Alan stood in the courtroom, yapping away with another heartfelt defence-speech. So, Jeffrey had been slapped with a lawsuit for the tenth time or so, and it was up to the Hospital's lawyer to set things straight once more. Alan had stopped counting a long time ago. All his skills and time was spent keeping Chicago Hope floating, and did the hotshot doctors show their gratitude? Not once. Why should they? This was his job. The Eel was paid so that the doctors of Chicago Hope could mess up in the OR and still go home happy and satisfied with a safe job by the end of the shift.
He was used to being the invisible, the one no one noticed. The one you could blame if something went wrong, the one you could accuse of greed if it granted the hospital. Never the less, Alan Birch did his job, and he was even proud of it. As he never fulfilled his dream to become a doctor himself he did the next best thing, he became their protector.
And now it was Jeffrey who was in need of his aid.
"Dr. Geiger only did what he decided was best for his client! If he did what councillor indicated he should have done the patient would have died sooner. Yes, Mr. Harrison would probably have been saved if the elevator hadn't stopped. It's terrible, but true. But Jeffrey Geiger can't be held responsible for the elevator breaking down! Geiger is one of the world's greatest heart surgeons, and he would NEVER make a rash decision. Mr Harrison couldn't have been luckier when it came to choice of doctor, but sadly that wasn't enough.."
The judge looked like he was about to die of boredom.. And by any luck, he would die of old age by the time Alan finished his closing statement. But as he stood there, speaking, he suddenly got light- headed. It got difficult to breathe, and the room started spinning.
"Therefore I must advise the court…" A cold sweat broke out on his back and Alan stumbled forward.
"Alan, are you okay?" He barely heard the voice of Jeffrey and couldn't tell what he was saying. He shot his hands towards his throat, tugging the tie, feeling like he was suffocating. And so, as white, sparkly dots started dancing before his eyes he rushed to the floor.
*-*
Jeffrey Geiger was up on his feet the instant Alan Birch toppled forward, grasping for his tie, but he didn't manage to reach him before fell to the floor.
"Now what!" the old goon of a judge barked as he leaned over his desk to see what was going on. Jeffrey checked Alan's throat for a pulse and gave a sigh of relief.
"He just fainted! The little weasel only fainted!" he said, with a smile on his lips. The judge rolled his eyes and mumbled something about dramaqueens.
"Wake up Alan!" Jeffrey pinched the lawyer's cheek and got an immediate response.
"Thaaat's a good boy!" Alan opened his eyes and stared at Jeffrey with a confused look on his face.
"What just happened?" he mumbled as he blinked frantically and looked around.
"I bet you didn't have breakfast this morning, did you!" Jeffrey said as he stood up. Alan shrieked as he remembered where he was and clumsily got to his feet.
"May I proceed with my closing statement, Sir?" he asked Judge Aldrich who actually seemed disappointed he was able to stand up.
"Hey, relax there, Alan! Are you sure you're able to continue?" Jeffrey asked him and patted his back with friendly concern. His face frowned with surprise as his fingers felt something behind Alan's blue shirt.
"What's this….?" He asked and stroke a hard fabric concealed by Alan's shirt.
"Nothing!" Alan urged and drew away from the curious grasp. But Jeffrey had already realised what it was and a terrible smirk grew on the doctor's lips.
"Is that a corset you're wearing, counsellor??" he asked, with much amusement.
*-*
NO! Not now! Alan's eyes begged Jeffrey to shut up, to leave him be before it was too late. But the old bat up behind the judge's desk smelled blood. Alan wheezed for Jeffrey to find his seat, trying hard to block out the sniggering doctor as he passed him on his way to the centre of the floor again. He came as far as to open his lips before the judge who'd made it his soul purpose in life to make Alan's time in the courtroom a living hell cut him off.
"Ah, ah, ah… Don't you start yappin again, toad!" he barked as he leaned down with a frown.
"I want to see this corset of yours! Is it lace?" he added, making the entire courtroom laugh discreetly.
"I'm not here to have a fashion show! And besides, what I wear is no ones business but my own!" Alan stated, as a stubborn frown appeared on his forehead. Aldrich rose from his seat, anger building in his face of righteousness.
