I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who took the time to read and review the last chapter:) Your words of encouragement made me smile!
Also, thank you to my beta, ulstergirl for all her hard work!
Enjoy:)
Her eyes gloriously heavy, Nancy could hear noises float lazily in the background. There was a definite sense of chaos, of hushed concerned voices, and the muted screams of sirens wailing in the air. Nancy hardly cared. She had some vague notion that she should be feeling pain, but she felt nothing; her mind drifted hazily between consciousness and the frightening blackness that came to claim her, no matter how much she struggled to stay awake.
There were the sounds of footsteps, heavy on the stairs, and then a pair of hands working their way delicately over her skin. Nancy was fascinated by the coolness of fingertips through thin latex gloves.
"She's alive, but barely," a voice murmured softly. The fingers were now entangled in her sticky, oozing scalp, examining flesh that was raw and tender. "Her pulse is thready and she's lost a lot of blood."
Derek, she thought then, suddenly seized by panic at the memory of the cool butt of the gun pressed against her head. Her blue eyes popping open, she tried to say something, tried to verbalize concern about her partner, but the words remained frustratedly choked in her throat.
"Relax, ma'am," a different voice spoke this time, his breath warm on her face as he gently tugged up the sleeve of her shirt.
The sharp jab of a needle into her upper arm was the last thing Nancy remembered feeling before she lapsed into unconsciousness.
The next time Nancy woke up, she was aware of a dull pain throbbing unrelentingly inside her head. For a minute, she fumbled to make some sense of her surroundings. The cool press of the sheet against her skin and the heavy antiseptic scent in the air indicated that she was in a hospital.
What the hell happened? she wondered, her mind a delirious mess of hazy images. Nancy remembered the sound of gunshot and an explosion of pain as she had fallen heavily onto the ground. Blood had been sticky on her fingers and sticky on her face, warm red pooling around her head as she had struggled to cling to consciousness.
A steady beeping was emanating from some corner of the room. Nancy was painfully aware of its presence, each pulse of sound piercing through her brain as though they were knives.
Make it stop, she pleaded inwardly, her eyes seemingly glued together shut.
There was some knowledge at the back of her head, something that she couldn't quite make sense of, something that nagged at the back of her mind.
The room was dark and she could hear some hushed voices from the hallways outside. She wanted to call out, needing desperately for someone to help make sense of the confused swirl of thoughts in her head.
The words though seemed choked in her throat and before Nancy could summon enough strength to call for someone, she lapsed back into unconsciousness again.
The baby. The tiny life growing inside her stomach was Nancy's sole thought as she dragged herself from the almost suffocating darkness. Her eyes flickering painfully open, she immediately shut them again in response to the almost blinding light.
Oh God, the baby, she agonized, panic threatening to overwhelm her as she realized the hospital had no idea she was pregnant. She was pumped with medication, Nancy knew, she had to be, since the vague, fuzzy pain that throbbed in her head was completely disproportionate to what she should be feeling.
Don't drink. Don't smoke. Unpasteurized cheese is the devil incarnate.
Sitting in Dr. Barton's office, Nancy had struggled to maintain a straight face as the gynecologist reeled off an impressive list of all the what not to do's of pregnancy. If Dr. Barton had her way, Nancy was certain she wouldn't be allowed to leave her house until she had safely given birth to her baby.
Dr. Barton hadn't mentioned it at the time, but the heavy doses of painkillers being fed into Nancy's system sounded a lot more toxic than the innocuous papaya she had been instructed not to eat.
"What happened?" she rasped, her voice barely audible, her blue eyes focusing on a familiar figure slumped on the uncomfortable plastic seat beside her, his hand resting lightly over hers.
"Nancy, you're awake. Thank God. How are you feeling?"
"Tired," Nancy shrugged wearily, closing her eyes momentarily to relieve the blinding pain that throbbed behind her eyes when she tried to speak. Her mouth felt dry, as though it was tightly packed with cotton wool, and Nancy suddenly yearned for a glass of water, though the effort of having to search for the right words rendered the request entirely impossible.
Frank looked like hell.
