A/N: Hey guys, rather a long chapter because too much shit goes down as I've aforementioned. And no, no one breaks up. That stuff only happens in Just-World so settle. I was just being mean. Now that I've thoroughly spoiled the chapter for you, let me remind you for the second time that my working knowledge of the law comes mainly from American commercials and 90s situational comedies. So yeah, nothing in that courtroom is plausible. I bet they don't even serve soup.
The story is almost at completion with the end of Chapter 13 and all of Chapter 14 needing to be done and that's it. What does this mean for you? That the next four chapters are already done and just need read throughs and spit shines. So yay.
On a side note I just wanted to mention that after a year of struggling, I finally made it into my University's grad program, so I actually get to write a book while under close observation (well a publishable manuscript). So yay.
Lastly, thanks to everyone who reviewed/favorited/alerted/ and of course, read.
Fun Fact: When I couldn't think of a chapter title, SYuuri suggested 'How I Met Steve's Mother'. Amazing.

Illegitimate

Chapter 8

Fairytale Towns and Knighthood

The entirety of his two week suspension is spent with Jules. He's amazed to learn in his short absence her stomach has grown enough to hit things. All types of things, doors, cups off the coffee table, piles of folded clothing, shampoo bottles in the shower, pictures off the wall while descending the stairs, the glove compartment in his SUV unless she adjusts her seat to the farthest setting, and him. It's like living with a bumper car because she doesn't realize how big she's gotten, and he'll be damned if he's going to openly point it out.

During his absence he expected her to fall into the preset nesting mode most expectant women do. Maybe even go a little crazy with it since she was facing this milestone alone. But when he returns to her house nothing has changed. The guest rooms remain decorated down to the wall hangings, there's not even a preset nursery pattern or color choice for either gender in mind. She doesn't have anything for the baby, or for herself after the baby is born. She doesn't even have a birthing plan. So the first thing he does is surprise her by signing them up for a course downtown.

On Wednesday afternoons they attend a birthing class together. It's the weirdest in class experience since some of his training at the SRU. His worry addled brain keeps mixing the two courses. Sitting behind Jules as she lies on the ground and breathes the patterned breaths along with her, he's thinking of a negotiation plan for the baby. You sound upset. We all just want to go home. What do I have to do so we can all make it out of here safely?

People return to the class with their new babies, some of whom are huge for newborns. Babies that could already make the prerequisite height and weight requirements for the SRU. He and Jules exchange wide-eyed glances, and decline wanting to hold the one ton babies when the new parents offer. Other than the freakishly large offspring of previous class members, there really is no reason for concern. Both of them are good at securing diapers on the fake infants, understand not to force a baby's limbs in opposite directions, and when Jules doesn't feel stupid doing it, they get the breathing outlines down to a perfect note.

The final day of his two week suspension brings about the trial date to determine custody of Baby Callaghan. It is Baby Callaghan. There is no way in hell he's going to stand in court, and watch Jules have to hand over her baby while knowing the turmoil she's been put through the last eight, almost nine, months. The Morgan name died with Steve. The time this baby stops being a Callaghan is the day it becomes a Braddock.

She has one of the first court dates of the day, so the alarm wakes them a little after the sun. The late October sky is a dark gray with the menacing intention of rain. He showers and dresses in a respectable, but not overly fancy suit. When he gets out of the bathroom, she's sitting on the edge of the bed, molding the sheets between her fingers.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah." She nods, tongue wetting her lower lip before standing. Her legs shake, knees knocking under her own weight.

He helps her stand, her skin feeling slightly hot to the touch. "Are you sure?"

"I don't feel so good. I'm sure it'll pass."

"We can call them and get them to reschedule—"

"And how does that make me look?"

"Jules, I'm sure they'll understand if you don't feel well."

"We're going."

So they do. She showers and then spends ten minutes complaining about the dress she picked out last week. She wanted to wear a pantsuit. Everyone in the maternity store knew she was too big for a suit. He knew she was too big for a suit. None of them wanted to pull the pin and run. It's a beautiful dress though. Long sleeved; the top of it is white with black clasps in the middle. There's a black band above her stomach which flows down into the skirt. It does her more justice than any suit ever could.

