"The thing that makes you really jump, is that the weirdest shit is still to come..."

[couturejourno]

Who? alittletoolegal and couturejourno
What? Revelations of an "Oh, shit" nature.
When? Thursday night, after Kurt and Blaine come back to the City.
Where? Dani's apartment
Rating: Probably high for language

Comments

[alittletoolegal]

The words, "I'm fine," we automatically coming out of Dani's mouth like she was autopilot, but almost like a domino effect as soon as Leslie took the plate out of her hand, she was hit with a wave of nauseating dizziness. She grabbed the edge of the sink to stop her legs giving out from under her, and stood there, eyes clamped closed while she desperately willed it to pass. She wasn't fine. She hadn't been fine in days, and everything was taking its toll. She just knew if she stopped, though, she might never start again and she had to keep going for Nick. He deserved to have her fight this for him, because the alternative was just unthinkable and there was no way she was just going to sit there and let her cousin crash and burn to the point of no return.

She had been planning on an early night, especially after Benny had gone to bed without a single protest. She barely even processed the fact Leslie was there. Once again, she was just going through the motions. She would never deny her friends or family, and there was no hesitation to invite her in. And again, she convinced herself she was fine and could keep plugging away at everything. But she felt sick and weak, and she absolutely despised that. Why couldn't she just hold it together right now? She couldn't fucking lose it. She was too strong to lose it. She drew in a breath, opening her eyes tentatively, but the room was still spinning, so she just fumbled her way over to the nearest chair at the kitchen table and sunk down into it, praying that the nausea would pass rather than increase this time. Goddamnit, why could nothing go right at the moment?

[couturejourno]

If Les had heard that lie once from Dani since all of this shit started, she'd heard it a million times. "Right. And I'm Kate Middleton," she replied evenly, reaching for another plate before she stopped stock-still in her tracks, turning to look at Dani in surprise. "What the hell?" she asked, her hand automatically coming to find a place at Dani's elbow when she wasn't entirely sure that her friend wasn't going to completely fall over.

Carefully, she moved alongside Dani as she made her way over to the table to sit down, not wanting Dani to fall on top of whatever it was making her feel so shitty at the moment. "Dani, babe, what's wrong? You look rough." She raised her hand to press to her friend's forehead to search for signs of a fever, and when she didn't feel all that warm, Les tilted her head to one side. "Do you need to go to the doctor?" It was clear that the stress was getting through to Dani, but even at her most stressful times in the past, Les had never seen her at the point of what looked like nearly passing out before.

[alittletoolegal]

Dani just waved her hand, even if she kept her head low. She couldn't be sure that she would throw up or pass out if she lifted it too high when the room was still spinning like this. "No, I don't need to go to a doctor. I'm just tired..." God, why was any of this happening? No matter what she did right now, she couldn't keep her head above water. It felt like she was drowning and she was flailing to try and hold on, but failing desperately. She even knew that if she started to cry, she just would not stop and she couldn't let Benny see her cry. If he cried and he saw, he would inevitably lose like he always did if something was wrong with her. He just didn't cope with it. She had to hold onto what little composure she had for his sake.

It was so fucking hard, though. She pressed her lips tightly together and rubbed at her forehead with the tips of her fingers, willing it to stop spinning so she could feel better. Maybe she was deluded in trying to push the issue away until she had time and energy to think about it, but she didn't know what else to do. And - oh god - she really was going to cry. She was going to be a total girl about this and cry. So she squeezed her eyes shut to try and fight off the tears from falling, and he breath hitched around a stifled sob.

[couturejourno]

Leslie wasn't stupid, and she sure as hell wasn't buying that Dani was just tired. She seemed sick or something, and Leslie wasn't ready to back down just yet. "Dani Lorenzi, I've known you a long fucking time, and this isn't just tired. You need to see a doctor. And even if it is just tired, we both know you're not gonna be getting any rest anytime soon. You're running yourself into the ground, Dani, and I know you're doing it for Nick and for Benny, and Blaine and Kurt, and even for Puck, but if you collapse from exhaustion, you're not doing anyone a damn bit of good. Dani, what if you run yourself down so much you get sick and someone else has to defend Nick? You can't keep going without stopping to rest."

