Author's Note: Don't take medical advice from a random fanfic story! I'm just throwing out bullshit here for the sake of my story, and I'm probably completely wrong, to boot. Mea culpa and a large chunk of salt.
Chapter Nine
The following morning, after gently but firmly compelling Letty to "pretend to be human" by getting up, showering, dressing, and eating some breakfast (all of which her patient complied with silently, if mechanically), Nurse Carole escorted Letty to her first sit-down appointment with Doctor John McDaniels, the Division Chief. Doctor John, as everyone called him, absolutely looked the part: medium height and build, dark hair greying at the temples, and an air of implacable calm, competence, and compassion. He already knew the basics of her case, of course, including the general timeline; no one on the floor could have avoided it.
Carole brought her in and sat her in one of the visitor's chairs in front of the doctor's desk, received his thanks, and left, closing the door softly behind her. The doctor and Letty sat silently gazing at each other for over a minute; he always let the patient take the lead, at least at first. Finally, Letty said with a sigh, "So, what do I have to do to get out of here?"
Doctor John smiled. "Convince me that you're not just going to make another suicide attempt."
She scoffed. "Why not? What have I got to live for? Nothing. Not one damn thing." He didn't even have a cool painting for her to look at, unlike Christian, she thought fleetingly.
"What about your baby?"
Letty stared angrily at him for a moment before nearly coming unglued. "What the hell? I don't know how you found out about Jacob, but forget him. I am not his mother any more. I gave up ALL my rights last year. It's done – "
Doctor John was holding up both hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on there." Gaining her glowering silence, he rested his hands on his desk and leaned forward. "I'm not talking about Jacob – whoever he is," he added aside. "I'm talking about the baby you're carrying now."
She wasn't sure whether to be flabbergasted or outraged. Both together sounded about right. "What?!"
"Letty... you're pregnant."
A beat, then she began shaking her head. "No. No. No. This is bullshit. What the fuck are you trying to pull?"
"I'm not pulling anything. We do a routine pregnancy test on every female who gets admitted, and if it comes back positive, we do another, more thorough one to reconfirm." He swiveled his computer screen around so she could see it, pointing out her name at the top, and then the two lines reading 'Pregnancy (hCG) Series: POSITIVE'. The second one was followed by a number. "You are definitely pregnant. And judging by the amount of chorionic gonadotropin in your system, you are at least two months along." He leaned back again. "So unless you were cheating on him, that baby is definitely your husband's." He fell silent then, watching her absorb the bombshell news.
Without her consciously realizing it, one hand crept across her lower belly. "I'm... I'm pregnant?" she finally said. "With Javier's baby?"
"Mm-hm. Without a doubt."
"But..." He watched as the next realization hit her. "What about all the drugs I took this last month? And the alcohol? Would that have... affected the baby?"
"It's possible," he said as gently as he could, hiding his appreciation of her saying baby rather than the clinical fetus. "But at this point, if it had, especially with severe effects, you most likely would already have miscarried. So we can go on the working assumption that everything is normal – but I strongly recommend a full series of prenatal tests once you reach the appropriate stage of pregnancy, to be sure." He paused to let that sink in, then continued. "The absolute best thing you can do, of course, is to stop all drug and alcohol use, right goddamn now." He didn't usually swear at his patients, but once they had sworn at him, he would adopt it as appropriate.
Letty was still staring, shaking her head, inches from returning tears. "I can't..." she began, then tried again. "I can't do this... I can't do this alone..."
Now they were getting somewhere. He leaned forward again. "Is going home a possibility? Family? I know you're not from here. Where are you from?"
She ignored that last. "No. No. That bridge is burned to ashes, and there is nothing in the world that can rebuild it. I've tried. There's nothing. Nobody." Nothing in the world could ever induce her to show up once more on her mother's doorstep, especially not needing help. She wouldn't receive anything but a slap, anyway.
"Any other friends you can call on? Have called on? Anyone who would help with anything, even small?" He let it trail off as she thought.
"Christian," she murmured, looking out the window.
Doctor John shrugged. "They don't have to be religious. That's certainly not a requirement for helping others."
"What?" Letty looked at him sharply, lost, then caught on. "No. That's his name. Christian."
"Oh," he gave a small laugh. "I'm sorry. What's his last name?"