Since his job demanded long hours and grueling conditions, Frank Hardy was no stranger to sleep deprivation. He commonly arrived home after working for seven days straight, with only a few snatched hours of sleep in the interim; pressing his lips to Nancy's briefly, he would usually head straight upstairs to their bedroom and pass out for twelve hours or more. Dark shadows would be smudged under his eyes, his face bearing the result of days of not shaving. This was different, a different kind of exhaustion that Nancy was certain a full night of sleep would remedy.
"I'm really glad you're okay."
Frank looked like he was going to bend over and kiss her, but instead he straightened up and cleared his throat.
"I suppose I'd better get the doctor, Nan. They told me to tell them the second you woke up."
The doctor was a middle-aged man whose attempts at disguising his growing baldness included a meticulous combover. "You are a very lucky young lady, Ms Drew," he informed her soberly, picking up her chart and flicking purposefully through the pages. "The bullet merely grazed your skull. You lost quite a lot of blood but the wound was stitched up and you should be as right as rain in another few days. How are you feeling?"
"Thirsty," Nancy admitted. "But other than that, okay, I guess," she mumbled, swallowing heavily. "My head is a bit achy but that's to be expected, I suppose."
"I will get the nurse to give you something for the pain and then you should really try to get some sleep," he encouraged her, his gloved fingers moving tenderly over the side of her head.
"You too," he aimed at Frank with a stern nod. "You know, this man hasn't budged from your bedside in the two days since you were admitted. Go home and get some rest and that's an order."
When the doctor finally left the room, Frank opened his mouth, as though he was going to say something, but then he stopped, reaching out to take Nancy's hand in his instead.
"I was so worried about you," he murmured, his eyes filled with agony as he squeezed her hand tightly.
"I'm fine," Nancy assured him, though the weakness of her voice betrayed her. "You know me, Frank. I'm not some girly girl whose idea of being hurt is tripping on her high heels on a Saturday night. I'm used to this. Being shot at is nothing new for me. You heard the doctor, I'll be as good as new in a couple of days and back on the job as though nothing happened."
A quietness descended between the pair then, and Nancy closed her eyes wearily, comforted by the feel of Frank's hand warm over hers.
"Frank, you should really go home and try to get some rest," Nancy mumbled softly. "I appreciate you staying but I'm fine now and you're going to make yourself sick, if you don't get some rest and eat some real food."
Frank looked as though he was about to disagree.
"Please, Frank, for me," Nancy implored, her eyes closing again in exhaustion.
Left alone with her thoughts, fear and panic started mounting again in Nancy as her hand came to rest instinctively on her stomach. She could feel nothing. In the past week she had cursed the constant fluttering of butterflies in her stomach, which her doctor had explained was just the baby moving. Nancy had found the sensation, along with the persistent nausea, to be exhausting. Now she would do anything to feel it again.
"How are you feeling, honey? Dr. Connor just informed me you were awake and experiencing some pain."
Looking up, Nancy saw a weary-faced nurse enter the room, her dark hair pulled back into a tight bun. Picking up Nancy's chart from the end of the bed, her blue eyes scanned the information while she kept up a steady patter of conversation, the woman barely stopping to draw a breath.
"There's been no thaw outside," the nurse sighed, shaking her head in annoyance as she examined the drip taped to Nancy's hand. "You're just taking your life in your hands getting in your car every morning and don't get me started on the traffic."
Nancy barely heard her. Her stomach knotted in nervous dread, she forced herself to ask the one question she wasn't sure she wanted answered.
"My baby is okay, right?" Nancy demanded worriedly, bringing the nurse's conversation to a nervous halt. "It's just, I'm four months pregnant and when I was talking to the doctor, he didn't mention anything at all about the baby."
The nurse didn't need to answer the question. The look in her eyes said it all.
Busying herself with preparing Nancy's medication, the nurse forced a sympathetic smile and glanced at her watch. "Ms. Drew, the doctor will be with you in a few minutes and he will be able to answer any queries you have."
