Artemis

She swears that she meant to hit the "ignore" button when Dick's name and picture scrolled across the screen, but something inside her told her she had to pick up. She really wants to hunt down that something and kill it.

"I swear to god, Dick, if you ask me one more time if I've seen a doctor I'm going to shove my foot so far up your-"

"You've just not been eating so well lately, so it's no wonder that you've caught whatever it is you've caught. Please go see someone?"

Artemis heaved a sigh and curled further into the couch. Brucely gave a lazy yawn next to her, cuddling closer. "It's the flu, Dick. I get it at least once a year, just ask Wa-" she stopped. "My mom. Just ask Mom, she'll tell you the same thing. What I need is some peace and quiet for once in my life to get over this bug, and then I'll be right back up there in the space junk with the superkiddies."

"…Maybe you should take a break for a while, Artemis."

What. "Excuse me?!"

"I'm just saying, you've been getting stressed lately, and that's probably why you caught whatever it is you have."

"Yeah, okay, Big Bird," she snorted. "You've been doting over me so much, maybe you should rename yourself again. Of course, it has to be related to something aviary. Oh! I've got it! From now on, you'll be known as Mother Hen."

"You really aren't making this easy," Dick sighed, the breath crinkling in the phone speakers.

"Hmph," she felt a little proud of herself, actually. Don't ask her why… she just enjoys being contrary, sometimes. "Don't act like me being sick is why you want me on a break, Herr Hen."

"It is."

"You are so full of crap."

"Fine. You've been getting sloppy during missions. You've been going overboard. You've been working yourself too hard at training. You've been irritable and extremely hard to work with. You need to take some you-time, Artemis."

"I don't want some me-time, Dick," Artemis spat into the receiver as she sat up straighter. "I just want to do my job. And how would you know all this, anyway? You haven't been working with the team in weeks." Silence. "Barbra told you, didn't she?" Still silence. "You freaking Bats."

"Babs is just worried, Artemis. We all are."

"Well stop. I'm sick of it." She ran a hand over her face. The nausea rolled through her stomach again, and she forced it down. God, this bug was making her so tired. "Just leave me alone, Dick. Don't call me for a while."

"Artemis-"

She hung up, then turned off the cell. Leaning over to the landline on the end table, she jerked the cord out of the wall.

Artemis returned to her nest of blankets in the center of the couch, and un-paused whatever crime drama she had been watching before she had the brilliant idea of taking Dick's call. However, she only got a few minutes before she had to stop the show again to rush to the bathroom.

After she flushed the toilet, she leaned her head against the cool porcelain, taking a few deep breaths before heaving herself upright. Thinking that she might have something to help in the medicine cabinet, she opened her mirror and paused. When had she last used those tampons? She could not remember the last time that she had her period, which was understandable considering her poor eating habits and her stress that resulted in her losing a bit of weight recently.

No matter. She was looking for the antiemetics. Maybe they were in the medicine box below the sink.

She searched for the medicine in the bottom cabinet, coming up empty. Before Artemis closed the door, however, an innocuous cardboard box caught her eye.

About six months before, a university friend had a brief scare. Artemis, being the great friend and generally all-around awesome human being that she was, had her come to their apartment to take the tests Katie had bought. Once the brunette had taken almost all of them (with every single one coming back negative) she had returned to her own dorm, much relieved and with a new healthy respect for contraceptives. Oh, but when Wally had come home after class and seen the leftover boxes, now that reaction was something Artemis should have caught on tape! The shade his face had been as he held the unopened test in his hand, stumbling over his words and altogether tripping over himself…!

She grabbed the box from its shadowed corner and cradled it in her hands.

The fatigue, the nausea, her missing menstruations, her irritability.

Surely not.

Her hands were calm as she scrolled through the contacts. She pressed "send" and held the speaker to her ear.

"Hey." He sounded tired. Had he sounded that way earlier, or was she really that hard to deal with?

Artemis reached up to her ring, pulling it from under her shirt and running her fingers over its lines. "Hey. I'm sorry." She swallowed. "I've been really tired lately, and generally not great," she breathed a quiet, self-deprecating chuckle.

"I know, me too. And I shouldn't have pushed you so much earlier. What's up?" She hesitated, her words sticking heavily in her throat. "Hey, you there?"

"When's the soonest you can come around?"

"I mean, I'm pretty much free for the rest of today. I was supposed to zeta over to the Manor for something later on, but it's nothing I can't do tomorrow." Dick paused, and when he spoke again his words were laced with concern, "Are you feeling worse?"

"I just – you were right, I should see the doctor, and I just don't want to be alone, right now," she admitted haltingly. The young woman balanced the phone against her shoulder and reached up to the counter from her place on the floor. "And I think I'll have to take some time off from the team."

She stared at the bit of plastic she held between her fingers, and the pink plus stared back.

"Please just come when you can, okay?"

He must have caught the slight waver in her voice because she could hear the jangle of keys and the slam of a door over the line. "I'll see you in fifteen, Artemis. Do you want me to stay on the line? I can until the signal gets scrambled from the zeta."

"No, that's fine. I'll see you in a few minutes. Bye."

"Bye." He ended the call, and Artemis knew he would shorten the travel time by at least half in his rush. She let the cell phone fall from her shoulder into her lap and continued to rub her thumb over her ring.

She curled into herself on the bathroom floor and waited.