Chapter Five:

Yugi waited nervously in the doctor's waiting room for his turn to be seen. Dr. Kuribayashi was the Kaiba doctor on retainer, but he had his private practice where he saw some of Domino's richest and Yugi had chosen to make the trip and wait this time. He didn't like making the doctor come to him. Despite being a rich man himself attending Domino's A-list, he wasn't snobbish as many such people were. He was very kind and genuinely concerned for his patients, so Yugi wanted to make seeing him, an extra patient from his usual care, easier.

The waiting room was small, as was the whole practice, but meticulously clear, organized, and posh. The carpet was pale gold and lush, the walls covered in cream paper, and the oak furniture upholstered in plush white leather. Cut-crystal vases held tasteful floral arrangements. There was no TV and no out-of-date magazines. Instead, there were two shelving units full of actual books along with science and business magazines of the latest issues.

Yugi, too nervous to read, fidgeted uncomfortably on the soft white sofa he was sitting on. There was one other person in the waiting room, a forty-something woman with the ever-present disdainful expression of the true blue blood snob. Her raven black hair held not a touch of gray, though her mouth and eyes held small wrinkles, and her unnaturally trim figure was clothed in an impeccable white pantsuit. Yugi wondered why a woman like her, who radiated conceit from every pore, would deign to wait rather than drag Kuribayashi to her house. Unless she had a problem of which she would not want her family to know about.

"Yugi?"

Yugi started badly at the sound of the nurse's voice. He looked up, seeing the smiling young woman standing in the doorway leading to the exam rooms. "Um, yes, I'm here."

"The doctor will see you now."

Hearing the movie-ish line, Yugi got to his feet, feeling as if this whole thing was some weird dream. He walked across the waiting room and followed the young nurse down to an exam room. Kuribayashi's practice actually had three doctors working out of it, but it was Kuribayashi's business. The building held five exam rooms, a room with ultrasound equipment, and a small lab. The well-off private practice still had to send patients with severe problems to a full-sized hospital.

The nurse put Yugi in Exam Room 3, telling him to strip and get into the ubiquitous hospital gown, then left. Yugi changed into the gown and then perched on the paper-covered exam table, his heart hammering in his chest. He wondered if there was a way he could bring up to the doctor that he might be pregnant. Dr. Kuribayashi was sure to think he was insane. Yugi wondered if he could have him forcibly committed.

Still, something had to be done. This was nagging at him, and he couldn't make it go away.

The sooner that Dr. Kuribayashi diagnosed something else, the better.

"Hello, Yugi," the doctor said cheerfully as he knocked and entered the room. "How are you feeling this afternoon?"

"Pretty good."

"Good. No dizziness, trouble with vision, numbness, nothing?"

"No. Just the usual nausea." Yugi hesitated, started to speak, then closed his mouth. Kuribayashi, writing in his clipboard, didn't notice.

"Ok, Yugi, let's have a look at your vitals again."

He examined Yugi's blood pressure, heart, lungs, eyes, ears, and throat, tested his reflexes, then drew some more blood.

"Well, we still haven't pinned down anything definite," he said, sitting back down on his exam stool. "Your earlier blood and urine samples have failed every test we've put them to, so far. Which is good. And bad."

"Because we don't know what it is yet."

"Right. You mentioned a tumor to me on the phone. Would you like me to go ahead and schedule you to have an X-ray?"

"Yes, please."

"We'd have to have an appointment set up for you at Domino General, which might be a few days from now."

"Whatever works out is fine."

Dr. Kuribayashi nodded and wrote a note on his clipboard. Then he frowned and looked up. "Yugi, Nurse Tokine listed your weight as 102. Is that correct?"

Yugi nodded, mouth dry.

"I have your weight from your previous visit as 97, and you said then that you'd gained some."

Yugi nodded again.

Looking concerned, Kuribayashi stood. "Have you been eating more than usual?"

"No. At least, not since all this started happening."

