Chapter 21- Nightmare

A parent's worst nightmare is losing their child; Even the possibility of it happening darkens your very soul. The crippling fear which fills you, is like nothing you could imagine unless you have been through it yourself, you can witness it and get an idea of the feelings flowing through others, but you can never truly know what it is like.

Not deep down.

When you feel that gut retching pain, you never want to imagine another person going through the same thing. It's something you don't even wish on your worst enemy. Even your subconscious, no matter how much you hate a person; will not allow you to go there.

News of Izzy's disappearance reached Dr. Cox pretty quickly and me not too long after that. It's a weird feeling, knowing someone is going though the possibility of losing their child, especially when you have gone through it yourself. Still as much as I wanted to get up, go over to sacred heart and tear the place apart looking for that little girl, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Not when it meant leaving Sammy without either of his parents by his side.

I loved Izzy but my son came first, Turk and Dr Cox were right, having a child changes everything about you and while I would have dropped anything for my best friends in the past, that just wasn't the case anymore.

They weren't there for me and I just couldn't bring myself to be there for them.

Friday 28th March, 6.32 pm

It had been nearly two hours since the Turks found out their daughter had vanished and after coming round, Carla had spent the entire time sat in a chair, rocking back and forth in hysterics, nothing could calm her down. One of the nurses had brought her some tea, saying something about sugar levels but everything was just a blur to her, she couldn't see anything but colors and swirls, couldn't feel anything but pure terror and couldn't hear anything but her own screams. Her poor baby would be so scared and hungry right now and the thought of this man possibly hurting her little girl was actually paralyzing her. No one could be that cruel, that's what they kept telling her, but how could she believe it when they were cruel enough to take her baby in the first place.

She hadn't seen Turk since she was ushered upstairs, he had ran off lost in a blaze of fury, determined to search every square inch of the hospital until he found his little African princess. So far, he clearly wasn't having much luck. The two police officers that were already in the nursery when she arrived had been questioning some of the patients and had the guy with the hook hand and his team guarding all the doors. They were sure she was in the building somewhere, they just didn't know where.

That made it worse, oh so worse. Knowing her little girl was so close and in so much danger and she couldn't do a damn thing about it. She had never felt so hopeless, so completely lost, her chest ached, she couldn't stop shaking, and it was like someone was slowly ripping her heart out.

"Carla don't worry we will find her!" Shirley, one of the newest nurses spoke softly, rubbing her back and looking incredibly unsure, this was certainly not what she signed up for this morning. "No one's going to hurt a little baby."

"Y…ou… you don't… don't know THAT" She cried as she clutched her arms around her chest tighter and stared blankly ahead of her, she just needed her daughter, nothing would be right again until she was safely back in her arms.

"We'll find her Carla; I promise we will find her." Turk said as he came rushing over to his wife, having just entered the ward, his arms instantly wrapping around her and squeezing her to his chest. His eyes were blood shot, and skin bright red and tear stained, he felt like his world had been turned upside down. His baby girl was missing and his wife was distraught and he just felt completely powerless to help either of them. "We'll find her."

Some of the patients in the ward were staring at them; others were trying to avoid any sort of eye contact. Even Kevin, the guy who'd been giving them grief all day was sitting unusually quiet trying to make himself as small as possible. A few who were capable of walking around had got up to help with the search while the more hardhearted bunch had plugged in their iPods and become oblivious to their surroundings. It was safe to say this not so little event had managed to somehow affect everyone in the building.

Of course no one was affected anywhere near the amount as the Turks were, they just couldn't comprehend why someone would do this to them.

"Is…he.. God …punis..hing us?" Carla asked quietly as she wrapped her arms around her husband and buried her face into his shoulder her ragged breathing getting even faster as she tried to calm herself down long enough to speak properly.

"What? No of course not baby? He's a vision of good; he wouldn't do something like this." Turk said gently, rubbing his hand up and down her back and pulling her even closer to him. His spare arm was gripping at his ST Christopher chain, willing his faith to come through for him. For his God to bring his little girl back to him safely.

"Then why?...Wh..y would anyone do…do this? My baby! My …poor baby!" Carla screamed, her breathing getting worse and worse as a fresh batch of tears came and she went completely hysterical once again. Whatever she attempted to say after that was unintelligible to even Turk and he could do nothing but rock her side to side as he glanced around the room, trying desperately to work out where someone may take his baby girl. If the whole hospital was searching, they couldn't have gone far surely? There wasn't that many places anyone could hide, especially with a presumably crying baby.

"It's funny you should ask that." The janitor piped up, appearing from the shadows, his cleaning cart in tow and a mop in his hand. Everyone's attention instantly turned to him as he placed his mop back in its bucket and leaned backwards against a wall. "There's an interesting story actually of a very similar event." He continued, smirking a little as he realized how well his little plan was going. Everything always fell into place so nicely. "There was a thing on the news once about a mad man who kidnapped children, no one paid him any attention, and he was just this rogue worker who everyone took advantage of. But he had a fascinating back story if anyone bothered to listen. He was crap at his job, everyone knew that, or at least the job he pretended to do, but you see he wasn't really a handy man like everyone assumed he was based on a uniform. No, he worked in a hospital too, but hospitals are tricky places, there full of people who are supposed to help and heal others, yet more often than not these people become selfish, big headed and their personal lives become way more important than treating the sick and helping the ones that truly need help. Now this man was hired to do one thing, make sure only the best survived to become fully fledged doctors, to train the weak and get rid of the ones who just weren't capable enough. He would extract punishments on the people around him, test the ones who needed to be tested and make people see the error of their ways."

