Caroline and the Sperm Donor
By: Jana~
Chapter 1
--“Do you still
need sperm?” Richard Karinsky asked abruptly, unaware
of what he was actually saying. Or offering.
The question stopped
Caroline Duffy dead in her tracks, the ascent up the stairs coming to a
screeching halt. Needing a moment to digest what he’d said- what she thought
she heard- she turned in slow motion. Her furrowed brow showed her complete and
utter confusion.
“What?” she asked,
her position on the steps cemented.
Only a sense of
panic could have brought on such a statement. Richard was in full panic mode.
He had always hated his job, but with the possibility of losing it, and with it
his daily connection to Caroline, the rash words flew out of his mouth.
“You know,” he
explained himself, “Before? You asked if I would ever consider donating sperm?”
Intrigued by the
possible direction this all was going in, she inched
down one step, nodding only slightly. “Yeah?”
“It’s not
something I would normally do,” he rushed on, still attempting to save his job,
“but if it’s something that’s important to you, then, you know, you can have
my—You can have my sperm.”
Caroline cracked a
smile, wiping it off her face a second later. She had no idea what was going
on. His behavior had been nothing less than bizarre all day long, but whatever was
going on, she wanted to get to the bottom of it.
“You would be willing
to give me your sperm?” she asked, suppressing a grin, and he nodded only
slightly in return. “Why?”
There was no
logical answer to that question. “I don’t know,” he stated with all honesty,
“But if you want it, you can have it.”
Taking two more steps
down the stairs, she asked, “You do understand what happens with donated sperm,
right?”
His mind was
starting to clear, regret taking the place of panic. God, what have I started
here, he asked himself.
“I’m not an idiot,
Caroline,” he replied, trying for sarcasm but failing.
Completely
forgetting about Jeannie’s request for one of her eggs, Caroline took another
step away from her room. “And knowing what I would be doing with it-- You would
be ok with that?”
Swallowing had
never seemed so hard in his entire life. “Sure?” It was more of a question than
an answer.
“You want to have
a baby with me, Richard?” she asked, taking the final step off the stairs,
standing ground level with him.
There had to be a
way to save face in the midst of this, he told himself. The previous fear over
losing his job was all but gone, making it’s
way for self-loathing. “Sperm donors don’t have children,” he answered her.
“They are released from that responsibility.”
“So,” she pressed
further, “You would be ok with me having your child, as long as he or she
doesn’t call you ‘daddy’?”
Richard sighed,
pulling his glasses from their position and running his hand over his face in
frustration. “If you’re going to do this,” he stated carefully, “Then I think
it would be better to know exactly whose DNA your getting, don’t you?”
“I never really
thought of it that way,” she murmured, her thoughts trailing off. Truth was, she wasn’t thinking of it at all. She only asked him about
donating sperm to get some perspective, because her friend and ex-colorist
Jeannie wanted her to donate her eggs. Since she promised she wouldn’t
discuss the issue with anyone besides Annie, their mutual friend, she used the
closest analogy she could when broaching the subject with Richard.
Somehow, he must
have caught wind of what was going on, but assumed it was Caroline who was
looking to get pregnant.
The idea of
getting pregnant by a sperm donor had never once crossed her mind, but now, it
was more than just crossing it.
“Wouldn’t that be
awkward,” she asked, coming out of her reverie, “For me to be pregnant, give
birth, have this child around you all the time, you
knowing you’re the father?”
Answering as if on
auto-pilot, he said, “I can detach.”
“Would you still be
able to work for me?” she asked carefully. “Be my friend?”
He nodded almost
imperceptibly, his eyes leaving hers and finding the floor. More than anything,
he wanted to just say ‘nevermind’ and rush out the
door, but he knew that he couldn’t do that now. As inconceivable as it
was, to have to see it through, he had to finish what he started.
It all started
because he didn’t want to lose his job. He had no idea, looking back, how he’d
gotten to this point.
A gentle smile
graced Caroline’s face. The idea of helping a friend create
a little life that was part her had stirred feelings in her, feelings that she
had long ago buried because there was no husband in her life to make the dream
a reality.
But in this day
and age, women had children without a ring on their fingers all the time. Why
couldn’t she?
“The process might
be unpleasant for you,” she ventured further, just to see how serious he was.
If he was going to rescind, she wanted to know now, before she got her
hopes up any higher.
“The thought had
crossed my mind,” he muttered, still avoiding eye contact. He had no idea how
the two situations were related-- Caroline wanting to hire back her old
assistant and wanting to be pregnant, but the former was going to have to wait.
Besides, he was
completely sure that if he did this- if he gave Caroline his sperm- there was
no way she would fire him. That was how the two were connected for him, so
that’s what he chose to focus on.