And then Dani was crying, and Leslie felt like the world's most epic bitch. She couldn't be 100% sure that it was her who'd made Dani cry, but the bitching out couldn't have helped, and her hand rested on Dani's shoulder as she shook her head. "Dani... Dani, babe, don't cry, I'm sorry..." She paused tilting her head to one side. "What's going on? Talk to me, okay?"

[alittletoolegal]

Dani held her hands up and even though the tears were falling thick and fast, she did manage a faint, frustrated glare shot in Leslie's direction. "I don't need to see a fucking doctor!" she snapped, her breath hitching on the last word. "I... don't need to see one because I've already seen one, so just please get off my back about that. I'm neither stupid or irresponsible. I know what I need to do when I need to do it, so please give me a bit of fucking credit."

She reached over and took some napkins from the little Kermit dispenser in the middle of the table that Benny picked out on a shopping trip one day. She wiped her eyes and them pressed the napkin into them, trying to calm herself down and internally giving herself a good slap for not keeping it together. She remembered these volatile emotions from long ago and it was never part of it that she enjoyed by any means. It frustrated her that she couldn't be stronger. She just didn't know how she had been so, so epically stupid to let this happen again when she had tried so damn hard to learn from all her mistakes.

[couturejourno]

Okay, so maybe that had been deserved. But Les was worried, and sometimes, her responses when worried weren't the best. But then Dani said she'd been to the doctor, and Leslie stared at her in shock. "Fuck... Dani, are you sick? What's going on? I'm sorry... I didn't mean to insinuate you're stupid, but... What did the doctor say?"

She was still crying, and Leslie was at the point of panic. What if Dani had some horrible disease or something? This was scaring the shit out of her. Still, she could tell that pushing anymore for information was a bad idea. she might get bitchslapped, and she was not in the mood. Instead, she rested her hand on Dani's arm with a comforting pat as she reached out to hand her another napkin when the one in her hand was soaked through.

[alittletoolegal]

Dani still felt woozy and she wanted to just crawl into a hole and never come out again. She dropped her hands heavily back down onto the table, and her face felt hot and yuck from the crying, and her eyes were so sore and tired, it was a feat to even keep them open. She looked at Leslie in defeat and then just let them fall closed, her shoulders slumping. There was no point fighting it. The more and more she tried to delude herself with the whole thing, the more energy it was going to zap to maintain and she had hardly any of that left. With Benny, she had a tough time and she was only assuming it was going to be the same this time.

"I'm pregnant."

[couturejourno]

Leslie looked at Dani in absolute shock. Surely she'd heard her wrong. There had to be some sort of mistake. Dani was a brilliant lawyer and a highly intelligent woman in general. Leslie couldn't imagine her having unprotected sex or anything foolish like that. It wasn't like her. All of her moves were calculated, as was any good lawyer's way, and Les couldn't buy that she would've made that big a mistake. It had to have been a broken condom. But who? Dani wasn't seeing anyone, and with Benny to think about, she wasn't the type for random hookups, either.

And that was when the penny dropped, and Leslie looked up at Dani's closed eyes, shaking her head in disbelief. "Oh, fuck... Puck..." was all she could manage.

[alittletoolegal]

"I haven't sex with anyone else in a really, really long time. I never needed it or wanted it, and I didn't care for it. Benny was my priority. So, unless I'm the next Virgin Mary of the Jewish world and this is some sort of fucked up immaculate conception, yeah... Puck. I'm ten weeks, so the immaculate higher power was apparently doing me at the same time he was." The joke was weak and the humour didn't reach her face or her tone. It was too much, and even trying to contemplate what her next move should be was beyond her right now.

She still sat there, hunched over and feeling like hell. "I've been sick for weeks, just hiding it. Benny freaks when I'm sick and he's already got enough to freak about. We were so fucking drunk that night and anything could have happened I didn't know about, but obviously we didn't wrap. I can't believe I've been so fucking stupid and I've been trying to delude myself with the whole thing, but I passed out in a case brief and my colleague tried to drag me to the clinic. That's when I knew I had to make an appointment with the doctor."

[couturejourno]

Leslie's dark eyes watched Dani's face quietly, trying to figure out what the fuck you were supposed to say in a situation like this. It was the worst possible time. Everything had changed so much since the year before, when life was relatively normal, and Dani, God love her, couldn't catch a fucking break. "Does... Does he know yet?" Leslie asked. "What about Tab? And Nick and Jeff?"

