Logan was about ready to turn her over his knee. The ride to the tiny clinic had been a circus. His jaw ached from clenching it, and Ororo's eyes were icy blue chips every time they made contact.
She sat beside him, stiff as a board and occasionally fanning herself. Pregnancy turned her body into a space heater, and she complained - not necessarily to him, yet, but to the front receptionist - about hot flashes that seemed to come out of nowhere. Logan's questions about her condition yielded terse answers and deep sighs, and it was driving him batshit-crazy. Logan was grateful that it was almost summer, and that he could get away with leaving his suit jacket back at the office. The subway was packed, and the passenger on his other side easily weighed in around four hundred pounds, taking up two seats and leaving him crammed up against Ororo, something he wouldn't have minded a couple of months ago. For the most part, he still didn't mind, but he felt her tension every time they occupied the same space. It was impossible not to occupy it at the moment. To her credit, she smelled nice; whatever hair product she used tickled his nostrils, and the curling white strands brushed his shoulder.
"Damn it," she muttered.
"Whatsamatter?"
"The car's rocking too much," she complained. "Stomach's not happy." He winced. The train rumbled through the tunnel, and the corridors myriad lamps threw patches of light over her face, showing him her slightly greenish pallor. He frowned.
"How unhappy are we talkin' here, darlin'?"
"I need air. Soon." Her voice sounded tight, and his hand gently, gingerly covered hers.
"Breathe through yer nose," he suggested. Logan suddenly remembered his laptop carryall, tugging it onto his lap. He unzipped it and rummaged around inside, grumbling under his breath. Ororo shot him an evil look as he accidentally jostled her with his efforts; Big n' Cuddly on his other side looked almost as annoyed, but his hand found the crinkle of a foil and paper-wrapped packet. He extracted a pack of Trident, and Ororo held open her palm. She looked miserable; he juggled his case and opened a piece of the gum, tucking it into her hand. She popped it into her mouth, giving it a few cautious chews and breathing slowly through her nose, slowly mastering her nausea and fighting down the growing taste of bile.
"You did this to me," she accused on a low hiss.
"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled back. "Ain't gonna forget it, Tory." Didn't hear ya complainin' at the time. Logan scrubbed his hand over his face and inwardly raged in helplessness. He reminded himself of all the ribbing he'd subjected his brother John to whenever Rose was expecting, and it had come back to bite his ass. Spectacularly.
When his Outlook reminder chimed at him onscreen, Logan logged off with equal amounts of trepidation and excitement for the appointment. Ororo was still side-stepping him in corridors, break rooms and meetings, and it was pissing him off. Their little, impromptu "meeting" in her office hadn't broken much ice between them, but Logan knew they had to take baby steps. Whether she liked it or not, and call him a stubborn bastard, her life was about to become their life. Logan sighed. He'd never been one for subtlety. If he chased her and barged back into her town, it was only because he was tired of twiddling his thumbs.
*
When he arrived at her office, she already had her purse over her shoulder and was locking her door. She pinned him with an impatient look. "We need to hurry," she nagged.
"We're catching the red line to Cambridge."
"I had to send Scott the benefit summary before I left, so he could give it to Installation." He fell in step with her long, angry gait, listening to her pumps click against the tile.
"She's hard to book an appointment with," Ororo explained.
"Work's work, but this is important."
"I never said it wasn't," he shot back. He punched the elevator button on a low growl.
It was going to be one of those days. Once the elevator dinged and opened on their floor, Ororo dug into her purse for some saltines. "Whatsamatter? You feeling queasy, darlin'?"
"Don't talk about it. That just makes it worse," she told him sourly as she crammed one of the bland, dry things into her mouth. Logan's own mouth felt dry and pasty, watching her. They emerged in the lobby and joined the bustle of foot traffic, making a beeline for the subway tunnel. Logan mused to himself that the token vendors in their glassed in booths were just as hostile in New York as they were in Boston as his change was shoved back at him through the slot, making him scramble to gather up the coins. they huddled closely on the platform, grimacing at the stale odors and noisy clatter of the rails as the Hudson Avenue Northbound pulled out.
