Jonathan heard the Doctor's words "Your Baby" and was pretty sure time had stopped, his wife couldn't be pregnant, she wasn't showing any symptoms and he was sure that the test the hospital had performed was a false positive, they tried for so long to have a baby and that one time she did get pregnant, he remembered the excitement he'd felt when she yelled to him from the bathroom and pointed out the positive test on the counter, how she'd jumped into his arms laughing and crying that their dream to have a family was coming true and how they'd celebrated with Max, who insisted that Jennifer stay off her feet and that she wasn't going to do anything but "hatch that egg"
He remembered going into the office that morning, earlier they'd made love quietly, not quite as frenetically as they usually did but it was enough to keep a goofy smile on his face throughout several important meetings when the call came in from Max, who'd gone upstairs to give Jennifer her breakfast and found her passed out on the bathroom floor, bleeding heavily, he was rushing her to St. John's hospital and that Jonathan needed to come immediately.
Jonathan didn't remember running to the car, or even driving, he remembered suddenly running into the emergency room and demanding to know where Jennifer was, he was lead into a pod area where Jennifer was hooked up to machines, he remembered how small she looked and that she knew before the doctor's confirmed it.
That she'd lost their baby.
She cried for days on end and when the crib she'd ordered specifically for their little one arrived, Max practically had to scrape her off the floor, even a trip to the Cabin in Santa Barbara did little to help her, she wondered away for hours along the water and when she finally came back, it was to tell him that she was over them trying to get pregnant again.
She never wanted to put either one of them through that hell again and it didn't.
Jennifer never spoke about her miscarriage or any desire of having a baby afterwards, Jonathan didn't want to push her and knew that if it was meant to be, it was going to happen
But when it didn't happen again, he figured she must have increased her birth control or that she simply stopped being fertile. It didn't prevent them from having sex like rabbits.
But now, Jennifer was pregnant again, this one in a billion shot and he couldn't help but feel excitement.
He only wondered if Jennifer would feel the same.
Jonathan couldn't concentrate on what the doctor was telling him, that the cardiac episode wouldn't affect the baby so much as the actual delivery would put a strain on Jennifer's heart , she would need to be constantly monitored and that if her heart were to stop, that he would have to make the decision of saving her or the baby.
All he wanted was to be near her.
"May I see my wife please" Jonathan interrupted the Doctor
"Of course, but keep in mind, she's sedated and asleep" The Doctor showed Jonathan her room, Jennifer looked so peaceful, if Jonathan hadn't known that she was medicated, he would have sworn she was just asleep.
"Darling," He whispered in her ear," I'm here, and I'm not leaving you, I know about the baby."
She didn't open her eyes but he saw her heart rate pick up.
"Just rest, Darling, you'll need your strength" He kissed her lips and sat down beside her bed, watching her sleep.
He didn't remember falling asleep but he could feel someone watching him, his neck was at a right angle and when he opened his eyes, felt white hot pain radiating down his side but the moment he saw that his beloved was awake, he shook the pain off and nearly collapsed on top of her
"Oh Darling," He kissed her face, "I'm so glad Your awake"
"Jonathan," her voice was barely above a whisper, "The baby"
"Right now, is very healthy and we'll hear the heartbeat in a few days" Jonathan couldn't stop kissing her, he was so grateful she was awake and coherent
"Are you positive?" She was remembering the last time
"It'll be different this time, I promise"
Jennifer wished she could believe him but she knew that somewhere deep down, history would repeat itself and that she would lose this baby as well. They weren't meant to be parents to anyone but Freeway.
She closed her eyes, wishing that she could go back to yesterday when she was blissfully unaware of the bean inside her belly.
"Just rest, Darling, for our baby" He rubbed her head and then kissed her nose
She fell asleep fitfully while he held onto her hand for the night until the morning when the nurse kicked him out so she could check Jennifer's monitors and her concussion.
"How are you feeling this morning," Her nametag read Eve
"My head hurts a little bit" Jennifer admitted
"We'll get you something for the pain, any pain in your abdomen?"
Jennifer shook her head, "Wait, I don't want anything that might affect my baby"
"We can adjust it so it has no effect on the baby, are you excited?" Eve smiled
Jennifer didn't want to admit that she was getting excited, but she remembered when she'd gotten excited before, if she got excited too early, she would surely jinx their baby.
But for the sake of the nurse, Jennifer slapped a smile on her face "Absolutely, this is our first baby, well second after our fur –baby Freeway," Her heart dropped at the fact that she was lying, this wasn't her first baby, it was her second.
