In My Shoes - Chapter 4
Brian returned to Kara's room after sending the cabbie away to find that Kara had several books laying on the bed open. Kara looked up at Brian when he entered her room. Brian sensed immediately that something was wrong.
"I don't know what to do, this is just messed up." Kara burst into tears.
Brian took Kara by the shoulders. "Kara, get a grip on yourself. You aren't doing yourself, Nick or your baby any favors. Keep yourself together."
Sniffling, Kara opened a huge book and pointed midpage at a paragraph. "Brian, this is the reversal spell, um, I think. I'm not sure, I don't know." Kara's voice trailed off.
"Kara, you gotta be certain, you can't have something worse happen to you guys." Brian was starting to wonder if this girl actually knew what she was doing in the first place.
Kara cleared her throat and took a deep breath in. "Yeah, okay, I'm sure of it, this is the one I have to use, except we have a slight problem."
"Being?" Brian asked calmly.
Kara turned a yellowed page in the book back and forth. "We need a lock of my hair and a lock of Nick's hair. Which means we have to go to the hospital to actually do this spell." Kara answered half apologetically.
"Then call a cab and let's go." Brian suggested.
Kara nodded and procdeeded to walk out into the living room. She caught her reflection in the mirror when she walked past her bedroom door. She still had a hard time believing herself that she was inhabiting Nick Carter's body and that Nick was pregnant and in the middle of having a baby, her baby.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Nick slowly opened his eyes. He tried to focus them, but was unable to. He decided he was incredibly thirsty and attempted to call out for nurse to come over to him.
Nick opened his mouth to speak, but only a small hiss of air penetraited the silence. As he fought to figure out where he was and what happened, he was quickly reminded by the sharp pain he felt below his stomach.
"Oh, god, that's right, I had a baby." Nick thought to himself. He slowly lifted the covers to see if his body looked any different. He was disappointed when he saw that he still looked pregnant.
Finally a nurse appeared around a curtain and lowered Nick's blankets away and checked his stomach and the bandages covering the incision.
"Is this normal that my stomach still looks pregnant?" Nick casually asked.
"Oh goodness, yes. Your uterus has to shrink up yet. That takes time honey."
"Oh, okay." Nick said quietly. He was losing the fight to remain conscious. "Hey, what did she have?" Nick asked the nurse.
The nurse dismissed the fact that Nick used the word she in place of I. "You had a beautiful baby girl, full head of dark hair, healthy, I believe she weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces."
Nick smiled and closed his eyes. He wanted something to take the pain away he was feeling from the surgery. He asked the nurse for something for the pain.
"Sweetie, we gave you some tylenol just a bit ago, I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait a while."
"Tylenol? That's it?" Nick was puzzled to think that they were treating his pain with over the counter medications. "I want the good stuff. How about something with coedine in it or some vicodin?"
"Sorry Kara, can't do that, you don't want the baby sick too." The nurse replied.
"How on earth could the baby get sick?" Nick questioned.
"Kara, anything you eat or drink or take as medication will pass through your system and into your milk." The nurse reminded Nick.
Nick's response was a puzzled look.
"Breast milk, remember?"
Nick's mouth dropped open. He heard a baby cry out in the hall. Suddenly he felt warm and then noticed the front of his hospital gown was soaked. Nick looked down at the gown.
"See, your milk has already come in. I'll get some pads for you." The nurse turned and left the room.
Stunned, Nick laid in the bed. "There is no way in the world I would ever be prepared to breastfeed a baby, no way." Nick said to himself.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*
The cab barely came to a stop outside the hospital when Kara yanked on the door handle and jumped out of the cab. Brian followed behind her. He hasitly stuffed a twenty dollar bill into the cabbie's hand which adequately covered the fare but it also gave the driver a good tip.
Kara and Brian stopped at the information desk. A sweet looking elderly woman looked up at them.
"Kara Porter's room?" Kara asked the volunteer.
The woman punched Kara's name into the computer system. "She's in 338, bed two."
Brian followed Kara to the elevators. When they got on, Kara turned to Brian. "God, I hope he doesn't have a room mate, I don't know what we will do."
