Maybe Baby

Brady and Mimi Saga

Chapter Ten

"Is she going to be okay?" Brady repeated forcefully, but once again he received no answers. He could only stand back and watch in horror as Craig Wesley and his staff descended upon Mimi feverishly attending to her every need.

"Mimi…sweetie," Craig soothed, standing at the head of her bed. "Hon, look at me." He brushed the wayward mass of hair, wet with perspiration and tears, from her forehead. "You are very dehydrated. "We've got you on an IV drip to replenish your system…"

"Dr. Wesley," she spoke softly, her voice so shaky and weak she could barely speak. She turned her head with much effort, the pain and fatigue offering each movement that she made with growing resistance. "Is my baby going to be okay?" she asked. Her voice was so raw with emotion she could barely be heard over the commotion going on around her.

Craig swallowed back the lump in his throat and took her small hand in his, stroking the top of her hand with his thumb. "You and your baby," he tore his eyes from hers abruptly, feeling the sting of faint tears. "Everything is going to be okay sweetheart," he managed, his voice cracking with emotion despite himself. It had been two years since Mimi had resided under his roof, but she would forever warm his heart. Despite what had gone on between she and Chloe he felt nothing but affection for the spirited young woman.

"First things first kiddo, we are going to have a look at this baby of yours," he smiled reassuringly. The nurse nodded in silent compliance. Quickly she abandoned her spot on the other side of Mimi's bed and pulled the sonogram machine forward from where it had resided, on stand by a few feet away.

"Okay, here we go." After the nurse had dimmed the lights and readied the machine, Dr. Wesley slipped on a pair of latex gloves and retrieved a tube of lubricant gel from the drawer beneath the monitor of the ultra-sounding equipment. "Now, this goo is going to be a little cold, but you will feel no discomfort." He applied the gel liberally around her bellybutton and removed the machine's wand attachment gliding it gently across her abdomen.

**

Fitfully raking his fingers through his hair, Brady paced the floors just outside the door of the emergency room cubicles. A muted growl escaped through clenched teeth, his frustration growing as the minutes wore on. "What is going on in there!"

"Brady!" The panicked, breathless voice of his young sister stopped him in his tracks. "Where is Mimi! What happened! The questions shot out of her mouth, one after the other, without pause.

"Belle?" He approached her, grasping the top of her arms, her fingers wrapping around his forearms. Her disheveled appearance reflected what she must have been feeling; her blond locks were pulled back into a messy pony tail; her face nude of all color, natural or manufactured; she wore baggy, blue, drawstring sweats and a blue, hooded zip-up sweatshirt over a Salem High T-shirt. "What are you doing here? How did you…"

"One of the nurses on staff called the house," she explained quickly, her nerves rattled. "She told mom that Mimi had been brought in here and that you were the one who brought her." Her brow furrowed in confusion. She was full of questions. Why was Brady here? What had been going on with he and Mimi these past few months? And why did he look so awful? She had never seen her brother so frazzled, his clear blue eyes were darkened with fear; his hair was fingered through, he had dark circles beneath his eyes; he wore a pair of faded blue jeans and a white beater beneath his black leather jacket. "Brady, what is going on?" she asked finally, searching his eyes.

"Yes Brady, sweetheart please tell us what happened?"

Brady and Belle split, there heads snapped up to see Marlena, with John at her side, the two just as disheveled and desperate for answers.

All Brady could do was look at the two, his eyes roaming from one pair of eyes to the next trying to figure out what to tell them, and just how in the hell he was going to do it.

**