Possibilities - Part Four
Hello all! Here is the next part of this story. All comments and criticism are welcomed.



IV.

One week after Allison’s positive test result, Wilson and Sarah have the two of you over for dinner. Sarah feels the baby kick and Wilson comments about his son the soccer player. You want to brag to Wilson that you may be a crippled old bastard, but you’ve still got it. Cameron already stopped you from doing that once. She doesn’t want anyone to know. Not yet.

She goes to her first pre-natal appointment at her doctor’s residential office instead of just arranging time at the hospital. Sure, there’s doctor-patient confidentiality, but that doesn’t keep people from seeing what floor you’re getting off on and discussing the possibilities. She doesn’t want anyone doing that.

The first appointment goes well. You don’t accompany her because you know it isn’t going to be very interesting and it’s not like you don’t know the basic mechanics of pregnancy. She doesn’t mind because she’s pretty sure you’d just upset her doctor anyway. You have to admit that she’s right.

A few more weeks pass and the idea of impending fatherhood becomes more and more real. It isn’t something the two of you talk about all the time, and yet it’s always there. You still have your jobs and your normal routine, and you aren’t the types to suddenly have every conversation revolve around a peanut-sized blob of cells, even if that blob is your child. Still, there are mentions of moving to a bigger place, and comments about where a crib will go, and other moments that keep the baby from drifting too far from your thoughts.

A pregnancy book appears on Allison’s nightstand, along with a book of baby names. You remember Wilson’s question about Martha and Theodore and decide that you will need to steer her away from any names like those. Something normal. Something classic. Just not something that reminds you of the geriatric ward.

You know not to offer up Thomas as a possible name. A few months ago you accidentally/on purpose discovered a box filled with Allison’s old journals and you discovered that she’d considered her baby a boy and had named him Thomas. That entry was followed by a seven month break.

Allison hasn’t started referring to this baby as a he or a she yet although you’ve started to wonder about that yourself. You think that maybe that goes along with not telling anyone about the pregnancy. You can’t decide if you have a preference. If Allison has thought about it at all, you figure she’s probably hoping for a girl if only to quell memories of her son. A girl might be best. You don’t have any experience with them because you didn’t have a sister and neither did any of your friends. What you do have is memories of how your father parented you and you think that having a girl would be safer. Having no experience is probably better than the chance of following a bad example. Allison would tell you to stop thinking that way if you told her about your reasoning. She’s always had a lot more faith in you than you deserve.

She doesn’t want to buy anything for the baby until after her ultrasound. It’s scheduled for week fourteen which is still ten weeks away, so you push aside the ridiculous urge to buy an infant-sized Rolling Stones t-shirt online. You bookmark the link instead. It goes in the folder with the links to the “Can’t Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me” onesie and the rattle shaped like an electric guitar. Your kid will be cool if you have anything to say about it.

Leaves swirl around the balcony outside your office and you stare at them as they rise and fall, some flying off over the wall and some joining the pile in the corner. It looks like it could start snowing any time now, and you think about snowmen. You built one when you were six It took all afternoon and your breath froze in your lungs and your fingers felt like ice by the time your mother finally convinced you to come in. The next morning it had been kicked over and you ran to the breakfast table to announce that it must have been Mike from up the street. He’d wanted to help you build it but you’d wanted to do it on your own. Your father told you, without ever raising his eyes from the paper, that he’d done it when he got home. He didn’t want the whole base to see what a puny little snowman his son had made. He told you he’d show you how to make a decent one over the weekend. You didn’t want to make another one, which was good because he never kept his word.

You do not want to be that kind of father and fear grips your heart at the thought that you easily could be. But then you think of Allison and know she wouldn’t allow that.

You still think you’d be better off having a daughter.

The leaves also remind you that Thanksgiving is just a week away and Allison asked you yesterday if you wanted to invite your mother to come down for the weekend. The fact that your father will never know his grandchild does not bother you, but you are happy that your mother will be able to spoil the kid. You even consider telling her about it when you call, but you don’t think she’d be able to keep the secret and you aren’t eager to upset Allison. When you asked her when she was going to tell her parents, she said that she’d send a birth announcement.

You’ve only met them once. Briefly. They came to your very small wedding and left the next day. They didn’t strike you as monsters, just distant and critical, but those are two of your main characteristics and Allison seems to like you well enough. There has to be something else there, lying stagnant beneath the surface, but you will probably never know what it is. Between the two of you, you have one decent parent. Hopefully you’ll be able to give your kid a complete set.

When Thanksgiving goes off without a hitch you think about the fact that this time next year, you will have one more thing to be thankful for. Just before your mother is about to head home, Allison pulls you into the bedroom.

“Tell her,” she says.

“What?” you ask, not sure if you understand what she’s saying.

“Tell her about the baby.”

Yup, you understood. You just didn’t believe she was having a change of heart.

“You sure?”

She nods and smiles broadly. Then she grips your arms and pulls herself up for a quick brush of lips against your scruffy cheek.

“I want her to know. It will make her so happy,” she says. “I’m sure that grandkids are the last thing she ever expected out of you.”

That last is said with a bit cheek and you give her a mock-aggrieved look.

You have to give your mother credit when she doesn’t immediately burst into tears at the news that she is going to be a grandmother in a little more than seven months time. Her eyes are definitely moist though, as she pulls Allison into a gentle embrace. Allison is the one who lets one tear escape, but she quickly brushes it away.

That night in bed, she tells you that she’s glad your mother knows. Two weeks later, you’re sure she’s regretting it.

She wakes you with an elbow to the ribs and you blink your eyes in the bright light that is already flooding the room.

