Yay! I was delighted to see more than 8 reviews in my inbox the past 36 hours! Thank you so much for all your kind words. This chapter is a little shorter, but I hope you like it!

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Chapter 24

Less than five minutes after Dawson and Shay had handed Erin over to the maternity doctors at Lakeshore, they were sitting in the waiting room as Jay stormed through the entrance. To Gabby, he locked more panicked than she had ever seen him. He screeched to a halt at the nurses' desk, and once he had gotten the delivery room number, he ran through the second set of doors without saying as much as hello.

"Somebody's freaked out," Gabby commented, a little disappointed that he hadn't greeted either of them.

"Hey," Shay butted in, defending Jay, "If that was you in there, Casey would probably have done the exact same thing – he would have rushed straight in to be with you."

"You know what, you're probably right. Sorry," Gabby apologized.

"No worries," Shay replied, picking up a magazine as she tried to fill in more time. She and Dawson had told Boden and the dispatcher that they would stay at Lakeshore unless they got a call. Boden had agreed, and told them that he would tell everyone and encourage them to come over the next morning when they were off shift.

Just as Shay had started reading through the cover story of a trashy celebrity magazine, she heard the sounds of multiple people sprinting through the doors, and saw Voight, Antonio, and the rest of the Intelligence Unit stopping at the nurses' desk. Before Voight had a chance to intimidate the nurse, Gabby jumped up and told the group, "Nothing yet. Jay's with her."

Voight sighed and silently took a seat in the waiting room. Everyone followed suit, except for Antonio, who gave his sister a hug. "Thanks you two. I don't know what Erin would have done if you hadn't been there."

"No problem. Did you see Jay before he got here?" Gabby asked her brother.

"We were all listening to Voight's briefing and we all saw Jay's face go from calm to pure panic. No sooner had he hung up was he out the door. He's been on his toes, understandably, for the few weeks."

"Poor guy," Gabby said, "Although, I remember someone else who was totally nervous before his kids were born."

Antonio nodded and said, "I know, I know. Are you okay to stay for a while?"

"Yeah, the dispatcher knows that we're here and we'll head out if we get a call. But Lindsay's one of our good friends, so if it's okay, we'll stick around."

"That's all good. Thanks again."

"Love you too, bro," Gabby replied, returning to sit next to Shay.

***Five minutes earlier***

Jay ran as fast he could down the hall of the maternity wing and didn't hesitate as he entered delivery room 2. The nurse closest to the door said, "You Halstead?" Jay's view was obscured by a curtain, but he could hear Erin crying out in pain. "Yeah," was all he managed to say. The nurse handed him blue scrubs and told them to put them on before rounding the corner. He rushed to Erin's side and grabbed her right hand and arm. "Hey, Erin, it's me. You're going to be okay."

"Damn you, Halstead. This hurts so freakin' bad!" Erin said through gritted teeth. She could feel the baby moving a little, but was worried something was wrong. "Doc, is something wrong?" Jay asked after a few seconds of silence.

The doctor just replied, "Erin, I need you to push one more time, okay? You can do it. Deep breath and push."

"Okay, Erin, you can do this," Jay repeated. "On three."

"I can't do this!" Erin screamed.

"Yes, Erin, you can. Now, on three. One…two…three!" Erin gave a big push and cried out in pain as Halstead said the number three, and Jay feared the worst when the doctor didn't respond positively. He whispered something to one of the nurses, then turned to Erin and Jay and said, "Your baby is in distress. We have to do an emergency c-section."

"What?" Jay said in disbelief.

"If we operate now, everything should be fine," the doctor replied, but his words did no good to calm Jay or Erin.

Erin was so scared and in pain that she barely heard Jay say, "You're both gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine," before she started seeing black spots and passed out.