The journo's hand came to rest on her friend's back, rubbing gently. "You've been doing a hell of a job, then, to have everyone convinced you're okay. You're a hell of a mother, babe. But Jesus... You passed out? Is that... Did you pass out when you were pregnant with Benny? Shit." She was rambling and she knew it, but with all the random questions coming out, she stopped them quickly for the most important one. "Are you okay? I mean... As okay as you can be right now?"

[alittletoolegal]

A warning look was shot at Leslie with this. "No one knows," Dani stated pointedly, with the words clearly indicating that no one would know either until she figured out the best way to tackle this. "Nick cannot know. It will kill him, and I'm not entirely convinced right now that wouldn't be literally. The dead cunt kicked him within an inch of his life one night, and Nick has internal damage that means he can't produce sperm anymore. He can't have kids. He adores Benny, and loves him as if he were his own son, but that does not mean he will have the emotional and psychological coping mechanisms right now to handle hearing I have been accidentally knocked up a second time. Kids are the one thing Nick has always wanted. He always wanted a big family, and having lost that ability is the one thing about your brother that will cause him to explode. This could not be a worse fucking scenario if I was mapping it out."

"My pregnancy with Benny was... horrible, and I'm terrified. Anything that could go wrong did. I have morning sickness almost to full term, hypertension, gestational diabetes because we have a family history of it. I had to spend the last month of my pregnancy on bed rest. But I'm ten weeks. It's too late to do anything. I couldn't. Not in my heart. Maybe in the really early days if I had known, I might have considered it, but not now. I don't know what to do. Everything is spiralling out of control and I'm finding it harder and harder to keep it together. The doctor told me that if I don't stop stressing, I could inevitably miscarry anyway..." The words had been a deep blow for Dani, even if the news of the pregnancy shook her to the core. She didn't know what to do and it felt like she didn't have the energy to figure it out either.

[couturejourno]

There was no mistaking the look Dani had just given her, and Leslie knew better than to push on that count. She nodded slowly, trying to imagine what the hell was supposed to come next in a situation like this. Clearly, Dani was in a horrible place to even think about being pregnant right now, and for it to be sprung on her like this had to be absolutely terrifying. She needed every ounce of strength in her body to deal with what Nick was going through, and what Benny was going through, and it was ridiculous that now of all times was when fate chose to deal her a blow like this one. Even as she listened to Dani, and worried about her friend, Les couldn't help worrying about Nick, too. This pregnancy couldn't stay a secret forever. Dani would inevitably grow with the child inside her, and then there would be a baby, and it was ludicrous to think that Nick wouldn't notice that little detail. "Oh, God," Leslie responded, shaking her head. "I... I didn't even think about that part with Nick. What a mess... My goddamn piece of shit brother."

Leslie had never been pregnant, and honestly, the thought had never crossed her mind. It wasn't like she could get that way accidentally, and to do it on purpose was a ridiculous thought. She wasn't really the motherly type, and even if she had been, the thought of raising a child was more than she was really comfortable with. "Jesus," she said, shaking her head. This really could not have been a worse time. "Is there... Is there anything they can do to help you with the sick side of things? Anything at all?" She wasn't sure what the medical world had developed as far as treatment for the unpleasant side effects of pregnancy, but bed rest really wasn't an option for Dani right now... Not if she wanted to do what she needed to do with Nick's case. "Shit," Les said, suddenly feeling just a slight tinge of protectiveness toward Dani and the baby she was carrying. Regardless of whether she had wanted to get pregnant or not, Leslie got the distinct feeling that a miscarriage would tear Dani apart.

[alittletoolegal]

Dani couldn't believe that she was almost three months pregnant already. When she found out, she had locked herself in her private bathroom at work attached to her office, sat on the floor and bawled her eyes out for an hour straight under the guise that she was on a conference call and wasn't to be disturbed. After that, she had picked herself up off the floor and forced herself to go on. And it had just been autopilot since then. "I have to tell Puck. I know that. I've just been trying to figure out the best way to broach the whole thing. I'm not out to punish him for anything or be a giant bitch and deliberately keep information from him. He has been screwed over with stuff like that too much in the past. He deserves to know this and be involved in it. I just never thought I would find myself in this place ever again. The first time was hard enough, I swore I would never, ever make the same mistakes again. I don't know how it happened, how I let it happen."

