The ride to the hospital was a blur of crippling anxiety. Ana was in near-constant pain that seemed to seize her entire body while Christian tried his best to comfort her despite the wrenching fear that seized his own body. He'd only prayed two other times before in his life - when Hyde kidnapped Ana and when Teddy was born - but he begged God to show him mercy and save his wife and daughter.
All three were rushed through the ER, the doctor checking on Ana's progress. "She's not due for another four weeks. Not for another four weeks," Christian uttered desperately to anyone who would listen in the vain hope that saying her due date out loud would somehow reverse what was unfolding in front of him.
"Well this baby has decided not to wait Mr. Grey. We need to move now."
Despite her own overwhelming fears, Ana knew she needed to stay calm for his sake. "It's alright Christian. We're ready. She's just a little early, as eager to see us as we are to see her," she said, dutifully practicing her breathing techniques. "The sibling rivalry has already begun. Phoebe's determined to beat her brother's time for coming into the world. Girls always prefer a more dramatic entrance," Ana joked, trying to alleviate the somber atmosphere that had settled over them.
Fuck, he thought, even now while writhing in unspeakable anguish, she's trying to soothe me. "You're so strong baby. I love you so much," Christian said, his voice and heart cracking.
They were already in the delivery room, Ana clinging to Christian's hand as her shrill yet exhausted yell ripped through the sterile space. The army of doctors and nurses was unfazed by the commotion and went about their work with precision, barking out orders that Christian strained to understand.
Suddenly the expressions on their faces changed and Christian noticed the sense of dread that blanketed the room. "What? What the fuck is going on," he screamed at the doctors who were busy ignoring his orders. Then he felt Ana's tight grip on his hand fade, her eyes fluttering closed as she slipped out of consciousness.
His world, his reason for inhabiting it, came crashing down in a millisecond. "ANA. ANA, come back to me baby. No please stay with me. Don't you dare leave," he begged, outright heaving with sobs, tears streaming down his face. Christian was promptly ushered out of the room, too stunned to resist until he realized Ana was being moved.
"NO take me to my wife, NOW damn it," he demanded, his booming voice drowning out the cries of the other pregnant women in labor in the ward.
"Mr. Grey your wife is bleeding out. We need to operate now. Please wait here. We'll come back for you as soon as possible," someone mechanically told him, the instructions barely registering in his stunned daze.
Eventually the voices of his mother, father and brother broke through the fog of confusion and disbelief. "Christian, can you hear me?" Grace's pleading echoed in the distance, jolting Christian out of his shock.
"Ana. There's something wrong. I need to be with her. I need, where is she," he rambled on incoherently as Grace, Carrick and Elliott led him to a private waiting room off to the side, as if he were a small lost child.
As soon as he walked in, though, thinking the worst of the "waiting room" - assuming it was the place where people waited to receive bad news about their loved ones - Christian snapped. He turned to go back, his brother and father physically holding him back.
"NOOOOO," he wailed. "This can't be happening. I'll die without her. I'll die. No please," he covered his face with his hands and collapsed to the floor a broken heap of a man, rocking rhythmically back and forth. Grace, having seen this devastation many times throughout her medical career, quietly asked Elliott and Carrick to leave the room. She recognized that Christian was lost and unreachable at the moment.
"Grace go," he managed to choke out. She ignored his harsh request, knowing her son wasn't in the right frame of mind to ask for anything. So she simply kneeled next to his crumpled body, her hand on his shoulder as he wept inconsolably.
Christian felt as if he were literally spinning underwater, tossed around by violent waves like a rag doll - muffled sounds occasionally reaching the surface, but otherwise he couldn't see or hear anything. His hold on sanity was tenuous at best, unspeakable thoughts drifting in and out of his battered mind. A life without Ana. She'd want him to take care of their children, but he'd be dead inside, even more hollow than when she had met him. He'd have no choice but to leave Teddy and Phoebe to his parents or Elliott and Kate and join Ana. They'd be better off than being raised by a withered shell of a parent. He knew his reasoning was morbid but he couldn't stop drowning headlong into the darkness that Ana had always kept at bay.