Elsa hefted her bag onto her shoulder as she walked into the hospital from the parking lot, she'd just spent the day bustling around from her own doctor's appointment, settling things up with the insurance company over the last details from the car accident and taking a quick trip downtown to turn in her FMLA paperwork to take a few more weeks off work.
She could have hugged her supervisor for being so understanding that she couldn't concentrate on her work while Jack was still in the hospital. She offered to do some work on her laptop but Stian had waved her away, assuring her that everything was well under control and to concentrate on everything else. Several of her coworkers had asked about the baby, excitedly asking if she knew the gender yet; she didn't. The little one had been proving difficult during the last few ultrasounds and the tech hadn't been able to tell her.
She hurried down the hall, smiling and nodding at several people that she passed as she made her way to the elevators. She punched the button, waiting for a moment for the car doors to open for her before she groaned, turned and walked further down the hall. She kept forgetting that Jack had moved rooms the other day, off of the ICU and onto the Orthopedic unit; she'd gotten so used to the route to the ICU unit that the change was taking a bit for her to register.
Turning down the next hall she paused, fishing her wallet out of her purse and smiling at the pair of old ladies sitting at the plastic covered table in the hall, saran-wrapped baked goods laid out for purchased. She pulled out a few singles, handing them over with a smile and picked up a rather tempting plate of brownies before continuing down the hall to call the correct elevator. Somewhat ironically, hospitals had some of the best bake sales she had found.
She smiled at the nurses in their station as she came onto the orthopedic unit, carefully stepping to the side as a nurse carefully trailed behind a knee-replacement patient with a rolling chair as the patient slowly took steps down the hall, his own physical therapist calmly guiding him along. Elsa gave him a smile of encouragement as she placed a hand on Jack's door and opened.
"I am pushing!" Jack growled. "Stop pushing back so hard you, you bloody kangaroo."
"I'm trying to get you to be able to walk, you big softie," Hugh responded, annoyance evident in his voice. "And stop calling me that!"
Elsa bit her lower lip to keep from laughing as she slid her purse onto the counter, pulling the saran wrap off the brownies and glancing up at Naomi. The petite blonde was writing on her clipboard as Hugh worked at helping Jack with his strength exercises.
"Things are going well I see," she said, offering the plate to Naomi.
"Oooh, yum! Thanks!" Naomi said, tucking the board under her arm and selecting one, taking a large bite. "And, yeah, you could say that."
Elsa chuckled, selecting one for herself and glancing up at the warring pair ahead of them. A week had passed since Jack had started the strength exercises, cursing and snarling at the two therapists quite often. Neither seemed to be phased by it, Naomi telling her it was a fairly regular thing; people weren't used to losing so much muscle mass with such a serious injury and still expected to be able to do all their normal activities and got frustrated when they couldn't.
"He's doing pretty well, if he can manage a few more reps of what Hugh is putting him through we're going to take him down to the aquatic center tomorrow and try having him walk on the water treadmill. I think he'd like being out of bed more than anything."
Elsa nodded, taking another bite of her treat. He was starting to go a little stir crazy.
"Alright," Hugh said loudly. "10 sets of the arm band pulls now."
"Why are you having me do my arms so much?" Jack complained, taking the green band that was offered to him.
"Because you're going to be on crutches for the next 2 months or so when you get out of here, you gumby," Hugh replied. "And you might want to be able to support yourself. 10 sets, go."
Elsa chuckled again, smiling at Hugh when he turned to walk back towards Naomi.
"Hey mate," he said to Elsa, smiling at her.
Elsa offered the plate up to him, laughing as he took one and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. He grunted, nodding his satisfaction as he took the clipboard and started to write on it, tapping Naomi's shoulder and gesturing to Jack. Naomi rolled her eyes and stepped over to finish the exercises.
"Hopefully he hasn't been too difficult today," she said, watching as Naomi talked to him.
Hugh swallowed, looking at the plate for a long moment. "Those from the table the grannies have downstairs?"
