AN: I know, I know. I'm an awful writer and an awful human being for not updating for so long and leaving you on that cliffhanger. I do sincerely apologise but life got in the way. You know how it is. Anway, I hope you like this and I hope you'll let me know what you think of it. Cheers. :)

Chapter 29

Alyssa

They say that when the apocalypse comes, the only things to survive will be cockroaches.

But I disagree. I like to think that on some weird, spiritual level, all the memories that people made, all the happy times, and all the 'I love you's people have said will somehow linger on. I'd like to think that when they apocalypse comes, it'll be like it is in the movies where you'll have time before the meteor hits, time to tell your family you love them and set aside all your disputes and grudges. You'll have time to make everything okay. You'll have time to make sure the bad energy isn't what lingers.

My cousin is three hours old now and, at two pounds two ounces, is barely the weight of a bag of sugar. She's really tiny. The clear plastic like substance of an incubator encompasses her like a cage, and an oxygen mask – heartbreakingly small - covers her nose and mouth. She doesn't wriggle around like any usual newborn. She just lies there, prostrate, her little head, facing my direction. The features of her face, they're not fully developed. It's like… the lines of her eyes are smudged. In fact, her face looks just it does in that 3D scan picture that Aunt Elliot put in a frame last week. But… well. You know.

This I've seen through the glass window, looking into the NICU. They don't let anybody except parents in there.

And there's the problem.

The NICU is four floors down from the normal ICU. I take the stairs because… well, if anyone were to ask, I'd say it was because I didn't want to wait on the lift, but really it's because it takes a bit longer to get there.

Aunt Elliot is really ill. Like, knocking on heaven's door ill. Dr Cox tried to explain to me what happened, but it doesn't really make much sense. I can't quite comprehend how someone can become so ill so quickly.

The reason that I want to take as much time as possible to get the ICU floor, is because it's… there's no other way to say it other than it's scary being up here.

Turk walks towards me as I walk further into the ICU. "Hey," he says sadly. "Were you just at the NICU?"

"Yeah."

"How is…?"

"No change."

Turk just frowns even more than he already was. "Did you see JD down there?"

"No."

"Damn."

"Turk?"

"He went for a walk half an hour ago and nobody's seen him since." Turk doesn't say anything else, but walks away in the opposite direction.

The problem with my theory: You never know when the apocalypse is going to hit.

CarlaI don't know what to say. There, quite honestly, are no words.

One second she was there, the next she wasn't and they're trying to get her heart started again.

I need to take a minute outside. I need to call the nanny to ask her to stay later with Izzy, because Turk and I need to stay at the hospital later tonight.

She didn't even get a chance to see her baby before. She doesn't even know that she has a daughter.

The nanny can stay longer. Thankfully. And she hopes my friend gets better soon.

I didn't tell her how bad it was. I didn't say.

Nobody has seen JD for about two hours now. He stayed in Elliot's room for a while, before going down to the NICU and staying there for a while. Then he disappeared.

I can't even begin to imagine what's going through his head right now.

They've been through so much, the two of them, just to get to the point that they are now. And to see it all end up like this, in this mess?

This should be one of the happiest times of their lives. It shouldn't be like this.

I realise that I've been standing out here for longer than I expected. Longer than I'd meant to anyway. But then I decide I could really do with a coffee, so I begin to walk to Coffee Bucks.

I walk down the ramp from the hospital door. But as I glance to the side, along the hospital car park where the benches are and see JD, sitting on one of them looking lost as all get out.

"JD," I say when I'm standing at the bench. "You should really go back inside."

He doesn't respond.

"It's raining. You'll catch something." I sigh when he still doesn't answer me. "I know this is all ridiculously difficult for you and –"

"In all fairness Carla, you don't," JD snaps. "You have no idea."

"I know," I concede. "But… they really need you up there, JD. You should be up there with them."

"Yeah, and how exactly am I supposed be there for both of them?"

"We're here. We're all here. We're all gonna help." And I know that that's futile. Whatever I say isn't going to mean anything to him. Because he needs to be there. Then a thought runs through my head. "If Elliot were able to tell you, who do you think she'd want you to be with?"

Nothing else is said. JD just gets up from the bench and walks back into this hospital.

So much for happiest time of his life.

Hey, little girl. I guess Mommy was right about you. What I wouldn't give right now to see her do her 'Told You So' dance right now. She'd be here right now if she could. She wouldn't leave your side if she could be here right now. But she's really sick too. She needs something to help her breathe like you do, so she can't be here with you. But that doesn't mean she doesn't love you. I don't want you to think that because she does. She loves you more than anything; we both do. And I know that Mommy is trying her hardest to be here. She's fighting the best she can. I need you to fight too, okay baby girl?

I know you're scared, little one. I am too. I'm so scared I'm going to lose you and Mommy. You're the two most important people in the world to me. I can't lose the two of you. I don't want to lose you.

