ILLEGITIMATE
Chapter 6 Three Words They reset. Fall into the same routine as their pre-rooftop bulletproof vest piercing ammo covert dating. The fourth floor workday ends half an hour earlier than the SRU's, but at the end of his shift, he drives directly to her house. By then she's situated comfortably in sweatpants and a tank top, usually in a near comatose state on the couch. They debate about supper, she flip-flops over what to eat, while he patiently accepts whatever she wants with a nod. Sometimes she throws out radical suggestions on the food pyramid just to see if he'll nod in agreement. He always does. They watch the same movies and TV shows from three years before. It's different though. Better, because there's more trust. She lets him help more. Lets him mildly coerce her off the couch and out of the house for groceries, or general shopping, or a sluggish trundle around the block. Lets him take the grocery list on the days when she's too exhausted to turn on the television. Lets him do the laundry. He has a drawer in her dresser for his clothes. A spare uniform is tucked away in her closet. August brings around balmy and humid weather. The temperature bursts each day to over thirty and it's enough to make a normal person weary. Jules is in her third trimester, waddles everywhere slowly and tires easily. The heat wave pushes her into a nauseous state. After the first day, finding her in her Jeep with the air conditioning on just for relief, he gave her the spare key to his apartment so she could take advantage of the central air. Today Sarge decides to visit her because the team grumbled at the idea of driving around the city in thirty-three degree weather, even if it is inside the environmentally controlled cabin. Less than a minute later he reappears wiping at the phantom sweat from under his cap kept at bay from the innovations of technology. "Jules called in sick today." "Can you blame her? If I had to carry around the weight of an extra person I wouldn't want to go out on a day like today." "We all do it every day with you, Spike." Ed answers without missing a beat. They're in the briefing room going over various exit strategies from past hot calls and established drills. Anything to keep from going outside until the temperature has simmered. "She's not answering her cell phone." Sarge adds and sits back down in the chair at the head of the table. Before he left her house this morning, Jules didn't inform him she was going to call in sick although she was lagging. Most mornings they usually wake together, shower sometimes together, sometimes separately, and eat together. This morning when he got out of the shower she was still sleeping. He figures she's either still sleeping, or has gone to his apartment to escape the heat, which is why he's not worried. Only the rest of the team doesn't know about their relationship yet. Again. It's a mutual decision. "She's probably just taking it easy." "I know." Sarge nods and sighs into his knuckles. "I just wish she would answer." It's nice knowing that other people in the world care about her. About the baby. That if anything happens to him because Lew and Steve weren't enough, there's the rest of Team One to help Jules. He often forgets this because they don't assume as active a role as him, but they help out in different ways. A few weeks ago when they all went out to dinner and he was forced to sit across the table from her, only sharing the briefest of sentimental glances, she enlightened the Team on her current legal situation. After the general rage cooled off, Ed immediately volunteered his friend, a respectful lawyer downtown, who would gladly represent her in court for free if 'he knew what was good for him'. At the end of his shift, he phones her cell once and gets her voicemail, then decides to head to his apartment. Sure enough her Jeep is parked in the visitor's area and her phone is left on the passenger's seat. The doors are also unlocked and he shakes his head. She gets bad cases of pregnancy brain. When she's so focused on doing one thing, she forgets to do obvious other things. It's why he likes staying with her, making sure the doors are locked, the faucets are off, and the stove is off. Retrieving her phone and locking the doors, he heads upstairs to his tenth floor apartment. She's lying on the couch in shorts and a t-shirt with the air conditioning on so high frost patterns might start to fractalize on the windows. The TV is on mute as the five o'clock news headlines scroll across the screen. He thinks she's sleeping. She is sleeping until he shuts the door, because she's always been a light sleeper and pregnancy only intensifies this aspect. "Sam?" "Hey Sweetheart." He sets down his bag and ignores the numbness pricking at his bare arms, just wants her to be comfortable. "How are you feeling?" She's not comfortable. She shuffles on the couch so her back is against the arm. A hint of her stomach escapes from where her black t-shirt collects behind her body. "I'm so hot." "Why don't you have a shower?" "I don't have any clothes here." And she doesn't. They're usually at her house. Her big, empty, soon-to-be-full, greenhouse of a house. "You should have just taken some of mine." "I didn't want to without—" "Jules." He shakes his head and sits on the opposite arm of the couch. Her phone digs in his pocket and he pulls it out. "You left this in your jeep." "I know." "Your doors were unlocked." "I know. I remembered after I got up here and I just couldn't go back down." He smiles and balances the phone on the top of her stomach. "Well the guys know you took today off, and I'm pretty sure they've been phoning you every ten minutes." Her legs withdraw, offering him a third of the couch which he slides down into. It's burning from contact with her skin. While she checks her phone his hand readjusts her shirt, lulling over her stomach. The baby must be sleeping. "I have forty-seven missed calls." She calls Sarge which appeases over half of her missed calls. She laughs into the phone