“You're just saying that so you scare me out of leaving.” She anxiously began tapping her foot; a flicker of unease brushed the surface of her face.
“You're right,” he replied; his tone sounded almost sympathetic, making her raise her eyebrows in surprise.
“I don't want you to leave...” He looked at her significantly. “But I don't want to hold you here through fear.”
She laughed once, icily. “Says the guy who kidnapped me.”
His lips twitched. “I swear to you... everything we've done... it's all been for you, for your protection.”
“What about having that doctor violate me and completely rid me of my dignity, while you were in the room? Was that for my protection?” Jaz shot back.
Driver didn't respond at first, choosing to pace towards the closet, where he turned, walked halfway towards her and stopped. He said, “We needed to be sure.”
He saw Jaz give him a look that told him she'd go mental if he said anything else in code as an answer. He sighed, thinking of how he could explain it to her as delicately as possible. In fact, it was rather awkward for him, and no doubt it would be for her too. “A year ago you had an... incident that left you in hospital.”
Jaz sat stiffly and gawked at him.
“You were told you had a miscarriage?” he added.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Driver could feel her suffering through the link they shared. His past came rushing back to the forefront of his mind. He took a moment before continuing. “That would mean you weren't a virgin and the miscarriage might have been because of incompatibility with the human man in question.”
She stared at him blankly.
“If that was the case then we'd have had enough proof to suspect you're really one of us. A few tests could have determined what had happened to cause the miscarriage and that would tell us the truth. But we found out you hadn't even...”
Neither he nor Jaz tried to finish his sentence. The word 'virgin' was practically a flashing sign above her head and he noticed her squirm in her seated position.
“And then we knew for sure who you were. The dates matched.”
“That is not your business,” she muttered, mortified.
Driver gazed intently at her. He believed it was. Because she in part, belonged to him. Even if she never wanted to be his, she'd always have that link to him and he to her. It mattered to him, so he had a right to know. But he still felt bad about doing it in such an invasive way.
“There's something else you should know,” he said carefully. He could see Jaz's muscles stiffen and he paused a moment before he explained. “We did blood tests to be sure; to confirm your bloodline and species.” Jaz's eyes widened in terror. “I asked for tests specifically for proof you are able to conceive, just to ease your worries.”
“What?” Jaz breathed. “W-why would you do that? The doctor said I couldn't. Why w-would you-?”
“We did a hormone and progesterone test. We thought you would want to know the truth. The doctor you saw that day lied to you. You are more than fertile.”
Jaz's mouth fell open when her brain caught up with what he was saying. “I'm not... barren?”
Driver nodded slowly, trying to predict her reaction.
“But why- why would the doctor lie about that?”
“From what we could gather, it seems likely that your parents... convinced him to.”
Jaz stared blankly at him. She tried to put the pieces of everything she believed back together again but they wouldn't fit onto one jigsaw puzzle in her mind. She then put her new found information into messy piles, trying to make sense of them. Her parents had lied to her; more than once it would seem. They weren't even her biological parents. She could have children, after believing for a whole year she would never have that chance. And Driver had hinted that all these changes she was experiencing were because she wasn't... wasn't what? Human? she thought, unsure whether to laugh at the craziness of it or run in horror.
Her thoughts were then replaced with images of her affectionately rubbing her bulging, pregnant belly; of her holding her newborn baby in her arms. She smiled and felt her eyes stinging with the threat of tears. Tears of joy, bitterness, melancholy, longing, perhaps a release of all the resentment and frustration she'd swallowed bit by bit this past year. She shoved everything back and her eyes stopped tingling. “I can really have children?” she asked in a quiet, bewildered voice.
Their conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door.
Jaz turned, realizing that it had been shut all that time. She shivered with displeasure. Never again did she want to be alone with him.
Skye appeared from behind the door carrying a small zipped satchel in her hand. She surveyed the two of them with prying eyes but then pretended to focus on her task of unzipping the satchel when Driver gave her a look. She perched on the edge of the bed next to Jaz and opened the satchel fully. The familiar sight of a small, light-orange vial with a long curved lid met Jaz's eyes. There was a brand new syringe tucked into the loop support.