She nodded.
"I might have to get some more of those. Nah, he's just been all bark as usual. I think getting him on his feet tomorrow might really cheer him up," Hugh said, swiping the back of his hand over his mouth and writing on the clipboard a few more times. "He had more x-rays earlier showing the lower leg is healing really well, which is good. It's hard to focus on regaining muscle until that lower bone break is healed up enough. Femur breaks take forever to heal, though he's got enough metal in him for his own erector set now."
"Are we DONE YET?" Jack said, massaging his arms. "My arms are on FIRE."
Elsa moved forward, smiling at him.
"YOU BROUGHT BROWNIES?" he said, carefully sitting further up in his bed. "Gimme. Gimme, gimme."
"Not until you're done with your therapy," she said, standing well away from him.
Jack turned and scowled at Naomi. "Please can we be done," he pleaded, pouting at her extra measure.
Naomi snorted. "You're done for today. I told Elsa we're going to take you down to the aquatic center tomorrow if you feel up for it."
Jack gestured for the plate, grinning at Elsa. "Aquatics? Like getting in the pool? What about my incision?"
"It's fine, you're almost four weeks post op now. It's looking good! Besides, don't you want to get out of that bed for a bit?"
"You have no idea," Jack said, giving her a desperate look.
Naomi laughed, turning and headed for the door. "See you tomorrow then, same time."
"I'll be here," Jack retorted, snatching a brownie off the plate with a huge grin.
"Bye," Elsa said, waving as they left the room, the door closing with a loud click behind them.
"Oh god," Jack said, closing his eyes. "These are heavenly. Amazing. Awesome."
She rolled her eyes.
"You said the same thing about the doughnut I brought you yesterday."
"YOU don't have to eat the crap they feed me here."
"You're on a special diet now, and you know that. You don't have a spleen anymore."
He snorted, taking another bite of brownie. "Like I needed it anyways," he said, bits of brownie falling onto his gown. "They could still let me have a burger."
She chuckled. "I'm going to ask your nurse if it's okay if I bring you Thanksgiving dinner next week."
He paused, eyes growing big and looked at her with alarm. "You had better bring it regardless."
"Jack-"
"Elsa, I cannot have crappy Thanksgiving hospital dinner. It would be just, just a travesty of all Americana."
She stared at him for a moment, shoulders shaking with laughter. "Really? That would be the biggest travesty?"
"Shut up," he said. "How did your appointment go? The squid finally show what bits it has?"
"Stop calling it that, and no. The tech still couldn't see if it's a boy or a girl."
"It's a boy," he said, picking another brownie off the plate. "It's totally a boy."
"And you would know, how?"
"It's my choice, isn't it? I mean, technically. X and Y, love."
She rolled her eyes and stood up to grab the stack of books she had left in his room.
"Yeah, tell that to Henry the 8th," she said, setting one of them in front of him. "Did you look at that at all?"
"No," he said, licking chocolate off his fingers. "Springer was on, I watched that instead."
"Jack," she said, an annoyed tone in her voice.
"Seriously? Have you watched that lately? It's hilarious."
She gave him a pointed look, causing him to sigh and pick up the book, snorting.
"I like the title," he said, flipping it around to show her the title of "Dude, you're gonna be a Dad!".
"Hence, why I bought it for you."
He grinned at her, flipping the book back around and opening it. "I love you too babe."
He flipped through a few pages, reading the index silently before turning to a chapter and starting to read. Elsa leaned her head back against the her chair and closed her eyes, worn out from all the running around she had done that day and shifted to bring her legs up under her.
She jerked awake, not realizing she'd fallen asleep, with a sound of disgust from Jack beside her. She yawned and frowned at him, wondering what had caused him such exclamation. He stared down at the book, turning it sideways before wincing and turning it back, looking over at her.
"What?" she asked, wondering what he'd seen to cause such a reaction.
"You don't, you, no, no that's, NO," he said, closing the book and moving it away from him with a shudder. "That's not right."
