..oOOo..


9:02 am Tuesday

The next morning, still in bed, Byers felt the warm figure wrapped 
in his arms shift hurriedly and disentangle himself in his mad rush to 
get to the bathroom.

Byers followed him after taking a moment to wake up and pull on
a shirt.  Grabbing Langly’s glasses from the nightstand, he made
his way down the hall.

When Langly finished vomiting, he leaned back onto his heels.
He started to shift, raising up on his knees to stand but suddenly
hissed in pain and fell against Byers, into his secure embrace.

"God, Ree..."  he whispered into the soft, damp hair against his
lips, absently combing his fingers through the strands as Langly
steadied his breathing.  He brushed the hair back from the too-
warm forehead.  The fever had returned, even higher now, to
the man trembling in his arms.

After a few minutes the younger man seemed to gather himself
again.  "Sorry..." he said so quietly the older man wasn’t sure he
had said it.

"S’okay, hon,"  Byers soothed him quietly, gently rubbing his hand
over Langly’s back.  He ran his hand down to the lower part and
felt the other man jerk away from the touch with a grunt of pain.
"What--what’s wrong?"

Langly shook his head slightly, wincing as he tried to sit up.  "Don’t
know..." he mumbled.  "...hurts..."

"What hurts?  Your back?  Where I touched you?"  Byers felt another
round of twenty questions coming on, but didn’t care.  All he wanted
was to find out what was hurting his lover and to make it go away.

The younger man nodded and started to stand, using the edge of the
sink to lever himself.  

Byers reached down to help him up and steadied him when he started
to sway.  "Ree, this is getting serious;  there might be something
really wrong with you,"  the older man told him softly, not wanting to
cause any more distress but knowing he had to make his argument
strong.  "I’m going to take you to a doctor," he said, his tone giving
a definite finality to the statement.

To his surprise, Langly simply nodded in agreement.  That in itself 
was enough to make Byers worry even more.  It was unlike Langly
not to put up at least a token fight against seeing a doctor, his mis-
trust of the medical profession notorious.  

For him to agree without a single protest was unheard of, Byers 
thought to himself as he patiently led Langly back to their room to 
get dressed.


..oOOo..


10:34 am Tuesday

Langly sat on the exam table, nervously fidgeting with his hands in
his lap until Byers put one of his own hands on top of the twitching
ones to still them.  "Relax,"  the older man told him gently.  "She’s
just going to do some tests, ask some questions.  Nothing to worry
about."

The younger man smiled at him gratefully, but wrapped his hands 
in a tight, desperate grip around the other man’s.  

Byers looked up to catch his eye, and felt his stomach tighten at
the obvious fear he saw in the other man’s unfocused gaze.  He
moved his chair closer, bringing his other hand up to join the
tangle of fingers.  He stroked his thumb lightly over Langly’s 
wrist, a soothing motion he had discovered often worked to 
calm his partner’s nerves.

Lost in thought, in the depths of emotion, he barely registered
the door opening but heard the soft voice and approaching 
footsteps.  "Good morning, gentlemen.  I’m Dr. Kerry Larson,"
she informed them in a warm, pleasant tone.  

Langly looked up at her and smiled politely, pulling one of his
hands from the embrace and reaching to shake her hand.  "Hi,
I’m Ringo," he said.

"Ah, Mr. Langly," she nodded, checking the chart in her hand
to confirm.  She turned to Byers sitting nearby.  "And you’re
Mr. Byers, right?" she asked, glancing at the paper again.

He nodded.  "Just John, please."

She gave him an understanding smile.  "Okay, John.  I assume
it’s just Ringo, right?" she looked back to Langly, who nodded.
"Well, as long as we’re all first-name, you guys can call me
Kerry.  I just need to ask you some questions, first, to get an
idea of what’s going on."

"Shoot," Langly said, feeling much more relaxed with this 
comfortable doctor.

"You wrote here that you have been vomiting and running a
fever for the past three days?"

"Well, kind of.  The first day it was just a pain, like a cramp.  And
the last two days it’s just been in the morning.  After that I’m fine."

"Okay," she made a note on the chart as she listened.  "And this
morning you also had pain in your lower back?"

Langly nodded.  "Yeah, I think it was just from throwing up, though."

"Maybe.  We’ll worry about that later.  First thing, I need to some
stats," she told him, already digging through drawers.  

She took his temperature, which was a bit higher than normal.  His
blood pressure was also high, she noted.  "It looks like you have a
few early symptoms of the flu, but I’d like to run some blood tests,
just to be sure."  

Langly flinched and looked away while she took his blood.  She
gave him a reassuring pat on the arm before turning away for the
door.  "I’ll get this to the lab now, but it may take a few hours 
until the results come back.  You don’t have to wait here, but 
please stay close by so I can find you later, okay?"

"Sure, thank you,"  Langly gave her a smile as she left.  "Well?"
he turned back to Byers.

