The ringing successfully roused Timothy from a deep dream, and he sat up with a groggy jerk. His hand immediately felt around in the darkness for his cell-phone on the side-table, and he didn't even bother checking who it was.
"Hello?...Chief?" He was a little surprised to be met by his Superior's voice on the other end. "Yeah, I'm awake. What's the situation?...I was asleep sir, I'm definitely still sitting down...Wait, they what?"
An increasingly frustrated and emotional Timothy Long was traveling the entire length of the waiting room, feeling heavier and heavier with every few minutes that passed. The others were nearby, Victoria, April, and Katherine were seated waiting. Luke and Marcus were still poking around behind the scenes with as much privilege as their own doctor status permitted them, trying to find out more information for Tim than the other doctor had already told him outright.
He just wanted to see her, to touch her, and to make sure that what was happening wasn't a dream. The girls had tried to get him to sit down, to relax somewhat and talk with them, but Timothy was doing none of it. To be this close to his little girl whose fate had been haunting him for years, and not even allowed to see her was almost unspeakably cruel as far as he was concerned.
Tears had come intermittently, but he'd resisted the urge to grant full vent to them. She was the only person alive who had the power to reduce him to this - he'd cried much harder and longer when his daughter ran, than even when his then wife had left him for Europe.
His phone buzzed at his side, and he glanced down at the facing for an instant. Tim almost didn't bother answering it, but couldn't bring himself to ignore it. He sniffed hard to try and collect himself, then flipped it open. "Hey Leo." Was all he could manage immediately.
"Hi." The blue-banded turtle said quietly. "I don't want to be a pest, I'm just calling to ask--"
"I haven't heard about her." Timothy interrupted him. "I don't know anything, not anything! I can't take this, I can't take the waiting over here Leo! I'm about to lose my mind, and go off on the next medical person who refuses to give me any details!"
By the time he was finished, he was breathing so hard it sounded like he could have been running for miles.
"Tim, you have to slow down." Leonardo's tone was both firm and calm at the same time, cutting through the panic that was infiltrating Tim's mind.
"Slow down, and breath." The turtle repeated. "Now I already talked to Doc, I know you've got nothing to report. I was calling to check on you."
The man laughed humorlessly, as he came to rest against a wall. He braced his forehead against it, his entire body shaking from the pent-up tension. "Do you have any idea how many times I've dreamed about finding her? I've pictured how I would react, what I would say to her. I didn't envision waiting around a hospital to find out if she would LIVE long enough to be reunited with!"
That was the end of intelligent speech he was capable of for a couple of minutes, as he broke down completely against the wall. He'd never let go of the phone, and after about five minutes of silence, he realized that the blue-banded turtle hadn't hung up the phone either. "This is stupid. You don't need to sit on the phone with me."
"I don't mind Tim - in a way, it's the next best thing to actually being there. I'm sorry that I can't be." Leonardo answered.
Tim turned around from facing the wall, and braced his back against it instead. "You shouldn't be apologizing for that." Tim replied more quietly, as the turtle's infectious calm settled deeper over him. "I'm sorry for freaking out on you. When they told me they found her, that she was alive..." He paused to take a deep breath. "I was so relieved, and then I come down here to find out she's in surgery? It threw me big time."
"Tim, I know what you're going through, in some respects. Believe me when I say that getting quiet is the best thing for you to do right now. If you need to go scream somewhere, then go get it out. But then you've got to pull it back in."
"I'm not sure if I can. If I lose her now--"
"You have to stop thinking that way. I know what's going through your head, that you're still blaming yourself for her leaving in the first place. No matter what the outcome is tonight, you shouldn't be shouldering the blame for it. It's outside of your control, and it doesn't have anything to do with what you did or didn't do. She's in the best place she could possibly be to get help. The police were able to identify her right away, because you made the effort to get her prints and her description into the system. You never stopped looking for her, even while her Mom apathetically lived her own life overseas, despite the fact that her daughter was missing.
