The session
Present Day
Whoever first decided that people should sit in a cozy office with fluffy cushions, candles that smelt like cinnamon, and talk about their most intimate problems with a practical stranger; well they must have been a genius.
Therapy was amazing.
Therapy rocked.
Especially for a girl like Wren Lancaster.
She was a therapist’s wet dream.
Control issues? Check.
Intimacy issues? Check.
Workaholic? Check.
Unable to maintain a romantic relationship for more than a few months? Check, check, triple-check.
And now here she was - nine months and a thousand and one days pregnant - alone and with no idea what she was going to do with a baby in her life.
Maria, Wren’s therapist for ten years now, must have been counting the dollar signs in her head with unrestrained glee. Or she would be if Wren hadn't made a habit of disappearing for months at a time in between sessions, each failure to stick to their schedule a cause of her unwavering belief that she could finally live a normal life without someone else interfering.
Not that Maria interfered. It was just that Wren became used to relying on her. And Wren didn't like relying on anyone. So she ran away and buried herself in work and exercise until some major life event forced her back.
A major life event like becoming pregnant when she wanted to be anything but pregnant certainly fit the criteria for returning to therapy.
So now Wren was back, and she was already regretting having avoided her therapy sessions lately. She was reminded all over again how she usually loved her time with Maria - a one-hour reprieve from the cluttered head spin her life had become. They soothed her, righted all the wrongs in her world, and she never failed to leave feeling better than when she arrived. Even her most reckless decisions, the most visible right now being her burgeoning baby bump, didn't seem so bad after Maria discussed it in the soothing gentle tones she always used. Maria had been Wren’s therapist since Wren was eighteen after all, and now Wren was almost twenty-eight, so they were more friends than doctor and patient. Maria had seen Wren through her worst and hopefully would continue to do so.
But today Wren sensed that their session - a last-minute decision made only yesterday - wasn't going to end in positive affirmations and a warm comforting hug.
Wren shifted uncomfortably on the couch and tried to breathe out through a sharp squeeze in her stomach. She placed a hand on her rounded bump and winced. She shouldn't even be here, chatting to Maria while pretending this was a normal day or even a normal therapy session.
She was in labour after all.
“I haven't seen you in a while,” Maria stated, glancing at Wren with something akin to disappointment.
Wren removed her hand from her bump as the contraction passed. “I've been a bit busy.”
“I can see.” Again, disappointment fought with concern on the other woman’s face. “How is that going?”
“By ‘that’ do you mean the human fetus that I'm growing?”
Maria’s mouth twitched slightly. “Yes.”
“What do you think? I haven't even told the father that I'm pregnant. I ran away like a coward.”
“Yes, but you had good reasons at the time.”
Wren set aside her guilt and her regret at how she had handled everything. “I didn't come here to talk about the baby. I need to talk about the other thing.”
“Now?” Maria glanced at Wren’s large stomach, at how Wren was still shuffling uncomfortably on the couch. “Do you think now is the best time to be discussing that?”
“You are the therapist. We talk about what I want to. And I want to talk about Fred.”
Maria didn't react to Wren’s snippy tone. “Fine. Go ahead.”
Wren paused, her next words forgotten, as another contraction came on suddenly.
She frowned. She really should be timing these. That was a thing someone in labour would do, wasn't it? The rounds of pain were surely getting too close to each other.
“Wren?” Maria prompted.
Wren forced herself to focus. Her eyes landed on the framed nature scene behind Maria’s head. “Is that painting new? I like it. It must have been hard to find. I know the artist and he doesn't sell a lot of -.”
“Forget the painting,” Maria said firmly. “You are distracting yourself with useless details again.”
“Details aren't useless. The details are all that matters.”
“How close are your contractions, then?”
Wren stiffened in surprise. “That's not -.”
“You are obviously in labour. I'm not an idiot, Wren. I've had three children and know the signs. How far apart are the contractions?”
Wren flinched. “I don't know. I lost track.”
“You, who obsess over every detail in your carefully constructed existence, don't know how far along in labour you are?”
Wren pulled herself up, self-defence pricking her skin. “Yes.”
Maria narrowed her eyes. “You are still refusing to connect to this baby. You don't even want to acknowledge that it may be born today.”
“Just because I haven't been timing the -.”