and her stomach bounces, tells their boss she's fine, just tired from the heat and that she left her cell phone in her Jeep which is entirely true. While she showers, he lays out some of his clothes for her to wear. Remembers when they dated in the middle of the night she would always end up sneaking into his clothes. Said they were closest to her on the ground. He didn't complain. Her wearing his clothes is a concrete sign of their intimacy. One only matched by a ring. He orders a pizza and when he comes back home she's dressed in a pair of his boxers and a looser fitting t-shirt. She occupies the same spot on the couch, fingers brushing over her stomach absently like tree leaves creating ripples in water. The pizza is all but inhaled and she falls asleep almost immediately after, head on his shoulder as he flips through the channels for sports updates. When they go to bed, he makes a point not to lie too close to her; he doesn't want to make her any more uncomfortable than she already is. But after a few minutes with the lights off she glances over her shoulder at him, tries to flail onto her side to face him but fails and remains stationary. "You're not going to move closer?" "I didn't want to make you too hot." She groans and he imagines it's accompanied by its usual eye roll. Her hand grasps his and leads him towards her. "Come on, and pass me that pillow." He shifts towards her, handing her the pillow which she positions between her thighs and wraps his arms around her torso. She hugs him to her and together they drift to sleep while the baby thumps around within her. "Sam?" An unknown amount of time later, he's awoken with a sharp shove to his left shoulder. It's still dark out, still a few hours before dawn. He retracts his arms and throws his wrist over his eyes moaning in his sleep. Figures she just wants him to detach because he gets clingy in his sleep, especially with her. "Yeah?" "Sam, something's wrong." Three words erase any notion of fatigue in his body. Shoving up, he turns on a lamp almost knocking over the bedside table. Jules is sitting, half hunched over with both her hands on her stomach. Face contorted in a slight wince. Fear breaks through her pain knit eyebrows. "What's going on?" "I don't know. I woke up and—" She squeezes his hand and gasps at the pain, breathing heavily through it. "Okay." He's out of the bed pulling on the first pieces of clothing he can find. Single foot bouncing against the freezing hardwood floor as he rips icy jeans up his legs. He searches in the rim of light for a shirt, after a few spins on the spot he runs to a drawer and grabs a handful by accident. Leaves the extra two on the ground so it looks like his dresser spit up. "Sam." The covers are off her legs. She's still dressed in one of his black t-shirts and a pair of his plaid boxers. "Yeah." He agrees to the question she didn't have to ask. Supports her back and helps her up with a hand under her bicep. "It's going to be okay." "It's too early." "Your water didn't break, did it?" Arching backwards, he flips the sheets off the bed looking for any indication of moisture. "No." She visibly relaxes as the pain leaves her body. He checks his alarm clock to see how far apart the contractions are. Didn't want to tell her, but he bought a few books himself. Wanted to be prepared in case anything like this happened. "I don't think so." "I think we should go to the hospital anyway. Just to be safe." He slips her sandals on for her. Slightly swollen feet barely rising from the ground, her hand flat on his back for stability. Barely shoves his feet into the nearest set of sneakers. Keys jingle as he retrieves them from his gym bag. She's not moving much, not saying much and it unnerves him because he needs to know how she's feeling in order to know how much he should be panicking. "Are you alright?" "I'm scared." Her hand is clammy within his as he directs them through the front door into the industrial daylight in the hallway. "Whatever happens Jules, we'll get through it together." It's reassuring to learn that when it comes to women who may be in labor, the hospital doesn't screw around. He parks in the passenger drop off zone, and before the rent-a-cop can give him lip about not being able to park in that area, Jules holds her stomach and cries out in pain. They stand side-by-side at the nurse's station on the maternity ward. His arm still around the small of her back. Feels it spasm, grow hard, flex loose and then harden again with each hunch of pain. After about five minutes of typing up information a nurse nods for them to follow. With firm, terrified fingers wringing around his wrist, Jules plants a kiss onto his cheek and tells him to go park the car. Presses that they don't need to be paying for easily avoidable tickets or more importantly have his license revoked because of this. Immediately he's against the idea. He doesn't want to leave her, she shouldn't be alone. She admitted to him early she was scared. Words she's never uttered to him before. Even after being shot. But he nods and bursts out of the building like he's doing an SRU drill. Parks the car at a meter a block away and feeds it all the change he has in his pocket. It buys him five hours. When he gets back to the maternity ward, he asks the nurse where they put Jules but she won't let him in the room. "She's in the middle of an exam." "Look she's really scared and—" "Are you the father?" "Excuse me?" "Are you the father?" And it might actually physically pain him to admit it. From a crack in the corner of his mouth the breath escapes. "No." "Then you don't need to be going in there until the exam is over with. Please take a seat." An eternity is concentrated into ten minutes as he fidgets in the chair. Composes situations in his head and how they'll react. She's thirty weeks along; babies survive being born at thirty weeks all the time. It'll be in the hospital for a while, but at least it will be healthy. It has to be healthy. It will be healthy. They don't have anything ready