Learning To Love
CHAPTER 7
Summary: They're at the hospital, waiting for the news of what is to happen.
Chapter 7: Learning To Die
It was bright, yet hazy. It is loud and panicked. We were in an ambulance – Mrs Ackerman and I – and the paramedics were tending to the 6 month pregnant woman whom is doing this 'hoo hoo, hee hee' thing as she pants and clutches at her swollen stomach with one hand and supports her weight behind herself with the other. The sirens to the ambulance were on and we were rushing through the traffic; getting to the nearest hospital – Sina Emergency – as soon as possible.
I had already called Mikasa and Mr Ackerman to tell them what was happening and they're going to meet up with us at the destination. Mikasa was in the middle of class so she had been able to easily leave but her father had been in a meeting so he had to abruptly leave something that could have potentially been important.
Mrs Ackerman was sweating buckets and winced every now and then. She had to be checked for any injuries from when she fell and they could only give her an ice-pack for her head where she had badly hit her head and also bandaged what they could of it since they couldn't give her anything too strong in case it harms the unborn child.
The medics have been paying the entirety of their focus on Mrs Ackerman and have been asking her questions about how she's feeling, how bad the pain is, where it hurts and how it happened. She had breathlessly and rushedly explained that she had been putting away some cups, when she had felt a jolt of pain come from her stomach and it was so intense that she had doubled over and hit her head on the counter, making her lose focus and her footing and fall over.
After driving for about 18 minutes, which would have been 30 had we not been in the ambulance, we arrive at the hospital. The doctors rush out of the building and the medics that rode with us rush to help Mrs Ackerman out of the vehicle and into a wheel chair. The doctors that had run out of the building upon our arrival wheel her into the building, where I follow behind them worriedly, and take her to the emergency unit, where I am told to wait outside at.
Sitting on the uncomfortable chairs that are lined against the wall, I take out my phone from my pocket and message Mikasa, asking her how close she is to the hospital. I'm still sloppily dressed in the clothes that I had practically thrown on in my haste to see what was wrong with the woman that is the cause of my being here; so that means I'm sitting here in a shirt that is reasonable to be in and then trackies that have stains and smell like all sorts of foods and other substances. Don't forget that I'm also not wearing any underwear and so the outline my pants make on my crotch is plainly obvious. Great.
Mikasa messages me back, letting me know that she just arrived and is walking up to the front at that moment. I go to the front desk to meet her and when I see her distraught face, I run up to her and give her a hug to console her. "She's in the emergency care unit. We got here about 5-10 minutes ago."
Mikasa nods into my shoulder but makes no move to let go. "Did you let dad know what's going on?" Mikasa mumbles against my shirt. I had to strain my ears so that I could understand what she said properly.
"Yeah I did. He was in a meeting but he's on his way. He should be here soon hopefully." I reply back, stroking her hair to calm her erratic breathing that she huffs against the sensitive skin of my neck. I can feel her slowly slump into my hold a little bit and I just hold her closer. "Do you want to sit down for now?"
"No, let's just wait until dad gets here." I hum in agreement and shift us over to the wall so we're not in the way since we had been standing in the middle of the reception room. I lean against the wall with Mikasa securely in my hold and continue to pat her hair. She turns her head so that her mouth is facing up at me so that she can speak more clearly to me. "Do you know what happened to Ma? Was she badly injured?"
"I wasn't in the room at the time, so I didn't see what happened exactly, but I think that she had been putting away some cups or something when she felt a jolt of pain and lost her footing then fell. She didn't look too bad but she did look pretty out of it. They also had to somewhat bandage her head, so yeah. I'm pretty sure she'll be fine." She listens intently to what I revise to her and nods when I finish.
"How about the baby? Do you know if it'll be ok?"
"Err… I'm not too sure on that one. She did fall pretty badly, and I'm not sure if she fell on her stomach or not. The doctor's will of course check if it's alright and will possibly have to birth it if there is something wrong. Hopefully they'll both be ok." She doesn't respond and we just stand there in silence. Doctors and nurses pass by us, going on with their daily lives. Some are carrying folders; others are rushing to get to their destination quickly.
The last time we were here was when we found out that Mrs Ackerman had gotten pregnant. Of course they had been back since then but I never came along with them. It's not my favourite place to be exactly, especially in remembering the nightmare that I had last night. Feeling my shudder at the thought, Mikasa gives me a questioning look.
"I was just remembering my nightmare from last night. It was based in a hospital. Not the best place to be really." She hums in reply and snuggles up to me further. It's like she's trying to sap my heat from me. After about 5 minutes of waiting, Mikasa speaks up.
