Written in 61 minutes.
Jason had come to the hospital maybe twice since the baby had been born — mostly to bring paperwork to Carly. The doctors had talked to him, but he hadn’t taken in any of that information — and on his short visits, he’d done little more than looked in on the newborn to reassure Carly. He’d agreed to let Carly move in and name him as father, but he’d never really planned on doing much else.
But if he wanted to keep his promise to her — if he wanted to keep the promise he’d made himself to protect the baby from being swallowed whole by the Quartermaines, Jason would have to be the kid’s father. At least for a little while.
He stepped into the small hospital room where the baby lay in some sort of plastic box, with wires and tubes stuck to his skin and attached to his nose. It was small—probably small enough that Jason could have lifted him with one hand.
Had anyone even picked the kid up? Jason wondered. He didn’t know much about babies, but the ones he’d seen were always being carried out. He’d remembered Lois bringing her daughter to Port Charles the year before, and sometimes he’d seen Robin with her youngest cousin, the one born just before his accident.
The little face was scrunched up as the baby cried, his eyes shut, his fists waving in the air. He had a dusting of red-blonde hair that barely covered his tiny scalp. The room was lit dimly, darker than the hallway or the rest of the hospital he’d traveled through. The machines around the plastic warmer beeped softly, but Jason didn’t know what they meant.
“If you want to hold him—”
Jason jolted at the voice and turned, relaxing slightly when he recognized the nurse from the night before. Elizabeth. She looked different — her face bare of makeup, hair pulled back, with the bulk of cascading in curls from a tie at the nape of her neck. She wore the same yellow paper protective gown with gloved hands holding a chart in her hands. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to surprise you.”
“It’s—it’s fine.” Jason turned to look at the baby again. “You said he was stable last night. But the doctor wants to do a surgery. What happened?”
Elizabeth stepped to the other side, her eyes reading the machines making the beeps and making notes. “Compared to some of the other patients on the unit, he is stable. His condition is treatable—even curable. After surgery, patients with PDA go on to have regular lives without any hint that they were ever sick.” Her eyes met his. “That doesn’t make seeing him all hooked up like this easier, I know. But as NICU patients go, BBR is a lucky one.”
“BBR,” Jason echoed, then remembered what Justus had said. The lack of a name meant the nurses were using his initials — Baby Boy Roberts. “His mother—she didn’t tell me what she wanted to name him.”
“It’s not uncommon,” Elizabeth said, setting the chart aside to adjust some of the wires attached to the baby’s chest. “I’ve seen it a few times. A parent scared to give a name until they’re released from the NICU, until they’re sure the baby will survive. No one thinks less of you or his mother for that.”
“Not for that,” Jason repeated, “but for not coming to see him, you do.”
She hesitated. “I really shouldn’t have said that last night. I was frustrated—your son really is very lucky. And we have other patients—” She looked up, towards the open hallway door. “In the NICU, a baby can be stable one minute, and then—” She shook her head. “Anyway, you’re here now. And it’s time for his feeding.”
“Feeding—” Jason stopped. “You want me to do that?”
“Not if you don’t want to.” Elizabeth crossed to the tray she’d set down when she’d arrived, and he saw a bottle filled with a white liquid. “I have to monitor his feeding — it’s one of the ways we’re measuring his progress.” She gently detached some of the wires and nodes, then lifted the baby into her arms, tucking him into the crook of her elbow. The baby stopped crying immediately, and Jason wondered if that meant something. Would the baby be as sick if someone had been here?
Elizabeth sat down in a chair by the warmer, and adjusted the bottle so that the baby began sucking on the top. “Did Dr. Devlin explain his condition to you? Why we’re considering surgery?”
“He said something about a duct that didn’t close.” Not sure what to do with his hands, Jason crossed his arms. “It’s supposed to.”
“It’s a vessel that connects the pulmonary artery to the aorta — directing blood away from the fetal lungs which aren’t being used in fetal development. After he was born, it should have closed on its own, allowing his lungs and his heart to work together.” Elizabeth kept her voice soft, her eyes trained on the baby. “But it didn’t, and now his heart is working harder than it should have to so that oxygen gets where it needs to be. We tried medicine to get it to close, but it didn’t work after the third dose.”
