Author Note: Sooo...here's some more. Thanks for all of the lovely comments, even if you don't entirely like cliffhangers, etc. All medical mistakes will still be my own, but I hope I'm brief enough for it to leave the reality up to your imagination if you do know about these things. I am nearly at a chapter I've been waiting for for weeks - yay. That's the problem with writing some scenes before you're anywhere near the chapter.
The room moved into action. Jane stood beside the bed, her eyes on Maura as she continued to convulse. When the baby stopped crying, she turned back to find a woman carrying him away. Her heart was torn between him and his mother. Her heart sped inside her chest as a doctor pushed her gently out of the way.
"Let's start her on four grams of magnesium sulphate and an IV," he said, holding Maura's head steady. When her body stopped moving, he slipping an oxygen mask around her face.
The nurse from earlier entered the room with a file, her eyes widened. "Her urine sample shows high levels of protein, there's been a back log. I hoped I'd be in time."
Each word passed between them like they were passing through dense cloud and drifted off into an unknown world on the other side.
"Someone get her out of here," the doctor said, motioning to Jane.
The nurse's hands on her upper arms woke her from her trance-like state. Reality flooded her brain and she couldn't pretend that she was dreaming any longer. She allowed the woman to push her out into the corridor.
"Please," she whispered. "Don't let her die."
"We're doing everything we can," said the nurse, before disappearing back through the doors. Jane strained to get a glimpse of Maura but there were too many people around the bed.
Fifteen minutes slipped past before the doors opened again. The gurney on which Maura lay, an oxygen mask over her mouth and several people scattered around, moved through the doors and across the corridor towards the elevator.
"What's going on?" Jane asked, grabbing hold of a woman's arm. "Where are you taking her?"
"We need to remove the placenta," the woman explained briefly before disappearing into the elevator with Maura.
A lump had settled in the back of Jane's throat and though she could feel the discomfort, a couple of tears still forced their way down her face. She caught them at the jawline and found another member of staff. If she couldn't see Maura, she had to do something.
"Can you tell me where you took my friend's son?" she asked. She placed her hands on her hips to steady them.
"He'll be in the NICU," the woman replied.
"Where's that?"
She pointed in the direction of a signpost on the wall and Jane followed it along the corridor until she found the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. At the door she froze, her hand on the door. What if Maura died? What if her son died? What if in a moment she'd lost not one person she cared about, but two?
The door opened in front of her and a young doctor stared with questions in his eyes. Jane was certain he spoke a couple of times before she finally heard what he said. "Hello, can I help you?"
"I'm looking for a baby that just came up here," she whispered, swallowing the lump in her throat and attempting not to cry. "He was just born."
"Are you a relative?"
"I'm," she froze. She didn't really know what she was. Maura's friend. The baby's…by law she was nobody. "I'm his aunt. His mother's sick, I think. I don't want him to be alone."
"Follow me," he said, pushing the door open and leading the way through to an incubator at the far end of a large room.
The small body of the little boy that Maura had just given birth to lay inside. A tube that looked way too big was fixed into his mouth, along with other monitoring devices scattering his body. Jane stepped closer and placed her hand on the outside of the incubator. Her heart ached. Maura's son was beautiful. He was small, he was covered in wires, but he was completely beautiful.
"What's wrong with him?"
"Very little at the moment," the man said. "The notes said he was close to thirty-five weeks, he's doing well. We're helping to steady his breathing."
"At the moment? You said at the moment."
"It's still very early. Babies born this prematurely can have problems with their blood pressure and blood sugar, and he's more susceptible to infection."
"But he's going to be okay?" she asked, allowing the tears that had been building to make their way down her cheeks.
"His chances are very good. You can stay with him, if you'd like."
Jane nodded. "Thank you."
She sat beside him throughout the night. Doctors and nurses visited at various times to note down readings, check on him, and attempt to feed him. Jane watched from the sidelines, amazed at the resilience of the little boy new to the world and more alone than he deserved.
"You can hold him, if you'd like," the young doctor from earlier said when he returned a little later.
"Really?" she asked, then shook her head. "No, he's not mine. Maura should be the one to hold him."
He smiled sympathetically, an expression that Jane wanted to slap him for. She'd used it herself, of course, but that made it no easier to receive. He didn't know, it wasn't his fault, he probably thought he was doing a nice thing by being friendly to her.
"Can you find out how she is?" Jane asked.
"Of course, I'll be back as soon as possible."
The wait for his return left Jane feeling more fraught. Watching over the baby had taken her mind off Maura, if only briefly, but knowing she was about to receive news left her in a state. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. The night was over and the morning was already starting. A message from her mother was in her inbox.
'Where are you? I'm in the delivery suite.'
Jane pushed the door open and marched back towards the delivery suite. She didn't know if Maura was back there or if she'd gone elsewhere. What she did know was that her mother had no right turning up at the hospital without contacting her.
"Ma, what are you doing?" she asked, rolling her eyes at the overly large bear in her arms.
"I brought the baby a present, if he here yet?" Angela asked.
"You should have called."
"I did, six times," she replied. Jane checked her phone. Six missed calls. "So, where are they? Can I see them?"
A sudden chill travelled down Jane's spine, her mouth grew moist and her shoulders began to shake. She couldn't do this again. First her unborn child, now Maura and her son.