“They put you in a
sterile room,” she continued, “Pop, in some porn, and then you get, you know, intimate,
with a cup.”
Richard groaned.
“Ugh! Caroline! Was that really necessary?”
“Sorry,” she
apologized with an almost impish smirk. “Just want to be sure you know what you
would be getting yourself into. I wouldn’t want you to back out after
agreeing,” she added.
“So,” he asked
nervously, “Does that mean you are, accepting, my offer?”
Nodding, she
stepped forward with her arm extended, prepared to shake hands on the deal.
“Yes,” she said with all the seriousness in the world, “I am.”
Slowly, he took
her hand, shaking with her as a sort of unwritten pact. “Ok,” he whispered, all
the while his brain was screaming at him to back out at once.
“If you’ll excuse me,”
she said, withdrawing her hand and heading back for the stairs to her loft, “I
just have a few phone calls to make.”
Sprinting up the
steps, she dialed the phone as she went, addressing the party on the other line
as soon as they picked up. “Jeannie, hi. It’s
Caroline. Um, I’m afraid I have some bad news…”
Richard sighed,
dropping down in the chair nearest the couch. “My job is secure,” he mumbled to
himself, “But at what cost?”
“I love you
Jeannie, you know that,” Caroline said into the phone once in the privacy of
her room, “But, I’m afraid I can’t give you my egg. Turns out, I’m going to be needing it.”
XXX
--Richard sat
fidgeting, the room being crowded and the walls being adorned with pictures of
pregnant women, babies in utero, and tiny newborns
only adding to his anxiety.
“How did I get
here?” he asked himself quietly, forgetting at that moment that Caroline’s best
friend Annie Spadaro was seated a measly three feet
in front of him.
“By taxi,” she
muttered disinterestedly, her attention more on an article about breast pumps.
“That’s gotta hurt,” she said to no one, shuddering
before turning the page.
“This is your
fault,” he snipped at the brunette, leaning in so as not to be overheard. “If
you hadn’t tried to convince me that Caroline was looking to hire Jeannie back,
I wouldn’t be here!”
“Tried to
convince you?” she shot back with a laugh. “Tell me, Richie,
just how many scratches did you get giving Salty the ol
bathe and fluff?”
“Too many!” he
griped, adding, “She won’t give me a moment’s peace now!”
Annie laughed
heartily, but stopped when he shot her a glare in response. “Look, Richie,” she
said to him, gaining seriousness, “If you don’t want to do this, then just, tell Caroline you don’t want to do it! She’ll
understand,” she assured him. “Hell, she’s been asking you if you’re sure every
day since you agreed to it!”
“I can’t do that
to her,” he whispered, resolved to his fate. “It would crush her.”
“Suggest she use a
donor from the registry then,” she offered, taking new interest in her
magazine.
He shook his head.
“It’s twice as expensive!” Glancing first at the surrounding people, he added,
“Besides, do you have any idea the kind of gene pool people who donate have?
She’d wind up with a drooling idiot!”
“You wanna know what I think? She asked, dropping the
magazine she had been thumbing through down on the table that separated her
from him.
“No, but I’m sure
you’ll tell me anyway,” he replied flatly.
“I think you want
to do this!” she told him sharply, teasing him.
“Oh, yeah,” he
muttered sarcastically, “Getting friendly with a plastic cup has always been
high on my list of goals for my life.”
“Not that,”
she snipped, “The ‘having a baby with Caroline’ part-”
“I knew what you
meant!” he shot back, interrupting her, spotting Caroline on the approach a
second later. “Just drop it, ok?”
“Done with your
forms yet?” Caroline asked happily, taking a seat next to Annie, completely
unaware of the smile her friend wore, and was directing at the annoyed blond
seated across from her.
Shortly, his
irritation showing, he passed the forms, clipboard and all over to Caroline.
“Are you ok?’ she
asked him, receiving a brief nod from him in response. “You know, Richard,” she
said to him sotto, “If you want to back out of this-”
“For the love of
God!” he whispered harshly, interrupting her, “Would you please stop
saying that to me?!”
“I just want to be
sure-” She tried again, only to be cut off again.
“I’m sure, ok?
I’ve told you that a thousand times!”
“If you’re so
sure,” she asked, “Then why are you acting so irritated?”
“Forgot to take
his bran today?” Annie interjected, only to be ignored.
“It’s nothing,” he
said, evening his tone of voice for Caroline’s benefit. “I have a headache, is all.”
“A strong, strong headache,
no doubt,” Annie baited him, smirking to herself.
Glaring at Annie,
Richard asked Caroline, “Did you have to bring her?”
“She’s my best
friend, Richard,” Caroline defended herself, “And this is a big deal for me! I
brought her along for support!”
