Chapter Six
AN: Those of you who've read Both Sides Now, will recognize both the incident to which Karen refers as well as the keepsake box.
Karen fumed as the elevator made its painstaking descent to the lobby. What the hell sort of mechanics were operating the damned thing? Ropes and pulleys with dwarves who sang while little forest creatures lurked about? When it finally arrived she barely waited for the doors to begin sliding open before she was shouldering her way through, turning and viciously jabbing at the button for the fifth floor. Jabbing again, as she imagined the face of every stupid, terrified idiotic, stubborn, tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, ill-tempered, snark-dealing, currently bearded and had she mentioned idiotic, Irish cop she knew beneath her finger.
Which narrowed it down to exactly one.
Another sharp jab addressed the issue of big-mouthed, faux psychics, but he was so far down her list of Things to Deal With right now as to not be of consequence. Although the temptation to arrest him for sheer stupidity and massive insensitivity had been high.
She rapped sharply at the door to 536, prepared to pick the damned lock or kick it in if necessary, but to her surprise, it swung open before her knuckles met the wood for a second round of authoritative knocking. For a moment, she stared at the defeated line of his shoulders as he trudged back to the sofa where an open bottle of Jack stood on the coffee table alongside what appeared to be a miniature model of a Craftsman bungalow, rendered in exquisite detail.
"I needed time," he said shortly as he dropped onto the sofa and tossed back the contents of the glass he held.
An instant later he was hitting her with a baleful blue glare as she snatched the glass from his hand and in a preemptive strike, took the bottle as well, removing both to the kitchen before returning to take a seat on the coffee table facing him.
"I wasn't done," he groused.
"It's too damned early to be drinking."
"Five o'clock somewhere."
Ignoring him she said, "Besides, O'Hara's going to need you completely sober and cogent."
Crossing his arms and lowering his chin to his chest, he muttered, "Hasn't seemed as if she's needed me for much, lately."
After a glance at his face, easily reading his expression, she gently slid the miniature bungalow out of potential harm's way, noting as she did, the hinges on one side. A keepsake box of some sort, then. Custom-made, if she had to guess and extremely important to him, since Carlton was not one for keepsakes or mementos unless they held a great deal of personal value.
Propping her elbows on her knees, she leaned forward and hit him with a hard stare he returned without flinching, although a storm of emotion churned in the blue depths.
"You're an idiot."
"Not the first time I've heard it."
She took a deep breath, counted to ten, and started again.
"Let's recap, shall we? You've been in love with her for years and have been miserable without her. She told you she's carrying your baby and oh, by the way, is clearly as in love with you as you are with her and as an added bonus, you're both actually free of any prior commitments or entanglements or potential romantic minefields. A normal person would think that the stars have finally aligned for the two of you and that you'd be overjoyed, but then again, this is you we're talking about here, isn't it?" Karen laced her fingers tightly together in an effort to keep from reaching out and slapping the thick-headed dolt straight upside his head.
"She gave you the most remarkable gift you're ever likely to receive in your life and you turned, left without a single word, and now you're sitting here, for lack of a better term, sulking. Tell me, exactly how much time do you expect this tantrum to require, Detective?"
His brows were drawn together in the familiar Lassiter scowl, mouth set in a stubborn mutinous line and despite her ire, Karen had to fight back a grin because she could not wait for the first moment Carlton was faced with that same expression from what would no doubt be his equally stubborn offspring. She did not envy O'Hara one bit having to referee those future showdowns.
Deliberately gentling her voice, she said, "I do understand that it was rather a lot to be hit with at once."
"You knew," he said dully.
She nodded. "Realized it a week or so before she asked for leave." As his mouth opened, she held up a hand. "Oh, please—don't. You're a great detective, Carlton, but truth is, I only figured it out because I've been through it before. No offense, but most men are spectacularly oblivious to the early signs of pregnancy. Doubly so if a woman actively wants to conceal the signs of her pregnancy."
The scowl relaxed into a miserable expression as he rubbed his forehead. "Did you know it was mine?"
She considered how to answer. Carefully she said, "Not initially. But she did make it clear it wasn't Shawn's. Thank God," she muttered almost involuntarily. "After that, it was easy." She lifted a shoulder. "There was really only one person it could be."
The hope that lit his face flared bright, leaving her more than a little breathless at its intensity, before it subsided once more into contemplation.
"I thought she left because of Marlowe," he admitted slowly.
She nodded. "She did—more or less. She didn't want to put undue pressure or influence on you."
"She knew she came first, dammit. Or should have," he added more softly.
Karen threw her hands up in frustration. "How, Carlton? You asked her to stand down."
"I know, but after she discovered—" His front teeth dug into his lower lip. "How could she?"
Karen cast a quick glance around the living room in hopes of spotting a baseball bat or two-by-four. The cutlass on the wall would do. "She thought she was giving you the opportunity you asked for, you idiot. Would you please, for the love of all that's good and holy, get out of your own head long enough to understand what that cost her?"
He drove his hands into his hair. "She would have let me make life-altering decisions without having all the facts. She knows I'd want to be fully informed."
"Oh, that's romantic," Karen snapped, but softened at the helplessness expressed in every line of his body. God knows, the man had a hard enough time with emotions on a good day.
