xp_logs | Jean and Terry; Monday Afternoon (Reply)

Who needs actual medical diagnoses when you can have rampant hysteria and panic? Well, Jean apparently. Who drags Terry down to the lab for a blood test and a little dose of reality.

Shan was the only one in the library other than Terry. This was good. This was very good. Jean stopped to briefly ask the librarian to give her a few minutes alone with the girl, then continued silently back into the stacks towards where she could sense the girl working on her homework. Pausing, Jean scanned her again, just to be sure she hadn't missed anything, but no, still nothing. Which wasn't absolutely certain, either, but that was why this whole thing was so...

Stepping out from the shelves behind Terry, Jean crossed her arms and said, "Theresa Rourke Cassidy, would you care to explain why you have not yet come to see me about a blood test?"

Terry jumped about a foot, her mind jumping from Wilde to contrition automatically. "I'm...sorry?" She paused, making a face. "Um, why was I supposed to see you again? When did you tell me I should?" Confusion reigned while Terry searched her memory, trying to think of the last time she'd talked to Jean.

"I would have hoped, sweetie, that the minute you got that positive test result you'd have come down to talk about it, get confirmation at the very least. Or hell, gotten Clarice or Jay or someone to drive you to the free clinic in town." Jean was not pleased that Terry had gotten herself into this situation, but she was even less pleased that she'd decided to deal with it without any solid information.

Oh. That. Fuck. Terry rubbed her temple. "I...kinda didn't want to. Get the double confirmation, you know? Because...that makes it real." That reasoning had sounded so much less stupid when she'd given it to Dani. Perhaps it was Jean's withering stare. "I'm sorry."

"It can also make it not real." Jean sighed. "Terry, I haven't sensed the slightest physical change in you lately. It's far too early to be sensing the baby's mind, but there ought to be some changes already starting that I'd be able to pick up on. It's not certain, any more than an over the counter test is going to be certain." She couldn't quite help the frown tugging down the corner of her lips. "And a doctor, any doctor, is going to be able to give you more, and more reliable, information about your choices and the things you should and should not be doing than you can get on your own."

Terry winced and hunched further into herself. "Not real? But those tests are supposed to be 97% accurate." False hope was worse than no hope, as far as Terry was concerned but on the other hand, she trusted Jean implicitly. She stacked her books. "Um, so...should we go now then?"

"Mmm," was Jean's noncommittal answer, not feeling like pointing out that such tests were only accurate if properly administered - Terry was already feeling bad enough. "Yes," she said. "Let's head down to the lab. A small blood sample and I can get you a definite answer."

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Terry sat on the table in the exam room, drumming her legs against the drawers like she had so many times before. Trying to keep her calm, she was reading her government text book but she had almost no interest in the US Gov. so it wasn't doing much for her state of mind. When was Jean coming back?

The minute the machine spat out the results a relieved smile had broken out on Jean's face, and it hadn't vanished by the time she made it back into the exam room, print outs in hand. If the smile wasn't enough to let Terry know the results, Jean wasn't cruel enough to make the girl wait, and the first words out of her mouth were, "Negative. The test's negative, Terry. You're not pregnant."

Terry swallowed hard and ignored the leap of relief, "Are you sure? There's not any way that that could be wrong?" Her hands clenched white around the edges of her book, the last week of stress and fear hard to let go of.

"Well, I could be entirely incompetent as a doctor, but they tell me that's not the case." Well aware of just how tense Terry was, Jean came over to sit on a stool in front of the examination table so she could look the girl in her eyes. "It's all right, Terry. Really and truly, you're not pregnant."

The younger redhead seemed to crumple in on herself, breathing out a heavy sigh of relief. "Oh, God." She raised her head again slowly, "I thought...I didn't know what I was going to do and Bobby... I'm really sorry, Dr. Grey. I didn't mean to be all this trouble."

"Shhh, sweetie." Wrapping her arms around Terry, Jean simply hugged her tightly. "You don't have to apologize. It's ok." The lectures about being more careful, about talking to adults if she had a problem, all of them could wait.

Terry clung to Jean and tried to ignore the faint sense of guilt and disappointment. She hadn't wanted to be pregnant. Hadn't wanted a child or the disruption of her life. Hadn't wanted any of the consequences of being in a relationship... And so she didn't. "I missed a couple of days on my pills. I don't know how or when. Things have been so crazy lately..."

Jean nodded. "And was there an accident, or were you guys not using a condom?" Her tone was straightforward, professional.

Terry turned bright red anyway. No matter how professional, Jean was still more family than doctor. "We weren't...um. I didn't think we needed to." No need to go into why they'd stopped. That was not a story she was going to share.

That got a raised eyebrow. "If you didn't think you needed to, how on earth did you come to the conclusion that you were pregnant? I know you know how that works." Jean ought to know, since she'd been the one teaching Sex Ed for several years.

Her blush deepened, "That's not what I meant. Just...I was taking the birth control and there was...this one time the condom broke and so...it just..." She looked down at her knees, unable to look Jean in the face for this, "I thought it was a little redundant. So we stopped."

"Ah." Jean sighed softly. "Sweetie, I'm not going to bother telling you that that was a bad idea. I think you know as well as anyone just how bad an idea it was after all this. And the thing is, everybody makes bad decisions, and accidents happen, and that's part of life. I'm just disappointed that you didn't think you could come talk to me, or to one of us. That you didn't want to let us help you."

"I was going to. Really." Terry shrugged, shamed. "Once I'd figured out what I was going to do, I was going to tell Sean and...other people. But I was...I don't know, I think I've been panicking for the last six days. Sure and I had a good reason to be."

"Yeah, you did," Jean agreed without hesitation. "You really did. And I'm sorry you had to go through this."

Terry sighed. "Now I have to tell Bobby. He asked me to marry him, you know. Said he wanted to do the right thing." She made a face, half-upset and half-regretful.

And how much thinking did he put into what the right thing was? Jean wondered, but she simply nodded. "Yes, you do need to tell him. And soon would be better than later."

"I know." But Terry didn't move, just sighed again. "What if I had been really pregnant, Dr. Grey? What would I have done? I thought maybe, I'd go home. I couldn't have gone to college or joined the team."

"Why not?" Jean asked. "It would have delayed things, yes, changed things, unless you put it up for adoption, but there's nothing anywhere that says you can't be a parent and also do other things. It's harder, but you could have done it. It's not as though there aren't many, many people here who would have tried to help you."

"I don't know, it's just..." Terry made a hand gesture that said there was utterly no reason that that wouldn't be true but that she felt it anyway. For no rational reason, she just couldn't shake the idea that there was having a life and then there was having children. She shrugged and moved to jump off the table, "Anyway. Is there anything else, Dr. Grey? I need to finish my homework."

Jean shook her head. "No, that's everything from me, you're free to go. But, Terry... Be careful. Let's not go through this again."

Terry winced, nodded and bolted from the room.