all that matters
part five
She'd been told that he was out of surgery a few hours later, and that all the injuries he had sustained had been surgically repaired. They'd had to put him in a medically induced coma but according to them, his brain function was beginning to lighten up and that they should be able to wake him up soon. He was alive, and although his recovery was going to be a long road, filled with outpatient appointments and medications, him being alive was all that matters, and he was going to be with her, awake, so she could have this baby, with him.
About damn time, she thought.
She was now 7cm dilated and without her husband with her, she'd opted to have an epidural to deal with her pain. She still refused to confide in the doctors about how she felt; Meredith and Arizona had been sitting in her room in shifts for the past 10 hours, and she still couldn't trust them enough to tell her how she felt, how she lied when they asked if she was in pain, because, of course she was in pain, her husband nearly died and although they seemed empathetic towards her it didn't seem like they cared that he was okay.
She was wide awake, and to pass the time while her contractions where almost painless with the drugs, she sat up in bed, blankly staring at the doctor sititng at the foot of the bed, whether it be Meredith or Arizona. At the time, it was Meredith, and she was staring right back at her.
"Are you okay." Meredith asked. Quite frankly, she was getting tired of this game that the woman was playing, and her mind games weren't working on her.
"I want to see my husband." She protested. She even stood up from her bed and proved to Meredith that she could walk about freely. "See? Now, let me see my husband." She was becoming angrier but it didn't scathe Meredith in the slightest. She surpassed Meredith's expectations quite substantially; she didn't expect a pregnant woman to be this difficult.
"I can't let you leave. It's protocol". She continued, watching her intently.
"Like you haven't breached protocol before." The woman was right, but Meredith wasn't about to tell her that. She'd broken protocol more times than she could remember but she didn't care for the repercussions because she actually liked those patients. This woman was becoming a bore.
"I haven't, actually." She smiled, sarcastically.
"You're obviously not going to let me out of here, so let's just talk." The woman smiled back, surprising Meredith by stopping protesting against the rules and her sudden change of heart.
"Oh, really?" She asked, unsure of whether to rejoice or be ready for the wave of havoc and chaos this woman would create to get her way. The pain drugs seemed to work on her better than they did on other people and she was just playing the waiting game.
"Really." The woman sat with her legs crossed on the bed. "So, you have any kids?" She bit the top of her lip.
"Three. Two daughters and a son." She replied, astonished at how this woman's behaviour had changed in the timespan of about 20 seconds.
"Husband?" She continued, intrigued.
"I don't want to talk about it." Yes, she did want to talk about it, with someone, just not with her.
"Why's that." She moved forward, closer to the edge of the bed.
"I'm a widow. My husband died in a car accident, just like the one you and your husband were in. He came into a hospital which wasn't this one, and the doctors made a massive mistake and missed something and he died from it. Okay?" She seethed, lying back on the chair. She couldn't keep it inside anymore.
A few hours later, after more painful questions, Arizona appeared at the door so that Meredith could leave, but not before the woman could say, in a true voice,
"I'm sorry about your husband."
She didn't acknowledge it, and just walked off into the distance.
Arizona stepped in to re-examine the woman.
"How's the pain –" Arizona struggled to remember the woman's name, which was ironic, because with the long, tiring shift and the rollercoaster of emotions Arizona had suffered today, this woman had been the most annoying thing.
"Gabby." She seemed upset.
"Gabby." Arizona responded.
"You're 9cm dilated. Baby will be coming to meet us soon." Arizona said, her usual smile and cheeriness wiped from her face and replaced by a look of tiredness and longing to go and see her daughter and hug her and tell her everything's going to be alright.
"My husband?"
"Awake. Responsive. Asking the exact same questions as you, over and over."
"And what might they be?"
"Asking where each of you were."
"Can he come?"
"The doctors are still checking him over. He had a rough 12 hours in surgery, and he's going to need more." She was too tired to sugar coat this kind of stuff, so no matter how insensitive Arizona sounded, she didn't seem to care, "His left arm and both legs are still broken. If he was coming down here, it'd be in a bed."
"I don't care, I want to see him."
Not this again, Arizona thought to herself.
"You can go see him afterwards. Neither of you can move from where you are right now."
"Why? I feel fine."
"Because I just checked again and you're 10cm dilated. Whether you like it or not, Gabby, you are not moving, and you will just have me. You're having this baby."
"But –"
"No buts. This is how it's going to go down, and you are not going to object to it, okay?" She yelled, but not to loud. Her tiredness was becoming irritability and Gabby certainly knew how to push all her buttons. This had already been too long a night and she didn't want it to drag on any longer than it had to. She had nothing left in her, no energy at all, to help this woman deliver her baby, but her integrity. So, she did what she had to do.