Mockingbirds and Diamond Rings (AB) PG
Mockingbirds and Diamond Rings
An Anita Blake story by mhalachaiswords
Summary: What will Anita do when she finds herself pregnant with Jean-Claude's child? Snapshots of the pregnancy at two, four, six and eight months.
Disclaimer: The Anita Blake universe belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. I'm only borrowing and will return all at the end of the fic.
Rating: PG for language, content.
Characters: Anita, Jean-Claude
Word count: 4,300
Setting: About a year after Danse Macabre; contains no spoilers for Harlequin.
Note/warning: This story contains themes addressed in Danse Macabre, specifically Anita's views toward continuing or terminating a pregnancy. This is how I think Anita would react were she actually pregnant. There will be discussion of abortion in the first part of the story, just so you know. Another note, I don't know anything about US state laws, so I'm making up specifics to apply to Anita's world.
Dedication: I don't usually do a dedication on my fics, but I need to give three nods out: To cissasghost for the talks we've had over the last few years on Anita and the occurrences in Danse Macabre. You always help me to get into Anita's head. Also to sabriel_0405, who's been a great fellow fan of the AB books. Happy belated birthday. Lastly, to he_dreams_awake for the suggestion of the Anita pregnancy fic. It was a good kick in the pants :)
It was almost dawn on a Wednesday morning when Jean-Claude returned to his bedroom, to prepare for his death for the coming day. The moment he opened the door, his senses were filled with the presence of a living, breathing woman. "Ma petite?" he said, switching on the light by the door. Anita lay on top of his sheets, arms wrapped defensively around her chest. When she looked at Jean-Claude, he saw that she had been crying. "What is wrong?"
Anita slowly uncurled as Jean-Claude neared the bed. She did not appear to be injured, and Jean-Claude smelled no blood. "I needed to see you," she said in a hesitant voice.
"What is it?" Jean-Claude sat on the bed next to Anita. He desperately wanted to take her in his arms, to comfort her, whatever her troubles, but everything about her posture screamed do not touch. "Did you not have to work tonight?"
"I had to work." Anita sniffled. "I had a couple of raisings, then I just sort of... drove around all night."
Jean-Claude put his hand on Anita's shoulder. She was cold to the touch. "What has happened, ma petite?"
Anita wouldn't look at him. "I'm... I found something out today, and you need to know. I mean, you of all people need to know, I guess."
"Ma petite, what is it?" Jean-Claude asked, mostly to still the torrent of words.
"I'm pregnant."
The word fell like fragile glass in the room. Jean-Claude pushed all his emotions down, deep enough that Anita would never be able to sense them. Once he had himself under control, he said, as gently as he could, "Are you certain? The last time you thought this..."
"Of course I'm certain!" Anita's voice cracked. She angrily pushed away tears in her eyes. "I remember what happened last year!" She pushed herself up off the bed and stalked across the room. "I did the pregnancy test, and the blood test and the sonogram and everything! This isn't a false alarm!"
Carefully, Jean-Claude rose to his feet. "Do you know how far along you are?" he asked. Part of him did not want to know, did not want to know which of the men in Anita's life, in her bed, had put a child inside her.
The other part feared that he had done this to her, had given her a child that she could not possibly keep.
"The doctor figures from the sonogram that it's about two months." Anita stopped in front of the empty fireplace. "That would put it back in September."
Jean-Claude let out an unnecessary breath. In September, there had been yet another crisis, in which he and Anita needed to feed the ardeur to save Richard. It had been an emergency, and there had not been a chance to use the condoms Anita had insisted upon ever since the last pregnancy scare. That meant...
"So I guess congratulations are in order," Anita continued. Jean-Claude had never heard her sound quite so cynical.
Jean-Claude gripped the bedpost, hiding his feelings behind a cold mask. "What will you do now, ma petite?" He expected her to tell him that she planned to terminate the pregnancy immediately, and the thought hit him like a whip cracking across his back.
Anita straightened her shoulders. "The doctor said he can't do an amnio to test for Vlad's Syndrome until after fifteen weeks." She turned around. "So I guess we wait."
Wait. Jean-Claude wondered if Anita knew what she was doing, if she knew why she was making these choices.
Jean-Claude was too experienced to delude himself that their situation could possibly have a happy ending. If the child was truly his, then it would most likely have Vlad's Syndrome, and Anita could not carry this pregnancy to full term without her life being endangered.
It would be best if she ended this now.
She knew that.
He opened his mouth to speak, to urge her to action, but the weight of bitter hope stilled his tongue.
