As promised, Kendra arrived early the next day, catching Aurora and Suzaku in the kitchen as they finished breakfast. She immediately deposited her equipment in the doorway and strode over to Suzaku, who felt a little pinned by her narrow-eyed intent. Leaning over and taking his face in her hands, Kendra inspected him; for what, he had no idea as he stilled instinctively with alarm. He wanted to shrink away under her pitiless gaze, but he could sense that she wasn't going to let him go until she was satisfied, so Suzaku held still and quiet, gazing back with a strength he'd thought he'd forgotten. Finally, Kendra nodded, her warm, capable hands still braced against his cheekbones.
"You're back." Of course. Aurora would have certainly turned to her doctor friend for help when he'd so completely withdrawn. He considered being irritated with her, but remembered her concern in being qualified enough to care for him. Suzaku was the one to blame for his frailty, not Aurora.
So instead, he just nodded solemnly. "I am. Sorry for worrying you." When Kendra withdrew her hands, he swept his eyes to Aurora. "Both of you." In the strange yo-yo-ing of yesterday's events, he'd forgotten to make that particular apology. She just tilted her chin in acknowledgement, winking faintly at him before smiling over at Kendra.
"Hey, gorgeous."
"Darling," Kendra replied, her voice straightforward despite the affectionate term of endearment. There was a soft glow to her skin under her usual frank demeanor and, snagging a piece of bacon, she munched while economically plopping down in a chair, managing to simultaneously greet and ward off Ban. Aurora furrowed her brows at the doctor as she tugged on Ban's tail, who was hopefully gazing at Kendra, trying to convince her to share her treat.
"I thought you didn't like bacon." Kendra just shrugged, taking another bite of fried pork. Aurora frowned at her slightly for a moment before her expression smoothed in dismissal. Kendra looked at Suzaku with assessing eyes.
"Your hair is shorter." He nodded slowly, running his fingers instinctively through his hair at her attention, pointing his chin towards Aurora.
"Yeah, she wrangled me into it yesterday." The doctor nodded, and like most of her expressions, the approval was slightly clinical.
"I like it. How did you use to cut your hair?" He shrugged, vaguely remembering hacking at it when it started to catch in his mask.
"I got around to it occasionally with a standard pair of scissors. I didn't have much of a hand at it, though," Suzaku added with a smile, glancing over at Aurora. Her answering grin was interrupted by Kendra's next, coyly mordant words.
"At least you never used a buck knife." Aurora swiveled in her seat, pinning Kendra with wide, defensive eyes.
"One time! One time," she repeated, holding up her index finger. "And you've never let me live it down. At least I didn't punch a guy in the face for dicking with my cataloguing." Not sure what she meant by that accusation, Suzaku instead tried to puzzle out Kendra's statement.
"Why in the world would you cut your hair with a buck knife?" His question successfully dragged Aurora's irritated attention away from Kendra, who ignored her friend's exasperation in favor of scratching Ban's chin. Aurora just shrugged in response.
"I'd almost gotten it ripped off one day by some crazy assholes trying to steal my car like a couple of bitchy cowards right after the collapse. It was too much of a risk, and it pissed me off like nobody's business, so I hacked it off with the only thing on hand."
"She looked like someone from an insane asylum," Kendra added, blinking owlishly at Aurora's glare.
"I did not. Only mildly deranged. I've been growing it out ever since. It's finally as long as it used to be. Anyway!" Aurora said with emphasis. "So? What's the plan for today?" Kendra eyed Suzaku at Aurora's question.
"Well, the last of the stitches should be coming out. And, if we're lucky, we can get you into a functional brace today." Suzaku had only the vaguest sense of what that meant, but seeing the way Aurora's eyes lit like opals, subtle but luminescent, he assumed it was something positive.
"Fantastic! Let's get this done!" she gleamed, her excitement infectious enough to draw a full grin out of Kendra and Suzaku. But when the doctor's eyes met his, Kendra had that expression she sometimes took – the serious physician focusing her attention on her patient with the unerring accuracy and potent strength of a ballistic missile.
