tw: medical drama (although this goes for like...99% of the rest of the story)
Yarne honestly couldn't remember the last time that they'd had an entire work week go according to the schedule it was meant to go by. With him choosing not to get his sister, he'd been staying at work longer on Fridays, instead of leaving early and working a bit longer on other days, but that was a completely self-controlled choice. Kjelle's schedule, while definitely more erratic than his was, seemed like it had lost all semblance of its former self, as she was working earlier and coming home earlier as well, or pulling the occasional night where she was doing her job until way later than anticipated on nights she didn't used to do that very thing. It was to the point that Yarne couldn't ever be sure if she'd be home when he got back, regardless of what she would have told him when she was given her schedule for that week initially.
So, when he came home on a Wednesday night and found that Kjelle wasn't there, he wasn't overly concerned with the last-minute change of plans. He trusted that she would let him know if she was staying super late, but because he hadn't gotten a word from her since before he'd gone to work that morning, he figured that she'd be home soon enough and their night would go on as normally planned. That was fine, even if he wasn't the biggest fan of being in the dark about where she was in the evenings, because he knew that everything was going to be okay as soon as she came home.
Sure enough, when he heard her lock the car outside the house nearly an hour after he'd gotten home, he paused the game he'd started playing and went to meet her at the door, a kind gesture he didn't always take part in. When he heard her put her key in the lock, he unlocked it on the inside and turned the handle, spooking her slightly as he pulled the door open unexpectedly before her eyes. "What are you doing, waiting for me like a lost puppy?" she asked, one hand clutching her chest while the other hung at her side, a plastic bag held up against her leg. "Please tell me you haven't been standing here that long."
"Fifteen seconds tops, not long at all," he replied, stepping back and letting her come in; when she was walking he could hear the bag and whatever was inside of it hitting against her, but he didn't think anything of it. "So, let me guess, whoever was supposed to come in this evening forgot to show up, huh?"
Kjelle looked at him, processing what he'd just asked, before shaking her head as she took her shoes off without so much as bending down. "Nope, my relief was there right on time. I had an errand to run before I could come home, which wasn't even my idea but…long story there, honestly. Don't want to bore you with it."
"Right, because everything you tell me is long and boring." Nodding sagely, Yarne expected her to reach out and playfully smack in his direction, but she merely chuckled, finished getting her shoes off, and went right into the bedroom to change. He stood there, making sure to lock the door yet again for good measure, before it dawned on him that she'd taken her bag with her when she went into the room, and if it had food in it, that meant there was food in the bedroom and he wasn't going to stand for that. "Hey, what's in that bag?" he asked, turning to go into the room after her but finding that she'd already holed herself up in the bathroom instead of just changing out in the open.
Unsatisfied with the lack of answer, he went into the room to see if she'd left it somewhere, such as on the bed or by the dresser, but while he couldn't find any sign of her casual, relaxing clothes she was going to wear that night, he also couldn't find the bag. "Did something today make you feel like you needed to go shopping?" he called in the general direction of the bathroom door, getting no response at all. "If someone came in and made you feel like you needed to get fancy perfume or makeup or something like that, I want you to know that I disagree with it. You're fine the way you are."
"Yarne, I'm saying this in the kindest way possible, but will you shut up?" The words were far from kind, but that was the point, he supposed. After all, he was asking her about her intentions for going shopping while she was changing out of her work clothes after a shift, he needed to give her space and let her take a moment to herself. Rather than stand around waiting for her to come back out so their night could get started, Yarne hopped up onto the edge of the bed, kicking his feet as he waited for that door to open.
While there was the temptation to ask her if everything was okay, he didn't want to be told to shut up a second time, so he kept himself sitting there, just waiting for any sign that things were fine. But it seemed that it was expected that he would have tried say something else, because he soon heard music come on from inside the bathroom, songs switching until one started with a chorus that he felt had to be meaningful in that moment.
We'll cry later or cry now, you know it's heartbreak, he heard the song clearly say, and for the first time those lyrics (which he had heard before, it wasn't like this was the first time Kjelle had played that particular song or even the album it came from) hit him in a way that was beyond thinking they sounded good. "This is the most demeaning thing I've ever had to do," he finally heard Kjelle say over the sound of the song, still on the other side of the door. "It was demeaning earlier when it happened the first time, it's just as demeaning now, I'm going to throttle everyone who had this bright idea and insisted I go through with it."
"W-what are you talking about?" he asked, jumping to his feet and coming to the door, putting his hand on the handle but not closing his fingers around it, not wanting to intrude since he knew he wasn't welcome. "Who did what to demean you? Do you need to go to your boss and tell them what's up?"
She groaned, hearing how close his voice was to her, as she stopped her song entirely. "No, Yarne, you're jumping to all sorts of conclusions right now. Someone left…an interesting thing in the changing room earlier, totally on accident, and the person who found it had the bright idea for everyone to use it."
"What kind of interesting thing?" His mind had jumped immediately to something private, for personal use only, and while he was getting flustered thinking about that sort of item being found in a changing room, the reality was that he knew it wasn't any sort of toy that had been left behind. There was no way that a gym of grown women was going to pass that around and use it. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"Something I never thought I'd buy, that's for sure." Kjelle's voice had gotten smaller, almost wistful, before she spoke again. "Point is, I think this woman's watched far too many videos online and got the dumbest idea from them, because the…game she had everyone play was really frustrating to be a part of, but it wasn't like I could say no. Wanted to, really should have, but everyone else was doing it and it was harmless fun. Mostly."
Now that she was sounding more and more upset about things, Yarne threw caution to the wind and latched his hand onto the door handle, trying to turn it but finding it locked on the other side, naturally. "You sound like you need a hug, can I get in there and give you one?"
"No. You can't." Drowning out the last syllable of the word, Kjelle's phone timer started blaring in the bathroom and she seemed to scramble to turn it off, followed immediately with a very shaky sigh. "And there's the proof that this whole thing is dumb. I shouldn't have let them talk me into checking 'just in case', I knew this was how it was going to end from the start."
He heard the door unlock, causing him to let go, so that she could open it and reveal herself on the other side, eyes reddened with tears and her lips pursed together firmly. "What was all that about? The timer, the proof thing, all of it?"
It wasn't overly noticeable, but Kjelle's lips started trembling as they pulsed together while she listened to her boyfriend's questions. "I'd really rather not get into the details," she said with her teeth clenched together, before stepping behind the door so Yarne could see fully into the room she'd locked herself in, "but the meat of the situation is that the person who found someone's unopened box of pregnancy tests on the changing room floor had the brilliant idea for everyone to play some kind of…roulette with them. Came from one of those dumb trends."
Yarne's eyebrows furrowed at the mere concept. "But that doesn't make any sense for you to have to play, you already know what answer you're going to get."
"Exactly. But I couldn't say that, someone else tried and she got accused of hiding something, so I had to swallow all those feelings and just go for it." Closing her eyes, Kjelle reached over and pounded her fist into the wall, a loud bang echoing in the room. "So the way the game works is that everyone does it, they put them all together, and then after whatever amount of time, you mix them around and look at the results. Perfectly harmless, except someone's was positive. And since no one would own up to it…" She pounded on the wall a couple more times, each more frustrated than the one prior, until she froze and started sobbing. "We had to all promise we'd go home and do it again, because obviously someone was hiding something from the rest of the group."
