DISCLAIMER: Scarecrow and Mrs. King are the property of Warner Brothers and Shoot the Moon Productions. My use of these characters is intended purely for entertainment, a few laughs and maybe a sigh or two
Title: Great Expectations 8/?
Author: Merel Inglis
Time Frame: Takes place after the show ended, the marriage is common knowledge
Summary: We know he can shoot with deadly accuracy, drop-kick a KGB agent in to the next day without mussing his hair, and bootleg his 'vett into any parking space in DC. But how will the charming and dashing Lee Stetson face the adventures of becoming a father?
Rating: G
Archive: Fine, but ask first
Feedback: You betcha; can't get better without it!
Author's Notes: Thank you, Pam, for taking the time to beta-read for me. Your feedback and interest in this story is much appreciated.
"Amanda, you've been through this before. Twice. You know that morning sickness is, for some women, inevitable." Dr. Brice looked again at Amanda's chart, then glanced back her patient, who was sitting in a chair next to her desk.
"I know, Penny, it just seems different this time. It comes and goes at the oddest times. With Phillip and Jamie, at least I knew that once I got up, had a bite to eat and got moving, it would be gone. Now it just comes on me at the weirdest times. I'll be fine and then suddenly the nausea hits me."
Penny shook her head. "I don't know what to tell you, Amanda. You're older now, maybe…" the intercom interrupted her train of thought. She answered the phone. "Yes, Ann? Oh, okay, wait a second," she placed her hand over the phone and looked at Amanda. "Lee's here, do you want Ann to send him in?"
Amanda smiled. "Yeah." Lee had said he wanted to attend this appointment with her but had been running late with a report he had to get on Billy's desk by noon. She was happy he'd made it, hoping that Penny's reassurances that this was simply a strange case of "morning sickness" would ease his over-active imagination.
"Send him in, Ann." She hung up the phone and smiled at Amanda. "How's Lee doing with all this?"
Amanda waved her off with a hand. "Don't ask…next thing you know he's gonna be convinced I have Dengue Fever."
A second later the door opened and Lee's head popped in. "Okay if I come in?" he questioned the two women.
"Yes, Lee, come on in." Penny smiled at her favorite expectant father.
Lee walked over, pulling a chair up next to Amanda's. Leaning in he gave her a quick kiss on the lips and nuzzled her cheek briefly before taking a seat.
"Amanda and I were just discussing the problem she's having with morning sickness and I wanted to reassure you..." Penny broke off as she glanced from Lee to Amanda, noticing her pale complexion. "Amanda, are you okay?"
"Ah…" Amanda closed her eyes and took a breath. "I'm not feeling so good," she whispered as she felt the familiar rush of nausea sweep across her stomach.
"Yes, I can see that," Penny looked at her with concern. "Do you need to use the bathroom?"
"Yes, I think so," Amanda shot out of her chair, heading for the private bathroom in the doctor's office.
Lee's eyes followed his wife with uneasiness, then looked back at Dr. Brice. "See, this is what happens. She seems fine and then it just hits her."
"Lee," Penny asked, "how often does this happen?"
"Seems to me all the time, but Amanda will argue with you on that. I just know that to me she always seems to be running to bathroom to be sick."
"Hmmmm." Dr. Brice bit her lip in concentration. Slowly an idea, more of a memory, trickled through her brain. She raised an eyebrow, narrowing her eyes with the sudden thought. She reached for a pile of papers and journals that were stacked haphazardly on the corner of her desk. Rummaging through them for a moment, she pulled out a journal and began thumbing through it.
Amanda emerged from the bathroom, a tissue in her hands, looking decidedly less ill than she had before entering.
"Amanda," Penny questioned without raising her eyes from her search of the journal. "Lee tells me you're sick all the time."
"No," she huffed, looking at her husband. "I'm not, Lee, I've told you that. He just thinks that because whenever he's around I usually am sick."
As the words left her mouth Amanda felt another wave of nausea hit her. She glanced at Lee and then her friend, realizing in the pit of her stomach that she was about to hear something she didn't want to hear.
Penny met her gaze and their eyes locked. "I found it." She gestured to the journal. "An article in the newest issue of The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. It's a case study on a rather interesting, although rare, phenomenon concerning pregnancy, morning sickness and…allergies."
"Allergies," Amanda murmured, swallowing in her attempt to keep the remaining contents of her stomach in place.
"Yes," Penny said, her eyes sliding from Amanda over to Lee. "It seems that in very rare cases, the hormones released during the first trimester of pregnancy can bring on allergic reactions. Some of the time, most of the time, the allergies are food related. But not always."
"Not always," Lee echoed.
"No. Sometimes they seem to be centered on pheromones…those are odorless chemicals secreted by the body. It's long been felt that pheromones play an integral part in sexual attraction. In this study they looked at women who appeared to be suffering an allergic reaction, exhibited by nausea that mimicked morning sickness.
Lee shook his head. "I don't understand. What are you saying."
"Well, my best guess is that Amanda might be allergic…" she smiled sheepishly at Amanda and then stared pointedly at Lee, "…to you."
To Be Continued