Baby Boy C
CJ/Danny, mentions of others
PG-rated .
Spoilers through end of series
Not mine, never were, never will be, but they consume my soul.
Reviews, feedback and criticism welcomed.
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Early June 2009
Danny Concannon opened his eyes and looked at the clock; it was a little after 7:15 in the morning.
He had only had a few hours' sleep; Billy and Sally Rogers had finally managed to drag him away from the hospital at 2:00 AM, leaving a sleeping CJ, an exhausted Scott, and two hours old, brown-haired Padraic Talmadge Concannon, all seven pounds, three ounces and 17 inches of him, to the care of the maternity ward personnel at UCLA Medical Center. When he got home, he called Erin and gave her the wonderful news. She and Fiona would be arriving the day after tomorrow to help; Scott wanted to keep CJ in the hospital for two more days after today and the Hollis Foundation HMO approved the extra time. It was too early to call anyone else, so he lay in bed for about an hour before winding down. He finally dozed off just after 4:00 AM, sleepily realizing that he could start making calls to the east coast if he had the energy, but he just didn't have it at that point.
It all started about 3:30 yesterday afternoon.
It had already been an eventful day on the block. Earlier that morning, Jessica's purse had been stolen as she was transferring groceries to her car at the local Ralph's. CJ and Diana (with one-month old Maggie) were sitting with Jessica on her front porch. Danny was talking with the locksmith who had just finished rekeying the locks in the house, to get extra copies of the new keys (Hank and Steve, Frank and Diana, and he and CJ all had keys to Jessica's house). He then went to talk with Joel Feldman; he was sitting with his laptop on his front porch across the street from Billy and Sally's house at the end of the block. Joel, who worked in the budget office at UCLA, had arranged with his manager to work from home for the next few days. They had decided it might be good to have an extra male presence around, especially since CJ was two days' overdue and, with any luck, Danny might have to be somewhere else soon. Everyone else would be on the lookout for strange people or cars, and the kids would be supervised a little more closely.
Cindy and Carmen came up the walk; Steve was between them, an arm on their shoulders. The scratches on their arms, the tousled clothing, and the guilty faces indicated that all was not well between the two girls.
Diana handed her younger daughter to her older one. "Put Maggie in her crib and sit with her; I'll be home in a couple of minutes."
As Carmen was walking away, Cindy shouted out, "Anyone who likes Torch McAllister is still a little baby herself!"
Steve put his hand under her chin, lifted her head. "Cynthia, was that really necessary?"
The girl blushed and Steve turned her away and gently pushed her toward the front door. He faced the women and explained that one of the older boys had come to him and asked him to "handle the cat fight". He flashed his brilliant smile. "I told them three hours in solitary, but you're the moms." Then he looked at Jessica. "Hank will be over around dark." Hank and Steve were going to take turns sleeping on Jessica's couch for a few nights "just in case".
The women stood up, Diana and Jessica preparing to go deal with their respective daughters, CJ to join Danny at Joel and Hannah's place. The three women watched Steve walk away. As soon as he was out of earshot, Diana said, "This isn't at all politically correct, but Madre de Dios, what a waste of maleness! Just like Father Niko." She mentioned the young, newly ordained priest from Italy who was serving as their associate pastor while pursuing graduate studies at Loyola Marymount.
"Diana, you're as bad as the girls in the teen club!" CJ started to laugh, but the sound quickly turned to a cry of pain and she sat down quickly. Diana asked her a couple of questions ("Did the pain start in front or in back? How long did it last?") and told her to go home and start timing the pains, but it sure sounded like showtime to her.
She and Danny tried to relax and watch a video. Afraid of tempting fate and remembering last year, they decided not to call or tell anyone other than the neighbors. When, just before 6:00 PM, it became obvious that she was having steady contractions about twenty minutes apart, they called Scott's office; he decided he wanted her at the hospital sooner rather than later. The Rogers', armed with a laptop, a mini-TV for Billy, and Diana Gabaldon's latest volume for Sally, followed in their car, so there would be someone at the hospital for Danny.
The labor was long but uneventful. CJ spouted out the usual threats and curses at Danny, made the usual promises to join the convent before undergoing this again, but just after midnight, he cut the cord that had bound his son to his wife's body and watched as the neonatal team cleaned him, performed the initial Apgar tests, and banded the baby's arm, as well as CJ's and his, with the security bracelets that would identify them as family until the three of them left the hospital. He moved to CJ's side but she too did not take her eyes from the team around their son as Scott and the delivery team finished their work on her body. Then the nurse brought their child to them and placed him in CJ's arms. They had a healthy little boy. They looked at each other and combined smiles with tears of relief.
After a few minutes, the neonatal team took the baby again, performed the second set of tests; all was well. They would take him to the nursery, get weight and height, hand and foot prints. CJ, already nodding off, was being taken to her room. After the support staff helped her to bed, helped her clean up a little, he could come to the room and they would bring in the baby. They would have some time to get acquainted, to take pictures. The staff suggested that Danny too might want to visit the men's room, wash his face, and comb his hair.