"You didn't have to do it, I wouldn't have known you said anything to them," he pointed out, lowering his voice as he came closer to envelope her in a hug. "All you've done is hurt yourself right now…"
"They're expecting pictures of the proof. I couldn't get out of this without doing it." She was crying, choking out words as best as she could, and now that she was being hugged her voice was all the more muffled and distorted. "But it's over, it's done, I'm never going to have to touch one of these stupid things again as long as I live."
He nodded, reaching one hand up to stroke the back of her head, while peering over onto the countertop where the offending test and its wrapper were still sitting. It wasn't like Yarne hadn't seen these sorts of things before, given that they were used pretty frequently in the dramas he'd be coerced into watching with his mother back when he'd been growing up, but to see one in the flesh made him feel a bit iffy. The circumstances for why it was sitting there, opened and used, felt manipulative, and even though he was someone who hated confrontation, he wanted to tell the person who had the idea for their little "game" that they shouldn't have forced someone with a physical condition preventing her from having a child to participate. As best as he could, he leaned over to see that the test window had the same image as the negative result on the wrapper, and that single line facing him felt like a slap to the face, all things currently going on considered.
"Well, they got their proof, didn't they?" he asked, straightening back up so that he didn't feel awkward leaning over his girlfriend any longer. "Now they know it wasn't you, and that's what matters."
She snorted out a laugh between sobs. "Heh, yeah, but I wish they could've just taken me saying it wasn't me at face value, instead of buying another pack and handing me one with the box because I'd never had to do this like this before today."
"But now they know." He let go of her, stroking the back of her head one last time before stepping away. "I'm going to go back to my game, you…take care of yourself and join me when you're ready. Sound like a plan?"
"Sure does. Thanks for hearing me out on this one, Yarne." Reaching up to blot the corner of her eye with the front of her shirt, Kjelle took in a deep breath, turned around, and grabbed her phone off of the counter where it too had been sitting. "I'm going to send them their picture, cool down a little, then I'll be out there. I'm going to need some real island time after this, let me tell you."
He smiled as he watched her turn her phone's camera on, choosing that to be the moment that he let her be until she was ready for his companionship again. Yarne was used to himself being the one upset, so to see Kjelle getting so broken down over something that she hadn't wanted to do in the first place made him hurt almost as bad as she did. But he knew that he had a lap for her to sit on and a peaceful game for her to play when she was ready, and there wasn't much else he thought he'd need to offer.
Once she heard him turning the game on the TV back on, Kjelle gave a shaky sigh, sending the picture she'd taken off to all of the coworkers who'd been present for the piss-poor excuse of a game they'd been forced to play. "All of this would've been prevented if they'd just let people sit out," she grumbled, spitting her words into the mirror as she stared at her miserable reflection, red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks something she hated to see. "I seriously should've just spat on the thing and called it a day, this whole situation is doing nothing but reminding me of what I can't have. What I won't be."
She sniffled, more tears beginning to pool at the corners of her eyes that she tried to wipe away as fast as she could. "I didn't even think this would affect me this badly, it was a stupid game that they really didn't mean any harm with, but someone playing…" Her voice, already barely above a whisper, was lowering further to keep Yarne from thinking something else was wrong, even though she wasn't sure he'd be able to hear her over his game. "Someone playing gets to experience something that I won't be able to, not without a lot of money and a lot of praying."
Realizing the battle against her tears and insecurities was one she wasn't going to be winning, she crouched down so that her arms were resting on the countertop but her head was against the cabinets, tears now freely falling from her eyes and hitting the rug beneath her feet. "I'm sure I'd be a hell of a better parent than mine are, but faulty genetics screwed me out of that opportunity to show them up. And Yarne…and Yarne…he's always been a better parent to his sister than his parents are, I could only imagine what kinds of things he'd be able to do with a child of his own. A child that I can't give him because something decided that I deserved to be broken!"
Her sadness was turning to anger, to frustration with a physical situation she'd been helpless in preventing in the first place. "But whatever, what's done is done and if we want to be parents we'll have to have a lot of money to make it happen." Kjelle's legs were beginning to shake underneath her from how far into a crouch she had gotten, and she took those tremors as her cue to stand back up—and find herself faced with the faintest of second lines appearing on the test still on the counter.
Time seemed to stop as she stared at it, still partially in her crouch and still very much an emotional wreck. Rubbing at her eyes with one hand, she grabbed her phone and checked the time, it only having been a couple minutes since the timer had gone off. The directions that she'd had to endure reading while still at the store with Effie and the others had made it clear that any result that appeared within ten minutes of administration was a valid one, and she was just within that threshold. "N-no, that's not…" she started, trailing off as she picked it up to make sure that her eyes really weren't deceiving her.
It was barely there, but it was a second line next to the control, an attempt at replicating the "positive" result as depicted by the wrapper. "I can't, though? I've known for years that I can't, I don't have the ability, my body doesn't…" At once she shot straight to standing, her head whipping to look back over her shoulder, in the general direction of where Yarne was probably sitting. "There's no way this could happen, not even thanks to the luck of a rabbit. I…I can't tell him. I can't get his hopes up like that."
Blissfully unaware of what was happening in the bathroom, Yarne had found a nice fishing spot on his island to spend some time casting his line, making sure that he was careful in pressing the button to reel in at the exact right time. The whole concept of fishing in real life made him sad, and the way the game handled it gave him massive anxiety every time, but he liked the puns, the jokes, and the money he received for selling the fish after capture. Thanks to the volume of the game, at most he could hear the occasional loud sound coming from where Kjelle was, but he knew she was upset and he wasn't going to think too much about it.
Little did he know that she was still standing there in just about the same spot he'd left her, clutching the used pregnancy test in a fist like it had personally harmed her. She didn't know what to do with this information that she'd never anticipated getting, aside from throw the offending item down to the floor and pretend she'd never seen it. That wasn't a rational action, however, and would more than likely have earned her a visit from the person she was currently trying to keep unaware of things. In order to think things through better, she put the stick back in its wrapper and threw it away, knowing that if for some reason it was dug out, whatever it said could be disregarded.
"Okay, now what?" she asked herself, her hands shaking as she fixed her hair and made sure that she didn't look too bothered by things. "Obviously, have to handle making sure that thing was just a fluke, but I…" Her voice fell silent as she looked at her reflection again, the woman in the mirror staring back at her the same one that had just been broken moments before. "I can save that for tomorrow. Right now, I'm not putting myself through that again."
After giving herself a nod of assurance that everything was going to be perfectly fine, she left the bathroom and headed out to meet with Yarne, acting like nothing had changed since he'd come out to play his game. "Oh, let me finish up for you," he said when he heard her coming, scrambling to get his character to the shop to sell off his fish before quitting the game. "I didn't do anything too important, talked to some villagers, did a lot of fishing, kind of the usual, really."