The courtroom is small, almost intimate. On one side are Jules and the lawyer who Ed so willingly volunteered. He doesn't remember the guy's name. He sits behind them in the valley of empty seats. The toes of his shoes kicking the wooden fence separating himself and Jules. The lawyer suggested they not sit together because it might not be good for her reputation.

The other side of the room sits Steve's family. His mom who is at least eighty, but walks independently. Her snow white hair is wrapped tightly around her head, reminiscent of a crown. Jules says her name is Edith Morgan and she was a school teacher until retirement. She also taught the neighborhood's Sunday school. He can easily picture her hitting the kids on the knuckles with a meter stick.

Steve's sister is a woman in her early fifties. Or maybe mid-forties but not aging well. She's tall, towering over her mother like a bodyguard. Her light brown hair has the lingering memory of being darker and fuller before the gray started spreading through. Jules informs him her name is Harriet and she's childless. He thinks a perfectly valid point for Steve's family not receiving custody is their naming history.

They have a gray-haired attorney and sit closer to the young court stenographer who looks in fear at the older women. Like they might steal away her youth. The judge, a tall, wide man named Marsters arrives and they stand, though it's more difficult for Jules and Steve's mom.

The whole basis of the case is to criticize Jules. He figures it out rather quickly and wants to shoot himself for not figuring it out sooner. The judge brings up most of the articles on the list of actions the Morgan family considers grounds for labeling her an unfit mother and she defends herself. Most of their evidence is weak at best and when they do have a liable case, she has a viable answer.

"It says here you were in a truck which exploded back in May?" The judge's voice exposes his skepticism. But the man has a bad habit of glancing over the lens in his thin glasses at the person he's addressing like he's personally debasing them.

"I wasn't in the truck when it blew up." She sounds wavy, from nausea or exhaustion. Maybe she's just nervous. "I can't be held responsible for something that didn't actually happen to me."

"Fair enough." The Judge apparently crosses it off the list and continues to the next item. "You were in a hostage situation, just a few weeks ago? Didn't you take maternity leave?"

He wants to know how Steve's family got all these details. Someone from the fourth floor had to be leaking information to them. It had to be one of the woman, or all of them. They're all loudmouthed and talk about everyone present or not. God, he hates the fourth floor.

"I went to the SRU for my baby shower; I didn't know there was going to be a hostage situation. It's no different than going into a bank and a few seconds later someone holding it up. I left active SRU duty seventeen weeks into my pregnancy. I went on maternity leave a week before the hostage situation. I needed the money."

"Are you going to be returning to active duty once the baby is born?"

It's a question he's been wondering too, but didn't want to ask. Didn't want to upset her, didn't want to make her purposely think about abandoning the baby. Didn't want her to get pissed off at him for assuming she wouldn't return to active duty. He did that once before and it didn't turn out so well for him.

"No. I couldn't jeopardize my baby's future by having a life threatening job."

"Are you a single mother?"

He wants her to answer yes. The lawyer wants her to answer yes. They both know the manufactured pity at her situation might be grounds for the judge to be more lenient. It also hides their relationship which most people don't seem to approve of. Telling the Team was a struggle. Wordy asks him about her, but Ed and Spike are still a little uncomfortable.

She answers no. "I have a boyfriend, but he also works a dangerous job. I couldn't put both of us in that situation and have no one there for the baby."

"Well I don't want to plague you about questions on your personal life." Adjusting the thin glasses on his face, the judge fixes the evidence in order and stands from his seat. "I'd like to review the information I have, so I'm calling a brief recess."

During the break, he sits adjacent to her on the bench, food crowded on a mint cafeteria tray beside them. Her soup overflowed and weaves its way between the grooves etched in the plastic on the bottom of the tray. She's leaning back against the wall, one hand on her stomach, the other trying to reach the small of her back.