~~~
Jean-Claude stared at the ledger on his desk, the numbers nothing but inky scratches in his mind. Today was the day Anita was to receive the results from the test on the child, and he could think of nothing else.
It had been two months since she came to him with the news of her pregnancy, and he had not been able to think of anything else.
She had told no one, save for Micah and Nathaniel, of the baby. Indeed, in her normal clothes, she had not gained enough weight to give away her secret. But Jean-Claude had seen her naked, had held her against him in the dark. He had touched the hard swell of her belly under his hand and felt life growing within her.
A life that might kill her. Nothing alive could come from death. There was hardly any chance that Jean-Claude's child would not be deformed, would not be a monster that would tear its way out of Anita's womb if it were allowed to come to full term.
The irony was not lost on Jean-Claude.
A tap at the door pulled Jean-Claude out of his introspection. He stood, straightening his shirt as he walked to open the door. "Ma petite," Jean-Claude acknowledged, holding the door open for her. "Will you come in?"
Anita swallowed hard, her eyes huge in her too-pale face. "I..."
Jean-Claude took Anita's arm and guided her into his office. "Sit, ma petite." Anita let Jean-Claude help her down to the couch, which worried him more than he would have imagined. "Might I get you a drink? Some ginger ale?"
It took Anita a minute to respond. "No more ginger ale. I don't think I'll ever be able to get rid of this association of ginger ale and morning sickness."
"A coke, then?" He knew that Anita had stopped drinking caffeinated beverages since she learned of the pregnancy, but she pretended she hadn't, and like a fool, Jean-Claude played along with her.
He was a fool in a great many things with Anita.
"Soda water? With a lime?" Anita suggested. "It's late."
"As you wish." Jean-Claude kissed Anita's hand before moving to his phone. He called down to the bar with his order, and hung up. The ensuing silence was oppressive, but Jean-Claude did not want to break the stillness.
If he did not know that the baby was a monster, then he would not have to think about all the things he had come so close to having, only to have them all slip through his fingers.
After a few minutes that felt like hours, the door opened and Stephen came in, carrying a tray. He gave Jean-Claude a quizzical look before placing the tray on the coffee table by Anita. She roused enough to give him a small smile before he left.
Stephen looked at Jean-Claude again on his way out. Jean-Claude shook his head, and a brief flash of relief crossed the werewolf's face.
While Anita had not told anyone of the pregnancy, Jean-Claude knew that those closest to her were not fooled. Anita's wereleopards had figured it out, and because of Gregory, Stephen knew as well. Jean-Claude could only thank every god in heaven and below that Richard was out of town for the semester, teaching at the University of Illinois as a sessional lecturer. This time was hard enough on Anita without the Ulfric's heavy-handed interference.
If things went the way Jean-Claude knew they must, then Richard would never need to know.
Anita roused herself and stared at the tray. "Why is there a sandwich on there?" she demanded, and she sounded almost normal. "Since when does soda water contain bread?"
"It is in case you become hungry, ma petite." Jean-Claude crossed the room to sit at Anita's side. "I did not want us to be interrupted."
Anita picked up the glass of water and took a small sip. "Oh. Right." She took another sip, then set the glass down.
"Was today not the day that you were to receive the results of your test?" Jean-Claude asked.
Anita nodded once. She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her jacket pocket. "Here they are." She unfolded the paper and touched a spot of writing. "It's perfect."
Jean-Claude did not understand what she meant. "Ma petite?"
Anita cleared her throat. "The amnio came back clean. The doctor wanted to make sure, so he ran more tests than normal, and every genetic test they have says that it's perfect. No Vlad's Syndrome, no nothing. Just a normal baby."
Jean-Claude did not know what to say.
"It's basically too late for an abortion in Missouri without the Vlad's Syndrome exemption, but there's this hospital in Iowa I could go to," Anita continued, picking at the paper.
Jean-Claude took the paper from Anita's hand and laid it on the couch between them. "What will you do now, ma petite?" he asked once he found his voice. He should have known this would happen, that he should not have even dared let himself hope for a happy ending. He was a romantic and a fool and all it ever got him was hurt.
He had concentrated so hard on believing the child would have Vlad's Syndrome that he hadn't thought to wonder if Anita would want to continue the pregnancy even if the child was healthy... perfect, as she said.
Anita pulled her legs up to her chest. She shook her head. "I guess I need to figure out what to do next," she said softly. "I... What do you want me to do?"
