Chapter Twenty One

Alicia lay back on the table, seeming unconcerned as Nathaniel fought the urge to pace. Choosing to stay close to her, his wife wore only her bra and shorts, the nurse draped a blue cloth over her middle and the obvious swell of their son. He was probably being paranoid but the nurse looked like a kid, she was at least ten years younger than his wife but the girl continued to prep, hooking up an IV, missing the first try but catching the second. He kept his mouth shut and focused on Alicia.

The doctor entered, checking the diagnostic screen and the IV, making notes and instructing the nurse to monitor the levels in her blood. He listened, trying not to worry as the doctor washed and gloved her hands.

"I want you to count backwards from fifty." The nurse told her, he saw his wife smirk a little, but she obeyed.

Her voice got thick and slurred, she stumbled over a few numbers before fading out. Nathaniel watched pretty brown eyes close and swallowed hard, her grip on his hand slipping away. Elisabeth reached out and lay her arm straight; he slid his palm along her cheek.

"Commander I know you intend to stay, please keep your hands clear of the drape." Both the doctor and his wife had tried hard to talk him out of staying with her, and he knew it wasn't typical procedure but he wanted to be close and had used his position to do so.

It was harder than he had anticipated, and he had a feeling the doctor felt the same as she palmed the scalpel a moment; hovering over Alicia's belly. Nathaniel fought the tension creeping up his back, watching her work and watching his wife's face; she wasn't as peaceful as he would like. Not as peaceful as when she slept soundly; but then that was something only he could know.

If he could look at her face and believe she was sleeping it might be easier, it would be easier to ignore the doctor working inside her. An hour passed but that didn't bother him much, he was all for the doctor being careful. But he noticed the nurse seemed focused on the doctor's hands and not her screen. He knew the bed was alarmed to her vitals and would beep if she was in trouble but the doctor was entirely focused on his wife; and it was her experience he trusted.

"She's alright Commander." The doctor murmured, catching a look of concern he must have allowed to show. "I've got her."

"All due respect doc, but the in good hands speech will work better when your hands aren't inside her, and aren't so close to my son." Nathaniel kept himself in check, there was more he thought to say but didn't. Alicia was Elisabeth's friend, the doctor was good and that was a fact he knew; but he also knew she cared.

"S'all right." His heart kicked up and the doctor froze as they both looked to Alicia's face. Bleary brown eyes were struggling to focus on him. But her hand slid out from under the draped and knocked against his; he met the doctor's eyes fighting panic. "Doesn't really hurt, just feels weird."

"Okay Alicia, that's good." He breathed, knowing he couldn't let her see his panic. This was not okay.

"Show me that screen." The doctor snarled, one of only a few times he had heard Elisabeth Shannon sound vicious. When she spoke again the woman's tone was sharp. "Go tell Naomi to get in here fast. I don't need you back here."

The nurse looked terrified as she scrambled from the room and he thought he saw the doctor shudder, even as her hands remained inside his wife. He looked down as Alicia tried to rub her eyes, gently he slid her hand back into his and murmured for her to stay still; he had to count on the doctor to deal with this.

"I've got her Commander, Nurse Ogawa is coming, I am not going to be able to move until we check her stats but she is stable and so is the baby." The woman finished as her right hand rushed in and immediately began to work.

"Stay still Liz." The nurse was experienced and it showed, these two worked together often and within moments he saw Alicia starting to fade out; feeling her grip on his hand slide away. "She's under, I'll get her steady; you're clear."

"Review the log and print it for me." The doctor instructed as she slid her hands out of Alicia, and he watched as for just a moment the surgeon sighed; letting her shoulder's relax. "What's her blood sat?"

"Too low." The nurse replied quickly, the doctor muttered something but continued, Ogawa twisted the screen to the side and taking the opposite side of the bed began to hand the doctor tools.

These two had a different rhythm and somehow it put him at ease, the nurse may have the paper but she had the experience under her belt that he had little doubt if forced she could handle this on her own if the need arose. But the doctor remained tense and pale, the color had drained from her face the moment Alicia spoke.

Later Alicia was cleaned up, wrapped in a soft sheet and sleeping much more peacefully; the procedure complete and the samples delivered to the science division. Nathaniel rested a hip on her bed waiting for her to wake. Elisabeth Shannon slipped into the room and went to the screen; checking in once again.

As the woman slipped from the room he followed; something wasn't right. "Doc, want to tell me what's wrong?"

"Nothing, she is stable and your son is strong." The doctor gave him a weak smile and he frowned, this was hardly the first time the woman had a procedure go sideways. "She will probably need an hour or so to come around but she can go home on bed rest tonight."

"You hardly want to touch her." Nathaniel didn't let her off.

"No, that's not true. Look, I've had patients under local anesthetic think they've felt something but I have the diagnostic, I have vitals and drug levels to check. We log everything, I can check the records and confirm that they didn't feel anything; I know she did."

"That's what's got you doc? She felt it?" Nathaniel clarified.

"Yes, that concerns me. I selected the nurse, I wasn't monitoring her stats closely."

"No, you were doing your job Doc, and you and I both know it's not the first time she's felt someone working on her. Take a look at her scars." No sense in putting the woman on a guilt trip, taking her arm he dragged her back into the room and slid the blanket off his wife. "She's had far less experienced hands than yours working on her, if she hadn't she wouldn't have those scars."

"It's not the physical scars I'm worried about. I know how to fix those, but she has her share of psychological ones too; I don't like to think my carelessness added another." The woman traced her finger over a healed scar on her ribs, a few inches away was the one the doctor made, and he knew that one would heal with hardly even a mark.

Nathaniel watched the woman consider it, and he didn't know how to tell her that it didn't matter but he didn't know how to explain that he knew that. It wouldn't hurt his wife either way, another physical scar meant nothing to her most of the time, there were moments he knew, but psychologically he knew she would push through.

Alicia was unaware, and he hoped his wife would understand. "Fix the physical ones then, trust me that she will be okay."

The doctor frowned, and seemed to consider it. "Its wrong that I want to. The same way I didn't want to do this."

"If she didn't want to do this she wouldn't be here and if I believed she had been serious danger I would have shut this down; we would have fought but on this I would have won." Nathaniel promised, knowing it would have been a rift between them but it would have been worth it.

The scars they both remembered as fresh wounds, he remembered the moments when he had thought she was gone. She wasn't his wife then but the thought of doing it without her had been physical pain. It was a journey that had started over a year and a half ago, but only a part of the journey they had started on almost nine years ago. It was surprising to him what he felt in looking at her scars, he saw them so often but he didn't think about the past attached anymore; or not as often.