God, you're so small. But you have my nose. I can tell. And Mommy's finger-toes. You're so small. But you're a fighter, right? You can be a little fighter for Daddy, right?

It shouldn't be like this, you know. The first time I talk to you shouldn't be through the plastic walls of an incubator. You shouldn't even be in the incubator; you shouldn't need something to help you to breathe. You should be up stairs with Mommy and me, and we should be deciding what we're gonna call you, what your name's going to be. I should be calling anyone I can think of, just to tell them that I have a beautiful new daughter. Mommy should be arguing with one of the nurses because they want to take you to the nursery so she can get some rest but she wants to keep you close to her. She shouldn't be up there fighting to survive too.
I thought a lot about what this would be like, what it would be like when you were born. It wasn't ever like this.

But then again, things are never how you imagine them to be, are they?

I'm going to go just now, little girl. I'm going to see Mommy, but I'll be back as soon as I can, okay? I'll be back as soon as I can. But what you're doing right now, whatever it is you're doing to stay alive right now…keep doing that for me, okay?

I love you, baby girl.

Alyssa

Some more time passes. I'm not sure how long. It feels like a while though. But… even a minute feels like a while right now.

What are you supposed to in this sort of situation? Like… what do you do? Do you just sit around and wait for something to happen? That's just hell. This is hell.

I feel like I need to be doing something. But what exactly can I do? I can't do anything to help my aunt or my cousin. Doing anything else just seems inappropriate. How can you sit and read a magazine or sit and listen to your iPod when… well, now.

You know when you have a nightmare and you really, really want to wake up?

I stand up suddenly. Suddenly, because I didn't even think about doing it. I just stood up. I figure that if I need to do something, I might as well get drinks. Turk and Carla both want coffee. I don't know if they really do want coffee considering they both just had some, or if they just realise that I need to feel like I'm doing something.

Walking along the corridor and people keep giving me strange looks.

I don't like it.

"Alyssa."

I stop dead in my tracks. For a second, I'm scared to turn around to face Dr Cox. Eventually:

"Yeah?"

"Your family in Connecticut," he says, stepping towards me. "Are they flying out here?"

I hadn't even thought about them. "They don't know so… I wouldn't think so."

"They don't know?"

"No." I respond. "They don't even know that my aunt is… was pregnant."

Dr Cox frowns. "Alyssa… if it was my daughter and my granddaughter lying there so ill… I'd want to know. They should be told."

Dr Cox walks .

Dr CoxThe hospital is a strange place in the middle of uncertainty, especially when one of our own is in trouble. There's a heaviness in the air that weighs down on everyone, creating a sombre silence. We work as we normally would, we treat patients as we normally would, but it's different. Everyone here is worried about someone; a friend; a co-worker, her daughter. If this was a different setting, if we weren't medics in a hospital, we'd be sitting in the waiting room too.

We're medics. We're used to dealing with life and death situations all the time. But it's a completely different story when it's one of your own.

But somebody has to pick up the slack when you have one doctor on life support, another dividing his time between his critically ill girlfriend and his critically ill newborn daughter, and a nurse and a surgeon who are trying to do whatever they can to help in any way, but struggling to stop themselves from crumbling.

It's difficult being the doctor when it's one of your own. When you're treating strangers, you can separate yourself from them, from their backstory. But if somebody could tell me how exactly you're supposed to separate yourself from the patient when you've taught her since she was an intern, when her friends are your friends, when you've seen her sick daughter who is really going to need her mother, when you've made the comment that in all the time you've known her you've never seen her happier than when she was finally in a healthy relationship with Newbie and about to be a mother, I'd really, reheally appreciate it.

Interns are strange creatures. They're cocky when they really know nothing and they have some way of being able to annoy the sanity out of every other staff member, but credit to them they know not to give anybody grief now. They know that they'd best just do what they're told to do and do it right first time, because nobody is in the mood to put up with any of their crap today.

"Dr Cox?"

I look around from my hunched position at the nurses' station to see a group of interns, a composite of Dr Reid and Dr Dorian's interns, standing there, looking to me, not for another task but for answers. The thing is, I know exactly what they're going to ask just by the looks on their faces.

"There's no change."

They know as well as I do that 'no change' is really just code for how bad things are. If the situation wasn't so bad, I'd say 'Still stable' or 'no improvement but she's not any worse.' They know that.

"I'll let you know if there's any news."

Dejectedly, the interns walk away with their heads bowed and their shoulders slumped.

It's difficult, too, for the interns. In your first year of medicine, it's easy to get lost, caught up in the stormy tide of learning, life, and patients. And your attendings, no matter how much you hate them, how much you think they're pushing you too hard, they become your anchor, something to keep you steady when you could so easily capsize under the pressure.

In a disaster, there's always somebody who has to be the support beam so that everything doesn't collapse.

"Dr Cox."

I spin around and almost snap at the person for bothering me again, but I manage to prevent myself from doing so when I realise who was speaking to me.

