Hush Second Trimester -Chapter 1
Second trimester
The wand slides over Jensen’s slightly swollen stomach. Jared is so excited he won’t stop grinning. He’s shifting his weight from one foot to the other and shaking his head like he always does to keep his hair out of his face. It’s not really effective. Never has been.
Jensen feels his heartbeat accelerate and takes a deep, controlled breath. It’s not gonna move, he can’t help but think. It’s not gonna move and Dr. Collins will tell us that-
Stop it.
“There it is," Dr. Collins says. “Sucking its thumb, can you see?”
He enlarges the image on the screen and yes, Jensen can see the profile of his baby with its arm bent toward its mouth and its hand looking like it’s half shoved in it.
“God,” Jared hisses, like he’s in pain or something.
Jensen smiles, but can’t seem to relax completely. He nods at each new piece of information the androcologist gives them, answers Jared’s amazed comments and wonders if what he feels is happiness. It is, in a way, but it’s perverted, like there is something terribly wrong with this feeling, like he shouldn’t let himself feel this way.
“It’s really looking like a full eighteen week pregnancy, Jensen,” Collins tells him after he takes some measurements. “Or it’s going to be a giant baby,” he adds, smiling.
“Well, have you seen my husband?” Jensen jokes, waving his hand toward Jared. He doesn’t really find this funny, though. The voice in his head can’t shut up. What if the baby’s too big? What if it’s not normal? What will happen if…
God if he could just stop thinking and enjoy the moment.
“Now let’s see if we can determine the gender.”
“Oh god,” Jared repeats because, apparently, being in an androcologist office severely reduces his vocabulary.
The wand moves and presses harder against Jensen’s stomach. His bladder is full and it’s more than uncomfortable. He wonders if this could hurt the baby, poking at it so hard. It’s ridiculous. Somewhere in his logical mind, he knows this, but emotionally, none of what he knows for a fact seems to count when it comes to his pregnancy.
“…girl.”
“What? A little girl! Jensen, we’re going to have a little girl!”
He must have missed something because Jared is crushing him in his arms and kissing him and it feels good. Always feels good to have his husband so close to him.
“It’s a girl,” Jensen repeats, feeling a little stupid coming out of his stupor.
The ultrasound is over. Dr. Collins prints some images and gives him a towel to wipe his belly. “Yes, it’s a girl, congratulations you guys,”
Jensen smiles and lets Jared devour him with another kiss. It’s a girl. Another girl. It’s nice. Is it bad that he wishes it was a boy this time? Just to distance himself as much as possible from the first pregnancy. A little girl. That’s what he'd wanted when he found out he was pregnant so many years ago. Steve had wanted it to be a boy, but not with as much intensity as Jensen's hopes.
It was like he’d known, right from the start, that the baby would be a girl.
He blinks a little when they get back to Dr. Collins’ office. It’s June fifteen and the sun is shining through the opened curtains. It’s been hot and dry for the past eight days and, although Jensen’s pregnancy is only starting to show, he feels the effects of the changes his body’s going through. His ankles are swollen when he gets home from work in the evenings and he’s frequently a little short of breath. He works long days. Jared would like him to take it easy, but spring and summer are always the busiest seasons for photographers with the weddings and the possibility for outdoor family portraits. Jensen intends to take his paternity leave come September. Until then, he’s not sick, he’s pregnant. He can deal with a little discomfort.
Dr. Collins talks about weight gain and blood test results - everything is satisfactory so far. Jensen’s iron level is a little low, which is pretty common during pregnancies. It’s not enough to prescribe iron pills. He just gives him a list of iron rich foods and talks about doing another blood test in a month.
“Six pounds is not that much,” Jared says about Jensen’s weight because, apparently, he can’t wait for him to swell up and get fat.
“It’s enough,” Jensen sighs.
“It is, the doctor agrees. “Anyway, all we have is your husband’s weight after three months of pregnancy. Since we don't have a record of his weight before he got pregnant, it's difficult to tell whether he lost weight early on and then gained it back plus an additional six pounds. We'll just have to continue to monitor it and make sure he stays within safe levels.”
“Great,” Jared claps his hands together.
Jensen rolls his eyes. He knows Jared has been a little bit overwhelmed what with finding out about his past and this new pregnancy. He's taken a lot of time off work to go with him to his appointments. Tonight is the presentation of his Wizard of Oz production and, compared to previous years, he hasn’t put as much effort and time into it as he normally does, especially toward the end, because of the whole Jensen-is-miraculously-pregnant-and-a-freaking-liar thing. His teacher trainee has been more than happy to take the lead for the production, but still, Jensen knows he's nervous about it. “What have I done?” had been Jared’s only comment after the dress rehearsal yesterday.
