A/N: Two chapters in within two days! I haven't done that in while...
The crib was delivered two days later, the same day Mimi was released from the hospital. The baby, however, was still in ICU, fighting for her life.
Mimi and Roger had decided to name the baby Angela, or Angel for short. Mark hoped that the original Angel was smiling at the sentiment.
Baby Angel hadn't improved in the last couple of days, but she hadn't gotten any worse either. When Mark had chatted up the pediatrician, revealing his own residency plans in a few months, he found himself privy to a little more inside information. The pediatrician hadn't expected the baby to make it forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours later and she was holding on.
Watching Roger and Mimi visit their daughter was something Mark knew had to be filmed. There was a change in Mimi he'd expected; she was a mom, protective and wearing the same worried expression he'd seen on many of the faces of mothers with very ill children. But Roger...
With Roger there was a change he couldn't quite describe. Roger was in complete awe of his daughter. His initial negativity had dampened, as if he'd realized that this tiny person was alive and was staying that way.
"She's still here," he said, arms wrapped around Mimi as they peered together past the wires and tubing that almost totally engulfed the two and half pound infant.
"She is," Mimi agreed. Mark felt like a trespasser on their moment and took his cue to blend into the background, like the observer he'd always been.
Kara officially moved out of her apartment a week later, leaving unlabeled boxes scattered in her wake. Both of them were working odd and long hours as graduation approached, although Kara managed to get a lighter schedule when she hit thirty-two weeks (how Mark didn't how a clue). Complete time off was discussed, but she was determined to finish her rotation so that she'd graduate and start her cardiac residency on time. Kara was due two weeks before she and Mark would graduate. The timing oddly worked out.
During that week of box stacking, Angel remained stable. Stable gave some hope, though Mark held his breath for a major setback. When it came to Roger and Mimi, there was always a setback, it seemed.
Instead, Angel turned the corner.
"It's what I'd call a miracle," the pediatrician said to Mark when he'd pulled her aside. Little Angel was off the respirator. Despite all the tubing, Mimi and Roger were going to get a chance to hold her for the first time.
"A miracle?" he said. "No medical explanation?"
The doctor shook her head. "Sometimes you just don't have one. And you'll learn, when that happens you just don't ask. You just say thank you."
Thank you with no explanation for why. Just like the Christmas Eve when Maureen and Joanne found Mimi in the park, shivering and begging to brought to the loft. Mark had expected to watch her die in Roger's arm and for a few frantic moments, it she was like she had.
But she didn't in the end. In the end he'd witnessed something that most people would call a miracle, or at the very least, a leap of faith.
Mimi had a guardian Angel, in every sense of the word. And now it appeared that Angel that also kept an eye out for her namesake.
"She's not completely out of the woods, of course," the doctor continued. "But she's breathing on her own and gained 2 ounces this week. She's still testing positive, and there is a good chance she is. But this year, we've had two two-year-olds that had been testing positive since birth, suddenly test negative."
"Some hope, then?" he asked.
The pediatrician shrugged. "Between you and me, who knows? Let us get her closer to full-term birth weight and then you start thinking about her future."
Her future. He liked those words. Those words meant he could help. In between everything, he never let that thought leave his mind. Precious free hours were spent scouring the university library for the latest publications on pediatric HIV, but so little was really one hundred percent known. New things were being discovered day by day, opening the possibility of a future that didn't exist even two years ago. He studied some old footage he'd taken from clinic with Andy, where HIV-infected children were mixed in with their HIV-positive parents. He was looking for more, more answers to help that were beneath the surface of even more questions.
Angel was getting closer to being what would be considered full term development. Graduation was just around the corner.
Kara was getting bigger and bigger.
"I hate Lamaze," Kara said, flopping herself down on the well worn blankets that covered Mark's bed. Well, flopped herself down as well her belly would allow. She absently grabbed hold of one of the blankets, rolling it between her fingers. "These have seen better days. We should find the box with my bedding in it."