"If Nick does, we will simply have to deal with it, okay? That's all we can do." Brian stated.
The elevator came to a quick stop on the third floor. Brian and Kara followed the signs down the hall to room 338. Standing outside of the door, Kara took a deep breath in, afraid to enter the room. Brian was nervous as well. He put his hand on the middle of Kara's back and gently encouraged her to go in. When they walked in, Kara was relieved to see that the first bed was still done up, indicating that Nick didn't have a room mate. When they walked past the curtain towards the second bed, Kara saw herself laying in the hospital bed, asleep.
Brian looked at the young girl laying in the bed sleeping. She appeared to him to only be 16 maybe 17 years old. She was very attractive. He looked over at his friend, and was still having a hard time believing that Nick was inside that girl's body and that the girl was inside Nick's body. It was all too confusing to Brian.
Kara took the scissors from her pocket and quietly approached the bedside and took a snip of hair from her head and Nick's. She placed them into a bowl. Kara then set three milk-white candles on the bedstand.
Nick slowly opened his eyes when he heard a noise in his room. He was shocked to see Brian and himself standing at the foot of the bed.
"Oh, thank god, you guys." Nick quietly spoke.
Brian was still having a hard time with this. "Nicky?"
Nick managed a slight smile and a nod. "You had a girl, Kara." Nick informed her of the delivery.
Upon hearing the news, Kara started to cry. Nick hated to see himself in tears. "Kara! Calm down. Let's just fix this thing, okay? The nurse said she would be bringing the baby down for a feeding soon and I am not ready to deal with that."
Brian looked at Nick puzzled. He was wondering why Nick would be so uptight about feeding a baby.
Nick saw Brian's confused look. "Don't even ask, okay?"
Kara quickly lit the candles and opened the spell book. She asked Brian to set a chair behind her knowing that she would more than likely loose consciousness or become dizzy when the spell was working.
Kara told Brian to step out into the hallway, she didn't want him to get mixed up in the mess she had created. Brian told them he would be waiting outside the door and to holler if they needed anything, anything at all.
Reluctantly, Brian left the room. He leaned against the wall and watched the nurses walk back and forth with charts and medications and cups for the patients. Looking across the hallway, Brian noticed the infant nursery. He walked over to look at the babies.
Brian smiled as he looked at all of the tiny new lifes that were laying next to one another in the little clear tubs. Each looked similar, but yet so different. He searched the last name tags for this girl's last name. He couldn't remember if she said Potter or what but then he decided it was Porter when that was the closest name tag he could find.
Smiling, Brian spoke quietly. "Nick had a girl." He was still finding it hard to believe that all this had happened. Suddenly, Brian felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Isn't she perfect?" Nick asked.
Brian turned and looked up at Nick.
"Yeah, I'm back. Let's go." Nick said as he kept gazing at the infant.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The UPS man handed a package to the little girl standing on the other side of the door. She looked up at him and giggled and then bounded off, her waist lenght blonde hair in a cascade of curls.
"Mommy! Here!" Little five year old Brianna Nicole Dodds called out.
Kara looked at the address on the package. It was addressed to Brianna. The return address was one that had grown to become familiar to her these past five years.
"Brie, it's from Uncle Nick. Open it up and see what he gave you for your birthday." Kara coached the child.
Kara sat back at the table with her cup of coffee in hand, watching Brianna eagerly open the package. Nick never forgot her birthday, every year he sent her presents. Always a gift and always a card with a $100 bill enclosed with a note in the card from him saying "Put this towards her college."
"Oh mommy!" Brianna cried. "I love her!" She hugged the doll and skipped off into her bedroom.
Kara opened the card Brianna had tossed to the side. Again it contained $100 and the same request to put it towards her college.
The Backstreet Boys had long since broke up, the guys going their separate ways. Nick was still in the business, singing, acting and directing. Brian was a financial consultant living in Florida with his wife and two children.
Brianna has never met Nick. Probably never will. But Kara was making sure that Brie will know about Nick and Brian and the part that they played in her life before she was born.
The End
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