"Thanks, I appreciate it," she replied, trying to keep her voice steady to make it seem like she had been able to calm down from her emotional moment. As she climbed into the chair and onto his lap, there were so many questions she wanted to ask him about the possibility of everything not being as they thought, but she held her tongue, wanting to keep the what-ifs out of their lives until she was once again proven unable to bear biological children. Just the idea of bringing it up with him right then, as she was getting to play their peaceful game where nothing bad ever happened, didn't sit right with her; she didn't want to take one of Yarne's favorite things and attach it to memories that would hurt to think on.
"I was thinking, since it's already later than usual we can't exactly do anything tonight, but the next time you're home at a good time, we've got to go out and take our minds off of all this." Yarne's idea was pleasant, it was a break from the uncertainty and surprises that had overtaken the day, and even though she was still emotionally off-kilter, Kjelle was able to find herself smiling at it, telling him she thought he was smart to come up with it. "Aw, it was nothing too big. Just want to be able to go out and spend time with my girlfriend when she needs the pick-me-up."
"I'm looking forward to it, whenever we make it happen." She laid her head against his shoulder and sighed deeply, feeling her stresses begin to melt away in time with the music from the game. "It'll be a nice time, just the two of us out doing something, no worries in the world except what we're going to eat."
He couldn't tell, thanks to the way she sounded genuinely appreciative of his idea, but there was the underlying sense that there could easily be more to their date night than he was expecting, whether good or bad.
As fate, or perhaps luck, would have it, the very next night had Kjelle already home when Yarne got back from work, which came as a surprise to him as Thursday nights often were the ones that she was out latest. "Did they change your schedule on you today or something?" he asked her after he'd come into the house to see her watching a movie in the chair, which she paused when she heard his voice. "You aren't usually home early enough to start a movie before I get here."
"Yeah, it was a last-minute change, I ended up having to go in a lot earlier than I normally do to cover someone else, and they're there tonight for me." Kjelle waved her hand in Yarne's general direction as she spoke, trying to make it clear the change wasn't a big deal. "Ended up forgetting my lunch here before I left, though, so I did have to run to the store and get something on my way to the gym."
"I'm glad you were able to get something, at least." He gave her a smile before heading into the bedroom to change, poking his head back out when he heard the movie turn back on. "I guess that means tonight we can make good on what I said last night and go out? Does that sound fine to you?"
Her eyes shifting from the TV screen to him, then back on the movie when she saw that he had already managed to get shirtless as made obvious by the bare shoulder she could see, she wiggled her head back and forth for a moment before deciding to throw caution to the wind and go for it. "Sounds great, honestly. If you're open to making last-minute plans like that, then I'm going to be down for it too."
"Great! I'll make sure I get dressed appropriately, then, and you should too." He was back in the room and back in his own world before he got any sort of answer, but how Kjelle felt about that particular part of things was made clear when he came out a couple minutes later to see her still in the chair watching the movie. "Uh, aren't you going to get ready?"
"I'm halfway through this movie, let me finish it and then we can go." To prove her stance on going right then, she seemed to sink herself down in the chair a bit more, and Yarne wanted to argue with her about the importance of leaving right away, but he chose not to when he saw how comfortable she looked. After her horrible day the previous day, he would've felt bad trying to convince her to leave her low-budget thriller movie for another time, so he retreated back into the bedroom to kill time. With his handheld game to keep him occupied, it wasn't that long of a wait for her to finish up and come get dressed in clothes meant for going out in, but it was still a wait that he had to endure.
While he was laying on his side of the bed, game in hand, he heard his phone go off next to him, making him jump at the sudden loudness of the sound. When he checked it, he saw that it was a message from his mother, which made him feel instant uneasiness to see coming up on his screen. Can you be bothered to pick your sister up from school tomorrow? Or does this need to wait until after her break? it read, a completely normal message for him to be receiving from her. Rather than answer it and get it taken care of, Yarne decided that he wasn't going to bother answering and let her get the hint that he wasn't interested in helping her out still.
"I hope she'll get it one of these days," he muttered, swiping away the message to reveal his home screen on his phone, the background of which was an older picture of him, Kjelle, and Ribbon while out at a park one summer afternoon. It wasn't the best picture of any of them, but when he'd decided to stop being helpful to his parents he'd begun to regret cutting his sister out in the process, and had changed his background to something with her in it to help heal his soul a little. "Ugh, but maybe I should…just to see her again."
His eyes closed for a second, Yarne imagined how excited Ribbon would be if he was the one to pull up outside her school and pick her up. When he opened them, he accepted that some choices that he'd need to make would be harder than others, but keeping himself away from his sister wasn't something he wanted to continue doing. With heavy fingers he grabbed his phone and replied to his mother that he would go get Ribbon the following day, but he wouldn't be going inside the house with her, and now his decision was that he wouldn't reply to any further messages.
When Kjelle came into the bedroom to change after her movie had finished, Yarne was in the middle of frantically typing out yet another message, the game he'd been playing set aside and forgotten about. "Someone bothering you?" she asked, tilting her head to look at him where he lay. "I don't think I've ever seen you typing that aggressively in my life."
"It's Mom, who else would you expect?" he answered, sounding annoyed to have to say those words. "She wanted to know about tomorrow and I replied and now we're arguing about who's in the right about things. She still doesn't think she did anything wrong, just so you know, but we both know she did."
There was a moment where Kjelle seemed to freeze in place, her eyes drifting off to some unknown point, but Yarne wasn't looking at her when it had happened and didn't think anything of her stumbling over her words when she said, "Well, uh, she definitely did do at least one thing wrong. Maybe two, if you consider giving you another sibling something wrong, but that's debatable. The wine was absolutely wrong, though, no questions."
"See, but she's not getting it. She's like, we had a choice to drink it and we chose to, even without looking into what it actually was. But she kind of encouraged it, which I think's the really big problem here." Yarne sat up, still typing a few more words out, before he set his phone down and looked at Kjelle, who was in the process of switching pants. "Hey, did you know that I think you're pretty?"
"I've known that for a long time. Got anything else you'd like to restate that's beyond obvious?" She was teasing, she did appreciate the compliments from him whenever they came, and with how infrequent they ended up being it was something to cherish when he did give her one.
Yarne paused, thinking about if he had any other little comments that he'd like to share with her while he had the chance. "I mean, is saying that I love you beyond obvious?" he asked, scooting down to the end of the bed closer to where Kjelle was still changing. "I think it probably is, but you never know."
"I'd say that I know it, so it is obvious, but I like hearing it anyway." Tugging the pants on over her legs and getting them situated properly, Kjelle gave Yarne a smile that showed how thankful she was for the reminder that he loved her. "You know what I should say in return to that, don't you?"
He returned the smile, waiting for the anticipated comment, but got something better in return—a quick kiss that actually showed the love that she had for him, instead of just telling him about it. "Thanks for that," he said, falling back onto the bed before picking himself up completely and standing next to her while she changed her shirt quickly. "I kind of thought you were actually going to say something there."
