DISCLAIMER: CSI New York and its characters are the property of Jerry Bruckheimer and CBS. No infringement is intended. Eden Ashley is an original character. All mine.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
FEEDBACK: To debrafitzakerley[at]yahoo.co.uk
Eden Ashley Chronicles
By EdenAshley
Part 32
Stella is lying on the bed staring intently at the small sonogram screen, Ashley is clutching onto her hand, also engrossed by the 17 inch monitor. Ava is rubbing the transducer over Stella's bump, her five month old bump, she too is transfixed by the screen, however she is concentrating on doing her job of course, whereas the other two women are lost in wonderment.
Finally Ava has seen what she needs to for each of the infants, she has already told her two friends that the foetuses are perfectly normal, and progressing well, she knows now that has been confirmed all Stella and Eden want to know is the sex of their babies, and she's delighted that she will be able to tell them, not without having a little fun first of course.
"Right well as I said everything is progressing as normal. So I'll see you again in four weeks." She keeps the scanner in place on Stella's stomach.
She almost loses it when she sees the look of disappointment on both women's faces. Eden looks over at Stella like her world's just collapsed on itself. Ava can't do it to them.
"Unless you want to know the sex of the babies?" Both heads whip round at high speed. Ava smirks.
"You mean you can tell?" Ashley was really gutted she thought the twins were concealing themselves like they had been at the last scan. She can't believe Ava was teasing them.
"Sorry guys I couldn't resist. I take it those expressions mean you would like to know?"
Both women just nod. Ashley's mouth actually feels a little dry, she's not really sure why, but she's literally on the edge of her seat. She needs to know this information, not that she minds either way of course, boys, girls a boy and a girl, as long as they're healthy. Stella is on the verge of tears. She tightens her grip on Eden's hand, she's finally going to find out what she's having, her babies will get a little bit more personality.
Ava grins, and decides to put them out of their misery. "This one here." She points at one of the splodges on the screen. "Is your little girl."
Ashley can't take her eyes from it, her little girl, hers and Stella's little girl. Stella can't help the tear that falls from her eye, a girl, her little princess. A family, something she's never had, and here before her on this small screen a family, her family is growing.
Ava watches the emotions take over her two friends, she actually feels pretty emotional herself. She knows that more than anyone else she's ever met, Eden deserves to be happy, and right now, she the happiest she's ever seen her. She moves her hand to the second little splodge on the screen; she's delighted she gets to confirm this next bit of news to the women.
"And this here, is your son."
Ashley's smile doubles in size. A son. She can't wait, she can't wait to tell Flack and Adam, another little Knicks fan on the way, well really both will be Knicks fans, but she's not sure how Stella will feel about a little girl in a Knicks jersey! Stella is crying pretty uncontrollably now, and little boy and a little girl, a perfect family, a complete family, and with the perfect partner.
Ava removes the device; she has printed some more screenshots for her friends. She decides to go and collect them; such is the emotion in the room.
"I'll give you guys a second." Ava steps out.
Ashley's eyes are glistening with tears but she has managed to keep them at bay, she turns to face Stella, who is a complete mess, she just beams at her wife. Stella grabs at her clothing and pulls her closer, pulling her into a long lingering kiss. When she pulls back, she needs to convey to her feelings to her beautiful spouse.
"I love you so much. Thank you for giving me everything I ever wanted, making my dreams come true."
Ashley has to swallow the emotion; she really is fighting to keep the tears inside now. She can't speak she knows that really will tip her over the edge. She just nods before taking Stella's lips with her own again.
They went straight to Mac's from Ava's office to tell him the good news, then straight home, onto Skype to tell Audrey, Sienna and Zane. The rest of the CSI family can wait until tomorrow; it's been an emotional tiring day. Ashley is looking out over the city from their terrace, what an unbelievably majestic day. Now she knows that there's a little boy and a little girl being gifted into her life it's almost as if it's become more real somehow.
In 4 months her perfect marriage will become a perfect family. She thinks back to Boston, to Katy, never in a million years did she think that less than 14 years after all that happened, she would be happy. Really genuinely the happiest she's truly ever been.
