Happiness was a very difficult choice in the months that followed.
They quickly confirmed the pregnancy that day with a blood test, and Kayla pulled some strings to get an ultrasound room to themselves so she could verify the week of pregnancy. Performing her own ultrasound was nothing new, she’d done it for herself when she was pregnant with Joey a couple times, but this was so very different. Steve watched on as Kayla squirted the gel onto her belly and drew the transducer over the small bump beneath her bellybutton. Traditional ultrasound images hadn’t changed at all in the last 20 years, so Steve had as hard a time understanding this one as the one for Stephanie; Joey’s was a 3D image and looked very different. Kayla forced herself to be clinical as she walked through the image of her baby, and explained that all the ways to measure a fetus were indicating end of the first trimester growth. “If I were my doctor, I’d be measuring me at 12 weeks exactly. Maybe 12 weeks 3 days tops.”
From there they had no idea where to go. They had no idea who to turn to other than themselves, and neither of them were doing so hot right now. It was a Wednesday, so Kayla called in for the rest of the week citing the flu, and most of each and every day after that she spent throwing up what precious nourishment she’d been able to to consume before it. They laid awake retracing every single step, trying to figure out when this baby was conceived. For a panicked moment, they thought maybe it happened before they’d arrived. Something about conceiving a child without their conscious involvement made both of them intensely distraught. They couldn’t put their fingers on exactly why, but the thought that it happened without them put them both in a right state. But then Kayla realized it was impossible, because this was a change from the original timeline, and in that one she wasn’t pregnant, so this baby was definitely theirs, conceived after they jumped in.
“Are you sure it’s not two months?” Steve asked. “We had a lot of sex in September.”
“No, I was already pregnant when we got married, I’m positive. Fetuses might measure small, but to measure this large would be a four week variance, which is unheard of in this stage of pregnancy unless there’s something wrong.”
Steve blinked and his heart sank. “Could there be?”
For reasons the heart understands at its molecular level but the brain only understands in the serotonin it causes, Kayla felt intense pleasure at this statement. No matter how much despair this was going to mean, both Steve and she loved this baby. It was why, in fact, they were so distraught, because they loved it so much.
“There’s always the possibility that development could go wrong. But what I saw in the sonogram was a healthy pregnancy. I didn’t do the deep look, and I’m a surgeon not an OB, I just measured for age. I’ll get a diagnostic ultrasound at 20 weeks. If we’re still here.”
“Why do we have to wait so long?” She got about a million sonograms with Joey.
“This is not a high risk pregnancy, Joey was. This will be like with Stephanie, I get one official deep dive, and that’s it unless something goes wrong.
Based on the timing, they finally settled on conception being the morning after they arrived. Neither one of them remembered every single time they made love, but they knew the exact days that both Stephanie and Joe were conceived, and in their heart they knew which day this one was created, too. The night of their arrival their lovemaking was desperate and a little angry, even if that anger wasn’t at each other. The next morning, however, in the gloaming drowsiness of the rising sun, Steve’s seed flooded through Kayla, carrying his own essence into hers as they whispered their love into each other’s ears, and created the child they didn’t have then but now would.
They spent the next two weeks in serious misery. They didn’t spend any time weighing their opitons, because they didn’t have any. Actually that wasn’t true, they had options, but they were neither good nor up to them. If they jumped before it was born, then they would never know this child; if they were still here when they had the baby, then unlike their other two children, there was no hope of ever getting he or she back or seeing them again. No matter how they sliced it, Steve and Kayla had created a baby that they were not going to get to keep. They had never felt more like puppets on a string. Not even when Steve was presumed dead on a hospital gurney being rolled to the morgue did he feel so utterly out of control.
Kayla made an appointment with Neil, picked up pre-natal vitamins, and immediately began eating (or trying to) and taking care of herself like pregnant women are supposed to … all while they prayed to jump while also hoping to God not to. Their hearts were just not in this, because both of them were terrified to let them be. They couldn’t bear the thought of never meeting this baby, but the thought of meeting it and leaving it was just as bad if not worse. They quarreled constantly, debated what should be done to prepare for the baby (or not prepare for it), and they were very quick to anger. The fear of the future was so intense in both of them that they’d begun building walls around their hearts to protect them from what lie ahead.
Those walls kept them at a distance from each other, as well, gathering their thoughts on their own. Steve started to feel immense guilt. Kayla’s warnings from when they first started jumping that they shouldn’t make love in a time they hadn’t originally weighed on him. It didn’t really fit the mold of this particular jump, but the concept of making huge changes made him really stop and think. They’d felt uneasy with themselves on their jumps at first. Was that like a built-in safeguard? No, it couldn’t be, because if it were it would have lasted on every single jump after the first few. Now it was all they could do to get their hands on each other every time they arrived somewhere new. They had never thought about the impact of having a child, of what it would mean to become pregnant on a jump with anyone other than the two children they already had. But the thought of not making love with his wife for long periods of time was hard to take. They were still them, and if it was just the sex he could manage that, but it was about so much more than that. Physical distance was not the answer for them, it would only hurt their marriage, yet now here they were bringing a baby into this futureless timeline.