"Yugi, I'd like to ask you to remove the gown, so I can have a look at your stomach."

Yugi raised the gown over his head, sitting self-consciously in his boxers. Kuribayashi had him lay out on the table, then leaned over him, his hands beginning to gently feel Yugi's stomach. Yugi immediately expected him to comment on the newfound swelling, but he didn't. The difference was so slight that he might not notice it. It was Yugi's body, he had to live with it every day and so was sure to notice, but to the doctor it apparently wasn't obvious. Nevertheless, as Kuribayashi's hands pressed in different places, he wondered if the doctor would notice eventually.

"Does this hurt?" Dr. Kuribayashi asked, pressing firmly against Yugi's abdomen, between his belly button and left hipbone.

"No."

Kuribayashi pressed hard on Yugi's stomach and abdomen in several places, continuously asking if there was pain. Other than the discomfort of pressure, Yugi didn't think it hurt, but Kuribayashi still frowned when he straightened up. He had Yugi roll over and pressed against his lower back in the same manner. When Yugi continued to say there was no pain, he had him sit up and put the gown back on.

Taking up his clipboard, Kuribayashi made some notes. "Do you have any trouble passing urine, or is there any blood in your urine?"

"No," Yugi said, feeling a little sick. He wasn't sure if that had to do with his problem or the thought of urinating blood.

"Is there any unusual changes in your stool?"

"I… haven't really noticed."

Kuribayashi's lips twitched, but he nodded seriously. "Do you know what a gallstone is?"

"It's something like kidney stones, right? Only in the gallbladder?"

"Right. They're hard deposits of calcium or other material that builds up and creates blockages called stones. Such things happen thanks to being overweight, which you are decidedly not, or from dietary problems or restricted gallbladder movement. Sufferers can be asymptomatic for a long time, but some symptoms include vomiting and nausea. Your weight gain concerns me, but you might be suffering multiple problems, so we shouldn't rule anything out just because it doesn't fit. I think I'd rather schedule you an ultrasound first. Gallstones can be benign. They're called 'silent stones' and generally don't need treatment. The fact that you have no pain makes me wonder if I'm barking up the wrong tree, but there's no harm in checking, right?"

"Right," Yugi said faintly. An ultrasound. That would show for sure…

"Why don't we have you do that tomorrow, instead? We have a machine right here at the practice. Anna will be happy to pencil you in. Say, two o'clock?"

"That's fine."

Dr. Kuribayashi looked up, frowning again. "Yugi, are you ok? You look pale now."

"I'm just worried." Which was the entire truth.

"An ultrasound doesn't hurt. And gallstones are not, as a rule, dangerous. If they need to be treated, all it takes is a small incision here." He pointed at Yugi's torso near his right-side ribs. "Recovery takes about three to five days, and you're out and back on regular food in a week."

Yugi nodded.

"So, I'll put you down for two o'clock tomorrow afternoon, and if this doesn't turn up anything, we'll just keeping trying…"

….

On the way out of the exam room, they nearly bumped into a very pretty woman in the hall dressed in a white doctor's lab coat. She was tall and slender, with a rather nice figure under her coat, bright blue eyes, and thick, lustrous hair nearly a perfect shade of bronze. She looked more like a movie star than a doctor.

"Ah, Anna, your ears must have been burning," Dr. Kuribayashi said warmly.

So this was Anna.

"Yugi, this is Anna Rockbell, our ultrasound technician. Anna, this is Yugi Moto, a patient of mine. I'm scheduling him for an ultrasound tomorrow. We need to check for gall- or kidney stones."

Anna smiled at Yugi. Her teeth were perfectly white and even, and she looked as friendly as a favorite kindergarten teacher who genuinely liked little kids.

"Hi, Yugi," she said, giving him a little bow that he returned. "Do you have any questions about the ultrasound, then?"

"No," Yugi admitted. He was still worried about what the ultrasound might show, but he couldn't voice that.

