The lab did in fact wake Ressler early the next morning, shortly before 8. Liz and Ethan were still asleep next to him so he carefully rolled away, trying not to disturb them and sat up on the edge of the bed.
The lab tech whispered as he took blood from the inside of Ressler's elbow and a swab from inside his cheek. The pediatrician also made an appearance and hung around.
"I actually need to do the same with Ethan" whispered the tech, "it will make the test go much faster. We have stuff on file from when he was born obviously, but then we have it from you too. For the purposes of this test we need it from both of you."
"Both blood and the swab?" asked Ressler. The swab was fine, but taking blood would wake him up. "Ideally yah. We need the swab because mature Red Blood Cells don't have nuclei so they don't actually carry any genetic information. The cells of the inside of your cheek on the other hand have tons of DNA. So that's what we use to do the DNA test."
"But that test takes a long time and it will probably be a few days before you get the results" said the pediatrician. "However, Ethan here is ready to be discharged this morning and there is no reason you should have to stay here and wait, in fact that's hard on the medical system, so for the purposes of you taking him home today we are going to do a much faster blood compatibility test" he explained. He glanced over at the lab tech who continued,
"We compare the antigens on your blood cells with those in his. Ideally he will have your blood type, it will be an exact match and you are good to go, but there are several possible outcomes depending on his mother's blood type. Either way, it is faster, it will only take me a minute when I get down to the lab."
"Okay" said Ressler, "Well my blood type is B-, so if he has my blood that's a pretty good indication."
"Yah, wow, only 1.7% of the world is B-, did you know that?"
"Okay, well he's going to wake up then, let me wake Liz a second first." He turned around and shook Liz awake, telling them that the lab tech needed to take blood and a swab so Ethan was going to wake up. She nodded and got out of the bed.
As the lab tech switched gloves and washed his hands between the two of them and got his vials figured out Ressler turned to the doctor. Liz stood next to him now so she could hear the conversation too. "So you are discharging him today? Isn't that a little fast?" asked Ressler, he was a bit scared by the thought of taking him home. He had just found out about Ethan yesterday and now he had full responsibility for him? He didn't even know how to take care of babies.
"Well he's fine except his broken bones" said the pediatrician. "Keeping him here would just be holding up a bed quite honestly. After breakfast I'm going to have someone come in and explain how to care for the casts, especially when it comes to bathing him, but then he's yours to take home Dad."
"Oh okay" said Ressler, shifting nervously. "I - I don't know how to care for him though."
"Oh" said the doctor looking up, "I was under the impression that you two had children together already" he gestured at him and Liz.
"Well, we do - one, but she's four already and we've only been a family for a little bit. I have no experience with babies, I couldn't even change his diaper last night."
Liz put her hands on his shoulders and squeezed them. "But I do know" she said to him, "and I can show you. We're doing this together, we're going to be okay."
Ressler looked up at her and nodded. "Okay?" she asked.
"Okay" he agreed.
"Alright, if I could get someone to hold him" said the lab specialist. Ressler jumped to life, quickly settling back in bed and scooping his son into his arms. "And we are going to do the swab first because it's easy and it doesn't hurt, we just need to open his mouth." Very carefully, as though he were working with fine gold, Ressler slipped a finger between Ethan's lips and opened his mouth just enough for the tech to get the swab from his cheek. Ethan started fussing, he was sleeping light because it was morning and he had been asleep for a long time, they all knew he would wake soon anyway. Ressler wrapped him in his arms and rocked slowly on the bed side to side, shushing him quietly. Out of instinct he relaxed into the arms that held him and quieted again.
The pediatrician laughed from the doorway on his way out and they all looked up at him. "You're going to do fine. Believe me, I see parents of all kinds up here and you - you are a natural my friend" he pointed at Ressler on the bed, comforting his son. "You're going to be just fine."
"Thanks" said Ressler, a small uncertain smile on his lips. Liz grinned broadly, glad that someone besides her had said it as well.
"Okay" said the tech again, "and now for the stick. If you could just hold his good arm out for me, he's going to wake up as soon as I put the tourniquet on, but I need you to hold him still."
Ressler nodded in understanding and held Ethan's arm straight, pinning it down at the wrist. Sure enough, the tourniquet was the last straw and the boy woke up, crying in fear. To his credit the lab tech was fast and he drew only one vial then gathered his stuff and fled the room, leaving Liz and Ressler to quiet Ethan.
Ethan was a heartbreaker when he cried. He didn't scream, at least he hadn't yet, but he cried with tears running down his cheeks. He cried with his eyes open for the most part, his irises the color of the ocean and his pupils sparkly, and he produced impossible quantities of tears, as though his eyes themselves threatened to melt and slip down his face. His breath would catch sometimes and he would sniffle or hiccup. He was turning pink with exertion, but he didn't look ugly as most people, young and old, tended to when they cried.
"My God, he even cries like you" said Liz to Ressler. Ressler was still holding him on the bed, looking more and more terrified by the minute as he didn't stop. He had never in his life felt so helpless.
