The morning after Columbus day, Lanie knew something wasn't right. She was on the eight-to-eight shift, which wasn't so fun as she was naturally a night person, but when she opened her eyes that morning she was very tempted to legitimately call in sick. Since Dave was working the six-to-six shift, he'd been up at four am and had given her a quick kiss on the cheek she'd felt before drifting back to sleep for another two hours. It still felt different having him moved into her apartment, though he'd been there just over a month; it occasionally made personal space a bit of an issue. Taking a sick day when he was on days meant she'd have their apartment to herself, peaceful and quiet so her boyfriend of a year and seven months wouldn't have to hear her hurling her guts out should it come to that. Groaning as she hauled her ass into the shower, she forced herself to fight the rolling in her belly which she wrote off as lack of sleep, something that never seemed to bother her boyfriend. She loathed his ability to adjust his internal sleep clock so easily, especially after being on vacation - Dave's mother was Canadian, with family in Montreal so they'd spent the weekend of Canadian Thanksgiving in the thriving Quebec city.

As she'd dressed and prepared for work, she began to tick off possibilities in her mind as to why she felt so crumby. Maybe it was an early flu bug. Maybe it was the cheese she'd eaten, she thought absently as she rode in the back of the coroner's van to meet Beckett and her favourite two-headed monster on scene, all that rich French food she'd tried. While many slagged off on them for various reasons, Lanie had secretly worshipped the French for their food and the ability to make the most basic ingredients into delicious treats. Friday night when she and Dave had flown into Trudeau Airport, they'd had dinner just the two of them at a traditional Quebecois taverne and Lanie was fairly certain she'd eaten her own body-weight in soft-ripened cheese, and that was before trying the insanely disgusting-looking and even more insanely scrumptious dish called 'poutine' - steak-cut fries smother in cheese curds and beef gravy thick enough to mortar bricks. And all that was before the turkey and the meatpies, and vegetables and maple-syrup butter tarts they'd eaten at Dave's cousin's house.

Even now, the thought of food was doing a devil dance with her body - her brain kept firing off idea the idea for stuffed mushrooms over and over again like it had been doing for a week - and no matter how often she indulged, she never satisfied that hungry little monster - while her stomach said 'if you put anything in here, we're going to have a very one-sided discussion on the big white phone.' Thankfully, they came to a stop, and she jumped out of the back of the wagon, hoping the bracing fresh air would slap some colour back into her pale cheeks.

She saw the police tape blocking off the narrow alley, along with Beckett and Esposito; she assumed Ryan was doing an initial interview with whoever called in the homicide. 'Morning Detectives,' she said through her teeth, willing herself to keep her stomach inside her body.

'Morning Lanie, how was gobble-day up in the Great White North? You and Dave try any beaver?' Esposito asked with a lascivious grin.

Lanie leveled him with a look. 'You're disgusting.'

'Mere doesn't seem to mind.'

'Esposito, go help Ryan with the canvass.' Beckett rolled her eyes as her detective ducked under the tape. 'I swear, ever since he came back from his honeymoon he's been one pervy punchline after another. You'd think three weeks in New Zealand with Meredeth doing nothing but taking in the sights and having sex morning noon and night would get it out of his system.'

'I think it's sweet, you know, when he's not being gross. He's having great sex with his new wife and wants everyone to know he's just thrilled about it.' Lanie opened her kit to take out her clipboard with forms, snap on her latex gloves. 'What do we have?'

'In here.'

Lanie followed Beckett into the parking garage off the alley and knew the moment she saw the body it wasn't a question of 'if' she would lose her cookies, it was 'when'.

The stench was spectacularly foul, like rotted meat that had been boiled in vinegar then left to roast in the sun. She blew out a breath as she tried to keep it together, while Beckett gave her the bullet of details on what she had but not much got through. Trying to keep the churning in her belly from taking over was taking all her energy. Finally, half-way through Beckett's spiel, she couldn't take it anymore.

'Hold this,' she demanded weakly, thrusting her clipboard at the shocked detective, all but elbowed her way past Ryan and Esposito as they made their way back to the scene.
'Lanie, you okay?' she heard Ryan call after her.

As soon as she was on the other side of the tape in the alley, Lanie let it fly, her knees almost buckling as she threw up everything her stomach could allow her to, the clenching of her muscles just horrible. She stripped off her gloves before brushing the loose hair back that had fallen over her face. Bracing an arm on the brick building across from the parking garage, she felt her face burn hotly as she heard the sound of footsteps behind her, followed by Beckett's voice.

'Lanie, you okay?'

'No. I shouldn't have come in today. I feel lousy.'