It's Alyssa Reid.

"I tried calling," she says. "I mean, I started dialling a number in to the payphone, but I hung up. Because…" The teenager trails off. She lowers her head and starts staring at the floor. When she looks back up again… Alyssa's crying, which is hardly surprising given the situation. "Because I have no idea what's happening and nothing makes sense and my family don't know anything and there's no way –" she pauses, in the way that a person does when they're trying to stop themselves from losing their composure completely – "there's no way that I can talk to them."

"I'll call your family and tell them."

Alyssa says something that I think is an attempt at 'thank you'. She hands me a piece of paper – a list of numbers to call – before walking just a bit away from the nurses' station, but still close enough to be able to hear what is said on the phone.

With a sigh, I lift the phone from the base unit. This is what I hate about being a doctor. Having to give bad news – especially bad news like this. It's the knowledge that before your phone call, this person whose world you've just shattered was just going about their daily business, blissfully unaware.

I key the number into the phone. As the phone rings, waiting for the person at the other side of the country to pick up, I glance at Alyssa Reid. That's a different kid than I've come to know over the past year. That's not the same girl who sat with us during Izzy Turk's christening. This Alyssa is just a scared little girl. Who can blame her.

"Hello, St Augustine's Hospital. This is Chief of Medicine, Dr Simon Reid speaking. How can I help?"Here goes. "Hello, this is Dr Perry Cox of Sacred Heart Hospital," I say. "I'm calling about your daughter Elliot."

There's a long pause, like a suspicion. "Yes?"

"I'm afraid I have some bad news."

It's a strange thing telling a father that his daughter is so ill and that his daughter is a mother when he didn't know that she was pregnant. At first… well, at first there is no reaction. Only silence. And then:

"I… I don't understand."

So I try to explain again, but I get bogged down in the medicine of the situation. Because there's no way I can even begin to imagine what is going through this guy's head right now. I can't understand the emotion, but we can both understand the medicine.

"I can't believe this."

You and me both, I think.

"Is Alyssa there? I want to speak to her."

"Yeah, she's right here." I lower the phone from my ear, covering the mouthpiece with my hand, and I turn to face Alyssa. "Your granddad wants to speak to you."

The teenager nods, and takes the phone. She barely has the phone for a few seconds before she breaks out in to a full-blown sob. I put a hand on her arm before walking away to give her privacy to talk (or at least attempt to) to her granddad.

Like I said. There's always someone.

AlyssaMy grandparents are supposed to get here on Tuesday. Apparently there are no other available flights out here until then.

Does that mean this is going to go on that long? That nothing will have changed by Tuesday?

Anybody who knows any member of the Reid family will be able to tell you that we're masters of denial. A meteor could be about to collide with Earth and we'd still be talking about what we're going to do next week.

But this denial is different.

I'm still clinging on to the hope that in a few hours everything will be okay. Aunt Elliot will wake up and my cousin will be perfectly healthy and we'll all forget that this ever happened. That maybe I'll go downstairs and by the time I get back it'll be okay. Nothing will have been as bad as it seems.

But it must be bad if my grandparents are going to fly out here from Connecticut and they're going to call the rest of my family and tell them to get out here.

This is bad.

I've never seen or heard my granddad cry before, but I swear I heard him cry on the phone earlier. He wasn't bawling like I was, but I swear that his voice was different, like how your voice changes when you're choking back tears. And he sounded scared too. Scared, but not mad that he wasn't told until the day the baby was born that his daughter had been pregnant. I can't remember how many times I said to Aunt Elliot that the longer she didn't tell Granddad that she was pregnant, the madder he would be. But I suppose there's no room to get mad at your daughter when she's sitting on Death's doorstep.

This is really bad.

It's ten thirty at night now. More then twelve hours since this all began, but it feels like longer. Carla is going home to look after Izzy. Turk is staying here for moral support or whatever. It's a strange thing watching them. They're trying to be strong; because good friends are supposed to be moral support and good friends don't crumble. But Aunt Elliot is Turk and Carla's friend too – she's Carla's best friend – and they're clearly just as scared as they are trying to be good friends.

I'm sitting on one of the waiting room chairs when I recognise a voice coming from just down the corridor.

"I'm looking for my sister, Elliot Reid," the voice says, and I stand up to go down the corridor. "I was told she was here."The nurse doesn't exactly get a chance to respond. "Hi, Dad."

My Dad walks over to me and immediately hugs me in the protective way that I can just remember from when I was little.

And I know it's supposed to be a comfort, but it leaves me more terrified.

Alyssa

Coffee Bucks is quiet this time at night, unsurprisingly. My Dad insisted on coming down here because he wanted to talk to me.

"You never told me that Aunt Elliot was pregnant."

"She asked me not to."

This seems to confuse my dad. "She asked you not to tell me? Why?"