"When what you wear compromises your client's case it IS the court's business councillor!" he snapped.
"What do you mean, compromises my client's case?!" Alan shot back, pure spite painting his words.
"What do I mean?! You're wearing undergarments that are obviously so tight that you find it hard to breathe when wearing them!" The judge bellowed: "Now take off your shirt and show it to me or I'll have you thrown in jail for contempt!" He sat down again, trembling with anger. A silent plea from Alan didn't work. He stared down on his chest, as he silently started to unbutton his shirt, ears burning with shame. Of all the times he'd been humiliated in this courtroom this was the worst one yet! An amused giggle spread through the room as he worked on the buttons, in the corner of his eye Alan could see the prosecuting attorney try to hide a grin.
"There!" he said as he finished the last button and showed the judge what he was wearing underneath his shirt: "Satisfied?!" The old man chuckled with self-smugness but of course he wasn't finished yet.
"Very good, counsellor! Now turn and face the courtroom, while flashing that cute little outfit of yours, while saying "I. Am. A. Toad"!" Alan sighed silently before he took a deep inhale of breath and did as the judge had ordered…
*-*
Alan ran rather than walked back to his office after paying the cab, as he finally was excused from court and the case was dismissed. With lungs burning for oxygen he shut the door as the tears of humiliation finally was allowed to come. Alan was tired. He was tired of hiding, but he knew no other way. In a hospital people would start asking questions if they saw what state he was in.
He was just about to sit down behind his desk with a silent gasp of discomfort when Jeffrey Geiger steamed into his office.
"Take off the corset!" he demanded and dragged Alan out on the floor.
"Hey! Let go of me, Jeffrey!" Alan squealed, as he struggled to escape the arms holding him back. But Jeffrey did no such thing.
"No!" he answered firmly: "I'm not letting go before you promise me I'll have a look at you! Something is wrong, I've been smelling it for weeks!" Alan jerked free from the doctor's grip.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" he snorted and brushed the arm of his shirt. He was starting to get dizzy again due to all the hoopla.
"Would you be so kind as to leave?!" He pointed towards the door with a trembling index finger, but Jeffrey had no plans about leaving yet. As Alan turned his back to him and was starting to walk away Jeffrey stepped forward and ripped the shirt off Alan's back in one fierce move. Buttons flew across the room as the fabric was torn away, and Alan turned around with a terrified look on his face.
"What are you doing?" His voice was barely a mumble, and the surface of his eyes grew glassy.
"Take off that corset Alan, or I will have to do it for you!!" Jeffrey's command was ordered in a friendly but strict tone. Alan slowly stepped backwards, away from the doctor he'd just saved from suspension, wondering if there was any chance in hell he would reach the door before Jeffrey did. Jeffrey smelled his plan and shook his head.
"You could try, but I *would* slam it in your face before you even got that far, Alan."
"Why are you doing this to me?" Alan whispered as he slowly undressed his torso before the heart surgeon would do it for him.
"Because I'm worried, Alan," Jeffrey answered, as the same honesty that inhabited Alan's eyes rose to the surface. Alan closed his eyes as the corset fell to the floor. Indeed, he had to look pretty silly, standing there with nothing else than a tie covering his upper body! But there was no amusement in that image for neither Jeffrey or Alan..
"Oh my God!" Jeffrey gasped as he stared on the distended gut of the lawyer of Chicago Hope: "No wonder you were wearing a corset!" Alan tried to cover himself with his hands, but in vane.
"There!" he mumbled as his gaze went shamefully down to the floor: "Are you happy now, Jeffrey? Did you get your fun, can you please leave me alone now?!" A warm hand was placed on his shoulder.
"Alan, you need to have that checked out! You may be very sick! I'm concerned about you, this had nothing to do with our… previous bickering! Is it alright if I do a little check-up on your belly right now, is it tender? I believe you have a growing cyst located somewhere down in your abdomen. The swelling of your lower stomach indicates that," Jeffrey told Alan with a kind, caring tone.
