DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING!
Anne was five seconds away from having a panic attack. She didn't know how she got here. She standing in the middle of a maternity ward in a hospital in Malibu dressed in a nurse's costume with a black-haired, long, curly wig and red-framed glasses. She kept pacing back and forth down the hallways of the ward, waiting and waiting for somebody to grab her and say something but nobody did. They all completely ignored her presence like she wasn't even there.
The patients and visitors must have thought she worked there and the staff must have thought the same thing or believed she was a visitor or a volunteer.
All of a sudden, some doctors and nurses came running down the hallway with a woman on a stretcher, screaming in agony. Desperate to get out of their way, Anne backed up into a room. She turned around to see where she was and froze. Without thinking her feet started to move on their own accord and Anne found herself approaching a young woman holding a newborn. She and Anne were the only people in the room. The name on the chart attached to the bed was Sarah O'Brian.
She was a very beautiful sixteen-year-old girl with fair skin, rosy cheeks, large green eyes, brown eyelashes and eyebrows, light freckles around her nose, and long golden blonde hair.
Even with the baggy hospital gown, Anna could tell she had a slender frame and slightly wide hips. When Sarah noticed her, she gave the woman in white a friendly smile. She must have thought Anne was a nurse too. The brunette swallowed the lump in her throat and turned her attention to the newborn in Sarah's arms. He was the most beautiful baby boy in the whole world. He had bright blue eyes and small tufts of golden blond hair just like Mike's that stuck out from the cloth the midwife had bundled him into.
He was an active baby, letting out soft gurgles as his mother held him and Anne could see his tiny hands and feet under the blanket.
Anne fell in love the instant she saw him and she could tell that Sarah felt the same way from the smile that split her face when she saw her son. The little blue card stuck to the glass read the name Aidan O'Brian and the time of birth was 27th July 1995 - 6:25 am. This little one was only six hours old, at least.
"H-He's very beautiful." Anne suddenly said, unable to take her eyes off the infant.
"He sure is, get's it from his Daddy." Sarah smiled widely, but when Anne looked at the girl, she could see how exhausted she was. The teen had just given birth after all. Almost as if it was instinct, Anne fell into the role of caring nurse. To be fair, with all the books on pregnancies and infant care she has read she probably knew more about caring for a baby off the top of her head than some of these trained midwives.
"I've been doing this a long time and I can see how tired you are; give him to me and go you get into a clean." She suggested and after a moment of hesitation, Sarah handed her baby over to this woman. For the next couple of hours, Anne tended to Sarah and her son. With Anne's help, Sarah was cleaned up in the shower and dressed in a fresh hospital gown. Aidan was also burped, had his diaper changed, and was dressed in clean baby clothes.
The baby had finally settled and the older woman sat on Sarah's bed with the teen, still holding the baby.
The teen had tears in her eyes from exhaustion. Anne gave her a reassuring smile and a glass of water to drink before handing the baby back to feed. Sarah tried nursing her son but was having difficulty. Anne quickly reassured her that nursing would get easier the more she did it. Seeing how stressed the poor girl was, Anne came up with a plan. She would take the baby away for half an hour at the most. Just so she could have a little bit to pretend to be a mother.
That way Sarah could have a few minutes to herself to gather her thoughts and Anne would get some time to experience what it would have been like to have a baby of her own.
When she made the offer, saying Aidan needed his temperature checked, however, Sarah was more hesitant than before.
"I know you hate to be away from him, even for a second, but we keep the thermometers in the nursery; I'll be gone for fifteen minutes then I'm gonna bring him back and you can get to know each other, okay?" She explained and she could see the gears turning in Sarah's head as she thought this over. After a few minutes though, the teen relented. "All right, in the meantime, get yourself some rest and I'll be right back." Anne smiled tightly and began to walk away with the baby.
She was just about to leave the room when suddenly somebody almost ran straight into her.