Stella watches her wife looking out over New York City, she knows today has affected Eden as much as it's affected her; just her wife appears to be better at concealing her emotions. The fact that she's out here looking over this stunning city, Stella knows her wife's brain must be racing with a million thoughts. Stella has one her mind at this particular moment. She wanders out onto the terrace, and has she has done a million times before, she slips her arms around Eden, and rests her head on her shoulder, it's proving a little trickier these days what with her expanding bump.
Ashley smiles as Stella wraps her arms around her, she kisses her cheek as she positions herself, she loves the feel of Stella's bump against her back.
"You okay Shorty?" Stella starts to kiss Eden's neck as she speaks.
Ashley is brought from her thoughts. She knows where this is going; a pattern has been developing over the last week or so, a pattern that is becoming more and more frequent. Not that she's complaining of course.
Stella is delighted when Eden turns in her arms, her lips immediately seek out her wife's, Stella has no idea what's happened to her body in the last few days, whether it's a surge of hormones or what, but she needs her wife, intimately. She kisses her passionately, and pulls her inside.
Now Ashley really isn't one to complain, certainly not about sex with her exquisite wife. Buts it's becoming a little intrusive now. After making love last night, Stella had woken her this morning in rather an amorous manner, and she has actually suggested sneaking off to the showers at work already today, and its only 1pm.
Ashley managed to convince her that sex in the showers at work isn't exactly professional, Stella had relented, but she looked like a hungry wolf stalking its prey when Ashley had seen her about ten minutes ago. She has managed to sneak off to grab a bite to eat with Flack, Adam and Danny. The boys are currently stuffing their faces round at the local diner, Ashley's mind is pre-occupied. Flack can tell instantly there's something wrong with her. They're in the best pizza joint in the area, and she's currently pushing her slice around her plate. He thought she'd be more excited, he assumed she'd brought them here to deliver the news?
"Hey Ashley, so are you gunna keep us in suspense?"
Ashley looks up from her plate. She really has no idea what he's talking about. Her expression tells him as much.
"I thought you and Stella had your appointment with Ava yesterday?" Flack clarifies.
Wow, Ashley has been so pre-occupied with Stella's weird behaviour she had completely forgotten, she hasn't told her boys the good news yet. A huge grin hits her face straight away. Adam pipes in.
"I take it, that smile means you did find out the sex this time?"
"Yep." She just carries on grinning at the three men like an idiot.
"Well?" Flack is obviously getting a little impatient.
"One of each."
Now the three guys are wearing equally soppy grins. "A boy and a girl?" Adam states the obvious.
Ashley just nods to confirm. It seems as though the four of them are now lost in their own thoughts. Flack takes a bite of his pizza and vocalises one of his.
"Is that why you've been a little 'away with the fairies' today?"
The smile immediately turns into a frown. She's not entirely sure she should be discussing this with her friends, but she's really interested to get Danny's thoughts on her current situation. She takes a deep breath, and looks up at three worried faces; the guys can tell there is obviously something on her mind.
"Danny." She looks over at Danny; he just nods to make it clear he's ready to listen to whatever it is she has to say. The tension is rising a little.
"When Lindsay was pregnant with Lucy, did she get any unexpected cravings?"
The tension immediately leaves. Flack is a little relieved this is pregnancy related. The way Ashley has been acting he thought it was something really serious.
"Well yeah, she had loads. I'm sure she's spoken to Stella about it. She had a real thing for Bacon sandwiches, and the smell of gas. I can't tell you how many times. . ."
Ashley cuts him off before he can delve into some story which isn't really going to help her at all. "Danny I don't mean food cravings."
He stops his story mid flow. "How far along is Stella again?"
He has an inkling what this could be about. He feels slightly uncomfortable, but if it is what he's thinking, he knows what Ashley is going though.
"Five months." Ashley's eyes are practically boring right through him.
"Sex." Danny smirks. Flack and Adam have all of a sudden become a lot more interested in this conversation.
Ashley nods as she speaks. "So it is normal then?"
Before Danny has a chance to answer, Flack butts in. "Hold on." His tone is incredulous. "You're telling me your beautiful wife, is craving sex, and you have a face on you like your puppy just died."
"Laugh it up. I thought it was like Christmas come early at first too." She is not impressed with Flack's banter.
"Ashley's right you know, it's not as good as it sounds." Danny backs his pal up.
Adam and Flack are clearly not convinced. Ashley decides to paint them a little picture. "It sounds great in theory. But, when your wife is demanding sex at every opportunity, and I mean every opportunity."
