A/N: I'm not yet a doctor (maybe in 6 years ;)) so some of the medical stuff mentioned below is made up.

Chapter 6 – The test

6 weeks later

Groaning, Jordan sat up in bed. The beeping noise of her alarm clock only worsened the hammering in her head so she quickly reached over to her nightstand to switch it off. She pushed the comforter away and got out of bed. Suddenly a wave of dizziness hit her and she had to grab her bed post for support. Her stomach was turning and she took deep breaths to prevent from getting sick. This wasn't the first time she had such attacks. The past week she had to suffer from terrible headaches, dizziness and nausea. She felt as if she was coming down with something, which wasn't that unlikely because it was time for the summer flu. According to that, work was really stressful at the moment.

She waited a few moments until the dizziness and the nausea passed until she dared to move again. She went to the kitchen and made herself a tea to calm down her stomach. The thought of a real breakfast was far away after that so she stayed with tea and some crackers, the only thing she thought she could keep down. Afterwards she took a long shower which made her feel like a human being again. The headache wasn't as bad as before and the nausea was almost completely gone. Now she was ready for work.

…

Or maybe she wasn't that ready as she had thought earlier. She was standing in front of the autopsy table, preparing to cut open the dead body in front of her. Actually it was nothing special, nothing she hadn't done hundreds of times before. There was no bad smell, no bad injuries, no detached body parts, but she felt as if she would puke her guts up just from the thought of cutting into that flesh before her. Cold sweat was running down her back and her heart was hammering in her chest.

Nigel was stood across from her with a worried look on his face. She was pale like a white sheet and her hands were shaking.

"Jordan, are you okay?" he asked concerned.

He saw her gulp a few times before she let her scalpel fall down.

"Sorry, I can't…" she mumbled before she stormed out of the autopsy room with her hand over her mouth.

Outside, she nearly knocked over Woody, who was walking towards the autopsy room she just fled from. He glanced after her with a confused look on her face as she ran towards the women's restroom. He didn't want to see whatever was behind these doors if it could make Jordan sick. He prepared himself for the worst as he pushed through the doors only to find Nigel giving him a weird look and a pretty normal looking corpse. They didn't even start with the autopsy.

"Jordan just came out of this room, right?" Woody asked for clarification.

"Yes, she did," Nigel answered similar confused.

"Do you have any idea what's wrong with her? She seemed quite odd the whole week."

Nigel just gave him a shrug. He didn't know what exactly happened between the two but their behavior towards each other had changed radically after the ring incident and he didn't want to stick his nose into their things.

Meanwhile, Jordan reached the restroom just in time to kneel down in front of the toilet and threw up the little food she had eaten today. Her head was spinning and her face felt hot. She wiped her mouth with a piece of toilet paper and used the toilet flush. As she wanted to stand up her stomach revolted again so she just sat down on the floor for a while until she calmed down a bit. Something like that hadn't even happened when she was still a student. She wondered what was wrong with her.

After a while she tried again to stand and this time her stomach played along. Then she slowly wobbled over to the sink and took in her reflection in the mirror. She looked like she felt, really awful. There were dark circles under her eyes and she was pale like the ones she usually cut open. Her whole body was shaking and cold sweat clung to her skin. She wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep but right now she had an autopsy to do. She felt sick from only thinking about this. She had to regain at least some composure so she washed her face and took some deep breaths before slowly walking back to the autopsy room on shaky legs.

…

"What do you think happened?" Woody asked.

"What? Between Jordan and you?" Nigel asked confused.

This caused Woody to roll his eyes. He really didn't want to discuss this with him.

"No, to the dead body."

"Oh. There are no external injuries and regarding the body mass and age of this man I would say it was a normal heart attack or a stroke. But for more you'll have to wait until Jordan comes back."

As if on cue the door opened and a very pale Jordan entered.

"Hey Jo. Are you okay? You look a little pale," Woody asked concerned.

"Hey Woody. I'm fine, I think that's just some stomach bug that's going round," she tried to play it down.

The concerned look on his face made her heart flutter, regardless how miserable she felt. It felt good to know that he still cared for her. But for now she had to survive the autopsy and at the moment she found it difficult to be on her feet. She slowly went to her place in front of the autopsy table. Woody was next to her, watching her closely. She tried to smile at him reassuringly but failed miserably.

She reached for a new scalpel to start the autopsy. The last thing she new was that she cut into the man's torso when a wave of dizziness hit her and her knees gave out. Then everything went black.

Woody could sense something was wrong and luckily he moved closer to her when he saw her eyelids flutter. He was there in time to catch her in his arms as she fainted.

"Call an ambulance," he shouted at Nigel.

