With some flickering lighting and slightly fewer people around, Jessie mused, it wouldn’t be a half-bad setting for a zombie movie. Most of the people in the waiting room already looked most of the way there. She wasn’t really expected more from the free women’s clinic. A lot of them were homeless, some were crazy, and none had enough money for adequate medical care. So that had to make do with the substandard sort instead. But hey, it was free, wasn’t it? And she could see why the receptionist was getting pissed off, honestly she could. Some of them were expecting their whims catered to because they were ill, damn it, and did nobody care that the aliens were gnawing further into their brains?

Some of them had obviously never been seen on the NHS. They’d find this place a walk in the park in comparison.

There had been a bit of a mix-up when Jessie first tried to check in that had her biting her lip while explaining that she didn’t want a termination, honest (probably too late for one anyway), she just wanted to see that her babby was OK. They can’t call CPS from here, can they? Would they? She’d given them a fake name just in case. They hadn’t asked for an address, so they couldn’t get her that way. She sits close to the door and close to the edge of her seat, one hand on the bottom of her belly (sticking out from under her shirt – she’d been hoping to put off maternity shopping as long as possible) and then other on top. It’ll start kicking soon, she’s was sure of it. Any day now.
“Janet Austin?” Nobody ever said you had to be original with the fake names. “The doctor will see you in a few minutes.”

The nerves won’t let ‘Janet’ relax and the baby won’t let her have a fag. There’s nothing else for it but to worry at her nails, try to detangle a few of the knots in her hair, and generally behave like a cat that’s just been sprayed with a hose.

Diane is coming over cold, sweaty on the palms and there's a small but malignant space alien eating out her stomach. She knows she's over reacting here, of course. It's just a clinic, for gawd's sake. She assures herself that no one is going to dissect her. Her fear of doctors is completely irrational, somethat like her fear of police officers and members of the town council.

Pausing on the way through the door, she fluffs her stripey hair. It's been tortured with a straightening iron, and doesn't fluff well. The action noneless gives her some confidence. She pulls her tank top down a bit, revealing a bit more cleavage, but covering some of the fat around her belly. Her 'nets are slipping - she can feel them slipping - but the tops aren't visable below the hem of her black pleather skirt, so it's okay.

She takes another deep breath and saunters through the door. The key to being places you have no business being, she's found, is acting like you own the joint.

She walks right past reception, where a ratty looking teenager is in a dispute with the receptionist. The girl is close to tears. Diane ignores this and sits down in one of the plastic seats, a few away from a pregnant girl who seems to be trying to eat her nails off. Diane doesn't make eye contact. She crosses her legs, letting her skirt ride up a bit and show off an expanse of pale skin above her stockings.

Oh my god, it’s a whore.

Jessica glances sideways at the woman who’s just arrived and gives her a nervous smile that’s nowhere near as judgemental as her inner monologue. She doesn’t mean to think these things but that doesn’t stop them arriving in her head unannounced. She’s sure that really, the whore – the lady of negotiable affections – is a nice girl trying to make her way in the world, same as any of us. Jessie’s found that people are a lot more liberal about this sort of thing in Canada.

“’Xcuse meh,” she asks the woman, her Glasgow accent burring up every word, “are yeh goin’ tae be readin’ any o’those magazines or the like?” Next to the woman is one of those small tables that are unique to medical waiting rooms. On it are piled tatty, months old journals that nobody in their right mind would read unless the alternative was to actually make conversation with the sort of people who hang out in waiting rooms.

Diane looks totally perplexed for a moment. It takes three seconds to catch up to the girl's accent, and then another couple to figure out what she said.

"Oh, no," Diane says. It's kinda obvious, isn't it? Would anyone actually read those? Well, apparently this girl would. No reason to judge her on it. It's a waiting room - enough to drive anyone to reading the ingredients on their medication if nothing else were available. Diane herself once memorized all the ingredients in a birth control pill. Which this chick obviously hasn't done.