They bickered as they waited for their train, and he hovered over her protectively, practically snarling at anyone who jostled her in the crowd. Logan was in a mood. For the briefest of moments, he felt her hand tuck itself under his arm. His tension and frustration dwindled with the contact; he drew her close, looping her arm through the crook of his. When the red line arrived, they bustled inside, rushing for a seat close to the door.
*
He felt her hand gently cover his, squeezing his fingers.
"This is our stop."
"How much farther is it?"
"Just a few blocks."
They spilled out of the train car with the rest of the crowd, and Ororo shuddered in relief to be out of its close confines. Logan heard her exhaling slow, even breaths alternating with rough chews of the minty gum as they pushed their way through the turnstiles. He had to double his pace to keep up with her as the walked up the moving escalator. "Y'alright?" he pressed.
"Ugh," she told him. "Hate the subway, even on the best of days, but today... Everything's too close, too stuffy, too loud..." She ceased her litany of complaints as they reached the street and what passed for fresh air.
"Smell got to ya, didn't it?"
"Every smell gets to me," she confessed. "Might want to ease up on the cologne, just a tad..."
He'd come to her rescue with the gum, only to become Public Enemy Number One with his aftershave. He couldn't win. He fell in step with her and instinctively linked arms with her as they crossed the busy street. For an inkling, she remembered another brisk walk they took together on the way to the airport, on a warm, uncomplicated day. His grip on her was still protective; it walked the line of being affectionate. Her mind swirled with questions and what-ifs as they neared the five-story brownstone. The last time she came there, she was with Victor, and her world was about to fall apart.
Pine-sol and cloves. The smell hit her as they entered the front lobby. The same ficus trees stood in their large, terra cotta pots. They crossed the same floor with the same flaw in the sedate gray tile. She recognized the framed print of a cowboy riding a wild bronco; the watercolor drip mark hadn't gone away since her last check-up. She gave the receptionist at the desk a noncommittal smile as she signed her sheet.
"Which floor is she on?" Logan asked.
"Third." Ororo led him to the elevator, and he pressed their floor then let his hand rest at the small of her back as the doors closed. Her sigh was heavy.
"All right?"
"Fine, I guess." She was more fidgety now than she'd been on the train.
"You guess." His brow furrowed, and she felt him tense.
"You'll tell me if anything's wrong, right? If ya feel a little off, or -" She held up her hand to deflect him, which earned her a look of annoyance.
"I won't keep anything a secret. Don't worry."
"Considering our track record, darlin,' don't blame me for asking." Her mouth dropped open, then shut, then opened again before she found words.
"Excuse me?" Ororo's hand went to her hip again, and he suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Barely. "Our... Our track record? Mind explaining what our track record includes that involves me not telling you what you need to know?"
"I need to explain it to you?" His voice reeked of snark. Her blue eyes narrowed.
"Explain." The word was a drop of poison.
But the elevator doors mercifully opened into a crowded hallway, and they wisely, silently proceeded toward the clinic suite. A gold name plaque read "Cecilia Reyes, OB/GYN" beside a door with slightly peeling wood veneer; Logan's first glance through the window pane yielded a pregnant woman wrangling a toddler from where she sat on a vinyl-upholstered seat. Ororo preceded him inside, and he still felt her pisstivity radiating around her as she approached the desk clerk, her insincere smile pasted onto her face.
"I think we're a teeny bit early to see Dr. Reyes. Ororo Munroe?"
"Okay!" The bubbly girl didn't look old enough for junior high per-algebra, and she cracked her gum at them as she handed Ororo the paperwork. "Take this clipboard and fill these out, and I'll copy your insurance card, unless it hasn't changed since the last time?"
"It hasn't," Ororo said tightly. The clerk prattled on aimlessly.
"It's been a while since we've seen you! Is all of your info the same?" She smiled up at Logan. "You're Victor?" They both chafed; Ororo smothered a sigh.
"Hell, no," Logan muttered. "We'll be over here filling out the papers, kid."