He was caught, like a rabbit in a snare. Alan had no way of escape. He made it as far as six months and one week. Would it be enough? He had no clue what so ever…
Alan slowly lifted his gaze, heart trembling as he surrendered and gave his consent. He closed his eyes as Jeffrey placed both his palms towards his naked stomach and squeezed it gently. A long and awkward silence followed as Jeffrey's hands worked their way up and down Alan's stomach. Finally he removed them, and Alan opened his eyes to find disbelief and shock in the other man's brown eyes. Jeffrey Geiger took a deep breath before he blurted out with what had to be named as a sensational discovery to say the least.
"It's been a while since I last did check ups like these, as hearts are my field of expertise. But if I still have some knowledge left and if I haven't lost my marbles yet, Alan, I think I may have to diagnose you as pregnant!"
He looked up and discovered that Alan's cheeks were wet.
"You've known all along, haven't you?!" he gaped as he took one step back, and realisation dawned on the black curled man's face.
"You *let* Dreyford knock you up before she was killed in the car accident, didn't you?!!" Alan nodded, as he looked shamefully down to the floor.
"She gave me an offer I couldn't refuse.." he mumbled as his naked mind was bared. The lonely man, the man so secretly aching for a family, for someone to love him.. The last words Jeffrey said before he stormed out of the office to fetch the hospital manager scared the living daylight out of Alan.
"Holy crap, you're going to give Philip a heart attack!!"
*-*
He sat behind his desk when they stormed in; dressed in a fresh shirt from the closet he had by the door. Alan didn't bother to run, he knew it was over. Philip was yelling even before he entered the room with Jeffrey at his heels.
"Alan, you son of a bitch!!! What the hell kind of a mess have you made of your self *this* time?!?" he screamed as he slammed his palms to Alan's desk with a bang. Alan kept staring down on some sheets of paper lying before him; his tongue seemed disabled at the moment.
"Calm down, Philip!" Jeffrey urged and dragged his boss a bit further away from the smaller man seated behind the desk: "Give the man a chance to explain himself! What drove you to it Alan, lunacy or madness?" he added with a sarcastic undertone. Alan finally raised his gaze, revealing his bleeding heart.
"I always wanted a family," he mumbled as Philip jerked free from Jeffrey's grip.
"Get up Alan! I won't believe this before I see it myself!!" he barked. Alan silently did as he was told and raised his shirt obediently.
"Holy mother of Mary! How far along are you!?" Philip gasped as he discovered the bulk on Alan's abdomen.
"I would say six months, give or take a week," Jeffrey interfered, giving Alan's stomach a searching look.
"Six months, one week.." Alan confirmed, making Philip actually tug his beard.
"Oh my God, boy!! What were you thinking hiding something like this from me?!" he moaned and pointed towards Alan's belly as if it was infested with cholera.
"You would have made me abort it, Philip." Alan buttoned is shirt and sat down behind his desk again.
"You're damn right I would have!" Philip roared: "And you're still going to! I don't care how many months you are along, Alan, men don't give birth to children, it's abomination!!" For the first time in his life Alan's eyes filled with spite towards the only one he trusted in the whole world.
"It's unnatural for me to carry a child, but it's ethically defendable to kill a child that could have been saved on this very hospital if born today??! You don't believe in killing the innocent, Philip, why start now?!!?"
"You made the choice, Alan. You made the choice, not considering what life you had to offer this baby. What life can you give it? A child, born by a man- what life do you honestly think it will get?!!?! It will be considered a freak! YOU will be considered a freak by the world! You're coming with me right now, before this slips out! That freak child of yours will be terminated!" Alan didn't have to look at Philip's bulging eyes to know he was furious and that he meant every word that he yelled.
"I knew you wouldn't approve, Philip, but I didn't know you would steep to this…" The words were barely audible. Alan was hurt by his best friend's words, deeply hurt. But Philip was in no mood to forgive and forget.
"How could *I* steep to this??! Dear God, I knew you were lonely, Alan, but that doesn't justify you breaking all the rules just so that *you* can get a family!!! Are you even aware of the possible consequences you might suffer from if carrying this baby to term?!?!?"
