I'm a bit late to the party but: Happy New Year, dear readers!

So sorry for the long wait, this chapter took me so long to write. Feel free to let reviews and share your thoughts with me!

Two days later, it was her first appointment with her OB/GYN. She had decided to go right before her shift started so she wouldn't stress out over this the whole day. It was a big moment for Audrey, and she was really nervous about the appointment. She had asked Dr. Garcia to meet her at her private office outside St. Bonaventure to avoid rumors from spreading throughout the whole hospital. She didn't want everyone to know about her still little secret, and she knew it wouldn't take ten minutes before the nurses and interns started whispering behind her back.

She took a deep breath as she sat on a chair in the waiting room. It was empty at this hour of the day as she must be her first patient. It didn't mind her though, quite the contrary. After a few minutes that seemed like hours for Audrey, the doctor came in and greeted her. She entered the examination room, quite tensed and waited for the woman to engage the conversation.

"Well, Dr. Lim. I'm gladly surprised to see you here. Congratulations." She widely smiled, and Audrey had to force a smile in return.

"Thank you." She was too nervous to relax. It was supposed to be a happy moment, but she couldn't stop worrying about everything.

"Should we wait for the father to arrive or-?"

"Oh, no." She answered, a bit too quickly. "It's just me."

"I see, no dad in the picture?"

"Not really, he doesn't know yet."

"Oh," her face lighted up. "Then let's try to take a nice picture of the ultrasound, it'll make a beautiful surprise."

She invited her to lie down on the examination table. She unbuttoned her pants and lowered the zipper, then lifted her blouse up to the top of her abdomen. It felt strange to find herself in this position, and it'd been a while since she had felt that much intimidated. As she was waiting nervously with her arm folded behind her head, part of her wished he would have been here with her to hold her hand.

"This is going to be a little cold." The Doctor said, before squirting some gel on her lower abdomen. Audrey didn't even flinch and instinctively turned her head towards the screen as she started moving the stick across her belly. She could feel her heart beating faster than she would have thought in the first place. She had never really wanted to face the reality until now, and now she was about to meet the little human being that was already growing inside of her. She was torn between excitement and fear, and she was almost holding her breath.

"And here it is." Dr. Garcia said, pointing at the grey blob in the middle of the screen. Her eyes widened slightly at what she was seeing, and she felt suddenly overwhelmed by so many different emotions it was getting hard to deal with them. "This is your baby." The Doctor turned her head towards her and offered her a bright smile, but she couldn't take her eyes off the screen.

"Is… Is everything okay?"

"He or she is in great shape! You're 7 weeks along. The embryo measures 8 millimeters, which is perfect. And the tiny flutter here's the heart, strongly beating." She looked at Audrey again, smiling. "It's all good to me."

This time, a tiny smile cracked her face as she let out a shaky breath. Garcia took a few screenshots and more measures before pulling the ultrasound stick away. She took the opportunity to take Audrey's blood pressure and make sure that everything was good for her as well. After a few moments, Doctor Garcia went back behind her desk while Audrey stood up from the table and put her clothes back in place.

"Have you been feeling nauseous at all?" the doctor asked as Lim took a seat in front of her.

"Yes, I have. It can be quite intense some days. I've barely been able to eat anything these past few days."

"Is it just in the morning?"

"It can happen at any time of the day."

"I'm going to prescribe you some vitamins and something to ease the nausea, but you absolutely have to eat. Eat foods you like and that can be tolerated, in several small meals every 2 or 3 hours. Try not to skip too many meals either." She said, writing down some stuff on a paper.

"It's not really easy with our job." She snorted.

"I know." Garcia pitifully smiled at her. "But your blood pressure is very low, so you need to take it easy for a while. Stress is not really good for you or the baby."

No need to tell me, she thought. Her life had been anything but peaceful these past few weeks, and it wasn't going to get any better in the next few days.

"Oh, and I noticed you're riding motorcycle." She glanced at the helmet resting at the edge of the desk. "It's up to you, but I highly recommend my patients in your case to put it aside and the sooner the better."

"Oh, right. Of course, I'll do it." Audrey smiled at her, even though both women well knew it would be hard for her to drop her motorcycle.

They kept chatting for a few more minutes, then Dr. Garcia handed her the prescriptions and two ultrasound pictures, before Audrey left the practice, still a little bit shaken by this encounter.

She couldn't stop thinking about the appointment. Seeing this little shrimp on the screen had suddenly made everything so much more real. Sure, the euphoria of the moment had disappeared but still she couldn't shake that odd feeling. She had been filled by so many emotions, it felt like she'd finally been complete for the first time in her life. She didn't even have the words to describe how she felt when Dr. Garcia said those few words… This is your baby.

