Sorry for the delay everyone things have been rough and busy these last few weeks. I've been dealing with my depression and anxiety a lot more, but writings these stories seem to ease the issues I have and give me something healthy to do. Anyway, thanks for being patient.
It had been several hours since Stef had heard anything from any doctor and she was starting to get pissed. The twins had fallen asleep leaning against each other and Brandon was forcing himself to stay awake in an effort to keep his mother company. They expected Lena to arrive with Jude any minute, but Stef had no idea what she would say once they got there. As Stef continued pacing the waiting room Brandon saw a doctor enter the room and seeing as it was now roughly 2 in the morning, there was only one reason why anyone would be walking in there.
"Mrs. Foster?" Stef stopped mid step and turned to the doctor.
"It's been hours, where is my child?" Stef was seething and with good reason. Lena was going to have question and Jude was going to be beside himself and Stef had absolutely nothing to offer them.
"I am sorry Mrs. Foster. I would have come and spoke to you myself, but I had to handle Callie's burns and they took longer than we had planned."
"Longer? What does that mean?" Dr. West held out some pieces of paper for Stef to look over and she tried to explain what had happened.
"Most of her burns were exactly what I explained to you earlier, but the ones on her leg ended up being more serious than I had originally thought and we need to do skin grafts on them. Once they fixed the broken bone we went in and added the skin graft. That way we didn't traumatize that part of her body twice. They have her set up in a room in the burn unit and I can take you to see her now." Stef head was again spinning with far too much information, but she nodded.
"Brandon, stay with your brother and sister. If mama shows up, tell her I'll be right back." Brandon wanted to follow his mother, but in that moment he knew that his place was with there in that waiting room. Stef was walked through the regular part of the ICU and then down a separate hallway that was clearly marked burn unit. She was handed a plastic gown to place over her clothes and a mask to place over her mouth and nose. Every part of what she was doing made Stef's stomach drop further into her body. Was all of this for Callie or was it just hospital rules? Either way Stef hated it. Once she was fully protected Dr. West led Stef into the main part of the burn unit and Stef immediately knew that if she and Lena let Jude come into this part of the hospital he wouldn't sleep for weeks. Hell Stef was pretty sure that she wouldn't be able to sleep after seeing it. They two women stopped in front of a room and the doctor checked to see if Stef was ready.
"She won't look much like herself Mrs. Foster, but I promise you, given the circumstances, she is doing very well." Stef couldn't come up with any words to say so she just nodded and let the doctor lead them inside. Stef immediately looked at the bed and promptly wanted to throw up. The doctor was right: Callie didn't look like herself. Her body looked small and pale and the machine that was currently moving air through her lungs made Callie look like she was barely holding onto life.
"This is what you call doing very well."
"Mrs. Foster I have people on this floor that are never going to be able to walk again or breath without help. Some of them had to have skin grafts to 80% of their body so yes, Callie is doing remarkably well. We will monitor her closely to make sure the skin graft and the surgical scar heal properly and with infection. We will check her oxygen level after 24 hours and then again at 48 hours. If they have gone up to where I need them then we can start to take her off the ventilator and let her breath on her own."
"What about her waking up? When will that happen?"
"I want her unconscious for a least 72 hours. The less moving her body does, the better. After that we can evaluate her again and if everything looks good we will slowly scale back the medicine. Best case scenario, she'll be out of the medical coma in about 4 days."
"4 days!" The doctor tried to calm Stef down.
"Mrs. Foster, I promise you, this is all so that when Callie wakes up she is able to heal faster. If I took her off those medications now her body would reject that tube and she'll be in here longer than she needs to be. I want her to go home with you sooner rather than later, but Mrs. Foster, please you have to trust me on this. I have built my career on these cases and my goal is ALWAYS to send home healthy patients. You will get your daughter back."
"I'd better." Stef glared at the doctor and thankfully it was not the first time the doctor had experienced this type of reaction from a parent so it didn't bother her at all.
"I'll leave you alone, the nurse at the desk can explain the visiting policy and I assume you'll be spending the night with her." The glare the doctor received answered her question.
"Then I'll have someone bring in a chair bed and some pillows for you." The doctor wrote a few more things down and left Stef alone in the room. Stef knew she had precious few minutes until Lena would arrive and so she used that time to come completely undone emotionally. She sat down in a chair next to Callie's bed and placed her hand on Callie's chest, insistent on feeling her daughter chest rise and fall along with her heartbeats. Her crying was short lived when she felt her phone vibrate with a message from Lena saying that they were downstairs and were on their way to the waiting room that Brandon had told them the rest of the family was in. Stef stood up from her chair and leaned forward, kissing Callie's forehead.
"Mommy will be right back ok? I'm gonna go get momma and I'll be right back, I promise." Stef walked out of the room and ran into a nurse as she did so.
"Mrs. Foster? I'm Hannah, I'll be Callie's night nurse for most of the days she is here." Stef tried to suck up her tears and shook the young woman's hand.