"Mama" said Ethan, over and over, "want Mama". He was only a year and a half of and he couldn't really talk fluently, but he should have learned important words and even how to pile two of them together. Of course he wanted the only adult caregiver he had ever known but they had no way of giving that to him.
"Stand up and walk with him" said Liz, "the motion helps." Ressler scooted to the edge of the bed and stood, briefly bringing Ethan up to Liz's height.
"No! Mama!" he screamed, turning away from her.
"I guess that settles the option of me trying to take him" said Liz. "Just walk with him and whisper to him. It doesn't have to make sense, just get him used to your voice."
Ressler did as she said, walking circles of the room and diligently rocking Ethan in his arms. He whispered again and again that Mama was gone, that he was Daddy and he was sorry. Ethan fought Ressler's hold at first, but Ressler was much stronger and he persevered much longer and Ethan tired and gave up soon enough. But even after he stopped fighting he continued to sob, for so long that Ressler joined him, terrified and clueless as to how to comfort him and get him to stop. He tried cradling him, holding him up on his chest, bouncing, rocking, singing, talking, everything in Liz's immediate memory that might help but it didn't seem to work.
Liz watched as Ressler fell apart too, his heart torn apart at the sound of his son's sobs. He was the only one who could help and yet he wasn't really. At least not in his mind.
"He won't stop Liz!" said Ressler in a broken voice. "I don't know what to do. I'm not ready for this. I don't know how to help him."
"Well, he can pick up on your emotions very easily Don" said Liz. His crying was probably making it worse but she couldn't come out and say that. "Just try to stop crying yourself and stop talking, just walk with him, just walk, he will stop in time - I promise."
And he did. In the end time was all that could possibly heal and it did. It was more than two hours later though before Ethan stopped crying altogether. Nurses had been in and out, but they were largely woman and they just seemed to make it worse so they stayed away. When he did stop crying he was clutching handfuls of Ressler's shirt in his little hands and he seemed okay with him.
Ressler had seemed to fill a hole inside of him and Ethan was being clingy. Ressler was the only one who could get him to eat his breakfast, which he did very well because he was very hungry after the last few days. When Ressler tried to seperate with him so he could go to the bathroom he started crying again. Ressler looked up at Liz in despair and quickly pulled him back to his chest, just holding it.
"No, it's okay, go" said Liz. "He's crying because he's attached to you. He will only cry as long as you are gone, he will stop when you come back." She reached for him and Ressler pried his hands off of his shirt and hurried to the washroom. Liz was right again, as soon as he came back and took him back from Liz he quieted right down.
Someone did come in and talk to them about how to bath him for the next six weeks without getting the casts wet. They set up an appointment to get them off at the same time.
Getting him changed and into one of the outfits that the taskforce had brought the night before was still a process, but it went a little better than Ressler's first attempt the night before.
By lunchtime, the blood test results were back to the pediatrician, showing that Ethan had gotten Ressler's rare blood type and they were an exact match. It didn't really hit any of them as a surprise.
They were free to go and so there they stood at the nurses station, Ressler signing discharge papers with his right hand and holding Ethan with his left. Liz stood next to her two boys, she could tell that they were equally as terrified about what lay ahead and yet she had never seen Ressler quite as fulfilled either. She held every belonging they had for their son in the gift bags in her hand, and they had had to call the nanny and ask her to take Agnes to the store that morning to pick a car seat and meet them there so they could go as a family to pick out all the things they were going to need to switch the office in Ressler's apartment into Ethan's bedroom.
That conversation had actually been a lengthy one as Liz explained the sudden appearance of another child for the nanny to care for, but she seemed thrilled by the idea.
They met Louise, the nanny, and Agnes in the lobby downstairs where they both met Ethan for the first time. He didn't cry when he met them but he also didn't leave Ressler's arms either. Louise said he was beautiful and she was glad that he had come into their lives and Agnes jumped at the idea of having a little brother. Liz hoped she would always be happy about that, even when they were bigger and Ethan was bugging the crap out of her because she thought that everyone should have a sibling. She wished she had growing up and she was glad her daughter had the chance.
They moved the new carseat that Louise had bought into the backseat of their vehicle and buckled the kids in side by side. Agnes kept talking Ethan's ear off about anything and everything while he kept busy with his tractor set from Uncle Aram. He was fine so long as Ressler stayed within his line of sight, which he was while sitting in the driver's seat.
"Ahhh" said Ressler, buckling in the vehicle. Liz looked at him. "I don't think I've ever felt so - conflicted in my life."
"I know" said Liz reassuringly, "but we got a new son and we got to take our baby home from the hospital, Don. That's the important part. The rest we can figure out."
Ressler nodded and leaned over to kiss her for the first time that day before putting the vehicle in reverse.
Liz spent the ride answering texts from the taskforce who had wisely decided not to visit again that morning, assuring them that both Ethan and Ressler were okay and that they had bonded.
They decided to stop at a Dairy Queen for lunch and thus began their first day as a family of four.