Bobby and Terry, Saturday monring

[x-coldhands.livejournal.com]

Bobby tracks Terry down so he can ask her something stupid. Because every girl dreams of being proposed to out of obligation, right?

Bobby'd checked Terry's room, checked around the lake, checked the kitchen--and then run into someone who said they'd seen her in the gym. So here he was, and not at all happy about it. What was she doing in the gym in her condition? He slipped inside the door, looking around the room.

She was doing what she always did, going through her training program step by step. A quick Google check had told her that it wasn't anything to worry about so she'd gone down without hesitation. Her work with the heavy bag was fairly limited, if she got into a situation where she needed to hit someone she was probably already in too much trouble to hand, but it felt good to just take out the energy on the defenceless bag.

"Terry, what are you doing?" Bobby yelled, a note of panic in his voice. He obviously hadn't read the same webpage, because he hurried over and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back gently.

She stumbled in surprise and pulled away from him. Regaining her balance, her hands moved automatically to fix her hair which was starting to escape its ponytail. "I was training? It's Saturday, this is what I always do on Saturday."

"You..." Bobby took a deep breath, closing his eyes. "I need to ask you something." This was really not how he thought this would go.

Terry's heart jumped into her chest effectively preventing her from doing anything but nodding. Turning away from him, she walked over to grab her bag and her water bottle, knowing that it was important that she stayed hydrated. Drinking deep, she shouldered her bag and walked back to him, raising her eyebrows at him to see what he wanted to do now. She was no precog but she had a bad feeling about this anyway.

"Let's...go for a walk," Bobby suggested. A nice, slow walk. Somewhere private. "Just like, out by the lake, maybe?"

Terry sighed. This couldn't have waited until after her training? "All right." She smiled at him out of force of habit, not at all pleased and still with that sinking feeling that something was wrong.

He could tell she wasn't thrilled, and he winced inwardly. "It's really important," he assured her, sliding an arm around her shoulders. "And...not really a gym kind of thing."

She shrugged and nodded, "All right. I think I have a jacket in the hall closet but I'm going to have to change my shoes. It snowed last night." Terry liked the snow but going out in it while she was still warm from the gym didn't seem like a recipe for good health. "I'll meet you at the east door in five minutes, okay?"

Right, not everyone could walk in the snow without a coat. Especially not in her condition... "Sure. I'll be there." He kissed the top of her head and headed off to wait for her.

Terry took no more than the promised five minutes but managed to change her clothes entirely, brush her hair and even slick on some lip gloss to give her otherwise pale complexion some colour. She ran back down the stairs, dodging a couple of other mansion denizens with a cheery smile and wave. It was so easy to fake a good mood. "Right then," she said as she jogged up to the door, "Ready."

Of course, that had been a long five minutes for Bobby, and he jumped nearly a foot and turned away from the window he'd been peering out, trying to see if the lake was deserted. "Uh. Good." He gave her a weak smile and slipped an arm around her, pulling the door open. "Let's go."

Terry looked up at him several times but they walked in silence over the snow-covered lawn. Not too far away there was a war in the making, both sides constructing forts and stockpiling ammunition but as they walked further the good-natured taunts faded then quieted entirely. By the time they rounded the first turn of the lake, they were as alone as could be managed. "So what is it?" Terry asked, finally just to break the silence.

Bobby stepped back, taking a deep breath. It did no good, his heart was still pounding in his throat as he fished the black velvet box out of his pocket and knelt in the snow, looking up at her as he held the box out and opened it to reveal a gold ring with a solitaire princess-cut diamond, as simple a ring as one could get. "Will you marry me?" he asked, voice trembling a bit.

Terry's jaw dropped, staring at the ring in complete and utter shock. Her mouth worked silently, throat strangled and closed until she remember how to breathe and gasped for air. "I...uh...I...you...what?"

The knee of Bobby's jeans was getting wet, but at least the cold didn't bother him. "Will you marry me, Terry?" He gave her a small smile, scared she'd say no...and scared she'd say yes.

"Are you joking?" Since he didn't look like he was, she stepped back from him, "Are you mad?

That didn't sound like a yes. Not even close. Bobby sighed and got to his feet again, drawing close. "Terry...I know about the baby. Let me do right by you," he said softly.

"You WHAT?" She stepped back again, staying out of reach. "How did you...you weren't supposed to...what?" Coherency fled again before the onslaught of her horror and confusion.

Bobby stopped reaching toward her, closing the small box before he ended up losing the damn ring in the snow. "I know. And I want to support you. And the baby."

"You don't like babies!" Terry snapped, her temper readily surging to the fore, "I'm not going to let you do something stupid. Why do you think I didn't tell you? How did you even find out?" She had a good idea. She was going to kill Jay.

"Look, none of that's important. I love you. We made this baby together, and I want to take care of it now. Take care of you." Bobby tried yet again to move closer.

She didn't back off this time, anger making her confrontational instead. Terry tossed her head back and glared up at him. "If I wasn't pregnant, yeh wouldn't be asking. Yeh don't want to get married! Yeh just think you have to!" She shoved him, "I won't be anyone's obligation!"