"What?" she asked again, standing up out of her chair and picking the book up. "What was it?"
With a grimace on his face he navigated back to the page, giving the book a wary look as she looked over the diagrams displayed.
"Yeah, that's normal."
"Ugh," he said, looking away.
"What? I'm carrying a baby inside me, it's not going to be exactly pretty when it comes time to take it out of me."
"Well, I didn't think it was going to be rainbows and unicorns but that's rather disgusting."
She rolled her eyes again. "And *I'M* supposed to be the "weaker sex"," she said, smiling down at him.
He glanced at the book. "If that's the deciding factor then you win. We can just say I'm the big tough manly man," he said, tossing the book onto his bed table and wrapped his arms around her.
"So you just want to keep up appearances," she said, carefully laying on the bed beside him as he pulled her onto his side. He hissed as he jarred his ribs, tilting his head back on his pillow.
"Sorry," she said, wincing.
"Fine," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm fine."
He fumbled around in the bedclothes for a moment, depressing a button that dispensed a dose of pain medicine into his system. He let out a held breath as it worked it's way through his system, relaxing slightly as well.
"I'm good," he said. "Got my wife, got my squid. I'm good."
"Stop calling her that."
"Him. Totally a him. When is your next appointment?"
"Two weeks, after the holiday."
He nodded, rubbing a hand over her stomach. "Who knows, maybe I'll be able to go."
"That might be nice."
"Did you call your mom?" she asked, resting her hand on his.
"No."
"Jack," she started, groaning.
"I'll call her later. Nap now, I'm on the drugs. Drugs say time to sleep."
She sighed, shaking her head as she felt him press a kiss to the back of her head and settle down for a nap. He had had a rather full day afterall.
The next day dawned and started with the usual routine of morning medicines, doctor visits and labs being drawn for tests. Jack spent the better part of an hour begging Elsa to go and get better food than had been provided to him for his breakfast.
"How am I going to build up muscle mass with all this crap they keep feeding me?" he asked, scowling at the grey bowl of oatmeal on his tray. "They could at least give me bacon, bacon never hurt anyone."
"I think the cardiac floor would beg to differ."
He paused, considering and scowled, sticking his tongue out at her. "Well, something that doesn't taste like GLUE then."
"I'm not going to get you more doughnuts, the head nurse glared at me last time. The dietician is supposed to come in later, take your complaints up with her."
He bit off a corner of toast, changing the channel of the television with his scowl still in place. Jack didn't take being sick very well, and Elsa had several years of flu outbreaks as experience.
The morning passed, Jack cheering loudly when the dietician cleared him for a broader diet based on how he had been handling everything.
"Just stay away from overly greasy foods from now on, that's kind of what your spleen helped with, okay?" she said, signing off on a paper and clicking several buttons on the computer.
"No monster fries with bacon, got it."
Elsa chuckled, thanking the woman as she nodded at them and left the room. Jack immediately picked up his room phone, dialing the number for food services with a big grin on his face.
"CHEESEBURGER AND FRIES," he told whomever answered, rattling off his room information and date of birth when prompted while Elsa laughed beside him.
Hugh and Naomi arrived in the middle of the afternoon, carefully pushing a wheelchair into the room ahead of them as they entered. Jack glanced up from sketching in the notebook he was working in, saluting them both with the pencil and glanced over at Elsa. She stretched out, yawning, as she woke from her nap.
"Hi," she said, smiling sleepily up at the new arrivals. "I'm tired all the time, I think it's a pregnancy thing."
Naomi grinned at her. "Good excuse to get lots of sleep though."
Elsa laughed, sitting up. "He's allowed to get out of bed then?"
"Yep," Naomi nodded, putting her hands on her hip. "Dr. Layug cleared him for aquatic therapy, as long as you think you're up for it. What do you think?"
"Yes," Jack said quickly. "I want out of this bed."
Naomi laughed, pulling his bed tray out of the way as Elsa stepped up to help pull the bedclothes down.
