Candy stared at the pencil in her hand; all her life she had been comforted by the gentle scratch of graphite on paper, but at this precise moment in time, the object nestled gently between her fingers was unrecognizable.
Greg sat in the same position he had occupied for hours; his muscles were locked tight as he waited, counting the seconds in time with the clock ticking softly on the wall behind him.
Gil sat in bed, his gaze locked on a photo of Sara staring at Rowen sleeping in her purple beanie hat. He had lost track of time; what was the point of counting when the seconds stretched on into minutes, and then hours that were just drawn out into an unending eternity?
…
Alice strode into Grissom's room with a wide grin on her face; he looked up as she approached, but his face was blank and uncomprehending. He was so deeply lost in thought that Alice could see in his eyes the exact moment when comprehension dawned and hope transformed his deadened outlook.
"It was one hundred percent successful," she said without preamble. Greg and Candy, forgotten until that moment, leapt to their feet cheering and grabbed each other in a tight hug.
Gil's ears rang and he felt a wave of pressure in his sinuses that cleared as quickly as it came; he pinched the bridge of his nose and drew in several trembling breaths, ordering his emotions to control themselves.
"Shawna is settling her back in the NICU," Alice continued, smiling broadly as she fished a new Polaroid out of her pocket and handed it over with a flourish. "She did really well, the valve is completely repaired, the blood flow in normal and she's breathing better already."
"She's going to be alright?" he whispered.
"She's going to be fine!" Alice was ecstatic. "The surgery was totally effective, the only hiccup we had was at the end when we tried to get her off the bypass machine; it took a little while to get her heart going again, but everything is fine now."
"We'll go and see her as soon as Shawna calls and says it's ok," Jenni promised from the doorway, where she was leaning against the frame, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
…
He couldn't stop staring. Rowen was back in the incubator, the only place he had ever seen her, and she was still dwarfed by the leads, monitors and tubes cocooning her, but she looked so much better. Her skin had a pink tinge to it, a beautifully welcome change after the days of yellow jaundice. Her fists were clenched as she slept, the fingers of one hand firmly wrapped around the fabric of her butterfly beanie. The NICU staff, it seemed, were amused by his choice of profession, and had made a game of trying to find pretty, insect themed hats for the baby they joked wasn't much bigger than a bug herself.
Little Bug, as she had become known, was still very premature and underweight, with low blood sugar and blood pressure, but despite the persisting Infant Respiratory Distress Syndrome, was improving. Shawna showed him the monitors tracking oxygen saturation levels, and the steady improvement in the twenty-four hours since surgery.
"She's getting there," she said with a happy smile. "It's really just a waiting game now, while her lungs mature enough to handle breathing independently."
"How long will it take?" asked Gil, tracing a stenciled, smiley ant stuck to the side of the incubator. Over the last few days cartoon insects had been appearing as decoration surrounding Rowen. It warmed his heart, to know that so much care and love was involved in his daughter's treatment.
"That's a tough question," admitted Shawna. "She could be ventilated for several weeks." He nodded, but said nothing, quietly watching his child. He was becoming accustomed to the length of time it would take, and was reassured by the evident devotion of the NICU staff, enabling him to relax a lot more when it came to processing the mountains of medical information he digested daily.
He smiled as Rowen wiggled the toes of her left foot. The tape running the length of her breath bone was stark white in contrast to the healthier tone of her skin, hiding the incision site and the rows of sutures that had closed the wound up again. He noticed a new feeding tube and sighed internally; this was Rowen's other serious problem. Hypoglycemia, metabolic disturbances and gastrointestinal issues. Shawna had explained that Rowen was not absorbing nutrients as well as she might, and that was leading to various complications, including a lack of weight gain. It was a common theme with premature babies, she said, and was taking its time to resolve.
In the meantime, they had much to celebrate with the success of the mitral valve repair surgery. That Alice had not needed to replace the valve with a mechanical one was amazing news, Shawna continued, because it meant that Rowen would not need daily doses of Warfarin and constant blood tests for the rest of her life to minimize the risks of a fatal blood clot. Gil smiled happily at the news and continued to observe his baby girl. Despite having always considered himself a patient man, he was beginning to develop a serious appreciation for the extreme endurance of the hospital staff, and their ability to celebrate any milestone, no matter how far reaching or seemingly insignificant. One step at a time, he thought. Just like with the hare and the turtle, slow and steady wins the race.
…
He left the NICU with a renewed sense of hope and confidence. Jenni walked beside him, but not helping him, as they ambled back to his room.
"What happened to Greg and Candy this morning?" she asked, not having seen the duo who had practically taken up residence at the hospital in the last couple of days.
"Candy went back to university last night; she has classes the rest of the week. I think Greg is sleeping in; he works the nightshift, so all this day walking must have worn him out," guessed Grissom, one hand wrapped firmly around his cane as he concentrated on steady, even steps. "He also has some errands to take care of this morning." Jenni's pager beeped as they negotiated a corner, and she put a hand out to stop him.
"That was ICU," she said when he frowned at her. "We need to go over there now."
…
"What's going on?" demanded Gil when they arrived at Sara's bedside. It was vastly different from the last time he'd been there, only a few short hours ago. She was back in an isolated room, in a bid to keep exposure to bacteria to an absolute minimum. Activity bustled around as Doctor Freya Blackman drew him aside. She was a tall woman, well over six feet, and athletically built. She had wide gray eyes and a penetrating stare that was as much kindness as it was honesty.