“Do even have a crib ready? A hospital bag packed? Anyone to support you at all?”
“No,” Wren admitted with a sigh. “I thought my parents might help but we aren't seeing eye to eye on the baby...” She trailed off at that particular awkward discussion point.
Maria sighed too. “And instead of going to the hospital like you are supposed to, like any normal woman would when they are in labour, you are here trying to revisit a past that doesn't matter anymore.”
“Please don't ever talk to me about being normal. And the past does matter. Before I have this baby, I want to confront it.”
“You already talked to Fred nine months ago.”
“But I didn't get a chance to resolve it. It was too much. I need to finally move past everything once and for all.”
“That is commendable. But if you want to do that then you can't do that here, in the safety of this room. You need to do it in person. You need to confront Fred directly.”
Wren shuddered. “I can't. Fred is with...him.”
Maria lifted one eyebrow. “Him?”
“The baby’s father.”
“I see.” Maria was quiet for a moment. “And that scares you? If you confront Fred personally are you scared of risking the chance that he would find out you are carrying his child?”
“I'm going to tell him. I made a promise that I would. But it's going to be on my terms once the baby is born.”
“And how do you think that is going to go?”
Wren couldn't answer that loaded question because at that moment there was a commotion beyond the closed door of Maria’s office. It drifted in through waves of hurried footsteps and loud voices in a terse back and forth.
Maria turned slightly, only having time for a perplexed "What on earth?" before the door burst open and Lucas barged in.
Wren looked up at him in relief, even if his entrance was tending towards the dramatic. She took in his familiar warm brown eyes and messy blonde hair quickly.
She had called him before starting the session, knowing that she would need a ride to the hospital as soon as she finished with Maria. Lucas had become her close friend over the last three months. He was now someone to rely on and embarrassingly - more often than not - someone to cry all over.
While he wasn't the person she wanted the most right now, her heart even now aching that it wasn't another friend rushing to her rescue, she was glad to see him.
Maria, meanwhile, was not so much glad as very visibly irritated at the interruption.
The therapist stood immediately. “Excuse me. This is a private session.”
“It's an emergency,” Lucas said, his eyes finding Wren with a panic that she had never seen from him before. Lucas was not the panicking type. He was more the organised dependable type, the one you always went to when you needed to borrow something because you knew they would locate where it would be immediately.
Maria wasn't mollified. “If it's an emergency, there are outreach services you can call. Or go to the hospital.”
“The emergency has to do with her.”
Maria followed Lucas’s gaze as he continued to look at Wren with apprehension.
“Oh,” Maria said with a different tone now. “Are you the baby’s father?”
Lucas rocked back. “What? No. I have a secretary...I mean I have a girlfriend.”
“Natalie is your girlfriend?” Wren asked with surprise. She had only ever seen Lucas and Natalie fighting with each other, and she had always suspected it wouldn't take much to turn that loathing into lust. But she hadn't anticipated lust to turn into a humdrum domestic arrangement.
Lucas waved his hand. “No. Yes. It's complicated. That doesn't matter. We need to leave now.”
Wren sighed and tried to put aside her curiosity about Lucas' relationship status. “If you insist. It's probably time that I do. I wasn't done with my session but -.” She broke off and gasped sharply, unable to say anything more as her stomach tightened like a vice.
“What is wrong with you?” Lucas asked, clearly clueless about anything to do with female reproduction.
“I'm having a baby.” She gritted out when the pain faded to an acceptable level for her to talk.
“I know you are having a baby.” He paused, catching Maria’s exasperated shake of her head, and then his expression cleared. “Oh, now! You are having the baby now. I totally knew that.”
“Nice recovery. Is your car close?”
“No. I could only park on the street over. You didn't tell me you were in labour when you called earlier, for Christ's sake. I thought you just needed a ride home.”
“Home, hospital... it's all the same.”
Lucas rubbed his forehead in frustration. “It's clearly not. And this makes this even more fucking urgent. They are nearly here.”
Maria, who had been observing their interchange with interest, now asked. “Who is nearly here? I have patients outside that don't need to see a spectacle unfolding.”
“Wren!”
Wren froze as she heard her name being screamed by someone who should definitely not be there, in her therapist's office. He shouldn't be anywhere near her. A hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat at the farcical situation her last-minute therapy session had turned into.