Of course, as soon as they’re out of the office, Jared calls his family members one by one to tell them the news about the baby's gender. He’s so genuinely happy about it that it makes Jensen feel strange that he's not just as excited and happy. But then again, it's hard to be as excited as Jared because, with Jared, everything is larger than life.
They decide to get an afternoon snack at a small restaurant nearby before Jared goes back to school. They eat outside, next to a beautiful fountain Jensen is familiar with because he’s used the scenery for photo sessions more than once. And because today there is a light breeze, it carries fresh water droplets toward them. It feels nice.
Halfway through his plates of nachos, Jensen’s anxiety starts to subside. It’s a very physical sensation of lightness that goes through him and it’s like he can breathe better and think more clearly all of sudden. These momentary episodes of anxiety are normal, according to Genevieve, his psychiatrist, given what he'd gone through seven years ago. As long as they don’t last for more than a couple of hours and don't start happening more frequently, it’s okay. Jensen thinks he can handle them.
He likes Genevieve (don't call me Dr. Cortese, please, she’d said. We’re the same age), likes her a lot, although he always ends feeling exhausted and drained by the time his sessions are over. “That means we’re getting somewhere,” she had told him, and he believes it. He does feel like he’s finally resolving some of his issues. Jared always insists on going and waiting for him during his sessions. Afterwards, he gives him that strange proud look like Jensen’s just survived an hour of torture. Maybe that’s how Jared sees therapy sessions, who knows?
“You’ll be there at seven, right? With Felicia.”
“Yes.”
“Can I like…when I'm on the stage at the end of the play… thank you in front of everybody and say cheesy stuff like you’re bearing my kid and I’m so proud of you?”
“No. You can’t.”
“Can I wink at you?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I tell my students we’re gonna have a baby girl?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
Jared stuffs his mouth full of fries, then half chokes on them when he tries to speak again. He takes a long sip of his soda and smiles like a maniac. “This play is going to be a disaster.”
“No it won’t.”
The play is a disaster. The whole audience seems to wonder what the hell they’re watching. At one point, the principal characters freeze and a bunch of students wearing masks and purple tunics enter the stage and perform a long Greek tragedy interlude about the emptiness of the Wicked Witch’s life and her tragic ending. The Tin man does a breakdance number. Students disguised as trees move around in the background, doing strange epileptic poses.
“Oh god, Jared is going to be pissed,” Jensen mumbles while Felicia laughs her ass off.
When the curtain finally closes, there is a second of deafening silence before some very shy clapping starts. It swells until everyone is standing up, applauding, but it sounds forced, like the parents and fellow students of the actors know they’re supposed to acknowledge their hard work despite the result.
Jared doesn’t come on stage to accept the applause with the rest of the cast, but Osric Chau is right there in the middle, beaming like he’s just won an Oscar. He stays on the stage for way too long.
Jensen makes his way backstage, smiling and nodding at some of the students who congratulate him on his pregnancy. He stops by an epileptic tree who is trying to get out of his costume.
“Where’s Mr. Padalecki?”
“Outside. Said he needed some air.”
Jared is sitting on a bench with his friend Daneel, who had apparently found him before Jensen. They're sharing what looks like a small bottle of whiskey. Jensen smiles with affection, seeing the look on his husband’s face.
“It wasn’t that bad,” He says.
Jared looks at him in disbelief. “A Greek chorus.”
Daneel giggles and has to spit out her mouthful of whisky before she chokes on it.
“It was horrible.” She declares and stands up to kiss Jensen, putting one hand on his belly. “Congratulations on the little girl, honey.”
Jensen tries to smile and gets the impression he’s grimacing instead. He doesn’t like Daneel’s touch. It’s not about her, but it reminds him that he cannot hide anymore. If he could’ve hidden the pregnancy until the baby was born, he would’ve done it. He remembers how everybody around him was so excited about the upcoming baby the first time, remembers how he felt when he got back home with his stomach tender and almost flat, but his hands empty. He had felt guilty, responsible for deceiving his family and friends. It hadn't been rational, he knows, but the feeling had been there nonetheless.
He snaps out of it to find Daneel staring at him with a somewhat thoughtful expression.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Better than Jared, at least,” he says to redirect the conversation.
“I can’t even blame Osric,” Jared sighs. “I went a little crazy over being a dad and I told him he had artistic freedom.”
Jensen ruffles Jared’s hair and sits between Daneel and him.
“You’ll do better next year.”
“I can’t do worse.”
“True,” Daneel agrees because she isn’t exactly subtle when it comes to telling the truth.
“Guys, that play was so bad it was good,” Felicia announces from the open door.
“God,” Jared takes the bottle out of Daneel’s hand and drinks a long gulp.
“So, how was your week?”