'If you want, I'll give Perlmutter a shout or Weaver, if you like.'

'Yeah, that'd be good. I'll work on something in the lab, just...' Lanie straightened up, still feeling weak as she glanced towards the parking garage. Even looking at it made her want to hurl again. Then all of a sudden, the nausea passed and the craving for stuffed mushrooms spiked up once again. 'Yeah, give Weaver a goose, he's on call for days today.'

She glanced over Beckett's shoulder, saw Esposito and Ryan standing there now too with concern on their faces. 'I'm fine, guys, really, just a little upset stomach. I'm heading back to the lab now.'

'Okay, Ryan you wait here for Weaver, Esposito go snag the parking attendant, see if they have anything useful for us.'

'Actually, do you mind if I ride with Lanie?'

Beckett arched an eyebrows. The day, it seemed, was full of surprises; Lanie had never been sick, to Beckett's knowledge, at a scene, nor had Ryan never requested to ride in the dead wagon. But then again, it couldn't hurt to make sure Lanie got back to the morgue in one piece. 'Esposito, you mind taking over while Ryan makes sure the ME isn't going to be sick again?'

'No prob.'

Too out of herself to feel anything but relieved she wouldn't be riding alone, Lanie hopped in the back of the coroner's van along with the handsome Irish detective, who said little as they bumped along the streets.

'Guess that Canadian turkey didn't agree with you, huh?' he asked as they came to a stop at a red light.

'Guess not.' Lanie braced herself against the wall of the van, her stomach doing triple flips. By the time they got back to the morgue Lanie was starting to freak a little - she still wanted the stuffed mushrooms and knew there was no way in hell she'd keep anything stronger than water down. The churning hadn't gone away either like she thought it might, and when they'd stopped at the morgue she'd double-timed it to her lab's bathroom to give a repeat performance of what happened at the scene.

When she came out, having splashed some cold water on her face to try and soothe her mentally if not physically, she saw Ryan sitting on the edge of the desk with two bottles of ginger-ale. 'Here. Schweppes had real ginger in it, not just ginger-flavoured sugar. Might help.'

'Thanks.'

He twisted the top of his own bottle, drank deeply to help get his courage up for what he had to say. 'Lanie, I hope you won't think I'm being inappropriate here, but when was the last time you, had, your...you know, lady-days?'

'My what? Oh, that, um...guess a week before the wedding, why?' When Ryan said nothing, Lanie immediately felt a zip of panic at she put two and two together. Suddenly it made sense - the nausea, the inexplicable need for stuffed mushrooms. She set her bottle of ginger-ale down, dropped weakly into her chair. 'Oh, no. No, not possible.'

'You're a doctor, Lanie, you know it's possible even with protection.'

'But how would you even make that leap?'

'Because the pasty look on your face that early in the morning is the same one Jenny got when we thought she had the flu and it was actually little zygote Dell giving her grief.'

Blindsided by this possibility, Lanie could only stare blankly at Ryan as she frantically calculated. She couldn't remember any night she and Dave hadn't suited up when skinning down...except the Wednesday night after the wedding when they had dinner at Meredeth and Esposito's house, and been so hot for each other they had banged each other's brains out in the old-fashioned clawfoot tub in Meredeth and Esposito's guest bathroom, throwing caution to the wind.

'Oh shit. Oh, God.' She buried her head in her hands, tugged on her long black hair as tears burned in the corners of her eyes. 'How could I have been so stupid?'

'It happens, Lanie. For God sakes, I got Jenny pregnant in Castle's bathroom at a Hallowe'en party. Sometimes you just get caught up in the moment.' Pulling up a chair beside her, Ryan took one of her hands in his, squeezed tightly. 'You think Dave's going to bail if it's the case?'

'I don't know. We know we want a family and stuff but we haven't been together that long. Talking about hypotheticals in the future is a lot different than realizing it might only be a few months away.'

'Maybe you should call him, head over to see him at the hospital to get a confirming test done. Don't just go by the ol' Ryan's-wife-looked-like-that-when-she-had-a-cupcake-cooking method.' Ryan smiled softly when she laughed. 'You'll do fine, Lanie. Dave loves you. You'll sort it out.'

'Okay.' Not letting go of Ryan's hand she whipped out her cellphone, dialed Dave's number; he picked up on the third ring.

'Hey sweetie,' he said, his mouth full of something to eat. 'What's going on, you caught a live one?'

'Are you at the hospital?'

'No, I'm on my way back from uptown, why?'

'I'm going to come in to the clinic, could you meet me there?'

'Elenia.' Now his voice was clear, and deadly serious. 'What's up?'

'I think I'm pregnant.'

R&R&Enjoy.