Flack wasn't a fan of country music, but he knew that one particular crooner had been right when he said 'I'm much too young to feel this damn old.' He was definitely too young to feel so damn old, and as his day finally came to a close he let out a long suffering sigh.
First there had been the suspect who if he hadn't been a complete ass hole wouldn't have had any personality at all. Then there had been Danny, who had plopped down at his desk, proclaimed that he looked like shit, and pressed him about what the hell was going on with him and Stella. Flack had given him a general overview, punctuating the fact that he really didn't want to talk about it. Evidently it had been sufficient because Messer had taken off, leaving Don with a sky high pile of paperwork and his own damning thoughts.
He was getting ready to leave when the phone rang again; and when he saw Danny's number he cursed silently before flipping the phone open. "I thought I told you to leave me alone on this."
"Damn it, Don just listen to me. I was on the phone with Stella and the next thing I know she's yelling like she's being ripped in half and Angell's telling me to get a bus out there."
Don stood quickly, forgoing his suit jacket and grabbing his keys as fast as he could. "What the hell happened?" he questioned, heading out the door before he could stop to consider his automatic reaction to the news.
"I'm trying to tell you I don't know!" Just get your ass to the hospital and I'll do my best to meet you there."
Flack was in his car in moments, but it was only when he stopped to think clearly that he realized he was still willing to drop everything to run to her side, even after everything that had happened. "Damn it," he cursed, resisting a ridiculous urge to punch the dashboard. "God damn it."
When he reached the hospital he parked and sprinted into the building. It took him a minute but he found Angell and Mac in a waiting room. "Where is everyone?" he questioned.
Mac shook his head. "There are still cases, but they'll get here when they can."
"But Danny's here," Angell told him. "He's parking my car. I left it in the fire lane."
Flack sank into a chair. "What happened?" he asked.
Angell and Mac shared a concerned glance before she decided it would be best coming from her. "She's been admitted. They think it may be an ectopic pregnancy."
His head shot up immediately at the word pregnancy. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means that what she thought was normal was anything but," Mac sighed, sitting down next to the Detective. "They think that rather than ending up where it should have an egg implanted somewhere else, in simple terms. It's a serious problem, and one that could potentially be life-threatening depending on the circumstances."
Don shook his head, speaking more to himself than the others. "I don't understand any of this." He looked back up. "What are they doing for her?"
"There are tests," Jess told him.
"You should be with her for them," Mac added.
His head was reeling from all the information that was being thrown at him; a pregnancy, Stella's life potentially in danger. Still, he shook his head. "She wouldn't want me there."
"Yes she would, Don," Angell said quietly.
"Jess, you know exactly what happened…"
She nodded. "I do, and trust me when I say that she would want you with her. She loves you."
How could he believe her, after everything that had gone down? "No she doesn't," he said sadly.
"God damn it, Don, listen to me!" Jess cried, drawing the attention of the nurses and others waiting. She stalked over to where he was sitting, using the fact that she could stand over him to her advantage. "She loves you, she wants you, and she just doesn't know how to say it."
"Jess…" Danny's voice came from behind her, wanting to alert her that she was causing a scene.
"Shut up Messer." She turned her attention back to Don and her voice went deadly quiet as she spoke. "Stella is back there right now, and she's in pain, and she's probably scared half to death. What she wants and needs right now is to have someone she loves with her. Now her best friend is here, but she would much rather have the man she loves pull his head out of his ass and go back there to hold her hand!"
"How the hell do you know all of this?" he asked angrily.
She shook her head. "You're being a damned idiot Don, but this isn't about me."
"How Jess?"
Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes and she couldn't seem to hold back. "For one, she told me. For two, it's really easy to know what someone's feeling when you're feeling exactly the same way! Damn it Don you just never saw me standing there waiting for you!"
As she covered her face with her hands the light began to glimmer and he felt his heart break a little bit. "Jess…"
Danny just shook his head, stepping up to wrap an arm around the shaking Detective. "Let's get you out of here."
He almost had her to the door when Adam burst in. "What's going on? I got here as soon as I could. Is Stella okay? And what's happening here?" he asked, the questions coming rapid fire.
"I'm just going to get her home; the last place she wants to be right now is here."
"I'll take her," Adam volunteered.
Angell shook her head, coming back to herself a bit. "No, you came to see Stella."
He nodded. "Yeah, but I doubt they're going to be able to tell us anything anytime soon. I want to Jess."
"Okay," she said with a nod. "Thank you Danny."
"No problem." He bent to kiss her cheek. "Take care of yourself."
"I'll make sure she does," Adam piped up; and they were off.
When Danny made it back to the waiting room it was to find Flack still looking completely shell shocked. "Jess went home with Adam."
"I can't believe I didn't see it," Flack said quietly.
Mac patted the younger man's shoulder. "Women tend to be more perceptive than men. Us, we fall in love and that one woman is all we can see. It would have been hard for you to pick up on it; we're dense creatures."
"I must have hurt her so badly, talking about Stella the way I did."
Danny nodded. "Probably, and that's something the two of you will have to deal with eventually; but for now you need to go be with Stella."
