuses why she's not coming along to Flannery's.
It doesn't take long for the men to start offering to do things for her, like getting boxes full of files from the basement. There are rats down there and the dust makes her sneeze, but she still insists on going down there herself every single time. The department makes enough fuss as it is, taking her out of the nightshift rotation and prohibiting overtime.
ooooooo
One night in November, she's playing pool with Charlie and about to sink a ball into the corner pocket when a strange fluttering sensation throws her off and she ruins the shot.
From that day on, she can feel the kid.
When she's alone, they have long one-sided conversations. What else is she going to do to fill her evenings. One life is slowly slipping away from her while another one is taking shape, beautifully, inexorably.
She does go to bed with Dory McKenna when he is their liaison officer on that narcotics investigation. It feels strange at first, taking her clothes off and letting him touch her like that. To let him see everything that has changed. At the same time, it's glorious. He says she looks beautiful, and oh, how she has missed the closeness.
In another life, this might have been their baby, she realizes as she looks down at herself, riding him in the early morning half-light.
But Dory is not yet a year off coke, she is facing the upending of her entire life, and beyond the bedroom, neither of them knows how to handle the situation very well.
In the safety of the Jane or in the car, it's Mary Beth who gets to press a curious hand to her belly so she can feel the baby kick, and she is the one who demands to see the ultrasound pictures.
ooooooo
Of course, there is gossip. The kind that makes you wonder if this is the NYPD or high school.
"Look at the rack on Cagney."
"Haven't you heard? John Wayne in a skirt got herself knocked up."
"I didn't know she's married."
"That's because she's not."
The squad throws her a terrible baby shower, but the specially made NYPD mobile that they give her almost makes up for the indignity.
There is nothing more distracting than feeling her child squirm inside of her while she is questioning a perp. Or the way the kid startles and goes completely still when there is too much yelling going on.
Never before has she been turned off by the violence that the job entails. But it's such a relief when she gets put on clerical duty.
Still, she fights Knelman tooth and nail and signs whatever forms and waivers and releases he throws at her so he will admit her to the sergeants' exam.
ooooooo
Her brain feels like a sieve, but nothing in the world could keep her from doing this. For all the women in the department, and especially to prove it to anyone at One Police Plaza who has ever dared to question whether a woman 'in her condition' can still hack it.
On the morning of the second part of the exam, she doesn't feel quite right, but white-knuckles it through the videotaping. Her water breaks that afternoon, three weeks early. It's almost a shame it happens at home, that would have been some videotape.
The next 10 hours are terrifying and strangely exhilarating, somewhere up there with getting shot and really good sex.
Mary Beth is the reason she makes it through. She breathes with her just like they taught them in those awful Lamaze classes, she holds her hands, and puts counter pressure on her back all evening, even though she has her own taping session coming up in the morning.
Eventually, right when she thinks that it can't possibly get any worse, it does. At first, she doesn't quite understand what's going on. She hears herself scream, but then the terrible pressure is gone and there is wetness and commotion and Mary Beth is crying and telling her to look, look, look.
"Happy birthday," coos the nurse and lifts a squirming baby from between her legs, onto her chest.
Gloved hands towel off the baby's back and the little girl flails and gurgles, and without thinking, she shoves up her gown and closes her arms around the warm little body.
The baby opens her eyes and stares, every bit as confused as her mother.
Mary Beth is still crying and kisses her on the cheek. "Congratulations, Chris. She's beautiful. Look at her."
Then come her own great, big, throaty sobs. She can't believe it.
ooooooo
That morning, when Mary Beth steps in front of the camera with dark circles under her eyes, she sits up in bed, high as a kite on hormones and lack of sleep, staring at this tiny stranger who isn't a stranger at all.
In the afternoon, she is working up a nervous sweat trying to get her daughter to latch when she hears the door open. Maybe the nurse can show her one more time how exactly she is supposed to shove her-
Then he clears his throat. It's Charlie, and this couldn't be more awkward if they tried.
"Pop!"
He actually slaps a hand over his eyes. "Chrissie, I-"
She scrambles to button her nightgown without jostling the baby too much. "It's alright, I'm putting them away, Charlie, relax."
Chuckling nervously, he removes his hand and steps into the room. He has brought flowers and a small wrapped gift. How strange it must be for him to see her like this.
"What are you doing? Get your butt over here and meet your granddaughter." She pats the side of the bed, and he comes to sits next to her.
"This is Charlotte Cagney."
Charlie stares. "Chrissie!"
"Do you want to hold her?"
The baby is fussing, but she passes her into Charlie's waiting arms anyway. Charlotte calms down immediately.
All of it feels incredibly strange, but it's also very, very sweet, the way her pop cradles his tiny granddaughter with his big, freckled hands.
ooooooo
Neil doesn't take a whole lot of interest in his third child, not that she ever expected him to.
No daughter of hers needs a father.
She can afford nannies and babysitters, she has Charlie and Mary Beth.
And she has her career. If something should ever happen to her in the line of duty- That's as far as she allows herself to go with that train of thought.
They announce results and promotions when she is still out on maternity leave.
She passes, as does Mary Beth, coming in third, but it's Petrie who gets the nod. Mary Beth drops by after her shift to let her know.
She contemplates the news for a moment, lifting the baby up on her shoulder to burp her. Charlotte spits up half of what she just drank.
"You win some, you lose some," says Mary Beth.
ooooooo
Leaving a ten-week-old baby in the care of a very qualified nanny is much harder than she would have thought.
But over time, as things settle into a rhythm and she begins to fit into her old clothes, she discovers with some relief that by and large, she is still the same old Chris Cagney. Give or take a few stretch marks.
Then she meets David, who doesn't care that he's not her little girl's father. He loves her, and he loves Charlotte, and they both grow to love him back.
She never regrets her daughter.
Even though part of her struggles forever with her role as a mother. Too large is the shadow cast by her own upbringing.
Poor Charlotte will probably need therapy. Then again, who doesn't.
She retires as a Captain. Maybe age and motherhood have made her more mellow, but on most days it's okay that she never became the first female police commissioner.
Charlotte takes after David and goes to law school.
