Yeah I Always Make The Same Mistakes

[Saveli Pendleton]

Saveli felt horribly Ill. It was the second time that week her nausea had kept her awake into the wee hours of the night. She never got sick from it, but her stomach turned tidal waves and did somersaults alerting her to the potential for illness. Her wobbling knees and frail hands guided her to the bathroom each time she was sure she was going to finally rid her stomach of what would make her feel this way, and each time it was hopeless. The floor beneath her manicured feet creaked with the fury of wasps, and the damned old house wouldn't stop screaming every time she shut the doors. Saveli thought she should cast a silencing spell, but frankly she'd accidentally knocked her wand off her bookshelf and behind it and hadn't bothered to pull it out to get behind it. Instead she was uncaring on if Monty woke up - perhaps it was guilt overwhelming her after all.

The beginning of the month felt so long ago. First Reuben and she had become intimate, then losing Prudence and leaving Roo - then Gabe. Saveli hadn't bothered to write him since. She couldn't. Every time she thought about seeing Gabriel she felt sick to her stomach, remembering that she'd betrayed her own heart for an instance of comfort. The blonde thought perhaps she only felt guilty because her heart was broken over Reuben, but perhaps it was also the thought this would hurt her best friend's feelings. Perhaps he'd wanted to kiss her, hold her - be more than friends. Saveli had suspected it prior to everything occurring but... she was taken aback when he'd made it clear a day. When he'd held her close to him. Saveli gagged. This was cheating, she'd cheated herself out of happiness with Reuben - and he'd have moved on and found some other girl. In her jeans pocket - Saveli had a nasty habit of sleeping in the clothing she'd work the night before - was the letter he'd sent her almost four weeks ago. Unopened. Finally Saveli read the note. She read it over, and over again adn cried, curled into the corner of the bathroom, wedged next to the toilet or as close she could get. She buried her face in her knees and sobbed at the thought. He wouldn't take her back now. She wouldn't take herself back, not after sleeping with someone else.

Reuben had moved on Saveli was sure of it. Finally the nausea subsided, and Saveli sat beside the toilet, crying, harsh sobs ripping through her chest - and while she was silent she was pained. "I need you Prudence. You always knew what to do." She whispered, the note in her hand. "You'd tell me what to do. Please I just need some help. Guide me." She called out quietly through her tears.

 

[Monty Pendleton]

Monty had never been a deep sleeper. He preferred to tread lightly in the realms of unconsciousness - to be able to wake himself at a moment's notice, should it be necessary to do so. A consequence of this was that he often woke to such quiet sounds that for a moment he couldn't be sure what had roused him. He strained his ears to the silence, staring up at the moonlit ceiling and trying to calm his racing heart. Whenever he woke in the night, his body launched into panic, even though he had long stopped being afraid of what lurked in the dark.

A distinct sob echoed from somewhere deep within the house, stirring Monty into action. He tugged on his robe and went out into the hallway, following the direction of the noise with increasing concern until finally coming to a halt outside the bathroom. Saveli was crying; not the sort of crying that happened when something went wrong, but the sort of crying only deep pain or grief could inspire. And then there was silence. Monty tapped gently on the door with his knuckle. "Saveli? Are you all right?" He paused. "Can I come in?"

 

[Saveli Pendleton]

Saveli should have quieted herself sooner. Since moving in with Monty she'd become a giant crybaby that's all she did. Cry about Gabriel, cry and Reuben, cry about her birth parents or Prue. She just cried nonstop. She felt so weak. Finally she coughed into the toilet and became sick, and she hoped it eased her from the nausea she'd been feeling day in and day out. The blonde wiped at her mouth a flushed the porcelain bowl, still having not answered Montgomery. She waited a moment to catch her breath, sitting back on her knees with her back to the door. "Come in." She spoke weakly. What was she supposed to tell Monty though. She would have to tell him the truth. After all his advice was second's to Prudence's in her mind. So the minute Monty walked through the door she insisted on shoving the note backwards towards him so he could read it.

 

[Monty Pendleton]

Though he could hear Saveli being sick, Monty waited for her consent before opening the door. Moonlight shone heavily through the net-curtains, casting a pallid glow over the room. "Would you like me to get-" he began to ask, dropping the object of his question when Saveli thrust a piece of parchment at him. He frowned as he took it, squinting in the silvery light to read. She had broken up with Reuben? Monty had had no idea about this. Last he'd heard, the two had been perfectly overjoyed to be with one another. "What happened, Saveli? Is this why you're upset?" He'd assumed she was still grieving over Prudence. Her death had been almost a month ago, now, but the pain from a loved one's passing didn't just disappear that quickly. But now he'd read Reuben's letter, begging Saveli to reconsider her decision, he wasn't so sure. Only, it didn't make sense. If she had broken up with Reuben, why was she so completely distraught?

