Chapter Thirty-Four: Pain
"Bleeding?" Fiyero looked confused as he lifted her into his arms again. "What do you mean…?" It took him a moment to realize what she meant. "Oh, no…"
She nodded feebly. "Yes."
"We need to get you to the infirmary now, Fae."
"No, Fiyero! Stop and think about this for a moment. If the nurse at the infirmary realizes, she'll report it to Madame Morrible, and Madame Morrible will report my… condition… to your parents."
His face fell.
"My dorm, Yero. Galinda will have some idea." And it was closer. She really did not want them to be seen like this.
"What about her Ama? Won't she say something?"
"She's still sick."
He nodded and walked quickly towards her dorm. She hated the climb up the stairs. Her head felt funny and it made her nauseous. Finally, they arrived at her room. With no hands, Fiyero kicked gently at her door.
Galinda opened it. "Oh sweet Lurline! What happened?"
Fiyero rushed in and put her on her bed. "A few things. Dr. Dillamond's dead. And," his voice wavered, "Galinda, she's bleeding."
Elphaba felt too weak to speak. She watched them in silence.
It didn't take Galinda the same amount of time to realize what that meant. She responded immediately. "Do you know what's going on, Fiyero?"
He shook his head.
"I think," Galinda lowered her voice, looking at Elphaba, "she may be having a miscarriage."
She wanted to tell Galinda that she'd heard that. And she'd deduced as much, anyway. But she couldn't even lift her head from the pillow.
Fiyero looked scared. "What are we going to do?"
"I… I have some idea, but I'm not sure. But I know someone who can help. There's a girl who moved in downstairs. She's disabled. Her Ama is her Nanny and her Nanny is so old she's seen everything. I think she was even the midwife when the girl was born. She'd known what to do."
"What if she tells someone?"
"I don't think she will. And we don't have much of a choice anyway, Fiyero."
He nodded. "Go get her."
Galinda left the room.
Fiyero knelt beside her bed, panic in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Fae. I should've walked you over there this morning."
She wanted to shake her head. He had never walked her over there before. Fiyero was being stupid, blaming himself when he hadn't done anything wrong. Typical.
He kissed her forehead and held her hand, giving her a moment of silence and time to think. Dr. Dillamond was dead. It looked to her as though he'd been killed. So much blood. Blood… was she really miscarrying? She felt cramps in her abdomen worse than she'd ever felt before. This was a mess.
She'd met the girl downstairs once or twice. She was a sweet girl, but she was more Galinda's friend than Elphaba's. Her religious rambling reminded Elphaba too much of the maunts, although she could see why the poor thing had been so taken in by religion, with her father being a minister and her deformity. Having no arms must be awful, much worse than having green skin and a strange aversion to water. Elphaba had never met the girl's Nanny, though. And clearly the woman had never met her.
The look on the woman's face when she walked in and saw Elphaba was different than the looks of shock people usually gave Elphaba upon seeing her skin. And the shock lasted longer, then became more of a confusion. The woman took a deep breath and approached the bed. "What, exactly, is going on?"
Fiyero bit his lip, looking guilty. She hated that look. He squeezed her hand. "Well, Elphaba, is, well… she's pregnant. But she's bleeding."
Elphaba's words finally came back to her, though they came out softly. "It hurts. Near my stomach."
The old one shook her head softly. "Oh, dear. That doesn't sound good." She bent down across from Elphaba. "Can you spread your legs, dearie? I'm going to have to take a look, and probably more than just look, I'm afraid. What caused this? Was there any stressor?"
Elphaba grimaced. She didn't want Fiyero here. She didn't want Galinda here. One of them had to stay. "Fiyero, you have to tell someone about Dr. Dillamond."
"I am not leaving you here like this."
Elphaba gave Galinda a pleading look.
Galinda put a hand on Fiyero's shoulder. "Fiyero, we can take care of her. We're female. Maybe you should go tell Morrible."
Fiyero got the message. "I'm coming back the moment I can."
She didn't bother to argue.
When he was gone, Nanny looked at her. "I'm guessing he's part of the reason you're in this little predicament."
"We'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone," Galinda said.
"Oh, don't worry, dearie, Nanny knows how to keep a secret," the woman cackled, giving Elphaba a strange look. "Now, let me take a look."
Elphaba closed her eyes as the woman examined her. It felt like forever before the woman pulled back and sighed. "What?"
"I think you already know, dearie, but you are, in fact, having a miscarriage. It looks like most of the tissue has already come out or is going to come out on its own, which should be a blessing for you, dearie, because it's a painful process to have it pulled out."
Elphaba winced.
"Now what was this about Dr. Dillamond?"
"He's dead. Murdered. I went to his lab this morning and I found him…"
"Well, that would be the stressor that may have initiated the miscarriage." The old woman looked down at Elphaba. "I'm sorry for your loss, dearie."
"I'm not," Elphaba sighed. "I mean, I am. But we weren't planning on letting the pregnancy get to term. We were going to the City this coming weekend."
Nanny raised her eyebrows and Elphaba looked away. The woman got up and sat in a chair by the window. "I'm going to need to stay here until we can be sure it has… passed."
Elphaba tried to ignore the pain in her abdomen. It felt like whatever had been growing inside her was being literally torn out. So far she had resisted crying.
"Galinda, would you please tell Nessarose that I might be a while? I don't relish the thought of leaving her alone…"
"She can come up here." Elphaba pulled a blanket over herself. The bleeding had mostly stopped and the old woman had thought to put a towel under her, though she thought she'd have to get new sheets. "Just tell her I fainted at the sight of Dillamond's dead body. That's it."
Galinda nodded and went downstairs.
Elphaba stared at the ceiling, clenching her fists in her best attempt to ignore the stabbing pains. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. She supposed whatever procedure she'd have had would have hurt, too, but at least they had drugs for that.
"I know it hurts, dearie. You can stop pretending it doesn't."
"I never said it didn't hurt."
"Well, you aren't giving voice to it, and I know from midwifing that this is not a comfortable thing."
"You're right, it's not."
"That boy, he's…"
"He's none of your business," Elphaba replied shortly.
"I see I touched a nerve. I assume I don't need to lecture you on how to avoid this happening again." The woman raised her eyebrows at Elphaba.
"You don't. I know well enough."
"Obviously not."
Elphaba wished she had the strength to snap at the woman. "You don't know anything about this. I know better." Except she hadn't. She had let Fiyero sneak into her bed that night, knowing perfectly well that she hadn't exactly kept track of her cycle. She had planned to do some charting the week before they returned.
"Say what you will."
Galinda returned with Nessa then, who said a quick prayer for Elphaba. She only wished the prayers would stop the strange looks that old woman was giving her.