Kayla knew her husband would be feeling guilty; it scared her. And every day they continued not touching each other, not being with each other, and not talking about it, it scared her more. Until finally she had feared that he not only blamed himself, but blamed her, too, and that he’d never figure out how to feel that being together would be safe. She was afraid that Steve would never make love to her again. Yet when they were together, she realized that she was just as afraid that he would. Kayla managed as well as she could with the morning sickness, which would get better then worse in frustrating yo-yo fashion, and Steve took care of her. They did not say anything to anyone other than Neil about the pregnancy.
Kayla worked at the Emergency Center, Steve managed a very tenuous working relationship with his brother on the Community Center, which Jack had agreed was a win-win for everyone, and they both lived in denial that they were really here, really pregnant, and really lost.
One day in early November, Kayla couldn’t take it anymore. She was feeling relatively well after a shower and no vomiting since early that morning, so she stomped down the stairs on Sunday afternoon and plopped down very purposely on the couch where Steve was watching a football game.
“Hey baby,” he said dully. Steve was not in good spirits. This was one of their distant moods, which didn’t make Kayla’s insecurity any better. “Remember the football strike?” Kayla didn’t answer, and Steve chose not to look into her eyes or that wall would start to crumble real quick. “Lots of Spare Bears left on the team. We’re barely gonna beat Green Bay.”
“We can’t be afraid of each other,” Kayla blurted. Steve stared. He knew exactly what she was trying to say, but he was too overwrought about it to allow himself to have given it any attention yet. The silence was only expanding, and it set Kayla’s teeth on edge. “Are you hearing me, Steve?” He nodded.
“I’m sitting right here, Kayla.” She could tell from his expression that he understood, though.
She stood up and started swaying back and forth nervously. “I’m scared that you’ll never make love to me again.” She didn’t have to explain why, and he didn’t have to confirm it for her. “Are you?” she asked anyway.
“Why do you think that?” he asked guardedly.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“That I’m wrong!”
“Well, I don’t know what the right answer is. Ok? I don’t! You think I don’t know you’re scared, I can see that you are. I am, too, I’m just as scared as you are! ‘Cause, baby, I need you! I need to be with you, and I don’t think I can stop myself from making love to you! But how can I let myself have you when I don’t know how to protect us from this! You took your pill, and I got you pregnant anyway!” Just then the Bears let a touchdown go, and it somehow caused Steve to erupt. “Go to hell for making me afraid to touch my own wife, whoever you f*cking are!” he screamed to the ceiling, “and you to go hell, too, Ditka, you’re calling one sh*t play after another!” Then he turned to his wife, who had gone completely white. “Now you lay down, Kayla,” he yelled as he slapped the back of the couch with his palms, knowing full well he’d lost control, “‘cause you look like you’re about to pass out!”
“Please just stop yelling,” she said weakly as she did as he asked. “I know you’e not yelling at me and that you’re just upset, because I’m upset, too, but … please … sto …” And with that Steve caught her just as she fainted onto the couch.
Steve knew this was the pregnancy, and he knew it was the far-more-than-just-in-the-morning sickenss, but seeing Kayla in any state of unconsciousness like this always set his worry off the deep end. He yelled her name over and over again as he arranged her with her head on the armrest then sat beside her. He kissed her cheeks and her lips as he pleaded with her to wak up, and when she didn’t come out of it easily he started to fret. Finally, he pinched her, because he refused to actually slap her beautiful face. That roused her. She immediately turned green even as he sighed in relief. “You need to throw up?” he asked with deep concern and a bit of a leftover edge.
“No, I need to eat something,” she replied apologetically. She hated fainting, and she knew how worried it made Steve. Rather than get up and get her the saltines she’d been having some success keeping down, he stared down at her as he stroked a knuckle down her face.
“I’m sorry I lost my temper at you. You know I love you, don’t you, Kayla? I tell you every day, we tell each other. But … I need you to believe it.”
Kayla nodded. “I know,” she said. She reached up and stroked his face, too. Steve kissed her fingertips, then got up to get the crackers. Dairy was out, she wouldn’t go near anything that once had a mother, but eggs seemed ok, and saltines usually worked.
“This is no good, baby,” he said on his way back to the couch where Kayla’s arm was now draped over her eyes. This morning sickness was really kicking her ass. “We’re unraveling, here, yelling at each other. We can’t do this.”
“I know we can’t, that’s why I’m so scared, because we are doing it.”
Steve nodded. “I know.” Kayla pulled herself up to sit against the arm rest with her legs out in front of her, and Steve sat beside her.
“Steve, we’re braver than this. I know we are.” She took the sleeve of saltines and began eating them one at a time. She was starving.
“Thank God you’re eating.”
“It’s not like I’m not trying, everything’s disgusting.” She swallowed the cracker and washed it down with the iced tea Steve had poured her. Then she rubbed his thigh softly. “Steve, I know we’re scared, but we can’t be scared of each other. It’s bad for us. I feel … I feel scared of … of how you feel.”
Steve looked away from her. “I’m afraid you blame me.”
“No,” she insisted calmly. “It takes two of us, and how could I blame you for loving me. For showing me how much you love me?” He nodded solemnly. “Do you blame me?”