 

[Saveli Pendleton]

Saveli shrugged. "Yes, no well yes and no. I'm so stupid Monty." She spoke through obvious strain. She leaned over the toilet not because she thought she was going to get sick, but because she needed to lean over. "Prudence always told me that I needed to love myself before I loved anyone else and I just... I thought he'd be better off without me Monty." She cried a little more, but mostly she cried herself out. She sobbed here and there but they were small comparatively. "I wanted to figure myself out, and I just thought it'd be better because I was confused and I just wanted him to have the best. I'm not going anywhere I still live at home, I'm not the best for him." She whimpered slightly. "I just figured once we slept together he'd leave anyways." She felt a heat on her face at admitting things to Monty but it wasn't about to stop there. She needed the illness to go away and she was sure if she got rid of her guilt it would leave her.

"Then I went over to Gabriel a week after and. I just, I'm so stupid. I just wanted to forget everything. I just wanted to be happy and he'd always promised that he'd be there for me. He hasn't written me and now I'm scared that if I tell Reuben he's not going to take me back. I wouldn't, not after doing what I did. I'd always promised him Gabriel was a friend, he's never going to trust I was telling the truth. And now I'm sick to my stomach every night because I was too stupid to realize I was making a mistake." The tears came quickly again and she leaned over, her tears falling into the toilet water.

 

[Monty Pendleton]

Monty listened while his daughter explained, trying not to allow anything to register on his face when she mentioned sleeping with Reuben. As a parent, he would never be ready to hear that; though he may not have raised her from birth, it could have been only yesterday that she'd been one of his third year pupils. But the story got more complicated, and when Gabriel's name was thrown into it, Monty's eyes narrowed involuntarily. Of course he would have taken advantage of Saveli at her most vulnerable. That was exactly the sort of boy he was. Monty might have been angry, except that he had grown to understand that Saveli was a complex girl, easily persuaded by promises of the love and protection she had not had as a child. Perhaps he should have been stricter, more mindful of her whereabouts; but then, it would have been useless to deny her independence. Had he done that, she may never have trusted him enough to tell him the truth when it really mattered - like now.

When she'd finished, Monty paused a moment, digesting the information. He wanted to offer advice, or perhaps words of reassurance, but his sleep-deprived mind could only latch itself to one thing. "You're sick every night?" he said. "How long have you been unwell for?"

 

[Saveli Pendleton]

it was almost shocking to Saveli that Monty hadn’t said anything through her speech. After all she knew he didn’t exactly like Gabriel. Gel Monty thought they’d been sleeping together before. The blonde thought about his question, picking up on his sleep deprived tone and the fact that perhaps he was more worried about her physical health than mental health. After all her mental health wouldn’t kill her. Saveli thought. A lot last week toward the end of the week she thought, but she wasn’t sure if just Friday and Saturday were a lot. “Uhm twice this week. And some last week late in the week. I just. I’ve never felt as bad as I do right now. I feel sick and my heart hurts. Monty I really screwed up... I don’t know what to do. Prudence would know what to do...”

 

[Monty Pendleton]

That wasn't good. "OK," Monty said. He was desperately trying to comprehend all that she had told him, racking his brain for something useful to tell her, but he was exhausted. "No, you didn't screw up," he said, rubbing his face. "We'll figure this out. We'll solve this. I'm not quite sure how just now, but we will. It will be all right. Hold on - let me get you something." Mostly he was just buying himself time to think. Downstairs, searching through the medicine cabinet for a potion to help her nausea, Monty cursed under his breath. Though she hadn't explicitly said so, Saveli had heavily implied sleeping with Gabriel as well as Reuben. If his suspicious were correct - and he sincerely hoped they weren't - then... would she know whose it was?

No, she couldn't be pregnant. He'd talked to her about that years ago - it wasn't a conversation he could easily forget. Maybe he was just jumping to the conclusion he feared the most, as he usually did. With a small vial in his hand, he headed back upstairs and into the bathroom. "Here you go," he said, offering it to her. "It's an antiemetic." He was starting to feel cold, and uneasy, as he tended to at night. "Sav... there isn't any possibility you might be pregnant, is there?"

 

[Saveli Pendleton]

How could it be possible that Monty din't think sleeping with Gabriel was the biggest mistake of Saveli's life. She sure did. it was quite possible that he was sparing her feelings of course, and Saveli frankly thought it was the most reasonable explanation. When Monty returned Saveli took the vial from him. She hated taking potions, they often tasted horrible. She took it though, being as she didn't want to feel sick anymore. She downed it like a shot of alcohol, and grimaced as she often did when taking any sort of medication or potion. Even in potions class she hated taking new potions and much preferred brewing them. Saveli heard Monty's question and silence followed for a few good moments.

Saveli was disorganized often, but her monthly schedule was just that. She had thought it was strange that it didn't come on time but she had read somewhere that stress, grief, and other emotions or activities - such as becoming active in the bedroom - could delay it. With everything going on she had brushed it off, feeling it may skip a month - or something else strange. She'd not really been educated on how it worked. However Saveli shook her head. N-no way." She remarked, then feeling the need to back it up she spoke. "I never took a potion so I could." it then came to light in that moment that perhaps the talk Montgomery had given Saveli hadn't quite been thorough enough. However it wasn't his fault entirely, feeling awkward Saveli had insisted she'd learned everything from Viviana, whom told her it only happened when two people wanted it and were very in love. So Saveli thought for witches and wizards that meant maybe there was a potion to help with conceiving. This perhaps was the newest mistake in Saveli's life.