I take a sip of my drink before answering. "Aunt Elliot hasn't… hadn't told Grandma Granddad that she was pregnant. She didn't want anybody else to know until she'd told them." Aunt Elliot thought my granddad would kill her when she told him.

Seems ironic now.

"I just can't believe Elliot hid it for so long. Seven months. Is that why she never visited? Or you never invited me to visit?"

I nod.

But then it goes quiet. Because I can't really think what to say. I can answer questions, but what am I supposed to say when the only thing that's running through my head right now is the fact that some time sooner or later, my dad is going to die. And my dad dying is why I'm staying with Aunt Elliot in the first place. Right now, it's damn likely that Aunt Elliot could die. I think when they're in a hospital on a life support machine, you can say they might die.

At this moment I'm wondering what the hell will happen when both my dad and my aunt are dead.

For a while, my dad keeps asking questions about everything that's happened in the last few months, everything he hasn't been told. And I answer his questions, but it's like… I'm just robotically answering them. I'm just thinking about what might happen – what's probably going to happen, which isn't surprising. Here's what is surprising though. Instead of freaking out as you'd maybe expect (and how I might be if I hadn't already used up my all of my freak out particles), I'm listening to what my dad is saying and getting really, really angry.

"How could Elliot not tell anybody she was pregnant? How can you not tell your family something so important, so life changing?"

"That's the pot calling the kettle black."

Dad raises an eyebrow. "What's that now?"

He obviously heard my incensed under-breath mumbling. "I said 'that's the pot calling the kettle black'. Look, you never ever told me that you were sick. Okay, the first time I was four, so I get that. But this time you and Mom, instead of telling me, sent me all the way across the country to live with my aunt. And you didn't even tell her that she was about to become the main carer to a sixteen-year-old, which pretty much changed her life. If it hadn't been for going to Connecticut at Christmas, would you have even have told me about being sick? Would you? I mean… it… it sucks that here you are making all the comments in the world about Aunt Elliot when you're hardly the poster child for honesty."

"That… what I did was different."

"Yeah. How?" I snap, and it's like all that anger that was bubbling inside of me just started overflowing.

My dad doesn't answer me, so I stand up.

"I think I'm going to go back upstairs because I really don't want to sit down here and talk because I'm just going to make myself angrier and I really don't have the energy or the patience or anything for that right now." With that, I start walking out of Coffee Bucks.

"Alyssa!"

"I'll talk to you later, Dad."

Alyssa

Trying to sleep is futile.

This conclusion I've come to after glancing at the clock and realising it's 3AM and I haven't slept a wink. I sit up – these waiting room chairs aren't exactly comfortable – and squint to try to see in the darkness. On the row of chairs opposite mine, Turk appears to be… sleeping.

Okay, so maybe just for me, sleep is futile.

Dad eventually went home a couple of hours ago. It was a weird conversation. We both apologised, but never went in to any detail about what we were actually apologising for. And he tried to get me to go and stay at his house, but I didn't want to. I guess I wanted to stay here.

I walk out of the waiting room. I've never been in the hospital at night before. It's different. It's completely silent, except for the faint sounds of medical machines. I don't like that.

The route I take now I could walk it in my sleep. If I could sleep. It's the walk along the corridor to Aunt Elliot's room.

I've only been in Aunt Elliot's room once. And when I was in there, I had no idea what to do. I had no idea what to say. Maybe that makes me a horrible person. Does it?

I've been along there so many times to see how Aunt Elliot is. I just can't go in there.

Really, is that awful?

Along this quiet corridor, my footsteps sound like they could come from an elephant. At least they do in my head. There's normally so much activity in this corridor. It's strange to see it so empty.

And them I'm standing outside Aunt Elliot's room. JD's in there.

I glance in the window and notice that, unsurprisingly, JD isn't asleep either. I get a grip of the door handle and open it quietly, like if I was to open the door normally I'd wake somebody up.

If only.

JD doesn't seem to notice that the door has been opened. But I can hear him talking faintly.

"You've got to meet our little girl," he says, sniffing just after. "You've gotta get down there. You've gotta hold her tiny little hand. You have to wake up for me, Elliot."

I shut the door after that. If I listen to that any more, I think I might lose it. I can't even remember what it was I was going to say. I can't disturb that.

I start walking again, and before I know it, I'm outside the hospital. The outside air is cold, and I can see my own breath. And then I realise that I'm standing outside at three in the morning in just jeans and a t-shirt. I didn't bring a jacket or a sweater with me.

I didn't expect to be standing outside a hospital in the middle of the night.

I'm freezing and yet I don't go back inside. Instead, I walk across the car park to sit on the bench that I recognise as the one I sat on my first day here when I was waiting on Aunt Elliot.

How the hell did I get from there to here?

Without really thinking, I take my cell phone out of my pocket.

Are you awake? I type.

The selection light hovers over Michael's number for a second or two, before I eventually press send.

