Chapter 6: Doctor's Visit

“You need to have a heat.”

In the examination room of the chic little women’s clinic, Beth just stares at her doctor. Dr. Faulk is a kind, middle-aged Beta; she’s known Beth for the entire five years since she moved from her tiny hick town in the middle of nowhere, Ohio, to the big city. She’s a level-headed, respectful doctor, who listens to Beth’s concerns with real consideration. And she clearly did not just say what Beth heard her say.

“I’m sorry,” Beth says, her mind making a similar noise to a microwave, or a vacuum; a sort of ongoing dissonant chord that’s getting louder and louder with each word from the good doctor’s last sentence that she processes. “What?”

Dr. Faulk gestures vaguely at the clipboard in her hand. “I have on file that you’ve been on the maximum dosage of suppressants for almost ten years. That’s horrifically unhealthy. I don’t have a single documented heat on here in that time frame.”

“I…” she can’t possibly explain this, Beth realizes, without elaborating on some extremely painful, dark part of her past, and… even with a doctor, that’s a little further than she wants to go. It’s true that she’s been on suppressants so high, she should basically smell like a Beta to random passerby, and barely be able to catch an Alpha’s scent. Those are the cold, hard facts. The why behind her dosage is another matter entirely. “I’ve had soft heats, whenever I have antibiotics.” She swallows. She hates thinking about it. “My— my senior year of high school. A couple of times in college. And then last January.” And those were bad enough, although at least they were manageable, with prescription strength ibuprofen and a decent vibrator.

“That’s not an unsurpassed heat,” Dr. Faulk says.

She goes silent for a moment, reading Beth’s file with a slight frown, and Beth can feel the pretty key-lime walls closing in, getting closer and closer, touching her skin, holding her down—

“I have that your dosage suddenly increased when you were seventeen—” Dr. Faulk cuts off. Flips a page, then flips back. “Oh. Oh.”

Beth’s not entirely privy to whatever revelation the doctor is having, but if the subject could change, that would be pretty neat. Maybe to Beth’s asthma, or her BMI, or literally anything else at all.

“Beth. You…” Dr. Faulk literally cringes. “I know this is going to be really painful and uncomfortable to hear, but you need to have a heat. An unsuppressed one. Or your suppressants are going to stop working entirely, and you’ll have heats at random, and no protection from them.”

Dr. Faulk must see the blind panic that crosses Beth’s face. She won’t be able to truly catch the scent of Beth’s distress— Beta problems— but there’s no way she can’t see it.

“If you have an Alpha friend you trust, I would suggest explaining as much as you’re comfortable with to them, and then setting up a time to go off suppressants completely. Until then, I’m cutting your dosage down.” She begins to write on the clipboard, and all Beth can do is stare. “You’ll notice you smell a little more strongly, but you’ll still be too suppressed for anything to happen in public, okay?”

Dr. Faulk smiles reassuringly at Beth, who still… can’t move. There are several things happening inside her head, and none of them are things she wants to address, or examine too closely.

The doctor gives her hand, which is laying limply at her side on the examination table, a comforting pat. “You will get through this. Soon you’ll be on a healthy amount of suppressants, and you can go longer without a heat, but until then, you’ll be having a heat every eight to ten weeks.”

That snaps Beth out of it. Her jaw almost hits the tiles beneath her feet as she gapes at Dr. Faulk. “Eight to ten— what?”

Dr. Faulk gives her a stern look. “It’s that or go cold turkey to the lowest dosage, for at least five years.”

Beth continues to gawk, feeling like her heart has relocated to take residence in her throat. A heat every two months is unheard of. The average is twice a year, at thrice at the most. Even unsuppressed, mated Omegas don’t go through heat that often.

Fat tears begin to roll down her cheeks. This is— this is horrible. There’s nothing that could possibly be worse than this. Nothing. She can’t have a heat, she can’t, not again. She can’t go through that again. Her throat closes, and—

Dr. Faulk takes her hand and squeezes, and even through her shaking, through the blind panic, Beth manages to squeeze back. “It’ll be alright. Just find someone you already know and trust, and everything will be okay.”