"Stalker. No..." She waved that off. "That's what I called him." She thought for a moment, then remembered, saying it more to herself than the doctor. "Woodhill." She didn't see him write a quick note. "But I can't call him again. I've done that too many times. I can't keep imposing on him."
"Why don't you let him decide?"
"Put him on the spot? Of course he'd say yes, even if he meant no. Besides, his wife hates me. She wouldn't give me a dime to keep me from starving to death. Forget it."
"Okay. Anyone else?"
"No. There's no one." She looked away, out the window at the old oak. "I keep needing help, but I shouldn't. I keep falling down, but there's no one around. And I shouldn't. Why do I keep needing help? I'm an adult, I should be able to take care of myself! I'm just a piece of shit." Two tears finally escaped and streaked her cheeks.
"Letty!" Doctor John called to get her attention again. When she looked, his face was full of compassion. "Letty, you're not a piece of shit. Everybody needs help, all the time! Yes, everyone – even me. The difference is," he stopped for a second, trying to find the kindest way to put it. "The difference is that most people have some sort of support group around them; family, friends. People they can call on for anything from... a ride to the airport, to borrowing ten dollars, to a shoulder to cry on. And most of the time, those little things stave off the big things, so they don't become full-blown crises – but even if they do, the support structure will still help. Your misfortune is that you simply don't have that support group. That's the only difference. So you feel you have to handle everything yourself, which works for the little things, but not the big things. But needing help – ever – doesn't make you a piece of shit. It makes you normal. And human."
Letty was staring at him. "I wish somebody had told me that a long time ago," she said honestly.
His expression turned wryly heartfelt. "I suspect there are a whole bunch of things that nobody ever told you, that you really needed to hear. And I wish to heaven I could keep you here and tell you them myself." He shook his head. "But I can't. What I can do, however, is offer my assistance in finding whatever help you need outside of this hospital, wherever you settle in. Send me an email, and I'll do some research. Okay?"
She didn't respond, but he powered on, needing to return to the main point. "But the thing is, now you've got a decision to make. A big one."
"What's that?" She wasn't following.
"What are you going to do about the baby? Will you keep it, raise him or her, so they know who their father was, and their mother?" He paused. "Or will you give the baby away, send it off into the unknown, and never see them again? So you'll never know them, and they'll never know you – or Javier?" He was deliberately stacking the deck. "Or worse yet – will you cut this life short before it's even begun?" A beat. "Or yours?"
"Why are you doing this to me?" she whispered, unable to look away, her face full of shock and grief.
"You need to decide," he replied gently.
"Well I don't have to decide right this minute, do I?" she practically wailed, and he smiled, abashed, and eased off.
"Of course not. I'm sorry. You have some time."
Letty gasped, as if she were surfacing from a deep pool. "I can't... I can't..." She couldn't even finish the sentence. She waved him off and stood, turning towards the door.
"Can we talk tomorrow?" Doctor John called after her.
She stopped for a moment, turned partway back, and nodded, then stumbled out into the hall, letting the office door swing closed behind her back.
Doctor John stared at the door for several long minutes, reviewing what had happened. Finally, he nodded. She'd make the right decision.
Turning back towards his computer to make his usual post-appointment notes, his glance fell on the business card leaning against his desk phone, and he stopped and sighed. He hesitated a long, long minute, then realized he had no choice, so he picked up the phone and made the call he dreaded, but was obligated to make. Mrs Pereira was sober, alert, and stable enough for some careful questioning.
Back in her room, Letty sat on the side of her bed, staring out the window at the gently waving oak treetop branchlets. Her mind was a chaotic jumble of thoughts and emotions. She was pregnant? With Javier's baby?
Slight motion reflected in the glass caught her attention, and she shifted her gaze. There he was, standing behind her shoulder. His face was full of the kind of rapturous wonder she wished she could feel, that she imagined he would really show at this news.
"A baby? Our baby?" Javier's voice was feather-soft, a whisper on the breeze.
"I can't... I can't do this."
"Yes you can. You're my magician... you can do anything."
She shook her head, denying what he was trying to give. "I can't do this alone."
"You're not alone. I'm here."
Another head shake, more definite, more desolate. "No you're not." Suddenly a wave of rage at her feckless husband's senseless, untimely death and desertion swamped her, and she reached for her pillow, swiveled around in an instant, and hurled it through the empty space where he should have been standing. "NO YOU'RE NOT!" she yelled at his departed ghost, before collapsing onto the bed in a puddle of hopeless, helpless, furious tears.