The best things in life are unexpected...
Her eyes hurt.
Opening them didn't help. It only compounded the intense brightness peering down at her; a brightness that hadn't been there moments before. It was overcast in Puddlemere as usual, and the sun had stayed hidden behind the clouds for the majority of their morning training session.
But she wasn't outside anymore, that much was obvious from the artificial light overhead to the soft cushion beneath her. Blinking, Katie narrowed her eyes and tried to focus on the person behind the bright light. "Where am I?"
"Infirmary." Becca, Puddlemere's team Healer, came into view behind her, mercifully switching off the light she'd been shining right in Katie's eyes. "You fainted. What do you remember?"
"I don't remember fainting," Katie replied wryly.
The redhead laughed softly. "Most people don't. Do you feel strong enough to sit up?"
"I feel fine," she said automatically, pushing up with wobbly arms to a sitting position. Maybe she didn't feel quite as fine as she'd said; truth be told, she felt pretty weak -- a bit dehydrated, maybe.
Becca raised a skeptical eyebrow. She'd been with the team as long as Katie had -- she didn't believe the Captain as far as she could throw her. "Well, let's figure out what's wrong with you. Have you had any other fainting spells recently?"
"Not that I know of. If Stewart's found me unconscious in the bathroom, he hasn't mentioned it." She crinkled her nose in recollection. "I had a pretty bad bout of food poisoning a few weeks ago and was wretching for days, remember?" Katie paused, then shook her head. "Never mind, that was during the winter break. I wasn't here."
"Oh?" The Healer crossed to the cabinet where the medical files were kept and withdrew a thick dossier. It needed to be replaced, or at least rebound. It was starting to strain at the edges as Katie's medical history grew larger. Becca had haphazardly crossed out 'Bell' and written 'Ackerley'. "Do you know where you picked it up?"
"I..." she trailed off in thought. "I don't remember. It was the week between Christmas and New Year's, right after we came home from Atlanta. We spent New Year's Eve with Stewart's parents. I couldn't stop retching."
Becca jotted something down on a notepad, nodding. "Did Stewart have it, too?"
Katie snorted. "Stewart's stomach is lined with lead. He could eat bobuter puss and be fine." Actually, she wouldn't have been the least bit surprised to find he'd already tried it. It sounded like something Blake would have dared her husband to do. Idiots.
"Interesting." The Healer set her papers to the side and picked up her stethoscope and wand. "Let's run a few tests."
Merlin, Katie hated Healers. It wasn't entirely true or fair, really. She hated St. Mungo's more than Healers. The ones she knew personally -- Anthony, Becca, her mother-in-law -- were lovely people. She just couldn't help but associate their profession with the hospital, and thinking about St. Mungo's brought nothing but a dearth of memories where four months of her life should have been.
Still, she did as requested and let Becca prod her with her wand, took deep breaths when requested, turned her head to the side and coughed, and dutifully held a finger out so the other woman could take a blood sample.
After the series of examinations, Becca slid her wand through its holster. "Well, you don't have a cold or the flu. It might be a stomach bug, but I don't think it likely. You've had dragon pox before, and you don't exhibit any symptoms for spattergoit. But," she said, fixing Katie with an even green gaze, "I do have an idea of what's wrong."
"Great. What is it, and how quickly can I get rid of it?" Katie asked hopefully.
"I..." Becca started to speak, then closed her mouth. Summoning a chair, she pulled up and sat down in front of Katie. "Katie, is it possible you're pregnant?"
Katie blinked. Becca's question filtered through her mind, but it was like someone had tossed a filter on her mind. The word 'pregnant' continued to resonate, but it didn't make sense. She couldn't be pregnant -- it wasn't possible. "No," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not pregnant."
"It's impossible?" The other woman's tone was skeptical. "You sleep in separate bedrooms and say goodnight with a chaste kiss on the cheek?"
"Well, obviously, we have sex! But -- but I'm on the potion," Katie explained. "I've been on the potion for years. We're not..."
It was something they'd discussed, of course. They'd talked about it during their engagement and a few times since. But it was always in the vague sense of 'of course we'll have children' and 'later' than anything else. Stewart was young -- twenty-seven -- and while she wasn't exactly old at thirty, neither had been in a hurry to have children. Of course, neither had Stephen and Cassie, and they'd been married less time than she and Stewart had before they'd had Maddy.