All of that sounded bad. Awful. He knew bits and pieces of medical knowledge — remnants of the life he’d nearly had once, and the idea that this baby couldn’t breathe well or that his organs weren’t working — it gave Jason a strange feeling in his chest, making it feel tight like he was going to come out of his own skin. Or that his heart had to work too hard.
Elizabeth drew the bottle back, sighing with a little wistfulness. “And it makes it hard for him to feed properly. He loses his breath and can’t sustain the sucking he needs to keep drinking. It’s okay,” she said, her voice even softer, almost a whisper. “You’re doing the best you can, honey. We’ll take care of the rest.” She looked up at Jason. “Do you want to hold him?”
“I—” His throat wouldn’t work, wouldn’t let the words move past his lips. He swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I can’t hurt him, can I?”
“No. And he likes to be held.” Elizabeth got to her feet, the baby still in her arms and nodded with her head. “Go ahead. Just a few minutes.”
Not really sure how to refuse when she was being so kind and clearly cared about the baby, Jason took her place and awkwardly accepted the newborn in his arms.
“Support his head and neck—there you go.” Elizabeth’s fingers stroked the baby’s red-gold hair and then met Jason’s eyes for just a moment—their faces close together. She swallowed hard, then stood up straight, the bottle in her hand. “Try feeding him. Maybe he just needed a break.”
Jason accepted the bottle, tipped it towards the baby’s mouth, and felt a little ripple of surprise roll through him when the baby started to suckle. “It’s working.”
“That’s good. It’s better for him to get nutrition this way than the IV.” Elizabeth went back to the chart she’d laid down and continued to make notes. “If you want to let his mother know, his next feeding is in about two hours if she wants to take a turn.”
“She—” Jason pressed his lips together. “She can’t.”
“Oh. Is she still in the hospital? The chart said she’d had some complications and that was why the baby was admitted to us.”
“No. She’s—” They’d have to find out sooner or later, Jason thought, and looked up at Elizabeth. “She left. She told me to handle everything and that she’d be back when she could. I—I don’t know where she is.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth said again. In the dim light, he couldn’t really read her expression.
“She’s not—she’s not a bad person. Whatever you heard,” Jason said, feeling defensive. “She’s just been through a lot, and—”
“I haven’t heard anything—and I don’t listen to rumors anyway.” Elizabeth made another note. “People say what they want, and make up stories in their head to explain what they see. No one cares about the truth.” She clicked her pen. “I’ve been working in the NICU for a year — three months here, and before that in Colorado. It’s hard when you have a sick baby. Especially, I think for mothers. The hormones of pregnancy, the trauma of labor, and Ms. Roberts’ had complications, right? She could be feeling overwhelmed. Or like a failure.”
Jason hadn’t considered any of that, and looked back at the baby who had, once again, stopped, sucking on the bottle. “He’s not feeding anymore.”
“Intervals,” Elizabeth murmured, making another note. “That’s an improvement, I suppose. But not where we need him to be.” She leaned down to take the baby into her arms, and gently laid him against her chest, his face peeking over her shoulder. She patted his back, and after a minute or two, there was the softest burp Jason had ever heard. “There you go. That feels a lot better, huh?”
She laid him back in the warmer, and reattached a few pieces to his chest. “Dr. Devlin is one of the best in the state. Your son’s in really good hands with him. He won’t steer you wrong.”
“And…you’ll…you’ll stay on as his nurse?” Jason asked, watching as Elizabeth picked up the bottle and the chart. “I mean, he’s your patient, right?”
“I’m on a twelve hour shift night and tomorrow, then I’ll be off for three days. But we have an amazing unit, Mr. Morgan,” Elizabeth assured him. “There’s not a single nurse I wouldn’t trust with my life or my own child—if I had any,” she added. She stopped at the doorway, then turned back to him. “It’s none of my business, and you can tell me to butt out, but his mother — you said you don’t know where she is?”
“Yeah. So what?” Jason said, the defensiveness returning to his tone, bracing himself for her scorn.
“You should find her. Just to make sure she’s okay. There’s this condition called postpartum depression, and it just—you should make sure she’s okay,” Elizabeth repeated, then left.
—
It was a relief, Elizabeth thought, as she discarded her gown and gloves, and left through the unit’s double doors, that Jason Morgan wasn’t intending to hold last night against her. And maybe it was for the best they’d had their run-in. He’d showed up here this morning, hadn’t? Looking completely clueless, but willing to take direction.