It was a plea more than a question. He knew Anita so well, and he knew that in spite of what she said, she wanted someone to tell her what to do, to take the weight of such a choice off her shoulders.
Suddenly, Jean-Claude was tired of it all; the uncertainty, the lies she hid behind, how she refused to acknowledge that she had made a choice in this matter two months before, when she had refused to abort the child immediately.
"I want you to tell me one thing, ma petite," Jean-Claude said. Startled, Anita took her eyes off the paper and looked at him. "What did you expect to happen?"
"What are you talking about?"
"When you found out about the baby, two months ago, you knew it had a very high chance of Vlad's, but still, you decided to wait for the test results." Jean-Claude gripped the back of the couch, refusing to allow his feelings to show on his face. "You knew the risks were high, too high, but you did not rid yourself of the baby then. Why? What did you expect to happen if the test results had come back clean? You know now, Anita. You know that the child will not be deformed, and you must decide what you will do with it."
Anita had gone so pale that Jean-Claude wondered if she might faint. "Her."
"What?"
"Don't say 'it'," Anita said. "It's a girl." She let out a shaky breath as she picked up the paper. "The amnio results, they say it's a girl." She touched the paper, and this time, Jean-Claude could make out the checkmark beside the 'gender: female' box on the page. "I keep thinking I can feel her moving. I know that's probably not possible, not yet, but it's like she's squirming around in there and I don't..."
Anita's voice broke and a tear slid down her cheek. Jean-Claude moved closer and put his arm around her shoulders, holding her tight. He could feel her shaking.
"It's all different from last time," Anita said after a minute. "Last time, I only had a few days to think about it before we figured out I wasn't pregnant, but now I've had over two months of knowing." She pressed her cheek against Jean-Claude's shoulder. "That's a long time."
Jean-Claude kissed the top of Anita's head, stroked her hair until her shivering subsided. The women of this age thought that everything was different for them, with children unplanned. Even before Jean-Claude became a vampire, it was not much different. Women had made the same choices, some children were born and some were not, and that was the way it would always be. Human nature did not change.
"Are you going to go to that hospital in Iowa, ma petite?"
Anita's voice was so quiet that Jean-Claude almost missed her response. "No, I'm not."
For the first time in a very long time, Jean-Claude dared to let himself hope.
~~~
Jean-Claude dabbed at his split lip, not letting himself wince as he cleaned the blood off his face. Really, he hadn't expected this meeting to go any other way, but if Richard hadn't--
"What the hell happened to you?" Anita's voice cut into the silence of the room.
Jean-Claude sighed. "Bon nuit, ma petite."
"Jean-Claude?" Anita pulled on his arm, turning him to face her. "Did someone hit you?"
"Oui." Jean-Claude let Anita take the cloth from his hand and minister to him. "Richard came to see me."
"Richard?" Anita demanded, pressing too hard on Jean-Claude's lip. "Why the hell did he hit you?"
Jean-Claude took the cloth from Anita and shrugged. "He has returned to town, and I do believe that one of his wolves told him of your pregnancy."
"How the hell would they know?"
Jean-Claude gave her a look. "Ma petite, you are six months along. It has become apparent." He laid his hand on her swollen belly, feeling movement under his palm. "I take it that la petite brioche is particularly active today?"
"Yeah, she's been kicking up a storm." Anita pulled Jean-Claude's hand away. "You still haven't told me why Richard hit you!"
"Ma petite, please. He considers that I have 'won' you, and it has upset him."
Anita glared at him. "'Won' me? What the hell kind of insanity is that? This wasn't some kind of measure of masculinity based on the swimming speed of sperm!" She pointed a finger at him. "Did you remind him that this whole thing happened because we were helping him?"
Jean-Claude raised an eyebrow. "I fail to see how that would have made Richard feel any better. Regardless. It is over, he has expressed his displeasure, and I find myself wondering why you are here."
Anita narrowed her eyes. "What did you do to him?"
"Ma petite?"
"He punched you! You can't stand there and tell me you just let him smack you around and did nothing to him?"
Jean-Claude sighed. He wondered if Anita would understand that he knew how Richard felt, understood the pain of feeling as if he had lost the woman he loved to another man. Jean-Claude had felt the same thing with regard to Richard and Anita, years before. "I did not harm Richard in any way, ma petite." He held out his hands. "I swear to you."
Still looking rather suspicious, Anita let herself be drawn into Jean-Claude's arms. The swell of the baby pressed against Jean-Claude's own stomach, and he could feel the movement of their daughter within Anita. "You better not have." Anita gave Jean-Claude a hug. "I need your help."