"There's a few risks, Dreyford told me. But as long as I keep healthy I will do fine. Now that I've stepped over the twelfth week border there's only a slim possibility I might abort." Alan answered, fidgeting with his tie as he spoke. Philip was like the father he never had, and getting yelled at like this by him made Alan feel smaller than a louse. Philip rolled his eyes as he listened to Alan's words.
"What about the great risk of you DYING Alan, did she mention that AT ALL?!??! Did she mention that the risk of you bleeding to death rises for each day the foetus grows inside you? Did she mention the very fact that you don't have a womb to protect both you *and* the baby??!" The sheepish look on Alan told it all. She never mentioned any risks as mayor as this. The only thing she was concerned about was if Alan should abort before he went into the second trimester… Alan realized his naivety, but still he kept his back straight. He'd gotten this far, now he had to stay the line out!
"I'm having this baby, Philip!" he said determined. The rage burning in Philip's eyes exploded.
"Oh, no you're not! I'll get permission from court if necessary to get that pregnancy terminated! And you wouldn't like that, would you now, Alan. Think of all the bad publicity both the hospital and you will get!" the doctor triumphed; sure he had the winning hand.
"Drag me to court if you want to, I'm having this baby and you can't stop me!" Alan answered him with sadness in his voice. So the process had started. He was about to loose Philip and everything he held dear here on Chicago Hope.
Philip stormed out of the office, leaving a silent Alan and a dumbstruck Jeffrey behind. The doctor eyed the Eel as the lawyer started to shiver.
"You're nuts, Alan, but I have to admit; you sure are brave!" Jeffrey confessed as Alan buried his face in the palms of his hands. Alan shook his head wearily.
"I don't know *what* I am anymore," he whispered, wishing Jeffrey would leave him alone.
"Come," Jeffrey said and started towards the door. Alan looked up, with resign written over his face.
"What," he sighed. Jeffrey raised his shoulders as he opened the door.
"I might not agree with the terms of which this baby has been conceived, but as a doctor I'm obliged to take care of my patients. I may be better with hearts, but I still believe I know how to use an Ultrasound Machine."
Alan rose to his feet with some hesitance and followed in the taller man's steps. Three more months, that was all. Just three more months…
*-*
A mixture of all different kinds of feelings rushed through the top heart surgeon of Chicago Hope as he once more bared the stomach of lawyer Alan Birch to give it a proper examination. Alan lay down on the bench without flinching as Jeffrey prepared the Ultrasound device. Another brick to put on the Jeffrey wall of insanity! Maybe that was what was happening? Maybe Jeffrey was about to have his nervous breakdown after all? That sure was easier to swallow than the idea of Alan Birch being pregnant!
"Al right Alan. Before I have a look on this little impostor of yours I would like to have a listen to its heartbeat," Jeffrey told his patient and put his stethoscope to Alan's skin. And there it was, the rapid heartbeat of an infant. Unbelievable but true.
"Well, the little rascal sounds healthy…" Jeffrey said as he put the stethoscope away and smeared a thick, clear fluid over Alan's abdomen for the device that was used to show pictures of the foetus to run smoothly over Alan's stomach. He could feel his own pulse start to race as he put the device towards Alan's stretched skin and a flickering image appeared on the monitor up on the wall.
"Wow," was all he managed to say as the picture of a well grown foetus etched into his brain for the rest of his life. A small string of pearls indicated a spine, a flickering dot showed a beating heart. There was a head, two arms and two legs… Jeffrey had to look twice to be sure his eyes weren't deceiving him. And no matter how unnatural it might be, Jeffrey couldn't help but to get struck by the miracle of it all.
"You're going to be a pappy, Alan!" he chuckled, a smile of awe appearing on his face.
"I can't believe it, you're going to be a father! No wonder you've been so cranky lately!" Alan watched the monitor above his head, but he looked depressed rather than happy.
"Not if Philip has his way.." he mumbled, brushing his stomach absentmindedly: "I don't even know if I'm having a girl or a boy, maybe I'll never know…"
Jeffrey couldn't help it, he felt sad for Alan. The lawyer would wither away and die if Philip got the court's approval to end the pregnancy, one look at him lying there right now would tell you that.
