teeth → l.h

chapter thirteen;

tw // vomit

"Why the fuck are you puking?"

Helena grunts as she turns to look up at Ashton from her spot in front of the toilet. "I don't know?" She sighs as she turns back, dropping her head onto the toilet seat.

"Did you eat something bad?" Ashton asks as he sits down next to Helena and rubs her back softly. "Want me to call Luke?"

Helena shakes her head before shutting her eyes. "'m good, I'm good. don't call him." She's absolutely lying, she wants Luke more than anything, but she's not at all interested in talking about the fact that she's probably pregnant.

"Are you sure you're not pregnant?" Ashton asks after a while. He should know the answer- he is a doctor, but his sister is an enigma and he cannot even begin to figure this out. He definitely thinks there's at least a 70/30 chance she's pregnant, though.

"Yeah," Helena nods as she sits back up. "I guess I just ate too much." Ashton knows she's lying, Helena herself knows she's lying, if Helena believed in god she'd know he'd be shaking his head at her lying ass.

"I know you hate being told what to do, so-" Ashton doesn't even finish his sentence. He has no idea how to navigate this. "Okay, as a doctor, I'm going to tell you that you need to take another pregnancy test or go to the doctor and have them confirm it because the only thing keeping me from actually telling you you're pregnant right now is you."

Helena scoffs. "Don't diagnose me. I'm not pregnant." Helena wants to at least hold off on dealing with it until after Christmas, because if her mom finds out about this while they're there, she'll kill Helena. "I don't feel good."

After Helena throws up for the third time in one day though, she's over it. "Ash?" Helena calls out from the bathroom as Ashton walks by. Ashton peeks his head in, sighing as he sees Helena curled around the toilet again.

"What's going on?" Ashton asks softly as he kneels down next to Helena.

"I think I need to take another pregnancy test." Helena mumbles as she sits up, resting her head on Ashton's shoulder. "I'm not saying you were right though."

"Okay." Ashton says softly. "You're warm though, so let's bet on the flu until we know for sure, okay?" Helena hums in agreement at this. "I'll take you to the store."

The idea seemed like a good one, all the way up to the point of actually taking the test. Helena stares down at the multiple boxes sitting on the counter. She and Ashton figured that they needed more than Helena got last time, since the test came up negative before.

"You've got this, we believe in you!" Calum calls out from his position on the floor across from the bathroom. Ashton glares at him.

Calum briefly considers calling Luke, but he knows Helena would be pissed at him if he did. Ashton considers the same thing, but Calum has to talk him down from it.

Once Helena finally takes the test, she exits the bathroom and sits down between Ashton and Calum. "If you are pregnant," Ashton sighs. "You should consider waiting until we get back to Los Angeles to tell Luke."

Calum's breath hitches in his throat and his first thought is that Helena is going to kill him, until he remembers that he never said shit to Ashton. "How the fuck did you know?" Helena's brows furrow as she looks over to Ashton.

"It was fairly obvious." Ashton replies. "He didn't cheat on her, did he?"

"No." Helena looks down. "It was before they got together. We were fighting and it was late and after we stopped fighting-"

"And you forgot to use protection. Got it." Ashton grimaces. "I've never wanted you to have the flu more than I do right now."

Helena laughs halfheartedly. She's always appreciated Ashton's ability to make a tense situation funny; granted, the situation was already kind of hilarious in a really pathetic way. "Does he know?" Helena scoffs at Ashton's question. Of course he doesn't know, the fuck?

"No." Helena chuckles. "I told him when I took that test a while back, but since it was negative he probably thinks it's fine now."

Luke doesn't think it's fine. Luke is still just as concerned as he was when Helena told him the test was negative but listed off almost every early pregnancy symptom. He never stopped worrying, but he's not sure he has the right to tell Helena that anymore.

The trio waits in silence until the alarm goes off on Helena's phone and everyone jumps up. "I can't look at them." Helena states as she bites at her fingernails. She knows they're all going to be positive; she doesn't need to see it for herself.

Everyone stands awkwardly for a moment before Calum sighs and walks into the bathroom. He quickly flips all five tests over, before turning slowly and walking out of the bathroom with a grim look on his face.

"Were they positive?" Helena raises her eyebrows. "They were positive, weren't they? Fuck." She shuts her eyes as she runs her hands through her hair.

"They were all negative."

Helena nearly passes out. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Calum shakes his head. "You're fucking evil." She pushes by Calum to look at the tests herself. "Oh my god." She swallows the lump in her throat as she looks down at all the tests. Each one reads the same: not pregnant. Helena finally breathes. Then she almost throws up, because this definitely means she either has the flu or some unidentified illness.

"Right, we should get you into bed." Ashton leads Helena to her bedroom. "You probably have the flu, and I'm not entirely sure you didn't work yourself up into so much stress over Luke and Sierra and then thinking you were pregnant that you actually started mimicking symptoms."

"That's nos possible." Helena scoffs as she sits down on the bed. "Is that possible?" She looks up at Ashton. She was stressed, and then she missed her period, so she was definitely freaking out.

Ashton nods. "Yeah. Once we get back to New York we'll take you to the doctor just to be sure."

Helena smiles and lets out a breath. Her situation has in no way approved, but at least she doesn't have to add a kid to it. Or tell Luke. That'd probably kill her.