“Richard Karinsky? We’re ready for you,” a nurse announced as she
stood in the doorway to the waiting room.
He stood slowly,
almost as if preparing to meet his eminent demise. He had only taken two steps
when he heard her wisecrack behind him.
“Go get ‘em, Richie!”
Only hesitating
for a moment, he attempted to ignore her as he continued after the woman in
white he was following, trying not to think too hard about the task in front of
him.
“Annie, please,”
Caroline pleaded, “Ease up on him today, ok?”
“Fine, fine,”
Annie mumbled, unhappy about giving up her intended fun.
X
--“After you’re
done depositing your specimen,” the nurse explained to Richard, “You’ll place
the cup on the platform of the revolving window, then push this button to
signal that you have.” She pointed to each before continuing. “Then you will
vacate the room and take a seat back in the waiting area.”
He nodded his
understanding, moving to lock the door as soon as she stepped through it. His
eyes scanned the room for a moment, a look of disgust crossing his face.
Spotting the box on the counter near the sink, he quickly grabbed a latex
rubber glove, snapping it onto his left hand. Then, as if they were toxic
waste, he lifted a porn magazine out of the stack with his gloved hand by just
the corner and placed it on the counter, flipping it open to a random page.
He looked at the
naked woman displayed there for a moment or two, then turned the page. Another
naked woman graced that page as well, but still there wasn’t
the slightest stirrings.
Sighing,
irritated, he turned to the next page. Nothing.
This is not
working, he thought to himself, but an idea soon followed. He closed his eyes,
seeing Caroline there in the darkness. She smiled, her
tight dress eloquent and sexy, her figure accentuated.
He felt himself
responding. This was working.
X
--“He’s been in
there a long time,” Annie offered as she flipped absently through yet another
parent-minded magazine. “Hope he isn’t having a, hard time.” She smirked
in amusement at her quip, but quickly wiped it away off Caroline’s glare.
“Annie,” Caroline
scolded, “This is difficult for him! To do something so private, in a
place like this. He has to be riddled with anxieties!”
“Ok, ok, I’m
sorry,” Annie apologized. “I’ll stop.”
“I mean, he’s
being nice enough to do this for me,” Caroline chattered nervously, “The least
we can do is allow him to exit this with a little dignity.”
“True,” Annie
agreed, “But Caroline,” she added, “Through all this, did you ever stop to ask
yourself why?”
“Why,
what?” Caroline asked,
but before Annie could answer, they both saw Richard heading towards them.
“Hey, Richie,”
Annie teased, “Make a new friend?”
Richard glared at
her as he retook his original seat, pressing his fingertips to his forehead,
obscuring his view of her and Caroline both with his palm.
“You promised!”
Caroline scolded Annie in a whisper, then turned her
attention back to Richard. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?” she asked him.
“I’ll live,” he
muttered, dropping his hand onto his lap.
The needed images
he’d conjured up, in order to finish what he’d had to do, still played through
his mind, creating the need to distance himself from the red-head who now
stared back at him intently.
“Caroline, please,”
he said, refusing to meet her eyes, “I feel self conscious enough already. Stop
staring at me.”
“Sorry,” she apologized, looking away and taking an exaggerated interest
in the magazine Annie continued to thumb through. “Oh, look!” she announced quietly,
“Breast vs. bottle article! Hand that over!” She snatched the magazine from
Annie’s hand, leaving her friend to examine her skin for possible paper cuts.
X
--“What do you
suppose is taking so long?” Caroline asked as she checked her watch for the
tenth time in as many minutes.
“Relax, Caroline,
they’re just checking the motility of Richie’s little swimmers first,” Annie
reminded. “Making sure they can hit the pool without a lifevest,”
she added, hiding her smirk behind the magazine she was holding.
“Ms. Duffy?” the
nurse called, reading aloud the name printed on the blue folder she carried in
her hands. “We’re ready for you.”
Caroline stood, then glanced back at Richard and Annie before asking, “Can
my friends come in with me?”
“Caroline, I don’t
think--”
“Yes, of course,”
the nurse interrupted Richard.
Richard was
shaking his head slowly and purposefully as Caroline grabbed his hand and gave
a strong tug.
“Richard,” she
near-whined, “This is the most important thing I will ever do in my life. I
want you in there with me.”
Physically and
emotionally relenting, he allowed Caroline to pull him from his seat. “Fine.”
“Thank you,” she
whispered, smiling slight as she linked arms with him, the three of them then
following the nurse down the hall.
X
--“You can change
into this gown behind that curtain,” the nurse instructed,
handing Caroline the gown then pointing at the curtain.
“Does this mean
Richie here isn’t shootin’ blanks?” Annie asked, to
which Richard glared in return.
