"Life Expectancy"

Mystic25

Summary: "He saw him sitting through a church window." Set somewhere a year or so post Series Finalie. Amy and Bruce.

Rating: T for language, imagery, minor violence, and some sexual references.

A/N: My longest Judging Amy Fic yet, I actually didn't intend it to be this long, but here is what came out to be. And yes, the summary sucks, but I can't really think of anything else. And I apologize in advance for any mistakes. This was beta'd, but I if I missed something I'm sorry.

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"The truth is found when men are free to pursue it."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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He saw him sitting through a church window, the regular clear kind, not the ones that towered as tall as Chrysler building, awash in colors of saints who martyred themselves for a sprig of Palm leaves. This made complete sense in the context of where he was, because the church was really a chapel housed inside the walls of St. Francis Hospital. This also made it a bit ironic that a chapel inside a hospital named for a Catholic saint would be free of any such depiction of Catholic saints.

Or maybe it was just the nine cups of coffee he had since noon finally colliding in his brain making everything seem more bathed in irony then would normally exist on a typical Wednesday. He hadn't even intended to be in this area of the hospital, he had a client in the locked jail ward two floors above, a suspect in an armed robbery that left one man dead and the other in ICU in the same hospital. Since the suspect was not able to leave the hospital yet he had been waiting for the presiding Judge to come down to hear his client's testimony of the robbery. But twenty minutes ago, he had been waylaid by the Judge's CSO in the hallway letting him know that "his honor had a late start this morning and would be two hours later than expected." It left him wanting to punch a hole right through the smug smile on the CSO's face but he left before he got the chance. So instead he rubbed at the tired red rings that hung in his eyes ever since six am that morning and retreated to the elevator which would take him down stairs to the cafeteria because his coffee levels were starting to wane in his circulatory system.

He had gotten off on the ground floor and walked past a group of nurses in crisp looking scrubs and one woman with a thick tweed coat tucked under her right arm and an enormous potted fern tucked her left arm. He had moved past her with a quiet "excuse me," a branch of ferns whacking him in the nose as he had stepped off the elevator. He had stood in an enormous tiled atrium with tiles the color of burnt sand that extended outwards farther than his eyesight and broke off into a maze of other opened areas, all marked by overhead signs including: registration, outpatient, gift shop, cafeteria, and chapel. He had walked with sluggish, but enthusiastic steps over to the Starbucks barista stand, and had waited for one family to order their six-year-old a frappichunio like it was ice cream before ordering the tallest cup of coffee they sold, big enough for him to have to grasp in two hands like a toddler holding a glass for the first time.

He had started sipping as soon as he paid the woman with the overly green hat and apron and felt the stimulate effect that was only one level below that of crack cocaine course through his body, pulling his muscles into alertness like a manipulation of marionette strings from an invisible puppeteer.

He had transferred the cup into one careful tight fist, hand burning even through the cardboard sleeve wrapped around the cup to prevent such phenomena, all the while still taking slow hits from the coffee. The hospital chapel stood right before the elevators that would take him back to his client, and hopefully the judge who still hadn't come up with a better excuse to miss a scheduled court appointment then trying to mask his early morning golf game as "a late start." He had walked past the crowd of people with tight drawn worry in their faces, either for themselves or for the ones that they were visiting. He never liked hospitals, ever since his first (and thankfully only) heart attack he avoided coming into any place that smelled like bleach and germicide unless it was against his own conscious consent. But a mandated interview with a guy with seven tattoos that all had some promurder phrase, who had already started puffing his chest out about how he would kill people again, until he had to leave the room to prevent the asshole from being transferred to another district and get away with all his bragging shit, that counted as against his own conscious consent.

He had only glanced up from his coffee because it burned his tongue leaving a thick tingling feeling that had him picking at it like he'd gotten a burr caught in it. And when his head turned to face the direction of the chapel windows, he saw him.

He was hard to see at first because there was an older woman in bright cardinal red that he was talking too that blocked him from view, even at his height. But after a few seconds the woman moved past him with a laugh made silent as a pantomime because of the thick glass and the noise of the atrium.

The glass door to the chapel opened with the silence of well-oiled hinges and the woman in red moved past him as he entered the small sanctuary.

A smell that he smelled in every church he'd been in assaulted him: old, well-worn leather and book pages and the dust that hung in cloth covered pews. Even in the fancy cathedral's his mother would take him, well religiously, to every Sunday of his childhood he still smelled this musty smell that let him know where he was.

