"Dr. Covington, you have a phone call. It's your husband. He says it's an emergency."
After this many years of marriage, it was still strange to hear someone call her by Ben's last name. She had thought about keeping her maiden name of Porter, but when Ben asked her to officially adopt Andrew a few weeks before they got married, she changed her mind. She wanted their family to all have the same last name, and making her officially his mother suddenly made that seem all that more important. Once it finally sunk in what the petite nurse had said when she poked her head in the exam room, she quickly dropped her stethoscope on the counter and apologized to the parents before dashing off.
"Jack, can you check on the kid in exam three? I am pretty sure it's just a chest cold!" she called over her shoulder to her much older colleague. She didn't wait for an answer before sliding behind the nurses' desk to pick up the receiver. "Ben, it's me. What's wrong?"
Ben's breath was heavy in her ear. She could hear him cursing impatiently as a horn honked in the distance. "I'm waiting for a cab near the house. Mitchell called. There was an accident."
"An accident?" she asked in confusion. "At the apartment?"
"They decided to go out for some ice cream. They decided to take a cab. Andrew was in the back with Jillian and Brandon. The back glass broke out when someone threw something off a bridge and onto the car. It went through and hit Andrew. They don't know how bad."
Felicity started to shake as she realized what her husband was telling her. Covering her face with her hand, she tried to steady her breath so that she didn't go into a full panic attack. "Where are they taking him?"
"Morgan Stanley," Ben answered. "I'm in a cab on my way over to Broadway. Can you meet me there?"
"I'm on my way," she said. "I'll call you back on my cell so that we're connected, okay?"
"Sounds good," he replied. "Be safe."
Felicity was reconnected to Ben within a few minutes as her taxi sped toward the hospital. Ben had already arrived and was getting details from one of the doctors he knew there. Felicity could hear him through speaker phone and was able to ask the right questions. Andrew was in surgery and they wouldn't know more until after he was awake. In the mean time, all they could do was wait.
'He has to be okay, right?"
Felicity had heard that question a million times as a doctor but never applied to her own child. She rested her hand on her stomach, suddenly nauseous and overwhelmed by the chaos of it all. It was easy" to be a doctor because you could remove yourself from it. There was no distancing yourself from your own child. "He has to be," she agreed. "He's strong like his daddy and stubborn. That head is too thick and too hard not to survive."
Ben tried to muster a chuckle but instead found himself breaking down. He clutched the cellphone as a honk blared in his ear. "Are you close?"
"Just pulling up front," she told him. "Where are you?"
"The waiting room outside the trauma center."
"On my way. See you in a minute."
Felicity handed the cab driver a twenty before dashing toward the doors. She flashed her badge at a security guard that negated her need to check in. A few minutes later, she was on her way up the elevator. The numbers seemed to take forever, climbing from the lobby to the fifth floor. Ben was right there waiting as soon as she stepped off the lift. She flew into his arms, not caring that they were on the verge of divorce or that it had been awkward only a few hours before. "How's our baby?" she murmured into his shoulder. "Have you heard anything?"
"Not in the past two minutes," he whispered, inhaling her scent and holding her tightly. It was comforting that she still smelled like her, not that she would have lost that in the past few hours. It just was that nothing made sense right now. "C'mon, I'll take you to the waiting room. I should call my mom. Do you want to call your parents?"
"After we know more," she murmured. She tried not to hold Ben's hand too tightly, but she couldn't imagine letting go of him right now. There were nameless people lining the chairs in the waiting room, and Felicity knew that each one had a story. She wasn't used to being on this end of things. She liked being on the other side much better. Ben led her to a pair of chairs where he had stashed his coat. "You call your mom. I'll wait here."
He smiled at her and nodded before dropping a chaste kiss on her forehead. "I'll be right back," he promised before jogging off toward the hallway again. Felicity watched him pace, wanting to focus on anything other than the sad or sympathetic faces looking her way. She saw him stop and rub one of his hands over his face before taking a deep breath. Just as he was about to say something else to his mother, Ben caught Felicity's eye and frowned. This was hard.
When he still hadn't returned a few minutes later, Felicity slung her purse over her shoulder and went out to find him sitting at a bench a few feet away from the waiting room door. He was hunched over, his head buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking. Felicity knelt carefully in front of him and pried his fingers away from his face. "Hey, c'mon," she urged him quietly as he fell into her embrace. Felicity rubbed small circles on his back and murmured softly in his ears, comforting him much in the same way that she did Andrew after he had a bad dream. "Our boy is strong. He's got his dad's head, remember?"
Ben managed a slight chuckle but Felicity knew it was false. "Yeah, it just seems like it's taking a long time," he complained. He knew that the doctors were just taking their time and doing their job, just like he would have done. "It's different when it's your kid."
"I know," she agreed as they both stood up. It was Ben's turn to pull her into his arms, resting his chin on top of her head as he just held her. It was simple but something that they both needed right now. They needed to be grounded, to be tethered to each other. "What'd your mom say?"
"She wanted to fly in right away, but I convinced her to wait until he was out of surgery."
Felicity was about to ask Ben if he wanted to call Sean and Meaghan when an overwhelming wave of nausea rolled over her again. It was the second time this evening that she had felt like that and the fourth or fifth this week. It was only when her knees went weak and she had to sit down that she felt any real concern. Ben noticed and helped her get seated before rattling off a list of questions with the speed of a professional.
"You sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine, just tired and worried," she brushed it off. "Maybe you should call Sean and let him know that his godson is in the hospital. They'd want to be here with us."
"After we know more," Ben countered, "and don't change the subject. I'm worried."
"Don't be, I can take care of myself," she said almost angrily.
"Alright..."
They sat there in awkward silence for a few minutes until a man in green scrubs came out of the double doors. "Dr. Covington?" he announced before both parents looked up at him in response. He smiled apologetically at Ben and Felicity before continuing. "I have some news about your son. He is out of surgery and things went well. We were able to stop the bleeding and check for damage. While he is pretty bruised and cut up, there was no permanent trauma found. As you know, he'll be out of it for awhile, and when he does wake up, we will still need to explain what happened to him. In the mean time, he will be in his room in a few minutes if you would like to see him."
"Thanks, Nick," Ben replied, standing up to shake his hand. Morgan Stanley was the pediatric branch of his hospital so he was familiar with many of the medical staff. "This is my wife, Felicity Covington. She's in pediatrics over at Mount Sinai. Felicity, Dr. Nick Adelson."
"Thank you, Dr. Adelson," Felicity replied as she shook his hand. "Thank you for taking care of our son."
When a nurse appeared a few minutes later, Ben and Felicity were led back to Andrew's room. He looked so small in the big bed that it nearly broke Felicity's heart. Ben sat at his son's side, holding his hand tightly, and talking to his unconscious body. Felicity watched them from the doorway before that same wave of nausea hit her again. The last thing she heard was Ben calling her name before she hit the floor and the world went dark around her.