A/N: Well, howdy! It is I again, delivering your standard depressing fanfiction! Again, I swear it's not all going to be this sad and depressing.
But what a lovely response on the last chapter! I'm so glad you are like this and finding it different! To be completely frank, I am somewhat disappointed and unsatisfied in this chapter. It doesn't feel quite okay to me, but I can do no more editing, so here it is. I hope you enjoy anyway!
Clara Victoria Halstead, they name her.
How they got there, she's not sure.
She only remembers that those two names just seemed to settle on the infant like a cloak.
Bright and victorious.
Not that she can tell, the nurses whisk the baby to the doctor for tests just after she's born and Erin barely sees her.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing, she wonders?
How will she tell everyone else, she wonders?
Why, she wonders?
Was giving her a child not enough? They had to add something extra, just to screw her that little bit more?
She is still in her hospital bed, as much as she longs to not be here, when there is a soft knock at the door. A young woman, with neat dark hair, a lab coat, and a tag reading "Dr. Chu", is at the door.
She introduces herself as a pediatrician, assigned to their daughter's case (the words still sound foreign. Her daughter).
Jay reaches for Erin's hand immediately. They never used to be outwardly affectionate. But he is nervous, she can tell. As tough as his "this doesn't change anything" speech was ("she's still our kid, Erin. Ours. We made a promise, we love her nomatter what"), she knows he has fears. Concerns. She desperately wants to smooth a hand over his furrowed brow, wants to comfort him in some way. But The Terror. The Terror doesn't allow comfort, it doesn't allow togetherness.
And, as Erin is starting to learn, it doesn't allow love under its grip, either.
The young woman takes a breath, and her expression softens into one of pity. That is an expression Erin knows all too well.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she begins with a slight accent. "But your daughter displays several features, such as low-set ears, a simian crease, and a gap between her toes, that lead us to think…."
"She has Down Syndrome," Erin hears herself say flatly.
She feels Jay's incredulous look at the emotionless tone, but cannot look at him, does not respond.
Even the doctor looks slightly surprised, but gives a slight nod.
"We believe so, yes."
She moves closer, schools her face into what must appear to be a comforting expression.
"I wish that was all the news I had for you. But we have also run several other tests, and it appears that there is a problem with your child's heart."
That gets Erin's attention. She feels Jay's hand tighten in hers.
"It is common," the doctor explains, "for children with Down Syndrome to be born with heart problems. We've run an echo, and your daughter has a VSD and ASD defect. They are fixable, but not yet. Right now, she is just too tiny to go through heart surgery."
Jay takes a breath beside her. "So…what do we do?"
The doctor smiles gently.
"You take her home. You love her, you get her to a healthy weight, until she can handle surgery, and then you leave fixing that issue to us."
(Break)
Clara cries.
She cries and she cries and Erin lives in a bubble, barely hearing her anguished wails.
Can't even go into the softly lit room that hold what feels like a tiny stranger.
Jay picks her up, he bounces her gently, and she finally, finally falls asleep against him as he strokes the tiny apple of her cheek.
Will you be okay, he asks her.
It's only been a few weeks with her home, he points out.
It's just going to be a few hours, he says. I'll make all her bottles (she hates formula and it's a fight to get it into her).
She's sure she must have nodded, because it's the day of, and he's gone, after pressing the baby into her arms.
The baby's hands are pressed to her cheeks, and she sleeps.
Erin looks down at her, and thinks she might actually feel something different, for once.
And then the baby gives a slight cough and her tongue protrudes slightly. Her hands move as if she is waking, and It's back.
(break)
Jay hears it before he arrives home.
He's shocked the neighbors have not yet called the police. He can't seem to get his key in fast enough.
The baby is in her cradle, red-faced and wailing like she's been bitten, and Erin sits on the sofa, rocking back and forth with her face in her hands.
Jay picks his daughter up, rocks her a bit, but her cries don't cease, and Erin's rocking increases.
He stomps over to his girlfriend, jerking her arm a bit to bring her back to the present, and he cannot help the anger that jumps into his tone as he demands to know how long she has been crying.
"Long time," Erin whispers.
"She was screaming, Erin! You didn't ever think to check on her?"
Erin glances at the child almost fearfully. Shakes her head. "Couldn't."
"Why the hell not?" he bites out.
She turns her eyes to Jay, filled with tears. "I couldn't."
Infuriated, he slams one hand down on the table, startling the baby and making her wail even louder.
With a deep breath, he moves to the kitchen to make her a bottle.
By the time it's ready, he has calmed only slightly. The baby latches immediately, telling Jay how long it's been since she's eaten.
He moves back to Erin, still sitting with her hands wrapped around her knees.
He hardly even knows what to say, doesn't trust himself to censor what comes out.
"How could you leave her?" is what finally comes out.
A shrug. The anger rises.
"Christ, Erin, do you even love her?!"
"I can't!"
"Why do you keep saying that!"
"Because I will ruin her, Jay! What the hell does she have to look forward to with me? That she'll spend her childhood exactly like I did? Getting fixes for mom?"
"Erin, you won't…"
"I will, Jay! I will, because it's all I know. You know it and I know it. And she looked at me and…"
Erin breaks off, her eyes fill, and suddenly, she tears for the door, barely stopping to grab her coat.
"Erin!"
"Don't!" is all she says as she runs away, away from both of them.
Erin Lindsay runs away. She dumps them and spits them out, even Voight knows this.
And she knows why. They don't want her, not really. The baby, she'd be better off with Jay anyway. What about being a cop had taught her to be warm or caring, or at all motherly? What had it taught her about all her child would need? Speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, surgery, CBC, echocardiograms.
It's not that she can't do it. It's not that she doesn't love her child, the child she's barely touched in the last two months. It's not that she isn't capable of learning to parent this child.
It is that she is so goddamn terrified of hurting this impossibly fragile child. So afraid of that look of disappointment in the eyes of the child she created with the person she loves most.
And the baby, she knew. Erin had seen it in her eyes, as they stared straight into her mothers'. She had seen the exact expression in her two week old child's eyes that she had worn so many times, so long ago.
"You don't deserve me. You don't deserve this. I deserve better than you."
And the hardest thing, the absolute hardest thing Erin knows about this, is that she is so completely, pathetically right.