He watched as this other man turned to face the wooden pulpit that held a heavy looking leather bound bible, opened somewhere near the exact middle of its mass of onion thin pages. But he didn't face that way for long and he rubbed a hand on the back of his neck in a tired looking gesture and when he turned, it was to the other direction, facing him.

There was a silent limbo kind of moment where they both seemed to contemplate if what was happening was actually happening before all the hyped up senses in his body shot out of his mouth in a single word:

"Bruce-"

Stu Collins heard just the quietest of swallows from the man down by the pulpit, before Bruce Van Exel said: "Stu" in the same way he had said "Bruce."

Then came the lump of awkward silence that arose between two people who ran into each other who never actually liked talking when they were around each other more than the rare occasion. Then came the moment of regarding each other with more colorful acknowledgments then either of them would voice into the quietness of a church sanctuary. At least on Stu's part. It wasn't that he hated Bruce, they weren't ever bar hopping buddies. But he had always considered himself civil to Bruce. But Bruce seemed to completely hate him the moment he set foot near him.

"So how've you been?" Stu cringed on the most awkward of awkward greetings, but it wasn't like either of them had any history other then equal disdain to work with.

Bruce set his hands into the pockets of his black dress pants and seemed to dissect the question: "I can't complain-" he paused, almost like it was a band-aid he was ripping off. "You?"

"Aside from the fact that I've slept only five hours in five days and the fact that I've got the client from hell chained up in the jail ward to his bed cursing any and all future children and grandchildren I may have, everything is pretty much a complaint free zone." Stu answers steam rolled each other out of his mouth.

Bruce gave him a bit of a tight lipped laugh. "Well that answered my question about what you're here being outside the realm of your job."

"No," Stu reassured. "Everything health wise has been good for quite some time, my heart's still bopping away like an out of tune base."

"Glad to hear it."

It wasn't exactly anywhere near concern for his health, but Stu took it, because it wasn't reeking of cold shouldered sarcasm like the last time they met. "What about you? Rumor mill is that you abandoned us for family counseling practice –are we within the realm of your job?"

Bruce seemed to wait for him to pause for a breath before answering. "Actually no."

"Is everything okay?" Stu took in the way Bruce's dark blue dress shirt sleeves were rolled and wrinkled, the way his shirt collar was unbuttoned missing a tie that had obviously hung there. It was like he had rushed to the hospital from work and had been here several hours already. "I mean, nothing's wrong is it?" He and Bruce were in no way friends, or even friendly strangers for that matter, but he still didn't wish him any real bad will.

Bruce drew his mouth closed tightly like he was thinking about the best way to answer the question before he responded with: "Not a thing."

They were now both standing near the pulpit and that bible the size of a small car, each having a clear view of the glass door as it opened, and they both turned their heads to the very quiet sound of the glass door being swung inward across the carpeted floor.

A woman stepped inside in a hospital gown and hospital issued cornflower blue robe pushing a metal IV pole ahead of her. The sight alone caught Stu off guard before the appearance of the woman fully came into focus, including a thick mass of dark brown hair that was half braided against both sides of her head.

Being caught off guard turned into shock. But while he was standing there stewing in his own sense of bafflement, Bruce moved past him and towards the woman they were both staring at.

"What do you think you're doing?" Bruce asked of the hospital blue gown clad figure "you can't be down here-"

"Says who?-"

The voice of Amy Gray, that Stu hadn't heard spoken in such close proximity in years, echoed off the windows as she stood inches away from Bruce, staring up at him from their height distance.

The IV pole shifted in her grip with a squeak of a bad wheel, and the bag of fluids she was attached too swayed like a pendulum from the hook it hung on. "Nurse Ratchet upstairs told me to walk around so I'm walking around."

"She meant around the maternity floor," Bruce argued back with her. "-not out of the hospital."

"I'm not out of the hospital!" Amy held onto the IV pole like she was wielding a scepter. "I just needed five minutes away from someone who vaginally probes you like she's scraping paint off a building."

Bruce made a big deal about clearing his throat and cocked his head slightly in his direction.

Amy's head whipped around to where Bruce was looking, her pigtailed braids moving in a swish, eyes widening in shock as she took in the sight of Stu.

And Stu took in the full sight of her standing there in slippers and a hospital gown made massive by a very pregnant stomach that didn't even try to hide itself in the blue robe wrapped over her gown.

"Stu?"

Stu's name was more bafflement then question. Amy didn't move for a moment, caught in the same kind of limbo, like he and Bruce he had experienced earlier. Finally, she seemed to realize that she had to do something besides stare, so she moved, somewhat awkwardly hindered by the IV tubing plugged into her arm and offered him the kind of hug third grade boys gave each other when one tried to go for a hug while the other only wanted a high five.

