by Aiden Bates
The irrational: I could march into Dr. Smith’s office, screaming, crying and wailing until he finally gave me my job back. Tempting, but embarrassing. I’d never been the melodramatic sort.
The very irrational: I could find an omega convent. Become an omega nun. Give birth to my baby and raise it like some kind of Christ child. Sure, the celibacy thing would be hard, and learning rosaries would be harder, but at least I wouldn’t end up trying to bottle feed my baby with Mountain Dew from a convenience store while we lived in a cardboard box under an overpass.
Finally, the rational. Rational, but sad: I could go back to Logan. Apologize. Live life by his terms instead of my own. Our whole argument was about him wanting to financially support our family. Actually, I suspected it wasn’t, but that was what Logan claimed it was. Being with Logan meant having financial security. Living with a roof over my head and a crib to lay our baby in once he or she was finally born. But going back to Logan would mean admitting defeat. Accepting that I could never have it all. Validating Logan’s so-called dedication to being a provider while robbing my child and myself of having an alpha’s physical presence in our lives. An alpha’s emotional support.
I loved Logan. I really did. But if he wasn’t going to keep his promises to me, would the safety he provided really be worth it?
Of course it would be. You have a baby to think of now, you idiot. But thinking of the baby was the whole reason I’d left in the first place, wasn’t it?
“Everything okay, Bennet?” Karen, a sweet-looking freckled RN came up behind me, looking exhausted from her own shift but still somehow managing to sound chipper in her concern. “You’re looking a little…stressed.”
She glanced down at my belly, which was finally starting to leave my scrubs billowing out ever so slightly, and frowned. I knew exactly what she was thinking. Everyone on the floor was aware that my pregnancy was a risky one, and as an RN, she’d seen firsthand what stress could do to an expecting parent.
“I’m…kind of in the middle of a mental breakdown, I think?” I sounded as apologetic as I could about it, but it was the truth. My whole life felt like it was crashing down around me. First the thing with Logan, now this. “I’m not on the roster for today. Or for the rest of the week. If my performance has been sub-par lately, I—”
“Oh, Bennet, honey!” Karen nearly doubled over in relief, laughing as she pressed her fingertips to my shoulder. “No, oh my god. Someone should have told you. Oh, that’s terrible, I’m so sorry!”
“So sorry that I’ve been fired without notice?” I drew away, nausea rolling through my stomach like a black tide. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight at the moment, but I was pretty sure this situation wasn’t a laughing matter.
“Oh my god, no! Bennet, hon, they’ve moved you off this ward. Go up to third floor. You’ll be working on the coma ward moving forward. I’m so sorry. Someone should have warned you.”
“I… Okay… Oh.” My brain felt like it had just tossed a cog and come to a clattering halt. All operations paused for maintenance. Thank you for your patience. “So… I still work here?”
“Of course you still work here. You’re like family, Bennet! Couldn’t afford to lose you, could we?”
I gave Karen a tentative smile, leaving in a bit of a daze as I headed for the elevator with my cheeks flushed redder than they’d been since… Well, since Logan knocked me up in the first place.
Embarrassing. That’s what that was. All that panic, all that worry, all because of a communication error?
If this week didn’t start going more smoothly soon, Logan wouldn’t be the only one in danger of a heart attack.
Up on the third floor, Dr. Smith rushed over to me the moment I stepped off the elevator.
“Karen called up. Bennet, I’m incredibly sorry. Stress is the last thing you need right now. If you want—”
“No, I’m okay. Just…yeah. Still reeling a little bit.” I glanced around, trying to get my bearings for my new assignment. It looked just like the general admissions floor did, but the sound was different by a long shot. It was quieter up here. Almost peaceful, with complete lack of relentless vomiting sounds and clackety dining carts. Made sense, in a way. After all, I couldn’t imagine anything that would be quieter than a coma ward. “Just… Did I do something wrong on the other ward or something?”
“Not at all. I got transferred up here yesterday. You had the day off, so you missed the briefing. Put in a special request to be allowed to bring you with me. Jose was heartbroken, but you’ll be a lot better off up here. Given your condition I thought some low-impact work might be a good idea.”