"You want to know what it is?" Jeffrey asked, not knowing how to mend the open wound. Heck he wasn't even sure what he thought about this whole thing himself, yet.
"You can tell??" Finally some of the sadness vanished from the lawyer's face, as his curiosity took its place.
"Sure I can!" Jeffrey assured: "I just look between the baby's legs there."
"All right, tell me!" Alan said after a few seconds of thinking about it. Jeffrey smiled and patted the top of Alan's stomach.
"You're having a girl, Alan." Hands flew up to Alan's face as he received the words.
"Really?" he whispered: "I'm having a girl?" New tears found their way down Alan's cheeks. This time, on the other hand, they were tears of joy.
*-*
Once a secret is revealed, it will spread. And as soon as Philip Watters had informed the hospital board about the abomination taking place between the hospital's own walls the hallways were swarming with rumours by dinnertime!
"Did you hear? Alan Birch is carrying his dead girlfriend's love child! Apparently she was pregnant when she died in that car crash, and the Eel was so distraught by loosing her that he decided to carry the child in her absence!" The nurses were squabbling like caffeine infected hens in a chicken coop.
"I heard he was part of some secret experiment by Dreyford. She'd slipped something into his tea, making him pregnant! He didn't know himself until Jeffrey told him earlier today!" one nurse claimed.
"No, you two are wrong!" a third nurse intervened: "The Eel is a transvestite! He's equipped with both sets!" As the group of nurses laughed joyously to the third woman's explanation Aaron Shutt decided to butt in.
"Excuse me, ladies," he said in a cold tone as his heavy gaze fell onto one particular of the nurses, his wife: "Camille, Alan is one of our friends. I can't believe you would participate in discussing this poor man's downfall like this! And secondly, you are nurses. Still you stand here making up mumbo jumbo that makes me honestly worry about the skills you possess! Is this the way you want to be seen by your patients? As a flock of gibbering women who talks as if they knew nothing about Modern Medicine at all???!"
Camille lowered her golden mane shamefully.
"No…" she and the rest of the nurses around her sighed. Aaron gave them a glare worthy enough to descend from the pope himself before he left them, heading for Jeffrey's office. Since Jeffrey Geiger was his best friend and had been announced as the great discoverer of this whole madness he reckoned *he* was the one that could give him the true version of it all. Aaron was as Jeffrey a man in his midst forties, with grey specks growing by the root of his hair, indicating a midlife crisis not too far away.
"Tell me it isn't true!" he commanded as he stomped into Jeffrey's office. Jeffrey looked up, but there was no surprise in his face.
"Tell you what isn't true?" he asked as he put down the papers he had been reading.
"Tell me that Alan isn't pregnant, that this is the worst version of a Aprils 1st you've ever come up with!" Aaron begged as he dumped down into a chair, rubbing his temples frantically. A smirk appeared on Jeffrey's lips.
"Actually, it's true, and I've got the pictures from Alan's Ultra Sound to prove it!" He handed Aaron a picture, picturing the very first baby to be carried forth by a man. Aaron glared at the picture in silence for a minute. Then he tossed it back down on the desk and moaned.
"Tell me it isn't true!" he repeated: "Tell me that the only one in this hospital that actually would have denied any other man, when Philip's not considered -that is-, hasn't intentionally done this to himself!"
"Dreyford did. The old bat lured him into a trap. Alan is a lonely man, so he figured the old hag could bring some joy to his life. Then she died and Alan picked up the pieces and continued to be pregnant without telling anyone." Jeffrey was annoyingly good when it came to giving reports in report form.
"So Alan is carrying Marion Dreyford's offspring?!?!" Aaron mucked. He never had savoured any soft spots for that prudent bone bag of a woman.
"Of course not! Alan might be naïve, but he's not blind!" Jeffrey denied with a frown on his forehead: "The egg came from an anonymous donor, Dreyford simply made the egg and Alan's sperm meet!" Aaron shook his head in heavy disbelief.
"How's Philip taking it?" he asked. Jeffrey laughed.
