"How long will she need to stay here for?"
"The rest of the week - she could start hemorrhaging again...it's completely unpredictable. She can go home after that, but she needs to be kept under close watch. We can't have this happen again - next time, she won't be so lucky. Also, Arthur, I must inform you that because of this, the birth will be even more difficult. It could have similar effects to the degree of this - anything could happen, but we'll do our best."
"I understand. Thank you."
Harper awoke to two voices conversing somewhere in the room she was in, one of them a familiar, gruff voice and the other, a hushed, whispering tone. She kept her eyes closed, a headache splitting through her head, and heard footfalls as one of them left the room. She suddenly heard more footsteps, some further away, pacing, frantic, quick. Some more then as someone approached her.
"Oh, Harper," she heard the familiar voice say, and with much difficulty, did she manage to open her eyes, instantly regretting it as light poured into her vision and magnified the intensity of her headache.
She heard a clamor around her as she blinked, sensitive eyes adjusting to the light.
"Harper!"
"She's awake!"
"What? Oh my-!"
"Oh god, Harper..."
As she sat herself up, she felt incredibly weak, and the simple gesture was incredibly difficult for her. Her limbs felt sore and her entire body ached. Breathing was difficult and she was lightheaded.
A blur whizzed by, and she was suddenly tackled into a hug. Blinking, she looked down as vision cleared, focusing on the figure that was clutching her so tightly.
"H-hey, Scooter," she managed out as she shakily wrapped her sore arms around him.
"Harper," Elliot sniffled, sobbing into her shoulder. "Oh my god, Harper..."
As Elliot pulled away, wiping his face on his shirt sleeve, Harper looked around the room, her eyes still adjusting to the bright light of the morning filtering in through the window beside her.
She saw her grandpa, Danni, Imogen, and Parker all of them wearing expressions that were a mixture of worried and relieved, and beside her, a bloodshot-eyed Tom. Inspecting the room around her, she noticed how sanitary and sterile it seemed - cleared of the previous night's events, of which she was still not aware - and all the tools and medical supplies around her. Concluding she was in a hospital, she still lacked a reason as to why.
Looking down at the foot of her bed, she saw a pile of white towels gathered around her lower half, and quirked an eyebrow at the tightly-packed mass. Turning to the right, she became aware of the tight grip Tom had on her hand. Looking at him, eyes brimmed red, she wondered what had him so stirred up.
Looking up at Arthur, she spoke again. "What...what's going on, guys? Why am I here?"
She heard Arthur speak before he looked over at Tom. "Harper..." She cast a glance at him before directing her gaze to her boyfriend, his hair a mussed mess, eyes unblinking...the memory came flooding back to her, and tears sprung to her eyes as she pulled her hand away from his and brought them to her face, a horrified expression breaking out on her features.
"No," she said loudly, forcefully, as if trying to convince herself otherwise. "No, no, no." She didn't try to stop the tears that ran down her cheeks, and the others backed off, letting her have some time alone to comprehend everything before informing her of the news.
The memories hit Harper like a shock of lightning - jolting, unpleasant, ungodly. She remember blood - oh, there was blood - and she remembered her mind glazing over in her own internal panic. She remembered telling Tom she loved him before passing out and the frantic screams of the nurses and that was it.
Harper looked up frantically then - if the situation was as she thought, then she should be feeling something - incomplete? Like something - someone - very dear to her was gone, missing, never to have been in her life. But she didn't feel the loss she knew she should have been feeling.
Flushing with newfound panic, Harper threw the blinding white covers off of her bottom half and saw, much to her surprise, that the bump she had sported just hours before was still very much so there. Placing her hands on it, she looked around the room, thoroughly confused.
But...shouldn't it be...gone? Harper hated to think of the possibility of it, but after what had occurred the night before, she had every belief that she was no longer going to be a mother and was horrified. But the little life was still growing inside her.
Though confused, now tears of happiness instead of fright poured from her eyes. She smiled, before feeling a pressure over her hand again and knew instantly it was Tom's. Turning her head, she saw a small smile forming on his face, and she would have turned and thrown her arms over his neck in sheer glee if not for the lack of strength she possessed.
Squeezing his hand, she used the other one to wipe away her seemingly never-ending tears and asked the question on the tip of her tongue. "What happened?"
Arthur, who had water building at the corner of his eye, smiled before sighing at her. "You scared the hell outta us, Harper," he said. "Elliot called me about four in the morning going about how you were bleeding and how Tom had taken you here. Didn't understand at first, but didn't care about that, either - all we needed to hear was that you were in trouble and we were right on the way. When we got here, you were out cold, and while you stopped hemorrhaging a lot, there was still a, um..."
