Chapter Text
Week 3
Shit, he thinks.
He flushes the toilet and wipes off his mouth, willing his nausea to take a break. He blinks.
Could it—?
Before he can think any further, his alarm goes off. If he doesn’t leave the apartment right now, he’s going to be late, and that would definitely not be okay. And what excuse could he possibly give?
Robby sighs, grabs his backpack, and heads out.
Week 5
Gina in L&D owes him a favor, and if this isn’t the right time to cash in, then he doesn’t know what is.
“I’ll be back when I have your result,” she says.
“Thanks.”
He hates being on the other side of things. He hates sitting in the examination room, waiting for a result that he feels he can already predict. He tries to ignore the life-sized anatomy models that line the window ledge—the ovaries, the Fallopian tubes, the vaginal canal, the cervix, the womb. On the wall is a chart that tells you how big your embryo/fetus/baby is based on which week you’re at. At five weeks (possibly), it would be no bigger than a grain of rice.
Time slows to a crawl, and all he can do is let himself float on nothingness until Gina softly knocks on the door and enters the room. Her face says it all.
“Jesus.”
“You have options, Robby.”
Robby shakes his head and hops off the exam table.
“I have to get back to work. You know where to send the bill.”
He leaves before Gina can say another word.
Weeks 6-11
He almost convinces himself that Gina is wrong. There’s no way. His morning sickness has already decreased. And he knows how many pregnancies end before anyone even knew they’d been pregnant. He was worrying for nothing.
Week 12
“Who’s hungry?” Robby asks.
Everyone raises a hand.
Whitaker says, “Me!”
Santos bumps him with her hip and calls him a teacher’s pet.
“Okay, that’s what I thought. I’m ordering sandwiches. You can stagger your breaks when they get here.”
With the promise of food on the horizon, everyone goes back to work with a little pep in their step. Dana sidles over when everyone else scurries off.
“You must be pretty hungry yourself, Dr. Robinavich,” she says.
“Starving. Aren’t you?”
“I could eat.”
Evans gives him a look. It’s the kind of look she’d give a patient who’d just presented her with a medical puzzle.
“What?” he asks.
“You’ve gained weight,” she says.
Robby laughs.
“Thanks. Are you going to point out my eye bags and my greys next?”
The conversation doesn’t make him nervous until it stops there. That’s when the worry begins to set in again.
“I’m fine,” Robby says.
Dana nods.
“If you ever feel less than fine, come find me, okay?”
“Sure thing,” he says.
“I mean it. I worry about you.”
He wants this conversation to be over, but...
“If I’m out of here for twenty minutes, will you make excuses for me?”
“Sure,” Evans says. “Take longer if you need it.”
He nods.
“Alright, get out of here before people start throwing questions your way.”
Robby leaves. Hopefully Gina was on-duty today.
Week 14
“You know you’ll need to start seeing us once a month now, right?”
Robby chews on his thumbnail.
“Right.”
Gina sighs.
“Robby, do you even have a plan for how to handle all of this?”
“Not yet.”
“Robby.”
Gina manages to keep her cool, even though he knows he deserves whatever scolding she was holding back. He knows that he is acting like every obstinate patient he’s ever had. He knows it’s not a good idea to keep telling himself that the problem would fix itself.
“I won’t carry to full term. It’s not possible.”
“Why do you say that?” she asks.
He knows that voice. He’s used it himself too many times not to recognize it. It was her do-you-have-thoughts-of-hurting-yourself voice.
“Look at me. Do I look young or healthy to you?” he asks.
It sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than her.
“You, of all people, know what feats of strength the human body can withstand.”
Yeah. He does. That’s what worries him.
“Can I be blunt with you?” Gina asks.
“Please do.”
“It’s not too late to get an abortion. Your scans indicate you’re at about twelve weeks right now. You have until your twenty-third week. We can set that up for you whenever you’d like.”
“But I might still lose it.”
“Robby, it worries me when you talk like that.”
“Why?” he asks.
