WHO: Therese Bonaccord and Mackenzie Goldstein
WHAT: :(
WHERE: St. Mungo's
WHEN: Late Friday/Early Saturday



She massaged her jaw with one hand, feeling like her entire body had seized up over the past hour and a half. Therese smirked at the time on the opposite wall of the examination room, wondering how bloody long she still had to go. Part of her wished that she hadn’t owled Mackenzie so quickly, but a person tended to panic when they awoke in the middle of the night with extreme cramps and soaked in their own blood. Therese regretted waking up the mother of three at nearly one in the morning, but she’d had no one else to turn to and look at what it got her.

An hour and a half of Mackenzie sending her the saddest, most sympathetic stare imaginable.

“Would you stop looking at me like that?” Therese snapped, her hand going to the back of her neck to try and remove some of the tightness there. She had slipped off the examination table and perched herself on the edge of a seat next to her friend, who hadn’t let go of her hand this entire time. Therese knew that---she appreciated Mackenzie’s attentiveness, she did, it was just hard to focus when it was so late and she was aching like she never had before. At first she had been frightened at the searing pain throughout her abdomen, but now that she knew the cause, Therese found herself feeling more bitter than anything.

The door to the room opened and Adelaide Jordan strolled in, her medical clipboard floating along behind her pulsating a light green. Therese had not worked with the healer since her first year of rounds and had managed to avoid her since, though she was fully aware how notoriously blunt Jordan could be. Mackenzie was in her good graces, because Mackenzie was in everyone’s good graces, and Healer Jordan had slipped Therese into an examination room far from the peering eyes of the nurses’ station.

She procured a bottle of clear liquid and Therese winced. Clear potions were always the worst potions. “You were about six weeks along, so you need to take this to clear everything out. It’s going to hurt.”

Therese blinked up at the other healer, feeling as if she’d momentarily gone deaf. There was a loud ringing in her ears, and though she had been aware for the past hour and a half that she’d miscarried a baby she’d had no idea she’d been carrying, hearing Jordan explain the next step like it was comparable to emptying out a fridge sent her pulse racing.

“You are the foulest woman I have ever had the misfortune of----” Therese snapped, earning a high eyebrow from Jordan and a tight squeeze of her hand from Mackenzie. Her lips pressed into a line and she looked away, unwilling to reach out and take the potion.

Mackenzie pulled her lips back and suppressed any reaction that sought to make itself present on her face. This was a delicate situation, only heightened by the late hour and familiarness that came with co-workers, but, fortunately, she had enough patience and understanding within her to share to both Adelaide Jordan and Therese.

“Thank you, Adelaide,” Mackenzie spoke calmly, her hold on Therese’s hand unwavering. With her free hand, she gently took the potion out of Adelaide’s hand, and curled her fingers around the bottle so it would stay safe.

“Would you mind if we had a moment?” she asked purposely, looking up at the senior healer with her best authoritative, yet understanding, face. Even she knew that Therese would not drink a drip of that potion with her in the room, surely? After a few moments, Adelaide curtly nodded and made mention of having a schedule to check up on, and the desire to go back to sleep.

After the door closed, Mackenzie let out a silent breath. That was one issue addressed. But, now, the larger one was still present... she turned to face Therese again, unable to quite let go of the sympathetic look on her face. Just the thought of having to personally go through what Therese was experiencing, at the moment... her frown deepened. Mackenzie couldn’t even begin to fathom would she would be able to deal with it. While it was rather petty, and silly, after marrying Sebastian all she thought about, and what she continued to think about, was having children with him, and raising a family, so to think of a scare like this happening was to say the least unsettling. Granted, she didn’t assume to think that Therese was anywhere near wanting to have children just yet, but the last hour and a half would kilter any witch.

“Therese?” she spoke quietly, inching her chin forward to look at her friend. “You must drink it,” Mackenzie said gently, uncurling her fingers slightly to produce a glimpse of the glass.

“Do you want to talk about it first?”

Therese’s gaze dropped down to her lap, her anger at Healer Jordan subsiding now that they were alone once more. Though, she wished she could focus her energy on something other than the task at hand and she shrugged at Mackenzie’s question, “I don’t think I have the energy at the moment to describe how guilty I feel.”

