< just_muse_me - Moment of Truth >
Nadine Lewis
Batman (OC)
630 words
"Nadine, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Harvey. Just ill." She gave a little laugh. "I don't think my dinner's agreeing with me."
"I'll be in the living room."
"Be in soon."
Her stomach did feel queasy, but Nadine Dent was not bent over the toilet as her husband thought. She was seated on the edge of the bathtub, her eyes focused on a white stick set on the back of the toilet. Three minutes.
One line, everything was fine.
Two lines, everything would change.
"You look pale." Rachel Monroe was wonderful at stating the obvious. However, Nadine could not fault her for it.
She was twenty-five and fresh out of law school, an eager girl who had not yet left her student mentality behind her. She wanted to change the world. She reminded Nadine of another Rachel, also a brunette... and it made Nadine so glad that Harvey would never meet her.
"I haven't been feeling well," Nadine replied.
"Take a day off!"
"And let Sale fire me?"
"He's not going to fire you!"
"He wants to."
Rachel couldn't argue. Frank Sale, Gotham's District Attorney, had quickly tired of his "relic." Everyone in the office knew that, and that was how many of them referred to Nadine. She was only twenty-nine and was already a "relic."
Then again, she was the last attorney in that office that had actually met, let alone worked with, Harvey Dent. He was still called, when people wanted to be kind, the White Knight. Nadine still believed in the principles that he had stood for, and she demanded that their office fight for those principles. Sale was more interested in keeping his political position. He had tried encouraging her to resign, but she had held strong. They both knew one thing- if he fired her, public opinion would side with her.
Nadine lurched in her chair, fighting with the fortune cookie she'd eaten five minutes ago. She hadn't been able to stand the smell of anything else. Now even that was fighting her.
Rachel seemed nervous, but she spoke anyway. "Things still hot and heavy between you and the boyfriend?"
Nadine actually laughed a bit, and she just smiled at Rachel. She had let it become implied around the office that she was seeing a married man on the sly. That was a good reason for everything to be very "hush hush." Announcing that, no, she was married and had been for four months would invite questions.
Again, Rachel hesitated. "You on the pill?"
"I am not pregnant," Nadine said. Met with a dubious look, Nadine rolled her eyes. "I am on the pill. I take it every single evening without fail at ten o'clock, when the news starts."
"Aren't you on some new medicine?"
Nadine considered this. "I am," she replied. "It's..." God. What had Jonathan said that shot last time was for? "It's for my immune system."
"Same doctor who gave you the pill?"
"Oh, no. I don't see him for that," Nadine replied as she began filing a few folders away.
"Does he know you're taking the pill?"
Nadine had to hesitate again. "No, I don't think he does." The thought sunk in. "I don't think he does."
Three minutes were up.
Nadine got up and hesitated for several moments before she went and picked up that white stick.
She stared at the ceiling. Her stomach was taking issue with most of the food she ate because she had some kind of stomach flu. Jonathan hadn't managed to bolster her immune system enough yet, that was all. She was just ill. She held the stick in her hand.
One line, everything was fine.
Two lines, everything would change.
She looked down.
Two lines.
She threw it in the trash before turning on the water, as though rinsing her mouth out, and she left the bathroom. Moments later, she climbed onto the couch, drew closer to her husband, and rested her head on his shoulder.
"Harvey," she said, staring straight ahead at the television screen, "we need to talk."