It was clear that after this morning's ultrasound, she couldn't keep this from him any longer. She realized she had been avoiding the fateful moment for too long and that it was time for her to gather her courage and tell Neil. As she entered the hospital and walked towards her office, she was petrified with fear. She wasn't used to have no control over her life, and she had no way of anticipating his reaction. If all of this had happened a few weeks earlier, she wouldn't even be thinking about this, she wouldn't have hesitated for a moment. But this was different now. She had ended their relationship and she wasn't sure of anything anymore. Only that she was finally determined to tell him before he found out from someone else.

She'd been startled by the knocks on her door, and she looked up to see Neil popping his head out through the half opened-door. She didn't expect to see him so soon, and she looked a bit uncomfortable. Neil, on the other hand, seemed quite normal, as if nothing had ever happened.

"Hey, I've been looking for you all morning. Is everything all right? It's not really your type to show up late." Neil frowned.

"My bus was delayed, I had to take the next one." He looked at her even more strangely, and not quite convinced. He was aware she was taking the bus from time to time, especially in winter. But today, the weather was perfect and she never missed an opportunity to ride her motorbike. Though he preferred to drop it, thinking she probably had her reasons for taking the bus this morning.

"Why did you want to see me?" She snapped him out of his thoughts.

"I might need your feedback on a case." He walked in and closed the door behind him. She stood up from her chair walked around the desk. He handed her the chart and she grabbed him to take a look at it. "The treatment doesn't seem to be working, but surgery wasn't really my first choice either."

He let her some time to read the results of the last test, which let him free advantage to observe her. Since they had broken up, all they had been able to do was ignoring each other or avoiding each other's gaze whenever they would meet in the hallways. He hadn't been able to really look at her until then, and he realized there was something different about her that made her even more beautiful than he remembered. He'd always loved the little wrinkles appearing at the corner of her eyes and on her forehead whenever she was concentrated on doing something. Her skin looked so smooth that he longed to let his fingers slid along her cheek. Her hair was tied up in a bun, exposing her neck and he then thought back to all the times he had kissed her – sometimes tenderly, sometimes fervently – on the spot right below her ear. He hadn't missed the shadows under her eyes though, which probably were the result of a lack of sleep and he wondered if this was all about what had been going on between them these past few weeks. His eyes then fell on her lips, those soft lips he used to… He startled a bit as she suddenly handed him the chart back. He then cleared his throat, trying to regain some composure.

"It could be great if you could come by my office today so I could expose you my thoughts."

"I'll try to free myself this afternoon."

"Alright, thank you." He nodded.

Suddenly, as he was about to leave her office, she felt her heart beating faster and her brain screaming at her that this was the right time to talk to him, that she had to say something, anything.

"Neil, wait." She abruptly said. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you…" He stopped in his tracks and turned towards her, waiting for her to speak.

Now that he was looking at her, she suddenly froze in front of him. She opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came out and it was as if she had lost the ability to talk or even think straight. The words were stuck in her throat.

Beep…beep…beep…

She suddenly felt her pager beeping in her pocket. She apologized and took it out. As she read it, she seriously wondered if the whole universe wasn't against her after all.

"I gotta go. They need me in the E.R., there's been a pile-up on the freeway." She went back behind her desk and quickly put on her white coat. She hurried up to leave her office, but Neil frowned and stopped her.

"What did you want to tell me?" She took a deep breath, looking at him for a few seconds. She wasn't going to tell him, not here, not like that.

"Oh, um. Never mind." She faked a smile, and disappeared.

It was total chaos in the ER. Lim was one of the first to arrive and took over triage. More than half of the victims were slightly injured – at least it was not life-threatening, but for the rest it was a lot more serious. After working hours on freeing the two last victims from one of the crashed vehicles, paramedics finally took them to the hospital in a state of absolute emergency. The man, who was probably in his forties, had been rushed immediately to the O.R. under Lim's supervision.

She had just spent four hours running around the emergency room, dealing with the lack of beds, lack of equipment and lack of staff. Neil had even been paged a little bit later as a backup. Audrey had focused on her patients and had managed to ignore his presence, but Neil hadn't help but glance in her direction from time to time, between patients who needed stitches. He was disturbed by their discussion this morning – or we should say hypothetical discussion. She had been doing everything she could to avoid him recently, and when she seemed to be finally ready to talk, fate had decided otherwise. For someone who was usually so energetic in her element, she seemed quite exhausted today and he hadn't missed it. He didn't know if it had anything to do with what she had to say to him, or with her behavior over the last few days, but he was getting more and more worried about her and that didn't augur anything good.