His arm replaces hers, skewed and distorted behind her back. "Jules, it'll be fine."

Shifting, she rolls her back to no avail. Brown eyes heavy and lowered. Head shaking rapidly in disagreement. "I'm tired, Sam. I'm tired and I'm terrified I'm going to screw up. I'm going to lose the baby to them because I'm tired. I just—I can't."

"Hey, hey." His arm levitates to drape around her shoulders. Her head falls lethargically to the crook of his neck, eyes wrenching closed against his skin. "I'm promising you it's going to be fine."

Head rolls back and forth in disagreement. "You can't promise that."

"Yes I can."

They sit in a quiet embrace for a few seconds. One of his hands caressing her stomach, the baby so many people are willing to fight over. So many people but the real father. Wonders if Steve was alive where he would be in all this. How everyone would factor in.

"I'm doing a good job right?" Retracting a little from the embrace, he's surprised to find the glowing streak of a freshly fallen tear on her cheek. Didn't pick up on the sorrow in her voice because of the overpowering fatigue. "Just tell me I'm doing a good job."

"How can you even ask me that Jules?" The pad of his thumb brushes away the tear trek. Blends the water in with the contours of her face. "You're so strong. So strong. Probably the strongest person I know. Throughout this whole thing, you've never complained. Never blamed Steve, even now. You're so strong and I'm so proud of you."

She smiles as another tear escapes. He clears that one away too, the softness of her cheek accentuated by the fresh fluidity. "No one talks to me like you do, Sam," she barely whispers while he kisses her cheek. Vaguely tastes salt.

"I don't need the competition." He sets the tray in his lap, ignoring the undulations through the soup. Before she can respond to his joke, probably taking it serious, he states, "You need to eat something."

"Sweetie, I really don't feel good." And it breaks his heart. Maybe because her voice cracks and he can hear just how ill and how tired she really is. Like the sun breaking through a cloudy sky. Or maybe because it's the first time she openly calls him a pet name and something inside of him flourishes. Maybe pride.

"I know. I know you don't, but think about the poor baby." Touches her stomach again and something about it doesn't seem right, it's not as tight, almost hollow. If something was wrong she would have mentioned it, and he doesn't want to provoke more anxiety in her, so he ignores it. "It's just sitting in there, running out of room. Wondering when it's going to get to eat."

She sighs, a hand on his shoulder and something is so blissfully domestic about the situation it makes him forget where they are. "How much do I have to force down to make you happy?"

"Three spoonfuls of soup and just nurse the ginger ale."

She accepts the leaky cardboard soup cup with an expression of general distaste. "You drive a hard bargain, Braddock."

"Well I am a negotiator."

When they reenter the courtroom a few minutes later, Steve's family still won't glance Jules' way. He helps her back to her seat, her body long fallen into the rhythmic hip ticks of the late pregnancy waddle. Sometimes he wonders how she's not completely thrown over by her own momentum. He runs a hand over her hair, and places a kiss on t he back of her head just to get a rouse from Steve's mom and sister who are watching in their peripherals with distaste. In an almost silent voice he reminds, "I'll be right behind you."

Judge Marsters returns, large body filling up his chair quickly. "I believe I've made my decision, however I do have a few more questions to ask if that's okay with both parties."

Jules nods, her body slumping back in the chair. Steve's mom talks it over with her attorney and then nods. "Ms. Callaghan, early I stated I didn't want to know about your personal life because I didn't think it pertained to this case. However after further thought I would like to know a few details as I believe it will affect the environment the child is raised in."

Without knowing it, his fingernails dig into the over varnished, almost tacky wooden bar separating them. His mind is flipping through her history, thinking of anything the judge might be able to use to proclaim her an unfit mother before the baby is even born. Then his heart stops. Her mom. What about her mom.

"It was aforementioned that you're currently seeing someone?" The judge glances over his thin, circled glasses towards her.

"Yes." Her voice is blank, much like what he can see of her expression. She's gone into defense mode. It might not be a good thing, showing no emotions when the fate of her baby is being decided.

