A/n: I know. I'm a HORRIBLE person for doing this, but there is a point to it. I don't like making poor little babies suffer for fun.
There were few things that Detective Danny Williams liked less than having to testify in court. Getting a slightly panicked voicemail from his friend saying that his husband was taking their youngest daughter to the hospital topped the list.
The judge had called a recess for lunch and Danny had just pulled his phone out to check to see if he had an update from Steve on Makayla's condition when he got the message. A moment later, one of the Governor's aides approached to inform him that she had already spoken with the judge about having his testimony postponed to a later date so that he could head over to the hospital. Danny had made it to Queens in a time that surely wasn't legally considering he had flipped the sirens and blown every red light and stoplight in his way. If anything constituted an emergency this certainly did.
"What happened?" Danny asked as he rushed up to Steve who was pacing the length of the waiting room like a caged animal. He took a good look at his partner and saw the fear and worry etched into his handsome face. It made his stomach drop slightly.
"Her fever spiked over 103. It's almost 104 now. They're trying to cool her down and run some tests to figure out what's wrong." Steve said as he sat down in the two chairs outside of the room. "She had a seizure, Danny."
Steve couldn't help the shaky quality to his voice. It had been terrifying staring down at his baby girl as she lay listless on the stretcher in the ambulance, looking up at him with glassy eyes .Danny had just opened his mouth to ask another question when a doctor emerged from the room and stood before them.
"Are you Makayla's parents?" He asked. They nodded. "I'm Dr. Ross, I'm the pediatric attending here in the ER. We think that we've got her stabilized for now." He stated.
"You think?" Danny exclaimed. "What do you mean you think?"
"It means that she hasn't had another seizure and her fever hasn't gone up anymore it also hasn't gone either. It's possible that the Makayla had a febrile seizure meaning its cause could be the fact that she had such a high fever for so long." Dr. Ross explained.
"You said it could have been caused by the fever…what else could have caused it?" Steve asked, picking up on the doctor's hesitancy.
"It's hard to say right now. We've taken some blood and have been running some tests but so far the only thing we've found is an elevated white blood cell count which simply tells us that she's fighting an infection. Other than that all of the other tests have all come back negative." The doctor informed.
"So you have no idea what's wrong with her is what you're telling us." Danny said crossing his arms over his chest as he tried to contain the anger that was quickly rising within him.
"For now." Dr. Ross admitted reluctantly. "We'll be able to tell more as we get more test results back but….there is one more test that I'd like to perform that might give us an answer."
"Anything." Steve croaked.
"I want to do a lumbar puncture." Dr. Ross declared. Danny and Steve both looked at him with wide eyes.
"A lumbar puncture? Like a spinal tap?" Danny asked. Dr. Ross nodded. "You want to stick a needle into the spine of my seven month old. I mean, what kind of risk are we talking about here, doc? How do we know you're not going to paralyze her?"
"There is a small risk of paralysis involved with a lumbar puncture but I assure you that those risks are far lower than the ones she faces if we don't perform the test." He said seriously.
"What do you think she has?" Steve asked, almost afraid to ask.
"I think she might have meningitis." Dr. Ross stated. "It explains the sudden onset of the high fever, lethargy you noted as well as the refusal to eat. It could also be the reason for her seizure. I also noticed when I was examined her that the soft spot on her head was bulging which is usually a key indicator of meningitis in a child her age."
"How does a baby get meningitis?" Danny asked, stunned.
"It's not as uncommon as you would think in infants. It's usually contracted orally and since an infant her age likes to put everything in her mouth, it increases the risk of exposure. Do you know if anyone she's in contact with has been sick?" The doctor asked.
"Our oldest daughter, Grace, she was sick last week but nothing as serious as this. It was just a cold…we thought Makayla had caught the same thing." Danny explained.
"Does she attend a daycare?"
"No, we have a nanny who takes care of Makayla…she's sick too right now, but it seems like she just has a cold too." Steve explained. "Do you think Makayla contracted it from someone else?"
"It's the most likely answer but plenty of healthy people carry around the germs that cause meningitis and they're never affected. For whatever reason, Makayla was susceptible to it." Dr. Ross shrugged.
"So what kind of prognosis are we looking at?" Steve asked, his voice sounding stronger than he felt at the moment.
"It depends on whether it's bacterial or viral. If it's viral, once we get her fever down and get her stabilized, you should be able to take her home to recover. If it's bacterial…we could be in for a rough ride, because there are far more serious complications involved with it. We'll be able to tell more once we analyze the fluid. For now though, I want to do the lumbar puncture and then I want to have her transferred up to the PICU where she can get more specialized care. " Dr. Ross explained. The two men simply nodded.
"When can we see her?" Steve asked, knowing that they both needed to see their daughter to reassure themselves as well as comfort her.
"Once we get her settled in the PICU, I'll make sure the nurses bring you in to see her." Dr. Ross assured before disappearing back into the ER.
Danny dropped down into the chair next to Steve and let out a shaky breath. He was stilling trying to figure out how they had ended up here. He had left her this morning with just a cold, nothing life threatening. He looked over at his partner who was visibly rattled. It was one of the few times that he had seen Steve be truly scared of something.
"She's going to be okay….right?" Steve asked him as he stared at the doors that the doctor had disappeared behind.
"Of course." Danny stated.
'She has to be' he thought to himself. 'Cause she's not the only one I'll lose.'