"I like keeping you on your toes, what can I say?" Feeling confident that she looked the best she could without needing to get too into doing hair and makeup, Kjelle gave a firm nod before grabbing Yarne's hand and lacing her fingers in between his. "But yeah, I love you too, you know this."
He gave a content sigh, squeezing her hand before starting heading for the door. "Let's get going before we get distracted just telling each other things we already know," he decided, her following along without any question. A few minutes later, after making sure they were prepared for the nightly chill in the air with jackets and shoes, they were out the front door and over to his car, him wanting to drive for the night because it had been his idea to go out in the first place. Their destination was a little restaurant not that far from the house, somewhere they could have walked if it wasn't going to get dark before they'd be returning home, and when they got there and found the place almost entirely empty, it was almost like it was fated for them to be there.
The host at the door let them sit wherever they wanted, so Yarne picked a table that was nestled in the corner, within sight of the front entrance but not obviously so. He sat so that he could keep an eye on the door, while Kjelle took the seat opposite his, used to the behavior and not questioning a thing about it. "I'm surprised you picked this place for tonight, we come here so often…" she said quietly, as they were sitting down in their seats and getting their menus opened. "I don't even think I have to look to know what I want here, that's how often we come."
"I don't know what you mean by that, this place is always worth coming to." Grinning, Yarne flung his menu open and put a finger down on a box marked as being a weekly specials list, sliding it until he was touching what the special of the day was. "Oh good, it's one of the vegetarian choices, that's always a plus."
"You knew that before you even looked, though, you always tell me you know that." Off the top of her head, Kjelle could probably have recited the daily specials for almost every day of the week, because the two of them were in there so often for different reasons. "Wouldn't it have been more interesting to, I don't know, eat somewhere that we don't always go to make this really special?"
His face scrunched up at the suggestion. "No way, other places aren't as comforting as this one is, and I wouldn't feel as great going there as I do coming here. Just…let me have this one, will you?"
"Fine, if that's what you want." Pushing her lips together as if she had something else to say, Kjelle looked slightly annoyed with how he was acting but didn't let it known if she was. When the server came over and greeted them both with name and offered them house wines and appetizers to start the meal, she spoke first to deny all of it, ordering them both waters to drink and letting the server know they'd order their meal when the drinks were there.
"What if I wanted to order something to start us off?" Yarne asked, confused about why she'd just taken control of ordering the drinks like she had. "I didn't, that would be silly but what if I did?"
"Then you could've just ordered it when she came back, but we both know you never order anything outside of your meal and your drink so I sped up the process a little." After having spent so much time eating with Yarne, it was fairly obvious what his quirks relating to his ordering habits were, and Kjelle wasn't there to be playing around. "Besides, I'd like it if we can get this dinner over as fast as possible."
"Huh? Why?" The mere notion that they needed to be out of there quickly came as a shock to Yarne, and he looked at Kjelle, waiting for further explanation. She merely stared at him, not saying much of anything else, and they maintained their silent focus on each other until the server came back with the waters and to collect their dinner order. Once she was gone again, Yarne rephrased his question to prompt an actual answer. "Why do we need to get done fast? You don't have plans for after this, do you?"
"No, I just…" Her voice going silent yet again as she began moving her hands around to grasp at what she wanted to say, Kjelle ended up giving a large shrug at the whole situation. "I wouldn't call them plans, I just want to talk to you about something, get it all out into the open before anything happens and you freak out on me about not telling you."
Slightly dramatically, Yarne swallowed down, his whole body seeming to move with the action. "This isn't your way of breaking up with me, is it?" he timidly asked, dreading the answer he thought he'd get.
"No, and I don't even know why you'd think that would be the case. Talk about someone stringing you along." Kjelle rolled her eyes, before reaching out across the table toward Yarne, trying to grab his hand but failing when she simply couldn't reach it where it currently was. She sighed as her hand fell to the table, only for him to realize what she was trying to do and offering his hand to her, which she took and held for a moment. "It's not really something I want to talk about where others can hear me, though, which is why I want to save it for after dinner. But I want it off of my chest as soon as I can get rid of it, and that's why I'm letting you know now."
He nodded slowly, understanding what she was saying but not wanting to know any more details on the matter. "I'm going to take as much time as I usually do to eat, so sorry if it's slower than you'd like, but I'm not rushing myself. Bad things can happen if you rush a meal, and I can't risk that for myself."
"Yeah, I figured you'd say something like that." That was when she let go of his hand and went back to being completely on her own side of the table, knowing that any good vibes their dinner was meant to have had been thrown out with her request that they get done quickly. She could see that Yarne was bothered by the unknown, but there wasn't much else that she could say without baring her heart to him right then; he could tell that Kjelle was holding onto something that she desperately wanted to let go of, but he knew he wasn't going to get it out of her when she wasn't ready for it.
Dinner ended up being a fairly solemn affair, with even the server picking up on the awkward air between the couple and rushing their check out not long after dropping their meals, just so that they could leave when they were ready. There were no issues with the food or the service, but they were still going through the meal as fast as Yarne's insistence on being careful would allow them. When they were finished, the check was paid for at once and after being absolutely sure that he had everything back in his wallet, they walked out of the restaurant and to the car, where Kjelle held her hand out for the keys. "I'll drive us back, if you don't mind," she said, watching Yarne squirm as he got his keys out of his pocket but didn't hand them over. "Or we can go back, get my car, and go…somewhere I need to go. Either way, doesn't matter to me."
"My seat is in the perfect place for me and my long legs, you'll just mess it up adjusting it for your height," he whined, shaking the keys as he debated letting her make that change per her request for driving. "Can't you just tell me where it is you need to go so I can drive? Wherever it is, I promise I can drive us there safe and sound."
She exhaled deeply through barely-opened lips, frustration beginning to brew inside of her mind. "I mean, if you promise you're not going to question it, then I suppose I can have you do the driving. It's just to the gym, I left something there earlier and need to go grab it. It's kind of time sensitive, honestly. Think of it as something that'll go bad if we save it for tomorrow, instead of getting it tonight."
"Was it part of the lunch you had to go buy?" Yarne looked expectantly at Kjelle, thinking he had solved the mystery, and she stared blankly at him for a moment before saying that yes, that was what it related to. "Then I definitely get it, let's go get that food before it goes bad."
They were in the car for a lot longer than the drive from the restaurant home would have been, but after a few silent minutes of nothing but the sounds of the car and the road around them, they arrived outside of the fitness center that Kjelle worked at. She motioned for Yarne to keep the car running, hopped out of her seat, and went inside the building, coming back right before he began to suspect that she'd been gone too long. When she buckled herself back in, holding a bag just like the one from the day before between her legs, she looked at him, waiting for him to drive away. He didn't, just looking at her to see if she was going to say anything about what food she had to go retrieve. "We aren't talking about this while you're driving, so if you want to know, get us home."
A strange feeling began to weigh on Yarne's shoulders, as if he was dealing with something that wasn't what he'd been told. "It's not actually food, I should've guessed that," he said under his breath, resuming driving the car without so much as glancing at his girlfriend for the duration of the ride. If she wanted to keep secrets and make him do things for her that she wasn't fully explaining, that was her decision, but he wasn't going to let her use anything against him. He wasn't even going to let her pretend that her manipulation was okay.
