Chapter 59 - What Are Friends For?
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Following the chaotic morning spent in Sickbay, Patricia sat on her couch wanting nothing more than to relax and put the awful few minutes of pure panic behind her. She turned on a holofilm with lots of explosions and action scenes and settled back. Her hand on her belly kept distracting her though. ‘It’s a girl,” she thought.
Millie arrived at the Crow quarters, pausing outside the door and ringing the chime.
Patricia looked from the screen to the door. She wasn’t getting up, she didn’t care if someone was there to rob the place. “Enter.”
Millie smiled as she stepped through the door. “Hey you, how are you feeling?”
“We’re doing good. Stopped by Sickbay this morning with my hair on fire because I was freaking out but it was no big deal. Nurse Hawthorne checked and guess what.”
“It’s twins?” Millie smirked and gave a wink.
“No…..but it’s a girl. She let it slip when she was explaining things to me.”
Millie plunked down on the couch and threw her arms around Patricia in a hug. “Oh my gosh, how exciting!” She pulled back, looking at Patricia. “Do the boys know? I promise not to ruin the surprise if they don’t.”
“Nobody knows, I wasn’t even supposed to know. But now it’s all I can think about and I don’t know how I’m not going to tell Chance.”
Millie raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to keep it from him for the next three months?”
“We had talked about not knowing. I don’t know if he really has his heart set on being surprised.” She grinned, embarrassed. “You should have seen me this morning though. I ran down there in my pajamas!”
Millie furrowed her brow, but not in a way that indicated she didn’t already know this information. “Why would you go to Sickbay in your pajamas?”
“I woke up, the house was empty and I got up, washed my face, all that and something felt weird and then it hit me….I couldn’t feel her. She’s had her head in my ribs for like a month. So I freaked and hurried down there but it turns out she shifted in the night. I feel so foolish for the scene I caused.”
Millie reached out and put a hand on Patricia’s knee. “Trish– you are having the same feeling that every mother on this ship has experienced, especially since this is your first baby. All of these experiences are new for you, and you absolutely didn’t cause a scene.”
“What you’re saying makes sense, but I usually have my shit together. I can only imagine what some of them who saw me are saying. I know the important thing is she’s healthy and we’re almost done. I just couldn’t imagine what I’d be doing right now if I’d lost her. Sitting here waiting for Chance to come home so I could blindside him I guess.”
“You wouldn’t be doing it alone. Gloria keeps me appraised when someone in Sickbay gets bad news, and your friendly neighborhood counselor is on hand to help bear that burden.” She gave Patricia’s knee a squeeze. “And we wouldn’t make you wait– we’d go find him and pull him off duty, and let him be there for you, too.” She chuckled. “And then we’d go find Henry so he could get all paternal.”
She was nodding until something Millie said circled back. “She told you?”
Millie nodded. “Said she’d never seen you so worried. Told me that everything was fine with the baby, but she knows that we’re friends and thought you could probably use a friend just as much as you could use your counselor.”
That checked out and she relaxed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have sounded so defensive. I’ve been walking on eggshells ever since I found out I was pregnant. I’ve really tried to do everything right and how I’ve been told and still, I thought it was all over. It makes me think about being a failure. This is the one thing I can’t mess up.”
“Why do you feel like you can’t mess up?”
“Because I have a good thing…a great thing going, and I can’t lose it.”
“What do you think you’re going to lose?” Millie’s voice was soft and gentle in her questioning.
“Him, them, everyone and everything. I know that sounds very vague. My brain has been wired to expect the worst and it’s like there’s little slivers, you know one of those pie diagrams? This piece tells me at night when I wake up he’ll tell me he’s found someone else. This piece says I’m doing an awful job raising Kieren. This one says nobody on the ship likes me and puts up with me because they think I’m a psycho. You get the point.”
Millie smirked. “You know that Liski is a whole lot scarier than you, right?”
“I’m thirty-some pounds heavier now. Gimme some time at least.”
Millie chuckled softly, leaning her shoulder against Patricia’s. “You know…that man of yours convinced Henry, of all people, to let him take a shuttle, a pilot, and an entire security team out on a wild goose chase to find you when you and I disappeared.”