"Thank you Eren. For being the one to help my mum. For being there for us all; for me. You're the best friend anyone could have. You're seriously like a brother to me. I'm so grateful to have you. I don't know what I'd do without you." I freeze at her words, my hand stilling in her hair. She's just saying that to try and cheer me up. She doesn't actually mean that. I would voice out my thoughts but I don't want her to know of my insecurities and how I feel.
Remaining silent towards what she said, we emerge into another peaceful yet nervous silence as we wait for her father, whom arrives about 7 minutes later. Since I'm facing outwards, I see Mr Ackerman first when he walks through the automatic glass doors. I had been watching the doors the whole time so I see him before he sees us and I jostle Mikasa a bit and tell her that her dad had arrived.
She turns around and when she sees him, she practically runs to him and surprises him with a hug. He hadn't noticed that we were here in the first place so when he's attacked in a hug, he halts in his footsteps and checks to see who had randomly hugged him. At seeing Mikasa's mop of black hair, he embraces her much like I had; holding her close and securely, reassuringly and calmly. He says something in her ear that I can't hear and in return, she nods and looks towards me. I guess he had asked if I was here and/or if she had seen me yet.
My eyes lock on his and he has a perturbed look on his face, he has obviously been anxious for the entire drive here. I walk up to them and nod at him in greeting; Mikasa has stepped away now and is standing next to us both.
"Do you know the details of what's happening buy any chance?" Mr Ackerman enquires of me.
"I only know that she is in the emergency unit. I haven't heard anything since." I respond to him. He nods in understanding and asks if we wanted to sit down in the emergency unit's waiting room, to which Mikasa and I both nod. Sitting down in the corner of the room with Mikasa in the middle, I ask her if she wanted me to text Armin and Jean.
"Yeah, they should know about this definitely. Tell them both to talk about if they're going to come so they can drive together." I nod and do as she says, sending the same message to both of them. Since they're both still in class they won't be able to read the message until later, hopefully they respond when they do read it though.
"Ok, it's sent, I sent them the sa-"
"Mrs Ackerman?" A nurse interrupts me in the middle of speaking and calls out for the visitors of Mikasa's mum. We all look up at her and in turn she looks to us; also because we're the only people in the room. "You are all here for Mrs Ackerman I presume?"
"Yes we are. Is she ok? Can we see her now?" Mr Ackerman speaks up for us and stands to properly address her.
"I'm sorry but you can't see her at the moment. She is in critical condition. She hit her head when she fell harder than we all thought," We all blanch at the information and Mikasa gasps, finding my hand with hers and holding it with a deathly grip, I squeeze back in comfort. "We are going to perform a caesarean to see if we can save the baby; it didn't seem to be harmed in any way. We will do our best to keep Mrs Ackerman alive, but she's not looking too good. Myself or another nurse will inform you all of how the surgery goes once it's finished. Thank you." She nods in departure and turns to go back through the double, white wood doors into the emergency unit.
Mr Ackerman stumbles back into his seat and just slumps into his chair. We're all staring at the door, where the nurse had left through, with wide eyes, not quite acknowledging everything the nurse had said. "C-caesarean doesn't take too long, it can be either 2-3 minutes or 10-15. She'll be fine, she'll make it. Your mother is strong." Mr Ackerman sounds like he's reassuring himself more than he is us.
I can feel Mikasa's hand tremor in mine and so I hold it between both of mine and hold it close to my heart, trying my best to calm her down. Her breathing is starting to get erratic and her chest is heaving. She makes little hiccup sounds and I can tell that she's about to start crying so I pull her to my body, letting go of her hand and engulfing her in my arms. I have one hand on the back of her head, keeping her close to my shoulder, and the other one is clutched around her waist.
"I'm not going to tell you that everything will be ok," I whisper into Mikasa's ear so that only she can hear my words, "because if you get your hopes up and something worse happens, it'll destroy you. So I'm just going to tell you to not let it get you down, because I'm sure that your mum wouldn't want you to worry and cry for her, when she's supposed to do that for you." Mikasa sobs and hiccups even more and I'm not entirely sure if I helped at all. I'm not the best at cheering people up.
We sit in silence for about 5 minutes, not knowing what to say, when a nurse walks through the door and looks at us. "Are you here for Mrs Ackerman?" I nod in affirmation for us all and she continues. "Ok. Well the surgery was a success and I can confirm that the baby is as healthy as a 6 month old can be and is a boy. Congratulations. Mrs Ackerman, on the other hand, didn't make it. She had a concussion and had severe internal bleeding to her brain. I'm sincerely sorry for your loss. Would you all like to see her and/or the baby?" None of us answer her, too shocked that she had just blatantly told us that an extremely important person has just passed away, yet the baby survived.
