Ok, so I felt like a jerk for leaving it where I did and clearly everyone else mirrored that sentiment. I only had one client at work today and this is more fun that my final papers so here's you explanation of what happened to Regina.
As soon as Regina was brought into the ER exam room Emma was surprised by just how fast they had her hooked up to monitors and machines. While one nurse place an IV in Regina's arm another was quickly placing a fetal heart monitor around Regina's bump. Even though Regina was still out cold, her blood pressure had finally evened out and Emma became instantly relieved when she saw the read out from the baby monitor. Even though she still had no idea of what had caused Regina to lose consciousness, she knew that the babies were ok, for now anyway. Whale finally came into the room and quickly asked Emma what had happened. Emma quickly recounted the events of that day and as she did so Whale was checking the baby monitor as well as the monitor keeping track of Regina's vital signs.
"Bring me a sonogram machine now please." Whale shouted into the hallway and a nurse showed up moments later with the machine on a cart.
"Is something wrong with the babies?" Emma asked as she gripped Regina's hand tighter than was necessary. Whale said nothing as he turned the machine on and began running the wand over Regina's protruding belly. Emma watched the screen like she knew what she should be looking for. All she could see was that this image was very different from the sonogram they had several months ago, back when they thought they were having only one baby.
"Well?" Whale hit a few buttons and finally looked up at Emma.
"She's going to be fine, but when she wakes up we'll need to have a serious talk with her." Emma could not be more pissed and it showed when without much warning she reached across Regina's body and held Whale by his lab coat.
"What do you mean she is going to be fine? I had to have my father carry my unconscious, pregnant wife out into this winter weather and she passed out in my arms. Something isn't right and you have exactly three minutes to tell me what that something is before I bounce your head off every wall in this hospital." Whale pulled back enough to compose himself before he tried to explain.
"First off, the babies are fine. Both of them have clear heartbeats, both very strong. As for what happened, I can't say for certain until the blood test comes back, but I'd bet my life on it being the precursory symptoms to pre-eclampsia." Whale regretted his choice of words; seeing as Emma would glad take his life if he was wrong.
"Ok, I don't know much about that, but they said something about it when I was pregnant with Henry. Don't people die from that?"
"It can be fatal for both mother and child, yes." That did it. Emma grabbed Whale by the collar of his shirt and literally threw him out of the room and into the wall just outside the room and before he had a chance to recover her had her forearm pressed against his throat.
"What fucking realm do you live in that 'she'll be fine' translates into 'she could fucking die'." By this point, the commotion had drawn the attention of everyone in the ER including David who was running down the hallway towards Emma. He quickly pulled his daughter off the doctor as Snow and Henry watched from a few feet away, none of them understanding the outburst. Emma fought hard against David and he looked into the room behind him to see Regina still unconscious, but still very much alive.
"Emma stop." David wrapped his arms around Emma's shoulders, effectively pinning her arms to her sides and preventing her from fighting anymore, but that didn't stop the words from flying out of her mouth.
"Explain yourself, quickly, or there won't be enough man power in this state to keep me from kicking your ass." Whale was rightfully terrified and everyone was in a bit of a state of shock. No one had ever seen Emma that angry before, but everyone could see that, for the most part, her anger was fueled by an unbridled fear of losing Regina.
"Yes, it can be fatal, but she doesn't have pre-eclampsia yet. It can be stopped, but she has to follow my orders exactly in order for that to be the case." Emma relaxed just enough for David to feel comfortable in letting her go.
"What kind of orders?" Emma spat out through gritted teeth.
"I want to keep her here for a few days, maybe a week to make sure nothing develops in that time and if all that goes well I'll allow her to go home. When she goes home she has to be on strict bed rest. Literally only standing and walking when it is needed. No more working from home either. The higher her blood pressure the more like it is for her to develop pre-eclampsia."
Emma's head was swimming with questions, but she only managed to ask one. "For how long?"
"Emma, she is just barely 5 months pregnant and if she develops pre-eclampsia anytime before 32 weeks it carries a very high mortality rate."
"How long?" Emma repeated her question. Whale sighed before he answered. "My recommendation is for the remainder of her pregnancy." Emma said nothing in return and turned on her heel, walking right back into the exam room and shutting the door behind her. Everyone knew better than to follow her. That door being shut behind her was Emma's way of saying she wanted to be left alone with Regina…conscious or not. Emma sat in absolute silence for almost 20 minutes, a death grip on Regina's left hand.
"You are going to break my hand if you keep squeezing it like that." Emma snapped out of her own haze and looked up to see Regina looking back at her. Emma stood up and kissed Regina on the forehead before giving her a proper kiss on her lips.
"Don't ever fucking do that to me again Regina."
"As you wish." Emma had to smile because even given the circumstances; Regina had let her swear without being scolded. "Have they figured out what happened to cause me to become so ill so quickly?"
Emma nodded, "let me go get Whale." Regina stopped her from leaving, "no, I want to hear it from you."
Emma sighed and sat back down, "he said that we'd have to wait for the blood tests to be 100% sure but he said it was likely the warning signs of pre-eclampsia." Regina shut her eyes at the word and Emma felt terrible.
"He said you probably don't have it yet, but in order to keep it from progressing into full blown pre-eclampsia, you have to do something you aren't going to like."
"Bed rest." Regina stated it plainly and with little emotion and Emma looked surprised.