The man paused, composing himself as he remembered the horrifying events that unfolded just hours before. "...a steady stream going. Tom was...Tom was..." Arthur looked over at the younger man, whose eyes were wrought with emotion, before deciding to tell his own side of it. "Tom was hysterical, I'll just say that. We couldn't get him to leave your side and he hasn't since. You've been here a few hours now. It was only about two hours ago you were stabilized, though, Harper."
He sighed before continuing, giving into his emotions, letting a single tear fall as Elliot joined him at his side, placing a hand on the older man's shoulder. "We were all so worried about you, Harper. And the baby. We...thought you were going to die."
The tone of Arthur's voice dropped significantly as he said the last part, and Harper realized how difficult it must have been for him to have been faced with the possibility of losing his granddaughter - of losing yet another family member.
Reaching her hands up, she smiled at the man. "But I didn't, Grandpa," she reassured him, before his repressed sobs bubbled over, as did Elliot's, Parker's, Danni's, and Imogen's, and they all piled in to a group hug.
Squeezing them as tightly as she could, Harper closed her eyes and just held them for a long, unspecified amount of time. Eventually, she looked over at Tom, who was smiling at her, eyebrows upturned in a sign of relief.
Soon, the group retreated from Harper's side, and Arthur, upon seeing Tom's expression, realized he needed to speak to her alone. Ushering everyone out of the room, the door clicked shut, signifying that Tom and Harper were finally alone.
Breathing in shakily, he looked at her again, and forced out a wheezy "Hi."
Relaxing into the plethora of pillows behind her, Harper greeted him back softly. "Hey." The pair sat in comfortable silence, staring at each other, for what seemed like forever, but both were more than content with it.
Soon, though, Tom's resolve for staying composed broke and his own tears strayed down his cheeks as he stood up and embraced her, squeezing her as though she would disappear at any given second in his arms. After pulling back, he placed a hand on her stomach, and Harper asked shakily, having not received a direct answer from Arthur, "So, he's okay?"
"Thankfully, yes," Tom sniffled. He looked at the floor then. "I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't gotten you here in time though - they told me that if...if..." Harper simply embraced her tearing up boyfriend softly, holding him closely.
"I'm here now, Tom," she whispered in his ear. "And so is he. That's all that matters." Tom breathed unevenly against her neck, before nodding and pulling away again.
"God, it was horrible, Harper." He stopped and looked away, as if reliving the painful memory, before continuing. "After you were stabilized, they told us that you were hemorrhaging. I-I know you thought...thought you were miscarrying - I did, too - but no, hemorrhaging." The word - miscarrying - was forced off his tongue, and Harper noticed, taking his palm in hers and squeezing it.
"But still, you lost so much blood and it was pretty severe. But, thank god, they told us that, if kept under careful watch, you and the baby should be fine. But they said that the birth could be just as bad if not worse, so we'll have to be extra careful around the due date. You'll have to be in a few days before, probably."
Harper was silent as she took in the information - blood, hemorrhaging, birth, due date, herself, baby, fine. All that mattered to her was that she hadn't lost her baby - that he...or she...was still okay. Tears of utter relief and happiness brimming her eyes, she leaned forward and embraced Tom suddenly, wetting the flesh of his arm with fresh waterworks. He wrapped his arms around her weakened frame, and whispered into the crook of her neck, "I love you, Harper. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."
Pulling back, he gave her a long, hard, serious look, before crumbling into his own currently unstable emotions, feeling tears tug at his own eyes, as well. "I-I wouldn't - I was so damn scared, Harper, you have no idea. You passed out and I thought I lost you and I couldn't breathe and I thought I was going to die, too, and- and-"
Tom had already begun to accept what had happened so early that morning, but a new fear had washed over him before she had woken up when he was informed that a similar incident could possibly occur again in just a few months' time. It was rattling and unsettling for him to hear. "Harper, I-I-"
Harper muffled her boyfriend's frenzied rant with her lips, pressing her mouth to his softly, but firmly. Tom took a few seconds to adjust to the sudden feel of her lips, but upon re-familiarizing himself with the flesh he had missed so dearly, did he give her a response, which she relished. They held their lips together for a long, unbroken moment, suspended in their sweet lip lock.
When they pulled back, they smiled at each other, and Harper placed her hand on Tom's cheek to comfort him further. Pulling her thumb against the skin comfortingly, she whispered to him, "I love you, too, Tom. And I'm here. I'll always be here."
He planted another fluttering kiss atop her lips and promised himself that he would do anything and everything to protect her. He was going to tell her this, but by the look in her eyes, he knew that she knew, and that it was a mutual arrangement and agreement.