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Shauna knows when she’s in labor.
An all too familiar feeling strikes her in the night.
“Shauna, aren’t you gonna go tell Jeff it’s time?” She just doesn’t get why she has to strike her in the night too. “C’mon, Shipman.”
“I’m going to.”
“When?”
“When it’s worth telling. Remember, I’ve been through this before.” A contraction hits her. “This is gonna take a while.”
“But you’ve still got…what did the nurses call it? After the rescue?”
“Postpartum complications.” It’s quiet. No one speaks. “Going now will just be a waste. Last time…” Shauna sucks in a breath.
She doesn’t want to think about last time . She can’t because that baby is dead and she still isn’t fully convinced this one isn’t too.
“Okay.” Jackie looks at her and despite it all, Shauna can’t help but try to make herself smaller in that gaze. “I guess I can’t control you.”
Shauna laughs at that. Painfully similar to their final argument that had made their fate.
Or did Shauna make her fate? Make bed, lie in it.
“I never meant to make you feel like that- my shadow or whatever. Like I controlled you.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. For the record, you also could have- oh, I don’t know- talked to me?” Shauna doesn’t bother looking up as another contraction hits her.
5 minutes apart from the last one.
“Now, I tell him.”
As is to be expected, the hospital room is cold. It only took a few minutes to get in here, but about 30 for the staff to set her up. Jeff shifts on his feet and looks at Shauna.
“What?” A bit cruel, but she’s annoyed.
“I gotta go to the bathroom and get myself some water from the fountain. You…want anything?”
“Ice chips.”
“Ice chips?” Jeff sounds like he might laugh.
“Yes, like the nurse said.” He blinks.
“Oh, yeah.” He goes to grab his wallet and runs to the door before turning back. “I’ll, uh, be right back. Get you some ice chips and- would you mind if I got myself some corn nuts? It’s…I’m really hungry, Shauna.” Shauna rolls her eyes and waves her hand.
“Go ahead.” Jeff smiles, and Shauna is reminded that maybe she does hold some affection for him.
“Affection? Yeah, like someone might feel for their class hamster. You just wanna put him in a little cage and feed him with lettuce and a water spout.”
“...” Shauna shouldn’t respond, not when a doctor might barge in at any moment. “I don’t think hamsters eat lettuce. I think that’s more a rabbit thing.”
“Huh.” Jackie’s hand rests near Shauna’s. “This one…this one’s gonna be okay, you know. You’ve got a good little thing here. A hospital, staff, even Jeff’s here. The whole shebang.”
“I could do without Jeff.”
“I wish I could be here instead of him.” Jackie looks kind. Shauna misses that. “Be like it was our kid- we could raise them together. Just me and you and them, against the world.”
Something awful blooms in Shauna’s stomach and she retches into the trashcan next to bed.
“Oh, Christ. I’m sorry, Ships.” She feels fake hands glide near her hair, as if to say I’d be there if I could.
Shauna knows there’s a ticking time bomb in her at all times, and she feels one go off.
“Why-” She gags. “Why the hell are you being so nice to me?”
Jackie just stares.
“Please.” Shauna hears her voice crack. “Please stop. Please be mean to me- I deserve it. Be meaner to me. Please, God-”
“I’m plenty mean. I’m as mean as I want to be.”
“Why aren’t you meaner? ”
“Because I love you?” It hits her like a tow truck. Shauna feels angry and sad and hurt and like she might die of happiness if she allowed it. But she won’t.
This is a punishment.
She stops responding.
“You can do this, Shipman-” Her lips- not real, light as the wind- hover over Shauna’s. What the hell is she doing? Shauna realizes, between the pushing and the contractions, that this is her mind. What the hell am I thinking?
“Please.”
“You can, you’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. You survived the worst, you can survive this- you don’t get to die. Not yet. Not until I’m satisfied- do that for me, okay? All your fucked up guilt and punishment, please just do this for me.”
“I- Goddammit!” Shauna wants to throw up. She can hear the doctor yelling at her- Push! Push! Push! - like she hasn’t been doing that the entire time.
She feels Jeff’s hand grab her and she wants to shoo him away as if this isn’t his baby too and if she cared she might feel guilty for that too.
Saliva and sweat and tears and amniotic fluid evaporate from the heat of it all and Shauna thinks she can feel the condensation on the metal of the hospital bed.
Shauna looks up and she’s still fucking there.
“Shauna.” It’s an echo of a past moment. And Shauna thinks this is the moment she knows she’s gonna make it. There’s the cry, so sweet. So loud.
Shauna can’t be sure she isn’t being lied to again.
“Oh, Shipman.” She doesn’t look to Jeff or the doctors, she looks to Jackie. “She’s beautiful.”