A Continuation of Events

Jamie walks down the street without seeing anything, anyone. He doesn't know how he got to this place, they'd always been careful and he knew she'd been on her period at one point. Up ahead he spots a drug store and steps inside for some ginger ale and ibuprofen – his stomach and head haven't stopped their bombarding.

He takes three pills, downs them with the ginger ale, and then continues to walk around the store just to do something. He ends up in a small clothing section and spots baby clothes before he can move on. He stops dead.

Toward the bottom of the shelf is a small baby onesie with the trademark 'I NYC' on it and he can't stop staring. Suddenly images of himself with his own child fill his head: going to football games, playing in the backyard at the Reagan house with the whole family, eating at all the best places in the city. In each vision he sees a small blonde haired, blue eyed toddler and in each vision he sees Eddie. He sees her at the games, with his family, loving the restaurants, playing with their child and he suddenly wonders why he ever left the hospital.

He grabs the onesie and checkouts as fast as he can before almost running back to St. Vincent's.

Eddie is in the same place he left her but now she's awake and a doctor is talking to her. Before he can enter the room Linda spots him.

"Jamie, where did you go? You ran out of here faster than a cheetah."

"Sorry about that. I just needed some fresh air for a minute, but now I need to talk to Eddie. It's important."

"Well, just wait for the doctor to leave her and you can." She starts to turn away but stops and turns back to him. "Is everything alright? You're kind of acting weird. Is it because of what I told you, are you freaked out about it, that the baby could have been hurt?" She searches his face to see how he's feeling and is surprised when she sees conflicting emotions.

Jamie stares back at Linda and wars with himself over telling her the truth or not. He finally decides that she would find out eventually so why not now.

"I'm the father."

She continues to stare at him, not knowing if she should believe him. It doesn't take her long to know he's telling the truth about this and lying about fighting with Eddie. His earlier behavior makes a lot more sense now too.

"Well, that's one way to find out you're going to be a father." They both laugh kind of awkwardly at that before they're both serious again. "I can't say I'm not a little disappointed in you for not being more careful, but this could be a good lesson for Jack and Sean and it will be nice to have another niece or nephew around." She gives him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Now go see your girl."

Eddie watches as Jamie walks into her room and she, for once, can't tell what he's thinking. She thought she'd see concern on his face but it's not really there.

"Hey, did you get my messages?"

He doesn't answer, just bends to give her a kiss and not a chaste one. She melts into it for two seconds before pulling away.

"You do know Linda is like 100 feet away from us right now, don't you?"

"I don't care, I'm just happy you're alright." He sits down again and takes her hand. "What messages?"

"I texted and called you like twenty times, how did you miss that?"

He pats his pockets looking for his phone before realizing he must have left it in his car without noticing. "I guess I forgot it, did you want me to bring you something?"

"No, I just have something important to talk to you about." She stops to take a few deep breaths, not sure how he's going to take the news.

He waits because he's not supposed to know what she's about to say.

She rallies her courage and blurts out the first sentence she can think of. "You put a baby inside me," and then she puts her hand over her face at the absurdity of her words.

He just starts laughing.

She stares at him incredulously. "Why the hell are you laughing? It's not funny, this is serious. I'm pregnant and you made me this way and what are we going to do?"

He keeps laughing but he's able to grab the bag with the onesie in it and place it on Eddie's lap.

She's starting to get a little irritated with him but she opens the bag and takes out the onesie and then she's confused.

"How did you know?"

He stops laughing to answer her. "They left your file open on accident and I looked at it while they weren't watching." He doesn't like lying to her but he also doesn't want her to be angry at Linda. "I know this is a big deal and I know it's gonna be hard but I'm positive we can do this."

"I know we can too, but I need to be honest with you for a second." She pauses to search his face, concern is prominently there now. "Our kid can never wear this. Only tourists wear these shirts and this kid is going to be a born and bred New Yorker."

He laughs again but only for a moment. "That's part of the reason I bought it, I wanted to raise kids in the city too. I also wanted you to know that I'm in, I'm in for everything having a kid entails and I thought it was kind of cute and funny."

She smiles, "at least we can agree on living in the city but we're going to have to find a new apartment and tell your family and Renzulli – shit, I don't want to be on desk duty for seven months and everyone at the precinct is gonna give us hell for this. What will your family think? You're all religious, this can't be a good thing for you guys right?"

"Eddie, calm down," he grabs her face in his hands. "I already told Linda that I'm the father and she was fine with it, even a little excited, and whether we're religious or not, the rest of the family will be happy too. The precinct will be hell for a while but they'll all get over it. I even think you can stay on street duty for a while if you want too, there's a policy on it you should read but I know I've seen a pregnant cop on duty before. We'll figure all of this out eventually but for now, let's just focus on getting you out of the hospital, deal?"

She grasps his wrists, "Okay." He kisses her again and this time she doesn't pull away.

When they eventually do break apart Jamie tells her to scoot over so he can lie next to her on the hospital bed.

Out of nowhere he says, "I thought women didn't get their periods when they're pregnant?" The thought had bothered him all night.

This time she laughs. "I actually thought that too but I asked the doctor and she said some women can have them for almost their entire pregnancies – that's how we end up with babies born in bathrooms, the moms just don't know they're pregnant, crazy right?"

He makes an incredulous face at that. "Yeah, it is. Try to get some sleep; we'll talk in the morning." He kisses her temple and closes his eyes.

"Jamie."

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

He smiles, eyes still closed. "I love you too." She closes her eyes and falls asleep quickly.

Linda pops her head in fifteen minutes later and watches the parents-to-be sleeping. She smiles to herself before turning down the lights and walking back to the nurses' desk.

_*Ok, so there's one more part after this one where they tell the family and precinct. After I started writing that part it just made more sense to separate the chapters. Hopefully you guys like this one and I'll get the next one up as soon as I can.