at her house either. Can't do the nursery because they don't know the gender. Figured it was better to wait until the baby was born, then decorate a nursery to fit it. All they really need is a car seat and a bassinet. The nurse nods at him, and points to the blinding white hallway. "Room 4b." His fingers collide off each other with nerves. His hands shake as he walks down the hall, finds the appropriate room and knocks. It seems ridiculous, the practices instilled. "Come in." A male voice beckons. He opens the door slowly to reveal Jules in bed. She's dressed in a hospital gown, and has something strapped to her stomach. Her face is stoic as her eyes stare at a machine to her left. "Is everything okay?" "She has a little bit of high blood pressure, but everything is fine." The elderly doctor fixes a stethoscope around his neck and gives him a grin. "She was experiencing false labor pains probably induced by the heat and dehydration. I'd like to keep her here for another hour or so just to monitor her and the baby." "Yeah, sure." Nodding, not really hearing all the words, just understanding the gist of the conversation. Jules is healthy, it was a false alarm, they just want to watch her. It's fine with him. He wants to watch her too. He kisses the top of her head, trying not to be disturbed by all the wires leading away from her body. As the doctor makes the last few notes on his chart he muses aloud, "You said the pains started about an hour ago?" "Yeah." She nods and curls her fingers into his. There's a tag on her index finger and he ignores it. "It was a smart idea to come in. We didn't find anything unusual, but since it's your first pregnancy, you can never be too careful." "Well, it was his idea." She tugs on the collar of his shirt and sends him a weak smile. With the worry drained from her body, the fatigue has reinstated control. The doctor chuckles and pushes his thick glasses up on his nose and pauses in the doorway. "It's good to see a father becoming so involved in the pregnancy. When the real labor happens, there should be no problem getting you to the hospital safely if he's around." In the absence of medical personal, the only sound in the room is the scratching of print coming from the machine attached to Jules' stomach. A scroll of paper with heart fluctuations in mountains and chasms emits from the device like the baby is taking a lie detector test. "Hey." He nudges her gently with his shoulder. He rests half on the bed, watching the machine come up with constant but changing numbers. "Are you okay?" "Yeah." But her voice betrays her. Low, uneven. The wire to one of the devices weaves through her finger and she spins it without thought. "Jules?" "You don't deserve this." Releasing the twirled wire, she sighs. Her hand rests against her forehead and her eyes are intent on her stomach. "Deserve what?" "Deserve being stuck in the middle of this." "Jules—" "With people rubbing in the fact that it's not your baby. That's how it's always going to be, Sam." He reaches for her forearm. The skin is pale, soft and finally cool underneath his fingertips. Is overly cautious and aware of the wires ribboning against her arm and down into the blankets. "I don't care." "Well I do." She wrenches her arm away, fingers graze her skin as she does, wires braid together. Her whole being shifts away from him, might as well be on a different continent. The dips and dives on the monitor become more pronounced. "You deserve someone better." "I don't want—" "No Sam." Finally their eyes meet. He can only distinguish the redness, the bloodshot from lack of sleep. No sleep. But she's not acting right. It's not pregnancy, or hormones. It's actually Jules. She's almost bifurcated. "You say you're fine with it now, but one day, in a week from now, or a year, or ten years you won't be. You won't be and you're a good guy so you won't leave. You'll just stay and suffer." "What are you saying?" "I'm saying I have to end this because you won't." He almost laughs at her, almost tells her to fuck off right there. He's in the level of sleep deprivation where unrealistic notions gain realistic properties and he doesn't really know if she's intentionally getting at what she's saying. "Are you serious?" "Sam, I love you but—" "Yeah." He nods sharply and springs from the bed, unaware if this is a dream or consciousness, either way he's pissed off. "You always seem to love me the most when you're breaking up with me." "Do you think this is easy?" "Did you love him?" He pauses at the door, fingers sweating around the handle feeling every single fleck in the metal. He's not trying to be spiteful, or even mean. He's trying to get her to realize he genuinely wants to be with her. "Don't answer that, because that's not what I really want to know." "Sam." "Did you ever love him the way you love me?" Doesn't want to know the answer to that question either. Or if she ran her hands through his hair. Or fell asleep with the majority of her body on his every night. Or if she made him those shitty mango smoothies. Or let him play with her ponytail when they relaxed on the couch after a long day. Did he help renovate her house? Does he want to raise a baby with her? "Did you love him the way I love you?" "It's because I love you that I can't do this to you." "Jules, you're not doing this—" He gestures a little frantically to the room, to her, the baby, the machines and what he thought would be their imminent future. "To me. You're doing this to me." He opens the door and feels the cold burst of air from the empty hallway. Hears the distant cry of a baby mocking him. "If I leave this time Jules, I'm not coming back." "I know." The engineered hallway greets him. Intense, white, and unnatural. The door to her room snaps closed and its final. His running shoes screech across the floor and he doesn't give her a second glance back. In the distance a baby still cries. Next Chapter - Is the action chapter. For every action there is a Jackson.
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