"Sabrina! Max! Come in, come in!" Dr. Ouazani grinned from ear to ear as he stepped back from the door to usher them inside. "Thank you so much for coming over tonight! Yamina has been working away busily in the kitchen ever since she got home from work – I tried to help, but with… mixed results. But the lamb has been cooking most of the day, and the other dishes are just about finished."
Sabrina smiled. "I'm sure it will all taste fantastic," she assured him, following him down the short hallway to the kitchen and placing her dish on the counter. "Hopefully this cake turned out okay; Max can attest that I am not nearly as talented of a baker as my mother is!"
Max placed a hand on her arm. "You are every bit as talented as anyone else," he told her.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "You're sweet, but we both know some much better bakers than me."
"Perhaps," Max allowed, nodding his head in concession, "but if so, then there is no shame in that."
"Yes," Dr. Ouazani agreed, smiling in amusement. "Very few could compete with Marinette Agreste and her father! At least in that regard."
Looking around the living room, Max's eyes widened in surprise. "Where are your boys? From everything I had heard, I fully expected to find your apartment a warzone, whenever your twins happen to be home."
Sabrina giggled. "The way you talk about them, they almost sound like the Césaire twins – two girls who live in my parents' building," she added for Dr. Ouazani. "I used to babysit them more, but they're just about old enough to look out for themselves now. And I'm much busier now than I was in collège and lycée."
"Aren't we all?" Dr. Ouazani replied rhetorically, chuckling. "Leïla brought the twins down to the park for a couple hours, just to make sure that Yamina and I would have the time to clean and cook before you arrived. They should be returning shortly – assuming Salim and Samir didn't find one of their friends and run off!"
Sabrina's eyes widened, and she shook her head ruefully. "That poor girl…"
Dr. Ouazani smiled. "Don't worry too much about her; Leïla is very good with young children – the boys normally obey her…"
"I'll keep that in mind," Sabrina mused. "How much does she charge for babysitting?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.
"Well, we pay her with room and board…"
At that moment, Mme Ouazani stepped out of the kitchen, carrying an enormous roaster loaded down with most of a lamb. "That's not what she was asking, and you know it," she teased him, smiling in amusement. Setting the roaster on the table, she turned to Sabrina and Max. "I think Leïla would be thrilled to babysit for you if you asked her," she assured them. "Although with how busy that girl is these days…"
Max chuckled. "I can imagine – starting a new lycée, and especially Pasteur, is an enormous commitment."
Mme Ouazani nodded ruefully. "Part of our hope in coming to Paris was that Leïla would have these opportunities, that she would be able to study and receive the best education possible. But I do sometimes worry that we might be pushing her too much."
"Mme Ouazani," Sabrina began, focusing her senses on the woman for a moment before diving deeper, searching for the mote of emotions buried within here that would indicate her baby's presence. After a moment, she finally located that spark and studied it carefully. Huh. Before she could continue, Mme Ouazani gave a dismissive wave.
"You can just call me Yamina – our children are going to grow up together; it hardly feels appropriate for you to call me 'Mme Ouazani.' Unless I should call you 'Mme Kanté'!" Yamina raised an eyebrow at Sabrina with an amused smile.
Sabrina felt warmth in her cheeks. "Not yet," she began, taking Max's hand. "But soon."
"Oh?" Dr. Ouazani – Tarik – cocked his head to one side in surprise. "Have you set a date for it then?"
Max nodded. "The baby's due date is in January; we are planning a small ceremony next month with our families as preparation for it."
"But we will have a larger celebration next summer," Sabrina added, squeezing Max's hand. "And you will absolutely be invited for that!"
"Even with a newborn?" asked Yamina, resting one hand on her stomach.
Nodding reassuringly, Sabrina stifled a laugh. "Yours will not be the only ones there," she assured her.
"'Ones'." Dr. Ouazani blinked. "I'm sorry?"