Woody cradled her head in his lap, softly stroking her cheek.

"Come on Jo, wake up," he said and got really worried when she didn't regain her consciousness within a few minutes.

He didn't know what to do or what was wrong with her. He just hoped it wasn't something serious. He loved her deeply and he didn't want something bad to happen to her.

Then the EMTs came rushing in and pushed him away. He had to watch them putting her lifeless body on a stretcher and wheel her again. Without an explanation to anybody he ran to his car and followed the ambulance to the hospital.

…

Bright lights were blindinh Jordan as she blinked her eyes open. When they finally accommodated to the lights, she took in her surroundings. This wasn't the morgue, she was in a hospital room and she was wearing a hospital gown. There was also an IV hooked to her arm. She wondered why she was here then it hit her. She got sick before the autopsy and when she wanted to start again, she fainted. The last thing she remembered was being caught by strong arms before she could hit the floor.

'Woody' she only thought. He must've caught her in his arms before she could hit the floor. She remembered how concerned he had looked before she had collapsed. It was nice to know that he didn't hate her. In the last 6 weeks they were friendly to each other again but still distant. They worked well together but that was it. Their conversations were limited on work related topics although they didn't avoid each other anymore. They were slowly heading back to a tentative friendship. This moment, the doctor decided to make an appearance.

"Ms. Cavanaugh, good to see you awake. I'm Dr. Gellar," she introduced herself. "How are you feeling?"

"A little bit better than before, although I still feel like I've been hit over by a truck," Jordan joked weakly.

The female doctor smiled reassuringly at her.

"We have performed some tests, including a hemogram and…"

"It's the flu, isn't it?" she tried to guess the diagnosis.

"No it's not the flu…" the doctor started but Jordan interrupted again.

"Oh no! Please don't tell me it's something serious. Is it cancer? Am I going to die?" she asked panicly.

Dr. Gellar let out a laugh at this display. Doctors always made the worst patients.

"No you aren't going to die. It's not cancer so please calm down and let me explain."

"Then what is it?"

"You're pregnant, Ms. Cavanaugh. Congratulations!" she said with a smile.

Jordan could only stare at her blankly. That couldn't be, she knew she couldn't have children. This must be a mistake, maybe somebody switched the blood samples or she simply misunderstood the doctor.

"But… but I can't have children," she stammered.

Now it was the doctor's turn to be confused.

"When did you have your last menstruation?"

"Uhm, I don't know…" she thought for a little while. Work had been so stressful that she hadn't really paid attention to that plus she was always irregular. But now she was pretty sure that she didn't have it since before she slept with Woody.

"I think it was 9 to 10 weeks ago," she answered finally. This was beginning to scare her.

"And you don't think you could be pregnant?"

"No, I mean it's always irregular. That didn't even occur me. Plus I once had an abortion when I was younger I had an abortion and suffered from an infection afterwards. I didn't think much about it but a couple of years ago my doctor told me after a routine examination that I could never have kids because of that," she explained.

"Hmm… I think I'll just call your doctor for clarification and if he's a hundred percent sure that this is impossible, we'll repeat the test."

"His name is Dr. Stevens."

"Thanks, I'll be back in a few."

Jordan only nodded in agreement and watched the doctor leave the room. Part of her was terrified that she could be pregnant. Because of her diagnosis she never even dealt with the topic of being a mom. She didn't even ask herself if she wanted children. It seemed better this way not to wake a wish for something she couldn't have.

But now she was facing the possibility of being pregnant and the topic was inevitable. She was sure she would be a bad mother. Sometimes she barely got along with her own life so how could she provide emotional stability to a child. Sure she would love it but was that enough?

The door opened again which pulled her out of her thoughts. She looked at the doctor expectantly.

"So, I called Dr. Stevens. He told me that the probability of you getting pregnant is very slim but nontheless there's a chance. He also told me to wish you all the best and to make an appointment as soon as possible."

"Thanks," Jordan said stunned. She still couldn't fully believe it.

"There are some things I need to talk to you about, though. When you came to us you were very dehydrated and I can see you're still exhausted. This combination is the reason you collapsed. I assume you're experiencing morning sickness?"

"Morning sickness, yeah. The person who called this morning sickness should be stoned to death. I feel sick all day. I also have these terrible headaches," she complained.

"The headaches are an alarm signal from your body. You should take better care of yourself, make sure you drink enough fluid and eat as much as you can keep down."

"I'll try but I can barely keep anything down."

"Don't worry. This will go away once you've finished your first trimester. How was work in the last weeks? Do you get enough sleep?"

"It's been stressful. I've been pulling double shifts about four times a week. And I didn't get much more than 4 hours of sleep each night."

