No-one said anything for what seemed like a lifetime.

"Sam, what's going on?" Connie queried, making her way to the end of the bed and standing herself next to her partner. "When did you get back?" Connie's voiced raised slightly, so Jacob placed his arm around her waist to make sure she kept her cool. His arm felt heavy on her hips, but it was somehow soothing and calmed her slightly.

"A couple of days ago." Sam finally replied, before justifying himself. "It was a last minute thing, the main speaker at a important conference pulled out and it was just too good an opportunity to miss. There was no time to call you sorry. Any chance you could examine her?"

Connie puffed out her cheeks and passed the pile of notes she was holding to Jacob, who deposited them on to a trolley. Pulling the notes out of Emma's bed she scanned them quickly. "So, Emma it says you've been suffering with severe abdominal pain. Has anything like this happened before?"

"No never, when the IBS flares up it's always much more crampy, like period pains. This is sharp and just here." She indicated to a patch of her stomach, Connie moved round to Grace's side of the bed, smiling at her Grace simply ignored this and grasped on to Emma's hand.

"Sorry Gracie darling, I just need to examine her." Grace rolled her eyes moving to stand at the edge of the room. "Emma I just need to feel your abdomen OK?" Emma nodded and connie rolled up her top and placed her hands down.

Her forehead creased in concentration, before she looked up prominently at Jacob. "I can feel a pulsatile mass." Sam's head whipped up.

"You what?" Connie ignored his question.

"Are you a smoker?"

"On and off, usually only when I'm stressed which is when the IBS flares up." Connie picked up her hand pinching the skin.

Connie looked up at Jacob wearily. "She has every symptom of a triple A."

Both men at her shocked before replying in unison, "Abdominal aortica aneurysm?"

Sam was quick to contest, "She's 32 not 70, Connie!"

"I'm well aware of that thank you, but wouldn't it be better to just send her for a CT, just to make sure?"

Sam nodded reluctantly. "Any idea how much longer we'll be waiting for? It's just we have to get going soon."

Connie looked up at him sharply. "Going where? Back to America? What, so you were just going to drop in with my daughter whom I haven't seen for nearly a year, to where I live and then just leave without telling me? Am I not allowed to see my own daughter? I can't believe yo-" Connie halted mid sentence, drawing in a breath and scrunching up her eyes. She swayed slightly before falling back into Jacob, who just managed to catch her.

Her eyes opened and closed blearily as she tried to recover from the dizziness. "All right, all right." He murmured soothingly in to her ear, "Calm down, why don't you go grab a quick break, huh, sweetcheeks?" Connie exhaled before nodding and making her way silently out of the room.

"What's wrong with her?" Grace piped up for the first time since Connie had arrived. Sam too looked quite worried for the mother of his child.

"Oh, um she has had quite high blood pressure since she got pregnant, but she tells me all the time that this one is much easier than her first. She always says that the morning sickness with Grace was awful." Sam nodded.

"So, how long have you been together? I assume you must be quite serious if you're having a baby together.." Jacob noticed that this man had the tendency to raise his eyebrows while he was speaking, noticing he had deepening creases across the light skin of his forehead.

"Not long, and really the baby wasn't planned, it just sort of happened, she was though very against it. She didn't want another child because she said that she already had one that hated her, and one was enough." He said sadly.

"But I don't hate her!" The young girl protested. "It's just, she cares a lot about her work and sometimes she didn't have enough time for me..." She trailed off shrugging her shoulders awkwardly. "Is she going to be alright?"

"She'll be fine, she just needs to calm down and have a seat. I'd better go and check on her, we'll be back in a moment." He made to leave but the small voice piped up again.

"Can I come?"

:3

Just a quick filler chapter to lead us on to the more juicy stuff, I managed to complete my mitosis work early so had an hour to spare for writing :) I hope this is OK? I wasn't too happy with it really, but thought I should post something.

Thanks so much for reading and thank you to all the people who reviewed, favourited and followed. Please don't be put off by this chapter it's just a quick one to connect up the story don't worry ;)