ngMaybe It's Better This Way

Chapter 7: One Night INTRO AND RM

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This is what I wrote summer 2005: DAMN DAMN DAMN. The long bit all about the night spent at the hospital is MISSING! It was done after I backed up my computer which is now dead! OH GOD! And then we managed to save the hard drive and a VIRUS had EATEN my OC fics. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Lol! Hopefully the re-write is as good, if not better. My medical facts are actually facts…just rare ones! Honest.

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By dint of some very reckless driving, speeding and red light running, Sandy managed to reach the HOAG at almost the same time as Caleb. With a screech of brakes he parked the car diagonally in the ER bay beside his father-in-law's. He leapt out leaving the keys in the ignition and door wide open. Crawling into the backseat of Caleb's Aston Martin he was deaf to the man's anxious questions and vain entreaties to Kirsten to get out. His eyes and ears were only for his wife who was sat hunched against the expensive leather, hands clenched and her knees tucked up towards her body. Her face was chalky white and her forehead clammy. Sandy felt his heart drop as he saw her; this wasn't looking good.

'Hey honey,' he said, gently stroking her hair from her face. The eyes that had been screwed shut opened and he could see the blue orbs were dark and glassy with pain. 'Oh God Sandy,' she groaned, her bottom lip was bloody where she'd bitten it.

'Let's get you inside.' Sandy slid his arms around his wife, 'Come on sweetheart.'

Kirsten didn't move, tears seeping under her closed lids and writing her tiredness at the sickening pain down her cheeks. 'It hurts…it…hu-r-ts,' she whimpered as Sandy eased her towards him. 'F-f-eel ill-ll…rea-lly ill.'

Definitely a contraction.

Definitely not good.

'M-make it stop,' she sobbed, 'too…too…early...h-hurts.'

'I know baby,' he soothed, 'but it'll be okay.'

He saw the doubt and raw fear in her eyes as she glanced at him and he knew what she was thinking. What if it wasn't? What if the baby wasn't okay? What if she…? Sandy shut the thought out.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered. Sandy pressed a kiss against her feverish temple. 'It's okay,' he said, sweeping her up and out of the car. Kirsten was unable to swallow a moan as the movement magnified the pain. She gave a weak gasp and passed out, lying limp in her husband's arms.

Sandy wasted no time; striding into the hospital, closely followed by Caleb.

-----

The name Nichol did great things at the hospital.

'My daughter Kirsten Nichol Cohen,' Caleb announced at the desk.

'Kirsten…Nichol Cohen?'

'Yes, Nichol Cohen as in Caleb Nichol. That's who I am and this is my daughter; now find us a damn doctor.'

The response was immediate; senior medics appeared as if by magic and Kirsten was wheeled off amidst a swarm of nurses, two IVs, oxygen mask and blood pressure cuff her latest accessories. 'She was suddenly taken ill, she's in pain and unconscious, that's all I know,' Caleb told the tall doctor as they hurried along a lengthy corridor, before hastily excusing himself to go and make sure the cars were parked. Perhaps Caleb Nichol could actually feel guilt. He'd never forgive himself if something happened to his beloved Kiki. The doctor turned to Sandy whose anxious eyes told him that wasn't all.

'She's pregnant, seventeen weeks. And she's thirty-nine…' he couldn't continue but the man understood.

'We'll do everything we can.'

Sandy nodded, it was a feeble reassurance not aided by the fact that at that moment he was held back with a polite, 'If you could wait here sir,' and left to fill in insurance forms and pace angrily. When his father-in-law found him, his hair was wild from running his hands through it and his temper frayed.

'What the hell happened?'

'We…we were, arguing. We both got mad.'

'And?' Sandy's voice was sharp. The nurses wouldn't tell him anything but now Caleb was back he was sure as hell gonna get some answers from someone.

'I didn't mean to hurt her Sanford.'

'But?'

His face crumpled, 'She came at me, I put my arm out, she was closer than I thought…I didn't hit her…I didn't, I couldn't…'

Sandy clenched his fists and fought the urge to take a swing at Caleb, 'Then what happened?'

'I…my… my arm caught her head…she stumbled, fell. When I got her up she clutched at the desk and then she cried out…she said it wasn't me but it must have been…I hurt her, my little girl,' his voice cracked and he ran a shaking hand across his face.

Sandy had no sympathy, 'God Caleb, this isn't the first time. You've hurt her all these years, taking her for granted, taking advantage, demanding too much, never being satisfied. She's a strong woman but you've been breaking her since she was born.'

The elder man hung his head slightly, it was all true.

'Of course that's all been emotional pain. Now it's physical too, you make me sick.'

'It wasn't…I never meant…'

Sandy stalked away from his hated father-in-law ignoring his protests.

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'Hello?' Ryan answered the phone, panicking as he heard Caleb Nichol's voice on the line. He thrust the phone at Seth with a hurried 'It's your grandpa,'

'What? Hey man…no sorry Grandpa, didn't mean you, yeah hi…..what?'

Ryan heard the sudden change in Seth's voice and ducked his head out of the fridge in time to see his features pale.

