Work Text:
On Tenterhooks
Traffic had been completely stationary for only about five minutes, but patience was absolutely not called for at this moment; so it felt like five times longer, at least. Connor groaned and pitched forward, burying his head quite deeply in his folded arms. "Oh God, why does there have to be a construction zone when we're so close..."
"I know."
"And why does it have to be a one lane road ahead kind of thing?! Seriously. We haven't budged an inch in the last five minutes."
"Because, apparently, they decided to chew up the entire road, right down to the bed."
"It's so unnecessary," said Connor, knowing he was whining but not caring about it.
"Hold on, we won't be coming back again this way," said Kevin, smirking to himself at the reversal of their usual roles-- he now the sunny optimist, with Connor now the worrier. "Hey, look, traffic's starting to move again!" After a slow, effortful crawl through a stand of cones and a makeshift shoulder, Kevin said, still more cheerfully, "There's McIntyre Street. We're almost there."
"Two more miles. Two more miles," muttered Connor into his folded arms, keeping his eyes out of the blazing afternoon sun and his nose out of the distinct fishy-chemical smell of a straining air conditioner. "What is this, the hottest day of the year? And during rush hour too..."
"Everything's happening at once."
"Exactly!"
"I guess you could say, everything's perfect," said Kevin, turning to him and grinning.
"Perfect as rain," said Connor, straightening up again. "Oh, good, we're out of that mess... no, no, don't turn red! It's on the yellow, run it, run it... Yes!! Thank you," said Connor, sighing with relief.
Just then, Kevin's phone rang. "You'd better get that, I can't."
"Okay... Where is it?" The synthesized instrumental version of "A Whole New World" continued while Connor dug around the car seats, finally locating the phone between the driver's seat and the emergency brake. "Hello? ... Yeah, Janelle, we're almost there! We ran into some road work... Did your water break? ... not yet, good... We've got some towels in here just in case it breaks on the ride over... Can you come outside? Thank you." Then, ninety seconds later: "Hey, I see your house... I see you! We're there!"
After Kevin stopped the car, Connor immediately got up and moved to the back seat, allowing Janelle to ease down into the front passenger seat. "Oooh," she said. "There goes another one..."
"How far apart are they now?" said Kevin.
"Four minutes apart. No... three minutes."
"Wow," said Connor. "We'd better hurry."
"Three and a half minutes." Janelle reached for the seat belt and opened it all the way, so as to fit around her belly.
"You need help?" asked Kevin.
"No, I'm fine," she said, clicking the belt shut and settling in. "It's definitely time, though. I can feel it."
"I'm sorry we took so long to get here."
"That's OK. It's not here yet, so you're good." Janelle turned to the back seat. "You OK there, Connor?"
"Yeah. I guess..." said Connor. He squeezed her hand. "Please, you be OK."
"I will."
She squeezed back, reassuringly.
"Hey, Janelle, is there another way out of here?" said Kevin. "I am not going back through that crap again."
"Sure," she said." Just turn left out here, then left again on Easley Road." Kevin followed her instructions and was about two miles farther down when he suddenly said, "Hey, we're going farther away from the hospital!"
"I know, but only for a little bit."
"But why?"
"Because if I'd told you before, you'd have said no and gotten right back in that jam again."
Kevin opened his mouth to retort, but fell silent; because he knew she was right. After a long pause, he said, "Okay, but where do we go now?"
"You turn left on-- ooh! Get in the left lane, Kevin, turn left on 50th..." The car turned as Janelle rode out another contraction. "Good thing you turned in time, Kevin, or Easley would've taken you on a wild goose chase."
"Why do you have to live clear across town from us?" said Connor.
"Because I love it here." Then she laughed. "And just to annoy you." Both Connor and Kevin groaned.
"Why is Arvada so weird?" said Kevin. "These random patches of country right next to houses, and apartments, and shopping centers..."
"Look, a horse," said Connor, pointing.
