"I'm sorry." Benny had spent three quarters of an hour in the shower, mostly wallowing in his own self-pity. He came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist, water dripping down his chest from his hair, now flat against his forehead. The two tried to avoid eye contact, with Bull knowing that Benny spent his time crying, and Benny not wanting to flash his bloodshot eyes.
"For what?" Bull laughed, with a million and one things Benny could apologise for: telling Chunk first, withholding information, yelling at him...the list went on.
"For being sick on you." Benny replied bashfully.
"Now, I think you'll remember, that I held my hands out." As stupid as that idea was, he chocked it down to a momentary lapse in sanity, low oxygen and what not.
"Why did you do that anyway?" Benny laughed. He smiled apologetically as he gazed at Bull who was still dressed in his orange flight jumpsuit.
"No idea." Bull grimaced, reliving the moment he shivered violently.
"I'm also sorry that you're more excited about this than I am." He had a lot of time to think things through in the bathroom, he came to the conclusion that the elephant in the room needed to be addressed after is was so easily dismissed on the plane.
"I'm sorry that you're not more excited." Albeit this came as quite a shock, he would have thought that something so miraculous would fill his friend with joy. Apparently not, but who doesn't love babies?
"I wish I was, but I'm scared Bull." He stated bravely.
"Having a baby is the most natural thing anybody can do." Bull attempted to reassure him.
"As a man?" Benny gestured his frustration with his hands.
"Okay, well, maybe not." He said, defeated. With no prior precedent to call back on, he had no clue how to respond to make Benny feel more confident.
"The doctor thinks I'll be perfectly fine."
"What's there to worry about then?" Bull perked up. He hadn't been there when Benny found out about his situation so, so far knew very little which put him on-edge.
"Everything...whether the baby will be okay, or if I'll survive labor, even down to whether or not I'll be a good dad." He was rather depleted, his own father had died even before he was born, he had no idea what it meant to be a father. What's worse, if he dies during labor and his child has to be raised without him.
"I know you're anxious, for most people having a baby is a big change, its easy to feel disenfranchised. As attachment theorists suggest, our parents lay a pretty important framework to follow when we become parents."
"It's not a done deal, Bull." Benny had no paternal or maternal instincts at all, how would he be able to take care of his own children when he didn't even desire to have any?
"The chances are, you'll be an excellent parent. Just like your mother and her mother before her." Benny rolled his eyes, knowing that Bull wasn't at all listening to his concerns, only trying to make excuses in effort to make him feel better.
"And you Bull? Are you ready to become a father?" He shot out.
"No. That doesn't mean that I won't be ready when the time comes. No single person is ever ready to start a family." That made Benny a whole lot more anxious, Bull knew he'd put his foot in his mouth.
"I'm not ready, I don't think I'll ever be ready." Benny signed heavily.
"You still have 12 days to make that decision." Bull said in earnest.
"Days? Bull, I'm going to need years!" He stressed, raising his arms in the air.
Bull grabbed the erratic Benny by his shoulders and looked him in the eyes, "Listen to me, you don't have years. All I know, is that I know you. You'll keep this baby." He'd never been so sure if anything.
"Maybe you don't really know me at all." He shoved Bull's hands away angrily.
"I know everything about you, from that time you embarrassed yourself singing in your 5th grade Christmas play to what your morning routine is." Benny glared as Bull bit his knuckle playfully.
"Izzy told you that didn't she?" He shook his head with disappointment, his own sister had ratted him out on the most traumatizing experience of his life. Then again, why wouldn't she? He knew his sister Izzy was pure evil.
"It doesn't matter where I got that information, fact is, I know you." He paused, looking Benny with affirming eyes.
"Okay, you've proven your point." Benny blotted his face with a hand towel, he was still dripping wet which had made him incredibly cold, so cold his nipples became erect and the hairs on his arms stood at their ends.
"At the end of the day, this is your decision. You've heard my input, now it's all up to you." Seeing as there was very little wiggle room with Benny today, he thought it fruitless to continue.
"I thought that having a baby was supposed to be the epitome of life." Children are idolized as a significant part of the 'American Dream' in this child centered society. Yet the truth is, many women are actively choosing not to have any children. Benny didn't want the white picket fence or the Range Rover. He was perfectly content with his small apartment, fit for him and himself.
"The epitome of life is subjective. Not everybody wants children, and that's okay. Right now you're in this situation where you have to make a decision, not just on how you feel now, but how you picture yourself in the future."
"That's just it, I don't have any direction, I don't know what my future is going to be like." With no motivation to improve his career and no plans for the future made him suddenly depressed. Where was his life heading to, he wondered.
"Then, shouldn't this give you some form of certainty?"
"Rather, instead, it brings more uncertainty." Benny couldn't be certain if him or his child would live through birth so it was easy to say that his life had no certainty. The fact is, he hadn't had any since he became pregnant. The easy way out looked promising.
"Control is very important to you?" Bull blurted out, rather off topic.
"Why would you say that?" He replied, rather offended.
"For somebody with an external locus of control, you sure show a lot of autonomy." He squinted inquisitively.