He stopped on the way to tell Billy and Sally. When he told them they should go on home, they refused, said he was riding an adrenaline high and probably shouldn't drive himself. They would wait.
Someone had sponge-bathed his wife, given her a clean gown, and combed her hair, but she was a far cry from the consummate press secretary, the stunning bride, the professional project director, or the erotic bedmate he knew. No matter, she was the most beautiful, the most amazing, the most wonderful woman in the world and he told her so.
A little later, a nurse wheeled in a bassinet with their son, the little blue hat and blanket declaring his sex to the world. Danny took picture after picture; CJ asked the nurse to take some of the three of them. They talked to him. (" Hi, Paddy, I'm your mama. This is your dad. Welcome to the world, Padraic Talmadge Concannon. One day, we'll tell you about the grandfathers for whom you were named, but right now, we're just so glad you're here.") They uncovered him, checking the ten little perfect fingers and ten little perfect toes, the tiny ears, marveling at the miniature genitalia.
"One day, he's gonna do good work like his Daddy does," CJ said.
"If he finds someone as good as his Mama."
When they came to take him back to the nursery, Danny just sat there holding CJ's hand until she gave in to her exhaustion. Then he went to the nursery window, where Billy and Sally were waiting. He heard Sally whisper to her husband, "Make me one of those sometime soon."
As the Rogers' had predicted, he began to get giddy, and when they asked for his keys, he handed them to Sally without protest. She drove him home, and she and Billy waited for him to get into the house before driving up the block to their place.
And now it was morning, his first day as a father. He called CJ's brothers, told her sisters-in-law that Erin was coming, that they didn't need any extra help just yet, maybe next month. He called New Hampshire, gave the good news to Abbey. The next call was to the White House; Carol would start the information flow. He told everyone he would email pictures as soon as he got a shower and some coffee.
By the time he got out of the shower, there were at least 15 messages on the phone and a good 30 emails on his laptop. He had just finished downloading the pictures, picking out two of Paddy, one of CJ with the baby, and one of the three of them, and emailing them, with pertinent details, to a list of at least 50 names when Hank and Steve came in with a pot of coffee and a box of doughnuts. They copied the pictures to a thumb drive and Steve would print them for the neighbors to see.
He called Nancy and told her to spread the word to Franklin and Sarita and to Glen Walken. (Bonnie and Jean-Luc were on their honeymoon. It nearly broke CJ's heart that they weren't able to travel to Indiana for the wedding, but Bonnie understood). It was almost 8:30. He wanted to get back to the hospital, but first he had to call the florist and stop at the bank, which would open at 9:00. Oh, and don't forget the little bag on top of the nursery dresser. As he left the house, he saw that someone had already put up a big blue "It's a boy!" yard sign.
Danny opened the safety deposit drawer and removed its contents. When he had stored the box a little over a year ago, it had been with such sadness. "Maybe for her birthday, or Christmas," he had thought. But by the time those events came, there was new hope and so he had waited for this day to come.
He walked, no, Danny almost skipped down the hall toward the hospital nursery. Turning the corner, he stopped short. There was a gap where there should be a bassinet with blue balloons and a card proclaiming that the newborn was "Baby Boy C". The charge nurse must have noticed his panic because she immediately told him that the baby was in with CJ. The man who was making "Hey, there!" sounds at "Baby Girl H" (Danny understood all the reasoning behind it, but damn it, HIPAA was sure taking the fun out of some things) smiled and said, "Don't worry, he was doing fine. I should know, she's number six for me."
Heart once again as light as his footsteps, he continued in the same direction toward the patient rooms. He approached the room he wanted and saw another nurse leaving it. As she passed him, she smiled and he thought that the slightly pregnant Hispanic woman looked vaguely familiar, but then realized that most of the people in the maternity ward looked familiar to him. All those blue scrubs, he guessed.
Opening the door quietly, he slipped into the room and for the second time in two minutes, he again stopped short. This time it was with a wave of joy that hit him with the force of a rip tide. His wife was sitting by the window; the morning sun streaming in was turning her into gold. He was reminded of the wintry Saturday morning almost two and a half years ago. The sun had bronzed her in a similar manner as she straddled him and he reached up to caress her breast. This time the hand reaching for the breast belonged to the baby who was nursing at it. He had the camera in his pocket, but this was one picture he would take only with his eyes. As he stood there, it was as if the image was burned on the wall behind his retina and then transferred to the hard drive of his brain. He fought hard to hold back tears. They had waited long, twice as long, really, for this child, the second nine months tinged with more than a little bit of anxiousness. "When the time is right, we'll tell him about you guys," he thought to his two angels in heaven. He noticed that his flowers had arrived. He had asked for the same burgundy red tiger lilies that she carried and wore in her hair on their wedding day and he said he would pay extra to have them delivered as soon as possible.