The surgery on Lim's patient was taking longer than expected. The damage was much more severe than X-rays had shown and they had been trying to save the man's legs for almost seven hours now. Everyone was focused, there was a leaden silence in the room as everyone knew what they had to do. It was getting more and more difficult for the surgeons to stand still and operate while trying to ignore their sore and tense muscles. Lim stopped for a few seconds and stretched her head to the right and then to the left to relieve the stiffness in her neck. She had performed much more complicated and longer surgery than this one, but for a few hours now she had felt her body weakening a little more in spite of herself. Try not to skip too many meals either. She remembered the words of Dr. Garcia, and she snorted to herself. It's a little late to worry about that. The fact that she'd been standing for more than ten hours and with an empty stomach wasn't helping her low blood pressure problem of this morning. She took a deep breath, widened her eyes and shook her head slightly to get a grip on herself.

Browne and Park had noticed the strange behavior of their superior, and had glanced at each other without either of them daring to say anything. They were only interns, and Dr. Lim knew very well what she was doing. But the more time flew by, the harder it was for her to stay focused on the surgery. She wouldn't have risked making a mistake that could kill the patient, so when she started to feel lightheaded and weak, she stopped everything right away. The two interns frowned, wondering what she was doing. She was sure she could have picked up where she left off, but her body couldn't keep up with her brain and instead she stared into space, taking deep breaths.

"Page Dr. Andrews." She paused, "Browne, you take the lead." She weakly said.

"Dr. Lim?"

She was aware of the noises slowly fading away, she could feel her blood rushing in her head and her vision getting blurred. There was nothing she could do. She stepped back from the patient and finally blacked out.

Her eyelids fluttered as she was slowly waking up. Her vision was still a bit blurred, but she could catch a sight of a silhouette next to her. She gave her eyes a few seconds to adjust to the brightness of the room and turned her head to the other side to acknowledge her surroundings. She swallowed hard and frowned, finally aware of the painful migraine that had been seizing her head. Neil was there, next to her, sitting on a stool with his arms crossed against his chest. He waited patiently and silently for her to emerge at her own pace. After a few minutes, she turned her head towards him again. She was somewhat surprised to see him there. He seemed almost angry, or at least very concerned.

"What happened?" She frowned, raising her right arm to take a look at the heart rate monitor clipped at her finger and the blood pressure monitor tied up around her biceps. She was still a bit confused.

"You fainted in the O.R."

And then it all came back to her.

"My patient."

"He's fine."

"I just can't believe it." She muttered to herself, and started to get restless. She ripped off the monitors and straightened up, throwing her legs out of the bed. She couldn't believe what had just happened and now all the hospital was gonna know about it.

"Hey, hey. Take it easy." Neil stood up and approached her. He put his hand on her shoulder and tried to steady her on the bed, but all he managed to do was annoy her even more. She didn't need to take it easy, what she needed right now was to get out of this room and get back to work.

"Neil, I'm fine." She shrugged her shoulder to get away from his touch.

"No, you're not." He snapped at her.

Audrey huffed and stood up from the bed, "I just forgot to eat something today, that's all!"

"You know what? I'm not letting you leave this room until you've told me the truth."

She glared at him, and gave him the look. Was he seriously playing the bossy one with her?

Neil clenched his jaw as he put both of his hands on his hips and started pacing in the room. He thought back at what Mrs. Johnson told him and found the strength to talk.

"You've gotta stop pushing me away." He turned towards her, and looked straight into her eyes. "You've gotta stop lying to my face whenever I'm asking you if you're okay, because I know you and I can tell there's something wrong with you!" He had raised his voice, stepping closer to her with his finger pointed at her. She immediately looked away. He knew she was hiding something, he could see it on her face but she still didn't say a word and retreated into silence once again.

"Jesus, Audrey. What is going on?" He yelled at her this time as he finally lost it. He was tired of her constantly shutting him down. He needed to know, he couldn't bear seeing the woman he loved being so torn and there was something inside of him telling him it had something to do with him.

"I'm pregnant!" She blurted out.

Neil froze instantly. Surprise seized his face and the room was suddenly filled with a thunderous silence. Audrey looked closely at his face for a slightest reaction but he didn't let anything show through. He'd imagined everything, every possible scenario except this one. His first reaction would have been to shout for joy and take her in his arms, lift her up in the air and make her spin. But he was completely taken aback by the news and all he was able to say was this pathetic little word…

"What?"

"I'm pregnant." She said it again, more composed this time.

The words finally seemed to reach his brain, and he was slowly getting aware of the whole situation. His eyes lowered to her abdomen, and it was as if all his doubts, his questions, all the things that drove him crazy for the past few weeks, all the things that kept him awake at night,… It was all making sense now, why she had been distant, why she had been avoiding him and seemed so preoccupied and tired at the same time. So many thoughts were rushing through his mind right now that he didn't know what to say first.

