Heart of Thorns: a Between the Worlds novel

by Morgan Daimler

  “Also,” the nurse said carefully, “I don’t know quite how to ask this, since you didn’t mention it before, but did you know you were pregnant?”

  “No, I can’t be,” Allie said, shaking her head. “I’m on the pill, and I just…I was just in here a week, a little more than a week ago, and they tested me then and it was negative.”

  The nurse looked back down at her paperwork then up at Allie, her face sympathetic. “It’s possible the other test was too early to register, but this is definitely positive. The Doctor feels that the anemia combined with the pregnancy may be causing a lot of the symptoms you mentioned. He suggested you see an obstetrician as soon as possible. One who specializes in mixed-species cases obviously.”

  Allie looked at the woman in open mouthed shock, unable to come up with a single coherent response.

  More paper shuffling. “You were here last week?”

  “Yes, I cut my hand.” The words came out automatically, her mind still spinning.

  “And it says they had you on a high dose of an antibiotic?”

  “Yeah,” Allie said cautiously. “But I only took it for three days.”

  “Strong antibiotics can counteract birth control pills,” the nurse said, sympathetically. “I’ve known more than one person who ended up pregnant because of that kind of interaction. Actually I’m surprised no one warned you that might happen.”

  “They…the doctor asked if I’d been on it before and I said yes, I knew the deal with taking them,” Allie said, her brain still refusing to process the implications. “I guess, maybe he thought that meant I knew.”

  The nurse shook her head slightly. “I can guess which doctor it was then, if he didn’t make a point of reminding you.”

  She sat there, stunned, feeling the ache growing in her neck and shoulder from the accident. After a moment the nurse said “Is there anyone I can call to come get you?”

  “It’s okay, I have a ride,” she answered automatically.

  “Alright. Well I’ll get your discharge papers typed up. Under the circumstances I really advise you to follow all the after care instructions to the letter and see an obstetrician as soon as possible,” the nurse said before leaving the room. “And if the dizziness or vomiting gets worse, or you get any cramping or vaginal bleeding come back here immediately.”

  This can’t be happening Allie thought closing her eyes as the nurse left the room. Bleidd is going to freak. And what will this do to the marriage contract? Why didn’t I realize that antibiotics have this side effect? I was so sure I didn’t need to worry about it, that I was being careful…Gods mother was what….over 600 when Adarius was born and nearly 900 when I was born. I know I’m half human, but it just seemed so…so…far away. Not something that might happen now. Or any time soon.

  She felt a growing knot of despair in her chest centered on the certainty that she’d ruined everything with her arrogant assumptions. Predictably after a moment she felt Jess in her mind, his attention shifting to her, drawn by her emotion.

  “Allie what is it?” Jess asked and she shoved him away in her mind, afraid to even try to respond.

  A moment later Bleidd was there as well, his mental voice fuzzy, as if he’d been sleeping. “What is wrong?”

  “I’m fine,” she thought desperately to them both, jumping down from the exam table and staggering as her bad ankle complained. She quickly started getting dressed, tossing the hospital gown on the floor. “I was with Jason, and we got in an accident. I’m fine. He may have broken his arm. His truck’s all messed up. We’re at the clinic.”

  “I’m on my way,” Jess thought immediately.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Bleidd thought at almost the same time.

  “No please, don’t. I don’t want to take you away from whatever you were doing, please. All I’ve done lately is mess things up for everyone, please don’t come here,” she was crying now, as she pulled her shoes on. She could feel their dismay at her words.

  “Allie,” Jess thought soothingly, “that is not true. I was leaving work anyway, it is no bother and I want to be sure you are alright.”

  “I’m fine,” she thought again, wiping her face and edging out into the hallway.

  “Allie, let me-“ he started.

  She couldn’t contain it any longer, and she blurted out, “I’m pregnant.”