She turned down the hallway to the break room, stopping for a moment outside with her hand on the door, bracing herself for whoever was inside.
As soon as she pushed it open, the bustle of conversations inside stopped, and she forced herself not to make a face when she saw a few nurses that worked in the Labor & Delivery wing on the floor, including Lorraine Miller with her sour-faced expression.
Elizabeth walked past the group at the table, heading for the coffee pot and the voices picked up again, but this time in hushed whispers that made her clench her jaw.
Her grandmother had reached out to tell her the position was open here in the NICU, and she’d jumped at the chance to be closer to her grandmother, eager to show Audrey that all her guidance and support over the years had paid off. And maybe try to get closer to her sister, Sarah. But instead of a fresh start, Elizabeth learned that her grandmother had called in favors to get her hired — and that she’d jumped over more senior nurses who felt they’d earned the position.
Nothing like being set up for failure, Elizabeth thought, stirring sugar into her coffee and wandering over to the announcement board by the door to see if there had been any scheduling changes. They’d been gradually transitioning to twelve-hour shifts for the last few months, and Elizabeth was the last of the group to move to three day rotations of twelve hours — starting today.
She saw the scheduling change — the note that those three day rotations were being adjusted to four day rotation of ten hours each, with three days off — except for the NICU and the ICU, which would stay on the three day rotations with four days off.
Elizabeth read it again, making a face. Either schedule would be annoying — she’d much rather stay on the typical eight day shifts, but no one had asked her.
“How’d you manage that?” came the nasty tone of Lorraine Miller, and Elizabeth turned to see the brunette rising from the table. “Isn’t it just so lucky that your department doesn’t have to pull longer rotations?”
“I—” Elizabeth closed her mouth. There was nothing she could say. Her grandmother didn’t make the schedules, and wouldn’t have pulled that particular strings. Of course ICU and NICU would have been exempted — the patient care there was more continuous, more demanding. But she didn’t have a defense. Not one that anyone would accept.
“Must be nice to have family in high places,” Lorraine bit out. “I hope it’s worth it.” She snatched up her water, then sailed towards the door, followed by the others until Elizabeth stood alone in the room.
—
Jason had stayed at the hospital for the baby’s next feeding, and both he and Elizabeth had been disappointed when the baby hadn’t managed more than two minutes of sustained eating. He hadn’t known about this problem prior to that morning, but now it felt like all he could think about. The baby was so small — fragile even — and the thought that his tiny heart wasn’t able to keep him alive without wires and needles —
He was relieved to see Justus waiting for him when he came through the door late that afternoon. “Hey. Did you get anything back from the court?” Jason demanded.
Justus lifted his brows. “You don’t want to hear the update about Moreno and the Oasis? I thought you’d want to know how that went.”
“I figured it went fine since I didn’t get any messages.” Jason closed the door, impatient. “Is that a no on the court thing?”
“No, just surprised that’s where we’re starting. But yeah, the court agreed to the emergency custody.” Justus dug through his briefcase. “Are we in a hurry?”
Jason snatched the paperwork, scanning the order giving him temporary guardianship. “The baby needs surgery, and Carly’s in the wind. So I have to get this to the hospital as soon as possible. This is good for that, right? So I can be good with treatment paperwork?”
“Yeah, it’ll do the job. We’ve got a more permanent hearing later, unless Carly gets back first and files the certificate.” Justus paused. “Jase, are you serious about this? You’re signing on as this kid’s father. That’s not exactly a small thing.”
“It’s just until Carly’s back and can handle things.” Jason looked at his cousin and lawyer. “Which is why I need you to find her and make sure she’s okay. See if she needs help.”
“Sure, sure. I can get a guy on it. You ready to talk about Moreno?” Justus asked.
“Yeah. You can tell me on the way,” Jason said, snatching up the keys he’d just dropped. “I want the hospital to have this now so they can do the surgery. The baby can’t really eat until he’s treated.”
“Okay,” Justus drawled. “I guess we’re walking and talking.” He followed Jason out the door, shaking his head. He didn’t know what had gotten into Jason, and he had a really bad feeling about where it was heading.
Comments
No comments yet