"Its' probably too soon to be thinking of much from what has just happened. I'll let you go over it for a while. I'll be back in about 30 minutes ok?" The nurse added on before leaving, this time heading in the direction of the receptionists desk. She was right, we, more like Mikasa and her dad, do need some time to take in everything she had just old us. I look to my right, where Mikasa is seated next to me, and see that she is desperately trying to keep herself in check.
Her fists were clenched tightly on top of her thighs, hard enough to probably break the skin of her palm. Her bottom lip was slightly quivering and I could see a slight indent on her cheek, an indication that she is biting her cheek and/or has her jaw clenched and had sucked in her cheek a bit to keep her lip from showing just how affected she is. Mikasa hasn't ever been one to show her weak side, so the amount of crying and need for reassurance that she has done today is the first, if not, the most I have ever witnessed her submit to.
I could hear her inhaling and exhaling deeply and harshly through her nose only, that was rapidly increasing, and saw a single tear overflow from the eye that was in my line of view from the side profile I can see of her. After the first teardrop broke the barrier, another two fell out and joined the other in the trek down her cheek and then she finally snapped. Placing her hands in a cup over her mouth to completely cover it, Mikasa choked back sobs and hiccups in an attempt to prohibit every loud wailing coming from her throat.
She was suddenly jerked in the opposite direction by an arm around her back, clutching at her shoulder and pulling her against the side of their body, holding her much like I had done before. Mr Ackerman seemed to be in as much of a state as Mikasa was in. His eyes were red and swollen and were raining endless tears down his cheeks and onto the top of Mikasa's long, shiny black hair. She wrapped her arms around his middle and they both held each other in a death-like grip, as if believing that if they were to let go, the other would leave and not come back.
They simply sat there, clutching each other silently, with tiny sobs here and there, and not doing anything else. I did the same really, minus the harsh crying and clutching at someone. I simply couldn't find it in me to cry, to shed tears for Mikasa's mother. I felt empty; I didn't know what to do with myself. Of course I feel sad about the situation and for the both of them, but I can't help but feel remorse from how it turned out as well.
If I hadn't been distracted by fucking myself and gotten to her quicker I could have called the ambulance quicker since I would have also been more concentrated as well. If I never even went into my room and been an anti-social, depressed little shit, I probably would have been able to prevent the situation altogether. Yet of course, me being the useless waste of space, I can't do anything right. It's like I am a walking curse, bringing bad luck with me everywhere I go and sharing it around for everyone to have some.
"It's going to be alright. You hear me guys? Everything will work out, don't worry." Mr Ackerman had gently pushed Mikasa back by her shoulders to look her directly in the eyes as he spoke, not forgetting to make eye contact with me so that I knew I was included in the reassuring words. "We'll work things out ok." He spoke in a calm yet strong voice, ensuring that he got his point across yet not being harsh about it, intending to soothe us.
"Y-yeah, everything will be fine. We can do this." Mikasa gives a sad, encouraging, snotty smile after she spoke. She can be really convincing of almost everything when she wants to be. Her puffy eyes make their way to my mismatched ones and I try to give her a sincere, encouraging smile back, but I'm not entirely sure that it was all that convincing. It must have been good enough because she didn't make any indications that I looked like I was in pain.
"So… should we go and meet your new baby brother now Mikasa? We can go and see your mother as well if you want. It's completely your choice if you do or not, I'm not going to force you what-so-ever. I will be going to see her later if you don't now though." Mr Ackerman enquires of Mikasa since it is her decision really and we'll just follow where she goes.
"Ok. Yeah, let's go see Ma, then my little brother." She nods and gives another teary smile as she stands and waits for us both to follow her. Her dad stands from his seat first, brushing off his pants and standing straight to speak.
"We should go to the front desk to see about going in since that nurse never came back." Nodding in agreement, I finally stand from the uncomfortable plastic leather chair and we all make our way to the receptionists desk, Mr Ackerman going right up against it so he can speak to the lady sitting at the computer. "Um, hi, excuse me, Miss?" The addressed woman stops clicking at the mouse and raises her head to him, showing that she is paying attention and gives a 'yes sir?' before he continues. "A nurse had said before that we could visit our loved one that had just passed in surgery but she never came back to take us through, since we required some time to go over things."
"Ok, can you please tell me the name of the patient and I will call a nurse working at that station to take you to their room."
"Their name is Ackerman. She is my wife. She had also given birth to a boy." The woman nods and types up something on her computer before picking up a microphone-like device and asking for a nurse to come to the front desk.
"A nurse is on his way now to escort you to her room now. He shouldn't be too long." Just as she promised, about a minute or so later, a male with dirty blond hair walks through a set of doors that lead to a staff only area and gives us a calm, closed mouth smile. "These are the visitors; please take them to room number 10 in the emergency sector." He nods and asks us politely to follow him back the way we came from. Walking through the waiting room and into the hallway past the doors that we were prohibited to enter before.
