- Day 75 of 366 Days of Writing Challenge: Discipline
- The Emotion Challenge: Agitated
- Music History Class Assignment #1: Write about a beginning.
- The Investment Building Challenge/Dialogue Property: "That's hardly my fault."
- Gringotts Prompt Bank/CSI New York: (time of day) Sunrise, (feeling) Sadness, (colour) White
Pairings/Characters: Lucretia/Ignatius
Word Count: 1,056
Our New Beginning
It's you, it's you, it's all for you, everything I do.
Ignatius ducked as his wife threw the small white stick in his direction. It his the wall viciously, and cracked open. He wandered over to it, picking it up.
"Negative." He muttered, throwing the pregnancy test back on the floor. "Again." He sighed, defeated, and walked over to the window with his hands in his pockets, looking out at the sunrise. They had woken up at the crack of dawn in order to get Lucretia's "most concentrated urine", according to the Fertility Healer who was working with them.
"That's hardly my fault!" snapped Lucretia, throwing her mop of dark brown curls over her shoulder.
"I didn't say it was!" Ignatius sat on the edge of the bed, pulling Lucretia over to him. She struggled against his embrace, clearly still agitated about the test results. "This is a marathon, not a sprint—"
"—yeah, yeah, I heard it all when the healer said it." Lucretia's voice pitched suddenly, and Ignatius realised she had started to cry. She nuzzled against him, her tears soaking through his nightshirt.
Ignatius pressed a kiss to her forehead. "It'll happen," he whispered. "I promise. It just takes time. And discipline."
oOo
"Negative again!" screeched Lucretia three months later, hurling another pregnancy test in Ignatius's direction. "Why is this happening to us? Why is this happening to me? What's wrong with me, Ignatius?"
There was no real anger this time, just overwhelming sadness. Ignatius was feeling it too. He and Lucretia were ageing to the better end of thirty. All of the women in Lucretia's family had children in their twenties, sometimes earlier, and she had wanted to be a part of that age range when she had her first child.
It seemed as though life was getting in the way.
"I haven't menstruated in five months," she whispered, her face glowing. She never normally discussed such things with Ignatius, even though he wasn't prudish. It was Lucretia who was embarrassed about her bodily functions; she always had been. "What if there's something seriously wrong with me, Ignatius? What if I can't have a baby?"
"Of course that isn't true," Ignatius replied. His voice was determined, but inwardly, his resonance was starting to waver. What if?
"We should make an appointment with the Healer."
Ignatius nodded. He was willing to do anything to ensure that his wife became pregnant - it was all she had ever wanted, for the whole time he had known her. A family.
oOo
"Pop on the table, Lucretia," Healer Janice said brightly. "Pull up your shirt, and we'll take a look at your uterus and ovaries."
"My what?" Lucretia sounded alarmed. She looked at Ignatius fearfully.
"There's nothing to be worried about, dear. We just need to perform a check on your reproductive organs to ensure there are no cysts or anything malignant."
"Malignant?" Lucretia was horrified. "Malignant? Is that a tumour? Are you saying I have a tumour?" she sounded hysterical, and Ignatius quickly jumped to attempt to calm her down.
"It's probably best if you don't mention anything else," Ignatius said to the Healer hastily. "Let's just get this over with, Lucretia. Get up on the table, girl."
Hesitantly, Lucretia climbed on the Healer's table and lay flat on her back, carefully pulling her shirt up. She was terrified. What if the Healer found something awful and—what was that word? Malignant? What if something malignant was found inside her, preventing her from having a baby?
Would they be able to fix it? Would the Healer be able to get rid of it, so that she and Ignatius could finally start a family?
Lucretia shuddered as the Healer spread a thick, cold, gooey substance over her bare stomach. She waved her wand once, silently, and then placed both of her gloved hands either side of Lucretia's belly, and peered towards her navel.
"Everything looks fine...there's the left ovary, and the right...wait, what's this." She paused, peering a little closer. "…ah, wait a second…" she kneaded her hands into Lucretia's stomach as she navigated her way around.
"Oh, Merlin," murmured Lucretia, feeling her eyes welling up with tears. "What is it? Is it malignant? Tell me, I'm going to have a breakdown! Oh, no, please get it out of me!"
"Mrs. Prewett, please calm yourself down," the Healer removed her hands from Lucretia's stomach, and hoisted her up into a sitting position. "Now, did you say that you had done a pregnancy test?"
"Several," Lucretia whispered. Ignatius nodded in agreement.
"Well dear, I hate to be the one to break it to you…but it seems all of those pregnancy tests were false. You're pregnant!"
Lucretia stared at the Healer, her eyes wide. Ignatius cleared his throat, and the Healer looked in his direction.
"Is this a joke? Because if so, it is in very bad taste. This ordeal has been highly traumatic for my wife and I, and—"
"—Mr. Prewett," interrupted Healer Janice. "I assure you, this is not a joke. You are around five months pregnant. And…" she loomed forward towards Lucretia's stomach again. "I would take a fairly certain guess that you're having a boy."
"A boy!" shrieked Lucretia and Ignatius in union. They both jumped to their feet, embracing each other jovially, whilst Janice laughed. "We're having a boy…" whispered Lucretia. She clasped her hands around her stomach protectively.
"Yes you are, and I'm so happy to be the one who got to break the good news to you."
"Lucretia," Ignatius murmured, pressing a chaste kiss to her forehead. "Everything is going to be okay now. This is our new start. This baby is our new beginning. We can put all that anger and upset behind us."
Lucretia nodded happily. "Our new beginning."
