Still.
February 15, 2017.
Seattle, Washington.
It was the nature of surgeons to always have a plan. What would you stitch up next? What would you do it your patient started seizing? How will you handle the hundreds of questions thrown at you by the family? What will you decide, when it comes down to a few desperate choices? How do you spend the afternoon when everything, everywhere, has gone terribly wrong?
Owen was faced with it now. He sat in the daycare watching the kids draw. He kept his eyes on Bailey, wondering what would happen to the kid, should his mother die upstairs. Was she gone already? Would he have the heart to take the orphans into his home? Did she even have a will? He felt the storm clouds closing in on them all, but he managed a smile whenever the boys looked up. It was alright for them to be oblivious. It was alright to keep everything from them until there was no other alternative. He would not say those words aloud until he was sure.
He looked up when the door opened. It was Callie. She looked a little shell-shocked, but as she sunk down beside him she also forced a smile to the kids. She spoke quietly, calmly, like this had happened to her a hundred times before.
"Cristina said Meredith lost consciousness at dawn, when Cristina went to get the mail. She found her on the couch and called an ambulance. Right now she's awake and responsive, but she's in labor, so most of what she says is sprinkled with curses. Arizona says the fetal heartbeat is strong, but she thought there might be something wrong."
He swallowed. His throat felt frozen. "Does she know what?"
"Not yet." Callie brushed her hair back, shaking her head. She looked uncertain for once, when she was usually so confident. "God, I can't even… When I was… Sofia was so little when she was born. We thought she was going to die – I prayed for her every night, and every night she had seizure after seizure and… I don't want Meredith to go through that."
Owen kept his eyes on Collin. Just an hour ago that little boy had been napping in the car, and when he had cried, Owen had picked him up and rocked him back to sleep. He sat there with him, holding him, until he was quiet again. He had only known him a short time – short relative to how long he had known Cristina – and yet if something so devastating had happened to him, Owen wouldn't be able to breathe. Callie must have been thinking the same thing.
"I called Addison, too," Callie said, puffing out a determined breath. "She should be here in a few hours. She was here when… she saved my life when Sofia was born."
"I was there," Owen reminded her gently.
"Zola doesn't even know yet." Callie went on as if she hadn't heard him. "What are we gonna tell her? She's so excited to have sisters."
"We don't even know yet," Owen said.
Callie rested her head on the tiny preschool table, groaning. "You're right. You're right. Slap me if I start panicking. Everything is fine."
"I should put a call in to Amelia, see if she wants to be here."
Callie sat straight up. "Good idea. Bring the aunt brigade to Seattle."
"Is that sarcastic?"
"No. Did it sound sarcastic? Sorry. I worked all night last night. I was supposed to be in bed by now. I'm getting delirious." She handed him her phone, pulling up her contacts.
He took it, frowning. "Why are you giving me this?"
"Owen, do you really think Amelia would answer if you called?"
XxX
Cristina held onto her friend's clammy hand, doing everything in her power to keep herself from freaking out. It had been over four hours now and things were getting progressively worse. She had started off the morning losing her pulse, and now she was dripping blood like a plug had been pulled somewhere inside. Meredith was moaning and throwing her head from side to side, and every now and then she started screaming like her intestines were being ripped right out of her abdomen. Cristina only knew the basics when it came to delivering babies – what every doctor learned in medical school – and she had only come to pediatrics a few times when she was a resident, so she had to rely on the half-dozen pink-scrub wearing nurses flitting in and out, and the two surgeons who had spent their careers preparing for this.
She found herself watching the clock, sitting uncomfortably straight in a cushioned chair by the bedside. She had been yelled at for pacing. Arizona said she could not deal with two twin deliveries at the same time. Cristina counted the minutes between contractions. It was now at three minutes, after two hours of Meredith moaning every single minute. She was in the delivery stage by now.
"Okay, look at me," Arizona said, coming to the other side of the bed. She held Meredith's face securely in one gloved hand and shined a light through her eyes, studying her reaction. "Do you feel like you need to push?"
Meredith nodded, tightening her grip on Cristina's hand. Her voice was jittery and hoarse. "Is there something wrong with my babies? Why are you making that face?"
Briefly, doubt shone in the other doctor's eyes. She took a steadying breath, holding Meredith's other hand. She squeezed it gently, smiling. "I won't let anything happen to them, okay?" When Meredith tried to speak, Arizona hushed her. "Right now your job is to push, and my job is to worry. I need you to do your job now."