"Ok I just told you that you have to literally do nothing for probably the rest of your pregnancy and you aren't mad, what gives?" Regina grabbed Emma's hand and put it on her belly and that's when Emma felt it; the babies were kicking.
"If sitting on my ass for the next few months means we get to hold them, both of them, then I'll do it. That's what gives."
"Whale wants to keep you here for a few days, maybe a week to keep an eye on things." Regina rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Very well, but I will not be forced into one of those hospital gowns, I'll be needing some things from the house."
"I can send my parents to go get whatever you need."
"Or you could go get them and save them the trouble of searching through our belongings for my clothes." Emma shook her head and planted her feet firmly on the floor.
"I'm not going anywhere, not without you. Henry can help my folks find some clothes for you and they know where we keep things in the house if you need little things from other parts of the house." Regina smiled at her wife's absolute rejection of leaving her side and relented. "Very well, give me some paper, I'll make them a list."
Emma handed Regina a pad of paper and a pen before looking into the hall to see her parents and her son still waiting patiently to be let in. Emma opened the door and as she did so Henry ran by her in a flash and was quickly at Regina's side. Emma was never surprised just how quickly Henry dropped the tough teenager act when it came to one of his mothers being hurt. Emma watched from the door as Regina tried to soothe Henry's fears. Eventually the boy stood up with the pad of paper in his hand and pushed past his mother and grandparents, mumbling something about meeting them at the car. One other trait Henry inherited from Regina was her stubborn sense of pride and that coupled with being a teenage boy, Henry disliked being emotional in front of people, even his family. Emma indicated for her parents to stay with Regina and she went after Henry. When Emma finally caught up with her son he was, as promised leaning on the hood of his grandfather's car.
"You know I bet if you asked your grandfather, he'd probably let you stay up too late and order pizza." Henry kicked the ground in front of him and Emma knew he was refusing to look up at her because there were likely tears in his eyes.
"Hey, kid, it's going to be alright. We'll get through this." Emma ran her hand up and down Henry's back only once before the 14 year old collapsed into his mother's arms. Emma would have laughed at the awkward position she had to stand in seeing as Henry was as tall as she was now, but her son in tears was nothing to smile at…not these kind of tears.
"I don't want her to die."
"We have that in common Henry. Look I don't care if you and I have to stare at her 24 hours a day until the girls are born, but she'll stay on bed rest one way or another ok. They'll be ok. All of them." Emma wasn't sure who needed to hear it more, her or Henry. The teenager eventually pulled away from his mother and sniffled as he rubbed his eyes like a child who was up past their naptime.
"You should get in the car before you freeze. Make sure your grandma doesn't rearrange our closet please." Henry smiled and climbed into the car, allowing Emma to walk back into the hospital. Snow was waiting for Emma at the hospital entrance for Emma to return.
"They wanted to move Regina up to maternity before the shift change. I told David to stay with her and I came to wait for you."
"If they spend anymore time with each other they might actually become friends." Emma smiled at her own joke as they made their way to the elevators. Once off the elevators, the women were directed to a room at the very end of the hall. Snow was about to walk in, when Emma grabbed at her sleeve and pulled her back into the hallway. Before the shorter woman could ask why Emma pointed into the room where Regina appeared to be asleep, which wasn't surprising because the whole day had been pretty exhausting for everyone, but her especially. David was sitting in a chair next to Regina's bed and he wasn't talking loudly, but he was speaking just loud enough for Emma and his wife to hear him from the doorway.
"Ok, look I know that you two have ears and being Regina's kids you likely are overachievers and can hear everything that goes on out here. So assuming you can hear me, I need you two to do me a really big favor. Don't pull anything like that again, ok. Because if grandpa has to carry your mommy anywhere because you two are in danger I'm going to have a heart attack. Ok, so no more of that. Do me that favor and I will buy you each a pony, ok, like a real pony, but you gotta keep up our end on this deal." David jerked his head away from Regina's belly after feeling a quick kick against his hand.
"I'm going to take that kick as an agreement to my terms. Play nice in there." David reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small stuffed rabbit and set it on one side of Regina's belly. "Bye girls." David pushed the chair away and headed for the doorway in search of his wife who should have been back by now. When he finally looked up he saw his wife and daughter standing in the hallway and his cheeks went red, knowing full well they jut heard everything he had said.
"If they get ponies, I better get one too." Emma tried to make light of things, but watching her dad get so emotional over Regina and the babies had definitely caused some tears to form in her eyes.
"Maybe Santa will bring you one for Christmas, if you're a good girl." David kissed his daughter's head and they quickly said their goodbyes. Emma set up the god-awful chair that turns into a bed and as she laid next to her wife's bed Emma couldn't help but stare at the stuffed toy that her father had left at Regina's side. It was no longer lying against her belly, instead it was now being held in Regina's hand. Emma looked at Regina's face and while her eyes were shut, giving the illusion of sleep, the tearstains that trailed down her cheek betrayed her. Regina had been very much awake when David was in the room and she heard everything he had said. Emma reached over and rested her hand on top of Regina's and let her wife keep pretending that she was asleep because sometimes that stubborn pride was worth protecting.
Wow, ok that ended up being WAY long than I meant for it to be. But there you go, Regina just has to cool it, which we all know is easier said than done for her. Hope this lessened the hatred for me leaving the last chapter where I did.