"I can't lose her, Ma," she said, lowering into a plastic seat in the corridor and sobbing into her hands.
Angela sat down beside her, placing the bear on the floor. She wrapped an arm around Jane's shoulder and rubbed her back.
"What's happened?"
"He's really tiny," Jane said, trying to visualise the baby in as much detail as she could. "He's got all these tubes and monitors on him."
"He's a little early, it's perfectly normal," Angela replied, brushing Jane's hair back from her face. Her tears were red and blotchy. "Your brothers both spent a couple of days in NICU when they were born. Franky scared the life out of us, when Tommy came along I wasn't so scared."
"They were early?"
"I've told you all the story so many times," said Angela, patting Jane's knee. "Franky showed up on a trip to the grocery store. They say the more pregnancies you have the quicker they are. Tommy came out before your dad could get me into the car. Had him right in the front yard."
"What's the point, Ma?"
"The point is, that little guy will be just fine. You mark my words."
"But Maura," Jane said, the very thought made her heart ache.
"What happened?"
"I don't know, she had a seizure."
The doctor who ordered her out of the room earlier wandered over. Jane's heart dropped. She braced herself for the very worst news.
"Maura is stable."
Jane wrapped her arms around her front and let out a gasp, she tried to breath but relief had grasped her body so hard and wasn't about to let go anytime soon. She swallowed and managed to breathe again.
"What happened?"
"She had an eclamptic fit," he explained. "It can happen in women her age, it's more common with first pregnancies. She'd been suffering from pre-eclampsia, undiagnosed. Unfortunately it came on too late for us to do anything about it, due to delays."
"Is she going to be okay?" Angela asked, covering her mouth with her hand.
"We're keeping her under close observation, there can be residual issues with eclampsia, but we're doing everything we can to ensure that Maura makes a full recovery. Delivering the baby before she had the seizure will have helped up her chances."
A couple of hours later Jane sat at Maura's bedside, holding her hand tightly in her own. She wondered if how she felt was how Maura felt sitting beside her own after she was shot, both times.
"Jane?"
Maura's voice was small, distant, but it was enough to make Jane smile as though she'd won the jackpot. She lifted Maura's hand up to below her chin and kissed her fingers.
"I am so glad to hear your voice," she said, staring up. A couple of tears escaped her eyelids. "You scared me."
"Everything's a blur," Maura said.
"You have a son," Jane said, unable to stop her mouth from opening into the largest smile. When she thought of that little boy, it made her feel ridiculously happy. "He's small but he's fighting hard."
"I do?" Maura asked, her face lit up. She glanced around the room, her eyebrows furrowing. "Where is he?"
"He's in the NICU," said Jane, stroking the back of Maura's palm. "He's doing okay. I've been to see him and he is beautiful."
"He is?"
"Definitely. He kinda looks like you."
In a split second Maura's gleeful expression broke into tears and each breath seemed a little harder for her to take.
"Calm down, Maur." Jane placed her hand back down on the bed. "I don't think it's good for you to get upset."
"I missed it," she whispered, her voice laced with tears.
Jane shook her head. "You didn't miss anything."
"He's here and I missed it."
"He's not going anywhere, Maura." She didn't know how else to comfort her. The reality was she had missed it. The very first moment's of her sons life were gone and Maura wouldn't ever get them back. She just had to remain positive. "You're going to be here for every minute from now."
"Can I see him?"
"We'll ask," Jane said. "Right now you need to rest."
"So do you, what time is it?"
"After eight."
"Is that all?"
"In the morning, Maura."
"You've been here all night?" she asked, wiping her eyes on the edge of her hospital gown.
"Of course I have." The very idea that she might was a no brainer. "I couldn't leave you. I couldn't leave him."
"You look exhausted," Maura said, covering Jane's hand with her own.
"Is that your way of saying I look like crap?"
"It's no worse than I probably look," said Maura. "
"You're looking better than you were earlier."
"I don't remember it. What happened?"
"You put everything you had into pushing the baby out, and then." Jane paused. Reliving the moment, no matter how briefly, reminded her too much of what she could have lost. "You had a seizure."
"Eclampsia."
"That's what the doctor called it."
"My head was hurting," she whispered, closing her eyes.
"Is it hurting now?" Jane asked, standing up.
"No, I'm trying to remember," Maura said, rubbing her eyes. "My head was hurting, then there was crying, and then, I don't know."
"It doesn't matter, you don't need to know. All that matters is that you and your son are okay. And you are."
"I'm tired," said Maura, retrieving her hand to wipe a couple more stray tears away. "You should go home and sleep."
"I'm not leaving you on your own, Maura."
"You're not. I'll be asleep. Come back when you've had a rest."
"Okay. But promise me that if you need me, you'll ask them to call."
"I promise."
Jane stood up beside Maura. The last twenty-four hours had been a roller coaster of emotions, her heart swelled and broke in turn and she felt as emotionally exhausted as she did physically. Being reminded of her exhaustion only made her feel more so. She pushed Maura's bangs back and brushed her forehead with her lips.
"Remember that I love you."
"Thank you, Jane," Maura said, clinging to her hand a moment longer and nodding, before Jane walked out of the room.