Chapter 22: Disputes, Difficulties, Determination
The three Winchesters raced in the direction of the spirit and found that it had moved from the wing under construction into the main hospital building. They peeked through a set of double doors before they entered into the second floor's main hallway. The lights were still flickering on and off at random intervals, but none of the staff walking the halls seemed like they'd just encountered anything more disturbing than normal for an evening hospital shift.
"Come on, we need to find their room and ward it, that way we can buy some time until after the delivery." Dean muttered as they slunk past a nurse, briefly ducking into an unoccupied room to avoid being seen. "If we can stop any spirits from finding them until the delivery's over, we should be able to zap out of here right afterward and regroup." He glanced at Harry, Because there's no way in Hell I'm letting you put yourself in harm's way… fucking prophesy…
"So, what, we're going to search the whole delivery ward poking our heads into random doors until we find them?" Sam crossed his arms.
Dean frowned and rolled his eyes, "No, we just snag the room list from one of the nurses." He poked his head out the door and motioned for them to follow him into the now clear hallway.
The other two Winchesters followed behind. As they trod carefully to avoid any roaming staff Sam responded, "Huh, I guess I hadn't thought of that…"
Dean smirked as he glanced at a set of posted signs, "That's what happens when you rely too much on magic, you forget how to do it the old fashioned way."
Sam huffed through his nose, "The only thing old fashioned about it is you."
"Shut up, bitch." He stated as he glanced at the signs, "Which one of these is pointing to obstetrics?"
Sam replied with a quick bitchface 11, whatever jerk, and glanced at the many arrows pointing in the different directions off the main hall. "Looks like it's to the right."
As they were about to turn right a bloodcurdling wail resonated through the hall. Harry held his hands over his ears, Sam tried to muffle the sound with his jacket, and Dean grimaced as he clenched his fists.
"It found them." Sam murmured.
The shout attracted a good deal of attention, including a security guard who had been doing his rounds. As he turned the corner he saw three men standing in the hall. "Hey! Visiting hours are over!" He barked.
Harry was the first to turn around, "Sorry, I heard a scream and my cousin's supposed to be up here giving birth, I wanted to make sure she was okay."
The guard's look shifted to the other two.
"We were trying to get him to stop and get back downstairs, but you know how it is with kids…" Sam said, shrugging slightly.
The guard harrumphed, "I'm sure everything is fine. Right now I'm going to have to escort you back downstairs. If there are any issues with your cousin I'm sure the doctor will tell you." He nodded at the men, and soon they found themselves back downstairs in the waiting room.
***SPN-HP***
Even prior to the ghastly appearance of a twisted ghost at the foot of the delivery bed things hadn't been going great with the delivery, and while Hermione hadn't given birth before she was fairly certain that something wasn't right. "Ron… Something's wrong." She panted.
"It's going to be alright… I'm here." Ron tried his best to comfort her, pushing some of the hair that had become matted to her face with the sweat away. He dipped the cloth back into the cool water. "It's going to be okay."
As he said this Hermione seemed to seize, to Ron's horror he saw the numbers on the machine by the bed drop. Shit, shit, shit! "Hermione?! Hermione?!" The machine started making screeching noises in some sort of alarm, and within seconds the doctor had reappeared, flinging open the door.
Dr. Billings' eyes widened as he looked at the monitor. He yanked out a device from his pocket and spoke into it, "Code blue! I repeat, code blue! Room 212." He moved close to the bed and formed his arms into a close V, pressing his hands repeatedly onto her chest.
***SPN-HP***
Back in the waiting room, a floor below, the three Winchesters were sitting quietly.
"We have to leave now." Dean finally spoke, breaking the silence.
Sam frowned, but Harry was the first to respond. "No way! We have to do something, death eaters are on their way here! We have to stay here and help them."
"No. We aren't going to stay here. We did our best, but now we have to cut our losses." Dean exhaled slowly as he slumped in the chair. "If we stay here they'll find you…" And you're way more important than both of those two combined.
Harry paused a moment before he replied trying to find exactly the right words, "But we can't just abandon them! They aren't just random strangers, they're our friends-and they need us to help them stay safe!"
"Harry, we've known them for less than a month…" Sam added, before he continued mournfully, "…I have to agree with Dean on this one, we need to keep you safe. None of us are ready for a big battle with serious magic users. If we stay here, best case scenario is that at least one of us is seriously injured."
Harry scowled, "Seriously? What about saving people? Hunting things? The family business?"
