Chapter Text
It is often a deeply personal decision, which specialization to choose when becoming a doctor. Many have some thoughts before they even start college, some make the decision during rotations, and everyone, always, has their own reasons. Conrad thought he will go into oncology since his decision to switch to premed. Because of his mother, obviously. He saw how she struggled and wanted to help patients to struggle less, but also because he saw how much happiness was there when the battle was won. And how much care and love and delicacy those patients needed. He wanted to be there, wanted to make sure at least some of the mothers who came after his own got all the care and attention they needed. To do as much as he could to lessen their pain and hopefully help them win those battles.
It was not until the third year of med school that he slightly changed the plan.
When he was a teenager, his mom was still alive and he had too much hope in him, Conrad used to dream that one day – really far away from that moment, years later – he would bring his family to the summer house just like he was once brought there. He didn’t think about how it would work with him wanting to be someone with a cool career, a doctor if you happened to peep on his dreams after that Winter break, but spending most of the summer in Cousins, never repeating his dad’s patterns. Later he would think that this was proof of him already knowing, even when everything was relatively fine, that these dreams would stay just dreams forever. He’d drive a big car to the house and there would be children in the back. They were never a constant but rather a variety: sometimes two girls, sometimes a girl and two boys, sometimes a boy and a dog. That made sense to him – he knew he wanted a big family with children, but never cared how many or which gender they would have. The only thing that mattered was that in those dreams Belly was always by his side, on the passenger seat, calming the children down in their excitement, smiling at him from the front door as she opened it for the first time in the summer.
They were always madly in love, no matter how many years in the future the dream was, and always happily married. Because these were his happy dreams, where all dreams came true and everything was possible.
But as months and then years passed, those happy dreams appeared more and more rarely until he hardly ever got them, and they were not even that happy anymore, because they showed him an improbable future, as Belly was in love with his brother and had not spoken to Conrad in years.
He got a resurgence of these dreams for about half a year after Belly’s wedding to Jere was called off, because for that brief period of his life he once more had a reason to hope for that future. She gave him something to hold on to and tried, for as long as he could stomach it. But as his letters were never answered and Belly never provided any sign that she was at least reading them, after he signed the last one with love and got no response, Conrad decided that it was a response enough of itself. So he stopped hoping again, and tried very hard to banish whatever hopeful dreams he had left in his mind so they would stop tormenting him with what will never be.
It also was just a coincidence, that his pediatric rotation was scheduled not long after the six month mark since his last letter was sent and just after he resolved to stop waiting for a miracle. Conrad could never picture himself in love with someone else, at least not that in love – and when you know just how deep and all-consuming a love could be, would you want to settle for less? – and he’d never let himself become what Adam was, so no family was in his future now and no children. But he loved them and children were the purest souls out there, so when this rotation started and Conrad found himself among them, it seemed only logical to consider going into pediatrics.
By his fourth year at med school he had little doubts choosing pediatric oncology rotation as one of the elective ones. He might’ve given up on ever having his own children and not because of the lack of love for them. So he found himself with an abundance of love to give, no one to give it to in his life and a chance to redirect it to those who needed it the most. Because those children, mostly adored by their parents and close ones, could use any spare drop of love as you never know how long they are going to have. No amount of love is enough when you try to fit a lifetime of it into just four to seven years.
Now, at nearly thirty years and seven years since his last East coast visit, Conrad finally finds himself right at the place he started to envision then – in his second year of a pediatric oncology fellowship in one of the best West coast hospitals. He knows all his patients' favourite books and cartoons, makes sure to bring the right stickers with him if they’re due a painful procedure and always, always makes sure his little patients know they are not battling alone.
They get new patients now that often – thankfully, but consult general pediatricians semi-regularly, and are very relieved each time the consultation does not lead the child into their ward. So it’s not unusual for Conrad to get called into a hospital room two floors down his regular one and attend to a patient whose blood tests or any other tests or scans gave their doctor the reason to call him.
* * *
“The doctor will be here shortly,” the nurse who has been attending to them says and brings Belly out of trance.
“Thank you.” She tries to smile but it must be a grimace, though the nurse doesn't react. Probably used to scared parents.
