Based off a prompt I received on tumblr. Could possibly have more parts, not sure yet.
Stephanie held her tray in front of her and looked around the cafeteria in search of Jo. She hadn't seen her all day, but she knew that she'd be there. No matter what, they always made it a point to have lunch together and it was rare for Jo to miss unless she was stuck in surgery or something like that. She spotted her off in the corner near the trashcans and moseyed her way through a sea of tables and chairs to get to her. Once she got to the table, she skillfully balanced the black tray in the middle of her palm as she pulled a chair out from underneath the table.
At the sudden distraction, Jo looked up from her lifeless trance of staring into the styrofoam cup full of fizzy Dr. Pepper, and let an easy smile spread across her lips while Stephanie put her tray down and took the seat across from her. As Steph situated herself in the chair, Jo bullied a stalk of broccoli across her plate with her fork and clenched her jaw, waiting for this most recent wave of nausea to pass.
Today wasn't a good day, and more than anything, she wanted to be left alone. She wanted to finish her last surgery, clock out for the day and spend the rest of the evening on the couch. Her day was less than ideal and for what it was worth, she hoped that Steph could make it better. In her mind, it'd be hard for her to make it worse.
"Who crapped in your Cheerios?" Steph asked as she banged her straw against the table to break it through the paper wrapper.
Jo tried to offer her friend a smile, but she just couldn't muster one up. Not whenever she felt like even so much as moving her mouth meant that nasty yellow vomit would spew out. Instead, she flashed Steph a look that was somewhere between desperation and amusement and stirred her straw around in her cup.
"It's been a rough day," Jo mumbled.
She looked across the table at her best friend and just sighed. Her mind was running at a thousand miles a minute and she just desperately needed a break. She needed a release, someone that would shut up and listen whenever she talked, someone that wouldn't judge and tell her how stupid she already knew she was. She just needed to talk. She needed to vent. But Steph...she wasn't safe. She knew that if she told Steph about everything that was running through her mind...if she told Steph about all the things that were going through her mind, about the thing that was weighing so heavily on her conscience at the moment, Steph just wouldn't understand. Steph wasn't safe.
"You sure you're alright, Jo?" Steph raised her eyebrow. She never was the type to assume that she knew a person, but she thought for sure that she had known Jo long enough to know whenever something wasn't right. She knew Jo's signs. And she was clearly distracted by something.
"Yeah," Jo insisted. "I'm cool. Just...you know...tired, mostly. Didn't get much sleep last night." Which wasn't entirely a lie. She honestly didn't sleep much last night. Last night was even worse than today. She was hungry, but she couldn't eat. She was tired, but she couldn't sleep. Her mind was full, rushing with possibilities, all of which she was too scared to prove or disprove. Her stomach was empty but her mind was very much full. And in that case, it was hard for her to sleep.
All she wanted to do was go back to last night and erase everything she'd done. She wanted to erase ever going into the bathroom and rummaging through the bottom cabinets. She wanted to erase coming face to face with the black and pink Kotex box, and she wanted to erase even remembering the fact that she hadn't used the contents of the box in a while. But even more than that, she wanted to go back two months ago and erase making the mistake in the first place. If she could erase that, then she surely wouldn't be in the predicament she was in.
What if she was? God, what would that mean? What would that mean for her? For Alex?
Unconsciously, she brought her hand up to her mouth and began nervously gnawing at her thumbnail. She knew she needed to find out for sure, but there was a small part of her that didn't want to. There was a part of her-a small part, but a part nonetheless-that allowed herself to believe that if she didn't know, she could ignore it. If she didn't know for sure, then it didn't exist. Willful ignorance was her approach, and it was a foolish one. Internally, she knew she was making a mistake. She knew that she needed to woman up and grab the plastic CVS bag she shoved underneath the bathroom sink this morning. She knew she needed to sit down, take the test and find out. But she just...couldn't.
"Jo!" For the fifth time, Steph called her friend's name and thankfully, this time seemed to be the one that caught her attention. What the hell was wrong with Jo? She was so off today.
Jo snapped out of the trance she was in and looked at her friend, her thumb still residing in her mouth. "Hmm?"
"Your finger," Steph motioned to the one that Jo was still unconsciously chewing on and raised her eyebrows. "You gonna take care of that?"