Soon after, the sound of Soul Meets Body by Death Cab for Cutie disturbs the stillness of the car park. I answer my phone quickly.

"Hello?"

"Hey. Did something happen?""No." And that's the problem, I think. "I can't sleep. And I can't make any sense of any of this. It's not right."

"I know.""Why? I don't get why or how, you know? I don't get how everything can change so much so quickly."

"I don't think anybody does, Lys." There's a pause. "It'll all be okay…""Thanks for trying to make me feel better but optimism really won't work." Turns out that even now I can be sarcastic. "I don't think it is going to be okay. I don't. Not completely. And I keep thinking all these things like… is going to be one or the other that lives? Is it either going to be my aunt that live or my cousin but not both?"

"God, Lys, you shouldn't think like that. Hey, what is it you always say? Think positively and good things will happen.""Somehow I don't think the power of positive thinking is gonna cut it here," I sniff, only then realising that I'm crying again.

There isn't a lot said after that. Truthfully, there's not a lot that can be said. What does anybody say?

"Do you want me to come to the hospital?"He just offered to come to the hospital in the middle of the night for me. "No it's okay. But thank you…"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I think I'm going to go back inside and try to sleep again. Key word there: try."

"Okay, if you're sure. I'll call you in the morning, okay?""Yeah. Speak to you tomorrow. And thanks for… talking. Thank you."

"What do you think I'm here for?"The call ends there, and I switch my cell off. I stand up, eventually, and put my phone into my pocket, before walking back into the hospital.

Hey, Elliot.

God. I can't believe I'm seeing you like this. You look so small, so helpless. This isn't you.

I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you Elliot. I'm so sorry I wasn't there when you needed me to be. I should've been here for you.

I keep picturing you, how it was for you. I imagine you so scared.

I was going to call you. I had a five-minute break and I was going to call you. To see if you were feeling any better. But somebody asked me a question and I got distracted and it was time to begin the seminar again before I knew it. I should have taken the time to call you. I should have called. Then I'd known what you were going though and I'd have been here for you. I should've called. I'm so sorry.

We never did things the easy way, did we? Nothing was ever simple for us. And right now I'm thinking about everything we did to each other in the past, all that stupid stuff we did to each other. And all that stuff seems so insignificant. What the hell we were thinking back then?

It took us so long to get here. It took us so long to get to this place where we're finally happy. We've grown up, got over all of our ridiculous fear of commitment and we're happy. We have a daughter.

I saw her, Elliot. I saw our little girl. She's so tiny. She's really gonna need you, Elliot. She's really going to need her mommy.

She looks like you. She has your jaw line. And your cheekbones. I tell her that you would be downstairs with her if you could. I don't want her to think you don't want her or you don't love her. That couldn't be further from the truth.

I should've called you.

It's killing me to see you like this. And Carla's right; I know you'd tell me to be downstairs to be with the baby, and I'm going back down soon to check on her, I promise. But you're so ill too, and you've got to be terrified too. I don't want to leave you alone. If something happens, I don't want you to be alone. Again.

I love you, Elliot. I love you more than I ever thought I could and the thought of losing you scares the hell out of me. We're supposed to spend the rest of our lives together, but the rest of our lives isn't supposed to be over yet. It's not supposed to be like this. We've got a little girl to raise. You've got everything to live for, Elliot. You haven't even met your own daughter yet, for god sakes.

You've gotta meet our little girl, Elliot. You've gotta get down there. You've gotta hold her tiny little hand.

You have to wake up for me, Elliot.

The baby, she's ill. She's tiny, she's on a ventilator. But she's strong, Elliot. She's fighting like hell, Elliot, I can tell.

You said she was going to kick ass, didn't you? Last week, you practically dragged me from a patient's room to the doctor's lounge to feel how hard she was kicking you. You said 'When this one's born, she is going to kick. Ass.' Well, she's kicking ass right now, Elliot.

I'm going to go back down to the baby now, Elliot, but I'll be back up to see you later. I love you. So don't die on me, okay?

Please?

TurkEvery Sunday morning in the hospital chapel there is a church service that patients and their families can go to when they can't go to their normal churches. It's open to staff too, but I don't usually go. I did this morning though.

I've never seen the hospital from this side before. It's almost unrecognisable. Physically everything's the same, but you can't understand what it's like to be standing at this side of the threshold unless you've actually been there.

At the service, the minister asked us to pray for our friends and our families. He asked us to pray for their health to improve. And then after the service, one of the congregation walked up to me and told me how nice it was to see a doctor down here at the service. That was when I realised that I was still in the scrubs I wore to work yesterday.

I didn't tell that woman that, at this moment in time, I'm not one of the doctors here, but my wife's best friend and her daughter, my best friend's girlfriend and daughter, my friend and her daughter, are gravely ill upstairs. That I was here praying for them to get better.

After the service, I made my way back upstairs to the intensive care unit. To Elliot's room. JD wasn't in there – I assumed that he was down at the NICU. But Dr Cox was in there with some interns. It was Rounds. So I entered the room too, to see how Elliot is.

