I think this is the last part - and it has taken me an absolute age to write. I started writing it on the 27th June and had intended to finish it after I received a phonecall with my grades on that day - but that didn't quite work out and I've just kind of had a block with it. I'm still not convinced that it's quite how I wanted it - though it does end how I had always planned it too. So hopefully this is ok :)
He can tell that she's nervous as he pulls her in to the currently unoccupied bay 3 on Darwin ward, motioning towards Mo as he does so; a silent command for her to keep watch. He sees her nod, before he pulls closed the door, secluding them from the ward. He had stashed the machine in here while she'd forced down some water at his insistence. Now he watched as she quickly pulled closed the curtain designed for patient privacy though in reality they offer very little. Still at the very least it will stop prying eyes from looking through the bay door and seeing them, though equally he thinks the drawn curtain could draw unwanted suspicion given the bays current status as empty.
He moves to the end of the bed, the one with the machine alongside and attempts to grab the control panel, wanting to lower it for her, to make getting on to the bed easier. But before he manages, he sees her clamber up and then lower herself until she is settled. He watches her carefully, sees how she barely even acknowledges the machine, barely even looks to him either. There is so much pain in her face, though he at the very least knows she has taken some pain killers to take the edge off the physical. The emotional he knows will be so much harder to deal with.
He walks to the machine, and looks at it, he is so certain of what it will show and yet there is a part of him now that is scared. He worries that he is wrong, that she is correct and what they will do to her. She is already hurting so badly, that he couldn't quite cope if he caused her anymore and yet he cannot not know – and after everything he doesn't quite think he can trust a pregnancy testing kit. This way at least the answer is definite, undeniable. He pulls free a paper towel and places it in her hand, he watches her fingers grip it though her face shows no acknowledgment.
"To place in your trousers" he informs her, though he knows she knows all of this; that had it been in any other situation she would inform him of this with a barbed comment. Instead she moves her hand slowly bringing the item closer to herself but making no move to bare the skin of her abdomen, "that gel gets everywhere" he tries to lighten the atmosphere and he watches her blink and then nod in agreement. He had hoped for the smallest of smiles.
"It doesn't have too" she speaks so softly, in a voice which is small and distant and he knows her meaning without questioning; knows she is suggesting that he doesn't do the scan. He wishes he could get through to her, but she is so very closed off again. She is trying to protect herself, but doing so much more damage in the process.
"It won't take a second" he tries to sound calm, to keep his voice normal. He sees her close her eyes as she pulls up her uniform top, her fingers coming to rest briefly on the flat of her abdomen. A fleeting moment that had he blinked he'd have missed it, he sees the way her eyes fly open at the realisation of where her fingers had come to touch and how quickly she withdrew them. He sees the pain all the more raw reflected in her green orbs. With a hesitant movement, she places the paper towel in the waist band of her trousers, fingers hovering over her skin to avoid touching that part of her body again. He pulls free the transducer probe and holds it in his hand, squeezing free some gel on to its surface. "You know this is going to be very cold"
"I know the drill Jonny" her eyes are focused now on the wall in front of her. Her body so tense as she awaits the moment he'll place the probe against her skin. He knows she won't relax until this is over, knows that she is expecting his confirmation and his apology for putting her through this when she was right; knows that she then expects to leave him once more to find somewhere private in which to break once more having been forced to do this. He places the probe to her skin and hears the gasp and squeal that escape her lips as the cold hits her.
"I did warn you" the words are whispered, as he pulls up the screen. He turns his attention to it, moving the probe slightly around to try to find what he is looking for. His gaze searches the image in front of him trying to make sense of what he sees, trying to find the one thing he is looking forward. The probe stills in his hand. He hears a sad sigh escape her lips.
"You don't have to say it" There is something about her voice that almost makes him think she is reassuring him. Still laced with pain, it strikes him that in that moment she is feeling for him as well as herself. He wishes he could turn to look at her, to do something but he is frozen, gaze pinned on the screen in front of him. He knows she is still looking at the wall, can feel it in his being that she cannot bear to bring herself to look, knowing what she knows.
"Say what?" Finally he chokes free words, though they feel alien; like they have not truly come from him. He thinks of it like when going to the dentist, when your mouth is numbed and speech comes uneasily, unnaturally. Once more he hears that said sigh, the one of acceptance and regret. He hears her breathing in the stillness of the room, how she is trying to find the words.
"That it isn't there" her voice sounds so very distant from him, like she is somewhere very far away and not beside him, "That's why you're doing this, you expected to see a six week old being nestled safely within me, heart beating steadily despite my insistence that it wasn't to be. I knew it, but you had to see it for yourself and that is why I've let you do this"
"I" he doesn't know how to formulate the sentence, how to reach her properly. His mind is whirling and yet he still feels so frozen. He feels like someone has pressed paused on his life, and yet things are still moving, happening around him.
"It's ok Jonny" still that reassuring edge to her voice, a softness that is almost uncharacteristic of her and yet it doesn't strike him as unnatural, "I know you wanted this to go your way, that you could somehow fix this and me but this is probably for the best y'know. That sounds ridiculous, I know. When they told me I couldn't have children, suddenly that was something I wanted – or maybe it was something I always wanted be refused to let myself see. In times when I've held babies, I've thought maybe, maybe it would be nice one day to be a mother, to have this for myself but there's a difference between holding a child for a moment and loving it for a lifetime and I'm honestly not sure if I would have been capable of doing that. Would it have been fair to bring a child in to a world when I couldn't guarantee it a life of love when I have known how lonely that life is and to bring it in to the mess that is this situation we are in? Maybe this was all just fates way of telling us that this wasn't right"
"Jac" he says her name trying to draw her back to him, but he feels that she is lost once more inside of her own head, as she tries to reason with herself once more because that is her way. She forces herself to believe something that she knows not to be true because she thinks it'll protect her from pain.