  There was no way to hide their reactions from her, and so she felt the way her words hit them both; Bleidd was utterly shocked, Jess almost instantly joyous. She couldn’t stop herself from pulling in Jess’s joy even as she worried about Bleidd’s lack of emotion, and she hated the way that her minor aches and pains eased as she took in what Jess was feeling, even from this distance. With an enormous effort she broke the contact and blocked both of them out. She stumbled out into the hallway and almost ran into Jason, whose arm was in a temporary cast. Her friend looked exhausted.

  “Are you okay?” Jason asked.

  “Everything’s wrong.” Allie said tightly. “Everyone’s fighting, and every time it seems like it getting better it gets worse again, and my business sucks, and we got in an accident, and I’m pregnant, and I think I’m going to lose my mind-“

  “You’re pregnant?” Jason repeated, his mouth falling open.

  She started to cry again, and he pulled her into an awkward one armed hug. She sniffed, trying to push the tears away. “I don’t know how this happened.”

  “Ummm, honey, I think we both have a pretty good idea about how this happened,” he said, and she pushed him lightly.

  “You know what I mean. I was so careful. I mean…I thought I was.”

  “Not to sound lame here, but sometimes these things just happen,” Jason said sympathetically.

  “Yeah I guess,” she said stepping back. “It just feels like more bad luck you know?”

  He looked really shocked at that. “I know it’s unexpected, but…I mean…you are happy about this right?”

  She looked at him, wiping the tears off her cheeks. Was she happy? She hadn’t even thought about how she personally felt about this, only about how she thought everyone else would react. ”Honestly…I don’t know how I feel. Everything’s happening so fast, I can’t think straight. Oh! I’m so sorry Jason I was so caught up in this I forgot to ask how you’re feeling.”

  He made a face, “My arm’s broken and I have a mild concussion, bumps, bruises, the usual stuff you see in this kind of accident, but what’s killing my soul is knowing that my truck is totaled.”

  “Ouch,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault,” he sighed. “I’ll be out of work – or, ugh, on office duty until the arm is medically cleared, but I have enough vacation time and sick time to manage I think. How about you?”

  “Looks like just the head. I got some stitches and they said I’ll be stiff and sore for a while, but nothing too major.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Jason started to say, but then a blur of frenetic worry turned the corner and they both looked in that direction in unison.

  “Oh my God babe are you okay?” Tony asked as he crossed the last of the distance between them. He must have had the day off today Allie realized; he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, his dark blond hair in its usual carefully arraigned messy spikes, but he had the air of someone who had been relaxing until recently. Allie stepped back a bit but Jason stopped her by grabbing her arm.

  “I’m fine,” Jason soothed. “Really. My truck’s a wreck but Allie and I survived.”

  “Oh that’s a bit melodramatic,” Allie snorted.

  Tony turned towards her, reaching up to touch the bandage above her eye. “Oh, geez Allie are you okay?”

  “Yeah Tony, I’m fine, it’s just a little cut,” Allie said. She’d always liked Jason’s boyfriend; the two had been dating on and off for several years and in that time Allie had gotten to know him fairly well. “Jason was hurt worse than I was.”

  Tony’s eyes cut back to Jason, who shifted nervously, clearly not liking the
attention. “A broken arm isn’t that big a deal and I’m not pregnant.”

  “Well I certainly hope not,” Allie shot back trying to lighten the mood.

  “You’re pregnant?” Tony said, dismayed. “Oh honey! Are you sure you’re okay? Do you want to sit down?”

  “I’m fine Tony, really,” Allie said, taken aback by his worry. Is this how everyone is going to be? she wondered. I mean seriously I’m pregnant I’m not terminally ill or suddenly fragile or whatever. I can’t stand 9 months of everyone acting like I’m somehow more delicate than I was before, that will drive me crazy. And when I feel like I’m being coddled I always end up doing something stupid to try to prove my self-sufficiency. It was not a comforting thought.

  “Did they say you could go?” Jason asked, clearly suspicious, “Or are you making a run for it?”