"Is this the fellow in question?"

And the judge is pointing directly at him. Suddenly he's part of this and he doesn't care. Doesn't care because the baby is eventually going to be born and then he would suddenly be a part of this anyway. He rises from the bench behind her. "Yes, Your Honor."

"What's your name?"

"Sam Braddock."

"How long have you two been dating?"

"Three months, but we dated before. We broke up do to work constraints." Can't look at Jules, can't give the impression that his answers might be premeditated or tampered with. They have to be truthful, natural. Straight from his brain to his mouth for her. For them.

"So you work at the SRU as well?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"From the police force?"

"No, Your Honor. The army."

"Oh. Ever see action?"

"Two tours in Afghanistan."

"Mmm." The judge scribbles something on the piece of paper before him, and then glances over low set glasses almost tumbling off his nose. Visually picking him apart. "I'd like to ask you two very personal questions. You may refuse to answer them, but you might get the cold shoulder later on tonight." At the end of his sentence he points to Jules, who hasn't even twitched in the chair.

"I'm fine with the questions, Your Honor."

"Smart man," the judge laughs, but it stops abruptly. He removes his glasses, folds them and sets them on his podium. "Do you love her?"

"Since the moment I first saw her." Somehow this is what he expected meeting Jules' father would be like. Going through layer after layer of pent up, retired cop, investigatory methods from the 1960s aimed his intentions. Things, they got a little skewed, but he wouldn't change them.

"Why? This is under no circumstance your child. Why would you still want to be with her, with a child, whom is not your own?"

"Because I love her. I'll always love her, and this baby is half of her." He grins while he speaks, eyes a little downcast because what he's saying is a little bit of a personal revelation and he would have rather said it to Jules while bonding over their new baby, than in a courtroom with her and six other strangers. "Jules is very smart, Your Honor; she can teach the baby a lot of things. But for the few things she can't, maybe I could."

"Good. You may sit down now, Mr. Braddock." The judge nods slowly. His face completely stoic. "I reward Julianna Callaghan full custody of her child."

"Excuse me?" Steve's prehistoric mother almost jumps out of her chair in protest. "There must be something we can do?" She's more so yelling at her lawyer than the judge. "Can't we countersue for shared custody?"

"No Mrs. Morgan, and if I was Ms. Callaghan I would countersue you for defamation of character and just generally wasting everyone's time." The judge doesn't hide the scorn in his voice as he disappears from the stand.

He kisses Jules. Grabs her cheeks and really kisses her. They both laugh; high on the fact they're going to be parents. Real parents unless anymore unseen Morgan family members return from The Hat to try to stake a claim in a baby they have no right to. They both thank Ed's lawyer friend, whose name he still doesn't know.

Bowing his head, he kisses her stomach through her dress. "Congratulations Baby Callaghan," he announces to the baby, who isn't kicking or as excited as they both are. Her stomach seems at an odd angle as he nuzzles it well in front of Steve's family, maybe just to rub it in. "We're going to raise the hell out of you."

"Ahem."

Backing off he finds Steve's mom standing before them. Her wired eyebrows lowering in disgust, hooked nose rising in scorn as she watches their pre-familial interactions. Her scrawny fingers clamp around her clutch.

"I just wanted to let you know that the offer still stands." Jules hand roots on the sturdy wooden table for support, and he wonders how exactly she isn't feeling good. Pieces together information from various baby books, about what happens when the baby 'drops' within her. How her waddle is more pronounced. For a split second contemplates if her sickness is actually the very early stages of labor, but he brushes it off because she still has a little more than a month before the baby is actually due.

With one hand on her bulbous stomach, she precariously removes the other from off the table and offers it to Steve's mom. "I want this baby to know you. To know Harriet. To know Steve is its father. I want it to have a family."

He doesn't say a word when the ancient lady casts her gray eyes on him. Cragged and angled from behind years of accumulating wrinkles and bitterness. He doesn't disagree with Jules. He hasn't really earned the right to. Maybe to debate a valid point, but not flat out disagree on how she raises the baby. He doesn't disagree. He knows her reasons behind wanting to extend the family. Because her family won't be a part of the baby's life.

