Authors: Liz Crowe
"No, no, it's not me. I found her here like this, sat down and…." His brain focused. "Take her to U of M. I'll meet you there."
"Okay dad, calm down. We need to get her stabilized first." The woman patted his arm. By now the entire office had collected in the hallway, staring at the bloody scene. Craig struggled to comprehend what she said to him.
"Oh, no, I'm not," he looked up as Jack Gordon came barreling through the door separating the public from the private part of their sales office. "I mean, is she okay? She seized on me; about a minute."
"Yeah, her blood pressure is through the roof, pulse thready. Let's get her out of here." The medics bustled around. "Excuse me sir, you need to move aside." Jack stood, staring at the room, mouth agape, eyes wild. Craig took in what the man saw: the floor darkened with Sara's blood and her back arched, feet kicking against the carpet as another seizure gripped her. He watched the man's face go utterly white. "Sir!" The medic shoved Jack out of the way and rolled the gurney in. Once she stilled, two EMTs lifted her up and hustled her out into the waiting ambulance.
"You okay?" Craig narrowed his eyes at Jack.
"No." The other man turned, pushed his way through the gathered crowd and ran outside. Craig grabbed his helmet and rushed out behind Jack. Following the ambulance through midday streets, taking deep breaths to calm his heart, he forced himself to focus on the traffic while long forgotten prayers raced through his brain.
****
Jack watched from a safe distance as the emergency room staff did their thing, hooked Sara up to machines and tubes, spoke quickly and quietly and moved around to get her stabilized. His brain would not comprehend the scene. The sight of her body, swollen and continuing to stiffen with small seizures, made him want to punch a hole in the wall. He closed his eyes, hoping to erase some of the trauma from his memory.
Why the fuck would she not listen to doctors? Her own father, for Christ's sake.
When he made the extreme mistake of opening them, a drip of bright red blood splashed to the floor at her feet, making made his stomach do flips. He groaned and focused on not passing out.
A hand dropped onto his shoulder. Craig's dark eyes met his. The man's pants and half his shirt had stiffened, dark with her blood. "We need you." Jack frowned at him.
"I don't do blood. I can't...," but he stood.
"She's come to, crying, won't relax. They can't get the needle in her spine...," Jack held up a hand, tried to keep the room from spinning.
"No, I don't need to know any details." They both looked up at the sound of Dr. Matt Thornton's roar of outrage as he stomped into the curtained area.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing? Get her upstairs. You will not operate on my daughter in this filthy ER."
The commotion he caused made Jack's hackles rise. He followed Craig across the room, listening to the man berate and brow beat every doctor and nurse in a five-mile radius. Jack settled himself at Sara's head, focusing on her eyes, brushing away the tears that streamed down her face. One of the guys moving around between her raised legs seemed to be charge. He pointed at Jack, Craig and Matt.
"Who are all of you people? Can I get this space cleared out please? I have to perform an emergency C-section now."
"Fuck you, I am her father, former head of obstetrics at this hospital, and I want her upstairs in an operating room." Dr. Thornton blustered.
Jack just looked at Sara, running a hand over her hair. She locked in on him. "Listen to me Sara." He kept his voice low, adopting a tone he knew she'd recognize. "You have to relax. Roll up on your side. These guys are trying to help you." She groaned and closed her eyes.
"I can't. Make it stop Jack. Please…oh God…" her body tensed and she grabbed his arm.
"Sara, I mean it. Open your eyes and look at me." She did, and the pain he saw in them made his teeth ache. "Take a breath, keep your eyes on mine, and roll towards me. I won't let go of you, I promise."
As her father and the ER doctor argued about seizure meds and placentas, Jack forced himself to stay calm, keep his eyes still and fixed on hers. She winced, then rolled. He put a hand on her belly.
"That's it baby. Relax. Let them do what they need to do," he frowned when she flinched and cried out but kept up his stream of soothing noises. Craig nodded at him, indicating whatever needed doing had been done. She stuck out a shaking hand, touched his face. He saw her fingers come away wet.
"All right all you lot, out of here now. This is my patient, and there are too fucking many people in my way." Jack swallowed hard, kissed her dry lips and stood.
"No." She whispered. "Stay. Please."
