-PatB-

Amy slides her hand over my arm and kisses Lisa on the cheek as she makes her way to the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Like most nights, it's a good ten minutes before she comes out, a tiny bit flushed, the wrinkles around her eyes a little smoother.

Lisa glances at me, then turns back to Amy, "Three times a day?"

Amy flushes darker, her shoulders slumping a bit.

Lisa shakes her head quickly, "I'm not trying to be mean or anything? Would you like a little help?" Lisa rubs her face with her hands, "May we help?"

I look at Amy, spread my arms, gesture her towards me.

She climbs in my lap, and presses her face to my neck, "It helps with stress," she says.

"That's good," Lisa says. She plops onto the couch next to me, and rubs Amy's back, "I know. Taylor's not going to run away, and it'll do you good to verbalize it."

"Taylor can't run away, I've got her pinned."

"I'm not going to run even if you let me up."

"You know how some people are prone to stressing out, getting depressed, and having suicidal ideations?"

I give her a squeeze, "Yeah?"

"I have omnicidal ideations when I get too upset. I have an implementable plan to end the world for every day of the month, and two for the weekends. That's when I'm not coming up with a new way to go all dark lady Galadriel," her voice is steady, but full of pain.

"Wow," I tell her, brush her hair back, shift us both to kiss her neck, "That would be a hard thing to talk to a professional about."

"Yep. Thoughts of hurting yourself or others? Mandatory report," Amy kisses my neck, "I don't really want to kill everyone, most of the time, but it would be so easy. Loved and feared by all? Almost as easy. Masturbating a lot helps. Having you two? Helps a lot," she kisses my neck again, "Thank you."

"I love you, too," I say before kissing her hair near her ear.

She pulls back, staring into my eyes, the gold of her irises thinning as the limpid black pools of her pupils expand.

-PatB-

I pet Amy's hair while she sleeps, curled into my side, look at Lisa over the top of her head, "So," I start, then go silent again, "We face," pause. Longer pause, "This was bad enough when I only worried about you pissing her off."

"She's really sweet, and quite lazy. It should be fine."

"She made a giant robot in minutes."

"After batting it about for years. We need to keep our domestic disputes under control, use "I" statements, not be accusatory, the normal things to keep from escalating an argument into a fight. Disagreements are fine, we don't need to roll over and play dead or anything, but we don't get to be mean about it."

"I don't want to be mean about it. I don't want to fight with either of you."

"But all three of us are just so good at it," Lisa sighs, "I can start a fight just by not paying attention for a bit. You escalate so well, and Amy," Lisa pets her arm, "Amy can end any fight she gets her hands on, if she wants to."

She wraps both arms around Amy, pressing to her back and nuzzling her neck, "Yes, I love you, even if you are an omnicidal maniac."

Amy's lips curl up just a little bit.

-PatB-

"Liverpool can be a lonely place on Saturday night, and this is only Thursday morning," Lisa says along with Ringo, after singing along to "Elenor Rigby."

My lips curl and my eyes crinkle. Amy's also watching her fondly, more entranced by the girl than the movie.

A few minutes later she's singing along again, gesticulating this time, trying to get us to join in, "One, two, three, four, can I have a little more."

I recognize the song, a bit, and join in, "Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, I love you."

Amy blinks, then pulls both of us into a hug.

-PatB-

I card Lisa's hair back, and clip it. Amy's rinsing her mouth out, having woken us on her way out of bed.

Lisa's shoulders heave, and I pet her back. Amy gets a hand on her, "Hormones are normalizing, blood sugar's fine, it's just your brain messing with you."

"Can you make it stop?" Lisa whines, wiping acidic slime off her chin.

"Yes, but this isn't something I've seen enough to pinpoint properly. Carol's brain? I have her, Vicky, Aunt Sarah, and a few hundred cases of PTSD to compare to. I can't even tell where the nausea is coming from, just where it's manifesting. Fucking with it would be risky."

"Risky how? This sucks."

"And a psychologist who used to live with the first psychologist, but has since undergone a complete personality change," Amy quotes Monty Python.

"Oh," Lisa sighs, shoves herself to her feet, "Yeah, that'd be worse."

"We'll get you a script for Zofran, and I get my hands on a few more women with morning sickness while we're at it, OK?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Lisa rinses, spits, gathers Amy into a hug.

-PatB-

Amy comes back from another round of glad-handing expectant mothers, and I ask her, "Are you letting perfect block out good enough?"

"What do you mean?"

"How does Zofran work?"

"It's a serotonin receptor antagonist, that blocks signals along the vagus nerve . . . " she frowns, "Definitely letting perfect get in the way of good enough."

"What does that mean," Lisa asks, "I get the reference to perfect is the enemy of good, but?"

"I know where your nausea is triggered, and can easily build a nerve mass to check that you're not actually poisoned, then block it. Fifty or sixty nerve cells, doesn't mess with the rest of your brain, and the nausea gets suppressed about as fast as you can notice it."

"And you were trying to figure out a proper fix instead."

"Fix the root cause, not the symptom," Amy blinks several times, the corners of her eyes drooping a bit.

Lisa leans in and kisses her.

And they call Lisa's name to come back, finally. I takes a bit of fussing, but not outing me as the daddy, to let Amy and I accompany her.

A bit later we're standing in the hall, opposite the door marked Labs, waiting for Lisa to get back from providing a urine sample, already having been bled for three vials of blood. Amy only had to pee in a cup.

"You ask the best questions," Amy says, "Thank you."

"Not a problem. Never a problem, really."

She presses me against the hallway wall, and tucks herself under my chin, "I love you, too."

Lisa squishes Amy between us, stretching a little to pull me against them.

-PatB-

A/N: Work around the problem, find a different angle.