"Ok. Well, I'll see you…" She glanced at Kuribayashi's clipboard. "I'll see you at two o'clock tomorrow then."

….

Yugi returned home not long after that, the card reminding him of his appointment in his hand as he walked through the door. Seto was already home, and had come into the entrance hall as Yugi walked in. His eyes fell on the small card in Yugi's hand.

"What's that?" he asked, his voice guarded.

"An appointment card. For tomorrow. For an ultrasound."

Confusion flitted across Seto's face. "What do you need an ultrasound for?"

"To test for gallstones."

Seto's expression relaxed. "Gallstones? Is that all?" He then frowned, walking closer. "No, that can't be all. The way you've been the last few weeks, that can't be all Kuribayashi has to offer."

"It's one more thing on his checklist to rule out," Yugi clarified.

Seto growled. "I ought to take you somewhere else."

"Another doctor probably wouldn't be any faster, Seto," Yugi said wearily. "They'd have to have trial and error, too. If they don't find any gallstones, they'll keep looking. If they do, they'll get them out and see if that clears it all up. If it doesn't, they'll see what else is wrong with me."

"Hey."

Yugi looked up at Seto's sharp exclamation. Seto stood over him, frowning down at him.

"Listen, Yugi. It's going to be fine. We'll find out what this is and get rid of it."

Yugi smiled a little. Seto saw this, like anything else, as a challenge. There was nothing his brains, his guts, and his money couldn't fix, he was sure of that. It was a bit illogical, but that was how Seto saw the world. He wouldn't believe there was anything wrong with Yugi that he couldn't fix somehow, not until a real diagnosis was achieved.

"First, we'll see if it's gallstones," Yugi said.

Seto grunted. "Are you hungry?"

Yugi nodded, beginning to follow him to the dining room. Maybe after dinner he'd sneak onto Seto's computer and look up gallstones himself, see what they really were and what they did to a person. Though from what Kuribayashi said, they didn't sound so bad. It might even be lucky if that was all that was wrong.

Of course, he had to get through the ultrasound testing first.

Yugi's steps faltered. The ultrasound. What if he really *was* pregnant? The ultrasound would show it, wouldn't? Yugi did some quick math in his head. He'd been sick since the Tawret statue, and that had been… over two months ago, almost three months ago. He hadn't begun to get sick until more than a month after he'd touched the statue. Yugi pressed his hand against his stomach. Three months. Surely that was long enough for a pregnancy to be seen on an ultrasound, wasn't it? If he went in there, and it was true, the technician was sure to see. What then? What would Yugi do if, against all reason, the ultrasound confirmed the impossible? How could he be pregnant?

"Yugi?"

Yugi looked up. He'd stopped walking and Seto had stopped with him. He was looking down at him with concern.

"Are you ill again? Throw up in the potted plant if you need to."

Yugi nearly laughed, but he just couldn't work up the hilarity. What if he was pregnant, what would he do? How could he carry it? He was a boy; even with magick, how was it possible? Where was the baby, if he didn't have a uterus?

A worse thought occurred to him, making the blood drain out of his face. The statue had been magick and magick was required to get a male pregnant in the first place, but how did it go about doing so? What if it changed him, somehow?

"Yugi?"

Yugi was suddenly aware of Seto scooping him up into his arms. The brunette was backtracking towards the entrance hall, shouting for his butler to call an ambulance.

"Seto, what are you doing?"

"Look at you, you're as white as a ghost! Are you fainting?"

"No, I-"

"Where is that damn man? What the hell do I pay him for? Ich-"

"Seto, put me down!"

Seto paused, looking down at him.

"Seto, I'm not fainting. I'm not. I…" Yugi hesitated. "I'm just not feeling well. It's nothing different. Can I just go to bed, please?"

Seto slowly set him on his feet, but kept hold of one of his biceps, like he was ensuring he didn't fall. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, Seto. I wouldn't lie to you." Withhold, but not lie. "Please, don't call an ambulance."