Mr. Callaghan obviously knows about her baby, it's what he's gathered from the brief conversations they've had concerning her father. He saw her with the test, so the idea of a potential grandchild must be ingrained in his mind. But Jules also enlightened of the broods of grandchildren her father already has from her brothers. Most of them didn't make it out of their teens before accidentally having a kid or two. Her father doesn't respond well to kids. Sure they call him 'grandpa' but he only answers with a gruff grunt while wasting away in his recliner. Her baby will cause no difference in her family's lives and her family's absence in her baby's life will leave no lasting effect.

"I just came to tell you, that Steven." Edith pauses to cross herself, boney fingers catching a tremor. "Is reeling in his grave. You haven't changed a bit since you left. Still selfish and conducting yourself in lurid ways. It's no wonder your father wants nothing to do with you."

"We have to go now." His fingers entwine with Jules' and he gives a brief squeeze as he tugs her along. Her expression is shock, lips parted but no words exiting.

Walking as fast as she allows them, they arrive at his SUV. He helps her inside, buckles the belt below her bump and gently shuts the door. They're a block and a half away from the courthouse in stuck midday traffic when she finally finds her voice.

"I wasn't like that."

"I know."

"I mean, I went through kind of a rebellious phase but it was nothing out of the ordinary."

"Jules." He dry laughs at her nervousness. Ever since their playing field evened from a mountain and a brook to just a shared valley between them, she becomes antsy over nothing. Thinks he's going to pick on physical flaws or past mistakes as a reason to leave her. "I know who you really are."

She gravely nods. Lips pursing as she relaxes back in the chair. Her hand rubs at her stomach absently as they wait in traffic.

"So is Medicine Hat one of those towns from fairytales that has no kids?"

"What?" She turns away from watching various men in orange colored jackets with yellow X's do construction on the side of the road.

"It just seems like everyone who lives in that city is really old. I think that's why they wanted the baby."

Her eyes roll, but she doesn't hide the grin blossoming over her lips. With her head turned back towards the window she voices, "You're an idiot."

Whisking her hand up, he holds it loosely, thumb strumming over her fingers. "And lucky you, you're stuck with me."

She tugs on his hand once, and when he turns, she's watching him. "You know how you said you were proud of me? Well I'm—I'm really proud of you too, Sam. What you said—"

"It was all true."

"I know."

They eat dinner at home two hours later. He offers to take her out to celebrate the victory, but in a lethargic tone she reminds she still doesn't feel good. So he suggests she go have a shower to stave off the depressing weather. It's the last week of October, hasn't snowed yet, but there's been plenty of freezing rain. His intentions are to pick up food for them while she's showering, but he can't bring himself to leave. A nagging voice keeps telling him to wait until he hears her get out of the shower. As soon as the water turns off and the door closes he bolts out of the house.

In the last two weeks, Jules hasn't finished a full meal. When anyone stupid enough to question why, like Spike at their last Team dinner together, she enlightens if they had a football propelled constantly into their ribs, they wouldn't eat much either. Instead she became a snacker. Every two hours she would stop what she was doing, go to the washroom, and then grab something. Usually a vegetable.

Tonight she eats the whole salad, which is jumbo sized because he figured there would be more for her to snack on later. Reclining on the couch next to him she sighs, hands on her stomach and pulling random skewed faces. He's stopped asking what they mean, because unless she slaps him or yells at him, it's not important and his pestering bothers her.

But her stomach is lower, has a ridiculous slope which wasn't present last night. His hand rests beside hers on calm skin, but his investigates the region, take abstract measurements in his mind.

"What are you doing Sam?"

"I think you dropped."

"Dropped what?" Craning her neck forward she checks the area carpet to see what he's talking about.

"No, I think the baby dropped." His hand stops on where her stomach used to slope up from her hips. Instead it almost slopes down now. "I think you're going to have it soon."

