The white walls of the hospital seemed to be endless. They had turned so many corners that Severide had lost track of where they actually were. His mind kept going over the events of the day. The nurse guiding Severide and Casey had been updating them on the condition of the little baby girl. Severide caught some key terms like 'late preterm' and 'respiratory distress', but it was hard to keep up.
"How long will she have to stay in the NICU?" asked Casey, sensing that his friend needed time to process all the information.
"I can't give you a definite answer on that, but she has been doing really well. I don't expect it to be long." The young nurse answered. "Here we are"
They turned into a small room with multiple bassinets. The nurse walked them over to a bassinet with a tag saying "baby Kidd/Severide" on it.
"This is her" the nurse smiled.
Carefully the two men approached the little girl. In the bassinet was a small sleeping baby, a breathing tube had been placed in her little nose. Seeing his daughter for the first time, Kelly didn't know what to do or feel. He had dreamed of this moment so many times. He had dreamed about how he would be there right beside Stella when she would hold their child for the first time. Now, he just stood there hesitantly.
"Do you want to hold her?" The nurse asked.
"Uhm, yes, uhm, can I?" He replied unsure.
"Of course. If you wash your hands and sit in that chair, I will get her for you."
Finally having his daughter in his arms was the first time that a smile formed on Kelly's face since reaching the hospital. "Hey, baby" he whispered while softly caressing the little cheeks of the girl with his index finger.
"Do we have a name yet?" the nurse asked.
"Yes, but I want to wait for Stella first" Severide answered as the smile fell away from his face. The thought that the mother of his child was fighting for her life somewhere else in this hospital was too hard to grasp.
"Okay, no problem. We will do that later on. I'll leave the three of you alone for a bit." The nurse excused herself from the room.
"She is beautiful, isn't she?" Severide asked his friend.
"Yes, she really is" smirked Casey.
"I can't do this without her, Matt." It was the first time that Kelly actually had expressed his worry.
Casey was silent; not knowing what to answer his best friend.
"She is strong, Kelly." Casey knew he was just stating the obvious now, but it seemed better than nothing at the time. "She'll pull through, but you are never alone in this."
Severide and Casey had remained with the little girl for an hour or so at the NICU, before an unknown doctor entered the room.
"Good morning gentlemen, my name is Doctor Bush, which one of you is Mr. Severide"
"Yes, that's me"
"Okay, so Miss Kidd went into cardiac arrest earlier this night due to an amniotic fluid embolism, meaning that amniotic fluid entered your girlfriend's pulmonary circulation." The doctor paused to let the information sick in. "We have been able to stabilize her and she has been responding well to her treatment. She has been extremely lucky, but she is not out of the woods just yet. There could be neurological damage, but for now things are looking up."
Severide let out a shaky breath. "Thank you"
"Has someone come up to check your daughter yet?"
"No, not since we arrived, why?" answered Casey, confused of the sudden change of subject.
"Okay, I'll have someone check her out and then hopefully we can transfer her to your girlfriend's room, Mr. Severide".
"She is awake?" Severide asked hopeful.
"Not yet, but we expect her to wake up within a couple of hours".
"Okay, thank you."
"Do you hear that" He said to the girl in his arms. "Mommy is going to be better soon" Placing a kiss on her little forehead.
The doctor had said a couple of hours, but by now it had been almost four. In that time, Stella's and Kelly's daughter had been discharged from the NICU. Severide was gently rocking the little girl in his arms as he slowly paced through the hospital room. He was trying to occupy himself by whispering stories about him and Stella to the baby girl.
"you know, you pretty much have the best mom in the world, right? Although, sometimes she can be a little crazy. Especially when she was pregnant with you. She had me driving to get milkshakes in the middle of the night." He smiled at the memory. "When you get older, I'm going to take you to the first place your mom and I had milkshakes together. There is no better place to get them."
He had been so involved in the stories that he hadn't noticed that Stella was slowly starting to wake up.
A small moan came from the other end of the room. Severide's head shot up. She was coming too, finally. Carefully he placed his daughter back into her bassinet and quickly made his way over to Stella's bedside.
"Stella, can you open your eyes for me."
Another moan came.
"Please?" He said in a hoarse voice, cradling her head and holding on to her hand for dear life.
Slowly but surely she finally opened her eyes.
"Hey, Stella, you really scared me there." He whispered
"hmm what happened?" she whispered back.
Severide couldn't answer her right away. The emotions and his lack of sleep were getting to him. Tears were once again starting to roll down his face.
Stella reached up wipe away the tears. As she did so, her other hand instinctively reached for her abdomen, but her the large belly that she was expecting wasn't there anymore.
"The baby? Where is the baby?"She panicked.
"No, shhh. The baby is okay. She is okay" Kelly was finally able to answer after hearing the panic in Stella's voice.
"You went into cardiac arrest, Stella." He explained. "God, it was really close. I could have lost you both".
Seeing the pain on his face, Stella pulled Kelly in for a hug.
"She, huh? We have a daughter?" she whispered into his ear after a while.
"Yes, you want to see her?" Kelly said excitingly, coming out of her embrace.
He picked the little girl up, while Stella tried to make some extra space in the hospital bed. He carefully climbed onto the bed with his daughter in his arms and slowly handed the small child over to Stella.
"Hey there, beautiful" said Stella, while admiring her daughter. Kelly couldn't help the bright smile that appeared on his face. He finally had his little family together.
He put his one arm around Stella and the other on the baby girl. "She looks like you" he said.
"You know this means that I was right" Stella said teasingly.
"Yes, you were right. It's a girl. We have a daughter." He smiled while she curled more into him.