Weapons of War

"Ry?" Shea called from the deck, and when she didn't answer he called out, "Babe I forgot the plate can you bring me it?"

After a few seconds, when she still hasn't answered him Shea left the chicken on the grill, made sure it was turned off and walked into the house. He found Riley standing behind the kitchen island, phone in her hand, staring at him. He watched her for a moment, and then, as if a switch flipped she shook her head gently and asked, "What did you need?"

"A plate…" He stated softly, trailing off as he watched her walk to the cupboard, pull a plate out and hand it to him. Shea didn't move, in fact he set the plate down on the counter top and looked at her and asked, "Is everything okay?"

She nodded her head slowly and her eyes drifted over to Noah for a moment before they turned back to Shea and she asked him, "I think I need to lay down. Can you get him to bed tonight?"

She was turned around and heading upstairs before he could even nod his head much less verbally respond and he watched her go in confusion. Riley closed the bedroom door and then she went into the bathroom and locked that door and before she knew it she was bent over the toilet emptying her stomach.

She sat on the floor with her back against the shower wall, knees to her chest and drew in a deep and shaky breath of air, held it for a moment before she let it out. What the hell were they going to do now?

How had this happened again?

This was so not what they needed right now. This was the last thing they needed. Anemic she could have handled. Pregnant? She could not handle that, not right now and not with Noah.

When they had first started talking about having another baby, earlier that summer, she had been hoping to plan it out so that she was pregnant during the season and had the baby early summer, so that they could get used to two kids with Shea home and around to help out more. Then again she had this planned out before Noah got sick, and before they had put the baby plans on hold.

Now though, now it seemed the universe had a really bad sense of humor, and she was not impressed.

She got her hope, her plan was in motion. She would be pregnant through the season and have the baby early summer. And hopefully by the time the baby came Noah would have had his surgery and be in the clear and she and Shea would have things figured out between them but that was if they lived in an perfect world and they most certainly did not.

How were they going to get through this?

How was she supposed to balance a two year old, frequent hospital visits and frequent nights where he was sick and he couldn't eat and didn't sleep and cried and screamed for hours on end while pregnant? How did anyone do that?

Closing her eyes tightly Riley tried to focus more on her breathing and less on the fact that her stomach was starting to flip again. It didn't work very well, and she was back to being bent over the toilet again.

Finally, when she couldn't take sitting on the bathroom floor waiting for the next round of stress induced vomiting to occur Riley got up, flushed her face with water, stole a mouthful of Shea's mouthwash from his cabinet by the sink and left the bathroom. She froze when she saw Shea standing just inside the bedroom, clearly looking for her.

They stared at each other for a moment, before Shea informed him, "Noah's down, and I let Dug run around outside so we don't have to worry about taking him for a walk tonight."

She nodded her head and slowly sat down on the corner of the bed, one foot curled underneath her while the other stayed on the floor. She looked up at Shea and told him, "You should sit down."

He watched her, unsure of her statement, and when she gave him a look he did as she told him and sat down on the end of the bed beside her. He was facing her and he asked, "What's going on?"

"Um… that was the doctor on the phone earlier." Riley told him, and Shea nodded his head slowly but she didn't continue.

"And?" He asked her, and when she averted her eyes down to her lap he said, "Ry it can't be that bad."

"I uh… it's... I'm pregnant Shea." She told him, bringing her eyes up to his face to watch his reaction even though she really didn't want to. He stared at her, stunned, before the corners of his lips turned up into a smile. Riley stared at him, and when his smile grew she asked, "Why are you smiling?"

"Riley, you're pregnant not dying. I'm smiling because I'm happy." When she continued to stare at him, stoic as ever Shea's smile faded just a little bit and he sounded almost hurt when he asked her, "Aren't you?"

She sighed and reached out, grabbing his hands as she told him, "I don't know how to feel right now."

"We wanted another baby." He reminded her and when she gave him a look of near annoyance he added, "Yeah not now and not like this but maybe this is how it was supposed to happen. You're the one that says everything happens for a reason."

"We can't handle this on top of everything else Shea." She told him, and he let out a small sigh.

He gave her hands a squeeze and assured her, "Yes we can. Between the two of us we'll be able to handle this. We can figure this out and we'll be fine."

