Things are about to get hairy. Apologies to anyone reading who might be squeamish...
Beth arrived at Edwards' office an hour later to eat when they both heard someone yelling in the hall. Dawn appeared in his doorway, excited. "Joan's going into labor."
They ran together, moments later finding the room where Joan was now lying on the bed, her feet drawn up. She was panting and grasping the edges of the mattress with both hands, the sheets beneath her soaked from her water breaking.
Beth went to her side and grabbed the woman's hand, wanting her to at least have one friendly face to get through this.
Edwards washed his hands and put on a clean pair of gloves. He came over to the end of the bed for his initial examination of Joan but she lashed out at him with her foot. "Get away from me!"
"This is happening whether you want it to or not, and you're going to need my help! Do you want to die, Joan?"
"YES! Just kill me. Please!" Edwards' mouth dropped open in shock at her screams, and he looked over at Dawn who was now trying to hold one of Joan's legs.
"Get your hands off me, you bitch!" Joan stared daggers at Dawn and tried to wrestle her leg out of the woman's grasp but her movements were cut short by the start of another contraction.
She squeezed Beth's hand and cried out, the sweat starting to run down her face. Beth ran her hand over the woman's hair, wishing she could do more to ease her pain.
Shepard rushed into the room to hold Joan's other leg still, only to be followed shortly after by Gorman, who stood in the doorway with a wide grin on his face. "Can I break out the cigars yet, Doc?" He slapped his leg with a loud laugh.
Dawn whipped her head around to face the male officer, pointing at him while she struggled to hold Joan down. "Get the hell out of here or so help me I will shoot you where you stand."
She turned her attention back to the bed, not bothering to watch the cocky grin slide from his face before he turned and disappeared.
Joan's head fell back on the pillow, breathing hard now and dreading the next set of contractions. Her words were spit out at Dawn in angry sobs. "Why did you do this to me? WHY? No one deserves what you put us through here. You're not human." She breathed in sharply through her nose and exhaled, in a rage. "You're evil. What kind of a future are you building if it's based on this?"
Dawn look up at Joan, a flash of momentary doubt crossing her face as she attempted to justify the choices she had made. "It's so we make it. That's everything!"
Joan just moved her head from side to side on the pillow, tears dripping from her chin. Beth listened in disbelief to Dawn's pathetic reasoning. "It's not everythin', Dawn. Some things are more important than just survivin' and you know it. You just can't do this to people and pretend it's okay! And if makin' it's so damn important then where's your baby, huh? Where's Shepard's?" Both female officers looked at her, stunned at her outburst. "I guess it doesn't matter as long as you're not the ones payin' the price."
Edwards interrupted them all from where he still stood at the end of the bed. "Look, now is not the time for all this. She's dilated to 9 cm already." He looked up at Joan, bewildered at how far along she was. "Have you been having contractions all afternoon?"
Joan just ignored his question and stared up at the ceiling before suddenly hunching over as a new wave of pain rushed through her, a low moan escaping her lips as she suffered through it.
Beth's hand was starting to go numb but she held on, whispering in Joan's ear. "You can do this. Just a little bit more and it'll be over."
Another series of sobs came out as Joan started feeling the need to push, but screamed in agony, instead.
Edwards shouted at her to stop. "Something's wrong. There's too much blood." He lifted up Joan's gown and felt across her abdomen. She was in too much pain to care.
He dropped his head and sighed in frustration. "The baby is in a transverse lie." He caught Dawn's puzzled look. "It's positioned horizontally in the uterus, instead of vertically. She can't deliver the baby like this. I'll have to do a C-section."
"We don't have time to do a spinal. Beth, I'm going to need an IV set up for a general anesthetic. There should be a stand in Exam Room 2 and a fresh bag of saline in the cupboard. Dawn, I need a dose of either hydromorphone or midazolam, whatever we have in the cabinet."
Both women returned quickly and Edwards set up the drip, even though Joan weakly tried to protest.
When she was under, moments later, the doctor swabbed her abdomen with antiseptic and stood over her with scalpel in hand. He made a 6 inch vertical incision just above her pubic line, and again through the wall of the uterus. Finding the amniotic sac, the doctor opened it as well, and reached in with his gloved hand to scoop the baby out of her uterus.
Edwards' brow furrowed as he started pulling the child out. It was a boy, but instead of being a healthy screaming baby, it hung limp in his hands, the skin a frightening shade of blue. He suctioned the mucus out of the baby's nose and mouth, wrapped it in a towel, and handed him to Shepard to hold while he placed two clamps on the umbilical cord.