Here's the thing. Dr Cox and the interns kept referring to Elliot as 'the patient'. The patient is one day post-op. The patient shows no signs of improvement. And the whole time, my mind is going 'That's not the patient, that's Elliot, for god sake. That's my little girl's godmother.'

During rounds, Dr Cox kept glancing at me as he was explaining. He kept looking at me like he knew what was going through my head at that exact moment. It was as if he was apologising because he was thinking the same thing too.

I knew something was wrong, you know.

That surgery, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I was responsible to the patient, but I was so distracted. How could I not be? All of the surgical team knew it. I sent someone to call up for updates. And then one time the response was different.

What's the update, I asked, but that intern didn't reply. What is the damn update?And then, Dr Reid's been brought down here for an emergency c-section.

What?

I don't know anything else. That's all they said, and that Nurse Espinosa's with her.

The rest of the surgery is a bit of a blur. The next thing that's crystal clear is when I walked out of that OR and seeing The Todd standing there waiting on me, a look on his face I'd never seen before.

I don't know how to tell you this T-Dawg, but…

I walk to the main entrance of the hospital, where I said I'd meet Carla. I can see her walking towards me, carrying Izzy in her arms. When she reaches me, I hug my wife and daughter tighter than I think I've ever hugged them before.

"How are… is there…" Carla trails off.

"No real change," I solemnly respond. I really wish there was something more I could tell her. And the look on her face when I say that? Well, it's like somebody punched me in the gut. "How did you sleep?"

"Not well. You?"

"Pretty much the same."

Almost seamlessly and without words – we have this down to a fine art – Carla hands Izzy to me. Then she goes to her bag and pulls out a photo wallet.

"I picked these up on our way here."

Carla slides Izzy away from me. I take the photo wallet from her and begin looking at it. As if I'd summoned it, the first photo is of JD and a pregnant Elliot, who is holding Izzy. It seems like a million years ago since this photo was taken, when really, it was just last week.

"I keep thinking back to then," Carla whispers. "I keep thinking back to me saying that it's going to be weird not seeing Elliot around the hospital when really it's weird seeing her in the hospital." She pauses and wipes a tear away from her eye. "You didn't see her before, Turk. She was so scared. She said something like 'make sure they're okay' and then everything went crazy. I just… I can't get that out of my head. And then I see JD and the mess he's in…"

The truth is that neither of us has ever seen JD in the desolate state he's in right now. In all the years I've known him, I've never seen him look so lost, so worried, so terrified. But then again, I've never seen him here before.

A person changes at a time like this. A person changes when they see their loved ones so sick. We see it all the time here. But I never once imagined that the person to change would ever be JD.

Part of me can't recognise Carla either. I don't recognise the fear in her eyes. The fear that her best friend - who she considers more of a sister than her actual sisters – is going to die.

I'm used to seeing that fear in other people. But, as I said, I never once thought I'd see it in Carla. I'd never thought I'd see Carla out here, eyes red from crying and a lack of sleep but filled with terror.

I'm used to Carla being the strong one, not me trying to be strong for her.

"It's going to be okay?" Carla asks softly.

The answer I give her isn't verbal. Because as much as I want to promise her that everything's going to be fine, I have absolutely no idea. I tell patients – total strangers – that everything will be okay, but I can't tell it to my wife. Go figure.

So instead, I wrap my arms around her and hug her, because it's the only answer I can give.

Alyssa

Today is a lot like yesterday. We wait and we wait, but there's nothing changes. It's like the world is spinning for everybody else, except us.

The difference today is that the shock from yesterday is gone, and this almost feels normal. Like we've settled in to the routine of waiting and visiting and hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

I think you've officially been at Coffee Bucks too many times when they begin preparing your order as soon as they see you approaching the door. Or when the barrista gives you that sympathetic head tilt and asks the question "Is there any news, Alyssa?" But between yesterday and this afternoon I've been down there so many times because it's something to do. There's nothing else I can do other than get drinks for everybody.

It's lame. I know.

Through the window of the NICU I see JD sitting beside the incubator of his daughter. He has his hand through one of the incubator doors and is holding on to one of my cousin's tiny little hands.

It feels as if everything that's going on right now just slapped me in the face.

I knock gently on the window on the NICU. It's difficult to describe the look on JD's face when he glances up to inspect the noise and sees me, but I could bet a hundred bucks that what ran through his head was that something had happened to Aunt Elliot. So I hold up the Coffee Bucks cup I've been carrying so it's visible through the window for reassurance.

A few moments later, JD is standing outside taking the coffee cup from me. "Thanks," he responds, his voice bearing the strain of all this.

"How is she?" I ask, looking back in the window.

"She's hanging in there. Is Elliot…?"

I nod. I'm not exactly sure what the question was there, but that seemed to be the right answer. "I'll let you know if there's anything."