"Sara's fever has climbed to 107.1," Freya wasn't the type of person to waste time, especially in a pressured situation. "She's at risk of long term brain damage. If it gets any higher, it will likely kill her." Grissom stared at her, feeling the cliff under his toes crumbling away.
"So what are you doing?" he asked, digging in his toes in defiance, refusing to pitch forward into the abyss.
"We're using hemodialysis to cool her blood directly." He blinked, not having expected that.
"Like kidney failure patients?"
"Yes, precisely. The machine draws the blood from her body, in this case cools it, and replaces it back into her system. Every fifteen minutes or so her entire blood volume will cycle through the machine."
"What if it doesn't work?" he wanted to know. Freya regarded him carefully; she had followed the entire family's treatment over the last two weeks, and had complex in-depth conversations with this man on a daily basis about the care of his wife. She was well aware that his medical knowledge was broad for someone not educated or employed in the trade.
"We're running out of options," she said finally, choosing her words carefully. "Perhaps you would like to stay here with her? Speak with her, comfort her, tell her that you love her." Grissom was not a doctor, but he had no trouble reading between her lines.
"How long?" he asked, clenching his walking stick in his good hand.
"A matter of hours," Freya was honest, her tone as gentle as possible, "If the fever does not come down and the infection does not respond to the antibiotics."
…
He sat in a chair pushed right against the side of the bed. Jenni had fetched pillows, propping them around him with her usual ease and care, but her cheerful chatter and smiles were absent, banished by the gravity of the situation.
He kept Sara's hand in his, fingers slowly moving over hers as he sat quietly, studying her. Her skin burned to the touch, and looked as though it would crumble away under pressure. Her lips were dry and cracked; she was so pale and still she could have been a statue carved from alabaster. He observed the white gauze covering her infected shoulder; a tube burrowed under the layers of wrapping, connected to the drain inserted by Doctor Blackman.
The nurses had done away with a gown; instead Sara was covered with a blue sheet for modesty, pulled up over her chest with her arms resting on top. The back of one hand was covered in bruises where the IV port disappeared under her skin. Further up her arm, two tubes vanished into a vein near her elbow; both were bright red with blood, one flowing out of her body, the other back in. Across from him, the dialysis machine hummed and whirred, sucking, cooling and pumping blood dispassionately. It was a hulking thing, imposing in its height and meaning, and he could not help comparing it with the ventilator, which at least had the impression of helping Sara's body sustain life.
He ran a gentle finger over her collar bone; it stood out sharply, just visible at the edge of the neck brace, a reminder of the weight she was losing to the dehydration and lack of nutrient absorption. He could see the same effect clearly in her good shoulder, the bone clearly evident under the reduced muscle mass, as well as her elbows, wrists and hands. He suddenly remembered the last appointment with Doctor Lenoir, she had assured them all was well with their baby, but encouraged Sara to try and gain a little more weight. Narrowing his eyes slightly he wondered what she would say now.
The blood pressure cuff hummed into life, measuring another of its frequent checks and he lifted his gaze to the monitor as it deflated, noting the same number as before. At least the vasopressors were holding her BP steady, even if at the lower end of what Freya called 'acceptable for now.' He moved his gaze to the respiratory numbers, which still frightened him despite the lack of change, good or bad, over the last couple of days. He supposed he should be grateful her oxygen saturation levels hadn't fallen, but nowhere in his soul could he find the effort or desire to celebrate the continuity. He wanted improvement, not enthusiasm that something wasn't getting worse, when everything else seemed to be crumbling away.
Transferring her hand to his injured one, he reached out and stroked her cheek, his thumb running over her eyebrow and very gently over her closed eye. He leaned forward against the mattress and pressed a lingering kiss to her temple before resting his head next to hers.
"You can't go," he murmured in her ear. "You can't leave me; we made a promise to each other when we married, remember? That we would have our own forever? We haven't had that yet Sara, and there's a tiny little girl on the next floor who is part of that forever now too. She deserves it just as much as we do."
He closed his eyes, head resting against hers, and brought their joined hands up to his lips, kissing her fingers just as he had a thousand times before. For a while he would just stay there, imagining their life together, and how they would raise Rowen, just as they had talked so endlessly about in the last few weeks. He refused to think of the alternative, instead telling Sara all about Rowen's surgery and subsequent improvement during the last two days. He spoke quietly and at length, whispering right into her ear, keeping his eyes closed and the surrounding machinery at bay. For now, it was just the two of them in their own private world.
He must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing he was aware of was the clench of Sara's hand in his. For a split second his heart leapt, and he threw himself upright, barely even registering the roar of protest from his ribs. As quickly as the pressure on his fingers came, it was gone again and Sara lay as frozen as she had before.
He had only moments to wonder if she was waking, before the illusion shattered around him. Sara began to convulse, her muscles contracting and relaxing violently and he was knocked aside, sliding back into his chair with a thud. Eyes wild with fear, he slammed his hand repeatedly down on the call button, not even aware he was on his feet yelling for Freya.
...
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Ok, I know its kind of short, but it was majorly emotionally taxing! Resolution in the next chapter, I promise. Love those reviews :)