"We're not actively trying for children," she finished, glancing up at Becca.
The redhead nodded thoughtfully. "Well, there is a tiny percentage failure rate with the potion. The only foolproof contraception is abstinence. Have you been taking any other potions beside your birth control recently? Sometimes those can cancel out contraceptive potions."
"I honestly don't remember," Katie said, shrugging as she failed to recall any particular potions. "I might have. They're easy enough to get from my brother or from Jade, but..." she trailed off as a thought hit her. "Wait. I took some sort of nausea potion late autumn. End of November, early December, I think. But that wouldn't do it, would it?"
Knowledge lit Becca's eyes. "Actually, it might. Some nausea potions have certain ingredients that can counteract contraceptives. Have you not had a period recently?"
Katie shook her head. "No, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. I haven't had regular periods since I was seventeen. I just assumed it was being out of whack as normal."
Becca nodded. "Well," she said, pulling out her wand, "there's one way to find out for sure. I've got a pregnancy test in my cupboards. It'll tell us if you're pregnant for certain."
She didn't want to know. She didn't want this to be real.
Actually, that wasn't entirely true. If she was pregnant, then they would deal with it. For all their shortcomings as humans, Katie loved Stewart, and he loved her. If they were having a baby, then that child would know nothing but love.
Katie wasn't ready to be a mother. She loved her own, but Elaine Bell had been a largely absent parent between her first husband's death and meeting her second husband. For the majority of her formative Hogwarts years, the Belvoir elves had been more motherly than her own flesh and blood. It was hard to imagine being responsible for a tiny human being, one entirely dependent upon her.
Still, she nodded and glanced down at her hands. When had they started shaking? "Do it."
The redhead's smile was kindly as she rose and crossed to the cupboard in question. From a small set of vials, she withdrew one and shut the door. "Could I have a strand of your hair?" she asked, pulling the cork stopped from the vial. She took the strand offered and slipped it into the clear liquid. Glancing up at Katie, she explained, "This will only take a moment. It will turn purple if you're pregnant. If not, nothing will happen."
She felt her heart might hammer out of her chest. If she thought time had passed strangely at the Battle of Hogwarts, between the warding over the castle and the defenses breaking down, it was nothing compared to this. Two minutes might as well have been two hours, and she nearly bore a hole through the small glass vial with her eyes. Her knuckles were white from the tight grip she had on the examination table. The liquid was clear, it would stay clear...
Then slowly, it started to change. The clear potion darkened, taking on a lavender due before finishing up a rich violet.
"Congratulations, Katie." Becca's voice broke through the silence. "You're having a baby."
Oh my god. It was real. She was pregnant.
She blinked and was surprised to find tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she whispered, wiping away the one drop that slid down her cheek.
Becca reached out and took her hand. "Are you alright?"
The brunette nodded quickly and flashed a quick, small smile. "I'm fine. This is -- it's a big surprise, that's all."
"But it's a good surprise, yes?"
Her smile this time was truer, and she nodded again, meeting the Healer's earnest gaze. "It is," she said softly. "How far along am I?"
"At my best guess, you're probably about two and a half months along. Most women show late with their first. You've got some time yet." With a grin and a squeeze, Becca released her hand. "Well, I'm going to start you on some prenatal supplements. I'll pick some up from the apothecary this afternoon, and then we'll have a prescription written up so you can pick them up yourself. And," she glanced up at Katie, her expression turning serious for a moment, "I'm going to have to tell Mr. Czlovesch."
"Today?" Katie asked with a bit of alarm. "It can't wait?"
"You can't fly, Katie, not in your condition," the Healer reminded her. "It's in your contract and mine. If it was found out I let you compete when I knew you were pregnant, then I could lose my job."
She nodded. "Let me think for a minute." Her mind was whirling, a million different threads of ideas racing through at the same time. "I've got an idea that I think will work for both of us. How long would I be out if I were ill with something else. Let's say the flu?"
The other woman didn't reply for a moment, but Katie could see she was thinking. "Incubation period is between one and four days. If you were exposed on a Saturday and started to show symptoms of it... oh, I don't know, today, then that would be a valid reason for you to miss a match or two. It's contagious for up to ten days."
"And am I safe in assuming that there was a reporter present when I fainted?"