She pulled her hands from his and got up from the bed, and as she leaned against the dresser she exclaimed, a little louder than she had intended to, "I can't handle this right now! I can't handle anything right now, let alone this."

He looked over at her in surprise and confusion, Riley had been so confident in them and their abilities to balance life, his career and Noah and his health problems. Shea had no clue, not even and inkling that it was all fake, but he should have known. Thinking about it now, he should have known. He knew Riley better than that, he should have known. He told her, "We'll get through it together."

It was as if she had ignored him and just continued talking, "I wake up every single day terrified, every time the phone rings I'm scared it's his doctor with bad news, every time he falls I can't breathe, every time he goes to bed I worry that he's not gonna wake up the next morning. I am terrified all of the time Shea. I can't handle this."

"Riley we-"

She cut him off quickly, "Don't say we can do it, don't tell me everything's gonna be okay. I don't want you to try to fix it right now Shea."

"Then what do you want? What do you need me to do?" When he asked her this she stared at him perplexed. He got up from where he was sitting and took a few large strides toward her and asked, "Do you want to go to a clinic?"

"No!"

"Do you want to take Noah and go home? Stay with my dad for the rest of the season, have this baby in Kelowna?" Shea asked her.

She shook her head, "We're not leaving you here."

He threw out one last option, "Do you want me to stop playing?"

"I don't want you to stop playing." She told him, and when his eyes met hers her own welled up with tears as she told him, her voice shaky and barely audible, "I don't think I can do this."

"Yes you can. You know how I know?" Shea asked her, stepping close to her once more.

"How?"

As he slipped his hands into hers Shea told Riley, "Because you're the toughest person I know."

He expected an eye roll, not for her tears to fall even faster and for her to shake her head and say, "I'm not."

He let go of her hands and wiped her cheeks and told her, "You are. Noah's gonna be fine because he has you. This baby is gonna be great because it has you. I'm the luckiest guy in the world because I have you. Riley you hold our family together, you're the glue and I know it's hard and I know this is gonna be hard but we're gonna get through it because you're stronger than anyone I know and you make me strong."

"How are we supposed to do this?" She asked him, watching as he let out a small sigh.

"I don't know, but we'll figure it out, we'll find a way to make it work." Shea assured her.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him and slowly she reached around and wrapped her arms around him as well. They stood that way until Riley spoke, her voice muffled against his chest, "Two."

"What?" Shea asked as she pulled away from him just enough to look up at him.

"That's how many road trips you're allowed to skip for Noah's treatment." She told him with a gentle smile and when his eyebrow raised just slightly she nodded, "You were right, you should be there and frankly I need you there but I'm only letting you miss two."

"Two is better than nothing." Shea said and she nodded her head slowly. When she leaned against him again Shea said, "I should have known."

"What that eventually I'd give in and let you have your way?" Riley asked with a smile on her face, the first real smile Shea had seen on her face in days.

He shook his head and told her, "That you weren't handling this fine, that you weren't fine."

"I am fine, and I'll figure out how to handle this Shea. I have to." She stated, looking away from him as he sighed.

"You need to be honest with me Riley, I'm your husband and I deserve to know the truth, you need to start telling me these things. You need to tell me when you need help, you need to tell me when you've had a bad day, or when you need something, because I want you to, I want to be able to sit and talk about things with you and not feel like you're just holding it all in, instead of telling me."

Shea would never admit it out loud to her, but some days he really hated their relationship. He didn't tell her that because she would assumed that meant he didn't love her, or didn't want to be with her, because he did love her and he couldn't imagine not being with her but he often hated the way their relationship worked. Physically it may have been the other way around, but emotionally it always felt like Shea was giving more, like he was doing all the bending, he was giving her everything he had and Riley would give him a little piece whenever she felt she could. This had always been the problem with them, trying to get Riley to open up completely was like pulling teeth. It always felt like he was only ever scraping the surface of her emotional pool, and it was exhausting living like that, barely scraping the surface until the dam broke and she exploded, verbally, and then when she was done letting him almost all the way she closed up again and they went back to their same routine.

"And what? We're supposed to sit down every day and talk about this kind of stuff?" When she asked this Shea stepped back and away from her and she sighed.

She reached out for his hands and he pulled them away from her, recoiling as if she had burned him, and before she could apologize he exclaimed, "Yes! That's what married people do Riley! They talk, they share things, they let the other person know their feelings!"