If there's going to be a time to grieve, then wait for it Tim. Don't allow it to consume you already, when there's still hope. Hold onto good thoughts, and pray for her. You might not feel like you have the strength inside you to do that, but you do. I've seen it." Leonardo finished.
While one group was huddled on the surface waiting, the other half of the "family" was sitting underground, waiting for news just as anxiously. Leonardo had spent a solid forty minutes on the phone with Tim in another room, before returning to the living area to rejoin the others.
"How's he doin' Fearless?" Raphael spoke up first.
The blue-banded turtle shook one hand from side to side. "He's shaky right now, but...he'll make it. I tried to encourage him, though the thought her dying now, when it's that close...it does seem to make it worse. Have you heard anything more from either of the docs?"
Donatello raised a hand from his chair. "I talked to Luke about ten minutes ago. He wormed his way into seeing her CT scan, said that the hemorrhage was caused by her fallopian tube bursting. It has something to do with a ectopic pregnancy."
"What's that?" Leonardo had to ask him.
"He was just about to tell us." Michelangelo answered.
"I'm not that familiar with it either Leo, I looked it up after I talked to Doc. In a normal pregnancy, the fertilized egg travels through the fallopian tube, to where it ends up in the uterus. But it in her case it didn't make the whole trip, and ended up getting attached to her fallopian tube. It can cause internal bleeding, and if it isn't discovered early on, it can create a much worse scenario. Hence the tube bursting tonight, and the subsequent massive hemorrhage."
"What are her chances Donny?" Jenna asked softly from beside him.
"Jen, I couldn't tell you. It depends on how much blood she's actually lost, and other factors, including how low her blood pressure has dropped." Donatello told her, and shook his head. "We just have to wait to hear more."
After talking to Leonardo, Timothy had trudged back to where the others were sitting, and took a seat beside Victoria with a giant sigh. She reached for his hand a little tentatively, and he allowed her to take it. The man mutely met her gaze, waiting to see if the woman would say anything. Victoria simply held her peace, offering silent support the only way she knew how to in that moment. Tim lightly drew her hand to his mouth, and kissed it.
"Thank you for being here." He told her.
She simply nodded, as Luke cleared his throat a little.
"I have some more information, if you want it." He told Timothy, and continued when the man shook his head. "The good news is they found the source of the bleeding, which means they can address it more directly."
"Don't leave anything out on me Luke." Tim said evenly.
"There was a flawed pregnancy. It caused undue pressure on her fallopian tube, and it burst completely earlier this evening. There's evidence to support that she's been bleeding internally for awhile, but tonight the situation got critical."
"She was going to have a baby." Tim said softly, mostly to himself.
"Instances of a child surviving an ectopic pregnancy are unfortunately very rare Tim, almost unheard of. In this case, there's already nothing that can be done on that count. But her own chance of recovery has increased simply because they've got the source."
It was another few minutes yet before her doctor came out to talk to Timothy himself, and reiterate some of the things that Luke had already told him.
"She's in recovery now, though not completely out of the woods Captain Long. She's going to need some time to stabilize completely, her body's been through a very traumatic ordeal. I know you're anxious to see her, and I'll arrange that as soon as feasible. Before you move that direction, I wanted to prepare you a little bit. I understand that you haven't seen her in several years time..." The doctor trailed off slightly.
"Seven years." He filled in stoically. "I don't care what she looks like, I need to see her. I don't know how much more waiting I can actually take."
"I thought it would be wise to discuss some treatment options frankly, before much more time had passed." The doctor went on.
Tim held up his hands helplessly. "You're the doctors, right? Surely you have the best options in mind. Forgive me if I'm blunt, but you have my express permission to do your job. I want to see Calley."
"Captain Long, her recovery is going to be a little more complicated than the surgical procedure that was performed here, and it will likely have to carry on for months outside the hospital."
"What are you saying?"
"We found strong evidence of long term substance abuse on her physical person Captain Long." The doctor hesitated an instant longer. "Her blood sample returned strong traces of heroin still in her system. In all likelihood, the battle's just about to get started."