Becca nodded. "Jarret from the Prophet."
"Perfect. So, here's my idea that keeps me on the ground and doesn't violate either of our contracts. You tell Dragomir and the rest of the staff that I've got the flu. We can call Quibley up from reserves for this weekend's match with Ballycastle -- tell him it's until I recover so he might play against Portree as well. That will give me a few days to tell the people who need telling -- like my husband and our parents." There were others to be told in the next few days as well; Angie and Heidi, Blake and Stephen. Romy and Oliver as well, but their families were top priority. "When I've broken the news to our families, I'll meet with Dragomir and the rest of the staff. We can tell the team the truth, make a decision on my replacement for the rest of the season, and then Stewart and I can release the news to the press."
It wasn't the best of plans. She would have liked to have had more time to tell people instead of trying to cram it all in within a week, but it was part of the life she lived. She was a celebrity, and it was times like this that really drove home the fact that she and Stewart lived their lives in a fishbowl. But up to two matches was the best they could likely do. Any more time than that, and the press would start speculating on her fertility without her input. At least this way, they could break the news on their own terms.
She glanced at Becca. "What do you think?"
"I think that might work," the other woman said slowly, nodding in agreement. "You're off the ground, and it isn't the biggest stretch of the truth to mistake your pregnancy for flu-like symptoms." She smiled and nodded more vigurously. "Aye, I think that'll do it."
Katie smiled. "Excellent. We have a plan."
"And step one of that plan is sending you home," Becca said pointedly. "I'll owl the vitamins to your house." She lifted a hand when Katie started to protest. "No buts, missy." She ignored the flat look from the Puddlemere captain. "You've just Pensieve memories to watch this afternoon. I'll tell everyone I sent you home after your spell this morning."
Katie held her hands up in surrender. "Fine, fine, I'm going." She hopped off the examination table, glad to find that her wooziness seemed to have passed. "Let me get my bag from my office, and then I'll go."
The Healer waved her hand. "Off with you, Captain Ackerley. Go tell that husband of yours he's about to be a Da."
That sentence brought a giddy smile to her lips. "This should be interesting."
Summary: Katie has a bit of shocking news.
Opening them didn't help. It only compounded the intense brightness peering down at her; a brightness that hadn't been there moments before. It was overcast in Puddlemere as usual, and the sun had stayed hidden behind the clouds for the majority of their morning training session.
But she wasn't outside anymore, that much was obvious from the artificial light overhead to the soft cushion beneath her. Blinking, Katie narrowed her eyes and tried to focus on the person behind the bright light. "Where am I?"
"Infirmary." Becca, Puddlemere's team Healer, came into view behind her, mercifully switching off the light she'd been shining right in Katie's eyes. "You fainted. What do you remember?"
"I don't remember fainting," Katie replied wryly.
The redhead laughed softly. "Most people don't. Do you feel strong enough to sit up?"
"I feel fine," she said automatically, pushing up with wobbly arms to a sitting position. Maybe she didn't feel quite as fine as she'd said; truth be told, she felt pretty weak -- a bit dehydrated, maybe.
Becca raised a skeptical eyebrow. She'd been with the team as long as Katie had -- she didn't believe the Captain as far as she could throw her. "Well, let's figure out what's wrong with you. Have you had any other fainting spells recently?"
"Not that I know of. If Stewart's found me unconscious in the bathroom, he hasn't mentioned it." She crinkled her nose in recollection. "I had a pretty bad bout of food poisoning a few weeks ago and was wretching for days, remember?" Katie paused, then shook her head. "Never mind, that was during the winter break. I wasn't here."
"Oh?" The Healer crossed to the cabinet where the medical files were kept and withdrew a thick dossier. It needed to be replaced, or at least rebound. It was starting to strain at the edges as Katie's medical history grew larger. Becca had haphazardly crossed out 'Bell' and written 'Ackerley'. "Do you know where you picked it up?"
"I..." she trailed off in thought. "I don't remember. It was the week between Christmas and New Year's, right after we came home from Atlanta. We spent New Year's Eve with Stewart's parents. I couldn't stop retching."
Becca jotted something down on a notepad, nodding. "Did Stewart have it, too?"