Genevieve Cortese settles in front of Jensen on one of those wonderfully fluffy, soft armchairs she has in her office. She offers him some candy which he refuses, watching her pop a handful in her mouth. Ex-smoker, she had told him. Got addicted to candy when she'd stopped. Her dentist is not happy.
“It was… good. We huh…” Jensen scratches the back of his head. Starting the session is always the most difficult moment for him. “We had the sonogram done and everything is looking good. It’s a little girl.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Well, boy or girl, the important thing is that the baby’s healthy, right?”
Genevieve smiles. “Yes, politically correct answer. But I’m your psychiatrist, not your neighbor.”
Jensen hesitates another second before explaining how he'd felt during the sonogram and when he'd learned about the gender of the baby. He blushes because all of it sounds so damn stupid when said out loud.
“Were you anxious?”
“Yeah, but it got better after the appointment. You know, this doesn’t change how I feel about the baby, right? I’m not going to love her less because I kind of hoped it would be a boy this time.”
“You don’t need to justify your feelings, Jensen. I know that, of course. If you’re always scared of what I’m going to think, we’re not going to make any progress at all.”
“I know.”
“And what about your sleep? Any nightmares?”
“No.”
It’s a lie, but this, Jensen can’t tell. It hurts just thinking about it. Better to forget it as quickly as he can. He knows he can’t deal with analyzing this dream with Genevieve. Not ever.
It’s raining and it’s cold and he’s digging in the muddy, soft soil, digging with his hands, feeling the dirt sliding under his fingernails, and he cries for help but there is no one there and god, oh god, he can hear her crying through the ground and she’s going to die if he doesn’t reach her soon enough and-
“Jensen?”
“Hum?”
“You kind of fazed out.”
“Sorry.”
“What else?”
“Well, my husband had this school play production three days ago and it wasn’t exactly a success. He’s been kind of in a down mood since then.”
“Why are you smiling while telling me this?”
“Why am I…?”
He hadn't realized he was smiling. What does that say about him? It's not a mystery, he knows why. Knows himself well enough to guess anyway. “I guess… I guess I’m more comfortable in the role of the caretaker than in being the one who needs to be taken care of. And since we found out about the pregnancy, I’ve been… not acting like myself.”
“Meaning?”
“Jesus, you know what I mean. We’ve talked about my breakdown and the whole week I spent crying my eyes out.”
“You had reasons.”
Jensen makes a face. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
A sudden flash of memory comes to him. It must have been three months after Jenna’s death and he’d been sitting on his bed in his parent’s house, crying. He hadn't been able to help it at the time. The tears would come and go and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. His father had come to see him and this time, instead of the comfort he usually provided, he got mad. “This can’t go on, Jensen! You have to get a hold of yourself, damn it. You don’t eat, you don’t bathe, you spend your days looking at the walls and feeling sorry for yourself. That’s not the son I raised.”
Afterward, things had never been the same with his parents. His mother had already switched from full comfort mode to awkwardness and impatience. It was like they couldn’t understand that he just couldn’t get better. The depression was a deep hole he was trapped at the bottom of and he couldn’t make his way to the surface, no matter how hard he tried.
“I don’t like losing control,” Jensen murmurs, looking at the abstract paintings on the walls. He likes them. They comfort him, somehow. “I’m scared I won’t be able to get it back, scared of going crazy.”
“So, now, you feel in control?” Geneviève asks.
“In a way.”
Tough question. He doesn’t have any control over his body, over the child growing inside of him and the events to come. Still, he tries to at least keep his emotions under control. That’s one thing he can do somewhat successfully.
“And you’re showing, now,” Genevieve goes on because, apparently, she has decided to dig deep this time. “How does that make you feel?”
“I… It’s good, it’s physical evidence that the baby’s growing, that the pregnancy is on the right track. But I don’t like being on display. I don’t like people knowing I'm expecting just by looking at me. If something goes wrong I’ll have to face them all and-“
And what? Jensen doesn’t even want to go there.
“And endure their looks of sympathy, or their pity?”
“I guess,” Jensen whispers, biting on his bottom lip. “I’m so fucked up.”
“No. You’re not.” Genevieve smiles softly before popping another piece of candy into her mouth.
They keep on talking and, by the end of the hour, once again, Jensen feels drained. She gives him some homework to do. He has to write in some kind of journal and make an entry every time his anxiety rises, describing what he was doing at the time and how he felt. It seems simple enough, except of course it isn’t. It means sitting down and thinking about those things he doesn’t like to think about. It means looking into the dark corners of his mind that he prefers to keep locked away.