She eyeballs the two childless men to make sure they have taken in just how serious she is. "She wants it when I wake up, she wants it when I get home from work, after dinner, before I go to sleep, she wakes me up in the middle of the night. And now today, she's even started harassing me at work, and let me tell you, my needs don't really come into it, if you know what I mean."
"Been there sister." Danny most definitely knows what she means.
"I mean I am exhausted all the time." Just in case she hasn't been emphatic enough.
"But surely it's worth it being tired all the time?" Flack clearly hasn't grasped what Ashley is trying to say, he still can't believe she's actually complaining about this.
"Yeah I mean Ash, she's carrying your twins, isn't it the least you can do?" Adam clearly isn't on the same wave length as Flack, but he hits a nerve with Ashley. She knows he's right.
"Believe me Ashley." It appears Danny has some more pearls of wisdom based on his own experiences. "This might seem like hell, but it's the good hell. Take it while you can."
He looks up to see three sets of confused eyes looking back at him. He continues to explain. "You wait until Stella hits 7 months. This 'craving' will come to an abrupt end. In fact you'll probably forget what sex is. From seven to nine months, she won't let you anywhere near her, because she'll be too pregnant, to self conscious about how big she is, and just to tired, and it will be even worse for you, because Stella is carrying twins."
Ashley swallows her throat suddenly dry. He continues.
"Then she'll have the babies. Believe me natural birth, is no picnic downstairs. You have to stay away medically for a while at least. But even when that's not a problem, you've got a kid, sorry two kids to look after. You will not get a minute to yourself, for at least the first two years of your life."
Ashley actually physically pales at this sentence, that can't be true surely? He still hasn't finished.
"Then by the time you do have a moment to yourself, it's been so long that you don't actually care anymore."
Danny takes a bite of his pizza, as he almost matter of factly ruins the next five years of Ashley's life. She has lost her appetite; she just rises from the table.
"I've gotta get back to work." She runs out of the diner at pace.
Danny looks over at Adam and Flack, who have both also been terrified to their very core by Danny's story.
"What?"
"Nice story bro." Flack shakes his head.
"Yeah way to make her feel better." Adam slaps him on the shoulder has he too leaves the table and the diner, closely followed by Flack.
Danny just shrugs, the kid needed to know the truth. No point sugar coating it for her.
Ashley made it back to the lab in record time; she headed straight for Stella's office. She has just stuck her head around the door, to find Stella sulking at her desk.
"Hey." Stella looks up as her wife speaks.
"Where did you disappear to?" Wow, she really is sulking. Luckily Ashley knows exactly how to cheer her up.
"I just grabbed a quick bite with the guys. Need to keep my strength up."
Stella doesn't appear to have picked up on Eden's playful vibe. "Why?" She's almost annoyed as she asks the question.
Ashley smirks. "Well I was wondering if you fancied a trip to the showers?" Ashley wiggles her eyebrows at Stella leaving her in no uncertain terms as to what she means.
Stella decides to not give her a chance to change her mind. She quickly jumps up from her desk, now wearing the most brilliant smile. She grabs Eden's hand and drags her out of her office, before discreetly making her way to the shower room, praying that no one is in there. It seems today, they are in luck.
Danny wasn't kidding when he said Stella would lose her sex drive. She's now 8 months pregnant, and hasn't let Ashley touch her for almost three weeks. The change was pretty instantaneous too. She went from sex at every juncture, to none whatsoever literally overnight.
Obviously she is 8 months pregnant with twins, Ashley can completely understand why, but the change and the scale of the transformation has been a little testing for the younger woman. She is like a dog on heat at the moment. Cold showers have really been a life saver. It doesn't help that Stella looks amazing, well Ashley thinks she does anyway, the woman herself thinks she looks like a beached whale. She is pretty huge now, but Ashley can't help the burst of pride she gets every time she lays eyes on her wife. The attraction she feels is immense, which obviously isn't helping in her current predicament.