"I live to serve you, ma petite."
Anita smacked his arm as she pulled back, removing a notebook from her pocket as she did so. "Tell me all about your family."
"Ma petite?"
"Any history of family illnesses? Birth defects?" Anita held a pencil over the pages. "My obstetrician wants to put together a full family history in case anything comes up. Plus I think he's a little weirded out about you being so old."
Jean-Claude blinked. He had not thought of such a thing being an issue. "When I was born, ma petite, it was considered that such things were in the hands of God."
"Well, God's pretty busy these days, so let's give him a hand, okay?"
Jean-Claude pulled Anita over the bed and made her sit down. "I am not sure what I can tell you, ma petite. My mother lived to past ninety, an unheard-of age in those days. However, my father fell from a fence and died when I was still a baby. My sister had ten children, five of whom died in infancy--"
Anita's pencil stilled. "Five?" she exclaimed, horrified. "Half of her children died as babies?"
Jean-Claude laid a reassuring hand on Anita's shoulder. "Those were very different times, ma petite. Illness stalked the land, making no distinction between the child of a rich man and the child of a beggar. My sister once told me that she was blessed by God to have so many of her children live."
Anita blinked back tears. "Sorry, mood swing," she said after a minute.
"Shh." Jean-Claude kissed Anita's cheek. "Never apologize for compassion, ma petite. It was the way of the world then; we knew no differently." He held Anita close. Blood flowed faster through her veins now, the flush of pregnancy upon her skin. "The pages of your notebook grow full, what else have you been writing?"
"Oh." Anita closed the book. "I was getting as much down as I could. I called my mom's mother, and talked to her a bit about her family history, and..." Her voice trailed off. "I called my dad."
Jean-Claude put his hand on Anita's belly. "How did that go?"
"Badly." Anita tossed the notebook to the ground. "Judith freaked out, and Dad... he didn't say much." Her breath hitched, and Jean-Claude knew that she was only a few moments away from justified tears. "I told him I'm having a baby and he didn't even say congratulations."
Jean-Claude frowned. "Did you tell him about the father of your child?"
"Yes."
"Ah." Jean-Claude rubbed at Anita's belly, feeling the baby kick against his palm. "Did you tell him how far along you are?" He waited for Anita to nod. "Perhaps he was surprised? For you to tell him in one conversation that his daughter is six months pregnant and that a vampire is the father, might be enough to give any man pause."
Anita didn't say anything.
"If you call him back, he might have a different reaction."
"Or he might never want to talk to me again."
"Shh, ma petite. Do not say such things. You have told me in the past that your father has never shut you out of his life entirely. News of a grandchild will probably not be the final straw."
"Maybe." Anita sat up. "I mean, maybe I can call him back, to find out some more about his side of the family."
"Oui."
"He probably won't ignore me."
"Ma petite, stop such negativity."
Anita looked at him. "Since when are you the eternal optimist? He was embarrassed by me when I was a kid, and all I did was raise the dead. This little thing has a vampire for a father, I can't see how he'll explain that one around church."
Jean-Claude felt his good mood slip a little. Something in the way Anita had phrased her statement gave Jean-Claude pause. "And you?"
Anita blinked. "And me what?"
"Will you be embarrassed by your daughter's parentage?"
Anita pulled away from Jean-Claude. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"We have never discussed this, ma petite, and now I hear you express these concerns. They are not those of your father, so what can I expect?"
Anita flung up her hands. "Where is this coming from?"
Jean-Claude looked at her. "Do you consider this child's parentage as something worthy of embarrassment?"
"No!" Anita crossed her arms over her chest. "No," she repeated. "I mean, we didn't plan this, and neither of us would have done this on purpose, but it happened, and that's just... that's good. This is good. She's good."
Jean-Claude rose to his feet. "I am sorry, ma petite."
Anita shook her head. "She's not an embarrassment, she's a child, just like I was. I wish Dad could understand that." Anita placed her hand on her belly. "At the rate she's going, she'll probably be a soccer player. She's been kicking for an hour straight."
"Perhaps she will be a dancer," Jean-Claude said.
Anita snorted. "If she's anything like me, she'll be as graceful as a truck."
"Hush, ma petite, you are indeed a graceful creature," Jean-Claude said.
"Right." Anita rolled her eyes. "I bet she'll be pretty."
"With you as her mother, how could la petite brioche be anything but?"
"You know what I mean." She gave him a curious look. "What does that mean, what you keep calling her?"