"Sara," her father's voice broke the moment. "Lie back. Let them get your baby out. He's not doing well. Do you understand sweetheart? We have about five minutes to get him out or..."
Jack turned to the tall, imposing man who, he knew, would just as soon stab Jack through the heart as acknowledge he might the father of his grandchild. "I'm staying." He surprised himself. He did not do blood, or even emergencies that required medical professionals, if he could avoid them. But he squared his shoulders and glared at Sara's father. Her loud groan made them both look down at her. Craig crouched down on her other side. She gripped his hand.
"I'm…so tired." Her eyelids fluttered. "Can I sleep? Please?"
The attending doc nodded to a nurse who pushed Craig aside. "No Sara. You have to stay awake." They draped her lower body with blue paper. Jack held one hand and Craig the other. Within what felt like seconds of them talking to her, keeping her conscious, there was as high, thin wail. Jack's scalp tingled as he looked up to see a slimy, pink body pulled from the tented area around her stomach. His heart clenched nearly making him forget his lifelong phobia about hospitals and all the mess they held.
"Sara?" Craig's voice startled him. He looked down in time to see her eyes close just before the monitors in the room sent up a cacophony of noise. A team of scrub-suited people rushed in shoving all of them aside. Sara's father started to talk but Jack pulled him out the way. The three of them stood, silently watching the doctors revive her, the whole thing making him weak in the knees.
He leaned against the wall and slid to the floor just as Sara's mom came rushing down the hall. Finally, the beeping leveled off and the team backed away. Her father rushed back in but Jack stayed frozen, his gaze fixed on Sara's face as her eyes flickered open.
Thank God.
Craig stood by the table where a nurse wiped off the small form. "May I?" he heard the man ask and watched as he lifted a tiny, blanket wrapped bundle into his arms.
"It's a girl." Sara's mother knelt down and pressed her lips to Jack's cheek before he put his head on his hands and let tears slip down to the floor. "Both are fine, but Sara has to stay in the ICU a day or so. Go get some air." She pulled him up. Blake and Rob came rushing around the corner.
He made a straight line to the bed, beating her brother by a couple of steps. Sara's eyes were barely focusing, but he touched her face and she looked at him. "I'm sorry." She whispered. "Such drama."
"That's all you, Sara. Always gotta be the center of attention. Now get some rest. I'll be here."
Chapter Seven
Craig's arms shook but when the baby opened her eyes and stared at him, he had never felt stronger in his life. She yawned, her tiny features wrinkled as she let out a small cry. Jack stayed parked by Sara's head, murmuring to her, brushing tears from her face. If Craig were a betting man he'd lay even odds on the fact that Mr. Gordon had shed a few tears himself. His whole body tensed when an alarm sounded near Sara's bed. A nurse rushed in, flipped a switch, stuck something in her IV.
Another nurse tapped him on shoulder, and took the baby from him.
"God, I feel like I've beaten with a Buick." Sara's voice sounded weak, scary.
Blake and Rob stood in the doorway. Blake had a hand clenched around Rob's arm but as soon Sara saw him, she burst into tears, making alarms sound and a flurry of medical types rush in.
"All right, seriously you guys, let's give her some space, shall we?' A large black nurse started bossing everyone around, eyeballing the collection of people in the room. "We're getting ready to move her up to ICU for observation. Only Dad stays with her, got it?" The woman seemed confused when Jack stood up.
"Ah, I'll stay," Blake declared. "These guys probably need a break. And you," he pointed at Craig. "You need a shower and a change of clothes."
"And a drink," he said, noting the shaking in his hands. The whole scene had been wild, intense, and amazing. It had set his nerve endings ringing, and he didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay, watch, and listen to the doctors and nurses as they did their daily business of saving lives. He looked up and saw Suzanne walking down the corridor. Relief shot threw him like an ice-cold splash of water but the adrenaline rush whooshed out with it, leaving him dizzy and weak.
"Hey, sit down before you fall down." She took his hand and drew him out to a chair in the hall. He caught a look between Blake and Rob at the sight of her but was too exhausted to deal with it. He let her tug him down into a seat. "I hear you were quite the hero." Craig put his head in his hands, trying to quell the nausea that rose at the memory of Sara, lying in all that blood. "C'mon, let me run you home."
