Luna Bateau and the Night that Lasted for 34 Weeks
New York City
Late August 1985 12:42am
The F train to Queens
She had just finished an extended 2nd shift at a 24 hour Medical Research Clinic in Manhattan. She was sweaty and emotionally beat down. It was her job to assess incoming patients for experimental radiation trials. People would come in at all hours of the day and night. Referred to them by neighboring hospitals.
The doctors from those hospitals would deliver the devastating news with cold faces and unsympathetic ears. "I'm sorry, but your cancer is inoperable." Then as the family and patient were crying uncontrollably, they would reveal the little ace up their sleeve. "There is one more thing you can try." Essentially dumping the emotionally wounded on Luna.
So the family would find themselves at this clinic at midnight. Praying. Begging for just a sliver of hope. Seeking solace from such devastating news.
Luna would look at them in their sunken eyes and scoop them up into her sunshine and try to comfort them in ways that no one else could. This was the only place on the eastern seaboard using radation to cure cancer.
Nuclear medicine was a new and upcoming field. She had just finished her doctorate in May. She landed this gig right after she graduated. And she couldn't have been more thrilled to be working in such a dynamic research field.
So basically, she was their last hope. She would assess them. Check to see how far the cancer had spread, rate them, and with as much compassion as she could muster, she would tell them if they could live or if they would die.
She checked her appearance in the darken windows of the subway. At night, they were like mirrors. Even with the weight of a hundred lives on her shoulders she still looked vivacious. Beautiful mahogany locks quaffed and teased to perfection. Her stick straight bangs stood up to the trials of a 10 hour shift. And her olive skin glowed even against the harsh florescent lighting cascading down on them.
The brunette was tired of playing god. Of being the good Sheppard. Pouring her body, heart and soul to every person that walk through the doors of her clinic. She just needed a little release. No heart or soul. Just body.
It came in the form of a rather dapper looking man with creamy skin and a cocky smirk. His seemingly fit body was wrapped in a well tailored suit and crowned with a strong jaw and regal green eyes. He sat across from her on the subway, pretending to read, but really he was just unabashedly gazing at her.
When their eyes connected, his smirk grew into a disarming grin. "What brings you here at such a late hour?"
She matched his confidence. "I could ask you the same thing?"
He chuckled softly. "Touche." He looked away for a minute and then slowly raised his green eyes until Luna her heart rate begin to rise. "Just getting off work. You?"
"Same." She gave him her best suggestive glance
"Care for some company?" He asked non-chalantly. Oh this will do. This will do just fine.
She looked down to the seat beside her. And brought her gaze back up slowly, seductively. She smoldered and her half-lidded eyes connected with his.
He folded up his paper and quickly obliged.
There was a first laugh. And then a Second. The first time he touched her thigh. The first time she caressed his chin. Everything that comes with finding a one night stand.
When Luna stood to get off at her stop, he stood with her.
"Your place or mine?" And threw her his cocky grin
"Mine."
He was gone in the morning. Nothing left, but a satisfying feeling all over her body.
Well.
Except for one thing.
New York City
May 15th, 1986
Lenox Hill Medical Center
She had decided within the first month that she would give up for adoption. There's was no way she would let this stop her now. She had pulled herself up by her boot straps and found a way into a medical program even though her family had been completely broke. She had made it into one of the top programs in the world, in the most competitive field, and to top it all off she did it while being a woman. Women could do advanced medicine. It was a thing. But for some reason the Boy's Club at Johns Hopkins University never got the memo. It had been exceptionally hard to get from one end of the hospital to the other without being called 'nurse' at least twice during the trip. And that was only if no male attending stopped her to give her his coffee order.
And now she had a shared lab with another amazing female doctor. Doing groundbreaking work.
There no way she was going to give up her hard-fought path to success over a single dalliance. Over one stupid agonizing mistake. No way.
One way.
The lilting cries of her new born filled the room. And a part of Luna ached. Whole sections of her body wished to reach out to her baby. Wished that keeping her was the right thing to do. But it wasn't. Someone else could give her a better life. Luna's career, her trials could lead to countless lives saved. With tears in her eyes, she caught a glimpse of a shock of dark hair before the doctor asked, "Confirm two weeks premature, yes? And name?"
"Yes, two weeks. And Lexa Allegra Bateau." Luna managed to squeak out the spelling of the name between choked sobs for the doctor. He nodded pointedly and handed her the paper as the nurses carried the infant from the room.
She signed the birth certificate. It was done.
For now.
"May we meet again, Little Lexa."
"Some day."