A/N: So it's been a while, but I'm here now, and I'm pretty much finished. I've written out so many different endings for this story, with so many different possibilities. This was supposed to be an epilogue, but I'm pretty sure it's going to take me at least another two chapters or so. Hopefully I can do this story line justice. I know nothing about this in real life. The internet is my only informant, so I'm sorry if things aren't 100% correct. But I tried, I swear

Chapter Nine

Mike was in the city when the call came, Kate just walking back inside the house after picking the kids up from school and childcare. It was raining, the sort of misty drizzle that seemed to do nothing but make her life more difficult as she navigated her way inside with two kids and one too-small umbrella., especially in those damned heels that she'd worn today.

She'd had a job interview. Nothing too fancy, just a position at an independent harbour cruise line that Nikki had put her in contact with. It was a good job, part time work three times a day working out routes and talking to customers and one day skippering. The interview had gone well, or as well as she could have expected anyway, and Kate was fairly confident that she had the job.

She was just getting the kids inside, helping Scott untie his shoelaces when the phone rang, and Kate skidded across the kitchen floor, twisting her ankle in her rush to answer the phone. She just made it in time, fumbling slightly as she pulled the phone to her ears.

Ryan's defeated voice said something to her. A minute later, and she was bundling the kids back in the car again.

Kate hadn't been into a hospital since the day Alice had died. She knew that after childbirth, the brain was supposed to forget the worst of the pain. But whatever pain she had been suppressing flooded back as soon as she stepped in and smelt the disinfectant, felt the cold air. This was not a place of happiness. It was full of fear and cold and sadness.

"Jessica Bird." She clipped to the woman behind the counter, tapping her fingers impatiently against the desk until the woman rattled off a floor and room number, and they jumped into the nearest elevator. The room was the last on the corridor, and Kate was surrounded by the sight of pregnant woman, of crying babies.

"Mummy?" Scott whined, dragging his feet several metres behind her and Belle.

"I know you're tired, Scotty, but we've got to go." Kate called. She waited for him to catch up before they walked the last ten metres into the room. Annabel rushed forwards to jump on Jess and hug her, but Kate pulled her back.

"Is she asleep?" Annabel asked, taking a closer look as she hovered next to her mother.

Ryan looked up from his spot beside the bed, and Kate saw how red his eyes were.

"She's on some medicine at the moment, baby." Kate murmured dazedly to Belle. "Ry, what's happening?" She asked, taking a step closer to them and dropping her bag to the ground.

"I don't know." Ryan mumbled, still in that same confused tone. "I went to the shops. She called to... remind me about buying more oranges. She's been craving oranges the whole time, you know. Five months. Five months of oranges. Sometimes she'd have... she'd have three in a row, just peel them and eat them."

"Ryan?" Kate stepped forwards and placed a hand on his arm.

"She screamed. She was moaning. I called an ambulance. I... I had to hang up on her, to call the ambulance. And then she wouldn't pick up again. By the time I got home she was barely conscious. She was in so much pain."

Beside Kate, Annabel moved a step closer to her mother, resting her head against Kate's stomach. Kate absentmindedly stroked Belle's hair, pulling it out of her face.

"The ambulance showed up. I don't remember what they said but... they had to induce. And the baby was born too quick and Jess was screaming and there was... was so much blood. She lost a lot of blood."

"Is the baby okay?" Kate asked, sure that Ryan was going to tell her the worst.

Ryan shrugged, looking back at Jess' face. "I don't know." His face crumpled and he let out a strangled sob. "I couldn't leave Jess."

"I know. I know." Kate rubbed circles on Ryan's back until he managed to hiccup himself back to regular breathing. "Okay, I'm going to go and find out about the baby, okay?"

"Okay." Ryan gulped.

"Kids, are you coming?" Kate asked. Scott nodded and stood up, taking Kate's hand, but Annabel hovered unsurely. "I'll stay." Belle murmured. "I can help Ryan watch her." Kate nodded and patted Ryan on the shoulder. "I'll be back, okay?" She and Scott headed down the halls. Kate picked him up after several corridors that reveal nothing but the fact that Kate had no idea where they were going. She didn't normally like to carry him around a lot, but she knew that Scott had had a busy day at child care and he was exhausted.

"Babies!" Scott called out, pointing in front of him, and Kate stopped to look at where he was pointing. But it turned out to be just a poster of a baby demonstrating safe sleeping practices, so they moved on.

"We're looking for NICU, Scott." Kate said aloud, more to herself than to her son. "Should... be..." They rounded a corner. "There." Kate looked through the window at the incubators inside. Three impossibly tiny babies. She chanced a glance in the direction of the lounges and saw two families staring straight-backed and silent, staring fixedly at nothing in particular. She had been there. She wanted to move towards them and tell them so, tell them that she had a beautiful healthy daughter upstairs and it will all be fine. But she can't, and she doesn't. Instead she approached the nurses station and smiled at the woman behind the counter.

