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LAURA
Something was strange.
I couldn't put a definite finger on it but it was a sense of foreboding in the air. Oddness, stillness, gone. Something was lost which was a surety because I felt utterly wasted and empty. What for I didn't know, but I was done. Taken somewhere else, far from Queens.
Sin was long gone. And, I was through with that.
It was a hospital wing I was locked in. SHIELD headquarters. There were no windows around and a tense silence with the simultaneous buzzing of the electric lights above. No one walked by except one nurse, Susan, who came to check up on me every hour and collect a report for a pap smear every now and then. They'd bandaged my head, saying that my head had hemorrhaged slightly and might take a while to heal. I probably sported a black eye too, completing the demolished Laura look.
When my first pap smear was obtained, I was more confused than my first failure. I was pregnant but scraping up my womanhood was not the way to go about it. The baby could get hurt.
I remembered stopping Susan and the redhead who'd come in with a grimace. 'You'll hurt the baby.'
'Miss Sharp, you need to know that - '
The redhead interjected. 'Not now, Susan. Just get the tests in like the doctor said.'
And that was the end of it. How much ever I prodded and pleaded the nurse, she never opened her damned mouth. Came in, scraped me out and left. Smile, give me my papery food and collect it after I was done. This went on for hours till the end until I raised a question.
'Where's Eddie?'
'He's with Fury. Questioning.'
'They aren't going to hurt him, are they?' I whispered. 'He doesn't know about the baby.'
No answer.
'Can I see him?'
Susan smiled ruefully, squeezing my shoulder and leaving the room without another word. I opened my mouth to call out her name but the metal door banged shut behind her. I sat there patiently, waiting for her to return, Pulling my knees to my chest, I placed my cheek over them and rocked myself slowly.
We were having a baby. A little brunette like Eddie with eyes like mine. Ten little fingers, ten little toes, and a pretty smile. The gender didn't matter to me though I rooted for a brunette baby. That lead to brainstorming a name, rushing through the little number of names that bombarded my head. I stopped my rocking when I thought of the first one.
'Ezra.'
It started with Eddie's name's first letter and with my name's last letter. Yes, it was perfect and it was unisex. Grinning to myself, I rubbed my legs to create some warmth in the cold room. They'd dressed me in the flimsiest attire, a tiny cloth tied at my neck and falling like a cylinder around me. Tilting my head to face the door, I widened my eyes when I saw Eddie standing there. He had a monotonous glance and staring ahead at me.