"Then you shouldn't wonder why you landed here. You have to minimize the stress. No overtime and no heavy lifting anymore. That's poison for the child. Because of your medical condition you also have to be extra careful," she scolded Jordan.

Jordan nodded in agreement.

"I'll also perform an ultrasound to see how far along you are exactly," Dr. Gellar said as she pulled the ultrasound machine over to the bed.

Jordan lifted her hospital gown automatically over her stomach and the doctor applied some gel on her belly. She winced briefly at the sudden coldness. Then the doctor applied gentle pressure on her stomach with the handle and switched the machine on.

Jordan watched intently as the doctor moved the handle. Suddenly she saw it. The tiny fetus was almost invisible, but not to her untrained eye.

"Can you see it?" the doctor asked, pointing towards the monitor although she sensed that her patient already discovered it.

Jordan nodded her head in amazement. It was the first time the reality began to sink in. This tiny little thing was growing inside of her. She really was going to have a baby. A tear slipped down her cheek. She was still scared but a sudden happiness took over. This was going to be her child and she already loved it.

"Wonderful, isn't it?" the doctor guessed her thoughts.

"You're about 8 weeks along and everything looks fine so far."

Jordan had already done the maths as she thought back to her night with Woody 8 weeks ago. That's where it happened. The doctor switched off the ultrasound machine and gave her some paper towels to wipe her belly.

"When can I go home?" Jordan asked.

"In a few hours. We still want to watch you for a bit," she turned to leave.

"Oh, there's a good looking man in the waiting area who's been asking constantly for you. Shall I send him in?"

'Oh my god! Woody's here,' she thought but nontheless she nodded.

"Yeah sure, send him in. And doctor, thank you for everything."

"You're welcome. Just remember what I said. Sleep, food and no stress," Dr. Gellar said before she left the room.

Jordan was left alone with her thoughts.

Woody, the father of her baby. She couldn't tell him. He wouldn't want a baby like that, he made that clear the way he reacted when he realized that they hadn't used protection. He would feel obliged to get together with her and she didn't want that. But on the other hand he was the father and he had the right to know. She had to tell him, but at the moment she didn't feel ready for that. First she had to accommodate to the thought of being pregnant before she could tell somebody else.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by a gentle knock on the door. Woody entered the room slowly and walked over to her bed.

"Hey Jo," he greeted her.

"Hey Woods."

"You gave us quite a scare. How are you feeling?" he asked softly as he took a seat on the chair next to her bed.

"I'm feeling better. Thanks."

"What happened? I mean is there anything wrong with you?" he asked concerned.

"I'm… I'm… I'm fine," she nearly told him the truth.

"I wasn't sleeping much in the past weak and I also didn't eat much. I was simply exhausted. That's why I collapsed," she told him a half-truth.

"You should take better care of yourself. I was really worried," he said honestly and took her hand.

How had she missed his contact. She wished she could just tell him the truth but she was too scared how he might react. She closed her eyes to prevent the tears from falling but nontheless a single tear fell from her eye.

He could sense that there was more about it than she was telling him but he didn't want to pressure her. Then he saw the tear and it touched his heart. He quickly took his face in his hands and brushed the tear away with his thumb.

Jordan leaned into the contact. His touch felt so good, he wanted it to never end.

"I really care for you Jo, regardless of what happened. I want to be your friend again," he said, stroking her cheek.

"I miss you," he added softly.

All the different emotions running through her body were taking their toll on her. More tears were now spilling down her cheeks and a strangled sob escaped her lips. As he saw this he quickly sat on her bed and cradled her into his arms. She clung to him and sobbed helplessly into his chest as he stroked her soft hair.

"Shhh Jo, it's okay," he soothed her.

He held her until her sobs subsided, then he pulled back lightly to place a kiss on her forehead. He looked into her puffy red eyes. She still looked beautiful. His arms her still around her to reassure her that he was there for her.

"Better now?"

She only nodded, not trusting her voice.

"You know you can tell me everything, right?"

"I know," she whispered with a hoarse voice. A long silence followed where she simply enjoyed being in his arms.

"I miss you, too and I'm sorry for all the fights," she admitted after a while.

"Me too, Jordan. I don't expect that everything's okay right away but I want you back in my life. I want our friendship back. Do you think we could do that?" he asked hopefully.

She was really happy to hear that although she knew she had to tell him about the baby someday and that could change everything again. But for now she only wanted his friendship back, with everything else she could deal later.

"I think we can do that," she said, giving him a smile.

He smiled back at her, pulling her into a hug. She could only hope that everything would work out.

TBC

Coming next: Will Jordan tell Woody about the baby? Will there be more between them than friendship?

A/N: It's gotten a bit long, but I hope you like it. Please review.