Sabrina's eyes widened, and she flushed. "Um…"
"Tarik…" Yamina began, giving him a surprised look. "There was something Dr. Brasseur told me at my appointment today, and I wasn't sure how to tell you." Dr. Ouazani's eyes went wide. Yamina smiled warmly, placing one hand on her stomach and looking down. "Apparently, they found a discrepancy on the genetic test, and when they rechecked the result, there was something they had missed. We're having twins. Again."
Dr. Ouazani's jaw dropped. "How is that possible?"
"Statistically, multiple births seem to be correlated," Max pointed out. "A family with a history of twins is more likely to have them in the future."
"I know." Dr. Ouazani pursed his lips, his emotions betraying his anxiety. "But how did it happen to us? How are we to provide for two more mouths?"
"They are both happy, at least," Sabrina offered, giving him a sympathetic smile.
"I'm glad to hear that, at least." Dr. Ouazani let out his breath, his emotions shifting to relief and happiness.
Yamina stared at Sabrina with wide eyes. "How can you possibly know any of that?"
Sabrina flushed, glancing over at Max for help. Fortunately, Dr. Ouazani jumped to her rescue.
He cleared his throat. "Sabrina… seems to have a gift for these kinds of things," he explained, just as the door burst open and low chatter in a mix of Arabic and French filled the small apartment.
Two boys no older than four barreled through the apartment, chased by Leïla. "Wash your hands!" she shouted after them, rubbing her forehead as the boys disappeared in the direction of the bathroom. With a groan, she collapsed into her seat at the table. "Those two are almost more trouble than they're worth," she grumbled under her breath before glancing up and seeing Max and Sabrina. Her eyes widened, and she coughed. "Oh! Um… hi! It's – I'm glad to see you tonight!"
Sabrina smiled. "And it's good to see you, also!" she greeted Leïla. "We don't see each other nearly often enough! The last time was the wedding, wasn't it? You're always welcome to stop by my office – even if just for a cup of tea."
"I know," Leïla agreed, nodded. "Maybe I'll do that one of these days – though with school starting soon, I don't know how often I'll be free."
"'Office'?" asked Yamina curiously, cocking her head to one side and studying Sabrina.
"I'm a counselor," Sabrina explained. "Mostly at the Agreste Charity Rehab Center in the 4th Arrondissement, though I've been to all of their locations."
"At your age?" Yamina's eyes widened.
"I'm in university now to study counseling," Sabrina told her. "But I've been working part-time as a counselor for the last year in connection with my schooling."
Yamina hummed. "I imagine that's a fascinating experience, working with all of those different people in their distress!"
Sabrina nodded. "I suppose what I do isn't too much different from Dr. Ouazani – or Leïla," she added. "I see people in trouble, and I try to help them resolve whatever is troubling them. I don't use medicines or surgeries or anything like that, of course – if someone needs medication, they have to see someone else for that – but through my counseling people normally leave the clinic in a better position than they were in when they arrived. Sometimes, I can't do much for someone, but most of the time I can help them, even if just a little bit."
"What kinds of things do you find yourself talking about with people?" Yamina asked, as the twins returned and they sat down around the table to begin eating.
"I can't share much," Sabrina warned, taking her seat.
Yamina nodded. "Of course. Tarik shares almost nothing about his practice."
Sabrina let out a breath, helping herself to a large serving of couscous, followed by some of the lamb. "Let's see… a lot of the patients who come to me through the rehab center are struggling with addiction, of course," she began. "But for many of them, the drugs are only a small part of what is troubling them. You see, many turn to the drugs to self-medicate for more serious problems – mental illness, guilt, grief, family trouble… The rehab center can help wean them off the drugs, but without addressing those deeper issues, the drug use might be replaced by a different negative habit, leaving the person in the same states as they had arrived. So sometimes I will meet with the person for an hour-plus, only to then have to pass them off to our on-call psychiatrist to diagnose and treat an underlying mental disorder."
"That sounds like quite fascinating work," Yamina observed, passing Sabrina the next dish to help herself. "A different way of helping people – though not dissimilar from Tarik!"
"We do bump into each other at the rehab center on occasion," Sabrina agreed, raising an eyebrow at him. "And, occasionally, with Leïla!"