But, when they got to the house and he pulled into his normal spot, she let out the weariest of sighs and re-locked the doors on him when he unlocked them to get out. "No, let's talk about this here. I don't want to risk you trying to distract yourself with your games while we talk about this."
"If it's not you breaking up with me, and you're lying about what you needed me to go get from your gym…" Yarne leaned against the steering wheel, reaching onto the dashboard and tapping his fingertips on the dusty surface. "I don't know if I want to be listening without distractions while you try explaining yourself."
"Trust me, I get it." Kjelle crinkled the bag in her hands, pulling it up onto her lap while still holding it closed. "And you need to also trust me when I say that I don't want to have this conversation. I don't want to talk about this with you, but I know if I don't do it now, then when it comes back to bite me later for not trusting you with this…I don't want to imagine how much you'd hurt then."
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, keeping his eyes focused on the road ahead of the parked car, imagining what it would be like if he just threw it in drive and kept moving. In that instance, he was sure that she wouldn't keep talking, and he could remain blissfully unaware of whatever she was trying to throw at him. "I don't think there's much that you'd be able to keep from me that would hurt me later. Unless you were, I don't know, cheating on me or something like that, but you wouldn't. You never would."
"You're right, I wouldn't cheat on you. That would be pretty messed up if I did."
"So it's not that, it's not that you're breaking up with me, what is it?" He lifted his head and looked at her, feeling the first sign of tears beginning to form in his eyes. "You want to trust me with this information, so just come out and say it. I can handle it."
She did respond, but it was so quiet that even in the stillness of their car he couldn't hear what she'd exactly said, prompting him to ask her to repeat herself. "I said, I'm calling off work tomorrow because I have an appointment I don't want to go to," she repeated, her voice higher than before but still quiet enough that Yarne had to strain to hear it. "I already know what's going to happen when I go, and I'm very thankful they could squeeze me in last-minute like this, but I…yeah, I'm going to the doctor."
"About what?" Now sitting up fully in his seat, the top of his head brushing against the roof of the car as always, Yarne had his eyes fully locked on Kjelle as she fiddled with the bag on her lap some more, before she held it up and opened it to show him what was inside. Even in the darkness, he was able to see the pastel-colored boxes inside, and memories of what had happened the previous night hit him at once. "Oh. Oh. Did someone make you play that game again? Is that what this is about?"
Closing the bag and dropping it onto her lap, Kjelle gave a single, sharp laugh. "I wish that's what this was about, but you—I didn't—it wasn't—Yarne, last night after you left me alone, something happened. The test changed its result before the time to disregard whatever it said came around."
"They can do that?" he asked, taking that information a lot better than she'd expected him to, until he slid down in his seat, going as far as he could until his knees were hitting the steering column. "Wait, if they can do that, then are you saying that the positive test at work yesterday was yours?"
"Which shouldn't be possible unless something's going very, very wrong, but yeah. Which is why I 'forgot' my lunch this morning, to have an excuse to go to the store and buy more tests just to see if the one was a fluke or not." She heard him choke out a cry, his hands raising to cover his mouth as he looked at her in disbelief. "I know, don't worry, I'm completely shaken by this too. All of the ones this morning weren't the same way, though."
A beat, followed by her clarifying, "They were positive a lot faster."
The second cry that came from Yarne was a lot longer, a lot more squeal-like in nature, sounding like he was an animal that had just been shot for sport. "Wh-what do you—do you have any—what does it mean?" he stammered, trying not to let his panic become too much more apparent than it already was. "How can this happen with all of the things you've told me about? With the medications and the surgeries and the everything else?"
"It can't happen, that's what's wrong here." Even though she'd tossed around the idea that the power of his luck from the year of the rabbit could overpower even the direst of medical records, Kjelle refused to believe that was the case. "I'm sure there's a completely logical explanation that probably will result in them just taking the rest of the pieces out to keep this from happening again, which is why I'm getting seen tomorrow. I can't let it be a repeat of the last time I had something go wrong in there."
"Are you sure you can do this on your own? I don't know if I can get work off as easily as you can, but if you want me there, I'll do it!" Yarne, who notoriously hated anything related to doctors and the procedures they could submit someone to, knew that him making that offer was a big deal for himself, but when he saw the way Kjelle shook her head at it, he felt almost relieved. "Then you'll have to let me know what happens as soon as it does happen, okay? Don't leave me as in the dark about this as you already have."
"That was the plan, in case they need to put me under or throw me into immediate treatment for whatever's causing this." With a scowl on her face, Kjelle looked down at the bag in her lap, filled with boxes she needed to dispose of now that she'd made her point with them. "And then, after tomorrow, I hope I'll never have to get judged for buying these sorts of things at the store again. Either because we'll know that any positive is false, or because I won't have the parts to make this happen."
Pulling himself up so that he wasn't so scrunched down in the seat, Yarne watched as she picked the bag up again and unlocked the car door, ready to get out and take care of business. "Hey, before we go back in and pretend none of this happened, what if it's not what you think it is? What if there's—"
"Don't finish that thought, you and I both know this is just a scare. If I didn't know that my body's almost exclusively filled with dud eggs, then I'd be a bit more interested in entertaining that thought, but the testing they ran probably isn't lying to me about that sort of thing." She put her hand on the door, about to open it, before she looked over at Yarne and his almost hopeful gaze he was giving her. "No, you're not convincing me to think that there's some silver lining here. I'm going in there tomorrow, they're going to tell me none of this is real, I'm going to come home and we're going to go back to living our lives the way we always have."
"—you're right, I don't know why I'd even think you could be wrong here." His eyes cast downward, Yarne listened for her to open and close her door, before he reached over and opened his as well. Inside, he wished that she hadn't shot him down so fast, but he knew that she had her reasons for it and that she was ultimately going to be the one that was right. He knew enough about her medical history regarding her absolutely shot fertility, and he knew that there were parts to the story he didn't know; if Kjelle was certain that there wasn't anything good happening, then he needed to believe her.
That didn't stop him from thinking about the situation all night, even as they settled in to play games together and snuggle up with each other in the chair. There were things that he wanted to say, places he wanted to take the conversation, but those avenues were best left untraveled when one of the people involved was so broken by the hand that life had already dealt her. The last thing he needed was to make her feel even worse about needing to take up an appointment from someone who had actual positive news to learn about, even if he wasn't going to mean any harm by what he said.
Eventually, though, he cracked and managed to bring himself to say one little thing on the matter, right as they were tucking into bed that night. "I can't stop hoping that things end up exactly like we need them to tomorrow, however that might be."
From where she was already laying down, Kjelle took in a long, deep breath, holding it in her chest for as long as she could before exhaling it slowly. "I know how they're going to end, but I'd be lying if I told you I didn't want it to come out differently somehow. But I'm not getting my hopes up, and neither should you."
"Right, yeah, best to not get too excited about what could possibly happen that isn't something bad." He sounded sad, which was the truth at that moment, but Yarne couldn't help but really want to lean into imagining what could be. Not everything needed to be so deep and dark in their lives, and even though the current situation was one they didn't want to have to deal with, it ending for the best was just too foreign of an idea.