Mark sat down next to her, a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. Exhausted, he'd spent the last sixteen hours at two different hospitals, splitting time between work, baby Angel, and Kara's first Lamaze class. "If you'd labeled your boxes, I'd know which one to dig through."
Kara waved a hand at him. "I usually label, this time I just packed. There were more pressing things going on. By the way, did you hear me? I hate Lamaze. We're not going back."
Mark almost laughed at her statement. "Well, I hate the amount you pay Lamaze classes, so you want to quit, go ahead. Just don't bite my head off when you're in labor."
"I won't need Lamaze. I'm having an epidural. And your camera is staying home for that, by the way." She sighed. "Crap. Do you what we sound like?"
"No, I don't. What do we sound like?" He took a sip of his coffee, making a face at the bitterness. He'd learned coffee's effects were better when he drank it black, but he'd yet to get used to it. In fact, he'd really yet to get used to coffee. He was more of a tea drinker.
"We sound like..." She trailed off, sighing again. "How's Angel today?"
The change in subject steered them both away from the conversation they'd been avoiding since Mark handed over his key.
"Nearing four pounds, if you can believe it. She eats as much as a drunk Roger, which happens to work for her at the moment. She may get to come home soon rather than later, actually. Maureen is planning Mimi's belated baby shower so she and Roger will have everything they need to take her home."
"Maureen? Isn't that your ex?"
"My ex who is a lesbian," he pointed out. "You met her. She likes you."
"That's good, I guess. I've just never been friends with an ex. Pete and I avoided each other like the plague. Too much baggage."
"Well, in case you haven't noticed, all my friends have baggage." He set down his coffee mug. "I have baggage. Or, should I say, we have baggage."
Kara appeared to contemplate the thought before answering. "We do." Kara shifted her weight to look up at him. "Speaking of baggage, when I was here this morning, I accidentally picked up the phone without screening. It was your mom."
Mark was glad he'd sat his cup down otherwise he'd drop it. "My mom? And without screening? I always screen."
"Well, I don't. She wanted to know about graduation." Kara paused a moment. "She thought I was Mimi. I thought you told your parents." She sounded hurt.
His parents. He was always evading his mother's phone calls, and hadn't really reached out that often in the past year to appease her. Things between him and his dad felt even odder after he'd spend a week at his father's practice. And watching his own work footage reinforced how much he wanted to avoid his issues with the man.
The last time he'd spoken to his mother, she babbled on about Cindy's due date.
He hadn't told them a damn thing about Kara and their impending grandchild, due two weeks before Cindy's third child was.
"Kara, I..." He took off his glasses, rubbing at his temples as he felt the beginnings of a headache.
Kara pushed herself off the bed into a sitting position. "You didn't tell them. You met my parents."
"Not by choice," he reminded her. "Kara, I don't have the same relationship with my parents that you have with yours. You admit you need your parents in your life and I accept that. Accept that it isn't going to be that way on my end."
She pulled his hands down from his face, holding them in her lap. Mark looked up her, glad he wasn't able to completely make out her features without his glasses. She was pissed he was sure.
He didn't want her to be pissed. After all, she was his...
Actually, what was she?
"I accept it," Kara said. "Because I need *you* in my life."
Mark blinked. "What?"
"You heard me," she said. "I can't say it again." Her words were soft. "Can you accept that about me?"
He released his hands from her grip, found his glasses and slipped them back on so he could really look at her. For a moment, he just stared at her.
"I " His mouth was suddenly dry, his heart beating faster and faster. He hadn't been this flustered since Maureen and that was years ago.
This was even far more complicated than Maureen.
"I love you," he finally managed to get out, shocking himself at the words. He didn't expect to hear them repeated and therefore wasn't surprised when they weren't. Kara had already gone as far as she could in the moment. She just gave him a smile and leaned in to kiss him gently on the lips.
"You *will* tell your parents about the baby eventually right? I can't avoid the phone forever."
He nodded. "I'll call my mother back in the morning." He wasn't looking forward to it, but he'd do it.
"Thank you." Kara pushed herself off the bed and walked away, leaving Mark alone with his thoughts.