The assumption is ridiculous, really. She tells them as much. It's ridiculous, and the fact that they've cornered her and they're acting like they've solved their own mystery, only the mystery is her, is frankly just....insulting and patently wrong.
"I hugged you and you yelped, Drew. And one of the rare hugs I deem you worthy of! You'd think you'd be cherishing that opportunity."
"Proves nothing."
"Your boobs are sore. That's symptom #1."
Nancy heaves a deep sigh, and her friends, her beloved best friends actually start circling her, like predators hunting down prey.
"Your eyes are red. You're tired." Bess offers.
"I was up all night helping Ace study!"
George wrinkles her nose. "First of all, ew."
"He has a test, it's not like...."
George holds a hand up. "Don't want to know, not interested in thinking of Ace like that. Ever. More to the point, we got clam chowder and you went exorcist immediately with the puking. That's never happened before."
"It's not like the Claw's food standards have improved since..."
This time, Bess holds a finger up, tutting at Nancy. "We aren't done, our most beloved friend. You could also smell Nick's cologne from across the house."
"He put it on heavily!" The excuses are getting weaker and Nancy knows it. But her brain's gears, usually spinning rapidly, seem to be working at a determinly slow pace. Keeping the doors closed, as it were. Closing out things she perhaps didn't want to think about.
"And," George moves in closer to her, eyes meeting Nancy's straight on, gleaming like she's just fit in the final piece to a particularly difficult puzzle.
"You're late, aren't you?"
It's ostensibly a question, but it's also not a question. Nancy has all the replies in the world on the tip of her tongue, about how invasive it is that her friends are tracking her period, about how it's none of their business, but they somehow get clogged in her throat.
They get lost, as the floodgates open.
Because yes, she did recoil from Nick (there was a comment in there about how it hadn't been that long since they dated, and did she really find him that repulsive yet). She had spent a lot of time retching over some food poisoning that none of her other friends seem to get. She and Ace had indeed had to abort some "date nights" because her boobs were oddly sore. She had peed no less than 7 times on the 4 hour drive to the latest small-scale case. Immediately after vomiting up all the clam chowder, she had inhaled two burgers.
But...
"No," it comes out weakly at first, then stronger. "No! Because we...we're careful. We're always careful. And I'm...I'm on the pill. And we've...I mean, we've only talked about stuff like that as an eventually. Ace hasn't even gotten into med school yet, I can't be...no. No, you're wrong!"
The last part is a near shout, as Nancy curls her fingers into Bess' jacket, first lightly, then tighter, tighter.
Soothingly, with more gentleness than Nancy knew George possessed, her friend disentangles her fingers from Bess, and laces her fingers through Nancy.
"Sweetie," Bess says softly, stroking back a lock of hair from Nancy's forehead. "Did you take the pill every day?"
Her life is insane. It's busy, tracking sin eaters. It doesn't lend itself to a reliable schedule. That's the reasoning she'll use later, along with her app forgetting to remind her after she silenced it one day.
Because for a period of a few days, she'd forgotten. Looking back, she thinks it was Ace's birthday. They'd just come off a case where they'd found three sin eaters at one time, and Ace had done well on a big test, and there was cake and stars and the bed of a rented pickup laid out with blankets and she'd just...forgotten.
Bess and George do their best to soothe her. They buy her tests, and sit with her during the actual eternity that three minutes is, holding her hands and reassuring her it'll be okay, that she has options, that they're here for her, but when she slips into Florence at the end of the day, Ace greeting her with a kiss, the test wrapped in tissue hidden in her bag feels like a bomb with a lit fuse.
oh my god wait hcav is credited with 36 episodes iirc. and i think, even if only briefly, he's been in every single episode so far. and the seasons are 12 episodes long
sudden realisation: I can have opinions on things without worrying if they are objectively correct or not!
(context: I felt like I should try to read more/listen to more music, but I was worried about consuming media that I hadn’t been specifically recommended because what if I had the wrong opinion about it?!
then I realised that I don’t actually have to worry about that anymore. what a womble.)
hello yes I am crying happy tears even though all my friends are hurting and I feel for them. I have empathy but it’s not drowning me !! I’m able to care without drowning !!! this is the most exciting thing to happen to me in like, a year guys. I am filled with God’s peace right now. “I am watching over them all,” He says to me. “Rest my child.”
Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, all the days of my life.