As they ate, Sabrina continued to focus her empathy on Yamina, and especially on the two babies growing in her. She furrowed her brows, trying to tune out the external noise, all the other emotions around them, to focus on the babies. Inhaling and exhaling slowly, she released all her own emotions into the atmosphere, emptying herself. She could feel the contentment from the babies, the affection for their situation, though one of the two's emotions shifted to discomfort for a moment before returning. At the same moment, Yamina reached down to rub her belly, frowning to herself. Sabrina smiled to herself, nodding pensively. Reaching into herself with her emotions, she tapped into the now-familiar well of happiness and contentment that was her own baby, comparing that to what she sensed out of Yamina. The feeling was similar… but yet very different. She frowned. She could feel the babies' emotions, but what did they mean? She knew that her baby was happy, but what would it mean if the baby was ever unhappy? How could she identify the differences between their emotions, let alone connect them to some cause?
And yet, she had learned to discern the differences between different people's emotions, and she had even started to make connections between their emotions and the circumstances around them. But that was not a perfect science. She could sense different emotions from the people around her perfectly; she couldn't always understand why they felt what they felt, however, without a conversation. Perhaps it would be the same way in this case: she might be able to tell that an unborn baby is upset, but she wouldn't be able to determine the cause until someone had actually examined the baby.
If she and Dr. Ouazani were going to get anything useful from this experiment, it could take a lot of extra work to determine those causations.
Beside her, Max and Dr. Ouazani were in the process of talking with Leïla about the different medical schools in and around Paris – Sabrina hadn't realized just how many options were available for becoming a doctor. She smiled, taking in the curiosity and eagerness in Leïla's emotions, the way that she leaned forward into the conversation. On the other side of the table, the twins bickered with each other, squabbling over their dinner while Yamina chided them and urged them to eat properly, though with mixed success. Sabrina smiled, taking in the comfortable attitude of the family dynamic, sensing the love and affection of the unborn twins for their mother and family.
Finally, after dinner, after cake, as Max and Sabrina were preparing to leave for home, Dr. Ouazani rose and walked them back to the door. Pausing just before leaving, Dr. Ouazani asked Sabrina, "Well?"
She frowned, thinking back on what she had felt over the evening. "I didn't feel anything bad," she began slowly. "I could sense the range of their emotions – I think they were fighting a bit. But I can't quite tell what the emotions mean, only what they are. If you still want to continue this, I can let you know what I sense, and if there's anything negative, maybe that will give you cause to look more closely. But beyond that…" She shrugged. "I wish I knew how to help. But unfortunately, even though I can sense the emotion, I can't always understand why the person feels what I sense." Letting out a breath, she sighed apologetically. "I wish I could say more."
"You already have helped," he assured her quickly. "And I would be happy to continue working with you on this project – if, that is, you are willing."
"Of course," Sabrina agreed, smiling.
Dr. Ouazani smiled back, though with some strain around his mouth.
Max paused, furrowing his brows. "Dr. Ouazani?" he began. The doctor raised an eyebrow expectantly. "Have you considered consulting on a more permanent and formal basis for us?"
"What do you mean?"
"We may have regular need for a doctor on call – especially with our nascent aerospace program. It would be beneficial to have a doctor whom we trust, who can assist whenever there is a medical emergency – more than just in Paris."
Dr. Ouazani frowned, his brows furrowed pensively. "What would this entail exactly? Remember, I do have a clinic of my own to worry about."
"Nothing that would interfere with your clinic, I hope," Max assured him quickly. "We would retain you to be on call for us. If there were ever an emergency that required your skills, I would bring you to the site and return you home."
Dr. Ouazani shrugged. "I don't see why not. But if I am seeing a patient, I may need some advance warning."
"Of course," Max promised. "I would give you forewarning to finish whatever you are doing before collecting you."
"Then, I am at your disposal."
Max smiled. "I will draft a contract for you to sign, and consult Adrien regarding compensation – a flat rate for being on call for us, along with an additional fee when we call on your services."
His eyes widened. "Oh, you don't have to–"
"We insist."