Secrets and Oaths✓

Honesty is a Bitch

I came to in an unfamiliar white room. The lights were harsh and I blinked a bunch, trying to adjust. I turned to the right and saw that I was hooked up to a few machines. Lovely, I was in the hospital. I never liked hospitals. The overwhelming smells of whatever cleaning agent they used might have been able to clean up the variety of spills that occurred here but I could still smell the sickness and dying that always hung in the air. 

Turning my head to the left, I saw Andy asleep in the only chair in the room. What was he doing here? It was bad enough running into him in places I couldn't avoid, grocery stores and the school pickup line, but why would he be here? Better question, why was I here? I wracked my brain, pulling through the cloudiness like it was cotton candy. Wait, where was Charlie? Why wasn't Charlie here? Shit! He had him. Dad had Charlie. 

My monitors started going haywire as the panic became worse. Andy shot up, anxiety evident on his face. "Kat, you need to calm down."

"I can't! Charles took Charlie."

"I know. You managed to get that out when I found you. I called Walker, they were getting to your house as we were leaving in the ambulance. So far nothing has come up."

"Well what have they been doing? He could be halfway across the Atlantic by now." I knew it was unlikely but I was in a full panic at this point, so between that and whatever they had given me for the pain, I wasn't thinking logically. 

"The whole state is practically shut down. They aren't getting out. An AMBER alert has been issued and their photos have been given to neighboring states just in case they got through before word got out. Right now, there isn't much more we can do."

"So how long am I stuck here?" I was anxious to get out and join the search.

"They want to keep you overnight for observation. Your leg should be fine but they're worried if the blood loss caused any harm to the..." he looked away, unable to continue. 

"Caused any harm to the what Andy?" I panicked. He shouldn't know. They wouldn't reveal that information to someone who wasn't family.

"I think you know Kat." This couldn't be happening. 

"How do you know? You're not family, they wouldn't have shared my condition with you."

"Jimmy was still listed as your emergency contact so they called him on the way in. They told him and I was right there. How could you not tell me you're pregnant Kat?" Fuck!

"Jimmy knows?"

"Yes Jimmy knows. What I want to know is why I didn't? You assured me that you weren't sleeping with Jimmy while we were together so it wasn't because you weren't sure. So why?"

"I was figuring out what I wanted to do. We were having an affair, Andy. You might have made promises that you were going to leave her and taken the initial steps but she was your wife. For all I knew you could've worked it out and then I would be raising your child by myself, watching you play happy family with Laurie and I wasn't sure if I was emotionally mature to do that or put that on a kid."

"So you knew before Laurie was killed? You've known for weeks and you didn't think, 'Hey, you know Andy should probably be brought into this'. It's been three weeks since the funeral, you could've told me. You should've told me."

"You were already going through so much, I couldn't add to that."

"It wasn't your decision to make if I could handle it or not. I should've been able to make that choice for myself."

"Well now you know. What do you want to do about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're right. I wasn't sleeping with Jimmy anymore so you're the only biological option. You have a say in this. What do you want to do?" He never got the chance to answer because the doctor came in and since I was awake, took me out to get an ultrasound to ensure that the baby was ok. I guess I would have to wait for my answer.