Revolting

After they had given me more injections, I fell asleep. I don't know how long I slept, but I woke up feeling very sick and disoriented. I took me a minute to piece together again what had happened, and where I was. On my left, a computer was monitoring my heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation. Periodically the cuff around my arm tightened and took a new reading, and there was a little plastic clamp over my finger. There was an IV in my right arm, and a half empty bag of saline was dripping slowly into the line. The lights were dimmed, and my mother-in-law was sitting in the only chair, scrolling through her phone, not yet aware that I was awake.

I did a quick self assessment. My face felt hot and and my eye a little swollen. I didn't have a mirror to get a good look, but I guessed I probably had a pretty good bruise, and maybe a black eye. My neck and throat hurt, and even swallowing was a little painful. I was very thirsty, and wished for something cold to drink. But the worst of it was of course, my hips. I was pretty used to a constant dull pain in my hips and legs, but the throbbing in my newly-relocated hip was unbearable. I shifted in the bed and tried to get more comfortable, but moving only made it worse, and I groaned.

"Oh, you are awake!" Caydence jumped up out of the chair. "I'll go get the nurse." I watched her dart out of the room. I didn't even have the time to tell her I could have just hit the call button. She was such a nice, caring person. How did a woman like that give birth to a monster like Nolan? His brother was normal and empathetic. Why was Nolan such a psychopath? Why was all his rage directed at me?

Instead of a nurse, Doctor Roberto came in, and quietly closed the door behind him. He turned the lights up, and rolled up a wheeled stool beside my stretcher. "How are you feeling, Luna?"

"Hurts." I said hoarsely. "and I'm thirsty."

"Of course, of course, that's to be expected. I'll have the nurse bring you a drink, maybe some gingerale?" I nodded. "I want to put some ice on that hip, try to reduce some of the inflammation in the injured joint. We'll give you some more medication for the pain. How is the itching?" I had forgotten the itching, until he mentioned it. I scratched a bit at my stomach and shrugged. It wasn't really itchy any more, and I didn't get that euphoric feeling when I scratched. "Good, good. Any nausea?" I shook my head, and remembered with some embarrassment that I had vomited on the floor earlier. Someone must have come in and cleaned up the mess while I was sleeping.

"Well, there is just one more thing." The doctor seemed a little nervous. He pulled out a pair of reading glasses and looked over my chart again, as if he were double checking the information. "There were trace amounts of hCG in your urine." I looked at him stupidly. "What does that mean?"

"You are pregnant."

I shook my head. "I can't be. I mean its only been a week, even if I was, it would be too soon to tell, wouldn't it?"

He looked at me with dark, sympathetic eyes. "As a Were, the gestational period is accelerated. Your body begins producing pregancy hormones almost immediately. We will re-test of course, but a false-positive is highly unlikely."

I turned my face away from him. I just couldn't process this information. How could this have happened from that one, horrible time, shoved up against a dresser on my wedding night? Obviously I understood the biology of HOW, but it just seemed cosmically unfair. I didn't want to be pregnant, not now, not with Nolan's child. "Doctor," I said urgently, "please don't tell anyone."

"Of course not Luna, all patient information is strictly confidential." He peered at me over the rim of his glasses, "But I would like to get you started on some prenatal vitamins, and schedule you in a couple weeks for an exam." I nodded, my mind feeling numb. All I could think at that moment was that Nolan must not know. I couldn't even imagine what his reaction would be, he was too unpredictable, too volatile. Would he want a child? Or reject it? I couldn't even imagine him as a father. What if he hurt the baby? What if he warped the child's mind and the kid turned out like him? I felt like my chest was being squeezed as panic took over. The monitor to my left began to beep as my heart rate sky rocketed from the 70's up to 150 bpm. "Easy now, take some deep breaths, you are going to be fine," the doctor tried to reassure me. He called in the nurse, gave her some orders and she went scurrying out. In a moment she was back with a tray of medications, a bottle of gingerale, and a plastic cup with some ice.

"I..I can't breathe..." I cried, with tears rolling out of my eyes.

"Just try to relax, Luna. Concentrate on your breathing. Its just a bit of anxiety. You are safe." She injected more medications into the port of my IV, and handed me the cup of ginger ale. I took a sip of the bubbly soda and leaned my head back into the pillow, taking deep, gulping breaths. The big burly male nurse came in with an ice pack. They rolled me slightly onto my good side, and put the cold pack on my injured hip. Slowly my heart rate came down, and I suspected that they had put something in my medications to calm me, as I was feeling a little spacey. Or maybe it was the pain medication? I sipped at my gingerale and found that I didn't even really care enough to ask. I just didn't want to think about anything any more.

When the nurses and doctors had cleared out, there was another knock on my door. I half expected Caydence to return, or even William. But to my surprise, Shane poked his dark head into the room. "Can I come in?"

I nodded tiredly. I thought I didn't want visitors, but as Shane came in with a bouquet of black-eyed susans and daisies, I felt... well I don't know what I felt, but I was glad to see him. He put the flowers on the little bedside table. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stood awkwardly with his head down. "Hey."

"Hey." I said back.

He looked at me then, his dark eyes too serious, a frown wrinkle between his eye brows. His eyes seemed to take in everything, and I felt very exposed. I resisted the urge to pull the blanket up over my head and hide. "Nina," he said, his voice a little choked. He coughed into his hand and started again. "Luna. I.. I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what? You didn't do this," I gestured at my hip with my IV-stuck hand.

"I should have been there," he said, his hands balled up into fists. "I should have protected you." His intensity scared me a little.

"Its not your job to protect me, Shane." I said quietly.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

"You are my..." he swallowed and looked away. "You are the Luna, it is everyone's job to protect you. It shouldn't have happened. You shouldn't have got hurt."

"Its not that serious, okay? Just a dislocation. I'm going to live." I tried to smile, but I'm not sure I quite pulled it off. "Give me a couple days, and I'll be back in class, sensai."

He was staring at my neck, his lips pressed together in an unhappy line. I swallowed with difficulty and covered it with my hand. I wish I had a mirror to see how bad it really looked. Given his stormy expression, I guess it must have been worse than I thought. He reached out, and gently took my hand away from my neck, being very careful not to disturb the needle to my IV port. The fact that he touched me at all surprised me, but the warm tingle that traveled up my wrist and into my arm was even more alarming. I stared at our hands, and didn't dare look him in the face. It wasn't the explosion of sparks I felt with Nolan. It was subtle, muted, but I definitely felt something. I tried to reason it out of my head. It was the drugs, I thought vaguely. It was the shock and trauma of the day. I felt unusually shy as I reluctantly looked up into his face, my eyes wide. I could make all the excuses I wanted, but I knew he felt it too. His expression was pained as he reached out and tenderly touched my injured cheek with his other hand. Then he sighed, pulled his hands away abruptly and straightened up. "Get well, Luna. I expect to see you in training as soon as the doctor clears you." He turned on his heel and left the room.

I stared at the empty doorway for a moment, feeling like all the air had left the room with him. "Don't do it, Nina." I told myself. But we weren't listening. I burst into tears.