'What happened? Is she okay? Is it the baby? Is the baby okay? What was it? Is Dad there? Have you seen her?' Seth rambled frantically, oblivious to the silence on the other end as Caleb digested this information. His eldest daughter was pregnant and he hadn't even known. That's how distant he had become. He was her father and her boss and she hadn't told him. That's how much of a father he was, he hadn't even noticed, no suspicions, no guesses, nothing. Then suddenly it dawned on him, a moment of crystal realisation when everything fell into place.

'Shit.'

Pregnant. Was pregnant or had been pregnant? Please God no. This wasn't looking good.

'Grandpa? We'll be right down.'

Seth hung up and turned to see Ryan standing cell phone and car keys in hand, 'It's mom,' he said worriedly.

'I got that, let's go.'

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It had been a long night.

They let him pace outside the trauma room knowing the words 'The waiting room is on the floor below,' didn't apply to him. He couldn't sit downstairs on those hard, lurid orange chairs and see the worried faces of his sons begging him to say everything would be alright and not being able to. Sandy didn't like not being in control, not able to fix things. He didn't want his boys to see him fail.

He couldn't lose Kirsten and Kirsten couldn't lose this baby.

The baby.

So unexpected and now so important. Was it crazy to love her already? To be terrified in case she didn't make it.

Was it terrible to make secret deals with God?

He loved his children. He loved his wife.
He shouldn't have to choose between. He shouldn't think such things. But he was.

As much as he hated to think it, hated himself for daring to wish it, he hoped that the price, if it came to that, would be one life not two.

He didn't hear the hushed whispers of the nurses as they rushed back and forth, their worried faces a blur to the man with his eyes transfixed on the door separating him from everything that mattered in the world, bar the two boys downstairs.

He could barely focus on what the doctors were saying.

Complications, retention, abruption; words he'd hardly even heard much less understood.

They were dealing with more than the miscarriage they'd originally suspected. He'd heard that.

Preeclampsia. He'd understood that.

He'd listened to their explanations; her age, her blood pressure, the stress she'd been under, the length of time since her last pregnancy; not exactly reassuring.

He let the medical jargon wash over him but he knew the statistics and how rare it was this early. It wasn't meant to happen. Not. This. Early.
If it had to happen at all. But it was. Some strange fate, some freak of nature had made Kirsten one of the tiny percentage who developed the potentially fatal condition early.

Before the third trimester.

One of the anomalies because she was before twenty weeks.

Before a baby could be expected to survive.

Just because it was uncommon didn't make it impossible.

And here he was, living the near impossible.

There wasn't much hope really; if the baby wasn't already lost, it was one to save the other. And then there was the haunting thought, the paralysing fear that Kirsten wouldn't cope with the haemorrhaging.

She had a good chance, someone said, they'd diagnosed early; the sky-high blood pressure, unnatural mother-baby weight gain ratio followed her sudden weight gain and the extended nausea all giant clues. But it wasn't the concrete assurance he wanted or needed and the fact the pair were already in distress added more question marks.

---

An eternity of painful waiting later the doctor appeared, his gown stained with blood.

His wife's blood.

The thought made Sandy want to retch.

'I'm sorry, your wife…' he said and time stopped. Sandy was falling, spinning, the bright lights of the hospital hallway receding into black tunnel vision. He couldn't do this, couldn't hear this.

…blackness…darkness…cold…

Suddenly there was a hand on his arm, the corridor came back into focus and the doctor's voice was next to him again rather than a hundred miles away. 'She's fine, ok? She's fine. Stay with us.'

Sandy felt disorientated but clung onto the words.

She's fine.

Fine

Words that brought him back from almost passing out.

He gave a rough cough, holding back the tears that wanted to fall and the bile that rose in his throat.

Thank God. Thank. God.

For a moment he let himself relax in relief before recalling the circumstances, remembering the apology, and glancing back up at the doctor.

The word 'lost' echoed in his ears but he didn't need to hear it to know.

He didn't need the words; the exhausted doctor's sombre face told him everything.

He didn't need the meaningless apology.

He didn't need words to know things weren't ok.

To know even though Kirsten was 'fine' she wouldn't be 'ok'.

He thanked the doctor in a monotone. It wasn't his fault and he had just saved his wife but Sandy couldn't summon the energy to be sincere. His voice came from somewhere else.

---

It was too early for his regular, and usually uninformative update when Sandy appeared ashen faced from the hospital room. The heads of his two sons snapped up and Ryan, realising Seth was unable to talk, cleared his throat and asked the inevitable question; 'H-how is she?'

Seth looked up at his father, his eyes dark pools of dread seeking reassurance.

'Kirsten's fine,' he answered, allaying their initial fears, 'still unconscious but she's fine.'

His foster son continued to look worried, his eyes scrutinising Sandy's face and drawing their own conclusion. Seth felt the mood too; 'There's a 'but' isn't there dad?'

Sandy nodded, running a hand across the stubble forming on his face and pressing it against the dull ache at his temple. 'We lost the baby.'

Neither boy knew what to say, their father's voice was hollow and he looked defeated.

'Sorry,' they mumbled in unison.

Sandy gave a rueful smile and pulled them into a bear hug; 'Nothing to apologise for boys. Just so long as we've got you two it'll be alright.'

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I'm so nice…I didn't leave it at a cliff-hanger about Kirsten! I think that deserves a review.

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