'It's going to be fine' he says it for his own benefit as much as hers. If he says it over and over again with enough conviction then surely that will make it true. It's going to be fine. It has to be fine. There is no alternative. She is lying in the hospital bed, being suspiciously quiet. Normally he would have expected her to be haranguing the staff and him, but she is doing none of that. When she does speak her voice is quiet, scared, and it is only to tell him for the third time in less than ten minutes that her head hurts. He looks at the blood pressure monitor but he gets no good news there. 210 over 180. It is getting worse. She is getting sicker. They are going to deliver tonight, that is a given, but they want to leave it as long as possible. To let the steroid injection take effect. To give baby the best chance possible. 'It's going to be fine' he repeats, glancing up as the doctor comes in and quickly skims through the latest set of obs. It isn't their usual obstetrician, he is on holiday this week, and Jonny isn't at all sure that he trusts his replacement. She's too young: too pretty: wearing too expensive shoes. If he met her in a bar then sure, he'd probably try and get her into bed, but that doesn't mean that he trusts her to deliver his child. He knows that Jac would kill him for even thinking it, in fact although she isn't saying anything and he hasn't dared to voice his concerns he can almost hear her calling him a chauvinistic pig and he can't really argue with that. The truth is, with Jac getting sicker and with mother and baby's lives in peril, he doesn't trust anybody.
'Blood pressure has gone up again' the doctor remarks to nobody in particular as she skims through the notes. 'Oedema in the extremities, worsening headache and severe epigastric pain. This has gone on long enough. We need to get Jac into theatre and deliver'
'Now?' he asks, feeling sick to the pit of his stomach. It is too soon. Thirty five weeks so it could be a lot worse, but still too soon. He knows that it is irrational but somehow it feels like two or three more hours could make all the difference although he knows that it won't.
'Baby's heartbeat is strong. She's thirty five weeks, she stands a good chance'
'And Jac?' he asks because his daughter's safe delivery is not enough. He needs them both to be fine.
'I'm not going to lie to you, Jonny, Jac's very unwell. Delivering now gives her the best chance of a full recovery'
'I see' he replies. He doesn't know what else to say. He'd like to tell Dr Oliver that this shouldn't be happening – that Jac should be in a private suite at the Hadlington with an epidural, not in a high dependency maternity bed in her own hospital about to undergo a Caesarian – but he doesn't bother. This isn't Dr Oliver's fault, any more than it is his or Jac's and nothing that Dr Oliver does or doesn't do can change the fact that this is now how they planned things. All that the doctor can do is help them make the best of the crap hand that they've been dealt and so instead of haranguing the doctor he goes back to Jac. Tells her that it will be fine and that he'll see her when she gets back. He contemplates asking whether he can join them in theatre but he doesn't bother. Having him in theatre getting under their feet isn't going to make the doctors do any better a job and also he doesn't think that he could stomach seeing her cut open. He has seen it time and time again in his job and yet the fact that it is going to be her lying on the table, unconscious and helpless, turns his stomach. He can't bear to think about it, let alone see it.
'You can wait here if you like. Call somebody to sit with you. Have a cup of tea' the doctor tells him kindly 'We'll take good care of them'
ooooo
He does as the doctor suggests. He waits in her room. He calls Mo to sit with him. She makes him a cup of tea and he lets it get cold. They don't speak because he doesn't know what to say and she knows him well enough to know when he wants conversation and when he doesn't. It probably takes no more than twenty minutes for news to arrive but to him it feels like a lifetime.
'Jonny' he doesn't take the fact that Dr Oliver herself has come to speak to him as a good sign. In fact he sees it as a very bad sign indeed. When she walks into the room his blood runs cold because she shouldn't be here. She should be in theatre with Jac and the baby, not here. It is too quick.
'What's happened?'
'You've got a daughter. She's been taken to the neonatal intensive care unit but it's precautionary. She's breathing, her colour is good and she's alert'
'And Jac?' he asks because if the baby is doing so well then the only explanation for the grim expression on her face is that Jac is not doing so well.
'We're doing our best. She has developed Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation. Do you know what that is?'
'Yes' he replies, feeling sick. Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation. DIC. Death Is Coming he once heard a flippant junior doctor call it. Jac had heard it too and thrown the junior off the ward for being disrespectful. It is, without a doubt, very bad news.
'We're giving her platelets and she's had twelve pints of blood. We've cross-matched another twenty-four. We're doing everything we can…'
'I sense a but' he tells her although he feels so sick that he can barely speak at all.