“The doctor can explain
all that to you,” the nurse answered, “But he wouldn’t have asked me to prep
the patient if the specimen wasn’t viable.”
“Wow, Richie,”
Annie gushed after the nurse left the room, “You made a new friend and
you learned something new about yourself. Big day!”
“Annie,” Caroline
warned from behind the curtain, “You promised to behave.”
“I know, I know,”
she laughed, “It’s just all too easy!”
“Yes,” Richard
returned dryly, “But your sexual promiscuity isn’t the subject at hand, at the
moment.”
Annie smirked
appreciatively at his comeback.
“Guys,” Caroline
scolded as she exited from behind the privacy screen in the barely-fitting
hospital gown, “I’m about to have embryos inserted into my uterus here. Stop
the bickering now, please!”
“Sorry,” Annie and
Richard both apologized, Richard turning around out of respect when Caroline
attempted to hop up on the exam table as she cinched her gown closed in the
back with one hand.
X
--The doctor
explained the procedure, speaking of how the sperm specimen had good motility,
and that they were able to fertilize 5 eggs successfully.
But even with as
clinical and almost detached as the doctor was, Richard still inched himself
into a corner in the back of the room, feeling as though he was somehow
intruding.
“Richard, come
over here,” Caroline called to him, holding her hand out for him to take as
Annie stood beside her and held her other hand.
“Are you sure?” he
asked anxiously. “I don’t want to, see anything
I shouldn’t be, you know, seeing.”
“Just stay up by
my head and you’ll be fine,” Caroline assured him, still waiting with her hand
extended so he would step up and take it.
Slowly, he walked
towards her, averting his eyes from her lower body and entwining his fingers
with hers.
“Are you ok?” he
asked, noting how almost frightened she looked.
“Nervous, but
good,” she told him with a whisper of a smile.
He nodded,
squeezing her hand gently in support. “Why 5 embryos?” he asked the doctor,
only glancing in his general direction.
“It gives us the
best odds that at least one will attach,” was the doctor’s distracted answer.
“And what if all 5
attach?” Richard asked curiously.
“That rarely
happens,” the doctor returned, almost dismissively.
“But it does
happen,” Richard pressed further, starting to get slightly annoyed.
“Rarely,” the
doctor answered shortly, and Richard gave a ‘hmph’ sound in response.
“Don’t worry,
Daddy,” the nurse addressed Richard, “Twins happen occasionally but larger
multiples are rare.”
“And he’s not the
daddy,” Annie interjected. “He’s the sperm donor.”
“Oh.” The nurse
seemed a bit bewildered. “The sperm donors don’t usually stick around for this
part.”
“Well,” Annie
offered in explanation, “This is a bit of an unusual situation.”
“Oh?” the nurse asked,
obviously interested in receiving details.
Before Annie could
reply, Richard snipped her name at her, stopping her, then
turned to the nurse. “Excuse me, but is knowing our
exact situation needed information for working, down there?”
“No, sir,” the
nurse apologized sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”
“We’re friends,”
Caroline offered after several minutes of awkward silence. “We’re just really
good friends.” Her statement accompanied a firm squeeze of Richard’s hand.
TBC
Author’s note:
This is my first CitC fanfic in, what feels like,
a million years. Just got to watching my old VHS tapes
of the show, and the idea hit me, and I just couldn’t shut my brain up! So I
grabbed a spiral bound notebook and started writing. I’m on my 4th
notebook now and have over 400 pages completed. This story will be between 15
and 18 chapters, I believe.
This is an
‘alternative universe’ fic, so some of the
character’s personality traits might seem a bit off, for example, Annie, in
later chapters, might seem a bit more intelligent then she was portrayed on the
show. Well, it’s my universe, and I can do whatever I want, so there! (J/K) LOL
Ok, in this
universe, Julia is not in the picture in any way shape or form. Even though the
episode this concept came from, ‘Caroline and the Egg’ was a season 3 episode, and Julia was annoyingly in season 3, she’s
not in my story! Poof! That easy! Bye, Julia!
Also, for the
moment, this fic is rated ‘T’ or ‘PG-13’, but this
rating will go up to ‘M’ or ‘R’ in chapter 8, so if you’re liking the fic and don’t want to lose track of it when the rating
changes, put the story on alert.
Ok, so, for those
who don’t know, reviews make my world go round and round. Without them, I feel
lost, like an empty vessel on unforgiving seas. Ok, well, maybe I’m exaggerating
just a wee bit, but reviews ARE very important to me, and since this
fandom sees very few visitors, it’s more imperative than ever that if you read
this, you review it! Even if you don’t like it! But, hey, if you don’t like it,
be gentle. My ego bruises easily.
Ok, so, that’s it
for now. We’ll meet again at the next chapter! MTLBYAKY