Day four: "Do you even know what this means?"

Characters/Pairings: Jake/Rose

Rating: T

Content warnings: off-screen death(s); medical situations; pregnancy/pregnancy loss; swearing

Don't forget that you can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now and that my ao3 account is wearealloflegendnow (even though I haven't posted there yet)!

~TLL~

Jake was late. He tried not to move too fast through the parking lot but he knew that he was going to be in big trouble. He was supposed to meet Rose at noon for one of their ultrasounds and he was late. Despite the fact that they made appointments and showed up early every time, Rose was nearly always behind schedule anyway so Jake was crossing his fingers that he was going to at least catch the actual ultrasound part and the debrief afterward. He entered the private office and approached the receptionist, scanning the waiting room of prospective parents. Not a sign of Rose.

"Hello, Mr. Long!" Rebecca chirped. "How can I help you?"

"Hey, Becky, is Rose still here?"

"Ummm, let me check." Rebecca clicked a few keys on the computer screen. "No, sorry, Mr. Long. Looks like Mrs. Long was checked out about fifteen minutes ago."

Crap.

"Thanks," Jake said and then he walked back out to the parking lot, checking his phone. If it was fifteen minutes ago, Rose should be home by now but still no messages from her. Jake tried to call her as he transformed into a dragon and took flight but she didn't answer him. Worry was starting to creep in. She couldn't be that mad that he had missed one appointment, could she? Like, Jake wished he had seen his baby but he would see his baby next week. Rose had photos and probably a video and they could cuddle and watch it at home together while he got her a cool compress for her head because 5 months into her pregnancy she complained about dizziness and the fact that she felt hiccups coming from the baby a lot of the time. The doctor said it was quickening and that she was starting to feel the fetus move. Rose still called them hiccups.

Jake careened down to the sidewalk and nearly tripped over his own two feet as he headed toward his front door. He heard a loud crash from inside and nearly dropped his keys. Jake's hands started shaking and he considered breaking the door down but then the key fit in the lock and he stepped inside his house. There was another loud crash and a strangled scream and Jake took off running toward the nursery. He skidded around the door to see Rose taking a mallet to the crib that Jake had so carefully built just the week before.

"ROSE!" he shouted and she froze mid-motion. Jake moved toward her slowly, taking in the tear stains on her face and the way that her entire body was shaking. "Let's put the hammer down and talk about it, okay?"

"There's nothing to talk about," her voice raw and broken and she slammed the mallet down on the crib again. She turned toward the rocking chair and Jake lunged toward her, snatching the hammer out of her hands. He let it hit the floor and then took her into his arms. Rose sagged heavily against him, letting out a strangle sob. "Oh god!"

Jake held her tighter, sensing that she was about to fall apart. He had to keep her together.

"Rose, what's going on? What happened?"

Rose pushed him away, seizing one of the teddy bears they had purchased for the baby. The one that Jake had gotten her for Mother's Day. She had laughed him off because she had only told him that she was pregnant the day before and not a single other person in the world knew but it was also the first thing that they had put into the nursery once it was painted Rose's favourite shade of green.

"The baby has Patau syndrome," Rose said, staring down at the bear. "They got my genetic testing back for this appointment."

"Okay," Jake said. Patau syndrome. "We'll deal with it. We can deal with anything for our baby."

"Do you even know what this means?" Rose asked, a quiet fury in her tone.

"No, but I know that we can and will do everything, no matter what's happening with our baby?"

"THERE IS NO BABY!" Rose whipped the bear at Jake's head. "Dr. Holmes did the ultrasound and our baby has no fucking heartbeat! Our baby is dead. I have been carrying around A DEAD FUCKING BABY!"

Rose fell onto her knees and Jake fell with her, pulling her into his arms as she sobbed. He would cry soon. Jake knew that he would cry soon but the kind of grief that Rose was experiencing was still beyond him. For now, all he knew that he could do was hold her.

"What do I do?" Rose sobbed. "What do we do? We're supposed to have a baby."

"I know." Jake rubbed her back but he didn't know not yet, not really. He was starting to go numb, staring at the remains of the crib. "We'll figure it out together. We'll always have each other."

"I had it all worked out in my head. What they'd look like and what we'd name them and how they would grow up to be. I knew we'd be good parents. I knew I wanted them to be an M&M for their first Halloween and now there's no Halloween. There's no Christmas. There's no nothing except for the fact that I have to be at the hospital to induce labour because I have to give birth to my baby. Our dead baby."

Jake was starting to understand why she'd picked up that hammer. Maybe he'd do it too. Maybe he'd feel something if he did. Maybe he would understand if he did.

"I don't know if I'm strong enough for this," Rose whimpered.

"Me either," Jake admitted. "We'll have to be strong enough together."

"Are we?"

"We have to be," Jake said.

It's not like they had a choice.

About anything at all.