"That's fine!" She pointed in the direction of the back of the lobby. "There's a water cooler if you need a drink. Make yourselves comfy while we get an exam room ready. Dr. Reyes will see you shortly." They found two empty seats together by the large fish tank. Logan peered over her shoulder occasionally as she filled out the forms. "Forgot your middle name was Victoria."
"People don't slaughter it." Logan smirked.
"That bad?"
"It was worse as a kid. No one makes stuff with your name on it when you're an Ororo. Couldn't have just been a Cathy, a Heather, a Crystal or a Sue."
"You can't even count how many Jim's you've met in your lifetime."
"You go by Logan, though," she pointed out.
"Has more pizazz." Ororo smirked.
"Fair enough."
"Mom didn't hit the baby books. She went old school with me and my brother."
"Just one brother, right? What's his name again?"
"John."
"He go by anything else?"
"Nope." Ororo shrugged and went back to her paperwork. Logan reached for his phone and thumbed through it, then nudged her. "John's kids. They just had the baby." Her demeanor softened for the first time all morning as she took it from him.
"They remind me of you. Look at your niece's red hair."
"Rose is a ginger." Logan sighed. But Ororo just handed him back the phone, not digging any more deeply into the subtle shift in his mood.
"No redheads in my family."
"How about those blue eyes?"
"Hm? Oh. My mom said her grandmother was blue-eyed."
"Bet you were a cute baby." She peeked back at him, ignoring her forms again, but he went back to his phone, checking the Red Sox scores. It was too tempting to stare at her and inventory his favorite details, and she'd likely bite his head off. She made short work of the forms until the last sheet, which she handed to him.
"What am I doing with this, Tory?"
"Family history of any illnesses. You're the daddy. Mention everything you can think of." He sighed and took the pen.
"I'm healthy as a horse." He checked almost an entire column of no's. She peeked over his shoulder at the yes beside "heart disease."
"Your dad?" She inquired.
"Yeah." The next column was nearly as blank, until he reached "cancer."
"Who had it?"
"Mom. She's been gone about three years."
"I'm sorry that's something we have in common." She leaned against him slightly as he finished the sheet. The tension he'd been carrying in his neck and shoulders began to dissipate. "It's been a little longer than that for my dad. Mom was only fifty-five."
"Wow." He handed her back the sheet, and he felt a bit bereft when she got up and returned the form packet to the front desk. Before she could sit back down, Ororo saw a nurse in pink scrubs come into the lobby.
"Ororo Munroe? Come on back!" Logan joined her, despite her dubious look.
"You don't have to come for the exam."
"What am I gonna do, pick my nose and read an issue of Cosmo? Life? Newsweek?" Ororo sighed and rolled her eyes. Logan gathered both their belongings and they headed into the exam room that felt no bigger than a shoebox. She called Ororo back into the corridor and handed her a plastic cup with a white lid. "Before you get too comfy in there, go fill that to the line right there." She marked one of the measurement marks with a Sharpie. Ororo sighed.
"Oh, goodie." Logan snickered. "And so, it begins."
"Hey, we can tell a lot from your pee. You'll be doing a lot of that, anyway, right?"
"Ya've gotta talk about it?" Logan wrinkled his nose, and Ororo rolled her eyes before retreating to the small lavatory. Logan did reach for a magazine then, until the nurse nodded to his forms.
"Those all filled out?" Logan obediently went back to them, resuming the too-personal questionnaire with another sigh.
"Couldn't make these things any longer?" The RN smirked.
"I know. We like to be thorough. It was nice that you could come today." Logan didn't dignify that, giving her something between a nod and a shrug. "Would you like some water?"
"Sure." She filled him a paper cup from a filtered tap at the sink; it was dwarfed by his sturdy fingers. He tossed it back in a quick gulp, and she chucked it into the small kick bucket. "You look like you've had a long day already."
"Nope. Just peachy." She gave him a knowing nod.
"Anxious?"
"I'm not the one peeing in a cup." Before she could retort, Ororo came back and set the specimen on the counter. She glanced at Logan's expression and murmured, "What?"