  Allie rolled her eyes. “They said I could go, I just have to pick up my discharge papers at the front desk.”

  “I already got mine before I came to check on you,” Jason said. “Let’s go grab yours and we can get out of here.”

  “Yeah Allie,” Tony said, sliding his arm around Jason’s waist. “I’ll give you guys a ride back to the house.”

  “No, I mean thanks but I already have a ride and I think they’ll freak if I leave before they get here.”

  Jason snorted loudly then looked nervous, clearly not wanting to be around when the metaphorical poop hit the fan, not that she blamed him. “Come on babe, Allie’s okay. Let’s go back to your place, okay? With the concussion I need someone to keep an eye on me tonight.”

  “Of course,” Tony said walking down the hall with Jason. “Let me see those discharge papers…”

  As they turned a corner Allie let out a breath oddly relieved to be alone for a moment. Her relief was short lived though as a few seconds later Bleidd strode quickly around the same corner. He had to have blown right past Jason and Tony and Allie groaned inwardly, knowing he must be very upset indeed if he hadn’t stopped to check on Jason. He all but ran over to her as soon as he spotted her, reaching up as Tony had to lightly touch the bandage covering the gash above her eye. His voice was gentler than she had expected given the torrent of his emotions. “Are you alright?”

  She reached up and took his hand, squeezing, “I want to go home. Please. Take me home.”

  He nodded, “Of course.”

  Then through their psychic bond “Commander, where are you now?”

  Jess responded more calmly than she’d expected, “Perhaps 10 minutes away. I have Brynneth with me, he was concerned for Allie and wanted to examine her himself.”

  “That’s really not necessary,” she protested weakly.

  “Perhaps not my love but I do not think he trusts the mortal doctors,” Jess replied, feeling almost amused. It made her wonder what exactly Bryn had said on the subject. “And he is concerned that you are still only a few months past surviving something no else has ever recovered from.”

  She did flinch then, at the reminder of the ordeal she’d gone through after her cousin had poisoned her. Bleidd leaned over and kissed her forehead, his expression guarded but obviously making an effort to be reassuring. “I am at the clinic now, it would make more sense for you to go to the house and we will meet you there shortly.”

  “As you will,” Jess agreed.

  Together they walked up to the main desk and Allie was given several papers outlining how she should care for the head injury and recommending follow up care. She signed the forms they shoved at her without reading them and took the oversized plastic bag which held Bleidd’s leather jacket, now thoroughly bloodstained, and the contents of her pockets which she’d had to hand over when she’d come in on the ambulance so they could be secured. It reminded her uncomfortably of her last ambulance ride but she pushed the thought away. Why is everything today making me think about when I was poisoned? She wondered as she followed Bleidd out to his car. Gah the last thing I want right now is to dwell on almost dying. I mean this was scary and all but it wasn’t like I almost died…again…

  She kept expecting Bleidd to say something but he didn’t, driving in silence until the silence became a solid wall that she couldn’t breech. She honestly didn’t know what to say to him anyway. Instead she found her mind returning to the news she’d learned at the clinic.

  Her hand unconsciously moved to cover her abdomen, and she looked out the window and frowned. How do I feel about this? she thought to herself, careful to block both Jess and Bleidd. I always knew eventually this would happen but I never thought now. I mean sure I’m in my late 30’s but half elves mature more slowly usually, even if I end up more on the mortal end of things which seems unlikely given how elven my anatomy is otherwise…. Having mixed ancestry was a genetic crap shoot; there was no reliable or predictable pattern for how the traits would be inherited and each individual with mixed ancestry tended to be slightly different. Some took more strongly after their human parent, others after the Fey side, but even that was rarely clear cut. That had been one of the points Jess’s family had used to argue against her, because there had been no way to know for certain how long she’d live, for example, or what her fertility might be like.

