Author's note: Sorry for the long update time. I hope this chapter makes up for the long wait!

Chapter 1: The Diagnosis

Nathan and Jessica were sitting together in Jessica’s living room one Saturday morning in August. Jessica had invited her friend to have breakfast with her that morning since they hadn’t seen each other in a while and she wanted to catch up with him. But she grew concerned when his face took on a greenish tinge and he hurriedly excused himself to the restroom. When he returned 10 minutes later, holding his acrobatic menace of a stomach after emptying its contents, he lowered himself into a sitting position on the couch opposite from her.

“Sorry, Jess,” he apologized before picking up his glass of water and slowly beginning to sip it down.

“That’s okay, Nate. I’m just worried about you. Maybe we should reschedule this breakfast for when you’re feeling better,” she replied concernedly. Nathan shook his head.

“No, I’ll be okay,” he assured her. “I’m already starting to feel better. I typically have only been puking once or twice a day,” he assured her. Jessica’s eyes narrowed.

“HAVE been? You wanna tell me how long this has been going on?” she inquired, a stern glare in her eyes that made Nathan flinch.

“Gee... I guess about two or three weeks,” he replied, seeming a little surprised himself. She responded by putting her hands on her hips with an incredulous look.

“Nathaniel Stephen Mabry, you’ve been throwing up every day for three weeks without seeing a doctor?”

“I’m sorry, Jess, I didn’t realize it had been that long. Besides, it didn’t even seem like it was all that important because it was my only symptom. I didn’t even have a temperature!”

Jessica clicked her tongue. “Nathan, you still should have at least made sure it was okay. You’re not qualified to decide whether or not you’re okay.” She sighed. “Nate, would you at least allow me to take you back and run a few tests?”

Nate groaned. “Jess, you know how I feel about doctors.”

“You mean you don’t even trust me? I promise, Nate, I’ll make this as painless as possible. It’ll just be a regular checkup, plus I want to draw some blood and analyze it. With my particular profession, I’ve become very skilled at drawing blood and I promise you, you’ll barely feel a thing. Come on, Nate, I just want to be sure.” She stood there, her arms folded across her chest. When he made no move to get up, she added lightly, “Or I could just tranquilize you and stick you in a straitjacket so I can do it without you bothering me...”

“Okay, fine, Jess... I’ll do it,” he replied quickly. Nathan had always been extremely claustrophobic, and Jessica knew it. Even the thought of being restrained in a straitjacket scared him to death. She smiled in satisfaction, though a small amount of worry still buzzed in the back of her mind. However, she merely shrugged it off as they both entered her small lab in the back room. She had set up a blood analysis lab in the room, but it was also used for making checkups on her patients when they got to the point where it was difficult to move around because they were so heavily pregnant. She instructed Nathan to sit down on the little bed like the ones you typically find in a doctor’s office as she put on one of her medical coats. She grabbed a little tray of tools and proceeded with the checkup, checking his reflexes, shining the little light in his eyes and a number of other things. When the time came for her to check his throat, she handed him a bag.

“Just in case,” she said. “You’ve been throwing up a lot, so when you gag, it might cause you to throw up again, and I want it to have somewhere else to go instead of on me,” she joked slightly, making Nathan grimace and nod in agreement. The tongue depressor went in, and it caused him to gag. He quickly brought the bag to his mouth as he threw up again. When he was finished she gave him a paper towel to wipe off his mouth and a small cup of water to rinse out his mouth. As he cleaned himself up, she said, “See? I told you I know what I’m doing!” He chuckled a little, and it was very weakly. His stomach still felt a little sour, and a moment later the bag was back under his head as he threw up yet again. He looked really awful when he was done.

“Man, my stomach is really squeamish today,” he observed ruefully, rubbing his sour stomach. Jessica’s heart immediately went out to her friend, watching him sitting there, feeling so incredibly awful that he had thrown up three times in the span of an hour and a half.

“I’m so sorry you don’t feel well, Nate,” she said, helping him clean himself up again. She threw away the vile smelling bag, but immediately handed him a fresh bag. “Since your stomach is so squeamish today, I want you to hang on to this while I’m drawing the blood. Sometimes when you have an upset stomach, you’re even more sensitive to the sight of blood, and it may make you get sick or faint.” She tied a rubber strip around his right arm about halfway up his upper arm and cleaned a spot below the strip with an alcohol wipe and then inserted the needle, taking a small sample of his blood. She could tell he wasn’t feeling well as she finished and put a cotton ball and Band-Aid over the spot where the needle had been inserted. “Don’t worry, Nate,” she assured him, amused and at the same time worried by his obvious attempts to hold back. “I’m a doctor; I have to deal with people throwing up all the time.” He tried to hold it back a moment longer, but then couldn’t anymore and threw up again. She put the sample in the machine that would analyze the contents of the blood and then helped him clean up again, throwing the bag away and putting the needle in the orange biohazard container.

“Man, this is the lowest I’ve felt since this whole thing started,” he moaned as Jessica helped him off the table.

“I’m sorry, Nate,” she repeated, feeling remorse for him. “You look really wiped out,” she commented as they left the room.

“I feel really wiped out,” he replied weakly. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a coal train.” Jessica grimaced. Texas coal trains could be upwards of 150 cars long, not including the engines.

“Well, I don’t want you to go home yet, but I can’t find anything wrong with you physically. The blood work should be done in an hour or two, and I’ll let you know what it says, but until then, I want you to stay here so I can keep an eye on you. I don’t want you going home feeling the way you are right now. You’re in no condition to drive,” she said softly. He wobbled a little as he tried to stand on his own.

“Whoa,” he said, nearly losing his balance. “Yeah, I think you’re right. I’m really dizzy, probably from puking so much.”

“Why don’t you go upstairs to one of the guest rooms and try to get some rest?” she suggested. “The second door on the right leads to a guest bedroom with a private bath. Since you’ve been sick, you may need quick access to a bathroom.”

“Thanks, Jess. I appreciate it,” he replied as he made his way slowly up the stairs. A few minutes later, she went up and found him asleep above the covers, snoring lightly. Jessica shook her head worriedly.

‘I hope he’s okay,’ she thought to herself as she left, quietly shutting the door behind her.

An hour later the printer in the analysis lab began to buzz as the results of the blood analysis began to print. Jessica was in the kitchen cleaning up from her breakfast when she heard the sound. She put down the dish she was washing and dried her hands before heading into the room. She watched the paper as it streamed slowly out of the printer. When it was finished, she ripped the paper from the printer and pulled the sheets apart at the perforated edges, stacking them on top of each other before skimming through the information for the pertinent stuff, the things that could provide a possible explanation for what was going on with her friend.

All at once she found it and dropped the sheets in her shock. This couldn’t be right. In fact, what the sheets told her was impossible, even though it might explain his illness.

According to those pages, Nathan... was pregnant.

DUN DUN DUN DUN! OH SNAP! What's he gonna do now?! Review to find out!