"Thank you."

I begin to walk away.

"Lys?"

Spinning back around on my heel, I respond, "Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

I sigh heavily. "I guess."

"You should try to get some sleep," he then says. "You look tired."

I can't look any worse than you do. "I'll keep that in mind."

JD walks back in to the NICU. I walk towards the elevator.

In certain situations, there are questions that some people are not supposed to ask others. The others are supposed to ask the questions.

I'm back on the ICU floor now. But I don't walk to the waiting area. There's a quiet corridor on this floor and I'm walking in that direction.

It's like my legs are controlling me.

Once I'm far enough away from everything, I sit down. I just sit on the hospital floor like my legs can't physically move me any further. My head leans back on the wall and I close my eyes.

"Hey."

That's a few minutes later. I glance round. It's Michael. "Hey."

"I tired calling your cell, but it's switched off."

"Oh. I haven't switched it on yet today." As I heavily sigh, Michael sits down next to me. "Is it weird that I feel guilty because I got asked if I was okay?"

"What?"

"JD asked me is I was alright and I'm thinking that he probably has enough on his plate right now without worrying about other people. And I feel guilty. Is that weird?"

"A little, yeah," Michael answers, nodding his head. "But I get it. You shouldn't feel guilty. Really. Even though everything else is happening, they're still your aunt and cousin, and JD's still your uncle. He's still the same person that has been looking out you for months. And right now you really need someone looking out for you too."

I look up at him. "Isn't that what you're doing now?"

"Yeah."

"Thank you." I then rest my head on his shoulder.

"Did you get any sleep last night?"

I shake my head to say no. "I'm really tired."

"No kidding. You've been awake for more than twenty four hours."

As if it was induced by talk of tiredness, my eyelids feel heavy. My eyes close, but they open again when I move my head. That's not weird. But what is weird is that when I look around, I see the silhouette of my dad walking away back down the corridor.

AlyssaEverybody is now at the point where they have no idea what day it is or what time or anything. They just have no idea.

Or at least I don't.

But we've all been waiting like this for so long that it feels as if that's all we've ever done. That time when I was on the phone to Kate and Aunt Elliot shouted on me seems like a million years in the past.

I'm walking back into the main waiting area, a hot Coffee Bucks cup in my hand. I've drunk so much coffee recently that I wouldn't be surprised if there's a hole being burned in my stomach.

Is it wrong that right now, all I want is for something to happen, anything that just ends this limbo one way or another?

"Lys?"

Don't answer that.

"Yeah?" I say after I turn and see Turk.

"You didn't happen to see JD when you were at Coffee Bucks did you?"

"He's gone AWOL again, hasn't he?" Asked and answered.

Turk doesn't really have to say anything. "Let me know if you see him please?"

"Of course."

Once Turk is away again, I walk back in to the waiting room that's basically become home. The television is on, as it always is. I glance at it. The news. How fun.

"The news headlines this Monday."I stop what I'm doing – finding somewhere to sit.

It's Monday?

Crap.

Alyssa

It's raining.

Millar Park is a twenty-minute walk away from the hospital. It's quiet, not exactly surprising given the weather. The rain is so heavy that the drops are bouncing off the ground and the surface water runs down the concrete hills like waterfalls.

This is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I've been along every path that I can think so far in this park, which is really difficult considering I don't know it that well. I could count on a single hand the amount of times I've been here.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe JD isn't going to be here. Or maybe he was and – in the time I've been wandering around – he's already gone back to the hospital.

I continue walking along my current path. I figure that if I walk along it for long enough, I'll eventually come to an exit. I really should get back now too before somebody starts worrying that I've left too. I didn't exactly say to anybody that I was leaving.

The view around this next corner is obscured by trees and bushes. Not that I'm particularly looking where I'm going. The rain is so heavy that I have to look down at the ground to be able to see anything, except for the times when I steal a glance ahead of me to make sure I'm not walking in to some thing.

And it's during one of those glances up that I find what I've been looking for this whole time.

On a bench a few feet down the hill, I can see JD sitting. He's just sitting there, apparently completely oblivious to the weather and anyone walking by him right now probably wouldn't even realise that his whole world is crashing down around him. They'd just think he was a bit strange for sitting outside in the rain.

Jeez.

I walk down the hill, but at the same time I'm wondering what exactly you're supposed to say in this situation. And then I realise that I'm actually standing at the bench now, so I need to say something.

"Is this where you're going to propose?" It's the first thing that went through my head.

JD nods. "You see that tree over there?"

I look to where he's pointing. There's an old oak tree.

"Not long before you arrived, Elliot and I spent the day here for no reason. We just did. All day. And it was then that I realised even with all the crap we'd put each other through in the past I really wanted to be with her."

Points if you can come up with something, anything to say after that.

"You really should be at the hospital, you know." Again. First thing to run through my head.

