So there Capricia stood, in Dr. Mitchell's office as she heard those words she'd been praying she could just imagine away. Weeks of puking and mood swings all came down to a few blood tests and a lot of worrying, and, well...
"I'm absolutely positive you're pregnant. Do you have any idea who the father is? Oh, don't give me that shitty look, you Frost girls are your own breed of adventurous, how am I supposed to know?" The doctor folded his arms and looked at her, his gaze as stubborn as her own set jaw.
Capri just stood there, frozen. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth was pressed tightly shut as the doctor drilled into her. Never known for bedside manner, the doctor's main concern was Capri's health, and nevermind the formalities.
The doctor suddenly stopped talking and Capri watched as scrutinizing eyes suddenly stopped, and narrowed, and then softened. He sighed a little.
"Are you still seeing Connor?"
Capri snatched her coat from the table and flung herself at the door. "I have to go," she said briskly, leaping towards the door. She ran out into the hallway, the Doctor calling after her.
"CAPRICIA!" He swore to himself and slammed the door of his office shut, chasing after her.
It was all a blur, a very heavy blur, and Capri began to realize she had a habit of fleeing rooms with people screaming her name uselessly after her. This time, she wasn't so lucky - Dr. Mitchell wasn't like the others that wouldn't go after her, because her health was actually a concern. As tough as the guilds were, they tried to take care of their own.
She felt a gentle, yet firm, tug on her sweater, and she stopped reluctantly, trying not to make a terribly large scene. He closed in, and spoke in a hushed voice.
"Capricia, I'm not saying you have to tell him. I'm not saying you have to keep it. But this doesn't happen very often, so just think it through before you do anything, okay? And for god's sakes, no back alley clinics. Just come to me."
She was petrified, naturally, but nodded. "I'll think about it. I promise," she managed to squeak out. She watched as the he seemed satisfied with her answer and let go, reaching out to smooth down some of Capri's hair.
"Congratulations."
He turned and calmly walked back to his office, leaving her alone in the hallway with nothing but the echoes of footsteps to keep her company.
It was FAR too early for Dom to hear someone screaming down the hall and slamming doors. He busted out of his room, having only been sleeping two hours, and he found Capricia standing there with Doc Mitchel walking off. All he caught was 'Congratulations.'
"What the hell is going on?" he demanded, glaring at her. "What's all this noise about? Is there something wrong with letting people sleep?!"
Not a happy camper.
Capricia was standing in the hallway, dumbfounded, as Dom burst out of his room and started acting crazy all over the floor. And then he was yelling, and she wasn't quite sure what he was yelling at her about, but this was way, way too much.
She put out a hand to stop him, dropped her head for a minute, and then managed. "I think..." and WHAM, she hit the floor. Little too much excitement all at once, that was all. That and loud noises make baby angry, apparently, even at the early stages.
This was not going to be a good day.
Dom actually blinked at her when she passed out, completely not believing what he'd just seen, and he went off on a string of spanish cursing. Of course, it had to happen to him, not anyone else. Nobody else would walk out to find Capricia fainting. No, usually she'd freak out right back, and it'd be perfectly satisfying. This was just the way his luck worked out.
"Capricia!" he snarled, though he did kneel down to check to ensure that she didn't have a head wound or anything from her fall. "VIN, GET OUT HERE!"
Obediently, Vin stumbled out of the room, tugging on his pajama pants on the way to the door. He saw Dom kneeling by Capricia, her blonde hair spilling out over the floor. "Shit, what happened?"
He made sure his pants were situated before he hurried over to the unconscious woman and crouched down to checked her pulse. A little rapid, but there. He couldn't make any sort of medical evaluation beyond that. "Should we chance picking her up and taking her down the hall to the infirmary, or just get Doc Mitchell over here?" he asked, looking concerned.
"I didn't do anything! She fainted!" Dom told Vin defensively, and for once, he was essentially right. He hadn't done anything abnormal for him.
