"Hailey?" Will approached me with subtle confusion as I got out of the car. Natalie hung back a few feet already aware of the situation, yet she still held a look of concern. "What's going on? Natalie said you needed to see us." Eva was in the process of undoing her seatbelt as I opened the back door to let her out. As she stepped onto the asphalt, I realized I hadn't thought of a way to introduce her to him.

"There's not a way I can think of that makes this any easier to explain," I told him over my shoulder as I closed the door and locked up. "Eva, this is Dr. Halstead. Will, this is my daughter, Eva."

"Daughter?" Will choked out as he stopped in his tracks. "Does Jay know about this? What am I saying? Of course he does. He's your partner. What's going on with Eva?"

"Two days ago, she had what I thought was a bug. Tonight, when I came to pick her up she told me she still wasn't feeling well, so I thought we should get her checked out to make sure nothing else is going on."

"Hailey? I changed my mind." Eva spoke up suddenly, her face full of terror the closer we got to the hospital. "I think I'm better. I don't want to go in there." She let go of my hand as she ran back towards the car. Thankfully, no cars were coming our way, so she was relatively safe.

"Eva, talk to me." Spinning her gently around, I kept a firm hand on her shoulder as I crouched down to her level. "What's going on?"

"I don't want to go in there." She jutted out her bottom lip in worry as she glanced over at the hospital. "I feel better. Please, can we go home?"

"I think we both know that's not going to help your stomach feel better." It was so hard not to open that car door, strap her back in and drive away like tonight never happened. "You know, sometimes I still get scared walking into that hospital?"

"You do?" Her eyes were wide and full of unshed tears as she stared at the towering white building in front of us.

"I do," I confirmed, offering the most reassuring smile I could as I rubbed at her shoulders in comfort. "You know why?"

"No."

"No matter how many times I go into that hospital when people I care about get hurt or sick, I don't know what's going to happen to them and I get so scared because I want them to feel better immediately. Then they go through tests and other things that will help the doctors and nurses to get an idea of what's going on with them so they can help."

"Do the tests hurt?"

"Sometimes they do feel a bit uncomfortable, but only for a little while. It just depends on what they have to do."

"Have you had tests done?"

"Quite a few times," I told her, feeling her shoulders fall slightly as she started to relax, which I was grateful for. "Dr. Halstead and Dr. Manning have always taken care of me when I've needed help." Natalie nodded at her to confirm what I was saying was true.

"But what if I'm too scared? Will you stay with me the whole time?"

"I'll tell you what, I will stay with you as long as I'm not in the way while they're trying to figure out what's going on with your stomach. If I do have to leave for any reason, someone will come get me when it's okay to come back." Standing up, I stretched out my legs after crouching for so long.

"You promise?"

"I promise." Brushing a stray tear from her cheek with my thumb, a little smile emerged on her end and she held out her pinky to me. "Do we have a deal?" She pretended to half think about it, although I felt like she had already made her mind up on her decision.

"I guess I'm ready." She took my hand, squeezing tightly as we walked back over to Will and Natalie.

"Well done," Natalie told me quietly, placing one hand on my shoulder before stepping to the other side of me. A few minutes later, we entered the emergency department without any other hitches. "Let's start with something easy, huh?" She told Eva as soon as we walked into a room that had already been prepared for us. "Can you take your coat off for me and hand it to your mom? I want to get your weight and height before I do anything else." Slowly pulling over her coat, she handed it to me and I draped it over my knee as I sat down in the chair beside the scale.

"Take a deep breath." I reminded her, feeling her starting to tense up and panic again.

"Go ahead and step on that scale for me." Will maneuvered the scale until he had the correct read on her weight. "Forty-one and a half feet."

"Alright, Eva. I'm going to have you do something else for me now." Natalie snapped on her gloves and lowered the bed so she could climb up easier. "You ready? Still doing okay?"

"Mhm."

"Can you come take a seat on the bed for me?" She patted the bed as Eva leaned against my leg apprehensively.

"It's okay. I'm right here." It took a little bit of prompting on my part, but she finally walked over to the bed and climbed up before tucking her legs in towards her body.

"I'm going to have you lay your head on this pillow and I'm going to ask you a few more questions before I take a look at you.." Again, it took her a few seconds before she complied and laid down comfortably on the bed. "When you were sick a couple of days ago, did anything else hurt besides your stomach?"

"No, just my stomach."

"Just your stomach," Natalie confirmed, just as calm as she always had been whenever I needed her. "Has it always been hurting since you felt sick or have you felt better sometimes and then it comes back?"

"It did for a little while. I thought it would feel better when I went back to school but it didn't, so I told Hailey I felt better."

"Ah, well, I bet she's glad you told her the truth." Natalie's gaze flickered to mine and I nodded as Eva turned to look at me. I could tell she wanted to be anywhere but here. Still, she tried her best to stay calm and was taking in a few deep breaths.

"When your stomach starts hurting, does it feel like you're hungry or have a really tight knot in your stomach that is squeezing you really tight?" Mimicking the motion of a knot, Natalie squeezed her fist together tightly.

"I don't know. It just hurts sometimes."

"Can you show me where it hurts?" Natalie asked, trying to pinpoint the exact area where Eva's pain was coming from, to which Eva pointed to the middle of her stomach, around her belly button." "I'm just going to lift your shirt a little so I can feel your stomach, okay?"

"Okay."