The butler had come into the entrance hall, and now he hovered, uncertain of what to do. Seto studied Yugi closely, searching his face.

"You were holding your stomach."

Yugi nodded. Seto frowned and relaxed a little, apparently contributing that to Yugi's nausea. Ignoring the butler entirely, he released Yugi's arm.

"Can you make it up the stairs?"

"I'm fine," Yugi repeated. "Go and have dinner, ok?"

Yugi really didn't feel like eating now. He wasn't physically sick, but he was emotionally sick. He went upstairs, then sat on the edge of the bed he shared with Seto, poking his stomach experimentally as he thought.

First thing was first. The ultrasound. It could confirm without doubt whether the impossible was possible. Once Yugi knew for sure, then he could decide what do then.

Another thought struck Yugi. What if a baby did show up on the monitor? The technician would see… and understandably freak. She had seemed very nice there at the practice, but she was sure to be quite confused by seeing a baby on the monitor, to put it mildly. Yugi would. If she did freak out, what would happen then?

Thoughts of science fiction movies crowded Yugi's mind, of those diagnosed with strange things being imprisoned by governments, experimented on. Yugi would be the world's first pregnant man. Science would love to study him, and if he did say it had happened through magick, well, they might think he was crazy, or worse, believe him and study him even more. People from all over the world would come to take a look at him and the studies, interrogate him. Scientists, cultists, and weirdoes alike would want to know all about magick and everything else.

'Slow down,' he thought to himself. 'Those are movies, Yugi.'

So what? That didn't mean the government wouldn't flip out and want to study him. And if he went for this ultrasound and Anna the technician saw it, he couldn't very well expect her to keep quiet about it.

Maybe he shouldn't have the ultrasound. He could beg off somehow. Maybe claim headaches and vision problems after all, and have Kuribayashi focus on his head instead.

But that was no solution either. If he was pregnant, he couldn't just ignore it. It would make itself known eventually, and then it might be too late.

Torn with indecision, Yugi got up and went to the window.

Maybe he could talk to Yami first. But what would he say? Yami might have been a reincarnated Egyptian Pharaoh, but that didn't mean he would know what the hell was going on. That statue hadn't been from anywhere near where Yami had lived, and it had come from after his time, he'd said so himself. He might believe in the possibility that magick had made it possible for Yugi to get pregnant, but that didn't mean he could be any help, or have any advice. Yugi didn't want to tell him either. The thought of having a living being inside him was making his skin crawl and his stomach churn. He almost felt like puking right then, and it had nothing to do with his condition. The thought of telling Yami that he was pregnant was making him feel even worse. Yami's reaction would probably be more favorable than Anna's, but there was still the fact he'd have to tell him, and Yugi felt too ashamed to do so.

Ashamed. Why, really? It wasn't as if he'd done anything wrong. He'd picked up the damned statue and accidentally invoked it somehow, and gotten pregnant. Still, there was some irrational shame in the idea and he just didn't want to tell anyone.

Especially not Seto.

Gods, what would he tell Seto if the ultrasound came back positive? What would Seto think, how would he react? Yugi couldn't even begin to guess.

'Calm down,' Yugi urged himself again, struggling to take deep breaths. 'You don't even know for sure if you're even pregnant. Find that out first.'

Which brought him back to whether he ought to have the ultrasound or not. Maybe he ought to look it up, like he had planned.

Yugi walked over to Seto's computer in the sitting room and signed in to the guest account. Bringing up the internet, he hesitated midway through typing gallstone, then instead put in testing positive on a pregnancy test as a man. The first thing that leaped out at him was that testing positive on a pregnancy was a symptom of prostate cancer. Yugi clicked the link and read it through, feeling sick all over again. Cancer was the word he hadn't wanted to think of himself.

