A/N Angsty one-shot in response to 3x11. Spoilers for that episode. Dark Red. Disclaimed.
12: Betrayal
"I'm pregnant."
As he watched her from his seat on the couch in her new apartment, sunlight from the east facing windows lighting up her poor, bruised face, he couldn't bring himself to feign surprise. When he'd found out the day before, when he'd been informed of her assault… When he'd bribed and threatened until her medical records were in his hands, when he'd seen the test results… Well. It was best that she'd been spared his true reaction.
If his blank expression alarmed her, she didn't show it. She continued to talk quickly, her jumbled, pitiful thoughts rushing out. Her fantasy, her future, Tom… Tom, she called him. Still. She turned away from him to press the coffee on the counter.
His judgement was clouded, Kate had said. Clouded by his love for her. But she was wrong. This was one of the very rare occasions on which in order to do the right thing…to be his best self… he needed to be the very worst he could be. To do anything less… well, that would be allowing his love to stand in the way of what had to be done.
When he stood behind her she tensed; she knew he was there, but she didn't turn around. When he held the pungent cloth tightly over her mouth she barely struggled. He wanted to comfort himself with the thought that on some level she knew; that in time she might even understand. But just as he never lied to her, he didn't lie to himself. She had given up.
Perhaps, in the end, that would work in his favor.