So when he was called the next afternoon asking if he could rush home after work, all of the daydreaming and fantasizing about the good possibilities went right out the window, and he was left resenting the fact that he'd decided to be a good brother again that week.
"I missed seeing you, Yarne!" Ribbon screeched when she got into the car after school, her excitement so strong she was visibly shaking from it. "I've been waiting and waiting for you to come get me and now you're finally here again!"'
"I sure am," he replied, silently wishing she'd hurry up with getting in her seat and ready to go so that he could get home faster. "Sorry that I chose being upset over what Mom did instead of choosing spending time with you, but what she did really bothered me and I didn't want to accidentally run into her."
Ribbon, still taking her time getting situated, didn't seem to mind what she'd heard. "It's okay, Mom's been really upset about how you've been acting but Dad's been trying to convince her that it was just a lot of things being thrown at you at once that made you feel that way. But…was it that, really?" She curled a fist under her chin and leaned toward her brother, an action that he merely responded to by telling her to buckle up so they could go. "Ugh, you're no fun, I'm trying to be a detective and solve my family's problems! Car safety, who even cares about car safety?"
"People who want to live long lives care about car safety," Yarne said, sounding annoyed that he even had to say such a thing. "I'm not driving if you aren't buckled in, and I kind of have somewhere I need to be after this, so if we can hurry things along…"
With a gasp, Ribbon got herself buckled, only to resume her pose. "Plans? For my big brother who does the same thing every single Friday? What's going on?"
"I'm not explaining things to an eleven-year-old. It's adult stuff, the things you hate people talking about where you can hear them." Now that she was buckled, Yarne was able to start driving away, heeding all speed expectations as he got out of the parking lot and on the road to their parents' house. "Besides, I don't actually know a whole lot about it myself, that's why I need to get home to deal with it as fast as I can. You won't mind if I don't sit and talk with you before you go inside, will you?"
Her lips squishing together as she thought about that, Ribbon ended up dramatically sighing and rolling her eyes, throwing herself backward into the seat. "I suppose I won't mind too much, but next time you pick me up after break, you're making that up to me. I've missed time with my brother so much that I need to catch up on it."
"Thanks for being so understanding, Ribbon, I appreciate it." He was genuine in his thanks, even if she'd gone a bit far with how she'd reacted to his needs, and to make some of his neglect up he did spend the whole ride talking with her, but when they pulled up outside the family home he stopped, unlocked her door, and promised they'd see each other again soon, before impatiently waiting for her to get out.
"Are you sure you need me to get out so you can go right now…?" Ribbon asked, having opened her door but still sitting in her seat with her backpack at her feet. "I mean, you could come in and say hi to Dad before you leave, couldn't you? That would make him feel good."
Even if he hadn't been asked to get home as soon as possible, Yarne still wouldn't have parked the car and gone inside to talk to his father, but he didn't want to tell Ribbon that in those words. "I really have to go, there's always next time for me to do that," he said, trying his best to sound serious about it. "Tell him I say hi for me, that should do the trick."
"You're such a bully to our parents sometimes." The words were unexpected coming from Ribbon, but it made sense that she would have picked up that sort of mindset from their mother over the years. She hopped out of the car, waved her brother goodbye, and slammed the door closed before she ran up to the house, him watching her as far as the front step before he drove away. Those words hung heavy on his heart the whole drive home, to the point that he almost rolled through a stop sign a bit faster than he should have, but he was ultimately safe getting home and into his usual spot.
Kjelle was out at his car before he even realized that she'd come outside in the first place, something he only noticed because he heard her trying to open the door. He let her in and she got in without a word, merely sighing as she sat down and got herself buckled in, much less of a struggle than what he'd just gone through with his sister. "I should explain what's going on now, huh?" she asked, her hands fidgeting with the seatbelt in front of her. "You don't even know why I'm out here right now."
"I didn't even know that you were going to be coming to meet me in the car. That would've been nice to know about ahead of time." Trying his best not to sound annoyed that his plans had been even more thrown out of whack than he'd been expecting, Yarne considered turning the car off so they could talk, but Kjelle motioned for him to keep it running. "Okay, so, what's going on this time?"
"I need you to drive me somewhere. I've been given a referral to go get looked at because…" Her voice became softer as she looked out the window, away from Yarne. "The doctor today told me that she thinks there's something pretty bad going on, and she wants me to get a full exam before ordering any biopsies or full surgeries or—"
"She thinks that you're going to need that kind of stuff over this?" Yarne's voice hit higher registers than anyone would expect a man of his size to be capable of, a squeal that showed he was very distraught by that statement. "That's horrible! What's making her think that?"
Kjelle shrugged, another sigh escaping her as she did. "I mean, there's a lot of notes in my records that make that a pretty easy guess to make. She told me, I swear to you, that this makes her wish she could meet the doctor that decided to only take out the problematic side instead of everything."
Nodding solemnly, Yarne could feel himself on the verge of having a breakdown but he knew he needed to remain strong in that moment, especially being the one person behind the wheel. "Then, uh, just tell me where you need me to take you for this. I definitely get why you didn't want to drive yourself, that's for sure."
"Thank you, Yarne." She was quiet, and it was clear that Kjelle was rattled by what she had just asked him to do. In that same quiet voice, she gave him directions step by step to get them across town to a large, looming medical building that felt completely unwelcoming. Neither of them wanted to be there, but the situation deemed it necessary to go inside of that cold building, and so after parking close to the entrance they went inside, hand in shaking hand until they were at the counter for the particular department that the referral was meant for, handing it over to the receptionist and being told to sit down and wait.
That wait was excruciating, even with the room being empty aside from them and the people behind the desk, and when they did come to get them and take them back, it was done with completely mispronouncing Kjelle's name (which would normally irritate her, except she was so focused on keeping herself calm in the moment that it didn't even seem to register as having happened), to the point that they had to address her by her last name instead to get her to hear that she was being called. The person waiting in the doorway to welcome them back seemed confused when it wasn't just one person coming their way, and he looked Yarne over a couple of times before saying, "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to wait outside while Ms. Laine goes in for the exam."
"He can't come with?" Kjelle asked, surprise in her voice at the decision and at how she'd been formally addressed. "The last time I had to do this, my mom was able to come with me."
"That might have been the case that time, but this is for you only." The tech bowed his head, before allowing them both into the back hallway, only to gesture toward another waiting area where he expected Yarne to go.
"I'll be right here waiting for you," Yarne said, leaning down until he was bumping against the top of Kjelle's head, a gesture that she reacted to by pushing her head back into him. "If anything happens, I'm sure they'll let me go with you then…right?"
The response he got was a silent shrug from the tech, who waited until Yarne was in one of the chairs in the dark sitting area before walking further down the hall with Kjelle behind him. There was nothing to do in that little alcove, aside from pick up old editions of magazines that had been well-read by others in positions similar to his, and he wasn't feeling up to reading about the latest celebrity drama from months before. "Well, uh, guess it's a good thing I didn't go inside after work," he mumbled, reaching into his pants pocket and pulling out his phone and his ear buds, which he popped into his ears and turned music on to fill the silence. At first it was a classical album he was listening through, music that he used to help him get through work on occasion, but when it started to put him to sleep he shifted over to a podcast about different people's experiences playing old games that he'd never gotten the chance to play for himself.
