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“You doing okay, Kid?” Dana asks, walking over to where Mel sits charting, her face pale and gaze unfocused on the screen in front of her, "Because you look like you might be sick,”
“Yeah,” Mel says, taking a breath, “I just think I might have, um, eaten something weird?”
“Yeah?” Dana asks, giving her a look that Mel can’t quite parse, “How about we get you a ginger ale in the lounge, you look like you need one.”
“Okay,” Mel says, her lack of fight signaling to Dana just how bad she must be feeling.
They head into the breakroom where Dana quickly gets her a ginger ale and some saltines, offering both to her as she sits, still looking worse for wear.
“Thanks,” she says, taking a tentative sip of the soda.
“What do you think you ate?” Dana asks as she drinks, watching as the color returns to her face.
“I don’t know, Frank made us dinner last night but he’s been fine,” She shrugs, “But it had to have been something.”
Dana’s looking at her like that again, like she knows something she doesn't. She feels off kilter, shifted on her axis under the charge nurse's gaze.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question, kid? It’s kind of invasive.” Dana asks, and even if she very much minds, she shakes her head.
“No, what is it?”
“Have you had your period this month?” Dana asks, her voice softer, more maternal than before. Mel feels her stomach flip, swallowing hard to keep the bile rising in her throat down.
“Um,” Mel wracks her brain, realizing rather quickly that oh fuck she was late, “No.”
“How long have you been feeling sick?” Dana asks, her tone still so damn motherly.
“A few days,” She says, “But it gets better in the afternoons. I thought I was eating something I was newly allergic to for breakfast. I was going to do an elimination diet.”
The realization was hitting her like a freight train. Beside her, Dana smiles.
“My first baby was a food allergy too,” She says, chuckling a bit.
“But I can’t be,” Mel says, dropping her voice a bit from the embarrassment, acting as if they aren't both medical professionals, “We’re not even trying.”
“No one ever is,” She says, “Why don't you take a test, just to rule it out. We keep a few in the employee first aid kit.”
Princess had been the one to put them there after a scare of her own. She was uninterested in ever having to wait until shift change, or worse, asking one of her coworkers to order one for her, to find out ever again.
“Okay,” Mel says, her chest tight, “But it just- it can’t be.”
“Of course,” Dana says, patting her arm, “We’ll just rule it out.”
–
Dana waits as Mel takes the test, leaving it wrapped in a paper towel on the counter.
“It can’t be positive,” Mel says again as Dana sets a timer for five minutes, “We’re planning the wait a little longer. It’s too early.”
“What are you waiting for?” Dana asks. Her voice is soft, the tone she uses for families of patients and shell-shocked admits. Mel wishes she didn't find it so comforting.
“Um,” Mel looks down at her hands, wringing them as she talks, “For us to have been married longer, for me to finish my fellowship, for the kids to be a bit older, for me to have time to get Becca used to the idea of a new baby. She just got used to Tanner and Penny.”
Her voice is shaking, eyes on the floor as she rambles. Dana's hand comes to her shoulder, squeezing tight.
“You know, I’m the same age my mom was when she got pregnant with Becca and me,” it comes out quieter than before, her words bathed in worry. It is taking everything in her not to cry. “I keep thinking about her. She’s been gone for almost a decade.”
“That’s a long time,” Dana says. Mel nods, still unable to look at her.
“I wonder a lot about what it would be like if she were still here. What she would think of me, how I turned out.”
“Well done,” Her mother would say, pressing the words into the crown of her head when she accomplished something as a child, her words soft and sweet.
She wonders if she would say the same now, about her marriage, her home, or her care of Becca. Or, if she would think she was selfish for loving Frank long before it was okay, for moving her sister across the country, for hoping that the test on the counter was positive despite the timing.
“She’d be proud of you,” Dana tells her, her tone sure and solid. Mel touches her cheeks, wiping away the few tears that have slipped out.
“Thanks, but- I don’t know.” She looks up at her now, sniffling, “I did steal another woman’s husband.”
Dana laughs at that, shaking her head.
“Frank was divorced a year before you guys got together,” she says, still laughing a bit, “and when you two met Abby already had one foot out the door. You didn’t steal anything.”
“We got together when he had been divorced for eight months,” Mel says, voice quiet. She reminds Dana of her daughters when she’s like this, defiant despite her wit.
“Divorced is still divorced, hun,” Dana says, “And you two are a great match, she would love him. And even if she didn't, she would be too caught up in the fact that you're a fucking doctor to care.”
Mel laughs at that, harder than she thinks she should as she finally lets the tears fall.
–
“I got you,” Evelyn King says as she lifts a three-year-old Mel up, the girl's head falling to her shoulder, “You’re okay.”
Mel has a skinned knee and a ripped dress. Evelyn will repair both in time. She always does.
“You’re okay,” She repeats,” It’s going to be okay.”
She wipes the tears from her cheeks with a manicured finger. She smells like rose hips and lavender, like the perfume Mel will one day steal off her bureau and the funeral flowers that will dot the church.
When Mel lifts her head she looks at her wide-eyed, her little glasses crooked on her face. Evelyn fixes them, offering her a small smile.
“I got you, honey,” She says again, “It really is going to be okay.”
–
When the timer goes off Mel takes her glasses off, wiping her eyes as Dana looks at the test.
Dana shakes her head, turning around to look at her with a soft smile. It’s then that Mel knows, without a shadow of a doubt, what the result will be.
“Come take a look,” Dana says and Mel does, crossing the seemingly endless expanse of floor between her and the test.
She is greeted by two pink lines, bright and garish as she stares at them.
“Oh,” is all she gets out before she is crying again, Dana pulling her into her arms.
“It's good news!” Mell assures her in between sobs, “We want a baby. I don’t know why I’m reacting like this.”
“I know,” Dana says, laughing again, “I was the same with my first. It’s okay, I got you.”