DA Meadow: The Hellbent and the Broken (Jason Todd) BOOK 2

Sixty One: Venus Again

Get a grip. Get a grip. Get a grip. 

A vain laugh nearly crawls its way up my throat. Those words used to be such a comfort before cases or during any stressful time. Now they do nothing for me.

Nothing to calm the rapid beating of my own heart, as I listen to the thrum of the second one inside me. The little person growing there is three months old. In six, they'll be here in my arms. Only my arms.

My private and well-paid doctor gently removes the headphones. I slowly sit up, for fear of hurting it. Impossible at normal movement at this stage of course...but I feel more fragile than ever.

"I have good news for you," Doctor Thompson says, looking over the tablet in her hand. "Due to your...oddly perfect fitness, your BMI is quite close to where it should be. This means, depending on your child's size, you won't have to much of a bump."

I glance down at my abdomen, "Hide-able?"

Thompson nods as she packs up her gear.

"Very much so. As you want to hide I think it's quite the lucky outcome."

Instead of a nasty comeback about how luck is nowhere near me, I simply smile and give a short nod. I watch as she closes everything up in a big suitcase.

"I'll be back this day and time in two weeks, DA Meadow. Will you be available?" She says, looking at me curtly.

She's a bit scary, honestly.

"Yes, I'll be here. Thank you, Doctor Thompson."

With that, she hands me a folded piece of paper before walking into the elevator and leaving. Suddenly my new apartment is completely silent again.

It emphasises how lonely I am. Ginger had to go back to Lightway. She was transferred, but she's working on getting transferred back to Gotham so she can be with me.

All I have is Kalie. I can't really confide in anyone else without explaining the entire situation.

And though Kalie doesn't know everything, there is an understanding that I have a secret and it has to do with Jason being who he is.

The Waynes have made no effort of contact. If Bruce was interested in having an heir for the next, next generation, he makes no implication of it.

Which in itself is a worry, because that means I really have fucked up.

So I find myself sitting on my sofa, staring at the blank screen of the tv, hand automatically brush my own abdomen.

This is really happening.

I'm really doing this on my own.

~

"Her first trimester ended today."

"Fuck off."

Dick rolls his eyes behind his mask as he brings his eskrima stick down on one of Toy Maker's robotic henchmen. The weapon crashes through the cheap metal.

Behind him, at the same time, Jason fires his guns several times, destroying three different units and bringing the warehouse to silence.

Batman bursts out of the control room with a restrained and unconscious Toymaker.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't discus private matters in the presence of the enemy," he says roughly, not even glancing at them as he moves towards the exit.