"I'm looking for information about a baby. Born to Jessica Bird earlier today."

The woman looked up, tipping her head. "I have to ask you your relationship with the child."

"Um..." Kate calculated in her head. "Ryan, the father, is my stepson." Kate inwardly flinched at the word she despised so much, but said nothing about it.

"Stepson?" The woman repeated.

"Yes." Kate said, more forcebly. "I'm married to his father, Mike Flynn."

The woman - Greta, her name tag said - shook her head. "I have his father listed as a Stuart White." Kate gave a dry laugh that earned her nothing but a confused and concerned look from Greta.

"Sorry." Kate apologised. "Of course you do. Of course Maxine would never change it." She muttered darkly. Greta raised an eyebrow. "The whole story will sound ridiculously made up anyway. Sorry to bother you. I'll try to get Ryan up later."

"I'm sorry." Greta apologised. "It's confidentiality, you know?"

"I understand." Kate assured her. "Thanks."

Ryan barely looked up when they reentered the room. Annabel was sitting on the opposite side of the bed, looking from Ryan to Jess and back again, nibbling on her fingernails. She jerked her head up when they returned, eyes wide.

"Did you find the baby?" Belle asked, her voice almost a whisper as she threw another anxious look at Jess.

Kate shook her head and moved around the bed so that she could see Ryan's face, addressing her words to him. "They need immediate family up there. They wouldn't tell me anything."

"I'll go when she wakes up." Ryan muttered. A doctor with her red hair in a messy bun bustled in and began performing checks on Jess, and they all stepped back out of the way.

"How is she?" Ryan asked, his voice cracking somewhat on the last syllable.

The doctor spun around and flashed him a warm smile. "She's young and fit, so that should work in her favour. But really, we're just waiting for her to wake up. She lost a lot of blood during the birth and she required some small surgery to stop the bleeding, but she has had a blood transfusion and we're very optimistic."

Ryan nodded, his jaw rigid. He indicated at Kate. "This is my... stepmother, Kate. Can she see the..." He trails off at the word baby, but the doctor fills it in for him anyway.

"Baby? Sure, I'll call and let them know you're coming up. Kate..."

"McGregor." She filled in. She'd never taken Mike's name after they got married, claiming that it was easier for work. Now, as they were trying to fix their relationship, Kate realised just how that must have made him feel, and she'd been thinking about changing it since they had gotten back together.

"Kate McGregor. Okay. I'll call the nurses up there to let them know you have permission."

"Thank you." The doctor left and Kate turned to examine her children. Annabel was still in her school dress, and Scott's shoe treads were covered in playdough, his pockets full of sand and his finger was currently in her nose.

"Scott, yukky, fingers out. Can you two stay with Ryan?" Annabel nodded absent-mindedly, her eyes already fixed back at Jess. Scott let out a moan, but did as he was told.

"So what was the crazy story I wouldn't believe?" Greta asked as she walked Kate into a room to show her how to clean herself up.

"Probably not all that crazy. It just seemed ridiculously made up. Stuart was dying. He needed bone marrow so Ryan got tested, his son, and so did his best friend, my now-husband. And the test results weren't all that yielding in the way of marrow but..." Kate trailed off as Greta chuckled.

"It does sound like a tv show or something." Greta admitted. "Must have been hard on you all."

"Ryan took it the hardest." Kate admitted, then stopped herself. This was one of those situations that they so rarely spoke about. Even now, when they all got together for family events, Ryan still referred to Mike by his first name, and never as Dad. The furthest they got to admitting it in their day-to-day life was when Ryan referred to Annabel and Scott as his sister and brother. "Anyway, how's the baby?"

"Well, it is still a bit too early to tell how she is doing." Greta smiled, and Kate absorbed the information. Girl. "We've got her on a feeding tube at the moment through her stomach, and she is on a ventilator to help her breathe." Greta turned to face her. "Now, I must warn you that she is quite small at the moment." They approached the window and Kate looked in.

"She'll grow." Kate exhaled, smiling for the first time in hours. "She's a fighter. I can tell."

Mike shows up just after six, two Happy Meal boxes in one hand. "I didn't get you anything." He says distractedly as he approaches Kate. "But you hate McDonalds and that was all I could get my hands on. I'll drag you to the cafe later."

Kate nodded absent-mindedly and rounded up the children. "Scott, Belle. Dinner."

"What's the latest?" Mike murmured once the kids were seated and eating. Kate glanced over at Ryan, still seated in the same spot, eyes fixed on Jess.

"The baby's... too early to tell at the moment. Ventilator and Humidicrib and feeding tubes. The same as Belle was." Mike looked around, taking in the white walls and the uncomfortable lounge that was the same in every room. "It's terrifying in here." Mike sighed, then pulled Kate into a hug. "How are you?"

Kate gave a dry laugh and shrugged. "You know. Just worried about everyone."