Jared’s vacation starts the day Jensen hits his twentieth week, if Dr. Collins’s approximation is correct. Jared is a bundle of nerves, bumping through the house as though he's riding some kind of electric current. It’s always like this when Jared takes time off work, like he needs a few hours to adjust and switch into vacation mode. Luckily, Jensen has worked most of the day and hasn't had to put up with Jared's hyper-kinetic energy levels. But he gets home earlier than usual and by the time they are finished with diner, he's ready to kill his husband. Jared fills the dishwasher and babbles non-stop about what he’s planning to do outside the house and inside, including emptying the guest bedroom that will become the nursery. For some reason, this gets Jensen even more impatient and he finally snaps, closing the lid of his laptop way too hard. Mr. Mitten, who was dozing next to the computer on the table, jolts awakes and mewls plaintively before dragging himself to the floor.
“Jay?”
“Yeah?”
“You should get out of the house.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re getting on my nerves. Seriously.”
Jared makes a guilty face. “M’ that bad, huh? Yeah, I know, I actually get on my own nerves.”
“Well, that’s a sign.”
“I think I’ll take Storm for a run.”
“That’s a great idea.”
Storm reacts as soon as she hears the word run. She jumps and pants in the kitchen, wagging her tail.
“Okay, girl, we’re going.”
Half an hour later, Jensen tries to relax in a hot bath with one of Jared’s scented candles which is a little too intense on the vanilla perfume for his liking. He closes his eyes and covers his face with a washcloth. The week has been difficult. They’d been invited to his parents for dinner and had to accept because they hadn’t been by to visit since they had learned the news. The congratulations had been awkward, the meat overly done and it had taken Jensen’s mother all of ten minutes before she'd brought up the subject of his uterine scars and his improbable pregnancy. Then, when desert had come - coconut cream pie, which Jensen hates - his father had said, “Maybe now you can put all this behind you, son." This meaning Jenna's death and Jensen’s postpartum depression. It had gotten Jensen so mad he couldn’t help himself and told him it wasn’t something he could ever put behind him because he’d had a little girl who'd died, and she deserved to be remembered. “Please, Jensen, don’t be so dramatic,” his mother had cut him off.
Luckily, Jared had then said it was time for them to leave. Jensen had been so anxious and upset afterward he hadn’t even been able to let Jared comfort him. Then, he’d had to write the whole incident in his damn journal and had realized, rereading his notes, how very resentful he was toward both his parents. Genevieve would be more than happy to get to the heart of the matter during their next appointment.
Jensen feels a little nauseous and gets out of the bath. He grabs a towel and dries himself off while walking to the bedroom. Once there, instead of putting on his sleeping pants, he finds himself staring at his reflection in the full length mirror that hangs inside the door. When he’s facing himself, his belly is barely there at all, but as soon as he shifts a little to the side, he can see it, protruding, the bump still low, just over his pelvis. When he'd been pregnant with Jenna, he looked different: he'd been thinner, younger, on the verge of manhood, but now, the softer shape of his middle seems awkward, with his large shoulders and muscled arms. He knows he looks more… delicate than before the pregnancy. The hormones are responsible for that. His chest is less defined, his eyes are brighter, he only needs to shave once a week, and the happy trail leading to his crotch is softer, blonder. His hips have started to enlarge. He felt it sometimes, a vague pain that comes and go.
He hasn’t felt the baby move yet. He knows it’s still early, that some people don't feel the movements until the fifth month. How far along was he when he felt Jenna move for the first time? He thinks he remembers it was sooner, halfway through the fourth month. Very subtle, tiny waves below his navel. He’d been thrilled, then frustrated when Steve couldn’t feel it and thought Jensen had imagined the whole thing.
He wishes he could feel the baby moving now. He puts a hand on his stomach and waits. Tries not to listen to the dark thoughts that are swirling in his mind. You can’t feel her because she isn’t moving. She isn’t moving because she’s dead. Something must have happened in utero, and next week, when you go to your appointment, Dr. Collins will look at you with those big, sad eyes and then…
“You okay, baby?”
Jared’s voice startles him. He'd been so far into his own thoughts that he hadn't heard him coming, hadn't realized his husband was now behind him, wrapping his arms around his waist, kissing his neck. It happens sometimes and Jensen doesn’t like it. It scares the hell out of him.
Still, he nods.
“Lost in thought?”
“Hum.”
“You’re gorgeous.”
“Think so?” Jensen smiles. It isn’t exactly a sincere smile, but he’s working to it.
“I would maybe like to fuck you,” Jared murmurs, lowering one of his hands to caress Jensen’s cock.
“That’s so romantic. My sweaty, stinky husband wants to fuck me,” Jensen deadpans.
“Five minutes in the shower and I’ll be back,” Jared insists. He’s already heading outside the room at a quick pace.
Jensen sighs and turns away from his reflection. He’ll be alright. Has to be. For Jared, for the baby to come. He can keep it under control.