"My fing…," Jo's voice trailed off and she finally took her thumb from her mouth to see what Steph was talking about. When she did, she found that a bright red river of blood was dripping from the corner of her thumb and down into the palm of her hand. "Crap," she mumbled, grabbing two napkins from the holder in the middle of the table and pressing it to the hangnail she unknowingly bit off.
"Yeah…" Steph wrinkled her brows and just stared at her. "You sure you're cool?"
"I'm fine…" Jo dabbed her thumb and took the blood-spotted napkin away to access the damage. It looked fine. It was nothing an adhesive bandage couldn't fix. "I'm out of it today."
"Yeah, I'll say," Steph rolled her eyes and looked down at the chicken caesar salad in front of her. She knew that something deeper was wrong with Jo, but she couldn't force her to tell her and that was the end of it. As long as she refused to spill her guts, she couldn't help her. Because Stephanie knew better than to push Jo to talk about something she clearly didn't want to.
All of a sudden, the pager around her neck began to beep and again, Jo was forced to snap out of her trance and come back to reality. She jolted and sat upright, pulling at her pager and looking down at it.
"Torres, 9-1-1. I've gotta go," she scooted her chair out and stood up quickly.
She left her cup of soda on the table, didn't bother cleaning up her bloody napkins and disappeared. Steph just stared at the mess she left and closed her eyes for a moment. It wasn't like Jo to leave her mess lying on the table when she left. No matter how busy she was, she almost always found a way to dump her trash in the garbage cans. A lot of things were unlike Jo today, but perhaps leaving her mess was the one most notable. She didn't know what the hell was wrong with Jo.
Something was, though.
Still distracted and completely out of it, Jo yanked her shoulder-length brunette hair up into a lazy ponytail and hurried into trauma room three, hoping that Dr. Torres wouldn't be too upset with the fact that she was showing up nearly ten minutes after she had been paged. She didn't want to, but if she had to, she'd explain. She'd tell her that she didn't mean to be late. She'd tell her that she had been feeling nauseous all day and she had to make a pit stop in the bathroom to puke her brains out. It was the truth, and it was what she owed her. She always gave Dr. Torres the truth.
She chomped on the peppermint she stole from the nurses' station to ensure her breath wasn't disgusting from vomiting and pulled the door open. Standing over the patient on the gurney, Callie was too busy punching numbers into the electronic chart to notice Jo's entrance. Jo stood beside the door and tried to access the injuries without having to ask for the chart. She figured the longer she could go unnoticed, the better. The longer she could put off being yelled at, the better. She looked at the way the patient's leg was misaligned and tucked that in the back of her head. She looked at the dark red bruises on his chest and tucked that away too. Okay, so...obviously he's got a femur fracture...maybe a fractured clavicle?
Callie looked up for a moment, back down at the chart and then quickly back up when she noticed Jo. She adjusted the lead vest on her chest, put the chart down on the counter and looked at Jo with both disappointment and irritation in her eyes.
"You have something else better to do, Wilson?"
"N-No," Jo shook her head.
"When I page you 9-1-1, you run. Not walk and take a stroll through the hospital."
"Yes ma'am."
"Why the hell did it take you ten minutes to get here?"
"I'm sorry, I was just-"
"Nevermind it," Callie cut her off, shaking her head and picking the chart back up. "I need you to get over here, look at his shoulder and tell me what you see." Jo nodded her head but for some reason, her feet felt as though they were glued to the ground. She couldn't move. "Today!"
"Yes ma'am," Jo whispered only loud enough for herself to hear and scurried over to the table.
She stood next to Callie and nervously looked at the patient's shoulder. Her mind wasn't in the room though. She was just too distracted to even look at the patient's shoulder the way she needed to be. She saw his shoulder and the way it was visibly out of the socket, but she couldn't even form the right words to tell Callie what she saw. She just...couldn't. Her mind was blank. Callie obnoxiously cleared her throat, trying to get Jo's attention. Jo looked at her but she didn't even know what to say. The words...they just weren't there.
"I asked you what you see," Callie demanded.