Her guilt had been eating away at her for so long, she tried to remember everything she'd done that morning but she felt like there were pieces missing and only Max could tell her but every time she pressured him for answers, he would just stare at her with sad eyes and leave the room.
After a while, she stopped asking because she never got any answers and Max would never want to break her heart further.
"What are you hoping for? A Boy or a Girl" Eve continued checking Jennifer's vitals
"Just a healthy baby" but she knew secretly that Jonathan would be over the moon for a little girl, named Jocelyn or Josie after his mother, who'd died when he was two giving birth to Jonathan's brother, Colin and unfortunately, the baby passed away as well from the complicated birth. One year, when Jonathan had business in San Francisco while they were engaged, he had taken Jennifer to the cemetery to see the gravestone, it wasn't a very large one but one in the shape of a Heart that read "Beloved Mother and Child, taken all too soon"
Jennifer remembered afterward, Max saying she was the first and probably the last woman he had ever brought to the cemetery and that she was obviously someone who would be sticking around for a long time. After that, anytime they had business in San Francisco, Jennifer made sure to bring flowers to the grave and say a prayer.
But Jonathan could also want a boy, a son to show all the things Jonathan had missed learning when he was in the Mission Street Orphanage. After Jocelyn Hart had passed away, her family wasn't willing to take in their daughter's child, saying that it would be too painful but the reality was that Jocelyn had been barely 16 when Jonathan was born and had never told anyone who his Biological father had been, it was assumed that the baby she'd died giving birth to had the same father but there was no proof, only a name written on a piece of paper, Sam Casey, in the hotel room where Jocelyn had been working as a maid and living but after searching for years, Jonathan realized that the name Sam Casey must have been a fake name or that maybe his mother had inverted the name.
It didn't matter, it wouldn't change who Jonathan Charles Hart was.
Jonathan Hart had been a kid of the street, hustled his way through High School, working for every underground figure that needed a lackey and he did things that would normally horrify the average kid but he didn't care, he was building toward a life that would eventually provide him with enough money to get him through several lifetimes, although it took Max kicking hiss ass along the way to straighten him out when he needed it.
Thank God for Max, without him, they would have been sunk long ago.
Or At least starved to Death
Max was more of a Father figure to both Jonathan and Jennifer than Stephen Edwards had ever been, He was a big reason that the house always felt like a home, she knew that whatever happened in their lives, Max would always be there at the door with a big smile and stories about what happened at the track or a poker game.
There had been times, after her miscarriage when she couldn't sleep, that she would go downstairs to the kitchen and Max would hear her looking for the secret stash of cookies she kept behind Freeway's dog bowl, he would come out and they would talk for hours about everything. Never about her miscarriage but all the adventures they'd shared, the craziness just being with Jonathan was like and sometimes Max would just talk and she'd listen.
He was a great source of comfort, He told her about his life in New York, about how he worked as a bartender and cook at some of the most famous places in the city before meeting up with the love of his Life, Lucy, who convinced him that it would be a good change for both of them to leave New York and move to California, they managed to get all the way to California before She was taken during the flu epidemic of 1959 and died. Max's whole life was gone but he managed to pull himself together and doing various jobs around California helped, for a while he worked on a fishing boat going up and down the coast then he worked on some movies and was considering going back to New York when he spotted a kid wearing a tattered letter jacket and khakis was selling newspapers, Every day he buy a newspaper and although the kid was very hesitant in telling him anything about himself, Max managed to pry certain things out of him.
After a few months of gaining the Kid's confidence, Max applied to be his guardian and had been ever since.
It was the son he and Lucy never got to have.
Eve finished checking Jennifer's vitals and was about to leave the room when Jennifer called her back,
"When can I leave" she asked quietly
Eve took her hand, "I'm not sure, that's up to the doctor"
Jennifer sighed and rolled over on her side, tears falling from her eyes but she didn't feel them.
HOME
Max was pacing the house like a caged cat, they should have been back from the park hours ago, something was definitely wrong and he was getting ready to send out a search party for them when he heard Jonathan pull up.
Max practically tore open the front door and nearly trampled Jonathan, coming with poor Freeway, who'd been left in the car for hours and as soon as Jonathan opened the car door, he made a break for his bowl for some water and food, later on that night it would be the first and only time he would sleep outside after being cooped up for so long.
"Where's Mrs. H" Max asked noticing that she wasn't getting out of the car
"I'll explain in a minute, Max" Jonathan walked into the house and went straight to the bar, it had been a long night and he needed something to calm his nerves.
"What happened to Mrs. H!"
"Max, we're going to have a baby!"