"Nice to meet you. Um, I need to go get my wife. When we come back do I just have her put on this stuff and bring her in?"
"Yes ma'am. Generally, our only rules are that no one who is sick can come into the ward and we request that any visitor between 10 and 14 have a parent with them." Stef nodded and was thankful that they would at least allow Jude in, not that it would have stopped the boy from seeing his sister.
"I'll be back in a few minutes then." Stef left the burn unit and then exited the ICU entirely, finally ditching the gown she had wrapped around her body. She started to take off the mask that was tied around her head when she rounded the corner and heard her name being called. Lena was standing in the hallway with Brandon and Jude and when Stef showed up and, well, saying all hell broke lose would be putting it mildly. Lena was already scared by the fact that her wife had a surgical mask around her face and Jude was all to familiar with what that meant for his sister so his took off like he was going to run right past Stef. Of course he didn't get past his mother before Stef had him wrapped up and all but tackled him to the ground.
"Let me go." Jude fought against his mother, but Stef was stronger and wasn't about to let Jude go. She let him fight her for a while, tears streaming down both of their faces. Eventually he stopped trying to fight Stef and just collapsed into her lap.
"I don't want her to die." Stef's heart broke for the boy in her arms because…this wasn't how it was supposed to be. They shouldn't be in a position where they were all still fighting, but here they, all of them fighting.
"She isn't going to die sweetheart. Callie just got really hurt tonight and they need some time to fix everything before we can bring her home."
"Some home, every other week someone is dragging her out of it. Either the state or Robert, someone is always around to take her. She doesn't have a home anywhere except with me."
"Buddy listen to me. I know the last few weeks have been hard, but when Callie is well enough to leave the hospital she is coming home with us, not Robert, not anyone else, us. Ok?" Jude didn't want to believe anything that anyone said, not at that moment anyway, he wanted Callie.
"Can I see her?" Stef sighed and realized that there was no use in talking to Jude until he saw Callie. She nodded her head and got off the floor. Lena walked up and slipped her hand into Stef's and with Jude walking about a step in front of them they walked toward the burn unit. Lena put her own gown on while Stef helped Jude with his. Once they reached Callie's door Stef placed her hand on Jude's shoulder.
"Listen buddy, Callie looks pretty pale and weak right now, but that's just because the surgery took a lot out of her physically. She doesn't look like she usually does, so don't be too shocked." The boy nodded and Stef pushed the door open and Jude all but ran inside, stopping at his sister's bedside. Stef shut the door behind them and she and Lena went and stood right behind Jude as he studied his sister. Jude didn't know what to do. She had bandages on her hands and part of her arms so he had no idea where he could touch his sister in order to let her feel that he was there. He finally settled for Callie's shoulder, rubbing it gently as he whispered to his sister.
"You're sure she's gonna be ok?"
"That is what all the doctors keep saying buddy."
"Right and they never lie."
"Jude, watch it. You aren't the only one hurting here." Stef warned him and Jude backed off a little. Everyone had a short fuse that night and they were all looking for someone to blame and in this situation no such person existed, leaving everyone with a lot of unresolved anger and fear. Stef pulled Lena off to the side and explained the clinical version of what happened and they quickly decided that Stef would stay with Callie while Lena took everyone else home.
"Jude. Momma is going to take you all home. You can come back tomorrow and see Callie."
"I'm not leaving her." Stef was tired and angry and didn't have the energy for this, but she understood his protectiveness over his sister.
"Jude I will be here all night with her. Nothing will happen to her without me knowing." The teenager mumbled something under his breath, clearly unhappy with this arrangement.
"After our mother died, we spent years alone. Just the two of us. All we had was each other. We may not have had everything, but we had each other; we weren't alone. If those doctors were lying and she dies tonight…don't let her die alone. Please. Just give her that much." Jude tore the gown off his body and stormed out of the room, leaving both his mother to feel like absolute crap.
"He's just scared Stef. He didn't mean any of it."
"Yes he did. And he's right. We've been playing with fire and tonight we literally got burned. No more. Tell our lawyer I want those abandonment papers signed within the next three days or I will drag Robert Quinn's name through the mud." Lena sighed, knowing that Stef was too upset to talk this out. She nodded and gave her wife a kiss on the cheek before she kissed Callie.
"I'll have the other kids come say goodnight." Lena left the room and all Stef had to listen too now was the beeping and hissing of the machines surrounding her daughter. In that kind of disturbing silence, the only thing anyone can do is think. Stef looked at her daughter and all she could do was hope that she didn't just lie to her son by saying it would be ok. All Stef had was the word of a doctor and the sounds of life support machines and even though it wasn't much, it was all she and her family would get to hold onto for the next few days, so it was going to have to be enough.
Ok, so I'm not going to kill Callie. DUH. However, I wanted to flush this idea out a bit more. I'll show more of Lena and the kids in the next chapter and then I can start showing Callie waking up and getting better. Stick with me and let me know if you want to see something specific.