"Would you like one? Some? Strathclyde, ain't it?"

She'd know a Glasgow accent anywhere. She's even reasonably good at faking one, especially if she's had a glass or three.

“Oh,” Jessica replies, taken off guard for a second. “Aye. Glasgae.” She smiles and looks relieved that here is someone who a) understands her without her having to repeat herself a dozen times and b) seems to know enough about the area to associate it with something other than tartan and fucking sheep. Which Jessie has always seen as more of a Welsh pastime, anyway.

She rubs her belly absent-mindedly as her smile fades naturally. It lights up again when she asks: “yer no’ English, are yer?” She doesn’t sound English but she’s certainly not Scottish and doesn’t sound Canadian, either. Jessie’s never been very good with accents.

Diane shakes her head, grinning. She'd like to be English. Maybe she'll move one day, when she's got more money then she needs to buy food. "Nope," she says. "Not in several generations, at least." She pauses. She's not one to share information with strangers, even basic stuff, but she adds "Canadian," just to clarify.

"But the baby," she suggests, raising an eyebrow in the general direction of the girl's stomach. She's not quite sure what she thinks about babies, and this girl looks just a little bit too young for it. "Gonna be a Canadian, is it?"

“Aye, think so,” Jessica replies cheerfully, both hands shielding her belly from the world. “Although we’re only twenty weeks in so far. Aren’t we, little one?” And yes, the last question was indeed directed at her own stomach. With nobody else in Canada to talk to, Jessie’s started talking to her baby. It’s not born yet but it makes her seem slightly less crazy than just plain old talking to herself.

Or the brain aliens.

“Gon’ tae find out the sex today,” she confides in the poor stranger. “An’ after, I can start pickin’ out t’names.” God is it good to properly talk to someone about the little bastard. She hasn’t had anyone even remotely interested so far, including doctors. “Got any of your own?” Of course not; she looks far too young and not exactly the maternal type. But it’s always nice to ask and be asked.

Diane shrugs, as if this is a difficult question. It isn't obviously. Has she or has she not got any kids? She decides she doesn't. "Nah," she says. "Not yet anyways. Thank gawd. The DSS would have them off me in a snap."

And that, she has to imagine, would be painful. It almost hurts to think about it. "Naming things is always fun," she adds. "Hard, but fun. Last name I picked out was Abigail." She shrugs. "Actually, I've no idea why Abigail. Abigail Christian. I guess it just sounded pretty."

She's twisting a big black butterfly ring that's on one of her fingers. The sterile air in the room is making her nervous, and she's naturally a fidgety person. Which is supposed to keep you thin, but in Diane's case doesn't.

Jessie laughs when Diane says the DSS would have kids off her in a snap, but her hand is soon up at her mouth again and she’s worrying away at her nails. Diane is a native Canada, presumably with Canadian parents and someone to look after her if everything goes wrong – but she thinks that her kids would be taken away from her. That leaves Jessica, who’s here as an illegal underage immigrant with no friends or family to speak of, awfully anxious.

“Abigail is a pretty name,” she agrees, thankful for something to take her mind off it. “Ah thought if the babby’s a girl, I could call her Jemima after my grandmother, ‘xcept then we’d be Jessica and Jemima which sounds a bit odd.” No male name would come into the equation because Jessica’s not exactly sure what the father’s name was.

"Mimi," Diane suggests, "would be an alternative. Although I don't suppose there'd be anything wrong with Jemima and Jessica. I knew a family, the father was John, the mother Jessica, and they had a Joseph and a Jillian."

Realising that Jessica had somewhat introduced herself - though perhaps accidentally - Diane offers the girl her hand. "I'm Diane," she informs her. "And you're Jessica, or is that Jessie? Jess?"

Jessica wrinkles her nose at the idea of naming this poor kid Mimi. Talk about stripper names.