With the sound of strangers' voices in his head, he began playing a game on his phone, one of those matching games that he'd gotten so tired of seeing ads for that he'd decided to start playing it to get the ads to stop. It was a mindless way to pass the time, and he could have honestly gotten through several episodes of the show and many levels of the game had he not heard a rapping on the wall nearby. He looked up from his phone to see a different tech standing by the hallway, her head tilted in his direction. "Can I help you?" he asked, pulling one of his earbuds out as he watched the tech nod. "Did something go wrong? Oh, gods, would it have been better for me to be with her the whole time?"
"I…can't answer that, but I do need you to come with me." This tech seemed shaken by something, almost like she'd just come to face a serious problem, and the mere tone she spoke with had Yarne's heart beginning to thump rapidly in his chest. He scrambled to close things on his phone and get everything back in his pocket, rising to his feet and joining with the tech in just a couple large steps. They went down the hall, the tech knocking on a nondescript door and waiting for an answer on the other side before opening it and escorting Yarne inside. "I'm going to get the doctor down here to discuss what's happening. This isn't typical, but given the history here, I think it's the right thing to do."
As the door closed and the air hung heavy in the room, Yarne found himself looking around to get his bearings in the unfamiliar place, finding it very dimly lit with nowhere for someone to sit if they weren't on the table, minus a very obvious doctor's stool. "I'm so sorry you have to see me like this," he heard Kjelle say, her voice making it clear that she wasn't happy with what she was currently going through. "I mean, you would've seen it anyway if you'd been here from the start, but this has to come as a bit of a surprise to you."
"It's definitely not what I expected to walk in to," he replied, walking around to where he could see his girlfriend's face instead of the paper cloth that was covering the majority of her body. "I'm gonna guess you're not wearing anything under there, huh?"
"Not exactly. Everything waist-up is still on, but other than that it's in the bathroom still." One of her hands pointed toward a closed door on the side of the room, which was logically the place where people were expected to change for these sorts of exams. "If I hadn't been through a whole bunch of these while trying to figure out if what was going on was going to kill me, this would probably be a lot more awkward and uncomfortable, but now it's just terrifying. Yarne, the last time I heard a tech get that concerned, I ended up getting cut open a week later for them to take out one of my ovaries. I can't handle that again."
Her fear was understandable, and Yarne wished that there was something he could do right then to make things better. "I'm sure it's not going to happen again, wouldn't they have said something if that were the case?"
"No, actually, they wouldn't. They're not supposed to tell you what they see."
"Oh, that's…" He coughed, not sure what to say to that. "Well, then, maybe it's something really miraculous, like things growing back or something like that?"
Kjelle laughed as she rolled her eyes at the mere notion that entire body parts could regenerate unprompted. "Thanks, but if that's the case, then I'm definitely getting rushed in for some surgical work tonight. I'm pretty sure that something growing back would mean there's much bigger problems at play."
She sounded like all of her biggest worries were getting dragged back up against her will, which made Yarne only wish harder that he could do something. It felt impossible, though, given how unfamiliar he was with the situation they were in. When the doctor came into the room, it seemed like that whatever she had to say was going to be the way to relieving any of the fears and anxieties currently plaguing them. "First and foremost, I want to say that this is unusual to have a loved one in the room in this place," the doctor started after introducing herself, as she took a seat on the rolling stool, moving close to the table as she pulled gloves on. "Mind filling me in on who this is?"
"My boyfriend. I know, I know, why not a parent, but I'd rather him be here than my mom right now." Kjelle seemed firm in that statement, causing the doctor to chuckle behind her mask. "I'm assuming that him being in here means there's a problem, right?"
Grabbing some sort of wand that made Yarne blush to see, the doctor shook her head. "I'm not able to answer that until I get a look at what I was told I needed to see. While I'm getting everything set up, can you do me a favor and tell me the abridged version of your medical history? I want to make sure that what they have recorded is the same as what you know." There was a pause, while the doctor put some sort of gel on the wand. "Of course, if you don't want to say it in front of him, I understand."
"It's not like he's not already aware of it." Like it was something normal to have to talk about, Kjelle started talking about her rather difficult medical history, while Yarne made sure he was watching her face instead of whatever the doctor was starting to do under the paper cloth. "It started with completely irregular and unpredictable cycles, where I could go months without one before bleeding for months straight, then there were the cysts so bad that I would be bed-ridden for days while dealing with them. Once it was clear that the situation wasn't getting better, I had a few of the large cysts removed and tested, and even though I…think they were clear, the doctor I was seeing at the time wanted to keep an eye on their size. When they got too big on one side, to the point that it was visible to anyone looking at me, she ordered them to take that whole side out."
"And what was it in there about lowered fertility?" the doctor asked, as the sound of what sounded like a heartbeat filled the room around them, something she explained to the uninformed in there as being the sound of the blood flowing through the ovary that still existed. "I'm not seeing any cysts on this side, by the way, but I'm also not seeing anything visible that would notate that being an issue."
"Oh, right, they threw me on all sorts of medications that were meant to 'help' the problem I had before my surgery, but after the removal they ran tests on the eggs that were taken out and almost every single one came back as incompatible with life. The doctor then said that I was functionally infertile, barring anything crazy happening. Which is why I'm here today, because if that's the case, then any positive tests would be wrong." The more she spoke, the more done with what she was saying she sounded, so when she finished it was clear that Kjelle didn't want to talk about things anymore. "That's really all I've got for you."
Nodding, the doctor seemed to adjust something she was doing, as the sound in the room disappeared entirely for a moment, before coming back in a slightly different tone. "I appreciate your honesty, and thank you for not leaving out any details that might have been a bit difficult to share in this situation. You see, when given the body of evidence here today, I could hardly believe what I was hearing my tech tell me while also reading through what's been clearly documented in your case."
"What were you told?" Yarne asked, seeing that Kjelle didn't seem like she was going to be speaking for herself right then, her eyes closed shut as she was inhaling and exhaling deeply, as if she was trying to keep herself calm. "Can you tell us?"
"Certainly. I was told that someone who very clearly has every single odd stacked against her when it comes to reproductive health, has come into our office needing a scan because multiple rapid pregnancy tests came back positive, and given her history waiting for a blood test could be detrimental to her health." The doctor took a moment to breathe deeply, before shaking her head. "Not only that, but the patient's scan was pulling something rather peculiar, something that my tech hadn't seen before and that I…well, to say I haven't seen it before would be a lie, but I haven't seen it like this."
"Are you going to send me to get it all ripped out?" Kjelle's voice was cracking, her strong façade completely shattered in the face of what was going on. "I can't go through it again, it was bad enough last time and this would only be worse."