Nancy cried herself to sleep. Her dreams were filled with nightmarish images of screaming babies and Cusack squeezing the trigger of a gun he held to her head. There was blood and inexplicably fire, the flames licking at Nancy's skin as she stood rigid waiting for the explosion of gunshot. Her head pounded furiously and when Nancy finally opened her eyes, her stomach plummeted in nausea and dread.
"You're okay, Nancy. I'm here," Frank's voice sounded comfortingly from beside her, his hand warm over hers.
Nodding tightly, Nancy brought a hand to her face and started to swipe the tears from her damp cheeks. "I'm okay," she agreed, swallowing heavily before another fresh wave of tears started coursing down her face.
"No, you're not," Frank murmured, wrapping an arm gently around her shoulders and pulling her close. "The doctor told me you know about the miscarriage."
At his words, Nancy broke down in heartwrenching sobs before she stubbornly rubbed the tears away. "Sorry," she murmured in a choked voice, tears still coursing down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"Hey, it's okay, Nan. You don't need to hide what you're feeling in front of me. My God, I'm just grateful that you're alive. It's not your fault that you miscarried. You didn't even know you were pregnant."
Frank's voice was choked with emotion and his brown eyes were glistening with unshed tears, but he managed to maintain his composure all the same. Probably didn't want to make her any more upset, Nancy realized guiltily, the weight of his arm around her shoulders making her feel suddenly horribly claustrophobic.
She couldn't do this. She couldn't lie to him.
"You don't understand, Frank," Nancy sighed, her face tearstained and miserable. "This is all my fault."
"Of course it's not your fault," Frank murmured soothingly, smoothing a hand over her cheek. "Cusack shot you. He could have killed you. How is that your fault?"
Telling Frank she concealed her pregnancy could very well mean the end of their relationship. How could he possibly want to stay with someone who could lie to him so easily?
But the prospect of not telling him, of carrying on with this lie, was unthinkable.
"I've known I was pregnant for weeks, Frank," Nancy admitted in a small voice, forcing herself to meet Frank's gaze. The look of shock in his brown eyes was heartbreaking. "So, you see, it is my fault because if I'd informed work about my pregnancy, like I should have, there's no way I would have been in that house with Cusack and this would never have happened."
"You knew you were pregnant," Frank cut in, the expression on his face shifting as the realization of her deception started to sink in. "But why didn't you tell me? Didn't you feel like you could confide in me?" he demanded, and Nancy could see that he was starting to doubt himself.
"Is it something I said or did? I mean, why did you think you couldn't come to me about this? I would have been happy about it, you know. Maybe a little shocked to begin with, but I would have been absolutely delighted."
"I'm sorry, Frank but it was a big shock and I was absolutely terrified. Telling you would make it real and I just wasn't ready. It has nothing to do with you."
"But then why?" Frank implored, his brown eyes pleading for some sort of explanation.
Nancy was crying openly now, tears spilling down her face, and Frank just stared ahead of him in shock, as though he couldn't quite comprehend what he was hearing.
"Nancy, you were almost five months into your pregnancy. Didn't you think I'd find out when you went into labor and just suddenly arrived home with a baby one day? When the hell were you going to tell me?"
"I don't know," she answered honestly, her heart plummeting as Frank withdrew his hand from hers and gazed stonily ahead.
She could tell Frank she had been planning to tell him a million times; during every phone call they had shared in the past few weeks, Nancy lying sprawled out on their bed twirling a lock of hair nervously around her fingers. During the dinner date they had shared the previous week, Nancy feigning an early morning meeting to excuse her from sharing their usual bottle of wine. There had been a million different times Nancy had so wanted to share with Frank the news of her pregnancy, but the point was, she hadn't.
"God, I know I fucked up, Frank, and there's nothing I can do ever make it up to you. But you've got to know I'm sorry and that I love you," Nancy murmured desperately, suddenly terrified she was going to lose him. "Right?" she pleaded, reaching for his hand.
"'Sorry' is not going to fix this, Nancy. How can I ever trust you again? I'm sorry but I can't be with you right now."
"Don't go," Nancy pleaded, though inwardly she knew it was too little, too late.
Frank didn't even bothering answering her. Standing up, he stalked out of the room without looking back.