"How do you *think* Philip would take it?! He's mad as hell! He tossed me out of his office half an hour ago when I came to show him the Polaroid of Birch Jr.! He's already arranged to try out the case in court, he wants to have the brat put down! The foetus that is, not Alan, although he's quite upset when it comes to him as well," Jeffrey said as he gave the picture of Birch's unborn daughter another glance.
"Well, no wonder Philip's upset!" Aaron stated: "Alan's gone behind the entire hospital's back! What he's done will have after-effects for all of us! What if we get shut down because we're playing Frankenstein?! I can't believe Alan would be so selfish!"
"He's a lonely man, Aaron. Loneliness can do strange things to people. Besides, you should listen to him talk about it, he honestly wants this child," Jeffrey said and crossed his arms across his chest. "You have to admit he's brave, daring to go through with all of this!"
"Brave… or stupid…" Aaron sighed: "Just wait until the press gets a hold of this… There won't be much left of Alan when they're through with him…"
*-*
And as Aaron had predicted, when the media smelled blood they attacked… Alan was hiding in his office late afternoon as he worked up the courage to go out and face the world. Now everybody knew, everybody in the hospital, everybody working in the media. Eight days from now he would fight his hardest battle yet in the courtroom. Philip had worked swiftly and forced the case in the front of the line. It was an urgent case, where the one in question, Alan, had to be protected from his own insanity. Alan didn't know what to say when a messenger delivered the papers to him. And when he found the signature of Philip Watters on the last line he burst into tears again. Many tears had been shed this fateful day, but none as bitter as these.
The phone had been ringing off the hook from the moment the news had been broadcasted outside the borders of Chicago Hope. Nosy journalists wanted a piece of the pie. Finally Alan pulled out the cord from the phone, driven to a nervous wreck by all the ringing. No one had come to see him the entire day after the news was known, except from Billy Kronk. The young doctor had more or less spit in his face and yelled about Alan making him sick to his stomach and so forth and so forth before he'd left, slamming the door so hard it was about to fall off its hedges. At least he showed his reaction. Everybody else seemed to cower in shadows. Jeffrey was the only one who'd offered him some sort of support thus far. At least he hadn't condemned him immediately as Philip had, he showed Alan the courtesy of letting him explain himself. He was scheduled for a psychiatric evaluation early tomorrow. Alan wondered what kind of mental state he would be in, given the probability of him not sleeping much the following night.
Finally he dared his way out of his office. Snide side looks followed him through the corridors and all the way out on the streets where journalists waited like sharks.
"No comment!!!" Alan howled as he prayed the nearest Taxi.
"Can you confirm the alleged pregnancy. Mr. Birch?"
"How far along are you, Mr. Birch?"
"What made you do it, Mr. Birch?"
"Do you expect to win the case, Mr. Birch?"
"No comment!" Alan repeated for the hundredth time as he slammed the taxi door in the faces of the crowd cornering him.
*-*
Luckily no journalists had barricaded the entrance of his apartment, and Alan could pace down the halls in blessed solitude. He locked the door and pulled the phone off the wall, afraid the same racked would start all over again if he waited too long. He ran around, making sure all the windows were shut and with curtains drawn, before he dumped down on the floor, too exhausted to even move to his own bed. Alan sat there, back against the wall with closed eyes, only concentrating on breathing as he tried to brace himself for what had to come. It had only just begun… There would be a lot of attention from the media during the trial and in the weeks before the delivery if Alan ever got that far. Of course the world would be intrigued by reading about a weird little man who went behind his colleagues' backs to create his own Frankenstein Jr.! As a lawyer Alan knew what to expect. But it wasn't less frightening knowing what he had in stall.
Alan had no idea of how long he'd been sitting on the floor. He barely reacted when the sound of his cell phone started ringing inside the briefcase standing by the door. Probably another reporter… Both his legs had fallen asleep during his stay down on the hard floor and Alan stumbled towards his briefcase with great discomfort. It was probably just another reporter. But maybe, just maybe it was Philip. This small hope was enough for Alan to go after it. Disappointment painted his face when he didn't recognize the number on the display and he tossed over the floor in sheer agony. He needed somebody to stand by him now; he was too weak to go through this alone!
Alan sunk down on the sofa and was blessed with immediate release.
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