73 - Hello to Goodbye

He looked good.  Tired, as Dorothea had said, but to her Tony-hungry eyes, even exhaustion looked good on him.  Lilah would've told him that, too, if her vocal cords weren't rendered immobile by the unexpected phenomenon of his presence.  As it was, her tongue had atrophied and her dumbfounded lips could only gape in silent query.

This was one of those things that happened in movies. The timing was so absurdly uncanny that only a Hollywood writer could have scripted the scene.

With all the times I half-wished for you to appear out of nowhere and come back into my life, you had to pick NOW?  WHY now?

His whispery kiss over the back of her hand brought her back to life with a jolting shock that was comparable to any defibrillator machine they had in this hospital.  Her eyelids slowly blinked him back into focus until she found herself drowning in the tenderness that spilled from his eyes.  She didn't want his tenderness.  She couldn't handle it on top of everything else.

Ignoring the tightness in her chest, she somehow regained enough control of her faculties and her voice to softly ask, "What are you doin' here?"

"Lilah, I'm goin' out to the waitin' room and give you two time to talk," Joanna interjected smoothly, pressing her own kiss to Lilah’s cheek before vanishing from the bedside.

Oh God. She's leaving me alone with him?  I can't do this I can't do this. I... CAN’T... DO... THIS!

Her mind spinning like whirling dervish and her heart knocking against the wall of her chest, she still managed to remain expressionless, nodding dumbly as Joanna slipped from the room.  What other option did she have?  Anything else would paint her as a mentally unstable lunatic. 

It ain’t far from the truth right now.

Tony didn't know what to expect, but the detached indifference that Lilah held up like a shield of armor – as though she had to protect herself - hadn't even been a distant consideration.  That annoyed him, reminding him of their first few days together. That wasn't who they were anymore and they'd moved too far beyond that damned apathetic aloofness of hers to go back now.  He wasn't going to hurt her, for God's sake!

There are lots of versions of hurt, asshole. You don't think what you did in Lisbon hurt her? 

"I came to see you. Now tell me what YOU'RE doing here," he countered quietly. "What happened, Bluegrass?"

"But how did you know I was here?"

He swirled his thumb over the satiny skin of her hand and shook his head at the calmly detached question.  She still had that avoidance thing down pat when she didn’t want to talk about something.  If he had to guess, he'd say she was pretending that she hadn’t been brought here in a damn ambulance.

“I’ve spent the last hour wigged out because your landlady said you were unconscious and hemorrhaging.  Put me out of my misery and tell me what’s wrong, already.”

Her eyes locked on his for a split second, and he thought he saw a crack in Shield of Apathy before she quickly plastered over it.  “They haven’t actually told me for sure.”

Lilah’s heart beat a mile a minute as she concentrated on his touch.  The heat of his hand over hers was like a balm to her battered soul.  She shouldn’t derive this much pleasure from the simple scrape of his thumb over her knuckles, but she’d missed him.  So much. 

“Joanna said you were going to be fine, so it can’t be that bad, right?  C'mon, Lilah.  No bullshit."

'Fine' depended on your point of view, really.  It depended on who you were and what you wanted out of life.  Lilah might be physically fine, but her mind...  Well, it was going to take a long time before it was 'fine' again.

Lilah Jane, don’t be a damn drama queen.  Just tell him.

But if she told him, then she would have to stare it dead in the eyes.  It would become real and… Lilah’s eyes prickled.  She didn’t want it to be real.  Not like this.  Not ever.

Too bad.  It is real and he’s standing right here in front of you.  You may never have told him if he weren’t, but he is, so tell him already.  No fancy cliff-hanger speech, just say the words.

Clearing her throat, she flicked her eyes to the still-closed door before turning them to meet his, finding Tony's gaze was gentle and curious as he vainly sought access to the thoughts she was keeping hidden.  There was no doubt he knew she was hiding something.  He always knew.

Then tell him and be done with it!

“I had a miscarriage.”

His thumb went still and, before he could censor them, the questions racing through his mind paraded over his face as bold as blinking neon lights.  Miscarriage?  She had been pregnant?  With his baby? 

“You’re the only one I’ve been with in over a year, Tony,” she felt compelled to push past the lump in her throat.  The baby had been his, without a sliver of doubt.  She needed him to know that.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

Lilah withdrew her hand from under his to mindlessly crumple the edge of the thin hospital blanket.  She smoothed it back out again through a blur of tears, her lips quivering with restrained sorrow as the cruel fingers of reality poked painfully at her psyche.  The sharp, pointed jabs made her unable to stay emotionally removed from the situation.