He’s being an asshole. He knows that. But the last thing he needs is Gina’s sympathy, or worse, her pity. He can’t deal with that kind of treatment right now.
“I know you’re trying to pick a fight with me, but I’m not going to take the bait,” she says. “I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work.”
She crosses her arms, and Robby puts his head in his hands. Why was this so fucking hard?
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what to do.”
Robby picks his head up.
“I know. So be nice to people who can help.”
“Okay. I just...need some time to think.”
“You’ve got two months, Robby,” she warns. “Don’t take long.”
Week 19
Robby can’t stop looking at the sonogram Gina took this afternoon. Somehow the picture makes it feel more real.
“Do you want to know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“No.”
“Do you want a print?”
He nods.
He’s glad he asked for it. It makes him feel less crazy. He has a real reason to worry. It’s not all in his head.
“Whose sonogram is that?” Abbott asks.
“Oh. A patient left it behind in their room. I’m holding onto it for them in case they come back for it.”
“You’re turning into a softy in your old age,” Jack jokes.
Robby cracks a smile.
“Maybe.”
Abbott looks at the sonogram again.
“It looks like they’re going to have a little girl in about five months.”
“Really? You can tell already?”
Jack shrugs.
“After having three of my own, I know what to look for. I hope they do come back. I’d like to give them my congratulations.”
Week 22
“I need you to know that I am only saying what I’m about to say because I care about you,” Dana says.
Robby spins around in his chair. He has a hunch that he knows what she’s going to say.
“Well, close the curtain and the door first.”
She obliges him before continuing.
“Are you pregnant?” she asks.
“Yes.”
Evans reels, and it almost makes the whole ordeal worth it to see that look on her face. He’s never seen her look so startled before. Nothing startled Dana.
“Jesus. I thought you were going to tell me to go to hell.”
“Nah, the devil has enough to deal with these days.”
“So you’re keeping it?” she asks.
Robby shrugs his shoulders.
“Fuck, Robby, it’s not like you’ve got a lotta time left to decide from the look of you.”
He crosses his arms.
“No, I do not. If Gina is right—and I’m sure she is—I have six days to decide.”
Evans sits down on the bedside. Obviously this was not the quick chat she had envisioned this being.
“Well, what’s your hold-up? If it’s about the money, you know you’d have help. We’d all—”
“No. Absolutely not. I got myself into this, and I’ll get myself out of it.”
“You’re going to do this alone?” she asks.
“Preferably.”
“Well, I’ve got news for you, pal. Everyone is already talking about you, and they’re all placing bets on what they think you have. So forget about this ‘alone’ shit you’re trying to pull.”
Robby cannot help but laugh.
“What are they guessing? This will be a good test to see if they’re paying attention to a reticent patient.”
“Santos says depressive binge-eating because of your weight gain. Langdon thinks it’s your prostate since you’re going to the bathroom so much now. Javadi thinks diabetes since your craving-of-choice seems to be peanut M&Ms. So over all, not bad guesses given how little information they’re going on.”
Robby scratches his beard.
“And no one guessed pregnancy?”
“Whitaker did, but everyone shouted him down, so he retracted his guess and put his money on binge-eating.”
Poor kid.
Dana sighs.
“Listen, Robby, I’m only saying this because you’re my friend. They’re going to find out or figure it out sooner or later, if you decide to keep it. You’re going to really start to show soon. You’re going to be less mobile. You’re going to need more sleep, more rest, and more food. You’re going to have to take time off to recover, too.”
He’s quiet for a while. The problem is that he knows she’s right. And the answer to his problem seems glaringly obvious. But...
Robby swallows over a lump in his throat.
“I don’t know what to do,” he says. “No one ever tells you what you’re supposed to do when you’re not sure.”
Fuck. He’s not going to fucking cry about this.
Dana hops off the bed and goes to his side. She wraps her arms around him, and Robby gratefully reciprocates.
“It’s okay, honey. We’ll figure it out. I promise.”