"Do you mind company, Suzaku?" He realized with a start that Aurora had never sat in with him and Kendra during one of his… appointments, he supposed seemed the most appropriate word. He saw no reason for her not to come, and she might provide some distraction from the dozens of stitches he was about to get extracted.
"No, not at all," he confirmed, strangely rewarded at the flicker of relief in Aurora's eyes. So the entire gang, including Ban, trooped upstairs to his bedroom, which apparently doubled as a procedure room. As Suzaku got out of his shirt and sling, he lightly flicked his thumb over the bristly rows of stitches, finally finished in their purpose of holding his ragged flesh together. Aurora helped Kendra with her equipment, which as usual, should have been much too heavy for the smaller woman to be hefting around. They moved together with the fluidity and familiarity of routine. He could see that this obviously mirrored how they normally worked; Kendra, with the experience and knowledge, directed and made decisions, while Aurora, quick-witted and extraordinarily nimble, worked in the support capacity so Kendra could concentrate.
It was like watching some strange, medical sort of dance. Once Kendra was gloved and they deemed themselves ready, they directed Suzaku to the chair the doctor normally used during her visits. Once he sat, Aurora lightly dabbed his sutures with a clear liquid that stung just enough for him to have to work to keep a straight face, likely rubbing alcohol. With a steady, gentle hand, she dried his skin, the wounds sensitive to the touch. Disinfected and ready, Kendra stepped closer, inspecting the injuries with eyes slightly narrowed behind her glasses. She held in her white-gloved hands a tiny pair of scissors and delicate looking tweezers. With a genteel calm, Kendra explained as she set to work.
"Because we'll be pulling so many stitches, I'm going to apply a very mild anesthetic. It's just a topical cream." Suzaku wondered at the odd, unnecessary clarification as she smeared cold goo over his wounds before he realized – they were keeping needles away from the junky. He didn't have long to be bitter, however, before Kendra was cutting through the first set and the ponderous progression began. It only took about three stitches along his collarbone before Suzaku was insanely grateful for the anesthetic. His muscles would be twitching for days if he had to tolerate removing the full amount of stitches without a buffer. Once Kendra settled into her slow, painstaking work, Aurora plopped down on the floor next to Suzaku, her legs crossed into the lotus position.
"So remember how Kendra never lets me forget about cutting my hair with a buck knife?" Eager to be distracted from the relatively painless but sincerely odd procedure, Suzaku aimed all of his attention towards Aurora and nodded. He had no way of knowing that Kendra glared in a quelling manner over her shoulder at her friend, but just as Kendra was impervious to Aurora's annoyance, so too was Aurora unaffected by Kendra's.
"Well, at least I never loosened a guy's teeth for messing up the color order of my vet wrap rolls." This was said with a lot of dancing brows and gleaming eyes.
"You know I'm particular about my medical equipment," Kendra reasoned primly. "Stop laughing, Suzaku," she chided softly. "I can feel it, you little butt," she continued, lightly nudging his chest, her voice amused. This only made Suzaku's shoulders shake harder as he silently sniggered despite the ache in his ribs, and Kendra paused in her work with an enormous sigh. As she resumed, Suzaku glanced down to see Aurora with a mischievous, slightly vengeful expression, tapping her fingers rhythmically against her thighs.
"Particular? More like anally obsessive to the point of frightening. Probably the side effect of being a child prodigy. She nearly put me in a vat of oil when I misplaced her favorite size of gauze pads during restock."
"Are you implying that I'm a witch, Aurora?" Kendra asked mildly.
"Not at all." Her expression, however, said 'Maybe…' As Kendra worked towards the end of the row along his collarbone, she carefully tested each exposed stretch of his seams to be certain they could hold. The small nips of pain, deeper in muscle and skin than the mild pain-killer could reach, were almost reassuring. No nerve damage, and no wrenching sensation of being torn open. It was also the only way Suzaku could track the progress, since Kendra had gently nudged his chin away multiple times, reminding him that she couldn't see around his head and hair. And honestly, he didn't even really want to look. The few glimpses he caught of black string being pulled through pale skin had made his stomach shrivel.