"You did? I'm sorry I just didn't…" Jo shook her head and tried her hardest to focus. "...Is that a...clavicle fracture? With edema around the…"
"Spit it out, Wilson. This is textbook stuff, stuff that the interns could tell me. Get it out so I call for an x-ray." Callie scrolled through the chart and waited for Jo to find her voice. Jo stared down at the unconscious patient's arm and for some reason, her jaw began to tremble. Should she tell her? Tell her that she didn't think she could be in there for the x-ray? She didn't know for sure, but she should still be safe...right? Because if she was…she didn't want to hurt the... did she? Her vision soon blurred over with tears, and she couldn't hold them back. She just couldn't. They spilled over the rims of her eyes and she swallowed a lump in the back of her throat. Callie finally put the chart down for good and looked at Jo without noticing the tears at first. Jo sniffed and brought her hand up, wiping her nose with the back of her palm. "Are you…," her voice trailed off before she got the last word out, because the question she was going to ask was answered with one glance. "Wilson, are...are you okay?"
Jo nodded her head feverishly and turned around, just so Callie couldn't see her face while she cried. She didn't know where the hell the tears came from. They came out of nowhere.
"Jo," Callie called her name. Jo just shook her head. "Jo, what's going on?" Jo shook again. "What's going on?" Callie grabbed her arm. "What's wrong?"
"Can you just do the x-ray without me?" Jo sniffed and finally pulled herself together. "I...I'm sorry, I just...I need… Can you just do the x-ray without me?"
"'Why? You're the one that asked to be on my service today, did you not want to be? Because I can easily-"
"No, no," trembling, Jo shook her head again and more tears rattled off her cheeks. "No, that's not it. I want to. I want to be on your service. I just...I don't think I can...be...in here when you…"
Callie was silent as what Jo was saying finally resonated with her. Her eyes flashed from Jo's face down to her abdomen, which was still perfectly flat underneath her scrub top, and back up her face. She guessed she wasn't happy. She wouldn't be sobbing if she was.
"You're… You're…," Callie hesitated. The word seemed forbidden. It seemed sensitive but using a euphemism for it seemed pointless as well. "Pregnant?" she whispered.
Upon actually hearing the word out loud, Jo burst into tears again. It sounded so much scarier when it was said. It sounded so much more...real. And she couldn't hold it in anymore.
"I think...I mean, maybe. I might be," she sniffed. "I don't know for sure...I'm too scared to...actually find out, but...I...I haven't...I haven't had a period in a month and I'm not usually ever late, but I mean...I'm on birth control so I just...I thought…" she shook her head. "But I messed up on it last month and I just doubled up because I thought that was going to be fine...I wasn't...I wasn't having sex, because obviously when me and Alex weren't together I wasn't screwing around but then...I mean I let him come home and then he talks and he gets all sweet and...I mean of course we had sex but I thought it was fine. I didn't think twice about it. But now I skipped my frickin' period and I…" she looked up at Callie, her eyes filling back up with tears. "I'm just too...scared to know for sure."
Callie softened a bit. She remembered being there with Sofia. Granted, she wasn't exactly as scared as Jo seemed to be, but she was scared nonetheless. Especially since Arizona was gone when she found out. She remembered wanting to lock herself up in the bathroom when she found out for sure. She remembered staring at the test and thinking how impossible it must've been. But she wasn't unhappy. That was one way she and Jo weren't exactly alike. She cleared her throat and put her hand on Jo's shoulder. Admittedly so, she didn't quite know how to react to seeing Jo cry. She liked her, she did. She thought Jo was tough and she was gritty and she was a hell of a lot of fun to work with. She was a good student too, a quick learner. But that's why she didn't know how to react. Around her, Wilson had always been tough and eager to learn. Never once had she seen her cry. It was a bit unnerving.
"...If you want, I can run a blood test for you. I won't make up a chart and we can do it discreetly...only if you want," she offered. Jo looked at her with sad but hopeful eyes. Callie could tell that this was something said in confidence. "Only if you want. And I won't tell anyone."
"You won't?" Jo's eyebrows raised, as if she was genuinely surprised. She trusted Dr. Torres, but up until now, their relationship was professional. She trusted Dr. Torres about everything medical. She didn't know she could trust her with something so personal.
"Of course I won't," Callie assured her, but internally, she was slightly insulted. Did Jo really think she'd blab her business?
"Thank you," Jo whispered. She wiped her face again and sniffed, pulling her scrub top over her face to properly pull herself together. She dabbed her eyes with the papery blue cloth and sniffed again. "Thank you," she repeated.
"No problem," Callie mumbled, patting her shoulder as one last sign of reassurance. "Go wait for me in trauma room two. Close the blinds and keep the lights out. I'll get this x-ray done and meet you in there in a minute."
"Okay," Jo nodded.