Chapter 172: The waiting room
The hospital smelled of a clean cell—a sharp antiseptic that stung my throat on every inhale. The overhead fluorescent lights were painfully bright, pouring down into my already weary eyes. Everything was an echo: the muted voices of the nurses, the beeping of electronic machines, the clack of the occasional tap of heels on tile. The air was meant to make you small, undeserving, and I could sense it closing around me like a physical presence.
Caspian was present, at least. Always present. The consistent figure by my side was the only thing holding at bay the entire rush of hysteria. He took a hesitant, but firm, step forward, like a lifeline which I clung to.
They'd rolled me behind a thin drapery, the delicate curtain doing nothing at all for the noise or acrid smell of antiseptic. I lay back upon the thin hospital bed, the muscles in my body relaxing simultaneously, more tired than they'd ever been during the entire day. The thin sheet clung only to my legs, and the damp chill of the hospital room seeped in, making me shiver.
The doctor, a woman with warm, gentle eyes in wire-rimmed glasses, began to question her. She spoke gently but professionally. "When did you first experience your symptoms? Have you had headaches recently? Nausea? Dizziness. Have you also been feeling lightheaded or too tired to move around?"
I spoke slowly, my voice softer than I intended. My gaze strayed over to Caspian from time to time. He was sitting beside me on a cheap plastic chair, his leg touching mine, negligent contact that sent a warm, steady heat downward through my core. His hand was under the blanket, his fingers loosely curled.
I could feel him rather than see him—looking at me, restless, the tension braided under his calm disguise. His jaw clenched as he listened to the doctor's queries, the muscles strained as though he were holding back some storm of emotion.
The nurse trailed behind her, fingers gentle but firm as she drew the blood. I tried to stay calm, but the needle prick made my arm burn within. Caspian's hand closed over my own in a flash, his fingers closing gently, holding me fast.
"Almost done," he whispered, his eyes locked on mine.
I nodded, attempting to swallow the lump in my throat. I needed to be strong—for him, for me. But here was the thing: I trembled with a shiver I couldn't shake.
After the blood test, we were told by the doctor that a few hours was when we would have to wait to know the test results. That meant waiting. I sat here in this room with you, the silence between us, heavy with fear neither of which felt like saying anything yet.
We sat there like that—with our fingers intertwined, hands balled into fists so hard that the heat of our skin seemed to go back and forth between us. I gazed at him—the crease of concentration on his brow that lengthened infinitesimally when he didn't know I was staring at him, the gentleness in his eyes when he did know I was staring at him.
His eyes flared with a mix of worry and foolhardy protective anger that bruised in my chest. I was little then, but so gloriously safe.
He rested his head against mine again, his leg jostling along mine, and I rested my head on his shoulder. His breath tickled through my hair.
"We will get through it," he whispered softly, his voice soft and unshattered. "Together." He silently reassured me.
I nodded, eyes shut, trying to ground myself in him. The antiseptic chill of the hospital didn't stand a chance against the warmth of power that emanated from him.
Moments crawled like hours, the wait was endless and unbearable. The muffled machines, the muffled footsteps, distant voices—all fell away into the background as I focused on Caspian's hand enveloped in mine, his pounding pulse against my skin.
I had been going to inquire as to how he was coping, but the words remained stuck in my throat. His silence was eloquent. He was frightened. I was frightened. Neither of us wanted to acknowledge it, though.
At last the doctor returned, her face sympathetic but firm. Caspian's vice-like grip on my hand kept me fixed in place before the words burst like a bomb.
She sat down next to the bed and looked at me straight in the eye.
"Lily," she said very quietly, "your tests show that you're pregnant."
They were barely audible, a statement of fact. I let out a breath, and blinked back too much feeling.
Caspian's eyes flew open, his black eyes flashing onto mine with a force that stole my heart. I saw a moment of shock, then naked, gorgeous tender-heartedness.
He lifted his hand slowly, tracing the shape of my cheekbone with his fingertips, drying the tear I hadn't even realized I'd cried.
"We're having a baby," he told me, his voice thick with something I couldn't quite explain—hope, shock, happiness.
I grinned, the grin cutting through the mist of uncertainty like sunlight burning through fog.
"Yes," soft whisper. "We are. I can not believe this, it’s too good to be true."
The air was warmer somehow, the chilly, clinical walls receding as the truth of what we'd discovered hit us.
Caspian pushed ahead, forehead pressed against mine, his breathing mixed with mine.
"I promise," he whispered, "I will be right here alongside you every step of the way."
His promise wrapped around me like a shroud, and I wanted to believe it with everything in me.
In the quiet hospital room, where the buzz of the machines and the distant screech of a footstep going by in the hall mixed, we found something unsaid—a fragile, fierce hope glimmering in the air between us.
I shut my eyes and let myself feel it—the terrible, beautiful unknown that lay ahead of me—and for the first time in days, a tentative shiver of peace.