When Things Go Wrong

"I'll be here the entire time Mrs. Johnson. I promise I won't let anything happen to the baby." The patient nodded as the anesthesia kicked in and Casey stepped off to the side.

Jack took her place as the surgery started.

This was the first time since Casey and Jack had started working again that they got to work together. Their had been a bus accident and people flooded the emergency room. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Johnson were both victims of the accident.

While Mr. Johnson came away, lucky, with only a scrap or two, his wife was not so lucky. She had suffered head trauma and was now having surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain. Risky thing was that she was seven months pregnant.

So, here they all were. Sitting (or standing) in an operating room together. Casey sighed heavily as she listened to Jack request different tools. She was extremely bored and the steady beating monitor of both mother and child wasn't making it any easier to stay awake. She tried as hard as she could but her world still went black.

Casey opened her eyes suddenly as saw Jack in front of her. They weren't in the operating room anymore but back on the island. She looked around and she could see everybody. Sawyer, Tina, Sayid, Shannon…the names went on.

"She needs us." She heard a voice say. She turned to see Walt at her side.

"What?" She asked, confused.

"She needs us." Walt repeated. He didn't look her in the eyes though. He was very monotonous sounding. Casey followed his glare over to where Taylor sat on a log by herself.

"Taylor!" Casey screamed while running to her. She slid down in the sand next to her grabbing her hands in the process. "Taylor, honey, I'm back." She said excitedly.

Taylor kept her eyes fixated into the fire in front of her. She was very pregnant but still somewhat small. Casey couldn't help but smile. She had gotten back before Taylor had the baby. They could still help.

"Taylor, my baby Taylor. I missed you so much. I'm sorry I left you." She apologized whole-heartedly. Taylor still didn't look at her. A look laid on her face. Mixes of sadness, desperation, fear, anxiety all rolled into one.

Casey began to worry. "Taylor look at me." Casey said forcefully, carefully shaking her daughter. "Taylor look at me!"

A beeping noise pierced through her dream and she awoke with a start. It was the baby's heart monitor.

"Doctor Shepard, the baby's BP has dropped to 180." The nurse said calmly.

"How far through the surgery are you?" She asked Jack quickly.

"Almost finished." He told her working as swift but careful as he could.

Casey stood a moment wondering if the baby could hold out until after the surgery. She knew that if it could survive the next few minutes it could make it though anything.

"170, Doctor." The nurse said more franticly.

"Jack?" Casey looked to him for more answers. He didn't answer. She asked again.

"Hold on." He could hear the monitor racing with the pace of the baby's heart.

"I have to do this Jack! I'm sorry." She shoved her way into the surgery and began performing an emergency c-section.

000

Casey sat in a chair in Mrs. Johnson's room, waiting for her to wake up. Her mind flashed between the operating room scenes and her dream. Was it trying to tell her something? Was Taylor not okay? She swallowed hard and she could just feel that something wasn't right.

She suddenly heard a groan from beside her. She practically jumped to her feet and ran to the door and calmly called for her husband.

"Doctor Shepard? How did it go?" Mrs. Johnson asked wincing with the pain in her head.

"Well, the surgery went well." Jack said enthusiastically. "But we ran into some complications later on." He said. She happiness gone.

"What happened?" The woman asked concerned.

Casey felt her nervous stomach lurch. "I'm sorry Mrs. Johnson but you lost the baby."

The doctor waited for the reaction, but nothing came. Pain flooded her chest. She could only imagine what was going through her patient's mind at that very moment.

Jack heard a sharp intake of breath and he could tell if it was Casey or Mrs. Johnson. He wrapped an arm around Casey for support and he watched the woman in the hospital bed loose control.

She cried. She cried hard and it made his heart twist. He could not even think about the pain of loosing Taylor. It was too much to bear.

000

The somber mood followed the couple home from work and into the house where they ate dinner in silence. Not one word was spoken. All either of them could hear was the clanking of silver ware on plates and each other's breathing.

Casey found herself oddly un-hungry. She pushed the food around on her plate to make it look like she'd eaten something and also for entertainment. She heard Jack let out a sigh.

"It's always hard." He said quietly.

"What?" Casey asked. She hadn't particularly been paying attention.

"It's always hard to tell a parent that they've lost a child." He set his fork down on his empty plate and got up to put it in the sink.

"Yeah…it is." Casey said slowly. There was a long silence between the two of them while Jack washed his dishes for the evening.

Casey got up to put hers away as well. "Jack, I fell asleep while we were in the operating room." She admitted shamefully.

"I know. I saw your head bob a few times." He smiled at the memory.

"Well, I had a dream."

"Okay? So?" Jack pushed her out of the way gently to get to the cabinet that held the plates. "I have dreams too." He tried to make a point.

"That's not exactly what I was getting at." She moved back over to her spot at the table and sighed heavily. "Jack, I dreamt about Taylor." Jack turned slowly around to look at her funny.

"You did?"

"Yeah. I did." Jack looked at her with soft eyes.

"Case, I know you miss her…I miss her two." He tried to console.

"I think something's wrong." She said very seriously.

"Why do you think that?" Jack went back to washing the day's dishes.

"Because my dream was so real. Jack she would talk to me. She looked so…I don't know. She was sad, worried. I know her Jack. I know the way she gets when things go wrong. You do to. Now stop trying to blow this off! This is your daughter!" Casey was beginning to get upset with Jack.

"Casey! Taylor is a very levelheaded individual. I'm sure she and the baby and Aaron and everyone else for that matter of fact are fine." It wasn't that Jack didn't want to address the issue. He was just worried and thought that if he ignored it he could forget. But then again…How could he forget his own child?

"Jack Shepard! I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU! I'm worried. The sixth sense that a mother has is really strong right now and it's saying that my baby needs me!" She laid at hand on Jack's shoulder so that he would make eye contact with her. "Now I don't know about you but I am seriously thinking about going back to the god forsaken place and getting my daughter back!"

Jack leaned against his counter and hung his head. He could hear Casey mumble her way out of the room and up the stairs. One thing she whispered stuck in his mind. 'She's your little girl for god sakes.' Even though Taylor was old enough to take care of herself and her own kids, Jack could grasp the concept.

He kept flashing back to times when she was just a little girl…when she was his little monkey.

"Daddy! Look at me!" Taylor hung upside down from a tree.

"I see you!" Jack called out to her. He giggles filled the air.

Jack smiled.

"Like this dad?" Taylor piled logs on top of one another to that she could build a fire. Her first fire.

"Exactly. Taylor, you're a natural!" Jack laughed at her as she struck a rock with a switchblade to get sparks.

Jack traveled to the couch and sat down.

"I love you dad." The fifteen-year-old version of Taylor said quietly.

"I love you too monkey." He held her close in front of the roaring fire.

Jack's eyes began to fill with tears. "I love you too monkey." He repeated to himself. He smirked at his own blindness. How could he have left her?

Her smiling face still hung in his thoughts as he swung his feet over the side of the couch and lay down.

"Why did I leave you monkey?" He asked himself as he drifted off to sleep.