Written for the het_bigbang on on Livejournal. Thanks to Karlamartinova for beta-reading.
"If something like that happens ever again, I'll lie trough my teeth."
Chris merely lifted an eyebrow when Georgie slammed the door of the car shout, buckling up without giving him a second glance. She had been like that for the whole morning, mad with him for some unknown reason.
Eh, he thought to himself. No wonder people assumed they were sleeping together. She did behave like a scorned lover at times.
For the first half of the trip to the crime scene, she didn't say a word, just mumbled, and sent death glares in his general direction when she believed he wasn't looking her way.
Hormones? He wondered not for the first time. She was pregnant. And, after discovering her "little secret", he had noticed small changes in her, too. Maybe this was just a little something else to add to the mix.
God. He hoped not. He liked her- and liked working with her. But another 30 weeks like that? He didn't think that he could handle it, not even with all his best intentions.
Maybe a direct approach was in order.
And a trip to the bookstore. His memory was a little bit rusty since his mother's third pregnancy, and, as her partner and the person who spent the majority of the time around her, he felt compelled to be ready to face, well, pretty much anything. Pregnancy-wise, of course.
"Georgina?" He tentatively looked at her, then gulped down a mouthful of saliva and went back to focus on the road as she was giving him her best killer expression. "Ehm. So, Newman. Did I do something wrong?"
She groaned, lifted her hands to the sky, exasperated, like she couldn't believe him.
"You have to ask? Christopher," She used his full name, which meant she was very, very mad with him. "You are telling everyone that I'm expecting a baby!"
"Uh?" He didn't bother to sound smarter, or end the sentence, or even just say more. Because he didn't know how to answer to that. Because, what the hell? He hadn't done such a thing!
"Chris, you are pampering me. This morning you even got me a soya latte with decaffeinated coffee- which is not coffee, by the way. So next time keep it for yourself, thank you very much."
"Not my fault you are not looking after yourself!" He sounded very matter-of-fact, extremely casual. Like it was a kind of discussion they had every day.
Like it was the kind of discussion he was supposed to have with her- he was entitled to have.
Like it was my baby, he thought, gulping. A thought he had no business thinking.
She wasn't his, after all. Never had been. He had tried- asked her why she had turned him down in the past, asked her to stop, rethink it- although not so clearly or in so many words. But she hadn't done any of it; instead, she had gone and chosen another man.
She groaned, rolled her eyes, and felt defeated as she stole a glance at him, smiling all proud and arrogant; she guessed he had tried to be nice, after all.
"Just for the record, soy milk makes me nauseous. AND I'm entitled to one cup of coffee per day."
He chuckled, and so did she, and leaning her head on the headrest, she turned a little bit in his direction, and studied Chris' profile enlightened by the sun beans.
"You know, you are allowed to ask me things, Chris. Otherwise, where would be the fun of sharing a secret?" He laughed, and stood a little in silence, his eyes on the road, hers on him- something he was well aware of.
And yet, the silence, the intimacy, didn't bother him one tiny bit: it was peaceful, refreshing. He had missed it. Hadn't felt anything like that since Savannah, and for the first time since Savannah, he didn't feel guilty about thinking of a tomorrow. By giving himself the chance of really moving on with his life, instead of going through the motions like he had done until that day.
Besides, what was he supposed to ask her, exactly?
Was it planned?
When did you know?
When were you planning of telling us?
Did you always know you were going to keep it?
All complicated things. So, he decided that if they had to talk, he would have gone soft on her. Asked her something simple.
"Do you know what you are having?"
She shook her head, stretching her arms over her head. "Too soon. My doctor would like me to take an amnio, though, said that between the various things, it could say the baby's gender as well. But, still, it can't be done before the sixteenth week. And even so, I'm not sure I want to take the risks. As small as they can be."
He sighed internally. So much for something simple…
"Keith doesn't know." She suddenly said. "And I'm not sure I want him to know. I… we were being careful, for real. And, there's less than 4% of possibility of pregnancy when you take precautions. Which we did. And even then, it's in young women, not in forty years old spinsters." She groaned, hit the back of her head against the headrest at closed yes. "Again, why am I telling you this?"
She paused. "I don't want him to think that I want to trap him, or whatever. He has his life, he and his ex-wife never wanted children to begin with, and that's cool. I think… I may want this little one to be only mine. I don't want to mess with Keith's life. Don't want to force him back to me just to resent us in the long run."
"You are sweet." He breathed, stealing a glance at her, his heart on his sleeve. "You know that, right?"
"Have you ever considered it?" She suddenly asked, her eyes lost somewhere far away from there- if in space or time, he couldn't guess; she wasn't sure why she was asking at all: did she want to know? Or did she want to avoid listening to him, telling her all those things he wasn't supposed to say to begin with? Christopher was her friend, her co-worker. He wasn't her boyfriend- and mostly, he wasn't the father of her child. He wasn't supposed to act that way. As much as she wanted him to.
"Kids, I mean." She clarified, clearing her throat.
"I got to say, I'm into having a whole basketball team full of little LaSalles, but procreating in my family is like playing the gene pool lottery. Got a few branches off the family tree with issues, so…" He made a movement with his shoulders, like to say it was a no-no.
She smiled tenderly, tapping her index on the back of his hand as he was shifting gears. "Still, a LaSalle family basketball team? That'd be pretty cool." He chuckled, and blushed – blushed! – a little. "I'm serious Chris. You'd be a terrific dad."
"You?" He suddenly asked. It was an odd question to make to a pregnant woman, and yet, he was curios- he wanted to know.
"Noah and I, we were trying back when he died. But, it didn't happen- which sometimes I think was good, because, frankly, I don't think I would have made a great single parent back then. And after that, I don't think I ever met someone who made me think, here it is, the future farther of my future children! I guessed I never imagined myself as a single parent- not with the kind of life we do- and yet…"
"And yet, here you are, with a little bundle of potential things to go bad on the way."
They looked at each other. She snickered in a un-lady-like manner, trying to break the tension- a silence too intimate for her own liking. She had said too much already- she didn't want to add anything more.
And mostly, she didn't want for Chris to tell her things- personal things- things that would get her to like him more than what she already did. Which was already way too much, considering that she was ten weeks pregnant with another man's child.
She thought about saying something funny, like, you should stop ending my sentences, or people will keep believing we are sleeping together, or, Ooohhh, that's proof that Christopher LaSalle does have an heart, but she didn't.
Instead, it was Christopher who talked- taking her hand in his own on the gearshift and entwining their fingers, rubbing gently the back of her hand with his strong, big, callous fingers.
"Everything is gonna be all right. I promise." His voice was warm, and his strong Alabama accent, it did things to her. The way he talked, it sounded like he believed each and every one of his words.
She knew he couldn't promise her that, and yet… she too believed his words. For the mere he fact he had spoken them in the first place.
She liked him even more than she already did because of that.
She was in troubles- troubles called Christopher LaSalle.