"So, we're going to go slow, so we don't hurt you," Hugh said, lining the wheelchair up with the bed and locking the wheels into place. "I'm going to support your left leg while you kind of hop over with your right into the chair."
"Kind of like a bunny," Naomi said, pressing a button to lower the bed down and carefully gathering the IV lines and holding them aside.
Slowly, and with all of three of them working together, Jack slid over to the edge of the bed, Hugh carefully supporting the appliances of his left leg, and stood on his right leg. He immediately sat back down, giving a nervous laugh.
"Little harder than I thought it would be," he said.
"Yeah, it's hard only using one leg," Naomi said. "Come on, try again, I'll help."
Jack nodded, carefully standing again and Naomi moved forward, putting her hands under Jack's arms and helping to support him as he hopped twice before sitting down hard in the chair, panting.
Hugh lifted his left leg, setting it into the raised leg of the chair and moved to the one of the cabinets, pulling a fresh blanket out to drape over Jack's lap and legs.
Elsa watched the whole thing nervously, moving her hands together as they had helped him transfer from one place to the other.
"Well, that was fun," Jack said, pressing the button for his pain medicine as Naomi handed him all of his IV cords.
Elsa smiled at him, giving him a sympathetic look as they finished getting him ready to move.
"Alrighty," Hugh said, crossing his arms. "You ready? It's a little bit of a jaunt."
"Let's do this," Jack said, smiling up at him.
"Should I stay, or?" Elsa asked, gesturing back at her chair.
"Nah, come along. You can see what tortures we have in store for him," Naomi said, smiling down at Jack as she slide past him, opening the door for Hugh to push Jack past.
"Tortures?"
"What, you think I would just let you get by with calling me a kangaroo?"
Naomi trailed behind with Elsa, chuckling as they watched Hugh push Jack to the end of the unit, waiting for the elevators to be called and hurried to catch up to them. They waited in silence, the faint ding of the units it was passing below.
"Ooh, so tell me about your wedding, while we are walking," Naomi said, turning to Elsa. "Big? Small? Traditional?"
"She was gorgeous. I was gorgeous. Our daughter will be gorgeous."
Elsa frowned down at him. "So it's a girl now?"
"I changed my mind, it has to be a girl as beautiful as you are."
She smiled at him, feeling her eyes start to water.
Naomi whistled.
"Smooth," Hugh said. "Very smooth. Too bad it's not gonna help you at the pool."
Hugh barked out a laugh and pushed Jack onto the elevator when the door opened. Elsa and Naomi looked at each other, giggled and followed them, Naomi selecting the floor they needed once they were all on.
"So what did your dress look like?" Naomi asked, smiling at Elsa.
"It was lace, chantilly lace. It was so pretty. It had these wide, like cap sleeves, and then the front and back was V-cut. There was this really soft blue sash around the waist, and really pretty pearl buttons running down the back that covered up the zipper. Then the skirt was tulle, but the way they had cut and draped the lace over it just made it float, I felt amazing in it."
"Looked amazing too," Jack commented.
Elsa smiled at him. "We got married in January, so I wore gloves and I got this really soft white fur-like wrap thing for the cold."
The elevator dinged, the doors opening and they all stepped off, Hugh leading Jack away as the girls trailed behind, Elsa retelling her wedding day to her.
"So, big or small wedding, you never said?" Naomi prompted, smiling at her.
"Small, mostly family and close friends."
Anna bounced into the small changing room at the back of the chapel, grinning widely at Elsa as she clapped her hands.
"Oooh, it's almost time," she said, leaning forward against the mirror to check her makeup again. "You ready?"
"Yes, for the tenth time," Elsa said, laughing. "I'm starting to wonder if you're more excited about this than I am."
The photographer they had hired clicked photos of the two sisters standing next to each other, chuckling as Anna fussed with Elsa's veil again, checking that the clip was secured under her hair.
"And you are SURE he didn't see you today."
"Anna-"
"What! I just want to make sure!"