"I guess the only thing you can be accused of is being brilliant, huh, smarty pants?" Aurora nudged. "I forget, how old were you when you graduated high school?" Since Aurora didn't forget personal details, especially about someone with whom she was close, Suzaku could only assume that she had a point. Kendra sighed, finishing the first of three sections of stitches.
She lightly stroked a finger over the incision, minutely nodding in satisfaction. Carefully, Kendra maneuvered Suzaku's arm so she could apply the anesthetic to the oddly angled two inch line of stitches on the inside of his bicep. There was a matching set on the outside, and Suzaku's eyes only flicked over twice as she started on the first stitch before landing permanently on Aurora. That was probably why he jumped a little when Kendra finally answered Aurora's question.
"I was thirteen when I graduated high school. But it took me six years to earn my doctorate." Suzaku blinked several times, stunned beyond reply. Through the shocked flutter of his eyelashes, he managed to make out Aurora's warm, faint smile. It occurred to him that Aurora was proud of Kendra, proud in a way beyond simple friendship. It was the way siblings looked at each other, the way his brothers had never looked at him. She'd been so right that day in Galway. He hadn't really understood then, but realized now, looking at the way Aurora indirectly bragged about Kendra's intelligence, that family truly wasn't always bound by blood, and blood was no guarantee for that kind of love.
"Six years? Jeez, Kendra, that long?" Aurora teased, now bouncing out a rhythm on her knees with her fingertips in a manner reminiscent of playing the piano. Suzaku didn't even have to turn his head to see the rolling eyes and quirked smile on the doctor's face.
"Remind me again of your graduation date, Aurora?" Kendra pointed out drily. Instead of stiffening, as he would have assumed, Aurora just grinned wickedly.
"High school? Never. But I graduated from the school of the seven bells when I was a wee lass at ten years old. So there."
"The school of what?" Suzaku asked, thoroughly confused by her answer.
"The school of the seven bells is a vest on a mannequin with seven bells sown into the pockets. When you can pull something out of each of the vest's pockets without ringing the bells, you graduate," Kendra patiently explained, almost finished with the inside of his arm.
"It's how a pickpocket is trained," Aurora added, brushing her hand over the pocket of her jeans and producing something that she twirled between her long fingers. It was a silver antique pen. At first, Suzaku didn't realize the significance of it, but remembered seeing it poking out of the breast pocket of Kendra's blouse when she'd been prepping. "And I'm something of a natural." She smirked, tossing the pen in the air and deftly catching it.
"Yes, yes, you're impressively sticky fingered. Now would you put my pen back, please? I thought you were over that phase," Kendra said wryly as she finished the second set. Rotating his arm again and applying the anesthetic on the last incision, she settled into the third row of sutures, pausing only to hold out her left arm so Aurora could return the pen back where it belonged, the pair exchanging a glance Suzaku couldn't quite see. Settling back on the floor, Aurora stuck out her tongue at the doctor, her eyes still dancing with mirth.
"You think it's cool when I nick peoples' stuff," she insisted.
"Occasionally. Just not my stuff," Kendra candidly clarified. She looked up under her brow just as Suzaku glanced over, and winked at him before turning her attention back to his stitches. It was good to see, and lessened his confusion. The line between seriousness and humor was razor-thin with Kendra, thick with sarcasm and deadpan rebuttals. He remembered Aurora saying that Chandler was the only one who could make Kendra truly laugh. It wasn't that she didn't have a sense of humor – it was just so dry, it didn't seem to exist at all.
As Kendra neared the end of the final set of stitches, Aurora seemed to react to an invisible cue from the doctor – unfolding herself from the floor, she withdrew Kendra's beloved yellow x-ray machine from its case, and something else he couldn't quite see. Finally, Kendra extracted the last piece of black silk from his broken skin. Very carefully, she ran the pad of her thumb along the newly freed incision, a sensation Suzaku couldn't feel but could make out from the corner of his eye.