Now he looked her right in the eye and shook his head. “Right about now, you were getting sick with the atropine, and Mama thought you might be pregnant. Do you know how much I wanted it to be true? I was layin’ on my bed, playin’ some sad song on my harp, and I pretended you were laying next to me, really pregnant, eating ice cream.” Kayla laughed. “I wanted it so bad.”
“Steve,” Kayla whispered lovingly.
“I still want it. The part of me that forgets that we have a life in 2009 and that this isn’t going to last; that part of me wants it so bad that I hurt, Kayla. He gently rubbed Kayla’s belly. “Courage, Sweetness.” He signed “courage” then rubbed her belly again. “This is bad, I know. But the baby is good.”
“Of course, the baby is good.”
“We’ve gotta just live this life, right?”
“Are you convincing me or yourself?”
“Both, Sweetness. Steve’s mouth suddenly went dry. “I want this baby,” he rasped, losing the war with the lump in his throat.
“So do I.”
“But I already hurt real bad, Kayla. Because I love her.” Steve’s voice broke. “I’m already having a hard time. Because I love her, baby.”
Watching her husband become so emotional about his baby caused tears to flood Kayla’s vision. She blinked them down her cheeks. “Her?”
Steve nodded. “It’s a girl.”
“From … the dreams? You can’t know that for sure,” she huffed out a light chuckle.”
“I know.” Steve nodded and dragged the heel of his palm over his right eye. “I know it in my gut, that’s my littlest Sweetness you’ve got in there. I’m gonna talk to her every day like her brother and sister. Every day we’re here.” They kissed and held each other closely, and they finally really cried. They comforted each other with their words, then their lips, then their bodies, and their lovemaking was as gentle on this day as it had been the day this baby had started growing.
From there on out they started facing it all a little more head-on, and they did it together. That did not make the reality any easier, and finding happiness was incredibly hard. But they didn’t turn from each other. Kayla was right, they were braver than that, and they had to go where this jump took them. So, they accepted that this was how it was, now, and chose to live. Because there was no real alternative, anyway. They decided to wait until the 20-week ultrasound to announce it, but Kayla’s weight was decreasing as her tummy was increasing, and it was getting harder to hide. So they told their family, and the two people who fell all over themselves the most were Adrienne, which was not a shock, and Kimberly, which kind of was. Kim had a lot going on with Shane’s daughter he had no idea existed, Eve, coming into her life, so she was overjoyed at this most beautiful distraction to be pregnant at the same time as her baby sister. As for Adrienne, she rarely needed a reason to be overjoyed if Steve was even just in the room, so this was like Christmas every time she saw him. Her big brother was having a baby, and she just couldn’t wait to be that baby’s aunt. There was happiness to be had, here, they didn’t even have to try hard to find it. But they did have to try hard to keep it when they’d inevitably remember that their presence here was so cruelly temporary.
To make things worse, Kayla had to be hospitalized due to the hyperemesis that she’d diagnosed herself with. She tried to treat herself for the extreme form of morning sickness and was doing a pretty good job, but in her 15th week she’d become so severely dehydrated that there was no choice but to receive intraveneous fluids. Unfortunately, that corresponded exactly with Adrienne’s wedding, and upon hearing this Adrienne just about died. She tried really hard to be a grown-up about it, but to not have her big bother there when she needed him most, beause she was completely freaking out over whether she should become a Kiriakis or not (and honestly, in retrospect, Steve wasn’t sure how Justin coped) was more than she could take. Kayla insisted that Steve go, but to say that that did not sit well with him was an understatement. They had a seriously major fight over it, because of all the times to be separated, this was not it. But Kayla didn’t want him to miss it. She joked that she was obviously not destined to go to Adrienne’s wedding, but Steve was pissed that she was joking at all.
“How can you be so cavalier about this?!” Steve spat.
“I’m being practical. We can’t control the jumps anyway, so what does it matter?!”
“It matters!”
“Adrienne needs you, Steve.”
“And you don’t, I get it.”
“I never said I don’t need you! But I won’t be having any babies before you get home. I can manage while you’re in Greece for a few days for your sister that needs you,” she insisted.
“So, like I said, you don’t.” He was letting his anxiety run away with him.
“Stop it!”
“You stop it!”
“Not sure if you two are aware of it, but you’re in a hospital, so I think you’d both better stop it.” Steve and Kayla stared at the owner of this third voice, and both of them were stunned. “Sorry to barge in on you, but I could hear you both hollering all the way down the hall, so you need to knock it … off … The owner of the voice suddenly dropped his scowl when he saw the man staring back at him slack-jawed. “Steve?”
“Marcus!” both Steve and Kayla said, having an amusing stereo effect that made him grin with a confusion as to how the very pale woman in the bed knew him. “Baby,” Steve continued, “I forgot!”
“Me, too,” she almost squealed as she squeezed Steve’s hand, so happy that her husband was going to have him.
Steve smiled broadly for the first time in weeks and met his friend in a giant bear hug. Marcus returned it in equal measure, smiling just as broadly over his shoulder at Kayla, whom was smiling so warmly at him that it felt like he’d known her for years. He decided he liked her immediately.