"You know I'm right" he thinks that maybe he can hear the slightest of smirks in her voice, though he doubts it will have made its way to her face, "this was all a mistake, maybe it would have been a good mistake but more likely than not I would have mucked it up in some way, destroyed it somehow. That's just the way it is, the way I am. Children deserve more than me, more than I can give them and while yes I would like the feel of a baby in my arms and knowing he or she is mine, I know that it is a selfish – and now impossible – dream. Selfish to subject an innocent life to a mother like me, to want something even though I cannot give it what it needs most and now it is impossible anyway; the fates not wanting to run the risk of it happening, so cutting the threads on that part of my canvas. The universes way of protecting the innocent from the likes of me. I am not mother material, the cloth from which I am cut prevents it, and so despite the fact this is slowly killing me inside I have to force myself to accept this simple truth"
"Jac" he tries again just repeating her name, needing her to hear his voice and to draw her mind back to him, and what he needs to say. Words bubble on his lips, but he cannot speak them yet. She is in no place to hear them, and yet they are ready and waiting.
"Children, babies, they know when their being rejected" He thinks now that she is talking without realising it, that words are escape her lips without conscious effort, or acceptance. He knows these are the thoughts that disturb her mind, or some of them at least, and that now they are forcing themselves free. So much of her thought processes are closed off, that it feels strange to have been given even this small glimpse. He wonders if he would ever know more than this, hopes one day he will. "And as much as I told myself I want this, that maybe I could do it because I was trying to love it so much already, maybe it knew. Maybe my subconscious was already there, already rejecting it and I was just not aware of it, or trying not to be but maybe it knew, or my body knew and rather than subject it to that, this happened. I wouldn't want anyone to have to feel like that, and I think I was in denial that, that is how this all would have ended up with a child feeling unloved because it was stuck with me and me feeling guilty that I allowed it to happen" he can hear the irrational nature of her words, and yet there is something about the way she says them that tells him that to her this is an entirely rational train of thought.
"Jac, please" he pleads with her, he cannot take much more of her words. He needs to hear her story, and yet he cannot face any more now. He has seen parts of her mind, and he knows there is worse to come, that her story hovers near the surface. He knows that she is not strong enough now to tread that path, and he is not sure he can do much for her in this moment in his near frozen state. He needs to stem the words and yet he fears doing so will stop them forever.
"It's for the best" he hears the sadness in her words; the way it comes out in a chant, a mantra she has been repeating to herself until she can almost believe it. Only believing it doesn't make it any easier. The belief doesn't ease the hurt, if he's not mistaken it makes it worse because it feeds those voices in her head.
"Stop" it comes out as a command more than a plea, and that shocks even him. He feels her startle beneath the probe and sees the image on the screen jitter with the movement. He pulls his eyes away and looks to her, she has turned from the wall now and is looking at him. So many emotions in her face, something that threatens to overwhelm him. The realisation of just how much she needs him, as he looks at her – vulnerable, her feelings bared for him to see for once in her life.
"I can't" the words whispered as she looks up and meets his gaze. He sees the sheen of tears, her eyes sparkle beneath them. Still he holds the probe against her, and he waits unsure of if there are more words to come and unsure of how he can respond to her now. She swallows hard, pushing back the ball in her throat that threatens to escape in a sob that she can't allow herself to release, "I just, maybe, it'll hurt less this way, because it was best for the baby and that's what matters and if I think that maybe it won't hurt me so much, but then if it doesn't hurt that just proves it doesn't it?" he hears so much desperation and he wishes he could take her in his arms, that he could fix everything she has been forced in to believing as true. She is begging to be told different, and yet would never accept it.
"Look at the screen" he says the words quietly, and she shakes her head.
"I can't"
"For me"
He sees her consider this, how she draws in her bottom lip and bites it as she thinks. He wonders if she understands, he watches her closely trying to puzzle out what is going on in her mind. Finally she twists her head slightly, he sees in her eyes the defeat, that she thinks this is the only way of getting away from him and this room and a truth she has long accepted. He watches as her eyes settle on the screen and the image in front of her, but she is not seeing, not really. He turns to look as she does. With a shaking hand, he reaches to touch the screen.
"Our baby's heartbeat" he whispers, the flicker just slightly above his finger. It's little more than a splodge on the screen, and yet it is there. He watches it, and he smiles before he turns back to look at her. He sees tears run unashamedly down her cheeks, as she watches a heart beating within her.
He knows that time is short, that Mo can only hold of the rabble for so long but he daren't stop her now. She has pushed herself up on the bed, and he has to manoeuver the probe careful in order to not lose the image. He shifts, moves himself to sit next to her holding the probe. Gently he places an arm around her body and feels the slight weight of her fall against him, eyes still glued to the screen, one hand having come to rest beside the probe. He changes his grip allowing his fingers to lock with hers, the pair of them now securing the probe.
"We're really going to do this" she whispers, voice awed and shaky. She drags her eyes away to look up at his face, he tilts his head downwards and places a gentle kiss on her forehead.
"We're really going to do this" he tightens his grip around her, she leans on him heavily and he can see her exhaustion. He wonders if she can see it in his face, how this has preyed on him. How much he has needed her, just as she has needed him. He holds her, wishing that how they are in this moment is how they could be for a lifetime. He kisses her forehead once more, and lowers his mouth to her ear to whisper, "together"