The older man shrugged.  "Well, we can wander around, if you
feel up to it," he offered, holding a hand out to the other man as
he stood.

Langly took his hand and slid off the table.  "Sure...don’t feel
much like sitting around."  


..oOOo..


Almost three hours later, the doctor finally returned to the exam
room, where the two men had been waiting for about twenty
minutes, not wanting to make her have to track them down.

"Well, I have to say I’m honestly not sure what to make of these
results," she told them, shaking her head slightly as she studied
the chart.  "As far as any kind of infection or illness, they found 
no traces.  I was actually leaning toward those lines.  I do need
to ask you both some personal questions, to give me some idea
of what I’m looking for."

"Okay,"  Langly said, getting the hint about what kind of personal
questions.  

"I’m assuming you two are partners, correct?"

They both nodded.  

"Are you sexually active?"

Again, the synchronized nod, this time accompanied by a faint blush
from Byers.

"Do you practice safe sex?  Specifically, do you use condoms?"
She spoke with a kind, professional demeanor, knowing that they
were both uncomfortable discussing their very private lives.

"Oh...um, not...not often, no,"  Byers answered her, nervously
fidgeting with his hands in his lap.

"Okay.  The reason I need to ask you is there is the possibility
that unprotected sex can cause infections, even if you both are
free of STDs?"  she ended with a questioning tone.

"Yes, we are,"  Langly pitched in with the response. 

"All right.  Well, one of the things we tested for was kidney 
infection, which is common.  I even had them double check that
one, but there are no signs of any kind of infection.  However,
there are some unusual things showing up in the sample we took,"
she told them, flipping through the folder in her hand to find a
page of blood chemistry findings.  "Some very unusual things,
actually."

The two men leaned over the page, studying the long list of
chemicals and who knows what else on the sheet.  She pointed
to a group of names near the bottom of the page.  "These, for
example.  I had to check back with the technician to make sure
I had read these right.  You have a significant hormone imbalance
that I’ve never seen...well, outside of, um, pregnant women, 
actually."  

Two heads shot up at that statement in shock, Langly’s mouth gaping
at the words.  "Uhh...pregnant women?" he choked out.

Dr. Larson nodded, obviously just as perplexed.  "These hormones 
here--Progesterone, and HCG, are only found in pregnant women.
HCG is what shows up in pregnancy tests to confirm the positive
result.  And here--alpha fetoprotein, is a chemical produced by...
well, the baby."

Langly looked at Byers, his face suddenly losing all color.  He 
gripped the edge of the table until his hands turned white.  "Oh,
god.  Um...what does that mean, exactly?  For me?"

"Honestly, I don’t know.  If these were normal circumstances, I 
would say that you are pregnant.  But, obviously that is not the
case here," she told him firmly.  "Until I can confirm these results
and get some clue as to why these are showing up in your blood,
I’d like to admit you.  These are very unusual circumstances, and
since you have already been ill for a few days, I’m concerned 
about what this imbalance is doing to your system."

"Admit?  You want me to stay in the hospital?"  Langly asked,
his soft, unsteady tone betraying his fear.

"Yes, I would.  You need to be under observation, in case there
are any changes.  I’ll have a nurse come and get you checked in
and into a room."

With that, she gave them a brief, encouraging smile and left the
room, leaving a very confused and slack-jawed pair of Gunmen
in her wake.


..oOOo..


While Langly was being settled into a private room, Byers took
the opportunity to call Frohike.

"Hey, Mel, it’s John," he said when Frohike answered the phone.

"John, hey.  What’s up--is Ringo okay?"

"Um, they’re not sure, actually.  There’s some weird things going
on with his blood chemistry and they are admitting him for 
observation."

"Admitting?  God, that sounds serious,"  Frohike’s voice dropped
with concern.  "How’re you guys doing?"

"We’re okay for now, thanks.  I think Ree’s a bit scared, actually...
guess maybe I am, too," he admitted softly.

"John, what’s going on?  What exactly did the doctors say?"

"She said...god, I can’t believe I’m even saying this..." he said,
laughed humorlessly.  "She said that according to the blood test
results, he’s...well, he’s pregnant."

Silence on the other end of the phone made Byers wonder if the
older man had hung up on him.  "Mel?  You still there?"

A choked cough told him that Frohike was still on the phone.  "Yeah,
I’m here.  Jesus...what--I mean, how can that..."

"Nobody knows.  That’s why they’re keeping him here.  They
think maybe it’s just a hormone imbalance or something.  I guess...
well, I’m gonna stay with him as long as they let me..."

"Of course.  He’s probably freaking out right now.  Just...you 
know..."  Frohike didn’t know what else to say, but he knew with
his two best friends, words weren’t always necessary.

"Yeah, I know.  I’ll take care of him.  Thanks, Mel.  I’ll call you
as soon as we know anything."

"Sure, I’ll be here.  Take care of yourselves."

"We will.  Talk to you later," he said, grateful for the unquestioning
support of his friend.

"Later, John."


..oOOo..