It suddenly occurred to him that Vin had just left his room in sleeping clothes, though there fortunately weren't a number of people hanging around. They were alone with Capri in the hall, so hopefully the rest of the Guild wouldn't start up the rumor mill. "Shit."
He sighed, trying to figure this out fast, and shot Vin a sharp look. "Go get dressed," he hissed, not wanting it to get through the entire Guild. "I'll get her to Mitchell."
Assuming Dom got her back to the infirmary, the good doctor wasn't really all that thrilled. He had just told Capricia to lay off, and she was already falling all over herself - well, Dom was there, so he could immediatly see the cause. He narrowed his eyes as the man came in.
He made a displeased noise, but said nothing else for a moment, moving something off of the exam table so he could get a better look at her. "What happened?" he asked finally, satisfied she wasn't dead. He broke out some smelling salts and held one under her nose for a second, aware that while it wasn't the best approach it was the fastest.
He was willing to bet Dom had stressed her out, but then again, there was a slight discrepency here that he couldn't really overlook. Normally Capricia wouldn't just fall over. How to handle with confidentiality? Hmm.
It wasn't like Capri weighed all that much, and Dom had to be in decent enough shape to chase vampires and shifters down, so the man managed to carry her back to the infirmary and set her down on the exam table Mitchell gestured to.
"She fainted," he answered simply, with his tone suggesting that perhaps it was a stupid question. Obviously, she'd fainted. "What's wrong with her?"
The doctor didn't know any way to say anything without sticking his foot into a huge steaming pile of shit with Capricia, and as much as she drove him crazy, he didn't want to put her in that position. He just held his hands up and sighed, and went to get her some water.
"There's nothing wrong with me," she insisted, sitting up. She took a sharp breath and wrinkled her nose. "I'm just tired, And I want a goddamn cigarette.." She moved to slide off of the table and took the water the doctor handed to her. "And you know what else? I want a drink. I want to smoke a fucking carton of cigarettes and drink a damn cask of wine. Just 'cos. Yeah."
She had a bizarre, crazy look on her face as she nodded, neglecting the water, in fact, spilling it as she waved her arms. "Yeah, that's right. Why?" She laughed. Was she having a nervous breakdown? "I have no idea! None at all! But I haven't had a cigarette in two months, and it's KILLING ME." She crushed the water cup.
And then she started to cry.
Talk about hormones.
Dom blinked at her outburst, just watching her for a moment before flicking his gaze to the doctor and back to her. Something about this struck him as being vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place it. That, or it was something he'd locked away because he didn't want to think about it. Either way, he didn't immediately realize what was going on with her, just that she was being...odd.
"And you have the nerve to call me crazy!" he snapped at Doctor Mitchell, glaring at the man. He thought he should have been informed if someone crazier than him was in the vicinity. It got him to pull a cigarette out of his pocket and offer her one, though. He had a light, too.
He ignored the death glare Mitchell was throwing his way, this having been the same doctor who told him he was going to die of emphysema. Dom hated doctors.
Vin dressed as quickly as possible, though it took him a full two minutes to find his shirt (it was under the bed, somehow). When he was decent, he hurried down to the infirmary to check on Capri. What timing; he arrived just as Dom was about to light up a cigarette.
"Dom," he said in that disappointed groan that stretched the other man's name into nearly two syllables. "You shouldn't be smoking, period, and especially not in here!"
He glanced at Capricia then, his eyebrows furrowing with worry. "Hey, Capri, you okay? I never knew you for the fainting sort."
She just stopped crying suddenly and sat down, rubbing her eyes. She took the cigarette from Dom, and was suddenly greatful for his presence, despite the fact that they had never been friendly. She was glad Vin was there, too; she'd taken to him more than a lot of the other guild members. He was genuine, and he tried to take care of his sister. He was a brother figure she never had.
