It's the fifth time that night, but it feels like the hundredth. Coughs explode through the quiet hallway through your half-open bedroom door and you sigh, throwing a hand over your eyes, waiting for the call. Sure enough, it comes, full of tears and pain and exhaustion. "Mama!"
You roll over and get up, feeling the sandy tiredness behind your eyes. When it's someone else's child, you can pull an all-nighter and never feel the tiredness. When it's someone else's child, your heart doesn't quicken and your legs don't tighten as your foot hits the carpet and your hand reaches for the doorknob to pull the door open wider. You know the path without lights. You've known it for two years now.
She's sitting up in bed and for the second time tonight, she's covered in vomit and tears. Your doctor instincts kick in – it's croup as a cause of a really bad virus – but if you were a mere doctor to this child, you wouldn't be picking her up, holding her tight, not caring that she's smelly and her pajamas are sodden. You wouldn't be stroking back her corn silk-blonde hair (the same colour as Mark's when he was a baby) or kissing her fevered little brow. Those duties belong to your other job – your most important job. You're her mother and all you feel is utter empathy.
"Oh, Gracie, honey," you say, kissing her forehead, feeling her settle into your arms. "You're pretty sick, little one."
"Sick," Gracie whimpers, and coughs again, so hard that her little body shakes and she gags at the end of the spasm. You reach for the thermometer on her nightstand, beside the crib. She cries a little as you slip it into her ear and buries her face in your shoulder. You permit it, already knowing that the next step is a bath for both of you.
"No, no, no." The baby attempts to push the thermometer away, but you gently insist and her "Nos" turn into more tears. She's normally such a happy child, but when she's sick, all she can do is cry until she has no voice left. The fever comes up as 103 degrees Fahrenheit, and you sigh.
"Mark?" You call into the bedroom, not expecting him to actually wake up, but he pads across the carpet and into Gracie's room in a moment, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, his hair matted down on one side of his head. You smile a little at his appearance and then look down in concern at your little girl, who is curled so tightly into your arms that if she could be inside you, she would.
"Gracie not feeling well?" Mark's voice, normally so brusque with everyone and teasing with you, is soft and gentle. Gracie lets out a sigh that sounds more like a sob and Mark kisses her forehead. "How high is her fever?" he asks.
"103." You try to shift Gracie to Mark, but she begins to cry and clings. Mark wrinkles his nose.
"She threw up?"
"Yeah. Can you change the bed?"
In another life, he might have refused. Mark Sloan doesn't do puke. But as a father, he's changed. Without a word, he starts stripping the crib and you bring Gracie into the bathroom.
She won't let you put her down. You can imagine how she feels – like her skin is going to fall off with soreness, and you feel tears coming to your eyes as you lean down to turn on the bathwater. At the sound of the rushing tap, Gracie whimpers again and turns her face from the harsh light.
The steam from the water fills the bathroom – all white marble and ceramic tile floors – and Gracie uncurls herself from her tight fetal position in her arms. You stroke her hair, still in its tiny top ponytail from the day. "Breathe in the steam, sweetie."
You know this is better than any medication. It will loosen her chest and break up her cough. But as you strip off her yucky pajamas and wet diaper and slowly lower her into the water, her blue eyes widen, then screw up as she lets out her loudest wail yet and tries to scramble back up into your arms.
It hurts – it's literally painful to make her sit there and to feel her tiny hands grabbing at your shoulders. Her nails are sharp – they need cutting again. They leave little red marks on your skin and you quickly strip out of your own nightgown and slip in behind her, pulling her close to your chest again. As if by magic – as if someone turned off a switch, her crying stops.
You lie there for awhile, enjoying the warm water. You used to bathe like this with her when she was tiny; you found that breastfeeding in the bath actually was easier than trying to get the little baby to latch in bed or sitting on the couch. And the skin-to-skin contact – the feeling of her close to your body – it's one of those feelings that are absolutely indescribable. It's so sweet that it's almost unreal.