'She is very, very unwell. As soon as you can go and see the baby a nurse will come and fetch you. I should go back into theatre' the doctor tells him and, with a final squeeze of his hand which she has been holding for the whole conversation, she leaves.
ooooo
He doesn't realise that he's crying until his knees buckle and he feels Mo's arms around him, catching him before he slithers to the floor. He knows that he should be relieved that at least the baby is safe, but he isn't. He needs both of them, nothing else will do. Even though he and Jac aren't a couple, aren't anything really, he doesn't know how to contemplate life without her anymore.
'Jonny, it's going to be alright' Mo murmurs, rocking him gently in her arms 'Whatever happens, it's going to be alright'
'Is it?' he asks, looking up at her, willing her to say something, anything, to make him believe that it will.
'It's Jac. She's as strong as an ox' his friend offers but it isn't a heartfelt reassurance and he doesn't believe it any more than she does. 'She'll fight. She doesn't know how to do anything else'
'She's argumentative, Mo. She's not immortal'
'I know that' Mo tells him gently 'What do you want me to say? That she's going to be fine? I can't do that, Jonny. I just don't know'
'But what if she isn't?'
'Then you'll cope. You and I together, we'll cope' she tells him. It is a small reassurance, miniscule, but it helps. It means that whatever happens he won't be alone.
'Jonny?' a nurse that he doesn't recognise appears in the doorway, an overly bright smile on her face. She is wearing lilac scrubs and that tells him that she is from the neonatal unit. 'Baby is stable. She's in an incubator but she's awake and she's breathing for herself. You can come and see her if you'd like?'
'Will the doctor know where I am?' he asks anxiously. He wants to see the baby, she is the only good thing to come out of any of this, but he also wants to make sure that if there is any news of Jac then he gets it as soon as possible.
'I'm sure she will. It's just down the corridor' the nurse points to a set of double doors at the other end of the linoleum walkway. It is no more than twenty paces further from the operating theatre than the room he is in at the moment and yet he doesn't want to go, just in case they don't find him.
'Would you like me to wait here?' Mo offers. Doing that thing that freaks him out and reading his mind. 'I can bring the doctor to you as soon as there's news'
'That would be great' he tells her gratefully and follows the nurse to his daughter.
ooooo
He sits and watches over the sleeping baby, feeling relief every time her tiny chest rises and falls, as rhythmic as waves lapping on a beach. She is tiny but she's fine and for that he is grateful. He sits and strokes her tiny hand and gazes at her, but when the door opens and Mo walks in with the doctor he leaps to his feet, his daughter all but forgotten.
'How is she?' he asks, aware that Mo has moved to his side, to catch him if he crumbles again. He is grateful: if he crumbles where he is standing now then he could easily end up taking out the incubator on his way down.
'She's on intensive care. We had to perform a hysterectomy but we have managed to get the bleeding under control' the doctor tells him. For a second he wonders what the hell gave them the right to undertake such drastic surgery without consent but then he catches himself and realises that a womb is no use at all if she is dead. At least this way she is alive. 'She's got cerebral oedema and her kidney is struggling' the doctor adds. Kidney. Singular. Shit. He hadn't forgotten about that exactly but in all the pandemonium he hadn't focussed on the fact that it might pose a problem.
'She only has one kidney' he tells the doctor, as if she didn't already know.
'As things stand, that isn't making any difference. If she had two kidneys then they'd probably both be failing' the doctor tells him gently 'It certainly hasn't made her condition any worse' she adds. She is telling him that the donation isn't to blame and yet he immediately blames Paula because although he has never met the woman, and never wants to, she is something real towards which he can direct his anger. It's better than going out and punching a vending machine although he'll probably do that too.
'Is she going to get better?'
'We've got her on dialysis and we're going to keep he sedated. She's stable for now' the doctor tells him, which doesn't answer his question. 'At the moment I'm most concerned about the swelling on her brain. Until she wakes up we won't be able to tell if there's going to be any lasting damage'
'She might be brain damaged?' he asks, feeling his eyes fill with tears because he knows Jac. He knows that she would sooner they let her die than let her be brain damaged because one night, when they'd had a little too much to drink and they were talking about Tara and Elliot's wife, she had told him so.
'There's a chance'
'How big a chance?'
'It's too early to put a number on it' the Doctor tells him firmly, turning her attention to the baby rather than being drawn into fabricating groundless statistics that can later be thrown back in her face. 'You have a beautiful daughter. Congratulations'
'Thanks' he replies, feeling sick. He feels sick because as much as he adores his daughter, at this moment there is a part of him that he is not proud of that would gladly swap her to have Jac back.