He must have made some noise, because she looked at him. Over the past 10 years, he had learned that just as soon as he thought he had seen every possible expression cross her face, she would surprise him with another one; today was no different. She gave him a smile that made her seem at once older than time and younger than the daylilies that bloomed just once along their courtyard wall. He walked over and took the chair opposite her. "Wow," he said softly. "Just – wow." A few seconds later, the infant let go; she turned him over across her lap and made soft circling pats on his back until he burped. Then she picked up the baby, crooned, "Okay, go to Daddy for a little bit", handed him to Danny and tied the laces on her gown. CJ spoke her first words to him. "Good morning. Thank you for my flowers".
Still holding their son, he looked at her and said "Oh, Jeanie, that was just so, so – wow!"
"Is that all that the two-time Pulitzer prize-winning author can find to say?" she teased.
"No," was the reply. He kissed his son gently, put the baby in the bassinet, stood up and came to her. "I can also say 'Thank you'." Bending down, he kissed her and, slipping a small box into her hand, he said, "Thank you for being you. Thank you for loving me, for marrying me, for giving me my son."
"Danny!" she gasped, opening the box. If it wasn't the exact ring she had admired almost three years ago, it was its long lost twin sister. He took it out of the box and slipped it on her finger. It was a little tight; the swelling had not yet completely subsided. "This is amazing". She reached up to kiss him.
"Not one-hundredth as amazing as what you have given me."
"What we've given each other," she corrected him. An impish look invaded her eyes. "I know that yesterday I said some pretty threatening things about what I would do to you if you touched me again, but if this is the reward, go lock the door, jump on the bed, and let's get started on number two!"
"I don't think the door locks. And I think we better wait just a bit." He had noticed her squirming a little in the chair. She was obviously still very sore from the birth. "Do you want to get back into bed?"
"Not just yet. Let's just sit here with our baby. Danny, this ring, it's so beautiful."
"In August, when we go up to New Hampshire for the library dedication, I want them all to know how much you mean to me. Listen, Mark has offered us the use of part of his place in Rehoboth for the week after. What do you think? There're three bedrooms, maybe Aisling could come over, Hogan could get leave, and they could help us out for some of the time so we could go out to dinner, walk the boardwalk, that sort of thing. Or we could get someone there. The timing would be right," he said, suddenly shy.
She blushed a little. Then she said, "Let's see how this," she waved a hand in the air over her breasts, "works out". They had talked about what nursing would mean to the baby, to the two of them and their relationship, with Frank and Diana, with Scott, and with Linda Tallchief, Paddy's pediatrician. "You can always stop, but it's next to impossible to start later," Scott told them.
"Lupé will be coming out to the house in a few days and she reiterated that I didn't have to make up my mind now; that if I had to, I could stop at any time, they would give me the same drugs they gave me last year", a small bit of sadness clouded her eyes. "There's stuff to consider, with the foundation and all, but we could go into that in a few days." Then it was Lupé this and Lupé that and Lupé on the other hand.
Finally he asked, "And Lupé is?"
"Maria Guadalupé, the lactation coach. I thought you met her on the way in; she left just before you got here. Latina, about my age, 4 months pregnant with her third, knows it's a boy, her first, her father-in-law is all excited, and kid'll be the 10th generation in the family, old Californios from the mission era."
"She looked familiar but we didn't talk." He handed her the bag. "Can we put this on him and take another picture?"
She pulled out the little "Fighting Irish" onesie. "Only if you go home at lunch and bring back the Cal Bears one also."
More flowers came: roses from the Bartlets; a beautiful calla lily plant from Josh and Donna; deep, deep purple tulips from Hank and Steve; gerberas from the Hollis'; sunflowers from Frank and Diana; orchids from the Seaborne; irises from the Wei's; carnations from Billy and Sally; the simplest and yet most amazingly beautiful bird of paradise from Toby; dahlias from the White House; a wildflower arrangement from Glen Walken; hydrangeas from Nancy; daisies from Jessica and Cindy. The flowers kept coming, from Margaret (amaryllis), from Carol (hibiscus), from Ginger and her husband (more roses). Charley and Zoey sent freesias. CJ's older brother sent a hyacinth plant and the younger one sent daffodils.
"So many of these are out of season!" CJ exclaimed. Suddenly sleepy, she yawned and he helped her to the bed.
Then he pulled a chair closer to the bed, wheeled the bassinet with "Baby Boy C" next to the chair and sat there, with one hand holding his wife's hand, the other one in the bassinet, stroking the hair of his son. More flowers came from the other neighbors, from Mark and Katie and the other members of the Press Corps, from Tim and the other guys from Notre Dame, from so many people.
"Honey," she yawned again, "we should make a note of who sent what and have some of them given to folks who don't have any; or put some in the chapel."
He told her he'd start on that in a little bit. They should keep the ones from the neighbors who might come to visit. She said she'd trust him to make the right decisions and then she nodded off to sleep.
Some months ago, when gathering information for Leo's book (which was in final proofing this week), he and Jed Bartlet had talked about hope and despair and how it had played a part in both their lives; the man had told him in deepest confidence, how, in the depths of anger, he had railed at God.
Quietly, so as not to disturb his slumbering family, Danny began to weep and whispered with complete sincerity the words the former president had used in complete sarcasm, "Gratias tibi ago, Domine".