Chapter 33 – Braelyn #2
“Bennett wants an update,” I whisper to Katy. “He’s operating right now, and reinforcements are on the way, but he’s still lead.”
She sniffles. “I don’t know what to say. The trauma surgeon in me wants you to tell him I’m fine so he can focus on the patient. But the mother and wife in me wants him here.”
“Baby is out,” Keegan declares, though we don’t hear a cry. “Time of delivery seventeen thirty-three.”
“Keegan!” Katy cries.
“NICU and peds are on it. I’m on you.”
Katy gives me a harried look, and I stand, watching the teams work. “They’re bagging him and inserting an umbilical central line. Epi is going in. No chest compressions.” I glance down at her. “That’s good. He has a heartbeat. I can’t see the monitor, but I know he has one that’s strong enough.”
Katy can hardly hold it together. “I need more.”
“Give it a minute, Katy. They’re working on him.”
It’s the longest minute of my life. Maybe two or three. Katy is sobbing. Keegan is barely holding it together and doing everything she can not to cry as she works to close Katy up. I’m holding my tears back too because they won’t help any of us right now.
“Ah! There it is.” I practically jump. “He’s pinking up. They’re still bagging him, no intubation yet, and he’s pinking up.”
Then we hear it. The softest, tiniest, weakest cry. It’s not even a cry so much as a noise, but it’s there and Katy hears it, which makes her cry even harder.
“Katy, we’re going to put him on BiPAP and will hold off on intubation,” the NICU doctor tells her. “Sats are good for now, as is his heart rate. He’s a strong kid. A total fighter.”
“Can I see him before you take him up?” They wheel the incubator by her bed, and she emits a sob. “I’ll see you soon. I love you,” she tells him before they wheel him out to the NICU.
“Mom’s blood sugar is now seventy-two,” the scrub nurse states.
“What do we have her on?” Keegan questions.
“D10.”
“Increase to D40. Jesus, Katy. Tell me you ate today. Why is your blood sugar dropping this fast?”
Katy makes a noise. “I had lunch but nothing since about eleven. I was going to make freaking orgasm chicken tonight.”
The whole room falls silent. “What is orgasm chicken?” I ask.
“It’s chicken in a garlic cream sauce.” Then she makes another noise, this one more of a snort. “Your husband made it years ago on one of his Food Network drop-ins.”
I can’t help it. I sputter a laugh before my hands drop to my knees and I crack up like I’ve never laughed before. The nurses, other doctors, and even Keegan join me even as they work and do their jobs.
My hands scrub up and down my face. “Oh my god, I so needed that.”
“Me too,” Katy agrees, though she’s not laughing. Not yet.
“Sounds amazing. I’ll have to ask Roman to make it for me sometime.” Not tonight. He has a fight tonight.
“Blood sugar is back up in the nineties.”
“Now we’re talking,” Katy crows. “Keegan, finish up. I need to go see my baby.”
A second later, the OR doors burst open, and there’s Bennett, sweating and harried as he practically dives on Katy. “You didn’t tell me.”
“You had a life to save.”
His hands are all over her face, his lips following their trail. “Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
Bennett nods but keeps his face against hers. “I saw him. I saw them in the hall with him. He’s so small. But he’s so beautiful, Katy. So perfect.”
Her hand wraps around the back of his head. “Go be with him. I need you to be with him.”
“Callan,” Bennett declares, wiping her tears with his thumbs. “I want to name him Callan.”
Callan is her uncle, who adopted her as a kid when her parents died. He was also the chief of the ER before Jack took over, so I know him pretty well. “He’ll love that,” Katy rasps, her voice hoarse with emotion.
“I’m going to head out,” I announce, feeling like an interloper on their moment. “You and Bennett need your time together and to go see little Callan.”
Katy’s head twists to me. “Thank you, Brae. I have no words beyond that but thank you so freaking much.”
“I’d say anytime, but let’s not do this again.”
I get a watery smile from her.
“Do you want me to let people know for you?”
I get a nod from both Bennett and Katy and that’s that.
I walk myself out of the OR. Bennett is here and Baby Callan is doing okay and so is Katy.
But fuck was that scary. As ridiculous as this sounds, I want to get to the fight, watch Roman beat whomever he’s hopefully going to beat, maybe have a glass of wine or eight, then go home, snuggle in bed, have hot sex, and sleep this shift and day away.
I text everyone I can think of, all of Katy’s closest friends and even my Fritz people since Katy is technically a Fritz, to let them know what happened tonight.
I think about how they named their baby after her uncle, who took her in when she lost her parents, and wonder how Roman would feel about naming a baby Nash when—if—we ever have one.
It’s so odd to me to even think that way. I never did with Adam. I never thought about our children, which in retrospect, maybe is an odd thing. I was going to marry him. Kids, if you want them, sort of goes with that. But it didn’t with Adam, and it is with Roman, so there you have it.
I head down to the ER and finish out my shift, answering questions about Katy and Bennett and Baby Callan.
I check in on Katy and Bennett in the NICU, and everyone seems to be about as good as they can be.
When my shift is finally over, I grab my stuff from the locker room.
I want to go home, shower, and eat something before I need to go to Roman’s fight.
Except I’m met with the last person I ever thought I’d see here.
I come to a halt, my eyes wide and my blood cold. “What are you doing here?”