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Monica had known even before the phone call--she didn't need a doctor to tell her she was pregnant. There was no other explanation for the missed period, the tiredness. She didn't want to believe it, but she knew. She knew.
The phone call was just confirmation. Diagnosis, if you will. A dark terrifying cloud bubbling over her head. She sat at the kitchen table, still absent-mindedly fiddling with the house phone, spinning it by the antenna. She nibbled at her fingernail, resisting the urge to actually bite down.
John was worried about her. He'd encouraged her to take the day, go to the doctor, see what was wrong. She knew what was wrong.
She didn't want to admit it to herself. She didn't want to tell him.
She didn't want to tell him but she wanted him to tell her. She wanted him to just know--know about it, know what to do--to stop her from being afraid.
Because she was afraid. She felt as if she'd been flung off the merry-go-round at the playground and knocked on her ass like when she was a kid and had broken her leg. Only then her papá had picked her up and put her in the car and driven her to the hospital.
She wanted her papá now, she realized, although what he could do for her she didn't know.
The door opened.
"Monica? You home?"
"Yeah," her voice was croaky, sticking in her throat. She cleared it. "Yeah, come here, John."
"You all right?" he said, his face open and full of concern. He set down his briefcase, slung the jacket off his shoulders, yanked his tie off unceremoniously. He laid it all down on the table in neat folded piles.
"I'm pregnant, John," she said, forever grateful that he valued directness, concision--that she could cut the crap with him.
His hand stopped halfway through folding up the tie. It was the one with green dots--the loud one--the one with little alien heads that she had given him for Christmas their second year together on the X-Files. Fitting, then, that he wore that tie.
"Yeah," he said slowly, very slowly, the intonation of the word turning it into three syllables--almost a question. "But are you all right?"
"I don't... I don't know." She didn't. "What do you want to do about it?" She could feel herself clutching at him, without even touching him. Her whole being was crying out for something to hold on to and the thing she was reaching for was John.
He raised his eyebrows, cocked his head, took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"I'm not gonna tell you what to do, Monica. It's your decision, not mine."
"No, John. Don't make me do this on my own. Tell me how you feel."
He searched her face for a moment before rubbing his hand along his hair. "How do you feel?"
She chewed the inside of her lip, a soft smile barely cracking the corners of her mouth. Turnabout was fair play.
"Confused," she finally said. "Scared, John. Really scared."
"There's nothing to be scared about." He set the tie down on the table and his fingers trailed along the silk. He would wear the thing to work. An Assistant Director at the FBI. In an alien tie.
"I need your help," she said. "I need you--" what did she need? Not for him to tell her what do, surely. Although, secretly, she realized that she had hoped he'd have strong feelings one way or the other. Demand some course of action. Swift, decisive, permanent--either way. But that wasn't her John. He wasn't one to force his way onto anyone. She had known even before she asked him that he would put the choice back on her shoulders. "Can you just hold me?" she finally asked, feeling the tears pooling along her lashes. She wanted to reach her hands out like a toddler begging to be picked up, begging to be held away from all the scary monsters in the world.
He moved to her instantly, hauling her from the chair and wrapping his arms around her, pulling her tight, tight against him. He dropped a soft kiss in her hair.
"It's okay, Monica," he said, his voice a low grumble of a whisper. "It'll be okay. You'll see."
She clutched at him, her fingers curling into the back of his shirt, and she let herself cry. John held her like no one else ever had, the pressure of his arms a firm constant--a safe space away from any and all harm. She stole time away from the universe when she was wrapped up in him. She hid from the cosmos, sheltered beneath him like he was her own personal deflector array. Nothing could get to her here--not even herself. She calmed in his arms.
"Tell me, John," she said, pulling back slightly and wiping at her face. She took a deep, shaky breath and let it out slowly.
"Tell you what?"
"Tell me how you feel about this. I don't even know how I feel about it. I can't do this without you. You need to tell me."
He rubbed his thumbs along her wet cheeks, drying her face and combing his fingers through her hair, watching the strands fall and collide as if somehow they would spell out exactly what he should do.
"How 'bout I tell you what I know. Will that work?"
She snuffled, nodding as she pulled away to retrieve a tissue and blow her nose. She padded to the couch, bringing the box with her, and folded her legs beneath her as she sat down. John followed, sitting beside her, his eyes far away, his focus inward. He held his arms open for her and she crawled into them, relaxing against his chest.
"I know I love you."
She smiled. "Tell me something I don't know, please, John. That's not helpful."
"All right. Well, I know everyone would think I was the kid's grandpa. I'd be like seventy when she--or he--graduated from college."
She thought about that.
"I know..." he took a deep breath. "You thought I'd be upset because of Luke," he said matter-of-factly, the situation dawning on him fully and finally. "I'm not upset because of Luke, Monica. Luke was Luke. That was..." he seemed to choke on whatever words he intended to say. "The past is in the past," he finally said, giving her a squeeze. "This is now. And if you don't want the baby, well I'll love you just as much, just as hard as I ever have. It wouldn't change anything. Not a whit, Monica. Do you think anything could make me stop loving you?"
She didn't say anything, she let her mind run. She thought of Luke and Barbara. She thought of how she had met him so very long ago--millennia ago; ages and eons had passed since then, but it was always there behind them. She thought of how long they'd been friends, of their work together, of their life together. She stopped thinking and let herself feel. She closed her eyes, breathed in the scent of him, felt the warmth of him around her. He had the right of it--he loved her beyond anything's ability to make him stop. She curled herself into a ball, folding her legs into his lap and settling herself more firmly against him.
"But," he went on, rubbing his hand soothingly down the back of her thigh, "if you do want the baby, I'd love you just as much and the baby too. It's not an either-or situation, Monica. You won't lose me no matter what you choose. I'm not a soap opera. What're those... the Mexican ones."
"Telenovelas," she supplied with a chuckle.
"Right," he said, hauling her in closer. She snuggled up against him, her breathing evening out. "I'm not a telenovela," he repeated in his drawl. "Tell me what you're feeling; we'll work it out together."
She took a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh. "I'm afraid," she started. "Not just... I mean I was afraid what you'd say. How you'd react. But I don't know why I was--I knew what you'd say, John." She plucked at one of the buttons on his shirt. "I'm afraid because I've never done this before. And it's a kid. I mean, I used to tell my mom when I was a kid that I never wanted kids because if I was their mom they'd grow up weird."
John puffed a laugh of air through his nose. "Ain't that the truth," he muttered.
"Yeah, she always wanted to know what that said about her. That's just... too much responsibility. It's too much, John. With work, and everything... I can't... I don't want to quit work."
"No one said you would have to. You can take half time for a kid."
"You can?"
"You know that. Or didn't you ever pay attention?"
"I never thought I'd need to know that. I never thought... I mean we were so careful, John. We've always been so careful."
"Shit happens," he said calmly. "You can walk through it and track it all over the house or you can shovel it and get on with your life."
"Which one is which?"
"It's how you handle it either way. Each one can be either. It's not a trap, Monica. Jesus. There's not a right or wrong answer here."
They sat there on the couch wrapped up in each other, just breathing for a long time.
"Do you want the kid?" he finally said into the silence, direct and to the point--forever her John.
She shook her head slightly, a shrug more than anything. "I don't know. I think... I think I need to think about it."
"No one can fault you for that," he said, kissing her forehead.