  Although Allie had inherited her mother’s hair and eye color, physically she appeared more human than elven. The only external indication of her heritage were her ears, neither the rounded curve of human ears nor the gentle upswept point of elven ones but something in-between, and Allie went to great lengths to keep them covered as much as possible. She could generally pass as human based on her looks, but physiologically it was another matter entirely; her night vision and hearing were better than any human’s and she was almost as sensitive to iron as a full elf. As a young child growing up in Fairy her appearance had singled her out as different, and later as an older child living with her human family her senses and sensitivities had done the same, until she learned how to pretend to be like everyone else.

  They pulled up in front of the house and parked and Allie got out trying not to let on how much her neck and shoulders were already hurting. Bleidd had tried to move around to help her but she was too quick for him. She could feel his uncertainty now but her own fatigue made it hard to care. She honestly just wanted to get in the house and go to bed.

  He walked across the yard with her and she had just decided to force the issue and make him tell her what he was thinking, because she couldn’t take the silence anymore, when the Guard car pulled up. She tried to stop, but Bleidd took her elbow and urged her forward, finally speaking, “Inside where you can sit.”

  She didn’t even try to resist, and he gave her a long worried look. The bag with his jacket in it was heavy in her hand and as soon as they crossed the threshold into the living room she dropped it on the floor, before sitting carefully down on the couch. “I’m sorry Bleidd I think I ruined your jacket.”

  He looked at her, startled, and she tried to explain. “I kind of bled all over it.”

  He closed his eyes, then pinched the bridge of his nose, something she had learned he did when he was trying not to say something he might regret later. “How bad is the cut?”

  “It really isn’t. I know you both think I have no sense of proportion but even the doctor said it wasn’t that bad. Just, you know, head injuries bleed a lot,” she said. His response was lost as Jess and Brynneth entered, and she was grateful for the distraction.

  To her surprise Jess moved over to Bleidd, putting his arms around the other elf, who tensed first and then accepted the hug. It occurred to her suddenly that as worried as she was about Bleidd’s reaction to the pregnancy she’d almost forgotten about how stressed he’d been about all the bad luck going on. She realized that the accident had to have been something of a worst case scenario fear for him, and she felt terrible that she hadn’t made more of an effort to reassure him. Before she could decide on what to say about that though Brynneth had already moved to her side, sitting down with her on the old couch. She smiled up at the dark-haired
healer, relaxing as she usually did in his calming presence. She spoke to him in Elvish without thinking, switching languages with an ease that she wouldn’t have believed possible half a year ago. “Hello Bryn. Sorry to have dragged you out here for this.”

  He smiled back, his expression nothing but friendly. “Nonsense Allie. I insisted when Jess said you’d been in a car accident.”

  He reached up and peeled away the bandage covering her head wound, tsking loudly at the sight of the stitches. “Such barbarism. And this is what they call medicine…”

  She shrugged sheepishly glad the healer hadn’t seen the far more dramatic stitches in her hand. “I thought you liked the human doctors and nurses well enough, why are you suddenly so down on them?”

  He looked startled and then slightly embarrassed. “Forgive me if I seem a bit cynical today. I spent yesterday trying to heal an elf who had gone to the clinic instead of the Outpost when he was injured in Ashwood. It is true that the clinic is generally very good with non-human patients, but whoever treated him did an abysmal job of it. What should have been a simple matter was turned into a very complex repair and I fear it has soured my mood considerably.”

  “It’s alright, I can understand that,” she said. His fingers gently probed the injury and then moved to her neck and shoulders. For a moment she considered telling him that she would heal well enough in a day or two, then she stopped herself. Brynneth was Jess’s friend but he was her friend as well and if he didn’t know the exact limits of what she could do to heal herself he certainly had a good idea at this point. A moment later his hand eased down to her lower abdomen and she found herself unexpectedly afraid that he would say there was something wrong. He saw the fear on her face and smiled reassuringly. Without intending to say anything she blurted out, in the quietest whisper she could manage, “Is everything alright? With the…with the baby?”

  “Yes,” he whispered back, “Absolutely.”