Ours

Chapter 7

Ashley watched as Raven and Nathan put the girls in their beds and she tucked them in. She kissed them on the forehead then smiled as the girls clutched their bears in their sleep.

"Are those some of the bears we gave you?" Corey asked and she nodded as she quietly shut the door behind her and headed down the hall.

"Here you go Cupcake," Luke said as he handed her a tumbler of hot chocolate.

"Thank you," she said as she curled up in her favorite chair and waited for everyone to get as comfortable as they could in her house.

"I will be at home if you need anything," Oma said as she patted Ashley's shoulder. Ashley nodded and Oma left to go to her house next door.

"You see that book right there?" She pointed to a book on the entertainment center next to a picture of her sonogram.

Kota got up and grabbed the book. He opened it book and on the first page was the doctor's note proving she was indeed pregnant. He looked up shocked, "you found out three weeks after we broke up?" he asked and she nodded.

"That explains what you meant when you said you had something very important to tell us," Axel said as Kota passed the book around.

"Yes," Ashley nodded, "and you wouldn't give me the chance to tell you."

"You have to see where we were coming from though," Nathan said, "we had video and photographic proof of you cheating."

"I never cheated on you," Ashley said as she stood. She left the room and came back with a DVD. "This is the proof I tried giving you to show that Kaylie set everything up. The guy you saw fake me kissing got one of his buddies to get Kaylie to admit to the whole thing while on a date at a club. This is the CCTV footage and sound of her admitting to paying one of her friends to dress like me and setting up the whole thing because you knew you would be at Gabe's gallery and would see the whole thing. She got her wish and we split up. He came up to me and admitted the whole thing because he felt guilty about it. It was a couple weeks later that I went to the doctor after I couldn't keep anything down and found out I was pregnant. As you know I tried getting ahold of any of you again but you made it pretty clear you wanted nothing to do with me."

"We're so sorry," Luke pouted and she nodded.

"The book documents the pregnancy," she nodded then looked down at her cup. "You can borrow it and make copies if you want."

"Do you know who the father is?" Silas asked and she shook her head.

"The last page is a copy of their birth certificates, they were born on August 9th at 7:52 pm via emergency c-section," she said looking out the window. "Tests were done and there are two different fathers but I never went further than that."

"They were born at 35 weeks?" Sean asked quickly adding it up.

"Preeclampsia and low amniotic fluid," Ashley nodded. "They just had to stay a few extra days at the hospital but other than that they seem to be fine and growing just fine. Tiny but their pediatrician isn't worried about it."

"We missed out on so much," Sean pouted. "Their first steps, first words, everything."

"Yes you did," Ashley admitted. "I have their first steps on an USB drive, I saved all my pictures, there's two USBs of everything with them. The other books in the entertainment center are their baby books with their information. Their first words were Mama. When they started asking about you I was still extremely hurt and angry but I've never said anything bad about you. It wouldn't be right. I just told them that you have very important jobs helping other people and it wouldn't be right to ask you to stay with us and keep you away from helping others. They just know you do good things and that's why you aren't in their lives. They understand as well as four year olds can." She stood and frowned, "excuse me. I will be right back."

She headed to the kitchen and took a deep breath then slowly let it out. She grabbed a water bottle then headed to her bedroom. She went to her bathroom and opened the mirror to reveal the medicine cabinet. She grabbed a bottle and poured out two pills and took them with a drink of water.

Just as she put the bottle back someone asked, "What was that?"

She turned around quickly to find the whole team in her room with Sean in the doorway of the bathroom. "Pain pill," She admitted.

"Come sit down," He said gently leading her to her bed. "What cancer is it?"

"Ovarian."