The doctor hummed for a moment before giving a response. "I suppose if things don't go as I would expect them to, that might be a possibility. However, let me explain what I'm seeing right now before you jump to any further conclusions." Her eyes shifted to the screen in front of her, rather than looking at either of the people in the room, and she began narrating what it was she had focus on, clicking a button every so often to document the frames as well. "This is what I would expect from someone with all of the fertility issues written in your file. We refer to this as a blighted ovum, more specifically an egg that has been fertilized and has implanted, but has no chance of growing."
Those words were heavy to hear, and from where he was standing against the wall Yarne felt himself beginning to slip down, knowing that this problem was his fault in some way. "So the positive test wasn't a lie?" She still sounded completely weak and broken, and rightfully so, but Kjelle needed to get her answers.
"Correct. And to sweeten that deal, if I move just a little, I can get a second one in frame, just as empty and lifeless as its sibling." The doctor waited a moment, listening to the others in the room both choke out gasps at that news, before giving a soft laugh. "Hey, I didn't say that what I had to share was happy. Except…"
The noise that began to fill the room sounded similar to the flowing blood from before, except it was faster, a rapid repetition that seemed just different enough to be important. "I can't say anything about how viable this might be, especially given that there are essentially two potential problems in there alongside it, but there's a third one here as well. A third one, with a heartbeat of its own."
Overpowering the sound of the little heart beating for its life came a loud thud, as Yarne slid fully onto the floor, his legs giving out from underneath him. "Hold on, that's not possible. I can't be having a baby, they literally told me there's no way that I'd be able to." From where she was laying, there wasn't much Kjelle could do except raise her voice and try to make herself sound assertive. "You're not fucking with me right now, are you?"
"Language," the doctor said, a playful tone to her voice, "but I'm really not. I'll get you in for another scan in a more appropriate place than this just to confirm what we've seen here today, but I do want to make myself very clear here. Given what we know about your body and your egg reserve, there's a strong chance that this little fighter may not make it until then. Don't blame anyone for that if that's the case, it's an unfortunate side effect of the sort of problems you've had to deal with."
"The fact that there's anything at all is more than I ever expected, so if this is the only time we get to…hear this, then I think it'll be worth it." Sniffling after speaking, it was clear that what was going on had struck an emotional chord within Kjelle, and even though she'd had her vulgar outburst moments before, she spent the clean-up portion of the exam in silence, only speaking again to thank the doctor for coming to explain things for her. When she was able to, she got up from the table and shuffled over to the bathroom to change back into her clothes, walking right past Yarne where he was still on the floor, legs shaking like leaves from what had just happened.
When he had the room to himself, he tried to get to his feet but couldn't manage to do it with how much he was trembling. This was not something he'd ever expected to have to deal with, and there were so many conflicting emotions running through his mind as he was processing what he'd learned that he didn't know where to start. It wasn't until they were back out in the car, several minutes later, that he'd even started to think about how this was going to impact their lives. "I won't believe it until I can see it," Kjelle said, shaking her head and casting her eyes up to the roof of the car. "Or feel it, but I'm sure neither's going to happen and all of this is just going to have been a huge emotional waste."
"When's it going to be that you get in to another doctor about this?" he asked with his voice barely above a whisper. "Are you going to let me go with you when it happens?"
"It'll be the middle of the week after next, according to the paper I got on our way out. The doctor's basing that on the information I gave when I checked in and what she saw on the scan in there, but if I feel like something's not right I can try to get in ahead of time." Clenching her jaw, Kjelle leaned back in the seat of the car, closing her eyes and taking a moment to just process what she'd been through. "I…I almost don't want to go, just to stay in blissful ignorance that everything's fine. Because we both know it won't be. There's not going to be any life in there, they're going to be all apologetic about what I went through, it's going to be a miserable time."
"Then maybe I don't want to go." It wasn't an easy decision to make, but Yarne already couldn't handle what he'd learned, he knew that adding anything more to the situation was going to make it worse. "You'll have to keep me updated as things are happening."
"You're the only one I plan on talking about this with, so obviously that'll be the case." She cracked one eye open and looked over at him, watching as he started the car and began backing out of their parking space. "Sorry, but this isn't going anywhere except between me and you. I'm not getting my hopes up about anything, I don't want you getting yours up, and there's no way in hell we're letting anyone else hear about things and start thinking that they're going to—we'll be—gods damn it, Yarne, how are we supposed to live right now knowing that we've got a baby that's definitely going to die?"
He slammed on the brakes of the car, not shaking them too badly due to them not going very fast at all. "Why'd you have to word it that way? Here I was, convincing myself that this is just something completely different, and now you're reminding me that this is a baby we're talking about. A real baby. Our baby."
On the last two words he'd begun to get choked up, to the point that he'd finished speaking and was beginning to sob. "I'm sorry, but that's just what it is, and you're going to have to face the same truth I'm facing. I know that we've both been so sure that this would never happen, but it's happening. This really is a bad miracle, if that's even a thing. We're going to have to deal with this emotional trauma and get over it somehow."
"But don't want that to happen! I don't want to have to just get over this!" Crying out and throwing himself into the steering wheel, the only reason Yarne even picked himself back up was the fact that the car was in drive and his motion had him moving his foot just enough that they started rolling forward again. He had to compose himself enough to drive, which was difficult given how upset he had gotten and how teary his eyes were; it didn't help that his passenger was completely emotionally separating herself from the situation and wasn't even looking anywhere except her eyelids while they went on their way.
Predictably, there was a lot of trying to drown out emotions through the use of games that night, but the island life only seemed to make things worse for Yarne, as it was a reminder that there were lives out there where the biggest worries were about catching high-value fish, not dealing with medical drama that held at least one life in the balance. Even though the game was his escape from most things, he couldn't keep playing it for too long that night before he got even more upset about everything and had to turn it off. He ended up just sitting in his chair, staring at a blank TV screen for what felt like hours, because he didn't know what else to do right then.
There were so many unknowns going forward, and there were twice as many questions that needed to be answered than there were ones they'd already been able to ask. Yarne wanted to know the why, the how, the reasons for everything happening like they currently were, and he knew that he wasn't going to be getting those answers firsthand. He'd need to hear the things from Kjelle when she learned them, and he wasn't sure if, or when, she'd be up for talking about anything that happened going forward. From the moment they'd gotten home, she'd locked herself in the bedroom and hadn't tried coming out yet, nor had Yarne tried going in to check on her. She needed her space, as he needed his, and eventually they'd come together and move on hand in hand. Theoretically, of course.
By the time it was late enough to go to bed, she still hadn't come out of the room and he'd spent the whole night existing on his own, serving himself dinner and making a bed of sorts in the chair to sleep in. As he turned off every light in the house, guilt began to gnaw at him for making it a safe place for himself to sleep when she'd need to come out eventually too, but he couldn't sleep with the lights on and wait for her to leave the room. Still, his last act before curling up in the chair for the night was to go to the bedroom door, try to get in but find it locked, and loudly remind her on the other side that he loved her, getting a muffled scream as a reply.
This was going to take a lot of time to power through, but he felt they'd manage somehow.
A/N: aaaaaaaa this is honestly the start of the second "act" of this story and I am Here For It