Macie's Story

6

TW: mentions and descriptions of a premature newborn in intensive care. this applies for the next few chapters.
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(January 14th, 5 hours old)

When Jay wakes up again, the lights in the room are brighter than before. There isn't as much muffled noise coming from behind the sliding doors, and he can only assume it's dark out by now. The sun would have just been starting to set when Will came in to wake Hailey up, and he knows he wouldn't have been asleep that long. He still felt exhausted, but he couldn't go back to sleep now.

He sits up into a more comfortable position in the uncomfortable chair and his neck twinges, bringing out a muffled curse under his breath as he rubs at the spot.

"What have I told you about the swearing?" He hears a familiar voice coming from in front of him and he raises his gaze to see Hailey looking over at him.

She looks exactly like she had done when she woke up from the anesthesia, apart from the fact she was a little bit more alert, her eyes open a little wider than before.

Jay cracks her a very small smile. "Hey. How long have you been awake?" He questions.

She shrugs her one good shoulder. "I'm not sure." She replies and then drops her gaze again.

Jay doesn't know what she's looking at, but he spots the way her face falls sadly.

"You know, I keep waiting to feel a kick right under my ribs because that was her target every time... but then it doesn't come," she says, and after a beat she whispers, "They really took her out, didn't they?"

Jay responds slowly, his head nodding even slower. "She wasn't getting enough oxygen, she went into distress. The doctors decided it was safer for her out here than in there."

Hailey doesn't move her gaze. "It's not meant to be like that."

His eyebrows form a line. "Like what?" He wonders, mostly because he couldn't quite hear her quiet words.

She sighs. "Like this. I'm meant to be the one keeping her safe and I failed. It's my fault we're here because I couldn't do the one thing I was meant to do and keep our baby safe, and now our baby might die." The way her voice changes has Jay scraping his chair across the floor to move it closer to the bed.

He grabs her left hand and holds it in his. "Hailey, you got shot, this wasn't your fault.. And Thumper's gonna be fine."

Hailey moves her eyes up to meet his, her vision blurry by the tears threatening to fall. "You don't know that."

"I do," he whispers, giving her hand a gentle squeeze when she stares over at him as if silently asking him how he knows that exactly. After a pause, he speaks up again. "Will told me she looks like you. That's how I know."

A large, genuine smile creeps up on her face for the first time since before the shooting. It stayed there a beat and then as fast as it appeared, it was gone. "I wanna see her."

Jay tilts his head. "Maybe it's best to wait until the morning."

Hailey quickly shakes her head side to side. "No, I wanna see her now," she cuts in, giving her fiancé a pleading look when he still seems hesitant. "Please, Jay, it doesn't have to be for long, I just - I need to see her."

xxx

A few minutes after they had had that conversation, Doctor Marcel was called up to Hailey's room, where he proceeded to get everything set for a transfer. He called up to the NICU to see if it was alright bringing them up and after he received the all-clear he grabbed a few nurses to help with the bed.