Chapter 7

The hours that Michelle spent in surgery passed at a pace so slow that Tony thought time had stopped. He drank endless cups of bad coffee from a pot in the waiting room as did Ed and Helen. They took turns pacing and looking out the window at the sleeping city. An occasional car rolled by on the street below, but overall it was quiet. Tony couldn't help but wish he was at home in bed with Michelle safely curled up in his arms. He remembered making love to her in the morning before she went to work. She had just gotten out of the shower and her skin was warm and damp and freshly scrubbed and lightly scented with the vanilla body wash she had used. He begged her to call in sick and stay in bed with him all day. She laughed and told him that she couldn't call in sick on her last day, that they would continue this later. Then she got out of bed and dressed and went off to work. That was the last image he had of her until he saw her on the way to the operating room and he tried to keep that beautiful image clear in his mind.

At around 2:30, Drew Hanson and two other FBI agents came into the waiting room.

"Mr. Almeida," Hanson said extending his hand. "I'm Drew Hanson. These are Agents Barnes and McKenna." Tony stood and shook hands with the agents and introduced Michelle's parents.

"Thank you for stopping by," Tony said sincerely.

"We would have been here sooner, but we spent some time at UCLA Medical Center with the family of Elise Tanner; she was the other agent that was shot."

"Elise Tanner?" Tony asked in a surprised voice. "She's a friend of Michelle's. How is she doing?"

Hanson looked at the floor and shook his head. "She didn't make it. She died in the operating room."

Tony turned and walked away. He empathized with Hanson right now. It was the middle of the night and Hanson looked completely spent as did the other agents. Tony remembered being in similar situations when he was CTU director. He had visited families in hospitals and at funeral homes telling the family that the CTU staff was hoping for the best outcome or offering condolences when necessary. He knew how hard it was to stand there knowing that the family blamed you for their loved one's death or injuries. He knew the hours of paperwork that lay ahead of Hanson and how the whole operation would come under scrutiny by his superiors. At the same time, he didn't care. He didn't even care that Michelle's friend Elise was dead. He just wanted Michelle and the baby, that he didn't even know about until just a couple of hours ago, to be alright.

"Did you know that it was Michelle that took the suspect down?" Hanson asked him.

"Really?" Tony said startled by the news. "How did she do it?"

"McKenna and Barnes were there. Why don't you two tell him?" Hanson suggested to the agents.

Agent McKenna spoke up. "Tanner and Romano, the agent that died at the scene, were already down and Wright had his gun aimed at me. Michelle came up behind him and told him to drop his weapon. He started to lower his hand and then he turned on her and tried to wrench the gun from her hand. She was able to kick him away but in the process she lost her balance and fell. That was when he shot her in the chest. I thought at first that she took it in the vest and that she wasn't hurt because she was able to aim and get two shots off. At the same time he shot her again and that was when he hit her arm.

"Wright went down and Barnes subdued him and I went to help Michelle and realized that she was bleeding from the chest wound, too."

"Was she conscious?" Tony asked.

"For a few minutes," McKenna told him. "She knew she was hit. I told her that it didn't look bad, but she didn't believe me. She was having trouble breathing and she could barely talk. She looked at me. There was blood all over both of us. She shook her head to tell me 'no' and all she said was 'too much blood, Ron, too much blood'. Then she told me to tell you that she loved you just before she lost consciousness. She was losing a tremendous amount of blood from her arm. I knew an artery had been hit, so I put a tourniquet on to try and slow the blood loss. I hope it helped."

McKenna looked away for a moment unable to go on. "Michelle saved my life, Mr. Almeida. I can never repay her for that. I just pray that she'll be okay."

Hanson asked all of the obligatory questions of Tony. "Were the doctors hopeful?" and "How long should the surgery last?" and "Is there anything we can do for you right now?" Tony patiently answered his questions and thanked him but said that he and Michelle's parents were doing as well as could be expected and that they didn't need anything. He assured Hanson that they would call him if they did. Hanson left his business card with Tony and asked him to call as soon as they had any news on Michelle's condition. Tony promised that he would and the trio of agents walked silently from the waiting room.

Exhaustion began to overtake Tony and Ed and Helen. Tony eventually settled in a relatively comfortable chair and put his head back. He was just beginning to doze off when he heard his name. He awoke with a start and sat up abruptly.

"Yes," he said suddenly fully awake. He recognized Dr. Fledderman standing in front of him. He wasn't exactly smiling, but he also didn't look like a man about to deliver bad news. Tony looked at his watch; it was 4:45am.

Fledderman pulled a chair over and sat down. He was still wearing scrubs, his hair covered with a green cap, and his surgical mask untied at the top and hanging from his neck.

