dangerously ↝ a. hotchner

n i n e t e e n

"I felt heartbroken. Can you imagine? Your significant other leaves and is pregnant but doesn't tell you and then fucking looses the baby." He said sharply, "I suppose not. It was you who did that, of course, so you wouldn't know how I felt."

Ana opened her mouth to speak but was rudely cut off by Peter. "But I'm here to tell you. You bitch. You took my child away from me. My one chance at happiness and you took it away." He said loudly, slamming his fists on her desk.

She barely flinched as she listened to him. Tears were threatening to spill out of her eyes as every harsh word that came out of his mouth hit her like a train. It wasn't her fault she lost the baby, the fetus had been forming outside of her uterus — a rare but possible occurrence. And she didn't want the asshole in front of her to know because he left her with the impression that he wanted nothing to do with her.

"Peter, I think you should go." Her breathing was shaky as she spoke, trying to catch her breath softly as the monster in the chair in front of her stood up with a sneer on his face.

"Makes sense you'd want to get rid of me too." He said venomously. "I'll be back Anastasia. Mark my words." He warned and then he was gone.

Ana let out a breath she didn't know she was holding as she fell back into her chair. Her posture relaxed for the first time since Peter stepped foot in her office.

Instead of resurfacing from her office to speak to Charlotte like she usually did after her last patient, who today was 'Graham Carmichael', she hid away in her office and completed all her paperwork for the day. Three hours later, the day had progressed to night and Ana was still in her office. She was somewhat scared that if she came out, she'd run into him again.

Only problem was, she needed to leave at some point to go home. Home. She hadn't been there in quite some time — having spent most of her days with Aaron. Her mind shifted from her whack job ex to him. How would he react if he found out exactly what happened between her and Peter?

She didn't want to find out.

Eventually she came out of her office and found Charlotte almost half asleep at her desk. Ana smiled at the young girl and poked her lightly, making sure she woke up. They packed up and locked up and walked to their cars together.

"You okay?" Charlie asked. "You've been awfully quiet today."

Ana nodded, her mind had drifted elsewhere during the short time it took for the two of them to walk to the almost empty parking lot. "I'm fine." She mumbled. "Tired."

Charlotte had to physically bite back her tongue from saying bullshit out loud. Instead she just settled for a curt nod and they relapsed back into the dreadful silence as they made it to their cars. They both bade each other goodnight and each got into their respective cars.

Charlotte wasn't sure what was happening with Ana, but she was sure as hell going to find out. She drove out of the parking lot, not noticing the car that stayed behind after she left.

Ana gripped her steering wheel tightly as she sat in her car. Her breathing was labored as her mind travelled back to three years ago. Hot tears pooled in her eyes when she remembered the day she lost her baby. It was a warm spring day, she was fourteen weeks into her pregnancy when she started getting these extremely painful cramps. She drove herself to the hospital, got rushed to emergency surgery and woke up with no baby.

It broke her.

It pushed her to work harder, moving from New York to Boston as a model and eventually to her work as a psychiatrist in Mary Washington. She thought she'd left that all behind her when she moved back to Virginia. But apparently your past followed you where ever you went.