beyoncepadthai | [November 16th] i think i was blind before i met you

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[November 16th] i think i was blind before i met you

Overwhelmed doesn't quite sum up how Mindy feels right now.

She can't quite wrap her head around the fact that Danny is gone, because he's the person she wants to be speaking to now most of all. He basically raised his brother, or whatever, she's sure he'd know what to do right now. Mindy's perfectly fine at delivering babies, actually pretty damn good at it, but she's not sure what to do with a five month old.

Thankfully, he seems pretty content sucking on the edge of his blanket, not yet crying in hunger.

Which is awesome, because Mindy has never been pregnant and so her boobs are completely useless to this guy. She needs to go and get formula or a wet nurse or something, but it's so hard to move when she feels all pins and needles, all numb, stuck on the floor of the damn storage closet.

The storage closet. In an OB/GYN clinic. Of course.

She feels really fucking dumb as she starts digging around, searching through boxes of pharmaceutical samples until she comes across a few small tins of formula and nearly cries in relief. How she doesn't cry at this point is honestly a goddamn miracle, but she's suddenly driven by necessity to get this guy somewhere warm and safe and home.

She's not prepared to be a mom, but apparently she is one, so an awkward discussion with Amelia and she's done for the day, headed back to her apartment with her not-so-new son in arms.

He's still napping in a damn printer box when Mindy sends out a mass text to the people who matter to her most (the people who are still in the city, who haven't disappeared in the past handful of days), practically begging.

Danny's gone. Can u come over? There's something else.

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Seeing Kate makes all of this too real, and Mindy feels hot tears forming in her eyes again. She fights them back. Danny being gone isn't even her biggest problem right now. "Like Kurt," she says, and then shakes her head. They were only dating a few months but that's not even the point. They could have never dated and her heart would still be breaking.

Leo stirs in the box beside her and she glances over, not sure what to say. How, exactly, does one announce the arrival of a five month old out of nowhere?

Her first instinct is to make Mindy a drink and she's debating whether or not she wants to go through Mindy's cupboards or dart back across the hall for something when she realizes there's something moving in a box. Glancing over, Kate's jaw almost literally drops, feeling like its suddenly unhinged and for a moment she just stares.

There's a baby in a box. A seriously not newborn baby, so at least it's not likely Mindy just stole it from the hospital or something, which is a big time relief.

"Why is there a baby?" she asks. There's a million things going through her head and she thinks she's supposed to go hug her friend right now, but all she can do is stare. Because there's a baby.

Edited 2015-11-12 00:31 (UTC)

"...he just turned up," Mindy says, and she glances over at Leo again and there's that some tug of love she felt the moment she spotted him, even if she has no recollection of conceiving him or carrying him or birthing him. The photos and the notes in the book help, too, of course, but there's something inherent that she feels for him, and she can't put it into words. "I was looking for Danny and... well," she reaches to lift him out, and he fusses a little but then he just stares straight back at Kate. "His name is Leo. He's... mine, I guess."

God, she guesses. This is so messed up.

"But you weren't... you were never... I..." Kate moves her arms in a way that's supposed to indicate a pregnant belly, but she's distracted, staring back at the baby who's looking at her now. Babies are pretty much gross all around, but this one is actually super cute even if she has absolutely no desire to hold him or touch him or change a diaper, but that doesn't make any of it make sense.

"Holy shit," she says and maybe she's supposed to watch her mouth around him, but he's way too young to realize what she's saying. "I mean, holy fucking shit, your baby just appeared?" Other people appear, she supposes it isn't impossible, but it still seems insane.

"Holy shit," she says again.

Mindy's pretty sure that there's no show called I Was Carrying A Five Month Old And I Didn't Even Know It, not even in Darrow, and she almost wants to laugh at Kate's gestures but she's too close to crying to risk it.

She has to beg off the crying, for her sake and Leo's. "He came with his baby book," she says, holding him a little closer because somehow it's comforting. It's not a replacement for Danny, obviously, it's so different but it helps, still. She nods at the book, hands too full to lift it. "There are pictures..."

She hasn't even looked at them all. She can't.

That's one thing Kate can definitely do and she leans forward, grabbing the book out of the box. It's a baby book, full of pictures and little notes written about the baby and while Kate's not a handwriting expert or anything, she's pretty sure she recognizes Mindy's by now and this is definitely it. But besides that, there are the pictures. Pictures of Mindy and the baby, pictures of all three of them, but she kind of flips past those ones as quickly as possible, not wanting Mindy to see right now.