"She came through the surgery well," he told them. "I'm not going to tell you that she's out of the woods entirely, but she was relatively stable throughout the surgery. The vascular surgeon repaired the radial artery pretty easily and as soon as he re-established blood flow, her hand got nice and pink. That's a good sign," he told them. "The orthopedic surgeon made repairs to the bone. With physical therapy, Michelle should regain all of the use of her hand. It will probably always be a little weak and there was some nerve damage so she may always have some numbness in it, but overall, her hand should be fully functional."

"How about the bullet in her chest?" Tony asked. "Were you able to remove it?"

"Yes, and actually, it did a lot less damage than it could have. The collapsed lung partially reinflated and the rest should reinflate on its own over the next few days. If not, we'll have to do a procedure to correct that. But the good news is that even with the partially collapsed lung, she's breathing on her own. She woke up right after surgery and she's sleepy, but when I talked to her in the recovery room, she was completely appropriate. She could tell me her name, she knew she was in the hospital and she knew that she'd been shot. Frankly, she seemed more concerned with whether they caught the suspect than how she was doing. She also asked about the other agents that were shot."

Tony smiled. That described Michelle perfectly. "What did you tell her?"

"I told her that I was pretty sure they had the suspect but that I really didn't know about the other agents. That was only partially a lie. I knew one agent was dead, but I didn't think this was a good time to tell her. The last I heard of the other agent, she was on her way to UCLA's trauma center."

"The second agent died in surgery. If she asks me, should I tell her that?"

"I probably wouldn't tell her tonight. She's going to find out soon enough."

"How about the baby?" Tony asked. "Is the baby alright?"

"I don't know. I called Dr. Scott in to see her but I came out to talk to you just as she was arriving, so I don't know what she found. She's probably just about finished. If you would like to go back and see Michelle, you can talk to Dr. Scott at the same time."

"Can we all see her?" Tony asked knowing how much Ed and Helen wanted to see her.

Fledderman shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can only let one person go in right now. You'll all be able to spend more time with her in the morning. As soon as Dr. Scott is finished, we'll transfer her to intensive care."

The doctor directed Tony into the recovery area just outside of the operating rooms. Once inside a nurse took him across the room and drew aside a curtain on a small cubicle. Dr. Scott was standing next to Michelle pressing an ultrasound wand on her abdomen and checking images on the monitor next to her.

"Is everything alright?" Tony asked her.

She looked up and smiled. "The baby has a brisk heartbeat. Right now everything looks fine. We'll keep a close eye on her while she's here and once she goes home, her own doctor can take over." Dr. Scott started gathering up her equipment. "I'm finished. I'll go and leave you two alone. I think if you talk to her she'll wake up. I talked to her for a few seconds when I came in and she seemed alert. Once I started examining her, she fell back to sleep which is to be expected."

"Did you tell her that she's pregnant?"

"No, I thought I'd give you pleasure of doing that," she smiled at him.

Tony watched Dr. Scott leave then he moved to Michelle's side. She was still awfully pale. He reached over and brushed some curls out of her face and caressed her cheek. He leaned in close and whispered her name. Her eyes opened instantly.

"Hi," she whispered hoarsely her eyes barely open.

"Hi," he said in return. He took her right hand in his and squeezed it gently. She squeezed weakly in return.

"You were right," she said haltingly. "I should have stayed in the office."

"You did great, Babe. You brought down the suspect and you saved Ron McKenna's life."

"I did?" She said surprised. "Elise and John were shot."

"I know Honey."

"Are they okay?" She asked.

Tony was silent for a moment which gave Michelle a chance to fall asleep again. Tony was grateful to be saved from answering the question.

"Michelle," he whispered again.

Her eyes fluttered open. "Did I fall asleep?" She asked.

"Yeah, that's okay. You need to sleep, Baby. I just wanted you to know how much I love you."

"Love you, too," she whispered sleepily.

"Are you in any pain?"

"Not really, I'm just sore all over."

"How about if I let you get some sleep. I think you'll feel better after you get some sleep," he said as he kissed her lips tenderly.

"Don't go," she said. Tony thought he could detect some anxiety in her sleepy voice and she gripped his hand a little tighter. "I don't want to be alone. I'm scared, Tony. I keep seeing his eyes, the way he looked at me before he shot me. His eyes were so empty and cold."

"It's alright, Sweetheart. I'll stay as long as they let me. You don't have to be afraid. I'm here." He kissed her forehead. "Look at me," he directed her.

Michelle angled her head slightly to the right. "Look at my eyes. What do you see?"

"I see somebody who needs some sleep," she said as the corners of her mouth turned up into a slight smile.

"Wise guy!" Tony said as he laughed.

"Who was the woman you were talking to?"

"One of the doctors," he told her.

"That was weird," she said.

"What was weird, Honey?" He asked her.

"I've probably had too many drugs. I thought she was talking to you about my heart, but she never listened to my heart. She was pressing on my stomach. I guess I'm dreaming."