“I’m trying to sleep here,” you mutter with annoyance. It’s Friday and you had a tough case all week.

Then you catch sight of her face and all thoughts of sleep vanish.

“Something’s wrong,” she says, hand over her belly, complexion as pale as your sheets.

“What is it? Cramping could be normal,” you say, trying to sound bored and disinterested instead of concerned. Concern will only make her worry more.

“Cramps,” she confirms, “but I was also spotting before we went to bed, and now…”

She doesn’t have to tell you that her underwear is warm with blood.

You fumble around in your nightstand, feeling for the old stethoscope which is lodged beneath the Playboys you never got around to throwing out and the picture of a nude Allison which she refuses to let you frame. When you finally pull it free, she is hovering beside you, her skin ashen. You can see the red spot on the sheets behind her.

“Sit,” you command, and then press the cold bell to her stomach.

You keep moving it, moving it, moving it, trying to catch some sound of a heartbeat. It’s actually a few weeks early for that anyway, but you’d hoped to hear something reassuring. You pull away and tell her to throw on some clothes.

You know she will crumble if you ask her if it feels the same as it did last time. Besides, you already know the answer. She doesn’t ask you if you heard the heartbeat. She already knows the answer.

She doesn’t even balk at going to Princeton Plainsboro. She just sits in the passenger seat and stares out the window as you speed down the cold, empty streets. She does the same thing on the return trip. It’s three hours later and the sun is just beginning to rise, and Allison isn’t pregnant anymore.

When you arrive home, she immediately goes to the bedroom, rips the bloodied sheets off the bed and stuffs them into a trash bag, along with her stained nightgown. You move to help her put new sheets on - which you never do - but she stops you.

“I can manage,” she says, words soft and hard at the same time.

You go out to the living room and collapse onto the sofa. When she passes through to get to the kitchen, you follow her. She’s making coffee. It’s a very old habit.

“You should be resting.”

“Why? What am I resting for? I’m fine,” she says, stressing the ‘I’m’ and leaving unsaid that the one who isn’t fine is your baby.

“No you’re not,” you insist, the stress and pain bubbling up to the surface. “You just-”

She slaps you before you can say the words.

“Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it!” she’s shaking now and you know that you must just be a hazy blur to her behind her tear-filled eyes.

So you don’t say it, but you do grab her and pull her to your chest and hold her so tightly you’re surprised she’s not gasping for air. But you can’t loosen your hold because then she’d see your face. See that you’re hurting too. See that now you understand why she was so afraid.

“I shouldn’t have risked it,” she’s whimpering into your chest. “I knew I shouldn’t have. I knew it. I knew it. Why did I listen to you?”

And there it is. You knew it wouldn’t take long. A month ago she told you that she was excited and that the decision had been all hers. But now she’s grieving and she needs to blame someone, and that someone is you.

For a long time the two of you just stand there in the middle of the kitchen while the rising sun fills the room with gold and the coffee maker signals that it’s done. Eventually you go back to the bedroom and crawl beneath the blankets. You want Allison to curl against your side and rest her head on your shoulder, but she rolls over to face the window and you’re left staring up at the ceiling.

Allison doesn’t go to work on Monday, but you do. You need to know if any gossip made its way out of the ER. Thankfully, it didn’t.

Cuddy sends you a patient and you pass the diagnosing off on your fellows. You’re not interested in healing anyone today. You spend the day in your office with your iPod blaring. You call Allison twice, and both times she tells you that she’s fine.

When you arrive home, she’s cleaned the townhouse and made dinner. She’s not as pale as she was and she’s dressed in jeans and a turtleneck. After spending the weekend in pajamas and a robe, it’s an improvement. She asks you how your day was.

You ask her how she’s feeling, because she can’t keep up this Stepford routine for long. Her eyes are still red-rimmed and you spotted the half-empty bottle of wine on the counter.

She tells you she can’t talk about it right now. She needs time.

You don’t. You want to talk about it now. You know the statistics, and miscarriage was always a possibility, but you never let yourself think about it. Now you’re forced to, and you’re also forced to realize that there will probably not be a second try. You want to apologize and absolve yourself of blame at the same time. You say none of those things. You spent thirty-plus years keeping your emotions inside, and it’s a habit that’s easy to slip back into even if you don’t really want to.

Allison throws herself into her work and so you do the same. No sense going home early if she’s not there. You delete the baby gift links from your computer and you throw away the t-shirt you bought Allison for Christmas. It was special ordered with “Property of G. House” printed across the belly. It was tacky and completely inappropriate but you’d known that she would wear it around the house anyway.

Calling your mother is one of the harder things you’ve done. She’s upset, as you knew she would be, and supportive, as you also knew she would be. There is quiet surprise when she reveals that she had a miscarriage before having you. When she asks if she should call Allison, you tell her that Allison isn’t ready to talk about it yet. She says she understands. You wish you did.

Countless times you think about storming into Wilson’s office and letting your pent up emotion spill out all over him. The anger, disappointment and grief feel like they’re strangling you. The feeling grows stronger as Allison becomes quiet and distant. You want your wife back.

The Wednesday before Christmas, Sarah gives birth to a healthy baby boy. They name him Nathanial and Allison holds him and kisses his head and somehow keeps from crying.


a/n: This was a hard and sad part to write and I am will be very indebted to any who comment. I believe that the scenario is realistic, and I am hoping that it does not seem overly-dramatic, because that is not my intent. As with all of my stories, I've tried to take real situations and present them with emotion, but without too much drama. Only you can tell me if I've succeeded.