Chapter Eleven: These Walls Are Closing In

I take the pieces of my broken heart,
I place them in my hands
'Cause I feel like I need answers, and I need reasons
But only you can understand
Right now I feel like these walls are closing in
And I'd give anything to feel your peace within

Matthew West - Forever and Beyond

The questioning hadn't stopped the whole way to the store, or while they selected a pregnancy test, or while they stood in the queue to pay for it, or while they went home again afterwards. At first, she had brushed it off with a 'not now, Johnny' or a 'not here, Johnny', but once they were back in the Baxter she couldn't avoid the issue and blame it on the presence of the general public anymore. Several people had seen her buying a pregnancy test at the nearest drug store, with her brother asking questions, and it wouldn't be long before it was broadcast all over the city and internet.

"Have you seriously not told him?" Johnny asked incredulously, as they took off their jackets and hung them by the door.

"There might not be anything to tell," she argued half-heartedly.

"But you've not told him there might be a chance-?"

"No, okay?" she cut him off quickly. "No, I haven't."

"So, I know that I might be an uncle, but Reed doesn't know that he's-"

"Doesn't know what?" Reed asked, walking obliviously into the hall.

"Reed," Sue gasped, caught like a deer in the headlights, and fumbling to conceal the paper bag she was hiding before remembering that she could simply turn it invisible.

"Are you okay?" he asked her, realising that whatever she was holding was now completey hidden from his sight. "You look all...nervous and twitchy."

"Told you," Johnny gloated.

Sue glared at him, and then turned to her husband. "Are you busy?" she asked him airily.

"No, but I-"

"Good," she smiled, no matter how fake her grin was. She grapped his arm and all but dragged him down the hall. "Come with me, dear. We need to talk."

He allowed himself to be pulled into the bedroom, knowing that if he put up a fight it would only end with his arm being completely stretched to wherever she was leading him. "Am I in trouble?" he asked her hesitantly.

"No, but I might be," she said, as she clsoed the door.

When she gestured to the bed, he sat down, watching as she started pacing before him rather than joining him. Her hands were wringing, one of them still clearly holding onto the invisible object in her grasp, and he waited for her to talk. After a few minutes, however, the waiting and confusion was too much. "Sue, what's wrong?" he asked her.

"What's wrong?" she repeated. "Um...something unexpected might be happening," she told him. "Something that is going to change everything if it is happening, and even if it's not I get the feeling that things are still going to change."

His brow furrowed, looking up at her. "Honey, you're not making any sense," he told her.

"Okay, talking isn't working," she realised with a huff. Instead, she removed the invisibility from the paper bag, and haded it to him. "Look inside."

Reed looked at her with deeper confusion before taking the bag, then he glanced into the paper confinements, looked back at her, and did a double take. He stared long and hard at the contents of the bag, before taking them out for a closer inspection. "Sue," he said after a moment, "this is a pregnancy test."

"Yes," she said simply.

"You think you could be pregnant?"

"Yes," she repeated.

He let out a breathy laugh, and a smile. "Wow."

"No, not 'wow', Reed," she complained, gesturing her hands wildly as his expression returned to confusion. "Any other month this would have been amazing, and don't get me wrong it still is, but when I'm about to leave and---"

Realising the source of her frustration, he stook up, placing his hands on her arms so that it stopped her obscenely large hand gestures. "Sue, if you are pregnant, there's no way I'm letting them force you into doing this," he explained clearly.

She stopped, looking up at him. "Do you really mean that?" she asked him.

"Of course, I do," he smiled. "But first, we'd better do the test."

She nodded numbly. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Do you want me to wait here?" he offered.

She nodded again, taking the test from him. "Yeah, I'll be out in a second," she said.

She went into their private bathroom, and came back a moment later with the test in her hand. Reed was still holding the box. "How long do we have to wait?" she asked, sitting down beside him.

He read the instructions. He knew how they worked, having sat through so many, but each brand had their own timer. "The box says three minutes," he read.

She groaned, wishing that she'd chosen a quicker result test. "Feels like a lifetime," she sighed.

They sat, for once, in silence through the three minutes. And it was a long three minutes, filled with nothing but the sound of the ticking clock at Reed's bedside. Finally, after what felt like a year, the three minutes were up. "Do you want to look first?" Reed offered.

She shook her head. "No, I can't do it," she said. "You do it."

He took the test from her, turning it over to see the result. Then, he picked up the box again, looking back and forth between the two for a moment before letting out a long breath.

"Well?" she asked.

He shook his head slowly, setting the test down on the bedside table. "It's negative."

"Oh," she said simply.

"Sue," he whispered, putting his arms around her.

"I guess I should be happy," she mused, resting her head on his chest. "It would have been dangerous for a baby to be involved in this."

"Sue-"

"I just got sick this morning and I panicked."

"Sue-"

"We'll just have to start trying again when all this is over," she finished.

He kissed the top of her head. "I'm sorry, Sue," he mumbled into her hair.

"Don't be," she sighed reluctantly. "This is out of our control now."

"That doesn't make us want it any less," he pointed out.