“How you doin’ man?” Steve said clapping him heartily on the back. “My friend, Doctor Marcus Hunter.”
“Yeah, med school graduate and everything,” he gloated as he pulled smartly on his lapels.
“Yeah, I know, I see the little white coat.”
“Glad to know nothing’s wrong with your other eye, there,” Marcus said clearly questioning what the patch was all about.
“Maybe you two should catch up,” Kayla said with her own genuine smile. It felt good to smile, and seeing him was like a breath of fresh air that they both needed.
Marcus took, a step back and placed his hands on his hips. He leaned forward, his stethoscope dangling a bit. “And who’s this beautiful woman you’re harrassin’ in here? I can’t imagine you’re any friend of this guy.”
Steve and Kayla dropped their argument immediately, and their smiles only widened. Steve went to sit beside her on the bed, and she scooted over to make room for him. She leaned against him as he put his arm around her.
“Definitely not a friend. This is my wife, homey. Kayla.”
“No! Are you kiddin’ me, man? Married? So, you’re the one keeping homey out of trouble, now?”
“Yep, that would be me,” she said, but both of them deflated a little at the trouble they were feeling.
“Ok, now just how did you get this beautiful woman to marry your ugly mug—”
“Oh, come on, we both know you’re the ugly one.”
“—and what is it that’s got that pretty head of hers landed in that hospital bed?”
Here Steve faltered. Marcus caught it but pretended not to notice that something heavy was happening. “Well, we’re havin’ a baby,” Steve said, and his voice was distinctly not right in Kayla’s ears as he tried to control what he was putting out there for Marcus. Kayla squeezed his hand, again, and he squeezed back in acknowledgment of her silent support.
Marcus’s dark eyes sparkled as he gave an impressed smile. “Steve Johnson, I never thought I’d live to see the day! Congratulations, man,” he said with real warmth.
“Thanks, Homey. But Kayla here’s real sick.”
“Hyperemesis,” she clarified.
“Ooh, damn. I’m sorry to hear that. How far along?”
“Fifteen weeks.”
“Mind if I have a look at your chart?” Kayla preferred to just tell him as a doctor exactly what he wanted to know, but she kept quiet and told him to knock himself out. “Yeah, treatment looks right. How much weight have you lost?”
“Six pounds.”
“That’s too much.”
“I know. Hard to put on weight when you throw everything up.”
“You know, they just released a new drug that –”
“No.” Kayla knew exactly the drug that Marcus was going to recommend, and it had been recalled years ago. “Thank you, but, I, ah, just don’t want to take anything. So I’m using ginger.” Marcus smiled kindly. She knew that smile; it was the one all doctors gave to their patients when they went off-grid from the mainstream recommendation. “It’s actually helping a lot, I haven’t lost any more weight since I’ve been on the IV fluids.”
“Ok, so … you wanna tell me what that tale of woe was all about a minute ago?”
Steve crossed his arms. “Just a little disgreement.”
“Steve disagreed with someone? Well, it’s good to know that some things don’t change.”
“You getting fresh, Marcus? Come here, you idiot.”
“Don’t you idiot me.” But he walked up to Steve, who stood up. Kayla smiled when they slapped their hands together in a cross between a high five and smackdown. “Womb!” *smack* *smack* *smack* “To tomb!” *smack* *smack* *smack* *SMACK*
“Doesn’t that hurt?” Kayla asked as she cringed on the crack of the final high five.
“Naw,” Steve insisted as he flexed his fingers through the pain he insisted wasn’t there. She rolled her eyes, but she was really happy to see the effect the ritual had on her husband.
Marcus shifted to business face so smoothly that it was imperceptible. “You two really do need to take it down a notch, ok? The nurses are starting to talk.”
“Marcus, I don’t have time for one of your speeches, I’ve got a plane to catch tonight if my wife, here, makes me go. Which I’m not.”
“Yes, you are,” Kayla insisted. “His sister’s getting married in Greece, and he’s … worried about me.”
“Of course, he’s worried about you. Wait, his who is getting married in Greece?”
“I always hate this part,” Steve muttered under his breath, remembering that this was a Marcus whom this body’s Steve hadn’t seen in a whole lot of years. “I went and found myself a sister, he clarified, confusing his friend even more.
“I thought you had a kid brother.”
“That, too.” Steve made a sound like he has his work cut out for him.
“Steve and his mom reconnected recently. She had a daughter after … after you met Steve. Her name is Adrienne.” Marcus nodded understanding now. There was a lot going on this with old friend of his. “I think Steve should go and be there for his sister.”
“Well, I can certainly see why he doesn’t want to do that.”
“Marcus, nothing’s going to happen, I’m in a hospital.”
“By herself, man! Our whole families are going to the wedding, too, someone has to be here with her.”
“Maybe I want to be by myself?” Steve gave her a “spare me” look, so Kayla tried to be very serious. “Steve, I promise you we’ll be ok.” It was the first time she’d referenced the baby this way, and Steve’s heart raced when she did. His resolve to be stoic cracked slightly. “We both know that your sister is going to really need you. If you don’t go, this may not happen the way it’s supposed to. And it is supposed to.”