Pregnancy implied rounded bellies, glowing mommies and squirming pink bundles of cuteness.  Little baby booties, first smiles, and first laughs.  Pregnancy was a nine-month celebration of life and everything that came with it.

Pregnancy had nothing to do with her.

“I…  I didn’t know.  Not until today.” 

A grown woman in her early forties who had always had an irregular cycle, Lilah hadn’t even paid attention when her period was late.  Why should she?  They’d used a condom every single time they’d… had sex.

Not true.  Remember the white Harley in the woods?  It wasn’t exactly a Boy Scout moment.  Nobody was prepared. 

“Ah, fuck,” he muttered on a weary sigh as the droplets of untold grief numbly slithered down her cheeks.  “Scoot over.” 

He bumped her hip with his, silently prompting her to wiggle closer to the IV pole on the opposite side of the gurney.  As he scooted in next to her on the bed, his arm crossed over her waist and an open palm pressed at the base of her spine, rolling her toward him.

After only the briefest hesitation, she looped embarrassingly clingy arms around his back.  Lilah hugged him for all she was worth, clutching at his shoulders and just… holding on.

She’d done this one other time.  In Istanbul, she had also selfishly absorbed the strength he offered from the safe haven of his arms.  He didn’t make her admit that she needed it, or him.  He just stepped in and replenished her own waning pool of strength with his gentle, rocking embrace.  

“You weren’t… supposed to be here,” was her watery accusation even as she dug desperate fingertips into the tight muscles between his neck and shoulder.  “I haven’t gotten used to the idea, so I can’t…  be rational about it.  I’m sorry.”

“You lost a baby.  Nobody said you had to be rational.”  His arms locked tight down and, for that moment in time, she was able to forget where she was and why.  There was nothing but Tony making everything better, the way only he could.

Thank you.  Whatever sent you here today…  thank you.

She had no more settled into the warm cocoon of his arms when a light knock at the door rudely burst her bubble of denial.  Lilah jerked in Tony's arms and a somber, forty-ish man in a white coat entered the room with his hand outstretched.  "Ms. Bennett, I’m Dr. Kaplan.  Okay to discuss your condition in present company?”

Easing up off the bed, Tony gave her a little space as, nodding, she swiped at her eyes and shook the doctor's hand.  Once the formalities had been addressed, he sidled back up to the bed rail and picked that same hand up again, locking her fingers tightly between his. 

“The ultrasound results confirmed the diagnosis,” Dr. Kaplan sympathetically commanded her attention from the foot of the narrow bed.  Consulting the chart he'd brought into the exam room, he went on to elaborate, “The bleeding you suffered was the result of a spontaneous miscarriage.  However, your body did not fully expel the tissue, so I’m recommending that we go in and evacuate the womb to make sure everything is cleaned up properly.  The good news is that, while the blood loss seemed – I’m sure – significant, I understand it’s under control now and you shouldn’t require a transfusion.  Once we can get the OB/GYN surgeon in here for the procedure, it should be fairly quick and painless.  We can still get you out of here tonight as long as you have someone to go home with you.”

Someone to go home with her?  Lilah’s fingers unknowingly buried themselves into Tony’s flesh as she sniffled, thoughts rapid-fire shooting through her limited choices of ‘care-givers’.

She could possibly go to Joanna’s, but she wouldn’t let Jo come to her apartment.  The stairs were almost too much for her on a good day, much less after the soap opera afternoon she’d been put through.

Andrew was an 'absolutely not' and so were here parents.  She didn't want any of them to know.

That left...  no one.

But she could always lie and say there was someone to stay with her.  Lilah would be fine alone.  She would probably even prefer to be alone until her head got back on straight.

“I’m not going anyplace, Bluegrass,” Tony murmured in the midst of her chaotic mental ramblings, quietly declaring her problem solved.  To the accompaniment of soft, soothing strokes of his thumb, he assured her, “I’ll stay as long as you need me.”

✧✧✧

Tony blew out a puff of smoke and put the lighter back in his pocket at the same time he withdrew his phone. 

He’d stayed with Lilah until they came to get her for surgery and then spoken briefly to Joanna on his way through the waiting room, woodenly apologizing that he wasn’t in the frame of mind to make small talk.  Obviously she knew why, because she didn’t show any inclination to push him.  When he told her he would stay and take Lilah home, she only nodded, saying that she would stay until her friend came out of surgery.

There was only a short window of time in which to take out his thoughts and feelings about this whole damn thing, play with them, put them in acceptable order and get back to a mental place that would enable him to take care of Lilah.  It wasn’t something he could do in his head, by himself.  He was going to have to call in a sounding board.  Someone who wasn’t a spectacular emotional crutch, but someone who could help him cut through the crap and see this situation for what it was. 