Elsa chuckled, picking up her small bouquet of flowers and stepped over to the door entrance as she heard the music change.
"Come on, that's the signal that everyone is seated."
Anna creeped out ahead of her, leaning forward around the corner to see up to the altar.
"Yeah, Jack's up there. Where is Jamie?"
"Right here," Jamie said, causing Anna to jump back from her hunched position.
"Oh, Hi," she said in a whisper, stepping back and straightening her skirt.
Anna was wearing a tea length light blue dress, a matching ribbon threaded carefully through her hair. Jamie wore a suit with the same light blue as the accenting colors. He gave Anna a nervous smile and turned to look at Elsa.
"Ready when you are."
In their effort to keep the wedding a small and intimate affair, Jamie and Anna were the only two walking down ahead of Elsa, thus making for a very short procession. Elsa stood up straighter, adjusting her gloves and smiled at them, placing her bouquet before her and nodded.
"I'm ready."
Jamie smiled, offering his arm out for Anna and they moved together to stand at the top of the aisle, waiting for the music to change. Elsa took a deep breath as they stepped forward, disappearing around the corner.
She had had the option of letting her grandfather walk her down the aisle and give her away, but had gently declined the offer. If anyone was going to walk her down and give her away, it would have been her father. And as he was no longer able to do so, she would embark on this next journey to the next part of her life alone, but with her head held high and full of hope. Her parents would be happy to have Jack with her, they had liked him then and they certainly would now.
The music changed again, signalling that it was her turn to walk. Another deep breath, a big smile and she stepped forward, turned and slowly walked down the cloth covered aisle. The gathered guests all stood, turning and smiling at her, some clicking cameras and the professional photographer jumping in front of her to quickly snap multiple photographs.
And then she looked up, and her eyes met Jack's. And everything else around her melted away as she saw him smiling at her, his eyes shining as he stared at her. The music, her song that she had thought about for weeks that she wanted to hear, didn't matter as she ignored her measured steps and made her way towards him. He grinned, leaning sideways slightly as Jamie turned to whisper something in his ear and nodded in agreement.
She smiled, unable to help herself do anything else just then as she reached him, holding out her hand to take his. She turned, handing her flowers back to Anna before turning back to Jack, who still beamed at her.
"Hi," he whispered.
"Hi," she whispered back, trying not to laugh.
The words of the ceremony were a muffled blur, as she repeated her words carefully at the chosen moments, still unable to stop smiling with the happy moments of everything surrounding her.
"And now," came the officiant's deep baritone. "By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride."
Jack's hands came up almost immediately, to cup her face, pressing his lips to hers as their gathered loved ones clapped and cheered. She laughed, bringing her arms up to wrap around his neck and kissed him back.
"Hi," he said again, resting his forehead on hers.
She smiled at him. "Hi."
He wagged his newly ringed left hand. "You're stuck with me now."
She leaned her head back and laughed.
Naomi sighed beside her. "There a husband store around here? I could use one like that."
Elsa laughed, smiling at her.
"You two gonna keep having girly time or are you going to do your job Naomi?" Hugh said, leaning back over his shoulder as he tried to pull the wheelchair through a door.
Naomi rolled her eyes, hurrying forward. "Oh shut it," she said. "You don't understand, you're already married. Though I have no idea how your wife puts up with your SUNNY demeanor."
"I give her money," Hugh responded, giving her a cheeky smile. "Now come on, let's get him inside so we can get him going. I'd like to be home for dinner."
"What exactly am I going to be doing?" Jack asked as they wheeled him inside.
"Walking on the water treadmill," Hugh said, pointing ahead of them. "Should be lots of fun."
Jack glanced back up at Hugh, a confused look on his face. "I thought those were for dogs."
Naomi snorted with laughter. "This is gonna be fun."
Elsa gulped, trailing behind as the therapists began Jack's session for the day. Things had the potential to get interesting and entertaining.
Hope you enjoyed it! Please review, Love! Aria