"A brioche is a sweet bun," Jean-Claude explained as he took Anita in his arms. "That is the idiom, is it not? A 'bun in the oven'?"
"Yeah, it is." Anita leaned against Jean-Claude. "We need to pick a name."
"In good time," Jean-Claude said. "You should call your father. I need to find Jason to feed."
"Okay." Anita kissed Jean-Claude on the cheek. "I'm still mad at Richard, you know."
"I suspected as much."
"Go." Anita gave Jean-Claude a tiny push. "I'll be here when you get back."
Jean-Claude bowed on the way out the door. The sight of Anita, flush with life, warmed his cold, unbeating heart. He would do anything to protect her and their daughter.
Anything.
He did not go to Jason's room. He went to Asher's empty room, and picked up the telephone by the bed. Hesitating before he dialed, Jean-Claude reflected on what he was about to do.
He was a vampire, Master of the City and Sourde de Sang. By the very nature of his being, he could not be at Anita's side as she raised their daughter. He would not be there when the child took her first steps, or when she attended her first day of school. More importantly, he would not be there during the child's daylight hours, to protect her from the dangers that would pile upon her by virtue of her parents' dangerous situation.
Anita would do all she could, but she could not be both mother and father to this child.
From what Jean-Claude had heard from Anita, so far she had not been alone. After the results of her test had come in, Micah had stood by Anita's side. Micah had driven Anita to her doctor appointments, had gone shopping with Anita for baby furniture, had tolerated the mood swings and the crying fits that Jean-Claude only heard about second-hand. Unlike Richard, Micah had accepted the baby into his life with Anita, and made no indication of jealousy.
The Nimir-Raj of the Blood-drinker's Clan was a powerful ally to Anita, and would be to Jean-Claude's daughter.
Jean-Claude dialed the phone. This was a phone call he had put off for far too long.
"Micah, it is Jean-Claude. There is matter of importance that we must discuss."
~~~
Jean-Claude was pulled from his death-sleep by the sensation of pain and screaming. "Ma petite?" he demanded, flinging his thoughts out along the marks. "What is wrong?"
"Your daughter decided to make an early appearance!" Anita let out a gasping scream. "This was not part of the deal!"
Seeing through her eyes, Jean-Claude caught glimpses of a white room, of people in colored robes, a flash of curly dark hair. "Micah is with you?"
"Of course he is!" Pain wracked Anita's midsection, and the sensation flowed through the marks. Jean-Claude doubled over. "I can't do this!"
"Ma petite, you must," Jean-Claude said, concentrating on Anita. "Our daughter needs you to be strong."
"She's early," Anita pleaded. "I was supposed to have another month to get ready!"
"You do not have a month, you have no time at all," Jean-Claude said. At Anita's side, he knew Micah was giving her encouragement, holding her hand through the pain, and Jean-Claude cursed his vampirism that kept him from Anita's side. "You are strong and you are not alone."
"What if--"
"No what ifs!" Jean-Claude pushed as much power as he could at Anita. "You are strong and our daughter is strong!"
Something was happening in the hospital room, one of the women saying something about pushing and Micah telling Anita to do it, and everything was loud and confused and in all of it, Anita took a deep breath and pushed.
After a minute, a cry ripped through the air, the sweetest sound that he had ever heard. "She's breathing!" Anita exclaimed, her eyes on the tiny squirming body in the doctor's hands. "Jean-Claude, she's breathing!"
Jean-Claude could only watch through Anita's eyes as one of the doctors wrapped the baby in a cloth and placed her in Anita's arms. Anita touched the squalling baby's cheek, happiness surging through her, and Jean-Claude did not know where Anita's emotions stopped and his began.
Their daughter had arrived.
"Hey, little bun," Anita said softly. The baby stopped crying and looked at Anita with dark eyes. Anita took the baby's tiny hand in her fingers. "Look at you."
Distantly, Jean-Claude knew Jason had just barged into his room, called by the power, but Jean-Claude ignored him.
Anita kissed their daughter on the head. "If you ever cause Mommy that much pain again, you're grounded for six years." The baby squawked, squirming in Anita's arms. "You're here."
"You did it, ma petite," Jean-Claude said in awe. A child, a child made of him and Anita, was in the world.
"We did it," Anita told him. Her entire attention was on their child. "It's going to be all right," Anita said, rocking the baby in her arms. "It's all going to be okay, you're here."
The baby opened her mouth and let out a cry that could only signal agreement.
Everything was going to be all right.
fin