"That," said Janelle, "is part of why I love it. I get to see my neighbors' horses on a regular basis." Another contraction. "Now, Kevin, don't forget to get in the right lane, so you can turn at Wadsworth up there ...
*****
"It's a kicky little devil," said Janelle after another contraction.
"Now, why do you keep referring to the baby as 'it'?" said Kevin. "I don't like that. It makes me think the baby's an inanimate object. Or it reminds me of that book, 'A Child Called It'..."
"I thought you said you wanted it to be a surprise."
"I did," said Connor. "But Kevin, I guess, isn't so sure..."
"I know what it is. And I've known for the last several months. But I'm going to do what Connor wants, Kevin; and not reveal to you guys until the birth."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Not a chance I could... trick you into slipping up and giving it away?"
Janelle laughed. "No. Sorry."
*****
"What do you mean, this is the wrong entrance?!" said Connor, thoroughly exasperated. "Do you realize we're under three minutes now..."
For the first time this afternoon, Janelle looked perturbed as well. "Yeah, why did you decide to make the expectant mother entrance separate, anyway?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am," said the young man sitting behind the receiving desk, who looked no older than a teenager. "When they remodeled the hospital they decided to separate out the moms and babies from the other ER patients, because it was getting too crowded..."
"I'm starting to get a little painful here," said Janelle, wincing through another contraction. "Oooh. Please, I don't want to get back in the car--"
"Don't worry," said the young man, thinking quickly. "Let's get a wheelchair over here!" he called to some orderlies nearby. "You really don't have that far to go, just on the other side is the mom and baby entrance." Janelle's whole body sighed in relief when she finally sat down in the wheelchair.
"Go ahead follow me," said the orderly, a tall and burly man with a thick foreign accent, and Kevin and Connor followed him and Janelle through a wide hospital corridor to the expectant mother department.
*****
"You're at five centimeters," said the midwife.
"What? Only five?" said Janelle. "With the amount of pain I'm in, you'd think it'd be wider..."
"You're almost at six."
"Is that enough?" asked Connor. "I mean, I don't know a whole lot about this--"
"We like to see the mother at seven before we start pushing," said the midwife. "But five is enough to say, you're in labor and we need to check you in. I'll go ahead and let the delivery room know we need to bring you up."
"Oh, thank you," said Janelle, lying back and riding out another contraction as the midwife left. "The sooner I get up there and get some drugs, the better."
Connor felt around blindly and grabbed Kevin's hand. Kevin squeezed back before he asked Janelle, "Is this worse than you had before... with Austin?"
"No, but he's seven, so it's been a while," she answered. "I've almost forgotten what it's like... almost."
"Where is Austin now?"
"At camp. It had to be this week, didn't it?" Janelle waited for another contraction, then said, "We all need to have a proper get-together after this is all over. After all, Austin's kind of going to be part of your family, too."
"What about Brian? Still in Afghanistan?"
"Yeah, until November."
"Must be rough," said Connor. "Do you want to hold off on getting together until Brian's home? Or just go out with you and Austin before then?"
"Oh, definitely both," she said. "Just us, and with Brian. But at least a few days after your little one comes. Ahh!" Janelle lay back and breathed deeply, looking Kevin in the eye.
"I'd better get through this all right... 'cause this one's your husband's... but I want to see if I can do it again in a couple of years, with you."
"Really?" Kevin said, in awe. "You'd do it again?"
"If everything goes right, yes."
"I thought you always had to change surrogates with each child."
"No, you don't. And I don't want to take a chance on the next one not liking you. Or flaking." She paused before saying, "There's still too many of them who don't want to do it for... couples like you."
Connor frowned. "I know."
"It's sad. Some people just don't want to let it go. Well, I'm cool, and I liked this a lot, I like you a lot, and sure I'd do it again. I just hope my doctor doesn't say I'm too old by then." She looked Connor and Kevin in the eye before saying, "I want you to have a little Connor and a little Kevin."
"Wait a minute..." said Kevin, grinning. "Did you just slip up?"
