Baby steps - A TNS Fanfiction

Promises

Crew break room

Finn, his smile now forced, opened the door to the break room to find an extremely cheesed off Natalie. She'd crossed her arms and was frowning at him, tapping her foot impatiently.
"Care to explain what that was about?" Natalie asked, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. The behind the scenes crew averted their eyes, although one fumbled for their phone and seemed to play some sort of game on it.

"What what was about?" Finn asked, dread settling in his stomach.

"That unprofessional commotion outside, which, may I add, makes us all seem as though we cannot handle ourselves?"

"It was just a... Former friend" He settled upon, after a moment's thought.

"Right right, because I'm pretty sure I heard 'Grace' , 'Mum' and 'you who left Grace' mentioned at some point." Natalie said, in an almost monotone.

Finn was silent, momentarily paralyzed with a mixture of fear, dread, embarrassment and frustration at himself.

"I'm no detective, but Piper out there doesn't look much over 20, and with Grace being 7, I can make an accurate guess that she was still a child herself when she had your baby." Natalie finished, rising up from her chair to face him.

Silence.

By now, the crew were listening intently, although they pretended not to.

"Let's take this elsewhere." Natalie said, opening the door, with Finn following his supervisor out of the room and into the corridor.

Meanwhile, one of the crew members ended the recording on his phone, and checked that he had it all on tape. He was going to make a lot of money selling this one to the press. He smiled, and continued in with the small talk everyone was making.

Meanwhile

Natalie sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose with her forefinger and thumb, as Finn looked like a schoolboy caught misbehaving.

"Here's the deal: sort things out with Piper, to a professional level, and we'll get out of here as soon as the behind the scenes is finished. If you can't sort things, I'll present the rest of the documentary, and you go back to Canada and spend Christmas with your family. Deal?" Natalie concluded, raising her eyes up at him.

"Is there a catch?" Finn asked, skeptically.

"You have the rest of the day and until we start shooting tomorrow to sort things out. And we both know I take deadlines very seriously."

All signs of the bright, cheerful Natalie from earlier had gone, replaced with her serious, down-to-business side.

"Fine," Finn agreed, and went to return to the break room.

"Wait, I want to know the real story," Natalie caught his arm.

"What? Why?"

"Because, if I'm giving you a second chance instead of a second-class ticket back to Canada, I want to know the truth. And I won't go straight to the press about it."

"Fine. I was seventeen, she was sixteen, and neither of us expected what would happen. Piper didn't want to abort it, and at first decided that she would try her best to be a good mother, and I agreed to be there..."

Flashback

"Finn?" Piper bought him back go earth from his spiralling thoughts. She'd only just told him that she was pregnant, although they'd used protection.
"Huh?"
"I'm really sorry Finn. You probably hate me - it's my fault for becoming pregnant in the first place," His girlfriend whispered, staring down at her tea. They were in The Next Steep, and rehearsal was in half an hour.
"I don't hate you Piper, and it's my fault just as much as yours." He put his teacup down and reached across the table to take her hand and squeeze it reassuringly.

"We'll find a way to deal with this, I promise," Finn told her, looking directly into her dark brown eyes. Although they usually held so much happiness, this time they reminded him of a baby deer, lost and alone in the woods.

"I don't want to abort this baby." She suddenly blurted out, voice shaking slightly. "I want to give him or her the life he or she deserves. I want to be a good mother, but I don't know how!"

A single tear came down the side of her face, and Finn stood up and pulled up. She put her face in his shoulder as she cried, and he held her as she did.
"I promise that I'll always be right here for you, and for our child too."

"You'll be a great Dad."

"You'll be a great Mum."

"We have to get to rehearsal."

"Are you sure you want to dance?"

"I'm only two or three weeks along, and I don't think I can tell Emily or Nick yet. I haven't even told James or Mum."

"Just be careful then. If you want me to be there when you tell them, I can be."

"Thanks, Finn."

"No worries."

End of Flashback

"So she told her Mum and her brother, and they were really happy for her, although her brother blamed me at first. But they were probably our biggest supporters throughout the entire thing."

"What about your parents?" Natalie asked, picking up on that little detail.

"They... They didn't take it too well. Or rather, my Mum didn't. My Dad was very sick at the time, but he never go to see her." Finn fell quiet, the memory painful.

Natalie bit her lip. Finn had once mentioned in a Stand Up To Cancer program that his father had died due to lung cancer before Grace had been born.

There was another period of silence. "So where did it all go wrong?"

"When Piper was around eight months along, her anxiety started to heighten. A kick could throw her into a panic, and it was so hard on her to deal with school and Grace. When Grace was born, Piper held her, but you could tell that something wasn't right. She left when Grace was eleven months old." Finn took a deep breath.

"She didn't show the nurses that came to check up on her and Grace any of the symptoms she'd been experiencing. A while after she left, her brother called me to say that she'd been diagnosed with severe post natal depression."

"So is this..."

"The first time we've talked in around seven years."

Natalie patted his hand awkwardly. "It's going to take a lot to sort all of that out." She concluded, brushing a strand of hair out of her face.

"I know. I feel awful, I shouldn't have said any of those things," Finn rubbed his forehead and stood back up, dusting off his suit. He felt guilt prickling at the back of his eyes, although they might have been tears - he couldn't tell.