Anne was about to shout at the person until she got a good look at her. It was a woman who appeared to be twice her age and was dressed like she was some kind of secretary. On her purple blazer was a name tag that read Helen O'Brian.
"Hey, Mom." Sarah suddenly called from her hospital bed and Anne was stiff as a statue. Helen bore a striking resemblance to her daughter; near-identical, bright green eyes with similar facial features. She also had dark brown hair in a bob-cut style.
"Oh, there he is!" The older woman squealed in delight when she realized what the 'nurse' was holding. "He's gorgeous! Just look at those eyes!" She beamed with pride as she took in all of her new grandson's features. "You know it's killing Johnny that he can't be here to meet his son; this baby is his new start," Helen commented to Anne, also thinking she was a nurse. Anne, meanwhile, was trying to remember how to breathe again. She quickly remembered, however, when Helen tried to take the infant from her to hug her grandchild.
Anne suddenly jerked back a bit to pull the baby away from her, much to Helen and Sarah's confusion.
Realizing her mistake, Anne quickly cleared her throat and tried to save the situation. She wasn't ready to give this little boy back; not yet anyway.
"I need to take him to get his temperature checked, b-but you shouldn't worry, I-I'll be right back." She smiled nervously. Helen shrugged it off and went to tend to her daughter, making a mental note to pamper her grandson with lots of hugs and kisses when he got back. As soon as Helen was out of her line of sight, Anne all but speed walked out of the ward. When she made it to the ground floor, the brunette was ready to throw up as she thought about her actions.
She was disgusted with herself.
She had impersonated a nurse to sneak into a maternity ward so she could have a few minutes caring for someone else's baby because she knew when she got home her marriage would be all but over. Mike had been under enough pressure with work and the other failed pregnancies. To find out that not only had they lost another baby but Anne had been lying about being pregnant this whole time would be the final nail in the coffin. What was wrong with her?
She was just trying to help.
Sarah looked so upset and exhausted, and Anne thought if she took Aidan for half an hour, the teen could get some rest and she would get a few more minutes holding a little one like she always wanted. But deep down Anne knew the truth. She knew that the moment she had him in her arms half an hour wasn't going to be enough. The front entrance was only forty feet away and wide open. This feeling suddenly bubbled up inside her and the next thing she knew she was walking out with the infant in her arms.
She was walking fast, waiting for someone to grab me but nobody did.
As she left the hospital, she saw some paramedics standing by their ambulance, gossiping about something. Anne didn't speak or approach them, but she tried to convey with her eyes that something wasn't right, but they either ignored her presence or didn't notice her. Nobody gave Anne a second glance as she left the hospital parking lot. Or walked almost ten blocks to where she had left the car. Or when she changed in an alley and dumped her costume in a dumpster.
After she was finished ditching the costume and wig, she buckled the baby into the back seat and began the almost twelve-hour drive back to Venture Falls.
Back at the hospital, Sarah was starting to grow concerned. Over half an hour had gone by and that nurse had yet to return with her baby. Not sure of what else to do, Sarah picked up the hospital phone and called down to the nursery to see where her baby was. All the while, Helen was brushing her daughter's golden locks to try and calm her down.
"Oh hello, uh, did a nurse just bring my baby down there?" She asked the doctor on the phone and her eyes narrowed when he replied. "He's not down there?" She frowned and when she saw her mother giving her a confused look, she turned to look at her. "They're checking the other nursery." She told her and Helen went back to brushing her hair. A couple of minutes later, however, she jumped when she heard something fall to the floor.
She bent over and saw that Sarah had dropped the phone.
She looked at her daughter and gasped when she saw the teen was white as a ghost and had rivers of tears streaming down her face as her eyes were wide with horror.
"Sarah, sweetie, what's wrong? Is Aidan okay?" She asked, scared that something had happened to her grandson. The only answer she received was the most disturbing, memory haunting scream of anguish she had ever heard from her daughter filled her ears...