"You knew this whole time?" He finally looked back at her.

"Yes."

"How long?"

"I'm 7 weeks along."

Neil nodded thoughtfully. He seemed quiet, much too quiet for her taste.

"And at no time did you think I should know about this?" His words sounded like a reproach, even though he didn't want it to.

"Of course I did I-I just didn't know how to tell you…" She sighed, passing her hand on her forehead nervously. "It's already complicated enough, I don't need you blaming me on top of it!"

"I'm not blaming you, Audrey. But this- this is huge."

"I know. Listen, it doesn't have to change anything between us. We broke up, our relationship is too complicated and we both know that. The reasons we made that decision won't change just because I'm pregnant."

"The decision we made?" He frowned, a bit upset. "You were the one who wanted to stop our relationship, and I respected your decision. This was not mine."

"Bringing a baby in the middle of this, this is…"

Neil looked conflicted and wondered where all of this was going, while Audrey seemed to be looking for the right words to say.

"This is what?" He urged her.

"You don't own me anything and I'm not asking you anything either. You don't have to be a part of this, if you don't want to."

"Of course I want to! Did you seriously think I wouldn't?"

She looked at him, speechless. She didn't know what to say to him. She didn't know how to explain all the things she had been feeling since the day she found out she was pregnant with his child. She couldn't find the right words.

Neil snorted at her silence, "Obviously, you've already made up your mind."

"It's not what I meant."

"For fuck sake, Audrey. This is my child, too!" Neil raised his voice once again, and some people who were walking past the room started throwing some glances in their direction through the window.

She immediately shushed him, "Keep your voice down! Do you really want the whole hospital to hear you?!"

He then whispered loudly and harshly, "You can't take this kind of decision on your own!"

"Well, right now that's the least of my worries. I have to go see if my residents didn't screw up the surgery I was supposed to lead before passing out in front of everyone!" She walked towards the door.

"You're taking the easy way, once again."

"I've work to do. I've patients to check on, and so do you." She then left, slamming the door behind her without letting him a chance to hold her back.

She wasn't far from home anymore. She'd gotten off the bus on stop before her usual one. She wanted to walk and get some fresh air to think about the events of the day. It hadn't been an easy shift. Seeing so many seriously wounded people, witnessing so many lives being destroyed and having to tell bad news to their closed ones was never easy even when you're one of the best high skilled surgeons of the country. She had seen worse through her entire career. She was used to the blood, adrenaline, gory wounds and all those stuff but that didn't make it any less difficult when you came to it. The surgery finally went well, but despite the surgeon's best efforts, the patient's legs couldn't be saved and they had to amputate and she had learned the woman who was in the same car as him during the accident didn't survive.

And yet the day had started out so well. Though the announcement to Neil didn't go as she had hoped it would. She couldn't help but screw it up every time. You always expect the worse in people because that's all you see in yourself. Maybe Laura was right after all. She had been so angry with herself for showing everyone a vulnerable side of her earlier that she hadn't been able to think straight and balance things out. She had been unfairly dumping her anger on him, making him angry on the same time. It had only proved once again that they couldn't have a proper talk without raising their voices and shouting at each other.

She had walked by his office before the end of her shift but the lights were off, meaning he had probably been gone a long time ago. She had tried to call him outside the hospital but he hadn't bothered to pick up either. Thought it wasn't really surprising since it was almost three o'clock in the morning.

She couldn't get his face out of her mind when she started telling him that there was no reason for him to feel compelled to get involved in anything. She had hurt him, and certainly upset him more than she had thought. It was stupid of her to say that because she always knew how much Neil wanted to have children. And secretly, she had sometimes let her mind wander into her wildest thoughts where she was the one he was building a family with. In her dreams they were happily living, but the reality was much more violent and harsh.

After a ten-minute walk, she was finally able to see her house. All she wanted to do was rush to bed and get a good night's sleep, even though it was almost the early morning already. She was emotionally and physically drained to the point she didn't even notice there was someone sitting on her porch. Once she was at a reasonable distance, she finally spotted the silhouette in the darkness of the night. She didn't know how long Neil had been waiting for her, but she felt a relieving feeling she couldn't describe when she noticed the slight smile growing on his lips. She walked closer, and stopped at a few feet from him. They looked at each other, quietly as if they didn't need any words to communicate.

It felt like ages when the sound of his voice finally broke the silence, "We need to talk."

Will they be able to finally talk to each other with open hearts? How will it affect their relationship now that Audrey told Neil? Find out soon!

I'm a bit hard on them, but it would be way too easy otherwise… Don't worry, I'm gonna soften through the chapters (but not too much, haha!).