"You have some internal stitching deeper in the muscles of your arm as well, but that's absorbable, and if it hasn't gone away by now, it will in the next month. I won't know until I take another look at your x-rays, but as it stands, I'm still leaning towards leaving your plates in. If that is indeed the case, you should be done with stitches." A bizarre wave of knee-numbing relief swept through Suzaku, making him grateful he was already sitting. The idea of yet again going under the knife, torn apart and stitched back together just so he could function, was not a pleasant notion.
The x-rays took less time than before, Kendra aiming her device with precision, only taking a few images per injury sight. It was neatly, exactly, bundled away and, looking over, Suzaku saw Aurora holding a contoured piece of black plastic in her hands, standing with the still anticipation of someone waiting to be called into action.
Kendra taped squares of gauze on the two injuries on his arm, then gestured Aurora over. Together, the pair strapped a brace onto his upper arm. Lined with a thin layer of foam, Kendra adjusted the two arched pieces to snugly press against his skin. He assumed that the pressure would hurt. But the mild, squeezing weight actually relieved a great deal of the pain, and Suzaku released a long, windy sigh. The two women smiled quietly at his obvious acceptance of the newest medical accessory.
"I still want you to wear the sling for another week, just to make sure your collarbone heals. After that, Aurora will start you on some shoulder exercises that should begin loosening up the joint. It's going to be stiff, and it's going to hurt. From here on out, pain won't necessarily mean a relapse. You're going to have work through it." Suzaku nodded as he shrugged on his shirt.
"I'm not afraid of pain," he assured her. Kendra quickly looked up from the x-ray upload, searching first Suzaku's expression, then Aurora's. His face was quiet, certain, and resigned. But Aurora's eyes, briefly pressed closed, had dimmed, heartbreak and regret glimmering along with faint tears. Kendra nodded in response to his words, giving Aurora time to collect herself before Suzaku turned around and retrieved his sling from her.
"Good. Now let me get a look at these x-rays, then I'll join you two in the kitchen." Dismissed, the pair left Kendra to her pictures, and made their way downstairs. Aurora had by now controlled her expression, leaving only her usual bright half smile.
Suzaku took a seat at the kitchen table, watching as Aurora started her tea, puzzled by the agitated energy that faintly vibrated from her skin. When she sat across from him, her brow was wrinkled with thought, her eyes slowly tracing the ceiling.
"Something wrong?" he quietly hazarded. Aurora's eyes landed on him, narrowed and appraising.
"No. But something's up." Suzaku tilted his head in question, and Aurora looked back up at the ceiling. "Kendra's hiding something. She's… different. I'm not sure how specifically, but… I don't know, something's off. And she's not a sharer, so it'll be like pulling teeth." The arch look she leveled at him initially made Suzaku assume she was alluding to him. It was true, but another look at her face revealed she was referring to herself as well.
"Seems to be something we all have in common," he quietly murmured. Aurora's mouth crooked, and she was about to respond when Kendra's light steps pattered down the stairs. Ban met her at the newel post, his tail wagging hard enough to crack against the door frame of the kitchen. The dog didn't make a sound, but Aurora winced.
As Kendra entered, she immediately zeroed in on Suzaku as she drew closer to the table. "Your x-rays look good. Stick with the sling with another week, then we should be taking it off the next time I come to visit. Any other questions?" Suzaku shook his head, and Aurora did the same when the doctor looked to her. Finally, she sat next to Aurora with a heavy sigh, rubbing the area just above her left temple. A little nonplussed, he watched the tension and rigid discipline bleed from Kendra's body as she scrunched down in the chair. Abruptly, she looked tired and… human.
But when she opened her eyes and met Aurora's, a small, secretive smile tipped her mouth. Before she could say anything, though, Aurora angled towards her.
"Everything OK, Kendra? Seems like you've got something on your mind." Kendra growled in irritation, and Suzaku stood to get himself a glass of water, eager to get himself out of the line of fire should the doctor lose her temper. She usually wasn't the type, but, as Aurora had said, something was off about her today.