The stress plaguing Steve really came through when he replied. “If it changes it does, Kayla. It won’t be the first thing to change.”
“Please, Steve? We can’t stop living. Your sister needs you. We need you, too, but we’ll be here when you get back. Whenever that is,” she said more breathily than she intended. She realized the error of that statement, however, just as Steve did, and the pain was clear in his eye. Kayla might be there whenever, but there was only one whenever for this baby, and that was here. “We can’t be held hostage by fear. We, will both be here,” Kayla emphasized both words, “when you get back.”
Marcus watched this exchange with curious interest. They seemed to be saying things that only they understood, and he got the distinct impression that they were very aware of the exact words they were using and that they were doing so because of him. It was completely bizarre to him, but for some reason it didn’t really faze him. In fact, it was as if all the years hadn’t gone by without having seen Steve. And looking at Kayla, he felt a strange sense that he had known her for years not minutes. So, he didn’t feel that odd when he said his next words.
“Ya know, guys, I’m the new boy in town, so I’ve got to be getting’ along here, but I don’t mind looking in on you while Steve’s away. If, ya know, you don’t mind.”
“We don’t mind!” they both said in chorus. “That would work, wouldn’t it, Steve?” Kayla continued. “I mean—I’d love to get to know you better.”
“Yeah, uh, that would be great, Homey.”
“So, you’ll go to Greece?” Kayla said hopefully, realizing Steve’s shift in attitude.
The corner of Steve’s mouth tilted up. “Maybe.” Then he kissed her forehead. “So, you got plans?” he asked Marcus.
“Plans? I’ve been in town a week, and still have boxes to unpack. I don’t know a soul, man, you’re my first friends.” He looked at his watch. “Damn, I’ve gotta go. Listen, no more screaming matches. Steve, can I drive you to the airport, we can catch up in the car? When’s your flight?” They made the arrangements, and Marcus was about to step out when Steve called out to him.
“Hey Homey!”
“Yeah, man,” he said poking his head back in the door.
Steve felt a sudden rush of nostalgia. His friend was dead when he came back into himself, and he had never really gotten over it. He felt the lump in his throat but fought it. “I’m glad you’re gonna be around now.”
“Me, too,” Marcus smiled. “Me, too.”
When he left, Steve let out a small sound somewhere between anguish and happiness. Kayla rubbed his back with her palm as he took a deep breath. So, it was decided, Steve would be going to his sister’s wedding … but he was anxious about it, even with Marcus being there. Steve kicked off his shoes and got all the way into the bed with her, then held her close.
“Sweetness, I’m scared to leave. I really am.”
“I know. I’m scared, too. Then she made the sign for courage with the free hand that Steve wasn’t holding against his face. “I … I think I’m more scared of not living like normal people than I am of … what we’re protecting ourselves from. Or of being that far apart. I just think it’s important that we engage. With others. Or we might lose ourselves.”
Steve nodded. “I’m real happy to see Marcus, baby.
“I am, too. He’s the kind of friend that you really need right now. With Bo going back to the boat, I think he’s the best thing that could have happened. There was never a time you couldn’t be yourself with him. I think this constant state of having to be on for everyone, pretending, is hard. With Marcus, you can be you. You need to be you, Steve.”
“Well, I can’t be completely me.”
“Why not?”
“What, I’m gonna tell him, dude, I’m a time traveler, let’s get a beer?”
Kayla really laughed at that. It sounded so good to Steve, that his heart swelled. He gathered her into a kiss, and she kissed him back. The smile on her face was real, and for a little while their hearts were light. Marcus was here, and they felt like an ally was there for them.
“Oh, baby … baby, baby, baby … are you sure I should go?”
Kayla shook her head. “I won’t lie to you, I’m not sure. I’m not sure you should or shouldn’t do anything. The only thing I’m sure of is that I love you – and I love her,” Kayla said as she placed her hand over Steve’s. “We need to live. What we were doing last week and the week before that was not working. We need each other, and we need our family and friends, and we need to live.” Steve turned his head against the back of the bed to look at her as he rubbed her belly. “Marcus will be with me. It’ll be ok.”
“You promise?”
Kayla let out a bit of a snort. “No,” she laughed.
“Great, I feel much better now.”
Steve was only away for three days, but he hated every minute of it. Not just because he was away from Kayla, but because his mother and sister were driving him nuts. He remembered Adrienne being scared and needing a lot of reassurance, but he had forgotten how insane it really was. It was one fire after another Jo kept calling upon him to put out with Adrienne’s unbelievable amount of anxiety. First she wanted to talk to him, then she disappeared, then she wanted Justin, then she didn’t, and Jo’s dramatics were killing him.
“Jesus Christ, Mama, would you just lay off of her?! I know she’s freaking out, but she’ll be there, I’ll get her down the aisle, just let me handle it, I know what to do!”
“I sure hope so, son, I sure do hope so!”
Steve called Kayla every day to make sure she was still there and that she and the baby were still ok. He only spent five minutes each time to avoid racking up serious phone charges and pined for his cell phone where there was no such thing as long distance.
