Who: Darius & Ash What: Ash hasn't been feeling well. Enter Darius. Where: Cormac's clinic When: Late this afternoon Rating: PG Status: Complete!
She’d sent the message before she had really thought about. A week - give or take - of feeling alternately sick as a fucking dog and feeling completely fine had finally worn her down. If this was some fucked up version of the plague that had gone around last year, or some new Faram-damned disease, she wanted the diagnosis and the meds so that it didn’t end up fucking with her life any more than it already had. Between the org and running Ruby now that Lena had vanished - and wasn’t that just a fucking bitch? - she didn’t really have the time to be laid up in bed for who knew how long.
Still, being told that Delacreaux had taken up residence at Hier’s had almost made her turn around and go home. There had been a reason she hadn’t called up Hier in the first place, and that was because she didn’t need Ci knowing that she was still feeling under the weather. Not that he’d seemed to care about that during that fucking engagement party, but he was weird about the strangest shit. Better to go to someone unconnected to the org, and finding a good white mage in Emillion that didn’t have some sort of tie to either the Wildes or Sasakis was a fucking hassle.
Aisling slipped into the clinic and took a quick glance around - first sign of Hier and she was out of there. But it didn’t seem like he was around, and so she breathed a little easier before calling out, “Delacreaux?”
"Yeah." The response was instant from the next room. "Come on back." It still felt a little weird handling things this way, but it wasn't something that Darius couldn't get used to. In fact, he'd already begin to adjust to the new systems and functions of Cormac's clinic set up. Sure, it didn't have the hustle and bustle of the volunteer clinics that he'd grown so accustomed to over the years - and kinda missed in a weird way - but that was what was nice about it in part too.
Putting the finishing touches on the check up room, he shifted as she entered, gesturing for her to take a seat.
"Alright, so what's the problem you're having today?"
“Thanks for seeing me on short notice.” She lowered herself into the seat, bracing for the now familiar nausea and being slightly miffed when it didn’t come. Go fucking figure - get to a damn mage, symptoms go away. Ash sighed. “Been feeling sick for a little more than week,” she said. “Comes and goes, mostly nausea. Thrown up a few times, which usually makes it go away, but it keeps coming back.”
At first, she’d thought it was food poisoning, but when it hadn’t gone away, she had relented and realized she’d needed to get checked out. “A little bit of fatigue, but mostly the fucking nausea.”
"No problem." The short notice wasn’t a terrible problem, a lot of people didn’t seem to realize that Cormac had more manpower at the clinic yet, and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d welcome the sudden change when they did. Would it be as busy as the free clinics? Honestly, he wasn’t really sure but… Somehow Darius had a feeling it was likely going to end up a problem one way or another by the end.
“Alright.” He gave a nod as she spoke. “Just nausea and fatigue?” A beat. “Have you incorporated anything new or unusual into your diet lately? Any new materials or magicks that you hadn’t worked with before?” It could be something as simple as an allergy. “New medications or anything?”
She started to nod, but stopped. “Muscle fatigue, but that could be the amount of dancing I’m doing.” Two girls had quit Ruby to leave town, so she’d been picking up the slack on stage. “But no new medications, diet is the same. Nothing new in the house” except that the house itself was new, but that had happened months ago “and only playing with magicks I know.”
Although she hadn’t thought about that one. But she’d been working on Fire and Thunder, not Poison or anything like that. Start simple, the mage had said, work your way up. And she was catching on quick, thanks to knowing how the magicks felt.
"Huh. Alright." A hand rose, rubbing over the scruff that had started to form on his chin. " Any seasonal allergies? Possible blood deficiencies or hormonal imbalances?" Maybe she was just having issues with her... Well... Time of the month. He'd heard all sorts of weird things being connected to... Well... That.
She shook her head. “No allergies” except to stupid “and last blood panel came back normal.” It was a habit that she’d had ingrained in her from Ruby. Doctor appointments every six month, birth control potion every day. That gave her a pause in thought; when was the last time she took one of those potions?
This morning, she thought. Didn’t I? And speaking of, when the fuck was her last period? Last month, but shouldn’t it have started by now? She was stressed - sometimes that pushed it back. But now she was starting to get a little panicky, but schooled her expression so that it didn’t show.
“Never had these symptoms before a cycle. Could it be my period is changing?” If this was now an indicator of when she was going to bleed, she was going to be pissed.
He couldn’t help but give a thoughtful hum in response initially. “Sometimes they can, but I don’t think it’s too common.” A beat. “When was your last go for your cycle?” He always hated asking these questions, they seemed weirdly almost a little too personal for a guy to be asking a woman he didn’t know, but at the same time, well… He was a doctor. It was all safe, sane, and professional here.
“Beginning of last month,” she responded promptly, and the slightly panicky feeling that had been starting erupted into full-blown panic. She could practically guess the next question and was determined to be able to say without hesitation that no she sure as fuck wasn’t pregnant, but she couldn’t remember taking her birth control this morning, or last week, or fuck, for the last month.
“Alright.” That was quite a while between periods, but there was a pretty high stress rate in the city right now too. “Are you sexually active?” It seemed a stupid question in some regards, but, well… It was always better to ask than not.
Faram. “Yes,” Ash said. She clamped down on the hysteria that was threatening to overtake her, and her voice was calm when she continued. “One person. Monogamous.” This was just a minor scare, she told herself. “Condoms used sometimes, not always. I have birth control, but can’t remember the last time I took it.”
In the decade and a half since she’d been sexually active, she’d never once had a fucking scare. That’s why the panic was setting in, she reasoned. First time for everything. Just get this over with, find out it’s nothing, move on.
A nod was given to each point she outlined, taking them all into consideration as she kept speaking. Though her lack of memory about the last time she took her birth control earned the faintest hint of concern. “Do you often have trouble remembering to take it?”
“No,” she said. “Used to be routine to take it in the morning after work, but since I’m not working in that district anymore, it keeps slipping my mind.” She shook her head. How the fuck could she be so stupid? Still, there was a change that this was entirely unrelated to that, and fuck if she was going to be forgetting to take the damn potions anymore.
He gave a nod, hating the conclusion that was starting to seem terribly obvious, and he had to guess it seemed pretty obvious to her too. “Well,” He couldn’t help but pause, letting his hands raise and palms turn up.
“You could have some sort of illness, I can cast Esuna on you just to make sure you don’t, but…” He couldn’t help but give an apologetic, but sympathetic smile at the same time. “It’s seeming like you might be pregnant.”
Even though that was the conclusion she’d been expecting, hearing it out loud was still a shock. She could hear Siri’s voice in her head: I won’t get to meet them. If this was what the prophetess was talking about, then she was fucked. There was still a chance that it wasn’t that, and until Delacreaux told her she was 100% no doubt about it pregnant? She was holding onto that fucking chance.
“I’ll take the Esuna,” she told him. “There a test you can do to figure out if I’m…” She faltered and mentally cursed herself; she’d been completely fine the entire Faram-damned appointment. “Pregnant.”
“Alright.” Another nod of his head was given before shifting, and moving to stand. Casting while upright had always been more comfortable for him. It would only take a moment, a few words, and a fluid movement of his hands for the spell to be cast, and its effects to take hold. Assuming it could do anything at all. At her question Darius gave a nod. “Yeah, but depending on how far along you are, it might take a few days to get back. The further along, the easier the results, the earlier on, the harder to pinpoint things exactly.”
She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until the spell settled over her, soothing its way into her skin, but she didn’t feel any different. Not that she’d been feeling particularly nauseous beforehand, but she’d felt the way Esuna worked when there was something not right with her, and it didn’t feel like that.