Don looked over at Mac, the only person Stella would have confided in. "She going to want me back there?"
He nodded. "She'll want you in there."
"Then I'm going to be there." He stood slowly, wiping his sweating palms against the soft fabric of his pants. "Shit, I'm scared to death."
"Think how she must feel," Danny told him.
It was the last encouragement he needed and he headed for the nurses' station. After he told the sunny blonde nurse who he was looking for she looked up with a smile. "And you're Ms. Bonasera's…?"
He sighed a bit, mostly because he couldn't help it. "That's where it gets a bit complicated. For today's purposes I'll just say that I'm one half of the genetics contributing to the pregnancy that seems to have gone completely wrong."
Sympathy shone in the young woman's eyes as she nodded. "Okay, someone will take you back."
As Flack followed another cheery young nurse down the hall he felt his heart start to pound. He remembered the last time he'd been in a hospital room with Stella and thought about everything that was going on now, and he hated that he had any part in her pain. When the nurse ushered him through the door and he saw Stella laying there looking scared and vulnerable, every emotion in the book flooded him.
"Don?" she asked quietly.
He looked over at her and the question in her eyes made him realize he'd been zoning out. Cautiously, he took a seat by the bed. "I wasn't sure what to do at first, but Mac and Jess said you would want me here."
She nodded. "I do." Tears welled up in her eyes as they met his. "Don, I'm so sorry."
"Hey, one thing at a time," he said gently. "We'll talk later about everything else. For now let's just get you through this." Then, for the first time in over a month, he reached out and touched her, lacing their fingers together.
For a moment they just watched each other, and both noted the fear in each others' eyes. Then the quiet became too much and Stella finally spoke again, her voice breaking as she did. "I missed you."
He felt relief rush through him and he squeezed her hand. "I missed you too."
Before they could say any more her doctor came in. He was a young guy, probably only a bit older than Don, but his countenance was disconcertedly grave when he spoke. "We're going to take you for testing now. We'll get the results back as quick as possible and hopefully we'll be able to decide on a course of action within the next few hours."
"Can I stay with her?" Flack asked,
Dr. Carr looked over at the pair of them and the way they clung tightly to each others' hands and he nodded. "No, that won't be a problem."
"Let's get this going then," Stella said, her voice just a bit shaky.
The doctor admired her will as he ushered in the nurse. "Alright then."
They did a simple pregnancy test first, then some sort of test called an hCG. Flack had no idea what the second meant; but when the first test came back positive and the levels from the second were abnormal he began to feel as if someone had dropped lead on his chest. They ended up in another room, finding it all set up for an ultrasound. As the tech got started Stella's eyes squeezed closed and she turned her head away.
"You doing okay?" Don asked.
She honestly didn't know. "This isn't the way it's supposed to go," she said sadly.
"I know."
Her eyes opened again, and once again he saw tears there, and he knew that she'd been shedding far too many lately. "How did I ever manage to so thoroughly screw this up?" she questioned.
"Hey." He leaned forward, squeezing her hand as he drew himself closer. "This wasn't a one sided deal. I'm the one who wouldn't listen when you tried to talk to me."
She shook her head. "Why should you have talked to me? I was horrible."
The tech interrupted them before the conversation could go any further. "I'm done here. Do you want…?"
"No." Stella didn't even let him finish. "I'll just wait to hear it from the doctor. I already know…No."
He nodded. "Okay, I'll call the nurse, we'll get you back to the room and Doctor Carr will be in after I speak with him."
When he left them alone Don turned back to Stella, and when their eyes met this time it was he who was left dealing with tears. "I'm sorry Stell, for being a part of putting you through this."
"How could you have known?" she asked. "I didn't even know I was pregnant," she whispered. "How the hell did I not know?"
He shook his head. "It happens, Stell. With everything going on in your life it's understandable. The doctor said that the symptoms don't seem like anything out of the ordinary."
"They always say that women know; that they somehow just know. I guess that just goes to prove that I really am just completely ruined."
Her eyes fell closed again and as silence settled in around them Flack couldn't help but wonder about what Stella had just said. He couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to him that her past could have played a part in everything that had gone down. After learning what she was feeling in that moment though, he realized that there was no way it didn't play a part in everything.
But he was going to hold to what he had said earlier. What he cared most about in that moment was making her better; making the pain stop and wiping that look of fear and self-loathing from her eyes was the only important thing left. And if that meant pushing aside all the hurt he'd been feeling for the past month, then so be it.
"We'll figure this out Stell," he said quietly.
He barely heard her whispered reply. "I hope you're right."
Note From The Author-- Okay, so I went for the more obvious ailment here. My medical knowledge is limited to the internet and TV so I had to go with something fairly simple but still serious; I hope y'all are okay with that. I simply didn't have time to do research on anything else, plus I like the impact of this. Still angsty, but not nearly close to the level of last chapter. Adam and Angell will be back next time, plus I promise you, you'll finally get Stella and Don's long awaited and mostly likely incredibly difficult conversation. Thanks for sticking with me :)
