Chapter 36
Shepard-Vakarian wakes up in the hospital again, but for once she is not in the same trauma room. Garrus is sitting by her side, cradling her hand in both of his. She tries to sit up, but the hospital laid her up so that her head was lower than the rest of her body in her sports bra and under armor pants. A Salarian doctor sits beside her with some sort of wand on her stomach, which she assumes is part of an ultrasound. She should have thought better; if she had any medical care beforehand, she could have prevented herself from ending up back in the hospital once again. There is an IV in her arm with the label 'Prussian Blue' on it. Last time she had Prussian Blue in her system, it was due radioactive isotope exposure. She runs through the past few months, but the only contact with any radioactive isotopes were when she was working with Turians, but she had not had a reaction to that before.
"What happened?" she asks groggily.
"You had a seizure and then we couldn't wake you for five hours. Chakwas found you a specialist—Doctor Jonova Firon—who is checking up on you now." He explains simply.
"Why am I receiving Prussian blue?" She asks slowly.
"Testing theory. Seems correct. Waiting on bloodwork to confirm." The Salarian explains without really looking up from his monitor.
"And why am I upside down?"
"In case incorrect—prevents early labor." He explains with equal distance.
"And the baby?" Garrus brings up. Shepard-Vakarian hates herself for the fact that she did not think to ask first. He may have been able to adjust to it quickly, but she still was not entirely sure why she did not deal with it earlier, mostly just because she kept putting off the decision, which ended up making the decision for her. She had been ignoring it, only going so far as to cut out alcohol from her diet.
"Not seeing any problems." He moves the wand to the other side of her abdomen and makes a noise that could only mean that one of his theories were correct, but he does not let either of them in on what it is.
Garrus tries to take her mind off the riddle that the Salarian was setting up for them by changing the subject. "I tried to track down Maria for you, but I don't have her number. I called Solana instead, who apparently does have Maria's info. They are coming by in a bit to drop you off a change of clothes."
"Alright." She says emotionlessly, but she does squeeze his hand.
The monitor dings moments later. Doctor Firon looks at the monitor closely again and makes his satisfied chirp again. He then holds the button on the side of her bed to move her into a far more comfortable nearly seated position. He then has Garrus hold the wand in position as he prepares to give his report.
"Theory was in fact correct. Children are fine; slightly on the small side, to be expected, for twenty-six weeks but developmentally adequate." The doctor begins to explain.
"Twenty-six weeks? It should be twenty-four weeks." Shepard-Vakarian points out immediately. She was attacked twenty-four weeks ago; she was not going to forget that any time soon. It took her only three weeks to realize that she was pregnant, but she did not confirm it until yesterday even though she was already certain. Her logic, quite simply, was that if she did not know, she did not have to tell anyone.
"Hormone levels indicate later."
"Children? Did I hear you right?" Garrus asks, managing to appear at least a bit excited. That point went right past her. She was able to push through the idea of raising one child from the event, but two, or god forbid three, would make it nearly impossible. Garrus may have been willing to pretend that it was their baby, but to her, this was Harkin's child—rather his children. The prospect nearly makes her shut down completely.
"Fraternal twins." Doctor Firon turns the monitor towards them and hits a button to activate the wand. "First is the girl, healthy human at two pounds and six ounces."
She refuses to look up at the monitor. She tries to turn completely away, but that gives her a clear look at Garrus, who is utterly transfixed, watching the screen so completely that he does not even notice her. She instead turns back to the Doctor. "So, what was your theory with the Prussian blue?" she asks as nonchalantly as possible.
"Symptoms believed to be nausea, fatigue, weakness, loss of appetite, headaches, and the seizure—many of these were written off as pregnancy or stress. Low white blood count and improved condition with Prussian blue indicates that you have radiation poisoning."
"Again? How?" She asks, ignoring the fact that her husband had not moved an inch.
"Thulium poisoning."
"But I thought I had built up a tolerance to thulium?" Back when she first started working with Garrus, she had some mild symptoms which Chakwas had given her some iodine tablets to help with. After a month or two she no longer needed them to remain healthy.
"You did, but only to lower exposures. Plus, continuous exposure is higher than typical exposure and has infiltrated blood stream." He explains.
Garrus returns back to life, darting into the conversation while still keeping an eye on the monitor. "As in an internal source?"
"Yes."
He laughs and then kisses the hand that he is still holding. She does not get it.
Doctor Firon takes the wand out of Garrus's hand and takes it back to the other side. "The boy, healthy Turian boy, two pounds two ounces."
She finally looks up at the monitor, skeptical of the news. Sure enough, the screen shows a sharp face, complete with mandibles and the start of a fringe. The boy's eyes appear to be a bit less recessed than typical, but the plating on his face and the three fingered hand next to his face verify that this child is undoubtedly Turian.
"Oh my god; he's a Turian." She says incredulously. "He's a Turian…" she repeats quietly and starts tearing up with relief, finally turning towards her increasingly excited husband.
"Without a doubt." Garrus bends down and kisses her forehead. "Our children."
A new panic begins to settle in on her. "Are they okay? You said they were on the small side… I didn't take any vitamins or anything. I was wearing armor for the entirety of the past five months. I ate mostly food pills for most of the missions. I didn't sleep half the time." She rants, trying to think of every possible mistake she could have made.
"Perfectly healthy. Small only because they need dextro-nutrients, which would not have been obvious to most. Chakwas noticed but had no way to give you the nutrients. Prescribing conversion tablets to take with every dextro-meal, which should be at least two of your daily meals, as well as iodine tablets until you adjust to new exposure levels." Doctor Firon explains emotionlessly.
"Are you sure?" she asks again.
"As sure as I can be. No records of half Turians that I know of. Mismatch in gestation periods for the two species, but not concerned as at this point both are viable. Just stay close."
"Okay…I didn't see the girl." She says, regretting having said anything when she notices how completely transfixed he is onto the screen.
"Will make printouts." He moves it back over to the other side. The human girl has her hand against her face, in the same position as her brother. She has a soft face, with delicate features typical of infants. Her mouth is held in a pout, almost as if she was blowing a kiss. It takes Shepard-Vakarian just a second to be completely entranced as well.