"I'm sorry. I've never been good at this Shea, I've never been good at talking and sharing. I was an only child my entire life, one who never really needed a parent and felt like they had to be an adult all their life so I'm not good at sharing things, or telling people how I feel and you knew this, you've always known this." Riley told him softly.

"You never need anyone Riley, that was always the problem with us, and that's always going to be the problem with us." Shea told her, he turned away from her and headed toward the bedroom door.

Before he could leave the room Riley asked him, "You want me to talk to you? To tell you how I feel? Right now?"

He turned to her, "Yeah, I do. The only thing that I want from you, ever, is you to be honest with me and for you to talk to me the way a wife is supposed to talk to her husband."

She took a breath, she watched him, her eyes on his and his on hers, and then she admitted, "I feel alone."

He looked at her with the most hurt expression she had ever seen on his face in the years they had known each other and before he left the room he told her, his voice soft and gentle, "I'm really sorry you feel like that, because I've done nothing but try to make sure that you don't feel that way."

She hadn't meant to hurt him with her statement, no, she never tried to hurt him with anything she said, but it seemed like lately she was always hurting him. Nothing was easy between them anymore, when that had changed she wasn't sure. They had been doing so well, dealing with Noah and their relationship but it was like a switch flipped without either one of them noticing and all of a sudden they were back to arguing and fighting and sniping at each other all the time.

- - -

2:48 AM was displayed on the clock beside the bed in the guest room.

Shea hadn't been able to fall asleep yet, he had gotten into bed at ten and tossed and turned for hours until finally he gave up and got out of bed. He went for a run on the treadmill in the basement, had a shower and now he was sitting on one of the chairs by the window flipping his cell phone back and forth in his hand.

Riley was right, a baby complicated things for them. A baby changed everything. A baby made their lives so much more hectic and difficult. But they couldn't change it now, and it didn't change anything between them, at least it shouldn't.

The truth was the idea of having another baby right now scared the living shit out of Shea. They weren't ready for that, they didn't have the time for it, they barely had time for the one they had right now. How were they supposed to balance Noah's doctors appointments, his treatment and trips to the hospital in between and his career, the games and practices and public events and road trips with a new baby?

But they had to learn. They didn't have the option not to.

They would figure it out, get on a schedule. He wasn't so worried about after the baby got here, he had time to worry about that later.

Right now he was worried about the next nine months. About Riley. She was tough, he wasn't lying about that, but he didn't know if she would be able to handle this. Riley put everyone before herself, and she couldn't afford to do that now and Shea wondered if with Noah sick and him gone so often that would change. When she had been pregnant with Noah most of her pregnancy had been during the off season, she wasn't stressed out and worrying about him. This time she would be pregnant right through the season, and, if his mental math was correct, she would be due right around playoffs.

He was afraid of how she would handle this, honestly. He hated that he was, but he couldn't find a way to change it. He was worried that she would put he and Noah before her, and he was afraid that she might end up even worse than she is now. He didn't know how to help her, short of quitting his job and staying at home he didn't know if there was any other way to help her.

Not that she would let him anyway, Riley was too damn stubborn. She would fight him and push back and Shea wasn't sure that he had the energy to fight with her anymore. He was exhausted, everything in his life exhausted him lately, but he knew that no matter how bad he thought he had it Riley had it worse.

So they would figure out a way to make this work. They would figure out a way to juggle Noah, a pregnancy and impending newborn, and hospital visits with Shea being gone every few days. It wasn't an option to not figure it out. They couldn't go backwards anymore, they had to stop doing this to each other, they couldn't keep flipping the switch. They couldn't keep being happy and then the very next second arguing and being angry with each other. It wasn't an option for them to let things get out of hand again, and it certainly wasn't an option for them to spend the next few months the way they were now. Something had to change.

Shea was surprised when he finally heard her feet stop pacing the hardwood in their bedroom next to where he was attempting to sleep. He kept listening until he heard the door open, and a quiet knock on his own door a few moments later.

The door pushed open and Riley stepped inside, not surprised to find him still awake. She asked him, "Are you gonna come to bed?"

"Do you want me in there?" He asked her curiously. He had kept away from her the rest of the evening and opted to try to sleep in the guest room because he wanted to give her space. He didn't want to crowd her or make her feel like she was boxed in after their fight.

She held her hand out and told him, "Come to bed Shea."