Edwards reached into the uterus again to remove the afterbirth and swore softly. "The placenta is almost completely detached from the uterus."
Still clasping Joan's hand, Beth looked at the doctor anxiously. "What does that mean?"
He grimaced as he lifted it out of the incision, seeing how a large portion of its surface showed signs of hemorrhaging. "It can be fatal if it happens before the baby's birth because the newborn doesn't get the oxygen or nutrients it needs. It would only take about five minutes without oxygen to cause irreparable damage."
He turned to Shepard, still holding the child, and put his stethoscope to the newborn's tiny chest to listen. Edwards closed his eyes and waited, but over the course of a minute only detected six faint heartbeats, and then nothing.
The doctor shook his head and took off his stethoscope to stare down at Joan's sleeping form. "Dead."
Dawn snapped at him. "Dead? What do you mean, dead? We've already lost one baby, and now you're telling me-"
Edwards faced his superior with disdain, cutting her off midsentence to yell back at her. "Do you know what one of the causes of placental abruption is, Dawn? Abdominal trauma. Physical trauma. Do you have any idea how often Gorman raped and beat her? And you let it continue right through her pregnancy so you have no one but yourself to blame for this."
Dawn listened to him go on, her face drawn in horror at first but then switching to a growing rage as he finished his rant.
She let his words sink in for a moment before striking Beth hard across the forehead, her ring leaving behind a deep gash to match the one on her cheek. Beth staggered back under the force of the blow as the officer aimed a cold stare at the doctor. Their gazes locked momentarily before Edwards swallowed and looked away.
Dawn left with the baby seconds later, Shepard in tow, while Beth stayed behind holding her forehead in shock. She pulled her hand away, seeing the fresh blood on her fingertips, and looked down at Joan.
Her baby was dead, and if her friend got her wish, she may be dead soon, too. Blood was still dripping steadily onto the bed between her legs, and if this was any indication of how the wards were treated here, then the other woman Joan mentioned, Susan, and her baby, had likely died because of the horrors in this place, too.
The more she lingered on it, the more outraged Beth became at what Dawn was allowing to happen here, until finally some sort of dark fury was boiling in her veins. Her heart was beating wildly and she felt a sudden warmth in her hands.
Beth looked at her palms and saw they were throwing off enough heat to distort the air around them, but strangely there was no pain. She just felt...strong. Like some new and unfamiliar power was flowing through her body, just begging to be unleashed.
Her breaths were coming deeper and more even now, like her body was prepping itself for a fight. Turning her head to look at the doorway Dawn had just walked out of, Beth imagined following the officer and beating the woman's face until it caved in, but almost immediately her rage switched over to fear at the idea of doing such a horrible thing.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror through the open bathroom door and barely recognized the person looking back at her. Beth took several deep breaths and tried to calm herself, closing her hands into fists and dropping them to her sides, confused over her violent thoughts.
She shook her head, blinking several times, and snapped back to reality to walk over and help Edwards finish doing what he could to stabilize Joan, not realizing that he'd been watching her reaction to Dawn's assault the entire time.
Beth sat in Edwards' office afterward, lost in her thoughts as he stitched up her new wound.
"That's it." He dropped the scissors into the tray next to the bloody swabs and stood. "Your other cut has been healing remarkably well. It won't be long until I can take out the stitches."
He walked over to the sink and placed the tray inside to start cleaning up, but paused as Beth spoke from her chair. "How long have you known? From the beginnin'?"
Edwards didn't turn around. He just straightened and stared at the wall in front of him in silence.
Beth's gaze never left his back. "You're a doctor. You're supposed to help people. Not stand by and let innocent women be treated like this."
He looked over his shoulder at her briefly and shifted his weight nervously. "You don't know what it's like here. How bad it is." Edwards turned around to face her. "Dawn killed the guy that was in charge here at first. She's held a gun to my head more than a few times, threatening to either shoot me or throw me out."
Edwards gestured toward the window, his face stricken with panic. "I can't make it out there! I've got no choice. Being the only doctor here is the one card I have to play, but who knows how long it will be until they come across another."
The doctor pushed up his glasses. "Until then, I'm not going to be a martyr and get myself killed trying to change things." He walked to the doorway, hands in his pockets.
Beth watched him with contempt from where she sat. He shot her another glance before leaving. "There's nothing we can do. This is still better than being out there."
As he walked away, her eyes fixated on the window, and she slowly curled her hands into fists.
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