Guilt. For a Slytherin, it was a strange flaw that Therese could not overcome. It may have been the aspect of her personality that had kept her from turning towards those on the dark side of the war. But her guilty conscience often got the better of her; even today, months after the final straw had painfully broken the proverbial back of her and Remy, part of her still wondered if she could have done something different. So---so for something like this, something that may have caused its fair share of drama, but was nowhere near a life-ending disaster, it...how could she not have known? She had not been very far along at all, not a symptom had been felt! Her cycle was often strange and in no certain pattern so she hadn’t thought of it, but she should have!

Guilt. Therese often worked with people who were wracked with the pains of guilt and it was always a struggle, especially when they had done something in the wrong. It took a roundabout method of understanding why the initial action had been done and to figure out a way to accept one’s mistakes. Therese wondered if her holiday celebrations had caused this, if her negligence, if...she didn’t know. She really had no idea how she was supposed to feel and felt herself take in a deep breath as she finally let go of Mackenzie’s hand to take hold of the vial. She gripped it tightly in both of her hands, shoulders sagged.

“Do I have to tell him?” she asked, immediately feeling terrible, guilty that after nearly two hours this was the first time she’d thought of Michal. Therese looked up at Mackenzie, biting her tongue. “Should I?”

Mackenzie’s frown deepened even further, and she wrung her fingers together in her lap. She could understand that Therese had little within her to talk about the emotional scarring of a miscarriage she had absolutely no idea about, but informing the almost father? That was.... something that could not go unaddressed. And, inconveniently, was absolutely difficult to give advice on, because Mackenzie could hardly state she knew Michal Conway Lynch well enough to provide Therese with sound advice.

“I think... I think there is a difference between have to, and should you,” Mackenzie spoke purposefully, slowly as she thought. But how to apply that difference appropriately? She had little clue. It depended on their relationship, she supposed. Mackenzie knew, even now, she would experience difficulty telling Sebastian if this had happened to her, and not because of it being a delicate subject, but because she would not want him to experience the pain of losing a child when he did not have to.

But it was also important to maintain a healthy, honest exchange in a relationship, so...

“I am not sure,” she let out, redirecting her gaze back to Therese’s face. She had looked away, momentarily, to think, but now that she felt lost as to what to say, it was the least she could do. “I do not think there is a distinct right and wrong answer to that question.” Mackenzie tilted her head, slightly, and reached to place a comforting hand on Therese’s arm. “It is whatever is best for you.”

No, she couldn’t think about talking to Michal about this. Having children was not a conversation she could see them having any time soon and all the floodgates this could open were too stressful to think about. Therese had been enjoying actually being in a relationship, being unsure where they were headed, how long it would last, finding out new things that you liked and didn’t like about one another. She was happy, truly, and this would ruin everything, she was sure. But then, her mind jumped to the other side of the argument as it always did. Didn’t he have the right to know what could have been?

She couldn’t think about it now. Mackenzie was right, she had to do what was best for her, but---she couldn’t think about it now. Therese shook her head, knowing that right now she needed to take this potion and attempt to go to bed. Running on no sleep and dealing with tear-inducing pain was not the time to focus on the status of your relationship, let alone how easily it could crumble and fall apart if...when she decided to tell him. Therese uncorked the vial, knowing precisely what it was meant to do and swallowed it quickly.

Therese let out a breath, unsure how she managed to get the foul tasting potion down her throat. The bitter taste awoke all her senses, and the vial that her fingers had been twisting around in her hands was clenched in her fist. She knew she’d probably be able to make it home before the pain really began, and Therese pushed her hair out of her face.

“That’s it, then,” she said, surprising herself when her voice cracked and her eyes watered. That was it. She’d just taken a potion that would rid her body of any evidence that she’d been carrying a baby, rid her of what could have been the dearest thing in her life. Her breath hitched and she finally lurched toward Mackenzie to accept her friend’s sympathy, now unable to stop her tears.

She quickly decided there was not truly anything that could be said to make this situation better, so Mackenzie said nothing. Instead, she held onto her friend tightly, resting her chin over Therese’s shoulder, and moved her hand to gently hold the back of Therese’s head.

“Everything is going to be alright,” she spoke softly, at least knowing that that would be true. And it would; right now, things did not seem that positive for how could it during the worst? Mackenzie pressed her chin down, and wrapped her arms around Therese tighter.

“Everything is going to be fine,” Mackenzie repeated, straightening out the ends of Therese’s hair with her palm. She thought next, for a moment, then quietly, said “You did the right thing,”