He lies in bed and closes his eyes, tries to empty his head completely. The dark thoughts are fading. He imagines a box in his head where he can lock them up so they won’t come back for a while. It’s a silly trick, but so far, it’s been working.
chapter two
_ _ _
The wand slides over Jensen’s slightly swollen stomach. Jared is so excited he won’t stop grinning. He’s shifting his weight from one foot to the other and shaking his head like he always does to keep his hair out of his face. It’s not really effective. Never has been.
Jensen feels his heartbeat accelerate and takes a deep, controlled breath. It’s not gonna move, he can’t help but think. It’s not gonna move and Dr. Collins will tell us that-
Stop it.
“There it is," Dr. Collins says. “Sucking its thumb, can you see?”
He enlarges the image on the screen and yes, Jensen can see the profile of his baby with its arm bent toward its mouth and its hand looking like it’s half shoved in it.
“God,” Jared hisses, like he’s in pain or something.
Jensen smiles, but can’t seem to relax completely. He nods at each new piece of information the androcologist gives them, answers Jared’s amazed comments and wonders if what he feels is happiness. It is, in a way, but it’s perverted, like there is something terribly wrong with this feeling, like he shouldn’t let himself feel this way.
“It’s really looking like a full eighteen week pregnancy, Jensen,” Collins tells him after he takes some measurements. “Or it’s going to be a giant baby,” he adds, smiling.
“Well, have you seen my husband?” Jensen jokes, waving his hand toward Jared. He doesn’t really find this funny, though. The voice in his head can’t shut up. What if the baby’s too big? What if it’s not normal? What will happen if…
God if he could just stop thinking and enjoy the moment.
“Now let’s see if we can determine the gender.”
“Oh god,” Jared repeats because, apparently, being in an androcologist office severely reduces his vocabulary.
The wand moves and presses harder against Jensen’s stomach. His bladder is full and it’s more than uncomfortable. He wonders if this could hurt the baby, poking at it so hard. It’s ridiculous. Somewhere in his logical mind, he knows this, but emotionally, none of what he knows for a fact seems to count when it comes to his pregnancy.
“…girl.”
“What? A little girl! Jensen, we’re going to have a little girl!”
He must have missed something because Jared is crushing him in his arms and kissing him and it feels good. Always feels good to have his husband so close to him.
“It’s a girl,” Jensen repeats, feeling a little stupid coming out of his stupor.
The ultrasound is over. Dr. Collins prints some images and gives him a towel to wipe his belly. “Yes, it’s a girl, congratulations you guys,”
Jensen smiles and lets Jared devour him with another kiss. It’s a girl. Another girl. It’s nice. Is it bad that he wishes it was a boy this time? Just to distance himself as much as possible from the first pregnancy. A little girl. That’s what he'd wanted when he found out he was pregnant so many years ago. Steve had wanted it to be a boy, but not with as much intensity as Jensen's hopes.
It was like he’d known, right from the start, that the baby would be a girl.
He blinks a little when they get back to Dr. Collins’ office. It’s June fifteen and the sun is shining through the opened curtains. It’s been hot and dry for the past eight days and, although Jensen’s pregnancy is only starting to show, he feels the effects of the changes his body’s going through. His ankles are swollen when he gets home from work in the evenings and he’s frequently a little short of breath. He works long days. Jared would like him to take it easy, but spring and summer are always the busiest seasons for photographers with the weddings and the possibility for outdoor family portraits. Jensen intends to take his paternity leave come September. Until then, he’s not sick, he’s pregnant. He can deal with a little discomfort.
Dr. Collins talks about weight gain and blood test results - everything is satisfactory so far. Jensen’s iron level is a little low, which is pretty common during pregnancies. It’s not enough to prescribe iron pills. He just gives him a list of iron rich foods and talks about doing another blood test in a month.
“Six pounds is not that much,” Jared says about Jensen’s weight because, apparently, he can’t wait for him to swell up and get fat.
“It’s enough,” Jensen sighs.
“It is, the doctor agrees. “Anyway, all we have is your husband’s weight after three months of pregnancy. Since we don't have a record of his weight before he got pregnant, it's difficult to tell whether he lost weight early on and then gained it back plus an additional six pounds. We'll just have to continue to monitor it and make sure he stays within safe levels.”
“Great,” Jared claps his hands together.
Jensen rolls his eyes. He knows Jared has been a little bit overwhelmed what with finding out about his past and this new pregnancy. He's taken a lot of time off work to go with him to his appointments. Tonight is the presentation of his Wizard of Oz production and, compared to previous years, he hasn’t put as much effort and time into it as he normally does, especially toward the end, because of the whole Jensen-is-miraculously-pregnant-and-a-freaking-liar thing. His teacher trainee has been more than happy to take the lead for the production, but still, Jensen knows he's nervous about it. “What have I done?” had been Jared’s only comment after the dress rehearsal yesterday.
