Beep
Beep
Beep
The hauntingly repetitive beeping kept replaying in Striker's mind even when he wasn't in the NICU.
No, especially when he's away from the NICU.
And yet, he didn't want to stop hearing it. For it would mean that the little, underdeveloped impling tucked in the incubator—his son—had gone with his mother.
The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was cold and sterile. Not the place he would have liked Jake to spend his first days of life. Striker just sat next to the incubator; chair pulled as close to it as possible. His hand rested on the glass, right on top of Jake's tiny figure.
In the few instances Striker was allowed to hold him, Jake could fit in both his hands
Striker had brought him to the hospital the day after the Extermination. The doctors were utterly shocked when he explained he'd cut the little one out of his wife; he didn't recall how many tests were made, but Jake turned out to be quite healthy by preemie standards. He was still a bit underweight and underdeveloped, but nothing to worry about.
If Jane were here, she'd have joked that Striker should've been a fucking doctor.
Jake's heart monitor continued beeping next to him.
The little one was tiny, like most preemies. His diaper was delicately folded over him to avoid excessive skin contact. There was an IV line going into his upper arm, a blood pressure cuff around his other arm, and a pulse oximeter around his foot.
Thankfully, Jake's lungs were developed enough for him to breathe on his own, something for which Striker was grateful. It's painful enough to see his baby with all of those wires than having to see him with a fucking ventilator and a tube going down his throat.
Yet despite all of those tubes and wires, Jake was sleeping peacefully like any other baby. The sight warmed Striker's heart, but at the same time broke it.
Then, out of nowhere, it happened.
Before he could process what was going on, the nurse, in turn was checking the machines that kept his boy alive. The slow, steady beep had quickened at an alarming rate as Jake began to wail.
"What's goin' on?!"
"Mr. Velkan, you need to get out!"
"What?!"
The nurse paid him no heed as she called for the doctor through the intercom. Striker tried speaking to Jake through the incubator, but he was suddenly pulled away by strong arms.
"LET GO OF ME, DAMN IT!"
"Mr. Velkan, calm down—!"
"CALM DOWN?! MY BABY COULD DIE AND YE'RE TELLIN' ME TO FUCKIN' CALM DOWN?!" Try as he might, Striker couldn't wiggle out of security's firm grip as they dragged him out of NICU.
"More of a reason for you to calm down, mister! Let us do our job!"
With that, the door was slammed shut. The last thing Striker glimpsed was the nurses surrounding the incubator as Jake wailed loudly in distress.
He almost felt as if his son was crying out for him.
Striker wasn't sure of how long he spent pounding on the door— either cursing or yelling at the doctor or telling Jake to hang on, but eventually, the anger cooled down to be overwhelmed with grief and fear.
The cowboy slid down the door unto his knees, fists and teeth clenched.
A sob escaped him. Then another.
Before Striker knew it, tears of impotence were trickling down his cheeks.
This can't be happening to him. Not again.
He's already lost his wife—by his own hand, no less.
He can't lose his son too. Not like this.