“Jessie,” she says, taking the proffered hand and shaking it with her own. Which is fleshy and slightly damp. Oh well. She pauses for a while, then adds mournfully: “Jessica Jacqueline Joyce. Our mam liked the sound of it.” Because experience has taught her that names which alliterate so perfectly demand an explanation before people assume it’s your Vegas stage name.

“So what’re you in for?” She asks, far more chatty and bright now than earlier but oblivious to the fact not everyone’s comfortable discussing medical conditions with strangers.

"Just Diane," Diane says. No need to go into the fact that's Diana Kent-Simmons. Diana Lianne Kent-Simmons, in fact. The idea of it just gives her supressed shivers. "Oh. I'm waiting," she says. She doesn't like talking about herself in any way that's personal at all. "It's a waiting room, right?"

Because of course, it is a waiting room. And waiting's what you do there. That sounds bad, though, so she adds "for someone."

She glances at the clock over the fake potted plant. Not that she wants to know what time it is, but it's an automatic gesture she associates with waiting. "Someone who's never gonna show, I suspect."

“Oh aye,” Jessie replies sympathetically, as if that sort of thing happens to her all the time instead of never. She’s never got anyone to wait for. “Good of you to wait in this place. Ah wouldn’t be seen dead here if it weren’t for the bairn.” She drops her voice for the last sentence, as if she’s scared the receptionist is going to shiv her for insulting the honour of the hospital, but then gives a throaty chuckle.

Jessie’s navel is poking out from under her shirt, so she tries pulling it down again – the shirt, not her navel. It doesn’t work.

“Janet Austin?” Jessie ignores the nurse. It’s not her name being called out… except it is. Or at least, the name she gave at the front desk.

Diane shrugs. She honestly doesn't care where people see her. She just cares where she is, and this certainly somewhere she'd like to avoid in future. "I don't know anywhere else to come," she admits, keeping her tone light. "Anyway."

Janet Austen? Well, fake name anyone? But that's a bit posh. Not the sort of fake name you'd expect from a free clinic.

Or possibly someone's mother had a fucked up sense of humour.

Jessica's shirt is either a sad attempt at a style statement, or it doesn't fit her. Diane suspects the last, just because the girl looks pretty ragged. At least she doesn't look a tramp, though, Diane muses. She's aware her own skirt is a bit much. Especially with the stockings.

Jessie doesn’t usually have much choice in clothes. She has enough to wear for about a week and a half but at the end of that time she might find herself wearing the same shirt two days in a row, or turning her bra inside out. The clothes she came over with were never that great to start off with and she doesn’t have the money to buy more, especially not ones she’s only going to wear for four more months and then throw out.

When the nurse calls again, Jessie’s head pops up. “That’s me,” she calls out, and puts her hand up just in case it wasn’t loud enough over the complaints of brain aliens. She read a lot as a kid. Still does and she’s always been a sucker for Regency Era chick lit.

“Well,” she says, turning to Diane with a desperate half-whisper half-hiss, “obviously it’s not really me for real.” Jessie looks down with a pleading glance as if she thinks Diane’s going to report her the minute she steps through into the surgery.

"Obviously not. Interesting choice of name though," Diane says, grinning. "I don't think they'd have noticed if you did go with Jane. The T just kinda makes your mother appear tasteless. Off you go, then."

She has no intention of reporting Jessica to anyone. She's not aware that there's any reason to report Jessica and she's not big on picking phones up and calling people anyway. It's not like she could afford the phone bill, and knowing the DSS, it's probably not a toll-free number.

"Good luck," she adds.

None of Jessica’s names were very tasteful in the first place. She’s always hated Jacqueline in particular. But good gosh, the relief at Diane not caring shows up all over her face. She grins. It’s nice feeling for once that there’s somebody else on her side.

“You too,” she says, and then pauses. “Good luck t’yer friend, I mean.”

And she waddles after the nurse, pausing only to shoot a sly smile back to Diane.