Katie snorted. "Stewart's stomach is lined with lead. He could eat bobuter puss and be fine." Actually, she wouldn't have been the least bit surprised to find he'd already tried it. It sounded like something Blake would have dared her husband to do. Idiots.
"Interesting." The Healer set her papers to the side and picked up her stethoscope and wand. "Let's run a few tests."
Merlin, Katie hated Healers. It wasn't entirely true or fair, really. She hated St. Mungo's more than Healers. The ones she knew personally -- Anthony, Becca, her mother-in-law -- were lovely people. She just couldn't help but associate their profession with the hospital, and thinking about St. Mungo's brought nothing but a dearth of memories where four months of her life should have been.
Still, she did as requested and let Becca prod her with her wand, took deep breaths when requested, turned her head to the side and coughed, and dutifully held a finger out so the other woman could take a blood sample.
After the series of examinations, Becca slid her wand through its holster. "Well, you don't have a cold or the flu. It might be a stomach bug, but I don't think it likely. You've had dragon pox before, and you don't exhibit any symptoms for spattergoit. But," she said, fixing Katie with an even green gaze, "I do have an idea of what's wrong."
"Great. What is it, and how quickly can I get rid of it?" Katie asked hopefully.
"I..." Becca started to speak, then closed her mouth. Summoning a chair, she pulled up and sat down in front of Katie. "Katie, is it possible you're pregnant?"
Katie blinked. Becca's question filtered through her mind, but it was like someone had tossed a filter on her mind. The word 'pregnant' continued to resonate, but it didn't make sense. She couldn't be pregnant -- it wasn't possible. "No," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not pregnant."
"It's impossible?" The other woman's tone was skeptical. "You sleep in separate bedrooms and say goodnight with a chaste kiss on the cheek?"
"Well, obviously, we have sex! But -- but I'm on the potion," Katie explained. "I've been on the potion for years. We're not..."
It was something they'd discussed, of course. They'd talked about it during their engagement and a few times since. But it was always in the vague sense of 'of course we'll have children' and 'later' than anything else. Stewart was young -- twenty-seven -- and while she wasn't exactly old at thirty, neither had been in a hurry to have children. Of course, neither had Stephen and Cassie, and they'd been married less time than she and Stewart had before they'd had Maddy.
"We're not actively trying for children," she finished, glancing up at Becca.
The redhead nodded thoughtfully. "Well, there is a tiny percentage failure rate with the potion. The only foolproof contraception is abstinence. Have you been taking any other potions beside your birth control recently? Sometimes those can cancel out contraceptive potions."
"I honestly don't remember," Katie said, shrugging as she failed to recall any particular potions. "I might have. They're easy enough to get from my brother or from Jade, but..." she trailed off as a thought hit her. "Wait. I took some sort of nausea potion late autumn. End of November, early December, I think. But that wouldn't do it, would it?"
Knowledge lit Becca's eyes. "Actually, it might. Some nausea potions have certain ingredients that can counteract contraceptives. Have you not had a period recently?"
Katie shook her head. "No, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. I haven't had regular periods since I was seventeen. I just assumed it was being out of whack as normal."
Becca nodded. "Well," she said, pulling out her wand, "there's one way to find out for sure. I've got a pregnancy test in my cupboards. It'll tell us if you're pregnant for certain."
She didn't want to know. She didn't want this to be real.
Actually, that wasn't entirely true. If she was pregnant, then they would deal with it. For all their shortcomings as humans, Katie loved Stewart, and he loved her. If they were having a baby, then that child would know nothing but love.
Katie wasn't ready to be a mother. She loved her own, but Elaine Bell had been a largely absent parent between her first husband's death and meeting her second husband. For the majority of her formative Hogwarts years, the Belvoir elves had been more motherly than her own flesh and blood. It was hard to imagine being responsible for a tiny human being, one entirely dependent upon her.
Still, she nodded and glanced down at her hands. When had they started shaking? "Do it."
The redhead's smile was kindly as she rose and crossed to the cupboard in question. From a small set of vials, she withdrew one and shut the door. "Could I have a strand of your hair?" she asked, pulling the cork stopped from the vial. She took the strand offered and slipped it into the clear liquid. Glancing up at Katie, she explained, "This will only take a moment. It will turn purple if you're pregnant. If not, nothing will happen."
