Last Wednesday...
Veronica's already in the hospital, her arms filled with the few remaining belongings of the late Abel Koontz, when she remembers about Meg. The parents are nowhere in sight - a good thing, as the last time Veronica met Meg's dad, he threatened her with a baseball bat.
So she makes her way in.
Yellow curtains are strung around the room, providing Meg with privacy, so Veronica is forced to take the long way around, her eyes working to decipher her former friend's shape before she can properly see it. The boxish, looming shapes that surround her unconscious form are no less frightening when the curtain's finally pushed aside - wires and tubes crisscross the room, latching on to Meg as though they rely on her for life, and not the other way around. They fill the space almost haphazardly: IV tubes, heart monitors... heart monitors...
Wait.
But, no, it's true - the two machines, side by side, look the same. Even the basic shape of their output is the same, that distinctive up-down-up-down spike that she's seen when flipping past ER. The first, registering a slow but healthy sixty beats per minute, links to Meg's chest - the second, showing a much more worrying one hundred eighty, trails wires to Meg's... stomach?
It clicks almost instantly, but Veronica doesn't want to believe it. In a state that seems like a dream, she reaches out to push aside the suspended tray that hangs over Meg's torso. Finally, when it's aside, Veronica can clearly see Meg's pregnant stomach.
For a minute she can do nothing but stare. Meg... How...
But she already knows how, doesn't she? Leaving the room in something of a daze, she knows: finding Duncan in the hallway - Duncan avoiding her at school - Meg being bitchy at her all term - and - and - and
The list goes on.
Veronica decides, she can't be here right now. She can't face him. She can't face anything.
The next door she opens, she wills it to be Milliways. And the Bar is kind.
So she makes her way in.
Yellow curtains are strung around the room, providing Meg with privacy, so Veronica is forced to take the long way around, her eyes working to decipher her former friend's shape before she can properly see it. The boxish, looming shapes that surround her unconscious form are no less frightening when the curtain's finally pushed aside - wires and tubes crisscross the room, latching on to Meg as though they rely on her for life, and not the other way around. They fill the space almost haphazardly: IV tubes, heart monitors... heart monitors...
Wait.
But, no, it's true - the two machines, side by side, look the same. Even the basic shape of their output is the same, that distinctive up-down-up-down spike that she's seen when flipping past ER. The first, registering a slow but healthy sixty beats per minute, links to Meg's chest - the second, showing a much more worrying one hundred eighty, trails wires to Meg's... stomach?
It clicks almost instantly, but Veronica doesn't want to believe it. In a state that seems like a dream, she reaches out to push aside the suspended tray that hangs over Meg's torso. Finally, when it's aside, Veronica can clearly see Meg's pregnant stomach.
For a minute she can do nothing but stare. Meg... How...
But she already knows how, doesn't she? Leaving the room in something of a daze, she knows: finding Duncan in the hallway - Duncan avoiding her at school - Meg being bitchy at her all term - and - and - and
The list goes on.
Veronica decides, she can't be here right now. She can't face him. She can't face anything.
The next door she opens, she wills it to be Milliways. And the Bar is kind.