Kayla spent two of those days in the hospital getting hydration, food, medication, and Marcus’s time every day at lunch and dinner, the latter always lasting a couple hours. Kayla learned all the things she already knew about him, and he learned all the things this version of him had yet to find out. He tried again on this ginger regimen she’d been using to fight the nausea, but she wasn’t budging, so he pushed her a little, asking her why she didn’t trust the drugs. She insisted that it wasn’t a matter of trust, she just wanted the a more natural approach and to give the ginger a chance. He let it go, mostly, but he did notice that she knew her medicine – more than your average nurse practitioner. Kayla noticed that he noticed, and because she was tired of constantly hiding, she didn’t do anything to dissuade him from the clear speculation that she knew more than she let on. She didn’t actively tell him about the drug being pulled years from now, however, she drew the line at that. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to save the pregnancies out there that would have complications with this drug, she just knew that communicating this would make no difference. She was one nurse, he was one doctor, neither of them were connected to the pharmaceutical company, and explaining her knowledge was going to be messy. It did occur to her, however, not for the first time, that something she could do was lay the groundwork for Marcus to discover the connective tissue disorder he had that was there right now, laying in wait to cause his death. It wouldn’t bring him back in 2009, but she loved Marcus like family. He was family. And if she could save any Marcus, then she wanted to do it. Worry about making any more sweeping changes kept her actions at bay, however.
By the time Kayla was released the hydration had balanced her significantly, her blood pressure was normal, and she was feeling a lot better. She’d held down all her meals, and while most food was still disgusting, she was starving all the time, and she managed to not only eat but keep it in. They were eating lunch at Shenanigans before she went in to the Emergency Center for a few short hours to ease herself back into work. It was easy, comfortable conversation; in fact, the two of them had bonded so fast that Marcus joked that they must have been brother and sister in a former life. Kayla loved that and figured that for all she knew he might be right.
“Marcus, do you believe in former lives? Reincarnation? Stuff like that?”
“Stuff like that? Like funky, weird stuff?”
“I guess,” she laughed, “yeah, funky, weird stuff.”
“I guess I never thought about it, really.” He tilted his head in silent thought for a moment then gave her a crooked smile. “We’re people of medicine. We don’t think that way.”
“There are alternative medicines,” she reminded him, though it was clear he didn’t need reminding. “I don’t mean acupuncture and herbs, though, I’m talking about theoretical sciences that most people consider science fiction. Like what you just said about a past life. Maybe we just keep recycling, like in Defending Your Life.”
“Defending it to who?” Marcus asked completed intrigued by this line of questioning.
“You know the movie with Meryl Streep.”
“I don’t think I know that one.”
Uh oh. Maybe it hasn’t come out yet. In fact, it hadn’t, and if Steve had been there he’d have been chastising her about watching her anachronisms, so Kayla moved on quickly just in case. “I mean, don’t you think there are things that we don’t have any real concept of? Things we wouldn’t understand because our—paradigm is just not set for it?”
“Our paradigm’s just not set for it,” he repeated without a shred of sarcasm. “Kayla, you are a fascinating woman. Do go on, and when we’re done I want you to tell me if you have a sister.”
Kayla grinned. “Like … ok, let’s start small. What if I told you you could … she looked around and found thee was a menu on the table next to her. She grabbed it and gave it to Marcus. “Ok, what if you could just touch the word “patty melt,” and the word would disappear and in its place would be a picture of a patty melt.”
“Touch it on the menu?”
“Right, you’d just touch it with your finger, and it would transform.”
“How?”
Kayla narrowed her eyes for just a moment, but decided to go on. “Well, what if the menu were, I dunno, a mini-computer? And instead of a regular screen it was a touch screen, and it would react to fingertips.”
“Hell of a tiny computer, there, don’t you think?”
Kayla rolled her eyes. “Ugh, that’s not the point! Can you kind of imagine it? In your head, I mean, could you hear that they were coming out with that and not think it must be sorcery?”
“Well, yeah, sure. I guess … Maybe I can see that maybe happening in 50 years or something.”
“That’s because you know what a computer is. Now what if you tried to explain that to someone when Christopher Columbus sailed away from Spain? Or even hundreds of years later when they were sure another town with our name was filled with witches? They had no concept, nothing to compare it to at all. It was heresey. Right?”
“You know I believe in computers, right?” Kayla fixed him with the same look of annoyance that she did her brother, Bo, any number of times in their childhood, then went on with a warning look to can it. Which he did as he sniggered at his end of the table.
“So what if reincarnation and psychic abilities and, ah, time travel, and –”
“Funky, weird stuff.”
“—funky, weird stuff is as real as this menu is, we just don’t understand it yet?”
“Yeah, ok, so you’re saying if someone drove a car through the Crusades—”
“Then talk about heresy!”
They both laughed, and then Marcus looked confused. “Wait, what was the question?”
“Do you believe in any of that stuff? You started it with the past lives talk.”
Marcus gave it real thought. “Yeah, ok, I concede that there is probably technology out there that humans haven’t tapped yet. And I’m definitely down for ESP. Medically, scientifically, we don’t know what most of the brain does, you know that, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there are abilities we’ve barely begun to unlock. So, sure. That something you dabble in, funky, weird stuff?”
“Just interesting food for thought,” she smiled.