Maybe he should mention the test to Kuribayashi after all, now that he had seen this. The doctor might still think he was weird or stupid for having tried a test, but if a positive pregnancy test in a male signified prostate cancer, that was something he wanted to jump on fast, and he could endure as many weird looks as it took.

Yugi backtracked to the home page and typed in gallstone. He read through a couple of the first returned webpages. They didn't sound so bad, in comparison. But now that he had read through, it sounded less and less likely to Yugi. Gallstones presented with nausea and vomiting like Dr. Kuribayashi had said, but there was nothing Yugi saw that included weight gain, mood swings, fatigue, or anything else. And there was the bump in his abdomen to think about. It didn't look as if he'd just put on weight, he'd developed a bump. He hadn't been eating enough extra to have developed a paunch.

Yugi leaned back in the chair, pulled up his shirt, and studied the offending little distension. Still hardly noticeable. Even Seto hadn't said anything. Next to Yugi, he ought to be the most familiar with his body.

Yugi returned to thoughts of the statue. It was time to think things through seriously, without shying away from anything. Say the statue was the real deal and he had somehow gotten pregnant. Maybe there was a way to reverse it. Did every curse and spell have a counter? Yami would know, but that would entail telling him.

As he sat there, Yugi thought of what had made him go pale in the hall. If the statue could make him pregnant, what else could it have done to him? Maybe the pregnancy was possible because the spell had changed him, internally.

Yugi shut off the computer with shaking hands and got to his feet. He returned to the bedroom, then went on into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door. Inside the roomy area, he undressed, then stood and attempted to examine himself. He studied himself in the full-length mirror, looking himself over from head to foot. Pressing his abdomen, he didn't feel anything unusual. Hesitantly he examined his genitals, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing felt different.

'Stupid,' Yugi thought. But it had been a valid, in its way, concern.

Being turned into a girl would make about as much sense as getting pregnant as a man.

But that fear seemed allayed. His body looked and felt the same as ever. His penis and scrotum remained the same size and shape as before. Nothing appeared to have changed in his adam's apple, his chest, or even in minor details like the shape of his hands and feet. In every instance, he was still him, a man.

So relieved he almost felt giddy, Yugi redressed and went back into the bedroom. There was still the possibility that inside he was different, but he didn't want to dwell on that.

There was only one way to know for sure. He had to have the ultrasound. He would deal with the results of it when the time came.

….

The next afternoon, Yugi's driving suffered from his lack of focus. He ran a red light, missed his turn twice, and nearly sideswiped a car pulling into the private practice's parking lot. He pulled into a space and cut the engine, then sat in his driver's seat and held the wheel, telling himself to remain calm.

Getting out of the car, he entered the building. Every step felt weighted. Every breath in his lungs felt heavy. His heart was knocking and his palms were sweating. His hand was trembling when he signed in register at the front desk.

"Hi, Yugi," Kuribayashi greeted him before he even sat down. "We're right on schedule today, so if you want to go ahead and come back now?"

Yugi followed the doctor, aware that the hallway seemed longer than it was, darker and narrower. He wondered if the last mile at a prison felt the same.

"I ask you this every time, but anything new crop up overnight?"

Yugi nearly told him he was having vision trouble, but he didn't. He knew in his heart that if he backed out of this now, he'd only cause himself more trouble later on. He had to know. He had to.

"No."

"All right, then I'll leave you in here. Anna will be with you shortly. Go ahead and get changed into that gown then."

Yugi nodded. Kuribayashi started to leave, then hesitated on the threshold.

"You look pale again, and nervous. There's nothing to an ultrasound."

"I know."

"Or gallstones or kidney stones. In fact, I'll relieved if that's what turns up."

"Me too."

"Is there something you want to tell me?"

"No."

Kuribayashi hesitated again, then nodded. "Come get me if you need anything. I'll be in my office until 2:30."

Yugi nodded, and the doctor left. Yugi changed into the exam gown, then sat on the table and stared at the ultrasound machine. Soon, on that screen, he would have confirmation, one way or another.