Lucas paled, far too sensible himself for hysterical laughter. “I think it's too late for that.” He said to Maria. “Sorry lady. Get ready for a fucking massive spectacle.”
Another contraction hit Wren then, this one so hard that she bowed off the couch, nearly sliding to the floor in the process.
Lucas surged forward to grab her arm and pull her to him just as two more people burst through the door.
One was her hated enemy, the one who had set in motion a series of events that had resulted in a trauma so deep it had nearly broken her.
She would have stayed broken too, a long time ago when she was still barely an adult if Maria hadn't saved her.
The other person now glaring at her with furious flashing eyes, his hand entwined with the hand of her enemy, had saved her nine months ago.
He had put back together her shattered pieces, giving her a gift that she would never forget. He had healed her. And then he had proceeded to destroy her all over again.
There were only so many times she could put herself together before the pieces didn't fit anymore.
And so while she was here, filled with mismatched parts cobbled together with her strength of will alone, he had swiftly replaced her without a second thought.
And if that hadn't been enough, Morgan had had the nerve to stick a baby in her before discarding her.
Morgan - the man who had been her best friend once. The man who had kissed her on her eighteenth birthday - her first kiss. He had also given her a last kiss before she had run away. And now he was a stranger.
“Get your fucking hands off of her, Lucas,” Morgan said now, taking a step into the room, his eyes locked on Wren with unblinking intensity.
Lucas didn't react, keeping her steady against him as he said calmly. “She's in labour. She needs the hospital.”
Anguish flooded Morgan’s expression, laced with a wave of anger and betrayal that cut deep into his eyes. “Is that so? Then give her to me. I will take care of her.”
Fred raised angry glittering eyes, probably about to protest, just as Wren beat her to it and shouted. “Like hell. I'm not going anywhere with you. And I'm not something to be passed around.” She ran a protective hand over her bump and felt the baby kick her as she continued. “Neither of us are possessions to be taken care of. We can take care of ourselves.”
“Clearly you can't anymore,” Morgan argued flatly before throwing out. “You look like you are about to faint, and you called Lucas to come get you like the fucking knight in shining armour that he is.”
“Don't be angry with Lucas -.”
“I am angry with him. I want to kill him for keeping this a secret from me. For being there with you all this time, seeing your belly grow and knowing that it was my baby inside of you. A baby that I never even knew existed.”
Lucas stepped forward. “Morgan, calm down. This is not the time or place to be doing this.”
Morgan stepped into Lucas. “Don't tell me to calm down. Do you have any idea how it felt to overhear you on the phone today talking to Wren? Talking about a baby? My baby!”
Fred spoke, cutting across the room with her icy voice. “We need a lawyer to sort out custody.” She cast a condescending sweep over Lucas. “A better one than Lucas. He should be disbarred for this breach of trust.”
Lucas growled and glared at Fred. “I haven't done anything wrong. Wren is my client. I have to act in her best interests. And right now that means that you shouldn't be here. This has nothing to do with you.”
Maria, still watching all of this, finally raised her voice and shouted over everyone. The calm and gentle tone she had always used was nowhere to be seen. “Stop it! I don't know what the hell is wrong with all of you, but Wren doesn't need this stress. Can someone just call an ambulance because - ”
Four sets of eyes snapped to Wren then as she suddenly screamed. Her stomach clenched and she felt a corresponding gush of something warm and sticky flood her legs.
She looked down and saw that it was blood - her very life force draining away from her and the baby.
A baby that had abruptly stopped kicking her.
“Help.” She panted, swaying. “Help the baby.”
It was Morgan who caught her first.
His caramel eyes found hers with a terror that nearly undid her.
She forgot everything at that moment.
She forgot what happened when she was eighteen.
She forgot that she might hate Morgan, or be in love with him. She couldn't tell the difference anymore.
She forgot that Fred was here like she always seemed to be during Wren's major life turning points.
She even forgot that night, nine months ago, when Morgan had stopped being her best friend and became her lover. When he had made her world make sense again.
She only thought of the child inside her, a child she had never wanted or needed, a child that was half her and half the man she thought she could completely trust for one too-short moment in time.
And she hoped to God someone in this fucking room knew how to deliver a baby.