Meredith groaned, pushing briefly, and then letting her head fall onto the table. She gasped for breath. "Arizona you tell me right now – are my babies dead?"
"Push," Arizona urged, stepping to the bottom of the table and sharing an uncertain glance with Alex. He was the one doing the prodding down there. He had two incubators standing by behind him, and he seemed poised to catch a baby if it decided to pop out.
She obeyed, now looking desperately at Cristina. Her voice was breaking around her words, just like it did when she was grieving, just like it did when her whole world was falling apart. Cristina's heart broke for her. "Please, Cristina, please. I can't lose them. I can't lose anyone else."
"We heard a heartbeat, remember?" Cristina responded, though she was starting to feel the burden of those tiny lives. Alex and Arizona looked grim.
Meredith was seized by another contraction. She sat up on her elbow, straining, and Alex tugged a newborn gently into the room. Cristina smiled, believing for a moment that all was well in the universe, and then she heard it.
Arizona sounded desperate.
"She's wrapped!"
Alex stood straight and Cristina gasped, unable to take her eyes off of the baby in his arms. She was perfectly still, purplish, with her umbilical cord wrapped three times around her neck. Her chest did not rise. Her eyes did not open. She was the tiniest little thing, beautiful, but horrifyingly tranquil as she lay in his hold.
"Is she breathing?" Meredith demanded. She released Cristina, trying to climb into an upright position. She was forced back down when the pain took her again. She started gasping. "Is she breathing? Alex! Please!"
He retrieved a pair of curved scissors, the kind they used to cut the cord, and started digging his fingers into the baby's neck, trying to separate the tube from its tiny throat. He placed it in one of the incubators, hovering over it. Cristina had to draw her focus away from him, away from the unmoving angel, when Meredith cried out in pain.
"Focus on pushing," Arizona commanded. "I can see the head! Give me one good push!"
"Is my baby dead?" Meredith moaned, though she obeyed the orders. She got up on her elbow again and Cristina grabbed her hand. She was straining every muscle in her arm.
It was different this time. Arizona pulled the baby into her arms, wrapping her up in a little pink towel and rubbing her chest vigorously for several seconds. The baby started wailing, throwing her arms around and screaming. Arizona only held her for a moment. She took her around the table and gave her to Cristina, rushing to the back of the room.
Nurses rushed in, encouraging Meredith to deliver her placenta, but she as sobbing. She kept repeating the same question, but no one could answer her. Cristina stood, stunned, with a newborn in her arms and watched Alex and Arizona work on the other one. When Alex finally got a finger under the tube, they managed to slice it in half. Arizona ripped it away and began prodding at the baby's neck. Within seconds she had made a decision. She shut the lid on the incubator.
"It looks like her trachea is crushed," Arizona announced, unlocking the wheels on the incubator and rushing it into the hall. She passed it to Alex. "Can you handle it?"
He looked stunned. He nodded, putting both hands on the box and racing away with it. Arizona returned to the room, mashing the code button on the wall and coming back to the bedside. She stayed at the end of the table, feeling around with her hands.
"What's happening?" Cristina demanded, struggling to get her voice above that of the screaming baby and her hysterical mother.
Arizona returned to the bedside, kicking the wheels until they unlocked. She met Cristina's eyes briefly, sadly, and then started moving the bed. "Something went wrong. I need to open her up."
Meredith was beginning to look paler. She was definitely bleeding internally. Cristina had the urge to drop the baby in the incubator and help in any way she could, but her friend kept screaming the same thing, even as her cries grew weaker, even as Arizona took her out of the room, even as her bed's wheels rolled through the blood she had been losing.
"Is my baby dead? Alex! Bring her back! Alex!"
It went silent as they headed down the hall, a whole herd of nurses pursuing them. She would call the whole floor if she had to. The crash cart she had summoned with the code button was already following them into the elevator. Meredith was conscious one moment, still screaming, and then even she went quiet. Cristina stayed in the doorway, watching them, trying to force herself to accept what had just happened.
She looked down at the baby – Baby B – and wiped her tears on her sleeve.
"Hi, Ellis," she whispered, a whimper slipping into her voice. "Your mom is gonna be fine. Mer is gonna be… fine."