Tony smiled. Even drugged, Michelle's mind was still analytical.

"It wasn't your heart she was talking about, Sweetheart."

"Why was she talking to you about someone else's heart?" Her brow furrowed slightly with confusion.

"She was talking about the baby's heart."

"What baby?"

"Our baby, Michelle."

"We don't have a baby, Tony. Stop talking the riddles, I'm too sleepy to decode them." Her sentence started to trail off as her eyes closed again.

"Michelle," Tony whispered. "Michelle."

Tony smiled at her. He watched as her chest rose and fell slowly. She was breathing deeply and steadily and she was fast asleep. As she relaxed, she slowly released her grip on his hand. He brushed several strands of hair from her face and kissed her again.

As much as he wanted to tell her about the baby, it was pointless to wake her up now. He would tell her later when all of the drugs had worn off. It would give him some good news to balance out the news that two of her colleagues were dead.

Tony stood by Michelle's bed and watched her sleep. He liked to watch her sleep and frequently did it I the morning before she woke up. It gave him some time to remind himself how beautiful she was and how much he loved her, as if he needed to remind himself of either of those things. It gave him time to think about all of the good times they had had together and all of their hopes and dreams for the future.

That future had been in question for the last few hours and in that time he had to force his mind away from thoughts of a life together and a family. Since he saw her and talked to her, he started to allow his mind to wander again to those happy thoughts. Quietly his brain kept reminding him that Dr. Fledderman had said that Michelle wasn't out of the woods yet. But in his heart of hearts he knew that she would be fine, that she would recover and they would move to Virginia and raise their child together.

xxxXXXxxx

"Come on, Sweetheart," Tony encouraged her. "Just a little more."

"I can't, Tony. I'm exhausted," Michelle said breathing hard from exertion.

"Yes you can, Honey. You've been through worse than this."

"He's right, Mrs. Almeida," the nurse said. "One more push and this is over."

Almost eight months to the day after being shot, Michelle was in the hospital for a very different reason.

Tony held both of her hands and Michelle gripped them tightly, a look of determination on her face. Despite months of physical therapy, Tony immediately noticed that her right hand was much stronger than her left. Tony felt her grip tighten as she pushed.

"That's it," the doctor told her. "Keep it up! Keep pushing, keep pushing! There you go!" She said as the room was filled with the baby's cries.

"You've got a beautiful little girl here," she told Tony and Michelle with a smile.

Tony wrapped his arms around Michelle and tearfully whispered, "You did it, Sweetheart. You did it."

The baby was quickly cleaned up and wrapped in a blanket and handed to her waiting parents.

"Oh God, just look at her, Tony, she's beautiful!" Michelle exclaimed.

"That's because she looks like you," he told her.

They held her for a long time, neither saying a word. They just looked at her.

Michelle smiled at him. "I can't believe she's here. She's such a miracle."

One of the nurses approached the bed and smiled at the new family. "How about if we have daddy hold that little miracle while I check your vital signs and get you cleaned up."

Michelle held the baby out to Tony who took her carefully into his protective arms. He sat down with her in a rocking chair and slowly rocked back and forth unable to take his eyes off of her. She was tiny but so perfect. He was amazed by her little nose and ears. Her rose colored lips were lightly pursed and occasionally made a little suckling motion while she slept.

All babies were miracles, but this baby seemed to her parents to be even more of a miracle than most. A year ago as they were separated by the walls of a prison, neither of them dared to dream that they would even be together today. Just eight months ago, Tony sat in a hospital waiting room 3000 miles away not sure if Michelle would live to see this day. Then after more than three weeks in the hospital, Michelle was well enough to go home. The next week Tony kissed her goodbye and left for Virginia. His new employers had been nice enough to hold the job for him and postpone his start date for a month. Michelle, still not well enough to make the trip, stayed with her parents for another month. She spent the time resting and going to physical therapy, all the while the baby's progress was carefully monitored by doctors.

As soon as she was cleared for travel, Michelle left LA for her new home in Virginia. She would never forget meeting Tony at the airport. They stood in the crowded concourse of one of the nation's busiest airports and kissed. Tony picked her up off the ground and turned her around and the hurried travelers passing by took a second to look at them and smiled.

Now as Michelle looked over at Tony as he rocked their daughter, she could see a special look on his face. It was a serene, happy look that she had only seen on a couple of previous occasions. She saw it first when she accepted his proposal of marriage and again on their wedding day as they exchanged vows. She had seen it most recently the day that he was pardoned when she shyly offered to shower with him and he knew that she was his again after their long separation.

Yes, that happy, serene look was there again today. Michelle lay back against the pillow and watched him. Grateful that they were together again and that she had survived being shot. Grateful, too, that their baby was healthy and that she had been so fortunate as to find such a special man to share her life.

Yeah, that's right. If you couldn't tell from my other stories, I'm a sucker for a happy ending!

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