Phantom's Understudy

Part Seventeen - Life

When we got to the cottage, we spent about an hour working on getting the bullet out of his shoulder. Luckily, it had only broken into three pieces, and from what I could tell, caused no serious damage. Nadir would have to give it a look and confirm.

I cleaned it out, and the bleeding had calmed down significantly, but did not stop yet.

I was very focused on it all, as if Erik's life depended on it. Which it might have, but to be honest this did not look bad.

After cleaning him up to the best of my ability, I sat up straight and looked at him.

"It looks like it's ok."

Erik smiled. "The man was a bad shot. You're lucky you didn't end up with him."

I shoved his unharmed shoulder. "You ass." I said laughing.

Erik laughed with me and soon beckoned me over to kiss me. His hand went to to back of my head just behind my ear and kissed me gently.

"Beth, why didn't you tell me?"

I looked down. "He threatened to kill you or my parents. Whichever one was possible. He said that he would ruin me. I couldn't let that happen just for my happiness."

Erik rubbed my cheek with his thumb and his hand lowered to my side.

"I would rather be dead than not be with you." I would have cried, but I had cried so much in the past month, I just couldn't anymore. The heartbreak I felt over all of this was maddening. To think I actually thought Ben cared for me. If he cared for me he would have been happy for me.

The door to the cottage opened and Nadir walked through. "how is the wound?" He asked immediately.

"Pretty well. Beth was able to get the bullet out, and clean it up."

Nadir came over and looked at it intentively. "Ah yes, it looks good. Let me bandage it up." Nadir said.

I quickly stood to get the bandage, but immediately felt light headed and fell. Nadir and Erik immediately came to my assistance and I laughed it off. "Jesus, I've been so clumsy lately."

Nadir felt my head. "no fever. Are you feeling ok?"

I nodded. "I've been nauseous lately. I have been getting a little dizzy from time to time too." I paused. "it's honestly probably just stress," I said when I saw Erik's eyes of concern.

Nadir helped me up and felt my pulse. He nodded slowly and his hand went to my stomach. He pushed a little hard and then stood up straight. "Tell me dear, when was your last menstrual cycle?"

I froze. I don't know. I thought it over going back to before everything happened. "Oh, jeez. It was about...8 weeks ago? Maybe?" I estimated. "Sometimes when I'm stressed it skips. Its really normal,"

Erik's eyes were wide as Nadir kept asking questions.

"You may have to go to a doctor to be sure, but with your symptoms I have to assume you are pregnant." And he went to get the bandages.

My eyes shot to Erik hoping to see some type of emotion in his eyes but he was hard to read.

Pregnant? Me? How in the world?

Nadir came back with bandages and properly bandaged Erik's shoulder. All three of us were completely silent. I was just surprised. There were women that took years to get pregnant yet just the one time that Erik and I had..?

I tried not to get excited because 1, I didn't even know if I was pregnant. And 2, I didn't know how Erik felt about having a child. We never even talked about it.