“Ok, then go ahead and mark me down in the yes column on that. Not so sure about time travel, though.” Kayla’s eyes flashed involuntarily, and Marcus caught it.
“Don’t tell me,” he deadpanned, “you’re from the future.”
Kayla choked on her chicken soup.
Kayla worked on just a few patients at the Emergency Center that third day and had tired very quickly. She realized she’d probably done too much too soon, but she had to get out of that hospital room and out of the loft, too, she was going stir crazy. But even with the fatigue, it felt good to work. It felt good to have the distraction and feel a sense of accomplishment with what she was doing. She needed that purpose, because it was getting hard to draw her thoughts away from the baby. It was hard enough to fight the heightened emotions the jumps produced, now she also had hormones to deal with, on top of the pain. She wanted to choose the happiness, but it was still too tall an order.
But then, just as she was about to leave with Marcus to pick up Steve from the airport Kayla felt the baby move. If it had been her first pregnancy she would have dismissed it as gas or just a gentle muscle spasm. But she was at the beginning of her 16th week now, and knew instantly that the little whispers that felt like tiny bubbles popping in her tummy were the movements of her baby. She froze in her place catching her breath in her throat, and Marcus asked if she was ok. A rush of guilt fell upon her like a shroud that Steve was not there. She wanted to share this with him, not tell him about it later. Now she wished he hadn’t gone, after all. This one small thing was enough to make her kick herself for letting him go. Now she reached for the happiness without making a conscious effort to do so, only it was dampened by the intense stab of despondency that Steve wasn’t there. Every moment of this pregnancy was precious like no other, and that he wasn’t here slayed her. She tried to buck up, tell herself she was being emotional and stupid, and convince Marcus that she was fine. But she knew that he knew she was lying. Despite her best efforts, her eyes filled uncontrollably with tears. Not just because Steve wasn’t there to share this moment, but because the emotional connection she had to the little baby growing inside her was intense. She saw her baby floating peacefully in her mind’s eye, and she knew with every shred of her being that it was the fair-skinned, red-headed baby girl she’d seen in her dreams. Kayla felt those movements … and she longed to love her baby. She wanted to place her hand maternally on her belly. But she didn’t, because she didn’t want to betray anything that was happening inside her so that Marcus would guess. Steve had to know that she felt the baby move before another living soul did.
“I’m fine, really, just got a little nauseous,” she lied. And Marcus let her. Didn’t push. Kayla stepped outside of herself for that moment, so piqued by the fact that their friendship was close enough in such an instant that he knew when to push and when not to. Again, she insisted she was just fine, and Marcus dropped it.
“Just promise me you’re not gonna toss your cookies in my car. Mercedes cost a pretty penny to detail.”
“Ok, no cookie-tossing, I promise.” And as it happened they arrived to the airport with no issues.
Kayla and Marcus were waiting for Steve (at the gate!) when he walked into the terminal from the jetway. She was so happy to see her husband that she ran into his arms. He caught her and held her against him, the baby very solidly between them. “I missed you!” she said. That’s when she let the tears go. He wasn’t even out of the way of the other travelers yet.
“Sweetness? You ok, baby?” he asked with unconcealed concern. He looked to Marcus for an explanation, but he just shrugged.
“They released her. Ate lunch and everything,” Marcus insisted.
“Fine,” Kayla said as she inhaled him, which made Steve go weak, “I’m fine … hormones,” she laughed into his shirt. He smelled so good. “Happy to see you.” Kayla held him tightly, and he held her back.
“You’re both ok?” he whispered, inching out of the line of foot traffic.
“Yeah.” It came out muffled against his chest, but he heard it.
Marcus started feeling a whole lot like a third wheel and gave Steve a look that said to take his time and that he’d be waiting for them at the gate across the hallway. Steve nodded and mouthed his thanks.
“How you feelin’, baby?”
“Good,” she said. “I worked today.”
“You shouldn’t have done that, that explains things.”
“No, it was good, I need to work. I just … I’m sorry I made you go to the wedding.” She got teary again and silently cursed her inability to keep it together. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, you were right, it was the right thing to do. Baby, why are you sorry?” He still had her around the waist and now brushed the hair out of her face. “Did something happen?” he asked calmly but with real worry. Steve sensed that it had and got a look in his eye as he tipped her chin up to meet his eye. “Tell me, Kayla.”
“The baby moved,” she whispered. “I felt the baby move without you. And I feel … I’m so upset. I can’t take it.” Steve’s heart dropped into his stomach at hearing this. He had no words to explain the emotion he was feeling, it was a kind of homesickness. Like a pleasantly warm kind of unbearable sadness. “No one knows, it just happened before we left to come get you. But she’s moving. I feel her, Steve. I want her.” Steve held his wife’s head against his chest as he fought the sting in his own eye.
“I want her, too, Sweetness,” Steve whispered. “I do, too.” Steve let Kayla get control of her tears, then he dropped into a chair so he was facing her baby bump. He rubbed it with both hands, and then placed a kiss on it through her sweater. “I love you,” he whispered to his baby.
They calmed down, and Steve greeted Marcus with their womb-to-tomb high-five, and he thanked his friend for being there.
