Dark and Deep

Week 9

She can do this.

It's one doctor's appointment. One little check-up with OB-GYN should be nothing.

But it feels like something.

Kate had spent the morning curled up on the floor of her bathroom, too exhausted and sick to move from the cool tile and get dressed. She hadn't even managed to eat anything that morning, dry-heaving instead.

Nine weeks along and she was already tired of being pregnant.

"Kate Beckett?"

She looks up, sees the nurse in the doorway scanning the waiting room. Kate gets up, following the nurse back down a hallway into an empty room. "Doctor Sherwood will be right with you," the young lady says, closing the door behind her.

Kate paces, nervous energy zipping through her. "What's going on, baby?" she asks, tipping her head down to regard her stomach.

Doctor Sherwood is a sweet woman, grey hair piled up into a messy, braided bun on her head with pretty earrings swinging from her ears. She chats with Kate while running through the checklist about reality television and the Yankees and the annoyance of those political ads running already even though the election isn't until November.

"Okay, Kate," Sherwood says, putting the clipboard down and getting up. "We should be able to hear baby's heartbeat at this time. Want to test it out?"

Kate shrugs, trying on a smile. "Sure."

The wand that Sherwood wields looks like a hand-held metal detector, the type Kate has seen at airports or baseball games. Except when the doctor waved this one over Kate's stomach, it didn't beep.

Instead, there was a quiet thumping in the room.

Kate gasps, sitting up on the table too quickly, her head spinning from the motion. "Is that…?"

"Awww…" says Sherwood, tilting her head to the side as she tries to find a stronger heartbeat. "Baby says hello. Sounds nice and strong."

Kate doesn't hear the rest of Sherwood's babble – something about another appointment in a few weeks to check in – but she does manage to wave at the doctor as she leaves, the room empty again.

"Hey, baby," Kate whispers, running a hand over her flat stomach. "Hello."

March is freezing. The news reporter that morning, dressed in green for the St. Patrick's Day parade, informed her as she got dressed that they could be breaking a record for the coldest day in the city since who-knew-when. All that told Kate was that she needed to add a scarf to her outfit for the day to ward off the chill.

The morning had begun the same way every morning had started for the past two weeks: make toast, smear a little bit of strawberry jam over the surface, pour a glass of water, and pray that it all stayed down. It hadn't, of course, and she had found herself on the cool tile of her bathroom once again.

So, running on barely enough sleep, Kate dresses in jeans, her mom's old fisherman's sweater, and a deep green scarf as a nod to St. Patrick and slips on a pair of sneakers before rushing out of the apartment.

Pretty much every NYPD officer was on-duty or on-call for St. Patrick's Day. People got rowdy during any parade but the mixture of alcohol with the excitement always lead to arrests. She parks her car as close to Bryant Park as she can, locking it and tucking the keys into her pocket.

"Hey Beckett!" Ryan calls, waving her over to the bench where a bunch of detectives are hanging out, waiting for assignments. She walks over slowly, slipping her hands into the gloves she grabbed from the center console. "Happy St. Paddy's Day!"

Kate takes in the little shamrock pin on her co-worker's lapel with a shake of her head. "Back atcha, Ryan."

"Listen," he says, tugging on Kate's sweater sleeve away from the detectives around them when he sees her nose wrinkle at the smell of their breakfast sandwiches. "I've asked that they keep us together." Her brow arches and Ryan is quick to hold his hands up between them. "Just… I know you want to keep… Well, I wasn't sure you wanted everyone to know about…"

She puts him out of his misery, smiling and nodding. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

"No problem. Plus, it'll be nice to have someone you know to talk to. You know, between arresting drunk assholes."

He says it so cheerful that Kate has to grin. The Irishman knows how to set people at ease, she admits. "Well let's go find out exactly where we're deployed to."

Ten minutes later, she's leaning against the brick façade of a building a few blocks from MoMA, huddling against the crisp breeze tunneling down Fifth Avenue. Her stomach is rolling with the scent of bangers and mash, still unsettled from the morning spent on the bathroom floor. She has a hand pressed to her face, trying to breathe in the comforting smell of the leather of her glove rather than the grease of the traditional Irish food.

It's not working.

But she needs to focus on the crowd, not her rebelling body, so she tries to push it to the back of her mind.