"Nothing, darlin'."
"Let me check your vitals and weight." Ororo pouted, then nodded. Logan looked amused when she stepped out of her pumps and followed the nurse into the hall. She looked cute in her stocking feet, padding over the carpeting, and it conjured images in his mind of her idling in his apartment in far less. He heard the slide of the weights across the rail and Ororo's tsk of disgust, and Logan suppressed a smirk.
"Okay. Gown up and hop up onto the table."
"You really don't have to stay for this part," she told him with some irritation.
"Wish I knew why ya keep givin' me the bum's rush, Tory."
"These exams aren't the most dignified thing in the world." She demonstrated the stirrups, levering one up and spreading it out.
"Um..."
"That's not the creepiest part." She picked up the speculum sitting on the tray and removed it from it's plastic sleeve. She cranked it open a notch and pretended it was a hand puppet. "Go to the lobby and wait, Logan," she chirped in a goofy voice.
"Uh..."
"The ultrasound isn't the good one yet. They use the wand..."
"Wand?"
"Kind of like a dip stick on your car."
"Geez... Right. I'm out." He paused at the door and doubled back, giving her a kiss in the cheek. "Have 'me come get me if they tell ya anything important."
"Okay." She watched him go, covering the imprint of his lips with her hand. She gowned up and folded her clothes, discreetly hiding her undies inside the pile. Five minutes later, Dr. Reyes walked inside with her stethoscope and clipboard. She smiled fondly. "Long time, no see, lady. You look good!"
"I feel puffy."
"Then you're beginning to feel pregnant," she said cheerfully.
"Queasy, too."
"Oh, joy. Anything else?"
"Low grade headaches. Crying at the drop of a hat. Everything smells weird. And I'm having this weird craving for bananas. Which wouldn't be weird if I didn't hate bananas."
"Really?"
"I don't trust any food that turns black and mushy five days after you buy it." Dr. Reyes grinned and nodded, jotting some things down.
"Fair enough. Good source of potassium, though." She looked over her paperwork. "Separated?"
"Divorced."
"Different dad, then."
"He's out in the lobby."
"Is he on board?"
"Yes."
"Excellent. Glad you'll have support." She adjusted the stirrups. "Saddle up! Scooch to the edge of the table."
"Ugh..."
She spent the next few minutes answering questions, making faces and counting dots on the ceiling while Dr. Reyes finished her exam. "All right. Now for the fun part."
"Ultrasound?"
"That, and the heartbeat." She paged her assistant on the intercom. "Jubilee, go ahead and bring Ororo's fiancé back." Ororo gaped and stammered.
"Um, he's..." Dr. Reyes raised her brows.
"Did I misspeak?"
"It's complicated."
"Always is." She laid a second sheet over Ororo's lap for discretion and readied the transducer. By the time Ororo heard Logan's heavy steps, there was already an image on the monitor. He grinned sheepishly.
"Looks like I've been missing the party."
"Nonsense. This is where it gets good. Pull up a chair with the lovely mother if your child and get ready to enjoy the show." Excitement fluttered in his chest, and he stroked Ororo's arm once he pulled up a seat beside her and leaned in to watch.
"It's all blurry."
"I know. It looks weird, but you can make out a few things... Aaahhhhh. Here we goooooooo..." Ororo squirmed slightly as she moved the wand. "There it is."
"It looks like a floating potato chip." Logan's voice was awed, and Ororo heard a hint of amusement.
"So he doesn't look like family just yet," she conceded. Logan peered up into her face, and his heart twisted. She smiled, a look that wanted to be smug, but that stopped at sheepish, and even a little anxious.
"He?"
"Not sure yet." Dr. Reyes paused. "Are we finding out?"
"Yes," Logan exclaimed, just as Ororo announced "No!"
"Aaaaaand there we go. I can tell this is going to be a fun ride. Okay." She launched into an explanation of what they were looking at, and Ororo's hand crept into Logan's as she explained that the tiny flickering thing was the beating heart. Dr. Reyes degloved and scribbled on her clipboard. "Wasn't a great view of the sex yet, anyway, but everything was where it belonged. You're about nine weeks." Ororo nodded.