Yugi nearly left half a dozen times before Anna came in ten minutes later. Still stunningly attractive, she smiled at Yugi as she came into the room.

"Hello again, Yugi. How are you feeling this afternoon?"

"Fine," Yugi said weakly.

"You seem nervous."

"A little."

Anna looked at him for a moment, then came over and perched on an exam stool, her back to the ultrasound machine. "Well, why don't we get rid of your nervousness by learning about each other a little bit? You're Yugi Moto, right? The Duel Monsters Card King?"

"Game King," Yugi corrected automatically.

"Sorry. I wasn't into that whole thing, but my boyfriend sure was. You beat him at Battle City."

"I did?"

"I'm not surprised you don't remember. You must have dueled hundreds of people during all that stuff, right? His name's Toshimuri Hokusai. He was thrilled he got to duel you."

"I'm glad."

"I'm sure you are. Everyone always says how nice you are."

Yugi blushed. Anna smiled.

"And modest. How'd you get into the whole Duel Monsters thing?"

Yugi told her a bit about first discovering the game and a little about dueling the game creator, Maximillion Pegasus, of course leaving out everything involving Yami and the Puzzle. She told him about growing up in a tiny rural area and how overwhelmed she'd felt first coming to a big city like Domino. Her dream was to work in medicine since she was a little girl, and she'd finally found her calling in being an ultrasound technician, eventually coming to work with Dr. Kuribayashi after meeting him at a seminar and becoming friends.

"Which brings us neatly back to the reason you're here," Anna said with a smile.

She had Yugi lay back against the upper rest of the exam table with his gown pulled up to his armpits. He felt self conscious in his boxers again, but for all Anna paid attention as she readied the machine, he could have been wearing a sweatsuit.

"This gel here is going to feel a little cold and slimy," Anna warned, holding up what looked kind of like a condiment bottle from a sports game. She upended it and squirted a zigzag pattern across an area of Yugi's abdomen. It was cold and slimy and Yugi squirmed a little.

"Here we go," Anna said.

She laid the wand against his stomach, then moved it around a little, smearing the gel around.

"There's going to be quite a lot of pressure, and it can get uncomfortable," she said. "Let me know if it actually hurts, ok?"

Yugi nodded, holding his breath. Anna was studying the screen as she pushed the wand in hard and began running it across his abdomen. The screen looked like a lot of shades of gray to Yugi.

"Hm. I'm not seeing any obstructions in your gallbladder," Anna said, moving the wand. "And I don't see-"

Yugi nearly had a heart attack when she cut off and leaned closer to the machine. Heart missing beats, Yugi waited with bated breath as she moved the wand, studying the screen intently. She moved it further and then went on, her voice confused and hesitant.

"I… see something… here. It… What is that? Yugi, maybe we need to schedule an X-ray for you… Don't panic," she added absently as an afterthought.

The wand moved. Yugi watched the screen, which looked a lot clearer and more sophisticated that the ultrasound pictures he'd ever seen on TV. Kuribayashi was wealthy, and his practice lucrative. He would probably have the best. Still, it didn't look like much more than gray to Yugi, but as the wand moved, he did see something, a mass, across the screen.

"What is that?" he asked faintly.

"I'm not sure…" Anna said absently. "Maybe I should get Kentaro in here."

Kentaro was Kuribayashi's first name. Panicking, Yugi gasped, "No!"

Anna turned to him. Her blue eyes searched Yugi's face. "Do you know something?"

"I-I-"

Anna turned back to the machine, then back to Yugi. Her face looked confused.

"What do you see?" Yugi finally asked. "Tell me, please."

Anna stared at him for a long moment, searching his face. At long last, she spoke.

"I see a baby."

tbc…

A/N: A bit of an abrupt ending, but you're all well used to that. I've been driving myself nuts looking up facts for this fic, so if things seem confuddled, that's me. Enjoy and jaa!