"So you had a baby back home," she says. "After you came here and now he's been sent to join you."

That's insane. And totally possible, she knows that, Darrow makes pretty much anything possible, but that doesn't make it any less crazy or cruel. Or maybe it isn't cruel, she can't quite figure it out, but she thinks taking away Mindy's boyfriend and then giving her their baby all on the same day seems like a lot.

Mindy nods though she has no real answer. Kate's guess is as good as hers. All of the proof is there and she knows this city gives as much as it takes, but she still can't quite believe. Even as Leo settles against her like he's done it a thousand times.

She's always wanted to be a mom, she's just not sure she knows how.

"I don't have a crib, or a carseat, or a rocker... I have, like, two tiny tins of formula and a couple of diapers I stole from work," she says, not exactly a response to Kate's statement but a truth nonetheless.

"Whatever, that's like, not even a thing," Kate says, waving her hand. "Any idiot can buy that shit. Hell, you could send me and I'm sure I'd come back with something at least halfway useful, so let's just... well, shit okay, that stuff is probably pretty important."

But what bullshit, to have to do it now when she's only just learned that Danny is gone. This is maybe the most fucked up situation Kate has ever seen and her mom turns into a dude sometimes.

"Okay, let's do it," she says. "That's a thing I can totally help you do. We can shop for baby stuff and by the time an hour is up, he'll be totally set."

And a pram, Mindy remembers suddenly, because she can't just keep carting the kid around in a cardboard box. She's pretty sure there are laws against that.

"Okay," she says, a little more motivated by the fact that Kate is around and way more proactive than Mindy can think to be right now. Right now she just wants to curl up and cry but there's a baby, now, and he's higher up on the right-to-cry ladder than her.

She starts to stand up and shifts Leo a little awkwardly, she hasn't held a baby this size in a long time, catching his gaze. He seems to like her, at least. "You hear that, Leo? We're going on a shopping spree."

"I guess you'll just have like... carry him, right?" Kate asks, looking at the two of them. "We should probably get him some warm clothes first thing. It's still nice now, but I bet it'll be cold before long." And she doesn't know a lot of new mothers, but from what she knows of them, they seem super judgmental of other mothers. If anyone gets all judgmental with Mindy, then Kate will have to give them the worst of her sass and she's sort of not feeling up to it at the moment.

This whole situation is weird.

"And we can get him a stroller or a carrier thingy first, too. So you don't have to carry him around."

"Yeah, I can carry him," Mindy says, although she's pretty sure that New York Mindy is doing a way better job at everything than she is right now. She's officially a single mom and she's even more sure that Danny is the better parent back home.

Home is here, now, she has to remind herself.

"I know tons about babies before they're born," she feels a need to clarify, because right now she feels incompetent, even if Kate isn't the type to judge her. "And, like, as they're being born. And right after. But not so much now." When they have feelings, or whatever.

"Well, you know more than I do, which is a step in the right direction," she says, although she has no idea if that's actually going to make Mindy feel at all better. This whole situation is basically insane and she has no idea what the right thing to do or say is going to be. If there even is a right thing.

Because if Newt had disappeared and left some baby in his place, she's pretty sure she'd have given it away already. Maybe that makes her an asshole, but she can't fathom raising a baby that came from her and Newt without him.

Of course, she's a way bigger dick than Mindy.

"We should go," Mindy suggests, because Leo is pretty content right now and maybe he'll start screaming his head off in a few seconds and she doesn't want to be in the middle of Babies R Us or whatever if that happens.

Even if it's kind of expected in a place like that, she wants to keep today's trauma to a minimum.

Even if it's already at a maximum.

She looks to Kate for approval. "Right?"

"Right," Kate says, even though she doesn't know why Mindy is asking for her approval. It's probably the situation, the fact that all this shit is so scary and new, but Kate hopes she doesn't have to make any other decisions. She'll do what she can, but she's not exactly qualified for any of this and she's suddenly very aware of just how little she knows, how useless she really is.

"I mean, yeah, right. Absolutely. We'll walk and I'll find a baby store on my phone as we go," she says, looking at Leo once more before leading the way toward the door. "There has to be something around here." It's just not the sort of place she'd ever go on her own.

Mindy's pretty sure she'd be dead without the token maps app on every kind of smart phone, and she nods at the comment, grabbing her handbag and swinging it over one shoulder before she follows Kate out with Leo in her arms.

"Do you think Kate Spade has a line of baby carriers out?" she asks. She'd been holding off procreating for that very reason (at least, in her own mind.) "Or, like, Chanel?"