She stood up and shut the door. If they had witnessed her total meltdown, they were going to mention something to someone eventually, if nothing more than to see if she had become manic, or a liability. She leaned against the closed door, avoiding the knob before it pressed into her spine.
"What I am going to tell you cannot leave this room, not until I figure out what's going on, okay?" Once she was confident she had their cooperation, or at least what she would get of it, she sighed.
"I'm pregnant."
Dom glared at Vin when the man walked in and whined at him about his smoking, again, but it surprisingly wasn't Vin who snatched his cigarette away. It was Mitchell, and Dom didn't even have the chance to spaz out on him before Capri had his attention again. Why was it that Dom always ended up being the one to keep secrets for women? First Lore, now Capri, and it was always big things, too.
Oh, Hell.
Dom froze, forgetting all about chasing after Mitchell for his cigarette, and just STARED. He couldn't help but think of Miranda then, and he wondered who the poor fool was who'd fallen in love with Capricia. With the way she hunted, he wouldn't have been terribly surprised to learn that she'd finally been overcome during a hunt. That brought another question to his mind, but he worded it quite differently than he originally thought to. He had to cover up for that initial shock of his somehow.
"Well, I hope you at least know who the father is, or are we going to be having another episode of daytime television?" he asked, and this was where his tone would usually be scathing, but he didn't for her. She had enough problems without him giving her the full effect of his charming presence.
"Uhm, yeah," she said, eyes searching around the room for a focus point to take her eyes away from the scrutiny of Dom, and later Vin, when her next answer came out. She didn't light her own cigarette yet, but just held it there, in her hands.
"Pretty sure the only person I've slept with in the last year has been Connor, so... unless there's a star in the North, I'm pretty certain." Well, leave it to Capricia to be blunt.
The hunter had mellowed out a lot over the past three years, but it was nothing compared to what was going on right now. She was completely unprepaired for anything like this, and it was obvious.
"I don't know what to do. We had a huge fight, and now he's gone off somewhere, and... ugh. I think I'm going to tell Christian I resign and just... go somewhere." Of course she wouldn't, but it was how she felt.
Dom nearly choked when Capricia said that the father had to be Connor, just trying to imagine the reckless blond as a father. He couldn't. It just didn't work.
"You mean, Batten? He is the father?!" he demanded, looking both amazed and almost...revolted. He remembered when Batten was just a little teenager training to join Crimson. The thought of him becoming a father was a bit scary.
The man had a right to know, though. Once Dom's initial 30 seconds of spaz-time was finished, he groaned and put a hand to his head. This was a headache, and he wasn't even involved. He actually felt bad for her, especially with how dysfunctional it sounded like the relationship was. "Just stake out his office. He'll show up eventually."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the best advice he could give her.
lol. my lipgross lates like pnaples.
Capricia sighed wistfully. Of course, tell Connor. It was the only choice she really had, but she didn't want to. She wanted to just, like, leave, and go somewhere else. She glanced at Vin again before looking back at Dom.
"And I should just sit out there like an idiot? Er, don't answer that," she said, frowning. Yeah, so she was an idiot for even letting this happen, but holy shit, she'd seen to it they'd used protection. This was just one of those "it only happens in a blue moon" situations where Capricia was getting fucked, proper AND otherwise. She growled to herself.
"You're right. I'm just... what if he gets mad? I mean.. I don't know what exactly I plan to say. Want me to just waltz in and be like, 'Hey Connor, sorry about being a huge bitch, by the way, I'm carrying YOUR BABY.'"
She put her head in her hands and made angry noises for a moment, before looking back up.
"I thought I'd be able to handle anything. Apparently not."
"Actually, no. I'm not saying you sit out there like an idiot, because looking like an idiot is the last thing I'd personally suggest," he told her snappishly. Well, he would tell someone to go do something stupid if he didn't like them, but he didn't mind Capricia. Thus the smirk that followed.
"I'm telling you to break into his office and enjoy the comfort of that delightful chair he has behind his desk until he drags his sorry as in there."
