A/N: Here's the next chapter, please enjoy!
It was a week before Ellie felt well enough to leave bed, her morning sickness seeming to get slightly better. Abby still felt the need to constantly be with Ellie in case she fainted again, and Lev even grew concerned for her, not knowing why she was so sick suddenly. Ellie and Abby sat in an exam room waiting for Gabriel to come back. The doctor had just given Ellie an exam and an ultrasound to make sure everything was going well with the pregnancy.
"Alright so," Gabriel says, coming back into the room and shutting the door behind him, "everything looks great. You and baby are both healthy so far and I can estimate that you're about six weeks and due December 11th." He adds, looking at the information on his clipboard.
"Alright awesome. What happens next? Like do we start tests for a cure?" She asks, looking up at him barely.
"Exactly. The tests I'll run are quite simple. You're pregnant so you can't have any kind of surgery unless you want to go without anesthetic. Instead, I'm going to have you come with me and I'm going to do an MRI." He explains, allowing Ellie to get up and gesturing for her to follow him.
"An MRI? I don't know, is it safe?" Abby asks as the two followed him through the corridors. She didn't know much since she wasn't a doctor, but she had always heard that MRI's could be dangerous for the fetus from knowing Mel and her own father.
"Yeah, it's perfectly safe. Before the outbreak happened there were never any studies to prove that they're dangerous during pregnancy. X-Rays on the other hand are a different story." He explains, opening the door to an imaging room.
Ellie walked into the room to see a big, tube shaped machine in the middle of the room. She had never seen this kind of technology before, of course she had this done when the fireflies tried to find a cure the first time, but she was unconscious for that, having just been brought in from nearly drowning. This time was different though. This time they were going to try and find a cure without killing her and she would be completely conscious for it.
"Alright, Ellie. This is an MRI machine; it's going to take pictures of your entire body and skeletal system. Completely painless, alright? Now do me a favor and lay down on this table here," he says, gesturing for Ellie to lay on the moveable table in the opening of the tube, "now we're going to be in another room, and we'll come back and get you when we're done."
Ellie nodded and sighed as Gabriel and Abby left. She really hoped that they'd be able to make a cure without killing her and hell, she wasn't going to let them kill her anyway. She wanted to live to see their baby grow up. Ellie jumped when she heard a loud beep and the table she was on started to move her back through the tube. The whirring of the machine was loud as the table came to a stop under the bright light.
"Alright, Ellie, are you comfortable?" Gabriel's voice asks from the speaker to her right, making her jump again. This was new to her and she wasn't sure that she liked it.
"Uh as comfortable as I can be, I guess."
"Alright great. Now don't move a muscle, okay? This will be over quick."
Ellie nodded, forgetting that Gabriel and Abby couldn't see her and looked up, trying not to squint at the bright light as the machine took the images. She started feeling nauseated the longer she was in the machine, but tried to hold everything in. The woman swallowed thickly as the table moved back out of the machine, breathing a sigh of relief as she abruptly sat up again when Gabriel and Abby came back.
"Alright, you did great, Ellie. I'm going to develop these images and try my hardest to figure something out. In the meantime, you can go on your way." He says, opening the door and showing them out of the room.
"How do you feel?" Abby asks, putting an arm around her as they started walking through the halls.
"Well," she starts, "I never thought this would happen. The cure, I mean."
"Yeah, it's going to be amazing to have a vaccine finally." Abby says, stopping and making Ellie look at her, "this is amazing." She adds, putting a hand on Ellie's stomach.
"Yeah, it doesn't feel real honestly. Sometimes I don't even believe that I'm pregnant." Ellie says, the two women stopping and turning when Lev came around the corner.
"Hey guys, what's going on?" He asks, not noticing as Abby wrapped her arms around Ellie, trying to pass the hand on Ellie's stomach off as an embrace.
Yeah, because that's not suspicious at all.
"Nothing Lev. What are you up to?" Abby asks, looking over at the teen.
"Me and Becca are going out with Michael. He found some cool hunting spots that he wanted to show me." He says, not noticing that the two women were looking at him in worry. Michael usually ignored Lev and had nothing to do with him, so the sudden interest Michael had in Lev was suspicious to them.
"Alright just be careful. Michael's very suspicious about my immunity." She says, patting the teen on the back.
"I'll be careful. I won't tell him anything!" He says, turning finally and disappearing around the corner.
"I don't like this. Michael doesn't usually bother with Lev," Abby says, looking at her girlfriend, who seemed to be thinking about something else, "El, you okay?"
Ellie snapped out of it, her breathing becoming uneven. She had been thinking about everything lately from her immunity to her pregnancy, but mostly her pregnancy.
"I can't do this. I can't be a mom; I hardly know how to take care of myself." She says, her voice cracking as a single tear rolled down her cheek.
"Hey, listen to me. It's okay, you're going to be a great mom. What you did with Dina and with JJ, that has no bearing on your ability to parent. That was a mistake, and you admit that and that's all that matters."
"Yeah, but what if the infection inside me causes the baby to turn. I could give birth to an infected for all we know, or I could die in childbirth or from birth complications like my mother did!" She says, leaning against the wall as she started to hyperventilate. Abby had Ellie sit down on the ground, frowning as she thought about it. She had never thought about that aspect. The likelihood of the baby being infected was slim but maternal death rates were at an all time high during these times.
"Hey, babe, listen to me. I'm not going to let that happen. Your immunity isn't going to affect the baby negatively, Gabriel says everything looks great. Besides, he's a great doctor and you're in good hands."
Ellie took deep breaths, her breathing becoming more even now as she started to calm down, placing a hand on her stomach.
"Just promise me that if it comes down to it, save the baby first."
Abby sighed, "Ellie_"
Ellie cut her off, "promise me."
"Okay, I promise."
Ellie nodded as she got up from the floor and started walking again. She was happy about this baby, but she was terrified. She managed to fuck up the family she had with Dina and she wasn't going to fuck this up now.
"Hey how's my favorite immune person doing?" Kyle asks as he saw them enter the sleeping quarters, smiling warmly at them. Ellie was about to say something when she was overcome with nausea and rushed to vomit in the nearest trash can.
"She's still sick but other than that she's doing fine." Abby says as she followed Ellie to their room.
"I already can't wait for this to be over." She grumbled, laying on the bed and scratching at the IV she had to keep in her arm for her severe morning sickness.
"Hey leave that alone. You need to keep that in your arm to get fluids." Abby says, grabbing Ellie's arm, "when do you want to start telling people?"
Ellie shrugged, "we can tell Lev and Rebecca in a few weeks. As for everyone else? They can find out on their own." She says, laying on her side, "I never did thank you for stepping in when Michael was holding a gun to my head. I don't know what happened, I just couldn't move."
"Well of course. You're my girlfriend and I'm going to protect you when you can't protect yourself." Abby says, wrapping an arm around her as she laid down as well.
"Did you have to keep me from beating his ass though?"
Abby laughed, "he's a lot bigger than you. You got lucky with that first punch, but he would have you thrown on the floor before you could throw another."
"Yeah, but as you said, I did get that one in before you and Kyle broke us apart. Doesn't that count for anything?" She asks, looking up at Abby, who chuckled.
"Yes well, I suppose it does."
A/N: Let me know what y'all think! Please review!