At this point, Shirley got up, shook her head at his ridiculousness and walked away; everyone knew a janitor cock and bull story by now. Turk just raised his eyebrows and continued to comfort his wife as he once again took to searching the room with his eyes, judging distances under beds and any suspicious looking closets.

"See what I mean! No one is ever interested in his back story." The janitor said with a shrug as he stood up straight again and walked towards the married couple. "Anyway there was this couple, who did something bad and they needed to be punished, so this 'mad man' took their child one day, as a way for them to realize the error of their ways. But you see he wasn't the smartest leaf on the tree and decided to work alone rather than with others, so of course the police were called and they eventually found the man on the roof, he dropped the kid off it and was arrested minutes later."

Again the Janitor shrugged and turned to retrieve his mop as Carla and Turk exchanged a look of confusion and slight horror.

"Was there a point to that story?" Turk eventually asked as the man in the jumpsuit put up his little yellow sign and started cleaning the floor, clearly not about to say anything else as he turned his back towards them. The man smirked slightly at this question before turning his head around so he was looking at them from over his shoulder.

"Three actually, no one ever pays attention to the hidden messages, people should always have the right contacts to avoid prison… and when searching a building… the rooftop is constantly neglected." With that he placed his mop back in the cart, picked up his glass cleaner and headed off towards the nearest window. When he was sure the attention was no longer on him, he reached his hand out of the window and simply dropped the cloth out of it and then with a wink to someone below, turned on his heels and left the ward.

It took Turk and Carla all of 5 seconds after the last few words left the janitors mouth, for them both to spring to their feet and charge out of the room with only one destination in mind, the roof.

"Hi Dr Dorian?" A small voice spoke out from a doorway, causing the young man and his mentor to turn around and face the entrance to the ICU, where a young woman, probably around twenty-five years old stood in a hospital gown. "Dr Cox, it's nice to see you both again." She continued softly as she took a hesitant step into the ward.

"Aaa…. Urr…hi?" JD replied, scanning the woman's facial features, trying to work out how she knew them.

"I was a patient of yours a few years back at sacred heart, you saved mine and my sisters lives when we were in a car crash. I never did get to thank you guys properly, I was pregnant back then too and I've got a wonderful little boy now." She replied with a small smile as she held her hand out to shake there's, realizing they had no idea who she actually was. "My name's Kerry Leatherman."

"Well hello Kerry, you doing okay?" Dr Cox replied as he got to his feet and went over to shake her hand. They treated so many people every day that faces all began to look the same to him, still it was always nice meet someone he had once treated successfully.

"Not really, my husband went nuts and attacked me and my youngest, which is why we're here." She said with a small shrug, before grimacing and clutching at her injured shoulder.

"I'm so sorry to hear that." JD spoke up, before getting to his own feet and picking little Sammy up, having the sudden desire to protect him even more than normal. The world really was a horrible place to be born into.

"It's okay, my own fault really, should have left him years ago… just been told I've got a bit of a difficult decision to make now, wanted to clear my head… sorry to disturb you." She continued, before turning to go. As she reached out to reopen the door to the corridor, she paused and glanced back around at the newborn. "He's a cutie, is he yours?"

"Yeah, Sammy, he's two weeks old now" The thirty year old replied as he rocked his son slightly as he let out a small cry, being careful not to disturb any of the wires that were still attached to his tiny body.

"Congratulations, is he okay?"

JD shook his head slightly before sitting back down and staring down at his son sadly, he was defiantly better then he was, but nowhere near being okay.

"No, he's very premature, can breathe on his own now but I've just been told he needs a kidney transplant sooner rather than later if he's gunna be given a proper chance at life." He replied, taking a deep breath as he tried to stop himself from crying again, it was just one thing after another for the poor lad.

"Oh god… Wait? Is he at the top of the transplant list?"

"As of about half an hour ago yeah." The young man said softly with a croak in his voice, silently swearing that when this was all over he would take some sort of class on how to control his emotions a little better.

"What's his blood type?" She said quickly before flinching and shaking her head "Sorry… that was nosy… I've... got to go… I've got to go" With that she yanked open the ward door and dashed out into the corridor, leaving too very bewildered off duty doctors behind.

"What was that all about?"

(a/n) So what you think, any good? Lol gone in a slightly different direction than originally intended with this story but its been 4 years so .. yeah. Thanks for everyone whose still reading and reviewing really appreciate it!

Im going back to college as of Monday so may be a tad longer till the next update but not too long gunna try and get as much in before assignments start poping up as possible. Hopefully this story will be over in about 4 or 5 more chapters. Got everything planned out that I want to happen so it should work out!