He looked up at her, surprised, but not at all unhappy with the suggestion. For six weeks he'd avoided her, embarrassed at how quickly he'd left her behind in favor of Sara's latest medical crisis. But the sight of her now nearly made him weep with relief. They both stood when an orderly rolled Sara's bed out, still attached to various machines that came along with her. Blake walked alongside her, his hand clutched in hers. Jack slumped against the wall next to Craig, Suzanne and Rob. Sara's parents followed behind her, only after Matt had shot sufficient eyeball daggers at Jack. Craig smiled to himself and then started when Suzanne put a hand on his leg.
"Let's go." His chest tightened at the sight of the small clear plastic bassinette now rolling past them. He stood, put a hand on it to stop the nurse.
"Wait. I…," he looked down at the now sleeping infant. "She's okay, right?" The nurse glanced at him, then at Jack, obviously wondering if she was authorized to say anything to anyone not "dad," but not quite sure which man that would be. The ER doctor who'd delivered the baby appeared around the corner and put a hand on Craig's shoulder.
"Yes, she is." Jack shook the man's hand.
"Thank you." The doctor looked around at the three men and shrugged.
"It's my job. Now you should all get some rest. The fun, with regard to baby, has just begun. Trust me; I have twins at home myself." He clapped Jack on the back and started running down the hall to his next crisis. Craig stared after him.
"Does she have a name?" Suzanne stood and smiled at the group.
"Uh, don't know. Not yet, I don't guess. It was pretty traumatic." Craig tried not collapse from residual stress.
"Kate." Jack said, as he sunk into the seat Craig had vacated. "Katherine Elizabeth." They all stared at him.
"She picked it and a boy's name last week." Craig watched Jack's face carefully. His heart felt frozen in ice, realizing what he had denied for the last months. "But just because I know that doesn't change anything." He stared straight at Craig. "So don't worry." He stood and stretched, and put his hand out. Craig took it, wary but too shattered to think much about the gesture. "Thank you. You saved her life, both of their lives." He ran a hand over his face. "I'm a wreck. You handled everything well, very well." Craig put a hand on the other man's arm, but words that truly reflected how he felt escaped him.
He watched as Rob put an arm around Jack's shoulders. "This is about as fucked-up a celebration as it gets but, can I buy you a beer? Something harder?" The tall blonde man smiled at them both, let his eyes flick over the attractive redhead at his side. "Suzanne."
She lifted her chin. "Rob." Without thinking about it, Craig slipped his arm around her waist, tried to defray some of the tension between them. She shrugged him off. "I'm okay. Let's go." Rob raised an eyebrow at him before he turned, forcing his wobbly legs to move forward. He felt like he could sleep for a week.
****
By the time she pulled into his condo's underground parking garage, Craig realized something about the slight red headed woman behind the wheel – she was not only one of the most attractive women he'd ever seen, but she had an aura of calm about her that took the tension right out of him. He rolled his neck around and tried not to stare at her too obviously.
"Coming up?" He asked, one hand on the door, not sure if he wanted it or not. His feelings for Sara and the baby he'd watched taken from her body represented the most complicated and irritating set of emotions he'd experienced. The past year had been a whirl of together, apart, together and finally apart – and then, the big news. Suzanne smiled and it lifted his heart, forcing words from his lips. "I want you to."
"All right." She followed him to the lift.
He slid his key card into the elevator's locking mechanism, sending it to the topmost floor. She wandered into the kitchen, leaving him to ponder the weird turn of events of the previous twelve hours. He could be a father, then again he might not be. He loved Sara, so much his head still pounded at the memory of her body seizing and the sounds of the beeping alarms around her. Then again, he felt himself falling into an infatuation with the woman currently rummaging around in his refrigerator. Feeling like a side story in a daytime drama, he staggered into the bathroom. After shucking his shirt and pants, throwing them straight into the garbage, he turned the shower on full-blast hot. Letting steam spill into the room he flopped down on his bed and tried to still his whirling emotions.
He launched himself off the bed when a hand landed on his bare chest. "What the…" His heart pounded in his ears. Suzanne stood, cup of coffee in hand, concern in her gaze. "Shit." The running water had stopped. "How long did I…" He reddened, and tugged the duvet over his nakedness.