Stella to be fair knows what she's doing to her wife, and she's sympathetic, but her sex drive just vanished, she has no desire at all. It doesn't help that she and Eden spend pretty much every waking hour together so she can't even really take care of her own needs as it were. To make things worse Audrey, Eden's grandmother is due to arrive in a few days. She's coming to coincide with Stella going on maternity leave. Ashley is adamant she doesn't want Stella to be alone in case anything happens, and Audrey is more than happy to come and help her grand children out, plus it means she'll be here for the birth of her great grandchildren, and that is something she doesn't want to miss.
They are currently sitting at home, after a long day at work; Eden is engrossed in watching some documentary on the TV, sipping from a bottle of beer. Stella is just studying her face. She loves this woman so much; she hates what she's doing to her at the moment. She wants her to be happy.
"You know I wouldn't mind, if you wanted to have sex with someone else." The words are out of Stella's mouth before she has a chance to think about them.
Ashley isn't actually sure she's just heard the words she thinks she's heard. She was just about to take another swig from her beer; she moves the bottle away from her lips, and looks at her wife like she's insane. She honestly can't believe she's just said that, she needs to be sure she heard her right.
"Excuse me?"
Stella can tell from the expression on her wife's face that she is not remotely impressed with what she's just said. She tries her best to explain.
"I know how hard it must be to deal with my hormones at the moment. Going from sex all the time to none, must be difficult." Sheepish is the best word to describe Stella right now.
"And you think me sleeping with someone else is going to fix that?" Ashley actually feels quite angry.
"It's just sex. No strings. I just know when I was going through my phase, if I couldn't have made love to you. . ."
"What you would have slept with someone else?"
Stella isn't really doing a great job of explaining herself. "No of course not. It would have just driven me crazy, I hate the fact that I can't give you everything you need right now."
"Well luckily I'm not pregnant, so I can do a better job of controlling my hormones. You are giving me everything I need right now." She places a hand on Stella's bump. But her wife really has annoyed her.
"Jesus Christ Stella. I don't want to sleep with anyone else." She doesn't want to cause a full blown argument, so she just gets up from the couch.
"Where are you going?" Stella panics a little, remembering Eden's tendency to run away.
As much as that's what Ashley wants to do right now, she could never leave Stella by herself in her current condition. "I'm going to bed."
She trudges off in the direction of their bedroom. Stella has really messed up here; she needs to make this right. She's not really sure how.
Well last night was the first night in a while that Ashley didn't have to control herself around Stella; sex was the furthest thing from her mind. Stella giving her permission to sleep with someone else made her sick to her stomach. The tension between them was still high this morning; Stella knew her wife was still pretty angry, she decided she would leave making amends until later.
Ashley's day hadn't gotten any better. She had a case that ended up in the sewage system, which meant for the last four hours she and Adam have been sifting through excrement and God knows what else deep in the depths of Manhattan. To be frank she stinks.
She is starting to soften a little towards Stella, before heading out to scene she had to remove her wedding ring, she had thought about just leaving it in her locker, but in the end the thought of not having her rings on her made her feel ill, so onto the chain she wears around her neck they went. It was at this point she realised, she simply can't stay angry at her for very long.
Finally Ashley and Adam have just arrived back at the lab. Adam has the evidence.
"I'm just gunna drop this off at the lab."
"Cool, I'm hitting the shower; I can't start on that until I get the smell of faeces out of my hair."
Adam chuckles. "Cool meet you in there in 20?"
Ashley nods, but before she crosses the threshold into the shower room, she realises she needs to check her messages, she waiting for a crucial piece of information to come in from another crime lab, on a different case to the one she and Adam are currently working. She quickly changes direction and retraces her steps back to the entrance.
Her destination is obviously the reception desk, but something catches her eye over by the elevators.
When she realises what she's looking at the world stops. The focus of her attention has clearly seen her too. It's like then rest of the lab has just disappeared, and there are just these two people mesmerised by each other. Ashley can't believe her eyes; this can't be real can it? Surely she has gone mental? Maybe the lack of sex really is starting to affect her brain.
The other woman steps forward, she takes a deep breath as she does.
"Hello Eden."
She speaks, she sounds the same. She certainly looks like it could be her. But it can't be. Can it?
"Katy?" It's almost a whisper, but it's all she can manage. Her mouth is as dry as the Sahara. This can't be real, it must be a dream. But it's strange; she doesn't feel like she's asleep. Could it really be the case that her girlfriend, the very same one that was brutally murdered in front of her 14 years ago, is actually alive and well, and standing right in front of her?