"That sounds right to you?"
"Potluck day."
"Potlu... Right, right." Heat rose up into his face as the memory unfolded itself. Ororo smirked and stared down at their linked hands.
"I'll let you get decent, and then meet me in my office." Dr. Reyes stepped outside, leaving Ororo to put herself back together. Logan couldn't stop smiling.
*
The rest of the consult went as expected once they met Dr. Reyes at her desk. She avoided Victor's name, only mentioning her last pregnancy in context of what to expect.
"Sometimes it's easier. Shorter pregnancy, shorter labor, less aggressive symptoms if you're lucky."
"Not sure how lucky I feel at five AM every day when I'm hugging the porcelain." Logan cringed and shook himself. Ororo pinned him with a look.
"Sorry," he muttered.
"Just give me a call if anything feels out of the ordinary. I hope you're avoiding stress?"
"Yeah, right," Logan scoffed. "She told you what we do for a living, right, Doc?"
"I'm managing it," Ororo insisted. Dr. Reyes' brows lifted.
"Do tell."
"I just moved back. Now that I'm back in my old market, I'm traveling less. I have a much better account manager." Ororo's tone was confident, but Logan shook his head.
"Emma ain't much better than Selene."
"Ohhhh, trust me, she is."
"I don't want you traveling, for now. Short road trips are fine, but no air travel. It does funky things to your blood pressure, and you don't need those TSA nutballs waving their wands over you and getting all handsy, AND I don't want you walking through those x-ray scanners. Are we clear?"
"Crystal," Logan answered for her."
"Wait... What????"
"I'll see you both back in four weeks."
"But..."
"No travel. No stressful business trips. Give baby the rest that he deserves to grow. Go easy on yourself, and stop pretending you're a superhero."
"Sounds like a plan." Logan helped Ororo up from her chair, and her mouth still gaped in annoyance.
"Don't I get a say in this?"
"When's the due date?" Logan asked as if she hadn't said anything.
"New Year's Day."
"There ya go. Don't even hafts make a resolution," Logan told her.
"I can't travel for work?"
"Nope." Dr. Reyes shifted her glasses to the end of her nose. "Everything else you want to do should be fine. Just no heavy lifting or running marathons. Oh, and intercourse shouldn't be a problem for now." Logan's face lit up.
"Anything else you wanted to know?"
"Nope." Logan's Cheshire grin made Ororo want to smack him. They bustled out to the front desk and settled up, rebooking a month out. They headed out into the afternoon sunshine, overloaded with information and revelations.
"January." Ororo's voice sounded a little resigned. That wasn't long for them to get their acts together.
"New Year's." He squeezed her hand. Neither of them mentioned that Nate would have been a Valentine's baby, even though it lingered in the air between them. "Just enough time to pack away the Christmas tree."
"I never get one," she shrugged. "I was just gonna go to my dad's." Logan frowned, and she extracted her hand from his grip. "That's what I usually do."
"You went to Mexico for it last year. I think you can break tradition again at least one more time."
"Why?"
"Whaddya mean, why?" He was incredulous. "I want ya to meet my family. It'd be a good time to do it."
"Why wait that long?"
"We can introduce you sooner than that," he recanted, but irritation was creeping into his voice.
"My dad's alone. I'm going to spend the holiday with him." They headed back into the subway tunnel, and her stomach was already complaining about the odors.
"Is that something we can negotiate?"
"I didn't think I'd have to."
Logan wanted to bang his head against the wall. He threw up his hands, letting them slap against his thighs before they fed tokens into the turnstile.
The song and dance continued. Heaven only knew who was leading, and the song sounded like screeching cats.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Summary: S**t gets real.
Author's Note: Getting closer on this one. I like hearing RoLo bickering in my head, because I'm a fan of angst. Thanks for following this story so far and giving such great feedback.
Author's Note: Getting closer on this one. I like hearing RoLo bickering in my head, because I'm a fan of angst. Thanks for following this story so far and giving such great feedback.
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