Chapter Text
“Ashley.”
“I’ve already vetoed Ashley.”
The machines around them beep steadily. The soft light of evening spills through the curtained windows of the room, but the atmosphere is electric, the tension ebbing and flowing in rhythm with the woman lying on the hospital bed.
“I know, but,” CJ pauses to take a deep breath, gripping the bedsheet with one hand and Toby’s fingers with the other. “I’m here now with my legs up in the air like an idiot and my vagina is, you know, tearing wide open and I’m in a whole lot of pain right now so I figured…” she gasps sharply and then continues, “I’d give it another shot.”
She groans through her teeth and he can see every muscle in her body working as she pushes.
“I do feel bad about that,” he says softly. “But not Ashley.”
“Lydia.”
“I vetoed that one too.” He lifts the hand holding hers to his lips and kisses her knuckles softly.
CJ takes another deep breath. He can feel her right beside him, his cheek brushing hers, the smell of sweat and medicine and that elusive sweet scent that always drifted about her filling his senses. She squeezes his hand again.
“Push,” the nurse urges for what feels like the thousandth time.
CJ strains against the bed again and this time she cries out in pain. The sound makes him flinch; he hides it by burying his nose in her hair and pressing a fierce kiss to her forehead, tasting salt and the vanilla of the lotion she’d applied earlier. “Come on, Jeanie,” he murmurs against her skin. “You can do this. You can.”
She nods. She pushes again, and screams louder, her cheeks flushing blotchy red. Her grip is breaking all the tiny bones in his hand, but he clenches his jaw and bears it, knowing it’s nothing compared to the effort it is taking to bring their daughter into the world.
Their daughter. Soon he will have a daughter.
CJ’s daughter is his daughter. The idea still sends butterflies and panic swirling in his stomach in equal measure.
“Push,” says the nurse.
CJ does. She’s silent again, and her head tilts back against the pillow as she slackens, and he turns to look at her.
She’s paler now. Her lips are parted and she breathes for a moment.
Toby looks back over at the doctor, awaiting the next ‘push,’ but the doctor and two of the nurses are suddenly busy, kneeling on the floor at the foot of the bed. Something metal clangs loudly.
“Go with your instincts, baby, push when you’re ready,” Toby says, turning back to CJ.
She’s white as a sheet. Her breath hitches, and at the same moment, the vice grip on his hand suddenly slackens and her slender fingers slip from his.
“CJ?” Toby leans over her. He presses one hand to her cheek and finds cold sweat on her greying skin, and her next breath is a ragged gasp through lips that are rapidly turning blue. His heart falters. “Jeanie? Baby?”
Toby whirls around to shout at the medical team, only to find that the male nurse is suddenly right beside him. The man takes his elbow and pulls. He’s speaking, but Toby isn’t listening, reaching for CJ’s limp hand and watching in disbelief as her blue eyes lose focus. Something catches his eye, and he finally sees the blood spreading out from underneath her. So much blood, red and sticky and spilling rapidly, like she’s damaged an artery.
“CJ!” Arms are dragging him backwards, pinning his hands to his sides as he struggles to break free. “No, no, CJ! CJ!”
The nurses are talking to him but their words are blunted by his panic. All he can see is CJ, the way her hair catches the light as she shakes her head in confusion, the way she looks for him with unfocused eyes. His shoes skid over the threshold; the arms holding him back are unyielding. CJ looks right at him and he sees her lips frame his name.
Just before the door slams shut, he watches her eyes roll back in her skull and her entire body begin to seize, blood still spreading steadily through her gown and dripping from between her legs.
And then he’s alone.
Toby staggers back across the hallway until his back slams into a wall; he slides down to the floor in a heap, unable to breathe. He can’t tear his eyes from the door.
When CJ had come to him eight months before with a drugstore pregnancy test in her hands and a question on her lips, he had expected many things. He had expected the office drama, the sharpened knives of the anticipatory right wing, the way that pregnancy would drive CJ crazy with impatience. He had even anticipated the mood swings and the 2am cravings which he had gotten for her and the way the President strutted around the building boasting about his new grandchild to be as surely as if CJ were his own blood.
It simply had never crossed his mind that he might lose her at the end of it all.
The ringing grows louder. It sounds different, now - it takes Toby a long time to realize that his pager is beeping. He checks it, then slips it back into his pocket and retrieves his mobile phone. He dials up a familiar number, and just as the call goes out, he notices the red droplets smeared across the buttons.
There’s blood on his hands. Both of them. Crimson and warm and it’s CJ’s blood, gathered under his fingernails as he clung to her, fighting to stay by her side.
Numbly, he watches the call go through. The phone is still cradled in his palm, bloody fingertips hovering uselessly.
A muffled voice speaks.
“Toby?” comes Leo’s cheerful voice, tinny and distant through the phone in his shaking hands. “Listen, I’m about to step into a meeting…wanted to check for an update. How’s our girl?”
Toby stares at the blood on his hands and feels something in his head splinter apart. Slowly, he presses the phone to his ear. He can smell the metallic scent of blood reeking off his own skin. It’s overwhelming. It’s CJ’s.
“Toby?”
He opens his mouth. He breathes.
“…Toby?”