“Yeah, maybe…” I said slowly, still taking it all in. “Ugh. Yeah, okay. As long as I’m not in trouble or fired, I’m fine with that.”
“Not in the least.” Dr. Smith looked down at his watch, then gave me an apologetic smile. “I’ve gotta run, but let’s have a check-in later, okay? Let me buy you lunch.”
“A check-in?”
“Just to see how you’re doing.” Dr. Smith patted my shoulder. “In the meantime, stop worrying so much. Doctor’s orders.”
I nodded, then shook my head to snap myself out of whatever weird head space the mix up had put me in. It earned me a weird look from the nurse manning the nurse’s station, but given the day I was having, I didn’t mind being seen as a little crazy. Crazy didn’t even begin to describe how thoroughly my life had been turned upside down over the last few months.
Crazy was pretty much a normal response at this point, all things considered. As far as I was concerned, let him stare.
I slowly found my mood returning to normal as I worked my way through my daily duties. But as I took a small break to grab a cup of hot chocolate, I suddenly found myself missing Logan. No, not so suddenly. I’d damn well been missing him since I walked out of his house, but I felt it more keenly as I warmed my hands around the mug of chocolate, remembering how he’d tell me to relax while he made it for me, always adding the little marshmallows I’d developed a craving for. Then there were those moments he rubbed my aching feet after being on them all day, or simply holding me in his arms and telling me he loved me.
Why had I not realized how those little things added up to a much bigger picture? One I thought was missing pieces. That picture was of Logan, of who he was—kind and caring and thoughtful even if it wasn’t everything I wanted. Or thought I wanted. Maybe Logan as he was—stubborn but with our baby’s best interests at heart, and mine—was exactly what I needed.
My lunch with Dr. Smith later that afternoon assured me he also had my best interests at heart, and I started to realize I wasn’t on my own, that regardless of my relationship with Logan going forward, I would always have the support of my colleagues and friends.
With that in mind I continued my shift, going down my list of patients and rooms until I only had two left. To my surprise, I actually recognized the next-to-last name on the list.
Pedro Acosta. He’d been in Garret’s old unit, which made him family, more or less. I peeked my head in the room, expecting to see his lopsided grin and bright eyes staring back at me, but then my heart fell as I remembered where I was.
The coma ward. Instead of a clever quip and an infectious smile, I was greeted by the sight of an IV drip and an array of sensors connected to wires connected to machines. Pedro himself lay still, his eyes closed, his body unmoving.
Of course, this was where Pedro had ended up.
“Bennet? Bennet Long?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a voice in the room along with me, but a quick glance at Pedro told me that he was far from waking up. Instead, I had to shift my gaze to the guest’s chair in the corner, where a scruffy-looking dark-haired alpha was rubbing his eyes and looking just as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
Marcos Acosta. Pedro’s older brother. With the dark circles under his eyes and uncanny paleness to his usually tan skin, he only looked like himself thanks to his impeccable Acosta bone-struc
ture; all cheekbones and jawline. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been pristinely clean shaven, but now he was sporting a five o’clock shadow that looked like it was well on its way to becoming a full-grown beard. His rumpled t-shirt and baggy sweatpants were a far cry from the clean, pressed look he’d been sporting more than two years ago when I’d last spoken to him.
He looked like, to put it plainly, a nervous wreck. Thankfully, even with the day I’d been having, I still had the tact not to say that.
“Hey, Marcos.” I bent down to check Pedro’s chart, then forced a smile. “How’ve you been?”
Marcos looked down at his grubby attire and gave a sharp, sarcastic laugh. “Yeah. I’ve been better, obviously. How about you? How’ve you been? You’re looking…” His eyes scanned my waistline, catching the faint signs of a baby bump. “Pregnant.”
“That I am. Still working as a CNA here. And you’re…” I glanced around the space, noting the empty cans of soda and candy wrappers, dirty laundry tucked away in one corner and the tangle of chargers plugged into the wall. All telltale signs of a patient’s guest who had been practically living in the room. “You’re keeping a pretty close eye on Pedro here, then.”