"I guess not," she agreed, her eyes falling on the failed test. "How many negatives does this make now?" she asked.

He sighed. "I try not to think about it," he told her.

"Reed..." she said, her eyes never leaving the test. "This was close."

"I know. So close."

"I don't mean that," she said, raising her head to look him in the eye. "I can't be pregnant when I go into this...and to go so long without you..."

"I see what you mean," he agreed sadly.

"We can't be this close again," she decided. "Not until all of this is over."

"We need to start being careful again."

"Yeah, we do," she nodded.

There was a silence, which was broken by both of them sighing heavily and returning to each other's embrace. "Don't worry," he assured her. "Everything's going to be fine."

-----

A few hours after hearing the bedroom door open again, Johnny was seeking his sister. Reed had gone to his lab, coping with whatever the result had been in his own way, and Sue, unforunately, had turned invisible, because she knew that her brother would be wanting to know the result of the test. She also would have known that he had more chance getting blood out of a stone than getting Reed's attention once he had started working on something with a microscope.

"Sue, are you here?" he asked, going into the den with a coffee in his hands. There was silence, and there was nothing to be seen. "Come on, I know you're here," he said again, stepping closer to the couch. He waited, and there was still nothing. He looked for the tell-tale signs of someone sitting on the couch cushions, but there were none. "Susie, we've been through this before. If you're going to wear that perfume that Reed got you then there's no chance of hiding," he explained to thin air. He sighed when that didn't work, "Okay," he reasoned. "I've got a hot, moist cup of coffee in my hands...there is no coaster on this table...I'm going to set it down on this lovely, pine..."

"Don't you dare!" Sue cried out, materialising behind him.

"Aha!" he said, spinning around to face her. "There you are! We need to talk!"

She sighed, her shoulders collapsing. "Johnny, please, I can't talk about it right now."

"You can to me," he said simply. He sat down on the couch, patting the seat next to him. "Come on," he said, when she did nothing but stare at it for a moment.

She sighed again, sitting down beside him. "So, what, exactly, are we talking about?"

"You know what."

"Johnny-"

"You drag me to the drug store with you to buy a pregnancy test. The second we get home you drag Reed into the bedroom and don't reappear for an hour. Then, when you do, you turn invisible the second you see me," he reminded her. "Now, normally when the two of you lock the door for an hour I'm not going to ask questions because you're my sister and it grosses me out, but this time you came out with tears on your cheeks and I know better than to ask questions."

"Johnny, look-"

"Only this time, I don't know whether the test was negative or not," he continued. "I guess either one could bring tears this time."

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, avoiding his eyes. "I just...couldn't talk about it."

"Well, you're my sister, and we're going to talk about it," he said.

"What if I don't want to?" she argued.

"That doesn't matter."

"It should."

"It doesn't, and it never will," he told her. "Because I know you, and I know that unless we talk about this now you're never going to talk about it again and months down the line when you're feeling stressed you're going to break down and it'll all lead back to this moment when I accepted that you didn't want to talk and left it at that," he rambled. Sue looked away, processing his words and knowing that he was right. "So, let's talk."

She ran her fingers through her hair. "I don't even know where to start."

Johnny got more comfortable on the couch, preparing himself for the long haul. "Well, the pregnancy test would be a good place to start, so let's start there," he told her. "Was it positive?"

"No," she whispered.

"Right. Next thing. Are you okay?"

She sighed again. "I don't know whether or not I should be upset about it. I mean, I know that it would completely destroy the only plan we have to bring Victor own, but...but it doesn't change the fact that all I want to do is have a child with my husband," she explained, unable to hide the trembling in her voice.

"Talk about bad timing," he agreed.

She merely nodded, and it fell silent in the room again.

"Okay," he said after a moment. "Since you clearly don't want to talk, I'm going to do the talking and you can listen. I know that this plan is shit and all. It's shit for everyone, especially you and Reed, but this shouldn't change anything. Reed isn't going to love you any less just because you're in different places, and I know there's going to be tons of times you dive into the ice cream tub in the middle of the night. Good think is I'm going to be there so you're not doing it on your own. Maybe it's a good think you haven't had a baby yet, because these people Reed's been meeting with, that Stark guy especially, seems like the kind of guy that would have you up and leave your kid behind as well. I know you and Reed would never do that, but I reckon he'd make a good go of trying to make you." He took her hand in hers, continuing when she looked up at him. "At the end of all this, you know that Vic's gonna be out of our lives for good, and that when we can come home, Reed's still going to love you just as much and you can go back to making a start on that family you guys want to badly. God knows you deserve it."

She gave him a watery smile, tightening the hold on his hand. "Johnny...that was...exactly what I needed to hear," she told him.

"I know, I have a wonderful insight," he said proudly. "I'd use it on myself but I really don't have any problems."

She laughed, and he put an arm around her. "I'm still sorry the test was negative," he told her.

"Yeah, me too," she agreed, putting her head on her brother's shoulder. "...but bad timing, right?"

"Right," he agreed. "But if you really feel like being a mom you can go back to bossing me around," he invited her, glad when he heard her laugh.