“I know he loves me, he tells me every single day. But then there’s the voice. He doesn’t love you. He’s looking for someone better. Why would he even love you?” She shook her head slightly. “They really did a number on me.”
Millie’s voice was soothing. “Who did a number on you?”
“My parents, James, Jessa, Shadow, the list goes on. This ship is the first time I felt like I was being welcomed into a family not because of what I could do for them, but because they were just good people. That was well before I ever met Chance. If I had to start all over again, I don’t know if I could.”
Millie settled further into the couch, tucking her legs up under her as she typically did. “What makes you think you would have to start all over?”
“If the voices are right. And I’m not that crazy I don’t hear voices, I just mean doubts.”
“You think that if something happened with the baby, all of these people around you who love you and care for you might…leave?” Millie’s voice was soft as she spoke.
“I’m a natural fuckup unless there’s blood or bombs…” she stopped. “I know that tone, you’re shrinking me.”
Millie chuckled softly. “I can’t separate my training from who I am any more than you could if someone burst through the door with a gun, Trish.” She smirked. “Maybe with a bit more waddle than you’re used to.”
“Yeah, yeah, make the fat jokes.” She acted affronted but sobered. “I spent about thirty years of my life being reminded that without a weapon in my hand I’m not worth shit.”
Millie’s gloved hand gently brushed against Patricia’s arm. “Do you like your new role on the ship?”
“Mission Analyst or mother to be or wife? Sometimes they blend together. Stat is great on intel, I’m not mad at her. But Henry needed to find me something to keep me busy and keep me close to him in that chair he hates.”
“I think you’re good as an analyst, you know. I think you’ve been on the ground enough that you can predict things that others wouldn’t think could happen.” Millie gave her a gentle nudge with her elbow. “You bring a lot of experience and training to the table. I think you’d be really good with helping to train more of our security officers, too.” She smirked. “They’re getting tired of having the counselor throw them to the mats over and over again. I think they’re hoping you help to even the scales once the baby comes.”
“It’s interesting work but it’s boring. Checking people’s plans is not like getting out there and doing it myself. I think that’s why Henry created the position. Because I’m doing this with him and it gives him someone to commiserate with, He feels the same way…worse, actually because the person he sends into the fire is his wife.” She reached for her drink and took a long pull from the straw. “I have the best life I could have ever dreamed of and I’m waiting to wake up, you know?”
Millie reached over and gently took Patricia’s hand. “I can’t promise that our lives will be absent of trials or strife. But what I can guarantee is that your family and friends will be there to support and guide you through both the good times and the bad ones.” She gave a gentle smile. “And, just maybe, you were living a nightmare before, and now your real life is the one you have in the waking world. With your husband and your son…and soon to be your daughter.”
She needed her friend’s encouragement. “Do you think that I need to be on some kind of medication?”
Millie sat, holding Patricia’s hand. “That’s certainly something we can talk about, if you would like. But I also think you and I could talk more. You’re in the middle of making a pretty big life change, and those kinds of changes come with lots of concerns and self-doubts sometimes. If you’d like, we can talk together with Chance, and maybe come up with some things you can do together that might help to lighten some of your concerns.” She gave the hand a gentle squeeze. “And sometimes it just takes time to undo the things that were programmed into us when we were little.” She smiled. “If I look back a decade, you and I were both very different people, weren’t we?”
Patricia thought for a moment and thought Millie had made a lot of good points. “I’ll talk to him on our trip for the funeral and see what he thinks about all of it.”
Millie slid in a little closer, leaning her shoulder against Patricia and reaching over to place a hand on her belly. “This little girl is going to be one of the luckiest kids in the quadrant–you know that, right?”
“My kid only gets a quadrant?” She sounded affronted.
Millie shrugged. “I mean, mine is a princess, after all…”
“And they’ll grow up together. Kieren has Marcus and she’ll have Lana.”
“God and Prophets both help us when they discover boys.” Millie gave a smile.
“Let me get through diapers first.”