"Why?" He snaps. "Because they need me to be there? I sure as hell wasn't there when Elliot was in labour, scared out of her mind. And I wasn't there when they rushed Elliot to surgery for a c-section. And I wasn't there when my daughter was born and they were fighting to keep her alive long enough to get her to the NICU. I wasn't there when they really needed me."

"That wasn't your fault."

"Yeah. Yeah it was. I agreed to do that conference because I thought it'd be nice to take Elliot away for the weekend. If I hadn't done that I would have been there," he tearfully says. "So yeah. It is my fault."

"JD, nobody on God's green earth could've predicted what was going to happen. Nobody could've seen it coming. You can't blame yourself for that." It's almost pointless saying that, because I know as well as anybody that he's going to blame himself no matter what anybody says. "And this… it would have turned out the same way if you'd be been there."

"You know, I can't even remember the last thing that I said to her?"

Oh, my god.

"I can't remember the last thing I said to her. And now… she could, probably will, die and I can't remember the last thing I said to her."

And now I'm crying.

"I can't lose her. I can't lose them."

"You really should go back to the hospital," I say again. I'm like a broken record. And before he even has a chance to protest with his self-blaming, I add, "Because if something else happens to them and you're not there… you're going to hate yourself forever. And you're too good a person for that to happen to. You should go back to the hospital."

This is the point where you're supposed to say that it's all going to be okay, right? That's just what you say, isn't it? But for some reason, I just can't say that.

"You should really go back to the hospital."

He doesn't stand from the bench immediately, but he stares at that old oak tree.

"JD?" I say again a minute later.

"I just need a minute."

"Okay."

It was a bright sunny day, so naturally Millar Park was busy; something JD and Elliot wished they had thought about before setting off for an impromptu picnic of sorts.

With a sigh of frustration, Elliot remarked, "We've been walking around for a half hour and we still haven't found a place to sit. Maybe we should just go back."

JD's heart sank. In all honesty, he'd been excited for this outing more than he would ever have said. Those funny feelings for Elliot that he'd kept buried deep down for years – well, they were resurfacing stronger than ever before. He couldn't even begin to describe the happiness he felt when he got Elliot's call, asking if him he was free today. "Yeah, I guess." He was still looking at Elliot when a smile crept across her face.

"Or we could go and sit by that old oak tree."

Which is what they did.

JD's mind wandered while Elliot spoke about a patient that she'd had trouble diagnosing. They'd been spending so much more time together and they were better friends than they'd ever been. Which JD thought was the reason for the return of the feelings (although JD thinks they never really went away).

It's complicated between them, he knows that. They've got so much history, consisting mostly of them hurting each other. Badly. Over the past few years they've worked at building up a normal friendship. It would be so much to risk. Would it be too much?

He's got to the stage in his life where his mind often wanders to the future and what might happen. He thinks sometimes about what he wants out of life and what he wants to achieve. And here's the funny thing: whenever he looks in to the future, it's Elliot he sees.

"Hey." Elliot's voice snapped him out of his deep thought. "You okay? You seem like you've been carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders."

"Yeah, I'm okay. I've just…. Been thinking."

"What about?"

JD paused. If this were Turk or Carla, he'd make some answer up. But with Elliot? Somehow, with Elliot it's just easier to tell her the truth.

"The future. Do you get like that?"

Elliot nodded. "Yeah. Sometimes."

"Doesn't it just scare the crap out of you? Not knowing what's going to happen."

"I guess. But you know what? I think if I knew everything that was going to happen to me in the future, I'd never have the guts to get out of bed."

"But maybe if we knew what was going to happen, that everything was going to turn out okay, we wouldn't be so scared."

Elliot's eye widen slightly. "That would be awesome. Because you know what we're both like. Two complete committophobes who both run at the first sign of anything real."

"Yeah. God, we were ridiculous as interns. But I like to think we've grown up since then."

"I hope so."

It's quiet for a little while, the two doctors pondering.

"Do you… do you think life's going to be okay for us?" Elliot asks.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think life's going to be great for us."

You know what? He's doing it. He's going to tell her how he feels. Someday soon, he thinks.

AlyssaIt was only once I was back in the hospital that I realised how cold I was. The rainwater had soaked through my clothes completely. It was also dripping from my hair, literally dripping as if I'd just been in the shower. Luckily now I've been able to dry my hair any change to a spare pair of volunteer scrubs.

I'm still cold though, which is why I'm just returning from Coffee Bucks with a large cup of hot chocolate to try to warm me up.

I have just walked out of the stairwell, into the corridor towards the waiting room.

I hear footsteps running towards me. I look up.

It's Turk.

I'm worried.

"Lys, where's JD?" He speaks so quickly, I can barely separate the words.

"NICU, I think. Why?"

Turk doesn't answer me, but starts running again towards the elevator.

"Turk!"

He turns around, panic and urgency on his face. "Elliot's waking up."

"What?"

Turk doesn't answer me before the elevator door closes.