She felt her heart might hammer out of her chest. If she thought time had passed strangely at the Battle of Hogwarts, between the warding over the castle and the defenses breaking down, it was nothing compared to this. Two minutes might as well have been two hours, and she nearly bore a hole through the small glass vial with her eyes. Her knuckles were white from the tight grip she had on the examination table. The liquid was clear, it would stay clear...
Then slowly, it started to change. The clear potion darkened, taking on a lavender due before finishing up a rich violet.
"Congratulations, Katie." Becca's voice broke through the silence. "You're having a baby."
Oh my god. It was real. She was pregnant.
She blinked and was surprised to find tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she whispered, wiping away the one drop that slid down her cheek.
Becca reached out and took her hand. "Are you alright?"
The brunette nodded quickly and flashed a quick, small smile. "I'm fine. This is -- it's a big surprise, that's all."
"But it's a good surprise, yes?"
Her smile this time was truer, and she nodded again, meeting the Healer's earnest gaze. "It is," she said softly. "How far along am I?"
"At my best guess, you're probably about two and a half months along. Most women show late with their first. You've got some time yet." With a grin and a squeeze, Becca released her hand. "Well, I'm going to start you on some prenatal supplements. I'll pick some up from the apothecary this afternoon, and then we'll have a prescription written up so you can pick them up yourself. And," she glanced up at Katie, her expression turning serious for a moment, "I'm going to have to tell Mr. Czlovesch."
"Today?" Katie asked with a bit of alarm. "It can't wait?"
"You can't fly, Katie, not in your condition," the Healer reminded her. "It's in your contract and mine. If it was found out I let you compete when I knew you were pregnant, then I could lose my job."
She nodded. "Let me think for a minute." Her mind was whirling, a million different threads of ideas racing through at the same time. "I've got an idea that I think will work for both of us. How long would I be out if I were ill with something else. Let's say the flu?"
The other woman didn't reply for a moment, but Katie could see she was thinking. "Incubation period is between one and four days. If you were exposed on a Saturday and started to show symptoms of it... oh, I don't know, today, then that would be a valid reason for you to miss a match or two. It's contagious for up to ten days."
"And am I safe in assuming that there was a reporter present when I fainted?"
Becca nodded. "Jarret from the Prophet."
"Perfect. So, here's my idea that keeps me on the ground and doesn't violate either of our contracts. You tell Dragomir and the rest of the staff that I've got the flu. We can call Quibley up from reserves for this weekend's match with Ballycastle -- tell him it's until I recover so he might play against Portree as well. That will give me a few days to tell the people who need telling -- like my husband and our parents." There were others to be told in the next few days as well; Angie and Heidi, Blake and Stephen. Romy and Oliver as well, but their families were top priority. "When I've broken the news to our families, I'll meet with Dragomir and the rest of the staff. We can tell the team the truth, make a decision on my replacement for the rest of the season, and then Stewart and I can release the news to the press."
It wasn't the best of plans. She would have liked to have had more time to tell people instead of trying to cram it all in within a week, but it was part of the life she lived. She was a celebrity, and it was times like this that really drove home the fact that she and Stewart lived their lives in a fishbowl. But up to two matches was the best they could likely do. Any more time than that, and the press would start speculating on her fertility without her input. At least this way, they could break the news on their own terms.
She glanced at Becca. "What do you think?"
"I think that might work," the other woman said slowly, nodding in agreement. "You're off the ground, and it isn't the biggest stretch of the truth to mistake your pregnancy for flu-like symptoms." She smiled and nodded more vigurously. "Aye, I think that'll do it."
Katie smiled. "Excellent. We have a plan."
"And step one of that plan is sending you home," Becca said pointedly. "I'll owl the vitamins to your house." She lifted a hand when Katie started to protest. "No buts, missy." She ignored the flat look from the Puddlemere captain. "You've just Pensieve memories to watch this afternoon. I'll tell everyone I sent you home after your spell this morning."
Katie held her hands up in surrender. "Fine, fine, I'm going." She hopped off the examination table, glad to find that her wooziness seemed to have passed. "Let me get my bag from my office, and then I'll go."
The Healer waved her hand. "Off with you, Captain Ackerley. Go tell that husband of yours he's about to be a Da."
That sentence brought a giddy smile to her lips. "This should be interesting."
Summary: Katie has a bit of shocking news.