Bobby stumbled back a few steps, looking surprised. "Well...but..." He hadn't thought of it like that, from her point of view. "I'm sorry! I'm just trying to do the right thing, here!" He shoved the jewelry box back into his pocket. "What do you want me to do?"

"The right thing? Yeh could have talked to me! What if I don't want a baby, Bobby?" Terry threw up her hands, "Yeh could have asked. Yeh could have thought about the fact that I didn't tell yeh and sure I had a reason for that! I don't plan to let this ruin anyone's life!"

"...Yeah, that's a good point. Why didn't you tell me?" Bobby frowned. "Don't I get a say in all this?"

"This wasn't yer fault." She crossed her arms, gripped her elbows tightly. "And yeh didn't have to know. I was going to take care of it." Her voice softened, anger ebbing but hardly gone for good. "Why did Jay tell yeh?"

But Bobby didn't make it to the end of what she was saying. He was stuck on the previous sentence. "Take care of it how?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

"I hadn't figured that out yet." Terry said dismissively, shaking her head, "Stop avoiding my question. Why did Jay tell yeh? I want to know exactly why so that I can make his death appropriately painful."

"He didn't tell me anything." Which was pretty much true, he'd just beaten Bobby with a clue by four and pointed him in the right direction, and confirmed his conclusions when he finally reached them. "You know, I may not be the most observant guy, but I'm pretty sure I'd have figured it out when you got ff--bigger."

"I'd thought about going home. Sean would have to know but...no one else. Dani said that she didn't start getting fat," she all but sneered the word, "until she was four months along. That would have been enough time to graduate and get home without looking suspicious."

Bobby stared at her for a minute. "You really had no intention of telling me, did you? You were just gonna...go off and have my baby without me ever knowing!"

Terry hesitated then sighed and shook her head, "After what happened with Rachel... I thought it would be better for everyone if yeh didn't know. Tis my mistake and I didn't want to have yeh...well, I didn't think I should say anything." Telling him that she'd been scared of his reaction would only make him feel bad and insult him. Better to just leave it at that.

"...It's not a mistake, it's a baby. A life. Something we made, Terry. We." He rubbed his face, at a loss as to what to say to her. He couldn't believe that she could just hide something as big as this. What else was she not telling him, for his own good or whatever reason she was justifying it with?

"It's a mistake that's also a baby." Her grip on her elbows loosened and she slid one hand down though her jacket kept her from feeling anything. She took a deep breath, controlling it when it wanted to shake, "I was scared. With everything else that's happened..." she shook her head and looked away over the lake.

Bobby swallowed and reached for her, tentative this time. "Do you really think so little of me, Theresa? After all we've been through, after we've been friends for so long...did you really think I'd want you to go through this alone?" His voice was soft, gentle, and tinged with a faint note of hurt. He was hurt that she would think that.

She didn't move. Didn't even look back at him though she had to know that he was moving toward her. "I was scared, Bobby. I wasn't thinking about that." She bit her lip, tasting the cold, sweet lipgloss she'd put on what seemed like a hundred years ago. "All I could think about was the fight we had over Rachel and...I promised. No more babies."

"This is different!" Bobby answered, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. "Rachel isn't ours."

Terry looked at him, her expression unreadable though her eyes were hurting, "You'd really want to keep it? Try to raise a family? You're only twenty. I'm seventeen."

Bobby wanted more than anything to erase that look in her eyes. "...I don't know," he admitted softly. "I'd like to be a part of the decision, though. And more than that..." He moved his hand to her cheek and murmured, "I don't want you going through this alone."

His hand was cold. So was her cheek, she realised as she closed her eyes against the first hot tear. "I forgot. I don't know how or when. But I forgot my pill. Now everything is a huge mess."

"We'll figure things out, Terry," Bobby whispered, and pulled her close. "I promise."

Terry let him hold her while she cried quietly into his shirt. No matter what he said, things weren't going to work out. She just didn't see how they could.

He stroked her hair, making comforting sounds. "Let's go back inside," he murmured after her tears seemed to be slowing.

"Bobby?" she said, instead of moving. "What...what did you want me to say? When you asked me to marry you? What did you think I'd say?"

Bobby took a deep breath. "I don't know. I had no idea what you'd say...and to be honest, no matter what, I was scared of the answer." He sighed. "It's not that I don't want to marry you...some day. But if you'd said yes, I would have done it, you know. If that was what you wanted, if you wanted to keep the baby...and you can still change your mind," he added.

She looked even more disturbed at that and did pull away though not out of reach. "I can't think about that. It's just...I can't. I have to think of the baby as something I can't keep. It's too much. For us both."

Bobby looked a bit hurt and disappointed, but he nodded. "Okay. You want to put it up for adoption, then." Because if she wanted an abortion--they'd have a problem.

Terry winced at his expression, hoping it didn't mean that he wanted something more than that. First Jay, then Bobby. She just couldn't handle it. "Aye. I'll not kill a baby," she told him a little more fiercely than was warranted. "Tis not its fault."

"That's my girl," Bobby said, relieved, pulling her against him again.

Terry closed her eyes. This wasn't done. But it was good enough for now.