This is the first chapter without a song title as inspiration for the song, but I'm sure that the words "double helix" are in a song somewhere. Also, for those who don't know – PKU is a disease in which a person can't digest phenylaline. If left untreated, the phenylaline builds up in the brain and eventually kills the person. More Addek here than Maddison, still in NY. I swear I'll move on over to Seattle eventually!

Double Helix

She's been preparing for this day for weeks, and yet she still doesn't know how she'll get the words out of her parched mouth. She's sitting on the foot of the bed, breathing in what feels like an air of expectancy instead of oxygen. She looks up, running a smooth hand through fiery hair. She can't hold off. After all, this ghastly and horrifying thing that she's doing? It's for the best, or at least that's what she tells herself.

"Derek, you and I? We're doctors. And because we're doctors, we know biology textbooks in and out. I mean, we know everything there is to know about the human body. It's our job. And because we know all of this, we should both know about DNA." No one interrupts her, so she presses on. "But, just in case, I'll refresh your memory. A strand of DNA is made up of two separate strands of completely opposite nucleotide bases. Right? Right. And sometimes, that DNA mutates, causing diseases. …Like PKU. A baby's born with PKU, we diagnose it, we give it a special diet, and it's fine."

The atmosphere is heavy and tense. This isn't making sense, and she realizes she should have gone about this a different way. Still, there's no backing out. It's too late for that.

"Let's pretend, for analogy's sake, that you and I, together, are a strand of DNA. Does that make sense?" No reply greets her. "I'm a strand of nucleotides, you're a strand of nucleotides, and we come together, and we mesh, and it's…perfect. Except, except my side gets a mutation, okay? And all of the sudden, we've got PKU."

Dead silence fills the bedroom. The light is off; the room is dark and she can't see a thing.

"And so we've got PKU, but we went on a special diet and we're okay now, okay? But I just thought I'd tell you about the PKU, because you deserve to know, because it's my fault we had the PKU, okay? It was my mutation, not yours."

The nonsense words continue to spill out of her delicate mouth; she's reminded of the taste of the ivory soap her mother used to use on er as a child and realizes the aftertaste of her next words will be far bitterer than any bath product.

"See, Derek… the PKU is…an affair. Not…not a one time, random guy in a bar affair, but a real, true, crazy, adulterous, 'I'm a horrible person' affair."

She swallows. Her eyelids close and she breathes in deeply.

"The PKU is an affair and the mutation…the mutation was Mark."

She blinks up at the wall, half-expecting feedback on her soliloquy.

Hearing nothing, she falls back on the mattress, the familiar sting of tears in her eyes.