Of course, as soon as they’re out of the office, Jared calls his family members one by one to tell them the news about the baby's gender. He’s so genuinely happy about it that it makes Jensen feel strange that he's not just as excited and happy. But then again, it's hard to be as excited as Jared because, with Jared, everything is larger than life.
They decide to get an afternoon snack at a small restaurant nearby before Jared goes back to school. They eat outside, next to a beautiful fountain Jensen is familiar with because he’s used the scenery for photo sessions more than once. And because today there is a light breeze, it carries fresh water droplets toward them. It feels nice.
Halfway through his plates of nachos, Jensen’s anxiety starts to subside. It’s a very physical sensation of lightness that goes through him and it’s like he can breathe better and think more clearly all of sudden. These momentary episodes of anxiety are normal, according to Genevieve, his psychiatrist, given what he'd gone through seven years ago. As long as they don’t last for more than a couple of hours and don't start happening more frequently, it’s okay. Jensen thinks he can handle them.
He likes Genevieve (don't call me Dr. Cortese, please, she’d said. We’re the same age), likes her a lot, although he always ends feeling exhausted and drained by the time his sessions are over. “That means we’re getting somewhere,” she had told him, and he believes it. He does feel like he’s finally resolving some of his issues. Jared always insists on going and waiting for him during his sessions. Afterwards, he gives him that strange proud look like Jensen’s just survived an hour of torture. Maybe that’s how Jared sees therapy sessions, who knows?
“You’ll be there at seven, right? With Felicia.”
“Yes.”
“Can I like…when I'm on the stage at the end of the play… thank you in front of everybody and say cheesy stuff like you’re bearing my kid and I’m so proud of you?”
“No. You can’t.”
“Can I wink at you?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I tell my students we’re gonna have a baby girl?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
Jared stuffs his mouth full of fries, then half chokes on them when he tries to speak again. He takes a long sip of his soda and smiles like a maniac. “This play is going to be a disaster.”
“No it won’t.”
The play is a disaster. The whole audience seems to wonder what the hell they’re watching. At one point, the principal characters freeze and a bunch of students wearing masks and purple tunics enter the stage and perform a long Greek tragedy interlude about the emptiness of the Wicked Witch’s life and her tragic ending. The Tin man does a breakdance number. Students disguised as trees move around in the background, doing strange epileptic poses.
“Oh god, Jared is going to be pissed,” Jensen mumbles while Felicia laughs her ass off.
When the curtain finally closes, there is a second of deafening silence before some very shy clapping starts. It swells until everyone is standing up, applauding, but it sounds forced, like the parents and fellow students of the actors know they’re supposed to acknowledge their hard work despite the result.
Jared doesn’t come on stage to accept the applause with the rest of the cast, but Osric Chau is right there in the middle, beaming like he’s just won an Oscar. He stays on the stage for way too long.
Jensen makes his way backstage, smiling and nodding at some of the students who congratulate him on his pregnancy. He stops by an epileptic tree who is trying to get out of his costume.
“Where’s Mr. Padalecki?”
“Outside. Said he needed some air.”
Jared is sitting on a bench with his friend Daneel, who had apparently found him before Jensen. They're sharing what looks like a small bottle of whiskey. Jensen smiles with affection, seeing the look on his husband’s face.
“It wasn’t that bad,” He says.
Jared looks at him in disbelief. “A Greek chorus.”
Daneel giggles and has to spit out her mouthful of whisky before she chokes on it.
“It was horrible.” She declares and stands up to kiss Jensen, putting one hand on his belly. “Congratulations on the little girl, honey.”
Jensen tries to smile and gets the impression he’s grimacing instead. He doesn’t like Daneel’s touch. It’s not about her, but it reminds him that he cannot hide anymore. If he could’ve hidden the pregnancy until the baby was born, he would’ve done it. He remembers how everybody around him was so excited about the upcoming baby the first time, remembers how he felt when he got back home with his stomach tender and almost flat, but his hands empty. He had felt guilty, responsible for deceiving his family and friends. It hadn't been rational, he knows, but the feeling had been there nonetheless.
He snaps out of it to find Daneel staring at him with a somewhat thoughtful expression.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Better than Jared, at least,” he says to redirect the conversation.
“I can’t even blame Osric,” Jared sighs. “I went a little crazy over being a dad and I told him he had artistic freedom.”
Jensen ruffles Jared’s hair and sits between Daneel and him.
“You’ll do better next year.”
“I can’t do worse.”
“True,” Daneel agrees because she isn’t exactly subtle when it comes to telling the truth.
“Guys, that play was so bad it was good,” Felicia announces from the open door.
“God,” Jared takes the bottle out of Daneel’s hand and drinks a long gulp.
“So, how was your week?”
Genevieve Cortese settles in front of Jensen on one of those wonderfully fluffy, soft armchairs she has in her office. She offers him some candy which he refuses, watching her pop a handful in her mouth. Ex-smoker, she had told him. Got addicted to candy when she'd stopped. Her dentist is not happy.