 

[Monty Pendleton]

Monty's vision went slightly black at the edges. Never took a potion? What on earth was she talking about? "I'm sorry," he said; "what do you mean?" He'd definitely asked if she was sure she understood contraception, and she'd definitely said yes. Surely she hadn't lied? But now that he thought about it, he realised she might have. Oh God. Why hadn't he insisted telling her regardless? Had he really been so naive as to believe her when she'd said she'd known? Of course she hadn't wanted to talk about it! She was a teenager, and Monty her foster father. In truth, he'd been relieved himself when she'd told him he didn't have to continue. But he should have told her anyway. It had been his responsibility as her guardian, and he'd completely failed her.

 

[Saveli Pendleton]

Saveli looked at Monty with just as much confusion and it dawned on her that maybe she hadn't explained herself well enough. "Viv said people only have kids if they want them. So when you were talking to me about conceptives I just kinda. They're potions you take in order to have kids right?" Saveli wasn't quite sure how else to word her ideas. She sat now facing Monty, and her eyes shown no sign of the normally sarcastic Saveli - whom might have played this as a prank if she'd known the truth. However the blonde didn't, and there she sat in blatant confusion.

 

[Monty Pendleton]

This was almost unbelievable. Monty ran a hand down his face. "No. No, that's not how it works. I'm so sorry. I thought you knew." Was his this fault? It wasn't as if he hadn't tried. Saveli had promised him she understood. Yet still somehow he knew that this was on him. If Saveli was pregnant - if Saveli had a child - it was because of his lack of responsibility. Well, and Reuben's, and Gabriel's - they could have prevented this, too. But mostly his. He drew in a deep breath and blew it out through his mouth. "Contraceptives are potions you take in order to prevent pregnancy. If you haven't been taking any, then... then it is a possibility."

 

[Saveli Pendleton]

Saveli listened to Monty and for a long, long time she didn't react. She just stared past her Foster father, obviously in thought. She hadn't taken any. She had thought. She'd made a mistake. Another mistake. Then the sickening reality hit her that if that was the case, she had two lines in her story now. One ended with this baby coming out with curly hair, and large wonder filled eyes. The other was that this child was Gabriel's. That she was carrying the baby of a man who she didn't love, and who obviously lied about how willing he was to be there for her. After all he wasn't even trying to contact her after they'd slept together. Saveli's mouth went dry and when she first tried to speak it was just a stutter. Repetitive consonance over and over until finally she could swallow once more. "Th... then if I'm. And I. The n that means. And I can't. Wait but..." Still her sentences were unclear, but it was obvious that the full magnitude of the situation was weighing down on the young woman's head. She stopped panicking only for a moment to say something that was both brave and ridiculous. "I'm not telling Gabriel." She spoke semi-quietly. Saveli had been made to think she was crazy, insulted, hurt by the boy from her childhood too many times. But would Monty insist she needed to?

 

[Monty Pendleton]

Even hearing that boy's name made Monty's skin crawl. After everything Gabriel had said and done to Saveli, the professor had hoped never to see nor hear from him ever again. Unfortunately, Gabriel knew the way into Saveli's heart, and no matter how hard Monty tried, he could never seem to keep the two of them apart. Banning Gabriel from coming near the house had been futile. He'd expected the boy to return sooner or later - prepared for it, in fact - but what he had failed to predict was Saveli returning to him. Still, none of it mattered now. What had been done was done. That was, of course, presuming Saveli was actually pregnant. "I think the first thing you'd better do is take a test," Monty said. "I can visit the Apothecary in the morning. Listen, if... if you are pregnant, then... then I just want you to know that whatever you choose to do, however you choose to handle this, I'll be here to support you. OK? I just want you to know that. I'll support you every step of the way." He hoped she already knew this, but if he had learned one thing returning to his mother, it was that it never hurt to reiterate that he cared. "Until then, why don't you try to get some sleep, hm?"

 

[Saveli Pendleton]

Saveli sniffled. What must Montgomery think of her knowing the possibility that this baby was Gabriel's? She felt herself shudder at the feeling. She needed to get her emotions under control. The blond nodded at Monty's words. "Dad... I just. I'm sorry. From day one I was a handful. I ran away from you and didn't let you take care of me. I wish I had listened to you..." she sighed and leaned against the toilet slightly. "I'm so sorry." She grimaced. "I'll go to bed in a minute. I think I need a shower." The blonde stood, holding her arms around her stomach before she moved to hug her father. "Thank you Monty. For being there. I guess if Reuben doesn't want it then I can always put it up for adoption..." she sighed. This was a mess. But with Monty Saveli could do anything.

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