The ABO Serum

They Listed This As a Fixer Upper, Right?

Dr. Rodgers brought Pablo to a beautiful Queen Anne farmhouse that looked like it was the original house on a farm that abutted the earliest town border on the east. From the looks of the surrounding neighborhood Pablo surmised the farm must have been annexed, subdivided, and re-developed during at least three different architectural periods. At least the house would have been beautiful if it weren't in such bad shape. It sat on a larger than typical lot, so the newer developments didn't crowd it. It had potential, if someone knew what they were doing, but Pablo couldn't imagine Dr. Rodgers did. Dr. Rodgers looked sheepish. "A house like this in San Francisco would have cost six million. I couldn't believe it was just under a hundred thousand out here. I bought it sight unseen. But it keeps the rain off," he promised.

"Are you sure?" Pablo questioned the doctor's sanity. He'd worked construction with his dad as a teenager before deciding he wanted the income and back relief that came with a degree in structural engineering. This house was not sound.

Before he realized it, he was conducting a comprehensive inspection and listing all the repairs the house needed by degree of urgency. The roof was not watertight. He found evidence of small leaks in the attic. Dr. Rodgers went back to work after grabbing a quick lunch but told Pablo to continue and write everything down. If he wanted to oversee the repairs instead of paying rent, the doctor was good with that.

Having been bored in the omega isolation dorm for the better part of three months, and in a nesting frame of mind, Pablo took up the renovation of Dr. Rodgers' house with a vengeance. Pregnancy suppressed his pheromones, so he could move about the town freely. His list was only the first step. He contacted the city planning department to get information about any limitations or restrictions related to the house being historic and requested copies of the blueprints. They would come in two weeks.

A visit to the town library gave him loads of information about the large family that originally built it. There wasn't just one spare room in the house. There were eight. Pablo picked the second most structurally sound and borrowed a friend's truck to move his stuff. His only personal transportation was a bike. It kept him healthy, but he hadn't been on it for a while, so he took advantage of the borrowed truck to run a couple errands as well, buying paint and other supplies.

The most stable bedroom, and the bathroom adjacent, were getting a quick facelift before he settled into them. The bathroom could stand more modernizing, but with the sink faucet replaced and a fresh coat of paint, it was as nice as it had ever been. The original claw foot tub and round tank toilet were still in decent shape with only two cracked wall tiles behind everything. Two other bathrooms and a water closet in the house all had dry rot problems hidden behind the wainscoting so this was nothing in comparison.

Three days later, Pablo moved into the freshly painted room and started working on the adjacent room he'd been in first to remake it into a nursery. The one next to that would be his office. That was all the bedrooms on the ground floor, and their problems were mostly cosmetic, so Pablo fixed them himself while he waited for the blueprints to come from the city. This went a long way toward settling his uneasiness.

Dr. Rodgers used the master bedroom and bathroom up on the second floor. Whoever owned the house in the 1980s modernized them on a budget and that looked to be the last time the house saw a contractor. Frank looked enviously at each room Pablo finished and considered picking up a paintbrush himself but consulted his calendar and thought better of it. Besides, over their second Saturday together Pablo grilled him with questions about his preferences that indicated his bedroom wouldn't be sad for long.

The larger structural issues needed hiring out, but Pablo had the education and experience to get his contractor's license in this state and manage the job. He met an architect experienced with renovating Queen Anne's through his new job who was happy to advise him as it made Pablo a more valuable co-worker. They were sending him enough work to keep him busy about thirty hours a week, which left him plenty of time to obsess over the house. The architect helped him update the plans to meet new building codes and make other minor modifications and upgrades for comfort and sustainability.

The water aerobics class started right away, and Pablo felt awkward working out with these rich guys, but he went to college so he could be one of them someday and he figured it was good for him to accustom himself to hanging out with them socially. They also kept him flexible, so he didn't get sore doing parts of the lighter construction work himself.

The pool was so nice, Pablo asked the architect about adding on a conservatory with an indoor pool and hot tub to the house. Dr. Rodgers was an obstetrician with a highly specialized practice. He worked for GenLife now but could eventually open his own private practice in this house if Pablo modified it a little. The zoning would allow it. An indoor pool for water aerobics classes would be a nice addition.

The speed with which Pablo accomplished his renovations left Dr. Rodgers in awe. Dr. Placer's testing of omegas showed a decline in general measures of intelligence, but it appeared the right motivation enhanced an omega's abilities. It was consistent with how birds suddenly get smarter during nesting. It was fascinating. He found himself spending as much time as possible at home, watching his omega.

Until the second wave of pregnancies hit. Suddenly, he had no time at all. He instituted a second class for this group and was a little more prepared to teach it, having the first class about a month ahead of them. Only the male pregnancies came to him, so Dr. Placer went to a local OB/GYN. But she came to his classes since the omega transformation in general was her department. She wanted to know if they continued to transform during pregnancy or if their transition was complete. He often found himself telling her all about his omega over lunch after class. After four weeks of this, she smacked the back of his head and told him to wake up and notice his feelings for Pablo.

His feelings for Pablo were...well it's not that he didn't notice them, but they were complicated. During his residency, the supervising doctor warned the newbies that pregnant women frequently fell in love with their obstetrician. And occasionally got a little crazy obsessive over them. He taught them to avoid behavior that might encourage this and techniques for de-escalating and extracting themselves. He hadn't warned them not to fall in love with patients or, Frank hadn't paid attention if he had. Pregnant women often had a beautiful glow to them, but they were pregnant...and women. As a gay man, falling in love with a patient was not something he worried about. Until he met Pablo.

That night, Pablo spread three sets of plans on the table. Set one was for bare minimum structural repairs and improvements to keep the house secure and efficiently increase resale value. Set two included energy and water efficiency upgrades, solar panels, and more elaborate kitchen and bathroom rebuilds to make the house comfortable for long term living, but they might not necessarily be a worthwhile investment if done purely for resale value. Set three were the dream house plans. The pool, the private practice, the life Pablo imagined the doctor could have in this house if he stayed in this town for good.

Dr. Rodgers examined the third set of plans closely, seeing if he could imagine his life the same way. And he could, the office and exam rooms, the prenatal swim classes, the nursery, and bedrooms for his future children. Children he'd never imagined so clearly before Pablo sat across the dinner table from him. This strong beautiful young man that came into his life unexpectedly and rescued him from this money pit of a house he'd bought by accident. He'd thought he was helping the young omega out, but it turned out the opposite.

"Take a few days to decide how far you want to go with this," Pablo came back from washing the dinner dishes to where he'd left Dr. Rodgers looking at plans and eased his sore and awkwardly growing body into a chair. At two months along, he wasn't really showing yet, but inside was getting big enough for him to feel the difference. "The structural work is first and it's the same on all three sets, so we can pull permits and get started right away on that. You'll see there are estimates with each set so you can get financing in order according to what you want to do. They say to plan for a third more budget. I've never been completely responsible for a project before so you should heed that advice. We could get into the walls and find more problems to fix." He noticed Dr. Rodgers closely examining set three and smiled. "The pool is expensive. If you plan to sell in the next ten years,you won't get your money back. But it would be amazing to live with. And indoors so you can enjoy it year-round...go that route and you might have to forcibly evict me." He laughed. It was a beautiful dream, but Dr. Rodgers came from San Francisco. He wouldn't want to settle out here.