And if she needed help breaking into the office discreetly, he was the person to ask. Picking locks was just one of the services Domingos Verde offered.
Vin, naturally, had been stunned speechless by this revelation. He didn't even think to thank Doc Mitchell for taking Dom's cigarette away, which he normally would have if he hadn't been gaping open-mouthed at the blonde huntress.
Connor... Lore's been hanging around him a lot lately, he thought.
"Well, wow," he said, finally. He blinked a few times. "Wow, congrats, I guess. As for Connor, I know Lore has been checking in on him pretty regularly, what with his eyes being all messed up, so maybe she knows how to get a hold of him. Want me to ask? I'll bet he'd want to know that he was going to be a father, no matter what happened between you two."
With a warm, brotherly smile, he clapped Capri on the shoulder. "It'll be fine," he assured her.
And he desperately, for Capricia's sake and the baby's, wanted that to be true.
She hesitated. "I don't know, Vin. I was... myself. Except louder." She meant that she'd said some pretty mean shit and she didn't even know if it was possible to take it back - she knew she wouldn't take SHIT back, personally, and if someone had said the shit she'd said to Connor, she wouldn't take them back, either.
She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "I guess this is pretty standard... dramatic nerve overload type stuff? Heh, yeah. Maybe I could use a sit in that chair he has. It looks like it cost more than his wardrobe did, anyways," she said with a snort.
Hey, she was trying to lighten up a little.
Herself, only louder? Great. That probably meant that Batten didn't want to speak with her anytime soon, and might explain the phone issue that Lore had mentioned. She'd said 'Frankenstein', even if he didn't really know what that was supposed to mean. Still, she needed to go talk to the man, though.
"Yes, it's normal," he assured her, remembering the initial response Miranda had shown to being pregnant. He hadn't known it at the time, but he knew well enough by this point to understand that. "Just try to remain calm while speaking to him."
Yeah, Dom needed to be telling someone ELSE to remain calm. Whatever, he didn't care if that sounded wrong coming from him. He'd never deny being a hypocrite.
Dom telling someone else to be calm? If Vin's eyebrow of incredulity could have climbed any higher, it would have been in his hairline. Still, he was wise enough to refrain from commenting on the anomaly.
"Uh, right. Look, no matter what happened between you two, this is important. Not just to you, or even just to Connor, but to the baby growing inside you, too. I know he'd want to be part of that." Again, that warm, hopeful smile. Vin was too much of a sap for his own good, sometimes.
Ugh. When Vin put it like that, the baby sounded so creepy. She shuddered inwardly. She didn't know if she was comfortable enough with this... thing yet to refer to it as a growing organism. It was more like a parasite. A thing. A thing that would rip through her like that thing did to the girl on Aliens, and then she'd be in real trouble.
"I'm going to puke," she said suddenly, and fled from the room.
She hit the bathroom on her knees, pulling her hair from her face just in time to unload stomach acid and crap she'd been swallowing instead of coughing up into the toilet. Damn cold. Damn baby. Damn... just damn.
Vin only hesitated momentarily before hurrying after Capricia and leaning down to hold her hair back, the way he'd done countless times for Lore when she was sick. Maybe he was being presumptuous, but he supposed he would know when he'd crossed that line once Capri stuck a knife in his foot or something.
"When my mother was pregnant with my little sister," he recalled, "she would suck on ginger candies. They helped with the nausea." Granted, he'd only been around nine years old when that had happened, but he had a decent memory when it came to anything involving his parents or Lore.
"I don't like ginger," she sobbed, sitting back off of the toilet and allowing Vin to try and soothe her. She was so pissed off at... well, at everything! She didn't even know why! She rubbed her eyes angrily, wiping away the tears that always came when she threw up. She didn't even bother flushing the toilet yet - all that had come up was Sprite and like, four Goldfish crackers she'd managed to eat.