"Yeah." She rolls her eyes and settles back against his shoulder. "I think I'll know."

"Well, maybe we should get prepared." Can't help but feel nervous about the change in the slope. Wishes she did one of those stomach casts so he'd have something to compare it to and then get her to panic just a bit with him. "You know, just in case."

"Prepared how?" She yawns.

"Well we have nothing for the baby because we don't want to get anything until we know what it is."

"There's nothing wrong with that."

"Except we don't have a car seat. Or any clothes, even neutral colored ones. Or diapers which either gendered baby is going to need. Or a name. A name might be a good place to start."

"Yeah." Her back rests fully against his side as she claims the majority of the couch. "I guess names would be a good place to start."

"I thought you were supposed to go through a nesting phase or something."

"Do you want to do names now or not?"

His hand stills beside hers on her stomach. "You want me to help?"

"Yeah. I mean, we're doing this together. Aren't we?"

"Yeah." He nods and everything in his body suddenly calms. The need to get everything done. The reason he already emptied the guest room of her choice and primed the walls. It fades until there are just three simple heartbeats. His cheek rests against the top of her head and he closes his eyes for a moment. "Of course."

She shifts against him, pulls his other arm around her so both rest on her stomach. "What do you think it'll be? Everyone at the SRU thinks it's going to be a boy."

"Hey, that's not true." He laughs into her hair and finds both of her hands, clasps them together somewhere over her sunken navel. "Wordy thinks it's going to be a girl."

"Yeah, well Wordy is Captain of Team Girl."

"And Sarge really never said. He only smiles slyly and shakes his head. I think he just wants to be on whatever side wins."

Grinning against his voice in her ear, she crosses her slightly swelling feet at the ankles. "Spike told me last week at the restaurant he thinks it's a watermelon."

"He probably just has a vitamin C deficiency."

"See, so there you go."

"That's one boy, one girl, one no vote, and one watermelon, Jules."

"Winnie, Shelly and Sophie all think it's a boy. So did almost everyone on the fourth floor." She sighs loudly and they both stare at her stomach, the enigma inside of it for a few quiet seconds.

He rubs her arms through the gray sweater she's wearing. Knows what she's really getting at, knows what she's preparing him for and he just wonders if there is any real merit behind the notion. "You think it's a boy don't you?"

"Yeah." Her lips roll against each other, disappear with the influence of her sentence. "Yeah I do."

"I do too." It's almost painful to admit. He prays it's a girl. At night when he can't sleep, whether it's out of concern, future planning, even when they were broken up he still wished she would have a girl. Somehow a girl, at least in his mind, would have less of a chance of looking like Steve. Would look and act more like Jules and be endearing to him from the moment of her first breath. A boy would look like Steve, cause questions and controversy among family and friends. Grow to resent him for his relationship with Jules, maybe even for Steve's death.

"I have a name for a boy."

"It's not Steve, is it?" He doesn't think he can handle calling Steve's son Steve, Stevie, Stephen or any other variant of the name. There has to be some kind of balance in the world which gives him a mulligan on this one. It's already going to haunt him like a phantom moniker for the rest of his life, can't that be enough?

"No, not Steve. Maybe as a middle name." She senses his inner panic, maybe only mild on the outside. Pats his knee gently as a gesture to relax. "I'd want to name him after my grandpa. He was the one who raised me after my mom died. Taught me everything I know about tools, cooking, almost everything. He helped me pay for school once I decided I wanted to be a cop."

"I never knew that."

"Yeah, I lived with him until I was done high school. He saved me a lot of wrath from my dad and brothers." Either he tightens his arms around her, or she encloses them more. He's not sure which; maybe it's a combination of both. "His name was George."

"Really?"

"Yeah, why?"

"My middle name is George."

"Samuel George Braddock." Then she laughs a little. By the tone of her voice she's growing tried, becoming nonsensical. "You really need to be knighted."

