Chapter Text
Samira was standing outside their local post-shift breakfast haunt when she told him, toes pointed in, eye contact barely holding.
"I think that I'm pregnant...actually, I know that I am.” She sighed, releasing the air that had built up in her chest at her confession, “Definitely was not planned, in case you were wondering."
Jack responded in kind, eyes soft in a way she couldn’t deflect,"That's really beautiful, Samira. You've been wanting this for a long time. You deserve this chance."
Naturally, she immediately started sobbing at 8:30 in the morning, and finds herself held in the middle of the sidewalk by the man she loved, but could not have. Especially not now. For a moment, the world revolved around them as people walked by, starting their day as they came to the end of theirs.
He wanted to take her back to the ER and get her the full workup. But she declined. Figured that pregnancy scares created by failed Tinder dates probably deserved to go through the full emotional spectrum of an at-home pregnancy test.
In the many weeks following her breakfast confession, as her belly grows, Samira thinks about karma, thinks critically about what she deserves. She finds a recurring thought— she’s five years old, back in her paatti’s New Delhi garden amongst her marigolds. The ground is moist from the rain, and she is trying to count the flowers, but keeps losing track. She pauses in frustration to ask her why bad things happen to good people, and her paatti speaks of action rather than karma. In truth, her pregnancy is not karma, but the result of her decision-making, bad decision-making. She’s a doctor, for fuck’s sake.
Despite how she might feel about her decisions, no one in her immediate circle gives her an opportunity to believe that she is less deserving of a healthy, supported pregnancy. Predictably, her baby daddy wants nothing to do with her or the child, but it just allows for others to take his place. Parker. Trinity. Mel. Cassie. Langdon. Dana. Princess. And even Robby. They all find ways to hold her hand, and she grips theirs back. They even go through the motions of throwing her a bells and whistles baby shower because, knowing Samira, she’s only going to do this once.
And yet, Jack is somehow omnipresent and better than everyone else.
Her water breaks while she’s observing the crib he bought and put together, in the room that he insisted on painting. She calls her amma first because it’s the right thing to do, and then she calls him because that’s what she wants to do. Robby answers on the first ring.
“I thought I called Jack?” she asks, pulling the phone back to look at the caller ID.
Robby chuckles, “You did, but he left his phone at the station. You're 41 weeks and two days pregnant. Everyone is on baby watch.” More like mama watch, the amount of house drops-in and texts are at a frequency that couldn’t be mistaken for organic. She thanks him for not mentioning the fact that she only really called Jack when she had all of them at her mercy.
She imagines him leaving his phone at the nursing station, full volume, begging anyone to answer it while he runs a trauma.
“Is there any particular reason that you’re calling at,” he pauses, obviously checking his watch, “four a.m, Samira?”
“No, no particular reason,” she lies, but it doesn’t matter. She can hear Robby murmuring to someone in the background before he passes the phone over.
“I’ve got your bag in the car, and I’ll be there in 15 minutes, “ Jack’s voice fills the line. She can hear the tiredness in his voice.
“Jack,” she says warningly, even though she is the one calling him.
He ignores her–she can hear the abstract noise fade, probably already halfway to the parking garage. “How far apart are your contractions?”
She sighs, “5 minutes apart, a minute long.” She can hear the smile in his voice, and it makes her smile.
“Sounds like we’re meeting Sahana today.”
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It’s been two weeks since Sahana Noor Mohan came into the world. Born at 11:32 a.m. with a full head of curly hair and a penchant for screaming at the top of her lungs, needing to be heard. When they drop the baby on her chest, Samira no longer questions any of the decisions that have led her to this moment. Instead, she embraces them.
She wakes to the sound of her amma and Sahana cooing to each other in the living room, and thanks her attending salary for affording a home with multiple rooms that give her the illusion of space. She loves her mother and her child, but life is particularly difficult at this moment. Sahana is her entire world, but it scares her to think she’ll never truly be untethered again. It does not help that she feels physically unwell, with her nipples leaky and shredded, still living in a diaper. She hasn’t slept for more than 3.5 hours, and the sounds are starting to have colors.
When she finally gets the energy to drag herself out of bed, she walks out in search of anything caffeinated to see her baby bundled up in her bassinet with her amma standing in the kitchen. She tries to ignore the luggage beside her, but the world is often cruel.
“Unfortunately, it's time, Chellam. I need to get on the road before it’s dark,” Priya says to her, marking the end of the time they’ve spent together in her postpartum bubble. She nods mournfully, “Let me get my coat.”
She waits until she can’t see her mother’s car anymore before turning back inside, and telling a sleeping Sahana in her arms, “I guess it’s just us now.”
Time moves somewhat slowly for a woman accustomed to living off the adrenaline of the emergency room. Instead, she spends her hours researching wake windows and how long colic lasts, rather than intubation advances. Fitting in time to sleep when the baby sleeps, which is barely. Her co-workers send her food and harass her for photos, but the person she sees the most is always Jack.
He’s always here. Using his off days and mornings to come over so she can get more sleep. Filling her in on all the hospital gossip. Trinity and Yolanda are giving it another go. She’s getting used to him standing at her stove, cooking something, while she feeds Sahana. One morning, she catches him bouncing the baby in his arms and singing the song of her namesake.
Dear Sahana, you know I need you. Oh, I don't want you, but I need you
She finds herself praying to a god that she barely recognizes, that she might make it out of here alive. It’s peak drama, but it’s the motivation she needs to find a nice guy who loves her, loves her baby, and has a special skill of erasing Jack Abbot from her memory.
Samira and Sahana hit milestones at the same time. At four weeks old, Sahana can lift her head a bit more at tummy time. At four weeks postpartum, her PPD kicks into full gear.
She wants to be embarrassed when Jack catches her packing a bag, but she actually feels relief.
“I didn’t know we were going somewhere? I would have brought my travel kit,” he tries from her bedroom doorway, and it makes her burst into tears. He obviously knows that she isn’t well, but he still gives her grace to joke about it anyway.
She watches as he carefully gathers Sahana up from the bed to place her in her bassinet, then moves to unpack her breast pump and the three pairs of underwear she'd managed to get into the bag. In the most unromantic, unsexy way, he strips her of her three-day pajamas and shoves her into the shower.
She already feels more human when she steps out of the shower, but also more worried about what comes next. Deep down, she knows that Jack would never take her baby from her, but her brain is not to be trusted these days. She finds them both at her dining room table, and he pulls out a chair when he sees her enter the room.
“So, I’m a doctor, right?” He starts after a bit of silence. “And, I think you need help.”
”Oh, really?” She deadpans, which lands so flatly that he laughs. And then she laughs, too.
“Yes,” he says when he catches his breath. “And as a doctor, I have to make sure you get the help you need. You need to see your primary, and I need to be around more.”
She rolls her eyes, “Jack, you’re already here an obscene amount. I can’t—“
He shakes his head, a non-negotiable. “I want to be here.” It’s not a question, nor something to be debated. He wants to be here. So, she’ll try to call her primary.