"I don't like anything. Am I supposed to be this.. hateful and mean?" she asked. She didn't know if she could do seven more months of this shit. She slumped down a little and sighed, snatching some toilet paper to blow her nose.
Vin tried to give her some good news. "I think that stuff is mostly during the first trimester," he recalled. "The morning sickness is supposed to go away in a couple of weeks, anyway. Of course, you get all sorts of other fun stuff once you start getting big." He glanced pointedly at her tummy, but resisted the urge to pat it. They were still Hunters, after all.
"I DON'T WANNA GET BIG!" she howled. She kicked out with her feet, and put a nice dent in the opposing stall of the bathroom she was on the floor of. She felt like throwing a temper tantrum right there. What was wrong with her?
"I need my sleeping pills. I want to just go lay down and forget any of this ever happened," she groused, reaching for Vin's hand as she tried to stand up. She'd been in the same position too long, and her legs were sore now. Great.
Vin graciously helped her to her feet, his mouth creased in that concerned big-brother frown. She'd totally set off his "sister" instincts. But this wasn't Lore, who really was his sister, or even Sitara, who was tiny and sweet. This was Capricia, who was one of the few women Vin actually knew who could probably kick his head through drywall, given a reason. She was a new and unknown quantity; Vin wasn't quite sure how he should handle her.
"How about a warm bath?" he suggested. "That might help you relax, and steam is good for anything that ails you." He was trying so hard, poor fool.
She seemed to consider this as she went to the sink to wash her hands (thank God). She pulled down some paper towels and stared thoughtfully at Vin. "Maybe. Do you or Lore have a good stash of bath salts? I'm feeling vanilla right now," she added.
Whoa. Moodswing. One minute she was kicking shit and screaming at the top of her lungs, and the next minute, well. This. She was as tempermental as a ten-year old at this point, so it was probably better if she was just spoiled rotten and left to take a nap or something else equally quiet and appealing.
Vin blinked. Well... "Maybe," he replied slowly, thinking about it. "Lore has a lot of nice, smelly, girly things like that in the bathroom at home. I'll ask her."
He deliberately did not look at Dom, because at the moment he wasn't sure if he wanted to know what the other man's expression was. If he was stifling laughter, Vin would be finished right there.
"Are you feeling any better, at least?" he asked the blonde.
She smiled. "Okay!" at the response of checking with Lore to see if she had some. She bounced around in place. Yep, no screws loose here. "I feel great, Vin!" she cheered.
"Was your mom this moody when she was pregnant?" she asked, aware that she couldn't control herself at the moment. "Because, really, if I'm going to alternate between spastic angry temper tantrums and wanting to save the world, I'd kind of like to go and hide so people don't get suspiscious."
Not that she wasn't already known for being unstable. The younger Capri was the type to behave irrationally, not that this one was any better. She was a bit more spread out about it, at least.
Well not now, but usually.
A relieved, but still cautious grin tugged at Vin's mouth. "Worse," he confided. "I got my temper from my mother. She drove my father out of the house more than once, throwing things and screaming, then breaking down and sobbing the next minute, and laughing hysterically over nothing five minutes after that. He kept her well-supplied with chocolate ?clairs and peanut butter ripple ice cream, which helped a little."
Vin patted Capri gingerly on the arm. "I think you're behaving perfectly normal, for someone with a bun in the oven." He flashed her another grin, this one more genuine. "Come on, maybe the Doc can give you something that'll keep you from killing people."
She reluctantly followed him out into the hall, though she did laugh at his remarks about his mother. "Morphene?" she asked brightly, knowing the answer would be a big N-O. She had a little bounce in her step, a testament to her mood swings enough.
When they arrived back in the doctor's quarters, she sat down in a chair somewhat more calm than she had been before. She looked from man to man, blinking, silent. She was simply daring someone to call her crazy at this point, because now it seemed like she had a really perfectly fabulous excuse.
And there was still the object of telling people.