"Yeah." He taps her thigh lightly a few times, not to force her to sit up, but to let her know of his intentions too. He sits slowly so he doesn't upset any of the muscles in her back which are woven together like a weak wicker basket. "I think we should get to bed."

A few minutes after the lights extinguish in the bedroom, Jules is asleep. Pillows surrounding her body like sentries, two tucked between her thighs, a full length body pillow bordering on the outside of the bed. He can't sleep. Even though he's accepted into what will soon be his family, he can't overcome the fear of potentially having a boy. A son. Steve's son. Then ideas mingle, regardless of the baby's gender, it won't look a thing like him. He listens to the thunder rolling outside, and the rain suddenly burst forth until his eyelids start to droop.

Opens his eyes later. Minutes or hours he doesn't know. Grasping on a surreal moment between consciousness and sleep, he views Jules' dark bedroom. Outside rain patters lightly against the ancient roof. The sound is mollifying, the audio equivalent of waves gently rocking a boat. Without thought, his leg slides backwards, but runs over warm wrinkles in the fitted sheet. Worry doesn't even summit because he assumes Jules is just in the washroom. In the last week her bladder resets itself from every three hours, to every hour, to every half an hour.

The floor creeks in his hazy mind and he sighs, content and relaxed. Slipping more into sleep with every second passing. Outside the rain taps louder, thumps a solid stream and he imagines the river running over the roof shingles.

"Sam." She calls out to him. Highlighted and powdered in a soft hue of blue. The streetlight hits the window so the drops of rain are shadowed and magnified against the wall.

"What?" He sits up in bed, rubbing his eyes and the black raindrops dance against the wall. Distinguishes her hand gripping the footboard of the bed, the other one cradling her stomach. "What? What's wrong?"

She hisses air from her mouth and attempts to straighten her back. "My water broke."

"What?" His feet slap against the bare hardwood and he rounds the bed, catches the weak reflection of the splatter on the floor beneath her. The darkness staining the seam of her pants. Not even a second passes before darts away, grabbing her new pants, new underwear, a new shirt just in case. They don't have the bags packed for the hospital. They should still have five weeks.

"It's too early. I thought I had more time." Finally he understands, dropping the arm offering her clothing at his side. Her not feeling good, fatigue, sluggishness, everything leading back all the way to before the court case to this morning.

"Jules, were you in labor?"

"I thought it was premature. Like what happened when we went to the hospital before. I still have five weeks. It'll be early Sam, it'll—"

"It's going to be okay." Guiding hand on her back, he leads her away from the slipping hazard and to the side of the bed. "How far apart are your contractions?"

"Three minutes."

"Okay. Okay." He rubs her shoulder while she works on putting on new pants and repeatedly nods his head. Can only nod his head. He can't yell at her for not going to the hospital sooner. At six minutes. Neither of them knows what they're doing. "Okay. It's okay."

"Sam?"

"We have to get you to the hospital now."

"What about the bags. And we don't have anything for the baby. No clothes for it or—"

"It doesn't matter." He rolls up her shirt and hands it to her. Uses the dirty clothes to mop up clear liquid on the floor while she's redressing. "It's being born early; we need to make sure it's healthy."

"Sam." She's perching on the edge of the bed, her outline dips, stomach obviously dropped like he voiced earlier to her blind disregard. "What if—"

"It's not. Nothing will." Ceasing the mopping with his foot, he helps her up off the bed, stabilizes her with an arm around the back and underneath her bicep. Remembers walking her out of his apartment the same way less than two months earlier. Remembers how bad it turned out for them.

"You won't leave me, right?"

He has no idea what's going to happen and it scares the shit out of him. He has no control over what's going to happen and it scares the shit out of him even more. All he can do is reassure her and promise he'll be there, because he always will be. Unless she means 'leave her' after the baby is born, which is an even more ridiculous question. He's always been her support and she's always been his everything. "I'll be right beside you the entire time, Jules. I'm not going anywhere."


Next Chapter - Oh gee, I'll give you one guess on what happens. That's right...Shit, it goes seriously if you can't guess what happens next...