“It was… good. We huh…” Jensen scratches the back of his head. Starting the session is always the most difficult moment for him. “We had the sonogram done and everything is looking good. It’s a little girl.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Well, boy or girl, the important thing is that the baby’s healthy, right?”
Genevieve smiles. “Yes, politically correct answer. But I’m your psychiatrist, not your neighbor.”
Jensen hesitates another second before explaining how he'd felt during the sonogram and when he'd learned about the gender of the baby. He blushes because all of it sounds so damn stupid when said out loud.
“Were you anxious?”
“Yeah, but it got better after the appointment. You know, this doesn’t change how I feel about the baby, right? I’m not going to love her less because I kind of hoped it would be a boy this time.”
“You don’t need to justify your feelings, Jensen. I know that, of course. If you’re always scared of what I’m going to think, we’re not going to make any progress at all.”
“I know.”
“And what about your sleep? Any nightmares?”
“No.”
It’s a lie, but this, Jensen can’t tell. It hurts just thinking about it. Better to forget it as quickly as he can. He knows he can’t deal with analyzing this dream with Genevieve. Not ever.
It’s raining and it’s cold and he’s digging in the muddy, soft soil, digging with his hands, feeling the dirt sliding under his fingernails, and he cries for help but there is no one there and god, oh god, he can hear her crying through the ground and she’s going to die if he doesn’t reach her soon enough and-
“Jensen?”
“Hum?”
“You kind of fazed out.”
“Sorry.”
“What else?”
“Well, my husband had this school play production three days ago and it wasn’t exactly a success. He’s been kind of in a down mood since then.”
“Why are you smiling while telling me this?”
“Why am I…?”
He hadn't realized he was smiling. What does that say about him? It's not a mystery, he knows why. Knows himself well enough to guess anyway. “I guess… I guess I’m more comfortable in the role of the caretaker than in being the one who needs to be taken care of. And since we found out about the pregnancy, I’ve been… not acting like myself.”
“Meaning?”
“Jesus, you know what I mean. We’ve talked about my breakdown and the whole week I spent crying my eyes out.”
“You had reasons.”
Jensen makes a face. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
A sudden flash of memory comes to him. It must have been three months after Jenna’s death and he’d been sitting on his bed in his parent’s house, crying. He hadn't been able to help it at the time. The tears would come and go and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. His father had come to see him and this time, instead of the comfort he usually provided, he got mad. “This can’t go on, Jensen! You have to get a hold of yourself, damn it. You don’t eat, you don’t bathe, you spend your days looking at the walls and feeling sorry for yourself. That’s not the son I raised.”
Afterward, things had never been the same with his parents. His mother had already switched from full comfort mode to awkwardness and impatience. It was like they couldn’t understand that he just couldn’t get better. The depression was a deep hole he was trapped at the bottom of and he couldn’t make his way to the surface, no matter how hard he tried.
“I don’t like losing control,” Jensen murmurs, looking at the abstract paintings on the walls. He likes them. They comfort him, somehow. “I’m scared I won’t be able to get it back, scared of going crazy.”
“So, now, you feel in control?” Geneviève asks.
“In a way.”
Tough question. He doesn’t have any control over his body, over the child growing inside of him and the events to come. Still, he tries to at least keep his emotions under control. That’s one thing he can do somewhat successfully.
“And you’re showing, now,” Genevieve goes on because, apparently, she has decided to dig deep this time. “How does that make you feel?”
“I… It’s good, it’s physical evidence that the baby’s growing, that the pregnancy is on the right track. But I don’t like being on display. I don’t like people knowing I'm expecting just by looking at me. If something goes wrong I’ll have to face them all and-“
And what? Jensen doesn’t even want to go there.
“And endure their looks of sympathy, or their pity?”
“I guess,” Jensen whispers, biting on his bottom lip. “I’m so fucked up.”
“No. You’re not.” Genevieve smiles softly before popping another piece of candy into her mouth.
They keep on talking and, by the end of the hour, once again, Jensen feels drained. She gives him some homework to do. He has to write in some kind of journal and make an entry every time his anxiety rises, describing what he was doing at the time and how he felt. It seems simple enough, except of course it isn’t. It means sitting down and thinking about those things he doesn’t like to think about. It means looking into the dark corners of his mind that he prefers to keep locked away.