“Someone has to.” Marco crossed his arms over his chest, looking away. “Everyone else has all but given up hope he’s ever going to get better. And if no one else has any faith in him… Guess I’m the only one left. Guess I’ve got to try.”
“Hope is…good.” The longer I spoke to Marcos, the more I got the sense that something was drastically wrong with him—or becoming so. He seemed withdrawn and looked like he hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in weeks—which made sense, seeing as he’d probably been sleeping in that chair in the corner for a while now. But most of all, Marcos had an angry, depressive energy that made me more worried for him than I was for his brother. Pedro was sleeping peacefully, unconscious but provided for. Marcos, on the other hand, had to take care of himself, and from the looks of things, he wasn’t exactly succeeding at it.
“Hope is an idiot fairytale,” Marcos shot back at me. “But it’s all I’ve got. Over two years now, we’ve been dealing with this coma thing. Getting to the point where the VA is starting to complain.”
“What do they have to complain about?” I lifted Pedro’s head gently, slipping his old pillow out from under him and placing a new one beneath. “He’s a veteran. They’re meant to be batting for his team, aren’t they?”
Marcos frowned as he looked down at his brother. “They don’t care about him that much, Bennet. He’s served his service. Done his time. Now, he’s just dead weight.” Marcos paused abruptly, his face going ghost-pale. “Shit. Dead weight. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean to say that. Sorry. Sorry.”
“You’re okay,” I tried to assure him. “It’s just a saying, Marcos. Doesn’t mean anything. Pedro probably would’ve laughed.”
Finally, an almost genuine smile appeared on Marcos’s lips.
“Ha. Yeah, good point. Yeah, he probably would have, wouldn’t he? Dead weight. Hear that, Pedro?”
I half-smiled at the way Marcos talked to his brother like that. Like Pedro could still hear us. Was still part of the conversation—part of everything.
Maybe, somewhere in that dark-haired head of his, he actually was.
“Anyway. The VA is finally starting to put the pressure on. It’s becoming…a lot.” Marco raked his fingers through his hair, catching them in a knotted snarl on the back of his head and giving up before they came through clean. That was the beauty of sleeping in a hospital armchair, I supposed. Perpetual bed head. “They want me to start making decisions for Pedro that I’m just…entirely unready for. And our parents…”
“They’re pretty religious, aren’t they?” I glanced at the cross that someone had put up on the wall over Pedro’s bed and the golden St. Francis medal that lay on his chest atop his hospital gown. After more than two years in a coma while recovering from the entire laundry list of battle wounds that were cited on his chart, the likelihood of Pedro ever waking up again was…dangerously slim. I could imagine the kind of decisions the VA must have been pushing for. They weren’t pretty in the slightest, let alone easy.
Marcos walked over to his brother, and then ran his thumb over the medallion and sighed. “They think they can pray him better. Or, at the very least, get him to wake up for long enough to receive his last rites. They think he’s in limbo until he finally passes on.” Marcos laughed bitterly. “Not exactly the kind of people I’d want making my life choices for me if I was in this state. So I’m…taking care of it, I guess.”
“You’re doing more than enough for him, Marcos.” No matter what I said, though, it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing short of bringing Pedro back from whatever deep state of unconsciousness he’d wound up in would have been. I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel if it was my child in that bed—or my own brother, for that matter. But I could tell Marcos was close to losing it, and if he didn’t slow down soon, there was a good chance he’d end up doing just that. “Just make sure you’re taking care of yourself too, you know? Pedro would’ve wanted you to stay well. Be happy. You can’t look after him if you’re in such a bad way that you can’t look out for yourself.”
Marcos straightened, blinking rapidly like someone had just hit him over the head with a particularly large hammer. “Well, I… Huh. Can’t argue with that, I guess. But…ah. Let’s talk about something else, Bennet. Your baby bump.” He pointed to my belly, finally addressing the real elephant in the room. “Who’s the lucky alpha?”
