Driving Miss Catherine

The Sauna

Waiting is the worst when you're with someone who is also waiting. The minutes ticked by as they sat in the waiting room, waiting. Cat had always thought a waiting room meant you were waiting for a doctor, but now it had a new meaning. She, and Seb, were waiting for results; results that could change their lives. She needed to know if she'd been knocked up by her crazy Finnish ex, although she was starting to wonder if he was really that crazy. She had her phone out and ready to send him a text as soon the doctor called her name.

Cat had offered to pay extra to get her results faster, but the lab refused her 'donation.' Eventually, she found her hand in Seb's; somehow it made her calm down a little. She tried to be prepared for any outcome, yet she really couldn't wrap her head around being pregnant. Even after Heikki's apologetic letter, she was terrified. She tried to imagine getting up in the middle of the night to attend to a crying baby, or having to tell her dad....

Seb nudged her. "They called your name," he said tensely. "Do you want me to come with you?"

Cat hesitated; as much as she didn't want to hear this alone, she couldn't drag Seb into this. This was her problem, and she was going to face it. She stood up and flattened out her skirt. "No thanks, I'll go alone." She took one last look at him before walking back to the examination room with the doctor.

She took a seat on the cold examination table and waited for the doctor to tell her her fate.

"We've gotten your blood work back, and your results were negative." The doctor explained, unsmiling, or any other emotion.

"Negative, as in, not pregnant?" Cat asked, to clarify.

"Yes." She replied, matter-of-factly. "As for the pill you wanted tested: it was not birth control as you thought; it was actually the exact opposite. I am surprised you didn't get pregnant, if you were as sexually active as you say you were."

"It was just once with...that other guy, and a few times in the beginning with my ex. There wasn't much action in between, so I really couldn't have gotten pregnant, could I?" Cat knew pregnancy was most likely to happen in the middle of a cycle, and she was at the end of her cycle now, so...

The doctor shook her head. "Once you stopped taking your normal birth control pills, your ovulation cycle changed. You could have been at risk any time during the last month."

This hit Cat harder than she expected. She had never thought about the fact that Seb could have gotten her pregnant, and her heart raced as she remembered that in their rush they had forgotten to use a condom. Or, perhaps it was because Cat didn't have any. Maybe she should buy some condoms?

Her doctor gave her a new prescription for birth control and recommended Cat get the morning after pill too, just in case. Still shocked at her sudden realization, she slowly walked back to the waiting room. Seb was anxious as ever, his foot taping against the leg of his chair. He stood up when he saw her, his face pulled in lines of worry and curiosity.

Cat smiled and shook her head, and relief washed over his face. He closed the short distance between them and pulled her into a hug. "I was really worried, Miss Catherine, that I was going to have to do some explaining to your dad."

"That wouldn't go well for either of us. 'Um, dad, the chauffeur knocked me up...' I'm pretty sure I would just run away and hide, rather than deal with his wrath," she let him wrap his arm around her lower back as they strolled out to find the car. It seemed like hours ago that they frantically pulled in to the crowded parking lot. Once in the quiet of the car, Seb cleared his throat and began muttering awkwardly, possibly not in English.

"I'm sorry, what I'm trying to say is at least nothing bad happened, right?" He explained, and started to drive to the pharmacy to pick up Cat's prescription. "Heikki didn't knock you up, and you don't have any lasting effects from whatever he gave you, so you were pretty lucky."