Jared’s vacation starts the day Jensen hits his twentieth week, if Dr. Collins’s approximation is correct. Jared is a bundle of nerves, bumping through the house as though he's riding some kind of electric current. It’s always like this when Jared takes time off work, like he needs a few hours to adjust and switch into vacation mode. Luckily, Jensen has worked most of the day and hasn't had to put up with Jared's hyper-kinetic energy levels. But he gets home earlier than usual and by the time they are finished with diner, he's ready to kill his husband. Jared fills the dishwasher and babbles non-stop about what he’s planning to do outside the house and inside, including emptying the guest bedroom that will become the nursery. For some reason, this gets Jensen even more impatient and he finally snaps, closing the lid of his laptop way too hard. Mr. Mitten, who was dozing next to the computer on the table, jolts awakes and mewls plaintively before dragging himself to the floor.
“Jay?”
“Yeah?”
“You should get out of the house.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re getting on my nerves. Seriously.”
Jared makes a guilty face. “M’ that bad, huh? Yeah, I know, I actually get on my own nerves.”
“Well, that’s a sign.”
“I think I’ll take Storm for a run.”
“That’s a great idea.”
Storm reacts as soon as she hears the word run. She jumps and pants in the kitchen, wagging her tail.
“Okay, girl, we’re going.”
Half an hour later, Jensen tries to relax in a hot bath with one of Jared’s scented candles which is a little too intense on the vanilla perfume for his liking. He closes his eyes and covers his face with a washcloth. The week has been difficult. They’d been invited to his parents for dinner and had to accept because they hadn’t been by to visit since they had learned the news. The congratulations had been awkward, the meat overly done and it had taken Jensen’s mother all of ten minutes before she'd brought up the subject of his uterine scars and his improbable pregnancy. Then, when desert had come - coconut cream pie, which Jensen hates - his father had said, “Maybe now you can put all this behind you, son." This meaning Jenna's death and Jensen’s postpartum depression. It had gotten Jensen so mad he couldn’t help himself and told him it wasn’t something he could ever put behind him because he’d had a little girl who'd died, and she deserved to be remembered. “Please, Jensen, don’t be so dramatic,” his mother had cut him off.
Luckily, Jared had then said it was time for them to leave. Jensen had been so anxious and upset afterward he hadn’t even been able to let Jared comfort him. Then, he’d had to write the whole incident in his damn journal and had realized, rereading his notes, how very resentful he was toward both his parents. Genevieve would be more than happy to get to the heart of the matter during their next appointment.
Jensen feels a little nauseous and gets out of the bath. He grabs a towel and dries himself off while walking to the bedroom. Once there, instead of putting on his sleeping pants, he finds himself staring at his reflection in the full length mirror that hangs inside the door. When he’s facing himself, his belly is barely there at all, but as soon as he shifts a little to the side, he can see it, protruding, the bump still low, just over his pelvis. When he'd been pregnant with Jenna, he looked different: he'd been thinner, younger, on the verge of manhood, but now, the softer shape of his middle seems awkward, with his large shoulders and muscled arms. He knows he looks more… delicate than before the pregnancy. The hormones are responsible for that. His chest is less defined, his eyes are brighter, he only needs to shave once a week, and the happy trail leading to his crotch is softer, blonder. His hips have started to enlarge. He felt it sometimes, a vague pain that comes and go.
He hasn’t felt the baby move yet. He knows it’s still early, that some people don't feel the movements until the fifth month. How far along was he when he felt Jenna move for the first time? He thinks he remembers it was sooner, halfway through the fourth month. Very subtle, tiny waves below his navel. He’d been thrilled, then frustrated when Steve couldn’t feel it and thought Jensen had imagined the whole thing.
He wishes he could feel the baby moving now. He puts a hand on his stomach and waits. Tries not to listen to the dark thoughts that are swirling in his mind. You can’t feel her because she isn’t moving. She isn’t moving because she’s dead. Something must have happened in utero, and next week, when you go to your appointment, Dr. Collins will look at you with those big, sad eyes and then…
“You okay, baby?”
Jared’s voice startles him. He'd been so far into his own thoughts that he hadn't heard him coming, hadn't realized his husband was now behind him, wrapping his arms around his waist, kissing his neck. It happens sometimes and Jensen doesn’t like it. It scares the hell out of him.
Still, he nods.
“Lost in thought?”
“Hum.”
“You’re gorgeous.”
“Think so?” Jensen smiles. It isn’t exactly a sincere smile, but he’s working to it.
“I would maybe like to fuck you,” Jared murmurs, lowering one of his hands to caress Jensen’s cock.
“That’s so romantic. My sweaty, stinky husband wants to fuck me,” Jensen deadpans.
“Five minutes in the shower and I’ll be back,” Jared insists. He’s already heading outside the room at a quick pace.
Jensen sighs and turns away from his reflection. He’ll be alright. Has to be. For Jared, for the baby to come. He can keep it under control.
He lies in bed and closes his eyes, tries to empty his head completely. The dark thoughts are fading. He imagines a box in his head where he can lock them up so they won’t come back for a while. It’s a silly trick, but so far, it’s been working.
chapter two
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