"Do you always have to steal my thunder? Just once, once, I'd like to take you by surprise, Rora." Suzaku filled the glass, leaning back against the counter to watch the exchange. Aurora looked sheepish, but determinedly worried. Kendra just sighed, scooting farther down in the chair until she was resting her head against the back, her feet propped on the seat Suzaku had abandoned. Lacing her fingers together over her stomach, she glanced over at Aurora, and that secret smiled widened and warmed. Suzaku thought she looked beautiful, like a goddess of the old religions, even slumped down in a chair and brushes of exhaustion under her eyes.
"I'm pregnant."
In the silence that followed Kendra's matter-of-fact announcement, the rustling leaves outside were clearly audible. Then Aurora gasped, squealed, and launched herself into Kendra's arms. Babbling sweet, happy nonsense as she knelt next to her friend, neither saw the way Suzaku had paled, barely managing to deposit the glass on the counter with a clunk before he dropped it, allowing it to shatter against the tile and interrupt the feminine celebrations across the room.
Pregnancy.
Jesus, Suzaku had all but forgotten the human capacity to create and nurture life. It was so beyond his realm of existence, seeing actual living proof of that gift was… wrenching. He couldn't help but stare at Kendra, fatigued but somehow radiant with the life she bore. It was completely irrational, but she suddenly seemed infinitely more fragile to him.
A thought occurred to Suzaku, and he immediately cordoned it off so deeply inside, it barely had a chance to leave a ripple across his consciousness.
What must it be like, to be with the woman who carried your child? He'd never envied Chandler until that very moment. The instantaneous image of Euphemia round with their child almost made Suzaku drop to his knees. But he clenched his hand against the counter, gritting his jaw as he splashed black paint against the picture, until nothing but a gray smudge remained on the inside of his eyelids. After a few moments, he was again able to hear Aurora's excited questions.
"How far along are you?"
"I just started the second trimester." He looked up in time to see Aurora roll her eyes.
"Oh, my God, it's true. Doctors are the worst patients."
"What? In case you've forgotten, I've been a little busy." But nothing Kendra could say would dim Aurora's glowing smile. Clearing his throat, Suzaku straightened and angled for the doorway.
"I'll give you ladies a little privacy," he managed to murmur. But as he started walking away, he heard the grunt of a chair being pushed back. Kendra carefully caught his good arm, halting his exit.
"Suzaku, if I didn't want you to know, I wouldn't have said it in front of you." She lightly pulled on his wrist, and, his brain still stupidly convinced that Kendra was made of the thinnest porcelain, he ceded to the pressure and turned back, uncertainly meeting her eyes. It was almost like they were lit from inside, a stunning, shining gold. The doctor smiled, and it was the purest, sweetest expression Suzaku had ever seen from her.
"For however long you're with us, you're one of us. Our rag-tag little gang," she added teasingly over her shoulder at Aurora, who still knelt next to a happily panting Ban, her chin pillowed on her folded arms on the seat of Kendra's chair, a content smile curled across her mouth.
"It matters, so you deserve to know. I want you to know." She spoke so rationally and certainly, how could he possibly argue? And when she uncharacteristically wrapped him in a hug, Suzaku froze in shock. Kendra was warm, and ever so careful of how she held him, cognizant of his injuries. Yet she was the one so much more delicate; Suzaku was hesitant to hold her back. God forbid he break such a wonder. Eventually though, bowing to her determined grip, he cautiously wrapped his arm around her waist, tilting his head to whisper in her ear.
"Congratulations." She leaned back slightly, her eyes twinkling like suns.
"Thank you," she murmured back before sinking back into the embrace.
OMG, baby time! Yep, that's the news. Kendra's baking a wee Andrews. I've already got the name picked out and everything. Auntie Aurora's nearly beside herself. There were a lot of things I wanted to hit in a short space, and I think I got them all.
When I watched Pride and Prejudice recently, I realized that Aurora is one of the half dozen women in anyone's acquaintance who earns the title "accomplished." She can certainly be a fearsome thing to behold when she wants to. And somehow being a skilled pickpocket doesn't besmirch her image. Go figure.
You all know what happy bits mean by now, right? Angst is to follow.
Hope you like it!
Love, Tango