"Hi," Amy lowered her arms from where they had been somewhat perched around Stu's shoulders, pulling back and smiling at him a few watts too brightly like she was over compensating.

"Hi," Stu returned, not being able to help his glance down at the obvious reason she was in the hospital. "Wow." He made a gesture that indicated all of her, then looked at her in a bit of guilt. "I'm sorry, wow's all I got-that and you are really pregnant."

"You should've stopped at 'wow' Stu," Amy still smiled brightly, but then seemed to sense that her words were a little harsh by the beat of silence that came immediately afterwards. "Sorry, I've just had my fill of being 'really pregnant." She looked down at her stomach. "I'm more than ready to get this show started."

"Well I'm not an expert," Stu volleyed back "But, I think you're in the right place for something like that to happen."

Amy laughed, tight lipped and turned back up to him. "Yeah, I heard that too," she set both hands on her bowed back and looked at him in an appraising manner like she was sizing him up for the opening argument he was about to give in her courtroom. "So how you've been? How's your wife-?"

"Filimoeika," Stu filled in the pause for Amy for his wife's name, the woman he met on what was supposed to be his and Amy's honeymoon, before she left him at the church.

"Filimoeika Collins," Amy repeated the name like it was a particularly strong aftertaste of wine. "That certainly rolls right off your tongue."

"It means: "enemy of sharks," Stu added, "It's kind of a mouthful, but it's a very strong female name in Polynesian culture."

"It- it defiantly sounds like it," Amy returned, her lips were drawn in a tight line.

"I call her "Filli," Stu said back. "Like cute little female pony, she loves it."

"Aw that's- cute," Amy returned, her lips were drawn in an even tighter line and her face was half turned away from him.

Stu looked at her with a brow lowered in concern. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine," Amy replied, her lips still drawn tight on what she was holding back, "It's just been," she cleared her throat very audibly. "I've been in labor for about five-" she checked her wrist like there was a watch on it, then when realizing that her wrist was bare, she glanced up to the black and white wall clock sat just behind the vestibule. "-five hours, just busy day, ya know?" She laughed too short of a time for her. "So do you and your Filli-" her words were cut off and she shared an expression with Bruce where they were both holding something back, lowering her head before looking back up at him with her still, little too wide of a smile. "Do you and her have any kids?"

Stu watched as she reached over and slapped Bruce's shoulder with the back of her hand and the expression they both shared vanished. "No. Filli's big in the interior decorating scene and I'm still working 70 hour weeks, it just isn't a good time to have kids – plus I have it on someone's good authority here that I was never really good with them."

Stu really was never very good with kids. It wasn't that he didn't like them, he was always just afraid of doing or saying something that would be wrong or embarrassing. When his wife opted out of having kids for at least a Five Year Plan span, he was secretly glad. When he and Amy had still been together, she kept assuring him that he would "learn." But it was easier for her to say because she never became a parent in the middle of a child's life; she had gotten Lauren before she was mobile and could talk back. It was always something he never saw eye to eye on with her.

Amy's smile lowered off her face like a slowly capsizing row boat. "I never said that."

"C'mon Amy, you did everything but say that," Stu kept his voice light, but the acid taste of bitterness still hung in the air. It wasn't like he had sat around sticking pins in Amy Gray Voodoo dolls all these years, but having to face the woman who left him at the alter on their wedding day, no matter where they both currently were from the removal of that, was still abrasive. "When we were together, you never trusted me with Lauren."

"I said you could learn- Stu" Amy's lowered look became more defensive. "Like all parents do. I never trusted you with Lauren because you never trusted yourself with her-"

She cut herself off with what she about to say and Stu watched her grimace and take a sharp intake of breath. "Are you okay?"He watched her rub at expanse of her stomach with one hand in long circular motions, bending over the IV pole. "What's wrong?"

"She's having a contraction," Bruce answered with a hard look in Stu's direction as Amy bent down even further, almost completely in half. "That's something that happens during labor."

Stu watched as Bruce turned his attention quickly away from him like he was discarding a bad piece of meat and turned to Amy.

"Hey," Bruce lowered his head to her and set a hand on her shoulder "Come on, deep breaths-" his other hand he set on her stomach that she was curled into.

Amy's hands stilled and she dropped her head against Bruce's upper chest, letting go of the IV pole go to claw her hands into his forearms, taking deep, audible breaths that hitched at the ends.