Gracie falls asleep in your arms and you hate to wake her. She's clean, washed over with Johnson's baby shower gel – she smells sweet; she's finally breathing more easily. But the water's getting cold and you need to dress her. You move as slowly and gently as you can, but she wakes up anyway and then cries at the sudden cold on her wet skin.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, baby," you mutter, and quickly wrap her in a towel. As soon as you begin to rub her dry, her crying tapers off. Like a saint, Mark appears at the door with a fresh diaper and a clean pair of pajamas, and you shoot him a grateful look as you get Gracie dressed. He's also included a nightgown for you, and you sit the baby on the counter, keeping one hand on her as she rubs her eyes and slumps against the mirror, trying to dry yourself and get dressed with one hand. Mark watches you with amusement, and then dries your back for you and slips the nightie over your head. Too late, you realize you could have just handed the toddler to her father, but you're running on less than three hours' sleep in the last two days, so you're not exactly thinking clearly.
"I think she needs proper cough medicine," you announce, picking Gracie up and feeling her settle against your shoulder. You wrap her blanket, dropped on the floor, around her and feel her sigh against your loose hair, wet at the ends.
"At two years old?" His voice is incredulous, and your head snaps up, your voice more harsh than you planned it to be.
"She's sick, Mark, she's throwing up because she's coughing so hard and she isn't sleeping. Look at her face!" You point at Gracie's little face, dark circles under her eyes, pale and tired, and Mark's expression softens. He opens his mouth, but you barrel on.
"Plus, do you work with children every day? Did you spend the last two nights up with her because she can't sleep?" Your voice cracks and you put a hand up to your eyes, leaning into him. He kisses the top of your head.
"I know. You're tired and I know that. And you're an excellent doctor and you know everything about children."
You giggle a little through your tears at his last remark. "Exactly."
Ten minutes later, he's driving to the all-night pharmacy and you're cuddling Gracie in the rocking chair.
"Daisy, daisy, give me your answer, do," you sing softly, and she smiles a little bit.
"Daisy. Flower."
"Yes, it's a flower," you whisper into her hair, and she yawns widely, the sudden air on her throat causing another coughing fit. This time, though, you have a bowl ready and you manage to propel her forward so that she throws up into the bowl and not all over her clean pajamas. She cries, but there's a lot less drama involved in vomiting when your mother is right there with you, and her tears are quickly dried.
Mark gets home with the medicine. "How much of this are we supposed to give her?"
"Didn't the pharmacist give you a paper?"
"Um . . ." He rummages in the paper bag and comes up with a stapled paper. "Here."
You pass Gracie to Mark – this time, she lets you. He kisses her blonde hair and cuddles her tightly. "Sorry you're feeling sick, Jellybean."
"S'okay," she breathes and closes her eyes again. However, they pop open when you nudge the medicine dropper between her lips. With a large raspberry, she spits the little bit of medicine you injected all over her shirt. "Yuck!"
"Oh, Gracie, please, for Mommy?" You hate to be begging with your two-year-old, but you just need sleep . . .
Gracie frowns at you. "Don't like it."
"It's going to make you better, sweetie." Mark nuzzles her head and she frowns again.
"Better?"
"Yes." Without waiting for an answer, you inject the rest of the cough medicine into her mouth, and surprised, she swallows it. She opens her mouth to cry, but realizes that it's already gone and you're offering her some juice to take the taste away.
An hour later, she's asleep in your arms as you rock thoughtfully in the rocking chair. Mark sits on the couch, looking exhausted.
"I have three rhinoplasties today."
"I have a C-section and a hysterectomy. But she can't go to daycare like this."
Mark frowns and looks defeated. "Well, it's not like we can stay home!"
"I'll cancel my surgeries."
"They might go to someone else."
"So, let them." You feel, at this point in time, that if you never did surgery again, that'd be just fine. You also know you're exhausted and that if you gave up surgery forever, you wouldn't be Addison.
Mark rises. "I'm going to bed. Want me to take her?"
You consider it for a moment, and then shake your head. "I'll be up soon."
It's not the first time you've seen the sun rise. It won't be the last.
But somehow, despite the fact that you're exhausted and Gracie's curled into your uncomfortably stiff arms, it doesn't matter.
No matter how many times you have to stay up all night with her, you'll never regret it.