“Any time, man, takin’ care of these two beats trying to hold an intelligent conversation with you.” Steve loved the banter. It was similar to the banter he had with Bo, but not quite the same. It was a game with Bo, but with Marcus it was more like whatever insults they hurled at each other were clearly meant as the opposite. They thought the world of each other, and the years and distance did nothing to diminish it.
They went back to Marcus’s house and shared intelligent conversation, anyway, and when they got back to the loft, they were relieved. Steve had successfully gone and come back, no one had jumped, and Kayla’s health had stabilized. And it was about time, too, because Kayla was getting really sick of hospitalizations being part of every one of their jumps.
When they undressed for the night, Steve caught sight of his wife and did a double take. When had her belly grown? It was only three days, where did this much bigger bump come from?
“Baby, I think you popped while I was gone.” He didn’t notice the pink flood into Kayla’s cheeks, because all he could see was the beauty of her protruding tummy. Kayla stood before him in a bra that didn’t fit anymore, and underwear that came up just under the swell of her belly. Steve couldn’t tear his eye away as it glistened with intensity. Suddenly Kayla made a little sound and covered the bump with her palm. “She’s moving!”
Steve fell to his knees in a kind of a slide across the floor, and his hands were instantly on his baby. Then he frowned. “I don’t feel anything.” She repositioned his hands and cued him when she felt the popping bubbles, but he wasn’t feeling it. Three times she felt the bubbles on the right side more than the left, and three times Steve pursed his lips in disappointment. Finally on the fourth try, Steve felt the mild flutter beneath his palm. He knew that feeling, and he was overwhelmed with joy. They would crash into sadness many times more after this night, but for now, the happiness made them glow.
“That’s our baby, Sweetness,” Steve said with warmth and awe.
“Yes it is,” she smiled sadly as Steve continued to rub.
“I love you, Sweetness.”
“I love you, too. She’s here because we love each other.” Steve nodded and felt the warmth of her skin beneath his palm. “Show me,” Kayla whispered. “Show me you love me, Steve.”
Kayla fell to her knees, too, and their lips met in a kiss so needy it swept through them like wildfire. Their tongues fought for control, and soon they were naked on the floor. Steve knew sex was not going to hurt the baby, but he hesitated, anyway.
“You sure you feel ok?”
Kayla smiled. “I’ll feel even better once you’re inside me. I need to feel you, Steve.”
There was little foreplay, Steve needed to feel her surround him as much as she needed to have him fill her. So, Steve swept Kayla up on top of him as he sat on the floor and moaned his intense pleasure when she lowered herself on to him. He lathed her nipples with his tongue, and she cried out hotly. Kayla nipped at his earlobe, then she moved her way down to his neck as she continued to glide over his penis. It wasn’t taking long for either of them, but they wanted to make it last, so they slowed down. Kayla could have taken the pleasure a bit longer, but Steve was about ready to explode and couldn’t go another minute.
“I’m coming, Sweetness! I want you to watch me come, watch how much I love you!” Kayla sped up her movements, and Steve exploded inside of her, his grunts of pleasure causing him to blink with each one. Kayla watched her husband’s face become a mask of coital bliss, and she had a small orgasm as the last of his ended. She gasped and contracted around Steve’s penis, then she laid her head on his shoulder and placed repeated kisses on his neck.
“That wasn’t much of one for you, was it, baby?”
“I don’t need the earth to move every time,” Kayla said genuinely.
“I want it to move,” he jibed, but Kayla shook her head.
“I was holding back, I don’t really know why, because I know it won’t hurt the baby. I think I’m just … scared. All the time. That one wasn’t about the orgasm, anyway, I just had to have you inside me. I feel safe when we make love. I feel loved – that’s what’s supposed to happen when we make love. So, I feel good.”
Steve took a deep breath before Kayla moved off of him and shifted to lay against his chest. “Sweetness, I’m not gonna lie, this is tough for me. I’m tryin’ not to be miserable. But if you can’t feel my love unless I’m inside you, then that’s a problem.”
“I didn’t say that. I just mean that … I’m insecure right now. I needed you.” Steve nodded and stroked her hair.
“You should feel loved by me all the time, Kayla.”
“I do,” she assured him. She leaned up to gently kiss his lips. “That’s not what I meant.” Steve held her tightly and felt a quick surge of euphoria as his wife burrowed her head into his neck. “Besides, I had a little orgasm.”
“I thought we said no little ones were allowed.”
“Well, one snuck in, apparently.”
Steve turned on his stomach and faced the baby protruding from Kayla’s middle, and she couldn’t resist the urge to place a loving little smack on his ass. “Hey!” Steve balked, “I’m trying to talk to our baby, here!”
Kayla giggled and Steve proceeded to have what was, surely, a one-way conversation. They smiled and laughed as they shared this moment with this baby that they’d never met and found happiness in doing so. In this moment, and in the many moments during the months that followed, they stared the backdrop of misery in the face and chose happiness as often as they could. Living was the only choice they had, so that’s what they did. It was hard, and some times were harder to barrel through than others. So they took it one day at a time, chose happiness whenever they had the strength to do it, and sank deeper and deeper into the point of no emotional return.