Stu watched as Bruce breathed in time with her in slow deliberate movements. "You got this baby-" his hand moved off her abdomen and slid around her back.

The word 'baby' blew against Stu like a stormy wind. He had only ever called Amy 'baby' a handful of times, and each time she seemed to shy away from the word like it was a conk on the head with his cave man mallet. But now, he watched as she responded to the term by drawing herself closer to Bruce, which considering that they were already right next to each other, had her pushing her forehead practically into his chest.

Stu probably should've just left then. He'd only been around Amy again for all of five minutes and he'd already rubbed at her like an abrasive brillo pad, plus she seemed pretty occupied at the moment. Plus he was in the middle of meeting with his asshole client, plus he was married, and it wasn't like he thought he had any secret feelings for Amy except for resentment, and those feelings weren't exactly secret. It was perfect opportunity to leave that came with its own built in explanation that let them all just go their separate ways. But like a dumbass, he stayed rooted to the spot, watching them both like that time years ago when they had done this in front of him on Amy's front porch.

The pair of them both stayed like that for over a span of two minutes, until Amy's death grip of Bruce slackened and she pulled away from him.

Amy stood there out of breath, sweat shinning on her face. "I think it's done."

"Are you sure?" Bruce looked at her in concern, holding onto her arms.

"For now at least-" Amy breathed out one long breath and raised her head up to his. "Can I just skip ahead to the part where the baby's already born?" her trademark laugh back for a moment masked behind hard breaths.

"Do you want me to start praying for that miracle right here? Because that might take a while." Bruce asked quietly.

Stu watched as Bruce laughed, and Amy hit him in the shoulder again. Then he watched as Bruce rubbed at the back of her neck with his hands and her head dipped in a somewhat melting fashion at his touch.

Stu felt his brow furrow in a question that was basically blatantly obvious but, he still asked anyway, because he was a masochist. "So, you two are-?"

"Yes," Bruce lowered his hands down from Amy's neck. His answer was short and brief, but his look wasn't, it hung there like a bent nail waiting for one more badly placed hit to send it flying out to impale someone.

"Guess all those rumors circulating around the courtroom have actual merit then," Stu smiled (really it was a bit of a smirk, but he still tried) to let the knowledge that it was meant as a joke seep into the words. He really didn't know what it was about being in front of Amy again, but it was making him feel like a hormonal jock teenager. "Do you know what it is?" his question was directed at Bruce "– other than your baby I mean?"

Amy turned away from Bruce and looked at Stu, and she didn't look like she appreciated Stu's attempt at humor.

"It's a girl," Bruce answered with just enough of an inflection for Stu to feel that his sarcasm, apparently wasn't funny to him either. "Other than our baby, I mean."

It wasn't exactly a western showdown at high noon, but it was close enough to make Stu recall the story of Bruce punching a man in the middle of the courthouse allegedly over something less. And it was also close enough to make Stu realize that he had overstepped, about a marathon of steps too many."Hey great," He said in an attempt to make amends. "I love girls." He realized too late that didn't think about what he said before he said it, but he didn't have time to back track before Amy cut him a look that he had seen many a lawyer cowering with their tails tucked firmly up their asses. But before she could issue the force behind such a look, physical or verbal, she groaned much louder than before, doubling over so far that she almost sat down.

He watched Bruce grab her arms, bracing her before she landed in a completely splayed out fashion on the plushness of the maroon carpet at their feet. "Okay, that was less than five minutes apart, you, need to go back upstairs-" Bruce looked over Amy's shoulders at Stu. "Get a wheelchair-"

Stu and Bruce were not friends, not even close. And Stu just sat there and made inappropriate remarks about Bruce's relationship with Amy, who Stu pretty much presumed was his wife. But Stu didn't question or comment, he simply got a wheelchair from where they were folded into lumped stacks by the welcome/information desk. The one he chose squeaked and drove like a drunk driving a Pinto at midnight as he pushed it with an audible bump through the glass doors.

Amy was back to gripping Bruce's arm like she was severing all circulation to both his biceps, her face contorted pain. "I knew she was lying when she said my contractions would take longer because of 'my age-" she groaned more as the contraction worked its way up and down her uterus like a whip of fire, working a few well-placed curses in that groan.

"You can debate with her when you're not in very active labor anymore-"

Stu watched as Bruce maneuvered Amy into the chair, setting the saline IV bag into her lap.

Stu walked down the thick carpet and opened the door to the chapel, watching them both past in a blur of movement, moving to the line of elevators at the opposite end from where the chapel stood, the blur of the entire last 30 minutes making him dizzy.