"Happy St. Paddy's Day, Officer!" she hears moments before a stranger, the whiff of beer on his breath washing over her, throws his arm over her shoulders and pulls her against his side. "Erin goooo…"

Kate ducks from under his embrace, grabs the offending arm, twists it behind him, and slams him against the brick wall.

The man whimpers, "Come on, Officer! Cut me some slack. It's St. Paddy's Day."

She doesn't listen, not in the mood to play mediator. Instead, she finds her handcuffs on her belt and snugs them around the man's wrists. "Sorry, bud," she says with snap in her tone. "Picked the wrong detective to snuggle with today."

Ryan had moved closer, watching carefully. "Want me to take him?" he asks.

Kate starts to shake her head, begins to tell the other man that she has him, but then a vendor with a sausage cart walks by and she feels her stomach twist. "All yours," she manages, staying there long enough to make sure Ryan has a hold on the drunk before she turns and runs.

She finds the first restaurant that isn't packed with people looking for beer and pushes her way past the patrons to the back. One of the waiters steps in front of her and she does the only thing she can think of – she flashes her badge at him and he moves. Kate locks the door to the bathroom behind her and loses the toast and water from breakfast.

Slumping to sit on the ground, not caring really that it's not the most sanitary of locations, Kate runs a hand through her hair. The doctor said another few days and the morning sickness, the urge to throw up at the smell of anything would be gone. She prays that her OB-GYN is right because yesterday was the second time she had nearly fallen asleep at her desk from the lack of breakfast and while everyone at work knew about her little accident, she didn't need it affecting her job so dramatically.

Kate takes her phone from her pocket, opening up a text message to send off to Lanie.

Need a day. Cover for me?

She waits until her friend texts back with the affirmative before she puts the phone away again. With a sigh, Kate pokes the still-flat plane of her stomach gently. "Hey, baby. Enough of this," she whispers.

She's shaky when she gets to her feet, cups her hand under the water faucet in the bathroom to wash her mouth out. Kate leaves the restaurant calmer than when she entered, smiling a little at the hostess before going to find Ryan.

"You okay?" he asks quietly. As quietly as possible with the din of parade-goers around them.

Kate starts out nodding but when Ryan narrows his eyes just a sliver, she switches to shaking her head. "Taking the rest of the day. I just…"

It was Ryan's turn to shake his head. "Go. I gotcha."

"Thanks. I'll owe you," she says, starting back toward one of the marked cruisers on the side of the street for a ride to Bryant Park.

She calls her dad as she drives to his apartment on the Upper West Side, tells him that she wants to spend the day with him. He lets her in with a soft smile and a long hug.

"You okay today, Katie?" Jim asks, putting a kettle on the stove for tea, watching her take out the tea bags and mugs, digging into his box of teas for the decaf in the back.

"No," she says. She knows better, from years of experience, than to lie to her father. The man's practically a walking polygraph. "Bad morning."

"Should be close to the end of this phase."

She curls up on the couch, waiting as he boils the water and adds it to their mugs. She can hear him mixing in the sugar and milk for hers, honey into his before bringing the mugs over. "What do you want to do?" he questions, stirring his tea idly as he regards her.

"Watch TV?" she ventures, reaching for the remote. "You pick."

Jim switches on the Food Network in time to catch the start of Iron Chef America. Giving his daughter a tug, he snuggles her against his side. "That Bobby Flay is certainly something to look at," he chuckles.

"Think he's taken," Kate returns, letting her head rest against her dad's shoulder.

"Drat." Jim takes a sip of his tea. "Can still look, right?"

They spend the day like that, cuddled up on the couch as if she was six years old again and putting up with the stomach flu. The shows switched, changing from Iron Chef to Cupcake Wars, but the Becketts stayed the same.

"Dad?" Kate starts, turning her head a little to see his cheek. "Went to the doctor today."

He hums, letting her carry the conversation.

"I heard baby." She pauses, blinks back unexpected tears. "Baby's there."

"Of course baby is," he says, pressing a kiss to her hair. "Love you both. You and baby."

Kate pushes closer against her dad's side and he wraps his arm around her shoulder in a one-armed hug. "I'm so scared."

"It'll get better. Easier."

She huffs out a breath. "If you say so."

"I do. And I'm always right." That earns him an eye-roll to which he says, "Hey. Parents are always right. You can hold that over baby's head once we meet it officially. Got a due date yet?"

"Soon?" she says hopefully.

"So, no. Don't worry, Katie," Jim murmurs, kissing her temple. "It'll fly by."