"Okay, look—O'Hara, your partner would understand that you need all the facts and would want to make a fully informed decision. However, Juliet, your partner, is having a bit of a harder time. Setting aside the fact that she's in love with you, which as you well know screws with your head enough, she's pregnant, Carlton, which means she's got the added bonus of a toxic cocktail of hormones coursing through her system. Simple tasks like finding a matching pair of shoes takes herculean effort and normal everyday interactions become fraught with emotional peril. Hallmark ads take on the tragic magnitude of Tolstoy and those hideous animal rescue commercials with Sarah McLachlan crooning mournfully in the background have the ability to drive otherwise stable people to take up residence in a clock tower."
Karen recalled her own personal Waterloo—the Snuggle Bear. Normally she wanted to take out that damned annoying bear, finding him vaguely menacing a la Chucky, yet when she was pregnant, his mere appearance on her screen had left her a weepy mess, nodding that yes, she needed to add more freshness to her laundry to prove she Really Loved Her Family.
With a slight shudder, she went on— "A situation like what the two of you have been dealing with? Cut her some slack for not being able to make heads or tails of any damned thing and for coming to conclusions that under any other circumstances might seem absurd."
He stared past her, silent as a thousand thoughts clouded the blue of his eyes to a stormy gray. "And to think," he said softly, as if speaking to himself. "I didn't tell her right away about Marlowe and I breaking up because I was afraid she'd blame herself. Would blame that one night we had." His eyes cleared yet obvious concern remained as he met her gaze. "Considering she was already pregnant when Marlowe left…"
Karen felt her breath catch. "Remember last year when I said you were trapped between a rock and a hard place?"
Surprisingly, he relaxed enough for the corners of his mouth to twitch slightly. "Yeah."
"That was nothing."
The smile faded. "Tell me about it."
She leaned forward and touched his knee. "But now the rock's shifted and you have room to breathe, Carlton."
"I know." His shoulders rose with his massive breath. "I already knew. I was trying to be careful about it, but I was already trying to show her…" Red streaked across his broad cheekbones, rendering him surprisingly boyish, despite the thick, gray-streaked beard and the worried lines fanning from the corners of his eyes. "Was trying to…"
"Romance her?" Karen offered.
The red deepened as he fidgeted like an antsy altar boy. Taking pity, Karen rose and went to the kitchen where she started a pot of coffee brewing, giving him time to collect himself. A few moments later, color restored to something approaching normal, he appeared, busying himself with taking mugs from the cupboards and pulling the half-and-half from the refrigerator.
"How is she?"
His voice was low and hesitant.
Karen took a long, bracing sip of coffee before answering. "Well, considering this morning alone she's had her asshat ex-boyfriend call her fat and the man she loves declare he'll care for her regardless of whose baby it is, yet take off without a word upon learning that her baby is, you know, actually his, you'd best be grateful it was me who showed up and not her, Glock in hand. Otherwise, she's just peachy." She flashed a small evil smile at his obvious annoyance with her deliberate inflection. With a quick glance at her watch she added, "Actually, the real reason she's not here is because right now, she should just be arriving at the doctor's."
As his eyes widened with clear alarm, she added, "Relax—it's a routine scheduled appointment, plus she needs to be cleared for a return to the field."
His mug hit the counter with a sharp report. "She is not going back in the field."
"Oh, for God's sake, Carlton, can the Neanderthal act." Silently lamenting the cutlass was too far away for her to reach easily, she added, "You stood side-by-side with me as I held a gun on a perp while I was eight months pregnant, and has it slipped your mind that we were on a work-related trip when my water broke?"
"How could I forget?" he muttered. "Never did get the stains out of my briefcase." As she lifted an eyebrow, he straightened, pulling at his collar. His tell for trying for dignified and authoritative. Pity the wide-eyed terrified expression canceled out any traces of either dignified or authoritative. "Besides, you weren't actively in the field."
Karen sighed and did some mental calculations. O'Hara was just shy of twenty weeks, so not quite halfway through her term. It was going to be a long five months.
"Perhaps before you go making any proclamations that could in all probability land you in the ER, you should go find her and maybe, I don't know… talk to her? Sensibly? Like a sane human being?"
She very nearly laughed at his expression, trapped somewhere between rolling his eyes and such a clear, desperate longing, she felt the impulse to laugh fade away almost as quickly as it had appeared. It hadn't been an easy road for her two charges. Not likely the road would be a whole lot easier, given how headstrong and independent they both were, but at the same time, they were finally on the same road and it was one they'd at least be navigating together.
Drawing a folded piece of paper from her pocket, she held it out. "You know… if you leave right now, you might be able to get there in time for the ultrasound."
Slowly, he accepted the paper, paling as he read the information, his eyes standing out like twin beacons reflecting sheer, blue terror. And hope.
"Ultrasound," he echoed, blinking slowly as if emerging from a trance. Fixing Karen with a wondering stare he said, "Juliet's having a baby."
"Yes. Yes, she is."
"She's having my baby," he said softly.
Karen bit the inside of her cheek. "Yes, Carlton."
"I gotta go." Bolting from the kitchen he reappeared a moment later, eyes wild. "Spare key's in the desk—lock up when you leave. Or don't. I don't care."
This time his disappearance was punctuated by the heavy slam of the door. Calmly, Karen poured herself a fresh cup of coffee and after only a moment's deliberation, added a slug from the still-open bottle of Jack.
It was going to be a long five months.