"What?"
"Did you just say it's a boy?"
"Noooo," said Janelle, shaking her head and smiling. "It's a surprise, just as I told you before."
"So, you're going to keep your trap shut on this one, eh?"
"Tightly shut."
*****
Connor's lower lip was nearly bleeding from biting it so much. Just before they'd taken Janelle up to the delivery room, her pain took on a sudden crescendo; she moaned pitifully, letting tears stream down her face while she grasped Connor's hand, nearly crushing his fingers. It wasn't just emotion that he was biting his lip for.
Finally, though, the blessed epidural came, and Janelle eased back, relaxing for the first time in what seemed like forever.
"Who the hell does natural childbirth anymore?" she said, back to her wisecracking self. "Masochists, that's who. And you don't even get a nice leather outfit to go with it."
"Oh... I think that could be arranged..."
"Kevin!" Connor rolled his eyes. "Hey, that's my child you guys are saying inappropriate things in front of."
"Well, technically it's going to be mine, too, so I wouldn't stress. Maybe it's got my sense of humor, too."
"Oh, I hope so," said Kevin. "To keep Con from being such a sourpuss."
He barely managed to duck and avoid Connor's well-aimed hand.
******
Despite every appearance of being in a hurry, over the next several hours the baby apparently decided to take it easy for a while. Perhaps it was the epidural, or perhaps it was its mother finally relaxing; but as the sun sank below the horizon the monitors hooked up to Janelle showed very little change in either contraction timing or strength from when she first checked in.
It was frustrating, to say the least.
"What if it was a false alarm all along?" whispered Connor, for Janelle was asleep. "Will they have to send her home?"
"I hope not," said Kevin.
"If they do, I don't know how I'm going to deal," said Connor. "I don't know much about this, but I thought once you went into labor you couldn't come out of labor again. What if I was wrong?"
Kevin considered this for a moment. "I've never heard of coming out of labor... but I do know sometimes it can be very slow and drawn-out. Jack said his first daughter, Madeline took almost a full day and a half to be born.
"Really?"
"Yeah. We've not even been here four hours yet. Next to Maddie, everything's going to look like a cakewalk."
"I just had no idea that a new baby being born could be so... boring." Connor paused, then clarified: "It doesn't sound right to put it that way. I guess what I mean is, it's not like in the movies, with all that drama and everything moving too fast and whatever."
Kevin was again silent for a minute. "Put it another way, though, maybe what it means is, if there's a lot of drama then something's wrong. ... If it is like in the movies, that mean's something's wrong. It's good to be a little boring."
"That's actually not a bad way of putting it," said Connor, who then yawned. The two of them were silent as they watched what was left of the sunlight fade away beneath the dark expanse of the Rocky Mountains.
Kevin shifted his weight on the hide-a-bed they were sharing, so as to give Connor more space to lay his head. As Connor did so, he felt his husband's hand brush his own, and they linked fingers. Connor smiled, glanced over at the sleeping Janelle and then back at Kevin, and yawned again, eyelids growing heavy.
Their baby would probably not come on Thursday.
Connor let run through his head the possible names they had picked out. Instead of just two, as was usual-- one for a boy and one for a girl-- he and Kevin had to pick at least four, because as Connor's child it was likely to have red hair. So for instance, they needed at least two girl names, If-She-Has-Red-Hair and If-She-Does-Not-Have-Red-Hair.
Kevin, of course, would want Ariel, Merida, Hans or--God forbid-- Hercules for a redheaded baby. Something properly Disneyfied. Connor, on the other hand, rather liked his mother's name--Patricia-- for the not-a-redhead girl name, and Nathan (for Nathan Lane) for a boy. He rather liked his name choices better, for they'd be less likely to result in their kid being made fun of on the playground later.
Or maybe, for the first time, he might just find himself wishing their first child did not look like him. Which was a very strange position to be in.
Deciding this was too much thinking at this time of the night, he yawned, snuggled into Kevin, and promptly fell asleep.