Belly never thought she’d find herself here, if she was being honest. Much rather she hoped to never find herself here.
It was a shock to realise that she is pregnant less than two months into her Paris exile. At first she thought it was the food – between her classes and shifts at the cinema, she didn’t often get a chance to eat healthy, sometimes she had to pretend the expiration date on her lunch was just a joke and eat a sandwich two days too old. But weeks passed, she made an effort to eat better, sleep more as far as it was possible, and – nothing. She still was nauseous, sleepy and tired all the time, so when Celine pushed once again, Belly caved and went to a doctor. Only to find out that she brought an extra with her. Her first instinct was to call Conrad. He’d know what to do, he’d listen and help her find a way to deal with this news. But this idea was thrown away just as quickly as it appeared – he’d know what to do, true, but it would likely be at expense of his own. And Belly didn’t even have enough time to decide whether she believed what he told her that night, with all the blood loss and bliss from their passionate reunion. She wanted to, of course she did. But it was hard to fight her flight first, ask questions later instinct. So she ran – first home to Philly, then far away to Paris, calling off the wedding and breaking up Jeremiah on the way there. She thought about calling Conrad so many times, but at first she was frightened by the possibility of him being truthful – even if that would’ve made her happy, then by the fact that time went on and she took too long to contact him and was not even sure what to say. And then Belly tried to find just the right words for him and decided she'd text him as soon as she did, but it was already the end of September, she was yet to find even one right word as the loudest one in her head now was pregnant.
It took some time, a lot of arguing and a visit to Paris to convince Laurel to let her stay and finish her semester in Paris. She will be at the end of her second trimester at the start of the winter break and will come home right after Christmas. Belly will be taking her classes online starting spring, and will come home so she’d be close to Laurel. Her mom tried to persuade her to tell Conrad, but Belly wouldn’t budge, and with him answering Laurel less and less frequently, she eventually gave up. The rift between Conklins and Fishers that was caused by that summer was a slow one to mend, but eventually, it was only her, and apparently Conrad, who had no contact with the other family.
Belly still thought about those right words sometimes, had multiple notes in the app on her phone that would start with Conrad, hi and sometimes end with love you but never bring up the most important topic.
This topic was now six years old, an IV dripping steadily into her vein as her little daughter slept after the turmoil of the last hours.
They didn’t come from Philadelphia often, but this year Taylor was too close to her due date to travel for Steven’s birthday, so instead the rest of the Conklins came to San Francisco. It was a nice day up until Rosie’s face lost all its colour and she slowly went slack, losing her consciousness. She was a little less active than usual, true, but Belly wrote it off as fatigue after a long – for a six year old – travel and time difference. But now, standing in a cold hospital room, after several blood tests she had to calm Rosie down for a CT and MRI, Belly’s thoughts on the cause of her child’s condition were running wild in a direction she used to hope she’d never think in. She doesn’t remember how it all started when Susannah first got sick, she was too young then, but cold white rooms, smell of blood being drawn for testing, sounds of IV dripping and heart monitor’s beeping are too similar now to how they were when she was eleven and then sixteen. And it doesn’t help that the doctor who came to attend to them, did not alleviate her worry, rather the opposite.
Belly is told that while CT and MRI are thankfully clean, there are some concerns about blood tests’ results. Something about atypical lymphocytes and lymphoblasts, terrifying words that gave her no information as to how dire her Rosie's condition is.
They tell her that her baby is stable and in no immediate danger, but they want to keep her here until an oncologist can give her tests a look and promise to have one on it shortly.
When the door to the room where Belly spent hours pacing but now sits still on the chair by the bed, gripping her daughter’s hand opens, she thinks she is either hallucinating because this one hallucination could help her understand what’s going on or she’s lost her consciousness too and is now in a nightmare, where the love of your life comes back into your life as a doctor who could potentially diagnose your child with a terminal illness while finding out he’s diagnosing his own child he never knew about.
“Belly?” Judging by how different his voice sounds – she has never heard him sounding like that – it is not a dream, nor is it a nightmare. It is a very terrifying reality.