His big brother.

“Hey,” Jon answered the call on the third, nerve-jangling ring.  “I didn’t expect to hear from you until you got back to L.A.  You didn’t total your new car did you?  Because if you did, you’re calling the wrong fucking guy to bail your – “.

“Jonny,” Tony interrupted.  “I’m in Lexington.”

There was a resigned sigh that rattled over the line.  “Lexington?  As in Lilah, Lexington?”

“Yeah.  Do me a favor and don’t be a dick.  I have, like, ten minutes and I need you, not the shit you want to give me.”

In Tony’s mind, he could see Jon straightening in his seat and leaning to rest forearms on his knees so that he could listen more intently.  “Alright.  What’s up?”

“Short version?  Lilah had a miscarriage.” 

He heard a quiet indrawn breath sing over the line.  “I guess you think it was yours?”

“Yes, goddammit, it was mine,” Tony ground out without hesitation, annoyed that this had to even be mentioned as a consideration.  The only positive note was that his brother didn’t beat it like a dead horse, choosing to accept Tony’s word without further argument. 

“Shit.” The quiet epithet hung in the ensuing silence until Jon's next question was voiced.  “Did you even know she was pregnant?” 

“No.  God, no. She didn’t even know until today.”

“Damn.....  Okay......  So are you sorry you didn’t know?”

Was he sorry?  That was a tough question.  It would have forced him to face Lilah sooner, that much was certain, but he didn’t know if that was necessarily a good thing.  He… he thought was better off to have come to this place of his own accord.  What he felt for Lilah was what he felt for Lilah and it wasn’t influenced by anything outside of that.

And what is that, Tony?  What do you feel for Lilah?

He could only handle one thing at a time.  Coming to terms with Lilah’s… medical condition took priority if he was going to stay with her.  He couldn’t be flipping out when it finally hit him that they’d lost a baby.

An actual child.

His first and only.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he took another deep drag off of his cigarette as the feelings he’d bottled upon hearing the news tried to break free.  “I…  lost a baby today, Johnny.  I can’t wrap my head around it.”

“You won’t be able to,” his brother told him shortly.  Most people would say harshly, but those people didn’t know Jon.  He just cut through all the extraneous garbage to get to the heart of the matter.  Sometimes that meant he was a little abrupt.  “And you’ll make yourself crazy trying, so don’t.”

“That’s easy for you to say.  You have four kids.”  Tony had none, and it was bizarre to discover that a child, of whose existence he had been ignorant, had done a stellar job of creating an empty hole inside of him. A child who now no longer existed. 

No.  There was a likelier scenario responsible for that hole.  It was probably the side-effect of a rampant case of what could have been, and the revelation of exactly how badly he might want that. 

That. 

With her.

As soon as his lungs emptied of their current payload, another lengthy inhalation filled them again, burning away a good percentage of his remaining cigarette.  

“No,” Jon disagreed calmly, unaware of Tony’s inner turmoil.  “That’s easy for me to say because I can be objective.  You can’t.”

“You’re right.  I can’t.  So tell me what the fuck I’m supposed to do, then.”

“Alright, I will – as soon as you answer two simple yes-or-no questions.”

He mashed what was left of his smoke in the ashtray with a frown.  Two questions and he would have magical answers and guidance?  Okay.  He couldn’t be any more confused than he already was.

“Alright.”

“What you’ve gotta ask yourself is: one, do you want kids and two, do you love her?”

His subconscious responded to both with a single answer almost before Jon stopped speaking.  Tony apparently wasn’t as confused as he believed, because there was no weighing pros and cons.  There was no rationalization.  And why should there be?  Rules and regulations didn’t come into play with the desires of the heart.  Desires weren’t decisions to be made, but rather acknowledgements of the inevitable.

Kids?  He was smacked in the face by his childlessness every time he visited with his nieces and nephews, and he had to admit it was sometimes tough to take.  Hell, there had even been that goofy Christmas dream in Europe.  He could still visualize that dark-headed baby girl with her downy fuzz of hair and red bow.

And Lilah? 

He hadn’t put a name to it at the time, but he knew any doubts about his feelings were been removed in the instant he assured her that he wasn’t going anywhere.  Without any thought whatsoever, he’d known he would put his own life on hold and be there as long as she needed him.  Was that love? 

“Yes.”

“Yes, to which?”

“Both,” Tony clarified with a growing confidence, an easy peace blooming in his heart and spreading slowly outward to envelope his entire body.  “Yes to both.”

Jon chuckled quietly.  “Then there ya go.  Now.  Do you really need me to tell ya what to do?”

Nope.  His brother had been more than helpful, but Tony had it from here.