"If we want to keep this family safe we need to get going." Dean replied standing up, "Believe me; if I didn't think there was a better way I wouldn't say we should ditch them. But right now, there isn't. Chances are we're gonna end up outnumbered and overpowered-because no offense, but neither of you is nearly as experienced as these guys." Dean swallowed dryly before he spoke the rest in a barely audible whisper. "Harry, you're the most important person in my entire fucking life. You're my son, and I'm not going to let you let yourself get killed trying to stop some jackasses from fulfilling their murder boner. I've already sacrificed myself for some bullshit prophesies, and I'll tell you, it never ends well. I'm doing this for your own good." He straightened up extending his arms out for Harry and Sam to each grab onto so they could apparate back to the base together, "Now come on, we're getting out of here."
Sam grabbed onto Dean's right arm, but Harry refused.
"Harry, come on." Sam plead, "I don't want to do this either, but you need to think of your own safety."
"No."
"Harry, we're leaving, come on." Dean reached out to grab onto Harry's sleeve, he quickly withdrew it from Dean's reach.
Harry stepped away and went to the other side of the room. "I'm not abandoning them. I don't care about the prophesy, I care about keeping them safe. I'm staying here, even if you aren't with me." He crossed his arms and stood, challenging his fathers.
Sam bit his lip, reaching into his jacket to grab his wand.
"If you plan on using stupefy on me to get me to go home, as soon as I'm up I'll be right back here." Harry stated.
Sam withdrew his hand.
Dean growled, but relented. Goddamnit. How'd he end up so stubborn? Dean sighed internally, Fuck it. "Fine. We'll stay here and help, but you're not fighting, got it?" Harry nodded, "The second it kicks off you're on defense, just guard the door, no running out and engaging."
Sam glanced over at Dean, who refused to look in his direction, knowing that bitchface 5 awaited him, you sure about that?
It can be interesting, family. Because neither brother wanted to leave Harry alone, the three remained, despite the knowledge that it was likely that something terrible would begin very shortly-Not that it's any worse than the bullshit we usually find ourselves in Dean mused to himself. After leaving the waiting room Dean distracted the guard by flagging him down under the pretense of asking about the status of Hermione. "Hey, I know we aren't allowed up there, but could you give us an update on how she's doing?" Before the man could reply Sam had crept up behind him. After a quick stupefy, the three quickly snuck back toward the elevator up to the second floor to begin their search for the delivery room.
The doors opened on the second floor, returning the Winchesters to the hallway where they had been intercepted earlier. The men again turned right and headed toward the delivery rooms, hoping to see if there was a nurse station with less than optimal staffing where they could snag a copy of the room roster to identify where Ron and Hermione were. As they pushed through a set of gray double doors that separated the obstetrics wing there was an immediate sense of urgency in the air.
The obstetrics ward looked much like the other finished wards in the hospital, it consisted of a rectangle with rooms along the outer edge and a nurses' station in the center-along with restrooms and a few vending machines. At the termination of their current hallway, which swung left towards the other rooms lining the edge of the ward, a set of nurses stood inside a doorframe. The door was ajar, showing the two women determinedly passing tools to a doctor who stood hunched over a patient, his back blocking most of the view into the room. Aside from the medical staff one other person was clearly identifiable-even from their distance down the hall-courtesy of his shock of bright red hair. Ron was also present in the room, standing near the doctor, a terrified look on his face as his eyes kept darting between the doctor and the woman on the bed. It was clear that something was going horribly wrong.
Before the three could get closer to attempt to sneak a better glance at the room, a sudden cry rang out as the doctor handed a small reddish-purple baby to one of the nurses. The infant was quickly picked up and wiped off, she was very small, but at the moment she was okay. Ron immediately looked at his daughter, a brief flicker of relief crossing his face at the sound of her cries and the steady rising and falling of the small chest ringing out a wail. It was a brief moment of joy before he returned to the doctor and the concerns of his wife.
"Jane will take care of your daughter, because of her size and early delivery it's highly likely she'll need to be placed in an incubator." The doctor spoke as he turned to Ron gesturing to a nurse who had just finished cleaning the baby, "But that will depend on a few tests. Right now I'm going to try to stabilize your wife, if you don't wish to see that, I understand."
Ron shook his head, "No way in hell I'm leaving her now."
The doctor nodded, "Alright," he turned to the other nurse, "Compressions have restored pulse, but it's weak, bp is also low, I need 20 ccs of lipozamine…"
***SPN-HP***
It is an unfortunate reality that bad news rarely occurs in isolation. This is to say that when something bad occurs, there is a tendency for more bad news to arrive imminently. This propensity was something that the Winchesters were all too familiar with. That being said, the second piece of bad news usually had decent enough graces to wait its own fucking turn before it decided to arrive and throw more shit through the fan.
No sooner had the nurse taken the infant from room 212 to the NICU and the door to 212 been locked and closed as Dr. Billings performed what might have been charitably described as a fucking miracle, a series of pops shot off at the end of the hall. It was the death eaters.
"Shit."