A/N: So I would have had this up sooner but fanfiction was freaking out, or maybe it was my computer. Not sure, but whatever it was, I couldn't upload any documents. So yah that's what happened there. Anywaaaay enjoy! And thank you to my beta 1kiko as always.
"I can't see."
Her doctor looked at her in concern, pulling a light from his pocket shining it in her eyes. "Can you see this? Even a little."
"Sort of."
"Okay can you see shapes or blobs of color? Anything besides the light?"
She cleared her throat, trying to get her voice back, "Everything is blurry. I can't make out anything."
"Okay this does happen sometimes, when a patient wakes up from a coma, they can experience some temporary blindness. No need to panic just yet, I think we'll give you a day or two, and if your eyesight hasn't returned we'll deal with that then."
Jenny had just been sitting in shocked silence, at a loss for words, until now. She stuttered out her sentence, still unable to believe what she had just heard, "I-I'm sorry did you say coma?"
"Yes. But don't worry, you haven't missed much. You were only out about a day or so."
"So it's all real? The kids, the seizure, the...everything?" she asked her voice raising in hysteria.
"I'm afraid so," her doctor said, eying her raising heart rate and BP warily. "You have to try to calm down though. We don't want any complications to send you back into a coma."
"Back!" she shrieked, "I could fall back into a coma? Well what caused this one?"
Ducky, who had been standing back until now, stepped forward, resting one hand on her shoulder. "Jennifer, dear you really do need to calm down," he spoke in a soothing voice.
"Ducky?" she sighed.
"Right over here dear."
"Oh thank God."
Ducky gave a light chuckle, "Good to know I'm appreciated. How about we let the doctor explain what's going on alright?"
She nodded, swallowing hard.
Confident that he could deliver the news without her panicking too much, Dr. Gelfand started, "Alright now Jenny-" but was cut off by her voice once again.
She knew that voice. Where had she heard that voice? Then it hit her. "Todd?"
Dr. Gelfand laughed, "Yeah, it's me Todd. Bet you weren't expecting this when you agreed to that date."
She relaxed further, closing her eyes. "No. No I wasn't," she agreed with a weak chuckle.
Dr. Gelfand smiled at her and started to speak yet again, "Well let's get you up to speed huh? But first how about you tell me what you remember."
She let out a weary sigh before speaking, "Um...I was in pain, a lot of pain, all day. It was really late, or early I don't know, but I felt like I was being ripped apart from the inside. I was going to call...Well I called Ducky and I remember it felt like hours until he got there. He brought me here. There was lots of screaming." her voice lowered, almost to a whisper as she tried her best to keep the tears at bay. "I was bleeding. Next thing I know they told me I was pregnant and I'd popped a baby out. I didn't want to believe it. I didn't know what happened to my baby or if it was even still alive. Then they told me I was having twins and that there was something wrong with the second one. I think they did a C-section because I remember this stabbing pain in my stomach and it got worse and worse. Then a nurse said it was a girl." She smiled at this, but her face soon darkened, remembering the next turn of events. "Then I started feeling so tired and I could feel sleep coming. But then my whole body felt like it was on fire. It felt like I was on a roller coaster, but being pricked with something sharp all over. It's hard to explain. I felt like I couldn't breath, like my I had to cough something up. I coughed up blood I think. Then, nothing."
Her doctor spoke to her in a quieted voice, fearing he would shock her if he spoke any higher. "Well you remember things pretty well. What you don't remember, I would assume are black spots in your memory where you tried to distance yourself from what was happening."
She nodded; silent tears now trailing down her cheeks. She felt Ducky brush them away, running a fatherly hand through her hair.
Dr. Gelfand knew that right now he needed to be her doctor. He needed to be Dr. Gelfand, not Todd, some guy she had agreed to one date with who just happened to be a doctor. He needed to distance himself from this and treat her as he would any other patient. Clearing his throat, he spoke in as profesional and unbiased a voice as he could, " Well what you had is something called eclampsia. It's a pregnancy complication that can be potentially life threatening. Undetected, it can cause excessive bleeding, seizures, coma, or even death. Usually the treatment is an emergency delivery of the child and antihypertensive medication for the mother. In most cases, the worst it gets in preeclampsia. This alone can cause extremely high blood pressure, severe headaches, changes in vision, nausea or vomiting, dizziness, and at times, sudden weight gain. Obviously you didn't experience the weight gain part." He paused to assess her state of mind. Seeing that she looked only slightly paler and a little worse for wear, he continued. "The symptoms usually go awayabout a weekafter birth, so you should be perfectly fine. Now, I'm sure you' d like to know how it is that you never realized you were pregnant."
Jenny nodded, "How does that happen? With twins nonetheless?"
"Sometimes if the abdominal wall is particularly strong the belly won't expand, as it does with normal pregnancies, and you most likely would not have felt any movement. Many women don't experience any of the symptoms of pregnancy, at least not severely enough to interrupt their daily life. They may even still get their period. If a woman has generally been irregular in her cycle it may not be of some huge concern to miss a month or even two. If you add these exceptions together, you can see how it would be easy to be unaware of a pregnancy. At most, you may have gained maybe ten or fifteen pounds. The twins are slightly underweight so I'm guessing that you'd be more in the ten pound range."
"Yea," she said softly, bringing a hand to her forehead. "Are they okay? The twins?"
"They're fine. A couple days early and just a tad underweight, but they're happy and healthy."
"Why are they underweight?"
"It can come with the eclampsia, but sometimes it happens anyway with multiple births." He eased into his next comment not sure how she would react. "Now...you can decide how you want to deal with this, if you want to opt for adoption or-"
She cut him off abruptly, a fierceness in her voice, only Ducky had ever heard, "I'm keeping them."
"We can wait a while for your final decision if you-" she cut him off again, emphasizing her words more this time. "I'm. Keeping. Them."
Dr. Gelfand inhaled deeply and smiled, seeing that her mind was made up, "Alright. Glad that's settled then. We can draw up the birth certificates as soon as you get your sight back. Do you want to see them now or..." as soon as he said it he regretted his choice of words and hoped she wouldn't react too badly to them.
Jenny thought for a while before speaking, "No. I want to actually see them when I hold them."
"Are you sure?"
She exhaled, "I'm sure."
"Alright...well get some sleep. You're going to need it," her doctor said, before exiting the room, leaving the other two occupants to themselves.
As soon as the door shut, Ducky turned to look at Jenny, glad to see at least some of the color returning to her face. "It's good to have you back Jennifer."
"It's good to be back Ducky, well...mostly back. Ducky please tell me you haven't been sitting here for two days. I'd never forgive myself."
"Well I would have gladly done it dear, but no. Your doctor strongly suggested I go home last night. I have been here since this morning though." Seeing her eyes starting to droop, he cupped her cheek affectionately. "Get some sleep dear."
She sighed, her eyes closing. "Thank you Ducky."
A/N: See! It's a little bit of a happier ending, kinda...sorta. Okay so not super happy but I need more drama first. I mean it is a drama story.I'm wrapping up my other stories, 'Blackout' and 'Protecting the Woman of NCIS' so I'll have more time to devote to this one. I can update faster. Yay! But anyway REVIEW!...please? :D