"Crackers, ginger ale... the usual stuff. You just have to deal. Whoever said pregnancy was a beautiful thing, they're lying bitches. There's nothing beautiful without it. While I appreciated the fact I had a life growing inside me, I had never been more sick, uncomfortable and weak in my life. I spent most of the pregnancy just wishing he would come the fuck out. I found out the sex early on so I could bond with him more easily. He was worth going to hell and back for, but there is no denying that pregnancy really is not my friend, and I'm already feeling the strain. I don't know how I didn't pick up on it sooner, but I've had a lot of distractions."

[couturejourno]

"I don't really know if there is a good way, babe," Leslie replied. Granted, it wasn't the most encouraging of comments, but it was true. How the hell was Dani supposed to handle something like this? It was a fucking mess, and with everything going on around them, none of them could seriously know how a baby was going to fall into the mix. And Puck certainly had his own issues to worry about, too, but just the same, Dani was right. "But you're right... You have to tell him. God, babe..." she said with a soft sigh, running her hands through her long dark hair. "I don't know how it happens, but you seriously have the world's worst luck. But, Dani, you can't beat yourself up over it. Everybody makes mistakes, sometimes more than once, and it doesn't make you stupid... It's just the way things go sometimes. Even if it seriously fucking sucks."

Dani seemed resigned to it, despite the fact that she was clearly less than thrilled with the situation. She knew the deal, and she knew that she was just going to have to suffer through it, but Les knew without even asking that her mind was a million different places, wondering how she was going to handle everything. "You probably just honestly thought you were stressed and coming down with a bug. It'd make sense. But... Shit, babe, I don't know what to tell you."

[alittletoolegal]

"Of course there is no good way! This last year, it feels like everything has consistently slipped out of my control, and this feels like it's just the crap icing on a very huge crap cake. I knew something was wrong. I just thought it would be something that would go away if I ignored it. That wasn't even delusion, it was optimism. There is so many other places my my head and my heart need to be right now, and all of a sudden, this encompasses and impacts on everything. Absolutely everything. It's going to happen, because it's too late to have options. I just thought if I ever did any of this again, it would be when I was settled and content and married... and getting it right this time," Dani mumbled and put her head down to bury it in the crook of her arm exhaustedly.

Hell, how easily she could just fall asleep like this and not get up for a week. "Not even that. I haven't had a regular period since Benny was born. I didn't think anything of it, per se. Not until the other symptoms started happening. Then I knew. You can only be so deluded for long, but when you've been pregnant before, you know what it feels like. Your body feels different, it's hard to explain. But it's not going to be long before I start showing. I'm a size six short-ass. I don't have anything more adding more clothing layers to hide it, and I don't know if I have the strength to anyway. Let alone the time shop for more clothing."

[couturejourno]

This had definitely been one hell of a year. With seemingly everyone having their pasts come back to haunt them, from Dani's baby daddy reappearing to Kurt and Blaine to the fact that Dani's cousin had been married to the son of a bitch Les had been born a sister to, it was near impossible to keep up as it was, and for Dani to have to face this, too just didn't seem fair. For Dani herself, it seemed the hits just kept on coming, and not in a rock-n-roll kind of way either. Her baby daddy showed up, her abused cousin being tried for murder, her son having witnessed the abuse once, the whole drunk marriage to Puck in Vegas that still wasn't annulled, and now this? It was a wonder Dani was even still able to stand up. Les parked her ass in the chair next to Dani's, rubbing her back. "Well, whatever happens, babe," she said, her tone gentle and comforting. "I'm right here. I've got your back just like you've had mine since I met you."

She was right. With her slight build, it wouldn't take long for the whole world to see that she was pregnant, and that was going to be a whole different mess. Puck finding out, and Nick finding out, not to mention Benny. Leslie really couldn't imagine this going well at all. Not right now. Not like this. "If you need more clothes, leave that part to me. I can go shop for you. Hell, that's the easiest part. I rock at shopping. It's why I write fashion."