He walks 10 doors down, obviously not needing to go far, and walks right into the room after checking the sign on the door to make sure that the correct patient was in there. "Ok, this is her. I'll wait outside for you so that I can lead you to her son. You can have 20 minutes ok? Thank you." We nod at him and each say our thanks before he close the door almost all the way, letting it rest against the frame to easily rush in if need be.
Mikasa and her father both walk to opposite sides of the bed, Mikasa taking the left if you're looking at the bed straight on. She kneels beside the bed as there are no chairs available on her side and takes her mother's cold, limp hand into hers. Sandwiching the pale hand between both of hers, one on top and one below, she lightly rubs her hand that is on top over her mothers and lowers her forehead to press against their joined hands, presumably saying things silently to herself for her mother.
Mr Ackerman sees that his side of the bed has a chair and so he takes the opportunity given and places it directly beside the bed. He places his hand on his wife's still arm, silently saying what he wants to. I stand at the end of the bed and look down at the lifeless body of the woman that took me in when I had nowhere else to go. The woman that treated me as if I were her own son. The sweetest, most considerate and caring person that I have ever met; apart from my own mother but I don't exactly remember much about her.
I silently thank her for everything she has done for not only myself, but everyone else. For giving birth to and raising Mikasa to be the wonderful person that she is to this day, for encouraging me to stay happy and not worry about everything, for marrying her husband and keeping him happy all these years and for all the other deeds she's done that I haven't been audience to.
We all stay like that for the entirety of the 20 minutes that we were given and the nurse that had brought us here silently walks into the room and stands next to me. Mikasa and her dad hadn't realised that he had entered the room yet and I can feel his nervous hesitance to make them leave. Saving him the guilt to make them leave her, I clear my throat to get their attention for him and they both look up at the first sound in the past 20 minutes since we came in here.
They notice the nurse next to me and understand that it's time to go. Mr Ackerman gives a kiss to her forehead while Mikasa gives one to the hand she was holding. After they both said their final goodbyes, they walk over to us and give each other sad smiles and turn to leave. As we head out the door and into the quiet hallway, the nurse speaks up.
"You will have to sign some forms, Sir, so that you can take the body to be cremated or buried, or whatever you'd like to do. Would you like to see the baby now?" Mr Ackerman nods for both the things the nurse said and he proceeds to lead us to where the newborns are kept in their mass produced-like beds. We walk down about 5 hallways that are almost completely deserted before we all stop outside a door that has a window on the wall next to it, where you can look inside the room to see a few babies in clear cots, each in either blue or pink blankets.
The nurse asks us to wait outside for a bit before he goes inside to get Mr Ackerman's son. There weren't many babies in the large room so it only takes him around 20 seconds or so before he returns with a bundle of blue with a tiny hand and head sticking out. The nurse smiles at us all as he cradles the still pink newborn. I look over to my left where Mikasa and her dad are and see a look of bewilderment on Mikasa's face and one of adorement on her father's.
"Would any of you like to hold him?" The nurse asks us all and the father of the newborn seems to be snapped out of his daze and nods his head quickly, holding out his hands to be passed the little bundle of blue and flesh. The nurse carefully hands over the newborn and steps back after doing so and we all watch as the father looks at his own flesh and blood with the most loving look. He gently pulls down the blanket a little bit so it was easier to see his face and tiny hands that were coddled up near his chin.
He had a peaceful look on his sleeping face and had his mouth open to breathe. His hair was a fluffy, dark brown, almost black, colour and it didn't completely cover his tiny head, but the majority of it was covered. Mr Ackerman gently placed his finger on the baby's miniature, pink hand, which had triggered it to latch on and bring a smile to all our faces. Mr Ackerman looks to Mikasa and asks her if she would like to hold him, to which she asks if it would be safe and he replies with 'of course!'
They transfer the baby and Mikasa awkwardly holds the fragile child, not knowing quite how to hold him. She has her hand on the back of his head to support it as the rest of the body is supported by her other arm and hand. It certainly looks like a very awkward position, luckily he slept on; heavy sleeper.
"What did you want to name him?" Mikasa looks up at her father's question with a confused look on her face and he elaborates. "Well, I thought that since he's your brother, you'd like to name him maybe?" Her mouth falls open in bewilderment before she closes it and has a calm, relaxed look back on.
"Well, I had a few that I was hoping to use, but one really stood out…"
"Oh yeah? And what was it?" She kisses her brother's forehead as best she can before replying.
"Aysen."
A/N Let me know what you think in the comments.
Sorry for what happened heh, my hand slipped.
If you like this story, please spread it around to anyone who'll like it! Thank you for still reading!