"Don't analyse me Bull." Benny snarled. Things had notably taken a sour turn, Benny no longer wanted to converse. Instead he just grew angry at Bull for overstepping his mark and knowing no bounds.
"Sorry." He croaked.
"Your turn." Benny snatched his clothes from Bull's arms and stormed away angrily, rightly so, Bull thought; knowing he had done wrong. As a doctor in psychology, analysis came as a sixth sense, an instinct, but that often got him into trouble with those closest to him, who didn't like to be examined.
Benny got dressed rather quickly, feeling great to be in his own clothes again and not covered in sick. He exhaled heavily with relief, 'back to normality' he thought to himself. Now he had to simply reunite with his friends and pretend like nothing happened, when they all in fact bore witness to him making a hasty exit from the plane. Walking down the halls, and to the reception room, he prayed that nobody would raise any questions or make any comments. Given the curious nature of his team, he didn't hold much hope.
As he reached the reception, his colleges rose to their feet all rushing to show their support. Which was exactly what Benny expressly wanted to avoid.
"What happened to you up there?" Marrisa swooped her arms around Benny, it was clear that she had been seriously worried.
"It was just my medication that the doctor gave me, it makes me nauseous enough already...and with the flying..." Benny lied, as a lawyer naturally does.
"You poor thing." Marrisa replied, with a generous back rub.
"Seriously, dude, if you didn't want to go up; I wouldn't have teased you forever." Cable joked, trying to arouse a smile from her friend. She considered it a success when Benny broke out his innocent grin.
"As highly unlikely as that sounds..." Benny began.
"You should have sat this one out, you know you're sick." Chunk slyly raised a brow, indicative of the real matter at hand. Chunk was feeling particularly guilty for leaving Benny and Bull alone in the plane. His every instinct told him to stay because something terrible was due to happen, but he still jumped from that plane. Although he was slightly disappointed in Benny for going up in the first place.
"Well, I won't be sick for much longer." He revealed happily. Chunk was taken back by the remark, he wondered how Benny could make such a brazen statement so easily.
"That's good to hear, we need our in-house council in tip-top shape." Danny voiced rather chipper; still extremely high with adrenaline.
"Give it two weeks and I'll be as good as new." Boldly spoken from somebody so conflicted.
Bull was done, not ten minutes later and the group headed back to the coach to begin their journey back to TAC. After a rather eventful team building exercise, the squad were worn out and exhausted from the adrenaline low. From the TAC building, Bull sent his employees home for a much needed early finish.
All but one graciously took the offer, Chunk waited behind. "Dr Bull, a word?" Chunk asked from the doorway of Bull's office.
"Sure."He followed inside and shut the door upon invitation. His posture stiff and demeanor extremely ajar, Bull could tell that whatever was to come from Chunk's lips was not going to be very positive.
"I'm just going to come right out with it," He took a long pause, waiting to be sure he had full control of Bull's undevided attention. "Benny's got me worried."
"How so?" Bull frowned with confusion.
"Earlier on, when you were in the shower, Benny was saying some disturbing things. Very finite disturbing things." Chunk raised his left brow to emphasis his point. He'd been extremely unnerved by Benny recently. Knowing that his friend wasn't eating right or getting much sleep and saying regrettable things off of the top of his head.
"Like what?" Bull leaned for more information. Despite being the father and more importantly, Benny's best friend, he was extremely out of the loop on everything. He resented Chunk slightly for being Benny's confidant.
"Well he kept telling everybody about how he was soon going to be okay."
"Okay...?" Bull's eyes darted side-to-side in a slaphappy manor.
"As in, its almost like he's made the decision to have the procedure done." Chunk couldn't bring himself to use the word 'abortion'. Although he had no reservations about abortion, saying the word out loud seemed taboo.
"Seeing as we both are the only ones who know that Benny's pregnant, it seems appropriate that I tell you that he's talking out of fear." From what he could collect from their earlier conversation, it was evident that Benny was scared, petrified in fact.
"I know he is. Just how do we persuade him otherwise?" It was beginning to take its toll, seeing his dear friend so uncomfortable in his own skin, suffering so badly.
"We don't. We have to trust that he'll reach the correct decision by himself. We both know he's going to keep the baby; his catholic morals and appreciation for life will ultimately tip him over to one side." Bull's logic was mutual, Chunk too knew that Benny was incapable of getting an abortion. Yet, not tackling his buddy's distress head on was worrying. He'd largely blame himself should Benny slip into depression.
"We can't know that for sure." Chunk reclaimed.
"I've known Benny for a very long time, he's easily predictable." Regardless of recent events of which he could never have predicted, underneath this morbid Benny was regular and routine Benny.
"What do you suggest we do, in the mean time?" He appealed.
"We leave him to it. If we pry too much he'll push us away even more." It wasn't just Chunk who would have a trying time fighting off his natural urges, Bull knew also that he need make good word on his promises and stay as distant as he could - like everything was normal - just as Benny had wanted.
"I suppose..." Hesitant as to whether or not that approach was to even work, he knew that Bull was right. Benny was tiresome of the advice and forced intervention.