"You need to worry about yourself." Mike murmured back.

Kate shook her head and glanced at the watch on her hand. "I'm going to go and check on the baby. She should be done with the doctor." Kate turned to Mike. "Did you... did you want to see her?"

"Granddaughter." Mike murmured. "I'm a grandfather."

"You are." Kate laughed. "Come meet her."

"She's tiny." Mike mused, staring at the baby.

"Belle was smaller." Kate informed him. "She'll get through this."

"You sound so sure." Mike murmured. His finger hovered on the door handle and Kate rested a hand on his back, giving him a gentle push. "Was Belle like this? So... pale?"

Kate shook her head. "Not so much. She was jaundicey for a few days. Yellow."

Mike nodded distractedly, his eyes fixed on the baby. "Dear God, I hope Bird pulls through." He murmured, moving to run a finger through his hair but stopping short as he realised he was gowned up. "If she doesn't-" But he doesn't voice the rest of the sentence. "Thanks for being here." He said eventually. "Just... thank you."

"Of course I would-"

"No, but everything that you've done. Thanks for... for staying here and sticking around. Thanks for answering the phone when my son called you. Thanks... thanks for being the mother of our children. Just... just thank you."

"It's okay." Kate smiled. "Thanks for fighting for me."

Kate left just after eight to drop the kids off at Nikki's. It wasn't such a big hastle; they stopped by the house to grab the essentials, Belle's school uniform and clean clothes for Scott and toothbrushes. Nikki had never served with Jess or Ryan, and had only met them a handful of times since then, but Nikki had impressed upon Kate the importance of sending them her regards. Nikki assured Kate that, yes, it was fine and yes, she'd get them to school, and Kate hurriedly kisses the kids goodbye before getting into her car again.

She headed straight back to the hospital after that, Kate heading up to NICU for an hour or so before she is informed that visiting times are over, and she moved to find Mike. Together they moved into the waiting room, clutching each other's hands like a lifeline.

They fell asleep sometime during the night. When, they couldn't say, as time never seemed to matter much in a hospital. Kate's dreams were plagued with images of Alice and baby Annabel and the other child, all alone in NICU with no mother or father with her. Kate woke up with a start, and peered around. Mike was asleep on the chair next to her, head tilted back at an awkward angle. Kate could see his eyelids flickering, and wondered whether his dreams were as confronting as hers.

She left Mike to his sleep and crept up to the NICU waiting area. Both mothers from earlier were still there, curled up on the lounges. Kate had a quick peek at Ryan and Jess' child to reassure herself that she was still breathing, before she too found a spare lounge and closed her eyes.

She woke up to find that someone had covered her with a blanket. Its presence was warming somehow, reassuring. She consulted her phone to find that it was just after six in the morning. This time twenty-four hours ago she was getting dressed for work.

"Couldn't stay away?" Mike appeared behind her and handed her a cup of a coffee. Kate nodded and made to take a sip, but Mike stopped her with a hand. "It tastes like ratsac but it's caffeine."

"I'll take it." Kate murmured, and took a sip. She gestured helplessly to the small baby. "I couldn't bear the thought of her all by herself." Inside her humidicrib, the baby's stomach rose and fell in time with the machine breathing for her. "How's Jess?"

"The same. Still asleep." Mike reported.

"Ryan?"

Mike shrugged. "The same." He repeated. "Maxine's headed down, but the earliest flight she can get isn't until later tomorrow." He turned to examine her face as he said these words, to take in her expression and try for the billionth time since they had gotten married to figure out just what she was thinking. "I know that you and her have been-"

Kate cut him off, shaking her head as she took in the baby for the millionth time. "No, that's... Maxine and I... it's irrelevant. This is about Ryan, and... and I think he needs someone here."

Mike gaped for a moment, and then smiled as he pulled Kate into his arms. "You're amazing, you know that. You're... you're just amazing, and I love you."

Kate smiled into his collarbone. "I love you too." She stood there for a moment, breathing in the comforting smell of Mike. And then she pulled away and drained the last of her coffee. "You should go and see Ryan."

Mike nodded and kissed her forehead. "Yeah. Might be able to convince him to sleep for a little."

Kate watched him leave before moving to the sink to wash her hands, making sure to wash them extremely well. The she entered the room where Jess and Ryan's baby slept. Kate took her usual seat next to the baby. All yesterday she had just watched her or hummed under her breath in that way that Annabel had found comforting all those years ago, but today she opened her mouth and began to speak.

"Hi." She said, "I'm your step-grandmother, technically. But... you can just call me Kate, okay?" The baby didn't react, but Kate hadn't expected her to. "You're absolutely beautiful, you know that? So tiny though. Annabel, your... your Auntie, I guess. She was much smaller than you. But she's okay now, and so are you. You're going to be fine, you hear me? Your Mummy and Daddy love you so much, and they need you to be okay." Kate took a deep breath. "I need you to be okay."