11:34 a.m.
"Vivian, can I talk to you for a minute?" Vivian's fingers paused on the keyboard as she looked at the half-finished report longingly, just wanting to finish and be through with it. She hated typing reports, typing the conclusions of people's lives.
"Do you think it could wait just a couple more seconds?" Vivian asked nonchalantly, eyes still glued to the screen. Samantha shifted her weight and glanced over her shoulder at Martin and then Jack.
"I really need your help with something, Viv," Sam whispered desperately. Vivian looked up and her lips parted as she saw Samantha's pale, blotchy face. She quickly stood and glanced around.
"Yeah, of course," she murmured, placing a hand on Samantha's lower back and indicating towards the conference room. Sam followed Vivian, locking the door behind her and shutting the blinds. She kept her back to Vivian for a few moments as her quivering hand remained on the doorknob. "Sam, what's going on? You're a wreck."
"I know," Samantha answered, trembling. "I can't help it. I'm falling apart, Viv. I don't know what to do…" Vivian turned Sam around and led her over to a chair at the rosewood table. After a moment, she lifted her face to Vivian's and took a shuddering breath. "Vivian, I'm going to tell you some things and I need you to accept them without judgment. God, I don't think I'll be able to handle it if I knew that you…"
"You know me better than that," Vivian assured her, watching Sam's fingers travel distractedly along her bottom lip. Samantha nodded with a half-hearted smile and took a breath. Her dark brown eyes, full of emotion, slowly moved to Vivian's face.
"I'm pregnant." The words, mentioned only in a breathless whisper, seemed to diffuse into every molecule of the room's atmosphere, drenching them both in a stunned silence. Samantha blanched, and cupped her hand over her mouth. "Oh, God. Now it's true. Before I didn't think it was possible, but now that I've said it…Viv…"
Vivian's body, which had been frozen in surprise, empathy, and a motherly impulse to help, took motion and hugged Sam's trembling form to her. She rocked back and forth as the young woman, days earlier a strong-willed independent federal agent, collapsed into a heap of sobbing and tears,
"Shh," Vivian soothed tearfully. "Shh, it'll be alright, baby. You're going to be alright. I'm going to help you through this, do you hear me? I'm going to be right here." She waited for Sam's sobs to dissipate into a soft crying sound and then a painful silence.
"Sam," Vivian said slowly, trying to be delicate. "Who is the father?" Samantha looked up, eyes wide again and filling with tears.
"I…don't know," she whispered. "My gynecologist says I'm about a month or so pregnant, and a month ago…" Sam couldn't finish her sentence, and Vivian took in a slow breath. She didn't need to say further. A month or so ago Martin and Sam nearly broke apart. A month ago she and Jack were still clinging to what they had. A month or so ago she and Martin got back together and were happy. A month ago was a blur of confusion and emotional chaos.
"Are you going to tell Martin?" Vivian asked gently. Sam shrugged and stood up, pacing back and forth.
"I don't know," Sam burst out angrily. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do! If I tell Martin, he'll ask me to marry him and then we'll have the baby and I'll be Mrs. Samantha Fitzgerald and we'll move to Brooklyn and start a family and live in a three-bedroom townhouse and eat vegetarian omelets every morning and send our children (because he'll want two: a boy and a girl) to school while we hold hands and whisper about how beautiful the sunrise looks before we both head off to work and come home to our happy little lives and wait with baited breath for our children to return from school so we can just hold them all together.
"But what if it's not his, Vivian? What if it's not his? What if I tell him that I'm pregnant and that I'm not sure whose it is? He'll ask me to marry him anyway, but I couldn't. And I'd have to tell Jack, and I don't think I could survive it, that look he'll have in his eyes. I'd ruin him, ruin his family. Maria would take his kids away from him, take his whole life from him. I couldn't be that selfish. But what if it was his child, Vivian? What would I do? He'd sit me down for a long talk and promise to support me and pay child support and do whatever he needed to do to help us, and there I'd be. The whore who screwed Jack Malone and had his illegitimate child, living off of the favors of a middle-aged man with a separate family and a separate life."
She caught her ragged breath and slumped against the wall, sliding down to the floor. Sam looked up at Vivian and shook her head weakly. Vivian stood and walked over to her, sitting down next to where Sam was crouched. Sam leaned her head against Vivian's shoulder while the woman stroked her hair.
"They told me I could still have an abortion," Sam whispered. Vivian paused and looked down at Sam's face which stared out blankly at nothing in particular. "They said if I acted quickly, I could have it done, and it would be over. Like it never happened." She sat frozen there for a moment before looking up at Vivian. "Only, it did happen, Vivian. I know it did. One incomprehensible way or another it happened, and it's not that baby's fault." She tucked her knees to her chest and bit her lip. "Oh, Viv. What am I going to do?"
"I can't answer that one for you, Samantha," Vivian answered, shifting against the wall so that she was more comfortable. "What ever you do choose to do, I'll help you through it. Do you hear me? I'll help you through this. It's hard enough without anyone's judgment on you."
Sam nodded and gave Vivian a long hug before standing up. "Thanks, Vivian. You're one in million, and I don't deserve you." Vivian shook her head with a watery smile. Samantha took a deep breath and dried her eyes, smiling with as much brilliance as she could. "Come on. We have work to do."