"Not that I know of, but hey, look at this, it's supposed to be the fanciest of all the fancy baby carriers," Kate says, turning her phone toward Mindy so she can see the one she's found on her phone. "And they carry them at this department store for babies that's only like, three blocks away."

Somehow she's never once seen it. Or if she's seen it, she's blocked it from her memory, because Kate has been living here for awhile now and she's never ever noticed this weird baby department store. Why someone would think babies needed a department store is beyond her, but maybe it's just for the mothers that can spend a lot of money.

"Oh, I've heard of that," Mindy says, because of course she has. She's an obstetrician. She's just never really needed to listen until now, babies in the faraway future for her and Danny, if at all. Well, she'd assumed they'd happen eventually, but it wasn't the kind of thing you brought up with your boyfriend of a handful of months.

"Alright... that sounds perfect."

As perfect as anything can be today, officially the weirdest day of her life (not worst. She can't think of Leo's arrival as that, or she doesn't deserve to be his mom.) "Can you search, like, five month old facts?"

"On it," Kate answers, typing on her phone quickly and then giving it a minute to catch up with her as they head toward the elevator. "Okay, so this website says that being five months old is a time for special transitions with your baby."

Okay and this is why she hates this shit. It's all so flowery and romantic sounding, like having a baby is literally the only good thing in the world that women are capable of. It sort of makes her want to barf, but Mindy needs help, not vomiting friends, so she keeps going.

"So they can sit up and roll over and they'll start rocking back and forth, which is preparation for crawling," she reads. "They're betting at grabbing shit, so watch your hair and glasses. Oh, hey, it says most of them sleep through the night by now, so that's a good thing, right?"

"Sleep is good," Mindy agrees, although it's not like she gets that much of it, anyway. Especially when she's on call, which she fully expects to be all the more frequent now that the city is down one of its best OB/GYNs.

And one of the few that was willing to work Saturday nights.

As they enter the elevator, she presses the ground floor button and tries not to panic as Leo looks a little startled at the ding. She does not know what she'll do if he cries. Cry right back, probably. "So he needs, like, a crib."

She's going to need super express delivery on basically everything.

"A crib, a stroller, diapers, food, clothes... those are probably the most important things, right? Like, the absolute necessities. And maybe one of those bath thingys or do you think he's old enough now that you can just hold him or whatever?" The thought of having to bathe a baby is terrifying to Kate for some reason. They're just so small and breakable and probably capable of shitting themselves right in the water, which adds a whole new level of fear to the experience.

"And those cones! To keep him from peeing on you when you change his diaper!" Korra had told her about them and Kate had laughed herself almost to the point of being sick over them, but in the end she'd had to admit they sounded rather useful. "Ugh, only a boy would pee on his mother while she changes his diaper, though. How rude."

Mindy makes a face at that, glancing down at Leo and wondering how anything so cute could do something so evil. Truth be told, she's always assumed she'd have girls, but none of this is going as she'd planned.

She'd pretty much never even entertained the idea of doing this alone. Her parents have an awesome relationship, she works full-time, single parenthood and her just didn't seem to align.

"Pee cones," she echoes, though, nodding. "Okay, that's officially number one on my list."

She deals with some pretty gross stuff in labor and delivery but doesn't fancy doing so at home.

"We'll get you everything you need," Kate says, her voice oddly serious for a moment. Babies are not in her life plan, they're not something she ever wants. Being a parent doesn't appeal to her and she knows it's not the sort of thing she and Newt are planning, but she'd spent a lot of time with Korra and Atka. She knows what it's like, she's seen how hard Korra worked.

And just like she did for Korra, she'll help Mindy however she can.

"My friend Korra got pregnant here, y'know," she says. "And right before her son was born, her boyfriend left Darrow. Atka was born the day she found out."

Mindy can't decide if that's any better or worse than what she's going through. Possibly worse, because Korra had to experience the entire pregnancy and Mindy's still got her hot, pre-baby body, but there's no real way to compare the scenarios.

They both suck. Dads should be around. Danny's various neuroses are proof of that. Were proof of that.

Every time her mind falls into past tense she feels her chest tighten. How is she supposed to do this without him? She just has to. She survived a whole year without him.

Of course, she hadn't been madly in love with him then (or at least, she wasn't aware of it.)

"That's awful," Mindy says, and she means it. "This place is so messed up." I want to go home, she wants to say, but it doesn't feel right when Kate's here and that would mean leaving her behind.

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[November 16th] i think i was blind before i met you

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