“You, uh…” I laughed, bustling about the room and keeping myself busy with the various tasks I’d need to take care of before I could tick Pedro off my to-do list. “You don’t want to know that.”
“Oh, come on. Look at me.” Marcos gestured up and down his body, ending with the battered looking pair of bunny slippers on his feet. “I could use the good news, obviously.”
“I don’t…”
“Please, Bennet? I need this. Your brother’s gotta be excited to be becoming an uncle now, right?”
I sighed, cringing slightly. “Well, he might be a little more excited if it weren’t Logan O’Rourke’s baby, yeah. Garret’s happy and all, but he’s got some mixed feelings about that particular set of specifics.”
Marcos whistled low—but at least he didn’t jump down my throat about it. He wasn’t the type to judge—especially not in those bunny slippers.
“Wow. That’s some news alright. Congrats and all, of course, but…” He turned to Pedro again, a smirk on his lips. “The Sarge is having another kid, Ped. Think Jason would’ve liked that?”
I knew Logan’s oldest son had been in the same unit as Pedro, Marcos and Garret, and I knew Garret still missed Jason’s friendship every day. Suddenly, I felt a little closer to Marcos. The same misfortune had befallen all of our families, and we were all still reeling from it.
“Think Jason would’ve liked having a new sibling?”
Marcos grinned. “Are you kidding? Jason was so baby crazy. He would’ve been obsessed with the idea, guarantee it.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ve heard that.” It should have warmed my heart, the idea that Jason would’ve liked a new sibling. Instead, my stomach knotted with worry. I’d wondered how much Jason’s death had to do with Logan’s hesitation to become the father and partner I knew he could be. If Logan was still healing from such a tragedy, was a new baby really what he needed right now? I was almost too afraid of the answer to even think about finding out.
“You know… Not to sound impolite , but you seem kind of down yourself, Bennet. This whole pregnancy thing… Is it not good?”
“No, no. It’s good. Really. Just…” I didn’t think of myself as the type to open up to a man I hadn’t seen in so many years, but I knew Marcos was hurting too, and there was nothing that misery liked better than company. “Logan seems to want to stick to his job on base. Thinks it’s the best way to take care of his family. It’s causing some…tension.�
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“Ah. Yeah, I know how that is.” Marcos came over to the sink, helping me carry the water over to Pedro’s bedside for his sponge bath. “Jason mentioned plenty about his childhood. You know what they say about old habits, I guess.”
“I guess.” I moved Pedro’s heavy arms, stretching them out so I could work the sponge over them. “I’d just appreciate if he could find a way to kill them off a little quicker—or at least, make it look like he’s trying.
“Logan’s a man of honor, though. You know that, right?”
“Hadn’t been acting very honorable lately,” I grumbled, immediately feeling bad for complaining. My problems must have seemed so small to Marcos, with his brother in a coma and the VA pressuring him to make decisions no brother should have had to make.
“He’ll show you, Bennet. He’s a hard ass, and he doesn’t always say as much as you might like, but he’s always thinking ahead. Those big, strong Sarge brain wheels of his are always turning. Pretty future-focused, really. The present, on the other hand…” Marcos cocked his head from side to side. “Whatever choices he’s making, I have a hard time believing he’s making them with anything other than you and that baby in mind. The Sarge is a man who understands how fickle fortune can be. He’s just trying to hedge his bets.”
“Thanks, Marcos,” I said—and I meant it. It was nice, hearing someone who knew Logan so well speak with so much faith in him. For a man who was losing hope, Marcos certainly had a way of giving me some hope of my own.
With Marcos’s help, we finished bathing Pedro, and I checked the last few items off of my to-do list. When we finally finished, Marcos moved to shake my hand—only to think better of it at the last second, wrapping me up in a hug instead.
“I’ll see you in here again, won’t I?” Marcos asked, sounding surprisingly vulnerable for such a tall, strong alpha.
“Of course. I think I’ll be working this ward pretty regularly now.”
“Just…thanks, Bennet. For helping with Pedro today.”
